Our house was surrounded by a big garden, which also contained the stables, the coach-house, the garage and the huts of the Chinese. To me the most important was my hen-coop. As soon as I arrived I bought myself a sitting-hen, gave her a dozen eggs to hatch, and when we entered our house we already had seven chickens. Poultry is cheap in China. The hen cost fourpence, a duck or a goose a shilling, and in a short time I had a poultry-yard of fifty birds. And, as I had also become a cavalryman, I had, of course, acquired a horse. One of my friends had a ripping little roan. We soon clinched our bargain, and “Fips” was transferred to my stables. “Fips” was a delightful animal, a good service-horse, yet excellent for hunting and polo, which did not prevent him from leaving me in the lurch at the beginning of the Kiao-Chow siege. I had ridden out into the territory the day before we were shut up in the fortress, and he took fright at some shrapnel which burst close to us, and so ran over to the enemy. Life in the East was very monotonous for the Europeans. Very little socially, no music, no theatre—things one misses. One’s only consolation is that one lives better than at home, and sport makes up for a great deal. I took up polo with enthusiasm, and as soon as I had accustomed myself to the unusual pitching and tossing to which my horse subjected me I was very successful. In mid-July my longing was stilled by the arrival of the steamer which brought the aeroplanes. As soon as the huge crates stood in the quay, my men were already engaged in freeing from their dark prisons my poor birds born for sunshine and air. As they were too heavy, the unpacking had to be done on the spot. The Chinese crowd stood around us and gaped. When we had got everything out of the crates, a triumphal procession was formed, bearing the two aeroplanes, then three vehicles with the planes and another two with the component parts. The horses started, and we proudly passed through the streets of Kiao-Chow, and entered in triumph the aerodrome of the Iltis Place. Now there was an end to peace. Day and night we worked at the erection of the machine, and two days later, in the early dawn, with no one awake, my aeroplane stood ready on the aerodrome, and, opening up the engine full, I shot into the clear sea-air. I shall never forget my first flight at Kiao-Chow. The aerodrome was extraordinarily small, only 600 metres long and 200 metres wide, full of obstacles surrounded by hills and rocks. I was only to learn later how very difficult starting and landing were made hereby. My friend Clobuczar, an Austrian ex-aviator—who now served on the _Kaiserin Elisabeth_—once said to me: “Do you call this an aerodrome? It is at best a children’s playground. I have never seen anyone who could fly in such a confined place.” I felt the same way about it. And in Germany I should have only used it for an emergency landing.