He added that as we, in Germany, could not be correctly informed as to aim and actual purposes, the said raid must have looked to us like "an act of piracy," which naturally and quite rightly had excited the Germans; that all he had wanted was to have such stretches of land as were needed for his rail lines--such, in fact, as Germany had just granted to him in the interior of her colonies--a demand which was not unjust and would certainly have met with German support. I was not to worry, he added, about the dispatch and not bother myself any more about the uproar in the English press. Rhodes did not know about the origin of the Kruger dispatch and wanted to console me, imagining that I was its originator. Rhodes went on to advise me to build the Bagdad Railway and open up Mesopotamia, after having had irrigation simultaneously introduced there. He said that this was Germany's task, just as his was the Cape-to-Cairo line. In view of the fact that the building of this line through our territory was also made dependent upon the cession to us of the Samoan Islands, Rhodes worked actively in London toward having them turned over to us. In home politics, Prince Hohenlohe, as Chancellor, showed a mildness which was not generally favorable. Owing to his long acquaintanceship with Herr von Hertling, he was able to establish friendly relations with the Vatican. His mildness and indulgence were also exercised toward Alsace-Lorraine, in which, as an expert of long standing, he showed particular interest. But he got little thanks for this, since the French element, indirectly benefited thereby, behaved with ever-increasing arrogance. PEN SKETCH OF HOHENLOHE Prince Hohenlohe loved to employ mediation, compromise, and conciliation--toward the Socialists likewise--and he employed them on some occasions when energetic measures would have been more fitting. He hailed with much joy my Far East trip to Constantinople and Jerusalem. He was pleased at the strengthening of our relations with Turkey and considered the plan for the Bagdad Railway arising from them as a great cultural work worthy of Germany. He also gave his most enthusiastic approval to my visit to England in 1899, made by me with my wife and two sons at the desire of my royal grandmother, who, growing steadily weaker on account of her years, wished to see her oldest grandson once more. He hoped that this journey might serve to efface somewhat the consequences of the Kruger dispatch sent by him, and also to clarify some important questions by means of conferences between me and English statesmen.