One captain was especially amusing. His was the unenviable duty of taking a bucket-dredger from England to Australia. No seafaring man can help sympathizing with the unfortunate who has to conduct one of these rolling tubs, with a speed of not more than four nautical miles at best, all the way from Europe down to Australia. And so, from a purely humane standpoint, we could fully appreciate this English captain's joy at being captured. Rarely have I seen anyone jump so high for joy. He must have been a past master in the art of jumping to be able to keep his feet in spite of the terrible rolling of his ship. Tears of gratitude coursed down his weathered cheeks as he exclaimed, "Thank God, that the old tub is gone! The five hundred pounds I was to have for taking her to Australia were paid me in advance." * * * * * On the eighteenth of September, in the evening, the _Emden_ entered the harbor. It so happened that this was the day after the one on which the joyful tidings of the _Emden's_ destruction had been officially announced. To celebrate the happy occasion, a large company had assembled for dinner at the Club. As we were not aware of this, it was hardly our fault that the _Emden's_ shells fell into the soup. Had we known of the dinner party, we would, of course, gladly have deferred our attack until another day, as it is the part of wisdom never to exasperate the enemy unnecessarily. A due regard should always be shown for sacred institutions, and _dinner_ is an institution with regard to which the English are always keenly sensitive. We approached to within 3,000 meters of Madras. The harbor light was shining peacefully. It rendered us good service as we steered toward shore, for which we again take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the British Indian government. A searchlight revealed to us the object of our quest,--the oil tanks, painted white and ornamented with a stripe of red. A couple of shells sent in that direction, a quick upleaping of tongues of bluish-yellow flame, streams of liquid fire pouring out through the holes made by our shots, an enormous black cloud of dense smoke,--and, following the advice of the old adage, "A change is good for everybody," we had sent several millions' worth of the enemy's property up into the air, instead of down into the sea, as heretofore. * * * * *