FROM GERMAN CLUTCHES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLVIII, Issue 4474, 15 February 1917, Page 6

FROM GERMAN CLUTCHES.

AUSTRALIAN MISSIONARIES RESCUED.

EAST AFRICAN CAMPAIGN:

Miss Iv. Miller, a Church of England missionary, who was for two years- interned by the Germans in German East Africa, arrived in Australia last week. Miss Miller was one of fifteen members of the Church Missionary Society of Australia who underwent the very trying experience of two years’ internment in German East Africa. During their long detention the party was shifted about from place to place, as the exigencies of the campaign and the successes of the British arms dictated. For a considerable portion of tlie time they were stationed at Tabora, a town perched 6000 feet above sea level The cold there was intense, and the missionaries were not too warmly clothed. Each had liis or her daily task to do, that of tne ladies consisting of tlie knitting of socks and woollen clothes for the. Germans. Throughout the whole periou of their internment the missionaries were treated with scant courtesy, being roughly spoken to and subjected to rigorous supervision by black soldiers. They lived behind barbed wire, and whenever they were permitted to exercise out of the enclosure they were accompanied by native armed guards. A medical member of the staff was given three days’ solitary confinement for supplying an Italian with a piece of coal with which to make a fire, and his rations during confinement consisted of bread, and water only. The party found* the lack of the commonest postal facilities a severe hardship; all their own correspondence was returned co them, and no correspondence from Australia was permitted to reach their hands. The party was finally rescued from its unhappy plight as the direct result of the success of the Allied arms. On the morning of the rescue tlie British and Belgian troops approached the town from either side. Tlie Germans decided not to defend the place, and in this connection they exhibited a curious preference that reveals the true Teutonic conception of British civilisation and humanity. On the side of tlie town that the Belgians approached the Germans massed in force leaving the. side on which the British troops were approaching entirely unprotected. Thus the British troops marched in unopposed, taking possession without firing a. shot, and the joyful prisoners were released from their long and wearisome captivity. In connection with the preference above mentioned, it should also be mentioned" that there was a bitterness between tlie Germans and the Belgians, arising out of differences an connection with the Congo. After their release the missionaries had a fourteen days’ march to Lake Nyanza. The route lay along many of the holds of the previous battles between the contending forces, and the party jsaw many gruesome sights. The whole of tlie party reached the hospitable arms of friends in fan y o-ood health, in spite of the harsh restrictions imposed by their German o-aolers and tlie limited food supply. The strain of captivity, with its eveipresent spectre of worse privations, was great, and one or two of the tutssionaries "'ill not recover complete > for a long time. . . , The prospects of missionary uoi'K in the captured territory are reported to he very encouraging, and the openings are many and varied. Miss Miller proposese to return to her duties in ‘‘ex-German” East Africa as soon as she is permitted to do so-