A HAWERA MAN'S EXPERIENCES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 22 September 1914, Page 6

A HAWERA MAN'S EXPERIENCES.

. Sydney passengers who arrived by the R.MiS. Otway from Tilbury yosterday were full of the incidents of the trip (says the Sydney. Daily Telegraph of September "15): The vessel left Englstod on July 31, the day before &erH^my declared war oh Russia, and on arrival fit Gibraltar on August 4, was held xip for six days, owing to feaas legortiing the whereabouts of the German cruisers Goeben and Breslati. Sbine of the passengers, who missed the sap at Twbury, or were on the vContment at the time j had exciting experience's before joining the vessel at Port Said. .. ; . "I was at Ostend," said Mr N. Syme, a, Taramaki, (N.Z.) business man, who is just concluding a world's tour. "It was tKe height of the season, and the hotels, cafes and boulevards were crowded day and night wifh. fashionable gatherings. There was just a whisper of possible war, but everybody thought that it would blow over,. We arrived at Gibraltar on'the morning of •, Tuesday, August 4. Germany and England were not then in a state of -r\r, — thta^ were 14 hours later—but the inner haroor of the famous fortress war ■closed. Seeing the large numbers of merchant ships lying in the outer harbor, we;! wove certain that something unusual had occurred. We were nJt allowed ashore/and next day the governor of ,-the fortress (Lieut.-Col. H. S. \i. Miles), proclaimed that we were at war with'the Kaiser. Sixteen German ships were collared by the British at Gibraltar. I "The following Monday, we suddenly received orders to clear for Malta. omitting the ports of Toulon, Naples, and Taranto, and we reached: there after a two days' run, and havrn^ stopped, only a few minutes, got away to Port Said, where we arrived cii Saturday, August 15, and where for the first time after leaving Tilbury we were enabled to walk ashore. At Port

Said the Otway took on board a number, of passengers who. had gone overland to Italy to join the ship at Tarcnto,. but who, on learning that the liner wr s not stopping there, joined the City <f Calcutta,' a Glasgow boat, whic'i brought them to the entrance of ih i Oanal. Amongst these were Adjutan s Annetts, Melksham, and McLean, md StaC Captain Goldfinch, Australian Salvation Army officers, who were" returning from the big London conferonre. Adjutant Annetts and. StafE-Ca^tr in Goldfinch were in Paris on June 29, t^is night the Archduke Ferdinand and. his wife were assassinated at SerHJem. They were advised to leave the French capital, and travelled through Berne en to Rome, where they joined the City of Calcutta.

"There were a large number of German merchantmen in Colombo when we arrived there," said Mr. Syme, "arid Hindu troops (Sikhs) were in charge everywhere. We had an uneventful trip to Fremaritle." •