THE KAISER HOAXED

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14773, 12 October 1921, Page 9

THE KAISER HOAXED

BY PARTY OF NEGROES.

A European correspondent tells the story of an audacious prank played upon the ex-Kaiscr in the second year of his reign, A party of negroes arrived at Berlin in charge of Herr Karl Ehler, who let it be understood that they were princes of the dynasty of the high and mighty Sultan of Mandara, an African ruler, whose dominions were at least equal ! in importance to those of the Sultan of Morocco. On the strength of this they were entertained in the most elaborate manner by the Emperor. It was only several weeks after, they had left Berlin, on their return to Africa loaded with gifts and decorated with Prussian orders of knighthood, that it suddenly became known that the negroes were men of absolutely no rank or importance in their own country, and that far from being chiefs or dignitaries, they were quite ordinary natives, who had been assigned by the petty chief of the wretched, Central Africa village of Mandara, to which they belonged, lo act as porters for the conveyance of the baggage of Herr Ehler to the coast.

lihler, who was an old classmate of the ex-Kaiser at the University of Bonn, imagined that it would further his interests and lend importance to his explorations in the eyes .' of the authorities at Berlin if he took four of the finest looking of his black porters with him back to Germany. Partly through the ignorance of the people on board the steamer and partly owing to the crowded character of the steerage and intermediate cabins, they received saloon passage, and thus it happened that by the time they readied Europe an exaggerated impression had been formed on board with regard to their rank and importance. On landing at Hamburg, the local authorities took it for granted that the negroes must necessarily be dignitaries Of the highest grade, and as this impression resulted in Ilcrr Ehler being treated with exceptional consideration, gaining all sorts of official and diplomatic privileges, he was careful not to disabuse the Prussian Government or to reveal the true condition of affairs.