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32 was believed that we were English; for even in those early days the Germans in the colonies made no attempt to conceal their hatred for die Engländer. Yet my friends at home smiled incredulously, and deemed me an alarmist, when I told them, half a dozen years before the outbreak of the Great War, that in the regimental messes the German officers cheered wildly the toast, "Der Tag!"

Barred from the only respectable hotel in the town, we were forced to seek accommodation in a squalid tavern much frequented by German soldiers and their black and tan women friends. The first night of our stay was made memorable by a party given by a group of officers to celebrate the departure of one of their number, who was returning to the Fatherland. This boisterous and obscene affair—presumably too rough to be held in the Kaiserhof—terminated abruptly in the small hours of the morning when the Teutonic proprietor smashed a beer-bottle over the head of a major who was engaged in breaking up the furniture, a bloody mêlée being averted only by the prompt arrival of the military police. Scarcely had I settled myself to sleep when a Ger-