Special Correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt.
El Ula, (via Damascus,) May 7, 11:40 P.M., (Dispatches to the Berliner
Tageblatt.)--The Emden caravan arrived here tonight. In advance,
Captain Mücke. We were sitting in high expectation when suddenly some
Arabs burst in upon us, calling out "They're here!" A small caravan
climbed down from the hills; I ran to meet it. A big, blonde fellow
had already dismounted, and laughed heartily at my welcome. Completely
rigged out in full tropical garb and with an involuntarily full beard
and the bluest of seamen's eyes, he stood beside his white camel.
"Bath or Rhine wine?" was my first question.
"Rhine wine," the decided answer.
Then we sat down together in the station master's room, and without
more ado Mücke began to narrate his Robinson Crusade by water and
land. Between times he opened letters. "Have I the Cross?" he suddenly
exclaimed, as he found newspapers that brought him the news that he
had been decorated with the Iron Cross, First Class, a Bavarian and a
Saxon order. He laughed, got red in the face, and was happy as a child
over Christmas presents. "It's really too much," he said, "but I am
most pleased over the Saxon order; my father also wore it." In between
he asked questions about Captain Müller's fate, about the Carpathians
and the Dardanelles, and then threw in scraps about the Emden and the
Ayesha. Presently another caravan was reported. "I must ride out to
meet my men," he said, and we approached a big caravan. Thirty
Bedouins, with the Turkish flag at the head of the column; then, all
mixed up, sturdy German blond sailors in disguise, with fez or turban,
all on camels, among them dusky, melancholy looking Arabs. "Children!"
their Captain called out to them, "you've all got the Cross, and you,
Gyssing, have a Bavarian order to boot." "Hurrah!" resounded through
the red desert. The German flag was raised. Handshaking all around.
"Children, here is Paradise; come, here flows champagne! And here,
these are real railroad tracks!"
"How soon do you want to travel?" a Turkish Major asked.
"In three hours, as quick as possible, through night and day," Captain
Mücke replied. Even before he had reported his safe arrival to his
parents at home, he files a telegraphic request for a new command
before the enemy. Never have I seen so much modesty alongside so much
glory as among these fifty Emden men.
"Have you papers here?" one of them asks.
"A heap."
"How is it with Germany?" comes a voice from the crowd.
That's what they all want to know. The men bathe, and then look
happily at the special train in the desert.