The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-27

Iwould have had steerage meals. a straw mattress and a blanket and the rats are frightfu on board.
 We travelled in utter darkness for three or four nights, but saw no Ger man warships and had no very thrill ing experiences. much to my disgust one day we passed a French fishing smack which signaled it had lost it's way and what was the news on board?
 French Ship Informed
 There had been very little trouble before they left Think of the excite ment on board when we signalled back that France and five other nations had declared war on Germany, and war it. self was nearly fortnight old. They asked us their whereabouts to be re- ported. Another day about o'clock in the afternoon an iceberg was sighted; it looked like a large white cap in the distance but stayed steady It grew and grew and in about an hour we passed it our port side at d distance of about Is miles. Ii was pre- cisely like the Rock of Gibraltar and equally as large, but the loveliest pale green shade. To my mind it looked exactly like what the poor Titanic hit.
 Passengers Were Worried
 ''One hears so many reports of various kinds, though, that one never knows what to believe. There were rumors that we were to land in Halifax, and the Cam pania was to take troops back The cap tain when asked replied that he was go- | ing to New York. but he did not know where the rest of the people were going. This morning I asked the stewardess when we would land, and she said: Well, l am like the captain-you had better ask the passengers. for they know a great ' deal more about it than l do.'
 Newspaper Correspondent Talks 1 'one night we had an informal dance
 and on Friday very good concert for 1 the benefit of the seamans' fund. ] MT. Wyle, the Berlin correspondent for l 10 years of the Chicago Tribune, New
 York Times and London Daily Mail gave
 an interesting talk on his exit from Ger j, many after war was declared, having been arrested as a spy and was only saved | from shooting by the kindness of MT. 1 Gerard, our American ambassador. | one morning we got two wireless mes- l sages: 'Campania where are you? Of l course we did not answer and imagined
 the whole German fleet chasing us, but nothing ever came of it. We have sev-
 eral Germans on board who were on their
 way home when war was declared, and I of course could not get through.
 One Mans Troubles
 One very clever young man I met as was going into the concert last night, and l said, Aren't you coming in? And he said, No Why should I go and listen to all of those pro-German demonstrations. We are going to have little celebration of our own" But I never heard what they did. He was going to England on the Coronia the ship that was carrying all the American gold when war was declared in midocean. On landing in Liverpool all Germans were detained and finally taken off to jail. There they stayed for one week, and through MT. As quith obtained a passport to America and was taken sightseeing around Liver pool and escorted on board here by the chief of police. His account of the week was very amusing. He did not lack some comforts, as he had his meals served to him from neighboring restaurant by very pretty waitress.
 Land Welcome Sight
 We did land yesterday, but not until Il p. m. At lunch there was great ex- citement as a British cruiser passed us going back to England. It was the Els sex, and we were told 1t had conveyed us safely across the Atlantic, and was returning to do the same to other Eng
 fish and American liners We were on the first boat to carry mail for a week, and were delayed nearly two hours unloading bags and parcel post baskets. Every one had dressed. tipped their stewards. etc. and were on deck by o'clock. We were then not even in sight of land
 You can imagine how exhausted we all were when we were finally tugged into dock, but a very happy crowd There were thousands even at that late hour to welcome our safe arrival, and a band greeted us with Home Sweet Home and Hurrah for the Red, White and Blue' "On landing I was confided in that an English scout service man had been sit ting at my table all the way over. not to watch me, but the three Germans on board. The customs officers were very
 kind. And we spent peaceful night on land. in one of the few countries. at pres ent. not engaged in the turmoil and strife of int fe