Viewing page 791 of 978

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

148
Hong Kong. Septem 2nd 1908
16

[[note]] Sept Wed 1909 - (Diary entry indicate 1909 date [[/note]]

Dear Colonel Hacker.
The Derfflinger reached this port on the 31st August and was promptly put in dry dock for repairs. It is expected that she will come out again this afternoon and start for Shanghai early tomorrow morning. Her experience on the rocks near Southampton, it proves, did her no visible harm, but in passing through the Suez canal and when only three miles from its Suez terminal, a steam just ahead of us got a steel hawser mixed up with her propellers, and forced our ship to make a quick halt in a very stiff current and swung over stern into the canal bank injuring the blades of one of our screws. This injury, of course, delayed our progress which together with the time lost near Southampton brought us to Hong Kong about a week late - but in perfect safety and everyone on board well and happy. At Singapore I received a letter from my friend Dr. Voretzscher (Voretzsch) - Consul General to China from Germany, inviting me to be is guest during my stay in this city and this letter is being written from his spacious and charming home situated just below the Peak - affording a suburb view of the harbour and relief from the great

182