, a water
bottle, a wallet of provisions, an azimuth compass, and a box sextant, I
was pulled ashore and landed in the cove, the boat immediately returning
to the destroyer, which soon vanished in the darkness, making for the
offing.

There were some half-dozen small, crazy-looking fishing-boats drawn up
on the beach of the cove, and, groping about, I presently found a
footpath leading somewhere inland. This I cautiously followed for a
little distance until the crow of a wakeful cock and the bark of a dog
warned me that I was at no great distance from a human dwelling of some
sort, when I struck off the path and waded through a field of millet,
heading north-west for the summit of a hill which I easily recognised,
even in the dark, as one of the points from which I purposed to take my
set of observations. My more immediate anxiety, however, was to get
away from the neighbourhood of all human habitations, for although I
knew pretty well, in a general way, where the Russians might be expected
to be found, there was always the possibility of running unexpectedly
into a small detachment of them, or of encountering some Korean peasant
who might be disposed to betray me, upon the off-chance of securing a
reward for so doing.

The low ground at the foot of the range of hills for which I was heading
was all cultivated, as well as the lower slopes, but, higher up, the
ground was covered pretty thickly with scrub, with here and there a few
patches of fir trees; and when once I got among these I felt that I was
fairly safe, for I imagined that nobody would be likely to have any
business up there, while in the disturbed state of the country nobody
would be likely to wander there for pleasure.

By the time that I reached the lower margin of the belt of scrub, the
moon, one-half of her in shadow, had crept up above the crest of Mount
Sampson, and the whole of the country round about me was flooded with
her dim, ghostly light, with the help of which I was able to make out
the small walled city of Kinchau, planned in the form of a square, each
side measuring about half a mile long; the Japanese position in the
valley to the south of it; and a few of the Russian positions on the
Nanshan Heights; I was also able to definitely reassure myself as to my
own position.

The point for which I was aiming was about three miles north of the
little cove in which I had landed, and the intervening ground was
rugged, with many outcrops of roug