to the bay and keeping
a bright lookout for possible mines. Well astern of them came the
_Akagi_ and _Chokai_; and still farther out were the old _Hei-yen_ and
the cruiser _Tsukushi_, cautiously creeping in, with leadsmen
perpetually sounding on either beam. The bottom, about where they were
required to be, was flat, and the tide was on the ebb, the great fear of
the skippers of those two craft, therefore, was that they might touch
the ground and hang there, left by the tide, exposed helplessly to the
fire of the Russian guns. Thanks, however, to my labours of a few days
earlier, they were all able to get close enough in to open upon the
Russian works at extreme range, although, until the tide should rise,
they could not bring a thoroughly effective fire upon the Russian
batteries and so put them out of action.

But if we had ships, so, too, had the Russians, in the shape of the
gunboat _Bobr_ and five small steamers in Hand Bay, on the side of the
isthmus opposite to Kinchau Bay, the Nanshan Heights being between them,
so that each was hidden from the sight of the other. The _Bobr_ was
likely to prove a very awkward customer for us; for she mounted one
9-inch and one 6-inch gun, which, although they were a long way from
being up-to-date, were still quite good enough to out-range the Japanese
field-guns and severely pepper our left, which occupied the ground at
the head of Hand Bay. The steamers which accompanied her were, our
spies discovered, fitted up expressly for the purpose of quickly
ferrying troops across from one side of Hand Bay to the other, according
as they might be wanted, instead of being obliged to march round the
head of the bay in the face of our troops. Thus the Russians were in a
position to either harass our left flank and rear, or to rush
reinforcements across the head of the bay--a distance of about a mile--
as circumstances might require.

The _Bohr_ began the day's proceedings by opening fire with her 9-inch
gun upon the artillery of our 3rd Division, which had taken up a
position upon the lower slopes of Mount Sampson, from which it could
reach the Russian batteries established upon the crest of the Nanshan
Heights. The gunboat's fire did very little mischief, but it seemed to
be regarded by both sides as a signal to begin the fight, for at once
our batteries got to work, their shells dropping with most beautiful
precision upon the guns and trenches of the Russians. I was so
stationed