it,
one cannot but feel amazement that a place so powerful should so
easily have fallen. Properly defended, it should be unreducible by
anything but famine. The coast defences are impregnable, and those
inland, though more susceptible of attack, should not fall before
anything short of overwhelming superiority of force. I should like to
have seen the 20,000 men whom the Japanese led against it take that
fortress in forty-eight hours from Osman Pacha's army. The Mikado's
generals, however, had formed a perfectly just estimate of their own
powers as against those of the enemy. In fact, a third of their force
could have taken Port Arthur from the ridiculous soldiers who held it.

The garrison in ordinary times amounts to 7000 men, but before the
Japanese attack it had been increased to nearly 20,000. This is
inadequate; 30,000 men at least should occupy the fortress in time of
war, and 40,000 would not in my opinion be too many.

The chief man in the place when I was there was the Taotai, or
governor, Kung, a brother, I have heard, of the Ambassador to England.
His office, I believe, is civil; the military chiefs were Generals
Tsung and Ju. The soldiers, who appeared to range about everywhere
pretty much at their own discretion, were an uncouth, rough lot, with
very little of the smartness of dress and bearing which we associate
with the military character. Everywhere was a most portentous display
of banners, as if the sacrilegious foot of a foeman could not be set
on any spot rendered sacred by the dragon flag. The town presented a
very neat and compact aspect, and struck me very favourably as
compared with Tientsin, the only other Chinese town I had been in, and
which seemed to me to be for the most part composed of narrow, dirty,
stinking lanes with one or two good streets in the centre. Port
Arthur, as might be expected of so recent a settlement, constructed to
a large extent under European supervision, is very much better built,
and altogether presents, or did present--for to a melancholy and
deplorable condition was it soon to be reduced--a thriving and busy
aspect.

At dusk I quitted the streets, with their bazaar-like shops and
strange illuminations, and made my way back to the port under escort
of my Chinese friend, who with Oriental politeness insisted on seeing
me safe back on board. A most unwelcome shock awaited me. No
_Columbia_ was to be found, and Lin Wong's inquiries elicited that
she had left nearly