The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-08-09
AS TOLD BY REFUGEES.
Accounts of the Fighting Around Port
 Arthur.

Chefoo, Aug. S.-During the last twenty-four hours two hundred Chi nese and fifty Russian refugees have arrived here from Port Arthur. Almost all of them left there August 3. It has been impossible to obtain confirma- tion of the report of the sinking off Port Arthur of a Japanese cruiser, but that this occurred is not denied as the vessel Is said to have sunk in a place 6here mines have recently been laid.
 The French newspaper coTrespon- dents who made an attempt to reach Port Arthur by junk. saw the Japanese fleet August 6. They were twice ar rested and turned back. They count ed twenty-four vessels of the Japanese front of the harbor.
 The refugees report that the Russian cruiser Bayan was sruck by a frag- ment from one of the mines which the Japanese constantly send in toward the harbor entrance. The explosion oc- cured at the spot just previously ' vacated by the Russian gunboat Giliak, which had been in that position for months acting as guard ship. The Bayan bears marks showing that she has been hit two hundred and eigh- teen times since the beginning of the war.
 
 of whom witnessed part of the three days fighting of week before last say that the Japanese troops are still from ten to fifteen versts from the inner forts.
 The Japanese are busy endeavoring to work their trenches near the fort ress. The Russian resistance to these forts is confined to the use of artil- lery, which ceaselessly harnesses the Jov have sixty guns in position on Wolf's Hill and vicinity and it is evidently their intention slowly and surely to tighten their moose around Port Ar thur.
 A refugee who witnessed the fight ing al Wolfs Hill on July 26 and 27 declares that four thousand Russian troops defended that position, all the approaches to which has been pro. tected with terraces. In many in stances the Russian soldiers dropped their rifles and rolled rocks down or the enemy with effect more fatal than the bullets
 The Russian mines were cleverly con. cealed in an open field. Their compo- sition was at tho bottom layer of high explosive next a layer of rocks and the whole covered with sod. The explosion of these mines threw the rocks for a distance of one or two versts. It IS alleged that with the exception of four men who were captured. two squad rons of Japanese cavalry were wiped out by the explosion of such mines.
 The witnesses confiHm previous state ments that the Japanese losses in this fighting were severe. The Japanese soldiers advanced to Wolfs Hill over ground thickly strewn with their dead. They occupied the hill. By the thir day the stench from the decomposing bodies which were not inferred for lack of time became intense,
 July 27 two detachmcnts of marines and sailors numbering 2G0 men lost every commissioned officer as a result of the first volley fired by tho Japan csc The men of this detachment thereupon sent a delegation to Major General Kondratenko and requested that he send to them the officers undo whom they had previosuly performed exceptionally brilliant services and fO= which General Stoessel had sent them special thanks.
 By the night of July 27, the Russian soldiers had been fighting forty eight hours with a minimum of rest, food and water. They were then relieved by re serves, who arrived at the lines by bands playing the national anthem. At the conclusion of the anthem, cheere