Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-09

struck mine: or the japanese may have
sunk them; or they may have been cap
tured and murdered by pirates. Nobody
knows. Their fate is involved in complete
mystery. Not the slightest trace of them
has ever been discovered since they sailed
from Port Arthur. We might have met
with the same mysterious fate, but for the
fact that Miss Helene Chaffanzon, the
young daughter of the French lady with
whom I sailed. was able to converse freely
with our boatmen in Chinese, and could
explain TO them my orders and our wishes.
Miss Helene is quite a remarkable young
woman. She can talk fuently In English.
French. Russian and Chinese. II Won Gill
genheim and Cuverville had been able to
talk with Their boatmen, or If they had
had an Interpreter on the junk, perhaps
their lives might have been saved 1t is
possible that some misunderstanding &C.
CURED, through their inability to talk to
the men, of which they were the victims.
"Junks were going back and forth all the
time, explained Lieut. McCully. between
Port Arthur and the Chinese coast. The
Russians encouraged them, for they
brought in vegetables. meats and news
papers. They were common, everyday
junks, such as you see all along the Chi
ncse coast and on the rivers of the In
terror. and were well handled. They were
not comfortable for passengers, but peo-
pie who wanted to get out of Port Arthur
were glad to take any kind of boat to
accomplish It. We had a comfortable
passage. and crossed to Shan-hai-kwan in
about forty hours. l paid the captain SEQ
to take ME over. We had a little excite
ment on the voyage, caused by two sus-
picious-looking junks which we had run
afoul of and which had fired on us. They
were evidently pirates. but out captain
knew his business and his men were good
sailors, and We escaped iii the dark.
From Scandinavian / started for Pc
king, and from there made my way to
Fladivostok via Mukden. partly by cart
and partly by railroad | had Russian
officer for a travelling companion, and we
got through without any trouble, although
we were little uneasy because of the
Chinese bandits, who were pretty thick
and very troublesome in that locality. We
saw skirrnish between them and party
of Chinese soldiers, but nothing happened
to us and we reached Laio-lang in time
to see the battle-as much as could be
seen of it-and that was only the artillery
fire. / was inside of the town at Russian
headquarters, and the fighting was going
on outside.
In Mukden During the Battle.
IT was at Vladivostok altogether about
six months, but most of that time was go
ing back and forth between the city and
the Russian army, The raiorad was open
to Mukden and it was easy to run down
by train. The Russian authorities allowed
us to come and go wherever and whenever
we pleased, and gave us every opportunity
to see what going on | was in Muk-
den during the great battle there, but dld
not see much of 1t. 1t was impossible to
do So The line of battle was eighty miles
long; the country around Mukden is dead
level; the soil is very dry and between the
dust and the smoke we could scarcely see
farther than across the street except at
rare intervals. Under such circums tances
1t was not easy to observe the action of the
troops, but / saw plenty of Japanese
eleven-inch shells dropping into the Rus
sian trenches.
There were a number of foreign at
taches there-British, Swedish. Danish and
Argentine-and we went around together
We remained at Mukden until the end
of the fighting, and then started for home
by way of the Amur river and across Mon
goIia to Picking. Then we went down to
Shanghai and took steamer via the Suez
canal to Genoa. From there l went 10 ST
Petersburg via Vienna, pad my respects
to the minister of marine on September -
and returned home via Norway and
Sweden.
Il have scarcely begun on my report
said the lieutenant, in conclusion, but am
getting my notes in order The war has
developed a great deal of interest in mil
itary matters, and has furnished many
valuable lessons In strategy, organization,
ordnance and other respects. 1t is the
only practical gauge we have for modern
warfare. and is equally important TO army
and nayy men,