“Russians delivered repeated counter assaults against this fort, and we lost it at 10.30 p.m.; but General Ichinohé successfully re-occupied it at 11 p.m. The General captured three field guns, two machine guns, three Fish torpedoes, and many other trophies, and found forty Russians dead. The left column captured in the same day Kobuyma Fort, situated in the north-east of Tung Kikwan-shan. “On October 31 we attacked the harbour and the shipyard with large calibre and naval guns, hitting the _Gilyak_ several times, and sinking two steamers. “On November 1 two steamers in the western harbour, of about 3,500 tons each, and on November 2 another steamer of about 3,000 tons, were sunk. Violent explosions, probably of powder magazines, heard twice in the north end of the city. “We commenced at noon, November 3, a heavy bombardment with naval guns against the shipyard and other places in the east of the harbour, where fire broke out at a quarter-past twelve p.m., raging till four the next morning. On the same day our bombardment with large calibre guns inflicted considerable damage on Fort 4.” The saps were driven nearer to 203 Métre Hill, and at the end of November another, and this time successful, attempt was made to carry the position by storm. The position, and others, were shelled heavily from dawn until mid-day on November 30. A strong storming party then rushed to the south-eastern corner, but was repulsed. The cannonading was resumed; later in the day a second party essayed to reach the fortifications, but was repulsed; another charge had no better success. At five in the afternoon a fourth party made a hasty charge, reached the breastworks, and fighting ferociously won; some men reached within a hundred feet of the summit. It was seven o’clock before these could be reinforced to an extent which enabled them to carry the position, which they occupied at eight o’clock that evening. The Japanese losses were very heavy, and the Russians left many dead in the fort. The position has been shelled repeatedly since the end of November, but it would seem that the Japanese cannot now be driven from the Métre range of hills by gun fire, nor is it likely that the Russians can afford to lose the men which all attempts to regain the fortress by direct assault would entail. At the end of November, therefore, the Russians hold still intact the fortress of Port Arthur; some of the outworks of the forts on the north and west are in the hands of the besiegers, but it is not proved that they can hold these positions, as from the forts immediately behind them they can doubtless be fired upon in such a way that it will be impossible for the besiegers to use guns from any of these positions. If this be so, they have gained, by sacrificing nearly 20,000 men, only a stepping-stone which may be of use to them in reaching the line of forts by assaults, nothing more.