I hauled my baggage on to the platform. The American was the only passenger who followed me, the others stood huddled in the vestibules not knowing what to do, scarcely daring to move, and the army officers called half-heartedly for assistance. I went into the empty shelter, and crossed to the deserted station-buildings and buffet. Not a man, woman or child could I see. Then I went into the quarry, where a station site is being excavated, and from a cleft drew a Chinese _gamin_ of the coolie class; making him shoulder my bags and walk before me, I wended my way into the town. I have no recollection of passing or meeting any one _en route_. The road was deserted, so too were the quays, the steps to the railway buildings and the terraces on the cliffs. As we proceeded I heard the booming of guns and bursting of shells. In the harbour some of the warships were snugly moored, a number of torpedo-boat destroyers lay alongside the wharves on the Tiger’s Tail. In the entrance to the harbour I saw the _Retvizan_, nose down and heeling over; the _Tesarevich_, with tugs and launches fussing round her, all down by the stern and with a heavy list to starboard, another vessel lay farther out in the narrows, and right away at sea, just discernible as specks near the horizon were the warships of the enemy’s fleet bombarding Port Arthur. The many _sampans_ and other small craft which ordinarily plied from shore to shore were absent and the port seemed almost as lifeless as the town. The busy wharves under the terraces were deserted but for the Sikhs watching the immense stores of _vodka_ and other provisions. The Field Telegraph Office on the Bund was wrecked and the Bund looked as lonesome as other parts of the town, the only human creatures in evidence being the Sikhs before Ginsburg’s offices and the premises of the Russo-Chinese bank. I turned up the Pushkinskaya, passing the unoccupied premises of the _Novy Krai_, and it was not until I reached the post office that the first group of people appeared--they stood talking nervously, and looking first one way and then the other, as though shells might take the direction of vehicular traffic along the streets. Of carriages, jinrickshas, carts, Chinese, and troops I saw no sign whatever.