On a subsequent occasion, when we also met by accident, being on the same quest, we went together round the town and as far as possible made the circle of the inner line of fortifications. In this peregrination I asked him to choose for me the safest quarter in which to reside during future bombardments, and he pointed out a somewhat thickly populated district immediately behind the town gravel pits, to the north of the Bund. Later I secured a room in a Chinese house in that vicinity. It opened on to the Poyarova, and had on the opposite side an exit still nearer the shelter of the quarry. About the same time also, I was offered the use of rooms in the flat of a foreigner, who had left them in order to be nearer his work. The torpedo attack and the subsequent bombardment had astonished the Russians; the only word which expresses adequately the condition of the authorities is “flabbergasted,” for they were rendered defenceless by their unlimited bewilderment. A few well-armed, daring troops landed immediately after the torpedo attack, or simultaneously, would have captured the town, the staff and the heads of the naval and military departments, and might have carried at least one of the forts. At any time within the first week the Russians would have been surprised by an attack, and probably would have succumbed to a vigorous and well-organized offensive movement. At every hour we two were expecting to hear the rattle of rifle fire from the direction of Pigeon Bay, and as the days went by could scarcely credit that no invasion had even been attempted. At first everything in Port Arthur was in hopeless confusion. The defence of the place had to be organized, and even a special staff got together for the direction of the general plan. The naval and military authorities did not work together harmoniously, and General Stoessel, who in a sense was outside both factions, did not succeed in getting the unlimited authority the duties of his position necessitated until after the Viceroy had departed north accompanied by the staff. The town was in a state of chaotic confusion. All the Chinese servants left; the Chinese tradesmen and coolies tried to leave. The trains were closed to them, but the ships in the harbour gave them room and were overcrowded. Sampan men asked and obtained from five to fifteen dollars for ferrying a passenger from the wharf to the ship--a service for which as many cents was ample reward ordinarily. The public carriage drivers were equally extortionate, and demanded fifteen dollars for a journey between the old and the new town; the jinricksha men disappeared, their vehicles too, and the melting snow and deep mud made the roads impassable.