The following are of later date (May 2): “The Russians have posted everywhere placards explaining away the advance northwards of the Japanese troops who crossed the Yalu, and give accounts of the successes the Russians have gained in fighting the Japanese army elsewhere, and saying that soon they will attack and drive back the Japanese far from these places, for Russia is strong. The Chinese do not believe these placards, because the Japanese are every day coming farther and farther into the country.” Then I received accounts of the landing of Japanese troops at Takushan; and at Pitsewo, and acting in conjunction with the force landed at Kinchow, on the other side of the peninsula, succeeded in cutting the line, and isolating Port Arthur. Here the forces joined, captured a train from Port Arthur; stopped another, but allowed it to proceed when the Red Cross flag was shown, and tried ineffectually to stop it again by rifle fire when they found they had been deceived, and that it was the special train used by Admiral Alexeiev. It was known afterwards that both H.I.H. the Grand Duke Boris and H.E. the Viceroy were in the train, and narrowly escaped capture. The Japanese have never ceased blaming themselves for their laxity in allowing this train to pass them. We got news of the Japanese movements, of the forward rush of the Takushan army after the battle of Puliantien, but it must be stated that the cross marching of the Japanese between Takushan and Kinchow completely baffled the Chinese reporters. They were marching towards Tashichiao not Kaiping, and keeping to the east of the railway instead of taking the shorter route to Newchwang. This scheme of newsgetting worked excellently for some weeks. The agents went right on to the Yalu, and fell back as the invasion of Manchuria progressed, and they reported intelligently and frequently. On the whole matters went well until the agents got shot, or were taken prisoner, or wanted to come home, or were recalled. In addition to all this, there were Chinese constantly arriving in Newchwang from Port Arthur, Dalny, and other places where fighting was going on, and these always had some news to sell--something which if not worth telegraphing, was worth knowing. The American consulate was a great centre for news and for newspaper men, both British and American, but the British consulate was like a shooting man’s fox coverts, always drawn blank. It was MacCullagh of the _New York Herald_ who first discovered a new variety of lady missionary from the north who had a fund of entertaining conversation and plenty of interesting information, so, quite outside of the usual official channels, we had numerous sources of news and spent much time in collecting the best.