It was a terrible surprise when the Japanese destroyers began the attack under cover of the night. Not until dawn did the Americans actually catch sight of their enemy, and that was when Kamimura left the field of battle, which was strewn with sinking American ships, with his six practically unharmed battleships headed in a southwesterly direction to join Togo's fleet, who had already been informed of the victory. The work of cleaning up was left to the destroyers, who sank the badly damaged American ships with their torpedoes. The hospital ship _Ontario_, attached to the yellow fleet, and a torpedo boat fished up the survivors of this short battle. Then the _Ontario_ started for San Francisco, while the leaking _Farragut_ remained behind. The Americans had been able to distinguish, with a fair degree of certainty, that Kamimura's squadron consisted of the _Shikishima_, the battleships _Iwami_ (ex _Orel_), the _Sagami_ (ex _Peresvjet_), and _Tumo_ (ex _Pobjeda_), all three old Russian ships, and of the two new armored cruisers _Ikoma_ and _Tsukuba_. Then there were the two enormous battleships which were not included in the Japanese Navy List at all, and the two huge cruisers _Yokohama_ and _Shimonoseki_ which, according to Japanese reports, were still building, while in reality they had been finished and added to the fleet long ago. The circumstances connected with these two battleships were rather peculiar. The report was spread in 1906 that China was going to build a new fleet and that she had ordered two big battleships from the docks at Yokosuka. This rumor was contradicted both at Pekin and at Tokio. The Americans and everybody in Europe wondered who was going to pay for the ships. The trouble is, we ask altogether too many questions, instead of investigating for ourselves. As a matter of fact, the ships were laid down in 1908, though everybody outside the walls of the Japanese shipyard was made to believe that only gunboats were being built. We have probably forgotten how, at the time, a German newspaper called our attention to the fact that not only these two battleships--of the English _Dreadnought_ type--but also the two armored cruisers building at Kure ostensibly for China, would probably never sail under the yellow dragon banner, but in case of war, would either be added directly to Japan's fleet or be bought back from China.