There is one dead foreign city in China, Cathay’s “Deserted Village”,
immortal Port Arthur. Where are now the streets of palatial Renaissance
palaces which eight years ago nestled under Golden Hill and lined
the bund of the Eastern Port? Where are the massed battalions of
Alexeieff’s troops, white-capped, white-tunicated and high-booted,
which used to dress ranks on the broad parade ground behind Golden
Hill? What stilled forever the music of the ringing glasses, drained of
their sweet Roederer by gold-braided arms that lifted them quickly to
harsh lips in Saratoff’s gay restaurant on the sunny bund? What hushed
the song of the musée and Odessa ballet girls on the small stage in
smoky Nicobadza’s Café in the New Town? Over the breakers that lash
the Tiger’s Tail Peninsula do the ghosts of Admiral Makharov, the
court painter, Verestchagin, and seven hundred and fifty others of the
mine-sunk _Petropavlovsk_ battleship still whisper their mournful
names like a dirge of St. Andrew, as on that sad gray morning of
April 4, 1904? Where are the battleships _Sevastopol_, _Peresviet_,
_Poltava_ and _Nicolai_, which used to lie safely under Golden Hill,
while terrific war harmlessly hurled fire and shell from Kikwan Hill,
Pigeon Bay, where we used to shoot snipe, and Wolf’s Hill? Surely they
are not the salvaged and transformed _Sagami_, _Tango_, _Iki_, etc.,
flying now the rayed, red sun instead of the white, blue and red flag
of St. Andrew. On second view, they certainly are; there are the high
freeboard of a Baltic-built vessel of the Kronstadt navy-yard.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account