How it was exactly managed I am unable to describe, for what with the jerking and bumping of my carriage, and the whistling, creaking, and groaning of the engine over the swaying pontoon, I had no chance of making observations. And when the temporary rails over the pontoon became submerged and the waves dashed up to my carriage door, I followed the example of the stoker and the guard and stood on the step, barefooted, ready to jump and attempt to swim to land if the whole tottering structure should collapse and disappear under the waves. Thus ended my journey across Manchuria. Many delays and excursions into the interior had retarded my progress, but at last I arrived safe and sound at Port Arthur, where I remained two days, including a visit to Dalny. Port Arthur, as I saw it, was merely a military station on the extremity of the peninsula of Liaotung. At one time it was the chief naval arsenal of China, but after the war with Japan its defences and military works were destroyed. When, in 1898, the Russians leased the two places, Port Arthur and Dalny, they made the former into a great military and naval fortress. It was placed under the control of an admiral who had chief command over the troops and the maritime forces. He had under him a double staff of naval and military officers, comprising the commander of the port, the chiefs of the naval staff, the riflemen, the artillery, the engineering service, and the intelligence department, the harbour master, the chief of the torpedo division, the first assistant to the commander of the port, the second assistant, the commander of the commercial port, the ordnance officers of the Governor-General, the civil governor, the diplomatic agent, the secretary of finances, and the chief of the police. Port Arthur undoubtedly has a very complicated form of administration, and at first it was suggested that it should be made into an eastern Kronstadt, or the Asiatic citadel of the great empire. The place itself and the surrounding hills are full of fortifications, and I have been assured over and over again that it would be perfectly impossible to take it by sea. It is one long line of arsenals, torpedo depots, barracks, and encampments. The fact that Port Arthur is essentially a military port is not disguised; there are only a few buildings, including those of the East China Railway Company and the Russo-Chinese Bank, which do not openly serve military purposes.