He made Masampho Bay on the Korean side of the straits, and inside them (the "Douglas Bay" of our Admiralty Charts), the station for his fleet. Freed from all harassing blockading and cruising work, he devoted the period between the retirement and destruction of the Port Arthur fleet in the late summer of 1904, and the approach of the Russians in May, 1905, to repairing his ships very thoroughly, substituting new guns for those they had mounted at the beginning of the war, which had had their rifling worn down. Continual target practice and manoeuvre exercises kept every ship and every man up to the mark. Charts of the sea around Japan were ruled off into small numbered squares, so as to facilitate the reporting of the enemy's position and movements from the moment he would be first sighted. An elaborate system of scouting by light cruisers was organized; signal stations were established on islands and headlands, and wireless installations erected at central and outlying points. If Rojdestvensky made for the Tsu-shima channels, Togo was there to meet him. If he went for either of the more northern straits, the Japanese admiral counted on having news of his movements in sufficient time to enable him to steam at full speed by a shorter route, and still interpose between the Baltic armada and Vladivostock. After passing Singapore, on 25 March, there was another delay before the final advance of the Russian fleet. Rojdestvensky was anxious to give time to Nebogatoff to join him. This last reinforcement was coming by the Mediterranean route. The Russian commander-in-chief again strained French neutrality to the utmost. In April and May he passed week after week in the ports of French Cochin China, first at Kamranh and then at Van Fong or Honkohe. Here, early in May, he was at last joined by Nebogatoff's squadron. Again Japan protested against the use of French harbours by her enemy. The diplomatic tension became acute, and at one moment it seemed as if the Russian admiral were anxious to produce complications that would force France into the war. But at last, to the general relief, on 14 May he sailed from Honkohe Bay. He passed through the Bashi Strait between Formosa and the Philippines, and then steered for Shanghai. Here, on 25 May, the fighting portion of the fleet lay out at sea, while a crowd of auxiliary steamers, colliers, store-ships, and armed merchantmen were sent into the Wusung River, the mouth of the Yang-tse, and anchored there. Their appearance without the fleet to which they belonged led to many conjectures. The Japanese at once grasped its real meaning. To quote the message cabled by the Tokio correspondent of "The Times":--