These last days I have been feeding in the _Bezuprechny_, or sometimes in the _Kamchatka_. They feed better everywhere than in the _Suvaroff_. It has been awkward about provisions up to now. Everything has been bought up on shore. Literally nothing remains. Eggs are sold at twenty-eight copecks a-piece (about 7_d._). In the morning they were selling ox-meat for nearly a gold piece. Altogether there are four Europeans living on shore, and forty Malays. It is almost a desert. There are only five or six houses. The engineers who are constructing the railway live on the opposite side of the bay. There is a telegraph and post-office here. A Chinese receives the correspondence, and does it very slowly. From twelve to six yesterday he only took ten telegrams and twelve letters from two men. Twelve men were unable to hand in anything. A Chinese clerk is not a quick worker. There is splendid sport here--elephants, tigers, monkeys, etc. A clerk from the _Donskoi_ was buried on shore to-day. Admiral Folkersham has had a stroke, but the doctors say it is very slight and not dangerous. Do you remember I told you a sailor threw himself and his hammock into the straits of Malacca? A steamer picked him up, took him to Singapore, handed him over to the Russian consul, who sent him to Saigon, and from there he was sent to the fleet. He declares that he fell overboard accidentally. When the hospital-ship _Orel_ approached Saigon she was met by a cutter and a steamer of Günsburg's, which had come to co-operate with her. The public were not allowed on board the _Orel_. In the evening, papers came out announcing that the Japanese had been defeated by our fleet, that the _Orel_ was full of wounded, whose groans were audible, although no one was allowed on board, etc. Such lies can only agitate people in Russia. The Japanese, of whom there are many in Saigon, were so offended that next day they did not leave their houses. I was afraid I should not have been able to write to you to-day. It would have been the first time. Even on the day of the storm off the Cape of Good Hope, on December 8th, I managed to write a few words. _April 4th._--It was arranged by signal that all engineer-constructors should assemble to meet me. After having spoken to them, I set out for the _Nachimoff_. I lunched there and drank two wineglasses of vodky, two tumblers of beer, and a little claret. It so happened that it would have been difficult to refuse them. In the _Nachimoff_ all the partitions of the officers' cabins have been broken down (so that there should not be a fire). The furniture and the sleeping-bunks have been taken away. The mattresses lie on the floor. All the ships have prepared for battle, and present a strange appearance. Everywhere there are defences made out of chains, torpedo-nets, coal, hawsers, sailors' hammocks, etc.--anything that comes to hand. The ships have nothing in common with what one is accustomed to see.