From Libau to Tsushima: A narrative of the voyage of Admiral Rojdestvensky's fleet to eastern seas, including a detailed account of the Dogger Bank incidentPolitovskii, Evgenii Sigizmundovich
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From Libau to Tsushima: A narrative of the voyage of Admiral Rojdestvensky's fleet to eastern seas, including a detailed account of the Dogger Bank incident
Politovskii, Evgenii Sigizmundovich
Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905
BORODINO SUVAROFF
OREL ALEXANDER III.
ANADIR
All this respectable company are going in the direction of the arrow.
How small our division appears compared with the English! Will they
escort us for long in this manner? Perhaps to Gibraltar, or perhaps
even further! The crews again do not undress, and sleep at the guns. It
is very trying for them.
There has just been a short mass and prayer. Three engineers, not yet
having taken the oath, were sworn. The officers and men were fallen in
on deck as on Sundays. The admiral made a short speech on the subject
of the ten years' reign of the Czar, drank a toast, the crew cheered,
and the band played. After that there was a grand lunch in the wardroom.
Morocco, in Tangier harbour.
The town of Tangier is unlike any we see in Europe. It is inhabited by
Moors and Arabs. There are Europeans, but they live principally outside
the town, which, with its white houses, is widely scattered over the
hilly coast. From afar the town is beautiful. No one is allowed on
shore.
You may remember once all the papers wrote that a Moorish robber had
captured an American and demanded a ransom. This much-respected person
lives twenty-five versts (nearly seventeen miles) from Tangier, and has
built himself a costly villa with the money. It appears that he still
occupies himself in robbery, and has a tribe of eight hundred men. No
one is allowed to go far from the town.
We arrived here at three o'clock, and found all our fleet except the
torpedo-boats at anchor. There are two French ships and an English one
lying here as well.
At five o'clock the hospital-ship _Orel_ arrived. She is painted white
with red crosses on her funnels. The Red Cross flag is flying at her
masthead. The chaplain of the _Aurora_ who was wounded on the 8th died
from blood-poisoning.
There is a report that there are two Japanese torpedo-boats at Hull,
in England. They are probably some of those who tried to attack our
division.
It is rumoured that Russia has bought seven more cruisers, and that
they will join us soon. This would be excellent. The battleships of our
division are now coaling. There is frightful confusion on board. The
sailors of the ship which coals quickest get a prize. The crew of the
_Alexander III._ won 1,200 roubles (£120) at the last coaling.
As usual, we have no news about the war! Yesterday was an anxious day
for Port Arthur. The Japanese wished to hoist their flag there on the
Mikado's birthday.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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