Our journey eastwards ends with Japan, and we turn westwards on our way back to Europe. The portion of the mainland of Asia which lies nearest to Japan is Korea, and the passage across the straits from Shimonoseki to Fu-san takes only about ten hours. The steamer sails in the morning, and late in the afternoon we see to larboard the Tsushima Islands rising out of the water like huge dolphins. Our course takes us almost over the exact place where, on May 27, 1905, Admiral Togo annihilated the squadron of the Russian Admiral Rozhdestvenski. The Russian fleet had sailed round Asia, and steamed up east of Formosa to the Strait of Korea. The Admiral hoped to be able to reach Vladivostock, on the Russian side of the Sea of Japan, without being attacked, and on May 27 his fleet was approaching the Tsushima Islands. But Admiral Togo, with the Japanese fleet, lay waiting off the southern coast of Korea. He had divided the straits into squares on a map, and his scouting boats were constantly on the look-out. They could always communicate with Togo's flagship by wireless telegraphy. And now currents passing through the air announced that the Russian fleet was in sight, and was in the square numbered 203. This number was considered a good omen by the Japanese, for the fate of the fortress of Port Arthur was sealed when the Japanese took a fort called "203-metre Hill" (Port Arthur, which lies on the coast of the Chinese mainland, had fallen into the hands of the Japanese on January 1, 1905). When the news came, Togo knew what to do. With his large ships and sixty torpedo boats he fell upon the Russian fleet, and the battle was decided within an hour. The Russian Admiral's flagship sank just on the spot where we are now on the way to Fu-san. The Admiral himself was rescued, sorely wounded, by the Japanese. His fleet was dispersed, and its various divisions were pursued, sunk, or captured. The Russians lost thirty-four ships and ten thousand men. It was a bloody encounter which took place on these usually so peaceful waters. The Japanese became masters of the sea, and could, unhindered, transport troops, provisions, and war material over to the mainland, where the war with Russia still raged in Manchuria.