skill in manœuvring, in determination, in enterprise, and initiative. The absence of these qualities rendered of no avail the courage of the infantry and the skill of the gunners, whose sole achievement in the recent action had been to demonstrate that even Japanese soldiers might be checked by the rifle fire of unshaken infantry properly entrenched. The attack on Yu-shu-ling was part of an operation that extended as far South as Hai-cheng, over a front of nearly seventy miles. Its effect must be judged by the success or failure of the whole movement, the purpose of which was to harass, if not to prevent, the retreat of the main army under General Kuropatkin upon Liao-yang and Mukden. Yet, from a tactical point of view, the attack may be treated as a separate and an isolated engagement. On the 19th of July the force composing our right wing drove the enemy from Chaotoa, twenty miles to the north of Mou-tien-ling, and proceeded to entrench themselves on the ridge West of this position. The right was our exposed flank, and General Inouye neglected no precaution to guard himself against surprise, keeping a vigilant eye on his front, where the enemy were in force, and on his right flank, about which hovered a brigade of Cossacks, who formed part of General Renenkampf’s division. Toward the end of the month the Russians, who had entrenched on the heights beyond Yu-shu-ling on both sides of the river Tai-tsu, appeared to be concentrating for attack. Spies reported the arrival of reinforcements along the Mukden road, and unwonted activity in the camps about Yu-shu-ling. In order that he might not be taken unawares, General Inouye advanced his outposts in front of the enemy’s flanks. On the 28th and 29th of July a company of infantry and a squadron of cavalry occupied Makura-yama or Pillow Mountain, facing the Russian position on the north bank of the Tai-tsu, while a detachment of infantry took possession of the heights of East Penlin, overlooking the valley on the other side of which was the enemy’s right wing. On the 29th these outposts fell back on the main body entrenched on the range West of Chaotoa, three Russian battalions having menaced Makura-yama and a considerable force having appeared on the West and North of East Penlin. The enemy was also in some strength at Ponchiho, six miles north of Chaotoa on the road to Mukden, and a fight seemed imminent.