or contrived by military art. It looked impregnable to assault. And, to add to its terrors, the hill and its approaches were commanded by two hills on the East and West--both entrenched and held by strong forces of rifle and artillery. The hill on the West was Shou-shan, the steep mountain of rock between the railway and the road, while that on the East lay beyond the village of Shinluton. Against this terrible array of pits and wires and hills and trenches, bristling with rifles and guns, and swarming with brave and resolute foes, the Japanese threw themselves with the reckless courage of men who know how to die. How they passed the triple line of pits with the sharp stakes ready to receive their mangled bodies, how they avoided the mines, and how they overcame the barbed wire with its cruel entanglements, I must leave to the imagination. When they came to the trenches the work was straightforward, though it demanded heroic effort unsurpassed in the history of war. Thrice they rushed almost to the crest, trampling the dead and the dying under their feet; thrice the line of bayonets dripped bloody over trenches piled up with wounds and death. Twice they were driven down the slope wet with gore and strewn with the bodies of comrades who had fallen to rise no more. The enemy fought with the courage of despair, but nothing could withstand another onrush, and before dawn they withdrew to the trenches and redoubts in the plain. Liao-yang was won! The Russians began to retire at two o’clock on the morning of September 1st, and the Japanese, having occupied the heights, sent a mixed force in pursuit. The main body halted to complete its preparations for carrying the line of fortifications on the plain. Very formidable indeed were these fortifications, which, in strength and design, might almost be described as permanent. Along the front for miles stretched triple lines of pits ten feet deep with sharp stakes in the centre: mines were placed for the unwary foot: the trenches were deep and traversed to give access and exit in every direction: gun emplacements guarded every approach, and at two angles were redoubts masked by moats and pits--massive redoubts against which field guns might batter and infantry perform deeds of heroism in vain. Each redoubt could hold a garrison of one battalion and might be a rallying point in disaster. But fortifications of this kind have serious disadvantages, especially on a plain and in a defensive scheme that demands as its first condition freedom and rapidity of movement. The enemy must have recognised this weakness, for it was not necessary to carry the redoubts by assault.