Riding across the level country we drew near to the hills on the North, and began to realise better the task that the Japanese had performed so brilliantly. Near Chiu-lien-cheng the hills descend to a sandy flat, through which runs the river Ai, which the soldiers forded up to their necks. We passed over at a shallower place where coolies were wading through three feet of water, and animals were rolling over with their packs. Here the river approaches very close to the foothills, but makes a bold sweep as it draws near to Chiu-lien-cheng. In this arc of a sandy circle we happened upon the field hospital. Around the white bell tent, over which floated the Red Cross, were gathered the wounded and the dying. Upon the ground lay an officer shot through the chest; there was blood also on his brow; his hands moved convulsively, and in his eyes was the look of death. The work of saving the living was too urgent to spare precious moments upon those for whom there could be no hope, and the soldier calmly awaited release from suffering. Stretched upon the dissecting table was another officer with blond beard and blue eyes. The surgeon was dressing a wound in the thigh, while Colonel Hagino lighted a cigarette for the patient. The operating room of a London hospital could not have been more orderly or more clean than this field hospital to which wounded Japanese and Russians were borne upon stretchers. It was, however, a scene on which I did not care to dwell and I rode onward to Chiu-lien-cheng. Passing the base of the Conical Hill where the Russian guns fought so bravely on the previous day, and where the Russian General was mortally wounded, I came to the foot of the pass through which the enemy had retreated. Here along the base and slopes were the Russian sungars--very primitive in construction and affording no protection whatever against shell fire. Chiu-lien-cheng is a very small village which owes its existence to its position on the Imperial Pekin Road. It consists of little more than a street of houses with stone walls and tiled roofs, yet you no sooner enter it from Korea than you breathe a cleaner and a freer atmosphere. The filth and lethargy of Korea are most oppressive, and after a few weeks experience of the people and their dwellings even China is a white man’s Paradise. [Illustration: Abandoned Russian Field Kitchen.]