When we left Feng-hoang-cheng it was with the confident expectation that the Russians would oppose our advance and that the Second Division would not be permitted to occupy Mou-tien-ling without a struggle. At our first halt we learned that the enemy had abandoned Lun-chen-kwan at the foot of the Pass and set fire to their stores. This hasty retirement was not the only evidence of surprise. From our flanks came reports that the Russians were retreating in confusion. Japanese cavalry occupied the foot of Mou-tien-ling on the morning of the 27th of June, and save for a Russian post of observation in the Pass the road was reported clear as far as Chou-chan--eight miles South of Liao-yang. The fame of Mou-tien-ling has long been in the mouths of men. It is the “Heaven-reaching Pass,” and is described in all military text books as a position of great strategic importance and capable of prolonged defence. Great things we expected of Mou-tien-ling. Yet when General Fujii was beguiled into speaking of it we suspected that it would not bear the test of close acquaintance. Our worst fears were realised when we ascended the Pass. We looked for a mountain and found a hill, for fierce crags and found densely wooded slopes, for a dark and threatening defile and trod a winding forest path, for a wide field of fire and saw nothing save “dead” grounds. Our march was Northward. For three nights and days rain had fallen in a continuous torrent; the rivers were in flood; the loose friable loam of which the roads are composed was a treacherous bog, and the hills were veiled in clouds of vapour. For several miles we rode along a narrow valley shut in by low hills clothed with vivid green. This defile ended abruptly in a low ridge that closes the North end of the valley like a barrier reef--the watershed of the Tsao-ho. Here, it was believed, the Russians would make a stand. The position is adapted by nature for defence. The reef commands for three miles the narrow valley along which an army from the South must advance. On either hand are hills seamed with deep dongas and gullies in which large numbers of men might rest secure from direct fire. Behind these are other hills forming a second line of defence, and to the rear of the reef lies a valley where an army might be sheltered and whence they might approach the first line of defence without exposing a man to the enemy.