Meanwhile, however, in May 1903, prior to the decision of the Korean Government in the matter, the prefect of Wi-ju reported the concentration of Russian troops at An-tung for the purpose of crossing the Yalu. A few days later, a detached party of forty of these men crossed the stream, halting on a small island in mid-river to discard their uniforms, so that they might enter Yong-an-po in private clothes. From Yong-an-po they moved to Yong-chyön, near Wi-ju, where, accompanied by one hundred Chinese and eighty Koreans, they founded a lumber settlement, buying seventeen houses, with twelve acres of land attached, in the name of two of their Korean _employés_. The presence of the colony was at once objected to by the Korean Government, who threatened M. Pavloff with the rupture of relations if the settlement were not at once withdrawn. M. Pavloff, however, defended the existence of the lumber camp under powers obtained from the Forest Concession of 1896, which, in actuality, had not been re-affirmed at the moment. Early in the next month, June, the magistrate at Yong-chyön reported that another party of Russians had arrived at Yong-an-po, including in all three Russian women, thirty-six men, two hundred Chinese, and many horses. These were reinforced in July by three women and sixty men, for the most part carrying rifles and swords, and who, also, at once bought houses and land. The action of these people has assumed a specific direction. A few, as though anxious to give colour to their existence as a lumber settlement and in defiance of orders from the Korean local officials, while quite exceeding the clauses of the concession proper, persisted in felling trees on the areas of a prohibited reserve. Meantime the remainder of the party, by no means idle, began the construction of a bund on the Yalu extending over a distance of twenty-one miles, a light railway being laid down for the purpose. In addition to this work developments of a more permanent character were taken in hand; stone buildings appeared, a factory was constructed, and extensive defensive measures adopted. To confirm these indications of Russian occupation of the Yalu reaches, a body of seventy soldiers crossed the river at Cho-san, a second party of eighty men coming over at Pyök-tong. The Russians then proceeded to bring these various scattered “lumber” settlements, into communication, for this purpose erecting a telegraph line between Wi-ju and Yong-an-po. This line, however, the Koreans at once cut down, whereupon the Russians began to lay a submarine cable from Yong-an-po round the coast and up the Yalu River to An-tung in place of the line across country from Yong-an-po to Manchuria. Since the cable projects were important and, together with the settlement at Yong-an-po, much in need of protection, Russia proposed to draft a force of three hundred soldiers into the place. At this date, towards the end of August, the settlement at Yong-an-po had grown into