sixty houses with a civil Russian population of seventy citizens. By this time, however, the Japanese Minister at Seoul, Mr. Hayashi, had received the text of the proposed contract between the Korean Government and the Russian Lumber Company. Thereupon, on August 25th, he delivered an ultimatum to the Korean Government. On the same day the Russian Minister went to the Foreign Office and urged that the lease of Yong-an-po be granted. In spite of his urgent appeal, the Minister declared it to be impossible. On the 27th the Russian Minister went again to the Foreign Office at noon, and remained till seven in the evening, but the Minister was ill and did not put in an appearance. The Russian Minister then stated that he would have nothing more to do with the Foreign Minister, but would appeal directly to the Emperor. In his despatch Mr. Hayashi wrote that if the Korean Government were to sign such a lease with the Russian Government, Japan would consider such an act as a direct violation of the treaty between herself and Korea. In this event Japan would consider that diplomatic relations between the two countries were suspended, and she would regard herself free to act for herself in her own interests on the assumption that the whole of the Korean territories had been opened to the world. The spirited action of the Japanese Minister was not lost upon the Korean Government, who at once issued orders to the prefect of Yong-an-po to restrain the Russians from further encroachment. The efforts of the local officials were, however, of little avail, and by the middle of September, in addition to the colony at Yong-an-po, the settlement at Yong-chyön had increased to one hundred and twenty-eight Chinese huts, with thirteen hundred Chinese, seventy Russians, and twenty tents. Complaints of the high-handed action of the Russians in appropriating the property of the Koreans to their own needs began to arrive in Seoul, and on September 13th came the information that a telegraph line had again been laid between Yong-an-po and the lumber concession on the Yalu. Coupled with the intelligence of this renewed activity was additional, and much more disquieting, information. The Russians had constructed on the elevated ground about the Tu-ryu Harbour a high watch-tower, and were preparing emplacements for three batteries of field artillery. Meanwhile, however, as a counter demonstration to the movement of a company of five hundred Russians under two officers, on October 23rd, who had crossed the Tumen River into Korean territory by night, a Japanese warship dropped anchor in the estuary of the Yalu, in close proximity to Yong-an-po.