difficult for a Russian officer to talk about the end. It was worse than a mistake, it was a disgrace. The fortress could easily have held out another month. We had food and ammunition sufficient for that period, and if Kondrachenko had been alive we should have held out for months longer. In Kondrachenko the garrison lost not only a leader, but the one man who had the power, through his tremendous earnestness, to control General Stoessel." [Sidenote: Discreditable Surrender] This view, startling and disconcerting as it is, was strongly confirmed by Dr. Morrison, the famous Peking correspondent of the London _Times_, to whom special facilities for inspecting Port Arthur were afforded immediately after the surrender had taken place. He was immensely impressed with the stupendous strength of the positions held by the Russians, and of the incredible heroism displayed in their capture, but he could find no explanation for the surrender. There were, he said, 25,000 able-bodied soldiers, and several hundred officers unscathed by wound or disease. Only 200 officers were killed all through the siege, and of those found in hospital a number were undoubted malingerers. As to the failure of ammunition, Dr. Morrison pointed out that thousands of rounds were fired off aimlessly for two days before the surrender, that thousands more were thrown into the harbor, and that yet a large quantity was found in store by the Japanese. The largest of the naval magazines was discovered "full to the roof" with all kinds of ammunition. Food was plentiful and the new town was uninjured by bombardment. "Those who have witnessed the condition of the fortress," Dr. Morrison summed up, "contrasting the evidence of their eyes with the astounding misrepresentations of General Stoessel, had their sympathy turned into derision, believing that no more discreditable surrender has been recorded in history." [Illustration: THE EVACUATION OF PORT ARTHUR.] [Sidenote: The End of the Siege of Port Arthur]