Between lies a tale marvelous for brilliancy, valor, daring, for all that is spectacular and awe-inspiring in war; for all that spells glory to the victor; for all that defeat, disaster, can mean to the beaten and crushed. In brief, of Russia's seven battleships, five had been sunk, and two, captives, were flying the flag of the victor; Of the mighty array of cruisers, all but four were at the bottom of the sea. Of the destroyers, three were afloat. In the harbor of Vladivostok were a single unarmored cruiser, and these three destroyers, the sorry fragments of the armada that reached this destination for which the flower of Russia's European squadron had set out. Sixty hours after the battle three armored cruisers, the _Aurora_, _Oleg_ and _Jemtchug_, laden with wounded, riddled with shot and shell, crept into the harbor of Manila, there to be interned, with their officers, Admiral Enquist among them. As a climax to the victory, Admiral Rozhdestvensky was a prisoner, badly wounded, and in the care of Japanese physicians in the naval hospital at Sasebo. Admiral Volkersham was dead. He had fallen in the first havoc-working broadside from the Japanese fleet. Admiral Nebogatoff was a prisoner. Without a fight he had surrendered two battleships and two coast defense ironclads, with the result that after the battle that had annihilated the Russian fleet, the Japanese fleet was even more powerful than when it cleared decks for action. The Russian fleet had, in truth, sailed into Admiral Togo's lair. The Straits of Korea lie between Japan and Korea, and are an average of one hundred miles wide. Half way across rise the Tsu Islands, which Japan has fortified until they are a veritable Gibraltar. Only twenty-five miles wide is the Tsushimi Channel or Strait, between Tsu Island and the Japanese coast. [Sidenote: Under Guns of the Forts]