Raschevsky mentioned wood fires. In properly built forts in Western Europe a number of well-protected electric lights are arranged in the wall of the counter-scarp to light up the whole of the outer ditch of the work. Of course, such a luxury was not to be expected in Arthur, where the Fortress was defended by primitive means and all was left to the bravery and inventiveness of individuals. In many ways the defence suggested mediæval days, when human life was of little value. The Japanese, heroically throwing away their lives in front of Arthur, strewing the ground with their bodies as if they were sacks of earth, showed that we had to deal with enlightened barbarians, inspired by great patriotism and a deep conviction that a victorious campaign, in particular the conquest of Arthur, would give them a permanent economic position on the continent of Asia. I know that I shall be told that I am wrong, but, still, I venture to express my opinion that the Japanese are savages, but enlightened savages, for they knew that they could by their blood relieve an economic crisis in their country. In Japan before the war I often talked with one of the best educated of Japanese. On my asking if Japan really meant to fight us (I was then under the delusion that Arthur was ready and that our War Office was capable), he thought deeply in an apparent effort to answer me. The question was a serious one, one which every Japanese invariably tried to avoid. I had long intended to put it, but had refrained, knowing from experience that I should only receive the kind of reply of which every Japanese is a past-master--a reply--but not an answer. He thought for five minutes and then said: 'Our nation works differently to the way you work in Europe. Our poor do not know what it is to rest. They are thrifty and sober; they have little to eat, and that little is bad; yet most of them are fairly educated. Machinery is beginning to be largely used everywhere, so that small industries are failing, and the proletariat is increasing daily. Our nation is fond of its country and of the Mikado, and wishes much to eat, drink and read, to multiply and to educate their children, etc.--in fact, to live under conditions of certain refinement.' (He was quite right. I have travelled much, and, with the exception of among the English, I have never seen such refinement and culture in domestic life as with the Japanese. Japan is called the 'Country of the Rising Sun'; I think I should not be far from the truth if I called it the 'Country of Children that Never Cry.') 'Politics have taken a serious turn. We have begun to negotiate with Europe. We commenced to watch, to listen to and to learn from Europe: now we have learnt all that there was to teach. On all our ships and in our factories English engineers have for several years gradually been replaced by our own, and we are running these things ourselves; but what we want is land for our growing population and markets for our industries.