WAR PICTURES.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 1414, 22 November 1904, Page 3

WAR PICTURES.

SOME SCENES AND INCIDENTS IN THE MANCHURTAN CAMPAIGN. Writing to his paper from Kaiping a few weeks ago, Mr George Lynch, ■the 'Daily Chronicle' war correspondent, said:— 1 left Talienwan this morning- after' an early breakfast. It was a glorious morning, overcast, but promising to be a very hot day. Just as I was going to breakfast, I saw the Jaouncse cm-respondents start on loot, their baggage being carried in two carts. There was much confusion, excitement, excursions, and alarms at the departure of the correspondents. The horses, after their long journey from lokio by rail and sea, and some of them suffering from too" great exuberance of spirits, my horse being- amongst the latter class. Passing between two large old Chinese forts with red clay walls, wo debouched out on the main road. It was lined with an endless stream of bullock-earls, niulecarls. donkey-carts, or carts drawn by some combination of all llvso. 'there uas no room on the road, so we had to skirt alongside. The way the Japanese have organised the Chinese cart transport is verv good. Without the Chinese it look's . as if it would have been impossible for them to have kept such a large army in the field supplied. They have a largo supply of light Handcarts (o be drawn by two men. hut at various places we passed large numbers of them which were not being used. Another means of transport they have is by Chinese wheelbarrows, and long lines of these creaking vehicles we passed with one coolie at the handles and one pulling a rope from the front. All along our route for this day's journey the Japanese have narrowed the gauge to suit some Japanese engines they | lU ve brought over. They have, done this by moving one of the rails, the Trans-Siberian and .Manehurian gauge being live feet .wide. It is curious to see this path of empire, by means of which the Russians occupied and annexed Manchuria, now being used by the Japanese to compel (hem to evacuate it. All day we passed through a hilly country shimmering with a glorious harvest in a clear brilliant sunlight, such as England never knows. No garments worn by any fields surpass in splendor the tall, waving kowliang. now u'bont seven feet high, whose lo'ng succulent leaves of most vivid green irli.-ten as (heir plume-like cre-ts bow before the light summer breeze. The wonderful fertility of this region is explained by the enormous depth of the rich soil. A( one place our road lay along the bed of a mountain stream which had cut down its hanks sheer to.- fifty to sixty feet in places without getting at the bottom of this layer of soil. This is the surface gold mine which has made China rich for thousands of years back, as it v.ill for ages to come. .About three o'clock we arrived at the battlefield of Nanshan. Tt is the narrowest part of the isthmus where just South of the neck a group of hills with plain, even slopes, devoid of any vestige of Cover, offer an absolutely ideal position for defence. The captured Russian guns are now lined up flown behind (he back of (he hills, and (here are none left in position, the Japanese evidently ignoring all possibility of their ever'having to retire there. 'As an evidence of the • Japanese cocksurcdness, 1 know that over a month ago they had tickets printed in Tokio for use'on (he- Manchurian railwav. Whether it was strategicallv advisable for the Russians to defend Nanshan as a main positon or not, itwas unquestionably a brilliant achievement for the Japanese to have taken if across such a wide, unprotected, lire-swept area. The contractor who had undertaken to cater for the correspondents was considerably in the rear even when we arrived at Chinchou, and eighteen hungry men were impatiently consigning him to perdition for two hours until he arrived. We slept in a big, comfortable Cnineso house, but here, as 'throughout the country, rvei'y house was simply swarming with Hies and mosquitoes. We started next morning juat after daybreak : again a glorious morning'-, again through waving fields of glorious harvest ; again crossing streams of warm water, and ever on (he track, with the double stream, of laden carls going tip and leturned empties coining down. The quiet peacefulness of the, surrounding country was in strange contrast to thai laboring, straining path of war—a narrow path by which an armv is being sfeadilv and surelv fed. gathering together its concentrated strength, which now, after the evacuation of Haichcng. should reach the focus-point of conflict at Liaoyang.