HARROWING PICTURE OF A BATTLEFIELD.

Otago Witness, Issue 2630, 10 August 1904, Page 30

HARROWING PICTURE OF A BATTLEFIELD.

Terrible details of the wounds inflicted by Japanese arms are beginning to be published in the Russian newspapers. A letter from a Captain SchulU describes the baLtlefield of Kin-len-eheng as follows: — " Where the 11th Regiment made its final stand corpses lay like sheaves. But more terrible far than the aspect of the placid dead was the open-air hospital of rent and pierced, but yet living bodies, which writhed in the Earning sun. " Delirium "had seised many of our poor men whose wounds had not been attended to. I felt an irresistible desire to vomit. . A coruoral who had distinguished himself in the battle had his hair and clothes completely torn off by a shell explosion, and beside him a doctor bent over a tortured mass of flesh and extracted tunic buttons from the man's abdomen. " When the doctor approached, this unfortunate had raised himself on his elbcw and saized a broken bayonet. His delirious mind pictured his deliverer as a Japanese about to despatch him. . . . " It is a mlstaka to think that our modern magazine rifles are all humane. Japanese bulled fired at close range- on entering a blood-vessel produce effects similar lo those inflicted by explosive bullets, and many of our men accuse >he Japanese of using such bullets.

"A m-ivate in my company, who was shot with a rifle bullet in the chest, had his heart blown out of his body. This bullet was fired at a range of about 200 yards. It is the bullets fired at long range which inflict sight wounds. "' Of the three women who were with oiu* field hospital, one (Nurse Zelionoff) was killed under most awful circumstances. She was assisting a staff-officer of Kashtalinsky's when, in the very act of pouring 'water down his throat, a shell tore the pannikin out of . her hand, and, striking the slope behind, blew both to atoms. . . . Some of our officers were no unnerved by the carnage that during the retreat they wept like- women."

The Jewish Gazette of New York, having ret (-ill ly made, representations direct to the Government of Japa.n with the object of securing good treatment for t<he Jewish soldiers of the K-assian army who should be taken prisoners, reoeivo-d a reply through the- Japanese Ambassador at Washington to the effect that "special friendship of the higlwt degree"' would be extended to Jewish prisoners.

l\vo interesting Maori relics (says the Auckland Herald), which formed part of the property of the Native chief Ngakapa, who recently died at Miranda, near tn<> Thames, are^now on view ar, the Auckland office of the Tourist Department. They consi=c of the elegantly-carved sternposrs of the canoes Hurawhenua and Te Auo Rang-uaiki, which were Yiell known as having- taken part in many of the intertribal troubles in the wast history of the Maoris. It is stated that the eanoea were among those which brought the original Native settlers of New Zealand from Hawahki, but whether thi« report is founded on anything moie than supposition is not ascerlaiuable. The timber certainly does not bear evidence of any such great age. The posts, which aro about sft in length, ai*e in an excellent state of preservation. Thi^y are bcaut'fully carved, and are altogether admirable specimens of early Native skill and industry.

Section 16 \, Parnego settlement, near Bak'lutha, containing 550 acres 2 roods 13poles, was op-ened for selection at the Lands Office on Monday uEcler the 1-ease in perpetuity system. Only one application w^as received for the land, the applicant being George Diack, of Kaikorai