Port Arthur. Years ago the
Chinese had what they believed to be an impregnable fortress in Port
Arthur, but the wily Japanese battered it down in twenty-four hours.
Later on the Russians got it and worked seven years on the
fortifications and gun emplacements and really felt that they had it
secure. Although the forts were built on the Belgian plan and Port
Arthur was as secure as Antwerp, yet the unconquerable Japanese took it
with a loss of only a thousand or fifteen hundred men. Nature has been
kind to Port Arthur by throwing up the mountains of "The Chair," "The
Table," and the "Lion's Mane," but the best defense that nature provides
has to give way before the genius of the human brain.

Only a little more than four miles from Port Arthur is the city of
Dalney, also called Dairen. It is a beautiful little city of fifty or
sixty thousand people with a good street car system and many modern
buildings. On landing I went to the Yamato hotel and found comfortable
quarters at a reasonable price. The South Manchurian railway operates a
string of these Yamato hotels. This is a Japanese railway and operates
with a steamship line crossing the Yellow Sea and the great
Trans-Siberian railroad, or rather did so before the world war. In Dalny
I found a good Y. M. C. A. building with an American secretary. This
association has good buildings in nearly every large oriental city
especially if it is near the coast. One can hardly realize the debt of
gratitude civilization owes to this organization. These buildings are
oases on the great oriental desert where the American traveler can find
rest and a quiet home.

At the close of the war between Russia and Japan by the treaty of
Portsmouth, Russia agreed to transfer to Japan without compensation and
with the consent of the Chinese Government, the South Manchurian Railway
between Port Arthur and Changchun, a distance of four hundred and
thirty-six miles, "together with all rights, privileges, and properties
appertaining thereto in that region, as well as all coal mines in said
region belonging to or worked for the benefit of the railway." The
Chinese Government also agreed not to construct any parallel lines that
would injure the interests of this railway, so the Japanese have an iron
hold upon the whole proposition.

To travel the full extent of this railway in the late fall is an
interesting experience. The soil is of a reddish color and the fall
plowing was already done. The metho