For even with the
incompleted defenses the place was tremendously strong. Everywhere I
could see the most elaborate plans incomplete. For instance, as I
wandered through the hills seeking my botanical specimens, I found
that the chain of forts on the hills of the Quang Tong peninsula south
and west of Dalny, were totally unfinished and that the Kuan Ling
section of the Port Arthur and Dalny railway was not even adequately
protected from capture by a hostile force. The lack of adequate
supervision and the general slovenliness prevailing made it easy for
me to go about unchallenged. I mixed freely with officers and men.
The expenditure of a few rubles on _vodka_, in the case of the men,
and the never-rejected invitation on the part of most officers to join
in a jamboree, made me a very popular figure indeed. Through them I
learned that the provisions of Port Arthur were in a most deplorable
state. To use but one instance: Out of 1,420,000 pounds of flour,
nearly one-half was bad with sour cords, which caused part of the
enormous amount of sickness even then prevailing in the Port Arthur
garrison. During the war forty-five per cent. of the troops were
incapacitated because of unsanitary food. I found 600,000 pounds of
maize were wormy and over 700,000 pounds of corned beef were putrid.
Women and wine, however, abounded.
Never in any place--and I know all the gayest and fastest places on
earth--have I seen, comparatively speaking, such an enormous amount of
wine in stock, or such a number of demi-mondaines assembled.
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