Already The Japanese Had Wasted Six Months Of My Time And Six Months Of Mr. Collier's Money, Mr. Fox Had Been Bottled Up For A Period Of Equal Length, While Mr. Prior And Mr. Lynch Had Been Prisoners In Tokio For Even Four Months Longer.

And now that Okabe assured us that Liao-Yang was already taken, and Oku told us if there were any fighting we would not be allowed to witness it, it seemed a good time to quit.

Other correspondents would have quit then, as most of them did ten days later, but that their work and ours in a slight degree differed. As we were not working for daily papers, we used the cable but seldom, while they used it every day. Each evening Okabe brought them the official account of battles and of the movements of the troops, which news of events which they had not witnessed they sent to their separate papers. But for our purposes it was necessary we should see things for ourselves. For, contrary to the popular accusation, no matter how flattering it may be, we could not describe events at which we were not present.

But what mainly moved us to decide, was the statements of Okabe, the officer especially detailed by the War Office to aid and instruct us, to act as our guide, philosopher, and friend, our only official source of information, who told us that Liao-Yang was occupied by the Japanese and that the Russians were in retreat.

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