17th May.
Tue Second Japanese' Army, landed recently between Pitsewo' and Cape Terminal under the command of General Baron Oku, has detached portion of its force for the reduction of Port Arthur. With the possibility of the Russian Baltic fleet getting out here some time this summer, the Japanese cannot afford merely to isolate Port Arthur and allow it: perish of inanition, It is evidently to be attacked by sea and land, the Japanese having the experience of their war with China to guide them.
The key of the land attack: on Port, Arthur is at Kinchou, the neck of the promontory on which Port Arthur and Dalny are situated. This neck is something under two-anda-half miles broad, and the two: roads, the southern one from Pitsewo and the northern one from Pulantien (Port Adams), pass through the town of Kinchou. his is a walled town which in the war with China was taken by the Japanese without the loss of a single life, and thence' the Tupanese passed on by the two roads, which diverged again, to the attack on the forts on the land side of Port Arthur. Since the Rissians obtained possession of Port Arthur, they have fortified the neck of land at' Kinchou. 'Their guns command the approach by land from' the northéeast, and they also coniatind the approach by: land from the south-west, towards Port Arthur. Owing to' the shallowness of. Society Bay, large' men-of-war cannot get near enough' to bombard "Kinchou effectively from the north-west; but there is plenty of water in Talienwan' Bay on the southeast, on which' Dalny''is situated, Plans were drawn some time ago for fortifying Talienwan Bay, including the constriction of a fort' onan "artificial island in the entrance, which is nearly eight (nautical) miles wide between West Entry' Point and: Probyn Head, but these plans have never been executed, and as soon asthe torpedo-boats have' succeeded: in removing all the mines towhich the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.