THE CHINO-JAPANESE WAR. 1894—95. 618 course of the day, transferred his flag to her sister ship, the Chen- Yuen. mass of such things as guncotton and detonators, snow-white linen, bottles of sweets and cigarettes." In thefollowing night (that betweenFebruary 5th and 6th) the Japanese madeanother torpedo attack. This time the First Flotilla— composed of theKolaka and Nos. 7, II, 13 and 23— came in by the gap in the eastern entrance, while the six boats that remained out of the Second and Third Flotillas made a demonstration off the western entrance. The Kotaka led the actual attack. Followed by the four smaller boats, she passed through the gap and then ran on in the shadow of the shore round theinner part of the bay till she reached a point south-east of the town of Wei-hai-wei. The Chinese were not even aware that the enemy's boats werein the harbour. The flotilla then turned to starboard andsteered for theChinese fleet,coming from a direction from which ho attack was expected. They wereonly observedas theyfired their first torpedoes, when the Chinese opened on them withrifles and machine-guns. They fired in all seventorpedoesand got away without receiving any damage. Three ships were sunk at their anchors. One was the protected cruiser Lai-Yuen, which had been so terribly injured by fire at the Yalu fight, but had since been repaired and had takenher full share in the fighting. The others werea small cruiser, the Wai-Yucn, used as a training ship, and a despatch boat, thePa-Hua. TheLai-Yuencapsized, and in the morningher bottom showed above the water. Some of her unfortunate crewhad been imprisoned inside of her, and during the day they were heard knocking as a signal for help. With infinite labour the plates of the ship's double bottom were cut through. But the rescue came too late. All inside were found dead. The Ching-Yuen, another of the cruisers, had a narrow escape,a torpedo exploding close alongside of her,but doing only trifling damage. She wascommanded by an Englishman, Wood, an old British blue-jacket formerly in the Chinese Customs department, who had offered his services to the navy on the outbreak of the war.

Of the remainingboatsof the flotilla,No. 18 damaged her rudder by collision either with the rocks or the boom, and was towed out of action by her consort No. 14. During the attack the Japanese had lost nineteen men and two boats. Two others were so badly injured that they had to be sent toPort Arthur for repairs.

But,on the other hand, they had succeeded in sinking the Ting-Yuen. She had been run into shallow water,and during nextday she was gradually going down. To quote once more the British officer's narrative:— "Divers were sent down, and patches were prepared to cover the holes;but it was found impossible to do anything, though tlae divers reported that the hole was only five feet square. In the meantime, in spite of the large centrifugal pumps and watertight doors, the large compartments of the ship gradually filled up, watertight doors leaking,bulkheads giving way, till engine-rooms and all four stokeholds were flooded. We had hoped that one of the stokeholdsmight be kept clear,and thus enable us to have steam for the heavy guns, but by about three o'clockin the afternoonthe last fare was extinguished. The use of the ship as a stationary fort was now, of course, greatly impaired, but the hand-gear of the barbettes wasconnectedup. As the tide went down,the after-part of the ship sank in the mud, so that the ship was inclined in a fore and aft direction, and thus rendered it exceedingly difficult to work the guns. (The Japanesefleet kept out of range on this day, and did not give us an opportunity ofmaking a last fight with the poor ship.) By the eveningthe gun-platform was so much inclined that we could not align our sightsat an object 1,000 yards off. We stuck to the ship, however, as our quick-firing guns wouldbe of use in case of'a torpedo attack to the north of I-tao. The water was now above the main deck aft. There was no fare in the galley, there was no fresh water, no food, and the thermometer showed twenty-seven degrees of frost."

Next day, February 6th, Admiral Ito, who had already landed a small party under cover of his guns on the north side of Liu-kungIsland, where thehigh ground protected them fromthe fire of the fortsand the Chinese fleet,reinforced them with a strong body of seamen and marines and somemachine-guns and field pieces. It was hoped that they wouldbe able to co-operate in the subsequent operations by bringing fire to It would seem that the shock of the torpedo explosion had so shaken the whole ship as to make the watertight doors leaky and weaken the bulkheads that formed the various compartments. Thus the watergradually forced its way into every part of her. Admiral Ting, in the