Desultory fighting is meanwhile reported from the Sha-ho, where, however,
the iron hand of winter seems to have imposed a kind of truce upon the confronting armies. It is rumoured, on the statements of prisoners taken at the capture of the Kee-kwan-shan Fort, that in the fighting at 203-Metre Hill the Russian Generals Kondratchenko and Ilman were killed, and General Pock wounded. In Tokio great numbers of recruits and Reservists are being drilled for despatch to Marshal Oyama, whose army is to be increased to five hundred thousand men ; while preparations are being made for the defence of Formosa and the southern islands against the arrival of the Baltic Fleet. On the Russian side Admiral Skrydloff, the Commander of the Vladivostok Squadron, has been recalled ; and Admiral Mebagatoff is said to have been appointed to the command of the squadron Which will sail from Libau at the end of January, though the Government seems to be still in doubt whether to recall or reinforce Rozhdestvensky. It is announced that the terms of the loan from Berlin have at last been arranged,—the sum being £25,000,000, to be issued at 95 and carry 4i per cent.
interest.
On Christmas Eve it was announced that a section of the blockading fleet at Port Arthur would be released from
