Read "A Secret Agent in Port Arthur" by Wirt Gerrare online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
As every one knows, Port Arthur was named after H. R. H. the Duke of Connaught. It consists of a small land-locked harbour, surrounded by hills, and runs north and south, at the extremity of the Kwan-tung Peninsula. It is entered from the east, between Golden Hill on the north and Weiyuen Hill tapering to the sandspit on which is the Tiger's Tail fort to the south. Directly opposite the entrance is Signal Hill, formerly known as Quail Hill, a comparatively low bluff which divides the new from the old towns. On entering the harbour, to the right are, first, the Admiralty depôts, dock-basin, and dockyard, sheltered from the sea front east by the lofty Golden Hill and loftier Huang-chin, with the heaviest batteries of the fortress; next, the Bund, or water-front, and the commercial quarter; beyond, the old administrative quarter adjoins Signal Hill. On the left is the Tiger's Tail, behind which are coal stores, and moorings for the torpedo-boat flotilla. The deep water of the harbour is between Signal Hill and the Tiger's Tail, extending but a short distance to the south, the great sheet of water in that direction being little more than a mud flat, which in winter is covered with ice, and once had an outlet to the sea between Ching-tan Fort and Liaotishan -- an egress long since silted up with the débris carried down from the hills by the mountain torrents during the spring floods.
The New Town is situated south of Signal Hill, on a plateau rising to the south and west. A magnificent city had been planned, a town on a grand scale, with long avenues, broad streets and fine vistas. A lofty and commodious Administration building had been erected, the Viceroy's Palace was building; there was a colossal hotel -- finished but never opened -- a restaurant, hotel, theatre, various places of public entertainment, some naval and military barracks, many villas, and at least one large retail store. Not one-fifth of this town had been constructed when the war began; hundreds of buildings were being erected.