Japanese soldiers retiring from a forage

Japanese soldiers retiring from a forage

131

The group of Japanese soldiers in the center of the picture are returning from a foraging expedition in the nearby Manchurian villages. Their trip evidently has not been very successful, as the first man is carrying nothing but an old biscuit can and some cooking pots. None but the poorest Manchurians had remained on the narrow peninsula on which Dalny and Port Arthur are situated, and what the Russians left, as they gradually fell back from Nanshan Hill to Port Arthur, was hardly worth mentioning. The peninsula furnished nothing, and, although the Japanese government had an excellent system of providing supplies, it would have been impossible to sustain the army here except for the utter wantlessness of the Japanese soldier, who existed for months on rations on which an American would starve within a week. The Japanese soldier on the right is a guard stationed at the little well of water to prevent its contamination. Above a certain point it was not allowed to use the water except for drinking and cooking purposes.

1 stereograph. 2 photomechanical prints on stereo card : halftone, stereograph, color ; 9 x 18 cm

1905 Ingersoll, T.W.

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