Those that were on the beach were in a very perfect state, and as soon as we had rendered them harmless, we made prisoners of war of them.

Now I have been since informed of what went on outside Batoum.

It seems that for three nights two fast Russian steamers, carrying torpedo boats, had been looking for Batoum, and as one of my informants said, 'We could not find it for love or money.' A couple of hours before daylight they had steamed off, so as to be out of sight before break of day.

At last they had bribed a man to light a fire in the hills behind the town, and so on the fourth night they got somewhere near it, but they could not make out the ships on account of the _dark land behind_ them.

The time for steaming off having nearly come, they determined to have a shot at us, so fired five torpedoes into what they thought the centre of the Turkish fleet, with what result we have seen.