At Hong-Kong many of the men, including myself, had suffered much from
prickly heat, which had developed in many cases into huge heat boils. It
was very strange how rapidly these irruptions cured themselves directly
we reached the cool, clear atmosphere of the coast of Japan.

Elaborate preparations had been made for our reception, insomuch that we
were the first contingent of Allied troops to arrive at Vladivostok. Two
Japanese destroyers were to have acted as our escort from the lighthouse
outside, but they were so busy charting the whole coastline for future
possibilities that they forgot all about us until we had arrived near
the inner harbour, when they calmly asked for our name and business.
Early next morning, August 3, they remembered their orders and escorted
us to our station at the wharf, past the warships of the Allied nations
gaily decorated for the occasion.

At 10 A.M. a battalion of Czech troops, with band and a guard of honour
from H.M.S. _Suffolk_, with Commodore Payne, R.N., Mr. Hodgson, the
British Consul, the President of the Zemstrov Prava, and Russian and
Allied officials, were assembled on the quay to receive me. As I
descended the gangway ladder the Czech band struck up the National
Anthem, and a petty officer of the _Suffolk_ unfurled the Union Jack,
while some of the armed forces came to the present and others saluted.
It made quite a pretty, interesting and immensely impressive scene. The
battalion at once disembarked, and led by the Czech band and our
splendid sailors from the _Suffolk_, and accompanied by a tremendous
crowd of people, marched through the town to a saluting point opposite
the Czech Headquarters, where parties of Czech, Cossack and Russian
troops, Japanese, American and Russian sailors were drawn up, all of
whom (except the Japanese) came to the present as we passed, while