“ The Korean official is the vampire which sucks the life-blood of the people. We had crossed the Tao-jol, the boundary between the provinces of Kyong-hwi and Hwang-hai, and were then in the latter. Most officials of any standing live in Seoul for pleasure and society, leaving subordinates in charge, and as their tenure of office is very brief, they regard the people within their jurisdiction rather with reference to their squeezeableness than to their capacity for improvement.
Forty Japanese soldiers found a draughty shelter within the tumble-down buildings of the yamen. ”

“ By noon it was impossible to sit on our horses, and we fought the storm on foot. When Im lifted me from my pony I fell down, and it took several men shouting with laughter to set me on my feet again. When Mr. Yi and I spoke to each other, our voices had a bobbery clatter, and sentences broke off halfway in an insane giggle. I felt as if there were hardly another "shot in the locker," but if a traveller "says die," the men lose all heart, so I summoned up all my pluck, took a photograph after the noon halt, and walked on at a good pace. ”

“ During the night, abandoning guns and all war material, the remains of Tso's brigade and all the infantry and unwounded men passed through the deserted and silent city, surged out of the Potong Mon, crossed a shallow stream, and emerged upon a plain girdled by low hills, and intersected by the Peking road, the eastern extremity being occupied by some Chinese forts and breastworks. Tso's cavalry attempted to cross the plain and gain the shelter of some low hills, while great numbers of the infantry took to the Peking road. ”

“ Between the city and the Chinese frontier is the largest and richest plain in Korea; to the east where the violet shadows lay are the valleys of the two branches of the Tai-dong, rich in silk, iron, and cotton, while within 10 miles there are at least five coal-mines1, and for all produce there is easy com- munication with the sea, 36 miles distant, for vessels of light draught, by means of the river which flows below the city wall. ”

“ Timber is rafted down the Tai-dong in summer. The Peking road, which I had followed thus far, and which for centuries has linked Phyong-yang with the outer world and the capital, is another element in the former prosperity of the city. It was to photograph for the widow and family of Gen- eral Tso of Mukden, the commander of the best-disciplined and best-equipped cavalry brigade in the Chinese army, the scenes connected with his last days and death that I visited the hill within the wall. ”

“ It was evident that officials were ex- pected, for the road was being repaired everywhere— that is, spadefuls of soft soil were being taken from the banks and roadsides, and were being thrown into the ruts and holes to deepen the quagmire which the next rain would produce. From four to seven men were working at each spade! A great part of the male population had turned out ; for when an official of rank is to travel, every family in the district must provide one male member or a substitute to put the road in order. ”

“ The battle of Phyong-yang was lost and won when the forts were taken. What remained was less of a battle than a mas- sacre. Before the morning, this force, the flower of the Chi- nese army as to drill and equipment, had perished, those who escaped never reappearing as an organized body. It is esti- mated that from 2,000 to 4,000 men were slain, with thou- sands of horses and bulls, the cavalry being literally mown down in hundreds, and lying, men and horses, heaped " in mounds." For the Japanese had girdled the plain with a ring of fire. ”

“ In Shur-hung the large and once handsome yamen buildings are all but in ruins, and so is the Confucian temple, visited periodically, as all such temples are, by the magistrate, who bows before the tablet of the "most holy teacher" and offers an animal in sacrifice. ”

“ My room was 8 feet by 6, and much occupied by the chattels of the people, besides being alive with cockroaches and other forms of horrid life. The dirt and discomfort in which the peasant Koreans live are incredible. ”

“ Numbers of the wounded crept into the deserted houses and died there, some of the bodies showing indications of suicide from agony, and throughout this mass of human relics which lay blackening and festering in the hot sun, dogs, left behind by their owners, were holding high carnival. ”

“ Every kind is purchasable in these markets, from the beautiful, translucent, buff, oiled paper, nearly equal to vellum in appearance and tenacity, used for the floors of middle- and upper-class houses, and the stout paper for cover- ing walls, to the thin, strong film for writing on, and a beau- tiful fabric, a sort of frothy gauze, for wrapping up delicate fabrics, as well as the coarse fibrous material, used for covering heavy packages, and intermediate grades, applied to every imaginable purpose, such as the making of string, almost all manufactured from the paper mulberry. ”

“ This pottery is of universal use among the poor for cooking-pots, water-jars, refuse-jars, receptacles for grain and pulse, and pickle-jars 5 feet high, roomy enough to hold a man, two of which are a bull's load. At that season these jars were in great request, for the peasant world was oc- cupied, the men in digging up a great hard white radish weighing from 2 to 4 lbs., and the women in washing its great head of partially blanched leaves, which, after being laid aside in these jars in brine, form one great article of a Korean peasant's winter diet. ”

“ But most of the articles, from which one learns a good deal about the necessaries and luxuries required by the Korean, are exposed for sale on low tables or on mats on the ground, the merchant giving the occupant of the house before which he camps a few cash for the accommodation. ”

“ With rich iron ore close to the river bank at Kai Chhon, about 36 h off, the elements of prosperity are ready to hand. The "coal-owners" have no proper appliances for working the coal, relying chiefly on Korean axes, and the "output" is very small. Much money has been spent m trying to get the coal, and in two mines they cannot proceed any farther with their present tools. The difficulties of transport are great, and there is no demand for any quantity in Phyong-yang itself, but the minei^l is there in abundance and of good quality, and only awaits capital and en- terprise. ”

“ The one really fine view of the day is from the crest of a hill just beyond 0-hung-suk Ju, where there is a second defensive gate, with a ruinous wall carried along a ridge for some distance on either side. ”

“ These men travel on regular circuits to the village centres, and are industrious and respectable. A few put up stalls, specially those who sell silks, gauzes, cords for girdles, dress shoes, amber, buttons, silks in skeins, small mirrors, tobacco-pouches, dress combs of tortoise-shell for men's topknots, tape girdles for trousers, boxes with mirror tops, and the like. ”

“ Unwalled towns are supposed to possess such strongholds, with stores of rice and soy^ as refuges in times of invasion or rebellion, but as they have not been required for three centuries, they are now ruinous. ”

“ That region is very thinly peopled, only a few hamlets of squalid hovels being scattered over it, and cultivation was rare and untidy, except in one fine agricultural valley where wheat and barley were springing. No animals, except a breed of pigs not larger than English terriers, were to be seen. ”

“ On these there were villages partly burned and partly depopulated and ruinous, and tracts of the superb soil had passed out of cultivation owing to the flight of the cultivators, and there was a total absence of beasts, the splendid bulls of the region having perished under their loads en route for Man- churia. ”

“ General Tso's troops, demoralized by his death, sought refuge everywhere from the deadly fire of the Japanese, a part flying back to their forts within the wall, while many, prob- ably blinded and desperate, rode along the pine woods which densely cover the broken ground outside, by a path along a wide dry moat, which, three weeks later, when Mr. ”