The Coreans excel and even surpass themselves in cooking rice. This is almost an art with them, and the laurels for high achievements in it belong to the women, for it is to them that work of this kind is entrusted. Sometimes the Cho-senese make a kind of pastry, but they have nothing at all resembling our bread. Rice takes the place of the last mentioned, and though, so far as I could see, the fair ladies of Cho-sen were somewhat casual in the exercise of the culinary art, they really took enormous trouble to boil the rice properly. It is first well washed in a large pail, and properly cleaned; then it undergoes a process of slow boiling in plenty of water in such a way that, while quite soft and delicious to the taste, each grain retains its shape and remains separate, instead of making the kind of paste produced by our method of boiling it. The whitish water left behind after the rice has been removed is, as we have seen, used as a cooling beverage. In some respects the Corean diet approaches the Chinese and the Indian, rather than the Japanese; for many a time have I seen men in Corea eat their rice mixed with meat and fish, well covered with strong sauce, in the shape of a _curry_; whereas in Japan the boiled rice is always in a bowl apart and eaten separately. The Corean mind seems to lay great stress upon the quantity of food that the digestive organs will bear. Nothing gives more satisfaction to a Corean than to be able to pat his tightly-stretched stomach, and, with a deep sigh of relief, say: "Oh, how much I have eaten!" Life, according to them, would not be worth living if it were not for eating. Brought up under a régime of this kind, it is not astonishing that their capacity for food is really amazing. I have seen a Corean devour a luncheon of a size that would satisfy three average Europeans, and yet after that, when I was anxiously expecting to see him burst, fall upon a large dish of dried persimmons, the heaviest and most indigestible things in existence. "They look very good," said he, as he quickly swallowed one, and with his supple fingers undid the beautiful bow of his girdle and loosened it, thus apparently providing for more space inside. "I shall eat one or two," he murmured, as he was in the act of swallowing the second; and, in less than no time the whole of the fruit had passed from the dish into his digestive organs, and he was intently gathering up, with the tips of his licked fingers, the few grains of sugar left at the bottom of the dish. "I was unwell and had no appetite to-day," he then innocently remarked, as he lifted up his head. "Oh, I hope you will come again when you are quite well," said I, "but you must promise not to eat the table, because it does not belong to me."