Whang-hai was never reckoned by the missionaries as among their most promising fields, yet on their map we count fifteen or more signs of the cross, betokening the presence of their converts, and its soil, like that of the other provinces, has more than once been reddened by the blood of men who preferred to die for their convictions, rather than live the worthless life of the pagan renegade. Most of the victims suffered at Hai-chiu, the capital, though Whang-chiu, in the north, shares the same sinister fame in a lesser degree. The people of Whang-hai are said, by the Seoul folks, to be narrow, stupid, and dull. They bear an ill name for avarice, bad faith, and a love of lying quite unusual even among Coreans. The official enumeration of houses and men fit for military duty, is 103,200 of the former and 87,170 of the latter. KIUNG-KEI, OR THE CAPITAL PROVINCE. Kiung-kei, the smallest of the eight circuits, is politically the royal or court province, and physically the basin of the largest river inside the peninsula. The tremendous force of its current, and the volume of its waters bring down immense masses of silt annually. Beginning at a point near the capital, wide sand-banks are formed, which are bare at low water, but are flooded in time of rain, or at the melting of the spring snows. The tides rise to the height of twenty or thirty feet, creating violent eddies and currents, in which the management of ships is a matter of great difficulty. The Han is navigable for foreign vessels, certainly as far as the capital, as two French men-of-war proved in 1866, and it may be ascended still farther in light steamers. The causes of the violence, coldness, and rapidity of the currents of Han River (called Salt or Salée on our charts), which have baffled French and American steamers, will be recognized by a study of its sources. The head waters of this stream are found in the distant province of Kang-wen, nearly the whole breadth of the peninsula from the mouth. Almost the entire area of this province of the river-sources, including the western watershed of the mountain range that walls the eastern coast, is drained by the tributaries which form the river, which also receives affluents from two other provinces. Pouring their united volume past the capital, shifting channels and ever new and unexpected bars and flats are formed, rendering navigation, and especially warlike naval operations, very difficult. Its channel is very hard to find from the sea. The French, in 1845, attempting its exploration, were foiled. Like most rivers in Chō-sen, the Han has many local names.