The king rarely leaves the palace to go abroad in the city or country. When he does, it is a great occasion which is previously announced to the public. The roads are swept clean and guarded to prevent traffic or passage while the royal cortége is moving. All doors must be shut and the owner of each house is obliged to kneel before his threshold with a broom and dust-pan in his hand as emblems of obeisance. All windows, especially the upper ones, must be sealed with slips of paper, lest some one should look down upon his majesty. Those who think they have received unjust punishment enjoy the right of appeal to the sovereign. They stand by the roadside tapping a small flat drum of hide stretched on a hoop like a battledore. The king as he passes hears the prayer or receives the written petition held in a split bamboo. Often he investigates the grievance. If the complaint is groundless the petitioner is apt to lose his head. The procession for pleasure or a journey, as it leaves the palace, is one of the grandest spectacles the natives ever witness. His body-guard and train amount to many thousand persons. There are two sedan chairs made exactly alike, and in which of them the king is riding no one knows except the highest ministers. They must never be turned round, but have a door to open at both ends. The music used on such occasions is—to a Corean ear—of a quiet kind, and orders are given along the line by signals made with pennons. In case of sudden emergencies, when it is necessary to convey an order from the rear to the front or far forward of the line, the message is sent by means of an arrow, which, with the writing attached, is shot from one end of the line to the other.