Corean architecture is in a very primitive condition. The castles, fortifications, temples, monasteries and public buildings cannot approach in magnificence those of Japan or China. The country, though boasting hoary antiquity, has few ruins in stone. The dwellings are tiled or thatched houses, almost invariably one story high. In the smaller towns these are not arranged in regular streets, but scattered here and there. Even in the cities and capital the streets are narrow and tortuous. In the rural parts, the houses of the wealthy are embosomed in beautiful groves, with gardens surrounded by charming hedges or fences of rushes or split-bamboo. The cities show a greater display of red-tiled roofs, as only the officials and nobles are allowed this sumptuary honor. Shingles are not much used. The thatching is of rice or barley straw, cut close, with ample eaves, and often finished with great neatness. A low wall of uncemented stone, five or six feet high, surrounds the dwelling, and when kept in repair gives an air of neatness and imposing solidity to the estate. Often a pretty rampart of flat bamboo or rushes, plaited in the herring-bone pattern, surmounts the wall, which may be of pebbles or stratified rock and mortared. Sometimes the rampart is of wattle, covered with smooth white plaster, which, with the gateway, is also surmounted by an arched roofing of tiles. Instead of regular slanting lines of gables, one meets with the curved and pagoda-like roofs seen in China, with a heavy central ridge and projecting ornaments of fire-hardened clay, like the “stirrup” or “devil” tiles of Japan. These curves greatly add to the beauty of a Corean house, because they break the monotony of the lines of Corean architecture. Doors, windows, and lintels are usually rectangular, and are set in regularly, instead of being made odd to relieve the eye, as in Japan. Bamboo is a common material for window-frames. The foundations are laid on stone set in the earth, and the floor of the humble is part of the naked planet. People one grade above the poorest cover the hard ground with sheets of oiled paper, which serve as rugs or a carpet. For the better class a floor of wood is raised a foot or so above the earth, but in the sleeping- and sitting-room of the average family, the “kang” forms a vaulted floor, bed, and stove.