The kang is characteristic of the human dwelling in northeastern Asia. It is a kind of tubular oven, in which human beings, instead of potatoes, are baked. It is as though we should make a bedstead of bricks, and put foot-stoves under it. The floor is bricked over, or built of stone over flues, which run from the fireplace, at one end of the house, to the chimney at the other. The fire which boils the pot or roasts the meat is thus utilized to warm those sitting or sleeping in the room beyond. The difficulty is to keep up a regular heat without being alternately chilled or smothered. With wood fuel this is almost impossible, but by dint of tact and regulated draught may be accomplished. As in the Swedish porcelain stove, a pail of live coals keeps up a good warmth all night. The kangs survive in the kotatsù of Japan. The “fire” in sentiment and fact is the centre of the Corean home, and the native phrase, “he has put out his fire,” is the dire synonym denoting that a man is not only cold and fasting, but in want of the necessities of life. Bed-clothes are of silk, wadded cotton, thick paper, and tiger, wolf, or dog skins, the latter often sewn in large sheets like a carpet. Comfort, cleanliness, and luxury make the bed of the noble on the warm brick in winter, or cool matting in summer; but with the poor, the cold of winter, and insects of summer, with the dirt and rags, make sleeping in a Corean hut a hardship. Cushions or bags of rice-chaff form the pillows of the rich. The poor man uses a smooth log of wood or slightly raised portion of the floor to rest his head upon. “Weariness can snore upon the flint when resty sloth finds the down pillow hard.” Three rooms are the rule in an average house. These are for cooking, eating, and sleeping. In the kitchen the most noticeable articles are the ang-pak, or large earthen jars, for holding rice, barley, or water. Each of them is big enough to hold a man easily. The second room, containing the kang, is the sleeping apartment, and the next is the best room or parlor. Little furniture is the rule. Coreans, like the Japanese, sit, not cross-legged, but on their heels. Among the well-to-do, dog-skins, or kat-tei, cover the floor for a carpet, or splendid tiger-skins serve as rugs. Matting is common, the best being in the south.