Yet with this provision for locomotion, the country is very deficient in houses for public accommodation. Inns are to be found only along the great highways, and but rarely along the smaller or sequestered roads. This want arises, perhaps, not so much from the poverty of the people, as from the fact that their proverbial hospitality does away with the necessity of numerous inns. The Coreans have been so often represented, or rather misrepresented, as inhospitable, fierce, and rude by foreigners, that to give an inside view of them as seen through information gathered from the French missionaries in Corea is a pleasant task. From them we may learn how much the white-coated peninsulars are like their cousins, the Japanese, and that human nature in good average quantity and quality dwells under the big hats of the Coreans. The traveller usually takes his provisions along with him, but he need not eat it out-doors. As he sits along the wayside, he will be invited into some house to warm his food. When obliged to go some distance among the mountains to cut wood or make charcoal, a man is sure to find a hut in which he can lodge. He has only to bring his rice. The villagers will cook it for him, after adding the necessary pickles or sauces. Even the oxen, except during the busy season, are easily obtained on loan. The great virtue of the Coreans is their innate respect for and daily practice of the laws of human brotherhood. Mutual assistance and generous hospitality among themselves are distinctive national traits. In all the important events of life, such as marriages and funerals, each one makes it his duty to aid the family most directly interested. One will charge himself with the duty of making purchases; others with arranging the ceremonies. The poor, who can give nothing, carry messages to friends and relatives in the near or remote villages, passing day and night on foot and giving their labors gratuitously. To them, the event is not a mere personal matter, but an affair of public interest. When fire, flood, or other accident destroys the house of one of their number, neighbors make it a duty to lend a hand to rebuild. One brings stone, another wood, another straw. Each, in addition to his gifts in material, devotes two or three days’ work gratuitously. A stranger, coming into a village, is always assisted to build a dwelling.