Korea, as we see on the map, lies at the furthest eastern extremity of the Asiatic continent. It is a peninsula in the shape of an irregular oblong. Its frontiers on three sides are formed by the Japanese and the Yellow seas, and only on the north does a short strip of land divide it from Manchuria. Its area is eighty thousand square miles. The aspect of the country is of great variety, extremely mountainous, just here and there intersected by valleys. Some of the peaks are over seven thousand feet high; but what is more striking than their height is their formation. They are all very rich in mines, and the valleys are extremely fertile, and yet Korea has been, within the memory of man, one of the poorest countries of the world. The mines have never been worked, and the ground yields just enough for daily food. Various reasons for this have been assigned. The mines have not been worked because the Government feared that the gathering together of so many workmen at far-away districts would be favourable to revolutions. A crowd was considered a danger to the reigning family. And I have been told that the cause of the scanty cultivation of the fields is that it is not worth while to have much grain stored in the granaries, for in that case it would surely be confiscated by the Government officials. The larger rivers, like the Yalu and the Han, would afford excellent means of communication, but navigation is as yet practically unknown. The natural bays could easily afford harbour accommodation for all the fleets of the world, but, except the few open ports, they are only visited by some miserable native wooden junks, and a few Japanese or Chinese fishing-boats. The climate is excellent; cold, of course, in the winter, but bright and dry; and the heat is never as oppressive in summer as it is in the same latitudes further inland. The natural advantages are plentiful in every respect: the rainfall is sufficient to secure the watering of the fields, the snow in winter protects the ground for several months, and there is bright sunshine in the summer to ripen the most beautiful fruit and grapes; but the refreshing sea-breezes prevent it from being too hot.