But the people themselves are returning like ghosts to their homes, each robed in white--each and all mute. Without a sound they flit over the roads of the endless graveyard, until they disappear into the depths of some one of the illuminated tombs. I have never been so impressed by any other city I have seen as I was by my first sight of Seoul. As I saw the city just now, by the light of a November moon, dark, dumb, desolate, and ghostly, it resembled some fairy city more than reality; like those storied places sung of in the poetry of almost every people, the tale of which is listened to with such rapture by the little folk of the nursery, who know nothing as yet of life's seamy side. Such a town was Seoul to me, the first few hours after my arrival. Next morning I was aroused by the sound of drums and trumpets. But whose? Do they belong to the ghosts? What can have happened that the home of silence should have been disturbed by such an awful uproar? I hasten to my window. The long street, the square, every inch of ground, is occupied by soldiers. These are short and yellow, wearing a black uniform, the black cloth of which, set off by a broad red collar and contrasted with the yellow faces, makes a motley colour-scheme, almost like a chequered field. The men seem to like it. If the mixture serves no other purpose it offers an excellent target for an enemy, which was probably the idea of its inventors. The din continues. The trumpets blare, and these black, red, and yellow little people, like tin soldiers, keep moving before me; to and fro, up one street and down another they go, like stage-property soldiers, now appearing on and again disappearing from the stage--always the same supers; but one would think they were a mighty army. And all the time the bayonets flash on the rifle-barrels, whose weight seems rather too much for the little men. The drums still beat, and fanfares ring out on the frosty morning. What has happened? Has the coronation not been postponed after all? Is the Emperor at last inaugurating the long-awaited festivities? I ring the bell, and a servant, dressed in white, and wearing a pigtail twisted up in a knot, enters. His long coat is of linen, his head covered by a hat of horsehair, which resembles in shape the wire lid used to protect preserves from flies. This quaint servant seems more surprised at my question than I at his livery. "But the army has been reorganized by European officers. It has been taught, in the Western style, to march, manoeuvre, and kill, and for the performance of this gay farce new taxes have been raised. And now you, a European, coming from the West, ask, with obvious irony, 'What does this all mean?'"