The trip from Chemulpo to Seoul, about twenty-eight miles, was made the following day, in a Sedan-chair carried by four coolies. The road, although a much traveled one, was very bad, but is now replaced by a railroad which accomplishes the distance in about two hours and a half. The country I found pleasantly rolling--comparatively few trees were seen, and the population thereabout seemed quite sparse. Here and there were squalid mud huts thatched with straw. I found on inquiry that this little land, lying west of Japan, attached at its northern extremity to China and Siberia, has an area of about ninety thousand square miles and a population of over fourteen millions of people, with a climate varying from that in the north, like northern New York, to that in the extreme south, like southern Virginia. We approached Seoul about four o’clock in the afternoon, and I was thrilled at the sight of the first walled town I had ever beheld. The walls are very picturesque--built of great blocks of stone--hung with ivy, and give an impression of great age. At the time of my arrival, and for some few years after, a very interesting custom was in vogue with regard to the closing of these gates. Korea had for centuries a signal fire service, by which news of peace or war was with telegraphic rapidity conveyed to Seoul, and by number, frequency of repetition and other expedients a tolerably useful code had been established. On the south mountain, within the walls, were four beacons, one for each point of the compass, to which these lines converged. Every evening as soon as the sun had set, when the bright glow of these four beacon fires published the fact that all was well in his majesty’s dominions, four officials, whose business it was to report to the king the message of the fires, presented themselves at the palace, and with low obeisance, each announced that all was well in the north--in the south--the east--and the west. On this, the palace band struck up its gayest airs, and when this music was heard, the signal was given for the tolling of the great curfew bell in the center of the city. When the extremely sweet and solemn, low and yet penetrating tones of this bell were heard, the ponderous gates were swung to and barred, not to be reopened till the ringing of the same bell at the first streak of dawn gave the signal to the keepers. Entering through these gates, fortunately not yet closed, we saw narrow, filthy streets, flanked by low mud houses, either thatched with straw, or tiled. It has been aptly said that the city looks like a vast bed of mushrooms, since none of the Korean houses are built more than one story high.