Koreans call it “the rat disease,” believing that cramps are rats gnawing and crawling inside the legs, going up till the heart is reached; so they offer prayers to the spirit of the cat, hang a paper cat on the house door, and rub their cramps with a cat’s skin. They offered prayers and sacrifices in various high places to the heavens--Hananim--and some of the streets in infected districts were almost impassable on account of ropes stretched across, about five feet high, at intervals of about every twenty-five feet, to which paper prayers were attached. As my coolies, trying to pass along with my chair, broke one of these, I could not help admonishing the owner who came to its rescue, “_Better put them up a little higher_.” Aye, put them up higher, poor Korean brother, they are far too near the earth! One of the most pathetic sights in connection with this plague were these poor, wind-torn, rain-bedraggled, paper prayers, hanging helplessly everywhere, the offering of blind superstition to useless dumb gods who can neither pity nor hear. “They reach lame hands of faith and grope And gather dust and chaff.” Early in August it was decided, as the plague seemed on the increase, to fill the “Shelter” with cholera patients, and Dr. Avison assigned to Dr. Wells, Mr. Underwood and myself the supervision and care of this place. The “Shelter,” situated on a good high site outside the walls, with a number of comfortable rooms, with the possibility of hot floors (which proved an unspeakable benefit to the poor cold, pulseless sick), seemed an ideal place for the purpose. It was not very large, it is true, but as most of our patients were either quickly cured or quickly succumbed, we were able to receive a goodly number. Mr. Underwood and Dr. Wells worked indefatigably, stocking it with everything obtainable which could be of use. My husband arranged for a corps of voluntary native nurses. As the only missionaries available were at work elsewhere, and we had seen too much of hired native official nurses, he decided to ask some of his Christian helpers to do this service for the love of Christ. Cholera is a loathsome disease, only love makes it easy to nurse faithfully and tenderly these poor afflicted creatures, without overwhelming disgust.