All the legations ordered up troops from the port where our gunboats lay, for our protection, although it is difficult to see how, in a case of serious danger, such small numbers would be of any service. There were fifty Russians, forty Americans, forty English and nine German marines. The natives, high and low, were in a state of panic. The nobility fled from their homes in large numbers and in all sort of disguises, and sought refuge at the foreign legations, or in the country; and to the country the common people started _en masse_. Every shop was closed, the city had the look of a plague-infested place. A solemn procession of men, women, chairs, pack-ponies, a continuous throng, in dead silence, with rapid steps, and set, terror-stricken faces, poured through the main thoroughfares and out of the gates. Many pathetic little groups were to be seen; little children, whose parents in wild fear had deserted or lost them in the crowd, trotting along with tear-stained faces, alone; women with babies on their backs and babies hanging at their skirts; men carrying all their worldly goods on their shoulders, here and there coolies with the chair of some frightened rich man or fine lady, shoving aside the crowd. High and low, rich and poor, hurrying away from the dreaded Japanese, the ancient enemy of their nation. How it made one realize the great multitude of unsaved peoples, pushing its way along the broad road and through the wide gate that leads to destruction. “And when he beheld the multitudes he had compassion on them as sheep having no shepherd.” The servants in every family gave notice; they dared not stay, they said, since to remain would be to be killed by Chinese or Japanese. We reminded them that we were neither afraid nor making any preparations for flight, and at last only persuaded some of them to remain by promising that we would never go and leave them, which we had fully decided upon on account of the native Christians. Some very exciting and trying events had in the meanwhile been taking place in Pyeng Yang. In the previous May Dr. William James Hall of the M. E. Mission took his wife and baby to that city to start a station, and to take up a permanent residence. They were almost mobbed by the curious throngs, whom they were unable to control. No police could be obtained from the governor, who in addition, on the second or third day after their arrival, arrested and threw into jail Dr. Hall’s helper and the man from whom he had bought his house. This is the approved method of forcing a man to give up a house or piece of ground to which he holds a good title, but which Korean officials object, for any reason, to his keeping. Dr. Hall had selected this property because it was in a thickly populated part of the town, where he believed he could do most good, but he had positively refused to pay a tax, which former owners had always paid to a certain devil-worship and sorceress house in the vicinity.