Under “Independence Arch,” where, as we have already seen, the promise of a new and really independent Korea is built into the form of a monument of stone, the whole party were photographed. At a small village some three miles from Seoul, the coolies made another stop; here they received their first advance of money for “chow.” In the street of the village was standing one of those gorgeous palanquins which serve as biers, and which give the lifeless body of the poorest Korean his one ride in state to the hillsides where the tombs of the dead hold the ground against the fields needed for cultivation by the living. But these hillsides at least serve the living to some good purpose as preferred places for recreation and for intercourse with nature, as well as, in some sort, with their deceased ancestors. In Korea, as in India, birth, marriage, and death are expensive luxuries for the poor; to get into the world, to beget an heir, and to get out of the world again, absorb all the accumulated resources of a lifetime of toil for the average Korean. Surely, under such circumstances, “the will to live” lays itself open to the charge of Schopenhauer—that it is blind and working ever to the production of increased misery. Industrial development, firmly coupled with improved morality, and with the cheer and hopes of an elevating religion, as a true “psychical uplift,” are the only sufficient cure for such pessimistic tendencies. [Illustration: West Gate or “Gate of Generous Righteousness.”] Among the several attempts at photographing made on the way to Puk Han, were some intended to catch one of the numerous Korean children who appeared _puris in naturalibus_. These were uniformly unsuccessful. Pictures of this characteristic sort were not to be had by us foreigners, although the attempts were supported by the offer of sizable coins. At the first motion to point the camera toward these features of the landscape, they took to their heels and fled afar with urgent precipitancy.