We went on board the _Iki Maru_ early enough to avoid the crowd that would come by the afternoon train from Seoul. After bidding good-by to the score of ladies and gentlemen who had come down to the wharf to see us off, there was time for dinner before the steamer sailed. As we watched the retreating shores of Korea, we remembered the morning of two months before when these shores had first come into view. It was Japanese friends who had then welcomed us—the same friends who had just bidden us farewell. But between the two experiences lay a busy period of work and of observation which had resulted in making more friends, Japanese and foreign, in Korea itself. But how about the Koreans themselves; had we won, even to the beginnings of real and constant friendly feeling, any among their number? I was unable confidently to say. The Koreans are spoken of, by the missionaries especially, as notably kind and affectionate in disposition and easily attached to the foreigner by friendly ties. By the diplomats and business men they are, for the most part, distrusted and despised. As the guests of Marquis Ito, it was not strange that we did not quickly gain any assurance of genuine and trustworthy friendliness on their part. But this, too, is a subject which requires consideration from a more impersonal point of view. For there is something startling in the wide divergencies, and even sharp antagonisms, of the estimates of Korean character which any serious and disinterested inquiry evokes.