Amidst this crowded waste where formerly three thousand persons lived in attendance upon the separate establishments for the King, Queen, Crown Prince, and the Dowagers, there are only two buildings which, architecturally considered, are worthy of note. One of these is the old “Audience Hall.” Its columns, although many are cracked for a considerable part of their length, and none of them ever possessed anything like the beauty or finish of the noble wooden pillars of the Nishi Hongwanji in Kyoto (which, however, they resemble in style and effect), seem to have been made of entire stately trees. There are really no galleries, but the appearance is that of a two-galleried hall. The strong colors of red, black, green, and blue, with which the carved and panelled ceiling is decorated, in a manner similar to that of the castles in the Tokugawa period in Japan, seem to find their way through one’s upturned eyes to the base of the brain. In some of its structural features this Audience Hall resembles the audience halls of the Muhammadan monarchs in Northern India more than anything to be found in Japan. This is especially true of the high platform on which the throne was placed. The decoration central over it, and that central in the ceiling of the whole hall, is golden dragons, with clouds and flames, in bas-reliefs; it is in an excellent state of preservation. The other really fine building in the entire collection is the so-called “Hall of Congratulations,” whose upper floor is supported by forty-eight granite monoliths—six rows of eight each in a row. These pillars are about sixteen feet high and three feet square. The lotus pond surrounding the building is oblong and faced with masonry; while miniature islands rise here and there above the surface of the water. This Hall was intended for state social functions of the out-of-door character. By going still further back of the sleeping apartments of the King, which consisted of nine rooms arranged in a square, so that the eight surrounding the central room could guard it from intrusion or attack, we come in front of the wall behind whose screen are the apartments in one of which the brilliant and attractive but cruel Queen met her own most tragic and cruel death. All are now forbidden to enter there. But some twelve years before, our escort had seen the dark bloodstains on the floor—perhaps hers, perhaps those of her chamberlain who met his death in trying to protect his queen. And one has only to look a little way over to the right in order to see the now peaceful pine-grove where her body was dragged and burned. Such was the deed which terminated the royal habitation of another, and this the most splendid, of the palaces of Seoul!