Towards evening “The hills swung open to the light”; through the parting branches there were glimpses of granite walls and peaks reddening into glory; red stems, glowing in the slant sunbeams, lighted up the blue gloom of the coniferæ; there were glints of foam from the loud-tongued torrent below; the dew fell heavily, laden with aromatic odors of pines, and as the valley narrowed again and the blue shadows fell the picture was as fair as one could hope to see. The monks, though road-makers, are not bridge-builders, and there were difficult fords to cross, through which the ponies were left to struggle by themselves, the _mapu_ crossing on single logs. In the deep water I discovered that its temperature was almost icy. The worst ford is at the point where the first view of Chang-an Sa, the Temple of Eternal Rest, the oldest of the Keum-Kang San monasteries, is obtained, a great pile of temple buildings with deep curved roofs, in a glorious situation, crowded upon a small grassy plateau in one of the narrowest parts of the gorge, where the mountains fall back a little and afford Buddhism a peaceful shelter, secluded from the outer world by snow for four months of the year. Crossing the torrent and passing under a lofty _Hang-Sal-Mun_, or “red arrow gate,” significant in Korea of the patronage of royalty, we were at once among the Chang-an Sa buildings, which consist of temples large and small, a stage for religious dramas, bell and tablet houses, stables for the ponies of wayfarers, cells, dormitories, and a refectory for the abbot and monks, quarters for servants and neophytes, huge kitchens, a large guest hall, and a nunnery. Besides these there are quarters devoted to the lame, halt, blind, infirm, and solitary; to widows, orphans, and the destitute. These guests, numbering 100, seemed well treated. Between monks, servants, and boys preparing for the priesthood there may be 100 more, and 20 nuns of all ages, from girlhood up to eighty-seven years. This large number of persons is supported by the rent and produce of Church lands outside the mountains, the contributions of pilgrims and guests, the moneys collected by the monks, who all go on mendicant expeditions, even up to the gates of Seoul, which at that time it was death for any priest to enter, and benefactions from the late Queen, which had become increasingly liberal. The first impression of the plateau was that it was a wood-yard on a large scale. Great logs and piles of planks were heaped under the stately pines and under a superb _Salisburia adiantifolia_, 17 feet in girth; 40 carpenters were sawing, planing, and hammering, and 40 or 50 laborers were hauling in logs to the music of a wild chant, for mendicant effort had been resorted to energetically, with the result that the great temple was undergoing repairs, almost amounting to a reconstruction.