Taking two coolies to carry essentials, and a _na-myö_ or mountain chair with two bearers, for the whole journey, all supplied by the monks, I walked the first stage to the monasteries of P’yo-un Sa and Chyang-yang Sa, the latter at an elevation of about 2,760 feet. From it the view, which passes for the grandest in Korea, is obtained of the “Twelve Thousand Peaks.” There is assuredly no single view that I have seen in Japan or even in Western China which equals it for beauty and grandeur. Across the grand gorge through which the Chang-an Sa torrent thunders, and above primæval tiger-haunted forests with their infinity of green, rises the central ridge of the Keum-Kang San, jagged all along its summit, each yellow granite pinnacle being counted as a peak. On that enchanting May evening, when odors of paradise, the fragrant breath of a million flowering shrubs and trailers, of bursting buds, and unfolding ferns, rose into the cool dewy air, and the silence could be felt, I was not inclined to enter a protest against Korean exaggeration on the ground that the number of peaks is probably nearer 1,200 than 12,000. Their yellow granite pinnacles, weathered into silver gray, rose up cold, stern, and steely blue from the glorious forests which drape their lower heights--winter above and summer below--then purpled into red as the sun sank, and gleamed above the twilight, till each glowing summit died out as lamps which are extinguished one by one, and the whole took on the ashy hue of death. The situation of P’yo-un Sa is romantic, on the right bank of the torrent, and is approached by a bridge, and by passing under several roofed gateways. The monastery had been newly rebuilt, and is one mass of fretwork, carving, gilding, and color, the whole decoration being the work of the monks. The front of the “Temple of the Believing Mind” is a magnificent piece of bold wood-carving, the _motif_ being the peony. Every part of the building which is not stone or tile is carved, and decorated in blue, red, white, green, and gold. It may be barbaric, but it is barbaric splendor. There too is a “Temple of Judgment,” with hideous representations of the Buddhist hells, one scene being the opening of the books in which the deeds of men’s mortal lives are written.