To any student of Far Eastern politics it must have been apparent that this skilful and extraordinary move on the part of Japan was not made for the protection of her colonies in Chemulpo and Seoul, nor yet against Korea. It has been said in various quarters, and believed, that the Japanese ministry was shaky, and had to choose between its own downfall and a foreign war. This is a complete sophism. There can be no question that Japan had been planning such a movement for years. She had made accurate maps of Korea, and had secured reports of forage and provisions, measurements of the width of rivers and the depth of fords, and had been buying up rice in Korea for three months previously, while even as far as the Tibetan frontier, Japanese officers in disguise had gauged the strength and weakness of China, reporting on her armies on paper and, in fact, on her dummy guns, and antique, honeycombed carronades, and knew better than the Chinese themselves how many men each province could put into the field, how drilled and how armed, and they were acquainted with the infinite corruption and dishonesty, combined with a total lack of patriotism, which nullified even such commissariat arrangements as existed on paper, and rendered it absolutely impossible for China to send an army efficiently into the field, far less sustain it during a campaign. To all appearance Japan had completely outwitted China in Korea, and a panic prevailed among the Chinese. Thirty ladies of the households of the Chinese Resident and Consul embarked for China on the appearance of the Japanese in Seoul, and 800 Chinamen left Chemulpo the day I arrived, the consternation in the Chinese colony being so great that even the market gardeners, who have a monopoly of a most thriving trade, fled. I never before saw the Chinaman otherwise than aggravatingly cool, collected, and master of the situation, but on that June day he lost his head, and, frenzied by race hatred and pecuniary loss, was transformed into a shouting barbarian, not knowing what he would be at. The Chinese inn where I spent the day was one centre of the excitement, and each time that I came in from a walk or received a European visitor, a number of the _employés_, usually most quiet and reticent, huddled into my room with faces distorted by anxiety, asking what I had heard, what was going to be, whether the Chinese army would be there that night, whether the British fleet was coming to help them, etc., and even my Chinese servant, a most excellent fellow, was beside himself, muttering in English through clenched teeth, “I must kill, kill, kill!”