But there is more than this. The air of the men has undergone a subtle but real change, and the women, though they nominally keep up their habit of seclusion, have lost the hang-dog air which distinguishes them at home. The suspiciousness and indolent conceit, and the servility to his betters, which characterize the home-bred Korean have very generally given place to an independence and manliness of manner rather British than Asiatic. The alacrity of movement is a change also, and has replaced the conceited swing of the _yang-ban_ and the heartless lounge of the peasant. There are many chances for making money, and there is neither mandarin nor _yang-ban_ to squeeze it out of the people when made, and comforts and a certain appearance of wealth no longer attract the rapacious attentions of officials, but are rather a credit to a man than a source of insecurity. All who work can be comfortable, and many of the farmers are rich and engage in trade, making and keeping extensive contracts. Those Koreans who are not settled on lands chiefly in the direction of the Chinese frontier, and who subsist by wood cutting and hauling, are less well off, and their hamlets have something of squalor about them. In Korea I had learned to think of Koreans as the dregs of a race, and to regard their condition as hopeless, but in Primorsk I saw reason for considerably modifying my opinion. It must be borne in mind that these people, who have raised themselves into a prosperous farming class, and who get an excellent character for industry and good conduct alike from Russian police officials, Russian settlers, and military officers, were not exceptionally industrious and thrifty men. They were mostly starving folk who fled from famine, and their prosperity and general demeanor give me the hope that their countrymen in Korea, if they ever have an honest administration and protection for their earnings, may slowly develop into _men_. In parts of Western Asia I have had occasion to note the success of Russian administration in conquered or acquired provinces, and with subject races, specially her creation of an orderly, peaceful, and settled agricultural population out of the nomadic and predatory tribes of Turkestan. Her success with the Korean immigrants is in its way as remarkable, for the material is inferior. She is firm where firmness is necessary, but outside that limit allows extreme latitude, avoids harassing aliens by petty prohibitions and irksome rules, encourages those forms of local self-government which suit the genius and habits of different peoples, and trusts to time, education, and contact with other forms of civilization to amend what is reprehensible in customs, religion, and costume.