Reaching Chemulpo on 5th January, 1895, _viâ_ Nagasaki, I found a singular contrast to the crowd, bustle, and excitement of the previous June. In the outer harbor there were two foreign warships only, in the inner three Japanese merchant steamers. The former predominant military element was represented by a few soldiers, ten large hospital sheds, and a crowded cemetery, in which the Japanese military dead lie in rows of 60, each grave marked by a wooden obelisk. The solid and crowded Chinese quarter, with its roaring trade, large shops, and noise of drums, gongs, and crackers, by day and night, was silent and deserted, and not a single Chinese was in the street as I went up to I-tai’s inn. One shop had ventured to reopen. At night, instead of throngs, noise, lights, and jollification, there was a solitary glimmer from behind a closed shutter. The Japanese occupation had been as destructive of that quarter of Chemulpo as a mediæval pestilence. In the Japanese quarter and all along the shore the utmost activity prevailed. The beach was stacked with incoming and outgoing cargo. The streets were only just passable, not alone from the enormous traffic on bulls’ and coolies’ backs, but from the piles of beans and rice which were being measured and packed on the roadway. Prices were high, wages had more than doubled, “squeezing” was diminished, and the Koreans were working with a will. I went up to Seoul on horseback, snow falling the whole time. So safe was the country that no escort was needed, and I rode as far as Oricol without even a _mapu_. The halfway house of my first visit was a Japanese post, and going to it in ignorance of the change, I was very kindly received by the Japanese soldiers, who gave me tea and a brazier of charcoal. The Seoul road, pegged out by Japanese surveyors for a railroad, was thickly sprinkled for the whole distance with laden men and bulls. At Seoul I was the guest of Mr. Hillier, the British Consul-General, for five weeks. The weather was glorious, and the mercury sank on two occasions to 7° below zero, the lowest temperature on record. I received the warmest welcome from the kindly foreign community, and was steeped in Seoul life, the political and other interests growing upon me daily; and having a pony and a soldier at my disposal, I saw the city in all its turnings and windings, and the charming country outside the gates, and several of the Royal tombs with their fine trees, and avenues of stately stone figures.