The start on 7th November was managed in good time, without any of the usual delays, and I may say at once that the _mapu_, the bugbear and torment of travellers usually, never gave the slightest trouble. Though engaged by the day, they were ready to make long day’s journeys, were always willing and helpful, and a month later we parted excellent friends. As this is my second favorable experience, I am inclined to think that Korean _mapu_ are a maligned class. For each pony and man, the food of both being included, I paid $1, about 2s., per day when travelling, and half that sum when halting. Mr. Yi had two ponies, I two baggage animals, on one of which Im rode, and a saddle pony, _i.e._ a pack pony equipped with my sidesaddle for the occasion. Starting from the English Legation and the Customs’ buildings, we left the city by the West Gate, and passing the stone stumps which up till lately supported the carved and colored roof under which generations of Korean kings after their accession met the Chinese envoys, who came in great state to invest them with Korean sovereignty, and through the narrow and rugged defile known as the Peking Pass, we left the unique capital and its lofty clambering wall out of sight. The day was splendid even for a Korean autumn, and the frightful black pinnacles, serrated ridges, and flaming corrugations of Puk Han on the right of the road were atmospherically idealized into perfect beauty. For several miles the road was thronged with bulls loaded with faggots, rice, and pine brush, for the supply of the daily necessities of the city; then, except when passing through the villages, it became solitary enough, except for an occasional group of long-sworded Japanese travellers, or baggage ponies in charge of Japanese soldiers. The road as far as Pa Ju lies through pretty country, small valleys either terraced for rice, which was lying out to dry on the dykes, or growing barley, wheat, millet, and cotton, surrounded by low but shapely hills, denuded of everything but oak and pine scrub, but with folds in which the _Pinus sinensis_ grew in dark clumps, lighted up by the vanishing scarlet of the maple and the glowing crimson of the _Ampelopsis Veitchii_. On the lower slopes, and usually in close proximity to the timber, are numerous villages, their groups of deep-eaved, brown-thatched roofs, on which scarlet capsicums were laid out to dry, looking pretty enough as adjuncts to landscapes which on the whole lack life and emphasis. The villages through which the road passes were seen at their best, for the roadway, serving for the village threshing floor, was daily swept for the threshing of rice and millet, the passage of travellers being a secondary consideration; everything was dry, and the white clothes of the people were consequently at their cleanliest.