Two days before reaching Phyöng-yang we crossed the highest pass on the road, and by a glen wooded with such deciduous trees, shrubs, and trailers as ash, elæagnus, euonymus, hornbeam, oak, lime, _Acanthopanax ricinifolia_, actinidia with scarlet berries, clematis, _Ampelopsis Veitchii_, etc., descended to the valley of the Nam-chhon, a broad but shallow stream which joins the Tai-döng. On the right bank, where the stream, crossed by a dilapidated bridge, is 128 yards wide, the town of Whang Ju is picturesquely situated, 36 _li_ from the sea, at the base of two low fir-crowned hills, which terminate in cliffs above the Nam-chhon. A battlemented wall 9 _li_ in circumference, with several fine towers and gateways, encloses the town, and being carried along the verge of the cliff and over the downs and ups of the hills, has a very striking appearance. It was a singularly attractive view. The Korean sky was at its bluest, and the winding Nam-chhon was seen in glimpses here and there through the broad fertile plain in reaches as blue, and the broken sparkle of its shallow waters flashed in sapphire gleams against the gray rock and the gray walls of the city. On the wall, and grouped in the handsome Water Gate, were a number of Japanese soldiers watching a crowd of Koreans spearing white fish with three-pronged forks from rafts made of two bundles of reeds with a cask lashed between them, and from the bridge the ruinous state of the walls and towers could not be seen. Whang Ju is memorable to me as being the first place I saw which had suffered from the ravages of recent war. There the Japanese came upon the Chinese, but there was no fighting at that point. Yet whatever happened has been enough to reduce a flourishing town with an estimated population of 30,000 souls to one of between 5,000 and 6,000, and to destroy whatever prosperity it had. I passed through the Water Gate into a deplorable scene of desolation. There were heaps of ruins, some blackened by fire, others where the houses had apparently collapsed “all of a heap,” with posts and rafters sticking out of it. There are large areas of nothing but this and streets of deserted houses, sadder yet, with doors and windows gone for the bivouac fires of the Japanese, and streets where roofless mud walls alone were standing. In some parts there were houses with windows gone and torn paper waving from their walls, and then perhaps an inhabited house stood solitary among the deserted or destroyed, emphasizing the desolation. Some of the destruction was wrought by the Chinese, some by the Japanese, and much resulted from the terrified flight of more than 20,000 of the inhabitants.