North of Whang Ju are rich plains of productive, stoneless, red alluvium, extending towards the Tai-döng for nearly 40 miles. On these there were villages partly burned and partly depopulated and ruinous, and tracts of the superb soil had passed out of cultivation owing to the flight of the cultivators, and there was a total absence of beasts, the splendid bulls of the region having perished under their loads _en route_ for Manchuria. It was a dreary journey that day through partially destroyed villages, relapsing plains, and slopes denuded of every stick which could be burned. There were no wayfarers on the roads, no movement of any kind, and as it grew dusk the _mapu_ were afraid of tigers and robbers, and we halted for the night at the wretched hamlet of Ko-moun Tari, where I obtained a room with delay and difficulty, partly owing to the unwillingness of the people to receive a foreigner. They had suffered enough from foreigners, truly! The concluding day’s march was through a pleasant country, though denuded of trees, and the approach to a great city was denoted by the number of villages, dæmon shrines, and refreshment booths on the road, the increased traffic, and eventually, by a long avenue of stone tablets, some of them under highly decorated roofs, recording the virtues of Phyöng-yang officials for 250 years! The first view of Phyöng-yang delighted me. The city has a magnificent situation, taken advantage of with much skill, and at a distance merits the epithet “imposing.” It was a glorious afternoon. All the low ranges which girdle the rich plain through which the Tai-döng winds were blue and violet, melting into a blue haze, the crystal waters of the river were bluer still, brown-sailed boats drifted lazily with the stream, and above it the gray mass of the city rose into a dome of unclouded blue. It is built on lofty ground rising abruptly from the river, above which a fine wall climbs picturesquely over irregular, but always ascending altitudes, till it is lost among the pines of a hill which overhangs the Tai-döng. The great double-roofed Tai-döng _Mön_ (river gate), decorated pavilions on the walls, the massive curled roofs of the Governor’s _yamen_, a large Buddhist monastery and temple on a height, and a fine temple to the God of War, prominent objects from a distance, prepare one for something quite apart from the ordinary meanness of a Korean city.