Darkness came on prematurely with the heavy rain, and we asked the shrine-keeper to give us shelter for the night, but she said that to take in six men and a foreign woman was impossible, as she had only one room. But it was equally impossible for us to descend the pass in the darkness with tired ponies, and after half an hour’s altercation the matter was arranged, Im, who retained his wits, securing for me a degree of privacy by hanging some heavy mats from a beam, giving me, I am sure, the lion’s share of the apartment. Really the accommodation was not much worse than usual, but though the mercury fell to the freezing point, the hot floor kept the inside temperature up to 83°, and the dread of tigers on the part of my hostess forbade my having even a chink of the door open! The rain cleared off in time for the last sunset gleam on the distant mountains, which, when darkness fell on the pass, burned fiery red against a strip of pale green sky, taking on afterwards one by one the ashy look of death as the light died off from their snows. All about An-kil Yung the mountains are wooded to their summits with deciduous trees, the ubiquitous _Pinus sinensis_ being rare; but to the northward in the direction of Paik-tu San the character of the scenery changes, and peaks and precipices of naked rock, and lofty mountain monoliths, with snow-crowned ranges beyond, form by far the grandest view that I saw in this land of hill and valley. Then Im had to be attended to, and though I was very anxious about him, I could not be blind to the picturesqueness of the scene in the hovel, Mr. Yi sitting in my chair holding the candle, the soldier, with his face puckered with pain, squatting on the floor with his swollen arm lying on a writing board on my lap, and no room to move. I failed there as elsewhere to get a better piece of wood for the splint, which was too short, and I could only get wadding for padding it by taking some out of Im’s sleeve, and all the time and afterwards I was very anxious for fear that I had put the bandage on too tightly or too loosely, and that my want of experience would give the poor fellow a useless right arm. He was in severe pain all that night, but he was very plucky about it, made no fuss, and never allowed me to suffer in the slightest degree from his accident. Indeed, he was even more attentive than before. He said to Mr. Yi, “The foreign woman looked so sorry, and touched my arm as if I had been one of her own people, I shall do my best”--and so he did. I had indulged in a long perspective of pheasant curries, and I must confess that when the prospect faded I felt a little dismal. To a traveller who carries no “foreign food,” it makes a great difference to get a nice, hot, stimulating dish (even though it is served in the pot it is cooked in) after a ten hours’ cold ride. To my surprise, I was never without curry for dinner, and though before the accident I had only cold rice for tiffin, after it I was never