I was not at a regular inn in Phyöng-yang but at a broker’s house, with a yard to myself nominally, but which was by no means private. Im generally, and not roughly, requested the people to “move on,” but he made two exceptions, one being in favor of a madwoman of superior appearance and apparel who haunted me on my second visit, hanging about the open front of my room, and following me to the mission-house and elsewhere. She said that I was her grandmother and that she must go with me everywhere, and, like many mad people, she had an important and mysterious communication to make which for obvious reasons never reached me. She was the concubine of a late governor of the city, and not having escaped before its capture, went mad from horror at seeing the Chinese spitted on the bayonets of the Japanese. She carried a long bodkin, and went through distressing pantomimes of running people through with it! The other exception was in favor of _gesang_, upon whose presence Im looked quite approvingly, and evidently thought I did. Phyöng-yang has always been famous for the beauty and accomplishments of its _gesang_, singing and dancing girls, resembling in many respects the _geishas_ of Japan, but correctly speaking they mostly belong to the Government, and are supported by the Korean Treasury. At the time of my two first sojourns in Seoul, about seventy of them were attached to the Royal Palace. They were under the control of the same Government department as that with which the official musicians are connected. As a poor man gifted with many sons, for whom he cannot provide, sometimes presents one to the government as a eunuch, so he may give a girl to be a _gesang_. The _gesang_ are trained from a very early age in such accomplishments as other Korean women lack, and which will ensure their attractiveness, such as playing on various musical instruments, singing, dancing, reading, reciting, writing, and fancy work. As their destiny is to make time pass agreeably for men of the upper classes, this amount of education is essential, though a Korean does not care how blank and undeveloped the mind of his wife is. The _gesang_ are always elegantly dressed, as they were when they came to see me, even through the mud of the Phyöng-yang streets, and as they have not known seclusion, their manners with both sexes have a graceful ease. Their dancing, like that of most Oriental countries, consists chiefly of posturing, and is said by those foreigners who have seen it, to be perfectly free from impropriety.