More grandees, servants, soldiers, standard-bearers, arrow-men, officials, cavalry, and led horses formed the procession of the Crown Prince, who was also carried in a red palanquin, and looked paler and more impassive than his father. The supply of officials seemed inexhaustible, for behind him came a quarter of a mile of grandees in splendid costumes, with hats decorated with red velvet and peacock’s feathers, and throat lashes of great amber beads, with all their splendid trains, footmen in armor bossed with large nails, drummers, men carrying arrow frames and insignia on poles, then the “general of the rear guard” in a gleaming helmet and a splendid blue, crimson, and gold uniform, propped up by retainers on his handsome pony, more soldiers armed with old matchlock guns, lastly men bearing arrow frames and standards, and with them the barbaric and bizarre splendor of the _Kur-dong_ was over, and the white crowd once more overflowed the mean street. Quite late in the evening the Royal pageant returned by the light of stationary torches, with lanterns of blue and crimson silk undulating from the heads of pikes and bayonets. This truly splendid display was estimated to cost $25,000--a heavy burden on the small resources of the kingdom. It is only thus surrounded that the King ever appears in public, and the splendor accentuates the squalor of the daily life of the masses of the people in the foul alleys which make up most of the city. It must be remembered that the people taking part in the pageant are not men hired and dressed up by a _costumier_, but that they are actual Court officials and noblemen in the dress of to-day, and that the weapons carried by the soldiers are those with which they are supposed to repel attack or put down rebellion. FOOTNOTES: [9] If an apology be necessary for the following minute description of this unique ceremonial, I offer it on the ground that it was probably the last of its kind, and that full details of it have not been given before. CHAPTER IV SEOUL, THE KOREAN MECCA