Yet it has no objects of art, very few antiquities, no public gardens, no displays except the rare one of the _Kur-dong_, and no theatres. It lacks every charm possessed by other cities. Antique, it has no ruins, no libraries, no literature, and lastly an indifference to religion without a parallel has left it without temples, while certain superstitions which still retain their hold have left it without a tomb! Leaving out the temple of Confucius and the homage officially rendered to his tablet in Korea as in China, there are no official temples in Seoul, nor might a priest enter its gates under pain of death, consequently the emphasis which noble religious buildings give even to the meanest city in China or Japan is lacking. There is a small temple to the God of War outside the south gate, with some very curious frescoes, but I seldom saw any worshippers there. The absence of temples is a feature of the other Korean cities. Buddhism, which for 1,000 years before the founding of the present dynasty was the popular cult, has been “disestablished” and practically proscribed since the sixteenth century, and Koreans account for the severe enactments against priests by saying that in the Japanese invasion three centuries ago Japanese disguised themselves as Buddhist priests and gained admission to cities, putting their garrisons to the sword. Be that true or false, Buddhism in Korea to be found must be sought. [Illustration: GUTTER SHOP, SEOUL.] As there are no temples, so there are no other signs of religion, and the hasty observer would be warranted in putting down the Koreans as a people without a religion. Ancestral worship, and a propitiation of dæmons or spirits, the result of a timid and superstitious dread of the forces of Nature, are to the Korean in place of a religion. Both, I am inclined to believe, are the result of fear, the worship of ancestors being dictated far less by filial piety than by the dread that ancestral spirits may do harm to their descendants. This cult prevails from the King to the coolie. It inspires the costly splendors of the _Kur-dong_, as well as the spread of ancestral food in the humblest hovel on New Year’s Eve.