places, is gritty, and the rice is a bad color, both are eatable, and the foreigner, always an object of suspicion, is less so when he buys and eats native viands, and does not carry about with him a number of (to Koreans) outlandish-looking utensils and commodities. Regarding much of the region which I purposed to visit no information could be obtained, either from Europeans or Korean officials, and the best map, a reduction of a Japanese map by Sir E. Satow, turned out to be astray. Mr. Warner, of Bishop Corfe’s Mission, had ascended the north branch of the Han, but it is still doubtful whether any European has been up the south and much larger branch which I explored on this journey. It was certain only that the country was mountainous, and that the rapids were numerous and severe. It had also been said earnestly, and with an appearance of knowledge, by several people that it would be impossible for a lady to travel in the interior; and certainly much of what I heard, supposing it to be fact, was sufficiently deterring, but from many similar statements in other countries I knew that a deduction of at least fifty per cent. must be made! On the 14th of April, 1894, when the environs of Seoul were seen through a mist of green, and plum and peach blossom was in the ascendant, and the heliotrope azalea was just beginning to tint the hillsides, and the air was warm and muggy, I left the kind friends who had done much to make my visit to Seoul interesting and agreeable, and went on ponyback through the south gate, passing the temple of the God of War, and over a pine-clothed ridge of Nam-San to Han Kang, four miles from Seoul, a little shipping village, where my boat lay, to avoid a rapid which lies between it and Ma-pu. Up to Ma-pu, 56 miles from Chemulpo, there is a very considerable tidal rise and fall which ceases at the rapid.