During the five weeks which I spent on the Han, though the routine of daily life varied little, there was no monotony. The country and the people were new, and we mixed freely, almost too freely, with the latter; the scenery varied hourly, and after the first few days became not only beautiful, but in places magnificent, and full of surprises; the spring was in its early beauty, and the trees in their first vividness of green, red, and gold; the flowers and flowering shrubs were in their glory, the crops at their most attractive stage, birds sang in the thickets, rich fragrant odors were wafted off on the water, red cattle, though rarely, fed knee-deep in abounding grass, and the waters of the Han, nearly at their lowest, were clear as crystal, and their broken sparkle flashed back the sunbeams which passed through a sky as blue as that of Tibet. There was a prosperous look about the country too, and its security was indicated by the frequent occurrence of solitary farms, with high secluding fences, standing under the deep shade of fine walnut and persimmon trees. Unlike the bare, arid, denuded hillsides between Chemulpo and Seoul, the slopes along much of the route are wooded, and in many cases forested both with coniferæ and deciduous trees, among which there are occasionally picturesque clumps of umbrella pines. The _Pinus Sinensis_ and the _Abies Microsperma_ abound, and there are two species of oak and three of maple, a _Platanus_, juniper, ash, mountain ash, birch, hazel, _Sophora Japonica_, _Euonymus alatus_, _Thuja Orientalis_, and many others. The heliotrope, pink, and scarlet azaleas were in all their beauty, flushing the hillsides, and white and sulphur-yellow clematis, actinidia, and a creeping _Euonymus_ were abundant. Of the wealth of flowering shrubs, mostly white blossomed, I had never seen one before either in garden or greenhouse, except the familiar syringa and spirea. The beautiful _Ampelopsis Veitchiana_ was in its freshest spring green and tender red, concealing tree trunks, depending from branches, and draping every cliff and rock with its exquisite foliage; and roses, red and white, of a free-growing, climbing variety, having possession even of tall trees, hung their fragrant festoons over the roads.