For two days the Han was about 400 yards wide, with a very tortuous course, abounding in rapids, shallows, and green islands, with great expanses of pure white sand on its left bank, and frequent villages of woodcutters and charcoal burners on both. On the 16th we reached the forks at the village of Ma-chai. There the north branch, which was to be afterwards traversed, comes down, and the south branch, in every way more important, arrives from the southward. Between the two there is a pretty wooded island then pink with azalea blossom. Beyond is a fine stretch of alluvium, nearly 6 feet deep, bearing rich crops of barley and wheat, but entirely unprotected from the desolations of the river in its annual rise, which engulfs every year acres of this prolific soil. Ten years ago the Han, altering its course, brought down from the top of a steep bank at some distance a huge concrete double coffin 9 feet long and 16 inches thick! The great alluvial expanse was make over to the Buddhists by the King, who receives annually a fixed amount of the produce. Between Kim’s laziness and plausibility, and the rapids, which though not severe were frequent, and the food hunt, which was a necessity, our progress was slow, and it was not till the 19th of April that we reached Yö Ju, the first town of any importance and the birthplace of the late Queen. It is memorable to me as being the first place where the crowd was obstreperous and obnoxious, though not hostile. It is humiliating to be a “show” and to get nothing by it! I went out on a rock in the river in the hope of using the prismatic compass in peace, and was nearly pushed into the water, and when I went up into the gate tower a stamping, curious crowd, climbing on everything that afforded a point of vantage, shook the old fabric so severely that the delicately balanced needle never came to rest. The crowd was dirty, the streets were foul and decayed, and worst of all was the magistrate’s _yamen_, to which we had occasion to go, and where I found that a _kwan-ja_ was powerless to obtain even common civility.