Wind and heavy rain which raised the river forbade all locomotion until the following evening, when we crossed the Han and reached the Yöng-chhun ferry by a pretty road through a village and a wood, most attractive country, with many novelties in its flora. At the ferry a still expanse of the Han is over 10 feet deep, but the roar of another rapid is heard immediately above. A double avenue of noble elms with fine turf underneath them leads to the town, a magistracy of 1,500 people, a quiet market-place without shops, situated in a rich farming basin of alluvial soil, covered in May with heavy crops of barley and wheat, among which were fields hillocked for melons. The magistracy buildings are large and rambling, with what has been a fine entrance gate, with a drum and other instruments of aural torture for making the deafening din with which the _yamen_ is closed and opened at sunrise and sunset. There are many stone tablets (not spontaneously erected) to worthy officials, a large enclosure in which sacrifices are offered to “Heaven” (probably to the Spirits of the Land), a Confucian temple, and a king’s pavilion, all very squalid and ruinous. A crowd not altogether polite followed us to the _yamen_, where I hoped that some information regarding an overland route to the Diamond Mountain might be obtained. On entering the _yamen_ precincts the underling officials were most insolent, and it was only after enduring their unpleasant behavior for some time that we were conducted to a squalid inner room, where a deputy-mandarin sat on the floor with a smoking apparatus beside him, a man with a scornful and sinister physiognomy, who took not the slightest notice of us, and when he deigned to speak gave curt replies through an underling, while we stood outside the entrance, withstanding with difficulty the pressure of the crowd, which had surged in after us, private interviews being rare in the East. This was my last visit to a Korean _yamen_.