When we reached the forks at Ma-chai, the boatmen, who were tired of the trip, wanted to go back, but eventually they were induced to fulfil their contract, and we entered the north branch of the Han on a cool, glorious afternoon, following on a night and morning of wind and rain. This north branch also rises in the Keum-kang San or Diamond Mountain in the province of Kong-wön, and after a turbulent course of about 98 miles unites with the southern and larger branch of the Han about two days’ journey from Seoul. For a considerable distance the country which it drains is populous and well cultivated, and the hills of its higher reaches provide much of the timber which is used in Seoul, as well as a large proportion of the firewood and charcoal. The timber is made up into very peculiar rafts, which come down at high water, but even then are frequently demolished in the rapids. The river widens out above Ma-chai, and for a considerable distance has an average breadth of 440 yards, but as a rule it is shallow, and its bottom dangerously rocky, and it has incessant rapids full of jagged rocks, some of which are very dangerous, and so “ugly” that as I went up them I was truly glad that I had not to descend them. Many a long, hard tug and broken hawser we had, but succeeded in hauling the _sampan_ 7 miles above the limit of low water navigation, which is the same distance from the termination of boat traffic at high water. I estimate the distance from Ma-chai to Ut-Kiri, where further progress was stopped by an insurmountable rapid, at 76 miles, which took nine days, though Kim and his man, anxious to go home, worked much harder than on our earlier trip. For the first few days there are villages every quarter of a mile, and lateral and parallel valleys, then rich in clean crops of barley and wheat. The river villages are surrounded by groves of Spanish chestnut, mulberry, cherry, persimmons, and weeping willows. There are deep crateriform cavities, now full of trees and abundant vegetation. The hills are covered with oak scrub, affording cover for tigers, which appear to abound. The characteristics of the villages and the agriculture hardly vary from those on the south branch, except that the potato is more extensively grown. The absence of provincial and local peculiarities is a feature of Korea. An alley in Seoul may serve for a village street anywhere else.