I must, however, say something about the old capital city of Kyong Ju. It had its period of glory, and its ruins are still impressive. Almost fifteen hundred years have passed since the black monk brought in the new religion. To-day there remains only a little town, but all the country around is sprinkled with the relics of the past. Here is the splendid grave of General Kim, twelve hundred years old. It is faced around with stone slabs, set firmly in place, twelve of them being carved with the animals of the Eastern Zodiac. Here are the ruins of an ice-house, perhaps nine hundred years old; cunningly built of stone, under a mound of earth, with true arch-vaulting, it sheltered ice for the chilling of food and the cooling of drink a thousand years ago. There remains here a portion of a beautiful pagoda; much of it was destroyed in the sixteenth century, when Hideyoshi’s army of invasion came from Japan and wrought havoc and destruction in Korea; built in the seventh century, it was a beautiful structure of splendid, thoroughly-baked black bricks and stone; stone doors below, moving on stone pivots set in stone sockets were decorated with carved work. To-day only the three lower stories remain, but they serve to show that the people were true artists. Here, too, one sees an astronomical observatory, built of stone, a sort of tower of circular form, seventeen feet through; it was intended for the observation of heavenly bodies; nearly thirteen hundred years of age, it is perhaps the oldest existing building constructed for such purposes in the world. In those fine days, Kyong Ju was a center of trade and industry. Chinese, Koreans and Japanese were there; we are certain that Tibetans, Indians and Persians came thither, and it is claimed that merchants from Arabia used to stand in its market place. Of course we all know of the antiquity of culture around the Mediterranean Sea; we appreciate its achievements, and love to think of its glories; but we are apt to think of the Far East as being eternally stagnant and it surprises us to learn of a busy mart of trade in Kyong Ju, Silla. And it had its scholars also. There was Ch’oe Chuen. He was a poet and essayist; he was a skilled calligrapher, writing the beautiful Chinese characters famously; he was reckoned as one of the great sages and learned men of his day in China proper, than which there was no higher honor.