One of the most interesting places outside the town is a famous temple beautifully situated on the brow of a hill, set up to the god of war. It was small and fairly well kept, and the priest made some fuss before allowing us to enter. Like all the temples here, there is but scant space within the building for any worshippers, but as they have no conception of congregational worship, this is a matter of no importance. The original religion of Korea was Shamanism, the worship of evil spirits, and although it is supposed to have been superseded first by Confucianism and later on by Buddhism (A.D. 550), it still retains its hold over the people, and is carried on side by side with Confucianism and Buddhism. Its shrines are to be found in Seoul itself and also by the wayside in all parts of the country. The main point in the religion of the educated Korean, as of the Chinese, is ancestor worship, and in the courtyard of every large house may be seen the ancestral tablet house, where are the tablets of two or three generations. There seem to be considerably fewer temples in Korea than in China; they are less imposing, and less frequented. We next visited the fine new waterworks built by the Japanese, and they have selected a beautiful spot on the summit of a hill overlooking the town, as well as an island in the river which they have connected with the mainland by a bridge. Soon that picturesque being—the water-carrier—will be nothing more than a memory; but undoubtedly the advantages of a good water-supply will reconcile the inhabitants to the change. I am greatly astonished at the charge of dirtiness so frequently brought against the Koreans, for on the whole they would bear comparison with almost any European nation. They lavish endless time and energy on getting their clothes white and well laundered, for which they possess the most primitive implements imaginable. The garment is folded quite wet, placed on a board, and beaten rapidly with two flat sticks for any length of time. The sound greets one’s ears all day and every day in the streets, and resembles that of a stick being drawn across palings; if you happen to be lying ill, the endless sound is apt to be as nerve racking as the notes of the brain-fever bird in India.