It was only after a somewhat prolonged midday halt that we made the trying discovery that we still had fifteen miles to travel to Tschang Do, where we joined the main road, and meanwhile it became darker and darker. Happily later on the moon shone out brightly and illumined us across a barren moor. Passengers were few and far between, but a couple of men came along silently carrying a white swathed corpse on a stretcher. Our own party had fallen silent, for we were tired and disappointed; the gloom prevented our seeing the steepness of some of the descents, but we clung desperately to our steeds, for we were too weary to walk. At last we came into a high road, which proved to be the main road running from Seoul to Wonsan, and on this it was easy travelling. Few gleams of light were to be seen in the village, but the inhabitants had not gone to rest, so our men set about finding quarters—a not altogether easy matter. While we were discussing it outside an inn, the beasts began quarrelling, and a man was sent flying headlong into the ditch by the heels of one of them. He picked himself up without any ado, and as if it were quite a matter of course. Perhaps this settled the vexed question, for we were forthwith admitted to the house, and the family turned out of a room which they allotted to our use. This sort of thing happened wherever we stayed, for apparently there are no spare rooms for travellers, and as there is no furniture in the living rooms it is not so objectionable an arrangement as it sounds. The best hats of the family are hung on the rafters, a shelf runs round the wall about two feet from the ceiling; it is full of miscellaneous objects, while the clothing of the family appears to be stored in boxes piled on one another. There is generally a door on each side of the room consisting of papered lattice work, and in the side a glass peep-hole varying in size from one to four inches. The night passed all too soon, and we woke to the consciousness of a sharp frosty morning. As we wended our way down the valley it might easily have been midwinter. The brown hill-sides, and the brown earth and stubble thick with rime, showed no suggestion of spring, though it was nearing the end of April. On every side the pheasants were calling, and the bold fellows were hardly to be put up by a well-aimed stone from my man, but trotted unconcernedly away, as though conscious that now they are under Japanese protection. We met a man with a falcon, but even the falconer’s trade is eyed with suspicion, lest he use it as a blind. There have been several cases of poisoned pheasants noted lately in Seoul, so that it is necessary to be careful in buying them, to see that they have really been shot.