object of his special hatred, and the official who sent forth the order that honor should be done to the infant. The Japanese kept urging their point, that relations of mutual benefit be resumed, and kept protesting their good intentions toward Korea. The king had just received an envoy bringing gifts and a congratulatory letter from the king of the Liu Kiu Islands, in which grave doubts were cast upon the intentions of the Japanese, and an offer of assistance was made in case of another invasion. But the king seems not to have put faith in these doubts, and replied, to the reiterated request of the Japanese, that an envoy would be sent to Japan, when the men who desecrated the royal graves beyond the Han River should be sent to the Korean Capital for punishment. The Japanese went home, but returned late in the fall bringing two men bound, whom they delivered over as being the ones demanded. But these were mere boys who themselves urged the fact that they were still babes in arms when the deeds of which they were charged had been committed. The Prime Minister urged the king to send them back to Japan, but the favorite, Yu, persuaded the king to have them beheaded, after which Yö U-gil, Kyong Sŭn and Chung Ho-gwan were sent as an embassy to Japan. Meanwhile Iyeyasu in Japan had deposed the son of Hideyoshi and usurped his place. So when the embassy arrived in Japan they were received with the utmost coldness, and the usurper said, “Who asked that envoys might be exchanged between Japan and Korea? But now that you are here we will receive you.” The treatment that they received was bad almost beyond description. As a sample of the way the Japanese baited them it is related that the Japanese brought a dish filled with ordure sprinkled with something the color of gold-dust, and when the Koreans innocently put their hands in the dish, supposing that it was some form of food, the Japanese had a good laugh at their expense. The Koreans did not appreciate this sort of practical joke, and forthwith returned to Korea.