The line passes through the richest and most populous four provinces of Korea, which comprise nearly seven tenths of all the houses in the Empire, and cover more than five sevenths of the cultivated area of the country, with considerable capacity for future cultivation and improvement. The road also connects places to which the Koreans flock from neighboring regions for the periodical fairs held there. These fairs occur six times each month, held alternately in different places, besides great annual fairs in large cities. Among the thirty-nine stations of this railroad, six will be daily seen holding fairs, for which the traffic of passengers and merchandise through the road will be considerable. It is safe to say that five sevenths of the entire Korean foreign trade belong to the sphere controlled by this line, and also that nearly all of this trade is in reality the fast growing Japan-Korea trade. The effect of the completion of the line upon this trade will be tremendous. See Mr. J. Shinobu’s _Kan Hantō_ (“The Korean Peninsula”), Tokio, 1901. Footnote 49: The French have an agreement with the Korean Government regarding a Seul-Fusan railway. The Seul Government is to build it with its own money, and the French to furnish engineers and material. Not a mile of rail has been laid by the impecunious Government, and the present war is rapidly changing the entire situation. A Japanese railway for strategic purposes has already been started from Seul northward. Another line, between Seul and Wonsan (Gensan), will also be built by the Japanese in the near future. Footnote 50: It was one of the first propositions from Japan to Russia during the long negotiations between them which have ended in the present war, that Russia should not impede Japan’s possible attempt in the future to extend the Fusan-Seul Railway in the manner above described. See p. 286 (Article 3), below. Footnote 51: A promoter of Russian interests in Korea, and to all intents and purposes a semi-official diplomat for Russia, living at Seul and observing the political barometer of the Court at close range. Another person, perhaps less known to the outside world, but far more influential at Court, is a woman, Fräulein Sonntag, a relative of the wife of the ex-Russian Minister Waeber at Seul. See p. 280, below. Footnote 52: The _Kokumin_, January 15, 1904. Footnote 53: From an address by Mr. Suerō Katō, of the Department of Agriculture and Commerce, who had studied the agriculture of Korea on the ground three times in succession.—_Ibid._, May 27, 1904. Footnote 54: