Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill THE YALTJ AND BEYOND In giving a faithful account of a journey in an Eastern country there are many things to be mentioned that are other than pleasing. One endeavors, as far as possible, to see with a halo round each eye; but in spite of such effort, the shock is often great for a tender, Western nervous system, so that it were best not to peer too closely into the mysteries of Oriental travel. Koyang is a little town of no importance, twelve miles northeast of Seoul. Here our party arrived about dark, and dined on rice, red peppers, and fish spawn, under the inspiration of which repast we turned in for the night. We had started from Seoul about noon, with two ponies so piled up with bundles that scarce anything could be seen of the original animals. In our party was a Mr. So, a Korean of considerable culture, who had spent most of his life in China and on the border land. We invited him to accompany us, first, because he was a pleasant gentleman, and second, because he spoke Chinese, and we did not know but we might go through Manchuria before returning. He was the awe-inspiring member of the party and lent it dignity. His monstrously padded clothes and huge black spectacles gave him the appearance of a double-eyed cyclop. His long pipe however reassured one, and demonstrated to the world that he was not a creature to be feared, but a gentle being of refinement and culture. We took along a boy called Keumdoli, a good-natured youth, whose face had been pimpled into a kind of pebbled leather by the smallpox. Another member of the party was a half- grown terrier, who cut capers as though he were going on a picnic of an hour or two, instead of a journey of a thousand miles. He dived about here and there, and looked so nimble, that the natives were inclined to v...