OUR last sight of Brussels, when we left it in early December, was a row of people, among whom was the Japanese Minister, waving good-bye to us at the Gare du Nord.

We were starting for the Far East, for my husband had been transferred from his post in Belgium to that of Ambassador to Japan. This promotion was very pleasing to us, for Eastern questions were vital, we liked the Japanese people, and no country could have been more interesting to us than the Land of the Cherry Blossoms. It was our fourth visit to the Orient, and, strange though it may seem, when we reached Korea, the "jumping-off place," we said to ourselves that we began to feel at home.

A quick run across Germany and Russia brought us to Moscow, where the great Chinese walls reminded us that we had reached an outpost of the Occident, a city which had once been occupied by the Mongols. When the Siberian Express pulled out of the station, we felt that we had really said farewell to Europe and our faces were turned toward the East. We crossed the vast plains of eastern Russia and western Siberia—monotonous expanses of white, only relieved by the Ural Mountains, which at the southern extremity of the range, where the railroad passes over them, are not really mountains at all, but hills.

Beyond the Obi River we rose from the level steppe to the foot-hills of the Altai Mountains, a forest region interspersed with open stretches of good farming land—a country so much like our own West that it is sometimes called "the new America." We passed immigrant trains filled with Russian peasants, and the old road over which the exiles used to march before the railroad was built, and saw cars with barred windows, like those of prisons, in which convicts are transported.

The thermometer went down, down, as far as forty degrees below zero, but the cars on the Trans-Siberian were kept as warm as the tropics. The drifts grew deeper, and there were days and nights of endless snow. In the hilly country around Lake Baikal we saw some fine scenery. Low hills and high cliffs covered with larches border its eastern and western shores, but to the southward, a huge mountain wall, lofty and snow-clad as our Californian Sierras, closes in around the lake.

In comparison with our fast American trains this "express" moved so slowly that we feared we should be old, grey-haired men and women before reaching the end of the journey. It was a welcome sight when Kharbin at last appeared, and we knew we were nearing Manchuria. Most Siberian towns that we had seen consisted of low wooden buildings, but Kharbin contains many substantial brick structures.

It is supposed to be nine days from Moscow to Kharbin, and fourteen days from London to Tokyo direct, via Vladivostok. We were eighteen days from Brussels to Kyoto, but we stopped off at Seoul. Our route was through Korea, which, as everybody knows, is now a Japanese colony, because my husband wished to see it on his way to his new post. Passengers for Vladivostok left the train at Kharbin, but we were to continue on southward toward Changchun, where we expected to find Osame Komori, a Japanese whom we had known for many years, and who was to be my husband's interpreter.

We had already received the following letter from Osame:

"Dear Excellency:

"My honourable sir, allow me the liberty presenting you this letter. I meet you Changchun. My gratitude is higher than Fuji and sacred as the Temple of Ise. Your kindness to me is as deep as the Pacific Ocean. Your letter was like sunshine in my life, your news gave me the life from death.... I am total wreck by fire. We had storms lately turning the beautiful Fuji like silver capped mountain, but grain still presents carpets of red and yellow. About gold lacquer you write. I made several enquiry when it will be accomplished. I kick Y. urgently to finish it.... My baby has grown well and often repeat the honour of your last visit.

"Best wishes I remain,

"Your Faithful Servant."

Osame was better than his word, for he met us at Kharbin instead of Changchun, bringing with him supplies of various sorts, which he thought might be acceptable.

After leaving Kharbin we passed through Manchuria, a flat and low-rolling country, in places somewhat roughened, where streams have cut their way. The black earth is carefully cultivated as far as the eye can see, and at this season it was all in furrow. Little primitive carts with shaggy ponies crossed the landscape, laden with bags of the bean which is the great product of this section. Every now and then we passed small fortified guardhouses of stone and brick, with the sentry at his post, for protection against the brigands who sweep down from the mountains and try to carry off even parts of the railway.

At Changchun we were assured that the Japanese Government wished us to be its guests, and we found compartments reserved for us on the Pullman train. From this point we were escorted by Japanese officials, who were sent to meet us and give us all the information we could ask about the country. They told us with bows that the train would be run on a faster schedule than usual in our honour, and sure enough, we soon were speeding over the excellent road-bed at a good rate.

As we went on, the snow began to disappear, and the sharp mountains of Korea came in sight, with little villages tucked away in the ravines. For Chosen, the Land of Morning Calm, as it is always called in Japan, is a country of mountains. Granite peaks, deep gorges and fertile valleys are everywhere in the interior, and the rugged, irregular eastern coastline, of which we had a glimpse in crossing to Japan, winds in and out around the base of the ranges. Among the hills and groves that we passed were the mounds of buried ancestors. We were much impressed by the sturdy, well set-up appearance of the Japanese soldiers along the route, and the military bearing of their officers.

Here live the bear and deer, and the long-haired Korean tiger, so well-known to sportsmen. Foreign sportsmen are free to hunt among these hills wherever they will and they find it a strange sensation to watch for tigers on ridges from which they can look down on the thatched roofs of small villages, or to hear at night from their tent in the village the cough of the tiger seeking his prey on the hills. The wild pigs and hog deer, startled by this cough, flee in blind terror, and are seized by the tiger as they dash past him. In every village a hornblower is on the watch at night, and when he sounds his horn, all the people beat their tiger alarms of tin pans to drive the animal away.

The Korean peasants eat the meat and drink the blood of a slain tiger in the belief that this will render them brave and strong. They make an all-powerful medicine from the long white whiskers, and use the tiny collar-bones as charms to protect them from any devils they chance to meet.

Although it was winter, both men and women were dressed in white cotton, which looked rather startling after the dark costumes of the Chinese and the fur coats of the Russians. White used to be the badge of mourning in Korea, but now it is the national costume. Various stories are told to account for its adoption. According to one of these, in the early part of the nineteenth century three kings died in close succession, and as every one was obliged to wear mourning for three years after the death of a ruler, at the end of this period all the dyers had become discouraged and given up their business, and so white became the dress of the people. Now, when the men are in real mourning, they wear huge straw hats, and do not think it proper to speak.

Although white is still the national costume, the Emperor, some years ago, published an edict giving his subjects permission to wear other colours. The nobles wear a number of coats of the finest cream-coloured silk lawn, over which there may be an outer garment of blue. The white garments impose a needless burden upon the women of the lower classes, who are incessantly engaged in laundry work. The coats are ripped to pieces and washed in some stream, where they are pounded on stones, then after they are dry are placed on wooden cylinders and beaten with sticks until the white cotton has taken on the sheen of dull satin.

Korean men wear curious little open-work hats of black horsehair, which make them look very tall and slight and give them a dudish appearance. They present an especially funny picture when riding a bullock. The women, on the contrary, are wound about in white cotton to such an extent that they look rather Turkish, and they waddle as if bow-legged. Many of them are comical in green silk coats, with which they cover their heads without putting their arms into the sleeves. They were allowed to wear these garments as a badge of honour for their bravery in battle, or, as some say, that they might be ready at a moment's notice to change them into soldiers' coats.

It is said that the broad-brimmed hat sometimes worn by the men originated, several centuries ago, in the efforts of one of the emperors to put a stop to drunkenness. He decreed that all the men should have a light earthen-ware hat of the shape worn to-day, which was never to be taken off, except when they were lying down. The head was protected against the hard surface of this covering by a light padded cap beneath. As the rooms of Korean houses are small, not more than four men could be seated in one, if they had this peculiar headgear. When any one was found to have a broken hat, it was taken for granted that he had been in some drunken brawl, and he received the prescribed punishment.

On our arrival in Seoul, we were met by Japanese officials, and were also greeted by our Consul-General, Mr. Scidmore.

Seoul is charmingly situated in a valley surrounded by beautiful white-capped mountains, over which wanders the high wall that encloses the city. The old entrance gates are massive structures—great foundations of stone with arches cut through them, on which rise the double recurving roofs of tile. The old town with its narrow alleys and its filth has well-nigh disappeared. Under Japanese administration, the gates are no longer closed at night, for there is police protection, and parts of the city are lighted by electricity. The new streets are wide, clean and well drained. Although Korea is called the Hermit Kingdom, and said to be many years behind Japan, there are telegraph lines, electric cars, bicycles, even one or two motors, brick houses and a Railway Station Hotel. The Japanese portion of the town was gay with flags flying from bamboo staffs, in honour of the approaching New Year, and red and white lanterns swung along the ridgepoles.

One peculiarity of Korean houses strikes a Westerner as very strange. As their walls and floors are of stone or brick, it is possible to heat them in the same manner as the Chinese kang, that is, by fires built below. So, many of them are warmed in this way, the wood being put in from the outside through an opening in the wall of the house, and the smoke escaping through a chimney on the opposite side. A network of pipes under the floors carries the hot air to every part of the building.

We visited the old palace where the dethroned Emperor and Empress used to live. It is rather Chinese in appearance, but not quite so handsome as the palace in Peking, which we had seen previously. The approach to it is by a broad way lined on each side with low, tile-roofed houses; this leads to the great Mon, the entrance gate, with double overhanging roofs towering above it. Inside this is a great court, next another massive gateway with two-storied upturned roofs, then another courtyard, around which are low houses, and a third gate, leading into the last court, which is approached by terraced steps of stone. Finally appears the audience hall, a building with recurving roofs of tile, beautiful carvings, and brilliant decorations in colour. Passages and courts lead from this to the pleasure pavilion, a large, open, two-storied structure with a heavy pagoda roof, which stands on a stone terrace, and is reached by three bridges with stone balustrading. Beside it is a tank where lotus grows, and near-by a park-like grove of quaint pine-trees.

In this palace, several years ago, Empress Bin of Korea was assassinated while asleep. The Emperor, however, dressed as a coolie, escaped to the Russian Legation, where he lived for two years. He afterward built himself a new palace in European style, where he resides now as a sort of prisoner, while his son lives in another palace, and the grandson is being educated in Japan. The Emperor is now known as Prince Yi the Elder, and his son as Prince Yi the Younger, while his grandson, who also bears the same name, is the last of the Yi dynasty, which has ruled Korea for five hundred years.

As we all know, Korea was involved in the two terrible wars that have been waged in the Far East in recent years. Japan needs Korea as an outlet for her surplus population, as a source of food supply and a market for her manufactured products, but still more does she need it as a strong country to stand between herself and Russian aggression. In the last decade of the nineteenth century the Hermit Kingdom was still under the suzerainty of China, and its government was weak and hopelessly corrupt. Japan refused to acknowledge this overlordship of China, and insisted that the Korean government must be reformed. China was asked to help in enforcing the changes, but refused to interfere. Neither China nor Japan would yield.

Finally the Koreans sent for Chinese troops, and then the Japanese attacked the Emperor's palace. A great naval battle was fought at the mouth of the Yalu River, in which the Chinese were defeated and five of their ships sunk. The Japanese army took Dalny and Port Arthur. Another naval battle ended in the surrender of the Chinese fleet and the suicide of the Chinese admiral. Togo and Yamagata, whom I once had the pleasure of meeting at a luncheon in Tokyo, and Nogi, were among the heroes of this war. By the treaty of Shimonoseki, in 1895, China agreed to pay an indemnity to Japan and to recognize the independence of Korea, and also ceded the Liaotung Peninsula with Port Arthur, and the islands of Formosa and the Pescadores group to Japan. No sooner was this treaty signed, however, than the Great Powers compelled Japan to restore Liaotung to China.

But within a few years, Russia obtained a lease of Liaotung, and the Powers made no protest. She soon invested immense sums in Manchuria—in building the Manchurian Railroad, in fortifying Port Arthur and making it a naval base, and extending the Chinese Eastern Railroad toward the Yalu and Korea. She made Kharbin her military base and filled Manchuria with soldiers.

Japan saw the necessity of protecting not only her freedom of trade, but her very existence as a nation, for Russia, from her vantage ground in Manchuria, had begun to take possession of the valley of the Yalu River, on Korea's northwestern frontier. Once this section was in her power it would be an easy matter to sweep down through the peninsula and across the narrow Straits of Shimonoseki to the Island Empire itself.

In vain did Japan try to open up negotiations with Russia. On one excuse or another, she was put off for months, while all the time Russia was preparing for war. Finally diplomatic relations were severed by order of Baron Komura, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, and war was declared February 10, 1904. Baron Kaneko, in an address before the Japan Club of Harvard University, in April of that year, said that Japan was fighting to maintain the peace of Asia and to conserve the influence of Anglo-American civilization in the East.

After Admiral Togo had destroyed the Russian fleet, and the long siege of Port Arthur had ended in its surrender to the heroic Nogi, all the Japanese armies combined for the final struggle around Mukden, which terminated in the flight of the Russians from Manchuria. The treaty of peace, which was signed at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, gave Japan Port Arthur, a protectorate over Korea, and half the island of Saghalien, and provided that both nations should evacuate Manchuria. The protectorate over Korea has since become a sovereignty.

The Japanese Governor-General, Count Terauchi, is a very strong and able man, and under his administration many improvements have been made in Korea. This has not always been done without friction between the natives and their conquerors, it must be confessed, but the results are certainly astonishing. The government has been reorganized, courts have been established, the laws have been revised, trade conditions have been improved and commerce has increased. Agriculture has been encouraged by the opening of experiment stations, railroads have been constructed from the interior to the sea-coast, and harbours have been dredged and lighthouses erected. Japanese expenditures in Korea have amounted to twelve million dollars yearly.

The Governor-General gave us a dinner at his residence, a big European house, where everything was done in European style. The four Japanese ladies who received, however, were all in native costume—black kimonos, which they wear for ceremony only, and superb gold obis, or sashes. One of them was the Governor's daughter, Countess Kodama, who was very beautiful. I went in to dinner with the Governor-General, and had on the other side a Japanese doctor of the Red Cross, who had been much in America and was well acquainted with Miss Boardman, the head of our Red Cross here.

Our delightful luncheon at the Consulate must not be forgotten, for no more charming people could be found anywhere than the Scidmores. Miss Scidmore is the author of "Jinrikisha Days," as well as other books on the East. The remarkably pretty Consulate, which is owned by our Government, is an old Korean house, or yamen, built in a walled compound on the slope of a hill. Having only one story, it presented more the appearance of a studio than of a residence, but was made cozy with open fires and attractive with many beautiful curios.

The religions of Korea are Buddhism, Confucianism and Shamanism, all found there to-day. Shamanism is the form of worship of the more primitive masses. There are many Buddhist temples in Chosen. For instance, among the peaks of Keum-Kang-San alone, in the heart of the Korean mountains, there are over fifty monasteries and shrines, but all more or less in a state of decay. Christianity was brought into the country by the Roman Catholics in 1777.

THE AMERICAN CONSULATE. SEOUL.