peace and happiness. It was possible to work undisturbed and unprovoked by any harrowing influences. Indeed, there was no suggestion of any other existence. We lived in the seclusion of a sanctuary, where mortal misgivings had not penetrated, and where the tribulations, which oppress mankind, were unknown.
Beyond Shin-ki-sa, a journey of fifteen li, a well-made road leads east north-east to the coast, which it touches at Syöng-chik. The sight and scent of the sea, after the exhausting discomforts of Shin-ki-sa, was peculiarly welcome. Between Yu-chom-sa and Shin-ki-sa the country is intersected with marshes and rice-fields. The difficulties of marching through these bogs and mud-holes greatly impeded the horses. The road by the coast, if rough and stony in places, is at least free from these obstacles, affording a tortuous, but none the less pleasant, course. Wending across basaltic slopes, ascending their smooth surfaces by a series of roughly-hewn steps, it drops to a level of burnished sand. A sweep inland to the west and south-west avoids the rugged spurs of a neighbouring range. The sea licks the white sand with gentle murmurs and the slight breeze scarcely ripples the blue surface, the constant variations, which the golden sands and glittering sea, the open valleys and green hills present, adding to the charm and freshness of the journey. The feeling of isolation, inseparable from travel in regions where the sense of freedom is shut out by a world of enclosing mountains, is at once lost in contact with the ocean and the ships that go down to it. Far out, in the great expanse of the peaceful sea, were fishing-boats, grey junks, hull down upon the horizon, their brown sails bellying spasmodically in the fitful gusts of the breeze. In the shallows off-shore men, brown
