that travel by road is quicker and easier. The one recommendation for the water route was that fewer robbers would be met. When the Japanese began to run regular steamers, however, the Koreans very soon learned how much quicker, easier and cheaper this form of travel is, and at the present time the coastwise steamers carry crowds of natives. Many of these craft are small and obsolete. Not a few of them have doubtless been condemned in Japan and have been brought over to this country where few questions are asked and inspections are comparatively rare. No limit seems to be placed upon the number of passengers that will be booked for passage. I have seen little steamers whose capacity was forty or fifty people loaded down with a hundred or more. The cabin would be so full that there was hardly sitting space on the floor, to say nothing of attempting to lie down. These wheezy craft occasionally blow up and oftener strike an obstruction and founder. There is no old resident of Seoul who cannot tell you a long list of gruesome yarns about the steamers that used to ply between Seoul and Chemulpo by the river before the railroad was built. This latter is truly an eleemosynary institution, and deserves to make handsome profits.
Seoul boasts of one other vehicle which is fast becoming obsolete, but which once formed a picturesque addition to the street scenery of the capital. It is a one-wheeled chair. The seat is placed on two long poles, which are supported at the ends by bearers, but the weight of the rider is supported upon a sort of pedestal immediately beneath the seat. This pedestal rests upon the axle of a single iron-bound and nail-studded wheel about two feet and a half in diameter. The bearers at the ends of the poles simply propel the machine and keep it from tipping from side to side. It is a reasonable proposition, but at first sight it affects the risibilities of the spectator with irresistible force. Only certain high grades of officials are allowed to make use of this singular vehicle.
During the past few years certain portions of the country
