rugged mountains near important towns. These are relics of the days when the incursions of wild tribes made it necessary to have places of refuge at hand, where all the people could hasten in times of distress. Some of these are extremely old. One near Chemulpo is reputed to date from the beginning of our era.
Just outside the wall of Songdo, the ancient capital of Koryu, is shown a small stone bridge on which the loyal Chong Mong-ju was slain. He was faithful to the closing dynasty, and had to be put out of the way before the new one could be firmly established. On the central stone of this bridge is seen to-day a great brown blotch, which turns to a dull red in the rain, and the Koreans affirm that it is the blood of that loyal man.
Korea is filled with Buddhistic relics. There is hardly a district that does not have its monastery tucked away among the foot-hills of the mountains, and in some districts there are a dozen or more. On Kwanak Mountain alone there are said to be fourteen. They are all in more or less of a moribund condition, and monasteries that once boasted their hundreds of votaries now have half a dozen or less. One in the south was so. large that the Koreans affirm that in order to stir the big kettle in which the monks' food was cooked a man had to go out in a raft upon it. We must make allowance for a vivid imagination here, but there is proof at hand that some of their monastery kettles were immense. To-day there lies in the ditch beside the road near the town of Kyong-ju a kettle that was once the main culinary utensil of a monastery. It measures over thirty feet in circumference, a clear ten feet across the mouth. One would need long arms to stir this in the middle. As a rule the most beautiful views in Korea are in the vicinity of the monasteries, for they are always surrounded by fine trees. Not a few of them are built in the midst of grand forests of deciduous trees, where the foreigner goes when he wishes to hunt. They are the retreat of deer, wild boar and leopards. The most famous monasteries in Korea are those in Diamond Mountain, a cluster of
