296 SPORT AND TRAVEL PAPERS 



like all cities here, by a huge crenelated wall 20 feet and 

 more high, built of enormous blocks of granite ; the wall was 

 pierced by four gates with carved and painted very picturesque 

 concave roofs, but again, like all cities, palaces, and houses in 

 Korea, rapidly tumbling down. It is such a pity ! So pictur- 

 esque and quaint, and so beautiful are many of these buildings, 

 and so great their historical interest, yet nothing whatever is 

 done to prevent their rapid decay there is no money, and 

 nobody seems to care. This especially is the case in Seoul, 

 the capital, with its very beautiful and most interesting palaces, 

 its streets crowded with toiling coolies, heavily laden, magnificent 

 bulls, swaggering yang-bans (officials), women covered from 

 head to foot with huge green veils of gauze (for a woman's face 

 must never be seen by strangers), policemen, soldiers, its im- 

 mense wall running over the hills snake-like, its most striking 

 gates, all of which is so well described in Mrs. Bishop's book. 



