SEOUL, THE CAPITAL OF KOREA.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2156, 12 August 1907, Page 3

SEOUL, THE CAPITAL OF KOREA.

Of the city of Seoul, which has bee, brought into some prominence lately a traveller makes the idiom* , re marks “The situation is enchanting High hills and mountains rise close the city, their sides rough, rugged and bleak, save where Patche, of bushes and trees struggle for exist dice. The atmosphere is clear, t) a ir is sweet; the city is neat and orderly. There is but one wall rount Seoul, and that is in good preservation.' In places it is a ramparl Of mud, faced with masonry ; more Often it is a solid structure of stone U miles in circumference, 2d to « feet high, battlementcd along it: enitre length, and pierced by oigb arches of stone. Within the radio: of these stone walls the city spread, itself across a plain. Outside the cifc everywhere is peaceful; foreigner: pas/by unnoticed by the peasants who lazily scratching the surface o their fields or ploughing in the n ate of their rice patch with stately r buUs occupy their time with gentle in dustrv. It is more by reason of i bountiful nature that has endow* their land with fertility than by care fil management or expenditure o! energy that it serves them purpose The officials are elegantly superior u their manner and appearance. Th« distinction of costumes of the en t classes is evinced perhaps by the difference in their prices The dress of the noble costs several hundreds If dollars, and consists of the richest •it., The movement of a number o. these people suggests the result of a | breeze ill a forest of leaves. The dress of the less exalted is no les. striking in its unblemished punty. A street full of Koreans dressed in th> fashion aptly suggests, as Mr Henry Norman once wrote, the orthodox notion of ressurrect(on. The ‘ 1 ero fine, well-built, peaceful felU.w dTgnified in their bearing polite, . and oven considerate towards one another.