two portions, namely,
the summer palace and the winter palace. An official, who came to meet me
in the inner enclosure, informed me that His Majesty desired that I
should begin by inspecting the summer palace--access to which is not
allowed during the winter time--and that he had given orders for the
gates leading to it, which had been nailed up and sealed, to await the
next warm weather, to be opened for me. No one besides myself and the
official to guide me was, however, to be allowed to enter. And so,
preceded by a man with a heavy wooden mallet, we arrived at the gate,
which, after a considerable amount of hammering and pegging away, was at
last forced open. Accompanied by my guide, I straightway entered, two
soldiers being left on guard to prevent any one else following. As I got
within the enclosure, a pretty sight lay before me. In front was a large
pond, now all frozen, in the centre of which stood a large square sort of
platform of white marble. On this platform was erected the audience-hall,
a colonnade of the same kind of white marble, supported by which was
another floor of red lacquered wood with wooden columns, which in their
turn upheld the tiled roof with slightly curled up corners. The part
directly under the roof was beautifully ornamented with fantastic wood
carvings painted yellow, red, green and blue. Red and white were the
colours which predominated. A black tablet, with large gold characters
on it, was at one side.

The throne in the audience-hall was a simple raised scaffold in the
centre of the room, with a screen behind it, and a staircase of seven or
eight steps leading up to it. Access to this sort of platform-island from
the gate at which we entered was obtained by means of a marble bridge,
spanned across on two strong marble supports. The staircase leading to
the first floor was at the end of the building, directly opposite to
where the bridge was; so that, on coming from the bridge, we had to go
through the whole colonnade to reach it.

Having taken a sketch or two, I retraced my steps and again reached the
entrance. The instant I was outside, the gate was again shut and nailed
up, wooden bars being put right across it. I was then led to the inner
enclosure. The gate of this was guarded by about a dozen armed men, I
being now in front of the part of the house which was inhabited by the
King himself. After all, however, his abode is no better than the houses
of the noblemen all over Seoul