Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1885 — The City of Seoul, Corea. [ARTICLE]

The City of Seoul, Corea.

This place looms u]j before you with high towers in Chinese style pierced by cannon, and the city is surrounded by a wall twenty-five feet in height, and built of solid stone. You may think you areabout toenter some grand city with stately abodes, but on passing through the gate you find only thatched cottages, very wide streets, and scarcely any trees; and you are surpiised that so grand a wall should be thought necessary to protect so insignificant a town. But there are throngs of people there, and bullocks and ponies laden with merchandise are passing you constantly. In the broad, open spaces called market places are groups of donkeys laden With vegetables, and bulls almost covered out of sight with loads of brushwood to be used as fuel. Along the little brooks which run through the city are washerwomen with their clothes-lines. The Coreans build their houses by erecting four pillars or posts at the corners, and filling in the walls with mud. The ■better houses of the wealthy are faced with stone, pointed with cement. Though these are better in q ality than those of the poor, they are much the same style. You enter a house through a sliding door or window about three feet high, consisting of a light wooden frame work papered over to exclude the air and admit the light. There is on good houses a veranda upon which the shoes of the inmates and visitors are left while they enter. In this tidy custom the Coreans resemble the Japanese ; but the hollow space under the floor of the house, which is filled in winter with warm air, reminds you of the Chinese.