Page:In Korea with Marquis Ito (1908).djvu/51

Rh stored in the "fire mountain," some ten miles away to the southward. They are therefore called "Fire Dogs." Once inside the enclosure, one is presented with a melancholy picture of neglect, swiftly oncoming decay, and advancing ruin. All this is the more melancholy, because the present palace buildings are only about fifty years old, were erected by the Prince-parent of the present Emperor, almost to the financial ruin of the country, and were abandoned only after the assassination of the Queen, October 8, 1895.

Amidst this crowded waste where formerly three thousand persons lived in attendance upon the separate establishments for the King, Queen, Crown Prince, and the Dowagers, there are only two buildings which, architecturally considered, are worthy of note. One of these is the old "Audience Hall." Its columns, although many are cracked for a considerable part of their length, and none of them ever possessed anything like the beauty or finish of the noble wooden pillars of the Nishi Hongwanji in Kyoto (which, however, they resemble in style and effect), seem to have been made of entire stately trees. There are really no galleries, but the appearance is that of a two-galleried hall. The strong colors of red, black, green, and blue, with which the carved and panelled ceiling is decorated, in a manner similar to that of the castles in the Tokugawa period in Japan, seem to find their way through one's upturned eyes to the base of the brain. In some of its structural features this Audience Hall resembles the audience halls of the Muhammadan monarchs in Northern India more than anything to be found in Japan. This is especially true of the high platform on which the throne was placed. The decoration central over it, and that central in the ceiling of the whole hall, is golden dragons, with clouds and flames, in bas-reliefs; it is in an excellent state of preservation.

The other really fine building in the entire collection is the