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276 that where this occurred the most effectual remedy was to call up the oldest man visible, to offer him a cigarette, to calm him down, and then to give the interpreter some money and to send off the pair of them. Once this system failed in a flea-infested hole on the west coast, where the village inn had no stables, and I really thought there were no fowls; of a sudden, as though satirising the expression of regret of several villagers, two fowls fluttered over a wall into the road. The meeting broke up in confusion. The grooms, the servants and the interpreter at once tackled the mob, laying about them with their whips; little damage was done, but considerable commotion ensued, and stables, fowls and eggs were at once forthcoming and as promptly paid for. In regard to payments made to the villagers, it is as well to make certain that the grooms pay for the horses' accommodation; if they can avoid it they will do so, and a memory of this lingering in the mind of the inn-keeper, makes him shut his doors when the next foreigner is passing. But, in a general way, if everything is paid for, anything is procurable—even crockery and charcoal stoves, at a pinch, when the difficulties of the precipitous track have played unusual havoc in the china basket.

In the routine of the march, it is pleasant to camp beyond the village for the noonday halt; near the river, if the weather permits bathing. The food can be prepared in the sunlight under some trees. This picnic halt gives an agreeable change from the native inn, over which the missionaries wail perpetually; it is, indeed, always to be avoided. I was several times in Korean inns, driven in by some sudden and temporary downpour, which cut off my retreat. The evening camp made me independent of them in general; every evening the interpreter found the cleanest-looking private