Page:Korea (1904).djvu/86

 an extraordinary metamorphosis was achieved. Old Seoul, with its festering alleys, its winter accumulations of every species of filth, its plastering mud and penetrating foulness, has almost totally vanished from within the walls of the capital. The streets are magnificent, spacious, clean, admirably made and well drained. The narrow, dirty lanes have been widened; gutters have been covered, and roadways broadened; until, with its trains, its cars, and its lights, its miles of telegraph lines, its Railway Station Hotel, brick houses and glass windows, Seoul is within measurable distance of becoming the highest, most interesting, and cleanest city in the East. It is still not one whit Europeanised, for the picturesqueness of the purely Korean principles and standards of architecture has been religiously maintained, and is to be observed in all future improvements.

The shops still cling to the sides of the drains; the jewellers' shops hang above one of the main sewers of the city; the cabinet and table-makers occupy both sides of an important thoroughfare, their precious furniture half in and half out of filthy gutters. A Korean cabinet is a thing of great beauty. It is embossed with brass plates and studded with brass nails, very massive, well dovetailed, altogether superior in design and finish. The work of the jewellers is crude and unattractive, although individual pieces may reveal some artistic conception. In the main the ornaments include silver bangles, hairpins and earrings, with a variety of objects suitable for the decoration of the hair. The grain merchants and the vegetable dealers conduct their business in the road. The native merchant loves to encroach upon the public thoroughfares whenever possible. Once off the main streets of the city, the side alleys are completely blocked to traffic because of the predilection of the shop-