much in the way of folk-lore that is worthy of attention, especially when the legends are of such a nature as to attract the traveller, and induce him to visit the scenes of the alleged marvels himself. Briefly, the Seven Wonders of Corea are as follow. The first is a certain hot mineral spring near a place called Kin-shan-tao, the healing properties of which are believed to be miraculous. There is no necessity to wait until an angel troubles the water. Its virtues are in constant vigour, and so great are they that they have never failed in efficacy within the memory of man. No matter what disease may afflict the patient, a dip in these healing waters will prove as sure a cure as the bath in Jordan did to leprous Naaman. Therefore, the spring is believed to be divine, and is spoken of accordingly. The second wonder is also connected with water. There are two springs, situated at a considerable distance from each other-in fact, there is almost the breadth of the entire peninsula between them. These have two peculiarities. They are arranged, apparently, on the principle of the "little-man-and-his-wife' of those cottage barometers which are still seen in primitive parts of England. When one is in, the other goes out; or, in plainer words, when one is full, the other is empty; and the Coreans seem to believe that, somewhere deep in the bowels of the earth, there is a mysterious tide, which ebbs and flows with marvellous rapidity at stated intervals of time, filling one spring while it empties the other. But the strangest part of the phenomenon is, that the water is so strongly sweet that whatever is cooked in it, no matter how bad it may be of itself, immediately acquires a most delicious taste. The third is called Cold-wind Cavern. This is a cave

somewhere in the mountains, in which a mysterious wind blows perpetually-a wind so cold as to pierce to the very bones, and so strong that the most powerful man is unable to stand against it. There is something like this to be found in the Western Hills near Peking. Among the ruins of an old temple on the hillside there is a little cave, quite open to the air, and at the farther end of it a hole, opening apparently into the earth, up which rushes a strong blast of cold wind. The entire cave is several degrees colder than the surrounding atmosphere, and the line which divides the two temperatures is very precisely defined. The fourth wonder of Corea is the This is a large grove of pinetrees, which sprout again directly they are cut down. It matters not what injury is done to the root; the tree may be hacked to pieces or burnt with fire-nothing will avail to destroy it, but up it will sprout again in no time, like a phoenix from its own ashes. The fifth wonder is more wonderful still. This is the Floating Stone, and a temple has been reared in its honour, called the Fou Shih Miao. In front of the temple stands, or appears to stand, the extraordinary stone. It is of great

Ineradicable Forest.

bulk, and a sort of irregular cube in shape. To all appearance it is resting on the ground, and perfectly free from all supports on any side. But if two men, standing at opposite ends of it, hold each the opposite. ends of a thread, they will find themselves able to pass the thread under the stone without encountering any obstacle! In other words, the stone is actually hovering a little way above the earth, and the miracle can be tested in the way described by anybody who cares to pay the priest a trifling sum for the privilege of doing so. The

sixth wonder also consists of a stone, but a stone of a more practically useful nature. It is called the Warm Rock-very flat and smooth, and forms the summit of a hill upon which there is a pavilion or kiosque for the benefit of travellers. Here they may rest and pass the night. However cold the weather may be, there is no stove, nor any need for one; the stone on which the resthouse stands diffuses its wonderful and benign warmth through every room in it, and the poorest may bask in its comfort. About the seventh wonder we believe that

some slight uncertainty exists. There are two objects which are both entitled to the honour. One is simply a relic of Sakya "Ju-lai "—the Buddha who thus comes— in the form of a small chest or case of exquisitely fine workmanship. This is to be seen in a temple somewhere near the sea. The other is far more extraordinary, and we think there should not be a doubt of its claim to "wonder "-ship. It is a drop of the sweat of Buddha. Around the large temple where it is enshrined, for thirty paces square, not a blade of grass will grow; there are no trees, no flowers; the very birds and animals desert it, instinctively recoiling from profaning with their footfalls a plot of ground so holy. The association of ideas is not particularly happy, for the more natural impression would be that the presence of a relic of so benign a personage would have had a genial and fertilising effect, and instead of a bare blank patch we should have looked for a lovely oasis, gay with lotuses and summer flowers, and full of the song and gambols of those innocent creatures, the protection of whose helplessness forms so distinctive a feature of the gentle teachings of Ju-lai.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHINA'S GREATEST TYRANT.

CHINA may justly be said, in many ways, to be the country of pretensions. There are few things in which the Chinese do not claim pre-eminence, and it is this habit of self-complacency which renders them so very much averse to being enlightened on those points on which they habitually are found wanting. The belief in their own infallibility cannot but be a standing obstacle to the progress of the people in all departments where it prevails, and the difficulty of getting a Chinaman to acknowledge that he is beaten in an argument is but another phase of the same phenomenon. It is a sufficient answer, for him, that, however useless or hurtful a given practice may be, it is the "custom" of the country; and the belief that all the customs which have descended from generation to generation are, for that very reason, incapable of improvement, renders him a very hopeless subject to deal with.

A very few illustrations will, we think, suffice to prove the justice of this remark. In no country, for instance, are morals more highly esteemed as a basis of public administration and private conduct. Nothing could be more unexceptionable than the theories on which the government of the country is professedly carried on.

Foreign writers have over and over again applauded the Chinese for resting all their rules of life on right reason, and bringing to the test of principle, rather than to that of material welfare or advantage, their general policy of action. In spite of this, China is one of the most miserably misgoverned countries in the whole world. There is, perhaps, no place where peculation is rifer, or more unblushingly carried on. Considering, for instance, the unrivalled estimation in which literature and education are held by both governors and governed, it is astounding to read in the official gazette the gross impositions which are practised every year at the public examinations. Then the innocent are being constantly plundered by the rich and powerful, and although false accusations, made with a view to extorting money, do sometimes recoil upon the guilty parties, it too often happens that the only recompense received by the victim takes the form of an honourable burial for his corpse. The high position accorded to agriculture in China might naturally lead us to look for corresponding results in the fruits and vegetables that are cultivated, and to some sound principles as actuating the Chinese farmer or market-gardener in his work. But what is the state of matters here? China scarcely produces a fruit worth eating. The apples are soft and woolly, the pears not nearly so toothsome as a good turnip, the peaches are full of worms, and all, fruits and vegetables alike, are inferior, tasteless, and poor. The Chinese labourer has no idea of manipulating the ground. He contents himself with scratching its surface, and then deluges it with liquid manure. Of what may be called agricultural chemistry he never heard; still, he fancies that he has no more to