small projecting
thatched roof has been put up, sustained by posts, at nearly each of
these, to protect its goods from sun and snow. Before going two hundred
yards we come to a little stone bridge, about five feet wide, and with no
parapet, over a sewer, in front of which is an open space like a small
square. But look! Do you see that man squatting down there on a mat? Is
he not picturesque with his long white flowing robe, his large pointed
straw hat and his black face? As he lies there with outstretched hands,
dried by the sun and snow, calling out for the mercy of the passers-by,
he might almost be mistaken for an Arab. His face is as black as it could
be, and he is blind. He is one of the personalities of Seoul, and rain or
shine you always see him squatting on his little mat at the same spot in
the same attitude.

[Illustration: THE BLIND BEGGAR: SEOUL]

It is only seldom that beggars are to be seen in Cho-sen, for they are
not allowed to prowl about except on certain special occasions, and
festivities, when the streets are simply crammed with them. It is then
that the most ghastly diseases, misfortunes, accidents, and deformities
are made use of and displayed before you to extract from your pockets the
modest sum of a _cash_. I cannot say that I am easily impressed by such
sights, and far less horrified, for in my lifetime it has been my luck to
see so many that I have got accustomed to them; but I must confess to
being on one occasion really terrified at the sight of a Corean beggar. I
was sketching not very far from this stone miniature bridge on which we
are supposed to be still standing, when I perceived the most ghastly
object coming towards me. It looked like a human being, and it did not;
but it was. As he drew nearer, I could not help shivering. He was a
walking skeleton, minus toes and fingers. He was almost naked, except
that he had a few rags round his loins; and the skin that hardly covered
his bones was a mass of sores. His head was so deformed and his eyes so
sunken that a Peruvian mummy would have been an Adonis if compared with
him. Nose he had none--_et ca passe_--for in Seoul it is a blessing not
to have one; and where his mouth should have been there was a huge gap,
his lower jaw being altogether missing. A few locks of long hair in
patches on his skull, blown by the wind, completed a worthy frame for
this most unprepossessing head.

Oh, what a hideous sight! He hopped along a step or two at