ose plumage we
much admired, were let loose for some days, but they created such a
nuisance with their early crowing, that they were soon condemned, like
most hens, to suffer from an overstretch of neck. The screens and
leopard-skins I brought back with me to England as a memento of my
portrait-painting experiences in Corea, and these I still possess.

CHAPTER XII

The royal palace--A royal message--Mounting guard--The bell--The royal
precinct--The Russian villa--An unfinished structure--The Summer
Palace--The King's house--Houses of dignitaries--The ground and summer
pavilion--Colds--The funeral of a Japanese Minister--Houses of royal
relations--The queen--The oldest man and woman--The King and his
throne--Politics and royalty--Messengers and spies--Kim-Ka-Chim---Falcons
and archery--Nearly a St. Sebastian--The queen's curiosity--A royal
banquet--The consequences.

[Illustration: THE PALACE GROUNDS AND SOUTH GATE FROM THE NEW PALACE]

I had some more amusing experiences on the occasion of my first visit to
the royal palace. The King had sent me a message one evening saying that
any part of the royal palace and grounds would be opened to me, if I
wished to make observations or take sketches, and that it would give him
much pleasure if I would go there early the next morning and stay to
dinner at the palace. This invitation to spend the whole day at the
palace was so tempting that I at once accepted it, and next day,
accompanied by one of the officials, a Mr. S., I proceeded early in the
morning to the side entrance of the enclosure.

The palace and grounds, as we have seen, are enclosed by a wall of
masonry about twenty feet high, and from a bird's-eye point of vantage
the "compound" has a rectangular shape. There are almost continuous moats
round the outside walls, with stone bridges with marble parapets over
them at all the entrances. At the corners of the wall _d'enceinte_ are
turrets with loopholes. There soldiers are posted day and night to mount
guard, each set being relieved from duty at intervals of two hours during
the night, when the hammer bell in the centre of the palace grounds
sounds its mournful but decided strokes. At midnight a big drum is
struck, the harmonic case of which is semi-spherical and covered with a
donkey-skin first wetted and made tight. It is by the sound of this
smaller bell within the palace grounds that the signal is given at sunset
to the "Big Bell" to vibrate through th