e, green and yellow, in their
crudest tones. Over each of the columns supporting the temple, projects a
board with two enormous curved teeth, like the tusks of an elephant, and
over the principal door of the temple is a black tablet, on which the
name of the temple is written in gold Chinese characters. At each of the
columns, both of the temple and of the common part of the dwellings, hang
long wooden panels on which are written the names of supporters and
donors with accompanying words of high praise.

The doors of the temples are of lattice-work and are made up of four
different parts, folding and opening on hinges. On some occasions, when
the _concours_ of the public is too great to be accommodated within the
building itself, the whole of the front and sides of the temple are
thrown open. Inside the lattice-work above mentioned tissue-paper is
placed, to protect the religious winter visitors from the cold.

Inside, the temples are extremely simple. With the exception of the
statue of Buddha and the various representations of minor deities that we
have already mentioned, there is little else to be seen. The
prayer-books, certainly, are interesting; their leaves are joined
together so as to form a long strip of paper folded into pages, but not
sewn, nor fastened anywhere except at the two ends, to which two wooden
panels are attached, and, by one side of the book being kept higher than
the other, the leaves unfold, so to speak, automatically.

In one temple of very small dimensions, perched up among the rocks near
the South Gate of Seoul, are to be seen hundreds of little images in
costumes of warriors, mandarins and princes, all crammed together in the
most unmerciful manner. This temple goes by the name of the "The
Five-hundred Images." Adjoining it is a quaint little monastery and a
weird cavern (_see_ chap, xx., "A Trip to Poo Kan").

As to the monasteries themselves, these, though adjoining the temples,
are built apart from them. Their lower portions are, like all Corean
houses, of stone and mud, while the upper parts are entirely of mud. The
roof is tiled on the main portion of the building, while over the kitchen
and quarters for the novices it is generally only thatched.

[Illustration: BUDDHIST BONZES AND TEMPLE]

More interesting to me than the temples and buildings were the bonzes,
who are, I may as well say at once, a very depraved lot. It is a strange
fact in nature that the vicious are often more in