public and private complaints about this interference with my
plans. I visited the shipping offices to learn of the next steamer to
Vladivostock.

A few hours before I was to start I chanced to meet an old friend, who
questioned me confidentially, "I suppose it is really true that you are
going away, and that this is not a trick on your part?" I left him
thoughtful, for his words had shown me the splendid opportunity in my
hands. Early next morning, long before dawn, my ponies came back, the boys
assembled, the saddles were quickly fixed and the packs adjusted, and soon
we were riding as hard as we could for the mountains. The regrettable part
of the affair is that many people are still convinced that the whole
business of the cablegram was arranged by me in advance as a blind, and no
assurances of mine will convince them to the contrary.

As in duty bound, I sent word to the acting British Consul-General, telling
him of my departure. My letter was not delivered to him until after I had
left. On my return I found his reply awaiting me at my hotel.

"I consider it my duty to inform you," he wrote, "that I received
a communication on the 7th inst. from the Residency-General
informing me that, in view of the disturbed conditions in the
interior, it is deemed inadvisable that foreign subjects should
be allowed to travel in the disturbed districts for the present I
would also call your attention to the stipulation in Article V.
of the treaty between Great Britain and Korea, under which
British subjects travelling in the interior of the country
without a passport are liable to arrest and to a penalty."

In Seoul no one could tell where or how the "Righteous Army" might be
found. The information doled out by the Japanese authorities was
fragmentary, and was obviously and naturally framed in such a manner as to
minimize and discredit the disturbances. It was admitted that the Korean
volunteers had a day or two earlier destroyed a small railway station on
the line to Fusan. We knew that a small party of them had attacked the
Japanese guard of a store of rifles, not twenty miles from the capital, and
had driven them off and captured the arms and ammunition. Most of the
fighting, so far as one could judge, appeared to have been around the town
of Chung-ju, four days' journey from Seoul. It was for there I aimed,
travelling by an indirect bridle-path in order to avoid the Japanese as f