The Corean custom is to sleep on the ground in the padded clothes, using a wooden block as a pillow.  The better classes, however, use also small, thin mattresses, covered with silk, which they spread out at night, and keep rolled up during the day-time.  As the people sleep on the ground, it often happens that the floor gets so hot as to almost roast them, but the easy-going inhabitant of Cho-sen, does not seem to object to this roasting process—­on the contrary, he seems almost to revel in it, and when well broiled on one side, he will turn over to the other, so as to level matters.  While admiring the Coreans much for this proceeding, I found it extremely inconvenient to imitate them.  I recollect well the first experience which I had of the use of a “Kan,” which is the native name of the oven.  On that occasion it was “made so hot” for me, that I began to think I had made a mistake, and that I had entered a crematory oven instead of a sleeping-room.  Putting my fist through one of the paper windows to get a little air only made matters ten times worse, for half my body continued to undergo the roasting process, while the other half was getting unpleasantly frozen.  To this day, it has always been a marvel to me, and an unexplainable fact that, those who use the “Kan” do not “wake up—­dead” in the morning!

The furniture of a Corean house, as I have hinted above, is neither over plentiful nor too luxurious.  In fact, at the first glance, one is almost inclined to say that there is, so to speak, no furniture at all there.  Possibly, a tiger or a leopard-skin may be found spread on the ground in the reception room; there may even be a rough minuscule chest of drawers in a corner, and a small, low writing-table near it, upon which probably rests a little jar with a flower or two in it; but rarely will you find much more.  The bedrooms usually contain chests, in which the clothing is kept, but there is also a custom by which these are hung on pegs in a recess in the wall.  The chests are covered with white parchment studded all over with brass nails, and further adorned with a brass lock and two handles of the same metal.  When voyaging, the Coreans use these as trunks.  Besides the rooms I have mentioned, the richer Corean has a special room, generally kept locked up, in which the treasures of the family are jealously safeguarded.  The latter are in the shape of ancient native pictures, rolled up like the Kakemonos of Japan, painted screens and vases of the Satsuma ware, the art of making which was taught to the Japanese by the Coreans, although now those who were formerly masters in the art cannot produce it.  Some Coreans also possess valuable specimens of lacquer work, both of Chinese and Japanese origin, as well as a rougher kind of native production.  None of these heirlooms are, however, ever brought to light, and it is only on rare and very grand occasions, such as marriages, deaths, or national rejoicings, that one or two articles