My inquiries as to where I should find any signs of the fighting always met with the same reply—­“The Japanese have been to Ichon, and have burned many villages there.”  So we pushed on for Ichon as hard as we could.

The chief problem that faced the traveller in Korea who ventured away from the railways in those days was how to hasten the speed of his party.  “You cannot travel faster than your pack,” is one of those indisputable axioms against which the impatient man fretted in vain.  The pack-pony was led by a horseman, who really controlled the situation.  If he sulked and determined to go slowly nothing could be done.  If he hurried, the whole party must move quickly.

The Korean mafoo regards seventy li (about twenty-one miles) as a fair day’s work.  He prefers to average sixty li, but if you are very insistent he may go eighty.  It was imperative that I should cover from a hundred to a hundred and twenty li a day.

I tried a mixture of harsh words, praise, and liberal tips.  I was up at three in the morning, setting the boys to work at cooking the animals’ food, and I kept them on the road until dark.  Still the record was not satisfactory.  It is necessary in Korea to allow at least six hours each day for the cooking of the horses’ food and feeding them.  This is a time that no wise traveller attempts to cut.  Including feeding-times, we were on the go from sixteen to eighteen hours a day.  Notwithstanding this, the most we had reached was a hundred and ten li a day.

Then came a series of little hindrances.  The pack-pony would not eat its dinner; its load was too heavy.  “Hire a boy to carry part of its load,” I replied.  A hundred reasons would be found for halting, and still more for slow departure.

It was clear that something more must be done.  I called the pack-pony leader on one side.  He was a fine, broad-framed giant, a man who had in his time gone through many fights and adventures.  “You and I understand one another,” I said to him.  “These others with their moanings and cries are but as children.  Now let us make a compact.  You hurry all the time and I will give you” (here I whispered a figure into his ear that sent a gratified smile over his face) “at the end of the journey.  The others need know nothing.  This is between men.”

He nodded assent.  From that moment the trouble was over.  Footsore mafoos, lame horses, grumbling innkeepers—­nothing mattered.  “Let the fires burn quickly.”  “Out with the horses,” The other horse-keepers, not understanding his changed attitude, toiled wearily after him.  At night-time he would look up, as he led his pack-pony in at the end of a record day, and his grim smile would proclaim that he was keeping his end of the bargain.

“It is necessary for us to show these men something of the strong hand of Japan,” one of the leading Japanese in Seoul, a close associate of the Prince Ito, told me shortly before I left that city.  “The people of the eastern mountain districts have seen few or no Japanese soldiers, and they have no idea of our strength.  We must convince them how strong we are.”