the sites put up fetched very good prices, but later the news that other ports were to be opened rather deterred possible purchasers and prices were not ea good. But here, too, there tas reason to expect a recovery, although Ihave not heard the results of the sales on Ist inst. Besides the Japanese, the Russians and the English and possibly others have secured Consular sites, Che Municipal tance this your yielded 12,000 yen. A serious difficult, to be overcome is the water supply, which is both bad and inadequate. Winter has put " compulsory stoppage to building of all sorts, but there were signs of a determination to resume at the earliest possible moment, The demand for labour has greatly increased wages, Japanese carpenters easily obtain 1.20 yen per day; Corean carpenters, 80 cents per day, while the ordinary street coolie receives 85 cents per day as compared with 28 cents xt Chemulpo and Seoul. The rapidity with which the Corenn towa at the back of the settlement is filling up is " good sign. Three or four steamers a day is no uncommon experience. The Nippon Yusen Kaisha boats ure to make Mokpo on of their places of call from the 1st inst.
Mokpo owes much to its very fortunate situation on a good navigable river, within easy reach from the sea and as the natural outlet of the Samnam, i. the three southern provinces, Chullado, Chungeliuugdo and Kyeugsougdo, probably the richest, most productive and most thickly populated of all the Corean provinces, Within a radius of 100 miles there are no fewer than 80 or 40 important producing districts, ready to supply bamboo and bamboo-ware, rice, wheat, barley, beans, fish, seaweed, grass: cloth, paper, tobacco, salt, ginger, cowhides, paper fans, cotton, cotton piece-goods, grass and silk piece-goods, gold dust, earthen-' ware, sweet potatoes, ginseng, - woodware, fruit, brassware, yellow dyes, etc. For many of these articles there has been as yet no great demand, the capabilities ofthe port not being as yet fully understood, but some. advance is being made. The native article has hitherto been suffi-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.