'A visitor from Unsan, in North-western Corea, the site of the American gold mines, reports that all is quiet there. Sixty Cossacks made their appearance there one day and left the next day. The following day Japanese troops appeared. The Coreans in the North-west kre very much afraid of the Russians, and deserted their villages on masse yhen any Cossacks were near. The only effect the war has had on the mines! is that labour has been more scarce, the Corean coolies getting two yen a day from the Japanese and earning it. The! Japanese have established a store of provisions every twenty miles between Chinnampo and Wiju. The Japanese soldier, heavily loaded as he already is, adds to his equipment one of his native swords; many of the cavalry men have slung over their. backs one of their old-fashioned two-handed swords, and the officers have nearly all had Japanese blades fitted to their regulation sword-hilts. All these blades are as keen as a razor. The foreigners, of whom thera are some sixty at the mines, have had no trouble with the Japanese troops. They are in the habit of carrying a rifle and revolver with them when they travel, Coreans being not always too friendly; but they, were: asked by the Japanese officers not to go armed, as every foreigner is a Russian to the Japanese private. The Coreans have no love for the Cossacks, who rob them unmercifully; the Japanese soldiers steal their chickens, etc., when they get the chance, but the Japanese rule is to pay! for what they take. The Japanese missed 'a good chance on the 31st of March last. There were 1,500 Russians in Wiju on that day who could not cross the Yalu owing to the river being in spate; but they got away on the 3rd inst. when the freshet went down. There were never more than 2,000 Russians altogether in North-west Corea, and there are nowhere 80 many Ruissians as is reported.
The Coreans make excellent miners. The Chinese do more work in the same time, when they are shown what they have to do, by their sheer] brute strength, but tha Coreans use their brains more. They are excellent judges of ore, and dislike working in poor ground. It is difficult to make them work at all in ordinary country rock in which there is no gold. Drilling competitions orcheld from time to time at the mines, in which the Coreans take great interest.
The Coreans in Hamkyongdo, the northeastern province, are very friendly to the Russians, their great man, Li Yang-ik, having begun his career as a Hamkyongdo water-carrier in Seoul. The. statement that there are, or were, 2,000 or more Japanese troops in the province, seems to bean exaggeration. The Japanese troops in North-eastern Corea have not come in from the sea-coast, but have followed up the left bank of the Yalu, fromthe westward.
There are quantities of pheasants and deer round Unsan, and many leopard skins, with an occasional tiger-skin, are brought in by the Corean hunters. Hawking is the favourite way of killing phear sants; tigers are more numerous in the Hwanghai province, south of Pingyang.
There are 200 stamps and three cyanide plants in work at the American mines. At the English Gwendoline mine at: Eunsan there are 20 stamps, and this mine made recently its first shipment of bullion.
'There isno doubt that there is a bright future for the Coreans with a decent government, such as the Japanese are endeavouring to establish; but the rough treatment of the Coreans by' the lower-class Japanese has militated against their success.
It was learnt at Chemulpo that the Varyag is much less damaged below deck than was thought at first. All her guns have been recovered, and there is little doubt that she will yet float again.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.