necessary to hire body-servants and several ponies to carry luggage, and
as each pony must have a _mapu_, or groom, it made quite a procession
when the party started out of Seoul on the journey to the northeast.

It was a fine day when the start was made. It was not early in the
morning, for, if there is anything a Korean hates to do, it is to make
an early start on a journey. If you had been in Yung Pak's place, you
would have gone crazy with impatience. The servants were late in
bringing around the ponies, and the process of loading them was a very
slow one.

But Yung Pak had long before learned to be patient under such
circumstances. In fact, he seemed to care little whether the start were
made in the morning or at noon. He calmly watched the servants at their
work, and, when at last all was declared ready, he gravely mounted his
pony and fell into the procession behind his father, with Wang Ken
immediately following.

A most comical sight was the cook, perched on top of his load of pans,
pots, and potatoes. As his pony trotted along with the others, it looked
as if the cook was in constant danger of a fall from his lofty seat, but
he sat as calm and unconcerned as one could imagine.

You would laugh if you should see the strings of eggs hanging across
this pony's back--yes, eggs. They were packed in bands of wheat straw,
and between each pair of eggs a straw was twisted. Thus a straw rope
enclosing twenty or more eggs, well protected, was made and thrown over
the top of the load.

Other riders had more comfortable seats, for most of the ponies carried