CHAPTER II.
YUNG PAK'S HOME
Ki Pak, Yung Pak's father, was one of the king's officials. On this account his home was near the great palace of the king, in the city of Seoul, the capital of the country.
This city did not look much like the ones in which you live. There were no wide streets, no high buildings, no street-cars. Instead, there were narrow, dirty lanes and open gutters. Shopkeepers not only occupied both sides of the crowded streets, but half their wares were exposed in and over the dirty gutters. Grain merchants and vegetable dealers jostled each other in the streets themselves. In and about among them played the boys of the city, not even half-clothed in most cases. There were no parks and playgrounds for them such as you have. Often, too, boys would be seen cantering through the streets, seated sidewise on the bare backs of ponies, caring nothing for passers-by, ponies, or each other—laughing, chatting, eating chestnuts. Other boys would be carrying on their heads small round tables covered with dishes of rice, pork, cabbage, wine, and other things.
A STREET IN SEOUL
Around the city was a great wall of stone fourteen miles in length. In some places it clung to the edges of the mountains, and then dropped into a deep ravine, again to climb a still higher mountain, perhaps. In one direction it enclosed a forest, in another a barren plain. Great blocks were the stones, that had been in place many, many years. It must have taken hundreds and thousands of men to put them in position, and, though the wall was hundreds of years old, it was still well preserved. It was from twenty-five to forty feet high. The wall was hung from one end of the city to the other with ivy, which looked as if it had been growing in its place centuries before Yung Pak was born.
In the wall were eight gates, and at each one a keeper was stationed at all hours of the day and night. No persons could come in or go out unless their business was known to those who had charge of the passage.
Every evening, at sunset, the gates were closed, and during the night no one was allowed to pass through in either direction.
A curious ceremony attended the closing of these gates. They were never shut till the king had been notified that all was well on the north, on the south, on the east, and on the west. As there were no telegraph lines, another way had to be provided by which messages might be quickly sent. Bonfires upon the surrounding hills were used as signals. By these fires the king was told if all were well in his kingdom, and every evening, as soon as the sun was set, four beacon-fires on a hill within the walls told the news as it was flashed to them from the mountains outside. Then four officers, whose business it was to report to the king the message of the fires, hastened to him, and with great ceremony and much humility announced that all was well. On this the royal band of music would strike up its liveliest airs, and a great bell would toll its evening warning. This bell was the third largest in the world, and for five centuries it had given the signal for opening and closing the gates of Seoul, the chief city of the "Land of the Morning Radiance."
At the stroke of the bell, with a great clang the gates were shut, and strong bars were placed across the inner sides, not to be removed until at early dawn the bell again gave its signal to the keepers.
To little Yung Pak, the loud tones of the bell meant more even than to the sentinels at the gates. He knew that not only was it a signal for the closing of the city gates, but it was also a warning that bedtime was at hand.
The house in which Yung Pak lived was a very fine one, although the grounds were not as spacious as those of many houses in the outskirts of the city. But its walls were of stone, whereas many of the houses of Seoul had walls of paper.
Yes, actually walls of paper!
But this paper was a very tough, fibrous substance, and would resist quite a heavy blow as well as keep out the cold. Its slight cost brought it within the means of the poorer people.
In some parts of Korea the houses were built of stout timbers, the chinks covered with woven cane and plastered with mud. Neat hedges of interlaced boughs surrounded them. The chimney was often simply a hollow tree, not attached to the house.
Ki Pak's house was not only built of stone, but about it were four walls of stone, about five feet high, to help keep out intruders. The wall was surmounted by a rampart of plaited bamboo. In this wall were three gates, corresponding to entrances into the house itself. One gate, the largest, on the north side, was used only by Ki Pak himself, though after he grew older Yung Pak could enter this gate with his father. The second gate, on the east, was used by the family and friends of Ki Pak. The third and smallest gate was reserved for the use of the servants.
The roof of this house was not covered with shingles, but with clay tiles, coloured red. Many houses in the city had simply a roof-covering of thatched straw.
The house was but a single story high, but in this respect the king's palace itself was no better. There were three divisions to the house. One was for the use of the men, a second for the women of the family, and a third for the servants. Each division had a suitable number of rooms for its occupants.
Yung Pak's own sleeping-room was a dainty affair, with its paper walls, tiger-skin rugs upon the stone floor, and the softest of mats and silk and wadded cotton coverings for his couch.
This couch, by the way, was another queer affair. It was built of brick! Beneath it were pipes or flues connected with other pipes which ran beneath the whole house. Through these flues were forced currents of hot air from a blaze in a large fireplace at one end of the house. The chimney was at the other end, and thus a draught of hot air constantly passed beneath the floors in cold weather. On warm nights Yung Pak would pile his mats upon the floor and sleep as comfortably as ever you did on the softest feather bed your grandmother could make.
The windows of Ki Pak's house were not made of glass, but were small square frames covered with oiled paper. These frames fitted into grooves so that they could be slid back and forth, and in warm weather the windows were always left open. The doors were made of wood, though in many houses paper or plaited bamboo was used.
When Yung Pak ate his meals, he sat upon a rug on the floor with his father and such male guests as might be in the house. The women never ate with them. Their meals were served in their own rooms.
A servant would bring to each person a sang, or small low table. Instead of a cloth, on each table was a sheet of fine glazed paper which had the appearance of oiled silk. This paper was made from the bark of the mulberry-tree. It was soft and pliable, and of such a texture that it could be washed easier than anything else, either paper or cloth. On this were placed dishes of porcelain and earthen ware. There were no knives or forks, but in their place were chop-sticks such as the Chinese used. Spoons also were on the table. A tall and long-spouted teapot was always the finest piece of ware.
On the dining-tables of the poorer people of Korea the teapot was never seen, for, strange as it may seem, in this land situated between the two greatest tea-producing countries of the world, tea is not in common use.
All Koreans have splendid appetites, and probably if you should see Yung Pak eating his dinner you would criticize his table manners. He not only ate a large amount of food, but ate it very rapidly—almost as if he feared that some one might steal his dinner before he could dispose of it. And you would think that he never expected to get another square meal!
But it was not Yung Pak's fault that he was such a little glutton. In his youngest days, when his mother used to regulate his food, she would stuff him full of rice. Then she would turn him over on his back and paddle his stomach with a ladle to make sure that he was well filled!