CHULLA, OR COMPLETE NETWORK.
This province, the most southern of the eight, is also the warmest and most fertile. It is nearest to Shang-hae, and to the track of foreign commerce. Its island-fringed shores have been the scene of many shipwrecks, among which were the French frigates, whose names Glory and Victory, were better than their inglorious end, on a reef near Kokun Island.
Until the voyage of Captains Maxwell and Basil Hall, in the Alceste and Lyra, in 1816, “the Corean archipelago” was absolutely unknown in Europe, and was not even marked on Chinese charts. In the map of the empire, prepared by the Jesuits at Peking in the seventeenth century, the main land was made to extend out over a space now known to be covered by hundreds of islands, and a huge elephant—the conventional sign of ignorance of the map-makers of that day—occupied the space. In these virgin waters, Captain Hall sailed over imaginary forests and cities, and straight through the body of the elephant, and for the first time explored an archipelago which he found to be one of the most beautiful on earth. A later visitor, and a naturalist, states that from a single island peak, one may count one hundred and thirty-five islets. Stretching far away to the north and to the south, were groups of dark blue islets, rising mistily from the surface of the water. The sea was covered with large picturesque boats, which, crowded with natives in their white fluttering robes, were putting off from the adjacent villages, and sculling across the pellucid waters to visit the stranger ship.
On these islands, as Arthur Adams tells us, the seals sport, the spoonbill, quail, curlew, titmouse, wagtail, teal, crane and innumerable birds thrive. The woody peaks are rich in game, and the shores are happy hunting-grounds for the naturalist. Sponges are very plentiful, and in some places may be gathered in any quantity. There are a number of well-marked species. Some are flat and split into numerous ribbon-like branches, others are round and finger-shaped, some cylindrical, and others like hollow tubes. Though some have dense white foliations, hard or horny, others are loose and flexible, and await only the hand of the diver. The Corean toilet requisites perhaps do not include these useful articles, which lie waste in the sea. The coral-beds are also very splendid in their living tints of green, blue, violet, and yellow, [[198]]and appear, as you look down upon them through the clear transparent water, to form beautiful flower-gardens of marine plants. In these submarine parterres, amid the protean forms of the branched corals, huge madrepores, brain-shaped, flat, or headed like gigantic mushrooms, are interspersed with sponges of the deepest red and huge star-fishes of the richest blue. Seals sport and play unharmed on many of the islands, and the sea-beach is at times blue with the bodies of lively crabs. An unfailing storehouse of marine food is found in this archipelago.
The eight provinces take their names from their two chief cities, as Mr. Carles has shown. Whang Hai Dō, for instance, is formed by uniting the initial syllables of the largest cities, Whang-chiu and Hai-chiu. In the case of Chulla-Dō, the Chon and Nai in Chon-chiu and Nai-chiu (or Chung-jiu and Na-jiu) become, by euphony, Chulla or Cholla. Hamel tells of the great cayman or “alligator,” as inhabiting this region, asserting that it was “eighteen or twenty ells long,” with “sixty joints in the back,” and able to swallow a man.[1]
The soil of Chulla is rich and well cultivated, and large quantities of rice and grain are shipped to the capital. The wide valleys afford juicy pasture for the herds of cattle that furnish the beef diet which the Coreans crave more than the Japanese. The visiting or shipwrecked foreign visitors on the coast speak in terms of highest praise of fat bullocks, and juicy steaks which they have eaten. Considerable quantities of hides, bones, horns, leather, and tallow now form a class of standard exports to Japan, whose people now wear buttons and leather shoes. As a beef market, Corea exceeds either China or Japan—a point of importance to the large number of foreigners living at the ports, who require a flesh diet. Troops of horses graze on the pasture lands.
Map of Chulla-dō.
Chulla is well furnished with ports and harbors for the junks that ply northward. The town of Mopo, in latitude 34° 40′, has been looked upon by the Japanese as a favorable place for trade and residence, and may yet be opened under the provisions of the treaty of 1876. This region does not lack sites of great historic interest. The castle of Nanon, in the eastern part, was [[199]]the scene of a famous siege and battle between the allied Coreans and Chinese and the Japanese besiegers, during the second invasion, in 1597. The investment lasted many weeks, and over five thousand men were slaughtered. It was in this province also that the crew of the Dutch ship Sparrowhawk were kept prisoners, [[200]]some for thirteen years, some for life, of whom Hendrik Hamel wrote so graphic a narrative. For two centuries his little work afforded the only European knowledge of Corea accessible to inquirers. Among other employments, the Dutch captives were set to making pottery, and this province has many villages devoted to the fictile art. The work turned out consists, in the main, of those huge earthen jars for holding water and grains, common to Corean households, and large enough to hold one of the forty thieves of Arabian Nights story.
Through the labors of the French missionaries, Christianity has penetrated into Chulla-dō, and a large number of towns, especially in the north, still contain believers who are the descendants or relatives of men and women who have exchanged their lives for a good confession. The tragedy and romance of the Christian martyrs, of this and other provinces, have been told by Dallet. Most of the executions have taken place at the capital city of Chon-chiu. Many have been banished to Quelpart, or some of the many islands along the coast, where it is probable many yet live and pine.
Three large, and several small rivers drain the valleys. Two of these flow into the Yellow Sea and one into the sea of Japan. The main highway of this province traverses the western portion near the sea, the other roads being of inferior importance. Fortified cities or castle towns are numerous in this part of Corea, for this province was completely overrun by the Japanese armies in 1592–1597, and its soil was the scene of many battles. By official enumeration there are 290,550 houses, and 206,140 males enrolled for service in war. The districts number fifty-six. The capital is Chon-chiu, which was once considered the second largest city in the kingdom.
If Corea is “the Italy of the East,” then Quelpart is its Sicily. It lies about sixty miles south of the main land. It may be said to be an oval, rock-bound island, covered with innumerable conical mountains, topped in many instances by extinct volcanic craters, and “all bowing down before one vast and towering giant, whose foot is planted in the centre of the island, and whose head is lost in the clouds.” This peak, called Mount Auckland, or Han-ra san, by the people, is about 6,500 feet high. On its top are three extinct craters, within each of which is a lake of pure water. Corean children are taught to believe that the three first-created men of the world still dwell on these lofty heights. [[201]]
The whole surface of the island, including plains, valleys, and mountain flanks, is carefully and beautifully cultivated. The fields are neatly divided by walls of stone. It contains a number of towns and three walled cities, but there are no good harbors. As Quelpart has long been used as a place for the banishment of convicts, the islanders are rude and unpolished. They raise excellent crops of grain and fruit for the home provinces. The finely-plaited straw hats, which form the staple manufacture, are the best in this land of big hats, in which the amplitude of the head-coverings is the wonder of strangers. Immense droves of horses and cattle are reared, and one of the outlying islands is called Bullock Island. This island has been known from ancient times, when it formed an independent kingdom, known as Tam-na. About 100 A.D., it is recorded that the inhabitants sent tribute to one of the states on the main land. The origin of the high central peak, named Mount Auckland, is thus given by the islanders. “Clouds and fogs covered the sea, and the earth trembled with a noise of thunder for seven days and seven nights. Finally the waves opened, and there emerged a mountain more than one thousand feet high, and forty ri in circumference. It had neither plants nor trees upon it, and clouds of smoke, widely spread out, covered its summit, which appeared to be composed chiefly of sulphur.” A learned Corean was sent to examine it in detail. He did so, and on his return to the main land published an account of his voyage, with a sketch of the mountain thus born out of the sea. It is noticeable that this account coincides with the ideas of navigators, who have studied the mountain, and speculated on its origin.