We had already received the following letter from Osame:
"Dear Excellency:
"My honourable sir, allow me the liberty presenting you this letter. I meet you Changchun. My gratitude is higher than Fuji and sacred as the Temple of Ise. Your kindness to me is as deep as the Pacific Ocean. Your letter was like sunshine in my life, your news gave me the life from death.... I am total wreck by fire. We had storms lately turning the beautiful Fuji like silver capped mountain, but grain still presents carpets of red and yellow. About gold lacquer you write. I made several enquiry when it will be accomplished. I kick Y. urgently to finish it.... My baby has grown well and often repeat the honour of your last visit.
"Best wishes I remain,
"Your Faithful Servant."
Osame was better than his word, for he met us at Kharbin instead of Changchun, bringing with him supplies of various sorts, which he thought might be acceptable.
After leaving Kharbin we passed through Manchuria, a flat and low-rolling country, in places somewhat roughened, where streams have cut their way. The black earth is carefully cultivated as far as the eye can see, and at this season it was all in furrow. Little primitive carts with shaggy ponies crossed the landscape, laden with bags of the bean which is the great product of this section. Every now and then we passed small fortified guardhouses of stone and brick, with the sentry at his post, for protection against the brigands who sweep down from the mountains and try to carry off even parts of the railway.
At Changchun we were assured that the Japanese Government wished us to be its guests, and we found compartments reserved for us on the Pullman train. From this point we were escorted by Japanese officials, who were sent to meet us and give us all the information we could ask about the country. They told us with bows that the train would be run on a faster schedule than usual in our honour, and sure enough, we soon were speeding over the excellent road-bed at a good rate.
As we went on, the snow began to disappear, and the sharp mountains of Korea came in sight, with little villages tucked away in the ravines. For Chosen, the Land of Morning Calm, as it is always called in Japan, is a country of mountains. Granite peaks, deep gorges and fertile valleys are everywhere in the interior, and the rugged, irregular eastern coastline, of which we had a glimpse in crossing to Japan, winds in and out around the base of the ranges. Among the hills and groves that we passed were the mounds of buried ancestors. We were much impressed by the sturdy, well set-up appearance of the Japanese soldiers along the route, and the military bearing of their officers.
Here live the bear and deer, and the long-haired Korean tiger, so well-known to sportsmen. Foreign sportsmen are free to hunt among these hills wherever they will and they find it a strange sensation to watch for tigers on ridges from which they can look down on the thatched roofs of small villages, or to hear at night from their tent in the village the cough of the tiger seeking his prey on the hills. The wild pigs and hog deer, startled by this cough, flee in blind terror, and are seized by the tiger as they dash past him. In every village a hornblower is on the watch at night, and when he sounds his horn, all the people beat their tiger alarms of tin pans to drive the animal away.
The Korean peasants eat the meat and drink the blood of a slain tiger in the belief that this will render them brave and strong. They make an all-powerful medicine from the long white whiskers, and use the tiny collar-bones as charms to protect them from any devils they chance to meet.
Although it was winter, both men and women were dressed in white cotton, which looked rather startling after the dark costumes of the Chinese and the fur coats of the Russians. White used to be the badge of mourning in Korea, but now it is the national costume. Various stories are told to account for its adoption. According to one of these, in the early part of the nineteenth century three kings died in close succession, and as every one was obliged to wear mourning for three years after the death of a ruler, at the end of this period all the dyers had become discouraged and given up their business, and so white became the dress of the people. Now, when the men are in real mourning, they wear huge straw hats, and do not think it proper to speak.
Although white is still the national costume, the Emperor, some years ago, published an edict giving his subjects permission to wear other colours. The nobles wear a number of coats of the finest cream-coloured silk lawn, over which there may be an outer garment of blue. The white garments impose a needless burden upon the women of the lower classes, who are incessantly engaged in laundry work. The coats are ripped to pieces and washed in some stream, where they are pounded on stones, then after they are dry are placed on wooden cylinders and beaten with sticks until the white cotton has taken on the sheen of dull satin.