The common people meet in the streets, the house fronts, and the inns. They ask each other endless questions, of a nature that we should think most impertinent, regarding each other’s business, work, and money transactions, and for the latest news. It is every man’s business to hear or create all the news he can. What he hears he embellishes by lies and exaggerations. Korea is the country of wild rumors. What a Korean knows, or rather hears, he tells. According to Père Dallet, he does not know the meaning of reserve, though he is utterly devoid of frankness. Men live in company in each others’ houses. Domestic life is unknown. The women in the inner rooms receive female visitors, and the girl children are present. The boys at a very early age are removed to the men’s apartments, where they learn from the conversation they hear that every man who respects himself must regard women with contempt.

We left Phyöng-yang for Po-san in a very small boat in which six people and their luggage were uncomfortably packed and cramped. One of the two boatmen was literally “down with fever,” but with one and the strong ebb-tide we accomplished 20 miles in six hours, and were well pleased to find the Hariong lying at anchor, as we had not been able to get any definite information concerning her, and I never believed in her till I saw her. The Tai-döng has some historic interest, for up its broad waters sailed Ki-ja or Kit-ze with his army of 5,000 men on the way to found Phyöng-yang and Korean civilization, and down it fled Ki-jun, the last king of the first dynasty from the forces of Wei-man descending from the north. Phyöng-yang impressed me as it did Consul Carles with its natural suitability for commerce, and this Tai-döng, navigable up to the city for small junks, is the natural outlet for beans and cotton, some of which find their way to Newchwang for shipment, for the rich iron ore which lies close to the river banks at Kai Chhön, for the gold of Keum-san only 20 miles off, for the abounding coal of the immediate neighborhood; for the hides, which are now carried on men’s backs to Chemulpo, and for the products of what is said to be a considerable silk industry.

In going down the river something is seen of the original size of Phyöng-yang, for the “earth wall” on solid masonry, built, it is said, by Kit-ze 3,000 years ago, follows the right bank of the Tai-döng for about four miles before it turns away to the north, to terminate at the foot of the hill on which is the reputed grave of its builder. This extends in that direction possibly three miles beyond the present wall.

The plain through which the river runs is fertile and well cultivated, though the shining mud flats at low tide are anything but prepossessing. Various rivers, enabling boats of light draught to penetrate the country, most of them rising in the picturesque mountain ranges which descend on the plain, specially on its western side, join the Tai-döng.

Much had been said of the Hariong. I was told I “should be all right if I could get the Hariong,” that “the Hariong’s a most comfortable little boat—she has ten staterooms,” and as we approached her in the mist, very wet, and stiff from the length of time spent in a cramped position, I conjured up visions of comfort and even luxury which were not to be realized.

She was surrounded by Japanese junks, Japanese soldiers crowded her gangways, and Japanese officers were directing the loading. We hooked on to the junks and lay in the rain for an hour, nobody taking the slightest notice of us. Mr. Yi then scrambled on board and there was another half-hour’s delay, which took us into the early darkness. He reappeared, saying there was no cabin and we must go on shore. But there was no place to sleep on shore and it was the last steamer, so I climbed on board and Im hurried in the baggage. It was raining and blowing, and we were huddled on the wet deck like steerage passengers, Japanese soldiers and commissariat officers there as elsewhere in Korea, masters of the situation. Mr. Yi was frantic that he, a Government official, and one from whom “the Japanese had to ask a hundred favors a month” should be treated with such indignity! The vessel was hired by the Japanese commissariat department to go to Nagasaki, calling at Chemulpo, and we were really, though unintentionally, interlopers!

There was truly no room for me, and the arrangement whereby I received shelter was essentially Japanese. I lived in a minute saloon with the commissariat officers, and fed precariously, Im dealing out to me, at long intervals, the remains of a curry which he had had the forethought to bring. There was a Korean purser, but the poor dazed fellow was “nowhere,” being totally superseded by a brisk young manikin who, in the intervals of business, came to me, notebook in hand, that I might help him to enlarge his English vocabulary. The only sign of vitality that the limp, displaced purser showed was to exclaim with energy more than once, “I hate these Japanese, they’ve taken our own ships.”

Fortunately the sea was quite still, and the weather was dry and fine; even Yön-yung Pa-da, a disagreeable stretch of ocean off the Whang Hai coast, was quiet, the halt of nearly a day off the new treaty port of Chin-nam-po where the mud flats extend far out from the shore, was not disagreeable, and we reached the familiar harbor of Chemulpo by a glorious sunset on the frosty evening of the third day from Po-san, the voyage in a small Asiatic transport having turned out better than could have been expected.

ITINERARY
Seoul to—Li.
Ko-yang40
Pa Ju40
O-mok40
Ohur-chuk Kio30
Song-do10
O-hung-suk Ju30
Kun-ko Kai30
Tol Maru35
An-shung-pa Pal25
Shur-hung30
Hung-shou Wan30
Pong-san40
Whang Ju40
Kur-moun Tari30
Chi-dol-pa Pal40
Phyöng-yang30
Mori-ko Kai30
Liang-yang Chang30
Cha-san30
Shou-yang Yi40
Ha-kai Oil35
Ka Chang35
Huok Kuri40
Tok Chhön30
Shur-chong30
An-kil Yung20
Shil-yi40
Mou-chin Tai25
Sun Chhön35
Cha-san30
Siang-yang Chhön40
An-chin Miriok30
Phyöng-yang20
Total land journey1060

FOOTNOTES: