Opposite is the much-adorned spirit shrine of the late Queen, connected with the house by a decorated gallery. The inner palace enclosure, where these buildings are, is very small, and behind the King’s house rises into a stone terrace. Numerous as is the King’s guard, it is evident that he fears to rely upon it solely, for of two gates leading from his house one opens into quarters occupied by Russian officers, who arrived in Seoul in the autumn of 1890, at the King’s request, for purposes of military organization; and the other into small barracks occupied by the Russian drill instructors of the Korean army. Through the former he could reach the grounds of the English Legation in one minute, and after his former experiences possibilities of escape must be his first consideration. The small buildings of this new palace were already crowded like a rabbit warren, and when completed will contain over 1,000 people, including the bodyguard, eunuchs, and Court officials innumerable, writers, readers, palace ladies, palace women, and an immense establishment of cooks, runners, servants, and all the superabundant and useless entourage of an Eastern Sovereign, to whom crowds and movement represent power. This congeries of buildings was carefully guarded, and even the Korean soldier who attended on me was not allowed to pass the gate.
The King had given me permission to take his photograph for Queen Victoria, and I was arranging the room for the purpose when the interpreter shouted “His Majesty,” and almost before I could step back and curtsey, the King and Crown Prince entered, followed by the Officers of the Household and several of the Ministers, a posse of the newfangled police crowding the veranda outside. The Sovereign, always courteous, asked if I would like to take one of the portraits in his royal robes. The rich crimson brocade and the gold embroidered plastrons on his breast and shoulders became him well, and his pose was not deficient in dignity. He took some trouble to arrange the Crown Prince to the best advantage but the result was unsuccessful. After the operation was over he examined the different parts of the camera with interest, and seemed specially cheerful.
At a farewell audience some weeks later the King reverted to the subject of a British Minister, accredited solely to Korea; and the interpreter added, as an aside, “His Majesty is very anxious about this.” He hardly seemed to realize that even if a change in the representation were contemplated, it could scarcely be carried out while Sir Claude Macdonald, who is accredited to both Courts, remains Minister at Peking.
THE KING OF KOREA.
The King was for more than a year the guest of the Russian Legation, an arrangement most distasteful to a large number of his subjects, who naturally regarded it as a national humiliation that their Sovereign should be under the protection of a foreign flag. Rumors of plots for removing him to the Palace from which he escaped were rife, and there were days on which he feared to visit the Queen’s tablet-house unless Russian officers walked beside his chair.
Mr. Waeber, the Russian Minister, had then been in Korea twelve years. He is an able and faithful servant of Russia. He was trusted by the King and the whole foreign community, and up to the time of the Hegira had been a warm and judicious friend of the Koreans. His guidance might have prevented the King from making infamous appointments and arbitrary arrests, from causelessly removing officials who were working well, and from such reckless extravagances as a costly Embassy to the European Courts and a foolish increase of the army and police force. But he remained passive, allowing the Koreans to “stew in their own juice,” acting possibly under orders from home to give Korea “rope enough to hang herself,” a proceeding which might hereafter give Russia a legitimate excuse for interference. Apart from such instructions, it must remain an inscrutable mystery why so excellent a man and so capable a diplomatist when absolutely master of the situation neglected to aid the Sovereign with his valuable advice, a course which would have met with the cordial approval of all his colleagues.
Be that as it may, the liberty which the King has enjoyed at the Russian Legation and since has not been for the advantage of Korea, and recent policy contrasts unfavorably with that pursued during the period of Japanese ascendency, which, on the whole, was in the direction of progress and righteousness.
Old abuses cropped up daily, Ministers and other favorites sold offices unblushingly, and when specific charges were made against one of the King’s chief favorites, the formal demand for his prosecution was met by making him Vice-Minister of Education! The King, freed from the control of the mutinous officers and usurping Cabinet of 8th October, 1895, from the Queen’s strong though often unscrupulous guidance, and from Japanese ascendency, and finding himself personally safe, has reverted to some of the worst traditions of his dynasty, and in spite of certain checks his edicts are again law and his will absolute. And it is a will at the mercy of any designing person who gets hold of him and can work upon his fears and his desire for money—of the ladies Pak and Om, who assisted him in his flight, and of favorites and sycophants low and many, who sell or bestow on members of their families offices they have little difficulty in obtaining from his pliable good nature. With an ample Civil List and large perquisites he is the most impecunious person in his dominions, for in common with all who occupy official positions in Korea he is surrounded by hosts of grasping parasites and hangers-on, for ever clamoring “Give, Give.”
Men were thrown into prison without reason, some of the worst of the canaille were made Ministers of State, the murderer of Kim Ok-yun was appointed Master of Ceremony, and a convicted criminal, a man whose life has been one career of sordid crime, was made Minister of Justice. Consequent upon the surreptitious sale of offices, the seizure of revenue on its way to the Treasury, the appointment of men to office for a few days, to give them “rank” and to enable them to quarter on the public purse a host of impecunious relations and friends, and the custom among high officials of resigning office on the occasion of the smallest criticism, the administration is in a state of constant chaos, and the ofttimes well-meaning but always vacillating Sovereign, absolute without an idea of how to rule, the sport of favorites usually unworthy, who work upon his amiability, the prey of greedy parasites, and occasionally the tool of foreign adventurers, paralyzes all good government by destroying the elements of permanence, and renders economy and financial reform difficult and spasmodic by consenting to schemes of reckless extravagance urged upon him by interested schemers. Never has the King made such havoc of reigning as since he regained his freedom under the roof of the Russian Embassy.