The population of the Han valley is not poor, if by poverty is to be understood scarcity of the necessaries of life. The people have enough for themselves and for all and sundry who, according to Korean custom, may claim their hospitality. Probably they are all in debt; it is very rare indeed to find a Korean who has not this millstone round his neck, and they are destitute of money or possessions other than those they absolutely require. They appear lazy. I then thought them so, but they live under a régime under which they have no security for the gains of labor, and for a man to be reported to be “making money,” or attaining even the luxury of a brass dinner service, would be simply to lay himself open to the rapacious attentions of the nearest mandarin and his myrmidons, or to a demand for a loan from an adjacent yang-ban. Nevertheless, the homesteads of the Han valley have a look of substantial comfort.
Certainly the meals of the men are taken in far greater tidiness than is usual among laborers. The women, as is the fashion with women, eat “anyhow,” and gobble up their lords’ leavings. All meals for men are served on small, circular, dark wooden tables, a few inches high, one for each person. Rice is the staple of diet, and is served in a great bowl, but besides this, there are seldom fewer than five or six glazed earthenware vessels containing savory, or rather tasty, condiments.[15] Chop-sticks and small flattish spoons of horn or base metal are used for eating.
In the villages, as distinguished from the hamlets, on the Han there are schools, but they are not open to the public. Families club together and engage a teacher, but the pupils are only of the scholarly class, and only Chinese learning in Wenli is taught, this being the stepping-stone to official position, the object of the ambition of every Korean. En-mun is despised, and is not used as a written language by the educated class. I observed, however, that a great many men of the lower orders on the river were able to read their own script.
With the exception of two small Buddhist establishments not far from Seoul, priests are non-existent on the Han, nor is there any Christian propaganda, Protestant or Roman, at work, though Roman missionaries were formerly stationed at two points near the forks. Dæmon-worship prevails throughout the whole region.
The river is frozen for from three to four months in the winter, and tends to inundate the lower lands for two months in the summer. The bridle tracks which skirt it and diverge from it are infamous. The valley has no mails, and of course no newspapers. The Tong-haks (rebels, or armed reformers) were strong in a region immediately to the south of the great bend, which showed some dissatisfaction with things as they were, and a desire for reform in some minds.
So far as I could learn, the region is not rich in ordinary minerals. I could hear nothing of “the burning earth,” though the geological formation renders its existence probable. Copper and iron are worked not far from the north branch to a limited extent. But the Han is the “River of Golden Sand,” and though the height of the gold season is after the summer rains, the auri sacra fames even then attracted gangs of men to the river banks, and gold in the mountains was a subject on which the Koreans were always voluble.
The attitude of the people was friendly. I never saw a trace of actual hostility, though on the higher waters of the south branch it was very doubtful whether they had seen a European before. Their curiosity was naturally enormous, and whenever the boat tied up for a day it showed itself by crowds sitting on the bank as close to it as they could get, staring apathetically. They were frequently timid, and snatched up their fowls and hid them when we came in sight, but a little friendly explanation of our honesty of purpose, and above all, the sight of a few strings of cash, usually set everything straight. A foreigner is absolutely safe. During the ofttimes tedious process of hauling up the rapids, when Mr. Miller and the servants were tugging at the ropes, I constantly strolled for two or three hours by myself along the river bank, and whether the path led through solitary places or through villages, I never met with anything more disagreeable than curiosity shown in a very ill-bred fashion, and that was chiefly on the part of women. When the people understood that they would be paid it was not difficult to procure the little they had to sell at fairly reasonable rates. They were disposed to be communicative, and showed very little suspicion, far less indeed than in parts of Korea where foreigners are common. My Chinese servant was everywhere an object of most friendly curiosity and a centre of pleasurable interest.
The mercury during April and May ranged from 42° to 72°, and the barometer showed remarkable steadiness. There were two heavy rainfalls, but the weather on the whole was superb, and the atmosphere clear and dry.
KOREAN PEASANTS AT DINNER.