Close by is a Royal pavilion hanging over the edge of a high bluff above the Han, surrounded by superb elms, some of their trunks from 20 to 23 feet in circumference. The view of the fertile valley and of the mountains beyond is very fine, and the decorative woodwork, painted in Korean style, has been very handsome; but the phrase “has been” describes most things Korean, and official squalor and neglect could scarcely go farther.
At Chöng-phyöng and elsewhere the common people, in spite of their overpowering curiosity, were not rude, and usually retired to a respectful distance to watch us eat; but from the class of scholars who hang on round all yamens we met with a good deal of underbred impertinence, some of the men going so far as to raise the curtain of my compartment and introduce their heads and shoulders beneath it, brow-beating the boatmen when they politely asked them to desist. On the other hand, men of the non-cultured class showed us various small attentions, sometimes helping with a haul at the ropes at a rapid, only asking in return that their wives might see me, a request with which I always gladly complied. At Chöng-phyöng, so great was female curiosity that a number of women waded waist deep after the boat to peer under the mats of the roof, and one of them, scrambling out to a rock for a final stare, overbalanced herself and fell into deep water. At one point, in the very early morning, some women presented themselves at the boat, having walked several li with a present of eggs, the payment for which was to be a sight of me and my poor equipments, they having heard that there was a boat with a foreign woman on board. The old cambric curtains brought from Persia, with a red pattern on a white ground, always attracted them greatly, and the small Japanese cooking utensils.
In thirteen days from Seoul we reached Tan-Yang, a magistracy prettily situated on the left bank of the Han, with a picturesque Confucian temple on the hill above; and a day later entered upon mountainous country of extreme beauty. The paucity of tributaries is very marked. Up to that point, except the north branch, there are but two—one which joins the Han at the village of Hu-nan Chang, on the right bank, and is navigable for 60 li, as far as the important town of Wan Ju; and another, which enters 2 li above the picturesquely-situated village of So-il, on the left bank. Above Tan-Yang the river forms long and violent rapids, alternating with broad stretches of blue, quiet water from 10 to 20 feet deep, rolling majestically, making sharp and extraordinary bends among lofty limestone precipices. Villages on natural terraces occur constantly, the lower terrace planted with mulberry or weeping willows. Hemp is cultivated in great quantities, and is used for sackcloth for mourners’ wear, bags, and rope. In my walks along the river I had several opportunities of seeing the curious method of separating the fibre, rude and primitive, but effectual. At the bottom of a stone paved pit large stones are placed, which are heated from a rough oven at the side. The hemp is pressed down in bundles upon these, and stakes are driven in among them. Piles of coarse Korean grass are placed over the hemp, and earth over all, well beaten down. The stakes are then pulled up and water is poured into the holes left by them. This, falling on the heated stones, produces a dense steam, and in twenty-four hours the hemp fibre is so completely disintegrated as to be easily separated.
A grand gorge, 3 miles long, with lofty cliffs of much caverned limestone, varied by rock needles draped with Ampelopsis and clematis, and giving foothold to azaleas, spirea, syringa, pear, hawthorn, climbing roses, wistaria, cyclamen, lycopodium, yellow vetches, many Labiatæ, and much else, contains but one village, piled step above step in a deep wooded fold of the hills, on which millet culture is carried to a great height, on slopes too steep to be ploughed by oxen. This gorge opens out on slopes of rich soil, some of which is still uncultivated. The hamlets are small, and grow much hemp, and each has its hemp pit. They also grow Urtica Nivea, from the bleached fibre of which their grass-cloth summer clothes are made. All these are surrounded with mulberry groves.
The large village of Cham-su-ki, at the head of two severe rapids, in ascending which our ropes snapped three times, offers a good example of the popular belief in spirits. It is approached under a tasselled straw rope, one end of which is wound round a fine tree with a stone altar below it. On another rope were suspended a few small bags containing offerings of food. If a person dies of the pestilence or by the roadside, or a woman dies in childbirth, the spirit invariably takes up its abode in a tree. To such spirits offerings are made on the stone altar of cake, wine, and pork, but where the tree is the domicile of the spirit of a man who has been killed by a tiger, dog’s flesh is offered instead of pork. The Cham-su-ki tree is a fine well-grown elm. Gnarled trees, of which we saw several on hilltops and sides, are occupied by the spirits of persons who have died before reaching a cycle, i.e. sixty years of age. A steep cliff above Cham-su-ki is also denoted as the abode of dæmons by a straw rope and a stone altar.
We had some very cold and windy days near the end of April, the mercury falling to 34°, and one night of tempestuous rain. It would be absurd to write of sufferings, but at that temperature in an open boat, with the roof lifting and flapping and threatening to take its departure, it was impossible to sleep. Afterwards the weather was again splendid.
Abrupt turns, long rapids full of jagged rocks, long stretches of deep, still water, abounding in fish, narrow gorges walled in by terraces of basalt, lateral ravines disclosing fine snow-streaked peaks, succeeded each other, the shores becoming less and less peopled, while the parallel valleys abounded in fairly well-to-do villages. Just below a long and dangerous rapid we stopped to dine, and though the place seemed quite solitary, a crowd soon gathered, and sat on the adjacent stones talking noisily, trying to get into the boat, lifting the mats, discussing whether it were polite to watch people at dinner, some taking one side and some another, those who were half tipsy taking the affirmative. Some said that they had got news from several miles below that this great sight was coming up the river, and it was a shame to deprive them of it by keeping the curtains down. After a good deal of obstreperousness, mainly the result of wine, a man overbalanced himself and fell into the river, which raised a laugh, and then they followed us good-naturedly up the rapid, one man helping to track, and asking as his reward that his wife might see me, on which I exhibited myself on the bow of the boat.
At the village of Pang-wha San, built, contrary to Korean practice, on a height of 800 feet, there is a stone platform, on which was nightly lighted one of that chain of beacon-fires terminating at Nam-San in Seoul, which assured the King that his kingdom was at peace.[16] Another village, Ha-chin, was impressive from the frightful ugliness of its women. After leaving Tan-Yang the curiosity increased. People walked great distances to see us, saying they had never seen foreigners, and bringing eggs to pay for the sight, which I paid for, telling the people that we had nothing to show; but extravagant rumors of what was to be seen in the boat had preceded us, and as the people assembled at daylight and generally waited patiently, I always yielded to their wishes, raised the thatch, and made the most of the red and white curtains. In one place I gave them some tea to drink. They had never seen it, and thought it was medicine, and on tasting it said, “It must be very good for indigestion!”
FOOTNOTES:
[16] The telegraph has now superseded this picturesque arrangement.