Of course, I walked as much as possible, but many weary miles must be endured in the chair, with its tiresome jogging, interrupted regularly with an upward jolt of several inches. The ordinary road soon came to be quite tolerable, but when the bearers in the half light of early dawn (or worse still, the evening, when tired with a long day’s march) picked their way over the narrow foot-paths, slippery with clay, between half-submerged rice fields, or jumped across intervening ditches, the rear man going wholly by faith, I must say it was not easy or pleasant.
We had quite a little train. Mr. Underwood was on his horse, with a mapoo to lead and care for it. These horses are all fed on a hot food of beans and chopped hay, and very carefully attended to. We had two or three pack-ponies which carried medicines, tracts, at that time mostly Chinese, which only scholars could read, our blankets and bedding, a few cooking utensils, and foreign food and our clothing. The question of money and changes of horses was a difficult one, but it had been solved by an order from the Korean Foreign Office, to the country magistrates, to accept our receipt for any amount of money that we might need, and also for horses in exchange for ours, all of which bills we were to pay in Seoul on our return. The money was so extremely bulky, it was impossible to take more than a couple of days’ supply on our ponies. On previous trips Mr. Underwood had carried large lumps of silver, which were exchanged in the towns for cash.
The little inns along the road never charge for rooms; the number of tables of rice and the number of horses fed are usually the only items in the landlord’s bill. In addition to chair coolies and mapoos, we had a young Christian helper, a cook, and a kesu. The two latter left us at Pyeng Yang and returned home.
CHAPTER III
We Start on our Wedding Journey—Songdo—Guards at our Gates—Crossing the Tai-tong—Difficulties in Finding an Inn—Korean Launderings—An Old Man Seeks to be Rid of Sin—Mob at an Inn—A Ruffian Bursts Open my Door—Fight in the Inn Yard—Pat Defies the Crowd—Convenience of Top-knots—A Magistrate Refuses to Shelter Us—The “Captain” to the Rescue—Pack-ponies—We Lay a Deep Scheme—Torch Bearers—A Mountain Hamlet—Tiger Traps—Tigers—A Band of Thirty Conspire to Attack Us—Guns Used by Native Hunters—A Tiger Story.
We started on our trip at early dawn, turning directly north, on the road passing under the arch, which then marked the spot where the representatives of Korea yearly met the Chinese ambassadors who came to receive tribute. This custom was maintained until Korea’s independence was declared; in honor of which the old arch was then taken down and a finer one erected. Beyond this arch lay the pass, a narrow, muddy and stony way, leading through the mountain. It was crowded with oxen and pack-ponies, going to and from Seoul. Shouting mapoos and coolies added to the confusion, great rocks seemed just ready to fall from above and crush the unlucky passers, and many which had fallen from time to time impeded the road. Now a fine road has been made across the hill, and the old way of danger and discomfort is closed up. From its darkness, its fiendish noises, gruesome odors and bad going it would not have been an unfit image of Bunyan’s Valley of the Shadow of Death. The snow still remained in sheltered places, for it was only March, and the morning air was sharp and chill, but we found a very fine road all the way to Songdo.
We made our first halt at noon, at a small village between Seoul and Songdo, and I had my first experience of a native inn. The Korean inn is second only in filth, closeness, bad odors and discomfort to those in the interior of China. There is usually only one room for women, which has from one to four or five paper-covered doors or windows—they are nearly always the same size and bear the same name—opening into the kitchen, the court and the sarang. This room is often not more than eight by ten or twelve feet large, and very low. The paper which covers the door is commonly blackened with dirt, so that few indeed are the rays of light which manage to struggle in a disheartened way into these gloomy little apartments. They boast little or no furniture, perhaps a chang or Korean cabinet (most unique and antique-looking chests, much ornamented with brass or black iron hinges, locks, etc.) stands against the wall, upon which are piled a great many bright-colored quilts and pillows, not the wooden ones sometimes described and much used, but like old-style long sofa pillows, and very much more comfortable. At the center of the ceiling, just under the roof tree, may be seen a bunch of dirty rags, feathers and sticks, where the household Lares and Penates are supposed to roost. A wharrow or charcoal fire-pot with a smouldering fire probably stands somewhere on the floor. This should be promptly removed, as its presence often causes severe headache, and sometimes asphyxia, from which one of the missionaries was only resuscitated after repeated fainting and hours of effort on the part of a companion.
In most of the inns very picturesque tall brass or wooden lamp-stands are seen. They consist of a rod about two and a half feet high, on a good solid base with a little bracket at the top for a saucer of castor oil, and an ox horn hanging below containing the main supply of oil. The lamp or saucer contains a small wick which yields a very tiny light, just enough to emphasize and make visible the darkness. Often these lamps have a special niche, or little cupboard in the wall, where they are enclosed during the day. Nearly always a stout bar crosses the room about a foot from the wall, and three or four feet from the floor, on which garments may be hung, and as commonly there is a wide shelf running around two or three sides of the apartment, very near the roof, on which are sundry household utensils, winter vegetables, very likely piles of yeast cakes for the manufacture of beer, and, in fact, a heterogeneous collection, too numerous and varied to mention. Here lies a dusty old book, there a work basket, and further on the wooden block and clubs used for ironing, a bottle of medicine, a pile of rice bowls, or a box of matches.
The mats which are placed over the oiled paper, or more likely directly on the earth floor, are full of dust and vermin of all descriptions, which run riot everywhere. It is best not to begin to think how many people have, in that room and lying on these identical mats, been ill, and died, of dysentery, small-pox, cholera or typhus fever, since the room was even swept or the mats once shaken. A “really truly” cleaning they are ignorant of. Fumigation and disinfection are as far beyond the flights of their wildest imagination as the private life of the man in the moon. The miracle over which we never cease to wonder and admire is that so many people of clean antecedents who travel through the interior are able to resist the microbes, bacteria, germs and all similar enemies under whatsoever name which, according to all modern science, ought to attack and destroy them in short order.