Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots; Or, Life in Korea

by Lillias H. Underwood

In most of the inns, tall earthen jars, from two to three, or rarely four feet high, and two or three feet in diameter, in which Ali Baba’s cutthroat thieves could easily hide, are ranged along the side of the wall, but more frequently in the courtyard. They contain various kinds of grain, pickles, beer, wine, and there are always several holding kimchi (a sort of sauerkraut), without which they never eat rice.

Numbers of dogs, cats, chickens, pigs and ducks are under foot in the courtyard, oxen and ponies are noisily feeding in the stalls, under the same roof with ourselves, only just outside the paper door, and if one is to sleep it must be in spite of a combined grunting, squealing, cackling, blowing and barking, anything but conducive to repose. Most of the hotels have, as has been said, only one inner room, where it is proper for a woman to stay. Our helper, chair-coolies, mapoos and other travelers use the sarang, packed very likely like sardines in a box, and the host’s family turn out, and go to a neighbor’s for the night, unless the inn is a large one on the main road. A large and fashionable inn in Korea would have perhaps five, or even six, sleeping apartments—though I do not recollect having seen so many.

Now we travel with cot-beds which roll up and slip into heavy canvas bags, and take up very little room on the pack. These blessings keep us off the dirty floors, which are usually much too hot for health, unless, indeed, one has come in wet, cold, and aching from a long tramp, when they are a specific preventive of colds and rheumatism. On that first journey, however, we had nothing of this sort, but we sent out for some bundles of fresh clean straw used for thatch—one thing, at least, of which there is plenty in every village—and piled them at least a foot high. We spread thereon our bed, to the confusion and defeat of our little enemies, ploughing their weary way uselessly through the mazes of that straw all night. In this way we slept peacefully, except when the floor became intolerably hot, and our bed correspondingly so, then we rose, piled our straw in another place, remade our couch, and composed ourselves again to slumber. We never did this more than three times in one night, and it was a mere diversion.

The situation, however, develops into something quite beyond a joke, as was hinted in a former chapter, when one is forced to travel in hot weather. The rice and beans for men and animals must be cooked, which means—in nine cases out of ten—that a fire must be built under your room, and you must sleep on the stove, although the thermometer is already in the seventies before it is kindled. The room, you remember, is small and low, the windows opening to the court probably few. You look longingly at the open porch or maru, but there are leopards and tigers that prowl at night, or wanting these, no lack of rats, ferrets, and snakes; there are foul smells and rank poisonous vapors, pools of green water and sewage all about, a famous place in the damp night air to soak a system full of malaria, more deadly than wild beasts; so with a sigh you turn again to your oven, prepared for the worst. Up, up, steadily climbs the thermometer, your pulses throb, your head snaps, you gasp and pant for breath, and at length toward morning, when the fire is dead, and the hot stones a little cooled, you fall into an exhausted feverish sleep. But an early start is necessary to make the next stage, and by four o’clock at least a new fire is built to cook more rice, and you rush out of doors, to draw a whiff of pure air and cool your burning temples.

So even if it were not for the rains, flooded roads, and overflowing, unbridged rivers, we should not travel except from dire necessity in the summer. Tents have not been found practicable among the missionaries in the rainy season, and their use has been followed in several instances by severe and even fatal illness. One of the chief annoyances, especially on this our first trip, at the inns were the kugungers or sightseers. The paper doors are speedily made available as peep-holes for the foe. From all quarters the word “foreigner,” and above all “foreign woman,” spreads like wildfire. Never did a lion or an elephant create such excitement in an American village. The moment we entered an inn the house was instantly thronged, besieged, invested. Every door was full of holes made by dampening the finger and placing it with gentle pressure against the paper. It was dismaying, when we fancied ourselves quite alone, to see all those holes filled with hungry eyes. Never since have I cared to visit a show of wild animals or human freaks. I sympathize with them so fully, that there is no pleasure in the satisfaction of curiosity at such a cost. We wished to meet the people, but we could not talk with such a mob, in any satisfactory way, as their frantic curiosity about us made it impossible for them to attend to what we had to tell until they were in some measure satisfied. But to return to our trip.

Some twenty miles this side of Songdo the road crosses the Imgin river, where a ferry boat is in readiness to carry the traveler and his belongings to the other side. A story is told here of the patriotism of a nobleman who lived in a magnificent summer house on the bluff overlooking the river, at the time of the Hedioshi rebellion. His king, fleeing from the Japanese, arrived here at midnight, and to light him and his escort to the ferry this man set fire to his beautiful home. As a result of this, the king crossed in safety, and escaped his enemies. In token of his gratitude, he therefore ordered that a summer house should be kept perpetually in memory of his loyal friend on the site of the one which had been sacrificed, and loaded him with honors and rewards.

The city of Songdo is one of the largest in Korea, and from a Korean standpoint probably the most important commercially, as well as the richest. Here is grown the ginseng, so highly prized by Koreans, Chinese and Japanese, and sold—the best—at forty-five dollars a pound; more than its weight in gold. Though Songdo was formerly the nation’s capital, a successful rebel general, making himself king, established his seat of government in Seoul.

We arrived in this ancient city about sundown, and shortly afterwards met ten Christian inquirers. In a few days we sold all our books, and medicines, which we expected would last for the entire trip, and had to send back to Seoul for more. We were besieged by large crowds of people during our stay, so that we were obliged to ask for a guard at the gate. We admitted fifty at a time, and when their curiosity had been sated, their diseases treated, and they had bought as many books as they wanted, they were dismissed, to make room for another pushing, struggling, eagerly curious fifty. Mr. Underwood baptized no one, but met, examined and instructed inquirers, and directed and corrected his native helper’s work.

Songdo is about forty-five miles from Seoul, and has about two hundred thousand inhabitants. Thus far the Southern Methodists are the only ones who have a station there, though just why we other missionaries never started work in so important a center it would be hard to say; except that it did not seem to develop there at first as promisingly, shall I say, as insistently, as in some other places, where need was so pressing we never could obtain workers enough to supply the demand, far less start new centers.