TAI-TONG RIVER. [PAGE 45]
FERRY BOAT. [PAGE 43]
Songdo has no gates. It is said that they were removed, with the privileges as well of the Quaga, because the people of that city so persistently continued to despise and treat with contempt the authority of Seoul. Whereas it is the custom to speak of going up to Seoul, they would refer to going down to that city; they would not measure their grain from right to left, as in Seoul, but from left to right; and worst of all, from having constantly referred to the king as a pig, they came to speak of a pig by the king’s name!
From Songdo, we proceeded north, by short stages to Pyeng Yang, which was the next place of importance, where Mr. Underwood looked for inquirers and where there were already a few Christians. We reached the Tai-tong River, which lay just below the city gates between us and it, in a driving snow storm. Long and loudly did the various members of our party try their lungs in the effort to obtain a boat, but at length, when patience was quite exhausted, the ferryman, or one of them, arrived with a great flat-bottomed boat, which accommodated us all—ponies, packs, coolies, chair, helpers and missionaries—and landed us in mud and safety on the other side for a few cash. I had almost forgotten, however, to speak of the beautiful road leading up to this ferry, with its noble overarching trees and its variety of beautiful bushes and flowers. Even at that bleak and wintry season it was lovely, and a month later, when we returned, it was charming, with its green woodland shade and its wealth of sweet-scented blossoms. Now, alas! it is quite shorn of its beauty, for during the Japanese-Chinese war, the trees were all cut down.
We were no sooner within the city gates than a very noisy and constantly increasing crowd followed close at our heels, growing ever more annoying and demonstrative, till its dimensions and behavior were altogether too much like a mob. Respectable and frightened inn-keepers one after another turned us from their doors until the uncomfortable possibility of being obliged to spend the night in the streets suggested itself. However, after a time we found a refuge, and with the aid of a policeman from the magistracy we managed to keep the mob at bay, seeing only a stated number at a time, as in Songdo. It rained during most of our stay, and I could with no comfort or safety go out even in a chair to see the town, for if I so much as peeped out, some one caught sight of the foreign woman, and at once a crowd gathered which made it impossible to move or to accomplish anything. Once before we left I accompanied Mr. Underwood to a pleasant spot outside the gates, which he thought would be a good site for a sub-station, and we made a visit to the mother of one of our Christians. She was extremely sick, and as she recovered not long after we were very happy in having left a good impression and a grateful family behind us.
I had a practical illustration of the inconvenience of Korean methods of laundry in this town, for giving out a number of articles to the tender mercies of a Korean woman, they were returned minus all the buttons. They had pounded the garments on a stone in some stream, and as a precaution had removed all these little conveniences before doing so. There was no starch, no bluing, and no ironing. Korean clothes before ironing must be ripped, and are then pounded for hours on a smooth piece of wood until they obtain a beautiful gloss. Koreans are, however, not without iron irons. They have quite a large one, which holds hot charcoal, and two sorts of small ones, not more than half an inch wide by two or three inches in length, with a long handle, for pressing the seams of sleeves, and of garments which it is only desirable to press on the seam.
After a stay of about a week in Pyeng Yang, during which time we saw a great many visitors, most of whom came from curiosity, but none of whom went away without a printed or spoken word about the gospel, we again started out on our journey north. Oh, if one prophetic vision might have been granted us of what was to be in such a few years! If we could have seen those dreary and heart-sickening wastes of humanity transformed into fields of rich grain waiting in harvest glory for the sickle, if we could have seen the hundreds now gathered yearly into the garner, how our hearts would have burned within us! “But the love of God is broader than the measure of man’s mind,” and though we saw visions and dreamed dreams, we hardly dared hope they would all be fulfilled. God kept the future hidden as a sweet surprise. Just after leaving this city an old man of seventy-six came three miles to inquire of us “concerning the religion by which a man could be rid of sin,” one of the first fruits of that later harvest, which God permitted us to reap.
Ernsan, one of the small villages at which we spent the night, turned out to be a very rough sort of place. We were obliged in many of these towns to use the Foreign Office letter to obtain the shelter of the magistracies, as often the inns would not receive us or would prove no defense against the rudeness of the curious mobs, and we had no Christian constituency to fall back upon. At this particular place the magistrate was away, and the “chabin duli” (roughs) were not under ordinary restraint.
In the morning, as the time for leaving drew near, a crowd of about one hundred men and large boys assembled in the little courtyard waiting for a kugung (sight) of the two curiosities. My husband, well aware that a woman who permits herself to be viewed by strange men is not respected or respectable in Korea, had my chair brought into the house, and the door closed, so that I might be shut in there and pass out unseen. On finding themselves thus balked of perhaps the one great opportunity of their lives to behold these strange, wild animals, some of the baser fellows could not restrain their curiosity, and one of them, probably egged on by the others, broke open the door of my bedroom. Than this, no greater breach of law or propriety is recognized in the land, and the guilty wretch is amenable to almost any punishment the injured woman’s friends may choose to inflict. My husband, standing near the door, lifted his foot as the proper member with which to express his sentiments—the tongue being incapable of sufficient vigor and the hand too good—and this, though only a demonstration—the man was not touched—was sufficient encouragement to my chair coolies, who, considering their own honor bound up with mine for the time being, rushed forth to punish the “vile creature” who had insulted us all.