There were no Indians or wild tribes here. It was a most picturesque place. The mountains rose grandly above us, all around were woods, and a beautiful stream rippled along between them and the village. It was a glorious moonlit night, the atmosphere seemed fairly to sparkle with brilliancy. Again, after supper, we prepared to take a walk. Few indeed had been our opportunities for such honeymoon observances as this, which are supposed to be the peculiar privilege and bounden duty of all the good newly married. As has been noted already, the large crowds which watched our every movement, and from whose observation not the smallest motion was lost, precluded any such folly on our part, but here, far off in the wild recesses of the woods and mountains, in a village whose inhabitants seemed nobly exceptional in the praise-worthy habit of keeping at home, here we might wander at will, in the enchanting light, listening anon to the silvery cadences of the stream. So we sauntered along in the most approved fashion of honeymooners until a few steps beyond the confines of the village, where woods closed in on all sides.
We had observed here and there as we passed along what looked like a sort of huge pen made of logs, weighted with great stones on top, strangely constructed, as if for the housing of some large animal. Now as we stood on the edge of the brook trying to decide whether to cross into the woods, a sound as of heavy and yet stealthy footsteps on the dry leaves in the shadow of the trees arrested our attention. An uncanny mystery seemed to hang over everything. Slightly startled by the sound, we awakened to the fact that the pens we had seen must be tiger traps, that this was a famous tiger tramping ground (they would naturally come to the brook to drink), that the enemy against whom the village was so strongly fortified were these beasts of prey, and that it would be in every way profitable to us to postpone our moonlight rambles for some more propitious time and place. So with a less lover-like and more business-like pace we returned to the prosaic but welcome shelter of the huts.
Korean tiger skins are very fine when the animal has been killed in the winter, but unfortunately the natives do not understand the proper method of preserving them, and those which are taken away, as well as the leopard skins, very soon become denuded of hair. The natives prize the claws very highly, and often remove them as soon as the beast is killed. They are found from the Manchurian border through the whole country, among the mountains; more than once have they been seen in the capital since my arrival, and only a few months after I landed a leopard was seen in the Russian legation compound next to our house. As our homes were all bungalows, and the extreme heat of summer nights necessitated open windows, I often lay awake after this for hours at night, certain that I heard the stealthy, heavy tread and deep breathing of one of these creatures in my room.
But to return to our experiences in the tiger valley, which were not yet done. While Mr. Underwood and I were taking a walk together that evening we heard in the valley below us the sharp report of a gun. The house in which we were was on the side of a hill, while our servants’ quarters, and indeed most of the village, was in the valley just below. Shortly some one came running to tell us that a tiger had just been shot. This was slightly exciting, but turned out later to have been a mere excuse to quiet any alarm I might have felt on hearing the explosion of the gun.
The real facts were, it seemed, that a band of some thirty men, probably fugitives from justice, and robbers, had conspired to visit us that night at midnight and destroy the vile foreigners who had dared to intrude into the sacred precincts of this mountain land, and thus warned, no more strangers should trouble their shores. They had drunk together to the success of their plot, and the leader had rather overdone this part of it. Far gone in intoxication, he had been too much fuddled to keep to the plan, had come several hours in advance of the time, had loudly boasted in the little inn of their intentions, and fired his gun in a fit of bravado. At the command of the head of the village he was immediately seized and locked up and his gun taken away. It was a poor old-fashioned affair, arranged with a long fuse wound around the bearer’s wrist, lighted when ready to fire, and inserted in an arm held up by the trigger, the pulling of which raised and removed a small cap which protected the priming powder and dropped the fuse upon it, thus firing the gun. It is with these awkward and clumsy weapons that the cool Korean hunters face and shoot the most formidable leopards, tigers, wild boars and bears which abound in the mountains of Korea. The Korean nobles use tiger and leopard skins on their carrying chairs, and the teeth and claws for ornaments, while the bones, when ground up, are supposed to be unrivalled as a tonic.
Many are the tiger stories told by Koreans; their folklore abounds with them. One very brief one is all I have time to insert. Once upon a time a fierce tiger crept stealthily into a village in search of prey. But every one was in bed, the cattle and pigs well guarded behind palisaded walls, not a child, a dog, or even a chicken lingered outside. He was about to retire in despair of finding a supper there when he spied through the small aperture at the bottom of a gate, such as is found in all gates for the egress of dogs and cats, a small and trembling dog. His majesty tried in vain to squeeze through this hole, and finding it hopeless, took a careful survey of the wall. It was high, it is true, and sharply spiked, but sharply set too was the royal appetite, and he resolved to try the leap, after carefully reckoning the height to be surmounted and his own strength. He was a great agile fellow, and with the exertion of all his might he jumped, barely escaping the spikes, and landed safely inside the inclosure, quite ready for his supper, well aware that he must snatch it quickly and be gone ere the hunter in the cottage should espy and shoot him. But puppy had gathered his tail between his legs, and with loud and long kiyies had slipped through the opening to the outer side of the wall. Nothing remained for our hungry prowler but to try another leap, only to find that his supper had again given him the slip. Alas, that his brains were not equal to his perseverance and industry! I grieve to be obliged to relate that this greedy fellow vaulted back and forth in pursuit of his meal, his anger and appetite growing with every leap, until he died of exhaustion and fell an ignominious prey to his small and elusive foe, illustrating the fact that might does not always win and that the small and weak need not always despair in the contest with size and strength.
In the little hamlet where we met the adventure with the man who meant to kill us we were treated to fine venison and delicious honey. All through the woods we found anemones and other spring flowers and saw specimens of the beautiful pink ibis, belonging to the same family as the bird so often worshiped in Egypt. On the road hither and all around us we saw stacked and ready for sale cords of fine dark hard woods, of which we did not know the names, but much of which looked like black walnut. No one who has traveled through this part of the country could possibly say there was a dearth of trees in Korea, or of singing birds, or sweet-scented flowers, or gorgeous butterflies.
CHAPTER IV
Leaving Kangai—We Choose a Short Cut—Much Goitre in the Mountains—A Deserted Village—The Jericho Road—We are Attacked by Robbers—A Struggle in the Inn Yard—Odds too great—Our Attendants are Seized and Carried Off—The Kind Inn-Keeper—Inopportune Patients—A Race for Life—A City of Refuge—A Beautiful Custom—Safe at Last—The Magistrate Turns Out to be an Old Friend—The Charge to the Hunters.