Quaint Korea

by Louise Jordan Miln

More than half the souls on board the Sparrow-hawk (that is thirty-six) reached the shore of Korea. They were taken prisoners, and were held so for thirteen years and more. The history of their captivity is the history of varying kindnesses and unkindnesses. But, when we remember the then conditions of Korean life, and when we remember how little the hermit people of the hilly peninsula desired colonists, when we remember how they regarded foreigners, and what cause they had to so regard foreigners, it is more the history of kindness than of unkindness. Certainly the Hollanders had more to be thankful for than to complain of during their first years in Chosön—barring, of course, the facts that there they were and there they had to stay.

Hamel and his fellows were not the first Europeans, not even the first Hollanders to land, or rather be thrown, upon Korea. But, for all that, they were enough of rarities to be regarded by the populace as strangely interesting wild beasts. They were given rice-water to drink. They were fed. When the need came they were clad. They were sheltered. They suffered no indignity, and only comparative hardship; and, little as they dreamed it, the King of Korea was sending to them an interpreter; a man whose blood was their blood, whose tongue was their tongue.

“The first known entrance of any number of Europeans into Korea,” writes Griffis, “was that of Hollanders, belonging to the crew of the Dutch ship Hollandra, which was driven ashore in 1627. . . . A big, blue-eyed, red-bearded, robust Dutchman, named John Wetteree, whose native town was Rip, in North Holland, volunteered on board the Dutch ship Hollandra in 1626, in order to get to Japan.”

Now one fine day, when the Hollandra was coasting along Korea, Wetteree and two of his mates went ashore for fresh water. The natives caught them, and, as was the custom of the country, detained them. They were treated with respect, with honour even, attained to positions of responsibility and trust, and became great among the great men of Korea. Two of them died in 1635, died fighting for the country of their enforced adoption when she was invaded by the Manchius. But Wetteree lived on, and, twenty-seven years after his own capture, he was sent to interpret between his shipwrecked countrymen and their captors. Alas! his tongue had forgot its mother cunning, and refused to utter the language that he had not used for twenty-seven years. Wetteree remembered but a few words of Dutch. But the mother-tongue, which more than a quarter of a century had not served to make him quite absolutely forget, he regained in a month’s intercourse with his countrymen.

Hamel and his comrades experienced many ups and downs. They were treated with consideration, they were treated with cruelty. They held many offices. They were set many tasks—that of begging amongst them. They plied many trades. They lived in many places. They saw the interior of Korea, the inside of Korean life, as Europeans never saw it before, and, I fancy, as Europeans have never seen it since.

Once an enterprising governor set them to making pottery with a probable view of introducing European improvements into Korea’s own wonderful ceramic art methods. The experiment was a failure. Whether the Dutch fingers were ill-adapted to the pursuit of Korea’s favourite art-industry, or whether, as Griffis remarks, it was “manifestly against the national policy of making no improvements on anything,” history does not authoritatively tell us. I incline to the first opinion. But the bulk of the learned Europeans, who have studied Korea, certainly side with Mr. Griffis. At all events, Hamel and his fellows were not kept long at the moulding of Korean clay. The Governor was deposed and physically punished; and the Dutchmen were put to the pulling of grass from the door-yard of the palace.

Hamel and his comrades did not remain long in Quelpaert. The king sent for them and they were taken to Söul.

Two paragraphs in Hamel’s long account of their stay are indicative of a good deal that is to-day as characteristic of two types of Korean character as it doubtless was two hundred years ago.

“On the 21st, a few days after the shipwreck” (writes Hamel), “the commander made us understand by signs that he wished to see all we had saved from our wreck, and that we were to bring it from our tent and lay it before him. Then he gave orders that it should be sealed up, and it was so sealed in our presence. While this was being done, some people were brought before him who had taken iron, hides, and other things that had drifted ashore from our boat. They were at once punished, and before our eyes, which showed us that the Korean officials did not mean us to be robbed of any of our goods. Each thief had thirty or more blows given him on the soles of his feet with a cudgel thick as a man’s arm and tall as a man. The punishment was so severe that the toes dropped off the feet of more than one thief.”

Hamel and his fellows were under the supervision of more than one governor. They were highly pleased with some, and as highly displeased with others. Here is Hamel’s description of one:—“It seemed to us that he was a very sensible man, and we were afterward sure that we had not been deceived in our first opinion. He was seventy years old, had been born in Söul, and was greatly esteemed at the court. When we left his presence he signed to us that he should write to the king and ask what was to be done with us. It would be some time before the king’s answer could come, because the distance was great. We begged him that we might have flesh sometimes, and other things to eat. This he granted, and he gave us leave that six of us might go abroad every day, to breathe the air, and wash our linen. This satisfied us greatly, for it was hard and weary to be shut up, and to subsist on bread and water. He also sent for us often, and made us write both in Dutch and in Korean. So did we first begin to understand some words of Korean; and he speaking with us sometimes and being pleased to provide a little entertainment or amusement for us, we began to hope that some day we might escape to Japan. He also,” adds Hamel, “took such care of us when we were sick, that we may affirm we were better treated by that idolater than we should have been among Christians.”