The difference between ancient and modern Korea is stupendous; a few years seem to have done the work of centuries. Korea of the past is undoubtedly the more attractive to the traveller, but Korea of the present does not lack interest for one anxious to find in this corner of the earth something more than panoramic scenery.
The old order still catches the eye everywhere; new reforms are lost in the crowd. Outwardly everything is old, but an inward change is being effected day by day. The ancient cut and faint colour of the garb have been preserved, but new ideas are being constantly interwoven and are obliterating the old. Ancient habits and customs are dying out hourly and irretrievably, and have to give way to modern utilitarianism. The days of old Korea are numbered.
The appearance of the whole country is altered. Railways now intersect the quiet, dreamy countryside; buildings of architectural beauty, as well as humble cottages, are disappearing to make room for modern houses and factories. The charm of the scenery will inevitably vanish in face of the commercial and industrial progress. The world is moving on; it is necessary that it should, and change must follow the flight of time.
But I am glad that I am here today and not to-morrow; glad that I know Korea as it has been in the past. For who knows what future awaits her?
I shall never be able fully to describe my first impressions. Everything that meets my eye is new, that which surrounds me is unintelligible, almost mysterious. Korea and Tibet are the most isolated countries in Asia, and have, therefore, most completely preserved their ancient traditions and customs. It is only a quarter of a century since Korea first opened her gates to foreigners. Radical changes can hardly be expected to take place within a few years; the remodelling of a country and its people is the work of many generations.
Korea, as we see on the map, lies at the furthest eastern extremity of the Asiatic continent. It is a peninsula in the shape of an irregular oblong. Its frontiers on three sides are formed by the Japanese and the Yellow seas, and only on the north does a short strip of land divide it from Manchuria. Its area is eighty thousand square miles. The aspect of the country is of great variety, extremely mountainous, just here and there intersected by valleys. Some of the peaks are over seven thousand feet high; but what is more striking than their height is their formation. They are all very rich in mines, and the valleys are extremely fertile, and yet Korea has been, within the memory of man, one of the poorest countries of the world. The mines have never been worked, and the ground yields just enough for daily food. Various reasons for this have been assigned. The mines have not been worked because the Government feared that the gathering together of so many workmen at far-away districts would be favourable to revolutions. A crowd was considered a danger to the reigning family. And I have been told that the cause of the scanty cultivation of the fields is that it is not worth while to have much grain stored in the granaries, for in that case it would surely be confiscated by the Government officials.
The larger rivers, like the Yalu and the Han, would afford excellent means of communication, but navigation is as yet practically unknown. The natural bays could easily afford harbour accommodation for all the fleets of the world, but, except the few open ports, they are only visited by some miserable native wooden junks, and a few Japanese or Chinese fishing-boats.
The climate is excellent; cold, of course, in the winter, but bright and dry; and the heat is never as oppressive in summer as it is in the same latitudes further inland. The natural advantages are plentiful in every respect: the rainfall is sufficient to secure the watering of the fields, the snow in winter protects the ground for several months, and there is bright sunshine in the summer to ripen the most beautiful fruit and grapes; but the refreshing sea-breezes prevent it from being too hot.
The Korean flora resembles, to a great extent, ours. The best-known flowers grow there. I could say the same of vegetables, such as cabbage, carrots, beans, peas, etc., which are all plentiful. The one exception is potatoes, which, though they were imported and flourished well in the soil, were forbidden to be grown on account of their being a foreign importation. Turnips, peas, and beans are most commonly grown, and I have counted more than twenty-four varieties of beans, of different sizes, shapes, and colours, but having no taste at all, at any rate not when they are cooked in Korean fashion. Tobacco has been grown lately, and so have grapes; but the most valuable plant cultivated is the gin-sen, which is a Government monopoly, and is regarded as possessing the miraculous power of rejuvenating those who drink the liquor which is made of it. It is worth its weight in gold, and a little while ago the Emperor, fearing that the gin-sen crop was growing too plentiful and that its value would consequently decline, ordered that the surplus production should be conveyed to an island near Chemulpo and there burned. The closed boxes were carried in procession to the island, watched with great interest by the people, and were burned with great state. Nobody knew exactly what had been the victim of the auto-da-fé, but it is more than probable that the gin-sen, which is assumed to have met with such a sad fate, was devoted to some more profitable purpose.