Southern part of Ham-kiung.
By the recent treaty with Japan, the port of Gensan, fronting on the south of Broughton’s Bay, was opened for trade and commerce, from May 1, 1880. Gensan lies near the thirty-ninth parallel of latitude. Near the shore is the island of Chotoku, and within the twenty-five mile circuit allowed to Japanese merchants [[216]]for general travel, or free movement, is the old castle-town of Tokugen. The tomb of the founder of the reigning dynasty of Chō-sen is situated near the bay and is a highly venerated spot. As the dragon is in native ideas the type of all that is strong, mighty, and renowned, the place is named the “Rise of the Dragon.” One of the high roads of the kingdom traverses the strip of land skirting the sea from north to south throughout the province, touching the water at certain places. The greater part of the people dwelling in the province live along this road. The interior, being a mass of mountains, is thinly inhabited, and the primeval forests are populated chiefly by tigers and other beasts of prey.
In the current scouring the coast of Ham-kiung swim unnumbered shoals of herring, ribbon fish, and other species inhabiting the open seas. After these follow in close pursuit schools of whales, which fatten on them as prey. Thousands of natives from the interior and the shore villages come down in the season and fish. They often stand knee-deep in the water, looking like long rows of the snowy heron of a rice-swamp, in their white clothes. They use a kind of catamaran or raft for fishing and for surf navigation, which is very serviceable. They sometimes hunt the whales at sea, or capture them in shoal water, driving them in shore till stranded. Sticking in the bodies of these huge creatures have been found darts and harpoons of European whalers. This chase of the herring by the whales was noticed, even in the extreme south of Corea, by Hamel, and by shipwrecked Dutchmen. Since the present year, Japanese whale-hunters have been engaged by Coreans to improve their methods of catching this huge sea-mammal.
The capital city of this largest of the provinces, and the residence of the governor, is Ham-hung, situated near the fortieth parallel of north latitude. According to a native geography this province contains 103,200 houses, which gives a population varying from 309,600 to 516,000 souls. There are enrolled and capable of military service (on paper) 87,170 men. For administrative purposes the province is divided into divisions, the northern and the southern. There are fifteen walled cities.
Formerly, and until the Russians occupied the Primorskaia territory, an annual or bi-annual fair was held at the Corean city of Kion-wen, which lies close to the border. The Manchiu and Chinese merchants bartered tea, rice, pipes, gold, and furs for the Corean ginseng, hides, and household implements. Furs of a [[217]]thousand sorts, cotton stuff, silks, artificial flowers, and choice woods, changed hands rapidly, the traffic lasting but two or three days, and sometimes only one day, from noon until sunset. Such was the bustle and confusion that these fairs often terminated in a free fight, which reminds one of the famous Donnybrook. One of the articles most profitable to the Coreans was their cast-off hair. Immense quantities cut from the heads of young persons, and especially by those about to be married, were and are still sold by the Chinese to lengthen out their “pig-tails”—that mark of subjection to their Manchiu conquerors. During the time of trade no Chinese or Manchiu was allowed to enter a Corean house, all the streets and doorways being guarded by soldiers, who at the end of the fair drove out any lingering Chinese, who, if not soon across the border, were forced to go at the point of the spear. Any foreigner found inside the border at other seasons might be, and often was, ruthlessly murdered.
The nearest town beyond the frontier, at which the Chinese merchants were wont to assemble, is Hun-chun.[2] This loophole of entrance into Corea, corresponded to Ai-chiu at the Yalu River in the west. As at the latter place, foreigners and Christian natives have attempted to penetrate the forbidden country at Kion-wen, but have been unsuccessful.
An outline of the political history of the part of the peninsula now called Ham-kiung shows that many masters have in turn been its possessors. When the old kingdom of Chō-sen, which comprehended Liao Tung and that part of the peninsula between the Ta-tong and the Tumen Rivers, was broken up toward the end of the first century, the northern half of what is now Ham-kiung was called Oju or Woju, the southern portion forming part of the little state of Wei, or Whi. These were both conquered by Kokorai, which held dominion until the seventh century, when it was crushed by the Chinese emperors of the Han dynasty, and the land fell under the sway of Shinra, whose borders extended in the ninth and tenth centuries, from Eastern Sea to the Tumen River. After Shinra, arose Korai and Chō-sen, the founders of both states being sprung from this region and of the hardy race inhabiting it. From very ancient times, the boundaries of this province, being almost entirely natural and consisting of mountain, river, and sea, have remained unchanged. [[218]]
[1] Mr. Pierre L. Jouy, of the Smithsonian Institute, who in 1884 spent six months in Corea in zoological collecting and research, says: “No monkeys or alligators are found in Corea. I am at a loss to understand how the alligator story originated.” Was the alleged animal the giant salamander, or the aké? Japanese art and legend refer often to alligators. [↑]
[2] Hun-chun is in Chinese Manchuria. The Russian possessions south of Victoria Bay extend but a few miles from the mouth of the Tumen. [↑]