Corea: The Hermit Nation

by William Elliot Griffis

The roads of the second class are eight or nine feet wide, and without side ditches. They ramify through all the provinces, but [[285]]are especially numerous in the five southern. The three northern circuits, owing to their mountainous character, are but poorly furnished with highways, and these usually follow the rivers.

The third class roads, which are nothing more than bridle-paths, or trails, connect the villages.

The hilly nature of the country, together with the Asiatic apathy to bestowing much care on the public highways, makes travelling difficult. Inundations are frequent, though the water subsides quickly. Hence in summer the road-beds are dust, and in winter a slough of mud. Macadamized, or paved roads, are hardly known, except for short lengths. Few of the wide rivers are bridged, which necessitates frequent fordings and ferriages. Stone bridges, built with arches, are sometimes seen over streams not usually inundated, but few of the wooden bridges are over one hundred and eighty feet long.

In one respect the roads are well attended to. The distances are well marked. At every ri is a small, and at every three ri a large mound, surmounted with an inscribed post or “mile-stone,” called chang-sung. They are two, six, and even ten feet in length.

In ancient times, it is said, there was a man named Chang-sung, who killed his servant and wife. When punished, his head was placed on a small mound. Legend even declares that it was successively exposed on all the distance mounds in the kingdom. This is said to be the origin of the bournes or distance-mounds, which suggests, as Mr. Adams has shown, the termini of the Romans. When of stone, they are called pio-sek, but they are often of wood, rudely carved or hacked out of a whole tree by an axe into the exaggerated form of a man, and are of a ludicrous or absurd appearance. The face is meant to be that of the murderer Chang-sung. The author of “A Forbidden Land” mistook these for “village idols,” and was surprised to find the boys in some cases sacrilegiously kicking about some that had rotted down or fallen. The “gods of the roads” may, however, have their effigies, which are worshipped or profaned.

All distances in every direction are measured from the front gate of the magistrates’ offices, the standard of all being the palace at Seoul. Not the least interesting sights to the traveller are the memorial stones set up and inscribed with a view to commemorate local or national worthies, or the events of war, famine, or philanthropy. The Coreans are “idolaters of letters,” and the erection of memorial tablets or columns occasionally becomes a [[286]]passion. Sometimes the inscriptions are the means of stirring up patriotism, as the following inscription shows. It was graven on a stone in front of a castle erected after the French and American expeditions, and was copied by a Japanese correspondent.

“It is nothing else than selling the kingdom into slavery, in order to avoid war, to make peace without fighting when any Western nation comes to attack it; such should never be done even by our descendants thousands of years hence.”

In this country, in which sumptuary laws prevent the humbler classes from travelling on horseback, and where wagons and steam-roads are unknown, the roads are lively with numerous foot-passengers. Palanquins are used by the better classes and the wealthy. The rambling life of many of the people, the goodly numbers of that character not unknown in Christendom—the tramp—the necessities of trade, literary examinations, government service, and holy pilgrimages, prevent too many weeds from growing in the highways. In travelling over the high roads one meets a variety of characters that would satisfy a Corean Dickens, or the Japanese author who wrote the Tokaidō Hizakurigé (Leg-hair, i.e., “Shanks’ mare,” on the East Sea Road). Bands of students on their way to the capital or provincial literary examinations, some roystering youths in the full flow of spirits, are hastening on, others, gray-headed and solemn, are wending their way to fail for the twentieth time. Pompous functionaries in umbrella-hats, on horseback, before whom ordinary folks dismount or kneel or bow, brush past with noisy attendants. Pilgrims in pious garb are on their way to some holy mountain or famous shrine, men to pray for success in business, women to beseech the gods for offspring. Here hobbles along the lame or rheumatic, or the pale-faced invalid is borne to the hot springs. Here is a party of pic-nickers, or poets intent on the joys of drink, verse, and scenery. Here a troop of strolling players or knot of masqueraders are in peripatetic quest of a livelihood, toiling fearfully hard in order to escape settled industry. Nobles in mourning pass with their faces invisible. Postal slaves, women doing the work of express agents in forwarding parcels, pass the merchant with his loaded pack-horses returning from Sunto, or going to Gensan. There a packman is doing horse’s work in transportation. Here an ox laden with brushwood is led by a woman. Beggars, corpses, kang-si, or men dead of hunger in times of famine, make the lights and shadows of life on the road. [[287]]

There are other methods of travel besides those of horseback, on foot, and sedan chair, for oxen are often straddled by the men, and poor women travel on an ox, in a sort of improvised palanquin having four poles recurved to centre and covered with robe or cloak. In winter, among the mountains not only in the north, but even in Chulla, the people go on racquettes or snow-shoes. These are in shape like a battledore, and are several feet long. At regular distances are yek, or relays or offices, at which sit clerks or managers under government auspices, with hereditary slaves or serfs, porters, guides, mail-couriers, and pack-horses. These await the service of the traveller, especially of official couriers, the finer beasts being reserved for journeying dignitaries.

All these throughout a certain district, of which there are several in each province, are under the direction of the Tsal-peng, or Director of Posts. Kiung-sang, the province having the greatest number of roads, has also the best equipment in the way of post-officers, relays, and horses. The following table from Dallet shows the equipment of the eight provinces: