KOREA, AND HER NEIGHBORS

MRS. BISHOP’S TRAVELING PARTY.

KOREA
And Her Neighbors

A Narrative of Travel, with
an Account of the Recent
Vicissitudes and Present
Position of the Country

By

Isabella Bird Bishop, F.R.G.S.

Author of “Unbeaten Tracks in Japan,” etc.

With a Preface by

Sir Walter C. Hillier, K.C.M.G.

Late British Consul-General for Korea

With Illustrations from Photographs by the Author,
and Maps, Appendixes and Index

New York Chicago Toronto

Fleming H. Revell Company

M DCCC XCVIII

Copyright 1897

BY

Fleming H. Revell Company

Preface.

I have been honored by Mrs. Bishop with an invitation to preface her book on Korea with a few introductory remarks.

Mrs. Bishop is too well-known as a traveler and a writer to require any introduction to the reading public, but I am glad to be afforded an opportunity of indorsing the conclusions she has arrived at after a long and intimate study of a people whose isolation during many centuries renders a description of their character, institutions and peculiarities, especially interesting at the present stage of their history.

Those who, like myself, have known Korea from its first opening to foreign intercourse will thoroughly appreciate the closeness of Mrs. Bishop’s observation, the accuracy of her facts, and the correctness of her inferences. The facilities enjoyed by her have been exceptional. She has been honored by the confidence and friendship of the King and the late Queen in a degree that has never before been accorded to any foreign traveler, and has had access to valuable sources of information placed at her disposal by the foreign community of Seoul, official, missionary, and mercantile; while her presence in the country during and subsequent to the war between China and Japan, of which Korea was, in the first instance, the stage, has furnished her the opportunity of recording with accuracy and impartiality many details of an episode in far Eastern history which have hitherto been clouded by misstatement and exaggeration. The hardships and difficulties encountered by Mrs. Bishop during her journeys into the interior of Korea have been lightly touched upon by herself; but those who know how great they were, admire the courage, patience and endurance that enabled her to overcome them.

It must be evident to all who know anything of Korea that a condition of tutelage, in some form or another, is now absolutely necessary to her existence as a nation. The nominal independence won for her by the force of Japanese arms is a privilege she is not fitted to enjoy while she continues to labor under the burden of an administration that is hopelessly and superlatively corrupt. The role of mentor and guide exercised by China, with that lofty indifference to local interests that characterizes her treatment of all her tributaries, was undertaken by Japan after the expulsion of the Chinese armies from Korea. The efforts of the Japanese to reform some of the most glaring abuses, though somewhat roughly applied, were undoubtedly earnest and genuine; but, as Mrs. Bishop has shown, experience was wanting, and one of the Japanese Agents did incalculable harm to his country’s cause by falling a victim to the spirit of intrigue which seems almost inseparable from the diplomacy of Orientals. Force of circumstances compelled Russia to take up the task begun by Japan, the King having appealed in his desperation to the Russian Representative for rescue from a terrorism which might well have cowed a stronger and a braver man. The most partial of critics will admit that the powerful influence which the presence of the King in the house of their Representative might have enabled the Russian Government to exert has been exercised through their Minister with almost disappointing moderation. Nevertheless, through the instrumentality of Mr. M’Leavy Brown, LL.D., head of the Korean Customs and Financial Adviser to the Government, an Englishman whose great ability as an organizer and administrator is recognized by all residents in the farther East, the finances of the country have been placed in a condition of equilibrium that has never before existed; while numerous other reforms have been carried out by Mr. Brown and others with the cordial support and co-operation of the Russian Minister, irrespective of the nationality of the agent employed.

Much, however, still remains to be done; and the only hope of advance in the direction of progress—initiated, it is only fair to remember, by Japan, and continued under Russian auspices—is to maintain an iron grip, which the Russian Agents, so far, have been more careful than their Japanese predecessors to conceal beneath a velvet glove. The condition of Korean settlers in Russian territory described by Mrs. Bishop shows how capable these people are of improving their condition under wise and paternal rule; and, setting all political considerations aside, there can be no doubt that the prosperity of the people and their general comfort and happiness would be immensely advanced under an extension of this patronage by one or other civilized Power. Without some form of patronage or control, call it by what name we will, a lapse into the old groove of oppression, extortion, and its concomitant miseries, is inevitable.

Mrs. Bishop’s remarks on missionary work in China and Korea, based, as they are, on personal and sympathetic observation, will be found of great value to those who are anxious to arrive at a correct appreciation of Christian enterprise in these remote regions. Descriptions of missionaries and their doings are too often marred by exaggerations of success on the one hand, which are, perhaps, the natural outcome of enthusiasm, and harsh and frequently unjust criticisms on the other, commonly indulged in by those who base their conclusions upon observation of the most superficial kind. Speaking from my own experience, I have no hesitation in saying that closer inquiry would dispel many of the illusions about the futility of missionary work that are, unfortunately, too common; and that missionaries would, as a rule, welcome sympathetic inquiry into their methods of work, which most of them will frankly admit to be capable of improvement. But, while courting friendly criticism, they may reasonably object to be judged by those who have never taken the trouble to study their system, or to interest themselves in the objects they have in view. In Mrs. Bishop they have an advocate whose testimony may be commended to the attention of all who are disposed to regard missionary labor as, at the best, useless or unnecessary. In Korea, at all events, to go no farther, it is to missionaries that we are assuredly indebted for almost all we know about the country; it is they who have awakened in the people the desire for material progress and enlightenment that has now happily taken root, and it is to them that we may confidently look for assistance in its farther development. The unacknowledged, but none the less complete, religious toleration that now exists throughout the country affords them facilities which are being energetically used with great promise of future success. I am tempted to call attention to another point in connection with this much-abused class of workers that is, I think, often lost sight of, namely, their utility as explorers and pioneers of commerce. They are always ready—at least such has been my invariable experience—to place the stores of their local knowledge at the disposal of any one, whether merchant, sportsman, or traveler, who applies to them for information, and to lend him cheerful assistance in the pursuit of his objects. I venture to think that much valuable information as to channels for the development of trade could be obtained by Chambers of Commerce if they were to address specific inquiries to missionaries in remote regions. Manufacturers are more indebted to missionaries than perhaps they realize for the introduction of their goods and wares, and the creation of a demand for them, in places to which such would never otherwise have found their way.

It is fortunate that Mrs. Bishop’s visit to Korea was so opportunely timed. At the present rate of progress much that came under her observation will, before long, be “improved” out of existence; and though no one can regret the disappearance of many institutions and customs that have nothing but their antiquity to recommend them, she has done valuable service in placing on record so graphic a description of experiences that future travelers will probably look for in vain.

WALTER C. HILLIER.

October, 1897.

Author’s Prefatory Note.

My four visits to Korea, between January, 1894, and March, 1897, formed part of a plan of study of the leading characteristics of the Mongolian races. My first journey produced the impression that Korea is the most uninteresting country I ever traveled in, but during and since the war its political perturbations, rapid changes, and possible destinies, have given me an intense interest in it; while Korean character and industry, as I saw both under Russian rule in Siberia, have enlightened me as to the better possibilities which may await the nation in the future. Korea takes a similarly strong grip on all who reside in it sufficiently long to overcome the feeling of distaste which at first it undoubtedly inspires.

It is a difficult country to write upon, from the lack of books of reference by means of which one may investigate what one hopes are facts, the two best books on the country having become obsolete within the last few years in so far as its political condition and social order are concerned. The traveler must laboriously disinter each fact for himself, usually through the medium of an interpreter; and as five or six versions of each are given by apparently equally reliable authorities, frequently the “teachers” of the foreigners, the only course is to hazard a bold guess as to which of them has the best chance of being accurate.

Accuracy has been my first aim, and my many foreign friends in Korea know how industriously I have labored to attain it. It is by these, who know the extreme difficulty of the task, that I shall be the most leniently criticised wherever, in spite of carefulness, I have fallen into mistakes.

Circumstances prevented me from putting my traveling experiences, as on former occasions, into letters. I took careful notes, which were corrected from time to time by the more prolonged observations of residents, and as I became better acquainted with the country; but, with regard to my journey up the South Branch of the Han, as I am the first traveler who has reported on the region, I have to rely on my observation and inquiries alone, and there is the same lack of recorded notes on most of the country on the Upper Tai-döng. My notes furnish the travel chapters, as well as those on Seoul, Manchuria, and Primorsk; and the sketches in contemporary Korean history are based partly on official documents, and are partly derived from sources not usually accessible.

I owe very much to the kindly interest which my friends in Korea took in my work, and to the encouragement which they gave me when I was disheartened by the difficulties of the subject and my own lack of skill. I gratefully acknowledge the invaluable help given me by Sir Walter C. Hillier, K.C.M.G., H.B.M.’s Consul-General in Korea, and Mr. J. M’Leavy Brown, LL.D., Chief Commissioner of Korean Customs; also the aid generously bestowed by Mr. Waeber, the Russian Minister, and the Rev. G. Heber Jones, the Rev. James Gale, and other missionaries. I am also greatly indebted to a learned and careful volume on Korean Government, by Mr. W. H. Wilkinson, H.B.M.’s Acting Vice-Consul at Chemulpo, as well as to the Korean Repository and the Seoul Independent, for information which has enabled me to correct some of my notes on Korean customs.

Various repetitions occur, for the reason that it appears to me impossible to give sufficient emphasis to certain facts without them; and several descriptions are loaded with details, the result of an attempt to fix on paper customs and ceremonies destined shortly to disappear. The illustrations, with the exceptions of three, are reproductions of my own photographs. The sketch map, in so far as my first journey is concerned, is reduced from one kindly drawn for me by Mr. Waeber. The transliteration of Chinese proper names was kindly undertaken by a well-known Chinese scholar, but unfortunately the actual Chinese characters were not in all cases forthcoming. In justice to the kind friends who have so generously aided me, I am anxious to claim and accept the fullest measure of personal responsibility for the opinions expressed, which, whether right or wrong, are wholly my own.

I am painfully conscious of the demerits of this work, but believing that, on the whole, it reflects fairly faithfully the regions of which it treats, I venture to present it to the public; and to ask for it the same kindly and lenient criticism with which my records of travel in the East and elsewhere have hitherto been received, and that it may be accepted as an honest attempt to make a contribution to the sum of the knowledge of Korea and its people, and to describe things as I saw them, not only in the interior but in the troubled political atmosphere of the capital.

ISABELLA L. BISHOP.

November, 1897.

Contents

List of Illustrations.

GENERAL MAP OF KOREA AND NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES
The Edinburgh Geographical Institute John Bartholomew & Co.
Fleming H. Revell Company.

Korea and Her Neighbors

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

In the winter of 1894, when I was about to sail for Korea (to which some people erroneously give the name of “The Korea”), many interested friends hazarded guesses at its position,—the Equator, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea being among them, a hazy notion that it is in the Greek Archipelago cropping up frequently. It was curious that not one of these educated, and, in some cases, intelligent people came within 2,000 miles of its actual latitude and longitude!

In truth, there is something about this peninsula which has repelled investigation, and until lately, when the establishment of a monthly periodical, carefully edited, The Korean Repository, has stimulated research, the one authority of which all writers, with and without acknowledgment, have availed themselves, is the Introduction to Père Dallet’s Histoire de l’Église de Korée, a valuable treatise, many parts of which, however, are now obsolete.

If in this volume I present facts so elementary as to provoke the scornful comment, “Every schoolboy knows that,” I venture to remind my critics that the larger number of possible readers were educated when Korea was little more than “a geographical expression,” and had not the advantages of the modern schoolboy, whose “up-to-date” geographical text-books have been written since the treaties of 1883 opened the Hermit Nation to the world; and I will ask the minority to be patient with what may be to them “twice-told tales” for the sake of the majority, specially in this introduction, which is intended to give something of lucidity to the chapters which follow.

The first notice of Korea is by Khordadbeh, an Arab geographer of the ninth century, A.D., in his Book of Roads and Provinces, quoted by Baron Richofen in his work on China, p. 575. Legends of the aboriginal inhabitants of the peninsula are too mythical to be noticed here, but it is certain that it was inhabited when Kit-ze or Ki-ja, who will be referred to later, introduced the elements of Chinese civilization in the twelfth century B.C. Naturally that conquest and subsequent immigrations from Manchuria have left some traces on the Koreans, but they are strikingly dissimilar from both their nearest neighbors, the Chinese and the Japanese, and there is a remarkable variety of physiognomy among them, all the more noticeable because of the uniformity of costume. The difficulty of identifying people which besets and worries the stranger in Japan and China does not exist in Korea. It is true that the obliquity of the Mongolian eye is always present, as well as a trace of bronze in the skin, but the complexion varies from a swarthy olive to a very light brunette.

There are straight and aquiline noses, as well as broad and snub noses with distended nostrils; and though the hair is dark, much of it is so distinctly a russet brown as to require the frequent application of lampblack and oil to bring it to a fashionable black, while in texture it varies from wiriness to silkiness. Some men have full moustaches and large goatees, on the faces of others a few carefully tended hairs, as in China, do duty for both, while many have full, strong beards. The mouth is either the wide, full-lipped, gaping cavity constantly seen among the lower orders, or a small though full feature, or thin-lipped and refined, as is seen continually among patricians.

The eyes, though dark, vary from dark brown to hazel; the cheek bones are high; the brow, so far as fashion allows it to be seen, is frequently lofty and intellectual; and the ears are small and well set on. The usual expression is cheerful, with a dash of puzzlement. The physiognomy indicates, in its best aspect, quick intelligence, rather than force or strength of will. The Koreans are certainly a handsome race.

The physique is good. The average height of the men is five feet four and a half[1] inches, that of the women cannot be ascertained, and is disproportionately less, while their figureless figures, the faults of which are exaggerated by the ugliest dress on earth, are squat and broad. The hands and feet of both sexes and all classes are very small, white, and exquisitely formed, and the tapering, almond-shaped finger-nails are carefully attended to. The men are very strong, and as porters carry heavy weights, a load of 100 pounds being regarded as a moderate one. They walk remarkably well, whether it be the studied swing of the patrician or the short, firm stride of the plebeian when on business. The families are large and healthy. If the Government estimate of the number of houses is correct, the population, taking a fair average, is from twelve to thirteen millions, females being in the minority.

Mentally the Koreans are liberally endowed, specially with that gift known in Scotland as “gleg at the uptak.” The foreign teachers bear willing testimony to their mental adroitness and quickness of perception, and their talent for the rapid acquisition of languages, which they speak more fluently and with a far better accent than either the Chinese or Japanese. They have the Oriental vices of suspicion, cunning, and untruthfulness, and trust between man and man is unknown. Women are secluded, and occupy a very inferior position.

The geography of Korea, or Ch’ao Hsien (“Morning Calm,” or “Fresh Morning”), is simple. It is a definite peninsula to the northeast of China, measuring roughly 600 miles from north to south and 135 from east to west. The coast line is about 1,740 miles. It lies between 34° 17′ N. to 43° N. latitude and 124° 38′ E. to 130° 33′ E. longitude, and has an estimated area of upwards of 80,000 square miles, being somewhat smaller than Great Britain. Bounded on the north and west by the Tu-men and Am-nok, or Yalu, rivers, which divide it from the Russian and Chinese empires, and by the Yellow Sea, its eastern and southern limit is the Sea of Japan, a “silver streak,” which has not been its salvation. Its northern frontier is only conterminous with that of Russia for 11 miles.

Both boundary rivers rise in Paik-tu San, the “White-Headed Mountain,” from which runs southwards a great mountain range, throwing off numerous lateral spurs, itself a rugged spine which divides the kingdom into two parts, the eastern division being a comparatively narrow strip between the range and the Sea of Japan, difficult of access, but extremely fertile; while the western section is composed of rugged hills and innumerable rich valleys and slopes, well watered and admirably suited for agriculture. Craters of volcanoes, long since passed into repose, lava beds, and other signs of volcanic action, are constantly met with.

The lakes are few and very small, and not many of the streams are navigable for more than a few miles from the sea, the exceptions being the noble Am-nok, the Tai-döng, the Nak-tong, the Mok-po, and the Han, which last, rising in Kang-wön Do, 30 miles from the Sea of Japan, after cutting the country nearly in half, falls into the sea at Chemulpo on the west coast, and, in spite of many and dangerous rapids, is a valuable highway for commerce for over 170 miles.

Owing to the configuration of the peninsula there are few good harbors, but those which exist are open all the winter. The finest are Fusan and Wön-san, on Broughton Bay. Chemulpo, which, as the port of Seoul, takes the first place, can hardly be called a harbor at all, the “outer harbor,” where large vessels and ships of war lie, being nothing better than a roadstead, and the “inner harbor,” close to the town, in the fierce tideway of the estuary of the Han, is only available for five or six vessels of small tonnage at a time. The east coast is steep and rocky, the water is deep, and the tide rises and falls from 1 to 2 feet only. On the southwest and west coasts the tide rises and falls from 26 to 38 feet!

Off the latter coasts there is a remarkable archipelago. Some of the islands are bold masses of arid rock, the resort of seafowl; others are arable and inhabited, while the actual coast fringes off into innumerable islets, some of which are immersed by the spring tides. In the channels scoured among these by the tremendous rush of the tide, navigation is ofttimes dangerous. Great mud-banks, specially near the mouths of the rivers, render parts of the coast-line dubious.

Korea is decidedly a mountainous country, and has few plains deserving the name. In the north there are mountain groups with definite centres, the most remarkable being Paik-tu San, which attains an altitude of over 8,000 feet, and is regarded as sacred. Farther south these settle into a definite range, following the coast-line at a moderate distance, and throwing out so many ranges and spurs to the west as to break up northern and central Korea into a congeries of corrugated and precipitous hills, either denuded or covered with chapparal, and narrow, steep-sided valleys, each furnished with a stony stream. The great axial range, which includes the “Diamond Mountain,” a region containing exquisite mountain and sylvan scenery, falls away as it descends towards the southern coast, disintegrating in places into small and often infertile plains.

The geological formation is fairly simple. Mesozoic rocks occur in Hwang-hai Do, but granite and metamorphic rocks largely predominate. Northeast of Seoul are great fields of lava, and lava and volcanic rocks are of common occurrence in the north.

The climate is undoubtedly one of the finest and healthiest in the world. Foreigners are not afflicted by any climatic maladies, and European children can be safely brought up in every part of the peninsula. July, August, and sometimes the first half of September, are hot and rainy, but the heat is so tempered by sea breezes that exercise is always possible. For nine months of the year the skies are generally bright, and a Korean winter is absolutely superb, with its still atmosphere, its bright, blue, unclouded sky, its extreme dryness without asperity, and its crisp, frosty nights. From the middle of September till the end of June, there are neither extremes of heat nor cold to guard against.

The summer mean temperature at Seoul is about 75° Fahrenheit, that of the winter about 33°; the average rainfall 36.03 inches in the year, and the average of the rainy season 21.86 inches.[2] July is the wettest month, and December the driest. The result of the abundant rainfall, distributed fairly through the necessitous months of the year, is that irrigation is necessary only for the rice crop.

The fauna of Korea is considerable, and includes tigers and leopards in great numbers, bears, antelopes, at least seven species of deer, foxes, beavers, otters, badgers, tiger-cats, pigs, several species of marten, a sable (not of much value, however), and striped squirrels. Among birds there are black eagles, found even near Seoul, harriers, peregrines (largely used for hawking), pheasants, swans, geese, spectacled and common teal, mallards, mandarin ducks, turkey buzzards (very shy), white and pink ibis, sparrow-hawks, kestrels, imperial cranes, egrets, herons, curlews, night-jars, redshanks, buntings, magpies (common and blue), orioles, wood larks, thrushes, redstarts, crows, pigeons, doves, rooks, warblers, wagtails, cuckoos, halcyon and bright blue kingfishers, jays, snipes, nut-hatches, gray shrikes, pheasants, hawks, and kites. But until more careful observations have been made it is impossible to say which of the smaller birds actually breed in Korea, and which make it only a halting-place in their annual migrations.

The denudation of the hills in the neighborhood of Seoul, the coasts, the treaty ports, and the main roads, is impressive, and helps to give a very unfavorable idea of the country. It is to the dead alone that the preservation of anything deserving the name of timber in much of southern Korea is owing. But in the mountains of the northern and eastern provinces, and specially among those which enclose the sources of the Tu-men, the Am-nok, the Tai-döng, and the Han, there are very considerable forests, on which up to this time the woodcutter has made little apparent impression, though a good deal of timber is annually rafted down these rivers.

Among the indigenous trees are the Abies excelsa, Abies microsperma, Pinus sinensis, Pinus pinea, three species of oak, the lime, ash, birch, five species of maple, the Acanthopanax ricinifolia, Rhus semipinnata, Elæagnus, juniper, mountain ash, hazel, Thuja Orientalis (?), willow, Sophora Japonica (?), hornbeam, plum, peach, Euonymus alatus, etc. The flora is extensive and interesting, but, with the exception of the azalea and rhododendron, it lacks brilliancy of color. There are several varieties of showy clematis, and the mille-fleur rose smothers even large trees, but the climber par excellence of Korea is the Ampelopsis Veitchii. The economic plants are few, and, with the exception of the Panax quinquefolia (ginseng), the wild roots of which are worth $15 per ounce, are of no commercial value.

The mineral wealth of Korea is a vexed question. Probably between the view of the country as an El Dorado and the scepticism as to the existence of underground treasure at all, the mean lies. Gold is little used for personal ornaments or in the arts, yet the Korean declares that the dust of his country is gold; and the unquestionable authority of a Customs’ report states that gold dust to the amount of $1,360,279 was exported in 1896, and that it is probable that the quantity which left the country undeclared was at least as much again. Silver and galena are found, copper is fairly plentiful, and the country is rich in undeveloped iron and coal mines, the coal being of excellent quality. The gold-bearing quartz has never been touched, but an American Company, having obtained a concession, has introduced machinery, and has gone to work in the province of Phyöng-an.

The manufactures are unimportant. The best productions are paper of several qualities made from the Brousonettia Papyrifera, among which is an oiled paper, like vellum in appearance, and so tough that a man can be raised from the ground on a sheet of it, lifted at the four corners, fine grass mats, and split bamboo blinds.

The arts are nil.

Korea, or Ch’ao Hsien, has been ruled by kings of the present dynasty since 1392. The monarchy is hereditary, and though some modifications in a constitutional direction were made during the recent period of Japanese ascendency, the sovereign is still practically absolute, his edicts, as in China, constituting law. The suzerainty of China, recognized since very remote days, was personally renounced by the king at the altar of the Spirits of the Land in January, 1895, and the complete independence of Korea was acknowledged by China in the treaty of peace signed at Shimonoseki in May of the same year. There is a Council of State composed of a chancellor, five councillors, six ministers, and a chief secretary. The decree of September, 1896, which constitutes this body, announces the king’s absolutism in plain terms in the preamble.

There are nine ministers—the Prime Minister, Minister of the Royal Household, of Finance, of Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs, War, Justice, Agriculture, and Education, but the royal will (or whim) overrides their individual or collective decisions.

The Korean army consists of 4,800 men in Seoul, drilled by Russians, and 1,200 in the provinces; the navy, of two small merchant steamers.

Korea is divided into 13 provinces and 360 magisterial districts.

The revenue, which is amply sufficient for all legitimate expenses, is derived from Customs’ duties, under the able and honest management of officers lent by the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs: a land tax of $6 on every fertile kyel (a fertile kyel being estimated at about 6¹⁄₃ acres), and $5 on every mountain kyel; a household tax of 60 cents per house, houses in the capital enjoying immunity; and a heavy excise duty of $16 per cattie on manufactured ginseng.

Up to 1876 Korea successfully preserved her isolation, and repelled with violence any attempt to encroach upon it. In that year Japan forced a treaty upon her, and in 1882 China followed with “Trade and Frontier Regulations.” The United States negotiated a treaty in 1882, Great Britain and Germany in 1884, Russia and Italy in 1886, and Austria in 1892, in all which, though under Chinese suzerainty, Korea was treated with as an independent state. By these treaties, Seoul and the ports of Chemulpo (Jenchuan), Fusan, and Wön-san (Gen-san) were opened to foreign commerce, and this year (1897) Mok-po and Chinnam-po have been added to the list.

After the treaties were signed, a swarm of foreign representatives settled down upon the capital, where three of them are housed in handsome and conspicuous foreign buildings. The British Minister at Peking is accredited also to the Korean Court, and Britain has a resident Consul-General. Japan, Russia, and America are represented by Ministers, France by a Chargé d’Affaires, and Germany by a Consul. China, which has been tardy in entering upon diplomatic relations with Korea since the war, placed her subjects under the protection of the British Consul-General.

Until recently, the coinage of Korea consisted of debased copper cash, 500 to the dollar, a great check on business transactions; but a new fractional coinage, of which the unit is a 20-cent piece, has been put into circulation, along with 5-cent nickel, 5-cash copper, and 1-cash brass pieces. The fine Japanese yen or dollar is now current everywhere. The Dai Ichi Gingo and Fifty-eighth Banks of Japan afford banking facilities in Seoul and the open ports.

In the treaty ports of Fusan, Wön-san, and Chemulpo, there were in January, 1897, 11,318 foreign residents and 266 foreign business firms. The Japanese residents numbered 10,711, and their firms 230. The great majority of the American and French residents are missionaries, and the most conspicuous objects in Seoul are the Roman Cathedral and the American Methodist Episcopal Church. The number of British subjects in Korea in January, 1897, was 65, and an agency of a British firm in Nagasaki has recently been opened at Chemulpo. The approximate number of Chinese in Korea at the same time was 2,500, divided chiefly between Seoul and Chemulpo. There is a newly-instituted postal system for the interior, with postage stamps of four denominations, and a telegraph system, Seoul being now in communication with all parts of the world.

The roads are infamous, and even the main roads are rarely more than rough bridle tracks. Goods are carried everywhere on the backs of men, bulls, and ponies, but a railroad from Chemulpo to Seoul, constructed by an American concessionaire, is actually to be opened shortly.

The language of Korea is mixed. The educated classes introduce Chinese as much as possible into their conversation, and all the literature of any account is in that language, but it is of an archaic form, the Chinese of 1,000 years ago, and differs completely in pronunciation from Chinese as now spoken in China. En-mun, the Korean script, is utterly despised by the educated, whose sole education is in the Chinese classics. Korean has the distinction of being the only language of Eastern Asia which possesses an alphabet. Only women, children, and the uneducated used the En-mun till January, 1895, when a new departure was made by the official Gazette, which for several hundred years had been written in Chinese, appearing in a mixture of Chinese characters and En-mun, a resemblance to the Japanese mode of writing, in which the Chinese characters which play the chief part are connected by kana syllables.

A further innovation was that the King’s oath of Independence and Reform was promulgated in Chinese, pure En-mun, and the mixed script, and now the latter is regularly employed as the language of ordinances, official documents, and the Gazette; royal rescripts, as a rule, and despatches to the foreign representatives still adhering to the old form.

This recognition of the Korean language by means of the official use of the mixed, and in some cases of the pure script, the abolition of the Chinese literary examinations as the test of the fitness of candidates for office, the use of the “vulgar” script exclusively in the Independent, the new Korean newspaper, the prominence given to Korean by the large body of foreign missionaries, and the slow creation of scientific text-books and a literature in En-mun, are tending not only to strengthen Korean national feeling, but to bring the “masses,” who can mostly read their own script, into contact with Western science and forms of thought.

There is no national religion. Confucianism is the official cult, and the teachings of Confucius are the rule of Korean morality. Buddhism, once powerful, but “disestablished” three centuries ago, is to be met with chiefly in mountainous districts, and far from the main roads. Spirit worship, a species of shamanism, prevails all over the kingdom, and holds the uneducated masses and the women of all classes in complete bondage.

Christian missions, chiefly carried on by Americans, are beginning to produce both direct and indirect effects.

Ten years before the opening[3] of Korea to foreigners, the Korean king, in writing to his suzerain, the Emperor of China, said, “The educated men observe and practice the teachings of Confucius and Wen Wang,” and this fact is the key to anything like a correct estimate of Korea. Chinese influence in government, law, education, etiquette, social relations, and morals is predominant. In all these respects Korea is but a feeble reflection of her powerful neighbor; and though since the war the Koreans have ceased to look to China for assistance, their sympathies are with her, and they turn to her for noble ideals, cherished traditions, and moral teachings. Their literature, superstitions, system of education, ancestral worship, culture, and modes of thinking are Chinese. Society is organized on Confucian models, and the rights of parents over children, and of elder over younger brothers, are as fully recognized as in China.

It is into this archaic condition of things, this unspeakable grooviness, this irredeemable, unreformed Orientalism, this parody of China without the robustness of race which helps to hold China together, that the ferment of the Western leaven has fallen, and this feeblest of independent kingdoms, rudely shaken out of her sleep of centuries, half frightened and wholly dazed, finds herself confronted with an array of powerful, ambitious, aggressive, and not always overscrupulous powers, bent, it may be, on overreaching her and each other, forcing her into new paths, ringing with rude hands the knell of time-honored custom, clamoring for concessions, and bewildering her with reforms, suggestions, and panaceas, of which she sees neither the meaning nor the necessity.

And so “The old order changeth, giving place to new,” and many indications of the transition will be found in the later of the following pages.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The following are the measurements of 1,060 men taken at Seoul in January, 1897, by Mr. A. B. Stripling:—

[2] These averages are only calculated on observations taken during a period of three and a half years.

[3] See [appendix A].

CHAPTER I
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF KOREA

It is but fifteen hours’ steaming from the harbor of Nagasaki to Fusan in Southern Korea. The Island of Tsushima, where the Higo Maru calls, was, however, my last glimpse of Japan; and its reddening maples and blossoming plums, its temple-crowned heights, its stately flights of stone stairs leading to Shinto shrines in the woods, the blue-green masses of its pines, and the golden plumage of its bamboos, emphasized the effect produced by the brown, bare hills of Fusan, pleasant enough in summer, but grim and forbidding on a sunless February day. The Island of the Interrupted Shadow, Chŏl-yong-To, (Deer Island), high and grassy, on which the Japanese have established a coaling station and a quarantine hospital, shelters Fusan harbor.

It is not Korea but Japan which meets one on anchoring. The lighters are Japanese. An official of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha (Japan Mail Steamship Co.), to which the Higo Maru belongs, comes off with orders. The tide-waiter, however, is English—one of the English employés of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, lent to Korea, greatly to her advantage, for the management of her customs’ revenue. The foreign settlement of Fusan is dominated by a steep bluff with a Buddhist temple on the top, concealed by a number of fine cryptomeria, planted during the Japanese occupation in 1592. It is a fairly good-looking Japanese town, somewhat packed between the hills and the sea, with wide streets of Japanese shops and various Anglo-Japanese buildings, among which the Consulate and a Bank are the most important. It has substantial retaining and sea walls, and draining, lighting, and roadmaking have been carried out at the expense of the municipality. Since the war, waterworks have been constructed by a rate of 100 cash levied on each house, and it is hoped that the present abundant supply of pure water will make an end of the frequent epidemics of cholera. Above the town, the new Japanese military cemetery, filling rapidly, is the prominent object.

Considering that the creation of a demand for foreign goods is not thirteen years old, it is amazing to find how the Koreans have taken to them, and that the foreign trade of Fusan has developed so rapidly that, while in 1885 the value of exports and imports combined only amounted to £77,850, in 1892 it had reached £346,608. Unbleached shirtings, lawns, muslins, cambrics, and Turkey reds for children’s wear have all captivated Korean fancy; but the conservatism of wadded cotton garments in winter does not yield to foreign woollens, of which the importation is literally nil. The most amazing stride is in the importation of American kerosene oil, which has reached 71,000 gallons in a quarter; and which, by displacing the fish-oil lamp and the dismal rushlight in the paper lantern, is revolutionizing evening life in Korea. Matches, too, have “caught on” wonderfully, and evidently have “come to stay.” Hides, beans, dried fish, bêche de mer, rice, and whale’s flesh are among the principal exports. It was not till 1883 that Fusan was officially opened to general foreign trade, and its rise has been most remarkable. In that year its foreign population was 1,500; in 1897 it was 5,564.

In the first half of 1885 the Japan Mail Steamship Co. ran only one steamer, calling at Fusan, to Wladivostok every five weeks, and a small boat to Chemulpo, calling at Fusan, once a month. Now not a day passes without steamers, large or small, arriving at the port, and in addition to the fine vessels of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, running frequently between Kobe and Wladivostok, Shanghai and Wladivostok, Kobe and Tientsin, and between Kobe Chefoo, and Newchang, all calling at Fusan, three other lines, including one from Osaka direct, and a Russian mail line running between Shanghai and Wladivostok, make Fusan a port of call.

It appears that about one-third of the goods imported is carried inland on the backs of men and horses. The taxes levied and the delays at the barriers on both the overland and river routes are intolerable to traders, a hateful custom prevailing under which each station is controlled by some petty official, who, for a certain sum paid to the Government in Seoul, obtains permission to levy taxes on all goods.[4] The Nak-Tong River, the mouth of which is 7 miles from Fusan, is navigable for steamers drawing 5 feet of water as far as Miriang, 50 miles up, and for junks drawing 4 feet as far as Sa-mun, 100 miles farther, from which point their cargoes, transhipped into light draught boats, can ascend to Sang-chin, 170 miles from the coast. With this available waterway, and a hazy prospect that the much disputed Seoul-Fusan railway may become an accomplished fact, Fusan bids fair to become an important centre of commerce, as the Kyöng-sang Province, said to be the most populous of the eight (now for administrative purposes thirteen), is also said to be the most prosperous and fruitful, with the possible exception of Chul-la.

Barren as the neighboring hills look, they are probably rich in minerals. Gold is found in several places within a radius of 50 miles, copper quite near, and there are coal fields within 100 miles.

To all intents and purposes the settlement of Fusan is Japanese. In addition to the Japanese population of 5,508, there is a floating population of 8,000 Japanese fishermen. A Japanese Consul-General lives in a fine European house. Banking facilities are furnished by the Dai Ichi Gingo of Tokio, and the post and telegraph services are also Japanese. Japanese too is the cleanliness of the settlement, and the introduction of industries unknown to Korea, such as rice husking and cleaning by machinery, whale-fishing, sake-making, and the preparation of shark’s fins, bêche de mer, and fish manure, the latter an unsavory fertilizer, of which enormous quantities are exported to Japan.

But the reader asks impatiently, “Where are the Koreans? I don’t want to read about the Japanese!” Nor do I want to write about them, but facts are stubborn, and they are the outstanding Fusan fact.

As seen from the deck of the steamer, a narrow up and down path keeping at some height above the sea skirts the hillside for 3 miles from Fusan, passing by a small Chinese settlement with official buildings, uninhabited when I last saw them, and terminating in the walled town of Fusan proper, with a fort of very great antiquity outside it, modernized by the Japanese after the engineering notions of three centuries ago.

Seated on the rocks along the shore were white objects resembling pelicans or penguins, but as white objects with the gait of men moved in endless procession to and fro between old and new Fusan, I assumed that the seated objects were of the same species. The Korean makes upon one the impression of novelty, and while resembling neither the Chinese nor the Japanese, he is much better-looking than either, and his physique is far finer than that of the latter. Though his average height is only 5 feet 4¹⁄₂ inches, his white dress, which is voluminous, makes him look taller, and his high-crowned hat, without which he is never seen, taller still. The men were in winter dress—white cotton sleeved robes, huge trousers, and socks; all wadded. On their heads were black silk wadded caps with pendant sides edged with black fur, and on the top of these, rather high-crowned, somewhat broad-brimmed hats of black “crinoline” or horsehair gauze, tied under the chin with crinoline ribbon. The general effect was grotesque. There were a few children on the path, bundles of gay clothing, but no women.

I was accompanied to old Fusan by a charming English “Una,” who, speaking Korean almost like a native, moved serenely through the market-day crowds, welcomed by all. A miserable place I thought it, and later experience showed that it was neither more nor less miserable than the general run of Korean towns. Its narrow dirty streets consist of low hovels built of mud-smeared wattle without windows, straw roofs, and deep eaves, a black smoke-hole in every wall 2 feet from the ground, and outside most are irregular ditches containing solid and liquid refuse. Mangy dogs and blear-eyed children, half or wholly naked, and scaly with dirt, roll in the deep dust or slime, or pant and blink in the sun, apparently unaffected by the stenches which abound. But market-day hid much that is repulsive. Along the whole length of the narrow, dusty, crooked street, the wares were laid out on mats on the ground, a man or an old woman, bundled up in dirty white cotton, guarding each. And the sound of bargaining rose high, and much breath was spent on beating down prices, which did not amount originally to the tenth part of a farthing. The goods gave an impression of poor buyers and small trade. Short lengths of coarse white cotton, skeins of cotton, straw shoes, wooden combs, tobacco pipes and pouches, dried fish and seaweed, cord for girdles, paper rough and smooth, and barley-sugar nearly black, were the contents of the mats. I am sure that the most valuable stock-in-trade there was not worth more than three dollars. Each vendor had a small heap of cash beside him, an uncouth bronze coin with a square hole in the centre, of which at that time 3,200 nominally went to the dollar, and which greatly trammelled and crippled Korean trade.

A market is held in Fusan and in many other places every fifth day. On these the country people rely for all which they do not produce, as well as for the sale or barter of their productions. Practically there are no shops in the villages and small towns, their needs being supplied on stated days by travelling pedlars who form a very influential guild.

Turning away from the bustle of the main street into a narrow, dirty alley, and then into a native compound, I found the three Australian ladies who were the objects of my visit to this decayed and miserable town. Except that the compound was clean, it was in no way distinguishable from any other, being surrounded by mud hovels. In one of these, exposed to the full force of the southern sun, these ladies were living. The mud walls were concealed with paper, and photographs and other European knickknacks conferred a look of refinement. But not only were the rooms so low that one of the ladies could not stand upright in them, but privacy was impossible, invasions of Korean women and children succeeding each other from morning to night, so that even dressing was a spectacle for the curious. Friends urged these ladies not to take this step of living in a Korean town 3 miles from Europeans. It was represented that it was not safe, and that their health would suffer from the heat and fetid odors of the crowded neighborhood, etc. In truth it was not a “conventional thing” to do.

On my first visit I found them well and happy. Small children were clinging to their skirts, and a certain number of women had been induced to become cleanly in their persons and habits. All the neighbors were friendly, and rude remarks in the streets had altogether ceased. Many of the women resorted to them for medical help, and the simple aid they gave brought them much good-will. This friendly and civilizing influence was the result of a year of living under very detestable circumstances. If they had dwelt in grand houses 2¹⁄₂ miles off upon the hill, it is safe to say that the result would have been nil. Without any fuss or blowing of trumpets, they quietly helped to solve one of the great problems as to “Missionary Methods,” though why it should be a “problem” I fail to see. In the East at least, every religious teacher who has led the people has lived among them, knowing if not sharing their daily lives, and has been easily accessible at all times. It is not easy to imagine a Buddha or One greater than Buddha only reached by favor of, and possibly by feeing, a gate-keeper or servant.

On visiting them a year later I found them still well and happy. The excitement among the Koreans consequent on the Tong-hak rebellion and the war had left them unmolested. A Japanese regiment had encamped close to them, and, by permission, had drawn water from the well in their compound, and had shown them nothing but courtesy. Having in two years gained general confidence and good-will, they built a small bungalow just above the old native house, which has been turned into a very primitive orphanage.

The people were friendly and kind from the first. Those who were the earliest friends of the ladies are their staunchest friends now, and they knew them and their aims so well when they moved into their new house that it made no difference at all. Some go there to see the ladies, others to see the furniture or hear the organ, and a few to inquire about the “Jesus doctrine.” The “mission work” now consists of daily meetings for worship, classes for applicants for baptism, classes at night for those women who may not come out in the daytime, a Sunday school with an attendance of eighty, visiting among the people, and giving instruction in the country and surrounding villages. About forty adults have professed Christianity, and regularly attend Christian worship.

I mention these facts not for the purpose of glorifying these ladies, who are simply doing their duty, but because they fall in with a theory of my own as to methods of mission work.

There is a very small Roman Catholic mission-house, seldom tenanted, between the two Fusans. In the province of Kyöng-sang in which they are, there are Roman missions which claim 2,000 converts, and to promulgate Christianity in thirty towns and villages. There are two foreign priests, who spend most of the year in teaching in the provincial villages, living in Korean huts, in Korean fashion, on Korean food.

A coarse ocean with a distinct line of demarcation between the blue water of the Sea of Japan and the discoloration of the Yellow Sea, harsh, grim, rocky, brown islands, mostly uninhabited—two monotonously disagreeable days, more islands, muddier water, an estuary and junks, and on the third afternoon from Fusan the Higo Maru anchored in the roadstead of Chemulpo, the seaport of Seoul. This cannot pretend to be a harbor, indeed most of the roadstead, such as it is, is a slimy mud flat for much of the day, the tide rising and falling 36 feet. The anchorage, a narrow channel in the shallows, can accommodate five vessels of moderate size. Yet though the mud was en évidence, and the low hill behind the town was dull brown, and a drizzling rain was falling, I liked the look of Chemulpo better than I expected, and after becoming acquainted with it in various seasons and circumstances, I came to regard it with very friendly feelings. As seen from the roadstead, it is a collection of mean houses, mostly of wood, painted white, built along the edge of the sea and straggling up a verdureless hill, the whole extending for more than a mile from a low point on which are a few trees, crowned by the English Vice-Consulate, a comfortless and unworthy building, to a hill on which are a large decorative Japanese tea-house, a garden, and a Shinto shrine. Salient features there are none, unless the house of a German merchant, an English church, the humble buildings of Bishop Corfe’s mission on the hill, the large Japanese Consulate, and some new municipal buildings on a slope, may be considered such. As at Fusan, an English tide-waiter boarded the ship, and a foreign harbormaster berthed her, while a Japanese clerk gave the captain his orders.

HARBOR OF CHEMULPO.

Mr. Wilkinson, the acting British Vice-Consul, came off for me, and entertained me then and on two subsequent occasions with great hospitality, but as the Vice-Consulate had at that time no guest-room, I slept at a Chinese inn, known as “Steward’s,” kept by Itai, an honest and helpful man who does all he can to make his guests comfortable, and partially succeeds. This inn is at the corner of the main street of the Chinese quarter, in a very lively position, as it also looks down the main street of the Japanese settlement. The Chinese settlement is solid, with a handsome yamen and guild hall, and rows of thriving and substantial shops. Busy and noisy with the continual letting off of crackers and beating of drums and gongs, the Chinese were obviously far ahead of the Japanese in trade. They had nearly a monopoly of the foreign “custom”; their large “houses” in Chemulpo had branches in Seoul, and if there were any foreign requirement which they could not meet, they procured the article from Shanghai without loss of time. The haulage of freight to Seoul was in their hands, and the market gardening, and much besides. Late into the night they were at work, and they used the roadway for drying hides and storing kerosene tins and packing cases. Scarcely did the noise of night cease when the din of morning began. To these hard-working and money-making people rest seemed a superfluity.

The Japanese settlement is far more populous, extensive, and pretentious. Their Consulate is imposing enough for a legation. They have several streets of small shops, which supply the needs chiefly of people of their own nationality, for foreigners patronize Ah Wong and Itai, and the Koreans, who hate the Japanese with a hatred three centuries old, also deal chiefly with the Chinese. But though the Japanese were outstripped in trade by the Chinese, their position in Korea, even before the war, was an influential one. They gave “postal facilities” between the treaty ports and Seoul and carried the foreign mails, and they established branches of the First National Bank[5] in the capital and treaty ports, with which the resident foreigners have for years transacted their business, and in which they have full confidence. I lost no time in opening an account with this Bank in Chemulpo, receiving an English check-book and pass-book, and on all occasions courtesy and all needed help. Partly owing to the fact that English cottons for Korea are made in bales too big for the Lilliputian Korean pony, involving reduction to more manageable dimensions on being landed, and partly to causes which obtain elsewhere, the Japanese are so successfully pushing their cottons in Korea, that while they constituted only 3 per cent. of the imports in 1887, they had risen to something like 40 per cent. in 1894.[6] There is a rapidly growing demand for yarn to be woven on native looms. The Japanese are well to the front with steam and sailing tonnage. Of 198 steamers entered inwards in 1893, 132 were Japanese; and out of 325 sailing vessels, 232 were Japanese. It is on record that an English merchantman was once seen in Chemulpo roads, but actually the British mercantile flag, unless on a chartered steamer, is not known in Korean waters. Nor was there in 1894 an English merchant in the Korean treaty ports, or an English house of business, large or small, in Korea.

Just then rice was in the ascendant. Japan by means of pressure had induced the Korean Government to consent to suspend the decree forbidding its export, and on a certain date the sluices were to be opened. Stacks of rice bags covered the beach, rice in bulk being measured into bags was piled on mats in the roadways, ponies and coolies rice-laden filed in strings down the streets, while in the roadstead a number of Japanese steamers and junks awaited the taking off the embargo at midnight on 6th March. A regular rice babel prevailed in the town and on the beach, and much disaffection prevailed among the Koreans at the rise in the price of their staple article of diet. Japanese agents scoured the whole country for rice, and every cattie of it which could be spared from consumption was bought in preparation for the war of which no one in Korea dreamed at that time. The rice bustle gave Chemulpo an appearance of a thriving trade which it is not wont to have except in the Chinese settlement. Its foreign population in 1897 was 4,357.

The reader may wonder where the Koreans are at Chemulpo, and in truth I had almost forgotten them, for they are of little account. The increasing native town lies outside the Japanese settlement on the Seoul road, clustering round the base of the hill on which the English church stands, and scrambling up it, mud hovels planting themselves on every ledge, attained by filthy alleys, swarming with quiet dirty children, who look on the high-road to emulate the do-lessness of their fathers. Korean, too, is the official yamen at the top of the hill, and Korean its methods of punishment, its brutal flagellations by yamen runners, its beating of criminals to death, their howls of anguish penetrating the rooms of the adjacent English mission, and Korean too are the bribery and corruption which make it and nearly every yamen sinks of iniquity. The gate with its double curved roofs and drum chamber over the gateway remind the stranger that though the capital and energy of Chemulpo are foreign, the government is native. Not Korean is the abode of mercy on the other side of the road from the yamen, the hospital connected with Bishop Corfe’s mission, where in a small Korean building the sick are received, tended, and generally cured by Dr. Landis, who himself lives as a Korean in rooms 8 feet by 6, studying, writing, eating, without chair or table, and accessible at all times to all comers. The 6,700 inhabitants of the Korean town, or rather the male half of them, are always on the move. The narrow roads are always full of them, sauntering along in their dress hats, not apparently doing anything. It is old Fusan over again, except that there are permanent shops, with stocks-in-trade worth from one to twenty dollars; and as an hour is easily spent over a transaction involving a few cash, there is an appearance of business kept up. In the settlement the Koreans work as porters and carry preposterous weights on their wooden packsaddles.

GATE OF OLD FUSAN

FOOTNOTES:

[4] According to Mr. Hunt, the Commissioner of Customs at Fusan, in the Kyöng-sang province alone there are 17 such stations. Fusan is hedged round by a cordon of them within a ten-mile radius, and on the Nak-tong, which is the waterway to the provincial capital, there are four in a distance of 25 miles.

[5] Now the Dai Ichi Gingo.

[6] For latest trade statistics see [appendix B].

CHAPTER II
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE CAPITAL

Chemulpo, being on the island-studded estuary of the Han, which is navigable for the 56 miles up to Ma-pu, the river port of Seoul, it eventually occurred to some persons more enterprising than their neighbors to establish steam communication between the two. Manifold are the disasters which have attended this simple undertaking. Nearly every passenger who has entrusted himself to the river has a tale to tell of the boat being deposited on a sandbank, and of futile endeavors to get off, of fretting and fuming, usually ending in hailing a passing sampan and getting up to Ma-pu many hours behind time, tired, hungry, and disgusted. For the steam launches are only half powered for their work, the tides are strong, the river shallows often, and its sandbanks shift almost from tide to tide. Hence this natural highway is not much patronized by people who respect themselves, and all sorts of arrangements are made for getting up to the capital by “road.” There is, properly speaking, no road, but the word serves. Mr. Gardner, the British acting Consul-General in Seoul, kindly arranged to escort me the 25 miles, and I went up in seven hours in a chair with six bearers, jolly fellows, who joked and laughed and raced the Consul’s pony. Traffic has worn for itself a track, often indefinite, but usually straggling over and sterilizing a width enough for three or four highways, and often making a new departure to avoid deep mud holes. The mud is nearly bottomless. Bullock-carts owned by Chinese attempt the transit of goods, and two or three embedded in the mud till the spring showed with what success. Near Ma-pu all traffic has to cross a small plain of deep sand. Pack bulls, noble animals, and men are the carriers of goods. The redoubtable Korean pony was not to be seen. Foot passengers in dress hats and wadded white garments were fairly numerous.

The track lies through rolling country, well cultivated. There are only two or three villages on the road, but there are many, surrounded by fruit trees, in the folds of the adjacent low hills; stunted pines (Pinus sinensis) abound, and often indicate places of burial. The hillsides are much taken up with graves. There are wooden sign or distant posts, with grotesque human faces upon them, chiefly that of Chang Sun, a traitor, whose misdemeanors were committed 1,000 years ago. The general aspect of the country is bare and monotonous. Except for the orchards and the spindly pines, there is no wood. There is no beauty of form, nor any of those signs of exclusiveness, such as gates or walls, which give something of dignity to a landscape. These were my first impressions. But I came to see on later journeys that even on that road there can be a beauty and fascination in the scenery when glorified and idealized by the unrivalled atmosphere of a Korean winter, which it is a delight even to recall, and that the situation of Seoul for a sort of weird picturesqueness compares favorably with that of almost any other capital, but its orientalism, a marked feature of which was its specially self-asserting dirt, is being fast improved off the face of the earth.

From the low pass known as the Gap, there is a view of the hills in the neighborhood of Seoul, and before reaching the Han these, glorified and exaggerated by an effect of atmosphere, took on something of grandeur. Crossing the Han in a scow to which my chair accommodated itself more readily than Mr. Gardner’s pony, and encountering ferry boats full of pack bulls bearing the night soil of the city to the country, we landed on the rough, steep, filthy, miry river bank, and were at once in the foul, narrow, slimy, rough street of Ma-pu, a twisted alley full of mean shops for the sale of native commodities, of bulls carrying mountains of brushwood which nearly filled up the roadway; and with a crowd, masculine solely, which swayed and loafed, and did nothing in particular. Some quiet agricultural country, and some fine trees, a resemblance to the land of the Bakhtiari Lurs, in the fact of one man working a spade or shovel, while three others helped him to turn up the soil by an arrangement of ropes, then two chairs with bearers in blue uniforms, carrying Mrs. and Miss Gardner, accompanied by Bishop Corfe, Mr. M’Leavy Brown, the Chief Commissioner of Korean Customs, and Mr. Fox, the Assistant Consul, then the hovels and alleys became thick, and we were in extra-mural Seoul. A lofty wall, pierced by a deep double-roofed gateway, was passed, and ten minutes more of miserable alleys brought us to a breezy hill, crowned by the staring red brick buildings of the English Legation and Consular offices.

The Russian Legation has taken another and a higher, and its loftly tower and fine façade are the most conspicuous objects in the city, while a third is covered with buildings, some Korean and tasteful, but others in a painful style of architecture, a combination of the factory with the meeting-house, belonging to the American Methodist Episcopal Mission, the American Presbyterians occupying a humbler position below. A hill on the other side of the town is dedicated to Japan, and so in every part of the city the foreigner, shut out till 1883, is making his presence felt, and is undermining that which is Korean in the Korean capital by the slow process of contact.

One of the most remarkable indications of the change which is stealing over the Hermit City is that a nearly finished Roman Catholic Cathedral, of very large size, with a clergy-house and orphanages, occupies one of the most prominent positions in Seoul. The King’s father, the Tai-Won-Kun, still actively engaged in politics, is the man who, thirty years ago, persecuted the Roman Christians so cruelly and persistently as to raise up for Korea a “noble army of martyrs.”

I know Seoul by day and night, its palaces and its slums, its unspeakable meanness and faded splendors, its purposeless crowds, its mediæval processions, which for barbaric splendor cannot be matched on earth, the filth of its crowded alleys, and its pitiful attempt to retain its manners, customs, and identity as the capital of an ancient monarchy in face of the host of disintegrating influences which are at work, but it is not at first that one “takes it in.” I had known it for a year before I appreciated it, or fully realized that it is entitled to be regarded as one of the great capitals of the world, with its supposed population of a quarter of a million, and that few capitals are more beautifully situated.[7] One hundred and twenty feet above the sea, in Lat. 37° 34′ N. and Long. 127° 6′ E., mountain-girdled, for the definite peaks and abrupt elevation of its hills give them the grandeur of mountains, though their highest summit, San-kak-San, has only an altitude of 2,627 feet, few cities can boast, as Seoul can, that tigers and leopards are shot within their walls! Arid and forbidding these mountains look at times, their ridges broken up into black crags and pinnacles, ofttimes rising from among distorted pines, but there are evenings of purple glory, when every forbidding peak gleams like an amethyst with a pink translucency, and the shadows are cobalt and the sky is green and gold. Fair are the surroundings too in early spring, when a delicate green mist veils the hills, and their sides are flushed with the heliotrope azalea, and flame of plum, and blush of cherry, and tremulousness of peach blossom appear in unexpected quarters.

JAPANESE MILITARY CEMETERY, CHEMULPO.

Looking down on this great city, which has the aspect of a lotus pond in November, or an expanse of overripe mushrooms, the eye naturally follows the course of the wall, which is discerned in most outlandish places, climbing Nam-San in one direction, and going clear over the crest of Puk-han in another, enclosing a piece of forest here, and a vacant plain there, descending into ravines, disappearing and reappearing when least expected. This wall, which contrives to look nearly as solid as the hillsides which it climbs, is from 25 to 40 feet in height, and 14 miles in circumference (according to Mr. Fox of H.B.M.’s Consular Service), battlemented along its entire length, and pierced by eight gateways, solid arches or tunnels of stone, surmounted by lofty gate houses with one, two, or three curved tiled roofs. These are closed from sunset to sunrise by massive wooden gates, heavily bossed and strengthened with iron, bearing, following Chinese fashion, high-sounding names, such as the “Gate of Bright Amiability,” the “Gate of High Ceremony,” the “Gate of Elevated Humanity.”

The wall consists of a bank of earth faced with masonry, or of solid masonry alone, and is on the whole in tolerable repair. It is on the side nearest the river, and onwards in the direction of the Peking Pass, that extra-mural Seoul has expanded. One gate is the Gate of the Dead, only a royal corpse being permitted to be carried out by any other. By another gate criminals passed out to be beheaded, and outside another their heads were exposed for some days after execution, hanging from camp-kettle stands. The north gate, high on Puk-han, is kept closed, only to be opened in case the King is compelled to escape to one of the so-called fortresses on that mountain.

Outside the wall is charming country, broken into hills and wooded valleys, with knolls sacrificed to stately royal tombs, with their environment of fine trees, and villages in romantic positions among orchards and garden cultivation. Few Eastern cities have prettier walks and rides in their immediate neighborhood, or greater possibilities of rapid escape into sylvan solitudes, and I must add that no city has environs so safe, and that ladies without a European escort can ride, as I have done, in every direction outside the walls without meeting with the slightest annoyance.

I shrink from describing intra-mural Seoul.[8] I thought it the foulest city on earth till I saw Peking, and its smells the most odious, till I encountered those of Shao-shing! For a great city and a capital its meanness is indescribable. Etiquette forbids the erection of two-storied houses, consequently an estimated quarter of a million people are living on “the ground,” chiefly in labyrinthine alleys, many of them not wide enough for two loaded bulls to pass, indeed barely wide enough for one man to pass a loaded bull, and further narrowed by a series of vile holes or green, slimy ditches, which receive the solid and liquid refuse of the houses, their foul and fetid margins being the favorite resort of half-naked children, begrimed with dirt, and of big, mangy, blear-eyed dogs, which wallow in the slime or blink in the sun. There too the itinerant vendor of “small wares,” and candies dyed flaring colors with aniline dyes, establishes himself, puts a few planks across the ditch, and his goods, worth perhaps a dollar, thereon. But even Seoul has its “spring cleaning,” and I encountered on the sand plain of the Han, on the ferry, and on the road from Ma-pu to Seoul, innumerable bulls carrying panniers laden with the contents of the city ditches.

The houses abutting on these ditches are generally hovels with deep eaves and thatched roofs, presenting nothing to the street but a mud wall, with occasionally a small paper window just under the roof, indicating the men’s quarters, and invariably, at a height varying from 2 to 3 feet above the ditch, a blackened smoke-hole, the vent for the smoke and heated air, which have done their duty in warming the floor of the house. All day long bulls laden with brushwood to a great height are entering the city, and at six o’clock this pine brush, preparing to do the cooking and warming for the population, fills every lane in Seoul with aromatic smoke, which hangs over it with remarkable punctuality. Even the superior houses, which have curved and tiled roofs, present nothing better to the street than this debased appearance.

The shops partake of the general meanness. Shops with a stock-in-trade which may be worth six dollars abound. It is easy to walk in Seoul without molestation, but any one standing to look at anything attracts a great crowd, so that it is as well that there is nothing to look at. The shops have literally not a noteworthy feature. Their one characteristic is that they have none! The best shops are near the Great Bell, beside which formerly stood a stone with an inscription calling on all Koreans to put intruding foreigners to death. So small are they that all goods are within reach of the hand. In one of the three broad streets, there are double rows of removable booths, in which now and then a small box of Korean niello work, iron inlaid with silver, may be picked up. In these and others the principal commodities are white cottons, straw shoes, bamboo hats, coarse pottery, candlesticks, with draught screens, combs, glass beads, pipes, tobacco-pouches, spittoons, horn-rimmed goggles, much worn by officials, paper of many kinds, wooden pillow-ends, decorated pillowcases, fans, ink-cases, huge wooden saddles with green leather flaps bossed with silver, laundry sticks, dried persimmons, loathsome candies dyed magenta, scarlet, and green, masses of dried seaweed and fungi, and ill-chosen collections of the most trumpery of foreign trash, such as sixpenny kerosene lamps, hand mirrors, tinsel vases, etc., the genius of bad taste presiding over all.

Plain brass dinner sets and other brass articles are made, and some mother-of-pearl inlaying in black lacquer from old designs is occasionally to be purchased, and embroideries in silk and gold thread, but the designs are ugly, and the coloring atrocious. Foreigners have bestowed the name Cabinet Street on a street near the English Legation, given up to the making of bureaus and marriage chests. These, though not massive, look so, and are really handsome, some being of solid chestnut wood, others veneered with maple or peach, and bossed, strapped, and hinged with brass, besides being ornamented with great brass hasps and brass padlocks 6 inches long. These, besides being thoroughly Korean, are distinctly decorative. There are few buyers, except in the early morning, and shopping does not seem a pastime, partly because none but the poorest class of women can go out on foot by daylight.

In the booths are to be seen tobacco pipes, pipestems, and bowls, coarse glazed pottery, rice bowls, Japanese lucifer matches, aniline dyes, tobacco-pouches, purses, flint and tinder pouches, rolls of oiled paper, tassels, silk cord, nuts of the edible pine, rice, millet, maize, peas, beans, string shoes, old crinoline hats, bamboo and reed hats in endless variety, and coarse native cotton, very narrow.

In this great human hive, the ordinary sightseer finds his vocation gone. The inhabitants constitute the “sight” of Seoul. The great bronze bell, said to be the third largest in the world, is one of the few “sights” usually seen by strangers. It hangs in a bell tower in the centre of the city, and bears the following inscription:—

“Sye Cho the Great, 12^th year Man cha [year of the cycle] and moon, the 4^th year of the great Ming Emperor Hsüan-hua [A.D. 1468], the head of the bureau of Royal despatches, Sye Ko chyeng, bearing the title Sa Ka Chyeng, had this pavilion erected and this bell hung.”

This bell, whose dull heavy boom is heard in all parts of Seoul, has opened and closed the gates for five centuries.

The grand triple gateway of the Royal Palace with its double roof, the old audience hall in the Mulberry Gardens, and the decorative roofs of the gate towers, are all seen in an hour. There remains the Marble Pagoda, seven centuries old, so completely hidden away in the back-yard of a house in one of the foulest and narrowest alleys of the city, that many people never see it at all. As I was intent on photographing some of the reliefs upon it, I visited it five times, and each time with fresh admiration; but so wedged in is it, that one can only get any kind of view of it by climbing on the top of a wall. Every part is carved, and the flat parts richly so, some of the tablets representing Hindu divinities, while others seem to portray the various stages of the soul’s progress towards Nirvana. The designs are undoubtedly Indian, modified by Chinese artists, and this thing of beauty stands on the site of a Buddhist monastery. It is a thirteen-storied pagoda, but three stories were taken off in the Japanese invasion three centuries ago, and placed on the ground uninjured. So they remained, but on my last visit children had defaced the exquisite carving, and were offering portions for sale. Not far off is another relic of antiquity, a decorated and inscribed tablet standing on the back of a granite turtle of prodigious size. Outside the west gate, on a plain near the Peking Pass, was a roofed and highly decorated arch of that form known as the pailow, and close by it a sort of palace hall, in which every new sovereign of Korea waited for the coming of a special envoy from Peking, whom he joined at the pailow, accompanying him to the palace, where he received from him his investiture as sovereign.

On the slope of Nam-San the white wooden buildings, simple and unpretentious, of the Japanese Legation are situated, and below them a Japanese colony of nearly 5,000 persons, equipped with tea-houses, a theatre, and the various arrangements essential to Japanese well-being. There, in acute contrast to everything Korean, are to be seen streets of shops and houses where cleanliness, daintiness, and thrift reign supreme, and unveiled women, and men in girdled dressing-gowns and clogs, move about as freely as in Japan. There also are to be seen minute soldiers or military police, and smart be-sworded officers, who change guard at due intervals; nor are such precautions needless, for the heredity of hate is strong in Korea, and on two occasions the members of this Legation have had to fight their way down to the sea. The Legation was occupied at the time of my first visit by Mr. Otori, an elderly man with pendulous white whiskers, who went much into the little society which Seoul boasts, talked nothings, and gave no promise of the rough vigor which he showed a few months later. There also are the Japanese bank and post office, both admirably managed.

The Chinese colony was in 1894 nearly as large, and differed in no respect from such a colony anywhere else. The foreigners depend for many things on the Chinese shops, and as the Koreans like the Chinese, they do some trade with them also. The imposing element connected with China was the yamen of Yuan, the Minister Resident and representative of Korea’s Suzerain, by many people regarded as “the power behind the throne,” who is reported to have gone more than once unbidden into the King’s presence, and to have reproached him with his conduct of affairs. Great courtyards and lofty gates on which are painted the usual guardian gods, and a brick dragon screen, seclude the palace in which Yuan lived with his guards and large retinue; and the number of big, supercilious men, dressed in rich brocades and satins, who hung about both this Palace and the Consulate, impressed the Koreans with the power and stateliness within. The Americans were very severe on Yuan, but so far as I could learn his chief fault was that he let things alone, and neglected to use his unquestionably great power in favor of reform and common honesty—but he was a Chinese mandarin! He possessed the power of life and death over Chinamen, and his punishments were often to our thinking barbarous, but the Chinese feared him so much that they treated the Koreans fairly well, which is more than can be said of the Japanese.

One of the “sights” of Seoul is the stream or drain or watercourse, a wide, walled, open conduit, along which a dark-colored festering stream slowly drags its malodorous length, among manure and refuse heaps which cover up most of what was once its shingly bed. There, tired of crowds masculine solely, one may be refreshed by the sight of women of the poorest class, some ladling into pails the compound which passes for water, and others washing clothes in the fetid pools which pass for a stream. All wear one costume, which is peculiar to the capital, a green silk coat—a man’s coat with the “neck” put over the head and clutched below the eyes, and long wide sleeves falling from the ears. It is as well that the Korean woman is concealed, for she is not a houri. Washing is her manifest destiny so long as her lord wears white. She washes in this foul river, in the pond of the Mulberry Palace, in every wet ditch, and outside the walls in the few streams which exist. Clothes are partially unpicked, boiled with ley three times, rolled into hard bundles, and pounded with heavy sticks on stones. After being dried they are beaten with wooden sticks on cylinders, till they attain a polish resembling dull satin. The women are slaves to the laundry, and the only sound which breaks the stillness of a Seoul night is the regular beat of their laundry sticks.

From the beautiful hill Nam-San, from the Lone Tree Hill, and from a hill above the old Mulberry Palace, Seoul is best seen, with its mountainous surroundings, here and there dark with pines, but mostly naked, falling down upon the city in black arid corrugations. These mountains enclose a valley about 5 miles long by 3 broad, into which 200,000 people are crammed and wedged. The city is a sea of low brown roofs, mostly of thatch, and all but monotonous, no trees and no open spaces. Rising out of this brown sea there are the curved double roofs of the gates, and the gray granite walls of the royal palaces, and within them the sweeping roofs of various audience halls. Cutting the city across by running from the east to the west gate is one broad street, another striking off from this runs to the south gate, and a third 60 yards wide runs from the great central artery to the palace. This is the only one which is kept clear of encumbrance at all times, the others being occupied by double rows of booths, leaving only a narrow space for traffic on either side. When I first looked down on Seoul early in March, one street along its whole length appeared to be still encumbered with the drift of the previous winter’s snow. It was only by the aid of a glass that I discovered that this is the great promenade, and that the snowdrift was just the garments of the Koreans, whitened by ceaseless labor with the laundry sticks. In these three broad streets the moving crowd of men in white robes and black dress hats seldom flags. They seem destitute of any object. Many of them are of the yang-ban or noble class, to whom a rigid etiquette forbids any but official or tutorial occupation, and many of whom exist by hanging on to their more fortunate relatives. Young men of the middle class imitate their nonchalance and swinging gait.

There, too, are to be seen officials, superbly dressed, mounted on very fat but handsome ponies, with profuse manes and tails, the riders sitting uneasily on the tops of saddles with showy caparisonings a foot high, holding on to the saddle bow, two retainers leading the steed, and two more holding the rider in his place; or officials in palanquins, with bearers at a run, amid large retinues. In the more plebeian streets nothing is to be seen but bulls carrying pine brush, strings of ponies loaded with salt or country produce, water-carriers with pails slung on a yoke, splashing their contents, and coolies carrying burdens on wooden pack saddles.

But in the narrower alleys, of which there are hundreds, further narrowed by the low deep eaves, and the vile ditches outside the houses, only two men can pass each other, and the noble red bull with his load of brushwood is rarely seen. Between these miles of mud walls, deep eaves, green slimy ditches, and blackened smoke-holes, few besides the male inhabitants and burden bearers are seen to move. They are the paradise of mangy dogs. Every house has a dog and a square hole through which he can just creep. He yelps furiously at a stranger, and runs away at the shaking of an umbrella. He was the sole scavenger of Seoul, and a very inefficient one. He is neither the friend nor companion of man. He is ignorant of Korean and every other spoken language. His bark at night announces peril from thieves. He is almost wild. When young he is killed and eaten in spring.

I have mentioned the women of the lower classes, who wash clothes and draw water in the daytime. Many of these were domestic slaves, and all are of the lowest class. Korean women are very rigidly secluded, perhaps more absolutely so than the women of any other nation. In the capital a very curious arrangement prevailed. About eight o’clock the great bell tolled a signal for men to retire into their houses, and for women to come out and amuse themselves, and visit their friends. The rule which clears the streets of men occasionally lapses, and then some incident occurs which causes it to be rigorously reënforced. So it was at the time of my arrival, and the pitch dark streets presented the singular spectacle of being tenanted solely by bodies of women with servants carrying lanterns. From its operation were exempted blind men, officials, foreigners’ servants, and persons carrying prescriptions to the druggists. These were often forged for the purpose of escape from durance vile, and a few people got long staffs and personated blind men. At twelve the bell again boomed, women retired, and men were at liberty to go abroad. A lady of high position told me that she had never seen the streets of Seoul by daylight.

The nocturnal silence is very impressive. There is no human hum, throb, or gurgle. The darkness too is absolute, as there are few if any lighted windows to the streets. Upon a silence which may be felt, the deep, penetrating boom of the great bell breaks with a sound which is almost ominous.

TURTLE STONE

FOOTNOTES:

[7] By a careful census taken in February, 1897, the intra-mural population of Seoul was 144,636 souls, and the extra-mural 75,189, total 219,815, males predominating to the extent of 11,079.

[8] Nous avons changé tout cela. As will be seen from a chapter near the end of the book, the Chief Commissioner of Customs, energetically seconded by the Governor of Seoul, has worked surprising improvements and sanitary changes which, if carried out perseveringly, will redeem the capital from the charges which travellers have brought against it.

CHAPTER III
THE KUR-DONG

Before leaving England letters from Korea had warned me of the difficulty of travelling in the interior, of getting a trustworthy servant, and above all, a trustworthy interpreter. Weeks passed by, and though Bishop Corfe and others exerted themselves on my behalf, these essential requisites were not forthcoming, for to find a reliable English-speaking Korean is well-nigh impossible. There are English-speaking Koreans who have learned English, some in the Government School, and others in the Methodist Episcopal School, and many of these I interviewed. The English of all was infirm, and they were all limp and timid, a set of poor creatures. Some of them seemed very anxious to go with me, and were partially engaged, and the next day came, looking uneasy, and balancing themselves on the edge of their chairs, told me that their mothers said they must not go because there were tigers, or that three months was too long a journey, or that they could not go so far from their families, etc. At last a young man came who really spoke passable English, but on entering the room with a familiar nod, he threw himself down in an easy-chair, swinging his leg over the arm! He asked many questions about the journey, said it was very long to be away from Seoul, and that he should require one horse for his baggage and another for himself. I remarked that, in order to get through the difficulties of the journey, it would be necessary to limit the baggage as much as possible. He said he could not go with fewer than nine suits of clothes! I remarked that a foreigner would only take two, and that I should reduce myself to two. “Yes,” he replied, “but foreigners are so dirty in their habits.” This from a Korean! So once more I had to settle down, and accept the kindly hospitality of my friends, trusting that something would “turn up.”

By this delay I came in for the Kur-dong,[9] one of the most remarkable spectacles I ever saw, and it had the added interest of being seen in its splendor for probably the last time, as circumstances which have since occurred, and the necessity for economy, must put an end to much of the scenic display. The occasion was a visit of the King in state to sacrifice in one of the ancestral temples of his dynasty, members of which have occupied the Korean throne for five centuries. Living secluded in his palace, guarded by 1,000 men, his subjects forbidden to pronounce his name, which indeed is seldom known, in total ignorance of any other aspect of his kingdom and capital than that furnished by the two streets through which he passes to offer sacrifice, the days on which he performs this pious act offer to his subjects their sole opportunities of gazing on his august countenance. As the Queen’s procession passed by on the day of the Duke of York’s marriage, I heard a workingman say, “It’s we as pays, and we likes to get the valey for our money.” The Korean pays in another and heavier sense, and as in tens of thousands he crowds in reverential silence the route of the Kur-dong, he is probably glad that the one brilliant spectacle of the year should be as splendid as possible.

The monotony of Seoul is something remarkable. Brown mountains “picked out” in black, brown mud walls, brown roofs, brown roadways, whether mud or dust, while humanity is in black and white. Always the same bundled-up women clutching their green coats under their eyes, always the same surge of yang-bans and their familiars swinging along South Street, the same strings of squealing ponies “spoiling for a fight,” the same processions of majestic red bulls under towering loads of brushwood, the same coolies in dirty white, forever carrying burdens, the same joyless dirty children getting through life on the gutters’ edge, and the same brownish dogs, feebly wrangling over offal. On such monotony and colorlessness, the Kur-dong bursts like the sun. Alas for this mean but fascinating capital, that the most recent steps towards civilization should involve the abolition of its one spectacle!

By six in the morning of the looked-for day we were on our way from the English Legation to a position near the Great Bell, all the male population of the alleys taking the same direction, along with children in colors, and some of the poorer class of women with gay handkerchiefs folded Roman fashion on their hair. For the first time I saw the grand proportions of the road called by foreigners South Street. The double rows of booths had been removed the night before, and along the side of the street, at intervals of 20 yards, torches 10 feet high were let into the ground to light the King on his return from sacrificing. It is only by its imposing width that this great street lends itself to such a display, for the houses are low and mean, and on one side at least are only superior hovels. In place of the booths the subjects were massed twelve deep, the regularity of the front row being preserved by a number of yamen runners, who brought down their wooden paddles with an unmerciful whack on any one breaking the line. The singular monotony of baggy white coats and black crinoline hats was relieved by boy bridegrooms in yellow hats and rose-pink coats, by the green silk coats of women, and the green, pink, heliotrope and Turkey red dresses of children. The crowd had a quietly pleased but very limp look. There was no jollity or excitement, no flags or popular demonstrations, and scarcely a hum from a concourse which must have numbered at least 150,000, half the city, together with numbers from the country who had walked three and four days to see the spectacle. Squalid and mean is ordinary Korean life, and the King is a myth for most of the year. No wonder that the people turn out to see as splendid a spectacle as the world has to show, its splendor centring round their usually secluded sovereign. It is to the glory of a dynasty which has occupied the Korean throne for five centuries as well as in honor of the present occupant.

The hour of leaving the palace had been announced as 6 A.M., but though it was 7.30 before the boom of a heavy gun announced that the procession was in motion, the interest never flagged the whole time. Hundreds of coolies sprinkled red earth for the width of a foot along the middle of the streets, for hypothetically the King must not pass over soil which has been trodden by the feet of his subjects. Squadrons of cavalry, with coolies leading their shabby ponies, took up positions along the route, and in a great mass in front of us. The troopers sat on the ground smoking, till a very distrait bugle-call sent them to their saddles. The ponies bit, kicked, and squealed, and the grotesque and often ineffectual attempts of the men to mount them provoked the laughter of the crowd, as one trooper after another, with one foot in the stirrup and the other on the ground, hopped round at the pleasure of his steed. After all, with the help of their coolies, were mounted, whacks secretly administered by men in the crowd nearly unhorsed many of them, but they clung with both hands to their saddle bows and eventually formed into a ragged line.

Among the very curious sights were poles carried at measured distances supporting rectangular frames resembling small umbrella stands, filled with feathered arrows, and messengers dashing along as if they had been shot and were escaping from another shaft, for from the backs of their collars protruded arrows which had apparently entered obliquely. Either on the back or breast or both of the superb dresses of officials were satin squares embroidered in unique designs, representing birds and beasts, storks indicating civil, and tigers military, rank, while the number of birds or animals on the lozenge denoted the wearer’s exact position.

Though there were long stretches of silence, scarcely broken by the hum of a multitude, there were noisy interludes, novel in their nature, produced by men, sometimes fifteen in a row, who carried poles with a number of steel rings loosely strung upon them, which they tossed into the air and allowed to fall against each other with a metallic clink, loud and strident. Likewise the trains of servants in attendance on mandarins emitted peculiar cries, sounding G in unison, then raising their note and singing C three times, afterwards, with a falling cadence, singing G again.

But of the noises which passed for music, the most curious as to method was that made by the drummers, who marched irregularly in open order in lines extending across the broad roadway. These carried bowl-shaped kettledrums slung horizontally, and bass drum sticks mainly hidden by their voluminous sleeves. In time with the marching, the right hand stick rose above the drummer’s head, then the left stick in like manner, but both fell again nearly to the drum without emitting a sound! The next act of the performance consisted in lifting both sticks above the head together and again bringing them down silently. Finally the sticks were crossed, and during two marching steps rose feebly, and as feebly fell on the ends of the drum, producing a muffled sound, and this programme was repeated during the duration of the march.

Soldiers in rusty black belted frocks, wide trousers, bandaged into padded socks, and straw shoes, stacked arms in a side street. Closed black and colored chairs went past at a trot. Palace attendants in hundreds in brown glazed cotton sleeved cloaks, blue under robes tied below the knee with bunches of red ribbon, and stiff black hats, with heavy fan-shaped plumes of peacock’s feathers, rode ragged ponies on gay saddles of great height, without bridles, the animals being led by coolies. High officials passed in numbers in chairs or on pony back, each with from twenty to thirty gay attendants running beside him, and a row of bannermen extending across the broad street behind him, each man with a silk banner bearing the cognomen of his lord. These officials were superbly dressed, and made a splendid show. They wore black, high-crowned hats, with long crimson tassels behind, and heavy, black ostrich plumes falling over the brim in front, mazarine blue silk robes, split up to the waist behind, with orange silk under robes and most voluminous crimson trousers, loosely tied above the ankles with knots of sky blue ribbon, while streamers of ribbon fell from throats and girdles, and the hats were secured by throat lashes of large amber beads. Each carried over his shoulder a yellow silk banneret with his style in Chinese characters in crimson upon it, and in the same hand his baton of office, with a profusion of streamers of rich ribbons depending from it. The sleeves were orange in the upper part and crimson in the lower, and very full.

The overfed and self-willed ponies, chiefly roan and gray, are very handsome, and showily caparisoned, the heads covered with blue, red, and yellow balls, and surmounted with great crimson silk pompous, the bridles a couple of crimson silk scarves, the saddles a sort of leather-covered padded pack saddle 12 inches above the animal’s back, with wide, deep flaps of bright green silver-bossed leather hanging down on either side, the cruppers folded white silk, and the breastplate shields of gold embroidery. The gorgeous rider, lifted by his servants upon this elevation, stands erect in his stirrups with his feet not halfway down his pony’s sides, his left hand clutching rather than holding an arch placed for this purpose at the bow of the saddle. These officials made no attempt to hold their own bridles, their ponies were led by servants, retainers supported them by the feet on either side, and as their mounts showed their resentment of the pace and circumstances by twistings and strugglings with their grooms, the faces of the riders expressed “a fearful joy,” if “joy” it was.

Waves of color and Korean grandeur rolled by, official processions, palace attendants, bannermen, with large silk banners trailing on the stiff breeze, each flagstaff crested with a tuft of pheasant’s feathers, the King’s chief cook, with an enormous retinue, more palace servants, smoking long pipes, drummers, fifers, couriers at a gallop, with arrows stuck into the necks of their coats, holding on to their saddles and rope bridles, mixed up with dishevelled ponies with ragged pack saddles, carrying cushions, lacquer boxes, eatables, cooking utensils, and smoking apparatus, led caparisoned ponies, bowmen, soldiers straggling loosely, armed with matchlock guns, till several thousand persons had passed. Yet this was not the procession, though it might well have served for one.

At 7.30, while this “march past” was still going on, a gun was fired, and the great bell, which was very close to us, boomed heavily, and a fanfaronade of trumpets and the shrill scream of fifes announced that Li Hsi had at last left the palace. The cavalry opposite us prepared to receive His Majesty by turning tail, a manœuvre not accomplished without much squealing and fighting. There was a general stir among the spectators, men with arrows in their coats galloped frantically, there was an onslaught on the “Derby dog,” and an attack by men, armed with the long wooden paddles which are used for beating criminals, on inoffensive portions of the crowd.

It is said that there were 5,000 servants and officials connected with the palace, and there were nominally 6,000 soldiers in Seoul, and the greater part of these took part in the many splendid processions which went to form the Royal procession. It would be impossible for a stranger to give in detail the component parts of such a show, the like of which has no existence elsewhere on earth, passing for more than an hour in the bright sunshine, in detachments, in compact masses, at a stately walk or a rapid run, in the full splendor of a barbaric mediævalism, or to say what dignitaries flashed by in the kaleidoscopic blaze of color.

The procession of the King was led by the “general of the vanguard,” superbly dressed, supported by retainers on his led pony, and followed by crowds of dignitaries, each with his train, soldiers, men carrying aloft frames of arrows, reaching nearly across the road, and huge flags of silk brocade surmounted by plumes of pheasant’s feathers, servants in rows of a hundred in the most delicate shades of blue, green, or mauve silk gauze over white, halberdiers, grandees, each with a retinue of bannermen, rows of royal bannermen carrying yellow and blue silk flags emblazoned, cavalry men in imitation gold helmets and mediæval armor, and tiger-hunters wearing coarse black felt hats with conical crowns and dark blue coats, trailing long guns. With scarcely a pause followed the President of the Foreign Office, high above the crowd on a monocycle, a black wheel supporting on two uprights a black platform, carrying a black chair decorated with a leopard skin, the occupant of which was carried by eight men at a height of 8 feet from the ground. More soldiers, bannermen, and drummers, and then came the chief of the eunuchs, grandly dressed, with an immense retinue, and a large number of his subordinates, most of whom up to that time, by their position in the palace and their capacity for intrigue, had exercised a very baneful influence on Korean affairs.

The procession became more quaint and motley still. Palace attendants appeared in the brilliant garments of the Korean middle ages; cavalry in antique armor were jumbled up with cavalry in loose cotton frocks and baggy trousers, supposed to be dressed and armed in European fashion, but I failed to detect the flattery of imitation. There were cavalry in black Tyrolese hats with pink ribbon round them, black cotton sacks loosely girdled by leather belts with brass clasps never cleaned, white wadded stockings, and hempen shoes. Some had leather saddles, others rode on pack saddles, with the great pad which should go underneath on the top; some held on to their saddles, others to their rope bridles, the ponies of some were led by coolies in dirty white clothes; the officers were all held on their saddles, many tucked their old-fashioned swords under their arms, lest carrying them in regulation fashion should make their animals kick; the feet of some nearly touched the ground, and those of others hung only halfway down their ponies’ sides; ponies squealed, neighed, reared, and jibbed, but somehow or other these singular horsemen managed to form ragged lines.

Then came foot soldiers with rusty muskets and innumerable standards, generals, court dignitaries, statesmen, some with crimson hats with heavy black plumes, others with high peaked crinoline hats with projecting wings, others with lofty mitres covered with tinsel gleaming like gold, each with a splendid train. Mediæval costumes blazing with color flashed past, there were more soldiers, and this time they carried Snider rifles, two Gatling guns were dragged by yamen runners, who frantically spanked all and sundry with their paddles, drummers beat their drums unmercifully, fifes shrieked, there were more dignitaries with fairylike retinues in blue and green silk gauze, the King’s personal attendants in crowds followed in yellow, with bamboo hats trimmed with rosettes, standard-bearers came next, bearing the Royal standard, a winged tiger rampant on a yellow ground, more flags and troops, and then the curious insignia of Korean Royalty, including a monstrous red silk umbrella, and a singular frame of stones. More grandees, more soldiers, more musical instruments, and then come the Royal chairs, the first, which was canopied with red silk, being empty, the theory being that this was the more likely to receive an assassin’s blow. A huge trident was carried in front of it. After this, borne high aloft by forty bearers clothed in red, in a superb chair of red lacquer, richly tasselled and canopied, and with wings to keep off the sun, came the King, whose pale, languid face never changed its expression as he passed with all the dignity and splendor of his kingdom through the silent crowd.

More grandees, servants, soldiers, standard-bearers, arrow-men, officials, cavalry, and led horses formed the procession of the Crown Prince, who was also carried in a red palanquin, and looked paler and more impassive than his father. The supply of officials seemed inexhaustible, for behind him came a quarter of a mile of grandees in splendid costumes, with hats decorated with red velvet and peacock’s feathers, and throat lashes of great amber beads, with all their splendid trains, footmen in armor bossed with large nails, drummers, men carrying arrow frames and insignia on poles, then the “general of the rear guard” in a gleaming helmet and a splendid blue, crimson, and gold uniform, propped up by retainers on his handsome pony, more soldiers armed with old matchlock guns, lastly men bearing arrow frames and standards, and with them the barbaric and bizarre splendor of the Kur-dong was over, and the white crowd once more overflowed the mean street. Quite late in the evening the Royal pageant returned by the light of stationary torches, with lanterns of blue and crimson silk undulating from the heads of pikes and bayonets.

This truly splendid display was estimated to cost $25,000—a heavy burden on the small resources of the kingdom. It is only thus surrounded that the King ever appears in public, and the splendor accentuates the squalor of the daily life of the masses of the people in the foul alleys which make up most of the city. It must be remembered that the people taking part in the pageant are not men hired and dressed up by a costumier, but that they are actual Court officials and noblemen in the dress of to-day, and that the weapons carried by the soldiers are those with which they are supposed to repel attack or put down rebellion.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] If an apology be necessary for the following minute description of this unique ceremonial, I offer it on the ground that it was probably the last of its kind, and that full details of it have not been given before.

CHAPTER IV
SEOUL, THE KOREAN MECCA

Further difficulties and delays, while they pushed my journey into the interior into the hot weather, gave me the advantage of learning a little about the people and the country before starting. In one sense Seoul is Korea. Take a mean alley in it with its mud-walled hovels, deep-eaved brown roofs, and malodorous ditches with their foulness and green slime, and it may serve as an example of the street of every village and provincial town. In country places there are few industrial specialties. A Seoul shop of “assorted notions” represents the shop of every country town. The white clothing and the crinoline dress hat are the same everywhere as in Seoul. Whatever of national life there is exists only in the capital. Strong as is the drift towards London in our own agricultural districts, it is stronger in Korea towards Seoul. Seoul is not only the seat of government, but it is the centre of official life, of all official employment, and of the literary examinations which were the only avenues to employment. It is always hoped that something may be “picked up” in Seoul. Hence there is a constant permanent or temporary gravitation towards it, and the larger proportion of the youths who swing and lounge on sunny afternoons along the broad streets, aping the gait of yang-bans, are aspirants for official position. Gusts of popular feeling which pass for public opinion in a land where no such thing exists are known only in Seoul. It is in the capital that the Korean feels the first stress of his unsought and altogether undesired contact with Western civilization, and resembles nothing so much as a man awaking from a profound sleep, rubbing his eyes half-dazed and looking dreamily about him, not quite sure where he is.

Seoul is also the commercial centre of a country whose ideas of commerce are limited to huckstering transactions. All business is done there. All country shops are supplied with goods from Seoul. All produce not shipped from the treaty ports converges on Seoul. It is the centre of the great trading guilds, which exercise a practical monopoly in certain sorts of goods, as well as of the guild of porters by whom the traffic of the country is carried on. The heart of every Korean is in Seoul. Officials have town houses in the capital, and trust their business to subordinates for much of the year. Landed proprietors draw their rents and “squeeze” the people on their estates, but are absentees living in the capital. Every man who can pay for food and lodging on the road trudges to the capital once or twice a year, and people who live in it, of whatever degree, can hardly be bribed to leave it even for a few weeks. To the Korean it is the place in which alone life is worth living.

Yet it has no objects of art, very few antiquities, no public gardens, no displays except the rare one of the Kur-dong, and no theatres. It lacks every charm possessed by other cities. Antique, it has no ruins, no libraries, no literature, and lastly an indifference to religion without a parallel has left it without temples, while certain superstitions which still retain their hold have left it without a tomb!

Leaving out the temple of Confucius and the homage officially rendered to his tablet in Korea as in China, there are no official temples in Seoul, nor might a priest enter its gates under pain of death, consequently the emphasis which noble religious buildings give even to the meanest city in China or Japan is lacking. There is a small temple to the God of War outside the south gate, with some very curious frescoes, but I seldom saw any worshippers there. The absence of temples is a feature of the other Korean cities. Buddhism, which for 1,000 years before the founding of the present dynasty was the popular cult, has been “disestablished” and practically proscribed since the sixteenth century, and Koreans account for the severe enactments against priests by saying that in the Japanese invasion three centuries ago Japanese disguised themselves as Buddhist priests and gained admission to cities, putting their garrisons to the sword. Be that true or false, Buddhism in Korea to be found must be sought.

GUTTER SHOP, SEOUL.

As there are no temples, so there are no other signs of religion, and the hasty observer would be warranted in putting down the Koreans as a people without a religion. Ancestral worship, and a propitiation of dæmons or spirits, the result of a timid and superstitious dread of the forces of Nature, are to the Korean in place of a religion. Both, I am inclined to believe, are the result of fear, the worship of ancestors being dictated far less by filial piety than by the dread that ancestral spirits may do harm to their descendants. This cult prevails from the King to the coolie. It inspires the costly splendors of the Kur-dong, as well as the spread of ancestral food in the humblest hovel on New Year’s Eve.

The graves within an area of ten miles from the city wall are among the remarkable features of this singular capital. The dead have a monopoly of the fine hill slopes and southern aspects. A man who when alive is content with a mud hovel in a dingy alley, when dead must repose on a breezy hill slope with dignified and carefully tended surroundings. The little fine timber which exists in the denuded neighborhood of Seoul is owed to the Royal and wealthy dead. The amount of good land occupied by the dead is incredible. The grave of a member of the Royal family on a hill creates a solitude for a considerable distance around. In the case of rich and great men as well as of princes, the grave is a lofty grassy mound, often encircled by a massive stone railing, with the hill terraced in front and excavated in a horseshoe shape behind. A stone altar and stone lanterns are placed in front, and the foot of the hill, as at the “Princess’s Tomb,” is often occupied by a temple-like building containing tablets with the name and rank of the dead. The Royal tombs are approached by stately avenues of gigantic stone figures, possibly a harmless survival of the practice of offering human and other sacrifices at a burial. These figures represent a priest, a warrior in armor, a servant, a pony, and a sheep (?). The poorer dead occupy hillsides in numbers, resting under grass mounds on small platforms of grass always neatly kept. The lucky place for interment is in all cases chosen by the geomancer. Behind rich men’s graves pines are usually planted in a crescent. The dead population of the hillsides round Seoul is simply enormous.

Funerals usually go out near dusk with a great display of colored lanterns, but I was fortunate enough to see an artisan’s corpse carried out by daylight. First came four drums and a sort of fife perpetrating a lively tune as an accompaniment to a lively song. These were followed by a hearse, if it may be called so, a domed and gaudily painted construction with a garland of artificial flowers in the centre of the dome, a white Korean coat thrown across the roof, and four flagstaffs with gay flags at the four corners, bamboo poles, flower-wreathed, forming a platform on which the hearse was borne by eight men in peaked yellow hats garlanded with blue and pink flowers. Bouquets of the same were disposed carelessly on the front and sides of the hearse, the latter being covered with shield-shaped flags of gaudily colored muslin. The chief mourner followed, completely clothed in sackcloth, wearing an umbrella-shaped hat over 4 feet in diameter, and holding a sackcloth screen before his face by two bamboo handles. Men in flower-wreathed hats surrounded him, some of them walking backwards and singing. He looked fittingly grave, but it is a common custom for those who attend the chief mourner to try to make him laugh by comic antics and jocular remarks. There are “burial clubs” in Seoul to which 100,000 cash are contributed (then worth about thirty-three dollars, silver). The first man to die receives 30,000 cash, the second 33,000, and the third 37,000. This man had belonged to one of these, which accounts for an artisan having such a handsome funeral.

Mourners dress in straw-colored hempen cloth, and all wear the enormous hats mentioned before, which so nearly conceal the face that the carrying of the grass-cloth screen is almost a work of supererogation. A mourner may not enter the palace grounds, and as mourning for a father lasts for three years, a courtier thus bereaved is for that time withdrawn from Court.

Among the curious customs mainly of Chinese origin connected with death are the dressing the dying person in his best clothes when death is very close at hand. The very poor are buried coffinless in a wrapping of straw, and are carried by two men on a bier, the nature of the burden being concealed by hoops covered with paper.

When Buddhist priests and temples were prohibited in the walled towns three centuries ago, anything like a national faith disappeared from Korea, and it is only through ancestral worship and a form of “Shamanism” practiced by the lower and middle classes that any recognition of the unseen survives, and that is in its most superstitious and rudimentary form. Protestant Christian missionaries, preceded in 1784 by those of the Roman Catholic Church, entered Korea in 1884, almost as soon as the country was opened by treaty, and agents of the American Methodist Episcopal and Northern Presbyterian Churches took up their abode in Seoul. They have been followed by representatives of several of the divisions among Protestants—Southern Presbyterians, Canadian Presbyterians, Australian Presbyterians, and Baptists—and in 1890 the first English mission to Korea was founded under Bishop Corfe. A Roman Catholic Church and a very large Roman Catholic Cathedral with a spire occupy two of the most prominent sites in Seoul. One of the best sites is covered with the buildings belonging to the Methodist Episcopal Mission, schools for girls and boys, a printing press, a Union Church, and hospitals for men and women, with which dispensaries are connected. The girls’ school connected with this mission is one of the most admirable in its organization and results that I have seen. The Presbyterians occupy a lowlier position, but have the same class of agencies at work, and lately the King handed over to them a large hospital in the city, known as the “Government Hospital.”

Bishop Corfe’s mission occupies two modest sites in modest fashion, all its buildings being strictly Korean. On one side of Seoul, at Nak-tong, it has the Community House, where the bishop, clergy, doctor, and printer live and have their private chapel, also the Mission press, and a very efficient hospital for men, admirably nursed by the Sisters of St. Peter’s Kilburn. On the slope of the British Legation Hill are the English Church of the Advent, a beautiful Korean building, the Community House of the Sisters of St. Peter, and the Women’s Hospital buildings, embracing a dispensary, a new hospital (the Dora Bird Memorial) of eighteen beds, with a room for a private patient, besides an old hospital, to be used only for infectious diseases. These are under the charge of a lady physician, and are also nursed by the Sisters of St. Peter, who in both hospitals do admirable work in a bright and loving spirit which is beyond all praise.

There are about 75 Protestant and 34 Roman missionaries in Korea, mostly in Seoul. The language has the reputation of being very difficult, and few of this large number have acquired facility in the use of it. The idea of a nation destitute of a religion, and gladly accepting one brought by the foreigner, must be dropped. The religion the Korean would accept is one which would show him how to get money without working for it. The indifference is extreme, the religious faculty is absent, there are no religious ideas to appeal to, and the moral teachings of Confucius have little influence with any class. The Korean has got on so well without a religion, in his own opinion, that he does not want to be troubled with one, specially a religion of restraint and sacrifice which has no worldly good to offer. After nearly twelve years of work, the number of baptized native Protestant Christians in 1897 was 777.[10] The Roman Catholics claim 28,802, and that the average rate of increase is 1,000 a year.[11] Their priests live mostly in the wretched hovels of the people, amidst their foul surroundings, and share their unpalatable food and sordid lives. Doubtless, mission work in Korea will not differ greatly from such work elsewhere among the older civilizations. Barriers of indifference, superstition, and inertness exist, and whatever progress is made will probably be chiefly through medical missions, showing Christianity in action, and native agency, and through such schools as I have already alluded to, which leave every feature of Korean custom, dress, and manner of living untouched, while Christian instruction and training are the first objects, and where the gentle, loving, ennobling influence of the teacher is felt during every hour of the day.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] In 1897 the influence of Christianity was much stronger than in 1895, and the prospects of its spread much more encouraging.

[11] For statistics of Missions in February, 1897, see Appendix.

CHAPTER V
THE SAILING OF THE SAMPAN

At a point when the difficulties in the way of my projected journey had come to be regarded as insurmountable, owing to the impossibility of getting an interpreter, and I had begun to say “if I go” instead of “when I go,” Mr. Miller, a young missionary, offered his services, on condition that he might take his servant to supplement his imperfect knowledge of Korean. Bishop Corfe provided me with a Chinese servant, Wong, a fine, big, cheery fellow, with inexhaustible good-nature and contentment, never a cloud of annoyance on his face, always making the best of everything, ready to help every one, true, honest, plucky, passionately fond of flowers, faithful, manly, always well and hungry, and with a passable knowledge of English! He was a Chefoo sampan-man when Bishop Corfe picked him up, and nothing could make him into a regular servant, but he suited me admirably, and I was grieved indeed when I had to part with him.

The difficulty about money which then beset every traveller in the interior cost a good deal of anxious planning. The Japanese yen and its subdivisions were only current in Seoul and the treaty ports, there were no bankers or money-changers anywhere, and the only coin accepted was the cash, of which at that time 3,200 nominally went to the dollar. This coin is strung in hundreds on straw strings, and the counting of it, and the carrying of it, and the being without it are all a nuisance. It takes six men or one pony to carry 100 yen in cash, £10! Travellers, through their Consuls, can obtain from the Foreign Office a letter to officials throughout the country called a kwan-ja, entitling the bearer to their good offices, and especially to food, transport, and money. But as it usually happens that a magistrate advancing money to a foreigner is not repaid by the Government, however accurately the sum has been paid in Seoul, the arrangement is a very odious one to officials, and I promised our Consul that I would not make use of it for money. Consequently, the boat which I engaged for the earlier part of the journey was ballasted with cash, and I took a bag of silver yen, and trusted to my usual good fortune, which in this case did not altogether fail.

SKETCH MAP OF CENTRAL KOREA
The Edinburgh Geographical Institute John Bartholomew & Co.
Fleming H. Revell Company.

THE AUTHOR’S SAMPAN, HAN RIVER.

In addition to this uncouth and heavy burden, I took a saddle, a trestle-bed with bedding and mosquito net, muslin curtains, a folding chair, two changes of clothing, Korean string shoes, and a “regulation” waterproof cloak. Besides, I took green tea, curry powder, and 20 lbs. of flour. I discarded all superfluities, such as flasks, collapsing cups, hand mirrors, teapots, sandwich tins, lamps, and tinned soups, meats, bouillon, and fruits. The kitchen equipment consisted of a Japanese brazier for charcoal, a shallow Japanese pan and frying-pan, and a small kettle, with charcoal tongs, the whole costing under two dollars! The “table equipment” was limited: a small mug, two plates and a soup plate, all in enamelled iron, and a knife, fork, and spoon, which folded up, a knife, fork, and spoon of common make being reserved for the “kitchen.” Tables, trays, tablecloths, and sheets were from thenceforth unknown luxuries. I mention my outfit, because I know it to be a sufficient one, and that every pound of superfluous weight adds to the difficulty of getting transport in Korea and in many other countries. Besides, I was encumbered for the first time with a tripod camera weighing 16 lbs., and a hand camera weighing 4 lbs., with the apparatus belonging to them, and had to reduce other things accordingly. On the whole, it is best to trust to the food of the country. Korea produces eggs, and in some regions chickens. The chestnuts are good, and though the flour, which can be got in a few places, is gritty, and the rice is a bad color, both are eatable, and the foreigner, always an object of suspicion, is less so when he buys and eats native viands, and does not carry about with him a number of (to Koreans) outlandish-looking utensils and commodities.

Regarding much of the region which I purposed to visit no information could be obtained, either from Europeans or Korean officials, and the best map, a reduction of a Japanese map by Sir E. Satow, turned out to be astray. Mr. Warner, of Bishop Corfe’s Mission, had ascended the north branch of the Han, but it is still doubtful whether any European has been up the south and much larger branch which I explored on this journey. It was certain only that the country was mountainous, and that the rapids were numerous and severe. It had also been said earnestly, and with an appearance of knowledge, by several people that it would be impossible for a lady to travel in the interior; and certainly much of what I heard, supposing it to be fact, was sufficiently deterring, but from many similar statements in other countries I knew that a deduction of at least fifty per cent. must be made!

On the 14th of April, 1894, when the environs of Seoul were seen through a mist of green, and plum and peach blossom was in the ascendant, and the heliotrope azalea was just beginning to tint the hillsides, and the air was warm and muggy, I left the kind friends who had done much to make my visit to Seoul interesting and agreeable, and went on ponyback through the south gate, passing the temple of the God of War, and over a pine-clothed ridge of Nam-San to Han Kang, four miles from Seoul, a little shipping village, where my boat lay, to avoid a rapid which lies between it and Ma-pu. Up to Ma-pu, 56 miles from Chemulpo, there is a very considerable tidal rise and fall which ceases at the rapid.

A limp, silent crowd of men and boys denoted the whereabouts of the boat, from which Mr. Miller’s servant, Che-on-i, emerging with the broad smile with which Orientals announce bad news, informed us that the boat was too small! There were very few to be got, and I had not seen this one, Mr. Wyers, the Legation constable, having engaged her for me; and I went “on board” at once, with much curiosity, as she was to be my home for an indefinite number of weeks. And small she truly was, only 28 feet over all, by 4 feet 10 inches at her widest part, and with her whole cargo, animate and inanimate, on board she only drew 3 inches of water. The roof which was put on at my request was a marvel. A slight framework of a ridge pole and some sticks precariously tied together supported some mats of pheasant grass, with the long blades hanging down outside and over the gunwale, which was only 12 inches high. These mats were tied together over the ridge pole, and let in a streak of daylight all the way along. At its highest part this roof was only 4 feet 6 inches. It was just possible to sit under it without stooping. By putting forked sticks under what by courtesy were called the rafters, they could be lifted a foot from the gunwale to let in light and air. Two or three times in a strong breeze this roof collapsed and fell about our heads!

In the fore part of the boat, 7 feet long, one boatman paddled or poled, and in the hinder part, 4 feet long, the other poled or worked an oar. But the fore part was also our kitchen and poultry yard and the boatmen’s kitchen. There also were kept faggots, driftwood, and miscellaneous stores, with the food and water in unappetizing proximity. There, too, Wong and Che-on-i spent their day; and there they all cooked, ate, and washed clothes; and there at night the boatmen curled themselves up and slept in a space 4 feet × 4. The rest of the sampan divided itself naturally by the thwarts. My part, the centre, was originally 8 feet × 4 feet 10 inches, but encroachments by no means gradual constituted it a “free coup” for sacks, rice-bags, clothing, and baskets, till it was reduced to a bare 6 feet, into which space my bed, chair, saddle, and luggage were packed for five weeks. In the hinder division, 7 feet × 4 feet 4 inches,Mr. Miller lived and studied, and he, Wong, and Che-on-i slept. It was scarcely possible for six people and their gear to be more closely packed. Mr. Miller, though not an experienced traveller, cheerfully made the best of everything then and afterwards, and preserved the serenity of his temper under all circumstances.

The sampan’s crew of two consisted of Kim, her owner, a tall wiry, picturesque, aristocratic-looking old man, and his “hired man,” who was never heard to speak except on two occasions, when, being very drunk, he developed a remarkable loquacity. On the whole, they were well behaved and quiet. I saw them in close proximity every hour of the day and was never annoyed by anything they did. Kim was paid $30 per month for the boat, and his laziness was wonderful. To dawdle along, to start late and tie up early, to crawl when he tracked, and to pole or paddle with the least expenditure of labor, was his policy. To pole for an hour, then tie up and take a smoke, to spend half a day now and then on buying rice, to work on my sensibilities by feigning exhaustion, and to adopt every dodge of the lazy man, was his practice. The contract stipulated for three men, and he only took one, making some evasive excuse. But I have said the worst I can say when I write that they never made more than 10 miles in a day, and often not more than 7, and that when they came to severe rapids they always wanted to go back.[12]

Mr. Wyers busied himself in putting a mat on the floor and stowing things as neatly as possible, and when curtains had been put up, the quarters, though “cribbed, cabined, and confined,” looked quite tolerable. The same limp, silent crowd looked on till we left Han Kang at midday. In a few hours things shook into shape, and after all the discomforts were not great, possibly the greatest being that the smoke and the smell of the boatmen’s malodorous food blew through the boat.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] I took very careful notes on the Han, but as minute details would be uninteresting to the general reader, and would involve a good deal of apparent repetition, I shall give only the most salient features of a journey which, if it has ever been made, has certainly not been described.

CHAPTER VI
ON THE RIVER OF GOLDEN SAND

During the five weeks which I spent on the Han, though the routine of daily life varied little, there was no monotony. The country and the people were new, and we mixed freely, almost too freely, with the latter; the scenery varied hourly, and after the first few days became not only beautiful, but in places magnificent, and full of surprises; the spring was in its early beauty, and the trees in their first vividness of green, red, and gold; the flowers and flowering shrubs were in their glory, the crops at their most attractive stage, birds sang in the thickets, rich fragrant odors were wafted off on the water, red cattle, though rarely, fed knee-deep in abounding grass, and the waters of the Han, nearly at their lowest, were clear as crystal, and their broken sparkle flashed back the sunbeams which passed through a sky as blue as that of Tibet. There was a prosperous look about the country too, and its security was indicated by the frequent occurrence of solitary farms, with high secluding fences, standing under the deep shade of fine walnut and persimmon trees.

Unlike the bare, arid, denuded hillsides between Chemulpo and Seoul, the slopes along much of the route are wooded, and in many cases forested both with coniferæ and deciduous trees, among which there are occasionally picturesque clumps of umbrella pines. The Pinus Sinensis and the Abies Microsperma abound, and there are two species of oak and three of maple, a Platanus, juniper, ash, mountain ash, birch, hazel, Sophora Japonica, Euonymus alatus, Thuja Orientalis, and many others. The heliotrope, pink, and scarlet azaleas were in all their beauty, flushing the hillsides, and white and sulphur-yellow clematis, actinidia, and a creeping Euonymus were abundant. Of the wealth of flowering shrubs, mostly white blossomed, I had never seen one before either in garden or greenhouse, except the familiar syringa and spirea. The beautiful Ampelopsis Veitchiana was in its freshest spring green and tender red, concealing tree trunks, depending from branches, and draping every cliff and rock with its exquisite foliage; and roses, red and white, of a free-growing, climbing variety, having possession even of tall trees, hung their fragrant festoons over the roads.

It was all very charming, though a little wanting in life. True, there were butterflies and dragon-flies innumerable, and brilliant green and brown snakes in numbers, and at first the Han was cheery with mallard and mandarin-duck, geese and common teal. In the rice fields the imperial crane, the egret, and the pink ibis with the deep flush of spring on his plumage, were not uncommon, and peregrines, kestrels, falcons, and buzzards were occasionally seen. But the song-birds were few. The forlorn note of the night-jar was heard, and the loud, cheerful call of the gorgeous ringed pheasant to his dowdy mate; but the trilling, warbling, and cooing which are the charm of an English copsewood in springtime are altogether absent, the chatter of the blue magpie and the noisy flight of the warbler being poor substitutes for that entrancing concert. Of beast life, undomesticated, there were no traces, and the domestic animals are few. Sheep do not thrive on the sour natural grasses of Korea, and if goats are kept I never saw any. A small black pig not much larger than a pug is universal, and there are bulls and ponies about the better class of farms. There are big buff dogs, but these are kept only to a limited extent on the Han, in the idea that they attract the nocturnal visits of tigers. The dogs are noisy and voluble, and rush towards a stranger as if bent on attack; but it is mere bravado—they are despicable cowards, and run away howling at the shaking of a stick.

Leopards, antelopes, and several species of deer are found among the mountains bordering the Han, but the beast by preëminence there, as throughout Korea, is the tiger. At first I was very incredulous regarding his existence and depredations. It was impossible to believe that peaceful agricultural valleys surrounded by hills, thinly clothed with dwarf oak scrub, could be ravaged by him, that dogs, pigs, and cattle are continually carried off by him, and that human beings visiting each other at night or belated on the roads are his frequent prey. But the constant repetition of tiger stories, the terror of the villagers, the refusal of mapu and coolies to travel after dark, the certainty that in several places the loss of life had been recent, and that even in the trim settlement of Wön-san a boy and child had been seized the day before I arrived and had been eaten on the hillside above the town, have made me a believer. Possibly some of the depredations attributed to tigers may be really the work of leopards, which undoubtedly abound, and have been shot even within the walls of Seoul. High up the Han, in a very lovely lake-like stretch, there is a village recently deserted because of the persistency with which tigers had carried off its inhabitants. The Korean tiger, judging from its skin, in which the long hair grows out of a thick coat of fine fur, resembles the Manchurian tiger. I have heard of one which measured 13 feet 4 inches, but never saw a skin more than 11 feet 8 inches in length.

The tiger-hunters form what may be called a brigade or corps, and may be called on for military service. They were conspicuous objects in the Kur-dong, with their long matchlock guns, loose blue uniforms, and conical-crowned, broad-brimmed hats. The tiger appears on the Royal standard, and tigers’ skins are the insignia of high office, the leopard skins, indicating lower rank. The Chinese give a very high price for tigers’ bones as a medicine, considering them a specific for strength and courage. Tiger-hunting as a business seems confined to the northern provinces. On the Han, and specially along its northern affluents, are found three if not four species of deer, and the horns, in the velvet, of the large deer (Cervus Manchuricus), which fetch from forty to sixty dollars a pair, are the prize most wanted by the hunters. Pheasants are literally without number and are very tame; I constantly saw them feeding among the crops within a few yards of the peasants at their work. They are usually brought down by falcons, which, when well trained, command as high a price as nine dollars. To obtain them three small birds are placed in a cylinder of loosely woven bamboo, mounted horizontally on a pole. On the peregrine alighting on this, a man who has been concealed throws a net over the whole. The bird is kept in a tight sleeve for three days. Then he is daily liberated in a room, and trained to follow a piece of meat pulled over the floor by a string. At the end of a week he is taken out on his master’s wrist, and slipped when game is seen. He is not trained to return. The master rushes upon him and secures him before he has time to devour the bird. A man told me that he sometimes got between twenty and thirty pheasants a day, but had to walk or run 100 li to do it. The season was nearly over, yet I bought fine pheasants on the Han for threepence and fourpence each. They were cheaper than chickens.

The Han itself, rising in the Diamond Mountain of Kong-wön Do, and formed by a number of nearly parallel affluents, next to the border river Am-nok, is the river of Korea, which it cuts nearly across, its eastern extremity being within 25 miles of the Sea of Japan and its western at Chemulpo. I ascended it to within 40 miles of the Sea of Japan, and estimate the length of its navigable waters for small flat-bottomed craft at about 170 miles. A clear bright stream with a bottom of white sand, golden gravel or rock, chiefly limestone, with an average width of 250 yards well sustained to the head of navigation, narrowed at times by walls of rock or divided by grassy islands in its lower course, full of pebbly shallows, over which it ripples gaily, its upper waters abounding in rocky rapids, many of them severe and dangerous, its most marked features, to my thinking, are its absence of affluents after it emerges from the Diamond Mountain, and its singular alternations of shallow with very deep water. It was a common occurrence to have to drag my boat, drawing only 3 inches, through water too shallow to float her, and at the top of the ripple to come upon a broad, still, lake-like, deep, green expanse, 20 feet deep, continuing for a mile or two.

After passing the forks there are 46 rapids, many of them very severe, before reaching Yöng-Chhun, which for practical purposes may be regarded as the limit of navigable water.

These are a most serious obstacle in the way of navigation, but as there is usually a deep water channel in the middle, sailing junks of 25 tons, taking advantage of strong, favorable winds, get up as far as Tan-Yang. Beyond, boats not twice the size of my sampan must be used, which are only poled and dragged, and as they must keep near the shore, among rocks and furious water, their progress is very slow, not more than 7 miles a day. Nevertheless, the Han, with all its difficulties and obstructions, is the great artery of communication for much of Kong-wön-Do and Kyöng-Kivi Do, and for the northeast portion of Chung-Chöng Do; down it all the excess produce of this great region goes to Seoul, and nearly all merchandise, salt, and foreign goods come up it from the sea-board, to pass into the hands of the posang, or merchant pedlars, at various points, and through them to reach the market-places of the interior. During the first ten days from Han Kang there were 75 junks a day on an average bound up and down stream. There is a very large floating population on the Han. There is not a bridge along its whole length, but communication is kept up by 47 free ferries, provided by Government.

Not having been able to learn anything about the route or any of its features, I was much surprised to find a very large population, not only along the river, but in the parallel valleys, many of them of great length and extreme fertility, in its neighborhood. It was only necessary to climb a ridge or hill to see numbers of these, given up to rice culture, and thickly sprinkled with farming villages. Along the river banks only, between Han Kang and Yöng-Chhun, there are 176 villages. Much of the soil is rich alluvium, from 5 to 11 feet deep, and most prolific, bearing two heavy crops a year (not rice lands) with little or no manure. There is on the whole an air of greater ease and prosperity about the Han valley than about any other region that I have seen in Korea.[13]

The people are of fine physique and generally robust appearance. Some of them had evidently attained great age. There were a few sore eyes and some mild skin diseases, both produced by dirt, but there were no sickly-looking people; infants abounded.

Except for a monastery and temple, both Buddhist, not far from Seoul, and the Confucian temples at the magistracies, there were no signs of any other cult than that of dæmons. There were two shrines containing mirioks, in both cases water-worn boulders chafed into some resemblance to humanity; spirit shrines on heights; and under large trees heaps of stones sacred to dæmons; tall posts, with the tops rudely cut into something suggestive of distorted human faces, painted black and blue, with straw ropes with dependent straw tassels, like those denoting Shinto shrines in Japan, stretched across the road to prevent the ingress of malignant spirits, and trees with many streamers of rag, as well as worn-out straw shoes hanging in their branches, as offerings to these beings.

The dwellings do not vary much, except that the roofs of the better class are tiled. In villages where there is a resident yang-ban or squire-noble, his house is usually pretentious, and covers a considerable area, but yields in stateliness to the family tomb, always on a hill slope, a great grass mound on a grass platform backed by horseshoe-shaped grass banks, and usually by a number of fine pines. In front of the mound is invariably a stone altar on two stone drums, stone posts which support the canopy used when sacrifices are offered to the spirit of the deceased, and stone lanterns. A few of the grander tombs are approached by a short avenue of stone figures of warriors, horses, servants, and sheep.[14]

The peasant’s houses do not differ from those of the poorer classes in Seoul. The walls are of mud, and the floors, also of mud, are warmed by a number of flues, the most economical of all methods of heating, as the quantity of dried leaves and weeds that a boy of ten can carry keeps two rooms above 70° for twelve hours. Every house is screened by a fence 6 feet high of bamboo or plaited reeds, and is usually surrounded by fruit trees. In one room are ang-pak, great earthenware jars big enough to contain a man, in which rice, millet, barley, and water are kept. That is frequently in small houses the women’s room. The men’s room has little in it but the mat on the floor, pillows of solid wood, and large red and green hat-cases ranging from the rafters, in which the crinoline dress hats are stowed away. Latticed and paper-covered doors and windows denote a position above that of the poorest. A pig-stye, much more substantial than the house, is always alongside of it.

The villages from about 50 li up the Han from Seoul may all be described as “farming villages.” Lower down they export large quantities of firewood and charcoal for the daily needs of a capital which has left itself without a stick available for fuel in its immediate neighborhood. No special industries exist. The peasants make their rude wooden ploughs and spades shod with iron, and two villages within 40 li of Seoul supply them with their ang-paks and culinary utensils of the same coarse ware, which stands fire and serves instead of iron pots. Such iron utensils as are used are imported from Seoul along with salt, and foreign piece goods for dress clothes, and are paid for with rice, grain, and tobacco.

The people are peasant farmers in the strictest sense, most of them holding their lands from the yang-bans at their pleasure. The proprietor has the right to turn them out after harvest, but it does not seem to be very oppressively exercised. He provides the seed, and they pay him half the yield. Some men buy land and obtain title-deeds. In 1894 they paid in taxes on one day’s ploughing, so much for barley, beans, rice, and cotton, the sum varying; but a new system of collecting tax on the assessed value of the land has come into operation, which renders “squeezing” on the part of the tax collector far more difficult. Money is scarcely current, business transactions are by barter, or the peasant pays with his labor. His chief outlay is on foreign piece cottons for his best clothes. These are 30 cash per measure of 20 inches, dearer at Yöng-Wol, the reputed head of navigation, than at Seoul.

The population of the Han valley is not poor, if by poverty is to be understood scarcity of the necessaries of life. The people have enough for themselves and for all and sundry who, according to Korean custom, may claim their hospitality. Probably they are all in debt; it is very rare indeed to find a Korean who has not this millstone round his neck, and they are destitute of money or possessions other than those they absolutely require. They appear lazy. I then thought them so, but they live under a régime under which they have no security for the gains of labor, and for a man to be reported to be “making money,” or attaining even the luxury of a brass dinner service, would be simply to lay himself open to the rapacious attentions of the nearest mandarin and his myrmidons, or to a demand for a loan from an adjacent yang-ban. Nevertheless, the homesteads of the Han valley have a look of substantial comfort.

Certainly the meals of the men are taken in far greater tidiness than is usual among laborers. The women, as is the fashion with women, eat “anyhow,” and gobble up their lords’ leavings. All meals for men are served on small, circular, dark wooden tables, a few inches high, one for each person. Rice is the staple of diet, and is served in a great bowl, but besides this, there are seldom fewer than five or six glazed earthenware vessels containing savory, or rather tasty, condiments.[15] Chop-sticks and small flattish spoons of horn or base metal are used for eating.

In the villages, as distinguished from the hamlets, on the Han there are schools, but they are not open to the public. Families club together and engage a teacher, but the pupils are only of the scholarly class, and only Chinese learning in Wenli is taught, this being the stepping-stone to official position, the object of the ambition of every Korean. En-mun is despised, and is not used as a written language by the educated class. I observed, however, that a great many men of the lower orders on the river were able to read their own script.

With the exception of two small Buddhist establishments not far from Seoul, priests are non-existent on the Han, nor is there any Christian propaganda, Protestant or Roman, at work, though Roman missionaries were formerly stationed at two points near the forks. Dæmon-worship prevails throughout the whole region.

The river is frozen for from three to four months in the winter, and tends to inundate the lower lands for two months in the summer. The bridle tracks which skirt it and diverge from it are infamous. The valley has no mails, and of course no newspapers. The Tong-haks (rebels, or armed reformers) were strong in a region immediately to the south of the great bend, which showed some dissatisfaction with things as they were, and a desire for reform in some minds.

So far as I could learn, the region is not rich in ordinary minerals. I could hear nothing of “the burning earth,” though the geological formation renders its existence probable. Copper and iron are worked not far from the north branch to a limited extent. But the Han is the “River of Golden Sand,” and though the height of the gold season is after the summer rains, the auri sacra fames even then attracted gangs of men to the river banks, and gold in the mountains was a subject on which the Koreans were always voluble.

The attitude of the people was friendly. I never saw a trace of actual hostility, though on the higher waters of the south branch it was very doubtful whether they had seen a European before. Their curiosity was naturally enormous, and whenever the boat tied up for a day it showed itself by crowds sitting on the bank as close to it as they could get, staring apathetically. They were frequently timid, and snatched up their fowls and hid them when we came in sight, but a little friendly explanation of our honesty of purpose, and above all, the sight of a few strings of cash, usually set everything straight. A foreigner is absolutely safe. During the ofttimes tedious process of hauling up the rapids, when Mr. Miller and the servants were tugging at the ropes, I constantly strolled for two or three hours by myself along the river bank, and whether the path led through solitary places or through villages, I never met with anything more disagreeable than curiosity shown in a very ill-bred fashion, and that was chiefly on the part of women. When the people understood that they would be paid it was not difficult to procure the little they had to sell at fairly reasonable rates. They were disposed to be communicative, and showed very little suspicion, far less indeed than in parts of Korea where foreigners are common. My Chinese servant was everywhere an object of most friendly curiosity and a centre of pleasurable interest.

The mercury during April and May ranged from 42° to 72°, and the barometer showed remarkable steadiness. There were two heavy rainfalls, but the weather on the whole was superb, and the atmosphere clear and dry.

KOREAN PEASANTS AT DINNER.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] I am inclined to think that Europeans habitually underestimate the population. The average I obtained is 8 to a house, taking 70 houses at random, and this estimate is borne out by General Greathouse, for some years in Korean Government service, and Mr. Moffett, a resident and traveller in Korea for seven years, both of whom have given some attention to the subject. It must be understood that a Korean household rarely, if ever, consists of a man, wife and children only; there are parents and relationly hangers-on, to say nothing of possible servants.

[14] Such figures where they occur are always spoken of by foreigners as sheep, but I doubt whether this animal appears at any but royal tombs, where it is probably represented as offered in sacrifice by the King.

[15] These remarks apply to every part of Korea which I afterwards saw.

CHAPTER VII
VIEWS AFLOAT

A few hours sufficed for settling in our very narrow quarters, and by the end of the second day we had shaken down into an orderly routine. By dint of much driving Kim was induced to start about seven, at which hour I had my flour and water stirabout. The halts for smoking, cooking, and eating were many, and about five o’clock he used to simulate exhaustion, a deception to which his lean form and thin face with its straight straggling white hair lent themselves effectively. Then followed the daily wrangle about the place to tie up, Kim naturally desiring a village and the proximity of junks, with much nocturnal smoking and gossip, while my wish was for solitude, quiet, and a pebbly river bottom, and with Mr. Miller’s aid I usually carried my point. Between Kim’s laziness and the frequent occurrence of rapids, 10 miles came to be considered a good day’s journey! The same rapids made any settled plan of occupation impossible, yet on the early stages of the journey, when there were long quiet stretches of water between them, it was pleasant to elevate the roof and have a quiet morning’s work till dinner at twelve.

This, it must be confessed, was a precarious meal. Chickens for curry were not always attainable, and were often so small as to suggest the egg shell, and the river fish which were sometimes got by pouncing on a boy fisherman were very minute and bony. Chestnuts often eked out a very scanty meal. Wong used to hunt along the river banks for wild onions and carrots, after the stock of the cultivated roots was exhausted, and he made paste of flour and water, rolled it with a bamboo on the top of a box, cut it into biscuits with the lid of a tin, and baked them in the frying-pan. Rice fritters too he made morning, noon, and night. Afternoon tea of Burrough’s and Wellcome’s “tabloids” was never omitted, and after tying up came supper, an impoverished repetition of dinner, the whole a wholesome regimen, invariably eaten with appetite.

Visiting villages and small towns, only to find the first a collection of mud hovels, and the last mud hovels with the addition of ruinous official buildings and a forlorn Confucian temple, climbing to ridges bordering the Han to get a view of fertile and populous valleys, conversing with and interrogating the people through Mr. Miller and his servant, taking geographical notes, temperatures, altitudes, barometric readings, and measurements of the river (nearly all unfortunately lost in a rapid on the downward journey), collecting and drying plants, photographing, and developing negatives under difficulties, all the blankets and waterproofs in the boat being requisitioned for the creation of a “dark room”—all these occupations made up busy and interesting days.

The first two days were spent in turning the flank of the range on which is the so-called fortress of Nam Han, with its priest soldiers, one of the four which are supposed to guard Seoul and offer refuge in times of trouble. On the right bank there are many villages of farmers, woodcutters, and charcoal burners, and on the left an expanse of cultivated sandy soil between the mountains and the river, there a broad rapid stream rippling brightly over white sand or golden gravel. After passing the Yang-kun magistracy, a large village with a long street, where a whole fleet of sampans was loading with country produce for the capital, and a number of junks were unloading salt, the Han makes a sharp bend to the south, and after a long rapid expands into a very broad stream. The valley broadens also, and becomes flat, the hills, absolutely denuded even of scrub, are low, and recede from the river; their serrated black ridges of rock, and their deeply scored, corrugated, flushed sides, which spring had scarcely tinged with green, are forbidding, and though the valley was green with young wheat, that is quite the most monotonous and uninteresting part of the journey.

After circumventing the fine fortress summit of Nam Han, the river enters the mountains. From that time up to the head of possible navigation, the scenery in its variety, beauty, and unexpectedness exhausts the vocabulary of admiration.

A short distance above Han Kang is the Buddhist temple, of Ryeng-an Sa, dedicated to the Dragon, one of the two Buddhist sanctuaries on the long course of the Han. On the left bank a low stone wall encloses a spot on which a female dragon alighted from heaven in the days of the last dynasty, and where still, in times of flood or drought, sacrifices are offered and libations poured out to “Heaven.” The only other temple is that of Pyök-chol on the right bank of the Han, above Yö Ju, four days from Seoul. A steep wooded promontory projects into the still, deep, green water, crowned with two brick and stone pagodas. In a wooded dell at the back there are some picturesque and elaborately carved and painted temples and monastic buildings, and a fine bell five centuries old, surmounted by an entanglement of dragons, which, with some medallions on the sides, are of very bold design and successful workmanship, and the whole is said to have been cast in Chung-Chöng Do before the Japanese stole the arts and artists! A pavilion for the temple dramas was occupied for the afternoon by a large picnic of women and children from Yö Ju. In one of the monastic courts there is a marble pagoda with some finely executed bas-reliefs on its sides, claiming a not distant kinship with those of the “marble pagoda” in Seoul. The establishment consisted of an abbot, nineteen monks, and four novices. The abbot was the most refined, intellectual, and aristocratic-looking man that I saw in Korea, with an innate courtesy and refinement of manner rare anywhere. He carried the weight of seventy years with much grace and dignity, and made us cordially welcome. This was the last we saw of Buddhism till we reached the Diamond Mountain six weeks later.

At the village of Tomak-na-dali, where we tied up, they make the great purple-black jars and pots which are in universal use. Their method is primitive. They had no objection to be watched, and were quite communicative. The potters pursue their trade in open sheds, digging up the clay close by. The stock-in-trade is a pit in which an uncouth potter’s wheel revolves, the base of which is turned by the feet of a man who sits on the edge of the hole. A wooden spatula, a mason’s wooden trowel, a curved stick, and a piece of rough rag are the tools, efficient for the purpose. Fifty li higher up, a few li from the river, are beds of kaolin used in the Government pottery and for the finer kinds of porcelain.

For two days the Han was about 400 yards wide, with a very tortuous course, abounding in rapids, shallows, and green islands, with great expanses of pure white sand on its left bank, and frequent villages of woodcutters and charcoal burners on both. On the 16th we reached the forks at the village of Ma-chai. There the north branch, which was to be afterwards traversed, comes down, and the south branch, in every way more important, arrives from the southward. Between the two there is a pretty wooded island then pink with azalea blossom. Beyond is a fine stretch of alluvium, nearly 6 feet deep, bearing rich crops of barley and wheat, but entirely unprotected from the desolations of the river in its annual rise, which engulfs every year acres of this prolific soil. Ten years ago the Han, altering its course, brought down from the top of a steep bank at some distance a huge concrete double coffin 9 feet long and 16 inches thick! The great alluvial expanse was make over to the Buddhists by the King, who receives annually a fixed amount of the produce.

Between Kim’s laziness and plausibility, and the rapids, which though not severe were frequent, and the food hunt, which was a necessity, our progress was slow, and it was not till the 19th of April that we reached Yö Ju, the first town of any importance and the birthplace of the late Queen. It is memorable to me as being the first place where the crowd was obstreperous and obnoxious, though not hostile. It is humiliating to be a “show” and to get nothing by it! I went out on a rock in the river in the hope of using the prismatic compass in peace, and was nearly pushed into the water, and when I went up into the gate tower a stamping, curious crowd, climbing on everything that afforded a point of vantage, shook the old fabric so severely that the delicately balanced needle never came to rest. The crowd was dirty, the streets were foul and decayed, and worst of all was the magistrate’s yamen, to which we had occasion to go, and where I found that a kwan-ja was powerless to obtain even common civility.

The yamen, though finely situated and enclosing in its grounds a large and much decorated pavilion for Royal use, but used as a children’s playground, was in a state of wreck. The woodwork was crumbling, beams and rafters were falling down, lacquer and paint were scaling off, torn paper fluttered from the lattice windows, plaster hung from the grimy walls, the once handsome gate tower was on its last legs, in the courtyard some flagstones had subsided, others were exalted, and audacious ragweed and shepherd’s purse grew in their crevices. Poverty, neglect, and melancholy reigned supreme. Within the gates were plenty of those persons who suck the lifeblood of Korea. There were soldiers in Tyrolese hats and coarse cotton uniforms in which blue predominated, yamen runners in abundance, writers, officers of injustice, messengers pretending to have business on hand, and many small rooms, in which were many more men sitting on the floor smoking long pipes, with writing materials beside them.

One attendant, by no means polite, took my kwan-ja to the magistrate, and very roughly led the way to two small rooms, in the inner one of which the official was seated on the floor, surrounded by a few elderly men. We were directed to stand at the opening between the two rooms, and behind us pressed as many of the crowd as could get in. I bowed low. No notice was taken. An attendant handed the magistrate a pipe, so long that it would have been impossible for him to light it for himself, and he smoked. Mr. Miller hoped that he was in good health. No reply, and the eyes were never raised. Mr. Miller explained the object of the visit, which was to get a little information about the neighborhood. There was only a very curt reply, and as the great man turned to one of his subordinates and began to talk to him, and rude remarks were circulating, we took leave with the usual Korean phrases of politeness, which were not reciprocated.

We were told that there are many “high yang-bans” in Yö Ju, and it seemed natural that the magistrate of a town of only 700 houses should not be a man of high rank. The story goes that when he came they used “low talk” to him and ordered him about as their inferior. So he lives chiefly in Seoul, and the man who sat in sordid state amidst the ruins of the spacious and elaborately decorated yamen does his work and divides the spoils, and the yang-bans are left to whatever their devices may be. But this is not an isolated case. Nearly all the river magistrates are mainly absentees, and spend their time, salaries, and squeezings in the capital. I had similar interviews with three other magistrates. I asked nothing except change in cash for three yen, and on each occasion was told that the treasury was empty. My kwan-ja, a pompous document from the Foreign Office, was of this use only, it procured me a chicken at a high price in a town where the people were unwilling to sell!

At Yö Ju I saw for the only time either in Korea or China the interior of an ancestral temple. It is a lofty building, with a curved tile roof and blackwood ceiling, approached by a roofed gateway. Opposite the entrance is an ebony stool, on which are a brass bowl and incense burner. Above this is a large altar, supporting two candlesticks with candles, and above that again an ebony stand on which rests a polished black marble tablet inscribed with the name of the deceased. Behind that, in a recess in the wall, with elaborate fretwork doors, is his life-sized portrait in Chinese style. The floor is covered with plain matting. In the tablet the third soul of the deceased is supposed to dwell. Food is placed before it three times daily for three years in the case of a parent, and there the relations, after the expiration of that period, meet at stated seasons every year and offer sacrifice and “worship.”

At the large and prosperous-looking village of Chön-yaing the people told us that a “circus” was about to perform and impelled us towards it; but finding that it was in the courtyard of a large tiled-roof mansion, in good repair and of much pretension, we were retiring, when we were cordially invited to enter, and I was laid hold of (literally) by the serving-women and dragged through the women’s court and into the women’s apartments. I was surrounded by fully forty women, old and young, wives, concubines, servants, all in gala dress and much adorned. The principal wife, a very young girl wearing some Indian jewellery, was very pretty and had an exquisite complexion, but one and all were destitute of manners. They investigated my clothing, pulled me about, took off my hat and tried it on, untwisted my hair and absorbed my hairpins, pulled off my gloves and tried them on with shrieks of laughter, and then, but not till they had exhausted all the amusement which could be got out of me, they bethought themselves of entertaining me by taking me through their apartments, crowding upon me to such an extent as they did so that I was nearly carried off my feet. They took me through fourteen communicating rooms, with fine parquet floors, mostly spoiled by being covered in whole or in part with Brussels tapestry carpets of “loud” and vulgar patterns in hideous aniline dyes. Great mirrors in tawdry gilt frames glared from the tender coloring of the walls, and French clocks asserted their expensive vulgarity in every room.

In the outer court a rope was stretched for the rope-dancers, and kettledrums and reed-pipes gave promise of such music as Koreans love. I was escorted across two other courts surrounded by verandas supported on dressed stone, and with iron railings instead of wood, to an elevated reception room, where a foreign table and some tawdry velvet-covered chairs clashed with the tastefulness of the walls and the fine mats bordered with the Greek fret on the floor. French clocks, all keeping different time, were much en évidence. The host, a youth of eighteen, eldest son of the governor of one of the most important governorships in Korea, welcomed us, and seemed anxious to receive us courteously. Wine, soup, eggs, and kimchi, an elaborate sort of “sour kraut,” were produced, and had to be partaken of, our host meanwhile smoking an expensive foreign cigar, which gave him an opportunity for the ostentatious display of a showy diamond ring. He was dressed in sea-green silk, and wore a hat of very fine quality.

He wanted to see the inside of my camera and to be photographed, for which purpose we retired to the back of the house to avoid the enormous crowd which had collected, and which was becoming every moment more impolite and disorderly. I made him exchange the foreign cigar, vulgar in a Korean’s mouth, for the national long pipe. At this juncture some friends came up, hangers-on, who were feasting with him to celebrate his having obtained a good place in a recent examination, and made a rudely-worded request for our immediate departure. It was obvious that, after their unmannerly curiosity had been satisfied, our presence, and the courteous treatment extended to us, spoilt their amusement. The ringleader spoke roughly to our host, who turned his back on us and retired meekly to his own apartments, although he is a son of an official of the highest rank, and a near relative of the late Queen. We could only make a somewhat ignominious exit, having been truly “played out.”

This rage for French clocks, German mirrors, foreign cigars, chairs upholstered in velvet, and a general foreign tawdriness is spreading rapidly among the young “swells” who have money to spend, vulgarizing Korean simplicity, and setting the example to those below them of an extravagant and purely selfish expenditure. The house, with its many courtyards, was new and handsome, and money glared from every point. I was glad to return to the simplicity of my boat, hoping that with the “plain living, high thinking” might be combined!

Beyond the mountains east of Yö Ju, the Han passes through a noble stretch of rich alluvium, bearing superb, and fairly clean crops, and bordered by low, serrated, denuded, and much corrugated ranges, faintly tinged with green. On this gently rolling plain are many towns and villages, among the larger of which are Won Ju, Chung Ju, Chöng-phyöng, and Tan-Yang, all on or near the river, by which they conveniently export their surplus produce, chiefly beans, tobacco, and rice, and receive in return their supplies of salt and foreign goods. Even at that season of low water the traffic was considerable.

Higher up, the scenery changes. Lofty limestone bluffs, often caverned, rise abruptly from the river, and wall in the fertile and populous valleys which descend upon it, giving place higher up to grand basaltic formation, range behind range, terraces of columnar basalt occasionally appearing. It was a lovely season, warm days, cold nights, brilliant sunshine, great white masses of sunlit clouds on a sky of heavenly blue, distances idealized in a blue veil which was not a mist, flowers at their freshest, every bird that has a note or a cry vocal, butterflies and red and blue dragon-flies hovering over the grass and water, fish leaping, all nature awake and jubilant. And every rift and bluff had its own beauty of blossoming scarlet azaleas, or syringas, contorted or stately pines, and Ampelopsis Veitchiana rose-pink in its early leafage. There was a note of gladness in the air.

Eight days above Seoul, on the left bank of the river, there is a ruinous pagoda built of large blocks of hewn stone, standing solitary in the centre of a level plain formed by a bend of the Han. The people, on being asked about it, said, “When Korea was surveyed so long ago that nobody knows when, this was the centre of it.” They call it the “Halfway Place.” After that the only suggestions of antiquity are some stone foundations, and a few stone tombs among the trees, which, from their shape, may denote the sites of monasteries.

Near that pagoda were a number of men very drunk, and there were few days on which the habit of drinking to excess was not more or less prominent. The junkmen celebrated the evening’s rest by hard drinking, and the crowd which nightly assembled on the shore when we tied up was usually enlivened by the noisy antics of one or more intoxicated men. From my observation on the Han journey and afterwards, I should say that drunkenness is an outstanding feature in Korea. And it is not disreputable. If a man drinks rice wine till he loses his reason, no one regards him as a beast. A great dignitary even may roll on the floor drunk at the end of a meal, at which he has eaten to repletion, without losing caste, and on becoming sober receives the congratulations of inferiors on being rich enough to afford such a luxury. Along with the taste for French clocks and German gilding, a love of foreign liquors is becoming somewhat fashionable among the young yang-bans, and willing caterers are found who produce potato spirit rich in fusel oil as “old Cognac,” and a very effervescent champagne at a shilling a bottle!

The fermented liquors of Korea are probably not unwholesome, but the liking for them is an acquired taste with Europeans. They vary from a smooth white drink resembling buttermilk in appearance, and very mild, to a water-white spirit of strong smell and fiery taste. Between these comes the ordinary rice wine, slightly yellowish, akin to Japanese sake and Chinese samshu, with a faint, sickly smell and flavor. They all taste more or less strongly of smoke, oil, and alcohol, and the fusel oil remains even in the best. They are manufactured from rice, millet, and barley. The wine-seller projects a cylindrical basket on a long pole from his roof, resembling the “bush” formerly used in England for a similar purpose. Probably one reason that the Koreans are a drunken people is that they scarcely use tea at all even in the cities, and the luxury of “cold water” is unknown to them. The peasants drink hot rice water with their meals, honey water as a luxury, and on festive occasions an infusion of orange peel or ginger. The drying of orange peel is quite a business with Korean housewives. There were quantities of it hanging from the eaves of all the cottages.

Up to a short distance above this pagoda, the rapids for which the Han is famous, though they made our progress slow, had not suggested serious difficulty, far less risk, but for the remaining fortnight they were tortuous rocky channels, through which the river, compressed in width, rushes with great violence and tremendous noise and clatter, or they are successive broken ledges of rock, with a chaos of flurry and foam, varied by deep pools, presenting formidable, and at some seasons insuperable, obstacles to navigation. To all appearance they are far more dangerous than the celebrated rapids of the Yangtze, and the remains of timber rafts and junks attest their destructive properties. They occur at shorter and shorter intervals as the higher waters are reached, till eventually the Han becomes an unbroken rapid or cataract.

Kim, though paid handsomely, was far too stingy to pay for any help en route, his ropes were manifestly bought in “the cheapest market,” and though Wong, my powerful sampan-man, worked with both strength and skill, and Mr. Miller and his servant toiled at the tow ropes, and in great exigencies I gave a haul myself, we sometimes made only 7 miles a day, and ofttimes took two hours to ascend a few yards, two poling with might and main in the boat, and three tugging with all their strength on shore. Often the ropes snapped, when the boat went spinning and flying to the foot of the rapid, sometimes with injury to herself and her contents, sometimes escaping. After a few of such risks I habitually landed, either on a boatman’s back or wading in waterproof Wellingtons, which caused great wonderment in the lookers on. The worst rapids were always in the most beautiful places, and the strolls and climbs of three or four hours along the river banks, through fields with bounteous crops, through odorous Spanish chestnut groves, through thickets with their fascinating bewilderments of roses, clematis, and honeysuckle, and past farmhouses with their privacy of bamboo screens, and deep shade of blossoming fruit trees, were very delightful.

In ten days from Seoul we reach Chöng-phyöng, a town of some pretensions, where in connection with the yamen is a temple pavilion with a high white chair, facing a table with candlesticks upon it, floor, table, and chair deep in dust, though the building is used regularly for offering prayers and sacrifices for the King. Dust is not noteworthy in Korea, but the paintings in this temple are. On the end walls are vivid groups of six noblemen wearing fine horsehair palace hats with wings, each man holding a piece of folded paper in his hand, and listening intently as he bends forward towards the chair. The conception and technique of these paintings are admirable, and the sunset scenes on the back wall, though inferior in execution, are the work of a true artist.

Close by is a Royal pavilion hanging over the edge of a high bluff above the Han, surrounded by superb elms, some of their trunks from 20 to 23 feet in circumference. The view of the fertile valley and of the mountains beyond is very fine, and the decorative woodwork, painted in Korean style, has been very handsome; but the phrase “has been” describes most things Korean, and official squalor and neglect could scarcely go farther.

At Chöng-phyöng and elsewhere the common people, in spite of their overpowering curiosity, were not rude, and usually retired to a respectful distance to watch us eat; but from the class of scholars who hang on round all yamens we met with a good deal of underbred impertinence, some of the men going so far as to raise the curtain of my compartment and introduce their heads and shoulders beneath it, brow-beating the boatmen when they politely asked them to desist. On the other hand, men of the non-cultured class showed us various small attentions, sometimes helping with a haul at the ropes at a rapid, only asking in return that their wives might see me, a request with which I always gladly complied. At Chöng-phyöng, so great was female curiosity that a number of women waded waist deep after the boat to peer under the mats of the roof, and one of them, scrambling out to a rock for a final stare, overbalanced herself and fell into deep water. At one point, in the very early morning, some women presented themselves at the boat, having walked several li with a present of eggs, the payment for which was to be a sight of me and my poor equipments, they having heard that there was a boat with a foreign woman on board. The old cambric curtains brought from Persia, with a red pattern on a white ground, always attracted them greatly, and the small Japanese cooking utensils.

In thirteen days from Seoul we reached Tan-Yang, a magistracy prettily situated on the left bank of the Han, with a picturesque Confucian temple on the hill above; and a day later entered upon mountainous country of extreme beauty. The paucity of tributaries is very marked. Up to that point, except the north branch, there are but two—one which joins the Han at the village of Hu-nan Chang, on the right bank, and is navigable for 60 li, as far as the important town of Wan Ju; and another, which enters 2 li above the picturesquely-situated village of So-il, on the left bank. Above Tan-Yang the river forms long and violent rapids, alternating with broad stretches of blue, quiet water from 10 to 20 feet deep, rolling majestically, making sharp and extraordinary bends among lofty limestone precipices. Villages on natural terraces occur constantly, the lower terrace planted with mulberry or weeping willows. Hemp is cultivated in great quantities, and is used for sackcloth for mourners’ wear, bags, and rope. In my walks along the river I had several opportunities of seeing the curious method of separating the fibre, rude and primitive, but effectual. At the bottom of a stone paved pit large stones are placed, which are heated from a rough oven at the side. The hemp is pressed down in bundles upon these, and stakes are driven in among them. Piles of coarse Korean grass are placed over the hemp, and earth over all, well beaten down. The stakes are then pulled up and water is poured into the holes left by them. This, falling on the heated stones, produces a dense steam, and in twenty-four hours the hemp fibre is so completely disintegrated as to be easily separated.

A grand gorge, 3 miles long, with lofty cliffs of much caverned limestone, varied by rock needles draped with Ampelopsis and clematis, and giving foothold to azaleas, spirea, syringa, pear, hawthorn, climbing roses, wistaria, cyclamen, lycopodium, yellow vetches, many Labiatæ, and much else, contains but one village, piled step above step in a deep wooded fold of the hills, on which millet culture is carried to a great height, on slopes too steep to be ploughed by oxen. This gorge opens out on slopes of rich soil, some of which is still uncultivated. The hamlets are small, and grow much hemp, and each has its hemp pit. They also grow Urtica Nivea, from the bleached fibre of which their grass-cloth summer clothes are made. All these are surrounded with mulberry groves.

The large village of Cham-su-ki, at the head of two severe rapids, in ascending which our ropes snapped three times, offers a good example of the popular belief in spirits. It is approached under a tasselled straw rope, one end of which is wound round a fine tree with a stone altar below it. On another rope were suspended a few small bags containing offerings of food. If a person dies of the pestilence or by the roadside, or a woman dies in childbirth, the spirit invariably takes up its abode in a tree. To such spirits offerings are made on the stone altar of cake, wine, and pork, but where the tree is the domicile of the spirit of a man who has been killed by a tiger, dog’s flesh is offered instead of pork. The Cham-su-ki tree is a fine well-grown elm. Gnarled trees, of which we saw several on hilltops and sides, are occupied by the spirits of persons who have died before reaching a cycle, i.e. sixty years of age. A steep cliff above Cham-su-ki is also denoted as the abode of dæmons by a straw rope and a stone altar.

We had some very cold and windy days near the end of April, the mercury falling to 34°, and one night of tempestuous rain. It would be absurd to write of sufferings, but at that temperature in an open boat, with the roof lifting and flapping and threatening to take its departure, it was impossible to sleep. Afterwards the weather was again splendid.

Abrupt turns, long rapids full of jagged rocks, long stretches of deep, still water, abounding in fish, narrow gorges walled in by terraces of basalt, lateral ravines disclosing fine snow-streaked peaks, succeeded each other, the shores becoming less and less peopled, while the parallel valleys abounded in fairly well-to-do villages. Just below a long and dangerous rapid we stopped to dine, and though the place seemed quite solitary, a crowd soon gathered, and sat on the adjacent stones talking noisily, trying to get into the boat, lifting the mats, discussing whether it were polite to watch people at dinner, some taking one side and some another, those who were half tipsy taking the affirmative. Some said that they had got news from several miles below that this great sight was coming up the river, and it was a shame to deprive them of it by keeping the curtains down. After a good deal of obstreperousness, mainly the result of wine, a man overbalanced himself and fell into the river, which raised a laugh, and then they followed us good-naturedly up the rapid, one man helping to track, and asking as his reward that his wife might see me, on which I exhibited myself on the bow of the boat.

At the village of Pang-wha San, built, contrary to Korean practice, on a height of 800 feet, there is a stone platform, on which was nightly lighted one of that chain of beacon-fires terminating at Nam-San in Seoul, which assured the King that his kingdom was at peace.[16] Another village, Ha-chin, was impressive from the frightful ugliness of its women. After leaving Tan-Yang the curiosity increased. People walked great distances to see us, saying they had never seen foreigners, and bringing eggs to pay for the sight, which I paid for, telling the people that we had nothing to show; but extravagant rumors of what was to be seen in the boat had preceded us, and as the people assembled at daylight and generally waited patiently, I always yielded to their wishes, raised the thatch, and made the most of the red and white curtains. In one place I gave them some tea to drink. They had never seen it, and thought it was medicine, and on tasting it said, “It must be very good for indigestion!”

FOOTNOTES:

[16] The telegraph has now superseded this picturesque arrangement.

CHAPTER VIII
NATURAL BEAUTY—THE RAPIDS

In superb weather, and in the full glory of spring, we continued the exploration of the Han above Tan-Yang, encountering innumerable rapids, some of them very severe and horrible to look upon. The river valley, continually narrowing into gorges, rarely admits of hamlets, and the population is relegated to lateral and parallel valleys. On the 30th of April we tugged and poled the boat up seven long and severe rapids, with deep still stretches of water between them. The flora increased in variety, and the shapes of the mountains became very definite. Among other trees there were a large branching Acanthopanax ricinifolia, two species of euonymus, mistletoe on the walnut and mulberry, the Rhus semi-alata and Rhus vernicifera, pines, firs, the Abies microsperma, the Actinidia pueraria, Elæagnus, Spanish chestnuts in great groves, alders, birches, maples, elms, limes, and a tree infrequently seen which I believe to be a Zelkawa. Among the flowers, there were marigolds, buttercups, scentless white and purple violets, yellow violas, white aconite, lady’s slipper, hawkweed, camomile, red and white dandelions, guelder roses, wygelias, mountain peonies, martagon and tiger lilies, gentians, pink spirea, yellow day lilies, white honeysuckle, the Iris Rossii, and many others.

The day after leaving Tan-Yang we entered on the most beautiful part of the river. Great limestone cliffs swing open at times to reveal glorious glimpses, through fantastic gorges, of peaks and ranges, partly forest-covered, fading in the far distance into the delicious blue veil of dreamland; the river, occasionally compressed by its colossal walls, vents its fury in flurry and foam, or expands into broad reaches 20 and even 30 feet in depth, where pure emerald water laps gently upon crags festooned with roses and honeysuckle, or in fairy bays on pebbly beaches and white sand. The air was full of gladness. The loud call of the fearless ringed pheasant was heard everywhere, bees hummed and butterflies and dragon-flies flashed through the fragrant air. What mattered it that our ropes broke three times, that we stuck on a rock in a rapid and hung there for an hour in a deafening din and a lather of foam, and that we “beat the record” in only making 5 miles in twelve hours!

The limestone cliffs are much caverned, and near the village of To-tam, where they fall back considerably from the river, we explored one cave worthy of notice, with a fine entrance arch 43 feet in height, admitting into a vault considerably higher, with a roof of stalagmites. We ascended this cavern for 315 feet, and then had to return for lack of light. Near the mouth a natural shaft and rock-ladder give access to a fine upper gallery 12 feet high, only 60 feet of which we were able to investigate. Just above To-tam there is another limestone freak on the river bank, a natural bridge or arch, 127 feet in height and 30 feet wide, below which a fair green lawn slopes up to a height above. The bridge is admirably buttressed, and draped with roses, honeysuckle, and clematis, and various fantastic specimens of coniferæ grow out of its rifts.

The beauty of the Han culminates at To-tam in the finest river view I had then ever seen, a broad stretch, with a deep bay and lofty limestone cliffs, between which, on a green slope, the picturesque, deep-eaved, brown-roofed houses of the village are built. The gray cliff is crowned with a goodly group of umbrella pines, in Korea called “Parasol Pines,” because they resemble in shape those carried before the King. Guarding the entrance of the bay are three picturesque jagged pyramidal rocks much covered with the Ampelopsis Veitchiana, and of course sacred to dæmon-worship. These sentinels are from 40 to 83 feet high. To the southwest the Han, dark and deep, rolls out of sight round a pine-clad bluff, among the magnificent ranges of the Sol-rak-San mountains—masses of partially pine-clothed peaks and pinnacles of naked rock. To the northeast the river makes an abrupt bend below superb limestone cliffs, and disappears at the foot of Sölmi-San, a triplet of lofty peaks. To-tam on its park-like slopes embraces this view, and were it not for the rapids and their delays and risks, might be a delightful summer resort from Seoul.

There is fertility as well as grandeur, for the ridge behind the village, abrupt on the riverside, falls gently down on the other to a broad, well-watered level valley, cultivated for rice with extreme neatness and care, and which, after gladdening the eye with its productiveness for several miles, winds out of view among the mountains.

There, and in most parts of the Han valley, I was much surprised with the neatness of the cultivation. It was not what the reports of other travellers had led me to expect, and it gives me the impression that the river passes through one of the most productive and prosperous portions of Korea. The crops of wheat and barley were usually superb, and remarkably free from weeds—in fact, the cleanliness would do credit to “high farming” in the Lothians. It was no uncommon thing to find from 12 to 18 stalks as the product of one grain. At the end of April the barley was in ear, and beginning to change color, and the wheat was 6 inches high. As a general rule the stones were carefully picked off the land and were used for retaining walls for the rice terraces, or piled in heaps. Steep hillsides were being cleared of scrub and stones for cotton planting, and in many instances the cultivation is carried to a height of 1,000 feet, the cultivators always, however, living in the holes. All the parallel valleys are neatly and carefully cultivated. The favorable climate, with its abundant, but not superabundant, rainfall, renders irrigation needless, except in the case of rice. Every valley has its streamlet, and is barred across by dykes of mud from its head down to the Han, rice, with tobacco, beans, hemp, and cotton, being the great articles of export. On the whole, I was very agreeably surprised with the agriculture of the Han valley, and doubt not that it is capable of enormous development if the earnings of industry were secure. The soil is most prolific, heavy crops being raised without the aid of fertilizers.

After leaving beautiful To-tam, the rapids become more and more frequent and exasperating, and when Kim sank down, playing upon my feelings by well-simulated exhaustion, I feared it would soon become real. The ropes broke frequently, and the constant scraping and bumping over rocks increased the leakiness of the boat so much, that in a lovely reach, where crystal water rippled on the white sand, I pitched my tent, and unloaded and beached the craft for repairs. In one strong deep rapid that day the rope parted, and the boat swirled down the surges, striking rocks as she spun down with such effect as to spoil a number of photographic negatives and soak my bedding.

At the beautifully situated village of Pa-ka Mi, a post bore the following inscription in large characters—“If any servant of a yang-ban passing through Pa-ka Mi is polite and behaves well, all right, but if he behaves badly he will be beaten,” an assertion of independence as refreshing as it is rare!

For among the curses of Korea is the existence of this privileged class of yang-bans or nobles, who must not work for their own living, though it is no disgrace to be supported by their relations, and who often live on the clandestine industry of their wives in sewing and laundry work. A yang-ban carries nothing for himself, not even his pipe. Yang-ban students do not even carry their books from their studies to the classroom. Custom insist that when a member of this class travels he shall take with him as many attendants as he can muster. He is supported on his led horse, and supreme helplessness is the conventional requirement. His servants brow-beat and bully the people and take their fowls and eggs without payment, which explains the meaning of the notice at Pa-ka Mi.[17]

There is no doubt that the people, i.e. the vast mass of the unprivileged, on whose shoulders rests the burden of taxation, are hard pressed by the yang-bans, who not only use their labor without paying for it, but make merciless exactions under the name of loans. As soon as it is rumored or known that a merchant or peasant has laid up a certain amount of cash, a yang-ban or official seeks a loan. Practically it is a levy, for if it is refused the man is either thrown into prison on a false charge and whipped every morning until he or his relations pay the sum demanded, or he is seized and practically imprisoned on low diet in the yang-ban’s house until the money is forthcoming. It is the best of the nobles who disguise their exactions under the name of loans, but the lender never sees principal or interest. It is a very common thing for a noble, when he buys a house or field, to dispense with paying for it, and no mandarin will enforce payment. At Paik-kui Mi, where I paid off my boatmen, the yang-ban’s servants were impressing all the boats for the purpose of taking roofing tiles to Seoul without payment. Kim begged me to give him some trifle to take down the river, with a few cash as payment, and a line to say that the boat was in my employment, service with a foreigner being a protection from such an exaction.

There were two days more of most severe toil, in which it was scarcely possible to make any progress. The rapids were frightful, and when we reached a very bad one below the town of Yöng-chhun, Kim, after making several abortive efforts, not, I think, in good faith, to ascend it, collapsed, and said he could not get up any higher. At another season boats of light draught can ascend to Yang-wöl, 20 li farther. We had performed a great feat in getting up to Yöng-chhun in early May. There were no boats on the higher waters, and for much of the distance my sampan could hardly be said to be afloat. At Yöng-chhun we were within 40 miles of the Sea of Japan.

Wind and heavy rain which raised the river forbade all locomotion until the following evening, when we crossed the Han and reached the Yöng-chhun ferry by a pretty road through a village and a wood, most attractive country, with many novelties in its flora. At the ferry a still expanse of the Han is over 10 feet deep, but the roar of another rapid is heard immediately above. A double avenue of noble elms with fine turf underneath them leads to the town, a magistracy of 1,500 people, a quiet market-place without shops, situated in a rich farming basin of alluvial soil, covered in May with heavy crops of barley and wheat, among which were fields hillocked for melons.

The magistracy buildings are large and rambling, with what has been a fine entrance gate, with a drum and other instruments of aural torture for making the deafening din with which the yamen is closed and opened at sunrise and sunset. There are many stone tablets (not spontaneously erected) to worthy officials, a large enclosure in which sacrifices are offered to “Heaven” (probably to the Spirits of the Land), a Confucian temple, and a king’s pavilion, all very squalid and ruinous.

A crowd not altogether polite followed us to the yamen, where I hoped that some information regarding an overland route to the Diamond Mountain might be obtained. On entering the yamen precincts the underling officials were most insolent, and it was only after enduring their unpleasant behavior for some time that we were conducted to a squalid inner room, where a deputy-mandarin sat on the floor with a smoking apparatus beside him, a man with a scornful and sinister physiognomy, who took not the slightest notice of us, and when he deigned to speak gave curt replies through an underling, while we stood outside the entrance, withstanding with difficulty the pressure of the crowd, which had surged in after us, private interviews being rare in the East. This was my last visit to a Korean yamen.

As we walked back to the town, the crowd followed us closely, led by some “swells” of the literary class. One young man came up behind me and kicked me on the ankle, stepping back and then coming forward and repeating the offense. He was about to give me a third kick, when Mr. Miller turned round and very quietly, without anger, dealt him a scientific blow on the chest, which sent him off the road upon his back into a barley field. There was a roar of laughter from the crowd, and the young bully’s companions begged Mr. Miller not to punish him any more. The crowd dispersed, the bullies, cowards like all their species, fell far behind, and we had a pleasant walk back to the ferry, where, although we had to wait a long time in the ferryboat, there was no assemblage, and the ferryman and passengers were very civil. Mr. Miller regretted the necessity for inflicting punishment. It was Lynch law no doubt, but it was summary justice, and the perfect coolness with which it was administered would no doubt leave a salutary impression. The ferryman told us that a tiger had carried off a pig from Yöng-chhun the previous night, and said that the walk to our boat through the wood without lanterns was very unsafe. Our boatmen had become alarmed and were hunting for us with torches. The circumstances were eerie, and I was glad to see the lights.

Ferries are free. The Government provides the broad, strong boats which are used for ferrying cattle as well as people, and the villages provide the ferrymen with food. Passengers who are not poor usually give a small douceur.

A gale of wind with torrents of rain set in that night, and the rain continued till the next afternoon, giving me an opportunity of seeing more of the detail of the magnificent cliffs of laminated limestone, which occur frequently, and are the most striking geological features of the Han valley, continually presenting the appearance of the leaves of a colossal book. Above the Yöng-chhun rapid, on a steep and almost inaccessible declivity, buttressed by these cliffs, are the remains of a very ancient fortress, the outer wall of which, enclosing the summit of the hill, is 2,500 feet in circumference, 25 feet high on the outside, from 1 to 12 feet on the inside, and from 9 to 12 feet thick. It is so arranged that its two gates, which open on nearly direct descents of 20 feet, and are approached by very narrow pathways, could only admit one man at a time. It was obviously incapable of reduction by any force but starvation. No mortar is used in the walls, which are very efficiently built of small slabs of stone never more than 6 inches thick. The people have no traditions of its construction, but Mr. Miller, who is familiar with the fortresses of Nam-San and Puk-han, thinks that it is of a much earlier date than either. One of the signal fire stations is visible from this point on the river.

On the 3rd of May we began the descent of the Han. The worn-out ropes were used for the cooking fire, the poles were stowed away, and paddles took their place. The heavy rains had raised the river a foot, and changed its bright waters into a turbid flood, down which we often descended in two minutes distances which had taken two laborious hours on the upward journey, flying down the centre of the stream instead of crawling up the sides. Many small disasters occurred. Several times the boat was nearly swamped by heavy surges, or shivered by striking sunken rocks; or, losing steerage way, spun round and round, progressing downwards with many gyrations, usually stern foremost, amidst billows and foam, but Kim, who was at his best on such occasions, usually contrived to bring her to shore, bow on, at the foot of the rapid. On one occasion, however, in a long rapid, in which the surges were high and strong, by some mismanagement, regarding which the boatmen quarrelled for an hour afterwards, the sampan shipped such heavy seas from both sides as nearly to swamp her. I was all but washed off my camp-bed, which was on a level with the gunwale; a number of sheets of geographical notes were washed away, some instruments belonging to the R.G.S. were drowned in their box, more than forty photographic negatives were destroyed, and clothing, bedding, and flour were all soaked! The rapids were in fact most exciting, and their risks throw those of the Fu and the Yangtze from Cheng-tu to Ichang quite into the shade.

In spite of a delay of half a day at Tan-Yang, owing to a futile attempt to get cash for silver, and another half-day spent in beaching and repairing the boat, which had been badly bumped on a rock, we did the distance from Nang-chhön to Ma-chai on the forks in four and a half days, or less than a third of the time taken by the laborious ascent.