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Note that some unexpected spellings have not been changed from the original: Page 155 onwards: "parotoid" appears for "parotid".
Page 172 (two references by Mori): "Quelpaert" appears for "Quelpart".
The following changes to the text have been made: Page 159: changed "planyci" to "plancyi" (The most trenchant characters of _plancyi_ seem to be ...) Page 169: changed "juvenal" to "juvenile" (... does not conform to the juvenile pattern of either subspecies.)
* * * * * UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Volume 15, No.
2, pp.
149-173 January 31, 1962 Some Reptiles and Amphibians from Korea BY ROBERT G. WEBB, J. KNOX JONES, JR., AND GEORGE W. BYERS UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LAWRENCE 1962 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS, MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Editors: E. Raymond Hall, Chairman, Henry S. Fitch, Theodore H. Eaton, Jr. Volume 15, No.
2, pp.
149-173 Published January 31, 1962 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence, Kansas PRINTED BY JEAN M. NEIBARGER, STATE PRINTER TOPEKA, KANSAS 1962 28-8517 Some Reptiles and Amphibians from Korea BY ROBERT G. WEBB, J. KNOX JONES, JR., AND GEORGE W. BYERS In 1954, two of us (Jones and Byers) collected reptiles and amphibians in Korea incidental to field studies relating to hemorrhagic fever.
The 382 specimens thus obtained were deposited either in the Museum of Natural History of The University of Kansas (KU), or in the Museum of Zoology of the University of Michigan (UMMZ), and are the basis for the present report.
Continuous American military operations of one sort or another in Korea since 1945 have afforded opportunities for interested persons to obtain there collections of amphibians and reptiles, the study of which has resulted in several recent publications (Babb, 1955; Dixon, 1956; Hahn, 1959 and 1960; Shannon, 1956 and 1957; Stewart, 1953 and 1954; Tanner, 1953; Walley, 1958_a_ and 1958_b_).
This paper, which contains comments on the natural history and taxonomy of 22 species, all previously reported from Korea, supplements earlier studies, especially Shannon's (1956) annotated list of the herpetofauna of the country.
Shannon (_loc.
cit._) recorded 36 kinds of reptiles and amphibians from Korea.
Subsequently, _Bufo stejnegeri_ (previously omitted) was added by Shannon (1957), _Takydromus takydromoides oldi_ was described by Walley (1958_a_), and _Takydromus kwangakuensis_ was relegated to synonymy under _T.
amurensis_ by Walley (1958_b_).
Presently, then, 37 kinds are on record from the Korean Peninsula.
In the accounts beyond, Jones and Byers are mostly responsible for the remarks on natural history, whereas Webb is mostly responsible for the taxonomic comments.
The synonymies include (1) the original description, which is followed by (2) the first use of the name-combination here employed if it differs from the name as originally proposed, and (3) any synonyms having type localities in Korea.
All measurements are in millimeters and all dates refer to the year 1954 unless otherwise indicated.
A gazetteer of localities mentioned in the text and a list of literature cited follow the accounts of species.
We are grateful to the officers, enlisted men and civilians associated in 1954 with the Field Unit of the Commission on Hemorrhagic Fever, Armed Forces Epidemiological Board, who aided our efforts in Korea; we are especially mindful of the contributions of Dr. Albert A. Barber, Dr. Marshall Hertig, Mr. Louis J. Lipovsky and Dr. Warren D. Thomas.
We are grateful also to Mr. Yoshinori Imaizumi, National Science Museum of Japan, for his translations of several papers in Japanese, and to Dr. Edward H. Taylor for making certain pertinent references available to us.
=Hynobius leechii= Boulenger _Hynobius Leechii_ Boulenger, Ann.
Mag.
Nat.
Hist., ser.
5, 19:67, January, 1887 (type locality, Gensan [=Wonsan], Korea).
_Hynobius leechii quelpaertensis_ Mori, Jour.
Chosen Nat.
Hist.
Soc., 6:47 (Japanese) and 53 (English), March 25, 1928 (type locality, Quelpart Island [=Cheju Do], Korea).
_Specimens examined_ (3).--1 mi.
SW Inje, 1 (KU); 4 mi.
NNE Sogwi-ri, Cheju Do, 2 (KU).
_Description_ (KU 38774 from 1 mi.
SW Inje).--Total length, 86 (head 13, body 40, tail 33); costal grooves (including axillary and inguinal), 13; two costal grooves between adpressed toes; length of inner branch of series of vomerine teeth less than distance between outer border of naris and peak of opposite series (tooth-rows V-shaped, approximately as long as broad); dorsal surface yellowish brown or buff (yellowish in life), having numerous blackish marks; venter yellowish cream, having an indistinct grayish mottling.
_Remarks._--The salamander described above was found in a foxhole with another desiccated individual (not saved) on a military compound on April 24.
The only other occurrence of _H.
leechii_ on the mainland to come to our attention was the report of several larvae that were seen in a small pool on a hillside near Chip´o-ri in the summer of 1953.
Each of the two specimens from Cheju Do (KU 38775-76) differs from KU 38774 in having (1) the length of inner branch of the vomerine series slightly greater than the distance between outer border of naris and peak of opposite series (tooth-rows V-shaped, longer than broad), (2) a dorsal and ventral keel on the tail, (3) one costal groove (rather than two costal grooves) between adpressed toes, and (4) in being darker both dorsally and ventrally.
The area of buff on the dorsal surface of each specimen is reduced by a fine, blackish mottling and stippling, and the venter of each is grayish.
Respective total lengths of KU 38775 and 38776 are 84 (head 12, body 36, tail 36) and 89 (12, 35, 42), and the number of costal grooves 13 and 14.
Although the two specimens are of approximately the same size, the tail of KU 38776 is noticeably the longer; the tail of KU 38775 is thicker and deeper than that of KU 38776.
The two specimens from 4 mi.
NNE Sogwi-ri were taken on September 9 in damp substrate under volcanic rocks along a little-used road; although many rocks were overturned, only these two individuals were found.
A South Korean soldier informed us that salamanders were fairly common on Cheju Do.
Mori (1928_a_:16) first mentioned in Japanese text the alleged distinctiveness of the salamander occurring on Cheju Do.
Later, Mori (1928_b_:47 in Japanese, and 1928_c_:53 in English) provided valid descriptions of the subspecies, _Hynobius leechii quelpaertensis_.
Okada (1934:17) questioned the validity of _H.
l. quelpaertensis_ and Sato (1943) regarded the salamanders of Cheju Do as inseparable from the Korean _H.
leechii_.
The English description of _quelpaertensis_ is briefer than the preceding one in Japanese and lacks comparisons with related forms.
KU 38775-76 seemingly differ appreciably from the description of _quelpaertensis_ only in having the series of vomerine teeth narrowly V-shaped and longer than broad.
We tentatively follow Sato in regarding _quelpaertensis_ as a synonym of _leechii_.
=Bombina orientalis= (Boulenger) _Bombinator orientalis_ Boulenger, Ann.
Mag.
Nat.
Hist., ser.
6, 5:143, pl.
IX, fig.
2, February, 1890 (type locality restricted to Chefoo, China, by Pope, Bull.
Amer.
Mus.
Nat.
Hist., 61:435, August 29, 1931).
_Bombina orientalis_, Stejneger, Bull.
U. S. Nat.
Mus., 58:51, figs.
30-43, pl.
VII (reproduction from Boulenger, _supra_), July 22, 1907.
_Specimens examined_ (87).--2 mi.
N Chip´o-ri, 8 (KU), 5 (UMMZ); 1 mi.
SW Inje, 1 (KU); 15 mi.
NE Mosulp´o, Cheju Do, 6 (KU); Sangdaehwa, 2 (KU); Taehoesan-ni, 1 (KU); 1 mi.
W Tangjonggok, 32 (KU), 17 (UMMZ); Tangnim-ni, 2 (KU); 3 mi.
SW Yanggu, 1 (KU); 2 mi.
N Yongdae-ri, 8 (KU), 4 (UMMZ).
_Remarks._--Most of our specimens were taken from breeding congresses after heavy rains in rice fields and other shallow temporary waters.
Thirteen individuals from Chip´o-ri were collected from foxholes around the edge of a military compound (two pairs in amplexus; no egg masses seen), and represent a small sample of frogs that were everywhere following a heavy rain on the night of May 13-14.
On April 23, 32 _Bombina orientalis_ and three _Rana temporaria dybowskii_ were trapped in the water-filled bottom of an unused grease pit near Tangjonggok.
Many tadpoles and two kinds of egg masses (small clusters and beadlike strings) were present; the small clusters of _Bombina_ were commonest.
On June 13 at the same locality, thousands of these toads were observed (hundreds in axillary amplexus) in foxholes, temporary rain pools, and backwashes along the Puk-ch´on [river].
On June 12 near Yongdae-ri many individuals were seen (several pairs in amplexus), along Route 24 paralleling the Puk-ch´on, in rain pools and in ditches and backwashes from the river; almost all available water contained small (approximately 10 × 10 mm.)
egg masses.
Numbers of eggs per mass, selected at random, were 5, 2, 2, 5, 2, 8, 8, 2 and 5.
Some that were saved subsequently hatched on June 15-17.
The call is a quiet low trill or series of staccato whistles rising slightly at the beginning; a short peeplike note also was heard.
The specimens from Cheju Do, which are generally smaller than those collected on the mainland in spring, were taken on September 6 in a small stream that had large volcanic rocks in many places and that was flanked by thick brush and small trees.
The earliest and latest dates on which _B.
orientalis_ was collected were April 21 and September 6, respectively.
In the breeding season, males are distinguished from females by the large blackish (probably brownish earlier in season) areas on the anteroventral surface of the antebrachium, the metacarpal tubercle, and the inner surface of the first finger (sometimes also the second and third).
Also, males have conspicuous black-tipped tubercles on the back (usually absent in females) that extend onto the limbs (usually smooth in females, at least laterally).
Field observations by one of us (Byers) suggested that the dorsal pattern of males had greater contrast than that of females and that the venter was brighter reddish.
Eight females from Tangjonggok averaged 47.9 (43-51) in snout-vent length, whereas 24 males from there averaged 50.0 (46-55), indicating little, if any, size difference between the sexes.
Okada (1931:29) recorded variation in color of live Korean individuals (green or brown dorsally and pale yellow or red ventrally) and variation in extent of black markings on the belly (_op.
cit._:fig.
12).
The specimens from Cheju Do (28, 32, 32, 32, 37 and 46 in snout-vent length) have less black ventrally than specimens from the mainland.
=Bufo bufo gargarizans= Cantor _Bufo gargarizans_ Cantor, Ann.
Mag.
Nat.
Hist., ser.
1, 9:483, August, 1842 (type locality, island of Chusan, China).
_Bufo bufo gargarizans_, Stejneger, Bull.
U. S. Nat.
Mus., 58:59, July 22, 1907.
_Specimens examined_ (10).--Central National Forest, near Pup´yong-ni, 1 (KU); 5 mi.
NW Choksong, near Imjin River, 1 (KU); 5 mi.
E Seoul, 1 (KU); 6 mi.
E Seoul, 4 (KU), 2 (UMMZ); 1 mi.
S Yami-ri, 1 (KU).
_Description (nine females)._--Dorsal surface brownish, having indistinct pale areas, some of which tend to form longitudinal stripes that extend posteriorly from parotoid glands; blackish mark, usually on lateral part of parotoid, having short spurs directed posteriorly and ventrally; edge of upper jaw and warts on dorsal surface becoming blackish with increasing size; small, conspicuous group of warts near angle of jaw below parotoid; middorsal warts tending, at level of posterior edge of parotoids, to form a V that has its apex between the parotoids; ventral surface pale yellowish, sometimes having well-defined blackish marks; granular underparts of large specimens having small blackish tubercles.
_Male (KU 40118 from 5 mi.
E Seoul)._--Snout-vent length, 65; no vocal sacs or slits; dorsal and inner surfaces of first and second fingers, and inner surface of third finger black; canthus rostralis indistinct (a well-defined ridge on right side); nostrils closer to tip of snout than to eye, their distance from each other slightly less than interorbital width; interorbital width (6.2) greater than width of eyelid (4.7); tympanum distinct, circular, its diameter (3.0) less than length of eye (6.5), and approximately twice distance (1.6) of tympanum from eye; no cranial crests; parotoid gland elongate, approximately twice as long as broad (12.5 × 5.0), narrowly separated from posterior edge of eyelid; head elongate (width at posterior edge of tympanum, 23.6); length from posterior edge of tympanum to tip of upper jaw, 18.9; first finger slightly longer than second, fourth finger about two-thirds as long as third; most subarticular tubercles divided; outer palmar tubercle larger than inner; heels not touching when folded legs placed at right angles to longitudinal axis of body; tibiotarsal articulation just reaching eye when leg laid forward; tarsometatarsal articulation not reaching beyond snout; foot large (tibiotarsal articulation to tip of fourth toe approximately 46.0); fourth toe approximately half webbed, other toes more than half webbed; edges of webs somewhat crenulate; some subarticular tubercles divided; length of inner metatarsal tubercle (4.5) more than half length of first toe (7.0); inner metatarsal tubercle larger than outer, both darkened; tarsal fold extending from inner metatarsal tubercle for approximately two-thirds length of tarsus; tips of toes (not fingers) darkened; dorsal surface of back and proximal part of hind legs coarsely granular, of rounded, pavement-type tubercles lacking sharp tips; small group of warts near angle of jaw below parotoids; dorsal pattern contrasting and irregular (especially on limbs), of dark brown and pale gray; conspicuous black mark (interrupted) on lateral surface of parotoid having two, well-defined spurs that project posteroventrally; undersurface granular, lacking markings except for two indistinctly-margined dark spots on chest, and black spot on left leg.
_Remarks._--This nocturnal, introduced species (Okada, 1931:47) is presumably widespread in Korea and seemingly prefers lowland habitats.
Individuals were taken in sparse vegetation on a sand flat near the Han River, at the edge of a rice field in a light rain, along a road at night, and in millet fields adjacent to the Han River, which was flooding at that time (July 9).
As is obvious from the foregoing descriptions, the male (KU 40118), which was obtained on March 19, differs considerably from the nine females; neither does it agree with Stejneger's (1907:66) or Okada's (_op.
cit._:45-46, fig.
18) description of males of _Bufo bufo asiaticus [=gargarizans]_ from Wonsan and Seoul.
Upon cursory examination, KU 40118 is notable for having a contrasting dorsal pattern and elongate, ranidlike proportions.
Some of the characteristics resemble those of _Bufo raddei_ Strauch as given by Stejneger (_op.
cit._:70-72, figs.
53-57), Okada (1935:9, figs.
2 and 32-34, pls.
II-III), and Liu (1950:203-205, fig.
43).
Stejneger (_op.
cit._:59-68) recognized _B.
b. gargarizans_ as occurring in southern China, and _Bufo bufo asiaticus_ as the subspecies occurring in northern China.
Subsequently, _asiaticus_ was relegated to synonymy under the earlier-named _gargarizans_--see discussions by Pope and Boring (1940:33) and Liu (_op.
cit._:220).
=Kaloula borealis= (Barbour) _Cacopoides borealis_ Barbour, Bull.
Mus.
Comp.
Zool., 51(12):231, April, 1908 (type locality, Antung, Manchuria).
_Kaloula borealis_, Noble, Amer.
Mus.
Novit., 165:6, April 16, 1925.
_Specimens examined_ (8).--5 mi.
ESE Seoul, 1 (KU); 6 mi.
E Seoul, 3 (UMMZ); 7 mi.
ESE Seoul, 4 (KU).
_Remarks._--On April 5, one male and three females were uncovered by a bulldozer from between one and two feet below the surface of the ground in an old Korean burial mound; one individual was completely surrounded by compact soil.
All quickly became active when placed in water.
Two of the females (43 and 44 in snout-vent length) contained masses of immature eggs.
A male obtained on June 4 was found during a rain; the three UMMZ specimens were obtained on July 8 on banks above the Han River.
Breeding of this species seems to coincide with the rainy season in late spring and early summer when males were noted calling around flooded ditches and swales in deep grass.
The local Korean name of the species, which sounds something like "maeng-kongi," is said to come from the call, which is best described as a monotonous, snoring sound that rarely is heard in two parts as suggested by the name.
=Hyla arborea japonica= Günther [_Hyla arborea_] Var.
_japonica_ Günther, Catalogue of the Batrachia Salientia in the ... British Museum, p. 109, 1858 (type locality, Japan).
_Hyla arborea_ var.
_savignyi_ Boulenger, Ann.
Mag.
Nat.
Hist., ser.
5, 19:67, January, 1887 (type locality, Gensan [= Wonsan], Korea).
_Hyla stepheni_ Boulenger, Proc.
Zool.
Soc.
London, p. 579, pl.
51, fig.
1 (for 1887), April, 1888 (type locality, Port Hamilton, a small island between Korea and Japan).
_Specimens examined_ (44).--Central National Forest, near Pup´yong-ni, 2 (KU); 3 mi.
NW Chip´o-ri, 1 (KU); 1 mi.
N Mosulp´o, Cheju Do, 1 (KU); 1 mi.
NW Oho-ri, 13 (KU), 3 (UMMZ); Sangbonch´on-ni, 2 (UMMZ); 5 mi.
ESE Seoul, 8 (KU); 6 mi.
E Seoul, 10 (KU), 3 (UMMZ); 7 mi.
NNE Sogwi-ri, Cheju Do, 1 (UMMZ).
_Remarks._--Hylids from 5 mi.
ESE Seoul were collected from a cement-walled pit at the Seoul City Water Works; a specimen of _Elaphe rufodorsata_ taken in the pit had eaten one hylid.
Two individuals were taken in the morning of May 29 on leaf litter in a wooded valley in the Central National Forest where a number were calling in a light rain, but the species was rarely found in woods.
Two frogs were found along a rocky stream at Sangbonch´on-ni.
Most individuals were taken while calling, on grasses and reeds or on the ground, along the edges of rice fields.
Sixteen hylids collected 1 mi.
NW Oho-ri were calling in shallow water of a rice field on a hillside, but none was heard in a large lake nearby or in adjacent fields.
On May 15, 4 mi.
ESE Ch´orwon, approximately one hundred tadpoles, thought to be of this species, congregated near a drain (into a lower field) of an unused rice field; the tadpoles were well-developed, some having hind legs.
The earliest and latest dates of collection represented in our material are May 8 and October 29.
The call is best described as a raspy "waak," "week," or "wiick" in the middle register.
The listing of "Hylae arboreae var japonicae descript pars _Schleg.
in Fauna Japon._ p. 112 ..." by Günther (1858:81) in synonymy under the account of _Polypedates schlegelii_, implies that Schlegel was the first author to use the name-combination _Hyla arborea japonica_.
Boulenger (1882:86, 381) went so far as to credit Schlegel as the author of the name _japonica_.
The reason for this action is not known because Schlegel (in von Siebold, 1838:112) referred to this hylid only under the name "Hyla arborea."
=Rana rugosa= Schlegel _Rana rugosa_ Schlegel, Reptilia [Saurii et Batrachii], _in_ von Siebold, Fauna Japonica, p. 110, pl.
3, figs.
3-4, 1838 (type locality designated as Japan, probably near Nagasaki, by Stejneger, Bull.
U. S. Nat.
Mus., 58:123, July 22, 1907).
_Specimens examined_ (26).--Central National Forest, near Pup´yong-ni, 13 (KU), 1 (UMMZ); 2 mi.
S Ch´orwon, 4 (KU); 2 mi.
E Hoengsong, 3 (KU); 1 mi.
NW Oho-ri, 1 (KU); 5 mi.
ESE Seoul, 1 (KU); 6 mi.
E Seoul, 3 (UMMZ).
_Remarks._--_Rana rugosa_ was associated with _Rana nigromaculata_ and _Rana amurensis coreana_ at all localities where the species was taken save at 2 mi.
E Hoengsong, where _R.
a. coreana_ was not observed.
Three specimens of _R.
rugosa_ were collected among grasses and reeds in water along the edge of Ch´orwon Reservoir, 2 mi.
S Ch´orwon, where they were difficult to find in the thick vegetation even though their low, soft calls were heard; the specimen from 1 mi.
NW Oho-ri was found in a rice field.
Otherwise, habitats recorded indicate a preference for small, fast-flowing streams, especially in wooded valleys.
On one occasion, individuals were found trapped in cement-walled pits about old ruins on a wooded hillside in the Central National Forest.
The earliest and latest dates of capture among our specimens are May 15 and November 6.
In addition to the localities listed above, the species was observed 4 mi.
W Ch´ungju.
_R.
rugosa_ may have an extensive breeding season as suggested by the variation in size of frogs collected or observed in 1954.
Of nine frogs obtained on May 29, five ranged in snout-vent length from 26 to 28, and four from 42 to 54.
Three specimens collected on October 9 measured 39, 41, and 55, and two obtained on November 6 measured 25 and 37.
=Rana nigromaculata= Hallowell _Rana nigromaculata_ Hallowell, Proc.
Acad.
Nat.
Sci.
Philadelphia, [12]:500 (for 1860), 1861 (type locality, Simoda, Japan).
_Specimens examined_ (47).--Central National Forest, near Pup´yong-ni, 6 (KU); 2 mi.
S Ch´orwon, 5 (KU); 4 mi.
W Ch´ungju, 2 (KU); 7 mi.
W Ch´ungju, 1 (KU); 2 mi.
E Hoengsong, 1 (KU); 8 mi.
SW Kunsan, 1 (KU); 1 mi.
NW Oho-ri, 5 (KU); 5 mi.
ENE Pusan, 2 (KU); 5 mi.
ESE Seoul, 9 (KU); 6 mi.
E Seoul, 3 (KU), 10 (UMMZ); 6 mi.
NNE Sogwi-ri, Cheju Do, 2 (KU).
_Description._--Back brownish or grayish (greenish in life), having few, indistinct or well-defined, dark blotches, or extensive blackish areas (representing fusion of markings); pale, middorsal stripe (pale green, buff or yellowish in life) from snout to anus, sometimes as wide as interorbital width, but indistinct or lacking when pattern on back absent; blackish bar often present behind tympanum; posterior surface of thigh mottled; underparts pale yellow to whitish, sometimes having a few dusky marks on throat; longitudinal ridges between dorsolateral folds indistinct in some small frogs; largest female and male having respective snout-vent lengths of 100 and 70.
_Remarks._--_Rana nigromaculata_ is the most abundant ranid in central Korea and, in a general way, the ecological equivalent of _Rana pipiens_ in temperate North America.
The species is associated with most aquatic habitats, from rocky streams to rice fields and large impoundments.
In the vicinity of Seoul the din of large breeding congresses was heard more or less continuously from mid-April to mid-May.
Large numbers of juveniles (approximately one inch long) were noticed first on July 8 and were present thereafter for about three weeks, being commonest in standing water after heavy rains or during prolonged showers.
These data and the different sizes of individuals collected at the same time suggest either variable growth or, more probably, an extensive breeding season.
Our earliest and latest dates of collection are April 16 and October 7.
The Korean name for "frog," most often applied to _R.
nigromaculata_, sounds something like "keg-oh-ree."
The call is a prolonged, raspy, staccato croak, sometimes with a rising inflection at the end.
In addition to the localities listed above, the species was observed 5 mi.
W Kwangju and 3 mi.
S Osan.
Despite a high degree of individual variation, _Rana nigromaculata_ seemingly varies geographically as well; some subspecies probably should be recognized, but the species as a whole has never been thoroughly studied systematically.
The division of _R.
nigromaculata_ into three subspecies by Schmidt (1927:563-567) was considered untenable by Fang and Chang (1931:95-98), and it has been regarded by most recent authors as a variable, monotypic species.
The named subspecies _R.
n. chosenica_ (Okada, 1931:89, with type locality at Seoul, and geographically restricted to Korea) was considered a subspecies of _Rana plancyi_ by Shannon (1956:36).
The most trenchant characters of _plancyi_ seem to be the wide dorsolateral folds, the uniform greenish dorsum, the presence of dermal pustules on the back between the dorsolateral folds, and the lack of a mottled pattern on the posterior surface of the thigh.
Among our specimens of _R.
nigromaculata_, the width of the dorsolateral folds is variable, a uniform greenish dorsum is found only in large males, dermal pustules are mixed with ridges in only one male (KU 38733), and all have a spotted or mottled pattern on the posterior surface of the thigh.
All of our specimens having an indistinct pattern on the back, or lacking a pattern, are males and resemble the photographs of males published by Moriya (1954: pl.
I, fig.
5) and Liu (1936: pl.
IV, figs.
1-2); juveniles of both sexes and large females have contrasting patterns.
None of our frogs seems, therefore, clearly referable to the species _plancyi_, although some characters are suggestive of _plancyi_.
Moriya (_op.
cit.
:19_), who studied variation of _R.
nigromaculata_ in Japan, noted that one of the most distinct populations there (_R.
n. brevipoda_) resembled _Rana plancyi_.
Ting (1939) discovered that _nigromaculata_ and _plancyi_ were cross-fertile and raised hybrid larvae through metamorphosis.
Pope and Boring (1940) suggested hybridization between the two species in eastern China, and the above mentioned facts suggest to us the possibility of hybridization in other regions.
=Rana amurensis coreana= Okada _Rana temporaria coreana_ Okada, Annot.
Zool.
Japon., 11:140 (footnote), July 25, 1927, _nomen nudum_.
_Rana temporaria coreana_ Okada, Jour.
Chosen Nat.
Hist.
Soc, 6:19, pl.
1, fig.
7, 1928 (type locality, Keijo [= Seoul], Korea).
_Rana amurensis coreana_, Shannon, Herpetologica, 12:38, March 6, 1956.
_Specimens examined_ (9).--Central National Forest, near Pup´yong-ni, 1 (KU); 2 mi.
S Ch´orwon, 1 (KU); 4 mi.
W Ch´ungju, 1 (KU); 1 mi.
N Oho-ri, 1 (KU); 5 mi.
ESE Seoul, 3 (KU); Yongp´yong, 2 (KU).
_Remarks._--One individual of _R.
a. coreana_ (KU 38698) and one of _Rana temporaria dybowskii_ (KU 38715) were collected on May 29 along a stream in the Central National Forest in association with _R.
rugosa_ and _R.
nigromaculata_.
Specimens of _coreana_ from the vicinity of Seoul were found in rice fields.
The earliest date of collection was April 13 at Yongp´yong.
Our largest specimen of _coreana_ measured 47 in snout-vent length.
Because _R.
a. coreana_ and _Rana temporaria dybowskii_ are sympatric in central Korea and closely resemble one another, the two species were not distinguished in the field and the following observations may pertain to either (or both) species.
Wood frogs were observed 2 mi.
E Songdong-ni on July 12 in paddies (rice fields) along with individuals of _Hyla arborea_, _Rana rugosa_, and _Rana nigromaculata_.
At Chip´o-ri on April 6, individuals (probably _R.
t. dybowskii_) were seen in a seepage pool from an abandoned rice field; _R.
nigromaculata_ also was seen there.
Six or seven egg masses (some having small tadpoles) were observed in the shallow water, but it was not certain to which species the eggs belonged.
Completely metamorphosed young (probably _R.
a. coreana_) were first seen 1 mi.
N Oho-ri on June 9.
At Taehoesan-ni on November 12, several sluggish frogs were seen in a small pool that was covered by a thin layer of ice.
On September 26 in the Central National Forest, many wood frogs of various sizes were observed.
_R.
amurensis_ and _R.
temporaria_ probably have extended breeding seasons that correspond to those of _R.
rugosa_ and _R.
nigromaculata_.
Judging from our observations, _amurensis_ prefers the proximity of water, whereas _temporaria_ may occur some distance from permanent water.
In our specimens, _R.
amurensis coreana_ differs from _R.
temporaria dybowskii_ in having (1) smaller maximal size, (2) more slender body, (3) shorter legs, (4) incompletely webbed toes, (5) no mottling or barring on lips, (6) no contrasting barred pattern on hind legs, (7) dark brown stripes (usually) between dorsolateral folds, (8) a dark brown, linear mark below canthus, and (9) an immaculate ventral surface.
Two additional distinguishing characters, which we found difficult to evaluate, are the nearly straight, dorsolateral folds, and lack of vocal sacs or ostia in males of _R.
a. coreana_ (Shannon, 1956:38).
Some of the differences between the two species were illustrated by Okada, 1931:107, fig.
48, _R.
temporaria temporaria_ [=_R.
t. dybowskii_] and 123, fig.
54, _R.
temporaria coreana_ [=_R.
amurensis coreana_].
=Rana temporaria dybowskii= Günther _Rana Dybowskii_ Günther, Ann.
Mag.
Nat.
Hist., ser.
4, 17:387, May, 1876 (type locality, Abrek Bay, near Vladivostok, Siberia).
_Rana temporaria dybowski_, Shannon, Herpetologica, 12:38, March 6, 1956.
_Specimens examined_ (20).--Central National Forest, near Pup´yong-ni, 7 (KU); Chip´o-ri, 2 (KU); 1 mi.
SW Inje, 6 (KU); 8 mi.
SW Kangnung, 1 (KU); Taegwang-ni, 1 (KU); 1 mi.
SW Tangjonggok, 3 (KU).
_Remarks._--On October 9 in the Central National Forest, five individuals were found in a concrete-walled pit in old ruins on a wooded hillside; no specimens of _Rana amurensis coreana_ were taken there.
_R.
t. dybowskii_ was most often taken on high, moist slopes, and seemed to be especially common in forests.
The specimen from 8 mi.
SW Kangnung was obtained in a wooded area along a mountain stream.
The earliest date of collection of a specimen of _dybowskii_ was March 7 at Taegwang-ni.
See also the remarks under the preceding account of _Rana amurensis coreana_.
The largest male among our specimens measured 65 in snout-vent length and the largest female, 79.
Five gravid females had snout-vent lengths of 64, 68, 69, 69 and 70.
=Trionyx sinensis= Wiegmann _Trionyx (Aspidonectes) sinensis_ Wiegmann, Nova Acta Acad.
Leopold.-Carol., 17:189, 1835 (type locality, near Macao, China).
_Specimen examined._--Han River, 5 mi.
ESE Seoul, 1 (KU).
_Remarks._--Our only specimen was purchased from a man who had captured it by hand in the Han River; it was the only turtle seen during our stay in Korea.
Koreans eat turtles, and the elaborate (and relatively permanent) fish-traps that they construct across streams and small rivers probably reduce the size of populations of _T.
sinensis_ and other species.
=Eremias argus= Peters _Eremias argus_ Peters, Monatsber.
preuss.
Akad.
Wiss., Berlin, p. 61, fig.
3 (for 1869), 1870 (type locality, Chefoo, China).
_Specimens examined_ (23).--Chip´o-ri, 1 (KU); 5 mi.
E Seoul, 3 (KU), 3 (UMMZ); 5 mi.
ESE Seoul, 4 (KU); 6 mi.
E Seoul, 10 (UMMZ); 7 mi.
ESE Seoul, 2 (KU).
_Remarks._--Individuals of _E.
argus_ were most often seen on dry hillsides having a relatively sparse cover of vegetation.
The first lizard of this species was taken on April 2.
In 1954 the last part of March and early part of April were generally warm, with temperatures above 70° F. on several occasions; probably some _E.
argus_ were active in late March.
KU 38773 (snout-vent length, 51) laid three eggs between June 4 and 14; KU 38768 (snout-vent length, 58) obtained on May 8 was gravid, containing four eggs.
Testes of lizards in the breeding season measure approximately 4.0 x 2.5 (KU 38772, obtained on June 16).
The snout-vent length of our largest female is 61, that of the largest male, 57.
The snout-vent length of 11 specimens averaged 77 (67-96) per cent of length of tail.
=Tachydromus amurensis= Peters _Tachydromus amurensis_ Peters, Sitzungsber.
Gesell.
naturf.
Freunde Berlin, p. 71, 1881 (type locality, Kossakewitcha, Amurland).
_Specimens examined_ (3).--Central National Forest, near Pup´yong-ni, 1 (KU), 1 (UMMZ); Majon-ni, 1 (KU).
_Remarks._--One of our specimens was found among grasses along a small stream in the Central National Forest.
The other two were obtained by other persons and we lack knowledge of conditions of their capture.
A juvenile (KU 39416, snout-vent length, 25) that was obtained on September 9 is tentatively referred to this species.
There seem to be three femoral pores on the left leg but the number is indistinct on the right.
The specimen is dark and lacks a pattern.
Its condition precludes counts of ventral scales (not keeled), but scalation is otherwise the same as a male (KU 40120, snout-vent length approximately 47, length of tail, 124).
The third specimen, a male (UMMZ 113442, snout-vent length, 51, length of tail, 115), agrees with KU 40120, except in having 32 instead of 29 dorsal scales at midbody, 4-4 instead of 3-3 femoral pores, and in lacking a pale stripe from eye through ear to shoulder.
=Tachydromus wolteri= Fischer _Tachydromus Wolteri_ Fischer, Jahrb.
Wiss.
Anst.
Hamburg, 2:82 (for 1884), 1885 (type locality, Chemulp´o, Korea).
_Specimens examined_ (2).--Yongp´yong, 2 (KU).
_Remarks._--On April 14, two females (57 and 45 in snout-vent length, the tail of the latter measuring 103) were easily captured by hand on a burned-over rice field.
=Lygosoma reevesii= (Gray) _Tiliqua Reevesii_ Gray, Ann.
[Mag.]
Nat.
Hist., ser.
1, 2:292, December, 1838 (type locality, China).
[_Lygosoma (Liolepisma) laterale_] var.
_reevesi_, Boettger, Katalog der Batrachier-Sammlung ..., p. 104, 1893.
_Specimens examined_ (6).--Central National Forest, near Pup´yong-ni, 3 (KU); 4 mi.
NNE Sogwi-ri, Cheju Do, 1 (KU); 7 mi.
NNE Sogwi-ri, Cheju Do, 1 (UMMZ); 16 mi.
NE Mosulp´o, Cheju Do, 1 (UMMZ).
_Remarks._--On October 23 an individual was captured while sunning on a stump on a wooded hillside in the Central National Forest; two others at this locality were collected on damp ground-cover on the same hillside.
A juvenile from Cheju Do was found among moss-covered rocks in a stream bed; the other specimens from Cheju Do were found among moss-covered rocks on the western slope of Halla San.
Each ovary of a female obtained on October 23 contained five enlarged follicles, about 1 mm.
in diameter.
The left testis of a male obtained on August 10 seemed enlarged, indicating possible sexual activity, and measured approximately 6 x 2 mm.
The snout-vent length of our largest male is 41, that of our largest female, 48.
The prefrontals are in contact in all of our specimens save one (UMMZ 113446).
There is disagreement among herpetologists concerning the generic name of the small lygosome skink in the United States and its ecological equivalent in China and Korea.
We tentatively use _Lygosoma_ (Conant, 1951:207-208), although Mittleman (1950) pointed out reasons for using _Scincella_.
Shannon (1956:41) discussed the debated issue whether or not the lygosome skinks of the New and Old worlds are conspecific.
=Rhabdophis tigrina lateralis= (Berthold) _Tropidonotus lateralis_ Berthold, Nachrichten Gesell.
Wiss.
Göttingen, p. 180, 1859 (type locality, China).
_Specimens examined_ (26).--Central National Forest, near Pup´yong-ni, 1 (KU); 2 mi.
N Chip´o-ri, 2 (KU); 3 mi.
NW Chip´o-ri, 4 (KU); 4 mi.
N Ch´onan, 1 (KU); 3 mi.
S Kumhwa, 1 (KU); 1 mi.
SW Naegong-ni, 1 (KU); 4 mi.
E Seoul, 1 (KU); 5 mi.
E Seoul, 2 (UMMZ); 5 mi.
ESE Seoul, 4 (KU); 6 mi.
E Seoul, 1 (KU), 4 (UMMZ); 7 mi.
ESE Seoul, 1 (KU); 6 mi.
NNE Sogwi-ri, Cheju Do, 2 (KU); 5 mi.
NE Taejon, 1 (KU).
_Remarks._--This common, vagrant species was found on brushy hillsides, near buildings on hills above rice fields, in tall grasses near streams, in rice fields, and along drainage and irrigation ditches.
The earliest and latest dates of collection were April 5 and November 7.
On the first date mentioned an individual was found in hibernation with five _Elaphe rufodorsata_ and one _Agkistrodon halys_ in an earthen Korean burial mound.
The specimen was uncovered by a bulldozer at a depth of about one foot below the surface.
We were told that 18 snakes of this species were found in the same place (7 mi.
ESE Seoul) the previous winter.
The stomach of each of four individuals contained one _Rana nigromaculata_.
The stomach of another individual contained a _R.
nigromaculata_ and remains of a carabid beetle, whereas another contained three small, partially-digested frogs that appeared to be _Hyla arborea_.
P. M. Youngman reported to us that he found a snake of this species that was attempting to swallow a toad, _Bufo bufo gargarizans_.
One of the small individuals from Cheju Do was being eaten by a _Zamenis spinalis_ when found.
One specimen was parasitized by three nematodes, _Kalicephalus natricis_ (see Olsen, 1957:208).
Two females of this oviparous species (lengths of body, 680 and 700) collected on May 14 contained nine eggs (18 mm.
long), and 13 eggs (15 mm.)
respectively; a third (length of body, 610) obtained on June 26 contained 10 eggs that were approximately 18 mm.
long.
A female (UMMZ 113458, length of body, 710), which was captured on July 10 and kept alive in captivity, laid 11 eggs on August 12 between 9 and 10 in the morning.
The weight of nine of these eggs averaged 3.32 (3.0-3.6) grams; the last two eggs deposited were small and weighed only 1.3 and 1.4 grams.
The eggs were incubated unsuccessfully.
One that was opened on September 14 and another opened on September 26 contained young easily recognized as of this species.
In captivity the parent snake underwent ecdysis on about July 20 and again on August 26.
Our largest female and largest male have respective total lengths of 1013 (840 + 173) and 740 (575 + 165).
Our smallest specimens, captured on September 9, measured 215 and 230 mm.
in length of body, and probably represent young of the year.
The snake found in hibernation on April 5 measured 275 in length of body.
The ventrals of 11 males averaged 161.3 (158-171) and those of 14 females, 165.1 (160-170); subcaudals of eight males averaged 69.6 (66-74) and those of 14 females, 61.5 (52-73).
Males seem to have small scales in the anal region that are more strongly keeled than scales elsewhere on the body (the scales catch on finger tips when rubbed in a posteroanterior direction), but males lack small tubercles on the upper and lateral parts of the head as mentioned by Maslin (1950:433).
The comments of the same author (_op.
cit._:434) concerning integumental poison glands in the nuchal region of this species are of interest in view of several reports that we received of swollen extremities resulting from handling snakes of this species.
In using the generic names _Rhabdophis_ and _Amphiesma_ for species formerly placed in the genus _Natrix_, we follow Malnate (1960), who divided _Natrix (auct.
)_ into five distinct genera.
=Amphiesma vibakari ruthveni= (Van Denburgh) _Natrix vibakari ruthveni_ Van Denburgh, Proc.
California Acad.
Sci., ser.
4, 13(2):3, July 26, 1923 (type locality, Pusan, Korea).
_Specimens examined_ (5).--Central National Forest, near Pup´yong-ni, 1 (KU); 4 mi.
SW Ch´ongyang-ni, 1 (KU); 10 mi.
NE Mosulp´o, Cheju Do, 1 (UMMZ); 6-7 mi.
NNE Sogwi-ri, Cheju Do, 1 (KU), 1 (UMMZ).
_Remarks._--The specimen from the Central National Forest was captured on August 18 near a stream on a damp ground-cover of leaves.
The specimens from Cheju Do were taken in early September, one in a grassy area, and the other two on earthen banks of road-cuts on the slopes of Halla San.
The stomach of one individual from Cheju Do contained an earthworm.
Our largest specimen, a male having 154 ventrals and 68 subcaudals, measured 508 (380 + 128).
The subcaudal counts of 68 (KU 38861) and 69 (UMMZ 113461) on two males from Cheju Do are higher than the maximal count known for the subspecies _ruthveni_ in Korea, and resemble those of _Amphiesma vibakari vibakari_ of the Japanese islands.
The subcaudals average 61 (55-65) in _ruthveni_ and 71 (63-83) in _vibakari_ according to Van Denburgh (1923:3-4).
A juvenile from the Central National Forest (KU 38862), lacking the tip of the tail, has 64 subcaudals.
=Dinodon rufozonatum= (Cantor) _Lycodon rufo-zonatus_ Cantor, Ann.
Mag.
Nat.
Hist., ser.
1, 9:483, August, 1842 (type locality, island of Chusan, China).
_Dinodon rufozonatus_, Peters, Sitzungsber.
Gesell.
naturf.
Freunde Berlin, p. 89, 1881.
_Specimens examined_ (4).--Central National Forest, near Pup´yong-ni, 3 (KU); Yongsan (Seoul), 1 (UMMZ).
_Remarks._--The three specimens from the Central National Forest were taken in the period August 12-26.
Two were caught in live-traps set for small mammals in deep forest among granite outcrops.
The specimen from Yongsan was obtained on October 27 in a partly wooded area.
Ventrals and subcaudals of our four specimens (all males) numbered, respectively, 198, 200, 198, 205, and 74, 75, 75, __.
Total length of the largest specimen was 960 (790 + 170).
We follow Chang (1932:54) and most subsequent authors in regarding _D.
rufozonatum_ as a monotypic species.
=Zamenis spinalis= (Peters) _Masticophis spinalis_ Peters, Monatsber.
preuss.
Akad.
Wiss., Berlin, p. 91 (for 1866), 1867 (type locality, unknown--"Mexico" erroneously listed).
_Zamenis spinalis_, Günther, Ann.
Mag.
Nat.
Hist., ser.
4, 9:22, January, 1872.
_Specimens examined_ (2).--5 mi.
ESE Seoul, 1 (KU); 6 mi.
NNE Sogwi-ri, Cheju Do, 1 (KU).
_Remarks._--The specimen from Cheju Do was captured on September 9 in tall grass near a small stream and was eating a small _Rhabdophis tigrina_.
The female from near Seoul was obtained from a Korean on June 10, and was gravid (six eggs, each approximately 35 mm.
in length).
The length of body measured approximately 550 and the length of incomplete tail 168 in one specimen (KU 38777, female from 5 mi.
ESE Seoul), 540 and 183 in the other (KU 38778, female from Cheju Do).
Respective ventral and subcaudal counts of the two females are 204, 194, and 74+, 86.
There is some disagreement in the literature as to the proper generic name of this snake.
Differences in dentition between Old World species (referable to _Zamenis_) and the American species (referable to _Coluber_) are discussed by Bogert and Oliver (1945:365).
The species _spinalis_ has been referred to _Coluber_ by several authors (see Pope, 1935:226).
=Elaphe dione= (Pallas) _Coluber dione_ Pallas, Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs, 2:717, 1773 (type locality, "Salt steppes toward the Caspian Sea" according to Stejneger, Bull.
U. S. Nat.
Mus., 58:315, July 22, 1907).
_Elaphis dione_, Duméril and Bibron, Erpétologie générale ..., 7:248, 1854.
_Specimens examined_ (10).--Choksong, 1 (KU); 4 mi.
N Ch´onan, 1 (KU); Seoul, 1 (KU); 5 mi.
E Seoul, 1 (KU), 2 (UMMZ); 5 mi.
ESE Seoul, 1 (KU); 6 mi.
E Seoul, 1 (UMMZ); Taegwang-ni, 1 (KU); 2 mi.
WSW Tongjonggok, 1 (KU).
_Remarks._--This species seemingly occurs in upland habitats.
Specimens were taken on rocky hillsides, on sparsely wooded hillsides, and in cultivated fields.
November 21 was the latest date of capture of an active individual (UMMZ 113451), the head of which was seen many times prior to capture protruding from a hole beneath the concrete floor of a building.
A female (KU 38855), measuring 915 (775 + 140) in total length, and obtained on June 13, contained nine eggs (32 mm.
long).
One juvenile had eaten a half-grown house mouse, _Mus musculus_; the stomach of a male contained three mice, one a striped field mouse, _Apodemus agrarius_, the other two probably also of that species but too far digested for certain identification.
Eggs probably hatch in late summer.
A young of the year (length of body, 340) was captured on September 30; another juvenile (length of body, 285) was obtained in May.
Our largest male (KU 40123) measured 904 (719 + 185) in total length.
Ventrals and subcaudals of six females averaged 205.8 (198-211) and 62.2 (55-69), respectively, whereas corresponding counts of four males averaged 196.8 (190-214), and 71.0 (69-74).
Each of nine specimens had dorsal scales in 23-25-19 rows except one (UMMZ 113451), which had 23-25-23 rows.
=Elaphe rufodorsata= (Cantor) _Tropidonotus rufodorsatus_ Cantor, Ann.
Mag.
Nat.
Hist., ser.
1, 9:483, August, 1842 (type locality, island of Chusan, China).
_Elaphe rufodorsata_, Stejneger, Bull.
U. S. Nat.
Mus., 58:310, figs.
269-271, July 22, 1907.
_Specimens examined_ (27).--7 mi.
NW Changhowan-ni, 1 (KU); 3 mi.
NW Chip´o-ri, 3 (KU); 7 mi.
W Ch´ungju, 2 (KU), 1 (UMMZ); 3 mi.
S Kumhwa, 2 (KU); 1 mi.
NW Oho-ri, 1 (KU); 4 mi.
E Seoul, 1 (KU); 5 mi.
E Seoul, 2 (KU); 5 mi.
ESE Seoul, 2 (KU); 6 mi.
E Seoul, 3 (KU), 2 (UMMZ); 7 mi.
ESE Seoul, 5 (KU); 4 mi.
N Uijongbu, 1 (KU); 5 mi.
NE Uijongbu, 1 (UMMZ).
_Remarks._--_E.
rufodorsata_ was commonly observed and collected on barren hillsides, on country roads, in rice fields, and along drainage ditches and small streams.
One was found sunning outstretched on a road.
Two individuals were trapped in cement-walled pits at the Seoul City Water Works.
On April 5, five snakes of this species with one _Rhabdophis tigrina_ and one _Agkistrodon halys_, all partly caked with earth, were found sunning in a shallow depression on the side of a Korean burial mound, which was presumably a hibernaculum.
Aside from one juvenile, four of the _E.
rufodorsata_ were of approximately the same size, having bodies ranging in length from 385 to 455.
Copulation was observed on April 25 (male, KU 38811, length of body, 400, and female, KU 38812, length of body, 565), and on May 4 (female, KU 38816, length of body, 620).
Eggs doubtless hatch at various times in summer.
One of five snakes obtained on April 5 (see above) measured 310 (250 + 60) in total length.
Another juvenile (KU 38828), obtained on October 18, was 478 (385 + 93) long, and our smallest specimen of this species (KU 38821), captured on June 26, measured 275 (230 + 45).
The stomachs of two snakes each contained a _Rana nigromaculata_; another individual had eaten a _Hyla arborea_, and a fourth specimen had eaten a small fish.
One specimen was parasitized by a cestode.
The largest female from our series (KU 38816) measured 740 (620 + 120), and the largest male (KU 38813), 595 (475 + 120).
Respective ventral and subcaudal counts of 13 males averaged 170.5 (167-174) and 60.0 (56-63), ventrals of 12 females averaged 178.3 (169-182), and subcaudals of 11 averaged 51.0 (46-56).
=Elaphe schrencki anomala= (Boulenger) _Coluber anomalus_ Boulenger, Ann.
Mag.
Nat.
Hist., ser.
8, 17:243, March, 1916 (type locality, Chihfeng, China).
_Elaphe schrencki anomala_, Pope, The reptiles of China, p. 266, fig.
57, May 11, 1935.
_Specimens examined_ (7).--Central National Forest, near Pup´yong-ni, 2 (KU), 1 (UMMZ); 4½ mi.
W Chip´o-ri, 1 (KU); 5 mi.
N P´yong-taek, 1 (KU); 5 mi.
E Seoul, 1 (KU); 5 mi.
ESE Seoul, 1 (KU).
_Remarks._--Individuals were observed or taken on dry, scrubby hillsides and in grassy upland areas.
One of the three snakes from the Central National Forest was captured on a steep, forested hillside among granite outcroppings; another was obtained there along a stream bank and had eaten three bats, _Murina aurata_ (see Jones, 1960:265), and one mouse, _Apodemus_ sp.
(tail only found).
P. M. Youngman reported (personal communication) finding a rat (_Rattus_ sp.)
in the stomach of one individual.
A female (KU 38830, length of body, 1180) that was obtained on June 2 contained 17 eggs, each approximately 32 mm.
long.
The ventrals of two females numbered 223 and 229, and the subcaudals of the latter 70.
Ventrals and subcaudals of five males were, respectively, 211, 213, 214, 215, 216, and 71, 75, 75, 69, 75.
The coloration and pattern of our seven specimens are of interest in view of the probable intergradation between _E.
s. anomala_ and _E.
s. schrencki_ in northern Korea (see comments by Shannon, 1956:46).
The smallest specimen (KU 38831), having a total length of 335 (280 + 55), was obtained 4 mi.
N P´yong-taek on September 24.
It is nearly uniform pale brown (lacks a dorsal pattern) and additionally is characterized as follows: incomplete pattern on the head; no black postocular band (pale brown with black posterior border); ventrolateral extensions of the head pattern that form longitudinal stripes of white on the third row of scales; a pale whitish stripe on the sixth and seventh scale rows that extends posteriorly to the level of the fortieth ventral and that has a narrow black border (sometimes interrupted); small and indistinct blackish markings and pale stripes on sides (no higher than sixth row of scales); underside of the head whitish; and venter grayish, having blackish margins on the ends of ventrals posteriorly.
KU 38831 is unusual and perhaps anomalous in having a pattern that does not conform to the juvenile pattern of either subspecies.
A female (KU 38830), having a total length of 1390 (1180 + 210), from 5 mi.
ESE Seoul conforms to descriptions of _anomala_ in being uniformly pale brown above and in having indistinct dark smudges on the sides; the ventral surface is whitish having indistinct dark smudges, brown spots at the ends of each ventral, and the posterior edge of each ventral brown.
A male (KU 40125), measuring 1090 (890 + 200) in total length, from 5 mi.
E Seoul, is pale brown above and lacks markings on the anterior part of the body.
Indistinct dark markings occur at midbody, whereas the posterior quarter of the body and tail have well-defined black bands on a buff background.
The black bands posteriorly are arranged in pairs; each pair of bands is separated by two and a half to three scales, whereas the bands of each pair are separated by only one and a half scales.
The ventral surface has an obscure marbled pattern.
Our largest specimen, a male (UMMZ 113454) having a total length of 1488 (1230 + 258), from the Central National Forest, resembles KU 40125, except that pale brown blotches (29 on body, one blackish on neck) and dark lateral spots occur anteriorly on the body.
Another female (KU 38860, body length, 970) from 4½ mi.
W Chip´o-ri, our northernmost locality of record, has a fairly distinct pattern dorsally.
The 30 dark brown, black-edged blotches that are separated by a buff background are not arranged in pairs (as in KU 40125); the dorsal blotches sometimes alternate with small lateral blotches.
The ventral surface is marbled throughout.
Two males from the Central National Forest, having total lengths of 1105 (920 + 185) and 830 (690 + 140), generally resemble one another in having the head and neck dark brown or blackish and the anterior part of body dark brown, but discernibly blotched.
The posterior part of the body and tail of each bears well-defined blotches (dark brown or black) with buffy interspaces; the dorsal blotches are sometimes arranged in pairs.
The ventral surface of each is marbled throughout.
These two males are noteworthy in that the pattern anteriorly is obscure, but the ground color is dark, not pale as in the two specimens from the vicinity of Seoul.
=Agkistrodon halys brevicaudus= Stejneger _Agkistrodon blomhoffii brevicaudus_ Stejneger, Bull.
U. S. Nat.
Mus., 58:463, July 22, 1907 (type locality, Pusan, Korea).
_Agkistrodon halys brevicaudus_, Okada, A catalogue of vertebrates of Japan, p. 103, 1938.
_Specimens examined_ (12).--Central National Forest, near Pup´yong-ni, 4 (KU); 3 mi.
NW Chip´o-ri, 2 (KU); 16 mi.
NE Mosulp´o, Cheju Do, 1 (UMMZ); 5 mi.
E Seoul, 1 (UMMZ); 6 mi.
E Seoul, 2 (KU); 7 mi.
ESE Seoul, 1 (KU); 7 mi.
NNE Sogwi-ri, Cheju Do, 1 (UMMZ).
_Remarks._--Individuals of _Agkistrodon_ were collected on brushy or wooded hillsides, along rock walls or in piles of rocks, and in damp, rocky, wooded ravines near streams.
Many were docile when captured.
One specimen was infested with nematodes, another with cestodes.
One specimen had eaten a striped field mouse, _Apodemus agrarius_, and another had eaten a gray hamster, _Cricetulus triton_.
One female, obtained on May 22, 6 mi.
E Seoul, contained 14 embryos.
Another female, obtained on August 25 in the Central National Forest, contained three well-developed embryos.
We have not included descriptive or taxonomic remarks concerning _A.
halys_ because Dr. Howard K. Gloyd, University of Arizona, who currently is studying the systematics of the genus _Agkistrodon_, has our specimens on loan.
Gazetteer Listed below are all localities mentioned in the accounts of species; the latitude (north) and longitude (east) are given for each.
All place-names can be found in "Gazetteer to maps of Korea," 3 vols., AMS 2, U. S. Army Map Service, September, 1950, and, except for the two marked by an asterisk, can be located on AMS map series L552 (Korea, 1:250,000).
The McCune-Reischauer system of romanization of Korean names is used.
Changhowan-ni.
37°07´, 127°38´ Central National Forest.
A small mixed forest 15-18 mi.
NE Seoul and immediately west of the village of Pup´yong-ni; most of our collecting there was done approximately at 37°45´, 127°10´ Cheju Do (Quelpart Island).
A large island in the East China Sea off the southwestern tip of the Korean mainland (see Mosulp´o and Sogwi-ri) Chip´o-ri.
38°08´, 127°19´ Choksong.
37°58´, 126°57´ Ch´onan.
36°48´, 127°09´ *Ch´ongyang-ni.
38°15´, 127°23´ Ch´orwon.
38°15´, 127°13´ Ch´ungju.
36°58´, 127°57´ Halla San.
A central, volcanic mountain on Cheju Do (see above) Hoengsong.
37°29´, 127°59´ Inje.
38°04´, 128°11´ Kangnung.
37°45´, 128°54´ Kumhwa.
38°17´, 127°28´ Kunsan.
35°59´, 126°43´ Kwangju.
35°09´, 126°55´ Majon-ni.
37°52´, 126°46´ Mosulp´o.
33°13´, 126°15´ Naegong-ni.
37°41´, 127°10´ Oho-ri.
38°20´, 128°32´ Osan.
37°09´, 127°04´ Pup´yong-ni.
37°44´, 127°12´ Pusan.
35°08´, 129°04´ P´yong-taek [= P´yongt´aeng-ni].
36°59´, 127°05´ Sangbonch´on-ni.
37°27´, 127°16´ Sangdaehwa.
37°30´, 128°26´ Seoul.
37°32´, 127°00´ Sogwi-ri.
33°15´, 126°34´ Songdong-ni.
38°01´, 127°16´ Taegwang-ni.
38°11´, 127°06´ *Taehoesan-ni.
38°04´, 127°14´ Taejon.
36°20´, 127°26´ Tangjonggok.
38°11´, 128°19´ Tangnim-ni.
37°50´, 127°37´ Uijongbu.
37°44´, 127°03´ Wonsan.
39°09´, 127°27´ Yami-ri.
38°03´, 127°16´ Yanggu.
38°06´, 128°00´ Yongdae-ri.
38°13´, 128°23´ Yongp´yong.
38°01´, 127°13´ Literature Cited BABB, G. H., JR. 1955.
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_Transmitted June 30, 1961_.
28-8517
Our Little Korean Cousin By H. Lee M. Pike _Illustrated by_ L.J.
Bridgman Preface Until very recently little has been known of the strange land in which the subject of this tale lives.
Recent events have done much to introduce Korea and its people to the world at large.
For this reason the story of Yung Pak's youthful days may be the more interesting to his Western cousins.
These are stirring times in Korea, and it may safely be prophesied that the little Koreans of the present day will occupy a larger place in the world's history than have their fathers and grandfathers.
Their bright eyes are now turned toward the light, and, under the uplifting influences of education and civilization, the old superstitions and antique customs are bound to give way.
Some famous Americans and Englishmen have had no small part in letting in the light upon this dark nation, and in years to come, when Korea shall have attained to the full stature of national strength, the names of Rodgers, Blake, Kimberly, and many others will be held in high esteem by the people of that country.
This little volume gives just a glimpse into the mode of life, the habits and customs, the traditions and superstitions, of the Koreans.
If it awakens an interest in the minds of its young readers, and inspires them with a desire for further knowledge of their cousins in this far Eastern land, its purpose will be well served.
Contents CHAPTER I.
SOME QUEER THINGS II.
YUNG PAK'S HOME III.
A GLIMPSE OF THE KING IV.
YUNG PAK AT SCHOOL V. A LESSON IN HISTORY VI.
THE MONK'S STORY VII.
A JOURNEY VIII.
THE MONASTERY AT CHANG-AN-SA IX.
A FULL-FLEDGED TOP-KNOT List of Illustrations YUNG PAK A STREET IN SEOUL "ALL THE BOYS SIT UPON THE FLOOR" "HE MUST DROP TO HIS KNEES AND MAKE A PROFOUND SALUTE" "ON THE UPPER PART OF EACH OF THESE POSTS WAS A RUDE CARVING" "THE DAY WAS PASSED IN MUCH THE SAME MANNER AS THE PRECEDING ONE" OUR LITTLE KOREAN COUSIN CHAPTER I.
SOME QUEER THINGS Yung Pak was the very queer name of a queer little boy who lived in a queer house in a queer city.
This boy was peculiar in his looks, his talk was in a strange tongue, his clothes were odd in colour and fit, his shoes were unlike ours, and everything about him would seem to you very unusual in appearance.
But the most wonderful thing of all was that he did not think he was a bit queer, and if he should see one of you in your home, or at school, or at play, he would open wide his slant eyes with wonder at your peculiar ways and dress.
The name of the country in which this little boy lived is Korea.
One thing about Yung Pak, though, was just like little boys everywhere.
When he first came to his home in the Korean city, a little bit of a baby, his father and mother were very, very glad to see him.
Your father and mother gave you no warmer welcome than the parents of this little Korean baby gave to him.
Perhaps Yung Pak's father did not say much, but any one could have seen by his face that he was tremendously pleased.
He was a very dignified man, and his manner was nearly always calm, no matter how stirred up he might have felt in his mind.
This was one of the rare occasions when his face expanded into a smile, and he immediately made a generous offering of rice to the household tablets.
All Koreans pay great honour to their dead parents, and tablets to their memory are placed in some room set apart for the purpose.
Before these tablets sacrifices are offered.
Yung Pak's father would have been almost overwhelmed with terror at thought of having no one to worship his memory and present offerings before his tablet.
It is to be feared that if, instead of Yung Pak, a little daughter had come to this Korean house, the father and the mother would not have been so pleased.
For, strange as it may seem to you who live in homes where little daughters and little sisters are petted and loved above all the rest of the family, in Korea little girls do not receive a warm welcome, though the mothers will cherish and fondle them--as much from pity as from love.
The mothers know better than any one else how hard a way the little girl will have to travel through life.
But it is Yung Pak we want to tell you about.
As his father was a wealthy man, all the comforts and luxuries which could be given to a Korean baby were showered on this tiny boy.
One of the queer things, though, was that he had no little cradle in which he might be rocked to sleep.
And you know that all babies, especially little babies, sleep a great deal.
So how do you suppose Yung Pak's mother used to put him to sleep in this land where cradles were unknown?
She put him on the bed and patted him lightly on the stomach.
This she called _to-tak, to-tak_.
As Yung Pak grew older he was given many toys, among them rattles, drums, flags, and dolls, just as you had them.
Some of the toys, though, were very peculiar ones--different from anything you ever saw.
He had little tasselled umbrellas, just like the big one his father used when he walked out in the sun.
He also had little fringed hats and toy chariots with fancy wheels.
One of Yung Pak's favourite toys was a wooden jumping-jack with a pasteboard tongue.
By pulling a string the tongue was drawn in and a trumpet carried up to the mouth.
Another favourite toy was a tiger on wheels.
Tiger-hunting, by the way, was considered great sport by Yung Pak's father.
It was a very dangerous one, too, and sometimes lives were sacrificed in his efforts to capture or to kill this fierce wild beast.
Sometimes the animal was caught in a trap which was nothing less than a hut of logs with a single entrance.
In the roof of the hut heavy beams would be placed on a forked stick.
The bait--a young lamb or kid--would be tied beneath the beams.
The moment the bait was touched, down would come the heavy timber--smash--on the tiger's head.
But Yung Pak's tiger was ferocious only in looks.
It was made of paper pulp and painted with bright stripes.
This harmless image of a fierce beast Yung Pak would pull about the floor with a string by the hour.
All his pets were not of wood and paper.
Real live animals he had.
Puppies and kittens, of course.
His greatest pet, though, was a monkey.
What little boy ever saw a monkey that he didn't want for his own?
So when Yung Pak's father made him a present of a monkey--a real monkey--alive--he just danced with glee.
This monkey was not a very large one,--not over a foot high,--but he could cut capers and play tricks equal to any monkey you ever saw travelling with an organ-grinder.
He was dressed in a scarlet jacket, and he was always with Yung Pak, except sometimes when he would try to plague him by breaking away and running--perhaps to the house-top or to the neighbour's garden.
After a little while Yung Pak got used to these "monkey shines," and he knew that his pet would not stay away long after mealtime.
As Yung Pak grew older he was allowed to play with other boys of his own age.
A favourite sport was Hunting the Ring.
In this game the boys would get together quite a large heap of sand.
In this sand one of them would hide a ring, and then the urchins would all get slender sticks and poke around in the pile trying to find the ring.
Whoever succeeded in getting the ring on his stick won the game, and carried the prize home as a sign of victory.
Sometimes Yung Pak would be the winner, and then he would march home with great glee and show the trophy to his father.
One of the first things Yung Pak was taught was to be respectful to his father.
Never was he allowed to fail in this duty in the least.
This does not seem strange when we know what a sober, serious, dignified man Yung Pak's father was.
It would not do to allow his son to do anything that would upset his dignity, though he loved him very much indeed.
It was far different with the boy's mother.
Her little boy soon learned that her wishes counted for very little in the family, and she never ventured to rebuke him, no matter how seriously he might offend her or what naughty thing he might do.
One queer thing about Yung Pak was the way he used to wear his hair.
While still very young his head was shaved, except a little round spot on the very crown.
Here it was allowed to grow, and as years went by it grew quite long, and was braided in two plaits down his back.
When Yung Pak grew to be a man the long hair was knotted up on top of his head, and for this reason many people call Koreans "Top-knots."
But of this arrangement of the hair we shall tell more farther on.
CHAPTER II.
YUNG PAK'S HOME Ki Pak, Yung Pak's father, was one of the king's officials.
On this account his home was near the great palace of the king, in the city of Seoul, the capital of the country.
This city did not look much like the ones in which you live.
There were no wide streets, no high buildings, no street-cars.
Instead, there were narrow, dirty lanes and open gutters.
Shopkeepers not only occupied both sides of the crowded streets, but half their wares were exposed in and over the dirty gutters.
Grain merchants and vegetable dealers jostled each other in the streets themselves.
In and about among them played the boys of the city, not even half-clothed in most cases.
There were no parks and playgrounds for them such as you have.
Often, too, boys would be seen cantering through the streets, seated sidewise on the bare backs of ponies, caring nothing for passers-by, ponies, or each other--laughing, chatting, eating chestnuts.
Other boys would be carrying on their heads small round tables covered with dishes of rice, pork, cabbage, wine, and other things.
[Illustration: A STREET IN SEOUL] Around the city was a great wall of stone fourteen miles in length.
In some places it clung to the edges of the mountains, and then dropped into a deep ravine, again to climb a still higher mountain, perhaps.
In one direction it enclosed a forest, in another a barren plain.
Great blocks were the stones, that had been in place many, many years.
It must have taken hundreds and thousands of men to put them in position, and, though the wall was hundreds of years old, it was still well preserved.
It was from twenty-five to forty feet high.
The wall was hung from one end of the city to the other with ivy, which looked as if it had been growing in its place centuries before Yung Pak was born.
In the wall were eight gates, and at each one a keeper was stationed at all hours of the day and night.
No persons could come in or go out unless their business was known to those who had charge of the passage.
Every evening, at sunset, the gates were closed, and during the night no one was allowed to pass through in either direction.
A curious ceremony attended the closing of these gates.
They were never shut till the king had been notified that all was well on the north, on the south, on the east, and on the west.
As there were no telegraph lines, another way had to be provided by which messages might be quickly sent.
Bonfires upon the surrounding hills were used as signals.
By these fires the king was told if all were well in his kingdom, and every evening, as soon as the sun was set, four beacon-fires on a hill within the walls told the news as it was flashed to them from the mountains outside.
Then four officers, whose business it was to report to the king the message of the fires, hastened to him, and with great ceremony and much humility announced that all was well.
On this the royal band of music would strike up its liveliest airs, and a great bell would toll its evening warning.
This bell was the third largest in the world, and for five centuries it had given the signal for opening and closing the gates of Seoul, the chief city of the "Land of the Morning Radiance."
At the stroke of the bell, with a great clang the gates were shut, and strong bars were placed across the inner sides, not to be removed until at early dawn the bell again gave its signal to the keepers.
To little Yung Pak, the loud tones of the bell meant more even than to the sentinels at the gates.
He knew that not only was it a signal for the closing of the city gates, but it was also a warning that bedtime was at hand.
The house in which Yung Pak lived was a very fine one, although the grounds were not as spacious as those of many houses in the outskirts of the city.
But its walls were of stone, whereas many of the houses of Seoul had walls of paper.
Yes, actually walls of paper!
But this paper was a very tough, fibrous substance, and would resist quite a heavy blow as well as keep out the cold.
Its slight cost brought it within the means of the poorer people.
In some parts of Korea the houses were built of stout timbers, the chinks covered with woven cane and plastered with mud.
Neat hedges of interlaced boughs surrounded them.
The chimney was often simply a hollow tree, not attached to the house.
Ki Pak's house was not only built of stone, but about it were four walls of stone, about five feet high, to help keep out intruders.
The wall was surmounted by a rampart of plaited bamboo.
In this wall were three gates, corresponding to entrances into the house itself.
One gate, the largest, on the north side, was used only by Ki Pak himself, though after he grew older Yung Pak could enter this gate with his father.
The second gate, on the east, was used by the family and friends of Ki Pak.
The third and smallest gate was reserved for the use of the servants.
The roof of this house was not covered with shingles, but with clay tiles, coloured red.
Many houses in the city had simply a roof-covering of thatched straw.
The house was but a single story high, but in this respect the king's palace itself was no better.
There were three divisions to the house.
One was for the use of the men, a second for the women of the family, and a third for the servants.
Each division had a suitable number of rooms for its occupants.
Yung Pak's own sleeping-room was a dainty affair, with its paper walls, tiger-skin rugs upon the stone floor, and the softest of mats and silk and wadded cotton coverings for his couch.
This couch, by the way, was another queer affair.
It was built of brick!
Beneath it were pipes or flues connected with other pipes which ran beneath the whole house.
Through these flues were forced currents of hot air from a blaze in a large fireplace at one end of the house.
The chimney was at the other end, and thus a draught of hot air constantly passed beneath the floors in cold weather.
On warm nights Yung Pak would pile his mats upon the floor and sleep as comfortably as ever you did on the softest feather bed your grandmother could make.
The windows of Ki Pak's house were not made of glass, but were small square frames covered with oiled paper.
These frames fitted into grooves so that they could be slid back and forth, and in warm weather the windows were always left open.
The doors were made of wood, though in many houses paper or plaited bamboo was used.
When Yung Pak ate his meals, he sat upon a rug on the floor with his father and such male guests as might be in the house.
The women never ate with them.
Their meals were served in their own rooms.
A servant would bring to each person a _sang_, or small low table.
Instead of a cloth, on each table was a sheet of fine glazed paper which had the appearance of oiled silk.
This paper was made from the bark of the mulberry-tree.
It was soft and pliable, and of such a texture that it could be washed easier than anything else, either paper or cloth.
On this were placed dishes of porcelain and earthen ware.
There were no knives or forks, but in their place were chop-sticks such as the Chinese used.
Spoons also were on the table.
A tall and long-spouted teapot was always the finest piece of ware.
On the dining-tables of the poorer people of Korea the teapot was never seen, for, strange as it may seem, in this land situated between the two greatest tea-producing countries of the world, tea is not in common use.
All Koreans have splendid appetites, and probably if you should see Yung Pak eating his dinner you would criticize his table manners.
He not only ate a large amount of food, but ate it very rapidly--almost as if he feared that some one might steal his dinner before he could dispose of it.
And you would think that he never expected to get another square meal!
But it was not Yung Pak's fault that he was such a little glutton.
In his youngest days, when his mother used to regulate his food, she would stuff him full of rice.
Then she would turn him over on his back and paddle his stomach with a ladle to make sure that he was well filled!
CHAPTER III.
A GLIMPSE OF THE KING Yung Pak's earliest days were spent very much as are those of most babies, whether they live in Korea or America.
Eating and sleeping were his chief occupations.
When he grew old enough to run about, his father employed for him a servant, Kim Yong, whose business it was to see that no harm came to the child.
For several years the two were constantly together, even sleeping in the same room at night.
Once when Yung Pak and his attendant were out for their daily walk their attention was attracted by the sound of music in the distance.
"What is that music?"
asked Yung Pak.
"That is the king's band.
It must be that there is going to be a procession," was Kim Yong's reply.
"Oh, I know what it is," said Yung Pak.
"The king is going to the new Temple of Ancestors.
My father said the tablets on which the king's forefathers' names are engraved are to be put in place to-day."
"Let us hurry so as to get into a place where we can have a good view of the procession."
"Yes, we will; for father told me that this is to be an extra fine one, and he is to be in it himself.
I want to see him when he goes by."
By this time Yung Pak and Kim Yong were running as fast as their flowing garments and their dignity would allow them.
And everybody else, from the dirtiest street boy to the gravest old man, was hurrying toward the palace gate through which the procession was to come.
Yung Pak and Kim Yong were fortunate enough to get a position where they could see the palace gate, and the procession would have to pass by them on its way to the temple.
Meanwhile the band inside the palace walls kept up its music, and the people outside could also hear the shouts of officers giving their orders to guards and soldiers.
Soon there was an extra flourish of the music, and the gate, toward which all eyes had been strained, was suddenly flung wide open with a great clang.
Hundreds of soldiers already lined the streets to keep the crowd back out of the way of the procession.
First through the gate came a company of Korean foot-soldiers, in blue uniforms.
Directly after them came a lot of palace attendants in curious hats and long robes of all colours of the rainbow.
Some were dressed in blue, some in red, some in orange, some in yellow, some in a mixture of colours.
All carried staves bound with streamers of ribbons.
Following the attendants came a line of bannermen, with red flags, on which were various inscriptions in blue; then came drummers and pipe-players dressed in yellow costumes, their instruments decked with ribbons.
Yung Pak next saw more soldiers, dressed in the queerest of ancient costumes; afterward came men with cymbals and bells, cavalrymen on foot, and more palace attendants.
Through the whole line were seen many officials, gaudily adorned with plumes, gold lace, gilt fringe, swords, and coloured decorations of all sorts.
Many of the officials had on high-crowned hats decorated with bunches of feathers and crimson tassels.
These were fastened by a string of amber beads around the throat.
Blue and orange and red were the colours of their robes.
Then followed more bannermen, drummers, and servants carrying food, fire, and pipes.
All the time there was a tremendous beating of drums and blowing of horns and ringing of bells.
The noise was so great that Kim Yong hardly heard Yung Pak when he shouted: "Oh, I see papa!"
"Where is he?"
"Don't you see him right behind that little man in yellow who is carrying a big blue flag?"
"Oh, yes," said Kim Yong.
"He has on a long green robe, and on his turban are long orange plumes."
"Yes; and on both sides of him, in green gauze coats, are his servants.
I wonder if he will notice us as he goes by."
"Indeed he will not.
At least, if he does see us, he will give no sign, for this is too solemn and important an occasion for him to relax his dignity."
On state occasions Ki Pak could look as sedate and dignified as the most serious official in all Korea; and that is saying a good deal, for in no country do the officials appear more solemn than in this "Land of the Morning Radiance."
Now along came more soldiers, followed by the great nobles of the kingdom, and finally, amid a most terrific beating of drums, a fearful jangling of bells, and a horrid screaming of pipes, the guard of the king himself appeared.
Suddenly all was silent.
Drum-beating, pipe-blowing, and shouting all died away.
The sound of hurried footsteps alone was heard.
All at once into sight came the imperial chair of state.
In this chair was the king, but not yet could Yung Pak get a glimpse of his royal master.
Yellow silken panels hid him from the view of the curious crowd, and over the top was a canopy of the same description, ornamented with heavy, rich tassels.
This gorgeous chair was much heavier than those used by officials and ordinary citizens, and it took thirty-two men to carry it quickly and safely past the throng to the entrance of the temple.
Only a few minutes were necessary for this journey, for the temple was but a short distance from the palace gate, and both were in plain sight of Yung Pak and Kim Yong.
It was only a fleeting glimpse of the king that they got, as he passed from his chair to the temple gate; but this was enough to repay Yung Pak for the rushing and the crowding and the waiting that he had been obliged to endure.
Rare indeed were these glimpses of his Majesty, and they afforded interest and excitement enough to last a long while.
But the procession was not over yet.
A chair covered with red silk, borne on the shoulders of sixteen chair-men, passed up to the temple.
"Who is in that chair?"
asked Yung Pak of his companion.
"The crown prince," was Kim Yong's reply.
"He attends his royal father in all these ceremonies of state."
Yung Pak drew a long breath, but said nothing.
He only thought what a fine thing it must be to be a king's son, and wear such gorgeous clothes, and have so many servants at his call.
And then he had a second thought.
He would not want to exchange his splendid father for all the glory and magnificence of the king's court.
After the king and the crown prince, with their attendant officials and servants and priests, had gone into the temple, Yung Pak and Kim Yong did not stay longer at their post.
The order of the procession had broken, and the king and his immediate retinue would return privately to the palace after he should pay homage and offer sacrifice to the spirits of his ancestors.
CHAPTER IV.
YUNG PAK AT SCHOOL Little Korean boys have to go to school, just as you do, though they do not study in just the same way.
You would be surprised if you were to step into a Korean schoolroom.
All the boys sit upon the floor with their legs curled up beneath them.
Instead of the quiet, silent scholars, you would hear a loud and deafening buzz.
All the pupils study out loud.
They not only do their studying aloud, but they talk very loud, as if each one were trying to make more noise than his neighbour.
The Koreans call this noise _kang-siong_, and it seems almost deafening to one unused to it.
You would think the poor teacher would be driven crazy, but he seems as calm as a daisy in a June breeze.
[Illustration: "ALL THE BOYS SIT UPON THE FLOOR"] The Korean boys have to have "tests" and examinations just as you do.
When a lad has a good lesson, the teacher makes a big red mark on his paper, and he carries it home with the greatest pride,--just as you do when you take home a school paper marked "100."
But Yung Pak was not allowed to share the pleasures and the trials of the boys in the public school.
One day, soon after he was six years old, his father sent for him to come to his private room,--perhaps you would call it a study or library.
With Yung Pak's father was a strange gentleman, a young man with a pleasant face and an air of good breeding.
"This," said Ki Pak to his son as he entered the room, "is Wang Ken.
I have engaged him to be your teacher, or tutor.
The time has come for you to begin to learn to read and to cipher and to study the history and geography of our country."
Yung Pak made a very low bow, for all Korean boys are early taught to be courteous, especially to parents, teachers, and officials.
In this case he was very glad to show respect to his new tutor, for he liked his appearance and felt sure that they would get on famously together.
More than that, though he liked to play as well as any boy, he was not sorry that he was going to begin to learn something.
Even at his age he had ambitions, and expected that sometime he would, like his father, serve the king in some office.
Wang Ken was equally well pleased with the looks of the bright boy who was to be his pupil, and told Yung Pak's father that he believed there need be no fear but what they would get on well together, and that the boy would prove a bright scholar.
To Wang Ken and his pupil were assigned a room near Ki Pak's library, where Yung Pak would spend several hours each day trying his best to learn the Korean A B C's.
The first book he had to study was called "The Thousand Character Classic."
This was the first book that all Korean boys had to study, and was said to have been written by a very wise man hundreds of years ago.
A strange thing about it was that it was composed during one night, and so great was the wise man's struggle that his hair and beard turned white during that night.
When Yung Pak was told this fact he was not a bit surprised.
He thought it was hard enough to have to learn what was in the book, to say nothing of writing it in the beginning.
At the same time that Yung Pak was learning to read, he was also learning to write.
But you would have been amused if you could have seen his efforts.
The strangest thing about it was that he did not use a pen, but had a coarse brush on a long handle.
Into the ink he would dip this brush and then make broad marks on sheets of coarse paper.
You would not be able to understand those marks at all.
They looked like the daubs of a sign-painter gone crazy.
Later on, Yung Pak had to study the history and geography of his country.
Some of the names he had to learn would amuse you very much.
The name of the province of Haan-kiung, for instance, meant Perfect Mirror, or Complete View Province.
Kiung-sang was the Korean name for Respectful Congratulation Province, and Chung-chong meant Serene Loyalty Province.
One part of Korea, where the inhabitants were always peaceable and unwarlike, was called Peace and Quiet Province, or, in the Korean language, Ping-an.
Under Wang Ken's instruction Yung Pak made rapid progress in his studies, and when the boy's father questioned him from time to time as to what he had learned, he was very much pleased, and commended his son for his close attention to his studies.
"Sometime," Ki Pak said to the boy, "if you continue to make such good progress in your studies, you will be able to hold a high position in the service of the king."
In explanation of this remark, you should understand that no young man was able to enter into the government service of Korea until he could pass a very hard examination in many studies.
Many things besides book-learning did Wang Ken teach his pupil.
In all the rules of Korean etiquette he was carefully and persistently drilled.
As you have already been told, Yung Pak had from his earliest days been taught the deepest reverence and honour for his father.
This kind of instruction was continued from day to day.
He was told that a son must not play in his father's presence, nor assume free or easy posture before him.
He must often wait upon his father at meal-times, and prepare his bed for him.
If the father is old or sickly, the son sleeps near him by night, and does not leave his presence by day.
If for any reason the father is cast into prison, the son makes his home near by in order that he may provide such comforts for his unfortunate parent as the prison officials will allow.
If, by chance, the father should be banished from the country for his misdeeds, the son must accompany him at least to the borders of his native land, and in some instances must go with him into exile.
When the son meets his father in the street, he must drop to his knees and make a profound salute, no matter what the state of the roadway.
In all letters which the son writes to his father he uses the most exalted titles and honourable phrases he can imagine.
[Illustration: HE MUST DROP TO HIS KNEES AND MAKE A PROFOUND SALUTE] CHAPTER V. A LESSON IN HISTORY As you already know, Yung Pak's father intended that his son, when he grew up, should fill a position in the service of the king.
To fit him for this work, it was important that the boy should learn all that he could of his country's history.
On this account Yung Pak's tutor had orders to give to the lad each day, during the hours devoted to study, some account of events in the rise and progress of the Korean nation or of its royal families.
You must know that Korea is a very old country, its history dating back hundreds of years before America was discovered by Christopher Columbus.
Now Wang Ken knew that dry history had very few attractions for his young pupil, or any lively boy for that matter, so as far as possible he avoided the repetition of dates and uninteresting events, and often gave to Yung Pak much useful information in story form.
One day, when the time came for the usual history lesson, Wang Ken said to Yung Pak: "I think that to-day I will tell you the story of King Taijo."
At this Yung Pak's eyes sparkled, and he was all attention in a moment.
He thought one of Wang Ken's stories was a great deal better than puzzling over Korean letters or struggling with long strings of figures.
The tutor went on: "When Taijo was born, many, many years ago, our country was not called Korea, but had been given the name of Cho-sen." Yung Pak had been told that Cho-sen meant Morning Calm, so he asked Wang Ken how it came about that such a peaceful name had been given to his country.
"Why," said Wang Ken, "the name was given to our land years and years ago by the leader of some Chinese settlers, whose name was Ki Tsze.
In his native land there had been much violence and war, so with his friends and followers he moved to the eastward and selected this country for his home.
Here he hoped to be free from the attacks of enemies and to be able to live a peaceful life.
For this reason he chose a name which well expressed its outward position--toward the rising sun--and his own inward feelings,--Cho-sen, or Morning Calm.
This is still the official name of our country.
"But to come back to our story of Taijo.
At the time of his birth, the rulers of the country were very unpopular because of their wickedness and oppression of the people.
There was much suffering on account of the misrule, and the people longed for a deliverer who should restore prosperity to Cho-sen. "Such a deliverer appeared in the person of Taijo.
It is said that even as a boy he surpassed his fellows in goodness, intelligence, and skill in all sorts of boyish games."
Wang Ken improved this opportunity to tell Yung Pak how important it was that all boys should follow such an example.
But while Yung Pak listened with apparent patience, he could hardly conceal his inward desire that the tutor would go on with his story.
Like most boys, of all races, he felt that he could get along without the moralizing.
"Hunting with the falcon was one of Taijo's favourite sports.
One day, while in the woods, his bird flew so far ahead that its young master lost sight of it.
Hurrying on to find it, Taijo discovered a hut beside the path, into which he saw the falcon fly.
"Entering the hut, the youth found a white-bearded hermit priest, who lived here alone and unknown to the outside world.
For a moment Taijo was speechless with surprise in the presence of the wise old hermit.
"Seeing his embarrassment, the old man spoke to him in these words: "'What benefit is it for a youth of your abilities to be seeking a stray falcon?
A throne is a richer prize.
Betake yourself at once to the capital.'
"Now Taijo knew how to take a hint as well as any boy, so he immediately left the hut of the hermit, forsaking his falcon, and went to Sunto, then the capital of the kingdom.
"As I have already told you, Taijo was a wise youth.
He did not rush headlong into the accomplishment of the purpose hinted at by the hermit.
Had he done so, and at that time attempted to dethrone the king, he would certainly have been overpowered and slain.
"He took a more deliberate and sensible way.
First he enlisted in the army of the king.
As he was a young man of courage and strength, he was not long in securing advancement.
He rapidly rose through the various grades, until he finally held the chief command of the army as lieutenant-general.
"Of course Taijo did not reach this high station in a month, nor in a year, but many years went by before he attained such an exalted place.
Meanwhile he married and had children.
Several of these children were daughters."
Wang Ken did not say right here, what he might have said with truth,--that in Korean families girls are considered of very little consequence.
But in this case Taijo's daughter proved to be of much help in making her father the king of Cho-sen. "One of these daughters was married to the reigning king.
Thus Taijo became father-in-law to his sovereign.
You can easily see that in this relationship he must have had a large influence both over the king and over the people.
"Being a brave man and courageous fighter, Taijo was idolized by his soldiers.
He was also very popular with all the people because he was always strictly honest and just in all his dealings with them.
"Taijo proved his bravery and his reliance on the soldiers and on the people by attempting to bring about a change in the conduct of the king, who abused his power and treated his subjects without mercy.
"The king, however, refused to listen to the advice of his father-in-law, and, as a consequence, the hatred of the people for him grew in volume and force every day.
"Meanwhile, the king was having other troubles.
In former years, Korea had paid an annual tribute or tax to China, but for some time it had been held back by this king.
Consequently the Chinese (or Ming) emperor sent a large army to enforce his demand for the amount of money due him.
"The Korean ruler neglected the matter and finally refused to pay.
He then ordered that more soldiers be added to his army, that the Chinese forces might be resisted; but with all his efforts the enemy's army was much the larger.
Nevertheless, he ordered Taijo, at the head of his forces, to attack the Chinese.
Upon this, Taijo thus addressed his soldiers: "'Although the order from the king must be obeyed, yet the attack upon the Ming soldiers, with so small an army as ours, is like casting an egg against a rock, and no one of us will return alive.
I do not tell you this from any fear of death, but our king is too haughty.
He does not heed our advice.
He has ordered out the army suddenly without cause, paying no attention to the suffering which wives and children of the soldiers must undergo.
This is a thing I cannot bear.
Let us go back to the capital, and the responsibility shall fall on my shoulders alone.'
"The soldiers were quite willing to take the advice of their courageous leader, and resolved to obey his orders rather than the king's.
They went to the capital, forcibly removed the king from his throne, and banished him to the island of Kang-wa.
"Not yet, however, was Taijo made king.
The deposed ruler plotted and planned all kinds of schemes whereby he might be restored to his old position of authority.
Taijo heard of some of his plots, and finally did that which would for ever extinguish the authority of the old king or any of his family.
He removed from the temple the tablets on which were inscribed the names of the king's ancestors.
More than this, he ordered that no more sacrifices be offered to them.
"The king could have suffered no greater insult than this, for, like all Koreans, he held as sacred the memory of his ancestors, and even to speak ill of one of them was an unpardonable crime.
But this time he was powerless to resent the indignity or to punish the offender, and consequently he lost what little influence he had been able to retain.
"Taijo was now formally proclaimed king.
He was able to make peace with the Chinese emperor, and under his rule the Koreans enjoyed freedom from war and oppression.
His descendants still sit upon the throne of Korea."
CHAPTER VI.
THE MONK'S STORY One evening, after Yung Pak had finished his supper, he sat talking with his father and Wang Ken.
The early evening hour was often spent in this way.
It was a time of day when Ki Pak was generally free from any official duty, and he was glad to devote a little time to his son.
He would inquire about the boy's studies as well as about his sports, and Yung Pak would regale his father with many an amusing incident or tell him something he had learned during study hours.
Sometimes he would tell of the sights he had seen on the streets of Seoul, while on other occasions he would give account of games with his playmates or of his success in shooting with a bow and arrow.
This latter sport was very common with the men and boys of Korea.
It was approved by the king for the national defence in time of war, and often rewards were offered by rich men for winners in contests.
Most Korean gentlemen had private archery grounds and targets in the gardens near their houses.
Ki Pak had an arrow-walk and target in his garden, and here it was that Yung Pak used to practise almost daily.
He often, too, invited other boys to enjoy the sport with him.
At regular times every year public contests in arrow-shooting were held, and costly prizes were offered to the winners by the king.
The prizes were highly valued by those who secured them, and Yung Pak looked forward with eager anticipation to the day when he should be old enough and skilful enough to take part in these contests.
While Yung Pak was listening to the conversation between his father and tutor on this evening, a knock was heard.
On opening the door there was seen standing at the entrance a man rather poorly clad in the white garments worn by nearly all the people of Korea.
But upon his head, instead of the ordinary cone-shaped hat worn by the men of the country, was a very peculiar structure.
It was made of straw and was about four feet in circumference.
Its rim nearly concealed the man's face, which was further hidden by a piece of coarse white linen cloth stretched upon two sticks and made fast just below the eyes.
This method of concealing the face, together with the wearing of the immense hat, was a symbol of mourning.
Such a sight was not uncommon in the streets of Seoul, and Yung Pak knew well its meaning.
With great courtesy and hospitality Ki Pak invited the stranger within the house.
"I thank you for your kindness," said the visitor.
"I am a stranger in your city, a monk from a monastery in Kong-chiu.
Your peculiar law not allowing men upon the street after nightfall compels me to seek shelter."
"To that you are entirely welcome, my friend," said Ki Pak, whose hospitable nature would have granted the monk's request, even if sympathy for sorrow and reverence for religion had not also been motives for his action.
"Let me get the man something to eat," said Yung Pak as the monk seated himself upon a mat.
"Certainly, my son; it is always proper to offer food to a guest who takes refuge under our roof."
Quickly the boy sought his mother in the women's apartments, and very soon returned with a steaming bowl of rice, which he placed before the visitor.
This gift of rice was especially pleasing to the traveller, as no dish is held in higher honour in Korea.
It is the chief cereal, and the inhabitants say it originated in Ha-ram, China, nearly five thousand years ago.
Yung Pak called it Syang-nong-si, which means Marvellous Agriculture.
He had learned from Wang Ken that it was first brought to Korea in 1122 B.C.
To the monk the warm food was very refreshing, and after he had eaten a generous amount he entered into conversation with his hosts.
He told of the monastery where he made his home, and his account of the various religious ceremonies and their origin was very interesting to Yung Pak, who found that the visitor not only knew a great deal of the history of the country, but was also familiar with its fables and legends.
Like many who live in retirement and dwell in a world apart from their fellows, this monk thought the people of former times were superior to the men of his own day.
Especially did he praise the kings of years long gone by.
"Do you think," said Yung Pak, "that the old kings were any better than our own gracious ruler?"
Yung Pak was very jealous of the honour of his king.
"Why, yes," replied the monk.
"And to prove my statement let me tell you a story: "Many years ago there was in Cho-sen a king named Cheng-chong.
He was celebrated throughout his kingdom for his goodness.
It was a habit with him to disguise himself in ordinary clothing and then to go out and mingle with the common people.
In this way he was often able to discover opportunities for doing much good to his subjects.
"One night Cheng-chong disguised himself as a countryman, and, taking a single friend along, started out to make a tour of inspection among his people, that he might learn the details of their lives.
"Coming to a dilapidated-looking house, he suspected that within there might be miserable people to whom he could render assistance.
Desiring to see the inside of the house, he punched a peep-hole in the paper door.
Looking through this hole, the king perceived an old man weeping, a man in mourning garb singing, and a nun or widow dancing.
"Cheng-chong was unable to imagine the cause of these strange proceedings, so he asked his companion to call the master of the house.
"In answer to the summons, the man in mourning made his appearance.
The king, with low and respectful salutation, said: "'We have never before met.'
"'True,' was the reply, 'but whence are you?
How is it that you should come to find me at midnight?
To what family do you belong?'
"Cheng-chong answered: 'I am Mr. Ni, living at Tong-ku-an.
As I was passing before your house I was attracted by strange sounds.
Then through a hole in the door I saw an old man crying, a dancing nun, and a man in mourning singing.
Why did the nun dance, the bereaved man sing, and the old man weep?
I have called you out on purpose to learn the reason of these things.'
"'For what reason do you pry into other people's business?'
was the question in reply.
'This is little concern to you.
It is past midnight now, and you had better get home as soon as you can.'
"'No, indeed.
I admit that it seems wrong for me to be so curious in regard to your affairs, but this case is so very extraordinary that I hope you will not refuse to tell me about it.
You may be sure that I shall not betray your confidence.'
"'Alas!
why such persistence in trying to learn about other people's business?'
"'It is very important,' replied the king, 'that I should obtain the information I have asked of you.
Further than that I cannot explain at present.'"
Yung Pak wanted to interrupt the storyteller here and say that he did not blame the man for objecting to telling his private business, but he had early been taught that it was highly improper for a Korean boy to break into the conversation of his elders.
The monk continued: "'As you are so urgent in your desire to know the cause of the strange proceedings you have witnessed, I will try to tell you.
Poverty has always been a burden upon my family.
In my house there has never been sufficient food for a solid meal, and I have not land enough even for an insect to rest upon.
I cannot even provide food for my poor old father.
This is the reason why my wife, from time to time, has cut off a portion of her hair and sold it for an amount sufficient to buy a bowl of bean soup, which she has generously given to my father.
This evening she cut off and sold the last tress of her hair, and thus she is now bald as a nun.'"
Yung Pak already knew that Korean women who devote their lives to religious service kept their hair closely clipped, so the monk did not need to explain his reference to a bald-headed nun.
"'On this account," said the man to Cheng-chong, 'my father broke out into mourning in these words: "'"Why have I lived to this age?
Why did I not die years ago?
Why has this degradation come to my daughter-in-law?"
Tears accompanied his words.
My wife and I tried to console him, and, besides urging him not to weep, she danced for his amusement.
I also danced and sang, and thus we diverted the old man's thoughts and caused him to smile.
That is the true reason of our queer behaviour.
I trust you will not think it strange, and will now go away and leave us to our sorrow.'
"The king was very much impressed by the man's story, particularly with the evidence of such great devotion to his father, even in the time of poverty and misfortune.
So he said: 'This is really the most extraordinary instance of filial love that I ever saw.
I think you should present yourself at the examination to-morrow.'
"'What examination?'
"'Why, there is to be an examination before the king of candidates for official position.
You know that all officials have to pass an examination before they can receive an appointment.
Be sure to be there, and you may be fortunate enough to secure a position which will remove all fear of poverty from your household.'
"Having thus spoken, Cheng-chong bade the man good night and went at once to his palace.
"Very early in the morning he caused proclamation to be made that an examination would be held that day, at a certain hour.
Notwithstanding the brief time for preparation, when the hour arrived a large number of men presented themselves at the king's palace as candidates.
"In the crowd was the poor man whom the king, in his disguise, had talked with the night before.
Though he understood little of the matter, he felt that his visitor of the previous night must have known perfectly about it.
"When all had assembled, the following was announced as the subject of the examination: 'The song of a man in mourning, the dance of a nun, the tears of an old man.'
"With the exception of the poor man, not a single one of the candidates was able to make a bit of sense out of the subject.
He alone knew it perfectly well, because of his own personal sad experience.
Consequently he was able to turn in a clear essay upon the subject, which, upon examination, the king found to be free from error.
"Cheng-chong then bestowed the degree of doctor upon the man, and ordered that he be brought into his presence.
"Upon the man's appearance, the king asked: 'Do you know who I am?
It is I who last night advised you to be present at this examination.
Raise your head and look at me.'
"With fixed gaze the man looked at the king, and recognized his benefactor.
He at once bowed himself to the ground in gratitude, and in words of the most humble sort returned his thanks.
"'Go at once,' said Cheng-chong, 'and return to your wife and old father.
Make them happy with the good news you have for them.'
"This story of royal generosity has been handed down from generation to generation, and I give it to you," concluded the monk, "as an example of the goodness of our ancient kings and the rich inheritance we have from them.
True devotion to parents has never been unrewarded in Korea."
His story concluded, the monk expressed a desire to retire for the night.
At Ki Pak's command a servant led him to a sleeping-room.
Yung Pak and the other members of the family also retired, and were soon buried in peaceful slumber.
CHAPTER VII.
A JOURNEY It sometimes happened that Ki Pak, in performing his official duties, was obliged to make long journeys to various parts of Korea.
One of Yung Pak's greatest pleasures was to listen to the stories which his father used to tell him about these journeys.
When Ki Pak made one of these trips through the country he could not ride on the cars as you do, for there were no railways, with puffing engines and comfortable coaches; neither could he take a carriage drawn by swift and strong horses, for they too were unknown by the Koreans.
Even if he had possessed horses and carriage, there were few roads over which they could have been driven.
Most of the highways were simply rough paths, over which men usually travelled on foot or on the backs of ponies up and down the hills of the country.
It was generally necessary to cross rivers by fording, though, where the water was too deep for this, rude and clumsy ferry-boats were provided.
Occasionally, over a narrow stream, a frail footbridge would be built.
You can easily imagine Yung Pak's joy and surprise one day when his father told him that he proposed to take his little son on his next journey.
Ki Pak had been ordered by the king to go to Chang-an-sa, a city among the Diamond Mountains, near the eastern coast of Korea, and about eighty miles from Seoul.
In this place was a famous monastery, or temple, which would be an object of much interest and wonder to Yung Pak.
It was decided, also, that Wang Ken should be one of the party.
He would be able to explain to Yung Pak many things they might see on the way.
There was much to do to get ready for the journey.
It would take four days to cover the distance, and, as hotels were unknown along the route, it was necessary to take along a good supply of provisions, bedding, cooking utensils, and all sorts of things they might need while absent from home.
In addition to getting together all this material, ponies and drivers had to be engaged.
Sometimes, when Ki Pak went on short journeys, he was carried in a chair by strong men, who by much practice had become able to endure the fatigue of travel, and of bearing heavy burdens.
This chair was very different from the kind you have in your houses.
Even a comfortable rocker would not be very nice in which to take a long journey.
The Korean traveller's chair consists of a boxlike frame, of such height that one may sit within in Turkish fashion upon the floor.
The roof is of bamboo, covered with painted and oiled paper.
The sides also are covered with oiled paper or muslin.
In some cases a small stained glass window is set in the side or front, but only rich men can afford this luxury.
The curtain in front can be raised or lowered.
This serves the double purpose of shutting out the glances of the curious and keeping out the cold air.
When the owner can afford it, an ample supply of cushions and shawls makes the clumsy vehicle more comfortable for its occupant.
The chair rests upon two long poles, which hang by straps upon the shoulders of four stout men.
Under ordinary circumstances these men can travel with their burden from twenty to thirty miles a day.
Sometimes, also, when Yung Pak's father went about the streets of Seoul, he rode in a chair very similar to the one just described.
The only difference was that it rested on a framework attached to a single wheel directly underneath.
This cross between a wheelbarrow and a sedan-chair was supported and trundled along the street by four bearers.
On this journey, however, Yung Pak and his companions were to ride on ponies.
The Korean ponies are small, fine-coated animals, little larger than Shetland ponies.
They are very tough and strong, and can endure long marches with little food.
They are sometimes obstinate and are desperate fighters, squealing and neighing on all occasions.
They often attack other ponies, and never become friendly with each other on a journey.
In their attacks upon one another loads are forgotten and often seriously damaged.
Notwithstanding, they bear with much patience a great deal of abuse from unkind masters.
Because of much beating and overloading, they are generally a sorry-looking lot of animals.
Ki Pak had to engage ponies for himself, Yung Pak, and Wang Ken.
He was also obliged to employ a cook for the journey, who had to have a pony to carry along the kettles and pans and other utensils.
It was also necessary to hire body-servants and several ponies to carry luggage, and as each pony must have a _mapu_, or groom, it made quite a procession when the party started out of Seoul on the journey to the northeast.
It was a fine day when the start was made.
It was not early in the morning, for, if there is anything a Korean hates to do, it is to make an early start on a journey.
If you had been in Yung Pak's place, you would have gone crazy with impatience.
The servants were late in bringing around the ponies, and the process of loading them was a very slow one.
But Yung Pak had long before learned to be patient under such circumstances.
In fact, he seemed to care little whether the start were made in the morning or at noon.
He calmly watched the servants at their work, and, when at last all was declared ready, he gravely mounted his pony and fell into the procession behind his father, with Wang Ken immediately following.
A most comical sight was the cook, perched on top of his load of pans, pots, and potatoes.
As his pony trotted along with the others, it looked as if the cook was in constant danger of a fall from his lofty seat, but he sat as calm and unconcerned as one could imagine.
You would laugh if you should see the strings of eggs hanging across this pony's back--yes, eggs.
They were packed in bands of wheat straw, and between each pair of eggs a straw was twisted.
Thus a straw rope enclosing twenty or more eggs, well protected, was made and thrown over the top of the load.
Other riders had more comfortable seats, for most of the ponies carried baggage in two wicker baskets,--one strapped upon each side,--and on top of these was piled bedding and wadded clothing, which made a soft seat for the rider.
The _mapus_ who accompanied the procession were dressed in short cotton jackets, loose trousers, with sandals and cotton wrappings upon the feet.
They had to step lively to keep up with the ponies.
All the people in this company carried with them long garments made of oiled paper.
You have already learned that the Korean paper is very tough, and when soaked with oil it forms a splendid protection against the rain.
Many of these garments had a very peculiar appearance, because they were made of paper on which had been set copies for schoolboys to use in learning to write.
As Yung Pak and his companions passed along the dirty streets of Seoul toward a gate in the great wall, a curious crowd was attracted by the unusual sight.
This mob of men and boys were good-natured, but very curious, and it gathered so close as to impede the progress of the ponies.
Moreover, a watchful eye had to be kept on all the luggage, lest some over-covetous person might steal the provisions and supplies on the ponies' backs.
Notwithstanding the slow progress made by Ki Pak's company, it took only a short time to pass through the narrow streets and out by the great gate, leaving behind the noisy mob of men and boys who had followed them to the city's wall.
Once outside, upon the road which wound around and over the high hills that surround the city, the pure country air seemed very sweet and refreshing to Yung Pak, who knew nothing of life outside Seoul.
This was his first journey into the country, and the many strange sights drew exclamations of surprise and wonder from him.
The green waving grass and swaying foliage of the trees were ever new sources of joy and pleasure, and the delicate odours which the breezes bore to his sensitive nostrils were refreshing and life-giving.
Among the strange sights which attracted Yung Pak's attention, as they rode along through the country, were some very curious figures erected by the roadside.
These were posts, one side of which was roughly planed.
On the upper part of each of these posts was a rude carving of a hideous human face with prominent teeth.
The cheeks and teeth were slightly coloured.
A most fiendish appearance was presented by these figures, called by the Koreans _syou-sal-mak-i_, and if looks counted for anything, they ought well to serve their purpose,--the scaring away of evil spirits from the village near which the figures always stood.
The mile-posts, or _fjang-seung_, along the way were often similarly decorated.
[Illustration: "ON THE UPPER PART OF EACH OF THESE POSTS WAS A RUDE CARVING"] Another curiosity by the wayside which led to wonder on Yung Pak's part was an old trunk of a tall tree.
For about thirty feet from the ground this was painted in coloured stripes very much like a barber's pole.
The top and branches of the tree had been trimmed off, and the upper end was rudely carved in a shape representing a dragon with a forked tail.
From the head, which resembled that of an alligator, hung various cords, to which were attached small brass bells and a wooden fish.
Wang Ken told Yung Pak that this was a monument to some famous Korean "doctor of literature."
On the first day's journey toward Chang-an-sa the party made good progress.
The plan was to get to Yong-pyöng, about twenty miles from Seoul, before nightfall.
To you this would seem a short day's journey, but when it is remembered that many of the servants were on foot, and that the little ponies were heavily loaded, it does not seem so strange that more ground could not be covered in one day.
In addition, in many places the roads were poor, though in the valleys there was a smooth bottom where the sand had washed down from the hills.
On some of these hillsides little villages were perched.
Yung Pak noticed that on the upper side of each of these hill-towns was a moon-shaped wall.
"What is that wall for?"
he asked Wang Ken as they passed one.
"That protects the village in time of rainstorms," replied the tutor.
"The soil here is of such a nature that it easily washes away, and if the town were unprotected the earth would soon be swept from beneath the houses.
If you will look sharply, you will see outside the wall a deep trench which carries off the rushing water."
As they were slowly riding along a road which wound around and over a high hill Yung Pak still kept his eyes wide open for strange sights.
Suddenly he lifted his arm, and, pointing toward a tree upon a little hill at one side of the road, he said to Wang Ken: "Oh, what a queer-looking tree that is!
And are not those strange leaves on it?
What kind of a tree is it, anyway?"
"Ha, ha!"
laughed Wang Ken, "I don't wonder that you call that a strange-looking tree.
Let's take a walk up to it and get a closer view."
So the ponies were halted, and down sprang Yung Pak and Wang Ken.
Leaving the ponies in charge of the _mapus_, they marched up the hill to get a nearer sight of the tree.
"Why," said the boy, as they approached it, "those are not leaves that we saw from the road, but they are rags and strips of cloth.
It looks as if some one had hung out their clothes to dry and forgotten to take them in again.
What does it all mean?"
"That tree, my boy," Wang Ken replied, "is called the sacred devil-tree.
That is a queer combination of names, but you know there are a lot of ignorant people in our country who are very superstitious.
They believe in all sorts of evil and good spirits.
They think these spirits watch every act of their lives.
Consequently they do all they can to please the good spirits and to drive away the evil ones.
This tree they believe has power to keep off the bad spirits, so every man who thinks that a demon has possession of him tears a piece of cloth from his garment and carefully ties it to a branch.
That is how all these strips you see come to be hanging above you.
Some have hung there so long that the wind and rain have torn them to rags."
"Yes, but why is this done?"
asked Yung Pak.
"Because," was the reply, "a man who is possessed by an evil spirit thinks that by thus tying a part of his clothing to the tree he may induce the spirit to attach himself to it instead of to his own person."
Yung Pak's curiosity satisfied, they returned to the road, mounted their ponies, and quickly caught up with the rest of the party.
No further incidents of special importance marked this first day's journey, and shortly before nightfall they arrived at the town of Yong-pyöng.
They found the village inn to be a series of low, small buildings built on three sides of a courtyard.
Into low sheds in this yard the ponies were crowded and the luggage removed from their backs.
Ki Pak's servants proceeded to build a fire in the centre of the yard and the cook made preparations for getting supper.
Travellers had to provide a large part of their own meals, for, as already stated, these village inns were not hotels in the real sense of the word.
They were simply rude lodging-places where travellers might be protected from the night air and have a chance to sleep while passing through the country.
Into the main waiting-room of the inn Yung Pak, with his father and tutor, entered.
At the door they removed their shoes and left them outside.
In the room were several other travellers seated upon the floor, which was covered with oiled paper and grass mats.
There was absolutely no furniture.
The walls were covered with clean white paper.
Each man in the room was smoking a pipe, which consisted of a brass bowl and a reed stem over three feet long.
All wore long white robes, though one of the occupants had hung his hat upon the wall.
Into this room after a time the cook brought supper for his masters.
Other servants brought in boxes which were used as tables, and though the style was not just what Yung Pak was used to, he managed to eat a hearty meal.
The day in the open air had given him a hunger and a zest he rarely knew.
After supper, for a short time Yung Pak and Wang Ken talked over with Ki Pak the events of the day.
A servant soon announced that their sleeping-rooms were ready, and they gladly at once sought their beds.
To get to their rooms they again stepped out into the courtyard.
They found that each bedroom was one of the little buildings facing the yard.
Yung Pak and Wang Ken occupied one room, while Ki Pak had a room by himself.
Through a narrow door about three feet high the lad and his tutor entered their room.
The door was simply a lattice shutter covered with paper.
The room was very small,--barely space for the two mattresses which had been put there by the servants, and the ceiling was so low that even the short Koreans could hardly stand upright.
Yet here our two friends managed to make themselves very comfortable for the night.
Outside in the courtyard the fire was kept burning, beside which two watchmen sat all night smoking and telling stories.
It was necessary to maintain a watch till morning because the country districts of Korea are infested with wild animals, particularly tigers, and the bright blaze of the fire served to keep them at a distance.
Otherwise the thin-walled houses would have been slight protection for the sleeping travellers.
As it was, Yung Pak slept soundly the whole night, and did not awake until after daylight, when servants brought to his door a wooden bowl and a brass vessel full of water for his morning bath.
Quickly he sprang up, and with his companions made ready for the day's journey, for they were all anxious to be on their way.
[Illustration: "THE DAY WAS PASSED IN MUCH THE SAME MANNER AS THE PRECEDING ONE"] Breakfast was served in much the same manner as the supper of the previous evening had been.
Of this meal all heartily partook, for a Korean is never guilty of having a poor appetite.
As usual, it took a long time to get the ponies properly loaded and ready to start, and the forenoon was about half-gone when the procession finally left the courtyard of the inn.
A twenty-mile march would bring the party to Rang-chyön, where it was proposed to spend the second night of the journey.
The day was passed in much the same manner as the preceding one, though of course new scenes proved ever interesting to Yung Pak.
During this day the party had to cross a river which was too deep to ford, and over which there was no sort of bridge.
For the assistance of travellers a ferry-boat had been provided.
This boat was a broad, flat-bottomed, clumsy affair.
It could carry but three ponies at a time, with several men.
The men in charge of the boat were slow and obstinate, and consequently it took a long time for all to get across the river.
It was right here that an unfortunate, yet laughable, accident occurred.
As on the preceding day, the cook rode perched upon his pony's load of kettles, pans, and pots.
When riding along a good road his position was precarious enough, requiring all his best efforts to maintain his balance.
When his turn came to go upon the ferry-boat, Ki Pak advised him to dismount and lead his pony across the plank which covered the watery space between the bank of the river and the boat.
But the cook was an obstinate Korean, as well as a trifle lazy, and refused to get down, thinking he could safely drive his beast across the gang-plank.
Ordinarily this would have been possible, but on this particular occasion, just as the pony stepped upon the plank, the boat gave a lurch, the plank slipped, and overboard went pony, cook, and all.
For a few moments there was enough bustle and excitement to suit any one.
Fortunately, the water was not deep, and quickly the drenched animal and man were pulled from the water.
The only permanent harm was to some of the provisions that were a part of the pony's load.
The cook was a wiser as well as a wet man, and made up his mind that the next time he would heed the advice to dismount when boarding a ferry-boat.
The day's journey was completed without further special incident, and at night they rested in the inn at Rang-chyön under conditions much the same as at Yong-pyöng.
The third day's journey brought the company to Kewen-syong.
On the way thither Yung Pak was much interested in the sights of the country, which grew wilder and more strange the farther they got from Seoul.
On this day numerous highwaymen were met, but they dared not molest the travellers on account of the large number in the party.
The cabins along the country roads were a continual source of curiosity to Yung Pak.
They were built of mud, without windows, and no door except a screen of cords.
In nearly every doorway would be sitting a man, smoking a long-stemmed pipe, who looked with wide-open eyes at the unusual procession passing his house.
Of course all the men who lived in these country cabins were farmers, and Yung Pak liked to watch them as they worked in their fields, for to the city-bred boy this is always an entrancing sight.
What seemed most curious to him was the fact that women were also at work in the fields.
At his home the women of the family nearly always stayed in their own apartments, and when they did go out always went heavily veiled.
These country women not only assisted in the farm work, but they had to do all the spinning and weaving for the family, in addition to usual household cares.
Wang Ken was able to tell Yung Pak much about country life, for, like most of the school-masters of Korea, he was himself a farmer's son.
He told how the Korean farmer lived a simple, patient life, while at the same time he was ignorant and superstitious.
He believed in demons, spirits, and dragons, and in nearly every house were idols in honour of the imaginary deities.
Pigs and bulls are the chief animals on Korean farms.
The latter are used as beasts of burden, though occasionally a more prosperous man may own a pony or a donkey.
The farming tools are extremely rude and simple, thus necessitating the labour of several men or women where one man could do the work with good tools.
While travelling along Yung Pak met several hunters.
They were not an uncommon sight on the streets of Seoul.
When in the city they wore a rough felt conical hat and dark blue cotton robe.
The garments were ugly in appearance and inconvenient.
When the hunters were after game the robe was discarded, and its place taken by a short wadded jacket, its sleeves bound around the arms over wadded cuffs which reached from wrist to elbow.
In a similar way the trousers were bound to the calf of the hunter's leg, and light straw sandals over a long piece of cotton cloth were strapped to the feet and ankles.
A huge string game-bag was slung over his back, and in an antelope's horn or a crane's bill bullets were carried.
Powder was kept dry in a tortoise-shaped case of leather or oiled paper.
Yung Pak's father would have been glad to have taken time for seeking game with some of these hunters, but the business of his trip prevented any unnecessary delay on the journey.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MONASTERY AT CHANG-AN-SA In the latter part of the afternoon of the fourth day, our travellers, weary and worn with the long journey, came in sight of Chang-an-sa, the Temple of Eternal Rest, one of the oldest monasteries of Korea, where hundreds of monks devoted their lives to the service of Buddha.
The temple buildings, with deep curved roofs, are in a glorious situation on a small level lot of grassy land crowded between the high walls of a rocky ravine.
Yung Pak was delighted at his first sight of the great temple and the surrounding buildings.
Through the swaying branches of the forest-trees he caught brief glimpses of the granite walls and turrets reddening in the sunset glow.
The deepening gloom of the gorge was lighted by the slant beams of the setting sun, and on the water in the stream below flecks of foam sparkled and danced in the light of the dying day.
At first conversation was out of the question in the presence of such a majestic display of nature's wonders combined with the handiwork of man.
Coming to a gate of red stone, Yung Pak asked the meaning of the carved arrow in the arch overhead.
"That arrow," replied his father, "signifies that the temples to which this gate is the outer entrance are under the patronage of the king.
Wherever you see that sign, you may know that the king has a special interest, and his messengers will be treated with respect and hospitality.
Consequently we may expect to be well cared for during our visit to this place."
Passing through the gate, our friends found themselves at once in the midst of the Chang-an-sa monastery buildings.
In addition to the great chief temple, there were many smaller places of worship, with bell and tablet houses.
There were also cells and sleeping-rooms for the monks, servants' quarters, stables, a huge kitchen, and an immense dining-room, together with a large guest-hall and a nunnery.
In addition there were several buildings devoted to the care of the aged, the infirm, and the sick.
All these places, during his stay, Yung Pak visited in company with Wang Ken and guided by one of the monks.
Besides the buildings already mentioned there were several houses that had been erected by the king on purpose for the use of his officials, and it was to one of these that Ki Pak and his son and Wang Ken were led by several of the priests of the monastery.
In the meantime, the servants and the ponies were cared for in other places assigned for the purpose.
Yung Pak was not sorry to arrive at his journey's end, even though he had enjoyed himself every moment of the time since he left Seoul.
A four days' ride on the back of a pony will make the most enthusiastic traveller tired, and Yung Pak was glad to get to bed in the comfortable room provided just as soon as he had eaten his supper.
His night's sleep was a sound one, though at midnight, and again at four o'clock in the morning, he was awakened by the ringing of bells and gongs that called the monks to the worship of Buddha.
In the morning Yung Pak awoke greatly refreshed, and, after a bountiful breakfast, he started out with Wang Ken, guided by a monk, to see the wonders of Chang-an-sa monastery.
One of the first things he noticed was the large number of boys about the place.
He learned from the guide that these lads were all orphans who were being cared for by the priests, and who, later in life, would themselves become priests of Buddha.
They were all bright and active, and were kept busily employed as waiters and errand-runners when they were not at work on their studies.
Like most boys, however, they managed to get a generous share of time for play.
It would be impossible to tell in detail about all the strange things Yung Pak saw at this monastery.
The chief temple was an enormous structure of stone and tile and carved wood, all decorated in gorgeous combinations of red, green, gold, and white.
Within this temple was one room called the "chamber of imagery."
Inside its darkened walls a single monk chanted his monotonous prayer before an altar.
During the chant he also occupied himself by striking a small bell with a deer-horn.
Bells played a great part in the worship at Chang-an-sa, and all the prayers were emphasized by the clanging of bells great or small.
Along the shadowy walls of this room could be seen the weapons, as well as the eyes and teeth, the legs and arms, of gods and demons otherwise invisible.
These had a ghostly effect on Yung Pak, and made him cling closely to the side of his tutor.
Above the altar before which the priest knelt was an immense carving in imitation of an uprooted tree.
Among the roots thus exposed were placed fifty-three idols in all kinds of positions.
Beneath the carving were represented three fierce-looking dragons, on whose faces were signs of the most awful torment and suffering.
"About this altar-piece," said Yung Pak's guide, "there is a legend you might like to hear."
"Oh, yes," was the reply, "tell us the story."
"Many years ago," began the guide, "fifty-three Buddhist priests came from India to Korea for the purpose of converting the people to their belief.
When they reached this place they were very tired, and sat down by a spring beneath the wide-spreading branches of a tree.
They had not been there long when three dragons appeared and attacked the priests.
During the contest the dragons called up a great wind which uprooted the tree.
In return, each of the priests placed an image of Buddha on a tree-root, turning it into an altar.
Thus they were able to overcome the dragons, who were forced into the spring.
On top of them great stones were piled, and afterward the monastery of Chang-an-sa was built upon the site of the battle between the priests and the dragons."
Afterward Yung Pak visited the great kitchens, the dining-rooms, the stables, the private rooms of the monks, and every place which might be of interest to an inquisitive boy of his age.
During the time he remained at Chang-an-sa he made several excursions into the surrounding country, but always returning to the monastery at night.
Meanwhile Ki Pak had transacted the business for which he came to this region, and at the end of ten days was ready to return to Seoul.
Of this journey it is not necessary to tell.
No mishap marred the pleasure of the trip, and all returned safe and sound to their home in the capital city of Korea.
Yung Pak had enjoyed the journey very, very much, yet he was not sorry once more to be among the familiar scenes and surroundings of home.
CHAPTER IX.
A FULL-FLEDGED TOP-KNOT Like all Korean boys, Yung Pak wore his hair in two braids, and by the time he was twelve years old these had become very long, and hung in black and glossy plaits down his back.
On the day that he was thirteen his father called him to his room and told the lad that the time had come for him to assume the dignities of a man.
In accordance with that statement, he had decided that on the next day his son should be formally "invested" with the top-knot.
In other words, the crown of his head was to be shaven, and his long hair tightly coiled upon the bare place thus made.
This is called the "Investiture of the Top-knot," and is always attended by solemn ceremonies.
In preparation for this event Ki Pak had made careful and elaborate arrangements.
He had provided for his son new clothes and a hat after the style of his own.
He had also consulted an eminent astrologer, who had chosen the propitious day and hour for the ceremony after due consultation of the calendar and the stars and planets in their courses.
Generally, if the father is blessed with good fortune and a number of sons, he acts as his own master of ceremonies on such an occasion, but as Ki Pak had only this one son he decided to ask his brother, Wu-pom Nai, who had several sons and was a prosperous merchant of Seoul, to fill this important position.
Yung Pak could hardly wait for the morrow to come.
So excited was he at the thought of the great honour that was to be his that he spent almost a sleepless night.
However, like all nights, long or short, this one passed, and the wished-for hour at last arrived.
All the male members of the family were present.
Korean women are reckoned of little importance and take no part in social and family affairs.
On this occasion no men except relatives were asked to attend.
Yung Pak was directed to seat himself on the floor in the centre of the room, facing the east.
This was the point of compass revealed by the astrologer as most favourable to the young candidate for manly honours.
With great deliberation and much formality Wu-pom Nai proceeded to loosen the boy's heavy plaits of hair.
Then with great care, while the onlookers watched with breathless interest, he shaved the crown of the lad's head, making a bare circular spot about three inches in diameter.
Over this spot he twisted all the remaining hair into a coil about four inches long, pointing slightly forward like a horn.
Over the top-knot thus made the master of ceremonies placed the _mang-kun,_ which was a crownless skull-cap made of a very delicate stiff gauze.
This was tied on very tightly,--so tightly that it made a deep ridge in Yung Pak's forehead and gave him a severe headache; but he bore the pain heroically and without flinching--for was he not now a man?
The regular Korean man's hat, with its flapping wings, was next put on, and this part of the ceremony was complete.
Yung Pak now rose from his position, and made a deep bow to each one in the room, beginning with his father, and then in regular order according to relationship.
Afterward, accompanied by his relatives, he proceeded to the room where were placed the tablets in memory of his ancestors.
There he offered sacrifice before each one in turn.
Lighted candles in brass candlesticks he placed in front of each tablet, and beside the candles he put dishes of sacrificial food and fruit.
Then, as before his living relatives, he bowed profoundly to the tablets of the dead ones, and formally and seriously let them know that he had been regularly invested with the top-knot, and now had the right to be regarded as a man.
The sacrifices made, Yung Pak called at the homes of all the male friends of the family, who now for the first time looked upon him as their equal, and in the evening Ki Pak gave a great dinner in honour of his son.
Here there was much feasting and rejoicing, and all united in wishing the greatest prosperity and lifelong happiness to the little Korean boy now become a man.
He is no longer our _little_ Korean cousin.
Hence, we leave him at this point, joining heartily in the best wishes and the compliments bestowed upon him by his friends.
THE END.
THE RED MIRIOK BY ANNA M. BARNES ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEORGE A. NEWMAN PHILADELPHIA American Baptist Publication Society 1420 Chestnut Street Copyright 1901 and 1902 by the AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY Published January, 1903 From the Society's own Press INTRODUCTORY NOTE Korea has been called the "Hermit Nation," as of all nations Tibet alone has exceeded it in repulsing foreign influences.
Only in 1882 did the United States secure a treaty, and that opened the country to foreign trade only in the capital, Seoul, and three ports.
But in this treaty Korea was treated with as an independent State, and its people are distinct from either Chinese or Japanese and well repay study and missionary labors.
This little story is one of the first to present this slightly known land and its customs, and therefore deserves special attention from all who are interested in the Christianizing of Oriental nations.
CONTENTS CHAPTER I Mr. Kit-ze 9 CHAPTER II A Hasty Desertion 19 CHAPTER III The Lost Recovered 30 CHAPTER IV A Stowaway 39 CHAPTER V Before the Magistrate 49 CHAPTER VI A Friendly Hail 61 CHAPTER VII An Entreaty 71 CHAPTER VIII The Story of Choi-so 81 CHAPTER IX A Theft 90 CHAPTER X An Arrested Sacrifice 102 CHAPTER XI "One Soul" 115 ILLUSTRATIONS "_Mr.
Kit-ze's hat was moving across the organ_" 17 "'_Yes, only a little, for it takes nearly three thousand of them to make a dollar_'" 28 "_Yes, it was the red miriok_" 38 "_He began to shake him vigorously_" 47 "_Cheefoo prostrated himself to the magistrate_" 54 "_The old man was bolt upright, despite his years_" 69 "_Then, extending his hands, entreated_" 79 "_He was permitted to look ... upon the priests at their devotions_" 85 "_He forthwith ... proceeded to throw rice into the well_" 92 "'_Stop!_' _entreated Helen_" 106 "'_Sorry.
Sorry.
It was wrong.
She showed me_'" 123 THE RED MIRIOK CHAPTER I MR. KIT-ZE "There is one thing I forgot to mention," said Mr. Reid, resuming the conversation.
"If we do undertake our sampan journey, we must have Mr. Kit-ze.
I have already talked to him about it."
"Oh, father!"
The expression of Clarence's face so emphasized his protest that nothing beyond the mere exclamation was necessary.
"Why, Clarence, what could be the objection to Mr.
Kit-ze?"
"A good one, father.
He is such an eel-like fellow.
I know we couldn't depend on him.
Then it strikes me that his mind isn't right.
He's always muttering to himself and clutching his breast in such a queer way.
Oh, I'm sure it would be a bad step to take Mr.
Kit-ze."
"That is just like a boy!"
declared Helen, his sister, "jumping at conclusions."
"You mean girls," retorted Clarence.
"They fairly spring at them; yes, reach out their arms to grasp 'em as they spring."
"Come, children, don't spar," warned Mr. Reid.
"But, my son," turning to Clarence, "I fear it is as your sister asserts, you have arrived at conclusions too hastily with reference to Mr. Kit-ze.
He is a little strange in his manner, I'll admit; but his friends, some of whom belong to the mission, tell me that he is a very good sort of fellow, honest and well-meaning, though he is rather grasping as to money matters."
"He is well-meaning," asserted Helen; "and I think the reason he is so close about money is because he has many who are dependent on him.
Yes, I like Mr. Kit-ze.
Though some of his ways are strange, yet he is good-natured and kind when you know him well."
"Guess, then, I don't know him well," admitted Clarence.
"No; and until you do, you won't like him."
Clarence whistled, and reached over to give the tail of Nam-san, the monkey, a twist, which that quick-tempered little animal resented by scratching at him and then springing away.
"I think I know what is the matter with Mr. Kit-ze," said Mr. Reid, as though in sudden comment after following a line of thought.
"He is a religious enthusiast."
Helen looked at him quickly, a glad light over-spreading her face.
"Oh, father, I didn't know that Mr. Kit-ze had been converted.
That _is_ news."
"I don't mean that, Helen.
I wish that it were true, for I have been working earnestly to that end for more than a year.
What I have reference to is that he is an enthusiast in his own religious belief."
"Why, I didn't know, uncle, that these people had any religious belief," said his nephew, Mallard Hale, who for a few moments past had not joined in the conversation.
"I believe, yes, I am sure I have seen it stated that as a country Korea is practically without a religion."
"That is true in one sense, Mallard, but not in another.
While Korea has no established religion, what might be called a national religion, as have China, Japan, and her other neighbors, yet such of the Koreans as have not individually embraced Buddhism, Confucianism, and the like, are given over wholly to ancestral and to demon worship, especially the latter."
"What do you mean by demon worship, uncle?"
"They believe in spirits of all degrees, good, bad, and indifferent, but principally the bad.
They fill the air around them; they dwell in their homes; they sit at their feasts; they even perch upon such portions of the human body as suits them.
They bring evil or good as they are angered or appeased.
To counteract the influence of the evil demons the people carry about with them certain charms to frighten them away.
Around their habitations, especially in the country districts, they erect these grotesque figures having resemblance to the human form, the more hideous the better.
They are called _mirioks_.
In the cities, where there is little space for such erection, the figures, considerably diminished in size, are either kept in the homes or carried about the person.
In many instances this devotion to _mirioks_ amounts to fanaticism of the most pronounced kind."
"Oh, yes, that is just what Mr. Kit-ze does!"
exclaimed Joyce, the younger son of the family.
"He carries it around in his bosom.
Sometimes he takes it out and talks to it.
I have seen it.
Oh!
it is the ugliest little red thing!"
All eyes were now turned inquiringly upon him.
"I believe, yes, I am sure," he continued, "if I were to see it in the black dark, I'd run from it."
"Why, how could you see it in 'the black dark'?"
quizzed Mallard.
Joyce flushed as the laugh went around at his expense, then he answered: "Oh, I mean if it were so I could see it even a little bit.
I am sure I could see its eyes, for they are made out of something that just glitters and burns."
"It is as I supposed," said Mr. Reid; "Mr. Kit-ze is an enthusiast on the subject of this _miriok_.
This accounts for his strange behavior, his mutterings, and the clutchings at his breast.
He keeps the _miriok_ there in the folds of his gown.
He believes that it wards away the evil spirits and invites the good.
On other subjects I am sure he is all right.
At any rate, if we are going to attempt that journey up the Han we shall be almost dependent on him.
He not only has the largest sampan and is considered the safest boatman on the river, but he also knows the way better, having ascended higher than any other, I am told."
"Then, uncle, we must have him by all means," said Mallard decisively.
"Yes," added Clarence somewhat flippantly, "red _miriok_ and all."
"Yes, even the red _miriok_ to get Mr. Kit-ze," declared Mallard.
Then he asked, "Isn't the journey attended by some degree of danger?"
"With considerable danger at some places, I understand, Mallard; and this is why we should have a stout sampan as well as a sampan man who understands both his business and the river."
The family of Rev.
Mr. Reid, missionary at Seoul, Korea, consisted of his wife, her widowed sister, his two sons, Clarence and Joyce, and his daughter, Helen.
Mallard Hale, an American youth of seventeen, had recently come to make his home with his uncle.
He was only a few months older than Clarence, and the two cousins were very fond of each other.
Helen was nearly fifteen and Joyce twelve.
For some days they had been talking of this sampan journey up the Han.
Mr. Reid had long wanted to take such a trip into the interior for the purpose of making observations of the country and of studying the conditions of the people along the south branch of the Han.
It was reported to be a wonderfully attractive and fertile section, with a people whose manners and customs, differing from those in the cities, made them of deep interest to the traveler.
They were described as quiet and peaceful, given to hospitality, and fairly burning with curiosity.
The Mission Board, under the auspices of which Mr. Reid labored, had for some time contemplated the establishment of a branch mission in the interior.
They were waiting for him to decide the point where it should be located.
He had hesitated a long time about undertaking the sampan journey because as yet there had not been sufficient money to defray the necessary expenses.
But the coming of his nephew, Mallard Hale, had quickly done away with this obstacle.
For Mallard was comfortably fixed as to income, and he insisted on bearing all the expense of hiring and propelling the sampan, while his uncle was left to provide only for provisions and equipments.
"Then, uncle," said Mallard, after they had talked a little further, "let us decide positively on going, also that we take Mr. Kit-ze and his sampan."
"Yes, red----" began Clarence, but the words were cut short by an exclamation from Joyce.
"Why," he cried, "here is Mr. Kit-ze now!"
Sure enough, Mr. Kit-ze was coming in.
It was just after dinner, or _opan_, as they would say in Korea, and Mr. Kit-ze was still caressing his lips with his tongue, well pleased with the toothsome morsels that had gone to comfort his stomach.
He was a little stouter and taller than the average man of his race, standing five feet six in his sandals, weighing, perhaps, one hundred and sixty pounds, and was fifty years of age.
His complexion, originally of a bright olive, had now a deep tan through the action of sun and winds.
He had a straight nose, but rather distended nostrils, the oblique Mongolian eye, while his hair, of a deep russet-brown smeared with lampblack, was wound in a knot at the top of his head.
Mr. Kit-ze had on the loose white robe of his countrymen, with flowing sleeves, that fell just below the knees.
It was belted in with a girdle of straw.
Beneath it showed his baggy trousers, gathered in at the ankle.
A _katsi_ (hat), in shape like a flower pot turned down over a table, wadded stockings, and sandals of straw completed his attire.
When he removed his hat, on Mr. Reid's invitation, there was a little tight-fitting skullcap of horsehair underneath, carefully placed on top of his knot of hair.
He seemed solicitous about his hat, not knowing just where to place it.
It was, indeed, a huge affair for a hat, the brim being nearly six feet in circumference.
At home Mr. Kit-ze had his swinging case for his hat, but here he was at a loss as to its disposal.
Helen at length came to the rescue and placed it on top of the organ, where it rested, one portion of the brim lying upon a large music book, the other flat upon the surface of the instrument.
"Well, Mr. Kit-ze," said Mr. Reid, "are you ready to take another journey with your sampan up the South Han?"
Instead of replying to this question, Mr. Kit-ze suggested: "Better go up the North Han, honorable instructor.
There are the Diamond Mountains."
Clarence jumped up suddenly, shouting out his delight: "Yes, father, let's go to the Diamond Mountains.
Oh, won't that be glorious?"
"And pick up treasure," suggested Helen; "enough to build the new mission chapel that is so needed," she added, her eyes taking on a deeper glow as she glanced at her father.
"Why, are there really any treasures to be found in those mountains?"
asked Mallard, catching the excitement.
Mr. Kit-ze, who understood enough of the language to catch the drift of the question, quickly replied: "Yes, honorable sir, there are treasures.
Two gentlemen from your country got a whole wallet full of diamonds in the mountains last week.
They say they can be picked up like bamboo reeds after a freshet."
"Only Mr. Kit-ze's enthusiasm," said Mr. Reid in an aside to his nephew.
"Some one has been filling him with the story, which is vastly exaggerated, I am sure.
But later in the year, Mallard, if you desire it, we can make the trip to the Diamond Mountains.
Now my Master's business calls me in another direction."
"All right, uncle, that Diamond Mountain trip can wait.
Yes, we'll take it later," he added after a pause.
"Is your sampan ready, Mr.
Kit-ze?"
Mr. Reid now asked.
[Illustration: "MR. KIT-ZE'S HAT WAS MOVING ACROSS THE ORGAN!"]
"Not quite, exalted master; but your servant can make it ready in a day or so."
"Are you sure of that?
We should like to start by Tuesday of next week; and when we are ready we want the sampan ready.
You understand?"
"Most learned teacher, it shall be as you wish," Mr. Kit-ze assured him, with a bow that brought his forehead almost to the floor.
A full understanding was now had; the day set, arrangements perfected, and the amount of Mr. Kit-ze's remuneration satisfactorily adjusted.
Mr. Kit-ze arose to go.
All this time, having declined the chair offered to him, he had been squatting upon his heels, his legs doubled back under him.
Considering the position, it was surprising how quickly he got up.
He had barely gained his feet when a sudden cry that startled them all escaped him.
He was gazing straight toward the organ, his features growing rigid, his eyes dilating.
Following his gaze, it took them only an instant to discover what was the matter--Mr. Kit-ze's hat was moving across the organ, moving as though it had feet and were walking.
CHAPTER II A HASTY DESERTION The pupils of Mr. Kit-ze's eyes grew larger and larger.
They seemed ready to burst into flame.
He began to mutter: "The spirit!
the spirit!
It has attached itself to my hat!
It will now attend me home and stay there; how long, I do not know."
He made a sudden movement toward the door.
He was evidently going away without his hat.
Nothing could induce him to touch it while the spirit had taken hold of it in so demonstrative a way.
Plainly his thought was that it was better to lose the hat than to run the risk of contact with the spirit.
His movement was hasty, but, quick as he was, Helen acted more quickly.
In an instant of time, as it were, she had grasped the whole situation.
Her eyes too had done her good service.
Her glance in the direction of the moving hat had shown her what Mr. Kit-ze did not see, nor even the others at first, an inch or so of snake-like tail showing beneath the rim of the hat.
She sprang toward the organ, quickly threw up the hat, and exposed to view the whole furry body of Nam-san, the monkey, who began to chatter at her indignantly, the shrill notes heard above the burst of laughter that now came from the others.
Mr. Kit-ze was just backing out of the doorway, but he paused as Helen's quick movement disclosed Nam-san under the hat.
"You see it is the monkey, Mr. Kit-ze," said Helen smiling.
"He is a mischievous little beast, and doesn't respect anything that he can have his fun with; not even your hat, Mr. Kit-ze.
But he hasn't hurt it.
See, it is all right!"
She advanced toward Mr. Kit-ze bearing the hat.
She held it toward him, but he did not take it.
He still seemed alarmed, and his glance was nervous.
Seeing the condition Mr. Kit-ze was still in and his attitude toward the hat, Mr. Reid now came to Helen's assistance.
"There has no harm befallen the hat," he assured Mr. Kit-ze.
"It was only the little beast under it, as you saw, that was causing it to move.
It is all right now, my friend," and he took the hat from Helen and held it toward Mr. Kit-ze.
Mr. Kit-ze still hesitated, but, after further reassuring words from Mr. Reid, he consented to receive the hat.
Yet he did not put it on; he turned away, holding it gingerly between his thumb and one finger.
After he had gone, they found it on the doorstep, a mark apparently made with red chalk drawn all around the rim.
"The superstitious old crank!"
exclaimed Clarence in disgust; "what made him leave his hat with us?
Why didn't he take it away and destroy it, if he was that afraid of it?"
"I think he left it as a reproach to us," said Mr. Reid.
The eyes around him sought his inquiringly.
"It is a hint that, as the misfortune befell it here, and he is now deprived of his hat, we should replace it with another."
"And how will Mr. Kit-ze feel toward us, uncle, if we do not?"
asked Mallard.
"I fear not very pleasantly, for a while, at least," replied Mr. Reid.
"Then the new hat must go to him by all means," said Mallard.
"We can't afford to start off with our sampan man in the pouts."
"No, indeed," assented Helen.
So the next day they sent Mr. Kit-ze a new hat, with expressions of regret at what had happened, and with the assurance that the other hat had been destroyed.
"For that is what he expects of us," Mr. Reid had said.
"He drew the red chalk mark so as to confine the spirit within the hat, then left the hat for us to destroy, together with the spirit.
All pure foolishness," he concluded, a little emphatically.
"We'll just throw the hat aside."
"No, father," said Helen decisively, "we will burn it."
"And thus encourage Mr. Kit-ze in his silliness?"
asked Clarence.
"In his superstition," corrected Mr. Reid.
"But it is all so real to him, poor man!"
said Helen.
And she continued, her eyes softening: "If it will make him feel better to know it is destroyed, isn't it worth while?"
"Yes," assented Mallard heartily, "it is.
We'll burn the hat, my Helen.
I'm sure uncle won't object."
"Oh, no," assented Mr. Reid.
"If Helen wants to take the trouble, let her do it."
A day or two later Mr. Kit-ze came again.
He had on his new hat, and was in the best of humor.
Especially did his face express pleasure when Helen, carrying him to a spot in the yard, showed him the small pile of ashes to which the hat had been reduced.
He stooped hurriedly, gathered them up, and, holding them in his palms, blew his breath hard upon the mass, scattering it to the four winds.
Then he grunted with satisfaction, and, going down on hands and knees, made Helen a series of the most profound bows.
He had come to tell them that the sampan was ready, but on account of the great danger of the shoals near Seoul, they must make their arrangements to start from Han-Kang, four miles from the city.
Themselves and their supplies could be transported thither by pony-back.
Mr. Kit-ze further informed them that he had secured, as both interpreter and assistant boatman, one Mr. Cheefoo, a graduate of the government schools.
He had recently fallen upon hard ways, and was glad enough to earn a little for himself, as well as to see some of the world, even if it were only his own country.
Mr. Cheefoo would be sent to assist them with the loading, and to guide them to Han-Kang, where Mr. Kit-ze and the sampan would be found awaiting them.
Mr. Chefoo came a day ahead of the time set for starting, for the supplies must be carefully packed into bales ere they could be loaded.
He had too, some suggestions from Mr. Kit-ze as to what to take and how to take it.
The selection of the necessary provisions and other supplies had cost them much thought and planning.
They knew they must not overload the sampan, as much as they might want to take some things.
On the other hand was the danger of starting out with a too meagre supply.
They finally decided on the following: seventy-five pounds of flour, thirty pounds of rice,--they expected to buy more of this on the way,--a half-bushel of beans, a strip or two of dried beef, a small amount of meats in cans and of tomatoes for soups.
"We can get eggs and vegetables from the country people," said Mr. Reid, who had traveled some in the interior districts, "and there will be fish in the river to be caught."
The other supplies consisted of a brazier for charcoal, a frying pan, saucepan, and kettle, some drinking mugs of stoneware, plates and soup plates of tin, knives, forks, and spoons, the latter of wood.
Mallard had his camera, and Clarence the fine Winchester which his cousin had presented to him.
In addition, each traveler carried a rubber coat, a pair of blankets, and two changes of underclothing.
One thing they came near forgetting, but Mrs. Reid's forethought caused them to include it among the stores almost at the last minute.
This was a little case of medicines.
It was an excited and happy party that rode away from the mission house early on the following Tuesday morning.
In addition to Mr. Reid, Mallard, Helen, Clarence, and Joyce, there were Mr. Wilburn, a young missionary from another station, and his sister, Dorothy, a very dear friend of Helen.
Indeed, for two years past the girls had been almost inseparable.
Mr. Reid's native assistant in the mission work and his wife were to be the companions of Mrs. Reid and her sister during the two weeks the party expected to be away.
They moved through the narrow streets, so narrow that it was necessary to go in single file.
Even that was difficult at times, for, though the hour was early, a mass of people was beginning to stir abroad.
Along each side of some of the streets ran a gutter, green with slime and thick with all manner of putrid matter.
The low mud huts, with their queer, horse-shoe shaped straw roofs, were set so close to this it seemed that any one coming out of the door must fall into the slime if he were not careful.
All along the streets dogs and children were tumbling about, sometimes rolling the one over the other.
Even the close observer would have found it hard to decide which was the dirtier, dog or child.
"Oh, my, the dirty youngsters!"
exclaimed Mallard, as he picked his pony's way gingerly along, sometimes finding it quite difficult to keep from riding right upon a squirming little mass of humanity.
"Where are the mothers," he continued, "to let them run so into danger?"
"You will soon find out, Mallard," replied his uncle, "that the Korean woman has her hands too full of the major duties of washing and ironing to attend with any degree of success to the minor one of looking after her children.
There!
do you not hear that strange rat-ta-tat noise?
That is made by the wooden club coming down upon the garment wrapped about its iron cylinder.
Wherever you go over Seoul, at almost any hour, day or night, you can hear that familiar sound.
It denotes the Korean slave-wife's battle with the white clothes of her lord and master, which must receive a certain amount of gloss, or there will be a storm in the domestic sky."
As they came out through the massive stone arches of the great South Gate, its lofty drum chamber with tiled roof overhead, a new world seemed to burst upon them.
They could see plainly now the line of mountains and the nearer circlet of hills, the latter flower-crowned and sparkling like jewels in the golden light of the sun.
Brilliant, indeed, was the coloring where the rich clusters of azaleas grew, and the tangled masses of clematis and honeysuckles.
Butterflies and dragon-flies flitted through the air; numerous ducks and geese hovered along the edge of the river, now alighting and skimming the water for a few moments, then dipping wing to fly away.
Flocks of cranes waded in and out of the shallow places, hunting for small fish to seize.
All around was the beauty and the glory of the spring,--matchless skies, bursting flowers, and singing birds,--such a spring as makes Seoul and its surroundings a joy to eye and heart, never to be surpassed, always to be remembered.
They took the path along the river, and in a little more than an hour's time had reached Han-Kang, where they found Mr. Kit-ze and the sampan, both in fine trim and ready to be off.
Mr. Kit-ze had changed his white clothing for his boatman's suit, which consisted of a blouse and Turkish trousers of coarse blue cotton cloth.
He was very proud of his sampan, and insisted on showing them its various fine points as well as dwelling upon them.
"Never has such a craft gone up the waters," he declared; and indeed it did look workmanlike alongside of those usually seen on Korean streams.
To begin, it had two very essential qualities--it was strongly made and it was well calked throughout.
From fore to aft it measured thirty-six feet, was seven in width at its widest portion, and drew six to seven inches of water.
At Mr. Reid's request, Mr. Kit-ze had rigged up a new and a more substantial roof along the ridgepole and its supporting framework.
This was composed of thick, water-tight mats of tough grass.
There were also curtains of the same material that could be fastened along the sides in case of rain or when the glare of the sun was too strong.
This roof was only about five feet from the floor of the sampan, so that it was very plain to all eyes that most of its occupants would have to content themselves with sitting or with standing in a stooping posture.
The boat had five compartments, three of them from seven to eight feet long, and the other two only small affairs indeed.
One of the latter was in the bow of the boat and the other at the stern.
Here the boatmen stood to pole the boat during the day, and in them they curled down to sleep at night, each rolled in a straw mat and with the side of the boat as a pillow.
"All hands to the stores!"
announced Mr. Reid.
"The more quickly we have them in and are off the better.
The sun will be pretty warm after a while."
Mr. Chefoo had brought along a young man to carry the ponies back, and he too was anxious to begin his return journey.
So all hands set to with a will, even Helen and Dorothy assisting "like good fellows," as Clarence expressed it.
Mr. Kit-ze, following Mr. Reid's instructions, had previously carried aboard the sampan a supply of charcoal and some bundles of faggots.
It was only the stores brought by the ponies that now had to be loaded.
One thing amused Mallard greatly.
This was the shape in which most of their money to be spent on the way had to be brought, strung on cords of straw.
And the amount had proved almost a full burden for one pony, though in all it was only about twenty dollars.
What queer looking coins they were!
of copper, with a small square hole through their center.
[Illustration: "'YES, ONLY A LITTLE, FOR IT TAKES NEARLY THREE THOUSAND OF THEM TO MAKE A DOLLAR.'"]
"This is our often abused but ever available 'cash,'" said Mr. Reid, holding up one of the crude bits of metal for Mallard to see.
"As there are no bankers or money changers on the way, we must take it with us, for it is the only coin accepted in the rural districts.
We must have a little ready money with us," he added.
"Oh, uncle, you call that a _little_?"
and Mallard pointed to the pony with his burden of coin.
"Yes, only a little, for it takes nearly three thousand of them to make a dollar."
Mallard recalled his uncle's words now, as he was helping to store the coin away in what Helen and Dorothy had termed the sitting room of the sampan.
He had turned to address a merry remark to Helen when he was struck by the appearance of Mr. Kit-ze.
The boatman had stopped in the midst of something he was doing as suddenly as though he had felt the force of an electric shock.
He had thrown his head up and was now clutching nervously at the folds of his blouse.
Almost at the moment that Mallard's eyes were directed upon him he uttered a sharp little cry.
It was of sufficient compass to reach the ears of the others.
As their eyes too were turned upon him, what was the astonishment of all to see Mr. Kit-ze the next moment rush up the bank to where one of the ponies, with empty saddle, was standing, and flinging himself upon it, go galloping away like one suddenly out of his senses.
CHAPTER III THE LOST RECOVERED Exclamations of astonishment and of dismay followed Mr. Kit-ze.
"What can he mean?"
asked Mr. Reid, his eyes fixed in wonder upon the fast-retreating form of his boatman.
"He surely hasn't deserted us!"
"It evidently looks that way," replied Mr. Wilburn.
"Now we are in a box!"
exclaimed Clarence.
"How are we to go on without our sampan man?"
"Well, we have the sampan," remarked Mallard cheerfully.
"The only other thing now is to look out for some one to take charge of it."
"Easier said than accomplished," commented Mr. Reid.
"Besides, though Mr. Kit-ze has deserted us, yet the sampan is his.
We can't take possession without his consent."
"He has forfeited his right to protest against such a step," declared Mr. Wilburn, "by his desertion and breach of contract.
I am for taking possession of the sampan, engaging some one to have charge of it, assisted by Mr. Chefoo here, then allowing Mr. Kit-ze so much for its use."
"But a competent sampan man is hard to find," said Mr. Reid.
"That was why I stuck to Mr.
Kit-ze."
"Oh, but it is too bad to lose our trip!"
exclaimed Mr. Wilburn, "especially when so much relating to our work depends on it," and he looked wistfully at Mr. Reid.
"Yes, too bad," assented Mallard.
"Oh, we must go," declared Clarence.
Even Helen and Dorothy were for going on, that is, if satisfactory arrangements could be made.
"But maybe Mr. Kit-ze will return," suggested Helen.
"Yes," said Mr. Chefoo, who now spoke for the first time, "he will return."
All turned to look at him inquiringly.
He had spoken very positively.
"What makes you say that?"
"Because, honorable sirs, he went away as one who will come back.
There was no parting word.
He will return."
"He didn't have sense for any parting word," commented Clarence.
"It seemed all taken from him."
"No," asserted Mr. Chefoo, "it was only the excitement that comes when one knows there has been a loss."
"'A loss'!"
echoed Clarence.
"Yes; Mr. Kit-ze has either lost something of very great value, for which he has now gone to make search, or else he has forgotten something that he has gone to bring.
It is one or the other as you will in time discover, son of the honorable teacher."
"But why act in that demented way?
Couldn't he have explained to us, and then gone after it in a respectable fashion?"
"It was something by which he set so great a store, youthful sir, that he was overcome by what its loss signified to him.
I should say," continued Mr. Chefoo, "that it is something without which he could not proceed, or without which he----" Here Mr. Chefoo paused.
"Well?"
asked Clarence.
"Without which he would fear to go on."
"I see!"
exclaimed Mr. Reid.
"It was----" "Let me finish, father," cried Clarence.
"It was the red _miriok_.
That old crank has either left it or lost it.
Now we must be tied up here waiting his pleasure."
"Yes," said Mr. Reid in a disgusted manner, "it was the red _miriok_ that carried him off in that demented way; I am sure of it.
But don't call him a crank so boldly, Clarence.
It would offend him should he hear it."
"Well, what else is he?
It is just too bad to be deserted in this way and for such silliness.
Oh, I wish that the red _miriok_ was in the bottom of the river."
"Then, we'd never get Mr. Kit-ze to proceed," assured Mr. Wilburn, who by this time had heard the story of the red _miriok_; "or at least not until its counterpart was procured.
But we can't stay here," he continued.
"We must, at least, try getting on to the next village.
There Mr. Kit-ze can join us.
We'll leave word for him.
This is a very objectionable locality for more reasons than one, and the sooner we move away from it the better."
In the meanwhile a large crowd had gathered, both on the river bank and in the shallow water surrounding the sampan.
All were agape with curiosity.
It is a well-known saying in Korea, and one the truth of which travelers have often proved, that if you move on, very little comment is excited; but if you stand still and appear to be engaged in anything, or even to be looking at an object, curiosity of the most intense kind is aroused.
It takes but a minute or two then for the crowd to gather around you, each individual member thereof following anxiously the glance of your eye and hanging with almost breathless intent upon every movement of hand or leg.
There were women and children in the crowd as well as men.
The former were so overcome by their curiosity that they had for the time forgotten to keep their long, green coats close up about their eyes, which is the custom when women are abroad in Korea.
They now hung loosely about their necks, the long, wide sleeves that are rarely used swinging over their shoulders.
An old woman with much vigor of speech offered them barley sugar for sale.
She was very dirty, and her wares looked as uninviting as herself.
But feeling sorry for her, Helen invested quite liberally in the barley sugar, immediately bestowing it upon a little group of open-mouthed children who stood near.
In some way the old woman had caught a part, at least, of the situation.
She seemed to comprehend that they were at a loss whether to go on or to stay.
In return for Helen's graciousness she came to the rescue by suggesting that they send for a _mutang_ (sorceress) who lived near.
She would come with her drum and cymbals, her wand and divination box,[1] and in a little while she could tell them what to do.
The sun was now climbing nearer and nearer the meridian, and its rays were growing unpleasantly warm.
More than an hour had been wasted since the loading of the sampan.
They had burned the bridge behind them, as the saying is, by sending the man back to the city with the ponies.
There was nothing now but to go on, even if they had to turn back in the midst of the journey.
Mr. Chefoo was the good fairy that came to the rescue.
He seemed to regret Mr. Kit-ze's behavior keenly, and to be deeply sympathetic with the sampan party in its desire so plainly expressed to be off on the journey.
He was a big, good-natured fellow, strong and hearty looking, with a clear eye and with much intelligence expressed upon his face.
He had too, a pretty fair scope of English, which made his attendance all the more satisfactory and agreeable.
Mr. Kit-ze, he continued to assure them, would return.
He felt certain of it.
They would leave word for him and proceed to the next town, since this one was so objectionable with its foul smells and its rather rough-looking population.
The first step then, was to hire a man to help him pole, as he felt certain he, Mr. Chefoo, could direct the movements of the sampan up to the next village.
There were no rapids of any considerable danger in the way.
"All right, Mr. Chefoo," said Mr. Reid.
"Go ahead and hire your man, but be sure he is one on whom we can rely."
"I'll have a care to that, honorable teacher," assured Mr. Chefoo.
The first man approached declared that he couldn't go, as his wife needed him to sit and watch her while she washed the clothes.
The second one said he must first ask his mother and, as she lived two villages away, they must wait until the following morning ere he could give them his answer.
The third wished to know if he would be permitted to take as many as seven suits of clothes with him, as he could do with no less; also if provision would be made for their washing and ironing along the way.
On being assured that no such concession could be granted he went away much aggrieved.
Another said he would gladly attend them as their poleman if they would promise not to tie up anywhere along the bank where there were tigers, or even where tigers were known to have been on the surrounding hills.
As they could give no such promise with the prospect of fulfilling it, he too had to be dismissed without an engagement.
He then tried to drive a sale with them of two tiger bones at three hundred "cash" each, warranted to give strength and courage.
As they hadn't the faith he had in the efficacy of the commodity, the purchase was declined.
Another hour and more slipped by in this way.
Things were growing lively, if they were somewhat monotonous, for a great crowd was now surging about Mr. Chefoo, Mr. Reid, and Mr. Wilburn.
The boatman had them with him for the purpose of consultation.
To add to the hubbub a string of oxen and their drivers on their way to the city, the backs of the oxen piled with mountains of brushwood, had drawn near the men, the drivers overcome by curiosity at the sight of the crowd.
Between their yells and shouts to the oxen and their noisy salutations passed to those they knew, there was a babel indeed.
In the very midst of these sounds came a sudden cry, sufficiently loud and prolonged to attract the attention of many.
While the bargaining with the would-be polemen went on, the young people had gathered within the sitting room of the sampan, that is, all with the exception of Clarence.
He had stretched himself along the stern of the boat.
His head was lying on his hand upheld by the elbow.
Thus it was considerably elevated, and thus he had a fair view of the water all around the sampan.
The Han is often called the River of Golden Sands.
It is a clear, bright stream, its bed covered with thick layers of white sand.
Along this sand particles of golden-hued gravel sparkle in the sunlight as though they were the pure metal itself.
In many places, even of considerable depth, the bottom of the river is plainly seen.
Where the sampan lay there was only the depth of about two feet of water.
This had for a time been stirred into some degree of murkiness by the feet of those who pressed curiously about the sampan.
But as the crowd had now withdrawn to the bank, where Mr. Chefoo bargained with the polemen, the river had cleared.
As Clarence lay along the stern of the boat glancing down into the water, his attention was suddenly attracted by something that rested at the top of a little hillock of sand.
First its shape, then its color arrested his gaze.
The next moment there came that wild shout from him, a compromise between a station-master's train call and an Indian warwhoop.
Then those whose attention was now riveted upon him saw him hastily throw off his coat, his shoes and stockings and, quickly rolling up sleeves and trousers, spring into the water.
An instant later he held up something in his hand, his shirt sleeve dripping with the water.
"The red _miriok_!"
he cried.
"See!
Mr. Kit-ze must have dropped it as he leaned over packing the things."
Yes, it was the red _miriok_.
"Oh, its eyes are shinier than ever!"
cried Joyce.
"Guess that's cause the water washed 'em.
It's the same horrid, ugly thing I've seen Mr. Kit-ze pressing in his hands."
[Illustration: "YES, IT WAS THE RED MIRIOK!"]
"Oh," said Helen, "if Mr. Kit-ze could only know!"
Even as she spoke, Mr. Kit-ze was seen coming rapidly toward the river.
FOOTNOTES: [1] A box in which are carried three or more coins with characters stamped upon them.
The coins are cast upward three times, falling again into the box.
The combination of characters each time gives the _mutang_ her clue to the divination or prediction.
CHAPTER IV A STOWAWAY Mr. Kit-ze had left the pony in town and now came on at a rapid dog-trot.
He was covered with dust and perspiration, and his hair, which had been shaken from its knot, was now partly hanging in much disorder down his back.
When he had first rushed away, it had been with the thought that the _miriok_ had been left at home, that it had in all probability dropped from his clothing as he slept.
But as a rigid search failed to reveal it, he at length came to the conclusion that he had dropped it in or near the river while helping to load the sampan.
He had stooped over many times, he knew.
Why hadn't he thought of that ere coming away?
Yes, the first search ought, by all means, to have been made in and around the sampan.
But then he had been so excited over his loss he hadn't taken the time to reason about it at all.
Now he would hasten back to the boat and resume there the search for the _miriok_.
Oh, he must find it, or failing, secure another like it.
He could not think of going on the journey without his _miriok_, for would not disaster be sure to befall him if he did?
But where was such another as this _miriok_ to be had?
As he recalled with what difficulty this one had been secured, Mr. Kit-ze grew more and more excited over his loss.
Oh, he must return to the river at once!
as there was a chance that he had dropped the _miriok_ there.
Thus Mr. Kit-ze, coming in sight of the sampan, saw Clarence standing in the water and holding something at arm's length over which all were exclaiming.
It took only a steady glance to show him what it was.
The next moment, with a ringing cry, he endeavored to increase his pace, lost his footing, and went rolling down the slope, stopping just at the water's edge.
It was Helen who reached him as he regained his feet.
She had taken the _miriok_ from Clarence, and was holding it toward Mr. Kit-ze, saying in her softest, gentlest tones: "Here, Mr. Kit-ze, is something of yours that Clarence has found in the river.
We were so sorry when we knew you had lost it, and are glad now that it can be returned to you."
With a little cry of delight he took the _miriok_ from her, clasped it against his breast, prostrating himself before her almost to the ground.
This he did the second and even the third time.
The sudden coming of Mr. Kit-ze, his mishap, and the scene that followed between him and Helen on the river bank had formed considerable of a diversion for a part of the crowd.
Even the excitement of Mr. Chefoo's still unsatisfactory interviews with the polemen had, for a time, paled before this newer and greater one.
Ere she could extricate herself Helen was surrounded by quite a rabble.
Many faces were pressing up about her, but there was one that attracted her attention in such a way that it startled her.
It was a somewhat worn and haggard face, with restless, piercing eyes, and a nervous twitching of the lips that impressed itself upon Helen the moment she saw it.
She noticed that its owner's gaze soon left her face and fixed itself in the direction of Mr. Kit-ze.
The eyes had now a startled look.
They were fastened upon the _miriok_ that Mr. Kit-ze was still holding against his breast, but in such a way that it showed plainly.
Helen noted this riveted gaze, as she also saw his lips moving.
By this time her position had become very unpleasant.
She felt too, a little chill of fear as she looked at this man.
Was his mind upset?
However, Mr. Kit-ze, having recovered his senses along with his _miriok_, was equal to the emergency.
He safely conducted her out of the surging crowd and to the sampan.
Mr. Reid and Mr. Wilburn, with Mr. Chefoo, being informed of the return of Mr. Kit-ze, joined them as rapidly as they could in view of the crowd that bore them company at the sampan.
Considerable satisfaction was expressed at the finding of the _miriok_, though the two missionaries some hours later expressed themselves quite vigorously to each other on the subject.
Mr. Kit-ze, who had by this time profusely apologized for his sudden departure, was as anxious as the others to be off.
There was no need to delay another moment, he assured them.
He motioned to Mr. Chefoo to take his place in the stern, while he, grasping his long pole, took a similar position in the bow.
"Hurrah!"
cried Joyce, "we are off at last."
He stood up in his delight, clapping his hands and, as the boat was given a sudden turn at that moment, he assuredly would have tumbled over the side into the river had not Mallard caught him.
"Better keep your eye on the polemen hereafter," Clarence advised him, "ere you try any acrobatic performances on a sampan."
They found some difficulty in getting away from the crowd, many of whom followed the sampan for some distance into the water.
These Mallard finally turned back by the happy thought carried into execution of tossing a handful of "cash" toward the shore.
The last they saw of the village was the scrambling forms in the water, and the line of low hovels, built of mud-smeared wattle, with no vestige of windows and with their black smokeholes plainly defined.
Yes, they were off at last, really afloat on the glorious Han, _the_ river of Korea, which, in two branches, sweeps almost across the peninsula, forming two great waterways, navigable for flat-bottomed craft for more than two hundred miles.
They found the river teeming with moving life.
In addition to the flatboats there were many junks passing back and forth, for the Han is the great artery of commerce for the eastern provinces.
Those going into the city were laden with produce, pottery, bundles of faggots for firewood, and the like, while those coming out held cargoes of merchandise, both home and foreign, and salt from the seacoast.
Some of these junks were very old.
They carried prodigious sails, despite their rotten timbers, and looked as though they might turn over at any moment.
The most of them creaked horribly, and when our friends in the sampan heard one for the first time, they thought for a moment it was some great beast in terrible pain.
When they found out their mistake a hearty laugh went around.
Though the sun was now quite high, and its rays very warm, yet Mr. Kit-ze knew the stream so well that he could keep near to the bank.
Thus for much of the way they had the shade from the trees and from the overhanging bluffs.
They found their curtains too, much protection.
Their little sitting room was very cozy and comfortable.
Helen had brought some oilcloth matting for the floor of the sampan, and a little oil stove that they could light when the air was damp and disagreeable.
Here too were cushions, one or two folding chairs, and the bedding which the girls were to use at night, together with the oilskin cases in which they kept their clothing, a small supply of books, writing materials, etc.
In the next compartment forward Mr. Reid and Mr. Wilburn had stored their effects, as they were to occupy it jointly at night.
Here all would dine when they were afloat; here too, the service of morning and evening prayer would be held.
The three boys slept and kept their effects in the compartment just behind that of the girls.
The straw roof along the ridgepole extended over all, even for a part of the way over the small, boxlike quarters of the two boatmen.
In addition our party was provided with oilcloths for the better protection of the stores, and with mosquito netting.
"This is fine, even finer than sailing on the Hudson at home!"
declared Dorothy, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm.
"Or the noble Mississippi, down in our Southland," added Helen.
"How pleasant this is!
Oh, I had no idea it could be so delightful!"
"You just wait, my sister, until you strike some of the rapids," admonished Clarence, his face taking on a very solemn expression, "and begin to roll about like loose apples in a cart, or find your feet hanging where your head ought to be.
Then I'm no prophet if you don't completely change your form of expression."
"Oh, for shame!"
cried both girls in a breath.
"I think it is real mean of you," declared Helen, "to try to spoil our enjoyment of the present by introducing into it the suggestion of those terrible things that await us.
As for myself, I believe in enjoying what is sweet and good while we have it, without borrowing trouble with reference to what is in the future."
"A philosophy in which I heartily agree," said Dorothy.
There was indeed much to make the trip delightful, for the beauties of the spring were all around them, in the sky, in the water, in the green knolls overhanging the river.
The stream continued to be quite shallow.
At some places it gurgled over the rocks only a foot or so below the sampan.
They came now and then to where the cattle waded knee deep in the lush grasses.
These turned to view them in mild-eyed astonishment as they passed by chatting and laughing, then went on with their grazing.
Flocks of mandarin ducks and wild geese flew by; some of the latter even swam close to the sampan.
There were too, numbers of the imperial crane, and once in a while a pink ibis wading along the edge of a rice field.
Clarence took his gun to shoot one of these, but Helen and Dorothy began to beg for its life.
"We don't want to eat it, so why destroy it?"
asked Helen.
"Oh, wouldn't you girls like a wing each for your hats?"
asked Clarence a little mischievously.
"Oh, no indeed," declared Dorothy.
"No bird wing for me!
You know that well enough, Master Clarence," and she looked at him reprovingly.
"Well, the truth is," confessed Clarence, "I want it for my cabinet.
I know a young Japanese in Seoul who has promised to show me how to stuff all I bring back.
In the meantime he has taught me how to preserve them while on the trip."
"If you must do it then in--in the cause of science," and here Helen looked at him quizzingly, "wait until we can't see you commit the murder, won't you?"
"All right," assented Clarence cheerfully.
"But see here, sister," with earnest protest, "don't call it murder."
"Well, the cruelty of sport then," corrected Helen.
At that moment a shout from Joyce attracted their attention.
"Oh, look at the pheasants!"
he cried.
"Quick!
Clarence, I know you can shoot one or more of them if you try."
Sure enough, there were the pheasants right along the edge of the rice field, fine, fat fellows, and many of them.
"Be careful," warned Mr. Reid.
"Examine the surroundings well before you fire.
There might be some one near."
Assured that there was not, Clarence raised his gun.
"Beg pardon, girls," he said slyly, as he adjusted it to his shoulder.
"Pheasants are _so_ good to eat."
They gave a little exclamation, then quickly covered both eyes and ears.
The next moment a report rang out, followed instantly by another.
When the smoke cleared away five of the birds were seen in their last flutterings.
"Now, how are we to get them?"
asked Mallard.
"Why, sure enough, I didn't think of that!"
exclaimed Clarence in dismay.
"We can't carry the sampan close enough, that's certain."
Mr. Chefoo was now seen throwing off his sandals and rolling up his pantaloons, while Mr. Kit-ze, holding the sampan steady by means of his long pole, was giving him some directions.
The next moment Mr. Chefoo sprang over the side of the sampan and into the water.
He slipped once or twice as he was trying to make headway over the rocks, and two or three times also, he was seen to mire; but notwithstanding these difficulties he reached the birds all right, and was soon returning with them.
As he came again to the side of the sampan it was toward the compartment occupied by the boys, the one in the rear of that in which all had been sitting since the boat left Han-Kang.
He placed his hand upon the side of the boat to vault upward, but as he did so a quick exclamation escaped him, which the next moment changed to a decided whoop as Mr. Chefoo landed full in the compartment.
A second or so later what was the astonishment of all when he dragged into view by the neck of his blouse a man, and began to shake him vigorously.
To Helen was given something more than astonishment.
Her heart leaped up, then almost ceased to beat.
For the face exposed to view by Mr. Chefoo was the same she had seen on the river bank at Han-Kang with the glittering eyes fixed upon the red _miriok_ Mr. Kit-ze held.
[Illustration: "HE BEGAN TO SHAKE HIM VIGOROUSLY."]
CHAPTER V BEFORE THE MAGISTRATE The man made no effort to resist Mr. Chefoo, neither did he offer a word of protest, but stood silent and sullen, his lean face leaner than ever in its side view, his eyes half closed and gazing steadily downward.
"The rogue!"
cried Mr. Wilburn.
"He was there for no good purpose.
Come, sir, what have you to say for yourself?"
But still the culprit made no answer.
He only raised his eyes and let them sweep past Mr. Wilburn, past them all to Mr. Kit-ze, and rest there with a deep and burning glance.
"Speak to him, Mr. Kit-ze," said Mr. Reid.
"Find out what was his object in concealing himself in the sampan.
It may be," he continued charitably, "that he wanted to steal a ride to one of the villages."
But Mr. Kit-ze, instead of obeying this request, shifted himself a little farther away from the man, and seemed to be intent on something in the river.
"I think Mr. Kit-ze doesn't want to get mixed up in any trouble," said Mr. Wilburn in an undertone.
"He probably fears it may end in his having to appear before a magistrate.
That always means a fine, you know, whether one is in the right or the wrong.
It is evident, brother, that we must adjust this matter ourselves with Mr. Chefoo's help, since Mr. Kit-ze plainly doesn't want to take a hand in it."
But neither threats nor persuasions could elicit a word of reply from the man.
Even Mr. Chefoo's fine speeches failed.
"Can he be deaf and dumb?"
asked Mr. Reid finally.
"No, father, he is not," replied Helen positively.
All eyes were now quickly turned to her, astonishment plainly written on the faces.
"Why, my daughter, how do you know?"
"Because, father, I saw him in the crowd that surrounded me for a few moments on the bank of the river at Han-Kang.
I distinctly heard him talking to himself, though I could not understand the words.
I thought at the time," she continued, "from the way in which he regarded Mr. Kit-ze, that they might be acquaintances."
As Helen spoke these last words, she turned her head so as to get a view of Mr. Kit-ze, but he still persistently kept his face turned away, while he seemed to be making aimless search in the river with his pole.
He was assuredly doing nothing toward the progress of the boat, since that still remained stationary in the little rocky inlet toward which he had dexterously steered it when Mr. Chefoo had started for the birds.
Desiring that he should understand what Helen had suggested, Mr. Reid repeated it to him.
The man was no acquaintance of his, Mr. Kit-ze emphatically declared.
"I think we had better pitch him into the river," said Mr. Chefoo, "and leave him to get out as best he can."
"Yes," said Clarence, "he deserves a ducking, if no more."
"No, we won't be so cruel as that," Mr. Reid replied, "although he may have been after no good.
We'll go ashore at the next village and leave him."
"But first," said Clarence, "hadn't you better search him?
He may have taken something of value."
"Yes, uncle," said Mallard, "we ought to do that."
To this both Mr. Reid and Mr. Wilburn consented; but, though close investigation was made, nothing was found on the man, nothing, at least, to which they could lay claim.
Mr. Reid gave the signal for the sampan to be headed again up the river.
In the meanwhile, Clarence and Mallard kept watch upon the man, who had now assumed a squatting posture upon the floor of the sampan.
To their surprise he began to mutter to himself.
But even to Mr. Chefoo the words were unintelligible; all except the part of one sentence.
In this Mr. Chefoo said had occurred the words, "Marble Pagoda," but he was evidently still as much mystified as the others.
The village to which they soon came was one of considerable size, picturesquely situated in the midst of chestnut groves.
There were too, many beautiful clumps of the umbrella pine over which vines of red and white roses luxuriantly abloom were running riot.
A curious crowd swarmed around them at the landing.
There were many in it who had never seen a foreigner.
The soft hair and white skins of our friends called forth the most intense curiosity.
Ridiculous too, were some of the comments.
Question after question was directed to them.
Some of these Mr. Chefoo answered.
To others he paid no attention.
Who were they?
Whence had they come?
Were their families respectable?
Did their ancestors occupy tombs on the hillside?
Could they take off their eyes and pull out their teeth as it had been reported that they could?
All of these and many more came in rapid succession.
When it was learned that they wanted to put a man ashore a great hue and cry was at once raised, and it was positively declared that this could not be done until the magistrate was seen and consulted.
Thereupon, the magistrate's runners, six in number, appeared and assumed control of their movements.
These runners were gorgeous in light blue coats, wide pantaloons of white, and big hats with red tassels.
Yes, the magistrate must be seen, they declared.
Nothing else would do.
In a rash moment Mr. Reid consented to see the magistrate.
It is safe to say that had he known the result he would at once have headed his sampan off up the river again even with its objectionable occupant.
It was finally arranged that Mr. Reid, in company with Mr. Chefoo and the stowaway, should attend upon the magistrate while the others remained with the sampan.
At the last moment Clarence begged to accompany his father, and consent was finally given.
Mr. Reid could see no reason why the stowaway should be carried along with them, as he had really done nothing for which he could be punished.
Their only desire was to leave him ashore.
But the runners persisted that it was necessary that he too should go before the justice.
The magistrate was seated on the floor of a small platform over which matting was spread.
Around him, also squatting on their heels, were two or three of his assistants.
The chief official had on a robe of deep blue silk, slashed to the waist at intervals, and with pipings of orange silk introduced between.
Only a small portion of his crimson trousers was showing.
On his head was perched a little hat of glazed horsehair ornamented with crimson tassels.
Mr. Reid came into the room and very politely bowed to the magistrate, while Chefoo prostrated himself, as did the runners.
Clarence, independent young American that he was, contented himself with saying, "Good day, sir," then began to use his eyes to their fullest extent.
[Illustration: "CHEFOO PROSTRATED HIMSELF TO THE MAGISTRATE."]
The magistrate took no notice of their presence.
He merely remarked in a high key to his associates that foreigners were really demons, and that he couldn't see why they had ever been allowed in the country.
As to himself, he had felt many times like setting up again, on his own responsibility, the tablets which, prior to the treaty, had declared that all foreigners were cutthroats and robbers, and should be killed on sight.
[2] Each of these sentences Mr. Chefoo cheerfully translated to Mr. Reid.
"The old barbarian," declared Clarence.
"I feel like giving him a shaking."
The magistrate now deigned to become aware of their presence.
"Who are these who have dared to approach me?"
he asked in a big, off-hand way, but all the while he was nervously regarding Mr. Reid and Clarence.
Foreigners, he knew from experience, were not always the chicken-hearted people they were declared to be.
The runners told him.
"Well, what is you name, and whence do your come?"
was asked of Mr. Reid.
The replies came readily.
"How old are you?
Has your father gone and left you?
and was he an honorable man?"
To each of these, in turn, was given a cheerful response.
"Well, what are you doing in the country, anyhow?
Do they know you are away?
Do you get a salary?
How much is it?"
After all these queries and many more had been answered to the magistrate's satisfaction, he deigned to hear the case that had been brought before him.
When each detail had been gone over again and again, the magistrate put his head to one side, looked as wise as an owl for a few moments, and then proceeded to deliver himself of his decision.
By paying five Japanese _yen_ (a _yen_ is one dollar), the man could be left ashore; but none of the rest could depart until he, the magistrate, visited the sampan and inspected its contents.
He further added that he might come that evening if business permitted.
If it did not, he would wait until morning.
In the meantime they were to remain tied up where they were under the supervision of the runners.
On Mr. Reid's protesting against the injustice of having to pay such an amount for the mere privilege of putting a native ashore who had concealed himself in his sampan, the magistrate retorted by assuring him that he would then charge him, the missionary, that amount for having come ashore himself without first having communicated with him, the magistrate.
Mr. Reid knew very well that such a proceeding was far from legal, as he had his passport which he had shown, but at the same time he felt it would be better for many reasons to pay the amount than to contest the point.
Fortunately, Mr. Reid had provided himself with a few of these valuable Japanese coins, which he carried on his person; otherwise he would have been subjected to the further delay of sending to the sampan, as the magistrate at once let it be understood that he could not depart until the amount was in hand.
On their return to the sampan they found that the others too, had been having trials in their absence.
The curiosity of the crowd had now become almost unendurable.
Men, women, and children had even climbed upon the sampan.
They had inspected everything.
The two girls had called forth the deepest excitement and curiosity.
It was their hair that caused the most comment, especially Helen's; it was so soft and bright.
For Helen's hair, though her eyes were dark, was of a light chestnut color.
One woman had even gone so far as to offer a dozen eggs for a piece of it.
Then she wanted to handle it, but this Helen declined.
The woman's eyes and her manner made her nervous.
But Dorothy, more assured than Helen, took hers from its fastenings, shaking it about her shoulders, then stood beyond reach of the outstretched hands, laughing merrily at the expressions of countenance and the somewhat wild gesticulations.
"Oh, Dorothy, how can you do that?"
remonstrated Helen.
"If it gives the poor things any enjoyment, I don't mind," replied Dorothy.
"But don't you see that the sight of it that way excites them the more?"
"Oh, it's good as a show," declared Joyce, almost shouting out in his delight.
"Don't you mind sister, Miss Dorothy."
Things were in this hubbub when Mr. Reid, Clarence, and the runners appeared.
Mr. Reid joined in the effort to induce the people to withdraw from the sampan, but without success.
Then the thought struck him that he would appeal to the runners.
It is safe to say he hadn't the least conception of the result or, much as he wanted to get rid of the people, he would have hesitated.
The runners at once charged pell-mell upon the surging crowd, shouting and yelling as though they were seeking to stampede a herd of cattle.
Big hats, green coats, topknots, and wide trousers were soon jumbled together in a series of kaleidoscopic flashes, then quiet reigned once more around the sampan.
The runners had done them this much good, if no more.
The sun had almost disappeared behind the neighboring hills, and the night, traveling fast in that region, would soon be upon them.
Still the magistrate had not appeared.
They felt now that he would not come until morning.
They were much provoked.
Mr. Kit-ze especially showed displeasure.
He had planned to reach the next town ere tying up for the night.
There had already been too much delay at Han-Kang.
He felt considerable compunction over this, and had been doing his best ever since to make up for lost time, and now felt thoroughly exasperated over this unnecessary detention.
But there was no other course save to await the magistrate's pleasure.
Supper eaten, with curious eyes all around watching their every movement, Mr. Reid prepared for the evening service.
"We will go ashore," he said to Mr. Wilburn, "and take Mr. Chefoo.
The others can join in from the sampan."
They had no trouble to gather the people about them.
Great was the wonder that spread as the services proceeded.
A hymn was sung, a prayer made, a Bible lesson read, which Mr. Chefoo explained.
Then with Mr. Chefoo still as interpreter, Mr. Reid began to speak to them.
His words were about Jesus, our one ever-loving, steadfast friend.
Exclamations of surprise, then of interest, began to be heard.
"Could it be possible," they asked each other, "that there was One in the world who could love as this one loved?
who could and did give his friendship 'without money and without price'?"
As Mr. Reid ceased speaking, an old man approached him.
Would the honorable teacher tell him again the name of this wonderful Friend?
When told he kept repeating it over and over.
Other touching incidents occurred.
Many questions were asked.
When Mr. Reid lay down to sleep that night, it was with the happy feeling that more than a passing impression had been made upon some hearts, as it was also with the determination that he would come again to break the bread of life to these hungry souls.
Even when the crowd had left the sampan, scattered by the impetuosity of the runners, Helen still felt nervous.
The persistency with which the women had pressed about Dorothy and herself, their incoherent words, burning glances, and fierce gestures had wrought her up to a high pitch of excitement.
It was a long while ere she could go to sleep, even though her father assured her that it was to the interest of the runners to keep close watch upon the sampan.
When at last Helen fell into slumber, it was to be disturbed by unpleasant dreams.
In the midst of one of these she awakened with a start.
She surely was conscious now, and what a moment of horror it was!
for a rough hand was feeling its way along the meshes of her hair.
A voice she knew from both tone and accent was no friendly one, was muttering in a manner that made her heart almost stop its beating.
FOOTNOTES: [2] Before the treaty of Korea with the United States, while yet it was known as the Hermit Nation, tablets bearing inscriptions similar to that quoted by the magistrate were placed at intervals throughout the country.
CHAPTER VI A FRIENDLY HAIL Helen's first impulse was to scream, but with a great effort she controlled herself.
Then, reaching up quickly, she grasped the hand between both of her own, holding on to it tightly.
Instantly there was a frightened exclamation, and a violent movement on the other side of the straw curtain almost against which Helen's head lay.
The next moment, the hand was wrenched away, and she heard a heavy splash in the water.
Peering out through the opening between the curtains, she saw two Korean women moving away from the sampan.
Thus she knew her midnight fright had been caused not through any evil intention but from the exercise of pure curiosity.
They had but carried into effect the desire for a closer inspection of her hair.
So soundly did the other occupants of the sampan sleep that none of them were aroused by this incident, not even Dorothy.
Thus it was an astonishing piece of news to them when Helen told it on the following morning.
Dorothy was overcome by admiration for Helen's coolness.
"O Helen, are you sure you didn't scream, not the least little bit?
Oh, I never could have taken it as you did," and she drew her breath quickly.
Others besides Dorothy had words of praise for Helen's fortitude.
"Nine girls out of ten would have gone into hysterics," declared Clarence.
"Put the percentage lower," warned Dorothy, shaking her fist at him in well-feigned indignation.
"Well, seven out of ten then."
"Oh, that is much better."
It was long after breakfast when the magistrate condescended to appear.
Then he kept them waiting an hour or more through his insatiable curiosity, for he must needs inspect everything in the boat, even to the faggots and the chicken coop.
But at last they were off.
They had been afraid that the man might attach himself to them again ere they left the village.
However, up to the time of pushing off, they had seen nothing of him.
He had been dropped on the way from the magistrate's the evening before, and evidently that was the last of him.
As they went along now, Mr. Reid and Mr. Wilburn were discussing the event, as well as the man's probable meaning when he had muttered the words "Marble Pagoda."
Both missionaries knew of the old Marble Pagoda in Seoul, one of the curiosities of the place, though, strange to say, not many seemed to care to go about it.
The natives especially shunned it, that is, a large percentage of them did.
They declared that it was filled with demons and haunted by all kinds of evil spirits.
It stood in one of the foulest parts of the city, just back of a narrow alley, and all around it were clustered wretched-looking hovels.
It was said to be more than seven centuries old.
It had been originally thirteen stories, but during the Japanese invasion of three centuries before, three stories had been taken off.
Many of the chambers contained the richest carvings, especially that known as the room of the Five Hundred Disciples.
That had the images of many of the Hindu divinities.
"I understand," said Mr. Wilburn, "that several bits of detached carving, some of them representing deities, and others the various stages of the progress of Buddha toward Nirvana, or the Buddhist heaven, have been found in the old pagoda up to a time within recent years.
There is the story, not very old, of the young assistant of one of the Buddhist priests at a monastery in the mountains, who nearly forfeited his life by stealing one of the images that had been brought from the pagoda, a very rare and valuable one, by the way.
But he escaped by the narrowest chance, though the priest hunted and hunted him for a long time, and may be doing it yet, for all I know."
"What a fortunate thing for our missionary labors," remarked Mr. Reid, "that Buddhism was long ago abolished throughout the kingdom, and only a little colony of the priests allowed here and there in remote places."
"Ah, my brother, but there are the horrors of demon worship with which to contend, and the stonelike barriers of ancestral worship to break away.
The former is as bad as Buddhism, where it has taken deep hold."
"As it has in our sampan man here," observed Mr. Reid with a sigh.
"Oh, if I could only see some impression made on him by our teachings, some little inclination toward the truth as it is alone found in the pure gospel of Jesus."
"Do not despair.
He may turn to the better way in time.
It seemed to me during the services last evening that he listened more intently than I had ever seen him.
He seemed to be impressed too, by the questions that were asked, especially by the earnest ones of the old man."
"Oh, but he is so persistent in his devotions to that wretched little image he has.
Only this morning I saw him fondling it.
Sometimes I feel like taking it from him and pitching it far out into the stream."
"Oh but, father," said Helen earnestly, now joining the conversation because she felt that she must, "that would not be best, believe me."
"But how are we to teach them a better worship until we take their miserable idols from them?"
"Oh, father, we mustn't tear down to build up.
If a man were living in an old and insecure house, we wouldn't pull it down over him, for fear of the damage it would do.
If we were his true benefactors, we would simply invite him away from the old and into a better one."
"Well said!"
declared Mr. Wilburn, his eyes shining.
"You are a true reasoner, Miss Helen."
"But so long as they have these horrid images that they believe can counteract the evil effect of the demons, they will go on worshipping them.
We must get them away."
"But not by compulsion, father."
"How then, Helen?"
"By love."
She reached out and took his hand as she said the words, and began to pat it softly.
Her lips trembled but her eyes met his bravely.
"Yes, my dear, yes, I know.
When the heart is touched, love is the thing then with which to win them.
But you can't pelt a stone wall with cotton, Helen, and hope to make any impression."
"But, my father, if cannon were used, what would be the result?
Only devastation.
We can't drive these poor things away from their idols.
We must coax them."
"A woman's way, Helen.
But, my daughter, you are doubtless right," he said a moment later.
"I get so provoked at their persistency, their blind infatuation, I feel that I must use force, or at least warn them of God's wrath if they persist in their idolatry."
"Tell them of God's love ever waiting to receive them, you mean, father?"
"Yes, of God's love," repeated Mr. Wilburn, his eyes moistening as he looked at Helen, "the warm sunlight, gentle yet powerful, the one agent that, using no force, yet accomplishes what force cannot."
They made pleasant progress all that day and the next.
The views of the river and from the river grew more and more picturesque.
They had now passed beyond the range of hills on the highest point of which stood the fortress of Nam Han, with its garrison of Korean soldiers.
The river had grown broader and its banks lower.
They passed many beautiful islands and had more than one experience with rapids.
While navigating these, Mr. Reid had insisted on the girls' going ashore attended by Mallard and Mr. Wilburn.
This they did, joining the sampan a mile or so above after some rather exciting adventures with the natives.
However, as there was no worse spirit displayed than that of curiosity, they suffered more annoyance than alarm.
Through a considerable part of that third afternoon they moved along in sight of several small villages inhabited by woodcutters and charcoal burners.
At one of these Mr. Reid said he must stop, not only for the night but for much of the next day, for it was one that had been brought to the attention of his mission Board as an inviting field for the establishment of a station.
At first the people were alarmed when they caught sight of the strangers.
But on the assurance of Mr. Chefoo and Mr. Kit-ze that all were friends, they released their chickens and their queer-looking little pigs, not much bigger than rabbits, which they had begun to put in pens at the approach of the sampan.
They listened eagerly to what the missionaries had to say, pressed closely to them during the services, and had many questions to ask, all of an earnest character.
The magistrate too, at this place, to whom Mr. Reid had brought letters, treated them cordially and offered to assist him in any way he could.
The chief men were also friendly and assured the missionaries that if they wanted to come and teach the new doctrine, they should have respectful attention.
One thing in connection with their stay at the village caused special happiness to Mr. Reid.
Mr. Kit-ze had not only paid deep attention during the services, but he had remained thoughtful for some time thereafter.
He had also come to both Mr. Reid and Mr. Wilburn with questions.
They remained all the next day, which was Friday, and that night at the village.
Early the next morning the sampan was heading again up the river.
"Where shall we spend the Sabbath?"
asked Mr. Reid.
"At Yo-Ju, I think, exalted teacher," replied Mr. Kit-ze.
"If we pass the rapids without ill-luck, and push on steadily, we can reach there by the fall of the night."
But they had trying times at the rapids, the longest and the most dangerous yet encountered, so that the late afternoon found them a good half-day's journey from Yo-Ju.
They had now come to the mountains in all their wildness and ruggedness.
Silence fell upon the little party.
No word could be spoken amid all that awe-inspiring beauty.
Then Mr. Reid's voice broke the stillness as he repeated the ninety-seventh Psalm, "The Lord reigneth."
Though the way was so wildly picturesque on either side, yet the river at this place flowed peacefully along, washing about the shore of green islets or lapping the steep banks with a gentle murmur.
Suddenly, from the midst of some overhanging vines near which they were passing, there came a loud hail.
Then a voice added in very good English: "Pause, friends!
O exalted teacher, do I see you once more?"
"Why, that voice sounds familiar," said Mr. Reid.
"Head the sampan toward the cliff, Mr. Kit-ze, and let us see what it means."
Mr. Kit-ze had no more than started to obey when a small flat boat came out from the overhanging bank and made toward them.
It had three occupants, an elderly man who was sitting midway of it, and two younger ones who were propelling it.
The old man was bolt upright despite his years, and made an interesting and picturesque figure with his snow-white hair, which, as is altogether unusual in Koreans, was falling about his shoulders, and with his partly civilized dress.
"Why, it is Mr.
Ko!"
cried Joyce.
"Yes," said Helen, a smile breaking over her face, "it is he, sure enough.
Oh, how glad I am!"
"Old friend," cried Mr. Reid delighted, "can it be that I greet you again?"
"Yes, exalted master.
Your old servant heard you were coming up the river.
So, lo, since the evening of yesterday he has been watching for you."
[Illustration: "THE OLD MAN WAS BOLT UPRIGHT, DESPITE HIS YEARS."]
Mr. Reid now introduced Mr. Ko to Mr. Wilburn and the others.
The old Korean had lived for years at the capital.
There he had known the missionary and his family through three or four years.
During two of these he had lived at the mission as gate-keeper and errand man.
Mr. Reid had heard that he had inherited some property and had gone away from Seoul.
The old man was quite a character.
He had shown considerable devotion to the missionary and his family, but Mr. Reid, with all his efforts in Mr. Ko's behalf, had never been able to get the old man further than the admission that the Jesus doctrine was a very fair sort of doctrine and, if he only had the time, he would give himself over to the practice of it.
Now the old man was delighted at seeing the missionary and his children again.
They must spend some time with him, he declared.
Everything had been prepared for them.
He had even secured a cook who could give them the food as they liked it.
Oh, this was a wonderful man, indeed.
Only yesterday he had come.
"The good spirits sent him," asserted Mr. Ko, "I am certain they did."
Nothing would do the old man but that Helen, at least, must have a glimpse of this wonderful cook the moment she reached the dwelling.
"There he is," said Mr. Ko, with the delight of a child, pointing through an opening into the kitchen.
A tall figure was bending over the _ang-pak_, or great rice jar.
At sound of Mr. Ko's voice he raised his head and glanced around.
It was the stowaway of the sampan.
CHAPTER VII AN ENTREATY Helen uttered an exclamation, then moved toward Mr. Ko.
He read the expression of her face quickly.
"You know him?"
he asked.
"I do not know him, but I have seen him.
He was on the sampan with us after we left Han-Kang."
"Why, he did not tell me that!
He only said that he had seen the honorable teacher and that he was coming.
But no matter," continued Mr. Ko, and looking encouragingly toward the man.
"He did not tell me because he had some reason not to.
It is all right," he added cheerfully.
"You may go on with the cooking."
"I know him," he said, turning again to Helen.
"He was my neighbor in Seoul two years ago.
He is a good sort of fellow, only there seems to be something on his mind.
I don't understand that.
Never did."
A deep perplexity now came to Helen.
She could not decide whether or not to let the others know of the presence of the man at Mr. Ko's.
She finally reached the decision to tell her father and Clarence and maybe Dorothy.
There was, perhaps, after all, nothing wrong about the man.
He had really done nothing to arouse their suspicions, only remained silent and sullen when he was questioned.
She knew that her father believed that he had merely been stealing a ride.
The only mysterious thing about him at present was his having so swiftly preceded them to Mr. Ko's.
She afterward learned that he had fallen in with another sampan almost as soon as he had left them, and had worked his way up the river.
While they lingered at the villages he had traveled.
Though Mr. Ko had adopted some of the ways of civilization, he still ate very much after the Korean fashion.
Thus when they sat down to supper it was at little round tables not more than a foot or a foot and a half high.
Instead of cloths, they were covered with sheets of glazed paper.
Rice was the principal diet.
It was set in an earthenware bowl near the center of each table.
In addition there was a soup of beef and onions thickened with barley, a batter bread made of flour and oil and a slight sprinkling of sugar, chicken curry, eggs, and rice fritters.
Mr. Ko also had tea, a rarity for the rural districts of Korea.
As Mr. Ko, Mr. Kit-ze, and Mr. Chefoo ate, they made a great noise with their mouths.
This was done to show their appreciation of the viands, for in Korea, the greater the noise made while eating, the more forcefully defined is the compliment to the food.
Mr. Ko's house was much better than that of the average farmer.
It was built of poles, mud-daubed, but the walls of the principal rooms were covered with paper.
There were little windows of thick glazed paper while the doors were set in frames of light bamboo.
The sleeping arrangements consisted principally of mats with blocks of wood for pillows.
In the winter the beds were made over the brick flues that ran through the rooms connected with the great oven where the baking was done.
Thus, in winter, to sleep in a Korean house means to roast and freeze by turns, for while the fire is kept up it is hot indeed, and when it is allowed to go out then "cold as a stone" gives the literal condition of a brick bed.
The house stood in a grove of mulberries, for to his other pursuits Mr. Ko added that of silkworm raising.
There were clumps too, of the walnut and persimmon, with vines of the white and yellow clematis tangled amid their branches.
Here the birds built, and here they poured forth their morning songs or chattered to their mates as they were going to bed at night.
In front were the fields of wheat and barley, and farther down, in the very heart of the valley, the crops of rice.
As it was near the end of April, the barley was already in ear and beginning to take on its russet coloring.
Mr. Ko, being an old bachelor, there were only men about the house.
He had a saying with reference to which Clarence teased Helen and Dorothy rather unmercifully.
It was to the effect that where there were women there was sure to be trouble.
"Oh, but Mr. Ko likes girls!"
asserted Helen.
"You can't make me believe otherwise, Master Clarence.
He and I have been too long good friends."
"What was that I heard him say last night?"
asked Dorothy, a mischievous light in her eyes, "about sons and how they were like dragon's teeth in the sides of their parents?"
Clarence looked rather sheepish at this quick turning of the tables on himself, and in a moment or so dexterously changed the conversation.
On the following day, which was the Sabbath, two services were held in Mr. Ko's mulberry grove.
At the first not many were present, but by afternoon scores had flocked to the place from the neighboring farms and from the village.
Curiosity was plainly depicted on all the faces, but as Mr. Reid proceeded, it changed to eager attention on the part of several.
Mr. Chefoo made a good interpreter.
He was both careful and earnest.
Already the sweet, simple truths the missionary taught were beginning to make their appeal to his own heart.
It was the old story of Jesus and his sweet ministrations to men, his sympathy for them, his understanding of their needs, the great, warm, deep love that took in all, even the poorest and humblest.
"And this Jesus is the same now as then," continued the missionary.
"He is waiting to enter each heart and to possess it, to have our lives drawn nearer to his own, to bestow upon us the sweet knowledge of that companionship with him that may be ours through all the way."
The services were barely concluded when Mr. Kit-ze came to ask questions.
Gladness was in Mr. Reid's heart as he saw the moved, wondering look upon the boatman's face.
He wanted to know if this Jesus, who could do so much for men, who wanted to be their friend, was very rich and powerful?
Could he bestow honor and wealth as well as friendship?
Mr. Kit-ze was told that the provisions of honor and wealth did not enter into Jesus' plans for the happiness of his people.
He himself had shown his condemnation of the grasping hand, the covetous heart, by declaring that he who desired to be the greatest should be the least of all and servant to all.
"But he gives that to us which is better than all the honor and riches of earth," continued Mr. Reid; "he gives us contentment of life and peace of heart.
Would not you think these far better than money or land, my friend?"
Mr. Kit-ze did not know.
He had thought that it would indeed be a very fine thing to possess land and cattle and so comfortable a home as that of Mr. Ko.
This, then, had been the thought uppermost with Mr. Kit-ze when contemplating the character of Jesus, the Divine Friend, and the thought of the possible worldly elevation the friendship might bring him.
The missionary felt a deep pain at his heart as he realized whither Mr. Kit-ze's thoughts had led him.
But at the same time there was something in his attitude to inspire hope.
Mr. Kit-ze had been impressed.
That was plainly evident.
His mind was in a deep whirl of thought.
Other and better things would surely be evolved from it in the end.
Many times during that day he made fervent petition for Mr. Kit-ze.
Mr. Kit-ze's perplexity increased as one thought after another came to him.
The exalted teacher had not answered as he had hoped.
All was still so uncertain, so unsatisfactory.
Ah, now he knew what he would do!
He would go to the daughter of the honorable teacher, to her who had the soft voice, the gentle ways, the kind heart.
She could make it plain, she would tell it so that it would reach his understanding.
Helen's heart leaped as Mr. Kit-ze asked her the questions.
She could see how deeply in earnest he was.
Oh, could it be that he was at last awakened, that he would search until he had found the truth, would accept Jesus as the one faithful Friend?
His first and second questions aroused these thoughts; but the third, how it disturbed her, as it had also disturbed her father.
It was the same question about earthly honor and wealth.
"Dear Mr. Kit-ze," said Helen, taking his hand, and at that moment he felt that he would have done anything for her, "those who truly love Jesus, who have taken him as their Friend, do not think of such things in connection with what Jesus does for them.
They know that whatever is best for them he will send, that whatever of good gifts they will use happily, he will bestow.
But further than this they do not go, for, Mr. Kit-ze, when once we have taken Jesus, we must trust him for everything.
We must not question or ask him for this thing or the other.
Thus, Mr. Kit-ze, if you had a worldly friend, one in whom you believed with all the mind, in whom you trusted with all the heart, would you not willingly follow that friend wherever he bade you go and take everything from him as meant for your good?"
"Oh, yes," said Mr. Kit-ze, "oh, yes."
"Well, thus it is with Jesus.
When we take him for our Friend, truly take him, we do not require anything of him.
We leave all that to him and only trust him.
He loves us.
Oh, how he loves, Mr. Kit-ze!
He is the truest lover in all the world.
Could he, or would he, then, do aught else but what is best for the one beloved?"
"Oh, daughter of the exalted teacher," said the boatman, his voice tremulous with some new-found emotion, "you have put that into Mr. Kit-ze's heart which will make him think, think!"
He went away with his hand still pressed upon his heart and murmuring to himself.
Helen had told her father of the presence of the stowaway in Mr. Ko's kitchen, and of her great surprise at finding him there.
"Oh, I suppose there isn't anything mysterious about it, Helen," her father made answer; "nothing to be dreaded from him, I know.
He looked inoffensive enough, though sullen, and you remember we didn't find anything on his person.
I am only astonished at the rapidity with which he has made his way up the river; but from what you have since learned and have told me, that too is clear."
Helen was glad her father took the man's presence in this way.
She really felt sorry for the poor fellow.
He had looked at her so pathetically the evening before ere she left the kitchen with Mr. Ko, and had murmured something in which she caught the words, "No harm, no harm."
His eyes had not then the burning look she had noticed when they were fixed upon Mr. Kit-ze.
Instead, they were soft and pleading.
She was ready now to tell Clarence and Dorothy.
They had walked down to the bluff for a view of the river and of the track of the setting sun as it moved across the water like some golden-freighted craft.
Clarence, boylike, whistled his astonishment at the communication.
"Why, Helen, how did he ever manage to get here so far ahead of us?"
he asked at length.
"It seems almost incredible."
"On a sampan, as I have told you Mr. Ko informed me.
There isn't anything so strange about that.
What troubles me is the feeling that he is following us."
"I think this time we followed him," observed Clarence trying to be a little witty.
"But he was evidently awaiting us here."
"Then we'll ask him his business," declared Clarence.
[Illustration: "THEN, EXTENDING HIS HANDS, ENTREATED."]
"No, Clarence, no," entreated Helen.
"That might be the worst thing.
I am sure he means no harm.
Let us wait and see if he attempts to follow us away from here.
Then we might inquire into his conduct."
"I feel sorry for him," said Dorothy.
"I can't help it, though he may mean no good.
He looked so pitiful when he was being dragged away to the magistrate.
He was frightened too, but he didn't have the appearance of one who contemplated wrong-doing."
"I feel in that way myself," said Helen.
"I----" But ere she finished the sentence, they were attracted by the noise of a step behind them.
Turning, they saw the one whom they were discussing.
With a hasty movement he prostrated himself before them; then extending his hands, entreated: "O friends, hear the story of poor Choi-So!"
CHAPTER VIII THE STORY OF CHOI-SO Such a pathetic story as it was for the most part!
One that caused the young people to listen to it with the deepest interest.
Choi-So's mother had died when he was very young, too young to remember her.
The woman who raised him had cruelly treated him.
She had not only half-starved him, but she had often severely beaten him.
Choi-So had not said it in so many words, but he gave his young hearers the impression that this treatment had so dazed him that his head was not altogether right.
Sometimes he was like one in a mist, as he expressed it.
His father was a very religious man.
He was a dreamer too, a bad combination, since when one is constantly wandering away in thought, many of the plainest duties that are allied to a religious profession are apt to be neglected.
He was a worker in straw.
He made shoes and ropes and mats, the latter beautifully woven.
He received a fair price for his work, and there was no reason why his child should have been starved except that the money that ought to have gone to his nourishment was appropriated to her own use by an unscrupulous woman while the father wove his mats and dreamed.
Mr. Ang-su, Choi-So's father, had spent many years of his life in Japan.
There he had married Choi-So's mother.
There too, he had acquired his deep religious convictions.
He was a devout Buddhist.
As he sat and dreamed his young son entered into many of these dreams, was, in truth, the chief figure therein.
Far better would it have been could he have occupied even for half the length of time his father's practical thought.
Thus it came about that at eighteen Choi-So was sent to one of the Buddhist monasteries in the mountains, there to be prepared for the priesthood.
Five years were spent in the dreary, monotonous routine that made up his life there.
So many times during each period of twenty-four hours, from midnight till midnight again, he must hasten to the temple at sound of drum or bell, there to prostrate himself on the stone floor before the bow-kneed, brass-faced god, repeating, "_Namu Amit abul!_ _Namu Amit abul!_" (I put my trust in Buddha!
I put my trust in Buddha!)
One hundred and eight times he did this without stopping, to an accompaniment of bells, sometimes sounding soft and silvery, or again ringing out with harsh, loud clangor.
He was also taught to take no life, not even that of a mosquito.
If one troubled him more than he could endure, the venerable abbot instructed him that he was simply to get up and "shoo" it gently out of the room.
His fare was hard and unsatisfying, consisting all the year round of rice and pressed seaweed, for no one who lived to the glory of Buddha must touch meat.
Sad to say, this life was just the one that appealed to the melancholy boy.
He had inherited much of his father's religious concentration and dreaminess of manner.
Instead of having the desire to run away from this hard life, he daily applied himself the more earnestly to the task of learning to please Buddha, of so living that he might attain _Nirvana_!
That was his highest desire.
One day, just at the close of his five years, he came upon Mr. Kit-ze stranded upon the river bank, bruised and broken.
He had had a desperate struggle for life in the rapids.
Three ribs were broken and an arm badly injured.
He had lost his cargo, and had very nearly lost his sampan; but, injured though he was, he had managed to cling to the latter and to get it safely to shore.
However, it would need much in the way of repairs ere it could be used again.
Choi-So, in deep pity for the wounded boatman, went for help, and had him assisted to the monastery.
Mr. Kit-ze was conducted through the great arched gateway and into the reception hall.
There the venerable abbot had come to him, and uttered the words of welcome, "Peace be unto you," and had then bidden that he be led away and his wounds treated.
For two weeks Mr. Kit-ze had remained at the monastery.
He had ingratiated himself into the favor of the priests.
Especially had he won the trust and goodwill of Choi-So.
The young man was his devoted attendant.
The boatman was given many privileges.
He was even permitted to look through a small sliding panel upon the priests at their devotions.
This room, to which the monks were called so many times each day to their prayers, began to hold a deep fascination for Mr. Kit-ze.
Its rich carvings, its many images, above all, the great bronze statue of the Buddha with the various smaller ones grouped about it, so chained his attention that for moments at a time he would continue to gaze as though spellbound.
Choi-So had explained to him the mission of these smaller images.
They were to teach man the various stages through which he was to pass ere Nirvana could be attained.
Thus they were helps in the progress of life.
Any one of them could bring to mind what man hoped, what he inherited through the strength and the faithfulness of Buddha.
Much of this was unintelligible to Mr. Kit-ze.
He knew nothing of Buddha, nor cared to know.
But the images represented something that did appeal to him.
This much he understood, or at least thought he understood.
Any one of them brought good fortune to its possessor.
That is the way he had read Choi-So's explanation.
Mr. Kit-ze's mind was ripe for a suggestion of this kind.
Among the losses he had sustained through the catastrophe in the rapids was one he felt more keenly than the others.
Deeply superstitious, as is the greater part of his race, Mr. Kit-ze believed devoutly in the efficacy of certain charms.
A grotesque figure he had carried on his person for years had again and again helped him to elude the demons that waited for him in the rapids.
But for this his sampan would never have had the many safe journeys through the dangerous parts of the river, and but for the loss of this image during the earlier part of his late struggle in the rapids, calamity would never have befallen.
He must replace this charm, this wonderful image of protection and helpfulness.
What better could be found than what was here represented in this chamber, sacred to the great god before whom the priests prostrated themselves, and of whose power they made such astonishing recitals?
Had he not been informed of the marvelous things that could be accomplished through the possession of even one of the images, of the part each bore in the fortune of man?
He could not enter the chamber himself.
He must work through Choi-So.
[Illustration: "HE WAS PERMITTED TO LOOK ...
UPON THE PRIESTS AT THEIR DEVOTIONS."]
Poor Choi-So was in a sore state of mind at that time.
Again and again he had felt, as he had described himself, like one walking in a mist.
His father had recently died.
For weeks now he had remained unburied, a custom very prevalent in Korea until such a funeral as the mourners desire can be given.
His savings had been squandered by the wife who had so ill-treated Choi-So.
There was nothing with which to lay the corpse away as the dutiful son felt would be fitting.
So he waited and waited, praying and hoping and longing for the means to do honor to his father, or else become a wretched, miserable son, despised of all who knew him.
It was then that Mr. Kit-ze tempted him, repeating the temptation until poor Choi-So had finally yielded.
The image was stolen, but, to Mr. Kit-ze's shame, only a part of the price agreed upon had been paid.
When Choi-So had followed him, beseeching the remainder, it was but to be cast off roughly.
Another time he was threatened with the magistrate, and with exposure.
This last threat drove Choi-So back to the monastery.
But the theft had been discovered and traced to him.
A companion priest informed him in time for Choi-So to make his escape ere the terrible punishment in store overtook him.
Since then he had been a wanderer.
He knew that his brother priests had sent one of their number in pursuit of him.
His one object now was to recover the image, return it, and suffer the consequences.
He could never be happy again until he had done it.
He could never attain _Nirvana_ until reparation had been made and the image placed once more in the mystic circle about the Buddha.
For three years now he had wandered in search of Mr. Kit-ze, but as the boatman had moved away from his old quarters at Seoul, poor Choi-So, for all his search, had never laid eyes upon him until that day on the river bank at Han-Kang.
This story had been told in a broken way, and as Choi-So had but a small knowledge of English and his youthful listeners far from a full one of Korean, it was only by putting it together piece by piece, one supplying a link here and another one there, that they finally understood him.
"Oh, friends," he entreated, holding out his hands pathetically to his hearers, at the conclusion of his story, "pity the sorrows of poor Choi-So.
Help him to recover that which is the only thing that can bring peace to him again!"
"The red _miriok_!"
exclaimed Clarence, and looked at Helen significantly.
"Yes," said Helen, "the red _miriok_.
I had already felt that it had something to do with this poor man's following us."
Then she told them of her impressions on the river bank as she had first noted Choi-So and the manner in which his gaze had been riveted upon Mr. Kit-ze and the red _miriok_.
"Poor thing," she continued, her eyes fixed pityingly upon Choi-So, "it is all very serious to him, and we can see how he has suffered through it."
"But how can we help him?"
asked Dorothy.
Her sympathies too were deeply aroused.
"Mr. Kit-ze will never give up the image, I fear," she continued.
"We might make him do it," said Clarence quickly, "or pay him to do it."
"No," said Helen emphatically; "we cannot.
Neither will do."
"What then?"
asked Clarence.
"We might win him to the better way," said Helen softly.
"We might coax him to give up this wretched little image for the sweeter things we could help him to attain."
"What!
Mr.
Kit-ze?"
cried Clarence incredulously.
"Never!
He is too hardened."
"Clarence, how wrong to say that!
Has not God's love shown its power to reach even those more hardened than Mr.
Kit-ze?"
"But what can we do for this poor fellow here?"
repeated Dorothy.
Helen turned her eyes upon Choi-So.
As she noted the lean and pallid face, the deep-set eyes in which the light of fanaticism burned steadily, courage, hope, both left her.
"Oh, I am sure I don't know!"
she cried in despair.
Just at that moment Mallard was seen hastening down the path toward them.
From the manner in which he came they felt sure he was the bearer of a message of some kind.
"I have bad news," he said as he approached.
"Oh, what is it?"
cried Helen, thinking instantly of her father.
"Do not be alarmed, cousin," he hastened to assure her.
"It is nothing so dreadful.
There has been an accident.
Mr. Chefoo slipped at a steep place on the river bank, fell, and has broken his arm."
CHAPTER IX A THEFT Yes, Mr. Chefoo had broken his arm.
It was too bad!
for aside from the pain and discomfort that it gave him, how were they to get on with the sampan without him?
It is true, it was not a very severe fracture, only one of the smaller bones having been broken; but it would be at least two weeks ere he could use it again.
In the meantime, what was to be done?
Mr. Kit-ze could not manage the sampan alone.
Some one must help him pole as well as keep the boat within the proper channel.
It would be a very one-sided and unsatisfactory progress if the sampan were propelled from only one end.
Mr. Ko thought of a half-dozen men who were at hand, but none were reliable.
It would be better without them than with them, especially as there were rapids to be passed.
Mr. Ko was very much disturbed over the accident to Mr. Chefoo, because of its having occurred at his place.
He was sure a demon had caused it.
It was the demon in the well, he finally decided, since Mr. Chefoo had been at the well ere proceeding down the path where the accident occurred.
The demon must be appeased, he declared, and forthwith proceeded to throw rice into the well.
Now Mr. Chefoo's arm would rapidly mend, he asserted.
Monday morning had come, and still there seemed no prospect of resuming the journey to Yo Ju.
"We must get on," said Mr. Reid, "our time is limited.
We must make some arrangement for an assistant for Mr.
Kit-ze."
Mr. Chefoo had now a high fever and was unable to sit up.
It had been decided to leave him with Mr. Ko until their return, which would be in about three days, as they were not going much beyond Yo Ju.
In the midst of their perplexity Mr. Ko came to them with a beaming face.
He knew the very thing!
Why had he not thought of it before?
They could take Mr. Choi-So.
Now that his honorable guests were about to depart, he, Mr. Ko, would not need his cook.
Mr. Choi-So himself was anxious to go along with them.
He had approached Mr. Ko on the subject.
He was an excellent poleman, quick and careful.
He had several times assisted in carrying sampans up and down the river, twice for Mr. Ko himself.
Besides, he bore an excellent character.
Mr. Ko knew him.
He had known his father too.
"I see no reason why we shouldn't take him," said Mr. Reid.
[Illustration: "HE FORTHWITH ...
PROCEEDED TO THROW RICE INTO THE WELL."]
But Mr. Wilburn opposed this.
He had not liked the man's concealment of himself in the sampan, neither had he been favorably impressed by his appearance on that occasion.
His sullen, hang-dog look had betokened anything but innocence.
He could have been after no good.
Mr. Wilburn's suspicions had been strengthened by the presence of Choi-So at Mr. Ko's.
Neither Mr. Reid nor Mr. Wilburn had learned the story of the red _miriok_, or image of Buddha, as it ought more properly to be designated.
The young people, after consulting among themselves, had decided to tell no one, at least not until they could agree on some plan.
Mr. Choi-So had given them his confidence.
He evidently trusted them and believed that they could help him.
If he wanted the others to know too, then he would tell them.
He showed plainly that he feared Mr. Wilburn and was not at ease with Mr. Reid.
Helen and Clarence both felt that they wanted their father to know, but they respected Mr. Choi-So's feelings.
Perhaps he would himself tell the missionary.
Things were in this unsatisfactory state when Mr. Choi-So's offer to attend them as poleman was made known.
The young people were pleased.
It was the very thing, they thought.
It would give them more time to decide upon some action, for the desire was now keen with each one to secure the _miriok_ from Mr. Kit-ze and return it to Mr. Choi-So.
"The poor fellow will go demented if we do not," declared Clarence.
"He is half crazy on the subject, anyhow.
We can at least try to give him peace of mind."
"I wish we could give him something else," added Helen wistfully.
"But we can't," asserted Clarence; "at least not now.
His mind is too upset about the _miriok_.
Besides, Mr. Kit-ze has really treated him dishonestly.
He ought to be made to give the image back to him.
The poor fellow has pinched and saved until he has the amount Mr. Kit-ze paid, so he told us."
"Oh," said Helen, "if only I could talk to this poor Choi-So so that it would go to his mind and then to his heart, how happy I should be!
If only I could show him that this image for which he is willing to sacrifice life itself is only a wretched little piece of metal!"
"But he ought to carry it back," said Clarence.
"And run the chance of being thrown into a dungeon, fed on bread and water, and kept there perhaps for years without ever hearing of a single one of the sweet and precious things Jesus wants to do for him?
Oh, it is dreadful!
He had better lose the _miriok_."
"And lose his mind with it?
No, my sister, believe me that is not the right way for poor Choi-So.
Let us get the _miriok_ for him--that is, if we can--and perhaps afterward we may induce him to return it by messenger and listen to us."
Mr. Wilburn was finally induced, through Mr. Reid's clear and forceful way of presenting the matter to him, to withdraw his opposition to Choi-So's accompanying them as poleman; but not so Mr. Kit-ze.
He had been the last one to discover Choi-So's presence at Mr. Ko's, and this had been only a short time before the stowaway's offer to take Mr. Chefoo's place.
The old boatman made quick and stormy objections.
He would not, he declared, permit such an idiot to handle a pole of his sampan, for he was one who had no sense for moving his hands two ways at once.
If ever he had had any sense it was under his arm, for it certainly had never been put into his head for the lack of room there.
But after a time Mr. Kit-ze grew cooler and seemed, to some extent, to be ashamed of his outburst, especially as Helen had now drawn near to him and taking his hand, was gazing at him reproachfully.
"Don't say that, Mr. Kit-ze," she said.
"You don't really know that he can't help you with the sampan, do you?"
regarding him steadily.
"Only try him, won't you?
Think what it means to us to be delayed here.
Oh, we must go on, and you must help us, Mr. Kit-ze, by your consent.
Perhaps it will only be to Yo Ju, as we may find another poleman there to suit us."
Thus Helen pleaded, and little by little Mr. Kit-ze's heart relented, his opposition relaxed, till he at length agreed to Choi-So's accompanying them as far as Yo Ju.
But the stipulations were that he was not to move from his end of the sampan, and at night he was to leave them.
"Mr. Kit-ze is afraid of him," commented Mr. Wilburn.
"He can read the rascal in him as plainly as I can."
"I hope it will be proved ere we part from our poleman, that both you and Mr. Kit-ze are mistaken," said Mr. Reid earnestly.
"I can't believe that there is anything vicious in the man.
He hasn't at all that appearance to me.
To my eye it is more an anxiety to get up the river than anything else I can detect."
Mr. Ko was pleased that they had finally decided to take Mr. Choi-So.
"You won't regret it," he asserted.
"He'll take you over the rapids better than any one I know; and," he concluded, looking at Mr. Reid a little peculiarly, "it's my opinion you won't dismiss him at Yo Ju.
At any rate, I'll have you a good poleman by the time you come back."
By ten o'clock they were ready to be off, having bidden good-bye to poor Mr. Chefoo after having spoken all the consoling words to him they could.
In honor of their departure, Mr. Ko had donned a spotless suit of white.
He had also sought to enhance his appearance by adding an immense pair of spectacles, which he had purchased at considerable outlay, from an old scholar.
It mattered not that one lens was entirely lacking and the other was so badly cracked that it was a question as to whether Mr. Ko could use the vision of that eye with any satisfactory effect.
All the same, he stood upon the bank waving his fan majestically, his little black eye gleaming from out the great round space where the lens ought to have been, and all the time shouting out to them in Korean, "Come back again to-morrow!"
That meant, "Return as soon as you can."
Mr. Choi-So soon proved his right to all the good things Mr. Ko had spoken of him.
He was an excellent poleman, both alert and careful.
He helped engineer the boat safely through the rapids in a manner that called forth grunts of approval from even Mr. Kit-ze.
About four o'clock in the afternoon they came in sight of Yo Ju.
Besides being a city of considerable size, it was noted as the birthplace of the queen, and the king had caused two or three public structures to be erected in her honor.
There were many sampans, junks, and other rude craft at anchor in front of the city, and they had much difficulty in making their way through them.
But at length they reached the shore safely.
They had not more than tied up when an immense crowd began to gather about the sampan, even wading out into the water.
The crowd was not only curious, but annoying.
They handled the clothes and hair of our friends, and even tried to run their hands over their faces.
But to this not only protest but resistance was offered.
Soon after reaching the bank, Mallard had climbed out on an end of the sampan and steadied his camera for a snap of the city.
He thought it a splendid opportunity, as the sun was falling full upon the great gateway and the queer looking buildings grouped near to it.
He at once attracted the attention of the crowd.
Great curiosity was aroused as to his intention, and soon men, women, and children were rushing toward him.
They clambered up the side of the sampan.
They pressed about him until there wasn't space to hold another foot.
They poked fingers into eyes and ears and nose; they shouted in glee as they caught the flash of the lens in the instrument, and tried to pull it out.
In consternation Mallard endeavored first to protect himself, then his camera, and was finally pushed into the water, saving the latter from both a smashing and a wetting by the narrowest margin.
The same curiosity followed them as they went up into a gate tower for a view of the city.
The crowd pressed about them so they could barely enter.
Even after they began to ascend the stairs the curious throng crowded about them so that the entire space was filled.
When they attempted to come down again, to their consternation they found they could not.
They had finally to make their way back from the outside, a rough and somewhat dangerous undertaking.
Fortunately neither was Joyce nor were the two girls with them.
"This will never do," said Mr. Reid.
"We must get away from this terribly curious crowd, for the annoyance they give us will become more than a burden after a while.
Mr. Kit-ze, is there no place, not so far away, where we can tie up without the prospect of having such curiosity as this to endure?"
"Yes, honorable teacher, not so far away is the temple of the great Dragon.
There are overhanging trees, a quiet river bed, and not many people who will come to gaze."
"Then let us go there by all means.
To-morrow morning we'll find our chance to enter the city."
They made their way out through the forest of river craft and up the stream again.
The great temple stood directly on the banks of the Han, some little distance from the city.
It was a beautiful spot, picturesquely so, for in addition to the brick and stone pagodas that gleamed through the trees, there was a number of small islands clustered about, covered with low-growing verdure and spangled with the blossoms of the pink and white azalea.
The temple in itself had much with which they could occupy their time.
Among other things was a quaint bell, in a perfect network of dragons, said to be more than five hundred years old.
But as the sun was near to its setting as they came to anchor in a quiet spot along the banks, they decided to do no exploring for that afternoon.
Mr. Kit-ze had spoken truly, "there were not many who came to gaze."
Though it was a kind of outlying village and had several hundred inhabitants, yet only a few of them appeared on the arrival of the sampan.
Most seemed closely occupied with their pursuits.
However, a little group of women and children pressed near to the sampan, but no one proved offensive except a mutang (sorceress), who, in the end, gave them considerable trouble.
She contended that she must be given two _yen_ so as to decide for them whether or not the Dragon would be pleased at their stay in the front of the temple.
She finally fell to one _yen_, then to six hundred "cash," but still our travelers paid no attention to her.
She had an evil eye, Dorothy asserted, and further declared that she knew she could not sleep that night for thinking of her.
Mr. Kit-ze showed even more impatience with her than the others.
They didn't need her divinations, he told her, for they had that with them that could overcome any evil from the dragon.
Then he injudiciously gave her a view of the red _miriok_.
How her keen little black eyes glowed as she caught sight of it!
and the sudden look she cast upon Mr. Kit-ze made Helen, who was closely watching the scene, feel uneasy despite herself.
Helen had been earnestly regarding Mr. Kit-ze through a large part of that afternoon.
There was that in his manner that at times disturbed her, but again it seemed as though hope were creeping into her heart.
He had been absent-minded and dejected for much of the way, but now and then he had aroused himself.
At such times he had turned with keen glances in the direction of Choi-So, studying every lineament of the young man's face, it seemed to Helen.
Always these searching looks were bestowed upon Choi-So when he was not in turn regarding Mr. Kit-ze.
Helen was sure that better feelings were stirring at the heart of Mr. Kit-ze on these occasions, for she could see how his eyes softened and his lips moved nervously as he continued to gaze.
According to agreement Choi-So had been dismissed as night approached; but Helen, who had been very observant, was sure he was not far away.
Indeed, while walking on the bank for exercise, she had caught sight of his face from a small clump of bushes only a few steps from where she was.
She decided at once that she would not call attention to him.
Her heart was tender for him.
She did not believe that he would do harm.
Soon silence settled down around the sampan, for its inmates had retired to rest.
Several hours of the night passed away.
All were supposed to be asleep except Mr. Kit-ze, whose watch it was.
But, after a while, Mr. Kit-ze too yielded to slumber.
Suddenly Helen awoke.
It was with a strange, restless feeling.
It seemed to her that there had been an uneasy consciousness even in the midst of her slumber.
She tried to go sleep again, but could not.
"I think the air in here must be a little too close," Helen thought after a few moments.
She raised herself and leaned toward the heavy curtain of straw.
Then she rolled it partly upward, secured it to the fastenings, and looked out.
She was sleeping at the side of the sampan next to the shore.
All was quiet.
She could see no one.
Then she let her eyes glance toward the bow of the boat.
Mr. Kit-ze was huddled down in his little boxlike apartment sound asleep.
"Oh," said Helen, "this will never do!
I must call my father to awaken him."
But even as she started to move toward her father's apartment, she stopped again, almost transfixed.
A hand had cautiously made its way up the side of the sampan, and was now directing itself toward Mr. Kit-ze's breast.
CHAPTER X AN ARRESTED SACRIFICE The hand moved nearer and nearer Mr. Kit-ze's breast; a moment more and it had buried itself in the folds of his robe.
Even as Helen continued to gaze like one transfixed, ere yet she had the power to recover herself, a face appeared above the hand.
But it was not the face she had expected to see--that of Mr. Choi-So.
Instead, the moonlight showed her clearly the repulsive countenance of the old _mutang_.
There are moments when sudden excitement leads us into a line of action our cooler moments would by no means approve, when quick emotions bring impulses that are followed without a pause for reasoning.
Such a time had now come to Helen.
Mr. Kit-ze was being robbed.
She could see that plainly.
The thief was the old _mutang_, and the object of her theft, it almost instantly flashed into Helen's mind, was the red _miriok_.
In truth, even as the intuition came to her, she saw the hideous little image in the woman's hand.
All Helen's energies were now bent toward a frustration of the old woman's design of carrying away the _miriok_.
She, Helen, must recover it ere the _mutang_ got off with it.
For if the _miriok_ disappeared, how could she ever carry out her good intentions for either Mr. Kit-ze or Choi-So?
All would be frustrated.
For would not Mr. Kit-ze be violently angry?
and would he not at once charge the theft to Choi-So?
And what might not happen?
As to poor Choi-So, he would surely grow demented when he found that the image had gone beyond his reach--oh, she felt that he would!
In her sudden excitement, Helen never stopped for reasoning.
Hence it did not occur to her that her testimony would exonerate Choi-So with Mr. Kit-ze, nor that, so far as the part relating to Choi-So was concerned the old _mutang_ might be located and the stolen image recovered.
All that Helen then thought of was the recovery of the _miriok_.
She must get it and at once.
Even now the woman was slipping away with it.
If she waited to arouse the others the old woman would be gone, for at the first sounds of alarm, she would speed away like a hunted animal up the bank.
Helen knew the magic influence of money, especially of shining _yen_.
Had not the old woman shown her greed for them during the afternoon?
If the _miriok_ could be recovered, it would surely be through the agency of the _yen_.
Both girls had lain down in the loose wrappers they wore for comfort during a part of the day.
In the pocket of hers Helen had her purse.
Besides a few smaller silver pieces there were in it three _yen_.
She leaned quickly over Dorothy; she placed her arm under her neck and gently shook her, all the while whispering: "Get up quickly, dear, and come with me.
Don't speak out, don't question; only come and be quick!
quick!"
Fortunately, Dorothy was not hard to arouse when once she had been touched.
Like some even heavy sleepers whom a vigorous call cannot awaken, the touch was like magic.
In a second or so she was fully awake, and gazing at Helen in deep wonder but alert.
"It is the red _miriok_!"
said Helen to Dorothy again in a whisper.
"The old _mutang_ has come and stolen it from Mr. Kit-ze.
He does not know it, and there is no time to arouse him and the others.
We must recover it.
If we are quick we can overtake her before she gets away.
Then this will accomplish the rest," she added, confidently holding up the purse.
The _mutang_ had now sprung down from the side of the sampan into which she had crept, and was moving rapidly up the slight incline when Helen and Dorothy in turn reached the bank.
She saw them almost instantly and, with a muffled cry, very much like the growl of an animal, increased her speed.
"Stop!"
said Helen in low tones, and as persuasively as she could.
"Stop!
We only want to talk to you.
We mean no harm."
But the old woman either did not understand them or she would not stop.
It was evidently the latter, for as much as she could, she quickened her pace.
But swift as she was, Helen and Dorothy were even swifter.
They were only a pace or two behind her as the top of the bank was reached.
It was not far from daylight.
The signs of the approaching dawn had already begun to appear along the eastern sky.
At the brow of the bluff and stretching away from the temple, was the village of rude mud huts, with now and then a more pretentious one showing in their midst.
There was one principal street which ran along between the rows of huts.
The _mutang_ made for this with Helen and Dorothy close behind her.
"Stop!"
entreated Helen again, and louder than before.
"Oh, do stop!
We mean no harm.
We only want to talk to you."
But the more earnestly she entreated, the more determined the old woman seemed to be to resist her, to escape from her.
Helen had now drawn near enough to lay hold of the old woman's clothing, but her grasp was violently shaken off, as the _mutang_ sprang away again with renewed energy.
The two girls, intensely excited, stuck to the chase.
All their thoughts were concentrated upon it; their one desire to overtake the old woman and to induce her, by offering _yen_ in exchange, to return the _miriok_.
Absorbed in these thoughts, this desire, they lost sight of all else, especially of how every moment that they were getting nearer and nearer to the woman they were going farther and farther away from the sampan.
[Illustration: "'STOP!'
ENTREATED HELEN!"]
"Oh," said Helen breathlessly, "we must overtake her!
We must get her to give us the _miriok_.
We can't let her escape with it in this manner, for what then could we do about poor Choi-So and Mr.
Kit-ze?"
"Yes," replied Dorothy, "we must get it back.
I am like you, Helen, I can't bear to see the old woman get off with it.
Oh, every time I think of that poor man Choi-So and his melancholy, pleading eyes, I feel that we must keep on, that we must overtake her and secure the image by some means!"
"Why," said Helen suddenly, "I have forgotten to tell her about the _yen_ I have for her."
Then she began to call, holding up her purse: "See!
I have _yen_ for you.
Stop and let me tell you about it."
At last she had used the magic words.
At sound of them, twice repeated, the _mutang_ slackened her pace.
Then she turned her head.
Encouraged by these signs, Helen renewed her efforts.
They were now some distance into the village, and a half-mile or more from the sampan.
The red glow of the coming morning had fully dyed the east.
Already there were signs of stirring life in the huts about them.
Then too, the noise of running feet and of Helen's loudly spoken words had attracted attention.
One by one forms began to appear on the street.
Soon there was quite a group in the neighborhood of the pursued and pursuers.
By the time Helen had succeeded in gaining the old _mutang's_ interest, there were many curious spectators surrounding them.
"What is all this commotion about?"
asked one man as he approached.
Then as he noted the _mutang_ he stopped respectfully.
The old woman had now paused in her running, and had turned toward Helen.
"What were the words?
Say them again."
Helen repeated them.
"Why are you running after me in this way?
Why do you offer me _yen_?"
she now asked angrily.
Helen told her as simply and as plainly as she could.
At this the old woman's eyes blazed more than ever.
But she seemed to take a second thought, and asked cautiously, "How many _yen_?"
"Two," replied Helen, closely watching her face.
The old woman shook her head vigorously, then began to stamp.
"Too little!
too little!"
she said.
"Your head is under your arm to think I'd be such an idiot!"
Then she set off again.
"Three!"
called Helen desperately, for she knew this was the limit of her resources so far as _yen_ were concerned.
"No!
no!"
shouted the old woman.
"Too little!
too little!
Five or none."
As the last sentence was uttered, she turned to see its effect on Helen, but as there was not the response she expected, she renewed her efforts to get beyond their reach.
"Oh, if I only had my purse too!"
said Dorothy.
"But I gave it to my brother yesterday just before we left Mr.
Ko's."
In her despair Helen called after the old woman again and again to stop, to turn back with them to the sampan, promising her the _yen_ she desired if only she would do so, and further assuring her that no harm should come to her, for Helen knew Mallard would gladly supply the amount of _yen_ she lacked.
She would tell him about the _miriok_.
She had been intending to do it the first favorable opportunity.
There was now quite a hubbub in the street, for in addition to Helen's calls and Dorothy's added entreaties, there were the shrill cries of defiance of the old _mutang_ herself.
People had come running from all directions, and their loudly voiced questions and exclamations added to the noise.
Among others there came five runners, the court officers of a near-by _yangban_ (gentleman), who was serving as magistrate.
When they saw the two girls they began to cry out something against the hated foreigners, and three of them at once took Helen and Dorothy into custody, while the other two hastened away to capture the _mutang_.
They were too hardened to mind the old sorceress and her wiles.
Moreover, the court was no respecter of persons.
Helen and Dorothy were now much frightened and, for the first time, began to realize what they had done in setting off on this mad chase after the old _mutang_.
Helen was the first to recover herself.
"I guess," she said, "it won't be so dreadful.
They won't dare hurt us.
And soon our dear ones in the sampan will come to the rescue, for surely we can get them word.
Anyhow, it won't be long ere they miss us, and they'll search the town over till they find us."
A young man, whom Helen declared looked more honest than any of the others, was soon engaged, in consideration of the offer of two of Helen's smaller silver pieces, to carry the news of their predicament to the sampan.
But alas for Helen's confidence!
After securing the silver he had taken only about a dozen steps toward the river when, overcome by curiosity to see the thing out, he turned back.
The _mutang_ had now been captured, but not until she had made such vigorous resistance that not only the clothing of the runners had been torn, but their faces also scratched.
In close company with the old _mutang_, and with the runners encircling them so that there could be no chance of escape, and a leering, hooting mob following them, the two girls were conducted along the street to the house of the _yangban_.
"Oh, Dorothy," said Helen, "this is dreadful!"
and, in her pain and mortification, she sought to conceal as much of her face as she could with her hands.
"Yes," said Dorothy, on the verge of tears.
"Oh, Helen, it would have been better, many times, to have let the _miriok_ go."
"No," said Helen, "no!"
It was now sunrise, but far too early for the magistrate.
They were informed that they must wait an hour or more.
Dorothy and Helen were finally permitted to enter the women's apartments.
They afterward learned that it was through the overwhelming curiosity of the _yangban's_ chief wife.
At the entrance they were laid hold of by the serving-women and fairly dragged into the apartment.
There they had a trying experience which lasted nearly an hour.
To them it seemed five times that length.
Their clothing, their faces, and their hair in turn were inspected, and by each wife.
They were bidden to take off their shoes, their wrappers, and other wearing apparel, and each wife in turn must try on each article.
But the bulk of the curiosity was directed toward Helen's hair.
It seemed that the women would never tire of handling it.
They even wanted to cut it off, and but for Helen's heroic efforts, aided by Dorothy's quick ingenuity, would have succeeded.
At length they were summoned before the _yangban_, the wives, unable to restrain their curiosity, following them to the room, where they sat behind a screen.
The _yangban_, who was quite a young man, was lounging on his platform and smoking an immense cigar.
He was dressed in a pea-green silk robe confined by a red girdle, and on each hand was a very showy paste-diamond ring.
He had ordered the outer door to be thrown open, and had allowed as many of the curious crowd to enter as could be accommodated within a certain space.
Near him stood his interpreter, for he had early been informed that two of the accused were foreigners.
After smoking awhile in silence, he commanded the offenders to be brought before him for the usual form of questions.
He began with Helen.
As she stepped a little apart from the others, and nearer to the magistrate, in her earnestness to tell him her story, she happened to raise her eyes for a moment and let them rest upon the crowd gathered at her left.
As she did so a little muffled cry escaped her.
There, standing almost in the front line, and with his dark eyes fixed mournfully upon her, was Choi-So.
How had he come there?
Afterward she learned that he had not been far away from the sampan, and, sleeping very lightly because of the thoughts that disturbed him, had been attracted by the sound of running feet and by Helen's calls to the old woman.
He had overtaken them just as they had been arrested and started to the _yangban's_.
He had heard Helen try to tell one of the runners the cause of the trouble.
He had gleaned just enough to set him on fire with interest and excitement.
For an instant Choi-So's presence at the magistrate's court so disconcerted Helen that she could not remember the words she had been on the point of uttering.
But soon more confidence returned, and she began bravely to tell her story.
The magistrate listened patiently, but he was evidently full of curiosity and deeply excited over the appearance of the two young girls.
Though he had seen the white foreigners on the streets of Seoul, yet he had never before been brought in such contact with them.
The fearless, earnest manner of both girls impressed him and had much to do with his decision.
The _mutang_ should return the image, he declared.
He had not asked to see it yet, and so was in no wise impressed by it.
Helen and Dorothy had proved to be of such tremendous interest that all minor objects had been for the time obscured.
Yes, the _mutang_ should return the image, and the _yen_ that Helen had offered should go to himself.
This decision was barely rendered when there came a communication from his chief wife.
He appeared to frown over it for a few moments, all the while smoking hard.
Then he further announced, and in the most laconic manner, that Helen was to sacrifice her hair ere receiving the image.
A cry of dismay escaped Helen, while Dorothy, hot with indignation, began to pour out her protests, first to the magistrate, then to Helen.
"It can't be done!
You can't think of such a thing!
Don't!
_Don't!_" "Oh, yes," said Helen, who had now grown strangely quiet and calm.
"It isn't such a dreadful sacrifice, dear.
There are many far worse.
I can endure it.
My hair will grow out again.
Oh, surely it is worth this when we remember what it means to get back the _miriok_!"
All the while she was speaking, though she was looking at Dorothy, yet Helen saw those mournful eyes that she knew were fixed upon her from the other side of the room.
"Take the scissors, Dorothy," she entreated.
"I had forgotten until now that I had my folding ones here in the little case in my pocket.
Oh, it will be so much better for you to do it, dear, for I couldn't bear any of those rude hands to touch me."
Dorothy took the scissors, but still making vigorous protest.
"Do, Dorothy, _do_, my dear," pleaded Helen.
With trembling hand Dorothy grasped the rich, shining braid.
The scissors were raised; but ere the two gleaming blades could close on the glossy strand, a voice cried out authoritatively: "_Stop!
Stop!_" Helen and Dorothy raised their eyes simultaneously.
It was Mr. Kit-ze.
He had pressed to the extreme limit of the line of spectators, and with his hat gone, his clothing in wild disorder, his eyes gleaming like two globes of fire, was gesticulating frantically to the magistrate.
CHAPTER XI "ONE SOUL" Mr. Kit-ze continued to gesticulate and to cry out to the magistrate, although those near-by sought to restrain him.
He even tried to pass the barrier, but was each time pushed back by the guards.
The magistrate at first appeared not to notice him, but after a while, overcome by his curiosity, he turned his head and called to Mr. Kit-ze: "What do you want, fellow?
I'll put you in the _cangue_[3] if you don't cease that noise."
"A word!"
cried Mr. Kit-ze.
"A word with you, O most high and exalted!"
The magistrate eyed him a moment nonchalantly.
Then he said to a runner: "Bring him here."
Mr. Kit-ze approached and, falling upon his heels, prostrated himself three times before the _yangban_, touching his forehead to the floor each time.
As he arose, there fluttered from his fingers a strip of yellow ribbon, and those who were near to him saw stamped upon it in red a dragon with four wings and tongue extended.
"See!"
said Mr. Kit-ze, as he held it before the magistrate.
"See!
O renowned son of a renowned father.
O most exalted, I claim the promise."
A look of intelligence began to dawn in the magistrate's eye.
He looked closely at the streamer of yellow ribbon.
"Go on," he said to Mr. Kit-ze.
"Go on, but keep your head above your shoulders, so as to make clear what you are trying to say."
"On a blessed day for your poor, miserable servant," began Mr. Kit-ze, "your exalted person came down the Han in a craft that went to grief in the rapids.
Your polemen, losing their heads, deserted, and but for the assistance of the unworthy being now speaking to you and his poleman, there would have been neither craft nor cargo belonging to your exalted self to enter Seoul.
You gave me _yen_, but you gave me this too," holding the ribbon nearer as he spoke, "and your most eloquent tongue, that always speaks straight, declared that if there was ever anything this miserable wretch desired of you that could be granted, it should be so."
"I remember," said the magistrate.
"Go on."
"I ask you now, O renowned and honorable, to spare the hair of the daughter of him who is known as the exalted teacher," and here Mr. Kit-ze turned toward Helen, who, ever since his sudden appearance, had been regarding him with a questioning if not puzzled wonder.
How had he come there, and where were the others?
Had he alone learned of their whereabouts, and how had it so happened?
"Take instead something of your wretched servant's," continued Mr. Kit-ze to the magistrate, "and leave undisturbed the beautiful strands that are a happiness to her whom they adorn and a joy in the eyes of those who love her."
"Oh, Mr. Kit-ze," said Helen softly, a great, warm flood of feeling sweeping over her heart as she comprehended what he had asked and noted the deep earnestness in his eyes as he turned them upon her, "don't mind about my hair; please don't.
It won't be so dreadful to me to lose it.
Don't get yourself into trouble for my sake," and now she laid her hand upon his shoulder in earnest pleading.
"I'll fear to suffer nothing if done for _you_, O daughter of the honorable teacher."
And now his eyes were misty with feeling as their gaze lingered upon her.
"Come, is this all you want?"
asked the magistrate impatiently and evidently resenting the conversation now going on between Helen and Mr. Kit-ze.
"Yes, it is all your wretched servant has to ask of you," replied Mr. Kit-ze.
"O most honorable," he began to plead, "spare, I entreat you, the beautiful hair of her who is the daughter of the exalted teacher, and nothing more will I ask of you.
Nothing!"
"But the _miriok_, Mr. Kit-ze, the _miriok_?"
said Helen in an undertone and surprised that he had seemed to take no thought of it in his appeal to the magistrate.
For he surely had heard enough of the proceedings to understand why she and Dorothy had been brought before the _yangban_.
"The _miriok_?"
said Mr. Kit-ze softly and looking at her with eyes whose confidence touched her beyond expression.
"He will give you the _miriok_.
He has said it."
Then, as a sudden, strange expression came into his eyes, he glanced up quickly and straight toward the line of spectators.
"There is another," he said, his lips moving nervously, "and I must!"
He paused; then she heard him say again, "Oh, I must!"
Helen's heart leaped.
Did he mean Mr. Choi-So?
Had he seen him among the spectators?
It was more than likely that he had, as the latter stood near to where Mr. Kit-ze was when he began to gesticulate to the magistrate.
"I can't see why your request shouldn't be granted," said the magistrate after a pause, and to Mr. Kit-ze; "especially as you have brought that at sight of which no gentleman could break his word," and he pointed to the streamer of yellow ribbon that Mr. Kit-ze still held.
"I remember the service.
Now let me hear the request again."
Mr. Kit-ze repeated it with all the eloquence that heart and tongue could bestow upon it.
"Take the image from the old woman and give it to the young foreigner," said the magistrate, "and there will be no cutting of her hair," he added firmly.
As he uttered the last sentence, he threw his head up and glanced somewhat defiantly at the screen behind which he knew his wives were sitting.
But the chief lady of his household was inexorable.
Another message came to him, and quickly.
She would renounce her desire for all of Helen's hair, but she must have some of it.
A strand would now suffice her.
"No," said Mr. Kit-ze, "no!"
and moved nearer to Helen as though to protect her.
"It must not be!"
"I can spare a strand," said Helen soothingly to Mr. Kit-ze, "without its ever showing where it has been cut."
Then she turned to Dorothy.
"Help me undo the braids quickly, dear, and get a part of one of them.
You will know where to cut.
Get a good-sized piece," she added with a smile.
"We must give her her curiosity's worth."
As the braids were loosened and the strands swept in shining waves over Helen's shoulders, falling below her waist, there was a chorus of quick exclamations, followed by prolonged murmurs of astonishment.
Only Mr. Kit-ze groaned.
Urged by Helen, Dorothy severed the portion of hair, which was at once conveyed to the _yangban's_ chief wife.
They could hear the excited expressions that sounded from behind the screen.
Mr. Kit-ze looked miserable.
He stood with folded hands mournfully regarding Helen.
His eyes said plainly, though his lips did not, "I tried to save it.
If only you had let me!"
"Dear Mr. Kit-ze," said Helen, "how I do thank you for----" But here she stopped, for the runner, who had at length succeeded, with the assistance of another, in getting the _miriok_ from the old _mutang_ was now offering it to her.
He was also demanding for the magistrate the yen that had been mentioned.
Helen gave them to him, then reached for the _miriok_.
But how her hand trembled!
A pang too struck her heart.
How different was the feeling to that with which she had thought she would receive the _miriok_ if only she could succeed in recovering it!
Though it had been stolen from Mr. Kit-ze, yet her chief thought when pursuing the old _mutang_ had been of poor Choi-So, and of how frantic he would be should the _miriok_ pass away from him.
Now the _miriok_ had been given back to her.
She stood there with it in her hand.
But there too stood Mr. Kit-ze, and she felt, if she did not see, his burning glance fixed upon the image in her clasp.
How much he had dared for her!
For it is considered a serious matter in Korea to interrupt a magistrate in the midst of his court.
With what earnestness and eloquence had he pleaded for her hair, seeming to forget even the precious _miriok_ in his desire to save to her that which he knew was pleasing to herself and a delight to her loved ones.
He had even used his one claim to the favor of the magistrate in her behalf.
Yes, there stood Mr. Kit-ze with burning eyes regarding her, and there too, not more than ten paces away, was Choi-So.
Only the moment before she had seen him, standing at almost the same spot and in almost the same position, his eyes riveted upon her every movement.
How singularly quiet he had been!
But it was, she felt, the quiet of concentrated emotion--emotion that might at any moment break forth.
Oh, what was she to do?
A fervent prayer winged its way upward as she thought quickly, intently.
Now of all times she must not make a mistake.
The peace of a soul, maybe in the end the peace of two souls, was at stake.
Suddenly her resolution was formed.
She would give the _miriok_ to Mr. Kit-ze, then, when they were released from the court and were away from all those inquisitive eyes, she would bravely plead with him to return it to Choi-So.
She would see Choi-So too.
She would entreat him to wait and to leave it to her.
"Mr. Kit-ze," she said, speaking slowly and trying to make each expression plain to him, "I saw the old woman when she robbed you.
I called to Dorothy, for I knew I had not the time to awaken you and the others, and we chased her.
Oh, how anxious we were to get the _miriok_ for--for----" But she could not tell him yet.
Besides, the magistrate was through with them, and was even now instructing the runners to conduct them away.
As they turned to leave the room, Helen gently pressed the _miriok_ into Mr. Kit-ze's hands.
"Take it," she said; "but later, when we get away from here, I must tell you something."
His fingers closed about it nervously, and he paused for a moment as though his emotion at receiving it again had overcome him.
Then she heard him murmur, "Wrong, wrong.
I must give it back," and, ere she could speak to him, he had moved hastily away.
Surprised, Helen, with a word to Dorothy, turned to follow him.
After so bravely coming to the rescue, was he going to abandon them in that strange place to make their way back to the sampan alone?
"Stop, Mr. Kit-ze, stop!"
entreated Helen.
"Oh, do wait for us, Mr.
Kit-ze!"
pleaded Dorothy.
He paid no heed to them, only kept on; and now Helen, for the first time, realized whither he was going.
It was straight toward Mr. Choi-So.
Her heart almost stopped beating.
What would happen?
She must follow him and know.
As she reached them, it was to see Mr. Kit-ze holding the image toward Choi-So, and to hear his tremulously uttered words, "Sorry.
Sorry.
It was wrong.
She showed me."
Then he raised his head and added another word, but with almost pathetic entreaty, "Go!"
"No," said Helen quickly, "no," and reached out her hand to detain Mr. Choi-So, but too late.
With a muffled cry of joy that fell distinctly upon the ears of those around him, Mr. Choi-So grasped the image, dropped something into Mr. Kit-ze's hand and, turning, sprang away.
He passed swiftly through the crowd that opened at once to let him by, believing that he was running in search of his mind, as they expressed it, and to their journey's end the inmates of the sampan did not see nor hear of him again.
[Illustration: "'SORRY.
SORRY.
IT WAS WRONG!
SHE SHOWED ME.'"]
"Oh, Mr. Kit-ze," said Helen, "I----" But the sentence was never finished, for a joyous cry from Dorothy arrested her in the act of speaking the words, and, at the same time, she felt an arm slipped about her waist and heard a voice deep with emotion saying, "My daughter, this has been dreadful for you."
It was her father, and there too, was Mallard.
How rejoiced they were to find her and Dorothy safe.
Soon the story of the search for them was told, and then Helen, for the first time, had light on a subject that even in the midst of far more engrossing things had caused her much wonder.
This was as to how Mr. Kit-ze had found his way to the court-room without the others.
The old boatman had slept on until sunrise.
The other inmates too had finished their morning naps, had performed their toilets, and were ready for breakfast ere the disappearance of the two girls was discovered.
It was after repeated calls and numerous sarcastic remarks on Clarence's part had failed either to bring them forth or to win even a retort from them, that Mr. Reid had raised the curtain of their sleeping apartment for an examination.
But still their absence had not caused alarm, for the first thought was that they might be walking on the bank near by.
However, as a search in that direction failed to discover them, a well defined fear soon spread.
In a short time it became evident that they had either wandered away and become lost or had been abducted.
It was quickly arranged that Mr. Reid, Mr. Kit-ze, and Mallard should set off in search for them, while Mr. Wilburn, Clarence, and Joyce remained to take care of the sampan.
In the town they soon heard of the arrest; but as there were two magistrates, there were, of course, two trails to follow, as no one they met seemed to know before which one the girls had been carried.
In the eagerness of inquiry, Mr. Kit-ze became separated from Mr. Reid and Mallard and, while they went on the wrong trail at first, he went on the right one, arriving almost as soon as the court had begun.
There was a joyful reunion at the sampan.
Only Mr. Kit-ze looked sad.
Helen watched for the first opportunity to speak to him when alone and said: "Oh, Mr. Kit-ze, that was a good, brave thing you did.
How glad it has made me!"
The gloomy look began to leave his face.
He turned toward her, a joy awakening in his eyes.
"I did it," he said, "because you told me."
"I?"
asked Helen astonished.
"Oh, no, Mr. Kit-ze, I never told you."
"Not with lips, but with eyes," declared Mr. Kit-ze.
"Oh, when you looked at me so, I knew I must.
I felt it here," laying his hand with a pathetic movement on his heart.
"And when you talked to me, daughter of the most honorable teacher, oh, it was like light coming, coming, that is almost here."
"But how did you know that I knew about the _miriok_?"
she asked, now more astonished than ever.
"I heard him.
The day on the bluff.
Oh, how frightened poor Kit-ze, and wretched, wretched!"
So he had heard Choi-So tell the story, and though he had hotly protested against his accompanying them as poleman, all the time vigorously declaring to himself that he would never give up the _miriok_, yet the seeds of better things had taken root in his heart, were even then beginning to push their tender shoots upward.
And how Helen's deep interest, her kindness to him, her evident concern, above all, the sweet, earnest words she had spoken--how these had brought just the nourishment to make the seed grow!
The hand that no harsh force of compulsion could ever have made give up the idol to which it clung had brought it tremblingly to the feet of love, won by its all-conquering power.
They turned back from the old temple above Yo-Ju after thoroughly exploring it.
They also spent a day in Yo-Ju, where Mr. Kit-ze fortunately found a poleman whom he knew and in whom he had confidence.
They stopped at Mr. Ko's long enough to pick up Mr. Chefoo, whom they found well on the road to recovery, and to leave with their old friend some remembrances brought from Yo-Ju.
What a joy it was to Helen, on the homeward journey, to watch Mr. Kit-ze coming more and more into the light.
It was one afternoon, just as they were passing along beneath the beautifully verdured bluffs that indicate the nearness of the mountain range which encircles Seoul, that Dorothy, slipping her arm with warm pressure about Helen's waist, laid a book across Helen's knee with a passage marked.
After a moment, Helen looked up, her eyes suffused with tears, for this is what she had read: Perchance in heaven, some day, to me Some blessed saint will come and say: "All hail, beloved, but for thee My soul to death had fallen a prey"; Then oh, what rapture in the thought One soul to glory to have brought.
[Illustration] The End FOOTNOTES: [3] A wooden collar worn by Korean offenders against the law.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: The chapter headings in this work contain illustrated capitals.
For the text version, these have been removed.
All formatting has been removed, with italics changed to underscores, bolded text replaced by = signs, and small capitals replaced by all-capitals.
KOREAN TALES BEING A COLLECTION OF STORIES TRANSLATED FROM THE KOREAN FOLK LORE TOGETHER WITH INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS DESCRIPTIVE OF KOREA BY H. N. ALLEN, M.D.
FOREIGN SECRETARY OF LEGATION FOR KOREA NEW YORK & LONDON G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS The Knickerbocker Press 1889 CONTENTS.
PAGE I.--Introductory 5 The Country, People, and Government.
II.--Descriptive 15 Sights in and about the Capital.
III.--The Rabbit and other Legends 28 Stories of Birds and Animals.
IV.--The Enchanted Wine Jug 40 Or, Why the Cat and Dog are Enemies.
V.--Ching Yuh and Kyain Oo 56 The Trials of Two Heavenly Lovers.
VI.--Hyung Bo and Nahl Bo 89 Or, The Swallow-King's Rewards.
VII.--Chun Yang 116 The Faithful Dancing-Girl Wife.
VIII.--Sim Chung 152 The Dutiful Daughter.
IX.--Hong Kil Tong 170 Or, The Adventures of an Abused Boy.
NOTE.
The national emblem of Korea, pictured on the cover, represents the male and female elements of nature; the dark blue representing Heaven (the male), the yellow representing Earth (the female).
As seen across the Eastern Sea, the heavens seem to lap over and embrace the earth, while the earth, to landwards, rises in the lofty mountains and folds the heavens in its embrace, making a harmonious whole.
The characters represent the four points of the compass, and belong to the original eight characters given by the first King, and from which "all language" sprung.
The whole set is as follows: === === = = = = = = = = === === === = = = = === === = = === = = === === === === = = = = = = = = PREFACE.
Repeatedly, since returning to the United States, people have asked me, "Why don't you write a book on Korea?"
I have invariably replied that it was not necessary, and referred the inquirers to the large work of Dr. Griffis, entitled "Corea, the Hermit Kingdom," which covers the subject in a charming manner.
My object in writing this book was to correct the erroneous impressions I have found somewhat prevalent--that the Koreans were a semi-savage people.
And believing that the object could be accomplished best in displaying the thought, life, and habits of the people as portrayed in their native lore, I have made these translations, which, while they are so chosen as to cover various phases of life, are not to be considered as especially selected.
I also wished to have some means of answering the constant inquiries from all parts of the country concerning Korean life and characteristics.
People in Washington have asked me if Korea was an island in the Mediterranean; others have asked if Korea could be reached by rail from Europe; others have supposed that Korea was somewhere in the South Seas, with a climate that enabled the natives to dispense with clothing.
I have therefore included two chapters, introductory and descriptive in character, concerning the subjects of the majority of such questions.
"Globe trotters," in passing from Japan to North China, usually go by way of the Korean ports, now that a line of excellent Japanese steamships covers that route.
These travellers see the somewhat barren coasts of Korea--left so, that outsiders might not be tempted to come to the then hermit country; perhaps they land at Chemulpoo (the port of the capital, thirty miles distant), and stroll through the rows of miserable, temporary huts, occupied by the stevedores, the pack-coolies, chair-bearers, and other transient scum, and then write a long article descriptive of Korea.
As well might they describe America as seen among the slab shanties of one of the newest western railroad towns, for when the treaties were formed in 1882 not a house stood where Chemulpoo now stands, with its several thousand regular inhabitants and as many more transients.
H. N. Allen.
Washington, D. C., July 1, 1889.
INTRODUCTORY.
Korea, Corea, or Chosen (morning calm) occupies the peninsula hanging down from Manchooria and Russian Siberia between China and Japan, and extending from the 33d to the 43d parallels of north latitude.
The area, including the outlying islands, is about one hundred thousand square miles.
The population, according to the most reliable estimate, is a little more than sixteen millions.
Yet, as the people live in cities, towns, and hamlets, the country does not seem to be thickly settled.
The climate varies much at the extremities of the peninsula, owing to the fact that the southern portion is somewhat affected by the warm southern currents that give Japan its tropical climate, but which are warded off from Korea proper by the Japanese islands.
The climate of the central and northern provinces is much the same as that of the northern central United States, with fewer changes.
The large river at the capital is not uncommonly frozen over for weeks at a time during the winter, so that heavy carts pass over on the ice.
Ice is always preserved for general use in summer.
The country is decidedly mountainous, and well watered.
Heavy timber abounds in the northeast.
The valleys are very fertile and are well tilled, as the people are mainly devoted to agriculture.
The mineral resources have only been developed in a crude way, yet sufficiently to demonstrate the great wealth of the ore deposits.
Especially is this true in reference to the gold mines.
The most pessimistic visitors to Korea are unstinted in their praise of the beautiful scenery, which is fully appreciated by the natives as well.
From ancient times they have had guide-books setting forth the natural charms of particular localities; and excursions to distant places for the sole purpose of enjoying the views are a common occurrence.
The King rules as absolute monarch.
He is assisted by the Prime-Minister and his two associates--the ministers of the Left and Right.
Next to these come the heads of the six departments of Etiquette and Ceremonies, Finance, War, Public Works, Justice, and Registration, with the heads of the two new departments that have been added as the result of the opening up of foreign intercourse--the Foreign (or outside) Office, and the Home (or interior) Office.
This body of officials forms the grand council of the King.
Each of the eight provinces is ruled by a governor, who has under him prefects, local magistrates, supervisors of hamlets, and petty officials, so that the whole scale makes a very complete system and affords no lack of officials.
There are several special officers appointed by the King, one of whom is the government inspector, whose duty it is to go about in disguise, learn the condition of the people, and ascertain if any magistrate abuses his office and oppresses the people unjustly.
Any such he may bring to speedy justice.
The present Dynasty has existed 498 years.
Being founded by a revolting general named Ye, it is known as the Ye Dynasty.
The King's name, however, is never used.
He is almost sacred to his people.
Those officials of sufficiently high rank to go in before him bow to the ground in his presence, and only speak when spoken to; then they use a highly honorific language only understood at court.
The revenues are paid in kind, hence the annual income of an official may consist of a certain quantity of rice, and other products, in addition to his money compensation.
The King, also, has the whole revenue resulting from the sale of the ginseng, for which the country is noted.
This forms his private purse.
The currency is the common copper cash, worth some twelve hundred to the Mexican dollar; though now that the new mint is in operation, copper, silver, and gold coins are being made.
The old perforated cash will, however, be hard to supplant, owing to its convenience in small transactions.
Banks proper do not exist; though the government does a kind of banking business in granting orders on various provincial offices, so that a travelling official need not be burdened with much ready money.
A number of large brokers at the capital assist in the government financial transactions.
All unoccupied land belongs to the King, but any man may take up a homestead, and, after tilling it and paying taxes on it for a period of three years, it becomes his own, and must be purchased should the government need it.
Deeds are given in the form of receipts and quit-claims by the seller.
These may be registered with the local magistrate.
Wills, as understood in western countries, are not executed; though a father wishing to provide especially for the children of his concubines may make a will, or statement, the proper execution of which devolves upon the eldest son.
Records of the births of males are kept, as are also records of deaths, but these are not always reliable.
All males of fifteen years of age are registered at the Hang Sung Poo, or Department of Registration, which issues to them tablets bearing their name and address.
Children are also generally provided with these tablets, to prevent their getting lost.
The people are well built and strong, as a rule.
They are a loyal, contented race, not grasping, and rather too easy in disposition.
They are intelligent and learn with great ease.
Possessed of many characteristics in common with their neighbors, the Chinese and Japanese, they yet seem to have a personality indicative of a different parentage, which continually calls forth inquiry as to their origin.
In some slight degree they resemble the aborigines of America, and it is believed that their ancestors came from the north:--the question opens up a fertile field for study.
Their written records are said to date back three thousand years.
Their traditional first king descended from heaven five thousand years ago.
With a civilization of such age they might well be excused for so long barring their doors against the new civilization of the young nations of the West.
While, as a matter of fact, the difference existing between the two is more one of degree than essence, perhaps more vices may be found in the civilization of the West than are known to this people.
And, with a few exceptions, the virtues taught by the modern civilization have been practised for centuries behind the bars of isolation that shut in this self-satisfied people.
The people dress in imported cotton sheetings mostly, padding them well with cotton-wool for winter use, and using the plain bleached white, or dying the cloth a light shade of blue or green.
Rice is the staple article of food in the central and southern provinces; wheat enters more largely into the diet of the northern people.
Their cattle are as large and fine as may be found anywhere; the people eat much beef, and hides are a prominent article of export.
Their houses are well built and comfortable; foreigners adapt them to their own use with little trouble.
The houses are heated by means of a system of flues underneath the floor, which is made of large flagstone placed over the flues and well cemented; over all thick, strong, oil paper is placed, making a rich, dark, highly polished floor, through which no smoke can come, though it is always agreeably warm.
The houses are all one story, built around a court, and several sets of buildings, each within a separate wall, usually make up a gentleman's compound.
The buildings are covered with a thick layer of earth and capped with tile laid on in graceful curves.
This roof insures coolness in summer.
The rooms are made almost air-tight by the plentiful use of paper on the walls outside and in, as well as for doors and windows.
There are three great classes in Korea: the nobility, the middle class, and the commoners.
A commoner, not of the proscribed orders, may rise to nobility by successfully passing the competitive examinations.
The officials are appointed from the noble classes.
The language is peculiar to the country, and while written official documents are done in the common character of China and Japan, the spoken language of neither of these people is understood in Korea.
The native language of Korea possesses an alphabet and grammar, and is polysyllabic, thus resembling English more than it does Chinese.
In religious matters the Koreans are peculiar in that they may be said to be without a religion, properly speaking.
Prior to the advent of the present dynasty, Buddhism reigned, but for 498 years it has been in such disfavor that no priest dare enter a walled city.
They still maintain temples in the mountains, but exert but little if any influence.
In morals the people are Confucianists, and their reverent devotion to their ancestors may serve in part as a religion.
In times of distress they "pray to Heaven," and seem really to be very devoutly inclined.
Christianity came into disfavor through the indiscretion of its early teachers.
The distrust is slowly passing away now, and missionaries are openly employed in doing the educational work that must precede any successful attempt to secure the adoption of beliefs so radically different from all existing ideas.
Some of the results of the outside intercourse that has been indulged in for the past eight years may be mentioned.
A maritime customs service, under the charge of American and European officers, is in very successful operation.
So is a hospital, supported by the government and operated by American physicians, gratuitously furnished by the American Presbyterian Mission.
The government supports a school for which American teachers are employed.
American military officers have charge of the reorganization of the army and conduct a school for the purpose of instructing the young officers.
A mint, machine-shops, powder-mills, silk filatures, an electric light, and a telegraph and cable line are some of the new institutions recently adopted and, as a rule, now in successful operation.
Steamships have also been purchased more for the purpose of transporting tribute rice than as a nucleus for a navy.
In regard to the relations existing between Korea and China the reader is respectfully referred to a paper delivered before the American Oriental Society by the Chinese scholar, W. W. Rockhill, U. S. Secretary of Legation at Pekin, and contained in Vol.
III.
of the Society's publications for 1888.
In his preface Mr. Rockhill says: "The nature of Korea's relations with China has for the last thirty years been a puzzle for Western nations.
Were they--with the ambiguous utterance of the Chinese Government before them that 'Korea, though a vassal and tributary state of China, was entirely independent so far as her government, religion, and intercourse with foreign States were concerned'--to consider it as an integral part of the Chinese Empire, or should they treat it as a sovereign state, enjoying absolute international rights?
"The problem was practically solved by the conclusion of the treaty between Japan, and later on the United States, and Korea, but this has not materially altered the nature of the relations existing for the last four centuries, at least between China and its so-called vassal.
That China has, however, derived profit from the opening of Korea to the commerce of nations, there can be no doubt, for she, too, being at liberty to conclude treaties with Korea and open this new market to her merchants, has done so, like other nations, though she has chosen to call her treaty by the euphonious name of 'commercial and trade regulations for the subjects of China and Korea', and her diplomatic representative in Seoul, 'Minister Resident for political and commercial affairs.'
What China's relations with Korea were prior to the opening of the latter kingdom by the treaty of 1883, I propose to show in the following pages, taking as my authorities official Chinese publications and writings of men in official position."
KOREAN TALES.
DESCRIPTIVE.
SEOUL--THE CAPITAL.
As "Paris is France," so Seoul may be said to be Korea, for it is the centre from which nearly every thing for the country either originates or is disseminated.
Officers ruling over country districts usually have their "house in town," and expect to spend a portion, at least, of their time within the walls of the capital.
While some of the provincial capitals are said to contain more people and to be more celebrated for certain reasons, Seoul is the home of the King and the Mecca of his faithful subjects.
A description of this city may, therefore, answer for all.
The capital is a city of some 300,000 inhabitants, half of whom, perhaps, live in the extensive suburbs without the walls.
It lies in a basin of granite sand, surrounded by high mountains and their projecting ridges, over which climbs the high, thick, encircling wall of masonry; pierced at convenient points by massive, pagoda-roofed gates, amply strong enough for defense against the weapons of war in use at the time of building this great relic of seclusion.
The city is traversed by broad avenues from which runs a perfect labyrinth of narrow streets.
Originally none of these streets were less than twenty feet wide, and some of the avenues leading up to the imposing gates of the palaces are even now a good two hundred feet in width.
But the streets have all been encroached upon by the little temporary thatched booths of the petty retail dealers, so that, with the exception of the approaches to the palaces, the line is broken, the streets made tortuous, and only here and there a broad open spot indicates the original width of the thoroughfare.
Originally every street was furnished with its sewer--open in the smaller streets, while the avenues were drained by great covered sewers of stonework.
Occasionally the proprietor of one of the little temporary booths would put a foundation under his structure, bridging over the sewer, until now the streets have in many cases become mere crooked alleys, and but for the bountiful rains, the excellent natural drainage, and the character of the soil, the mortality would be very great instead of being less than in ordinary American cities.
No attempt is made towards street decoration, as that would attract the attention of thieves.
The magnificent grounds of a nobleman, with their artificial lakes, flower gardens, water-worn pillars of ancient rock and quaintly twisted trees, may be enclosed by a row of tumble-down, smoke-begrimed servant-quarters that would never indicate the beauty to be found hidden within its forbidding exterior.
Travellers never seem to realize that a street in the East is apt to be but a "way" between two points, and as the usual Oriental odors greet their nostrils and their eyes rest on the dirty servants and their dirtier hovels, they at once denounce the whole town.
There is attraction enough, however, in a Korean street for any one who is in search of strange sights.
Looking down one of the broad thoroughfares of Seoul from a point on the city wall, the sun's rays, falling on the light-colored gowns of the pedestrians as they saunter along amid the bulls and ponies, produce a kaleidoscopic effect that is certainly charming.
Passing down into the throng it will be seen to be made up mostly of men, with here and there a group of common women, each closely veiled with a bright green gown, made like the long outer garment of the men, and possessing little sleeves of crimson.
This strange garment is never worn, but is always used as a covering for the fair (?)
face.
Tradition teaches that in ancient times, when wars were frequent, veils were discarded and these gowns were worn by the wives and sisters, that, in case of sudden call to arms, they could be given to their husbands and brothers to be worn to battle--hence the red sleeves, upon which the gory sword was to be wiped.
The peculiar gauze "stove-pipe" hat of the men, about which so much has been said, also has its origin in tradition, as follows: In ancient days conspiracies were common; to prevent these an edict was issued compelling all men to wear great earthenware hats, the size of an umbrella (type of the mourner's hat in Korea to-day, except that the latter is made of finely woven basket-work).
This law became very odious, for in addition to the weight of the hats, not more than a very few men could come close enough together to converse, and even then spies could hear their necessarily loud whispering.
Little by little, therefore, the law began to be infringed upon till the people got down to the present airy structure of horsehair, silk, and bamboo.
Another story is, that petty wars being too frequent between rival sections, all men were compelled to wear these umbrella hats of clay.
In case one became broken the possessor was punished by decapitation--naturally they stopped their fighting and took good care of their hats till the law was repealed.
The custom of wearing white so extensively as they do is also accounted for by tradition.
Mourning is a serious business in Korea, for on the death of a father the son must lay aside his gay robes and clothe himself in unbleached cotton of a very coarse texture.
He wraps his waist with a rope girdle, and puts on the umbrella hat, which conceals the whole upper portion of his person.
For further protection against intrusion he carries a white fan, and, should he smoke, his pipe must be wrapped with white.
For three years he must wear this guise and must do no work, so that the resources of even a large and prosperous family may be thus exhausted.
Should a king die, the whole nation would be compelled to don this mourning garb, or rather they would be compelled to dress in white--the mourning color.
Once, during a period of ten years, three kings died, necessitating a constant change of dress on the part of the people and a great outlay of money, for a Korean wardrobe is extensive and costly.
Tradition has it, therefore, that, to be ready for the caprice of their kings in the future, the people adopted white as the national color.
The nobility and wealthy persons who can afford it, dress in rich gayly colored silks, and even the common people add a little blue or green to their outside robes, so that when they wander about over the beautiful green hills in their favorite pastime of admiring the natural beauties of a remarkably beautiful and well preserved landscape, their bright gowns but add to the general effect.
And a long procession of monks emerging from their high mountain temple and descending along the green mountain path might be taken for a company of the spirits with which their literature abounds; especially will this be the case if, as is common, the region of the temple is shrouded with clouds.
But little of home life is seen along the streets, and the favored ones who may pass the great gates and traverse the many courts which lead to the fine inclosures of the nobility would see but little of home life, as the women have quarters by themselves, and are only seen by the men of their own family.
It is pleasant, however, to see the little groups of the working class sitting around the fire which is cooking their evening meal and at the same time heating the platform of paper and cement-covered stones which form the floor of their bed chamber, and on which they will spread their mats and sleep.
They will all be found to be smoking, and if tobacco was ever a blessing to any people it is to the lower classes in Korea, who find in it their greatest comfort.
No one could see the solid enjoyment taken by a Korean coolie with his pipe without blessing the weed.
As the fires burn low, and one by one the smokers have knocked the ashes from their pipes and sought the warm stone floor, a deep stillness settles over the profoundly dark city.
The rich, deep notes of a great centrally located bell ring out as the watchman draws back a huge suspended beam of wood, and releasing it, lets it strike the bronze side of the heavy bell, from which vibration after vibration is sent forth upon the still night-air.
Some weird music, which has been likened to that of Scotch bagpipes, is heard from the direction of the city gates, and the traveller, who is still threading the streets to his abode, feels thankful that he has arrived in time, for now the massive gates are closed, and none may enter without royal permission.
The street traveller will also hasten to his home or stopping-place, for between the ringing of the evening chimes and the tolling of the bell to announce the approach of dawn, all men must absent themselves from the streets, which then are taken possession of by the women, who even then, as they flit about from house to house with their little paper lanterns, go veiled lest some passing official should see their faces.
[1] The midnight stillness is broken by the barking of countless dogs, but as cats are in disfavor their serenades are seldom heard.
Another sound is often, in busy times heard throughout the whole night.
It is peculiar to Korea, and to one who has lived long in the country it means much.
It is the drumming of the Korean laundry.
To give the light-colored gowns their highly prized lustre they must be well pounded; for this purpose the cloth is wrapped around a long hard roller which is fixed in a low frame, two women then sit facing each other with, in each hand, a round, hard stick, something like a small base-ball bat, and they commence beating the cloth, alternating so as to make quite a musical tinkle.
Heard at some distance this rhythmic rattle is not unpleasant, and one is assured that in the deep night that has settled so like a pall over the city, two persons are wide-awake and industriously engaged, while, when the tapping ceases for a bit, one is comforted with the thought that the poor things are enjoying a rich bit of gossip, or welcoming a friend who is more fortunate in having finished her ironing in time to enjoy the freedom of the night.
Inside the Palace the night is turned into day as nearly as can be done by the electric light.
The business of the government is mostly transacted at night that the wheels of administration may run smoothly during the day.
At sun-down several lights may be seen on the summit of the beautiful ever green south mountain which forms the southern limit of the city; as does a grim stony peak on the north serve a similar purpose on that side.
The south mountain faces the Palaces.
It also commands a good view of the outlying peaks, upon some of which, situated in suitable localities, are stationed watchmen, so placed as to command a view of others farther and farther removed; thus forming lines from the distant borders of the country to the capital.
On these peaks small signal-fires are nightly kindled, and as the lights are seen by the watchman on the south mountain, he builds the proper number of fires upon little altars in full view of the Palace.
Then a body of gray old officers go in before His Majesty, and bowing their heads to the floor, make known the verdict of the signal-fires, as to whether peace reigns in the borders or not.
Soon after this the officials assemble and the business of the government begins, the King giving his personal attention to all matters of importance.
There are three palace inclosures in the city, only one of which is occupied.
One is an old ruined place that was built for the use of a ruler who chanced to be regent for his father, and as he could not reside in the Palace proper this smaller place was prepared for him.
The buildings now are in ruins, while the large grounds are used by the foreign silk expert as a nursery for mulberry-trees.
The present Palace includes some hundreds of acres, and is the home of more than three thousand attendants.
The grounds are beautifully diversified by little lakes of several acres in extent, one of which surrounds a magnificent and stately pavilion, supported on great stone pillars,--a fine picture and description of this, and other parts of the Palace, may be found in Mr. Lowell's "Chosen."
The other lake possesses a bright little pagoda-like pavilion, around which plays a steam launch, dividing the lotus flowers which grow in the water, and startling the swan, duck, and other aquatic animals that make this their home.
These lakes are fed and drained by a mountain stream that enters and leaves the Palace inclosure, through water-gates built under the walls.
Some of the bridges spanning this brook are quaint pieces of artistic masonry, having animals carved in blocks of stone, represented in the act of plunging into the liquid depths below.
This carved stone work abounds throughout the Palace buildings; the largest of which is the great Audience-Hall, with its mast-like pillars supporting a ceiling at an elevation of near one hundred feet above the tiled floor.
The dwelling-houses of the Royal Family are built upon the banks of one of the small lakes, and are surrounded by walls for greater seclusion.
The rooms are furnished with costly articles from European markets, together with the finest native furniture.
Foreign-trained cooks are employed, and the dinners sometimes given to distinguished foreign guests are in entire accord with modern western methods.
Royalty is never present at these banquets, which are presided over by one of the heads of departments; the Royal Family, maybe, witnessing the novel sight from a secluded place where their presence may not be known.
The King only leaves the Palace upon certain occasions, as when he goes to bow before the tombs of his ancestors.
On these occasions the streets are cleared of the little straw-thatched booths of the petty retail merchants as well as of all other unsightly objects.
The street is roped off and sprinkled with fresh earth, and the people don their holiday garb, for it is indeed a great gala day to them.
The procession is a gorgeous relic of mediæval times, with bits of the present strangely incorporated.
There may be regiments of soldiers in the ancient fiery coats of mail, preceded or followed by soldiers dressed in the queer hybrid uniforms of the modern army, and bearing the bayoneted rifles of the present day, instead of the quaint matchlock-guns and ugly spears of the ancient guard.
The wild, weird music of the native bands may be followed by the tooting of the buglers of the modern soldiery.
The strange one-wheeled chair of an official, with its numbers of pushers and supporters, will probably be followed by an artillery company dragging Gatling guns.
His Majesty himself will be borne in a great throne-like chair of red work, supported on the shoulders of thirty-two oddly attired bearers, while high officials in the government service may be mounted on horse back, or borne in less pretentious chairs.
The length of the procession varies, but it is seldom less than an hour in passing a given place.
The King is thirty-eight years of age.
The Queen is one year his senior.
The Crown Prince is fifteen years old, and has no brothers or sisters.
Foreigners who have been granted an audience with the King are always pleased with his affability and brightness.
He is quick of perception and very progressive.
By having foreign newspapers translated to him he keeps fully abreast of the times.
He is kind-hearted to a fault, and much concerned for the welfare of his people.
His word is law, and an official would never think of failing to carry out his instructions or perish in the attempt.
Owing to his great seclusion and the amount of ceremony with which he is hedged in, and the fact that, as a rule, nothing disagreeable must be brought to his notice, he is somewhat at the mercy of his favorites; and a trusted eunuch, having the King's ear continually, may become a great power for good or bad as the case may be.
As decapitation is the usual punishment for most crimes, however, and as an official who should deceive the King would probably meet with such an end, the responsibility of the place is apt to sober an otherwise fickle mind and insure honest reports.
THE RABBIT, AND OTHER LEGENDS.
STORIES OF BIRDS AND ANIMALS.
The Koreans are great students of Nature.
Nothing seems to escape their attention as they plod through the fields or saunter for pleasure over the green hills.
A naturally picturesque landscape is preserved in its freshness by the law that forbids the cutting of timber or fuel in any but prescribed localities.
The necessity that compels the peasants to carefully rake together all the dried grass and underbrush for fuel, causes even the rugged mountain sides to present the appearance of a gentleman's well kept park, from which the landscape gardener has been wisely excluded.
Nature's beauty in Korea may be said to be enhanced rather than marred by the presence of man; since the bright tints of the ample costume worn by all lends a quaint charm to the view.
The soil-begrimed white garments of the peasants at work in the fields are not especially attractive at short range; but the foot-traveller, clad in a gorgeous gown of light-colored muslin, adds a pleasant touch to the general effect, as he winds about the hills following one of the "short-cut" paths; while the flowing robes of brightly colored silk worn by the frequent parties of gentry who may be met, strolling for recreation, are a positive attraction.
Nor are these groups uncommon.
The climate during most of the year is so delightful; the gentry are so pre-eminently a people of leisure, and are so fond of sight-seeing, games, and music, that they may be continually met taking a stroll through the country.
As has been said, nothing out-of-doors seems to have escaped their attention.
The flowers that carpet the earth from snow till snow have each been named and their seasons are known.
The mah-hah in-doors throws out its pretty sessile blossoms upon the leafless stem sometimes before the snows have left, as though summer were borne upon winter's bare arm with no leafy spring to herald her approach.
Then the autumn snows and frosts often arrive before the great chrysanthemums have ceased their blooming, while, between the seasons of the two heralds, bloom myriads of pretty plants that should make up a veritable botanical paradise.
Summer finds the whole hill-sides covered with the delicate fluffy bloom of the pink azaleas, summoning forth the bands of beauty seekers who have already admired the peach and the plum orchards.
Great beds of nodding lilies of the valley usher in the harvest, and even the forest trees occasionally add their weight of blossoms to the general effect.
The coming and going of the birds is looked for, and the peculiarities and music of each are known.
As a rule, they are named in accordance with the notes they utter; the pigeon is the pe-dul-key; the crow the kaw-mah-gue; the swallow the chap-pie, and so on.
One bird--I think it is the oriole--is associated with a pretty legend to the effect that, once upon a time, one of the numerous ladies at court had a love affair with one of the palace officials--a Mr. Kim.
It was discovered, and the poor thing lost her life.
Her spirit could not be killed, however, and, unappeased, it entered this bird, in which form she returned to the palace and sang, "Kim-pul-lah-go," "Kim-pul, Kim-pul-lah-go," then, receiving no response, she would mournfully entreat--"Kim-poh-go-sip-so," "Kim-poh-go-sip-so."
Now, in the language of Korea, "Kim-pul-lah-go" means "call Kim" or "tell Kim to come," and "Kim poh go sip so" means "I want to see Kim."
So, even to this day, the women and children feel sad when they hear these plaintive notes, and unconsciously their hearts go out in pity for the poor lone lover who is ever searching in vain for her Kim.
Another bird of sadness is the cuckoo, and the women dislike to hear its homesick notes echoing across the valleys.
The pe chu kuh ruk is a bird that sings in the wild mountain places and warns people that robbers are near.
When it comes to the hamlets and sings, the people know that the rice crop will be a failure, and that they will have to eat millet.
The crow is in great disfavor, as it eats dead dog, and brings the dread fever--Yim pyung.
The magpie--that impudent, noisy nuisance,--however, is in great favor, so much so that his great ugly nest is safe from human disturbance, and his presence is quite acceptable, especially in the morning.
He seems to be the champion of the swallows that colonize the thick roofs and build their little mud houses underneath the tiles, for when one of the great lazy house-snakes comes out to sun himself after a meal of young swallows, the bereaved parents and friends at once fly off for the saucy magpie, who comes promptly and dashes at the snake's head amid the encouraging jabbering of the swallows.
They usually succeed in driving the reptile under the tiles.
Should the magpie come to the house with his (excuse for a) song in the morning, good news may be expected during the day; father will return from a long journey; brother will succeed in his (civil-service) examination and obtain rank, or good news will be brought by post.
Should the magpie come in the afternoon with his jargon, a guest--not a friend--may be expected with an appetite equal to that of a family of children; while, if the magpie comes after dark, thieves may be dreaded.
This office of house-guard is also bestowed upon the domestic goose.
Aside from its beauty, this bird is greatly esteemed for its daring in promptly sounding an alarm, should any untimely visitor enter the court, as well as for its bravery in boldly pecking at and, in some cases, driving out the intruder.
The wild goose is one of the most highly prized birds in Korea.
It always participates in the wedding ceremonies; for no man would think himself properly married had he not been presented by his bride with a wild goose, even though the bird were simply hired for the occasion.
The reason for this is that these observing people once noticed that a goose, whose mate was killed, returned to the place year after year to mourn her loss; and such constancy they seek, by this pretty custom, to commend to their wives.
They further pledge each other at this time in these words: "Black is the hair that now crowns our heads, yet when it has become as white as the fibres of the onion root, we shall still be found faithful to each other."
The white heron seems to be the especial friend of man.
Many are the tales told of the assistance it has rendered individuals.
In one case the generous-hearted creature is said to have pecked off its bill in its frantic attempts to ring a temple bell for the salvation of a man.
One of the early stories relates how a hunter, having shot an arrow through the head of a snake that was about to devour some newly hatched herons, was in turn saved by the mother bird, who pecked to death a snake that had gotten into the man's stomach while he was drinking at a spring.
The pecking, further, was so expertly done as not to injure the man.
The swallows are everywhere welcome, while the thievish sparrows are killed as often as possible; the former live in the roofs of the houses, and usually awaken the inmates by their delighted chattering at each recurrence of dawn.
A charming story is told of a swallow's rewarding a kind man who had rescued it from a snake and bound up its broken leg.
The anecdote is too long to be related in this connection further than to say that the bird gave the man a seed which, being planted, brought him a vast fortune, while a seed given to his wicked brother, who was cruel to the swallows, worked his ruin.
The bird held in the highest favor, however, is the stork.
It is engraved in jade and gold and embroidered in silk, as the insignia of rank for the nobility.
It is the bird that soars above the battle, and calls down success upon the Korean arms.
In its majestic flight it is supposed to mount to heaven; hence its wisdom, for it is reputed to be a very wise bird.
A man was once said to have ridden to heaven on the back of a huge stork, and judging from the great strength of a pair the writer once had as pets, the people are warranted in believing that, in the marvellous days of the ancients, these birds were used for purposes of transportation.
The animals, too, have their stories, and in Korea, as in some other parts of the world, the rabbit seems to come off best, as a rule.
One very good story is told concerning a scrape the rabbit got himself into because of his curiosity, but out of which he extricated himself at the expense of the whole fraternity of water animals.
It seems that on one occasion the king of fishes was a little indiscreet, and while snapping greedily at a worm, got a hook through his nose.
He succeeded in breaking the line, and escaped having his royal bones picked by some hungry mortal, but he was still in a great dilemma, for he could in no way remove the cruel hook.
His finny majesty grew very ill; all the officials of his kingdom were summoned and met in solemn council.
From the turtle to the whale, each one wore an anxious expression, and did his best at thinking.
At last the turtle was asked for his opinion, and announced his firm belief that a poultice made from the fresh eye of a rabbit would remove the disorder of their sovereign at once.
He was listened to attentively, but his plan was conceded to be impracticable, since they had no fresh rabbit eyes or any means of obtaining them.
Then the turtle again came to the rescue, and said that he had a passing acquaintance with the rabbit, whom he had occasionally seen when walking along the beach, and that he would endeavor to bring him to the palace, if the doctors would then take charge of the work, for the sight of blood disagreed with him, and he would ask to absent himself from the further conduct of the case.
He was royally thanked for his offer, and sent off in haste, realizing full well that his career was made in case he succeeded, while he would be very much unmade if he failed.
'Twas a very hot day as the fat turtle dragged himself up the hill-side, where he fortunately espied the rabbit.
The latter, having jumped away a short distance, cocked his ears, and looked over his back to see who was approaching.
Perceiving the turtle, he went over and accosted him with, "What are you doing away up here, sir?"
"I simply came up for a view.
I have always heard that the view over the water from your hills was excellent, but I can't say it pays one for the trouble of coming up," and the turtle wiped off his long neck and stretched himself out to cool off in the air.
"You are not high enough; just come with me if you want to see a view," and the rabbit straightened up as if to start.
"No, indeed!
I have had enough for once.
I prefer the water.
Why, you should see the magnificent sights down there.
There are beautiful green forests of waving trees, mountains of cool stones, valleys and caves, great open plains made beautiful by companies of brightly robed fishes, royal processions from our palaces, and, best of all, the water bears you up, and you go everywhere without exertion.
No, let me return, you have nothing on this dry, hot earth worth seeing."
The turtle turned to go, but the rabbit musingly followed.
At length he said: "Don't you have any difficulty in the water?
Doesn't it get into your eyes and mouth?"
For he really longed in his heart to see the strange sights.
"Oh, no!
it bothers us no more than air, after we have once become accustomed to it," said the turtle.
"I should very much like to see the place," said the rabbit, rather to himself, "but 'tis no use, I couldn't live in the water like a fish."
"Why, certainly not," and the turtle concealed his excitement under an air of indifference; "you couldn't get along by yourself, but if you really wish to see something that will surprise you, you may get on my back, give me your fore-paws, and I will take you down all right."
After some further assurance, the rabbit accepted the apparently generous offer, and on arriving at the beach, he allowed himself to be firmly fixed on the turtle's back, and down they went into the water, to the great discomfort of the rabbit, who, however, eventually became so accustomed to the water that he did not much mind it.
He was charmed and bewildered by the magnificence of every thing he saw, and especially by the gorgeous palace, through which he was escorted, by attendant fishes, to the sick chamber of the king, where he found a great council of learned doctors, who welcomed him very warmly.
While sitting in an elegant chair and gazing about at the surrounding magnificence, he chanced to hear a discussion concerning the best way of securing his eyes before he should die.
He was filled with horror, and, questioning an attendant, the whole plot was explained to him.
The poor fellow scratched his head and wondered if he would ever get out of the place alive.
At last a happy thought struck him.
He explained to them that he always carried about two pairs of eyes, his real ones and a pair made of mountain crystals, to be used in very dusty weather.
Fearing that the water would injure his real eyes, he had buried them in the sand before getting upon the turtle's back, and was now using his crystal ones.
He further expressed himself as most willing to let them have one of his real eyes, with which to cure his majesty's disorder, and assured them that he believed one eye would answer the purpose.
He gave them to understand that he felt highly honored in being allowed to assist in so important a work, and declared that if they would give the necessary order he would hasten on the turtle's back to the spot where he had buried the eyes and return speedily with one.
Marvelling much at the rabbit's courtesy, the fishes slunk away into the corners for very shame at their own rude conduct in forcibly kidnapping him, when a simple request would have accomplished their purpose.
The turtle was rather roughly commanded to carry the guest to the place designated, which he did.
Once released by the turtle to dig for the eyes in the sand, the rabbit shook the water from his coat, and winking at his clumsy betrayer told him to dig for the eyes himself, that he had only one pair, and those he intended to keep.
With that he tore away up the mountain side, and has ever after been careful to give the turtle a wide berth.
THE ENCHANTED WINE-JUG; OR, WHY THE CAT AND DOG ARE ENEMIES.
In ancient times there lived an old gray-haired man by the river's bank where the ferry-boats land.
He was poor but honest, and being childless, and compelled to earn his own food, he kept a little wine-shop, which, small though it was, possessed quite a local reputation, for the aged proprietor would permit no quarrelling on his premises, and sold only one brand of wine, and this was of really excellent quality.
He did not keep a pot of broth simmering over the coals at his door to tempt the passer-by, and thus increase his thirst on leaving.
The old man rather preferred the customers who brought their little long-necked bottles, and carried the drink to their homes.
There were some peculiarities--almost mysteries--about this little wine-shop; the old man had apparently always been there, and had never seemed any younger.
His wine never gave out, no matter how great might be the local thirst, yet he was never seen to make or take in a new supply; nor had he a great array of vessels in his shop.
On the contrary, he always seemed to pour the wine out of the one and same old bottle, the long, slender neck of which was black and shiny from being so often tipped in his old hand while the generous, warming stream gurgled outward to the bowl.
This had long ceased to be a matter of inquiry, however, and only upon the advent of a stranger of an inquiring mind would the subject be re-discussed.
The neighbors were assured that the old man was thoroughly good, and that his wine was better.
Furthermore, he sold it as reasonably as other men sold a much inferior article.
And more than this, they did not care to know; or at least if they did once care, they had gotten over it, and were now content to let well enough alone.
I said the old man had no children.
That is true, yet he had that which in a slight degree took the place of children, in that they were his daily care, his constant companions, and the partners of his bed and board.
These deputy children were none other than a good-natured old dog, with laughing face and eyes, long silken ears that were ever on the alert, yet too soft to stand erect, a chunky neck, and a large round body covered with long soft tan hair and ending in a bushy tail.
He was the very impersonation of canine wisdom and good-nature, and seldom became ruffled unless he saw his master worried by the ill behavior of one of his patrons, or when a festive flea persisted in attacking him on all sides at once.
His fellow, a cat, would sometimes assist in the onslaught, when the dog was about to be defeated and completely ruffled by his tormentor.
This "Thomas" was also a character in his own way, and though past the days when his chief ambition had been to catch his tail, he had such a strong vein of humor running through him that age could not subdue his frivolous propensities.
He had been known to drop a dead mouse upon the dog's nose from the counter, while the latter was endeavoring to get a quiet nap; and then he would blow his tail up as a balloon, hump his back, and look utterly shocked at such conduct, as the startled dog nearly jumped out of his skin, and growling horribly, tore around as though he were either in chase of a wild beast or being chased by one.
This happy couple lived in the greatest contentment with the old man.
They slept in the little kang room with him at night, and enjoyed the warm stone floor, with its slick oil-paper covering, as much as did their master.
When the old man would go out on a mild moonlit night to enjoy a pipe of tobacco and gaze at the stars, his companions would rush out and announce to the world that they were not asleep, but ready to encounter any and every thing that the darkness might bring forth, so long as it did not enter their master's private court, of which they were in possession.
These two were fair-weather companions up to this time.
They had not been with the old man when a bowl of rice was a luxury.
Their days did not antedate the period of the successful wine-shop history.
The old man, however, often recalled those former days with a shudder, and thought with great complacency of the time when he had befriended a divine being, in the form of a weary human traveller, to whom he gave the last drink his jug contained, and how, when the contents of the little jug had gurgled down the stranger's throat in a long unbroken draught, the stranger had given him a trifling little thing that looked like a bit of amber, saying: "Drop this into your jug, old man, and so long as it remains there, you will never want for a drink."
He did so; and sure enough the jug was heavy with something, so that he raised it to his lips, and--could he believe it!
a most delicious stream of wine poured down his parched throat.
He took the jug down and peered into its black depths; he shook its sides, causing the elf within to dance and laugh aloud; and shutting his eyes, again he took another long draught; then meaning well, he remembered the stranger, and was about to offer him a drink, when he discovered that he was all alone, and began to wonder at the strange circumstance, and to think what he was to do.
"I can't sit here and drink all the time, or I will be drunk, and some thief will carry away my jug.
I can't live on wine alone, yet I dare not leave this strange thing while I seek for work."
Like many another to whom fortune has just come, he knew not for a time what to do with his good-luck.
Finally he hit upon the scheme of keeping a wine-shop, the success of which we have seen, and have perhaps refused the old man credit for the wisdom he displayed in continuing on in a small scale, rather than in exciting unpleasant curiosity and official oppression, by turning up his jug and attempting to produce wine at wholesale.
The dog and cat knew the secret, and had ever a watchful eye upon the jug, which was never for a moment out of sight of one of the three pairs of eyes.
As the brightest day must end in gloom, however, so was this pleasant state soon to be marred by a most sad and far-reaching accident.
One day the news flashed around the neighborhood that the old man's supply of wine was exhausted; not a drop remained in his jug, and he had no more with which to refill it.
Each man on hearing the news ran to see if it were indeed true, and the little straw-thatched hut and its small court encircled by a mud wall were soon filled with anxious seekers after the truth.
The old man admitted the statement to be true, but had little to say; while the dog's ears hung neglectedly over his cheeks, his eyes dropped, and he looked as though he might be asleep, but for the persistent manner in which he refused to lie down, but dignifiedly bore his portion of the sorrow sitting upright, but with bowed head.
"Thomas" seemed to have been charged with agitation enough for the whole family.
He walked nervously about the floor till he felt that justice to his tail demanded a higher plane, where shoes could not offend, and then betook himself to the counter, and later to the beam which supported the roof, and made a sort of cats' and rats' attic under the thatch.
All condoled with the old man, and not one but regretted that their supply of cheap, good wine was exhausted.
The old man offered no explanation, though he had about concluded in his own mind that, as no one knew the secret, he must have in some way poured the bit of amber into a customer's jug.
But who possessed the jug he could not surmise, nor could he think of any way of reclaiming it.
He talked the matter over carefully and fully to himself at night, and the dog and cat listened attentively, winking knowingly at each other, and puzzling their brains much as to what was to be done and how they were to assist their kind old friend.
At last the old man fell asleep, and then sitting down face to face by his side, the dog and cat began a discussion.
"I am sure," says the cat, "that I can detect that thing if I only come within smelling distance of it; but how do we know where to look for it."
That was a puzzler, but the dog proposed that they make a search through every house in the neighborhood.
"We can go on a mere kuh kyung (look see), you know, and while you call on the cats indoors, and keep your smellers open, I will yay gee (chat) with the dogs outside, and if you smell any thing you can tell me."
The plan seemed to be the only good one, and it was adopted that very night.
They were not cast down because the first search was unsuccessful, and continued their work night after night.
Sometimes their calls were not appreciated, and in a few cases they had to clear the field by battle before they could go on with the search.
No house was neglected, however, and in due time they had done the whole neighborhood, but with no success.
They then determined that it must have been carried to the other side of the river, to which place they decided to extend their search as soon as the water was frozen over, so that they could cross on the ice, for they knew they would not be allowed in the crowded ferry-boats; and while the dog could swim, he knew that the water was too icy for that.
As it soon grew very cold, the river froze so solidly that bull-carts, ponies, and all passed over on the ice, and so it remained for near two months, allowing the searching party to return each morning to their poor old master, who seemed completely broken up by his loss, and did not venture away from his door, except to buy the few provisions which his little fund of savings would allow.
Time flew by without bringing success to the faithful comrades, and the old man began to think they too were deserting him, as his old customers had done.
It was nearing the time for the spring thaw and freshet, when one night as the cat was chasing around over the roof timbers, in a house away to the outside of the settlement across the river, he detected an odor that caused him to stop so suddenly as to nearly precipitate himself upon a sleeping man on the floor below.
He carefully traced up the odor, and found that it came from a soapstone tobacco box that sat upon the top of a high clothes-press near by.
The box was dusty with neglect, and "Thomas" concluded that the possessor had accidentally turned the coveted gem (for it was from that the odor came) out into his wine bowl, and, not knowing its nature, had put it into this stone box rather than throw it away.
The lid was so securely fastened that the box seemed to be one solid piece, and in despair of opening it, the cat went out to consult the superior wisdom of the dog, and see what could be done.
"I can't get up there," said the dog, "nor can you bring me the box, or I might break it."
"I cannot move the thing, or I might push it off, and let it fall to the floor and break," said the cat.
So after explaining the things they could not do, the dog finally hit upon a plan they might perhaps successfully carry out.
"I will tell you," said he.
"You go and see the chief of the rat guild in this neighborhood, tell him that if he will help you in this matter, we will both let him alone for ten years, and not hurt even a mouse of them."
"But what good is that going to do?"
"Why, don't you see, that stone is no harder than some wood, and they can take turns at it till they gnaw a hole through, then we can easily get the gem."
The cat bowed before the marvellous judgment of the dog, and went off to accomplish the somewhat difficult task of obtaining an interview with the master rat.
Meanwhile the dog wagged his ears and tail, and strode about with a swinging stride, in imitation of the great yang ban, or official, who occasionally walked past his master's door, and who seemed to denote by his haughty gait his superiority to other men.
His importance made him impudent, and when the cat returned, to his dismay, he found his friend engaged in a genuine fight with a lot of curs who had dared to intrude upon his period of self-congratulation.
"Thomas" mounted the nearest wall, and howled so lustily that the inmates of the house, awakened by the uproar, came out and dispersed the contestants.
The cat had found the rat, who, upon being assured of safety, came to the mouth of his hole, and listened attentively to the proposition.
It is needless to say he accepted it, and a contract was made forthwith.
It was arranged that work was to begin at once, and be continued by relays as long as they could work undisturbed, and when the box was perforated, the cat was to be summoned.
The ice had now broken up and the pair could not return home very easily, so they waited about the neighborhood for some months, picking up a scant living, and making many friends and not a few enemies, for they were a proud pair, and ready to fight on provocation.
It was warm weather, when, one night, the cat almost forgot his compact as he saw a big fat rat slinking along towards him.
He crouched low and dug his long claws into the earth, while every nerve seemed on the jump; but before he was ready to spring upon his prey, he fortunately remembered his contract.
It was just in time, too, for as the rat was none other than the other party to the contract, such a mistake at that time would have been fatal to their object.
The rat announced that the hole was completed, but was so small at the inside end that they were at a loss to know how to get the gem out, unless the cat could reach it with his paw.
Having acquainted the dog with the good news, the cat hurried off to see for himself.
He could introduce his paw, but as the object was at the other end of the box he could not quite reach it.
They were in a dilemma, and were about to give up, when the cat went again to consult with the dog.
The latter promptly told them to put a mouse into the box, and let him bring out the gem.
They did so, but the hole was too small for the little fellow and his load to get out at the same time, so that much pushing and pulling had to be done before they were successful.
They got it safely at last, however, and gave it at once to the dog for safe-keeping.
Then, with much purring and wagging of tails, the contract of friendship was again renewed, and the strange party broke up; the rats to go and jubilate over their safety, the dog and cat to carry the good news to their mourning master.
Again canine wisdom was called into play in devising a means for crossing the river.
The now happy dog was equal to such a trifling thing as this, however, and instructed the cat that he must take the gem in his mouth, hold it well between his teeth, and then mount his (the dog's) back, where he could hold on firmly to the long hair of his neck while he swam across the river.
This was agreed upon, and arriving at the river they put the plan into execution.
All went well until, as they neared the opposite bank, a party of school-children chanced to notice them coming, and, after their amazement at the strange sight wore away, they burst into uproarious laughter, which increased the more they looked at the absurd sight.
They clapped their hands and danced with glee, while some fell on the ground and rolled about in an exhaustion of merriment at seeing a cat astride a dog's back being ferried across the river.
The dog was too weary, and consequently matter-of-fact, to see much fun in it, but the cat shook his sides till his agitation caused the dog to take in great gulps of water in attempting to keep his head up.
This but increased the cat's merriment, till he broke out in a laugh as hearty as that of the children, and in doing so dropped the precious gem into the water.
The dog, seeing the sad accident, dove at once for the gem; regardless of the cat, who could not let go in time to escape, and was dragged down under the water.
Sticking his claws into the dog's skin, in his agony of suffocation, he caused him so much pain that he missed the object of his search, and came to the surface.
The cat got ashore in some way, greatly angered at the dog's rude conduct.
The latter, however, cared little for that, and as soon as he had shaken the water from his hide, he made a lunge at his unlucky companion, who had lost the results of a half year's faithful work in one moment of foolishness.
Dripping like a "drowned cat," "Thomas" was, however, able to climb a tree, and there he stayed till the sun had dried the water from his fur, and he had spat the water from his inwards in the constant spitting he kept up at his now enemy, who kept barking ferociously about the tree below.
The cat knew that the dog was dangerous when aroused, and was careful not to descend from his perch till the coast was clear; though at one time he really feared the ugly boys would knock him off with stones as they passed.
Once down, he has ever since been careful to avoid the dog, with whom he has never patched up the quarrel.
Nor does he wish to do so, for the very sight of a dog causes him to recall that horrible cold ducking and the day spent up a tree, and involuntarily he spits as though still filled with river-water, and his tail blows up as it had never learned to do till the day when for so long its damp and draggled condition would not permit of its assuming the haughty shape.
This accounts for the scarcity of cats and the popularity of dogs.
[2] The dog did not give up his efforts even now.
He dove many times in vain, and spent most of the following days sitting on the river's bank, apparently lost in thought.
Thus the winter found him--his two chief aims apparently being to find the gem and to kill the cat.
The latter kept well out of his way, and the ice now covered the place where the former lay hidden.
One day he espied a man spearing fish through a hole in the ice, as was very common.
Having a natural desire to be around where any thing eatable was being displayed, and feeling a sort of proprietorship in the particular part of the river where the man was fishing, and where he himself had had such a sad experience, he went down and looked on.
As a fish came up, something natural seemed to greet his nostrils, and then, as the man lay down his catch, the dog grabbed it and rushed off in the greatest haste.
He ran with all his might to his master, who, poor man, was now at the end of his string (coin in Korea is perforated and strung on a string), and was almost reduced to begging.
He was therefore delighted when his faithful old friend brought him so acceptable a present as a fresh fish.
He at once commenced dressing it, but when he slit it open, to his infinite joy, his long-lost gem fell out of the fish's belly.
The dog was too happy to contain himself, but jumping upon his master, he licked him with his tongue, and struck him with his paws, barking meanwhile as though he had again treed the cat.
As soon as their joy had become somewhat natural, the old man carefully placed the gem in his trunk, from which he took the last money he had, together with some fine clothes--relics of his more fortunate days.
He had feared he must soon pawn these clothes, and had even shown them to the brokers.
But now he took them out to put them on, as his fortune had returned to him.
Leaving the fish baking on the coals, he donned his fine clothes, and taking his last money, he went and purchased wine for his feast, and for a beginning; for he knew that once he placed the gem back in the jug, the supply of wine would not cease.
On his return he and the good dog made a happy feast of the generous fish, and the old man completely recovered his spirits when he had quaffed deeply of the familiar liquid to which his mouth was now such a stranger.
Going to his trunk directly, he found to his amazement that it contained another suit of clothes exactly like the first ones he had removed, while there lay also a broken string of cash of just the amount which he had previously taken out.
Sitting down to think, the whole truth dawned upon him, and he then saw how he had abused his privilege before in being content to use his talisman simply to run a wine-shop, while he might have had money and every thing else in abundance by simply giving the charm a chance to work.
Acting upon this principle, the old man eventually became immensely wealthy, for he could always duplicate any thing with his piece of amber.
He carefully tended his faithful dog, who never in his remaining days molested a rat, and never lost an opportunity to attack every cat he saw.
CHING YUH AND KYAIN OO.
THE TRIALS OF TWO HEAVENLY LOVERS.
PRELUDE.
Ching Yuh and Kyain Oo were stars attendant upon the Sun.
They fell madly in love with each other, and, obtaining the royal permission, they were married.
It was to them a most happy union, and having reached the consummation of their joys they lived only for one another, and sought only each other's company.
They were continually in each other's embrace, and as the honey-moon bade fair to continue during the rest of their lives, rendering them unfit for the discharge of their duties, their master decided to punish them.
He therefore banished them, one to the farthest edge of the eastern heavens, the other to the extreme opposite side of the great river that divides the heavenly plains (the Milky Way).
They were sent so far away that it required full six months to make the journey, or a whole year to go and come.
As they must be at their post at the annual inspection, they therefore could only hope to journey back and forth for the scant comfort of spending one short night in each other's company.
Even should they violate their orders and risk punishment by returning sooner, they could only see each other from either bank of the broad river, which they could only hope to cross at the season when the great bridge is completed by the crows, who carry the materials for its construction upon their heads, as any one may know, who cares to notice, how bald and worn are the heads of the crows during the seventh moon.
Naturally this fond couple are always heart-broken and discouraged at being so soon compelled to part after such a brief but long-deferred meeting, and 'tis not strange that their grief should manifest itself in weeping tears so copious that the whole earth beneath is deluged with rains.
This sad meeting occurs on the night of the seventh day of the seventh moon, unless prevented by some untoward circumstance, in which case the usual rainy season is withheld, and the parched earth then unites in lamentation with the fond lovers, whose increased trials so sadden their hearts that even the fountain of tears refuses to flow for their relief.
I.
You Tah Jung was a very wise official, and a remarkably good man.
He could ill endure the corrupt practices of many of his associate officials, and becoming dissatisfied with life at court, he sought and obtained permission to retire from official life and go to the country.
His marriage had fortunately been a happy one, hence he was the more content with the somewhat solitary life he now began to lead.
His wife was peculiarly gifted, and they were in perfect sympathy with each other, so that they longed not for the society of others.
They had one desire, however, that was ever before them and that could not be laid aside.
They had no children; not even a daughter had been granted them.
As You Tah Jung superintended the cultivation of his estate, he felt that he would be wholly happy and content were it not for the lack of offspring.
He gave himself up to the fascinating pastime of fishing, and took great delight in spending the most of his time in the fields listening to the birds and absorbing wisdom, with peace and contentment, from nature.
As spring brought the mating and budding season, however, he again got to brooding over his unfortunate condition.
For as he was the last of an illustrious family, the line seemed like to cease with his childless life.
He knew of the displeasure his ancestors would experience, and that he would be unable to face them in paradise; while he would leave no one to bow before his grave and make offerings to his spirit.
Again he bemoaned their condition with his poor wife, who begged him to avail himself of his prerogative and remove their reproach by marrying another wife.
This he stoutly refused to do, as he would not risk ruining his now pleasant home by bringing another wife and the usual discord into it.
Instead of estranging them, their misfortune seemed but to bind this pair the closer together.
They were very devout people, and they prayed to heaven continually for a son.
One night the wife fell asleep while praying, and dreamed a remarkable dream.
She fancied that she saw a commotion in the vicinity of the North Star, and presently a most beautiful boy came down to her, riding upon a wonderful fan made of white feathers.
The boy came direct to her and made a low obeisance, upon which she asked him who he was and where he came from.
He said: "I am the attendant of the great North Star, and because of a mistake I fell into he banished me to earth for a term of years, telling me to come to you and bring this fan, which will eventually be the means of saving your life and my own."
In the intensity of her joy she awoke, and found to her infinite sorrow that the beautiful vision was but a dream.
She cherished it in her mind, however, and was transported with joy when a beautiful boy came to them with the succeeding spring-tide.
The beauty of the child was the comment of the neighborhood, and every one loved him.
As he grew older it was noticed that the graces of his mind were even more remarkable than those of his person.
The next ten years were simply one unending period of blissful contentment in the happy country home.
They called the boy Pang Noo (his family name being You, made him You Pang Noo).
His mother taught him his early lessons herself, but by the expiration of his first ten years he had grown far beyond her powers, and his brilliant mind even taxed his intelligent father in his attempts to keep pace with him.
About this time they learned of a wonderful teacher, a Mr. Nam Juh Oon, whose ability was of great repute.
It was decided that the boy should be sent to this man to school, and great was the agitation and sorrow at home at thought of the separation.
He was made ready, however, and with the benediction of father and caresses of mother, he started for his new teacher, bearing with him a wonderful feather fan which his father had given him, and which had descended from his great-grandfather.
This he was to guard with especial care, as, since his mother's remarkable dream, preceding his birth, it was believed that this old family relic, which bore such a likeness to the fan of the dream, was to prove a talisman to him, and by it evil was to be warded off, and good brought down upon him.
II.
Strange as it may seem, events very similar in nature to those just narrated were taking place in a neighboring district, where lived another exemplary man named Cho Sung Noo.
He was a man of great rank, but was not in active service at present, simply because of ill-health induced by constant brooding over his ill-fortune; for, like You Tah Jung, he was the last of an illustrious family, and had no offspring.
He was so happily married, furthermore, that he had never taken a second wife, and would not do so.
About the time of the events just related concerning the You family, the wife of Cho, who had never neglected bowing to heaven and requesting a child, dreamed.
She had gone to a hill-side apart from the house, and sitting in the moonlight on a clean plat of ground, free from the litter of the domestic animals, she was gazing into the heavens, hoping to witness the meeting of Ching Yuh and Kyain Oo, and feeling sad at the thought of their fabled tribulations.
While thus engaged she fell asleep, and while sleeping dreamed that the four winds were bearing to her a beautiful litter, supported upon five rich, soft clouds.
In the chair reclined a beautiful little girl, far lovelier than any being she had ever dreamed of before, and the like of which is never seen in real life.
The chair itself was made of gold and jade.
As the procession drew nearer the dreamer exclaimed: "Who are you, my beautiful child?"
"Oh," replied the child, "I am glad you think me beautiful, for then, may be, you will let me stay with you."
"I think I should like to have you very much, but you haven't yet answered my question."
"Well," she said, "I was an attendant upon the Queen of Heaven, but I have been very bad, though I meant no wrong, and I am banished to earth for a season; won't you let me live with you, please?"
"I shall be delighted, my child, for we have no children.
But what did you do that the stars should banish you from their midst?"
"Well, I will tell you," she answered.
"You see, when the annual union of Ching Yuh and Kyain Oo takes place, I hear them mourning because they can only see each other once a year, while mortal pairs have each other's company constantly.
They never consider that while mortals have but eighty years of life at most, their lives are without limit, and they, therefore, have each other to a greater extent than do the mortals, whom they selfishly envy.
In a spirit of mischief I determined to teach this unhappy couple a lesson; consequently, on the last seventh moon, seventh day, when the bridge was about completed and ready for the eager pair to cross heaven's river to each others' embrace, I drove the crows away, and ruined their bridge before they could reach each other.
I did it for mischief, 'tis true, and did not count on the drought that would occur, but for my misconduct and the consequent suffering entailed on mortals, I am banished, and I trust you will take and care for me, kind lady."
When she had finished speaking, the winds began to blow around as though in preparation for departure with the chair, minus its occupant.
Then the woman awoke and found it but a dream, though the winds were, indeed, blowing about her so as to cause her to feel quite chilly.
The dream left a pleasant impression, and when, to their intense joy, a daughter was really born to them, the fond parents could scarcely be blamed for associating her somewhat with the vision of the ravishing dream.
The child was a marvel of beauty, and her development was rapid and perfect.
The neighbors were so charmed with her, that some of them seemed to think she was really supernatural, and she was popularly known as the "divine maiden," before her first ten years were finished.
It was about the time of her tenth birthday that little Uhn Hah had the interesting encounter upon which her whole future was to hinge.
It happened in this way: One day she was riding along on her nurses' back, on her way to visit her grandmother.
Coming to a nice shady spot they sat down by the road-side to rest.
While they were sitting there, along came Pang Noo on his way to school.
As Uhn Hah was still but a girl she was not veiled, and the lad was confronted with her matchless beauty, which seemed to intoxicate him.
He could not pass by, neither could he find words to utter, but at last he bethought him of an expedient.
Seeing some oranges in her lap, he stepped up and spoke politely to the nurse, saying, "I am You Pang Noo, a lad on my way to school, and I am very thirsty, won't you ask your little girl to let me have one of her oranges?"
Uhn Hah was likewise smitten with the charms of the beautiful lad, and in her confusion she gave him two oranges.
Pang Noo gallantly said, "I wish to give you something in return for your kindness, and if you will allow me I will write your name on this fan and present it to you."
Having obtained the name and permission, he wrote: "No girl was ever possessed of such incomparable graces as the beautiful Uhn Hah.
I now betroth myself to her, and vow never to marry other so long as I live."
He handed her the fan, and feasting his eyes on her beauty, they separated.
The fan being closed, no one read the characters, and Uhn Hah carefully put it away for safe keeping without examining it sufficiently close to discover the written sentiment.
III.
Pang Noo went to school and worked steadily for three years.
He learned amazingly fast, and did far more in three years than the brightest pupils usually do in ten.
His noted teacher soon found that the boy could even lead him, and it became evident that further stay at the school was unnecessary.
The boy also was very anxious to go and see his parents.
At last he bade his teacher good-by, to the sorrow of both, for their companionship had been very pleasant and profitable, and they had more than the usual attachment of teacher and pupil for each other.
Pang Noo and his attendant journeyed leisurely to their home, where they were received with the greatest delight.
His mother had not seen her son during his schooling, and even her fond pride was hardly prepared for the great improvement the boy had made, both in body and mind, since last she saw him.
The father eventually asked to see the ancestral fan he had given him, and the boy had to confess that he had it not, giving as an excuse that he had lost it on the road.
His father could not conceal his anger, and for some time their pleasure was marred by this unfortunate circumstance.
Such a youth and an only son could not long remain unforgiven, however, and soon all was forgotten, and he enjoyed the fullest love of his parents and admiration of his friends as he quietly pursued his studies and recreation.
In this way he came down to his sixteenth year, the pride of the neighborhood.
His quiet was remarked, but no one knew the secret cause, and how much of his apparent studious attention was devoted to the charming little maiden image that was framed in his mental vision.
About this time a very great official from the neighborhood called upon his father, and after the usual formalities, announced that he had heard of the remarkable son You Tah Jung was the father of, and he had come to consult upon the advisability of uniting their families, as he himself had been blessed with a daughter who was beautiful and accomplished.
You Tah Jung was delighted at the prospect of making such a fine alliance for his son, and gave his immediate consent, but to his dismay, his son objected so strenuously and withal so honorably that the proposition had to be declined as graciously as the rather awkward circumstances would allow.
Both men being sensible, however, they but admired the boy the more, for the clever rascal had begged his father to postpone all matrimonial matters, as far as he was concerned, till he had been able to make a name for himself, and had secured rank, that he might merit such attention.
Pang Noo was soon to have an opportunity to distinguish himself.
A great quaga (civil-service examination) was to be held at the capital, and Pang Noo announced his intention of entering the lists and competing for civil rank.
His father was glad, and in due time started him off in proper style.
The examination was held in a great enclosure at the rear of the palace, where the King and his counsellors sat in a pavilion upon a raised stage of masonry.
The hundreds of men and youths from all parts of the country were seated upon the ground under large umbrellas.
Pang Noo was given a subject, and soon finished his essay, after which he folded it up carefully and tossed the manuscript over a wall into an enclosure, where it was received and delivered to the board of examiners.
These gentlemen, as well as His Majesty, were at once struck with the rare merit of the production, and made instant inquiry concerning the writer.
Of course he was successful, and a herald soon announced that Pang, the son of You Tah Jung had taken the highest honors.
He was summoned before the King, who was pleased with the young man's brightness and wisdom.
In addition to his own rank, his father was made governor of a province, and made haste to come to court and thank his sovereign for the double honor, and to congratulate his son.
Pang was given permission to go and bow at the tomb of his ancestors, in grateful acknowledgment for Heaven's blessings.
Having done which, he went to pay his respects to his mother, who fairly worshipped her son now, if she had not done so before.
During his absence the King had authorized the board of appointments to give him the high rank of Ussa, for, though he was young, His Majesty thought one so wise and quick, well fitted to travel in disguise and spy out the acts of evil officials, learn the condition of the people, and bring the corrupt and usurous to punishment.
Pang Noo was amazed at his success, yet the position just suited him, for, aside from a desire to better the condition of his fellow-men, he felt that in this position he would be apt to learn the whereabouts of his lady-love, whose beautiful vision was ever before him.
Donning a suitable disguise, therefore, he set out upon the business at hand with a light heart.
IV.
Uhn Hah during all this time had been progressing in a quiet way as a girl should, but she also was quite the wonder of her neighborhood.
All this time she had had many, if not constant, dreams of the handsome youth she had met by the roadside.
She had lived over the incident time and again, and many a time did she take down and gaze upon the beautiful fan, which, however, opened and closed in such a manner that, ordinarily, the characters were concealed.
At last, however, she discovered them, and great was her surprise and delight at the message.
She dwelt on it much, and finally concluded it was a heaven arranged union, and as the lad had pledged his faith to her, she vowed she would be his, or never marry at all.
This thought she nourished, longing to see Pang Noo, and wondering how she should ever find him, till she began to regard herself as really the wife of her lover.
About this time one of His Majesty's greatest generals, who had a reputation for bravery and cruelty as well, came to stop at his country holding near by, and hearing of the remarkable girl, daughter of the retired, but very honorable, brother official, he made a call at the house of Mr. Cho, and explained that he was willing to betroth his son to Cho's daughter.
The matter was considered at length, and Cho gave his willing consent.
Upon the departure of the General, the father went to acquaint his daughter with her good fortune.
Upon hearing it, she seemed struck dumb, and then began to weep and moan, as though some great calamity had befallen her.
She could say nothing, nor bear to hear any more said of the matter.
She could neither eat nor sleep, and the roses fled from her tear-bedewed cheeks.
Her parents were dismayed, but wisely abstained from troubling her.
Her mother, however, betimes lovingly coaxed her daughter to confide in her, but it was long before the girl could bring herself to disclose a secret so peculiar and apparently so unwomanly.
The mother prevailed at last, and the whole story of the early infatuation eventually came forth.
"He has pledged himself to me," she said, "he recognized me at sight as his heaven-sent bride, and I have pledged myself to him.
I cannot marry another, and, should I never find him on earth, this fan shall be my husband till death liberates my spirit to join his in the skies."
She enumerated his great charms of manner and person, and begged her mother not to press this other marriage upon her, but rather let her die, insisting, however, that should she die her mother must tell Pang Noo how true she had been to him.
The father was in a great dilemma.
"Why did you not tell this to your mother before?
Here the General has done me the honor to ask that our families be united, and I have consented.
Now I must decline, and his anger will be so great that he will ruin me at the Capitol.
And then, after all, this is but an absurd piece of childish foolishness.
Your fine young man, had he half the graces you give him, would have been betrothed long before this."
"No!
No!"
she exclaimed, "he has pledged himself, and I know he is even now coming to me.
He will not marry another, nor can I.
Would you ask one woman to marry two men?
Yet that is what you ask in this, for I am already the wife of Pang Noo in my heart.
Kill me, if you will, but spare me this, I beg and entreat," and she writhed about on her cot, crying till the mat was saturated with her tears.
The parents loved her too well to withstand her pleadings, and resigning themselves to the inevitable persecution that must result, they dispatched a letter to the General declining his kind offer, in as unobjectionable a manner as possible.
It had the result that was feared.
The General, in a towering rage, sent soldiers to arrest Mr. Cho, but before he could go further, a messenger arrived from Seoul with despatches summoning him to the Capitol immediately, as a rebellion had broken out on the borders.
Before leaving, however, he instructed the local magistrate to imprison the man and not release him till he consented to the marriage.
It chanced that the magistrate was an honest man and knew the General to be a very cruel, relentless warrior.
He therefore listened to Cho's story, and believed the strange case.
Furthermore, his love for the girl softened his heart, and he bade them to collect what they could and go to another province to live.
Cho did so, with deep gratitude to the magistrate, while the latter wrote to the General that the prisoner had avoided arrest and fled to unknown parts, taking his family with him.
V. Poor Pang Noo did his inspection work with a heavy heart as time wore on, and the personal object of his search was not attained.
In the course of his travels he finally came to his uncle, the magistrate who had dismissed the Cho family.
The uncle welcomed his popular nephew right warmly, but questioned him much as to the cause of his poor health and haggard looks, which so ill-became a man of his youth and prospects.
At last the kind old man secured the secret with its whole story, and then it was his turn to be sad, for had he not just sent away the very person the Ussa so much desired to see?
When Pang learned this his malady increased, and he declared he could do no more active service till this matter was cleared up.
Consequently he sent a despatch to court begging to be released, as he was in such poor health he could not properly discharge his arduous duties longer.
His request was granted, and he journeyed to Seoul, hoping to find some trace of her who more and more seemed to absorb his every thought and ambition.
VI.
In the meantime the banished family, heart-sick and travel-worn, had settled temporarily in a distant hamlet, where the worn and discouraged parents were taken sick.
Uhn Hah did all she could for them, but in spite of care and attention, in spite of prayers and tears, they passed on to join their ancestors.
The poor girl beat her breast and tore her hair in an agony of despair.
Alone in a strange country, with no money and no one to shield and support her, it seemed that she too must, perforce, give up.
But her old nurse urged her to cheer up, and suggested their donning male attire, in which disguise they could safely journey to another place unmolested.
The idea seemed a good one, and it was adopted.
They allowed their hair to fall down the back in a long braid, after the fashion of the unmarried men, and, putting on men's clothes, they had no trouble in passing unnoticed along the roads.
After having gone but a short distance they found themselves near the capital of the province--the home of the Governor.
While sitting under some trees by the roadside the Governor's procession passed by.
The couple arose respectfully, but the Governor (it was Pang Noo's father), espying the peculiar feather fan, ordered one of the runners to seize the women and bring them along.
It was done; and when they were arrived at the official yamen, he questioned the supposed man as to where he had secured that peculiar fan.
"It is a family relic," replied Uhn Hah, to the intense amazement of the Governor, who pronounced the statement false, as the fan was a peculiar feature in his own family, and must be one that had descended from his own ancestors and been found or stolen by the present possessor.
However, the Governor offered to pay a good round sum for the fan.
But Uhn Hah declared she would die rather than part with it, and the two women in disguise were locked up in prison.
A man of clever speech was sent to interview them, and he offered them a considerable sum for the fan, which the servant urged Uhn Hah to take, as they were sadly in want.
After the man had departed in disgust, however, the girl upbraided her old nurse roundly for forsaking her in her time of trial.
"My parents are dead," she said.
"All I have to represent my husband is this fan that I carry in my bosom.
Would you rob me of this?
Never speak so again if you wish to retain my love"; and, weeping, she fell into the servant's arms, where, exhausted and overwrought nature asserting itself, sleep closed her eyes.
While sleeping she dreamed of a wonderful palace on high, where she saw a company of women, who pointed her to the blood-red reeds that lined the river bank below, explaining that their tears had turned to blood during their long search for their lovers, and dropping on the reeds they were dyed blood-red.
One of them prophesied, however, that Uhn Hah was to be given superhuman strength and powers, and that she would soon succeed in finding her lover, who was now a high official, and so true to her that he was sick because he could not find her.
She awakened far more refreshed by the dream than by the nap, and was soon delighted by being dismissed.
The Governor's steward took pity on the handsome "boy," and gave him a parting gift of wine and food to carry with them, as well as some cash to help them on, and, bidding him good-by, the women announced their intention of travelling to a distant province.
VII.
Meanwhile Pang Noo had reached home, and was weary both in body and mind.
The King offered him service at court, but he asked to be excused, and seemed to wish to hide himself and avoid meeting people.
His father marvelled much at this, and again urged the young man to marry; but this seemed only to aggravate his complaint.
His uncle happened to come to his father's gubernatorial seat on a business errand, and in pity for the young man, explained the cause of the trouble to the father.
He saw it all, and recalled the strange beauty of the lad who had risked his life for the possession of the fan, and as the uncle told the story of her excellent parentage, and the trouble and death that resulted from the refusal to marry, he saw through the whole strange train of circumstances, and marvelled that heaven should have selected such an exemplary maiden for his son.
And then, as he realized how nearly he had come to punishing her severely, for her persistent refusal to surrender the fan, and that, whereas, he might have retained her and united her to his son, he had sent her away unattended to wander alone; he heaped blame upon the son in no stinted manner for his lack of confidence in not telling his father his troubles.
The attendants were carefully questioned concerning the conduct of the strange couple while in custody at the governor's yamen, and as to the probable direction they took in departure.
The steward alone could give information.
He was well rewarded for having shown them kindness, but his information cast a gloom upon the trio, for he said they had started for the district where civil war was in progress.
"You unnatural son," groaned the father.
"What have you done?
You secretly pledge yourself to this noble girl, and then, by your foolish silence, twice allow her to escape, while you came near being the cause of her death at the very hands of your father; and even now by your foolishness she is journeying to certain death.
Oh, my son!
we have not seen the last of this rash conduct; this noble woman's blood will be upon our hands, and you will bring your poor father to ruin and shame.
Up!
Stop your lovesick idling, and do something.
Ask His Majesty, with my consent, for military duty; go to the seat of war, and there find your wife or your honor."
The father's advice was just what was needed; the son could not, of necessity, disobey, nor did he wish to; but arming himself with the courage of a desperate resolve to save his sweetheart, whom he fancied already in danger from the rebels, he hurried to Seoul, and surprising his sovereign by his strange and ardent desire for military service, easily secured the favor, for the general in command was the same who had wished to marry his son to Uhn Hah; he was also an enemy to Pang Noo's father, and would like to see the only son of his enemy killed.
With apparently strange haste the expedition was started off, and no time was lost on the long, hard march.
Arriving near the seat of war, the road led by a mountain, where the black weather-worn stone was as bare as a wall, sloping down to the road.
Fearing lest he was going to his death, the young commander had some characters cut high on the face of the rock, which read: "Standing at the gate of war, I, You Pang Noo, humbly bow to Heaven's decree.
Is it victory, or is it death?
Heaven alone knows the issue.
My only remaining desire is to behold the face of my lady Cho Gah."
He put this inscription in this conspicuous place, with the hope that if she were in the district she would see it, and not only know he was true to her, but also that she might be able to ascertain his whereabouts and come to him.
He met the rebels, and fought with a will, bringing victory to the royal arms.
But soon their provisions gave out, and, though daily despatches arrived, no rations were sent in answer to their constant demands.
The soldiers sickened and died.
Many more, driven mad by hardship and starvation, buried their troubles deep in the silent river, which their loyal spears had stained crimson with their enemies blood.
You Pang Noo was about to retire against orders, when the rebels, emboldened by the weak condition of their adversaries, came in force, conquered and slew the remnant, and would have slain the commander but for the counsel of two of their number, who urged that he be imprisoned and held for ransom.
VIII.
Again fate had interfered to further separate the lovers, for, instead of continuing her journey, Uhn Hah had received news that induced her to start for Seoul.
While resting, on one occasion, they had some conversation with a passer-by.
He was from the capital, and stated that he had gone there from a place near Uhn Hah's childhood home as an attendant of the Ussa You Pang Noo, who had taken sick at his uncle's, the magistrate, and had gone to Seoul, where he was excused from ussa duty and offered service at court.
He knew not of the recent changes, but told his eager listener all he knew of Pang Noo's family.
The weary, foot-sore girl and her companion turned their faces toward the capital, hoping at last to be rewarded by finding the object of their search.
That evening darkness overtook them before they had found shelter, and spying a light through the trees, they sought it out, and found a little hut occupied by an old man.
He was reading a book, but laid it aside as they answered his invitation to enter, given in response to their knock.
The usual salutations were exchanged, but instead of asking who the visitors were, where they lived, etc., etc., the old man called her by her true name, Cho Nang Jah.
"I am not a Nang Jah" (a female appellation), she exclaimed; "I am a man!"
"Oh!
I know you, laughed the old man; "you are Cho Nang Jah in very truth, and you are seeking your future husband in this disguise.
But you are perfectly safe here."
"Ask me no questions," said he, as she was about to utter some surprised inquiries.
"I have been waiting for you and expecting you.
You are soon to do great things, for which I will prepare you.
Never mind your hunger, but devour this pill; it will give you superhuman strength and courage."
He gave her a pill of great size, which she ate, and then fell asleep on the floor.
The old man went away, and soon the tired servant slept also.
When they awoke it was bright morning, and the birds were singing in the trees above them, which were their only shelter, for the hut of the previous evening had disappeared entirely, as had also the old man.
Concluding that the old man must be some heaven-sent messenger, she devoutly bowed herself in grateful acknowledgment of the gracious manifestation.
Journeying on, they soon came to a wayside inn kept by an old farmer, and here they procured food.
While they were eating, a blind man was prophesying for the people.
When he came to Uhn Hah he said: "This is a woman in disguise; she is seeking for her husband, who is fighting the rebels, and searching for her.
He is now nearly dead; but he will not die, for she will rescue him."
On hearing this she was delighted and sad at the same time, and explaining some of her history to the master of the house, he took her in with the women and treated her kindly.
She was very anxious to be about her work, however, since heaven had apparently so clearly pointed it out to her, and, bidding the simple but kind friends good-by, she started for the seat of war, where she arrived after a long, tedious, but uneventful tramp.
Almost the first thing she saw was the inscription on the rocks left by the very one she sought, and she cried bitterly at the thought that maybe she was too late.
The servant cheered her up, however, by reciting the blind man's prophecy, and they went on their way till they came to a miserable little inn, where they secured lodging.
After being there some time, Uhn Hah noticed that the innkeeper's wife was very sad, and continually in tears.
She therefore questioned her as to the cause of her grief.
"I am mourning over the fate of the poor starved soldiers, killed by the neglect of some one at Seoul, and for the brave young officer, You Pang Noo, whom the rebels have carried away captive."
At this Uhn Hah fainted away, and the nurse made such explanation as she could.
Restoratives were applied, and she slowly recovered, when, on further questioning, it was found that the inn-people were slaves of You Pang Noo, and had followed him thus far.
It was also learned that the absence of stores was generally believed to be due to the corrupt general-in-chief, who not only hated his gallant young officer, but was unwilling to let him achieve glory, so long as he could prevent it.
After consultation, and learning further of the matter, Uhn Hah wrote a letter explaining the condition of affairs, and dispatched it to Pang Noo's father by the innkeeper.
The Governor was not at his country place, and the messenger had to go to Seoul, where, to his horror, he found that his old master was in prison, sent there by the influence of the corrupt General, his enemy, because his son had been accused of being a traitor, giving over the royal troops to the rebels, and escaping with them himself.
The innkeeper, however, secured access to the prison, and delivered the letter to the unfortunate parent.
Of course, nothing could be done, and again he blamed his son for his stupid secrecy in concealing his troubles from his father, and thus bringing ruin upon the family and injury to the young lady.
However, he wrote a letter to the good uncle, relating the facts, and requesting him to find the girl, place her in his home, and care for her as tenderly as possible.
He could do nothing more.
The innkeeper delivered this letter to the uncle, and was then instructed to carry a litter and attendants to his home and bring back the young lady, attired in suitable garments.
He did so as speedily as possible, though the journey was a long and tedious one.
Once installed in a comfortable home poor Uhn Hah became more and more lonely.
She seemed to have nothing now to hope for, and the stagnation of idleness was more than she could endure.
She fancied her lover in prison, and suffering, while she was in the midst of comfort and luxury.
She could not endure the thought, and prevailed upon her benefactor to convey to His Majesty a petition praying that she be given a body of soldiers and be allowed to go and punish the rebels, reclaim the territory, and liberate her husband.
The King marvelled much at such a request, coming from one of her retiring, seclusive sex, and upon the advice of the wicked General, who was still in command, the petition was not granted.
Still she persisted, and found other ways of reaching the throne, till the King, out of curiosity to see such a brave and loyal woman, bade her come before him.
When she entered the royal presence her beauty and dignity of carriage at once won attention and respectful admiration, so that her request was about to be granted, when the General suggested, as a last resort, that she first give some evidence of her strength and prowess before the national military reputation be entrusted to her keeping.
It seemed a wise thought, and the King asked her what she could do to show that she was warranted in heading such a perilous expedition.
She breathed a prayer to her departed parents for help, and remembering the strange promise of the old man who gave her the pill, she felt that she could do almost any thing, and seizing a large weather-worn stone that stood in an ornamental rock basin in the court, she threw it over the enclosing wall as easily as two men would have lifted it from the ground.
Then, taking the General's sword, she began slowly to manipulate it, increasing gradually, as though in keeping with hidden music, till the movement became so rapid that the sword seemed like one continuous ring of burning steel--now in the air, now about her own person, and, again, menacingly near the wicked General, who cowered in abject terror before the remarkable sight.
His Majesty was completely captivated, and himself gave the orders for her expedition, raising her to relative rank, and giving her the choicest battalion of troops.
In her own peculiarly dignified way she expressed her gratitude, and, bowing to the ground, went forth to execute her sovereign's commands, and attain her heart's desire.
Again donning male attire, she completed her preparations, and departed with eager delight to accomplish her mission.
The troops having obtained an inkling of the strange character and almost supernatural power of their handsome, dashing leader, were filled with courage and eager for the fray.
But to the dismay of all, they had no sooner arrived at the rebel infested country than severe rains began to fall, making it impossible to accomplish any thing.
This was explained, however, by the spirits of the departed soldiers, who appeared to the officers in dreams, and announced that as they had been sacrificed by the cruel General, who had intentionally withheld their rations, they would allow no success to the royal arms till their death was avenged by his death.
This was dispatched to court, and believed by His Majesty, who had heard similar reports, oft repeated.
He therefore confined the General in prison, and sent his son (the one who wished to marry Uhn Hah) to the front to be executed.
He was slain and his blood scattered to the winds.
A feast was prepared for the spirits of the departed soldiers, and this sacrifice having been made, the storm ceased, the sun shone, and the royal troops met and completely vanquished the rebels, restoring peace to the troubled districts, but not obtaining the real object of the leaders' search.
After much questioning, among the captives, a man was found who knew all about You Pang Noo, and where he was secreted.
Upon the promise of pardon, he conducted a party who rescued the captive and brought him before their commander.
Of course for a time the lovers could not recognize each other after the years that had elapsed since their first chance meeting.
You Pang Noo was given command and Uhn Hah modestly retired, adopted her proper dress, and was borne back to Seoul in a litter.
The whole country rang with their praises.
You Pang Noo was appointed governor of a province, and the father was reinstated in office, while the General who had caused the trouble was ignominiously put to death, and his whole family and his estates were confiscated.
As Cho Uhn Hah had no parents, His Majesty determined that she should have royal patronage, and decreed that their wedding should take place in the great hall where the members of the royal family are united in marriage.
This was done with all the pomp and circumstance of a royal wedding, and no official stood so high in the estimation of the King, as the valiant, true-hearted You, while the virtues of his spouse were the subject of songs and ballads, and she was extolled as the model for the women of the country.
HYUNG BO AND NAHL BO; OR, THE SWALLOW-KING'S REWARDS.
I.
In the province of Chullado, in Southern Korea, lived two brothers.
One was very rich, the other very poor.
For in dividing the inheritance, the elder brother, instead of taking the father's place, and providing for the younger children, kept the whole property to himself, allowing his younger brother nothing at all, and reducing him to a condition of abject misery.
Both men were married.
Nahl Bo, the elder, had many concubines, in addition to his wife, but had no children; while Hyung Bo had but one wife and several children.
The former's wives were continually quarrelling; the latter lived in contentment and peace with his wife, each endeavoring to help the other bear the heavy burdens circumstances had placed upon them.
The elder brother lived in a fine, large compound, with warm, comfortable houses; the younger had built himself a hut of broom straw, the thatch of which was so poor that when it rained they were deluged inside, upon the earthern floor.
The room was so small, too, that when Hyung Bo stretched out his legs in his sleep his feet were apt to be thrust through the wall.
They had no kang, and had to sleep upon the cold dirt floor, where insects were so abundant as to often succeed in driving the sleepers out of doors.
They had no money for the comforts of life, and were glad when a stroke of good fortune enabled them to obtain the necessities.
Hyung Bo worked whenever he could get work, but rainy days and dull seasons were a heavy strain upon them.
The wife did plain sewing, and together they made straw sandals for the peasants and vendors.
At fair time the sandal business was good, but then came a time when no more food was left in the house, the string for making the sandals was all used up, and they had no money for a new supply.
Then the children cried to their mother for food, till her heart ached for them, and the father wandered off in a last attempt to get something to keep the breath of life in his family.
Not a kernel of rice was left.
A poor rat which had cast in his lot with this kind family, became desperate when, night after night, he chased around the little house without being able to find the semblance of a meal.
Becoming desperate, he vented his despair in such loud squealing that he wakened the neighbors, who declared that the mouse said his legs were worn off running about in a vain search for a grain of rice with which to appease his hunger.
The famine became so serious in the little home, that at last the mother commanded her son to go to his uncle and tell him plainly how distressed they were, and ask him to loan them enough rice to subsist on till they could get work, when they would surely return the loan.
The boy did not want to go.
His uncle would never recognize him on the street, and he was afraid to go inside his house lest he should whip him.
But the mother commanded him to go, and he obeyed.
Outside his uncle's house were many cows, well fed and valuable.
In pens he saw great fat pigs in abundance, and fowls were everywhere in great numbers.
Many dogs also were there, and they ran barking at him, tearing his clothes with their teeth and frightening him so much that he was tempted to run; but speaking kindly to them, they quieted down, and one dog came and licked his hand as if ashamed of the conduct of the others.
A female servant ordered him away, but he told her he was her master's nephew, and wanted to see him; whereupon she smiled but let him pass into an inner court, where he found his uncle sitting on the little veranda under the broad, overhanging eaves.
The man gruffly demanded, "who are you?"
"I am your brother's son," he said.
"We are starving at our house, and have had no food for three days.
My father is away now trying to find work, but we are very hungry, and only ask you to loan us a little rice till we can get some to return you."
The uncle's eyes drew down to a point, his brows contracted, and he seemed very angry, so that the nephew began looking for an easy way of escape in case he should come at him.
At last he looked up and said: "My rice is locked up, and I have ordered the granaries not to be opened.
The flour is sealed and cannot be broken into.
If I give you some cold victuals, the dogs will bark at you and try to take it from you.
If I give you the leavings of the wine-press, the pigs will be jealous and squeal at you.
If I give you bran, the cows and fowls will take after you.
Get out, and let me never see you here again."
So saying, he caught the poor boy by the collar and threw him into the outer court, hurting him, and causing him to cry bitterly with pain of body and distress of mind.
At home the poor mother sat jogging her babe in her weak arms, and appeasing the other children by saying that brother had gone to their uncle for food, and soon the pot would be boiling and they would all be satisfied.
When, hearing a foot-fall, all scrambled eagerly to the door, only to see the empty-handed, red-eyed boy coming along, trying manfully to look cheerful.
"Did your uncle whip you?"
asked the mother, more eager for the safety of her son, than to have her own crying want allayed.
"No," stammered the brave boy.
"He had gone to the capital on business," said he, hoping to thus prevent further questioning, on so troublesome a subject.
"What shall I do"?
queried the poor woman, amidst the crying and moaning of her children.
There was nothing to do but starve, it seemed.
However, she thought of her own straw shoes, which were scarcely used, and these she sent to the market, where they brought three cash (3/15 of a cent).
This pittance was invested equally in rice, beans, and vegetables; eating which they were relieved for the present, and with full stomachs the little ones fell to playing happily once more, but the poor mother was full of anxiety for the morrow.
Their fortune had turned, however, with their new lease of life, for the father returned with a bale of faggots he had gathered on the mountains, and with the proceeds of these the shoes were redeemed and more food was purchased.
Bright and early then next morning both parents went forth in search of work.
The wife secured employment winnowing rice.
The husband overtook a boy bearing a pack, but his back was so blistered, he could with difficulty carry his burden.
Hyung Bo adjusted the saddle of the pack frame to his own back, and carried it for the boy, who, at their arrival at his destination in the evening, gave his helper some cash, in addition to his lodging and meals.
During the night, however, a gentleman wished to send a letter by rapid dispatch to a distant place, and Hyung Bo was paid well for carrying it.
Returning from this profitable errand, he heard of a very rich man, who had been seized by the corrupt local magistrate, on a false accusation, and was to be beaten publicly, unless he consented to pay a heavy sum as hush money.
Hearing of this, Hyung went to see the rich prisoner, and arranged with him that he would act as his substitute for three thousand cash (two dollars).
The man was very glad to get off so easily, and Hyung took the beating.
He limped to his house, where his poor wife greeted him with tears and lamentations, for he was a sore and sorry sight indeed.
He was cheerful, however, for he explained to them that this had been a rich day's work; he had simply submitted to a little whipping, and was to get three thousand cash for it.
The money did not come, however, for the fraud was detected, and the original prisoner was also punished.
Being of rather a close disposition, the man seemed to think it unnecessary to pay for what did him no good.
Then the wife cried indeed over her husband's wrongs and their own more unfortunate condition.
But the husband cheered her, saying: "If we do right we will surely succeed."
He was right.
Spring was coming on, and he soon got work at plowing and sowing seed.
They gave their little house the usual spring cleaning, and decorated the door with appropriate legends, calling upon the fates to bless with prosperity the little home.
With the spring came the birds from the south country, and they seemed to have a preference for the home of this poor family--as indeed did the rats and insects.
The birds built their nests under the eaves.
They were swallows, and as they made their little mud air-castles, Hyung Bo said to his wife: "I am afraid to have these birds build their nests there.
Our house is so weak it may fall down, and then what will the poor birds do?"
But the little visitors seemed not alarmed, and remained with the kind people, apparently feeling safe under the friendly roof.
By and by the little nests were full of commotion and bluster; the eggs had opened, and circles of wide opened mouths could be seen in every nest.
Hyung and his children were greatly interested in this new addition to their family circle, and often gave them bits of their own scanty allowance of food, so that the birds became quite tame and hopped in and out of the hut at will.
One day, when the little birds were taking their first lesson in flying, Hyung was lying on his back on the ground, and saw a huge roof-snake crawl along and devour several little birds before he could arise and help them.
One bird struggled from the reptile and fell, but, catching both legs in the fine meshes of a reed-blind, they were broken, and the little fellow hung helplessly within the snake's reach.
Hyung hastily snatched it down, and with the help of his wife he bound up the broken limbs, using dried fish-skin for splints.
He laid the little patient in a warm place, and the bones speedily united, so that the bird soon began to hop around the room, and pick up bits of food laid out for him.
Soon the splints were removed, however, and he flew away, happily, to join his fellows.
The autumn came; and one evening--it was the ninth day of the ninth moon--as the little family were sitting about the door, they noticed the bird with the crooked legs sitting on the clothes-line and singing to them.
"I believe he is thanking us and saying good-by," said Hyung, "for the birds are all going south now."
That seemed to be the truth, for they saw their little friend no longer, and they felt lonely without the occupants of the now deserted nests.
The birds, however, were paying homage to the king of birds in the bird-land beyond the frosts.
And as the king saw the little crooked-legged bird come along, he demanded an explanation of the strange sight.
Thereupon the little fellow related his narrow escape from a snake that had already devoured many of his brothers and cousins, the accident in the blind, and his rescue and subsequent treatment by a very poor but very kind man.
His bird majesty was very much entertained and pleased.
He thereupon gave the little cripple a seed engraved with fine characters in gold, denoting that the seed belonged to the gourd family.
This seed the bird was to give to his benefactor in the spring.
The winter wore away, and the spring found the little family almost as destitute as when first we described them.
One day they heard a familiar bird song, and, running out, they saw their little crooked-legged friend with something in its mouth, that looked like a seed.
Dropping its burden to the ground, the little bird sang to them of the king's gratitude, and of the present he had sent, and then flew away.
Hyung picked up the seed with curiosity, and on one side he saw the name of its kind, on the other, in fine gold characters, was a message saying: "Bury me in soft earth, and give me plenty of water."
They did so, and in four days the little shoot appeared in the fine earth.
They watched its remarkable growth with eager interest as the stem shot up, and climbed all over the house, covering it up as a bower, and threatening to break down the frail structure with the added weight.
It blossomed, and soon four small gourds began to form.
They grew to an enormous size, and Hyung could scarcely keep from cutting them.
His wife prevailed on him to wait till the frost had made them ripe, however, as then they could cut them, eat the inside, and make water-vessels of the shells, which they could then sell, and thus make a double profit.
He waited, though with a poor grace, till the ninth moon, when the gourds were left alone, high upon the roof, with only a trace of the shrivelled stems which had planted them there.
Hyung got a saw and sawed open the first huge gourd.
He worked so long, that when his task was finished he feared he must be in a swoon, for out of the opened gourd stepped two beautiful boys, with fine bottles of wine and a table of jade set with dainty cups.
Hyung staggered back and sought assurance of his wife, who was fully as dazed as was her husband.
The surprise was somewhat relieved by one of the handsome youths stepping forth, placing the table before them, and announcing that the bird king had sent them with these presents to the benefactor of one of his subjects--the bird with broken legs.
Ere they could answer, the other youth placed a silver bottle on the table, saying: "This wine will restore life to the dead."
Another, which he placed on the table, would, he said, restore sight to the blind.
Then going to the gourd, he brought two gold bottles, one contained a tobacco, which, being smoked, would give speech to the dumb, while the other gold bottle contained wine, which would prevent the approach of age and ward off death.
Having made these announcements, the pair disappeared, leaving Hyung and his wife almost dumb with amazement.
They looked at the gourd, then at the little table and its contents, and each looked at the other to be sure it was not a dream.
At length Hyung broke the silence, remarking that, as he was very hungry, he would venture to open another gourd, in the hope that it would be found full of something good to eat, since it was not so important for him to have something with which to restore life just now as it was to have something to sustain life with.
The next gourd was opened as was the first, when by some means out flowed all manner of household furniture, and clothing, with rolls upon rolls of fine silk and satin cloth, linen goods, and the finest cotton.
The satin alone was far greater in bulk than the gourd had been, yet, in addition, the premises were literally strewn with costly furniture and the finest fabrics.
They barely examined the goods now, their amazement having become so great that they could scarcely wait until all had been opened, and the whole seemed so unreal, that they feared delay might be dangerous.
Both sawed away on the next gourd, when out came a body of carpenters, all equipped with tools and lumber, and, to their utter and complete amazement, began putting up a house as quickly and quietly as thought, so that before they could arise from the ground they saw a fine house standing before them, with courts and servants' quarters, stables, and granaries.
Simultaneously a great train of bulls and ponies appeared, loaded down with rice and other products as tributes from the district in which the place was located.
Others came bringing money tribute, servants, male and female, and clothing.
They felt sure they were in dreamland now, and that they might enjoy the exercise of power while it lasted, they began commanding the servants to put the goods away, the money in the sahrang, or reception-room, the clothing in the tarack, or garret over the fireplace, the rice in the granaries, and animals in their stables.
Others were sent to prepare a bath, that they might don the fine clothing before it should be too late.
The servants obeyed, increasing the astonishment of the pair, and causing them to literally forget the fourth gourd in their amazed contemplation of the wondrous miracles being performed, and the dreamy air of satisfaction and contentment with which it surrounded them.
Their attention was called to the gourd by the servants, who were then commanded to carefully saw it open.
They did so, and out stepped a maiden, as beautiful as were the gifts that had preceded her.
Never before had Hyung looked on any one who could at all compare with the matchless beauty and grace of the lovely creature who now stood so modestly and confidingly before him.
He could find no words to express his boundless admiration, and could only stand in mute wonder and feast himself upon her beauty.
Not so with his wife, however.
She saw only a rival in the beautiful girl, and straightway demanded who she was, whence she came, and what she wanted.
The maid replied: "I am sent by the bird king to be this man's concubine."
Whereupon the wife grew dark in the face, and ordered her to go whence she came and not see her husband again.
She upbraided him for not being content with a house and estate, numbers of retainers and quantities of money, and declared this last trouble was all due to his greed in opening the fourth gourd.
Her husband had by this time found his speech, however, and severely reprimanding her for conducting herself in such a manner upon the receipt of such heavenly gifts, while yesterday she had been little more than a beggar; he commanded her to go at once to the women's quarters, where she should reign supreme, and never make such a display of her ill-temper again, under penalty of being consigned to a house by herself.
The maiden he gladly welcomed, and conducted her to apartments set aside for her.
II.
When Nahl Bo heard of the wonderful change taking place at his brother's establishment, he went himself to look into the matter.
He found the report not exaggerated, and began to upbraid his brother with dishonest methods, which accusation the brother stoutly denied, and further demanded where, and of whom, he could steal a house, such rich garments, fine furniture, and have it removed in a day to the site of his former hovel.
Nahl Bo demanded an explanation, and Hyung Bo frankly told him how he had saved the bird from the snake and had bound up its broken limbs, so that it recovered; how the bird in return brought him a seed engraved with gold characters, instructing him how to plant and rear it; and how, having done so, the four gourds were born on the stalk, and from them, on ripening, had appeared these rich gifts.
The ill-favored brother even then persisted in his charges, and in a gruff, ugly manner accused Hyung Bo of being worse than a thief in keeping all these fine goods, instead of dutifully sharing them with his elder brother.
This insinuation of undutiful conduct really annoyed Hyung Bo, who, in his kindness of heart, forgave this unbrotherly senior, his former ill conduct, and thinking only of his own present good fortune, he kindly bestowed considerable gifts upon the undeserving brother, and doubtless would have done more but that the covetous man espyed the fair maiden, and at once insisted on having her.
This was too much even for the patient Hyung Bo, who refused with a determination remarkable for him.
A quarrel ensued, during which the elder brother took his departure in a rage, fully determined to use the secret of his brother's success for all it was worth in securing rich gifts for himself.
Going home he struck at all the birds he could see, and ordered his servants to do the same.
After killing many, he succeeded in catching one, and, breaking its legs, he took fish-skin and bound them up in splints, laying the little sufferer in a warm place, till it recovered and flew away, bandages and all.
The result was as expected.
The bird being questioned by the bird king concerning its crooked legs, related its story, dwelling, however, on the man's cruelty in killing so many birds and then breaking its own legs.
The king understood thoroughly, and gave the little cripple a seed to present to the wicked man on its return in the spring.
Springtime came, and one day, as Nahl Bo was sitting cross-legged in the little room opening on the veranda off his court, he heard a familiar bird-song.
Dropping his long pipe, he threw open the paper windows, and there, sure enough, sat a crooked-legged bird on the clothes line, bearing a seed in its mouth.
Nahl Bo would let no one touch it, but as the bird dropped the seed and flew away, he jumped out so eagerly that he forgot to slip his shoes on, and got his clean white stockings all befouled.
He secured the seed, however, and felt that his fortune was made.
He planted it carefully, as directed, and gave it his personal attention.
The vines were most luxurious.
They grew with great rapidity, till they had well nigh covered the whole of his large house and out-buildings.
Instead of one gourd, or even four, as in the brother's case, the new vines bore twelve gourds, which grew and grew till the great beams of his house fairly groaned under their weight, and he had to block them in place to keep them from rolling off the roofs.
He had to hire men to guard them carefully, for now that the source of Hyung Bo's riches was understood, every one was anxious for a gourd.
They did not know the secret, however, which Nahl Bo concealed through selfishness, and Hyung through fear that every one would take to killing and maiming birds as his wicked brother had done.
Maintaining a guard was expensive, and the plant so loosened the roof tiles, by the tendrils searching for earth and moisture in the great layer of clay under the tiles, that the rainy season made great havoc with his house.
Large portions of plaster from the inside fell upon the paper ceilings, which in turn gave way, letting the dirty water drip into the rooms, and making the house almost uninhabitable.
At last, however, the plants could do no more harm; the frost had come, the vines had shrivelled away, and the enormous ripe gourds were carefully lowered, amid the yelling of a score of coolies, as each seemed to get in the others' way trying to manipulate the ropes and poles with which the gourds were let down to the ground.
Once inside the court, and the great doors locked, Nahl Bo felt relieved, and shutting out every one but a carpenter and his assistant, he prepared for the great surprise which he knew must await him, in spite of his most vivid dreams.
The carpenter insisted upon the enormous sum of 1,000 cash for opening each gourd, and as he was too impatient to await the arrival of another, and as he expected to be of princely wealth in a few moments, Nahl Bo agreed to the exorbitant price.
Whereupon, carefully bracing a gourd, the men began sawing it through.
It seemed a long time before the gourd fell in halves.
When it did, out came a party of rope-dancers, such as perform at fairs and public places.
Nahl Bo was unprepared for any such surprise as this, and fancied it must be some great mistake.
They sang and danced about as well as the crowded condition of the court would allow, and the family looked on complacently, supposing that the band had been sent to celebrate their coming good fortune.
But Nahl Bo soon had enough of this.
He wanted to get at his riches, and seeing that the actors were about to stretch their ropes for a more extensive performance, he ordered them to cease and take their departure.
To his amazement, however, they refused to do this, until he had paid them 5,000 cash for their trouble.
"You sent for us and we came," said the leader.
"Now pay us, or we will live with you till you do."
There was no help for it, and with great reluctance and some foreboding, he gave them the money and dismissed them.
Then Nahl Bo turned to the carpenter, who chanced to be a man with an ugly visage, made uglier by a great hare-lip.
"You," he said, "are the cause of all this.
Before you entered this court these gourds were filled with gold, and your ugly face has changed it to beggars."
Number two was opened with no better results, for out came a body of Buddhist priests, begging for their temple, and promising many sons in return for offerings of suitable merit.
Although disgusted beyond measure, Nahl Bo still had faith in the gourds, and to get rid of the priests, lest they should see his riches, he gave them also 5,000 cash.
As soon as the priests were gone, gourd number three was opened, with still poorer results, for out came a procession of paid mourners followed by a corpse borne by bearers.
The mourners wept as loudly as possible, and all was in a perfect uproar.
When ordered to go, the mourners declared they must have money for mourning, and to pay for burying the body.
Seeing no possible help for it, 5,000 cash was finally given them, and they went out with the bier.
Then Nahl Bo's wife came into the court, and began to abuse the hare-lipped man for bringing upon them all this trouble.
Whereupon the latter became angry and demanded his money that he might leave.
They had no intention of giving up the search as yet, however, and, as it was too late to change carpenters, the ugly fellow was paid for the work already done, and given an advance on that yet remaining.
He therefore set to work upon the fourth gourd, which Nahl Bo watched with feverish anxiety.
From this one there came a band of gee sang, or dancing girls.
There was one woman from each province, and each had her song and dance.
One sang of the yang wang, or wind god; another of the wang jay, or pan deity; one sang of the sung jee, or money that is placed as a christening on the roof tree of every house.
There was the cuckoo song.
The song of the ancient tree that has lived so long that its heart is dead and gone, leaving but a hollow space, yet the leaves spring forth every spring-tide.
The song of laughter and mourning, with an injunction to see to it that the rice offering be made to the departed spirits.
To the king of the sun and stars a song was sung.
And last of all, one votary sang of the twelve months that make the year, the twelve hours that make the day, the thirty days that make the month, and of the new year's birth, as the old year dies, taking with it their ills to be buried in the past, and reminding all people to celebrate the New Year holidays by donning clean clothes and feasting on good food, that the following year may be to them one of plenty and prosperity.
Having finished their songs and their graceful posturing and waving of their gay silk banners, the gee sang demanded their pay, which had to be given them, reducing the family wealth 5,000 cash more.
The wife now tried to persuade Nahl Bo to stop and not open more, but the hare-lip man offered to open the next for 500 cash, as he was secretly enjoying the sport.
So the fifth was opened a little, when a yellow-looking substance was seen inside, which was taken to be gold, and they hurriedly opened it completely.
But instead of gold, out came an acrobatic pair,--being a strong man with a youth dressed to represent a girl.
The man danced about, holding his young companion balanced upon his shoulders, singing meanwhile a song of an ancient king, whose riotous living was so distasteful to his subjects that he built him a cavernous palace, the floor of which was covered with quicksilver, the walls were decorated with jewels, and myriad lamps turned the darkness into day.
Here were to be found the choicest viands and wines, with bands of music to entertain the feasters: most beautiful women; and he enjoyed himself most luxuriously until his enemy, learning the secret, threw open the cavern to the light of day, when all of the beautiful women immediately disappeared in the sun's rays.
Before he could get these people to discontinue their performance, Nahl Bo had to give them also 5,000 cash.
Yet in spite of all his ill luck, he decided to open another.
Which being done, a jester came forth, demanding the expense money for his long journey.
This was finally given him, for Nahl Bo had hit upon what he deemed a clever expedient.
He took the wise fool aside, and asked him to use his wisdom in pointing out to him which of these gourds contained gold.
Whereupon the jester looked wise, tapped several gourds, and motioned to each one as being filled with gold.
The seventh was therefore opened, and a lot of yamen runners came forth, followed by an official.
Nahl Bo tried to run from what he knew must mean an exorbitant "squeeze," but he was caught and beaten for his indiscretion.
The official called for his valise, and took from it a paper, which his secretary read, announcing that Nahl Bo was the serf of this lord and must hereafter pay to him a heavy tribute.
At this they groaned in their hearts, and the wife declared that even now the money was all gone, even to the last cash, while the rabble which had collected had stolen nearly every thing worth removing.
Yet the officer's servants demanded pay for their services, and they had to be given a note secured on the property before they would leave.
Matters were now so serious that they could not be made much worse, and it was decided to open each remaining gourd, that if there were any gold they might have it.
When the next one was opened a bevy of moo tang women (soothsayers) came forth, offering to drive away the spirit of disease and restore the sick to health.
They arranged their banners for their usual dancing ceremony, brought forth their drums, with which to exorcise the demons, and called for rice to offer to the spirits and clothes to burn for the spirits' apparel.
"Get out!"
roared Nahl Bo.
"I am not sick except for the visitation of such as yourselves, who are forever burdening the poor, and demanding pay for your supposed services.
Away with you, and befool some other pah sak ye (eight month's man--fool) if you can.
I want none of your services."
They were no easier to drive away, however, than were the other annoying visitors that had come with his supposed good fortune.
He had finally to pay them as he had the others; and dejectedly he sat, scarcely noticing the opening of the ninth gourd.
The latter proved to contain a juggler, and the exasperated Nahl Bo, seeing but one small man, determined to make short work of him.
Seizing him by his topknot of hair, he was about to drag him to the door, when the dexterous fellow, catching his tormentor by the thighs, threw him headlong over his own back, nearly breaking his neck, and causing him to lie stunned for a time, while the expert bound him hand and foot, and stood him on his head, so that the wife was glad to pay the fellow and dismiss him ere the life should be departed from her lord.
On opening the tenth a party of blind men came out, picking their way with their long sticks, while their sightless orbs were raised towards the unseen heavens.
They offered to tell the fortunes of the family.
But, while their services might have been demanded earlier, the case was now too desperate for any such help.
The old men tinkled their little bells, and chanted some poetry addressed to the four good spirits stationed at the four corners of the earth, where they patiently stand bearing the world upon their shoulders; and to the distant heavens that arch over and fold the earth in their embrace, where the two meet at the far horizon (as pictured in the Korean flag).
The blind men threw their dice, and, fearing lest they should prophesy death, Nahl Bo quickly paid and dismissed them.
The next gourd was opened but a trifle, that they might first determine as to the wisdom of letting out its contents.
Before they could determine, however, a voice like thunder was heard from within, and the huge form of a giant arose, splitting open the gourd as he came forth.
In his anger he seized poor Nahl Bo and tossed him upon his shoulders as though he would carry him away.
Whereupon the wife plead with tears for his release, and gladly gave an order for the amount of the ransom.
After which the monster allowed the frightened man to fall to the ground, nearly breaking his aching bones in the fall.
The carpenter did not relish the sport any longer; it seemed to be getting entirely too dangerous.
He thereupon demanded the balance of his pay, which they finally agreed to give him, providing he would open the last remaining gourd.
For the desperate people hoped to find this at least in sufficient condition that they might cook or make soup of it, since they had no food left at all and no money, while the other gourds were so spoiled by the tramping of the feet of their unbidden guests, as to be totally unfit for food.
The man did as requested, but had only sawed a very little when the gourd split open as though it were rotten, while a most awful stench arose, driving every one from the premises.
This was followed by a gale of wind, so severe as to destroy the buildings, which, in falling, took fire from the kang, and while the once prosperous man looked on in helpless misery, the last of his remaining property was swept forever from him.
The seed that had brought prosperity to his honest, deserving brother had turned prosperity into ruin to the cruel, covetous Nahl Bo, who now had to subsist upon the charity of his kind brother, whom he had formerly treated so cruelly.
CHUN YANG, THE FAITHFUL DANCING-GIRL WIFE.
In the city of Nam Won, in Chull Lah Do (the southern province of Korea), lived the Prefect Ye Tung Uhi.
He was the happy father of a son of some sixteen years of age.
Being an only child the boy was naturally much petted.
He was not an ordinary young man, however, for in addition to a handsome, manly face and stalwart figure, he possessed a bright, quick mind, and was naturally clever.
A more dutiful son could not be found.
He occupied a house in the rear of his father's quarters, and devoted himself to his books, going regularly each evening to make his obeisance to his father, and express his wish that pleasant, refreshing sleep might come to him; then, in the morning, before breakfasting, he was wont to go and enquire how the new day had found his father.
The Prefect was but recently appointed to rule over the Nam Won district when the events about to be recorded occurred.
The winter months had been spent mostly indoors, but as the mild spring weather approached and the buds began to open to the singing of the joyful birds, Ye Toh Ryung, or Toh Ryung, the son, felt that he must get out and enjoy nature.
Like an animal that has buried itself in a hole in the earth, he came forth rejoicing; the bright yellow birds welcomed him from the willow trees, the soft breezes fanned his cheeks, and the freshness of the air exhilarated him.
He called his pang san (valet) and asked him concerning the neighboring views.
The servant was a native of the district, and knew the place well; he enumerated the various places especially prized for their scenery, but concluded with: "But of all rare views, 'Kang Hal Loo' is the rarest.
Officers from the eight provinces come to enjoy the scenery, and the temple is covered with verses they have left in praise of the place."
"Very well, then, we will go there," said Toh Ryung "Go you and clean up the place for my reception."
The servant hurried off to order the temple swept and spread with clean mats, while his young master sauntered along almost intoxicated by the freshness and new life of every thing around him.
Arrived at the place, after a long, tedious ascent of the mountain side, he flung himself upon a huge bolster-like cushion, and with half-closed eyes, drank in the beauty of the scene along with the balmy, perfume-laden spring zephyrs.
He called his servant, and congratulated him upon his taste, declaring that were the gods in search of a fine view, they could not find a place that would surpass this; to which the man answered: "That is true; so true, in fact, that it is well known that the spirits do frequent this place for its beauty."
As he said this, Toh Ryung had raised himself, and was leaning on one arm, gazing out toward one side, when, as though it were one of the spirits just mentioned, the vision of a beautiful girl shot up into the air and soon fell back out of sight in the shrubbery of an adjoining court-yard.
He could just get a confused picture of an angelic face, surrounded by hair like the black thunder-cloud, a neck of ravishing beauty, and a dazzle of bright silks,--when the whole had vanished.
He was dumb with amazement, for he felt sure he must have seen one of the spirits said to frequent the place; but before he could speak, the vision arose again, and he then had time to see that it was but a beautiful girl swinging in her dooryard.
He did not move, he scarcely breathed, but sat with bulging eyes absorbing the prettiest view he had ever seen.
He noted the handsome, laughing face, the silken black hair, held back in a coil by a huge coral pin; he saw the jewels sparkling on the gay robes, the dainty white hands and full round arms, from which the breezes blew back the sleeves; and as she flew higher in her wild sport, oh, joy!
two little shoeless feet encased in white stockings, shot up among the peach blossoms, causing them to fall in showers all about her.
In the midst of the sport her hairpin loosened and fell, allowing her raven locks to float about her shoulders; but, alas!
the costly ornament fell on a rock and broke, for Toh Ryung could hear the sharp click where he sat.
This ended the sport, and the little maid disappeared, all unconscious of the agitation she had caused in a young man's breast by her harmless spring exercise.
After some silence, the young man asked his servant if he had seen any thing, for even yet he feared his mind had been wandering close to the dreamland.
After some joking, the servant confessed to having seen the girl swinging, whereupon his master demanded her name.
"She is Uhl Mahs' daughter, a gee sang (public dancing girl) of this city; her name is Chun Yang Ye"--fragrant spring.
"I yah!
superb; I can see her then, and have her sing and dance for me," exclaimed Toh Ryung.
"Go and call her at once, you slave."
The man ran, over good road and bad alike, up hill and down, panting as he went; for while the back of the women's quarters of the adjoining compound was near at hand, the entrance had to be reached by a long circuit.
Arriving out of breath, he pounded at the gate, calling the girl by name.
"Who is that calls me?"
she enquired when the noise had attracted her attention.
"Oh, never mind who," answered the exhausted man, "it is great business; open the door."
"Who are you, and what do you want?"
"I am nobody, and I want nothing; but Ye Toh Ryung is the Governor's son, and he wants to see the Fragrant Spring."
"Who told Ye Toh Ryung my name?"
"Never mind who told him; if you did not want him to know you, then why did you swing so publicly?
The great man's son came here to rest and see the beautiful views; he saw you swinging, and can see nothing since.
You must go, but you need not fear.
He is a gentleman, and will treat you nicely; if your dancing pleases him as did your swinging, he may present you with rich gifts, for he is his father's only son."
Regretting in her proud spirit that fates had placed her in a profession where she was expected to entertain the nobility whether it suited her or not, the girl combed and arranged her hair, tightened her sash, smoothed her disordered clothes, and prepared to look as any vain woman would wish who was about to be presented to the handsomest and most gifted young nobleman of the province.
She followed the servant slowly till they reached Toh Ryung's stopping place.
She waited while the servant announced her arrival, for a gee sang must not enter a nobleman's presence unbidden.
Toh Ryung was too excited to invite her in, however, and his servant had to prompt him, when, laughing at his own agitation, he pleasantly bade her enter and sit down.
"What is your name?"
asked he.
"My name is Chun Yang Ye," she said, with a voice that resembled silver jingling in a pouch.
"How old are you?"
"My age is just twice eight years."
"Ah ha!"
laughed the now composed boy, "how fortunate; you are twice eight, and I am four fours.
We are of the same age.
Your name, Fragrant Spring, is the same as your face--very beautiful.
Your cheeks are like the petals of the mah hah that ushers in the soft spring.
Your eyes are like those of the eagle sitting on the ancient tree, but soft and gentle as the moonlight," ran on the enraptured youth.
"When is your birthday?"
"My birthday occurs at midnight on the eighth day of the fourth moon," modestly replied the flattered girl, who was quickly succumbing to the charms of the ardent and handsome young fellow, whose heart she could see was already her own.
"Is it possible?"
exclaimed he; "that is the date of the lantern festival, and it is also my own birthday, only I was born at eleven instead of twelve.
I am sorry I was not born at twelve now.
But it doesn't matter.
Surely the gods had some motive in sending us into the world at the same time, and thus bringing us together at our sixteenth spring-tide.
Heaven must have intended us to be man and wife"; and he bade her sit still as she started as though to take her departure.
Then he began to plead with her, pacing the room in his excitement, till his attendant likened the sound to the combat of ancient warriors.
"This chance meeting of ours has a meaning," he argued.
"Often when the buds were bursting, or when the forest trees were turning to fire and blood, have I played and supped with pretty gee sang, watched them dance, and wrote them verses, but never before have I lost my heart; never before have I seen any one so incomparably beautiful.
You are no common mortal.
You were destined to be my wife; you must be mine, you must marry me."
She wrinkled her fair brow and thought, for she was no silly, foolish thing, and while her heart was almost, if not quite won by this tempestuous lover, yet she saw where his blind love would not let him see.
"You know," she said, "the son of a nobleman may not marry a gee sang without the consent of his parents.
I know I am a gee sang by name, the fates have so ordained, but, nevertheless, I am an honorable woman, always have been, and expect to remain so."
"Certainly," he answered, "we cannot celebrate the 'six customs ceremony' (parental arrangements, exchange of letters, contracts, exchange of presents, preliminary visits, ceremony proper), but we can be privately married just the same."
"No, it cannot be.
Your father would not consent, and should we be privately married, and your father be ordered to duty at some other place, you would not dare take me with you.
Then you would marry the daughter of some nobleman, and I would be forgotten.
It must not, cannot be," and she arose to depart.
"Stay, stay," he begged.
"You do me an injustice.
I will never forsake you, or marry another.
I swear it.
And a yang ban (noble) has but one mouth, he cannot speak two ways.
Even should we leave this place I will take you with me, or return soon to you.
You must not refuse me."
"But suppose you change your mind or forget your promises; words fly out of the mouth and are soon lost, ink and paper are more lasting; give me your promises in writing," she says.
Instantly the young man took up paper and brush; having rubbed the ink well, he wrote: "A memorandum.
Desiring to enjoy the spring scenery, I came to Kang Hal Loo.
There I saw for the first time my heaven-sent bride.
Meeting for the first time, I pledge myself for one hundred years; to be her faithful husband.
Should I change, show this paper to the magistrate."
Folding up the manuscript with care he handed it to her.
While putting it into her pocket she said: "Speech has no legs, yet it can travel many thousands of miles.
Suppose this matter should reach your father's ears, what would you do?"
"Never fear; my father was once young, who knows but I may be following the example of his early days.
I have contracted with you, and we now are married, even my father cannot change it.
Should he discover our alliance and disown me, I will still be yours, and together we shall live and die."
She arose to go, and pointing with her jade-like hand to a clump of bamboos, said: "There is my house; as I cannot come to you, you must come to me and make my mother's house your home, as much as your duty to your parents will allow."
As the sun began to burn red above the mountains' peaks, they bade each other a fond adieu, and each departed for home accompanied by their respective attendants.
Ye Toh Ryung went to his room, which now seemed a prison-like place instead of the pleasant study he had found it.
He took up a book, but reading was no satisfaction, every word seemed to transform itself into Chun or Yang.
Every thought was of the little maid of the spring fragrance.
He changed his books, but it was no use, he could not even keep them right side up, not to mention using them properly.
Instead of singing off his lessons as usual, he kept singing, Chun Yang Ye poh go sip so (I want to see the spring fragrance), till his father, hearing the confused sounds, sent to ascertain what was the matter with his son.
The boy was singing, "As the parched earth cries for rain after the seven years' drought, so my heart pants for my Chun Yang Ye, whose face to me is like the rays of the sun upon the earth after a nine years' rain."
He paid no heed to the servants, and soon his father sent his private secretary, demanding what it was the boy desired so much that he should keep singing.
"I want to see, I want to see."
Toh Ryung answered that he was reading an uninteresting book, and looking for another.
Though he remained more quiet after this, he still was all impatience to be off to his sweetheart-wife, and calling his attendant, he sent him out to see how near the sun was to setting.
Enjoying the sport, the man returned, saying the sun was now high over head.
"Begone," said he, "can any one hold back the sun; it had reached the mountain tops before I came home."
At last the servant brought his dinner, for which he had no appetite.
He could ill abide the long delay between the dinner hour and the regular time for his father's retiring.
The time did come, however, and when the lights were extinguished and his father had gone to sleep, he took his trusty servant, and, scaling the back wall, they hurried to the house of Chun Yang Ye.
As they approached they heard someone playing the harp, and singing of the "dull pace of the hours when one's lover is away."
Being admitted, they met the mother, who, with some distrust, received Toh Ryung's assurances and sent him to her daughter's apartments.
The house pleased him; it was neat and well-appointed.
The public room, facing the court, was lighted by a blue lantern, which in the mellow light resembled a pleasure barge drifting on the spring flood.
Banners of poetry hung upon the walls.
Upon the door leading to Chun Yang's little parlor hung a banner inscribed with verses to her ancestors and descendants, praying that "a century be short to span her life and happiness, and that her children's children be blessed with prosperity for a thousand years."
Through the open windows could be seen moonlight glimpses of the little garden of the swinging girl.
There was a miniature lake almost filled with lotus plants, where two sleepy swans floated with heads beneath their wings, while the occasional gleam of a gold or silver scale showed that the water was inhabited.
A summer-house on the water's edge was almost covered with fragrant spring blossoms, the whole being enclosed in a little grove of bamboo and willows, that shut out the view of outsiders.
While gazing at this restful sight, Chun Yang Ye herself came out, and all was lost in the lustre of her greater beauty.
She asked him into her little parlor, where was a profusion of choice carved cabinets and ornaments of jade and metal, while richly embroidered mats covered the highly-polished floor.
She was so delighted that she took both his hands in her pretty, white, soft ones, and gazing longingly into each other's eyes, she led him into another room, where, on a low table, a most elegant lunch was spread.
They sat down on the floor and surveyed the loaded table.
There were fruits preserved in sugar, candied nuts arranged in many dainty, nested boxes; sweet pickles and confections, pears that had grown in the warmth of a summer now dead, and grapes that had been saved from decay by the same sun that had called them forth.
Quaint old bottles with long, twisted necks, contained choice medicated wines, to be drunk from the little crackled cups, such as the ancients used.
Pouring out a cup, she sang to him: "This is the elixir of youth; drinking this, may you never grow old; though ten thousand years pass over your head, may you stand like the mountain that never changes."
He drank half of the cup's contents, and praised her sweet voice, asking for another song.
She sang: "Let us drain the cup while we may.
In the grave who will be our cup-bearer.
While we are young let us play.
When old, mirth gives place to care.
The flowers can bloom but a few days at best, and must then die, that the seed may be born.
The moon is no sooner full than it begins to wane, that the young moon may rise."
The sentiments suited him, the wine exhilarated him, and his spirits rose.
He drained his cup, and called for more wine and song; but she restrained him.
They ate the dainty food, and more wine and song followed.
She talked of the sweet contract they had made, and anon they pledged themselves anew.
Not content with promises for this short life, they went into the future, and he yielded readily to her request, that when death should at last o'ertake them, she would enter a flower, while he would become a butterfly, coming and resting on her bosom, and feasting off her fragrant sweetness.
The father did not know of his son's recent alliance, though the young man honestly went and removed Chun Yang's name from the list of the district gee sang, kept in his father's office; for, now that she was a married woman, she need no longer go out with the dancing-girls.
Every morning, as before, the dutiful son presented himself before his father, with respectful inquiries after his health, and his rest the preceding night.
But, nevertheless, each night the young man's apartments were deserted, while he spent the time in the house of his wife.
Thus the months rolled on with amazing speed.
The lovers were in paradise.
The father enjoyed his work, and labored hard for the betterment of the condition of his subjects.
Never before had so large a tribute been sent by this district.
Yet the people were not burdened as much as when far less of their products reached the government granaries.
The honest integrity of the officer reached the King in many reports, and when a vacancy occurred at the head of the Treasury Department, he was raised to be Ho Joh Pansa (Secretary of Finance).
Delighted, the father sent for his son and told him the news, but, to his amazement, the young man had naught to say, in fact he seemed as one struck dumb, as well he might.
Within himself there was a great tumult; his heart beat so violently as to seem perceptible, and at times it arose and filled his throat, cutting off any speech he might wish to utter.
Surprised at the conduct of his son, the father bade him go and inform his mother, that she might order the packing to commence.
He went; but soon found a chance to fly to Chun Yang, who, at first, was much concerned for his health, as his looks denoted a serious illness.
When he had made her understand, however, despair seized her, and they gazed at each other in mute dismay and utter helplessness.
At last she seemed to awaken from her stupor, and, in an agony of despair, she beat her breast, and moaned: "Oh, how can we separate.
We must die, we cannot live apart"; and tears coming to her relief, she cried: "If we say good-by, it will be forever; we can never meet again.
Oh, I feared it; we have been too happy--too happy.
The one who made this order is a murderer; it must be my death.
If you go to Seoul and leave me, I must die.
I am but a poor weak woman, and I cannot live without you."
He took her, and laying her head on his breast, tried to soothe her.
"Don't cry so bitterly," he begged; "my heart is almost broken now.
I cannot bear it.
I wish it could always be spring-time; but this is only like the cruel winter that, lingering in the mountain, sometimes sweeps down the valley, drives out the spring, and kills the blossoms.
We will not give up and die, though.
We have contracted for one hundred years, and this will be but a bitter separation that will make our speedy reunion more blissful."
"Oh," she says, "but how can I live here alone, with you in Seoul?
Just think of the long, tedious summer days, the long and lonely winter nights.
I must see no one.
I cannot know of you, for who will tell me, and how am I to endure it?"
"Had not my father been given this great honor, we would perhaps not have been parted; as it is I must go, there is no help for it, but you must believe me when I promise I will come again.
Here, take this crystal mirror as a pledge that I will keep my word"; and he gave her his pocket-mirror of rock crystal.
"Promise me when you will return," said she; and then, without awaiting an answer, she sang: "When the sear and withered trunk begins to bloom, and the dead bird sings in the branches, then my lover will come to me.
When the river flows over the eastern mountains, then may I see him glide along in his ship to me."
He chided her for her lack of faith, and assured her again it was as hard for one as the other.
After a time she became more reconciled, and taking off her jade ring, gave it to him for a keepsake, saying: "My love, like this ring, knows no end.
You must go, alas!
but my love will go with you, and may it protect you when crossing wild mountains and distant rivers, and bring you again safely to me.
If you go to Seoul, you must not trifle, but take your books, study hard, and enter the examinations, then, perhaps, you may obtain rank and come to me.
I will stand with my hand shading my eyes, ever watching for your return."
Promising to cherish her speech, with her image in his breast, they made their final adieu, and tore apart.
The long journey seemed like a funeral to the lover.
Everywhere her image rose before him.
He could think of nothing else; but by the time he arrived at the capital he had made up his mind as to his future course, and from that day forth his parents wondered at his stern, determined manner.
He shut himself up in his room with his books.
He would neither go out, or form acquaintances among the young noblemen of the gay city.
Thus he spent months in hard study, taking no note of passing events.
In the meantime a new magistrate came to Nam Won.
He was a hard-faced, hard-hearted politician.
He associated with the dissolute, and devoted himself to riotous living, instead of caring for the welfare of the people.
He had not been long in the place till he had heard so much of the matchless beauty of Chun Yang Ye that he determined to see, and if, as reported, marry her.
Accordingly he called the clerk of the yamen, and asked concerning "the beautiful gee sang Chun Yang Ye."
The clerk answered that such a name had appeared on the records of the dancing girls, but that it had been removed, as she had contracted a marriage with the son of the previous magistrate, and was now a lady of position and respectability.
"You lying rascal!"
yelled the enraged officer, who could ill brook any interference with plans he had formed.
"A nobleman's son cannot really marry a dancing girl; leave my presence at once, and summon this remarkable 'lady' to appear before me."
The clerk could only do as he was bidden, and, summoning the yamen runners, he sent to the house of Chun Yang Ye to acquaint her with the official order.
The runners, being natives of the locality, were loath to do as commanded, and when the fair young woman gave them "wine money" they willingly agreed to report her "too sick to attend the court."
Upon doing so, however, the wrath of their master came down upon them.
They were well beaten, and then commanded to go with a chair and bring the woman, sick or well, while if they disobeyed him a second time they would be put to death.
Of course they went, but after they had explained to Chun Yang Ye their treatment, her beauty and concern for their safety so affected them, that they offered to go back without her, and face their doom.
She would not hear to their being sacrificed for her sake, and prepared to accompany them.
She disordered her hair, soiled her fair face, and clad herself in dingy, ill-fitting gowns, which, however, seemed only to cause her natural beauty the more to shine forth.
She wept bitterly on entering the yamen, which fired the anger of the official.
He ordered her to stop her crying or be beaten, and then as he looked at her disordered and tear-stained face, that resembled choice jade spattered with mud, he found that her beauty was not overstated.
"What does your conduct mean?"
said he.
"Why have you not presented yourself at this office with the other gee sang?"
"Because, though born a gee sang, I am by marriage a lady, and not subject to the rules of my former profession," she answered.
"Hush!"
roared the Prefect.
"No more of this nonsense.
Present yourself here with the other gee sang, or pay the penalty."
"Never" she bravely cried.
"A thousand deaths first.
You have no right to exact such a thing of me.
You are the King's servant, and should see that the laws are executed, rather than violated."
The man was fairly beside himself with wrath at this, and ordered her chained and thrown into prison at once.
The people all wept with her, which but increased her oppressor's anger, and calling the jailer he ordered him to treat her with especial rigor, and be extra vigilant lest some sympathizers should assist her to escape.
The jailer promised, but nevertheless he made things as easy for her as was possible under the circumstances.
Her mother came and moaned over her daughter's condition, declaring that she was foolish in clinging to her faithless husband, who had brought all this trouble upon them.
The neighbors, however, upbraided the old woman for her words, and assured the daughter that she had done just right, and would yet be rewarded.
They brought presents of food, and endeavored to make her condition slightly less miserable by their attentions.
She passed the night in bowing before Heaven and calling on the gods and her husband to release her, and in the morning when her mother came, she answered the latter's inquiries as to whether she was alive or not, in a feeble voice which alarmed her parent.
"I am still alive, but surely dying.
I can never see my Toh Ryung again; but when I am dead you must take my body to Seoul and bury it near the road over which he travels the most, that even in death I may be near him, though separated in life."
Again the mother scolded her for her devotion and for making the contract that binds her strongly to such a man.
She could stand it no longer, and begged her mother that she would go away and come to see her no more if she had no pleasanter speech than such to make.
"I followed the dictates of my heart and my mind.
I did what was right.
Can I foretell the future?
Because the sun shines to-day are we assured that to-morrow it will shine?
The deed is done.
I do not regret it; leave me to my grief, but do not add to it by your unkindness."
Thus the days lengthened into months, but she seemed like one dead, and took no thought of time or its flight.
She was really ill, and would have died but for the kindness of the jailer.
At last one night she dreamed that she was in her own room, dressing, and using the little mirror Toh Ryung had given her, when, without apparent cause, it suddenly broke in halves.
She awoke, startled, and felt sure that death was now to liberate her from her sorrows, for what other meaning could the strange occurrence have than that her body was thus to be broken.
Although anxious to die and be free, she could not bear the thought of leaving this world without a last look at her loved husband whose hands alone could close her eyes when her spirit had departed.
Pondering much upon the dream, she called the jailer and asked him to summon a blind man, as she wished her fortune told.
The jailer did so.
It was no trouble, for almost as she spoke they heard one picking his way along the street with his long stick, and uttering his peculiar call.
He came in and sat down, when they soon discovered that they were friends, for before the man became blind he had been in comfortable circumstances, and had known her father intimately.
She therefore asked him to be to her as a kind father, and faithfully tell her when and how death would come to her.
He said: "When the blossoms fade and fall they do not die, their life simply enters the seed to bloom again.
Death to you would but liberate your spirit to shine again in a fairer body."
She thanked him for his kind generalities, but was impatient, and telling her dream, she begged a careful interpretation of it.
He promptly answered, that to be an ill omen a mirror in breaking must make a noise.
And on further questioning, he found that in her dream a bird had flown into the room just as the mirror was breaking.
"I see," said he.
"The bird was bearer of good news, and the breaking of the mirror, which Toh Ryung gave you, indicates that the news concerned him; let us see."
Thereupon he arranged a bunch of sticks, shook them well, while uttering his chant, and threw them upon the floor.
Then he soon answered that the news was good.
"Your husband has done well.
He has passed his examinations, been promoted, and will soon come to you."
She was too happy to believe it, thinking the old man had made it up to please his old friend's distressed child.
Yet she cherished the dream and the interpretation in her breast, finding in it solace to her weary, troubled heart.
In the meantime Ye Toh Ryung had continued his studious work day and night, to the anxiety of his parents.
Just as he began to feel well prepared for the contest he awaited, a royal proclamation announced, that owing to the fact that peace reigned throughout the whole country, that the closing year had been one of prosperity, and no national calamity had befallen the country, His Gracious Majesty had ordered a grand guaga, or competitive examination, to be held.
As soon as it became known, literary pilgrims began to pour in from all parts of the country, bent on improving their condition.
The day of the examination found a vast host seated on the grass in front of the pavilion where His Majesty and his officers were.
Ye Toh Ryung was given as a subject for his composition, "A lad playing in the shade of a pine tree is questioned by an aged wayfarer."
The young man long rubbed his ink-stick on the stone, thinking very intently meanwhile, but when he began to write in the beautiful characters for which he was noted he seemed inspired, and the composition rolled forth as though he had committed it from the ancient classics.
He made the boy express such sentiments of reverence to age as would have charmed the ancients, and the wisdom he put into the conversation was worthy of a king.
The matter came so freely that his task was soon finished; in fact many were still wrinkling their brows in preliminary thought, while he was carefully folding up his paper, concealing his name so that the author should not be recognized till the paper had been judged on its merits.
He tossed his composition into the pen, and it was at once inspected, being the first one, and remarkably quickly done.
When His Majesty heard it read, and saw the perfect characters, he was astonished.
Such excellence in writing, composition, and sentiment was unparalleled, and before any other papers were received it was known that none could excel this one.
The writer's name was ascertained, and the King was delighted to learn that 'twas the son of his favorite officer.
The young man was sent for, and received the congratulations of his King.
The latter gave him the usual three glasses of wine, which he drank with modesty.
He was then given a wreath of flowers from the King's own hands; the court hat was presented to him, with lateral wings, denoting the rapidity--as the flight of a bird--with which he must execute his Sovereign's commands.
Richly embroidered breast-plates were given him, to be worn over the front and back of his court robes.
He then went forth, riding on a gayly caparisoned horse, preceded by a band of palace musicians and attendants.
Everywhere he was greeted with the cheers of the populace, as for three days he devoted his time to this public display.
This duty having been fulfilled, he devotedly went to the graves of his ancestors, and prostrated himself with offerings before them, bemoaning the fact that they could not be present to rejoice in his success.
He then presented himself before his King, humbly thanking him for his gracious condescension in bestowing such great honors upon one so utterly unworthy.
His Sovereign was pleased, and told the young man to strive to imitate the example of his honest father.
He then asked him what position he wished.
Ye Toh Ryung answered that he wished no other position than one that would enable him to be of service to his King.
"The year has been one of great prosperity," said he.
"The plentiful harvest will tempt corrupt men to oppress the people to their own advantage.
I would like, therefore, should it meet with Your Majesty's approval, to undertake the arduous duties of Ussa"--government inspector.
He said this as he knew he would then be free to go in search of his wife, while he could also do much good at the same time.
The King was delighted, and had his appointment--a private one naturally--made at once, giving him the peculiar seal of the office.
The new Ussa disguised himself as a beggar, putting on straw sandals, a broken hat, underneath which his hair, uncombed and without the encircling band to hold it in place, streamed out in all directions.
He wore no white strip in the neck of his shabby gown, and with dirty face he certainly presented a beggarly appearance.
Presenting himself at the stables outside of the city, where horses and attendants are provided for the ussas, he soon arranged matters by showing his seal, and with proper attendants started on his journey towards his former home in the southern province.
Arriving at his destination, he remained outside in a miserable hamlet while his servants went into the city to investigate the people and learn the news.
It was spring-time again.
The buds were bursting, the birds were singing, and in the warm valley a band of farmers were plowing with lazy bulls, and singing, meanwhile, a grateful song in praise of their just King, their peaceful, prosperous country, and their full stomachs.
As the Ussa came along in his disguise he began to jest with them, but they did not like him, and were rude in their jokes at his expense; when an old man, evidently the father, cautioned them to be careful.
"Don't you see," said he, "this man's speech is only half made up of our common talk; he is playing a part.
I think he must be a gentleman in disguise."
The Ussa drew the old man into conversation, asking about various local events, and finally questioning him concerning the character of the Prefect.
"Is he just or oppressive, drunken or sober?
Does he devote himself to his duties, or give himself up to riotous living?"
"Our Magistrate we know little of.
His heart is as hard and unbending as the dead heart of the ancient oak.
He cares not for the people; the people care not for him but to avoid him.
He extorts rice and money unjustly, and spends his ill-gotten gains in riotous living.
He has imprisoned and beaten the fair Chun Yang Ye because she repulsed him, and she now lies near to death in the prison, because she married and is true to the poor dog of a son of our former just magistrate."
Ye Toh Ryung was stung by these unjust remarks, filled with the deepest anxiety for his wife, and the bitterest resentment toward the brute of an official, whom, he promised himself, soon to bring to justice.
As he moved away, too full of emotion for further conversation, he heard the farmers singing, "Why are some men born to riches, others born to toil, some to marry and live in peace, others too poor to possess a hut."
He walked away meditating.
He had placed himself down on the people's level, and began to feel with them.
Thus meditating he crossed a valley, through which a cheery mountain brook rushed merrily along.
Near its banks, in front of a poor hut, sat an aged man twisting twine.
Accosting him, the old man paid no attention; he repeated his salutation, when the old man, surveying him from head to foot, said: "In the government service age does not count for much, there rank is every thing; an aged man may have to bow to a younger, who is his superior officer.
'Tis not so in the country, however; here age alone is respected.
Then why am I addressed thus by such a miserable looking stripling?"
The young man asked his elder's pardon, and then requested him to answer a question.
"I hear," says he, "that the new Magistrate is about to marry the gee sang, Chun Yang Ye; is it true?"
"Don't mention her name," said the old man, angrily.
"You are not worthy to speak of her.
She is dying in prison, because of her loyal devotion to the brute beast who married and deserted her."
Ye Toh Ryung could hear no more.
He hurried from the place, and finding his attendants, announced his intention of going at once into the city, lest the officials should hear of his presence and prepare for him.
Entering the city, he went direct to Chun Yang Ye's house.
It presented little of the former pleasant appearance.
Most of the rich furniture had been sold to buy comforts for the imprisoned girl.
The mother, seeing him come, and supposing him to be a beggar, almost shrieked at him to get away.
"Are you such a stranger, that you don't know the news?
My only child is imprisoned, my husband long since dead, my property almost gone, and you come to me for alms.
Begone, and learn the news of the town."
"Look!
Don't you know me?
I am Ye Toh Ryung, your son-in-law," he said.
"Ye Toh Ryung, and a beggar!
Oh, it cannot be.
Our only hope is in you, and now you are worse than helpless.
My poor girl will die."
"What is the matter with her?"
said he, pretending.
The woman related the history of the past months in full, not sparing the man in the least, giving him such a rating as only a woman can.
He then asked to be taken to the prison, and she accompanied him with a strange feeling of gratification in her heart that after all she was right, and her daughter's confidence was ill-placed.
Arriving at the prison, the mother expressed her feelings by calling to her daughter: "Here is your wonderful husband.
You have been so anxious to simply see Ye Toh Ryung before you die; here he is; look at the beggar, and see what your devotion amounts to!
Curse him and send him away."
The Ussa called to her, and she recognized the voice.
"I surely must be dreaming again," she said, as she tried to arise; but she had the huge neck-encircling board upon her shoulders that marked the latest of her tormentor's acts of oppression, and could not get up.
Stung by the pain and the calmness of her lover's voice, she sarcastically asked: "Why have you not come to me?
Have you been so busy in official life?
Have the rivers been so deep and rapid that you dared not cross them?
Did you go so far away that it has required all this time to retrace your steps?"
And then, regretting her harsh words, she said: "I cannot tell my rapture.
I had expected to have to go to Heaven to meet you, and now you are here.
Get them to unbind my feet, and remove this yoke from my neck, that I may come to you."
He came to the little window through which food is passed, and looked upon her.
As she saw his face and garb, she moaned: "Oh, what have we done to be so afflicted?
You cannot help me now; we must die.
Heaven has deserted us."
"Yes," he answered; "granting I am poor, yet should we not be happy in our reunion.
I have come as I promised, and we will yet be happy.
Do yourself no injury, but trust to me."
She called her mother, who sneeringly inquired of what service she could be, now that the longed-for husband had returned in answer to her prayers.
She paid no attention to these cruel words, but told her mother of certain jewels she had concealed in a case in her room.
"Sell these," she said, "and buy some food and raiment for my husband; take him home and care for him well.
Have him sleep on my couch, and do not reproach him for what he cannot help."
He went with the old woman, but soon left to confer with his attendants, who informed him that the next day was the birthday of the Magistrate, and that great preparations were being made for the celebration that would commence early.
A great feast, when wine would flow like water, was to take place in the morning.
The gee sang from the whole district were to perform for the assembled guests; bands of music were practising for the occasion, and the whole bade fair to be a great, riotous debauch, which would afford the Ussa just the opportunity the consummation of his plans awaited.
Early the next morning the disguised Ussa presented himself at the yamen gate, where the servants jeered at him, telling him: "This is no beggars' feast," and driving him away.
He hung around the street, however, listening to the music inside, and finally he made another attempt, which was more successful than the first, for the servants, thinking him crazy, tried to restrain him, when, in the melée, he made a passage and rushed through the inner gate into the court off the reception hall.
The annoyed host, red with wine, ordered him at once ejected and the gate men whipped.
His order was promptly obeyed, but Ye did not leave the place.
He found a break in the outside wall, through which he climbed, and again presented himself before the feasters.
While the Prefect was too blind with rage to be able to speak, the stranger said: "I am a beggar, give me food and drink that I, too, may enjoy myself."
The guests laughed at the man's presumption, and thinking him crazy, they urged their host to humor him for their entertainment.
To which he finally consented, and, sending him some food and wine, bade him stay in a corner and eat.
To the surprise of all, the fellow seemed still discontented, for he claimed that, as the other guests each had a fair gee sang to sing a wine song while they drank, he should be treated likewise.
This amused the guests immensely, and they got the master to send one.
The girl went with a poor grace, however, saying: "One would think from the looks of you that your poor throat would open to the wine without a song to oil it," and sang him a song that wished him speedy death instead of long life.
After submitting to their taunts for some time, he said, "I thank you for your food and wine and the graciousness of my reception, in return for which I will amuse you by writing you some verses"; and, taking pencil and paper, he wrote: "The oil that enriches the food of the official is but the life blood of the down-trodden people, whose tears are of no more merit in the eyes of the oppressor than the drippings of a burning candle."
When this was read, a troubled look passed over all; the guests shook their heads and assured their host that it meant ill to him.
And each began to make excuses, saying that one and another engagement of importance called them hence.
The host laughed and bade them be seated, while he ordered attendants to take the intruder and cast him into prison for his impudence.
They came to do so, but the Ussa took out his official seal, giving the preconcerted signal meanwhile, which summoned his ready followers.
At sight of the King's seal terror blanched the faces of each of the half-drunken men.
The wicked host tried to crawl under the house and escape, but he was at once caught and bound with chains.
One of the guests in fleeing through an attic-way caught his topknot of hair in a rat-hole, and stood for some time yelling for mercy, supposing that his captors had him.
It was as though an earthquake had shaken the house; all was the wildest confusion.
The Ussa put on decent clothes and gave his orders in a calm manner.
He sent the Magistrate to the capital at once, and began to look further into the affairs of the office.
Soon, however, he sent a chair for Chun Yang Ye, delegating his own servants, and commanding them not to explain what had happened.
She supposed that the Magistrate, full of wine, had sent for her, intending to kill her, and she begged the amused servants to call her Toh Ryung to come and stay with her.
They assured her that he could not come, as already he too was at the yamen, and she feared that harm had befallen him on her account.
They removed her shackles and bore her to the yamen, where the Ussa addressed her in a changed voice, commanding her to look up and answer her charges.
She refused to look up or speak, feeling that the sooner death came the better.
Failing in this way, he then asked her in his own voice to just glance at him.
Surprised she looked up, and her dazed eyes saw her lover standing there in his proper guise, and with a delighted cry she tried to run to him, but fainted in the attempt, and was borne in his arms to a room.
Just then the old woman, coming along with food, which she had brought as a last service to her daughter, heard the good news from the excited throng outside, and dashing away her dishes and their contents, she tore around for joy, crying: "What a delightful birthday surprise for a cruel magistrate!"
All the people rejoiced with the daughter, but no one seemed to think the old mother deserved such good fortune.
The Ussa's conduct was approved at court.
A new magistrate was appointed.
The marriage was publicly solemnized at Seoul, and the Ussa was raised to a high position, in which he was just to the people, who loved him for his virtues, while the country rang with the praises of his faithful wife, who became the mother of many children.
SIM CHUNG, THE DUTIFUL DAUGHTER.
Sim Hyun, or Mr. Sim, was highly esteemed in the Korean village in which he resided.
He belonged to the Yang Ban, or gentleman class, and when he walked forth it was with the stately swinging stride of the gentleman, while if he bestrode his favorite donkey, or was carried in his chair, a runner went ahead calling out to the commoners to clear the road.
His rank was not high, and though greatly esteemed as a scholar, his income would scarcely allow of his taking the position he was fitted to occupy.
His parents had been very fortunate in betrothing him to a remarkably beautiful and accomplished maiden, daughter of a neighboring gentleman.
She was noted for beauty and grace, while her mental qualities were the subject of continual admiration.
She could not only read and write her native ernmun, but was skilled in Chinese characters, while her embroidered shoes, pockets, and other feminine articles were the pride of her mother and friends.
She had embroidered a set of historic panels, which her father sent to the King.
His Majesty mentioned her skill with marked commendation, and had the panels made up into a screen which for some time stood behind his mat, and continually called forth his admiration.
Sim had not seemed very demonstrative in regard to his approaching nuptials, but once he laid his eyes upon his betrothed, as she unveiled at the ceremony, he was completely captivated, and brooked with poor grace the formalities that had to be gone through before he could claim her as his constant companion.
It was an exceptionally happy union, the pair being intellectually suited to each other, and each apparently possessing the bodily attributes necessary to charm the other.
There was never a sign of disgust or disappointment at the choice their parents had made for them.
They used to wander out into the little garden off the women's quarters, and sit in the moonlight, planning for the future, and enjoying the products of each other's well stored mind.
It was their pet desire to have a son, and all their plans seemed to centre around this one ambition; the years came and went, however, but their coveted blessing was withheld, the wife consulted priestesses, and the husband, from long and great disappointment, grew sad at heart and cared but little for mingling with the world, which he thought regarded him with shame.
He took to books and began to confine himself to his own apartments, letting his poor wife stay neglected and alone in the apartments of the women.
From much study, lack of exercise, and failing appetite, he grew thin and emaciated, and his eyes began to show the wear of over-work and innutrition.
The effect upon his wife was also bad, but, with a woman's fortitude and patience, she bore up and hoped in spite of constant disappointment.
She worried over her husband's condition and felt ashamed that she had no name in the world, other than the wife of Sim, while she wished to be known as the mother of the Sim of whom they had both dreamed by day and by night till dreams had almost left them.
After fifteen years of childless waiting, the wife of Sim dreamed again; this time her vision was a brilliant one, and in it she saw a star come down to her from the skies above; the dream awakened her, and she sent for her husband to tell him that she knew their blessing was about to come to them; she was right, a child was given to them, but, to their great dismay, it was only a girl.
Heaven had kindly prepared the way for the little visitor, however; for after fifteen years weary waiting, they were not going to look with serious disfavor upon a girl, however much their hopes had been placed upon the advent of a son.
The child grew, and the parents were united as they only could be by such a precious bond.
The ills of childhood seemed not to like the little one, even the virus of small-pox, that was duly placed in her nostril, failed to innoculate her, and her pretty skin remained fresh and soft like velvet, and totally free from the marks of the dread disease.
At three years of age she bade fair to far surpass her mother's noted beauty and accomplishments.
Her cheeks were full-blown roses, and whenever she opened her dainty curved mouth, ripples of silvery laughter, or words of mature wisdom, were sure to be given forth.
The hearts of the parents, that had previously been full of tears, were now light, and full of contentment and joy; while they were constantly filled with pride by the reports of the wonderful wisdom of their child that continually came to them.
The father forgot that his offspring was not a boy, and had his child continually by his side to guide his footsteps, as his feeble eyes refused to perform their office.
Just as their joy seemed too great to be lasting, it was suddenly checked by the death of the mother, which plunged them into a deep grief from which the father emerged totally blind.
It soon became a question as to where the daily food was to come from; little by little household trinkets were given to the brokers to dispose of, and in ten years they had used up the homestead, and all it contained.
The father was now compelled to ask alms, and as his daughter was grown to womanhood, she could no longer direct his footsteps as he wandered out in the darkness of the blind.
[3] One day in his journeying he fell into a deep ditch, from which he could not extricate himself.
After remaining in this deplorable condition for some time he heard a step, and called out for assistance, saying: "I am blind, not drunk," whereupon the passing stranger said: "I know full well you are not drunk.
True, you are blind, yet not incurably so."
"Why, who are you that you know so much about me?"
asked the blind man.
"I am the old priest of the temple in the mountain fortress."
"Well, what is this that you say about my not being permanently blind?"
"I am a prophet, and I have had a vision concerning you.
In case you make an offering of three hundred bags of rice to the Buddha of our temple, you will be restored to sight, you will be given rank and dignity, while your daughter will become the first woman in all Korea."
"But I am poor, as well as blind," was the reply.
"How can I promise such a princely offering?"
"You may give me your order for it, and pay it along as you are able," said the priest.
"Very well, give me pencil and paper," whereupon they retired to a house, and the blind man gave his order for the costly price of his sight.
Returning home weary, bruised, and hungry, he smiled to himself, in spite of his ill condition, at the thought of his giving an order for so much rice when he had not a grain of it to eat.
He obtained, finally, a little work in pounding rice in the stone mortars.
It was hard labor for one who had lived as he had done; but it kept them from starving, and his daughter prepared his food for him as nicely as she knew how.
One night, as the dinner was spread on the little, low table before him, sitting on the floor, the priest came and demanded his pay; the old blind man lost his appetite for his dinner, and refused to eat.
He had to explain to his daughter the compact he had made with the priest, and, while she was filled with grief, and dismayed at the enormity of the price, she yet seemed to have some hope that it might be accomplished and his sight restored.
That night, after her midnight bath, she lay down on a mat in the open air, and gazed up to heaven, to which she prayed that her poor father might be restored to health and sight.
While thus engaged, she fell asleep and dreamed that her mother came down from heaven to comfort her, and told her not to worry, that a means would be found for the payment of the rice, and that soon all would be happy again in the little family.
The next day she chanced to hear of the wants of a great merchant who sailed in his large boats to China for trade, but was greatly distressed by an evil spirit that lived in the water through which he must pass.
For some time, it was stated, he had not been able to take his boats over this dangerous place, and his loss therefrom was very great.
At last it was reported that he was willing and anxious to appease the spirit by making the offering the wise men had deemed necessary.
Priests had told him that the sacrifice of a young maiden to the spirit would quiet it and remove the trouble.
He was, therefore, anxious to find the proper person, and had offered a great sum to obtain such an one.
Sim Chung (our heroine), hearing of this, decided that it must be the fulfilment of her dream, and having determined to go and offer herself, she put on old clothes and fasted while journeying, that she might look wan and haggard, like one in mourning.
She had previously prepared food for her father, and explained to him that she wished to go and bow at her mother's grave, in return to her for having appeared to her in a dream.
When the merchant saw the applicant, he was at once struck with her beauty and dignity of carriage, in spite of her attempt to disguise herself.
He said that it was not in his heart to kill people especially maidens of such worth as she seemed to be.
He advised her not to apply; but she told her story and said she would give herself for the three hundred bags of rice.
"Ah!
now I see the true nobility of your character.
I did not know that such filial piety existed outside the works of the ancients.
I will send to my master and secure the rice," said the man, who happened to be but an overseer for a greater merchant.
She got the rice and took it to the priest in a long procession of one hundred and fifty ponies, each laboring under two heavy bags; the debt cancelled and her doom fixed, she felt the relaxation and grief necessarily consequent upon such a condition.
She could not explain to her father, she mourned over the loneliness that would come to him after she was gone, and wondered how he would support himself after she was removed and until his sight should be restored.
She lay down and prayed to heaven, saying: "I am only fourteen years old, and have but four more hours to live.
What will become of my poor father?
Oh!
who will care for him?
Kind heaven, protect him when I am gone."
Wild with grief she went and sat on her father's knee, but could not control her sobs and tears; whereupon he asked her what the trouble could be.
Having made up her mind that the time had come, and that the deed was done and could not be remedied, she decided to tell him, and tried to break it gently; but when the whole truth dawned upon the poor old man it nearly killed him.
He clasped her close to his bosom, and crying: "My child, my daughter, my only comfort, I will not let you go.
What will eyes be to me if I can no longer look upon your lovely face?"
They mingled their tears and sobs, and the neighbors, hearing the commotion in the usually quiet hut, came to see what was the trouble.
Upon ascertaining the reason of the old man's grief, they united in the general wailing.
Sim Chung begged them to come and care for the old man when she could look after him no more, and they agreed to do so.
While the wailing and heart breaking was going on, a stranger rode up on a donkey and asked for the Sim family.
He came just in time to see what the act was costing the poor people.
He comforted the girl by giving her a cheque for fifty bags of rice for the support of the father when his daughter should be no more.
She took it gratefully and gave it to the neighbors to keep in trust; she then prepared herself, took a last farewell, and left her fainting father to go to her bed in the sea.
In due time the boat that bore Sim Chung, at the head of a procession of boats, arrived at the place where the evil spirit reigned.
She was dressed in bridal garments furnished by the merchant.
On her arrival at the place, the kind merchant tried once more to appease the spirit by an offering of eatables, but it was useless, whereupon Sim Chung prayed to heaven, bade them all good-by, and leaped into the sea.
Above, all was quiet, the waves subsided, the sea became like a lake, and the boats passed on their way unmolested.
When Sim Chung regained her consciousness she was seated in a little boat drawn by fishes, and pretty maidens were giving her to drink from a carved jade bottle.
She asked them who they were, and where she was going.
They answered: "We are servants of the King of the Sea, and we are taking you to his palace."
Sim Chung wondered if this was death, and thought it very pleasant if it were.
They passed through forests of waving plants, and saw great lazy fish feeding about in the water, till at last they reached the confines of the palace.
Her amazement was then unbounded, for the massive walls were composed of precious stones, such as she had only heretofore seen used as ornaments.
Pearls were used to cover the heads of nails in the great doors through which they passed, and everywhere there seemed a most costly and lavish display of the precious gems and metals, while the walks were made of polished black marble that shone in the water.
The light, as it passed through the water, seemed to form most beautifully colored clouds, and the rainbow colors were everywhere disporting themselves.
Soon a mighty noise was heard, and they moved aside, while the King passed by preceded by an army with gayly colored and beautifully embroidered satin banners, each bearer blowing on an enormous shell.
The King was borne in a golden chair on the shoulders of one hundred men, followed by one hundred musicians and as many more beautiful "dancing girls," with wonderful head-dresses and rich costumes.
Sim Chung objected to going before such an august king, but she was assured of kind treatment, and, after being properly dressed by the sea maids, in garments suitable for the palace of the Sea King, she was borne in a chair on the shoulders of eunuchs to the King's apartments.
The King treated her with great respect, and all the maidens and eunuchs bowed before her.
She protested that she was not worthy of such attention.
"I am," she said, "but the daughter of a beggar, for whom I thought I was giving my life when rescued by these maidens.
I am in no way worthy of your respect."
The King smiled a little, and said: "Ah!
I know more of you than you know of yourself.
You must know that I am the Sea King, and that we know full well the doings of the stars which shine in the heaven above, for they continually visit us on light evenings.
Well, you were once a star.
Many say a beautiful one, for you had many admirers.
You favored one star more than the others, and, in your attentions to him, you abused your office as cup-bearer to the King of Heaven, and let your lover have free access to all of the choice wines of the palace.
In this way, before you were aware of it, the peculiar and choice brands that the King especially liked were consumed, and, upon examination, your fault became known.
As punishment, the King decided to banish you to earth, but fearing to send you both at once, lest you might be drawn together there, he sent your lover first, and after keeping you in prison for a long time, you were sent as daughter to your former lover.
He is the man you claim as father.
Heaven has seen your filial piety, however, and repents.
You will be hereafter most highly favored, as a reward for your dutiful conduct."
He then sent her to fine apartments prepared for her, where she was to rest and recuperate before going back to earth.
After a due period of waiting and feasting on royal food, Sim Chung's beauty was more than restored.
She had developed into a complete woman, and her beauty was dazzling; her cheeks seemed colored by the beautiful tints of the waters through which she moved with ease and comfort, while her mind blossomed forth like a flower in the rare society of the Sea King and his peculiarly gifted people.
When the proper time arrived for her departure for the world she had left, a large and beautiful flower was brought into her chamber.
It was so arranged that Sim Chung could conceal herself inside of it, while the delicious perfume and the juice of the plant were ample nourishment.
When she had bidden good-by to her peculiar friends and taken her place inside the flower, it was conveyed to the surface of the sea, at the place where she had plunged in.
She had not waited long in this strange position before a boat bore in sight.
It proved to be the vessel of her friend the merchant.
As he drew near his old place of danger he marvelled much at sight of such a beautiful plant, growing and blossoming in such a strange place, where once only evil was to be expected.
He was also well-nigh intoxicated by the powerful perfume exhaled from the plant.
Steering close he managed to secure the flower and place it safely in his boat, congratulating himself on securing so valuable and curious a present for his King.
For he decided at once to present it at the palace if he could succeed in getting it safely there.
The plan succeeded, the strange plant with its stranger tenant was duly presented to His Majesty, who was delighted with the gift, and spent his time gazing upon it to the exclusion of state business.
He had a glass house prepared for it in an inner court, and seemed never to tire of watching his new treasure.
At night, when all was quiet, Sim Chung was wont to come forth and rest herself by walking in the moonlight.
But, on one occasion, the King, being indisposed and restless, thought he would go to breathe the rich perfume of the strange flower and rest himself.
In this way he chanced to see Sim Chung before she could conceal herself, and, of course, his surprise was unbounded.
He accosted her, not without fear, demanding who she might be.
She, being also afraid, took refuge in her flower, when, to the amazement of both, the flower vanished, leaving her standing alone where it had been but a moment before.
The King was about to flee, at this point, but she called to him not to fear, that she was but a human being, and no spirit as he doubtless supposed.
The King drew near, and was at once lost in admiration of her matchless beauty, when a great noise was heard outside, and eunuchs came, stating that all the generals with the heads of departments were asking for an audience on very important business.
His Majesty very reluctantly went to see what it all meant.
An officer versed in astronomy stated that they had, on the previous night, observed a brilliant star descend from heaven and alight upon the palace, and that they believed it boded good to the royal family.
Then the King told of the flower, and the wonderful apparition he had seen in the divine maiden.
It so happened that the queen was deceased, and it was soon decided that the King should take this remarkable maiden for his wife.
The marriage was announced, and preparations all made.
As the lady was without parents, supposably, the ceremony took place at the royal wedding hall, and was an occasion of great state.
Never was man more charmed by woman than in this case.
The King would not leave her by day or night, and the business of state was almost totally neglected.
At last Sim Chung chided her husband, telling him it was not manly for the King to spend all his time in the women's quarters; that if he cared so little for the rule as to neglect it altogether, others might find occasion to usurp his place.
She enjoined upon him the necessity of giving the days to his business, and being content to spend the nights with her.
He saw her wisdom, and remarked upon it, promising to abide by her advice.
After some time spent in such luxury, Sim Chung became lonely and mourned for her poor father, but despaired of being able to see him.
She knew not if he were alive or dead, and the more she thought of it the more she mourned, till tears were in her heart continually, and not infrequently overflowed from her beautiful eyes.
The King chanced to see her weeping, and was solicitous to know the cause of her sorrow, whereupon she answered that she was oppressed by a strange dream concerning a poor blind man, and was desirous of alleviating in some way the sufferings of the many blind men in the country.
Again the King marvelled at her great heart, and offered to do any thing towards carrying out her noble purpose.
Together they agreed that they would summon all the blind men of the country to a great feast, at which they should be properly clothed, amply fed, and treated each to a present of cash.
The edict was issued, and on the day appointed for the feast, the Queen secreted herself in a pavilion, from which she could look down and fully observe the strange assemblage.
She watched the first day, but saw no one who resembled her lost parent; again the second day she held her earnest vigil, but in vain.
She was about to give up her quest as useless and mourn over the loss of her father, when, as the feast was closing on the third day, a feeble old man in rags came tottering up.
The attendants, having served so many, were treating this poor fellow with neglect, and were about to drive him away as too late when the Queen ordered them whipped and the old man properly fed.
He seemed well-nigh starved, and grasped at the food set before him with the eagerness of an animal.
There seemed to be something about this forlorn creature that arrested and engaged the attention of the Queen, and the attendants, noticing this, were careful to clothe him with extra care.
When sufficient time had elapsed for the satisfying of his hunger, he was ordered brought to the Queen's pavilion, where Her Majesty scrutinized him closely for a few moments, and then, to the surprise and dismay of all her attendants, she screamed: "My father!
my father!"
and fell at his feet senseless.
Her maids hurried off to tell the King of the strange conduct of their mistress, and he came to see for himself.
By rubbing her limbs and applying strong-smelling medicines to her nostrils, the fainting Queen was restored to consciousness, and allowed to tell her peculiar and interesting story.
The King had heard much of it previously.
But the poor old blind man could barely collect his senses sufficiently to grasp the situation.
As the full truth began to dawn upon him, he cried: "Oh!
my child, can the dead come back to us?
I hear your voice; I feel your form; but how can I know it is you, for I have no eyes?
Away with these sightless orbs!"
And he tore at his eyes with his nails, when to his utter amazement and joy, the scales fell away, and he stood rejoicing in his sight once more.
His Majesty was overjoyed to have his lovely Queen restored to her wonted happy frame of mind.
He made the old man an officer of high rank, appointed him a fine house, and had him married to the accomplished daughter of an officer of suitable rank, thereby fulfilling the last of the prophecy of both the aged priest and the King of the Sea.
HONG KIL TONG; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF AN ABUSED BOY.
During the reign of the third king in Korea there lived a noble of high rank and noted family, by name Hong.
His title was Ye Cho Pansa.
He had two sons by his wife and one by one of his concubines.
The latter son was very remarkable from his birth to his death, and he it is who forms the subject of this history.
When Hong Pansa was the father of but two sons, he dreamed by night on one occasion that he heard the noise of thunder, and looking up he saw a huge dragon entering his apartment, which seemed too small to contain the whole of his enormous body.
The dream was so startling as to awaken the sleeper, who at once saw that it was a good omen, and a token to him of a blessing about to be conferred.
He hoped the blessing might prove to be another son, and went to impart the good news to his wife.
She would not see him, however, as she was offended by his taking a concubine from the class of "dancing girls."
The great man was sad, and went away.
Within the year, however, a son of marvellous beauty was born to one concubine, much to the annoyance of his wife and to himself, for he would have been glad to have the beautiful boy a full son, and eligible to office.
The child was named Kil Tong, or Hong Kil Tong.
He grew fast, and became more and more beautiful.
He learned rapidly, and surprised every one by his remarkable ability.
As he grew up he rebelled at being placed with the slaves, and at not being allowed to call his parent, father.
The other children laughed and jeered at him, and made life very miserable.
He refused longer to study of the duties of children to their parents.
He upset his table in school, and declared he was going to be a soldier.
One bright moonlight night Hong Pansa saw his son in the court-yard practising the arts of the soldier, and he asked him what it meant.
Kil Tong answered that he was fitting himself to become a man that people should respect and fear.
He said he knew that heaven had made all things for the use of men, if they found themselves capable of using them, and that the laws of men were only made to assist a few that could not otherwise do as they would; but that he was not inclined to submit to any such tyranny, but would become a great man in spite of his evil surroundings.
"This is a most remarkable boy," mused Hong Pansa.
"What a pity that he is not my proper and legitimate son, that he might be an honor to my name.
As it is, I fear he will cause me serious trouble."
He urged the boy to go to bed and sleep, but Kil Tong said it was useless, that if he went to bed he would think of his troubles till the tears washed sleep away from his eyes, and caused him to get up.
The wife of Hong Pansa and his other concubine (the dancing girl), seeing how much their lord and master thought of Kil Tong, grew to hate the latter intensely, and began to lay plans for ridding themselves of him.
They called some mootang, or sorceresses, and explained to them that their happiness was disturbed by this son of a rival, and that peace could only be restored to their hearts by the death of this youth.
The witches laughed and said: "Never mind.
There is an old woman who lives by the east gate, tell her to come and prejudice the father.
She can do it, and he will then look after his son."
The old hag came as requested.
Hong Pansa was then in the women's apartments, telling them of the wonderful boy, much to their annoyance.
A visitor was announced, and the old woman made a low bow outside.
Hong Pansa asked her what her business was, and she stated that she had heard of his wonderful son, and came to see him, to foretell what his future was to be.
Kil Tong came as called, and on seeing him the hag bowed and said: "Send out all of the people."
She then stated: "This will be a very great man; if not a king, he will be greater than the king, and will avenge his early wrongs by killing all his family."
At this the father called to her to stop, and enjoined strict secrecy upon her.
He sent Kil Tong at once to a strong room, and had him locked in for safe keeping.
The boy was very sad at this new state of affairs, but as his father let him have books, he got down to hard study, and learned the Chinese works on astronomy.
He could not see his mother, and his unnatural father was too afraid to come near him.
He made up his mind, however, that as soon as he could get out he would go to some far off country, where he was not known, and make his true power felt.
Meanwhile, the unnatural father was kept in a state of continual excitement by his wicked concubine, who was bent on the destruction of the son of her rival, and kept constantly before her master the great dangers that would come to him from being the parent of such a man as Kil Tong was destined to be, if allowed to live.
She showed him that such power as the boy was destined to possess, would eventually result in his overthrowal, and with him his father's house would be in disgrace, and, doubtless, would be abolished.
While if this did not happen, the son was sure to kill his family, so that, in either case, it was the father's clear duty to prevent any further trouble by putting the boy out of the way.
Hong Pansa was finally persuaded that his concubine was right, and sent for the assassins to come and kill his son.
But a spirit filled the father with disease, and he told the men to stay their work.
Medicines failed to cure the disease, and the mootang women were called in by the concubine.
They beat their drums and danced about the room, conjuring the spirit to leave, but it would not obey.
At last they said, at the suggestion of the concubine, that Kil Tong was the cause of the disorder, and that with his death the spirit would cease troubling the father.
Again the assassins were sent for, and came with their swords, accompanied by the old hag from the east gate.
While they were meditating on the death of Kil Tong, he was musing on the unjust laws of men who allowed sons to be born of concubines, but denied them rights that were enjoyed by other men.
While thus musing in the darkness of the night, he heard a crow caw three times and fly away.
"This means something ill to me," thought he; and just then his window was thrown open, and in stepped the assassins.
They made at the boy, but he was not there.
In their rage they wounded each other, and killed the old woman who was their guide.
To their amazement the room had disappeared, and they were surrounded by high mountains.
A mighty storm arose, and rocks flew through the air.
They could not escape, and, in their terror, were about to give up, when music was heard, and a boy came riding by on a donkey, playing a flute.
He took away their weapons, and showed himself to be Kil Tong.
He promised not to kill them, as they begged for their lives, but only on condition that they should never try to kill another man.
He told them that he would know if the promise was broken, and, in that event, he would instantly kill them.
Kil Tong went by night to see his father, who thought him a spirit, and was very much afraid.
He gave his father medicine, which instantly cured him; and sending for his mother, bade her good-by, and started for an unknown country.
His father was very glad that the boy had escaped, and lost his affection for his wicked concubine.
But the latter, with her mistress, was very angry, and tried in vain to devise some means to accomplish their evil purposes.
Kil Tong, free at last, journeyed to the south, and began to ascend the lonely mountains.
Tigers were abundant, but he feared them not, and they seemed to avoid molesting him.
After many days, he found himself high up on a barren peak enveloped by the clouds, and enjoyed the remoteness of the place, and the absence of men and obnoxious laws.
He now felt himself a free man, and the equal of any, while he knew that heaven was smiling upon him and giving him powers not accorded to other men.
Through the clouds at some distance he thought he espied a huge stone door in the bare wall of rock.
Going up to it, he found it to be indeed a movable door, and, opening it, he stepped inside, when, to his amazement, he found himself in an open plain, surrounded by high and inaccessible mountains.
He saw before him over two hundred good houses, and many men, who, when they had somewhat recovered from their own surprise, came rushing upon him, apparently with evil intent.
Laying hold upon him they asked him who he was, and why he came trespassing upon their ground.
He said: "I am surprised to find myself in the presence of men.
I am but the son of a concubine, and men, with their laws, are obnoxious to me.
Therefore, I thought to get away from man entirely, and, for that reason, I wandered alone into these wild regions.
But who are you, and why do you live in this lone spot?
Perhaps we may have a kindred feeling."
"We are called thieves," was answered; "but we only despoil the hated official class of some of their ill-gotten gains.
We are willing to help the poor unbeknown, but no man can enter our stronghold and depart alive, unless he has become one of us.
To do so, however, he must prove himself to be strong in body and mind.
If you can pass the examination and wish to join our party, well and good; otherwise you die."
This suited Kil Tong immensely, and he consented to the conditions.
They gave him various trials of strength, but he chose his own.
Going up to a huge rock on which several men were seated, he laid hold of it and hurled it to some distance, to the dismay of the men, who fell from their seat, and to the surprised delight of all.
He was at once installed a member, and a feast was ordered.
The contract was sealed by mingling blood from the lips of all the members with blood similarly supplied by Kil Tong.
He was then given a prominent seat and served to wine and food.
Kil Tong soon became desirous of giving to his comrades some manifestation of his courage.
An opportunity presently offered.
He heard the men bemoaning their inability to despoil a large and strong Buddhist temple not far distant.
As was the rule, this temple in the mountains was well patronized by officials, who made it a place of retirement for pleasure and debauch, and in return the lazy, licentious priests were allowed to collect tribute from the poor people about, till they had become rich and powerful.
The several attempts made by the robber band had proved unsuccessful, by virtue of the number and vigilance of the priests, together with the strength of their enclosure.
Kil Tong agreed to assist them to accomplish their design or perish in the attempt, and such was their faith in him that they readily agreed to his plans.
On a given day Kil Tong, dressed in the red gown of a youth, just betrothed, covered himself with the dust of travel, and mounted on a donkey, with one robber disguised as a servant, made his way to the temple.
He asked on arrival to be shown to the head priest, to whom he stated that he was the son of Hong Pansa, that his noble father having heard of the greatness of this temple, and the wisdom of its many priests, had decided to send him with a letter, which he produced, to be educated among their numbers.
He also stated that a train of one hundred ponies loaded with rice had been sent as a present from his father to the priest, and he expected they would arrive before dark, as they did not wish to stop alone in the mountains, even though every pony was attended by a groom, who was armed for defense.
The priests were delighted, and having read the letter, they never for a moment suspected that all was not right.
A great feast was ordered in honor of their noble scholar, and all sat down before the tables, which were filled so high that one could hardly see his neighbor on the opposite side.
They had scarcely seated themselves and indulged in the generous wine, when it was announced that the train of ponies laden with rice had arrived.
Servants were sent to look after the tribute, and the eating and drinking went on.
Suddenly Kil Tong clapped his hand, over his cheek with a cry of pain, which drew the attention of all.
When, to the great mortification of the priests, he produced from his mouth a pebble, previously introduced on the sly, and exclaimed: "Is it to feed on stones that my father sent me to this place?
What do you mean by setting such rice before a gentleman?"
The priests were filled with mortification and dismay, and bowed their shaven heads to the floor in humiliation.
When at a sign from Kil Tong, a portion of the robbers, who had entered the court as grooms to the ponies, seized the bending priests and bound them as they were.
The latter shouted for help, but the other robbers, who had been concealed in the bags, which were supposed to contain rice, seized the servants, while others were loading the ponies with jewels, rice, cash and whatever of value they could lay hands upon.
An old priest who was attending to the fires, seeing the uproar, made off quietly to the yamen near by and called for soldiers.
The soldiers were sent after some delay, and Kil Tong, disguised as a priest, called to them to follow him down a by-path after the robbers.
While he conveyed the soldiers over this rough path, the robbers made good their escape by the main road, and were soon joined in their stronghold by their youthful leader, who had left the soldiers groping helplessly in the dark among the rocks and trees in a direction opposite that taken by the robbers.
The priests soon found out that they had lost almost all their riches, and were at no loss in determining how the skilful affair had been planned and carried out.
Kil Tong's name was noised abroad, and it was soon known that he was heading a band of robbers, who, through his assistance, were able to do many marvellous things.
The robber band were delighted at the success of his first undertaking, and made him their chief, with the consent of all.
After sufficient time had elapsed for the full enjoyment of their last and greatest success, Kil Tong planned a new raid.
The Governor of a neighboring province was noted for his overbearing ways and the heavy burdens that he laid upon his subjects.
He was very rich, but universally hated, and Kil Tong decided to avenge the people and humiliate the Governor, knowing that his work would be appreciated by the people, as were indeed his acts at the temple.
He instructed his band to proceed singly to the Governor's city--the local capital--at the time of a fair, when their coming would not cause comment.
At a given time a portion of them were to set fire to a lot of straw-thatched huts outside the city gates, while the others repaired in a body to the Governor's yamen.
They did so.
The Governor was borne in his chair to a place where he could witness the conflagration, which also drew away the most of the inhabitants.
The robbers bound the remaining servants, and while some were securing money, jewels, and weapons, Kil Tong wrote on the walls: "The wicked Governor that robs the people is relieved of his ill-gotten gains by Kil Tong--the people's avenger."
Again the thieves made good their escape, and Kil Tong's name became known everywhere.
The Governor offered a great reward for his capture, but no one seemed desirous of encountering a robber of such boldness.
At last the King offered a reward after consulting with his officers.
When one of them said he would capture the thief alone, the King was astonished at his boldness and courage, and bade him be off and make the attempt.
The officer was called the Pochang; he had charge of the prisons, and was a man of great courage.
The Pochang started on his search, disguised as a traveller.
He took a donkey and servant, and after travelling many days he put up at a little inn, at the same time that another man on a donkey rode up.
The latter was Kil Tong in disguise, and he soon entered into conversation with the man, whose mission was known to him.
"I goo," said Kil Tong, as he sat down to eat, "this is a dangerous country.
I have just been chased by the robber Kil Tong till the life is about gone out of me."
"Kil Tong, did you say?"
remarked Pochang.
"I wish he would chase me.
I am anxious to see the man of whom we hear so much."
"Well, if you see him once you will be satisfied," replied Kil Tong.
"Why?"
asked the Pochang.
"Is he such a fearful-looking man as to frighten one by his aspect alone?"
"No; on the contrary he looks much as do ordinary mortals.
But we know he is different, you see."
"Exactly," said the Pochang.
"That is just the trouble.
You are afraid of him before you see him.
Just let me get a glimpse of him, and matters will be different, I think."
"Well," said Kil Tong, "you can be easily pleased, if that is all, for I dare say if you go back into the mountains here you will see him, and get acquainted with him too."
"That is good.
Will you show me the place?"
"Not I. I have seen enough of him to please me.
I can tell you where to go, however, if you persist in your curiosity," said the robber.
"Agreed!"
exclaimed the officer.
"Let us be off at once lest he escapes.
And if you succeed in showing him to me, I will reward you for your work and protect you from the thief."
After some objection by Kil Tong, who appeared to be reluctant to go, and insisted on at least finishing his dinner, they started off, with their servants, into the mountains.
Night overtook them, much to the apparent dismay of the guide, who pretended to be very anxious to give up the quest.
At length, however, they came to the stone door, which was open.
Having entered the robber's stronghold, the door closed behind them, and the guide disappeared, leaving the dismayed officer surrounded by the thieves.
His courage had now left him, and he regretted his rashness.
The robbers bound him securely and led him past their miniature city into an enclosure surrounded by houses which, by their bright colors, seemed to be the abode of royalty.
He was conveyed into a large audience-chamber occupying the most extensive building of the collection, and there, on a sort of throne, in royal style, sat his guide.
The Pochang saw his mistake, and fell on his face, begging for mercy.
Kil Tong upbraided him for his impudence and arrogance and promised to let him off this time.
Wine was brought, and all partook of it.
That given to the officer was drugged, and he fell into a stupor soon after drinking it.
While in this condition he was put into a bag and conveyed in a marvellous manner to a high mountain overlooking the capital.
Here he found himself upon recovering from the effects of his potion; and not daring to face his sovereign with such a fabulous tale, he cast himself down from the high mountain, and was picked up dead, by passers-by, in the morning.
Almost at the same time that His Majesty received word of the death of his officer, and was marvelling at the audacity of the murderer in bringing the body almost to the palace doors, came simultaneous reports of great depredations in each of the eight provinces.
The trouble was in each case attributed to Kil Tong, and the fact that he was reported as being in eight far removed places at the same time caused great consternation.
Official orders were issued to each of the eight governors to catch and bring to the city, at once, the robber Kil Tong.
These orders were so well obeyed that upon a certain day soon after, a guard came from each province bringing Kil Tong, and there in a line stood eight men alike in every respect.
The King on inquiry found that Kil Tong was the son of Hong Pansa, and the father was ordered into the royal presence.
He came with his legitimate son, and bowed his head in shame to the ground.
When asked what he meant by having a son who would cause such general misery and distress, he swooned away, and would have died had not one of the Kil Tongs produced some medicine which cured him.
The son, however, acted as spokesman, and informed the King that Kil Tong was but the son of his father's slave, that he was utterly incorrigible, and had fled from home when a mere boy.
When asked to decide as to which was his true son, the father stated that his son had a scar on the left thigh.
Instantly each of the eight men pulled up the baggy trousers and displayed a scar.
The guard was commanded to remove the men and kill all of them; but when they attempted to do so the life had disappeared, and the men were found to be only figures in straw and wax.
Soon after this a letter was seen posted on the Palace gate, announcing that if the government would confer upon Kil Tong the rank of Pansa, as held by his father, and thus remove from him the stigma attaching to him as the son of a slave, he would stop his depredations.
This proposition could not be entertained at first, but one of the counsel suggested that it might offer a solution of the vexed question, and they could yet be spared the disgrace of having an officer with such a record.
For, as he proposed, men could be so stationed that when the newly-appointed officer came to make his bow before His Majesty, they could fall upon him and kill him before he arose.
This plan was greeted with applause, and a decree was issued conferring the desired rank; proclamations to that effect being posted in public places, so that the news would reach Kil Tong.
It did reach him, and he soon appeared at the city gate.
A great crowd attended him as he rode to the Palace gates; but knowing the plans laid for him, as he passed through the gates and came near enough to be seen of the King, he was caught up in a cloud and borne away amid strange music; wholly discomfiting his enemies.
Some time after this occurrence the King was walking with a few eunuchs and attendants in the royal gardens.
It was evening time, but the full moon furnished ample light.
The atmosphere was tempered just to suit; it was neither cold nor warm, while it lacked nothing of the bracing character of a Korean autumn.
The leaves were blood-red on the maples; the heavy cloak of climbing vines that enshrouded the great wall near by was also beautifully colored.
These effects could even be seen by the bright moonlight, and seated on a hill-side the royal party were enjoying the tranquillity of the scene, when all were astonished by the sound of a flute played by some one up above them.
Looking up among the tree-tops a man was seen descending toward them, seated upon the back of a gracefully moving stork.
The King imagined it must be some heavenly being, and ordered the chief eunuch to make some proper salutation.
But before this could be done, a voice was heard saying: "Fear not, O King.
I am simply Hong Pansa [Kil Tong's new title].
I have come to make my obeisance before your august presence and be confirmed in my rank."
This he did, and no one attempted to molest him; seeing which, the King, feeling that it was useless longer to attempt to destroy a man who could read the unspoken thoughts of men, said: "Why do you persist in troubling the country?
I have removed from you now the stigma attached to your birth.
What more will you have?"
"I wish," said Kil Tong, with due humility, "to go to a distant land, and settle down to the pursuit of peace and happiness.
If I may be granted three thousand bags of rice I will gladly go and trouble you no longer."
"But how will you transport such an enormous quantity of rice?"
asked the King.
"That can be arranged," said Kil Tong.
"If I may be but granted the order, I will remove the rice at daybreak."
The order was given.
Kil Tong went away as he came, and in the early morning a fleet of junks appeared off the royal granaries, took on the rice, and made away before the people were well aware of their presence.
Kil Tong now sailed for an island off the west coast.
He found one uninhabited, and with his few followers he stored his riches, and brought many articles of value from his former hiding-places.
His people he taught to till the soil, and all went well on the little island till the master made a trip to a neighboring island, which was famous for its deadly mineral poison,--a thing much prized for tipping the arrows with.
Kil Tong wanted to get some of this poison, and made a visit to the island.
While passing through the settled districts he casually noticed that many copies of a proclamation were posted up, offering a large reward to any one who would succeed in restoring to her father a young lady who had been stolen by a band of savage people who lived in the mountains.
Kil Tong journeyed on all day, and at night he found himself high up in the wild mountain regions, where the poison was abundant.
Gazing about in making some preparations for passing the night in this place, he saw a light, and following it, he came to a house built below him on a ledge of rocks, and in an almost inaccessible position.
He could see the interior of a large hall, where were gathered many hairy, shaggy-looking men, eating, drinking, and smoking.
One old fellow, who seemed to be chief, was tormenting a young lady by trying to tear away her veil and expose her to the gaze of the barbarians assembled.
Kil Tong could not stand this sight, and, taking a poisoned arrow, he sent it direct for the heart of the villain, but the distance was so great that he missed his mark sufficiently to only wound the arm.
All were amazed, and in the confusion the girl escaped, and Kil Tong concealed himself for the night.
He was seen next day by some of the savage band, who caught him, and demanded who he was and why he was found in the mountains.
He answered that he was a physician, and had come up there to collect a certain rare medicine only known to exist in those mountains.
The robbers seemed rejoiced, and explained that their chief had been wounded by an arrow from the clouds, and asked him if he could cure him.
Kil Tong was taken in and allowed to examine the chief, when he agreed to cure him within three days.
Hastily mixing up some of the fresh poison, he put it into the wound, and the chief died almost at once.
Great was the uproar when the death became known.
All rushed at the doctor, and would have killed him, but Kil Tong, finding his own powers inadequate, summoned to his aid his old friends the spirits (quay sin), and swords flashed in the air, striking off heads at every blow, and not ceasing till the whole band lay weltering in their own blood.
Bursting open a door, Kil Tong saw two women sitting with covered faces, and supposing them to be of the same strange people, he was about to dispatch them on the spot, when one of them threw aside her veil and implored for mercy.
Then it was that Kil Tong recognized the maiden whom he had rescued the previous evening.
She was marvellously beautiful, and already he was deeply smitten with her maidenly charms.
Her voice seemed like that of an angel of peace sent to quiet the hearts of rough men.
As she modestly begged for her life, she told the story of her capture by the robbers, and how she had been dragged away to their den, and was only saved from insult by the interposition of some heavenly being, who had in pity smote the arm of her tormentor.
Great was Kil Tong's joy at being able to explain his own part in the matter, and the maiden heart, already won by the manly beauty of her rescuer, now overflowed with gratitude and love.
Remembering herself, however, she quickly veiled her face, but the mischief had been done; each had seen the other, and they could henceforth know no peace, except in each other's presence.
The proclamations had made but little impression upon Kil Tong, and it was not till the lady had told her story that he remembered reading them.
He at once took steps to remove the beautiful girl and her companion in distress, and not knowing but that other of the savages might return, he did not dare to make search for a chair and bearers, but mounting donkeys the little party set out for the home of the distressed parents, which they reached safely in due time.
The father's delight knew no bounds.
He was a subject of Korea's King, yet he possessed this island and ruled its people in his own right.
And calling his subjects, he explained to them publicly the wonderful works of the stranger, to whom he betrothed his daughter, and to whom he gave his official position.
The people indulged in all manner of gay festivities in honor of the return of the lost daughter of their chief; in respect to the bravery of Kil Tong; and to celebrate his advent as their ruler.
In due season the marriage ceremonies were celebrated, and the impatient lovers were given to each other's embrace.
Their lives were full of happiness and prosperity.
Other outlying islands were united under Kil Tong's rule, and no desire or ambition remained ungratified.
Yet there came a time when the husband grew sad, and tears swelled the heart of the young wife as she tried in vain to comfort him.
He explained at last that he had a presentiment that his father was either dead or dying, and that it was his duty to go and mourn at the grave.
With anguish at the thought of parting, the wife urged him to go.
Taking a junk laden with handsome marble slabs for the grave and statuary to surround it, and followed by junks bearing three thousand bags of rice, he set out for the capital.
Arriving, he cut off his hair, and repaired to his old home, where a servant admitted him on the supposition that he was a priest.
He found his father was no more; but the body yet remained, because a suitable place could not be found for the burial.
Thinking him to be a priest, Kil Tong was allowed to select the spot, and the burial took place with due ceremony.
Then it was that the son revealed himself, and took his place with the mourners.
The stone images and monuments were erected upon the nicely sodded grounds.
Kil Tong sent the rice he had brought, to the government granaries in return for the King's loan to him, and regretted that mourning would prevent his paying his respects to his King; he set out for his home with his true mother and his father's legal wife.
The latter did not survive long after the death of her husband, but the poor slave-mother of the bright boy was spared many years to enjoy the peace and quiet of her son's bright home, and to be ministered to by her dutiful, loving children and their numerous offspring.
THE END.
NOTES [1] This law has recently been repealed, owing to the fact that bad men often molested the women, who are usually possessed of costly jewels.
The husbands are now allowed on the streets as a protection, since even the police were unable to suppress the outrages alone.
[2] Cats are indeed rare in Korea, while dogs are as abundant as in Constantinople.
[3] After reaching girlhood persons of respectability are not seen on the streets in Korea.
KOREAN FOLK TALES IMPS, GHOSTS AND FAIRIES TRANSLATED FROM THE KOREAN OF IM BANG AND YI RYUK BY JAMES S. GALE London: J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd. New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO. 1913 TO MY LITTLE SON GEORGE JAMES MORLEY THE DAYS OF WHOSE YEARS ARE TWO EASTERN SPRINGS AND AUTUMNS PREFACE To any one who would like to look somewhat into the inner soul of the Oriental, and see the peculiar spiritual existences among which he lives, the following stories will serve as true interpreters, born as they are of the three great religions of the Far East, Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism.
An old manuscript copy of Im Bang's stories came into the hands of the translator a year ago, and he gives them now to the Western world that they may serve as introductory essays to the mysteries, and, what many call, absurdities of Asia.
Very gruesome indeed, and unlovely, some of them are, but they picture faithfully the conditions under which Im Bang himself, and many past generations of Koreans, have lived.
The thirteen short stories by Yi Ryuk are taken from a reprint of old Korean writings issued last year (1911), by a Japanese publishing company.
Three anonymous stories are also added, "The Geomancer," to show how Mother Earth has given anxiety to her chicks of children; "Im, the Hunter," to tell of the actualities that exist in the upper air; and "The Man who lost his Legs," as a sample of Korea's Sinbad.
The biographical notes that accompany the stories are taken very largely from the Kuk-cho In-mul-chi, "Korea's Record of Famous Men."
J. S. Gale.
CONTENTS PAGE I CHARAN 1 II THE STORY OF CHANG TO-RYONG 18 III A STORY OF THE FOX 26 IV CHEUNG PUK-CHANG, THE SEER 29 V YUN SE-PYONG, THE WIZARD 36 VI THE WILD-CAT WOMAN 41 VII THE ILL-FATED PRIEST 44 VIII THE VISION OF THE HOLY MAN 47 IX THE VISIT OF THE MAN OF GOD 52 X THE LITERARY MAN OF IMSIL 54 XI THE SOLDIER OF KANG-WHA 58 XII CURSED BY THE SNAKE 60 XIII THE MAN ON THE ROAD 63 XIV THE OLD MAN WHO BECAME A FISH 66 XV THE GEOMANCER 69 XVI THE MAN WHO BECAME A PIG 73 XVII THE OLD WOMAN WHO BECAME A GOBLIN 78 XVIII THE GRATEFUL GHOST 80 XIX THE PLUCKY MAIDEN 83 XX THE RESOURCEFUL WIFE 90 XXI THE BOXED-UP GOVERNOR 92 XXII THE MAN WHO LOST HIS LEGS 100 XXIII TEN THOUSAND DEVILS 104 XXIV THE HOME OF THE FAIRIES 111 XXV THE HONEST WITCH 125 XXVI WHOM THE KING HONORS 130 XXVII THE FORTUNES OF YOO 133 XXVIII AN ENCOUNTER WITH A HOBGOBLIN 141 XXIX THE SNAKE'S REVENGE 146 XXX THE BRAVE MAGISTRATE 150 XXXI THE TEMPLE TO THE GOD OF WAR 153 XXXII A VISIT FROM THE SHADES 157 XXXIII THE FEARLESS CAPTAIN 162 XXXIV THE KING OF YOM-NA (HELL) 165 XXXV HONG'S EXPERIENCES IN HADES 171 XXXVI HAUNTED HOUSES 177 XXXVII IM, THE HUNTER 182 XXXVIII THE MAGIC INVASION OF SEOUL 188 XXXIX THE AWFUL LITTLE GOBLIN 191 XL GOD'S WAY 194 XLI THE OLD MAN IN THE DREAM 196 XLII THE PERFECT PRIEST 198 XLIII THE PROPITIOUS MAGPIE 200 XLIV THE 'OLD BUDDHA' 202 XLV A WONDERFUL MEDICINE 204 XLVI FAITHFUL MO 205 XLVII THE RENOWNED MAING 208 XLVIII THE SENSES 210 XLIX WHO DECIDES, GOD OR THE KING?
211 L THREE THINGS MASTERED 213 LI STRANGELY STRICKEN DEAD 215 LII THE MYSTERIOUS HOI TREE 217 LIII TA-HONG 219 BIOGRAPHICAL Im Bang was born in 1640, the son of a provincial governor.
He was very bright as a boy and from earliest years fond of study, becoming a great scholar.
He matriculated first in his class in 1660, and graduated in 1663.
He was a disciple of Song Si-yol, one of Korea's first writers.
In 1719, when he was in his eightieth year, he became governor of Seoul, and held as well the office of secretary of the Cabinet.
In the year 1721 he got into difficulties over the choice of the Heir Apparent, and in 1722, on account of a part he played in a disturbance in the government, he was exiled to North Korea, where he died.
(From Kuk-cho In-mul-chi, "Korea's Record of Famous Men.")
Yi Ryuk lived in the reign of King Se-jo, matriculated in 1459, and graduated first in his class in 1564.
He was a man of many offices and many distinctions in the way of literary excellence.
"Korea's Record of Famous Men."
KOREAN IMPS, GHOSTS AND FAIRIES I CHARAN [Some think that love, strong, true, and self-sacrificing, is not to be found in the Orient; but the story of Charan, which comes down four hundred years and more, proves the contrary, for it still has the fresh, sweet flavour of a romance of yesterday; albeit the setting of the East provides an odd and interesting background.]
In the days of King Sung-jong (A.D. 1488-1495) one of Korea's noted men became governor of Pyong-an Province.
Now Pyong-an stands first of all the eight provinces in the attainments of erudition and polite society.
Many of her literati are good musicians, and show ability in the affairs of State.
At the time of this story there was a famous dancing girl in Pyong-an whose name was Charan.
She was very beautiful, and sang and danced to the delight of all beholders.
Her ability, too, was specially marked, for she understood the classics and was acquainted with history.
The brightest of all the geisha was she, famous and far-renowned.
The Governor's family consisted of a son, whose age was sixteen, and whose face was comely as a picture.
Though so young, he was thoroughly grounded in Chinese, and was a gifted scholar.
His judgment was excellent, and he had a fine appreciation of literary form, so that the moment he lifted his pen the written line took on admirable expression.
His name became known as Keydong (The Gifted Lad).
The Governor had no other children, neither son nor daughter, so his heart was wrapped up in this boy.
On his birthday he had all the officials invited and other special guests, who came to drink his health.
There were present also a company of dancing-girls and a large band of musicians.
The Governor, during a lull in the banquet, called his son to him, and ordered the chief of the dancing-girls to choose one of the prettiest of their number, that he and she might dance together and delight the assembled guests.
On hearing this, the company, with one accord, called for Charan, as the one suited by her talents, attainments and age to be a fitting partner for his son.
They came out and danced like fairies, graceful as the wavings of the willow, light and airy as the swallow.
All who saw them were charmed.
The Governor, too, greatly pleased, called Charan to him, had her sit on the dais, treated her to a share in the banquet, gave her a present of silk, and commanded that from that day forth she be the special dancing maiden to attend upon his son.
From this birthday forth they became fast friends together.
They thought the world of each other.
More than all the delightful stories of history was their love--such as had never been seen.
The Governor's term of office was extended for six years more, and so they remained in the north country.
Finally, at the time of return, he and his wife were in great anxiety over their son being separated from Charan.
If they were to force them to separate, they feared he would die of a broken heart.
If they took her with them, she not being his wife, they feared for his reputation.
They could not possibly decide, so they concluded to refer the matter to the son himself.
They called him and said, "Even parents cannot decide as to the love of their son for a maiden.
What ought we to do?
You love Charan so that it will be very hard for you to part, and yet to have a dancing-girl before you are married is not good form, and will interfere with your marriage prospects and promotion.
However, the having of a second wife is a common custom in Korea, and one that the world recognizes.
Do as you think best in the matter."
The son replied, "There is no difficulty; when she is before my eyes, of course she is everything, but when the time comes for me to start for home she will be like a pair of worn shoes, set aside; so please do not be anxious."
The Governor and his wife were greatly delighted, and said he was a "superior man" indeed.
When the time came to part Charan cried bitterly, so that those standing by could not bear to look at her; but the son showed not the slightest sign of emotion.
Those looking on were filled with wonder at his fortitude.
Although he had already loved Charan for six years, he had never been separated from her for a single day, so he knew not what it meant to say Good-bye, nor did he know how it felt to be parted.
The Governor returned to Seoul to fill the office of Chief Justice, and the son came also.
After this return thoughts of love for Charan possessed Keydong, though he never expressed them in word or manner.
It was almost the time of the Kam-see Examination.
The father, therefore, ordered his son to go with some of his friends to a neighbouring monastery to study and prepare.
They went, and one night, after the day's work was over and all were asleep, the young man stole out into the courtyard.
It was winter, with frost and snow and a cold, clear moon.
The mountains were deep and the world was quiet, so that the slightest sound could be heard.
The young man looked up at the moon and his thoughts were full of sorrow.
He so wished to see Charan that he could no longer control himself, and fearing that he would lose his reason, he decided that very night to set out for far-distant Pyong-an.
He had on a fur head-dress, a thick coat, a leather belt and a heavy pair of shoes.
When he had gone less than ten lee, however, his feet were blistered, and he had to go into a neighbouring village and change his leather shoes for straw sandals, and his expensive head-cover for an ordinary servant's hat.
He went thus on his way, begging as he went.
He was often very hungry, and when night came, was very, very cold.
He was a rich man's son and had always dressed in silk and eaten dainty fare, and had never in his life walked more than a few feet from his father's door.
Now there lay before him a journey of hundreds of miles.
He went stumbling along through the snow, making but poor progress.
Hungry, and frozen nearly to death, he had never known such suffering before.
His clothes were torn and his face became worn down and blackened till he looked like a goblin.
Still on he went, little by little, day after day, till at last, when a whole month had gone by, he reached Pyong-an.
Straight to Charan's home he went, but Charan was not there, only her mother.
She looked at him, but did not recognize him.
He said he was the former Governor's son and that out of love for Charan he had walked five hundred lee.
"Where is she?"
he asked.
The mother heard, but instead of being pleased was very angry.
She said, "My daughter is now with the son of the new Governor, and I never see her at all; she never comes home, and she has been away for two or three months.
Even though you have made this long journey there is no possible way to meet her."
She did not invite him in, so cold was her welcome.
He thought to himself, "I came to see Charan, but she is not here.
Her mother refuses me; I cannot go back, and I cannot stay.
What shall I do?"
While thus in this dilemma a plan occurred to him.
There was a scribe in Pyong-an, who, during his father's term of office, had offended, and was sentenced to death.
There were extenuating circumstances, however, and he, when he went to pay his morning salutations, had besought and secured his pardon.
His father, out of regard for his son's petition, had forgiven the scribe.
He thought, "I was the means of saving the man's life, he will take me in;" so he went straight from Charan's to the house of the scribe.
But at first this writer did not recognize him.
When he gave his name and told who he was, the scribe gave a great start, and fell at his feet making obeisance.
He cleared out an inner room and made him comfortable, prepared dainty fare and treated him with all respect.
A little later he talked over with his host the possibility of his meeting Charan.
The scribe said, "I am afraid that there is no way for you to meet her alone, but if you would like to see even her face, I think I can manage it.
Will you consent?"
He asked as to the plan.
It was this: It being now a time of snow, daily coolies were called to sweep it away from the inner court of the Governor's yamen, and just now the scribe was in charge of this particular work.
Said he, "If you will join the sweepers, take a broom and go in; you will no doubt catch a glimpse of Charan as she is said to be in the Hill Kiosk.
I know of no other plan."
Keydong consented.
In the early morning he mixed with the company of sweepers and went with his broom into the inner enclosure, where the Hill Kiosk was, and so they worked at sweeping.
Just then the Governor's son was sitting by the open window and Charan was by him, but not visible from the outside.
The other workers, being all practised hands, swept well; Keydong alone handled his broom to no advantage, knowing not how to sweep.
The Governor's son, watching the process, looked out and laughed, called Charan and invited her to see this sweeper.
Charan stepped out into the open hall and the sweeper raised his eyes to see.
She glanced at him but once, and but for a moment, then turned quickly, went into the room, and shut the door, not appearing again, to the disappointment of the sweeper, who came back in despair to the scribe's house.
Charan was first of all a wise and highly gifted woman.
One look had told her who the sweeper was.
She came back into the room and began to cry.
The Governor's son looked in surprise and displeasure, and asked, "Why do you cry?"
She did not reply at once, but after two or three insistent demands told the reason thus: "I am a low class woman; you are mistaken in thinking highly of me, or counting me of worth.
Already I have not been home for two whole months and more.
This is a special compliment and a high honour, and so there is not the slightest reason for any complaint on my part.
But still, I think of my home, which is poor, and my mother.
It is customary on the anniversary of my father's death to prepare food from the official quarters, and offer a sacrifice to his spirit, but here I am imprisoned and to-morrow is the sacrificial day.
I fear that not a single act of devotion will be paid, I am disturbed over it, and that's why I cry."
The Governor's son was so taken in by this fair statement that he trusted her fully and without a question.
Sympathetically he asked, "Why didn't you tell me before?"
He prepared the food and told her to hurry home and carry out the ceremony.
So Charan came like flaming fire back to her house, and said to her mother, "Keydong has come and I have seen him.
Is he not here?
Tell me where he is if you know."
The mother said, "He came here, it is true, all the way on foot to see you, but I told him that you were in the yamen and that there was no possible way for you to meet, so he went away and where he is I know not."
Then Charan broke down and began to cry.
"Oh, my mother, why had you the heart to do so cruelly?"
she sobbed.
"As far as I am concerned I can never break with him nor give him up.
We were each sixteen when chosen to dance together, and while it may be said that men chose us, it is truer still to say that God hath chosen.
We grew into each other's lives, and there was never such love as ours.
Though he forgot and left me, I can never forget and can never give him up.
The Governor, too, called me the beloved wife of his son, and did not once refer to my low station.
He cherished me and gave me many gifts.
'Twas all like heaven and not like earth.
To the city of Pyong-an gentry and officials gather as men crowd into a boat; I have seen so many, but for grace and ability no one was ever like Keydong.
I must find him, and even though he casts me aside I never shall forget him.
I have not kept myself even unto death as I should have, because I have been under the power and influence of the Governor.
How could he ever have come so far for one so low and vile?
He, a gentleman of the highest birth, for the sake of a wretched dancing-girl has endured all this hardship and come so far.
Could you not have thought, mother, of these things and given him at least some kindly welcome?
Could my heart be other than broken?"
And a great flow of tears came from Charan's eyes.
She thought and thought as to where he could possibly be.
"I know of no place," said she, "unless it be at such and such a scribe's home."
Quick as thought she flew thence, and there they met.
They clasped each other and cried, not a word was spoken.
Thus came they back to Charan's home side by side.
When it was night Charan said, "When to-morrow comes we shall have to part.
What shall we do?"
They talked it over, and agreed to make their escape that night.
So Charan got together her clothing, and her treasures and jewels, and made two bundles, and thus, he carrying his on his back and she hers on her head, away they went while the city slept.
They followed the road that leads toward the mountains that lie between Yang-tok and Maing-san counties.
There they found a country house, where they put up, and where the Governor's son became a sort of better-class servant.
He did not know how to do anything well, but Charan understood weaving and sewing, and so they lived.
After some time they got a little thatched hut by themselves in the village and lived there.
Charan was a beautiful sewing-woman, and ceased not day and night to ply her needle, and sold her treasures and her jewels to make ends meet.
Charan, too, knew how to make friends, and was praised and loved by all the village.
Everybody felt sorry for the hard times that had befallen this mysterious young couple, and helped them so that the days passed peacefully and happily together.
To return in the story: On awaking in the morning in the temple where he and his friends had gone to study, they found Keydong missing.
All was in a state of confusion as to what had become of the son of the Chief Justice.
They hunted for him far and wide, but he was nowhere to be found, so word was sent to the parents accordingly.
There was untold consternation in the home of the former governor.
So great a loss, what could equal it?
They searched the country about the temple, but no trace or shadow of him was to be found.
Some said they thought he had been inveigled away and metamorphosed by the fox; others that he had been eaten by the tiger.
The parents decided that he was dead and went into mourning for him, burning his clothing in a sacrificial fire.
In Pyong-an the Governor's son, when he found that he had lost Charan, had Charan's mother imprisoned and all the relatives, but after a month or so, when the search proved futile, he gave up the matter and let them go.
Charan, at last happy with her chosen one, said one day to him, "You, a son of the gentry, for the sake of a dancing-girl have given up parents and home to live in this hidden corner of the hills.
It is a matter, too, that touches your filial piety, this leaving your father and mother in doubt as to whether you are alive or not.
They ought to know.
We cannot live here all our lives, neither can we return home; what do you think we ought to do?"
Keydong made a hopeless reply.
"I am in distress," said he, "and know not."
Charan said brightly, "I have a plan by which we can cover over the faults of the past, and win a new start for the future.
By means of it, you can serve your parents and look the world in the face.
Will you consent?"
"What do you propose?"
asked he.
Her reply was, "There is only one way, and that is by means of the Official Examination.
I know of no other.
You will understand what I mean, even though I do not tell you more."
He said, "Enough, your plan is just the thing to help us out.
But how can I get hold of the books I need?"
Charan replied, "Don't be anxious about that, I'll get the books."
From that day forth she sent through all the neighbourhood for books, to be secured at all costs; but there were few or none, it being a mountain village.
One day there came by, all unexpectedly, a pack-peddler, who had in his bundle a book that he wished to sell.
Some of the village people wanted to buy it for wall-paper.
Charan, however, secured it first and showed it to Keydong.
It was none other than a special work for Examinations, with all the exercises written out.
It was written in small characters, and was a huge book containing several thousand exercises.
Keydong was delighted, and said, "This is enough for all needed preparation."
She bought it and gave it to him, and there he pegged away day after day.
In the night he studied by candle-light, while she sat by his side and did silk-spinning.
Thus they shared the light together.
If he showed any remissness, Charan urged him on, and thus they worked for two years.
To begin with, he, being a highly talented scholar, made steady advancement day by day.
He was a beautiful writer and a master of the pen.
His compositions, too, were without a peer, and every indication pointed to his winning the highest place in the Kwago (Examination).
At this time a proclamation was issued that there would be a special examination held before His Majesty the King, so Charan made ready the food required and all necessaries for him to go afoot to Seoul to try his hand.
At last here he was, within the Palace enclosure.
His Majesty came out into the examination arena and posted up the subject.
Keydong took his pen and wrote his finished composition.
Under the inspiration of the moment his lines came forth like bubbling water.
It was finished.
When the announcement was made as to the winner, the King ordered the sealed name of the writer to be opened.
It was, and they found that Keydong was first.
At that time his father was Prime Minister and waiting in attendance upon the King.
The King called the Prime Minister, and said, "It looks to me as though the winner was your son, but he writes that his father is Chief Justice and not Prime Minister; what can that mean?"
He handed the composition paper to the father, and asked him to look and see.
The Minister gazed at it in wonder, burst into tears, and said, "It is your servant's son.
Three years ago he went with some friends to a monastery to study, but one night he disappeared, and though I searched far and wide I have had no word of him since.
I concluded that he had been destroyed by some wild animal, so I had a funeral service held and the house went into mourning.
I had no other children but this son only.
He was greatly gifted and I lost him in this strange way.
The memory has never left me, for it seems as though I had lost him but yesterday.
Now that I look at this paper I see indeed that it is the writing of my son.
When I lost him I was Chief Justice, and thus he records the office; but where he has been for these three years, and how he comes now to take part in the examination, I know not."
The King, hearing this, was greatly astonished, and at once before all the assembled ministers had him called.
Thus he came in his scholar's dress into the presence of the King.
All the officials wondered at this summoning of a candidate before the announcement of the result.
The King asked him why he had left the monastery and where he had been for these three years.
He bowed low, and said, "I have been a very wicked man, have left my parents, have broken all the laws of filial devotion, and deserve condign punishment."
The King replied, saying, "There is no law of concealment before the King.
I shall not condemn you even though you are guilty; tell me all."
Then he told his story to the King.
All the officials on each side bent their ears to hear.
The King sighed, and said to the father, "Your son has repented and made amends for his fault.
He has won first place and now stands as a member of the Court.
We cannot condemn him for his love for this woman.
Forgive him for all the past and give him a start for the future."
His Majesty said further, "The woman Charan, who has shared your life in the lonely mountains, is no common woman.
Her plans, too, for your restoration were the plans of a master hand.
She is no dancing-girl, this Charan.
Let no other be your lawful wife but she only; let her be raised to equal rank with her husband, and let her children and her children's children hold highest office in the realm."
So was Keydong honoured with the winner's crown, and so the Prime Minister received his son back to life at the hands of the King.
The winner's cap was placed upon his head, and the whole house was whirled into raptures of joy.
So the Minister sent forth a palanquin and servants to bring up Charan.
In a great festival of joy she was proclaimed the wife of the Minister's son.
Later he became one of Korea's first men of State, and they lived their happy life to a good old age.
They had two sons, both graduates and men who held high office.
Im Bang.
II THE STORY OF CHANG TO-RYONG [Taoism has been one of the great religions of Korea.
Its main thought is expressed in the phrase su-sim yon-song, "to correct the mind and reform the nature"; while Buddhism's is myong-sim kyon-song, "to enlighten the heart and see the soul."
The desire of all Taoists is "eternal life," chang-saing pul-sa; that of the Buddhists, to rid oneself of fleshly being.
In the Taoist world of the genii, there are three great divisions: the upper genii, who live with God; the midway genii, who have to do with the world of angels and spirits; and the lower genii, who rule in sacred places on the earth, among the hills, just as we find in the story of Chang To-ryong.]
In the days of King Chung-jong (A.D. 1507-1526) there lived a beggar in Seoul, whose face was extremely ugly and always dirty.
He was forty years of age or so, but still wore his hair down his back like an unmarried boy.
He carried a bag over his shoulder, and went about the streets begging.
During the day he went from one part of the city to the other, visiting each section, and when night came on he would huddle up beside some one's gate and go to sleep.
He was frequently seen in Chong-no (Bell Street) in company with the servants and underlings of the rich.
They were great friends, he and they, joking and bantering as they met.
He used to say that his name was Chang, and so they called him Chang To-ryong, To-ryong meaning an unmarried boy, son of the gentry.
At that time the magician Chon U-chi, who was far-famed for his pride and arrogance, whenever he met Chang, in passing along the street, would dismount and prostrate himself most humbly.
Not only did he bow, but he seemed to regard Chang with the greatest of fear, so that he dared not look him in the face.
Chang, sometimes, without even inclining his head, would say, "Well, how goes it with you, eh?"
Chon, with his hands in his sleeves, most respectfully would reply, "Very well, sir, thank you, very well."
He had fear written on all his features when he faced Chang.
Sometimes, too, when Chon would bow, Chang would refuse to notice him at all, and go by without a word.
Those who saw it were astonished, and asked Chon the reason.
Chon said in reply, "There are only three spirit-men at present in Cho-sen, of whom the greatest is Chang To-ryong; the second is Cheung Puk-chang; and the third is Yun Se-pyong.
People of the world do not know it, but I do.
Such being the case, should I not bow before him and show him reverence?"
Those who heard this explanation, knowing that Chon himself was a strange being, paid no attention to it.
At that time in Seoul there was a certain literary undergraduate in office whose house joined hard on the street.
This man used to see Chang frequently going about begging, and one day he called him and asked who he was, and why he begged.
Chang made answer, "I was originally of a cultured family of Chulla Province, but my parents died of typhus fever, and I had no brothers or relations left to share my lot.
I alone remained of all my clan, and having no home of my own I have gone about begging, and have at last reached Seoul.
As I am not skilled in any handicraft, and do not know Chinese letters, what else can I do?"
The undergraduate, hearing that he was a scholar, felt very sorry for him, gave him food and drink, and refreshed him.
From this time on, whenever there was any special celebration at his home, he used to call Chang in and have him share it.
On a certain day when the master was on his way to office, he saw a dead body being carried on a stretcher off toward the Water Gate.
Looking at it closely from the horse on which he rode, he recognized it as the corpse of Chang To-ryong.
He felt so sad that he turned back to his house and cried over it, saying, "There are lots of miserable people on earth, but who ever saw one as miserable as poor Chang?
As I reckon the time over on my fingers, he has been begging in Bell Street for fifteen years, and now he passes out of the city a dead body."
Twenty years and more afterwards the master had to make a journey through South Chulla Province.
As he was passing Chi-i Mountain, he lost his way and got into a maze among the hills.
The day began to wane, and he could neither return nor go forward.
He saw a narrow footpath, such as woodmen take, and turned into it to see if it led to any habitation.
As he went along there were rocks and deep ravines.
Little by little, as he advanced farther, the scene changed and seemed to become strangely transfigured.
The farther he went the more wonderful it became.
After he had gone some miles he discovered himself to be in another world entirely, no longer a world of earth and dust.
He saw some one coming toward him dressed in ethereal green, mounted and carrying a shade, with servants accompanying.
He seemed to sweep toward him with swiftness and without effort.
He thought to himself, "Here is some high lord or other coming to meet me, but," he added, "how among these deeps and solitudes could a gentleman come riding so?"
He led his horse aside and tried to withdraw into one of the groves by the side of the way, but before he could think to turn the man had reached him.
The mysterious stranger lifted his two hands in salutation and inquired respectfully as to how he had been all this time.
The master was speechless, and so astonished that he could make no reply.
But the stranger smilingly said, "My house is quite near here; come with me and rest."
He turned, and leading the way seemed to glide and not to walk, while the master followed.
At last they reached the place indicated.
He suddenly saw before him great palace halls filling whole squares of space.
Beautiful buildings they were, richly ornamented.
Before the door attendants in official robes awaited them.
They bowed to the master and led him into the hall.
After passing a number of gorgeous, palace-like rooms, he arrived at a special one and ascended to the upper storey, where he met a very wonderful person.
He was dressed in shining garments, and the servants that waited on him were exceedingly fair.
There were, too, children about, so exquisitely beautiful that it seemed none other than a celestial palace.
The master, alarmed at finding himself in such a place, hurried forward and made a low obeisance, not daring to lift his eyes.
But the host smiled upon him, raised his hands and asked, "Do you not know me?
Look now."
Lifting his eyes, he then saw that it was the same person who had come riding out to meet him, but he could not tell who he was.
"I see you," said he, "but as to who you are I cannot tell."
The kingly host then said, "I am Chang To-ryong.
Do you not know me?"
Then as the master looked more closely at him he could see the same features.
The outlines of the face were there, but all the imperfections had gone, and only beauty remained.
So wonderful was it that he was quite overcome.
A great feast was prepared, and the honoured guest was entertained.
Such food, too, was placed before him as was never seen on earth.
Angelic beings played on beautiful instruments and danced as no mortal eye ever looked upon.
Their faces, too, were like pearls and precious stones.
Chang To-ryong said to his guest, "There are four famous mountains in Korea in which the genii reside.
This hill is one.
In days gone by, for a fault of mine, I was exiled to earth, and in the time of my exile you treated me with marked kindness, a favour that I have never forgotten.
When you saw my dead body your pity went out to me; this, too, I remember.
I was not dead then, it was simply that my days of exile were ended and I was returning home.
I knew that you were passing this hill, and I desired to meet you and to thank you for all your kindness.
Your treatment of me in another world is sufficient to bring about our meeting in this one."
And so they met and feasted in joy and great delight.
When night came he was escorted to a special pavilion, where he was to sleep.
The windows were made of jade and precious stones, and soft lights came streaming through them, so that there was no night.
"My body was so rested and my soul so refreshed," said he, "that I felt no need of sleep."
When the day dawned a new feast was spread, and then farewells were spoken.
Chang said, "This is not a place for you to stay long in; you must go.
The ways differ of we genii and you men of the world.
It will be difficult for us ever to meet again.
Take good care of yourself and go in peace."
He then called a servant to accompany him and show the way.
The master made a low bow and withdrew.
When he had gone but a short distance he suddenly found himself in the old world with its dusty accompaniments.
The path by which he came out was not the way by which he had entered.
In order to mark the entrance he planted a stake, and then the servant withdrew and disappeared.
The year following the master went again and tried to find the citadel of the genii, but there were only mountain peaks and impassable ravines, and where it was he never could discover.
As the years went by the master seemed to grow younger in spirit, and at last at the age of ninety he passed away without suffering.
"When Chang was here on earth and I saw him for fifteen years," said the master, "I remember but one peculiarity about him, namely, that his face never grew older nor did his dirty clothing ever wear out.
He never changed his garb, and yet it never varied in appearance in all the fifteen years.
This alone would have marked him as a strange being, but our fleshly eyes did not recognize it."
Im Bang.
III A STORY OF THE FOX [The Fox.--Orientals say that among the long-lived creatures are the tortoise, the deer, the crane and the fox, and that these long-lived ones attain to special states of spiritual refinement.
If trees exist through long ages they become coal; if pine resin endures it becomes amber; so the fox, if it lives long, while it never becomes an angel, or spiritual being, as a man does, takes on various metamorphoses, and appears on earth in various forms.]
Yi Kwai was the son of a minister.
He passed his examinations and held high office.
When his father was Governor of Pyong-an Province, Kwai was a little boy and accompanied him.
The Governor's first wife being dead, Kwai's stepmother was the mistress of the home.
Once when His Excellency had gone out on an inspecting tour, the yamen was left vacant, and Kwai was there with her.
In the rear garden of the official quarters was a pavilion, called the Hill Pagoda, that was connected by a narrow gateway with the public hall.
Frequently Kwai took one of the yamen boys with him and went there to study, and once at night when it had grown late and the boy who accompanied him had taken his departure, the door opened suddenly and a young woman came in.
Her clothes were neat and clean, and she was very pretty.
Kwai looked carefully at her, but did not recognize her.
She was evidently a stranger, as there was no such person among the dancing-girls of the yamen.
He remained looking at her, in doubt as to who she was, while she on the other hand took her place in the corner of the room and said nothing.
"Who are you?"
he asked.
She merely laughed and made no reply.
He called her.
She came and knelt down before him, and he took her by the hand and patted her shoulder, as though he greeted her favourably.
The woman smiled and pretended to enjoy it.
He concluded, however, that she was not a real woman, but a goblin of some kind, or perhaps a fox, and what to do he knew not.
Suddenly he decided on a plan, caught her, swung her on to his back, and rushed out through the gate into the yamen quarters, where he shouted at the top of his voice for his stepmother and the servants to come.
It was midnight and all were asleep.
No one replied, and no one came.
The woman, then, being on his back, bit him furiously at the nape of the neck.
By this he knew that she was the fox.
Unable to stand the pain of it, he loosened his grasp, when she jumped to the ground, made her escape and was seen no more.
What a pity that no one came to Kwai's rescue and so made sure of the beast!
Im Bang.
IV CHEUNG PUK-CHANG, THE SEER [Cheung Puk-chang.--The Yol-ryok Keui-sul, one of Korea's noted histories, says of Cheung Puk-chang that he was pure in purpose and without selfish ambition.
He was superior to all others in his marvellous gifts.
For him to read a book once was to know it by heart.
There was nothing that he could not understand--astronomy, geology, music, medicine, mathematics, fortune-telling and Chinese characters, which he knew by intuition and not from study.
He followed his father in the train of the envoy to Peking, and there talked to all the strange peoples whom he met without any preparation.
They all wondered at him and called him "The Mystery."
He knew, too, the meaning of the calls of birds and beasts; and while he lived in the mountains he could see and tell what people were doing in the distant valley, indicating what was going on in each house, which, upon investigation, was found in each case to be true.
He was a Taoist, and received strange revelations.
While in Peking there met him envoys from the Court of Loochoo, who also were prophets.
While in their own country they had studied the horoscope, and on going into China knew that they were to meet a Holy Man.
As they went on their way they asked concerning this mysterious being, and at last reached Peking.
Inquiring, they went from one envoy's station to another till they met Cheung Puk-chang, when a great fear came upon them, and they fell prostrate to the earth.
They took from their baggage a little book inscribed, "In such a year, on such a day, at such an hour, in such a place, you shall meet a Holy Man."
"If this does not mean your Excellency," said they, "whom can it mean?"
They asked that he would teach them the sacred Book of Changes, and he responded by teaching it in their own language.
At that time the various envoys, hearing of this, contended with each other as to who should first see the marvellous stranger, and he spoke to each in his own tongue.
They all, greatly amazed, said, "He is indeed a man of God."
Some one asked him, saying, "There are those who understand the sounds of birds and beasts, but foreign languages have to be learned to be known; how can you speak them without study?"
Puk-chang replied, "I do not know them from having learned them, but know them unconsciously."
Puk-chang was acquainted with the three religions, but he considered Confucianism as the first.
"Its writings as handed down," said he, "teach us filial piety and reverence.
The learning of the Sages deals with relationships among men and not with spiritual mysteries; but Taoism and Buddhism deal with the examination of the soul and the heart, and so with things above and not with things on the earth.
This is the difference."
At thirty-two years of age he matriculated, but had no interest in further literary study.
He became, instead, an official teacher of medicine, astrology and mathematics.
He was a fine whistler, we are told, and once when he had climbed to the highest peak of the Diamond Mountains and there whistled, the echoes resounded through the hills, and the priests were startled and wondered whose flute was playing.]
[There is a term in Korea which reads he-an pang-kwang, "spiritual-eye distant-vision," the seeing of things in the distance.
This pertains to both Taoists and Buddhists.
It is said that when the student reaches a certain stage in his progress, the soft part of the head returns to the primal thinness that is seen in the child to rise and fall when it breathes.
From this part of the head go forth five rays of light that shoot out and up more and more as the student advances in the spiritual way.
As far as they extend so is the spiritual vision perfected, until at last a Korean sufficiently advanced could sit and say, "In London, to-day, such and such a great affair is taking place."
For example, So Wha-tam, who was a Taoist Sage, once was seen to laugh to himself as he sat with closed eyes, and when asked why he laughed, said, "Just now in the monastery of Ha-in [300 miles distant] there is a great feast going on.
The priest stirring the huge kettle of bean gruel has tumbled in, but the others do not know this, and are eating the soup."
News came from the monastery later on that proved that what the sage had seen was actually true.
The History of Confucius, too, deals with this when it tells of his going with his disciple An-ja and looking off from the Tai Mountains of Shan-tung toward the kingdom of On.
Confucius asked An-ja if he could see anything, and An-ja replied, "I see white horses tied at the gates of On."
Confucius said, "No, no, your vision is imperfect, desist from looking.
They are not white horses, but are rolls of white silk hung out for bleaching."]
The Story The Master, Puk-chang, was a noted Korean.
From the time of his birth he was a wonderful mystery.
In reading a book, if he but glanced through it, he could recall it word for word.
Without any special study he became a master of astronomy, geology, medicine, fortune-telling, music, mathematics and geomancy, and so truly a specialist was he that he knew them all.
He was thoroughly versed also in the three great religions, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism.
He talked constantly of what other people could not possibly comprehend.
He understood the sounds of the birds, the voices of Nature, and much else.
He accompanied his father in his boyhood days when he went as envoy to Peking.
At that time, strange barbarian peoples used also to come and pay their tribute.
Puk-chang picked up acquaintance with them on the way.
Hearing their language but once, he was readily able to communicate with them.
His own countrymen who accompanied him were not the only ones astonished, nor the Chinamen themselves, but the barbarians as well.
There are numerous interesting stories hinted at in the history of Puk-chang, but few suitable records were made of them, and so many are lost.
There is one, however, that I recall that comes to me through trustworthy witnesses: Puk-chang, on a certain day, went to visit his paternal aunt.
She asked him to be seated, and as they talked together, said to him, "I had some harvesting to do in Yong-nam County, and sent a servant to see to it.
His return is overdue and yet he does not come.
I am afraid he has fallen in with thieves, or chanced on a fire or some other misfortune."
Puk-chang replied, "Shall I tell you how it goes with him, and how far he has come on the way?"
She laughed, saying, "Do you mean to joke about it?"
Puk-chang, from where he was sitting, looked off apparently to the far south, and at last said to his aunt, "He is just now crossing the hill called Bird Pass in Mun-kyong County, Kyong-sang Province.
Hallo!
he is getting a beating just now from a passing yangban (gentleman), but I see it is his own fault, so you need not trouble about him."
The aunt laughed, and asked, "Why should he be beaten; what's the reason, pray?"
Puk-chang replied, "It seems this official was eating his dinner at the top of the hill when your servant rode by him without dismounting.
The gentleman was naturally very angry and had his servants arrest your man, pull him from his horse, and beat him over the face with their rough straw shoes."
The aunt could not believe it true, but treated the matter as a joke; and yet Puk-chang did not seem to be joking.
Interested and curious, she made a note of the day on the wall after Puk-chang had taken his departure, and when the servant returned, she asked him what day he had come over Bird Pass, and it proved to be the day recorded.
She added also, "Did you get into trouble with a yangban there when you came by?"
The servant gave a startled look, and asked, "How do you know?"
He then told all that had happened to him, and it was just as Puk-chang had given it even to the smallest detail.
Im Bang.
V YUN SE-PYONG, THE WIZARD [Yun Se-pyong was a man of Seoul who lived to the age of over ninety.
When he was young he loved archery, and went as military attaché to the capital of the Mings (Nanking).
There he met a prophet who taught him the Whang-jong Kyong, or Sacred Book of the Taoists, and thus he learned their laws and practised their teachings.
His life was written by Yi So-kwang.]
[Chon U-chi was a magician of Songdo who lived about 1550, and was associated in his life with Shin Kwang-hu.
At the latter's residence one day when a friend called, Kwang-hu asked Chon to show them one of his special feats.
A little later they brought in a table of rice for each of the party, and Chon took a mouthful of his, and then blew it out toward the courtyard, when the rice changed into beautiful butterflies that flew gaily away.
Chang O-sa used to tell a story of his father, who said that one day Chon came to call upon him at his house and asked for a book entitled The Tu-si, which he gave to him.
"I had no idea," said the father, "that he was dead and that it was his ghost.
I gave him the book, though I did not learn till afterwards that he had been dead for a long time."
The History of Famous Men says, "He was a man who understood heretical magic, and other dangerous teachings by which he deceived the people.
He was arrested for this and locked up in prison in Sin-chon, Whang-hai Province, and there he died.
His burial was ordered by the prison authorities, and later, when his relatives came to exhume his remains, they found that the coffin was empty."
This and the story of Im Bang do not agree as to his death, and I am not able to judge between them.--J.
S. G.] [The transformation of men into beasts, bugs and creeping things comes from Buddhism; one seldom finds it in Taoism.]
The Story Yun Se-Pyong was a military man who rose to the rank of minister in the days of King Choong-jong.
It seems that Yun learned the doctrine of magic from a passing stranger, whom he met on his way to Peking in company with the envoy.
When at home he lived in a separate house, quite apart from the other members of his family.
He was a man so greatly feared that even his wife and children dared not approach him.
What he did in secret no one seemed to know.
In winter he was seen to put iron cleats under each arm and to change them frequently, and when they were put off they seemed to be red-hot.
At the same time there was a magician in Korea called Chon U-chi, who used to go about Seoul plying his craft.
So skilful was he that he could even simulate the form of the master of a house and go freely into the women's quarters.
On this account he was greatly feared and detested.
Yun heard of him on more than one occasion, and determined to rid the earth of him.
Chon heard also of Yun and gave him a wide berth, never appearing in his presence.
He used frequently to say, "I am a magician only; Yun is a God."
On a certain day Chon informed his wife that Yun would come that afternoon and try to kill him, "and so," said he, "I shall change my shape in order to escape his clutches.
If any one comes asking for me just say that I am not at home."
He then metamorphosed himself into a beetle, and crawled under a crock that stood overturned in the courtyard.
When evening began to fall a young woman came to Chon's house, a very beautiful woman too, and asked, "Is the master Chon at home?"
The wife replied, "He has just gone out."
The woman laughingly said, "Master Chon and I have been special friend's for a long time, and I have an appointment with him to-day.
Please say to him that I have come."
Chon's wife, seeing a pretty woman come thus, and ask in such a familiar way for her husband, flew into a rage and said, "The rascal has evidently a second wife that he has never told me of.
What he said just now is all false," so she went out in a fury, and with a club smashed the crock.
When the crock was broken there was the beetle underneath it.
Then the woman who had called suddenly changed into a bee, and flew at and stung the beetle.
Chon, metamorphosed into his accustomed form, fell over and died, and the bee flew away.
Yun lived at his own house as usual, when suddenly he broke down one day in a fit of tears.
The members of his family in alarm asked the reason.
He replied, "My sister living in Chulla Province has just at this moment died."
He then called his servants, and had them prepare funeral supplies, saying, "They are poor where she lives, and so I must help them."
He wrote a letter, and after sealing it, said to one of his attendants, "If you go just outside the gate you will meet a man wearing a horsehair cap and a soldier's uniform.
Call him in.
He is standing there ready to be summoned."
He was called in, and sure enough he was a Kon-yun-no (servant of the gods).
He came in and at once prostrated himself before Yun.
Yun said, "My sister has just now died in such a place in Chulla Province.
Take this letter and go at once.
I shall expect you back to-night with the answer.
The matter is of such great importance that if you do not bring it as I order, and within the time appointed, I shall have you punished."
He replied, "I shall be in time, be not anxious."
Yun then gave him the letter and the bundle, and he went outside the main gateway and disappeared.
Before dark he returned with the answer.
The letter read: "She died at such an hour to-day and we were in straits as to what to do, when your letter came with the supplies, just as though we had seen each other.
Wonderful it is!"
The man who brought the answer immediately went out and disappeared.
The house of mourning is situated over ten days' journey from Seoul, but he returned ere sunset, in the space of two or three hours.
Im Bang.
VI THE WILD-CAT WOMAN [Kim Su-ik was a native of Seoul who matriculated in 1624 and graduated in 1630.
In 1636, when the King made his escape to Nam-han from the invading Manchu army, Kim Su-ik accompanied him.
He opposed any yielding to China or any treaty with them, but because his counsel was not received he withdrew from public life.]
[Tong Chung-so was a Chinaman of great note.
He once desired to give himself up to study, and did not go out of his room for three years.
During this time a young man one day called on him, and while he stood waiting said to himself, "It will rain to-day."
Tong replied at once, "If you are not a fox you are a wild cat--out of this," and the man at once ran away.
How he came to know this was from the words, "Birds that live in the trees know when the wind will blow; beasts that live in the ground know when it is going to rain."
The wild cat unconsciously told on himself.]
The Story The former magistrate of Quelpart, Kim Su-ik, lived inside of the South Gate of Seoul.
When he was young it was his habit to study Chinese daily until late at night.
Once, when feeling hungry, he called for his wife to bring him something to eat.
The wife replied, "We have nothing in the house except seven or eight chestnuts.
Shall I roast these and bring them to you?"
Kim replied, "Good; bring them."
The servants were asleep, and there was no one on hand to answer a call, so the wife went to the kitchen, made a fire and cooked them herself.
Kim waited, meanwhile, for her to come.
After a little while she brought them in a handbasket, cooked and ready served for him.
Kim ate and enjoyed them much.
Meanwhile she sat before his desk and waited.
Suddenly the door opened, and another person entered.
Kim raised his eyes to see, and there was the exact duplicate of his wife, with a basket in her hand and roasted chestnuts.
As he looked at both of them beneath the light the two women were perfect facsimiles of each other.
The two also looked back and forth in alarm, saying, "What's this that's happened?
Who are you?"
Kim once again received the roasted nuts, laid them down, and then took firm hold of each woman, the first one by the right hand and the second by the left, holding fast till the break of day.
At last the cocks crew, and the east began to lighten.
The one whose right hand he held, said, "Why do you hold me so?
It hurts; let me go."
She shook and tugged, but Kim held all the tighter.
In a little, after struggling, she fell to the floor and suddenly changed into a wild cat.
Kim, in fear and surprise, let her go, and she made her escape through the door.
What a pity that he did not make the beast fast for good and all!
Note by the writer.--Foxes turning into women and deceiving people is told of in Kwang-keui and other Chinese novels, but the wild cat's transformation is more wonderful still, and something that I have never heard of.
By what law do creatures like foxes and wild cats so change?
I am unable to find any law that governs it.
Some say that the fox carries a magic charm by which it does these magic things, but can this account for the wild cat?
Im Bang.
VII THE ILL-FATED PRIEST A certain scribe of Chung-chong Province, whose name was Kim Kyong-jin, once told me the following story.
Said he: "In the year 1640, as I was journeying past Big Horn Bridge in Ta-in County, I saw a scholar, who, with his four or five servants, had met with some accident and all were reduced to a state of unconsciousness, lying by the river side.
I asked the reason for what had befallen them, and they at last said in reply, 'We were eating our noon meal by the side of the road, when a Buddhist priest came by, a proud, arrogant fellow, who refused to bow or show any recognition of us.
One of the servants, indignant at this, shouted at him.
The priest, however, beat him with his stick, and when others went to help, he beat them also, so that they were completely worsted and unable to rise or walk.
He then scolded the scholar, saying, "You did not reprimand your servants for their insult to me, so I'll have to take it out of you as well."
The Buddhist gave him a number of vicious blows, so that he completely collapsed;' and when I looked there was the priest a li or two ahead.
"Just then a military man, aged about forty or so, came my way.
He was poor in flesh and seemed to have no strength.
Riding a cadaverous pony, he came shuffling along; a boy accompanying carried his hat-cover and bow and arrows.
He arrived at the stream, and, seeing the people in their plight, asked the cause.
The officer was very angry, and said, 'Yonder impudent priest, endowed with no end of brute force, has attacked my people and me.'
"'Indeed,' said the stranger, 'I have been aware of him for a long time, and have decided to rid the earth of him, but I have never had an opportunity before.
Now that I have at last come on him I am determined to have satisfaction.'
So he dismounted from his horse, tightened his girth, took his bow, and an arrow that had a 'fist' head, and made off at a gallop after the priest.
Soon he overtook him.
Just as the priest looked back the archer let fly with his arrow, which entered deep into the chest.
He then dismounted, drew his sword, pierced the two hands of the priest and passed a string through them, tied him to his horse's tail, and came triumphantly back to where the scholar lay, and said, 'Now do with this fellow as you please.
I am going.'
"The scholar bowed before the archer, thanked him, asked his place of residence and name.
He replied, 'My home is in the County of Ko-chang,' but he did not give his name.
"The scholar looked at the priest, and never before had he seen so powerful a giant, but now, with his chest shot through and his hands pierced, he was unable to speak; so they arose, made mincemeat of him, and went on their way rejoicing."
Im Bang.
VIII THE VISION OF THE HOLY MAN Yi Chi-Ham (Master To-jong).--A story is told of him that on the day after his wedding he went out with his topo or ceremonial coat on, but came back later without it.
On inquiry being made, it was found that he had torn it into pieces to serve as bandages for a sick child that he had met with on his walk.
Once on a time he had an impression that his father-in-law's home was shortly to be overtaken by a great disaster; he therefore took his wife and disappeared from the place.
In the year following, for some political offence, the home was indeed wiped out and the family wholly destroyed.
To-jong was not only a prophet, but also a magician, as was shown by his handling of a boat.
When he took to sea the waters lay quiet before him, and all his path was peace.
He would be absent sometimes for a year or more, voyaging in many parts of the world.
He practised fasting, and would go sometimes for months without eating.
He also overcame thirst, and in the hot days of summer would avoid drinking.
He stifled all pain and suffering, so that when he walked and his feet were blistered he paid no attention to it.
While young he was a disciple of a famous Taoist, So Wha-dam.
As his follower he used to dress in grass cloth (the poor man's garb), wear straw shoes and carry his bundle on his back.
He would be on familiar terms with Ministers of State, and yet show indifference to their greatness and pomp.
He was acquainted with the various magic practices, so that in boating he used to hang out gourd cups at each corner of the boat, and thus equipped he went many times to and from Quelpart and never met a wind.
He did merchandising, made money, and bought land which yielded several thousand bags of rice that he distributed among the poor.
He lived in Seoul in a little dug-out, so that his name became "Mud Pavilion," or To-jong.
His cap was made of metal, which he used to cook his food in, and which he then washed and put back on his head again.
He used also to wear wooden shoes and ride on a pack saddle.
He built a house for the poor in Asan County when he was magistrate there, gathered in all the needy and had them turn to and work at whatever they had any skill in, so that they lived and flourished.
When any one had no special ability, he had him weave straw shoes.
He urged them on till they could make as many as ten pairs a day.
Yul-gok said of him that he was a dreamer and not suitable for this matter-of-fact world, because he belonged to the realm of flowers and pretty birds, songs and sweet breezes, and not to the common clay of corn and beef and radishes.
To-jong heard this, and replied, "Though I am not of a kind equal to beans and corn, still I will rank with acorns and chestnuts.
Why am I wholly useless?"
Korea's Record of Famous Men.
The Story Teacher To-jong was once upon a time a merchant, and in his merchandising went as far as the East Sea.
One night he slept in a fishing village on the shore.
At that time another stranger called who was said to be an i-in or "holy man."
The three met and talked till late at night--the master of the house, the "holy man" and To-jong.
It was very clear and beautifully calm.
The "holy man" looked for a time out over the expanse of water, then suddenly gave a great start of terror, and said, "An awful thing is about to happen."
His companions, alarmed at his manner, asked him what he meant.
He replied, "In two hours or so there will be a tidal wave that will engulf this whole village, utterly destroying everything.
If you do not make haste to escape all will be as fish in a net."
To-jong, being something of an astrologer himself, thought first to solve the mystery of this, but could arrive at no explanation.
The owner of the house would not believe it, and refused to prepare for escape.
The "holy man" said, however, "Even though you do not believe what I say, let us go for a little up the face of the rear mountain.
If my words fail we can only come down again, and no one will be the worse for it.
If you still do not wish to trust me, leave your goods and furniture just as they are and let the people come away."
To-jong was greatly interested, though he could not understand it.
The master, too, could no longer refuse this proposal, so he took his family and a few light things and followed the "holy man" up the hill.
He had them ascend to the very top, "in order," said he, "to escape."
To-jong did not go to the top, but seated himself about half-way up.
He asked the "holy man" if he would not be safe enough there.
The "holy man" replied, "Others would never escape if they remained where you are, but you will simply get a fright and live through it."
When cock-crow came, sure enough the sea suddenly lifted its face, overflowed its banks, and the waves came rolling up to the heavens, climbing the mountain-sides till they touched the feet of To-jong.
The whole town on the seashore was engulfed.
When daylight came the waters receded.
To-jong bowed to the "holy man" and asked that he might become his disciple.
The "holy man," however, disclaimed any knowledge, saying that he had simply known it by accident.
He was a man who did not speak of his own attainments.
To-jong asked for his place of residence, which he indicated as near by, and then left.
He went to seek him on the following day, but the house was vacant, and there was no one there.
Im Bang.
IX THE VISIT OF THE MAN OF GOD In the thirty-third year of Mal-yok of the Mings (A.D. 1605), being the year Eulsa of the reign of Son-jo, in the seventh moon, a great rain fell, such a rain as had not been seen since the founding of the dynasty.
Before that rain came on, a man of Kang-won Province was cutting wood on the hill-side.
While thus engaged, an angel in golden armour, riding on a white horse and carrying a spear, came down to him from heaven.
His appearance was most dazzling, and the woodman, looking at him, recognized him as a Man of God.
Also a Buddhist priest, carrying a staff, came down in his train.
The priest's appearance, too, was very remarkable.
The Man of God stopped his horse and seemed to be talking with the priest, while the woodcutter, alarmed by the great sight, hid himself among the trees.
The Man of God seemed to be very angry for some reason or other, raised his spear, and, pointing to the four winds, said, "I shall flood all the earth from such a point to such a point, and destroy the inhabitants thereof."
The priest following cried and prayed him to desist, saying, "This will mean utter destruction to mortals; please let thy wrath rest on me."
As he prayed thus earnestly the Man of God again said, "Then shall I limit it to such and such places.
Will that do?"
But the priest prayed more earnestly still, till the Man replied emphatically, "I have lessened the punishment more than a half already on your account; I can do no more."
Though the priest prayed still, the Man of God refused him, so that at last he submissively said, "Thy will be done."
They ended thus and both departed, passing away through the upper air into heaven.
The two had talked for a long time, but the distance being somewhat great between them and the woodman, he did not hear distinctly all that was said.
He went home, however, in great haste, and with his wife and family made his escape, and from that day the rain began to fall.
In it Mount Otai collapsed, the earth beneath it sank until it became a vast lake, all the inhabitants were destroyed, and the woodcutter alone made his escape.
Im Bang.
X THE LITERARY MAN OF IMSIL [The calling of spirits is one of the powers supposed to be possessed by disciples of the Old Philosopher (Taoists), who reach a high state of spiritual attainment.
While the natural desires remain they cloud and obstruct spiritual vision; once rid of them, even angels and immortal beings become unfolded to the sight.
They say, "If once all the obstructions of the flesh are eliminated even God can be seen."
They also say, "If I have no selfish desire, the night around me will shine with golden light; and if all injurious thoughts are truly put away, the wild deer of the mountain will come down and play beside me."
Ha Sa-gong, a Taoist of high attainment, as an old man used to go out fishing, when the pigeons would settle in flights upon his head and shoulders.
On his return one day he told his wife that they were so many that they bothered him.
"Why not catch one of them?"
said his wife.
"Catch one?"
said he.
"What would you do with it?"
"Why, eat it, of course."
So on the second day Ha went out with this intent in heart, but no birds came near or alighted on him.
All kept a safe distance high up in mid-air, with doubt and suspicion evident in their flying.]
The Story In the year 1654 there was a man of letters living in Imsil who claimed that he could control spirits, and that two demon guards were constantly at his bidding.
One day he was sitting with a friend playing chess, when they agreed that the loser in each case was to pay a fine in drink.
The friend lost and yet refused to pay his wager, so that the master said, "If you do not pay up I'll make it hot for you."
The man, however, refused, till at last the master, exasperated, turned his back upon him and called out suddenly into the upper air some formula or other, as if he were giving a command.
The man dashed off through the courtyard to make his escape, but an unseen hand bared his body, and administered to him such a set of sounding blows that they left blue, seamy marks.
Unable to bear the pain of it longer, he yielded, and then the master laughed and let him go.
At another time he was seated with a friend, while in the adjoining village a witch koot (exorcising ceremony) was in progress, with drums and gongs banging furiously.
The master suddenly rushed out to the bamboo grove that stood behind the official yamen, and, looking very angry and with glaring eyes, he shouted, and made bare his arm as if to drive off the furies.
After a time he ceased.
The friend, thinking this a peculiar performance, asked what it meant.
His reply was, "A crowd of devils have come from the koot, and are congregating in the grove of bamboos; if I do not drive them off trouble will follow in the town, and for that cause I shouted."
Again he was making a journey with a certain friend, when suddenly, on the way, he called out to the mid-air, saying, "Let her go, let her go, I say, or I'll have you punished severely."
His appearance was so peculiar and threatening that the friend asked the cause.
For the time being he gave no answer, and they simply went on their way.
That night they entered a village where they wished to sleep, but the owner of the house where they applied said that they had sickness, and asked them to go.
They insisted, however, till he at last sent a servant to drive them off.
Meanwhile the womenfolk watched the affair through the chinks of the window, and they talked in startled whispers, so that the scholar overheard them.
A few minutes later the man of the house followed in the most humble and abject manner, asking them to return and accept entertainment and lodging at his house.
Said he, "I have a daughter, sir, and she fell ill this very day and died, and after some time came to life again.
Said she, 'A devil caught me and carried my soul off down the main roadway, where we met a man, who stopped us, and in fierce tones drove off the spirit, who let me go, and so I returned to life.'
She looked out on your Excellency through the chink of the window, and, behold, you are the man.
I am at my wits' end to know what to say to you.
Are you a genii or are you a Buddhist, so marvellously to bring back the dead to life?
I offer this small refreshment; please accept."
The scholar laughed, and said, "Nonsense!
Just a woman's haverings.
How could I do such things?"
He lived for seven or eight years more, and died.
Im Bang.
XI THE SOLDIER OF KANG-WHA [The East says that the air is full of invisible constituents that, once taken in hand and controlled, will take on various forms of life.
The man of Kang-wha had acquired the art of calling together the elements necessary for the butterfly.
This, too, comes from Taoism, and is called son-sul, Taoist magic] The Story There was a soldier once of Kang-wha who was the chief man of his village; a low-class man, he was, apparently, without any gifts.
One day his wife, overcome by a fit of jealousy, sat sewing in her inner room.
It was midwinter, and he was obliged to be at home; so, with intent to cheer her up and take her mind off the blues, he said to her, "Would you like to see me make some butterflies?"
His wife, more angry than ever at this, rated him for his impudence, and paid no further attention.
The soldier then took her workbasket and from it selected bits of silk of various colours, tucked them into his palm, closed his hand upon them, and repeated a prayer, after which he threw the handful into the air.
Immediately beautiful butterflies filled the room, dazzling the eyes and shining in all the colours of the silk itself.
The wife, mystified by the wonder of it, forgot her anger.
The soldier a little later opened his hand, held it up, and they all flew into it.
He closed it tight and then again opened his hand, and they were pieces of silk only.
His wife alone saw this; it was unknown to others.
No such strange magic was ever heard of before.
In 1637, when Kang-wha fell before the Manchus, all the people of the place fled crying for their lives, while the soldier remained undisturbed at his home, eating his meals with his wife and family just as usual.
He laughed at the neighbours hurrying by.
Said he, "The barbarians will not touch this town; why do you run so?"
Thus it turned out that, while the whole island was devastated, the soldier's village escaped.
Im Bang.
XII CURSED BY THE SNAKE [Ha Yon graduated in the year 1396, and became magistrate of Anak County.
He built many pavilions in and about his official place of residence, where people might rest.
As he went about his district, seeing the farmers busy, he wrote many songs and verses to encourage them in their work.
He became later a royal censor, and King Tai-jong commended him, saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Later he became Chief Justice.
He cleared out the public offices of all disreputable officials, and made the Court clean.
When he had leisure it was his habit to dress in ceremonial garb, burn incense, sit at attention, and write prayer verses the livelong day.
When he was young, once, in the Court of the Crown Prince, he wrote a verse which was commented upon thus: "Beautiful writing, beautiful thought; truly a treasure."
He was a great student and a great inquirer, and grateful and lovable as a friend.
He studied as a boy under the patriot Cheung Mong-ju, and was upright and pure in all his ways.
His object was to become as one of the Ancients, and so he followed truth, and encouraged men in the study of the sacred books.
He used to awake at first cock-crow of the morning, wash, dress, and never lay aside his book.
On his right were pictures, on his left were books, and he happy between.
He rose to be Prime Minister.]
The Story The old family seat of Prince Ha Yun was in the County of Keum-chon.
He was a famous Minister of State in the days of peace and prosperity, and used frequently to find rest and leisure in his summer-house in this same county.
It was a large and well-ordered mansion, and was occupied by his children for many years after his death.
The people of that county used to tell a very strange story of Ha and his prosperity, which runs thus: He had placed in an upper room a large crock that was used to hold flour.
One day one of the servants, wishing to get some flour from the jar, lifted the lid, when suddenly from the depths of it a huge snake made its appearance.
The servant, startled, fell back in great alarm, and then went and told the master what had happened.
The master sent his men-slaves and had the jar brought down.
They broke it open and let out a huge, awful-looking snake, such as one had never seen before.
Several of the servants joined in with clubs and killed the brute.
They then piled wood on it and set fire to the whole.
Vile fumes arose that filled the house.
From the fumes all the people of the place died, leaving no one behind to represent the family.
Others who entered the house died also, so that the place became cursed, and was left in desolation.
A little later a mysterious fire broke out and burnt up the remaining buildings, leaving only the vacant site.
To this day the place is known as "haunted," and no one ventures to build upon it.
Im Bang.
XIII THE MAN ON THE ROAD In the Manchu War of 1636, the people of Seoul rushed off in crowds to make their escape.
One party of them came suddenly upon a great force of the enemy, armed and mounted.
The hills and valleys seemed full of them, and there was no possible way of escape.
What to do they knew not.
In the midst of their perplexity they suddenly saw some one sitting peacefully in the main roadway just in front, underneath a pine tree, quite unconcerned.
He had dismounted from his horse, which a servant held, standing close by.
A screen of several yards of cotton cloth was hanging up just before him, as if to shield him from the dust of the passing army.
The people who were making their escape came up to this stranger, and said imploringly, "We are all doomed to die.
What shall we do?"
The mysterious stranger said, "Why should you die?
and why are you so frightened?
Sit down by me and see the barbarians go by."
The people, perceiving his mind so composed and his appearance devoid of fear, and they having no way of escape, did as he bade them and sat down.
The cavalry of the enemy moved by in great numbers, killing every one they met, not a single person escaping; but when they reached the place where the magician sat, they went by without, apparently, seeing anything.
Thus they continued till the evening, when all had passed by.
The stranger and the people with him sat the day through without any harm overtaking them, even though they were in the midst of the enemy's camp, as it were.
At last awaking to the fact that he was possessor of some wonderful magic, they all with one accord came and bowed before him, asking his name and his place of residence.
He made no answer, however, but mounted his beautiful horse and rode swiftly away, no one being able to overtake him.
The day following the party fell in with a man who had been captured but had made his escape.
They asked if he had seen anything special the day before.
He said, "When I followed the barbarian army, passing such and such a point"--indicating the place where the magician had sat with the people--"we skirted great walls and precipitous rocks, against which no one could move, and so we passed by."
Thus were the few yards of cotton cloth metamorphosed before the eyes of the passers-by.
Im Bang.
XIV THE OLD MAN WHO BECAME A FISH Some years ago a noted official became the magistrate of Ko-song County.
On a certain day a guest called on him to pay his respects, and when noon came the magistrate had a table of food prepared for him, on which was a dish of skate soup.
When the guest saw the soup he twisted his features and refused it, saying, "To-day I am fasting from meat, and so beg to be excused."
His face grew very pale, and tears flowed from his eyes.
The magistrate thought this behaviour strange, and asked him two or three times the meaning of it.
When he could no longer withhold a reply, he went into all the particulars and told him the story.
"Your humble servant," he said, "has in his life met with much unheard-of and unhappy experience, which he has never told to a living soul, but now that your Excellency asks it of me, I cannot refrain from telling.
Your servant's father was a very old man, nearly a hundred, when one day he was taken down with a high fever, in which his body was like a fiery furnace.
Seeing the danger he was in, his children gathered about weeping, thinking that the time of his departure had surely come.
But he lived, and a few days later said to us, 'I am burdened with so great a heat in this sickness that I am not able to endure it longer.
I would like to go out to the bank of the river that runs before the house and see the water flowing by, and be refreshed by it.
Do not disobey me now, but carry me out at once to the water's edge.'
"We remonstrated with him and begged him not to do so, but he grew very angry, and said, 'If you do not as I command, you will be the death of me'; and so, seeing that there was no help for it, we bore him out and placed him on the bank of the river.
He, seeing the water, was greatly delighted, and said, 'The clear flowing water cures my sickness.'
A moment later he said further, 'I'd like to be quite alone and rid of you all for a little.
Go away into the wood and wait till I tell you to come.'
"We again remonstrated about this, but he grew furiously angry, so that we were helpless.
We feared that if we insisted, his sickness would grow worse, and so we were compelled to yield.
We went a short distance away and then turned to look, when suddenly the old father was gone from the place where he had been seated.
We hurried back to see what had happened.
My father had taken off his clothes and plunged into the water, which was muddied.
His body was already half metamorphosed into a skate.
We saw its transformation in terror, and did not dare to go near him, when all at once it became changed into a great flatfish, that swam and plunged and disported itself in the water with intense delight.
He looked back at us as though he could hardly bear to go, but a moment later he was off, entered the deep sea, and did not again appear.
"On the edge of the stream where he had changed his form we found his finger-nails and a tooth.
These we buried, and to-day as a family we all abstain from skate fish, and when we see the neighbours frying or eating it we are overcome with disgust and horror."
Im Bang.
XV THE GEOMANCER [Yi Eui-sin was a specialist in Geomancy.
His craft came into being evidently as a by-product of Taoism, but has had mixed in it elements of ancient Chinese philosophy.
The Positive and the Negative, the Two Primary Principles in Nature, play a great part; also the Five Elements, Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth.
In the selection of a site, that for a house is called a "male" choice, while the grave is denominated the "female" choice.
Millions of money have been expended in Korea on the geomancer and his associates in the hope of finding lucky homes for the living and auspicious resting-places for the dead, the Korean idea being that, in some mysterious way, all our fortune is associated with Mother Earth.]
The Story There was a geomancer once, Yi Eui-sin, who in seeking out a special mountain vein, started with the Dragon Ridge in North Ham-kyong Province, and traced it as far as Pine Mountain in Yang-ju County, where it stopped in a beautifully rounded end, forming a perfect site for burial.
After wandering all day in the hills, Yi's hungry spirit cried out for food.
He saw beneath the hill a small house, to which he went, and rapping at the door asked for something to eat.
A mourner, recently bereaved, came out in a respectful and kindly way, and gave him a dish of white gruel.
Yi, after he had eaten, asked what time the friend had become a mourner, and if he had already passed the funeral.
The owner answered, "I am just now entering upon full mourning, but we have not yet arranged for the funeral."
He spoke in a sad and disheartened way.
Yi felt sorry for him, and asked the reason.
"I wonder if it's because you are poor that you have not yet made the necessary arrangements, or perhaps you have not yet found a suitable site!
I am an expert in reading the hills, and I'll tell you of a site; would you care to see it?"
The mourner thanked him most gratefully, and said, "I'll be delighted to know of it."
Yi then showed him the end of the great vein that he had just discovered, also the spot for the grave and how to place its compass points.
"After possessing this site," said he, "you will be greatly enriched, but in ten years you will have cause to arrange for another site.
When that comes to pass please call me, won't you?
In calling for me just ask for Yi So-pang, who lives in West School Ward, Seoul."
The mourner did as directed, and as the geomancer had foretold, all his affairs prospered.
He built a large tiled house, and ornamented the grave with great stones as a prosperous and high-minded country gentleman should do.
After ten years a guest called one day, and saluting him asked, "Is that grave yonder, beyond the stream, yours?"
The master answered, "It is mine."
Then the stranger said, "That is a famous site, but ten years have passed since you have come into possession of it, and the luck is gone; why do you not make a change?
If you wait too long you will rue it and may meet with great disaster."
The owner, hearing this, thought of Yi the geomancer, and what he had said years before.
Remembering that, he asked the stranger to remain as his guest while he went next day to Seoul to look up Yi in West School Ward.
He found him, and told him why he had come.
Yi said, "I already knew of this."
So the two journeyed together to the inquirer's home.
When there, they went with the guest up the hill.
Yi asked of the guest, "Why did you tell the master to change the site?"
The guest replied, "This hill is a Kneeling Pheasant formation.
If the pheasant kneels too long it cannot endure it, so that within a limited time it must fly.
Ten years is the time; that's why I spoke."
Yi laughed and said, "Your idea is only a partial view, you have thought of only one thing, there are other conditions that enter."
Then he showed the peak to the rear, and said, "Yonder is Dog Hill," and then one below, "which," said he, "is Falcon Hill," and then the stream in front, "which," said he, "is Cat River.
This is the whole group, the dog behind, the falcon just above, and the cat in front, how then can the pheasant fly?
It dares not."
The guest replied, "Teacher, surely your eyes are enlightened, and see further than those of ordinary men."
From that day forth the Yis of Pine Hill became a great and noted family.
Anon.
XVI THE MAN WHO BECAME A PIG [Kim Yu was the son of a country magistrate who graduated with literary honours in 1596.
In 1623 he was one of the faithful courtiers who joined forces to dethrone the wicked Prince Kwang-hai, and place In-jo on the throne.
He was raised to the rank of Prince and became, later, Prime Minister.
In the year 1624, when Yi Kwal raised an insurrection, he was the means of putting it down and of bringing many of his followers to justice.
In 1648, he died at the age of seventy-seven.
In the last year of Son-jo the King called his grandchildren together and had them write Chinese for him and draw pictures.
At that time In-jo was a little boy, and he drew a picture of a horse.
King Son-jo gave the picture to Yi Hang-bok, but when the latter some years later went into exile he gave the picture to Kim Yu.
Kim Yu took it, and hung it up in his house and there it remained.
Prince In-jo was one day making a journey out of the Palace when he was overtaken by rain, and took refuge in a neighbouring gate-quarters.
A servant-maid came out and invited him in, asking him not to stand in the wet, but Prince In-jo declined.
The invitation, however, was insisted on, and he went into the guest-room, where he saw the picture of a horse on the wall.
On examining it carefully he recognized it as the picture he had drawn when a lad, and he wondered how it could have come here.
Kim Yu then came in and they met for the first time.
Prince In-jo told him how he had been overtaken by rain and invited in.
He asked concerning the picture of the horse that hung on the wall, and Kim Yu in reply asked why he inquired.
Prince In-jo said, "I drew that picture myself when I was a boy."
Just as they spoke together a rich table of food was brought in from the inner quarters.
Kim Yu, not knowing yet who his guest was, looked with wonder at this surprise, and after Prince In-jo had gone, he inquired of his wife why she had sent such delicious fare in to a stranger.
The wife replied, "In a dream last night, I saw the King come and stand in front of our house.
I was just thinking it over when the servant came in and said that some one was standing before the door.
I looked out, and lo, it was the man I had seen in my dream!
so I have treated him to the best of hospitality that I was able."
Kim Yu soon learned who his caller had been, and became from that time the faithful supporter of Prince In-jo, and later helped to put him on the throne.
After In-jo became king he asked privately of Kim Yu where he had got the picture.
Kim Yu said, "I got it from Prince Yi Hang-bok."
Kim Yu then called Yi's son and inquired of him as to how his father had got it.
The son said, "In the last year of King Son-jo he called my father along with all his grandchildren, and showed him the writings and drawings of the young princes.
My father looked at them with interest, but the King gave him only one as a keepsake, namely, the drawing of the horse."
In the picture there was a willow tree and a horse tied to it.
Kim Yu then recognized the thought that underlay the gift of the picture, namely, that Prince Yi Hang-bok should support In-jo in the succession to the throne.]
The Story A certain Minister of State, called Kim Yu, living in the County of Seung-pyong, had a relative who resided in a far-distant part of the country, an old man aged nearly one hundred.
On a certain day a son of this patriarch came to the office of the Minister and asked to see him.
Kim ordered him to be admitted, and inquired as to why he had come.
Said he, "I have something very important to say, a private matter to lay before your Excellency.
There are so many guests with you now that I'll come again in the evening and tell it."
In the evening, when all had departed, he came, and the Minister ordered out his personal retainers and asked the meaning of the call.
The man replied, saying, "My father, though very old, was, as you perhaps know, a strong and hearty man.
On a certain day he called us children to him and said, 'I wish to have a siesta, so now close the door and all of you go out of the room.
Do not let any one venture in till I call you.'
"We children agreed, of course, and did so.
Till late at night there was neither call nor command to open the door, so that we began to be anxious.
We at last looked through the chink, and lo, there was our father changed into a huge pig!
Terrified by the sight of it we opened the door and looked in, when the animal grunted and growled and made a rush to get out past us.
We hurriedly closed the door again and held a consultation.
"Some said, 'Let's keep the pig just as it is, within doors, and care for it.'
Some said, 'Let's have a funeral and bury it.'
We ignorant country-folk not knowing just what to do under such peculiar circumstances, I have come to ask counsel of your Excellency.
Please think over this startling phenomenon and tell us what we ought to do."
Prince Kim, hearing this, gave a great start, thought it over for a long time, and at last said, "No such mysterious thing was ever heard of before, and I really don't know what is best to do under the circumstances, but still, it seems to me that since this metamorphosis has come about, you had better not bury it before death, so give up the funeral idea.
Since, too, it is not a human being any longer, I do not think it right to keep it in the house.
You say that it wants to make its escape, and as a cave in the woods or hills is its proper abode, I think you had better take it out and let it go free into the trackless depths of some mountainous country, where no foot of man has ever trod."
The son accepted this wise counsel, and did as the Minister advised, took it away into the deep mountains and let it go.
Then he donned sackcloth, mourned, buried his father's clothes for a funeral, and observed the day of metamorphosis as the day of sacrificial ceremony.
Im Bang.
XVII THE OLD WOMAN WHO BECAME A GOBLIN There was a Confucian scholar once who lived in the southern part of Seoul.
It is said that he went out for a walk one day while his wife remained alone at home.
When he was absent there came by begging an old woman who looked like a Buddhist priestess, for while very old her face was not wrinkled.
The scholar's wife asked her if she knew how to sew.
She said she did, and so the wife made this proposition, "If you will stay and work for me I'll give you your breakfast and your supper, and you'll not have to beg anywhere; will you agree?"
She replied, "Oh, thank you so much, I'll be delighted."
The scholar's wife, well satisfied with her bargain, took her in and set her to picking cotton, and making and spinning thread.
In one day she did more than eight ordinary women, and yet had, seemingly, plenty of time to spare.
The wife, delighted above measure, treated her to a great feast.
After five or six days, however, the feeling of delight and the desire to treat her liberally and well wore off somewhat, so that the old woman grew angry and said, "I am tired of living alone, and so I want your husband for my partner."
This being refused, she went off in a rage, but came back in a little accompanied by a decrepit old man who looked like a Buddhist beggar.
These two came boldly into the room and took possession, cleared out the things that were in the ancient tablet-box on the wall-shelf, and both disappeared into it, so that they were not seen at all, but only their voices heard.
According to the whim that took them they now ordered eatables and other things.
When the scholar's wife failed in the least particular to please them, they sent plague and sickness after her, so that her children fell sick and died.
Relatives on hearing of this came to see, but they also caught the plague, fell ill and died.
Little by little no one dared come near the place, and it became known at last that the wife was held as a prisoner by these two goblin creatures.
For a time smoke was seen by the town-folk coming out of the chimney daily, and they knew that the wife still lived, but after five or six days the smoke ceased, and they knew then that the woman's end had come.
No one dared even to make inquiry.
Im Bang.
XVIII THE GRATEFUL GHOST It is often told that in the days of the Koryo Dynasty (A.D. 918-1392), when an examination was to be held, a certain scholar came from a far-distant part of the country to take part.
Once on his journey the day was drawing to a close, and he found himself among the mountains.
Suddenly he heard a sneezing from among the creepers and bushes by the roadside, but could see no one.
Thinking it strange, he dismounted from his horse, went into the brake and listened.
He heard it again, and it seemed to come from the roots of the creeper close beside him, so he ordered his servant to dig round it and see.
He dug and found a dead man's skull.
It was full of earth, and the roots of the creeper had passed through the nostrils.
The sneezing was caused by the annoyance felt by the spirit from having the nose so discommoded.
The candidate felt sorry, washed the skull in clean water, wrapped it in paper and reburied it in its former place on the hill-side.
He also brought a table of food and offered sacrifice, and said a prayer.
That night, in a dream, a scholar came to him, an old man with white hair, who bowed, thanked him, and said, "On account of sin committed in a former life, I died out of season before I had fulfilled my days.
My posterity, too, were all destroyed, my body crumbled back into the dust, my skull alone remaining, and that is what you found below the creeper.
On account of the root passing through it the annoyance was great, and I could not help but sneeze.
By good luck you and your kind heart, blessed of Heaven, took pity on me, buried me in a clean place and gave me food.
Your kindness is greater than the mountains, and like the blessing that first brought me into life.
Though my soul is by no means perfect, yet I long for some way by which to requite your favour, and so I have exercised my powers in your behalf.
Your present journey is for the purpose of trying the official Examination, so I shall tell you beforehand what the form is to be, and the subject.
It is to be of character groups of fives, in couplets; the rhyme sound is 'pong,' and the subject 'Peaks and Spires of the Summer Clouds.'
I have already composed one for you, which, if you care to use it, will undoubtedly win you the first place.
It is this-'The white sun rode high up in the heavens, And the floating clouds formed a lofty peak; The priest who saw them asked if there was a temple there, And the crane lamented the fact that no pines were visible; But the lightnings from the cloud were the flashings of the woodman's axe, And the muffled thunders were the bell calls of the holy temple.
Will any say that the hills do not move?
On the sunset breezes they sailed away.'"
After thus stating it, he bowed and took his departure.
The man, in wonder, awakened from his dream, came up to Seoul; and behold, the subject was as foretold by the spirit.
He wrote what had been given him, and became first in the honours of the occasion.
Im Bang.
XIX THE PLUCKY MAIDEN [Han Myong-hoi.--We are told in the Yol-ryok Keui-sul that when Han was a boy he had for protector and friend a tiger, who used to accompany him as a dog does his master.
One evening, when he started off into the hills, he heard the distant tramp of the great beast, who had got scent of his going, and had come rushing after him.
When Han saw him he turned, and said, "Good old chap, you come all this distance to be my friend; I love you for it."
The tiger prostrated himself and nodded with his head several times.
He used to accompany Han all through the nights, but when the day dawned he would leave him.
Han later fell into bad company, grew fond of drink, and was one of the boisterous companions of King Se-jo.]
The Story Han Myong-hoi was a renowned Minister of the Reign of Se-jo (A.D. 1455-1468).
The King appreciated and enjoyed him greatly, and there was no one of the Court who could surpass him for influence and royal favour.
Confident in his position, Han did as he pleased, wielding absolute power.
At that time, like grass before the wind, the world bowed at his coming; no one dared utter a word of remonstrance.
When Han went as governor to Pyong-an Province he did all manner of lawless things.
Any one daring to cross his wishes in the least was dealt with by torture and death.
The whole Province feared him as they would a tiger.
On a certain day Governor Han, hearing that the Deputy Prefect of Son-chon had a very beautiful daughter, called the Deputy, and said, "I hear that you have a very beautiful daughter, whom I would like to make my concubine.
When I am on my official rounds shortly, I shall expect to stop at your town and take her.
So be ready for me."
The Deputy, alarmed, said, "How can your Excellency say that your servant's contemptible daughter is beautiful?
Some one has reported her wrongly.
But since you so command, how can I do but accede gladly?"
So he bowed, said his farewell, and went home.
On his return his family noticed that his face was clouded with anxiety, and the daughter asked why it was.
"Did the Governor call you, father?"
asked she; "and why are you so anxious?
Tell me, please."
At first, fearing that she would be disturbed, he did not reply, but her repeated questions forced him, so that he said, "I am in trouble on your account," and then told of how the Governor wanted her for his concubine.
"If I had refused I would have been killed, so I yielded; but a gentleman's daughter being made a concubine is a disgrace unheard of."
The daughter made light of it and laughed.
"Why did you not think it out better than that, father?
Why should a grown man lose his life for the sake of a girl?
Let the daughter go.
By losing one daughter and saving your life, you surely do better than saving your daughter and losing your life.
One can easily see where the greater advantage lies.
A daughter does not count; give her over, that's all.
Don't for a moment think otherwise, just put away your distress and anxiety.
We women, every one of us, are under the ban, and such things are decreed by Fate.
I shall accept without any opposition, so please have no anxiety.
It is settled now, and you, father, must yield and follow.
If you do so all will be well."
The father sighed, and said in reply, "Since you seem so willing, my mind is somewhat relieved."
But from this time on the whole house was in distress.
The girl alone seemed perfectly unmoved, not showing the slightest sign of fear.
She laughed as usual, her light and happy laugh, and her actions seemed wonderfully free.
In a little the Governor reached Son-chon on his rounds.
He then called the Deputy, and said, "Make ready your daughter for to-morrow and all the things needed."
The Deputy came home and made preparation for the so-called wedding.
The daughter said, "This is not a real wedding; it is only the taking of a concubine, but still, make everything ready in the way of refreshments and ceremony as for a real marriage."
So the father did as she requested.
On the day following the Governor came to the house of the Deputy.
He was not dressed in his official robes, but came simply in the dress and hat of a commoner.
When he went into the inner quarters he met the daughter; she stood straight before him.
Her two hands were lifted in ceremonial form, but instead of holding a fan to hide her face she held a sword before her.
She was very pretty.
He gave a great start of surprise, and asked the meaning of the knife that she held.
She ordered her nurse to reply, who said, "Even though I am an obscure countrywoman, I do not forget that I am born of the gentry; and though your Excellency is a high Minister of State, still to take me by force is an unheard-of dishonour.
If you take me as your real and true wife I'll serve you with all my heart, but if you are determined to take me as a concubine I shall die now by this sword.
For that reason I hold it.
My life rests on one word from your Excellency.
Speak it, please, before I decide."
The Governor, though a man who observed no ceremony and never brooked a question, when he saw how beautiful and how determined this maiden was, fell a victim to her at once, and said, "If you so decide, then, of course, I'll make you my real wife."
Her answer was, "If you truly mean it, then please withdraw and write out the certificate; send the gifts; provide the goose; dress in the proper way; come, and let us go through the required ceremony; drink the pledge-glass, and wed." The Governor did as she suggested, carried out the forms to the letter, and they were married.
She was not only a very pretty woman, but upright and true of soul--a rare person indeed.
The Governor took her home, loved her and held her dear.
He had, however, a real wife before and concubines, but he set them all aside and fixed his affections on this one only.
She remonstrated with him over his wrongs and unrighteous acts, and he listened and made improvement.
The world took note of it, and praised her as a true and wonderful woman.
She counted herself the real wife, but the first wife treated her as a concubine, and all the relatives said likewise that she could never be considered a real wife.
At that time King Se-jo frequently, in the dress of a commoner, used to visit Han's house.
Han entertained him royally with refreshments, which his wife used to bring and offer before him.
He called her his "little sister."
On a certain day King Se-jo, as he was accustomed, came to the house, and while he was drinking he suddenly saw the woman fall on her face before him.
The King in surprise inquired as to what she could possibly mean by such an act.
She then told all the story of her being taken by force and brought to Seoul.
She wept while she said, "Though I am from a far-distant part of the country I am of the gentry by ancestry, and my husband took me with all the required ceremonies of a wife, so that I ought not to be counted a concubine.
But there is no law in this land by which a second real wife may be taken after a first real wife exists, so they call me a concubine, a matter of deepest disgrace.
Please, your Majesty, take pity on me and decide my case."
The King laughed, and said, "This is a simple matter to settle; why should my little sister make so great an affair of it, and bow before me?
I will decide your case at once.
Come."
He then wrote out with his own hand a document making her a real wife, and her children eligible for the highest office.
He wrote it, signed it, stamped it and gave it to her.
From that time on she was known as a real wife, in rank and standing equal to the first one.
No further word was ever slightingly spoken, and her children shared in the affairs of State.
Im Bang.
XX THE RESOURCEFUL WIFE In the last year of Yon-san terrible evils were abroad among the people.
Such wickedness as the world had never seen before was perpetrated, of which his Majesty was the evil genius.
He even gave orders to his eunuchs and underlings to bring to him any women of special beauty that they might see in the homes of the highest nobility, and whoever pleased him he used as his own.
"Never mind objections," said he, "take them by force and come."
Such were his orders.
No one escaped him.
He even went so far as to publish abroad that Minister So and So's wife preferred him to her husband and would like to live always in the Palace.
It was the common talk of the city, and people were dumbfounded.
For that reason all hearts forsook him, and because of this he was dethroned, and King Choong-jong reigned in his stead.
In these days of trouble there was a young wife of a certain minister, who was very beautiful in form and face.
One day it fell about that she was ordered into the Palace.
Other women, when called, would cry and behave as though their lives were forfeited, but this young woman showed not the slightest sign of fear.
She dressed and went straight into the Palace.
King Yon-san saw her, and ordered her to come close to him.
She came, and then in a sudden manner the most terrible odour imaginable was noticeable.
The King held his fan before his face, turned aside, spat, and said, "Dear me, I cannot stand this one, take her away," and so she escaped undefiled.
How it came about was thus: She knew that she was likely to be called at any moment, and so had planned a ruse by which to escape.
Two slices of meat she had kept constantly on hand, decayed and foul-smelling, but always ready.
She placed these under her arms as she dressed and went into the Palace, and so provided this awful and unaccountable odour.
All that knew of it praised her bravery and sagacity.
Im Bang.
XXI THE BOXED-UP GOVERNOR A certain literary official was at one time Governor of the city of Kyong-ju.
Whenever he visited the Mayor of the place, it was his custom, on seeing dancing-girls, to tap them on the head with his pipe, and say, "These girls are devils, ogres, goblins.
How can you tolerate them in your presence?"
Naturally, those who heard this disliked him, and the Mayor himself detested his behaviour and manners.
He sent a secret message to the dancing-girls, saying, "If any of you, by any means whatever, can deceive this governor, and put him to shame, I'll reward you richly."
Among them there was one girl, a mere child, who said she could.
The Governor resided in the quarter of the city where the Confucian Temple was, and he had but one servant with him, a young lad.
The dancing-girl who had decided to ensnare him, in the dress of a common woman of the town, used frequently to go by the main gateway of the Temple, and in going would call the Governor's boy to her.
Sometimes she showed her profile and sometimes she showed her whole form, as she stood in the gateway.
The boy would go out to her and she would speak to him for a moment or two and then go.
She came sometimes once a day, sometimes twice, and this she kept up for a long time.
The Governor at last inquired of the boy as to who this woman was that came so frequently to call him.
"She is my sister," said the boy.
"Her husband went away on a peddling round a year or so ago, and has not yet returned; consequently she has no one else to help her, so she frequently calls and confers with me."
One evening, when the boy had gone to eat his meal and the Governor was alone, the woman came to the main gateway, and called for the boy.
His Excellency answered for him, and invited her in.
When she came, she blushed, and appeared very diffident, standing modestly aside.
The Governor said, "My boy is absent just now, but I want a smoke; go and get a light for my pipe, will you, please."
She brought the light, and then he said, "Sit down too, and smoke a little, won't you?"
She replied, "How could I dare do such a thing?"
He said, "There is no one else here now; never mind."
There being no help for it, she did as he bade her, and smoked a little.
He felt his heart suddenly inclined in her favour, and he said, "I have seen many beautiful women, but I surely think that you are the prettiest of them all.
Once seeing you, I have quite forgotten how to eat or sleep.
Could you not come to me to live here?
I am quite alone and no one will know it."
She pretended to be greatly scandalized.
"Your Excellency is a noble, and I am a low-class woman; how can you think of such a thing?
Do you mean it as a joke?"
He replied, "I mean it truly, no joke at all."
He swore an oath, saying, "Really I mean it, every word."
She then said, "Since you speak so, I am really very grateful, and shall come."
Said he, "Meeting you thus is wonderful indeed."
She went on to say, "There is another matter, however, that I wish to call to your attention.
I understand that where your Excellency is now staying is a very sacred place, and that according to ancient law men were forbidden to have women here.
Is that true?"
The Governor clapped her shoulder, and said, "Well, really now, how is it that you know of this?
You are right.
What shall we do about it?"
She made answer, "If you'll depend on me, I'll arrange a plan.
My home is near by, and I am also alone, so if you come quietly at night to me, we can meet and no one will know.
I shall send a felt hat by the boy, and you can wear that for disguise.
With this commoner's felt hat on no one will know you."
The Governor was greatly delighted, and said, "How is it that you can plan so wonderfully?
I shall do as you suggest.
Now you be sure to be on hand."
He repeated this two or three times.
The woman went and entered the house indicated.
When evening came she sent the hat by the boy.
The Governor arrived as agreed, and she received him, lit the lamp, and brought him refreshments and drink.
They talked and drank together, and he called her to come to him.
The woman hesitated for a moment, when suddenly there was a call heard from the outside, and a great disturbance took place.
She bent her head to listen and then gave a cry of alarm, saying, "That's the voice of my husband, who has come.
I was unfortunate, and so had this miserable wretch apportioned to my lot.
He is the most despicable among mortals.
For murder and arson he has no equal.
Three years ago he left me and I took another husband, and we've had nothing to do with each other since.
I can't imagine why he should come now.
He is evidently very drunk, too, from the sound of his voice.
Your Excellency has really fallen into a terrible plight.
What shall I do?"
The woman went out then and answered, saying, "Who comes thus at midnight to make such a disturbance?"
The voice replied, "Don't you know my voice?
Why don't you open the door?"
She answered, "Are you not Chol-lo (Brass Tiger), and have we not separated for good, years ago?
Why have you come?"
The voice from without answered back, "Your leaving me and taking another man has always been a matter of deepest resentment on my part; I have something special to say to you," and he pounded the door open and came thundering in.
The woman rushed back into the room, saying, "Your Excellency must escape in some way or other."
In such a little thatched hut there was no place possible for concealment but an empty rice-box only.
"Please get into this," said she, and she lifted the lid and hurried him in.
The Governor, in his haste and déshabille, was bundled into the box.
He then heard, from within, this fellow come into the room and quarrel with his wife.
She said, "We have been separated three years already; what reason have you to come now and make such a disturbance?"
Said he, "You cast me off and took another man, therefore I have come for the clothes that I left, and the other things that belong to me."
Then she threw out his belongings to him, but he said, pointing to the box, "That's mine."
She replied, "That's not yours; I bought that myself with two rolls of silk goods."
"But," said he, "one of those rolls I gave you, and I'm not going to let you have it."
"Even though you did give it, do you mean to say that for one roll of silk you will carry away this box?
I'll not consent to it."
Thus they quarrelled, and contradicted each other.
"If you don't give me the box," said he, "I'll enter a suit against you at the Mayor's."
A little later the day dawned, and so he had the box carried off to the Mayor's office to have the case decided by law, while the woman followed.
When they entered the court, already the Mayor was seated in the judgment-place, and here they presented their case concerning the box.
The Mayor, after hearing, decided thus: "Since you each have a half-share in its purchase, there is nothing for me to do but to divide it between you.
Bring a saw," said he.
The servants brought the saw and began on the box, when suddenly from the inner regions came forth a cry, "Save me; oh, save me!"
The Mayor, in pretended astonishment, said, "Why, there's a man's voice from the inside," and ordered that it should be opened.
The servants managed to find the key, and at last the lid came back, and from the inner quarters there came forth a half-dressed man.
On seeing him the whole place was put into convulsions of laughter, for it was none other than the Governor.
"How is it that your Excellency finds yourself in this box in this unaccountable way?"
asked the Mayor.
"Please come out."
The Governor, huddling himself together as well as he could, climbed on to the open verandah.
He held his head down and nearly died for shame.
The Mayor, splitting his sides with laughter, ordered clothes to be brought, and the first thing that came was a woman's green dress-coat.
The Governor hastily turned it inside out, slipped it on, and made a dash for his quarters in the Confucian Temple.
That day he left the place never to return, and even to the present time in Kyong-ju they laugh and tell the story of the Boxed-up Governor.
Im Bang.
XXII THE MAN WHO LOST HIS LEGS There was a merchant in Chong-ju who used to go to Quelpart to buy seaweed.
One time when he drew up on the shore he saw a man shuffling along on the ground toward the boat.
He crept nearer, and at last took hold of the side with both his hands and jumped in.
"When I looked at him," said the merchant, "I found he was an old man without any legs.
Astonished, I asked, saying, 'How is it, old man, that you have lost your legs?'
"He said in reply, 'I lost my legs on a trip once when I was shipwrecked, and a great fish bit them off.'"
"However did that happen?"
inquired the merchant.
And the old man said, "We were caught in a gale and driven till we touched on some island or other.
Before us on the shore stood a high castle with a great gateway.
The twenty or so of us who were together in the storm-tossed boat were all exhausted from cold and hunger, and lying exposed.
We landed and managed to go together to the house.
There was in it one man only, whose height was terrible to behold, and whose chest was many spans round.
His face was black and his eyes large and rolling.
His voice was like the braying of a monster donkey.
Our people made motions showing that they wanted something to eat.
The man made no reply, but securely fastened the front gate.
After this he brought an armful of wood, put it in the middle of the courtyard, and there made a fire.
When the fire blazed up he rushed after us and caught a young lad, one of our company, cooked him before our eyes, pulled him to pieces and ate him.
We were all reduced to a state of horror, not knowing what to do.
We gazed at each other in dismay and stupefaction.
"When he had eaten his fill, he went up into a verandah and opened a jar, from which he drank some kind of spirit.
After drinking it he uttered the most gruesome and awful noises; his face grew very red and he lay down and slept.
His snorings were like the roarings of the thunder.
We planned then to make our escape, and so tried to open the large gate, but one leaf was about twenty-four feet across, and so thick and heavy that with all our strength we could not move it.
The walls, too, were a hundred and fifty feet high, and so we could do nothing with them.
We were like fish in a pot--beyond all possible way of escape.
We held each other's hands, and cried.
"Among us, one man thought of this plan: We had a knife and he took it, and while the monster was drunk and asleep, decided to stab his eyes out, and cut his throat.
We said in reply, 'We are all doomed to death, anyway; let's try,' and we made our way up on to the verandah and stabbed his eyes.
He gave an awful roar, and struck out on all sides to catch us.
We rushed here and there, making our escape out of the court back into the rear garden.
There were in this enclosure pigs and sheep, about sixty of them in all.
There we rushed, in among the pigs and sheep.
He floundered about, waving his two arms after us, but not one of us did he get hold of; we were all mixed up--sheep, pigs and people.
When he did catch anything it was a sheep; and when it was not a sheep it was a pig.
So he opened the front gate to send all the animals out.
"We then each of us took a pig or sheep on the back and made straight for the gate.
The monster felt each, and finding it a pig or a sheep let it go.
Thus we all got out and rushed for the boat.
A little later he came and sat on the bank and roared his threatenings at us.
A lot of other giants came at his call.
They took steps of thirty feet or so, came racing after us, caught the boat, and made it fast; but we took axes and struck at the hands that held it, and so got free at last and out to the open sea.
"Again a great wind arose, and we ran on to the rocks and were all destroyed.
Every one was engulfed in the sea and drowned; I alone got hold of a piece of boat-timber and lived.
Then there was a horrible fish from the sea that came swimming after me and bit off my legs.
At last I drifted back home and here I am.
"When I think of it still, my teeth are cold and my bones shiver.
My Eight Lucky Stars are very bad, that's why it happened to me."
Anon.
XXIII TEN THOUSAND DEVILS [Han Chun-kyom was the son of a provincial secretary.
He matriculated in the year 1579 and graduated in 1586.
He received the last wishes of King Son-jo, and sat by his side taking notes for seven hours.
From 1608 to 1623 he was generalissimo of the army, and later was raised to the rank of Prince.]
A certain Prince Han of Choong-chong Province had a distant relative who was an uncouth countryman living in extreme poverty.
This relative came to visit him from time to time.
Han pitied his cold and hungry condition, gave him clothes to wear and shared his food, urging him to stay and to prolong his visit often into several months.
He felt sorry for him, but disliked his uncouthness and stupidity.
On one of these visits the poor relation suddenly announced his intention to return home, although the New Year's season was just at hand.
Han urged him to remain, saying, "It would be better for you to be comfortably housed at my home, eating cake and soup and enjoying quiet sleep rather than riding through wind and weather at this season of the year."
He said at first that he would have to go, until his host so insistently urged on him to stay that at last he yielded and gave consent.
At New Year's Eve he remarked to Prince Han, "I am possessor of a peculiar kind of magic, by which I have under my control all manner of evil genii, and New Year is the season at which I call them up, run over their names, and inspect them.
If I did not do so I should lose control altogether, and there would follow no end of trouble among mortals.
It is a matter of no small moment, and that is why I wished to go.
Since, however, you have detained me, I shall have to call them up in your Excellency's house and look them over.
I hope you will not object."
Han was greatly astonished and alarmed, but gave his consent.
The poor relation went on to say further, "This is an extremely important matter, and I would like to have for it your central guest hall."
Han consented to this also, so that night they washed the floors and scoured them clean.
The relation also sat himself with all dignity facing the south, while Prince Han took up his station on the outside prepared to spy.
Soon he saw a startling variety of demons crushing in at the door, horrible in appearance and awesome of manner.
They lined up one after another, and still another, and another, till they filled the entire court, each bowing as he came before the master, who, at this point, drew out a book, opened it before him, and began calling off the names.
Demon guards who stood by the threshold repeated the call and checked off the names just as they do in a government yamen.
From the second watch it went on till the fifth of the morning.
Han remarked, "It was indeed no lie when he told me 'ten thousand devils.'"
One late-comer arrived after the marking was over, and still another came climbing over the wall.
The man ordered them to be arrested, and inquiry made of them under the paddle.
The late arrival said, "I really have had a hard time of it of late to live, and so was obliged, in order to find anything, to inject smallpox into the home of a scholar who lives in Yong-nam.
It is a long way off, and so I have arrived too late for the roll-call, a serious fault indeed, I confess."
The one who climbed the wall, said, "I, too, have known want and hunger, and so had to insert a little typhus into the family of a gentleman who lives in Kyong-keui, but hearing that roll-call was due I came helter-skelter, fearing lest I should arrive too late, and so climbed the wall, which was indeed a sin."
The man then, in a loud voice, rated them soundly, saying, "These devils have disobeyed my orders, caused disease and sinned grievously.
Worse than everything, they have climbed the wall of a high official's house."
He ordered a hundred blows to be given them with the paddle, the cangue to be put on, and to have them locked fast in prison.
Then, calling the others to him, he said, "Do not spread disease!
Do you understand?"
Three times he ordered it and five times he repeated it.
Then they were all dismissed.
The crowd of devils lined off before him, taking their departure and crushing out through the gate with no end of noise and confusion.
After a long time they had all disappeared.
Prince Han, looking on during this time, saw the man now seated alone in the hall.
It was quiet, and all had vanished.
The cocks crew and morning came.
Han was astonished above measure, and asked as to the law that governed such work as this.
The poor relation said in reply, "When I was young I studied in a monastery in the mountains.
In that monastery was an old priest who had a most peculiar countenance.
A man feeble and ready to die, he seemed.
All the priests made sport of him and treated him with contempt.
I alone had pity on his age, and often gave him of my food and always treated him kindly.
One evening, when the moon was bright, the old priest said to me, 'There is a cave behind this monastery from which a beautiful view may be had; will you not come with me and share it?'
"I went with him, and when we crossed the ridge of the hills into the stillness of the night he drew a book from his breast and gave it to me, saying, 'I, who am old and ready to die, have here a great secret, which I have long wished to pass on to some one worthy.
I have travelled over the wide length of Korea, and have never found the man till now I meet you, and my heart is satisfied, so please receive it.'
"I opened the book and found it a catalogue list of devils, with magic writing interspersed, and an explanation of the laws that govern the spirit world.
The old priest wrote out one magic recipe, and having set fire to it countless devils at once assembled, at which I was greatly alarmed.
He then sat with me and called over the names one after the other, and said to the devils, 'I am an old man now, am going away, and so am about to put you under the care of this young man; obey him and all will be well.'
"I already had the book, and so called them to me, read out the new orders, and dismissed them.
"The old priest and I returned to the Temple and went to sleep.
I awoke early next morning and went to call on him, but he was gone.
Thus I came into possession of the magic art, and have possessed it for a score of years and more.
What the world knows nothing of I have thus made known to your Excellency."
Han was astonished beyond measure, and asked, "May I not also come into possession of this wonderful gift?"
The man replied, "Your Excellency has great ability, and can do wonderful things; but the possessor of this craft must be one poor and despised, and of no account.
For you, a minister, it would never do."
The next day he left suddenly, and returned no more.
Han sent a servant with a message to him.
The servant, with great difficulty, at last found him alone among a thousand mountain peaks, living in a little straw hut no bigger than a cockle shell.
No neighbours were there, nor any one beside.
He called him, but he refused to come.
He sent another messenger to invite him, but he had moved away and no trace of him was left.
Prince Han's children had heard this story from himself, and I, the writer, received it from them.
Im Bang.
XXIV THE HOME OF THE FAIRIES In the days of King In-jo (1623-1649) there was a student of Confucius who lived in Ka-pyong.
He was still a young man and unmarried.
His education had not been extensive, for he had read only a little in the way of history and literature.
For some reason or other he left his home and went into Kang-won Province.
Travelling on horseback, and with a servant, he reached a mountain, where he was overtaken by rain that wet him through.
Mysteriously, from some unknown cause, his servant suddenly died, and the man, in fear and distress, drew the body to the side of the hill, where he left it and went on his way weeping.
When he had gone but a short distance, the horse he rode fell under him and died also.
Such was his plight: his servant dead, his horse dead, rain falling fast, and the road an unknown one.
He did not know what to do or where to go, and reduced thus to walking, he broke down and cried.
At this point there met him an old man with very wonderful eyes, and hair as white as snow.
He asked the young man why he wept, and the reply was that his servant was dead, his horse was dead, that it was raining, and that he did not know the way.
The patriarch, on hearing this, took pity on him, and lifting his staff, pointed, saying, "There is a house yonder, just beyond those pines, follow that stream and it will bring you to where there are people."
The young man looked as directed, and a li or so beyond he saw a clump of trees.
He bowed, thanked the stranger, and started on his way.
When he had gone a few paces he looked back, but the friend had disappeared.
Greatly wondering, he went on toward the place indicated, and as he drew near he saw a grove of pines, huge trees they were, a whole forest of them.
Bamboos appeared, too, in countless numbers, with a wide stream of water flowing by.
Underneath the water there seemed to be a marble flooring like a great pavement, white and pure.
As he went along he saw that the water was all of an even depth, such as one could cross easily.
A mile or so farther on he saw a beautifully decorated house.
The pillars and entrance approaches were perfect in form.
He continued his way, wet as he was, carrying his thorn staff, and entered the gate and sat down to rest.
It was paved, too, with marble, and smooth as polished glass.
There were no chinks or creases in it, all was of one perfect surface.
In the room was a marble table, and on it a copy of the Book of Changes; there was also a brazier of jade just in front.
Incense was burning in it, and the fragrance filled the room.
Beside these, nothing else was visible.
The rain had ceased and all was quiet and clear, with no wind nor anything to disturb.
The world of confusion seemed to have receded from him.
While he sat there, looking in astonishment, he suddenly heard the sound of footfalls from the rear of the building.
Startled by it, he turned to see, when an old man appeared.
He looked as though he might equal the turtle or the crane as to age, and was very dignified.
He wore a green dress and carried a jade staff of nine sections.
The appearance of the old man was such as to stun any inhabitant of the earth.
He recognized him as the master of the place, and so he went forward and made a low obeisance.
The old man received him kindly, and said, "I am the master and have long waited for you."
He took him by the hand and led him away.
As they went along, the hills grew more and more enchanting, while the soft breezes and the light touched him with mystifying favour.
Suddenly, as he looked the man was gone, so he went on by himself, and arrived soon at another palace built likewise of precious stones.
It was a great hall, stretching on into the distance as far as the eye could see.
The young man had seen the Royal Palace frequently when in Seoul attending examinations, but compared with this, the Royal Palace was as a mud hut thatched with straw.
As he reached the gate a man in ceremonial robes received him and led him in.
He passed two or three pavilions, and at last reached a special one and went up to the upper storey.
There, reclining at a table, he saw the ancient sage whom he had met before.
Again he bowed.
This young man, brought up poorly in the country, was never accustomed to seeing or dealing with the great.
In fear, he did not dare to lift his eyes.
The ancient master, however, again welcomed him and asked him to be seated, saying, "This is not the dusty world that you are accustomed to, but the abode of the genii.
I knew you were coming, and so was waiting to receive you."
He turned and called, saying, "Bring something for the guest to eat."
In a little a servant brought a richly laden table.
It was such fare as was never seen on earth, and there was abundance of it.
The young man, hungry as he was, ate heartily of these strange viands.
Then the dishes were carried away and the old man said, "I have a daughter who has arrived at a marriageable age, and I have been trying to find a son-in-law, but as yet have not succeeded.
Your coming accords with this need.
Live here, then, and become my son-in-law."
The young man, not knowing what to think, bowed and was silent.
Then the host turned and gave an order, saying, "Call in the children."
Two boys about twelve or thirteen years of age came running in and sat down beside him.
Their faces were so beautifully white they seemed like jewels.
The master pointed to them and said to the guest, "These are my sons," and to the sons he said, "This young man is he whom I have chosen for my son-in-law; when should we have the wedding?
Choose you a lucky day and let me know."
The two boys reckoned over the days on their fingers, and then together said, "The day after to-morrow is a lucky day."
The old man, turning to the stranger, said, "That decides as to the wedding, and now you must wait in the guest-chamber till the time arrives."
He then gave a command to call So and So.
In a little an official of the genii came forward, dressed in light and airy garments.
His appearance and expression were very beautiful, a man, he seemed, of glad and happy mien.
The master said, "Show this young man the way to his apartments and treat him well till the time of the wedding."
The official then led the way, and the young man bowed as he left the room.
When he had passed outside the gate, a red sedan chair was in waiting for him.
He was asked to mount.
Eight bearers bore him smoothly along.
A mile or so distant they reached another palace, equally wonderful, with no speck or flaw of any kind to mar its beauty.
In graceful groves of flowers and trees he descended to enter his pavilion.
Beautiful garments were taken from jewelled boxes, and a perfumed bath was given him and a change made.
Thus he laid aside his weather-beaten clothes and donned the vestments of the genii.
The official remained as company for him till the appointed time.
When that day arrived other beautiful robes were brought, and again he bathed and changed.
When he was dressed, he mounted the palanquin and rode to the Palace of the master, twenty or more officials accompanying.
On arrival, a guide directed them to the special Palace Beautiful.
Here he saw preparations for the wedding, and here he made his bow.
This finished he moved as directed, further in.
The tinkling sound of jade bells and the breath of sweet perfumes filled the air.
Thus he made his entry into the inner quarters.
Many beautiful women were in waiting, all gorgeously apparelled, like the women of the gods.
Among these he imagined that he would meet the master's daughter.
In a little, accompanied by a host of others, she came, shining in jewels and beautiful clothing so that she lighted up the Palace.
He took his stand before her, though her face was hidden from him by a fan of pearls.
When he saw her at last, so beautiful was she that his eyes were dazzled.
The other women, compared with her, were as the magpie to the phoenix.
So bewildered was he that he dared not look up.
The friend accompanying assisted him to bow and to go through the necessary forms.
The ceremony was much the same as that observed among men.
When it was over the young man went back to his bridegroom's chamber.
There the embroidered curtains, the golden screens, the silken clothing, the jewelled floor, were such as no men of earth ever see.
On the second day his mother-in-law called him to her.
Her age would be about thirty, and her face was like a freshly-blown lotus flower.
Here a great feast was spread, with many guests invited.
The accompaniments thereof in the way of music were sweeter than mortals ever dreamed of.
When the feast was over, the women caught up their skirts, and, lifting their sleeves, danced together and sang in sweet accord.
The sound of their singing caused even the clouds to stop and listen.
When the day was over, and all had well dined, the feast broke up.
A young man, brought up in a country hut, had all of a sudden met the chief of the genii, and had become a sharer in his glory and the accompaniments of his life.
His mind was dazed and his thoughts overcame him.
Doubts were mixed with fears.
He knew not what to do.
A sharer in the joys of the fairies he had actually become, and a year or so passed in such delight as no words can ever describe.
One day his wife said to him, "Would you like to enter into the inner enclosure and see as the fairies see?"
He replied, "Gladly would I."
She then led him into a special park where there were lovely walks, surrounded by green hills.
As they advanced there were charming views, with springs of water and sparkling cascades.
The scene grew gradually more entrancing, with jewelled flowers and scintillating spray, lovely birds and animals disporting themselves.
A man once entering here would never again think of earth as a place to return to.
After seeing this he ascended the highest peak of all, which was like a tower of many stories.
Before him lay a wide stretch of sea, with islands of the blessed standing out of the water, and long stretches of pleasant land in view.
His wife showed them all to him, pointing out this and that.
They seemed filled with golden palaces and surrounded with a halo of light.
They were peopled with happy souls, some riding on cranes, some on the phoenix, some on the unicorn; some were sitting on the clouds, some sailing by on the wind, some walking on the air, some gliding gently up the streams, some descending from above, some ascending, some moving west, some north, some gathering in groups.
Flutes and harps sounded sweetly.
So many and so startling were the things seen that he could never tell the tale of them.
After the day had passed they returned.
Thus was their joy unbroken, and when two years had gone by she bore him two sons.
Time moved on, when one day, unexpectedly, as he was seated with his wife, he began to cry and tears soiled his face.
She asked in amazement for the cause of it.
"I was thinking," said he, "of how a plain countryman living in poverty had thus become the son-in-law of the king of the genii.
But in my home is my poor old mother, whom I have not seen for these years; I would so like to see her that my tears flow."
The wife laughed, and said, "Would you really like to see her?
Then go, but do not cry."
She told her father that her husband would like to go and see his mother.
The master called him and gave his permission.
The son thought, of course, that he would call many servants and send him in state, but not so.
His wife gave him one little bundle and that was all, so he said good-bye to his father-in-law, whose parting word was, "Go now and see your mother, and in a little I shall call for you again."
He sent with him one servant, and so he passed out through the main gateway.
There he saw a poor thin horse with a worn rag of a saddle on his back.
He looked carefully and found that they were the dead horse and the dead servant, whom he had lost, restored to him.
He gave a start, and asked, "How did you come here?"
The servant answered, "I was coming with you on the road when some one caught me away and brought me here.
I did not know the reason, but I have been here for a long time."
The man, in great fear, fastened on his bundle and started on his journey.
The genie servant brought up the rear, but after a short distance the world of wonder had become transformed into the old weary world again.
Here it was with its fogs, and thorn, and precipice.
He looked off toward the world of the genii, and it was but a dream.
So overcome was he by his feelings that he broke down and cried.
The genie servant said to him when he saw him weeping, "You have been for several years in the abode of the immortals, but you have not yet attained thereto, for you have not yet forgotten the seven things of earth: anger, sorrow, fear, ambition, hate and selfishness.
If you once get rid of these there will be no tears for you."
On hearing this he stopped his crying, wiped his cheeks, and asked pardon.
When he had gone a mile farther he found himself on the main road.
The servant said to him, "You know the way from this point on, so I shall go back," and thus at last the young man reached his home.
He found there an exorcising ceremony in progress.
Witches and spirit worshippers had been called and were saying their prayers.
The family, seeing the young man come home thus, were all aghast.
"It is his ghost," said they.
However, they saw in a little that it was really he himself.
The mother asked why he had not come home in all that time.
She being a very violent woman in disposition, he did not dare to tell her the truth, so he made up something else.
The day of his return was the anniversary of his supposed death, and so they had called the witches for a prayer ceremony.
Here he opened the bundle that his wife had given him and found four suits of clothes, one for each season.
In about a year after his return home the mother, seeing him alone, made application for the daughter of one of the village literati.
The man, being timid by nature and afraid of offending his mother, did not dare to refuse, and was therefore married; but there was no joy in it, and the two never looked at each other.
The young man had a friend whom he had known intimately from childhood.
After his return the friend came to see him frequently, and they used to spend the nights talking together.
In their talks the friend inquired why in all these years he had never come home.
The young man then told him what had befallen him in the land of the genii, and how he had been there and had been married.
The friend looked at him in wonder, for he seemed just as he had remembered him except in the matter of clothing.
This he found on examination was of very strange material, neither grass cloth, silk nor cotton, but different from them all, and yet warm and comfortable.
When spring came the spring clothes sufficed, when summer came those for summer, and for autumn and winter each special suit.
They were never washed, and yet never became soiled; they never wore out, and always looked fresh and new.
The friend was greatly astonished.
Some three years passed when one day there came once more a servant from the master of the genii, bringing his two sons.
There were also letters, saying, "Next year the place where you dwell will be destroyed and all the people will become 'fish and meat' for the enemy, therefore follow this messenger and come, all of you."
He told his friend of this and showed him his two sons.
The friend, when he saw these children that looked like silk and jade, confessed the matter to the mother also.
She, too, gladly agreed, and so they sold out and had a great feast for all the people of the town, and then bade farewell.
This was the year 1635.
They left and were never heard of again.
The year following was the Manchu invasion, when the village where the young man had lived was all destroyed.
To this day young and old in Ka-pyong tell this story.
Im Bang.
XXV THE HONEST WITCH [Song Sang-in matriculated in 1601.
He was a just man, and feared by the dishonest element of the Court.
In 1605 he graduated and became a provincial governor.
He nearly lost his life in the disturbances of the reign of King Kwang-hai, and was exiled to Quelpart for a period of ten years, but in the spring of 1623 he was recalled.]
The Story There was a Korean once, called Song Sang-in, whose mind was upright and whose spirit was true.
He hated witches with all his might, and regarded them as deceivers of the people.
"By their so-called prayers," said he, "they devour the people's goods.
There is no limit to the foolishness and extravagance that accompanies them.
This doctrine of theirs is all nonsense.
Would that I could rid the earth of them and wipe out their names for ever."
Some time later Song was appointed magistrate of Nam Won County in Chulla Province.
On his arrival he issued the following order: "If any witch is found in this county, let her be beaten to death."
The whole place was so thoroughly spied upon that all the witches made their escape to other prefectures.
The magistrate thought, "Now we are rid of them, and that ends the matter for this county at any rate."
On a certain day he went out for a walk, and rested for a time at Kwang-han Pavilion.
As he looked out from his coign of vantage, he saw a woman approaching on horseback with a witch's drum on her head.
He looked intently to make sure, and to his astonishment he saw that she was indeed a mutang (witch).
He sent a yamen-runner to have her arrested, and when she was brought before him he asked, "Are you a mutang?"
She replied, "Yes, I am."
"Then," said he, "you did not know of the official order issued?"
"Oh yes, I heard of it," was her reply.
He then asked, "Are you not afraid to die, that you stay here in this county?"
The mutang bowed, and made answer, "I have a matter of complaint to lay before your Excellency to be put right; please take note of it and grant my request.
It is this: There are true mutangs and false mutangs.
False mutangs ought to be killed, but you would not kill an honest mutang, would you?
Your orders pertain to false mutangs; I do not understand them as pertaining to those who are true.
I am an honest mutang; I knew you would not kill me, so I remained here in peace."
The magistrate asked, "How do you know that there are honest mutangs?"
The woman replied, "Let's put the matter to the test and see.
If I am not proven honest, let me die."
"Very well," said the magistrate; "but can you really make good, and do you truly know how to call back departed spirits?"
The mutang answered, "I can."
The magistrate suddenly thought of an intimate friend who had been dead for some time, and he said to her, "I had a friend of such and such rank in Seoul; can you call his spirit back to me?"
The mutang replied, "Let me do so; but first you must prepare food, with wine, and serve it properly."
The magistrate thought for a moment, and then said to himself, "It is a serious matter to take a person's life; let me find out first if she is true or not, and then decide."
So he had the food brought.
The mutang said also, "I want a suit of your clothes, too, please."
This was brought, and she spread her mat in the courtyard, placed the food in order, donned the dress, and so made all preliminary arrangements.
She then lifted her eyes toward heaven and uttered the strange magic sounds by which spirits are called, meanwhile shaking a tinkling bell.
In a little she turned and said, "I've come."
Then she began telling the sad story of his sickness and death and their separation.
She reminded the magistrate of how they had played together, and of things that had happened when they were at school at their lessons; of the difficulties they had met in the examinations; of experiences that had come to them during their terms of office.
She told secrets that they had confided to each other as intimate friends, and many matters most definitely that only they two knew.
Not a single mistake did she make, but told the truth in every detail.
The magistrate, when he heard these things, began to cry, saying, "The soul of my friend is really present; I can no longer doubt or deny it."
Then he ordered the choicest fare possible to be prepared as a sacrifice to his friend.
In a little the friend bade him farewell and took his departure.
The magistrate said, "Alas!
I thought mutangs were a brood of liars, but now I know that there are true mutangs as well as false."
He gave her rich rewards, sent her away in safety, recalled his order against witches, and refrained from any matters pertaining to them for ever after.
Im Bang.
XXVI WHOM THE KING HONOURS In the days of King Se-jong students of the Confucian College were having a picnic to celebrate the Spring Festival.
They met in a wood to the north of the college, near a beautiful spring of water, and were drinking and feasting the night through.
While they were thus enjoying themselves the rooms of the college were left deserted.
One student from the country, a backwoodsman in his way, who was of no account to others, thought that while the rest went away to enjoy themselves some one ought to stay behind to guard the sacred precincts of the temple; so he decided that he would forgo the pleasures of the picnic, stay behind and watch.
The King at that time sent a eunuch to the college to see how many of the students had remained on guard.
The eunuch returned, saying that all had gone off on the picnic, except one man, a raw countryman, who was in sole charge.
The King at once sent for the man, asking him to come just as he was in his common clothes.
On his arrival his Majesty asked, "When all have gone off for a gay time, why is it that you remain alone?"
He replied, "I, too, would like to have gone, but to leave the sacred temple wholly deserted did not seem to me right, so I stayed."
The King was greatly pleased with this reply, and asked again, "Do you know how to write verses?"
The reply was, "I know only very little about it."
The King then said, "I have one-half of a verse here which runs thus-'After the rains the mountains weep.'
You write me a mate for this line to go with it."
At once the student replied-"Before the wind the grass is tipsy."
The King, delighted, praised him for his skill and made him a special graduate on the spot, gave him his diploma, flowers for his hat, and issued a proclamation saying that he had passed the Al-song Examination.
At once he ordered for him the head-gear, the red coat, a horse to ride on, two boys to go before, flute-players and harpers, saying, "Go now to the picnic-party and show yourself."
While the picnickers were thus engaged, suddenly they heard the sound of flutes and harps, and they questioned as to what it could mean.
This was not the time for new graduates to go abroad.
While they looked, behold, here came a victorious candidate, dressed in ceremonial robes, heralded by boys, and riding on the King's palfrey, to greet them.
On closer view they saw that it was the uncouth countryman whom they had left behind at the Temple.
They asked what it meant, and then learned, to their amazement, that the King had so honoured him.
The company, in consternation and surprise, broke up and returned home at once.
This special graduate became later, through the favour of the King, a great and noted man.
Im Bang.
XXVII THE FORTUNES OF YOO There was a man of Yong-nam, named Yoo, who lived in the days of Se-jong.
He had studied the classics, had passed his examinations, and had become a petty official attached to the Confucian College.
He was not even of the sixth degree, so that promotion was out of the question.
He was a countryman who had no friends and no influence, and though he had long been in Seoul there was no likelihood of any advancement.
Such being the case, disheartened and lonely, he decided to leave the city and go back to his country home.
There was a palace secretary who knew this countryman, and who went to say good-bye to him before he left.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, the countryman said, "I have long been in Seoul, but have never yet seen the royal office of the secretaries.
Might I accompany you some day when you take your turn?"
The secretary said, "In the daytime there is always a crowd of people who gather there for business, and no one is allowed in without a special pass.
I am going in to-morrow, however, and intend to sleep there, so that in the evening we could have a good chance to look the Palace over.
People are not allowed to sleep in the Palace as a rule, but doing so once would not be specially noticed."
The secretary then gave orders to the military guard who accompanied him to escort this man in the next day.
As the secretary had arranged, the countryman, on the evening following, made his way into the Palace enclosure, but what was his surprise to find that, for some reason or other, the secretary had not come.
The gates, also, were closed behind him, so that he could not get out.
Really he was in a fix.
There chanced to be a body-servant of the secretary in the room, and he, feeling sorry for the stranger, arranged a hidden corner where he might pass the night, and then quietly take his departure in the morning.
The night was beautifully clear, and apparently every one slept but Yoo.
He was wide awake, and wondering to himself if he might not go quietly out and see the place.
It was the time of the rainy season, and a portion of the wall had fallen from the enclosure just in front.
So Yoo climbed over this broken wall, and, not knowing where he went, found himself suddenly in the royal quarters.
It was a beautiful park, with trees, and lakes, and walks.
"Whose house is this," thought Yoo, "with its beautiful garden?"
Suddenly a man appeared, with a nice new cap on his head, carrying a staff in his hand, and accompanied by a servant, walking slowly towards him.
It was no other than King Se-jong, taking a stroll in the moonlight with one of his eunuchs.
When they met Yoo had no idea that it was the King.
His Majesty asked, "Who are you, and how did you get in here?"
He told who he was, and how he had agreed to come in with the secretary; how the secretary had failed; how the gates were shut and he was a prisoner for the night; how he had seen the bright moonlight and wished to walk out, and, finding the broken wall, had come over.
"Whose house is this, anyway?"
asked Yoo.
The King replied, "I am the master of this house."
His Majesty then asked him in, and made him sit down on a mat beside him.
So they talked and chatted together.
The King learned that he had passed special examinations in the classics, and inquiring how it was that Yoo had had no better office, Yoo replied that he was an unknown countryman, that his family had no influence, and that, while he desired office, he was forestalled by the powerful families of the capital.
"Who is there," he asked, "that would bother himself about me?
Thus all my hopes have failed, and I have just decided to leave the city and go back home and live out my days there."
The King asked again, "You know the classics so well, do you know something also of the Book of Changes?"
He replied, "The deeper parts I do not know, but the easier parts only."
Then the King ordered a eunuch to bring the Book of Changes.
It was the time when his Majesty was reading it for himself.
The book was brought and opened in the moonlight.
The King looked up a part that had given him special difficulty, and this the stranger explained character by character, giving the meaning with convincing clearness.
The King was delighted and wondered greatly, and so they read together all through the night.
When they separated the King said, "You have all this knowledge and yet have never been made use of?
Alas, for my country!"
said he, sighing.
Yoo remarked that he would like to go straight home now, if the master would kindly open the door for him.
The King said, however, that it was too early yet, and that he might be arrested by the guards who were about.
"Go then," said he, "to where you were, and when it is broad daylight you can go through the open gate."
Yoo then bade good-bye, and went back over the broken wall to his corner in the secretary's room.
When morning came he went out through the main gateway and returned to his home.
On the following day the King sent a special secretary and had Yoo appointed to the office of Overseer of Literature.
On the promulgation of this the officials gathered in the public court, and protested in high dudgeon against so great an office being given to an unknown person.
His Majesty, however, said, "If you are so opposed to it, I'll desist."
But the day following he appointed him to an office one degree still higher.
Again they all protested, and his Majesty said, "Really, if you so object, I'll drop the matter."
The day following he appointed him to an office still one degree higher.
Again they all protested and he apparently yielded to them.
But the day following higher still he was promoted, and again the protests poured in, so much so that his Majesty seemed to yield.
On the day following this the King wrote out for him the office of Vice-President of all the Literati.
The high officials gathered again and inquired of one another as to what the King meant, and what they had better do about it.
"If we do not in some way prevent it, he will appoint him as President of the Literati."
They decided to drop the matter for the present, and see later what was best to do.
A royal banquet was announced to take place, when all the officials gathered.
On this occasion the high Ministers of State said quietly to the King, "It is not fitting that so obscure a person have so important an office.
Your Majesty's promoting him as you have done has thrown the whole official body into a state of consternation.
On our protest you have merely promoted him more.
What is your Majesty's reason, please, for this action?"
The King made no reply, but ordered a eunuch to bring the Book of Changes.
He opened it at the place of special difficulty, and inquired as to its meaning.
Even among the highest ministers not one could give an answer.
He inquired by name of this one and that, but all were silent.
The King then said, "I am greatly interested in the reading of the Book of Changes; it is the great book of the sages.
Any one who understands it surely ought to be promoted.
You, all of you, fail to grasp its meaning, while Yoo, whom you protest against, has explained it all to me.
Now what have you to say?
Yoo's being promoted thus is just as it ought to be.
Why do you object?
I shall promote him still more and more, so cease from all opposition."
They were afraid and ashamed, and did not again mention it.
Yoo from that time on became the royal teacher of the Choo-yuk (Book of Changes), and rose higher and higher in rank, till he became Head of the Confucian College and first in influence, surpassing all.
Note.--Many people of ability have no chance for promotion.
It is difficult to have one's gifts known in high places; how much more difficult before a king?
The good fortune that fell to the first scholar was of God's appointment.
By caring for a vacant house the honour came to him, and he was promoted.
The other's going thus unbidden into the Palace was a great wrong, but by royal favour he was pardoned, received and honoured.
By one line of poetry a man's ability was made manifest, and by one explanation of the Choo-yuk another's path was opened to high promotion.
If Se-jong had not been a great and enlightened king, how could it have happened?
Very rare are such happenings, indeed!
So all men wondered over what had befallen these two.
I, however, wondered more over the King's sagacity in finding them.
To my day his virtue and accomplishments are known, so that the world calls him Korea's King of the Golden Age.
Im Bang.
XXVIII AN ENCOUNTER WITH A HOBGOBLIN I got myself into trouble in the year Pyong-sin, and was locked up; a military man by the name of Choi Won-so, who was captain of the guard, was involved in it and locked up as well.
We often met in prison and whiled away the hours talking together.
On a certain day the talk turned on goblins, when Captain Choi said, "When I was young I met with a hobgoblin, which, by the fraction of a hair, almost cost me my life.
A strange case indeed!"
I asked him to tell me of it, when he replied, "I had originally no home in Seoul, but hearing of a vacant place in Belt Town, I made application and got it.
We went there, my father and the rest of the family occupying the inner quarters, while I lived in the front room.
"One night, late, when I was half asleep, the door suddenly opened, and a woman came in and stood just before the lamp.
I saw her clearly, and knew that she was from the home of a scholar friend, for I had seen her before and had been greatly attracted by her beauty, but had never had a chance to meet her.
Now, seeing her enter the room thus, I greeted her gladly, but she made no reply.
I arose to take her by the hand, when she began walking backwards, so that my hand never reached her.
I rushed towards her, but she hastened her backward pace, so that she eluded me.
We reached the gate, which she opened with a rear kick, and I followed on after, till she suddenly disappeared.
I searched on all sides, but not a trace was there of her.
I thought she had merely hidden herself, and never dreamed of anything else.
"On the next night she came again and stood before the lamp just as she had done the night previous.
I got up and again tried to take hold of her, but again she began her peculiar pace backwards, till she passed out at the gate and disappeared just as she had done the day before.
I was once more surprised and disappointed, but did not think of her being a hobgoblin.
"A few days later, at night, I had lain down, when suddenly there was a sound of crackling paper overhead from above the ceiling.
A forbidding, creepy sound it seemed in the midnight.
A moment later a curtain was let down that divided the room into two parts.
Again, later, a large fire of coals descended right in front of me, while an immense heat filled the place.
Where I was seemed all on fire, with no way of escape possible.
In terror for my life, I knew not what to do.
On the first cock-crow of morning the noise ceased, the curtain went up, and the fire of coals was gone.
The place was as though swept with a broom, so clean from every trace of what had happened.
"The following night I was again alone, but had not yet undressed or lain down, when a great stout man suddenly opened the door and came in.
He had on his head a soldier's felt hat, and on his body a blue tunic like one of the underlings of the yamen.
He took hold of me and tried to drag me out.
I was then young and vigorous, and had no intention of yielding to him, so we entered on a tussle.
The moon was bright and the night clear, but I, unable to hold my own, was pulled out into the court.
He lifted me up and swung me round and round, then went up to the highest terrace and threw me down, so that I was terribly stunned.
He stood in front of me and kept me a prisoner.
There was a garden to the rear of the house, and a wall round it.
I looked, and within the wall were a dozen or so of people.
They were all dressed in military hats and coats, and they kept shouting out, 'Don't hurt him, don't hurt him.'
"The man that mishandled me, however, said in reply, 'It's none of your business, none of your business'; but they still kept up the cry, 'Don't hurt him, don't hurt him'; and he, on the other hand, cried, 'Never you mind; none of your business.'
They shouted, 'The man is a gentleman of the military class; do not hurt him.'
"The fellow merely said in reply, 'Even though he is, it's none of your business'; so he took me by the two hands and flung me up into the air, till I went half-way and more to heaven.
Then in my fall I went shooting past Kyong-keui Province, past Choong-chong, and at last fell to the ground in Chulla.
In my flight through space I saw all the county towns of the three provinces as clear as day.
Again in Chulla he tossed me up once more.
Again I went shooting up into the sky and falling northward, till I found myself at home, lying stupefied below the verandah terrace.
Once more I could hear the voices of the group in the garden shouting, 'Don't hurt him--hurt him.'
But the man said, 'None of your business--your business.'
"He took me up once more and flung me up again, and away I went speeding off to Chulla, and back I came again, two or three times in all.
"Then one of the group in the garden came forward, took my tormentor by the hand and led him away.
They all met for a little to talk and laugh over the matter, and then scattered and were gone, so that they were not seen again.
"I lay motionless at the foot of the terrace till the following morning, when my father found me and had me taken in hand and cared for, so that I came to, and we all left the haunted house, never to go back."
Note.--There are various reasons by which a place may be denominated a "haunted house."
The fact that there are hobgoblins in it makes it haunted.
If a good or "superior man" enters such a place the goblins move away, and no word of being haunted will be heard.
Choi saw the goblin and was greatly injured.
I understand that it is not only a question of men fearing the goblins, but they also fear men.
The fact that there are so few people that they fear is the saddest case of all.
Choi was afraid of the goblins, that is why they troubled him.
Im Bang.
XXIX THE SNAKE'S REVENGE There lived in ancient days an archer, whose home was near the Water Gate of Seoul.
He was a man of great strength and famous for his valour.
Water Gate has reference to a hole under the city wall, by which the waters of the Grand Canal find their exit.
In it are iron pickets to prevent people's entering or departing by that way.
On a certain afternoon when this military officer was taking a walk, a great snake was seen making its way by means of the Water Gate.
The snake's head had already passed between the bars, but its body, being larger, could not get through, so there it was held fast.
The soldier drew an arrow, and, fitting it into the string, shot the snake in the head.
Its head being fatally injured, the creature died.
The archer then drew it out, pounded it into a pulp, and left it.
A little time later the man's wife conceived and bore a son.
From the first the child was afraid of its father, and when it saw him it used to cry and seem greatly frightened.
As it grew it hated the sight of its father more and more.
The man became suspicious of this, and so, instead of loving his son, he grew to dislike him.
On a certain day, when there were just the two of them in the room, the officer lay down to have a midday siesta, covering his face with his sleeve, but all the while keeping his eye on the boy to see what he would do.
The child glared at his father, and thinking him asleep, got a knife and made a thrust at him.
The man jumped, grabbed the knife, and then with a club gave the boy a blow that left him dead on the spot.
He pounded him into a pulp, left him and went away.
The mother, however, in tears, covered the little form with a quilt and prepared for its burial.
In a little the quilt began to move, and she in alarm raised it to see what had happened, when lo!
beneath it the child was gone and there lay coiled a huge snake instead.
The mother jumped back in fear, left the room and did not again enter.
When evening came the husband returned and heard the dreadful story from his wife.
He went in and looked, and now all had metamorphosed into a huge snake.
On the head of it was the scar mark of the arrow that he had shot.
He said to the snake, "You and I were originally not enemies, I therefore did wrong in shooting you as I did; but your intention to take revenge through becoming my son was a horrible deed.
Such a thing as this is proof that my suspicions of you were right and just.
You became my son in order to kill me, your father; why, therefore, should I not in my turn kill you?
If you attempt it again, it will certainly end in my taking your life.
You have already had your revenge, and have once more transmigrated into your original shape, let us drop the past and be friends from now on.
What do you say?"
He repeated this over and urged his proposals, while the snake with bowed head seemed to listen intently.
He then opened the door and said, "Now you may go as you please."
The snake then departed, making straight for the Water Gate, and passed out between the bars.
It did not again appear.
Note.--Man is a spiritual being, and different from all other created things, and though a snake has power of venom, it is still an insignificant thing compared with a man.
The snake died, and by means of the transmigration of its soul took its revenge.
Man dies, but I have never heard that he can transmigrate as the snake did.
Why is it that though a spiritual being he is unable to do what beasts do?
I have seen many innocent men killed, but not one of them has ever returned to take his revenge on the lawless one who did it, and so I wonder more than ever over these stories of the snake.
The Superior Man's knowing nothing of the law that governs these things is a regret to me.
Im Bang.
XXX THE BRAVE MAGISTRATE In olden times in one of the counties of North Ham-kyong Province, there was an evil-smelling goblin that caused great destruction to life.
Successive magistrates appeared, but in ten days or so after arrival, in each case they died in great agony, so that no man wished to have the billet or anything to do with the place.
A hundred or more were asked to take the post, but they all refused.
At last one brave soldier, who was without any influence socially or politically, accepted.
He was a courageous man, strong and fearless.
He thought, "Even though there is a devil there, all men will not die, surely.
I shall make a trial of him."
So he said his farewell, and entered on his office.
He found himself alone in the yamen, as all others had taken flight.
He constantly carried a long knife at his belt, and went thus armed, for he noticed from the first day a fishy, stinking odour, that grew gradually more and more marked.
After five or six days he took note, too, that what looked like a mist would frequently make its entry by the outer gate, and from this mist came this stinking smell.
Daily it grew more and more annoying, so that he could not stand it longer.
In ten days or so, when the time arrived for him to die, the yamen-runners and servants, who had returned, again ran away.
The magistrate kept a jar of whisky by his side, from which he drank frequently to fortify his soul.
On this day he grew very drunk, and thus waited.
At last he saw something coming through the main gateway that seemed wrapped in fog, three or four embraces in waist size, and fifteen feet or so high.
There was no head to it, nor were body or arms visible.
Only on the top were two dreadful eyes rolling wildly.
The magistrate jumped up at once, rushed toward it, gave a great shout and struck it with his sword.
When he gave it the blow there was the sound of thunder, and the whole thing dissipated.
Also the foul smell that accompanied it disappeared at once.
The magistrate then, in a fit of intoxication, fell prone.
The retainers, all thinking him dead, gathered in the courtyard to prepare for his burial.
They saw him fallen to the earth, but they remarked that the bodies of others who had died from this evil had all been left on the verandah, but his was in the lower court.
They raised him up in order to prepare him for burial, when suddenly he came to life, looked at them in anger, and asked what they meant.
Fear and amazement possessed them.
From that time on there was no more smell.
Im Bang.
XXXI THE TEMPLE TO THE GOD OF WAR [Yi Hang-bok.--When he was a child a blind fortune-teller came and cast his future, saying, "This boy will be very great indeed."
At seven years of age his father gave him for subject to write a verse on "The Harp and the Sword," and he wrote-"The Sword pertains to the Hand of the Warrior And the Harp to the Music of the Ancients."
At eight he took the subject of the "Willow before the Door," and wrote-"The east wind brushes the brow of the cliff And the willow on the edge nods fresh and green."
On seeing a picture of a great banquet among the fierce Turks of Central Asia, he wrote thus-"The hunt is off in the wild dark hills, And the moon is cold and gray, While the tramping feet of a thousand horse Ring on the frosty way.
In the tents of the Turk the music thrills And the wine-cups chink for joy, 'Mid the noise of the dancer's savage tread And the lilt of the wild hautboy."
At twelve years of age he was proud, we are told, and haughty.
He dressed well, and was envied by the poorer lads of the place, and once he took off his coat and gave it to a boy who looked with envy on him.
He gave his shoes as well, and came back barefoot.
His mother, wishing to know his mind in the matter, pretended to reprimand him, but he replied, saying, "Mother, when others wanted it so, how could I refuse giving?"
His mother pondered these things in her heart.
When he was fifteen he was strong and well-built, and liked vigorous exercise, so that he was a noted wrestler and skilful at shuttlecock.
His mother, however, frowned upon these things, saying that they were not dignified, so that he gave them up and confined his attention to literary studies, graduating at twenty-five years of age.
In 1592, during the Japanese War, when the King escaped to Eui-ju, Yi Hang-bok went with him in his flight, and there he met the Chinese (Ming) representative, who said in surprise to his Majesty, "Do you mean to tell me that you have men in Cho-sen like Yi Hang-bok?"
Yang Ho, the general of the rescuing forces, also continually referred to him for advice and counsel.
He lived to see the troubles in the reign of the wicked Kwang-hai, and at last went into exile to Puk-chong.
When he crossed the Iron Pass near Wonsan, he wrote-"From the giddy height of the Iron Peak, I call on the passing cloud, To take up a lonely exile's tears In the folds of its feathery shroud, And drop them as rain on the Palace Gates, On the King, and his shameless crowd."]
The Story During the Japanese War in the reign of Son-jo, the Mings sent a great army that came east, drove out the enemy and restored peace.
At that time the general of the Mings informed his Korean Majesty that the victory was due to the help of Kwan, the God of War.
"This being the case," said he, "you ought not to continue without temples in which to express your gratitude to him."
So they built him houses of worship and offered him sacrifice.
The Temples built were one to the south and one to the east of the city.
In examining sites for these they could not agree on the one to the south.
Some wanted it nearer the wall and some farther away.
At that time an official, called Yi Hang-bok, was in charge of the conference.
On a certain day when Yi was at home a military officer called and wished to see him.
Ordering him in he found him a great strapping fellow, splendidly built.
His request was that Yi should send out all his retainers till he talked to him privately.
They were sent out, and then the stranger gave his message.
After he had finished, he said good-bye and left.
Yi had at that time an old friend stopping with him.
The friend went out with the servants when they were asked to leave, and now he came back again.
When he came in he noticed that the face of the master had a very peculiar expression, and he asked him the reason of it.
Yi made no reply at first, but later told his friend that a very extraordinary thing had happened.
The military man who had come and called was none other than a messenger of the God of War.
His coming, too, was on account of their not yet having decided in regard to the site for the Temple.
"He came," said Yi, "to show me where it ought to be.
He urged that it was not a matter for time only, but for the eternities to come.
If we do not get it right the God of War will find no peace.
I told him in reply that I would do my best.
Was this not strange?"
The friend who heard this was greatly exercised, but Yi warned him not to repeat it to any one.
Yi used all his efforts, and at last the building was placed on the approved site, where it now stands.
Im Bang.
XXXII A VISIT FROM THE SHADES [Choi Yu-won.--(The story of meeting his mother's ghost is reported to be of this man.)
Choi Yu-won matriculated in 1579 and graduated in 1602, becoming Chief Justice and having conferred on him the rank of prince.
When he was a boy his great-aunt once gave him cloth for a suit of clothes, but he refused to accept of it, and from this his aunt prophesied that he would yet become a famous man.
He studied in the home of the great teacher Yul-gok, and Yul-gok also foretold that the day would come when he would be an honour to Korea.
Yu-won once met Chang Han-kang and inquired of him concerning Pyon-wha Keui-jil (a law by which the weak became strong, the wicked good, and the stupid wise).
He also asked that if one be truly transformed will the soul change as well as the body, or the body only?
Chang replied, "Both are changed, for how could the body change without the soul?"
Yu-won asked Yul-gok concerning this also, and Yul-gok replied that Chang's words were true.
In 1607 Choi Yu-won memorialized the King, calling attention to a letter received from Japan in answer to a communication sent by his Majesty, which had on its address the name of the Prime Minister, written a space lower than good form required.
The Korean envoy had not protested, as duty would require of him, and yet the King had advanced him in rank.
The various officials commended him for his courage.
In 1612, while he was Chief Justice, King Kwang-hai tried to degrade the Queen Dowager, who was not his own mother, he being born of a concubine, but Yu-won besought him with tears not to do so illegal and unnatural a thing.
Still the King overrode all opposition, and did according to his unfilial will.
In it all Choi Yu-won was proven a good man and a just.
He used to say to his companions, even as a youth, "Death is dreadful, but still, better death for righteousness' sake and honour than life in disgrace."
Another saying of his runs, "All one's study is for the development of character; if it ends not in that it is in vain."
Korea's ancient belief was that the blood of a faithful son served as an elixir of life to the dying, so that when his mother was at the point of death Yu-won with a knife cut flesh from his thigh till the blood flowed, and with this he prepared his magic dose.]
The Story There was a minister in olden days who once, when he was Palace Secretary, was getting ready for office in the morning.
He had on his ceremonial dress.
It was rather early, and as he leaned on his arm-rest for a moment, sleep overcame him.
He dreamt, and in the dream he thought he was mounted and on his journey.
He was crossing the bridge at the entrance to East Palace Street, when suddenly he saw his mother coming towards him on foot.
He at once dismounted, bowed, and said, "Why do you come thus, mother, not in a chair, but on foot?"
She replied, "I have already left the world, and things are not where I am as they are where you are, and so I walk."
The secretary asked, "Where are you going, please?"
She replied, "We have a servant living at Yong-san, and they are having a witches' prayer service there just now, so I am going to partake of the sacrifice."
"But," said the secretary, "we have sacrificial days, many of them, at our own home, those of the four seasons, also on the first and fifteenth of each month.
Why do you go to a servant's house and not to mine?"
The mother replied, "Your sacrifices are of no interest to me, I like the prayers of the witches.
If there is no medium we spirits find no satisfaction.
I am in a hurry," said she, "and cannot wait longer," so she spoke her farewell and was gone.
The secretary awoke with a start, but felt that he had actually seen what had come to pass.
He then called a servant and told him to go at once to So-and-So's house in Yong-san, and tell a certain servant to come that night without fail.
"Go quickly," said the secretary, "so that you can be back before I enter the Palace."
Then he sat down to meditate over it.
In a little the servant had gone and come again.
It was not yet broad daylight, and because it was cold the servant did not enter straight, but went first into the kitchen to warm his hands before the fire.
There was a fellow-servant there who asked him, "Have you had something to drink?"
He replied, "They are having a big witch business on at Yong-san, and while the mutang (witch) was performing, she said that the spirit that possessed her was the mother of the master here.
On my appearance she called out my name and said, 'This is a servant from our house.'
Then she called me and gave me a big glass of spirit.
She added further, 'On my way here I met my son going into the Palace.'"
The secretary, overhearing this talk from the room where he was waiting, broke down and began to cry.
He called in the servant and made fuller inquiry, and more than ever he felt assured that his mother's spirit had really gone that morning to share in the koot (witches' sacrificial ceremony).
He then called the mutang, and in behalf of the spirit of his mother made her a great offering.
Ever afterwards he sacrificed to her four times a year at each returning season.
Im Bang.
XXXIII THE FEARLESS CAPTAIN There was formerly a soldier, Yee Man-ji of Yong-nam, a strong and muscular fellow, and brave as a lion.
He had green eyes and a terrible countenance.
Frequently he said, "Fear!
What is fear?"
On a certain day when he was in his house a sudden storm of rain came on, when there were flashes of lightning and heavy claps of thunder.
At one of them a great ball of fire came tumbling into his home and went rolling over the verandah, through the rooms, into the kitchen and out into the yard, and again into the servants' quarters.
Several times it went and came bouncing about.
Its blazing light and the accompanying noise made it a thing of terror.
Yee sat in the outer verandah, wholly undisturbed.
He thought to himself, "I have done no wrong, therefore why need I fear the lightning?"
A moment later a flash struck the large elm tree in front of the house and smashed it to pieces.
The rain then ceased and the thunder likewise.
Yee turned to see how it fared with his family, and found them all fallen senseless.
With the greatest of difficulty he had them restored to life.
During that year they all fell ill and died, and Yee came to Seoul and became a Captain of the Right Guard.
Shortly after he went to North Ham-kyong Province.
There he took a second wife and settled down.
All his predecessors had died of goblin influences, and the fact that calamity had overtaken them while in the official quarters had caused them to use one of the village houses instead.
Yee, however, determined to live down all fear and go back to the old quarters, which he extensively repaired.
One night his wife was in the inner room while he was alone in the public office with a light burning before him.
In the second watch or thereabout, a strange-looking object came out of the inner quarters.
It looked like the stump of a tree wrapped in black sackcloth.
There was no outline or definite shape to it, and it came jumping along and sat itself immediately before Yee Man-ji.
Also two other objects came following in its wake, shaped just like the first one.
The three then sat in a row before Yee, coming little by little closer and closer to him.
Yee moved away till he had backed up against the wall and could go no farther.
Then he said, "Who are you, anyhow; what kind of devil, pray, that you dare to push towards me so in my office?
If you have any complaint or matter to set right, say so, and I'll see to it."
The middle devil said in reply, "I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry."
Yee answered, "Hungry, are you?
Very well, now just move back and I'll have food prepared for you in abundance."
He then repeated a magic formula that he had learned, and snapped his fingers.
The three devils seemed to be afraid of this.
Then Man-ji suddenly closed his fist and struck a blow at the first devil.
It dodged, however, most deftly and he missed, but hit the floor a sounding blow that cut his hand.
Then they all shouted, "We'll go, we'll go, since you treat guests thus."
At once they bundled out of the room and disappeared.
On the following day he had oxen killed and a sacrifice offered to these devils, and they returned no more.
Note.--Men have been killed by goblins.
This is not so much due to the fact that goblins are wicked as to the fact that men are afraid of them.
Many died in North Ham-kyong, but those again who were brave, and clove them with a knife, or struck them down, lived.
If they had been afraid, they too would have died.
Im Bang.
XXXIV THE KING OF YOM-NA (HELL) [Pak Chom was one of the Royal Censors, and died in the Japanese War of 1592.]
The Story In Yon-nan County, Whang-hai Province, there was a certain literary graduate whose name I have forgotten.
He fell ill one day and remained in his room, leaning helplessly against his arm-rest.
Suddenly several spirit soldiers appeared to him, saying, "The Governor of the lower hell has ordered your arrest," so they bound him with a chain about his neck, and led him away.
They journeyed for many hundreds of miles, and at last reached a place that had a very high wall.
The spirits then took him within the walls and went on for a long distance.
There was within this enclosure a great structure whose height reached to heaven.
They arrived at the gate, and the spirits who had him in hand led him in, and when they entered the inner courtyard they laid him down on his face.
Glancing up he saw what looked like a king seated on a throne; grouped about him on each side were attendant officers.
There were also scores of secretaries and soldiers going and coming on pressing errands.
The King's appearance was most terrible, and his commands such as to fill one with awe.
The graduate felt the perspiration break out on his back, and he dared not look up.
In a little a secretary came forward, stood in front of the raised dais to transmit commands, and the King asked, "Where do you come from?
What is your name?
How old are you?
What do you do for a living?
Tell me the truth now, and no dissembling."
The scholar, frightened to death, replied, "My clan name is So-and-so, and my given name is So-and-so.
I am so old, and I have lived for several generations at Yon-nan, Whang-hai Province.
I am stupid and ill-equipped by nature, so have not done anything special.
I have heard all my life that if you say your beads with love and pity in your heart you will escape hell, and so have given my time to calling on the Buddha, and dispensing alms."
The secretary, hearing this, went at once and reported it to the King.
After some time he came back with a message, saying, "Come up closer to the steps, for you are not the person intended.
It happens that you bear the same name and you have thus been wrongly arrested.
You may go now."
The scholar joined his hands and made a deep bow.
Again the secretary transmitted a message from the King, saying, "My house, when on earth, was in such a place in such and such a ward of Seoul.
When you go back I want to send a message by you.
My coming here is long, and the outer coat I wear is worn to shreds.
Ask my people to send me a new outer coat.
If you do so I shall be greatly obliged, so see that you do not forget."
The scholar said, "Your Majesty's message given me thus direct I shall pass on without fail, but the ways of the two worlds, the dark world and the light, are so different that when I give the message the hearers will say I am talking nonsense.
True, I'll give it just as you have commanded, but what about it if they refuse to listen?
I ought to have some evidence as proof to help me out."
The King made answer, "Your words are true, very true.
This will help you: When I was on earth," said he, "one of my head buttons [1] that I wore had a broken edge, and I hid it in the third volume of the Book of History.
I alone know of it, no one else in the world.
If you give this as a proof they will listen."
The scholar replied, "That will be satisfactory, but again, how shall I do in case they make the new coat?"
The reply was, "Prepare a sacrifice, offer the coat by fire, and it will reach me."
He then bade good-bye, and the King sent with him two soldier guards.
He asked the soldiers, as they came out, who the one seated on the throne was.
"He is the King of Hades," said they; "his surname is Pak and his given name is Oo."
They arrived at the bank of a river, and the two soldiers pushed him into the water.
He awoke with a start, and found that he had been dead for three days.
When he recovered from his sickness he came up to Seoul, searched out the house indicated, and made careful inquiry as to the name, finding that it was no other than Pak Oo.
Pak Oo had two sons, who at that time had graduated and were holding office.
The graduate wanted to see the sons of this King of Hades, but the gatekeeper would not let him in.
Therefore he stood before the red gate waiting helplessly till the sun went down.
Then came out from the inner quarters of the house an old servant, to whom he earnestly made petition that he might see the master.
On being thus requested, the servant returned and reported it to the master, who, a little later, ordered him in.
On entering, he saw two gentlemen who seemed to be chiefs.
They had him sit down, and then questioned him as to who he was and what he had to say.
He replied, "I am a student living in Yon-nan County, Whang-hai Province.
On such and such a day I died and went into the other world, where your honorable father gave me such and such a commission."
The two listened for a little and then, without waiting to hear all that he had to say, grew very angry and began to scold him, saying, "How dare such a scarecrow as you come into our house and say such things as these?
This is stuff and nonsense that you talk.
Pitch him out," they shouted to the servants.
He, however, called back saying, "I have a proof; listen.
If it fails, why then, pitch me out."
One of the two said, "What possible proof can you have?"
Then the scholar told with great exactness and care the story of the head button.
The two, in astonishment over this, had the book taken down and examined, and sure enough in Vol.
III of the Book of History was the button referred to.
Not a single particular had failed.
It proved to be a button that they had missed after the death of their father, and that they had searched for in vain.
Accepting the message now as true, they all entered upon a period of mourning.
The women of the family also called in the scholar and asked him specially of what he had seen.
So they made the outer coat, chose a day, and offered it by fire before the ancestral altar.
Three days after the sacrifice the scholar dreamed, and the family of Pak dreamed too, that the King of Hades had come and given to each one of them his thanks for the coat.
They long kept the scholar at their home, treating him with great respect, and became his firm friends for ever after.
Pak Oo was a great-grandson of Minister Pak Chom.
While he held office he was honest and just and was highly honoured by the people.
When he was Mayor of Hai-ju there arose a dispute between him and the Governor, which proved also that Pak was the honest man.
When I was at Hai-ju, Choi Yu-chom, a graduate, told me this story.
Im Bang.
XXXV HONG'S EXPERIENCES IN HADES Hong Nai-pom was a military graduate who was born in the year A.D. 1561, and lived in the city of Pyeng-yang.
He passed his examination in the year 1603, and in the year 1637 attained to the Third Degree.
He was 82 in the year 1643, and his son Sonn memorialized the King asking that his father be given rank appropriate to his age.
At that time a certain Han Hong-kil was chief of the Royal Secretaries, and he refused to pass on the request to his Majesty; but in the year 1644, when the Crown Prince was returning from his exile in China, he came by way of Pyeng-yang.
Sonn took advantage of this to present the same request to the Crown Prince.
His Highness received it, and had it brought to the notice of the King.
In consequence, Hong received the rank of Second Degree.
On receiving it he said, "This year I shall die," and a little later he died.
In the year 1594, Hong fell ill of typhus fever, and after ten days of suffering, died.
They prepared his body for burial, and placed it in a coffin.
Then the friends and relatives left, and his wife remained alone in charge.
Of a sudden the body turned itself and fell with a thud to the ground.
The woman, frightened, fainted away, and the other members of the family came rushing to her help.
From this time on the body resumed its functions, and Hong lived.
Said he, "In my dream I went to a certain region, a place of great fear where many persons were standing around, and awful ogres, some of them wearing bulls' heads, and some with faces of wild beasts.
They crowded about and jumped and pounced toward me in all directions.
A scribe robed in black sat on a platform and addressed me, saying, 'There are three religions on earth, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism.
According to Buddhism, you know that heaven and hell are places that decide between man's good and evil deeds.
You have ever been a blasphemer of the Buddha, and a denier of a future life, acting always as though you knew everything, blustering and storming.
You are now to be sent to hell, and ten thousand kalpas [2] will not see you out of it.'
"Then two or three constables carrying spears came and took me off.
I screamed, 'You are wrong, I am innocently condemned.'
Just at that moment a certain Buddha, with a face of shining gold, came smiling toward me, and said, 'There is truly a mistake somewhere; this man must attain to the age of eighty-three and become an officer of the Second Degree ere he dies.'
Then addressing me he asked, 'How is it that you have come here?
The order was that a certain Hong of Chon-ju be arrested and brought, not you; but now that you have come, look about the place before you go, and tell the world afterwards of what you have seen.'
"The guards, on hearing this, took me in hand and brought me first to a prison-house, where a sign was posted up, marked, 'Stirrers up of Strife.'
I saw in this prison a great brazier-shaped pit, built of stones and filled with fire.
Flames arose and forked tongues.
The stirrers up of strife were taken and made to sit close before it.
I then saw one infernal guard take a long rod of iron, heat it red-hot, and put out the eyes of the guilty ones.
I saw also that the offenders were hung up like dried fish.
The guides who accompanied me, said, 'While these were on earth they did not love their brethren, but looked at others as enemies.
They scoffed at the laws of God and sought only selfish gain, so they are punished.'
"The next hell was marked, 'Liars.'
In that hell I saw an iron pillar of several yards in height, and great stones placed before it.
The offenders were called up, and made to kneel before the pillar.
Then I saw an executioner take a knife and drive a hole through the tongues of the offenders, pass an iron chain through each, and hang them to the pillar so that they dangled by their tongues several feet from the ground.
A stone was then taken and tied to each culprit's feet.
The stones thus bearing down, and the chains being fast to the pillar, their tongues were pulled out a foot or more, and their eyes rolled in their sockets.
Their agonies were appalling.
The guides again said, 'These offenders when on earth used their tongues skilfully to tell lies and to separate friend from friend, and so they are punished.'
"The next hell had inscribed on it, 'Deceivers.'
I saw in it many scores of people.
There were ogres that cut the flesh from their bodies, and fed it to starving demons.
These ate and ate, and the flesh was cut and cut till only the bones remained.
When the winds of hell blew, flesh returned to them; then metal snakes and copper dogs crowded in to bite them and suck their blood.
Their screams of pain made the earth to tremble.
The guides said to me, 'When these offenders were on earth they held high office, and while they pretended to be true and good they received bribes in secret and were doers of all evil.
As Ministers of State they ate the fat of the land and sucked the blood of the people, and yet advertised themselves as benefactors and were highly applauded.
While in reality they lived as thieves, they pretended to be holy, as Confucius and Mencius are holy.
They were deceivers of the world, and robbers, and so are punished thus.'
"The guides then said, 'It is not necessary that you see all the hells.'
They said to one another, 'Let's take him yonder and show him;' so they went some distance to the south-east.
There was a great house with a sign painted thus, 'The Home of the Blessed.'
As I looked, there were beautiful haloes encircling it, and clouds of glory.
There were hundreds of priests in cassock and surplice.
Some carried fresh-blown lotus flowers; some were seated like the Buddha; some were reading prayers.
"The guides said, 'These when on earth kept the faith, and with undivided hearts served the Buddha, and so have escaped the Eight Sorrows and the Ten Punishments, and are now in the home of the happy, which is called heaven.'
When we had seen all these things we returned.
"The golden-faced Buddha said to me, 'Not many on earth believe in the Buddha, and few know of heaven and hell.
What do you think of it?'
"I bowed low and thanked him.
"Then the black-coated scribe said, 'I am sending this man away; see him safely off.'
The spirit soldiers took me with them, and while on the way I awakened with a start, and found that I had been dead for four days."
Hong's mind was filled with pride on this account, and he frequently boasted of it.
His age and Second Degree of rank came about just as the Buddha had predicted.
His experience, alas!
was used as a means to deceive people, for the Superior Man does not talk of these strange and wonderful things.
Yi Tan, a Chinaman of the Song Kingdom, used to say, "If there is no heaven, there is no heaven, but if there is one, the Superior Man alone can attain to it.
If there is no hell, there is no hell, but if there is one the bad man must inherit it."
If we examine Hong's story, while it looks like a yarn to deceive the world, it really is a story to arouse one to right action.
I, Im Bang, have recorded it like Toi-chi, saying, "Don't find fault with the story, but learn its lesson."
Im Bang.
XXXVI HAUNTED HOUSES There once lived a man in Seoul called Yi Chang, who frequently told as an experience of his own the following story: He was poor and had no home of his own, so he lived much in quarters loaned him by others.
When hard pressed he even went into haunted houses and lived there.
Once, after failing to find a place, he heard of one such house in Ink Town (one of the wards of Seoul), at the foot of South Mountain, which had been haunted for generations and was now left vacant.
Chang investigated the matter, and finally decided to take possession.
First, to find whether it was really haunted or not, he called his elder brothers, Hugh and Haw, and five or six of his relatives, and had them help clean it out and sleep there.
The house had one upper room that was fast locked.
Looking through a chink, there was seen to be in the room a tablet chair and a stand for it; also there was an old harp without any strings, a pair of worn shoes, and some sticks and bits of wood.
Nothing else was in the room.
Dust lay thick, as though it had gathered through long years of time.
The company, after drinking wine, sat round the table and played at games, watching the night through.
When it was late, towards midnight, they suddenly heard the sound of harps and a great multitude of voices, though the words were mixed and unintelligible.
It was as though many people were gathered and carousing at a feast.
The company then consulted as to what they should do.
One drew a sword and struck a hole through the partition that looked into the tower.
Instantly there appeared from the other side a sharp blade thrust out towards them.
It was blue in colour.
In fear and consternation they desisted from further interference with the place.
But the sound of the harp and the revelry kept up till the morning.
The company broke up at daylight, withdrew from the place, and never again dared to enter.
In the South Ward there was another haunted house, of which Chang desired possession, so he called his friends and brothers once more to make the experiment and see whether it was really haunted or not.
On entering, they found two dogs within the enclosure, one black and one tan, lying upon the open verandah, one at each end.
Their eyes were fiery red, and though the company shouted at them they did not move.
They neither barked nor bit.
But when midnight came these two animals got up and went down into the court, and began baying at the inky sky in a way most ominous.
They went jumping back and forth.
At that time, too, there came some one round the corner of the house dressed in ceremonial robes.
The two dogs met him with great delight, jumping up before and behind in their joy at his coming.
He ascended to the verandah, and sat down.
Immediately five or six multi-coloured demons appeared and bowed before him, in front of the open space.
The man then led the demons and the dogs two or three times round the house.
They rushed up into the verandah and jumped down again into the court; backwards and forwards they came and went, till at last all of them mysteriously disappeared.
The devils went into a hole underneath the floor, while the dogs went up to their quarters and lay down.
The company from the inner room had seen this.
When daylight came they examined the place, looked through the chinks of the floor, but saw only an old, worn-out sieve and a few discarded brooms.
They went behind the house and found another old broom poked into the chimney.
They ordered a servant to gather them up and have them burned.
The dogs lay as they were all day long, and neither ate nor moved.
Some of the party wished to kill the brutes, but were afraid, so fearsome was their appearance.
This night again they remained, desiring to see if the same phenomena would appear.
Again at midnight the two dogs got down into the court and began barking up at the sky.
The man in ceremonial robes again came, and the devils, just as the day before.
The company, in fear and disgust, left the following morning, and did not try it again.
A friend, hearing this of Chang, went and asked about it from Hugh and Haw, and they confirmed the story.
There is still another tale of a graduate who was out of house and home and went into a haunted dwelling in Ink Town, which was said to have had the tower where the mysterious sounds were heard.
They opened the door, broke out the window, took out the old harp, the spirit chair, the shoes and sticks, and had them burned.
Before the fire had finished its work, one of the servants fell down and died.
The graduate, seeing this, in fear and dismay put out the fire, restored the things and left the house.
Again there was another homeless man who tried it.
In the night a woman in a blue skirt came down from the loft, and acted in a peculiar and uncanny way.
The man, seeing this, picked up his belongings and left.
Again, in South Kettle Town, there were a number of woodmen who in the early morning were passing behind the haunted house, when they found an old woman sitting weeping under a tree.
They thinking her an evil bogey, one man came up behind and gave her a thrust with his sickle.
The witch rushed off into the house, her height appearing to be only about one cubit and a span.
Im Bang.
XXXVII IM, THE HUNTER [Im Kyong-up.--One of Korea's most famous generals, who fought in behalf of China in 1628 against the Manchus.
He is worshipped to-day in many parts of Korea.]
The Story When General Im Kyong-up was young he lived in the town of Tallai.
In those days he loved the chase, and constantly practised riding and hunting.
Once he went off on an excursion to track the deer in Wol-lak Mountains.
He carried only a sword, and made the chase on foot.
In his pursuit of the animal he went as far as Tai-paik Mountain.
There night overtook him, and the way was hidden in the darkness.
There were yawning chasms and great horns and cliffs on all sides.
While he was in a state of perplexity he met a woodman, and asked him where the road was and how he ought to go.
The woodman directed him to a cliff opposite, "where," said he, "there is a house."
Im heard this and crossed over to the farther ridge.
On approaching more nearly he found a great tiled mansion standing alone without a single house about it.
He went in by the main gateway, but found all quiet and dark and no one in sight.
It was a vacant house, evidently deserted.
After travelling all day in the hills Im was full of fears and creepy feelings.
So he viewed the place with mistrust, fearing that there might be hill goblins in it or tree devils, but a moment later some one opened the room door and shouted out, "Do you sleep here?
Have you had something to eat?"
Im looked and discovered that it was the same person that had directed him on his way.
He said in reply, "I have not eaten anything and am hungry."
So the man opened the wall box and brought him out wine and meat.
He, being exceedingly hungry, ate all.
Then they sat down to talk together, and after a little the woodman got up, opened the box once more, and took from it a great sword.
Im asked, "What is this you have; do you intend to kill me?"
The woodman laughed and said, "No, no, but to-night there is something on hand worth the seeing.
Will you come with me and not be afraid?"
Im said, "Of course I am not afraid; I want to see."
It was then about midnight, and the woodman, with the sword in his hand, took Im and went to one side through a succession of gates that seemed never ending.
At last they came to a place where lights were reflected on a pond of water.
There was a high pavilion apparently in the middle of the lake, and from the inside of it came the lights.
There were sounds, too, of laughter and talking that came from the upper storey.
Through the sliding doors he could distinguish two people seated together.
There was another pavilion to the right of the lake and a large tree near it, up which the woodman told Im to climb.
"When you get well up," said he, "take your belt, tie yourself fast to the trunk and keep perfectly still."
Im climbed the tree as directed, and made himself secure.
From this point of vantage he looked intently, and the first thing he saw was the woodman give a leap that cleared the lake and landed him in the pavilion.
At once he ascended to the upper storey, and now Im could distinguish three persons sitting talking and laughing.
He heard the woodman, after drinking, say to his neighbour, "We have made our wager, now let's see it out."
The man replied, "Let's do so."
Then both arose, came down to the entrance, and vaulted off into mid-air, where they disappeared from sight.
Nothing could be distinguished now but the clashing of steel and flashes of fire, which kept up for a long time.
In beholding this from the tree top, where he was stationed, his bones grew cold and his hair stood stiff on end.
He knew not what to do.
Then a moment later he heard something fall to the ground with a great thud.
A cry of victory arose too, and he recognized that it was the woodman's voice.
Chills ran all over him, and goose-flesh covered his skin; only after a long time could he gain control of himself.
He came down from the tree and the woodman met him, took him suddenly under his arm, and vaulted over into the pavilion.
Here he met a beautiful woman with hair like fleecy clouds.
Before the fight the woman's voice was evidently full of hilarity, but now she was overcome with grief and tears.
The woodman spoke roughly to her, saying, "Do you not know that you, a wicked woman, have caused the death of a great man?"
The woodman said also to Im, "You have courage and valour in your way, but it is not sufficient to meet a world like this.
I will now give you this woman, and this house, so you can bid farewell to the dusty world and live here in peace and quiet for the rest of your days."
Im replied, "What I have seen to-night I am at a loss to understand.
I'd like to know the meaning of it first; please tell me.
After hearing that I'll do what you ask."
The woodman said, "I am not an ordinary mortal of the world, but am an outlaw of the hills and woods.
I am a robber, really, and by robbing have many such a house as this.
Not only here but in all the provinces I have homes abundant, a beautiful woman in each, and rich and dainty fare.
All unexpectedly this woman has neglected me for another man, and he and she have several times tried to kill me.
There being no help for it, I had to kill him.
I have killed the man, but I ought truly to have killed the woman.
Take this place, then, off my hands, will you, and the woman too?"
But Im asked, "Who was the man, and where did he live?"
"There were," said the woodman, "mighty possibilities in him, though he lived humbly inside the South Gate of Seoul and sold cut tobacco.
He came here frequently, and I knew it, though I winked at it all until they attempted to kill me, and that brought matters to a head.
It was not my wish to kill him," and here the woodman broke down and cried.
"Alas, alas!"
said he, "I have killed a great and gifted man.
Think it over," said he; "you have courage, but not enough to make any mark in the world.
You will fail half-way, the Fates have so decided.
Cease from any vain ambitions, for there is no way by which your name can ever become famous.
Do what I say, then, and take over this woman and this home."
Im, however, shook his head and said, "I can't do it."
The woodman asked, "Why can you not?
If you do not, there is nothing for this woman but death, so here I'll have done with it," and he struck her with his sword and cut off her head.
The day following he said to Im, "Since you are determined to go forth and do valiantly, I cannot stop you, but if a man goes forth thus and does not know the use of the sword he is helpless, and at the mercy of the foe.
Stay with me a little and learn.
I'll teach you."
Im stayed for six days and learned the use of the sword.
Anon.
XXXVIII THE MAGIC INVASION OF SEOUL A gentleman of Seoul was one day crossing the Han River in a boat.
In the crossing, he nodded for a moment, fell asleep and dreamed a dream.
In his dream he met a man who had Gothic eyebrows and almond eyes, whose face was red as ripened dates, and whose height was eight cubits and a span.
He was dressed in green and had a long beard that came down to his belt-string.
A man of majestic appearance he was, with a great sword at his side and he rode on a red horse.
He asked the gentleman to open his hand, which he did, and then the august stranger dashed a pen-mark on it as the sign of the God of War.
Said he, "When you cross the river, do not go direct to Seoul, but wait at the landing.
Seven horses will shortly appear, loaded with network hampers, all proceeding on their journey to the capital.
You are to call the horsemen, open your hand, and show them the sign.
When they see it they will all commit suicide in your very presence.
After that, you are to take the loads and pile them up, but don't look into them.
Then you are to go at once and report the matter to the Palace and have them all burned.
The matter is of immense importance, so do not fail in the slightest particular."
The gentleman gave a great start of terror and awoke.
He looked at his hand and there, indeed, was the strange mark.
Not only so, but the ink had not yet dried upon it.
He was astonished beyond measure, but did as the dream had indicated, and waited on the river's bank.
In a little there came, as he was advised, the seven loads on seven horses, coming from the far-distant South.
There were attendants in charge, and one man wearing an official coat came along behind.
When they had crossed the river the gentleman called them to him and said, "I have something to say to you; come close to me."
These men, unsuspecting, though with somewhat of a frightened look, closed up.
He then showed them his hand with the mark, and asked them if they knew what it was.
When they saw it, first of all, the man in the official coat turned and with one bound jumped over the cliff into the river.
The eight or nine who accompanied the loads likewise all rushed after him and dashed into the water.
The scholar then called the boatmen, and explained to them that the things in the hampers were dangerous, that he would have to make it known to the Palace, and that in the meantime they were to keep close guard, but that they were not to touch them or look at them.
He hurried as fast as possible, and reported the matter to the Board of War.
The Board sent an official, and had the loads brought into Seoul, and then, as had been directed, they were piled high with wood and set on fire.
When the fire developed, the baskets broke open, and little figures of men and horses, each an inch or so long, in countless numbers, came tumbling out.
When the officials saw this they were frozen with fear; their hearts ceased beating and their tongues lolled out.
In a little, however, the hampers were all burned up.
These were the creation of a magician, and were intended for a monster invasion of Seoul, until warned by Kwan.
From that time on the people of Seoul began faithful offerings to the God of War, for had he not saved the city?
Im Bang.
XXXIX THE AWFUL LITTLE GOBLIN There was an occasion for a celebration in the home of a nobleman of Seoul, whereupon a feast, to which were invited all the family friends, was prepared.
There was a great crowd of men and women.
In front of the women's quarters there suddenly appeared an uncombed, ugly-looking boy about fifteen years of age.
The host and guests, thinking him a coolie who had come in the train of some visitor, did not ask specially concerning him, but one of the women guests, seeing him in the inner quarters, sent a servant to reprimand him and put him out.
The boy, however, did not move, so the servant said to him, "Who are you, anyway, and with whom did you come, that you enter the women's quarters, and even when told to go out do not go?"
The boy, however, stood stock-still, just as he had been, with no word of reply.
The company looked at him in doubt, and began to ask one another whose he was and with whom he had come.
Again they had the servant make inquiry, but still there was no reply.
The women then grew very angry, and ordered him to be put out.
Several took hold of him and tried to pull him, but he was like a fixed rock, fast in the earth, absolutely immovable.
In helpless rage they informed the men.
The men, hearing this, sent several strong servants, who took hold all at once, but he did not budge a hair.
They asked, "Who are you, anyway?"
but he gave no reply.
The crowd, then enraged, sent ten strong men with ropes to bind him, but like a giant mountain he remained fast, so that they recognized that he could not be moved by man's power.
One guest remarked, "But he, too, is human; why cannot he be moved?"
They then sent five or six giant fellows with clubs to smash him to pieces, and they laid on with all their might.
It looked as though he would be crushed like an egg-shell, while the sound of their pounding was like reverberating thunder.
But just as before, not a hair did he turn, not a wink did he give.
Then the crowd began to fear, saying, "This is not a man, but a god," so they entered the courtyard, one and all, and began to bow before him, joining their hands and supplicating earnestly.
They kept this up for a long time.
At last the boy gave a sarcastic smile, turned round, went out of the gate and disappeared.
The company, frightened out of their wits, called off the feast.
From that day on, the people of that house were taken ill, including host and guests.
Those who scolded him, those who tied him with ropes, those who pounded him, all died in a few days.
Other members of the company, too, contracted typhus and the like, and died also.
It was commonly held that the boy was the Too-uk Spirit, but we cannot definitely say.
Strange, indeed!
Note.--When the time comes for a clan to disappear from the earth, calamity befalls it.
Even though a great spirit should come in at the door at such a feast time, if the guests had done as Confucius suggests, "Be reverent and distant," instead of insulting him and making him more malignant than ever, they would have escaped.
Still, devils and men were never intended to dwell together.
Im Bang.
XL GOD'S WAY In a certain town there lived a man of fierce and ungovernable disposition, who in moments of anger used to beat his mother.
One day this parent, thus beaten, screamed out, "Oh, God, why do you not strike dead this wicked man who beats his mother?"
The beating over, the son thrust his sickle through his belt and went slowly off to the fields where he was engaged by a neighbour in reaping buckwheat.
The day was fine, and the sky beautifully clear.
Suddenly a dark fleck of cloud appeared in mid-heaven, and a little later all the sky became black.
Furious thunder followed, and rain came on.
The village people looked out toward the field, where the flashes of lightning were specially noticeable.
They seemed to see there a man with lifted sickle trying to ward them off.
When the storm had cleared away, they went to see, and lo, they found the man who had beaten his mother struck dead and riven to pieces.
God takes note of evil doers on this earth, and deals with them as they deserve.
How greatly should we fear!
Yi Ryuk.
XLI THE OLD MAN IN THE DREAM Kwon Jai was a man high in rank and well advanced in years.
He was, however, much given to sport and various kinds of pleasure.
One night he had a dream, when an old man came to him, who bowed low, and in tears said, "Sir, Minister Hong wishes to kill off me and all my posterity.
Please save me, won't you?"
Kwon asked, "How can I save you?"
The old man replied, "Hong will assuredly ask Your Excellency to help him.
Desist from it, please, for if you do, Hong will give it up and I shall live and all mine."
A little later there came a rap at the door, when Kwon awakened and asked, "Who is there?"
It was Hong, who that day had planned an excursion to Lotus Lake to fish for turtles, and now had come specially to invite Kwon to go with him.
Then Kwon knew that the turtle had appeared to him in a dream in the form of an old man, so he declined, saying he was ill.
I learned later that Hong also did not go.
Yi Ryuk.
XLII THE PERFECT PRIEST There was once a priest called Namnu who had perfected his ways in the Buddhistic doctrine.
Whenever he had clothing of his own he would willingly undress and give it to those who were cold.
His spirit was gentle with no creases or corners in it.
Everybody, high and low, rich and poor, called him by the nickname of Softy.
Whenever he saw any one sentenced to a flogging in the temple or official yamen, Namnu invariably begged that he might take the culprit's place.
Once, when there was a great function in progress at Pagoda Temple and many high officials were assembled, Softy, too, was seen kneeling at the side and taking part.
He suddenly remarked to Prince Hong of Yon-san, "You are indeed a very great man."
Hong replied, "What do you mean by 'great man,' you impudent brat?
Take that," and he gave him a box with his fist on the ear.
Softy laughed, and said, "Please, Hong, don't do that, it hurts!
it hurts!"
Later I was in the train of Prince Yi of Yun-song, and other high officials were present, when we stopped for a little before the Temple.
Softy was there, and he looked at Yi and said, "I know your face, but I have forgotten your name."
Afterwards he said, "Oh, I remember now, you are Yi Sok-hyong."
The priests of the monastery who heard this familiarity were scandalized, and hurried to make no end of apology to the Prince, saying, "Softy was born so, God made him so.
Please, Your Excellency, forgive him."
The Prince forgave him and so he was not disturbed.
Yi Ryuk.
XLIII THE PROPITIOUS MAGPIE People say that when the magpie builds its nest directly south of a home that the master of the house will be promoted in office.
King T'ai-jong had a friend once who was very poor and had failed in all his projects.
After various fruitless attempts he decided to wait till the King went out on procession and then to send a servant to build an imitation magpie's nest in some propitious place before him.
The King saw it and asked the man what he was doing.
He said in reply that when a magpie builds its nest straight south of a home the master of the house instantly gets promotion.
His master, he said, had waited so long and nothing had come, that he was building an imitation nest to bring it about.
The King took pity on him and ordered his appointment at once.
When I was young myself a magpie built its nest before our home, but I, along with other boys, cut off the branch so that the whole nest fell to the ground, and there were the young with their pitiful yellow mouths.
I felt sorry and afraid that they would die, so on a propitious site to the south I had the nest hung up on a neutie tree, where the young all lived and flourished and flew away.
In that very winter my father was promoted three degrees in rank and was attached to the office of the Prime Minister.
Afterwards I built a summer-house at Chong-pa, and before the house, directly facing south, magpies built a nest in a date tree.
I had a woman slave, and she pulled it down and used the nest for fuel, but they came again the next year and built once more.
The year following was 1469 when Ye-jong came to the throne.
That year again I was promoted.
In the spring of 1471 magpies came and built their nest in a tree just south of my office.
I laughed and said, "There is a spiritual power in the magpie surely, as men have said from olden times and as I myself have proven."
Yi Ryuk.
XLIV THE "OLD BUDDHA" Prime Minister Choi Yun-tok was in mourning once for his mother.
With a single horse and one servant he made a journey to the south where the road led through the county of Kai-ryong.
At that very time two or three of the district magistrates had pitched a tent on the bank of the river and were having refreshments.
They said to one another, "Who is that mourner that goes riding by without dismounting?
It must be some country farmer who has never learned proper manners.
We shall certainly have to teach him a lesson."
They sent an attendant to arrest and bring his servant, whom they asked, "Who is your master?"
He replied, "Choi, the Old Buddha."
"But what's his real name?"
they demanded.
"The old Buddha," was the reply.
Then they grew very angry at this, and said, "Your master has offended in not dismounting, and you offend in concealing his name.
Both slave and master are equally ill-mannered."
And so they beat him over the head.
Then the servant said slowly, "He is called Choi the Buddha, but his real name is Yun-tok, and he is now on his way to his country home in Chang-won."
At once they recognized that it was no other than the Prime Minister, and great fear overcame them.
They struck their tent, cleared away the eatables, and ran to make their deepest salaam and to ask pardon for their sin.
The old Buddha was a special name by which this famous minister was known.
Yi Ryuk.
XLV A WONDERFUL MEDICINE Prince Cheung had been First Minister of the land for thirty years.
He was a man just and upright, now nearly ninety years of age.
His son was called Whal, and was second in influence only to his father.
Both were greatly renowned in the age in which they lived, and His Majesty treated them with special regard.
Prince Cheung's home was suddenly attacked by goblins and devils, and when a young official came to call on him, these mysterious beings in broad daylight snatched the hat from his head and crumpled it up.
They threw stones, too, and kept on throwing them so that all the court was reduced to confusion.
Prince Cheung made his escape and went to live in another house, where he prepared a special medicine called sal-kwi-whan (kill-devil-pills), which he offered in prayer.
From that time the goblins departed, and now after five or six years no sign of them has reappeared.
Prince Cheung, too, is well and strong and free from sickness.
Yi Ryuk.
XLVI FAITHFUL MO Prince Ha had a slave who was a landed proprieter and lived in Yang-ju county.
He had a daughter, fairest of the fair, whom he called Mo (Nobody), beautiful beyond expression.
An Yun was a noted scholar, a man of distinction in letters.
He saw Mo, fell in love with her and took her for his wife.
Prince Ha heard of this and was furiously angry.
Said he, "How is it that you, a slave, dare to marry with a man of the aristocracy?"
He had her arrested and brought home, intending to marry her to one of his bondsmen.
Mo learned of this with tears and sorrow, but knew not what to do.
At last she made her escape over the wall and went back to An.
An was delighted beyond expression to see her; but, in view of the old prince, he knew not what to do.
Together they took an oath to die rather than to be parted.
Later Prince Ha, on learning of this, sent his underlings to arrest her again and carry her off.
After this all trace of her was lost till Mo was discovered one day in a room hanging by the neck dead.
Months of sorrow passed over An till once, under cover of the night, he was returning from the Confucian Temple to his house over the ridge of Camel Mountain.
It was early autumn and the wooded tops were shimmering in the moonlight.
All the world had sunk softly to rest and no passers were on the way.
An was just then musing longingly of Mo, and in heartbroken accents repeating love verses to her memory, when suddenly a soft footfall was heard as though coming from among the pines.
He took careful notice and there was Mo.
An knew that she was long dead, and so must have known that it was her spirit, but because he was so buried in thought of her, doubting nothing, he ran to her and caught her by the hand, saying, "How did you come here?"
but she disappeared.
An gave a great cry and broke into tears.
On account of this he fell ill.
He ate, but his grief was so great he could not swallow, and a little later he died of a broken heart.
Kim Champan, who was of the same age as I, and my special friend, was also a cousin of An, and he frequently spoke of this.
Yu Hyo-jang, also, An's nephew by marriage, told the story many times.
Said he, "Faithful unto death was she.
For even a woman of the literati, who has been born and brought up at the gates of ceremonial form, it is a difficult matter enough to die, but for a slave, the lowest of the low, who knew not the first thing of Ceremony, Righteousness, Truth or Devotion, what about her?
To the end, out of love for her husband, she held fast to her purity and yielded up her life without a blemish.
Even of the faithful among the ancients was there ever a better than Mo?"
Yi Ryuk.
XLVII THE RENOWNED MAING Minister of State Maing Sa-song once upon a time, dressed in plain clothes, started south on a long journey.
On the way he was overtaken by rain, and turned into a side pavilion for rest and shelter.
There was a young scholar already in the pavilion by the name of Whang Eui-hon, who with his two hands behind his back was reading the pavilion inscription board, on which verses were written.
Long he read and long he looked about as though no one else were there.
At last he turned to the old man, and said, "Well, grand-dad, do you know the flavour of verses like these?"
The famous Minister, pretending ignorance, arose and said, "An old countryman like myself, could you expect him to know?
Please tell me the meaning."
Whang said, "These verses were written by the great men of the past.
What they saw and experienced they wrote down to inspire the souls of those who were to come after them.
They are like pictures of sea and land, for there are living pictures in poetry, you know."
The Minister said, "Indeed, that's wonderful; but if it were not for men like yourself how should I ever come to know these things?"
A little later came pack-horses loaded with all sorts of things; servants and retainers, too, a great company of them, tent poles, canvas packs and other equipment, a long procession.
Whang, surprised by this, made inquiry, when, to his amazement, he learned that the old man was none other than Maing Sa-song.
Unconsciously he dropped on to his knees in a deep and long obeisance.
The Minister laughed and said, "That will do; there is no difference in the value of mere men, they are high or low according to the thoughts that prompt them, but unfortunately all are born with a proud heart.
You are not a common scholar, why, therefore, should you be so proud to begin with and so humble now?"
The Minister took him by the hand, led him to his mat, made him sit down, comforted him and sent him away.
Yi Ryuk.
XLVIII THE SENSES The eyes are round like gems, so that they can roll about and see things; the ears have holes in them so that they can hear; the nose has openings by which it can perceive smell; and the mouth is horizontal and slit so that it can inhale and exhale the breath; the tongue is like an organ reed so that it can make sounds and talk.
Three of the four have each their particular office to fulfil, while the mouth has two offices.
But the member that distinguishes the good from the bad is the heart, so that without the heart, even though you have eyes you cannot see, though you have ears you cannot hear, though you have a nose you cannot smell, and though you have a mouth you cannot breathe, so they say that without the heart "seeing you cannot see, and hearing you cannot hear."
Yi Ryuk.
XLIX WHO DECIDES, GOD OR THE KING?
King Tai-jong was having a rest in Heung-yang Palace, while outside two eunuchs were talking together over the law that governs the affairs of men, as to whether it is man or God.
A said, "Riches and honour are all in the king's hand."
B said, "Nothing of the kind; every atom of wealth and every degree of promotion are all ordered of God.
Even the king himself has no part in it and no power."
So they argued, each that he was right, without ever coming to an agreement.
The King, overhearing what was said, wrote a secret despatch, saying, "Raise the Bearer of this letter one degree in rank."
He sealed it and commanded A to take it to Se-jong, who was then in charge of this office.
A made his bow and departed, but just when he was about to leave the palace enclosure a furious pain took him in the stomach, so that he begged B to take his place and go into the city.
The next day, when the record of promotions was placed before the King, he read how B had been advanced, but not one word was there about A.
King Tai-jong made inquiry, and when he knew the circumstances he gave a sudden start of wonder and remained long in deep thought.
Yi Ryuk.
L THREE THINGS MASTERED There was a relative of the king, named Im Sung-jong, who was a gifted man in thought and purpose.
He was the first performer of his time on the harp.
King Se-jong said of him, "Im's harp knows but one master, and follows no other man."
His home was outside the South Gate, and every morning he was seen kneeling on the sill of his front door beating his hands upwards and downwards on his knees, and this practice he carried on for three years.
People could not imagine what he meant by it, but thought him mad.
Thus he learned the motions required for the harp.
Also he blew with his mouth and practised with his fingers day and night without stopping, so that when people called on him he would see them but would not perceive them.
He kept this up for three years and so learned the motions for the flute.
He was a lightly built man in body, and poor at riding and at archery.
He often sighed over this defect, and said, "Though I am weak and stupid and not able to shoot a long distance, I shall yet know how to hit the target and make the bull's-eye.
This also must be acquired by practice."
So every morning he took his bow and arrows and went off into the hills.
There he shot all day long, keeping it up for three years, till he became a renowned archer.
Thus you may perceive the kind of man he was.
Yi Ryuk.
LI STRANGELY STRICKEN DEAD There was once a man called Kim Tok-saing, a soldier of fortune, who had been specially honoured at the Court of Tai-jong.
He had several times been generalissimo of the army, and on his various campaigns had had an intimate friend accompany him, a friend whom he greatly loved.
But Kim had been dead now for some ten years and more, when one night this friend of his was awakened with a start and gave a great outcry.
He slept again, but a little later was disturbed once more by a fright, at which he called out.
His wife, not liking this, inquired as to what he meant.
The friend said, "I have just seen General Kim riding on a white horse, with bow and arrows at his belt.
He called to me and said, 'A thief has just entered my home, and I have come to shoot him dead.'
He went and again returned, and as he drew an arrow from his quiver, I saw that there were blood marks on it.
He said, 'I have just shot him, he is dead.'"
The husband and wife in fear and wonder talked over it together.
When morning came the friend went to General Kim's former home to make inquiry.
He learned that that very night Kim's young widow had decided to remarry, but as soon as the chosen fiancé had entered her home, a terrible pain shot him through, and before morning came he died in great agony.
Yi Ryuk.
LII THE MYSTERIOUS HOI TREE Prince Pa-song's house was situated just inside of the great East Gate, and before it was a large Hoi tree.
On a certain night the Prince's son-in-law was passing by the roadway that led in front of the archers' pavilion.
There he saw a great company of bowmen, more than he could number, all shooting together at the target.
A moment later he saw them practising riding, some throwing spears, some hurling bowls, some shooting from horseback, so that the road in front of the pavilion was blocked against all comers.
Some shouted as he came by, "Look at that impudent rascal!
He attempts to ride by without dismounting."
They caught him and beat him, paying no attention to his cries for mercy, and having no pity for the pain he suffered, till one tall fellow came out of their serried ranks and said in an angry voice to the crowd, "He is my master; why do you treat him so?"
He undid his bonds, took him by the arm and led him home.
When the son-in-law reached the gate he looked back and saw the man walk under the Hoi tree and disappear.
He then learned, too, that all the crowd of archers were spirits and not men, and that the tall one who had befriended him was a spirit too, and that he had come forth from their particular Hoi tree.
Yi Ryuk.
LIII TA-HONG [Sim Heui-su studied as a young man at the feet of No Su-sin, who was sent as an exile to a distant island in the sea.
Thither he followed his master and worked at the Sacred Books.
He matriculated in 1570 and graduated in 1572.
In 1589 he remonstrated with King Son-jo over the disorders of his reign, and was the means of quelling a great national disturbance; but he made a faux pas one day when he said laughingly to a friend-"These sea-gull waves ride so high, Who can tame them?"
Those who heard caught at this, and it became a source of unpopularity, as it indicated an unfavourable opinion of the Court.
In 1592, when the King made his escape to Eui-ju, before the invading Japanese army, he was the State's Chief Secretary, and after the return of the King he became Chief Justice.
He resigned office, but the King refused to accept his resignation, saying, "I cannot do without you."
He became chief of the literati and Special Adviser.
Afterwards he became Minister of the Right, then of the Left, at which time he wrote out ten suggestions for His Majesty to follow.
He saw the wrongs done around the King, and resigned office again and again, but was constantly recalled.
In 1608 Im Suk-yong, a young candidate writing for his matriculation, wrote an essay exposing the wrongs of the Court.
Sim heard of this, and took the young man under his protection.
The King, reading the essay, was furiously angry, and ordered the degradation of Im, but Sim said, "He is with me; I am behind what he wrote and approve; degrade me and not him," and so the King withdrew his displeasure.
He was faithful of the faithful.
When he was old he went and lived in Tun-san in a little tumble-down hut, like the poorest of the literati.
He called himself "Water-thunder Muddy-man," a name derived from the Book of Changes.
He died in 1622 at the age of seventy-four, and is recorded as one of Korea's great patriots.]
The Story Minister Sim Heui-su was, when young, handsome as polished marble, and white as the snow, rarely and beautifully formed.
When eight years of age he was already an adept at the character, and a wonder in the eyes of his people.
The boy's nickname was Soondong (the godlike one).
From the passing of his first examination, step by step he advanced, till at last he became First Minister of the land.
When old he was honoured as the most renowned of all ministers.
At seventy he still held office, and one day, when occupied with the affairs of State, he suddenly said to those about him, "To-day is my last on earth, and my farewell wishes to you all are that you may prosper and do bravely and well."
His associates replied in wonder, "Your Excellency is still strong and hearty, and able for many years of work; why do you speak so?"
Sim laughingly made answer, "Our span of life is fixed.
Why should I not know?
We cannot pass the predestined limit.
Please feel no regret.
Use all your efforts to serve His Majesty the King, and make grateful acknowledgment of his many favours."
Thus he exhorted them, and took his departure.
Every one wondered over this strange announcement.
From that day on he returned no more, it being said that he was ailing.
There was at that time attached to the War Office a young secretary directly under Sim.
Hearing that his master was ill, the young man went to pay his respects and to make inquiry.
Sim called him into his private room, where all was quiet.
Said he, "I am about to die, and this is a long farewell, so take good care of yourself, and do your part honourably."
The young man looked, and in Sim's eyes were tears.
He said, "Your Excellency is still vigorous, and even though you are slightly ailing, there is surely no cause for anxiety.
I am at a loss to understand your tears, and what you mean by saying that you are about to die.
I would like to ask the reason."
Sim smiled and said, "I have never told any person, but since you ask and there is no longer cause for concealment, I shall tell you the whole story.
When I was young certain things happened in my life that may make you smile.
"At about sixteen years of age I was said to be a handsome boy and fair to see.
Once in Seoul, when a banquet was in progress and many dancing-girls and other representatives of good cheer were called, I went too, with a half-dozen comrades, to see.
There was among the dancing-girls a young woman whose face was very beautiful.
She was not like an earthly person, but like some angelic being.
Inquiring as to her name, some of those seated near said it was Ta-hong (Flower-bud).
"When all was over and the guests had separated, I went home, but I thought of Ta-hong's pretty face, and recalled her repeatedly, over and over; seemingly I could not forget her.
Ten days or so later I was returning from my teacher's house along the main street, carrying my books under my arm, when I suddenly met a pretty girl, who was beautifully dressed and riding a handsome horse.
She alighted just in front of me, and to my surprise, taking my hand, said, 'Are you not Sim Heui-su?'
"In my astonishment I looked at her and saw that it was Ta-hong.
I said, 'Yes, but how do you know me?'
I was not married then, nor had I my hair done up, and as there were many people in the street looking on I was very much ashamed.
Flower-bud, with a look of gladness in her face, said to her pony-boy, 'I have something to see to just now; you return and say to the master that I shall be present at the banquet to-morrow.'
Then we went aside into a neighbouring house and sat down.
She said, 'Did you not on such and such a day go to such and such a Minister's house and look on at the gathering?'
I answered, 'Yes, I did.'
'I saw you,' said she, 'and to me your face was like a god's.
I asked those present who you were, and they said your family name was Sim and your given-name Heui-su, and that your character and gifts were very superior.
From that day on I longed to meet you, but as there was no possibility of this I could only think of you.
Our meeting thus is surely of God's appointment.'
"I replied laughingly, 'I, too, felt just the same towards you.'
"Then Ta-hong said, 'We cannot meet here; let's go to my aunt's home in the next ward, where it's quiet, and talk there.'
We went to the aunt's home.
It was neat and clean and somewhat isolated, and apparently the aunt loved Flower-bud with all the devotion of a mother.
From that day forth we plighted our troth together.
Flower-bud had never had a lover; I was her first and only choice.
She said, however, 'This plan of ours cannot be consummated to-day; let us separate for the present and make plans for our union in the future.'
I asked her how we could do so, and she replied, 'I have sworn my soul to you, and it is decided for ever, but you have your parents to think of, and you have not yet had a wife chosen, so there will be no chance of their advising you to have a second wife as my social standing would require for me.
As I reflect upon your ability and chances for promotion, I see you already a Minister of State.
Let us separate just now, and I'll keep myself for you till the time when you win the first place at the Examination and have your three days of public rejoicing.
Then we'll meet once more.
Let us make a compact never to be broken.
So then, until you have won your honours, do not think of me, please.
Do not be anxious, either, lest I should be taken from you, for I have a plan by which to hide myself away in safety.
Know that on the day when you win your honours we shall meet again.'
"On this we clasped hands and spoke our farewells as though we parted easily.
Where she was going I did not ask, but simply came home with a distressed and burdened heart, feeling that I had lost everything.
On my return I found that my parents, who had missed me, were in a terrible state of consternation, but so delighted were they at my safe return that they scarcely asked where I had been.
I did not tell them either, but gave another excuse.
"At first I could not desist from thoughts of Ta-hong.
After a long time only was I able to regain my composure.
From that time forth with all my might I went at my lessons.
Day and night I pegged away, not for the sake of the Examination, but for the sake of once more meeting her.
"In two years or so my parents appointed my marriage.
I did not dare to refuse, had to accept, but had no heart in it, and no joy in their choice.
"My gift for study was very marked, and by diligence I grew to be superior to all my competitors.
It was five years after my farewell to Ta-hong that I won my honours.
I was still but a youngster, and all the world rejoiced in my success.
But my joy was in the secret understanding that the time had come for me to meet Ta-hong.
On the first day of my graduation honours I expected to meet her, but did not.
The second day passed, but I saw nothing of her, and the third day was passing and no word had reached me.
My heart was so disturbed that I found not the slightest joy in the honours of the occasion.
Evening was falling, when my father said to me, 'I have a friend of my younger days, who now lives in Chang-eui ward, and you must go and call on him this evening before the three days are over,' and so, there being no help for it, I went to pay my call.
As I was returning the sun had gone down and it was dark, and just as I was passing a high gateway, I heard the Sillai call.
[3] It was the home of an old Minister, a man whom I did not know, but he being a high noble there was nothing for me to do but to dismount and enter.
Here I found the master himself, an old gentleman, who put me through my humble exercises, and then ordered me gently to come up and sit beside him.
He talked to me very kindly, and entertained me with all sorts of refreshments.
Then he lifted his glass and inquired, 'Would you like to meet a very beautiful person?'
I did not know what he meant, and so asked, 'What beautiful person?'
The old man said, 'The most beautiful in the world to you.
She has long been a member of my household.'
Then he ordered a servant to call her.
When she came it was my lost Ta-hong.
I was startled, delighted, surprised, and speechless almost.
'How do you come here?'
I gasped.
"She laughed and said, 'Is this not within the three days of your public celebration, and according to the agreement by which we parted?'
"The old man said, 'She is a wonderful woman.
Her thoughts are high and noble, and her history is quite unique.
I will tell it to you.
I am an old man of eighty, and my wife and I have had no children, but on a certain day this young girl came to us saying, "May I have the place of slave with you, to wait on you and do your bidding?"
"'In surprise I asked the reason for this strange request, and she said, "I am not running away from any master, so do not mistrust me."
"'Still, I did not wish to take her in, and told her so, but she begged so persuasively that I yielded and let her stay, appointed her work to do, and watched her behaviour.
She became a slave of her own accord, and simply lived to please us, preparing our meals during the day, and caring for our rooms for the night; responding to calls; ever ready to do our bidding; faithful beyond compare.
We feeble old folks, often ill, found her a source of comfort and cheer unheard of, making life perfect peace and joy.
Her needle, too, was exceedingly skilful, and according to the seasons she prepared all that we needed.
Naturally we loved and pitied her more than I can say.
My wife thought more of her than ever mother did of a daughter.
During the day she was always at hand, and at night she slept by her side.
At one time I asked her quietly concerning her past history.
She said she was originally the child of a free-man, but that her parents had died when she was very young, and, having no place to go to, an old woman of the village had taken her in and brought her up.
"Being so young," said she, "I was safe from harm.
At last I met a young master with whom I plighted a hundred years of troth, a beautiful boy, none was ever like him.
I determined to meet him again, but only after he had won his honours in the arena.
If I had remained at the home of the old mother I could not have kept myself safe, and preserved my honour; I would have been helpless; so I came here for safety and to serve you.
It is a plan by which to hide myself for a year or so, and then when he wins I shall ask your leave to go."
"'I then asked who the person was with whom she had made this contract, and she told me your name.
I am so old that I no longer think of taking wives and concubines, but she called herself my concubine so as to be safe, and thus the years have passed.
We watched the Examination reports, but till this time your name was absent.
Through it all she expressed not a single word of anxiety, but kept up heart saying that before long your name would appear.
So confident was she that not a shadow of disappointment was in her face.
This time on looking over the list I found your name, and told her.
She heard it without any special manifestation of joy, saying she knew it would come.
She also said, "When we parted I promised to meet him before the three days of public celebration were over, and now I must make good my promise."
So she climbed to the upper pavilion to watch the public way.
But this ward being somewhat remote she did not see you going by on the first day, nor on the second.
This morning she went again, saying, "He will surely pass to-day"; and so it came about.
She said, "He is coming; call him in."
"'I am an old man and have read much history, and have heard of many famous women.
There are many examples of devotion that move the heart, but I never saw so faithful a life nor one so devoted to another.
God taking note of this has brought all her purposes to pass.
And now, not to let this moment of joy go by, you must stay with me to-night.'
"When I met Ta-hong I was most happy, especially as I heard of her years of faithfulness.
As to the invitation I declined it, saying I could not think, even though we had so agreed, of taking away one who waited in attendance upon His Excellency.
But the old man laughed, saying, 'She is not mine.
I simply let her be called my concubine in name lest my nephews or some younger members of the clan should steal her away.
She is first of all a faithful woman: I have not known her like before.'
"The old man then had the horse sent back and the servants, also a letter to my parents saying that I would stay the night.
He ordered the servants to prepare a room, to put in beautiful screens and embroidered matting, to hang up lights and to decorate as for a bridegroom.
Thus he celebrated our meeting.
"Next morning I bade good-bye, and went and told my parents all about my meeting with Ta-hong and what had happened.
They gave consent that I should have her, and she was brought and made a member of our family, really my only wife.
"Her life and behaviour being beyond that of the ordinary, in serving those above her and in helping those below, she fulfilled all the requirements of the ancient code.
Her work, too, was faithfully done, and her gifts in the way of music and chess were most exceptional.
I loved her as I never can tell.
"A little later I went as magistrate to Keumsan county in Chulla Province, and Ta-hong went with me.
We were there for two years.
She declined our too frequent happy times together, saying that it interfered with efficiency and duty.
One day, all unexpectedly, she came to me and requested that we should have a little quiet time, with no others present, as she had something special to tell me.
I asked her what it was, and she said to me, 'I am going to die, for my span of life is finished; so let us be glad once more and forget all the sorrows of the world.'
I wondered when I heard this.
I could not think it true, and asked her how she could tell beforehand that she was going to die.
She said, 'I know, there is no mistake about it.'
"In four or five days she fell ill, but not seriously, and yet a day or two later she died.
She said to me when dying, 'Our life is ordered, God decides it all.
While I lived I gave myself to you, and you most kindly responded in return.
I have no regrets.
As I die I ask only that my body be buried where it may rest by the side of my master when he passes away, so that when we meet in the regions beyond I shall be with you once again.'
When she had so said she died.
"Her face was beautiful, not like the face of the dead, but like the face of the living.
I was plunged into deepest grief, prepared her body with my own hands for burial.
Our custom is that when a second wife dies she is not buried with the family, but I made some excuse and had her interred in our family site in the county of Ko-yang.
I did so to carry out her wishes.
When I came as far as Keum-chang on my sad journey, I wrote a verse-'O beautiful Bud, of the beautiful Flower, We bear thy form on the willow bier; Whither has gone thy sweet perfumed soul?
The rains fall on us To tell us of thy tears and of thy faithful way.'
"I wrote this as a love tribute to my faithful Ta-hong.
After her death, whenever anything serious was to happen in my home, she always came to tell me beforehand, and never was there a mistake in her announcements.
For several years it has continued thus, till a few days ago she appeared in a dream saying, 'Master, the time of your departure has come, and we are to meet again.
I am now making ready for your glad reception.'
"For this reason I have bidden all my associates farewell.
Last night she came once more and said to me, 'To-morrow is your day.'
We wept together in the dream as we met and talked.
In the morning, when I awoke, marks of tears were still upon my cheeks.
This is not because I fear to die, but because I have seen my Ta-hong.
Now that you have asked me I have told you all.
Tell it to no one."
So Sim died, as was foretold, on the day following.
Strange, indeed!
Im Bang.
THE END NOTES [1] The head button is the insignia of rank, and is consequently a valuable heirloom in a Korean home.--J.
S. G. [2] Kalpa means a Buddhistic age.
[3] A shrill whistle by which graduates command the presence of a new graduate to haze or honour, as they please.
by the Million Book Project.
KOREA'S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM "Mr. F.A.
McKenzie has been abused in the columns of the Japanese press_ with a violence which, in the absence of any reasoned controversy, indicated a last resource.
In answer to his specific charges, only one word has been uttered--'lies!'
"Yet these charges embrace crimes of the first magnitude--murder, plunder, outrage, incendiarism, and in short all the horrors that make up tyranny of the worst description.
It is difficult to see how Mr. McKenzie's sincerity could be called into question, for he, too, like many other critics of the new Administration, was once a warm friend and supporter of Japan.
"In those days, his contributions were quoted at great length in the newspapers of Tokyo, while the editorial columns expressed their appreciation of his marked capacity.
So soon, however, as he found fault with the conditions prevailing in Korea, he was contemptuously termed a 'yellow journalist' and a 'sensation monger.'"
--_From "Empires of the Far East" by F. Lancelot Lawson.
London.
Grant Richards_.
"Mr. McKenzie was perhaps the only foreigner outside the ranks of missionaries who ever took the trouble to elude the vigilance of the Japanese, escape from Seoul into the interior, and there see with his own eyes what the Japanese were really doing.
And yet when men of this kind, who write of things which come within scope of personal observation and enquiry, have the presumption to tell the world that all is not well in Korea, and that the Japanese cannot be acquitted of guilt in this context, grave pundits in Tokyo, London and New York gravely rebuke them for following their own senses in preference to the official returns of the Residency General.
It is a poor joke at the best!
Nor is it the symptom of a powerful cause that the failure of the Japanese authorities to 'pacify' the interior is ascribed to 'anti-Japanese' writers like Mr.
McKenzie."
--_From "Peace and War in the Far East," by E.J.
Harrison.
Yokohama.
Kelly and Walsh_.
Korea's Fight for Freedom By F.A.
McKENZIE _Author of "The Tragedy of Korea," "The Unveiled East," "Through the Hindenburg Line" etc._ 1920 Preface The peaceful uprising of the people of Korea against Japan in the spring of 1919 came as a world surprise.
Here was a nation that had been ticketed and docketed by world statesmen as degenerate and cowardly, revealing heroism of a very high order.
The soldier facing the enemy in the open is inspired by the atmosphere of war, and knows that he has at least a fighting chance against his foe.
The Koreans took their stand--their women and children by their side--without weapons and without means of defense.
They pledged themselves ahead to show no violence.
They had all too good reason to anticipate that their lot would be the same as that of others who had preceded them--torture as ingenious and varied as Torquemada and his familiars ever practiced.
They were not disappointed.
They were called on to endure all that they had anticipated, in good measure, pressed down and running over.
When they were dragged to prison, others stepped into their place.
When these were taken, still others were ready to succeed them.
And more are even now waiting to join in the dreadful procession, if the protests of the civilized world do not induce Japan to call a halt.
It seems evident that either the world made a mistake in its first estimate of Korean character, or these people have experienced a new birth.
Which is the right explanation?
Maybe both.
To understand what has happened, and what, as I write, is still happening, one has to go back for a few years.
When Japan, in face of her repeated pledges, annexed Korea, her statesmen adopted an avowed policy of assimilation.
They attempted to turn the people of Korea into Japanese--an inferior brand of Japanese, a serf race, speaking the language and following the customs of their overlords, and serving them.
To accomplish this better, the Koreans were isolated, not allowed to mix freely with the outer world, and deprived of liberty of speech, person and press.
The Japanese brought certain material reforms.
They forgot to supply one thing--justice.
Men of progressive ideas were seized and imprisoned in such numbers that a new series of prisons had to be built.
In six years the total of prisoners convicted or awaiting trial doubled.
The rule of the big stick was instituted, and the Japanese police were given the right to flog without trial any Korean they pleased.
The bamboo was employed on scores of thousands of people each year, employed so vigorously as to leave a train of cripples and corpses behind.
The old tyranny of the yang-ban was replaced by a more terrible, because more scientifically cruel, tyranny of an uncontrolled police.
The Japanese struck an unexpected strain of hardness in the Korean character.
They found, underneath the surface apathy, a spirit as determined as their own.
They succeeded, not in assimilating the people, but in reviving their sense of nationality.
Before Japan acquired the country, large numbers of Koreans had adopted Christianity.
Under the influence of the teachers from America, they became clean in person, they brought their women out from the "anpang" (zenana) into the light of day, and they absorbed Western ideas and ideals.
The mission schools taught modern history, with its tales of the heroes and heroines of liberty, women like Joan of Arc, men like Hampden and George Washington.
And the missionaries circulated and taught the Bible--the most dynamic and disturbing book in the world.
When a people saturated in the Bible comes into touch with tyranny, either one of two things happens, the people are exterminated or tyranny ceases.
The Japanese realized their danger.
They tried, in vain, to bring the Churches under Japanese control.
They confiscated or forbade missionary textbooks, substituting their own.
Failing to win the support of the Christians, they instituted a widespread persecution of the Christian leaders of the north.
Many were arrested and tortured on charges which the Japanese Courts themselves afterwards found to be false.
The Koreans endured until they could endure no more.
Not the Christians alone, but men of all faiths and all classes acted as one.
The story of their great protest, of what led up to it, and the way in which it was met, is told in this book.
To the outsider, one of the most repulsive features of the Japanese method of government of Korea is the wholesale torture of untried prisoners, particularly political prisoners.
Were this torture an isolated occurrence, I would not mention it.
There are always occasional men who, invested with authority and not properly controlled, abuse their position.
But here torture is employed in many centres and on thousands of people.
The Imperial Japanese Government, while enacting paper regulations against the employment of torture, in effect condones it.
When details of the inhuman treatment of Christian Korean prisoners have been given in open court, and the victims have been found innocent, the higher authorities have taken no steps to bring the torturers to justice.
The forms of torture freely employed include, among others:-1.
The stripping, beating, kicking, flogging, and outraging of schoolgirls and young women.
2.
Flogging schoolboys to death.
3.
Burning--the burning of young girls by pressing lighted cigarettes against their tender parts, and the burning of men, women and children by searing their bodies with hot irons.
4.
Stringing men up by their thumbs, beating them with bamboos and iron rods until unconscious, restoring them and repeating the process, sometimes several times in one day, sometimes until death.
5.
Contraction--tying men up in such fashion as to cause intense suffering.
6.
Confinement for long periods under torturing conditions, as, _e.g._, where men and women are packed so tightly in a room that they cannot lie or sit down for days at a stretch.
In the latter chapters of this book I supply details of many cases where such methods have been employed.
Where it can safely be done, I give full names and places.
In many instances this is impossible, for it would expose the victims to further ill treatment.
Sworn statements have been made before the American Consular authorities covering many of the worst events that followed the 1919 uprising.
These are now, I understand, with the State Department at Washington.
It is to be hoped that in due course they will be published in full.
* * * * * When my book, "The Tragedy of Korea," was published in 1908, it seemed a thankless and hopeless task to plead for a stricken and forsaken nation.
The book, however, aroused a wide-spread and growing interest.
It has been more widely quoted and discussed in 1919 than in any previous year.
Lawyers have argued over it in open court; statesmen have debated parts of it in secret conferences, Senates and Parliaments.
At a famous political trial, one question was put to the prisoner, "Have you read the 'Tragedy of Korea'?"
It has been translated into Chinese.
At first I was accused of exaggeration and worse.
Subsequent events have amply borne out my statements and warnings.
The book has been for a long time out of print, and even second-hand copies have been difficult to obtain.
I was strongly urged to publish a new edition, bringing my narrative up to date, but I found that it would be better to write a new book, including in it, however, some of the most debated passages and chapters of the old.
This I have done.
Some critics have sought to charge me with being "anti-Japanese."
No man has written more appreciatively of certain phases of Japanese character and accomplishments than myself.
My personal relations with the Japanese, more especially with the Japanese Army, left me with no sense of personal grievance but with many pleasant and cordial memories.
My Japanese friends were good enough to say, in the old days, that these agreeable recollections were mutual.
I have long been convinced, however, that the policy of Imperial expansion adopted by Japan, and the means employed in advancing it, are a grave menace to her own permanent well-being and to the future peace of the world.
I am further convinced that the militarist party really controls Japanese policy, and that temporary modifications which have been recently announced do not imply any essential change of national plans and ambitions.
If to believe and to proclaim this is "anti-Japanese," then I plead guilty to the charge.
I share my guilt with many loyal and patriotic Japanese subjects, who see, as I see, the perils ahead.
In this book I describe the struggle of an ancient people towards liberty.
I tell of a Mongol nation, roughly awakened from its long sleep, under conditions of tragic terror, that has seized hold of and is clinging fast to, things vital to civilization as we see it, freedom and free faith, the honour of their women, the development of their own souls.
I plead for Freedom and Justice.
Will the world hear?
F.A.
McKENZIE.
Contents I.
OPENING THE OYSTER II.
JAPAN MAKES A FALSE MOVE III.
THE MURDER OF THE QUEEN IV.
THE INDEPENDENCE CLUB V. THE NEW ERA VI.
THE RULE OF PRINCE ITO VII.
THE ABDICATION OF YI HYEUNG VIII.
A JOURNEY TO THE "RIGHTEOUS ARMY" IX.
WITH THE REBELS X.
THE LAST DAYS OF THE KOREAN EMPIRE XI.
"I WILL WHIP YOU WITH SCORPIONS" XII.
THE MISSIONARIES XIII.
TORTURE A LA MODE XIV.
THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT XV.
THE PEOPLE SPEAK--THE TYRANTS ANSWER XVI.
THE REIGN OF TERROR IN PYENG-YANG XVII.
GIRL MARTYRS FOR LIBERTY XVIII.
WORLD REACTIONS XIX.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
I OPENING THE OYSTER Up to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Korea refused all intercourse with foreign nations.
Peaceful ships that approached its uncharted and unlit shores were fired upon.
Its only land approach, from the north, was bounded by an almost inaccessible mountain and forest region, and by a devastated "No Man's Land," infested by bandits and river pirates.
When outside Governments made friendly approaches, and offered to show Korea the wonders of modern civilization, they received the haughty reply that Korea was quite satisfied with its own civilization, which had endured for four thousand years.
Even Korea, however, could not keep the world entirely in the dark about it.
Chinese sources told something of its history.
Its people were the descendants of Ki-tzse, a famous Chinese sage and statesman who, eleven hundred years before Christ, moved with his tribesmen over the river Yalu because he would not recognize or submit to a new dynasty that had usurped power in China.
His followers doubtless absorbed and were influenced by still older settlers in Korea.
The result was a people with strong national characteristics, different and distinct from the Chinese on the one side and the Japanese on the other.
We knew that, as Korea obtained much of its early knowledge from China, so it gave the younger nation of Japan its learning and industries.
Its people reached a high stage of culture, and all records indicate that in the days when the early Briton painted himself with woad and when Rome was at her prime, Korea was a powerful, orderly and civilized kingdom.
Unhappily it was placed as a buffer between two states, China, ready to absorb it, and Japan, keen to conquer its people as a preliminary to triumph over China.
In the course of centuries, it became an inbred tradition with the Japanese that they must seize Korea.
Hideyoshi, the famous Japanese Regent, made a tremendous effort in 1582.
Three hundred thousand troops swept over Korea, capturing city after city, and driving the Korean forces to the north.
Korea appealed to China for aid, and after terrible fighting, the Japanese were driven back.
They left a Korea in ruins, carrying off everything they could, and destroying all they could not carry off.
They kidnapped, among others, the skilled workmen of Korea, and made them remain in Japan and carry on their industries there.
Hideyoshi's invasion is of more than historic interest Korea has never recovered the damage then done.
The Japanese desire for Korea, thwarted for the moment, smouldered, waiting for the moment to burst afresh into flame.
The memories of their terrible sufferings at the hands of the Japanese ground into the Koreans a hatred of their neighbour, handed down undiminished from generation to generation, to this day.
Korea might have recovered, but for another and even more serious handicap.
A new dynasty, the House of Yi, succeeded to the Korean throne over five centuries ago, and established a rule fatal to all progress.
The King was everything, and the nation lived solely for him.
No man was allowed to become too rich or powerful.
There must be no great nobles to come together and oppose these kings as the Norman Barons fought and checked the Norman Kings of England.
No man was allowed to build a house beyond a certain size, save the King.
The only way to wealth or power was by enlisting in the King's service.
The King's governors were free to plunder as they would, and even the village magistrate, representing the King, could freely work his will on those under him.
The King had his eyes everywhere.
His spies were all over the land.
Let yang-ban (official or noble) however high show unhealthy ambition or seek to conceal anything from the royal knowledge and he would be called to Court and broken in an hour, and would count himself fortunate if he escaped with his life.
The Korean people are eminently pacific.
Up to a point, they endure hard thing's uncomplainingly.
It would have been better for them had they not suffered wrongs so tamely.
The Yi method of government killed ambition--except for the King's service--killed enterprise and killed progress.
The aim of the business man and the farmer was to escape notice and live quietly.
Foreigners attempted, time after time, to make their way into the country.
French Catholic priests, as far back as the end of the eighteenth century, smuggled themselves in.
Despite torture and death, they kept on, until the great persecution of 1866 wiped them and their converts out.
This persecution arose because of fear of foreign aggression.
A Russian war vessel appeared off Broughton's Bay, demanding on behalf of Russians the right of commerce.
The King at this time was a minor, adopted by the late King.
His father, the Tai Won Kun, or Regent, ruled in his stead.
He was a man of great force of character and no scruples.
He slew in wholesale fashion those who dared oppose him.
He had the idea that the Christians favoured the coming of the foreigner and so he turned his wrath on them.
The native Catholics were wiped out, under every possible circumstance of brutality, and with them perished a number of French Catholic priests.
By one of those contradictions which are constantly happening in real life, the crew of an American steamer, the _Surprise_, who were wrecked off the coast of Whang-hai that year were treated with all possible honour and consideration, and were returned home, through Manchuria, officials conducting them and the people coming out to greet them as they travelled through the land.
The French Minister at Peking determined on revenge for the death of the priests.
A strong expedition was sent to the Han River, and attacked the forts on the Kangwha Island.
The Korean troops met them bravely, and although the French obtained a temporary success, thanks to their modern weapons, they were in the end forced to retire.
An American ship, the _General Sherman_, set out for Korea in 1866, sailing from Tientsin for the purpose, it was rumoured, of plundering the royal tombs at Pyeng-yang.
It entered the Tai-tong River, where it was ordered to stop.
A fight opened between it and the Koreans, the latter in their dragon cloud armour, supposed to be impervious to bullets, sending their fire arrows against the invaders.
The captain, not knowing the soundings of the river, ran his ship ashore.
The Koreans sent fire boats drifting down the river towards the American ship.
One of them set the _General Sherman_ in flames.
Those of the crew who were not burned on the spot were soon slaughtered by the triumphant Korean soldiers.
A more disreputable expedition, headed by a German Jew, Ernest Oppert and an American called Jenkins, left Shanghai in the following year, with a strong fighting crew of Chinese and Malays, and with a French missionary priest, M. Feron, as guide.
They landed, and actually succeeded in reaching the royal tombs near the capital.
Their shovels were useless, however, to remove the immense stones over the graves.
A heavy fog enabled them to carry on their work for a time undisturbed.
Soon an angry crowd gathered, and they had to return to their ship, the _China_.
They were fortunate to escape before the Korean troops came up.
The American consular authorities in Shanghai placed Jenkins on trial, but there was not enough evidence to convict him.
The killing of the crew of the _General Sherman_ brought the American Government into action.
Captain Shufeldt, commander of the _Wachusset_, was ordered to go to Korea and obtain redress.
He reached the mouth of the Han River, and sent a message to the King, asking an explanation of the matter.
He had to retire, owing to weather conditions, before the reply arrived.
The Korean reply, when eventually delivered, was in effect a plea of justification.
The Americans, however, determined to inflict punishment, and a fleet was sent to destroy the forts on the Han River.
The American ships, the _Monacacy_ and the _Palos_ bombarded the forts.
The Korean brass guns, of one and one-half inch bore, and their thirty pounders, could do nothing against the American howitzers, throwing eight and ten inch shells.
The American Marines and sailors landed, and in capturing a hill fort, had a short, hot hand-to-hand battle with the defenders.
The Koreans fought desperately, picking up handfuls of dust to fling in the eyes of the Americans when they had nothing else to fight with.
Refusing to surrender they were wiped out.
Having destroyed the forts and killed a number of the soldiers, there was nothing for the Americans to do but to retire.
The "gobs" were the first to admit the real courage of the Korean soldiers.
Japan, which herself after considerable internal trouble, had accepted the coming of the Westerner as inevitable, tried on several occasions to renew relations with Korea.
At first she was repulsed.
In 1876 a Japanese ship, approaching the Korean coast, was fired on, as the Japanese a generation before had fired on foreign ships approaching their shore.
There was a furious demand all over the country for revenge.
Ito and other leaders with cool heads resisted the demand, but took such steps that Korea was compelled to conclude a treaty opening several ports to Japanese trade and giving Japan the right to send a minister to Seoul, the capital.
The first clause of the first article of the treaty was in itself a warning of future trouble.
"Chosen (Korea) being an independent state enjoys the same sovereign rights as does Japan."
In other words Korea was virtually made to disown the slight Chinese protectorate which had been exercised for centuries.
The Chinese statesmen in Peking watched this undisturbed.
They despised the Japanese too much to fear them, little dreaming that this small nation was within less than twenty years to humble them in the dust.
Their real fear at this time was not Japan but Russia.
Russia was stretching forth throughout Asia, and it looked as though she would try to seize Korea itself.
And so Li Hung-chang advised the Korean rulers to guard themselves.
"You must open your doors to other nations in order to keep out Russia," he told them.
At the same time it was intimated to Ministers in Peking, particularly to the American Minister, that if he would approach the Koreans, they would be willing to listen.
Commodore Shufeldt was made American Envoy, and an American-Korean Treaty was signed at Gensan on May 22, 1882.
It was, truth to tell, a somewhat amateurish production, and had to be amended before it was finally ratified.
It provided for the appointment of diplomatic and Consular officials, and for the opening of the country to commerce.
A treaty with Britain was concluded in the following year, and other nations followed.
One clause in the American Treaty was afterwards regarded by the Korean ruler as the sheet anchor of his safety, until storm came and it was found that the sheet anchor did not hold.
There shall be perpetual peace and friendship between the President of the United States and the King of Chosen and the citizens and subjects of their respective Governments.
If other powers deal unjustly or oppressively with either Government, the other will exert their good offices, on being informed of the case, to bring about an amicable arrangement, thus showing their friendly feelings.
All of the treaties provided for extra-territoriality in Korea, that is to say that the foreigners charged with any offence there should be tried not by the Korean Courts but by their own, and punished by them.
Groups of adventurous foreigners soon entered the country.
Foreign ministers and their staffs arrived first.
Missionaries, concession hunters, traders and commercial travellers followed.
They found Seoul, the capital, beautifully placed in a valley surrounded by hills, a city of royal palaces and one-storied, mud-walled houses, roofed with thatch--a city guarded by great walls.
Statesmen and nobles and generals, always surrounded by numerous retinues in glorious attire, ambled through the narrow streets in dignified procession.
Closed palanquins, carried by sturdy bearers, bore yet other dignitaries.
The life of the city revolved round the King's Court, with its four thousand retainers, eunuchs, sorcerers, blind diviners, politicians and place hunters.
The most prominent industry--outside of politics--was the making of brass ware, particularly of making fine brass mounted chests.
The average citizen dressed in long flowing white robes, with a high, broad-brimmed, black gauze hat.
Hundreds of women were ever busy at the river bank washing these white garments.
Women of good family remained at home, except for one hour after dark, when the men retired from the streets and the women came out.
Working women went to and fro, with their faces shielded by green jackets thrown over their heads.
Their usual dress was a white skirt coming high up and a very short jacket.
The breasts and the flesh immediately below the breasts were often freely displayed.
Fishing and farming supported ninety per cent of the population, and the Korean farmer was an expert.
At sunset the gates of Seoul were closed, and belated wayfarers refused admission until morning.
But there was no difficulty in climbing over the city walls.
That was typical.
Signal fires at night on the hills proclaimed that all was well.
The Koreans were mild, good natured, and full of contradictory characteristics.
Despite their usual good nature, they were capable of great bursts of passion, particularly over public affairs.
They often looked dirty, because their white clothes soiled easily; yet they probably spent more time and money over external cleanliness than any other Asiatic people.
At first, they gave an impression of laziness.
The visitor would note them sleeping in the streets of the cities at noon.
But Europeans soon found that Korean labourers, properly handled, were capable of great effort.
And young men of the cultured classes amazed their foreign teachers by the quickness with which they absorbed Western learning.
The land was torn, at the time of the entry of the foreigners, by the rivalry of two great families--the Yi's, the blood relatives of the King, and the Mins, the family of the Queen.
The ex-Regent was leader of the Yi's.
He had exercised absolute power for many years during the King's minority, and attempted to retain power even after he ceased to be Regent.
But he reckoned without the Queen.
She was as ambitious as the Regent.
The birth of a son greatly improved and strengthened her authority, and she gradually edged the Regent's party out of high office.
Her brother, Min Yeung-ho, became Prime Minister; her nephew, Min Yung-ik, was sent as Ambassador to the United States.
The Regent was anti-foreign; the Queen advocated the admission of foreigners.
The Regent tried to strengthen his hold by a very vigorous policy of murder, attempting the death of the Queen and her relatives.
One little incident was an effort to blow up the Queen.
But Queen Min was triumphant every time.
The King, usually weak and easily moved, really loved the Queen, refused to be influenced away from her, and was dominated by her strong character.
In the summer of 1881 there was a famine in the land.
The Regent's agents were busy everywhere whispering that the spirits were angry with the nation for admitting the foreigner, and that Queen Min had brought the wrath of the gods on them.
The National Treasury failed, and many of the King's soldiers and retainers were ready for any trouble.
A great mob gathered in the streets.
It first attacked and murdered the King's Ministers, and destroyed their houses.
Then it turned against the King's palace.
Word came to the Queen's quarters that the rioters were hammering at the gates and would soon be on her.
The palace guards had weakened, and some had even joined the people.
Queen Min was calm and collected.
She quickly changed clothes with one of her serving women, who somewhat resembled her in appearance.
The serving woman, dressed in the robes of the Queen, was given a draught of poison and died.
The Queen hurried out through a side way, in peasant woman's dress, guarded by a water carrier, Yi Yung-ik, who for his services that day rose till he finally became Prime Minister of the land.
When the crowd broke into the Queen's private apartments, they were shown the corpse and told that it was the Queen, who had died rather than face them.
The crowd swept on and attacked the Japanese Legation.
The Minister, Hanabusa, and his guard, with all the civilians who could reach the place--the rest were murdered--fought bravely, keeping the mob back until the Legation building was set afire.
Then they battled their way through the city to the coast.
The survivors--twenty-six out of forty--set to sea in a junk.
They were picked up at sea by a British survey ship, the _Flying Fish_, and conveyed to Nagasaki.
There was, naturally, intense anger in Japan over this incident and loud demands for war.
A little more than three weeks after, Hanabusa returned to Seoul with a strong military escort.
He demanded and obtained punishment of the murderers, the honourable burial of the Japanese dead, an indemnity of 400,000 yen, and further privileges in trade for the Japanese.
Meanwhile China, Korea's usually apathetic suzerain power, took action.
Li Hung-chang sent 4,000 troops to Seoul to maintain order.
The Regent, now humble and conciliatory, attempted to put blame for the outbreak on others.
But that did not save him.
The Chinese, with elaborate courtesy, invited him to a banquet and to inspect their ships.
There was one ship, in particular, to which they called his honourable attention.
They begged him to go aboard and note the wonders of the apartments below.
The Regent went.
Once below, he found the door shut, and could hear the ropes being thrown off as the ship hastily departed.
It was in vain for him to call for his attendants and warriors waiting on the shore.
They took him to China, and Li Hung-chang sent him into imprisonment and exile for three years, until it was deemed safe to allow him to return.
II JAPAN MAKES A FALSE MOVE For hundreds of years it was the ambition of Japan to replace China as the Protector of Korea.
It was the more mortifying, therefore, that the Hanabusa incident served to strengthen China's authority.
It gave Peking an excuse to despatch and maintain a considerable force at Seoul, for the first time for hundreds of years.
The Japanese tried to turn the affair to their advantage by demanding-still more concessions.
The Korean rulers found it hard to refuse these determined little men.
So they adopted a policy of procrastination, arguing endlessly.
Now Japan was in a hurry, and could not wait.
The Japanese Minister at Seoul at this time was Takezoi, timid and hesitating constitutionally, but, like many timid folk, acting at times with great rashness.
Under him was a subordinate of stronger and rougher type, Shumamura, Secretary to the Legation.
Shumamura kept in touch with a group of Cabinet Ministers who had been to Japan and regarded Japan as their model.
They mourned together over the growth of Chinese power, and agreed that it was threatening the independence of the country.
They repeated the rumour that a secret treaty had actually been signed by the King, recognizing Chinese supremacy in more binding form than ever before.
They felt that the Queen was against them.
Her nephew, Min Yung-ik, had been on their side when he returned from America.
Now, under her influence, he had taken the other side.
Kim Ok-kiun, leader of the malcontents, was an ambitious and restless politician, eager to have the control of money.
One of his chief supporters was Pak Yung-hyo, relative of the King, twenty-three years old, and a sincere reformer.
Hong Yung-sik, keen on foreign ways, was a third.
He was hungry for power.
He was the new Postmaster General, and a building now being erected in Seoul for a new post-office was to mark the entry of Korea into the world's postal service.
So Kwang-pom, another Minister, was working with them.
Kim Ok-kiun and Shumamura had long conferences.
They discussed ways and means.
The reformers were to overthrow the reactionaries in the Cabinet by the only possible way, killing them; they were then in the King's name to grant Japan further commercial concessions, and the Japanese were to raise a considerable loan which should be handed over to Kim for necessary purposes.
Takezoi was on a visit to Tokyo when his deputy and the Korean came to an understanding.
They were rather anxious to have the whole thing through before his return, for they knew, as every one knew, that Takezoi was not the best man for a crisis.
But when the Minister returned from Tokyo there was none so bold as he.
He boasted to his friends that Japan had at last resolved to make war on China, and that every Chinaman would soon be driven out of the land.
He received Kim and heard of his plans with satisfaction.
There would be no trouble about money.
A few Japanese in Seoul itself would arrange all that was necessary.
Let the thing be done quickly.
It had been customary for the Legations only to drill their soldiers in daytime, and to inform the Government before they were taken out to public places.
But one night Takezoi had his Japanese troops turned out, marched up the great hill, Namzan, commanding the city, and drilled there.
When asked why he did it, he cheerfully replied that he had just made an experiment to see how far he could startle the Chinese and Koreans; and he was quite satisfied with the result.
He sought an interview with the King.
He had brought back the 400,000 yen which Japan had exacted as indemnity for the Hanabusa outrage.
Japan desired Korea's friendship, he declared, not her money.
He also brought a stand of Japanese-made rifles, a gift from the Emperor to the King, and a very significant gift, too.
The Minister urged on the King the helpless condition of China, and the futility of expecting assistance from her, and begged the King to take up a bold position, announce Korea's independence and dare China's wrath.
The King listened, but made no pledges.
Kim and the Japanese Secretary called in their allies, to discuss how to strike.
One scheme proposed was that they should send two men, disguised as Chinese, to kill two of the Ministers they had marked as their victims.
Then they would charge the other Ministers with the deed and kill them.
Thus they would get rid of all their enemies at a blow.
A second plan was that Kim should invite the Ministers to the fine new house he had built, should entertain them and then kill them.
Unfortunately for Kim, the Ministers were not willing to come to his house.
He had invited them all to a grand banquet shortly before, and only a few had accepted.
"Make haste!"
urged Shumamura.
"Japan is ready for anything."
At last some one hit on a happy scheme.
Twenty-two young Koreans had been sent to Japan to learn modern military ways, and had studied at the Toyama Military School at Tokyo.
Returning home, they had given an exhibition of their physical drill and fencing before the King, who was as delighted with them as a child with a new toy.
He had declared that he would have all his army trained this way.
The leader of the students, So Jai-pil, nephew of one of the King's favourite generals, was made a Colonel of the Palace Guard, although only seventeen years old.
But despite the King, the old military leaders, whose one idea of martial ardour was to be carried around from one point to another surrounded with bearers and warriors who made a loud noise to impress the crowd, shuddered at the idea of reform, and managed to block it.
The students were kicking their heels idly around the palace.
Here were the very lads for the job.
Appeal to their patriotism.
Let them do the killing, and their seniors take the glory.
And so it was decided.
The Japanese were talking so boastingly that it would be surprising if the Chinese had learned nothing.
At the head of the Chinese troops was Yuan Shih-kai, afterwards to prove himself the strongest man in the Middle Kingdom and to overthrow the Manchu dynasty.
He said nothing, but it does not follow that he did nothing.
At a dinner given to the Foreign Representatives, the Interpreter to the Japanese Legation delivered a speech in Korean on the shameless unscrupulousness and cowardice of the Chinese.
He even went so far as to call them "sea slugs," giving a malicious glance at the Chinese Consul-General while he spoke.
The Chinese official did not know Korean, but he could understand enough of the speech to follow its import.
The plans were now complete.
Every victim had two assassins assigned to him.
The occasion was to be the opening of the new post-office, when Hong Yung-sik would give an official banquet to which all must come.
During the dinner, the detached palace was to be set on fire, a call was to be raised that the King was in danger, and the reactionary Ministers were to be killed as they rushed to his help.
Two of the students were appointed sentries, two were to set fire to the palace, one group was to wait at the Golden Gate for other members of the Government who tried to escape that way.
Four young Japanese, including one from the Legation, were to act as a reserve guard, to complete the killing in case the Koreans failed.
The Commander of the Palace Guard, a strong sympathizer, posted his men in such a way as to give the conspirators a free hand.
The Japanese Minister promised that his soldiers would be ready to cooperate at the right time.
On the afternoon of December 4th, the Japanese Legation people busied themselves with fetching ammunition and provisions from the barracks.
In the afternoon a detachment of soldiers came over.
They knew that the deed was to be done that night.
The dinner was held, according to plan.
It was a singularly harmonious gathering--up to a point.
Many were the jokes and pointed was the wit.
The gesang (geisha), spurred by the merriment of their lords, did more than ever to amuse the guests.
The drink was not stinted.
Then there came a call of "Fire!"
It was the duty of Min Yung-ik, as General Commanding the right Guard Regiment, to keep the custody of the fire apparatus.
Deploring his rough luck in being called to duty at such a time, he left the hall and, surrounded by his braves and attendants, who were waiting for him in the anteroom, made his way to his yungmun, or official residence.
When he was near the post-office five young men, armed with sharp swords, suddenly broke through his guard, killed one of the soldiers and attacked the Minister.
"He received seven sword slashes, all great ones, two all but taking his head off," wrote a contemporary chronicler.
He staggered back into the banqueting hall, blood pouring from him.
There was at once great confusion.
The Ministers not in the plot, fearing that some ill was intended against them, threw away their hats of state, turned their coats, and concealed themselves amongst their coolies.
Fortunately for Min, just as the palace doctors were about to attempt to stop his wounds by pouring boiling wax on them, a modern surgeon came hurrying up.
He was Dr. Allen, an American Presbyterian missionary, the first to arrive in Korea.
He did such good work on his patient that night that King and Court became friends of the missionaries for ever on.
Leaving the banqueting hall, Pak Yung-kyo and his companions at once hurried to the palace, informed the King that a Great Event had happened, and told him that he and the Queen must go with them for their safety.
They took him to the Tai Palace, near at hand.
Here they were at once surrounded by the Japanese troops, by the students, and some 800 Korean soldiers, under General Han Kiu-chik, who commanded one of the four regiments of the Palace Guard.
The King and Queen were of course accompanied by their own attendants.
The Chief Eunuch, who was among them, took General Han on one side.
"This is a very serious matter," he urged.
"Let us send for General Yuan and the Chinese."
General Han apparently weakened and agreed.
There was no weakening on the part of the students.
The Chief Eunuch and the General were "one by one withdrawn from the King's presence" and when outside were promptly despatched.
Then the King was bidden to write notes to his chief anti-Progressive Ministers, summoning them to his presence.
As they arrived, "one by one, each in his turn, was despatched by the students and his body thrown aside."
The King called for the Japanese Minister.
At first he would not come.
Finally he appeared.
He had arranged that most of the work was to be done without his presence, in order to avoid diplomatic trouble.
A number of edicts had been drawn up which the King was obliged to sign.
All kinds of reforms were commanded, and the land was made on paper, in an hour, into a modern state.
The reformers did not forget their own interests.
Hong Yung-sik, the Postmaster General, was made Prime Minister, Kim Ok-kiun was made second officer of the Royal Treasury, and the lad So Jai-pil, on whom the chief command of the students and Korean soldiers now devolved, was made General Commanding a Guard Regiment.
In answer to his urgent entreaties, the King was allowed next morning to return to his palace, the Japanese and the Progressives accompanying him.
It was soon clear, even to the reformers, that they had gone too far.
As news of the affair became known, the people made their sentiments felt in unmistakable fashion.
Odd Japanese in the streets were killed, others made their way to the Legation and shut themselves in there, while the Japanese Minister and the Progressives were hemmed in the palace by an angry mob.
They were short of ammunition.
The Japanese had twenty-five rounds a man, the twenty-two students had fifteen rounds apiece, and the eight hundred Korean soldiers either had none or destroyed what they had.
There was plenty in the Legation but the mob barred the way.
General So Jai-pil (to give him his new title) was on the move day and night, going from outpost to outpost, threatening and encouraging weaklings, and arranging and inspiring his men.
The affair started on the evening of December 4th; the reformers remained in the palace until the afternoon of December 7th.
Then General Yuan Shih-kai, the Chinese leader, approached the palace gates and sent in his card, demanding admission.
The Queen had already smuggled a message out to him begging his aid.
The Japanese soldiers on guard refused to allow him to enter.
He gave warning that he would attack.
He had 2,000 Chinese troops and behind them were fully 3,000 Korean soldiers and the mass of the population.
Takezoi weakened.
He did not want to risk an engagement with the Chinese, and he declared that he would withdraw his Guard, and take them back to his Legation.
Young General So drew his sword threateningly, and told him that they must stay and see it through.
The Japanese captain in command of the troops was as eager for a fight as was So, and the Minister was for the time overruled.
A great fight followed.
The Chinese sought to outflank the reformers, and to force an entry by climbing over the walls.
One of the personal attendants of the King suddenly attacked the new Premier, Hong Yung-sik, and slew him.
The Korean soldiers seemed to disappear from the scene as soon as the real fighting started, but the students and the Japanese did valiantly.
They claimed that they shot fully three hundred Chinese.
The great gate of the palace still held, in spite of all attacks.
But the ammunition of the defenders had at last all gone.
"Let us charge the Chinese with our bayonets," cried So.
The Japanese captain joyfully assented.
But Takezoi now asserted his authority.
He pulled from his pocket his Imperial warrants giving him supreme command of the Japanese in Korea and read them to the captain.
"The Emperor has placed you under my command," he declared.
"Refuse to obey me and you refuse to obey your Emperor.
I command you to call your men together and let us all make our way back to the Legation."
There was nothing to do but obey.
While the Chinese were still hammering at the front gate, the Japanese and reformers crept quietly around by the back wall towards the Legation.
The people in the building, hearing this mass of men approach in the dark, unlit street, thought that they were the enemy, and opened fire on them.
A Japanese sergeant and an interpreter were shot down on either side of General So.
Not until a bugle was sounded did the Japanese inside the building recognize their friends.
The party staggered in behind the barricades worn out.
So, who had not closed his eyes for four days, dropped to the ground exhausted and slept.
He did not awake until the next afternoon.
He heard a voice calling him, and started up to find that the Japanese were already leaving.
They had resolved to fight their way to the sea.
"I do not know who it was called me," said So, afterwards.
"Certainly it was none of the men in the Legation.
I sometimes believe that it must have been a voice from the other world."
Had he wakened five minutes later, the mob would have caught him and torn him to bits.
The Japanese blew up a mine, and, with women and children in the centre, flung themselves into the maelstrom of the howling mob.
The people of Seoul were ready for them.
They had already burned the houses of the Progressive statesmen, Kim, Pak, So and Hong.
They tried, time after time, to rush the Japanese circle.
The escaping party marched all through the night, fighting as it marched.
At one point it had to pass near a Chinese camp.
A cannon opened fire on it.
At Chemulpo, the coast port twenty-seven miles from Seoul, it found a small Japanese mail steamer, the _Chidose Maru_.
The Koreans who had escaped with the party were hidden.
Before the _Chidose_ could sail a deputation from the King arrived, disclaiming all enmity against the Japanese, but demanding the surrender of the Koreans.
Takezoi seemed to hesitate, and the reformers feared for the moment that he was about to surrender them.
But the pockmarked captain of the _Chidose_ drove the deputation from the side of his ship, in none too friendly fashion, and steamed away.
The reformers landed in Japan, expecting that they would be received like heroes, and that they would return with a strong army to fight the Chinese.
They did not realize that the revolutionist who fails must look for no sympathy or aid.
The Japanese Foreign Minister at first refused even to see them.
When at last they secured an audience, he told them bluntly that Japan was not going to war with China over the matter.
"We are not ready yet," said he.
He then demanded of the reformers what they were going to do with themselves.
This was too much for So Jai-pil.
His seniors tried to restrain him, but in vain, "What way is this for Samurai to treat Samurai?"
he hotly demanded.
"We trusted you, and now you betray and forsake us.
I have had enough of you.
I am going to a new world, where men stand by their bonds and deal fairly with one another.
I shall go to America."
A few weeks later he landed in San Francisco, penniless.
He knew scarcely any English.
He sought work.
His first job was to deliver circulars from door to door, and for this he was paid three dollars a day.
He attended churches and meetings to learn how to pronounce the English tongue.
He saved money enough to enter college, and graduated with honours.
He became an American citizen, taking a new form of his name, Philip Jaisohn.
He joined the United States Civil Service and in due course was made a doctor of medicine by Johns Hopkins University.
He acquired a practice at Washington, and was lecturer for two medical schools.
Later on, he was recalled to his native land.
The Korean reformers themselves saw, later on, the folly of their attempt.
"We were very young," they say.
They were the tools of the Japanese Minister, and they had inherited a tradition of political life which made revolt seem the natural weapon by which to overthrow your enemies.
They learned wisdom in exile, and some of them were subsequently to reach high rank in their country's service.
There is a sequel to this story.
The King and the Court regarded Kim Ok-kiun as the unpardonable offender.
Other men might be forgiven, for after all attempted revolts were no novelties.
But there was to be no forgiveness for Kim.
A price was put on his head.
Assassins followed him to Japan, but could find no opportunity to kill him.
Then a plot was planned and he was induced to visit Shanghai.
He had taken great pains to conceal his visit, but everything had been arranged ahead for him.
Arriving at Shanghai he was promptly slain, and his body was carried in a Chinese war-ship to Chemulpo.
It was cut up, and exhibited in different parts of the land as the body of a traitor.
The mortified Japanese could do nothing at the time.
Years passed.
The Japanese now had control of Korea.
One of the last things they did, in 1910, before contemptuously pushing the old Korean Government into limbo, was to make it issue an Imperial rescript, restoring Kim Ok-kiun, Hong Yung-sik and others--although long dead--to their offices and honours, and doing reverence to their memory.
[1] [Footnote 1: Curiosity may be felt about my authority for many of the particulars supplied in this chapter.
Accounts published by foreigners living at Seoul at the time are of use as giving current impressions, but are not wholly to be relied on for details.
A very interesting official report, based on information supplied by the King, is to be found in the unpublished papers of Lieutenant George C. Foulk, U.S.
Naval Attaché at Seoul, which are stored in the New York Public Library.
A valuable account from the Japanese point of view was found among the posthumous papers of Mr. Fukuzawa (in whose house several of the exiles lived for a time) and was published in part in the Japanese press in 1910.
I learned the conspirators' side directly from one of the leading actors in the drama.]
III THE MURDER OF THE QUEEN "We are not ready to fight China yet," said the Japanese Foreign Minister to the impetuous young Korean.
It was ten years later before Japan was ready, ten years of steady preparation, and during that time the real focus of the Far Eastern drama was not Tokyo nor Peking, but Seoul.
Here the Chinese and Japanese outposts were in contact.
Here Japan when she was ready created her cause of war.
China despised Japan, and did not think it necessary to make any real preparations to meet her.
The great majority of European experts and of European and American residents in the Far East were convinced that if it came to an actual contest, Japan would stand no chance.
She might score some initial victories, but in the end the greater weight, numbers and staying power of her monster opponent must overwhelm her.
The development of Korea proceeded slowly.
It seemed as though there were some powerful force behind all the efforts of more enlightened Koreans to prevent effective reforms from being carried out The Japanese were, as was natural the most numerous settlers in the land, and their conduct did not win them the popular affection.
Takezoi's disastrous venture inflicted for a time a heavy blow on Japanese prestige.
The Japanese dead lay unburied in the streets for the dogs to eat.
China was momentarily supreme.
"The whole mass of the people are violently pro-Chinese in their sentiments," the American representative stated in a private despatch to his Government, "and so violently anti-Japanese that it is impossible to obtain other than a volume of execrations and vituperations against them when questioned," A semi-official Japanese statement that their Minister and his troops had gone to the palace at the King's request, to defend him, made the matter rather worse.
The affair would have been more quickly forgotten but for the overbearing attitude of Japanese settlers towards the Korean people, and of Japanese Ministers towards the Korean Government.
Officially they advanced claims so unjust that they aroused the protest of other foreigners.
The attitude of the Japanese settlers was summed up by Lord (then the Hon.
G.N.)
Curzon, the famous British statesman, after a visit in the early nineties.
"The race hatred between Koreans and Japanese," he wrote, "is the most striking phenomenon in contemporary Chosen.
Civil and obliging in their own country, the Japanese develop in Korea a faculty for bullying and bluster that is the result partly of nation vanity, partly of memories of the past.
The lower orders ill-treat the Koreans on every possible opportunity, and are cordially detested by them in return.
"[1] [Footnote 1: "Problems of the Far East," London, 1894.]
The old Regent returned from China in 1885, to find his power largely gone, at least so far as the Court was concerned.
But he still had friends and adherents scattered all over the country.
Furious with the Chinese for his arrest and imprisonment, he threw himself into the arms of the Japanese.
They found in him a very useful instrument.
Korea has for centuries been a land of secret societies.
A new society now sprang up, and spread with amazing rapidity, the Tong-haks.
It was anti-foreign and anti-Christian, and Europeans were at first inclined to regard it in the same light as Europeans in China later on regarded the Boxers.
But looking back at it to-day it is impossible to deny that there was much honest patriotism behind the movement.
It was not unnatural that a new departure, such as the introduction of Europeans and European civilization should arouse some ferment.
In a sense, it would not have been healthy if it had not done so.
The people who would accept a vital revolution in their life and ways without critical examination would not be worth much.
Few of the Tong-haks had any idea that their movement was being organized under Japanese influences.
It did not suit Japan that Korea should develop independently and too rapidly.
Disturbances would help to keep her back.
When the moment was ripe, Japan set her puppets to work.
The Tong-haks were suddenly found to be possessed of arms, and some of their units were trained and showed remarkable military efficiency.
Their avowed purpose was to drive all foreigners, including the Japanese, out of the country; but this was mere camouflage.
The real purpose was to provoke China to send troops to Korea, and so give Japan an excuse for war.
The Japanese had secured an agreement from China in 1885 that both countries should withdraw their troops from Korea and should send no more there without informing and giving notice to the other.
When the Tong-haks, thirty thousand in number, came within a hundred miles of Seoul, and actually defeated a small Korean force led by Chinese, Yuan Shih-kai saw that something must be done.
If the rebels were allowed to reach and capture the capital, Japan would have an excuse for intervention.
He induced the King to ask for Chinese troops to come and put down the uprising; and as required by the regulations, due notice of their coming was sent to Japan.
This was what Japan wanted.
She poured troops over the channel until there were 10,000 in the capital Then she showed her hand.
The Japanese Minister, Mr. Otori, brusquely demanded of the King that he should renounce Chinese suzerainty.
The Koreans tried evasion.
The Japanese pressed their point, and further demanded wholesale concessions, railway rights and a monopoly of gold mining in Korea.
A few days later, confident that Europe would not intervene, they commanded the King to accept their demand unconditionally, and to give the Chinese troops three days' notice to withdraw from the land.
The King refused to do anything while the Japanese troops menaced his capital.
The declaration of war between Japan and China followed.
The first incident was the blowing up by the Japanese of a Chinese transport carrying 1,200 men to Korea.
The main naval battle was in the Yalu, between Korea and Manchuria, and the main land fight, in which the Chinese Army was destroyed, in Pyeng-yang, the main Korean city to the north.
The war began on July 25, 1894; the Treaty of Peace, which made Japan the supreme power in the Extreme East, was signed at Shimonoseki on April 17, 1895.
Before fighting actually began, the Japanese took possession of Seoul, and seized the palace on some trumpery excuse that Korean soldiers had fired on them and they had therefore been obliged to enter and guard the royal apartments.
They wanted to make their old friend and ally the ex-Regent, the actual ruler, as he had been in the King's minority but he did not care to take responsibility.
Japanese soldiers turned the King out of his best rooms and occupied them themselves.
Any hole was good enough for the King.
Finally they compelled the King to yield and follow their directions.
A new treaty was drawn up and signed.
It provided 1.
That the independence of Korea was declared, confirmed, and established, and in keeping with it the Chinese troops were to be driven out of the country.
2.
That while war against China was being carried on by Japan, Korea was to facilitate the movements and to help in the food supplies of the Japanese troops in every possible way.
3.
That this treaty should only last until the conclusion of peace with China.
Japan at once created an assembly, in the name of the King, for the "discussion of everything, great and small, that happened within the realm."
This assembly at first met daily, and afterwards at longer intervals.
There were soon no less than fifty Japanese advisers at work in Seoul.
They were men of little experience and less responsibility, and they apparently thought that they were going to transform the land between the rising and setting of the sun.
They produced endless ordinances, and scarce a day went by save that a number of new regulations were issued, some trivial, some striking at the oldest and most cherished institutions in the country.
The Government was changed from an absolute monarchy to one where the King governed only by the advice of his Ministers.
The power of direct address to the throne was denied to any one under the rank of Governor.
One ordinance created a constitution, and the next dealt with the status of the ladies of the royal seraglio.
At one hour a proclamation went forth that all men were to cut their hair, and the wearied runners on their return were again despatched hot haste with an edict altering the official language.
Nothing was too small, nothing too great, and nothing too contradictory for these constitution-mongers.
Their doings were the laugh and the amazement of every foreigner in the place.
Acting on the Japanese love of order and of defined rank, exact titles of honour were provided for the wives of officials.
These were divided into nine grades: "Pure and Reverend Lady," "Pure Lady," "Chaste Lady," "Chaste Dame," "Worthy Dame," "Courteous Dame," "Just Dame," "Peaceful Dame," and "Upright Dame."
At the same time the King's concubines were equally divided, but here eight divisions were sufficient: "Mistress," "Noble Lady," "Resplendent Exemplar," "Chaste Exemplar," "Resplendent Demeanour," "Chaste Demeanour," "Resplendent Beauty," and "Chaste Beauty."
The Japanese advisers instituted a number of sumptuary laws that stirred the country to its depths, relating to the length of pipes, style of dress, and the attiring of the hair of the people.
Pipes were to be short, in place of the long bamboo churchwarden beloved by the Koreans.
Sleeves were to be clipped.
The topknot, worn by all Korean men, was at once to be cut off.
Soldiers at the city gates proceeded to enforce this last regulation rigorously.
Japanese troops remained in the palace for a month, and the King was badly treated during that time.
It did not suit the purpose of the Japanese Government just then to destroy the old Korean form of administration.
It was doubtful how far the European Powers would permit Japan to extend her territory, and so the Japanese decided to allow Korea still to retain a nominal independence.
The King and his Ministers implored Mr. Otori to withdraw his soldiers from the royal presence.
Mr. Otori agreed to do so, at a price, and his price was the royal consent to a number of concessions that would give Japan almost a monopoly of industry in Korea.
The Japanese guard marched out of the palace on August 25th, and was replaced by Korean soldiers armed with sticks.
Later on the Korean soldiers were permitted to carry muskets, but were not served with any ammunition.
Japanese troops still retained possession of the palace gates and adjoining buildings.
Another movement took place at this time as the result of Japanese supremacy.
The Min family--the family of the Queen--was driven from power and the Mins, who a few months before held all the important offices in the kingdom, were wiped out of public life, so much so that there was not a single Min in one of the new departments of state.
Victory did not improve the attitude of the Japanese to the Koreans.
While the war was on the Japanese soldiers had shown very strict discipline, save on certain unusual occasions.
Now, however, they walked as conquerors.
The Japanese Government presented further demands to the King that would have meant the entire trade of Korea being monopolized by their countrymen.
These demands went so far that the foreign representatives protested.
The new Japanese Minister, Count Inouye, protested publicly and privately against the violent ways and rascalities of the new Japanese immigrants pouring into Korea.
He denounced their lack of coöperation, arrogance and extravagance.
"If the Japanese continue in their arrogance and rudeness," he declared, "all respect and love due to them will be lost and there will remain hatred and enmity against them."
Several of the participants in the _émeute_ of 1884 were brought back by the Japanese and Pak Yung-hyo became Home Minister.
He was very different from the rash youth who had tried to promote reform by murder eleven years before.
He had a moderate, sensible program, the reform and modernization of the army, the limitation of the powers of the monarchy and the promotion of education on Western lines.
"What our people need," he declared, "is education and Christianization."
Unfortunately he fell under suspicion.
The Queen thought that his attempt to limit the power of the King was a plot against the throne.
He received warning that his arrest had been ordered, and had to flee the country.
Count Inouye ranks with Prince Ito as the two best Japanese administrators sent to Korea.
He was followed, in September, 1895, by Viscount General Miura, an old soldier, a Buddhist of the Zen school and an extreme ascetic.
The Queen continued to exercise her remarkable influence over the King, who took her advice in everything.
She was the real ruler of the country.
What if her family was, for a time, in disgrace?
She quietly worked and brought them back in office again.
Time after time she checked both the Japanese Minister and the Regent.
The Japanese Secretary of Legation, Fukashi Sugimura, had long since lost patience with the Queen and urged on Miura that the best thing was to get rid of her.
Why should one woman be allowed to stand between them and their purpose?
Every day she was interfering more and more in the affairs of state.
She was proposing to disband a force of troops that had been created, the Kunrentai, and placed under Japanese officers.
It was reported that she was contemplating a scheme for usurping all political power by degrading some and killing other Cabinet Ministers favourable to Japan.
Miura agreed.
She was ungrateful.
Disorder and confusion would be introduced into the new Japanese organization for governing the country.
She must be stopped.
While Miura was thinking in this fashion the Regent came to see him.
He proposed to break into the palace, seize the King and assume real power.
As a result of their conversation, a conference was held between the Japanese Minister and his two leading officials, Sugimura and Okamoto.
"The decision arrived at on that occasion," states the report of the Japanese Court of Preliminary Enquiries, "was that assistance should be rendered to the Tai Won Kun's (Regent's) entry into the palace by making use of the Kunrentai, who, being hated by the Court, felt themselves in danger, and of the young men who deeply lamented the course of events, and also by causing the Japanese troops stationed in Seoul to offer support to the enterprise.
It was further resolved that this opportunity should be availed of for taking the life of the Queen, who exercised overwhelming influence in the Court.
"[1] [Footnote 1: Japanese official report.]
The whole thing was to be done according to system.
The Regent was made to bind himself down to the Japanese.
A series of pledges was drawn up by Sugimura, and handed to the Regent, saying that this was what Miura expected of him.
He, his son and his grandson "gladly assented" to the conditions and he wrote a letter guaranteeing his good faith.
The Japanese Minister then resolved to carry out the plan, _i.e._, the attack on the palace and the murder of the Queen, by the middle of the month.
A statement by the Korean War Minister that the disbandment of the Kunrentai troops was approaching caused them to hurry their plans.
"It was now evident that the moment had arrived, and that no more delay should be made.
Miura Goro and Fukashi Sugimura consequently determined to carry out the plot on the night of that very day.
"[1] The Legation drew up a detailed program of what was to happen, and orders were issued to various people.
Official directions were given to the Commander of the Japanese battalion in Seoul Miura summoned some of the Japanese and asked them to collect their friends and to act as the Regent's body-guard when he entered the palace.
"Miura told them that on the success of the enterprise depended the eradication of the evils that had done so much mischief in the Kingdom for the past twenty years, and instigated them to despatch the Queen when they entered the palace.
"[2] The head of the Japanese police force was ordered to help; and policemen off duty were to put on civilian dress, provide themselves with swords and proceed to the rendezvous.
Minor men, "at the instigation of Miura, decided to murder the Queen and took steps for collecting accomplices.
"[3] [Footnote 1: Japanese official report.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid.]
The party of Japanese met at the rendezvous, to escort the Regent's palanquin.
At the point of departure Okamoto (one of the Japanese Minister's two right-hand men) "assembled the whole party outside the gate of the Prine's (Regent's) residence, declaring that on entering the palace the 'fox' should be dealt with according as exigency might require, the obvious purpose of this declaration being to instigate his followers to murder Her Majesty the Queen.
"[4] The party proceeding towards Seoul met the Kunrentai troops outside the West Gate and then advanced more rapidly to the palace.
[Footnote 4: Ibid.]
The Japanese Court of Preliminary Enquiries, which had Viscount Miura and his assistants before it after the murder, reported all the facts up to this point with great frankness.
I have used its account solely in the above description.
The Court having gone so far, then added a final finding which probably ranks as the most extraordinary statement ever presented by a responsible Court of law.
"Notwithstanding these facts, there is no sufficient evidence to prove that any of the accused actually committed the crime originally meditated by them.... For these reasons the accused, each and all, are hereby discharged."
What happened after the Regent and the Japanese reached the palace?
The party advanced, with the Kunrentai troops to the front.
Behind them were the police, the officers in charge, and twenty-six Japanese.
An inner group of these, about half of them, had special orders to find the Queen and kill her.
The gates of the palace were in the hands of Japanese soldiers, so the conspirators had free admission.
Most of the regular troops paraded outside, according to orders.
Some went inside the grounds, accompanied by the rabble, and others moved to the sides of the palace, surrounding it to prevent any from escaping.
A body of men attacked and broke down the wall near to the royal apartments.
Rumours had reached the palace that some plot was in progress, but no one seems to have taken much trouble to maintain special watch.
At the first sign of the troops breaking down the walls and entering through the gates, there was general confusion.
Some of the Korean body-guard tried to resist, but after a few of them were shot the others retired.
The royal apartment was of the usual one-storied type, led to by a few stone steps, and with carved wooden doors and oiled-paper windows.
The Japanese made straight for it, and, when they reached the small courtyard in front, their troops paraded up before the entrance, while the soshi broke down the doors and entered the rooms.
Some caught hold of the King and presented him with a document by which he was to divorce and repudiate the Queen.
Despite every threat, he refused to sign this.
Others were pressing into the Queen's apartments.
The Minister of the Household tried to stop them, but was killed on the spot.
The soshi seized the terrified palace ladies, who were running away, dragged them round and round by their hair, and beat them, demanding that they should tell where the Queen was.
They moaned and cried and declared that they did not know.
Now the men were pressing into the side-rooms, some of them hauling-the palace ladies by their hair.
Okamoto, who led the way, found a little woman hiding in a corner, grabbed her head, and asked her if she were the Queen.
She denied it, freed herself, with a sudden jerk, and ran into the corridor, shouting as she ran.
Her son, who was present, heard her call his name three times, but, before she could utter more, the Japanese were on her and had cut her down.
Some of the female attendants were dragged up, shown the dying body, and made to recognize it, and then three of them were put to the sword.
The conspirators had brought kerosene with them.
They threw a bedwrap around the Queen, probably not yet dead, and carried her to a grove of trees in the deer park not far away.
There they poured the oil over her, piled faggots of wood around, and set all on fire.
They fed the flames with more and more kerosene, until everything was consumed, save a few bones.
Almost before the body was alight the Regent was being borne in triumph to the palace under an escort of triumphant Japanese soldiers.
He at once assumed control of affairs.
The King was made a prisoner in his palace.
The Regent's partizans were summoned to form a Cabinet, and orders were given that all officials known to be friendly to the Queen's party should be arrested.
The Japanese were not content with this.
They did everything they could, the Regent aiding them, to blacken the memory of the murdered women.
A forged Royal Decree, supposed to have been issued by the King, was officially published, denouncing Queen Min, ranking her among the lowest prostitutes, and assuming that she was not dead, but had escaped, and would again come forward.
"We knew the extreme of her wickedness," said the decree, "but We were helpless and full of fear of her party, and so could not dismiss and punish her.
We are convinced that she is not only unfitted and unworthy to be Queen, but also that her guilt is excessive and overflowing.
With her We could not succeed to the glory of the Royal ancestors, so We hereby depose her from the rank of Queen and reduce her to the level of the lowest class."
The poor King, trembling, broken, fearful of being poisoned, remained closely confined in his palace.
The foreign community, Ministers and missionaries, did their best for him, conveying him food and visiting him.
If the Japanese thought that their crime could be hushed up they were much mistaken.
Some of the American missionaries' wives were the Queen's friends.
A famous American newspaper man, Colonel Cockerill, of the New York _Herald_, came to Seoul, and wrote with the utmost frankness about what he learned.
So much indignation was aroused that the Japanese Government promised to institute an enquiry and place the guilty on trial.
Ito was then Prime Minister and declared that every unworthy son of Japan connected with the crime would be placed on trial.
"Not to do so would be to condemn Japan in the eyes of all the world," he declared.
"If she does not repudiate this usurpation on the part of the Tai Won Run, she must lose the respect of every civilized government on earth."
Miura and his associates were, in due course, brought before a court of enquiry.
But the proceedings were a farce.
They were all released, Miura became a popular hero, and his friends and defenders tried openly to justify the murder.
Japan, following her usual plan of following periods of great harshness by spells of mildness, sent Count Inouye as Envoy Extraordinary, to smooth over matters.
He issued a decree restoring the late Queen to full rank.
She was given the posthumous title of "Guileless, revered" and a temple called "Virtuous accomplishment" was dedicated to her memory.
Twenty-two officials of high rank were commissioned to write her biography.
But the King was still kept a prisoner in the palace.
Then came a bolt from the blue.
The Russian Minister at Seoul at this time, M. Waeber, was a man of very fine type, and he was backed by a wife as gifted and benevolent as himself.
He had done his best to keep in touch with and help the King.
Now a further move was made.
The Russian Legation guard was increased to 160 men, and almost immediately afterwards it was announced that the King had escaped from his jailers at the palace, and had taken refuge with the Russians.
A little before seven in the morning the King and Crown Prince left the palace secretly, in closed chairs, such as women use.
Their escape was carefully planned.
For more than a week before, the ladies of the palace had caused a number of chairs to go in and out by the several gates in order to familiarize the guards with the idea that they were paying many visits.
So when, early in the morning, two women's chairs were carried out by the attendants, the guards took no special notice.
The King and his son arrived at the Russian Legation very much agitated and trembling.
They were expected, and were at once admitted.
As it is the custom in Korea for the King to work at night and sleep in the morning, the members of the Cabinet did not discover his escape for some hours, until news was brought to them from outside that he was safe under the guardianship of his new friends.
Excitement at once spread through the city.
Great crowds assembled, some armed with sticks, some with stones, some with any weapons they could lay hands on.
A number of old Court dignitaries hurried to the Legation, and within an hour or two a fresh Cabinet was constituted, and the old one deposed.
The heads of the Consulates and Legations called and paid their respects to the King, the Japanese Minister being the last to do so.
For him this move meant utter defeat.
Later in the day, a proclamation was spread broadcast, calling on the soldiers to protect their King, to cut off the heads of the chief traitors and bring them to him.
This gave final edge to the temper of the mob.
Two Ministers were dragged into the street and slaughtered.
Another Minister was murdered at his home.
In one respect the upheaval brought peace.
The people in the country districts had been on the point of rising against the Japanese, who were reported to be universally hated as oppressors.
With their King in power again, they settled down peaceably.
IV THE INDEPENDENCE CLUB It was a double blow to Japan that the check to her plans should have been inflicted by Russia, for she now regarded Russia as the next enemy to be overthrown, and was already secretly preparing against her.
Russia had succeeded in humiliating Japan by inducing France and Germany to cooperate in a demand that she should evacuate the Liaotung Peninsula, ceded to her, under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, by China.
Forced to obey, Japan entered on another nine years of preparation, to enable her to cross swords with the Colossus of the North.
At the close of the nineteenth century Russia was regarded as the supreme menace to world peace.
Her expansion to the south of Siberia threatened British power in India; her railway developments to the Pacific threatened Japan.
She struggled for a dominating place in the councils of China and was believed to have cast an ambitious eye on Korea.
Germany looked with dread on the prospect of France and Russia striking her on either side and squeezing her like a nut between the crackers.
Her statesmen were eager to obtain egress to the seas of the south, through the Dardanelles, and years before it had become a part of the creed of every British schoolboy that "the Russians shall not enter Constantinople."
It was dread of what Russia might do that caused England, to the amazement of the world, to conclude an Alliance with Japan in 1902, for the maintenance of the _status quo_ in the Far East.
Japan, willing under certain conditions to forget her grievances, had first sought alliance with Russia and had sent Prince Ito on a visit to St. Petersburg for that purpose.
But Russia was too proud and self-confident to contemplate any such step, and so Japan turned to Britain, and obtained a readier hearing.
Under the Alliance, both Britain and Japan disclaimed any aggressive tendencies in China or Korea, but the special interests of Japan in Korea were recognized.
The Alliance was an even more important step forward for Japan in the ranks of the nations of the world than her victory against China had been, and it was the precursor of still more important developments.
This, however, takes us ahead of our story.
The King of Korea, after his escape from the palace, remained for some time in the Russian Legation, conducting his Court from there.
Agreements were arrived at between the Russians, Japanese and Koreans in 1896 by which the King was to return to his palace and Japan was to keep her people in Korea in stricter control.
A small body of Japanese troops was to remain for a short time in Korea to guard the Japanese telegraph lines, when it was to be succeeded by some Japanese gendarmerie who were to stay "until such time as peace and order have been restored by the Government."
Both countries agreed to leave to Korea the maintenance of her own national army and police.
These agreements gave the Korean monarch--who now took the title of Emperor--a final chance to save himself and his country.
The Japanese campaign of aggression was checked.
Russia, at the time, was behaving with considerable circumspection.
A number of foreign advisers were introduced, and many reforms were initiated.
Progressive statesmen were placed at the head of affairs, and the young reformer, So Jai-pil, Dr. Philip Jaisohn, was summoned from America as Adviser to the Privy Council.
It must be admitted that the results were on the whole disappointing.
Certain big reforms were made.
In the period between 1894 and 1904 the developments would have seemed startling to those who knew the land in the early eighties.
There was a modern and well-managed railroad operating between Seoul and the port of Chemulpo, and other railroads had been planned and surveyed, work being started on some of them.
Seoul had electric light, electric tramways and an electric theatre.
Fine roads had been laid around the city.
Many old habits of mediaeval times had been abolished.
Schools and hospitals were spreading all over the land, largely as a result of missionary activity.
Numbers of the people, especially in the north, had become Christians.
Sanitation was improved, and the work of surveying, charting and building lighthouses for the waters around the coast begun.
Many Koreans of the better classes went abroad, and young men were returning after graduation in American colleges.
The police were put into modern dress and trained on modern lines; and a little modern Korean Army was launched.
Despite this, things were in an unsatisfactory state.
The Emperor, whose nerve had been broken by his experiences on the night of the murder of the Queen and in the days following, was weak, uncertain and suspicious.
He could not be relied on save for one thing.
He was very jealous of his own prerogatives, and the belief that some of his best statesmen and advisers were trying to establish constitutional monarchy, limiting the power of the Throne, finally caused him to throw in his lot with the anti-Progressive group.
Then there was no real reform in justice.
The prisons retained most of their mediaeval horrors, and every man held his life and property at the mercy of the monarch and his assistants.
Some of the foreign advisers were men of high calibre; others were unfitted for their work, and used their offices to serve their own ends and fill their own pockets.
Advisers or Ministers and foreign contractors apparently agreed at times to fill their pockets at the cost of the Government.
There is no other rational explanation of some of the contracts concluded, or some of the supplies received.
The representatives of the European Powers and America were like one great happy family, and the life of the European and American community in Seoul was for a long time ideal.
There came one jarring experience when a Government--it would be unkind to mention which--sent a Minister who was a confirmed dipsomaniac.
For days after his arrival he was unable to see the Ministers of State who called on him, being in one long debauch.
The members of his Legation staff had to keep close watch on him until word could be sent home, when he was promptly recalled.
The young Koreans who were given power as Ministers and Advisers after the Monarch escaped from Japanese control were anxious to promote reform and education, and to introduce some plan of popular administration.
They were aided by one British official, Mr. (now Sir John) McLeavy Brown.
Mr. Brown, trained in the Chinese Customs Service, was given charge of the Korean Treasury and Customs, at the instigation of the British Government.
It was hoped that this appointment indicated that the British Government would take a more active interest in Korean affairs.
Unfortunately Korea was far away, and the prevailing idea in England at the time was to escape any more over-seas burdens.
Mr. Brown was the terror of all men who regarded the national treasure chest as the plunder box.
Even the King found his extravagance checked, and Imperial schemes were delayed and turned from mere wasteful squanderings to some good purpose.
When, for example, the Emperor announced his determination to build a great new memorial palace to the late Queen, Mr. Brown pointed out that the first thing to do was to build a fine road to the spot.
The road was built, to the permanent gain of the nation, and the palatial memorial waited.
Old debts were paid off.
The nation was making money and saving.
A national economist always arouses many foes.
The popular man is the man who spends freely.
Officials who found their own gains limited and the sinecure posts for their relatives cut down united against the British guardian of the purse.
Just about this time Russian control was changed.
M. Waeber left Seoul, to the universal regret of all who knew him, and was succeeded by M. de Speyer, who displayed the most aggressive aspects of the Russian expansionist movement.
A Russian official was appointed Mr. Brown's successor and for a beginning doubled the salaries of the Korean office holders.
This brought many of the Korean office holders in line against Mr. Brown.
The latter held on to his office despite the appointment of the Russian, and when an active attempt was made to turn him from his office, the British Fleet appeared in Chemulpo Harbour.
Mr. Brown was to be backed by all the force of England.
The Russians yielded and Mr. Brown remained on at the head of the Customs, but did not retain full control over the Treasury.
Had Britain or America at this time taken a hand in the administration of Korean affairs, much future trouble would have been avoided.
They would have done so as part of their Imperial task of "bearing the burden of weaker nations."
Many Koreans desired and tried to obtain the intervention of America, but the United States had not then realized to the extent she was to do later that great power brings great responsibilities, not for your nation alone, but for all the world that has need of you.
During the period of active reform following the King's escape, the Progressives formed a league for the maintenance of Korean union.
At their head was Dr. Philip Jaisohn, the boy General of 1884.
The movement was one of considerable importance.
In response to my request, Dr. Jaisohn has written the following description of what took place: THE INDEPENDENCE CLUB "Early in 1896 I went back to Korea after an absence of twelve years, at the urgent invitation of some Koreans who at that time held high positions in the government.
When I reached Korea, I found that the Koreans who had invited me had left their government positions, either voluntarily or by force, and they were not to be seen.
It seemed that some of them had to leave the country to save their lives.
In those days the Korean government changed almost every month.
"At first I tried to help the Korean government in the capacity of Adviser to the Privy Council, as they offered me a five year contract to serve them in this manner.
I accepted the offer and gave some advice.
For the first month or two some of it was accepted by the Emperor and his Cabinet officers, but they soon found that if they carried out this advice, it would interfere with some of their private schemes and privileges.
They informed the Emperor that I was not a friend of his, but a friend of the Korean _people_, which at that time was considered treason.
My influence was decreasing every day at the Court, and my advice was ignored.
I gave up the idea of helping the government officially and planned to give my services to the Korean people as a private individual.
"I started the first English newspaper, as well as the first Korean newspaper, both being known as _The Independent_.
At first this was only published semi-weekly, but later on, every other day.
The Korean edition of this paper was eagerly read by the people and the circulation increased by leaps and bounds.
It was very encouraging to me and I believe it did exert considerable influence for good.
It stopped the government officials from committing flagrant acts of corruption, and the people looked upon the paper as a source of appeal to their ruler.
This little sheet was not only circulated in the capital and immediate vicinity, but went to the remote corners of the entire kingdom.
A pathetic but interesting fact is that it was read by a subscriber, and when he had finished reading it, turned it over to his neighbours, and in this way each copy was read by at least 200 people.
The reason for this was that most of the people were too poor to buy the paper, and it was also very hard to get it to the subscribers, owing to the lack of proper transportation facilities at that time.
"After the paper was running in an encouraging manner, I started a debating club, called THE INDEPENDENCE CLUB, and leased a large hall outside of the West Gate which was originally built by the government to entertain foreign envoys who visited Korea in olden times.
This hall was very spacious and surrounded by considerable ground and was the best place in Korea for holding public meetings.
When this club was organized there were only half a dozen members, but in the course of three months the membership increased to nearly 10,000.
There were no obstacles or formalities in joining it and no dues or admission were charged.
As a result, many joined, some from curiosity and some for the sake of learning the way of conducting a public meeting in Parliamentary fashion.
"The subjects discussed were mostly political and economical questions, but religion and education were not overlooked.
In the beginning the Koreans were shy about standing up before an audience to make a public speech, but after a certain amount of coaching and encouragement I found that hundreds of them could make very effective speeches.
I believe the Koreans have a natural talent for public speaking.
Of course, all that was said in these meetings was not altogether logical or enlightening; nevertheless, a good many new thoughts were brought out which were beneficial.
Besides, the calm and orderly manner in which various subjects were debated on equal footing, produced a wonderful effect among the Korean young men and to those who were in the audience.
"In the course of a year the influence of this club was very great and the members thought it was the most marvellous institution that was ever brought to Korea.
The most remarkable thing I noticed was the quick and intelligent manner in which the Korean young men grasped and mastered the intricacies of Parliamentary rule.
I often noticed that some Korean raised a question of the point of order in their procedure which was well taken, worthy of expert Parliamentarians of the Western countries.
"The increasing influence of the Independence Club was feared not only by the Korean officials but by some of the foreign representatives, such as Russia and Japan, both of whom did not relish the idea of creating public opinion among the Korean people.
The members of the Independence Club did not have any official status, but they enjoyed the privilege of free speech during the meeting of this club, and they did not hesitate to criticize their own officials, as well as those of the foreign nations who tried to put through certain schemes in Korea for the benefit of their selfish interests.
In the course of a year and a half the opposition to this club developed in a marked degree not among the people, but among a few government officials and certain members of the foreign legations.
"The first time in Korean history that democracy made its power felt in the government was at the time Russia brought to Korea a large number of army officers to drill the Korean troops.
When this question was brought up in the Independence Club debate, and the scheme was thoroughly discussed pro and con by those who took part in the debate, it was the consensus of opinion that the turning over of the Military Department to a foreign power was suicidal policy and they decided to persuade the government to stop this scheme.
The next day some 10,000 or more members of the club assembled in front of the palace, and petitioned the Emperor to cancel the agreement of engaging the Russian military officers as they thought it was a dangerous procedure.
The Emperor sent a messenger out several times to persuade them to disperse and explain to the people that there was no danger in engaging the Russians as military instructors.
But the people did not disperse, nor did they accept the Emperor's explanation.
They quietly but firmly refused to move from the palace gates unless the contract with Russia was cancelled.
"When the Russian Minister heard of this demonstration against the contract he wrote a very threatening letter to the Korean government to the effect that the Korean government must disperse the people, by force if necessary, and stop any talk imputing selfish motives on the part of the Russian government.
If this was not stopped, the Russian government would withdraw all the officers from Korea at once, and Korea would have to stand the consequences.
This communication was shown to the people with the explanation that if they insisted upon cancelling this contract dire consequences would result to Korea.
But the people told the government they would stand the consequences, whatever they would be, but would not have Russian officers control their military establishment.
The Korean government finally asked the Russian Minister to withdraw their military officers and offered to pay any damage on account of the cancellation of the contract.
This was done, and the will of the people was triumphant.
"But this event made opposition to the Independence Club stronger than ever, and the government organized an opposing organization, known as the PEDLARS' GUILD, which was composed of all the pedlars of the country, to counteract the influence this club wielded in the country.
In May, 1898, I left Korea for the United States."
Dr. Jaisohn, as a naturalized American citizen, was immune from arrest by the Korean Government, and the worst that could happen to him was dismissal.
Another young man who now came to the front in the Independence movement could claim no such immunity.
Syngman Rhee, son of a good family, training in Confucian scholarship to win a literary degree and official position, heard with contempt and dislike the tales told by his friends of foreign teachers and foreign religion.
His parents were pious Buddhists and Confucians, and he followed their faith.
Finding, however, that if he hoped to make good in official life he must know English, he joined the Pai Chai mission school, in Seoul, under Dr. Appenzeller.
He became a member of the Independence Club, and issued a daily paper to support his cause.
Young, fiery, enthusiastic, he soon came to occupy a prominent place in the organization.
The Independents were determined to have genuine reform, and the mass of the people were still behind them.
The Conservatives, who opposed them, now controlled practically all official actions.
The Independence Club started a popular agitation, and for months Seoul was in a ferment.
Great meetings of the people continued day after day, the shops closing that all might attend.
Even the women stirred from their retirement, and held meetings of their own to plead for change.
To counteract this movement, the Conservative party revived and called to its aid an old secret society, the Pedlars' Guild, which had in the past been a useful agent for reaction.
The Cabinet promised fair things, and various nominal reforms were outlined.
The Independents' demands were, in the main, the absence of foreign control, care in granting foreign concessions, public trial of important offenders, honesty in State finance, and justice for all.
In the end, another demand was added to these--that a popular representative tribunal should be elected.
When the Pedlars' Guild had organized its forces, the King commanded the disbandment of the Independence Club.
The Independents retorted by going _en bloc_ to the police headquarters, and asking to be arrested.
Early in November, 1898, seventeen of the Independent leaders were thrown into prison, and would have been put to death but for public clamour.
The people rose and held a series of such angry demonstrations that, at the end of five days, the leaders were released.
The Government now, to quiet the people, gave assurances that genuine reforms would be instituted.
When the mobs settled down, reform was again shelved.
On one occasion, when the citizens of Seoul crowded into the main thoroughfare to renew their demands, the police were ordered to attack them with swords and destroy them.
They refused to obey, and threw off their badges, saying that the cause of the people was their cause.
The soldiers under foreign officers, however, had no hesitation in carrying out the Imperial commands.
As a next move, many thousands of men, acting on an old national custom, went to the front of the palace and sat there in silence day and night for fourteen days.
In Korea this is the most impressive of all ways of demonstrating the wrath of the nation, and it greatly embarrassed the Court.
The Pedlars' Guild was assembled in another part of the city, to make a counter demonstration.
Early in the morning, when the Independents were numerically at their weakest, the Pedlars attacked them and drove them off.
On attempting to return they found the way barred by police.
Fight after fight occurred during the next few days between the popular party and the Conservatives, and then, to bring peace, the Emperor promised his people a general audience in front of the palace.
The meeting took place amid every surrounding that could lend it solemnity.
The foreign representatives and the heads of the Government were in attendance.
The Emperor, who stood on a specially built platform, received the leaders of the Independents, and listened to their statement of their case.
They asked that the monarch should keep some of his old promises to maintain the national integrity and do justice.
The Emperor, in reply, presented them with a formal document, in which he agreed to their main demands.
The crowd, triumphant, dispersed.
The organization of the reformers slackened, for they thought that victory was won.
Then the Conservative party landed some of its heaviest blows.
The reformers were accused of desiring to establish a republic.
Dissension was created in their ranks by the promotion of a scheme to recall Pak Yung-hio.
Some of the more extreme Independents indulged in wild talk, and gave excuse for official repression.
Large numbers of reform leaders were arrested on various pretexts.
Meetings were dispersed at the point of the bayonet, and the reform movement was broken.
The Emperor did not realize that he had, in the hour that he consented to crush the reformers, pronounced the doom of his own Imperial house, and handed his land over to an alien people.
Dr. Jaisohn maintains that foreign influence was mainly responsible for the destruction of the Independence Club.
Certain Powers did not wish Korea to be strong.
He adds: "The passing of the Independence Club was one of the most unfortunate things in the history of Korea, but there is one consolation to be derived from it, and that is, the seed of democracy was sown in Korea through this movement, and that the leaders of the present Independence Movement in Korea are mostly members of the old Independence Club, who somehow escaped with their lives from the wholesale persecution that followed the collapse of the Independence Club.
Six out of the eight cabinet members elected by the people this year, (1919) were the former active members of the Independence Club."
Among the Independents arrested was Syngman Rhee.
The foreign community, which in a sense stood sponsor for the more moderate of the Independents, brought influence to bear, and it was understood that in a few days the leaders would be released.
Some of them were.
But Rhee and a companion broke out before release, in order to stir up a revolt against the Government By a misunderstanding their friends were not on the spot to help them, and they were at once recaptured.
Rhee was now exposed to the full fury of the Emperor's wrath.
He was thrown into the innermost prison, and for seven months lay one of a line of men fastened to the ground, their heads held down by heavy cangues, their feet in stocks and their hands fastened by chains so that the wrists were level with the forehead.
Occasionally he was taken out to be tormented, in ancient fashion.
He expected death, and rejoiced when one night he was told that he was to be executed.
His death was already announced in the newspapers.
But when the guard came they took, not Rhee, but the man fastened down next to him, to whom Rhee had smuggled a farewell message to be given to his father after his death.
His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
Lying there, the mind of the young reformer went back to the messages he had heard at the mission school He turned to the Christians' God, and his first prayer was typical of the man, "O God, save my country and save my soul."
To him, the dark and foetid cell became as the palace of God, for here God spoke to his soul and he found peace.
He made friends with his guards.
One of them smuggled a little Testament in to him.
From the faint light of the tiny window, he read passage after passage, one of the under-jailers holding the book for him--since with his bound hands he could not hold it himself--and another waiting to give warning of the approach of the chief guard.
Man after man in that little cell found God, and the jailer himself was converted.
After seven months of the hell of the inner cell, Rhee was shifted to roomier quarters, where he was allowed more freedom, still, however, carrying chains around his neck and body.
He organized a church in the prison, made up of his own converts.
Then he obtained text-books and started a school.
He did not in the least relax his own principles.
He secretly wrote a book on the spirit of Independence during his imprisonment His old missionary friends sought him out and did what they could for him.
Rhee met plenty of his old friends, for the Conservatives were in the saddle now, and were arresting and imprisoning Progressives at every opportunity.
Among the newcomers was a famous old Korean statesman, Yi Sang-jai, who had formerly been First Secretary to the Korean Legation at Washington.
Yi incurred the Emperor's displeasure and was thrown into prison.
He entered it strongly anti-Christian; before two years were over he had become a leader of the Christian band.
In due course Yi was released and became Secretary of the Emperor's Cabinet.
He carried his Christianity out with him, and later on, when he left office, became Religious Work leader of the Seoul Y.M.C.A.
Yi was one of the most loved and honoured men in Korea.
Every one who knew him spoke of him in terms of confidence and praise.
Syngman Rhee was not released from prison until 1904.
He then went to America, graduated at the George Washington University, took M.A.
at Harvard, and earned his Ph.D. at Princeton.
He returned to Seoul as an official of the Y.M.C.A., but finding it impossible to settle down under the Japanese régime, went to Honolulu, where he became principal of the Korean School.
A few years later he was chosen first President of the Republic of Korea.
When Russia leased the Liaotung Peninsula from China, after having prevented Japan from retaining it, she threw Korea as a sop to Japan.
A treaty was signed by which both nations recognized the independence of Korea, but Russia definitely recognized the supreme nature of the Japanese enterprises and interests there, and promised not to impede the development of Japan's commercial and industrial Korean policy.
The Russian military instructors and financial adviser were withdrawn from Seoul.
The Emperor of Korea was still in the hands of the reactionaries.
His Prime Minister and favourite was Yi Yung-ik, the one-time coolie who had rescued the Queen, and was now the man at the right hand of the throne.
After a time Russia repented of her generosity.
She sought to regain control in Korea.
She sent M. Pavloff, an astute and charming statesman, to Seoul, and a series of intrigues began.
Yi Yung-ik sided with the Russians.
The end was war.
One personal recollection of these last days before the war remains stamped on my memory.
I was in Seoul and had been invited to an interview with Yi Yung-ik.
Squatted on the ground in his apartment we discussed matters.
I urged on him the necessity of reform, if Korea was to save herself from extinction.
Yi quickly retorted that Korea was safe, for her independence was guaranteed by America and Europe.
"Don't you understand," I urged, "that treaties not backed by power are useless.
If you wish the treaties to be respected, you must live up to them.
You must reform or perish."
"It does not matter what the other nations are doing," declared the Minister.
"We have this day sent out a statement that we are neutral and asking for our neutrality to be respected."
"Why should they protect you, if you do not protect yourself?"
I asked.
"We have the promise of America.
She will be our friend whatever happens," the Minister insisted.
From that position he would not budge.
Three days later, the Russian ships, the _Variag_ and the _Korietz_, lay sunken wrecks in Chemulpo Harbour, broken by the guns of the Japanese fleet, and the Japanese soldiers had seized the Korean Emperor's palace.
M. Hayashi, the Japanese Minister, was dictating the terms he must accept.
Korea's independence was over, in deed if not in name, and Japan was at last about to realize her centuries' old ambition to have Korea for her own.
V THE NEW ERA Japan was now in a position to enforce obedience.
Russia could no longer interfere; England would not.
A new treaty between Japan and Korea, drawn up in advance, was signed--the Emperor being ordered to assent without hesitation or alteration--and Japan began her work as the open protector of Korea.
The Korean Government was to place full confidence in Japan and follow her lead; while Japan pledged herself "in a spirit of firm friendship, to secure the safety and repose" of the Imperial Korean House, and definitely guaranteed the independence and territorial integrity of the country.
Japan was to be given every facility for military operations during the war.
The Japanese at first behaved with great moderation.
Officials who had been hostile to them were not only left unpunished, but were, some of them, employed in the Japanese service.
The troops marching northwards maintained rigid discipline and treated the people well.
Food that was taken was purchased at fair prices, and the thousands of labourers who were pressed into the army service as carriers were rewarded with a liberality and promptitude that left them surprised.
Mr. Hayashi did everything that he could to reassure the Korean Emperor, and repeatedly told him that Japan desired nothing but the good of Korea and the strengthening of the Korean nation.
The Marquis Ito was soon afterwards sent on a special mission from the Mikado, and he repeated and emphasized the declarations of friendship and help.
All this was not without effect upon the Korean mind.
The people of the north had learnt to dislike the Russians, because of their lack of discipline and want of restraint.
They had been alienated in particular by occasional interference with Korean women by the Russian soldiers.
I travelled largely throughout the northern regions in the early days of the war, and everywhere I heard from the people during the first few weeks nothing but expressions of friendship to the Japanese.
The coolies and farmers were friendly because they hoped that Japan would modify the oppression of the native magistrates.
A section of better-class people, especially those who had received some foreign training, were sympathetic, because they credited Japan's promises and had been convinced by old experience that no far-reaching reforms could come to their land without foreign aid.
As victory followed victory, however, the attitude of the Japanese grew less kindly.
A large number of petty tradesmen followed the army, and these showed none of the restraint of the military.
They travelled about, sword in hand, taking what they wished and doing as they pleased.
Then the army cut down the rate of pay for coolies, and, from being overpaid, the native labourers were forced to toil for half their ordinary earnings.
The military, too, gradually began to acquire a more domineering air.
In Seoul itself a definite line of policy was being pursued.
The Korean Government had employed a number of foreign advisers.
These were steadily eliminated; some of them were paid up for the full time of their engagements and sent off, and others were told that their agreements would not be renewed.
Numerous Japanese advisers were brought in, and, step by step, the administration was Japanized.
This process was hastened by a supplementary agreement concluded in August, when the Korean Emperor practically handed the control of administrative functions over to the Japanese.
He agreed to engage a Japanese financial adviser, to reform the currency, to reduce his army, to adopt Japanese military and educational methods, and eventually to trust the foreign relations to Japan.
One of the first results of this new agreement was that Mr. (now Baron) Megata was given control of the Korean finances.
He quickly brought extensive and, on the whole, admirable changes into the currency.
Under the old methods, Korean money was among the worst in the world.
The famous gibe of a British Consul in an official report, that the Korean coins might be divided into good, good counterfeits, bad counterfeits, and counterfeits so bad that they can only be passed off in the dark, was by no means an effort of imagination.
In the days before the war it was necessary, when one received any sum of money, to employ an expert to count over the coins, and put aside the worst counterfeits.
The old nickels were so cumbersome that a very few pounds' worth of them formed a heavy load for a pony.
Mr. Megata changed all this, and put the currency on a sound basis, naturally not without some temporary trouble, but certainly with permanent benefit to the country.
The next great step in the Japanese advance was the acquirement of the entire Korean postal and telegraph system.
This was taken over, despite Korean protests.
More and more Japanese gendarmes were brought in and established themselves everywhere.
They started to control all political activity.
Men who protested against Japanese action were arrested and imprisoned, or driven abroad.
A notorious pro-Japanese society, the II Chin Hoi, was fostered by every possible means, members receiving for a time direct payments through Japanese sources.
The payment at one period was 50 sen (1s.)
a day.
Notices were posted in Seoul that no one could organize a political society unless the Japanese headquarters consented, and no one could hold a meeting for discussing affairs without permission, and without having it guarded by Japanese police.
All letters and circulars issued by political societies were first to be submitted to the headquarters.
Those who offended made themselves punishable by martial law.
Gradually the hand of Japan became heavier and heavier.
Little aggravating changes were made.
The Japanese military authorities decreed that Japanese time should be used for all public work, and they changed the names of the towns from Korean to Japanese.
Martial law was now enforced with the utmost rigidity.
Scores of thousands of Japanese coolies poured into the country, and spread abroad, acting in a most oppressive way.
These coolies, who had been kept strictly under discipline in their own land, here found themselves masters of a weaker people.
The Korean magistrates could not punish them, and the few Japanese residents, scattered in the provinces, would not.
The coolies were poor, uneducated, strong, and with the inherited brutal traditions of generations of their ancestors who had looked upon force and strength as supreme right.
They went through the country like a plague.
If they wanted a thing they took it If they fancied a house, they turned the resident out.
They beat, they outraged, they murdered in a way and on a scale of which it is difficult for any white man to speak with moderation.
Koreans were flogged to death for offences that did not deserve a sixpenny fine.
They were shot for mere awkwardness.
Men were dispossessed of their homes by every form of guile and trickery.
It was my lot to hear from Koreans themselves and from white men living in the districts, hundreds upon hundreds of incidents of this time, all to the same effect.
The outrages were allowed to pass unpunished and unheeded.
The Korean who approached the office of a Japanese resident to complain was thrown out, as a rule, by the underlings.
One act on the part of the Japanese surprised most of those who knew them best.
In Japan itself opium-smoking is prohibited under the heaviest penalties, and elaborate precautions are taken to shut opium in any of its forms out of the country.
Strict anti-opium laws were also enforced in Korea under the old administration.
The Japanese, however, now permitted numbers of their people to travel through the interior of Korea selling morphia to the natives.
In the northwest in particular this caused quite a wave of morphia-mania.
The Japanese had evidently set themselves to acquire possession of as much Korean land as possible.
The military authorities staked out large portions of the finest sites in the country, the river-lands near Seoul, the lands around Pyeng-yang, great districts to the north, and fine strips all along the railway.
Hundreds of thousands of acres were thus acquired.
A nominal sum was paid as compensation to the Korean Government--a sum that did not amount to one-twentieth part of the real value of the land.
The people who were turned out received, in many cases, nothing at all, and, in others, one-tenth to one-twentieth of the fair value.
The land was seized by the military, nominally for purposes of war.
Within a few months large parts of it were being resold to Japanese builders and shopkeepers, and Japanese settlements were growing up on them.
This theft of land beggared thousands of formerly prosperous people.
The Japanese Minister pushed forward, in the early days of the war, a scheme of land appropriation that would have handed two-thirds of Korea over at a blow to a Japanese concessionaire, a Mr. Nagamori, had it gone through.
Under this proposal all the waste lands of Korea, which included all unworked mineral lands, were to be given to Mr. Nagamori nominally for fifty years, but really on a perpetual lease, without any payment or compensation, and with freedom from taxation for some time.
Mr. Nagamori was simply a cloak for the Japanese Government in this matter.
The comprehensive nature of the request stirred even the foreign representatives in Seoul to action.
For the moment the Japanese had to abandon the scheme.
The same scheme under another name was carried out later when the Japanese obtained fuller control.
It may be asked why the Korean people did not make vigorous protests against the appropriation of their land.
They did all they could, as can be seen by the "Five Rivers" case.
One part of the Japanese policy was to force loans upon the Korean Government.
On one occasion it was proposed that Japan should lend Korea 2,000,000 yen.
The residents in a prosperous district near Seoul, the "Five Rivers," informed the Emperor that if he wanted money, they would raise it and so save them the necessity of borrowing from foreigners.
Soon afterwards these people were all served with notice to quit, as their land was wanted by the Japanese military authorities.
The district contained, it was said, about 15,000 houses.
The inhabitants protested and a large number of them went to Seoul, demanding to see the Minister for Home Affairs.
They were met by a Japanese policeman, who was soon reënforced by about twenty others, who refused to allow them to pass.
A free fight followed.
Many of the Koreans were wounded, some of them severely, and finally, in spite of stubborn resistance, they were driven back.
Later, a mixed force of Japanese police and soldiers went down to their district and drove them from their villages.
The Japanese brought over among their many advisers, one foreigner--an American, Mr. Stevens--who had for some time served in the Japanese Foreign Office.
Mr. Stevens was nominally in the employment of the Korean Government, but really he was a more thoroughgoing servant of Japan than many Japanese themselves.
Two foreigners, whose positions seemed fairly established, were greatly in the way of the new rulers.
One was Dr. Allen, the American Minister at Seoul.
Dr. Allen had shown himself to be an independent and impartial representative of his country.
He was friendly to the Japanese, but did not think it necessary to shut his eyes to the darker sides of their administration.
This led to his downfall.
He took opportunity, on one or two occasions, to tell his Government some unpalatable truths.
The Japanese came to know it.
They suggested indirectly that he was not _persona grata_ to them.
He was summarily and somewhat discourteously recalled, his successor, Mr. E.V.
Morgan, arriving at Seoul with authorization to replace him.
The next victim was Mr. McLeavy Brown, the Chief Commissioner of Customs.
Mr. Brown had done his utmost to work with the Japanese, but there were conflicts of authority between him and Mr. Megata.
Negotiations were entered into with the British authorities, and Mr. Brown had to go.
He was too loyal and self-sacrificing to dispute the ruling, and submitted in silence.
As the summer of 1905 drew to a close it became more and more clear that the Japanese Government, despite its many promises to the contrary, intended completely to destroy the independence of Korea.
Even the Court officials were at last seriously alarmed, and set about devising means to protect themselves.
The Emperor had thought that because Korean independence was provided for in various treaties with Great Powers, therefore he was safe.
He had yet to learn that treaty rights, unbacked by power, are worth little more than the paper upon which they are written.
The Emperor trusted in particular to the clause in the Treaty with the United States in 1882 that if other Powers dealt unjustly or oppressively with Korea, America would exert her good offices to bring about an amicable arrangement In vain did the American Minister, his old friend Dr. Allen--who had not yet gone--try to disillusion him.
Early in November the Marquis Ito arrived in Seoul on another visit, this time as Special Envoy from the Emperor of Japan.
He brought with him a letter from the Mikado, saying that he hoped the Korean Emperor would follow the directions of the Marquis, and come to an agreement with him, for it was essential for the maintenance of peace in the Far East that he should do so.
Marquis Ito was received in formal audience on November 15th, and there presented a series of demands, drawn up in treaty form.
These were, in the main, that the foreign relations of Korea should be placed entirely in the hands of Japan, the Korean diplomatic service brought to an end, and the Ministers recalled from foreign Courts.
The Japanese Minister to Korea was to became supreme administrator of the country under the Emperor, and the Japanese Consuls in the different districts were to be made Residents, with the powers of supreme local governors.
In other words, Korea was entirely to surrender her independence as a State, and was to hand over control of her internal administration to the Japanese.
The Emperor met the request with a blank refusal.
The conversation between the two, as reported at the time, was as follows.
The Emperor said-"Although I have seen in the newspapers various rumours that Japan proposed to assume a protectorate over Korea, I did not believe them, as I placed faith in Japan's adherence to the promise to maintain the independence of Korea which was made by the Emperor of Japan at the beginning of the war and embodied in a treaty between Korea and Japan.
When I heard you were coming to my country I was glad, as I believed your mission was to increase the friendship between our countries, and your demands have therefore taken me entirely by surprise."
To which Marquis Ito rejoined-"These demands are not my own; I am only acting in accordance with a mandate from my Government, and if Your Majesty will agree to the demands which T have presented it will be to the benefit of both nations and peace in the East will be assured for ever.
Please, therefore, consent quickly."
The Emperor replied-"From time immemorial it has been the custom of the rulers of Korea, when confronted with questions so momentous as this, to come to no decision until all the Ministers, high and low, who hold or have held office, have been consulted, and the opinion of the scholars and the common people have been obtained, so that I cannot now settle this matter myself."
Said Marquis Ito again-"Protests from the people can easily be disposed of, and for the sake of the friendship between the two countries Your Majesty should come to a decision at once."
To this the Emperor replied-"Assent to your proposal would mean the ruin of my country, and I will therefore sooner die than agree to it."
The conference lasted nearly five hours, and then the Marquis had to leave, having accomplished nothing.
He at once tackled the members of the Cabinet, individually and collectively.
They were all summoned to the Japanese Legation on the following day, and a furious debate began, starting at three o'clock in the afternoon, and lasting till late at night.
The Ministers had sworn to one another beforehand that they would not yield.
In spite of threats, cajoleries, and proffered bribes, they remained steadfast The arguments used by Marquis Ito and Mr. Hayashi, apart from personal ones, were twofold.
The first was that it was essential for the peace of the Far East that Japan and Korea should be united.
The second appealed to racial ambition.
The Japanese painted to the Koreans a picture of a great united East, with the Mongol nations all standing firm and as one against the white man, who would reduce them to submission if he could.
[1] The Japanese were determined to give the Cabinet no time to regather its strength.
On the 17th of November, another conference began at two in the afternoon at the Legation, but equally without result.
Mr. Hayashi then advised the Ministers to go to the palace and open a Cabinet Meeting in the presence of the Emperor.
This was done, the Japanese joining in.
[Footnote 1: As it may be questioned whether the Japanese would use such arguments, I may say that the account of the interview was given to me by one of the participating Korean Ministers, and that he dealt at great length with the pro-Asian policy suggested there.
I asked him why he had not listened and accepted.
He replied that he knew what such arguments meant.
The unity of Asia when spoken of by Japanese meant the supreme autocracy of their country.]
All this time the Japanese Army had been making a great display of military force around the palace.
All the Japanese troops in the district had been for days parading the streets and open places fronting the Imperial residence.
The field-guns were out, and the men were fully armed.
They marched, countermarched, stormed, made feint attacks, occupied the gates, put their guns in position, and did everything, short of actual violence, that they could to demonstrate to the Koreans that they were able to enforce their demands.
To the Cabinet Ministers themselves, and to the Emperor, all this display had a sinister and terrible meaning.
They could not forget the night in 1895, when the Japanese soldiers had paraded around another palace, and when their picked bullies had forced their way inside and murdered the Queen.
Japan had done this before; why should she not do it again?
Not one of those now resisting the will of Dai Nippon but saw the sword in front of his eyes, and heard in imagination a hundred times during the day the rattle of the Japanese bullets.
That evening Japanese soldiers, with fixed bayonets, entered the courtyard of the palace and stood near the apartment of the Emperor.
Marquis Ito now arrived, accompanied by General Hasegawa, Commander of the Japanese Army in Korea, and a fresh attack was started on the Cabinet Ministers.
The Marquis demanded an audience of the Emperor.
The Emperor refused to grant it, saying that his throat was very bad, and he was in great pain.
The Marquis then made his way into the Emperor's presence, and personally requested an audience.
The Emperor still refused.
"Please go away and discuss the matter, with the Cabinet Ministers," he said.
Thereupon Marquis Ito went outside to the Ministers.
"Your Emperor has commanded you to confer with me and settle this matter," he declared.
A fresh conference was opened.
The presence of the soldiers, the gleaming of the bayonets outside, the harsh words of command that could be heard through the windows of the palace buildings, were not without their effect.
The Ministers had fought for days and they had fought alone.
No single foreign representative had offered them help or counsel.
They saw submission or destruction before them.
"What is the use of our resisting?"
said one.
"The Japanese always get their way in the end."
Signs of yielding began to appear.
The acting Prime Minister, Han Kew-sul, jumped to his feet and said he would go and tell the Emperor of the talk of traitors.
Han Kew-sul was allowed to leave the room and then was gripped by the Japanese Secretary of the Legation, thrown into a side-room and threatened with death.
Even Marquis Ito went out to him to persuade him.
"Would you not yield," the Marquis said, "if your Emperor commanded you?"
"No," said Han Kew-sul, "not even then!"
This was enough.
The Marquis at once went to the Emperor.
"Han Kew-sul is a traitor," he said.
"He defies you, and declares that he will not obey your commands."
Meanwhile the remaining Ministers waited in the Cabinet Chamber.
Where was their leader, the man who had urged them all to resist to death?
Minute after minute passed, and still he did not return.
Then a whisper went round that the Japanese had killed him.
The harsh voices of the Japanese grew still more strident.
Courtesy and restraint were thrown off.
"Agree with us and be rich, or oppose us and perish."
Pak Che-sun, the Foreign Minister, one of the best and most capable of Korean statesmen, was the last to yield.
But even he finally gave way.
In the early hours of the morning commands were issued that the seal of State should be brought from the Foreign Minister's apartment, and a treaty should be signed.
Here another difficulty arose.
The custodian of the seal had received orders in advance that, even if his master commanded, the seal was not to be surrendered for any such purpose.
When telephonic orders were sent to him, he refused to bring the seal along, and special messengers had to be despatched to take it from him by force.
The Emperor himself asserts to this day that he did not consent.
The news of the signing of the treaty was received by the people with horror and indignation.
Han Kew-sul, once he escaped from custody, turned on his fellow-Ministers as one distraught, and bitterly reproached them.
"Why have you broken your promises?"
he cried.
"Why have you broken your promises?"
The Ministers found themselves the most hated and despised of men.
There was danger lest mobs should attack them and tear them to pieces.
Pak Che-sun shrank away under the storm of execration that greeted him.
On December 6th, as he was entering the palace, one of the soldiers lifted his rifle and tried to shoot him, Pak Che-sun turned back, and hurried to the Japanese Legation.
There he forced his way into the presence of Mr. Hayashi, and drew a knife.
"It is you who have brought me to this," he cried.
"You have made me a traitor to my country."
He attempted to cut his own throat, but Mr. Hayashi stopped him, and he was sent to hospital for treatment.
When he recovered he was chosen by the Japanese as the new Prime Minister, Han Kew-sul being exiled and disgraced.
Pak did not, however, hold office for very long, being somewhat too independent to suit his new masters.
As the news spread through the country, the people of various districts assembled, particularly in the north, and started to march southwards to die in front of the palace as a protest.
Thanks to the influence of the missionaries, many of them were stopped.
"It is of no use your dying in that way," the missionaries told them.
"You had better live and make your country better able to hold its own."
A number of leading officials, including all the surviving past Prime Ministers, and over a hundred men who had previously held high office under the Crown, went to the palace, and demanded that the Emperor should openly repudiate the treaty, and execute those Ministers who had acquiesced in it.
The Emperor tried to temporize with them, for he was afraid that, if he took too openly hostile an attitude, the Japanese would punish him.
The memorialists sat down in the palace buildings, refusing to move, and demanding an answer.
Some of their leaders were arrested by the Japanese gendarmes, only to have others, still greater men, take their place.
The storekeepers of the city put up their shutters to mark their mourning.
At last a message came from the Emperor: "Although affairs now appear to you to be dangerous, there may presently result some benefit to the nation."
The gendarmes descended on the petitioners and threatened them with general arrest if they remained around the palace any longer.
They moved on to a shop where they tried to hold a meeting, but they were turned out of it by the police.
Min Yong-whan, their leader, a former Minister for War and Special Korean Ambassador at Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, went home.
He wrote letters to his friends lamenting the state of his country, and then committed suicide.
Several other statesmen did the same, while many others resigned.
One native paper, the _Whang Sung Shimbun_, dared to print an exact statement of what had taken place.
Its editor was promptly arrested, and thrown into prison, and the paper suppressed.
Its lamentation voiced the feeling of the country:-"When it was recently made known the Marquis Ito would come to Korea our deluded people all said, with one voice, that he is the man who will be responsible for the maintenance of friendship between the three countries of the Far East (Japan, China, and Korea), and, believing that his visit to Korea was for the sole purpose of devising good plans for strictly maintaining the promised integrity and independence of Korea, our people, from the seacoast to the capital, united in extending to him a hearty welcome.
"But oh!
How difficult is it to anticipate affairs in this world.
Without warning, a proposal containing five clauses was laid before the Emperor, and we then saw how mistaken we were about the object of Marquis Ito's visit.
However, the Emperor firmly refused to have anything to do with these proposals and Marquis Ito should then, properly, have abandoned his attempt and returned to his own country.
"But the Ministers of our Government, who are worse than pigs or dogs, coveting honours and advantages for themselves, and frightened by empty threats, were trembling in every limb, and were willing to become traitors to their country and betray to Japan the integrity of a nation which has stood for 4,000 years, the foundation and honour of a dynasty 500 years old, and the rights and freedom of twenty million people.
"We do not wish to too deeply blame Pak Che-sun and the other Ministers, of whom, as they are little better than brute animals, too much was not to be expected, but what can be said of the Vice-Prime Minister, the chief of the Cabinet, whose early opposition to the proposals of Marquis Ito was an empty form devised to enhance his reputation with the people?
"Can he not now repudiate the agreement or can he not rid the world of his presence?
How can he again stand before the Emperor and with what face can he ever look upon any one of his twenty million compatriots?
"Is it worth while for any of us to live any longer?
Our people have become the slaves of others, and the spirit of a nation which has stood for 4,000 years, since the days of Tun Kun and Ke-ja has perished in a single night.
Alas!
fellow-countrymen.
Alas!"
Suicides, resignations, and lamentation were of no avail.
The Japanese gendarmes commanded the streets, and the Japanese soldiers, behind them, were ready to back up their will by the most unanswerable of arguments--force.
Naturally, as might have been expected by those who know something of the character of the Japanese, every effort was made to show that there had been no breach of treaty promises.
Korea was still an independent country, and the dignity of its Imperial house was still unimpaired.
Japan had only brought a little friendly pressure on a weaker brother to assist him along the path of progress.
Such talk pleased the Japanese, and helped them to reconcile the contrast between their solemn promises and their actions.
It deceived no one else.
Soon even, the Japanese papers made little or no more talk of Korean independence.
"Korean independence is a farce," they said.
And for the time they were right.
The Emperor did his utmost to induce the Powers, more particularly America, to intervene, but in vain.
The story of his efforts is an interesting episode in the records of diplomacy.
Dr. Allen, the American Minister, wrote to his Secretary of State, on April 14, 1904, telling of the serious concern of the Korean Emperor over recent happenings.
"He falls back in his extremity upon his old friendship with America....
The Emperor confidently expects that America will do something for him at the close of this war, or when opportunity offers, to retain for him as much of his independence as is possible.
He is inclined to give a very free and favourable translation to Article I of our treaty of Jenchuan of 1882" (_i.e._, the pledge, "If other Powers deal unjustly or oppressively with either Government, the other will exert their good offices, on being informed of the case, to bring about an amicable arrangement, thus showing their friendly feeling").
In April, 1905, Dr. Allen transmitted to Washington copies of protests by an American missionary and certain Koreans against the conduct of Japanese subjects in Korea.
Dr. Allen was shortly afterwards replaced by Mr. Edwin V. Morgan.
In October, 1905, the Emperor, determined to appeal directly to America, enlisted the services of Professor Homer B. Hulbert, editor of the _Korea Review_, who had been employed continuously in educational work in Seoul since 1886, and despatched him to Washington, with a letter to the President of the United States.
Mr. Hulbert informed his Minister at Seoul of his mission and started off.
The Japanese learned of his departure (Mr. Hulbert suggests that the American Minister may have informed them) and used every effort to force a decision before the letter could be delivered.
On the same day that Mr. Hulbert reached Washington the Korean Cabinet were forced to sign the document giving Japan a protectorate over their land.
Formal notification had not yet, however, arrived at Washington, so it was resolved not to receive Mr. Hulbert until this had come.
"I supposed that the President would be not only willing but eager to see the letter," said Mr. Hulbert in a statement presented later to the Senate; "but instead of that I received the astounding answer that the President would not receive it.
I cast about in my own mind for a possible reason, but could imagine none.
I went to the State Department with it, but was told that they were too busy to see me.
Remember that at that very moment Korea was in her death throes; that she was in full treaty relations with us; that there was a Korean legation in Washington and an American legation in Seoul.
I determined that there was something here that was more than mere carelessness.
There was premeditation in the refusal.
There was no other answer.
They said I might come the following day.
I did so and was told that they were still too busy, but might come the next day.
I hurried over to the White House and asked to be admitted.
A secretary came out and without any preliminary whatever told me in the lobby that they knew the contents of the letter, but that the State Department was the only place to go.
I had to wait till the next day.
But on that same day, the day before I was admitted, the administration, without a word to the Emperor or Government of Korea or to the Korean Legation, and knowing well the contents of the undelivered letter, accepted Japan's unsupported statement that it was all satisfactory to the Korean Government and people, cabled our legation to remove from Korea, cut off all communication with the Korean Government, and then admitted me with the letter."
On November 25th Mr. Hulbert received a message from Mr. Root that "The letter from the Emperor of Korea which you intrusted to me has been placed in the President's hands and read by him.
"In view of the fact that the Emperor desires that the sending of the letter should remain secret, and of the fact that since intrusting it to you the Emperor has made a new agreement with Japan disposing of the whole question to which the letter relates, it seems quite impracticable that any action should be based upon it."
On the following day Mr. Hulbert received a cablegram from the Emperor, which had been despatched from Chefoo, in order not to pass over the Japanese wires:-"I declare that the so-called treaty of protectorate recently concluded between Korea and Japan was extorted at the point of the sword and under duress and therefore is null and void.
I never consented to it and never will.
Transmit to American Government.
"THE EMPEROR OF KOREA."
Poor Emperor!
Innocent simpleton to place such trust in a written bond.
Mr. Root had already telegraphed to the American Minister at Seoul to withdraw from Korea and to return to the United States.
No one supposes that the Washington authorities were deceived by the statement of the Japanese authorities or that they believed for one moment that the treaty was secured in any other way than by force.
To imagine so would be an insult to their intelligence.
It must be remembered that Japan was at this time at the very height of her prestige.
President Roosevelt was convinced, mainly through the influence of his old friend, Mr. George Kennan, that the Koreans were unfit for self-government.
He was anxious to please Japan, and therefore he deliberately refused to interfere.
His own explanation, given some years afterwards, was: "To be sure, by treaty it was solemnly covenanted that Korea should remain independent.
But Korea itself was helpless to enforce the treaty, and it was out of the question to suppose that any other nation, with no interest of its own at stake, would do for the Koreans what they were utterly unable to do for themselves."
There we have the essence of international political morality.
The letter of the Emperor of Korea to the President of the United States makes interesting reading: "Ever since 1883 the United States and Korea have been in friendly treaty relations.
Korea has received many proofs of the good will and the sympathy of the American Government and people.
The American Representatives have always shown themselves to be in sympathy with the welfare and progress of Korea.
Many teachers have been sent from America who have done much for the uplift of our people.
"But we have not made the progress that we ought.
This is due partly to the political machinations of foreign powers and partly to our mistakes.
At the beginning of the Japan-Russia war the Japanese Government asked us to enter into an alliance with them, granting them the use of our territory, harbours, and other resources, to facilitate their military and naval operations.
Japan, on her part, guaranteed to preserve the independence of Korea and the welfare and dignity of the royal house.
We complied with Japan's request, loyally lived up to our obligations, and did everything that we had stipulated.
By so doing we put ourselves in such a position that if Russia had won, she could have seized Korea and annexed her to Russian territory on the ground that we were active allies of Japan.
"It is now apparent that Japan proposes to abrogate their part of this treaty and declare a protectorate over our country in direct contravention of her sworn promise in the agreement of 1904.
There are several reasons why this should not be done.
"In the first place, Japan will stultify herself by such a direct breach of faith.
It will injure her prestige as a power that proposes to work according to enlightened laws.
"In the second place, the actions of Japan in Korea during the past two years give no promise that our people will be handled in an enlightened manner.
No adequate means have been provided whereby redress could be secured for wrongs perpetrated upon our people.
The finances of the country have been gravely mishandled by Japan.
Nothing has been done towards advancing the cause of education or justice.
Every move on Japan's part has been manifestly selfish.
"The destruction of Korea's independence will work her a great injury, because it will intensify the contempt with which the Japanese people treat the Koreans and will make their acts all the more oppressive.
"We acknowledge that many reforms are needed in Korea.
We are glad to have the help of Japanese advisers, and we are prepared loyally to carry out their suggestions.
We recognize the mistakes of the past.
It is not for ourselves we plead, but for the Korean people.
"At the beginning of the war our people gladly welcomed the Japanese, because this seemed to herald needed reforms and a general bettering of conditions, but soon it was seen that no genuine reforms were intended and the people had been deceived.
"One of the gravest evils that will follow a protectorate by Japan is that the Korean people will lose all incentive to improvement.
No hope will remain that they can ever regain their independence.
They need the spur of national feeling to make them determine upon progress and to make them persevere in it.
But the extinction of nationality will bring despair, and instead of working loyally and gladly in conjunction with Japan, the old-time hatred will be intensified and suspicion and animosity will result.
"It has been said that sentiment should have no place in such affairs, but we believe, sir, that sentiment is the moving force in all human affairs, and that kindness, sympathy, and generosity are still working between nations as between individuals.
We beg of you to bring to bear upon this question the same breadth of mind and the same calmness of judgment that have characterized your course hitherto, and, having weighed the matter, to render us what aid you can consistently in this our time of national danger."
[Private Seal of the Emperor of Korea.]
VI THE RULE OF PRINCE ITO Marquis Ito was made the first Japanese Resident-General in Korea.
There could have been no better choice, and no choice more pleasing to the Korean people.
He was regarded by the responsible men of the nation with a friendliness such as few other Japanese inspired.
Here was a man greater than his policies.
Every one who came in contact with him felt that, whatever the nature of the measures he was driven to adopt in the supposed interests of his Emperor, he yet sincerely meant well by the Korean people.
The faults of his administration were the necessary accompaniments of Japanese military expansion; his virtues were his own.
It was a noble act for him to take on himself the most burdensome and exacting post that Japanese diplomacy had to offer, at an age when he might well have looked for the ease and dignity of the close of an honour-sated career.
The Marquis brought with him several capable Japanese officials of high rank, and began his new rule by issuing regulations fixing the position and duties of his staff.
Under these, the Resident-General became in effect supreme Administrator of Korea, with power to do what he pleased.
He had authority to repeal any order or measure that he considered injurious to public interests, and he could punish to the extent of not more than a year's imprisonment or not more than a 200 yen fine.
This limitation of his punitive power was purely nominal, for the country was under martial law and the courts-martial had power to inflict death.
Residents and Vice-Residents, of Japanese nationality, were placed over the country, acting practically as governors.
The police were placed under Japanese inspectors where they were not themselves Japanese.
The various departments of affairs, agricultural, commercial, and industrial, were given Japanese directors and advisers, and the power of appointing all officials, save those of the highest rank, was finally in the hands of the Resident-General.
This limitation, again, was soon put on one side.
Thus, the Resident-General became dictator of Korea--a dictator, however, who still conducted certain branches of local affairs there through native officials and who had to reckon with the intrigues of a Court party which he could not as yet sweep on one side.
To Japan, Korea was chiefly of importance as a strategic position for military operations on the continent of Asia and as a field for emigration.
The first steps under the new administration were in the direction of perfecting communications throughout the country, so as to enable the troops to be moved easily and rapidly from point to point.
A railway had already been built from Fusan to Seoul, and another was in course of completion from Seoul to Wi-ju, thus giving a trunk line that would carry large numbers of Japanese soldiers from Japan itself to the borders of Manchuria in about thirty-six hours.
A loan of 10,000,000 yen was raised on the guarantee of the Korean Customs, and a million and a half of this was spent on four main military roads, connecting some of the chief districts with the principal harbours and railway centres.
Part of the cost of these was paid by the loan and part by special local taxation.
It may be pointed out that these roads were military rather than industrial undertakings.
The usual methods of travel and for conveying goods in the interior of Korea was by horseback and with pack-ponies.
For these, the old narrow tracks served, generally speaking, very well.
The new roads were finely graded, and were built in such a manner that rails could be quickly laid down on them and artillery and ammunition wagons rapidly conveyed from point to point.
Another railway was built from Seoul to Gensan, on the east coast.
The old Korean "Burglar Capture Office," the native equivalent to the Bow Street Runners, or the Mulberry Street detectives, was abolished, as were the local police, and police administration was more and more put in the hands of special constables brought over from Japan.
The Japanese military gendarmerie were gradually sent back and their places taken by civilian constables.
This change was wholly for the good.
The gendarmerie had earned a very bad reputation in country parts for harshness and arbitrary conduct.
The civilian police proved themselves far better men, more conciliatory, and more just.
One real improvement instituted by the Residency-General was the closer control of Japanese immigrants.
Numbers of the worst offenders were laid by the heels and sent back home.
The Residency officials were increased in numbers, and in some parts at least it became easier for a Korean to obtain a hearing when he had a complaint against a Japanese.
The Marquis Ito spoke constantly in favour of a policy of conciliation and friendship, and after a time he succeeded in winning over the coöperation of some of the foreigners.
It became more and more clear, however, that the aim of the Japanese was nothing else than the entire absorption of the country and the destruction of every trace of Korean nationality.
One of the most influential Japanese in Korea put this quite frankly to me in 1906.
"You must understand that I am not expressing official views," he told me.
"But if you ask me as an individual what is to be the outcome of our policy, I only see one end.
This will take several generations, but it must come.
The Korean people will be absorbed by the Japanese.
They will talk our language, live our life, and be an integral part of us.
There are only two ways of colonial administration.
One is to rule over the people as aliens.
This you British have done in India, and therefore your Empire cannot endure.
India must pass out of your rule.
The second way is to absorb the people.
This is what we will do.
We will teach them our language, establish our institutions, and make them one with us."
The policy of the new administration towards foreigners was one of gradual, but no less sure, exclusion.
Everything that could be done was done to rob the white man of what prestige was yet left to him.
Careful and systematic efforts were made, in particular, by the Japanese newspapers and some of the officials to make the native Christian converts turn from their American teachers, and throw in their lot with the Japanese.
The native press, under Japanese editorship, systematically preached anti-white doctrines.
Any one who mixed freely with the Korean people heard from them, time after time, of the principles the Japanese would fain have them learn.
I was told of this by ex-Cabinet Ministers, by young students, and even by native servants.
One of my own Korean "boys" put the matter in a nutshell to me one day.
He raised the question of the future of Japan in Asia, and he summarized the new Japanese doctrines very succinctly.
"Master," he said to me, "Japanese man wanchee all Asia be one, with Japanese man topside.
All Japanese man wanchee this; some Korean man wanchee, most no wanchee; all Chinaman no wanchee."
It may be thought that the Japanese would at least have learnt from their experience in 1895 not to attempt to interfere with the dress or personal habits of the people.
Nothing among all their blunders during the earlier period was more disastrous to them than the regulations compelling the men to cut off their topknots.
These did Japan greater harm among the common people than even the murder of the Queen.
Yet no sooner had Japan established herself again than once more sumptuary regulations were issued.
The first was an order against wearing white dress in wintertime.
People were to attire themselves in nothing but dark-coloured garments, and those who refused to obey were coerced in many ways.
The Japanese did not at once insist on a general system of hair-cutting, but they brought the greatest pressure to bear on all in any way under their authority.
Court officials, public servants, magistrates, and the like, were commanded to cut their hair.
Officials were evidently instructed to make every one who came under their influence have his topknot off.
The Il Chin Hoi, the pro-Japanese society, followed in the same line.
European dress was forced on those connected with the Court.
The national costume, like the national language, was, if possible, to die.
Ladies of the Court were ordered to dress themselves in foreign style.
The poor ladies in consequence found it impossible to show themselves in any public place, for they were greeted with roars of derision.
The lowered status of the white in Korea could be clearly seen by the attitude of many of the Japanese towards him.
I heard stories from friends of my own, residents in the country, quiet and inoffensive people that made my blood boil.
It was difficult, for instance, to restrain one's indignation when a missionary lady told you of how she was walking along the street when a Japanese soldier hustled up against her and deliberately struck her in the breast.
The Roman Catholic bishop was openly insulted and struck by Japanese soldiers in his own cathedral, and nothing was done.
The story of Mr. and Mrs. Weigall typifies others.
Mr. Weigall is an Australian mining engineer, and was travelling up north with his wife and assistant, Mr. Taylor, and some Korean servants, in December, 1905.
He had full authorizations and passports, and was going about his business in a perfectly proper manner.
His party was stopped at one point by some Japanese soldiers, and treated in a fashion which it is impossible fully to describe in print.
They were insulted, jabbed at with bayonets, and put under arrest.
One soldier held his gun close to Mrs. Weigall and struck her full in the chest with his closed fist when she moved.
The man called them by the most insulting names possible, keeping the choicest phrases for the lady.
Their servants were kicked.
Finally they were allowed to go away after a long delay and long exposure to bitter weather, repeated insults being hurled after them.
The British authorities took up this case.
There was abundant evidence, and there could be no dispute about the facts.
All the satisfaction, however, that the Weigalls could obtain was a nominal apology.
Then there was the case of the Rev.
Mr. McRae, a Canadian missionary living in northeastern Korea.
Mr. McRae had obtained some land for a mission station, and the Japanese military authorities there wanted it.
They drove stakes into part of the property, and he thereupon represented the case to the Japanese officials, and after at least twice asking them to remove their stakes, he pulled them up himself.
The Japanese waited until a fellow-missionary, who lived with Mr. McRae, had gone away on a visit, and then six soldiers entered his compound and attacked him.
He defended himself so well that he finally drove them off, although he received some bad injuries, especially from the blows from one of the men's rifles.
Complaint was made to the chief authorities, and, in this case, the Japanese promised to punish the officer concerned.
But there were dozens of instances affecting Europeans of all ranks, from consular officials to chance visitors.
In most cases the complaints were met by a simple denial on the part of the Japanese.
Even where the offence was admitted and punishment was promised, the Europeans would assure you that the men, whom it had been promised to imprison, came and paraded themselves outside their houses immediately afterwards in triumph.
In Korea, as in Formosa, the policy was and is to humiliate the white man by any means and in any way.
Two regulations of the Japanese, apparently framed in the interests of the Koreans, proved to be a dangerous blow at their rights.
New land laws were drawn up, by which fresh title-deeds were given for the old and complicated deeds of former times.
As the Koreans, however, pointed out, large numbers of people held their land in such a way that it was impossible for them to prove their right by written deeds.
Until the end of 1905 large numbers of Koreans went abroad to Honolulu and elsewhere as labourers.
The Residency-General then framed new emigration laws, nominally to protect the natives, which have had the result of making the old systematic emigration impossible.
Families who would fain have escaped the Japanese rule and establish themselves in other lands had every possible hindrance put in their way.
Act after act revealed that the Japanese considered Korea and all in it belonged to them.
Did they want a thing?
Then let them take it, and woe be to the man who dared to hinder them!
This attitude was illustrated in an interesting fashion by a bit of vandalism on the part of Viscount Tanaka, Special Envoy from the Mikado to the Korean Emperor.
When the Viscount was in Seoul, late in 1906, he was approached by a Japanese curio-dealer, who pointed out to him that there was a very famous old Pagoda in the district of P'ung-duk, a short distance from Song-do.
This Pagoda was presented to Korea by the Chinese Imperial Court a thousand years ago, and the people believed that the stones of which it was constructed possessed great curative qualities.
They named it the "Medicine King Pagoda" (Yakwang Top), and its fame was known throughout the country.
It was a national memorial as much as the Monument near London Bridge is a national memorial for Englishmen or the Statue of Liberty for Americans.
Viscount Tanaka is a great curio-collector, and when he heard of this Pagoda, he longed for it.
He mentioned his desire to the Korean Minister for the Imperial Household, and the Minister told him to take it if he wanted it.
A few days afterwards, Viscount Tanaka, when bidding the Emperor farewell, thanked him for the gift.
The Korean Emperor looked blank, and said that he did not know what the Viscount was talking about.
He had heard nothing of it.
However, before long, a party of eighty Japanese, including a number of gendarmes, well armed and ready for resistance, swooped down on Song-do.
They took the Pagoda to pieces and placed the stones on carts.
The people of the district gathered round them, threatened them, and tried to attack them.
But the Japanese were too strong.
The Pagoda was conveyed in due course to Tokyo.
Such an outrage could not go unnoticed.
The story of the loss spread over the country and reached the foreign press.
Defenders of the Japanese at first declared that it was an obvious and incredible lie.
The _Japan Mail_ in particular opened the vials of its wrath and poured them upon the head of the editor of the _Korea Daily News_--the English daily publication in Seoul--who had dared to tell the tale.
His story was "wholly incredible."
"It is impossible to imagine any educated man of ordinary intelligence foolish enough to believe such a palpable lie, unless he be totally blinded by prejudice."
The _Mail_ discovered here again another reason for supporting its plea for the suppression of "a wholly unscrupulous and malevolent mischief-maker like the _Korea Daily News.
"_ "The Japanese should think seriously whether this kind of thing is to be tamely suffered.
In allowing such charges at the door of the Mikado's Special Envoy who is also Minister of the Imperial Household, the _Korea Daily News_ deliberately insults the Mikado himself.
There is indeed the reflection that this extravagance will not be without compensation, since it will demonstrate conclusively, if any demonstration were needed, how completely unworthy of credence have been the slanders hitherto ventilated by the Seoul journal to bring the Japanese into odium."
There were instant demands for denials, for explanations, and for proceedings against the wicked libeller.
Then it turned out that the story was true, and, in the end, the Japanese officials had to admit its truth.
It was said, as an excuse, that the Resident-General had not given his consent to the theft, and that Viscount Tanaka did not intend to keep the Pagoda himself, but to present it to the Mikado.
The organ of the Residency-General in Seoul, the _Seoul Press_, made the best excuse it could.
"Viscount Tanaka," it said, "is a conscientious official, liked and respected by those who know him, whether foreign or Japanese, but he is an ardent virtuoso and collector, and it appears that in this instance his collector's eagerness got the better of his sober judgment and discretion."
But excuses, apologies, and regrets notwithstanding, the Pagoda was not returned.
It may be asked why the white people living in Korea did not make the full facts about Korea known at an earlier date.
Some did attempt it, but the strong feeling that existed abroad in favour of the Japanese people--a feeling due to their magnificent conduct during the war--caused complaints to go unheeded.
Many missionaries, while indignant at the injury done to their native neighbours, counselled patience, believing that the abuses were temporary and would soon come to an end.
At the beginning of the war every foreigner--except a small group of pro-Russians, sympathized with Japan.
We had all been alienated by the follies and mistakes of the Russian Far Eastern policy.
We saw Japan at her best, and we all believed that her people would act well by this weaker race.
Our favourable impressions were strengthened by the first doings of the Japanese soldiers, and when scandals were whispered, and oppression began to appear, we all looked upon them as momentary disturbances due to a condition of war.
We were unwilling to believe anything but the best, and it took some time to destroy our favourable prepossessions.
I speak here not only for myself, but for many another white man in Korea at the time.
I might support this by many quotations.
I take, for instance, Professor Hulbert, the editor of the _Korea Review_, to-day one of the most persistent and active critics of Japanese policy.
At the opening of the war Professor Hulbert used all his influence in favour of Japan.
"What Korea wants," he wrote, "is education, and until steps are taken in that line there is no use in hoping for a genuinely independent Korea.
Now, we believe that a large majority of the best-informed Koreans realize that Japan and Japanese influence stand for education and enlightenment, and that while the paramount influence of any one outside Power is in some sense a humiliation, the paramount influence of Japan will give far less genuine cause for humiliation than has the paramount influence of Russia.
Russia secured her predominance by pandering to the worst elements in Korean officialdom.
Japan holds it by strength of arm, but she holds it in such a way that it gives promise of something better.
The word reform never passed the Russians' lips.
It is the insistent cry of Japan.
The welfare of the Korean people never showed its head above the Russian horizon, but it fills the whole vision of Japan; not from altruistic motives mainly but because the prosperity of Korea and that of Japan rise and fall with the same tide.
"[1] [Footnote 1: _Korea Review_, February, 1904.]
Month after month, when stories of trouble came from the interior, the _Korea Review_ endeavoured to give the best explanation possible for them, and to reassure the public.
It was not until the editor was forced thereto by consistent and sustained Japanese misgovernment that he reversed his attitude.
Foreign visitors of influence were naturally drawn to the Japanese rather than to the Koreans.
They found in the officials of the Residency-General a body of capable and delightful men, who knew the Courts of Europe, and were familiar with world affairs.
On the other hand, the Korean spokesmen had no power or skill in putting their case so as to attract European sympathy.
One distinguished foreigner, who returned home and wrote a book largely given up to laudation of the Japanese and contemptuous abuse of the Koreans, admitted that he had never, during his journey, had any contact with Koreans save those his Japanese guides brought to him.
Some foreign journalists were also at first blinded in the same way.
Such a state of affairs obviously could not last.
Gradually the complaints of the foreign community became louder and louder, and visiting publicists began to take more notice of them.
The main credit for defending the cause of the Korean people at that time must be given to a young English journalist, editor of the _Korea Daily News_, Mr. Bethell took up an attitude of strong hostility to the Nagamori land scheme, and came, in consequence, in sharp hostility to the Japanese officials.
This naturally led to his close association with the Korean Court.
The _Daily News_ became openly pro-Korean; its one daily edition was changed into two separate papers--one, the _Dai Han Mai Il Shinpo_, printed in the Korean language, and the other, printed in English, still calling itself by the old name.
Several of us thought that Mr. Bethell at first weakened his case by extreme advocacy and by his indulgence in needlessly vindictive writing.
Yet it must be remembered, in common justice to him, that he was playing a very difficult part The Japanese were making his life as uncomfortable as they possibly could, and were doing everything to obstruct his work.
His mails were constantly tampered with; his servants were threatened or arrested on various excuses, and his household was subjected to the closest espionage.
He displayed surprising tenacity, and held on month after month without showing any sign of yielding.
The complaint of extreme bitterness could not be urged against his journal to the same extent after the spring of 1907.
From that time he adopted a more quiet and convincing tone.
He attempted on many occasions to restrain what he considered the unwise tactics of some Korean extremists.
He did his best to influence public opinion against taking up arms to fight Japan.
Failing to conciliate the editor, the Japanese sought to destroy him.
In order to cut the ground from under his feet an opposition paper, printed in English, was started, with an able Japanese journalist, Mr. Zumoto, Prince Ito's leading spokesman in the press, as editor.
Few could have done the work better than Mr. Zumoto, but his paper, the _Seoul Press_, failed to destroy the _Daily News_.
Diplomacy was now brought into play.
During the summer of 1906, the Japanese caused the translations of a number of articles from the _Dai Han Mai Il Shinpo_ (the Korean edition of the _Daily Mail_) to be submitted to the British Government, with a request that Mr. Bethell's journal might be suppressed.
On Saturday, October 12th, Mr. Bethell received a summons to appear on the following Monday at a specially appointed Consular Court, to answer the charge of adopting a course of action likely to cause a breach of the peace.
The trial took place in the Consular building, Mr. Cockburn, the very able British Consul-General, acting as Judge.
The short notice made it impossible for Mr. Bethell to obtain legal aid, as there were no British lawyers nearer than Shanghai or Kobe.
He had to plead his cause under great disadvantages.
Eight articles were produced in court Six were comments on or descriptions of fighting then taking place in the interior.
They were no stronger, if as strong, as many of the statements published in this book.
The Consul-General's decision was as anticipated.
He convicted the editor, and ordered him to enter into recognizances of £300 to be of good behaviour for six months.
The _Korea Daily News_ in commenting on the matter, said, "The effect of this judgment is that for a period of six months this newspaper will be gagged, and therefore no further reports of Japanese reverses can be published in our columns."
In June, 1908, Mr. Bethell was again prosecuted at a specially convened court at Seoul, presided over by Judge Bourne of Shanghai.
The charge, made by Yagoro Miura, Secretary to the Residency-General and Resident for Seoul, was of publishing various articles calculated to excite disorder and to stir up enmity between the Government of Korea and its subjects.
Mr. Bethell was represented by counsel and applied to have the case heard before a jury.
The application was refused.
He was convicted, sentenced to three weeks' imprisonment and required to give security for good behaviour for six months.
He did not very long survive his sentence.
The people of Korea cherish his memory, and the name of "Beth-ell," as they call him, is already becoming traditional.
"We are going to build a great statue to Beth-ell some day," they say.
"We will never forget the man who was our friend, and who went to prison for us."
VII THE ABDICATION OF YI HYEUNG The Court party was from the first the strongest opponent of the Japanese.
Patriotism, tradition, and selfish interests all combined to intensify the resistance of its members.
Some officials found their profits threatened, some mourned for perquisites that were cut off, some were ousted out of their places to make room for Japanese, and most felt a not unnatural anger to see men of another race quietly assume authority over their Emperor and their country.
The Emperor led the opposition.
Old perils had taught him cunning.
He knew a hundred ways to feed the stream of discontent, without himself coming forward.
Unfortunately there was a fatal strain of weakness in his character.
He would support vigorous action in secret, and then, when men translated his speech into deeds, he would disavow them at the bidding of the Japanese.
On one point he never wavered.
All attempts to make him formally consent to the treaty of November, 1905, were in vain.
"I would sooner die first!"
he cried.
"I would sooner take poison and end all!"
In July, 1906, the Marquis Ito began to exercise stronger constraint on the personal life of the Emperor.
One evening a number of Japanese police were brought into the palace.
The old palace guards were withdrawn, and the Emperor was made virtually a prisoner.
Police officers were posted at each gate, and no one was allowed in or out without a permit from a Japanese-nominated official.
At the same time many of the old palace attendants were cleared out.
The Resident-General thought that if the Emperor were isolated from his friends, and if he were constantly surrounded by enthusiastic advocates of Japan, he might be coerced or influenced into submission.
Yet here Marquis Ito had struck against a vein of obstinacy and determination that he could scarce have reckoned with.
The Emperor had taken every opportunity to send messages abroad protesting against the treaty.
He managed, time after time, still to hold communication with his friends, but the Japanese took good care that traitors should come to him and be loudest in their expressions of loyalty.
Little that he did but was immediately known to his captors.
In the early summer of 1907 the Emperor thought that he saw his chance at last of striking a blow for freedom through the Hague Conference.
He was still convinced that if he could only assure the Powers that he had never consented to the treaty robbing Korea of its independence, they would then send their Ministers back to Seoul and cause Japan to relax her hand.
Accordingly, amid great secrecy, three Korean delegates of high rank were provided with funds and despatched to the Hague under the guardianship of Mr. Hulbert.
They reached the Hague only to be refused a hearing.
The Conference would have nothing to say to them.
This action on the part of the Emperor gave the Japanese an excuse they had long been looking for.
The formation of the Korean Cabinet had been altered months before in anticipation of such a crisis, and the Cabinet Ministers were now nominated not by the Emperor, but by the Resident-General.
The Emperor had been deprived of administrative and executive power.
The Marquis Ito had seen to it that the Ministers were wholly his tools.
The time had come when his tools were to cut.
The Japanese Government assumed an attitude of silent wrath.
It could not allow such offences to go unpunished, its friends declared, but what punishment it would inflict it refused to say.
Proceedings were much more cleverly stage-managed than in November, 1905.
Nominally, the Japanese had nothing to do with the abdication of the Emperor.
Actually the Cabinet Ministers held their gathering at the Residency-General to decide on their policy, and did as they were instructed.
They went to the Emperor and demanded that he should abandon the throne to save his country from being swallowed up by Japan.
At first he refused, upon which their insistence grew greater.
No news of sympathy or help reached him from foreign lands.
Knowing the perils surrounding him, he thought that he would trick them all by a simple device.
He would make his son, the Crown Prince, temporary Emperor, using a Chinese ideograph for his new title which could scarce be distinguished from the title giving him final and full authority.
Here he overreached himself, for, once out, he was out for good.
On July 19th, at six o'clock in the morning, after an all-night conference, the Emperor was persuaded to abdicate.
The new Emperor, feeble of intellect, could be little more than a tool in the hands of his advisers.
His father, however, intended to remain by his side, and to rule through him.
In less than a week the Japanese had prepared a new treaty, providing still more strictly for the absolute control of everything in the country by Japan.
The six curt clauses of this measure were as far-reaching as they could possibly be made.
No laws were to be acted upon or important measures taken by the Government unless the consent and approval of the Resident-General had been previously given.
All officials were to hold their positions at the pleasure of the Resident-General, and the Government of Korea agreed to appoint any Japanese the Resident-General might recommend to any post.
Finally, the Government of Korea was to engage no foreigner without the consent of the Japanese head.
A few days later a fresh rescript was issued in the name of the new Emperor, ordering the disbandment of the Korean Army.
This was written in the most insulting language possible.
"Our existing army which is composed of mercenaries, is unfit for the purposes of national defence," it declared.
It was to make way "for the eventual formation of an efficient army."
To add to the insult, the Korean Premier, Yi, was ordered to write a request to the Resident-General, begging him to employ the Japanese forces to prevent disturbances when the disbandment took place.
It was as though the Japanese, having their heel on the neck of the enemy, slapped his face to show their contempt for him.
On the morning of August 1st some of the superior officers of the Korean Army were called to the residence of the Japanese commander, General Hasegawa, and the Order was read to them.
They were told that they were to assemble their men next morning, without arms, and to dismiss them after paying them gratuities, while at the same time their weapons would be secured in their absence.
One officer, Major Pak, commander of the smartest and best of the Korean battalions, returned to his barracks in despair, and committed suicide.
His men learnt of what had happened and rose in mutiny.
They burst upon their Japanese military instructors and nearly killed them.
They then forced open the ammunition-room, secured weapons and cartridges, posted themselves behind the windows of their barracks, and fired at every Japanese they saw.
News quickly reached the authorities, and Japanese companies of infantry hurried out and surrounded their barracks.
One party attacked the front with a machine-gun, and another assaulted from behind.
Fighting began at half-past eight in the morning.
The Koreans defended themselves until noon, and then were finally overcome by a bayonet charge from the rear.
Their gallant defence excited the greatest admiration even among their enemies, and it was notable that for a few days at least the Japanese spoke with more respect of Korea and the Korean people than they had ever done before.
Only one series of incidents disgraced the day.
The Japanese soldiers behaved well and treated the wounded well, but that night parties of low-class bullies emerged from the Japanese quarter, seeking victims.
They beat, they stabbed and murdered any man they could find whom they suspected of being a rebel.
Dozens of them would set on one helpless victim and do him to death.
This was stopped as soon as the Residency-General knew what was happening, and a number of offenders were arrested.
Late in August the new Emperor of Korea was crowned amid the sullen silence of a resentful people.
Of popular enthusiasm there was none.
A few flags were displayed in the streets by the order of the police.
In olden times a coronation had been marked by great festivities, lasting many weeks.
Now there was gloom, apathy, indifference.
News was coming in hourly from the provinces of uprisings and murders.
The Il Chin Hoi--they call themselves reformers, but the nation has labelled them traitors--attempted to make a feast, but the people stayed away.
"This is the day not for feasting but for the beginning of a year of mourning," men muttered one to the other.
The Japanese authorities who controlled the coronation ceremony did all they could to minimize it and to prevent independent outside publicity.
In this they were well advised.
No one who looked upon the new Emperor as he entered the hall of state, his shaking frame upborne by two officials, or as he stood later, with open mouth, fallen jaw, indifferent eyes, and face lacking even a flickering gleam of intelligent interest, could doubt that the fewer who saw this the better.
Yet the ceremony, even when robbed of much of its ancient pomp and all its dignity, was unique and picturesque.
The main feature of this day was not so much the coronation itself as the cutting of the Emperor's topknot.
On the abdication of the old Emperor, the Cabinet--who were enthusiastic hair-cutters--saw their opportunity.
The new Emperor was informed that his hair must be cut.
He did not like it.
He thought that the operation would be painful, and he was quite satisfied with his hair as it was.
Then his Cabinet showed him a brilliant uniform, covered with gold lace.
He was henceforth to wear that on ceremonial occasions, and not his old Korean dress.
How could he put on the plumed hat of a Generalissimo with a topknot in the way?
The Cabinet were determined.
A few hours later a proclamation was spread through the land informing all dutiful subjects that the Emperor's topknot was coming off, and urging them to imitate him.
A new Court servant was appointed--the High Imperial Hair-cutter.
He displayed his uniform in the streets around the palace, a sight for the gods.
He strutted along in white breeches, voluminous white frock-coat, white shoes, and black silk hat, the centre of attention.
Early in the morning there was a great scene in the palace.
The Imperial Hair-cutter was in attendance.
A group of old Court officials hung around the Emperor.
With blanched faces and shaking voices they implored him not to abandon the old ways.
The Emperor paused, fearful.
What power would be filched from him by the shearing of his locks?
But there could be no hesitating now.
Resolute men were behind who knew what they were going to see done.
A few minutes later the great step was taken.
The Residency-General arranged the coronation ceremony in such a manner as to include as many Japanese and to exclude as many foreigners as possible.
There were nearly a hundred Japanese present, including the Mayor of the Japanese settlement and the Buddhist priest.
There were only six white men--five Consuls-General and Bishop Turner, chief of the Anglican Church in Korea.
The Japanese came arrayed in splendid uniforms.
It was part of the new Japanese policy to attire even the most minor officials in sumptuous Court dress, with much gold lace and many orders.
This enabled Japan to make a brilliant show in official ceremonies, a thing not without effect in Oriental Courts.
Shortly before ten o'clock the guests assembled in the throne-room of the palace, a modern apartment with a raised dais at one end.
There were Koreans to the left and Japanese to the right of the Emperor, with the Cabinet in the front line on one side and the Residency-General officials on the other.
The foreigners faced the raised platform.
The new Emperor appeared, borne to the platform by the Lord Chamberlain and the Master of the Household.
He was dressed in the ancient costume of his people, a flowing blue garment reaching to the ankles, with a robe of softer cream colour underneath.
On his head was a quaint Korean hat, with a circle of Korean ornaments hanging from its high, outstanding horsehair brim.
On his chest was a small decorative breastplate.
Tall, clumsily built, awkward, and vacant-looking--such was the Emperor.
In ancient days all would have kow-towed before him, and would have beaten their foreheads on the ground.
Now no man did more than bow, save one Court herald, who knelt.
Weird Korean music started in the background, the beating of drums and the playing of melancholy wind instruments.
The Master of Ceremonies struck up a chant, which hidden choristers continued.
Amid silence, the Prime Minister, in smart modern attire, advanced and read a paper of welcome.
The Emperor stood still, apparently the least interested man in the room.
He did not even look bored--simply vacant.
After this there was a pause in the proceedings.
The Emperor retired and the guests went into the anterooms.
Soon all were recalled, and the Emperor reappeared.
There had been a quick change in the meantime.
He was now wearing his new modern uniform, as Generalissimo of the Korean Army.
Two high decorations--one, if I mistake not, from the Emperor of Japan--hung on his breast.
He looked much more manly in his new attire.
In front of him was placed his new headdress, a peaked cap with a fine plume sticking up straight in front.
The music now was no longer the ancient Korean, but modern airs from the very fine European-trained band attached to the palace.
The Korean players had gone, with the old dress and the old life, into limbo.
The Japanese Acting Resident-General and military commander, General Baron Hasegawa, strong and masterful-looking, stepped to the front with a message of welcome from his Emperor.
He was followed by the doyen of the Consular Corps, M. Vincart, with the Consular greetings.
This Consular message had been very carefully sub-edited, and all expressions implying that the Governments of the different representatives approved of the proceedings had been eliminated.
Then the coronation was over.
Two figures were conspicuous by their absence.
The ex-Emperor was not present According to the official explanation, he was unable to attend because "his uniform had not been finished in time," Really, as all men knew, he was sitting resentful and protesting within a few score yards of the spot where his son was crowned.
The second absent figure was the Russian Consul-General, M. de Plançon.
It was announced that M. de Plançon was late, and so could not attend.
Seeing that M. de Plançon lived not ten minutes' walk from the palace, and that the guests had to wait nearly an hour after the time announced before the ceremony began, he must have overslept very much indeed on that particular morning.
Oddly enough, M. de Plançon is usually an early riser.
VIII A JOURNEY TO THE "RIGHTEOUS ARMY" It was in the autumn of 1906.
The Korean Emperor had been deposed and his army disbanded.
The people of Seoul, sullen, resentful, yet powerless, victims of the apathy and folly of their sires, and of their own indolence, saw their national existence filched from them, and scarce dared utter a protest.
The triumphant Japanese soldiers stood at the city gates and within the palace.
Princes must obey their slightest wish, even to the cutting of their hair and the fashioning of their clothes.
General Hasegawa's guns commanded every street, and all men dressed in white need walk softly.
But it soon became clear that there were men who had not taken the filching of their national independence lightly.
Refugees from distant villages, creeping after nightfall over the city wall, brought with them marvellous tales of the happenings in the provinces.
District after district, they said, had risen against the Japanese.
A "Righteous Army" had been formed, and was accomplishing amazing things.
Detachments of Japanese had been annihilated and others driven back.
Sometimes the Japanese, it is true, were victorious, and then they took bitter vengeance, destroying a whole countryside and slaughtering the people in wholesale fashion.
So the refugees said.
How far were these stories true?
I am bound to say that I, for one, regarded them with much scepticism.
Familiar as I was with the offences of individual Japanese in the country, it seemed impossible that outrages could be carried on systematically by the Japanese Army under the direction of its officers.
I was with a Japanese army during the war against Russia, and had marked and admired the restraint and discipline of the men of all ranks there.
They neither stole nor outraged.
Still more recently I had noted the action of the Japanese soldiers when repressing the uprising in Seoul itself.
Yet, whether the stories of the refugees were true or false, undeniably some interesting fighting was going on.
By the first week in September it was clear that the area of trouble covered the eastern provinces from near Fusan to the north of Seoul.
The rebels were evidently mainly composed of discharged soldiers and of hunters from the hills.
We heard in Seoul that trained officers of the old Korean Army were drilling and organizing them into volunteer companies.
The Japanese were pouring fresh troops into these centres of trouble, but the rebels, by an elaborate system of mountain-top signalling, were avoiding the troops and making their attacks on undefended spots.
Reports showed that they were badly armed and lacked ammunition, and there seemed to be no effective organization for sending them weapons from the outside.
The first rallying-place of the malcontent Koreans was in a mountain district from eighty to ninety miles east of Seoul.
Here lived many famous Korean tiger-hunters.
These banded themselves together under the title of Eui-pyung (the "Righteous Army").
They had conflicts with small parties of Japanese troops and secured some minor successes.
When considerable Japanese reinforcements arrived they retired to some mountain passes further back.
The tiger-hunters, sons of the hills, iron-nerved, and operating in their own country, were naturally awkward antagonists even for the best regular troops.
They were probably amongst the boldest sportsmen in the world, and they formed the most picturesque and, romantic section of the rebels.
Their only weapon was an old-fashioned percussion gun, with long barrel and a brass trigger seven to eight inches in length.
Many of them fired not from the shoulder, but from the hip.
They never missed.
They could only fire one charge in an attack, owing to the time required to load.
They were trained to stalk the tiger, to come quite close to it, and then to kill it at one shot The man who failed once died; the tiger attended to that.
Some of the stories of Korean successes reaching Seoul were at the best improbable.
The tale of one fight, however, came to me through so many different and independent sources that there was reason to suspect it had substantial foundation.
It recalled the doings of the people of the Tyrol in their struggle against Napoleon.
A party of Japanese soldiers, forty-eight in number, were guarding a quantity of supplies from point to point.
The Koreans prepared an ambuscade in a mountain valley overshadowed by precipitous hills on either side.
When the troops reached the centre of the valley they were overwhelmed by a flight of great boulders rolled on them from the hilltops, and before the survivors could rally a host of Koreans rushed upon them and did them to death.
Proclamations by Koreans were smuggled into the capital.
Parties of Japanese troops were constantly leaving Chinkokai, the Japanese quarter in Seoul, for the provinces.
There came a public notice from General Hasegawa himself, which showed the real gravity of the rural situation.
It ran as follows:-"I, General Baron Yoshimichi Hasegawa, Commander of the Army of Occupation in Korea, make the following announcement to each and every one of the people of Korea throughout all the provinces.
Taught by the natural trend of affairs in the world and impelled by the national need of political regeneration, the Government of Korea, in obedience to His Imperial Majesty's wishes, is now engaged in the task of reorganizing the various institutions of State.
But those who are ignorant of the march of events in the world and who fail correctly to distinguish loyalty from treason have by wild and baseless rumours instigated people's minds and caused the rowdies in various places to rise in insurrection.
These insurgents commit all sorts of horrible crimes, such as murdering peaceful people, both native and foreign, robbing their property, burning official and private buildings, and destroying means of communication.
Their offences are such as are not tolerated by Heaven or earth.
They affect to be loyal and patriotic and call themselves volunteers.
But none the less they are lawbreakers, who oppose their Sovereign's wishes concerning political regeneration and who work the worst possible harm to their country and people.
"Unless they are promptly suppressed the trouble may assume really calamitous proportions.
I am charged by His Majesty, the Emperor of Korea, with the task of rescuing you from such disasters by thoroughly stamping out the insurrection.
I charge all of you, law-abiding people of Korea, to prosecute your respective peaceful avocations and be troubled with no fears.
As for those who have joined the insurgents from mistaken motives, if they honestly repent and promptly surrender they will be pardoned of their offence.
Any of you who will seize insurgents or will give information concerning their whereabouts will be handsomely rewarded.
In case of those who wilfully join insurgents, or afford them refuge, or conceal weapons, they shall be severely punished.
More than that, the villages to which such offenders belong shall be held collectively responsible and punished with rigour.
I call upon each and every one of the people of Korea to understand clearly what I have herewith said to you and avoid all reprehensible action."
The Koreans in America circulated a manifesto directed against those of their countrymen who were working with Japan, under the expressive title of "explosive thunder," which breathed fury and vengeance.
Groups of Koreans in the provinces issued other statements which, if not quite so picturesque, were quite forcible enough.
Here is one:-"Our numbers are twenty million, and we have over ten million strong men, excluding old, sick, and children.
Now, the Japanese soldiers in Korea are not more than eight thousand, and Japanese merchants at various places are not more than some thousands.
Though their weapons are sharp, how can one man kill a thousand?
We beg you our brothers not to act in a foolish way and not to kill any innocent persons.
We will fix the day and the hour for you to strike.
Some of us, disguised as beggars and merchants, will go into Seoul.
We will destroy the railway, we will kindle flames in every port, we will destroy Chinkokai, kill Ito and all the Japanese, Yi Wan-yong and his underlings, and will not leave a single rebel against our Emperor alive.
Then Japan will bring out all her troops to fight us.
We have no weapons at our hands, but we will keep our own patriotism.
We may not be able to fight against the sharp weapons of the Japanese, but we will ask the Foreign Consuls to help us with their troops, and maybe they will assist the right persons and destroy the wicked; otherwise let us die.
Let us strike against Japan, and then, if must be, all die together with our country and with our Emperor, for there is no other course open to us.
It is better to lose our lives now than to live miserably a little time longer, for the Emperor and our brothers will all surely be killed by the abominable plans of Ito, Yi Wan-yong, and their associates.
It is better to die as a patriot than to live having abandoned one's country.
Mr. Yi Chun went to foreign lands to plead for our country, and his plans did not carry well, so he cut his stomach asunder with a sword and poured out his blood among the foreign nations to proclaim his patriotism to the world.
These of our twenty million people who do not unite offend against the memory of Mr. Yi Chun.
We have to choose between destruction or the maintenance of our country.
Whether we live or die is a small thing, the great thing is that we make up our minds at once whether we work for or against our country."
A group of Koreans in the southern provinces petitioned Prince Ito, in the frankest fashion:-"You spoke much of the kindness and friendship between Japan and Korea, but actually you have drawn away the profits from province after province and district after district until nothing is left wherever the hand of the Japanese falls.
The Korean has been brought to ruin, and the Japanese shall be made to follow him downwards.
We pity you very much; but you shall not enjoy the profits of the ruin of our land.
When Japan and Korea fall together it will be a misfortune indeed for you.
If you would secure safety for yourself follow this rule: memorialize our Majesty to impeach the traitors and put them to right punishment.
Then every Korean will regard you with favour, and the Europeans will be loud in your praise.
Advise the Korean authorities to carry out reforms in various directions, help them to enlarge the schools, and to select capable men for the Government service; then the three countries, Korea, China, and Japan, shall stand in the same line, strongly united and esteemed by foreign nations.
If you will not do this, and if you continue to encroach on our rights, then we will be destroyed together, thanks to you.
"You thought there were no men left in Korea; you will see.
We country people are resolved to destroy your railways and your settlements and your authorities.
On a fixed day we shall send word to our patriots in the north, in the south, in Pyeng-yang and Kyung Sang, to rise and drive away all Japanese from the various ports, and although your soldiers are skillful with their guns it will be very hard for them to stand against our twenty million people.
We will first attack the Japanese in Korea, but when we have finished them we will appeal to the Foreign Powers to assure the independence and freedom of our country.
Before we send the word to our fellow-countrymen we give you this advice."
I resolved to try to see the fighting.
This, I soon found, was easier attempted than done.
The first difficulty came from the Japanese authorities.
They refused to grant me a passport, declaring that, owing to the disturbances, they could not guarantee my safety in the interior.
An interview followed at the Residency-General, in which I was duly warned that if I travelled without a passport I would be liable, under International treaties, to "arrest at any point on the journey and punishment."
This did not trouble me very much.
My real fear had been that the Japanese would consent to my going, but would insist on sending a guard of Japanese soldiers with me.
It was more than doubtful if, at that time, the Japanese had any right to stop a foreigner from travelling in Korea, for the passport regulations had long been virtually obsolete.
This was a point that I was prepared to argue out at leisure after my arrest and confinement in a Consular jail.
So the preparations for my departure were continued.
The traveller in Korea, away from the railroads, must carry everything he wants with him, except food for his horses.
He must have at least three horses or ponies: one for himself, one pack-pony, and one for his bedding and his "boy," Each pony needs its own "mafoo," or groom, to cook its food and to attend to it.
So, although travelling lightly and in a hurry, I would be obliged to take two horses, one pony, and four attendants with me.
My friends in Seoul, both white and Korean, were of opinion that if I attempted the trip I would probably never return.
Korean tiger-hunters and disbanded soldiers were scattered about the hills, waiting for the chance of pot-shots at passing Japanese.
They would certainly in the distance take me for a Japanese, since the Japanese soldiers and leaders all wear foreign clothes, and they would make me their target before they found out their mistake.
A score of suggestions were proffered as to how I should avoid this.
One old servant of mine begged me to travel in a native chair, like a Korean gentleman.
This chair is a kind of small box, carried by two or four bearers, in which the traveller sits all the time crouched up on his haunches.
Its average speed is less than two miles an hour.
I preferred the bullets.
A member of the Korean Court urged me to send out messengers each night to the villages where I would be going next day, telling the people that I was "Yong guk ta-in" (Englishman) and so they must not shoot me.
And so on and so forth.
This exaggerated idea of the risks of the trip unfortunately spread abroad.
The horse merchant demanded specially high terms for the hire of his beasts, because he might never see them again.
I needed a "boy," or native servant, and although there are plenty of "boys" in Seoul none at first was to be had.
I engaged one servant, a fine upstanding young Korean, Wo by name, who had been out on many hunting and mining expeditions.
I noticed that he was looking uneasy, and I was scarcely surprised when at the end of the third day he came to me with downcast eyes.
"Master," he said, "my heart is very much frightened.
Please excuse me this time."
"What is there to be frightened about?"
I demanded.
"Korean men will shoot you and then will kill me because my hair is cut" The rebels were reported to be killing all men not wearing topknots.
Exit Wo.
Some one recommended Han, also with a great hunting record.
But when Han heard the destination he promptly withdrew.
Sin was a good boy out of place.
Sin was sent for, but forwarded apologies for not coming.
One Korean was longing to accompany me--my old servant in the war, Kim Min-gun.
But Kim was in permanent employment and could not obtain leave.
"Master," he said contemptuously, when he heard of the refusals, "these men plenty much afraid," At last Kim's master very kindly gave him permission to accompany me, and the servant difficulty was surmounted.
My preparations were now almost completed, provisions bought, horses hired, and saddles overhauled.
The Japanese authorities had made no sign, but they knew what was going on.
It seemed likely that they would stop me when I started out.
Then fortune favoured me.
A cablegram arrived for me from London.
It was brief and emphatic:-"Proceed forthwith Siberia."
My expedition was abandoned, the horses sent away, and the saddles thrown into a corner.
I cabled home that I would soon be back.
I made the hotel ring with my public and private complaints about this interference with my plans.
I visited the shipping offices to learn of the next steamer to Vladivostock.
A few hours before I was to start I chanced to meet an old friend, who questioned me confidentially, "I suppose it is really true that you are going away, and that this is not a trick on your part?"
I left him thoughtful, for his words had shown me the splendid opportunity in my hands.
Early next morning, long before dawn, my ponies came back, the boys assembled, the saddles were quickly fixed and the packs adjusted, and soon we were riding as hard as we could for the mountains.
The regrettable part of the affair is that many people are still convinced that the whole business of the cablegram was arranged by me in advance as a blind, and no assurances of mine will convince them to the contrary.
As in duty bound, I sent word to the acting British Consul-General, telling him of my departure.
My letter was not delivered to him until after I had left.
On my return I found his reply awaiting me at my hotel.
"I consider it my duty to inform you," he wrote, "that I received a communication on the 7th inst.
from the Residency-General informing me that, in view of the disturbed conditions in the interior, it is deemed inadvisable that foreign subjects should be allowed to travel in the disturbed districts for the present I would also call your attention to the stipulation in Article V. of the treaty between Great Britain and Korea, under which British subjects travelling in the interior of the country without a passport are liable to arrest and to a penalty."
In Seoul no one could tell where or how the "Righteous Army" might be found.
The information doled out by the Japanese authorities was fragmentary, and was obviously and naturally framed in such a manner as to minimize and discredit the disturbances.
It was admitted that the Korean volunteers had a day or two earlier destroyed a small railway station on the line to Fusan.
We knew that a small party of them had attacked the Japanese guard of a store of rifles, not twenty miles from the capital, and had driven them off and captured the arms and ammunition.
Most of the fighting, so far as one could judge, appeared to have been around the town of Chung-ju, four days' journey from Seoul.
It was for there I aimed, travelling by an indirect bridle-path in order to avoid the Japanese as far as possible.
The country in which I soon found myself presented a field of industry and of prosperity such as I had seen nowhere else in Korea.
Between the somewhat desolate mountain ranges and great stretches of sandy soil we came upon innumerable thriving villages.
Every possible bit of land, right up the hillsides, was carefully cultivated.
Here were stretches of cotton, with bursting pods all ready for picking, and here great fields of buckwheat white with flower.
The two most common crops were rice and barley, and the fields were heavy with their harvest.
Near the villages were ornamental lines of chilies and beans and seed plants for oil, with occasional clusters of kowliang, fully twelve and thirteen feet high.
In the centre of the fields was a double-storied summer-house, made of straw, the centre of a system of high ropes, decked with bits of rag, running over the crops in all directions.
Two lads would sit on the upper floor of each of these houses, pulling the ropes, flapping the rags, and making all kinds of harsh noises, to frighten away the birds preying on the crops.
The villages themselves were pictures of beauty and of peace.
Most of them were surrounded by a high fence of wands and matting.
At the entrance there sometimes stood the village "joss," although many villages had destroyed their idols.
This "joss" was a thick stake of wood, six or eight feet high, with the upper part roughly carved into the shape of a very ugly human face, and crudely coloured in vermilion and green.
It was supposed to frighten away the evil spirits.
The village houses, low, mud-walled, and thatch-roofed, were seen this season at their best.
Gay flowers grew around.
Melons and pumpkins, weighted with fruit, ran over the walls.
Nearly every roof displayed a patch of vivid scarlet, for the chilies had just been gathered, and were spread out on the housetops to dry.
In front of the houses were boards covered with sliced pumpkins and gherkins drying in the sun for winter use.
Every courtyard had its line of black earthenware jars, four to six feet high, stored with all manner of good things, mostly preserved vegetables of many varieties, for the coming year.
I had heard much of the province of Chung-Chong-Do as the Italy of Korea, but its beauty and prosperity required seeing to be believed.
It afforded an amazing contrast to the dirt and apathy of Seoul.
Here every one worked.
In the fields the young women were toiling in groups, weeding or harvesting.
The young men were cutting bushes on the hillsides, the father of the family preparing new ground for the fresh crop, and the very children frightening off the birds.
At home the housewife was busy with her children and preparing her simples and stores; and even the old men busied themselves over light tasks, such as mat-making.
Every one seemed prosperous, busy, and happy.
There were no signs of poverty.
The uprising had not touched this district, save in the most incidental fashion.
My inquiries as to where I should find any signs of the fighting always met with the same reply--"The Japanese have been to Ichon, and have burned many villages there."
So we pushed on for Ichon as hard as we could.
The chief problem that faced the traveller in Korea who ventured away from the railways in those days was how to hasten the speed of his party.
"You cannot travel faster than your pack," is one of those indisputable axioms against which the impatient man fretted in vain.
The pack-pony was led by a horseman, who really controlled the situation.
If he sulked and determined to go slowly nothing could be done.
If he hurried, the whole party must move quickly.
The Korean mafoo regards seventy li (about twenty-one miles) as a fair day's work.
He prefers to average sixty li, but if you are very insistent he may go eighty.
It was imperative that I should cover from a hundred to a hundred and twenty li a day.
I tried a mixture of harsh words, praise, and liberal tips.
I was up at three in the morning, setting the boys to work at cooking the animals' food, and I kept them on the road until dark.
Still the record was not satisfactory.
It is necessary in Korea to allow at least six hours each day for the cooking of the horses' food and feeding them.
This is a time that no wise traveller attempts to cut.
Including feeding-times, we were on the go from sixteen to eighteen hours a day.
Notwithstanding this, the most we had reached was a hundred and ten li a day.
Then came a series of little hindrances.
The pack-pony would not eat its dinner; its load was too heavy.
"Hire a boy to carry part of its load," I replied.
A hundred reasons would be found for halting, and still more for slow departure.
It was clear that something more must be done.
I called the pack-pony leader on one side.
He was a fine, broad-framed giant, a man who had in his time gone through many fights and adventures.
"You and I understand one another," I said to him.
"These others with their moanings and cries are but as children.
Now let us make a compact.
You hurry all the time and I will give you" (here I whispered a figure into his ear that sent a gratified smile over his face) "at the end of the journey.
The others need know nothing.
This is between men."
He nodded assent.
From that moment the trouble was over.
Footsore mafoos, lame horses, grumbling innkeepers--nothing mattered.
"Let the fires burn quickly."
"Out with the horses," The other horse-keepers, not understanding his changed attitude, toiled wearily after him.
At night-time he would look up, as he led his pack-pony in at the end of a record day, and his grim smile would proclaim that he was keeping his end of the bargain.
"It is necessary for us to show these men something of the strong hand of Japan," one of the leading Japanese in Seoul, a close associate of the Prince Ito, told me shortly before I left that city.
"The people of the eastern mountain districts have seen few or no Japanese soldiers, and they have no idea of our strength.
We must convince them how strong we are."
As I stood on a mountain-pass, looking down on the valley leading to Ichon, I recalled these words of my friend.
The "strong hand of Japan" was certainly being shown here.
I beheld in front of me village after village reduced to ashes.
I rode down to the nearest heap of ruins.
The place had been quite a large village, with probably seventy or eighty houses.
Destruction, thorough and complete, had fallen upon it.
Not a single house was left, and not a single wall of a house.
Every pot with the winter stores was broken.
The very earthen fireplaces were wrecked.
The villagers had come back to the ruins again, and were already rebuilding.
They had put up temporary refuges of straw.
The young men were out on the hills cutting wood, and every one else was toiling at house-making.
The crops were ready to harvest, but there was no time to gather them in.
First of all, make a shelter.
During the next few days sights like these were to be too common to arouse much emotion.
But for the moment I looked around on these people, ruined and homeless, with quick pity.
The old men, venerable and dignified, as Korean old men mostly are, the young wives, many with babes at their breasts, the sturdy men, had composed, if I could judge by what I saw, an exceptionally clean and peaceful community.
There was no house in which I could rest, so I sat down under a tree, and while Min-gun was cooking my dinner the village elders came around with their story.
One thing especially struck me.
Usually the Korean woman was shy, retiring, and afraid to open her mouth in the presence of a stranger.
Here the women spoke up as freely as the men.
The great calamity had broken down the barriers of their silence.
"We are glad," they said, "that a European man has come to see what has befallen us.
We hope you will tell your people, so that all men may know.
"There had been some fighting on the hills beyond our village," and they pointed to the hills a mile or two further on.
"The Eui-pyung" (the volunteers) "had been there, and had torn up some telegraph poles.
The Eui-pyung came down from the eastern hills.
They were not our men, and had nothing to do with us.
The Japanese soldiers came, and there was a fight, and the Eui-pyung fell back.
"Then the Japanese soldiers marched out to our village, and to seven other villages.
Look around and you can see the ruins of all.
They spoke many harsh words to us.
'The Eui-pyung broke down the telegraph poles and you did not stop them,' they said.
'Therefore you are all the same as Eui-pyung.
Why have you eyes if you do not watch, why have you strength if you do not prevent the Eui-pyung from doing-mischief?
The Eui-pyung came to your houses and you fed them.
They have gone, but we will punish you.'
"And they went from house to house, taking what they wanted and setting all alight.
One old man--he had lived in his house since he was a babe suckled by his mother--saw a soldier lighting up his house.
He fell on his knees and caught the foot of the soldier.
'Excuse me, excuse me,' he said, with many tears.
'Please do not burn my house.
Leave it for me that I may die there.
I am an old man, and near my end.'
"The soldier tried to shake him off, but the old man prayed the more.
'Excuse me, excuse me,' he moaned.
Then the soldier lifted his gun and shot the old man, and we buried him.
"One who was near to her hour of child-birth was lying in a house.
Alas for her!
One of our young men was working in the field cutting grass.
He was working and had not noticed the soldiers come.
He lifted his knife, sharpening it in the sun.
'There is a Eui-pyung,' he said, and he fired and killed him.
One man, seeing the fire, noticed that all his family records were burning.
He rushed in to try and pull them out, but as he rushed a soldier fired, and he fell."
A man, whose appearance proclaimed him to be of a higher class than most of the villagers, then spoke in bitter tones.
"We are rebuilding our houses," he said, "but of what use is it for us to do so?
I was a man of family.
My fathers and fathers' fathers had their record.
Our family papers are destroyed.
Henceforth we are a people without a name, disgraced and outcast."
I found, when I went further into the country, that this view was fairly common.
The Koreans regard their family existence with peculiar veneration.
The family record means everything to them.
When it is destroyed, the family is wiped out It no longer exists, even though there are many members of it still living.
As the province of Chung-Chong-Do prides itself on the large number of its substantial families, there could be no more effective way of striking at them than this.
I rode out of the village heavy-hearted.
What struck me most about this form of punishment, however, was not the suffering of the villagers so much as the futility of the proceedings, from the Japanese point of view.
In place of pacifying a people, they were turning hundreds of quiet families into rebels.
During the next few days I was to see at least one town and many scores of villages treated as this one.
To what end?
The villagers were certainly not the people fighting the Japanese.
All they wanted to do was to look quietly after their own affairs.
Japan professed a desire to conciliate Korea and to win the affection and support of her people.
In one province at least the policy of house-burning had reduced a prosperous community to ruin, increased the rebel forces, and sown a crop of bitter hatred which it would take generations to root out.
We rode on through village after village and hamlet after hamlet burned to the ground.
The very attitude of the people told me that the hand of Japan had struck hard there.
We would come upon a boy carrying a load of wood.
He would run quickly to the side of the road when he saw us, expecting he knew not what.
We passed a village with a few houses left.
The women flew to shelter as I drew near.
Some of the stories that I heard later helped me to understand why they should run.
Of course they took me for a Japanese.
All along the route I heard tales of the Japanese plundering, where they had not destroyed.
At places the village elders would bring me an old man badly beaten by a Japanese soldier because he resisted being robbed.
Then came darker stories.
In Seoul I had laughed at them.
Now, face to face with the victims, I could laugh no more.
That afternoon we rode into Ichon itself.
This is quite a large town.
I found it practically deserted.
Most of the people had fled to the hills, to escape from the Japanese.
I slept that night in a schoolhouse, now deserted and unused.
There were the cartoons and animal pictures and pious mottoes around, but the children were far away.
I passed through the market-place, usually a very busy spot.
There was no sign of life there.
I turned to some of the Koreans.
"Where are your women?
Where are your children?"
I demanded.
They pointed to the high and barren hills looming against the distant heavens.
"They are up there," they said.
"Better for them to lie on the barren hillsides than to be outraged here."
IX WITH THE REBELS Day after day we travelled through a succession of burned-out villages, deserted towns, and forsaken country.
The fields were covered with a rich and abundant harvest, ready to be gathered, and impossible for the invaders to destroy.
But most of the farmers were hiding on the mountainsides, fearing to come down.
The few courageous men who had ventured to come back were busy erecting temporary shelters for themselves before the winter cold came on, and had to let the harvest wait.
Great flocks of birds hung over the crops, feasting undisturbed.
Up to Chong-ju nearly one-half of the villages on the direct line of route had been destroyed by the Japanese.
At Chong-ju I struck directly across the mountains to Chee-chong, a day's journey.
Four-fifths of the villages and hamlets on the main road between these two places were burned to the ground.
The few people who had returned to the ruins always disclaimed any connection with the "Righteous Army."
They had taken no part in the fighting, they said.
The volunteers had come down from the hills and had attacked the Japanese; the Japanese had then retaliated by punishing the local residents.
The fact that the villagers had no arms, and were peaceably working at home-building, seemed at the time to show the truth of their words.
Afterwards when I came up with the Korean fighters I found these statements confirmed.
The rebels were mostly townsmen from Seoul, and not villagers from that district.
Between 10,000 and 20,000 people had been driven to the hills in this small district alone, either by the destruction of their homes or because of fear excited by the acts of the soldiers.
Soon after leaving Ichon I came on a village where the Red Cross was flying over one of the houses.
The place was a native Anglican church.
I was later on to see the Red Cross over many houses, for the people had the idea that by thus appealing to the Christians' God they made a claim on the pity and charity of the Christian nations.
In the evening, after I had settled down in the yard of the native inn, the elders of the Church came to see me, two quiet-spoken, grave, middle-aged men.
They were somewhat downcast, and said that their village had suffered considerably, the parties of soldiers passing through having taken what they wanted and being guilty of some outrages.
A gardener's wife had been violated by a Japanese soldier, another soldier standing guard over the house with rifle and fixed bayonet.
A boy, attracted by the woman's screams, ran and fetched the husband.
He came up, knife in hand.
"But what could he do?"
the elders asked.
"There was the soldier, with rifle and bayonet, before the door."
Later on I was to hear other stories, very similar to this.
These tales were confirmed on the spot, so far as confirmation was possible.
In my judgment such outrages were not numerous, and were limited to exceptional parties of troops.
But they produced an effect altogether disproportionate to their numbers.
The Korean has high ideals about the sanctity of his women, and the fear caused by a comparatively few offences was largely responsible for the flight of multitudes to the hills.
In the burning of villages, a certain number of Korean women and children were undoubtedly killed.
The Japanese troops seem in many cases to have rushed a village and to have indulged in miscellaneous wild shooting, on the chance of there being rebels around, before firing the houses.
In one hamlet, where I found two houses still standing, the folk told me that these had been left because the Japanese shot the daughter of the owner of one of them, a girl of ten.
"When they shot her," the villagers said, "we approached the soldiers, and said, 'Please excuse us, but since you have killed the daughter of this man you should not burn his house.'
And the soldiers listened to us."
In towns like Chong-ju and Won-ju practically all the women and children and better-class families had disappeared.
The shops were shut and barricaded by their owners before leaving, but many of them had been forced open and looted.
The destruction in other towns paled to nothing, however, before the havoc wrought in Chee-chong.
Here was a town completely destroyed.
Chee-chong was, up to the late summer of 1907, an important rural centre, containing between 2,000 and 3,000 inhabitants, and beautifully situated in a sheltered plain, surrounded by high mountains.
It was a favourite resort of high officials, a Korean Bath or Cheltenham.
Many of the houses were large, and some had tiled roofs--a sure evidence of wealth.
When the "Righteous Army" began operations, one portion of it occupied the hills beyond Chee-chong.
The Japanese sent a small body of troops into the town.
These were attacked one night on three sides, several were killed, and the others were compelled to retire.
The Japanese despatched reinforcements, and after some fighting regained lost ground.
They then determined to make Chee-chong an example to the countryside.
The entire town was put to the torch.
The soldiers carefully tended the flames, piling up everything for destruction.
Nothing was left, save one image of Buddha and the magistrate's yamen.
When the Koreans fled, five men, one woman, and a child, all wounded, were left behind.
These disappeared in the flames.
It was a hot early autumn when I reached Chee-chong.
The brilliant sunshine revealed a Japanese flag waving-over a hillock commanding the town, and glistened against the bayonet of a Japanese sentry.
I dismounted and walked down the streets and over the heaps of ashes.
Never have I witnessed such complete destruction.
Where a month before there had been a busy and prosperous community, there was now nothing but lines of little heaps of black and gray dust and cinders.
Not a whole wall, not a beam, and not an unbroken jar remained.
Here and there a man might be seen poking among the ashes, seeking for aught of value.
The search was vain.
Chee-chong had been wiped off the map.
"Where are your people?"
I asked the few searchers.
"They are lying on the hillsides," came the reply.
Up to this time I had not met a single rebel soldier, and very few Japanese.
My chief meeting with the Japanese occurred the previous day at Chong-ju.
As I approached that town, I noticed that its ancient walls were broken down.
The stone arches of the city gates were left, but the gates themselves and most of the walls had gone.
A Japanese sentry and a gendarme stood at the gateway, and cross-examined me as I entered.
A small body of Japanese troops were stationed here, and operations in the country around were apparently directed from this centre.
I at once called upon the Japanese Colonel in charge.
His room, a great apartment in the local governor's yamen, showed on all sides evidences of the thoroughness with which the Japanese were conducting this campaign.
Large maps, with red marks, revealed strategic positions now occupied.
A little printed pamphlet, with maps, evidently for the use of officers, lay on the table.
The Colonel received me politely, but expressed his regrets that I had come.
The men he was fighting were mere robbers, he said, and there was nothing for me to see.
He gave me various warnings about dangers ahead.
Then he very kindly explained that the Japanese plan was to hem in the volunteers, two sections of troops operating from either side and making a circle around the seat of trouble.
These would unite and gradually drive the Koreans towards a centre.
The maps which the Colonel showed me settled my movements.
A glance at them made clear that the Japanese had not yet occupied the line of country between Chee-chong and Won-ju.
Here, then, was the place where I must go if I would meet the Korean bands.
So it was towards Won-ju that I turned our horses' heads on the following day, after gazing on the ruins of Chee-chong.
It soon became evident that I was very near to the Korean forces.
At one place, not far from Chee-chong, a party of them had arrived two days before I passed, and had demanded arms.
A little further on Koreans and Japanese had narrowly escaped meeting in the village street, not many hours before I stopped there.
As I approached one hamlet, the inhabitants fled into the high corn, and on my arrival not a soul was to be found.
They mistook me for a Japanese out on a shooting and burning expedition.
It now became more difficult to obtain carriers.
Our ponies were showing signs of fatigue, for we were using them very hard over the mountainous country.
It was impossible to hire fresh animals, as the Japanese had commandeered all.
Up to Won-ju I had to pay double the usual rate for my carriers.
From Won-ju onwards carriers absolutely refused to go further, whatever the pay.
"On the road beyond here many bad men are to be found," they told me at Won-ju.
"These bad men shoot every one who passes.
We will not go to be shot."
My own boys were showing some uneasiness.
Fortunately, I had in my personal servant Min-gun, and in the leader of the pack-pony two of the staunchest Koreans I have ever known.
The country beyond Won-ju was splendidly suited for an ambuscade, such as the people there promised me.
The road was rocky and broken, and largely lay through a narrow, winding valley, with overhanging cliffs.
Now we would come on a splendid gorge, evidently of volcanic origin; now we would pause to chip a bit of gold-bearing quartz from the rocks, for-this is a famous gold centre of Korea.
An army might have been hidden securely around.
Twilight was just gathering as we stopped at a small village where we intended remaining for the night The people were sullen and unfriendly, a striking contrast to what I had found elsewhere.
In other parts they all came and welcomed me, sometimes refusing to take payment for the accommodation they supplied.
"We are glad that a white man has come," But in this village the men gruffly informed me that there was not a scrap of horse food or of rice to be had.
They advised us to go on to another place, fifteen li ahead.
We started out.
When we had ridden a little way from the village I chanced to glance back at some trees skirting a corn-field.
A man, half-hidden by a bush, was fumbling with something in his hands, something which he held down as I turned.
I took it to be the handle of a small reaping-knife, but it was growing too dark to see clearly.
A minute later, however, there came a smart "ping" past my ear, followed by the thud of a bullet striking metal.
I turned, but the man had disappeared.
It would have been merely foolish to blaze back with a .380 Colt at a distance of over a hundred yards, and there was no time to go back.
So we continued on our way.
Before arriving at Won-ju we had been told that we would certainly find the Righteous Army around there.
At Won-ju men said that it was at a place fifteen or twenty miles ahead.
When we reached that distance we were directed onwards to Yan-gun.
We walked into Yan-gun one afternoon, only to be again disappointed.
Here, however, we learned that there had been a fight that same morning at a village fifteen miles nearer Seoul, and that the Koreans had been defeated.
Yan-gun presented a remarkable sight.
A dozen red crosses waved over houses at different points.
In the main street every shop was closely barricaded, and a cross was pasted on nearly every door.
These crosses, roughly painted on paper in red ink, were obtained from the elder of the Roman Catholic church there.
A week before some Japanese soldiers had arrived and burned a few houses.
They spared one house close to them waving a Christian cross.
As soon as the Japanese left nearly every one pasted a cross over his door.
At first Yan-gun seemed deserted.
The people were watching me from behind the shelter of their doors.
Then men and boys crept out, and gradually approached.
We soon made friends.
The women had fled.
I settled down that afternoon in the garden of a Korean house of the better type.
My boy was preparing my supper in the front courtyard, when he suddenly dropped everything to rush to me.
"Master," he cried, highly excited, "the Righteous Army has come.
Here are the soldiers."
In another moment half a dozen of them entered the garden, formed in line in front of me and saluted.
They were all lads, from eighteen to twenty-six.
One, a bright-faced, handsome youth, still wore the old uniform of the regular Korean Army.
Another had a pair of military trousers.
Two of them were in slight, ragged Korean dress.
Not one had leather boots.
Around their waists were home-made cotton cartridge belts, half full.
One wore a kind of tarboosh on his head, and the others had bits of rag twisted round their hair.
I looked at the guns they were carrying.
The six men had five different patterns of weapons, and none was any good.
One proudly carried an old Korean sporting gun of the oldest type of muzzle-loaders known to man.
Around his arm was the long piece of thin rope which he kept smouldering as touch-powder, and hanging in front of him were the powder horn and bullet bag for loading.
This sporting gun was, I afterwards found, a common weapon.
The ramrod, for pressing down the charge, was home-made and cut from a tree.
The barrel was rust-eaten.
There was only a strip of cotton as a carrying strap.
The second man had an old Korean army rifle, antiquated, and a very bad specimen of its time.
The third had the same.
One had a tiny sporting gun, the kind of weapon, warranted harmless, that fathers give to their fond sons at the age of ten.
Another had a horse-pistol, taking a rifle cartridge.
Three of the guns bore Chinese marks.
They were all eaten up with ancient rust.
These were the men--think of it--who for weeks had been bidding defiance to the Japanese Army!
Even now a Japanese division of regular soldiers was manoeuvring to corral them and their comrades.
Three of the party in front of me were coolies.
The smart young soldier who stood at the right plainly acted as sergeant, and had done his best to drill his comrades into soldierly bearing.
A seventh man now came in, unarmed, a Korean of the better class, well dressed in the long robes of a gentleman, but thin, sun-stained and wearied like the others.
A pitiful group they seemed--men already doomed to certain death, fighting in an absolutely hopeless cause.
But as I looked the sparkling eyes and smiles of the sergeant to the right seemed to rebuke me.
Pity!
Maybe my pity was misplaced.
At least they were showing their countrymen an example of patriotism, however mistaken their method of displaying it might be.
They had a story to tell, for they had been in the fight that morning, and had retired before the Japanese.
The Japanese had the better position, and forty Japanese soldiers had attacked two hundred of them and they had given way.
But they had killed four Japanese, and the Japanese had only killed two of them and wounded three more.
Such was their account.
I did not ask them why, when they had killed twice as many as the enemy, they had yet retreated.
The real story of the fight I could learn later.
As they talked others came to join them--two old men, one fully eighty, an old tiger-hunter, with bent back, grizzled face, and patriarchal beard.
The two newcomers carried the old Korean sporting rifles.
Other soldiers of the retreating force were outside.
There was a growing tumult in the street.
How long would it be before the triumphant Japanese, following up their victory, attacked the town?
I was not to have much peace that night.
In the street outside a hundred noisy disputes were proceeding between volunteers and the townsfolk.
The soldiers wanted shelter; the people, fearing the Japanese, did not wish to let them in.
A party of them crowded into an empty building adjoining the house where I was, and they made the place ring with their disputes and recriminations.
Very soon the officer who had been in charge of the men during the fight that day called on me.
He was a comparatively young man, dressed in the ordinary long white garments of the better-class Koreans.
I asked him what precautions he had taken against a night attack, for if the Japanese knew where we were they would certainly come on us.
Had he any outposts placed in positions?
Was the river-way guarded?
"There is no need for outposts," he replied.
"Every Korean man around watches for us."
I cross-examined him about the constitution of the rebel army.
How were they organized?
From what he told me, it was evident that they had practically no organization at all.
There were a number of separate bands held together by the loosest ties.
A rich man in each place found the money.
This he secretly gave to one or two open rebels, and they gathered adherents around them.
He admitted that the men were in anything but a good way.
"We may have to die," he said.
"Well, so let it be.
It is much better to die as a free man than to live as the slave of Japan."
He had not been gone long before still another called on me, a middle-aged Korean gentleman, attended by a staff of officials.
Here was a man of rank, and I soon learned that he was the Commander-in-Chief for the entire district.
I was in somewhat of a predicament.
I had used up all my food, and had not so much as a cigar or a glass of whiskey left to offer him.
One or two flickering candles in the covered courtyard of the inn lit up his care-worn face.
I apologized for the rough surroundings in which I received him, but he immediately brushed my apologies aside.
He complained bitterly of the conduct of his subordinate, who had risked an engagement that morning when he had orders not to.
The commander, it appeared, had been called back home for a day on some family affairs, and hurried back to the front as soon as he knew of the trouble.
He had come to me for a purpose.
"Our men want weapons," he said.
"They are as brave as can be, but you know what their guns are like, and we have very little ammunition.
We cannot buy, but you can go to and fro freely as you want.
Now, you act as our agent.
Buy guns for us and bring them to us.
Ask what money you like, it does not matter.
Five thousand dollars, ten thousand dollars, they are yours if you will have them.
Only bring us guns!"
I had, of course, to tell him that I could not do anything of the kind.
When he further asked me questions about the positions of the Japanese I was forced to give evasive answers.
To my mind, the publicist who visits fighting forces in search of information, as I was doing, is in honour bound not to communicate what he learns to the other side.
I could no more tell the rebel leader of the exposed Japanese outposts I knew, and against which I could have sent his troops with the certainty of success, than I could on return tell the Japanese the strength of his forces.
All that night the rebels dribbled in.
Several wounded men who had escaped from the fight the previous day were borne along by their comrades, and early on the following morning some soldiers came and asked me to do what I could to heal them.
I went out and examined the men.
One had no less than five bullet-holes in him and yet seemed remarkably cheerful.
Two others had single shots of a rather more dangerous nature.
I am no surgeon, and it was manifestly impossible for me to jab into their wounds with my hunting-knife in the hope of extracting the bullets.
I found, however, some corrosive sublimate tabloids in my leather medicine case.
These I dissolved, and bathed the wounds with the mixture to stop suppuration.
I had some Listerine, and I washed their rags in it.
I bound the clean rags on the wounds, bade the men lie still and eat little, and left them.
Soon after dawn the rebel regiments paraded in the streets.
They reproduced on a larger scale the characteristics I had noted among the few men who came to visit me the evening before, poor weapons and little ammunition.
They sent out men in advance before I departed in the morning to warn their outposts that I was an Englishman (really I am a Scots-Canadian, but to them it was all the same) who must not be injured.
I left them with mutual good wishes, but I made a close inspection of my party before we marched away to see that all our weapons were in place.
Some of my boys begged me to give the rebels our guns so that they might kill the Japanese!
We had not gone very far before we descended into a rocky and sandy plain by the river.
Suddenly I heard one of my boys shout at the top of his voice, as he threw up his arms, "Yong guk ta-in."
We all stopped, and the others took up the cry.
"What does this mean?"
I asked.
"Some rebel soldiers are surrounding us," said Min-gun, "and they are going to fire.
They think you are a Japanese."
I stood against the sky-line and pointed vigorously to myself to show that they were mistaken.
"Yong guk!"
I shouted, with my boys.
It was not dignified, but it was very necessary.
Now we could see creeping, ragged figures running from rock to rock, closer and closer to us.
The rifles of some were covering us while the others advanced.
Then a party of a couple of dozen rose from the ground near to hand, with a young man in a European officer's uniform at their head.
They ran to us, while we stood and waited.
At last they saw who I was, and when they came near they apologized very gracefully for their blunder.
"It was fortunate that you shouted when you did," said one ugly-faced young rebel, as he slipped his cartridge back into his pouch; "I had you nicely covered and was just going to shoot."
Some of the soldiers in this band were not more than fourteen to sixteen years old.
I made them stand and have their photographs taken.
By noon I arrived at the place from which the Korean soldiers had been driven on the day before.
The villagers there were regarded in very unfriendly fashion by the rebels, who thought they had betrayed them to the Japanese.
The villagers told me what was evidently the true story of the fight.
They said that about twenty Japanese soldiers had on the previous morning marched quickly to the place and attacked two hundred rebels there.
One Japanese soldier was hurt, receiving a flesh wound in the arm, and five rebels were wounded.
Three of these latter got away, and these were the ones I had treated earlier in the morning.
Two others were left on the field, one badly shot in the left cheek and the other in the right shoulder.
To quote the words of the villagers, "As the Japanese soldiers came up to these wounded men they were too sick to speak, and they could only utter cries like animals--'Hula, hula, hula!'
They had no weapons in their hands, and their blood was running on the ground.
The Japanese soldiers heard their cries, and went up to them and stabbed them through and through and through again with their bayonets until they died.
The men were torn very much with the bayonet stabs, and we had to take them up and bury them."
The expressive faces of the villagers were more eloquent than mere description was.
Were this an isolated instance, it would scarcely be necessary to mention it.
But what I heard on all sides went to show that in a large number of fights in the country the Japanese systematically killed all the wounded and all who surrendered themselves.
This was not so in every case, but it certainly was in very many.
The fact was confirmed by the Japanese accounts of many fights, where the figures given of Korean casualties were so many killed, with no mention of wounded or prisoners.
In place after place also, the Japanese, besides burning houses, shot numbers of men whom they suspected of assisting the rebels.
War is war, and one could scarcely complain at the shooting of rebels.
Unfortunately much of the killing was indiscriminate, to create terror.
I returned to Seoul.
The Japanese authorities evidently decided that it would not be advisable to arrest me for travelling in the interior without a passport.
It was their purpose to avoid as far as possible any publicity being given to the doings of the Righteous Army, and to represent them as mere bands of disorderly characters, preying on the population.
They succeeded in creating this opinion throughout the world.
But as a matter of fact the movement grew and grew.
It was impossible for the Koreans to obtain arms; they fought without arms.
In June, 1908, nearly two years afterwards, a high Japanese official, giving evidence at the trial of Mr. Bethell before a specially convened British court at Seoul, said that about 20,000 troops were then engaged in putting down the disturbances, and that about one-half of the country was in a condition of armed resistance.
The Koreans continued their fight until 1915, when, according to Japanese official statements, the rebellion was finally suppressed.
One can only faintly imagine the hardships these mountaineers and young men of the plains, tiger hunters, and old soldiers, must have undergone.
The taunts about Korean "cowardice" and "apathy" were beginning to lose their force.
X THE LAST DAYS OF THE KOREAN EMPIRE Prince Ito--he was made Prince after the abdication of Yi Hyeung--was Resident-General of Korea from 1906 to 1908, and was followed by Viscount Sone, who carried on his policies until 1910.
Ito is still remembered as the best of the Japanese administrators.
He had an exceedingly difficult task.
He had to tear up an ancient administration by the roots, and substitute a new.
This could not fail to be a painful process.
He had the best and the worst instincts of a nation aroused against him, the patriotism and loyalty of the Korean people, and also their obstinacy and apathy.
He was hampered by the poor quality of many of the minor officials who had to carry out his orders and still more by the character of the settlers from his own land.
The necessities of Japanese Imperial policy compelled the infliction of much injustice on the Korean people.
The determination to plant as many Japanese on Korean soil as possible involved the expropriation of Korean interests and the harsh treatment of many small Korean landowners and tenants.
The powerful and growing commercial interests of Japan were using every possible pressure to exploit Korea, to obtain concessions and to treat the land as one to be despoiled for their benefit.
Ito meant well by Korea, and had vision enough to see that the ill-treatment of her people injured Japan even more than it did them.
It was his misfortune to be committed to an impossible policy of Imperial absorption.
He did his utmost to minimize its evils and promote reforms.
Unfortunately, all of his subordinates did not see eye to eye with him.
His military chief, Hasegawa, believed in the policy of the strong hand, and practiced it.
A large majority of the Japanese immigrants acted in a way fatal to the creation of a policy of good-will.
The average Japanese regarded the Korean as another Ainu, a barbarian, and himself as one of the Chosen Race, who had the right to despoil and roughly treat his inferiors, as occasion served.
Some Koreans stooped to the favourite Oriental weapon of assassination.
In 1907 Mr. W.D.
Stevens, Foreign Adviser to the Korean Government, was murdered by a Korean when passing through San Francisco.
In October, 1909, Prince Ito, when making a journey northwards, was killed by another Korean at Harbin.
Both of the murderers were nominal Christians, the first a Protestant and the second a Catholic.
A deadly blow was struck at the Korean cause by the men who thus sought to serve her.
This book will probably be read by many Koreans, young men and women with hearts aflame at the sufferings of their people.
I can well understand the intense anger that must fill their souls.
If my people had been treated as theirs have, I would feel the same.
I hope that every man guilty of torturing, outraging or murder will eventually be brought to justice and dealt with as justice directs.
But for individuals, or groups of individuals to take such punishment into their own hands is to inflict the greatest damage in their power, not on the person they attack, but on the cause they seek to serve.
Why?
In the first case, they destroy sympathy for their cause.
The conscience of the world revolts at the idea of the individual or the irresponsible group of individuals taking to themselves the right of inflicting death at their will.
Next, they strengthen the cause they attack.
They place themselves on or below the level of the men they seek to punish.
A third reason is that the assassins in many cases reach the wrong man.
They do not know, and cannot know, because they have had no full opportunity of learning, what the other has had to say for himself.
Too often, in trying to slay their victim, they injure others who have nothing to do with the business.
To attack one's victim without giving him an opportunity for defence is essentially a cowardly thing.
Assassination--I prefer to give it its simpler name, murder--is wrong, whatever the supposed excuse, fundamentally wrong, wrong in principle, fatal in its outcome for those who adopt it.
Have nothing to do with it.
The murder of Prince Ito was a cruel blow for Korea.
It was followed by an attempt to assassinate the Korean Premier, the man who had handed his country over to Japan.
For some time the military party in Japan had been clamouring for a more severe policy in the Peninsula.
Now it was to have its way.
General Count Terauchi was appointed Resident-General.
Count Terauchi was leader of the military party in Korea, and an avowed exponent of the policy of "thorough."
A soldier from his youth up, he had risen to the General Staff, and in 1904 was Minister of War in the fight against Russia, earning his Viscountcy for brilliant services.
Strong, relentless, able, he could only see one thing--Japan and the glory of Japan.
He regarded the Koreans as a people to be absorbed or to be eliminated.
He was generally regarded as unsympathetic to Christianity, and many of the Koreans were now Christians.
Terauchi came to Seoul in the summer of 1910, to reverse the policy of his predecessors.
He was going to stamp the last traces of nationality out of existence.
Where Ito had been soft, he would be hard as chilled steel.
Where Ito had beaten men with whips, he would beat them with scorpions.
Every one knew ahead what was coming.
The usual plan was followed.
First, the official and semi-official plan was followed.
The _Seoul Press_, now the lickspittle of the great man, gave good value for the subsidy it receives.
It came out with an article hard to surpass for brutality and hypocrisy:-"The present requires the wielding of an iron hand rather than a gloved one in order to secure lasting peace and order in this country.
There is no lack of evidence to show an intense dissatisfaction against the new state of things is fermenting at present among a section of the Koreans.
It is possible that if left unchecked, it may culminate in some shocking crime.
Now after carefully studying the cause and nature of the dissatisfaction just referred to, we find that it is both foolish and unreasonable.... "Japan is in this country with the object of promoting the happiness of the masses.
She has not come to Korea to please a few hundred silly youngsters or to feed a few hundred titled loafers.
It is no fault of hers that these men are dissatisfied because of their failure to satisfy them.... _She must be prepared to sacrifice anybody who offers obstacles to her work_.
Japan has hitherto dealt with Korean malcontents in a lenient way.
She has learned from experience gained during the past five years that there are some persons who cannot be converted by conciliatory methods.
_There is but one way to deal with these people, and that is by stern and relentless methods_."
The _Japan Mail_, as usual, echoed the same sentiments from Yokohama.
"The policy of conciliation is all very well in the hands of such a statesman as the late Prince Ito," it declared.
"But failing a successor to Prince Ito, more ordinary methods will be found safer as well as more efficacious."
Viscount Terauchi settled in the capital, and it was as though a chill had passed over the city.
He said little, in public.
Callers, high and low, found him stern and distant.
"He has other things to think of than pleasant words," awed Secretaries repeated.
Things suddenly began to happen.
Four Japanese papers were suspended in a night.
An item in their columns was objectionable.
Let others be very careful.
The police system was reversed.
The gendarmerie were to be brought back again in full force.
Every day brought its tale of arrests.
Fifteen students were arrested this morning; the old Korean President of the Railway Board had been hurried to prison; the office of a paper in Pyeng-yang had been raided.
It was as though the new Governor-General had deliberately set himself to spread a feeling of terror.
The Korean must not so much as look awry now.
Police and gendarmes were everywhere.
Spies seemed to catch men's thoughts.
More troops were coming in.
Surely something was about to happen.
Yet there were some smiling.
They were called to the Residency-General to hear good news.
This man was to be made a peer; he had served Japan well.
This man, if he and his kin were good, was to be suitably rewarded.
Bribes for the complaisant, prison for the obstinate.
Men guessed what was coming.
There were mutterings, especially among the students.
But the student who spoke bravely, even behind closed doors to-day, found himself in jail by evening.
The very walls seemed to have ears.
Then it was remarked that the Ministers of State had not been seen for some days.
They had shut themselves in, refusing to see all callers.
They feared assassination, for they had sold their country.
Policemen and troops were waiting within easy calls from their homes, lest mobs should try to burn them out, like rats out of their holes.
And then the news came.
Korea had ceased to exist as an even nominally independent or separate country.
Japan had swallowed it up.
The Emperor--poor fool--was to step off his throne.
After four thousand years, there was to be no more a throne of Korea.
The Resident-General would now be Governor-General.
The name of the nation was to be wiped out--henceforth it was to be Chosen, a province of Japan.
Its people were to be remade into a lesser kind of Japanese, and the more adept they were in making the change, the less they would suffer.
They were to have certain benefits.
To mark the auspicious occasion there would be an amnesty--but a man who had tried to kill the traitor Premier would not be in it.
Five per cent of taxes and all unpaid fiscal dues would be remitted.
Let the people rejoice!
The Japanese expected an uprising, and were all ready for one.
"Every man should be ready to fight and die in the cause of his nation's independence," they said tauntingly to the Koreans.
But the people's leaders kept them in.
Up on the hills, the Righteous Army was still struggling.
The people must wait for better times.
One man stuck a proclamation on the West Gate, threatening death to the traitors.
Man after man, scholars, old soldiers, men who loved Korea, committed suicide, after telling of their grief.
"Why should we live when our land is dead?"
they asked.
The Japanese sneered because the people did nothing.
"We may assume, indeed, that all fear of a national uprising is now past," declared a semi-Government organ.
"The nation obviously has no leaders competent to execute and direct a crusade in the cause of independence.
Whether that lack is due to adroit management on the part of the Japanese or to unpatriotic apathy on the part of the Koreans we cannot pretend to judge."
The Japanese decree announcing the annexation of the country was in itself an acknowledgment that the Japanese administration so far had been a failure.
Here is the opening paragraph:-"Notwithstanding the earnest and laborious work of reforms in the administration of Korea in which the Governments of Japan and Korea have been engaged for more than four years since the conclusion of the Agreement of 1905, the existing system of government of that country has not proved entirely equal to the work of preserving public order and tranquillity, and in addition a spirit of suspicion and misgiving pervades the whole peninsula.
"In order to maintain peace and prosperity and the welfare of the Koreans and at the same time to ensure the safety and repose of foreign residents, it has been made abundantly clear that fundamental changes in the actual regime of government are actually essential."
The declaration announced various changes.
It abrogated all Korean foreign treaties, and brought the subjects of foreign nations living in Korea under Japanese law.
In other words, extra-territoriality was abolished.
The Government agreed to maintain the old Korean tariff for ten years both for goods coming in from Japan and abroad.
This was a concession to foreign importers whose trade otherwise would have been swamped.
It also allowed ships under foreign registers to engage in the Korean coasting trade for ten years more.
The annexation was put in the form of a treaty between the Emperors of Japan and Korea, as though the surrender of their land had been the act of the Koreans themselves, or their ruler.
His Majesty the Emperor of Japan and His Majesty the Emperor of Korea having in view the special and close relations between their respective countries and to ensure peace in the Extreme East, and being convinced that these objects can best be attained by the annexation of Korea to the Empire of Japan have resolved to conclude a Treaty of such annexation and have for that purpose appointed as their Plenipotentiaries, that is to say, His Majesty the Emperor of Japan, Viscount Maskata Terauchi, His Resident General.
And His Majesty the Emperor of Korea, Ye Wan Yong, His Minister President of State, Who, upon mutual conference and deliberation, have agreed to the following articles.
Article 1.
His Majesty the Emperor of Korea makes complete and permanent cession to His Majesty the Emperor of Japan of all rights of sovereignty over the whole of Korea.
Article 2.
His Majesty the Emperor of Japan accepts the cession mentioned in the preceding Article, and consents to the complete annexation of Korea to the Empire of Japan.
Article 3.
His Majesty the Emperor of Japan will accord to their Majesties the Emperor and Empress of Korea and His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince of Korea, and Their Consorts and Heirs such titles, dignity and honour as are appropriate to their respective rank and sufficient annual grants will be made for the maintenance of such titles, dignity and honour.
Article 4.
His Majesty the Emperor of Japan will also accord appropriate honour and treatment to the members of the Imperial House of Korea and their heirs, other than those mentioned in the preceding Article and the funds necessary for the maintenance of such honour and treatment will be granted.
Article 5.
His Majesty the Emperor of Japan will confer peerages and monetary grants upon those Koreans who, on account of meritorious services, are regarded as deserving of such special treatment.
Article 6.
In consequence of the aforesaid annexation, the Government of Japan assumes the entire government and administration of Korea, and undertakes to afford full protection for the property and person of Koreans, obeying the laws then in force, and to promote the welfare of all such Koreans.
Article 7.
The Government of Japan will, so far as circumstances permit, employ in the public service of Japan in Korea those Koreans who accept the new regime of Japan loyally and in good faith, and who are duly qualified for such service.
Article 8.
This Treaty, having been approved by His Majesty the Emperor of Japan and His Majesty the Emperor of Korea shall take effect from the day of its promulgation.
Some defenders of Japan have wasted much effort in attempting to show that in destroying the Korean Empire Japan did not break her word, although she had repeatedly pledged herself to maintain and preserve the nation and the Royal House.
Such arguments, under the circumstances, are merely nauseating.
Japan wanted Korea; so soon as she was able, Japan took it.
The only justification was "The good old rule ... the simple plan, That he shall take who has the power, That he shall KEEP, who can."
XI "I WILL WHIP YOU WITH SCORPIONS" The Japanese administration of Korea from 1910 to 1919, first under Count Terauchi and then under General Hasegawa, revealed the harshest and most relentless form of Imperial administration.
When formal annexation was completed in 1910 all the hindrances which had hitherto stood in the way of the complete execution of Japanese methods were apparently swept on one side.
The Governor-General had absolute power to pass what ordinances he pleased, and even to make those ordinances retroactive.
Extra-territoriality was abolished, and foreign subjects in Korea were placed entirely under the Japanese laws.
Japanese statesmen were ambitious to show the world as admirable an example of efficiency in peace as Japan had already shown in war.
Much thought had been given to the matter for a long time ahead.
The colonial systems of other countries had been carefully studied.
Service in Korea was to be a mark of distinction, reserved for the best and most highly paid.
National pride and national interest were pledged to make good.
Money was spent freely and some of the greatest statesmen and soldiers of Japan were placed at the head of affairs.
Ito, by becoming Resident-General, had set an example for the best of the nation to follow.
Between the annexation in 1910 and the uprising of the people in 1919, much material progress was made.
The old, effete administration was cleared away, sound currency maintained, railways were greatly extended, roads improved, afforestation pushed forward on a great scale, agriculture developed, sanitation improved and fresh industries begun.
And yet this period of the Japanese administration in Korea ranks among the greatest failures of history, a failure greater than that of Russia in Finland or Poland or Austria-Hungary in Bosnia.
America in Cuba and Japan in Korea stand out as the best and the worst examples in governing new subject peoples that the twentieth century has to show.
The Japanese entered on their great task in a wrong spirit, they were hampered by fundamentally mistaken ideas, and they proved that they are not yet big enough for the job.
They began with a spirit of contempt for the Korean.
Good administration is impossible without sympathy on the part of the administrators; with a blind and foolish contempt, sympathy is impossible.
They started out to assimilate the Koreans, to destroy their national ideals, to root out their ancient ways, to make them over again as Japanese, but Japanese of an inferior brand, subject to disabilities from which their overlords were free.
Assimilation with equality is difficult, save in the case of small, weak peoples, lacking tradition and national ideals.
But assimilation with inferiority, attempted on a nation with a historic existence going back four thousand years is an absolutely impossible task.
Or, to be more exact, it would only be possible by assimilating a few, the weaklings of the nation, and destroying the strong majority by persecution, direct killing and a steady course of active corruption, with drugs and vice.
The Japanese overestimated their own capacity and underestimated the Korean.
They had carefully organized their claque in Europe and America, especially in America.
They engaged the services of a group of paid agents--some of them holding highly responsible positions--to sing their praises and advocate their cause.
They enlisted others by more subtle means, delicate flattery and social ambition.
They taught diplomats and consular officials, especially of Great Britain and America, that it was a bad thing to become a _persona non grata_ to Tokyo.
They were backed by a number of people, who were sincerely won over by the finer sides of the Japanese character.
In diplomatic and social intrigue, the Japanese make the rest of the world look as children.
They used their forces not merely to laud themselves, but to promote the belief that the Koreans were an exhausted and good-for-nothing race.
In the end, they made the fatal mistake of believing what their sycophants and flatterers told them.
Japanese civilization was the highest in the world; Japan was to be the future leader, not alone of Asia, but of all nations.
The Korean was fit for nothing but to act as hewer of wood and drawer of water for his overlord.
Had Japan been wise and long-sighted enough to treat the Koreans as America treated the Cubans or England the people of the Straits Settlements, there would have been a real amalgamation--although not an assimilation--of the two peoples.
The Koreans were wearied of the extravagances, abuses and follies of their old administration.
But Japan in place of putting Korean interests first ruled the land for the benefit of Japan.
The Japanese exploiter, the Japanese settler were the main men to be studied.
Then Japan sought to make the land a show place.
Elaborate public buildings were erected, railroads opened, state maintained, far in excess of the economic strength of the nation.
To pay for extravagant improvements, taxation and personal service were made to bear heavily on the people.
Many of the improvements were of no possible service to the Koreans themselves.
They were made to benefit Japanese or to impress strangers.
And the officials forgot that even subject peoples have ideals and souls.
They sought to force loyalty, to beat it into children with the stick and drill it into men by gruelling experiences in prison cells.
Then they were amazed that they had bred rebels.
They sought to wipe out Korean culture, and then were aggrieved because Koreans would not take kindly to Japanese learning.
They treated the Koreans with open contempt, and then wondered that they did not love them.
Let us examine the administration more closely in detail.
Its outstanding feature for most of the people is (I use the present tense because as I write it still continues) the gendarmerie and police.
These are established all over the country, and they have in effect, although not in name, power of life or death.
They can enter into any house, without warrant, and search it.
They destroy whatever they please, on the spot.
Thus if a policeman searches the room of a student, and sees a book which does not please him, he can--and does--often burn it on the spot.
Sometimes he takes it into the street and burns it there, to impress the neighbours.
One of the police visits most feared by many villagers is the periodical examinations to see if the houses are clean.
If the policemen are not satisfied, they do not trouble to take the people to the station, but give them a flogging then and there.
This house examination is frequently used by police in districts where they wish to punish the Christians, or to prevent their neighbours from becoming Christians.
The Christian houses are visited and the Christians flogged, sometimes without even troubling to examine the houses at all.
This method particularly prevails in parts of the Pyengyang province.
The police can arrest and search or detain any person, without warrant.
This right of search is freely used on foreigners as well as Koreans.
Any Korean taken to the police station can, in practice, be kept in custody as long as wanted, without trial, and then can be released without trial, or can be summarily punished without trial by the police.
The usual punishment is flogging--only Koreans and not Japanese or foreigners are liable to be flogged.
This punishment can be given in such a way as to cripple, to confine the victim to his home for weeks, or to kill.
While it is not supposed to be practiced on women, on men over sixty-five or on boys under fifteen, the police flog indiscriminately.
The Japanese Government passed, some years ago, regulations to prevent the abuse of flogging.
These regulations are a dead letter.
Here is the official statement: "It was decided to retain it (flogging), but only for application to native offenders.
In March, 1912, Regulations concerning Flogging and the Enforcing Detailed Regulations being promulgated, many improvements were made in the measures hitherto practiced.
Women, boys under the age of fifteen and old men over the age of sixty are exempt from flogging, while the infliction of this punishment on sick convicts and on the insane is to be postponed for six months.
The method of infliction was also improved so that by observing greater humanity, unnecessary pain in carrying out a flogging could be avoided, as far as possible,"[1] [Footnote 1: Annual Report of Reforms and Progress in Chosen.
Keijo (Seoul), 1914.]
So much for the official claim.
Now for the facts.
In the last year for which returns are available, 1916-17, 82,121 offenders were handled by police summary judgment, that is, punished by the police on the spot, without trial.
Two-thirds of these punishments (in the last year when actual flogging figures were published) were floggings.
The instrument used is two bamboos lashed together.
The maximum legal sentence is ninety blows, thirty a day for three days in succession.
To talk of this as "greater humanity" or "avoiding unnecessary pain" gives me nausea.
Any experienced official who has had to do with such things will bear me out in the assertion that it is deliberately calculated to inflict the maximum of pain which the human frame can stand, and in the most long drawn out manner.
Sick men, women and boys and old men are flogged.
In the disturbances of 1919 wounded men who were being nursed in the foreign hospitals in Seoul were taken out by the police to be flogged, despite the protests of doctors and nurses.
There were many cases reported of old men being flogged.
The stripping and flogging of women, particularly young women, was notorious.
Here is one case of the flogging of boys.
The following letter from a missionary in Sun-chon--where there is a Presbyterian hospital,--dated May 25, 1919, was printed in the report of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America.
I have seen other communications from people who saw these boys, amply confirming the letter, if it requires confirmation.
Eleven Kangkei boys came here from ----.
All the eleven were beaten ninety stripes--thirty each day for three days, May 16, 17 and 18, and let out May 18th.
Nine came here May 22nd, and two more May 24th.
Tak Chan-kuk died about noon, May 23rd.
Kim Myungha died this evening.
Kim Hyungsun is very sick.
Kim Chungsun and Song Taksam are able to walk but are badly broken.
Kim Oosik seemed very doubtful but afterwards improved.
Choi Tungwon, Kim Changook, Kim Sungkil, and Ko Pongsu are able to be about, though the two have broken flesh.
Kim Syungha rode from ---on his bicycle and reached here about an hour before his brother died.
The first six who came into the hospital were in a dreadful fix, four days after the beating.
No dressing or anything had been done for them.
Dr. Sharrocks just told me that he feels doubtful about some of the others since Myungha died.
It is gangrene.
One of these boys is a Chun Kyoin, and another is not a Christian, but the rest are all Christians.
Mr. Lampe has photographs.
The stripes were laid on to the buttocks and the flesh pounded into a pulp.
Greater humanity!
Avoiding unnecessary pain!
It is obvious that the method of police absolutism is open to very great abuse.
In practice it works out as galling tyranny.
A quotation from the _Japan Chronicle_ illustrates one of the abuses: "In the course of interpellations put forward by a certain member in the last session of the Diet, he remarked on the strength of a statement made by a public procurator of high rank in Korea, that it was usual for a gendarme who visits a Korean house for the purpose of searching for a criminal to violate any female inmate of the house and to take away any article that suits his fancy.
And not only had the wronged Koreans no means of obtaining redress for this outrageous conduct, but the judicial authorities could take no proceedings against the offender as they must necessarily depend upon the gendarmerie for acceptable evidence of crime."
The police tyranny does not end with flogging.
When a person is arrested, he is at once shut off from communication with his friends.
He is not, necessarily, informed of the charge against him; his friends are not informed.
He is not in the early stages allowed counsel.
All that his friends know is that he has disappeared in the grip of the police, and he may remain out of sight or sound for months before being brought to trial or released.
During this period of confinement the prisoner is first in the hands of the police who are getting up the case against him.
It is their work to extract a confession.
To obtain this they practice torture, often of the most elaborate type.
This is particularly true where the prisoners are charged with political offences.
I deal with this aspect of affairs more in detail in later chapters, so that there is no need of me to bring proof at this point.
After the police have completed their case, the prisoner is brought before the procurator, whose office would, if rightly used, be a check on the police.
But in many cases the police act as procurators in Korea, and in others the procurators and police work hand in hand.
When the prisoner is brought before the court he has little of the usual protection afforded in a British or American Court.
It is for him to prove his innocence of the charge.
His judge is the nominee of the Government-General and is its tool, who practically does what the Government-General tells him.
The complaint of the most sober and experienced friends of the Koreans is that they cannot obtain justice unless it is deemed expedient by the authorities to give them justice.
Under this system crime has enormously increased.
The police create it.
The best evidence of this is contained in the official figures.
In the autumn of 1912 Count Terauchi stated, in answer to the report that thousands of Korean Christians had been confined in jail, that he had caused enquiry to be made and there were only 287 Koreans confined in the various jails of the country (_New York Sun_, October 3, 1912).
The Count's figures were almost certainly incorrect, or else the police released all the prisoners on the day the reckoning was taken, except the necessary few kept for effect.
The actual number of convicts in Korea in 1912 was close on twelve thousand, according to the official details published later.
If they were true they make the contrast with later years the more amazing.
The increase of arrests and convictions is shown in the following official return.
NUMBER OF KOREANS IMPRISONED Convicts Awaiting trial Total 1911 7,342 9,465 16,807 1912 9,652 9,842 19,494 1913 11,652 10,194 21,846 1914 12,962 11,472 24,434 1915 14,411 12,844 27,255 1916 17,577 15,259 32,836 Individual liberty is non-existent.
The life of the Korean is regulated down to the smallest detail.
If he is rich, he is generally required to have a Japanese steward who will supervise his expenditure.
If he has money in the bank, he can only draw a small sum out at a time, unless he gives explanation why he needs it.
He has not the right of free meeting, free speech or a free press.
Before a paper or book can be published it has to pass the censor.
This censorship is carried to an absurd degree.
It starts with school books; it goes on to every word a man may write or speak.
It applies to the foreigners as well as Koreans.
The very commencement day speeches of school children are censored.
The Japanese journalist in Korea who dares to criticize the administration is sent to prison almost as quickly as the Korean.
Japanese newspaper men have found it intolerable and have gone back to Japan, refusing to work under it.
There is only one newspaper now published in Korea in the Korean language, and it is edited by a Japanese.
An American missionary published a magazine, and attempted to include in it a few mild comments on current events.
He was sternly bidden not to attempt it again.
Old books published before the Japanese acquired control have been freely destroyed.
Thus a large number of school books--not in the least partizan--prepared by Professor Hulbert were destroyed.
The most ludicrous example of censorship gone mad was experienced by Dr. Gale, one of the oldest, most learned and most esteemed of the missionaries in Korea.
Dr. Gale is a British subject.
For a long time he championed the Japanese cause, until the Japanese destroyed his confidence by their brutalities in 1919.
But the fact that Dr. Gale was their most influential friend did not check the Japanese censors.
On one occasion Dr. Gale learned that some Korean "Readers" prepared by him for use in schools had been condemned.
He enquired the reason.
The Censor replied that the book "contained dangerous thoughts."
Still more puzzled, the doctor politely enquired if the Censor would show the passages containing "dangerous thoughts."
The Censor thereupon pointed out a translation of Kipling's famous story of the elephant, which had been included in the book.
"In that story," said he ominously, "the elephant refused to serve his _second_ master."
What could be more obvious that Dr. Gale was attempting to teach Korean children, in this subtle fashion, to refuse to serve _their_ second master, the Japanese Emperor!
For a Korean to be a journalist has been for him to be a marked man liable to constant arrest, not for what he did or does, but for what the police suppose he may do or might have done.
The natural result of this has been to drive Koreans out of regular journalism, and to lead to the creation of a secret press.
The next great group of grievances of Koreans come under the head of Exploitation.
From the beginning the Japanese plan has been to take as much land as possible from the Koreans and hand it over to Japanese.
Every possible trick has been used to accomplish this.
In the early days of the Japanese occupation, the favourite plan was to seize large tracts of land on the plea that they were needed for the Army or Navy; to pay a pittance for them; and then to pass considerable portions of them on to Japanese.
"There can be no question," admitted Mr. W.D.
Stevens, the American member and supporter of Prince Ito's administration, "that at the outset the military authorities in Korea did intimate an intention of taking more land for their uses than seemed reasonable."
The first attempt of the Japanese to grab in wholesale fashion the public lands of Korea, under the so-called Nagamori scheme, aroused so much indignation that it was withdrawn.
Then they set about accomplishing the same end in other ways.
Much of the land of Korea was public land, held by tenants from time immemorial under a loose system of tenancy.
This was taken over by the Government-General All leases were examined, and people called on to show their rights to hold their property.
This worked to the same end.
The Oriental Development Company was formed for the primary purpose of developing Korea by Japanese and settling Japanese on Korean land, Japanese immigrants being given free transportation, land for settlement, implements and other assistance.
This company is an immense semi-official trust of big financial interests in direct cöoperation with the Government, and is supported by an official subsidy of £50,000 a year.
Working parallel to it is the Bank of Chosen, the semi-official banking institution which has been placed supreme and omnipotent in Korean finance.
How this works was explained by a writer in the New York _Times_ (January 29, 1919).
"These people declined to part with their heritage.
It was here that the power of the Japanese Government was felt in a manner altogether Asiatic....
Through its branches this powerful financial institution ... called in all the specie in the country, thus making, as far as circulating-medium is concerned, the land practically valueless.
In order to pay taxes and to obtain the necessaries of life, the Korean must have cash, and in order to obtain it, he must sell his land.
Land values fell very rapidly, and in some instances land was purchased by the agents of the Bank of Chosen for one-fifth of its former valuation."
There may be some dispute about the methods employed.
There can be no doubt about the result.
One-fifth of the richest land in Korea is to-day in Japanese hands.
Allied to this system of land exploitation comes the Corvee, or forced labour exacted from the country people for road making.
In moderation this might be unobjectionable.
As enforced by the Japanese authorities, it has been an appalling burden.
The Japanese determined to have a system of fine roads.
They have built them--by the Corvee.
The most convincing evidence for outsiders on this land exploitation and on the harshness of the Corvee comes from Japanese sources.
Dr. Yoshino, a professor of the Imperial University of Tokyo, salaried out of the Government Treasury, made a special study of Korea.
He wrote in the _Taschuo-Koron_ of Tokyo, that the Koreans have no objection to the construction of good roads, but that the official way of carrying out the work is tyrannical.
"Without consideration and mercilessly, they have resorted to laws for the expropriation of land, the Koreans concerned being compelled to part with their family property almost for nothing.
On many occasions they have also been forced to work in the construction of roads without receiving any wages.
To make matters worse, they must work for nothing only on the days which are convenient to the officials, however inconvenient these days may be to the unpaid workers."
The result has generally been that while the roads were being built for the convenient march of the Japanese troops to suppress the builders of the roads, many families were bankrupted and starving.
"The Japanese make improvements," say the Koreans.
"But they make them to benefit their own people, not us.
They improve agriculture, and turn the Korean farmers out and replace them by Japanese.
They pave and put sidewalks in a Seoul street, but the old Korean shopkeepers in that street have gone, and Japanese have come.
They encourage commerce, Japanese commerce, but the Korean tradesman is hampered and tied down in many ways."
Education has been wholly Japanized.
That is to say the primary purpose of the schools is to teach Korean children to be good Japanese subjects.
Teaching is mostly done in Japanese, by Japanese teachers.
The whole ritual and routine is towards the glorification of Japan.
The Koreans complain, however, that, apart from this, the system of teaching established for Koreans in Korea is inferior to that established for Japanese there.
Japanese and Korean children are taught in separate schools.
The course of education for Koreans is four years, for Japanese six.
The number of schools provided for Japanese is proportionately very much larger than for Koreans, and a much larger sum of money is spent on them.
The Japanese may however claim, with some justice, that they are in the early days of the development of Korean education, and they must be given more time to develop it.
Koreans bitterly complain of the ignoring of Korean history in the public schools, and the systematic efforts to destroy old sentiments.
These efforts, however, have been markedly unsuccessful, and the Government school students were even more active than mission school students in the Independence movement.
It was a Japanese journalist who published the case of the Principal of a Public School for girls who roused the indignation of the girls under him during a lecture on Ethics with the syllogism, "Savages are healthy; Koreans are healthy; therefore Koreans are savages."
Other teachers roused their young pupils to fury, after the death of the ex-Emperor, by employing openly of him the phrase which ordinarily indicates a low-class coolie.
In the East, where honorifics and exact designations count for much, no greater insults could be imagined.
The greatest hardships of the régime of the Government-General have been the denial of justice, the destruction of liberty, the shutting out of the people from all real participation in administration, the lofty assumption and display of a spirit of insolent superiority by the Japanese, and the deliberate degradation of the people by the cultivation of vice for the purpose of personal profit.
In the old days, opium was practically unknown.
Today opium is being cultivated on a large scale under the direct encouragement of the Government, and the sale of morphia is carried on by large numbers of Japanese itinerant merchants.
In the old days, vice hid its head.
To-day the most prominent feature at night-time in Seoul, the capital, is the brilliantly lit Yoshiwara, officially created and run by Japanese, into which many Korean girls are dragged.
Quarters of ill fame have been built up in many parts of the land, and Japanese panders take their gangs of diseased women on tours through smaller districts.
On one occasion when I visited Sun-chon I found that the authorities had ordered some of the Christians to find accommodation in their homes for Japanese women of ill fame.
Some Koreans in China sent a petition to the American Minister in Peking which dealt with some moral aspects of the Japanese rule of Korea.
They said: "The Japanese have encouraged immorality by removing Korean marriage restrictions, and allowing marriages without formality and without regard for age.
There have been marriages at as early an age as twelve.
Since the annexation there have been 80,000 divorce cases in Korea.
The Japanese encourage, as a source of revenue, the sale of Korean prostitutes in Chinese cities.
Many of these prostitutes are only fourteen and fifteen years old.
It is a part of the Japanese policy of race extermination, by which they hope to destroy all Koreans.
May God regard these facts.
"The Japanese Government has established a bureau for the sale of opium, and under the pretext that opium was to be used for medicinal purposes has caused Koreans and Formosans to engage in poppy cultivation.
The opium is secretly shipped into China.
Because of the Japanese encouragement of this traffic many Koreans have become users of the drug.
"The Japanese forbid any school courses for Koreans higher than the middle school and the higher schools established by missionary organizations are severely regulated.
The civilization of the Far East originated in China, and was brought first to Korea and thence to Japan.
The ancient books were more numerous in Korea than in Japan, but after annexation the Japanese set about destroying these books, so that Koreans should not be able to learn them.
This 'burning of the books and murder of the literati' was for the purpose of debasing the Koreans and robbing them of their ancient culture.... "How can our race avoid extermination?
Even if the Government of Japan were benevolent, how could the Japanese understand the aches and pains of another race of people?
With her evil Government can there be anything but racial extermination for us?"
From the time of the reopening of Korea the Japanese have treated the Koreans in personal intercourse as the dust beneath their feet, or as one might imagine a crude and vixenish tempered woman of peasant birth whose husband had acquired great wealth by some freak of fortune treating an unfortunate poor gentlewoman who had come in her employment.
This was bad enough in the old days; since the Japanese acquired full power in Korea it has become infinitely worse.
The Japanese coolie punches the Korean who chances to stand in his august path.
The Japanese woman, wife of a little trader, spits out the one contemptuous sentence she has learned in the Korean tongue, when a Korean man draws near on the boat or on the train.
The little official assumes an air of ineffable disdain and contempt.
A member of the Japanese Diet was reported in the Japanese press to have said that in Korea the Japanese gendarmes were in the habit of exacting from the Korean school children the amount of deference which in Japan would be proper to the Imperial Household.
The lowest Japanese coolie practices the right to kick, beat and cuff a Korean of high birth at his pleasure, and the Korean has in effect no redress.
Had the Koreans from the first have met blow with blow, a number of them no doubt would have died, but the Japanese would have been cured of the habit.
The Korean dislike of fighting, until he has really some serious reason for a fight, has encouraged the Japanese bully; but it makes the bully's offence none the less.
Japanese officials in many instances seem to delight in exaggerating their contempt on those under them.
This is particularly true of some of the Japanese teachers.
Like all Government officials, these teachers wear swords, symbols of power.
Picture the dignity of the teacher of a class of little boys who lets his sword clang to terrify the youngsters under him, or who tries to frighten the girls by displaying his weapon.
The iron rule of Terauchi was followed by the iron rule of Hasegawa, his successor.
The struggle of the rebel army in the hills had died down.
But men got together, wondering what steps they could take.
Christians and non-Christians found a common bond of union.
Their life had come to a pass where it was better to die than to live under unchecked tyranny.
Thus the Independence movement came into being.
The Koreans who, despoiled of their homes or determined to submit no longer to Japan, escaped into Manchuria, escaped as a rule by the difficult and dangerous journey across the high mountain passes.
What this journey means can best be understood from a report by the Rev.
W.T.
Cook, of the Manchuria Christian College at Moukden.
"The untold afflictions of the Korean immigrants coming into Manchuria will doubtless never be fully realized, even by those actually witnessing their distress.
In the still closeness of a forty below zero climate in the dead of winter, the silent stream of white clad figures creeps over the icy mountain passes, in groups of tens, twenties and fifties, seeking a new world of subsistence, willing to take a chance of life and death in a hand-to-hand struggle with the stubborn soil of Manchuria's wooded and stony hillsides.
Here, by indefatigable efforts, they seek to extract a living by applying the grub axe and hand hoe to the barren mountain sides above the Chinese fields, planting and reaping by hand between the roots the sparse yield that is often insufficient to sustain life.
"Many have died from insufficient food.
Not only women and children but young men have been frozen to death.
Sickness also claims its toll under these new conditions of exposure.
Koreans have been seen standing barefooted on the broken ice of a riverside fording place, rolling up their baggy trousers before wading through the broad stream, two feet deep, of ice cold water, then standing on the opposite side while they hastily readjust their clothing and shoes.
"Women with insufficient clothing, and parts of their bodies exposed, carry little children on their backs, thus creating a mutual warmth in a slight degree, but it is in this way that the little ones' feet, sticking out from the binding basket, get frozen and afterwards fester till the tiny toes stick together.
Old men and women, with bent backs and wrinkled faces, walk the uncomplaining miles until their old limbs refuse to call them further.
"Thus it is by households they come, old and young, weak and strong, big and little....
Babies have been born in wayside inns.
"In this way over 75,000 Koreans have entered during the past year, until the number of Koreans now living in both the north and western portions of Manchuria now totals nearly half a million.
"[2] [Footnote 2: Report to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions.]
XII THE MISSIONARIES I have had occasion in previous chapters to make occasional reference to the work of the missionaries in Korea.
It is necessary now to deal with them in detail, for they had become one of the great factors, and from the Japanese point of view one of the great problems, of the country.
Long before Korea was open to the outside world, missionary pioneers tried to enter it.
The French Catholics forced admission as far back as the end of the eighteenth century, and made many converts, who were afterwards exterminated.
Gutzaleff, a famous Protestant pioneer, landed on an island at Basil's Bay, in 1832, and remained there a month, distributing Chinese literature.
Mr. Thomas, a British missionary, secured a passage on board the ill-fated _General Sherman_ in 1866, and was killed with the rest of the crew.
Dr. Ross, the Scottish Presbyterian missionary of Moukden, Manchuria, became interested in the Koreans, studied their language, talked with every Korean he could find, and built up a grammar of the language, publishing an English-Korean primer in 1876.
He and a colleague, Mr. McIntyre, published Gospels in the language, and opened up a work among the Koreans on the north side of the Yalu.
Those who can recall the state of that district in the days before railways were opened and order established, can best appreciate the nerve and daring needed for the task.
They made converts, and one of these converts took some newly printed Christian books and set back home, reaching Seoul itself, spreading the new religion among his friends.
It was two years after the opening of Korea to the West before the first missionary arrived.
In 1884 Dr. Allen, a Presbyterian physician (afterwards United States Minister to Korea), arrived at Seoul.
It was very doubtful at this time how missionaries would be received, or how their converts would be treated.
The law enacting death against any man who became a Christian was still unrepealed, but it was not enforced.
Officialism might, however, revive it at any time.
It was thought advisable, when the first converts were baptized in 1887, to perform the ceremony behind closed doors, with an earnest and athletic young American educationalist, Homer B. Hulbert, acting as guard.
Dr. Allen was soon followed by others.
Dr. Underwood, brother of the famous manufacturer of typewriting machines, was the first non-medical missionary.
The American and Canadian Presbyterians and Methodists undertook the main work, and the Church of England set up a bishopric.
Women missionary doctors came, and at once won a place for themselves.
Names like Appenzeller, Scranton, Bunker and Gale--to name a few of the pioneers--have won a permanent place in the history of missions.
The missionaries found a land almost without religion, with few temples and few monks or priests.
Buddhism had been discredited by the treachery of some Japanese Buddhists during the great Japanese invasion by Hideyoshi in 1592, and no Buddhist priest was allowed inside the city of Seoul.
Young men of official rank studied their Confucius diligently, but to them Confucianism was more a theory for the conduct of life and a road to high office than a religion.
The main religion of the people was Shamanism, the fear of evil spirits.
It darkened their souls, as the tales of a foolish nurse about goblins darken the mind of a sensitive and imaginative child.
The spirits of Shamanism were evil, not good, a curse, not a blessing, bringing terror, not hope.
Christianity was very fortunate in its representatives.
I have seen much of the missionaries of Manchuria and Korea.
A finer, straighter lot of men I never want to meet.
The magnificent climate enables them to keep at the top of form.
They have initiative, daring and common sense.
Those I have known are born leaders, who would have made their mark anywhere, in business or politics.
In the early days they had to be ready to set their hands to anything, to plan and build houses and churches, to open schools, to run a boat down dangerous rapids or face a dangerous mob, to overawe a haughty yang-ban or break in a dangerous horse.
They were the pioneers of civilization as well as of Christianity.
Religion had to be commended by the courage of its adherents.
When there came a dangerous uprising, and every one else fled, the missionary had to stay at his post.
When an epidemic of cholera or yellow fever swept over a district, the missionary had to act as doctor or nurse.
Sometimes the missionary died, as Dr. Heron died at Seoul and McKenzie at Sorai.
Their deaths were even more effective than their lives in winning people.
Dr. Allen gained a foothold soon after his arrival by sticking to his post in Seoul during the uprising against foreigners that followed the attack by the Japanese and the reformers on the Cabinet and their seizure of the King and Queen.
When Min Yung-ik, the Queen's nephew, was badly wounded, Dr. Allen attended to him and saved his life.
Henceforth the King was the missionaries' friend.
He built a hospital and placed Dr. Allen in charge.
Women missionary doctors were appointed Court physicians to the Queen.
There were years of waiting, when the converts were few, and when it seemed that the barriers of four thousand years never would be broken down.
Then came the Chino-Japanese War.
Koreans were forced to see that this Western civilization, which had enabled little Japan to beat the Chinese giant, must mean something.
A young man from Indiana, Samuel Moffett, with a companion, Graham Lee, had gone some time before to Pyeng-yang, reputedly the worst city in Korea.
Here they had been stoned and abused.
When the Chinese Army came to Pyeng-yang, and the country was devastated in the great and decisive battle between the Chinese and Japanese, these two men stayed by the Koreans in their darkest and most perilous hours.
Koreans still tell how "Moksa" Moffett put on the dress of a Korean mourner and went freely around despite the Chinese, who would have almost certainly devised a specially lingering death for him, had they discovered his presence.
"There must be something in this religion," said the Koreans.
Sturdy old John Newton's belief that the worst sinner makes the finest saint was borne out in the case of Pyeng-yang.
It became in a few years one of the greatest scenes of missionary triumph in Asia.
The harvest was ripening now.
In Seoul men flung into jail for political offences turned to prayer in the darkness and despair of their torture chambers, and went to death praising God.
The Secretary to the King's Cabinet preached salvation to his fellow Cabinet Ministers.
The tens of converts grew to tens of thousands.
From the first, the Koreans showed themselves to be Christians of a very unusual type.
They started by reforming their homes, giving their wives liberty and demanding education for their children.
They took the promises and commands of the Bible literally and established a standard of conduct for church members which, if it were enforced in some older Christian communities, would cause a serious contraction of the church rolls.
The first convert set out to preach to his friends.
Latter converts imitated his example.
From Pyeng-yang the movement spread to Sun-chon, which in a few years rivalled Pyeng-yang as a Christian centre.
From here Christianity spread to the Yalu and up the Tumen River.
The Koreans themselves established Christianity in distant communities where no white man had ever been.
Soon many of the missionaries were kept busy for several months each year travelling with pack-pony and mafoo, from station to station in the most remote parts of the country, fording and swimming unbridged rivers, climbing mountain passes, inspecting and examining and instructing the converts, admitting them to church membership and organizing them for still more effective work.
When I hear the cheap sneers of the obtuse stay-at-home or globe-trotter critics against missionaries and their converts, I am amused.
It gives me the measure of the men, particularly of the globetrotters.
When the British and American Churches seek to send out missionaries, the British and American people will have registered the sure sign of their decadence.
For the Churches and nations will then cease to be alive.
In travelling through the north country I employed a number of the Christian converts, I found them clean and honest, good, hard workers, men who showed their religion not by talk, but by good, straight action.
It is a grief to me to know that some of these "boys" have since, because of their prominence as Christian workers, been the victims of official persecution.
Under the influence of the missionaries many schools were opened; hospitals and dispensaries were maintained, and a considerable literature, educational as well as religious, was circulated.
When the Japanese landed in Korea in 1904, the missionaries welcomed them.
They knew the tyranny and abuses of the old Government, and believed that the Japanese would help to better things.
The ill-treatment of helpless Koreans by Japanese soldiers and coolies caused a considerable reaction of feeling.
When, however, Prince Ito became Resident-General the prevailing sentiment was that it would be better for the people to submit and to make the best of existing conditions, in the hope that the harshness and injustice of Japanese rule would pass.
Most of the Europeans and Americans in Korea at the time adopted this line.
I travelled largely in the interior of Korea in 1906 and 1907.
Groups of influential Koreans came to me telling their grievances and asking what to do.
Sometimes big assemblies of men asked me to address them.
They believed me to be their friend, and were willing to trust me.
My advice was always the same.
"Submit and make yourselves better men.
You can do nothing now by taking up arms.
Educate your children, improve your homes, better your lives.
Show the Japanese by your conduct and your self-control that you are as good as they are, and fight the corruption and apathy that helped to bring your nation to its present position."
Let me add that I did what I could in England, at the same time, to call attention to their grievances.
Prince Ito was openly sympathetic to the missionaries and to their medical and educational work.
He once explained why, in a public gathering at Seoul.
"In the early years of Japan's reformation, the senior statesmen were opposed to religious toleration, especially because of distrust of Christianity.
But I fought vehemently for freedom of belief and religious propaganda, and finally triumphed.
My reasoning was this: Civilization depends on morality and the highest morality upon religion.
Therefore religion must be tolerated and encouraged."
Ito passed off the scene, Korea was formally annexed to Japan, and Count Terauchi became Governor-General.
Terauchi was unsympathetic to Christianity and a new order of affairs began.
One of the difficulties of the Christians was over the direction that children in schools and others should bow before the picture of the Japanese Emperor on feast days.
The Japanese tried to maintain to the missionaries that this was only a token of respect; the Christians declared that it was an act of adoration.
To the Japanese his Emperor is a divine being, the descendant of the gods.
Christians who refused to bow were carefully noted as malignants.
In the famous Conspiracy Case, the official Assistant Procurator, in urging the conviction of one of the men, said: "He was head teacher of the Sin-an School, Chong-ju, and was a notorious man of anti-Japanese sentiments.
He was the very obstinate member of the Society who, at a meeting on the first anniversary of the birthday of the Emperor of Japan after the annexation of Korea, refused to bow before the Imperial picture on the ground that such an act was worshipping an image."
This one item was the only fact that the Assistant Procurator produced to prove the head teacher's guilt.
He was convicted, and awarded seven years' penal servitude.
A strong effort was made to Japanize the Korean Churches, to make them branches of the Japanese Churches, and to make them instruments in the Japanese campaign of assimilation.
The missionaries resisted this to the utmost.
They declared that they would be neutral in political matters, as they were directed by their Governments to be.
Having failed to win them over to their side, the Japanese authorities entered into a campaign for the breaking down of the Churches, particularly the Presbyterian Churches of the north.
I am well aware that they deny this, but here is a case where actions and speeches cannot be reconciled.
Attempts were pushed to create churches of Koreans under Japanese.
Son Pyung-hi, who had proved a good friend of Japan during the Chinese War, had been encouraged by the Japanese some time before to start a religious sect, the Chon-do Kyo, which it was hoped would replace Christianity, and prove a useful weapon for Japan.
Here a blunder was made, for later on Son Pyung-hi flung all his influence against Japan and worked with the native Christian leaders to start the Independence movement.
More important than either of these two things, however, direct persecution was begun.
Several hundred Korean Christian leaders in the north were arrested, and out of them 144 were taken to Seoul, tortured, and charged with a conspiracy to murder the Governor-General.
Various missionaries were named as their partners in crime.
The tale of the conspiracy was a complete fabrication manufactured by the police.
I describe it fully in the next chapter.
Following this came regulations aimed at the missionary schools and institutions.
At the time of annexation, almost the whole of the real modern education of Korea was undertaken by the missionaries, who were maintaining 778 schools.
A series of Educational Ordinances was promulgated in March, 1915, directing that no religious teaching is to be permitted in private schools, and no religious ceremonies allowed to be performed.
The Japanese authorities made no secret of their intention of eventually closing all missionary schools, on the ground that even when religious teaching was excluded, pupils were influenced by their teachers, and the influence of the foreign teachers was against the Japanization of the Koreans.
Mr. Komatsu, Director of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs, put this point without any attempt at concealment, in a public statement.
"Our object of education is not only to develop the intellect and morality of our people, but also to foster in their minds such national spirit as will contribute to the existence and welfare of our Empire....
I sincerely hope that you will appreciate this change of the time and understand that missions should leave all affairs relating entirely to education entirely in the hands of the Government, by transferring the money and labour they have hitherto been expending on education to their proper sphere of religious propagation.... Whatever the curriculum of a school may be, it is natural that the students of that school should be influenced by the ideas and personal character of its principal and teachers.
Education must be decidedly nationalistic and must not be mixed up with religion that is universal."
This is a much harsher regulation against missions than prevails in Japan, where mission schools are allowed to continue their work, with freedom to carry on their religious teaching.
The Government-General agreed to allow mission schools that had already obtained Government permits to continue for ten years without having the regulations enforced.
Schools that had applied for the permit but had not obtained it, owing to formal official delays, were ordered to obey or close, and police were sent to see that they closed.
The Government commanded the mission schools to cease using their own text-books and to use the officially prepared text-books.
These are carefully prepared to eliminate "dangerous thoughts," _i.e._, anything that will promote a desire for freedom.
They directly teach ancestral worship.
The missionaries have protested in every way they can.
The Government-General is adamant.
Before the start of the Independence movement the mission schools were being carefully watched.
Dr. Arthur J.
Brown gives one example of their experiences,[1] in connection with the graduating exercises at the Pyeng-yang Junior College last year.
[Footnote 1: "The Mastery of the Far East," by Arthur Judson Brown.]
"Four students made addresses.
The foreigners present deemed them void of offence, but the police declared that all the speakers had said things subversive of the public good.
The students were arrested, interrogated and then released, as their previous records had been good.
The provincial chief of gendarmes, however, summoned the students before him and again investigated the case.
The president of the college was called to the office, and strictly charged to exercise greater care in the future.
The matter was then reported to the Governor of the Province, and then to the Governor-General.
The latter wrote to the president of the college that the indiscretion of the students was so serious that the Government was contemplating closing the school.
A similar communication was sent by the Governor-General to the provincial Governor, who thereupon called the president to his office, and said that unless he was prepared to make certain changes the school would have to close.
These changes were enumerated as follows: (1) Appointment of a Japanese head master; (2) dismissal of three of the boys who had spoken; relief of the fourth from certain assignments of teaching which he was doing in the academy, and promise not to repeat the oratorical program in the future; (3) secure more Japanese teachers, especially those who could understand Korean; (4) do all teaching, except the Chinese classics, Korean language and English, through the medium of the Japanese language; prepare syllabi of the subjects of instruction, so as to limit it to specified points, teachers not to deviate from them nor to speak on forbidden subjects; (6) conform to the new regulations.
(That is, eliminate all Christian instruction.)
When the president replied that he would do all that he could to make the first five changes desired, but that as to the sixth change, the mission preferred to continue for the present under the old permit which entitled the college to the ten year period of grace, the official was plainly disappointed, and he intimated that number six was the most important of all."
The Independence movement in 1919 enormously increased the difficulties of the missionaries, although they refrained from any direct or indirect participation in it, and the Koreans carefully avoided letting them know anything ahead about it.
The difficulties of the missionaries, and the direct action of the authorities against Christianity at that time is told later, in the chapters dealing with the movement.
The Japanese authorities will probably do two things.
They will order the closing of schools under various pretexts where Christian teaching is still maintained.
They will endeavour to secure the elimination of those missionaries who have shown a marked sympathy with the Korean people.
They have ample powers to prosecute any missionary who is guilty of doing anything to aid disaffection.
They have repeatedly searched missionary homes and missionaries themselves to find evidence of this.
Save in the case of Mr. Mowry, who was convicted of sheltering some students wanted by the police, they have failed.
Even in that case the original conviction has been quashed on appeal.
Such evidence does not exist, because the missionaries have been really neutral.
Neutrality does not satisfy Japan; she wants them to come out on her side.
Unfortunately her action this year has turned many away from her who tried hard up to then to be her friends.
XIII TORTURE A LA MODE "The main thing, when you are tortured, is to remain calm."
The Korean spoke quietly and in a matter-of-fact way.
He himself had suffered torture in its most severe form.
Possibly he thought there was a chance that I, too, might have a personal experience.
"Do not struggle.
Do not fight," he continued.
"For instance, if you are strung up by the thumbs and you struggle and kick desperately, you may die on the spot.
Keep absolutely still; it is easier to endure it in this way.
Compel your mind to think of other things."
Torture!
Who talks of torture in these enlightened days?
Let me tell you the tale of the Conspiracy Case, as revealed in the evidence given in open court, and then judge for yourself.
When the heads of the Terauchi administration had made up their minds that the northern Christians were inimical to the progress of the Japanese scheme of assimilation, they set their spies to work.
Now the rank and file of spies are very much alike in all parts of the world.
They are ignorant and often misunderstand things.
When they cannot find the evidence they require, they will manufacture it.
The Japanese spies were exceptionally ignorant.
First they made up their minds that the northern Christians were plotting against Japan, and then they searched for evidence.
They attended church services.
Here they heard many gravely suspicious things.
There were hymns of war, like "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "Soldiers of Christ Arise."
What could these mean but that Christians were urged to become an army and attack the Japanese?
Dangerous doctrines were openly taught in the churches and mission schools.
They learned that Mr. McCune, the Sun-chon missionary, took the story of David and Goliath as the subject for a lesson, pointing out that a weak man armed with righteousness was more powerful than a mighty enemy.
To the spies, this was nothing but a direct incitement to the weak Koreans to fight strong Japan.
Mission premises were searched.
Still more dangerous material was found there, including school essays, written by the students, on men who had rebelled against their Governments or had fought, such as George Washington and Napoleon.
A native pastor had preached about the Kingdom of Heaven; this was rank treason.
He was arrested and warned that "there is only one kingdom out here, and that is the kingdom of Japan."
In the autumn of 1911 wholesale arrests were made of Christian preachers, teachers, students and prominent church members, particularly in the provinces of Sun-chon and Pyeng-yang.
In the Hugh O'Neill, Jr., Industrial Academy, in Sun-chon, one of the most famous educational establishments in Korea--where the principal had made the unfortunate choice of David and Goliath for one of his addresses--so many pupils and teachers were seized by the police that the school had to close.
The men were hurried to jail.
They were not allowed to communicate with their friends, nor to obtain the advice of counsel.
They and their friends were not informed of the charge against them.
This is in accordance with Japanese criminal law.
Eventually 149 persons were sent to Seoul to be placed on trial.
Three were reported to have died under torture or as the result of imprisonment, twenty-three were exiled without trial or released, and 123 were arraigned at the Local Court in Seoul on June 28, 1912, on a charge of conspiracy to assassinate Count Terauchi, Governor-General of Korea.
"The character of the accused men is significant," wrote Dr. Arthur Judson Brown, an authority who can scarcely be accused by his bitterest critics of unfriendliness to Japan.
"Here were no criminal types, no baser elements of the population, but men of the highest standing, long and intimately known to the missionaries as Koreans of faith and purity of life, and conspicuous for their good influence over the people.
Two were Congregationalists, six Methodists and eighty-nine Presbyterians.
Of the Presbyterians, five were pastors of churches, eight were elders, eight deacons, ten leaders of village groups of Christians, forty-two baptized church members, and thirteen catechumens....
It is about as difficult for those who know them to believe that any such number of Christian ministers, elders and teachers had committed crime as it would be for the people of New Jersey to believe that the faculty, students and local clergy of Princeton were conspirators and assassins."
Baron Yun Chi-ho, the most conspicuous of the prisoners, had formerly been Vice Foreign Minister under the old Korean Government, and was reckoned by all who knew him as one of the most progressive and sane men in the country.
He was a prominent Christian, wealthy, of high family, a keen educationalist, vice-president of the Korean Y.M.C.A., had travelled largely, spoke English fluently, and had won the confidence and good will of every European or American in Korea with whom he came in contact.
Yang Ki-tak, formerly Mr. Bethell's newspaper associate, had on this account been a marked man by the Japanese police.
He had been previously arrested under the Peace Preservation Act, sentenced to two years' imprisonment and pardoned under an amnesty.
He had also previously been examined twice in connection with the charge against the assassin of Prince Ito, and twice on account of the attack made on Yi, the traitor Premier, but had each time been acquitted.
"I am not very much concerned as to what happens to me now," he said, "but I do protest against being punished on a charge of which I am innocent."
The case for the prosecution was based on the confessions of the prisoners themselves.
According to these confessions, a body of Koreans, in association with the New People's Society, headed by Baron Yun Chi-ho, plotted to murder General Terauchi, and assembled at various railway stations for that purpose, when the Governor-General was travelling northwards, more particularly at Sun-chon, on December 28, 1910.
They were armed with ready revolvers, short swords or daggers, and were only prevented from carrying out their purpose by the vigilance of the gendarmerie.
A number of missionaries were named as their associates or sympathizers.
Chief of these was Mr. McCune, who, according to the confessions, distributed revolvers among the conspirators and told them at Sun-chon that he would point out the right man by shaking hands with him.
Dr. Moffett of Pyeng-yang, Dr. Underwood of Seoul, Bishop Harris, the Methodist Bishop for Japan and Korea who had long been conspicuous as a defender of the Japanese Administration, and a number of other prominent missionaries were implicated.
When the prisoners were faced by these confessions in the open court they arose, one after another, almost without exception, and declared either that they had been forced from them by sustained and intolerable torture, or that they had been reduced by torture to insensibility and then on recovery had been told by the Japanese police that they had made the confessions.
Those who had assented under torture had in nearly every case said "Yes" to the statements put to them by the police.
Now that they could speak, they stoutly denied the charges.
They knew nothing of any conspiracy.
The only man who admitted a murder plot in court was clearly demented.
The trial was held in a fashion which aroused immediate and wide-spread indignation.
It was held, of course, in Japanese, and the official translator was openly charged in court with minimizing and altering the statements made by the prisoners.
The judges acted in a way that brought disgrace on the court, bullying, mocking and browbeating the prisoners.
The high Japanese officials who attended heartily backed the sallies of the bench.
The missionaries who, according to the confessions, had encouraged the conspirators were not placed on trial.
The prisoners urged that they should be allowed to call them and others as witnesses, and they were eager to come.
The request was refused.
Under Japanese law, the judges have an absolute right to decide what witnesses shall, or shall not be called.
The prosecuting counsel denied the charge of torture, and declared that all of the men had been physically examined and not one of them had even a sign of having been subjected to such ill-treatment Thereupon prisoners rose up and asked to be allowed to show the marks still on them.
"I was bound up for about a month and subjected to torture," said one.
"I have still marks of it upon my body."
But when he asked permission to display the marks to the Court, "the Court," according to the newspaper reports, "sternly refused to allow this to be done."
The trial closed on August 30th, and judgment was delivered on September 21st.
Six prisoners, including Yun Chi-ho and Yang Ki-tak, were sentenced to ten years' penal servitude; eighteen to seven years' penal servitude; forty to six years; forty-two to five years; and seventeen discharged.
The trial was widely reported, and there was a wave of indignation, particularly in America.
The case was brought before the Court of Appeal, and Judge Suzuki, who heard the appeal, was given orders by the Government-General that he was to act in conciliatory fashion.
The whole atmosphere of the Court of Appeal was different.
There was no bullying, no browbeating.
The prisoners were listened to indulgently, and were allowed considerable latitude in developing their defence.
Let me add that both in the first and in subsequent trials, prominent Japanese counsel appeared for the prisoners, and defended them in a manner in accordance with the best traditions of the law.
The prisoners were now permitted in the Appeal Court to relate in detail how their "confessions" had been extracted from them by torture.
Here are some typical passages from the evidence.
Chi Sang-chu was a Presbyterian, and a clerk by calling.
He denied that he was guilty.
"All my confession was made under torture.
I did not make these statements of my own accord.
The police said they must know what information they wanted.
They stripped me naked, tied my hands behind my back, and hung me up in a doorway, removing the bench on which I stood.
They swung me, making me bump against a door, like a crane dancing.
When I lost consciousness, I was taken down and given water, and tortured again when I came to.
"A policeman covered my mouth with my hand, and poured water into my nose.
Again my thumbs were tied behind my back, one arm over and one under, and I was hung up by the cord tying them.
A lighted cigarette was pressed against my body, and I was struck in my private parts.
Thus I was tortured for three or four days.
One evening, just after the meal, I was hung up again, and was told that I would be released if I confessed, but if not I would be tortured till I died.
They were determined to make me say whatever they wanted.
Leaving me hanging, the policemen went to sleep, and I fainted from the torture of hanging there.
"When I came to, I found myself lying on the floor, the police giving me water.
They showed me a paper, which they said was the order of release for Yi Keun-tak and O Hak-su, who had confessed.
If I wanted to be set at liberty I must do the same.
Then they beat me again.
I saw the paper and managed with difficulty to read it.
It was to the effect that they did confess and promised never to do such things again.
"I was then introduced to Yi Keun-tak, who, they said, had confessed and been acquitted, and they urged me to follow Yi's example.
I urged them to treat me as they had treated Yi.
They told me what to confess, but as I had never heard of such things I refused, and they said they had better kill me.
"They resumed their tortures, and after two or three months, being unable to bear it any longer, I confessed all that is required."
Paik Yong-sok, a milk seller and a Presbyterian, with eleven in his family, said he had been a Christian for fifteen years and had determined only to follow the teachings of the Bible; he had never thought of assassination or considered establishing the independence of the country.
Having to support a family of eleven, he had no time for such things.
He had made the confession recited by the Court, but it was under compulsion and false.
"For a number of days I was tortured twice by day and twice by night.
I was blindfolded, hung up, beaten.
Often I fainted, being unable to breathe.
I thought I was dying and asked the police to shoot me, so intolerable were my tortures.
Driven beyond the bounds of endurance by hunger, thirst and pain, I said I would say whatever they wanted.
"The police told me that I was of no account among the twenty million Koreans, and they could kill or acquit me as they pleased....
Meanwhile five or six police dropped in and said, 'Have you repented?
Did you take part in the assassination plots?'
It was too much for me to say 'Yes' to this question, so I replied 'No.'
Immediately they slapped my cheeks, stripped me, struck, beat and tormented me.
It is quite beyond my power to describe the difficulty of enduring such pain."
The man paused and pointed to a Japanese, Watanabe by name, sitting behind the judges, "That interpreter knows all about it," he said, "He was one of the men who struck me."
Watanabe was pointed out by other prisoners as a man who had been prominent in tormenting them.
Im Do-myong, a barber and a Presbyterian, also fell into the hands of experts at the game.
"At the police headquarters, I was hung up, beaten with an iron rod and tortured twice a day.
Then I was taken into the presence of superiors, the interpreter (pointing out Watanabe, who was sitting: behind the judges) being present, and tortured again.
"My thumbs were tied together at my back, the right arm being put back over the shoulder and the left arm turned up from underneath.
Then I was hung up by the cord that bound my thumbs.
The agony was unendurable.
I fainted, was taken down, was given torture, and when I came to was tortured again."
By the Court: "It would be impossible to hang you by your thumbs."
Prisoner: "My great toes scarcely touched the ground.
Under such circumstances I was told to say the same thing at the Public Procurator's Office, and as I feared that I should be tortured there, too, I said 'Yes' to all questions."
Some variety was introduced into the treatment of Cho Tok-chan, a Presbyterian pastor, at Chong-ju.
"The police asked me how many men took part in the attempt at Sun-chon, saying that as I was a pastor I must know all about it.
They hung, beat and struck me, saying that I had taken part in the plot and was a member of the New People's Society.
At last I fainted, and afterwards was unable to eat for a number of days.
"A policeman in uniform, with one stripe, twisted my fingers with a wire, so that they were badly swollen for a long time after.
Then a man with two white stripes tortured me, declaring that I had taken part in the Sun-chon affair.
I said that I was too busy with Christmas preparations to go anywhere, on which the policeman severely twisted my fingers with an iron rod."
Again came one of the dramatic pauses, while the prisoner pointed out a Japanese official sitting behind the judges, Tanaka by name.
"The man who interpreted at that time is sitting behind you," he declared.
"He knows it very well."
They extracted his confession.
But it was some time before he had been able to sign it; his fingers were hurt too severely.
It was necessary, after the police examination, for prisoners to repeat their stories or confirm them before the procurator.
This might originally have been intended as a protection for the prisoners.
In Korea police and procurators worked together.
However, steps were taken to prevent any retraction at that point.
"When I was taken to the Public Procurator's Office," continued the Presbyterian pastor, "I did not know the nature of the place, and being put in a separate room, I feared that it might be an even more dreadful place than the police headquarters.
Generally, when examined at the police headquarters, my hands were free, but here I was brought up for cross-examination with my hands and arms pinioned very firmly, so I thought it must be a harder place.
Moreover, an official pulled me very hard by the cords which bound my hands, which gave me excruciating pain, seeing how they had already been treated by the police."
The next prisoner, Yi Mong-yong, a Presbyterian money lender, also pointed out the proud Tanaka.
He had been describing how the police kicked and struck him to make him say what they wanted.
"One of them is behind you now," said he to the judges, pointing to Tanaka.
Some of the prisoners broke down while giving their evidence.
Unimas described how he had been hung, beaten, stripped and tortured by the police, and again tortured in the office of the Public Procurator.
"Having got so far," the reports continue, "the prisoner began to weep and make a loud outcry, saying that he had a mother who was eighty years old at home.
With this pitiful scene, the hearing ended for the day."
Yi Tai-kyong was a teacher.
The police reminded him that the murderer of Prince Ito was a Christian; he was a Christian, therefore-"They hung, beat and otherwise tormented me, until I was compelled to acknowledge all the false fabrication about the plot.
The following day I was again taken into Mr. Yamana's room and again tortured with an iron rod from the stove and other things, until I had acknowledged all the false statements.
"When asked what was the party's signal, I remained silent, as I knew nothing about it.
But I was tortured again, and said, 'the church bell,' that being the only thing I could think of at the time."
"I confessed to the whole prosecution story, but only as the result of torture, to which I was submitted nine times, fainting on two occasions, and being tortured again on revival," said Pak Chou-hyong.
"I made my false confession under a threat that I and my whole family would be killed.
I reiterated it at the Public Procurator's Office, where I was conducted by two policemen, one of them a man with a gold tooth, who boxed my ears so hard that I still feel the pain, and who told me not to vary my story.
"Fearing that my whole family would be tortured, I agreed.
But when I arrived before the Public Procurator, I forgot what I had been taught to say, and wept, asking the officials to read what I had to confess.
This they did, and I said, 'Yes, yes.'"
Choi Che-kiu, a petty trader, repudiated his confession of having gone with a party to Sun-chon.
"Had such a large party attempted to go to the station," he said, "they must infallibly have been arrested on the first day.
Were I guilty I would be ready to die at once.
The whole story was invented by officials, and I was obliged to acquiesce in it by severe torture.
One night I was taken to Nanzan hill by two policemen, suspended from a pine tree and a sharp sword put to my throat.
Thinking I was going to be killed, I consented to say 'Yes' to any question put to me."
"No force can make you tell such a story as this, unless you consent voluntarily," interposed the Court.
"You may well say that," replied the prisoner, grimly.
"But with the blade of a sword in my face and a lighted cigarette pressed against my body, I preferred acquiescence in a story, which they told me that Kim Syong had already confessed, to death."
The prisoner paused, and the Judge looked at him with his head on one side.
Suddenly the prisoner burst into a passion of weeping, with loud, incoherent cries.
In the previous trial one of the prisoners, Kim Ik-kyo, was asked why he admitted all the facts at his preliminary examination.
"If the police were to go down Chong-no (one of the busiest streets in Seoul)," he replied, "and indiscriminately arrest a number of passers-by, and then examine them by putting them to torture, I am sure they would soon confess to having taken part in a plot."
The same thing was put in another way by a prisoner, Kim Eung-pong.
He related a long story of torture by binding, hanging, beating and burning, continued for fifteen days, during which he was often threatened with death.
Then he was taken to the "supreme enquiry" office of the police headquarters, where he was stripped naked and beaten with an iron bar from the stove.
This office, he understood, had control and power of life or death over the whole peninsula, so he was compelled to confess all that they wanted.
"I even would have said that I killed my father, if they put it to me," he added.
Hear the tale of An Sei-whan.
As An was called up in the Appeal Court, a wave of pity passed over the white men there, for An was a miserable object, pale and emaciated.
He was a consumptive and afflicted with other ills.
He had been in the Christian Hospital at Pyeng-yang most of the winter, and had nearly died there.
He had been walking a little for a few days, when he was arrested at the hospital in April.
He had been vomiting blood.
"In this condition I was taken to the police headquarters and tortured.
My thumbs were hung together and I was hung up, with my toes barely touching the ground.
I was taken down nearly dead, and made to stand for hours under a chest nearly as high as my chest.
Next day, when I was put under the shelf again my hair was fastened to the board, and my left leg doubled at the knee and tied.
Blood came up from my lung, but fearful of the police I swallowed it.
Now, I think it would have been better if I had vomited it.
Then they might have had pity on me; but I did not think so then.
"Again I was hung up by the thumbs, clear of the floor this time.
At the end of five minutes I was nearly dead.
I asked if it would do to assent to their questions, and they took me down and took me before some superiors.
When I said anything unsatisfactory I was beaten, and in this way learned what was wanted.
I had no wish to deny or admit anything, only to escape further pain."
He asked that some of the missionaries who knew him might be called, to show that he was too ill to take part in any conspiracy.
One old man, Yi Chang-sik, a Presbyterian for sixteen years, had refused even under the torture to confess, and had tried to escape by suicide.
"I thought that I had better commit suicide than be killed by their cruel tortures," he said.
"They asked me if I had joined the conspiracy at the suggestion of Mr. McCune.
I would not consent to this, so they tortured me harder.
I was nearly naked, and so cold water was poured upon me.
I was also beaten.
Sometimes I would be tortured till the early hours of the morning.
"I longed for death to deliver me.
Thanks to heaven, I found a knife one night in my room.
The warder was not very careful with me.
I took it secretly, intending to cut my throat--but my hand had become too weak.
So I stuck it erect in the floor, and tried to cut my throat that way.
Alas!
At this moment the warder surprised me.
When I had endured torture for over forty days, I asked them to make me guilty or innocent as quickly as possible.
When I was taken to the Public Procurator's, I had pains in my ears, body and limbs.
I could not stand the torture and wanted to die."
"Having got so far," wrote a spectator, "the old man broke down and began to weep, crying louder and louder.
He said something as he wept, but the interpreter could not make out what it was.
The Court evidently pitied him and told him to stand down.
He withdrew, sobbing."
A Presbyterian student from Sun-chon, Cha Heui-syon, was arrested and kept for four months in the gendarmes office, becoming very weak.
Then he was taken to the police headquarters.
"First I was hung up by my thumbs, then my hands and legs were tied, and I was made to crouch under a shelf about as high as my chest, which was intensely painful, as I could neither sit nor stand.
Something was put in my mouth.
I vomited blood, yet I was beaten.
I was stood up on a bench and tied up so that when it was removed, I was left hanging.
The interpreter who has often been in this court (Watanabe) tortured me.
My arms stiffened so that I could not stretch them.
As I hung I was beaten with bamboos three or four feet long and with an iron rod, which on one occasion made the hand of the official who was wielding it bleed."
At last he gave in.
He was too weak to speak.
They took him down and massaged his arms, which were useless.
He could only nod now to the statements that they put to him.
Later on they took him to the Public Procurator.
Here he attempted to deny his confession.
"The Public Procurator was very angry," he said.
"He struck the table, getting up and sitting down again.
He jerked the cord by which my hands were tied, hurting me very severely."
The case of Baron Yun Chi-ho excited special interest.
The Baron being a noble of high family, the police used more care in extracting his confession.
He was examined day after day for ten days, the same questions being asked and denied day after day.
One day when his nerves were in shreds, they tortured another prisoner in front of his eyes, and the examiner told him that if he would not confess, he was likely to share the same fate.
They told him that the others had confessed and been punished; a hundred men had admitted the facts.
He did not know then that the charge against him was conspiracy to murder.
He determined to make a false confession, to escape torture.
He was worn out with the ceaseless questioning, and he was afraid.
The rehearing in the Court of Appeal lasted fifty-one days.
In the last days many of the prisoners were allowed to speak for themselves.
They made a very favourable impression.
Judgment was delivered on March 20th.
The original judgment was quashed in every case, and the cases reconsidered.
Ninety-nine of the prisoners were found not guilty.
Baron Yun Chi-ho, Yang Ki-tak and four others were convicted.
Five of them were sentenced to six years' penal servitude, and one to five years.
Two other appeals were made, but the only result was to increase the sentence of the sixth man to six years.
Three of the men finally convicted had been members of the staff of the _Dai Han Mai Il Shinpo_.
The Japanese do not forget or forgive readily.
They had an old score to pay against the staff of that paper.
I have never yet met a man, English, American or Japanese, acquainted with the case, or who followed the circumstances, who believed that there had been any plot at all.
The whole thing, from first to last, was entirely a police-created charge.
The Japanese authorities showed later that they themselves did not believe it.
On the coronation of the Japanese Emperor, in February, 1915, the six prisoners were released as a sign of "Imperial clemency."
Baron Yun Chi-ho was appointed Secretary of the Y.M.C.A, at Seoul on his release, and Count Terauchi (whom he was supposed to have plotted to murder) thereupon gave a liberal subscription to the Y. funds.
There was one sequel to the case.
The Secretary of the Korean Y.M.C.A., Mr. Gillett, having satisfied himself of the innocence of Baron Yun and his associates, while the trial was pending, sent a letter to prominent people abroad, telling the facts.
The letter, by the indiscretion of one man who received it, was published in newspapers.
The Japanese authorities, in consequence, succeeded in driving Mr. Gillett out of Korea.
Before driving him out, they tried to get him to come over on their side.
Mr. Komatsu, Director of the Bureau for Foreign Affairs, asked him and Mr. Gerdine, the President, to call on him.
"The Government has met the demands of the missionary body and released ninety-nine out of the hundred and five prisoners who stood trial at the Appeal Court," said Mr. Komatsu.
"It is to be expected that the missionary body will in return do something to put the Government in a strong and favourable light before the people of Japan."
Mr. Komatsu added that Judge Suzuki's action was in reality the action of the Government-General, a quaint illustration of the independence of the judiciary in Korea.
The Administration made a feeble attempt to deny the tortures.
Its argument was that since torture was forbidden by law, it could not take place.
Let we quote the official statement: "A word should be added in reference to the absurd rumours spread abroad concerning it (the conspiracy case) such as that the measures taken by the authorities aimed at 'wiping out the Christian movement in Korea,' since the majority of the accused were Christian converts, and that most of the accused made 'false confessions against their will,' as they were subject to 'unendurable ill-treatment or torture.'
As if such imputations could be sustained for one minute, when the modern regime ruling Japan is considered!...
As to torture, several provisions of the Korean criminal code indirectly recognized it, but the law was revised and those provisions were rescinded when the former Korean law courts were reformed, by appointing to them Japanese judicial staffs, in August, 1908....
According to the new criminal law (judges, procurators or police) officials are liable, if they treat accused prisoners with violence or torture, to penal servitude or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding three years.
In reply to the memorial presented to the Governor-General by certain missionaries in Korea, in January, 1912, he said, 'I assure you that the entire examination of the suspected persons or witnesses is being conducted in strict compliance with the provisions of the law, and the slightest divergence from the lawful process will under no circumstances be permitted.'
How then could any one imagine that it was possible for officials under him to act under any other way than in accordance with the provisions of the law."
Unfortunately for the noble indignation of the writer, the torture left its marks, and many men are living as I write still bearing them.
Others only escaped from the hell of the Japanese prison in Seoul to die.
They were so broken that they never recovered.
XIV THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT The people of Korea never assented to the annexation of their country.
The Japanese control of means of communication prevented their protests from being fully known by the outside world.
It was explained that the movement against the Japanese was due to the work of Koreans living outside of the land and to foreign agitators.
The Japanese blamed the missionaries.
They blamed foreign publicists.
I understand that I was and am esteemed a special malignant.
They never thought to blame themselves.
As a matter of fact, missionaries and the rest of us had nothing to do with it.
The real origin of the movement was among the people themselves, and it was fostered, not by outsiders, but by the iron and unjust rule of Japan.
At the same time, the Koreans living in freedom were naturally concerned over conditions at home.
The large Korean communities in Manchuria and Siberia, estimated to number in all two millions, the flourishing colony in the United States and Hawaii, the Koreans in Mexico and China heard with indignation of what was happening.
Young students and political prisoners released after torture, who escaped to America, fanned the flame to white heat.
The Koreans living outside Korea formed a National Association, with headquarters in San Francisco, under the Presidency of Dr. David Lee, which in 1919 claimed a million and a half adherents.
The steps taken by the Japanese to suppress and prevent discontent often created and fostered it.
This was specially illustrated in the schools.
The new educational system, with its constant inculcation of loyalty to the Mikado, made even the little girls violently Nationalist.
School children were spied upon for incipient treason as though the lisping of childish lips might overthrow the throne.
The speeches of boys and girls in junior schools, at their school exercises, were carefully noted, and the child who said anything that might be construed by the Censor as "dangerous thought" would be arrested, examined and punished.
The effect of this was what might have been expected.
"They compel us to learn Japanese," said one little miss, sagely.
"That does not matter.
We are now able to understand what they say.
They cannot understand what we say.
All the better for us when the hour comes."
On Independence Day the children, particularly in the Government schools, were found to be banded together and organized against Japan.
They had no fear in expressing their views and sought martyrdom.
Some of them won it.
The Japanese hoped much from the Chon-do Kyo, a powerful movement encouraged by the authorities because they thought that it would be a valuable counteractive to Christianity.
Its leader was Son Pyung-hi, an old Korean friend of Japan.
As far back as 1894, when the Japanese arranged the Tong-hak Rebellion in Korea, to give them an excuse for provoking war with China, Son was one of their leading agents.
He believed that Western influence and in particular Western religion was inimical to his country, and he hoped by the Tong-haks to drive them out.
As a result of his activities, he had to flee from Korea, and he did not return until 1903.
He became leader of the Chon-do Kyo, the Heavenly Way Society, a body that tried to include the best of many religions and give the benefits of Christian organization and fellowship without Christianity.
He had learned many things while in exile, and was now keen on reform and education.
Many of his old Tong-hak friends rallied around him, and the Chon-do Kyo soon numbered considerably over a million members.
Son realized after a time that the Japanese were not the friends but the enemies of his people.
He made no violent protestations.
He still maintained seemingly good relations with them.
But his organization was put to work.
His agents went over the country.
Each adherent was called on to give three spoonfuls of rice a day.
Close on a million dollars was accumulated.
Most of this was afterwards seized by the Japanese.
The Chon-do Kyo and the native Christian leaders came together.
The Christian pastors had up to now kept their people in check.
But the burden was becoming intolerable.
They gave the missionaries no inkling of what was brewing.
They did not wish to get them in trouble.
Their real grief was that their action would, they knew, make it harder for the Churches.
Two remarkable characters took the lead among the Christians, Pastor Kil and Yi Sang-jai.
Pastor Kil of Pyeng-yang was one of the oldest and most famous Christians in Korea.
He had become a leader in the early days, facing death for his faith.
A man of powerful brain, of fine character and with the qualities of real leadership, he was looked up to by the people as British Nonconformists a generation ago regarded Charles Spurgeon.
In recent years Kil had become almost blind, but continued his work.
I have already described in an earlier chapter how Yi Sang-jai, once Secretary to the Legation at Washington, became a Christian while thrown into prison for his political views.
He was now a Y.M.C.A.
leader, but he was held in universal veneration by all men--Christian and non-Christian alike--as a saint, as a man who walked with God and communed with Him.
When things seemed rapidly ripening, President Wilson made his famous declaration of the rights of weaker nations.
One sentence went round among the Koreans, and its effect was electrical.
"What is the task that this League of Nations is to do?
"IT IS TO PROVIDE FOR THE FREEDOM OF SMALL NATIONS, TO PREVENT THE DOMINATION OF SMALL NATIONS BY BIG ONES."
Here was the clarion call to Korea.
Here was hope!
Here was the promise of freedom, given by the head of the nation they had all learned to love.
If any outsider was responsible for the uprising of the Korean people, that outsider was Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America.
"Now is the time to act," said the people.
For a start, they resolved to send delegates to present their case to the Paris Conference.
Three leaders in America were chosen but were refused passports.
Finally another young leader, Mr. Kiusic Kimm, succeeded in landing in France.
Perhaps it would not be wise to say, at this time, how he managed to get there.
He soon found that his mission was in vain.
The Paris Conference would not receive him.
President Wilson's declaration was not to be put into full effect.
The people resolved, by open and orderly demonstration, to support their delegate in France.
There were some who would have started a violent revolution.
The Christians would have none of it "Let us have no violence," said they.
"Let us appeal to the conscience of Japan and of the world."
There were no constitutional means for them to employ to make their case heard.
But if ever there was an effort at peaceful constitutional change, this was it.
Instructions were sent out, surely the most extraordinary instructions ever issued under similar circumstances:-"Whatever you do DO NOT INSULT THE JAPANESE DO NOT THROW STONES DO NOT HIT WITH YOUR FISTS.
For these are the acts of barbarians."
It was unnecessary to tell the people not to shoot, for the Japanese had long since taken all their weapons away, even their ancient sporting blunderbusses.
A favourable moment was approaching.
The old Korean Emperor lay dead.
One rumour was that he had committed suicide to avoid signing a document drawn up by the Japanese for presentation to the Peace Conference, saying that he was well satisfied with the present Government of his country.
Another report, still more generally believed, was that he had committed suicide to prevent the marriage of his son, Prince Kon, to the Japanese Princess Nashinoto.
The engagement of this young Prince to a Korean girl had been broken off when the Japanese acquired control of the Imperial House.
Royal romances always appeal to the crowd.
The heart of the people turned to the old Emperor again.
Men, women and children put on straw shoes, signs of national mourning, and a hundred thousand people flocked to Seoul to witness the funeral ceremonies.
The funeral was to take place on March 4th.
By now the Japanese suspected something to be afoot.
The astonishing thing is that the Koreans had been able to keep it from them so long.
A network of organizations had been created all over the country.
The Japanese hurried their preparations to prevent popular demonstrations on the day of the funeral.
The leaders learned of this, and outwitted the police by a simple device.
They resolved to make their demonstration not on Tuesday, March 4th, but on the previous Saturday.
Gatherings were arranged for all over the country.
A Declaration of Independence was drawn up in advance and delivered to the different centres.
Here it was mimeographed, and girls and boys organized themselves to ensure its distribution.
Meetings, processions and demonstrations in all the big cities were planned.
Thirty-three men chose martyrdom.
They were to be the original signers of the Declaration of Independence.
They knew that at the best this must mean heavy punishment for them, and at the worst might well mean death.
They had no delusions.
Pastor Kil's son had died from the effects of Japanese torture, Yang Chun-paik and Yi Seung-hun, two of the signers, had been victims in the Conspiracy case.
The first two names on the list of signers were Son Pyung-hi, leader of the Chon-do Kyo, and Pastor Kil.
On the morning of March 1st the group of thirty-two met at the Pagoda Restaurant at Seoul.
Pastor Kil was the only absentee; he had been temporarily delayed on his journey from Pyeng-yang.
Some prominent Japanese had been invited to eat with the Koreans.
After the meal, the Declaration was produced before their guests and read.
It was despatched to the Governor-General.
Then the signers rang up the Central Police Station, informed the shocked officials of what they had done, and added that they would wait in the restaurant until the police van came to arrest them.
The automobile prison van, with them inside, had to make its way to the police station through dense crowds, cheering and shouting, "Mansei!
Mansei!
Mansei!"
It was the old national battle cry, "May Korea live ten thousand years."
Old flags had been brought out, old Korean flags, with the red and blue germ on the white ground, and were being widely waved.
"Mansei!"
Not only Seoul but the whole country had in a few minutes broken out in open demonstration.
A new kind of revolt had begun.
Pastor Kil, arriving late, hurried to the police station to take his place with his comrades.
The Declaration of Independence is a document impossible to summarize, if one is to do full justice to it.
It is written in the lofty tone of the ancient prophets.
It was something more than the aspiration of the Korean people.
It was the cry of the New Asia, struggling to find its way out of oppression and mediaeval militarism into the promised land of liberty and peace.
THE PROCLAMATION OF KOREAN INDEPENDENCE "We herewith proclaim the independence of Korea and the liberty of the Korean people.
We tell it to the world in witness of the equality of all nations and we pass it on to our posterity as their inherent right.
"We make this proclamation, having back of us 5,000 years of history, and 20,000,000 of a united loyal people.
We take this step to insure to our children for all time to come, personal liberty in accord with the awakening consciousness of this new era.
This is the clear leading of God, the moving principle of the present age, the whole human race's just claim.
It is something that cannot be stamped out, or stifled, or gagged, or suppressed by any means.
"Victims of an older age, when brute force and the spirit of plunder ruled, we have come after these long thousands of years to experience the agony of ten years of foreign oppression, with every loss to the right to live, every restriction of the freedom of thought, every damage done to the dignity of life, every opportunity lost for a share in the intelligent advance of the age in which we live.
"Assuredly, if the defects of the past are to be rectified, if the agony of the present is to be unloosed, if the future oppression is to be avoided, if thought is to be set free, if right of action is to be given a place, if we are to attain to any way of progress, if we are to deliver our children from the painful, shameful heritage, if we are to leave blessing and happiness intact for those who succeed us, the first of all necessary things is the clear-cut independence of our people.
What cannot our twenty millions do, every man with sword in heart, in this day when human nature and conscience are making a stand for truth and right?
What barrier can we not break, what purpose can we not accomplish?
"We have no desire to accuse Japan of breaking many solemn treaties since 1636, nor to single out specially the teachers in the schools or government officials who treat the heritage of our ancestors as a colony of their own, and our people and their civilization as a nation of savages, finding delight only in beating us down and bringing us under their heel.
"We have no wish to find special fault with Japan's lack of fairness or her contempt of our civilization and the principles on which her state rests; we, who have greater cause to reprimand ourselves, need not spend precious time in finding fault with others; neither need we, who require so urgently to build for the future, spend useless hours over what is past and gone.
Our urgent need to-day is the setting up of this house of ours and not a discussion of who has broken it down, or what has caused its ruin.
Our work is to clear the future of defects in accord with the earnest dictates of conscience.
Let us not be filled with bitterness or resentment over past agonies or past occasions for anger.
"Our part is to influence the Japanese government, dominated as it is by the old idea of brute force which thinks to run counter to reason and universal law, so that it will change, act honestly and in accord with the principles of right and truth.
"The result of annexation, brought about without any conference with the Korean people, is that the Japanese, indifferent to us, use every kind of partiality for their own, and by a false set of figures show a profit and loss account between us two peoples most untrue, digging a trench of everlasting resentment deeper and deeper the farther they go.
"Ought not the way of enlightened courage to be to correct the evils of the past by ways that are sincere, and by true sympathy and friendly feeling make a new world in which the two peoples will be equally blessed?
"To bind by force twenty millions of resentful Koreans will mean not only loss of peace forever for this part of the Far East, but also will increase the evergrowing suspicion of four hundred millions of Chinese--upon whom depends the danger or safety of the Far East--besides strengthening the hatred of Japan.
From this all the rest of the East will suffer.
To-day Korean independence will mean not only daily life and happiness for us, but also it would mean Japan's departure from an evil way and exaltation to the place of true protector of the East, so that China, too, even in her dreams, would put all fear of Japan aside.
This thought comes from no minor resentment, but from a large hope for the future welfare and blessing of mankind.
"A new era wakes before our eyes, the old world of force is gone, and the new world of righteousness and truth is here.
Out of the experience and travail of the old world arises this light on life's affairs.
The insects stifled by the foe and snow of winter awake at this same time with the breezes of spring and the soft light of the sun upon them.
"It is the day of the restoration of all things on the full tide of which we set forth, without delay or fear.
We desire a full measure of satisfaction in the way of liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and an opportunity to develop what is in us for the glory of our people.
"We awake now from the old world with its darkened conditions in full determination and one heart and one mind, with right on our side, along with the forces of nature, to a new life.
May all the ancestors to the thousands and ten thousand generations aid us from within and all the force of the world aid us from without, and let the day we take hold be the day of our attainment.
In this hope we go forward.
THREE ITEMS OF AGREEMENT "1.
This work of ours is in behalf of truth, religion and life, undertaken at the request of our people, in order to make known their desire for liberty.
Let no violence be done to any one.
"2.
Let those who follow us, every man, all the time, every hour, show forth with gladness this same mind.
"3.
Let all things be done decently and in order, so that our behaviour to the very end may be honourable and upright."
The 4252nd year of the Kingdom of Korea 3d Month.
Representatives of the people.
The signatures attached to the document are: Son Pyung-hi, Kil Sun Chu, Yi Pil Chu, Paik Yong Sung, Kim Won Kyu, Kim Pyung Cho, Kim Chang Choon, Kwon Dong Chin, Kwon Byung Duk, Na Yong Whan, Na In Hup, Yang Chun Paik, Yang Han Mook, Lew Yer Dai, Yi Kop Sung, Yi Mung Yong, Yi Seung Hoon, Yi Chong Hoon, Yi Chong Il, Lim Yei Whan, Pak Choon Seung, Pak Hi Do, Pak Tong Wan, Sin Hong Sik, Sin Suk Ku, Oh Sei Chang, Oh Wha Young, Chung Choon Su, Choi Sung Mo, Choi In, Han Yong Woon, Hong Byung Ki, Hong Ki Cho.
XV THE PEOPLE SPEAK--THE TYRANTS ANSWER On Saturday, March 1st, at two in the afternoon, in a large number of centres of population throughout the country, the Declaration of Korean Independence was solemnly read, usually to large assemblies, by representative citizens.
In some places, the leaders of the Christians and the leaders of the non-Christian bodies acted in common.
In other places, by mutual agreement, two gatherings were held at the same time, the one for Christians and the other for non-Christians.
Then the two met in the streets, and sometimes headed by a band they marched down the street shouting "Mansei" until they were dispersed.
Every detail had been thought out.
Large numbers of copies of declarations of independence were ready.
These were circulated, usually by boys and schoolgirls, sometimes by women, each city being mapped out in districts.
It was soon seen that every class of the community was united.
Men who had been ennobled by the Japanese stood with the coolies; shopkeepers closed their stores, policemen who had worked under the Japanese took off their uniforms and joined the crowds, porters and labourers, scholars and preachers, men and women all came together.
In every other Korean demonstration, for untold centuries, only part of the nation had been included.
When the yang-bans started a political revolt, in the old days, they did not recognize that such a thing as popular opinion existed and did not trouble to consult it.
Korea had long known demonstrations of great family against great family, of Yis against Mins; of section against section, as when the Conservatives fought the Progressives; and of Independents against the old Court Gang.
But now all were one.
And with the men were the women, and even the children.
Boys of six told their fathers to be firm and never to yield, as they were carried off to prison; girls of ten and twelve prepared themselves to go to jail.
The movement was a demonstration, not a riot.
On the opening day and afterwards--until the Japanese drove some of the people to fury--there was no violence.
The Japanese, scattered all over the country, were uninjured; the Japanese shops were left alone; when the police attacked, elders ordered the people to submit and to offer no resistance.
The weak things had set themselves up to confound the strong.
At first, the Japanese authorities were so completely taken by surprise that they did not know what to do.
Then the word was passed round that the movement was to be suppressed by relentless severity.
And so Japan lost her last chance of winning the people of Korea and of wiping out the accentuated ill-will of centuries.
The first plan of the Japanese was to attack every gathering of people and disperse it, and to arrest every person who took part in the demonstrations or was supposed to have a hand in them.
Japanese civilians were armed with clubs and swords and given _carte blanche_ to attack any Korean they suspected of being a demonstrator.
They interpreted these instructions freely.
Firemen were sent out with poles with the big firemen's hooks at the end.
A single pull with one of these hooks meant death or horrible mutilation for any person they struck.
The police used their swords freely.
What I mean by "freely" can best be shown by one incident A little gathering of men started shouting "Mansei" in a street in Seoul.
The police came after them, and they vanished.
One man--it is not clear whether he called "Mansei" or was an accidental spectator--was pushed in the deep gutter by the roadside as the demonstrators rushed away.
As he struggled out the police came up.
There was no question of the man resisting or not resisting.
He was unarmed and alone.
They cut off his ears, cut them off level with his cheek, they slit up his fingers, they hacked his body, and then they left him for dead.
He was carried off by some horrified spectators, and died a few hours later.
A photograph of his body lies before me as I write.
I showed the photograph one evening to two or three men in New York City.
Next day I met the men again.
"We had nightmare all night long, because of that picture," they told me.
In Seoul, when the thirty-three leaders were arrested, a demonstration was held in the Park and the Declaration read there.
Then the crowd made an orderly demonstration in the streets, waving flags and hats, shouting "Mansei," parading in front of the Consulates and public buildings, and sending letters to the Consuls informing them of what they had done.
There was no violence.
The police, mounted and foot, tried to disperse the crowds and made numerous arrests, but the throngs were so dense that they could not scatter them.
Next day was Sunday.
Here the strong Christian influences stopped demonstrations, for the Korean Christians observe the Sunday strictly.
This gave the Japanese authorities time to gather their forces.
Numerous arrests were made that day, not only in Seoul but all over the country.
On Monday there was the funeral of the ex-Emperor.
The people were quiet then.
It was noticed that the school children were entirely absent from their places along the line of march.
They had struck.
On Wednesday life was supposed to resume its normal aspects again.
The schools reopened, but there were no pupils.
The shops remained closed.
The coolies in official employ did not come to work.
The authorities sent police to order the shopkeepers to open.
They opened while the police were by, and closed immediately they were out of sight.
Finally troops were placed outside the shops to see that they remained open.
The shopkeepers sat passive, and informed any chance enquirer that they did not have what he wanted.
This continued for some weeks.
The authorities were specially disturbed by the refusal of the children to come to school.
In one large junior school, the boys were implored to come for their Commencement exercises, and to receive their certificates.
Let me tell the scene that followed, as described to me by people in the city.
The boys apparently yielded, and the Commencement ceremonies were begun, in the presence of a number of official and other distinguished Japanese guests.
The precious certificates were handed out to each lad.
Then the head boy, a little fellow of about twelve or thirteen, came to the front to make the school speech of thanks to his teachers and to the authorities.
He was the impersonation of courtesy.
Every bow was given to the full; he lingered over the honorifics, as though he loved the sound of them.
The distinguished guests were delighted.
Then came the end.
"I have only this now to say," the lad concluded.
A change came over his voice.
He straightened himself up, and there was a look of resolution in his eyes.
He knew that the cry he was about to utter had brought death to many during the past few days.
"We beg one thing more of you."
He plunged one hand in his garment, pulled out the Korean flag, the possession of which is a crime.
Waving the flag, he cried out, "Give us back our country.
May Korea live forever.
Mansei!"
All the boys jumped up from their seats, each one pulling out a flag from under his coat and waved it, calling, "Mansei!
Mansei!
Mansei!"
They tore up their precious certificates, in front of the now horrified guests, threw them on the ground, and trooped out.
At nine o'clock that Wednesday morning there was a great demonstration of students and high school girls around the palace.
The girls had planned out their part ahead.
A big crowd gathered around.
Then a large force of police rushed on them, with drawn swords, knocking down, beating and arresting, lads and girls alike.
The girls were treated as roughly as the men.
Over four hundred, including one hundred girl students, were taken to the police station that morning.
What happened to the girls there, I tell in a later chapter.
Fifteen nurse-probationers of the Severance Hospital, one of the most famous missionary hospitals in the Far East, hurried out with bandages to bind up the wounded.
The police took them in custody also.
They were severely examined, to find if the foreigners had instigated them to take part in the demonstrations, but were released the same afternoon.
As Prince Yi was returning from the ex-Emperor's funeral that afternoon, a group of twenty literati approached his carriage and attempted to present a petition.
They were stopped by the police.
A petition was sent by the literati to the Governor-General; the delegates were told to take it to the police office.
Here they were arrested.
Two of the most famous nobles in the land, Viscount Kim and Viscount Li, sent a dignified petition to the Governor-General, begging him to listen to the people, and deploring the severe measures taken to suppress the demonstrations.
Viscount Kim was senior peer, head of the Confucian College, and had ever been a friend of Japan.
As far back as 1866, he had run the risk of death by urging the King to open the country to outside nations and to conclude a treaty with Japan.
The Japanese had made him one of their new Korean peerage.
He was now eighty-five, feeble and bedridden.
The protest of himself and his fellow senior was measured, polished, moved with a deep sympathy for the people, but with nothing in it to which the Governor-General should have taken offence.
The Japanese treatment of these two nobles was crowning proof of their incapacity to rule another people.
The two were at once arrested, and with them various male members of their families.
Kim was so ill that he could not be immediately moved, so a guard was placed over his house.
All were brought to trial at Seoul in July.
With Viscount Kim were Kim Ki-ju, his grandson, and Kim Yu-mon.
With Viscount Li was his relative Li Ken-tai.
The charge against them was, of violating the Peace Preservation Act.
Ki-ju aggravated his position by trying to defend himself.
The Japanese press reported that he was reported to "have assumed a very hostile attitude to the bench enunciating this theory and that in defence of his cause."
This statement is the best condemnation of the trial.
Where a prisoner is deemed to add to his guilt by attempting to defend himself, justice has disappeared.
Viscount Kim was sentenced to two years' penal servitude, and Viscount Li to eighteen months, both sentences being stayed for three years.
Kim Ki-ju, Kim Yu-mon and Li Ken-tai were sentenced to hard labour for eighteen months, twelve months and six months respectively.
The sentence reflected disgrace on the Government that instituted the prosecution and decreed the punishment.
The white people of Seoul were horrified by the Japanese treatment of badly wounded men who flocked to the Severance Hospital for aid.
Some of these, almost fatally wounded, were put to bed.
The Japanese police came and demanded that they should be delivered up to them.
The doctors pointed out that it probably would be fatal to move them.
The police persisted, and finally carried off three men.
It was reported that one man they took off in this fashion was flogged to death.
Reports were beginning to come in from other parts.
There had been demonstrations throughout the north, right up to Wiju, on the Manchurian border.
At Song-chon, it was reported, thirty had been killed, a number wounded, and three hundred arrested Pyeng-yang had been the centre of a particularly impressive movement, which had been sternly repressed.
From the east coast, away at Hameung, there came similar tidings.
The Japanese stated that things were quiet in the south until Wednesday, when there was an outbreak at Kun-san, led by the pupils of a Christian school.
The Japanese at once seized on the participation of the Christians, the press declaring that the American missionaries were at the bottom of it.
A deliberate attempt was made to stir up the Japanese population against the Americans.
Numbers of houses of American missionaries and leaders of philanthropic work were searched.
Several of them were called to the police offices and examined; some were stopped in the streets and searched.
Unable to find any evidence against the missionaries, the Japanese turned on the Korean Christians.
Soon nearly every Korean Christian pastor in Seoul was in jail; and news came from many parts of the burning of churches, the arrest of leading Christians, and the flogging of their congregations.
The Japanese authorities, on pressure from the American consular officials, issued statements that the missionaries had nothing to do with the uprising, but in practice they acted as though the rising were essentially a Christian movement.
In the country people were stopped by soldiers when walking along the roads, and asked, "Are you Christians?"
If they answered, "Yes," they were beaten; if "No," they were allowed to go.
The local gendarmes told the people in many villages that Christianity was to be wiped out and all Christians shot.
"Christians are being arrested wholesale and beaten simply because they are Christians," came the reports from many parts.
Soon dreadful stories came from the prisons, not only in Seoul, but in many other parts.
Men who had been released after investigation, as innocent, told of the tortures inflicted on them in the police offices, and showed their jellied and blackened flesh in proof.
Some were even inconsiderate enough to die a few days after release, and on examination their bodies and heads were found horribly damaged.
The treatment may be summed up in a paragraph from a statement by the Rev.
A.E.
Armstrong, of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, who was on a visit to Korea at the time: "The tortures which the Koreans suffer at the hands of the police and gendarmes are identical with those employed in the famous conspiracy trials.
I read affidavits, now on their way to the United States and British Governments, which made one's blood boil, so frightful were the means used in trying to extort confessions from prisoners.
And many of these had no part in the demonstrations, but were simply onlookers."
Within a fortnight, the arrests numbered thousands in Seoul alone.
Every man, particularly every student, suspected of participation was jailed.
But it was evident that the authorities had not secured the leaders, or else that the leaders had arranged a system by which there were men always ready to step into the place of those who were taken.
The official organ, the _Seoul Press_, would come out with an announcement that the agitation had now died down; two or three days later there would be another great demonstration in the streets.
The hundred thousand visitors who had come to Seoul for the funeral returned home to start agitations in their own districts.
The authorities were particularly annoyed at their inability to discover the editors and publishers of the secret paper of the protest, the _Independence News_, which appeared in mimeographed form.
To prevent its publication the authorities took control of mimeograph paper, and seized every mimeograph machine they could find.
Time after time it was stated that the editors of the paper had been secured; the announcement was barely published before fresh editions would mysteriously appear in Seoul and in the provinces.
Despite every effort to minimize it, news of the happenings gradually crept out and were published abroad.
Mr.
I. Yamagata, the Director-General of Administration, was called to Tokyo for a conference with the Government.
Much was hoped by many friends of Japan in America from this.
It was believed that the Liberal Premier of Japan, the Hon.
T. Hara, would promptly declare himself against the cruelties that had been employed.
Unfortunately these hopes were disappointed.
While speaking reassuringly to foreign enquirers, Mr. Hara and his Government officially determined on still harsher measures.
Mr. Yamagata's own statement, issued on his return, announced that after conference with the Premier, an audience with the Emperor and conferences with the Cabinet "decision was reached in favour of taking drastic measures by despatching more troops to the peninsula."
"In the first stage of the trouble, the Government-General was in favour of mild measures (!
), and it was hoped to quell the agitation by peaceful methods," Mr. Yamagata continued.
"It is to be regretted, however, that the agitation has gradually spread to all parts of the peninsula, while the nature of the disturbance has become malignant, and it was to cope with this situation that the Government was obliged to resort to force.
In spite of this, the trouble has not only continued, but has become so uncontrollable and wide-spread that the police and military force hitherto in use has been found insufficient, necessitating the despatch of more troops and gendarmes from the mother country.... Should they (the agitators) continue the present trouble, it would be necessary to show them the full power of the military force.
It is earnestly to be hoped that the trouble will be settled peacefully, before the troops are obliged to use their bayonets."
Count Hasegawa, the Governor-General, had already issued various proclamations, telling the people of the Imperial benevolence of Japan, warning them that the watchword "self-determination of races" was utterly irrevelant to Japan, and warning them of the relentless punishment that would fall on those who committed offences against the peace.
Here is one of the proclamations.
It may be taken as typical of all: "When the State funeral of the late Prince Yi was on the point of being held, I issued an instruction that the people should help one another to mourn his loss in a quiet and respectful manner and avoid any rash act or disorder.
Alas!
I was deeply chagrined to see that, instigated by certain refractory men, people started a riot in Seoul and other places.
Rumour was recently circulated that at the recent Peace Conference in Paris and other places, the independence of Chosen was recognized by foreign Powers, but the rumour is absolutely groundless.
It need hardly be stated that the sovereignty of the Japanese Empire is irrevocably established in the past, and will never be broken in the future.
During the ten years since annexation, the Imperial benevolence has gradually reached all parts of the country, and it is now recognized throughout the world that the country has made a marked advancement in the securing of safety to life, and property, and the development of education and industry.
Those who are trying to mislead the people by disseminating such a rumour as cited know their own purpose, but it is certain that the day of repentance will come to all who, discarding their studies or vocations, take part in the mad movement.
Immediate awakening is urgently required.
"The mother country and Chosen, now merging in one body, makes a State.
Its population and strength were found adequate enough to enter upon a League with the Powers and conduct to the promotion of world peace and enlightenment, while at the same time the Empire is going faithfully to discharge its duty as an Ally by saving its neighbour from difficulty.
This is the moment of time when the bonds of unity between the Japanese and Koreans are to be more firmly tightened and nothing will be left undone to fulfill the mission of the Empire and to establish its prestige on the globe.
It is evident that the two peoples, which have ever been in inseparably close relations from of old, have lately been even more closely connected.
The recent episodes are by no means due to any antipathy between the two peoples.
It will be most unwise credulously to swallow the utterances of those refractory people who, resident always abroad, are not well informed upon the real conditions in the peninsula, but, nevertheless, are attempting to mislead their brethren by spreading wild fictions and thus disturbing the peace of the Empire, only to bring on themselves the derision of the Powers for their indulgence in unbridled imagination in seizing upon the watchword 'self-determination of races' which is utterly irrelevant to Chosen, and in committing themselves to thoughtless act and language.
The Government are now doing their utmost to put an end to such unruly behaviour and will relentlessly punish anybody daring to commit offences against the peace.
The present excitement will soon cease to exist, but it is to be hoped that the people on their part will do their share in restoring quiet by rightly guarding their wards and neighbours so as to save them from any offence committing a severe penalty.
"[1] [Footnote 1: Quoted from the _Seoul Press_.]
The new era of relentless severity began by the enactment of various fresh laws.
The regulations for Koreans going from or coming into their country were made more rigid.
The Regulations Concerning Visitors and Residents had already been revised in mid-March.
Under these, any person who, even as a non-commercial act, allowed a foreigner to stay in his or her house for a night or more must hereafter at once report the fact to the police or gendarmes.
A fresh ordinance against agitators was published in the _Official Gazette_.
It provided that anybody interfering or attempting to interfere in the preservation of peace and order with a view to bringing about political change would be punished by penal servitude or imprisonment for a period not exceeding ten years.
The ordinance would apply to offences committed by subjects of the Empire committed outside its domains, and it was specially emphasized in the explanations of the new law given out that it would apply to foreigners as well as Japanese or Koreans.
The Government-General introduced a new principle, generally regarded by jurists of all lands as unjust and indefensible.
They made the law retroactive.
People who were found guilty of this offence, their acts being committed before the new law came into force, were to be sentenced under it, and not under the much milder old law.
This was done.
The Koreans were quickly to learn what the new military regime meant.
One of the first examples was at Cheamni, a village some miles from Suigen, on the Seoul-Fusan Railway.
Various rumours reached Seoul that this place had been destroyed, and a party of Americans, including Mr. Curtice of the Consulate, Mr. Underwood, son of the famous missionary pioneer, and himself a missionary and a correspondent of the Japan _Advertiser_, went to investigate.
After considerable enquiry they reached a place which had been a village of forty houses.
They found only four or five standing.
All the rest were smoking ruins.
"We passed along the path," wrote the correspondent of the Japan _Advertiser_, "which ran along the front of the village lengthwise, and in about the middle we came on a compound surrounded by burnt poplars, which was filled with glowing ashes.
It was here that we found a body frightfully burned and twisted, either of a young man or a woman.
This place we found later was the Christian church, and on coming down from another direction on our return I found a second body, evidently that of a man, also badly burned, lying just outside the church compound.
The odour of burned flesh in the vicinity of the church was sickening.
"We proceeded to the end of the village and climbed the hill, where we found several groups of people huddled under little straw shelters, with a few of their pitiful belongings about them.
They were mostly women, some old, others young mothers with babes at breast, but all sunk in the dull apathy of abject misery and despair.
"Talking to them in their own language and with sympathy, Mr. Underwood soon won the confidence of several and got the story of what happened from different groups, and in every case these stories tallied in the essential facts.
The day before we arrived, soldiers came to the village, some time in the early afternoon, and ordered all the male Christians to gather in the church.
When they had so gathered, to a number estimated to be thirty by our informers, the soldiers opened fire on them with rifles and then proceeded into the church and finished them off with sword and bayonets.
After this they set fire to the church, but as the direction of the wind and the central position of the church prevented the upper houses catching, soldiers fired these houses individually, and after a time left.
"As we passed down the ruined village, returning to our rikishas, we came on the last house of the village, which was standing intact, and entered in conversation with the owner, a very old man.
He attributed the safety of his house to its being slightly removed, and to a vagary of the wind.
He was alive because he was not a Christian and had not been called into the church.
The details of his story of the occurrence tallied exactly with the others, as to what had happened."
One example will serve to show what was going on now all over the country.
The following letter was written by a cultured American holding a responsible position in Korea: "Had the authorities handled this matter in a different way, this letter would never have been written.
We are not out here to mix in politics, and so long as it remained a purely political problem, we had no desire to say anything on one side or the other.
But the appeal of the Koreans has been met in such a way that it has been taken out of the realm of mere politics and has become a question of humanity.
When it comes to weakness and helplessness being pitted against inhumanity, there can be no such thing as neutrality.
"I have seen personal friends of mine among the Koreans, educated men, middle-aged men, who up to that time had no part in the demonstrations, parts of whose bodies had been beaten to a pulp under police orders.
"A few hundred yards from where I am writing, the beating goes on, day after day.
The victims are tied down on a frame and beaten on the naked body with rods till they become unconscious.
Then cold water is poured on them until they revive, when the process is repeated.
It is sometimes repeated many times.
Reliable information comes to me that in some cases arms and legs have been broken.
"Men, women and children are shot down or bayonetted.
The Christian church is specially chosen as an object of fury, and to the Christians is meted out special severity.... "A few miles from here, a band of soldiers entered a village and ordered the men to leave, the women to remain behind.
But the men were afraid to leave their women, and sent the women away first.
For this the men were beaten.
"A short distance from this village, this band is reported to have met a Korean woman riding in a rickshaw.
She was violated by four of the soldiers and left unconscious.
A Korean reported the doings of this band of soldiers to the military commander of the district in which it occurred and the commander ordered him to be beaten for reporting it.
"Word comes to me to-day from another province of a woman who was stripped and strung up by the thumbs for six hours in an effort to get her to tell the whereabouts of her husband.
She probably did not know.
"The woes of Belgium under German domination have filled our ears for the past four years, and rightly so.
The Belgian Government has recently announced that during the more than four years that the Germans held the country, six thousand civilians were put to death by the Germans.
Here in this land it is probably safe to say that two thousand men, women and children, empty handed and helpless, have been put to death in seven weeks.
You may draw your own conclusions!
"As for the Koreans, they are a marvel to us all.
Even those of us who have known them for many years, and have believed them to be capable of great things, were surprised.
Their self-restraint, their fortitude, their endurance and their heroism have seldom been surpassed.
As an American I have been accustomed to hear, as a boy, of the 'spirit of 76,' but I have seen it out here, and it was under a yellow skin.
More than one foreigner is saying, these days, 'I am proud of the Koreans.'"
There were exciting scenes in Sun-chon.
This city is one of the great centres of Christianity in Korea, and its people, hardy and independent northerners, have for long been suspected by the Japanese.
Large numbers of leaders of the church and students at the missionary academy had been arrested, confined for a very long period and ill-treated at the time of the Conspiracy trial.
They were all found to be innocent later, on the retrial at the Appeal Court.
This had not tended to promote harmonious relations between the two peoples.
Various notices and appeals were circulated among the people.
Many of them, issued by the leaders, strongly urged the people to avoid insulting behaviour, insulting language or violence towards the Japanese.
"Pray morning, noon and night, and fast on Sundays" was the notice to the Christians.
Other appeals ran: "Think, dear Korean brothers!
"What place have we or our children?
Where can we speak?
What has become of our land?
"Fellow countrymen, we are of one blood.
Can we be indifferent?
At this time, how can you Japanese show such ill feeling and such treachery?
How can you injure us with guns and swords?
How can your violence be so deep?
"Koreans, if in the past for small things we have suffered injuries, how much more shall we suffer to-day?
Even though your flesh be torn from you, little by little, you can stand it!
Think of the past.
Think of the future!
We stand together for those who are dying for Korea.
"We have been held in bondage.
If we do not become free at this time, we shall never be able to gain freedom.
Brethren, it can be done!
It is possible!
Do not be discouraged!
Give up your business for the moment and shout for Korea.
Injury to life and property are of consequence, but right and liberty are far more important.
Until the news of the Peace Conference is received, do not cease.
We are not wood and stones, but flesh and blood.
Can we not speak out?
Why go back and become discouraged?
Do not fear death!
Even though I die, my children and grandchildren shall enjoy the blessings of liberty.
Mansei!
Mansei!
Mansei!"
Mr. D.V.
Hudson, of the Southern Presbyterian University at Shanghai, brought the records of many outrages back with him on his return to America.
From them I take the following: "At Maingsang, South Pyeng-yang Province, the following incident took place on March 3rd.
When the uprising first broke out there were no Japanese gendarmes in the village, but Koreans only.
The people there were mostly Chun-do Kyo followers, so no Christians were involved in the trouble.
These Chun-do Kyo people gathered on the appointed day for the Korean Independence celebration, and held the usual speeches and shouting of 'Mansei.'
The Korean gendarmes did not want to or dared not interfere, so that day was spent by the people as they pleased.
"A few days later Japanese soldiers arrived to investigate and to put down the uprising.
They found the people meeting again, ostensibly to honour one of their teachers.
The soldiers immediately interfered, seized the leader of the meeting and led him away to the gendarme station.
He was badly treated in the affray and the people were badly incensed.
So they followed the soldiers to the station, hoping to effect the release of their leader.
The soldiers tried to drive them away.
Some left but others remained.
"The police station was surrounded by a stone wall, with but one gate to the enclosure.
The soldiers permitted those who insisted on following to enter, and, when they had entered, closed the door; then the soldiers deliberately set to work, shooting them down in cold blood.
Only three of the fifty-six escaped death."
Let me give one other statement by a newspaper man.
I might go on with tale after tale of brutality and fill another volume.
Mr. William R. Giles is a Far Eastern correspondent well known for the sanity of his views and his careful statements of facts.
He represents the Chicago _Daily News_ at Peking.
He visited Korea shortly after the uprising, specially to learn the truth.
He remained there many weeks.
Here is his deliberate verdict: "Pekin, June 14th.--After nearly three months of travelling in Korea, in which time I journeyed from the north to the extreme south, I find that the charges of misgovernment, torture and useless slaughter by the Japanese to be substantially correct.
"In the country districts I heard stories of useless murder and crimes against women.
A number of the latter cases were brought to my notice.
One of the victims was a patient in a missionary hospital.
"In a valley about fifty miles from Fusan, the Japanese soldiery closed up a horseshoe-shaped valley surrounded by high hills, and then shot down the villagers who attempted to escape by climbing the steep slopes.
I was informed that more than 100 persons were killed in this affray.
"In Taku, a large city midway between Seoul and Fusan, hundreds of cases of torture occurred, and many of the victims of ill-treatment were in the hospitals.
In Seoul, the capital, strings of prisoners were seen daily being taken to jails which were already crowded.
"While I was in this city I spent some time in the Severance Hospital as a patient, and saw wounded men taken out by the police, one of them having been beaten to death.
Two days later the hospital repeatedly was entered and the patients catechized, those in charge being unable to prevent it.
Detectives even attempted in the night time secretly to enter my room while I was critically ill. "In Seoul, Koreans were not allowed to be on the streets after dark and were not allowed to gather in groups larger than three.
All the prisoners were brutally and disgustingly treated.
Innocent persons were being continually arrested, kept in overcrowded prisons a month or more, and then, after being flogged, released without trial.
"Northern Korea suffered the most from the Japanese brutalities.
In the Pyeng-yang and Sensan districts whole villages were destroyed and churches burned, many of which I saw and photographed.
"In Pyeng-yang I interviewed the Governor and easily saw that he was powerless, everything being in the hands of the chief of the gendarmerie.
At first I was not allowed to visit the prison, but the Governor-General of Korea telegraphed his permission.
I found it clean and the prisoners were well fed, but the overcrowded condition of the cells caused untold suffering.
"In one room, ten feet by six, were more than thirty prisoners.
The prison governor admitted that the total normal capacity of the building was 800, but the occupants then numbered 2,100.
He said he had requested the Government to enlarge the prison immediately, as otherwise epidemics would break out as soon as hot weather came.
"I visited an interior village to learn the truth in a report that the Christians had been driven from their homes.
The local head official, not a Christian, admitted to me that the non-Christian villagers had driven the Christians into the mountains because the local military officials had warned him that their presence would result in the village being shot up.
He said he had the most friendly feeling for the Christians but drove them out in self-protection.
"In other villages which I visited the building had been entirely destroyed and the places were destroyed.
In some of the places I found only terrorized and tearful women who did not dare to speak to a foreigner because the local gendarmes would beat and torture them if they did so.
"The majority of the schools throughout the country are closed.
In most places the missionaries are not allowed to hold services.
Though innocent of any wrong-doing, they are under continual suspicion.
It was impossible for them or others to use the telegraph and post-offices, the strictest censorship prevailing.
Undoubtedly an attempt is being made to undermine Christianity and make the position of missionaries so difficult that it will be impossible for them to carry on their work.
"In the course of my investigation I was deeply impressed with the pitiful condition of the Korean people.
They are allowed only a limited education and attempts are being made to cause them to forget their national history and their language.
"There is no freedom of the press or of public meeting.
The people are subject to the harshest regulations and punishments without any court of appeal.
They are like sheep driven to a slaughter house.
Only an independent investigation can make the world understand Korea's true position.
At present the groanings and sufferings of 20,000,000 people are apparently falling on deaf ear."
As these tales, and many more like them, were spread abroad, the Japanese outside of Korea tried to find some excuse for their nationals.
One of the most extraordinary of these excuses was a series of instructions, said to have been issued by General Utsonomiya, commander of the military forces in Korea, to the officers and men under him.
Copies of these were privately circulated by certain pro-Japanese in America among their friends, as proof of the falsity of the charges of ill-treatment.
Some extracts from them were published by Bishop Herbert Welsh, of the Methodist Church, in the _Christian Advocate_.
"Warm sympathy should be shown to the erring Koreans, who, in spite of their offence, should be treated as unfortunate fellow countrymen, needing love and guidance.
"Use of weapons should be abstained from till the last moment of absolute necessity.
Where, for instance, the demonstration is confined merely to processions and the shouting of _banzai_ and no violence is done, efforts should be confined to the dispersal of crowds by peaceful persuasion.
"Even in case force is employed as the last resource, endeavour should be made to limit its use to the minimum extent.
"The moment the necessity therefor ceases the use of force should at once be stopped.... "Special care should be taken not to harm anybody not participating in disturbances, especially aged people, children and women.
With regard to the missionaries and other foreigners, except in case of the plainest evidence, as, for instance, where they are caught in the act, all forbearance and circumspection should be used.
"You are expected to see to it that the officers and men under you (especially those detailed in small parties) will lead a clean and decent life and be modest and polite, without abating their loyalty and courage, thus exemplifying in their conduct the noble traditions of our historic Bushido."...
If a final touch were wanted to the disgrace of the Japanese administration, here it was.
Brutality, especially brutality against the unarmed and against women and children, is bad enough; but when to brutality we add nauseating hypocrisy, God help us!
One of the Japanese majors who returned from Korea to Tokyo to lecture was more straightforward.
"We must beat and kill the Koreans," he said.
And they did.
After a time the Japanese papers began to report the punishments inflicted on the arrested Koreans.
Many were released after examination and beatings.
It was mentioned that up to April 13th, 2,400 of those arrested in Seoul alone had been released, "after severe admonition."
The usual sentences were between six months' and four years' imprisonment.
Soon there came reports that prisoners were attempting to commit suicide in jail.
Then came word that two of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence were dead in prison.
Koreans everywhere mourned.
For they could imagine how they had died.
During the summer the authorities published figures relating to the number of prisoners brought under the examination of Public Procurators between March 1st and June 18th, on account of the agitation.
These figures do not include the large numbers released by the police after arrest, and after possibly summary punishment.
Sixteen thousand one hundred and eighty-three men were brought up for examination.
Of these, 8,351 were prosecuted and 5,858 set free after the Procurators' examination.
One thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight were transferred from one law court to another for the purpose of thorough examination, while 178 had not yet been tried.
XVI THE REIGN OF TERROR IN PYENG-YANG Pyeng-Yang, the famous missionary centre in Northern Korea, has been described in previous chapters.
The people here, Christians and non-Christians alike, took a prominent part in the movement.
It was announced that three memorial services would be held on March 1st, in memory of the late Emperor, one in the compound of the Christian Boys' School, one in the compound of the Methodist church and the third at the headquarters of the Chun-do Kyo.
The meeting at the boys' school was typical of all.
Several of the native pastors and elders of the Presbyterian churches of the city, including the Moderator of the General Assembly, were present, and the compound was crowded with fully three thousand people.
After the memorial service was finished, a prominent Korean minister asked the people to keep their seats, as there was more to follow.
Then, with an air of great solemnity, the Moderator of the General Assembly read two passages from the Bible, 1 Peter 3:13-17 and Romans 9:3.
"And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good.
"But, if ye suffer for righteousness sake, happy are ye, and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled.
"For I could wish that I were accurst from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh."
It was the great appeal to all that was most heroic in their souls.
Some of them whispered the words after the Moderator.
"Sarami doorupkei hanangusul dooru wo malmyu sodong chi malgo."
"Be not afraid of their terror."
These white-robed men knew what was before them.
Terror and torture and suffering were no new things to them.
Within a quarter of a century conquering and defeated armies had passed through their city time after time.
They knew war, and they knew worse than war.
Japan had during the past few years planted her terror among them, persecuting the Church, arresting its most prominent members on false charges, breaking them in prison by scientific torture.
Many of the men knew, in that assembly, of the meaning of police flogging, the feel of police burning, the unspeakable agony of being strung up by the thumbs under the police inquisition.
"Be not afraid of their terror!"
Easy to say this to Western peoples, to whom terror is known only in the form of the high explosives and dropping bombs of honourable war.
But for these men it had another meaning, an inquisition awaiting them compared with which the tortures of Torquemada paled.
"Be not afraid!"
There was no tremor of fear in the voice of the college graduate who rose to his feet and came to the front.
"This is the proudest and happiest day of my life," he said.
"Though I die to-morrow, I cannot help but read."
He had a paper in his hand.
As the vast audience saw it, they gave a great cheer.
Then he read the Declaration of Independence of the Korean people.
When he had finished, another man took the platform.
"Nothing of an unlawful nature is to be permitted," he said.
"You are all to obey orders, and make no resistance to the authorities, nor to attack the Japanese officials or people."
A speech on Korean independence followed.
Then some men came out of the building bearing armfuls of Korean flags, which they distributed among the people.
A large Korean flag was raised on the wall behind, and the crowd rose to its feet cheering, waving flags, calling "Mansei."
There was to be a parade through the streets.
But spies had already hurried off to the police station, and before the people could leave, a company of policemen arrived.
"Remain quiet," the word went round.
The police gathered up the flags.
In the evening a large crowd gathered in front of the police station shouting "Mansei."
The police ordered the hose to be turned on them.
The Korean policemen refused to obey their Japanese superiors, threw off their uniforms and joined the mob.
The hose at last got to work.
The mob responded by throwing stones, breaking the windows of the police station.
This was the only violence.
On the following day, Sunday, the churches were closed.
At midnight, the police had summoned Dr. Moffett to their office and told him that no services could be allowed.
Early in the morning, the leaders of the Saturday meetings were arrested, and were now in jail.
"Be not afraid!"
At nine o'clock on Monday morning a company of Japanese soldiers was drilling on the campus.
A number of students from the college and academy were on the top of a bank, looking on at the drill.
Suddenly the soldiers, in obedience to a word of command, rushed at the students.
The latter took to their heels and fled, save two or three who stood their ground.
The students who had escaped cheered; and one of the men who stood his ground called "Mansei."
The soldiers struck him with the butts and barrels of their rifles.
Then one poked him with his rifle in his face.
He was bleeding badly.
Two soldiers led him off, a prisoner.
The rest were dispersed with kicks and blows.
Now the Japanese started their innings.
One man in plain clothes confronted a Korean who was walking quietly, slapped his face and knocked him down.
A soldier joined in the sport, and after many blows with the rifle and kicks, they rolled him down an embankment into a ditch.
They then ran down, pulled him out of the ditch, kicked him some more, and hauled him off to prison.
The streets were full of people now, and parties of troops were going about everywhere dispersing them.
The crowds formed, shouting "Mansei"; the soldiers chased them, beating up all they could catch.
There were rumours that most of the Korean policemen had deserted; they had joined the crowds; the Japanese were searching for them and arresting them; and, men whispered, they would be executed.
By midday, every one had enough trouble, and the city quieted down for the rest of the day.
It was not safe to go abroad now.
The soldiers were beating up every one they could find, particularly women.
By Tuesday the city was full of tales of the doings of the soldiers; having tasted blood, the troops were warming to their work, "The soldiers have been chasing people to-day like they were hunters after wild beasts," wrote one foreign spectator.
"Outrages have been very numerous."
Still, despite the troops, the people held two or three patriotic meetings.
Let me tell the tale of Tuesday and Wednesday from two statements made by Dr. Moffett.
These statements were made at the time to the officials in Pyeng-yang and in Seoul: "On Tuesday, March 4th, I, in company with Mr. Yamada, Inspector of Schools, went into the midst of the crowds of Koreans on the college grounds, and thence went through the streets to the city.
"We saw thousands of Koreans on the streets, the shops all closed, and Japanese soldiers here and there.... "As we came back and near a police station, soldiers made a dash at some fifteen or more people in the middle of the street, and three of the soldiers dashed at some five or six men standing quietly at the side, under the eaves of the shops, hitting them with their guns.
One tall young man in a very clean white coat dodged the thrust of the gun coming about five feet under the eaves when an officer thrust his sword into his back, just under the shoulder blades.
The man was not more than ten feet from us in front.... "Mr. Yamada was most indignant and said, 'I shall tell Governor Kudo just what I have seen and tell him in detail.'
"I asked him if he had noticed that the man was quietly standing at the side of the road, and had given no occasion for attack.
He said, 'Yes.'
"Just after that we saw thirty-four young girls and women marched along by some six or eight policemen and soldiers, the girls ahead not being more than twelve or thirteen years of age.
"Just outside the West Gate Mr. Yamada and I separated and I went towards home.
As I arrived near my own compound, I saw a number of soldiers rush into the gate of the Theological Seminary professor's cottage, and saw them grab out a man, beat and kick him and lead him off.
Others began clubbing a youth behind the gate and then led him out, tied him tightly and beat and kicked him.
"Then there came out three others, two youths and one man, dragged by soldiers, and then tied with rope, their hands tied behind them.
"Thinking one was my secretary, who lived in the gate house, where the men had been beaten, I moved to the junction of the road to make sure, but I recognized none of the four.
When they came to the junction of the road and some of the soldiers were within ten or twelve feet of me, they all stopped, tied the ropes tighter, and then with four men tied and helpless, these twenty or more soldiers, in charge of an officer, struck the men with their fists in the face and back, hit them on the head and face with a piece of board, kicked them on the legs and back, doing these things repeatedly.
The officer in a rage raised his sword over his head as he stood before a boy, and both I and the boy thought that he was to be cleft in two.
The cry of terror and anguish he raised was most piercing.
Then, kicking and beating these men, they led them off.
"The above I saw myself and testify to the truthfulness of my statements.
In all my contact with the Koreans these five days, and in all my observation of the crowds inside and outside the city, I have witnessed no act of violence on the part of any Korean."
The Theological Seminary was due to open on March 5th.
Five students from South Korea arrived and went into their dormitory on the afternoon of the 4th.
They had taken no part in the demonstrations.
Later in the afternoon the soldiers, searching after some people who had run away from them, burst into the seminary.
They broke open the door of the dormitory, pulled the five theologues out and hauled them off to the police station.
There, despite their protests, they were tied by their arms and legs to large wooden crosses, face downwards, and beaten on the naked buttocks, twenty-nine tremendous blows from a hard cane, each.
Then they were dismissed.
That same night firemen were let loose on the village where many of the students lived and boarded.
They dragged out the young men and beat them.
The opening of the seminary had to be postponed.
The Japanese were eager to find grounds for convicting the missionaries of participation in the movement.
One question was pressed on every prisoner, usually by beating and burning, "Who instigated you?
Was it the foreigners?"
Dr. Moffett was a special object of Japanese hatred.
The Osaka _Asahi_ printed a bitter attack on him on March 17th.
This is the more notable because the _Asahi_ is a noted organ of Japanese Liberalism.
THE EVIL VILLAGE OUTSIDE THE WEST GATE IN PYENG-YANG _A Clever Crowd_ "Outside the West Gate in Pyeng-yang there are some brick houses and some built after the Korean style, some high and some low.
These are the homes of the foreigners.
There are about a hundred of them in all, and they are Christian missionaries.
In the balmy spring, strains of music can be heard from there.
Outwardly they manifest love and mercy, but if their minds are fully investigated, they will be found to be filled with intrigue and greed.
They pretend to be here for preaching, but they are secretly stirring up political disturbances, and foolishly keep passing on the vain talk of the Koreans, and thereby help to foster trouble.
These are really the homes of devils.
"The head of the crowd is Moffett.
The Christians of the place obey him as they would Jesus Himself.
In the 29th year of Meiji freedom was given to any one to believe in any religion he wished, and at that time Moffett came to teach the Christian religion.
He has been in Pyeng-yang for thirty years, and has brought up a great deal of land.
He is really the founder of the foreign community.
In this community, because of his efforts there have been established schools from the primary grade to a college and a hospital.
While they are educating the Korean children and healing their diseases on the one hand, on the other there is concealed a clever shadow, and even the Koreans themselves talk of this.
"This is the centre of the present uprising.
It is not in Seoul but in Pyeng-yang.
"It is impossible to know whether these statements are true or false, but we feel certain that it is in Pyeng-yang, in the Church schools,--in a certain college and a certain girls' school--in the compound of these foreigners.
Really this foreign community is very vile.
"[1] [Footnote 1: Osaka _Asahi_, quoted in the Peking and Tientsin _Times_, March 38,1919.]
A veritable reign of terror was instituted.
There were wholesale arrests and the treatment of many of the people in prison was in keeping with the methods employed by the Japanese on the Conspiracy Trial victims.
The case of a little shoe boy aroused special indignation.
The Japanese thought that he knew something about the organization of the demonstration--why they thought so, only those who can fathom the Japanese mind would venture to say--so they beat and burned him almost to death to make him confess.
A lady missionary examined his body afterwards.
There were four scars, five inches long, where the flesh had been seared with a red-hot iron.
His hands had swollen to twice their normal size from beating, and the dead skin lay on the welts.
He had been kicked and beaten until he fainted.
Then they threw water over him and gave him water to drink until he recovered when he was again piled with questions and beaten with a bamboo rod until he collapsed.
Some of those released from prison after they had satisfied the Japanese of their innocence had dreadful tales to tell.
Sixty people were confined in a room fourteen by eight feet, where they had to stand up all the time, not being allowed to sit or lie down.
Eating and sleeping they stood leaning against one another.
The wants of nature had to be attended to by them as they stood.
The secretary of one of the mission schools was kept for seven days in this room, as part of sixteen days' confinement, before he was released.
A student, arrested at his house, was kept at the police station for twenty days.
Then they let him go, having found nothing against him.
His bruised body when he came out showed what he had suffered.
He had been bound and a cord around his shoulders and arms pulled tight until the breastbone was forced forward and breathing almost stopped.
Then he was beaten with a bamboo stick on the shoulders and arms until he lost consciousness.
The bamboo stick was wrapped in paper so as to prevent the skin breaking and bleeding.
He saw another man beaten ten times into unconsciousness, and ten times brought round; and a boy thrown down hard on the floor and stamped on repeatedly until he lost consciousness.
Those who came out were few; what happened to those who remained within the prison must be left to the imagination.
Despite everything, the demonstrations of the people still continued.
On March 7th the people of the villages of Po Paik and Kan, twenty miles north of Pyeng-yang, came out practically en masse to shout for independence.
Next day four soldiers and one Korean policeman arrived, asking for the pastor of the church.
They could not find him, so they seized the school-teacher, slashed his head and body with their swords and thrust a sword twice into his legs.
An elder of the church stepped up to protest against such treatment, whereupon a Japanese soldier ran a sword through his side.
As the soldiers left some young men threw stones at them.
The soldiers replied with rifle fire, wounding four men.
Soldiers and police came again and again to find the pastor and church officers who had gone into hiding.
On April 4th they seized the women and demanded where their husbands were, beating them with clubs and guns, the wife of one elder being beaten till great red bruises showed all over her body.
The police evidently made up their minds that the Christians were responsible for the demonstration, and they determined to rid the place of them.
The services of some liquor sellers were enlisted to induce people to tear down the belfry of the church.
On April 18th a Japanese came and addressed the crowd through an interpreter.
He told them that the Christians had been deceived by the "foreign devils," who were an ignorant, low-down lot of people, and that they should be driven out and go and live with the Americans who had corrupted them.
There was nothing in the Bible about independence and "Mansei."
Three thousand cavalry and three thousand infantry were coming to destroy all the Christians, and if they did not drive them out but continued to live with them, they would be shot and killed.
A number of half drunken men got together to drive out the Christians.
This was done.
A report was taken to the gendarmes that the Christians had been driven away, whereupon the villagers were praised.
In other parts, near by, the same chief of gendarmes was ordering the families of Christians out of their homes, arresting the men and leaving the women and children to seek refuge where they might.
Word came to some other villages in the Pyeng-yang area that the police would visit them on April 27th, to inspect the house-cleaning.
The Christians received warning that they must look out for a hard time.
Everything was very carefully cleaned, ready for the inspection.
The leader of the church sent word to all the people to gather for early worship, so as to be through before the police should come.
But the police were there before them, a Japanese in charge, two Korean policemen, two secretaries and two dog killers.
The two leaders of the church were called up by the Japanese, who stepped down and ran his fingers along the floor.
"Look at this dust," he said.
Ordering the two men to sit down on the floor, he beat them with a flail, over the shoulders.
"Do you beat an old man, seventy years old, this way?"
called the older man.
"What is seventy years, you rascal of a Christian?"
came the reply.
The police took the names of the Christians from the church roll, and went round the village, picking them out and beating them all, men, women and children.
They killed their dogs.
The non-Christians were let alone.
On the afternoon of April 4th a cordon of police and gendarmes was suddenly picketed all around the missionary quarter in Pyeng-yang, and officials, police and detectives made an elaborate search of the houses.
Some copies of an Independence newspaper, a bit of paper with a statement of the numbers killed at Anju, and a copy of the program of the memorial service were found among the papers of Dr. Moffett's secretary, and two copies of a mimeographed notice in Korean, thin paper rolled up into a thin ball and thrown away, were found in an outhouse.
The secretary was arrested, bound, beaten and hauled off.
Other Koreans found on the premises were treated in similar fashion.
One man was knocked down, beaten and kicked on the head several times.
Dr. Moffett and the Rev.
E.M. Mowry, another American Presbyterian missionary from Mansfield, Ohio, were ordered to the police office that evening, and cross-examined.
Dr. Moffett convinced the authorities that he knew nothing of the independence movement and had taken no part in it (he felt bound, as a missionary, not to take part in political affairs), but Mr. Mowry was detained on the charge of sheltering Korean agitators.
Mr. Mowry had allowed five Korean students wanted by the police to remain in his house for two days early in March.
Some of them were his students and one was his former secretary; Mr. Mowry was a teacher at the Union Christian College, and principal of both the boys' and girls' grammar schools at Pyeng-yang.
Mr. Mowry declared that Koreans often slept at his house, and he had no knowledge that the police were trying to arrest these lads.
The missionary was kept in jail for ten days.
His friends were told that he would probably be sent to Seoul for trial Then he was suddenly brought before the Pyeng-yang court, no time being given for him to obtain counsel, and was sentenced to six months' penal servitude.
He was led away wearing the prisoners' cap, a wicker basket, placed over the head and face.
An appeal was at once entered, and eventually the conviction was quashed, and a new trial ordered.
XVII GIRL MARTYRS FOR LIBERTY The most extraordinary feature of the uprising of the Korean people is the part taken in it by the girls and women.
Less than twenty years ago, a man might live in Korea for years and never come in contact with a Korean woman of the better classes, never meet her on the street, never see her in the homes of his Korean friends.
I have lived for a week or two at a time, in the old days, in the house of a Korean man of high class, and have never once seen his wife or daughters.
In Japan in those days--and with many families the same holds true to-day--when one was invited as a guest, the wife would receive you, bow to the guest and her lord, and then would humbly retire, not sitting to table with the men.
Christian teaching and modern ways broke down the barrier in Korea.
The young Korean women took keenly to the new mode of life.
The girls in the schools, particularly in the Government schools, led the way in the demand for the restoration of their national life.
There were many quaint and touching incidents.
In the missionary schools, the chief fear of the girls was lest they should bring trouble on their American teachers.
The head mistress of one of these schools noticed for some days that her girls were unusually excited.
She heard them asking one another, "Have you enrolled?"
and imagined that some new girlish league was being formed.
This was before the great day.
One morning the head mistress came down to discover the place empty.
On her desk was a paper signed by all the girls, resigning their places in the school.
They thought that by this device they would show that their beloved head mistress was not responsible.
Soon there came a call from the Chief of Police.
The mistress was wanted at the police office at once.
All the girls from her school were demonstrating and had stirred up the whole town.
Would the mistress come and disperse them?
The mistress hurried off.
Sure enough, here were the girls in the street, wearing national badges, waving national flags, calling on the police to come and take them.
The men had gathered and were shouting "Mansei!"
also.
The worried Chief of Police, who was a much more decent kind than many of his fellows, begged the mistress to do something.
"I cannot arrest them all," he said.
"I have only one little cell here.
It would only hold a few of them," The mistress went out to talk to the girls.
They would not listen, even to her.
They cheered her, and when she begged them to go home, shouted "Mansei!"
all the louder.
The mistress went back to the Chief.
"The only thing for you to do is to arrest me," she said.
The Chief was horrified at the idea, "I will go out and tell the girls that you are going to arrest me if they do not go," she said.
"We will see what that will do.
But mind you, if they do not disperse, you must arrest me."
She went out again.
"Girls," she called, "the Chief of Police is going to arrest me if you do not go to your homes.
I am your teacher, and it must be the fault of my teaching that you will not obey."
"No, teacher, no," the girls shouted.
"It is not your fault.
You have nothing to do with it.
We are doing this."
And some of them rushed up, as though they would rescue her by force of arms.
In the end, she persuaded the girls to go home, in order to save her.
"Well," said the leaders of the girls, "it's all right now.
We have done all we wanted.
We have stirred up the men.
They were sheep and wanted women to make a start.
Now they will go on."
The police and gendarmerie generally were not so merciful as this particular Chief.
The rule in many police stations was to strip and beat the girls and young women who took any part in the demonstrations, and to expose them, absolutely naked, to as many Japanese men as possible.
The Korean woman is as sensitive as a white woman about the display of her person, and the Japanese, knowing this, delighted to have this means of humiliating them.
In some towns, the schoolgirls arranged to go out in sections, so many one day, so many on the other.
The girls who had to go out on the later days knew how those who had preceded them had been stripped and beaten.
Anticipating that they would be treated in the same way, they sat up the night before sewing special undergarments on themselves, which would not be so easily removed as their ordinary clothes, hoping that they might thus avoid being stripped entirely naked.
The girls were most active of all in the city of Seoul.
I have mentioned in the previous chapter the arrest of many of them.
They were treated very badly indeed.
Take, for instance, the case of those seized by the police on the morning of Wednesday, March 5th.
They were nearly all of them pupils from the local academies.
Some of them were demonstrating on Chong-no, the main street, shouting "Mansei."
Others were wearing straw shoes, a sign of mourning, for the dead Emperor.
Still others were arrested because the police thought that they might be on the way to demonstrate.
A few of these girls were released after a spell in prison.
On their release, their statements concerning their treatment were independently recorded.
They were first taken to the Chong-no Police Station, where a body of about twenty Japanese policemen kicked them with their heavy boots, slapped their cheeks or punched their heads.
"They flung me against a wall with all their might, so that I was knocked senseless, and remained so for a time," said one.
"They struck me such blows across the ears that my cheeks swelled up," said another.
"They trampled on my feet with their heavy nailed boots till I felt as though my toes were crushed beneath them....
There was a great crowd of students, both girls and boys.
They slapped the girls over the ears, kicked them, and tumbled them in the corners.
Some of them they took by the hair, jerking both sides of the face.
Some of the boy students they fastened down with a rope till they had their heads fastened between their legs.
Then they trampled them with their heavy boots, kicking them in their faces till their eyes were swelled and blood flowed."
Seventy-five persons, forty men and thirty-five girls, were confined in a small room.
The door was closed, and the atmosphere soon became dreadful.
In vain they pleaded to have the door open.
The girls were left until midnight without food or water.
The men were removed at about ten in the evening.
During the day, the prisoners were taken one by one before police officials to be examined.
Here is the narrative of one of the schoolgirls.
This girl was dazed and almost unconscious from ill-treatment and the poisoned air, when she was dragged before her inquisitor.
"I was cross-questioned three times.
When I went out to the place of examination they charged me with having straw shoes, and so beat me over the head with a stick.
I had no sense left with which to make a reply.
They asked: "'Why did you wear straw shoes?'
"'The King had died, and whenever Koreans are in mourning they wear straw shoes,' "'That is a lie,' said the cross-examiner.
He then arose and took my mouth in his two hands and pulled it each way so that it bled.
I maintained that I had told the truth and no falsehoods.
'You Christians are all liars,' he replied, taking my arm and giving it a pull.
"...
The examiner then tore open my jacket and said, sneeringly, 'I congratulate you,' He then slapped my face, struck me with a stick until I was dazed and asked again, 'Who instigated you to do this?
Did foreigners?'
"My answer was, 'I do not know any foreigners, but only the principal of the school.
She knows nothing of this plan of ours!'
"'Lies, only lies,' said the examiner.
"Not only I, but others too, suffered every kind of punishment.
One kind of torture was to make us hold a board at arm's length and hold it out by the hour.
They also had a practice of twisting our legs, while they spat on our faces.
When ordered to undress, one person replied, 'I am not guilty of any offence.
Why should I take off my clothes before you?'
"'If you really were guilty, you would not be required to undress, but seeing you are sinless, off with your clothes,'" He was a humorous fellow, this cross-examiner of the Chong-no Police Station.
He had evidently learned something of the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
His way was first to charge the girls--schoolgirls of good family, mind you--with being pregnant, making every sort of filthy suggestion to them.
When the girls indignantly denied, he would order them to strip.
"Since you maintain you have not sinned in any way, I see the Bible says that if there is no sin in you take off all your clothes and go before all the people naked," he told one girl.
"Sinless people live naked."
Let us tell the rest of the story in the girl's own words.
"The officer then came up to where I was standing, and tried to take off my clothes.
I cried, and protested, and struggled, saying, 'This is not the way to treat a woman.'
He desisted.
When he was making these vile statements about us, he did not use the Korean interpreter, but spoke in broken Korean.
The Korean interpreter seemed sorrowful while these vile things were being said by the operator.
The Korean interpreter was ordered to beat me.
He said he would not beat a woman; he would bite his fingers first.
So the officer beat me with his fist on my shoulders, face and legs."
These examinations were continued for days.
Sometimes a girl would be examined several times a day.
Sometimes a couple of examiners would rush at her, beating and kicking her; sometimes they would make her hold a chair or heavy board out at full length, beating her if she let it sink in the least.
Then when she was worn out they would renew their examination.
The questions were all directed towards one end, to discover who inspired them, and more particularly if any foreigners or missionaries had influenced them.
During this time they were kept under the worst possible conditions.
"I cannot recount all the vile things that were said to us while in the police quarters in Chong-no," declared one of the girls.
"They are too obscene to be spoken, but by the kindness of the Lord I thought of how Paul had suffered in prison, and was greatly comforted.
I knew that God would give the needed help, and as I bore it for my country, I did not feel the shame and misery of it."
One American woman, to whom some of the girls related their experiences, said to me, "I cannot tell you, a man, all that these girls told us.
I will only say this.
There have been stories of girls having their arms cut off.
If these girls had been daughters of mine I would rather that they had their arms cut off than that they faced what those girls endured in Chong-no."
There came a day when the girls were bound at the wrists, all fastened together, and driven in a car to the prison outside the West Gate.
Some of them were crying.
They were not allowed to look up or speak.
The driver, a Korean, took advantage of a moment when the attention of their guard was attracted to whisper a word of encouragement.
"Don't be discouraged and make your bodies weak.
You are not yet condemned.
This is only to break your spirits."
The prison outside the West Gate is a model Japanese jail.
There were women officials here.
It seemed horrible to the girls that they should be made to strip in front of men and be examined by them.
Probably the men were prison doctors.
But it was evidently intended to shame them as much as possible.
Thus one girl relates that, after her examination, "I was told to take my clothes and go into another room.
One woman went with me, about a hundred yards or more away.
I wanted to put my clothes on before leaving the room, but they hurried me and pushed me.
I wrapped my skirt about my body before I went out, and carried the rest of my clothes in my arms.
After leaving this room, and before reaching the other, five Korean men prisoners passed us."
For the first week the girls, many of them in densely crowded cells, were kept in close confinement.
After this, they were allowed out for fifteen minutes, wearing the prisoners' hat, which comes down over the head, after breakfast.
Their food was beans and millet It was given to the accompaniment of jeers and insults.
"You Koreans eat like dogs and cats," the wardresses told them.
The routine of life in the prison was very trying.
They got up at seven.
Most of the day they had to assume a haunched, kneeling position, and remain absolutely still, hour after hour.
The wardresses in the corridors kept close watch, and woe to the girl who made the slightest move.
"They ordered us not to move a hand or a foot but to remain perfectly still," wrote one girl.
"Even the slightest movement brought down every kind of wrath.
We did not dare to move even a toe-nail."
One unhappy girl, mistaking the call of an official in the corridor, "I-ri-ma sen" for a command to go to sleep, stretched out her leg to lie down.
She was scolded and severely punished.
Another closed her eyes in prayer.
"You are sleeping," called the wardress.
In vain the girl replied that she was praying.
"You lie," retorted the polite Japanese lady.
More punishment!
After fifteen days in the prison outside the West Gate, some of the girls were called in the office.
"Go, but be very careful not to repeat your offence," they were told.
"If you are caught again, you will be given a heavier punishment."
The worst happenings with the women were not in the big towns, where the presence of white people exercised some restraint, but in villages, where the new troops often behaved in almost incredible fashion, outraging freely.
The police in many of these outlying parts rivalled the military in brutality.
Of the many stories that reached me, the tale of Tong Chun stands out.
The account was investigated by experienced white men, who shortly afterwards visited the place and saw for themselves.
The village of Tong Chun contains about 300 houses and is the site of a Christian church.
The young men of the place wished to make a demonstration but the elders of the church dissuaded them for a time.
However, on March 29th, market day, when there were many people in the place, some children started demonstrating, and their elders followed, a crowd of four or five hundred people marching through the streets and shouting "Mansei!"
There was no violence of any kind.
The police came out and arrested seventeen persons, including five women.
One of these women was a widow of thirty-one.
She was taken into the police office and a policeman tore off her clothes, leaving her in her underwear.
Then the police began to take off her underclothes.
She protested, whereupon they struck her in the face with their hands till she was black and blue.
She still clung to her clothes, so they put a wooden paddle down between her legs and tore her clothes away.
Then they beat her.
The beating took a long time.
When it was finished the police stopped to drink tea and eat Japanese cakes, they and their companions--there were a number of men in the room--amusing themselves by making fun of her as she sat there naked among them.
She was subsequently released.
For a week afterwards she had to lie down most of the time and could not walk around.
Another victim was the wife of a Christian teacher, a very bright, intelligent woman, with one child four months old, and two or three months advanced in her second pregnancy.
She had taken a small part in the demonstration and then had gone to the home of the mother of another woman who had been arrested, to comfort her.
Police came here, and demanded if she had shouted "Mansei."
She admitted that she had.
They ordered her to leave the child that she was carrying on her back and took her to the police station.
As she entered the station a man kicked her forcibly from behind and she fell forward in the room.
As she lay there a policeman put his foot on her neck, then raised her up and struck her again and again.
She was ordered to undress.
She hesitated, whereupon the policeman kicked her, and took up a paddle and a heavy stick to beat her with.
"You are a teacher," he cried.
"You have set the minds of the children against Japan.
I will beat you to death."
He tore her underclothes off.
Still clinging to them, she tried to cover her nakedness.
The clothes were torn out of her hands.
She tried to sit down.
They forced her up.
She tried by turning to the wall to conceal herself from the many men in the room.
They forced her to turn round again.
When she tried to shelter herself with her hands, one man twisted her arms, held them behind her back, and kept them there while the beating and kicking continued.
She was so badly hurt that she would have fallen to the floor, but they held her up to continue the beating.
She was then sent into another room.
Later she and other women were again brought in the office.
"Do you know now how wrong it is to call 'Mansei'?"
the police asked.
"Will you ever dare to do such a thing again?"
Gradually news of how the women were being treated spread.
A crowd of five hundred people gathered next morning.
The hot bloods among them were for attacking the station, to take revenge for the ill-treatment of their women.
The chief Christian kept them back, and finally a deputation of two went inside the police office to make a protest.
They spoke up against the stripping of the women, declaring it unlawful.
The Chief of Police replied that they were mistaken.
It was permitted under Japanese law.
They had to strip them to search for unlawful papers.
Then the men asked why only the younger women were stripped, and not the older, why they were beaten after being stripped, and why only women and not men were stripped.
The Chief did not reply.
By this time the crowd was getting very ugly.
"Put us in prison too, or release the prisoners," the people called.
In the end the Chief agreed to release all but four of the prisoners.
Soon afterwards the prisoners emerged from the station.
One woman, a widow of thirty-two who had been arrested on the previous day and very badly kicked by the police, had to be supported on either side.
The wife of the Christian teacher had to be carried on a man's back.
Let me quote from a description written by those on the spot: "As they saw the women being brought out, in this condition, a wave of pity swept over the whole crowd, and with one accord they burst into tears and sobbed.
Some of them cried out, 'It is better to die than to live under such savages,' and many urged that they should attack the police office with their naked hands, capture the Chief of Police, strip him and beat him to death.
But the Christian elder and other wiser heads prevailed, kept the people from any acts of violence, and finally got them to disperse."
XVIII WORLD REACTIONS On April 23rd, at a time when the persecution was at its height, delegates, duly elected by each of the thirteen provinces of Korea, met, under the eyes of the Japanese police, in Seoul, and adopted a constitution, creating the Republic.
Dr. Syngman Rhee, the young reformer of 1894, who had suffered long imprisonment for the cause of independence, was elected the first President.
Dr. Rhee was now in America, and he promptly established headquarters in Washington, from which to conduct a campaign in the interests of his people.
Diplomatically, of course, the new Republican organization could not be recognized; but there are many ways in which such a body can work.
The First Ministry included several men who had taken a prominent part in reform work in the past The list was: Prime Minister........................Tong Hui Yee Minister Foreign Affairs..............Yongman Park Minister of Interior..................Tong Yung Yee Minister of War.......................Pak Yin Roe Minister of Finance...................Si Yung Yee Minister of Law.......................Kiu Sik Cynn Minister of Education.................Kiusic Kimm Minister of Communications............Chang Bum Moon Director Bureau of Labour.............Chang Ho Ahn Chief of Staff........................Tong Yul Lew Vice Chief of Staff...................Sei Yung Lee Vice Chief of Staff...................Nan Soo Hahn The Provisional Constitution was essentially democratic and progressive: PROVISIONAL CONSTITUTION By the will of God, the people of Korea, both within and without the country, have united in a peaceful declaration of their independence, and for over one month have carried on their demonstrations in over 300 districts, and because of their faith in the movement they have by their representatives chosen a Provisional Government to carry on to completion this independence and so to preserve blessings for our children and grandchildren.
The Provisional Government, in its Council of State, has decided on a Provisional Constitution, which it now proclaims.
1.
The Korean Republic shall follow republican principles.
2.
All powers of State shall rest with the Provisional Council of State of the Provisional Government.
3.
There shall be no class distinction among the citizens of the Korean Republic, but men and women, noble and common, rich and poor, shall have equality.
4.
The citizens of the Korean Republic shall have religious liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of writing and publication, the right to hold public meetings and form social organizations and the full right to choose their dwellings or change their abode.
5.
The citizens of the Korean Republic shall have the right to vote for all public officials or to be elected to public office.
6.
Citizens will be subject to compulsory education and military service and payment of taxes.
7.
Since by the will of God the Korean Republic has arisen in the world and has come forward as a tribute to the world peace and civilization, for this reason we wish to become a member of the League of Nations.
8.
The Korean Republic will extend benevolent treatment to the former Imperial Family.
9.
The death penalty, corporal punishment and public prostitution will be abolished.
10.
Within one year of the recovery of our land the National Congress will be convened.
Signed by: _The Provisional Secretary of State, And the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs, Justice, Finance, War, Communications._ In the 1st Year of the Korean Republic, 4th Month.
The following are six principles of government: 1.
We proclaim the equality of the people and the State.
2.
The lives and property of foreigners shall be respected.
3.
All political offenders shall be specially pardoned.
4.
We will observe all treaties that shall be made with foreign powers.
5.
We swear to stand by the independence of Korea.
6.
Those who disregard the orders of the Provisional Government will be regarded as enemies of the State.
The National Council issued a statement of its aims and purpose: _April 22 1919._ We, the people of Korea, represented by thirty-three men, including Son Pyeng Heui, have already made the Declaration of Independence of Korea, found on the principle of righteousness and humanity.
With a view to upholding the authority of the Declaration, solidifying the foundations of the Independence, and meeting the natural needs of humanity, we, by combining the large and small groups and the provincial representatives, have organized the Korean National Council, and hereby proclaim it to the world.
We, the people of Korea, have a history of over forty-two centuries, as a self-governing and separate state, and of special, creative civilization, and are a peace-loving race.
We claim a right to be sharers in the world's enlightenment, and contributors in the evolution of mankind.
With a distinctive and world-wide glorious past, and with our healthy national spirit, we should never be subjected to inhuman and unnatural oppression, nor assimilation by another race; and still less could we submit to the materialistic subjugation by the Japanese, whose spiritual civilization is 2,000 years behind ours.
The world knows that Japan has violated the sworn treaties of the past and is robbing us of the right of existence.
We, however, are not discussing the wrongs done us by the Japanese in the past, nor considering their accumulated sins; but, in order to guarantee our rights of existence, extend liberty and equality, safeguard righteousness and humanity, maintain the peace of the Orient, and respect the equitable welfare of the whole world, do claim the independence of Korea.
This is truly the will of God, motivation of truth, just claim, and legitimate action.
By this the world's verdict is to be won, and the repentance of Japan hastened.
At this time, when the militarism which once threatened the peace of the world is brought to submission, and when the world is being reconstructed for a lasting peace, will Japan refuse self-reflection and self-awakening?
Obstinate clinging to the errors, which have gone contrary to the times and nature, will result in nothing but the diminution of the happiness of the two peoples and endangering of the peace of the world.
This council demands with all earnestness that the government of Japan abandon as early as possible the inhuman policy of aggression and firmly safeguard the tripodic relationship of the Far East, and further duly warn the people of Japan.
Can it be that the conscience of mankind will calmly witness the cruel atrocities visited upon us by the barbarous, military power of Japan for our actions in behalf of the rights of life founded upon civilization?
The devotion and blood of our 20,000,000 will never cease nor dry under this unrighteous oppression.
If Japan does not repent and mend her ways for herself, our race will be obliged to take the final action, to the limit of the last man and the last minute, which will secure the complete independence of Korea.
What enemy will withstand when our race marches forward with righteousness and humanity?
With our utmost devotion and best labour we demand before the world our national independence and racial autonomy.
THE KOREAN NATIONAL COUNCIL Representatives of the thirteen Provinces: Yee Man Jik Kim Hyung Sun Yee Nai Su Yu Keun Pak Han Yung Kang Ji Yung Pak Chang Ho Chang Seung Yee Yeng Jun Kim Heyen Chun Choi Chun Koo Kim Ryu Yee Yong Kiu Kim Sig Yu Sik Kiu Chu Ik Yu Jang Wuk Hong Seung Wuk Song Ji Hun Chang Chun Yee Tong Wuk Chung Tam Kio Kim Taik Pak Tak Kang Hoon RESOLUTIONS That a Provisional Government shall be organized.
That a demand be made of the Government of Japan to withdraw the administrative and military organs from Korea.
That a delegation shall be appointed to the Paris Peace Conference.
That the Koreans in the employ of the Japanese Government shall withdraw.
That the people shall refuse to pay taxes to the Japanese Government.
That the people shall not bring petitions or litigations before the Japanese Government.
* * * * * It was expected in Korea that there would be an immediate agitation in America to secure redress.
The American churches were for some weeks strangely silent.
There is no reason why the full reasons should not be made public.
The missionary organizations mainly represented in Korea are also strongly represented in Japan.
Their officials at their headquarters are almost forced to adopt what can be politely described as a statesmanlike attitude over matters of controversy between different countries.
When Mr. Armstrong, of the Presbyterian Board of Missions of Canada, arrived in America, burning with indignation over what he had seen, he found among the American leaders a spirit of great caution.
They did not want to offend Japan, nor to injure Christianity there.
And there was a feeling--a quite honest feeling,--that they might accomplish more by appealing to the better side of Japan than by frankly proclaiming the truth.
The whole matter was referred, by the Presbyterian and Methodist Boards, to the Commission on Relations with the Orient of the Federal Council of the Churches, a body representing the Churches as a whole.
The Secretary of that Commission is the Rev.
Sydney Gulick, the most active defender of Japanese interests of any European or American to-day.
Mr. Gulick lived a long time in Japan; he sees things, inevitably, from a Japanese point of view.
He at once acted as though he were resolved to keep the matter from the public gaze.
This was the course recommended by the Japanese Consul-General Yada at New York.
Private pressure was brought on the Japanese authorities, and the preparation of a report was begun in very leisurely fashion.
Every influence that Mr. Gulick possessed was exercised to prevent premature publicity.
The report of the Federal Council was not issued until between four and five months after the atrocities began.
A Presbyterian organization, The New Era Movement, issued a stinging report on its own account, a few days before.
The report of the Federated Council was preceded by a cablegram from Mr. Hara, the Japanese Premier, declaring that the report of abuses committed by agents of the Japanese Government in Korea had been engaging his most serious attention.
"I am fully prepared to look squarely at actual facts."
The report itself, apart from a brief, strongly pro-Japanese introduction, consisted of a series of statements by missionaries and others in Korea, and was as outspoken and frank as any one could desire.
The only regret was that it had not been issued immediately.
Here was a situation that called for the pressure of world public opinion.
In keeping this back as long as possible Mr. Gulick, I am convinced, did the cause of Korean Christianity a grave injury, and helped to prevent earlier redress being obtained.
"No neutrality for brutality" was the motto adopted by many of the missionaries of Korea.
It is a good one for the Churches as a whole.
There are times when the open expression of a little honest indignation is better than all the "ecclesiastical statesmanship" that can be employed.
In Japan itself, every effort was made by the authorities to keep back details of what was happening.
Mr. Hara, the Progressive Premier, was in none too strong a position.
The military party, and the forces of reaction typified by Prince Yamagata, had too much power for him to do as much as he himself perhaps would.
He consented to the adoption of still more drastic methods in April, and while redress was promised in certain particular instances, as in the Suigen outrage, there was no desire displayed to meet the situation fully.
Taxed in Parliament, he tried to wriggle out of admissions that anything was wrong.
The attitude of the people of Japan at first was frankly disappointing to those who hoped that the anti-militarist party there would really act.
One American-Japanese paper, the Japan _Advertiser_, sent a special correspondent to Korea and his reports were of the utmost value.
The Japan _Chronicle_, the English owned paper at Kobe, was equally outspoken.
The Japanese press as a whole had very little to say; it had been officially "requested" not to say anything about Korea.
The Japanese Constitutional Party sent Mr. Konosuke Morya to investigate the situation on the spot.
He issued a report declaring that the disturbances were due to the discriminatory treatment of Koreans, complicated and impracticable administrative measures, extreme censorship of public speeches, forcible adoption of the assimilation system, and the spread of the spirit of self-determination.
Of the assimilation system he said, "It is a great mistake of colonial policy to attempt to enforce upon the Koreans, with a 2,000-year history, the same spiritual and mental training as the Japanese people."
By this time the Japanese Churches were beginning to stir.
The Federation of Churches in Japan sent Dr. Ishizaka, Secretary of the Mission Board of the Japan Methodist Church, to enquire.
Dr. Ishizaka's findings were published in the _Gokyo_.
I am indebted for a summary of them to an article by Mr. R.S.
Spencer, in the _Christian Advocate_ of New York: "Dr. Ishizaka first showed, on the authority of officials, missionaries and others, that the missionaries could in no just way be looked upon as the cause of the disturbances.
Many Koreans and most of the missionaries had looked hopefully to Japanese control as offering a cure for many ills of the old regime, but in the ten years of occupation feeling had undergone a complete revulsion and practically all were against the Japanese governing system.
The reasons he then sketches as follows: (1) The much-vaunted educational system established by the Governor-General makes it practically impossible for a Korean to go higher than the middle schools (roughly equivalent to an American high school) or a technical school.
Even when educated Koreans were universally discriminated against.
In the same office, at the same work, Koreans receive less pay than Japanese.
(The quotations are from the translation of the Japan _Advertiser_.)
'A Korean student in Aoyama Gakuin, who stayed at Bishop Honda's home, became the head officer of the Taikyu district office.
That was before the annexation.... That officer is not in Taikyu now.
He is serving in some petty office in the country.
The Noko Bank, in Keijo (Seoul) is the only place where the Japanese and Koreans are treated equally, but there, also, the equality is only an outward form.'
(2) The depredations of the Oriental Improvement Co., the protégé of the government, resulted in the eviction of hundreds of Korean farmers, who fled to Manchuria and Siberia, many dying miserably.
The wonderful roads are mentioned, it being shown that they are built and cared for by forced labour of the Koreans.
That most galling and obnoxious of all bureaucratic methods, carried to the nth power in Japan--the making out of endless reports and forms--has created dissatisfaction.
Dr. Ishizaka relates how an underling official required a Korean of education to rewrite a notice of change of residence six times because he omitted a dot in one of those atrocious Chinese characters, which are a hobble on the development of Japan.
This last opinion is mine, not the doctor's.
(3) The gendarmerie, or military police system, is mentioned, 13,000 strong, of whom about 8,000 are renegade Koreans.
Admittedly a rough lot, these men are endowed with absolute power of search, personal or domiciliary, detention, arrest (and judging from the reports, I would say torture) without warrant.
Bribery is, of course, rampant among them.
(4) Associated closely with the police system, indeed controlling it and the civil administration and everything else, is the military government.
The Governor-General must be a military officer.
Dr. Ishizaka says: 'Militarism means tyranny; it never acts in open daylight, but seeks to cover up its intentions.
The teachers in primary schools and even in girls' schools, that is, the men teachers, wear swords.'
(5) Lastly, Dr. Ishizaka speaks of the method, which we can easily recognize as to source, of trying to 'assimilate' the Koreans by prohibiting the language, discarding Korean history from the schools, repressing customs, etc.
"In conclusion Dr. Ishizaka points out that not alone must these errors be righted, but that the only hope lies in the assumption on the part of Japanese, public and private, of an attitude of Christian brotherhood towards the Koreans.
He announces a campaign to raise money among Japanese Christians for the benefit of Koreans and their churches."
The Japanese Government at last came to see that something must be done.
Count Hasegawa, the Governor-General and Mr. Yamagata, Director-General of Administration, were recalled and Admiral Baron Saito and Mr. Midzuno were appointed to succeed them.
Numerous other changes in personnel were also made.
An Imperial Rescript was issued late in August announcing that the Government of Korea was to be reformed, and Mr. Hara in a statement issued at the same time announced that the gendarmerie were to be replaced by a force of police, under the control of the local governors, except in districts where conditions make their immediate elimination advisable, and that "It is the ultimate purpose of the Japanese Government in due course to treat Korea as in all respects on the same footing as Japan."
Admiral Saito, in interviews, promised the inauguration of a liberal régime on the Peninsula.
The change unfortunately does not touch the fundamental needs of the situation.
No doubt there will be an attempt to lessen some abuses.
This there could not fail to be, if Japan is to hold its place longer among the civilized Powers.
But Mr. Hara's explanation of the new program showed that the policy of assimilation is to be maintained, and with it, the policy of exploitation can hardly fail to be joined.
These two things spell renewed failure.
XIX WHAT CAN WE DO?
"What do you want us to do?"
men ask me.
"Do you seriously suggest that America or Great Britain should risk a breach of good relations or even a war with Japan to help Korea?
If not, what is the use of saying anything?
You only make the Japanese harden their hearts still more."
What can we do?
Everything!
I appeal first to the Christian Churches of the United States, Canada and Britain.
I have seen what your representatives, more particularly the agents of the American and Canadian Churches, have accomplished in Korea itself.
They have built wisely and well, and have launched the most hopeful and flourishing Christian movement in Asia.
Their converts have established congregations that are themselves missionary churches, sending out and supporting their own teachers and preachers to China.
A great light has been lit in Asia.
Shall it be extinguished?
For, make no mistake, the work is threatened with destruction.
Many of the church buildings have been burned; many of the native leaders have been tortured and imprisoned; many of their followers, men, women and children, have been flogged, or clubbed, or shot.
You, the Christians of the United States and of Canada, are largely responsible for these people.
The teachers you sent and supported taught them the faith that led them to hunger for freedom.
They taught them the dignity of their bodies and awakened their minds.
They brought them a Book whose commands made them object to worship the picture of Emperor--even of Japanese Emperor--made them righteously angry when they were ordered to put part of their Christian homes apart for the diseased outcasts of the Yoshiwara to conduct their foul business, made them resent having the trade of the opium seller or the morphia agent introduced among them.
Your teaching has brought them floggings, tortures unspeakable, death.
I do not mourn for them, for they have found something to which the blows of the lashed twin bamboos and the sizzling of the hot iron as it sears their flesh are small indeed.
But I would mourn for you, if you were willing to leave them unhelped, to shut your ears to their calls, to deny them your practical sympathy.
What can we do?
you ask.
You can exercise the powers that democratic government has given you to translate your indignation into action.
You can hold public meetings, towns meetings and church meetings, and declare, formally and with all the weight of your communities behind you, where you stand in this matter.
You can make your sentiments known to your own Government and to the Imperial Japanese Government.
Then you can extend practical support to the victims of this outbreak of cruelty.
There could be no more effective rebuke than for the Churches of the English-speaking nations to say to their fellow Christians of Korea, "We are standing by you.
We cannot share your bodily sufferings, but we will try to show our sympathy in other ways.
We will rebuild some of your churches that have been burned down; we will support the widows or orphans of Christians who have been unjustly slain, or will help to support the families of those now imprisoned for their faith and for freedom.
We will show, by deeds, not words, that Christian brotherhood is a reality and not a sham."
In doing so, you will supply an example that will not be forgotten so long as Asia endures.
Men say--and say rightly--that Korea is the key-land of Northeastern Asia, so far as domination of that part of the lands of the Pacific is concerned.
Korea is still more the key-land of Asia for Western civilization and Christian ideals.
Let Christianity be throttled here, and it will have received a set-back in Asia from which it will take generations to recover.
"The Koreans are a degenerate people, not fit for self-government," says the man whose mind has been poisoned by subtle Japanese propaganda.
Korea has only been a very few years in contact with Western civilization, but it has already indicated that this charge is a lie.
Its old Government was corrupt, and deserved to fall.
But its people, wherever they have had a chance, have demonstrated their capacity.
In Manchuria hundreds of thousands of them, mostly fled from Japanese oppression, are industrious and prosperous farmers.
In the Hawaiian Islands, there are five thousand Koreans, mainly labourers, and their families, working on the sugar plantations.
They have built twenty-eight schools for their children, and raise among themselves $20 a head a year for the education of their children; they have sixteen churches; they bought $80,000 worth of Liberty bonds during the war, and subscribed liberally to the Red Cross.
Some of these Hawaiian Koreans--210 in all--volunteered to serve in the war.
A large number of Manchurian Koreans--their total has been placed as high as thirty thousand--joined the Russian forces, fought under General Lin, and later, in conjunction with the Czecho-Slovak prisoners, fought the rearmed German prisoners and the Bolsheviks.
In America the Koreans who were fortunate enough to escape have brought the culture of rice into California, and are a prosperous community there.
Young Koreans have won prominent place in American colleges and in American business.
One big business in Philadelphia was created and is conducted by a Korean.
Give these people a chance, and they soon show what they can do.
A word with the statesmen.
Japan is a young country, so far as Western civilization is concerned.
She is the youngest of the Great Powers.
She desires the good will of the world, and is willing to do much to win it.
Be frank with her.
You owe it to her to deal faithfully with her.
When you ask me if I would risk a war over Korea, I answer this: Firm action to-day might provoke conflict, but the risk is very small.
Act weakly now, however, and you make a great war in the Far East almost certain within a generation.
The main burden of the Western nations in such a war will be borne by America.
To the Japanese themselves, I venture to repeat words that I wrote over eleven years ago.
They are even more true now than when they were written: "The future of Japan, the future of the East, and, to some extent, the future of the world, lies in the answer to the question whether the militarists or the party of peaceful expansion gain the upper hand in the immediate future (in Japan).
If the one, then we shall have harsher rule in Korea, steadily increasing aggression in Manchuria, growing interference with China, and, in the end, a titanic conflict, the end of which none can see.
Under the other, Japan will enter into an inheritance, wider, more glorious and more assured than any Asiatic Power has attained for many centuries.... Japan has it in her to be, not the Mistress of the East, reigning, sword in hand, over subject races--for that she can never permanently be--but the bringer of peace to, and the teacher of, the East.
Will she choose the nobler end?"
COREA OR CHO-SEN COREA OR CHO-SEN THE LAND OF THE MORNING CALM BY A. HENRY SAVAGE-LANDOR AUTHOR OF "ALONE WITH THE HAIRY AINU" With Numerous Text and Full-Page Illustrations from Drawings made by the Author [Illustration: A. HENRY SAVAGE-LANDOR.]
[Illustration: SIGNATURE OF A. HENRY SAVAGE-LANDOR.]
LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1895 [_All rights reserved_] BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION I Humbly Dedicate THIS WORK TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN PREFACE In this book I have sought to present the reader with some dry facts about Corea and the Coreans.
I have attempted to describe the manners and customs of the people as accurately as possible from the impressions which my visit to their country left upon me, but of course I do not claim that these personal opinions expressed are absolutely infallible.
My sojourn extended over several months, and I never during all that time neglected any opportunity of studying the natives, giving my observations as they were made a permanent form by the aid both of pen and of brush.
I was afforded specially favourable chances for this kind of work through the kind hospitality shown me by the Vice-Minister of Home Affairs and Adviser to the King, Mr. C.R.
Greathouse, to whom I feel greatly indebted for my prolonged and delightful stay in the country, as well as for the amiable and valuable assistance which he and General Le Gendre, Foreign Adviser to His Corean Majesty, gave me in my observations and studies among the upper classes of Corea.
I am also under great obligations to Mr. Seradin Sabatin, Architect to His Majesty the King, and to Mr. Krien, German Consul at Seoul, for the kindness and hospitality with which they treated me on my first arrival at their city.
The illustrations in this book are reproductions of sketches taken by me while in the country, and though, perhaps, they want much in artistic merit, I venture to hope that they will be found characteristic.
For literary style I hope my readers will not look.
I am not a literary man, nor do I desire to profess myself such.
I trust, however, that I have succeeded in telling my story in a simple and straightforward manner, for this especially was the object with which I started at the outset.
A. HENRY SAVAGE-LANDOR.
CONTENTS CHAPTER I Christmas on board--Fusan--A body-snatcher--The Kiung-sang Province--The cotton production--Body-snatching extraordinary--Imperatrice Gulf--Chemulpo.
CHAPTER II Chemulpo--So-called European hotels--Comforts--Japanese concession--The _Guechas_--New Year's festivities--The Chinese settlement--European residents--The word "Corea"--A glance at Corean history--Cho-sen. CHAPTER III The road to Seoul--The _Mapu_--Ponies--Oxen--Coolies--Currency--Mode of carrying weights--The Han River--Nearly locked out.
CHAPTER IV The Coreans--Their faces and heads--Bachelors--Married men--Head-band--Hats--Hat-umbrellas--Clothes--Spectacles.
CHAPTER V The Woman of Cho-sen--Her clothes--Her ways--Her looks--Her privileges--Her duties--Her temper--Difference of classes--Feminine musicians.
CHAPTER VI Corean children--The family--Clans--Spongers--Hospitality--Spinning-tops --Toys--Kite-flying--Games--How babies are sent to sleep.
CHAPTER VII Corean inns--Seoul--A tour of observation--Beggars--Lepers--Philosophy--An old palace--A leopard hunt--Weather prophets--The main street--Sedan chairs--The big bell--Crossing of the bridges--Monuments--Animal worship--The Gate of the Dead--A funeral--The Queen-dowager's telephone.
CHAPTER VIII Seoul--The City Wall--A large image--Mount Nanzam--The fire-signals--The women's joss-house--Foreign buildings--Japanese settlement--An anecdote--Clean or not clean?--The Pekin Pass--The water-carrier--The man of the Gates.
CHAPTER IX The Corean house--Doors and windows--Blinds--Rooms--The "Kan"--Roasting alive--Furniture--Treasures--The kitchen--Dinner-set--Food--Intoxicants--Gluttony--Capacity for food--Sleep--Modes of illumination--Autographs--Streets--Drainage--Smell.
CHAPTER X A Corean marriage--How marriages are arranged--The wedding ceremony--The document--In the nuptial chamber--Wife's conduct--Concubines--Widows --Seduction--Adultery--Purchasing a husband--Love--Intrigue--Official "squeezing"--The cause.
CHAPTER XI Painting in Seoul--Messages from the King--Royal princes sitting for their portraits--Breaking the mourning law--Quaint notions--Delight and despair--Calling in of State ceremony--Corean soldiers--How they mount guard--Drill--Honours--A much-admired shoe--A gift.
CHAPTER XII The royal palace--A royal message--Mounting guard--The bell--The royal precinct--The Russian villa--An unfinished structure--The Summer Palace--The King's house--Houses of dignitaries--The ground and summer pavilion--Colds--The funeral of a Japanese Minister--Houses of royal relations--The queen--The oldest man and woman--The King and his throne--Politics and royalty--Messengers and spies--Kim-Ka-Chim--Falcons and archery--Nearly a St. Sebastian--The queen's curiosity--A royal banquet--The consequences.
CHAPTER XIII Students--Culture--Examination ground--The three degrees--The alphabet--Chinese characters--Schools--Astronomers--Diplomas--Students abroad--Adoption of Western ways--Quick perception--The letter "f"--A comical mistake--Magistrates and education Rooted superstition--Another haunted palace--Tigers--A convenient custom.
CHAPTER XIV Religion--Buddhism--Bonzes--Their power--Shamanism--Spirits--Spirits of the mountain--Stone heaps--Sacred trees--Seized by the spirits--Safe-guard against them--The wind--Sorcerers and sorceresses--Exorcisms--Monasteries --Temples--Buddha--Monks--Their customs and clothing--Nuns--Their garments--Religious ceremonies--The tooth-stone.
CHAPTER XV Police--Detectives--The plank-walk--The square board--The wooden blocks for hands and feet--Floggings--The bamboo rod--The stick--The flexible board--A flogging in Seoul--One hundred strokes for three-halfpence --Wounds produced--Tender-hearted soldiers--Imprisonment--Exile--Status of women, children, and bachelors--Guilds and the law--Nobles and the law--Serfdom--mild form of slavery.
CHAPTER XVI Executions--Crucified and carried through the streets--The execution ground--Barbarous mode of beheading--Noble criminals--Paternal love--Shut out--Scaling the wall--A catastrophe--A nightmare.
CHAPTER XVII The "King's procession"--Removing houses--Foolhardy people--Beaten to death--Cavalry soldiers--Infantry--Retainers--Banners--Luxurious saddles--The King and his double--Royal palanquins--The return at night.
CHAPTER XVIII Fights--Prize fights--Fist fights--Special moon for fighting--Summary justice--The use of the top-knot--Cruelty--A butcher combatant Stone fights--Belligerent children--Battle between two guilds--Wounded and killed--The end of the battle postponed--Soldiers' fights.
CHAPTER XIX Fires--The greatest peril--A curious way of saving one's house--The anchor of safety--How it worked--Making an opposition wind--Saved by chance--A good trait in the native character--Useful friends.
CHAPTER XX A trip to Poo-kan--A curious monastery.
CHAPTER XXI Corean physiognomy--Expressions of pleasure--Displeasure--Contempt --Fear--Pluck--Laughter--Astonishment--Admiration--Sulkiness--Jealousy --Intelligence--Affection--Imagination--Dreams--Insanity--Its principal causes--Leprosy--The family--Men and women--Fecundity--Natural and artificial deformities--Abnormalities--Movements and attitudes--The Corean hand--Conservatism.
LIST OF PLATES PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR AN OFFICIAL GOING TO COURT THE PEKIN PASS A WATER-COOLIE H.R.H.
PRINCE MIN-YOUNG-HUAN AN INFANTRY SOLDIER A STUDY FROM STILL-LIFE CHAPTER I Christmas on board--Fusan--A body-snatcher--The Kiung-sang Province--The cotton production--Body-snatching extraordinary--Imperatrice Gulf--Chemulpo.
[Illustration: CHEMULPO] It was on a Christmas Day that I set out for Corea.
The year was 1890.
I had been several days at Nagasaki, waiting for the little steamer, _Higo-Maru_, of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha (Japan Steamship Company), which was to arrive, I think, from Vladivostock, when a message was brought to me saying that she was now in port, and would sail that afternoon for Tsushima, Goto, and the Corean ports.
I went on board, and, our vessel's anchor being raised at four o'clock, we soon steamed past Battenberg Island and got away from the picturesque Bay of Nagasaki.
This was the last I saw of Japan.
The little _Higo_ was not a bad seaboat, for, following good advice, her owners had provided her with rolling beams; but, mind you, she had by no means the steadiness of a rock, nor did she pretend to cut the water at the rate of twenty knots an hour.
Still, taken all in all, she was a pretty good goer.
Her captain was a Norwegian, and a jolly fellow; while the crew she carried was entirely Japanese, with the exception of the stewards in the saloon, who were two pig-tailed subjects of the Celestial Empire.
"Numbel one Clistmas dinnel has got to-night, Mastel," expostulated John Chinaman to me in his pidgen English, as I was busy making my cabin comfortable.
"Soup has got, fish has got, loast tulkey has got, plan-puddy all bulning has got.
All same English countly.
Dlink, to-night, plenty can have, and no has to pay.
Shelly can have, Boldeau can have, polt, bea, champagne, blandy, all can have, all flee!"
I must say that when I heard of the elaborate dinner to which we were to be treated by the captain, I began to feel rather glad that I had started on my journey on a Christmas Day.
There were a few Japanese passengers on board, but only one European, or rather American, besides myself, and a most pleasant companion he turned out to be.
He was Mr. Clarence R. Greathouse, formerly Consul-General for the United States at Yokohama--at which place I first had the pleasure of meeting him--who was now on his way to Corea, where he had been requested by the Corean Government to accept the high and responsible position of Vice-Minister of Home Affairs, as well as of legal adviser to the King in international affairs.
Curiously enough, he had not been aware that I was to travel on the same ship, and I also never dreamt that I would have had the good fortune of being in such good and agreeable company during a voyage which otherwise would have been extremely dull.
Accordingly, when we met again thus accidentally on the deck of the _Higo_, the event was as much to our mutual satisfaction as it was unexpected.
The sea was somewhat choppy, but notwithstanding this, when the steward appeared on the companion-way, beaming all over, in his best silk gown and jacket, and rang the dinner-bell with all his might, we gaily responded to his call and proceeded below.
Heavens!
it was a Christmas dinner and no mistake!
The tables and walls had been decorated with little paper flags and flowers made of the brightest colours that human fancy could devise, and dishes of almonds and raisins filled the centre of the table.
There were little flags stuck in those dishes, and, indeed, everywhere.
A big cake in the middle had prudently been tied to the table with a string, as the rolling motion of the ship was rather against its chances of keeping steady in the place that had been assigned to it, and the other usual precautions had been taken to keep the plates and glasses in their proper positions.
Our dinner-party consisted of about eight.
At one moment we would be up, with our feet on a level with our opposite companion's head; the next we would be down, with the soles of their boots higher than our skulls.
It is always a pretty sight to see a table decorated, but when it is not only decorated but animated as well, it is evidently prettier still.
When you see all the plates and salt-cellars moving slowly away from you, and as slowly returning to you; when you have to chase your fork and your knife before you can use them, the amusement is infinitely greater.
"_O gomen kudasai_"--"I beg your pardon"--said a Japanese gentleman in rather a hurried manner, and more hurriedly still made his exit into his cabin.
Two or three others of his countrymen followed suit during the progress of the dinner, and as number after number of the _menu_ was gone through, so that we who remained had a capital time.
Not many minutes also elapsed without our having a regular fusillade of bottles of champagne of some unknown brand, and "healths" were drunk of distant friends and relatives.
Mr. Greathouse, who, like many of his countrymen, has a wonderful gift for telling humorous stories, of which he had an unlimited supply, kept us in fits all evening, and in fact the greater part of the night, so that when we passed the islands of Goto and Tsushima we were still awake and in course of being entertained by his Yankee yarns.
The next day we reached the Corean port of Fusan.
I well remember how much I was struck when we entered the pretty harbour and approached the spot where we cast anchor, by the sight of hundreds of white spots moving slowly along the coast and on a road winding up a hill.
As we drew nearer, the white spots became larger and assumed more and more the form of human beings.
There was something so ghostly about that scene that it is still vividly impressed upon my mind.
There is at Fusan not only a Japanese settlement, but also a Chinese one.
About two and a half miles distant round the bay, the native walled town and fort can be plainly seen, while in the distance one may distinguish the city and castle of Tong-nai, in which the Governor resides.
If I remember correctly, the number of Europeans at this port is only three or four, these being mainly in the employ of the Chinese Customs service.
We had hardly come to a standstill when a curious-looking being, who had come to meet the steamer in a boat, climbed up the rope-ladder which had been let down on the starboard side and came on board.
He was a European.
"Do you see that man?"
a voice whispered in my ear.
"He is a body-snatcher."
"Nonsense," I said; "are you joking, or what?"
"No, I am not; and, if you like, I will tell you his story at luncheon."
And surely what better time could be chosen for a "body-snatching" story than "luncheon."
Meanwhile, however, I lost not my chance, and while conversing with somebody else, the snatcher found himself "snatched" in my sketch-book.
It is not every day that one comes across such individuals!
I went to speak to him, and I must confess that whether he had as a fact troubled the dead or not, he was none the less most courteous and polite with the living.
He had, it is true, at times somewhat of a sinister look in his face; but for his unsteady eyes, you might almost have put him down as a missionary.
He informed me that codfish was to be had in great abundance at Fusan, and that the grain export was almost entirely done by the Japanese, while the importation of miscellaneous articles was entirely in the hands of the Chinese.
Fusan is situated at the most south-westerly extremity of the province of Kiung-sang, which words, translated into English mean, "polite compliment."
The kingdom of Corea, we may here mention, is divided into eight provinces, which rejoice in the following names: Kiung-sang-do,[1] Chulla-do, Chung-chon-do, Kiung-kei-do, Kang-wen-do, Wang-hai-do, Ping-yan-do, Ham-kiung-do.
The province in which Fusan is situated is, without exception, the richest in Corea after that of Chulla, for it has a mild climate and a very fertile soil.
This being the case, it is not astonishing to find that the population is more numerous than in most other districts further north, and also, that being so near the Japanese coast, a certain amount of trading, mostly done by junks, is continually being transacted with the Mikado's subjects on the opposite shores.
Fusan has been nominally in the hands of the Japanese from very ancient times, although it was only in 1876 that a treaty was concluded by which it was opened to Japanese trade.
The spot on which the settlements lie is pretty, with its picturesque background of high mountains and the large number of little islands rising like green patches here and there in the bay.
Maki, the largest island, directly opposite the settlement, is now used as a station for breeding horses of very small size, and it possesses good pastures on its high hills.
In the history of the relations between Corea and Japan this province plays indeed a very important part, for being nearer than any other portion of the kingdom to the Japanese shores--the distance being, I believe, some 130 miles between the nearest points of the two countries--invasions have been of frequent occurrence, especially during the period that Kai-seng, then called Sunto, was the capital.
This city, like the present capital, Seoul, was a fortified and walled town of the first rank and the chief military centre of the country, besides being a seat of learning and making some pretence of commercial enterprise.
It lay about twenty-five miles N.E.
of Seoul, and at about an equal number of miles from the actual sea.
For several hundreds of years, Sunto had been one of the principal cities of Corea, when Wang, a warrior of the Fuyu race and an ardent Buddhist, who had already conquered the southern portion of the Corean peninsula, made it the capital, which it remained until the year 1392 A.D., when the seat of the Government was removed to Seoul.
To return to Fusan and the Kyung-sang province.
It is as well to mention that the chief product cultivated is cotton.
This is, of course, the principal industry all over Corea, and the area under cultivation is roughly computed at between eight and nine hundred thousand acres, the unclean cotton produced per annum being calculated at about 1,200,000,000 lbs.
In a recent report, the Commissioner of Customs at Fusan sets down the yearly consumption of cleaned cotton at about 300,000,000 lbs.
The greater part of the cotton is made up into piece-goods for making garments and padding the native winter clothes.
In the Kiung-sang province the pieces of cloth manufactured measure sixty feet, while the width is only fourteen inches, and the weight between three and four pounds.
The fibre of the cotton stuff produced, especially in the Kiung-sang and Chulla provinces, is highly esteemed by the Coreans, and they say that it is much more durable and warmth-giving than that produced either in Japan or China.
Of course the production of cotton could be greatly increased if more practical systems were used in its cultivation, and if the magistrates were not so much given to "squeezing" the people.
To make money and to have it extorted the moment you have made it, is not encouraging to the poor Corean who has worked for it; therefore little exertion is displayed beyond what is necessary to earn, not the "daily bread," for that they do not eat, but the daily bowl of rice.
There is much fertile land, which at present is not used at all, and hardly any attention, and much less skill, is manifested when once the seed is in the ground.
The Neapolitan _lazzaroni_, of world-wide reputation for extreme laziness, have indeed worthy rivals in the Corean peasantry.
The women are made to do all the work, for by them the crops are gathered, and by them the seeds are separated with the old-fashioned roller-gin.
To borrow statistics from the Commissioners' Report, a native woman can, with a roller-gin, turn out, say, nearly 3 lbs.
of clean cotton from 12 lbs.
of seed-cotton; while the industrious Japanese, who have brought over modern machines of the saw-gin type, can obtain 35 lbs.
of clean cotton from 140 lbs.
of seed-cotton in the same space of time.
Previous to being spun, the cotton is prepared pretty much in the same way as in Japan or China, the cotton being tossed into the air with a view to separating the staple; but the spinning-wheel commonly used in Corea only makes one thread at a time.
The crops are generally gathered in August, and the dead stalk is used for fuel, while the ashes make fairly good manure.
The quantity of clean cotton is about 85 lbs.
per acre, and of seed-cotton 345 lbs.
per acre.
But to return to my narrative, luncheon-time came in due course, and as I was spreading out my napkin on my knees, I reminded the person who had whispered those mysterious words in my ear, of the promise he had made.
"Yes," said he, as he cautiously looked round, "I will tell you his story.
Mind you," he added, "this man to whom you spoke a while ago was only one of several, and he was not the principal actor in that outrageous business, still he himself is said to have taken a considerable part in the criminal dealings.
Remember that the account I am going to give you of the affair is only drawn in bold lines, for the details of the expedition have never been fully known to any one.
For all I know, this man may even be perfectly innocent of all that is alleged against him."
"Go on; do not make any more apologies, and begin your story," I remarked, as my curiosity was considerably roused.
"Very good.
It was on April 30th, 1867, that an expedition left Shanghai bound for Corea.
The aims of that expedition seemed rather obscure to many of the foreign residents at the port of departure, as little faith was reposed in the commander.
Still, it must be said for its members that until they departed they played their _rôle_ well.
Corea was then practically a closed country; wherefore a certain amount of curiosity was displayed at Shanghai when three or four Coreans, dressed up in their quaint costumes and transparent horse-hair hats, were seen walking about, and being introduced here and there by a French bishop called Ridel.
A few days later the curiosity of the foreign residents grew in intensity when the news spread that an American subject, a certain Jenkins, formerly interpreter at the U.S. Consulate, had, at his own expense, chartered a ship and hurriedly fitted out an expedition, taking under his command eight other Europeans, all of a more or less dubious character, and a suite of about 150 Chinamen and Manillamen, the riff-raff of the Treaty Port, who were to be the crew and military escort of the expedition.
A man called Oppert, a North German Jew, and believed by everybody to be an adventurer under the guise of a trader, was in command of the 'fleet'--which was composed of a steamer, if I remember right, of about 700 tons, called the _China_, and a smaller tender of little over 50 tons, called the _Greta_.
Oppert flew the flag of his own country, and in due course gave the order to start."
"Well, so far so good," I interrupted; "but you have not told me what connection there was between Bishop Ridel's four Coreans and your body-snatching friends?"
"Well, you see, the American and Oppert took advantage of their appearance in Shanghai to let people believe that they were high officials sent over by the king, who was anxious to send an embassy to the different courts of Europe to explain the slaughter of foreigners which had taken place in his country, and also with the object of entering, if possible, into treaties with the different European monarchs--in fact to open his country to foreign trade and commerce.
It seemed somewhat a large order to any one who knew of the retiring nature of the king, but everything was done so quickly that the expedition was gone before people had time to inquire into its real object.
"The fleet, as I have remarked, in due time started, and after calling on its way at Nagasaki, where rifles and other firearms and ammunition were purchased with which to arm the military escort, steered a course to the mouth of the Han river.
Among the eight Europeans of dubious character on board was a Frenchman, a Jesuit priest, who called himself Farout, but whose real name was Feron, and who played an important part in the piratical scheme, for, having lived some time previously in Corea, he had mastered the language.
Besides, he had travelled a good deal along the river Han, so that he was entrusted with the responsible position of guide and interpreter to the body-snatchers!"
"Curious position for a missionary to occupy," I could not help remarking.
"Yes.
They reached Prince Jerome's Gulf on the 8th of May, and the next day, sounding continually, slowly steamed up the river Han to a point where it was deemed advisable to man the tender and smaller rowing-boats with a view to completing the expedition in these.
"This plan was successfully carried out, and during the night, under the command of Oppert, and escorted by the marauders, who were armed to the teeth, they proceeded to the point where l'Abbé Feron advised a landing.
Here, making no secret of their designs, they ill-treated the natives, and pillaged their poor huts, after which they made their way to the tomb, where the relics lay of some royal personage supposed to have been buried there with mountains of gold and precious jewels, which relics were held in much veneration by the great Regent, the Tai-wen-kun.
The impudent scheme, in a few words, was this: to take the natives by surprise, dig the body quickly out of its underground place of what should have been eternal rest, and take possession of anything valuable that might be found in the grave.
The disturbed bones of the unfortunate prince were to be carried on board, and a high ransom was to be extorted from the great Regent, who they thought would offer any sum to get back the cherished bones of his ancestor.
"The march from the landing-place to the tomb occupied longer than had been anticipated, and crowds of astonished and angry natives followed the procession of armed men.
The latter finally reached the desired spot, a funny little semi-spherical mound of earth, with a few stone figures of men and ponies roughly carved on either side, and guarded by two stone slabs.
"The 'abbé,' who, among other things, was said to have been the promoter of the scheme, pointed out the mound, and, rejoicing with Oppert and Jenkins at having been so far successful, gave orders to the coolies to proceed at once to dig.
Spades and shovels had been brought for the purpose, and the little mound was rapidly being levelled, while the turbulent crowd of infuriated Coreans which had collected was getting more and more menacing.
These seemed to spring out by hundreds from every side as by magic, and the body-snatchers were soon more than ten times outnumbered.
No greater insult or infamous act could there be to a Corean mind than the violation of a grave.
As spadeful after spadeful of earth was removed by the shaking hands of the frightened coolies, shouts, hisses, and oaths went up from the maddened crowd, but Oppert and the French abbé, half scared as they were, still pined for the hidden treasure, and encouraged the grave-diggers with promises of rewards as well as with the invigorating butt-ends of their rifles.
At last, after digging a big hole in the earth, their spades came upon a huge slab of stone, which seemed to be the top of the sarcophagus."
"I suppose that no oath was bad enough for the three leaders, then?"
said I.
"No; they were mad with fury, and more so when all the strength of their men combined was not sufficient to stir the stone an inch."
"The crowd which till then had been merely turbulent, now became so exasperated at the cheek of the 'foreign white devils' that it could no more keep within bounds, and a wild attack was made on the pirates.
Showers of stones were thrown, and the infuriated natives made a rush upon them; but, _hélas!_ their attack was met by a volley of rifle-shots.
Frightened out of their lives by the murderous effects of these strange weapons, they fell back for a time, only to return by-and-by with fresh ardour to the attack.
The body-snatchers, having little confidence in the courage and fidelity of the ruffian lot that composed their military escort, and, moreover, seeing that all efforts were useless to remove the 'blessed' stone, deemed it more than advisable to retreat to the tender--a retreat which, one may add, was effected somewhat hurriedly.
This being done, they steamed full speed down the river, and once on board the _China_, began to feel more like themselves again.
"They anchored opposite Kang-wha Island, and remained there for three days.
Then as they were holding a parley on land near Tricauld Island, they were attacked again by the angry mob, the news of their outrageous deed having spread even hitherwards, and two or three of their men were killed.
Realising, therefore, that it was impossible to carry out their plan, the body-snatchers returned to Shanghai, but here a surprise awaited them.
"They were all arrested and underwent a trial.
So little evidence, however, was brought against them, and that little was of such a conflicting character, that they were all acquitted.
Oppert, nevertheless, was imprisoned in his own country, and even brought out a book in which he described his piratical expedition."
"Yes," I remarked, "your story is a very good one; but what part did this particular man, now at Fusan, take in the marauding scheme?"
"Oh, that I do not exactly know--in fact, no one knows more than this, that he was one of the eight Europeans who accompanied Oppert.
Here at Fusan all the foreign residents look down on him, and his only pleasure is to come on board when a ship happens to call, that he may exchange a few words in a European tongue, for no one belonging to this locality will speak to him."
I went on deck to look for the pirate, hoping to get, if possible, a few interesting and accurate details of the adventurous journey of the _China_, but he had already gone, and we were just on the point of raising our anchor, bound for Chemulpo.
On December 27th we steamed past Port Hamilton, formerly occupied by the British, where fortifications and a jetty had been constructed and afterwards abandoned, a treaty having been signed by Great Britain and China, to the effect that no foreign Power was to be allowed to occupy either Port Hamilton or any other port in the kingdom of Corea at any future time.
During that day we travelled mostly along the inner course, among hundreds of picturesque little islands of the Corean Archipelago, and in the afternoon of the 28th we entered the Imperatrice Gulf.
On account of the low tide we had to keep out at sea till very late, and it was only towards sunset that we were able to enter the inner harbour where Chemulpo lies, protected by a pretty island on its western side.
I bade good-bye to the jolly captain and mate, and getting my traps together, landed for the second time on Corean soil.
FOOTNOTES: [1] _Do_ means province.
CHAPTER II Chemulpo--So-called European hotels--Comforts--Japanese concession--The _Guechas_--New-Year's festivities--The Chinese settlement--European residents--The word "Corea"--A glance at Corean history--Cho-sen. [Illustration: THE DONKEY OF A COREAN OFFICIAL] When I land in a new country a strange sense of the unknown somehow takes possession of me.
Perhaps in this, however, I am not alone.
The feeling is in part, I think, due to one's new surroundings, though chiefly to the facial expressions of the people, with which one is not familiar and probably does not quite understand.
One may be a student of human character in only a very amateurish way, and yet without much difficulty guess by the twinkle in the eye, or the quivering of the underlip, whether a person is pleased or annoyed, but when a strange land is visited one is apt to be at first often deceived by appearances; and if, as has happened in my case, the traveller has suffered in consequence of being thus deceived, he is rather apt to look upon all that he sees with a considerable amount of caution and even suspicion.
It was then with some such feelings as these that I landed at Chemulpo.
Hundreds of coolies running along the shore, with loads of grain on their backs, to be shipped by the _Higo-Maru_, had no compunction in knocking you down if you were in their way, and a crowd of curious native loafers, always ready to be entertained by any new arrival, followed you _en masse_ wherever you went.
When I visited Chemulpo there were actually three European hotels there.
These were European more in name than in fact, but there they were, and as the night was fast approaching, I had to make my choice, for I wanted a lodging badly.
One of these hotels was kept by a Chinaman, and was called Steward's Hotel, for the simple reason that its owner had been a steward on board an American ship, and had since appropriated the word as a family name; the second, which rejoiced in the grand name of "Hotel de Corée," was of Hungarian proprietorship, and a favourite resort for sailors of men-of-war when they called at that port, partly because a drinking saloon, well provided with intoxicants of all descriptions, was the chief feature of the establishment, and partly because glasses were handed over the counter by a very fascinating young lady, daughter of the proprietor, a most accomplished damsel, who could speak fluently every language under the sun--from Turkish and Arabic to Corean and Japanese.
The third hotel--a noble mansion, to use modern phraseology--was quite a new structure, and was owned by a Japanese.
The name which had been given by him to his house of rest was "The Dai butzu," or, in English parlance, The Great God.
Attracted by the holiness of the name, and perhaps even more by the clean look, outside only, of the place, I, as luck would have it, made the Dai butzu my headquarters.
I know little about things celestial, but certainly can imagine nothing less celestial on the face of the earth than this house of the Great God at Chemulpo.
The house had apparently been newly built, for the rooms were damp and icy cold, and when I proceeded to inspect the bed and remarked on the somewhat doubtful cleanliness of the sheets, "They are quite clean," said the landlord; "only two gentlemen have slept in them before."
However, as we were so near the New Year, he condescended to change them to please me, and I accepted his offer most gracefully as a New-Year's gift.
"O Lord," said I with a deep sigh when the news arrived that no meat could be got that evening, and the only provisions in store were "one solitary tin, small size, of compressed milk."
"Mionichi nandemo arimas, Konban domo dannasan, nandemo arimasen": "To-morrow you can have anything, but to-night, please, sir, we have nothing."
As I am generally a philosopher on such occasions, I satisfied my present cravings with that tin of milk, which, needless to say, I emptied, putting off my dinner till the following night.
Corea, as everybody knows, is an extremely cold country, the thermometer reaching as low sometimes as seventy or even eighty degrees of frost; my readers will imagine therefore how delightfully warm I was in my bed with only one sheet over me and a sort of cotton bed-cover, both sheet and bed-cover, I may add, being somewhat too short to cover my feet and my neck at the same time, my lower extremities in consequence playing a curious game of hide-and-seek with the support of my head.
I had ordered a cold bath, and water and tray had been brought into my room before I had gone to bed, but to my horror, when I got up, ready to plunge in and sponge myself to my heart's content, I found nothing but a huge block of solid ice, into which the water had thought proper to metamorphose itself.
Bells there were none in the house, so recourse had to be made to the national Japanese custom of clapping one's hands in order to summon up the servants.
"Hé," answered the slanting-eyed maid from down below, as she trotted up the steps.
Good sharp girl that she was, however, she quickly mastered the situation, and hurried down to fetch fresh supplies of unfrozen liquid from the well; although hardly had she left the room the second time before a thick layer of ice again formed on the surface of the bucketful which she had brought.
It was bathing under difficulties, I can tell you; but though I do not much mind missing my dinner, I can on no account bring myself to deprivation of my cold bath in the morning.
It is to this habit that I attribute my freedom from contagious diseases in all countries and climates; to it I owe, in fact, my life, and I have no doubt to it, some day, I shall also owe my death.
The evil of cold was, however, nothing as compared with the quality and variety of the food.
For the best part of the week, during which I stayed at the Dai butzu, I only had an occasional glance at a slice of nondescript meat, served one day as "rosbif," and the next day as "mutin shops," but unfortunately so leathery that no Sheffield blade could possibly divide it, and no human tooth nor jaw, however powerful, could masticate it.
As luck would have it, I was asked out to dinner once or twice by an American gentleman--a merchant resident at Chemulpo--and so made up for what would have otherwise been the lost art of eating.
Chemulpo is a port with a future.
The Japanese prefer to call it Jinsen; the Chinese, In-chiang.
It possesses a pretty harbour, though rather too shallow for large ships.
The tide also, a very troublesome customer in that part of the world, falls as much as twenty-eight or twenty-nine feet; wherefore it is that at times one can walk over to the island in front of the settlement almost without wetting one's feet.
Chemulpo's origin is said to be as follows: The Japanese government, represented at Seoul by a very able and shrewd man called Hanabusa, had repeatedly urged the Corean king to open to Japanese trade a port somewhat nearer to the capital.
Though the king was personally inclined to enter into friendly negotiations, there were many of the anti-foreign party who would not hear of the project; but such was the pressure brought to bear by the skilful Japanese, and so persuasive were the king's arguments, that, after much pour-parleying, the latter finally gave way.
Towards the end of 1880, the Mikado's envoy, accompanied by a number of other officials, proceeded from the capital to the Imperatrice Gulf and selected an appropriate spot, on which to raise the now prosperous little concession, fixing that some distance from the native city.
In course of years it grew bigger, and when I was at Chemulpo there was actually a Japanese village there, with its own Jap policemen, its tea-houses, two banks, the "Mitsui-bashi" and "The First National Bank of Japan," and last but not least, a number of _guechas_, the graceful singers and posturing dancers of Nippon, without whom life is not worth living for the Nipponese.
Like the Australians generally, who begin building a town by marking out a fine race-course, so the light-hearted sons of the Mikado's empire, when out colonising, begin as a first and necessary luxury of life by importing a few _guechas_ who, with their quaint songs, enliven them in moments of despair, and send them into ecstasies at banquets and dinner-parties with their curious fan-dances, &c, just as our British music-hall frequenting youth raves over the last song and skirt-dance of the moment.
The _guechas_, mind you, are not bad girls.
There is nothing wrong about them except that they are not always "quite right," for they are well educated, and possess good manners.
They are generally paid by the hour for the display of their talent, and the prices they command vary from the low sum of twenty sens (sixpence) to as much as two or three yen (dollars), for each sixty minutes, in proportion, of course, to their capacity and beauty.
As the New Year was fast approaching, and that is a great festivity among the Japanese, the _guechas_ at Chemulpo were hard at work, and from morning till night and _vice versâ_ they were summoned from one house to the other to entertain with their--to European, ears excruciating--music on the Shamesens and Gokkins, while _saké_ and foreign liquors were plentifully indulged in.
I walked up the main street.
Great Scott!
what a din!
It was enough to drive anybody crazy.
Each house, with its paper walls, hardly suitable for the climate, seemed to contain a regular pandemonium.
Men and women were to be seen squatting on the ground round a huge brass _hibachi_, where a charcoal fire was blazing, singing and yelling and playing and clapping their hands to their hearts' content.
They had lost somehow or other that look of gracefulness which is so characteristic of them in their own country, and on a closer examination I found the cause to be their being clad in at least a dozen _kimonos_,[2] put on one over the other to keep the cold out.
Just picture to yourself any one wearing even half that number of coats, and you will doubtless agree with me that one's form would not be much improved thereby in appearance.
The noise increased until New-Year's Eve, and when at last the New Year broke in upon them, it was something appalling.
The air was full of false notes, vocal and otherwise, and I need scarcely say that at the "Dai butzu" also grand festivities went on for the greater part of the night.
I was lying flat in bed on New-Year's Day, thinking of the foolishness of humanity, when I heard a tap at the door.
I looked at the watch; it was 7.20 A.M. "Come in," said I, thinking that the thoughtful maid was carrying my sponge-bath, but no.
In came a procession of Japs, ludicrously attired in foreign clothes with antediluvian frock-coats and pre-historic European hats, bowing and sipping their breath in sign of great respect.
At their head was the fat proprietor of the hotel, and each of them carried with him in his hand a packet of visiting cards, which they severally deposited on my bed, as I, more than ten times astounded, stood resting on my elbows gazing at them.
"So-and-so, brick-layer and roof-maker.
So-and-so, hotel proprietor and shipping agent; so-and-so, Japanese carpenter; so-and-so, mat-maker; X, merchant; Z, boatman," &c. &c, were how the cards read as I inspected them one by one.
I need hardly say, therefore, that the year 1891 was begun with an extra big D, which came straight from my heart, as I uncoiled myself out of my bed at that early hour of the morning to entertain these professional gentlemen to drinks and cigarettes.
And yet that was nothing as compared with what came after.
They had scarcely gone, and I was just breaking the ice in order to get my cold bath, when another lot, a hundredfold more noisy than the first, entered my room unannounced and depositing another lot of "pasteboards," as Yankees term them, in my frozen hands, went on wishing me all sorts of happiness for the New Year, though I for my part wished them all to a place that was certainly not heaven.
In despair I dressed myself, and going out aimlessly, strolled in any direction in order to keep out of reach of the New-Year's callers.
But the hours were long, and about eleven I went to pay a visit to Mr. T., the American merchant who had kindly asked me once or twice to dinner.
If I considered myself entitled to complain of the calling nuisance, he must have had good reason to swear at it.
Being the richest man in the place as well as the principal merchant, his place was simply besieged by visitors.
Many were so drunk that they actually had to be carried in by coolies--a curious mode of going to call--while others had even to be provided with a bed on the premises until the effects of their libations had passed off.
A well-known young Japanese merchant, I remember, nearly fractured his skull against a table, through losing his equilibrium as he was offering a grand bow to Mr. T. Wherever one went in the Japanese quarter there was nothing but drink, and the main street was full of unsteady walkers.
Curiously enough, on proceeding a few yards further on towards the British Consulate, one came to the Chinese settlement, which was perfectly quiet, and showed its inhabitants not only as stern and well-behaved as on other occasions, but even, to all appearance, quite unconcerned at the frolic and fun of their merry neighbours.
Here business was being transacted as usual, those engaged therein retaining their well-known expressionless and dignified mien, and apparently looking down disgusted upon the drunken lot, although prepared themselves to descend from their high pedestal when their own New-Year's Day or other festival occasions should arrive.
I was much amused at a remark that a Chinaman made to me that day.
I asked him how he liked the Japanese.
"Pff!"
he began, looking at me from under his huge round spectacles, as if he thought the subject too insignificant to waste his time upon.
"The Japanese," he exploded, with an air of contempt, "no belong men.
You see Japanese man dlunk, ol no dlunk, all same to me.
He no can speak tluth, he no can be honest man.
He buy something, nevel pay.
Japanese belong bad, bad, bad man.
He always speak lie, lie, lie, lie," and he emphasised his words with a crescendo as he curled up what he possessed in the shape of a nose--for it was so flat that it hardly deserved the name; indeed, to give strength to his speech, he spat with violence on the ground, as if to clear his mouth, as it were, of the unclean sound of the word "Japanese."
Not even in those days could the Chinese and Japanese be accused of loving one another.
The Chinese settlement is not quite so clean in appearance as the Japanese one, but if business is transacted on a smaller scale, it is, at all events, conducted on a firm and honest basis.
Chemulpo has but few natural aptitudes beyond its being situated at the mouth of the river Han, which, winding like a snake, passes close to Seoul, the capital of the kingdom; and yet, partly because of its proximity to the capital, the distance by road being twenty-five miles, and partly owing to the fact that it is never ice-bound in winter, the town has made wonderful strides.
As late as 1883 there were only one or two fishermen's huts along the bay, but in 1892 the settlement contained a score of Europeans, over 2800 Japanese souls, and 1000 Chinese, besides quite a respectable-sized native conglomeration of houses and huts.
When I visited the port, land fetched large sums of money in the central part of the settlement.
The post-office was in the hands of the Japanese, who carried on its business in a very amateurish and imperfect manner, but the telegraphs were worked by the Chinese.
The commercial competition between the two Eastern nations now at war has of late years been very great in Corea.
It is interesting to notice how the slow Chinaman has followed the footsteps of young Japan at nearly all the ports, especially at Gensan and Fusan, and gradually monopolised a good deal of the trade, through his honest dealings and steadiness.
And yet the Chinese must have been, of course, greatly handicapped by the start of many years which the dashing Japanese had over them, as well as by the much larger number of their rivals.
A very remarkable fact, however, is that several Japanese firms had employed Chinese as their _compradores_, a position entirely of trust, these being the officials whose duty it is to go round to collect money and cheques, and who are therefore often entrusted with very large sums of money.
But now let us come to the foreigners stranded in the Corean kingdom.
If you take them separately, they are rather nice people, though, of course, at least a dozen years behind time as compared with the rest of the world; taken as a community, however, they are enough to drive you crazy.
I do not think that it was ever my good fortune to hear a resident speak well of another resident, this being owing, I dare say, to their seeing too much of one another.
If by chance you come across a man occupying only a second-rate official position, you may depend upon it you will see airs!
One hardly ventures to address any such personage, for so grand is he that, he will hardly condescend to say "How do you do?"
to you, for fear of lowering himself.
There are only about four cats in the place, and their sole subject of conversation is precedence and breaches of etiquette, when you would imagine that in such a distant land, and away, so to speak, from the outer world, they would all be like brothers.
You must now consider yourselves as fairly landed in Corea, and having tried to describe to you what things and people that are not Corean are like in Corea, I must provide you--again of course only figuratively--with a tiny little pony, the smallest probably you have ever seen, that you may follow me to the capital of the kingdom, which I am sure will be interesting to you as being thoroughly characteristic of the country.
First of all, however, we had better make sure of one point.
The name Corea, or _K_orea, you may as well forget or discard as useless, for to the Corean mind the word would not convey any definite idea.
Not even would he look upon it as the name of his country.
The real native name now used is Cho-sen, though occasionally in the vernacular the kingdom goes by the name of Gori, or the antiquated Korai.
There is no doubt that the origin of the word Corea is Korai, which is an abbreviation of Ko-Korai, a small kingdom in the mountainous region of the Ever White Mountains, and bordering upon the kingdom of Fuyu, a little further north, whence the brave and warlike people probably descended, who conquered old Cho-sen.
The authorities on Corean history, basing their arguments on Chinese writings, claim that the present people of Cho-sen are the true descendants of the Fuyu race, and that the kingdom of Ko-Korai lay between Fuyu on the northern side and Cho-sen on the southern, from the former of which a few families migrated towards the south, and founded a small kingdom west of the river Yalu, electing as their king a man called Ko-Korai, after whom, in all probability, the new nation took its name.
Then as their numbers increased, and their adventurous spirit grew, they began to extend their territory, north, south, and west, and in this latter direction easily succeeded in conquering the small kingdom of Wuju and extending their frontier as far south as the river Tatung, which lies approximately on parallel 38° 30".
During the time of the "Three Realms" in China, between the years 220 and 277 A.D., the Ko-Korai people, profiting by the weakness of their neighbours, and therefore not much troubled with guerrillas on the northern frontier, continued to migrate south, conquering new ground, and so being enabled finally to establish their capital at Ping-yan on the Tatong River.
After a comparatively peaceful time with their northern neighbours for over 300 years, however, towards the end of the sixth century, China began a most micidial war against the king of Ko-Korai, or Korai, as it was then called, the "Ko" having been dropped.
It seems that even in those remote days the Chinese had no luck in the land of Cho-sen, and though army after army, and hundreds of thousands of men were sent against them, the brave Korai people held their own, and far from being defeated and conquered, actually drove the enemy out of the country, killing thousands mercilessly in their retreat, and becoming masters of the Corean Peninsula as far south as the River Han.
To the south of Korai were the states of Shinra and Hiaksai, and between these and Korai, there was for a couple of centuries almost perpetual war, the only intervals being when the latter kingdom was suffering at the hands of the formidable Chinese invaders.
But as I merely give this rough and very imperfect sketch of Corean history, to explain how the word Korai originated and was then applied to the whole of the peninsula, I must now proceed to explain in bold touches how the other states became united to Korai.
After its annexation to China, the Korai state remained crippled by the terrible blow it had received, for the Ko-Korai line of kings had been utterly expelled after having reigned for over seven centuries, but at last it picked up a little strength again through fresh migrations from the north-west, and in the second decade of the tenth century a Buddhist monk called Kung-wo raised a rebellion and proclaimed himself king, establishing his court at Kaichow.
One of Kung-wo's officers, however, Wang by name, who was believed to be a descendant of the Korai family, did away with the royal monk and sat himself on the throne, which he claimed as that of his ancestors.
Coming of a vigorous stock, and taking advantage of the fact that China was weak with internal wars, Wang succeeded in uniting Shinra to the old Korai, thus converting the whole peninsula into a single and united realm, of which, as we have already seen in the first chapter, he made the walled city of Sunto the capital.
Wang died 945 A.D., and was succeeded by his son Wu, who wisely entered into friendly relations with China, and paid his tribute to the Emperor of Heaven as if he ruled a tributary state.
In consequence of this policy it was that Corea enjoyed peace with her terrible Celestial rival for the best part of two centuries.
Cho-sen, then, is now the only name by which the country is called by the natives themselves, for the name of Korai has been entirely abandoned by the modern Coreans.
The meaning of the word is very poetic, viz., "The Land of the Morning Calm," and is one well adapted to the present Coreans, since, indeed, they seem to have entirely lost the vigour and strength of their predecessors, the Koraians.
I believe Marco Polo was the first to mention a country which he called Coria; after whom came the Franciscan missionaries.
Little, however, was known of the country until the Portuguese brought back to Europe strange accounts of this curious kingdom and its quaint and warlike people.
According to the story, it was a certain Chinese wise man who, when in a poetic mood, baptized Corea with the name of Cho-sen.
But the student of Corean history knows that the name had already been bestowed on the northern part of the peninsula and on a certain portion of Manchuria, and that it was in the year 1392, when Korai was united to Shinra and the State of Hiaksai became merged in it, that Cho-sen became the official designation of united Corea.
The word "Corea" evidently is nothing but a corruption of the dead and buried word "Korai."
FOOTNOTES: [2] Long gown, the national dress of Japan.
CHAPTER III The road to Seoul--The _Mapu_--Ponies--Oxen--Coolies--Currency--Mode of carrying weights--The Han River--Nearly locked out.
[Illustration: THE WEST GATE, SEOUL] I left Chemulpo on January 2nd, but instead of making use of the minuscule ponies, I went on foot, sending my baggage on in advance on a pack-saddle on one of them.
I was still suffering considerably from an accident I had sustained to my foot among the hairy folk of the Hokkaido, and I thought that the long walk would probably be beneficial to me, and would take away some of the stiffness which still remained in my ankle.
At a short distance from the port I came to a steep incline of a few hundred yards, and crossing the hill-range which formed the background to Chemulpo as one looks at it from the sea, I soon descended on the other side, from which point the road was nearly level all the way to the capital.
The road is not a bad one for Corea, but is, of course, only fit for riding upon; and would be found almost of impossible access to vehicles of any size.
The Japanese had begun running _jinrickshas_, little carriages drawn by a man, between the capital and the settlements; but two, and even three men were necessary to convey carriage and passenger to his destination, and the amount of bumping and shaking on the uneven road was quite appalling.
These little carriages, as every one knows, generally convey only a single person, and are drawn by two men, who run in a tandem, while the third pushes the _ricksha_ from the back, and is always ready at any emergency to prevent the vehicle from turning turtle.
This mode of locomotion, however, was not likely to become popular among the Coreans, who, if carried at all, prefer to be carried either in a sedan-chair, an easy and comfortable way of going about, or else, should they be in a hurry and not wish to travel in grand style, on pony or donkey's back.
Europeans, as a rule, like the latter mode of travelling best, as the Corean sedan-chairs are somewhat too short for the long-legged foreigner, and a journey of six or seven hours in a huddled-up position is occasionally apt to give one the cramp, especially as Western bones and limbs do not in general possess the pliability which characterises those composing the skeleton of our Eastern brothers.
The scenery along the road cannot be called beautiful, the country one goes through being barren and desolate, with the exception of a certain plantation of mulberry trees, a wretched speculation into which the infantile government of Cho-sen was driven by some foreigners, the object of which was to enrich Corea by the products of silk-worms, but which, of course, turned out a complete failure, and cost the Government much money and no end of worry instead.
Here and there a small patch might be seen cultivated as kitchen garden near a hut, but with that exception the ground was hardly cultivated at all; this monotony of landscape, however, was somewhat relieved by the distant hills covered with maples, chestnuts and firs, now unfortunately for the most part deprived of their leaves and covered with snow, it being the coldest time of the year in Corea.
The mile-posts on the high roads of Cho-sen are rather quaint, and should you happen to see one for the first time at night the inevitable result must be nightmare the moment you fall asleep.
They consist of a wooden post about eight feet in length, on the upper end of which a long ghastly face is rudely carved out of the wood and painted white and red; the eyes are black and staring, and the mouth, the chief feature of the mask, is of enormous size, opened, showing two fine rows of pointed teeth, which might hold their own with those of the sharks of the Torres Strait, of world-wide reputation.
A triangular wedge of wood on each side of the head represents the ears.
The directions, number of miles, &c, are written directly under the head, and the writing being in Chinese characters, runs from up to down and from right to left.
It was pretty along the road to see the numerous little ponies, infinitely smaller than any Shetlands, carrying big fellows, towering with their padded clothes above enormous saddles, and supported on either side by a servant, while another man, the _Mapu_, led the steed by hand.
The ponies are so very small that even the Coreans, who are by no means tall people, their average height being about 5 ft. 4 in., cannot ride them unless a high saddle is provided, for without these the rather troublesome process of dragging one's feet on the ground would have to be endured.
This high saddle, which elevates you some twenty inches above the pony's back, naturally involves a certain amount of instability to the person who is mounted, the balancing abilities one has to bring out on such occasions being of no ordinary degree.
The Corean gentleman, who is dignified to an extreme degree, and would not for the world run the risk of being seen rolling in the mud or struggling between the pony's little legs, wisely provides for the emergency by ordering two of his servants to walk by his side and hold him by the arms and the waist, as long as the journey lasts, while the _Mapu_, one of the stock features of Corean everyday life, looks well after the pony and leads him by the head as one might a big Newfoundland dog.
The _Mapu_ in Corea occupies about the same position as Figaro in the "Barber of Seville."
While leading your pony he takes the keenest interest in your affairs, and thinks it his business to talk to you on every possible subject that his brain chooses to suggest, abusing all and everybody that he thinks you dislike and praising up what he fancies you cherish, that he may perhaps have a few extra _cash_ at the end of the journey, which he will immediately go and lose in gambling.
He speaks of politics as if he were the axis of the political world, and will criticise the magistracy, the noble, and the king if he is under the impression that you are only a merchant, while evil words enough would be at his command to represent the meanness and bad manners of the commercial classes, if his pony is honoured by being sat upon by a nobleman!
Such is the world even in Cho-sen.
The _Mapu_ will sing to you, and crack jokes, and again will swear at you and your servants, and at nearly every _Mapu_ that goes by.
The greater the gentleman his beast is carrying, the more quarrelsome is he with everybody.
The road, wide though it be, seems to belong solely to him.
He is in constant trouble with citizens and the police, and it is generally on account of his insignificance, poverty, and ignorance that so many of his evil doings and wrongs are forgiven.
None the less it must be said for them that they take fairly good care of their minuscule quadrupeds.
They feed them, usually three times a day, with boiled chopped straw and beans, and grass in summer-time, and with this diet you see the little brutes, which are only about 10 hands high, and even less sometimes, go twenty-five or thirty miles a day quite easily, with a weight of a couple of hundred pounds on their backs, quickly toddling along without stopping, unless it be to administer a sound kick to some bystander or to bite the legs of the rider.
These ponies have a funny little way of getting from under you, if you ride them with an English saddle.
They bend their legs till they see you firmly planted on the ground, and then quickly withdraw backwards leaving you, with your legs wide apart and standing like a fool, to meditate on equine wickedness in the Realm of the Morning Calm.
They are indeed the trickiest little devils for their size I have ever seen; and for viciousness and love of fighting, I can recommend you to no steed more capable of showing these qualities.
The average price of an animal as above described varies from the large sum of five shillings to as much as thirty shillings (at the rate of two shillings per Mexican dollar), the price of course varying, as with us, according to the breed, age, training, condition, &c., of the animal.
These ponies are much used all over the kingdom, for good roads for wheel traffic hardly exist in the country, and wide horse-tracks form practically the whole means of communication between the capital and the most important ports and cities in the different provinces of Corea.
They are used both for riding purposes and as pack-ponies, "for light articles only," like the racks in our railway carriages, but when heavy loads are to be conveyed from one place to another, especially over long distances, the frail pony is discarded and replaced by the sturdy ox.
These horned carriers are pretty much of a size, and fashioned, so far as I could see, after the style of our oxen, except that they are apparently leaner by nature, and almost always black or very dark grey in colour; their horns, however, are rather short.
They carry huge weights on a wooden angular saddle which is planted on their backs, and a _Mapu_ invariably accompanies each animal when loaded; indeed, in the case of the ponies the man even carries on his own back the food both for himself and for his beast, the latter generally having the precedence in eating his share.
The sleeping accommodation also is, as a rule, amicably divided between quadruped and biped, and, taken all round, it cannot be said that either is any the worse for their brotherly relations.
I firmly believe that the _Mapus_ are infinitely better-natured towards their animals than towards their wives or their children, who, as you will find by-and-by, are often cruelly ill-treated.
But let us now continue our journey towards Seoul.
Here several coolies are to be seen approaching us, carrying heavy loads on their backs.
A man of a higher position follows them.
And, strange circumstance!
they are carrying money.
Yes; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight--yes, actually eight men, bent under heavy loads of coins.
Your first idea, I suppose, will be that these men are carrying a whole fortune--but, oh dear!
no.
You must know that the currency in Corea is entirely brass, and these brass coins, which go by the name of _cash_ are round coins about the size of a halfpenny, with a square hole in the centre, by which they are strung together, generally a hundred at a time.
There are usually as many as two thousand to two thousand eight hundred _cash_ to a Mexican dollar, the equivalent of which is at present about two shillings; you can, therefore, easily imagine what the weight of one's purse is if it contains even so small a sum as a pennyworth in Corean currency.
Should you, however, be under an obligation to pay a sum of, say, £10 or £20, the hire of two oxen or six or eight coolies becomes an absolute necessity, for a sum which takes no room in one's letter-case if in Bank of England notes, occupies a roomful of hard and heavy metal in the country of the Morning Calm.
Great trouble has been and is continually experienced in the kingdom owing to the lack of gold and silver coins; but to the Corean mind to make coins out of gold and to let them go out of the country amounts to the same thing as willingly trying to impoverish the fatherland of the treasures it possesses; wherefore, although rich gold-mines are to be found in Cho-sen, coins of the precious metal are not struck for the above-mentioned reason.
[Illustration: COOLIES' ARRANGEMENT FOR CARRYING LOADS] So much for Corean political economy.
The coins used are of different sizes and value.
They range, if I remember right, from two _cash_ to five, and an examination of a handful of them will reveal the fact that they have been struck off at different epochs.
There is the so-called current treasure coin of Cho-sen, one of the more modern kinds, as well as the older coin of Korai, the Ko-ka; while another coin, which seems to have been struck off in the Eastern provinces, is probably as old as any of these, and is still occasionally found in use.
The coins, as I have said, are strung together by the hundred on a straw rope; a knot is tied when this number is reached, when another hundred is passed through, and so on, until several thousands are sometimes strung to one string.
As curious as this precious load itself was the way in which it was carried.
It is, in fact, the national way which all Corean coolies have adopted for conveying heavy weights, and it seems to answer well, for I have often seen men of no very abnormal physique carry a burden that would make nine out of ten ordinary men collapse under its heavy mass.
The principle is much the same as that used by the porters in Switzerland, and also in some parts of Holland, if I am not mistaken.
A triangular wooden frame rests on the man's back by means of two straps or ropes passed over the shoulders and round the arms.
From this frame project two sticks, about 35 inches in length, on which the weight rests, and by bending the body at a lower or higher angle, according to the height or pressure of the load, a perfect balance is obtained, and the effort of the carrier considerably diminished.
For heavy loads like wood, for instance, the process of loading is curious.
The frame is set upon the ground, and made to remain in position by being inclined at an angle of about 45° against a stick forked at the upper end, with which every coolie is provided.
When in this position, the cargo is put on and tied with a rope if necessary; then, the stick being carefully removed, squatting down gently so as not to disturb the position of the load, the coolie quickly passes his arms through the straps and thus slings the thing on to the back, the stick being now used as a help to the man to rise by instalments from his difficult position without collapsing or coming to grief.
Once standing, he is all right, and it is wonderful what an amount of endurance and muscular strength the beggars have, for they will carry these enormous loads for miles and miles without showing the slightest sign of fatigue.
They toddle along quickly, taking remarkably short steps, and resting every now and then on their forked stick, upon the upper end of which they lay their hands, forcing it against the chest and the ground, and so making it a sort of _point d'appui._ Just a word as to the coolie's moral qualities.
He much resembles in this the Neapolitan _lazzarone_--in fact, I do not know of any other individual in Eastern Asia that is such a worthy rival of the Italian macaroni-eater.
The coolie will work hard when hungry, and he will do his work well, but the moment he is paid off the chances are that, like his _confrère_ on the Gulf of Naples, he will at once go and drink a good part of what he has received; then, in a state of intoxication, he will gamble the next half; and after that he will go to sleep for twenty-four hours on a stretch, and remain the next twelve squatting on the ground, basking in the sun by the side of his carrying-machine, pondering, still half asleep, on his foolishness, and seeking for fresh orders from passers-by who may require the services of a human beast of burden.
Then you may see them in a row near the road-side drinking huts, either smoking their pipes, which are nearly three feet in length, or if not in the act of smoking, with the pipe stuck down their neck into the coat and down into the trousers, in immediate contact with the skin.
Going along at a good pace I reached the half-way house, a characteristically Corean building, formerly used as an inn, and now being rented by a Japanese.
Having entertained myself to tea and a few items of solid food, I proceeded on my pedestrian journey towards the capital.
And now, as I gradually approached the river Han, more attention seemed to be given to the cultivation of the country.
The staple product of cereals here is mainly buckwheat, beans and millet, a few rice-fields also being found nearer the water-side.
Finally, having arrived at the river-side, after shouting for half an hour to the ferry boatman to come and pick me up, I in due course landed on the other side.
The river Han makes a most wonderful detour between its estuary and this point.
As the river was left behind, more habitations in the shape of miserable and filthy mud-huts, with thatched roofs, became visible; shops of eatables and native low drinking places following one another in continuation; and crowds of ponies, people, and oxen showed that the capital was now being fast neared; and sure enough, after winding along the dirty, narrow road, lined by the still dirtier mud huts for nearly the whole of the distance between Mafu, the place where the Han river was ferried, and here, a distance of about three miles, I found myself at last in front of the West Gate of the walled city of Seoul.
I could hear quite plainly in the distance, from the centre of the town, the slow sound of a bell; and men, women and children, on foot or riding, were scrambling through the gate in both directions.
As I stopped for a moment to gaze upon the excited crowd, it suddenly flashed across my mind that I had been told at Chemulpo, that to the mournful sound of what is called the "Big bell" the heavy wooden gates lined with iron bars were closed, and that no one was thereafter allowed to enter or go out of the town.
The sun was just casting his last glorious rays on the horizon, and the excitement grew greater as the strokes of the bell became fainter and fainter, and with the mad crowd of men and beasts mixed together upon it, the road might be compared with the tide entering the mouth of a running river.
I threw myself into the thick of the in-going flow, and with my feet trampled upon by passing ponies; now knocking against a human being, now face to face with a bull, I finally managed to get inside.
Well do I remember the hoarse voices of the gate-keepers, as they shouted out that time was up, and hurried the weary travellers within the precincts of the royal city; well also do I recollect, as I stood watching their doings from the inside, how they pushed back and ill-treated, with words and kicks, the last people who passed through, and then, out of patience, revolved the heavy gates on their huge and rusty hinges, finally closing the city until sunrise next day.
Shouts of people, just too late, on the other side, begging to be let in, remained unacknowledged, and the enormous padlocks and bolts having been thoroughly fastened, Seoul was severed from the outer world till the following morning.
Adjoining the gate stood the gatekeeper's house, and in front of the door of this, a rack with a few rusty and obsolete spears standing in a row, was left to take care of the town and its inhabitants, while the guardians, having finished the work of the day, retreated to the warm room inside to resume the game or gambling which the setting sun had interrupted, and which had occupied their day.
With the setting of the sun every noise ceased.
Every good citizen retired to his home, and I, too, therefore, deemed it advisable to follow suit.
There are no hotels in Seoul, with the exception of the very dirty Corean inns; but I was fortunate enough to meet at Chemulpo a Russian gentleman who, with his family, lived in Seoul, where he was employed as architect to His Majesty the King of Corea, and he most politely invited me to stay at his house for a few days; and it is to his kind hospitality, therefore, that I owe the fact that my first few nights at Seoul were spent comfortably and my days were well employed, my peregrinations round the town being also conducted under his guidance.
CHAPTER IV The Coreans--Their faces and heads--Bachelors--Married men--Head-band--Hats--Hat-umbrellas--Clothes--Spectacles.
Being now settled for the time being in Seoul, I must introduce you to the Corean, not as a nation, you must understand, but as an individual.
It is a prevalent idea that the Coreans are Chinese, and therefore exactly like them in physique and appearance, and, if not like the Chinese, that they must be like their neighbours on the other side--the Japanese.
As a matter of fact, they are like neither.
Naturally the continuous incursions of both Chinese and Japanese into this country have left distinct traces of their passage on the general appearance of the people; and, of course, the distinction which I shall endeavour to make is not so marked as that between whites and blacks, for the Coreans, speaking generally, do bear a certain resemblance to the other peoples of Mongolian origin.
Though belonging to this family, however, they form a perfectly distinct branch of it.
Not only that, but when you notice a crowd of Coreans you will be amazed to see among them people almost as white and with features closely approaching the Aryan, these being the higher classes in the kingdom.
The more common type is the yellow-skinned face, with slanting eyes, high cheek-bones, and thick, hanging lips.
But, again, you will observe faces much resembling the Thibetans and Hindoos, and if you carry your observations still further you will find all over the kingdom, mostly among the coolie classes, men as black as Africans, or like the people of Asia Minor.
For any one interested in types and crosses, I really do not know of a country more interesting than Cho-sen.
It seems as if specimens of almost every race populating Asia had reached and remained in the small peninsula, which fact would to some degree disprove the theory that all migrations have moved from the east towards the west and from north to south, and never _vice versâ_.
If you take the royal family of Corea, for instance, you will find that the king and queen, and all the royal princes, especially on the queen's side (the Min family), are as white as any Caucasian, and that their eyes are hardly slanting at all, and in some cases are quite as straight as ours.
Members of some of the nobler families also might be taken for Europeans.
Of course the middle classes are of the Mongolian type, though somewhat more refined and stronger built than the usual specimens of either Chinese or Japanese; they are, however, not quite so wiry and tall as their northern neighbours the Manchus, with whom, nevertheless, they have many points in common.
The large invasions, as we have seen, of the Ko-korais and Fuyus may account for this.
[Illustration: A BACHELOR] Taken altogether, the Corean is a fine-looking fellow; his face is oval-shaped, and generally long when seen full face, but it is slightly concave in profile, the nose being somewhat flat at the bridge between the eyes, and possessing wide nostrils.
The chin is generally small, narrow and receding, while the lips, usually the weaker part in the Corean face, are as a rule heavy, the upper lip turned up and showing the teeth, while the lower one hangs pitifully downwards, denoting, therefore, little or no strength of character.
They possess good teeth and these are beautifully white, which is a blessing for people like them who continually show them.
The almond-shaped, jet-black eyes, veiled by that curious weird look peculiar to Eastern eyes, is probably the redeeming part of their face, and in them is depicted good-nature, pride and softness of heart.
In many cases one sees a shrewd, quick eye, but it is generally an exception among this type, while among the lower classes, the black ones, it is almost a chief characteristic.
The cheek-bones are prominent.
The hair is scanty on the cheeks, chin, and over and under the lips, but quite luxuriant on the head.
There is a very curious custom in Corea as to how you should wear your hair, and a great deal of importance is attached to the custom.
If by chance you are a bachelor--and if you are, you must put up with being looked down upon by everybody in Corea--you have to let your hair grow long, part it carefully in the middle of your skull, and have it made up into a thick tress at the back of your head, which arrangement marks you out as a single man and an object of sport, for in the Land of the Morning Calm it seems that you can only be a bachelor under the two very circumstances under which we, in our land of all-day restlessness, generally marry, viz., if you are a fool and if you have not a penny to live upon!
When thus unhappily placed you rank, according to Corean ideas, as a child, no matter what your age is, and you dress as a child, being even allowed to wear coloured coats when the country is in mourning, as it was, when I visited it, for the death of the dowager-Queen Regent, and everybody is compelled to wear white, an order that if not quickly obeyed by a married man means probably to him the loss of his head.
Thus, though looked down upon as outcasts and wretches, bachelors none the less do enjoy some privileges out there.
Here is yet another one.
They never wear a hat; another exemption to be taken into consideration when you will see, a little further on, what a Corean hat is like.
[Illustration: THE "TOP-KNOT" OF THE MARRIED MEN] Married men, on the other hand--and ninety-nine per hundred are married in Cho-sen--wear their hair done up in a most wonderful fashion.
It is not as long as that of bachelors, for it is cut.
It is combed, with the head down, in the orthodox fashion, as women do, I suppose, when they comb it by themselves, and then passing the left hand under it, along the forehead, it is caught close to the head just about the middle of the skull.
This being satisfactorily done, what remains of the hair above the hand is twisted round into the shape and size of a sausage, which then remains sticking up perpendicularly on the top of the head, and which, in the natural order of things, goes by the sensible name of top-knot.
Occasionally a little silver or metal bead is attached to the top of the knot, and a small tortoiseshell ornament fastened to the hair just over the forehead.
This completes the married man's hair-dressing, with which he is always most careful, and I must say that the black straight hair thus arranged does set off the head very well.
The illustration shows the profile of a married man of the coolie class, who, of course, wears the hair dressed just like the others, it being a national custom; only the richer and smarter people, of course, wear it more tidily, and, probably, not quite so artistically.
Besides, the better class of people are not content with the process of beautifying themselves which I have just described, but surround the forehead, temples and back of the head with a head-band, a curious arrangement made of woven black horse-hair, which keeps the real hair tight under it, and not only prevents it from being blown about, but forms a more solid basis for the wonderful hats they wear.
The nobler classes, upon whom the king has bestowed decorations in the shape of jade, gold or silver buttons, according to the amount of honour he has meant to accord them, wear these decorations, of all places, behind the ears, and fastened tight to the head-band.
Thus much on the subject of the Corean's head.
I shall spare you, my dear readers, the description of his body, for it is just like any other body, more or less well made, with the exception that it is invariably unwashed.
Instead, I shall proceed to inspect with you his wardrobe and his clothing, which may be to you, I hope, much more interesting.
To do this, let us walk along the main street of the town, where the traffic is generally great, and examine the people who go by.
Here is a well-to-do man, probably a merchant.
Two features at once strike you: his hat, the _kat-si_, and his shoes; and then, his funny white padded clothes.
But let us examine him carefully in detail.
It is a little difficult to decide at which end one should begin to describe him, but I imagine that it is the customary thing to begin with the head, and so, coming close to him, let us note how curiously his hat is made.
It is just like a Welshwoman's hat in shape, or, in other words, like a flowerpot placed on a flat dish, as seen in the illustration; but the extraordinary thing about the Corean hat is that it is quite transparent, and has none of the virtues that, according to our ideas, a hat ought to possess.
It is a wonderful work of art, for it is made of horse-hair, or, more commonly, of split bamboo so finely cut in threads as to resemble white horse-hair, and then woven into a fine net in the shape described.
A thin bamboo frame keeps it well together, and gives to it a certain solidity, but though varnished over, it protects one's head from neither sun, wind, nor rain.
It is considered a rude thing in Corea to take one's hat off, even in the house, and therefore the _kat-si_, not requiring instant removal or putting on, is provided with two hooks at the sides of the central cone, to each of which a white ribbon is attached, to be tied under the chin when the hat is worn, the latter resting, not on the hair itself, but on the head-band.
This shape of hat is never worn without the head-band.
The hat just described is that most commonly worn in the Land of the Morning Calm, and that which one sees on the generality of people.
But there!
look at that man passing along leading a bull--he has a hat large enough to protect a whole family.
It is like a huge pyramid made of basket-work of split bamboo or plaited reeds or rushes, and it covers him almost half way down to his waist.
Well, that poor man is in private mourning for the death of a relation, and he covers his face thus to show his grief.
[Illustration: THE HEAD-BAND AND TRANSPARENT HAT] Here, again, comes another individual with a transparent hat like the first, only worn over a big hood open at the top over the head and falling rounded over the shoulders, thus protecting the ears from the severe cold.
This is lined with fur, with which it is also trimmed, and looks quite furry and warm, if not exactly becoming.
Ah!
but here is something even more curious in the shape of head-gear.
It is just beginning to snow, and, one after the other, our transparent _kat-sis_ are undergoing a transformation.
I daresay, as we stand watching the people go by, it will be noticed that nearly each one who has a transparent hat, also wears in his girdle round his waist a triangular object made of yellow oil-paper which resembles a fan.
Well, now, you will see what it is.
An oldish man turns up his nose to scrutinise the intentions of the weather-clerk, and, apparently little satisfied at the aspect of the threatening clouds, stops, and unsheathing his fan-like object from his belt, opens it, when it is seen to become like a small umbrella without the stick and handle, about two and a half feet only in diameter, which, by means of a string, he fastens over his brand new hat.
When thus used, it takes the shape of a cone, except, of course, that there will be a multitude of folds in it.
It is called _kat-no_.
The idea is not at all bad, is it?
for here you have an umbrella without the trouble of tiring your arms in carrying it.
One cannot help being considerably puzzled by the differences in the various classes and conditions of the men.
To all appearance, the generality of men seem here dressed alike, with this difference, that some are dirtier than others; occasionally one has an extra garment, but that is all.
Yes, there is, indeed, difficulty at first in knowing who and what any one is, but with a little trouble and practice the difficulty is soon overcome.
In the main the clothes worn by the men are the same, only a great difference is to be found in the way these garments are cut and sewn, just as we can distinguish in a moment the cut of a Bond Street tailor from that of a suburban one.
In Corea, the tailor, as a rule, is one's wife, for she is the person entrusted with the cares of cutting, sewing, and padding up her better-half's attire.
No wonder, then, that nine-tenths of the top-knotted consorts look regular bags as they walk about.
The national costume itself, it must be confessed, does rather tend to deform the appearance of the human body, which it is supposed to adorn.
First, there is a huge pair of cotton trousers, through each leg of which one can pass the whole of one's body easily, and these trousers are padded all over with cotton wool, no underclothing being worn.
When these are put on, they reach from the chin to the feet, on to which they fall in ample and graceful folds, and you don them by holding them up with your teeth, and fastening them anywhere near and round your waist with a pretty, long silk ribbon with tassels, which is generally let hang down artistically over the right side.
When this has been successfully accomplished, the extra length of trousers is rolled up so as to prevent the "unmentionables" from being left behind as you walk away, and a short coat, tight at the shoulders and in the shape of a bell, with short but wide sleeves, is put on to cover the upper part of the body.
This coat also, like the trousers, is padded, and reaches almost to the haunches.
It overlaps on the right hand side, two long ribbons being tied there into a pretty single-winged knot and the two ends left hanging.
In winter time, the forearm, which in summer remains bare, is protected by a separate short muff, or sleeve, through which the hand is passed, and which reaches just over the elbow.
Then come the padded socks, in which the huge trousers are tucked, and which are fastened round the ankle with a ribbon.
And, lastly, now we come to the shoes.
Those used by the better classes are made of hide, and have either leather soles with nails underneath, or else wooden soles like the Chinese ones with the turned-up toes.
The real Corean shoe, however, as used every day for walking and not for show, is truly a peculiar one.
The principal peculiarity about it is that it is made of paper; which sounds like a lie, though indeed it is not.
Another extraordinary thing is that you can really walk in them.
If you do not believe it, all you have to do is to take the first steamer to Corea and you can easily convince yourself of the fact.
The greater part of the population wears them, and the _Mapus_ especially walk enormous distances in them.
They are scarcely real shoes, however, and one should, perhaps, classify them rather as a cross between a shoe and a sandal, for that is just what they are.
The toes are protected by numberless little strings of curled untearable paper, which, when webbed, make the sole, heel, and back of the sandal, and this is joined to the point of the shoe by a stouter cord going right round, which is also made of the same kind of twisted paper.
This cord can be fastened tighter or looser to suit the convenience of the wearer of the sandal-shoe.
The Corean is an unfortunate being.
He has no pockets.
If his hands are cold he must warm them by sticking them down his belt into his trousers, and if he be in company with people, he can generate a certain amount of heat by putting each into the other arm's sleeve.
As for the money, tobacco, &c, that he wants to carry, he is compelled to provide himself with little silk bags, which he attaches to his waist-band or to the ribbon of his coat.
These bags are generally of orange colour or blue, and they relieve a little the monotony of the everlasting white dresses.
The clothing, so far as I have described it, is, with the exception of the shoes, that which is worn habitually in the house by the better classes of the people; the officials, however, wear a horse-hair high cap resembling a papal tiara on the head, instead of the other form of hat.
Indoors, the shoes are not worn, the custom of Japan being prevalent, namely, to leave them at the door as one mounts the first step into the room.
The middle lower classes and peasantry are seldom found parading the streets with anything besides what I have described, with the exception of the long pipe which they, like the _Mapu_ or the coolies, keep down the back of the neck when not using it.
Merchants, policemen, and private gentlemen are arrayed, in winter especially, in a long cotton or silk gown similarly padded, an overall which reaches below the knees, and some, especially those in the Government employ, or in some official position, wear either without this or over this an additional sleeveless garment made of four long strips of cotton or silk, two in front and two at the back, according to the grade, almost touching the feet and divided both in front and at the back as far up as the waist, round which a ribbon is tied.
This, then, is the everyday wardrobe of a Corean of any class.
You may add, if you please, a few miscellaneous articles such as gaiters and extra bags, but never have I seen any man of Cho-sen walk about with more habiliments than these, although I have many times seen people who had a great deal less.
The clothes are of cotton or silk according to the grade and riches of the wearer.
Buttons are a useless luxury in Cho-sen, for neither men nor women recognise their utility; on the contrary, the natives display much amusement and chaff at the stupid foreign barbarian who goes and cuts any number of buttonholes in the finest clothing, which, in their idea, is an incomprehensible mistake and shows want of appreciation.
Their method of managing things by means of loops and ribbons, has an effect which is not without its picturesqueness, perhaps more so than is our system of "keeping things together" in clothing matters.
After all it is only a matter of opinion.
The inhabitants of the land of Cho-sen, from my experience, are not much given to washing and still less to bathing.
I have seen them wash their hands fairly often, and the face occasionally; only the very select people of Corea wash it daily.
One would think that, with such a very scanty and irregular use of water for the purpose of cleanliness, they should look extremely dirty; but not a bit.
It was always to me irritating to the last degree to see how clean those dirty people looked!
But let us notice one or two more of the people that are passing by.
It is now snowing hard, and every one carries his own umbrella on his head.
Boys do not wear hats, and are provided with a large umbrella with a bamboo-frame that fits the head, as also are the bachelors.
Here comes one of the latter class.
His face is a finely cut one, and with his hair parted in the middle, and the big tress hanging down his back, he has indeed more the appearance of a woman than that of a man; hence the mistake often made by hasty travellers in putting down these bachelors as women, is easy to understand.
When one is seen for the first time, it is really difficult to say to which sex he belongs, so effeminate does he look.
It is part of the ambition of the male Corean to look wise, no matter whether he is or not as a matter of fact.
And to assume the coveted air of wisdom what more is necessary than to put on a huge pair of round spectacles of Chinese origin with smoked glasses enclosed in a frame of gold or tortoiseshell, and with clasps over the ears?
Oh how wise he looks!
He does indeed!
And you should see his pomposity as he rides his humble donkey through the streets of Seoul.
There he sits like a statue, supported by his servants, looking neither to one side nor to the other, lest he should lose his dignity.
"Era, Era, Era!"
("Make way, Make way!")
cry out the servants as he passes among the crowd, which is invariably respectful and ready to obey this hero who looks down upon them.
The lesser the official, of course the greater the air, and you should see how the people who stand in the way are knocked to one side by his servants, should they not be quick enough to make room for the dignitary and his donkey.
His long gown is carefully arranged on the sides and behind, covering the saddle and donkey's back in large folds; for most things in Corea, as in other parts of the world, are done for the sake of appearance.
What a dreadful thing it would be, were he to ride about with his gown crumpled up under his seat!
It would be the cause of lifelong unhappiness, remorse and shame, and no doubt cost his servants a sound flogging for their unpardonable carelessness.
CHAPTER V The Woman of Cho-sen--Her clothes--Her ways--Her looks--Her privileges--Her duties--Her temper--Difference of classes--Feminine musicians.
It will now be proper, I think, since I have given you a rough sketch of the man of Cho-sen and his clothes, to describe in a general way to you the weaker sex--not an easy task--and what they wear--a much more difficult task still,--for I have not the good fortune to be conversant with the intricacies of feminine habiliments, and therefore hope to be excused if, in dealing with this part of my subject, I do not always use the proper terms applicable to the different parts that compose it.
Relying, then, upon my readers' indulgence in this respect, I shall attempt to give an idea of what a Corean female is like.
It has always been a feature in my sceptical nature to think that the more one sees of women the less one knows them; according to which principle, I should know Corean women very well, for one sees but little of them.
Be that as it may, however, I shall proceed to give my impressions of them.
As is pretty generally known, the women of Cho-sen, with the exception of the lower classes, are kept in seclusion.
They are seldom allowed to go out, and when they do they cover their faces with white or green hoods, very similar in shape to those worn by the women at Malta.
They appear, or pretend to be, shy of men, and foreigners in particular, and generally hide when one is approaching, especially if in a solitary street.
I remember how astonished I was the first few days I was in Seoul, at the fact that every woman I came across in the streets was just on the point of opening a door and entering a house.
It seemed so strange to me that damsel after damsel whom I met should just be reaching home as I was passing, that I began to think that I was either dreaming, or that every house belonged to every woman in the town.
The idea suddenly dawned upon me that it was only a trick on their part to evade being seen, and on further inquiry into the matter from a Corean friend, I discovered that a woman has a right to open and enter any door of a Corean house when she sees a foreign man appearing on the horizon, as the reputation of the masculine "foreign devil" is still far from having reached a high standard of morality in the minds of the gentler sex of Cho-sen.
In the main street and big thoroughfares, where at all times there are crowds of people, there is more chance of approaching them without this running away, for in Corea, as elsewhere, great reliance is placed on the saying that there is safety in numbers.
So it was mainly here that I made my first studies of the retiring ways and quaint costumes of the Corean damsel.
[Illustration: A COREAN BEAUTY] Yes, the costume really is quaint, and well it deserves to be described.
They wear huge padded trousers, similar to those of the men, their socks also being padded with cotton wool.
The latter are fastened tightly round the ankles to the trousers by means of a ribbon.
You must not think, however, that the dame of Cho-sen walks about the streets attired in this manly garment, for over these trousers she wears a shortish skirt tied very high over the waist.
Both trousers and skirt are generally white, and of silk or cotton according to the grade, position in life, and extravagance of those who wear them.
A tiny jacket, usually white, red, or green, completes the wardrobe of most Corean women; one peculiarity of which is that it is so short that both breasts are left uncovered, which is a curious and most unpractical fashion, the climate of Corea, as we have already seen, being exceedingly cold--much colder than Russia or even Canada.
The hair, of which the women have no very great abundance, is very simply made up, plastered down flat with some sort of stenching oil, parted in the middle, and tied into a knot at the back of the head, pretty much in the same way as clergymen's wives ordinarily wear it.
A heavy-looking silver or metal pin, or sometimes two, may also be found inserted in this knot as an ornament.
I have often seen young girls and old women wear a curious fur cap, especially in winter, but this cannot be said to be in general use.
It is in the shape of the section of a cone, the upper part of which is covered with silk, while the lower half is ornamented with fur and two long silk ribbons which hang at the back and nearly reach the ground when the cap is worn.
The upper part of this cap, curiously enough, is open, and on either side of the hole thus formed there are two silk tassels, generally red or black in colour.
When smartly worn, this cap is quite becoming, but unfortunately, whether this be worn or not, the modest maiden of Cho-sen covers her head and face with a long green sort of an overall coat which she uses as a _mantilla_ or hood, throwing it over the head and keeping it closed over the face with the left hand.
It must not on this account be imagined that there are not in Cho-sen women as coquettish as anywhere else, for, indeed, the prettier ones, either pretending that the wind blows back the hood, or that the hand that holds it over the face has slipped, or using some other excuse of the kind with which a woman is always so well provided, take every opportunity of showing you how pretty they are and of admiring them, particularly when they get to know who you are, where you hail from, and who your Corean friends are.
The ugly ones, of course, are always those who make the most fuss, and should you see a woman in the street hide her face so that you cannot see it at all, you may be very sure that her countenance is not worth looking at, and that she herself is perfectly conscious of Nature's unkindness to her.
As for several months I was seen day after day sketching in the streets, the people got to know me well, and since the Coreans themselves are very fond of art, although they are not very artistic themselves, I made numerous friends among them, and even, I might say, became popular.
Vanity is a ruling characteristic of all people, and acting on this little weakness I was able to see more of the Corean damsel than most casual travellers.
[Illustration: A LADY AT HOME] We find, it is true, _pros_ and _cons_ when we come to analyse her charms, but taking the average maid, she cannot be said to be worse in Corea than she is in other countries.
She can be pretty and she can be ugly.
When she is pretty, she is as pretty as they make them, and when she is the other way she is as ugly as sin, if not even worse.
But let us take a good-looking one.
Look at her sad little oval face, with arched eyebrows and with jet black, almond-shaped eyes, softened by the long eyelashes.
Her nose is straight, though it might to advantage be a little less flat, and she possesses a sweet little mouth, just showing two pretty teeth as white as snow.
There seems to be so much dignity and repose about her movements when you first see her, that you almost take her for a small statue.
Hardly will she condescend to turn her face round or raise it up to look at you and even less inclined does she seem to smile, such is her modesty; once her shyness has worn off, however, she improves wonderfully.
Her face brightens, and the soft, affectionate, distant look in her eyes is enough to mash into pulp the strongest of mankind.
She is simple and natural, and in this chiefly lies her charm.
She would not compare in beauty with a European woman, for she is neither so tall nor so well developed, but among women of far-Eastern nationality she, to my mind, takes the cake for actual beauty and refinement.
The Japanese women of whom one hears so much, though more artistically clad, are not a patch on the Venuses of Cho-sen, and both in respect of lightness of complexion and the other above-named qualities they seemed to me to approach nearest to the standard of European feminine beauty.
Their dress, as you may have judged by my rough description, is more quaint than graceful, and cannot be said to be at all becoming; nevertheless, when one's eyes have got accustomed to it, I have seen girls look quite pretty in it.
I remember one in particular, a concubine of one of the king's ministers, whom I was fortunate enough to get to sit for me.
She did not look at all bad in her long blue veil gown, much longer than the white one usually worn, which it covered, the white silk trousers just showing over the ankles, and a pretty pair of blue and white shoes fitting her tiny feet.
She wore a little red jacket, of which she seemed very proud, and she smoked cigarettes and a pipe, though her age, I believe, was only seventeen.
Women of the commoner classes can always be detected, not only by the coarser clothes they wear, but also by the way their hair is made up.
Two long tresses are rolled up on the back of the head into a sort of turban, and though to my eye, innocent of the feminine tricks of hair-dressing, it looked all real and genuine, and a curious contrast to the infinitely less luxuriant growth of the better classes of women, I was told that a good deal of braids and "stuffing" was employed to swell their coiffures into the much-coveted fashionable size.
One very strange custom in Corea is the privilege accorded to women to walk about the streets of the town at night after dark, while the men are confined to the house from about an hour after sunset and, until lately, were severely punished both with imprisonment and flogging, if found walking about the streets during "women's hours."
The gentler sex was and is therefore allowed to parade the streets, and go and pay calls on their parents and lady friends, until a very late hour of the night, without fear of being disturbed by the male portion of the community.
Few, however, avail themselves of the privilege, for unfortunately in Corea there are many tigers and leopards, which, disregarding the early closing of the city gates, climb with great ease over the high wall and take nightly peregrinations over the town, eating up all the dogs which they find on their way and occasionally even human beings.
Tigers have actually been known to rudely run their paws through the invulnerable paper windows of a mud house, drag out a struggling body roughly awoke from slumber, and devour the same peacefully in the middle of the street.
Since then a _rencontre_ with a hungry individual of this nature during a moonlight walk is sure to be somewhat unpleasant, it is not astonishing that it is but very, very rarely that at any hour of the night the Cho-sen damsel avails herself of the privilege accorded her.
The woman, as I have already mentioned, is considered nothing in Corea.
The only privilege she has, as we have just seen, is the chance of being torn to pieces and eaten up by a wild beast when she is out for a constitutional, and that we may safely say is not a privilege to be envied.
The poor thing has no name, and when she is born she goes by the vague denomination of "So-and-so's" daughter.
When there are several girls in the family, to avoid confusion, surnames are found convenient enough, but they are again lost the moment she marries, which, as we shall see in another chapter, often happens at a very early age.
She then becomes "So-and-so's" wife.
The woman in Corea has somewhat of a sad and dull life, for from the age of four or five she is separated even from her brothers and brought up in a separate portion of the house, and from that time ideas are pounded into her poor little head as to the disgrace of talking, or even being looked at by humans of a different gender.
The higher classes, of course, suffer most from the enforcement of this strict etiquette, for in the very lowest grades of society the woman enjoys comparative freedom.
She can talk to men as much as she pleases, and even goes out unveiled, being much too low a being to be taken any notice of; the upper classes, however, are very punctilious as to the observance of their severe rules.
The Corean woman is a slave.
She is used for pleasure and work.
She can neither speak nor make any observations, and never is she allowed to see any man other than her husband.
She has the right of the road in the streets, and the men are courteous to her.
Not only do the men make room for her to pass, but even turn their faces aside so as not to gaze at her.
There are numberless stories of a tragic character in Corean literature, of lovely maidens that have committed suicide, or have been murdered by their husbands, brothers, or fathers, only for having been seen by men, and even to the present day a husband would be considered quite justified in the eye of the law if he were to kill his wife for the great sin of having spoken to another man but himself!
A widow of the upper class is not allowed to re-marry, and if she claims any pretence of having loved her late husband, she ought to try to follow him to the other world at the earliest convenience by committing the _jamun_, a simple performance by which the devoted wife is only expected to cut her throat or rip her body open with a sharp sword.
They say that it is a mere nothing, when you know how to do it, but it always struck me, that practising a little game of that sort would not be an easy matter.
For the sake of truth, I must confess that it was a husband who depreciated the worthy act.
The lower people are infinitely more sensible.
Though a woman of this class were to lose twenty husbands, she would never for a moment think of doing away with herself, but would soon enter into her twenty-first matrimonial alliance.
Women, somehow or other, are scarce in Corea, and always in great demand.
The coolies, and people of a similar or lower standing, cannot do without a female companion, for it is she who prepares the food, washes the clothes, and sews them up.
She is beaten constantly, and very often she beats the man, for the Corean woman can have a temper at times.
Jealousy _en plus_ is one of her chief virtues.
I have seen women in Seoul nearly tearing one another to pieces, and, O Lord!
how masterly they are in the art of scratching.
The men on such occasions stand round them, encouraging them to fight, the husbands enjoying the fun more than the other less interested spectators.
The women of the lower classes seem to be in a constant state of excitement and anger.
They are always insulting one another, calling each other names, or scolding and even ill-treating their own children.
What is more extraordinary still to European ears, is that I once actually saw a wife stand up for her husband, and she did it in a way that I am not likely soon to forget.
A soldier was peacefully walking along a narrow street, half of which was a sort of drain canal, the water of which was frozen over, when a man came out of a house and stopped him.
The conversation became hot at once, and with my usual curiosity, the only virtue I have ever possessed, I stopped to see the result.
"You must pay me back the money I lent you," said the civilian in a very angry tone of voice.
"I have not got it," answered the military man, trying to get away.
"Ah!
you have not got it?"
screamed a third personage, a woman emerging from the doorway, and without further notice hit the soldier on the head with the heavy wooden mallet commonly used for beating clothes.
The husband, encouraged by this unexpected reinforcement, boldly attacked the soldier, and, whilst they were occupied in wrestling and trying to knock each other down, the infuriated woman kept up a constant administration of blows, half at least of which, in her aimless hurry, were received by the companion of her life for whom she was fighting.
Once she hit the poor man so hard--by mistake--that he fell down in a dead faint, upon which the soldier ran for his life, while she, jumping like a tiger at him, caught him by the throat, spinned him round like a top, and floored him, knocking him down on the ice.
Then she pounced on him, with her eyes out of her head with anger, and giving way to her towering passion, pounded him on the head with her heels while she was hitting him on the back with her mallet.
"You have killed my husband, too, you scoundrel!"
she cried, while the defeated warrior was struggling hard, though in vain, to escape.
As she was about to administer him a blow on the head that would have been enough to kill a bull, she fortunately slipped on the ice and went sprawling over her victim.
The soldier, more dead than alive, had raised himself on his knees, when that demon in female attire rose again and embracing him most tenderly, bit his cheek so hard as to draw a regular stream of blood.
I could stand it no longer, and proceeded on to the slippery ice to try to separate them, but hardly was I within reach than I was presented with a sound blow on my left knee from the mallet which she was still manipulating with alarming dexterity, by which I was at once placed _hors de combat_ before I had time even to offer my services as a peace-maker.
Not only that, but besides the numberless "stars" which she made me see, the pain which she caused me was so intense that, hopping along as best I could on to the street again, I deemed it prudent to let them fight out their own quarrel and go about my own business.
"Never again as long as I live," I swore, when I was well out of sight, as I rubbed my poor knee, swollen up to the size of an egg, "never shall I interfere in other people's quarrels.
Who would have foreseen this?
and from a woman, too!"
It is, indeed, easy to be a philosopher after the event, but it is strange how very often one gets into fearful rows and trouble without having had the slightest intention either to offend or to annoy the natives.
Here is another little anecdote which I narrated some months ago in the _Fortnightly Review_, and which is a further proof of the violent temper of the women-folk, of the lower classes in Cho-sen.
The Coreans in general, and the women in particular, are at times extremely superstitious, which partly accounts for the violent scene in question, which arose out of a mere nothing, and nearly resulted in a most serious case of wilful infanticide.
This is how things stood.
I was sketching one day outside the east gate of Seoul, and, as usual, was surrounded by a large crowd of natives, when a good-natured old man with a kindly face attracted my attention, as he lifted up in his arms a pretty little child, on whose head he had placed his horse-hair transparent hat, and asked me whether I would like to paint the little one so attired in my picture.
I was tempted by the offer, and, having taken up a fresh panel, proceeded to dash off a sketch of my new model in his pretty red frock, his tiny padded socks, and his extra large hat, to the great amusement of the audience, who eagerly watched every stroke of my brush, and went into ecstasies as they saw the likeness come out more and more plainly.
The Coreans, like the Japanese, are extremely quick at understanding pictures and drawings, and I was much gratified to notice the interest displayed by my _auditorium_, for never before had I seen a crowd so pleased with work of mine.
My last experiences in the sketching line had been among the hairy savages of the Hokkaido, among whom art was far from being appreciated or even tolerated, and portrait-painting was somewhat of a risky performance; so that when I found myself lionised, instead of being under a shower of pelting stones and other missiles, it was only natural that I felt encouraged, and really turned out a pretty fair sketch so far as my capabilities went.
"Beautiful!"
said one; "Very good!"
exclaimed another; "Just life-like!"
said they all in a chorus as I lifted up the finished picture to show it to them, when--there was a sudden change of scene.
A woman with staring eyes, and as pale as death, appeared on the door-step of a house close by, and holding her forehead with her hands, as if a great calamity was to befall her, made a step forward.
"Where is my child?"
cried she in a voice of anger and despair.
"Here he is," answered one of the crowd.
"The foreigner is painting a picture of him."
There was a piercing yell, and the pale woman looked such daggers at me that I nearly dropped the sketch, brushes and palette out of my hands.
Oh, it was such a look!
Brrr!
how I shivered.
Then, with another yell, tenfold more piercing than the first, she made a dash into the crowd, and tried to snatch the child away.
I have heard people say that I am sensitive, and I believe that I really was on that occasion, for I involuntarily shuddered as I saw at a glance what was coming.
The crowd had got so interested in the picture that they would not hear of letting the child go; so the mother, scorned and pushed back, was unsuccessful in her daring attempt.
Boldly, however, making a fresh attack, she dashed into the midst of them and managed to grasp the child by the head and one arm; which led to the most unfortunate part of the business, for the angry mother pulled with all her might in her efforts to drag her sweet one away, while the people on the other hand pulled him as hard as they could by the other arm and the legs, so that the poor screaming mite was nearly torn to pieces, and no remonstrances of mine had the least effect on this human yet very inhuman tug-of-war.
Fortunately for the child, whose limbs had undergone a good stretching, the mother let go; but it was certainly not fortunate for the others, for, following the little ways that women have, even in Corea, she proceeded to scratch the faces of all within her reach, and I myself came within an inch of having my eyes scratched out of my head by this infuriated parent, when to my great relief she was dragged away.
As she re-entered the door of her domicile, she shook her fist and thrust her tongue out at me, a worthy finish to this tragic-comic scene.
I do not wish you to think, however, that all women are like that in Corea; for, indeed, they are not.
In fact, the majority of them may be said to be good-mannered and even soft in nature, besides being painfully laborious.
You should see the poor things on the coldest days and nights of winter, smashing the thick ice in the rivers and canals, and spending hour after hour with their fingers in the freezing water, washing the clothes of their lords and masters, who are probably peacefully and soundly asleep at home.
You should see them with their short, wooden mallets, like small clubs, beating the dirt out of the wet cotton garments, soap being as yet an unknown luxury in the Corean household.
The poorer women, who have no washing accommodation at home, have to repair to the streams, and, as the clothes have to be worn in the day, the work must be done at night.
Sometimes, too, three or more join together and form washing parties, this, to a certain extent, relieving the monotony of the kneeling down on the cold stone, pounding the clothes until quite clean, and constantly having to break the ice that is continually reforming round their very wrists.
The women who are somewhat better off do this at home, and if you were to take a walk through the streets of Seoul by night you soon get familiar with the quick tick, tick, tick, the time as regularly marked as that of a clock, heard from many houses, especially previous to some festivity or public procession, when everybody likes to turn out in his best.
If a woman in our country were sent out to do the washing under similarly trying circumstances--and, mind, a suit of clothes takes no less than a couple of hours to wash properly--I have no doubt that she might be tempted to ask for a divorce from her husband for cruelty and ill-treatment; but the woman of Cho-sen thinks nothing of it, and as long as it pleases the man whom she must obey she does it willingly and without a word of complaint.
In fact, I am almost of opinion that the Corean woman likes to be made a martyr, for, not unlike women of other more civilised countries, unless she suffers, she does not consider herself to be quite happy!
It sounds funny and incongruous, but it really is so.
While studying the women of Corea, a former idea got deeply rooted in my head, that there is nothing which will make a woman happier than the opportunity of showing with what resignation she is able to bear the weight and drudgery of her duty.
If to that she can add complaint of ill-treatment, then her happiness is unbounded.
The woman of Cho-sen gets, to my mind, less enjoyment out of life than probably any other woman in Asia.
This life includes misery, silence, and even separation from her children--the male ones--after a certain age.
What things could make a woman more unhappy?
Still, she seems to bear up well under it all, and even to enjoy all this sadness, I suppose one always enjoys what one is accustomed to do, otherwise I do not see how the phenomenon is to be explained.
[Illustration: A SINGER] A few words must be added about that special class of women, the singers, who, as in Japan, are quite a distinct guild from the other women.
A similar description to that of the _geishas_ of Japan might apply to these gay and talented young ladies, who are much sought after by high officials and magistrates to enliven their dinner-parties with chanting and music.
They are generally drawn from the very poorest classes, and good looks and a certain amount of wit and musical talent is what must be acquired to be a successful singer.
They improvise or sing old national songs, which never fail to please the self-satisfied and well-fed official, and if well paid, they will even condescend to pour wine into their employer's cups and pass sweets to the guests.
If beautiful and accomplished, the "Corean artistes" make a very good living out of their profession, large sums of money being paid for their services.
But if at all favoured by Nature, they generally end by becoming the unofficial wives of some rich minister or official.
These women chalk their faces and paint their lips; they wear dresses made of the most expensive silks, and, like people generally who have sprung from nothing and find themselves lodged among higher folks than themselves, they give themselves airs, and cultivate a sickening conceit.
Among the Coreans, however, they command and receive much admiration, and many an intrigue and scandal has been carried out, sometimes at the cost of many heads, through the mercenary turn of mind of these feminine musicians.
This music is to the average European ear more than diabolical, this being to a large extent due to the differences in the tones, semi-tones, and intervals of the scale, but personally, having got accustomed to their tunes, I rather like its weirdness and originality.
When once it is understood it can be appreciated; but I must admit that the first time one hears a Corean concert, an inclination arises to murder the musicians and destroy their instruments.
Of the latter they have many kinds, including string and brass, and drums, and cymbals, and other sorts of percussion instruments.
The flutes probably are the weirdest of all their wind category, but the tone is pleasant and the airs played on them fascinating, although somewhat monotonous in the end, repetitions being continually effected.
Then there is the harp with five strings, if I remember right, and the more complicated sort of lute with twenty-five strings, the _kossiul_; a large guitar, and a smaller one; the _kanyako_ being also in frequent use.
Most of these instruments are played by women; the flutes, however, are also played by men.
CHAPTER VI Corean children--The family--Clans--Spongers--Hospitality--Spinning-tops --Toys--Kite-flying--Games--How babies are sent to sleep.
One great feature of Cho-sen life are the children.
One might almost say that in Cho-sen you very seldom see a boy, for boyhood is done away with, and from childhood you spring at once to the sedate existence of a married man.
Astonishing as this may sound, it is nevertheless true.
The free life of a child comes to an end generally when he is about eight or nine years of age.
At ten he is a married man, but only, as we shall see later, nominally.
For the present, however, we shall limit ourselves to a consideration of his bachelor days.
[Illustration: COREAN MARRIED MAN, AGE 12] It must be known that in Corea, just as here, boys are much more cherished than girls, and the elder of the boys is more cherished than his younger brothers, should there be more than one in a family, notwithstanding that the younger are better-looking, cleverer and more studious.
When the father dies, the eldest son assumes the reins of the family, and his brothers look to him as they had before done to their father.
He it is who inherits the family property and nearly all the money, though it is an understood rule that he is bound either to divide the inheritance share and share alike with the rest of the family, or else keep them as the father had done.
Thus it is that Corean families are, for the most part kept together; one might almost say that the kingdom is divided into so many clans, each family with the various relations making, so to speak, one of them.
Family ties are much regarded in the Land of the Morning Calm, and great interest is taken by the distant relations in anything concerning the happiness and welfare of the family.
What is more, if any member of the clan should find himself in pecuniary troubles, all the relations are expected to help him out of them, and what is even more marvellous still, they willingly do it, without a word of protest.
The Corean is hospitable by nature, but with relations, of course, things go much further.
The house belonging to one practically belongs to the other, and therefore it is not an uncommon occurrence for a "dear relation" to come to pay a visit of a few years' duration to some other relation who happens to be better off, without this latter, however vexed he may be at the expense and trouble caused by the prolonged stay of his visitor, even daring to politely expel him from his house; were he to do so, he would commit a breach of the strict rules of hospitality enjoined by Corean etiquette.
Even perfect strangers occasionally go to settle in houses of rich people, where for months they are accommodated and fed until it should please them to remove their quarters to the house of some other rich man where better food and better accommodation might be expected.
There is nothing that a Corean fears so much as that people should speak ill of him, and especially this is the bugbear under which the nobleman of Cho-sen is constantly labouring, and upon which these black-mailers and "spongers" work.
High officials, whose heads rest on their shoulders, "hung by a hair," like Damocles' sword, suffer very much at the hands of these marauders.
Were they to refuse their hospitality it would bring upon them slander, scandal and libel from envenomed tongues, which things, in consequence of the scandalous intriguing which goes on at the Corean court, might eventually lead to their heads rolling on the ground, separated from the body--certainly not a pleasant sight.
In justice to them, nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that these human leeches are occasionally possessed with a conscience, and after kindness has been shown them for many months they will generally depart in search of a new victim.
Whence it would appear that the people of Cho-sen carry their hospitality to an extreme degree, and in fact it is so even with foreigners, for when visiting the houses of the poorest people I have always been offered food or drink, which you are invariably asked to share with them.
But let us return to the Corean family.
The mother, practically from the beginning, is a nobody in the household, and is looked upon as a piece of furniture or a beast of burden by the husband, according to his grade, and as an ornament to the household, but nothing more by her own sons.
Her daughters, if she has any, regard her more as a friend or a companion, sharing the lonely hours and helping her with her work.
The women never take part in any of the grand dinners and festivities in which their husbands revel, nor are they allowed to drink wine or intoxicants.
They may, however, smoke.
When the children get to a certain age, the males are parted from the females, and the first are constantly in the company of their father, while the latter, as we have seen, share the dull fate of the mother.
The first thing a male child is taught is love, deep respect, and obedience to his governor, and in this he is, as a general rule, a paragon.
If the father be ill, he will lie by his side day and night, nursing him, and giving him courage; and if any misfortune befalls him, the duty of a good son is to share it with his genitor.
I cannot quite make up my mind on the point, whether the Corean child has a good time of it or not, and whether he is properly cared for, as there is much to be said on both sides of the question.
Taken as a whole, the children of the noblemen and rich people, though strictly and even severely brought up, cannot, I think, be said to be ill-used; but the brats of the poorer people are often beaten in a merciless manner.
I remember seeing a father furiously spanking a son of about five years old, who was pitifully crying so as to break one's heart, and as if that were not punishment enough, he shook him violently by his little pig-tail, and pounded him on the head with his knuckles, a performance that would have killed, or, at all events, rendered insensible nine children out of ten of other nationalities; but no, to my utter astonishment, the moment the father, tired of beating, retired into the house, the little mite, wiping his streaming tears with the backs of his hands and pulling himself together, quietly sat down on the ground, and began playing with the sand, as if nothing had happened!
"Well!"
I remember saying, as I stood perplexed, looking at the little hero, "if that does not beat all I have seen before, I do not know what can!"
Yes, for hard heads and for insensibility to pain, I cannot recommend to you better persons than the Coreans.
There are times when the Cho-sen children actually seem to enjoy themselves, as, for instance, during the month of January, when it is the fashion to have out their whippingand spinning-tops.
With his huge padded trousers and short coat, just like a miniature man, except that the colour of his coat is red or green, and with one or two tresses hanging down his back, tied with long silk ribbons, every child you come across is at this season furnished with a big top and a whip, with which he amuses himself and his friends, slashing away from morn till night, until, tired out by the exertion, he goes to rest his weary little bones by his father's side, still hanging on to the toys that have made his day so happy.
The Corean child is quiet by nature.
He is really a little man from the moment he is born, so far as his demeanour is concerned.
He is seldom rowdy, even when in the company of other children, and, if anything, rather shy and reserved.
He amuses himself with his toys in a quiet way, and his chief pleasure is to do what his father does.
In this he is constantly encouraged, and those who can afford it, provide their boys with toys, representing on a smaller scale the objects, &c., used in the everyday life of the man.
He has a miniature bow-and-arrow, a wooden sword, and a somewhat realistic straw puppet, which he delights in beheading whenever he is tired of playing with it and shooting his arrows into it.
He possesses a fishing-rod, and on windy days relishes a good run with the large paper pinwheels, a world-wide familiar toy in infantile circles.
Naturally, too, musical instruments, as well as the national means of conveyance, such as palanquins and wheel-chairs, have not escaped the notice of the Corean toy-manufacturer, who, it must be said, imitates the different objects to perfection in every detail, while, of course, considerably reducing them in size.
Other various articles of common use in the household are also often reproduced in a similar way.
The games that the children seem to enjoy most, however, seem to be the out-of-door ones.
Kite-flying is probably the most important.
Indeed, it is almost reduced to an art in Corea, and not only do small children go in for it extensively, but even the men take an active part in this infantile amusement.
The Corean kite differs from its Japanese or Chinese relative in that it is very small, being only about twenty inches long by fourteen wide.
Besides, instead of being flat on the frame, the Cho-senese kite is arched, which feature is said by the natives to give it a much greater flying capacity.
The string is wound round a framework of wood attached to a stick, which latter revolves in the hands or is stopped at the will of the person who flies the kite.
It is generally during the north winds that the kites are flown, and it is indeed a curious thing during those days to watch regular competitions, fights, and battles being fought among these paper air-farers.
As soon as the kite is raised from the ground and started in the orthodox way, the tactics used by the Corean boy in his favourite amusement become most interesting.
He lets it go until it has well caught the wind, and by sudden jerks given to it in a funny way, knocking and clapping the thread-wheel on his left knee, he manages to send the kite up to a very great height.
Hundreds and hundreds of yards of string are often used.
When high enough, sailing gaily along among hundreds of other kites, it is made to begin warlike tactics and attack its nearest neighbour.
Here it is that the Corean shows his greatest skill in manoeuvring his flying machine, for by pulls, jerks, and twists of the string he manages to make his kite rise or descend, attack its enemy or retreat according to his wish.
Then as you break your neck watching them, you see the two small squares of paper, hundreds of yards above you in mid-air, getting closer to one another, advancing and retreating, as would two men fighting a duel; when, suddenly, one takes the offensive, charges the other, and by a clever _coup de main_ makes a rent in it, thus dooming it to a precipitous fall to the earth.
Thus victorious, it proudly proceeds to attack its next neighbour, which is immediately made to respond to the challenge; but this time kite number three, whose leader has profited by the end of kite number two, keeps lower down than his adversary, gets round him in a clever way, and when the strings meet, by a hard pull cuts that of kite number one, which, swinging slowly in the air, and now and then revolving round itself in the air, gently descends far away from its owner, and is quickly appropriated by some poor kiteless child, who perhaps has been in company with many fellows, watching and pining for hours for such a happy moment.
Pieces of broken glass are often tied to the string at intervals, being of great help in cutting the adversary's cord.
The people of Cho-sen seem to take as much interest in kite-flying as the Britisher does in racing.
The well-grown people bet freely on the combatants, and it is not an uncommon thing for the excitement to reach such a pitch that the battle begun in mid-air terminates with sound blows in less aërial regions.
It is quaint to see rows of children with their little red jackets, standing on the high walls of the city, spending hours in this favourite amusement.
They have barely room to stand upon, as the wall is hardly more than a couple of feet wide, and it was always a surprise to me that, amid the constant jerking and pulling the young folks were never precipitated from their point of vantage to the foot, which in many places would be as much as thirty feet in height.
I have watched them for hours in the expectation of seeing one of them have an accident, but unfortunately for me they never did!
The little girls under ten years of age are exceedingly pretty.
With the hair carefully parted in the middle and tied into two tresses at the back, a little green jacket and a long red skirt, they do indeed look quaint.
You should see how well-behaved and sedate, too, they are.
It is impossible to make one smile.
You may give her sweets, a toy, or anything you please, but all you will hear is the faintest "Kamapso," and away she runs to show the gift to her mother.
She will seldom go into fits of merriment in your presence, but, of course, her delight cannot fail to be at times depicted in her beaming eyes.
She is more unfortunate than her brother in the number of toys she receives, and though her treatment is not so very severe, she begins from her earliest years a life of drudgery and work.
As soon as her little brain begins to command her tiny fingers, she is compelled to struggle with a needle and thread.
When her fragile arms get stronger she helps her mother in beating the clothes, and from the moment she rises to the time she goes to rest, ideas as to her future servility, humility, and faithfulness to man are duly impressed upon her.
As in Japan, so in Corea, a custom prevails of adopting male children by parents who have none of their own.
The children adopted are generally those of poorer friends or of relations who chance to have some to spare.
When the adoption is accomplished, with all the rules required by the law of the country, and with the approval of the king, the adopted son takes the place of a real son, and has a complete right of succession to his adoptive father in precedence to the adoptive mother and all the other relations of the defunct.
The Corean boy begins to study when very young.
If the son of a rich man, he has a private tutor; if not, he goes to school, where he is taught the letters of the Corean alphabet, and Chinese characters.
All official correspondence in Corea is done with Chinese characters, and a lifetime, as everybody knows, is hardly enough to master these.
The native Corean alphabet, however, is a most practical and easy way of representing sounds, and I am not sure but that in many ways it is even more practical than ours.
I will give the reader the opportunity of judging of this for himself by-and-by (_see_ chapter xiii.).
Arithmetic is also pounded into the little heads of the Cho-sen mites by means of the sliding-bead addition-board, the "chon-pan," a wonderful contrivance, also much used in Japan and China, and which is of invaluable help in quick calculation.
The children are made to work very hard, and I was always told by the natives that they are generally very diligent and studious.
A father was telling me one day that his son was most assiduous, but that he (the father) every now and then administered to him a good flogging.
"But that is unfair," said I.
"Why do you do it?"
"Because I wish my son to be a great man.
I am pleased with his work, but I flog him to encourage(?)
him to study better still!"
I felt jolly glad that I was never "encouraged" in this kind of way when I was at school.
"I have no doubt that if you flog him enough he will one day be so clever that no one on this earth will be able to appreciate him."
"You are right," said the old man, perceiving at once the sarcasm of my remark, "you are right.
I shall never beat my son again."
The children of labourers generally attend night-schools, where they receive a sound education for very little money and sometimes even gratis.
I am sure you will be interested to learn after what fashion children are named in the Land of the Morning Calm, as baptism with holy water is not yet customary.
To tell you the truth, however, I am not quite certain how things are managed, and I rather doubt whether even the Coreans themselves know it.
The only rule I was able to establish is that there was no rule at all, with the exception that all the males took the family name, to which followed (not preceded, as with us) one other name, and then the title or rank.
Nicknames are extremely common, and there is hardly any one who not only has one, but actually goes by it instead of by his real name.
Foreigners also are always called after some distinguishing mark either in the features or in the clothing.
I went by the name of "disguised Corean," for I was always mistaken for one, notwithstanding that I dressed in European clothes.
I will not say that I was very proud of my new name.
The Corean noblemen, during their many hours of _dolce far niente_, often indulge in games of chess, backgammon and checkers, and teach these games to their sons as part of a gentleman's accomplishments.
Cards, besides being forbidden by order of the king, are considered vulgar and a low amusement only fit for the lowest people.
The soldiers indulge much in card-playing and gambling with dice-throwing and other ways.
But to return to the children of Cho-sen: do you know what is the system employed by the yellow-skinned women to send their babies to sleep?
They scrape them gently on the stomach!
The rowdiest baby is sent to sleep in no time by this simple process.
I can speak from experience, for I once tried it on a baby--only a few months old--that I wanted to paint.
He was restless, and anything but a good sitter.
It was impossible to start work until he was quiet, so I decided to experiment on the juvenile model the "scraping process" that I had seen have its effect a day or two previously.
At first the baby became ten times more lively than before, and looked at me as if it meant to say, "What the devil are you doing?"
Then, as I went on scraping his little stomach for the best part of ten minutes, he became drowsy, was hardly able to keep his eyes open, and finally, thank Heaven, fell asleep!
He was, indeed, he was so much so that I thought he was never going to wake up again.
CHAPTER VII Corean inns--Seoul--A tour of observation--Beggars--Lepers--Philosophy--An old palace--A leopard hunt--Weather prophets--The main street--Sedan chairs---The big bell--Crossing of the bridges--Monuments--Animal worship--The Gate of the Dead--A funeral--The Queen-dowager's telephone.
[Illustration: THE DRILLING GROUND, SEOUL] During the time that I was in Seoul--and I was there several months--most of my time was spent out of doors, for I mixed as much as possible with the natives, that I might see and study their manners and customs.
I was very fortunate in my quarters: for I first stayed at the house of a Russian gentleman, and after that in that of the German Consul, and to these kind friends I felt, and shall always feel, greatly indebted for the hospitality they showed me during the first few weeks that I was in the capital; but, above all, do I owe it to the Vice-Minister of Home Affairs in Corea, Mr. C.R.
Greathouse, in whose house I stayed most of the time, that I saw Corea as I did see it, for he went to much trouble to make me comfortable, and did his best to enable me to see every phase of Corean life.
For this, I need not say, I cannot be too grateful.
The great difficulty travellers visiting the capital of Corea experience--I am speaking of four years ago--is to find a place to put up at, unless he has invitations to go and stay with friends.
There are no hotels, and even no inns of any sort, with the exception of the very lowest _gargottes_ for soldiers and coolies, the haunts of gamblers and robbers.
If then you are without shelter for the night, you must simply knock at the door of the first respectable house you see, and on demand you will heartily be provided with a night's domicile and plentiful rice.
This being so, there is little inducement to go to some filthy inn entirely lacking in comforts, and, above all, in personal safety.
The Corean inns--and there are but few even of those--are patronised only by the scum of the worst people of the lowest class, and whenever there is a robbery, a fight, or a murder, you can be certain that it has taken place in one of those dens of vice.
I have often spent hours in them myself to study the different types, mostly criminal, of which there are many specimens in these abodes.
There it is that plots are made up to assassinate; it is within those walls that sinners of all sorts find refuge, and can keep well out of sight of the searching police.
The attractions of Seoul, as a city, are few.
Beyond the poverty of the buildings and the filth of the streets, I do not know of much else of any great interest to the casual globe-trotter, who, it must be said, very seldom thinks it advisable to venture as far as that.
No, there is nothing beautiful to be seen in Seoul.
If, however, you are on the look-out for quaintness and originality, no town will interest you more.
Let us go for a walk round the town, and if your nose happens to be of a sensitive nature, do not forget to take a bottle of the strongest salts with you.
We might start on our peregrinations from the West Gate, as we are already familiar with this point.
We are on the principal thoroughfare of Seoul, which we can easily perceive by the amount of traffic on it as compared with the other narrower and deserted streets.
The mud-houses on each side, as we descend towards the old royal palace, are miserable and dirty, the front rooms being used as shops, where eatables, such as rice, dried fruit, &c, are sold.
A small projecting thatched roof has been put up, sustained by posts, at nearly each of these, to protect its goods from sun and snow.
Before going two hundred yards we come to a little stone bridge, about five feet wide, and with no parapet, over a sewer, in front of which is an open space like a small square.
But look!
Do you see that man squatting down there on a mat?
Is he not picturesque with his long white flowing robe, his large pointed straw hat and his black face?
As he lies there with outstretched hands, dried by the sun and snow, calling out for the mercy of the passers-by, he might almost be mistaken for an Arab.
His face is as black as it could be, and he is blind.
He is one of the personalities of Seoul, and rain or shine you always see him squatting on his little mat at the same spot in the same attitude.
[Illustration: THE BLIND BEGGAR: SEOUL] It is only seldom that beggars are to be seen in Cho-sen, for they are not allowed to prowl about except on certain special occasions, and festivities, when the streets are simply crammed with them.
It is then that the most ghastly diseases, misfortunes, accidents, and deformities are made use of and displayed before you to extract from your pockets the modest sum of a _cash_.
I cannot say that I am easily impressed by such sights, and far less horrified, for in my lifetime it has been my luck to see so many that I have got accustomed to them; but I must confess to being on one occasion really terrified at the sight of a Corean beggar.
I was sketching not very far from this stone miniature bridge on which we are supposed to be still standing, when I perceived the most ghastly object coming towards me.
It looked like a human being, and it did not; but it was.
As he drew nearer, I could not help shivering.
He was a walking skeleton, minus toes and fingers.
He was almost naked, except that he had a few rags round his loins; and the skin that hardly covered his bones was a mass of sores.
His head was so deformed and his eyes so sunken that a Peruvian mummy would have been an Adonis if compared with him.
Nose he had none--_et ça passe_--for in Seoul it is a blessing not to have one; and where his mouth should have been there was a huge gap, his lower jaw being altogether missing.
A few locks of long hair in patches on his skull, blown by the wind, completed a worthy frame for this most unprepossessing head.
Oh, what a hideous sight!
He hopped along a step or two at a time on his bony legs and toeless feet, keeping his balance with a long crutch, which he held under his arm, and he had a sort of wooden cup attached by a string to his neck, into which people might throw their charities.
"He is a leper," a Corean, who stood by my side and had noticed the ever-increasing expression of horror on my face, informed me.
The man, or rather the scarecrow, for he hardly had any more the resemblance to a human being, hearing the noise of the crowd that was round me, moved in my direction.
He staggered and dragged himself till he got quite close, then bending his trembling head forward, made the utmost efforts to see, just as a bat does when taken out into the daylight.
Poor fellow!
he was also very nearly blind.
His efforts to speak were painful beyond measure.
A hoarse sound like the neighing of a pony was all that came out of his throat, and each time he did this, shrieks of laughter rose from the crowd, while comical jokes and sarcastic remarks were freely passed at the thinness of his legs, the condition of his skin, and the loss of the lower half of his face.
Oh!
it was shocking and revolting, though it must be said for them that the same people who chaffed him were also the first ones to fill his little pot with cash.
Now, you must not think that I have told you this story to make your hair stand on end, for that is not my intention at all; but simply to prove to you the anomaly that a Corean is not really cruel when he is cruel, or rather when he appears to us to be cruel.
This sounds, I believe, rather extraordinary to people who cannot be many-sided when analysing a question, but what I mean is this: It must not be forgotten that different people have different customs and different ways of thinking; therefore, what we put down as dreadful is often thought a great deal of in the Land of the Morning Calm.
"Why not laugh at illnesses, death, and deformity?"
I once heard a Corean argue.
"It does not make people any better if you sympathise with them; on the contrary, by so doing you simply add pain to their pain, and make them feel worse than they really are.
Besides, illnesses help to make up our life, and it is our duty to go through them as merrily as through those other things which you call pleasures.
We people of Cho-sen do not look upon illnesses, accidents, or death as misfortunes, but as natural things that cannot be helped and must be bravely endured; what better, then, can we do than laugh at them?"
"So your argument is," I dared put in, "that if one may laugh at one's own misfortunes, there is all the more title to laugh at those of other people?"
"That is so," retorted the man of Cho-sen, with an air of self-conviction.
I at once agreed with him that I did not find much real harm in laughing at other people's misfortunes, except that if it did not do anybody any harm, it neither did them any good; but I acknowledge that it took me some minutes before I could make up my mind as to one's own misfortunes.
In the end, however, I had to agree with him even about this point.
He proved to me that Coreans are at bottom very good-hearted and unselfish, and always ready to help relations and neighbours, always ready to be kind even at their own discomfort.
This good-nature, however, lacks in form from our point of view, though the substance is always the same, and probably more so than with us.
They are a much simpler people, and hypocrisy among them has not yet reached our civilised stage.
In the case of our poor leper friend, we have seen that the people who laughed at him were the first to help him; whereas, I have no doubt that among us who are good Christians, and nothing else but charitable, the majority would not have laughed; indeed, I am not quite sure but that, on the contrary, many would have run to the nearest church to pray for the man, meantime leaving him "cashless," if not to die of starvation.
Now let us continue our walk and leave the blind man and leper behind.
On our left-hand side there is a huge gateway with a red wooden door--in rather a dilapidated condition--though apparently leading to something very grand.
Since we are here we may as well go in.
Good gracious!
it is a tumble-down place.
In olden days it used to be the king's palace, and if you follow me you can see how big the grounds are.
For some reason or other this place, with all its accessories, buildings, &c., has been abandoned by the Court simply because of rumours getting abroad that ghosts haunted it.
Evil spirits were reported to have been seen prowling about the grounds, and in the royal apartments, and it would never have done for a king to have been near such company; so the Court went to great expense to build a fresh abode for the royal personage, and the old palace was abandoned and left to decay.
The grounds that were laid out as pretty gardens were, many years later, used for a plantation of mulberries, a foreign speculation which was to enrich the King and the country, but which turned out instead a huge _fiasco_.
The mulberry trees are still there, as you may see.
Let us, however, proceed a little way up this hill and go and pay a visit to the two eunuchs who are the sole inhabitants of this huge place, and who will take us round it.
These eunuchs occupy a little room about ten feet square and of the same height in the inner enclosure.
They are very polite, and joining their hands by way of salute to you, invite you to go in--to drink tea and smoke a pipe.
Poor wretches!
One of them, a fat fellow of an unwholesome kind, as if he were made of putty, having learnt the European way of greeting people, insisted on shaking hands with me, but, oh, how repulsive it was!
His cold, squashy sort of boneless hand, gave you the impression that you had grasped a toad in your hand.
And his face!
Did you ever see a weaker, more depraved and inhuman head than that which was screwed on his shoulders?
His cadaverous complexion was marked with the results of small-pox, which were certainly no improvement to his looks; his eyes had been set in his head anyhow, and each seemed to move of its own accord; his mouth seemed simply to hang like a rag, showing his teeth and his tongue.
His fellow was somewhat better, for he was of the thin kind of that type, and though possessing the effeminate, weak characteristics of his friend, one could at least see that he was built on a skeleton, like the generality of people!
But the features of these eunuchs were as nothing to their voices.
The latter were squeaky like those of girls of five; and more especially when the fat man spoke, it almost seemed as if the thread of a voice came from underground, so imperceptible was the sound that he could produce after he had spoken a few minutes.
Having profited by the notions of my Corean philosopher of a little while ago, I simply went into screams of merriment at the misfortune of these poor devils, but really it was difficult to help it.
Preceded by these eunuchs, let us now go over the tumble-down ruins of the palace.
On the top of the small hill stands the main building of red painted wood and turned up roof _à la Chinoise_, and inside this, in the audience hall, can yet be seen the remains of the wooden throne raised up in the centre, with screens on the sides.
There is nothing artistic about it, no richness, and nothing beautiful, and with the exception of the ceiling, that must have been pretty at one time with native patterns and yellow, red and green ornaments, there is absolutely nothing else worth noticing.
Outside, the three parallel flights of steps leading up to the audience hall have a curious feature.
It is forbidden to any one but the King to go up on the middle steps, and he of course is invariably carried; for which reason, in the middle part of the centre staircase a carved stone table is laid over the steps in such a way that no one can tread on them except quite at the sides where the men who carry the King have to walk.
The houses where the King and royal family used to live with their household have now been nearly all destroyed by the weather and damp, and many of the roofs have fallen in.
They were very simple, only one story high, and little better than the habitations of the better classes of people in Cho-sen. Coming out again of the inner enclosure, one finds stables and other houses scattered here and there in the _compound_,[3] and lower down we come to a big drain of masonry.
But let me tell you a funny story.
As you know, the Land of the Morning Calm is often troubled at night by prowling leopards and huge tigers which make their peregrinations through the town in search of food.
A big leopard was thus seen by the natives one fine day taking a constitutional in the grounds of this haunted palace.
Perplexed and even terrified, the unarmed natives ran for their lives, except one who, from a distant point of vantage, watched the animal and saw him enter the drain just mentioned.
There happened to be staying in Seoul an Englishman, a Mr. S., who possessed a rifle and who had often astonished the natives by his skill in never missing the bull's eye; so to him they all went in a deputation, begging him to do away with the four-legged, unwelcome visitor.
Mr. S., who wished for nothing better, promised that he would go that same night, and, accompanied by his faithful native servant, went and hid himself in proximity to the hole whence the leopard was likely to spring.
It was a lovely moonlight night, and several hours had been passed in perfect silence and vain waiting for the chance of a shot, when a bright idea struck the native servant.
Certain that the leopard was no longer there, and wishing to retire to his warm room, he addressed his master in poetic terms somewhat as follows:-"Sir, I am a brave man, and fear neither man nor beast.
I am your servant, and for you am ready to give my life.
I have brought with me two long bamboos, and with them I shall go and poke in the drain, rouse the ferocious beast, and as he jumps out you will kill him.
If I shall lose my life, which I am ready to do for you, please think of my wife and child."
"Very good," said the Englishman, who was getting rather tired of the discomfort and cold, and who, though he did not say so, also shared the opinion that the brute had gone.
Thus encouraged, the servant at once proceeded to tie the two bamboos together, and again reminding his master of the brave act he was going to accomplish, proceeded with firm step to the drain, about thirty yards off.
When he reached the opening he seemed to hesitate.
He stood and listened.
He carefully peeped in and listened again.
He heard nothing.
Then, bringing all his courage to bear, he lifted his bamboo and began poking in the drain.
Two or three times, as he thought, he had touched something soft with the end.
He dropped his bamboo as if it had been a hot iron, and ran full-speed back to his master, imploring his protection.
"Has got--has got--kill--master--kill--kill!"
and he lay by his side, shivering with fright.
"You are frightened, you coward; there is nothing.
Go again."
After a few minutes the faithful valet, who had then made quite sure that there was no leopard in the drain and that he had shown himself a coward, unwillingly and slowly returned to the charge and picked up his bamboo.
"I am trembling with cold, not with fear," he had said as he was getting up again.
"I shall enter the drain this time and rouse the animal myself!"
So he really did.
He went in, holding the bamboo in front of him, and pausing at each step.
The farther in he went, the more his self-confidence failed him.
The drain was high enough to allow of his standing in it with his back and head bent down; wherefore, if an encounter with the spotted fiend were to take place, the retreat of the man would not be an easy matter.
"Master must think me very brave," he was soliloquising on his subterranean march, when he received a sudden shock that nearly stopped his heart and froze the blood in his veins.
He had actually touched something soft with the end of his bamboo, and not only that, but he fancied he heard a growl.
He quickly turned round to escape, when a violent push knocked him down, and he fell almost senseless and bleeding all over.
"Bang!"
went the rifle outside just as the screams of: "Master, aahi, aahi, kill, kill, kill," were echoing in the drain; and the leopard with a broken hind leg rolled over on the ground groaning fiercely, by-and-by trying to retrace its steps to its domicile.
The poor Corean lay perplexed, looking at the scene, all lighted up by the beautiful moonlight; and his heart bounded with joy, when, after the second or third report of the gun, he saw shot dead the animal that had already reached the opening of the drain.
As his master appeared, rifle in hand, and touched the dead beast, his valiant qualities returned to him in full, and he got out of the drain.
He was badly scratched all over, I dare say, by the paws of the beast, for it had sprung violently out the moment the bamboo tickled it, though otherwise he was not much the worse for his narrow escape.
Such is the last story connected with that drain.
The grounds, as you see, extend towards the west as far as the city wall.
As we go out of the gate which we entered, you can see a sort of a portico on the left-hand side as you approach it.
Well, under that, as the spring is approaching, there are often to be heard the most diabolical noises for several days in succession.
If the season has been a very dry one, you will see several men and numberless children beating on three or four huge drums and calling out at the top of their voices for rain.
From sunrise until sunset this goes on, unless some stranded cloud happens to appear on the horizon, when the credit of such a phenomenon is awarded to their diabolical howls, and _cash_ subtracted from landed proprietors as a reward for their having called the attention of the weather-clerk.
A spectacled wise-man, a kind of astrologer, on a donkey and followed and preceded by believers in his extraordinary powers of converting fine weather into wet, and _vice versâ_, rides through the main streets of the capital, with lanterns and festoons, on the same principle as does our Salvation Army, namely, to collect a crowd to the spot where his mysterious rites are to be performed.
Here, supported by his servants, he dismounts from his high saddle, and, still supported under his arms--the idea being that so great a personage cannot walk by himself--he at last reaches the spot, apparently with great fatigue.
"To carry all his knowledge," argue the admiring natives, "must indeed entail great fatigue."
When rain is to be summoned, our astrologer addresses his first reproaches to the sun, stretching out his hands and using the strongest of invectives, after which, when he has worked himself into a towering rage against the orb of day, an execrable beating on the drums begins, accompanied by the howling of all the people present.
The god of rain gets his share of insults, and is severely reprimanded for the casual way in which he carries on his business, and so, partly with good, partly with bad manners, this satanic performance goes on day after day, until, eventually, it does begin to rain.
The portico in this old haunted palace was a favourite spot for these rites, and as the house of the Vice-Minister of Home Affairs, where I stayed as a guest, was close by, I suffered a good deal at the hands of these fanatics, for the noise they made was of so wild a nature as to drive one crazy--if not, also, quite sufficient to bring the whole world down.
We may now continue our peregrination along the main street.
There along the wall squat dozens of coolies, with their carrying arrangement, sitting on their heels, and basking in the sun.
Further on, one of them is just loading a huge earthenware vase full of the native beverage.
The weight must be something enormous.
Yet see how quickly and cleverly he manages to get up with it, and walk away from his kneeling position by first raising one leg, then the other, and after that a push up and it is done.
Here, again, coming along, is another curiosity.
It is a blue palanquin, carried on the back of two men.
They walk along quickly, with bare feet, and trousers turned up over the knees.
Instead of wearing a transparent head-gear, like the rest of the people, these chair-bearers have round felt hats.
In front walks a _Maggiordomo_, and following the palanquin are a few retainers.
Heading the procession are two men, who, with rude manners, push away the people, and shout out at the top of their voices: "Era, Era, Era; Picassa, Picassa!"
("Out of the way; get out, get away!")
were the polite words with which these roughs elbowed their way among the crowd, and flung people on one side or the other, in order to clear the road for their lord and master.
From the hubbub they made, one might have imagined that it was the King himself coming, instead of a mere magistrate.
A few hundred yards further on, one finds on one's left a magnificent street departing at right angles to the main thoroughfare.
It is certainly the widest street in the Corean capital.
So wide is it, in fact, that two rows of thatched houses are built in the middle of the road itself, so to speak, forming out of one street three parallel streets.
These houses are, however, pulled down and removed altogether once or twice a year, when His Majesty the King takes it into his head to come out of his palace and go in his state chair, preceded by a grand procession, to visit the tombs of his ancestors, some miles out of the town, or to meet the envoys of the Chinese Emperor, a short way out of the west gate of the capital, at a place where a peculiar triumphal arch, half built of masonry and half of lacquered wood, has been erected, close to an artificial cut in the rocky hill, named the "Pekin Pass" in honour of the said Chinese messengers.
I witnessed two or three of these king's processions, and I shall describe them to you presently.
In the meantime, however, let us walk up the royal street.
The two rows of shanties having been pulled down, its tremendous width is very conspicuous, being apparently about ten times that of our Piccadilly.
The houses on both sides are the mansions in which the nobles, princes, and generals live, and are built of solid masonry.
They are each one story high, with curled-up roofs, and here and there the military ensign may be seen flying.
Facing us at the end, a pagoda-like structure, with two roofs, and one half of masonry, the upper part of lacquered wood, is the main entrance to the royal palace.
Two sea-lions, roughly carved out of stone, stand on pedestals a short distance in front of the huge closed gate, and there, squatting down, gambling or asleep, are hundreds of chair-carriers and soldiers, while by the road-side are palanquins of all colours, and open chairs, with tiger and leopard skins thrown over them, waiting outside the royal precincts, since they are not allowed inside, for their masters, who spend hours and days in expectation of being invited to an audience by, or a confabulation with, His Majesty.
People of different ranks have differently coloured chairs--the highest of the palanquin form being that covered with green cloth and carried by four men.
Foreign consuls and legal advisers of the King are allowed the honour of riding in one of these.
The privilege of being carried by four men instead of by two is only accorded to officials of high rank.
The covered palanquins are so made that the people squat in them cross-legged.
A brass receptacle, used for different purposes, is inside, in one corner of the conveyance.
Some of them are a little more ornamented than others, and lined with silk or precious skins, but generally they are not so luxurious as the ones in common use in China.
[Illustration: AN OFFICIAL GOING TO COURT IN A MONO-WHEELED CHAIR] But if you want to see a really strange sight, here at last you have it.
It is a high official going to Court in his state mono-wheeled chair.
You can see that he is a "somebody" by the curious skull-cap he is wearing, curled up over the top of his head and with wings on each side starting from the back of his head-gear.
His flowing silk gown and the curious rectangular jewelled stiff belt, projecting far beyond his body, denote that he is holding a high position at the Corean Court.
A coolie marches in front of him, carrying on his back a box containing the court clothes which he will have to don when the royal palace is reached, all carefully packed in the case, covered with white parchment.
Numerous young followers also walk behind his unsteady vehicle.
There you see him perched up in a kind of arm-chair at a height of about five feet--sitting more or less gracefully on a lovely tiger skin, that has been artistically thrown upon it, leaving the head hanging down at the back.
Under the legless chair, as it were, there are two supports, at the lower end of which and between these supports revolves a heavy, nearly round wheel, with four spokes.
Occasionally the wheel is made of one block of wood only, and is ornamented at the sides with numerous round-headed iron nails.
There may be also two side long poles to rest on the shoulders of the two carriers--one in front and one at the back--a few extra strengtheners on each side, and then you have the complete "_attelage_."
So you see, it may be a great honour to be carried about in a similar chair, though to the eyes of barbarians like ourselves it looks neither comfortable nor safe.
India-rubber tyres and, still less, pneumatic ones, have not yet been adopted by the Corean chair-maker, and it appeared to me that a good deal of "holding on" was required, especially when travelling over stony and rough ground, to avoid being thrown right out of one's high position.
The grandees whom I saw carried in them seemed to me, judging by the expression on their faces, to be ever looking forward patiently and hopefully to the time for getting out of these perilous conveyances.
Certainly when going round corners or on uneven ground I often saw them at an angle that would make the hair of anybody but a grave and sedate Corean official stand on end.
The palace gate reached, he is let down gently, the front part of the chair being gradually lowered, and, with a sigh of relief, steps out of it.
Immediately he is supported on each side by his followers, and thus the palace is entered, the mono-wheeled chair being left outside standing against the wall, and the tired carriers squatting down to a quiet gamble with the chair-bearers of other noblemen.
Here let us leave him for the present, since the huge gates are closed again upon our very noses.
The royal palace is enclosed by a high wall, at the corners of which there are turrets with sentries and soldiers.
In each of the sections of the wall also there is a gate, the principal one of course being that which we have already described.
We shall now retrace our steps down the royal avenue, but before leaving it we must once again look back upon the royal enclosure.
It is not a very grand sight, but it is pretty to see a high hill towering at the back of the royal palace.
Undoubtedly the position where the palace is now situated is the best in Seoul, both through being in the very centre of the town and through the prettiness of its situation.
The inside of the royal enclosure we shall presently describe.
Continuing our way, then, towards the east gate, we soon come to another big thoroughfare on our right-hand side, at one corner of which is a picturesque ancient pavilion, with a railing round it.
This is one of the sights of Seoul, "the big bell."
It is a huge bronze bell raised from the ground only about a foot.
It possesses a fine rich tone when it is hammered upon by the bell-ringer, but a good deal of the sonorousness is lost and the sound made dreary and monotonous by its being so low down.
The man rings it by striking heavy blows at it with a big wooden mallet, and its first note in the early morning makes the drowsy gate-keepers of the town begin to make preparations for establishing communication once more between the capital and the outer world; while at sunset, as its last melancholy notes are blown away in dying waves by the wind, the heavy gates are closed, and every man--though not every woman, as we shall see--has to retire to his home until dawn the next morning, if he wishes to escape a severe flogging, or even the risk of losing his head.
The laws and rules in this respect have not been very severely enforced of late years; yet one never sees even now a Corean male walking about the streets after dark.
Though capital punishment might not be inflicted on the offender, a very sound spanking would very probably be the result of a native being caught _flagrante delicto_ during a nocturnal peregrination.
Wherefore, the Corean male is, _à raison_, very careful not to be seen out after dark.
On one or two occasions, nevertheless, the male community is allowed a prowl by night, and seem to enjoy it to their heart's content.
The principal of these great events is the night for "crossing the bridges," a festivity in which men and children are allowed to take part, and in the course of which they spend the whole night in prowling about the streets, and crossing over the bridges and back again.
At such a time the streets are alive with story-tellers, magicians and comedians, who delight the nocturnal sight-seers with wonderful fairy-tales, jokes and fantastic plays.
A moonlight night is always chosen for the "crossing of the bridges" outing, a rather sensible precaution when one sees what the bridges are like.
There are the stone supports of course, and over these huge flat broad stones on which one treads.
The width of the bridges is generally about six feet, but no parapet or railing of any kind is provided for the safety of the wayfarer.
Through age and weather, these stones have been considerably worn out, and are here and there disconnected, besides being slippery to an extreme degree; so that even in broad daylight, one has to keep all his wits about him, in this sort of tight-rope performance, not to find himself landed in the river down below, in which, however, there is no water running.
Altogether, the days in which the men of Cho-sen enjoy liberty at night are five.
The last day of the year is probably the one when the larger crowds can be seen hurrying along through the streets, for a custom prevails among the Coreans to visit during that night and the following one, all one's relations and best friends, congratulations and good wishes being freely exchanged and presents of sweets brought and gracefully received.
New Year's night is also a night of independence, but the greater number of the male community are so "well on" with wine-drinking and excitement, that staying at home is generally deemed advisable.
There are two free nights, besides, on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the first moon, and on one of the days at "half-year" in the sixth moon.
That is all.
[Illustration: THE MARBLE PAGODA] At no great distance from the "big bell," down a tortuous little lane, we come to what is undoubtedly a very ancient work of art.
This is a pagoda, made of solid marble, and adorned with beautiful carvings all the way up to the top.
To me this pagoda seemed to be of Chinese origin, but, though much speculation has been exercised in Seoul as to how so strange a monument came to be placed in the Corean capital, no reliable data, or facts that might be considered of historical value, have as yet been forthcoming to explain satisfactorily its presence there.
Beyond wondering at its antiquity, therefore, and admiring the skilful bas-relief upon it, there is little more for us to do; so, moving out of the courtyard in which this pagoda is situated, we proceed to inspect another monument, equally curious from an archaeological point of view.
It cannot but seem strange that the Coreans should be ignorant regarding the little pagoda above mentioned.
I call it "little," for I do not think it stands more than fifteen or twenty feet from the base to the top.
Probably in Seoul itself there is not more than one man out of fifty who knows of its existence, and those who are acquainted with it, beyond telling you emphatically that it is not a Corean work, can give you no information about it.
It is not improbable that, in the course of some friendly or unfriendly intercourse between the Chinese and the Coreans, this pagoda was brought or sent over from China.
The other curiosity is a huge stone tortoise carrying a tablet on its back.
As I have already mentioned, the Coreans in many ways resemble, and have appropriated or carried with them to their place of settlement some ideas which are common to the Manchus, the Mongols, and the Northern and Southern Chinese.
Among these may be instanced the great respect for, if not worship of, fetishes and rudely made images of animals, both imaginary and real, which are supposed to be embodied there with all their good and evil qualities.
The Coreans have an especial veneration for the tiger, the emblem of supernatural strength, courage and dignity.
Now when veneration comes into play, the extraordinary, as a rule, soon takes the place of the ordinary, especially in the Eastern mind, which is rather addicted to letting itself be run away with by its imagination.
So the tiger, as though it were not sufficiently gifted already with evil qualities of a more mundane order, is often depicted by native geniuses, as having also the power of flying, producing lightning, and spitting fire; and not only that, but as able to walk on flames without feeling the slightest inconvenience, and manipulate blazing fire as one would a fan in everyday use.
On flags, pictures, and embroideries the tiger is often represented by native artists.
Next to the tiger, the animal most cherished by the Coreans is the tortoise.
To it are applied all the good qualities that the tiger wants; for example, thoughtfulness, a retiring nature, humility, gentleness, steadiness, and patience; these being all symbolised by this shelled amphibious animal, which, in the minds of many Eastern Asiatics, was the basis upon which, in later times, were built the rudiments of mathematics and wisdom.
In Corea, the principal quality attributed to the tortoise is long life; wherefore, it has been handed down from early times to the present day as the emblem of longevity.
This, then, explains the signification of the tortoise in front of which we are now standing.
Those tortoises that are made to carry tablets on their backs are, as a general rule, erected in honour and remembrance of some benevolent prince or magnanimous magistrate--the tablets being placed over these favourite creatures to signify that it was by relying upon all the good qualities attributed to the tortoise that the person whose praises are celebrated on them, attained to the virtues which are deemed so worthy an example to the world.
There are many species of semi-sacred tortoises in Corea, to all appearance the product of imaginary intermarriages between the slow amphibious animal in question and the fire-spitting dragon, silver-tailed phoenix, and other animals; and these mixed breeds of idols, so to speak, are occasionally to be seen in the houses of rich people and princes near the entrance gate.
In the Royal Palace, too, some may be seen, among the more important being the old Seal of State, which consists of a tortoise cleverly carved out of marble with the impression of the Royal Seal engraved on the under side.
A curious thing which strikes visitors to Corea who notice it is that, although the tortoise runs a close race with the tiger in the respect of the natives, nevertheless, the larger and fiercer animal is much more frequently represented than its smaller and gentler competitor.
For instance, one invariably sees on the roofs of the city gates, fixed on the corners, five small representations of the tiger, all reclining in a row one after the other.
On many of the larger buildings also the same thing can be observed; while, on the other hand, it is only rarely that the tortoise is seen in such a situation.
When representations of the latter are thus attached, they are generally placed at the four lower corners of the buildings, as if by way of support.
It is curious, again, to note--and, indeed, it almost seems as if the Cho-sen people are in all their ideas opposed to us--that in Corea the snake is greatly revered; and, should it enter a household, it receives a hearty welcome, for this reptile is supposed to bring with it everlasting happiness and peace, a very different conception to that which we generally form of it, for, if I mistake not, in our minds it is generally associated with sneakishness, treachery and perfidy.
With regard to the snake, it is noteworthy that the Coreans have allowed their fancies to run riot in pretty much the same direction as imaginative people in our own country have done, and have not only added wings to their serpents to send them air-faring, but have also invented a near relation to these in the shape of a travelling sea-serpent, which is not, however, of such large dimensions as those with which we are familiar.
From this it is only a short step to the well-known half-human, half-fish being and the sea-lion or tiger; stone representations of which are to be seen at the entrance of the Royal Palace.
The principal peculiarity of the sea-tiger is its ugliness.
It is represented as having a huge mouth, wide open, showing two rows of pointed teeth, and a mane and tail curled up into hundreds of conventional little curlets.
If the statues of these sea-tigers are divided in three sections perpendicular to the base, the head will occupy the whole of one of these sections, which, in other words, means that the body is made only twice the size of the head.
The _lin_ is also frequently found figuring in Corean mythology, but this fanciful creature is undoubtedly an importation from the well-known _ki-lin_ of China, being half ox, half deer, and having but a single horn in the centre of the head.
It is the symbol of good nature and well-being Another borrowed individual of this class is the dragon, a monster which is a great favourite and much cherished all over the East, though principally by the Emperor of Heaven and his subjects.
This popularity of the dragon in the kingdom of the Morning Calm is due, I suppose, in a large measure to the frequent Chinese invasions and constant intercourse of the Chinese with Corea.
And yet, upon a less appropriate country, to my belief, he could hardly have been stranded, for, although he possesses all the good virtues of the other mythical creatures of which I have made mention taken together, he certainly is never presented as gifted with that delightful faculty which goes by the name of tranquillity.
Restless in the extreme, this genius of the East is said to penetrate through mountains into the ground, skip on the clouds, produce thunder and lightning, and go through fire and water.
It can, moreover, make itself visible or invisible at pleasure, and, in fact, can to all intents and purposes do what it pleases, except--remain quiet.
Of dragons there are many kinds, but the most respectable of them all is, as in China, the yellow one, which is as represented on the Chinese flags.
Next to the yellow one in popularity comes the green one.
In shape, as the natives picture it, the dragon is not unlike a huge lizard, with long-nailed claws, and a flat long head like the elongated head of a neighing horse, possessed, however, of horns, and a long mane of fire, or lightning.
The tail is like that of a serpent, with five additional pointed ends.
It is, too, rather interesting to note that the king, princes, and highest magistrates, when the country is not in mourning, wear upon their breasts pieces of square embroidery ornamented in the centre with representations of the dragon, having the jewel on its head which is supposed to be a certain cure for all evils.
The officials of lesser degree wear, instead of this emblem, the effigy of a flying phoenix, the symbol of pride, friendship, and kind ruling power.
The phoenix is also occasionally to be seen standing on a tortoise's back, the combination being emblematic of the combined virtues of these two mythical creatures.
Returning to the main street, we can walk a long way without finding anything interesting in the way of architecture, or of a monumental character until we reach the East Gate, which is probably the largest gate of all.
One of the peculiarities of this gate is that on the outside it has a semi-circular wall protection, and in this wall a second gate which renders it, therefore, doubly strong in time of war.
The outer wall is very thick, and a wide space is provided which can be manned with soldiers, when the town happens to be besieged.
If my memory serves me rightly, yet another gate in Seoul is provided with a similar contraffort, but of this I am not quite certain, for the part of my diary in which the wall of Seoul is described has been, I regret to say, unfortunately mislaid.
Near the gate above mentioned, is a large open space, on the centre of which stands a somewhat dilapidated pavilion _pour façon de parler_, and, on inquiry, I was told that this place was the drilling-ground of the king's troops, the pavilion being for the use of the king and high officials, when on very grand occasions they went to review the soldiery.
Of late years, I believe, a new drilling-ground has been selected by the foreign military instructors, which explains why the pavilion has been allowed to rot and tumble down.
(See Illustration p.
90.)
As already remarked, all the gates of Seoul, as well as those of every other city in Corea, are closed at sunset; but, like all rules, this one, too, has its exception.
Thus, there is a small gate, called the "Gate of the Dead," which is opened till a late hour at night.
Its name explains its object fairly well, but for the benefit of those who are unaccustomed to Corean customs I may as well put the matter a little clearer.
Funerals, in Corea, nearly always take place at night, and the bodies are invariably carried out of the town to be buried.
In lifetime it is permitted to enter or leave the town through any gate you please, but this freedom of choice is not accorded to the dead, when their final exit is to be made, for this is only by way of the smaller gate just mentioned.
A funeral is in all countries, to me, a curious sight, but in Seoul, a performance of this description is probably more curious than elsewhere, and that, because, to a European eye, it appears to be anything but a funeral.
The procession is headed by two individuals, each of whom carries an enormous yellow umbrella, on the stick of which, about half way up, there is a very large tri-coloured ball.
After these, under a sort of baldachin held up by four long poles, is the coffin, carried by two, four, or more men, according to the social position of the deceased; and by the side of this and following close after it are numberless people each carrying a paper lantern stuck on a pole, who scuttle along, singing, after a fashion, and muttering prayers and praises on behalf of their deceased countryman.
Frequently, if the latter is supposed to have been possessed by evil spirits, and to have been carried off by them, a man is hired, if no relation is willing to do it, to ring a hand-bell for several consecutive days, near the house which the late unfortunate had occupied, the shrill sound being supposed to have the power of showing the unwelcome guests, that their presence has been noticed, and that they had better retire and leave the house to its rightful owners.
I need hardly remark that a few hours of this noise is quite enough to turn the best of good spirits into an evil one.
But to return to our funeral procession; this, when the "Gate of the Dead" is reached, becomes broken up; the friends who were following the hearse putting out their lights and ceasing from their singing and praying.
Only two or three of the nearest relations continue to follow the coffin, still carried by the paid bearers, and when a suitable spot is reached these proceed to bury the remains.
A hilly ground is usually preferred by the Coreans for the last resting place of the bones of their dear ones.
The coffin having been buried, a small mound of earth is heaped up over it.
The spot for inhumation is generally chosen on the advice of magicians who are supposed to know the sites which are likely to be most favourable to the deceased.
Sometimes the body is exhumed at great expense, still on the advice of the same magicians, who, being in direct communication with both earthly and unearthly spirits, get to know that the spot which had been originally selected was not a favourable one.
Under such circumstances, a speedy removal is necessary, which, of course entails both worry and money-spending and special fees for the reporting of the ill-faring of the buried.
The relations and friends of a deceased person constantly visit the tomb, and many a good son has been known to spend months watching his father's grave, lest his services might be required by the parent underground.
The hills round the towns are simply covered with these little mounds of earth, and the greatest respect is shown by the natives for all places of sepulture.
In course of time, many disappear by being washed away by the rain, but never by any chance are they interfered with by the people.
The Coreans are extremely superstitious, and they are much afraid of the dead.
Metempsychosis is not an uncommon trait of their minds, especially among the better classes; thus, for instance, the soul of the dead man is sometimes supposed to enter the body of a bird, in which case the relatives carefully build a semi-circular stone railing round the mound, so that the winged successor of the deceased may have whereon to perch.
The grave of one of the richer people is especially noteworthy.
First, there is the mound in the centre as usual, but nearly twice the size of that which covers a poorer person.
Then there is a stone railing a little way off; and between that and the mound stand in double rows, at the sides, rough images of human beings and horses carved in stone.
The general rule is, in the case of a rich man, to have two men and two ponies on either side and a small column at the end; while in the case of a man not so much distinguished only a single horse and man respectively are placed on either side.
The short column with a slab at the top is nearly always a feature.
The stone images so placed are, as a rule, so badly carved that, unless one is told what they are meant to represent, it is really difficult to decide the point.
The horses, especially, might easily be mistaken for sheep, dogs, or any other animal, the small stature of the native ponies being imitated in these images, to an exaggerated degree.
As for the stone human-shaped images, these are usually made dressed in a long sort of gown and with the arms folded in front and the head covered by a curled up skull-cap, of the kind worn by Corean officials even at the present day, and formerly worn by all the high officials in China, whence probably the fashion has been imported.
A curious feature which I often noticed about the graves of people who had not been over well-off, and whose friends could not afford a large number of statues or figures of men and animals, was this:--If only one or two monuments were put up by the side of the mound, these invariably consisted of representations either of two horses or else of a horse and a ram, that is, if I am right in fixing the latter's identity by the curled horns on the side of its head.
If, on the other hand, the monuments were more than two in number, the others were, just as invariably, representations of human figures, the number of these being the same as that of beasts in the other case.
A ceremony is to be found in the Land of the Morning Calm which corresponds pretty closely to "_Tutti i morti_" of Italy; I mean, the merry picnicking of distressed parents and relatives when they go and pray on the tombs of their dead.
In Corea the occasion is usually celebrated on the first day of the first moon, or, in other words, on New Year's Day.
The family goes soon after sunrise, _en masse_, to the burial-place, where prayers are offered, and long sticks of incense burnt filling the air with the perfume so familiar to all who know the East.
Food and drink are also generally brought and consumed by the mourners on such expeditions, with the result that the day which begins with praying generally ends with playing.
Similar rejoicings are again indulged in during the third moon, when the tombs are usually cleaned and repaired, and the stone figures and horses washed and scrubbed, amidst the hilarious screams of the children and the less active picnickers.
The tombs of the kings do not differ very much from those of the richest noblemen, except that they have a kind of temple near them.
At one time it was believed that the coffins in which the royal bodies were buried, consisted of solid gold.
People who are well informed, however, maintain that there is no foundation for this statement about the royal graves, and that, on the contrary, they are almost as simple as those of the richer noblemen.
A strange tale was told me, which I shall repeat, as I know it to be true.
It is to this effect: A few months previous to my visit to Seoul, a foreigner had visited the king soliciting orders for installations of telephones.
The king, being much astounded, and pleased at the wonderful invention, immediately, at great expense, set about connecting by telephone the tomb of the queen dowager with the royal palace--a distance of several miles!
Needless to say, though many hours a day were spent by His Majesty and his suite in listening at their end of the telephone, and a watchman kept all night in case the queen dowager should wake up from her eternal sleep, not a message, or a sound, or murmur even, was heard, which result caused the telephone to be condemned as a fraud by His Majesty the King of Cho-sen.
I should mention that a very good specimen of a Corean tomb is to be seen a few _lis_ outside the East Gate, on the hillside, and that another, somewhat smaller, exists a short distance beyond the Pekin Pass outside the West Gate.
It may also be noted that trees are frequently planted, and tablets erected, in proximity to Corean graves.
FOOTNOTES: [3] Word used in the East for a conglomeration of houses enclosed by a wall.
CHAPTER VIII Seoul--The City Wall--A large image--Mount Nanzam--The fire-signals--women's joss-house--Foreign buildings--Japanese settlement--An anecdote--Clean or not clean?--The Pekin Pass--The water-carrier--The man of the Gates.
[Illustration: MOUNT NANZAM] The ground in and around Seoul is very hilly.
The wall that surrounds the capital uncoils itself, like a gigantic snake, up and down the slopes of high bluffs, and seems a very marvellous work of patient masonry when it is borne in mind that some of the peaks up which it winds its way are so steep that even climbing on foot is not an easy task.
The height is not uniform, but where it is highest it reaches to over thirty feet.
The North Gate, for instance, is at a much higher level than the town down below, and it is necessary to go up a steep road to reach it.
From it, a very good idea is obtainable of the exact situation of Seoul.
Down in the valley, a narrow one, lies the town itself, completely surrounded by hills, and even mountains, covered with thick snow during the winter months.
The wall, several miles long, goes over the hill ridges far above the level of the town, except towards the west, where it descends to the valley, and is on almost level ground, as far as the East Gate.
It has a rampart in which holes have been pierced, for the defence of the town by archers and gunners; and, to let out the water of the streams, which intersect the town, low arches have been cut in the wall, provided with strong iron bars, and a solid grating through which no man can penetrate.
Outside the town, bridges of masonry have been constructed; for instance, there is one of four arches, a short distance from the North Gate, being the continuation of a portion of the wall protecting the river valley on the north of Seoul.
Not far from this bridge, is a monastery, and a small temple with curled-up roof supported by columns, painted red and green.
The latter protects an enormous block of stone upon which has been carved a large image of Buddha, the surface of which has been painted white.
When I saw it, close by the river side, with the sun shining on it, and its image reflected in the limpid ice of the frozen river, the sight was indeed quite a picturesque one.
Towards the south side of Seoul, and within the city wall, rises in a cone-like fashion a high hill called Mount Nanzam.
One cannot help feeling interested about this hill, and for many reasons.
In the first place, it is most picturesque; secondly, it is a rare thing to find a mountain rising in the centre of a town, as this one does; thirdly, from the summit of this particular hill a constant watch is kept on the state of affairs all over the kingdom.
The mode of accomplishing the last-mentioned object is as ingenious as it is simple.
It is shortly this.
On the summit of Mount Nanzam a signal station is placed--a miserable shed, in which the watchmen live.
In front of this, five piles of stones have been erected, upon which, by means of the "Pon-wa," or fire-signals, messages are conveyed and transmitted from one end of the Corean kingdom to the other.
Now, it is on these five piles of stones that the safety of the Land of the Morning Calm depends, and it is a pretty and weird sight to watch the lights upon them, playing after dark, in the stillness of the night.
Similarly appointed stations on the tops of all the highest peaks in Corea issue, transmit, and answer, by means of other lights, messages from the most distant provinces, by which means, in a very few minutes, the King in his royal palace is kept informed of what happens hundreds of miles from his capital.
It is from the royal palace itself that fire-messages start in the first instance, and that too is the place which lastly receives them from other mountain tops.
All along the coast line of Corea, on the principal headlands, fire-stations have long been in use in order to give the alarm in the capital, should marauders approach the coast or other invasions take place.
Until quite lately, the coast villages and towns used to suffer much at the hands of Chinese pirates, who, though well aware that they would, if caught, most certainly find themselves in the awkward position of having their heads cut off, nevertheless used to approach the coast by night in swift junks, make daring raids, and pillage the villages, and even some of the smaller towns.
So suddenly were these incursions usually made that by the time the natives had managed to get over their astonishment at the attack of these unpleasant and greedy visitors, the acute Chinamen, with their booty, were well out at sea again.
[Illustration: THE FIRE-SIGNAL STATION AND JOSS-HOUSE] The great drawback to fire-signalling is, that messages can only be clearly conveyed at night.
In the day-time, when necessary, smoke-signals are transmitted, though never with the same safety as are the fire-signals.
By burning large torches of wet straw, masses of white smoke are produced, upon which the alarm is raised that the country is in danger.
The code of smoke signalling, however, is almost limited to that one signal; for, on a windy or rainy day, it would be quite impossible to distinguish whether there were one or more torches smoking, unless, of course, they could be set very far apart, which cannot be done on Nanzam.
Prior to sending a message, a bell is rung in the royal palace to attract the attention of the Mountain Watchmen.
The whole code, for they have a really systematic way of using their pyrographs, is worked with five burning fires only, and more than that number of lights are never shown, though, of course, many times there are less.
The five-lights-together signal, I believe, indicates that the country is in imminent danger; there are other signals to meet the cases of rebellions, recalling of magistrates from distant provinces, orders to them to extort money from their subjects, the despatch or recall of troops, &c. &c. A few yards from the signal station, though still on Mount Nanzam, there is a picturesque red joss-house with a shrine in close proximity to it.
The story goes--and the women of Cho-sen find it convenient to believe it--that a visit to this particular joss-house has the wonderful effect of making sterile women prolific.
A few strings of _cash_ and a night's rest at the temple--preceded, if I remember rightly, by prayers--constitute sufficient service to satisfy the family duties, and I was certainly told that in many cases the oracle worked so well that in due time the _chin-chins_ got rewarded with the birth of babies.
I may mention incidentally that the caretaker of the joss-house was a strong, healthy, powerful man.
As we are now on a splendid point of vantage for a bird's-eye view of the town we may as well take a glance over it.
Very prominent before us, after the large enclosure of the royal Palace, are the foreign buildings, such as the Japanese Legation on a smaller hill at the foot of Nanzam, and overlooking the large Japanese settlement; the abode of the Chinese Minister resident, with its numerous buildings around it; the British Consulate with its new red brick house in course of construction; and, by the side of the last mentioned, the _compounds_ of the American and Russian legations.
Farther on, nearer the royal Palace, the German flag may be seen surmounting the German Consulate, which is situated in an enclosure containing several Corean houses which have been reduced _à l' Européenne_ and made very comfortable.
Then the large house with a glass front is the one now inhabited by the Vice-Minister for Home Affairs, but the grounds surrounding this are very restricted.
A nunnery and a few houses of missionaries also stand prominent, mostly in the neighbourhood of the Japanese settlement.
The Japanese settlement, into which we will now descend, is noteworthy for the activity and commercial enterprise shown by the subjects of the Mikado.
It is remarkable, also, to notice the curious co-existence of sense and nonsense in the Jap's adoption of foreign customs.
For instance, you see the generality of them dressed in European clothes, but nevertheless still sticking to the ancient custom of removing their boots on entering a house; a delightful practice, I agree, in Japan, where the climate is mild, but not in a country like Corea, where you have an average of sixty degrees of frost.
Then again, the Japanese houses, the outer walls of which consist of tissue paper, seem hardly suited to such a climate as that of Corea.
It is really comical to watch them as they squat in a body round a brass brasier, shivering and blue with cold, with thin flat faces and curved backs; reminding one very much of the large family of quadrumans at the Zoo on a cold day.
Nevertheless, they are perfectly happy, though many die of pleurisy, consumption, and cold in the chest.
The Japanese women dress, of course, in their national _kimonos_, and just as it is in Japan the fashion to show a little of the chest under the throat, so in Cho-sen the same custom is adopted; with the result that many are carried off by bronchitis to the next world.
One cannot but admire the Japanese, however, for the cleanliness of their houses and for the good-will--sometimes too much of it--which they display as well in their commercial dealings as in their colonising schemes.
The custom of daily bathing in water of a boiling-point temperature is carried on by them in Corea as in their own country, notwithstanding which I venture to say that the Japanese are very dirty people.
This remark seems non-coherent and requires, I am afraid, some explanation.
"How can they be dirty if they bathe every day?
I call that being very clean," I fancy I hear you reply.
So they would undoubtedly be, if they bathed in clean water; but, unfortunately, this is just what they do not do, and, to my uncivilised mind, bathing in filthy water seems ten times more dirty than not bathing at all.
Just imagine a small tank of water in which dozens, if not hundreds, of people have been already boiled before you in your turn use it, and upon which float large "eyes" of greasy matter.
Well, this is what every good Japanese is expected to immerse himself in, right up to his nose, for at least half an hour at a time!
I cannot but admire them for their courage in doing it, but, certainly, from the point of view of cleanliness my view is quite different; for, really and truly, I have always failed to see where the "cleanliness" comes in.
Persons belonging to the wealthier classes have small baths of their own, in the steaming hot liquid of which bask in turns the family itself, their friends, the children and servants; and probably the same water is used again and again for two or three days in succession.
I remember well how horrified I was one evening, in the Land of the Rising Sun, when, on visiting a small village, I was, as a matter of politeness on their part, requested to join in the bath.
Being a novice at Japanese experiences, and as their request was so pressing, I thanked them and accepted; whereupon, I was buoyantly led to the bath.
Oh what a sight!
Three skinny old women, "disgraces," I may almost call them, for certainly they could not be classified under the designation of "graces," were sitting in a row with steaming water up to their necks, undergoing the process of being boiled.
What!
thought I, panic-stricken--am I to bathe with these three ... old lizards?
Oh no, not I!
and I made a rush for the door, greatly to the annoyance of the people, who not only considered me very dirty, but also very rude in not availing myself of their polite invitation!
The next morning as I took my cold bath as usual in beautifully clean spring water, I was condemned and pitied as a lunatic!
Such are the different customs of different people.
[Illustration: THE PEKIN PASS] When visiting Seoul, it is well worth one's while to take a walk to the Pekin Pass, a _li_ or two outside the West Gate.
The pass itself, which is cut into the rock, is situated on the road leading from Seoul to Pekin; which, by the way, is the road by which the envoys of the Chinese Emperor, following an ancient custom, travel overland with a view to claiming the tribute payable by the King of Corea.
As a matter of fact, this custom of paying tribute had almost fallen into disuse, and China had not, for some years, I believe, enforced her right of suzerainty over the Corean peninsula, until the year 1890, when the envoys of the Celestial Emperor once again proceeded on their wearisome and long journey from Pekin to the capital of Cho-sen.
It was here at the Pekin Pass, then, that, according to custom, they were received with great honour by the Coreans, and led into Seoul.
It was at a large house, surrounded by a wall, on the road side, that these envoys were usually received and welcomed, either by the king in person or by some representative; and it was here that they were treated with refreshments and food, previously to being conducted in state into the capital, this being accomplished amidst the cheers of a Corean crowd, which, like other crowds, is always ready to cheer the last comer.
At the Pekin Pass, a "triumphal arch"--for want of a better word--could be seen.
It was a lofty structure, composed of two high columns, the lower part of these being of masonry, and the upper of lacquered wood, which supported a heavy roof of the orthodox Corean pattern, under which, about one-fourth down the columns, was a portion decorated with native fretwork of a somewhat rough type.
The illustration represents this monument as it appeared in winter time, when the ground was covered with snow, beyond it being the square cut in the rocks, through which the road leads to Newchuang and Pekin.
There are two types of individuals that are very interesting from a picturesque point of view; viz., the water-coolie, and the man who carries the huge locks and keys of the city gates.
The water-coolie is almost as much of a "personality," as the _mapu_, in his rude independent ways.
He displays much patience, and certainly deserves admiration for the amount of work he daily does, for very little pay.
His work consists in carrying water, from morning until night, to whoever wants it.
This is a simple enough process in summer time, but in winter matters are rather different, for now nearly all the fountains are frozen, and the water has to be drawn from a well.
The water-coolie carries a peculiar arrangement on his shoulders, a long pole fastened cross-wise upon his shoulder-blades, by straps going under and round the arms; by which means he is enabled to carry two buckets of water at a time.
The arrangement, though more complicated, is not dissimilar to that used for the same purpose, by women in Holland, or to that for carrying milk in many parts of Switzerland.
In winter time the buckets of water become buckets of ice the moment they are drawn from the well, and then it is really pitiable to see these poor beggars with the skin of their hands all cracked and bleeding with the cold.
They run along at a good pace when loaded, and show great judgment in avoiding collision, sighing as they go a loud _hess!
hess!
hess!
hess!_ to which they keep time with their steps.
They are considered about the lowest creatures in the kingdom, and enjoy some of the privileges of children and unmarried men as regards clothing; for instance, they generally wear a light blue jacket even when the country is in mourning.
When on duty they never wear hats, and often no head-bands, having, instead, blue kerchiefs wrapt round the head.
The inevitable long pipe is not forgotten, and is carried, after the fashion of the _mapu_, stuck down the back.
[Illustration: A WATER-COOLIE] The lock-carrier, again, is by no means the dirtiest individual in the land of Cho-sen, at least as far as it was my good fortune to see.
Nevertheless, his clothes are invariably in a state of dilapidation, and, though intended to be white, are usually black with grease and dirt.
As he is employed by the Government he wears the deepest mourning; his face, and one half of his body being actually hidden under the huge hat provided for deep mourners.
He seldom possesses a pair of padded socks and sandals, and in the coldest days walks about bare-footed with his trousers turned up to the knees.
He is visible only at sunrise and sunset, when he goes on his round to all the city gates in order to inspect the locks and bring or take away the keys.
Slung down his back, he carries a large leather bag, something like a tennis bag, which contains numberless iron implements of different shapes and weights.
He appears to be friendless and despised by everybody, and I have never seen him talk to any one.
I rather pitied the poor fellow as I saw him go night after night, with his long unwashed face and hands, along the rampart of the wall from one gate to another.
_Apropos_ of this I once made a Corean very angry by remarking that "really the safety of the city could not be in dirtier hands."
CHAPTER IX The Corean house--Doors and windows--Blinds--Rooms--The "Kan"--Roasting alive--Furniture--Treasures--The kitchen--Dinner-set--Food--Intoxicants --Gluttony--Capacity for food--Sleep--Modes of illumination--Autographs --Streets--Drainage--Smell.
Let us now see what a Corean household is like.
But, first, as to the matter of house architecture.
Here there is little difference to be observed between the house of the noble and that of the peasant, except that the former is generally cleaner-looking.
The houses in Corea may be divided into two classes--those with thatched roofs of barley-straw, and those with roofs of tiles, stone and plaster.
The latter are the best, and are inhabited by the well-to-do classes.
The outside walls are of mud and stone, and the roof, when of tiles, is supported by a huge beam that runs from one end of the house to the other.
The corners of the roof are usually curled up after the Chinese fashion.
A stone slab runs along the whole length of the roof, and is turned up at the two ends, over the upper angle of the roof itself.
The tiles are cemented at the two sides of this slab, and likewise at the lower borders of the roof.
The windows, again, are rectangular and are placed directly under the roof, being in consequence well protected from the rain.
Corean houses are never more than one storey high.
The houses of officials and rich people are enclosed by a wall of masonry, the gate of which is surmounted by a small pagoda-like roof.
In the case of the houses of great swells, like generals and princes, it is customary to have two and even three gates, which have to be passed through in succession before the door of the house is reached.
The outer wall surrounding the _compound_ is seldom more than six or eight feet high, and, curiously enough, all along the top of the wall runs a narrow roof, the width of two tiles.
This, besides being a sort of ornament, is of practical use in protecting it from the damp.
One cannot call the Coreans great gardeners, for they seem to take comparatively little interest in the native _flora_.
The richer people do, as a rule, have small gardens, which are nicely laid out with one or two specimens of the flowers they esteem and care to cultivate; but really ornamental gardens are few in number in the Land of Cho-sen.
Kitchen gardens naturally are frequently found, even near the houses of the poorer people.
One peculiarity, which characterises the majority of Corean houses of the better sort is that they are entered by the windows; these being provided with sliding latticed frames covered with tissue paper, and running on grooves to the sides, like the _Shojis_ of Japan.
The tissue paper is often dipped in oil previous to being used on the sliding doors and windows, as it is then supposed to keep out the cold better than when left in its natural state.
As the doors and windows of Cho-sen, however, very seldom have the quality of fitting tight, a Corean house is therefore quite a _rendezvous_ for draughts and currents of air.
In summer time the windows and doors are kept open, or even removed altogether during the day-time, and then, in order to preserve that privacy of which every Corean is so proud, recourse is had to a capital dodge.
At the end of the projecting roof, and immediately in front of the window or entrance, at the distance of a couple of feet, is hung a shade in the shape of a fine mat, made of numberless long strings of split bamboo, tied together in a parallel position by several silk strings which vary in number with the size of the mat.
The use of these curtain-like barriers has several advantages.
They protect the house from those troublesome visitors the flies; they let in the air, though not the sun, and, while the people who are in the house can plainly see through them what goes on in the street, no one on the outside can distinguish either those inside, or what is doing in the house.
Good mats are very expensive, and difficult to obtain; therefore, it is only the better classes that can use them.
Poorer folk are satisfied with very rough mats of rushes.
It is also the custom for good citizens of the provinces to send the king at the New Year presents of a certain number of these mats, which, like the Indian shawls of Her Britannic Majesty, are given out again by him to the royal princes and highest officials.
I was fortunate enough to be presented with two of these blinds by a high official, who was closely related to the king.
They are a marvel of patient and careful work, as accurately and delicately done as if some machine had been employed.
They are nearly six feet high, by five wide, and are yellow in colour with black, red, and green stripes painted at the top and bottom.
In the centre is a very pretty, simple frieze, on the inside of which are some Corean characters.
If a Corean house does not look very inviting when you look at it from the outside, still less does it when you are indoors.
The smallness of the rooms and their lack of furniture, pictures, or ornaments are features not very pleasant to the eye.
The rooms are like tiny boxes, between eight and ten feet long, less than this in width and about seven feet high.
They are white all over with the exception of the floor, which is covered with thick, yellowish oil-paper.
The poorest kind of Corean house consists of only a single room; the abode of the moderately well-off man, on the other hand, may have two or three, generally three rooms; though, of course, the houses of very high offices are found with a still larger number.
The Corean process of heating the houses is somewhat original.
It is a process used in a great part of Eastern Asia--and, to my mind, it is the only thoroughly barbaric custom which the Corean natives have retained.
The flooring of the rooms consists of slabs of stone, under which is a large oven of the same extent as the room overhead, which oven, during the winter, is filled with a burning wood-fire, which is kept up day and night.
What happens is generally this: The coolie whose duty it is to look after this oven, to avoid trouble fills it with wood and dried leaves up to the very neck, and sets these on fire and then goes to sleep; by which means the stone slabs get heated to such an extent that, sometimes, notwithstanding the thick oil paper which covers them, one cannot stand on them with bare feet.
The Corean custom is to sleep on the ground in the padded clothes, using a wooden block as a pillow.
The better classes, however, use also small, thin mattresses, covered with silk, which they spread out at night, and keep rolled up during the day-time.
As the people sleep on the ground, it often happens that the floor gets so hot as to almost roast them, but the easy-going inhabitant of Cho-sen, does not seem to object to this roasting process--on the contrary, he seems almost to revel in it, and when well broiled on one side, he will turn over to the other, so as to level matters.
While admiring the Coreans much for this proceeding, I found it extremely inconvenient to imitate them.
I recollect well the first experience which I had of the use of a "Kan," which is the native name of the oven.
On that occasion it was "made so hot" for me, that I began to think I had made a mistake, and that I had entered a crematory oven instead of a sleeping-room.
Putting my fist through one of the paper windows to get a little air only made matters ten times worse, for half my body continued to undergo the roasting process, while the other half was getting unpleasantly frozen.
To this day, it has always been a marvel to me, and an unexplainable fact that, those who use the "Kan" do not "wake up--dead" in the morning!
The furniture of a Corean house, as I have hinted above, is neither over plentiful nor too luxurious.
In fact, at the first glance, one is almost inclined to say that there is, so to speak, no furniture at all there.
Possibly, a tiger or a leopard-skin may be found spread on the ground in the reception room; there may even be a rough minuscule chest of drawers in a corner, and a small, low writing-table near it, upon which probably rests a little jar with a flower or two in it; but rarely will you find much more.
The bedrooms usually contain chests, in which the clothing is kept, but there is also a custom by which these are hung on pegs in a recess in the wall.
The chests are covered with white parchment studded all over with brass nails, and further adorned with a brass lock and two handles of the same metal.
When voyaging, the Coreans use these as trunks.
Besides the rooms I have mentioned, the richer Corean has a special room, generally kept locked up, in which the treasures of the family are jealously safeguarded.
The latter are in the shape of ancient native pictures, rolled up like the _Kakemonos_ of Japan, painted screens and vases of the Satsuma ware, the art of making which was taught to the Japanese by the Coreans, although now those who were formerly masters in the art cannot produce it.
Some Coreans also possess valuable specimens of lacquer work, both of Chinese and Japanese origin, as well as a rougher kind of native production.
None of these heirlooms are, however, ever brought to light, and it is only on rare and very grand occasions, such as marriages, deaths, or national rejoicings, that one or two articles are brought into the reception-room for the day, to be again carefully packed up and stored away at night.
The idea, which prevails in Japan, is also current here, namely, that it is bad form to make a great show of what one possesses, and that the wealthier a man is, the less should he disclose the fact and the simpler should he live, that he may not so excite the envy of his fellow countrymen.
Self-denial and self-inflicted discomforts are virtues much appreciated in the Land of Cho-sen, and when a nobleman sets a good example in this respect it is invariably thought highly of, and emulated by others.
Indeed, the conversation of the whole town is often concentrated on some small act of benevolence done by such and such a prince, nobleman or magistrate.
But the kitchen must not be forgotten.
Its most striking contents are the large earthenware vases, similar in shape and size to the _orcis_ of Italy, in which the top-knotted native keeps his wine, water, barley and rice.
Then there are numberless shining brass cups, saucers, and bowls of various sizes.
The latter forms the Corean dinner-service.
Every piece of this is made of brass.
The largest bowls are used, one for soup, and the other for rice; the next in size, for wine and water respectively; while the smaller ones are for bits of vegetables and sauces--which latter are used by the natives in profusion.
Curiously enough, in the Land of the Morning Calm they manufacture a sauce which is, so far as I could judge, identical in taste and colour with our well-known Worcester sauce.
The Coreans eat their food with chopsticks, but contrary to the habits of their neighbours, the Chinese and the Japanese, spoons also are used.
The chopsticks are of very cheap wood, and fresh ones are used at nearly every meal.
The diet also is much more varied than in either of the neighbouring countries, and game, venison, raw fish, beef, pork, fowls, eggs, and sea-weed are much appreciated.
As for fruits, the Coreans get simply mad over them, the most favourite being the persimmons, of which they eat large quantities both fresh and dried.
Apples, pears and plums are also plentifully used.
The Cho-sen people have three meals a day.
The first is partaken of early in the morning, and is only a light one; then comes lunch in the middle of the day, a good square meal; and finally the Tai-sek, a great meal, in the evening, at which Corean voracity is exhibited to the best advantage.
The climate being so much colder than that of Japan, it is only natural that the Cho-senese should use more animal food and fat than do the landsman of the Mikado.
Pork and beef, barely roasted and copiously condimented with pepper and vinegar, are devoured in large quantities.
The Coreans also have a dish much resembling the Italian maccaroni or vermicelli.
Of this large bowls may be seen at all the eating-shops in Seoul, and it is as a food apparently more cherished by members of the lower than by those of the upper classes.
Previous to being eaten, it is dipped in a very flavoury sauce, and, although they are not quite so graceful in the art of eating as are the Neapolitan _Lazzaroni_, still with the help of a spoon and as many fingers as are available, the Corean natives seem to manage to swallow large quantities of this in a very short time.
Among the lower classes in Corea tea is almost unknown as a beverage.
In its stead they delight in drinking the whitish stuff produced by the rice when it has been boiled in water, or as an alternative, infusions of ginsang.
They also brew at home two or three different kinds of liquor of different strengths and tastes, by fermenting barley, rice and millet.
The beer of fermented rice is not at all disagreeable, and their light wine also is, so far as wines go, even palatable.
However, I may as well state once for all that I am no judge of these matters, and, as my time is chiefly employed in the art of oil-painting, and not in that of drinking, I hope to be excused if I think myself better up in "oils" than in wines!!
Presuming that my reader has survived this pun, I will now go on to state that it is a common thing in Corea to begin a dinner with sweets, and that another curious custom is for all present to drink out of the same bowl of wine passed round and of course re-filled when empty.
The dinner is served on tiny tables rising only a few inches above the ground, and similar to those of Japan.
Fish, as is the case with most Easterners, are eaten raw; first, however, being dipped in the liquid which resembles Worcestershire sauce.
To cook a fish is simply looked upon as a shameful way of, spoiling it, unless it has gone bad, when, of course, cooking becomes necessary.
Fish are, however, most prized by the Coreans when just taken out of the water.
Hard-boiled eggs form another favourite dish in the land of Cho-sen, and turnips, potatoes, and a large radish similar to the _daikon_ of Japan, are also partaken of at Corean dinners.
The poorer classes seem to relish highly a dreadful-looking salad, of a small fish much resembling whitebait, highly flavoured with quantities of pepper, black sauce and vinegar, with bits of pork-meat frequently thrown in.
The whole thing has an unpleasant brownish colour, and the smell of it reminded me much of a photographer's dark room when collodion is in use, except that the smell of the fish-salad is considerably stronger.
The Coreans excel and even surpass themselves in cooking rice.
This is almost an art with them, and the laurels for high achievements in it belong to the women, for it is to them that work of this kind is entrusted.
Sometimes the Cho-senese make a kind of pastry, but they have nothing at all resembling our bread.
Rice takes the place of the last mentioned, and though, so far as I could see, the fair ladies of Cho-sen were somewhat casual in the exercise of the culinary art, they really took enormous trouble to boil the rice properly.
It is first well washed in a large pail, and properly cleaned; then it undergoes a process of slow boiling in plenty of water in such a way that, while quite soft and delicious to the taste, each grain retains its shape and remains separate, instead of making the kind of paste produced by our method of boiling it.
The whitish water left behind after the rice has been removed is, as we have seen, used as a cooling beverage.
In some respects the Corean diet approaches the Chinese and the Indian, rather than the Japanese; for many a time have I seen men in Corea eat their rice mixed with meat and fish, well covered with strong sauce, in the shape of a _curry_; whereas in Japan the boiled rice is always in a bowl apart and eaten separately.
The Corean mind seems to lay great stress upon the quantity of food that the digestive organs will bear.
Nothing gives more satisfaction to a Corean than to be able to pat his tightly-stretched stomach, and, with a deep sigh of relief, say: "Oh, how much I have eaten!"
Life, according to them, would not be worth living if it were not for eating.
Brought up under a régime of this kind, it is not astonishing that their capacity for food is really amazing.
I have seen a Corean devour a luncheon of a size that would satisfy three average Europeans, and yet after that, when I was anxiously expecting to see him burst, fall upon a large dish of dried persimmons, the heaviest and most indigestible things in existence.
"They look very good," said he, as he quickly swallowed one, and with his supple fingers undid the beautiful bow of his girdle and loosened it, thus apparently providing for more space inside.
"I shall eat one or two," he murmured, as he was in the act of swallowing the second; and, in less than no time the whole of the fruit had passed from the dish into his digestive organs, and he was intently gathering up, with the tips of his licked fingers, the few grains of sugar left at the bottom of the dish.
"I was unwell and had no appetite to-day," he then innocently remarked, as he lifted up his head.
"Oh, I hope you will come again when you are quite well," said I, "but you must promise not to eat the table, because it does not belong to me."
A good deal of the native voracity is due, however, not to this insatiable appetite and gluttony alone, but also to Corean etiquette, according to which it shows a want of respect to the host and is a mark of great rudeness not to eat all that is placed before one.
If all is not eaten they argue that you do not like it and consider it to be badly cooked or inferior to what you have at home.
The notion of a normal capacity is strange to them, and never even enters their mind.
They are trained from childhood to eat huge quantities of food, and to take heartily all that they can get.
I have seen children with thin little bellies so extended after a meal, in the course of which they had been stuffed with rice and barley, that they could hardly walk or even breathe.
I recollect on one occasion remarking to a mother, who was beamingly showing me her child in a similar condition: "Are you not afraid that his skin will give way?"
"Oh no!
Look!"
Upon which she stuffed down his little throat three or four more spoonfuls of rice.
I have been thankful ever since that I was not born a Corean child.
When the Coreans eat in their own houses, the men of the family take their meals first, being waited on by their wives and servants; after which the females have their repast in a separate room.
The women seldom drink intoxicants, and have to be satisfied with water and rice-wash.
It is the duty of the wife to look after the welfare of her husband, and when she has fed him, and he has drowsily laid himself down on the ground, or on his little mattress, as the case may be, she retires, and after having had her food either goes to see her friends or to wash her master's clothes, or else goes to sleep.
The people of Cho-sen are fond of keeping late hours; and yet I believe there are no people in the world who are more fond of sleep.
So far as my observations go, the richer people spend their lives entirely in eating and sleeping.
Whenever I went to call on a Corean gentleman, I invariably found him either gorging or in the arms of Morpheus.
Naturally a life of this sort makes the upper classes soft, and somewhat effeminate.
They are much given to sensual pleasures, and many a man of Cho-sen is reduced to a perfect wreck when he ought to be in his prime.
The habit of drinking more than is proper is really a national institution, and what with over feeding, drunkenness, and other vices it is not astounding that the upper ten do not show to great advantage.
The Coreans are most irregular in their habits, for, slumbering as they do at all hours of the day, they often feel sleepless at night, and are compelled in consequence to sit up.
On these occasions songs are roused, and dominoes (san-pi-yen), chess (chan-kin), or occasionally card games are started until another _siesta_ is felt to be required.
Cards, however, are seldom played by the upper classes; for they are considered a low amusement, only fit for coolies and soldiers.
On grand occasions it is not unusual for the _bon-vivant_ of Cho-sen to sit up all night, with his friends, feasting to such an extent that he and his guests are ill for months afterwards.
The Corean nobleman, as may well be imagined, suffers from chronic indigestion, and whenever one happens to inquire after his health the answer invariably is: "I have eaten something that has disagreed with me, I have a pain here."
And the hand is placed on the chest, in a mournful but expressive enough attitude.
The modes of illumination adopted in the Corean household are few and simple.
The most common illuminant consists of grease candles, supported on high candlesticks, of wood or brass, but sometimes oil cup-lamps are found, like those we use for night-lights.
The latter, however, do not give out much light, and so candles, which are marvellously cheap, are preferred, although unfortunately they melt quickly, and smoke and smell in a dreadful fashion.
Besides the various articles of domestic furniture which I have mentioned, I don't think I saw any others worth noticing, except perhaps the "autograph" of some great man, to which the Coreans attach much importance.
The paper, on which the "character" is written, is stretched on a wooden frame and hung in a prominent place, generally over the entrance, and whenever a new visitor enters the house, the first thing shown him is the "autograph," and it is his duty then to compliment his host on his good fortune of possessing it.
We have now examined all the various striking features characteristic of the Corean household.
Let us, then, now go outside again.
The streets of the town could not be more tortuous and irregular.
With the exception of the main thoroughfares, most of the streets are hardly wide enough to let four people walk abreast.
The drainage is carried away in uncovered channels alongside the house, in the street itself; and, the windows being directly over these drains, the good people of Cho-sen, when inside their homes, cannot breathe without inhaling the fumes exhaled from the fetid matter stagnant underneath.
When rain falls, matters get somewhat better; for then the running water cleans these canals to a considerable extent.
During the winter months, also, things are passable enough, for then everything is frozen; but, in the beginning of spring, when frozen nature undergoes the process of thawing, then it is that one wishes to be deprived of his nose.
At the entrance of each house a stone slab is thrown across to the doorway so as to cover the ditch.
Only the foundations of the town houses are made of solid stone, well cemented, but in the case of country dwellings these are extended upwards so as to make up one-half of the whole height, the upper part being of mud, stuck on to a rough matting of bamboos and split canes.
CHAPTER X A Corean marriage--How marriages are arranged--The wedding ceremony--The document--In the nuptial-chamber--Wife's conduct--Concubines--Widows --Seduction--Adultery--Purchasing a husband--Love--Intrigue--Official "squeezing"--The cause.
Among the several misfortunes, or fortunes, if you prefer the word, with which a Corean man has to put up is an early marriage.
He is hardly born, when his father begins to look out for a wife for him, and scarcely has he time to know that he is living in the world at all than he finds himself wedded....
The Coreans marry very young.
I have seen boys of ten or twelve years of age who had already discarded the bachelor's long tress hanging down the back, and were wearing the top-knot of the married man.
It must not be supposed, however, that these youthful married men are really wedded in the strict sense of the word, for, as a matter of fact, though husband and wife in the eyes of the world, the two do not live together till the age of puberty is reached.
In other words, the marriage is for several years only a nominal one, and corresponds rather to our "engagement."
There are duties, none the less, which a married man must perform, no matter how youthful he may be.
From the moment he is wedded he must be a man, however childlike in years, and henceforth he can associate only with men.
His infantile games, romps with other children who are still bachelors, spinning tops and all other amusements, which he so much enjoyed, are suddenly brought to an end and he is now compelled to be as sedate as an old man.
The illustration (p. 79) shows a young married man of the age of twelve, a relation of the queen.
As I was taking his portrait, I asked him how he liked his wife and what her appearance was.
"I do not know," he said, "for I have only seen her once, and I have as yet never spoken to her."
"But, then, how can you like her?"
"Because it is my father's wish that I should, and I must obey my father."
"Does your father know the girl well?"
"No, but he knows her father."
"And what does your mother say?"
"She says nothing."
"Why?"
"Because she is dead."
I found this an excellent reason for the silence on the mother's side and I proceeded with the picture, but once again attacked him with the view of, if possible, obtaining further information.
"When will you go and live with your wife?"
"When I shall be nineteen or twenty years old."
The whole arrangement seemed to me so strange that I naturally longed for further details about marital relations in Cho-sen.
The facts as told to me are as follows: In Cho-senese weddings the two people least concerned are the bride and bridegroom.
Everything, or at least nearly everything, is done for them, either by their relations or through the agency of a middle-man.
When both the persons to be wedded possess fathers, a friendly _pourparler_ takes place between the two papas and in the course of repeated libations of wine, the terms are settled, and with the help of a "wise man" a lucky day is named, upon which the wedding shall take place.
On the other hand, should the bridegroom have no father, then a middle-man is appointed by the nearest relations to carry on the transaction with the girl's progenitor.
It is not uncommon for two persons to be married several years without ever having seen each other.
This, for instance, may be the case when the young lady resides in a distant province, and a journey of inspection would be too expensive.
Under such circumstances the bridegroom must just patiently wait until, perhaps, years after, the bride undertakes the journey herself and comes to live with him in his house.
After all, on thinking the matter over and bearing in mind that with us a marriage is indeed _a_ lottery, I cannot see why the Corean wedding should not be equivalent to _two_ lotteries!
Very often, weddings are arranged by letter, in which case misunderstandings frequently occur.
For instance, a father who has two daughters, a sound one and a cripple, may have arranged for the one in good condition to be married to a charming young man of good education and means.
When the day of the wedding, however, arrives, judge of the surprise of the bridegroom to see himself on the point of being united in matrimony with a humpback lame creature, with a face and limbs all out of drawing--in place of the ideal beauty whom he had expected to obtain.
What is to be done?
There is the written agreement, down in black and white, and signed by his incautious father, and there the father of the maid swearing that it was "this" daughter he meant to give him, not the beautiful one!
What is to be done under such circumstances so as not to cause grief to his parent, except to go through with the wedding with courage and dignity, and to provide himself with some good-looking concubines at the earliest opportunity?
The practice of having concubines is a national institution and of the nature of polygamy.
These second wives are not exactly recognised by the Government, but they are tolerated and openly allowed.
The legal wife herself is well aware of the fact, and, though not always willing to have these rivals staying under the same roof, she does not at all object to receiving them and entertaining them in her own quarters--if her lord and master orders her to do so.
There are, nevertheless, strong-minded women in the land of Cho-sen, who resent the intrusion of these thirds, and family dissension not unfrequently results from the husband indulging in such conduct.
Should the wife abandon her master's roof in despair he can rightfully have her brought back and publicly spanked with an instrument like a paddle, a somewhat severe punishment, which is apt to bring back to reason the most ill-tempered and strong-willed woman.
Such a thing, though, very seldom happens, for, as women go, the Corean specimens of feminine humanity seem to be very sensible, and not much given to jealousy or to worrying their little heads unnecessarily about such small failings.
They are perfectly well aware that their husbands cannot easily divorce them, when once the fatal knot has been tied, and that, though practically inferior beings and slaves, they nevertheless come first, and are above their rivals in the eye of the law; which, I suppose, is satisfaction enough for them.
Even when on friendly terms with her husband's second loves, the wife number one never forgets to impress them with the fact that, though tolerated, they are considered by her to be much lower beings than herself; which makes them feel all the more her studied politeness to them.
Occasionally, however, even the cool-headed Corean woman gets possessed with the vice of envy--sometimes mixed with hatred--with the result that reciprocal scratches and tearings of the hair become _l'ordre du jour_.
But to condescend to such means of asserting one's authority is looked down upon by the more respectable women; and suffering in silence is pronounced to be a nobler way of acting under the circumstances, the woman thus setting an example of good nature eliciting the admiration of all her neighbours.
The wedding ceremony in Cho-sen is simple.
It is not celebrated as with us, in the house of the bride, but in that of the bridegroom.
The bride it is, who--carried in a palanquin, if a lady of means and good family, or on pony or donkey back, if she belongs to the lower classes--goes, followed by parents, relations and friends, to the house of the bridegroom.
Here she finds assembled his friends and relations, and, having been received by the father of the bridegroom, she mounts a small platform erected for the purpose in the centre of the room and squats down.
Her father follows suit, placing himself just behind her.
The bridegroom, apparently unconcerned by the serious change in his life that is in prospect, sits on his heels in front of her on the platform.
A document is then produced and unrolled, on which, in hundreds of fantastic Chinese characters, it is certified that the performance taking place is a _bonâ-fide_ marriage between Mr. So-and-so and the daughter of So-and-so; the weaker sex, as we have already seen, not being entitled to a personal name.
The two contracting parties having signed the document, the fathers of the bride and bridegroom and the nearest relations, follow suit.
If, as happens in many cases, the woman is able neither to read nor write, she can make "her mark" on the roll of paper in question; and I must confess that of all the ingenious marks I have seen, this one is the most ingenious of all.
If she be a lady of rank and illiterate, her little hand is placed on the paper and the outline drawn round the fingers and wrist with a fine brush dipped in Chinese ink; but if she happens to have no blue blood in her veins, and is, therefore, of less gracious manners, the simpler process of smearing her hand with black paint and hitting the document with it is considered to render the ceremony more impressive.
A more or less vivid impression of the wife's fleshly seal having been affixed in this way to some part or other of the document according to her skill in aiming, the two unfortunates resume their dignity on the platform, sitting face to face without a word or motion.
The bridegroom then makes four grand bows to his wife, in sign of resignation or assent, I suppose; and she returns two, while she treats her father-in-law with double that amount of reverence.
This constitutes the marriage ceremony proper, but much further bowing has to be gone through by both the parties to each of the people present, who, accompanying their wedding-gifts of birds and fish with pretty compliments, come forward, one by one, to the platform and drink the health, happiness and joy of the wedded pair.
It is the duty of the bride to remain perfectly mute and apparently unconcerned at all the pretty speeches addressed to her by the bridegroom and his friends until the nuptial-chamber is entered later in the evening.
Previous to this, however, the bridegroom is taken away into the men's apartment, while, on the other hand, the wife is led into the ladies' own room.
The former then has his tress cut off and tied into a top-knot--an operation entrusted to his best friend; while the latter also has her hair changed from the fashion of the maiden to that of a married woman, by her most intimate friend.
It is only after this change in the coiffure that a man begins to be taken notice of in the world, or is regarded as responsible for his own conduct.
After being arrayed in the fashion just mentioned, and having gone through a good deal of feasting, husband and wife are led off to the nuptial-chamber.
Here, numerous straw puppets, which had better be left undescribed, are placed, with a certain implication, which need not be explained.
With these, then, the two poor wretches are shut in, while all the relations and servants sit outside giggling and listening at the door.
The wife is not supposed to utter a sound, and if by chance her voice is heard she can fully expect to have her life chaffed out of her, and to be the talk and the cause of good-natured fun all over the neighbourhood.
The middle-men--either the fathers or others--are entitled to assist at the first-night business, and to report to the relations and friends whether the marriage is to turn out a happy one or not.
They generally act their part behind a screen placed for the purpose in the nuptial-chamber.
What happens is generally this: the man either takes a violent fancy for his new bride or else he does not care for her.
If the former is the case, the first fortnight or so is a very happy one for the couple, and the two are continually by each other's side; but, by-and-by, of course, the ardour of these days gets quieted down, and, to show his wife that after all he does not think much of her, the man will even proceed to enter into relationship with a second wife, and probably soon after that also with a third or even a fourth, according to his means.
After a time, he will again return to the first and principal wife, and repeat to her a certain amount of affection, though never quite so much as is displayed towards the last love.
The Corean treats his wife with dignity and kindness, and feeds her well, but she is never allowed to forget that she is an inferior personage.
To this, however, the women of Cho-sen seem quite resigned, and it is marvellous how faithful they are to their husbands, and how much they seem to think of them and their welfare and happiness, their own selves being quite forgotten.
Should a woman of the better classes be left, a widow, she must wear mourning as long as she lives, and ever shed tears over the loss of her husband.
To re-marry she is not permitted.
Women of the lower classes, it is true, do not always observe this rule--which is not law, but merely etiquette.
Many a Cho-sen lady, also, on finding herself deprived of her better half when she is still young in years and physique voluntarily puts an end to her days, that she may join her husband, wherever he may have gone, rather than go through life alone.
If, however, a son is born, she will nurse him, and look upon him as her master when he grows older and becomes the head of the family.
To obtain a divorce in Corea is not an easy matter.
Large sums of money, however, often obtain what right cannot.
The principal causes for which, if proved, a divorce can be obtained, are: infidelity, sterility, dishonesty, and incurable malady.
These faults, be it understood, only apply to women, for against the men the weaker sex has, unfortunately, no redress.
Indeed, by the law of Corea a man becomes the owner of a woman if he can prove that he has had intimate relations with her.
In such a case as this, even though it has been against her parents' and her own will, he has a perfect right to take her to his house, and make her a wife or a concubine.
Adultery until lately was punished in Corea with flogging and capital punishment.
Now the law is more lenient, and wives accused of such a dreadful offence are beaten nearly to death, and when recovered, if they do recover, are given as concubines to low officials in the Palace or at some of the _Yamens_.
Women who are much deformed and have reached a certain age without finding a husband are allowed the privilege of purchasing one, which, in other words, corresponds to our marriage for money.
In Corea, however, the money is paid down as the consideration for the marriage.
But this sort of thing is not very frequent, and husbands in such cases are generally recruited from among ruined gentlemen or from the middle classes, among whom with money anything can be done.
It is not considered quite honourable, and the Cho-senese despise such conduct on the part of a man.
When a woman marries she becomes co-proprietress of all her husband's fortune and property, and should he die without having any sons, money and land descend to her.
When this happens, however, the larger part of the fortune is swallowed up by the astrologers and priests, who give the woman to understand that they are looking after the welfare of her deceased beloved.
In matters concerning the dead, the Coreans are heedless of expense, and large sums are spent in satisfying the wishes that dead people convey to the living through those scamps, the astrologers.
The life of a Corean woman, though that of a slave kept in strict seclusion, with prospects of floggings and head-chopping, is not always devoid of adventures.
Love is a thing which is capricious in the extreme, and there are stories current in Cho-sen about young, wives being carelessly looked after by their husbands, and falling in love with some good-looking youth, of course married to some one else.
Having, perhaps, against her master's orders, made a hole through the paper window, and been peeping at the passers-by in the street, after months, or even years of drudgery and sleepless nights thinking of her ideal--for Corean women are passionate, and much given to fanciful affections--she at last chances to see the man of her heart, and manages, through the well-paid agency of some faithful servant, to enter into communication with him.
If the man in question happens to be a high official or a nobleman, what happens generally is that the lady's husband either gets suddenly packed off by order of the King to some distant province, or is sent upon some travelling employment which probably necessitates his leaving his wife behind for several years, during which period, under the old-fashioned excuse of news received of the husband's death, or the plea of poverty, she very likely becomes the concubine of the man she loves.
In Corean literature, there are many stories of the burning affections of the fair sex, some being said to have committed crimes, and even suicide, to be near the man they loved.
To a European mind, certainly, the native way of arranging marriages does not seem very likely to make the contracting parties happy, for neither the tastes nor respective temperaments of the young couple are regarded.
Still, taking everything into consideration, it is marvellous how little unhappiness--comparatively--there is in a Corean household.
Besides, it must not be supposed that, slave though she be, the Corean woman never gets things her own way.
On the contrary, she does, and that as often as she likes.
Among the upper classes, especially those about the Court, half the trouble in the kingdom is caused by the women, not openly, indeed, but in a clever underhand way through their _enervé_ husbands, whom, instead of being the governors, they rule and lead by the nose.
Promotions, punishments, and beheadings are generally the consequence of the work of some female fiend.
There is probably no place in the world in which intrigue is so rampant as in the Corean Capital.
The Queen herself is said to exercise an enormous influence over the King, and, according to Corean reports, it is really she, and not the King, that rules Cho-sen. She is never either seen or heard of; and yet all the officials are frightened out of their lives if they think they have incurred her displeasure.
For no plausible reason whatever men are sometimes seen deprived of their high position, degraded and exiled.
Nobody knows why it is; the accused themselves cannot account for it.
There is only one answer possible, namely, _Cherchez la femme_.
The fact is, a Corean woman can be an angel and she can be a devil.
If the former, she is soft, good, willing to bear any amount of pain, incredibly faithful to her husband, painstaking with her children, and willing to work day and night without a word of reproach.
If, however, she is the other thing, I do not think that any devils in existence can beat her.
She then has all the bad qualities that a human body can contain.
I firmly believe that when a Corean woman is bad she is capable of anything!
Much of the distress, even, which prevails all over the country is more or less due to the weakness of the stronger sex towards the women.
Everybody, I suppose, is aware of the terrible system of "squeezing"; that is to say, the extortion of money from any one who may possess it.
It is really painful all over Corea to see the careworn, sad expression on everybody's face; you see the natives lying about idle and pensive, doubtful as to what their fate will be to-morrow, all anxious for a reform in the mode of government, yet all too lazy to attempt to better their position, and this has gone on for generations!
Such is human nature.
It is hard to suffer, but this is considered to be nothing compared with the trouble of improving one's position.
"What is the use of working and making money," said a Corean once to me, "if, when the work is done and the money made, it is taken from you by the officials; you are worn out by the work you have done, yet are as poor as before, that is, mind you, if you are fortunate enough not to be exiled to a distant province by the magistrate who has enriched himself at your expense?"
"Now," added the Cho-senese, looking earnestly into my face, "would you work under those circumstances?"
"I am hanged if I would," were the words which, to the best of my ability, I struggled to translate into the language of Cho-sen, in order to show my approval of these philosophic views; "but, tell me, what do the officials do with all the money?"
"It is all spent in pleasure.
Women are their ruin.
The feasts which they celebrate with their singers and their concubines cost immense sums of money.
Besides, their women are like leeches, and continually incite them to extort more and more from the public to satisfy their ambition and evil habits.
They are women mostly born in dirt, but who now find themselves in lavishness and luxury.
People who spring up from nothing never are satisfied with what they possess, and it is always a pleasure to them to see other people suffering as they formerly did."
There is little doubt that what the Corean said is perfectly true, and that the system of "squeezing" is carried on by the magistrates to such an extent as to entirely ruin the people; wherefore, it is only natural that its depressing effects should be impressed upon the people "squeezed."
I also believe that there is a good deal of truth in what he said about their females being supplied with large funds by the magistrates.
The money must come from some part, and since, personally, they are poor and only receive a small pay, there is no doubt that the money in question is extorted as described.
But let this suffice for the good and bad qualities of the Cho-sen fairies and their funny way of being married.
[Illustration: THE MARK] CHAPTER XI Painting in Seoul--Messages from the king--Royal princes sitting for their portraits--Breaking the mourning law--Quaint notions--Delight and despair--Calling in of State ceremony--Corean soldiers--How they mount guard--Drill--Honours--A much admired shoe--A gift.
I had made so many sketches in Seoul, that at last a rumour reached the Court of the rapidity with which I portrayed streets and people.
The consequence was that both king and princes were very anxious to see what "European painting" was like, as they had never yet seen a picture painted by a European; so one fine day, to my great astonishment, through the kindness of Mr. Greathouse and General Le Gendre, I was able to induce one of the Queen's nephews, young Min-san-ho, to sit for his likeness in his Court dress.
The picture, a life-size one, was painted in the course of an afternoon and was pronounced a success by my Corean critics.
In Cho-senese eyes, unaccustomed to the effects of light, shade, and variety of colour in painting, the work merited a great deal of admiration, and many were the visitors who came to inspect it.
It was not, they said, at all like a picture, but just like the man himself sitting donned in his white Court robes and winged cap.
So great was the sensation produced by this portrait, that before many days had passed the King ordered it to be brought into his presence, upon which being done he sat gazing at it, surrounded by his family and whole household.
The painting was kept at the Palace for two entire days, and when returned to me was simply covered with finger marks, royal and not royal, smeared on the paint, which was still moist, and that, notwithstanding that I had been provident enough to paste in a corner of the canvas a label in the Corean language to the effect that fingers were to be kept off.
The King declared himself so satisfied with it that he expressed the wish that before leaving the country I should paint the portraits of the two most important personages in Cho-sen after himself, viz.
: the two Princes, Min-Young-Huan, and Min-Young-Chun, the former of whom was Commander-in-chief of the Corean land forces, and the other, Prime Minister of the kingdom, in fact, the Bismarck of Cho-sen. No sooner had I answered "yes" to this request than the sitting was fixed for the next morning at 11 o'clock.
The crucial matter, of course, was the question of precedence, and this would have been difficult to settle had not the Prime Minister caught a bad cold, which caused his sitting to be delayed for some days.
Hence it was that at 11 o'clock punctually I was to portray prince Min-Young-Huan, the commander-in-chief of the Corean troops.
[Illustration: H.R.H.
PRINCE MIN-YOUNG-HUAN] General Le Gendre, with his usual kindness, had offered me a room in his house, in which I could receive, and paint His Royal Highness.
The excitement at Court on the subject of these pictures, had apparently been great, for late at night a message was brought me from the palace to the effect that the King, having heard that I preferred painting the two princes in their smartest dark blue gowns of lovely silk instead of in their white mourning ones, had given Min orders to comply with my wish.
The grant of such a privilege was, indeed, remarkable, when it is remembered how strict the rules as to mourning were, not only at Court, but all over the country; for so strict are the mourning rules of the country, that the slightest exception to them may mean the loss of one's head.
The precaution, however, was taken to bind me to secrecy, on the ground that a bad example of this kind coming from royalty might actually cause a revolutionary outbreak.
It was naturally with the greatest pleasure, at my success, and the courtesy shown me, that I went to bed, not, however, without having received yet another message from General Le Gendre, asking me to be in attendance punctually at 11 A.M.
It was just 6.30 in the morning, when there was a loud tap at my door, and the servant rushed in, in the wildest state of excitement, handing me a note from General Le Gendre.
The note read somewhat as follows: "Dear Mr. Landor, Prince Min has arrived at my house to sit for his picture.
Please come at once."
That is punctuality, is it not?
To make an appointment, and go to the place to keep it four-and-a-half hours before the time appointed!
In less than no time I was on the spot.
Le Gendre's house was, as it were, in a state of siege, for hundreds of armed soldiers were drawn up, in the little lane leading to it, while the court of his compound was crammed with followers and officers, in their smartest clothes.
The warriors, who had already made themselves comfortable, and were squatting on their heels, playing cards and other games, got up most respectfully as I passed, and, by command of one of the officers, rendered me a military salute, which I must confess made me feel very important.
I had never suspected that such an armed force was necessary to protect a man who was going to have his portrait painted, but of course, I am well aware that artists are always most unreliable people.
When the real reason of this display was explained, I did indeed feel much flattered.
The Prince had, in fact, come to me in his grandest style, and with his full escort, just as if his object had been to call on some royal personage, such as the King himself.
The compliment was, I need hardly say, much appreciated by me.
I was actually lifted up the steps of the house by his servants, for it was supposed that the legs of such a grand personage must indeed be incapable of bearing his body, and thus I was brought into his presence.
As usual, he was most affable, and full of wit and fun.
So great had been his anxiety to be down on canvas, that he had been quite unable to sleep.
He could only wish for the daylight to come, which was to immortalise him, and that was why he had come "a little" before his time.
Having assured himself that there was no one else in the room, he discarded his mourning clothes, and put on a magnificent blue silk gown with baggy sleeves, upon which dragons were depicted, in rather lighter tones.
On his chest, he wore a square on which in multicoloured embroideries were represented the flying phoenix and the tiger, and the corners of which were filled in artistically with numerous scrolls.
He had also a rectangular jewelled metal belt, projecting both at his chest and at the back, and held in position by a ribbon on both sides of his body.
His cap was of the finest black horse-hair with wings fastened at the back.
He seemed most proud of his three white leather satchels, and a writing pad, which hung down from his left side, by wide white straps.
Into these straps, in time of war, is passed the sword of supreme command, and by them in time of peace is his high military rank made known.
His sword was a magnificent old blade, which had been handed down from his ancestors, and naturally he was very proud of it.
While showing it to me, he related the noble deeds, which had been accomplished by its aid, his eyes glistening all the time, but, as he was about to graphically describe in what way such and such an ancestor had done away with his foe, I, who am not at all fond of playing with razor-edged swords, thought it prudent to interrupt him by placing him in position for the picture.
As I posed him, he did not utter a word, nor wink an eye.
And during the whole of a sitting of nearly three hours he sat motionless and speechless, like a statue.
"It is finished," I finally said, and he sprang up in a childish fashion and came over to look at the work.
His delight was unbounded, and he seized my hand and shook it for nearly half an hour; after which, he suddenly became grave, stared at the canvas, and then looked at the back of it.
He seemed horrified.
"What is it?"
I inquired of His Royal Highness.
"You have not put in my jade decoration," said he, almost in despair.
I had, of course, painted his portrait full face, and as the Coreans have the strange notion of wearing their decorations in the shape of a small button of jade, gold, silver or amber, behind the left ear, these did not appear thereon.
I then tried to remonstrate, saying that it was impossible in European art to accomplish such a feat as to show both front and back at once, but, as he seemed distressed at what to him seemed a defect, I made him sit again, and compromised the matter by making another large but rapid sketch of him from a side point of view, so as to include the decoration and the rest rather magnified in size.
It is from this portrait that the illustration is taken; for I corrected it as soon as he was out of sight.
But with this second portrait my Corean sitter was more grieved than ever, for, he remarked, now he could see the decoration, but not his other eye!
These difficulties having, with the exercise of a good deal of patience and time, been finally overcome by my proving to him that one cannot see through things that are not transparent, we were entertained by General Le Gendre to an excellent lunch, during which toasts to the health of everybody under the sun were drunk in numberless bottles of champagne.
Then he began to wax quite enthusiastic about his likeness.
He called in his officers and followers; by this time, of course, he had got into his mourning clothes again, and donned his semi-spherical crane-surmounted hat; and they all showed great admiration of the work, although many went round, as he had done, to look at the backs of the two canvases to find "the eye," or the other missing "button."
He wanted to purchase both pictures there and then, but I declined, saying that I would be pleased to present him with a smaller copy when completed.
With this promise he departed happy.
Now it was the turn of his Prime Minister brother, Prince Min.
He also came in full state, with hundreds of servants and followers, hours before his time; was a most restless model; and, having profited by his brother's experience, was continually coming over to examine the painting and reminding me not to forget this and that and the other thing--generally what was on the other side of his body, or what from my point of vantage I could not see.
This time, however, I had chosen a three-quarter face pose, and he expressed the fullest satisfaction with the result, until, going to poke his nose into the canvas, which was about 4 feet by 3, he began to take objections to the shadows.
He insisted that his face was all perfectly white; whereas I had made one-half his nose darker in colour than the other; also that there was the same defect under the chin; his untrained mind being unable to grasp the fact that the same colour under different lights becomes lighter or darker in tone.
I would have lost my patience with him if I had had any to lose, but, remaining silent, I smiled idiotically at his observations, and did exactly the reverse of what he wished me to do.
The beautifying touches having been duly added, and the high lights put in where it seemed proper that they should go, I summoned the Prince to see the effect, this time building up a barricade of chairs and tables in front of the canvas, in order that His Royal Highness might be compelled to conduct his examination of it at the right distance.
This had the desired effect, and, as he now gazed at it, he found the likeness excellent and to use his words "just like a living other-self."
It seemed to him a most inexplicable circumstance that when he got his nose close to the canvas the picture appeared so different from what it was when inspected at the right distance.
This sitting also ended with a feast, and everything passed off in the best of ways.
The result of this amicable intercourse with the Royal Princes was that calls had to be duly exchanged according to the rules of Corean etiquette.
Both Princes came again in their state array to call upon me in person, a privilege which I was told had never before been bestowed on any Europeans, not even the Diplomatic Agents in the land, after which upon the following day I proceeded to return their calls.
The morning was dedicated to the commander-in-chief, Prince Min-Young-Huan.
Since to go on foot, even though the distance was only a few hundred yards from Mr. Greathouse's, where I was living, would have been, according to Corean etiquette, a disgrace and an insult, I rode up to his door on horseback.
His house stood, surrounded by a strong wall of masonry and with impregnable iron-banded gates, in the centre of a large piece of ground.
His ensign flew at one corner of the enclosure, and a detachment of picked troops was always at his beck and call in the immediate neighbourhood.
At the door were sentries, and it was curious to note the way in which guard is mounted in the land of Cho-sen.
I suppose what I am going to narrate will not be believed, but it is none the less perfectly true.
The Corean Tommy Atkins mounts guard curled up in a basket filled with rags and cotton-wool!
Even at the royal palace one sees them.
The Cho-senese warrior is not a giant; on the contrary, he is very small, only a little over five feet, or even less, so that the round basket which contains him is made only about four feet in diameter, and three-and-a-half feet deep.
In the inner enclosures of the royal palace, where two soldiers at a time are on guard, the baskets are bigger, and the two men contained in them squat or curl up together like two birds in a nest.
Their rifles are generally left standing against the wall; but, occasionally, when the position to be guarded is a very responsible one, they are nursed in the basket.
The infantry soldier, seen at his best, is a funny individual.
He thinks he is dressed like a European soldier, but the reader can imagine the resemblance.
His head-gear consists of a felt hat with a large brim, which he keeps on his head by means of two ribbons tied under his chin; for the fashion is, in military circles, to have a head-gear many times too small for his head.
He wears a pair of calico trousers of a nondescript colour resembling green and black, under which his own padded "unmentionables" are concealed, a fact which of itself is sufficient to make him look a little baggy.
Then there is his shortish coat with large sleeves and woollen wristlets; and a belt, with a brass buckle, somewhere about five inches above or below his waist, according to the amount of dinner he has eaten and the purses he has stuffed under his coat.
Yes, the Coreans are not yet civilised enough to possess pockets, and all that they have to carry must be stuffed into small leather, cloth, or silk purses with long strings.
By ordinary individuals these purses are fastened inside or outside the coat, but among the military it is strictly forbidden to show purses over the coat; wherefore the regulation method is to carry these underneath, tied to the trouser's band.
Accordingly, as the number of purses is larger or smaller, the belt over the jacket is higher or lower on the waist, the coat sticking out in the most ridiculous manner.
In the illustration a Corean warrior of the latest fashion may be seen in his full uniform.
He is an infantry soldier.
[Illustration: AN INFANTRY SOLDIER] The guns with which these men are armed, are of all sorts, descriptions and ages, from the old flint-locks to repeating breech-loaders, and it can easily be imagined how difficult it must be to train the troops, hardly two soldiers having guns of even a similar make!
A couple of American Army instructors were employed by the King to coach the soldiery in the art of foreign warfare, and to teach them how to use their weapons, but, if I remember rightly, one of the greatest difficulties they had to contend with was the utter want of discipline; for to this the easy-going Corean Tommy Atkins could on no account be made to submit.
They are brave enough when it comes to fighting; that is, when this is done in their own way; and rather than give way an inch they will die like valiant warriors.
It is an impossibility, however, to make them understand that when a man is a soldier, in European fashion, he is no more a man, but a machine.
"Why not have machines altogether?"
seemed to be pretty much what they thought when compelled to go through the, to them, apparently useless and tiresome drill.
The target practice amused and interested them much when it took place, which was but seldom, for the cost of the ammunition was found to be too much for the authorities; there being, besides, the further difficulty of providing different cartridges for the great variety of rifles used.
Thus it was that, though nearly every infantry soldier possessed a gun, he hardly ever had a chance of firing it.
So rarely was even a round of blank cartridges fired in the capital, that, when this event did take place for some purpose or other, the King invariably sent a message to the few foreign residents in the town requesting them not to be frightened or alarmed at the "report," or to suppose that a revolution had broken out.
Having examined Tommy Atkins at his best, I sent in my name to the Prince, and was waiting outside, when suddenly a great noise was heard inside, the squeaky locks were unbolted, and gate after gate was thrown open.
The pony had to be left behind at the gate, and as I entered the court, among the chin-chins of the courtiers, I saw the Commander-in-chief waiting on the door-step to greet me with outstretched arms.
Honour after honour was bestowed upon me; which extreme politeness amazed me, for Foreign Ministers and Consuls are never received in this way, but are led into his presence, while he remains comfortably seated in his audience chamber.
He took me by the hand, and, leading me into his reception room, maintained a long and most friendly conversation with me, taking the most unbounded interest in all matters pertaining to Western civilisation.
As we were thus busily engaged, "pop," went the cork of a champagne bottle with a frightful explosion, through the paper window, and my interlocutor and myself had a regular shower bath, as sudden as it was unexpected.
Then out of this healths were drunk, the servant who had opened the bottle so clumsily, being promised fifty strokes of the paddle at the earliest opportunity; after which I rose and bade his Royal Highness good-bye.
Again, his politeness was extreme, and he accompanied me to the door, where, amidst the chin-chins of his followers and the "military honours" of the assembled troops, I re-mounted my pony and galloped off home.
The same afternoon I paid my visit to the Royal Prime Minister.
This time, being grown conceited, I suppose, by virtue of the honour received in the course of the morning, though in part, perhaps, owing to the advice of my friend Mr. Greathouse, who insisted upon my going in grand state, I was carried in the "green sedan chair," the one, namely, which is only brought out for officials and princes of the highest rank.
I was also accorded the full complement of four chair-bearers, and, accompanied by the _Kissos_ (soldiers) and servants who were summoned to form my escort, I gaily started.
"Oooohhhh!"
my bearers sighed in a chorus, as they lifted me into the sedan and sped me along the crowded streets; while the soldiers shouted "Era, Era, Era, Picassa, Picassa!"
thrusting to one side the astonished natives that stood in the way.
As I approached the palace, I noticed that rows of other sedan-chairs, but yellow and blue ones, were waiting, their official occupants anticipating an audience with the Prince and Prime Minister.
All these, however, had to make way before me, and a soldier having been despatched in advance to inform His Royal Highness of my coming, the gates were banged open as I approached them and closed again so soon as I was within.
The cordial reception which I had received from the other prince, was now repeated; and Min Young Chun and his court were actually standing on the door-step to receive me.
As I always complied with the habits of the country, I proceeded to take off my shoes before entering the house, but the prince, having been informed some time or other that such was not the custom in England, insisted on my abstaining from doing so.
I had already taken off one shoe and was proceeding to untie the other when, catching me by one arm and his followers by the other, he dragged me in.
You can imagine how comical and undignified I looked, with one shoe on and the other off!
Still, I managed to be equal to the occasion, and held a long _pourparler_ with the Prince, his courtiers standing around, in a room which he had furnished in the European style, with two Chinese chairs and a table!
As we were thus confabulating and I was being entertained with native wine and sweets, I received a dreadful blow--that is to say, a moral one.
A youth, a relation of the prince, ran into the room and whispered something in the royal ears, whereupon his eyes glittered with astonishment and curiosity, and in a moment there was a general stampede out of the room on the part of all the courtiers and eunuchs.
A minute after, amidst the deepest silence, was brought triumphantly into the audience-room and deposited in the middle of the table:--what do you think?--my shoe, that, namely, which I had left outside!
Such a blow as this I had never experienced in my life, for the man I was calling upon, you must remember, held a position in Corea equal to that of the Prince of Wales and Lord Rosebery combined, and if you can imagine being entertained by a dignitary of this high order with one of your shoes in its right place and the other on the table, you will agree that my position was more than comical.
It appeared that this special state of sensation was produced entirely by the fact that my unfortunate foot-gear was made of patent leather, and that, being almost new, it shone beautifully.
Neither Prince nor Court had ever seen patent leather before, and much ravishment, mingled with childish surprise, was on the face of everybody, when it was whispered round and believed that the shoe was covered with a glass coating.
The Prince examined it carefully all over, and then passed it round to his courtiers, signs of the greatest admiration being expressed at this wonderful object.
[Illustration: H.R.H.
PRINCE MIN-YOUNG-CHUN] I, on my, side, took things quite philosophically, after having recovered from the first shock; and, taking off the other shoe, put it also on the table, gracefully, and quite in the Eastern fashion, begging the Prince to accept the pair as a gift, if he was agreeable to have them.
Fortunately for me, however, he even more gracefully declined the offer, though, as long as our interview lasted, I noticed that his eyes were constantly fixed on them and that every now and then he again went into raptures over them!
On the occasion of this visit I presented him with a portrait of himself reproduced on a small scale from the larger painting which I had made.
He seemed to much appreciate this picture so far as the painting was concerned, but was much taken aback when he discovered that it was on the surface of a wooden panel and could not, therefore, be rolled up.
The Eastern idea is that, to preserve a picture, it should always be kept rolled, and unrolled as seldom as possible, that is to say, only on grand solemnities.
When it was time to go, the Prince conducted me to the door in person, and, having had my shoes put on and laced by one of his pages, I finally took my leave of him.
A very curious episode, the direct consequence of my having portrayed these Princes, occurred some days afterwards.
I was walking in the grounds of Mr. Greathouse's residence, when I perceived a number of coolies, headed by two soldiers and a sort of _Maggiordomo_, coming towards the house.
They were carrying several baskets, while the _Maggiordomo_ himself gracefully held a note between two fingers.
As soon as they saw me, the _Maggiordomo_ made a grand bow, and, delivering the letter into my hands, said that it came from Prince Min-Young-Huan, the Commander-in-chief of the Corean army.
What astonished me even more was that he placed at my feet the different baskets and parcels, announcing that they were now my property.
The letter ran as follows: "MY DEAR MR. LANDOR,--I send you some Corean hens, and some eggs, and some persimmons, and some beef, and some pork, and some nuts, and some screens, and a leopard skin.
I hope that you will receive them.
I thank you very much for the beautiful picture you have done of me, and I send you this as a remembrance of me.--Your friend, "MIN-YOUNG-HUAN."
Greathouse and all the household having been at once summoned, the gifts were duly displayed and admired.
The eggs numbered four hundred; then, there were ten live native hens with lovely feathers, about forty pounds of beef and pork, and two full bags, the one of nuts and the other of persimmons.
There was enough to last one a month.
The part of the present which pleased me most, however, was that containing the split bamboo window screens, which are only manufactured for, and presented to the King and royal princes by faithful subjects, and can scarcely be obtained for love or money under ordinary circumstances.
The leopard skin, also, was a lovely one of its kind, with long fur and fat long tail, beautifully marked, in short an excellent specimen of what is called, I believe, a snow-leopard.
Never before had I made so good a bargain for any picture of mine, and I could not but wonder whether I should ever again have another like it.
I am sorry to say that a large portion of the eggs were consumed in making egg-noggs, an excellent American drink, at the concocting of which Greathouse was a master, a sustaining "refresher" which helped us much in passing away the long dull winter evenings.
The hens, whose plumage we much admired, were let loose for some days, but they created such a nuisance with their early crowing, that they were soon condemned, like most hens, to suffer from an overstretch of neck.
The screens and leopard-skins I brought back with me to England as a memento of my portrait-painting experiences in Corea, and these I still possess.
CHAPTER XII The royal palace--A royal message--Mounting guard--The bell--The royal precinct--The Russian villa--An unfinished structure--The Summer Palace--The King's house--Houses of dignitaries--The ground and summer pavilion--Colds--The funeral of a Japanese Minister--Houses of royal relations--The queen--The oldest man and woman--The King and his throne--Politics and royalty--Messengers and spies--Kim-Ka-Chim---Falcons and archery--Nearly a St. Sebastian--The queen's curiosity--A royal banquet--The consequences.
[Illustration: THE PALACE GROUNDS AND SOUTH GATE FROM THE NEW PALACE] I had some more amusing experiences on the occasion of my first visit to the royal palace.
The King had sent me a message one evening saying that any part of the royal palace and grounds would be opened to me, if I wished to make observations or take sketches, and that it would give him much pleasure if I would go there early the next morning and stay to dinner at the palace.
This invitation to spend the whole day at the palace was so tempting that I at once accepted it, and next day, accompanied by one of the officials, a Mr. S., I proceeded early in the morning to the side entrance of the enclosure.
The palace and grounds, as we have seen, are enclosed by a wall of masonry about twenty feet high, and from a bird's-eye point of vantage the "compound" has a rectangular shape.
There are almost continuous moats round the outside walls, with stone bridges with marble parapets over them at all the entrances.
At the corners of the wall _d'enceinte_ are turrets with loopholes.
There soldiers are posted day and night to mount guard, each set being relieved from duty at intervals of two hours during the night, when the hammer bell in the centre of the palace grounds sounds its mournful but decided strokes.
At midnight a big drum is struck, the harmonic case of which is semi-spherical and covered with a donkey-skin first wetted and made tight.
It is by the sound of this smaller bell within the palace grounds that the signal is given at sunset to the "Big Bell" to vibrate through the air those sonorous notes by which, as already stated, all good citizens of the stronger sex are warned to retire to their respective homes, and which give the signal for closing the gates of the town.
When you enter the royal precinct, you run a considerable amount of risk of losing your way.
It is quite a labyrinth there.
The more walls and gates you go through, the more you wind your way, now round this building, then round that, the more obstacles do you seem to see in front of you.
There are sentries at every gate, and at each a password has to be given.
When you approach, the infantry soldiers, quickly jumping out of the baskets in which they were slumbering, seize hold of their rifles, and either point their bayonets at you or else place their guns across the door, until the right password is given, when a comical way of presenting arms follows, and you are allowed to proceed.
In the back part of the enclosure is a pretty villa in the Russian style.
A few years ago, when European ideas began to bestir the minds of the King of Cho-sen, he set his heart upon having a house built in the Western fashion.
No other architect being at hand, his Majesty commissioned a clever young Russian, a Mr. Seradin Sabatin, to build him a royal palace after the fashion of his country.
The young Russian, though not a professional architect, did his very best to please the King, and with the money he had at his command, turned out a very solid and well-built little villa, _à la Russe_, with _caloriféres_ and all other modern appliances.
The house has two storeys, but the number of rooms is rather limited.
The King, however, seemed much pleased with it, but when it was on the point of completion, at the instigation of some foreign diplomat, he commissioned a French architect from Japan to construct another palace on a much larger scale at some distance from the Russian building.
The estimates for this new ground structure were far too small, and by the time that the foundations were laid down, the cost already amounted to nearly three times the sum for which the whole building was to have been erected.
The King, disgusted at what he thought to be foreign trickery, but what was really merciless robbery on the part of his own officials, decided to discontinue the new palace, which, in consequence, even now has reached only a height of about three feet above the level of the ground.
The royal palace may be considered as divided into two portions, namely, the summer palace and the winter palace.
An official, who came to meet me in the inner enclosure, informed me that His Majesty desired that I should begin by inspecting the summer palace--access to which is not allowed during the winter time--and that he had given orders for the gates leading to it, which had been nailed up and sealed, to await the next warm weather, to be opened for me.
No one besides myself and the official to guide me was, however, to be allowed to enter.
And so, preceded by a man with a heavy wooden mallet, we arrived at the gate, which, after a considerable amount of hammering and pegging away, was at last forced open.
Accompanied by my guide, I straightway entered, two soldiers being left on guard to prevent any one else following.
As I got within the enclosure, a pretty sight lay before me.
In front was a large pond, now all frozen, in the centre of which stood a large square sort of platform of white marble.
On this platform was erected the audience-hall, a colonnade of the same kind of white marble, supported by which was another floor of red lacquered wood with wooden columns, which in their turn upheld the tiled roof with slightly curled up corners.
The part directly under the roof was beautifully ornamented with fantastic wood carvings painted yellow, red, green and blue.
Red and white were the colours which predominated.
A black tablet, with large gold characters on it, was at one side.
The throne in the audience-hall was a simple raised scaffold in the centre of the room, with a screen behind it, and a staircase of seven or eight steps leading up to it.
Access to this sort of platform-island from the gate at which we entered was obtained by means of a marble bridge, spanned across on two strong marble supports.
The staircase leading to the first floor was at the end of the building, directly opposite to where the bridge was; so that, on coming from the bridge, we had to go through the whole colonnade to reach it.
Having taken a sketch or two, I retraced my steps and again reached the entrance.
The instant I was outside, the gate was again shut and nailed up, wooden bars being put right across it.
I was then led to the inner enclosure.
The gate of this was guarded by about a dozen armed men, I being now in front of the part of the house which was inhabited by the King himself.
After all, however, his abode is no better than the houses of the noblemen all over Seoul.
It is as simple as possible in all its details; in fact, it is studiously made so.
There are no articles of value in the rooms, except a few screens painted by native artists; nor are there any signs marking it out in particular as the abode of a Sovereign.
The houses of the high court dignitaries are infinitely more gaudy than the royal palace, for they are decorated externally in bright red and green colours.
The morning was spent in prowling about the grounds and in sketching here and there.
In front of the King's house, protected at a short distance by a low wall, is a second pond, in the middle of which, on a small island, the King has erected a summer pavilion of octagonal shape, in which during the warmer months he enjoys the reviving coolness of the still nights confabulating on State affairs with his Ministers and advisers (not foreign advisers), a pretty semi-circular, white wooden bridge joining, so to speak, the island to the mainland; but, besides this and the buildings provided for the accommodation of the Chinese envoys, when they come, I do not think there is anything in the royal enclosure worthy of special notice.
[Illustration: THE SUMMER PAVILION] Near the main entrance of the palace is a small house for the accommodation of foreign Ministers, consuls and Chinese customs officials, when, on New Year's Day and other public occasions, they are received in audience by the King.
The small room is actually provided with a stove, as several unfortunate ambassadors have been known to have caught dreadful colds through having to remain exposed to the natural temperature for hours until it was the King's pleasure to have them admitted to his presence.
Indeed, I believe I am right when I state that one or two of these notabilities died in consequence of their experiences in this way.
At all events, during my stay at Seoul, the Japanese Minister came by his death through a cold which he contracted by having to stand an inordinate time in the cold room, in his evening dress, and then walk minus his overcoat or wrappers, through the interminable paved passage leading to the audience-hall.
Here let me digress.
This ambassador's funeral, was, indeed, a comical sight.
I am well aware that it is bad form to find entertainment among things pertaining to the dead.
However, it was not the corpse that made the performance in question seem funny, but those that remained alive, and intended to honour his remains.
Telegrams arrived from Japan to the effect that the body should be despatched to his native country; arrangements were therefore made by the Japanese indwellers to convey and escort the body of their representative from the capital to Chemulpo, a port about twenty-five miles distant.
According to this plan, the loyal Japanese coolies were to carry the heavy hearse on their backs, while the King of Corea agreed to despatch four hundred soldiers of cavalry and infantry by way of escort, all the foreign residents being also intended to follow the procession part of the way in their sedan-chairs.
So far so good, and all proceeded, as directed, in good order until the Mafu ferry was reached.
The procession, having crossed the river here, at once proceeded to re-form on the large stretch of sand on the other side.
While, then, the Japanese, who have always been fond of playing at soldiers, and had brought down to the river-side with them a couple of field-guns, were being treated by a Japanese attaché, clad in an exaggerated diplomatic uniform covered with gold braiding, and standing in dancing pumps in the sands that half-buried him, to a recapitulation of the virtues of the defunct, the coolies were bearing the hearse on their backs, the Corean cavalry and infantry forming two lines in good style.
There stood the Corean horsemen, each supported by two men, apparently unconcerned at the long Japanese rigmarole, of which they did not understand a word; there rode as stiff as statues outside the ranks the officers of Cho-sen, on their little ponies.
All of a sudden, however, the two field-guns went off, and with the most disastrous effects.
Half the cavalrymen tumbled off their saddles at the unexpected bucking of their frightened ponies, and the whole band of horsemen was soon scattered in every direction, while the men who were carrying the hearse, following the example of the ponies, gave such a jerk at the sudden explosion, as to nearly drop their burden on the ground.
By-and-by, the commotion subsided; the procession got into marching order, and all went well until the seaport was reached.
The better class Japanese, I may mention, were dressed in stage uniforms, or in evening dress and tall hats, and that though the hour was 9 A.M. or soon after.
But let us return to the royal palace.
The King and Queen have numberless relations, but not all of these live in the royal "compound."
Those that do, have each a separate small house; those that do not, live in the immediate neighbourhood of the palace enclosure, so as to be within easy reach when wanted; it being one of the little failings of the Corean potentate to call up his relations at all hours as well of the night as of the day.
In fact, nearly all the work done by the King, and nearly all the interviews which he grants to his Ministers take place during the dark hours, the principal reason given for which is that by this means, intrigue is prevented, and people are kept in utter ignorance as to what takes place at Court.
[Illustration: THE KING] It is a great mistake to suppose that the good-natured King of Cho-sen, possesses a harem as big as that of the Sultan of Turkey; indeed, the contrary is the fact.
He is quite satisfied with a single wife, that is to say, the Queen.
Needless to say, however, were the custom otherwise, he certainly would not be the person to object to the institution, for his predecessors undoubtedly indulged in such an extravagance.
The real truth is the King of Cho-sen has married a little lady stronger minded than himself, and is compelled to keep on his best behaviour, and see to it that he does not get into trouble.
There are bad tongues in Seoul who say that the Queen actually rules the King, and therefore, through him, the country, and that he is more afraid of Her Gracious Majesty, his wife, than of the very devil himself.
For the correctness of this statement I will not answer.
The Queen is a very good-looking, youngish woman, younger than the King, and has all her wits about her.
She is said to be much in favour of the emancipation of the Corean woman, but she has made no actual effort, that I am aware of, to modify the comparatively strict rules of their seclusion.
She comes of one of the oldest families in Cho-sen, and by a long way the noblest, that of the Mins.
She treats herself to countless Court ladies, varying in number between a score and three hundred, according to the wants of the Court at different times.
One of the quaintest and nicest customs in Corea is the respect shown by the young for the old; what better, then, can the reigning people do but set the good example themselves?
Every year the King and Queen entertain in the royal palace an old man and an old woman of over the age of ninety, and no matter from what class these aged specimens are drawn, they are always looked after and cared for under their own supervision and made happy in every way.
Every year a fresh man and woman must be chosen for this purpose, those of the previous competition being _hors de concours_.
These privileged individuals, if devoid of means, are well provided with all the necessaries of life and _cash_ before they are sent home; and not infrequently they end by never leaving the royal palace, or by settling in the house of some prince or magistrate, by whom they are fed and clothed till the end of their days.
Of course, in many cases it happens that the oldest man or woman in the town is a nobleman or a noblewoman; in which case, after the lapse of a certain space of time, further enjoyment of the royal hospitality is politely declined.
Under the last-mentioned circumstances valuable presents are, however, given them as mementoes of the stay at the royal palace.
This privilege is much thought of among the Coreans, and a family who has had a member royally entertained and treated as King's "brothers"--for I believe that is the name by which they go--is held in great respect by the community, and in perfect veneration by their immediate neighbours.
The King dresses just like any other high official when the country is in mourning--that is to say, he has a long white garment with baggy sleeves, and the usual jewelled projecting belt, with the winged skull-cap; but when the land is under normal conditions, he dons a gaudy blue silk gown with dragons woven into the texture, while over his chest in a circular sort of plate a larger rampant fire-dragon is embroidered in costly silks and gold.
When the latter dress is worn his cap is of similar shape to that worn when in mourning, only it is made of the finest black, instead of white, horse-hair, stiffened with varnish.
The King's throne is simple but imposing.
He sits upon three carved marble steps, covered with a valuable embroidered cloth, by the side of which, on two pillars, are two magnificent bronze vases.
Behind him is a screen of masonry; for no king when in state must ever be either seen from behind, or looked down on by any one standing behind or beside him.
Such an insult and breach of etiquette, especially in the latter way, would, until quite recently, probably have meant the loss of the offender's head.
Tainted, however, unfortunately with a craze for Western civilisation, the King now seldom sits on his marble throne, adorned with fine carvings of dragons and tigers, preferring to show himself sitting in a cheap foreign arm-chair with his elbow reclining on a wretched little twopence-halfpenny table covered with a green carpet.
He imagines that he thus resembles a potentate of Europe!
His son generally sits by his side on these occasions.
The King's relations take no active part in politics, as they consider it unfair and beneath them, but the King, of course, does, and, judging from appearances, he seems to take a great deal of interest in his country and his people.
He is constantly despatching officials on secret missions to this or that province, often in disguise, and at a moment's notice, in order to obtain reliable information as to the state of those provinces, and the opinions of the natives regarding the magistrates appointed by him.
The capital itself, too, contains practically a mass of detectives, who keep spying on everybody and one another, always ready to report the evil-doing of others, and often being caught _in flagrante delicto_ themselves.
Very often even nobles with whom I was well acquainted suddenly disappeared for days and weeks at a time, no one knowing either whither they had gone or what they were doing, except that they had left on a mission from the King.
So little confidence has he in his special envoys that even when he has despatched one straight from the royal palace, with strict orders not to return home to tell his family whither he is gone, he soon after sends a second disguised messenger to look after the doings of the first, and see that he has well and faithfully carried out his orders.
By the time the two have returned, some intrigue or accusations will have probably been instituted against them, in which case all the thanks they obtain for obeying His Majesty is either that they are degraded or that they are exiled to some outlandish province in the Ever White Mountain district or on the Russian frontier.
[Illustration: KIM-KA-CHIM] The subject of politics is entrusted entirely to the nobles.
It was my good fortune to get on the most friendly terms with the greatest politician in Corea, a man called Kim-Ka-Chim, of whom I give a picture, as he appeared in the horse-hair head-gear which he used to wear indoors.
He was a man of remarkable intelligence, quick-witted, and by far the best diplomatist I have ever met--and I have met a good many.
To entrap him was impossible, however hard you might try.
For sharpness and readiness of reply, I never saw a smarter man.
He was at one time Corean Ambassador to the Mikado's Court, and in a very short time mastered the Japanese language to perfection; while with Chinese he was as familiar as with his own tongue.
I myself noticed with what facility he picked up English words, and, having taken it into his head that he wished to learn the English language, he set about it, and was able to understand, read, and speak a little, in a very short time--in fact, in a few days.
Not only is he talented, but also endowed with a wonderful courage and independence, which superiority over the narrow-minded officials and intriguers who, for the most part, surround the King, has often led him into scrapes with His Majesty of Cho-sen. As he jocosely said to me, it was a marvel to him that his head was still on his shoulders.
It was too good, and some one else might wish to have it.
He was an ardent reformer and a great admirer of Western ways.
His great ambition was to visit England and America, of which he had heard a great deal.
Strangely, on the very morning which succeeded the afternoon on which I had this conversation with him I received an intimation to the effect that he had, by order of the King, and for some trivial breach of etiquette, been sent by way of punishment to one of the most distant provinces in the kingdom.
The most noteworthy point of the Corean Court etiquette is probably this, that the King is on no account allowed to touch any other metals than gold and silver; for which reason his drinking-cup is made of a solid block of gold, while other articles, again, are of silver.
The native name by which the King calls himself is Im-gun (king, sovereign).
He has a very valuable library of Chinese manuscripts and printed books in the palace compound, but those books are hardly ever opened or looked at nowadays, except by some rare student of noble rank.
Archery and falconry are occupations which are deemed far more worthy of attention by the nobility than that of worrying their heads with attempts to interpret the mysteries of antiquated Chinese characters.
The falcon is held in much veneration among the nobler classes, and a special retainer--a falconer--is usually kept to wait on the precious bird.
The latter is taken out on the man's arm, with his head covered by a gaudy little hood.
This hood is quickly removed whenever an opportunity arises to send him off after some unfortunate bird.
Then, mounting aloft, and spreading his wings and whirling round his prey in concentric circles, he gradually descends in a spiral, until, at last, dashing down upon his victim, he seizes it with his pointed claws and brings it to his master.
At other times the falcon is not flown, but only used to attract, with his mesmeric eyes, birds; these then, when within reach, being shot with old flint-lock guns.
The other method is, however, the favourite form of this amusement, and large sums are often spent by the young nobles on well-trained birds.
Entertainments are even given to witness the doings of these air-rovers, and the excitement displayed by the audience on such occasions is intense, especially when libations have been previously freely indulged in.
Competitions between the falcons of different owners are frequent, and much betting takes place under such circumstances.
The life of royalty and of the nobility is, taken all round, a very lazy one.
Exercise is considered a degenerate habit, fit only for people who have to earn a living; and, as for manual labour, a Corean nobleman would much prefer suicide to anything so disgraceful.
Archery is one of the few exceptions to the rule, and is declared a noble pastime.
Princes and nobles indulge in it, and even become dexterous at it.
The bows used are very short, about two-and-a-half feet long, and are kept very tight.
The arrows are short and light, generally made of bamboo, or a light cane, and a man with a powerful wrist can send an arrow a considerable distance, and yet hit his target every time.
Nevertheless, the noble's laziness is, as a rule, so great, that many of this class prefer to see exhibitions of skill by others, rather than have the trouble of taking part in such themselves; professional archers, in consequence, abounding all over the country, and sometimes being kept at the expense of their admirers.
Both the Government and private individuals offer large prizes for skilful archers, who command almost as much admiration as do the famous _espadas_ in the bull-fights of Spain.
The King, of course, keeps the pick of these men to himself; they are kept in constant training and frequently display their skill before His Majesty and the Court.
I well remember how, one day, through my incautiousness, I very nearly made the end of a St. Sebastian.
It was near the drilling-ground at the East Gate.
I was quietly walking along the earthern dyke which runs along the little river that crosses Seoul, when from down below I heard screams of "_Chucomita!
Chucomita!_" ("Wait!
wait!")
"_Kidare!_" ("Stop!")
I stopped, accordingly, and tried to look across the open ground, where I saw about a score of men, nearly two hundred yards away, apparently pointing at me.
As the setting sun was glaring in my eyes, I could not well discern what they were doing, and, thinking that their shouts to me were only by way of joke, I made a step forward, but hardly had I done so when a noise like a rocket going past was heard, and a bunch of arrows became deeply planted in the earth, at a white circular spot marked on it, only about two yards in front of me.
I counted them.
They were ten in number.
My danger, however, was, after all, practically of no account, for these archers, as I found out by repeated observation of them, hardly ever miss their target.
Still, even in the case of these Cho-senese William Tells, it was by no means a pleasant sensation to hear that bunch of arrows whistling in front of my nose.
As I was attentively listening to the information supplied me by the native gentleman who was accompanying me through the labyrinthian ways of the royal palace, young Prince Min appeared on the scene, and announced that His Majesty wished, through him, to welcome me to the royal palace, and that he wished me now to partake of dinner.
First, however, he said, the King would be pleased if I would take a sketch from a particular spot to which he led me.
As there was nothing specially worth sketching at that place, I suggested to the young prince that another spot would be preferable; but the latter insisted, in the King's name, that I should paint from there and left me.
I noticed, however, that there was, just behind this spot, a window, that namely, of the queen's apartments, which led me at once to fancy that it was to satisfy her curiosity that I was made to work there; accordingly I began the sketch with my back to the window--for, it must be remembered, to look at the queen is an offence punishable by death.
I had not been many minutes at work, nevertheless, before I heard the sliding window gently move.
I knew what was coming, and tried to screen the sketch with my body, so as to compel the observer, whoever it was, to lean well out of the window if he wished to see it.
A little way off were hundreds of soldiers, walking or squatting on the ground, and on the wall of the King's house and smaller trees the fat and repulsive eunuchs had perched themselves in order to watch the foreigner's doings.
All of a sudden there was a piercing squeak and a quick change of scene.
Every one standing fell flat on his chest, the soldiers to a man hid their faces in their hands on the ground, and the clumsy eunuchs dropped down pell-mell from their perches, like over-ripe fruit coming off the branch of a tree, and disappeared behind the wall.
Then, for a moment, all was silence; then there followed another shriek.
It was evidently a command to stand still until further notice.
When I looked for my Corean companion I found that he, like the rest, was spread out with his face to the ground.
"I say, Mr. S." I whispered, touching him with my foot, "what does all this mean?"
"Please, sir," he murmured, "do not look!
do not speak!
do not turn your head!
or I shall be beheaded!"
"Oh!
I do not mind that at all," said I, laughingly, as my friend was squashing what he had in the shape of a nose into the dust.
At this point there was another noise at the window, as if it were being pushed quite open, and I heard a whisper.
The supreme moment had come, and I was bold.
I turned quickly round.
It was just as I had judged.
The queen, with her bright, jet black eyes and refined features, was there, caught in the act of thrusting her head out of the window, while several ladies of different ages were in the background, apparently on the tips of their toes and peeping over Her Majesty's shoulders.
I had just time to see her face; for, taken as she was by surprise at such an unbounded bit of forwardness on my part, she remained perplexed for a second, then quickly withdrew, coming into dreadful collision with her ladies-in-waiting, who were at the moment just moving forward.
The sliding window was hurriedly closed; there were shrieks of laughter from inside--apparently they had enjoyed the fun--and by the sound of a shrill whistle the men who had been lying "dead" rose and fled, relieved from their uncomfortable position.
"Do you know," said my Corean friend, as he got up and shook the dust and dirt off his beautiful silk gown, quite ignorant of what had happened, "do you know that if you had turned your head round and looked, I would be a dead man to-morrow?"
"Why; who was there?"
"The queen, of course.
Did you not hear the two shrieks and the whistle?
Those were the signs of her coming and going."
"If you were to be beheaded, Mr. S., would you be afraid of death?"
"Oh, no, sir," he said emphatically.
"I am a brave man, and I come of a family of braves.
I would die like a hero."
"Oh," said I, changing the conversation, "how pretty the queen looked!"
"Did you see her?"
said he, horrified.
"Yes, I did."
"Oh, poor me, poor me, poor me!"
he cried in despair.
"You have seen her!
I shall die!
Oh, poor me, poor me, poor me!"
and he shivered and shuddered and trembled.
"I thought that you were not afraid of death, Mr.
S.?"
"Now that you have seen her, I am!"
he mumbled pitifully.
"All right, Mr. S. Do not be afraid, I shall take all the blame on myself, and you will not be punished, I promise you."
At this point Prince Min came to fetch me, and I told him the whole story, relieving Mr. S. of all responsibility for my cheeky action, after which, having made sure that he would not be punished, we proceeded to the feast.
The hour, be it noted, was about noon.
As we were passing along the wall of the King's apartment, His Majesty peeped over the wall and smiled most graciously to me.
Shortly after he sent a messenger to the dining-room to express regret that he was not able to entertain me himself owing to pressing State affairs.
For the dinner a long table had been arranged in the European style, at the head of which sat Prince Min, acting in the place of the King.
The forks and spoons were of tin, and the knives had apparently been used, for they were by no means clean.
Rust, therefore, reigned supreme.
The glasses and tumblers were of the thickest and commonest kind, but they had cost His Majesty a fortune all the same.
We all sat down gaily, Mr. S. having recovered his spirits on being assured that he would not be punished, and the feast began.
It would be easier for me to tell you what was not on that table than what was.
All the products of the country seemed to have been cooked and brought before me, including meats, fish, honey, sweets, vegetables and sauces, of which, mind you, one had to eat "mountains," piled on our plates.
Young pigs, in the puppy state, were also there, and were much appreciated by my princely entertainers; but, when I had got only half through, not being provided with an ever-expanding digestive apparatus, like my friends of Cho-sen, I really felt as if I was going to suffocate.
It is a great insult to refuse what is offered you at table, and a greater insult, too, and gross breach of good manners, not to eat all that is on your plate; it can be easily imagined, then, how I was situated after having swallowed large quantities of beef, potatoes, barley, millet, not to mention about half a bushel of beans.
Nevertheless, I was further treated to lily-bulbs and radishes dipped in the vilest of sauces, besides a large portion of a puppy-pig roasted, and fruit in profusion, foreign and native wines flowing freely.
The dinner began at noon and was not brought to a legitimate close until the happy hour of 7 P.M. Talk of suffering!
To those who appreciate the pleasure of eating, let me recommend a royal Corean dinner!
No pen can describe the agonies I endured as I was carried home in the green sedan.
Every jerk that the bearers gave made me feel as if I had swallowed a cannon-ball, which was moving mercilessly from one side of my body to the other.
I could not help expecting an explosion at any moment, or, at all events, a rent in my overtight skin!
On my way home I swore that as long as I lived I would never touch another mouthful of food, so disgusted was I with things eatable; but--needless to say, I have since many times broken my word.
CHAPTER XIII Students--Culture--Examination ground--The three degrees--The alphabet--Chinese characters--Schools--Astronomers--Diplomas--Students abroad--Adoption of Western ways--Quick perception--The letter "f"--A comical mistake--Magistrates and education--Rooted superstition--Another haunted palace--Tigers--A convenient custom.
[Illustration: THE EXAMINATION GROUNDS] At the beginning of the New Year, and soon after the festivities are over, the streets of Seoul are crowded with students who come up to town for their examinations.
Dozens of them, generally noisy and boisterous, are to be seen arm in arm, parading the principal streets, and apparently always eating something or other.
Study and eating seem to go together in Cho-sen.
They wear peculiar gauze caps like bakers' paper bags, and a large double apron, the latter hanging down front and back, and being tied above the waist with a ribbon.
A large piece of rolled up paper is carried in the hand, and much excitement seems to reign among them.
By students, one must not imagine only young men, for many among them are above the thirties, and some are even old men.
At certain hours processions of them pass along the royal street, then round the palace wall, and finally enter the examination grounds, situated immediately behind the royal palace.
This is a large open ground, on one side of which is a low building containing quite a large number of small cells, where the candidates are examined.
The examination day is one of the sights of Seoul.
It is more like a country fair than an exhibition of literary skill.
The noise is something appalling.
On the grounds, thousands of candidates, accompanied by their parents and friends, squat in groups, drinking, eating and gambling.
Here is a group of them drinking each other's health; there on blankets a few are lying flat on their backs basking in the sun, and waiting for their turn to be called up before the examiners.
Huge red and yellow umbrellas are planted in the ground by enterprising merchants, who sell sweets, a kind of pulled toffy being one of their specialities; while others, at raised prices, dispose of examination caps, ink, paper and aprons to those who have come unprovided.
Astrologers, too, drive a roaring trade on such days, for the greatest reliance is placed on their prophecies by both parents and students, and much money is spent by the latter, therefore, in obtaining the opinion of these impostors.
In many a case, the prophecy given has been known to make the happiness--temporarily, of course--of the bashful young student; and in many a case, also, by this means fresh vigour has been instilled into a nervous man, so that, being convinced that he is to be successful, he perseveres and very often does succeed.
One of these examinations, the highest of all, is a real landmark in a man's career.
If the student is successful, he is first employed in some lower official capacity either by the Government, the palace authorities or some of the magistrates.
If he is plucked, then he can try again the following year.
Some try year after year without success, in the hope of being permitted to earn an honest living at the nation's expense, and grow old under the heavy study of ancient Chinese literature.
The King in person assists at the oral examinations of the upper degree.
Those of the two lower degrees are superintended by princes who sit with the examiners, and report to His Majesty on the successes of the different candidates.
It is generally the sons of the nobles and the upper classes all over the kingdom who are put up for these examinations; those of the lower spheres are content with a smattering of arithmetic and a general knowledge of the alphabet, and of the proper method of holding the writing brush, sometimes adding to these accomplishments an acquaintance with the more useful of the Chinese characters.
The Corean alphabet is remarkable for the way in which it represents the various sounds.
That this is the case, the reader will be able to judge by the table given opposite.
The aim of the inventors, in only using straight lines and circles, has evidently been to simplify the writing of the characters to the highest possible degree.
[Illustration: THE COREAN ALPHABET] It will be at once noticed that an extra dot is used only in the case of the vowel _e_ and the diphthong _oue_; nothing but straight lines and circles being employed in the other cases.
The pronunciation of the consonants is _dental_ in _l, r, t_, and _n_; _guttural_ in _k_ and _k_ (aspirated); _palatal_ in _ch, ch_ (aspirated) and _s_; and _from the larynx_ in _h_ and _ng_ when at the end of a word.
The State documents and all the official correspondence are written in Chinese characters, and hardly at all in the native alphabet, an exception being occasionally admitted in the case of a difficult character, when the meaning is written with the Corean letters, side by side with the Chinese form.
The Corean alphabet is rather despised by the male "blue stockings" of Cho-sen, and is considered as fit only for poor people, children and women; in short, those whose brains are unable to undergo the strain of mastering and, what is more, of remembering, the meaning of the many thousands of Chinese characters.
Not only that, but the spoken language itself is considered inadequate to express in poetic and graceful style the deep thoughts which may pass through the Corean brains; and, certainly, if these thoughts have to be put down on paper this is never done in the native characters.
The result is, naturally, that there is hardly any literature in the language of Cho-sen.
Even the historical records of the land of the Morning Calm are written in Chinese.
The great influence of the Chinese over the Corean literary mind is also shown in the fact that most of the principles and proverbs of Cho-sen have been borrowed from their pig-tailed friends across the Yalu River.
The same may be said of numberless words in the Corean language which are merely corruptions or mispronounced Chinese words.
The study of Chinese involves a great deal of labour and patience on the part of the Corean students, and from a very tender age they are made to work hard at learning the characters by heart, singing them out in chorus, in a monotonous tone, one after the other for hours at a time.
The schools are mostly supported by the Government.
In them great attention is given to etiquette and Chinese classics, to philosophic and poetic ideas, but very little importance is attached to mathematics or science, except by those few who take up the study of the stars as an ideal rather than scientific occupation.
These astronomers might be more correctly termed magicians, for with the stars they invariably connect the fate and fortune of king and people; which fact will also explain why it is that in their practice of astronomy mathematics are really of very little use.
In the written essays for the examinations, what is generally aimed at by the candidates is a high standard of noble ideas which they try to express in the most refined style.
The authors of the most admired essays receive the personal congratulations of the King and examiners, followed by a feast given by their parents and friends.
The diplomas of successful candidates are not only signed by the King, but have also his great seal affixed to them.
I was told that the examinations of the present day are a mere sham, and that it is not by knowledge or high achievements, in literary or other matters, that the much-coveted degree is now obtained, but by the simpler system of bribery.
Men of real genius are, I was informed further, sometimes sent back in despair year after year, while pigheaded sons of nobles and wealthy people generally pass with honours, and are never or very seldom plucked.
Education, as a whole, is up to a very limited point pretty generally spread all over the Corean realm, but of thorough education there is very little.
In former times students showing unusual ability were sent by the Government to the University of Nanking, to be followed up by Pekin, but this custom was abandoned until a few years ago, when it was in a measure revived by the sending of two noblemen, first to Shanghai and then to America, to learn and profit by Western studies.
These seem to have shown themselves remarkably intelligent; in fact, exceeded all expectation; for one of them forged a cheque before leaving the Asiatic continent, and was forbidden to return to his country.
He is not likely to do so now, for he is said to have been murdered--only quite lately.
The other, however, cannot be accused of anything of that sort; indeed, he distinguished himself during the three years spent in America by learning English (as spoken in the States) to perfection, besides mastering mathematics, chemistry and other sciences, perfectly new to him, in a way that would have done credit to many a Western student.
In the same short space of time he also succeeded in a marvellous way in shaking off the thick coating of his native superstition and in assuming our most Western ways as exhibited across the Atlantic.
If anything, he became more American than the Americans themselves.
What astonished me more, though, was how quickly, having returned from his journey, he discarded his civilised ways and again dropped into his old groove.
There is not the least doubt that, though to the casual observer the majority of Coreans appear depressed and unintelligent, they are, as a matter of fact, far from stupid.
I have met people in the land of Cho-sen, whose cleverness would have been conspicuous in any country, Western or otherwise.
When they set their mind to learn something they never cease till their object is attained, and I can vouch for their quick comprehension, even of matters of which they have never before heard.
Languages seem to come easy to them, and their pronunciation of foreign tongues is infinitely better than that of their neighbours, the Chinese and the Japanese.
The only stumbling block is the letter "_f_," which they pronounce as a "_p_."
I can give an instance of a Mr. Chang, the son of a noble, who was appointed by the king to be official interpreter to Mr. C.R.
Greathouse.
In less than two months, this youth of nineteen mastered enough English to enable him both to understand it and converse in it.
I have seen him learn by heart out of a dictionary as many as two hundred English words in a day, and what is more, remember every one of them, including the spelling.
Only once did I hear him make a comical mistake.
He had not quite grasped the meaning of the word "twin"; for, in answer to a question I put to him, "Yes, sir," said he, boisterously, proud apparently of the command he had attained over his latest language, "Yes, sir, I have a _twin_ brother who is three years older than myself."
The Corean magistrates think that to over-educate the lower classes is a mistake, which must end in great unhappiness.
"If you are educated like a gentleman, you must be able to live like a gentleman," wisely said a Corean noble to me.
"If you acquire an education which you cannot live up to, you are only made wretched, and your education makes you feel all the more keenly the miseries of human life.
Besides, with very few exceptions, as one is born an artist, or a poet, one has to be born a gentleman to be one.
All the education in the world may make you a nice man, but not a noble in _the_ strict sense of the word."
Partly, in consequence of habits of thought like this, and partly, because it answers to leave the public in ignorance, superstition, which is one of the great evils in the country, is rather encouraged.
Not alone the lower classes, but the whole people, including nobles and the King himself, suffer by it.
It is a remarkable fact, that, a people who in many ways are extremely open-minded, and more philosophic than the general run of human beings, can allow themselves to be hampered in this way by such absurd notions as spirits and their evil ways.
A royal palace, different to, but not very far from, the one described in the previous chapter, was abandoned not very long ago for the simple reason that it was haunted.
Thus, there are no less than two palaces in the capital, that have been built at great expense, but deserted in order to evade the visits of those most tiresome impalpable individuals, "the Ghosts."
One of these haunted abodes we have inspected, with its tumble-down buildings; the other I will now describe.
[Illustration: THE HAUNTED ROYAL PALACE] The buildings comprising this palace are still in a very excellent state of preservation, and, being erected on hilly ground, form a very picturesque ensemble.
The different houses are of red lacquered wood, with verandahs on the upper floors.
The illustration shows a front view of one of the principal buildings, situated on the summit of the hill.
At the foot of this hill, by a winding path and steps, a picturesque little gate and another house is reached.
A little pond with water-plants in it, frozen in the midst of the thick ice, completes this haunted spot.
The largest of all the structures is the audience-hall, richly and grandly decorated inside with wooden carvings, painted red, white, blue and yellow.
The curled-up roofs are surmounted at each corner with curious representations of lucky emblems, among which the tiger has a leading place.
Talking of tigers, I may as well speak of a strange custom prevailing in Corea.
The country, as I have already pointed out, is full of these brutes, which, besides being of enormous size, are said to be very fierce and fond of human flesh.
Even the walls of the town are no protection against them.
Not unfrequently they make a nocturnal excursion through the streets, leaving again early in the morning with a farewell bound from the rampart, but carrying off inside their carcases some unlucky individual in a state of pulp.
The Coreans may, therefore, be forgiven if, besides showing almost religious veneration for their feline friend--who reciprocates this in his own way--they have also the utmost terror of him.
Whenever I went for long walks outside the town with Coreans, I noticed that when on the narrow paths I was invariably left to bring up the rear, although I was a quicker walker than they were.
If left behind they would at once run on in front of me again, and never could I get any one to be last man.
This conduct, sufficiently remarkable, has the following explanation.
It is the belief of the natives, that when a tiger is suddenly encountered he always attacks and makes a meal of the last person in the row; for which reason, they always deem it advisable, when they have a foreigner in their company, to let him have that privilege.
I, for my part, of course, did not regard the matter in the same light, and generally took pretty good care to retain a middle position in the procession, when out on a country prowl, greatly to the distress and uneasiness of my white-robed guardian angels.
CHAPTER XIV Religion--Buddhism--Bonzes--Their power--Shamanism--Spirits--Spirits of the mountain--Stone heaps--Sacred trees--Seized by the spirits--Safe-guard against them--The wind--Sorcerers and sorceresses--Exorcisms--Monasteries--Temples--Buddha--Monks--Their customs and clothing--Nuns--Their garments--Religious ceremonies--The tooth-stone.
The question of religion is always a difficult one to settle, for--no matter where one goes--there are people who are religious and people who are not.
The generality of people in Corea are not religious, though in former days, especially in the Korai-an era, between the tenth and fourteenth centuries, they seem to have been ardent Buddhists.
Indeed, Buddhism as a religion seems to have got a strong hold in Cho-sen during the many Chinese invasions; it only passed over Cho-sen, however, like a huge cloud, to vanish again, though leaving here and there traces of the power it once exercised.
The bonzes (priests) had at one time so much authority all over the country as to actually rule the King himself; and, as the reverend gentlemen were ready with the sword as well as with their bead prayer-rosaries, they became an unparalleled nuisance and dangerous to the constitution.
After having, by their great power and capacity for agitation, roused the country to revolution and internal disputes, it was found necessary to put them down, and from that time forward, they became mere nonentities.
The chief instrument which brought this about was a law, still in existence, by which no religion is, under any circumstances, tolerated or allowed within the walls of Corean cities, and all bonzes are forbidden to enter the gates of any city under pain of losing their heads.
The influence which the priests had gained over the Court having been thus suddenly destroyed, and the offenders against the law in question having been most severely dealt with, Buddhism, so far as Corea was concerned, received its death blow.
This was so: first, because, although it had prevailed without restraint for nearly five centuries, many of the primitive old superstitions were still deeply rooted in the minds of the Coreans, and because, with the fall of the priests, these sprang up again bolder than ever; then, too, because the law above-mentioned was so strictly enforced that many temples and monasteries had to be closed owing to lack of sufficient funds, the number of their supporters having become infinitesimal in a comparatively short time.
Shamanism is at the present time the popular religion, if indeed there is any that can be so designated.
The primitive worship of nature appears to be quite sufficient for the religious aspirations of the Corean native, and with his imaginative brain he has peopled the earth with evil and good spirits, as well as giving them to the elements, the sky, and the morning star.
To these spirits he offers sacrifices, when somebody in his family dies, or when any great event takes place; and to be on good terms with these invisible rulers of his fate is deemed necessary, even by well-educated people who should know better.
There are spirits for everything in Cho-sen.
The air is alive with them, and there are people who will actually swear that they have come in contact with them.
Diseases of all sorts, particularly paralysis, are invariably ascribed to the possession of the human frame by one of these unwholesome visitors, and when a death occurs, to what else can it be due than to their evil and invisible operation?
To old age, to diseases natural and zymotic, the expiration of life is never ascribed; these everlasting evil spirits have to answer for it all.
The most prominent spirits are probably those of the mountain.
According to Corean accounts, the mountains and hills seem to be full of these heroes of witchcraft: this being probably due to the fact that the dead are buried on hilly ground and that their souls, therefore, are most likely to make their nocturnal hoverings in such neighbourhoods, until a fresh career is found for them in the body of some animal.
They are not _gods_ of the mountains, as some writers have been pleased to call them, for, so far as I could judge, the natives are more terror-stricken when thinking about them than inclined to worship them.
No Corean, of sound mind and body, however brave and fearless of death in battle, can ever be induced to walk out at night on the mountain-slopes; and even in the day-time a great deal of uneasiness is manifested by the natives should they have to climb a hill.
On such occasions they provide themselves with armfuls of stones, which, as they go up, they throw violently one by one at these imaginary beings, thus showing them that their company is neither required nor wished for, and that they had better keep aloof.
If this simple precaution is used, the obliging and scorned spirits seldom interfere with the traveller's welfare.
The hills close to the towns are simply covered with heaps of stones, so thrown at these mythical dwellers of the mountains.
Such is the effect produced by terror on the people's imagination, that frequently in their imagination they feel the actual touch of the spirits.
Probably, if there is any physical touch in those cases, it is only a leaf or a twig falling from a tree.
Still, when that occurs a regular fight ensues, the men continuing to fire stones at their imaginary foes, until in their mental vision they see them disappear and fade away in the air.
Others not so brave prefer an accelerated retreat, only stopping now and again to throw a stone at the pursuers.
From their very childhood the Coreans are imbued with horrid and fantastic accounts of the doings of these spirits, and so vividly are the usual habits of these ghostly creatures depicted to them, that they cannot but remain for ever indelibly impressed on their minds.
Another very common sight, besides the stone-heaps, are the sacred trees.
These are to be found everywhere, but especially on hilly ground.
Their branches are literally covered with rags, bits of glass, and other offerings given by the superstitious and frightened passers-by, lest these spirits might take offence at not being noticed.
Women and men when compelled to travel on the hills go well provided with these rags, and when--for the sacred trees are very numerous--supplies run short, many a woman has been known to tear off a bit of her silk gown, and attach it to a branch of the tree among the other donations.
A coolie, who was carrying my paint-box one evening, when I was returning home from the hills, was simply terrified at the prospect of being seized by the spirits.
He kept his mouth tightly closed, and stoutly declined to open it, for fear the spirits should get into him by that passage; and when, with the cold end of my stick, I purposely touched the back of his neck--unperceived by him, of course--he fled frightened out of his life, supposing it to have been a ghost.
He met me again on the high road in the plain, about half a mile farther on, and explained his conduct with the very truthful excuse, that "a spirit had seized him by the throat and shaken him violently, meaning at all costs to enter his mouth, and that it was to escape serious injury that he had fled!"
When I told him that it was I who had touched him with the end of my stick, he sarcastically smiled, as if he knew better.
"No, sir," said he; "honestly, I saw with my own eyes the spirit that assaulted me!"
The forms given to these spirits vary much, according to the amount of imagination and descriptive power of the persons who describe them.
Generally, however, they assume the forms either of repulsively hideous human beings, or else of snakes.
The best safeguard against them, according to Corean notions, is music, or rather, I should say, noise.
When possessed with a spirit, a diabolical row of drums, voices, bells and rattles combined is set agoing to make him depart without delay; while, on the other hand, little bits of dangling glass, tied to strings, small sweet-toned bells and cymbals, hanging in a bunch from the corners of the roof or in front of the windows and door, often by means of their tinkling--a sound not dissimilar to that of an �olian harp--attract to the house the friendly spirits of good fortune and prosperity.
The latter are always heartily welcomed.
The very wind itself is supposed to be the breathing of a god-spirit with extra powerful lungs; and rain, lightning, war, thirst, food and so on, each possesses a special deity, who, if not invoked at the right moment, and in the right manner, may, when least expected, have his revenge against you.
The spirits of Cho-sen are very sensitive, and insist on being taken into notice.
Through astrologers, sorcerers and sorceresses they convey messages and threats to this person and to that--generally the richer people--whose errors may always be rectified or atoned for by paying a round sum down to these go-betweens, who are quite ready to assume the responsibility of guaranteeing a peaceful settlement of matters.
There are regular establishments kept by these sorcerers and sorceresses--as a rule, outside the city walls--where witchcraft is practised with impunity in all its forms.
These establishments are much patronised both by the poor and by the man of noble rank; and amidst the most excruciating howling, clapping of hands, violent beating of drums and other exorcisms, illnesses are got rid of, pains and troubles softened, calamities prevented and children procured for sterile people.
The Government itself does not consider these houses as forming part of the religious gang, and one or two of them may be found even in Seoul within the wall.
One, an extremely noisy house and mostly patronised by women, is situated not far from the West Gate along the wall.
There are also one or two on the slope of Mount Nanzam.
The exorcisms, with the exception of a few particular ones, are, for the most part, performed in the open air, on a level space in front of the house.
A circle is formed by the various claimants, in the centre of which a woman, apparently in a trance, squats on her heels.
The more money that is paid in, the greater the noise that takes place, and the longer does the performance last.
Every now and then the woman in the centre will get up, and, rushing to some other female in the circle, will tap her furiously on her back and shake her, saying that _she_ has an evil spirit in her which refuses to come out.
She will also hint that possibly by paying an extra sum, and by means of special exorcisms, it may be induced to leave.
What with the shaking, the tapping, the clapping, the drums and the howls, the wretched "spotted" woman really begins to feel that she has something in her, and, possessed--not by the spirits--but by the most awful fright, she disburses the extra money required, after which the spirit ultimately departs.
These witches and sorceresses are even more numerous than their male equivalents.
They are recruited from the riff-raff of the towns, and are generally people well-informed on the state, condition, and doings of everybody.
Acting on this previous knowledge, they can often tell your past to perfection, and in many cases they predict future events--which their judgment informs them are not unlikely to occur.
When ignorant, they work pretty much on the same lines as the Oracle of Delphi; they give an answer that may be taken as you please.
Then, if things do not occur in the way they predicted, they simply make it an excuse for extorting more money out of their victim under the plea that he has incurred the displeasure of the spirits, and that serious evil will come upon him if he does not comply with their request.
The money obtained is generally spent in orgies during the night.
These sorceresses and male magicians are usually unscrupulous and immoral, and are often implicated, not only in the intrigues of the noblest families, but also in murders and other hideous crimes.
Outside the towns, again, there are, only a grade higher than these, the Buddhist monasteries and nunneries.
Within a few miles of Seoul, several of these are to be found.
One thing that may be said for these institutions is that they are invariably built on lovely spots.
Generally on the top, or high on the slopes of a mountain, they form not only homes for the religious, but fortified and impregnable castles.
The monasteries are seldom very large, and, as a general rule, hold respectively only about two dozen monks.
[Illustration: THE INTERIOR OF A TEMPLE] There is a small temple on a platform, with a figure of Pul or Buddha in the centre, two brass candlesticks by his side, and a small incense burner at his feet.
"Joss sticks" are constantly burned before him and fill the temple with scent and haze.
Buddha, as found in Corea, has generally a sitting and cross-legged posture; the feet are twisted with the soles upwards, and, while the right arm hangs down, the left is folded, the forearm projecting, and the hand holding a bronze ball.
By his side, generally on the left, is a small tablet in a frame of elaborate wood-carving.
At the foot of the statue is a large collection box for the donations of the worshippers.
The background is usually plain, or painted with innumerable figures of the minor gods, some with young white faces and good-natured expressions, probably the gods of confidence; others with rugged old faces and shaggy white eyebrows, moustache and hair, undoubtedly the various forms of the deity of wisdom.
Then there is one with squinting ferocious eyes, black eyebrows and beard, dressed in a helmet and fighting robe, who, needless to remark, is the god of war.
Others are the gods of justice, deference, and affection; the last being impersonated by two female figures who usually stand on each side of the Buddha.
One curious thing about the Buddha is that the head is generally very large in proportion to the body, and that the ears are enormous for the size of the head.
In the East it is considered lucky to possess large ears, but these Buddhas are often represented with their organs of hearing as long as the whole height of the head.
In Europe such a thing would hardly be considered a compliment!
The hair of the Buddha is carefully plastered down on his forehead, and is adorned with a jewel in the centre.
The eyes are almost straight, like the eyes of Europeans, instead of being slanting, like those of the Mongolians, while the eyebrows, finely painted with a small brush, describe a beautiful semi-circular arch.
The expression of the face, as one looks at it, is in most cases that of nobility and sleepiness.
Out of the West Gate, and a good way past the Pekin Pass, a very interesting day can be spent in visiting a monastery which is to be found there among the hills.
Previous to reaching it, a small tomb, that, namely, of the King's mother, is passed.
On each flank is a stone figure, while on three sides a wall shuts in the mound of earth under which the body lies.
On the right is a tablet to the memory of the deceased, and in front of the mound is placed a well-polished stone, also a small urn.
High up, after following a zig-zag mountain path, we come to the monastery.
Monasteries as a rule consist of the temple and the mud huts and houses of the monks and novices.
The temple always stands apart.
Of the temples which I saw, none were very rich in interesting works of art or in excellent decoration, like the temples of Japan.
The only parts decorated outside in the Corean houses of worship are immediately under the roof and above the doors, where elaborate, though roughly executed wood-carvings are painted over in red, white, green and yellow, in their crudest tones.
Over each of the columns supporting the temple, projects a board with two enormous curved teeth, like the tusks of an elephant, and over the principal door of the temple is a black tablet, on which the name of the temple is written in gold Chinese characters.
At each of the columns, both of the temple and of the common part of the dwellings, hang long wooden panels on which are written the names of supporters and donors with accompanying words of high praise.
The doors of the temples are of lattice-work and are made up of four different parts, folding and opening on hinges.
On some occasions, when the _concours_ of the public is too great to be accommodated within the building itself, the whole of the front and sides of the temple are thrown open.
Inside the lattice-work above mentioned tissue-paper is placed, to protect the religious winter visitors from the cold.
Inside, the temples are extremely simple.
With the exception of the statue of Buddha and the various representations of minor deities that we have already mentioned, there is little else to be seen.
The prayer-books, certainly, are interesting; their leaves are joined together so as to form a long strip of paper folded into pages, but not sewn, nor fastened anywhere except at the two ends, to which two wooden panels are attached, and, by one side of the book being kept higher than the other, the leaves unfold, so to speak, automatically.
In one temple of very small dimensions, perched up among the rocks near the South Gate of Seoul, are to be seen hundreds of little images in costumes of warriors, mandarins and princes, all crammed together in the most unmerciful manner.
This temple goes by the name of the "The Five-hundred Images."
Adjoining it is a quaint little monastery and a weird cavern (_see_ chap, xx., "A Trip to Poo Kan").
As to the monasteries themselves, these, though adjoining the temples, are built apart from them.
Their lower portions are, like all Corean houses, of stone and mud, while the upper parts are entirely of mud.
The roof is tiled on the main portion of the building, while over the kitchen and quarters for the novices it is generally only thatched.
[Illustration: BUDDHIST BONZES AND TEMPLE] More interesting to me than the temples and buildings were the bonzes, who are, I may as well say at once, a very depraved lot.
It is a strange fact in nature that the vicious are often more interesting than the virtuous.
So it is with the Corean bonzes.
Here you have a body of men, shrewd, it is true, yet wicked (not to say more) and entirely without conscience, whose only aim is to make money at the expense of weak-minded believers.
Morals they have none; if it were possible, one might say even less than none.
They lead a lazy and vicious life in these monasteries, gambling among themselves and spending much time in orgies.
They feed themselves well at the expense of the charitable, and a great deal of their energy is expended in blackmailing rich persons, not of course openly, but through agents as disreputable as themselves.
Whenever there are riots or revolutions in progress, their origin can invariably be traced to the monasteries.
In other respects, excepting these few little faults, they seemed charming people.
Their dress consists of a long white padded gown with baggy sleeves; the usual huge trousers and short coat underneath; and a rosary of largeish beads round their necks.
When praying, the rosary is held in the hands, and each bead counts for one prayer.
A larger bead in the rosary is the starting-point.
When petitions are being offered to Buddha on behalf of third parties--for rarely do they, if ever, pray on behalf of themselves--there is a scale of prices varying according to the wealth of the petitioners; so many prayers are worth so much _cash_; in other words, one buys them as one would rice or fruit.
The bonzes shave their heads as clean as billiard balls; while the novices content themselves with cutting their hair extremely short, leaving it, probably, not longer than one-eighth of an inch.
There are many different degrees of bonzes.
We have, for example, the begging bonzes, who wear large conical hats of plaited split bamboos, or else hats smaller still and also cone-shaped but made of thick dried grass.
They travel all over the district, and sometimes even to distant provinces, collecting funds and information from the people.
Sometimes they impose their company on some well-to-do person, who, owing to the Corean etiquette in the matter of hospitality, has to provide them with food, money and promises of constant contributions before he can get rid of them.
Then there are the stay-at-home bonzes, well-fattened and easy-going, who cover their heads with round, horse-hair, stiffened black caps of the exact shape of those familiar articles in French and Italian pastry-cook shops, used over the different plates to prevent flies from eating the sweets.
Lastly, we have the military priests, who follow the army to offer up prayers when at war and during battles, and who don hats of the ordinary shape worn by every one else except that they have round crowns instead of almost cylindrical ones.
These alone are occasionally allowed to enter the towns.
Paper sandals are the foot-gear chiefly in use among them.
Whenever I visited a monastery, I found the monks most civil and hospitable, although naturally they expect something back for their hospitality.
I hardly had time to pay my chin-chins to all of them, folding my hands and shaking them in front of my forehead, bent forward, before a tray of eatables, such as beans, radishes and rice in pretty brass bowls would be produced, and a large cup of wine offered, out of which latter the whole company drank in turn.
They took much interest in my sketching, and all insisted on being portrayed.
Many of them possessed a good deal of artistic talent, and it is generally by their handiwork and patience that the images and statues in the temples are produced.
Among them were some very intelligent faces, somewhat _abruties_, to use a French word, owing to the life they lead, but exceedingly bright and cheery withal, and often very witty, when one came to talk with them.
As for shrewdness and quickness of perception I know no person who has these better at his command than the Corean Buddhist priest.
[Illustration: A NUNNERY] There are also in Corea nunneries for women who desire to follow a religious life.
Curiously enough, contrary to the rule with us, the Corean nuns are more emancipated than the rest of the native women.
To begin with, they dress just in the same way as do the monks, shave their heads like them; and being, moreover, of a cast of countenance exceedingly ugly and not at all feminine, they might quite well, from the appearance of their faces, be taken to belong to the stronger sex.
A good many of them, contrary to the case of the monks, impressed me as being afflicted with mental and bodily sufferings, and in several cases they even appeared to me to be bordering on idiocy.
They always, however, received me kindly, and showed me their convents, with cells in which two or three nuns sleep together.
They were not quite so careless as the monks about the duties of religion, and at the little temple close by there was a continual rattling of the gong, a buzzing, monotonous sound, enough to drive anybody out of his mind, if especially it was accompanied by the beating of drums.
The temples attached to these nunneries seemed to be more elaborate inside than those of the monasteries, and when a religious ceremony has to be performed, two nuns, one in white, the other draped in a long, black-greenish gown, and both wearing a red garment thrown over the left shoulder, passed under the right arm, and tied in front with a ribbon, walk up and down inside the temple, muttering prayers, while a third female goes on rattling on the drums with all her might.
Offerings of rice, beans, etc., are placed in front of the gods, a candle or two is lighted--and the nun in dark clothing holds a small gong, fastened to the end of a bent stick, and taps on it with a long-handled hammer, first gently and slowly, then quicker and quicker, in a crescendo, till she manages to produce a long shrill sound.
The person, for whom these prayers are offered, kneels in front of the particular deity whom she wants to invoke, though generally at the foot of the Great Buddha, and with hands joined in front of her nose, prays with the nuns, getting up during certain prayers, kneeling down again for others.
For head-gear, the nuns wear the same grass conical hats which the travelling monks do.
If a large oblation is offered, the service is still more noisy, and not only are the big drums played in the most violent manner, but the nuns squat in a body along the walls inside the temple, and keep hammering away on little gongs similar to that just described.
Recall to your memory the sound of a blacksmith's forge with two men hammering a red-hot iron, magnify that sound a hundred times, and add to it the buzzing of the prayers, and you will then get a pretty fair idea of what one of these religious ceremonies sounds like to European ears.
One of the best features of Confucianism is the inculcation of respect towards parents and old people, in which respect both monks and nuns do a deal of good; though, otherwise, I think the country might advantageously be without these institutions.
Beliefs are comical when one does not believe in them.
On the mountain slopes, just outside the city wall, and at no great distance from the West Gate, is a peculiar rock, which the action of the weather has worn out into the shape of a gigantic tooth.
Whence comes its name of Tooth-stone.
There would be nothing wonderful about this, if it were not for the fact that a visit to this freak of nature, has, according to Corean accounts, the property of curing the worst of tooth-aches.
Though I was not myself afflicted with the complaint in question, I went one afternoon to witness the pilgrimage that takes place every day to this miraculous spot.
A little altar stands at the foot of the huge tooth, and numberless tablets, certifying to cures, erected by thankful noble visitors and others, are fixed against the rock, with the name, date and year when the cures were effected.
As I stood there, I could not help laughing at the sight of the crowds of men and women with swollen cheeks, bandaged up in cotton wool and kerchiefs, apparently undergoing excruciating agonies through coming out on so cold a day.
One after the other they came up, first paying their chin-chins in front of the altar, and then depositing on it what _cash_ they could afford; after which they proceeded to rub one cheek after the other on the Tooth-stone, just as "puss" rubs herself against your legs when you stroke her head.
The bandages had, of course, to be removed before the balloon-like cheek could be rubbed on the frozen stone, and to watch the different expressions of relief or increased pain upon their ill-balanced, inflamed faces, gave me as much amusement as any show that I have ever witnessed.
Should the pain have temporarily disappeared, the man in charge of the _miracle_ would make it his duty to try and extract more money from the person cured; if, instead of that, the pain had increased, which was generally the case, then, again, he would impress on the agonised sufferer that had he paid a larger sum in the beginning the gods would not have been vexed at his meanness and the pain would have disappeared.
Let him, therefore, now pay more _cash_ by way of making up for it, and try again!
It is wonderful, too, how shallow people are when they have a pain anywhere!
CHAPTER XV Police--Detectives--The plank-walk--The square board--The wooden blocks for hands and feet--Floggings--The bamboo rod--The stick--The flexible board--A flogging in Seoul--One hundred strokes for three-halfpence --Wounds produced--Tender-hearted soldiers--Imprisonment--Exile--Status of women, children and bachelors--Guilds and the law--Nobles and the law--Serfdom--A mild form of slavery.
Should you happen to be one of the tender-hearted sort, please pass this chapter and the next over, and I shall not bear you any malice.
My present object is to describe some of the punishments inflicted on criminals, and, though they are, as a whole, quaint and original, I cannot say that they are pleasing, either to see or to read about.
First of all, you may not be aware that there is in Seoul a sharp and well-regulated body of police, always ready to pounce on outlaws of any kind; and that there is hardly a crime committed, the delinquent in which fails to be immediately collared.
These guardians of the peace do not wear any particular uniform, but are dressed just like the merchant classes; and thus it is that, unknown, they can mix with people of all sorts, and frequently discover crimes of which they would otherwise probably never hear.
Instead of being mere policemen, they rather do the work of detectives and policemen combined; for, by ably disguising themselves, they try to get on familiar terms with people about whom they are suspicious; and in many a case, after having become a bosom-friend of one of these officials and acknowledged and confessed his evil deeds to him, the culprit finds himself arrested and very likely beheaded.
In speaking of their mode of arrest, I purposely used the word "collared"; for no better term can express the action of the Corean policeman.
The man is taken before the magistrate soon after his arrest, and should he offer resistance he is dragged before him by his top-knot or his pig-tail, according respectively as he is a married man or a bachelor.
If he is strong and restive, a rope with a sliding knot is passed round his neck, after his hands have been firmly tied behind his back.
After his interview with the magistrate at the _yamen_, if he be found guilty, he is generally treated with very great severity.
If the crime has been only of the minor degree the culprit undergoes the plank-walk, a punishment tiresome enough, but not too harsh for Coreans.
The following is a rough description of it.
A heavy wooden plank, about twelve feet long and two feet wide, with an aperture in the centre, is used, the man's head being passed through the aperture and then secured in it in such a way that he cannot remove it.
Thus arrayed he is made to walk through the streets of the town, his head distorted by the weight he has to carry, and his body restrained by the dragging of the plank either in front of him or at his back.
The passers-by point at him the finger of scorn, as, in his helpless state, he is made to swing from one side of the road to the other with the slightest push, or else is pulled along mercilessly by people who seize the plank and begin to run.
He is poked in the ribs with sticks, and gets his head smacked and smeared with dirt; yet has to bear it all patiently, until, twirled round, knocked about, and with his neck skinned by the friction of the heavy plank, he sometimes falls down in a dead faint.
[Illustration: THE PLANK-WALK] Little or no compassion is shown to criminals by the Coreans.
Rather than otherwise, they are cruel to them; and children, besides being cautioned not to follow their bad example, are encouraged to annoy and torture the poor wretches.
A more severe punishment still is the square board, a piece of wood too heavy to allow of the man standing for any length of time, too wide to allow of his arms reaching his face, too big to allow of him resting his head on the ground and going to sleep, and too thick to allow of his smashing it and getting rid of it.
Instances are on record of people thus punished having become lunatics after the fourth or fifth day.
During the fly season I should think such an occurrence cannot be uncommon.
Imagine half a dozen flies disporting themselves in a tickling walk on a man's nose, eyelids and forehead, without his being able to reach them, owing to this huge square wooden collar!
It must be dreadful!
Merely the thought of it is enough to give one the shivers.
This last mode of punishment has, I think, been imported from China, for I have also seen it frequently in the Empire of Heaven.
The other, which I first described, may also be a modification of this one, but I do not remember having seen it, as I have described it, anywhere except in Corea, at Seoul.
There is also in Corea another machine of torture, in which the head and feet are tied between heavy blocks of wood.
The principal, and most important, of all the lesser punishments, however, is flogging.
It is that which has most effect on the people, and it is certainly by far the most painful.
It is carried out in many ways, according to the gravity of the crime committed.
The simpler and milder form is with a small bamboo rod, the strokes being administered on the hands, on the bare back or on the thighs, a punishment mostly for young people.
Next in severity, is that with the round stick--a heavy implement--by which it was always a marvel to me, that all the bones of the body were not smashed, judging from the fearful blows which the powerful flogger bestowed on the poor wretches who lay stretched out flat, and face downward, on a sort of bench, to which they were fastened, and on which they generally fainted from pain after the first few strokes had been given.
This is considered a low and degrading way of being flogged, and is chiefly limited to people of the lowest standing in society.
The implement most generally in use in this line of sport is the paddle or flat board, a beating with which, when once received, is likely to be remembered for ever.
I shall try to describe the way in which I saw it done one day in Seoul.
I was walking along the main street when I saw a _kisso_ (soldier), with his hands tied behind his back, being led with a rope and followed by about a score of cavalry soldiers in their picturesque hats and red tassels.
A magistrate, in his long white gown and with a huge pair of circular spectacles on his nose, headed the procession.
I asked a passer-by what they were going to do, and was soon informed, both by action and by word of mouth, that the man was going to be flogged, whereupon I at once slackened my pace, and joined the procession, that I might, if possible, see how they did this sort of thing in military circles.
I had already seen ordinary floggings with the bamboo and the stick, but what attracted me more especially on this occasion, was a long wooden board which a soldier was carrying, and with which, the man who was walking by my side said, they were going to beat him.
It was a plank about ten feet long, one foot wide and half an inch thick, probably less, and therefore very flexible.
After walking for a short distance, the procession at last made a halt.
The man to be performed upon, looked almost unconcerned; and, save that he was somewhat pensive, showed no signs of fear.
His hands having been untied, he at once took off his hat--for in the land of Cho-sen a man does not mind losing his life as long as his hat is not spoilt!
His padded trousers were pulled down so as to leave his legs bare, and he was then made to lie flat on the pebbly ground, using his folded arms as a sort of rest for his head.
The magistrate, with his pompous strides, having found a suitable spot, squatted down on his heels, a servant immediately handing to him his long-caned pipe.
The soldiers, silent and grave, then formed a circle, and the flogger; with his board all ready in his hand, took up a position on the left-hand side of his victim.
The magistrate, between one puff and another of smoke, gave a long harangue on the evils of borrowing money and not returning it, however small the sum might be.
The disgrace, he argued, would be great in anybody's case, but for a soldier of the King, not only to commit the great offence of borrowing money from a person of lower grade than himself--"a butcher," but then also to add to his shame by not returning it--this was something that went beyond the limits of decency.
"How much was it you borrowed?"
he inquired in a roaring kind of voice.
"A hundred _cash_," answered the thread of a voice from the head on the ground buried in the coat-sleeves.
"Well, then, give him a hundred strokes, to teach him to do better next time!"
As a hundred _cash_ is equivalent to one penny-halfpenny, to my mind, the verdict was a little severe, but, as there is no knowing what is good for other people, I remained a silent spectator.
The flogger then, grabbing at one end of the board with his strong hands, swung it two or three times over his head, and gave a tremendous whack on the man's thighs, causing them to bleed.
Then immediately another and another followed, each being duly reckoned, the poor fellow all the while moaning pitifully, and following from the corners of his frightened eyes the quick movements of the quivering plank.
Soon his skin became livid and inflamed, and, after a few more blows had been given, large patches of skin remained attached to the board.
The pain must have been intense.
The wretch bit his sleeves, and moaned and groaned, until, finally, he became faint.
Meanwhile, I had produced my sketch-book, and had already with my pencil jotted down magistrate, flogger, flogged and soldiers, when the ill-natured official took offence at what I was doing and ordered the flogging to be at once stopped.
Had I only known, I would have begun my sketch before.
As it was--and the culprit had only received less than one-fifth of the number of blows to which he had been sentenced--the performance was bad enough.
There was only one redeeming feature about it, and I must say no one was more astonished at it than myself.
Nearly all the soldiers, friends of the offender, blubbered like children while his punishment lasted.
This circumstance seemed to prove to me that the Easterns, though apparently cruel, are, after all, not quite so hard-hearted as one might be inclined to imagine.
And, mind you, the soldier-classes in Cho-sen are probably the most cruel of all; that touch of sentiment on their part, therefore, impressed me much, and upset entirely those first ideas I had formed about their lack of sensitiveness and sympathy for others.
The order to that effect being then given, two soldiers proceeded to help the man to rise.
Calling to him was, however, of no avail.
They had, therefore, to lift him up bodily, but when they tried to dress him they found his swollen bleeding legs to be as stiff as if they had been made of iron; wherefore, as they failed to bend them, two other men had to come to their assistance and carry him away.
It not unfrequently happens in the case of this cruel method of flogging that a man's thighs are broken and himself ruined for life, and many have been known to have even died under the severity of the punishment.
Imprisonment is not a favourite punishment with the Corean magistrates, for the infliction of such a penalty means considerable expense to the country, and would be but little punishment to the natives, who, by such confinement, would suffer little or nothing physically, and certainly not at all morally.
Some, however, especially of the nobler classes, are kept confined, even for years, in expectation, for instance, of a sentence of capital punishment being carried out, or else in the hope that through influential friends they may obtain the royal pardon.
As a rule, particularly with the better classes, exile is deemed a more impressive punishment than imprisonment, and when confiscation of land and property goes with this, the punishment is, of course, all the more severe.
Of banishment there are several different kinds.
Thus, there is not only banishment from the city to a distant province, but also that out of the kingdom altogether.
Some banishments are for short periods, others for longer periods, others for life.
Banishment from the country is generally for life and accompanied by confiscation.
A curious custom prevails at Court, according to which, when a Minister, prince or magistrate incurs the royal displeasure, he is confined for two or three days to his own house, without being allowed to go out.
Were the rule broken it would lead to serious trouble, for spies are generally sent to see that the rule is not transgressed.
Such a punishment, mild as it is, is much felt by the nobles, and they take, therefore, a good deal of trouble to comply with the Court etiquette in all its minutest details.
Corean law is very lenient to women and children, or unmarried men, which latter class, as we have seen, are classified in the same category as the former.
The head of the family is supposed to punish smaller offences as he thinks fit, either by rod or fist, the law only providing the severer forms of punishment for the bigger crimes.
The administration of the law in general is very strange.
Some people are responsible, others are not.
Certain tradesmen, like butchers, plasterers, innkeepers, carpenters, hatters, etc., have formed themselves into guilds, and in the case of offences committed by a member of one of these guilds he is held responsible to the head of the guild and not to the magistrates of the country.
The same holds good in the case of the _mapus_ (horsemen) and the coolie-carriers who constitute, probably, the best-formed and best-governed guild in the country.
It has thousands of members all over the kingdom, and not only is the postal system carried on by them, but also the entire trade, so to speak, between the different provinces and towns of the realm.
The chief of this guild, until late years, had actually the power of inflicting capital punishment on the members; now, however, the highest penalty he can inflict is a sentence of flogging.
Thus it is, that a good deal of the justice of the country is administered by the people themselves, without the intervention of the legal authorities, in which respect they show themselves very sensible.
The nobles, too, have the power of flogging their servants or followers, and this is usually done in their own _compounds_.
Very often on passing a house the strokes of the paddle may be heard, the howls and screams of the victim testifying to the nature of what is going on.
In other cases flogging is generally done in public, for then it is supposed to have more effect.
If done in a private enclosure, then all the servants, soldiers and followers are summoned to witness it.
This patient submission to these personal punishments is no doubt one of the last remains of feudalism.
In not very remote times, serfdom which bordered on slavery was still in existence in Cho-sen. Men and women became private property either by the acquiring of the land on which they lived, or, by purchase, or by way of execution for non-payment of debts, for under this convenient law creditors could be paid with a man's relations instead of with ready money.
Slavery in Corea, even when it existed, was, however, always of a very mild form.
The women were mostly employed as servants about the house, while the man tilled the ground, but in neither case was rough dealing the rule, and, far less, ill-treatment.
They were, too, well fed and clothed; so much so, that many people used to sell themselves in order to acquire a comfortable living.
In time of famine this must have very often occurred, and many families whose ancestors under such circumstances stood by the nobles and rich people are even to the present moment supported by them, though no longer as slaves, but rather as retainers and servants.
They are perfectly happy with their lot and make no agitation for liberty; in fact, like the bird that has been born and bred in a cage, if left to themselves, they would probably soon come to a bad end.
CHAPTER XVI Executions--Crucified and carried through the streets--The execution ground--Barbarous mode of beheading--Noble criminals--Paternal love--Shut out--Scaling the wall--A catastrophe--A nightmare.
In Cho-sen, as in other countries, we find not only pleasanter sights, but also those that are disagreeable or even revolting.
That which I am about to describe is one which, I have little doubt, will make your blood curdle, but which is none the less as interesting as some of the others I have feebly attempted in this work to describe; I mean an execution as carried out in the Land of the Morning Calm.
The penal form of death adopted is beheading, which is not, I believe, so pleasant a sensation as, for instance, that of being hanged--that is, when other persons are the sufferers.
Of late years, executions have not been by any means an everyday occurrence in Corea, but here, as in other countries, there is always to be found a good share of people who are anxious to be "off" their heads.
There is no reason why people should commit crimes, yet they do commit them and get punished in consequence.
They are punished in this world for having broken the limits of society's laws, and yet again, if what one hears is correct, they are punished wherever they happen to go after their final departure from our very earthly regions.
In Corea, as is the case all over the far East, the natives are not much concerned about this future existence and attach little importance to death and physical pain.
I have no doubt, in fact I am positive, that the Eastern people feel pain much less than we do, partly because they are accustomed from childhood to be insensitive to bodily agony, but chiefly because they are differently constituted to us.
In our case, the brain, by means of which it is that we judge of the amount of pain inflicted on us, has been trained to receive impressions so quickly, transmitted as they are in an instant from any part of the body to the centre of our system, that, indeed, many times we actually feel the pain before it has been physically communicated to us at all.
With the Corean, as with the Manchu or the Chinese, a reverse action takes place.
With them, the brain works so very slowly that, supposing a bad ache is taking place in any part of the body, whence is being conveyed to the drowsy brain the unpleasant news of the agony that that part is undergoing; well, what in that case happens in the Corean skull?
By the time the brain has grasped the idea that the aforesaid part of the body is really in a state of suffering, the pain is almost gone.
This, roughly stated, is I believe, a truthful explanation of their going to death with so much bravery.
It is a common occurrence in China for criminals, kneeling in a row to be executed, to crack jokes among themselves, and even at the executioner's expense.
In Corea, they cannot go quite so far as that, for things are done somewhat differently.
In the latter country, the prisoners are detained in the gaols sometimes for months and even years, undergoing judgments and sentences, floggings and milder tortures innumerable, so that it is almost with a feeling of relief and gladness that, finally, being proved guilty, they receive the news of their fast approaching end.
When their time is come, they are removed from prison, and dragged out into a courtyard, within which, with the first rays of light, have been brought some little carts with heavy and roughly-made wooden wheels, each drawn by a sturdy bull.
On the ground some wooden crosses have been set up, and to each of these a criminal is tied with ropes, his chest and arms being bare, and cut into by the tightened cords, and only his padded trousers being left.
Each cross with its human freight is then planted and made firm on a bull cart; and then, when all is ready, the ghastly procession, headed by the executioner, a few _kissos_ (soldiers), armed with old fashioned flint locks or with spears, makes its way slowly through the streets of the town, one of the followers proclaiming aloud the crimes committed and the sentences passed on the crucified.
Sleepy women and children, with uncombed hair, peep out of the paper windows, while the men hurry down to the street and join the procession in large numbers, making fun at the expense of the poor wretches, and even insulting them; while the latter, hang helpless and defenceless from their crosses, their bodies livid with cold, pain and starvation.
Occasions such as these, are regular orgies for the soldiers, and those who follow the mournful _cortége_.
Not a wine-shop on the road-side is left unvisited, and continual halts are made that wine may be freely drunk, and food swallowed, as only Corean soldiers know how to do it.
Occasionally, a pious passer-by, moved to compassion, may, amid the howls of the crowd, raise his wine-cup to the lips of one of the sentenced, and help him thus to make death more merry.
Once this sort of thing is started, the example is usually at once emulated by others, and, as the hours go by, a considerable amount of intoxicating stuff is consumed, not only by the executioner, soldiers and followers, but also by those to be executed.
Before very long, however, the bodies of the victims thus carried become senseless and nearly frozen to death.
Their heads then hang down pitifully, all blue and congested, and quivering with the jerking of the cart.
"Era!
Era!
Picassa!"
("Get out!
get away!")
the drunken soldiers call out at intervals, as they swallow their last mouthful of rice, and order the _mapus_ to move on to the next eating-place.
Crowds of men and children collect round the miserable show and prudent fathers, pointing at the victims, show their heirs what will be the fate of those who do what is wrong.
During the whole day are the poor wretches thus carted to and fro, in the streets of the town, stoppages being made at all the public eating-places, where feasting invariably takes place, though it is also almost as invariably left unpaid for.
Only when sunset has come is it that the procession, having made its way towards one of the city gates, finally leaves the town and winds its way through the open country to a suitable spot for the chopping-off process.
Executions are not held at any particular spot; and in former days, even a few years ago, it was not an uncommon occurrence to see the dead bodies of beheaded people lying about in the streets of Seoul.
Now, however, they generally take the offenders outside the Wall, and inflict the capital punishment miles away from the town.
The execution represented in the illustration, took place on the sixth of February, 1891, and is a reproduction of a picture which I have done from sketches taken on the spot.
The men executed on this occasion numbered seven, and the crime committed, was "high treason."
They had conspired to upset the reigning dynasty of Cho-sen, and had devised the death of His Majesty the King.
Unfortunately for them, the plot was discovered before its aims could be carried out, and the ringleaders arrested and imprisoned.
For over a year they had remained in gaol, undergoing severe trials, and being constantly tortured and flogged to make them confess their crime, and betray the friends who were implicated with them.
That, however, being of no avail, the seven men were at last all sentenced to death.
Three of them were noblemen, and one a priest; while the others were commoner people, though well-to-do.
Here are their names; Yi-Keun-eung, Youn-Tai-son, Im-Ha-sok, Kako (priest), Yi-sang-hik, Chyong-Hiong-sok, Pang-Pyong-Ku.
[Illustration: A STUDY FROM STILL-LIFE] Having undergone the final drive through the town, by the sound of the big bell at sunset the _cortége_ passed through the "Gate of the Dead;" then, leaving the crowded streets of the capital, it made its way towards the spot where the execution was to take place.
The place selected was on a naturally raised ground, nearly 20 lis (6½ miles) from Seoul, a lonely spot, overlooking a deserted plain.
The high road was only a few hundred yards distant, and could be plainly seen as a white interminable line, like a white tape, at the foot of the distant hills.
The bull carts were stopped some little way below this spot on the flat ground, and then, one by one, the wretched creatures were taken down and removed from their crosses in a brutal manner, and handed over to the executioner.
Senseless, they lay on the ground, with their arms tied behind their backs, and a long rope fastened to their top-knots in the hair; until they were carried one after another, and laid flat on their faces, with their chests on the little stools seen in the picture.
When they had all been thus stationed, the executioner proceeded to administer blows with his blunt sword until the heads were severed from the bodies.
On the occasion in question, several of the bodies were hacked about most mercilessly through the inexperience or drunkenness of this brute.
The third man in the illustration, for example, had a good part of his left shoulder cut off as clean as a whistle, although the blow had been meant to strike the neck; but let this suffice for these horrible details.
I have mentioned them, partly, that they may be compared with the dexterous doings of the neighbouring Chinese, whose skill in the chopping-off line is beyond description.
The Chinese possess very long, sharp, well-balanced swords, a single blow of one of which will sever the head from the body.
Besides, they administer their blows as neatly as the most fastidious of customers might desire, and the victim does not really undergo much pain.
The executioners, too, are picked out from among the strongest men, and are so well trained that they never miss a blow.
The whole affair, consequently, is over in less than no time; a few seconds being quite sufficient to do away with one comfortably.
Truly enough, were it to be one's lot to be executed, I would desire nothing more delightful than to have one's head "done" by a Celestial executioner.
The Coreans, on the contrary, have not developed the same skill in these difficult matters; and, what with their blunt and short swords, what with their misjudgment of distances, they bungle matters most cruelly.
Of course, they are, nevertheless, supposed to kill their victims with single blows, instead of raining them down by the dozen, hacking the unfortunate creatures in a most fearful manner, and lopping off their arms or gashing their bodies before the heads are finally cut off.
The little blocks, upon which the men were laid down, were so arranged that their chests rested on the upper portions, the head in consequence being raised several inches from the ground.
The idea in this was to make things easier for the executioner; the same reason also explaining why the straw rope was tied to each man's top-knot; for in this way another man could hold him fast to the stool when the decapitation was to take place.
A somewhat closer examination of the first body in the illustration will at once show how distorted it is.
This is what must have happened: in the final struggle with death the owner had attempted to resist his fate, when several soldiers had immediately pounced upon him, with the inevitable result that, in his desperate struggling, the spine had been broken; a strange, yet very natural accident, under the circumstances.
The arms being tied together at the elbows behind, the spine had been at great tension, like a set bow, so that a violent assault could not but result in its being fractured, especially considering the weak and frozen condition in which the derelict before us was.
That I am probably correct in this explanation seems to be further proved by the fact that his head, when severed, had been taken up and swung to a distance by the angry executioner.
Now, though this way of doing away with criminals may appear a very cruel one to European minds, it is, nevertheless, a decided improvement on the older method of executing prevalent in Corea, as practised for example, many years ago, on some French missionaries and their followers.
The execution of these martyrs was preceded by terrible floggings and tortures, and when they were led to the execution-ground they had two arrows thrust into their flesh, like modern St. Sebastians.
The executioner and soldiers, after having accomplished their bloody work, and converted the execution-ground for the time being into a shambles, retraced their steps to the nearest wine-shop, where the rest of the night was spent in drinking and gorging.
The bodies were left as a repast for dogs and leopards; for no Corean with a sound mind could be induced to go near the spot where they lay, lest the spirits of their departed souls should play some evil trick upon them.
So much, in fact, were they scared at the idea of passing at all near to the dead bodies that, though the execution took place a few hundred yards away from the high road, the superstitious Coreans preferred going miles out of their way on the other side of the hill range to being seen near (they called it "near") a spot where so many people had perished.
The morning following this execution I took many sketches of the ghastly scene and the mutilated bodies.
I did not leave until darkness began to set in, when, as I was busy packing up my traps to return to Seoul, I was rather startled by the sudden appearance near me of an old man, sad, pale, and worn-out with anxiety.
As he crept up to my side, in a most suspicious manner, he looked round, and then, with a violent effort, directed his gaze to the bodies lying a little way off.
He was shivering like a leaf, his eyes were staring and his fingers outstretched, yet he could not remove his glance from the dreadful sight.
As he was in this tragic position, two coolies, carrying a coffin, appeared cautiously on the scene; but, when still a long way from the bodies, they refused positively to approach any nearer, and all the expostulation of the old man who went down to meet them, all the extra strings of _cash_, the last ones he possessed, were not sufficient to induce them to stir another inch.
This fright which had taken possession of them was thus great, partly because of the natural superstitions which all Coreans entertain regarding the souls of dead persons, and also because the fact of being seen or found near these political criminals might in all probability lead to the loss of their heads as well.
At last, however, when their terror was somewhat overcome, they promised to go near the bodies if large sums should be paid them; whereupon the old man who had not another _cash_ in the world, seemed to act as if he were in a state of thorough despair.
I watched his face and thought that he was actually going to collapse.
Not a word of complaint, however, did he utter to me.
Intense grief was depicted on his face, and I had pity on him.
He was old, too, and his features were refined.
He opened his heart to me.
"That," lying dead there, with his head Heaven only knew where, was his son!
He had been a nobleman; that one could see at a glance, but was poor now, "cashless," having spent his fortune in his efforts to bribe the officials to let his son be released.
His money had come to an end, and there his son lay dead.
The risk he was running, he well knew, was very great, in thus coming to remove the body of the one he loved.
Were the officials only to know that he had visited the spot, he would straightway be imprisoned, accused of complicity, tortured, and then put to death; notwithstanding this, however, he felt sure that darkness would protect him, and so in his anxiety he had come to remove his son's body, that he might during the night bury it on one of the distant hills.
He had given the coolies the little money he had to help him in his enterprise, and now that he was only a few yards from his beloved he could not get them to proceed.
He was himself too weak to move the body.
I took him by the arm, and we approached the bodies.
The near view of them made him shudder and turn pale, and as he rested on my arm he was shivering all over.
Not a word did he utter, not a lamentation did he make, not a tear did he shed; for, to show one's feelings is considered bad form in the land of Cho-sen.
I could well see, however, that his heart was aching.
He bent over the bodies, one after the other; then, after a lengthy examination, he pointed to one, and murmured: "This is my son, this is my son!
I know him by his hands.
See how they are swollen, and nearly cut by the rope?"
Next, after a good deal of uncertainty, for the face was smeared and streaked with blood, we found the head pertaining to the body.
The old man, with paternal love, then proceeded, if he could, to stick the head on the body again, but--this was impossible.
"Please, sir," he begged of me, in a tone of lamentation, "help me to take my son as far as the coffin."
I consented, and, with the utmost trouble, we carried the body down the hill, afterwards coming back for the head.
In two mats, which had been carried inside the hearse, we wrapped the corpse up as well as we could, and then bundled him into the coffin.
All this time a careful look-out was maintained, to see that no one else was about to spy over the deed, but once the corpse was in its coffin, the coolies quickly took the hearse on their shoulders, and all sped away, not without repeated "kamapsos" (thanks) being given me by the old man.
That was the only body which was removed, all the others being left to rot or to be eaten up by wild animals.
When I examined the expressions on the faces of the beheaded wretches, it did not seem as if any of them had at all enjoyed what had taken place; on the contrary, rather than otherwise, there was plainly depicted on their now immovable features an expression of most decided dissatisfaction.
Without doubt, they had undergone a terrible agony.
In some cases the eyes were closed, in others they were wide open, staring straight in front.
The pupils had become extremely small.
The lips of all were contracted, and the teeth showed between, tightly closed.
Streaks of blood covered the faces, and it was very apparent that the noses, ears, and sometimes the outside corners of the eyes, had been bleeding, this being probably due to the violent blows received from the sword.
In a word, the expression which had become stereotyped upon their faces was that of great pain and fright, although none of them, with the exception of the one who had resisted at the last moment, showed it in any other way.
The muscles of the arms also were much contracted, and the swollen fingers were of a bluish colour with congested blood, and half-closed and stiff--as if made of wood.
By the time that the old man, his coolies and their sad burden had got well out of sight, on their way up one of the distant hills, I had finished packing up my sketches and painting materials.
Then, as I retraced my steps towards Seoul it became quite dark.
On the way, however, I purchased, for the large sum of three _cash_ (the tenth part of a penny), a small paper lantern, with a little candle inside--the latter leading me to the extravagance of an extra _cash_; and, armed with this lighting apparatus, all complete, I proceeded towards the East Gate.
This little lantern, which was exactly similar to those used by the natives, came in very handy on this occasion.
These lanterns are the most ingenious things that can be imagined for the money.
Each has a wooden bottom, and a bent cane acts as a handle.
A nail is provided in the centre of the wooden bottom, wherein to stick the candle, and the flame is protected by white tissue paper pasted all round the lantern.
[Illustration: A NATIVE LANTERN] In due course I reached the East Gate, but only to find it closed, for it was now long after sunset.
I then tried the "Gate of the Dead," having no objection to enter the town for once as a "deceased"; but, although the "departed" have the privilege of leaving the town after dark, they are not allowed to come in again; for which reason it really seemed as if I had before me the fine prospect of having to put up at one of the dirty native inns just outside the Gate until it should please Phoebus to show his welcome fire-face again above the mountain line.
I had learned that there was, at no great distance away, a spot where, at the risk only of breaking one's neck, it was possible to scale the city wall; wherefore, having consulted a child as to the exact locality, besides tempting him with a string of _cash_, I proceeded to find it, and soon, under his guidance, reached it.
The wall at this spot was, I may mention, about twenty feet high.
Having, then, fastened my paint-box and sketches to my back by means of a strap, and slinging the paper lantern to my arm, I proceeded, hampered though I was, to make trial of my cat-like qualities in the matter of wall climbing.
Placing the tips of my fingers and toes in the crevices between the stones and in other gaps in the wall, I managed with some little difficulty, to crawl up a certain height.
The wall was nearly perpendicular, mind you, and, owing to the cold frozen nature of the stones, my fingers got so stiff that I had hardly any power left in them.
Then, too, the weight of the heavy paint-box on my shoulders was more conducive to bringing me down again than to helping me up.
In my mind's eye, accordingly, I saw myself at every moment coming down with a bang from my high position to the frozen ground below, and began to think that I should be fortunate if I succeeded in coming out of my wall-climbing experience with only half the ribs in my body reduced to atoms, and one or two broken limbs in addition.
Making a special effort, however, I got a few feet higher, when I heard a mysterious voice below murmur: "You have nearly reached the top."
I received the news with such delight that, in consequence of the fresh vigour which it imparted to me and which made me try to hurry up, one of my feet slipped, and I found myself clinging to a stone, with the very ends of my fingers.
Oh what a sensation!
and what moments of anxiety, until, quickly searching with my toes, I got a footing again.
That slip was fatal, for, owing to the jerk it gave me, the unsteady candle inside the paper lantern fell out of its perpendicular position and produced a conflagration.
Then, indeed, was I placed in the most perplexing position, for, here was I, holding on to the wall, I do not know how, with the lantern and my sleeve on fire and my arm getting unpleasantly warm, and yet utterly unable to do anything to lessen the catastrophe.
Only one thing could be done; and I can assure you, the few remaining feet which had to be climbed were got over with almost the agility of a monkey.
Thus, at last, I was on the top.
This adventure made a very good finish for what had been a most exciting day; and, now that the faithless lantern was burning itself out, and dwindling away down below, and that the fire in my sleeve was put out, I had to remain in darkness.
I stumbled along the rampart of the wall until I could get down into one of the streets, where, having roused the people, I was able to purchase another light, and reach home again in safety.
After the hearty meal which I then partook of, I need scarcely add that a greater part of the night was spent in dreaming of numberless bodyless heads rolling about around me, and of people being burned alive, until I finally woke up next morning with a fearful shock, and the thought that I was being precipitated from the top of the Tower of Babel.
CHAPTER XVII The "King's procession"--Removing houses--Foolhardy people--Beaten to death--Cavalry soldiers--Infantry--Retainers--Banners--Luxurious saddles--The King and his double--Royal palanquins--The return at night.
[Illustration: THE KING MEETING THE CHINESE ENVOYS] The official life of the King of Corea is secluded.
He rarely goes out of the royal palace, although rumours occasionally fly about that His Majesty has visited such and such a place in disguise.
When he does go out officially, the whole town of Seoul gets into a state of the greatest agitation and excitement.
Not more than once or twice a year does such a thing happen; and when it does, the thatched shanties erected on the wide royal street are pulled down, causing a good deal of trouble and expense to the small merchants, etc.
People fully understand, however, that the construction of these shanties is only allowed on condition that they shall be pulled down and removed whenever necessity should arise; an event which may often occur, at only a few hours' notice.
The penalty for non-compliance is beheading.
The moment they receive the order to do so, the inhabitants hurriedly remove all their household goods; the entire families, and those friends who have been called in to help, carrying away brass bowls, clothes and cooking implements, amid a disorder indescribable.
Everybody talks, screams and calls out at the same time; everybody tries to push away everybody else in his attempts to carry away his armful of goods in safety; and, what with the dust produced by the tearing the thatch off the roofs, what with the hammering down of the wooden supports, and the bustle of the crowd, the scene is pandemonium.
I well remember how astonished I was when, passing in the neighbourhood of the royal palace, early one morning, I saw the three narrow, parallel streets which lead to the principal gateway being converted into one enormously wide street.
The two middle rows of houses were thus completely removed, and the ground was made beautifully level and smooth.
Crowds of natives had assembled all along the royal street, as well as up the main thoroughfare, leading from the West to the East gate; and the greatest excitement prevailed amongst the populace.
The men were dressed in newly-washed clothes, and the women and children were arrayed in their smartest garments.
Infantry soldiers, with muskets, varying from flint-locks to repeating-rifles, were drawn up in a line on each side to keep the road clear.
There were others walking along with long, flat paddles, and some with round heavy sticks, on the look-out for those who dared to attempt to cross the road.
As generally happens on such occasions, there were some foolish people who did not know the law, and others who challenged one another to do what was forbidden, well knowing that, if caught, severe blows of the paddle would be their portion.
Every now and then, howls and shouts would call the attention of the crowd to some nonsensical being running full speed down the middle of the road, or across it, pursued by the angry soldiers, who, when they captured him, began by knocking him down, and continued by beating him with their heavy sticks and paddles, until he became senseless, if not killed.
When either of the last-mentioned accidents happened, as occasionally was the result, the body would be thrown into one of the side drain-canals along the road and left there, no one taking the slightest notice of it.
[Illustration: CAVALRY SOLDIER WITH UMBRELLA-HAT] Cavalry soldiers were to be seen in their picturesque blue and brown costumes, and cuirasses, and wide-awake black hats adorned with long red tassels hanging down to the shoulders, or, as an alternative, equipped with iron helmets and armed with flint-locks and spears.
In their belts, on one side, they carried swords, and on the other, oil-paper umbrella-shaped covers.
When folded, one of these hat-covers resembles a fan; and when spread out for use, it is fastened over the hat by means of a string.
Those warriors who wore helmets carried the round felt hats as well, fastened to the butts of their saddles.
This cavalry equipment was in great contrast, from a picturesque point of view, with the comical imitations of the European mode of equipment exhibited by the infantry soldiers.
One peculiarity of these cavalrymen was their instability in the saddle.
Each cavalier had a _mapu_ to guide the horse, and another man by his side to see that he did not fall off, each having thus two men to look after him.
A charge of such cavalry on the battle-field must, indeed, be a curious sight.
In the olden time it was forbidden for any one to look down on the king from any window higher than the palanquins, but now the rule is not so strictly observed, although, even at the time when I witnessed these processions, nearly all the higher windows were kept closed and sealed by the more loyal people.
The majority, therefore, witnessed the scene from the streets.
The procession was headed by several hundred infantry soldiers, marching without the least semblance of order, and followed by cuirassed cavalrymen mounted on microscopic ponies in the manner above described.
Then followed two rows of men in white, wearing square gauze white caps, similar to those which form the distinctive badge of the students when they go to their examinations; between which two rows of retainers, lower court officials, and _yamens_, perched on high white saddles, rode the generals and high Ministers of state, supported by their innumerable servants.
Narrow long white banners were carried by these attendants, and a dragon-flag of large dimensions towered above them.
Amid an almost sepulchral silence, the procession moved past, and after it came a huge white palanquin, propped on two long heavy beams, and carried on the shoulders of hundreds of men.
When the court and country are not in mourning, the horses of the generals, high officials and eunuchs bear magnificent saddles, embroidered in red, green and blue; the ponies led by hand immediately in front of the King's palanquin being also similarly decked out.
Curiously enough, when the first royal palanquin had gone past the procession repeated itself, almost in its minutest details, and another palanquin of the exact shape of the first, and also supported by hundreds of attendants, advanced before us.
Puzzled at this strange occurrence, I inquired of a neighbour: "In which palanquin is the King?"
"No one knows, except his most intimate friends at Court," was the answer.
"In case of an attempt upon his life, he may thus be fortunate enough to escape."
If such an attempt were made success would not in any case be an easy matter, except with a gun or a bomb; for the King's sedan is raised so high above the ground that it would be impossible for any one to reach it with his hands.
Besides, it is surrounded by a numerous escort.
The sedans were constructed after the model of a large square garden-tent with a pavilion roof, the front side being open.
The King--somebody closely resembling him is selected for his double--sits on a sort of throne erected inside.
On another occasion, when I saw a similar procession accompanying the King to the tomb of the queen-dowager, the two palanquins used were much smaller, and were fast closed, although there were windows with thick split bamboo blinds on both sides of each palanquin.
The palanquins were covered with lovely white leopard skins outside, and were rich in appearance, without lacking in taste.
When the King's procession returned to the palace after dark, the beauty and weirdness of the sight were increased tenfold.
Huge reed-torches, previously planted in the ground at intervals along the line of route, were kindled as the procession advanced, and each soldier carried a long tri-coloured gauze lantern fastened to a stick, while the palanquins were surrounded with a galaxy of white lights attached to high poles.
A continuous hollow moaning, to indicate that the King was a very great personage, and that many hundreds of men had undergone great fatigue in carrying him, was heard as the palace gate was approached, and a deep sigh of relief arose from thousands of lungs when he was finally deposited at his door.
Propped up by his highest Ministers of state, who held him under the arms, he entered his apartments; after which the lights were quickly put out, and most of the crowd retired to their homes.
On such occasions as these, however, the men are allowed out at night as well as the women.
CHAPTER XVIII Fights--Prize fights--Fist fights--Special moon for fighting--Summary justice--The use of the top-knot--Cruelty--A butcher combatant --Stone-fights--Belligerent children--Battle between two guilds--Wounded and killed--The end of the battle postponed--Soldiers' fights.
One of the characteristic sights in Cho-sen is a private fight.
The natives, as a rule, are quiet and gentle, but when their temper is roused they seem never to have enough of fighting.
They often-times disport themselves in witnessing prize-fights among the champions of different towns, or of different wards in the same town, and on these occasions large crowds assemble to view the performance.
The combatants generally fight with their fists, but, like the French, are much given to use their knees and feet as well in the contest.
Much betting, also, goes on amongst the excited spectators, and it is not seldom that a private contest of this kind degenerates into a free fight.
The lower classes in the towns thoroughly enjoy this kind of sport, and the slightest provocation is sufficient to make them come to blows.
The curious point about their fighting is that during the first moon of the new year all rows can be settled in this rough and ready manner, without committing any breach of the law.
Hence it is that during that moon, one sees hardly anything but people quarrelling and fighting.
All the anger of the past year is preserved until the New Year festivities are over, but then free play is straightway given to the bottled-up passions.
Were a man even to kill his antagonist during a fight at this legalised season, I doubt whether he would be imprisoned or punished; very likely not.
For about fifteen days, in truth, things are simply dreadful in the streets.
Go in one direction, and you see people quarrelling; go in another, and you see them fighting.
The original _causa movens_ of all this is generally _cash!_ When a deadly fight takes place in the streets, you may at once set it down as having arisen over, say, a farthing!
Debts ought always to be paid before the old year is over; and, occasionally, grace is allowed for the first fifteen days in the first moon; after that, the defaulting debtors get summary justice administered to them.
Creditors go about the town in search of their debtors, and should they come face to face, generally a few unparliamentary remarks are passed, followed by a challenge.
Hats are immediately removed, and given for safe keeping to some one or other of the spectators, a crowd of whom has, of course, at once assembled; and then the creditor, as is customary under such circumstances in all countries, makes a dash for his debtor.
The main feature about these fights, so far as I could judge, was the attempt of each antagonist to seize hold of the other by his top-knot.
Should this feat be successfully accomplished, a violent process of head-shaking would ensue, followed by a shower of blows and scratches from the free hand, the lower extremities meanwhile being kept busy distributing kicks, really meant for the antagonist, but, occasionally, in fact often, delivered to some innocent passer-by, owing to the streets of Cho-senese towns not being as a rule over-wide.
When in a passion, the Coreans can be very cruel.
No devices are spared which can inflict injury on the adversary, and scratching and biting during these fights are common concomitants.
One afternoon, as I was returning from a call at the Japanese Legation, and was proceeding down a slight incline, riding Mr. Greathouse's horse, I witnessed a dreadful scene.
A butcher and another tradesman were settling questions in their own delightful way, and were knocking each other about.
At last, the butcher felled the other man with a blow of a short club--like a policeman's club--which is often made use of in these fights.
As the man lay motionless on the ground, the other, far from being content with what he had done, seized a huge block of wood, one of those upon which they chop up the meat, and, lifting it up with a great effort, dropped it on his antagonist's head, with a dreadful sounding crack, which smashed his skull, as one would a nut.
Then, sitting triumphantly on the wooden block, he solicited the compliments of the spectators.
Special interest is taken when the women fight, that is, among the very lowest classes, and frequently the strings of _cash_ earned during the day are lost or doubled on the odds of the favourite.
The better classes, it must be said to their credit, never indulge in fist-fighting in public, though occasionally they have competitions in their own compounds, champions being brought there at great expense and made to fight in their presence.
I believe they consider it to be degrading, either first, to lose one's temper, or secondly, to administer justice in such a fashion.
The most important contests of all are the stone and club-fights, which are a national institution, approved by the Government and patronised by everybody.
They sometimes attain such large proportions as to be regular battles.
Supposing that one town or village has, from motives of jealousy or other causes, reason to complain of a neighbouring city or borough, a stone-fight during the first moon is invariably selected as the proper method of settling the difference.
Private families, with their friends, fight in this way against other private families and their allies; and entire guilds of tradesmen sometimes fight other guilds, several hundreds of men being brought into the field on either side.
Children are much encouraged in this sport, it being supposed that they are thus made strong, brave and fearless; and I have actually seen mothers bring children of only eight or nine years old up to the scratch, against an equal number of lads urged on by their mothers on the other side.
One boy on each side, generally the pluckiest of the lot, is the leader, and he is provided with a small club, besides wearing on his head a large felt hat with a sort of wreath round the crown, probably as a protection against the blows that might reach his head.
After him come ten, twenty, or more other children in their little red jackets, some armed with a club like their leader, the others with armfuls of stones.
A good mound of this ammunition is also, as a rule, collected in the rear, to provide for the wants of the battle.
The two leaders then advance and formally challenge each other, the main body of their forces following in a triangle; and when, after a certain amount of hesitation, the two have exchanged a few sonorous blows with their clubs on each other's skulls, the battle begins in earnest, volleys of stones are fired and blows freely distributed until the forces of one leader succeed in pushing back and disbanding the others.
A fight of this kind, even among children, lasts for several hours, and, as can well be imagined, at the end of it there are a great many bleeding noses and broken teeth, besides bruises in profusion.
The victor in these fights is made much of and receives presents from his parents and the friends of the family.
The principal streets and open spaces in Seoul, during the fighting period, are alive with these youthful combatants, and large crowds assemble to witness their battles, taking as much interest in them as do the Spaniards in their bull-fights, and certainly causing as much excitement.
More serious than these, however, are the hostilities which occasionally take place between two guilds.
When I was in Seoul, there was a great feud between the butchers and those practising the noble art of plastering the houses with mud.
Both trades are considered by the Coreans to belong to the lowest grade of society; and, this being so, the contest would naturally prove of an envenomed and brutal character.
A day was fixed, upon which a battle should take place, to decide whose claims were to prevail, and a battle-field was selected on a plain just outside the South Gate of the city.
The battle-field was intersected by the same small frozen rivulet which also crosses Seoul; and it was on the western side, near the city wall, where stood a low hill, that on the day appointed I took up my position to view the fight, sketch and note-book in hand.
The two armies duly arrived, and placed themselves in position, the butchers on one side of the stream, the plasterers on the other.
There were altogether about eighteen hundred men in the field, that is to say, about nine hundred on each side.
As I could not get a very good view from my high point of vantage, I foolishly descended to the valley to inspect the fighting trim of the combatants, with the result that when the signal for the battle to begin was given I found myself under a shower of missiles of all weights and sizes, which poured down upon me with incredible rapidity and solidity.
Piles of stones had been previously massed together by the belligerent parties, and fresh supplies came pelting down incessantly.
I must acknowledge I did not enjoy my position at all, for the stones went whistling past, above my head, fired as they were with tremendous force by means of slings.
The confusion was great.
Some men were busy collecting the stones into heaps again, while others were running to and fro--going to fetch, or carrying, fresh ammunition to the front; and all the time the two armies were gradually approaching one another until at last they came together on the banks of the narrow stream.
Here, considering the well-directed pelting of stones, it was difficult to say which army would succeed in dislodging the other.
Those on the opposite side to where I was made a rush upon us, but were fired upon with such increased vigour that they were repulsed; then, however, concentrating their forces on one point, they made a fresh attack and broke right into our ranks, fighting _corps à corps_, and pushing back the men on my side, until the whole of their contingent was brought over to our side of the stream.
I was not, of course, taking any active part in the fighting, but, seeing the bad turn the struggle was assuming, I made up my mind that I was destined to have my own skull broken before the fray was over.
Though the duelling was fierce, however, each man being pitted against his opponent with clubs and drawn knives, and hammering or stabbing at him to his heart's content, I, somehow, was in no way molested, except of course, that I was naturally much knocked about and bruised, and several times actually came in contact, and face to face, with the irate enemy.
If you can imagine eighteen hundred people fighting by twos in a comparatively limited space and all crowded together; if you can form an idea of the screaming, howling, and yelling in their excitement; and if you can depict the whole scene with its envelopment of dust, then you will have a fair notion of what that stone-fight was like.
The fighting continued briskly for over three hours, and many a skull was smashed.
Some fell and were trampled to death; others had very severe knife wounds; a few were killed right out.
When the battle was over, few were found to have escaped without a bruise or a wound, and yet, after all, very few were actually killed, considering how viciously they fought.
Indeed, there were in all only about half a dozen dead bodies left on the battle-field when the combatants departed to the sound of the "big bell" which announced the closing of the city gates.
After a long discussion on the part of the leaders, it was announced that the battle was to be considered a draw, and that it would, therefore, have to be renewed on the next afternoon.
The argument, I was told, was that, though the other side had managed to penetrate the camp on my side, yet they had not been able to completely rout us, we having made a firm stand against them.
For the following two or three days, however, it snowed heavily, and the fighting had to be postponed; and on the day it actually did take place, to my great sorrow, I was unable to attend, owing to a command to go to the palace.
To my satisfaction I was subsequently informed that the plasterers, that is to say, my side, had ultimately come off victorious.
The police generally attend these battles, but only to protect the spectators, and not to interfere in any way with the belligerents.
Soldiers are prohibited from taking any active part in fights which have no concern for them; but they may fight as much as ever they please among themselves during the free period allowed by the law.
The fights of the latter class are usually very fierce, and are invariably carried out with bare chest and arms, that their uniforms may not be spoiled.
When that dreadful fortnight of fighting is over, the country again assumes its wonted quiet; new debts are contracted, fresh hatreds and jealousies are fomented, and fresh causes are procured for further stone-battles during the first moon of the next year.
Such is life in Cho-sen, where, with the exception of those fifteen days, there is calm, too much of it, not only in the morning, in accordance with the national designation, but all through both day and night; where, month after month, people vegetate, instead of live, leading the most monotonous of all monotonous lives.
It is not surprising, then, that once a year, as a kind of redeeming point, they feel the want of a vigorous re-action; and, I am sure, for such a purpose as this, they could not have devised anything wilder or more exciting than a stone-battle.
The King himself follows with the utmost interest the results of the important battles fought out between the different guilds, and reports of the victories obtained are always conveyed to him at once, either by the leaders of the conquering parties, or through some high official at Court.
CHAPTER XIX Fires--The greatest peril--A curious way of saving one's house--The anchor of safety--How it worked--Making an opposition wind--Saved by chance--A good trait in the native character--Useful friends.
I was one evening at a dinner-party, at one of the Consulates, when, in the course of the frugal repast, one of the servants came in with the news that a large conflagration had broken out in the road of the Big-bell, and that many houses had already been burnt down.
The "big-bell" itself was said to be in great danger of being destroyed.
Giving way to my usual curiosity, and thinking that it would be interesting to see how houses burn in Cho-sen, I begged of my host to excuse me, left all the good things on the table, and ran off to the scene of the fire.
As the servant had announced, the fire was, indeed, in close proximity to the "big-bell."
Two or three large houses belonging to big merchants were blazing fast, the neighbouring dwellings being in great danger of following suit.
There is in a Corean house but little that can burn, except the sliding doors and windows, and the few articles of furniture and clothing; so that, as a general rule, after the first big flare-up, the fire goes out of its own accord, unless, as was the case in the present instance, the roofs are supported by old rafters, which also catch fire.
What the Coreans consider the greatest of dangers in such contingencies happens when the heavy beam which forms the chief support for the whole weight of the roof in the centre catches fire.
Then, if any wind happens to be blowing, sparks fly on all the neighbouring thatched roofs, and there is no possibility of stopping a disaster.
Such things as fire-engines or pumps are quite unknown in the country, and, even if there were any, they would be useless in winter time, owing to the severe cold which freezes all the water.
On the night in question, that was practically what happened.
Two houses adjoining one another were burnt out, and, the roofs having crumbled away, the long thick beams alone were left in position, supported at either end by the stone walls of the houses, and still blazing away, and placing the neighbouring houses that had thatched roofs in considerable danger.
I was much amused at a Corean, the owner of one of these latter, who, to save his thatched shanty from the flames, pulled it down.
His efforts in this direction were, however, of no avail in the end; for the inflammable materials, having been left in the roadway in the immediate neighbourhood of the conflagration, caught fire and were consumed.
The King had been informed of the occurrence, a very rare one in Seoul, and had immediately dispatched a hundred soldiers to--look on, and to help, if necessary.
Some individuals, too, more enterprising than the rest, exerted themselves to draw water from the neighbouring wells; but, by the time they had returned to the spot where it was required, it was converted into one big lump of ice.
Finally, recourse was had to the old Corean method of putting out the fire, namely, by breaking the beam, not an easy job by any means, and then, when it had fallen, covering it with earth.
The soldiers had brought with them--conceive what?
A ship's anchor!
To this anchor was tied a long thick rope.
Their object was, of course, to fix the anchor to the burning beam, which being done, fifty, sixty or more strong men could pull the rope, and so break the beam in two and cause it to fall.
Well and good; but where was the warrior to be found who would volunteer to go up on the summit of the frail mud-and-stone wall and hook the anchor in the right place The affair now wore a different aspect altogether, no one being willing to go; whereupon the officer in command reprimanded his troops for their lack of pluck.
Among the soldiers, however, there was one man, stout and good-natured looking; and he, being taken aback apparently by the officer's remarks, at once asserted that he, at all events, was not lacking in courage, and would go.
For him, accordingly, a ladder was provided, and up he went, carrying the anchor on his back.
When he reached the last step, he stopped and, turning to harangue the people, told them that the beam was a solid one, and that a very hard pull would be required; after which, amid the applause and cheering of the spectators, he balanced himself on the wall and threw the anchor across the beam.
A body of men, about a hundred strong, then seized the rope and kept it in tension.
Next, in a commanding tone of voice, our brave hero on the wall gave the signal to start, when, all of a sudden, and much sooner than he had expected, with the vigorous pull the anchor dug a groove in the carbonised wood, and, slipping away, caught him in its barbs across his chest, and dragged him with a fearful bump on to the road, with a great quantity of burning straw and wood, amidst which he was dragged for nearly twenty yards before they were able to stop.
After this compulsory and unexpected jump, it was a miracle that he was not killed; for the height was over fourteen feet, and the course traversed through the air over twenty.
Notwithstanding this, however, when he was at length rescued from the grasp which the anchor kept on him with its benevolent arms, though considerably shaken, he did not seem much the worse.
Still, being asked to go again and hook the ungrateful grapnel a second time to the still burning beam, he declined with thanks and a comical gesture which sent everybody into screams of laughter.
After this another man volunteered, and he, being more cautious in his method of procedure, was successful in his efforts.
So much time, however, had been wasted over these proceedings, that now another house was burning fast, and by-and-by others also got attacked.
As ill-luck would have it, the wind rose, to the great horror of the inhabitants whose houses were to windward.
Many of their abodes had thatched roofs, and these seemed certain to go.
The sparks flew in abundance across the road, and nothing, except a change of the wind, could now save those houses.
The simple-minded Coreans, however, attempted a curious dodge, which I heard afterwards is in general use under such circumstances.
Numerous ladders having been procured, men and women climbed on to the roofs which were in peril.
What do you suppose they intended to do?
I am sure you will never guess.
They went up for no less a purpose than to manufacture another wind by way of opposition to the strong breeze that was blowing towards them.
Here is how they did it: they all stood in a row at intervals on the upper edges of the roofs, and, having previously removed, the men their coats and the women their cloaks, they waved these rapidly and violently together, in the full assurance that they were getting the upper hand in the contest against the unkind spirits who superintended gales and breezes.
All this went on in the most ludicrous manner; and, as soon as one person was exhausted, he was immediately replaced by another, prayers at the same time being offered up to the spirits as well of the fires as of the wind.
The loudness of these prayers, I may add, grew and decreased in intensity, according to the aspect which the fire took from moment to moment; if a flame rose up higher than usual, louder prayers were hurriedly offered, and if the fire at times almost went out, then the spirits were for the time being left alone.
The conflagration went on for a considerable number of hours and destroyed several houses.
No one sustained any serious injury, though one old man, who was paralytic and deaf, had a very narrow escape.
He had got left, either purposely or by mistake, in one of the houses.
Two out of three of the rooms had already burnt out, and he was in the third.
And yet, when they had pulled down the outside wall and brought him safely out, he expressed himself as astonished at being so treated, having neither heard that any fire was in progress, nor being aware that two-thirds of his own house had already been destroyed!
Here again, let me note a good trait in the Corean character.
Whenever, through any unexpected occurrence, a man loses his house and furniture, and so gets reduced from comparative wealth, say, for seldom does a Corean possess more, to misery and want; in such circumstances his friends do not run away from him, as usually is the case in more civilised countries; no, instead of this, they come forward and help him to re-build his house, lend him clothes and the more necessary utensils of domestic use, and, generally speaking, make themselves agreeable and useful all round, until he can spread out his wings once again, and fly by himself.
Thus it is, that when a man's house has been burnt out it is no uncommon occurrence for friends or even strangers to put him up and feed him in their own homes until he has re-constructed his nest.
Looking, therefore, at both sides of the medal, the man of Cho-sen may have a great many bad qualities from our point of view, yet he also undoubtedly possesses some virtues on which we who are supposed to be more civilised and more charitable, cannot pride ourselves.
Believe me, when things are taken all round, there is after all but little difference between the Heathen and the Christian; nay, the solid charity and generosity of the first is often superior to the advertised philanthropy of the other.
CHAPTER XX A trip to Poo-kan--A curious monastery.
One of the most interesting excursions in the neighbourhood of Seoul, is that to the Poo-kan fortress.
The pleasantest way of making it is to start from the West Gate of Seoul and proceed thence either on horseback or on foot, along the Pekin Pass road, past the artificial cut in the rocks, until a smaller road, a mere path, is reached, which branches off the main road and leads directly to the West Gate of the Poo-kan fortress.
This path goes over hilly ground, and the approaches to the West Gate of the fortress are exceedingly picturesque.
The gate itself much resembles any of those of Seoul, only being of smaller proportions.
It is, however, situated in a most lovely spot.
As soon as we have entered, a pretty valley lies disclosed to our eyes, with rocky mountains surrounding it, the highest peak of which towers up towards the East.
The formation of these hills is most peculiar and even fantastic.
One of them, the most remarkable of all, is in the shape of a round dome, and consists of a gigantic semi-spherical rock.
Following the path, then, which leads from the West to the South Gate, and which winds its way up steep hills, one comes at last to the temples.
These are probably, the best-preserved and most interesting in the neighbourhood of the Corean capital.
When I visited them, the monks were extremely polite and showed me everything that was of any note.
The temples were in a much better state of preservation than is usual in the land of Cho-sen, and the ornaments, and paintings on the wooden part under the roof were in bright colours, as if they had been only recently restored.
There are, near these temples, by the way, tablets put up in memory of different personages.
In other respects, they were exactly similar to those I have already described in a previous chapter.
At last, on the left hand side, I came upon the old palace.
As with all the other palaces, so in this case there are many low buildings for the inferior officials besides a larger one in the centre, to which the King can retreat in time of war when the capital is in danger.
The ravages of time, however, have been hard at work, and this place of safety for the crowned heads of Corea is now nothing but a mass of ruins.
The roofs of the smaller houses have in most cases fallen through, owing to the decayed condition of the wooden rafters, and the main building itself is in a dreadful state of dilapidation.
The _ensemble_, nevertheless, as one stands a little way off and looks at the conglomeration of dwellings, is very picturesque; this effect being chiefly due, I have little doubt, to the tumble-down and dirty aspect of the place.
As the houses are built on hilly ground, roof after roof can be seen with the palace standing above them all in the distance, while the battlements of the ancient wall form a nice background to the picture.
[Illustration: A MONK] The most picturesque spot of all, however, is somewhat farther on, where the rivulet, coming out of the fortress wall, forms a pretty waterfall.
After climbing a very steep hill, the South Gate is reached--the distance between it and the West Gate being about five miles--and near it is another smaller gate, which differs in shape from all the other gates in Corea, for the simple reason that it is not roofed over.
Just outside the small South Gate, on the edge of a precipice, are constructed against the rocks a pretty little monastery and a temple.
The access to these is by a narrow path, hardly wide enough for one person to walk on without danger of finding himself rolling down the slope of the rock at the slightest slip of the foot.
The Buddhist priest must undoubtedly be of a cautious as well as romantic nature, for otherwise it would be difficult to explain the fact that he always builds his monasteries in picturesque and impregnable spots, which ensure him delightful scenery and pure fresh air in time of peace, combined with utter safety in time of war.
In many ways, the monastery in question reminded me of the Rock-dwellers.
Both temple and monastery were stuck, as it were, in the rocks, and supported by a platform and solid wall of masonry built on the steep incline--a work which must have cost much patience and time.
The temple is crowded inside with rows of small images of all descriptions, some dressed in the long robes and winged hats of the officials, with dignified and placid expressions on their features; others, like fighting warriors, with fierce eyes and a ferocious look about them; but all covered with a good coating of dust and dirt, and all lending themselves as a sporting-ground to the industrious spider.
The latter, disrespecting the high standing of these imperturbable deities, had stretched its webs across from nose to nose, and produced the appearance of a regular field of sporting operations, bestrewn with the spoils of its victims, which were lying dead and half eaten in the webs and on the floor.
The place goes by the name of the "Temple of the Five Hundred Images;" but I think that this number has been greatly exaggerated, though there certainly may be as many as two or three hundred.
The most interesting feature about this monastery is that at the back of the small building where the priests live is a long, narrow cavern in the rocks, with the ceiling blackened by smoke.
This cavern is about a hundred feet in length, and at its further end is a pretty spring of delicious water.
A little shrine, in the shape of an altar, with burning joss-sticks and a few lighted grease candles, stood near the spring, and there a priest was offering up prayers, beating a small gong the while he addressed the deities.
The descent from the temple was very steep and rough, over a path winding among huge boulders and rocks for nearly three miles.
Then, reaching the plain, I accomplished the remainder of the distance to Seoul, over a fairly good road, and on almost level ground, all the way to the North Gate, by which I again entered the capital.
CHAPTER XXI Corean physiognomy--Expressions of pleasure--Displeasure--Contempt--Fear --Pluck--Laughter--Astonishment--Admiration--Sulkiness--Jealousy --Intelligence--Affection--Imagination--Dreams--Insanity--Its principal causes--Leprosy--The family--Men and women--Fecundity--Natural and artificial deformities--Abnormalities--Movements and attitudes--The Corean hand--Conservatism.
The physiognomy of the Coreans is an interesting study, for, with the exception of the Chinese, I know of few nations who can control the movements of their features so well as do the Coreans.
They are trained from their infancy to show neither pain, nor pleasure, grief nor excitement; so that a wonderful placidity is always depicted on their faces.
None the less, however, though slightly, different expressions can be remarked.
For instance, an attitude peculiar to them is to be noticed when they happen to ponder deeply on any subject; they then slightly frown, and with a sudden movement incline the head to the left, after previously drawing the head backwards.
If in good humour or very pleased, again, though the expression is still grave and sedate, there is always a vivid sparkle to be detected in the generally sleepy eyes; and, curiously enough, while in our case the corners of the mouths generally curl up under such circumstances, theirs, on the contrary, are drawn downwards.
Where the Coreans--and I might have said all Asiatics--excel, is in their capacity to show contempt.
They do this in the most gentleman-like manner one can imagine.
They raise the head slowly, looking at the person they despise with a half-bored, half "I do not care a bit" look; then, leisurely closing the eyes and opening them again, they turn the head away with a very slight expiration from the nose.
Fear--for those, at least, who cannot control it--is to all appearance a somewhat stronger emotion.
The eyes are wide open and become staring, the nostrils are spread wide, and the under lip hangs quivering, while the neck and body contract, and the hands, with fingers stiffly bent, are brought up nearly as high as the head.
The yellowish skin on such occasions generally assumes a cadaverous whitish green colour which is pitiful to behold.
On the other hand, when pluck is shown, instead of fear, a man will draw himself up, with his arms down and hands tightly closed, and his mouth will assume a placid yet firm expression, the lips being firmly shut (a thing very unusual with Coreans), and the corners tending downwards, while a frown becomes clearly defined upon his brow.
Laughter is seldom indulged in to any very great extent among the upper classes, who think it undignified to show in a noisy manner the pleasure which they derive from whatever it may be.
Among the lower specimens of Corean humanity, however, sudden explosions of merriment are often noticeable.
The Corean enjoys sarcasm, probably more than anything else in the world; and caricature delights him.
I remember once drawing a caricature of an official and showing it to a friend of his, who, in consequence, so lost the much-coveted air of dignity, and went into such fits, that his servants had to come to his rescue and undo his waist-girdle.
This, having occurred after a hearty meal, led to his being seized by a violent cough, and becoming subsequently sick.
Were I quite sure of not being murdered by my readers, I would like to call it _see_-sickness, for it was caused by--seeing a joke!
Astonishment is always expressed by a comical countenance.
Let me give you an illustration.
When we anchored at Fusan in the _Higo-Maru_, many Coreans came on board to inspect the ship; and, as I looked towards the shore with the captain's powerful long-sight glasses, several natives collected round me to see what I was doing.
I asked one of them to look through, and never did I see a man more amazed, than he did, when he saw some one on the shore, with whom he was acquainted, brought so close to him by the glasses as to make him inclined to enter into a very excited conversation with him.
His astonishment was even greater when, removing his eyes from the lens, he saw everything resume its natural position.
When he had repeated this experiment several times, he put the glasses down, looked at them curiously with his eyebrows raised, his mouth pinched, and his hands spread apart at about the height of his waist, and then looked at me.
Again did he glance at the optical instrument, with his mouth wide open; then, making a comical movement of distrust, he quickly departed whence he had come.
When he had got fairly into his row-boat, he entered into a most animated conversation with his fellows, and, judging by his motions as he put his hands up to his eyes, I could see that the whole subject was his experience of what he had seen through the "foreign devil's" pair of glasses.
Admiration is to a great extent, a modification of astonishment, and is by the Coreans expressed more by utterance than by any very marked expression of the face.
Still, the eyes are opened more than usual, and the eyebrows are raised, and the lips slightly parted, sifting the breath, though not quite so loudly as in Japan.
Another curious Corean expression is to be seen when the children are sulky.
Our little ones generally protrude their lips in a tubular form, and bend the head forward, but the Cho-senese child does exactly the reverse.
He generally throws his head back and hangs his lips, keeping the mouth open, and making his frown with the upper part of his face.
Jealousy in the case of the women finds expression in a look somewhat similar to the above, with an additional vicious sparkle in the eyes.
Notwithstanding the fact that it is not uncommon to hear Coreans being classified among barbarians, I must confess that, taking a liberal view of their constitution, they always struck me as being extremely intelligent and quick at acquiring knowledge.
To learn a foreign language seems to them quite an easy task, and whenever they take an interest in the subject of their studies they show a great deal of perseverance and good-will.
They possess a wonderfully sensible reasoning faculty, coupled with an amazing quickness of perception; a fact which one hardly expects, judging by their looks; for, at first sight, they rather impress one as being sleepy, and dull of comprehension.
The Corean is also gifted with a very good memory, and with a certain amount of artistic power.
Generally speaking, he is of an affectionate frame of mind, though he considers it bad form to show by outward sign any such thing as affection.
He almost tends to effeminacy in his thoughtful attentions to those he likes; and he generally feels much hurt, though silently, if his attentions are not appreciated or returned.
For instance, when you meet a Corean with whom you are acquainted, he invariably asks after the health of yourself, and all your relations and friends.
Should you not yourself be as keen in inquiring after his family and acquaintances, he would probably be mortally offended.
One of the drawbacks of the Corean mind is that it is often carried away by an over-vivid imagination.
In this, they reminded me much of the Spaniards and the Italians.
Their perception seems to be so keen that frequently they see more than really is visible.
They are much given to exaggeration, not only in what they say, but also in their representations in painting and sculpture.
In the matters both of conversation and of drawing, the same ideas will be found in Cho-sen to repeat themselves constantly, more or less cleverly expressed, according to the differently gifted individuality of the artist.
The average Corean seems to learn things quickly, but of what they learn, some things remain rooted in their brains, while others appear to escape from it the moment they have been grasped.
There is a good deal of volubility about their utterances, and, though visibly they do not seem very subject to strong emotions, judging from their conversation, one would feel inclined to say that they were.
Another thing that led me to this suspicion was the observation that the average Corean is much given to dreaming, in the course of which he howls, shouts, talks and shakes himself to his heart's content.
This habit of dreaming is to a large extent due, I imagine, to their mode of sleeping flat on their backs on the heated floors, which warm their spines, and act on their brains; though it may also, in addition to that be accounted for by the intensity of the daily emotions re-acting by night on over-excited nervous systems.
I have often observed Coreans sleep, and they always impressed me as being extremely restless in their slumbers.
As for snoring, too, the Coreans are entitled to the Championship of the world.
The Coreans are much affected mentally by dreams, and being, as we have already seen, an extremely superstitious race, they attach great importance to their nocturnal visions.
A good deal of hard _cash_ is spent in getting the advice of astrologers, who pretend to understand and explain the occult art, and pleasure or consternation is thus usually the result of what might have been explained naturally either by one of the above-named causes, or by the victim having feasted the previous evening on something indigestible.
Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the Corean mind is seldom thrown off its balance altogether.
Idiocy is not frequent, and lunacy is uncommon.
Insanity, when it does exist, generally exhibits itself under the form of melancholia and dementia, and is more frequently found among the upper than among the lower classes.
With the men it is generally due to intemperance and excesses, and is occasionally accompanied by paralysis.
Among the women, the only cases which came under my notice were of wives whose husbands had many concubines, and of young widows.
Suicide is not unfrequently practised among the latter; partly in consequence of the strict Corean etiquette, but often also caused by insanity when it does not follow immediately upon the husband's death.
Another cause of melancholia--chiefly, however, among the lower classes--is a dreadful complaint, which has found its way among the natives in its most repulsive form.
Many are affected by it, and no cure for it seems to have been devised by the indigenous doctors.
The accounts one hears in the country of its ravages are too revolting to be repeated in these pages, and I shall limit myself to this.
Certain forms of insanity are undoubtedly a common sequence to it.
Leprosy also prevails in Cho-sen, and in the more serious cases seems to affect the brain, producing idiocy.
This disease is caused by poverty of blood, and is, of course, hereditary.
I have seen two forms of it in Cho-sen; in the one case, the skin turns perfectly white, almost shining like satin, while in the other--a worse kind, I believe--the skin is a mass of brown sores, and the flesh is almost entirely rotted away from the bones.
The Coreans have no hospitals or asylums in which evils like these can be properly tended.
Those affected with insanity are generally looked after by their own families, and, if considered dangerous, are usually chained up in rooms, either by a riveted iron bracelet, fastened to a short heavy chain, or, more frequently, by an anklet over the right foot.
Families in Corea are generally small in number.
I have no exact statistics at hand, for none were obtainable; but, so far as I could judge from observation, the males and females in the population are about equal in number.
If anything, the women slightly preponderate.
The average family seldom includes more than two children.
The death-rate of Cho-sen infants is great, and many reasons can account for the fact.
In the first place, all children in Corea, even the stronger ones who survive, are extremely delicate until a certain age is attained, when they seem to pick up and become stronger.
This weakness is hereditary, especially among the upper classes, of whom very few powerful men are to be found, owing to their dissolute and effeminate life.
Absolute sterility in women is not an uncommon phenomenon, and want of virile power in the male part of the community is also often the subject of complaint; many quaint drugs and methods being adopted to make up for the want of it, and to stimulate the sexual desire.
A good many of the remedies resorted to by the Corean noblemen under such circumstances are of Chinese manufacture and importation.
Certain parts of the tiger, dried and reduced to powder, are credited with the possession of wonderful strengthening qualities, and fetch large sums.
Some parts of the donkey, also, when the animal is killed during the spring and under special circumstances, are equally appreciated.
The lower classes of Cho-sen--as is the case in most countries--are more prolific than the upper ones.
The parents are both healthier and more robust, and the children in consequence are stronger and more numerous, but even among these classes large families are seldom or never found.
Taken as a whole, the population of Corea is, I believe, a slowly decreasing quantity.
The Corean is in some respects very sensible, if compared with his neighbours.
Deformities, artificially produced, are never found in Corea.
In civilised Japan, on the other hand, as we all know, the women blacken their teeth and shave their eyebrows, while there are numberless people in the lower classes who are tattooed from head to foot with designs of all kinds.
In China, too, people are occasionally deformed for the sake of lucre, as, for instance, to be exhibited at village shows, and the Chinese damsel would not consider herself fascinating enough if her feet were not distorted to such an extent as to be shapeless, and almost useless.
The head-bands worn by the men in Corea are probably the only causes which tend to modify the shape of their heads, and that only to a very small degree.
These head-bands are worn so very tightly from their earliest youth, that I have often noticed men--when the head-band was removed--show a certain flattening of the upper part of the forehead, due undoubtedly to the continuous pressure of this head-gear.
In such cases, however, the cranial deformation--though always noticeable--is but slight, and, of course, unintentionally caused.
The skull, as a whole, in the case of those who have worn the head-band is a little more elongated than it is in the case of those few who have not; the elongation being upwards and slightly backwards.
Natural abnormalities are more frequent.
I have seen numerous cases of goitre, and very often the so-called hare-lip.
Webbed fingers also are frequently noticed; while inguinal hernia, both as a congenital and as an acquired affection, is unfortunately all too common.
The natives do not undergo any special treatment until the complaint assumes alarming proportions, when a kind of belt is worn, or bandages of home manufacture are used.
These are the more common abnormalities.
To them, however, might also be added manifestations of albinism--though I have never seen an absolute albino in Corea--such as, large patches of white hair among the black.
Red hair is rarely seen.
The Corean, apart, that is, from these occasional defects, is well proportioned, and of good carriage.
When he stands erect his body is well-balanced; and when he walks, though somewhat hampered by his padded clothes, his step is rational.
He sensibly walks with his toes turned slightly in, and he takes firm and long strides.
The gait is not energetic, but, nevertheless, the Coreans are excellent pedestrians, and cover long distances daily, if only they are allowed plenty to eat and permission to smoke their long pipes from time to time.
Their bodies seem very supple, and like those of nearly all Asiatics, their attitudes are invariably graceful.
In walking, they slightly swing their arms and bend their bodies forward, except, I should say, the high officials, whose steps are exaggeratedly marked, and whose bodies are kept upright and purposely stiff.
One of the things which will not fail to impress a careful observer is the beauty of the Corean hand.
The generality of Europeans possess bad hands, from an artistic point of view, but the average Corean, even among the lower classes, has them exceedingly well-shaped, with long supple fingers, somewhat pointed at the end; and nails well formed and prettily shaped, though to British ideas, grown far too long.
It is not a powerful hand, mind you, but it is certainly most artistic; and, further, it is attached to a small wrist in the most graceful way, never looking stumpy, as so often is the case with many of us.
The Coreans attach much importance to their hands; much more, indeed, than they do to their faces; and special attention is paid to the growth of the nails.
In summer time these are kept very clean; but in winter, the water being very cold, the cleanliness of their limbs, "_laisse un peu à desirer_."
I have frequently seen a beautifully-shaped hand utterly spoilt by the nails being lined with black, and the knuckles being as filthy as if they had never been dipped in water.
But these are only lesser native failings; and have we not all our faults?
The two qualities I most admired in the Corean were his scepticism and his conservatism.
He seemed to take life as it came, and never worried much about it.
He had, too, practically no religion and no morals.
He cared about little, had an instinctive attachment for ancestral habits, and showed a thorough dislike to change and reform.
And this was not so much as regards matters of State and religion, for little or nothing does the Corean care about either of these, as in respect of the daily proceedings of life.
To the foreign observer, many of his ways and customs are at first sight incomprehensible, and even reprehensible; yet, when by chance his mode of arguing out matters for himself is clearly understood, we will almost invariably find that he is correct.
After all, every one, whether barbarian or otherwise, knows best himself how to please himself.
The poor harmless Corean, however, is not allowed that privilege.
He, as if by sarcasm, calls his country by the retiring name of the "Hermit Realm" and the more poetic one of the "Land of the Morning Calm"; "a coveted calm" indeed, which has been a dream to the country, but never a reality, while, as for its hermit life, it has been only too often troubled by objectionable visitors whom he detests, yet whom, nevertheless, he is bound to receive with open arms, helpless as he is to resist them.
Poor Corea!
Bad as its Government was and is, it is heart-rending to any one who knows the country, and its peaceful, good-natured people, to see it overrun and impoverished by foreign marauders.
Until the other day, she was at rest, heard of by few, and practically forgotten by everybody, to all intents an independent kingdom, since China had not for many years exercised her rights of suzerainty,[4] when, to satisfy the ambition of a childish nation, she suddenly finds herself at the mercy of everybody, and with a dark and most disastrous future before her!
Poor Corea!
A sad day has come for you!
You, who were so attractive, because so quaint and so retiring, will nevermore see that calm which has ever been the yearning of your patriot sons!
Many evils are now before you, but, of all the great calamities that might befall you, I can conceive of none greater than an attempt to convert you into a civilised nation!
FOOTNOTES: [4] After a cessation of many years a tribute was again exacted from Corea in 1890, in consequence of overtures being made to Corea by Japan, which displeased China.
INDEX Abnormalities Adoption of Children Adultery Alphabet Astronomers Archery Army instructors Aryan Bachelors Beggars Beverages Big Bell Body-snatching Bonzes Bridges " (crossing the) Buddha Buddhism Burial ground Cereals Chang Charity Chemulpo Children Chinese Customs Service Chinese invasions Chinese settlement Cho-sen City wall Clans Classes and castes Clothes Compradores Concubines Conflagrations Confucianism Conservatism Consulate (British) " (German) Coolies Corea (the word) Cotton production Crucifixion Cultivation Currency Decorations Deformities Divorce Documents Dragons Drainage Dreams Education Eunuchs Evil spirits Examinations Executions Exile Exorcisms Expressions Expression after Death Falcons Families Features Feron (l'Abbé) Fights " (Stone-) Filial love Fire-signals Floggings Food Foreigners Free nights for men Funerals Furniture Fusan Fuyn race Games Gardens Gates (City) Gate of the Dead Ghosts Girls Gods (minor) Graves Greathouse (Clarence R.) Guechas or Geishas Guilds Hair-dressing Hanabusa Hands Han River Haunted palaces Head-gear Hiaksai Hospitality Hotels Houses House-warming Illumination (Modes of) Inns Intelligence Japanese " settlements Jinrickshas Joss-houses Kim-Ka-Chim King Kite-flying Kitchen Kiung-sang Korai Kung-wo Language Lanterns Law Legations (American, Chinese, Japanese, Russian) Le Gendre (General) Leopards Leprosy Lin Lunacy Mafu Maki Man of the Gates, The Mapu Marks Marriages Married Men Mats Messengers Metempsychosis Mile posts Min-san-ho Min-Young-Chun Min-Young-Huan Missionaries Monasteries Mongolian type Mono-wheeled chair Mourning Mulberry plantation Music Names " (women's) Nanzam (Mount) New Year's festivities Nunneries Offerings Oppert Oxen Pagoda Phoenix Palaces Palace (Royal) " (Summer) Palanquins Paternal love Pekin Pass Physiognomy Pipes Plank-walk (The) Pockets Police Politics Ponies Poo-kan Port Hamilton Prayer-Books Procession (King's) Proverbs Punishments Queen (The) Religion Respect for the Old Rice Roads Rosary Royal Family Russian villa Sacred Trees Sacrifices Saddles Satsuma ware Scenery Scepticism Schools Sea-lions or tigers Sedan-chairs Self-denial Seoul Seradin Sabatin (Mr.) Serfdom Shamanism Shinra Shoes Shops Singers Smoke signals Snakes Soldiers Sorcerers Spectacles Spinning-tops Spirits Spirits of the mountains Square-board (The) Sterility Stone-heaps Streets Students Studies Suicides Sunto Tailors Tai-wen-kun Telephones Temples Throne Tide Tigers Tooth-stone Tortoise Toys Umbrella hat Wang Washing clothes Water-coolies Wedding ceremony Widows Wind-making Wives Women Women's looks Women's rights Wuju kingdom
This eBook was created by Steve Solomon (www.soilandhealth.org) and Charles Aldarondo (pg@aldarondo.net).
FARMERS OF FORTY CENTURIES OR PERMANENT AGRICULTURE IN CHINA, KOREA AND JAPAN By F. H. KING, D. Sc.
1911 PREFACE By DR. L. H. BAILEY.
We have not yet gathered up the experience of mankind in the tilling of the earth; yet the tilling of the earth is the bottom condition of civilization.
If we are to assemble all the forces and agencies that make for the final conquest of the planet, we must assuredly know how it is that all the peoples in all the places have met the problem of producing their sustenance out of the soil.
We have had few great agricultural travelers and few books that describe the real and significant rural conditions.
Of natural history travel we have had very much; and of accounts of sights and events perhaps we have had too many.
There are, to be sure, famous books of study and travel in rural regions, and some of them, as Arthur Young's "Travels in France," have touched social and political history; but for the most part, authorship of agricultural travel is yet undeveloped.
The spirit of scientific inquiry must now be taken into this field, and all earth-conquest must be compared and the results be given to the people that work.
This was the point of view in which I read Professor King's manuscript.
It is the writing of a well-trained observer who went forth not to find diversion or to depict scenery and common wonders, but to study the actual conditions of life of agricultural peoples.
We in North America are wont to think that we may instruct all the world in agriculture, because our agricultural wealth is great and our exports to less favored peoples have been heavy; but this wealth is great because our soil is fertile and new, and in large acreage for every person.
We have really only begun to farm well.
The first condition of farming is to maintain fertility.
This condition the oriental peoples have met, and they have solved it in their way.
We may never adopt particular methods, but we can profit vastly by their experience.
With the increase of personal wants in recent time.
the newer countries may never reach such density of population as have Japan and China; but we must nevertheless learn the first lesson in the conservation of natural resources, which are the resources of the land.
This is the message that Professor King brought home from the East.
This book on agriculture should have good effect in establishing understanding between the West and the East.
If there could be such an interchange of courtesies and inquiries on these themes as is suggested by Professor King, as well as the interchange of athletics and diplomacy and commerce, the common productive people on both sides should gain much that they could use; and the results in amity should be incalculable.
It is a misfortune that Professor King could not have lived to write the concluding "Message of China and Japan to the World."
It would have been a careful and forceful summary of his study of eastern conditions.
At the moment when the work was going to the printer, he was called suddenly to the endless journey and his travel here was left incomplete.
But he bequeathed us a new piece of literature, to add to his standard writings on soils and on the applications of physics and devices to agriculture.
Whatever he touched he illuminated.
CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION FIRST GLIMPSES OF JAPAN GRAVE LANDS OF CHINA TO HONGKONG AND CANTON UP THE SI-KIANG, WEST RIVER EXTENT OF CANALIZATION AND SURFACE FITTING OF FIELDS SOME CUSTOMS OF THE COMMON PEOPLE THE FUEL PROBLEM, BUILDING AND TEXTILE MATERIALS TRAMPS AFIELD THE UTILIZATION OF WASTE IN THE SHANTUNG PROVINCE ORIENTALS CROWD BOTH TIME AND SPACE RICE CULTURE IN THE ORIENT SILK CULTURE THE TEA INDUSTRY ABOUT TIENTSIN MANCHURIA AND KOREA RETURN TO JAPAN INTRODUCTION A word of introduction is needed to place the reader at the best view point from which to consider what is said in the following pages regarding the agricultural practices and customs of China, Korea and Japan.
It should be borne in mind that the great factors which today characterize, dominate and determine the agricultural and other industrial operations of western nations were physical impossibilities to them one hundred years ago, and until then had been so to all people.
It should be observed, too, that the United States as yet is a nation of but few people widely scattered over a broad virgin land with more than twenty acres to the support of every man, woman and child, while the people whose practices are to be considered are toiling in fields tilled more than three thousand years and who have scarcely more than two acres per capita,* more than one-half of which is uncultivable mountain land.
*[Footnote: This figure was wrongly stated in the first edition as one acre, owing to a mistake in confusing the area of cultivated land with total area.]
Again, the great movement of cargoes of feeding stuffs and mineral fertilizers to western Europe and to the eastern United States began less than a century ago and has never been possible as a means of maintaining soil fertility in China, Korea or Japan, nor can it be continued indefinitely in either Europe or America.
These importations are for the time making tolerable the waste of plant food materials through our modern systems of sewage disposal and other faulty practices; but the Mongolian races have held all such wastes, both urban and rural, and many others which we ignore, sacred to agriculture, applying them to their fields.
We are to consider some of the practices of a virile race of some five hundred millions of people who have an unimpaired inheritance moving with the momentum acquired through four thousand years; a people morally and intellectually strong, mechanically capable, who are awakening to a utilization of all the possibilities which science and invention during recent years have brought to western nations; and a people who have long dearly loved peace but who can and will fight in self defense if compelled to do so.
We had long desired to stand face to face with Chinese and Japanese farmers; to walk through their fields and to learn by seeing some of their methods, appliances and practices which centuries of stress and experience have led these oldest farmers in the world to adopt.
We desired to learn how it is possible, after twenty and perhaps thirty or even forty centuries, for their soils to be made to produce sufficiently for the maintenance of such dense populations as are living now in these three countries.
We have now had this opportunity and almost every day we were instructed, surprised and amazed at the conditions and practices which confronted us whichever way we turned; instructed in the ways and extent to which these nations for centuries have been and are conserving and utilizing their natural resources, surprised at the magnitude of the returns they are getting from their fields, and amazed at the amount of efficient human labor cheerfully given for a daily wage of five cents and their food, or for fifteen cents, United States currency, without food.
The three main islands of Japan in 1907 had a population of 46,977,003 maintained on 20,000 square miles of cultivated field.
This is at the rate of more than three people to each acre, and of 2,349 to each square mile; and yet the total agricultural imports into Japan in 1907 exceeded the agricultural exports by less than one dollar per capita.
If the cultivated land of Holland is estimated at but one-third of her total area, the density of her population in 1905 was, on this basis, less than one-third that of Japan in her three main islands.
At the same time Japan is feeding 69 horses and 56 cattle, nearly all laboring animals, to each square mile of cultivated field, while we were feeding in 1900 but 30 horses and mules per same area, these being our laboring animals.
As coarse food transformers Japan was maintaining 16,500,000 domestic fowl, 825 per square mile, but only one for almost three of her people.
We were maintaining, in 1900, 250,600,000 poultry, but only 387 per square mile of cultivated field and yet more than three for each person.
Japan's coarse food transformers in the form of swine, goats and sheep aggregated but 13 to the square mile and provided but one of these units for each 180 of her people while in the United States in 1900 there were being maintained, as transformers of grass and coarse grain into meat and milk, 95 cattle, 99 sheep and 72 swine per each square mile of improved farms.
In this reckoning each of the cattle should be counted as the equivalent of perhaps five of the sheep and swine, for the transforming power of the dairy cow is high.
On this basis we are maintaining at the rate of more than 646 of the Japanese units per square mile, and more than five of these to every man, woman and child, instead of one to every 180 of the population, as is the case in Japan.
Correspondingly accurate statistics are not accessible for China but in the Shantung province we talked with a farmer having 12 in his family and who kept one donkey, one cow, both exclusively laboring animals, and two pigs on 2.5 acres of cultivated land where he grew wheat, millet, sweet potatoes and beans.
Here is a density of population equal to 3,072 people, 256 donkeys, 256 cattle and 512 swine per square mile.
In another instance where the holding was one and two-thirds acres the farmer had 10 in his family and was maintaining one donkey and one pig, giving to this farm land a maintenance capacity of 3,840 people, 384 donkeys and 384 pigs to the square mile, or 240 people, 24 donkeys and 24 pigs to one of our forty-acre farms which our farmers regard too small for a single family.
The average of seven Chinese holdings which we visited and where we obtained similar data indicates a maintenance capacity for those lands of 1,783 people, 212 cattle or donkeys and 399 swine,--1,995 consumers and 399 rough food transformers per square mile of farm land.
These statements for China represent strictly rural populations.
The rural population of the United States in 1900 was placed at the rate of 61 per square mile of improved farm land and there were 30 horses and mules.
In Japan the rural population had a density in 1907 of 1,922 per square mile, and of horses and cattle together 125.
The population of the large island of Chungming in the mouth of the Yangtse river, having an area of 270 square miles, possessed, according to the official census of 1902, a density of 3,700 per square mile and yet there was but one large city on the island, hence the population is largely rural.
It could not be other than a matter of the highest industrial, educational and social importance to all nations if there might be brought to them a full and accurate account of all those conditions which have made it possible for such dense populations to be maintained so largely upon the products of Chinese, Korean and Japanese soils.
Many of the steps, phases and practices through which this evolution has passed are irrevocably buried in the past but such remarkable maintenance efficiency attained centuries ago and projected into the present with little apparent decadence merits the most profound study and the time is fully ripe when it should be made.
Living as we are in the morning of a century of transition from isolated to cosmopolitan national life when profound readjustments, industrial, educational and social, must result, such an investigation cannot be made too soon.
It is high time for each nation to study the others and by mutual agreement and co-operative effort, the results of such studies should become available to all concerned, made so in the spirit that each should become coordinate and mutually helpful component factors in the world's progress.
One very appropriate and immensely helpful means for attacking this problem, and which should prove mutually helpful to citizen and state, would be for the higher educational institutions of all nations, instead of exchanging courtesies through their baseball teams, to send select bodies of their best students under competent leadership and by international agreement, both east and west, organizing therefrom investigating bodies each containing components of the eastern and western civilization and whose purpose it should be to study specifically set problems.
Such a movement well conceived and directed, manned by the most capable young men, should create an international acquaintance and spread broadcast a body of important knowledge which would develop as the young men mature and contribute immensely toward world peace and world progress.
If some broad plan of international effort such as is here suggested were organized the expense of maintenance might well be met by diverting so much as is needful from the large sums set aside for the expansion of navies for such steps as these, taken in the interests of world uplift and world peace, could not fail to be more efficacious and less expensive than increase in fighting equipment.
It would cultivate the spirit of pulling together and of a square deal rather than one of holding aloof and of striving to gain unneighborly advantage.
Many factors and conditions conspire to give to the farms and farmers of the Far East their high maintenance efficiency and some of these may be succinctly stated.
The portions of China, Korea and Japan where dense populations have developed and are being maintained occupy exceptionally favorable geographic positions so far as these influence agricultural production.
Canton in the south of China has the latitude of Havana, Cuba, while Mukden in Manchuria, and northern Honshu in Japan are only as far north as New York city, Chicago and northern California.
The United States lies mainly between 50 degrees and 30 degrees of latitude while these three countries lie between 40 degrees and 20 degrees, some seven hundred miles further south.
This difference of position, giving them longer seasons, has made it possible for them to devise systems of agriculture whereby they grow two, three and even four crops on the same piece of ground each year.
In southern China, in Formosa and in parts of Japan two crops of rice are grown; in the Chekiang province there may be a crop of rape, of wheat or barley or of windsor beans or clover which is followed in midsummer by another of cotton or of rice.
In the Shantung province wheat or barley in the winter and spring may be followed in summer by large or small millet, sweet potatoes, soy beans or peanuts.
At Tientsin, 39 deg north, in the latitude of Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Springfield, Illinois, we talked with a farmer who followed his crop of wheat on his small holding with one of onions and the onions with cabbage, realizing from the three crops at the rate of $163, gold, per acre; and with another who planted Irish potatoes at the earliest opportunity in the spring, marketing them when small, and following these with radishes, the radishes with cabbage, realizing from the three crops at the rate of $203 per acre.
Nearly 500,000,000 people are being maintained, chiefly upon the products of an area smaller than the improved farm lands of the United States.
Complete a square on the lines drawn from Chicago southward to the Gulf and westward across Kansas, and there will be enclosed an area greater than the cultivated fields of China, Korea and Japan and from which five times our present population are fed.
The rainfall in these countries is not only larger than that even in our Atlantic and Gulf states, but it falls more exclusively during the summer season when its efficiency in crop production may be highest.
South China has a rainfall of some 80 inches with little of it during the winter, while in our southern states the rainfall is nearer 60 inches with less than one-half of it between June and September.
Along a line drawn from Lake Superior through central Texas the yearly precipitation is about 30 inches but only 16 inches of this falls during the months May to September; while in the Shantung province, China, with an annual rainfall of little more than 24 inches, 17 of these fall during the months designated and most of this in July and August.
When it is stated that under the best tillage and with no loss of water through percolation, most of our agricultural crops require 300 to 600 tons of water for each ton of dry substance brought to maturity, it can be readily understood that the right amount of available moisture, coming at the proper time, must be one of the prime factors of a high maintenance capacity for any soil, and hence that in the Far East, with their intensive methods, it is possible to make their soils yield large returns.
The selection of rice and of the millets as the great staple food crops of these three nations, and the systems of agriculture they have evolved to realize the most from them, are to us remarkable and indicate a grasp of essentials and principles which may well cause western nations to pause and reflect.
Notwithstanding the large and favorable rainfall of these countries, each of the nations have selected the one crop which permits them to utilize not only practically the entire amount of rain which falls upon their fields, but in addition enormous volumes of the run-off from adjacent uncultivable mountain country.
Wherever paddy fields are practicable there rice is grown.
In the three main islands of Japan 56 per cent of the cultivated fields, 11,000 square miles, is laid out for rice growing and is maintained under water from transplanting to near harvest time, after which the land is allowed to dry, to be devoted to dry land crops during the balance of the year, where the season permits.
To anyone who studies the agricultural methods of the Far East in the field it is evident that these people, centuries ago, came to appreciate the value of water in crop production as no other nations have.
They have adapted conditions to crops and crops to conditions until with rice they have a cereal which permits the most intense fertilization and at the same time the ensuring of maximum yields against both drought and flood.
With the practice of western nations in all humid climates, no matter how completely and highly we fertilize, in more years than not yields are reduced by a deficiency or an excess of water.
It is difficult to convey, by word or map, an adequate conception of the magnitude of the systems of canalization which contribute primarily to rice culture.
A conservative estimate would place the miles of canals in China at fully 200,000 and there are probably more miles of canal in China, Korea and Japan than there are miles of railroad in the United States.
China alone has as many acres in rice each year as the United States has in wheat and her annual product is more than double and probably threefold our annual wheat crop, and yet the whole of the rice area produces at least one and sometimes two other crops each year.
The selection of the quick-maturing, drought-resisting millets as the great staple food crops to be grown wherever water is not available for irrigation, and the almost universal planting in hills or drills, permitting intertillage, thus adopting centuries ago the utilization of earth mulches in conserving soil moisture, has enabled these people to secure maximum returns in seasons of drought and where the rainfall is small.
The millets thrive in the hot summer climates; they survive when the available soil moisture is reduced to a low limit, and they grow vigorously when the heavy rains come.
Thus we find in the Far East, with more rainfall and a better distribution of it than occurs in the United States, and with warmer, longer seasons, that these people have with rare wisdom combined both irrigation and dry farming methods to an extent and with an intensity far beyond anything our people have ever dreamed, in order that they might maintain their dense populations.
Notwithstanding the fact that in each of these countries the soils are naturally more than ordinarily deep, inherently fertile and enduring, judicious and rational methods of fertilization are everywhere practiced; but not until recent years, and only in Japan, have mineral commercial fertilizers been used.
For centuries, however, all cultivated lands, including adjacent hill and mountain sides, the canals, streams and the sea have been made to contribute what they could toward the fertilization of cultivated fields and these contributions in the aggregate have been large.
In China, in Korea and in Japan all but the inaccessible portions of their vast extent of mountain and hill lands have long been taxed to their full capacity for fuel, lumber and herbage for green manure and compost material; and the ash of practically all of the fuel and of all of the lumber used at home finds its way ultimately to the fields as fertilizer.
In China enormous quantities of canal mud are applied to the fields, sometimes at the rate of even 70 and more tons per acre.
So, too, where there are no canals, both soil and subsoil are carried into the villages and there between the intervals when needed they are, at the expense of great labor, composted with organic refuse and often afterwards dried and pulverized before being carried back and used on the fields as home-made fertilizers.
Manure of all kinds, human and animal, is religiously saved and applied to the fields in a manner which secures an efficiency far above our own practices.
Statistics obtained through the Bureau of Agriculture, Japan, place the amount of human waste in that country in 1908 at 23,950,295 tons, or 1.75 tons per acre of her cultivated land.
The International Concession of the city of Shanghai, in 1908, sold to a Chinese contractor the privilege of entering residences and public places early in the morning of each day in the year and removing the night soil, receiving therefor more than $31,000, gold, for 78,000 tons of waste.
All of this we not only throw away but expend much larger sums in doing so.
Japan's production of fertilizing material, regularly prepared and applied to the land annually, amounts to more than 4.5 tons per acre of cultivated field exclusive of the commercial fertilizers purchased.
Between Shanhaikwan and Mukden in Manchuria we passed, on June 18th, thousands of tons of the dry highly nitrified compost soil recently carried into the fields and laid down in piles where it was waiting to be "fed to the crops."
It was not until 1888, and then after a prolonged war of more than thirty years, generaled by the best scientists of all Europe, that it was finally conceded as demonstrated that leguminous plants acting as hosts for lower organisms living on their roots are largely responsible for the maintenance of soil nitrogen, drawing it directly from the air to which it is returned through the processes of decay.
But centuries of practice had taught the Far East farmers that the culture and use of these crops are essential to enduring fertility, and so in each of the three countries the growing of legumes in rotation with other crops very extensively for the express purpose of fertilizing the soil is one of their old, fixed practices.
Just before, or immediately after the rice crop is harvested, fields are often sowed to "clover" (Astragalus sinicus) which is allowed to grow until near the next transplanting time when it is either turned under directly, or more often stacked along the canals and saturated while doing so with soft mud dipped from the bottom of the canal.
After fermenting twenty or thirty days it is applied to the field.
And so it is literally true that these old world farmers whom we regard as ignorant, perhaps because they do not ride sulky plows as we do, have long included legumes in their crop rotation, regarding them as indispensable.
Time is a function of every life process as it is of every physical, chemical and mental reaction.
The husbandman is an industrial biologist and as such is compelled to shape his operations so as to conform with the time requirements of his crops.
The oriental farmer is a time economizer beyond all others.
He utilizes the first and last minute and all that are between.
The foreigner accuses the Chinaman of being always long on time, never in a fret, never in a hurry.
This is quite true and made possible for the reason that they are a people who definitely set their faces toward the future and lead time by the forelock.
They have long realized that much time is required to transform organic matter into forms available for plant food and although they are the heaviest users in the world, the largest portion of this organic matter is predigested with soil or subsoil before it is applied to their fields, and at an enormous cost of human time and labor, but it practically lengthens their growing season and enables them to adopt a system of multiple cropping which would not otherwise be possible.
By planting in hills and rows with intertillage it is very common to see three crops growing upon the same field at one time, but in different stages of maturity, one nearly ready to harvest one just coming up, and the other at the stage when it is drawing most heavily upon the soil.
By such practice, with heavy fertilization, and by supplemental irrigation when needful, the soil is made to do full duty throughout the growing season.
Then, notwithstanding the enormous acreage of rice planted each year in these countries, it is all set in hills and every spear is transplanted.
Doing this, they save in many ways except in the matter of human labor, which is the one thing they have in excess.
By thoroughly preparing the seed bed, fertilizing highly and giving the most careful attention, they are able to grow on one acre, during 30 to 50 days, enough plants to occupy ten acres and in the mean time on the other nine acres crops are maturing, being harvested and the fields being fitted to receive the rice when it is ready for transplanting, and in effect this interval of time is added to their growing season.
Silk culture is a great and, in some ways, one of the most remarkable industries of the Orient.
Remarkable for its magnitude; for having had its birthplace apparently in oldest China at least 2700 years B. C.; for having been laid on the domestication of a wild insect of the woods; and for having lived through more than 4000 years, expanding until a million-dollar cargo of the product has been laid down on our western coast and rushed by special fast express to the cast for the Christmas trade.
A low estimate of China's production of raw silk would be 120,000,000 pounds annually, and this with the output of Japan, Korea and a small area of southern Manchuria, would probably exceed 150,000,000 pounds annually, representing a total value of perhaps $700,000,000, quite equaling in value the wheat crop of the United States, but produced on less than one-eighth the area of our wheat fields.
The cultivation of tea in China and Japan is another of the great industries of these nations, taking rank with that of sericulture if not above it in the important part it plays in the welfare of the people.
There is little reason to doubt that this industry has its foundation in the need of something to render boiled water palatable for drinking purposes.
The drinking of boiled water is universally adopted in these countries as an individually available and thoroughly efficient safeguard against that class of deadly disease germs which thus far it has been impossible to exclude from the drinking water of any densely peopled country.
Judged by the success of the most thorough sanitary measures thus far instituted, and taking into consideration the inherent difficulties which must increase enormously with increasing populations, it appears inevitable that modern methods must ultimately fail in sanitary efficiency and that absolute safety can be secured only in some manner having the equivalent effect of boiling drinking water, long ago adopted by the Mongolian races.
In the year 1907 Japan had 124,482 acres of land in tea plantations, producing 60,877,975 pounds of cured tea.
In China the volume annually produced is much larger than that of Japan, 40,000,000 pounds going annually to Tibet alone from the Szechwan province and the direct export to foreign countries was, in 1905, 176,027,255 pounds, and in 1906 it was 180,271,000, so that their annual export must exceed 200,000,000 pounds with a total annual output more than double this amount of cured tea.
But above any other factor, and perhaps greater than all of them combined in contributing to the high maintenance efficiency attained in these countries must be placed the standard of living to which the industrial classes have been compelled to adjust themselves, combined with their remarkable industry and with the most intense economy they practice along every line of effort and of living.
Almost every foot of land is made to contribute material for food, fuel or fabric.
Everything which can be made edible serves as food for man or domestic animals.
Whatever cannot be eaten or worn is used for fuel.
The wastes of the body, of fuel and of fabric worn beyond other use are taken back to the field; before doing so they are housed against waste from weather, compounded with intelligence and forethought and patiently labored with through one, three or even six months, to bring them into the most efficient form to serve as manure for the soil or as feed for the crop.
It seems to be a golden rule with these industrial classes, or if not golden, then an inviolable one, that whenever an extra hour or day of labor can promise even a little larger return then that shall be given, and neither a rainy day nor the hottest sunshine shall be permitted to cancel the obligation or defer its execution.
I FIRST GLIMPSES OF JAPAN We left the United States from Seattle for Shanghai, China, sailing by the northern route, at one P. M. February second, reaching Yokohama February 19th and Shanghai, March 1st.
It was our aim throughout the journey to keep in close contact with the field and crop problems and to converse personally, through interpreters or otherwise, with the farmers, gardeners and fruit growers themselves; and we have taken pains in many cases to visit the same fields or the same region two, three or more times at different intervals during the season in order to observe different phases of the same cultural or fertilization methods as these changed or varied with the season.
Our first near view of Japan came in the early morning of February 19th when passing some three miles off the point where the Pacific passenger steamer Dakota was beached and wrecked in broad daylight without loss of life two years ago.
The high rounded hills were clothed neither in the dense dark forest green of Washington and Vancouver, left sixteen days before, nor yet in the brilliant emerald such as Ireland's hills in June fling in unparalleled greeting to passengers surfeited with the dull grey of the rolling ocean.
This lack of strong forest growth and even of shrubs and heavy herbage on hills covered with deep soil, neither cultivated nor suffering from serious erosion, yet surrounded by favorable climatic conditions, was our first great surprise.
To the southward around the point, after turning northward into the deep bay, similar conditions prevailed, and at ten o'clock we stood off Uraga where Commodore Perry anchored on July 8th, 1853, bearing to the Shogun President Fillmore's letter which opened the doors of Japan to the commerce of the world and, it is to be hoped brought to her people, with their habits of frugality and industry so indelibly fixed by centuries of inheritance, better opportunities for development along those higher lines destined to make life still more worth living.
As the Tosa Maru drew alongside the pier at Yokohama it was raining hard and this had attired an army after the manner of Robinson Crusoe, dressed as seen in Fig.
1, ready to carry you and yours to the Customs house and beyond for one, two, three or five cents.
Strong was the contrast when the journey was reversed and we descended the gang plank at Seattle, where no one sought the opportunity of moving baggage.
Through the kindness of Captain Harrison of the Tosa Maru in calling an interpreter by wireless to meet the steamer, it was possible to utilize the entire interval of stop in Yokohama to the best advantage in the fields and gardens spread over the eighteen miles of plain extending to Tokyo, traversed by both electric tram and railway lines, each running many trains making frequent stops; so that this wonderfully fertile and highly tilled district could be readily and easily reached at almost any point.
We had left home in a memorable storm of snow, sleet and rain which cut out of service telegraph and telephone lines over a large part of the United States; we had sighted the Aleutian Islands, seeing and feeling nothing on the way which could suggest a warm soil and green fields, hence our surprise was great to find the jinricksha men with bare feet and legs naked to the thighs, and greater still when we found, before we were outside the city limits, that the electric tram was running between fields and gardens green with wheat, barley, onions, carrots, cabbage and other vegetables.
We were rushing through the Orient with everything outside the car so strange and different from home that the shock came like a bolt of lightning out of a clear sky.
In the car every man except myself and one other was smoking tobacco and that other was inhaling camphor through an ivory mouthpiece resembling a cigar holder closed at the end.
Several women, tiring of sitting foreign style, slipped off--I cannot say out of--their shoes and sat facing the windows, with toes crossed behind them on the seat.
The streets were muddy from the rain and everybody Japanese was on rainy-day wooden shoes, the soles carried three to four inches above the ground by two cross blocks, in the manner seen in Fig.
2.
A mother, with baby on her back and a daughter of sixteen years came into the car.
Notwithstanding her high shoes the mother had dipped one toe into the mud.
Seated, she slipped her foot off.
Without evident instructions the pretty black-eyed, glossy-haired, red-lipped lass, with cheeks made rosy, picked up the shoe, withdrew a piece of white tissue paper from the great pocket in her sleeve, deftly cleaned the otherwise spotless white cloth sock and then the shoe, threw the paper on the floor, looked to see that her fingers were not soiled, then set the shoe at her mother's foot, which found its place without effort or glance.
Everything here was strange and the scenes shifted with the speed of the wildest dream.
Now it was driving piles for the foundation of a bridge.
A tripod of poles was erected above the pile and from it hung a pulley.
Over the pulley passed a rope from the driving weight and from its end at the pulley ten cords extended to the ground.
In a circle at the foot of the tripod stood ten agile Japanese women.
They were the hoisting engine.
They chanted in perfect rhythm, hauled and stepped, dropped the weight and hoisted again, making up for heavier hammer and higher drop by more blows per minute.
When we reached Shanghai we saw the pile driver being worked from above.
Fourteen Chinese men stood upon a raised staging, each with a separate cord passing direct from the hand to the weight below.
A concerted, half-musical chant, modulated to relieve monotony, kept all hands together.
What did the operation of this machine cost?
Thirteen cents, gold, per man per day, which covered fuel and lubricant, both automatically served.
Two additional men managed the piles, two directed the hammer, eighteen manned the outfit.
Two dollars and thirty-four cents per day covered fuel, superintendence and repairs.
There was almost no capital invested in machinery.
Men were plenty and to spare.
Rice was the fuel, cooked without salt, boiled stiff, reinforced with a hit of pork or fish, appetized with salted cabbage or turnip and perhaps two or three of forty and more other vegetable relishes.
And are these men strong and happy?
They certainly were strong.
They are steadily increasing their millions, and as one stood and watched them at their work their faces were often wreathed in smiles and wore what seemed a look of satisfaction and contentment.
Among the most common sights on our rides from Yokohama to Tokyo, both within the city and along the roads leading to the fields, starting early in the morning, were the loads of night soil carried on the shoulders of men and on the backs of animals, but most commonly on strong carts drawn by men, bearing six to ten tightly covered wooden containers holding forty, sixty or more pounds each.
Strange as it may seem, there are not today and apparently never have been, even in the largest and oldest cities of Japan, China or Korea, anything corresponding to the hydraulic systems of sewage disposal used now by western nations.
Provision is made for the removal of storm waters but when I asked my interpreter if it was not the custom of the city during the winter months to discharge its night soil into the sea, as a quicker and cheaper mode of disposal, his reply came quick and sharp, "No, that would be waste.
We throw nothing away.
It is worth too much money."
In such public places as rail way stations provision is made for saving, not for wasting, and even along the country roads screens invite the traveler to stop, primarily for profit to the owner more than for personal convenience.
Between Yokohama and Tokyo along the electric car line and not far distant from the seashore, there were to be seen in February very many long, fence-high screens extending east and west, strongly inclined to the north, and built out of rice straw, closely tied together and supported on bamboo poles carried upon posts of wood set in the ground.
These screens, set in parallel series of five to ten or more in number and several hundred feet long, were used for the purpose of drying varieties of delicate seaweed, these being spread out in the manner shown in Fig.
3.
The seaweed is first spread upon separate ten by twelve inch straw mats, forming a thin layer seven by eight inches.
These mats are held by means of wooden skewers forced through the body of the screen, exposing the seaweed to the direct sunshine.
After becoming dry the rectangles of seaweed are piled in bundles an inch thick, cut once in two, forming packages four by seven inches, which are neatly tied and thus exposed for sale as soup stock and for other purposes.
To obtain this seaweed from the ocean small shrubs and the limbs of trees are set up in the bottom of shallow water, as seen in Fig.
4.
To these limbs the seaweeds become attached, grow to maturity and are then gathered by hand.
By this method of culture large amounts of important food stuff are grown for the support of the people on areas otherwise wholly unproductive.
Another rural feature, best shown by photograph taken in February, is the method of training pear orchards in Japan, with their limbs tied down upon horizontal over-bead trellises at a height under which a man can readily walk erect and easily reach the fruit with the hand while standing upon the ground.
Pear orchards thus form arbors of greater or less size, the trees being set in quincunx order about twelve feet apart in and between the rows.
Bamboo poles are used overhead and these carried on posts of the same material 1.5 to 2.5 inches in diameter, to which they are tied.
Such a pear orchard is shown in Fig.
5.
The limbs of the pear trees are trained strictly in one plane, tying them down and pruning out those not desired.
As a result the ground beneath is completely shaded and every pear is within reach, which is a great convenience when it becomes desirable to protect the fruit from insects, by tying paper bags over every pear as seen in Figs.
6 and 7.
The orchard ground is kept free from weeds and not infrequently is covered with a layer of rice or other straw, extensively used in Japan as a ground cover with various crops and when so used is carefully laid in handfuls from bundles, the straws being kept parallel as when harvested.
To one from a country of 160-acre farms, with roads four rods wide; of cities with broad streets and residences with green lawns and ample back yards; and where the cemeteries are large and beautiful parks, the first days of travel in these old countries force the over-crowding upon the attention as nothing else can.
One feels that the cities are greatly over-crowded with houses and shops, and these with people and wares; that the country is over-crowded with fields and the fields with crops; and that in Japan the over-crowding is greatest of all in the cemeteries, gravestones almost touching and markers for families literally in bundles at a grave, while round about there may be no free country whatever, dwellings, gardens or rice paddies contesting the tiny allotted areas too closely to leave even foot-paths between.
Unless recently modified through foreign influence the streets of villages and cities are narrow, as seen in Fig.
8, where however the street is unusually broad.
This is a village in the Hakone district on a beautiful lake of the same name, where stands an Imperial summer palace, seen near the center of the view on a hill across the lake.
The roofs of the houses here are typical of the neat, careful thatching with rice straw, very generally adopted in place of tile for the country villages throughout much of Japan.
The shops and stores, open full width directly upon the street, are filled to overflowing, as seen in Fig.
9 and in Fig.
22.
In the canalized regions of China the country villages crowd both banks of a canal, as is the case in Fig.
10.
Here, too, often is a single street and it very narrow, very crowded and very busy.
Stone steps lead from the houses down into the water where clothing, vegetables, rice and what not are conveniently washed.
In this particular village two rows of houses stand on one side of the canal separated by a very narrow street, and a single row on the other.
Between the bridge where the camera was exposed and one barely discernible in the background, crossing the canal a third of a mile distant, we counted upon one side, walking along the narrow street, eighty houses each with its family, usually of three generations and often of four.
Thus in the narrow strip, 154 feet broad, including 16 feet of street and 30 feet of canal, with its three lines of houses.
lived no less than 240 families and more than 1200 and probably nearer 2000 people.
When we turn to the crowding of fields in the country nothing except seeing can tell so forcibly the fact as such landscapes as those of Figs.
11, 12 and 13, one in Japan, one in Korea and one in China, not far from Nanking, looking from the hills across the fields to the broad Yangtse kiang, barely discernible as a band of light along the horizon.
The average area of the rice field in Japan is less than five square rods and that of her upland fields only about twenty.
In the case of the rice fields the small size is necessitated partly by the requirement of holding water on the sloping sides of the valley, as seen in Fig.
11.
These small areas do not represent the amount of land worked by one family, the average for Japan being more nearly 2.5 acres.
But the lands worked by one family are seldom contiguous, they may even be widely scattered and very often rented.
The people generally live in villages, going often considerable distances to their work.
Recognizing the great disadvantage of scattered holdings broken into such small areas, the Japanese Government has passed laws for the adjustment of farm lands which have been in force since 1900.
It provides for the exchange of lands; for changing boundaries; for changing or abolishing roads, embankments, ridges or canals and for alterations in irrigation and drainage which would ensure larger areas with channels and roads straightened, made less numerous and less wasteful of time, labor and land.
Up to 1907 Japan had issued permits for the readjustment of over 240,000 acres, and Fig.
14 is a landscape in one of these readjusted districts.
To provide capable experts for planning and supervising these changes the Government in 1905 intrusted the training of men to the higher agricultural school belonging to the Dai Nippon Agricultural Association and since 1906 the Agricultural College and the Kogyokusha have undertaken the same task and now there are men sufficient to push the work as rapidly as desired.
It may be remembered, too, as showing how, along other fundamental lines, Japan is taking effective steps to improve the condition of her people, that she already has her Imperial highways extending from one province to another; her prefectural roads which connect the cities and villages within the prefecture; and those more local which serve the farms and villages.
Each of the three systems of roads is maintained by a specific tax levied for the purpose which is expended under proper supervision, a designated section of road being kept in repair through the year by a specially appointed crew, as is the practice in railroad maintenance.
The result is, Japan has roads maintained in excellent condition, always narrow, sacrificing the minimum of land, and everywhere without fences.
How the fields are crowded with crops and all available land is made to do full duty in these old, long-tilled countries is evident in Fig.
15 where even the narrow dividing ridges but a foot wide, which retain the water on the rice paddies, are bearing a heavy crop of soy beans; and where may be seen the narrow pear orchard standing on the very slightest rise of ground, not a foot above the water all around, which could better be left in grading the paddies to proper level.
How closely the ground itself may be crowded with plants is seen in Fig.
16, where a young peach orchard, whose tree tops were six feet through, planted in rows twenty-two feet apart, had also ten rows of cabbage, two rows of large windsor beans and a row of garden peas.
Thirteen rows of vegetables in 22 feet, all luxuriant and strong, and note the judgment shown in placing the tallest plants, needing the most sun, in the center between the trees.
But these old people, used to crowding and to being crowded, and long ago capable of making four blades of grass grow where Nature grew but one, have also learned how to double the acreage where a crop needs more elbow than it does standing room, as seen in Fig.
17.
This man's garden had an area of but 63 by 68 feet and two square rods of this was held sacred to the family grave mound, and yet his statement of yields, number of crops and prices made his earning $100 a year on less than one-tenth of an acre.
His crop of cucumbers on less than .06 of an acre would bring him $20.
He had already sold $5 worth of greens and a second crop would follow the cucumbers.
He had just irrigated his garden from an adjoining canal, using a foot-power pump, and stated that until it rained he would repeat the watering once per week.
It was his wife who stood in the garden and, although wearing trousers, her dress showed full regard for modesty.
But crowding crops more closely in the field not only requires higher feeding to bring greater returns, but also relatively greater care, closer watchfulness in a hundred ways and a patience far beyond American measure; and so, before the crowding of the crops in the field and along with it, there came to these very old farmers a crowding of the grey matter in the brain with the evolution of effective texture.
This is shown in his fields which crowd the landscape.
It is seen in the crops which crowd his fields.
You see it in the old man's face, Fig.
18, standing opposite his compeer, Prince Ching, Fig.
19, each clad in winter dress which is the embodiment of conversation, retaining the fires of the body for its own needs, to release the growth on mountain sides for other uses.
And when one realizes how, nearly to the extreme limits, conservation along all important lines is being practiced as an inherited instinct, there need be no surprise when one reflects that the two men, one as feeder and the other as leader, are standing in the fore of a body of four hundred millions of people who have marched as a nation through perhaps forty centuries, and who now, in the light and great promise of unfolding science have their faces set toward a still more hopeful and longer future.
On February 21st the Tosa Maru left Yokohama for Kobe at schedule time on the tick of the watch, as she had done from Seattle.
All Japanese steamers appear to be moved with the promptness of a railway train.
On reaching Kobe we transferred to the Yamaguchi Maru which sailed the following morning, to shorten the time of reaching Shanghai.
This left but an afternoon for a trip into the country between Kobe and Osaka, where we found, if possible, even higher and more intensive culture practices than on the Tokyo plain, there being less land not carrying a winter crop.
And Fig.
20 shows how closely the crops crowd the houses and shops.
Here were very many cement lined cisterns or sheltered reservoirs for collecting manures and preparing fertilizers and the appearance of both soil and crops showed in a marked manner to what advantage.
We passed a garden of nearly an acre entirely devoted to English violets just coming into full bloom.
They were grown in long parallel east and west beds about three feet wide.
On the north edge of each bed was erected a rice-straw screen four feet high which inclined to the south, overhanging the bed at an angle of some thirty-five degrees, thus forming a sort of bake-oven tent which reflected the sun, broke the force of the wind and checked the loss of heat absorbed by the soil.
The voyage from Kobe to Moji was made between 10 in the morning, February 24th, and 5 .30 P. M. of February 25th over a quiet sea with an enjoyable ride.
Being fogbound during the night gave us the whole of Japan's beautiful Inland Sea, enchanting beyond measure, in all its near and distant beauty but which no pen, no brush, no camera may attempt.
Only the eye can convey.
Before reaching harbor the tide had been rising and the strait separating Honshu from Kyushu island was running like a mighty swirling river between Moji and Shimonoseki, dangerous to attempt in the dark, so we waited until morning.
There was cargo to take on board and the steamer must coal.
No sooner had the anchor dropped and the steamer swung into the current than lighters came alongside with out-going freight.
The small, strong, agile Japanese stevedores had this task completed by 8:30 P. M. and when we returned to the deck after supper another scene was on.
The cargo lighters had gone and four large barges bearing 250 tons of coal had taken their places on opposite sides of the steamer, each illuminated with buckets of blazing coal or by burning conical heaps on the surface.
From the bottom of these pits in the darkness the illumination suggested huge decapitated ant heaps in the wildest frenzy, for the coal seemed covered and there was hurry in every direction.
Men and women, boys and girls, bending to their tasks, were filling shallow saucer-shaped baskets with coal and stacking them eight to ten high in a semi-circle, like coin for delivery.
Rising out of these pits sixteen feet up the side of the steamer and along her deck to the chutes leading to her bunkers were what seemed four endless human chains, in service the prototype of our modern conveyors, but here each link animated by its own power.
Up these conveyors the loaded buckets passed, one following another at the rate of 40 to 60 per minute, to return empty by the descending line, and over the four chains one hundred tons per hour, for 250 tons of coal passed to the bunkers in two and a half hours.
Both men and women stood in the line and at the upper turn of one of these, emptying the buckets down the chute, was a mother with her two-year-old child in the sling on back, where it rocked and swayed to and fro, happy the entire time.
It was often necessary for the mother to adjust her baby in the sling whenever it was leaning uncomfortably too far to one side or the other, but she did it skillfully, always with a shrug of the shoulders, for both hands were full.
The mother looked strong, was apparently accepting her lot as a matter of course and often, with a smile, turned her face to the child, who patted it and played with her ears and hair.
Probably her husband was doing his part in a more strenuous place in the chain and neither had time to be troubled with affinities for it was 10:30 P. M. when the baskets stopped, and somewhere no doubt there was a home to be reached and perhaps supper to get.
Shall we be able, when our numbers have vastly increased, to permit all needful earnings to be acquired in a better way?
We left Moji in the early morning and late in the evening of the same day entered the beautiful harbor of Nagasaki, all on board waiting until morning for a launch to go ashore.
We were to sail again at noon so available time for observation was short and we set out in a ricksha at once for our first near view of terraced gardening on the steep hillsides in Japan.
In reaching them and in returning our course led through streets paved with long, thick and narrow stone blocks, having deep open gutters on one or both sides close along the houses, into which waste water was emptied and through which the storm waters found their way to the sea.
Few of these streets were more than twelve feet wide and close watching, with much dodging, was required to make way through them.
Here, too, the night soil of the city was being removed in closed receptacles on the shoulders of men, on the backs of horses and cattle and on carts drawn by either.
Other men and women were hurrying along with baskets of vegetables well illustrated in Fig.
21, some with fresh cabbage, others with high stacks of crisp lettuce, some with monstrous white radishes or turnips, others with bundles of onions, all coming down from the terraced gardens to the markets.
We passed loads of green bamboo poles just cut, three inches in diameter at the butt and twenty feet long, drawn on carts.
Both men and women were carrying young children and older ones were playing and singing in the street.
Very many old women, some feeble looking, moved, loaded, through the throng.
Homely little dogs, an occasional lean cat, and hens and roosters scurried across the street from one low market or store to another.
Back of the rows of small stores and shops fronting on the clean narrow streets were the dwellings whose exits seemed to open through the stores, few or no open courts of any size separating them from the market or shop.
The opportunity which the oriental housewife may have in the choice of vegetables on going to the market, and the attractive manner of displaying such products in Japan, are seen in Fig.
22.
We finally reached one of the terraced hillsides which rise five hundred to a thousand feet above the harbor with sides so steep that garden areas have a width of seldom more than twenty to thirty feet and often less, while the front of each terrace may be a stone wall, sometimes twelve feet high, often more than six, four and five feet being the most common height.
One of these hillside slopes is seen in Fig.
23.
These terraced gardens are both short and narrow and most of them bounded by stone walls on three sides, suggesting house foundations, the two end walls sloping down the hill from the height of the back terrace, dropping to the ground level in front, these forming foot-paths leading up the slope occasionally with one, two or three steps in places.
Each terrace sloped slightly down the hill at a small angle and had a low ridge along the front.
Around its entire border a narrow drain or furrow was arranged to collect surface water and direct it to drainage channels or into a catch basin where it might be put back on the garden or be used in preparing liquid fertilizer.
At one corner of many of these small terraced gardens were cement lined pits, used both as catch basins for water and as receptacles for liquid manure or as places in which to prepare compost.
Far up the steep paths, too, along either side, we saw many piles of stable manure awaiting application, all of which had been brought up the slopes in backets on bamboo poles, carried on the shoulders of men and women.
II GRAVE LANDS OF CHINA The launch had returned the passengers to the steamer at 11:30; the captain was on the bridge; prompt to the minute at the call "Hoist away" the signal went below and the Yamaguchi's whistle filled the harbor and over-flowed the hills.
The cable wound in, and at twelve, noon, we were leaving Nagasaki, now a city of 153,000 and the western doorway of a nation of fifty-one millions of people but of little importance before the sixteenth century when it became the chief mart of Portuguese trade.
We were to pass the Koreans on our right and enter the portals of a third nation of four hundred millions.
We had left a country which had added eighty-five millions to its population in one hundred years and which still has twenty acres for each man, woman and child, to pass through one which has but one and a half acres per capita, and were going to another whose allotment of acres, good and bad, is less than 2.4.
We had gone from practices by which three generations had exhausted strong virgin fields, and were coming to others still fertile after thirty centuries of cropping.
On January 30th we crossed the head waters of the Mississippi-Missouri, four thousand miles from its mouth, and on March 1st were in the mouth of the Yangtse river whose waters are gathered from a basin in which dwell two hundred millions of people.
The Yamaguchi reached Woosung in the night and anchored to await morning and tide before ascending the Hwangpoo, believed by some geographers to be the middle of three earlier delta arms of the Yangtse kiang, the southern entering the sea at Hangchow 120 miles further south, the third being the present stream.
As we wound through this great delta plain toward Shanghai, the city of foreign concessions to all nationalities, the first striking feature was the "graves of the fathers", of "the ancestors".
At first the numerous grass-covered hillocks dotting the plain seemed to be stacks of grain or straw; then came the query whether they might not be huge compost heaps awaiting distribution in the fields, but as the river brought us nearer to them we seemed to be moving through a land of ancient mound builders and Fig.
24 shows, in its upper section, their appearance as seen in the distance.
As the journey led on among the fields, so large were the mounds, often ten to twelve feet high and twenty or more feet at the base; so grass-covered and apparently neglected; so numerous and so irregularly scattered, without apparent regard for fields, that when we were told these were graves we could not give credence to the statement, but before the city was reached we saw places where, by the shifting of the channel, the river had cut into some of these mounds, exposing brick vaults, some so low as to be under water part of the time, and we wonder if the fact does not also record a slow subsidence of the delta plain under the ever increasing load of river silt.
A closer view of these graves in the same delta plain is given in the lower section of Fig.
24, where they are seen in the midst of fields and to occupy not only large areas of valuable land but to be much in the way of agricultural operations.
A still closer view of other groups, with a farm village in the background, is shown in the middle section of the same illustration, and here it is better seen how large is the space occupied by them.
On the right in the same view may be seen a line of six graves surmounting a common lower base which is a type of the larger and higher ones so suggestive of buildings seen in the horizon of the upper section.
Everywhere we went in China, about all of the very old and large cities, the proportion of grave land to cultivated fields is very large.
In the vicinity of Canton Christian college, on Honam island, more than fifty per cent of the land was given over to graves and in many places they were so close that one could step from one to another.
They are on the higher and dryer lands, the cultivated areas occupying ravines and the lower levels to which water may be more easily applied and which are the most productive.
Hilly lands not so readily cultivated, and especially if within reach of cities, are largely so used, as seen in Fig.
25, where the graves are marked by excavated shelves rather than by mounds, as on the plains.
These grave lands are not altogether unproductive for they are generally overgrown with herbage of one or another kind and used as pastures for geese, sheep, goats and cattle, and it is not at all uncommon, when riding along a canal, to see a huge water buffalo projected against the sky from the summit of one of the largest and highest grave mounds within reach.
If the herbage is not fed off by animals it is usually cut for feed, for fuel, for green manure or for use in the production of compost to enrich the soil.
Caskets may be placed directly upon the surface of a field, encased in brick vaults with tile roofs, forming such clusters as was seen on the bank of the Grand Canal in Chekiang province, represented in the lower section of Fig.
26, or they may stand singly in the midst of a garden, as in the upper section of the same figure; in a rice paddy entirely surrounded by water parts of the year, and indeed in almost any unexpected place.
In Shanghai in 1898, 2,763 exposed coffined corpses were removed outside the International Settlement or buried by the authorities.
Further north, in the Shantung province, where the dry season is more prolonged and where a severe drought had made grass short, the grave lands had become nearly naked soil, as seen in Fig.
27 where a Shantung farmer had just dug a temporary well to irrigate his little field of barley.
Within the range of the camera, as held to take this view, more than forty grave mounds besides the seven near by, are near enough to be fixed on the negative and be discernible under a glass, indicating what extensive areas of land, in the aggregate, are given over to graves.
Still further north, in Chihli, a like story is told in, if possible, more emphatic manner and fully vouched for in the next illustration, Fig.
28, which shows a typical family group, to be observed in so many places between Taku and Tientsin and beyond toward Peking.
As we entered the mouth of the Pei-ho for Tientsin, far away to the vanishing horizon there stretched an almost naked plain except for the vast numbers of these "graves of the fathers", so strange, so naked, so regular in form and so numerous that more than an hour of our journey had passed before we realized that they were graves and that the country here was perhaps more densely peopled with the dead than with the living.
In so many places there was the huge father grave, often capped with what in the distance suggested a chimney, and the many associated smaller ones, that it was difficult to realize in passing what they were.
It is a common custom, even if the residence has been permanently changed to some distant province, to take the bodies back for interment in the family group; and it is this custom which leads to the practice of choosing a temporary location for the body, waiting for a favorable opportunity to remove it to the family group.
This is often the occasion for the isolated coffin so frequently seen under a simple thatch of rice straw, as in Fig.
29; and the many small stone jars containing skeletons of the dead, or portions of them, standing singly or in rows in the most unexpected places least in the way in the crowded fields and gardens, awaiting removal to the final resting place.
It is this custom, too, I am told, which has led to placing a large quantity of caustic lime in the bottom of the casket, on which the body rests, this acting as an effective absorbent.
It is the custom in some parts of China, if not in all, to periodically restore the mounds, maintaining their height and size, as is seen in the next two illustrations, and to decorate these once in the year with flying streamers of colored paper, the remnants of which may be seen in both Figs.
30 and 31, set there as tokens that the paper money has been burned upon them and its essence sent up in the smoke for the maintenance of the spirits of their departed friends.
We have our memorial day; they have for centuries observed theirs with religious fidelity.
The usual expense of a burial among the working people is said to be $100, Mexican, an enormous burden when the day's wage or the yearly earning of the family is considered and when there is added to this the yearly expense of ancestor worship.
How such voluntary burdens are assumed by people under such circumstances is hard to understand.
Missionaries assert it is fear of evil consequences in this life and of punishment and neglect in the hereafter that leads to assuming them.
Is it not far more likely that such is the price these people are willing to pay for a good name among the living and because of their deep and lasting friendship for the departed?
Nor does it seem at all strange that a kindly, warm-hearted people with strong filial affection should have reached, carry in their long history, a belief in one spirit of the departed which hovers about the home, one which hovers about the grave and another which wanders abroad, for surely there are associations with each of these conditions which must long and forcefully awaken memories of friends gone.
If this view is possible may not such ancestral worship be an index of qualities of character strongly fixed and of the highest worth which, when improvements come that may relieve the heavy burdens now carried, will only shine more brightly and count more for right living as well as comfort?
Even in our own case it will hardly be maintained that our burial customs have reached their best and final solution, for in all civilized nations they are unnecessarily expensive and far too cumbersome.
It is only necessary to mentally add the accumulation of a few centuries to our cemeteries to realize how impossible our practice must become.
Clearly there is here a very important line for betterment which all nationalities should undertake.
When the steamer anchored at Shanghai the day was pleasant and the rain coats which greeted us in Yokohama were not in evidence but the numbers who had met the steamer in the hope of an opportunity for earning a trifle was far greater and in many ways in strong contrast with the Japanese.
We were much surprised to find the men of so large stature, much above the Chinese usually seen in the United States.
They were fully the equal of large Americans in frame but quite without surplus flesh yet few appeared underfed.
To realize that these are strong, hardy men it was only necessary to watch them carrying on their shoulders bales of cotton between them, supported by a strong bamboo; while the heavy loads they transport on wheel-barrows through the country over long distances, as seen in Fig.
32, prove their great endurance.
This same type of vehicle, too, is one of the common means of transporting people, especially Chinese women, and four six and even eight may be seen riding together, propelled by a single wheelbarrow man.
III TO HONGKONG AND CANTON We had come to learn how the old-world farmers bad been able to provide materials for food and clothing on such small areas for so many millions, at so low a price, during so many centuries, and were anxious to see them at the soil and among the crops.
The sun was still south of the equator, coming north only about twelve miles per day, so, to save time, we booked on the next steamer for Hongkong to meet spring at Canton, beyond the Tropic of Cancer, six hundred miles farther south, and return with her.
On the morning of March 4th the Tosa Maru steamed out into the Yangtse river, already flowing with the increased speed of ebb tide.
The pilots were on the bridge to guide her course along the narrow south channel through waters seemingly as brown and turbid as the Potomac after a rain.
It was some distance beyond Gutzlaff Island, seventy miles to sea, where there is a lighthouse and a telegraph station receiving six cables, that we crossed the front of the out-going tide, showing in a sharp line of contrast stretching in either direction farther than the eye could see, across the course of the ship and yet it was the season of low water in this river.
During long ages this stream of mighty volume has been loading upon itself in far-away Tibet, without dredge, barge, fuel or human effort, unused and there unusable soils, bringing them down from inaccessible heights across two or three thousand miles, building up with them, from under the sea, at the gateways of commerce, miles upon miles of the world's most fertile fields and gardens.
Today on this river, winding through six hundred miles of the most highly cultivated fields, laid out on river-built plains, go large ocean steamers to the city of Hankow-Wuchang-Hanyang where 1,770,000 people live and trade within a radius less than four miles; while smaller steamers push on a thousand miles and are then but 130 feet above sea level.
Even now, with the aid of current, tide and man, these brown turbid waters are rapidly adding fertile delta plains for new homes.
During the last twenty-five years Chungming island has grown in length some 1800 feet per year and today a million people are living and growing rice, wheat, cotton and sweet potatoes on 270 square miles of fertile plain where five hundred years ago were only submerged river sands and silt.
Here 3700 people per square mile have acquired homes.
The southward voyage was over a quiet sea and as we passed among and near the off-shore islands these, as seen in Japan, appeared destitute of vegetation other than the low herbaceous types with few shrubs and almost no forest growth and little else that gave the appearance of green.
Captain Harrison informed me that at no time in the year are these islands possessed of the grass-green verdure so often seen in northern climates, and yet the islands lie in a region of abundant summer rain, making it hard to understand why there is not a more luxuriant growth.
Sunday morning, March 7th, passing first extensive sugar refineries, found us entering the long, narrow and beautiful harbor of Hongkong.
Here, lying at anchor in the ten square miles of water, were five battleships, several large ocean steamers, many coastwise vessels and a multitude of smaller craft whose yearly tonnage is twenty to thirty millions.
But the harbor lies in the track of the terrible East Indian typhoon and, although sheltered on the north shore of a high island, one of these storms recently sunk nine vessels, sent twenty-three ashore, seriously damaged twenty-one others, wrought great destruction among the smaller craft and over a thousand dead were recovered.
Such was the destruction wrought by the September storm of 1906.
Our steamer did not go to dock but the Nippon Yusen Kaisha's launch transferred us to a city much resembling Seattle in possessing a scant footing between a long sea front and high steep mountain slopes behind.
Here cliffs too steep to climb rise from the very sidewalk and are covered with a great profusion and variety of ferns, small bamboo, palms, vines, many flowering shrubs, all interspersed with pine and great banyan trees that do so much toward adding the beauty of northern landscapes to the tropical features which reach upward until hidden in a veil of fog that hung, all of the time we were there, over the city, over the harbor and stretched beyond Old and New Kowloon.
Hongkong island is some eleven miles long and but two to five miles wide, while the peak carrying the signal staff rises 1,825 feet above the streets from which ascends the Peak tramway, where, hanging from opposite ends of a strong cable, one car rises up the slope and another descends every fifteen to twenty minutes, affording communication with business houses below and homes in beautiful surroundings and a tempered climate above.
Extending along the slopes of the mountains, too, above the city, are very excellent roads, carefully graded, provided with concrete gutters and bridges, along which one may travel on foot, on horseback, by ricksha or sedan chair, but too narrow for carriages.
Over one of these we ascended along one side of Happy Valley, around its head and down the other side.
Only occasionally could we catch glimpses of the summit through the lifting fog but the views, looking down and across the city and beyond the harbor with its shipping, and up and down the many ravines from via-ducts, are among the choicest and rarest ever made accessible to the residents of any city.
It was the beginning of the migratory season for birds, and trees and shrubbery thronged with many species.
Many of the women in Hongkong were seen engaged in such heavy manual labor with the men as carrying crushed rock and sand, for concrete and macadam work, up the steep street slopes long distances from the dock, but they were neither tortured nor incapacitated by bound feet.
Like the men, they were of smaller stature than most seen at Shanghai and closely resemble the Chinese in the United States.
Both sexes are agile, wiry and strong.
Here we first saw lumber sawing in the open streets after the manner shown in Fig.
33, where wide boards were being cut from camphor logs.
In the damp, already warm weather the men were stripped to the waist, their limbs bare to above the knee, and each carried a large towel for wiping away the profuse perspiration.
It was here, too, that we first met the remarkable staging for the erection of buildings of four and six stories, set up without saw, hammer or nail; without injury to or waste of lumber and with the minimum of labor in construction and removal.
Poles and bamboo stems were lashed together with overlapping ends, permitting any interval or height to be secured without cutting or nailing, and admitting of ready removal with absolutely no waste, all parts being capable of repeated use unless it be some of the materials employed in tying members.
Up inclined stairways, from staging to staging, in the erection of six-story granite buildings, mortar was being carried in baskets swinging from bamboo poles on the shoulders of men and women, as the cheapest hoists available in English Hongkong where there is willing human labor and to spare.
The Singer sewing machine, manufactured in New Jersey, was seen in many Chinese shops in Hongkong and other cities, operated by Chinese men and women, purchased, freight prepaid, at two-thirds the retail price in the United States.
Such are the indications of profit to manufacturers on the home sale of home-made goods while at the same time reaping good returns from a large trade in heathen lands, after paying the freight.
Industrial China, Korea and Japan do not observe our weekly day of rest and during our walk around Happy Valley on Sunday afternoon, looking down upon its terraced gardens and tiny fields, we saw men and women busy fitting the soil for new crops, gathering vegetables for market, feeding plants with liquid manure and even irrigating certain crops, notwithstanding the damp, foggy, showery weather.
Turning the head of the valley, attention was drawn to a walled enclosure and a detour down the slope brought us to a florist's garden within which were rows of large potted foliage plants of semi-shrubbery habit, seen in Fig.
35, trained in the form of life-size human figures with limbs, arms and trunk provided with highly glazed and colored porcelain feet, hands and head.
These, with many other potted plants and trees, including dwarf varieties, are grown under out-door lattice shelters in different parts of China, for sale to the wealthy Chinese families.
How thorough is the tillage, how efficient and painstaking the garden fitting, and how closely the ground is crowded to its upper limit of producing power are indicated in Fig.
36; and when one stops and studies the detail in such gardens he expects in its executor an orderly, careful, frugal and industrious man, getting not a little satisfaction out of his creations however arduous his task or prolonged his day.
If he is in the garden or one meets him at the house, clad as the nature of his duties and compensation have determined, you may be disappointed or feel arising an unkind judgment.
But who would risk a reputation so clad and so environed?
Many were the times, during our walks in the fields and gardens among these old, much misunderstood, misrepresented and undervalued people, when the bond of common interest was recognized between us, that there showed through the face the spirit which put aside both dress and surroundings and the man stood forth who, with fortitude and rare wisdom, is feeding the millions and who has carried through centuries the terrible burden of taxes levied by dishonor and needless wars.
Nay, more than this, the man stood forth who has kept alive the seeds of manhood and has nourished them into such sturdy stock as has held the stream of progress along the best interests of civilization in spite of the driftwood heaped upon it.
Not only are these people extremely careful and painstaking in fitting their fields and gardens to receive the crop, but they are even more scrupulous in their care to make everything that can possibly serve as fertilizer for the soil, or food for the crop being grown, do so unless there is some more remunerative service it may render.
Expense is incurred to provide such receptacles as are seen in Fig.
37 for receiving not only the night soil of the home and that which may be bought or otherwise procured, but in which may be stored any other fluid which can serve as plant food.
On the right of these earthenware jars too is a pile of ashes and one of manure.
All such materials are saved and used in the most advantageous ways to enrich the soil or to nourish the plants being grown.
Generally the liquid manures must be diluted with water to a greater or less extent before they are "fed", as the Chinese say, to their plants, hence there is need of an abundant and convenient water supply.
One of these is seen in Fig.
38, where the Chinaman has adopted the modern galvanized iron pipe to bring water from the mountain slope of Happy Valley to his garden.
By the side of this tank are the covered pails in which the night soil was brought, perhaps more than a mile, to be first diluted and then applied.
But the more general method for supplying water is that of leading it along the ground in channels or ditches to a small reservoir in one corner of a terraced field or garden, as seen in Fig.
39, where it is held and the surplus led down from terrace to terrace, giving each its permanent supply.
At the upper right corner of the engraving may be seen two manure receptacles and a third stands near the reservoir.
The plants on the lower terrace are water cress and those above the same.
At this time of the year, on the terraced gardens of Happy Valley, this is one of the crops most extensively grown.
Walking among these gardens and isolated homes, we passed a pig pen provided with a smooth, well-laid stone floor that had just been washed scrupulously clean, like the floor of a house.
While I was not able to learn other facts regarding this case, I have little doubt that the washings from this floor had been carefully collected and taken to some receptacle to serve as a plant food.
Looking backward as we left Hongkong for Canton on the cloudy evening of March 8th, the view was wonderfully beautiful.
We were drawing away from three cities, one, electric-lighted Hongkong rising up the steep slopes, suggesting a section of sky set with a vast array of stars of all magnitudes up to triple Jupiters; another, old and new Kowloon on the opposite side of the harbor; and between these two, separated from either shore by wide reaches of wholly unoccupied water, lay the third, a mid-strait city of sampans, junks and coastwise craft of many kinds segregated, in obedience to police regulation, into blocks and streets with each setting sun, but only to scatter again with the coming morn.
At night, after a fixed hour, no one is permitted to leave shore and cross the vacant water strip except from certain piers and with the permission of the police, who take the number of the sampan and the names of its occupants.
Over the harbor three large search lights were sweeping and it was curious to see the junks and other craft suddenly burst into full blazes of light, like so many monstrous fire-flies, to disappear and reappear as the lights came and went.
Thus is the mid-strait city lighted and policed and thus have steps been taken to lessen the number of cases of foul play where people have left the wharves at night for some vessel in the strait, never to be heard from again.
Some ninety miles is the distance by water to Canton, and early the next morning our steamer dropped anchor off the foreign settlement of Shameen.
Through the kindness of Consul-General Amos P. Wilder in sending a telegram to the Canton Christian College, their little steam launch met the boat and took us directly to the home of the college on Honam Island, lying in the great delta south of the city where sediments brought by the Si-kiang--west, Pei-kiang--north, and Tung-kiang--east--rivers through long centuries have been building the richest of land which, because of the density of population, are squared up everywhere to the water's edge and appropriated as fast as formed, and made to bring forth materials for food fuel and raiment in vast quantities.
It was on Honam Island that we walked first among the grave lands and came to know them as such, for Canton Christian College stands in the midst of graves which, although very old, are not permitted to be disturbed and the development of the campus must wait to secure permission to remove graves, or erect its buildings in places not the most desirable.
Cattle were grazing among the graves and with them a flock of some 250 of the brown Chinese geese, two-thirds grown, was watched by boys, gleaning their entire living from the grave lands and adjacent water.
A mature goose sells in Canton for $1.20, Mexican, or less than 52 cents, gold, but even then how can the laborer whose day's wage is but ten or fifteen cents afford one for his family?
Here, too, we saw the Chinese persistent, never-ending industry in keeping their land, their sunshine and their rain, with themselves, busy in producing something needful.
Fields which had matured two crops of rice during the long summer, had been laboriously, and largely by hand labor, thrown into strong ridges as seen in Fig.
40, to permit still a third winter crop of some vegetable to be taken from the land.
But this intensive, continuous cropping of the land spells soil exhaustion and creates demands for maintenance and restoration of available plant food or the adding of large quantities of something quickly convertible into it, and so here in the fields on Honam Island, as we had found in Happy Valley, there was abundant evidence of the most careful attention and laborious effort devoted to plant feeding.
The boat standing in the canal in Fig.
41 had come from Canton in the early morning with two tons of human manure and men were busy applying it, in diluted form, to beds of leeks at the rate of 16,000 gallons per acre, all carried on the shoulders in such pails as stand in the foreground.
The material is applied with long-handled dippers holding a gallon, dipping it from the pails, the men wading, with bare feet and trousers rolled above the knees, in the water of the furrows between the beds.
This is one of their ways of "feeding the crop," and they have other methods of "manuring the soil."
One of these we first met on Honam Island.
Large amounts of canal mud are here collected in boats and brought to the fields to be treated and there left to drain and dry before distributing.
Both the material used to feed the crop and that used for manuring the land are waste products, hindrances to the industry of the region, but the Chinese make them do essential duty in maintaining its life.
The human waste must be disposed of.
They return it to the soil.
We turn it into the sea.
Doing so, they save for plant feeding more than a ton of phosphorus (2712 pounds) and more than two tons of potassium (4488 pounds) per day for each million of adult population.
The mud collects in their canals and obstructs movement.
They must be kept open.
The mud is highly charged with organic matter and would add humus to the soil if applied to the fields, at the same time raising their level above the river and canal, giving them better drainage; thus are they turning to use what is otherwise waste, causing the labor which must be expended in disposal to count in a remunerative way.
During the early morning ride to Canton Christian College and three others which we were permitted to enjoy in the launch on the canal and river waters, everything was again strange, fascinating and full of human interest.
The Cantonese water population was a surprise, not so much for its numbers as for the lithe, sinewy forms, bright eyes and cheerful faces, particularly among the women, young and old.
Nearly always one or more women, mother and daughter oftenest, grandmother many times, wrinkled, sometimes grey, but strong, quick and vigorous in motion, were manning the oars of junks, houseboats and sampans.
Sometimes husband and wife and many times the whole family were seen together when the craft was both home and business boat as well.
Little children were gazing from most unexpected peek holes, or they toddled tethered from a waist belt at the end of as much rope as would arrest them above water, should they go overboard.
And the cat was similarly tied.
Through an overhanging latticed stern, too, hens craned their necks, longing for scenes they could not reach.
With bare heads, bare feet, in short trousers and all dressed much alike, men, women, boys and girls showed equal mastery of the oar.
Beginning so young, day and night in the open air on the tide-swept streams and canals, exposed to all of the sunshine the fogs and clouds will permit, and removed from the dust and filth of streets, it would seem that if the children survive at all they must develop strong.
The appearance of the women somehow conveyed the impression that they were more vigorous and in better fettle than the men.
Boats selling many kinds of steaming hot dishes were common.
Among these was rice tied in green leaf wrappers, three small packets in a cluster suspended by a strand of some vegetable fiber, to be handed hot from the cooker to the purchaser, some one on a passing junk or on an in-coming or out-going boat.
Another would buy hot water for a brew of tea, while still another, and for a single cash, might be handed a small square of cotton cloth, wrung hot from the water, with which to wipe his face and hands and then be returned.
Perhaps nothing better measures the intensity of the maintenance struggle here, and better indicates the minute economies practiced, than the value of their smallest currency unit, the Cash, used in their daily retail transactions.
On our Pacific coast, where less thought is given to little economies than perhaps anywhere else in the world, the nickel is the smallest coin in general use, twenty to the dollar.
For the rest of the United States and in most English speaking countries one hundred cents or half pennies measure an equal value.
In Russia 170 kopecks, in Mexico 200 centavos, in France 250 two-centime pieces, and in Austria-Hungary 250 two-heller coins equal the United States dollar; while in Germany 400 pfennigs, and in India 400 pie are required for an equal value.
Again 500 penni in Finland and of stotinki in Bulgaria, of centesimi in Italy and of half cents in Holland equal our dollar; but in China the small daily financial transactions are measured against a much smaller unit, their Cash, 1500 to 2000 of which are required to equal the United States dollar, their purchasing power fluctuating daily with the price of silver.
In the Shantung province, when we inquired of the farmers the selling prices of their crops, their replies were given like this: "Thirty-five strings of cash for 420 catty of wheat and twelve to fourteen strings of cash for 1000 catty of wheat straw."
At this time, according to my interpreter, the value of one string of cash was 40 cents Mexican, from which it appears that something like 250 of these coins were threaded on a string.
Twice we saw a wheelbarrow heavily loaded with strings of cash being transported through the streets of Shanghai, lying exposed on the frame, suggesting chains of copper more than money.
At one of the go-downs or warehouses in Tsingtao, where freight was being transferred from a steamer, the carriers were receiving their pay in these coin.
The pay-master stood in the doorway with half a bushel of loose cash in a grain sack at his feet.
With one hand he received the bamboo tally-sticks from the stevedores and with the other paid the cash for service rendered.
Reference has been made to buying hot water.
In a sampan managed by a woman and her daughter, who took us ashore, the middle section of the boat was furnished in the manner of a tiny sitting-room, and on the sideboard sat the complete embodiment of our fireless cookers, keeping boiled water hot for making tea.
This device and the custom are here centuries old and throughout these countries boiled water, as tea, is the universal drink, adopted no doubt as a preventive measure against typhoid fever and allied diseases.
Few vegetables are eaten raw and nearly all foods are taken hot or recently cooked if not in some way pickled or salted.
Houseboat meat shops move among the many junks on the canals.
These were provided with a compartment communicating freely with the canal water where the fish were kept alive until sold.
At the street markets too, fish are kept alive in large tubs of water systematically aerated by the water falling from an elevated receptacle in a thin stream.
A live fish may even be sliced before the eyes of a purchaser and the unsold portion returned to the water.
Poultry is largely retailed alive although we saw much of it dressed and cooked to a uniform rich brown, apparently roasted, hanging exposed in the markets of the very narrow streets in Canton, shaded from the hot sun under awnings admitting light overhead through translucent oyster-shell latticework.
Perhaps these fowl had been cooked in hot oil and before serving would be similarly heated.
At any rate it is perfectly clear that among these people many very fundamental sanitary practices are rigidly observed.
One fact which we do not fully understand is that, wherever we went, house flies were very few.
We never spent a summer with so little annoyance from them as this one in China, Korea and Japan.
It may be that our experience was exceptional but, if so, it could not be ascribed to the season of our visit for we have found flies so numerous in southern Florida early in April as to make the use of the fly brush at the table very necessary.
If the scrupulous husbanding of waste refuse so universally practiced in these countries reduces the fly nuisance and this menace to health to the extent which our experience suggests, here is one great gain.
We breed flies in countless millions each year, until they become an intolerable nuisance, and then expend millions of dollars on screens and fly poison which only ineffectually lessen the intensity and danger of the evil.
The mechanical appliances in use on the canals and in the shops of Canton demonstrate that the Chinese possess constructive ability of a high order, notwithstanding so many of these are of the simplest forms.
This statement is well illustrated in the simple yet efficient foot-power seen in Fig.
42, where a father and his two sons are driving an irrigation pump, lifting water at the rate of seven and a half acre-inches per ten hours, and at a cost, including wage and food, of 36 to 45 cents, gold.
Here, too, were large stern-wheel passenger boats, capable of carrying thirty to one hundred people, propelled by the same foot-power but laid crosswise of the stern, the men working in long single or double lines, depending on the size of the boat.
On these the fare was one cent, gold, for a fifteen mile journey, a rate one-thirtieth our two-cent railway tariff.
The dredging and clearing of the canals and water channels in and about Canton is likewise accomplished with the same foot-power, often by families living on the dredge boats.
A dipper dredge is used, constructed of strong bamboo strips woven into the form of a sliding, two-horse road scraper, guided by a long bamboo handle.
The dredge is drawn along the bottom by a rope winding about the projecting axle of the foot-power, propelled by three or more people.
When the dipper reaches the axle and is raised from the water it is swung aboard, emptied and returned by means of a long arm like the old well sweep, operated by a cord depending from the lower end of the lever, the dipper swinging from the other.
Much of the mud so collected from the canals and channels of the city is taken to the rice and mulberry fields, many square miles of which occupy the surrounding country.
Thus the channels are kept open, the fields grow steadily higher above flood level, while their productive power is maintained by the plant food and organic matter carried in the sediment.
The mechanical principle involved in the boy's button buzz was applied in Canton and in many other places for operating small drills as well as in grinding and polishing appliances used in the manufacture of ornamental ware.
The drill, as used for boring metal, is set in a straight shaft, often of bamboo, on the upper end of which is mounted a circular weight.
The drill is driven by a pair of strings with one end attached just beneath the momentum weight and the other fastened at the ends of a cross hand-bar, having a hole at its center through which the shaft carrying the drill passes.
Holding the drill in position for work and turning the shaft, the two cords are wrapped about it in such a manner that simple downward pressure on the hand bar held in the two hands unwinds the cords and thus revolves the drill.
Relieving the pressure at the proper time permits the momentum of the revolving weight to rewind the cords and the next downward pressure brings the drill again into service.
IV UP THE SI-KIANG, WEST RIVER On the morning of March 10th we took passage on the Nanning for Wuchow, in Kwangsi province, a journey of 220 miles up the West river, or Sikiang.
The Nanning is one of two English steamers making regular trips between the two places, and it was the sister boat which in the summer of 1906 was attacked by pirates on one of her trips and all of the officers and first class passengers killed while at dinner.
The cause of this attack, it is said, or the excuse for it, was threatened famine resulting from destructive floods which had ruined the rice and mulberry crops of the great delta region and had prevented the carrying of manure and bean cake as fertilizers to the tea fields in the hill lands beyond, thus bringing ruin to three of the great staple crops of the region.
To avoid the recurrence of such tragedies the first class quarters on the Nanning had been separated from the rest of the ship by heavy iron gratings thrown across the decks and over the hatchways.
Armed guards stood at the locked gateways, and swords were hanging from posts under the awnings of the first cabin quarters, much as saw and ax in our passenger coaches.
Both British and Chinese gunboats were patrolling the river; all Chinese passengers were searched for concealed weapons as they came aboard, even though Government soldiers, and all arms taken into custody until the end of the journey.
Several of the large Chinese merchant junks which were passed, carrying valuable cargoes on the river, were armed with small cannon and when riding by rail from Canton to Sam Shui, a government pirate detective was in our coach.
The Sikiang is one of the great rivers of China and indeed of the world.
Its width at Wuchow at low water was nearly a mile and our steamer anchored in twenty-four feet of water to a floating dock made fast by huge iron chains reaching three hundred feet up the slope to the city proper, thus providing for a rise of twenty-six feet in the river at its flood stage during the rainy season.
In a narrow section of river where it winds through Shui Hing gorge, the water at low stage has a depth of more than twenty-five fathoms, too deep for anchorage, so in times of prospective fog, boats wait for clearing weather.
Fluctuations in the height of the river limit vessels passing up to Wuchow to those drawing six and a half feet of water during the low stage, and at high stage to those drawing sixteen feet.
When the West river emerges from the high lands, with its burden of silt, to join its waters with those of the North and East rivers, it has entered a vast delta plain some eighty miles from east to west and nearly as many from north to south, and this has been canalized, diked, drained and converted into the most productive of fields, bearing three or more crops each year.
As we passed westward through this delta region the broad flat fields, surrounded by dikes to protect them against high water, were being plowed and fitted for the coming crop of rice.
In many places the dikes which checked off the fields were planted with bananas and in the distance gave the appearance of extensive orchards completely occupying the ground.
Except for the water and the dikes it was easy to imagine that we were traversing one of our western prairie sections in the early spring, at seeding time, the scattered farm villages here easily suggested distant farmsteads; but a nearer approach to the houses showed that the roofs and sides were thatched with rice straw and stacks were very numerous about the buildings.
Many tide gates were set in the dikes, often with double trunks.
At times we approached near enough to the fields to see how they were laid out.
From the gates long canals, six to eight feet wide, led back sometimes eighty or a hundred rods.
Across these and at right angles, head channels were cut and between them the fields were plowed in long straight lands some two rods wide, separated by water furrows.
Many of the fields were bearing sugar cane standing eight feet high.
The Chinese do no sugar refining but boil the sap until it will solidify, when it is run into cakes resembling chocolate or our brown maple sugar.
Immense quantities of sugar cane, too, are exported to the northern provinces, in bundles wrapped with matting or other cover, for the retail markets where it is sold, the canes being cut in short sections and sometimes peeled, to be eaten from the hands as a confection.
Much of the way this water-course was too broad to permit detailed study of field conditions and crops, even with a glass.
In such sections the recent dikes often have the appearance of being built from limestone blocks but a closer view showed them constructed from blocks of the river silt cut and laid in walls with slightly sloping faces.
In time however the blocks weather and the dikes become rounded earthen walls.
We passed two men in a boat, in charge of a huge flock of some hundreds of yellow ducklings.
Anchored to the bank was a large houseboat provided with an all-around, over-hanging rim and on board was a stack of rice straw and other things which constituted the floating home of the ducks.
Both ducks and geese are reared in this manner in large numbers by the river population.
When it is desired to move to another feeding ground a gang plank is put ashore and the flock come on board to remain for the night or to be landed at another place.
About five hours journey westward in this delta plain, where the fields lie six to ten feet above the present water stage, we reached the mulberry district.
Here the plants are cultivated in rows about four feet apart, having the habit of small shrubs rather than of trees, and so much resembling cotton that our first impression was that we were in an extensive cotton district.
On the lower lying areas, surrounded by dikes, some fields were laid out in the manner of the old Italian or English water meadows, with a shallow irrigation furrow along the crest of the bed and much deeper drainage ditches along the division line between them.
Mulberries were occupying the ground before the freshly cut trenches we saw were dug, and all the surface between the rows had been evenly overlaid with the fresh earth removed with the spade, the soil lying in blocks essentially unbroken.
In Fig.
43 may be seen the mulberry crop on a similarly treated surface, between Canton and Samshui, with the earth removed from the trenches laid evenly over the entire surface between and around the plants, as it came from the spade.
At frequent intervals along the river, paths and steps were seen leading to the water and within a distance of a quarter of a mile we counted thirty-one men and women carrying mud in baskets on bamboo poles swung across their shoulders, the mud being taken from just above the water line.
The disposition of this material we could not see as it was carried beyond a rise in ground.
We have little doubt that the mulberry fields were being covered with it.
It was here that a rain set in and almost like magic the fields blossomed out with great numbers of giant rain hats and kittysols, where people had been unobserved before.
From one o'clock until six in the afternoon we had traveled continuously through these mulberry fields stretching back miles from our line of travel on either hand, and the total acreage must have been very large.
But we had now nearly reached the margin of the delta and the mulberries changed to fields of grain, beans, peas and vegetables.
After leaving the delta region the balance of the journey to Wuchow was through a hill country, the slopes rising steeply from near the river bank, leaving relatively little tilled or readily tillable land.
Rising usually five hundred to a thousand feet, the sides and summits of the rounded, soil-covered hills were generally clothed with a short herbaceous growth and small scattering trees, oftenest pine, four to sixteen feet high, Fig.
44 being a typical landscape of the region.
In several sections along the course of this river there are limited areas of intense erosion where naked gulleys of no mean magnitude have developed but these were exceptions and we were continually surprised at the remarkable steepness of the slopes, with convexly rounded contours almost everywhere, well mantled with soil, devoid of gulleys and completely covered with herbaceous growth dotted with small trees.
The absence of forest growth finds its explanation in human influence rather than natural conditions.
Throughout the hill-land section of this mighty river the most characteristic and persistent human features were the stacks of brush-wood and the piles of stove wood along the banks or loaded upon boats and barges for the market.
The brush-wood was largely made from the boughs of pine, tied into bundles and stacked like grain.
The stove wood was usually round, peeled and made from the limbs and trunks of trees two to five inches in diameter.
All this fuel was coming to the river from the back country, sent down along steep slides which in the distance resemble paths leading over hills but too steep for travel.
The fuel was loaded upon large barges, the boughs in the form of stacks to shed rain but with a tunnel leading into the house of the boat about which they were stacked, while the wood was similarly corded about the dwelling, as seen in Fig.
44.
The wood was going to Canton and other delta cities while the pine boughs were taken to the lime and cement kilns, many of which were located along the river.
Absolutely the whole tree, including the roots and the needles, is saved and burned; no waste is permitted.
The up-river cargo of the Nanning was chiefly matting rush, taken on at Canton, tied in bundles like sheaves of wheat.
It is grown upon the lower, newer delta lands by methods of culture similar to those applied to rice, Fig.
45 showing a field as seen in Japan.
The rushes were being taken to one of the country villages on a tributary of the Sikiang and the steamer was met by a flotilla of junks from this village, some forty-five miles up the stream, where the families live who do the weaving.
On the return trip the flotilla again met the steamer with a cargo of the woven matting.
In keeping record of packages transferred the Chinese use a simple and unique method.
Each carrier, with his two bundles, received a pair of tally sticks.
At the gang-plank sat a man with a tally-case divided into twenty compartments, each of which could receive five, but no more, tallies.
As the bundles left the steamer the tallies were placed in the tally-case until it contained one hundred, when it was exchanged for another.
Wuchow is a city of some 65,000 inhabitants, standing back on the higher ground, not readily visible from the steamer landing nor from the approach on the river.
On the foreground, across which stretched the anchor chains of the dock, was living a floating population, many in shelters less substantial than Indian wigwams, but engaged in a great variety of work, and many water buffalo had been tied for the night along the anchor chains.
Before July much of this area would lie beneath the flood waters of the Sikiang.
Here a ship builder was using his simple, effective bow-brace, boring holes for the dowel pins in the planking for his ship, and another was bending the plank to the proper curvature.
The bow-brace consisted of a bamboo stalk carrying the bit at one end and a shoulder rest at the other.
Pressing the bit to its work with the shoulder, it was driven with the string of a long bow wrapped once around the stalk by drawing the bow back and forth, thus rapidly and readily revolving the bit.
The bending of the long, heavy plank, four inches thick and eight inches wide, was more simple still, It was saturated with water and one end raised on a support four feet above the ground.
A bundle of burning rice straw moved along the under side against the wet wood had the effect of steaming the wood and the weight of the plank caused it to gradually bend into the shape desired.
Bamboo poles are commonly bent or straightened in this manner to suit any need and Fig.
46 shows a wooden fork shaped in the manner described from a small tree having three main branches.
This fork is in the hands of my interpreter and was used by the woman standing at the right, in turning wheat.
When the old ship builder had finished shaping his plank he sat down on the ground for a smoke.
His pipe was one joint of bamboo stem a foot long, nearly two inches in diameter and open at one end.
In the closed end, at one side, a small hole was bored for draft.
A charge of tobacco was placed in the bottom, the lips pressed into the open end and the pipe lighted by suction, holding a lighted match at the small opening.
To enjoy his pipe the bowl rested on the ground between his legs.
With his lips in the bowl and a long breath, he would completely fill his lungs, retaining the smoke for a time, then slowly expire and fill the lungs again, after an interval of natural breathing.
On returning to Canton we went by rail, with an interpreter, to Samshui, visiting fields along the way, and Fig.
47 is a view of one landscape.
The woman was picking roses among tidy beds of garden vegetables.
Beyond her and in front of the near building are two rows of waste receptacles.
In the center background is a large "go-down", in function that of our cold storage warehouse and in part that of our grain elevator for rice.
In them, too, the wealthy store their fur-lined winter garments for safe keeping.
These are numerous in this portion of China and the rank of a city is indicated by their number.
The conical hillock is a large near-by grave mound and many others serrate the sky line on the hill beyond.
In the next landscape, Fig.
48, a crop of winter peas, trained to canes, are growing on ridges among the stubble of the second crop of rice, In front is one canal, the double ridge behind is another and a third canal extends in front of the houses.
Already preparations were being made for the first crop of rice, fields were being flooded and fertilized.
One such is seen in Fig.
49, where a laborer was engaged at the time in bringing stable manure, wading into the water to empty the baskets.
Two crops of rice are commonly grown each year in southern China and during the winter and early spring, grain, cabbage, rape, peas, beans, leeks and ginger may occupy the fields as a third or even fourth crop, making the total year's product from the land very large; but the amount of thought, labor and fertilizers given to securing these is even greater and beyond anything Americans will endure.
How great these efforts are will be appreciated from what is seen in Fig.
50, representing two fields thrown into high ridges, planted to ginger and covered with straw.
All of this work is done by hand and when the time for rice planting comes every ridge will again be thrown down and the surface smoothed to a water level.
Even when the ridges and beds are not thrown down for the crops of rice, the furrows and the beds will change places so that all the soil is worked over deeply and mainly through hand labor.
The statement so often made, that these people only barely scratch the surface of their fields with the crudest of tools is very far from the truth, for their soils are worked deeply and often, notwithstanding the fact that their plowing, as such, may be shallow.
Through Dr. John Blumann of the missionary hospital at Tungkun, east from Canton, we learned that the good rice lands there a few years ago sold at $75 to $130 per acre but that prices are rising rapidly.
The holdings of the better class of farmers there are ten to fifteen mow--one and two-thirds to two and a half acres--upon which are maintained families numbering six to twelve.
The day's wage of a carpenter or mason is eleven to thirteen cents of our currency, and board is not included, but a day's ration for a laboring man is counted worth fifteen cents, Mexican, or less than seven cents, gold.
Fish culture is practiced in both deep and shallow basins, the deep permanent ones renting as high as $30 gold, per acre.
The shallow basins which can be drained in the dry season are used for fish only during the rainy period, being later drained and planted to some crop.
The permanent basins have often come to be ten or twelve feet deep, increasing with long usage, for they are periodically drained by pumping and the foot or two of mud which has accumulated, removed and sold as fertilizer to planters of rice and other crops.
It is a common practice, too, among the fish growers, to fertilize the ponds, and in case a foot path leads alongside, screens are built over the water to provide accommodation for travelers.
Fish reared in the better fertilized ponds bring a higher price in the market.
The fertilizing of the water favors a stronger growth of food forms, both plant and animal, upon which the fish live and they are better nourished, making a more rapid growth, giving their flesh better qualities, as is the case with well fed animals.
In the markets where fish are exposed for sale they are often sliced in halves lengthwise and the cut surface smeared with fresh blood.
In talking with Dr. Blumann as to the reason for this practice he stated that the Chinese very much object to eating meat that is old or tainted and that he thought the treatment simply had the effect of making the fish look fresher.
I question whether this treatment with fresh blood may not have a real antiseptic effect and very much doubt that people so shrewd as the Chinese would be misled by such a ruse.
V EXTENT OF CANALIZATION AND SURFACE FITTING OF FIELDS On the evening of March 15th we left Canton for Hongkong and the following day embarked again on the Tosa Maru for Shanghai.
Although our steamer stood so far to sea that we were generally out of sight of land except for some off-shore islands, the water was turbid most of the way after we had crossed the Tropic of Cancer off the mouth of the Han river at Swatow.
Over a sea bottom measuring more than six hundred miles northward along the coast, and perhaps fifty miles to sea, unnumbered acre-feet of the richest soil of China are being borne beyond the reach of her four hundred millions of people and the children to follow them.
Surely it must be one of the great tasks of future statesmanship, education and engineering skill to divert larger amounts of such sediments close along inshore in such manner as to add valuable new land annually to the public domain, not alone in China but in all countries where large resources of this type are going to waste.
In the vast Cantonese delta plains which we had just left, in the still more extensive ones of the Yangtse kiang to which we were now going, and in those of the shifting Hwang ho further north, centuries of toiling millions have executed works of almost incalculable magnitude, fundamentally along such lines as those just suggested.
They have accomplished an enormous share of these tasks by sheer force of body and will, building levees, digging canals, diverting the turbid waters of streams through them and then carrying the deposits of silt and organic growth out upon the fields, often borne upon the shoulders of men in the manner we have seen.
It is well nigh impossible, by word or map, to convey an adequate idea of the magnitude of the systems of canalization and delta and other lowland reclamation work, or of the extent of surface fitting of fields which have been effected in China, Korea and Japan through the many centuries, and which are still in progress.
The lands so reclaimed and fitted constitute their most enduring asset and they support their densest populations.
In one of our journeys by houseboat on the delta canals between Shanghai and Hangchow, in China, over a distance of 117 miles, we made a careful record of the number and dimensions of lateral canals entering and leaving the main one along which our boat-train was traveling.
This record shows that in 62 miles, beginning north of Kashing and extending south to Hangchow, there entered from the west 134 and there left on the coast side 190 canals.
The average width of these canals, measured along the water line, we estimated at 22 and 19 feet respectively on the two sides.
The height of the fields above the water level ranged from four to twelve feet, during the April and May stage of water.
The depth of water, after we entered the Grand Canal, often exceeded six feet and our best judgment would place the average depth of all canals in this part of China at more than eight feet below the level of the fields.
In Fig.
51, representing an area of 718 square miles in the region traversed, all lines shown are canals, but scarcely more than one-third of those present are shown on the map.
Between A, where we began our records, before reaching Kashing, and B, near the left margin of the map, there were forty-three canals leading in from the up-country side, instead of the eight shown, and on the coast side there were eighty-six leading water out into the delta plain toward the coast, instead of the twelve shown.
Again, on one of our trips by rail, from Shanghai to Nanking, we made a similar record of the number of canals seen from the train, close along the track, and the notes show, in a distance of 162 miles, 593 canals between Lungtan and Nansiang.
This is an average of more than three canals per mile for this region and that between Shanghai and Hangchow.
The extent, nature and purpose of these vast systems of internal improvement may be better realized through a study of the next two sketch maps.
The first, Fig.
52, represents an area 175 by 160 miles, of which the last illustration is the portion enclosed in the small rectangle.
On this area there are shown 2,700 miles of canals and only about one-third of the canals shown in Fig.
51 are laid down on this map, and according to our personal observations there are three times as many canals as are shown on the map of which Fig.
51 represents a part.
It is probable, therefore, that there exists today in the area of Fig.
52 not less than 25,000 miles of canals.
In the next illustration, Fig.
53, an area of northeast China, 600 by 725 miles, is represented.
The unshaded land area covers nearly 200,000 square miles of alluvial plain.
This plain is so level that at Ichang, nearly a thousand miles up the Yangtse, the elevation is only 130 feet above the sea.
The tide is felt on the river to beyond Wuhu, 375 miles from the coast.
During the summer the depth of water in the Yangtse is sufficient to permit ocean vessels drawing twenty-five feet of water to ascend six hundred miles to Hankow, and for smaller steamers to go on to Ichang, four hundred miles further.
The location, in this vast low delta and coastal plain, of the system of canals already described, is indicated by the two rectangles in the south-east corner of the sketch map, Fig.
53.
The heavy barred black line extending from Hangchow in the south to Tientsin in the north represents the Grand Canal which has a length of more than eight hundred miles.
The plain, east of this canal, as far north as the mouth of the Hwang ho in 1852, is canalized much as is the area shown in Fig.
52.
So, too, is a large area both sides of the present mouth of the same river in Shantung and Chihli, between the canal and the coast.
Westward, up the Yangtse valley, the provinces of Anhwei, Kiangsi, Hunan and Hupeh have very extensive canalized tracts, probably exceeding 28,000 square miles in area, and Figs.
54 and 55 are two views in this more western region.
Still further west, in Szechwan province, is the Chengtu plain, thirty by seventy miles, with what has been called "the most remarkable irrigation system in China."
Westward beyond the limits of the sketch map, up the Hwang ho valley, there is a reach of 125 miles of irrigated lands about Ninghaifu, and others still farther west, at Lanchowfu and at Suchow where the river has attained an elevation of 5,000 feet, in Kansu province; and there is still to be named the great Canton delta region.
A conservative estimate would place the miles of canals and leveed rivers in China, Korea and Japan equal to eight times the number represented in Fig.
52.
Fully 200,000 miles in all.
Forty canals across the United States from east to west and sixty from north to south would not equal, in number of miles those in these three countries today.
Indeed, it is probable that this estimate is not too large for China alone.
As adjuncts to these vast canalization works there have been enormous amounts of embankment, dike and levee construction.
More than three hundred miles of sea wall alone exist in the area covered by the sketch map, Fig.
52.
The east bank of the Grand Canal, between Yangchow and Hwaianfu, is itself a great levee, holding back the waters to the west above the eastern plain, diverting them south, into the Yangtse kiang.
But it is also provided with spillways for use in times of excessive flood, permitting waters to discharge eastward.
Such excess waters however are controlled by another dike with canal along its west side, some forty miles to the east, impounding the water in a series of large lakes until it may gradually drain away.
This area is seen in Fig.
53, north of the Yangtse river.
Along the banks of the Yangtse, and for many miles along the Hwang ho, great levees have been built, some-times in reinforcing series of two or three at different distances back from the channel where the stream bed is above the adjacent country, in order to prevent widespread disaster and to limit the inundated areas in times of unusual flood.
In the province of Hupeh, where the Han river flows through two hundred miles of low country, this stream is diked on both sides throughout the whole distance, and in a portion of its course the height of the levees reaches thirty feet or more.
Again, in the Canton delta region there are other hundreds of miles of sea wall and dikes, so that the aggregate mileage of this type of construction works in the Empire can only be measured in thousands of miles.
In addition to the canal and levee construction works there are numerous impounding reservoirs which are brought into requisition to control overflow waters from the great streams.
Some of these reservoirs, like Tungting lake in Hupeh and Poyang in Hunan, have areas of 2,000 and 1,800 square miles respectively and during the heaviest rainy seasons each may rise through twenty to thirty feet, Then there are other large and small lakes in the coastal plain giving an aggregate reservoir area exceeding 13,000 square miles, all of which are brought into service in controlling flood waters, all of which are steadily filling with the sediments brought from the far away uncultivable mountain slopes and which are ultimately destined to become rich alluvial plains, doubtless to be canalized in the manner we have seen.
There is still another phase of these vast construction works which has been of the greatest moment in increasing the maintenance capacity of the Empire,--the wresting from the flood waters of the enormous volumes of silt which they carry, depositing it over the flooded areas, in the canals and along the shores in such manner as to add to the habitable and cultivable land.
Reference has been made to the rapid growth of Chungming island in the mouth of the Yangtse kiang, and the million people now finding homes on the 270 square miles of newly made land which now has its canals, as may be seen in the upper margin of Fig.
52.
The city of Shanghai, as its name signifies, stood originally on the seashore, which has now grown twenty miles to the northward and to the eastward.
In 220 B. C. the town of Putai in Shantung stood one-third of a mile from the sea, but in 1730 it was forty-seven miles inland, and is forty-eight miles from the shore today.
Sienshuiku, on the Pei ho, stood upon the seashore in 500 A. D. We passed the city, on our way to Tientsin, eighteen miles inland.
The dotted line laid in from the coast of the Gulf of Chihli in Fig.
53 marks one historic shore line and indicates a general growth of land eighteen miles to seaward.
Besides these actual extensions of the shore lines the centuries of flooding of lakes and low lying lands has so filled many depressions as to convert large areas of swamp into cultivated fields.
Not only this, but the spreading of canal mud broadcast over the encircled fields has had two very important effects,--namely, raising the level of the low lying fields, giving them better drainage and so better physical condition, and adding new plant food in the form of virgin soil of the richest type, thus contributing to the maintenance of soil fertility, high maintenance capacity and permanent agriculture through all the centuries.
These operations of maintenance and improvement had a very early inception; they appear to have persisted throughout the recorded history of the Empire and are in vogue today.
Canals of the type illustrated in Figs.
51 and 52 have been built between 1886 and 1901, both on the extensions of Chungming island and the newly formed main land to the north, as is shown by comparison of Stieler's atlas, revised in 1886, with the recent German survey.
Earlier than 2255 B. C., more than 4100 years ago, Emperor Yao appointed "The Great" Yu "Superintendent of Works" and entrusted him with the work of draining off the waters of disastrous floods and of canalizing the rivers, and he devoted thirteen years to this work.
This great engineer is said to have written several treatises on agriculture and drainage, and was finally called, much against his wishes, to serve as Emperor during the last seven years of his life.
The history of the Hwang ho is one of disastrous floods and shiftings of its course, which have occurred many times in the years since before the time of the Great Yu, who perhaps began the works perpetuated today.
Between 1300 A. D. and 1852 the Hwang ho emptied into the Yellow Sea south of the highlands of Shantung, but in that year, when in unusual flood, it broke through the north levees and finally took its present course, emptying again into the Gulf of Chihli, some three hundred miles further north.
Some of these shiftings of course of the Hwang ho and of the Yangtse kiang are indicated in dotted lines on the sketch map, Fig.
53, where it may he seen that the Hwang ho during 146 years, poured its waters into the sea as far north as Tientsin, through the mouth of the Pei ho, four hundred miles to the northward of its mouth in 1852.
This mighty river is said to carry at low stage, past the city of Tsinan in Shantung, no less than 4,000 cubic yards of water per second, and three times this volume when running at flood.
This is water sufficient to inundate thirty-three square miles of level country ten feet deep in twenty-four hours.
What must be said of the mental status of a people who for forty centuries have measured their strength against such a Titan racing past their homes above the level of their fields, confined only between walls of their own construction?
While they have not always succeeded in controlling the river, they have never failed to try again.
In 1877 this river broke its banks, inundating a vast.
area, bringing death to a million people.
Again, as late as 1898, fifteen hundred villages to the northeast of Tsinan and a much larger area to the southwest of the same city were devastated by it, and it is such events as these which have won for the river the names "China's Sorrow," "The Ungovernable" and "The Scourge of the Sons of Han."
The building of the Grand Canal appears to have been a comparatively recent event in Chinese history.
The middle section, between the Yangtse and Tsingkiangpu, is said to have been constructed about the sixth century B. C.; the southern section, between Chingkiang and Hangchow, during the years 605 to 617 A. D.; but the northern section, from the channel of the Hwang ho deserted in 1852, to Tientsin, was not built until the years 1280-1283.
While this canal has been called by the Chinese Yu ho (Imperial river), Yun ho (Transport river) or Yunliang ho (Tribute bearing river) and while it has connected the great rivers coming down from the far interior into a great water-transport system, this feature of construction may have been but a by-product of the great dominating purpose which led to the vast internal improvements in the form of canals, dikes, levees and impounding reservoirs so widely scattered, so fully developed and so effectively utilized.
Rather the master purpose must have been maintenance for the increasing flood of humanity.
And I am willing to grant to the Great Yu, with his finger on the pulse of the nation, the power to project his vision four thousand years into the future of his race and to formulate some of the measures which might he inaugurated to grow with the years and make certain perpetual maintenance for those to follow.
The exhaustion of cultivated fields must always have been the most fundamental, vital and difficult problem of all civilized people and it appears clear that such canalization as is illustrated in Figs.
51 and 52 may have been primarily initial steps in the reclamation of delta and overflow lands.
At any rate, whether deliberately so planned or not, the canalization of the delta and overflow plains of China has been one of the most fundamental and fruitful measures for the conservation of her national resources that they could have taken, for we are convinced that this oldest nation in the world has thus greatly augmented the extension of its coastal plains, conserving and building out of the waste of erosion wrested from the great streams, hundreds of square miles of the richest and most enduring of soils, and we have little doubt that were a full and accurate account given of human influence upon the changes in this remarkable region during the last four thousand years it would show that these gigantic systems of canalization have been matters of slow, gradual growth, often initiated and always profoundly influenced by the labors of the strong, patient, persevering, thoughtful but ever silent husband-men in their efforts to acquire homes and to maintain the productive power of their fields.
Nothing appears more clear than that the greatest material problem which can engage the best thought of China today is that of perfecting, extending and perpetuating the means for controlling her flood waters, for better draining of her vast areas of low land, and for utilizing the tremendous loads of silt borne by her streams more effectively in fertilizing existing fields and in building and reclaiming new land.
With her millions of people needing homes and anxious for work; who have done so much in land building, in reclamation and in the maintenance of soil fertility, the government should give serious thought to the possibility of putting large numbers of them at work, effectively directed by the best engineering skill.
It must now be entirely practicable, with engineering skill and mechanical appliances, to put the Hwang ho, and other rivers of China subject to overflow, completely under control.
With the Hwang ho confined to its channel, the adjacent low lands can be better drained by canalization and freed from the accumulating saline deposits which are rendering them sterile.
Warping may be resorted to during the flood season to raise the level of adjacent low-lying fields, rendering them at the same time more fertile.
Where the river is running above the adjacent plains there is no difficulty in drawing off the turbid water by gravity, under controlled conditions, into diked basins, and even in compelling the river to buttress its own levees.
There is certainly great need and great opportunity for China to make still better and more efficient her already wonderful transportation canals and those devoted to drainage, irrigation and fertilization.
In the United States, along the same lines, now that we are considering the development of inland waterways, the subject should be surveyed broadly and much careful study may well be given to the works these old people have developed and found serviceable through so many centuries.
The Mississippi is annually bearing to the sea nearly 225,000 acre-feet of the most fertile sediment, and between levees along a raised bed through two hundred miles of country subject to inundation.
The time is here when there should he undertaken a systematic diversion of a large part of this fertile soil over the swamp areas, building them into well drained, cultivable, fertile fields provided with waterways to serve for drainage, irrigation, fertilization and transportation.
These great areas of swamp land may thus be converted into the most productive rice and sugar plantations to be found anywhere in the world, and the area made capable of maintaining many millions of people as long as the Mississippi endures, bearing its burden of fertile sediment.
But the conservation and utilization of the wastes of soil erosion, as applied in the delta plain of China, stupendous as this work has been, is nevertheless small when measured by the savings which accrue from the careful and extensive fitting of fields so largely practiced, which both lessens soil erosion and permits a large amount of soluble and suspended matter in the run-off to be applied to, and retained upon, the fields through their extensive systems of irrigation.
Mountainous and hilly as are the lands of Japan, 11,000 square miles of her cultivated fields in the main islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku have been carefully graded to water level areas bounded by narrow raised rims upon which sixteen or more inches of run-off water, with its suspended and soluble matters, may be applied, a large part of which is retained on the fields or utilized by the crop, while surface erosion is almost completely prevented.
The illustrations, Figs.
11, 12 and 13 show the application of the principle to the larger and more level fields, and in Figs.
151, 152 and 225 may be seen the practice on steep slopes.
If the total area of fields graded practically to a water level in Japan aggregates 11,000 square miles, the total area thus surface fitted in China must be eight or tenfold this amount.
Such enormous field erosion as is tolerated at the present time in our southern and south Atlantic states is permitted nowhere in the Far East, so far as we observed, not even where the topography is much steeper.
The tea orchards as we saw them on the steeper slopes, not level-terraced, are often heavily mulched with straw which makes erosion, even by heavy rains impossible, while the treatment retains the rain where it falls, giving the soil opportunity to receive it under the impulse of both capillarity and gravity, and with it the soluble ash ingredients leached from the straw.
The straw mulches we saw used in this manner were often six to eight inches deep, thus constituting a dressing of not less than six tons per acre, carrying 140 pounds of soluble potassium and 12 pounds of phosphorus.
The practice, therefore, gives at once a good fertilizing, the highest conservation and utilization of rainfall, and a complete protection against soil erosion.
It is a multum in parvo treatment which characterizes so many of the practices of these people, which have crystallized from twenty centuries of high tension experience.
In the Kiangsu and Chekiang provinces as elsewhere in the densely populated portions of the Far East, we found almost all of the cultivated fields very nearly level or made so by grading.
Instances showing the type of this grading in a comparatively level country are seen in Figs.
56 and 57.
By this preliminary surface fitting of the fields these people have reduced to the lowest possible limit the waste of soil fertility by erosion and surface leaching.
At the same time they are able to retain upon the field, uniformly distributed over it, the largest part of the rainfall practicable, and to compel a much larger proportion of the necessary run off to leave by under-drainage than would be possible otherwise, conveying the plant food developed in the surface soil to the roots of the crops, while they make possible a more complete absorption and retention by the soil of the soluble plant food materials not taken up.
This same treatment also furnishes the best possible conditions for the application of water to the fields when supplemental irrigation would be helpful, and for the withdrawal of surplus rainfall by surface drainage, should this be necessary.
Besides this surface fitting of fields there is a wide application of additional methods aiming to conserve both rainfall and soil fertility, one of which is illustrated in Fig.
58, showing one end of a collecting reservoir.
There were three of these reservoirs in tandem, connected with each other by surface ditches and with an adjoining canal.
About the reservoir the level field is seen to be thrown into beds with shallow furrows between the long narrow ridges.
The furrows are connected by a head drain around the margin of the reservoir and separated from it by a narrow raised rim.
Such a reservoir may be six to ten feet deep but can be completely drained only by pumping or by evaporation during the dry season.
Into such reservoirs the excess surface water is drained where all suspended matter carried from the field collects and is returned, either directly as an application of mud or as material used in composts.
In the preparation of composts, pits are dug near the margin of the reservoir, as seen in the illustration, and into them are thrown coarse manure and any roughage in the form of stubble or other refuse which may be available, these materials being saturated with the soft mud dipped from the bottom of the reservoir.
In all of the provinces where canals are abundant they also serve as reservoirs for collecting surface washings and along their banks great numbers of compost pits are maintained and repeatedly filled during the season, for use on the fields as the crops are changed.
Fig.
59 shows two such pits on the bank of a canal, already filled.
In other cases, as in the Shantung province, illustrated in Fig.
60, the surface of the field may be thrown into broad leveled lands separated and bounded by deep and wide trenches into which the excess water of very heavy rains may collect.
As we saw them there was no provision for draining the trenches and the water thus collected either seeps away or evaporates, or it may be returned in part by underflow and capillary rise to the soil from which it was collected, or be applied directly for irrigation by pumping.
In this province the rains may often be heavy but the total fall for the year is small, being little more than twenty-four inches hence there is the greatest need for its conservation, and this is carefully practiced.
VI SOME CUSTOMS OF THE COMMON PEOPLE The Tosa Maru brought us again into Shanghai March 20th, just in time for the first letters from home.
A ricksha man carried us and our heavy valise at a smart trot from the dock to the Astor House more than a mile, for 8.6 cents, U. S. currency, and more than the conventional price for the service rendered.
On our way we passed several loaded carryalls of the type seen in Fig.
61, on which women were riding for a fare one-tenth that we had paid, but at a slower pace and with many a jolt.
The ringing chorus which came loud and clear when yet half a block away announced that the pile drivers were still at work on the foundation for an annex to the Astor House, and so were they on May 27th when we returned from the Shantung province, 88 days after we saw them first, but with the task then practically completed.
Had the eighteen men labored continuously through this interval, the cost of their services to the contractor would have been but $205.92.
With these conditions the engine-driven pile driver could not compete.
All ordinary labor here receives a low wage.
In the Chekiang province farm labor employed by the year received $30 and board, ten years ago, but now is receiving $50.
This is at the rate of about $12.90 and $21.50, gold, materially less than there is paid per month in the United States.
At Tsingtao in the Shantung province a missionary was paying a Chinese cook ten dollars per month, a man for general work nine dollars per month, and the cook's wife, for doing the mending and other family service, two dollars per month, all living at home and feeding themselves.
This service rendered for $9.03, gold, per month covers the marketing, all care of the garden and lawn as well as all the work in the house.
Missionaries in China find such servants reliable and satisfactory, and trust them with the purse and the marketing for the table, finding them not only honest but far better at a bargain and at economical selection than themselves.
We had a soil tube made in the shops of a large English ship building and repair firm, employing many hundred Chinese as mechanics, using the most modern and complex machinery, and the foreman stated that as soon as the men could understand well enough to take orders they were even better shop hands than the average in Scotland and England.
An educated Chinese booking clerk at the Soochow railway station in Kiangsu province was receiving a salary of $10.75, gold, per month.
We had inquired the way to the Elizabeth Blake hospital and he volunteered to escort us and did so, the distance being over a mile.
He would accept no compensation, and yet I was an entire stranger, without introduction of any kind.
Everywhere we went in China, the laboring people appeared generally happy and contented if they have something to do, and showed clearly that they were well nourished.
The industrial classes are thoroughly organized, having had their guilds or labor unions for centuries and it is not at all uncommon for a laborer who is known to have violated the rules of his guild to be summarily dealt with or even to disappear without questions being asked.
In going among the people, away from the lines of tourist travel, one gets the impression that everybody is busy or is in the harness ready to be busy.
Tramps of our hobo type have few opportunities here and we doubt if one exists in either of these countries.
There are people physically disabled who are asking alms and there are organized charities to help them, but in proportion to the total population these appear to be fewer than in America or Europe.
The gathering of unfortunates and habitual beggars about public places frequented by people of leisure and means naturally leads tourists to a wrong judgment regarding the extent of these social conditions.
Nowhere among these densely crowded people, either Chinese, Japanese or Korean, did we see one intoxicated, but among Americans and Europeans many instances were observed.
All classes and both sexes use tobacco and the British-American Tobacco Company does a business in China amounting to millions of dollars annually.
During five months among these people we saw but two children in a quarrel.
The two little boys were having their trouble on Nanking road, Shanghai, where, grasping each other's pigtails, they tussled with a vengeance until the mother of one came and parted their ways.
Among the most frequent sights in the city streets are the itinerant vendors of hot foods and confections.
Stove, fuel, supplies and appliances may all be carried on the shoulders, swinging from a bamboo pole.
The mother in Fig.
63 was quite likely thus supporting her family and the children are seen at lunch, dressed in the blue and white calico prints so generally worn by the young.
The printing of this calico by the very ancient, simple yet effective method we witnessed in the farm village along the canal seen in Fig.
10.
This art, as with so many others in China, was the inheritance of the family we saw at work, handed down to them through many generations.
The printer was standing at a rough work bench upon which a large heavy stone in cubical form served as a weight to hold in place a thoroughly lacquered sheet of tough cardboard in which was cut the pattern to appear in white on the cloth.
Beside the stone stood a pot of thick paste prepared from a mixture of lime and soy bean flour.
The soy beans were being ground in one corner of the same room by a diminutive edition of such an outfit as seen in Fig.
64.
The donkey was working in his permanent abode and whenever off duty he halted before manger and feed.
At the operator's right lay a bolt of white cotton cloth fixed to unroll and pass under the stencil, held stationary by the heavy weight.
To print, the stencil was raised and the cloth brought to place under it.
The paste was then deftly spread with a paddle over the surface and thus upon the cloth beneath wherever exposed through the openings in the stencil.
This completes the printing of the pattern on one section of the bolt of cloth.
The free end of the stencil is then raised, the cloth passed along the proper distance by hand and the stencil dropped in place for the next application.
The paste is permitted to dry upon the cloth and when the bolt has been dipped into the blue dye the portions protected by the paste remain white.
In this simple manner has the printing of calico been done for centuries for the garments of millions of children.
From the ceiling of the drying room in this printery of olden times were hanging some hundreds of stencils bearing different patterns.
In our great calico mills, printing hundreds of yards per minute, the mechanics and the chemistry differ only in detail of application and in dispatch, not in fundamental principle.
In almost any direction we traveled outside the city, in the pleasant mornings when the air was still, the laying of warp for cotton cloth could be seen, to be woven later in the country homes.
We saw this work in progress many times and in many places in the early morning, usually along some roadside or open place, as seen in Fig.
65, but never later in the day.
When the warp is laid each will be rolled upon its stretcher and removed to the house to be woven.
In many places in Kiangsu province batteries of the large dye pits were seen sunk in the fields and lined with cement.
These were six to eight feet in diameter and four to five feet deep.
In one case observed there were nine pits in the set.
Some of the pits were neatly sheltered beneath live arbors, as represented in Fig.
66.
But much of this spinning, weaving, dyeing and printing of late years is being displaced by the cheaper calicos of foreign make and most of the dye pits we saw were not now used for this purpose, the two in the illustration serving as manure receptacles.
Our interpreter stated however that there is a growing dissatisfaction with foreign goods on account of their lack of durability; and we saw many cases where the cloth dyed blue was being dried in large quantities on the grave lands.
In another home for nearly an hour we observed a method of beating cotton and of laying it to serve as the body for mattresses and the coverlets for beds.
This we could do without intrusion because the home was also the work shop and opened full width directly upon the narrow street.
The heavy wooden shutters which closed the home at night were serving as a work bench about seven feet square, laid upon movable supports.
There was barely room to work between it and the sidewalk without impeding traffic, and on the three other sides there was a floor space three or four feet wide.
In the rear sat grandmother and wife while in and out the four younger children were playing.
Occupying the two sides of the room were receptacles filled with raw cotton and appliances for the work.
There may have been a kitchen and sleeping room behind but no door, as such, was visible.
The finished mattresses, carefully rolled and wrapped in paper, were suspended from the ceiling.
On the improvised work table, with its top two feet above the floor, there had been laid in the morning before our visit, a mass of soft white cotton more than six feet square and fully twelve inches deep.
On opposite sides of this table the father and his son, of twelve years, each twanged the string of their heavy bamboo bows, snapping the lint from the wads of cotton and flinging it broadcast in an even layer over the surface of the growing mattress, the two strings the while emitting tones pitched far below the hum of the bumblebee.
The heavy bow was steadied by a cord secured around the body of the operator, allowing him to manage it with one hand and to move readily around his work in a manner different from the custom of the Japanese seen in Fig.
67.
By this means the lint was expeditiously plucked and skillfully and uniformly laid, the twanging being effected by an appliance similar to that used in Japan.
Repeatedly, taken in small bits from the barrel of cotton, the lint was distributed over the entire surface with great dexterity and uniformity, the mattress growing upward with perfectly vertical sides, straight edges and square corners.
In this manner a thoroughly uniform texture is secured which compresses into a body of even thickness, free from hard places.
The next step in building the mattress is even more simple and expeditious.
A basket of long bobbins of roughly spun cotton was near the grandmother and probably her handiwork.
The father took from the wall a slender bamboo rod like a fish-pole, six feet long, and selecting one of the spools, threaded the strand through an eye in the small end.
With the pole and spool in one hand and the free end of the thread, passing through the eye, in the other, the father reached the thread across the mattress to the boy who hooked his finger over it, carrying it to one edge of the bed of cotton.
While this was doing the father had whipped the pole back to his side and caught the thread over his own finger, bringing this down upon the cotton opposite his son.
There was thus laid a double strand, but the pole continued whipping hack and forth across the bed, father and son catching the threads and bringing them to place on the cotton at the rate of forty to fifty courses per minute, and in a very short time the entire surface of the mattress had been laid with double strands.
A heavy bamboo roller was next laid across the strands at the middle, passed carefully to one side, back again to the middle and then to the other edge.
Another layer of threads was then laid diagonally and this similarly pressed with the same roller; then another diagonally the other way and finally straight across in both directions.
A similar network of strands had been laid upon the table before spreading the cotton.
Next a flat bottomed, circular, shallow basket-like form two feet in diameter was used to gently compress the material from twelve to six inches in thickness.
The woven threads were now turned over the edge of the mattress on all sides and sewed down, after which, by means of two heavy solid wooden disks eighteen inches in diameter, father and son compressed the cotton until the thickness was reduced to three inches.
There remained the task of carefully folding and wrapping the finished piece in oiled paper and of suspending it from the ceiling.
On March 20th, when visiting the Boone Road and Nanking Road markets in Shanghai, we had our first surprise regarding the extent to which vegetables enter into the daily diet of the Chinese.
We had observed long processions of wheelbarrow men moving from the canals through the streets carrying large loads of the green tips of rape in bundles a foot long and five inches in diameter.
These had come from the country on boats each carrying tons of the succulent leaves and stems.
We had counted as many as fifty wheelbarrow men passing a given point on the street in quick succession, each carrying 300 to 500 pounds of the green rape and moving so rapidly that it was not easy to keep pace with them, as we learned in following one of the trains during twenty minutes to its destination.
During this time not a man in the train halted or slackened his pace.
This rape is very extensively grown in the fields, the tips of the stems cut when tender and eaten, after being boiled or steamed, after the manner of cabbage.
Very large quantities are also packed with salt in the proportion of about twenty pounds of salt to one hundred pounds of the rape.
This, Fig.
68, and many other vegetables are sold thus pickled and used as relishes with rice, which invariably is cooked and served without salt or other seasoning.
Another field crop very extensively grown for human food, and partly as a source of soil nitrogen, is closely allied to our alfalfa.
This is the Medicago astragalus, two beds of which are seen in Fig.
69.
Tender tips of the stems are gathered before the stage of blossoming is reached and served as food after boiling or steaming.
It is known among the foreigners as Chinese "clover."
The stems are also cooked and then dried for use when the crop is out of season.
When picked very young, wealthy Chinese families pay an extra high price for the tender shoots, sometimes as much as 20 to 28 cents, our currency, per pound.
The markets are thronged with people making their purchases in the early mornings, and the congested condition, with the great variety of vegetables, makes it almost as impressive a sight as Billingsgate fish market in London.
In the following table we give a list of vegetables observed there and the prices at which they were selling.
----------------------------------------------------------LIST OF VEGETABLES DISPLAYED FOR SALE IN BOONE ROAD MARKET, SHANGHAI, APRIL 6TH, 1900, WITH PRICES EXPRESSED IN U. S.
CURRENCY.---------------------------------------------------------Cents Lotus roots, per lb.
1.60 Bamboo sprouts, per lb.
6.40 English cabbage, per lb.
1.33 Olive greens, per lb.
.67 White greens, per lb.
.33 Tee Tsai, per lb.
.53 Chinese celery, per lb.
.67 Chinese clover, per lb.
.58 Chinese clover, very young, lb.
21.33 Oblong white cabbage, per lb.
2.00 Red beans, per lb.
1.33 Yellow beans, per lb.
1.87 Peanuts, per lb.
2.49 Ground nuts, per lb.
2.96 Cucumbers, per lb.
2.58 Green pumpkin, per lb.
1.62 Maize, shelled, per lb.
1.00 Windsor beans, dry, per lb.
1.72 French lettuce, per head .44 Hau Tsai, per head .87 Cabbage lettuce, per head .22 Kale, per lb.
1.60 Rape, per lb.
.23 Portuguese water cress, basket 2.15 Shang tsor, basket 8.60 Carrots, per lb.
.97 String beans; per lb.
1.60 Irish potatoes, per lb.
1.60 Red onions, per lb.
4.96 Long white turnips, per lb.
.44 Flat string beans, per lb.
4.80 Small white turnips, bunch .44 Onion stems, per lb.
1.29 Lima beans, green, shelled, lb.
6.45 Egg plants, per lb.
4.30 Tomatoes, per lb.
5.16 Small flat turnips, per lb.
.86 Small red beets, per lb.
1.29 Artichokes, per lb.
1.29 White beans, dry, per lb.
4.80 Radishes, per lb.
1.29 Garlic, per lb.
2.15 Kohl rabi, per lb.
2.15 Mint, per lb.
4.30 Leeks, per lb.
2.18 Large celery, bleached, bunch 2.10 Sprouted peas, per lb.
.80 Sprouted beans, per lb.
.93 Parsnips, per lb.
1.29 Ginger roots, per lb.
1.60 Water chestnuts, per lb.
1.33 Large sweet potatoes, per lb.
1.33 Small sweet potatoes, per lb.
1.00 Onion sprouts, per lb.
2.13 Spinach, per lb.
1.00 Fleshy stemmed lettuce, peeled, per lb.
2.00 Fleshy stemmed lettuce, unpeeled, per lb.
.67 Bean curd, per lb.
3.93 Shantung walnuts, per lb.
4.30 Duck eggs, dozen 8.34 Hen's eggs, dozen 7.30 Goat's meat, per lb.
6.45 Pork, per lb.
6.88 Hens, live weight, per lb.
6.45 Ducks, live weight, per lb.
5.59 Cockerels, live weight, per lb.
5.59---------------------------------------------------------This long list, made up chiefly of fresh vegetables displayed for sale on one market day, is by no means complete.
The record is only such as was made in passing down one side and across one end of the market occupying nearly one city block.
Nearly everything is sold by weight and the problem of correct weights is effectively solved by each purchaser carrying his own scales, which he unhesitatingly uses in the presence of the dealer.
These scales are made on the pattern of the old time steelyards but from slender rods of wood or bamboo provided with a scale and sliding poise, the suspensions all being made with strings.
We stood by through the purchasing of two cockerels and the dickering over their weight.
A dozen live birds were under cover in a large, open-work basket.
The customer took out the birds one by one, examining them by touch, finally selecting two, the price being named.
These the dealer tied together by their feet and weighed them, announcing the result; whereupon the customer checked the statement with his own scales.
An animated dialogue followed, punctuated with many gesticulations and with the customer tossing the birds into the basket and turning to go away while the dealer grew more earnest.
The purchaser finally turned back, and again balancing the roosters upon his scales, called a bystander to read the weight, and then flung them in apparent disdain at the dealer, who caught them and placed them in the customer's basket.
The storm subsided and the dealer accepted 92c, Mexican, for the two birds.
They were good sized roosters and must have dressed more than three pounds each, yet for the two he paid less than 40 cents in our currency.
Bamboo sprouts are very generally used in China, Korea and Japan and when one sees them growing they suggest giant stalks of asparagus, some of them being three and even five inches in diameter and a foot in height at the stage for cutting.
They are shipped in large quantities from province to province where they do not grow or when they are out of season.
Those we saw in Nagasaki referred to in Fig.
22, had come from Canton or Swatow or possibly Formosa.
The form, foliage and bloom of the bamboo give the most beautiful effects in the landscape, especially when grouped with tree forms.
They are usually cultivated in small clumps about dwellings in places not otherwise readily utilized, as seen in Fig.
66.
Like the asparagus bud, the bamboo sprout grows to its full height between April and August, even when it exceeds thirty or even sixty feet in height.
The buds spring from fleshy underground stems or roots whose stored nourishment permits this rapid growth, which in its earlier stages may exceed twelve inches in twenty-four hours.
But while the full size of the plant is attained the first season, three or four years are required to ripen and harden the wood sufficiently to make it suitable for the many uses to which the stems are put.
It would seem that the time must come when some of the many forms of bamboo will be introduced and largely grown in many parts of this country.
Lotus roots form another article of diet largely used and widely cultivated from Canton to Tokyo.
These are seen in the lower section of Fig.
70, and the plants in bloom in Fig.
71, growing in water, their natural habitat.
The lotus is grown in permanent ponds not readily drained for rice or other crops, and the roots are widely shipped.
Sprouted beans and peas of many kinds and the sprouts of other vegetables, such as onions, are very generally seen in the markets of both China and Japan, at least during the late winter and early spring, and are sold as foods, having different flavors and digestive qualities, and no doubt with important advantageous effects in nutrition.
Ginger is another.
crop which is very widely and extensively cultivated.
It is generally displayed in the market in the root form.
No one thing was more generally hawked about the streets of China than the water chestnut.
This is a small corm or fleshy bulb having the shape and size of a small onion.
Boys pare them and sell a dozen spitted together on slender sticks the length of a knitting needle.
Then there are the water caltropes, grown in the canals producing a fruit resembling a horny nut having a shape which suggests for them the name "buffalo-horn".
Still another plant, known as water-grass (Hydropyrum latifolium) is grown in Kiangsu province where the land is too wet for rice.
The plant has a tender succulent crown of leaves and the peeling of the outer coarser ones away suggests the husking of an ear of green corn.
The portion eaten is the central tender new growth, and when cooked forms a delicate savory dish.
The farmers' selling price is three to four dollars, Mexican, per hundred catty, or $.97 to $1.29 per hundredweight, and the return per acre is from $13 to $20.
The small number of animal products which are included in the market list given should not be taken as indicating the proportion of animal to vegetable foods in the dietaries of these people.
It is nevertheless true that they are vegetarians to a far higher degree than are most western nations, and the high maintenance efficiency of the agriculture of China, Korea and Japan is in great measure rendered possible by the adoption of a diet so largely vegetarian.
Hopkins, in his Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture, page 234, makes this pointed statement of fact: "1000 bushels of grain has at least five times as much food value and will support five times as many people as will the meat or milk that can be made from it".
He also calls attention to the results of many Rothamsted feeding experiments with growing and fattening cattle, sheep and swine, showing that the cattle destroyed outright, in every 100 pounds of dry substance eaten, 57.3 pounds, this passing off into the air, as does all of wood except the ashes, when burned in the stove; they left in the excrements 36.5 pounds, and stored as increase but 6.2 pounds of the 100.
With sheep the corresponding figures were 60.1 pounds; 31.9 pounds and 8 pounds; and with swine they were 65.7 pounds; 16.7 pounds and 17.6 pounds.
But less than two-thirds of the substance stored in the animal can become food for man and hence we get but four pounds in one hundred of the dry substances eaten by cattle in the form of human food; but five pounds from the sheep and eleven pounds from swine.
In view of these relations, only recently established as scientific facts by rigid research, it is remarkable that these very ancient people came long ago to discard cattle as milk and meat producers; to use sheep more for their pelts and wool than for food; while swine are the one kind of the three classes which they did retain in the role of middleman as transformers of coarse substances into human food.
It is clear that in the adoption of the succulent forms of vegetables as human food important advantages are gained.
At this stage of maturity they have a higher digestibility, thus making the elimination of the animal less difficult.
Their nitrogen content is relatively higher and this in a measure compensates for loss of meat.
By devoting the soil to growing vegetation which man can directly digest they have saved 60 pounds per 100 of absolute waste by the animal, returning their own wastes to the field for the maintenance of fertility.
In using these immature forms of vegetation so largely as food they are able to produce an immense amount that would otherwise be impossible, for this is grown in a shorter time, permitting the same soil to produce more crops.
It is also produced late in the fall and early in the spring when the season is too cold and the hours of sunshine too few each day to permit of ripening crops.
VII THE FUEL PROBLEM, BUILDING AND TEXTILE MATERIALS With the vast and ever increasing demands made upon materials which are the products of cultivated fields, for food, for apparel, for furnishings and for cordage, better soil management must grow more important as populations multiply.
With the increasing cost and ultimate exhaustion of mineral fuel; with our timber vanishing rapidly before the ever growing demands for lumber and paper; with the inevitably slow growth of trees and the very limited areas which the world can ever afford to devote to forestry, the time must surely come when, in short period rotations, there will be grown upon the farm materials from which to manufacture not only paper and the substitutes for lumber, but fuels as well.
The complete utilization of every stream which reaches the sea, reinforced by the force of the winds and the energy of the waves which may be transformed along the coast lines, cannot fully meet the demands of the future for power and heat; hence only in the event of science and engineering skill becoming able to devise means for transforming the unlimited energy of space through which we are ever whirled, with an economy approximating that which crops now exhibit, can good soil management be relieved of the task of meeting a portion of the world's demand for power and heat.
When these statements were made in 1905 we did not know that for centuries there had existed in China, Korea and Japan a density of population such as to require the extensive cultivation of crops for fuel and building material, as well as for fabrics, by the ordinary methods of tillage, and hence another of the many surprises we had was the solution these people had reached of their fuel problem and of how to keep warm.
Their solution has been direct and the simplest possible.
Dress to make fuel for warmth of body unnecessary, and burn the coarser stems of crops, such as cannot be eaten, fed to animals or otherwise made useful.
These people still use what wood can be grown on the untillable land within transporting distance, and convert much wood into charcoal, making transportation over longer distances easier.
The general use of mineral fuels, such as coal, coke, oils and gas, had been impossible to these as to every other people until within the last one hundred years.
Coal, coke, oil and natural gas, however, have been locally used by the Chinese from very ancient times.
For more than two thousand years brine from many deep wells in Szechwan province has been evaporated with heat generated by the burning of natural gas from wells, conveyed through bamboo stems to the pans and burned from iron terminals.
In other sections of the same province much brine is evaporated over coal fires.
Alexander Hosie estimates the production of salt in Szechwan province at more than 600 million pounds annually.
Coal is here used also to some extent for warming the houses, burned in pits sunk in the floor, the smoke escaping where it may.
The same method of heating we saw in use in the post office at Yokohama during February.
The fires were in large iron braziers more than two feet across the top, simply set about the room, three being in operation.
Stoves for house warming are not used in dwellings in these countries.
In both China and Japan we saw coal dust put into the form and size of medium oranges by mixing it with a thin paste of clay.
Charcoal is similarly molded, as seen in Fig.
72, using a by-product from the manufacture of rice syrup for cementing.
In Nanking we watched with much interest the manufacture of charcoal briquets by another method.
A Chinese workman was seated upon the earth floor of a shop.
By his side was a pile of powdered charcoal, a dish of rice syrup by-product and a basin of the moistened charcoal powder.
Between his legs was a heavy mass of iron containing a slightly conical mold two inches deep, two and a half inches across at the top and a heavy iron hammer weighing several pounds.
In his left hand he held a short heavy ramming tool and with his right placed in the mold a pinch of the moistened charcoal; then followed three well directed blows from the hammer upon the ramming tool, compressing the charge of moistened, sticky charcoal into a very compact layer.
Another pinch of charcoal was added and the process repeated until the mold was filled, when the briquet was forced out.
By this simplest possible mechanism, the man, utilizing but a small part of his available energy, was subjecting the charcoal to an enormous pressure such as we attain only with the best hydraulic presses, and he was using the principle of repeated small charges recently patented and applied in our large and most efficient cotton and hay presses, which permit much denser bales to be made than is possible when large charges are added, and the Chinese is here, as in a thousand other ways, thoroughly sound in his application of mechanical principles.
His output for the day was small but his patience seemed unlimited.
His arms and body, bared to the waist, showed vigor and good feeding, while his face wore the look of contentment.
With forty centuries of such inheritance coursing in the veins of four hundred millions of people, in a country possessed of such marvelous wealth of coal and water power, of forest and of agricultural possibilities, there should be a future speedily blossoming and ripening into all that is highest and best for such a nation.
If they will retain their economies and their industry and use their energies to develop, direct and utilize the power in their streams and in their coal fields along the lines which science has now made possible to them, at the same time walking in paths of peace and virtue, there is little worth while which may not come to such a people.
A Shantung farmer in winter dress, Fig.
18, and the Kiangsu woman portrayed in Fig.
73, in corresponding costume, are typical illustrations of the manner in which food for body warmth is minimized and of the way the heat generated in the body is conserved.
Observe his wadded and quilted frock, his trousers of similar goods tied about the ankle, with his feet clad in multiple socks and cloth shoes provided with thick felted soles.
These types of dress, with the wadding, quilting, belting and tying, incorporate and confine as part of the effective material a large volume of air, thus securing without cost, much additional warmth without increasing the weight of the garments.
Beneath these outer garments several under pieces of different weights are worn which greatly conserve the warmth during the coldest weather and make possible a wide range of adjustment to suit varying changes in temperature.
It is doubtful if there could he devised a wardrobe suited to the conditions of these people at a smaller first cost and maintenance expense.
Rev.
E. A. Evans, of the China Inland Mission, for many years residing at Sunking in Szechwan, estimated that a farmer's wardrobe, once it was procured, could be maintained with an annual expenditure of $2.25 of our currency, this sum procuring the materials for both repairs and renewals.
The intense individual economy, extending to the smallest matters, so universally practiced by these people, has sustained the massive strength of the Mongolian nations through their long history and this trait is seen in their handling of the fuel problem, as it is in all other lines.
In the home of Mrs. Wu, owner and manager of a 25-acre rice farm in Chekiang province, there was a masonry kang seven by seven feet, about twenty-eight inches high, which could be warmed in winter by building a fire within.
The top was fitted for mats to serve as couch by day and as a place upon which to spread the bed at night.
In the Shantung province we visited the home of a prosperous farmer and here found two kangs in separate sleeping apartments, both warmed by the waste heat from the kitchen whose chimney flue passed horizontally under the kangs before rising through the roof.
These kangs were wide enough to spread the beds upon, about thirty inches high, and had been constructed from brick twelve inches square and four inches thick, made from the clay subsoil taken from the fields and worked into a plastic mass, mixed with chaff and short straw, dried in the sun and then laid in a mortar of the same material.
These massive kangs are thus capable of absorbing large amounts of the waste heat from the kitchen during the day and of imparting congenial warmth to the couches by day and to the beds and sleeping apartments during the night.
In some Manchurian inns large compound kangs are so arranged that the guests sleep heads together in double rows, separated only by low dividing rails, securing the greatest economy of fuel, providing the guests with places where they may sit upon the moderately warmed fireplace, and spread their beds when they retire.
The economy of the chimney beds does not end with the warmth conserved.
The earth and straw brick, through the processes of fermentation and through shrinkage, become open and porous after three or four years of service, so that the draft is defective, giving annoyance from smoke, which requires their renewal.
But the heat, the fermentation and the absorption of products of combustion have together transformed the comparatively infertile subsoil into what they regard as a valuable fertilizer and these discarded brick are used in the preparation of compost fertilizers for the fields.
On account of this value of the discarded brick the large amount of labor involved in removing and rebuilding the kangs is not regarded altogether as labor lost.
Our own observations have shown that heating soils to dryness at a temperature of 110 deg C. greatly increases the freedom with which plant food may be recovered from them by the solvent power of water, and the same heating doubtless improves the physical and biological conditions of the soil as well.
Nitrogen combined as ammonia, and phosphorus, potash and lime are all carried with the smoke or soot, mechanically in the draft and arrested upon the inner walls of the kangs or filter into the porous brick with the smoke, and thus add plant food directly to the soil.
Soot from wood has been found to contain, as an average, 1.36 per cent of nitrogen; .51 per cent of phosphorus and 5.34 per cent of potassium.
We practice burning straw and corn stalks in enormous quantities, to get them easily out of the way, thus scattering on the winds valuable plant food, thoughtlessly and lazily wasting where these people laboriously and religiously save.
These are gains in addition to those which result from the formation of nitrates, soluble potash and other plant foods through fermentation.
We saw many instances where these discarded brick were being used, both in Shantung and Chihli provinces, and it was common in walking through the streets of country villages to see piles of them, evidently recently removed.
The fuel grown on the farms consists of the stems of all agricultural crops which are to any extent woody, unless they can be put to some better use.
Rice straw, cotton stems pulled by the roots after the seed has been gathered, the stems of windsor beans, those of rape and the millets, all pulled by the roots, and many other kinds, are brought to the market tied in bundles in the manner seen in Figs.
74, 75 and 76.
These fuels are used for domestic purposes and for the burning of lime, brick, roofing tile and earthenware as well as in the manufacture of oil, tea, bean-curd and many other processes.
In the home, when the meals are cooked with these light bulky fuels, it is the duty of some one, often one of the children, to sit on the floor and feed the fire with one hand while with the other a bellows is worked to secure sufficient draft.
The manufacture of cotton seed oil and cotton seed cake is one of the common family industries in China, and in one of these homes we saw rice hulls and rice straw being used as fuel.
In the large low, one-story, tile-roofed building serving as store, warehouse, factory and dwelling, a family of four generations were at work, the grandfather supervising in the mill and the grandmother leading in the home and store where the cotton seed oil was being.
retailed for 22 cents per pound and the cotton seed cake at 33 cents, gold, per hundredweight.
Back of the store and living rooms, in the mill compartment, three blindfolded water buffalo, each working a granite mill, were crushing and grinding the cotton seed.
Three other buffalo, for relay service, were lying at rest or eating, awaiting their turn at the ten-hour working day.
Two of the mills were horizontal granite burrs more than four feet in diameter, the upper one revolving once with each circuit made by the cow.
The third mill was a pair of massive granite rollers, each five feet in diameter and two feet thick, joined on a very short horizontal axle which revolved on a circular stone plate about a vertical axis once with each circuit of the buffalo.
Two men tended the three mills.
After the cotton seed had been twice passed through the mills it was steamed to render the oil fluid and more readily expressed.
The steamer consisted of two covered wooden hoops not unlike that seen in Fig.
77, provided with screen bottoms, and in these the meal was placed over openings in the top of an iron kettle of boiling water from which the steam was forced through the charge of meal.
Each charge was weighed in a scoop balanced on the arm of a bamboo scale, thus securing a uniform weight for the cakes.
On the ground in front of the furnace sat a boy of twelve years steadily feeding rice chaff into the fire with his left hand at the rate of about thirty charges per minute, while with his right hand, and in perfect rhythm, he drew back and forth the long plunger of a rectangular box bellows, maintaining a forced draft for the fire.
At intervals the man who was bringing fuel fed into the furnace a bundle of rice straw, thus giving the boy's left arm a moment's respite.
When the steaming has rendered the oil sufficiently fluid the meal is transferred, hot, to ten-inch hoops two inches deep, made of braided bamboo strands, and is deftly tramped with the bare feet, while hot, the operator steadying himself by a pair of hand bars.
After a stack of sixteen hoops, divided by a slight sifting of chaff or short straw to separate the cakes, had been completed these were taken to one of four pressmen, who were kept busy in expressing the oil.
The presses consisted of two parallel timbers framed together, long enough to receive the sixteen hoops on edge above a gap between them.
These cheeses of meal are subjected to an enormous pressure secured by means of three parallel lines of wedges forced against the follower each by an iron-bound master wedge, driven home with a heavy beetle weighing some twenty-five or thirty pounds.
The lines of wedges were tightened in succession, the loosened line receiving an additional wedge to take up the slack after drawing back the master wedge, which was then driven home.
To keep good the supply of wedges which are often crushed under the pressure a second boy, older than the one at the furnace, was working on the floor, shaping new ones, the broken wedges and the chips going to the furnace for fuel.
By this very simple, readily constructed and inexpensive mechanism enormous pressures were secured and when the operator had obtained the desired compression he lighted his pipe and sat down to smoke until the oil ceased dripping into the pit sunk in the floor beneath the press.
In this interval the next series of cakes went to another press and the work thus kept up during the day.
Six hundred and forty cakes was the average daily output of this family of eight men and two boys, with their six water buffalo.
The cotton seed cakes were being sold as feed, and a near-by Chinese dairyman was using them for his herd of forty water buffalo, seen in Fig.
78, producing milk for the foreign trade in Shanghai.
This herd of forty cows one of which was an albino, was giving an average of but 200 catty of milk per day, or at the rate of six and two-thirds pounds per head!
The cows have extremely small udders but the milk is very rich, as indicated by an analysis made in the office of the Shanghai Board of Health and obtained through the kindness of Dr. Arthur Stanley.
The milk showed a specific gravity of 1.028 and contained 20.1 per cent total solids; 7.5 per cent fat; 4.2 per cent milk sugar and .8 per cent ash.
In the family of Rev.
W. H. Hudson, of the Southern Presbyterian Mission, Kashing, whose very gracious hospitality we enjoyed on two different occasions, the butter made from the milk of two of these cows, one of which, with her calf, is seen in Fig.
79, was used on the family table.
It was as white as lard or cottolene but the texture and flavor were normal and far better than the Danish and New Zealand products served at the hotels.
The milk produced at the Chinese dairy in Shanghai was being sold in bottles holding two pounds, at the rate of one dollar a bottle, or 43 cents, gold.
This seems high and there may have been misunderstanding on the part of my interpreter but his answer to my question was that the milk was being sold at one Shanghai dollar per bottle holding one and a half catty, which, interpreted, is the value given above.
But fuel from the stems of cultivated plants which are in part otherwise useful, is not sufficient to meet the needs of country and village, notwithstanding the intense economies practiced.
Large areas of hill and mountain land are made to contribute their share, as we have seen in the south of China, where pine boughs were being used for firing the lime and cement kilns.
At Tsingtao we saw the pine bough fuel on the backs of mules, Fig.
80, coming from the hills in Shantung province.
Similar fuels were being used in Korea and we have photographs of large pine bough fuel stacks, taken in Japan at Funabashi, east from Tokyo.
The hill and mountain lands, wherever accessible to the densely peopled plains, have long been cut over and as regularly has afforestation been encouraged and deliberately secured even through the transplanting of nursery stock grown expressly for that purpose.
We had read so much regarding the reckless destruction of forests in China and Japan and had seen so few old forest trees except where these had been protected about temples, graves or houses, that when Rev.
R. A. Haden, of the Elizabeth Blake hospital, near Soochow insisted that the Chinese were deliberate foresters and that they regularly grow trees for fuel, transplanting them when necessary to secure a close and early stand, after the area had been cleared, we were so much surprised that he generously volunteered to accompany us westward on a two days journey into the hill country where the practice could be seen.
A family owning a houseboat and living upon it was engaged for the journey.
This family consisted of a recently widowed father, his two sons, newly married, and a helper.
They were to transport us and provide sleeping quarters for myself, Mr. Haden and a cook for the consideration of $3.00, Mexican, per day and to continue the journey through the night, leaving the day for observation in the hills.
The recent funeral had cost the father $100 and the wedding of the two sons $50 each, while the remodeling of the houseboat to meet the needs of the new family relations cost still another $100.
To meet these expenses it had been necessary to borrow the full amount, $300.
On $100 the father was paying 20 per cent interest; on $50 he was compelled to pay 50 per cent interest.
The balance he had borrowed from friends without interest but with the understanding that he would return the favor should occasion be required.
Rev.
A. E. Evans informed us that it is a common practice in China for neighbors to help one another in times of great financial stress.
This is one of the methods: A neighbor may need 8000 cash.
He prepares a feast and sends invitations to a hundred friends.
They know there has been no death in his family and that there is no wedding, still it is understood that he is in need of money.
The feast is prepared at a small expense.
The invited guests come, each bringing eighty cash as a present.
The recipient is expected to keep a careful record of contributing friends and to repay the sum.
Another method is like this: For some reason a man needs to borrow 20,000 cash.
He proposes to twenty of his friends that they organize a club to raise this sum.
If the friends agree each pays 1000 cash to the organizing member.
The balance of the club draw lots as to which member shall be number two, three, four, five, etc., designating the order in which payments shall be made.
The man borrowing the money is then under obligation to see that these payments are met in full at the times agreed upon.
Not infrequently a small rate of interest is charged.
Rates of interest are very high in China, especially on small sums where securities are not the best.
Mr. Evans informs me that two per cent per month is low and thirty per cent per annum is very commonly collected.
Such obligations are often never met but they do not outlaw and may descend from father to son.
The boat cost $292.40 in U. S. currency; the yearly earning was $107.50 to $120.40.
The funeral cost $43 and $43 more was required for the wedding of the two sons.
They were receiving for the services of six people $1.29 per day.
An engagement for two weeks or a month could have been made for materially lower rates and their average daily earning, on the basis of three hundred days service in the year, and the $120.40 total earning, would be only 40.13 cents, less than seven cents each, hence their trip with us was two of their banner days.
Foreigners in Shanghai and other cities frequently engage such houseboat service for two weeks or a month of travel on the canals and rivers, finding it a very enjoyable as well as inexpensive way of having a picnic outing.
On reaching the hill lands the next morning there were such scenes as shown in Fig.
82, where the strips of tree growth, varying from two to ten years, stretched directly up the slope, often in strong contrast on account of the straight boundaries and different ages of the timber.
Some of these long narrow holdings were less than two rods wide and on one of these only recently cut, up which we walked for considerable distance, the young pine were springing up in goodly numbers.
As many as eighteen young trees were counted on a width of six feet across the strip of thirty feet wide.
On this area everything had been recently cut clean.
Even stumps and the large roots were dug and saved for fuel.
In Fig.
83 are seen bundles of fuel from such a strip, just brought into the village, the boughs retaining the leaves although the fuel had been dried.
The roots, too, are tied in with the limbs so that everything is saved.
On our walk to the hills we passed many people bringing their loads of fuel swinging from carrying poles on their shoulders.
Inquiries regarding the afforestation of these strips of hillside showed that the extensive digging necessitated by the recovery of the roots usually caused new trees to spring up quickly as volunteers from scattered seed and from the roots, so that planting was not generally required.
Talking with a group of people as to where we could see some of the trees used for replanting the hillsides, a lad of seven years was first to understand and volunteered to conduct us to a planting.
This he did and was overjoyed on receipt of a trifle for his services.
One of these little pine nurseries is seen in Fig.
84, many being planted in suitable places through the woods.
The lad led us to two such locations with whose whereabouts he was evidently very familiar, although they were considerable distance from the path and far from home.
These small trees are used in filling in places where the volunteer growth has not been sufficiently close.
A strong herbaceous growth usually springs up quickly on these newly cleared lands and this too is cut for fuel or for use in making compost or as green manure.
The grass which grows on the grave lands, if not fed off, is also cut and saved for fuel.
We saw several instances of this outside of Shanghai, one where a mother with her daughter, provided with rake, sickle, basket and bag, were gathering the dry stubble and grass of the previous season, from the grave lands where there was less than could be found on our closely mowed meadows.
In Fig.
85 may be seen a man who has just returned with such a load, and in his hand is the typical rake of the Far East, made by simply bending bamboo splints, claw-shape, and securing them as seen in the engraving.
In the Shantung province, in Chihli and in Manchuria, millet stems, especially those of the great kaoliang or sorghum, are extensively used for fuel and for building as well as for screens, fences and matting.
At Mukden the kaoliang was selling as fuel at $2.70 to $3.00, Mexican, for a 100-bundle load of stalks, weighing seven catty to the bundle.
The yield per acre of kaoliang fuel amounts to 5600 pounds and the stalks are eight to twelve feet long, so that when carried on the backs of mules or horses the animals are nearly hidden by the load.
The price paid for plant stem fuel from agricultural crops, in different parts of China and Japan, ranged from $1.30 to $2.85, U. S. currency, per ton.
The price of anthracite coal at Nanking was $7.76 per ton.
Taking the weight of dry oak wood at 3500 pounds per cord, the plant stem fuel, for equal weight, was selling at $2.28 to $5.00.
Large amounts of wood are converted into charcoal in these countries and sent to market baled in rough matting or in basketwork cases woven from small brush and holding two to two and a half bushels.
When such wood is not converted into charcoal it is sawed into one or two-foot lengths, split and marketed tied in bundles, as seen in Fig.
77.
Along the Mukden-Antung railway in Manchuria fuel was also being shipped in four-foot lengths, in the form of cordwood.
In Korea cattle were provided with a peculiar saddle for carrying wood in four-foot sticks laid blanket-fashion over the animal, extending far down on their sides.
Thus was it brought from the hills to the railway station.
This wood, as in Manchuria, was cut from small trees.
In Korea, as in most parts of China where we visited, the tree growth over the hills was generally scattering and thin on the ground wherever there was not individual ownership in small holdings.
Under and among the scattering pine there were oak in many cases, but these were always small, evidently not more than two or three years standing, and appearing to have been repeatedly cut back.
It was in Korea that we saw so many instances of young leafy oak boughs brought to the rice fields and used as green manure.
There was abundant evidence of periodic cutting between Mukden and Antung in Manchuria; between Wiju and Fusan in Korea; and throughout most of our journey in Japan; from Nagasaki to Moji and from Shimonoseki to Yokohama.
In all of these countries afforestation takes place quickly and the cuttings on private holdings are made once in ten, twenty or twenty-five years.
When the wood is sold to those coming for it the takers pay at the rate of 40 sen per one horse load of forty kan, or 330 pounds, such as is seen in Fig.
87.
Director Ono, of the Akashi Experiment station, informed us that such fuel loads in that prefecture, where the wood is cut once in ten years, bring returns amounting to about $40 per acre for the ten-year crop.
This land was worth $40 per acre but when they are suitable for orange groves they sell for $600 per acre.
Mushroom culture is extensively practiced under the shade of some of these wooded areas, yielding under favorable conditions at the rate of $100 per acre.
The forest covered area in Japan exclusive of Formosa and Karafuto, amounts to a total of 54,196,728 acres, less than twenty millions of which are in private holdings, the balance belonging to the state and to the Imperial Crown.
In all of these countries there has been an extensive general use of materials other than wood for building purposes and very many of the substitutes for lumber are products grown on the cultivated fields.
The use of rice straw for roofing, as seen in the Hakone village, Fig.
8, is very general throughout the rice growing districts, and even the sides of houses may be similarly thatched, as was observed in the Canton delta region, such a construction being warm for winter and cool for summer.
The life of these thatched roofs, however, is short and they must be renewed as often as every three to five years but the old straw is highly prized as fertilizer for the fields on which it is grown, or it may serve as fuel, the ashes only going to the fields.
Burned clay tile, especially for the cities and public buildings, are very extensively used for roofing, clay being abundant and near at hand.
In Chihli and in Manchuria millet and sorghum stems, used alone or plastered, as in Fig.
88, with a mud mortar, sometimes mixed with lime, cover the roofs of vast numbers of the dwellings outside the larger cities.
At Chiao Tou in Manchuria we saw the building of the thatched millet roofs and the use of kaoliang stems as lumber.
Rafters were set in the usual way and covered with a layer about two inches thick of the long kaoliang stems stripped of their leaves and tops.
These were tied together and to the rafters with twine, thus forming a sort of matting.
A layer of thin clay mortar was then spread over the surface and well trowelled until it began to show on the under side.
Over this was applied a thatch of small millet stems bound in bundles eight inches thick, cut square across the butts to eighteen inches in length.
They were dipped in water and laid in courses after the manner of shingles but the butts of the stems are driven forward to a slope which obliterates the shoulder, making the courses invisible.
In the better houses this thatching may be plastered with earth mortar or with an earth-lime mortar, which is less liable to wash in heavy rain.
The walls of the house we saw building were also sided with the long, large kaoliang stems.
An ordinary frame with posts and girts about three feet apart had been erected, on sills and with plates carrying the roof.
Standing vertically against the girts and tied to them, forming a close layer, were the kaoliang stems.
These were plastered outside and in with a layer of thin earth mortar.
A similar layer of stems, set up on the inside of the girts and similarly plastered, formed the inner face of the wall of the house, leaving dead air spaces between the girts.
Brick made from earth are very extensively used for house building, chaff and short straw being used as a binding material, the brick being simply dried in the sun, as seen in Fig.
89.
A house in the process of building, where the brick were being used, is seen in Fig.
90.
The foundation of the dwelling, it will be observed, was laid with well-formed hard-burned brick, these being necessary to prevent capillary moisture from the ground being drawn up and soften the earth brick, making the wall unsafe.
Several kilns for burning brick, built of clay and earth, were passed in our journey up the Pei ho, and stacked about them, covering an area of more than eight hundred feet back from the river were bundles of the kaoliang stems to serve as fuel in the kilns.
The extensive use of the unburned brick is necessitated by the difficulty of obtaining fuel, and various methods are adopted to reduce the number of burned brick required in construction.
One of these devices is shown in Fig.
79, where the city wall surrounding Kashing is constructed of alternate courses of four layers of burned brick separated by layers of simple earth concrete.
In addition to the multiple-function, farm-gown crops used for food, fuel and building material, there is a large acreage devoted to the growing of textile and fiber products and enormous quantities of these are produced annually.
In Japan, where some fifty millions of people are chiefly fed on the produce of little more than 21,000 square miles of cultivated land, there was grown in 1906 more than 75,500,000 pounds of cotton, hemp, flax and China grass textile stock, occupying 76,700 acres of the cultivated land.
On 141,000 other acres there grew 115,000,000 pounds of paper mulberry and Mitsumata, materials used in the manufacture of paper.
From still another 14,000 acres were taken 92,000,000 pounds of matting stuff, while more than 957,000 acres were occupied by mulberry trees for the feeding of silkworms, yielding to Japan 22,389,798 pounds of silk.
Here are more than 300,000,000 pounds of fiber and textile stuff taken from 1860 square miles of the cultivated land, cutting down the food producing area to 19,263 square miles and this area is made still smaller by devoting 123,000 acres to tea, these producing in 1906 58,900,000 pounds, worth nearly five million dollars.
Nor do these statements express the full measure of the producing power of the 21,321 square miles of cultivated land, for, in addition to the food and other materials named, there were also made $2,365,000 worth of braid from straw and wood shavings; $6,000,000 worth of rice straw bags, packing cases and matting; and $1,085,000 worth of wares from bamboo, willow and vine.
As illustrating the intense home industry of these people we may consider the fact that the 5,453,309 households of farmers in Japan produced in 1906, in their homes as subsidiary work, $20,527,000 worth of manufactured articles.
If correspondingly exact statistical data were available from China and Korea a similarity full utilization of cultural possibilities would be revealed there.
This marvelous heritage of economy, industry and thrift, bred of the stress of centuries, must not be permitted to lose virility through contact with western wasteful practices, now exalted to seeming virtues through the dazzling brilliancy of mechanical achievements.
More and more must labor be dignified in all homes alike, and economy, industry and thrift become inherited impulses compelling and satisfying.
Cheap, rapid, long distance transportation, already well started in these countries, will bring with it a fuller utilization of the large stores of coal and mineral wealth and of the enormous available water power, and as a result there will come some temporary lessening of the stress for fuel and with better forest management some relief along the lines of building materials.
But the time is not a century distant when, throughout the world, a fuller, better development must take place along the lines of these most far-reaching and fundamental practices so long and so effectively followed by the Mongolian races in China, Korea and Japan.
When the enormous water-power of these countries has been harnessed and brought into the foot-hills and down upon the margins of the valleys and plains in the form of electric current, let it, if possible, be in a large measure so distributed as to become available in the country village homes to lighten the burden and lessen the human drudgery and yet increase the efficiency of the human effort now so well bestowed upon subsidiary manufactures under the guidance and initiative of the home, where there may be room to breathe and for children to come up to manhood and womanhood in the best conditions possible, rather than in enormous congested factories.
VIII TRAMPS AFIELD On March 31st we took the 8 A. M. train on the Shanghai-Nanking railway for Kunshan, situated thirty-two miles west from Shanghai, to spend the day walking in the fields.
The fare, second class, was eighty cents, Mexican.
A third class ticket would have been forty cents and a first class, $1.60, practically two cents, one cent and half a cent, our currency, per mile.
The second class fare to Nanking, a distance of 193 miles, was $1.72, U. S. currency, or a little less than one cent per mile.
While the car seats were not upholstered, the service was good.
Meals were served on the train in either foreign or Chinese style, and tea, coffee or hot water to drink.
Hot, wet face cloths were regularly passed and many Chinese daily newspapers were sold on the train, a traveler often buying two.
In the vicinity of Kunshan a large area of farm land had been acquired by the French catholic mission at a purchase price of $40, Mexican, per mow, or at the rate of $103.20 per acre.
This they rented to the Chinese.
It was here that we first saw, at close range, the details of using canal mud as a fertilizer, so extensively applied in China.
Walking through the fields we came upon the scene in the middle section of Fig.
92 where, close on the right was such a reservoir as seen in Fig.
58.
Men were in it, dipping up the mud which had accumulated over its bottom, pouring it on the bank in a field of windsor beans, and the thin mud was then over two feet deep at that side and flowing into the beans where it had already spread two rods, burying the plants as the engraving shows.
When sufficiently dry to be readily handled this would be spread among the beans as we found it being done in another field, shown in the upper section of the illustration.
Here four men were distributing such mud, which had dried, between the rows, not to fertilize the beans, but for a succeeding crop of cotton soon to be planted between the rows, before they were harvested.
The owner of this piece of land, with whom we talked and who was superintending the work, stated that his usual yield of these beans was three hundred catty per mow and that they sold them green, shelled, at two cents, Mexican, per catty.
At this price and yield his return would be $15.48, gold, per acre.
If there was need of nitrogen and organic matter in the soil the vines would be pulled green, after picking the beans, and composted with the wet mud.
If not so needed the dried stems would be tied in bundles and sold as fuel or used at home, the ashes being returned to the fields.
The windsor beans are thus an early crop grown for fertilizer, fuel and food.
This farmer was paying his laborers one hundred cash per day and providing their meals, which he estimated worth two hundred cash more, making twelve cents, gold, for a ten-hour day.
Judging from what we saw and from the amount of mud carried per load, we estimated the men would distribute not less than eighty-four loads of eighty pounds each per day, an average distance of five hundred feet, making the cost 3.57 cents, gold, per ton for distribution.
The lower section of Fig.
92 shows another instance where mud was being used on a narrow strip bordering the path along which we walked, the amount there seen having been brought more than four hundred feet, by one man before 10 A. M. on the morning the photograph was taken.
He was getting it from the bottom of a canal ten feet deep, laid bare by the out-going tide.
Already he had brought more than a ton to his field.
The carrying baskets used for this work were in the form of huge dustpans suspended from the carrying poles by two cords attached to the side rims, and steadied by the hand grasping a handle provided in the back for this purpose and for emptying the baskets by tipping.
With this construction the earth was readily raked upon the basket and very easily emptied from it by simply raising the hands when the destination was reached.
No arrangement could be more simple, expeditious or inexpensive for this man with his small holding.
In this simple manner has nearly all of the earth been moved in digging the miles of canal and in building the long sea walls.
In Shanghai the mud carried through the storm sewers into Soochow creek we saw being removed in the same manner during the intervals when the tide was out.
In still another field, seen in Fig.
93, the upper portion shows where canal mud had been applied at a rate exceeding seventy tons per acre, and we were told that such dressings may be repeated as often as every two years though usually at longer intervals, if other and cheaper fertilizers could be obtained.
In the lower portion of the same illustration may be seen the section of canal from which this mud was taken up the three earthen stairways built of the mud itself and permitted to dry before using.
Many such lines of stairway were seen during our trips along the canals, only recently made or in the process of building to be in readiness when the time for applying the mud should arrive.
To facilitate collecting the mud from the shallow canals temporary dams may be thrown across them at two places and the water between either scooped or pumped out, laying the bottom bare, as is often done also for fishing.
The earth of the large grave mound seen across a canal in the center background of the upper portion of the engraving had been collected in a similar manner.
In the Chekiang province canal mud is extensively used in the mulberry orchards as a surface dressing.
We have referred to this practice in southern China, and Fig.
94 is a view taken south of Kashing early in April.
The boat anchored in front of the mulberry orchard is the home of a family coming from a distance, seeking employment during the season for picking mulberry leaves to feed silkworms.
We were much surprised, on looking back at the boat after closing the camera, to see the head of the family standing erect in the center, having shoved back a section of the matting roof.
The dressing of mud applied to this field formed a loose layer more than two inches deep and when compacted by the rains which would follow would add not less than a full inch of soil over the entire orchard, and the weight per acre could not be less than 120 tons.
Another equally, or even more, laborious practice followed by the Chinese farmers in this province is the periodic exchange of soil between mulberry orchards and the rice fields, their experience being that soil long used in the mulberry orchards improves the rice, while soil from the rice fields is very helpful when applied to the mulberry orchards.
We saw many instances, when traveling by boat-train between Shanghai, Kashing and Hangchow, of soil being carried from rice fields and either stacked on the banks or dropped into the canal.
Such soil was oftenest taken from narrow trenches leading through the fields, laying them off in beds.
It is our judgment that the soil thrown into the canals undergoes important changes, perhaps through the absorption of soluble plant food substances such as lime, phosphoric acid and potash withdrawn from the water, or through some growth or fermentation, which, in the judgment of the farmer, makes the large labor involved in this procedure worth while.
The stacking of soil along the banks was probably in preparation for its removal by boat to some of the mulberry orchards.
It is clearly recognized by the farmers that mud collected from those sections of the canal leading through country villages, such as that seen in Fig.
10, is both inherently more fertile and in better physical condition than that collected in the open country.
They attribute this difference to the effect of the village washing in the canal, where soap is extensively used.
The storm waters of the city doubtless carry some fertilizing material also, although sewage, as such, never finds its way into the canals.
The washing would be very likely to have a decided flocculating effect and so render this material more friable when applied to the field.
One very important advantage which comes to the fields when heavily dressed with such mud is that resulting from the addition of lime which has become incorporated with the silts through their flocculation and precipitation, and that which is added in the form of snail shells abounding in the canals.
The amount of these may be realized from the large numbers contained in the mud recently thrown out, as seen in the upper section of Fig.
95, where the pebbly appearance of the surface is caused by snail shells.
In the lower section of the same illustration the white spots are snail shells exposed in the soil of a recently spaded field.
The shells are by no means as numerous generally as here seen but yet sufficient to maintain the supply of lime.
Several species of these snails are collected in quantities and used as food.
Piles containing bushels of the empty shells were seen along the canals outside the villages.
The snails are cooked in the shell and often sold by measure to be eaten from the hand, as we buy roasted peanuts or popcorn.
When a purchase is made the vender clips the spiral point from each shell with a pair of small shears.
This admits air and permits the snail to be readily removed by suction when the lips are applied to the shell.
In the canals there are also large numbers of fresh water eel, shrimp and crabs as well as fish, all of which are collected and used for human food.
It is common, when walking through the canal country, to come upon groups of gleaners busy in the bottoms of the shallow agricultural canals, gathering anything which may serve as food, even including small bulbs or the fleshy roots of edible aquatic plants.
To facilitate the collection of such food materials sections of the canal are often drained in the manner already described, so that gleaning may be done by hand, wading in the mud.
Families living in houseboats make a business of fishing for shrimp.
They trail behind the houseboat one or two other boats carrying hundreds of shrimp traps cleverly constructed in such manner that when they are trailed along the bottom and disturb the shrimps they dart into the holes in the trap, mistaking them for safe hiding places.
On the streets, especially during festival days, one may see young people and others in social intercourse, busying their fingers and their teeth eating cooked snails or often watermelon seeds, which are extensively sold and thus eaten.
This custom we saw first in the streets of a city south of Kashing on the line of the new railway between Hangchow and Shanghai.
The first passenger train over the line had been run the day before our visit, which was a festival day and throngs of people were visiting the nine-story pagoda standing on a high hill a mile outside the city limits.
The day was one of great surprises to these people who had never before seen a passenger train, and my own person appeared to be a great curiosity to many.
No boy ever scrutinized the face of a caged chimpanzee closer, with purer curiosity, or with less consideration for his feelings than did a woman of fifty scrutinize mine, standing close in front, not two feet distant, even bending forward as I sat upon a bench writing at the railway station.
People would pass their hands along my coat sleeve to judge the cloth, and a boy felt of my shoes.
Walking through the street we passed many groups gathered about tables and upon seats, visiting or in business conference, their fingers occupied with watermelon seeds or with packages of cooked snails.
Along the pathway leading to the pagoda beggars had distributed themselves, one in a place, at intervals of two or three hundred feet, asking alms, most of them infirm with age or in some other way physically disabled.
We saw but one who appeared capable of earning a living.
Travel between Shanghai and Hangchow at this time was heavy.
Three companies were running trains, of six or more houseboats, each towed by a steam launch, and these were daily crowded with passengers.
Our train left Shanghai at 4:30 P. M., reaching Hangchow at 5:30 P. M. the following day, covering a distance along the canal of something more than 117 miles.
We paid $5.16, gold, for the exclusive use of a first-cabin, five-berth stateroom for myself and interpreter.
It occupied the full width of the boat, lacking about fourteen inches of footway, and could be entered from either side down a flight of five steps.
The berths were flat, naked wooden shelves thirty inches wide, separated by a partition headboard six inches high and without railing in front.
Each traveler provided his own bedding.
A small table upon which meals were served, a mirror on one side and a lamp on the other, set in an opening in the partition, permitting it to serve two staterooms, completed the furnishings.
The roof of the staterooms was covered with an awning and divided crosswise into two tiers of berths, each thirty inches wide, by board partitions six inches high.
In these sections passengers spread their beds, sleeping heads together, separated only by a headboard six inches high.
The awning was only sufficiently high to permit passengers to sit erect.
Ventilation was ample but privacy was nil.
Curtains could be dropped around the sides in stormy weather.
Meals were served to each passenger wherever he might be.
Dinner consisted of hot steamed rice brought in very heavy porcelain bowls set inside a covered, wet, steaming hot wooden case.
With the rice were tiny dishes, butterchip size, of green clover, nicely cooked and seasoned; of cooked bean curd served with shredded bamboo sprouts; of tiny pork strips with bean curd; of small bits of liver with bamboo sprouts; of greens, and hot water for tea.
If the appetite is good one may have a second helping of rice and as much hot water for tea as desired.
There was no table linen, no napkins and everything but the tea had to be negotiated with chop sticks, or, these failing, with the fingers.
When the meal was finished the table was cleared and water, hot if desired, was brought for your hand basin, which with tea, teacup and bedding, constitute part of the traveler's outfit.
At frequent intervals, up to ten P. M., a crier walked about the deck with hot water for those who might desire an extra cup of tea, and again in the early morning.
At this season of the year Chinese incubators were being run to their full capacity and it was our good fortune to visit one of these, escorted by Rev.
R. A. Haden, who also acted as interpreter.
The art of incubation is very old and very extensively practiced in China.
An interior view of one of these establishments is shown in Fig.
96, where the family were hatching the eggs of hens, ducks and geese, purchasing the eggs and selling the young as hatched.
As in the case of so many trades in China, this family was the last generation of a long line whose lives had been spent in the same work.
We entered through their store, opening on the street of the narrow village seen in Fig.
10.
In the store the eggs were purchased and the chicks were sold, this work being in charge of the women of the family.
It was in the extreme rear of the home that thirty incubators were installed, all doing duty and each having a capacity of 1,200 hens' eggs.
Four of these may be seen in the illustration and one of the baskets which, when two-thirds filled with eggs, is set inside of each incubator.
Each incubator consists of a large earthenware jar having a door cut in one side through which live charcoal may be introduced and the fire partly smothered under a layer of ashes, this serving as the source of heat.
The jar is thoroughly insulated, cased in basketwork and provided with a cover, as seen in the illustration.
Inside the outer jar rests a second of nearly the same size, as one teacup may in another.
Into this is lowered the large basket with its 600 hens' eggs, 400 ducks' eggs or 175 geese' eggs, as the case may be.
Thirty of these incubators were arranged in two parallel rows of fifteen each.
Immediately above each row, and utilizing the warmth of the air rising from them, was a continuous line of finishing hatchers and brooders in the form of woven shallow trays with sides warmly padded with cotton and with the tops covered with sets of quilts of different thickness.
After a basket of hens' eggs has been incubated four days it is removed and the eggs examined by lighting, to remove those which are infertile before they have been rendered unsalable.
The infertile eggs go to the store and the basket is returned to the incubator.
Ducks' eggs are similarly examined after two days and again after five days incubation; and geese' eggs after six days and again after fourteen days.
Through these precautions practically all loss from infertile eggs is avoided and from 95 to 98 per cent of the fertile eggs are hatched, the infertile eggs ranging from 5 to 25 per cent.
After the fourth day in the incubator all eggs are turned five times in twenty-four hours.
Hens' eggs are kept in the lower incubator eleven days; ducks' eggs thirteen days, and geese' eggs sixteen days, after which they are transferred to the trays.
Throughout the incubation period the most careful watch and control is kept over the temperature.
No thermometer is used but the operator raises the lid or quilt, removes an egg, pressing the large end into the eye socket.
In this way a large contact is made where the skin is sensitive, nearly constant in temperature, but little below blood heat and from which the air is excluded for the time.
Long practice permits them thus to judge small differences of temperature expeditiously and with great accuracy; and they maintain different temperatures during different stages of the incubation.
The men sleep in the room and some one is on duty continuously, making the rounds of the incubators and brooders, examining and regulating each according to its individual needs, through the management of the doors or the shifting of the quilts over the eggs in the brooder trays where the chicks leave the eggs and remain until they go to the store.
In the finishing trays the eggs form rather more than one continuous layer but the second layer does not cover more than a fifth or a quarter of the area.
Hens' eggs are in these trays ten days, ducks' and geese' eggs, fourteen days.
After the chickens have been hatched sufficiently long to require feeding they are ready for market and are then sorted according to sex and placed in separate shallow woven trays thirty inches in diameter.
The sorting is done rapidly and accurately through the sense of touch, the operator recognizing the sex by gently pinching the anus.
Four trays of young chickens were in the store fronting on the street as we entered and several women were making purchases, taking five to a dozen each.
Dr. Haden informed me that nearly every family in the cities, and in the country villages raise a few, but only a few, chickens and it is a common sight to see grown chickens walking about the narrow streets, in and out of the open stores, dodging the feet of the occupants and passers-by.
At the time of our visit this family was paying at the rate of ten cents, Mexican, for nine hens' and eight ducks' eggs, and were selling their largest strong chickens at three cents each.
These figures, translated into our currency, make the purchase price for eggs nearly 48 cents, and the selling price for the young chicks $1.29, per hundred, or thirteen eggs for six cents and seven chickens for nine cents.
It is difficult even to conceive, not to say measure, the vast import of this solution of how to maintain, in the millions of homes, a constantly accessible supply of absolutely fresh and thoroughly sanitary animal food in the form of meat and eggs.
The great density of population in these countries makes the problem of supplying eggs to the people very different from that in the United States.
Our 250,600,000 fowl in 1900 was at the rate of three to each person but in Japan, with her 16,500,000 fowl, she had in 1906 but one for every three people.
Her number per square mile of cultivated land however was 825, while in the United States, in 1900, the number of fowls per square mile of improved farm land was but 387.
To give to Japan three fowls to each person there would needs be an average of about nine to each acre of her cultivated land, whereas in the United States there were in 1900 nearly two acres of improved farm land for each fowl.
We have no statistics regarding the number of fowl in China or the number of eggs produced but the total is very large and she exports to Japan.
The large boat load of eggs seen in Fig.
97 had just arrived from the country, coming into Shanghai in one of her canals.
Besides applying canal mud directly to the fields in the ways described there are other very extensive practices of composting it with organic matter of one or another kind and of then using the compost on the fields.
The next three illustrations show some of the steps and something of the tremendous labor of body, willingly and cheerfully incurred, and something of the forethought practiced, that homes may be maintained and that grandparents, parents, wives and children need neither starve nor beg.
We had reached a place seen in Fig.
98, where eight bearers were moving winter compost to a recently excavated pit in an adjoining field shown in Fig.
99.
Four months before the camera fixed the activity shown, men had brought waste from the stables of Shanghai fifteen miles by water, depositing it upon the canal bank between layers of thin mud dipped from the canal, and left it to ferment.
The eight men were removing this compost to the pit seen in Fig.
99, then nearly filled.
Near by in the same field was a second pit seen in Fig.
100, excavated three feet deep and rimmed about with the earth removed, making it two feet deeper.
After these pits had been filled the clover which was in blossom beyond the pits would be cut and stacked upon them to a height of five to eight feet and this also saturated, layer by layer, with mud brought from the canal, and allowed to ferment twenty to thirty days until the juices set free had been absorbed by the winter compost beneath, helping to carry the ripening of that still further, and until the time had arrived for fitting the ground for the next crop.
This organic matter, fermented with the canal mud, would then be distributed by the men over the field, carried a third time on their shoulders, notwithstanding its weight was many tons.
This manure had been collected, loaded and carried fifteen miles by water; it had been unloaded upon the bank and saturated with canal mud; the field had been fitted for clover the previous fall and seeded; the pits had been dug in the fields; the winter compost had been carried and placed in the pits; the clover was to be cut, carried by the men on their shoulders, stacked layer by layer and saturated with mud dipped from the canal; the whole would later be distributed over the field and finally the earth removed from the pits would be returned to them, that the service of no ground upon which a crop might grow should be lost.
Such are the tasks to which Chinese farmers hold themselves, because they are convinced desired results will follow, because their holdings are so small and their families so large.
These practices are so extensive in China and so fundamental in the part they play in the maintenance of high productive power in their soils that we made special effort to follow them through different phases.
In Fig.
101 we saw the preparation being made to build one of the clover compost stacks saturated with canal mud.
On the left the thin mud had been dipped from the canal; way-farers in the center were crossing the foot-bridge of the country by-way; and beyond rises the conical thatch to shelter the water buffalo when pumping for irrigating the rice crop to be fed with this plant food in preparation.
On the right were two large piles of green clover freshly cut and a woman of the family at one of them was spreading it to receive the mud, while the men-folk were coming from the field with more clover on their carrying poles.
We came upon this scene just before the dinner hour and after the workers had left another photograph was taken at closer range and from a different side, giving the view seen in Fig.
102.
The mud had been removed some days and become too stiff to spread, so water was being brought from the canal in the pails at the right for reducing its consistency to that of a thin porridge, permitting it to more completely smear and saturate the clover.
The stack grew, layer by layer, each saturated with the mud, tramped solid with the bare feet, trousers rolled high.
Provision had been made here for building four other stacks.
Further along we came upon the scene in Fig.
103 where the building of the stack of compost and the gathering of the mud from the canal were simultaneous.
On one side of the canal the son, using a clam-shell form of dipper made of basket-work, which could be opened and shut with a pair of bamboo handles, had nearly filled the middle section of his boat with the thin ooze, while on the other side, against the stack which was building, the mother was emptying a similar boat, using a large dipper, also provided with a bamboo handle.
The man on the stack is a good scale for judging its size.
We came next upon a finished stack on the bank of another canal, shown in Fig.
104, where our umbrella was set to serve as a scale.
This stack measured ten by ten feet on the ground, was six feet high and must have contained more than twenty tons of the green compost.
At the same place, two other stacks had been started, each about fourteen by fourteen feet, and foundations were laid for six others, nine in all.
During twenty or more days this green nitrogenous organic matter is permitted to lie fermenting in contact with the fine soil particles of the ooze with which it had been charged.
This is a remarkable practice in that it is a very old, intensive application of an important fundamental principle only recently understood and added to the science of agriculture, namely, the power of organic matter, decaying rapidly in contact with soil, to liberate from it soluble plant food; and so it would be a great mistake to say that these laborious practices are the result of ignorance, of a lack of capacity for accurate thinking or of power to grasp and utilize.
If the agricultural lands of the United States are ever called upon to feed even 1200 millions of people, a number proportionately less than one-half that being fed in Japan today, very different practices from those we are now following will have been adopted.
We can believe they will require less human bodily effort and be more efficient.
But the knowledge which can make them so is not yet in the possession of our farmers, much less the conviction that plant feeding and more persistent and better directed soil management are necessary to such yields as will then be required.
Later, just before the time for transplanting rice, we returned to the same district to observe the manner of applying this compost to the field, and Fig.
105 is prepared from photographs taken then, illustrating the activities of one family, as seen during the morning of May 28th.
Their home was in a near-by village and their holding was divided into four nearly rectangular paddies, graded to water level, separated by raised rims, and having an area of nearly two acres.
Three of these little fields are partly shown in the illustration, and the fourth in Fig.
160.
In the background of the upper section of Fig.
105, and under the thatched shelter, was a native Chinese cow, blindfolded and hitched to the power-wheel of a large wooden-chain pump, lifting water from the canal and flooding the field in the foreground, to soften the soil for plowing.
Riding on the power-wheel was a girl of some twelve years, another of seven and a baby.
They were there for entertainment and to see that the cow kept at work.
The ground had been sufficiently softened so that the father had begun plowing, the cow sinking to her knees as she walked.
In the same paddy, but shown in the section below, a boy was spreading the clover compost with his hands, taking care that it was finely divided and evenly scattered.
He had been once around before the plowing began.
This compost had been brought from a stack by the side of a canal, and two other men were busy still bringing the material to one of the other paddies, one of whom, with his baskets on the carrying pole appears in the third section.
Between these two paddies was the one seen at the bottom of the illustration, which had matured a crop of rape that had been pulled and was lying in swaths ready to be moved.
Two other men were busy here, gathering the rape into large bundles and carrying it to the village home, where the women were threshing out the seed, taking care not to break the stems which, after threshing, were tied into bundles for fuel.
The seed would be ground and from it an oil expressed, while the cake would be used as a fertilizer.
This crop of rape is remarkable for the way it fits into the economies of these people.
It is a near relative of mustard and cabbage; it grows rapidly during the cooler portions of the season, the spring crop ripening before the planting of rice and cotton; its young shoots and leaves are succulent, nutritious, readily digested and extensively used as human food, boiled and eaten fresh, or salted for winter use, to be served with rice; the mature stems, being woody, make good fuel; and it bears a heavy crop of seed, rich in oil, which has been extensively used for lights and in cooking, while the rape seed cake is highly prized as a manure and very extensively so used.
In the early spring the country is luxuriantly green with the large acreage of rape, later changing to a sea of most brilliant yellow and finally to an ashy grey when the leaves fall and the stems and pods ripen.
Like the dairy cow, rape produces a fat, in the ratio of about forty pounds of oil to a hundred pounds of seed, which may be eaten, burned or sold without materially robbing the soil of its fertility if the cake and the ashes from the stems are returned to the fields, the carbon, hydrogen and oxygen of which the oil is almost wholly composed coming from the atmosphere rather than from the soil.
In Japan rape is grown as a second crop on both the upland and paddy fields, and in 1906 she produced more than 5,547,000 bushels of the seed; $1,845,000 worth of rape seed cake, importing enough more to equal a total value of $2,575,000, all of which was used as a fertilizer, the oil being exported.
The yield of seed per acre in Japan ranges between thirteen and sixteen bushels, and the farmer whose field was photographed estimated that his returns from the crop would be at the rate of 640 pounds of seed per acre, worth $6.19, and 8,000 pounds of stems worth as fuel $5.16 per acre.
IX THE UTILIZATION OF WASTE One of the most remarkable agricultural practices adopted by any civilized people is the centuries-long and well nigh universal conservation and utilization of all human waste in China, Korea and Japan, turning it to marvelous account in the maintenance of soil fertility and in the production of food.
To understand this evolution it must be recognized that mineral fertilizers so extensively employed in modern western agriculture, like the extensive use of mineral coal, had been a physical impossibility to all people alike until within very recent years.
With this fact must be associated the very long unbroken life of these nations and the vast numbers their farmers have been compelled to feed.
When we reflect upon the depleted fertility of our own older farm lands, comparatively few of which have seen a century's service, and upon the enormous quantity of mineral fertilizers which are being applied annually to them in order to secure paying yields, it becomes evident that the time is here when profound consideration should be given to the practices the Mongolian race has maintained through many centuries, which permit it to be said of China that one-sixth of an acre of good land is ample for the maintenance of one person, and which are feeding an average of three people per acre of farm land in the three southernmost of the four main islands of Japan.
From the analyses of mixed human excreta made by Wolff in Europe and by Kellner in Japan it appears that, as an average, these carry in every 2000 pounds 12.7 pounds of nitrogen, 4 pounds of potassium and 1.7 pounds of phosphorus.
On this basis and that of Carpenter, who estimates the average amount of excreta per day for the adult at 40 ounces, the average annual production per million of adult population is 5,794,300 pounds of nitrogen; 1,825,000 pounds of potassium, and 775,600 pounds of phosphorus carried in 456,250 tons of excreta.
The figures which Hall cites in Fertilizers and Manures, would make these amounts 7,940,000 pounds of nitrogen; 3,070,500 pounds of potassium, and 1,965,600 pounds of phosphorus, but the figures he takes and calls high averages give 12,000,000 of nitrogen; 4,151,000 pounds of potassium, and 3,057,600 pounds of phosphorus.
In 1908 the International Concessions of the city of Shanghai sold to one Chinese contractor for $31,000, gold, the privilege of collecting 78,000 tons of human waste, under stipulated regulations, and of removing it to the country for sale to farmers.
The flotilla of boats seen in Fig.
106 is one of several engaged daily in Shanghai throughout the year in this service.
Dr. Kawaguchi, of the National Department of Agriculture and Commerce, taking his data from their records, informed us that the human manure saved and applied to the fields of Japan in 1908 amounted to 23,850,295 tons, which is an average of 1.75 tons per acre of their 21,321 square miles of cultivated land in their four main islands.
On the basis of the data of Wolff, Kellner and Carpenter, or of Hall, the people of the United States and of Europe are pouring into the sea, lakes or rivers and into the underground waters from 5,794,300 to 12,000,000 pounds of nitrogen; 1,881,900 to 4,151,000 pounds of potassium, and 777,200 to 3,057,600 pounds of phosphorus per million of adult population annually, and this waste we esteem one of the great achievements of our civilization.
In the Far East, for more than thirty centuries, these enormous wastes have been religiously saved and today the four hundred million of adult population send back to their fields annually 150,000 tons of phosphorus; 376,000 tons of potassium, and 1,158,000 tons of nitrogen comprised in a gross weight exceeding 182 million tons, gathered from every home, from the country villages and from the great cities like Hankow-Wuchang-Hanyang with its 1,770,000 people swarming on a land area delimited by a radius of four miles.
Man is the most extravagant accelerator of waste the world has ever endured.
His withering blight has fallen upon every living thing within his reach, himself not excepted; and his besom of destruction in the uncontrolled hands of a generation has swept into the sea soil fertility which only centuries of life could accumulate, and yet this fertility is the substratum of all that is living.
It must be recognized that the phosphate deposits which we are beginning to return to our fields are but measures of fertility lost from older soils, and indices of processes still in progress.
The rivers of North America are estimated to carry to the sea more than 500 tons of phosphorus with each cubic mile of water.
To such loss modern civilization is adding that of hydraulic sewage disposal through which the waste of five hundred millions of people might be more than 194,300 tons of phosphorus annually, which could not be replaced by 1,295,000 tons of rock phosphate, 75 per cent pure.
The Mongolian races, with a population now approaching the figure named; occupying an area little more than one-half that of the United States, tilling less than 800,000 square miles of land, and much of this during twenty, thirty or perhaps forty centuries; unable to avail themselves of mineral fertilizers, could not survive and tolerate such waste.
Compelled to solve the problem of avoiding such wastes, and exercising the faculty which is characteristic of the race, they "cast down their buckets where they were", as *A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel.
From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, "Water, water; we die of thirst!"
The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, "Cast down your bucket where you are."
A second time the signal, "Water, water; Send us water!"
ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, "Cast down your bucket where you are."
And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, "Cast down your bucket where you are."
The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon river.
*Booker T. Washington, Atlanta address.
Not even in great cities like Canton, built in the meshes of tideswept rivers and canals; like Hankow on the banks of one of the largest rivers in the world; nor yet in modern Shanghai, Yokohama or Tokyo, is such waste permitted.
To them such a practice has meant race suicide and they have resisted the temptation so long that it has ceased to exist.
Dr. Arthur Stanley, Health officer of the city of Shanghai, in his annual report for 1899, considering this subject as a municipal problem, wrote: "Regarding the bearing on the sanitation of Shanghai of the relationship between Eastern and Western hygiene, it may be said, that if prolonged national life is indicative of sound sanitation, the Chinese are a race worthy of study by all who concern themselves with Public Health.
Even without the returns of a Registrar-General it is evident that in China the birth rate must very considerably exceed the death rate, and have done so in an average way during the three or four thousand years that the Chinese nation has existed.
Chinese hygiene, when compared with medieval English, appears to advantage.
The main problem of sanitation is to cleanse the dwelling day by day, and if this can be done at a profit so much the better.
While the ultra-civilized Western elaborates destructors for burning garbage at a financial loss and turns sewage into the sea, the Chinaman uses both for manure.
He wastes nothing while the sacred duty of agriculture is uppermost in his mind.
And in reality recent bacterial work has shown that faecal matter and house refuse are best destroyed by returning them to clean soil, where natural purification takes place.
The question of destroying garbage can, I think, under present conditions in Shanghai, be answered in a decided negative.
While to adopt the water-carriage system for sewage and turn it into the river, whence the water supply is derived, would be an act of sanitary suicide.
It is best, therefore, to make use of what is good in Chinese hygiene, which demands respect, being, as it is, the product of an evolution extending from more than a thousand years before the Christian era."
The storage of such waste in China is largely in stoneware receptacles such as are seen in Fig.
109, which are hard-burned, glazed terra-cotta urns, having capacities ranging from 500 to 1000 pounds.
Japan more often uses sheltered cement-lined pits such as are seen in Fig.
110.
In the three countries the carrying to the fields is oftenest in some form of pail, as seen in Fig.
111, a pair of which are borne swinging from the carrying pole.
In applying the liquid to the field or garden the long handle dipper is used, seen in Fig.
112.
We are beginning to husband with some economy the waste from our domestic animals but in this we do not approach that of China, Korea and Japan.
People in China regularly search for and collect droppings along the country and caravan roads.
Repeatedly, when walking through city streets, we observed such materials quickly and apparently eagerly gathered, to be carefully stored under conditions which ensure small loss from either leaching or unfavorable fermentation.
In some mulberry orchards visited the earth had been carefully hoed back about the trunks of trees to a depth of three or four inches from a circle having a diameter of six to eight feet, and upon these areas were placed the droppings of silkworms, the moulted skins, together with the bits of leaves and stem left after feeding.
Some disposition of such waste must be made.
They return at once to the orchard all but the silk produced from the leaves; unnecessary loss is thus avoided and the material enters at once the service of forcing the next crop of leaves.
On the farm of Mrs. Wu, near Kashing, while studying the operation of two irrigation pumps driven by two cows, lifting water to flood her twenty-five acres of rice field preparatory to transplanting, we were surprised to observe that one of the duties of the lad who had charge of the animals was to use a six-quart wooden dipper with a bamboo handle six feet long to collect all excreta, before they fell upon the ground, and transfer them to a receptacle provided for the purpose.
There came a flash of resentment that such a task was set for the lad, for we were only beginning to realize to what lengths the practice of economy may go, but there was nothing irksome suggested in the boy's face.
He performed the duty as a matter of course and as we thought it through there was no reason why it should have been otherwise.
In fact, the only right course was being taken.
Conditions would have been worse if the collection had not been made.
It made possible more rice.
Character of substantial quality was building in the lad which meant thrift in the growing man and continued life for the nation.
We have adverted to the very small number of flies observed anywhere in the course of our travel, but its significance we did not realize until near the end of our stay.
Indeed, for some reason, flies were more in evidence during the first two days on the steamship, out from Yokohama on our return trip to America, than at any time before on our journey.
It is to be expected that the eternal vigilance which seizes every waste, once it has become such, putting it in places of usefulness, must contribute much toward the destruction of breeding places, and it may be these nations have been mindful of the wholesomeness of their practice and that many phases of the evolution of their waste disposal system have been dictated by and held fast to through a clear conception of sanitary needs.
Much intelligence and the highest skill are exhibited by these old-world farmers in the use of their wastes.
In Fig.
113 is one of many examples which might be cited.
The man walking down the row with his manure pails swinging from his shoulders informed us on his return that in his household there were twenty to be fed; that from this garden of half an acre of land he usually sold a product bringing in $400, Mexican,--$172, gold.
The crop was cucumbers in groups of two rows thirty inches apart and twenty-four inches between the groups.
The plants were eight to ten inches apart in the row.
He had just marketed the last of a crop of greens which occupied the space between the rows of cucumbers seen under the strong, durable, light and very readily removable trellises.
On May 28 the vines were beginning to run, so not a minute had been lost in the change of crop.
On the contrary this man had added a month to his growing season by over-lapping his crops, and the trellises enabled him to feed more plants of this type than there was room for vines on the ground.
With ingenuity and much labor he had made his half acre for cucumbers equivalent to more than two.
He had removed the vines entirely from the ground; had provided a travel space two feet wide, down which he was walking, and he had made it possible to work about the roots of every plant for the purpose of hoeing and feeding.
Four acres of cucumbers handled by American field methods would not yield more than this man's one, and he grows besides two other crops the same season.
The difference is not so much in activity of muscle as it is in alertness and efficiency of the grey matter of the brain.
He sees and treats each plant individually, he loosens the ground so that his liquid manure drops immediately beneath the surface within reach of the active roots.
If the rainfall has been scanty and the soil is dry he may use ten of water to two of night soil, not to supply water but to make certain sufficiently deep penetration.
If the weather is rainy and the soil over wet, the food is applied more concentrated, not to lighten the burden but to avoid waste by leaching and over saturation.
While ever crowding growth he never overfeeds.
Forethought, after-thought and the mind focused on the work in hand are characteristic of these people.
We do not recall to have seen a man smoking while at work.
They enjoy smoking, but prefer to do this also with the attention undivided and thus get more for their money.
On another date earlier in May we were walking in the fields without an interpreter.
For half an hour we stood watching an old gardener fitting the soil with his spading hoe in the manner seen in Fig.
26, where the graves of his ancestors occupy a part of the land.
Angleworms were extremely numerous, as large around as an ordinary lead pencil and, when not extended, two-thirds as long, decidedly greenish in color.
Nearly every stroke of the spade exposed two to five of these worms but so far as we observed, and we watched the man closely, pulverizing the soil, he neither injured nor left uncovered a single worm.
While he seemed to make no effort to avoid injuring them or to cover them with earth, and while we could not talk with him, we are convinced that his action was continually guarded against injuring the worms.
They certainly were subsoiling his garden deeply and making possible a freer circulation of air far below the surface.
Their great abundance proved a high content of organic matter present in the soil and, as the worms ate their way through it, passing the soil through their bodies, the yearly volume of work done by them was very great.
In the fields flooded preparatory to fitting them for rice these worms are forced to the surface in enormous numbers and large flocks of ducks are taken to such fields to feed upon them.
In another field a crop of barley was nearing maturity.
An adjacent strip of land was to be fitted and planted.
The leaning barley heads were in the way.
Not one must be lost and every inch of ground must be put to use.
The grain along the margin, for a breadth of sixteen inches, had been gathered into handfuls and skillfully tied, each with an unpulled barley stem, without breaking the straw, thus permitting even the grains in that head to fill and be gathered with the rest, while the tying set all straws well aslant, out of the way, and permitted the last inch of naked ground to be fitted without injuring the grain.
In still another instance a man was growing Irish potatoes to market when yet small.
He had enriched his soil; he would apply water if the rains were not timely and sufficient, and had fed the plants.
He had planted in rows only twelve to fourteen inches apart with a hill every eight inches in the row.
The vines stood strong, straight, fourteen inches high and as even as a trimmed hedge.
The leaves and stems were turgid, the deepest green and as prime and glossy as a prize steer.
So close were the plants that there was leaf surface to intercept the sunshine falling on every square inch of the patch.
There were no potato beetles and we saw no signs of injury but the gardener was scanning the patch with the eye of a robin.
He spied the slightest first drooping of leaves in a stem; went after the difficulty and brought and placed in our hand a cutworm, a young tuber the size of a marble and a stem cut half off, which he was willing to sacrifice because of our evident interest.
But the two friends who had met were held apart by the babel of tongues.
Nothing is costing the world more; has made so many enemies, and has so much hindered the forming of friendships as the inability to fully understand; hence the dove that brings world peace must fly on the wings of a common language, and the bright star in the east is world commerce, rising on rapidly developing railway and steamship lines, heralded and directed by electric communication.
With world commerce must come mutual confidence and friendship requiring a full understanding and therefore a common tongue.
Then world peace will be permanently assured.
It is coming inevitably and faster than we think.
Once this desired end is seriously sought, the carrying of three generations of children through the public schools where the world language is taught together with the mother tongue, and the passing of the parents and grandparents, would effect the change.
The important point regarding these Far East people, to which attention should be directed, is that effective thinking, clear and strong, prevails among the farmers who have fed and are still feeding the dense populations from the products of their limited areas.
This is further indicated in the universal and extensive use of plant ashes derived from fuel grown upon cultivated fields and upon the adjacent hill and mountain lands.
We were unable to secure exact data regarding the amount of fuel burned annually in these countries, and of ashes used as fertilizer, but a cord of dry oak wood weighs about 3500 pounds, and the weight of fuel used in the home and in manufactures must exceed that of two cords per household.
Japan has an average of 5.563 people per family.
If we allow but 1300 pounds of fuel per capita, Japan's consumption would be 31,200,000 tons.
In view of the fact that a very large share of the fuel used in these countries is either agricultural plant stems, with an average ash content of 5 per cent, or the twigs and even leaves of trees, as in the case of pine bough fuel, 4.5 per cent of ash may be taken as a fair estimate.
On this basis, and with a content of phosphorus equal to .5 per cent, and of potassium equal to 5 per cent, the fuel ash for Japan would amount to 1,404,000 tons annually, carrying 7020 tons of phosphorus and 70,200 tons of potassium, together with more than 400,000 tons of limestone, which is returned annually to less than 21,321 square miles of cultivated land.
In China, with her more than four hundred millions of people, a similar rate of fuel consumption would make the phosphorus and potassium returned to her fields more than eight times the amounts computed for Japan.
On the basis of these statements Japan's annual saving of phosphorus from the waste of her fuel would be equivalent to more than 46,800 tons of rock phosphate having a purity of 75 per cent, or in the neighborhood of seven pounds per acre.
If this amount, even with the potash and limestone added, appears like a trifling addition of fertility it is important for Americans to remember that even if this is so, these people have felt compelled to make the saving.
In the matter of returning soluble potassium to the cultivated fields Japan would be applying with her ashes the equivalent of no less than 156,600 tons of pure potassium sulphate, equal to 23 pounds per acre; while the lime carbonate so applied annually would be some 62 pounds per acre.
In addition to the forest lands, which have long been made to contribute plant food to the cultivated fields through fuel ashes, there are large areas which contribute green manure and compost material.
These are chiefly hill lands, aggregating some twenty per cent of the cultivated fields, which bear mostly herbaceous growth.
Some 2,552,741 acres of these lands may be cut over three times each season, yielding, in 1903, an average of 7980 pounds per acre.
The first cutting of this hill herbage is mainly used on the rice fields as green manure, it being tramped into the mud between the rows after the manner seen in Fig.
114.
This man had been with basket and sickle to gather green herbage wherever he could and had brought it to his rice paddy.
The day in July was extremely sultry.
We came upon him wading in the water half way to his knees, carefully laying the herbage he had gathered between alternate rows of his rice, one handful in a place, with tips overlapping.
This done he took the attitude seen in the illustration and, gathering the materials into a compact bunch, pressed it beneath the surface with his foot.
The two hands smoothed the soft mud over the grass and righted the disturbed spears of rice in the two adjacent hills.
Thus, foot following foot, one bare length ahead, the succeeding bunches of herbage were submerged until the last had been reached, following between alternate rows only a foot apart, there being a hill every nine to ten inches in the row and the hands grasping and being drawn over every one in the paddy.
He was renting the land, paying therefor forty kan of rice per tan, and his usual yield was eighty kan.
This is forty-four bushels of sixty pounds per acre.
In unfavorable seasons his yield might be less but still his rent would be forty kan per tan unless it was clear that he had done all that could reasonably be expected of him in securing the crop.
It is difficult for Americans to understand how it is possible for the will of man, even when spurred by the love of home and family, to hold flesh to tasks like these.
The second and third cuttings of herbage from the genya lands in Japan are used for the preparation of compost applied on the dry-land fields in the fall or in the spring of the following season.
Some of these lands are pastured, but approximately 10,185,500 tons of green herbage grown and gathered from the hills contributes much of its organic matter and all of its ash to enrich the cultivated fields.
Such wild growth areas in Japan are the commons of the near by villages, to which the people are freely admitted for the purpose of cutting the herbage.
A fixed time may be set for cutting and a limit placed upon the amount which may be carried away, which is done in the manner seen in Fig.
115.
It is well recognized by the people that this constant cutting and removal of growth from the hill lands, with no return, depletes the soils and reduces the amount of green herbage they are able to secure.
Through the kindness of Dr. Daikuhara of the Imperial Agricultural Experiment Station at Tokyo we are able to give the average composition of the green leaves and young stems of five of the most common wild species of plants cut for green manure in June.
In each 1000 pounds the amount of water is 562.18 pounds; of organic matter, 382.68 pounds; of ash, 55.14 pounds; nitrogen, 4.78 pounds; potassium, 2.407 pounds, and phosphorus, .34 pound.
On the basis of this composition and an aggregate yield of 10,185,500 tons, there would be annually applied to the cultivated fields 3463 tons of phosphorus and 24,516 tons of potassium derived from the genya lands.
In addition to this the run-off from both the mountain and the genya lands is largely used upon the rice fields, more than sixteen inches of water being applied annually to them in some prefectures.
If such waters have the composition of river waters in North America, twelve inches of water applied to the rice fields of the three main islands would contribute no less than 1200 tons of phosphorus and 19,000 tons of potassium annually.
Dr. Kawaguchi, of the National Department of Agriculture and Commerce, informed us that in 1908 Japanese farmers prepared and applied to their fields 22,812,787 tons of compost manufactured from the wastes of cattle, horses, swine and poultry, combined with herbage, straw and other similar wastes and with soil, sod or mud from ditches and canals.
The amount of this compost is sufficient to apply 1.78 tons per acre of cultivated land of the southern three main islands.
From data obtained at the Nara Experiment Station, the composition of compost as there prepared shows it to contain, in each 2000 pounds, 550 pounds of organic matter; 15.6 pounds of nitrogen; 8.3 pounds of potassium, and 5.24 pounds of phosphorus.
On this basis 22,800,000 tons of compost will carry 59,700 tons of phosphorus and 94,600 tons of potassium.
The construction of compost houses is illustrated in Fig.
116, reproduced from a large circular sent to farmers from the Nara Experiment Station, and an exterior of one at the Nara Station is given in Fig.
117.
This compost house is designed to serve two and a half acres.
Its floor is twelve by eighteen feet, rendered watertight by a mixture of clay, lime and sand.
The walls are of earth, one foot thick, and the roof is thatched with straw.
Its capacity is sixteen to twenty tons, having a cash value of 60 yen, or $30.
In preparing the stack, materials are brought daily and, spread over one side of the compost floor until the pile has attained a height of five feet.
After one foot in depth has been laid and firmed, 1.2 inches of soil or mud is spread over the surface and the process repeated until full height has been attained.
Water is added sufficient to keep the whole saturated and to maintain the temperature below that of the body.
After the compost stacks have been completed they are permitted to stand five weeks in summer, seven weeks in winter, when they are forked over and transferred to the opposite side of the house.
If we state in round numbers the total nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium thus far enumerated which Japanese farmers apply or return annually to their twenty or twenty-one thousand square miles of cultivated fields, the case stands 385,214 tons of nitrogen, 91,656 tons of phosphorus and 255,778 tons of potassium.
These values are only approximations and do not include the large volume and variety of fertilizers prepared from fish, which have long been used.
Neither do they include the very large amount of nitrogen derived directly from the atmosphere through their long, extensive and persistent cultivation of soy beans and other legumes.
Indeed, from 1903 to 1906 the average area of paddy field upon which was grown a second crop of green manure in the form of some legume was 6.8 per cent of the total area of such fields aggregating 11,000 square miles.
In 1906 over 18 per cent of the upland fields also produced some leguminous crop, these fields aggregating between 9,000 and 10,000 square miles.
While the values which have been given above, expressing the sum total of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium applied annually to the cultivated fields of Japan may be somewhat too high for some of the sources named, there is little doubt that Japanese farmers apply to their fields more of these three plant food elements annually than has been computed.
The amounts which have been given are sufficient to provide annually, for each acre of the 21,321 square miles of cultivated land, an application of not less than 56 pounds of nitrogen, 13 pounds of phosphorus and 37 pounds of potassium.
Or, if we omit the large northern island of Hokkaido, still new in its agriculture and lacking the intensive practices of the older farm land, the quantities are sufficient for a mean application of 60, 14 and 40 pounds respectively of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium per acre, and yet the maturing of 1000 pounds of wheat crop, covering grain and straw as water-free substance, removes from the soil but 13.9 pounds of nitrogen, 2.3 pounds of phosphorus and 8.4 pounds of potassium, from which it may be computed that the 60 pounds of nitrogen added is sufficient for a crop yielding 31 bushels of wheat; the phosphorus is sufficient for a crop of 44 bushels, and the potassium for a crop of 35 bushels per acre.
Dr. Hopkins, in his recent valuable work on "Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture" gives, on page 154, a table from which we abstract the following data: APPROXIMATE AMOUNTS OF NITROGEN, PHOSPHORUS AND POTASSIUM REMOVABLE PER ACRE ANNUALLY BY Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, pounds.
pounds.
pounds.
100 bush.
crop of corn 148 23 71 100 bush.
crop of oats 97 16 68 50 bush.
crop of wheat 96 16 58 25 bush.
crop of soy beans 159 21 73 100 bush.
crop of rice 155 18 95 3 ton crop of timothy hay 72 9 71 4 ton crop of clover hay 160 20 120 3 ton crop of cow pea hay 130 14 98 8 ton crop of alfalfa hay 400 36 192 7000 lb.
crop of cotton 168 29.4 82 400 bush.
crop of potatoes 84 17.3 120 20 ton crop of sugar beets 100 18 157 Annually applied in Japan, more than 60 14 40 We have inserted in this table, for comparison, the crop of rice, and have increased the crop of potatoes from three hundred bushels to four hundred bushels per acre, because such a yield, like all of those named, is quite practicable under good management and favorable seasons, notwithstanding the fact that much smaller yields are generally attained through lack of sufficient plant food or water.
From this table, assuming that a crop of matured grain contains 11 per cent of water and the straw 15 per cent, while potatoes contain 79 per cent and beets 87 per cent, the amounts of the three plant food elements removable annually by 1000 pounds of crop have been calculated and stated in the next table.
APPROXIMATE AMOUNTS OF NITROGEN, PHOSPHORUS AND POTASSIUM REMOVABLE ANNUALLY PER 1,0000 POUNDS OF DRY CROP SUBSTANCE Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, pounds.
pounds.
pounds.
Cereals.
Wheat 13.873 2.312 8.382 Oats 13.666 2.254 9.580 Corn 13.719 2.149 6.676 Legumes.
Soy beans 30.807 4.070 14.147 Cow peas 25.490 2.745 19.216 Clover 23.529 2.941 17.647 Alfalfa 29.411 2.647 14.118 Roots.
Beets 19.213 3.462 30.192 Potatoes 15.556 3.210 22.222 Grass.
Timothy 14.117 1.765 13.922 Rice 9.949 1.129 6.089 From the amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium applied annually to the cultivated fields of Japan and from the data in these two tables it may be readily seen that these people are now and probably long have been applying quite as much of these three plant food elements to their fields with each planting as are removed with the crop, and if this is true in Japan it must also be true in China.
Moreover there is nothing in American agricultural practice which indicates that we shall not ultimately be compelled to do likewise.
X IN THE SHANTUNG PROVINCE On May 15th we left Shanghai by one of the coastwise steamers for Tsingtao, some three hundred miles farther north, in the Shantung Province, our object being to keep in touch with methods of tillage and fertilization, corresponding phases of which would occur later in the season there.
The Shantung province is in the latitude of North Carolina and Kentucky, or lies between that of San Francisco and Los Angeles.
It has an area of nearly 56,000 square miles, about that of Wisconsin.
Less than one-half of this area is cultivated land yet it is at the present time supporting a population exceeding 38,000,000 of people.
New York state has today less than ten millions and more than half of these are in New York city.
It was in this province that Confucius was born 2461 years ago, and that Mencius, his disciple, lived.
Here, too, seventeen hundred years before Confucius' time, after one of the great floods of the Yellow river, 2297 B. C., and more than 4100 years ago, the Great Yu was appointed "Superintendent of Public Works" and entrusted with draining off the flood waters and canalizing the rivers.
Here also was the beginning of the Boxer uprising.
Tsingtao sits at the entrance of Kiaochow Bay.
Following the war of Japan with China this was seized by Germany, November 14, 1897, nominally to indemnify for the murder of two German missionaries which had occurred in Shantung, and March 6th, 1898, this bay, to the high water line, its islands and a "Sphere of Influence" extending thirty miles in all directions from the boundary, together with Tsingtao, was leased to Germany for ninety-nine years.
Russia demanded and secured a lease of Port Arthur at the same time.
Great Britain obtained a similar lease of Weihaiwei in Shantung, while to France Kwangchow-wan in southern China, was leased.
But the "encroachments" of European powers did not stop with these leases and during the latter part of 1898 the "Policy of Spheres of Influence" culminated in the international rivalry for railway concessions and mining.
These greatly alarmed China and uprisings broke out very naturally first in Shantung, among the people nearest of kin to the founders of the Empire.
As might have been expected of a patriotic, even though naturally peaceful people, they determined to defend their country against such encroachments and the Boxer troubles followed.
Tsingtao has a deep, commodious harbor always free from ice and Germany is constructing here very extensive and substantial harbor improvements which will be of lasting benefit to the province and the Empire.
A pier four miles in length encloses the inner wharf, and a second wharf is nearing completion.
Germany is also maintaining a meteorological observatory here and has established a large, comprehensive Forest Garden, under excellent management, which is showing remarkable developments for so short a time.
Our steamer entered the harbor during the night and, on going ashore, we soon found that only Chinese and German were generally spoken; but through the kind assistance of Rev.
W. H. Scott, of the American Presbyterian Mission, an interpreter promised to call at my hotel in the evening, although he failed to appear.
The afternoon was spent at the Forest Garden and on the reforestation tract, which are under the supervision of Mr. Haas.
The Forest Garden covers two hundred and seventy acres and the reforestation tract three thousand acres more.
In the garden a great variety of forest and fruit trees and small fruits are being tried out with high promise of the most valuable results.
It was in the steep hills about Tsingtao that we first saw at close range serious soil erosion in China; and the returning of forest growth on hills nearly devoid of soil was here remarkable, in view of the long dry seasons which prevail from November to June, and Fig.
118 shows how destitute of soil the crests of granite hills may become and yet how the coming back of the forest growth may hasten as soon as it is no longer cut away.
The rock going into decay, where this view was taken, is an extremely coarse crystalline granite, as may be seen in contrast with the watch, and it is falling into decay at a marvelous rate.
Disintegration has penetrated the rock far below the surface and the large crystals are held together with but little more tenacity than prevails in a bed of gravel.
Moisture and even roots penetrate it deeply and readily and the crystals fall apart with thrusts of the knife blade, the rock crumbling with the greatest freedom.
Roadways have been extensively carved along the sides of the hills with the aid of only pick and shovel.
Close examination of the rock shows that layers of sediment exist between the crystal faces, either washed down by percolating rain or formed through decomposition of the crystals in place.
The next illustration, Fig.
119, shows how large the growth on such soils may be, and in Fig.
120 the vegetation and forest growth are seen coming back, closely covering just such soil surfaces and rock structure as are indicated in Figs.
118 and 119.
These views are taken on the reforestation tract at Tsingtao but most of the growth is volunteer, standing now protected by the German government in their effort to see what may be possible under careful supervision.
The loads of pine bough fuel represented in Fig.
80 were gathered from such hills and from such forest growth as are here represented, but on lands more distant from the city.
But Tsingtao, with its forty thousand Chinese, and Kiaochow across the bay, with its one hundred and twenty thousand more, and other villages dotting the narrow plains, maintain a very great demand for such growth on the hill lands.
The wonder is that forest growth has persisted at all and has contributed so much in the way of fuel.
Growing in the Forest Garden was a most beautiful wild yellow rose, native to Shantung, being used for landscape effect in the parking, and it ought to be widely introduced into other countries wherever it will thrive.
It was growing as heavy borders and massive clumps six to eight feet high, giving a most wonderful effect, with its brilliant, dense cloud of the richest yellow bloom.
The blossoms are single, fully as large as the Rosa rugosa, with the tips of the petals shading into the most dainty light straw yellow, while the center is a deep orange, the contrast being sufficient to show in the photograph from which Fig.
121 was prepared.
Another beautiful and striking feature of this rose is the clustering of the blossoms in one-sided wreath-like sprays, sometimes twelve to eighteen inches long, the flowers standing close enough to even overlap.
The interpreter engaged for us failed to appear as per agreement so the next morning we took the early train for Tsinan to obtain a general view of the country and to note the places most favorable as points for field study.
We had resolved also to make an effort to secure an interpreter through the American Presbyterian College at Tsinan.
Leaving Tsingtao, the train skirts around the Kiaochow bay for a distance of nearly fifty miles, where we pass the city of the same name with its population of 120,000, which had an import and export trade in 1905 valued at over $24,000,000.
At Sochen we passed through a coal mining district where coal was being brought to the cars in baskets carried by men.
The coal on the loaded open cars was sprinkled with whitewash, serving as a seal to safe-guard against stealing during transit, making it so that none could be removed without the fact being revealed by breaking the seal.
This practice is general in China and is applied to many commodities handled in bulk.
We saw baskets of milled rice carried by coolies sealed with a pattern laid over the surface by sprinkling some colored powder upon it.
Cut stone, corded for the market, was whitewashed in the same manner as the coal.
As we were approaching Weihsien, another city of 100,000 people, we identified one of the deeply depressed, centuries-old roadways, worn eight to ten feet deep, by chancing to see half a dozen teams passing along it as the train crossed.
We had passed several and were puzzling to account for such peculiar erosion.
The teams gave the explanation and thus connected our earlier reading with the concrete.
Along these deep-cut roadways caravans may pass, winding through the fields, entirely unobserved unless one chances to be close along the line or the movement is discovered by clouds of dust, one of the methods that has produced them, and we would not be surprised if gathering manure from them has played a large part also.
Weihsien is near one of the great commercial highways of China and in the center of one of the coal mining regions of the province.
Still further along towards Tsinan we passed Tsingchowfu, another of the large cities of the province, with 150,000 population.
All day we rode through fields of wheat, always planted in rows, and in hills in the row east of Kaumi, but in single or double continuous drills westward from here to Tsinan.
Thousands of wells used for irrigation, of the type seen in Fig.
123, were passed during the day, many of them recently dug to supply water for the barley suffering from the severe drought which was threatening the crop at the time.
It was 6:30 P. M. before our train pulled into the station at Tsinan; 7:30 when we had finished supper and engaged a ricksha to take us to the American Presbyterian College in quest of an interpreter.
We could not speak Chinese, the ricksha boy could neither speak nor understand a word of English, but the hotel proprietor had instructed him where to go.
We plunged into the narrow streets of a great Chinese city, the boy running wherever he could, walking where he must on account of the density of the crowds or the roughness of the stone paving.
We had turned many corners, crossed bridges and passed through tunneled archways in sections of the massive city walls, until it was getting dusk and the ricksha man purchased and lighted a lantern.
We were to reach the college in thirty minutes but had been out a full hour.
A little later the boy drew up to and held conference with a policeman.
The curious of the street gathered about and it dawned upon us that we were lost in the night in the narrow streets of a Chinese city of a hundred thousand people.
To go further would be useless for the gates of the mission compound would be locked.
We could only indicate by motions our desire to return, but these were not understood.
On the train a thoughtful, kindly old German had recognized a stranger in a foreign land and volunteered useful information, cutting from his daily paper an advertisement describing a good hotel.
This gave the name of the hotel in German, English and in Chinese characters.
We handed this to the policeman, pointing to the name of the hotel, indicating by motions the desire to return, but apparently he was unable to read in either language and seemed to think we were assuming to direct the way to the college.
A man and boy in the crowd apparently volunteered to act as escort for us.
The throng parted and we left them, turned more corners into more unlighted narrow alleyways, one of which was too difficult to permit us to ride.
The escorts, if such they were, finally left us, but the dark alley led on until it terminated at the blank face, probably of some other portion of the massive city wall we had thrice threaded through lighted tunnels.
Here the ricksha boy stopped and turned about but the light from his lantern was too feeble to permit reading the workings of his mind through his face, and our tongues were both utterly useless in this emergency, so we motioned for him to turn back and by some route we reached the hotel at 11 P. M. We abandoned the effort to visit the college, for the purpose of securing an interpreter, and took the early train back to Tsingtao, reaching there in time to secure the very satisfactory service of Mr. Chu Wei Yung, through the further kind offices of Mr. Scott.
We had been twice over the road between the two cities, obtaining a general idea of the country and of the crops and field operations at this season.
The next morning we took an early train to Tsangkau and were ready to walk through the fields and to talk with the last generations of more than forty unbroken centuries of farmers who, with brain and brawn, have successfully and continuously sustained large families on small areas without impoverishing their soil.
The next illustration is from a photograph taken in one of these fields.
We astonished the old farmer by asking the privilege of holding his plow through one round in his little field, but he granted the privilege readily.
Our furrow was not as well turned as his, nor as well as we could have done with a two-handled Oliver or John Deere, but it was better than the old man had expected and won his respect.
This plow had a good steel point, as a separate, blunt, V-shaped piece, and a moldboard of cast steel with a good twist which turned the soil well.
The standard and sole were of wood and at the end of the beam was a block for gauging the depth of furrow.
The cost of this plow, to the farmer, was $2.15, gold, and when the day's work is done it is taken home on the shoulders, even though the distance may be a mile or more, and carefully housed.
Chinese history states that the plow was invented by Shennung, who lived 2737-2697 B. C. and "taught the art of agriculture and the medical use of herbs".
He is honored as the "God of Agriculture and Medicine."
Through my interpreter we learned that there were twelve in this man's family, which he maintained on fifteen mow of land, or 2.5 acres, together with his team, consisting of a cow and small donkey, besides feeding two pigs.
This is at the rate of 192 people, 16 cows, 16 donkeys and 32 pigs on a forty-acre farm; and of a population density equivalent to 3072 people, 256 cows, 256 donkeys and 512 swine per square mile of cultivated field.
On another small holding we talked with the farmer standing at the well in Fig.
27, where he was irrigating a little piece of barley 30 feet wide and 138 feet long.
He owned and was cultivating but one and two-thirds acres of land and yet there were ten in his family and he kept one donkey and usually one pig.
Here is a maintenance capacity at the rate of 240 people, 24 donkeys and 24 pigs on a forty-acre farm; and a population density of 3840 people, 384 donkeys and 384 pigs per square mile.
His usual annual sales in good seasons were equivalent in value to $73, gold.
In both of these cases the crops grown were wheat, barley, large and small millet, sweet potatoes and soy beans or peanuts.
Much straw braid is manufactured in the province by the women and children in their homes, and the cargo of the steamer on which we returned to Shanghai consisted almost entirely of shelled peanuts in gunny sacks and huge bales of straw braid destined for the manufacture of hats in Europe and America.
Shantung has only moderate rainfall, little more than 24 inches annually, and this fact has played an important part in determining the agricultural practices of these very old people.
In Fig.
123 is a closer view than Fig.
27 of the farmer watering his little field of barley.
The well had just been dug over eight feet deep, expressly and solely to water this one piece of grain once, after which it would be filled and the ground planted.
The season had been unusually dry, as had been the one before, and the people were fearing famine.
Only 2.44 inches of rain had fallen at Tsingtao between the end of the preceding October and our visit, May 21st, and hundreds of such temporary wells had been or were being dug all along both sides of the two hundred and fifty miles of railway, and nearly all to be filled when the crop on the ground was irrigated, to release the land for one to follow.
The homes are in villages a mile or more apart and often the holdings or rentals are scattered, separated by considerable distances, hence easy portability is the key-note in the construction of this irrigating outfit.
The bucket is very light, simply a woven basket waterproofed with a paste of bean flour.
The windlass turns like a long spool on a single pin and the standard is a tripod with removable legs.
Some wells we saw were sixteen or twenty feet deep and in these the water was raised by a cow walking straight away at the end of a rope.
The amount and distribution of rainfall in this province, as indicated by the mean of ten years' records at Tsingtao, obtained at the German Meteorological Observatory through the courtesy of Dr. B. Meyermanns, are given in the table in which the rainfall of Madison, Wisconsin, is inserted for comparison.
Mean monthly rainfall.
Mean rainfall In 10 days.
Tsingtao, Madison, Tsingtao, Madison, Inches.
Inches.
Inches.
Inches.
January .394 1.56 .131 .520 February .240 1.50 .080 .500 March .892 2.12 .297 .707 April 1.240 2.62 .413 .840 May 1.636 3.62 .545 1.207 June 2.702 4.10 .901 1.866 July 6.637 3.90 2.212 1.300 August 5.157 3.21 1.719 1.070 September 2.448 3.15 .816 1.050 October 2.258 2.42 .753 .807 November .398 1.78 .132 .593 December .682 1.77 .227 .590 -----------Total 24.682 31.65 While Shantung receives less than 25 inches of rain during the year, against Wisconsin's more than 31 inches, the rainfall during June, July and August in Shantung is nearly 14.5 inches, while Wisconsin receives but 11.2 inches.
This greater summer rainfall, with persistent fertilization and intense management, in a warm latitude, are some of the elements permitting Shantung today to feed 38,247,900 people from an area equal to that upon which Wisconsin is yet feeding but 2,333,860.
Must American agriculture ultimately feed sixteen people where it is now feeding but one?
If so, correspondingly more intense and effective practices must follow, and we can neither know too well nor too early what these Old World people have been driven to do; how they have succeeded, and how we and they may improve upon their practices and lighten the human burdens by more fully utilizing physical forces and mechanical appliances.
As we passed on to other fields we found a mother and daughter transplanting sweet potatoes on carefully fitted ridges of nearly air-dry soil in a little field, the remnant of a table on a deeply eroded hillside, Fig.
124.
The husband was bringing water for moistening the soil from a deep ravine a quarter of a mile distant, carrying it on his shoulder in two buckets, Fig.
125, across an intervening gulch.
He had excavated four holes at intervals up the gulch and from these, with a broken gourd dipper mended with stitches, he filled his pails, bailing in succession from one to the other in regular rotation.
The daughter was transplanting.
Holding the slip with its tip between thumb and fingers, a strong forward stroke plowed a furrow in the mellow, dry soil; then, with a backward movement and a downward thrust, planted the slip, firmed the soil about it, leaving a depression in which the mother poured about a pint of water from another gourd dipper.
After this water had soaked away, dry earth was drawn about the slip and firmed and looser earth drawn over this, the only tools being the naked hands and dipper.
The father and mother were dressed in coarse garb but the daughter was neatly clad, with delicate hands decorated with rings and a bracelet.
Neither of the women had bound feet.
There were ten in his family; and on adjacent similar areas they had small patches of wheat nearly ready for the harvest, all planted in hills, hoed, and in astonishingly vigorous condition considering the extreme drought which prevailed.
The potatoes were being planted under these extreme conditions in anticipation of the rainy season which then was fully due.
The summer before had been one of unusual drought, and famine was threatened.
The government had recently issued an edict that no sheep should be sold from the province, fearing they might be needed for food.
An old woman in one of the villages came out, as we walked through, and inquired of my interpreter if we had come to make it rain.
Such was the stress under which we found these people.
One of the large farmers, owning ten acres, stated that his usual yield of wheat in good season was 160 catty per mow, equivalent to 21.3 bushels per acre.
He was expecting the current season not more than one half this amount.
As a fertilizer he used a prepared earth compost which we shall describe later, mixing it with the grain and sowing in the hills with the seed, applying about 5333 pounds per acre, which he valued, in our currency, at $8.60, or $3.22 per ton.
A pile of such prepared compost is seen in Fig.
126, ready to be transferred to the field.
The views show with what cleanliness the yard is kept and with what care all animal waste is saved.
The cow and donkey are the work team, such as was being used by the plowman referred to in Fig.
122.
The mounds in the background of the lower view are graves; the fence behind the animals is made from the stems of the large millet, kaoliang, while that at the right of the donkey is made of earth, both indicative of the scarcity of lumber.
The buildings, too, are thatched and their walls are of earth plastered with an earthen mortar worked up with chaff.
In another field a man plowing and fertilizing for sweet potatoes had brought to the field and laid down in piles the finely pulverized dry compost.
The father was plowing; his son of sixteen years was following and scattering, from a basket, the pulverized dry compost in the bottom of the furrow.
The next furrow covered the fertilizer, four turned together forming a ridge upon which the potatoes were to be planted after a second and older son had smoothed and fitted the crest with a heavy hand rake.
The fertilizer was thus applied directly beneath the row, at the rate of 7400 pounds per acre, valued at $7.15, our currency, or $1.93 per ton.
We were astonished at the moist condition of the soil turned, which was such as to pack in the hand notwithstanding the extreme drought prevailing and the fact that standing water in the ground was more than eight feet below the surface.
The field had been without crop and cultivated.
To the question, "What yield of sweet potatoes do you expect from this piece of land?"
he replied, "About 4000 catty," which is 440 bushels of 56 pounds per acre.
The usual market price was stated to be $1.00, Mexican, per one hundred catty, making the gross value of the crop $79.49, gold, per acre.
His land was valued at $60, Mexican, per mow, or $154.80 per acre, gold.
My interpreter informed me that the average well-to-do farmers in this part of Shantung own from fifteen to twenty mow of land and this amount is quite ample to provide for eight people.
Such farmers usually keep two cows, two donkeys and eight or ten pigs.
The less well-to-do or small farmers own two to five mow and act as superintendents for the larger farmers.
Taking the largest holding, of twenty mow per family of eight people, as a basis, the density per square mile would be 1536 people, and an area of farm land equal to the state of Wisconsin would have 86,000,000 people; 21,500,000 cows; 21,500,000 donkeys and 86,000,000 swine.
These observations apply to one of the most productive sections of the province, but very large areas of land in the province are not cultivable and the last census showed the total population nearly one-half of this amount.
It is clear, therefore, that either very effective agricultural methods are practiced or else extreme economy is exercised.
Both are true.
On this day in the fields our interpreter procured his dinner at a farm house, bringing us four boiled eggs, for which he paid at the rate of 8.3 cents of our money, but his dinner was probably included in the price.
The next table gives the prices for some articles obtained by inquiry at the Tsingtao market, May 23rd, 1909, reduced to our currency.
Cents Old potatoes, per lb 2.18 New potatoes, per lb 2.87 Salted turnip, per lb .86 Onions, per lb 4.10 Radishes, bunch of 10 1.29 String beans, per lb 11.46 Cucumbers, per lb 5.78 Pears, per lb 5.73 Apricots, per lb 8.60 Pork, fresh, per lb 10.33 Fish, per lb 5.73 Eggs, per dozen 5.16 The only items which are low compared with our own prices are salted turnips, radishes and eggs.
Most of the articles listed were out of season for the locality and were imported for the foreigners, turnips, radishes, pork, fish and eggs being the exceptions.
Prof. Ross informs us that he found eggs selling in Shensi at four for one cent of our money.
Our interpreter asked a compensation of one dollar, Mexican, or 43 cents, U. S. currency, per day, he furnishing his own meals.
The usual wage for farm labor here was $8.60, per year, with board and lodging.
We have referred to the wages paid by missionaries for domestic service.
As servants the Chinese are considered efficient, faithful and trustworthy.
It was the custom of Mr. and Mrs. League to intrust them with the purse for marketing, feeling that they could be depended upon for the closest bargaining.
Commonly, when instructed to procure a certain article, if they found the price one or two cash higher than usual they would select a cheaper substitute.
If questioned as to why instructions were not followed the reply would be "Too high, no can afford."
Mrs. League recited her experience with her cook regarding his use of our kitchen appliances.
After fitting the kitchen with a modern range and cooking utensils, and working with him to familiarize him with their use, she was surprised, on going into the kitchen a few days later, to find that the old Chinese stove had been set on the range and the cooking being done with the usual Chinese furniture.
When asked why he was not using the stove his reply was "Take too much fire."
Nothing jars on the nerves of these people more than incurring of needless expense, extravagance in any form, or poor judgment in making purchases.
Daily we became more and more impressed by the evidence of the intense and incessant stress imposed by the dense populations of centuries, and how, under it, the laws of heredity have wrought upon the people, affecting constitution, habits and character.
Even the cattle and sheep have not escaped its irresistible power.
Many times in this province we saw men herding flocks of twenty to thirty sheep along the narrow unfenced pathways winding through the fields, and on the grave lands.
The prevailing drought had left very little green to be had from these places and yet sheep were literally brushing their sides against fresh green wheat and barley, never molesting them.
Time and again the flocks were stampeded into the grain by an approaching train, but immediately they returned to their places without taking a nibble.
The voice of the shepherd and an occasional well aimed lump of earth only being required to bring them back to their uninviting pastures.
In Kiangsu and Chekiang provinces a line of half a dozen white goats were often seen feeding single file along the pathways, held by a cord like a string of beads, sometimes led by a child.
Here, too, one of the most common sights was the water buffalo grazing unattended among the fields along the paths and canal banks, with crops all about, One of the most memorable shocks came to us in Chekiang, China, when we had fallen into a revery while gazing at the shifting landscape from the doorway of our low-down Chinese houseboat.
Something in the sky and the vegetation along the canal bank had recalled the scenes of boyhood days and it seemed, as we looked aslant up the bank with its fringe of grass, that we were gliding along Whitewater creek through familiar meadows and that standing up would bring the old home in sight.
That instant there glided into view, framed in the doorway and projected high against the tinted sky above the setting sun, a giant water buffalo standing motionless as a statue on the summit of a huge grave mound, lifted fully ten feet above the field.
But in a flash this was replaced by a companion scene, and with all its beautiful setting, which had been as suddenly fixed on the memory fourteen years before in the far away Trossachs when our coach, hurriedly rounding a sharp turn in the hills, suddenly exposed a wild ox of Scotland similarly thrust against the sky from a small but isolated rocky summit, and then, outspeeding the wireless, recollection crossed two oceans and an intervening continent, bringing us back to China before a speed of five miles, per hour could move the first picture across the narrow doorway.
It was through the fields about Tsangkow that the stalwart freighters referred to, Fig.
32, passed us on one of the paths leading from Kiaochow through unnumbered country villages, already eleven miles on their way with their wheelbarrows loaded with matches made in Japan.
Many of the wheelbarrow men seen in Shanghai and other cities are from Shantung families, away for employment, expecting to return.
During the harvest season, too, many of these people go west and north into Manchuria seeking employment, returning to their homes in winter.
Alexander Hosie, in his book on Manchuria, states that from Chefoo alone more than 20,000 Chinese laborers cross to Newchwang every spring by steamer, others finding their way there by junks or other means, so that after the harvest season 8,000 more return by steamer to Chefoo than left that way in the spring, from which he concludes that Shantung annually supplies Manchuria with agricultural labor to the extent of 30,000 men.
About the average condition of wheat in Shantung during this dry season, and nearing maturity, is seen in Fig.
127, standing rather more than three feet high, as indicated by our umbrella between the rows.
Beyond the wheat and to the right, grave mounds serrate the sky line, no hills being in sight, for we were in the broad plain built up from the sea between the two mountain islands forming the highlands of Shantung.
On May 22nd we were in the fields north of Kiaochow, some sixty miles by rail west from Tsingtao, but within the neutral zone extending thirty miles back from the high water line of the bay of the same name.
Here the Germans had built a broad macadam road after the best European type but over it were passing the vehicles of forty centuries seen in Figs.
128 and 129.
It is doubtful if the resistance to travel experienced by these men on the better road was enough less than that on the old paths they had left to convince them that the cost of construction and maintenance would be worth while until vehicles and the price of labor change.
It may appear strange that with a nation of so many millions and with so long a history, roads have persisted as little more than beaten foot-paths; but modern methods of transportation have remained physical impossibilities to every people until the science of the last century opened the way.
Throughout their history the burdens of these people have been carried largely on foot, mostly on the feet of men, and of single men wherever the load could be advantageously divided.
Animals have been supplemental burden bearers but, as with the men, they have carried the load directly on their own feet, the mode least disturbed by inequalities of road surface.
For adaptability to the worst road conditions no vehicle equals the wheelbarrow, progressing by one wheel and two feet.
No vehicle is used more in China, if the carrying pole is excepted, and no wheelbarrow in the world permits so high an efficiency of human power as the Chinese, as must be clear from Figs.
32 and 61, where nearly the whole load is balanced on the axle of a high, massive wheel with broad tire.
A shoulder band from the handles of the barrow relieves the strain on the hands and, when the load or the road is heavy, men or animals may aid in drawing, or even, when the wind is favorable, it is not unusual to hoist a sail to gain propelling power.
It is only in northern China, and then in the more level portions, where there are few or no canals, that carts have been extensively used, but are more difficult to manage on bad roads.
Most of the heavy carts, especially those in Manchuria, seen in Fig.
203, have the wheels framed rigidly to the axle which revolves with them, the bearing being in the bed of the cart.
But new carts of modern type are being introduced.
In the extent of development and utilization of inland waterways no people have approached the Chinese.
In the matter of land transportation they have clearly followed the line of least resistance for individual initiative, so characteristic of industrial China.
There are Government courier or postal roads which connect Peking with the most distant parts of the Empire, some twenty-one being usually enumerated.
These, as far as practicable, take the shortest course, are often cut into the mountain sides and even pass through tunnels.
In the plains regions these roads may be sixty to seventy-five feet wide, paved and occasionally bordered by rows of trees.
In some cases, too, signal towers are erected at intervals of three miles and there are inns along the way, relay posts and stations for soldiers.
We have spoken of planting grain in rows and in hills in the row.
In Fig.
130 is a field with the rows planted in pairs, the members being 16 inches apart, and together occupying 30 inches.
The space between each pair is also 30 inches, making five feet in all.
This makes frequent hoeing practicable, which is begun early in the spring and is repeated after every rain.
It also makes it possible to feed the plants when they can utilize food to the best advantage and to repeat the feeding if desirable.
Besides, the ground in the wider space may be fitted, fertilized and another crop planted before the first is removed.
The hills alternate in the rows and are 24 to 26 inches from center to center.
The planting may be done by hand or with a drill such as that in Fig.
131, ingenious in the simple mechanism which permits planting in hills.
The husbandman had just returned from the field with the drill on his shoulder when we met at the door of his village home, where he explained to us the construction and operation of the drill and permitted the photograph to be taken, but turning his face aside, not wishing to represent a specific character, in the view.
In the drill there was a heavy leaden weight swinging free from a point above the space between the openings leading to the respective drill feet.
When planting, the operator rocks the drill from side to side, causing the weight to hang first over one and then over the other opening, thus securing alternation of hills in each pair of rows.
Counting the heads of wheat in the hill in a number of fields showed them ranging between 20 and 100, the distance between the rows and between the hills as stated above.
There were always a larger number of stalks per hill where the water capacity of the soil was large, where the ground water was near the surface, and where the soil was evidently of good quality.
This may have been partly the result of stooling but we have little doubt that judgment was exercised in planting, sowing less seed on the lighter soils where less moisture was available.
In the piece just referred to, in the illustration, an average hill contained 46 stalks and the number of kernels in a head varied between 20 and 30.
Taking Richardson's estimate of 12,000 kernels of wheat to the pound, this field would yield about twelve bushels of wheat per acre this unusually dry season.
Our interpreter, whose parents lived near Kaomi, four stations further west, stated that in 1901, one of their best seasons, farmers there secured yields as high as 875 catty per legal mow, which is at the rate of 116 bushels per acre.
Such a yield on small areas highly fertilized and carefully tilled, when the rainfall is ample or where irrigation is practiced, is quite possible and in the Kiangsu province we observed individual small fields which would certainly approach close to this figure.
Further along in our journey of the day we came upon a field where three, one of them a boy of fourteen years, were hoeing and thinning millet and maize.
In China, during the hot weather, the only garment worn by the men in the field, was their trousers, and the boy had found these unnecessary, although he slipped into them while we were talking with his father.
The usual yield of maize was set at 420 to 480 catty per mow, and that of millet at 600 catty, or 60 to 68.5 bushels of maize and 96 bushels of millet, of fifty pounds, per acre, and the usual price would make the gross earnings $23.48 to $26.83 per acre for the maize, and $30.96, gold, for the millet.
It was evident when walking through these fields that the fall-sowed grain was standing the drought far better than the barley planted in the spring, quite likely because of the deeper and stronger development of root system made possible by the longer period of growth, and partly because the wheat had made much of its growth utilizing water that had fallen before the barley was planted and which would have been lost from the soil through percolation and surface evaporation.
Farmers here are very particular to hoe their grain, beginning in the early spring, and always after rains, thoroughly appreciating the efficiency of earth mulches.
Their hoe, seen in Fig.
132, is peculiarly well adapted to its purpose, the broad blade being so hung that it draws nearly parallel with the surface, cutting shallow and permitting the soil to drop practically upon the place from which it was loosened.
These hoes are made in three parts; a wooden handle, a long, strong and heavy iron socket shank, and a blade of steel.
The blade is detachable and different forms and sizes of blades may be used on the same shank.
The mulch-producing blades may have a cutting edge thirteen inches long and a width of nine inches.
At short intervals on either hand, along the two hundred and fifty miles of railway between Tsingtao and Tsinan, were observed many piles of earth compost distributed in the fields.
One of these piles is seen in Fig.
133.
They were sometimes on unplanted fields, in other cases they occurred among the growing crops soon to be harvested, or where another crop was to be planted between the rows of one already on the ground.
Some of these piles were six feet high.
All were built in cubical form with flat top and carefully plastered with a layer of earth mortar which sometimes cracked on drying, as seen in the illustration.
The purpose of this careful shaping and plastering we did not learn although our interpreter stated it was to prevent the compost from being appropriated for use on adjacent fields.
Such a finish would have the effect of a seal, showing if the pile had been disturbed, but we suspect other advantages are sought by the treatment, which involves so large an amount of labor.
The amount of this earth compost prepared and used annually in Shantung is large, as indicated by the cases cited, where more than five thousand pounds, in one instance, and seven thousand pounds in another, were applied per acre for one crop.
When two or more crops are grown the same year on the same ground, each is fertilized, hence from three to six or more tons may be applied to each cultivated acre.
The methods of preparing compost and of fertilizing in Kiangsu, Chekiang and Kwangtung provinces have been described.
In this part of Shantung, in Chihli and north in Manchuria as far as Mukden, the methods are materially different and if possible even more laborious, but clearly rational and effective.
Here nearly if not all fertilizer compost is prepared in the villages and carried to the fields, however distant these may be.
Rev.
T. J.
League very kindly accompanied us to Chengyang on the railway, from which we walked some two miles, back to a prosperous rural village to see their methods of preparing this compost fertilizer.
It was toward the close of the afternoon before we reached the village, and from all directions husbandmen were returning from the fields, some with hoes, some with plows, some with drills over their shoulders and others leading donkeys or cattle, and similar customs obtain in Japan, as seen in Fig.
134.
These were mostly the younger men.
When we reached the village streets the older men, all bareheaded, as were those returning from the fields, and usually with their queues tied about the crown, were visiting, enjoying their pipes of tobacco.
Opium is no longer used openly in China, unless it be permitted to some well along in years with the habit confirmed, and the growing of the poppy is prohibited.
The penalties for violating the law are heavy and enforcement is said to be rigid and effective.
For the first violation a fine is imposed.
If convicted of a second violation the fine is heavier with imprisonment added to help the victim acquire self control, and a third conviction may bring the death penalty.
The eradication of the opium scourge must prove a great blessing to China.
But with the passing of this most formidable evil, for whose infliction upon China England was largely responsible, it is a great misfortune that through the pitiless efforts of the British-American Tobacco Company her people are rapidly becoming addicted to the western tobacco habit, selfish beyond excuse, filthy beyond measure, and unsanitary in its polluting and oxygen-destroying effect upon the air all are compelled to breathe.
It has already become a greater and more inexcusable burden upon mankind than opium ever was.
China, with her already overtaxed fields, can ill afford to give over an acre to the cultivation of this crop and she should prohibit the growing of tobacco as she has that of the poppy.
Let her take the wise step now when she readily may, for all civilized nations will ultimately be compelled to adopt such a measure.
The United States in 1902 had more than a million acres growing tobacco, and harvested 821,000,000 pounds of leaf.
This leaf depleted those soils to the extent of more than twenty eight million pounds of nitrogen, twenty-nine million pounds of potassium and nearly two and a half million pounds of phosphorus, all so irrecoverably lost that even China, with her remarkable skill in saving and her infinite patience with little things, could not recover them for her soils.
On a like area of field might as readily be grown twenty million bushels of wheat and if the twelve hundred million pounds of grain were all exported it would deplete the soil less than the tobacco crop in everything but phosphorus, and in this about the same.
Used at home, China would return it all to one or another field.
The home consumption of tobacco in the United States averaged seven pounds per capita in 1902.
A like consumption for China's four hundred millions would call for 2800 million pounds of leaf.
If she grew it on her fields two million acres would not suffice.
Her soils would be proportionately depleted and she would be short forty million bushels of wheat; but if China continues to import her tobacco the vast sum expended can neither fertilize her fields nor feed, clothe or educate her people, yet a like sum expended in the importation of wheat would feed her hungry and enrich her soils.
In the matter of conservation of national resources here is one of the greatest opportunities open to all civilized nations.
What might not be done in the United States with a fund of $57,000,000 annually, the market price of the raw tobacco leaf, and the land, the labor and the capital expended in getting the product to the men who puff, breathe and perspire the noxious product into the air everyone must breathe, and who bespatter the streets, sidewalks, the floor of every public place and conveyance, and befoul the million spittoons, smoking rooms and smoking cars, all unnecessary and should be uncalled for, but whose installation and up-keep the non-user as well as the user is forced to pay, and this in a country of, for and by the people.
This costly, filthy, selfish tobacco habit should be outgrown.
Let it begin in every new home, where the mother helps the father in refusing to set the example, and let its indulgence be absolutely prohibited to everyone while in public school and to all in educational institutions.
Mr. League had been given a letter of introduction to one of the leading farmers of the village and it chanced that as we reached the entrance way to big home we were met by his son, just returning from the fields with his drill on his shoulder, and it is he standing in the illustration, Fig.
131, holding the letter of introduction in his hand.
After we had taken this photograph and another one looking down the narrow street from the same point, we were led to the small open court of the home, perhaps forty by eighty feet, upon which all doors of the one-storied structures opened.
It was dry and bare of everything green, but a row of very tall handsome trees, close relatives of our cottonwood, with trunks thirty feet to the limbs, looked down into the court over the roofs of the low thatched houses.
Here we met the father and grandfather of the man with the drill, so that, with the boy carrying the baby in his arms, who had met his father in the street gateway, there were four generations of males at our conference.
There were women and girls in the household but custom requires them to remain in retirement on such occasions.
A low narrow four-legged bench, not unlike our carpenter's sawhorse, five feet long, was brought into the court as a seat, which our host and we occupied in common.
We had been similarly received at the home of Mrs. Wu in Chekiang province.
On our right was the open doorway to the kitchen in which stood, erect and straight, the tall spare figure of the patriarch of the household, his eyes still shining black but with hair and long thin straggling beard a uniform dull ashen gray.
No Chinese hair, it seems, ever becomes white with age.
He seemed to have assumed the duties of cook for while we were there be lighted the fire in the kitchen and was busy, but was always the final oracle on any matter of difference of opinion between the younger men regarding answers to questions.
Two sleeping apartments adjoining the kitchen, through whose wide kang beds the waste heat from the cooking was conveyed, as described on page 142, completed this side of the court.
On our left was the main street completely shut off by a solid earth wall as high as the eaves of the house, while in front of us, adjoining the street, was the manure midden, a compost pit six feet deep and some eight feet square.
A low opening in the street wall permitted the pit to be emptied and to receive earth and stubble or refuse from the fields for composting, Against the pit and without partition, but cut off from the court, was the home of the pigs, both under a common roof continuous with a closed structure joining with the sleeping apartments, while behind us and along the alley-way by which we had entered were other dwelling and storage compartments.
Thus was the large family of four generations provided with a peculiarly private open court where they could work and come out for sun and air, both, from our standards, too meagerly provided in the houses.
We had come to learn more of the methods of fertilizing practiced by these people.
The manure midden was before us and the piles of earth brought in from the fields, for use in the process, were stacked in the street, where we had photographed them at the entrance, as seen in Fig.
135.
There a father, with his pipe, and two boys stand at the extreme left; beyond them is a large pile of earth brought into the village and carefully stacked in the narrow street; on the other side of the street, at the corner of the first building, is a pile of partly fermented compost thrown from a pit behind the walls.
Further along in the street, on the same side, is a second large stack of soil where two boys are standing at either end and another little boy was in a near-by doorway.
In front of the tree, on the left side of the street, stands a third boy, near him a small donkey and still another boy.
Beyond this boy stands a third large stack of soil, while still beyond and across the way is another pile partly composted.
Notwithstanding the cattle in the preceding illustration, the donkey, the men, the boys, the three long high stacks of soil and the two piles of compost, the ten rods of narrow street possessed a width of available travelway and a cleanliness which would appear impossible.
Each farmer's household had its stack of soil in the street, and in walking through the village we passed dozens of men turning and mixing the soil and compost, preparing it for the field.
The compost pit in front of where we sat was two-thirds filled.
In it had been placed all of the manure and waste of the household and street, all stubble and waste roughage from the field, all ashes not to be applied directly and some of the soil stacked in the street.
Sufficient water was added at intervals to keep the contents completely saturated and nearly submerged, the object being to control the character of fermentation taking place.
The capacity of these compost pits is determined by the amount of land served, and the period of composting is made as long as possible, the aim being to have the fiber of all organic material completely broken down, the result being a product of the consistency of mortar.
When it is near the time for applying the compost to the field, or of feeding it to the crop, the fermented product is removed in waterproof carrying baskets to the floor of the court, to the yard, such as seen in Fig.
126, or to the street, where it is spread to dry, to be mixed with fresh soil, more ashes, and repeatedly turned and stirred to bring about complete aeration and to hasten the processes of nitrification.
During all of these treatments, whether in the compost pit or on the nitrification floor, the fermenting organic matter in contact with the soil is converting plant food elements into soluble plant food substances in the form of potassium, calcium and magnesium nitrates and soluble phosphates of one or another form, perhaps of the same bases and possibly others of organic type.
If there is time and favorable temperature and moisture conditions for these fermentations to take place in the soil of the field before the crop will need it, the compost may be carried direct from the pit to the field and spread broadcast, to be plowed under.
Otherwise the material is worked and reworked, with more water added if necessary, until it becomes a rich complete fertilizer, allowed to become dry and then finely pulverized, sometimes using stone rollers drawn over it by cattle, the donkey or by hand.
The large numbers of stacks of compost seen in the fields between Tsingtao and Tsinan were of this type and thus laboriously prepared in the villages and then transported to the fields, stacked and plastered to be ready for use at next planting.
In the early days of European history, before modern chemistry had provided the cheaper and more expeditious method of producing potassium nitrate for the manufacture of gunpowder and fireworks, much land and effort were devoted to niter-farming which was no other than a specific application of this most ancient Chinese practice and probably imported from China.
While it was not until 1877 to 1879 that men of science came to know that the processes of nitrification, so indispensable to agriculture, are due to germ life, in simple justice to the plain farmers of the world, to those who through all the ages from Adam down, living close to Nature and working through her and with her, have fed the world, it should be recognized that there have been those among them who have grasped such essential, vital truths and have kept them alive in the practices of their day.
And so we find it recorded in history as far back as 1686 that Judge Samuel Lewell copied upon the cover of his journal a practical man's recipe for making saltpeter beds, in which it was directed, among other things, that there should be added to it "mother of petre", meaning, in Judge Lewell's understanding, simply soil from an old niter bed, but in the mind of the man who applied the maternity prefix,--mother,--it must have meant a vital germ contained in the soil, carried with it, capable of reproducing its kind and of perpetuating its characteristic work, belonging to the same category with the old, familiar, homely germ, "mother" of vinegar.
So, too, with the old cheesemaker who grasped the conception which led to the long time practice of washing the walls of a new cheese factory with water from an old factory of the same type, he must have been led by analogies of experience with things seen to realize that he was here dealing with a vital factor.
Hundreds, of course, have practiced empyrically, but some one preceded with the essential thought and we feel it is small credit to men of our time who, after ten or twenty years of technical training, having their attention directed to a something to be seen, and armed with compound microscopes which permit them to see with the physical eye the "mother of petre", arrogate to themselves the discovery of a great truth.
Much more modest would it be and much more in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due to admit that, after long doubting the existence of such an entity, we have succeeded in confirming in fullness the truth of a great discovery which belongs to an unnamed genius of the past, or perhaps to a hundred of them who, working with life's processes and familiar with them through long intimate association, saw in these invisible processes analogies that revealed to them the essential truth in such fullness as to enable them to build upon it an unfailing practice.
There is another practice followed by the Chinese, connected with the formation of nitrates in soils, which again emphasizes the national trait of saving and turning to use any and every thing worth while.
Our attention was called to this practice by Rev.
A. E. Evans of Shunking, Szechwan province.
It rests upon the tendency of the earth floors of dwellings to become heavily charged with calcium nitrate through the natural processes of nitrification.
Calcium nitrate being deliquescent absorbs moisture sufficiently to dissolve and make the floor wet and sticky.
Dr. Evans' attention was drawn to the wet floor in his own house, which be at first ascribed to insufficient ventilation, but which be was unable to remedy by improving that.
The father of one of his assistants, whose business consisted in purchasing the soil of such floors for producing potassium nitrate, used so much in China in the manufacture of fireworks and gunpowder, explained his difficulty and suggested the remedy.
This man goes from house to house through the village, purchasing the soil of floors which have thus become overcharged.
He procures a sample, tests it and announces what he will pay for the surface two, three or four inches, the price sometimes being as high as fifty cents for the privilege of removing the top layer of the floor, which the proprietors must replace.
He leaches the soil removed, to recover the calcium nitrate, and then pours the leachings through plant ashes containing potassium carbonate, for the purpose of transforming the calcium nitrate into the potassium nitrate or saltpeter.
Dr. Evans learned that during the four months preceding our interview this man had produced sufficient potassium nitrate to bring his sales up to $80, Mexican.
It was necessary for him to make a two-days journey to market his product.
In addition he paid a license fee of 80 cents per month.
He must purchase his fuel ashes and hire the services of two men.
When the nitrates which accumulate in the floors of dwellings are not collected for this purpose the soil goes to the fields to be used directly as a fertilizer, or it may be worked into compost.
In the course of time the earth used in the village walls and even in the construction of the houses may disintegrate so as to require removal, but in all such cases, as with the earth brick used in the kangs, the value of the soil has improved for composting and is generally so used.
This improvement of the soil will not appear strange when it is stated that such materials are usually from the subsoil, whose physical condition would improve when exposed to the weather, converting it in fact into an uncropped virgin soil.
We were unable to secure definite data as to the chemical composition of these composts and cannot say what amounts of available plant food the Shantung farmers are annually returning to their fields.
There can be little doubt, however, that the amounts are quite equal to those removed by the crops.
The soils appeared well supplied with organic matter and the color of the foliage and the general aspect of crops indicated good feeding.
The family with whom we talked in the village place their usual yields of wheat at 420 catty of grain and 1000 catty of straw per mow,--their mow was four-thirds of the legal standard mow--the grain being worth 35 strings of cash and the straw 12 to 14 strings, a string of cash being 40 cents, Mexican, at this time.
Their yields of beans were such as to give them a return of 30 strings of cash for the grain and 8 to 10 strings for the straw.
Small millet usually yielded 450 catty of grain, worth 25 strings of cash, per mow, and 800 catty of straw worth 10 to 11 strings of cash; while the yields of large millet they placed at 400 catty per mow, worth 25 strings of cash, and 1000 catty of straw worth 12 to 14 strings of cash.
Stating these amounts in bushels per acre and in our currency, the yield of wheat was 42 bushels of grain and 6000 pounds of straw per acre, having a cash value of $27.09 for the grain and $10.06 for the straw.
The soy bean crop follows the wheat, giving an additional return of $23.22 for the beans and $6.97 for the straw, making the gross earning for the two crops $67.34 per acre.
The yield of small millet was 54 bushels of seed and 4800 pounds of straw per acre, worth $27.09 and $8.12 for seed and straw respectively, while the kaoliang or large millet gave a yield of 48 bushels of grain and 6000 pounds of stalks per acre, worth $19.35 for the grain, and $10.06 for the straw.
A crop of wheat like the one stated, if no part of the plant food contained in the grain or straw were returned to the field, would deplete the soil to the extent of about 90 pounds of nitrogen, 15 pounds of phosphorus and 65 pounds of potassium; and the crop of soy beans, if it also were entirely removed, would reduce these three plant food elements in the soil to the extent of about 240 pounds of nitrogen, 33 pounds of phosphorus and 102 pounds of potassium, on the basis of 45 bushels of beans and 5400 pounds of stems and leaves per acre, assuming that the beans added no nitrogen to the soil, which is of course not true.
This household of farmers, therefore, in order to have maintained this producing power in their soil, have been compelled to return to it annually, in one form or another, not less than 48 pounds of phosphorus and 167 pounds of potassium per acre.
The 330 pounds of nitrogen they would have to return in the form of organic matter or accumulate it from the atmosphere, through the instrumentality of their soy bean crop or some other legume.
It has already been stated that they do add more than 5000 to 7000 pounds of dry compost, which, repeated for a second crop, would make an annual application of five to seven tons of dry compost per acre annually.
They do use, in addition to this compost, large amounts of bean and peanut cake, which carry all of the plant food elements derived from the soil which are contained in the beans and the peanuts.
If the vines are fed, or if the stems of the beaus are burned for fuel, most of the plant food elements in these will be returned to the field, and they have doubtless learned how to completely restore the plant food elements removed by their crops, and persistently do so.
The roads made by the Germans in the vicinity of Tsingtao enabled us to travel by ricksha into the adjoining country, and on one such trip we visited a village mill for grinding soy beans and peanuts in the manufacture of oil, and Fig.
136 shows the stone roller, four feet in diameter and two feet thick, which is revolved about a vertical axis on a circular stone plate, drawn by a donkey, crushing the kernels partly by its weight and partly by a twisting motion, for the arm upon which the roller revolves is very short.
After the meal had been ground the oil was expressed in essentially the same way as that described for the cotton seed, but the bean and peanut cakes are made much larger than the cotton seed cakes, about eighteen inches in diameter and three to four inches thick.
Two of these cakes are seen in Fig.
137, standing on edge outside the mill in an orderly clean court.
It is in this form that bean cake is exported in large quantities to different parts of China, and to Japan in recent years, for use as fertilizer, and very recently it is being shipped to Europe for both stock food and fertilizer.
Nowhere in this province, nor further north, did we see the large terra cotta, receptacles so extensively used in the south for storing human excreta.
In these dryer climates some method of desiccation is practiced and we found the gardeners in the vicinity of Tsingtao with quantities of the fertilizer stacked under matting shelters in the desiccated condition, this being finely pulverized in one or another way before it was applied.
The next illustration, Fig.
138, shows one of these piles being fitted for the garden, its thatched shelter standing behind the grandfather of a household.
His grandson was carrying the prepared fertilizer to the garden area seen in Fig.
139, where the father was working it into the soil.
The greatest pains is taken, both in reducing the product to a fine powder and in spreading and incorporating it with the soil, for one of their maxims of soil management is to make each square foot of field or garden the equal of every other in its power to produce.
In this manner each little holding is made to yield the highest returns possible under the conditions the husbandman is able to control.
From one portion of the area being fitted, a crop of artemisia had been harvested, giving a gross return at the rate of $73.19 per acre, and from another leeks had been taken, bringing a gross return of $43.86 per acre.
Chinese celery was the crop for which the ground was being fitted.
The application of soil as a fertilizer to the fields of China, whether derived from the subsoil or from the silts and organic matter of canals and rivers, must have played an important part in the permanency of agriculture in the Far East, for all such additions have been positive accretions to the effective soil, increasing its depth and carrying to it all plant food elements.
If not more than one-half of the weight of compost applied to the fields of Shantung is highly fertilized soil, the rates of application observed would, in a thousand years, add more than two million pounds per acre, and this represents about the volume of soil we turn with the plow in our ordinary tillage operations, and this amount of good soil may carry more than 6000 pounds of nitrogen, 2000 pounds of phosphorus and more than 60,000 pounds of potassium.
When we left our hotel by ricksha for the steamer, returning to Shanghai, we soon observed a boy of thirteen or fourteen years apparently following, sometimes a little ahead, sometimes behind, usually keeping the sidewalk but slackening his pace whenever the ricksha man came to a walk.
It was a full mile to the wharf.
The boy evidently knew the sailing schedule and judged by the valise in front, that we were to take the out-going steamer and that he might possibly earn two cents, Mexican, the usual fee for taking a valise aboard the steamer.
Twenty men at the wharf might be waiting for the job, but he was taking the chance with the mile down and back thrown in, and all for less than one cent in our currency, equivalent at the time to about twenty "cash".
As we neared the steamer the lad closed up behind but strong and eager men were watching.
Twice he was roughly thrust aside and before the ricksha stopped a man of stalwart frame seized the valise and, had we not observed the boy thus unobtrusively entering the competition, he would have had only his trouble for his pains.
Thus intense was the struggle here for existence and thus did a mere lad put himself effectively into it.
True to breeding and example he had spared no labor to win and was surprised but grateful to receive more than he had expected.
XI ORIENTALS CROWD BOTH TIME AND SPACE Time is a function of every life process, as it is of every physical, chemical and mental reaction, and the husbandman is compelled to shape his operations so as to conform with the time requirements of his crops.
The oriental farmer is a time economizer beyond any other.
He utilizes the first and last minute and all that are between.
The foreigner accuses the Chinaman of being always "long on time", never in a fret, never in a hurry.
And why should he be when he leads time by the forelock, and uses all there is?
The customs and practices of these Farthest East people regarding their manufacture of fertilizers in the form of earth composts for their fields, and their use of altered subsoils which have served in their kangs, village walls and dwellings, are all instances where they profoundly shorten the time required in the field to affect the necessary chemical, physical and biological reactions which produce from them plant food substances.
Not only do they thus increase their time assets, but they add, in effect, to their land area by producing these changes outside their fields, at the same time giving their crops the immediately active soil products.
Their compost practices have been of the greatest consequence to them, both in their extremely wet, rice-culture methods, and in their "dry-farming" practices, where the soil moisture is too scanty during long periods to permit rapid fermentation under field conditions.
Western agriculturalists have not sufficiently appreciated the fact that the most rapid growth of plant food substances in the soil cannot occur at the same time and place with the most rapid crop increase, because both processes draw upon the available soil moisture, soil air and soluble potassium, calcium, phosphorus and nitrogen compounds.
Whether this fundamental principle of practical agriculture is written in their literature or not it is most indelibly fixed in their practice.
If we and they can perpetuate the essentials of this practice at a large saving of human effort, or perpetually secure the final result in some more expeditious and less laborious way, most important progress will have been made.
When we went north to the Shantung province the Kiangsu and Chekiang farmers were engaged in another of their time saving practices, also involving a large amount of human labor.
This was the planting of cotton in wheat fields before the wheat was quite ready to harvest.
In the sections of these two provinces which we visited most of the wheat and barley were sowed broadcast on narrow raised lands, some five feet wide, with furrows between, after the manner seen in Fig.
140, showing a reservoir in the immediate foreground, on whose bank is installed one of the four-man foot-power irrigation pumps in use to flood the nursery rice bed close by on the right.
The narrow lands of broadcasted wheat extend back from the reservoir toward the farmsteads which dot the landscape, and on the left stands one of the pump shelters near the canal bank.
To save time, or lengthen the growing season of the cotton which was to follow, this seed was sown broadcast among the grain on the surface, some ten to fifteen days before the wheat would be harvested.
To cover the seed the soil in the furrows between the beds had been spaded loose to a depth of four or five inches, finely pulverized, and then with a spade was evenly scattered over the bed, letting it sift down among the grain, covering the seed.
This loose earth, so applied, acts as a mulch to conserve the capillary moisture, permitting the soil to become sufficiently damp to germinate the seed before the wheat is harvested.
The next illustration, Fig.
141, is a closer view with our interpreter standing in another field of wheat in which cotton was being sowed April 22nd in the manner described, and yet the stand of grain was very close and shoulder high, making it not an easy task either to sow the seed or to scatter sufficient soil to cover it.
When we had returned from Shantung this piece of grain had been harvested, giving a yield of 95.6 bushels of wheat and 3.5 tons of straw per acre, computed from the statement of the owner that 400 catty of grain and 500 catty of straw had been taken from the beds measuring 4050 square feet.
On the morning of May 29th the photograph for Fig.
142 was taken, showing the same area after the wheat had been harvested and the cotton was up, the young plants showing slightly through the short stubble.
These beds had already been once treated with liquid fertilizer.
A little later the plants would be hoed and thinned to a stand of about one plant per each square foot of surface.
There were thirty-seven days between the taking of the two photographs, and certainly thirty days had been added to the cotton crop by this method of planting, over what would have been available if the grain had been first harvested and the field fitted before planting, It will be observed that the cotton follows the wheat without plowing, but the soil was deep, naturally open, and a layer of nearly two inches of loose earth had been placed over the seed at the time of planting.
Besides, the ground would be deeply worked with the two or four tined hoe, at the time of thinning.
Starting cotton in the wheat in the manner described is but a special case of a general practice widely in vogue.
The growing of multiple crops is the rule throughout these countries wherever the climate permits.
Sometimes as many as three crops occupy the same field in recurrent rows, but of different dates of planting and in different stages of maturity.
Reference has been made to the overlapping and alternation of cucumbers with greens.
The general practice of planting nearly all crops in rows lends itself readily to systems of multiple cropping, and these to the fullest possible utilization of every minute of the growing season and of the time of the family in caring for the crops.
In the field, Fig.
143, a crop of winter wheat was nearing maturity, a crop of windsor beans was about two-thirds grown, and cotton had just been planted, April 22nd.
This field had been thrown into ridges some five feet wide with a twelve inch furrow between them.
Two rows of wheat eight inches wide, planted two feet between centers occupied the crest of the ridge, leaving a strip sixteen inches wide, seen in the upper section, (1) for tillage, (2) then fertilization and (3) finally the row of cotton planted just before the wheat was harvested.
Against the furrow on each side was a row of windsor beans, seen in the lower view, hiding the furrow, which was matured some time after the wheat was harvested and before the cotton was very large.
A late fall crop sometimes follows the windsor beans after a period of tillage and fertilization, making four in one year.
With such a succession fertilization for each crop, and an abundance of soil moisture are required to give the largest returns from the soil.
In another plan winter wheat or barley may grow side by side with a green crop, such as the "Chinese clover" (Medicago denticulata, Willd.)
for soil fertilizer, as was the case in Fig.
144, to be turned under and fertilize for a crop of cotton planted in rows on either side of a crop of barley.
After the barley had been harvested the ground it occupied would be tilled and further fertilized, and when the cotton was nearing maturity a crop of rape might be grown, from which "salted cabbage" would be prepared for winter use.
Multiple crops are grown as far north in Chihli as Tientsin and Peking, these being oftenest wheat, maize, large and small millet and soy beans, and this, too, where the soil is less fertile and where the annual rainfall is only about twenty-five inches, the rainy season beginning in late June or early July, and Fig.
145 shows one of these fields as it appeared June 14th, where two rows of wheat and two of large millet were planted in alternating pairs, the rows being about twenty-eight inches apart.
The wheat was ready to harvest but the straw was unusually short because growing on a light sandy loam in a season of exceptional drought, but little more than two inches of rain having fallen after January 1st of that year.
The piles of pulverized dry-earth compost seen between the rows had been brought for use on the ground occupied by the wheat when that was removed.
The wheat would be pulled, tied in bundles, taken to the village and the roots cut off, for making compost, as in Fig.
146, which shows the family engaged in cutting the roots from the small bundles of wheat, using a long straight knife blade, fixed at one end, and thrust downward upon the bundle with lever pressure.
These roots, if not used as fuel, would be transferred to the compost pit in the enclosure seen in Fig.
147, whose walls were built of earth brick.
Here, with any other waste litter, manure or ashes, they would be permitted to decay under water until the fiber had been destroyed, thus permitting it to be incorporated with soil and applied to the fields, rich in soluble plant food and in a condition which would not interfere with the capillary movement of soil moisture, the work going on outside the field where the changes could occur unimpeded and without interfering with the growth of crops on the ground.
In this system of combined intertillage and multiple cropping the oriental farmer thus takes advantage of whatever good may result from rotation or succession of crops, whether these be physical, vito-chemical or biological.
If plants are mutually helpful through close association of their root systems in the soil, as some believe may be the case, this growing of different species in close juxtaposition would seem to provide the opportunity, but the other advantages which have been pointed out are so evident and so important that they, rather than this, have doubtless led to the practice of growing different crops in close recurrent rows.
XII RICE CULTURE IN THE ORIENT The basal food crop of the people of China, Korea and Japan is rice, and the mean consumption in Japan, for the five years ending 1906, per capita and per annum, was 302 pounds.
Of Japan's 175,428 square miles she devoted, in 1906, 12,856 to the rice crop.
Her average yield of water rice on 12,534 square miles exceeded 33 bushels per acre, and the dry land rice averaged 18 bushels per acre on 321 square miles.
In the Hokkaido, as far north as northern Illinois, Japan harvested 1,780,000 bushels of water rice from 53,000 acres.
In Szechwan province, China, Consul-General Hosie places the yield of water rice on the plains land at 44 bushels per acre, and that of the dry land rice at 22 bushels.
Data given us in China show an average yield of 42 bushels of water rice per acre, while the average yield of wheat was 25 bushels per acre, the normal yield in Japan being about 17 bushels.
If the rice eaten per capita in China proper and Korea is equal to that in Japan the annual consumption for the three nations, using the round number 300 pounds per capita per annum, would be: Population.
Consumption.
China 410,000,000 61,500,000 tons Korea 12,000,000 1,800,000 tons Japan 53,000,000 7,950 000 tons ----------------------Total 475,000,000 71,250,000 tons If the ratio of irrigated to dry land rice in Korea and China proper is the same as that in Japan, and if the mean yield of rice per acre in these countries were forty bushels for the water rice and twenty bushels for the dry land rice, the acreage required to give this production would be: Area.
Water rice, Dry land rice, sq.
miles.
sq.
miles.
In China 78,073 4,004 In Korea 2,285 117 In Japan 12,534 321 -----------Sum 92,892 4,442 Total 97,334 Our observations along the four hundred miles of railway in Korea between Antung, Seoul and Fusan, suggest that the land under rice in this country must be more rather than less than that computed, and the square miles of canalized land in China, as indicated on pages 97 to 102, would indicate an acreage of rice for her quite as large as estimated.
In the three main islands of Japan more than fifty per cent of the cultivated land produces a crop of water rice each year and 7.96 per cent of the entire land area of the Empire, omitting far-north Karafuto.
In Formosa and in southern China large areas produce two crops each year.
At the large mean yield used in the computation the estimated acreage of rice in China proper amounts to 5.93 per cent of her total area and this is 7433 square miles greater than the acreage of wheat in the United States in 1907.
Our yield of wheat, however, was but 19,000,000 tons, while China's output of rice was certainly double and probably three times this amount from nearly the same acreage of land; and notwithstanding this large production per acre, more than fifty per cent, possibly as high as seventy-five per cent, of the same land matures at least one other crop the same year, and much of this may be wheat or barley, both chiefly consumed as human food.
Had the Mongolian races spread to and developed in North America instead of, or as well as, in eastern Asia, there might have been a Grand Canal, something as suggested in Fig.
148, from the Rio Grande to the mouth of the Ohio river and from the Mississippi to Chesapeake Bay, constituting more than two thousand miles of inland water-way, serving commerce, holding up and redistributing both the run-off water and the wasting fertility of soil erosion, spreading them over 200,000 square miles of thoroughly canalized coastal plains, so many of which are now impoverished lands, made so by the intolerable waste of a vaunted civilization.
And who shall venture to enumerate the increase in the tonnage of sugar, bales of cotton, sacks of rice, boxes of oranges, baskets of peaches, and in the trainloads of cabbage, tomatoes and celery such husbanding would make possible through all time; or number the increased millions these could feed and clothe?
We may prohibit the exportation of our phosphorus, grind our limestone, and apply them to our fields, but this alone is only temporizing with the future.
The more we produce, the more numerous our millions, the faster must present practices speed the waste to the sea, from whence neither money nor prayer can call them back.
If the United States is to endure; if we shall project our history even through four or five thousand years as the Mongolian nations have done, and if that history shall be written in continuous peace, free from periods of wide-spread famine or pestilence, this nation must orient itself; it must square its practices with a conservation of resources which can make endurance possible.
Intensifying cultural methods but intensifies the digestion, assimilation and exhaustion of the surface soil, from which life springs.
Multiple cropping, closer stands on the ground and stronger growth, all mean the transpiration of much more water per acre through the crops, and this can only be rendered possible through a redistribution of the run-off and the adoption of irrigation practices in humid climates where water exists in abundance.
Sooner or later we must adopt a national policy which shall more completely conserve our water resources, utilizing them not only for power and transportation, but primarily for the maintenance of soil fertility and greater crop production through supplemental irrigation, and all these great national interests should be considered collectively, broadly, and with a view to the fullest and best possible coordination.
China, Korea and Japan long ago struck the keynote of permanent agriculture but the time has now come when they can and will make great improvements, and it remains for us and other nations to profit by their experience, to adopt and adapt what is good in their practice and help in a world movement for the introduction of new and improved methods.
In selecting rice as their staple crop; in developing and maintaining their systems of combined irrigation and drainage, notwithstanding they have a large summer rainfall; in their systems of multiple cropping; in their extensive and persistent use of legumes; in their rotations for green manure to maintain the humus of their soils and for composting; and in the almost religious fidelity with which they have returned to their fields every form of waste which can replace plant food removed by the crops, these nations have demonstrated a grasp of essentials and of fundamental principles which may well cause western nations to pause and reflect.
While this country need not and could not now adopt their laborious methods of rice culture, and while, let us hope, those who come after us may never be compelled to do so, it is nevertheless quite worth while to study, for the sake of the principles involved, the practices they have been led to adopt.
Great as is the acreage of land in rice in these countries but little, relatively, is of the dry land type, and the fields upon which most of the rice grows have all been graded to a water level and surrounded by low, narrow raised rims, such as may be seen in Fig.
149 and in Fig.
150, where three men are at work on their foot-power pump, flooding fields preparatory to transplanting the rice.
If the country was not level then the slopes have been graded into horizontal terraces varying in size according to the steepness of the areas in which they were cut.
We saw these often no larger than the floor of a small room, and Professor Ross informed me that he walked past those in the interior of China no larger than a dining table and that he saw one bearing its crop of rice, surrounded by its rim and holding water, yet barely larger than a good napkin.
The average area of the paddy field in Japan is officially reported at 1.14 se, or an area of but 31 by 40 feet.
Excluding Hokkaido, Formosa and Karafuto, fifty-three per cent of the irrigated rice lands in Japan are in allotments smaller than one-eighth of an acre, and seventy-four per cent of other cultivated lands are held in areas less than one-fourth of an acre, and each of these may be further subdivided.
The next two illustrations, Figs.
151 and 152, give a good idea both of the small size of the rice fields and of the terracing which has been done to secure the water level basins.
The house standing near the center of Fig.
151 is a good scale for judging both the size of the paddies and the slope of the valley.
The distance between the rows of rice is scarcely one foot, hence counting these in the foreground may serve as another measure.
There are more than twenty little fields shown in this engraving in front of the house and reaching but half way to it, and the house was less than five hundred feet from the camera.
There are more than eleven thousand square miles of fields thus graded in the three main islands of Japan, each provided with rims, with water supply and drainage channels, all carefully kept in the best of repair.
The more level areas, too, in each of the three countries, have been similarly thrown into water level basins, comparatively few of which cover large areas, because nearly always the holdings are small.
All of the earth excavated from the canals and drainage channels has been leveled over the fields unless needed for levees or dikes, so that the original labor of construction, added to that of maintenance, makes a total far beyond our comprehension and nearly all of it is the product of human effort.
The laying out and shaping of so many fields into these level basins brings to the three nations an enormous aggregate annual asset, a large proportion of which western nations are not yet utilizing.
The greatest gain comes from the unfailing higher yields made possible by providing an abundance of water through which more plant food can be utilized, thus providing higher average yields.
The waters used, coming as they do largely from the uncultivated hills and mountain lands, carrying both dissolved and suspended matters, make positive annual additions of dissolved limestone and plant food elements to the fields which in the aggregate have been very large, through the persistent repetitions which have prevailed for centuries.
If the yearly application of such water to the rice fields is but sixteen inches, and this has the average composition quoted by Merrill for rivers of North America, taking into account neither suspended matter nor the absorption of potassium and phosphorus by it, each ten thousand square miles would receive, dissolved in the water, substances containing some 1,400 tons of phosphorus; 23,000 tons of potassium; 27,000 tons of nitrogen; and 48,000 tons of sulphur.
In addition, there are brought to the fields some 216,000 tons of dissolved organic matter and a still larger weight of dissolved limestone, so necessary in neutralizing the acidity of soils, amounting to 1,221,000 tons; and such savings have been maintained in China, Korea and Japan on more than five, and possibly more than nine, times the ten thousand square miles, through centuries.
The phosphorus thus turned upon ninety thousand square miles would aggregate nearly thirteen million tons in a thousand years, which is less than the time the practice has been maintained, and is more phosphorus than would be carried in the entire rock phosphate thus far mined in the United States, were it all seventy-five per cent pure.
The canalization of fifty thousand square miles of our Gulf and Atlantic coastal plain, and the utilization on the fields of the silts and organic matter, together with the water, would mean turning to account a vast tonnage of plant food which is now wasting into the sea, and a correspondingly great increase of crop yield.
There ought, and it would seem there must some time be provided a way for sending to the sandy plains of Florida, and to the sandy lands between there and the Mississippi, large volumes of the rich silt and organic matter from this and other rivers, aside from that which should be applied systematically to building above flood plain the lands of the delta which are subject to overflow or are too low to permit adequate drainage.
It may appear to some that the application of such large volumes of water to fields, especially in countries of heavy rainfall, must result in great loss of plant food through leaching and surface drainage.
But under the remarkable practices of these three nations this is certainly not the case and it is highly important that our people should understand and appreciate the principles which underlie the practices they have almost uniformly adopted on the areas devoted to rice irrigation.
In the first place, their paddy fields are under-drained so that most of the water either leaves the soil through the crop, by surface evaporation, or it percolates through the subsoil into shallow drains.
When water is passed directly from one rice paddy to another it is usually permitted some time after fertilization, when both soil and crop have had time to appropriate or fix the soluble plant food substances.
Besides this, water is not turned upon the fields until the time for transplanting the rice, when the plants are already provided with a strong root system and are capable of at once appropriating any soluble plant food which may develop about their roots or be carried downward over them.
Although the drains are of the surface type and but eighteen inches to three feet in depth, they are sufficiently numerous and close so that, although the soil is continuously nearly filled with water, there is a steady percolation of the fresh, fully aerated water carrying an abundance of oxygen into the soil to meet the needs of the roots, so that watermelons, egg plants, musk melons and taro are grown in the rotations on the small paddies among the irrigated rice after the manner seen in the illustrations.
In Fig.
153 each double row of egg plants is separated from the next by a narrow shallow trench which connects with a head drain and in which water was standing within fourteen inches of the surface.
The same was true in the case of the watermelons seen in Fig.
154, where the vines are growing on a thick layer of straw mulch which holds them from the moist soil and acts to conserve water by diminishing evaporation and, through decay from the summer rains and leaching, serves as fertilizer for the crop.
In Fig.
155 the view is along a pathway separating two head ditches between areas in watermelons and taro, carrying the drainage waters from the several furrows into the main ditches.
Although the soil appeared wet the plants were vigorous and healthy, seeming in no way to suffer from insufficient drainage.
These people have, therefore, given effective attention to the matter of drainage as well as irrigation and are looking after possible losses of plant food, as well as ways of supplying it.
It is not alone where rice is grown that cultural methods are made to conserve soluble plant food and to reduce its loss from the field, for very often, where flooding is not practiced, small fields and beds, made quite level, are surrounded by low raised borders which permit not only the whole of any rain to be retained upon the field when so desired, but it is completely distributed over it, thus causing the whole soil to be uniformly charged with moisture and preventing washing from one portion of the field to another.
Such provisions are shown in Figs.
133 and 138.
Extensive as is the acreage of irrigated rice in China, Korea and Japan, nearly every spear is transplanted; the largest and best crop possible, rather than the least labor and trouble, as is so often the case with us, determining their methods and practices.
We first saw the fitting of the rice nursery beds at Canton and again near Kashing in Chekiang province on the farm of Mrs. Wu, whose homestead is seen in Fig.
156.
She had come with her husband from Ningpo after the ravages of the Taiping rebellion had swept from two provinces alone twenty millions of people and settled on a small area of then vacated land.
As they prospered they added to their holding by purchase until about twenty-five acres were acquired, an area about ten times that possessed by the usual prosperous family in China.
The widow was managing her place, one of her sons, although married, being still in school, the daughter-in-law living with her mother-in-law and helping in the home.
Her field help during the summer consisted of seven laborers and she kept four cows for the plowing and pumping of water for irrigation.
The wages of the men were at the rate of $24, Mexican, for five summer months, together with their meals which were four each day.
The cash outlay for the seven men was thus $14.45 of our currency per month.
Ten years before, such labor had been $30 per year, as compared with $50 at the time of our visit, or $12.90 and $21.50 of our currency, respectively.
Her usual yields of rice were two piculs per mow, or twenty-six and two-thirds bushels per acre, and a wheat crop yielding half this amount, or some other, was taken from part of the land the same season, one fertilization answering for the two crops.
She stated that her annual expense for fertilizers purchased was usually about $60, or $25.80 of our currency.
The homestead of Mrs. Wu, Fig.
156, consists of a compound in the form of a large quadrangle surrounding a court closed on the south by a solid wall eight feet high.
The structure is of earth brick with the roof thatched with rice straw.
Our first visit here was April 19th.
The nursery rice beds had been planted four days, sowing seed at the rate of twenty bushels per acre.
The soil had been very carefully prepared and highly fertilized, the last treatment being a dressing of plant ashes so incompletely burned as to leave the surface coal black.
The seed, scattered directly upon the surface, almost completely covered it and had been gently beaten barely into the dressing of ashes, using a wide, flat-bottom basket for the purpose.
Each evening, if the night was likely to be cool, water was pumped over the bed, to be withdrawn the next day, if warm and sunny, permitting the warmth to be absorbed by the black surface, and a fresh supply of air to be drawn into the soil.
Nearly a month later, May 14th, a second visit was made to this farm and one of the nursery beds of rice, as it then appeared, is seen in Fig.
159, the plants being about eight inches high and nearing the stage for transplanting.
The field beyond the bed had already been partly flooded and plowed, turning under "Chinese clover" to ferment as green manure, preparatory for the rice transplanting.
On the opposite side of the bed and in front of the residence, Fig.
156, flooding was in progress in the furrows between the ridges formed after the previous crop of rice was harvested and upon which the crop of clover for green manure was grown.
Immediately at one end of the two series of nursery beds, one of which is seen in Fig.
159, was the pumping plant seen in Fig.
157, under a thatched shelter, with its two pumps installed at the end of a water channel leading from the canal.
One of these wooden pump powers, with the blindfolded cow attached, is reproduced in Fig.
158 and just beyond the animal's head may be seen the long handle dipper to which reference has been made, used for collecting excreta.
More than a month is saved for maturing and harvesting winter and early spring crops, or in fitting the fields for rice, by this planting in nursery beds.
The irrigation period for most of the land is cut short a like amount, saving in both water and time.
It is cheaper and easier to highly fertilize and prepare a small area for the nursery, while at the same time much stronger and more uniform plants are secured than would be possible by sowing in the field.
The labor of weeding and caring for the plants in the nursery is far less than would be required in the field.
It would be practically impossible to fit the entire rice areas as early in the season as the nursery beds are fitted, for the green manure is not yet grown and time is required for composting or for decaying, if plowed under directly.
The rice plants in the nursery are carried to a stage when they are strong feeders and when set into the newly prepared, fertilized, clean soil of the field they are ready to feed strongly under these most favorable conditions Both time and strength of plant are thus gained and these people are following what would appear to be the best possible practices under their condition of small holdings and dense population.
With our broad fields, our machinery and few people, their system appears to us crude and impossible, but cut our holdings to the size of theirs and the same stroke makes our machinery, even our plows, still more impossible, and so the more one studies the environment of these people, thus far unavoidable, their numbers, what they have done and are doing, against what odds they have succeeded, the more difficult it becomes to see what course might have been better.
How full with work is the month which precedes the transplanting of rice has been pointed out,--the making of the compost fertilizer; harvesting the wheat, rape and beans; distributing the compost over the fields, and their flooding and plowing.
In Fig.
160 one of these fields is seen plowed, smoothed and nearly ready for the plants.
The turned soil had been thoroughly pulverized, leveled and worked to the consistency of mortar, on the larger fields with one or another sort of harrow, as seen in Figs.
160 and 161.
This thorough puddling of the soil permits the plants to be quickly set and provides conditions which ensure immediate perfect contact for the roots.
When the fields are ready women repair to the nurseries with their low four-legged bamboo stools, to pull the rice plants, carefully rinsing the soil from the roots, and then tie them into bundles of a size easily handled in transplanting, which are then distributed in the fields.
The work of transplanting may be done by groups of families changing work, a considerable number of them laboring together after the manner seen in Fig.
163, made from four snap shots taken from the same point at intervals of fifteen minutes.
Long cords were stretched in the rice field six feet apart and each of the seven men was setting six rows of rice one foot apart, six to eight plants in a hill, and the hills eight or nine inches apart in the row.
The, bundle was held in one hand and deftly, with the other, the desired number of plants were selected with the fingers at the roots, separated from the rest and, with a single thrust, set in place in the row.
There was no packing of earth about the roots, each hill being set with a single motion, which followed one another in quick succession, completing one cross row of six hills after another.
The men move backward across the field, completing one entire section, tossing the unused plants into the unset field.
Then reset the lines to cover another section.
We were told that the usual day's work of transplanting, for a man under these conditions, after the field is fitted and the plants are brought to him, is two mow or one-third of an acre.
The seven men in this group would thus set two and a third acres per day and, at the wage Mrs. Wu was paying, the cash outlay, if the help was hired, would be nearly 21 cents per acre.
This is more cheaply than we are able to set cabbage and tobacco plants with our best machine methods.
In Japan, as seen in Figs.
164 and 165, the women participate in the work of setting the plants more than in China.
After the rice has been transplanted its care, unlike that of our wheat crop, does not cease.
It must be hoed, fertilized and watered.
To facilitate the watering all fields have been leveled, canals, ditches and drains provided, and to aid in fertilizing and hoeing, the setting has been in rows and in hills in the row.
The first working of the rice fields after the transplanting, as we saw it in Japan, consisted in spading between the hills with a four-tined hoe, apparently more for loosening the soil and aeration than for killing weeds.
After this treatment the field was gone over again in the manner seen in Fig.
166, where the man is using his bare hands to smooth and level the stirred soil, taking care to eradicate every weed, burying them beneath the mud, and to straighten each hill of rice as it is passed.
Sometimes the fingers are armed with bamboo claws to facilitate the weeding.
Machinery in the form of revolving hand cultivators is recently coming into use in Japan, and two men using these are seen in Fig.
14.
In these cultivators the teeth are mounted on an axle so as to revolve as the cultivator is pushed along the row.
Fertilization for the rice crop receives the greatest attention everywhere by these three nations and in no direction more than in maintaining the store of organic matter in the soil.
The pink clover, to which reference has been made, Figs.
99 and 100, is extensively sowed after a crop of rice is harvested in the fall and comes into full bloom, ready to cut for compost or to turn under directly when the rice fields are plowed.
Eighteen to twenty tons of this green clover are produced per acre, and in Japan this is usually applied to about three acres, the stubble and roots serving for the field producing the clover, thus giving a dressing of six to seven tons of green manure per acre, carrying not less than 37 pounds of potassium; 5 pounds of phosphorus, and 58 pounds of nitrogen.
Where the families are large and the holdings small, so they cannot spare room to grow the green manure crop, it is gathered on the mountain, weed and hill lands, or it may be cut in the canals.
On our boat trip west from Soochow the last of May, many boats were passed carrying tons of the long green ribbon-like grass, cut and gathered from the bottom of the canal.
To cut this grass men were working to their armpits in the water of the canal, using a crescent-shaped knife mounted like an anchor from the end of a 16-foot bamboo handle.
This was shoved forward along the bottom of the canal and then drawn backward, cutting the grass, which rose to the surface where it was gathered upon the boats.
Or material for green manure may be cut on grave, mountain or hill lands, as described under Fig.
115.
The straw of rice and other grain and the stems of any plant not usable as fuel may also be worked into the mud of rice fields, as may the chaff which is often scattered upon the water after the rice is transplanted, as in Fig.
168.
Reference has been made to the utilization of waste of various kinds in these countries to maintain the productive power of their soils, but it is worth while, in the interests of western nations, as helping them to realize the ultimate necessity of such economies, to state again, in more explicit terms, what Japan is doing.
Dr. Kawaguchi, of the National Department of Agriculture and Commerce, taking his data from their records, informed me that Japan produced, in 1908, and applied to her fields, 23,850,295 tons of human manure; 22,812,787 tons of compost; and she imported 753,074 tons of commercial fertilizers, 7000 of which were phosphates in one form or another.
In addition to these she must have applied not less than 1,404,000 tons of fuel ashes and 10,185,500 tons of green manure products grown on her hill and weed lands, and all of these applied to less than 14,000,000 acres of cultivated field, and it should be emphasized that this is done because as yet they have found no better way of permanently maintaining a fertility capable of feeding her millions.
Besides fertilizing, transplanting and weeding the rice crop there is the enormous task of irrigation to be maintained until the rice is nearly matured.
Much of the water used is lifted by animal power and a large share of this is human.
Fig.
169 shows two Chinese men in their cool, capacious, nowhere-touching summer trousers flinging water with the swinging basket, and it is surprising the amount of water which may be raised three to four feet by this means.
The portable spool windlass, in Figs.
27 and 123, has been described, and Fig.
170 shows the quadrangular, cone-shaped bucket and sweep extensively used in Chihli.
This man was supplying water sufficient for the irrigation of half an acre, per day, lifting the water eight feet.
The form of pump most used in China and the foot-power for working it are seen in Fig.
171.
Three men working a similar pump are seen in Fig.
150, a closer view of three men working the foot-power may be seen in Fig.
42 and still another stands adjacent to a series of flooded fields in Fig.
172.
Where this view was taken the old farmer informed us that two men, with this pump, lifting water three feet, were able to cover two mow of land with three inches of water in two hours.
This is at the rate of 2.5 acre-inches of water per ten hours per man, and for 12 to 15 cents, our currency, thus making sixteen acre-inches, or the season's supply of water, cost 77 to 96 cents, where coolie labor is hired and fed.
Such is the efficiency of human power applied to the Chinese pump, measured in American currency.
This pump is simply an open box trough in which travels a wooden chain carrying a series of loosely fitting boards which raise the water from the canal, discharging it into the field.
The size of the trough and of the buckets are varied to suit the power applied and the amount of water to be lifted.
Crude as it appears there is nothing in western manufacture that can compete with it in first cost, maintenance or efficiency for Chinese conditions and nothing is more characteristic of all these people than their efficient, simple appliances of all kinds, which they have reduced to the lowest terms in every feature of construction and cost.
The greatest results are accomplished by the simplest means.
If a canal must be bridged and it is too wide to be covered by a single span, the Chinese engineer may erect it at some convenient place and turn the canal under it when completed.
This we saw in the case of a new railroad bridge near Sungkiang.
The bridge was completed and the water had just been turned under it and was being compelled to make its own excavation.
Great expense had been saved while traffic on the canal had not been obstructed.
In the foot-power wheel of Japan all gearing is eliminated and the man walks the paddles themselves, as seen in Fig.
173.
Some of these wheels are ten feet in diameter, depending upon the height the water must be lifted.
Irrigation by animal power is extensively practiced in each of the three countries, employing mostly the type of power wheel shown in Fig.
158.
The next illustration, Fig.
174, shows the most common type of shelter seen in Chekiang and Kiangsu provinces, which are there very numerous.
We counted as many as forty such shelters in a semi-circle of half a mile radius.
They provide comfort for the animals during both sunshine and rain, for under no conditions must the water be permitted to run low on the rice fields, and everywhere their domestic animals receive kind, thoughtful treatment.
In the less level sections, where streams have sufficient fall, current wheels are in common use, carrying buckets near their circumference arranged so as to fill when passing through the water, and to empty after reaching the highest level into a receptacle provided with a conduit which leads the water to the field.
In Szechwan province some of these current wheels are so large and gracefully constructed as to strongly suggest Ferris wheels.
A view of one of these we are permitted to present in Fig.
175, through the kindness of Rollin T. Chamberlin who took the photograph from which the engraving was prepared.
This wheel which was some forty feet in diameter, was working when the snap shot was taken, raising the water and pouring it into the horizontal trough seen near the top of the wheel, carried at the summit of a pair of heavy poles standing on the far side of the wheel.
From this trough, leading away to the left above the sky line, is the long pipe, consisting of bamboo stems joined together, for conveying the water to the fields.
When the harvest time has come, notwithstanding the large acreage of grain, yielding hundreds of millions of bushels, the small, widely scattered holdings and the surface of the fields render all of our machine methods quite impossible.
Even our grain cradle, which preceded the reaper, would not do, and the great task is still met with the old-time sickle, as seen in Fig.
176, cutting the rice hill by hill, as it was transplanted.
Previous to the time for cutting, after the seed is well matured, the water is drawn off and the land permitted to dry and harden.
The rainy season is not yet over and much care must be exercised in curing the crop.
The bundles may be shocked in rows along the margins of the paddies, as seen in Fig.
176, or they may be suspended, heads down, from bamboo poles as seen in Fig.
177.
The threshing is accomplished by drawing the heads of the rice through the teeth of a metal comb mounted as seen at the right in Fig.
178, near the lower corner, behind the basket, where a man and woman are occupied in winnowing the dust and chaff from the grain by means of a large double fan.
Fanning mills built on the principle of those used by our farmers and closely resembling them have long been used in both China and Japan.
After the rice is threshed the grain must be hulled before it can serve as food, and the oldest and simplest method of polishing used by the Japanese is seen in, Fig.
179, where the friction of the grain upon itself does the polishing.
A quantity of rice is poured into the receptacle when, with heavy blows, the long-headed plunger is driven into the mass of rice, thus forcing the kernels to slide over one another until, by their abrasion, the desired result is secured.
The same method of polishing, on a larger scale, is accomplished where the plungers are worked by the weight of the body, a series of men stepping upon lever handles of weighted plungers, raising them and allowing them to fall under the force of the weight attached.
Recently, however, mills worked by gasoline engines are in operation for both hulling and polishing, in Japan.
The many uses to which rice straw is put in the economies of these people make it almost as important as the rice itself.
As food and bedding for cattle and horses; as thatching material for dwellings and other shelters; as fuel; as a mulch; as a source of organic matter in the soil, and as a fertilizer, it represents a money value which is very large.
Besides these ultimate uses the rice straw is extensively employed in the manufacture of articles used in enormous quantities.
It is estimated that not less than 188,700,000 bags such as are seen in Figs.
180 and 181, worth $3,110,000 are made annually from the rice straw in Japan, for handling 346,150,000 bushels of cereals and 28,190,000 bushels of beans; and besides these, great numbers of bags are employed in transporting fish and other prepared manures.
In the prefecture of Hyogo, with 596 square miles of farm land, as compared with Rhode Island's 712 square miles, Hyogo farmers produced in 1906, on 265,040 acres, 10,584,000 bushels of rice worth $16,191,400, securing an average yield of almost forty bushels per acre and a gross return of $61 for the grain alone.
In addition to this, these farmers grew on the same land, the same season, at least one other crop.
Where this was barley the average yield exceeded twenty-six bushels per acre, worth $17.
In connection with their farm duties these Japanese families manufactured, from a portion of their rice straw, at night and during the leisure hours of winter, 8,980,000 pieces of matting and netting of different kinds having a market value of $262,000; 4,838,000 bags worth $185,000; 8,742,000 slippers worth $34,000; 6,254,000 sandals worth $30,000; and miscellaneous articles worth $64,000.
This is a gross earning of more than $21,000,000 from eleven and a half townships of farm land and the labor of the farmers' families, an average earning of, $80 per acre on nearly three-fourths of the farm land of this prefecture.
At this rate three of the four forties of our 160-acre farms should bring a gross annual income of $9,600 and the fourth forty should pay the expenses.
At the Nara Experiment Station we were informed that the money value of a good crop of rice in that prefecture should be placed at ninety dollars per acre for the grain and eight dollars for the unmanufactured straw; thirty-six dollars per acre for the crop of naked barley and two dollars per acre for the straw.
The farmers here practice a rotation of rice and barley covering four or five years, followed by a summer crop of melons, worth $320 per acre and some other vegetable instead of the rice on the fifth or sixth year, worth eighty yen per tan, or $160 per acre.
To secure green manure for fertilizing, soy beans are planted each year in the space between the rows of barley, the barley being planted in November.
One week after the barley is harvested the soy beans, which produce a yield of 160 kan per tan, or 5290 pounds per acre, are turned under and the ground fitted for rice, At these rates the Nara farmers are producing on four-fifths or five-sixths of their rice lands a gross earning of $136 per acre annually, and on the other fifth or sixth, an earning of $480 per acre, not counting the annual crop of soy beans used in maintaining the nitrogen and organic matter in their soils, and not counting their earnings from home manufactures.
Can the farmers of our south Atlantic and Gulf Coast states, which are in the same latitude, sometime attain to this standard?
We see no reason why they should not, but only with the best of irrigation, fertilization and proper rotation, with multiple cropping.
XIII SILK CULTURE Another of the great and in some ways one of the most remarkable industries of the Orient is that of silk production, and its manufacture into the most exquisite and beautiful fabrics in the world.
Remarkable for its magnitude; for having had its birthplace apparently in oldest China, at least 2600 years B. C.; for having been founded on the domestication of a wild insect of the woods; and for having lived through more than four thousand years, expanding until a $1,000,000 cargo of the product has been laid down on our western coast at one time and rushed by special fast express to New York City for the Christmas trade.
Japan produced in 1907 26,072,000 pounds of raw silk from 17,154,000 bushels of cocoons, feeding the silkworms from mulberry leaves grown on 957,560 acres.
At the export selling price of this silk in Japan the crop represents a money value of $124,000,000, or more than two dollars per capita for the entire population of the Empire; and engaged in the care of the silkworms, as seen in Figs.
184, 185, 186 and 187, there were, in 1906, 1,407,766 families or some 7,000,000 people.
Richard's geography of the Chinese Empire places the total export of raw silk to all countries, from China, in 1905, at 30,413,200 pounds, and this, at the Japanese export price, represents a value of $145,000,000.
Richard also states that the value of the annual Chinese export of silk to France amounts to 10,000,000 pounds sterling and that this is but twelve per cent of the total, from which it appears that her total export alone reaches a value near $400,000,000.
The use of silk in wearing apparel is more general among the Chinese than among the Japanese, and with China's eightfold greater population, the home consumption of silk must be large indeed and her annual production must much exceed that of Japan.
Hosie places the output of raw silk in Szechwan at 5,439,500 pounds, which is nearly a quarter of the total output of Japan, and silk is extensively grown in eight other provinces, which together have an area nearly fivefold that of Japan.
It would appear, therefore, that a low estimate of China's annual production of raw silk must be some 120,000,000 pounds, and this, with the output of Japan and Korea, would make a product for the three countries probably exceeding 150,000,000 pounds annually, representing a total value of perhaps $700,000,000; quite equalling in value the wheat crop of the United States, but produced on less than one-eighth of the area.
According to the observations of Count Dandola, the worms which contribute to this vast earning are so small that some 700,000 of them weigh at hatching only one pound, but they grow very rapidly, shed their skins four times, weighing 15 pounds at the time of the first moult, 94 pounds at the second, 400 pounds at the third, 1628 pounds at the fourth moulting and when mature have come to weigh nearly five tons--9500 pounds.
But in making this growth during about thirty-six days, according to Paton, the 700,000 worms have eaten 105 pounds by the time of the first moult; 315 pounds by the second; 1050 pounds by the third; 3150 pounds by the fourth, and in the final period, before spinning, 19,215 pounds, thus consuming in all nearly twelve tons of mulberry leaves in producing nearly five tons of live weight, or at the rate of two and a half pounds of green leaf to one pound of growth.
According to Paton, the cocoons from the 700,000 worms would weigh between 1400 and 2100 pounds and these, according to the observations of Hosie in the province of Szechwan, would yield about one-twelfth their weight of raw silk.
On this basis the one pound of worms hatched from the eggs would yield between 116 and 175 pounds of raw silk, worth, at the Japanese export price for 1907, between $550 and $832, and 164 pounds of green mulberry leaves would be required to produce a pound of silk.
A Chinese banker in Chekiang province, with whom we talked, stated that the young worms which would hatch from the eggs spread on a sheet of paper twelve by eighteen inches would consume, in coming to maturity, 2660 pounds of mulberry leaves and would spin 21.6 pounds of silk.
This is at the rate of 123 pounds of leaves to one pound of silk.
The Japanese crop for 1907, 26,072,000 pounds, produced on 957,560 acres, is a mean yield of 27.23 pounds of raw silk per acre of mulberries, and this would require a mean yield of 4465 pounds of green mulberry leaves per acre, at the rate of 164 pounds per pound of silk.
Ordinary silk in these countries is produced largely from three varieties of mulberries, and from them there may be three pickings of leaves for the rearing of a spring, summer and autumn crop of silk.
We learned at the Nagoya Experiment Station, Japan, that there good spring yields of mulberry leaves are at the rate of 400 kan, the second crop, 150 kan, and the third crop, 250 kan per tan, making a total yield of over thirteen tons of green leaves per acre.
This, however, seems to be materially higher than the average for the Empire.
In Fig.
188 is a near view of a mulberry orchard in Chekiang province, which has been very heavily fertilized with canal mud, and which was at the stage for cutting the leaves to feed the first crop of silkworms.
A bundle of cut limbs is in the crotch of the front tree in the view.
Those who raise mulberry leaves are not usually the feeders of the silkworms and the leaves from this orchard were being sold at one dollar, Mexican, per picul, or 32.25 cents per one hundred pounds.
The same price was being paid a week later in the vicinity of Nanking, Kiangsu province.
The mulberry trees, as they appear before coming into leaf in the early spring, may be seen in Fig.
189.
The long limbs are the shoots of the last year's growth, from which at least one crop of leaves had been picked, and in healthy orchards they may have a length of two to three feet.
An orchard from a portion of which the limbs had just been cut, presented the appearance seen in Fig.
190.
These trees were twelve to fifteen years old and the enlargements on the ends of the limbs resulted from the frequent pruning, year after year, at nearly the same place.
The ground under these trees was thickly covered with a growth of pink clover just coming into bloom, which would be spaded into the soil, providing nitrogen and organic matter, whose decay would liberate potash, phosphorus and other mineral plant food elements for the crop.
In Fig.
191 three rows of mulberry trees, planted four feet apart, stand on a narrow embankment raised four feet, partly through adjusting the surrounding fields for rice, and partly by additions of canal mud used as a fertilizer.
On either side of the mulberries is a crop of windsor beans, and on the left a crop of rape, both of which would be harvested in early June, the ground where they stand flooded, plowed and transplanted to rice.
This and the other mulberry views were taken in the extensively canalized portion of China represented in Fig.
52.
The farmer owning this orchard had just finished cutting two large bundles of limbs for the sale of the leaves in the village.
He stated that his first crop ordinarily yields from three to as many as twenty piculs per mow, but that the second crop seldom exceeded two to three piculs.
The first and second crop of leaves, if yielding together twenty-three piculs per mow, would amount to 9.2 tons per acre, worth, at the price named, $59.34.
Mulberry leaves must be delivered fresh as soon as gathered and must be fed the same day, the limbs, when, stripped of their leaves, at the place where these are sold, are tied into bundles and reserved for use as fuel.
In the south of China the mulberry is grown from low cuttings rooted by layering.
We have before spoken of our five hours ride in the Canton delta region, on the steamer Nanning, through extensive fields of low mulberry then in full leaf, which were first mistaken for cotton nearing the blossom stage.
This form of mulberry is seen in Fig.
43, and the same method of pruning is practiced in southern Japan.
In middle Japan high pruning, as in Chekiang and Kiangsu provinces, is followed, but in northern Japan the leaves are picked directly, as is the case with the last crop of leaves everywhere, pruning not being practiced in the more northern latitudes.
Not all silk produced in these northern countries is from the domesticated Bombyx mori, large amounts being obtained from the spinnings of wild silkworms feeding upon the leaves of species of oak growing on the mountain and hill lands in various parts of China, Korea and Japan.
In China the collections in largest amount are reeled from the cocoons of the tussur worm (Antheraea pernyi) gathered in Shantung, Honan, Kweichow and Szechwan provinces.
In the hilly parts of Manchuria also this industry is attaining large proportions, the cocoons being sent to Chefoo in the Shantung province, to be woven into pongee silk.
M. Randot has estimated the annual crop of wild silk cocoons in Szechwan at 10,180,000 pounds, although in the opinion of Alexander Hosie much of this may come from Kweichow.
Richard places the export of raw wild silk from the whole of China proper, in 1904, at 4,400,000 pounds.
This would mean not less than 75,300,000 pounds of wild cocoons and may be less than half the home consumption.
From data collected by Alexander Hosie it appears that in 1899 the export of raw tussur silk from Manchuria, through the port of Newchwang by steamer alone, was 1,862,448 pounds, valued at $1,721,200, and the production is increasing rapidly.
The export from the same port the previous year, by steamer, was 1,046,704 pounds.
This all comes from the hilly and mountain lands south of Mukden, lying between the Liao plain on the west and the Yalu river on the east, covering some five thousand square miles, which we crossed on the Antung-Mukden railway.
There are two broods of these wild silkworms each season, between early May and early October.
Cocoons of the fall brood are kept through the winter and when the moths come forth they are caused to lay their eggs on pieces of cloth and when the worms are hatched they are fed until the first moult upon the succulent new oak leaves gathered from the hills, after which the worms are taken to the low oak growth on the hills where they feed themselves and spin their cocoons under the cover of leaves drawn about them.
The moths reserved from the first brood, after becoming fertile, are tied by means of threads to the oak bushes where they deposit the eggs which produce the second crop of tussur silk.
To maintain an abundance of succulent leaves within reach the oaks are periodically cut back.
Thus these plain people, patient, frugal, unshrinking from toil, the basic units of three of the oldest nations, go to the uncultivated hill lands and from the wild oak and the millions of insects which they help to feed upon it, not only create a valuable export trade but procure material for clothing, fuel, fertilizer and food, for the large chrysalides, cooked in the reeling of the silk, may be eaten at once or are seasoned with sauce to be used later.
Besides this, the last unreelable portion of each cocoon is laid aside to be manufactured into silk wadding and into soft mattresses for caskets upon which the wealthy lay their dead.
XIV THE TEA INDUSTRY The cultivation of tea in China and Japan is another of the great industries of these nations, taking rank with that of sericulture, if not above it, in the important part it plays in the welfare of the people.
There is little reason to doubt that the industry has its foundation in the need of something to render boiled water palatable for drinking purposes.
The drinking of boiled water has been universally adopted in these countries as an individually available, thoroughly efficient and safe guard against that class of deadly disease germs which it has been almost impossible to exclude from the drinking water of any densely peopled country.
So far as may be judged from the success of the most thorough sanitary measures thus far instituted, and taking into consideration the inherent difficulties which must increase enormously with increasing populations, it appears inevitable that modern methods must ultimately fail in sanitary efficiency and that absolute safety must be secured in some manner having the equivalent effect of boiling water, long ago adopted by the Mongolian races, and which destroys active disease germs at the latest moment before using.
And it must not be overlooked that the boiling of drinking water in China and Japan has been demanded quite as much because of congested rural populations as to guard against such dangers in large cities, while as yet our sanitary engineers have dealt only with the urban phases of this most vital problem and chiefly, too, thus far, only where it has been possible to procure the water supply in comparatively unpopulated hill lands.
But such opportunities cannot remain available indefinitely, any more than they did in China and Japan, and already typhoid epidemics break out in our large cities and citizens are advised to boil their drinking water.
If tea drinking in the family is to remain general in most portions of the world, and especially if it shall increase in proportion to population, there is great industrial and commercial promise for China, Korea and Japan in their tea industry if they will develop tea culture still further over the extensive and still unused flanks of the hill lands; improve their cultural methods; their manufacture; and develop their export trade.
They have the best of climatic and soil conditions and people sufficiently capable of enormously expanding the industry.
Both improvement and expansion of methods along all essential lines, are needed, enabling them to put upon the market pure teas of thoroughly uniform grades of guaranteed quality, and with these the maintenance of an international code of rigid ethics which shall secure to all concerned a square deal and a fair division of the profits.
The production of rice, silk and tea are three industries which these nations are preeminently circumstanced and qualified to economically develop and maintain.
Other nations may better specialize along other lines which fitness determines, and the time is coming when maximum production at minimum cost as the result of clean robust living that in every way is worth while, will determine lines of social progress and of international relations.
With the vital awakening to the possibility of and necessity for world peace, it must be recognized that this can be nothing less than universal, industrial, commercial, intellectual and religious, in addition to making impossible forever the bloody carnage that has ravaged the world through all the centuries.
With the extension of rapid transportation and more rapid communication throughout the world, we are fast entering the state of social development which will treat the whole world as a mutually helpful, harmonious industrial unit.
It must be recognized that in certain regions, because of peculiar fitness of soil, climate and people, needful products can be produced there better and enough more cheaply than elsewhere to pay the cost of transportation.
If China, Korea and Japan, with parts of India, can and will produce the best and cheapest silks, teas or rice, it must be for the greatest good to seek a mutually helpful exchange, and the erection of impassable tariff barriers is a declaration of war and cannot make for world peace and world progress.
The date of the introduction of tea culture into China appears unknown.
It was before the beginning of the Christian era and tradition would place it more than 2700 years earlier.
The Japanese definitely date its introduction into their islands as in the year 805 A. D., and state its coming to them from China.
However and whenever tea growing originated in these countries, it long ago attained and now maintains large proportions.
In 1907 Japan had 124,482 acres of land occupied by tea gardens and tea plantations.
These produced 60,877,975 pounds of cured tea, giving a mean yield of 489 pounds per acre.
Of the more than sixty million pounds of tea produced annually on nearly two hundred square miles in Japan, less than twenty-two million pounds are consumed at home, the balance being exported at a cash value, in 1907, of $6,309,122, or a mean of sixteen cents per pound.
In China the volume of tea produced annually is much larger than in Japan.
Hosie places the annual export from Szechwan into Tibet alone at 40,000,000 pounds and this is produced largely in the mountainous portion of the province west of the Min river.
Richard places her direct export to foreign countries, in 1905, at 176,027,255 pounds; and in 1906 at 180,271,000 pounds, so that the annual export must exceed 200,000,000 pounds, and her total product of cured tea must be more than 400,000,000.
The general appearance of tea bushes as they are grown in Japan is indicated in Fig.
192.
The form of the bushes, the shape and size of the leaves and the dense green, shiny foliage quite suggests our box, so much used in borders and hedges.
When the bushes are young, not covering the ground, other crops are grown between the rows, but as the bushes attain their full size, standing after trimming, waist to breast high, the ground between is usually thickly covered with straw, leaves or grass and weeds from the hill lands, which serve as a mulch, as a fertilizer, as a means of preventing washing on the hillsides, and to force the rain to enter the soil uniformly where it falls.
Quite a large per cent of the tea bushes are grown on small, scattering, irregular areas about dwellings, on land not readily tilled, but there are also many tea plantations of considerable size, presenting the appearance seen in Fig.
193.
After each picking of the leaves the bushes are trimmed back with pruning shears, giving the rows the appearance of carefully trimmed hedges.
The tea leaves are hand picked, generally by women and girls, after the manner seen in Fig.
194, where they are gathering the tender, newly-formed leaves into baskets to be weighed fresh, as seen in Fig.
195.
Three crops of leaves are usually gathered each season, the first yielding in Japan one hundred kan per tan, the second fifty kan and the third eighty kan per tan.
This is at the rate of 3307 pounds, 1653 pounds, and 2645 pounds per acre, making a total of 7605 pounds for the season, from which the grower realizes from a little more than 2.2 to a little more than 3 cents per pound of the green leaves, or a gross earning of $167 to $209.50 per acre.
We were informed that the usual cost for fertilizers for the tea orchards was 15 to 20 yen per tan, or $30 to $40 per acre per annum, the fertilizer being applied in the fall, in the early spring and again after the first picking of the leaves.
While the tea plants are yet small one winter crop and one summer crop of vegetables, beans or barley are grown between the rows, these giving a return of some forty dollars per acre.
Where the plantations are given good care and ample fertilization the life of a plantation may be prolonged continuously, it is said, through one hundred or more years.
During our walk from Joji to Kowata, along a country road in one of the tea districts, we passed a tea-curing house.
This was a long rectangular, one-story building with twenty furnaces arranged, each under an open window, around the sides.
In front of each heated furnace with its tray of leaves, a Japanese man, wearing only a breech cloth, and in a state of profuse perspiration, was busy rolling the tea leaves between the palms of his hands.
At another place we witnessed the making of the low grade dust tea, which is prepared from the leaves of bushes which must be removed or from those of the prunings.
In this case the dried bushes with their leaves were being beaten with flails on a threshing floor.
The dust tea thus produced is consumed by the poorer people.
XV ABOUT TIENTSIN On the 6th of June we left central China for Tientsin and further north, sailing by coastwise steamer from Shanghai, again plowing through the turbid waters which give literal exactness to the name Yellow Sea.
Our steamer touched at Tsingtao, taking on board a body of German troops, and again at Chefoo, and it was only between these two points that the sea was not strongly turbid.
Nor was this all.
From early morning of the 10th until we anchored at Tientsin, 2:30 P. M., our course up the winding Pei ho was against a strong dust-laden wind which left those who had kept to the deck as grey as though they had ridden by automobile through the Colorado desert; so the soils of high interior Asia are still spreading eastward by flood and by wind into the valleys and far over the coastal plains.
Over large areas between Tientsin and Peking and at other points northward toward Mukden trees and shrubs have been systematically planted in rectangular hedgerow lines, to check the force of the winds and reduce the drifting of soils, planted fields occupying the spaces between.
It was on this trip that we met Dr. Evans of Shunking, Szechwan province.
His wife is a physician practicing among the Chinese women, and in discussing the probable rate of increase of population among the Chinese, it was stated that she had learned through her practice that very many mothers had borne seven to eleven children and yet but one, two or at most three, were living.
It was said there are many customs and practices which determine this high mortality among children, one of which is that of feeding them meat before they have teeth, the mother masticating for the children, with the result that often fatal convulsions follow.
A Scotch physician of long experience in Shantung, who took the steamer at Tsingtao, replied to my question as to the usual size of families in his circuit, "I do not know.
It depends on the crops.
In good years the number is large; in times of famine the girls especially are disposed of, often permitted to die when very young for lack of care.
Many are sold at such times to go into other provinces."
Such statements, however, should doubtless be taken with much allowance.
If all the details were known regarding the cases which have served as foundations for such reports, the matter might appear in quite a different light from that suggested by such cold recitals.
Although land taxes are high in China Dr. Evans informed me that it is not infrequent for the same tax to be levied twice and even three times in one year.
Inquiries regarding the land taxes among farmers in different parts of China showed rates running from three cents to a dollar and a half, Mexican, per mow; or from about eight cents to $3.87 gold, per acre.
At these rates a forty acre farm would pay from $3.20 to $154.80, and a quarter section four times these amounts.
Data collected by Consul-General E. T. Williams of Tientsin indicate that in Shantung the land tax is about one dollar per acre, and in Chihli, twenty cents.
In Kiangsi province the rate is 200 to 300 cash per mow, and in Kiangsu, from 500 to 600 cash per mow, or, according to the rate of exchange given on page 76, from 60 to 80 cents, or 90 cents to $1.20 per acre in Kiangsi; and $1.50 to $2.00 or $1.80 to $2.40 in Kiangsu province.
The lowest of these rates would make the land tax on 160 acres, $96, and the highest would place it at $384, gold.
In Japan the taxes are paid quarterly and the combined amount of the national, prefectural and village assessments usually aggregates about ten per cent of the government valuation placed on the land.
The mean valuation placed on the irrigated fields, excluding Formosa and Karafuto, was in 1907, 35.35 yen per tan; that of the upland fields, 9.40 yen, and the genya and pasture lands were given a valuation of .22 yen per tan.
These are valuations of $70.70, $18.80 and $.44, gold, per acre, respectively, and the taxes on forty acres of paddy field would be $282.80; $75.20 on forty acres of upland field, and $1.76, gold, on the same area of the genya and weed lands.
In the villages, where work of one or another kind is done for pay, Dr. Evans stated that a woman's wage might not exceed $8, Mexican, or $3.44, gold, per year, and when we asked how it could be worth a woman's while to work a whole year for so small a sum, his reply was, "If she did not do this she would earn nothing, and this would keep her in clothes and a little more."
A cotton spinner in his church would procure a pound of cotton and on returning the yarn would receive one and a quarter pounds of cotton in exchange, the quarter pound being her compensation.
Dr. Evans also described a method of rooting slips from trees, practiced in various parts of China.
The under side of a branch is cut, bent upward and split for a short distance; about this is packed a ball of moistened earth wrapped in straw to retain the soil and to provide for future watering; the whole may then be bound with strips of bamboo for greater stability.
In this way slips for new mulberry orchards are procured.
At eight o'clock in the morning we entered the mouth of the Pei ho and wound westward through a vast, nearly sea-level, desert plain and in both directions, far toward the horizon, huge white stacks of salt dotted the surface of the Taku Government salt fields, and revolving in the wind were great numbers of horizontal sail windmills, pumping sea water into an enormous acreage of evaporation basins.
In Fig.
196 may be seen five of the large salt stacks and six of the windmills, together with many smaller piles of salt.
Fig.
197 is a closer view of the evaporation basins with piles of salt scraped from the surface after the mother liquor had been drained away.
The windmills, which were working one, sometimes two, of the large wooden chain pumps, were some thirty feet in diameter and lifted the brine from tide-water basins into those of a second and third higher level where the second and final concentration occurred.
These windmills, crude as they appear in Fig.
198, are nevertheless efficient, cheaply constructed and easily controlled.
The eight sails, each six by ten feet, were so hung as to take the wind through the entire revolution, tilting automatically to receive the wind on the opposite face the moment the edge passed the critical point.
Some 480 feet of sail surface were thus spread to the wind, working on a radius of fifteen feet.
The horizontal drive wheel had a diameter of ten feet, carried eighty-eight wooden cogs which engaged a pinion with fifteen leaves, and there were nine arms on the reel at the other end of the shaft which drove the chain.
The boards or buckets of the chain pump were six by twelve inches, placed nine inches apart, and with a fair breeze the pump ran full.
Enormous quantities of salt are thus cheaply manufactured through wind, tide and sun power directed by the cheapest human labor.
Before reaching Tientsin we passed the Government storage yards and counted two hundred stacks of salt piled in the open, and more than a third of the yard had been passed before beginning the count.
The average content of each stack must have exceeded 3000 cubic feet of salt, and more than 40,000,000 pounds must have been stored in the yards.
Armed guards in military uniform patrolled the alleyways day and night.
Long strips of matting laid over the stacks were the only shelter against rain.
Throughout the length of China's seacoast, from as far north as beyond Shanhaikwan, south to Canton, salt is manufactured from sea water in suitable places.
In Szechwan province, we learn from the report of Consul-General Hosie, that not less than 300,000 tons of salt are annually manufactured there, largely from brine raised by animal power from wells seven hundred to more than two thousand feet deep.
Hosie describes the operations at a well more than two thousand feet deep, at Tzeliutsing.
In the basement of a power-house which sheltered forty water buffaloes, a huge bamboo drum twelve feet high, sixty feet in circumference, was so set as to revolve on a vertical axis propelled by four cattle drawing from its circumference.
A hemp rope was wound about this drum, six feet from the ground, passing out and under a pulley at the well, then up and around a wheel mounted sixty feet above and descended to the bucket made from bamboo stems four inches in diameter and nearly sixty feet long, which dropped with great speed to the bottom of the well as the rope unwound.
When the bucket reached the bottom four attendants, each with a buffalo in readiness, hitched to the drum and drove at a running pace, during fifteen minutes, or until the bucket was raised from the well.
The buffalo were then unhitched and, while the bucket was being emptied and again dropped to the bottom of the well, a fresh relay were brought to the drum.
In this way the work continued night and day.
The brine, after being raised from the well, was emptied into distributing reservoirs, flowing thence through bamboo pipes to the evaporating sheds where round bottomed, shallow iron kettles four feet across were set in brick arches in which jets of natural gas were burning.
Within an area some sixty miles square there are more than a thousand brine and twenty fire wells from which fuel gas is taken.
The mouths of the fire wells are closed with masonry, out from which bamboo conduits coated with lime lead to the various furnaces, terminating with iron burners beneath the kettles.
Remarkable is the fact that in the city of Tzeliutsing, both these brine and the fire wells have been operated in the manufacture of salt since before Christ was born.
The forty water buffalo are worth $30 to $40 per head and their food fifteen to twenty cents per day.
The cost of manufacturing this salt is placed at thirteen to fourteen cash per catty, to which the Government adds a tax of nine cash more, making the cost at the factory from 82 cents to $1.15, gold, per hundred pounds.
Salt manufacture is a Government monopoly and the product must be sold either to Government officials or to merchants who have bought the exclusive right to supply certain districts.
The importation of salt is prohibited by treaties.
For the salt tax collection China is divided into eleven circuits each having its own source of supply and transfer of salt from one circuit to another is forbidden.
The usual cost of salt is said to vary between one and a half and four cash per catty.
The retail price of salt ranges from three-fourths to three cents per pound, fully twelve to fifteen times the cost of manufacture.
The annual production of salt in the Empire is some 1,860,000 tons, and in 1901 salt paid a tax close to ten million dollars.
Beyond the salt fields, toward Tientsin, the banks of the river were dotted at short intervals with groups of low, almost windowless houses, Fig.
199, built of earth brick plastered with clay on sides and roof, made more resistant to rain by an admixture of chaff and cut straw, and there was a remarkable freshness of look about them which we learned was the result of recent preparations made for the rainy season about to open.
Beyond the first of these villages came a stretch of plain dotted thickly and far with innumerable grave mounds, to which reference has been made.
For nearly an hour we had traveled up the river before there was any material vegetation, the soil being too saline apparently to permit growth, but beyond this, crops in the fields and gardens, with some fruit and other trees, formed a fringe of varying width along the banks.
Small fields of transplanted rice on both banks were frequent and often the land was laid out in beds of two levels, carefully graded, the rice occupying the lower areas, and wooden chain pumps were being worked by hand, foot and animal power, irrigating both rice and garden crops.
In the villages were many stacks of earth compost, of the Shantung type; manure middens were common and donkeys drawing heavy stone rollers followed by men with large wooden mallets, were going round and round, pulverizing and mixing the dry earth compost and the large earthen brick from dismantled kangs, preparing fertilizer for the new series of crops about to be planted, following the harvest of wheat and barley.
Large boatloads of these prepared fertilizers were moving on the river and up the canals to the fields.
Toward the coast from Tientsin, especially in the country, traversed by the railroad, there was little produced except a short grass, this being grazed at the time of our visit and, in places, cut for a very meagre crop of hay.
The productive cultivated lands lie chiefly along the rivers and canals or other water courses, where there is better drainage as well as water for irrigation.
The extensive, close canalization that characterizes parts of Kiangsu and Chekiang provinces is lacking here and for this reason, in part, the soil is not so productive.
The fuller canalization, the securing of adequate drainage and the gaining of complete control of the flood waters which flow through this vast plain during the rainy season constitute one of China's most important industrial problems which, when properly solved, must vastly increase her resources.
During our drive over the old Peking-Taku road saline deposits were frequently observed which had been brought to the surface during the dry season, and the city engineer of Tientsin stated that in their efforts at parking portions of the foreign concessions they had found the trees dying after a few years when their roots began to penetrate the more saline subsoil, but that since they had opened canals, improving the drainage, trees were no longer dying.
There is little doubt that proper drainage by means of canals, and the irrigation which would go with it, would make all of these lands, now more or less saline, highly productive, as are now those contiguous to the existing water courses.
It had rained two days before our drive over the Taku road and when we applied for a conveyance, the proprietor doubted whether the roads were passible, as he had been compelled to send out an extra team to assist in the return of one which had been stalled during the previous night.
It was finally arranged to send an extra horse with us.
The rainy season had just begun but the deep trenching of the roads concentrates the water in them and greatly intensifies the trouble.
In one of the little hamlets through which we passed the roadway was trenched to a depth of three to four feet in the middle of the narrow street, leaving only five feet for passing in front of the dwellings on either side, and in this trench our carriage moved through mud and water nearly to the hubs.
Between Tientsin and Peking, in the early morning after a rain of the night before, we saw many farmers working their fields with the broad hoes, developing an earth mulch at the first possible moment to conserve their much needed moisture.
Men were at work, as seen in Figs.
200 and 201, using long handled hoes, with blades nine by thirteen inches, hung so as to draw just under the surface, doing very effective work, permitting them to cover the ground rapidly.
Walking further, we came upon six women in a field of wheat, gleaning the single heads which had prematurely ripened and broken over upon the ground between the rows soon to be harvested.
Whether they were doing this as a privilege or as a task we do not know; they were strong, cheerful, reasonably dressed, hardly past middle life and it was nearly noon, yet not one of them had collected more straws than she could readily grasp in one hand.
The season in Chihli as in Shantung, had been one of unusual drought, making the crop short and perhaps unusual frugality was being practiced; but it is in saving that these people excel perhaps more than in producing.
These heads of wheat, if left upon the ground, would be wasted and if the women were privileged gleaners in the fields their returns were certainly much greater than were those of the very old women we have seen in France gathering heads of wheat from the already harvested fields.
In the fields between Tientsin and Peking all wheat was being pulled, the earth shaken from the roots, tied in small bundles and taken to the dwellings, sometimes on the heavy cart drawn by a team consisting of a small donkey and cow hitched tandem, as seen in Fig.
202.
Millet had been planted between the rows of wheat in this field and was already up.
When the wheat was removed the ground would be fertilized and planted to soy beans.
Because of the dry season this farmer estimated his yield would be but eight to nine bushels per acre.
He was expecting to harvest thirteen to fourteen bushels of millet and from ten to twelve bushels of soy beans per acre from the same field.
This would give him an earning, based on the local prices, of $10.36, gold, for the wheat; $6.00 for the beans, and $5.48 per acre for the millet.
This land was owned by the family of the Emperor and was rented at $1.55, gold, per acre.
The soil was a rather light sandy loam, not inherently fertile, and fertilizers to the value of $3.61 gold, per acre, had been applied, leaving the earning $16.71 per acre.
Another farmer with whom we talked, pulling his crop of wheat, would follow this with millet and soy beans in alternate rows.
His yield of wheat was expected to be eleven to twelve bushels per acre, his beans twenty-one bushels and his millet twenty-five bushels which, at the local prices for grain and straw, would bring a gross earning of $35, gold, per acre.
Before reaching the end of our walk through the fields toward the next station we came across another of the many instances of the labor these people are willing to perform for only a small possible increase in crop.
The field was adjacent to one of the windbreak hedges and the trees had spread their roots far afield and were threatening his crop through the consumption of moisture and plant food.
To check this depletion the farmer had dug a trench twenty inches deep the length of his field, and some twenty feet from the line of trees, thereby cutting all of the surface roots to stop their draft on the soil.
The trench was left open and an interesting feature observed was that nearly every cut root on the field side of the trench had thrown up one or more shoots bearing leaves, while the ends still connected with the trees showed no signs of leaf growth.
In Chihli as elsewhere the Chinese are skilled gardeners, using water for irrigation whenever it is advantageous.
One gardener was growing a crop of early cabbage, followed by one of melons, and these with radish the same season.
He was paying a rent of $6.45, gold, per acre; was applying fertilizer at a cost of nearly $8 per acre for each of the three crops, making his cash outlay $29.67 per acre.
His crop of cabbage sold for $103, gold; his melons for $77, and his radish for something more than $51, making a total of $232.20 per acre, leaving him a net value of $202.53.
A second gardener, growing potatoes, obtained a yield, when sold new, of 8,000 pounds per acre; and of 16,000 pounds when the crop was permitted to mature.
The new potatoes were sold so as to bring $51.60 and the mature potatoes $185.76 per acre, making the earning for the two crops the same season a total of $237.36, gold.
By planting the first crop very early these gardeners secure two crops the same season, as far north as Columbus, Ohio, and Springfield, Illinois, the first crop being harvested when the tubers are about the size of walnuts.
The rental and fertilizers in this case amounted to $30.96 per acre.
Still another gardener growing winter wheat followed by onions, and these by cabbage, both transplanted, realized from the three crops a gross earning of $176.73, gold, per acre, and incurred an expense of $31.73 per acre for fertilizer and rent, leaving him a net earning of $145 per acre.
These old people have acquired the skill and practice of storing and preserving such perishable fruits as pears and grapes so as to enable them to keep them on the markets almost continuously.
Pears were very common in the latter part of June, and Consul-General Williams informed me that grapes are regularly carried into July.
In talking with my interpreter as to the methods employed I could only learn that the growers depend simply upon dry earth cellars which can be maintained at a very uniform temperature, the separate fruits being wrapped in paper.
No foreigner with whom we talked knew their methods.
Vegetables are carried through the winter in such earth cellars as are seen in Fig.
88, page 161, these being covered after they are filled.
As to the price of labor in this part of China, we learned through Consul-General Williams that a master mechanic may receive 50 cents, Mexican, per day, and a journeyman 18 cents, or at a rate of 21.5 cents and 7.75 cents, gold.
Farm laborers receive from $20 to $30, Mexican, or $8.60 to $12.90, gold, per year, with food, fuel and presents which make a total of $17.20 to $21.50.
This is less for the year than we pay for a month of probably less efficient labor.
There is relatively little child labor in China and this perhaps should be expected when adult labor is so abundant and so cheap.
XVI MANCHURIA AND KOREA The 39th parallel of latitude lies just south of Tientsin; followed westward, it crosses the toe of Italy's boot, leads past Lisbon in Portugal, near Washington and St. Louis and to the north of Sacramento on the Pacific.
We were leaving a country with a mean July temperature of 80 deg F., and of 21 deg in January, but where two feet of ice may form; a country where the eighteen year mean maximum temperature is 103.5 deg and the mean minimum 4.5 deg; where twice in this period the thermometer recorded 113 deg above zero, and twice 7 deg below, and yet near the coast and in the latitude of Washington; a country where the mean annual rainfall is 19.72 inches and all but 3.37 inches falls in June, July, August and September.
We had taken the 5:40 A. M. Imperial North-China train, June 17th, to go as far northward as Chicago,--to Mukden in Manchuria, a distance by rail of some four hundred miles, but all of the way still across the northward extension of the great Chinese coastal plain.
Southward, out from the coldest quarter of the globe, where the mean January temperature is more than 40 deg below zero, sweep northerly winds which bring to Mukden a mean January temperature only 3 deg above zero, and yet there the July temperature averages as high as 77 deg and there is a mean annual rainfall of but 18.5 inches, coming mostly in the summer, as at Tientsin.
Although the rainfall of the northern extension of China's coastal plain is small, its efficiency is relatively high because of its most favorable distribution and the high summer temperatures.
In the period of early growth, April, May and June, there are 4.18 inches; but in the period of maximum growth, July and August, the rainfall is 11.4 inches; and in the ripening period, September and October, it is 3.08 inches, while during the rest of the year but 1.06 inch falls.
Thus most of the rain comes at the time when the crops require the greatest daily consumption and it is least in mid-winter, during the period of little growth.
As our train left Tientsin we traveled for a long distance through a country agriculturally poor and little tilled, with surface flat, the soil apparently saline, and the land greatly in need of drainage.
Wherever there were canals the crops were best, apparently occupying more or less continuous areas along either bank.
The day was hot and sultry but laborers were busy with their large hoes, often with all garments laid aside except a short shirt or a pair of roomy trousers.
In the salt district about the village of Tangku there were huge stacks of salt and smaller piles not yet brought together, with numerous windmills, constituting most striking features in the landscape, but there was almost no agricultural or other vegetation.
Beyond Pehtang there are other salt works and a canal leads westward to Tientsin, on which the salt is probably taken thither, and still other salt stacks and windmills continued visible until near Hanku, where another canal leads toward Peking.
Here the coast recedes eastward from the railway and beyond the city limits many grave mounds dot the surrounding plains where herds of sheep were grazing.
As we hurried toward the delta region of the Lwan ho, and before reaching Tangshan, a more productive country was traversed.
Thrifty trees made the landscape green, and fields of millet, kaoliang and wheat stretched for miles together along the track and back over the flat plain beyond the limit of vision.
Then came fields planted with two rows of maize alternating with one row of soy beans, but not over twenty-eight inches apart, one stalk of corn in a place every sixteen to eighteen inches, all carefully hoed, weedless and blanketed with an excellent earth mulch; but still the leaves were curling in the intense heat of the sun.
Tangshan is a large city, apparently of recent growth on the railroad in a country where isolated conical hills rise one hundred or two hundred feet out of the flat, plains.
Cart loads of finely pulverized earth compost were here moving to the fields in large numbers, being laid in single piles of five hundred to eight hundred pounds, forty to sixty feet apart.
At Kaiping the country grows a little rolling and we passed through the first railway cuts, six to eight feet deep, and the water in the streams is running ten to twelve feet below the surface of the fields.
On the right and beyond Kuyeh there are low hills, and here we passed enormous quantities of dry, finely powdered earth compost, distributed on narrow unplanted area over the fields.
What crop, if indeed any, had occupied these areas this season, we could not judge.
The fertilization here is even more extensive and more general than we found it in the Shantung province, and in places water was being carried in pails to the fields for use either in planting or in transplanting, to ensure the readiness of the new crops to utilize the first rainfall when it comes.
Then the bed of a nearly dry stream some three hundred feet wide was crossed and beyond it a sandy plain was planted in long narrow fields between windbreak hedges.
The crops were small but evidently improved by the influence of the shelter.
The sand in places had drifted into the hedges to a height of three feet.
At a number of other places along the way before Mukden was reached such protected areas were passed and oftenest on the north side of wide, now nearly dry, stream channels.
As we passed on toward Shanhaikwan we were carried over broad plains even more nearly level and unobstructed than any to be found in the corn belt of the middle west, and these too planted with corn, kaoliang, wheat and beans, and with the low houses hidden in distant scattered clusters of trees dotting the wide plain on either side, with not a fence, and nothing to suggest a road anywhere in sight.
We seemed to be moving through one vast field dotted with hundreds of busy men, a plowman here, and there a great cart hopelessly lost in the field so far as one could see any sign of road to guide their course.
Some early crop appeared to have been harvested from areas alternating with those on the ground, and these were dotted with piles of the soil and manure compost, aggregating hundreds of tons, distributed over the fields but no doubt during the next three or four days these thousands of piles would have been worked into the soil and vanished from sight, to reappear after another crop and another year.
It was at Lwanchow that we met the out-going tide of soy beans destined for Japan and Europe, pouring in from the surrounding country in gunny sacks brought on heavy carts drawn by large mules, as seen in Fig.
203, and enormous quantities had been stacked in the open along the tracks, with no shelter whatever, awaiting the arrival of trains to move them to export harbors.
The planting here, as elsewhere, is in rows, but not of one kind of grain.
Most frequently two rows of maize, kaoliang or millet alternated with the soy beans and usually not more than twenty-eight inches apart, sharp high ridge cultivation being the general practice.
Such planting secures the requisite sunshine with a larger number of plants on the field; it secures a continuous general distribution of the roots of the nitrogen-fixing soy beans in the soil of all the field every season, and permits the soil to be more continuously and more completely laid under tribute by the root systems.
In places where the stand of corn or millet was too open the gaps were filled with the soy beans.
Such a system of planting possibly permits a more immediate utilization of the nitrogen gathered from the soil air in the root nodules, as these die and undergo nitrification during the same season, while the crops are yet on the ground, and so far as phosphorus and potassium compounds are liberated by this decay, they too would become available to the crops.
The end of the day's journey was at Shanhaikwan on the boundary between Chihli and Manchuria, the train stopping at 6:20 P. M. for the night.
Stepping upon the veranda from our room on the second floor of a Japanese inn in the early morning, there stood before us, sullen and grey, the eastern terminus of the Great Wall, winding fifteen hundred miles westward across twenty degrees of longitude, having endured through twenty-one centuries, the most stupendous piece of construction ever conceived by man and executed by a nation.
More than twenty feet thick at the base and than twelve feet on the top; rising fifteen to thirty feet above the ground with parapets along both faces and towers every two hundred yards rising twenty feet higher, it must have been, for its time and the methods of warfare then practiced, when defended by their thousands, the boldest and most efficient national defense ever constructed.
Nor in the economy of construction and maintenance has it ever been equalled.
Even if it be true that 20,000 masons toiled through ten years in its building, defended by 400,000 soldiers, fed by a commissariat of 20,000 more and supported by 30,000 others in the transport, quarry and potters' service, she would then have been using less than eight tenths per cent of her population, on a basis of 60,000,000 at the time; while according to Edmond Théry's estimate, the officers and soldiers of Europe today, in time of peace, constitute one per cent of a population of 400,000,000 of people, and these, at only one dollar each per day for food, clothing and loss of producing power would cost her nations, in ten years, more than $14,000 million.
China, with her present habits and customs, would more easily have maintained her army of 470,000 men on thirty cents each per day, or for a total ten-year cost of but $520,000,000.
The French cabinet in 1900 approved a naval program involving an expenditure of $600,000,000 during the next ten years, a tax of more than $15 for every man, woman and child in the Republic.
Leaving Shanhaikwan at 5:20 in the morning and reaching Mukden at 6:30 in the evening, we rode the entire day through Manchurian fields.
Manchuria has an area of 363,700 square miles, equal to that of both Dakotas, Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa combined.
It has roughly the outline of a huge boot and could one slide it eastward until Port Arthur was at Washington, Shanhaikwan would fall well toward Pittsburgh, both at the tip of the broad toe to the boot.
The foot would lie across Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and all of New England, extending beyond New Brunswick with the heel in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Harbin, at the instep of the boot, would lie fifty miles east of Montreal and the expanding leg would reach northwestward nearly to James Bay, entirely to the north of the Ottawa river and the Canadian Pacific, spanning a thousand miles of latitude and nine hundred miles of longitude.
The Liao plain, thirty miles wide, and the central Sungari plain, are the largest in Manchuria, forming together a long narrow valley floor between two parallel mountain systems and extending northeasterly from the Liao gulf, between Port Arthur and Shanhaikwan, up the Liao river and down the Sungari to the Amur, a distance of eight hundred or more miles.
These plains have a fertile, deep soil and it is on them and other lesser river bottoms that Manchurian agriculture is developed, supporting eight or nine million people on a cultivated, acreage possibly not greater than 25,000 square miles.
Manchuria has great forest and grazing possibilities awaiting future development, as well as much mineral wealth.
The population of Tsitsihar, in the latitude of middle North Dakota, swells from thirty thousand to seventy thousand during September and October, when the Mongols bring in their cattle to market.
In the middle province, at the head of steam navigation on the Sungari, because of the abundance and cheapness of lumber, Kirin has become a shipbuilding center for Chinese junks.
The Sungari-Milky-river, is a large stream carrying more water at flood season than the Amur above its mouth, the latter being navigable 450 miles for steamers drawing twelve feet of water, and 1500 miles for those drawing four feet, so that during the summer season the middle and northern provinces have natural inland waterways, but the outlet to the sea is far to the north and closed by ice six months of the year.
Not far beyond the Great Wall of China, fast falling into ruin, partly through the appropriation of its material for building purposes now that it has outlived its usefulness, another broad, nearly dry stream bed was crossed.
There, in full bloom, was what appeared to be the wild white rose seen earlier, further south, west of Suchow, having a remarkable profusion of small white bloom in clusters resembling the Rambler rose.
One of these bushes growing wild there on the bank of the canal had over spread a clump of trees one of which was thirty feet in height, enveloping it in a mantle of bloom, as seen in the upper section of Fig.
204.
The lower section of the illustration is a closer view showing the clusters.
The stem of this rose, three feet above the ground, measured 14.5 inches in circumference.
If it would thrive in this country nothing could be better for parks and pleasure drives.
Later on our journey we saw it many times in bloom along the railway between Mukden and Antung, but nowhere attaining so large growth.
The blossoms are scant three-fourths inch in diameter, usually in compact clusters of three to eleven, sometimes in twos and occasionally standing singly.
The leaves are five-foliate, sometimes trifoliate; leaflets broadly lanceolate, accuminate and finely serrate; thorns minute, recurrent and few, only on the smaller branches.
In a field beyond, a small donkey was drawing a stone roller three feet long and one foot in diameter, firming the crests of narrow, sharp, recently formed ridges, two at a time.
Millet, maize and kaoliang were here the chief crops.
Another nearly dry stream was crossed, where the fields became more rolling and much cut by deep gullies, the first instances we had seen in China except on the steep hillsides about Tsingtao.
Not all of the lands here were cultivated, and on the untilled areas herds of fifty to a hundred goats, pigs, cattle, horses and donkeys were grazing.
Fields in Manchuria are larger than in China and some rows were a full quarter of a mile long, so that cultivation was being done with donkeys and cattle, and large numbers of men were working in gangs of four, seven, ten, twenty, and in one field as high as fifty, hoeing millet.
Such a crew as the largest mentioned could probably be hired at ten cents each, gold, per day, and were probably men from the thickly settled portions of Shantung who had left in the spring, expecting to return in September or October.
Both laborers and working animals were taking dinner in the fields, and earlier in the day we had seen several instances where hay and feed were being taken to the field on a wooden sled, with the plow and other tools.
At noon this was serving as manger for the cattle, mules or donkeys.
In fields where the close, deep furrowing and ridging was being done the team often consisted of a heavy ox and two small donkeys driven abreast, the three walking in adjacent rows, the plow following the ox, or a heavy mule instead.
The rainy season had not begun and in many fields there was planting and transplanting where water was used in separate hills, sometimes brought in pails from a nearby stream, and in other cases on carts provided with tanks.
Holes were made along the crests of the ridges with the blade of a narrow hoe and a little water poured in each hill, from a dipper, before planting or setting.
These must have been other instances where the farmers were willing to incur additional labor to save time for the maturing of the crop by assisting germination in a soil too dry to make it certain until the rains came.
It appears probable that the strong ridging and the close level rows so largely adopted here must have marked advantages in utilizing the rainfall, especially the portions coming early, and that later also if it should come in heavy showers.
With steep narrow ridging, heavy rains would be shed at once to the bottom of the deep furrows without over-saturating the ridges, while the wet soil in the bottom of the furrows would favor deep percolation with lateral capillary flow taking place strongly under the ridges from the furrows, carrying both moisture and soluble plant food where they will be most completely and quickly available.
When the rain comes in heavy showers each furrow may serve as a long reservoir which will prevent washing and at the same time permit quick penetration; the ridges never becoming flooded or puddled, permit the soil air to escape readily as the water from the furrows sinks, as it cannot easily do in flat fields when the rains fall rapidly and fill all of the soil pores, thus closing them to the escape of air from below, which must take place before the water can enter.
When rows are only twenty-four to twenty-eight inches apart, ridging is not sufficiently more wasteful of soil moisture, through greater evaporation because of increased surface, to compensate for the other advantages gained, and hence their practice, for their conditions, appears sound.
The application of finely pulverized earth compost to fields to be planted, and in some cases where the fields were already planted, continued general after leaving Shanhailkwan as it had been before.
Compost stacks were common in yards wherever buildings were close enough to the track to be seen.
Much of the way about one-third of the fields were yet to be, or had just been, planted and in a great majority of these compost fertilizer had been laid down for use on them, or was being taken to them in large heavy carts drawn sometimes by three mules.
Between Sarhougon and Ningyuenchow fourteen fields thus fertilized were counted in less than half a mile; ten others in the next mile; eleven in the mile and a quarter following.
In the next two miles one hundred fields were counted and just before reaching the station we counted during five minutes, with watch in hand, ninety-five fields to be planted, upon which this fertilizer had been brought.
In some cases the compost was being spread in furrows between the rows of a last year's crop, evidently to be turned under, thus reversing the position of the ridges.
After passing Lienshan, where, the railway runs near the sea, a sail was visible on the bay and many stacks of salt piled about the evaporation fields were associated with the revolving sail windmills already described.
Here, too, large numbers of cattle, horses, mules and donkeys were grazing on the untilled low lands, beyond which we traversed a section where all fields were planted, where no fertilizer was piled in the field but where many groups of men were busy hoeing, sometimes twenty in a gang.
Chinese soldiers with bayonetted guns stood guard at every railway station between Shanhaikwan and Mukden, and from Chinchowfu our coach was occupied by some Chinese official with guests and military attendants, including armed soldiers.
The official and his guests were an attractive group of men with pleasant faces and winning manners, clad in many garments of richly figured silk of bright, attractive, but unobtrusive, colors, who talked, seriously or in mirth, almost incessantly.
They took the train about one o'clock and lunch was immediately served in Chinese style, but the last course was not brought until nearly four o'clock.
At every station soldiers stood in line in the attitude of salute until the official car had passed.
Just before reaching Chinchowfu we saw the first planted fields littered with stubble of the previous crop, and in many instances such stubble was being gathered and removed to the villages, large stacks having been piled in the yards to be used either as fuel or in the production of compost.
As the train approached Taling ho groups of men were hoeing in millet fields, thirty in one group on one side and fifty in another body on the other.
Many small herds of cattle, horses, donkeys and flocks of goats and sheep were feeding along stream courses and on the unplanted fields.
Beyond the station, after crossing the river, still another sand dune tract was passed, planted with willows, millet occupying the level areas between the dunes, and not far beyond, wide untilled flats were crossed, on which many herds were grazing and dotted with grave mounds as we neared Koupantze, where a branch of the railway traverses the Liao plain to the port of Newchwang.
It was in this region that there came the first suggestion of resemblance to our marshland meadows; and very soon there were seen approaching from the distance loads so green that except for the large size one would have judged them to be fresh grass.
They were loads of cured hay in the brightest green, the result, no doubt, of curing under their dry weather conditions.
At Ta Hu Shan large quantities of grain in sacks were piled along the tracks and in the freight yards, but under matting shelters.
Near here, too, large three-mule loads of dry earth compost were going to the fields and men were busy pulverizing and mixing it on the threshing floors preparatory for use.
Nearly all crops growing were one or another of the millets, but considerable areas were yet unplanted and on these cattle, horses, mules and donkeys were feeding and eight more loads of very bright new made hay crossed the track.
When the train reached Sinminfu where the railway turns abruptly eastward to cross the Liao ho to reach Mukden we saw the first extensive massing of the huge bean cakes for export, together with enormous quantities of soy beans in sacks piled along the railway and in the freight yards or loaded on cars made up in trains ready to move.
Leaving this station we passed among fields of grain looking decidedly yellow, the first indication we had seen in China of crops nitrogen-hungry and of soils markedly deficient in available nitrogen.
Beyond the next station the fields were decidedly spotted and uneven as well as yellow, recalling conditions so commonly seen at home and which had been conspicuously absent here before.
Crossing the Liao ho with its broad channel of shifting sands, the river carrying the largest volume of water we had yet seen, but the stream very low and still characteristic of the close of the dry season of semi-arid climates, we soon reached another station where the freight yards and all of the space along the tracks were piled high with bean cakes and yet the fields about were reflecting the impoverished condition of the soil through the yellow crops and their uneven growth on the fields.
Since the Japanese-Russian war the shipments of soy beans and of bean cake from Manchuria have increased enormously.
Up to this time there had been exports to the southern provinces of China where the bean cakes were used as fertilizers for the rice fields, but the new extensive markets have so raised the price that in several instances we were informed they could not then afford to use bean cake as fertilizer.
From Newchwang alone, in 1905, between January 1st and March 31st, there went abroad 2,286,000 pounds of beans and bean cake, but in 1906 the amount had increased to 4,883,000 pounds.
But a report published in the Tientsin papers as official, while we were there, stated that the value of the export of bean cake and soy beans from Dalny for the months ending March 31st had been, in 1909, only $1,635,000, gold, compared with $3,065,000 in the corresponding period of 1908, and of $5,120,000 in 1907, showing a marked decrease.
Edward C. Parker, writing from Mukden for the Review of Reviews, stated: "The bean cake shipments from Newchwang, Dalny and Antung in 1908 amounted to 515,198 tons; beans, 239,298 tons; bean oil, 1930 tons; having a total value of $15,016,649 (U. S. gold)".
According to the composition of soy beans as indicated in Hopkins' table of analyses, these shipments of beans and bean cake would remove an aggregate of 6171 tons of phosphorus, 10,097 tons of potassium, and 47,812 tons of nitrogen from Manchurian soils as the result of export for that year.
Could such a rate have been maintained during two thousand years there would have been sold from these soils 20,194,000 tons of potassium; 12,342,000 tons of phosphorus and 95,624,000 tons of nitrogen; and the phosphorus, were it thus exported, would have exceeded more than threefold all thus far produced in the United States; it would have exceeded the world's output in 1906 more than eighteen times, even assuming that all phosphate rock mined was seventy-five per cent pure.
The choice of the millets and the sorghums as the staple bread crops of northern China and Manchuria has been quite as remarkable as the selection of rice for the more southern latitudes, and the two together have played a most important part in determining the high maintenance efficiency of these people.
In nutritive value these grains rank well with wheat; the stems of the larger varieties are extensively used for both fuel and building material and the smaller forms make excellent forage and have been used directly for maintaining the organic content of the soil.
Their rapid development and their high endurance of drought adapt them admirably to the climate of north China and Manchuria where the rains begin only after late June and where weather too cold for growth comes earlier in the fall.
The quick maturity of these crops also permits them to be used to great advantage even throughout the south, in their systems of multiple cropping so generally adopted, while their great resistance to drought, being able to remain at a standstill for a long time when the soil is too dry for growth and yet be able to push ahead rapidly when favorable rains come, permits them to be used on the higher lands generally where water is not available for irrigation.
In the Shantung province the large millet, sorghum or kaoliang, yields as high as 2000 to 3000 pounds of seed per acre, and 5600 to 6000 pounds of air-dry stems, equal in weight to 1.6 to 1.7 cords of dry oak wood.
In the region of Mukden, Manchuria, its average yield of seed is placed at thirty-five bushels of sixty pounds weight per acre, and with this comes one and a half tons of fuel or of building material.
Hosie states that, the kaoliang is the staple food of the population of Manchuria and the principal grain food of the work animals.
The grain is first washed in cold water and then poured into a kettle with four times its volume of boiling water and cooked for an hour, without salt, as with rice.
It is eaten with chopsticks with boiled or salted vegetables.
He states that an ordinary servant requires about two pounds of this grain per day, and that a workman at heavy labor will take double the amount.
A Chinese friend of his, keeping five servants, supplied them with 240 pounds of millet per month, together with 16 pounds of native flour, regarded as sufficient for two days, and meat for two days, the amount not being stated.
Two of the small millets (Setaria italica, and Panicum milliaceum), wheat, maize and buckwheat are other grains which are used as food but chiefly to give variety and change of diet.
Very large quantities of matting and wrappings are also made from the leaves of the large millet, which serve many purposes corresponding with the rice mattings and bags of Japan and southern China.
The small millets, in Shantung, yield as high as 2700 pounds of seed and 4800 pounds of straw per acre.
In Japan, in the year 1906, there were grown 737,719 acres of foxtail, barnyard and proso millet, yielding 17,084,000 bushels of seed or an average of twenty-three bushels per acre.
In addition to the millets, Japan grew, the same year, 5,964,300 bushels of buckwheat on 394,523 acres, or an average of fifteen bushels per acre.
The next engraving, Fig.
205, shows a crop of millet already six inches high planted between rows of windsor beans which had matured about the middle of June.
The leaves had dropped, the beans had been picked from the stems, and a little later, when the roots had had time to decay the bean stems would be pulled and tied in bundles for use as fuel or for fertilizer.
We had reached Mukden thoroughly tired after a long day of continuous close observation and writing.
The Astor House, where we were to stop, was three miles from the station and the only conveyance to meet the train was a four-seated springless, open, semi-baggage carryall and it was a full hour lumbering its way to our hotel.
But here as everywhere in the Orient the foreigner meets scenes and phases of life competent to divert his attention from almost any discomfort.
Nothing could be more striking than the peculiar mode the Manchu ladies have of dressing their hair, seen in Fig.
206, many instances of which were passed on the streets during this early evening ride.
It was fearfully and wonderfully done, laid in the smoothest, glossiest black, with nearly the lateral spread of the tail of a turkey cock and much of the backward curve of that of the rooster; far less attractive than the plainer, refined, modest, yet highly artistic style adopted by either Chinese or Japanese ladies.
The journey from Mukden to Antung required two days, the train stopping for the night at Tsaohokow.
Our route lay most of the way through mountainous or steep hilly country and our train was made up of diminutive coaches drawn by a tiny engine over a three-foot two-inch narrow gauge track of light rails laid by the Japanese during the war with Russia, for the purpose of moving their armies and supplies to the hotly contested fields in the Liao and Sungari plains.
Many of the grades were steep, the curves sharp, and in several places it was necessary to divide the short train to enable the engines to negotiate them.
To the southward over the Liao plain the crops were almost exclusively millet and soy beans, with a little barley, wheat, and a few oats.
Between Mukden and the first station across the Hun river we had passed twenty-four good sized fields of soy beans on one side of the river and twenty-two on the other, and before reaching the hilly country, after travelling a distance of possibly fifteen miles, we had passed 309 other and similar fields close along the track.
In this distance also we had passed two of the monuments erected by the Japanese, marking sites of their memorable battles.
These fields were everywhere flat, lying from sixteen to twenty feet above the beds of the nearly dry streams, and the cultivation was mostly being done with horses or cattle.
After leaving the plains country the railway traversed a narrow winding valley less than a mile wide, with gradient so steep that our train was divided.
Fully sixty per cent of the hill slopes were cultivated nearly to the summit and yet rising apparently more than one in three to five feet, and the uncultivated slopes were closely wooded with young trees, few more than twenty to thirty feet high, but in blocks evidently of different ages.
Beyond the pass many of the cultivated slopes have walled terraces.
We crossed a large stream where railway ties were being rafted down the river.
Just beyond this river the train was again divided to ascend a gradient of one in thirty, reaching the summit by five times switching back, and matched on the other side of the pass by a down grade of one in forty.
At many of the farm houses in the narrow valleys along the way large rectangular, flat topped compost piles were passed, thirty to forty inches high and twenty, thirty, forty and even in one case as much as sixty feet square on the ground.
More and more it became evident that these mountain and hill lands were originally heavily wooded and that the new growth springs up quickly, developing rapidly.
It was clear also that the custom of cutting over these wooded areas at frequent intervals is very old, not always in the same stage of growth but usually when the trees are quite small.
Considerable quantities of cordwood were piled at the stations along the railway and were being loaded on the cars.
This was always either round wood or sticks split but once; and much charcoal, made mostly from round wood or sticks split but once, was being shipped in sacks shaped like those used for rice, seen in Fig.
180.
Some strips of the forest growth had been allowed to stand undisturbed apparently for twenty or more years, but most areas have been cut at more frequent intervals, often apparently once in three to five, or perhaps ten, years.
At several places on the rapid streams crossed, prototypes of the modern turbine water-wheel were installed, doing duty grinding beans or grain.
As with native machinery everywhere in China, these wheels were reduced to the lowest terms and the principle put to work almost unclothed.
These turbines were of the downward discharge type, much resembling our modern windmills, ten to sixteen feet in diameter, set horizontally on a vertical axis rising through the floor of the mill, with the vanes surrounded by a rim, the water dropping through the wheel, reacting when reflected from the obliquely set vanes.
American engineers and mechanics would pronounce these very crude, primitive and inefficient.
A truer view would regard them as examples of a masterful grasp of principle by some, man who long ago saw the unused energy of the stream and succeeded thus in turning it to account.
Both days of our journey had been bright and very warm and, although we took the train early in the morning at Mukden, a young Japanese anticipated the heat, entering the train clad only in his kimono and sandals, carrying a suitcase and another bundle.
He rode all day, the most comfortably, if immodestly, clad man on the train, and the next morning took his seat in front of us clad in the same garb, but before the train reached Antung he took down his suitcase and then and there, deliberately attired himself in a good foreign suit, folding his kimono and packing it away with his sandals.
From Antung we crossed the Yalu on the ferry to New Wiju at 6:30 A. M., June 22, and were then in quite a different country and among a very different people, although all of the railway officials, employes, police and guards were Japanese, as they had been from Mukden.
At Antung and New Wiju the Yalu is a very broad slow stream resembling an arm of the sea more than a river, reminding one of the St. Johns at Jacksonville, Florida.
June 22nd proved to be one of the national festival days in Korea, called "Swing day", and throughout our entire ride to Seoul the fields were nearly all deserted and throngs of people, arrayed in gala dress, appeared all along the line of the railway, sometimes congregating in bodies of two to three thousand or more, as seen in Fig.
207.
Many swings had been hung and were being enjoyed by the young people.
Boys and men were bathing in all sorts of "swimming holes" and places.
So too, there were many large open air gatherings being addressed by public speakers, one of which is seen in Fig.
208.
Nearly everyone was dressed in white outer garments made from some fabric which although not mosquito netting was nearly as open and possessed of a remarkable stiffness which seemed to take and retain every dent with astonishing effect and which was sufficiently transparent to reveal a third undergarment.
The full outstanding skirts of five Korean women may be seen in Fig.
209, and the trousers which went with these were proportionately full but tied close about the ankles.
The garments seemed to be possessed of a powerful repulsion which held them quite apart and away from the person, no doubt contributing much to comfort.
It was windy but one of those hot sultry, sticky days, and it made one feel cool to see these open garments surging in the wind.
The Korean men, like the Chinese, wear the hair long but not braided in a queue.
No part of the head is shaved but the hair is wound in a tight coil on the top of the head, secured by a pin which, in the case of the Korean who rode in our coach from Mukden to Antung, was a modern, substantial tenpenny wire nail.
The tall, narrow, conical crowns of the open hats, woven from thin bamboo splints, are evidently designed to accommodate this style of hair dressing as well as to be cool.
Here, too, as in China and Manchuria, nearly all crops are planted in rows, including the cereals, such as wheat, rye, barley and oats.
We traversed first a flat marshy country with sandy soil and water not more than four feet below the surface where, on the lowest areas a close ally of our wild flower-de-luce was in bloom.
Wheat was coining into head but corn and millet were smaller than in Manchuria.
We had left New Wiju at 7:30 in the morning and at 8:15 we passed from the low land into a hill country with narrow valleys.
Scattering young pine, seldom more than ten to twenty-five feet high, occupied the slopes and as we came nearer the hills were seen to be clothed with many small oak, the sprouts clearly not more than one or two years old.
Roofs of dwellings in the country were usually thatched with straw laid after the manner of shingles, as may be seen in Fig.
210, where the hills beyond show the low tree growth referred to, but here unusually dense.
Bundles of pine boughs, stacked and sheltered from the weather, were common along the way and evidently used for fuel.
At 8:25 we passed through the first tunnel and there were many along the route, the longest requiring thirty seconds for the passing of the train.
The valley beyond was occupied by fields of wheat where beans were planted between the rows.
Thus far none of the fields had been as thoroughly tilled and well cared for as those seen in China, nor were the crops as good.
Further along we passed hills where the pines were all of two ages, one set about thirty feet high and the others twelve to fifteen feet or less, and among these were numerous oak sprouts.
Quite possibly these are used as food for the wild silkworms.
In some places appearances indicate that the oak and other deciduous growth, with the grass, may be cut annually and only the pines allowed to stand for longer periods.
As we proceeded southward and had passed Kosui the young oak sprouts were seen to cover the hills, often stretching over the slopes much like a regular crop, standing at a height of two to four feet, and fresh bundles of these sprouts were seen at houses along the foot of the slopes, again suggesting that the leaves may be for the tussur silkworms although the time appears late for the first moulting.
After we had left Seoul, entering the broader valleys where rice was more extensively grown, the using of the oak boughs and green grass brought down from the hill lands for green manure became very extensive.
After the winter and early spring crops have been harvested the narrow ridges on which they are grown are turned into the furrows by means of their simple plow drawn by a heavy bullock, different from the cattle in China but closely similar to those in Japan.
The fields are then flooded until they have the appearance seen in Fig.
12.
Over these flooded ridges the green grass and oak boughs are spread, when the fields are again plowed and the material worked into the wet soil.
If this working is not completely successful men enter the fields and tramp the surface until every twig and blade is submerged.
The middle section in this illustration has been fitted and transplanted; in front of it and on the left are two other fields once plowed but not fertilized; those far to the right have had the green manure applied and the ground plowed a second time but not finished, and in the immediate foreground the grass and boughs have been scattered but the second plowing is not yet done.
We passed men and bullocks coming from the hill lands loaded with this green herbage and as we proceeded towards Fusan more and more of the hill area was being made to contribute materials for green manure for the cultivated fields.
The foreground of Fig.
211 had been thus treated and so had the field in Fig.
212, where the man was engaged in tramping the dressing beneath the surface.
In very many cases this material was laid along the margin of the paddies; in other cases it had been taken upon the fields as soon as the grain was cut and was lying in piles among the bundles; while in still other cases the material for green manure had been carried between the rows while the grain was still standing, but nearly ready to harvest.
In some fields a full third of a bushel of the green stuff had been laid down at intervals of three feet over the whole area.
In other cases piles of ashes alternated with those of herbage, and again manure and ashes mixed had been distributed in alternate piles with the green manure.
In still other cases we saw untreated straw distributed through the fields awaiting application.
At Shindo this, straw had the appearance of having been dipped in or smeared with some mixture, apparently of mud and ashes or possibly of some compost which had been worked into a thin paste with water.
After passing Keizan, mountain herbage had been brought down from the hills in large bales on cleverly constructed racks saddled to the backs of bullocks, and in one field we saw a man who had just come to his little field with an enormous load borne upon his easel-like packing appliance.
Thus we find the Koreans also adopting the rice crop, which yields heavily under conditions of abundant water; we find them supplementing a heavy summer rainfall with water from their hills, and bringing to their fields besides both green herbage for humus and organic matter, and ashes derived from the fuel coming also from the hills, in these ways making good the unavoidable losses, through intense cropping.
The amount of forest growth in Korea, as we saw it, in proximity to the cultivated valleys, is nowhere large and is fairly represented in Figs.
210, 213 and 214.
There were clear evidences of periodic cutting and considerable, amounts of cordwood split from timber a foot through were being brought to the stations on the backs of cattle.
In some places there was evident and occasionally very serious soil erosion, as may be seen in Fig.
214, one such region being passed just before reaching Kinusan, but generally the hills are well rounded and covered with a low growth of shrubs and herbaceous plants.
Southernmost Korea has the latitude of the northern boundary of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, while the northeast corner attains that of Madison, Wisconsin, and the northern boundary of Nebraska, the country thus spanning some nine degrees and six hundred miles of latitude.
It has an area of some 82,000 square miles, about equaling the state of Minnesota, but much of its surface is occupied by steep hill and mountain land.
The rainy season had not yet set in, June 23rd.
Wheat and the small grains were practically all harvested southward of Seoul and the people were everywhere busy with their flails threshing in the open, about the dwellings or in the fields, four flails often beating together on the same lot of grain.
As we journeyed southward the valleys and the fields became wider and more extensive, and the crops, as well as the cultural methods, were clearly much better.
Neither the foot-power, animal-power, nor the wooden chain pump of the Chinese were observed in Korea in use for lifting water, but we saw many instances of the long handled, spoonlike swinging scoop hung over the water by a cord from tall tripods, after the manner seen in Fig.
215, each operated by one man and apparently with high efficiency for low lifts.
Two instances also were observed of the form of lift seen in Fig.
173, where the man walks the circumference of the wheel, so commonly observed in Japan.
Much hemp was being grown in southern Korea but everywhere on very small isolated areas which flecked the landscape with the deepest green, each little field probably representing the crop of a single family.
It was 6:30 P. M. when our train reached Fusan after a hot and dusty ride.
The service had been good and fairly comfortable but the ice-water tanks of American trains were absent, their place being supplied by cooled bottled waters of various brands, including soda-water, sold by Japanese boys at nearly every important station.
Close connection was made by trains with steamers to and from Japan and we went directly on board the Iki Maru which was to weigh anchor for Moji and Shimonoseki at 8 P. M. Although small, the steamer was well equipped, providing the best of service.
We were fortunate in having a smooth passage, anchoring at 6:30 the next morning and making close connection with the train for Nagasaki, landing at the wharf with the aid of a steam launch.
Our ride by train through the island of Kyushu carried us through scenes not widely different from those we had just left.
The journey was continuously among fields of rice, with Korean features strongly marked but usually under better and more intensified culture, and the season, too, was a little more advanced.
Here the plowing was being done mostly with horses instead of the heavy bullocks so exclusively employed in Korea.
Coming from China into Korea, and from there into Japan, it appeared very clear that in agricultural methods and appliances the Koreans and Japanese are more closely similar than the Chinese and Koreans, and the more we came to see of the Japanese methods the more strongly the impression became fixed that the Japanese had derived their methods either from the Koreans or the Koreans had taken theirs more largely from Japan than from China.
It was on this ride from Moji to Nagasaki that we were introduced to the attractive and very satisfactory manner of serving lunches to travelers on the trains in Japan.
At important stations hot tea is brought to the car windows in small glazed, earthenware teapots provided with cover and bail, and accompanied with a teacup of the same ware.
The set and contents could be purchased for five sen, two and a half cents, our currency.
All tea is served without milk or sugar.
The lunches were very substantial and put together in a neat sanitary manner in a three-compartment wooden box, carefully made from clear lumber joined with wooden pegs and perfect joints.
Packed in the cover we found a paper napkin, toothpicks and a pair of chopsticks.
In the second compartment there were thin slices of meat, chicken and fish, together with bamboo sprouts, pickles, cakes and small bits of salted vegetables, while the lower and chief compartment was filled with rice cooked quite stiff and without salt, as is the custom in the three countries.
The box was about six inches long, four inches deep and three and a half inches wide.
These lunches are handed to travelers neatly wrapped in spotless thin white paper daintily tied with a bit of color, all in exchange for 25 sen,--12.5 cents.
Thus for fifteen cents the traveler is handed, through the car window, in a respectful manner, a square meal which he may eat at his leisure.
XVII RETURN TO JAPAN We had returned to Japan in the midst of the first rainy season, and all the day through, June 25th, and two nights, a gentle rain fell at Nagasaki, almost without interruption.
Across the narrow street from Hotel Japan were two of its guest houses, standing near the front of a wall-faced terrace rising twenty-eight feet above the street and facing the beautiful harbor.
They were accessible only by winding stone steps shifting on paved landings to continue the ascent between retaining walls overhung with a wealth of shrubbery clothed in the densest foliage, so green and liquid in the drip of the rain, that one almost felt like walking edgewise amid stairs lest the drip should leave a stain.
Over such another series of steps, but longer and more winding, we found our way to the American Consulate where in the beautifully secluded quarters Consul-General Scidmore escaped many annoyances of settling the imagined petty grievances arising between American tourists and the ricksha boys.
Through the kind offices of the Imperial University of Sapporo and of the National Department of Agriculture and Commerce, Professor Tokito met us at Nagasaki, to act as escort through most of the journey in Japan.
Our first visit was to the prefectural Agricultural Experiment Station at Nagasaki.
There are four others in the four main islands, one to an average area of 4280 square miles, and to each 1,200,000 people.
The island of Kyushu, whose latitude is that of middle Mississippi and north Louisiana, has two rice harvests, and gardeners at Nagasaki grow three crops, each year.
The gardener and his family work about five tan, or a little less than one and one-quarter acres, realizing an annual return of some $250 per acre.
To maintain these earnings fertilizers are applied rated worth $60 per acre, divided between the three crops, the materials used being largely the wastes of the city, animal manure, mud from the drains, fuel ashes and sod, all composted together.
If this expenditure for fertilizers appears high it must be remembered that nearly the whole product is sold and that there are three crops each year.
Such intense culture requires a heavy return if large yields are maintained.
Good agricultural lands were here valued at 300 yen per tan, approximately $600 per acre.
When returning toward Moji to visit the Agricultural Experiment Station of Fukuoka prefecture, the rice along the first portion of the route was standing about eight inches above the water.
Large lotus ponds along the way occupied areas not readily drained, and the fringing fields between the rice paddies and the untilled hill lands were bearing squash, maize, beans and Irish potatoes.
Many small areas had been set to sweet potatoes on close narrow ridges, the tops of which were thinly strewn with green grass, or sometimes with straw or other litter, for shade and to prevent the soil from washing and baking in the hot sun after rains.
At Kitsu we passed near Government salt works, for the manufacture of salt by the evaporation of sea water, this industry in Japan, as in China, being a Government monopoly.
Many bundles of grass and other green herbage were collected along the way, gathered for use in the rice fields.
In other cases the green manure had already been spread over the flooded paddies and was being worked beneath the surface, as seen in Fig.
216.
At this time the hill lands were clothed in the richest, deepest green but the tree growth was nowhere large except immediately about temples, and was usually in distinct small areas with sharp boundaries occasioned by differences in age.
Some tracts had been very recently cut; others were in their second, third or fourth years; while others still carried a growth of perhaps seven to ten years.
At one village many bundles of the brush fuel had been gathered from an adjacent area, recently cleared.
A few fields were still bearing their crop of soy beans planted in February between rows of grain, and the green herbage was being worked into the flooded soil, for the crop of rice.
Much compost, brought to the fields, was stacked with layers of straw between, laid straight, the alternate courses at right angles, holding the piles in rectangular form with vertical sides, some of which were four to six feet high and the layers of compost about six inches thick.
Just before reaching Tanjiro, a region is passed where orchards of the candleberry tree occupy high leveled areas between rice paddies, after the manner described for the mulberry orchards in Chekiang, China.
These trees, when seen from a distance, have quite the appearance of our apple orchards.
At the Fukuoka Experiment Station we learned that the usual depth of plowing for the rice fields is three and a half to four and a half inches, but that deeper plowing gives somewhat larger yields.
As an average of five years trials, a depth of seven to eight inches increased the yield from seven to ten per cent over that of the usual depth.
In this prefecture grass from the bordering hill lands is applied to the rice fields at rates ranging from 3300 to 16,520 pounds green weight per acre, and, according to analyses given, these amounts would carry to, the fields from 18 to 90 pounds of nitrogen; 12.4 to 63.2 pounds of potassium, and 2.1 to 10.6 pounds of phosphorus per acre.
Where bean cake is used as a fertilizer the applications may be at the rate of 496 pounds per acre, carrying 33.7 pounds of nitrogen, nearly 5 pounds of phosphorus and 7.4 pounds of potassium.
The earth composts are chiefly applied to the dry land fields and then only after they are well rotted, the fermentation being carried through at least sixty days, during which the material is turned three times for aeration, the work being done at the home.
When used on the rice fields where water is abundant the composts are applied in a less fermented condition.
The best yields of rice in this prefecture are some eighty bushels per acre, and crops of barley may even exceed this, the two crops being grown the same year, the rice following the barley.
In most parts of Japan the grain food of the laboring people is about 70 per cent naked barley mixed with 30 per cent of rice, both cooked and used in the same manner.
The barley has a lower market value and its use permits a larger share of the rice to be sold as a money crop.
The soils are fertilized for each crop every year and the prescription for barley and rice recommended by the Experiment Station, for growers in this prefecture, is indicated by the following table: FERTILIZATION FOR NAKED BARLEY.
Pounds per acre.
Fertilizers.
N P K Manure compost 6,613 33.0 7.4 33.8 Rape seed cake 330 16.7 2.8 3.5 Night soil 4,630 26.4 2.6 10.2 Superphosphate 132 9.9 ---------------------Sum 11,705 76.1 22.7 47.5 FERTILIZATION FOR PADDY RICE.
Manure compost 5,291 26.4 5.9 27.1 Green manure, soy beans 3,306 19.2 1.1 19.6 Soy bean cake 397 27.8 1.7 6.4 Superphosphate 198 12.8 ---------------------Sum 9,192 73.4 21.5 53.1 ====== ===== ==== ===== Total for year 20,897 149.5 44.2 100.6 Where these recommendations are followed there is an annual application of fertilizer material which aggregates some ten tons per acre, carrying about 150 pounds of nitrogen, 44 pounds of phosphorus and 100 pounds of potassium.
The crop yields which have been associated with these applications on the Station fields are about forty-nine bushels of barley and fifty bushels of rice per acre.
The general rotation recommended for this portion of Japan covers five years and consists of a crop of wheat or naked barley the first two years with rice as the summer crop; in the third year genge, "pink clover" (Astragalus sinicus) or some other legume for green manure is the winter crop, rice following in the summer; the fourth year rape is the winter crop, from which the seed is saved and the ash of the stems returned to the soil, or rarely the stems themselves may be turned under; on the fifth and last year of the rotation the broad kidney or windsor bean is the winter crop, preceding the summer crop of rice.
This rotation is not general yet in the practice of the farmers of the section, they choosing rape or barley and in February plant windsor or soy beans between the rows for green manure to use when the rice comes on.
It was evident from our observations that the use of composts in fertilizing was very much more general and extensive in China than it was in either Korea or Japan, but, to encourage the production and use of compost fertilizers, this and other prefectures have provided subsidies which permit the payment of $2.50 annually to those farmers who prepare and use on their land a compost heap covering twenty to forty square yards, in accordance with specified directions given.
The agricultural college at Fukuoka was not in session the day of our visit, it being a holiday usually following the close of the last transplanting season.
One of the main buildings of the station and college is seen in Fig.
217, and Figs.
218, 219 and 220, placed together from left to right in the order of their numbers, form a panoramic view of the station grounds and buildings with something of the beautiful landscape setting.
There is nowhere in Japan the lavish expenditure of money on elaborate and imposing architecture which characterizes American colleges and stations, but in equipment for research work, both as to professional staff and appliances, they compare favorably with similar institutions in America.
The dormitory system was in vogue in the college, providing room and board at eight yen per month or four dollars of our currency.
Eight students were assigned to one commodious room, each provided with a study table, but beds were mattresses spread upon the matting floor at night and compactly stored on closet shelves during the day.
The Japanese plow, which is very similar to the Korean type, may be seen in Fig.
221, the one on the right costing 2.5 yen and the other 2 yen.
With the aid of the single handle and the sliding rod held in the right hand, the course of the plow is directed and the plow tilted in either direction, throwing the soil to the right or the left.
The nursery beds for rice breeding experiments and variety tests by this station are shown in Fig.
222.
Although these plots are flooded the marginal plants, adjacent to the free water paths, were materially larger than those within and had a much deeper green color, showing better feeding, but what seemed most strange was the fact that these stronger plants are never used in transplanting, as they do not thrive as well as those less vigorous.
We left the island of Kyushu in the evening of June 29th, crossing to the main island of Honshu, waiting in Shimonoseki for the morning train.
The rice-planted valleys near Shimonoseki were relatively broad and the paddies had all been recently set in close rows about a foot apart and in hills in the rows.
Mountain and hill lands were closely wooded, largely with coniferous trees about the base but toward and at the summits, especially on the South slopes, they were green only with herbage cut for fertilizing and feeding stock.
Many very small trees, often not more than one foot high, were growing on the recently cut-over areas; tall slender graceful bamboos clustered along the way and everywhere threw wonderful beauty into the landscape.
Cartloads of their slender stems, two to four inches in diameter at the base and twenty or more feet long, were moving along the generally excellent, narrow, seldom fenced roads, such as seen in Fig.
223.
On the borders and pathways between rice paddies many small stacks of straw were in waiting to be laid between the rows of transplanted rice, tramped beneath the water and overspread with mud to enrich the soil.
The farmers here, as elsewhere, must contend against the scouring rush, varieties of grass and our common pigweeds, even in the rice fields.
The large area of mountain and hill land compared with that which could be tilled, and the relatively small area of cultivated land not at this time under water and planted to rice persisted throughout the journey.
If there could be any monotony for the traveller new to this land of beauty it must result from the quick shifting of scenes and in the way the landscapes are pieced together, out-doing the craziest patchwork woman ever attempted; the bits are almost never large; they are of every shape, even puckered and crumpled and tilted at all angles.
Here is a bit of the journey: Beyond Habu the foothills are thickly wooded, largely with conifers.
The valley is extremely narrow with only small areas for rice.
Bamboo are growing in congenial places and we pass bundles of wood cut to stove length, as seen in Fig.
224.
Then we cross a long narrow valley practically all in rice, and then another not half a mile wide, just before reaching Asa.
Beyond here the fields become limited in area with the bordering low hills recently cut over and a new growth springing up over them in the form of small shrubs among which are many pine.
Now we are in a narrow valley between small rice fields or with none at all, but dash into one more nearly level with wide areas in rice chiefly on one side of the track just before reaching Onoda at 10:30 A. M. and continuing three minutes ride beyond, when we are again between hills without fields and where the trees are pine with clumps of bamboo.
In four minutes more we are among small rice paddies and at 10:35 have passed another gap and are crossing another valley checkered with rice fields and lotus ponds, but in one minute more the hills have closed in, leaving only room for the track.
At 10:37 we are running along a narrow valley with its terraced rice paddies where many of the hills show naked soil among the bamboo, scattering pine and other small trees; then we are out among garden patches thickly mulched with straw.
At 10:38 we are between higher hills with but narrow areas for rice stretching close along the track, but in two minutes these are passed and we are among low hills with terraced dry fields.
At 10:42 we are spinning along the level valley with its rice, but are quickly out again among hills with naked soil where erosion was marked.
This is just before passing Funkai where we are following the course of a stream some sixty feet wide with but little cultivated land in small areas.
At 10:47 we are again passing narrow rice fields near the track where the people are busy weeding with their hands, half knee-deep in water.
At 10:53 we enter a broader valley stretching far to the south and seaward, but we had crossed it in one minute, shot through another gap, and at 10:55 are traversing a much broader valley largely given over to rice, but where some of the paddies were bearing matting rush set in rows and in hills after the manner of rice.
It is here we pass Oyou and just beyond cross a stream confined between levees built some distance back from either bank.
At 11:17 this plain is left and we enter a narrow valley without fields.
Thus do most of the agricultural lands of Japan lie in the narrowest valleys, often steeply sloping, and into which jutting spurs create the greatest irregularity of boundary and slope.
The journey of this day covered 350 miles in fourteen hours, all of the way through a country of remarkable and peculiar beauty which can be duplicated nowhere outside the mountainous, rice-growing Orient and there only during fifteen days closing the transplanting season.
There were neither high mountains nor broad valleys, no great rivers and but few lakes; neither rugged naked rocks, tall forest trees nor wide level fields reaching away to unbroken horizons.
But the low, rounded, soil-mantled mountain tops clothed in herbaceous and young forest growth fell everywhere into lower hills and these into narrow steep valleys which dropped by a series of water-level benches, as seen in Fig.
225, to the main river courses.
Each one of these millions of terraces, set about by its raised rim, was a silvery sheet of water dotted in the daintiest manner with bunches of rice just transplanted, but not so close nor yet so high and over-spreading as to obscure the water, yet quite enough to impart to the surface a most delicate sheen of green; and the grass-grown narrow rims retaining the water in the basins, cemented them into series of the most superb mosaics, shaped into the valley bottoms by artizan artists perhaps two thousand years before and maintained by their descendants through all the years since, that on them the rains and fertility from the mountains and the sunshine from heaven might be transformed by the rice plant into food for the families and support for the nation.
Two weeks earlier the aspect of these landscapes was very different, and two weeks later the reflecting water would lie hidden beneath the growing and rapidly developing mantle of green, to go on changing until autumn, when all would be overspread with the ripened harvest of grain.
And what intensified the beauty of it all was the fact that only along the widest valley bottoms were the mosaics level, except the water surface of each individual unit and these were always small.
At one time we were riding along a descending series of steps and then along another rising through a winding valley to disappear around a projecting spur, and anywhere in the midst of it all might be standing Japanese cottages or villas with the water and the growing rice literally almost against the walls, as seen in Fig.
226, while a near-by high terrace might hold its water on a level with the chimney-tops.
Can one wonder that the Japanese loves his country or that they are born and bred landscape artists?
Just before reaching Hongo there were considerable areas thrown into long narrow, much-raised, east and west beds under covers of straw matting inclined at a slight angle toward the south, some two feet above the ground but open toward the north.
What crop may have been grown here we did not learn but the matting was apparently intended for shade, as it was hot midsummer weather, and we suspect it may have been ginseng.
It was here, too, that we came into the region of the culture of matting rush, extensively grown in Hiroshima and Okayama prefectures, but less extensively all over the empire.
As with rice, the rush is first grown in nursery beds from which it is transplanted to the paddies, one acre of nursery supplying sufficient stock for ten acres of field.
The plants are set twenty to thirty stalks in a hill in rows seven inches apart with the hills six inches from center to center in the row.
Very high fertilization is practiced, costing from 120 to 240 yen per acre, or $60 to $120 annually, the fertilizer consisting of bean cake and plant ashes, or in recent years, sometimes of sulphate of ammonia for nitrogen, and superphosphate of lime.
About ten per cent of the amount of fertilizer required for the crop is applied at the time of fitting the ground, the balance being administered from time to time as the season advances.
Two crops of the rush may be taken from the same ground each year or it is grown in rotation with rice, but most extensively on the lands less readily drained and not so well suited for other crops.
Fields of the rush, growing in alternation with rice, are seen in Fig.
45, and in Fig.
227, with the Government salt fields lying along the seashore beyond.
With the most vigorous growth the rush attain a height exceeding three feet and the market price varies materially with the length of the stems.
Good yields, under the best culture, may be as high as 6.5 tons per acre of the dry stems but the average yield is less, that of 1905 being 8531 pounds, for 9655 acres, The value of the product ranges from $120 to $200 per acre.
It is from this material that mats are woven in standard sizes, to be laid over padding, upholstering the floors which are the seats of all classes in Japan, used in the manner seen in Fig.
228 and in Fig.
229, which is a completely furnished guest room in a first class Japanese inn, finished in natural unvarnished wood, with walls of sliding panels of translucent paper, which may open upon a porch, into a hallway or into another apartment; and with its bouquet, which may consist of a single large shapely branch of the purple leaved maple, having the cut end charred to preserve it fresh for a longer time, standing in water in the vase.
"Two little maids I've heard of, each with a pretty taste, Who had two little rooms to fix and not an hour to waste.
Eight thousand miles apart they lived, yet on the selfsame day The one in Nikko's narrow streets, the other on Broadway, They started out, each happy maid her heart's desire to find, And her own dear room to furnish just according to her mind.
When Alice went a-shopping, she bought a bed of brass, A bureau and some chairs and things and such a lovely glass To reflect her little figure--with two candle brackets near-And a little dressing table that she said was simply dear!
A book shelf low to hold her books, a little china rack, And then, of course, a bureau set and lots of bric-a-brac; A dainty little escritoire, with fixings all her own And just for her convenience, too, a little telephone.
Some oriental rugs she got, and curtains of madras, With 'cunning' ones of lace inside, to go against the glass; And then a couch, a lovely one, with cushions soft to crush, And forty pillows, more or less, of linen, silk and plush; Of all the ornaments besides I couldn't tell the half, But wherever there was nothing else, she stuck a photograph.
And then, when all was finished, she sighed a little sigh, And looked about with just a shade of sadness in her eye: 'For it needs a statuette or so--a fern--a silver stork Oh, something, just to fill it up!'
said Alice of New York.
When little Oumi of Japan went shopping, pitapat, She bought a fan of paper and a little sleeping mat; She set beside the window a lily in a vase, And looked about with more than doubt upon her pretty face: 'For, really--don't you think so?--with the lily and the fan.
It's a little overcrowded!'
said Oumi of Japan."
(Margaret Johnson in St. Nicholas Magazine) In the rural homes of Japan during 1906 there were woven 14,497,058 sheets of these floor mats and 6,628,772 sheets of other matting, having a combined value of $2,815,040, and in addition, from the best quality of rush grown upon the same ground, aggregating 7657 acres that year, there were manufactured for the export trade, fancy mattings, having the value of $2,274,131.
Here is a total value, for the product of the soil and for the labor put into the manufacture, amounting to $664 per acre for the area named.
At the Akashi agricultural experiment station, under the Directorship of Professor Ono, we saw some of the methods of fruit culture as practiced in Japan.
He was conducting experiments with the object of improving methods of heading and training pear trees, to which reference was made on page 22.
A study was also being made of the advantages and disadvantages associated with covering the fruit with paper bags, examples of which are seen in Figs.
6 and 7.
The bags were being made at the time of our visit, from old newspapers cut, folded and pasted by women.
Naked cultivation was practiced in the orchard, and fertilizers consisting of fish guano and superphosphate of lime were being applied twice each year in amounts aggregating a cost of twenty-four dollars per acre.
Pear orchards of native varieties, in good bearing, yield returns of 150 yen per tan, and those of European varieties, 200 yen per tan, which is at the rate of $300 and $400 per acre.
The bibo, so extensively grown in China was being cultivated here also and was yielding about $320 per acre.
It was here that we first met the cultivation of a variety of burdock grown from the seed, three crops being taken each season where the climate is favorable, or as one of three in the multiple crop system.
It is grown for the root, yielding a crop valued at $40 to $50 per acre.
One crop, planted, in March, was being harvested July 1st.
During our ride to Akashi on the early morning train we passed long processions of carts drawn by cattle, horses or by men, moving along the country road which paralleled the railway, all loaded with the waste of the city of Kobe, going to its destination in the fields, some of it a distance of twelve miles, where it was sold at from 54 cents to $1.63 per ton.
At several places along our route from Shimonoseki to Osaka we had observed the application of slacked lime to the water of the rice fields, but in this prefecture, Hyogo, where the station is located, its use was prohibited in 1901, except under the direction of the station authorities, where the soil was acid or where it was needed on account of insect troubles.
Up to this time it had been the custom of farmers to apply slacked lime at the rate of three to five tons per acre, paying for it $4.84 per ton.
The first restrictive legislation permitted the use of 82 pounds of lime with each 827 pounds of organic manure, but as the farmers persisted in using much larger quantities, complete prohibition was resorted to.
Reference has been made to subsidies encouraging the use of composts, and in this prefecture prizes are awarded for the best compost heaps in each county, examinations being made by a committee.
The composts receiving the four highest awards in each county are allowed to compete with those in other counties for a prefectural prize awarded by another committee.
The "pink clover" grown in Hyogo after rice, as a green manure crop, yields under favorable conditions twenty tons of the green product per acre, and is usually applied to about three times the area upon which it grew, at the rate of 6.6 tons per acre, the stubble and roots serving for the ground upon which the crop grew.
On July 3rd we left Osaka, going south through Sakai to Wakayama, thence east and north to the Nara Experiment Station.
After passing the first two stations the route lay through a very flat, highly cultivated garden section with cucumbers trained on trellises, many squash in full bloom, with fields of taro, ginger and many other vegetables.
Beyond Hamadera considerable areas of flat sandy land had been set close with pine, but with intervening areas in rice, where the growers were using the revolving weeder seen in Fig.
14.
At Otsu broad areas are in rice but here worked with the short handled claw weeders, and stubble from a former crop had been drawn together into small piles, seen in Fig.
230, which later would be carefully distributed and worked beneath the mud.
Much of the mountain lands in this region, growing pine, is owned by private parties and the growth is cut at intervals of ten, twenty or twenty-five years, being sold on the ground to those who will come and cut it at a price of forty sen for a one-horse load, as already described, page 159.
The course from here was up the rather rapidly rising Kiigawa valley where much water was being applied to the rice fields by various methods of pumping, among them numerous current wheels; an occasional power-pump driven by cattle; and very commonly the foot-power wheel where the man walks on the circumference, steadying himself with a long pole, as seen in the field, Fig.
231.
It was here that a considerable section of the hill slope had been very recently cut over, the area showing light in the engraving.
It was in the vicinity of Hashimoto on this route, too, that the two beautiful views reproduced in Figs.
151 and 152 were taken.
At the experiment station it was learned that within the prefecture of Nara, having a population of 558,314, and 107,574 acres of cultivated land, two-thirds of this was in paddy rice.
Within the province there are also about one thousand irrigation reservoirs with an average depth of eight feet.
The rice fields receive 16.32 inches of irrigation water in addition to the rain.
Of the uncultivated hill lands, some 2500 acres contribute green manure for fertilization of fields.
Reference has been made to the production of compost for fertilizers on page 211.
The amount recommended in this prefecture as a yearly application for two crops grown is: Organic matter 3,711 to 4,640 lbs.
per acre Nitrogen 105 to 131 lbs.
per acre Phosphorus 35 to 44 lbs.
per acre Potassium 56 to 70 lbs.
per acre These amounts, on the basis of the table, p. 214, are nearly sufficient for a crop of thirty bushels of wheat, followed by one of thirty bushels of rice, the phosphorus being in excess and the potassium not quite enough, supposing none to be derived from other sources.
At the Nara hotel, one of the beautiful Japanese inns where we stopped, our room opened upon a second story veranda from which one looked down upon a beautiful, tiny lakelet, some twenty by eighty feet, within a diminutive park scarcely more than one hundred by two hundred feet, and the lakelet had its grassy, rocky banks over-hung with trees and shrubs planted in all the wild disorder and beauty of nature; bamboo, willow, fir, pine, cedar, red-leaved maple, catalpa, with other kinds, and through these, along the shore, wound a woodsy, well trodden, narrow footpath leading from the inn to a half hidden cottage apparently quarters for the maids, as they were frequently passing to and fro.
A suggestion of how such wild beauty is brought right to the very doors in Japan may be gained from Fig.
232, which is an instance of parking effect on a still smaller scale than that described.
On the morning of July 6th, with two men for each of our rickshas, we left the Yaami hotel for the Kyoto Experiment station, some two miles to the southwest of the city limits.
As soon as we had entered upon the country road we found ourselves in a procession of cart men each drawing a load of six large covered receptacles of about ten gallons capacity, and filled with the city's waste.
Before reaching the station we had passed fifty-two of these loads, and on our return the procession was still moving in the same direction and we passed sixty-one others, so that during at least five hours there had moved over this section of road leading into the country, away from the city, not less than ninety tons of waste; along other roadways similar loads were moving.
These freight carts and those drawn by horses and bullocks were all provided with long racks similar to that illustrated in Fig.
108, page 197, and when the load is not sufficient to cover the full length it is always divided equally and placed near each end, thus taking advantage of the elasticity of the body to give the effect of springs, lessening the draft and the wear and tear, One of the most common commodities coming into the city along the country roads was fuel from the hill lands, in split sticks tied in bundles as represented in Fig.
224; as bundles of limbs twenty-four to thirty inches, and sometimes four to six feet, long; and in the form of charcoal made from trunks and stems one and a half inches to six inches long, and baled in straw matting.
Most of the draft animals used in Japan are either cows, bulls or stallions; at least we saw very few oxen and few geldings.
As early as 1895 the Government began definite steps looking to the improvement of horse breeding, appointing at that time a commission to devise comprehensive plans.
This led to progressive steps finally culminating in 1906 in the Horse Administration Bureau, whose duties were to extend over a period of thirty years, divided into two intervals, the first, eighteen and the second, twelve years.
During the first interval it is contemplated that the Government shall acquire 1,500 stallions to be distributed throughout the country for the use of private individuals, and during the second period it is the expectation that the system will have completely renovated the stock and familiarized the people with proper methods of management so that matters may be left in their hands.
As our main purpose and limited time required undivided attention to agricultural matters, and of these to the long established practices of the people, we could give but little time to sight-seeing or even to a study of the efforts being made for the introduction of improved agricultural methods and practices.
But in the very old city of Kyoto, which was the seat of the Mikado's court from before 800 A. D. until 1868, we did pay a short visit to the Kiyomizu temple, situated some three hundred yards south from the Yaami hotel, which faces the Maruyaami park with its centuries-old giant cherry tree, having a trunk of more than four feet through and wide spreading branches, now much propped up to guard against accident, as seen in Fig.
233.
These cherry trees are very extensively used for ornamental purposes in Japan with striking effect.
The tree does not produce an edible fruit, but is very beautiful when in full bloom, as may be seen from Fig.
234.
It was these trees that were sent by the Japanese government to this country for use at Washington but the first lot were destroyed because they were found to be infested and threatened danger to native trees.
Kyoto stands amid surroundings of wonderful beauty, the site apparently having been selected with rare acumen for its possibilities in large landscape effects, and these have been developed with that fullness and richness which the greatest artists might be content to approach.
We are thinking particularly of the Kiyomizu-dera, or rather of the marvelous beauty of tree and foliage which has overgrown it and swept far up and over the mountain summit, leaving the temple half hidden at the base.
No words, no brush, no photographic art can transfer the effect.
One must see to feel the influence for which it was created, and scores of people, very old and very young, nearly all Japanese, and more of them on that day from the poorer rather than from the well-to-do class, were there, all withdrawing reluctantly, like ourselves, looking backward, under the spell.
So potent and impressive was that something from the great overshadowing beauty of the mountain, that all along up the narrow, shop-lined street leading to the gateway of the temple, seen in Fig.
235, the tiniest bits of park effect were flourishing in the most impossible situations; and as Professor Tokito and myself were coming away we chanced upon six little roughly dressed lads laying out in the sand an elaborate little park, quite nine by twelve feet.
They must have been at it hours, for there were ponds, bridges, tiny hills and ravines and much planting in moss and other little greens.
So intent on their task were they that we stood watching full two minutes before our presence attracted their attention, and yet the oldest of the group must have been under ten years of age.
One partly hidden view of the temple is seen in Fig.
236, the dense mountain verdure rising above and beyond it.
And then too, within the temple, as the peasant men and women came before the shrine and grasped the long depending rope knocker, with the heavy knot in front of the great gong, swinging it to strike three rings, announcing their presence before their God, then kneeling to offer prayers, one could not fail to realize the deep sincerity and faith expressed in face and manner, while they were oblivious to all else.
No Christian was ever more devout and one may well doubt if any ever arose from prayer more uplifted than these.
Who need believe they did not look beyond the imagery and commune with the Eternal Spirit?
A third view of the same temple, showing resting places beneath the shade, which serve the purpose of lawn seats in our parks, is seen in Fig.
237.
That a high order of the esthetic sense is born to the Japanese people; that they are masters of the science of the beautiful; and that there are artists among them capable of effective and impressive results, is revealed in a hundred ways, and one of these is the iris garden of Fig.
238.
One sees it here in the bulrushes which make the iris feel at home; in the unobtrusive semblance of a log that seems to have fallen across the run; in the hard beaten narrow path and the sore toes of the old pine tree, telling of the hundreds that come and go; it is seen in the dress and pose of the ladies, and one may be sure the photographer felt all that he saw and fixed so well.
The vender of Oumi's lily that Margaret Johnson saw, is in Fig.
239.
There another is bartering for a spray of flowers, and thus one sold the branch of red maple leaves in our room at the Nara inn.
His floral stands are borne along the streets pendant from the usual carrying pole.
When returning to the city from the Kyoto Experiment Station several fields of Japanese indigo were passed, growing in water under the conditions of ordinary rice culture, Fig.
240 being a view of one of these.
The plant is Poligonum tinctoria, a close relative of the smartweed.
Before the importation of aniline and alizarin dyes, which amounted in 1907 to 160,558 pounds and 7,170,320 pounds respectively, the cultivation of indigo was much more extensive than at present, amounting in 1897 to 160,460,000 pounds of the dried leaves; but in 1906 the production had fallen to 58,696,000 pounds, forty-five per cent of which was grown in the prefecture of Tokushima in the eastern part of the island of Shikoku.
The population of this prefecture is 707,565, or 4.4 people to each of the 159,450 acres of cultivated field, and yet 19,969 of these acres bore the indigo crop, leaving more than five people to each food-producing acre.
The plants for this crop are started in nursery beds in February and transplanted in May, the first crop being cut the last of June or first of July, when the fields are again fertilized, the stubble throwing out new shoots and yielding a second cutting the last of August or early September.
A crop of barley may have preceded one of indigo, or the indigo may be set following a crop of rice.
Such practice, with the high fertilization for every crop, goes a long way toward supplying the necessary food.
The dense population, too, has permitted the manufacture of the indigo as a home industry among the farmers, enabling them to exchange the spare labor of the family for cash.
The manufactured product from the reduced planting in 1907 was worth $1,304,610, forty-five per cent of which was the output of the rural population of the prefecture of Tokushima, which they could exchange for rice and other necessaries.
The land in rice in this prefecture in 1907 was 73,816 acres, yielding 114,380,000 pounds, or more than 161 pounds to each man, woman and child, and there were 65,665 acres bearing other crops.
Besides this there are 874,208 acres of mountain and hill land in the prefecture which supply fuel, fuel ashes and green manure for fertilizer; run-off water for irrigation; lumber and remunerative employment for service not needed in the fields.
The journey was continued from Kyoto July 7th, taking the route leading northeastward, skirting lake Biwa which we came upon suddenly on emerging from a tunnel as the train left Otani.
At many places we passed waterwheels such as that seen in Fig.
241, all similarly set, busily turning, and usually twelve to sixteen feet in diameter but oftenest only as many inches thick.
Until we had reached Lake Biwa the valleys were narrow with only small areas in rice.
Tea plantations were common on the higher cultivated slopes, and gardens on the terraced hillsides growing vegetables of many kinds were common, often with the ground heavily mulched with straw, while the wooded or grass-covered slopes still further up showed the usual systematic periodic cutting.
After passing the west end of the lake, rice fields were nearly continuous and extensive.
Before reaching Hachiman we crossed a stream leading into the lake but confined between levees more than twelve feet high, and we had already passed beneath two raised viaducts after leaving Kusatsu.
Other crops were being grown side by side with the rice on similar lands and apparently in rotation with it, but on sharp, narrow close ridges twelve to fourteen inches high.
As we passed eastward we entered one of the important mulberry districts where the fields are graded to two levels, the higher occupied with mulberry or other crops not requiring irrigation, while the lower was devoted to rice or crops grown in rotation with it.
On the Kisogawa, at the station of the same name, there were four anchored floating water-power mills propelled by two pair of large current wheels stationed fore and aft, each pair working on a common axle from opposite sides of the mill, driven by the force of the current flowing by.
At Kisogawa we had entered the northern end of one of the largest plains of Japan, some thirty miles wide and extending forty miles southward to Owari bay.
The plain has been extensively graded to two levels, the benches being usually not more than two feet above the rice paddies, and devoted to various dry land crops, including the mulberry.
The soil is decidedly sandy in character but the mean yield of rice for the prefecture is 37 bushels per acre and above the average for the country at large.
An analysis of the soils at the sub-experiment station north of Nagoya shows the following content of the three main plant food elements.
Nitrogen Phosphorus Potassium Pounds per million In paddy field Soil 1520 769 805 Subsoil 810 756 888 In upland field Soil 1060 686 1162 Subsoil 510 673 1204 The green manure crops on this plain are chiefly two varieties of the "pink clover," one sowed in the fall and one about May 15th, the first yielding as high as sixteen tons green weight per acre and the other from five to eight tons.
On the plain distant from the mountain and hill land the stems of agricultural crops are largely used as fuel and the fuel ashes are applied to the fields at the rate of 10 kan per tan, or 330 pounds per acre, worth $1.20, little lime, as such, being used.
In the prefecture of Aichi, largely in this plain, with an area of cultivated land equal to about sixteen of our government townships, there is a population of 1,752,042, or a density of 4.7 per acre, and the number of households of farmers was placed at 211,033, thus giving to each farmer's family an average of 1.75 acres, their chief industries being rice and silk culture.
Soon after leaving the Agricultural Experiment Station of Aichi prefecture at An Jo we crossed the large Yahagigawa, flowing between strong levees above the level of the rice fields.
Mulberries, with burdock and other vegetables were growing upon all of the tables raised one to two, feet above the rice paddies, and these features continued past Okasaki, Koda, and Kamagori, where the hills in many places had been recently cut clean of the low forest growth and where we passed many large stacks of pine boughs tied in bundles for fuel.
After passing Goyu sixty-five miles east from Nagoya, mulberry was the chief crop.
Then came a plain country which had been graded and leveled at great cost of labor, the benches with their square shoulders standing three to four feet above the paddy fields; and after passing Toyohashi some distance we were surprised to cross a rather wide section of comparatively level land overgrown with pine and herbaceous, plants which had evidently been cut and recut many times.
Beyond Futagawa rice fields were laid out on what appeared to be, similar land but with soil a little finer in texture, and still further along were other flat areas not cultivated.
At Maisaka quite half the cultivated fields appear to be in mulberry with ponds of lotus plants in low places, while at Hamamatsu the rice fields are interspersed with many square-shouldered tables raised three to four feet and occupied with mulberry or vegetables.
As we passed upon the flood plain of the Tenryugawa, with its nearly dry bed of coarse gravel half a mile wide, the dwellings of farm villages were, many of them surrounded with nearly solid, flat-topped, trimmed evergreen hedges nine to twelve feet high, of the umbrella pine, forming beautiful and effective screens.
At Nakaidzumi we had left the mulberry orchards for those of tea, rice still holding wherever paddies could be formed.
Here, too, we met the first fields of tobacco, and at Fukuroi and Homouchi large quantities of imported Manchurian bean cake were stacked about the station, having evidently been brought by rail.
At Kanaya we passed through a long tunnel and were in the valley of the Oigawa, crossing the broad, nearly dry stream over a bridge of nineteen long spans and were then in the prefecture of Shizuoka where large fields of tea spread far up the hillsides, covering extensive areas, but after passing the next station, and for seventeen miles before reaching Shizuoka we traversed a level stretch of nearly continuous rice fields.
The Shizuoka Experiment Station is devoting special attention to the interests of horticulture, and progress has already been made in introducing new fruits of better quality and in improving the native varieties.
The native pears and peaches, as we found them served on the hotel tables in either China or Japan, were not particularly attractive in either texture or flavor, but we were here permitted to test samples of three varieties of ripe figs of fine flavor and texture, one of them as large as a good sized pear.
Three varieties of fine peaches were also shown, one unusually large and with delicate deep rose tint, including the flesh.
If such peaches could be canned so as to retain their delicate color they would prove very attractive for the table.
The flavor and texture of this peach were also excellent, as was the case with two varieties of pears.
The station was also experimenting with the production of marmalades and we tasted three very excellent brands, two of them lacking the bitter flavor.
It would appear that, in Japan, Korea and China there should be a very bright future along the lines of horticultural development, leading to the utilization of the extensive hill lands of these countries and the development of a very extensive export trade, both in fresh fruits and marmalades, preserves and the canned forms.
They have favorable climatic and soil conditions and great numbers of people with temperament and habits well suited to the industries, as well as an enormous home need which should be met, in addition to the large possibilities in the direction of a most profitable export trade which would increase opportunities for labor and bring needed revenue to the people.
In Fig.
242 are three views at this station, the lower showing a steep terraced hillside set with oranges and other fruits, holding out a bright promise for the future.
Peach orchards were here set on the hill lands, the trees six feet apart each way.
They come into bearing in three years, remain productive ten to fifteen years, and the returns are 50 to 60 yen per tan, or at the rate of $100 to $120 per acre.
The usual fertilizers for a peach orchard are the manure-earth-compost, applied at the rate of 3300 pounds per acre, and fish guano applied in rotation and at the same rate.
Shizuoka is one of the large prefectures, having a total area of 3029 square miles; 2090 of which are in forest; 438 in pasture and genya land, and 501 square miles cultivated, not quite one-half of which is in paddy fields.
The mean yield of paddy rice is nearly 33 bushels per acre.
The prefecture has a population of 1,293,470, or about four to the acre of cultivated field, and the total crop of rice is such as, to provide 236 pounds to each person.
At many places along the way as we left Shizuoka July 10th for Tokyo, farmers were sowing broadcast, on the water, over their rice fields, some pulverized fertilizer, possibly bean cake.
Near the railway station of Fuji, and after crossing the boulder gravel bed of the Fujikawa which was a full quarter of a mile wide, we were traversing a broad plain of rice paddies with their raised tables, but on them pear orchards were growing, trained to their overhead trellises.
About.
Suduzuka grass was being cut with sickles along the canal dikes for use as green manure in the rice fields, which on the left of the railway, stretched eastward more than six miles to beyond Hara where we passed into a tract of dry land crops consisting of mulberry, tea and various vegetables, with more or less of dry land rice, but we returned to the paddy land again at Numazu, in another four miles.
Here there were four carloads of beef cattle destined for Tokyo or Yokohama, the first we had seen.
It was at this station that the railway turns northward to skirt the eastern flank of the beautiful Fuji-yama, rising to higher lands of a brown loamy character, showing many large boulders two feet in diameter.
Horses were here moving along the roadways under large saddle loads of green grass, going to the paddy fields from the hills, which in this section are quite free from all but herbaceous growth, well covered and green.
Considerable areas were growing maize and buckwheat, the latter being ground into flour and made into macaroni which is eaten with chopsticks, Fig.
243, and used to give variety to the diet of rice and naked barley.
At Gotenba, where tourists leave the train to ascend Fuji-yama, the road turns eastward again and descends rapidly through many tunnels, crossing the wide gravelly channel of the Sakawagawa, then carrying but little water, like all of the other main streams we had crossed, although we were in the rainy season.
This was partly because the season was yet not far advanced; partly because so much water was being taken upon the rice fields, and again because the drainage is so rapid down the steep slopes and comparatively short water courses.
Beyond Yamakita the railway again led along a broad plain set in paddy rice and the hill slopes were terraced and cultivated nearly to their summits.
Swinging strongly southeastward, the coast was reached at Noduz in a hilly country producing chiefly vegetables, mulberry and tobacco, the latter crop being extensively grown eastward nearly to Oiso, beyond which, after a mile of sweet potatoes, squash and cucumbers, there were paddy fields of rice in a flat plain.
Before Hiratsuka was reached the rice paddies were left and the train was crossing a comparatively flat country with a sandy, sometimes gravelly, soil where mulberries, peaches, eggplants, sweet potatoes and dry land rice were interspersed with areas still occupied with small pine and herbaceous growth or where small pine had been recently set.
Similar conditions prevailed after we had crossed the broad channel of the Banyugawa and well toward and beyond Fujishiwa where a leveled plain has its tables scattered among the fields of paddy rice, this being the southwest margin of the Tokyo plain, the largest in Japan, lying in five prefectures, whose aggregate area of 1,739,200 acres of arable lands was worked by 657,235 families of farmers; 661,613 acres of which was in paddy rice, producing annually some 19,198,000 bushels, or 161 pounds for each of the 7,194,045 men, women and children in the five prefectures, 1,818,655 of whom were in the capital city, Tokyo.
Three views taken in the eastern portion of this plain in the prefecture of Chiba, July 17th, are seen in Fig.
244, in two of which shocks of wheat were still standing in the fields among the growing crops, badly weathered and the grain sprouting as the result of the rainy season.
Peanuts, sweet potatoes and millet were the main dry land, crops then on the ground, with paddy rice in the flooded basins.
Windsor beans, rape, wheat and barley had been harvested.
One family with whom we talked were threshing their wheat.
The crop had been a good one and was yielding between 38.5 and.
41.3 bushels per acre, worth at the time $35 to $40.
On the same land this farmer secures a yield of 352 to 361 bushels of potatoes, which at the market price at that time would give a gross earning of $64 to $66 per acre.
Reference has been made to the extensive use of straw in the cultural methods of the Japanese.
This is notably the case in their truck garden work, and two phases of this are shown in Fig.
245.
In the lower section of the illustration the garden has been ridged and furrowed for transplanting, the sets have been laid and the roots covered with a little soil; then, in the middle section, showing the next step in the method, a layer of straw has been pressed firmly above the roots, and in the final step this would be covered with earth.
Adopting this method the straw is so placed that (1) it acts as an effective mulch without in any way interfering with the capillary rise of water to the roots of the sets; (2) it gives deep, thorough aeration of the soil, at the same time allowing rains to penetrate quickly, drawing the air after it; (3) the ash ingredients carried in the straw are leached directly to the roots where they are needed; (4) and finally the straw and soil constitute a compost where the rapid decay liberates plant food gradually and in the place where it will be most readily available.
The upper section of the illustration shows rows of eggplants very heavily mulched with coarse straw, the quantity being sufficient to act as a most effective mulch, to largely prevent the development of weeds and to serve during the rainy season as a very material fertilizer.
In growing such dry land crops as barley, beans, buckwheat or dry land rice the soil of the field is at first fitted by plowing or spading, then furrowed deeply where the rows are to be planted.
Into these furrows fertilizer is placed and covered with a layer of earth upon which the seed is planted.
When the crop is up, if a second fertilization is desired, a furrow may be made alongside each row, into which the fertilizer is sowed and then covered.
When the crop is so far matured that a second may be planted, a new furrow is made, either midway between two others or adjacent to one of them, fertilizer applied and covered with a layer of soil and the seed planted.
In this way the least time possible is lost during the growing season, all of the soil of the field doing duty in crop production.
It was our privilege to visit the Imperial Agricultural Experiment Station at Nishigahara, near Tokyo, which is charged with the leadership of the general and technical agricultural research work for the Empire.
The work is divided into the sections of agriculture, agricultural chemistry, entomology, vegetable pathology, tobacco, horticulture, stock breeding, soils, and tea manufacture, each with their laboratory equipment and research staff, while the forty-one prefectural stations and fourteen sub-stations are charged with the duty of handling all specific local, practical problems and with testing out and applying conclusions and methods suggested by the results obtained at the central station, together with the local dissemination of knowledge among the farmers of the respective prefectures.
A comprehensive soil survey of the arable lands of the Empire has been in progress since before 1893, excellent maps being issued on a scale of 1 to 100,000, or about 1.57 inch-to the mile, showing the geological formations in eight colors with subdivisions indicated by letters.
Some eleven soil types are recognized, based on physical composition and the areas occupied by these are shown by means of lines and dots in black printed over the colors.
Typical profiles of the soil to depths of three meters are printed as insets on each sheet and localities where these apply are indicated by corresponding numbers in red on the map.
Elaborate chemical and physical studies are also being made in the laboratories of samples of both soil and subsoil.
The Imperial Agricultural Experiment Station is well equipped for investigation work along many lines and that for soils is notably strong.
In Fig.
246 may be seen a portion of the large immersed cylinders which are filled with typical soils from different parts of the Empire, and Fig.
247 shows a portion of another part of their elaborate outfit for soil studies which are in progress.
It is found that nearly all cultivated soils of Japan are acid to litmus, and this they are inclined to attribute to the presence of acid hydro-aluminum silicates.
The Island Empire of Japan stretches along the Asiatic coast through more than twenty-nine degrees of latitude from the southern extremity of Formosa northward to the middle of Saghalin, some 2300 statute miles; or from the latitude of middle Cuba to that of north Newfoundland and Winnipeg; but the total land area is only 175,428 square miles, and less than that of the three states of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.
Of this total land area only 23,698 square miles are at present cultivated; 7151 square miles in the three main islands are weed and pasture land.
Less than fourteen per cent of the entire land area is at present under cultivation.
If all lands having a slope of less than fifteen degrees may be tilled, there yet remain in the four main islands, 15,400 square miles to bring under cultivation, which is an addition of 65.4 per cent to the land already cultivated.
In 1907 there were in the Empire some 5,814,362 households of farmers tilling 15,201,969 acres and feeding 3,522,877 additional households, or 51,742,398 people.
This is an average of 3.4 people to the acre of cultivated land, each farmer's household tilling an average of 2.6 acres.
The lands yet to be reclaimed are being put under cultivation rapidly, the amount improved in 1907 being 64,448 acres.
If the new lands to be reclaimed can be made as productive as those now in use there should be opportunity for an increase in population to the extent of about 35,000,000 without changing the present ratio of 3.4 people to the acre of cultivated land.
While the remaining lands to be reclaimed are not as inherently productive as those now in use, improvements in management will more than compensate for this, and the Empire is certain to quite double its present maintenance capacity and provide for at least a hundred million people with many more comforts of home and more satisfaction for the common people than they now enjoy.
Since 1872 there has been an increase in the population of Japan amounting to an annual average of about 1.1 per cent, and if this rate is maintained the one hundred million mark would be passed in less than sixty years.
It appears probable however that the increased acreage put under cultivation and pasturage combined, will more than keep pace with the population up to this limit, while the improvement in methods and crops will readily permit a second like increment to her population, bringing that for the present Empire up to 150 millions.
Against this view, perhaps, is the fact that the rice crop of the twenty years ending in 1906 is only thirty-three per cent greater than the crop of 1838.
In Japan, as in the United States, there has been a strong movement from the country to the city as a natural result of the large increase in manufactures and commerce, and the small amount of land per each farmer's household.
In 1903 only .23 per cent of the population of Japan were living in villages of less than 500, while 79.06 per cent were in towns and villages of less than 10,000 people, 20.7 per cent living in those larger.
But in 1894 84.36 per cent of the population were living in towns and villages of less than 10,000, and only 15.64 per cent were in cities, towns and villages of over 10,000 people; and while during these ten years the rural population had increased at the rate of 640 per 10,000, in cities the increase had been 6,174 per 10,000.
Japan has been and still is essentially an agricultural nation and in 1906 there were 3,872,105 farmers' households, whose chief work was farming, and 1,581,204 others whose subsidiary work was farming, or 60.2 per cent of the entire number of households.
A like ratio holds in Formosa.
Wealthy land owners who do not till their own fields are not included.
Of the farmers in Japan some 33.34 per cent own and work their land.
Those having smaller holdings, who rent additional land, make up 46.03 per cent of the total farmers; while 20.63 per cent are tenants who work 44.1 per cent of the land.
In 1892 only one per cent of the land holders owned more than twenty-five acres each; those holding between twenty-five acres and five acres made up 11.7 per cent; while 87.3 per cent held less than five acres each.
A man owning seventy-five acres of land in Japan is counted among the "great landholders".
It is never true, however, except in the Hokkaido, which is a new country agriculturally, that such holdings lie in one body.
Statistics published in "Agriculture in Japan", by the Agricultural Bureau, Department of Agriculture and Commerce, permit the following statements of rent, crop returns, taxes and expenses, to be made.
The wealthy land owners who rent their lands receive returns like these: For paddy field, For upland field, per acre.
per acre.
Rent $27.98 $13.53 Taxes 7.34 1.98 Expenses 1.72 2.48 Total expenses $9.06 $4.46 Net profit 18.92 9.07 It is stated, in connection with these statistics, that the rate of profit for land capital is 5.6 per cent for the paddy field, and 5.7 per cent for the upland field.
This makes the valuation of the land about $338 and $159 per acre, respectively.
A land holder who owns and rents ten acres of paddy field and ten acres of upland field would, at these rates, realize a net annual income of $279.90.
Peasant farmers who own and work their lands receive per acre an income as follows: For paddy field, For upland field, per acre.
per acre.
Crop returns $55.00 $30.72 Taxes 7.34 1.98 Labor and expenses 36.20 24.00 ------------Total expense $43.54 $25.98 Net profit 11.46 4.74 The peasant farmer who owns and works five acres, 2.5 of paddy and 2.5 of upland field, would realize a total net income of $40.50.
This is after deducting the price of his labor.
With that included, his income would be something like $91.
Tenant farmers who work some 41 per cent of the farm lands of Japan, would have accounts something as follows: For paddy field, For upland field, 1 crop.
2 crops.
per acre.
per acre.
Crop returns $49.03 $78.62 $41.36 Tenant fee 23.89 31.58 13.52 Labor 15.78 25.79 14.69 Fertilization 7.82 17.30 10.22 Seed .82 1.40 1.57 Other expenses 1.69 2.82 1.66 ------------------Total expenses $50.00 $78.89 $41.66 Net profit --.97 --.27 --.30 This statement indicates that tenant farmers do not realize enough from the crops to quite cover expenses and the price named for their labor.
If the tenant were renting five acres, equally divided between paddy and upland field, the earning would be $73.00 or $99.73 according as one or two crops are taken from the paddy field, this representing what he realizes on his labor, his other expenses absorbing the balance of the crop value.
But the average area tilled by each Japanese farmer's household is only 2.6 acres, hence the average earning of the tenant household would be $37.95 or $51.86.
A clearer view of the difference in the present condition of farmers in Japan and of those in the United States may be gained by making the Japanese statement on the basis of our 160-acre farm, as expressed in the table below: For paddy field.
For upland field.
Total.
For 80 acres.
For 80 acres.
160 acres.
Crop returns $4,400.00 $2,457.60 $6,857.60 ---------------------------Taxes $587.20 $158.40 $745.60 Expenses 1,633.60 744.80 2,378.40 Labor 1,262.40 1,175.20 2,437.60 ---------------------------Total cost $3,488.20 $2,078.40 $5,561.60 Net return 916.80 379.20 1,296.00 Return including labor 2,179.20 1,554.40 3,783.60 In the United States the 160-acre farm is managed by and supports a single family, but in Japan, as the average household works but 2.6 acres, the earnings of the 160 acres are distributed among some 61 households, making the net return to each but $21.25, instead of $1296, and including the labor as earning, the income would be $39.96 more, or $60.67 per household instead of $3733.60, the total for a 160-acre farm worked under Japanese conditions.
These figures reveal something of the tense strain and of the terrible burden which is being carried by these people, over and above that required for the maintenance of the household.
The tenant who raises one crop of rice pays a rental of $23.89 per acre.
If he raises two crops he pays $31.58; if it is upland field, he pays $13.52.
To these amounts he adds $10.33, $21.52 or $13.45 respectively for fertilizer, seed and other expenses making a total investment of $34.22, $53.10 or $26.97 per acre, which would require as many bushels of wheat sold at a dollar a bushel to cover this cost.
In addition to this he assumes all the risks of loss from weather, from insects and from blight, in the hope that he may recoup his expenses and in addition have for his services $14.81, $25.52 or $14.39 for the season's work.
The burdens of society, which have been and still are so largely burdens of war and of government, with all nations, are reflected with almost blinding effect in the land taxes of Japan, which range from $1.98, on the upland, to $7.34 per acre on the paddy fields, making a quarter section, without buildings, carry a burden of $300 to $1100 annually.
Japan's budget in 1907 was $134,941,113, which is at the rate of $2.60 for each man, woman and child; $8.90 for each acre of cultivated land, and $23, for each household in the Empire.
When such is the case it is not strange that scenes like Fig.
248 are common in Japan today where, after seventy years, toil may not cease.
There is a bright, as well as a pathetic side to scenes like this.
The two have shared for fifty years, but if the days have been full of toil, with them have come strength of body, of mind and sterling character.
If the burdens have been heavy, each has made the other's lighter, the satisfaction fuller, the joys keener, the sorrows less difficult to bear; and the children who came into the home and have gone from it to perpetuate new ones, could not well be other than such as to contribute to the foundations of nations of great strength and long endurance.
Reference has been made to the large amount of work carried on in the farmers' households by the women and children, and by the men when they are not otherwise employed, and the earnings of this subsidiary work have materially helped to piece out the meagre income and to meet the relatively high taxes and rent.
[Illustration: SULPHUR ISLAND.
_Published Jany.
1.
1818. by John Murray, Albemarle Street, London._] ACCOUNT OF A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY TO THE WEST COAST OF COREA, AND THE GREAT LOO-CHOO ISLAND; WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING CHARTS, AND VARIOUS HYDROGRAPHICAL AND SCIENTIFIC NOTICES.
BY CAPTAIN BASIL HALL, ROYAL NAVY, F.R.S.
LOND.
& EDIN.
MEMBER OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF CALCUTTA, OF THE LITERARY SOCIETY OF BOMBAY, AND OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES AT BATAVIA.
AND A VOCABULARY OF THE LOO-CHOO LANGUAGE, BY H.J.
CLIFFORD, ESQ.
LIEUTENANT ROYAL NAVY.
LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET.
1818.
TO CAPTAIN MURRAY MAXWELL, Knight Companion to the Bath, TO WHOSE ABILITY IN CONDUCTING THIS VOYAGE, ZEAL IN GIVING ENCOURAGEMENT TO EVERY INQUIRY, SAGACITY IN DISCOVERING THE DISPOSITION OF THE NATIVES, AND ADDRESS IN GAINING THEIR CONFIDENCE AND GOOD WILL, IS TO BE ATTRIBUTED WHATEVER MAY BE FOUND INTERESTING OR USEFUL IN THE FOLLOWING PAGES, THIS WORK IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY THE AUTHORS.
PREFACE.
The following work contains a Narrative of the Voyage to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-choo Island; an Appendix, containing Nautical details; and a Vocabulary of the Language spoken at Loo-choo.
In drawing up the Narrative from journals written at the time, I have derived great assistance from notes made by Lieutenant H.J.
Clifford, of the Navy.
This officer obtained permission from the Admiralty to accompany me, though on half pay, and having no specific duty to perform, he was enabled to devote himself entirely to the acquisition of knowledge; and had it in his power to record many interesting occurrences of the voyage, which the numerous duties of my station left me but little leisure to observe or describe.
All the Charts, Tables, and Nautical Notices have been placed in an Appendix, in order to avoid the interruption which such details are apt to occasion when inserted in a journal; and the Nautical reader will perhaps consider it advantageous, to have this part of the subject set apart, and condensed, instead of being scattered over the pages of the narrative.
I am indebted to Mr. Clifford for very important assistance in collecting and arranging the materials which form this Appendix.
The northern part of the Chart of the Yellow Sea, given in the Appendix, was taken from a Chart by Captain Daniel Ross, of the Bombay marine, the scientific and able surveyor commanding the squadron which the Honourable East India Company, in the spirit of a liberal and enlarged policy, have employed for upwards of nine years, in surveying the China Seas.
The Vocabulary is exclusively compiled by Mr. Clifford, who took the greatest pains to collect words and sentences in common use; and though, from the shortness of our stay, this part of the work is necessarily incomplete, it is hoped that a future voyager will derive considerable assistance from it, in his intercourse with the natives.
The drawings of scenery and costume were made by Mr. William Havell, the eminent artist who accompanied the Embassy, from sketches taken on the spot, by Mr. C.W.
Browne, midshipman of the Alceste, and myself.
Nothing respecting the west side of Corea has hitherto been accurately known to Europeans.
The coast laid down in most Charts has been taken from the celebrated map of the Jesuits, which is very correct in what relates to China, but erroneous with respect to Corea.
The Jesuits, indeed, did not survey this country, but have inserted it in their map, I believe, from Japanese authorities.
Captain Broughton in his voyage to the North Pacific Ocean visited the South Coast of Corea, and his account of the inhabitants agrees with ours in most particulars.
The same distinguished voyager visited the Great Loo-choo Island in 1797, after having been shipwrecked near Typinsan, one of its dependant islands.
He was at Napakiang for a few days, and his account of the natives is highly interesting.
There is an article by Pere Gaubil, a missionary, on the subject of the Loo-choo Islands, in the 23d vol.
of the "Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses."
It is a translation from the official report of a Chinese embassador sent to Loo-choo by the Emperor Kang Hi; our opportunities, however, were not sufficient to enable us to judge of the accuracy of this curious memoir.
CONTENTS NARRATIVE.
CHAPTER I. H.M.S.
Alceste and Lyra leave the Yellow Sea on a Voyage of Discovery--Sir James Hall's Group on the Coast of Corea--Unsociable Character of the Natives--Hutton's Island--Interesting geological Structure--Anchor near the Main Land--Corean Chief's Visit--Objections made to Strangers landing--Distress of the Chief--His Character--Departure from Basil's Bay--Clusters of Islands--Murray's Sound--Deserted Corean Village--View from the Summit of a high Peak--Interview with the Coreans--Peculiarities of their Character--Language--Erroneous geographical Position of this Coast--Leave Corea Page 1 CHAPTER II.
Enter the Japan Sea--Sulphur Island--Volcano--See the Great Loo-choo Island--Lyra nearly wrecked--First Interview with the Natives--Anchor at Napakiang--Natives crowd on Board--Their interesting Appearance and Manners--Several Chiefs visit the Alceste--Land to make Observations--Astonishment of the Natives--Six Chiefs visit the Ships--Alceste and Lyra proceed farther in Shore--A Chief of high Rank waits upon Captain Maxwell--Return his Visit--Feast--Projected Survey of the Anchorage--Visit Reef Island--The Lyra sent to look for another Harbour--Arrangements for landing the Alceste's Stores--Description of the Temple and Garden--First Acquaintance with Mádera--Study of the Language 58 CHAPTER III.
The Lyra sent to survey the Island of Loo-choo--Discovery of Port Melville--Description of that Harbour, and the Villages on its Banks--Lyra nearly wrecked--Interview with Natives at the South Point--Return to Napakiang--Behaviour of the Natives at a Seaman's Funeral--Mádera's Character and Conduct--Sociable Habits of the Natives--Dinner given to the Chiefs of the Island by Captain Maxwell--Mádera's Behaviour on this Occasion--Two Women seen--A Lady of Rank visits the Boatswain's Wife--Captain Maxwell fractures his Finger--Loo-choo Surgeon--Concern of the Natives--Visit of the Prince--Discussion about the King of Loo-choo's Letter--Mádera appears in a new Character--Feast given by the Prince--List of Supplies given to the Ships--Behaviour of the Prince on taking Leave--Preparations for Departure--Mádera's Distress--Last Interview with the Chiefs--Brief Memorandums upon the Religion, Manners, and Customs of Loo-choo--Advice to a Stranger visiting this Island 135 APPENDIX.
Notice explanatory of a Chart of the Gulf of Pe-chee-lee v Notice to accompany the Chart of the West Coast of Corea x Notice to accompany the general Chart of the Great Loo-choo Island in the Japan Sea, and the Charts of Napakiang Roads and Port Melville xvii Observations made at the Observatory at Napakiang xxix Table of Observations made with Dr. Wollaston's Dip Sector: with an Engraving, and a Description of this Instrument, and Directions for its Use xxxi Meteorological Journal, from July to November 1816, while the Ships were in the Yellow and Japan Seas li Abstract of the Lyra's Voyage, from leaving England till her Return; shewing the Distance between the different Places at which she touched, and the Time taken in performing each Passage cix Geological Memorandum; being a Description of the Specimens of Rocks collected at Macao and the Ladrone Islands, on the Shores of the Yellow Sea, the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-choo Island cxix VOCABULARY.
PART I.--English and Loo-choo words.
PART II.--Sentences in English and Loo-choo, with a literal Translation.
Loo-choo and Japanese Numerals--Names of Persons at Napakiang--Names of Places--Days of the Moon--Orders of Rank--Tattoo Marks--Hours of the Day.
Comparison between the Japanese and Loo-choo Languages.
Comparison between the Loo-choo and Insu Languages.
Comparison between the Loo-choo, Japanese, and Insu Languages.
Corean Words.
DIRECTIONS FOR PLACING THE PLATES.
Sulphur Island, to face the Title Page.
Corean Chief and Secretary To face Page 16 Napakiang 77 Loo-choo Chief and his two Sons 97 Priest and Gentleman of Loo-choo 132 The Prince of Loo-choo 176 Scene after the Prince's Feast 196 Gentleman of Loo-choo in his Cloak 215 Bridge of Napakiang 222 APPENDIX.
Chart of the Gulf of Pe-chee-lee v Coast of Corea x Chart of the Great Loo-choo Island xix Napakiang Roads xxi Port Melville xxiv Wollaston's Dip Sector xxxiii * * * * * [Transcriber's note: The following errors have been corrected in the text.]
ERRATA.
Page 1, line 2 from bottom, for _11th August_, read _9th August_.
Page 60, top line, for _was_, read _saw_.
APPENDIX.
Meteorological Journal.--Longitude on the 1st Sept. for 124.20, read 124.48.
The longitudes in the Met.
Journ.
from the 3d to the 7th of Sept. inclusive are too small by 15'.
VOCABULARY.
For _Tatesee_, read _Tatsee_.
For _Teetesee_, read _Teetsee_.
For _Meetesee_, read _Meetsee_.
For _Eeotesee_, read _Eeotsee_.
For _Eeyatesee_, read _Eeyatsee_.
For _opposite_, read _under_, in the note on the word Hour.
[Transcriber's Note: a letter with a macron above it is denoted by [=x].]
VOYAGE TO THE WEST COAST OF COREA AND THE LOO-CHOO ISLANDS.
* * * * * CHAPTER I. H.M.S.
Alceste and Lyra leave the Yellow Sea on a Voyage of Discovery--Sir James Hall's Group on the Coast of Corea--Unsociable Character of the Natives--Hutton's Island--Interesting geological Structure--Anchor near the Main Land--Corean Chiefs Visit--Objections made to Strangers landing--Distress of the Chief--His Character--Departure from Basil's Bay--Clusters of Islands--Murray's Sound--Deserted Corean Village--View from the Summit of a high Peak--Interview with the Coreans--Peculiarities of their Character--Language--Erroneous geographical Position of this Coast--Leave Corea.
The embassy to China, under the Right Honourable Lord Amherst, left England in his Majesty's frigate Alceste, Captain Murray Maxwell, C.B., on the 9th of February, 1816, and landed near the mouth of the Pei-ho river, in the Yellow Sea, on the 9th of August.
Shortly afterwards the Alceste and Lyra sloop of war, which had accompanied the embassy, proceeded to the coast of Corea, the eastern boundary of the Yellow Sea; for as these ships were not required in China before the return of the Embassador by land to Canton, it was determined to devote the interval to an examination of some places in those seas, of which little or no precise information then existed.
The following pages give the details of this voyage.
1st of September.--This morning at daylight the land of Corea was seen in the eastern quarter.
Having stood towards it, we were at nine o'clock near three high islands, differing in appearance from the country we had left, being wooded to the top, and cultivated in the lower parts, but not in horizontal terraces as at the places we had last visited in China.
We proceeded to the southward of the group, and anchored in a fine bay at the distance of two or three miles from the southern island.
Shortly after anchoring, a boat came from the shore with five or six natives, who stopped, when within fifty yards of the brig, and looking at us with an air of curiosity and distrust, paid no attention to the signs which were made to induce them to come alongside.
They expressed no alarm when we went to them in our boat; and on our rowing towards the shore, followed us till we landed near a village.
The inhabitants came in a body to meet us, forming an odd assemblage, different in many respects from any thing we had seen; their colour was a deep copper, and their appearance forbidding, and somewhat savage.
Some men, who appeared to be superior to the rest, were distinguished by a hat, the brim of which was nearly three feet in diameter, and the crown, which was about nine inches high, and scarcely large enough to admit the top of the head, was shaped like a sugar-loaf with the end cut off.
The texture of this strange hat is of a fine open work like the dragon-fly's wing; it appears to be made of horse-hair varnished over, and is fastened under the chin by a band strung with large beads, mostly black and white, but occasionally red or yellow.
Some of the elderly men wore stiff gauze caps over their hair, which was formed into a high conical knot on the top of the head.
Their dress consisted of loose wide trowsers, and a sort of frock reaching nearly to the knee, made of a coarse open grass cloth, and on their feet neat straw sandals.
They were of the middle size, remarkably well made, and robust looking.
At first they expressed some surprise on examining our clothes, but afterwards took very little interest in any thing belonging to us.
Their chief anxiety was to get rid of us as soon as possible.
This they expressed in a manner too obvious to be mistaken; for, on our wishing to enter the village, they first made motions for us to go the other way; and when we persevered, they took us rudely by the arms and pushed us off.
Being very desirous to conciliate them, we shewed no impatience at this treatment; but our forbearance had no effect; and after a number of vain attempts to make ourselves understood, we went away not much pleased at their behaviour.
A Chinese[1], who accompanied us, was of no use, for he could not read what the Coreans wrote for him, though in the Chinese character; and of their spoken language he did not understand a word.
On leaving these unsociable villagers, we went to the top of the highest peak on the island, the ascent being easy by a winding foot-path.
From this elevation we saw a number of islands to the eastward, and the main land at a great distance beyond them.
The top of the hill being covered with soft grass and sweet-smelling shrubs, and the air, which had been of a suffocating heat below, being here cool and refreshing, we were tempted to sit down to our pic-nic dinner.
We returned by the other side of the hill; but there being no path, and the surface rocky and steep, and covered with a thick brushwood, we were not a little scratched and bruised before we reached a road which runs along the north face of the hill about midway.
By following this, we came to a spot from whence we were enabled to look down upon the village, without being ourselves perceived by the natives.
The women, who had deserted the village on our landing, had now returned; most of them were beating rice in wooden mortars, and they had all children tied on their backs.
On a sudden they quitted their work and ran off to their huts, like rabbits in a warren; and in a few minutes we saw one of the ship's boats row round the point of land adjacent to the village, which explained the cause of their alarm.
After remaining for some time in expectation of seeing the women again, we came down to the village, which the natives now permitted us to pass through.
On this occasion one of the gentlemen of our party saw, for an instant, a woman at no great distance, whose feet he declared were of the natural size, and not cramped as in China.
The village consists of forty houses rudely constructed of reeds plaistered with mud, the roofs are of all shapes, and badly thatched with reeds and straw, tied down by straw ropes.
These huts are not disposed in streets, but are scattered about without order, and without any neatness, or cleanliness, and the spaces between them are occupied by piles of dirt and pools of muddy water.
The valley in which this comfortless village is situated is, however, pretty enough, though not wooded; the hills forming it are of an irregular shape, and covered at top with grass and sweet-scented flowers; the lower parts are cultivated with millet, buckwheat, a kind of French bean, and tobacco, which last grows in great quantity; and here and there is a young oak-tree.
We saw bullocks and poultry, but the natives would not exchange them for our money, or for any thing we had to offer.
They refused dollars when offered as a present, and, indeed, appeared to set no value upon any thing we shewed them, except wine glasses; but even these they were unwilling to receive.
One of the head men appeared particularly pleased with a glass, which, after a good deal of persuasion, he accepted, but, in about five minutes after, he, and another man to whom a tumbler had been given, came back and insisted upon returning the presents; and then, without waiting for further persuasion, returned to the village, leaving with us only one man, who, as soon as all the rest were out of sight, accepted one of the glasses with much eagerness.
These people have a proud sort of carriage, with an air of composure and indifference about them, and an absence of curiosity which struck us as being very remarkable.
Sometimes when we succeeded, by dint of signs and drawings, in expressing the nature of a question, they treated it with derision and insolence.
On one occasion, being anxious to buy a clumsy sort of rake made of reeds, which appeared to me curious, I succeeded in explaining my wish to the owner, one of the lowest class of villagers; he laughed at first good humouredly, but immediately afterwards seized the rake which was in my hand, and gave it a rude push towards me with a disdainful fling of the arm, accompanying this gesticulation by words, which seemed to imply a desire to give any thing upon condition of our going away.
One man expressed the general wish for our departure, by holding up a piece of paper like a sail, and then blowing upon it in the direction of the wind, at the same time pointing to the ships, thereby denoting that the wind was fair, and that we had only to set sail and leave the island.
Several of the people were marked with the small-pox.
The children kept out of our reach at first, but before we went away, their fears had, in some degree, subsided, for the boys, who, from their feminine appearance, were mistaken at first for girls, accompanied us to some distance from the village.
Captain Maxwell named these islands Sir James Hall's group, in compliment to the President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
They lie in longitude 124º 46' E. and latitude 37º 50' N. At eight o'clock in the evening we weighed and stood to the southward, but as the coast was quite unknown, we kept rather off shore during the night, and in the morning no land was in sight.
On the 2d we stood to the eastward, but not having daylight enough to get in with the coast, it became necessary to anchor for the night, though in deep water.
3d of September.--Having reached nearly lat.
36-1/3 N. and long.
126 E. we sailed this morning amongst a range of islands extending as far as the eye could reach, both to the southward and northward, at the distance of six or seven leagues from the main land.
By two o'clock we were close to the outer cluster of the islands, and the passages appearing clear between them, we sailed through and anchored inside.
While passing one of these islands in the ships, at no great distance, it looked so curiously formed, that, on anchoring, we went in the boats to examine its structure more minutely[2].
While we were thus engaged, the natives had assembled in a crowd on the edge of the cliff above us; they did not seem pleased with our occupation of breaking their rocks, for, from the moment we landed, they never ceased to indicate by shouts, screams, and all kinds of gesticulations, that the sooner we quitted the island the better; the cliff being 200 feet high, and nearly perpendicular, it was fortunate for us that they confined themselves to signs and clamour, and did not think of enforcing their wishes by a shower of stones.
As soon as we had completed our investigation of this spot, we went round in the boats to a small bay where there was good landing.
Here we were met by the natives, who addressed several long speeches to us in a very loud tone of voice; to which we replied in English, that our wish was merely to look at the island, without interfering with any body; at the same time we proceeded up a foot-path to the brow of a hill.
This the natives did not seem at all to relish, and they made use of a sign which was sufficiently expressive of their anxiety, though we could not determine exactly to whom it referred.
They drew their fans across their own throats, and sometimes across ours, as if to signify that our going on would lead to heads being cut off; but whether they or we were to be the sufferers was not apparent.
It was suggested by one of our party that they dreaded being called to account by their own chiefs for permitting us to land.
All these signs, however, did not prevent our advancing till we had reached the brow of the hill to which the path led; from this place we had a view of a village at the distance of half a mile, of a much better appearance than that above described.
Trees were interspersed among the houses, which were pleasantly situated at the bottom of a little cove, with fishing-boats at anchor near it.
We explained readily enough that our wish was to go to the village, but it was all in vain, for their anxiety increased every moment, and we desisted from any further attempts to advance.
The dress of these people is a loose white robe, cloth shoes, and a few wear the broad hats before described; by most the hair is tied in a high conical knot on the top of the head, but by others it is allowed to fly loose, so as to give them a wild appearance.
Some confine the short hair by a small gauze band with a star on one side, forming, along with the top knot, rather a becoming head-dress.
Their beards and whiskers which, apparently, had never been cut, and their fans and long tobacco-pipes, and their strange language and manners, gave a grotesque air to the whole group, which it is impossible to describe.
They crowded about us, and, by repeated shouts, manifested their surprise at the form and texture of our clothes; but on a watch being shewn, they disregarded every thing else, and entreated to be allowed to examine it closely.
It was evidently the first they had seen, and some of them while watching the second-hand, looked as if they thought it alive.
From the watch they proceeded to examine the seals and keys; with the former they shewed themselves acquainted by pressing them on their hands, so as to cause an impression.
Their attention was drawn away from the watch by our firing a musket, which made the whole party fall back several paces.
After amusing ourselves in this manner for some time, we walked back to the boats, to the great joy of the natives, who encouraged us by all means to hasten our departure.
They took our hands and helped us over the slippery stones on the beach; and, on perceiving one of the boats aground, several of them stript and jumped into the water to push her off.
This gave us an opportunity of observing their remarkable symmetry and firmness of limb; yet, as their long hair was allowed to flow about their neck and shoulders, their appearance was truly savage.
During this visit we saw no women; but the children came round us without shewing any symptoms of fear.
The people, upon the whole, are more free, and not so surly as our acquaintance on Sir James Hall's group.
They have a singular custom of speaking with a loud tone, amounting almost to a shout.
Captain Maxwell named this island after Dr. Hutton the geologist.
4th of September.--During all last night it remained perfectly calm.
At nine o'clock in the morning we got under weigh with a fine sea breeze, and stood in for the land, leaving on either hand many well cultivated islands.
The main land seems to be populous, from the number of large villages which we passed, and the cultivation which extends a considerable way up the mountains.
Our object this morning was to discover some safe anchoring place in the main land, but we were obliged to coast along for a considerable distance before any opening appeared.
About three o'clock we sailed round a point of land and discovered a bay, which, at first sight, promised shelter, but the water proved too shallow even for the Lyra, and we anchored far out in five fathoms.
The natives who had assembled in crowds on the point shouted to us as we passed, in seeming anger at our approaching so near.
This bay is about four miles in diameter, and is skirted by large villages built amongst trees, and surrounded by cultivated districts, forming altogether a scene of considerable beauty.
As soon as the Alceste had anchored, Captain Maxwell, Mr. Clifford, and I, went towards the nearest village in the bay.
On approaching the shore we observed a great bustle among the inhabitants on the shore, as well as in the boats at anchor off the village.
The people on the beach hastily jumped into canoes, whilst those in the large boats weighed the anchors, and pulled out with such expedition, as to meet us in a body before we were near the landing-place.
Every boat was crowded with people, and ornamented with numerous flags and streamers; but one of them being distinguished by a large blue umbrella, we steered towards it, on the supposition that this was an emblem of rank; in which opinion we were soon confirmed by the sound of music, which played only on board this boat.
On coming closer, we saw a fine patriarchal figure seated under the umbrella; his full white beard covered his breast, and reached below his middle; his robe or mantle, which was of blue silk, and of an immense size, flowed about him in a magnificent style.
His sword was suspended from his waist by a small belt, but the insignia of his office appeared to be a slender black rod tipped with silver, about a foot and a half long, with a small leather thong at one end, and a piece of black crape tied to the other: this he held in his hand.
His hat exceeded in breadth of brim any thing we had yet met with, being, as we supposed, nearly three feet across.
As this was evidently the chief of the party, we pulled alongside and got into his boat, where he received us with much politeness; but as he looked dissatisfied at this proceeding, we returned to our own boat, and there carried on the conference.
While we were endeavouring to make ourselves understood, the other boats gradually separated, and began to form a circle round us.
Apprehending treachery, we prepared our arms, and pushed off to a little distance.
The old gentleman, perceiving this, looked about very innocently to discover the cause of our alarm; and at length being made aware by our signs of what was the matter, he commanded all the boats to go to the other side.
We now remained a considerable time without being able to make ourselves understood; for the Chinese whom we had with us was quite ignorant of their language.
We endeavoured, by pointing to the shore, to signify our desire to land, while the old Chief, by similar signs, expressed his wish to go to the ships.
We accordingly rowed to the Lyra, which lay nearer to the shore than the Alceste.
When the Chief's boat was within ten yards of the brig, they let go their anchor, and threw a rope on board her, by which they drew the boat alongside in a very seaman-like style.
The old man did not find it an easy matter to get up the ship's side, encumbered as he was with his splendid robes; he was no sooner on board, however, than we were crowded with the natives, who boarded us on all sides.
Some climbed up the rigging, so as to overlook the quarter-deck; others got on the poop, and a line was formed along the hammock netting from one end of the brig to the other.
As the evening was fine, it was thought best to entertain the venerable Chief upon deck, rather than give him the trouble of going down to the cabin, which, indeed, we had reason to fear would prove too small for the party.
Chairs were accordingly placed upon the deck; but the Chief made signs that he could not sit on a chair, nor would he consent for a time to use his mat, which was brought on board by one of his attendants.
He seemed embarrassed and displeased, which we could not at the moment account for, though it has since occurred to us that he objected to the publicity of the conference.
At length, however, he sat down on his mat, and began talking with great gravity and composure, without appearing in the smallest degree sensible that we did not understand a single word that he said.
We of course could not think of interrupting him, and allowed him to talk on at his leisure; but when his discourse was concluded, he paused for our reply, which we made with equal gravity in English; upon this he betrayed great impatience at his harangue having been lost upon us, and supposing that we could, at all events, read, he called to his secretary, and began to dictate a letter.
The secretary sat down before him with all due formality, and having rubbed his cake of ink upon a stone, drawn forth his pen, and arranged a long roll of paper upon his knee, began the writing, which was at length completed, partly from the directions of the Chief, and partly from his own ideas, as well as the occasional suggestions of the bystanders.
The written part was then torn off from the scroll and handed to the Chief, who delivered it to me with the utmost confidence of its being understood: but his mortification and disappointment were extreme on perceiving that he had overrated our acquirements[3].
[Illustration: _Drawn by Wm.
Havell, Calcutta._ _Engraved by Robt Havell & Son._ COREAN CHIEF and his SECRETARY.
_Published Jany, 1, 1818, by John Murray, Albemarle Street, London._] A debate now appeared to take place between the Chief and his followers, as to the mode of communicating with us; meanwhile, as we ourselves were equally at a loss, we became anxious to relieve the old man's embarrassment, by shewing him all the attention in our power, and completely succeeded in putting him into a good humour, by giving him some cherry brandy, and distributing rum to his people.
While these attempts at explanation were going on, the crowd of natives increased, and their curiosity became so great, that they pressed round us in a way nowise agreeable.
Some of them roved about the ship, and appeared highly entertained with every thing they saw.
The Chief himself, however, did not appear at ease, but continued giving directions to his officers and people about him with an air of impatience.
He more than once ordered them all into their boats, but they always returned after a few minutes.
One man persevered in climbing over the hammocks, close to the Chief, to see what was going on.
The noise made to keep him back attracted the Chief's attention, who immediately gave orders to one of the attendants for his being taken away; it will be seen by and by what was his fate.
The persons forming the suite of the Chief were dressed nearly in the same manner as himself, excepting that their robes were white, and did not contain such a profusion of cloth.
They wore the large hats and wide trowsers tied above the ancle, with cotton shoes turned up a little at the toe.
The immediate attendants, who seemed also to be soldiers, were differently clothed: over a loose pink frock with wide sleeves, they have another which fits closer, and is without sleeves, the corners being tucked up, like the skirts of some military uniforms.
Their hat is a broad flat cone made of thick grass, the under part being embossed with different coloured silks, and from a gilt ornament on the peak there hangs a tassel made of peacock's feathers, and another of hair dyed red: some are armed with bows and arrows, others with only a straight sword, having no guard for the hand.
A coarse frock without sleeves, and trowsers, or rather drawers, covering the thigh, are worn by the lower orders.
It was nearly dark when the Chief gave directions for preparing the boats, at the same time calling to two of his attendants to assist him to get on his legs.
Each took an arm, and in this way succeeded in raising him up, which was no sooner observed by the people, than they jumped into their boats with the utmost alacrity, and the Chief, after many bows and salams, walked into his boat.
This did not give him so much trouble as he had experienced on coming on board, for a platform of gratings and planks had been prepared for his accommodation during his visit, an attention with which he seemed much pleased.
So far all seemed well; but there was still something amiss, for the old man, seated in state under his umbrella, remained alongside with his attendants ranged on the deck about him, he and his people preserving the most perfect silence, and making no signs to explain his wishes.
We were greatly puzzled to discover what the old gentleman wanted, till at length it was suggested, that having paid us a visit, he expected a similar compliment in return.
This idea was no sooner started, than we proceeded to pay our respects to him in his boat.
He made signs for us to sit down, honouring us at the same with a corner of his own mat.
When we were seated, he looked about as if in distress at having nothing to entertain us with, upon which a bottle of wine was sent for and given to him.
He ordered an attendant to pour it into several bowls, and putting the bottle away, made signs for us to drink, but would not taste it himself till all of us had been served.
He was nowise discomposed at being obliged to entertain his company at their own expense; on the contrary, he carried off the whole affair with so much cheerfulness and ease, as to make us suspect sometimes that he saw and enjoyed the oddity of the scene and circumstances, as fully as we did ourselves.
After sitting about ten minutes, we left the Chief in great good humour, and returned on board, thinking, of course, that he would go straight to the shore; but in this we were much mistaken, for we had no sooner left him, than he pushed off to the distance of ten or twelve yards, and calling the other boats round him, gave orders for inflicting the discipline of the bamboo upon the unfortunate culprit, who had been ordered into confinement during the conference.
This exhibition, which it was evidently intended we should witness, had a very ludicrous effect, for it followed so much in train with the rest of the ceremony, and was carried on with so much gravity and order, that it looked like an essential part of the etiquette.
During the infliction of this punishment, a profound silence was observed by all the party, except by five or six persons immediately about the delinquent, whose cries they accompanied by a sort of song or yell at each blow of the bamboo.
This speedy execution of justice was, no doubt, intended to impress us with high notions of Corean discipline.
As it was now quite dark, we did not expect the Chief to pay any more visits this evening; but we underrated his politeness, for the moment the above scene was concluded, he steered for the Alceste.
Captain Maxwell, who during all the time had been on board the Lyra, hurried into his boat to be prepared to give him a proper reception in his ship, and had just time to change his jacket for a coat and epaulettes before the Chief arrived.
After climbing up the ship's side with some difficulty, and being received in due form on the quarter-deck, which was lighted up, he was handed into the foremost cabin, where he was met by Captain Maxwell, and conducted to a seat in the after cabin.
As he declined sitting on a chair, he was obliged to wait for his mat, and, in the meantime, looked round him in amaze at the magnificence of the apartments.
The change of dress made him behave towards Captain Maxwell as to a perfect stranger; but the moment he recognised him, he appeared much amused with his mistake, and his manners became less reserved.
He now turned about to see what was become of his mat, and was astonished to find himself alone with us in the cabin.
It was then discovered that the sentry at the door, in repressing the crowd of his followers, had found it impossible to distinguish his more immediate attendants, and had therefore allowed nobody to pass.
The door being opened, the mat-bearer and four of the principal people were called in by the Chief; and when we were all fairly seated on the deck, the secretary was directed to prepare a writing, which was dictated and delivered much in the same manner as before.
Whether the presentation of a written paper was considered by the Chief as a necessary piece of etiquette, or whether he really had more hopes of being understood on this occasion than before, was quite uncertain; but the mode adopted by Captain Maxwell to undeceive him was conclusive.
He immediately called for paper, and wrote upon it in English, "I do not understand one word that you say," and presented this paper in return, with all the forms and ceremonies that had been adopted towards himself.
The Chief, on receiving it, examined the characters with great attention, and then made signs that it was wholly unintelligible, alternately looking at the paper and at Captain Maxwell with an inquiring air, and was only made sensible of the awkward dilemma in which we were placed, by observing Captain Maxwell repeat all his looks and gestures as equally applicable to the Corean writing which he held in his hand[4].
The Chief had now recourse to signs, which he used ever afterwards.
He was in great spirits, and seemed entertained with the efforts which were made to please him.
He asked to look at a mirror which had caught his attention; when it was put into his hands, he seemed very well satisfied with the figure which it presented, and continued for some time pulling his beard from side to side with an air of perfect complacency.
One of the attendants thought there could be no harm in looking at the mirror likewise, but the Chief was of a different opinion, and no sooner observed what he was doing, than he very angrily made him put down the glass and leave the cabin.
The secretary too fell under his displeasure, and was reprimanded with much acrimony for overlooking our paper when we were writing.
Scarcely five minutes elapsed, in short, during his stay, without his finding some cause of complaint against his people; but we could not determine whether this arose from mere captiousness, or was done to give us a higher notion of his consequence, because, in the intervals, he was all cheerfulness and good humour.
He was offered tea and cherry brandy, which he took along with us, and appeared at his ease in every respect.
We thought that he made signs, implying a wish for us to visit him on shore; to this we cheerfully assented, and an arrangement for landing in the morning was made accordingly by means of similar signs, with which the Chief appeared much pleased, and rose to go away.
He had not got much beyond the cabin-door, however, before the serenity of his temper was once more overturned.
On passing the gun-room sky-light, he heard the voices of some of his people whom the officers had taken below, and who were enjoying themselves very merrily amongst their new acquaintance.
The old Chief looked down, and observing them drinking and making a noise, he called to them in a loud passionate voice, which made them leave their glasses, and run up the ladder in great terror.
From thence the alarm spread along the lower deck, to the midshipmen's berth, where another party was carousing.
The grog and wine with which they had been entertained was too potent for this party, as they did not seem to care much for the old Chief, who, posting himself at the hatchway, ascertained, by personal examination, who the offenders were.
On this occasion, his little rod of office was of much use; he pushed the people about with it to make them speak, and used it to turn them round, in order to discover their faces.
One man watching his opportunity when the Chief was punching away at somebody who had just come up, slipped past and ran off; but the quick eye of the old man was not so easily deceived, and he set off in chase of him round the quarter deck.
The man had an apron full of biscuit, which had been given to him by the midshipmen; this impeded his running, so that the Chief, notwithstanding his robes, at last came up with him; but while he was stirring him up with his rod, the fellow slipped his cargo of bread into a coil of rope, and then went along with the Chief quietly enough.
The old man came back afterwards, and found the biscuit, which he pointed out to us, to shew that it had not been taken away.
He continued for some time at the hatchway, expecting more people; but finding none come up, he went below himself, to the main deck, and rummaged under the guns and round the main-mast, to discover whether any one was concealed; but finding no person there, he came again upon deck, and shortly after went into his boat.
On returning to the Lyra, we found a number of boats anchored round her, which looked as if they meant to keep strict watch over us.
We went in our boat to one of them, where we found the crew asleep.
They seemed to have had orders not to follow the Chief to the frigate, and were here waiting his return.
On our pointing to the shore, and making signs that the old man with the long beard and large hat had landed, they began immediately to get their anchor up, and called to the other boats to do the same.
In a few minutes they were all at work, and every person in the boats joined in repeating the two words "ho ya, ho ya," the effect of which, from a great many voices, was not unpleasing.
The cable in these boats is wound round a large reel or barrel; to the ends of which two wheels with handles are fitted, which enables a considerable number to apply their strength at the same moment.
The anchor is made of a dark coloured, heavy wood, with a long shank and flukes, and a short stock crossing the former, near the crown of the anchor, and not at the end of the shank, as with us in Europe.
The mat sails are divided into horizontal divisions by slender pieces of bamboo.
When not under sail, the boats are moved by oars having a circular piece of wood tied to the end, and are steered by a large scull over the stern.
The bow is square above, but rises from the water in a slope, making a small angle with the water, like the end of a coal barge, but overhanging more.
The planks are fastened together by means of square tree-nails, which pass in a slanting direction through the plank, and not straight, as with us.
5th of September.--A considerable bustle was observed on shore at daybreak this morning; and shortly afterwards, we saw the old Chief and his suite embark, and pull towards us, accompanied by a numerous fleet of smaller boats, all ornamented with showy flags, and crowded with people in gay and bright coloured garments, forming, upon the whole, a splendid and imposing scene.
As the procession moved slowly along, the band in the Chief's boat struck up a lively, martial sort of air, on instruments similar to those we had heard last night; the tone of which is not unlike the drawling sound of the bagpipe, the bass or drone being produced by a long horn, and the squeaking sounds by four trumpets, two of which have stops in the middle, by which the notes are distinctly marked.
The Chief's visit was so unexpectedly early, that we had not put things in order for his reception, before he was alongside: he came on board, however, and seemed happy at being allowed to walk about the decks, and examine every thing at his leisure.
When the cabin was ready, and the Chief seemed to have satisfied himself with looking round the upper deck, he was asked to walk down; which he complied with as soon as he understood what was meant.
But he found it no easy matter to get down the narrow hatchway, in which there was barely room for his hat; but this he would by no means take off.
As he entered the cabin, his robes and hat completely filled the door-way; and when seated at the table, (for he now made no objection to a chair) he occupied no inconsiderable portion of the whole apartment.
He sat here for some time, and examined every thing in the cabin with great attention, pointing with the little stick whenever he saw any thing which he wanted to look at more closely.
In this way, the books, globes, glasses, &c. were put into his hands; and it was not a little amusing to see the old gentleman wheeling the globes round, and hunting over the books for pictures, like a child.
A person of rank who accompanied the Chief this morning, was asked to the cabin along with him; and was no sooner seated, than we observed that he had a very sickly look; which circumstance was the cause of a curious mistake.
It had been supposed that the Chief, during last night's conference, made allusions to some friend of his who was unwell; and accordingly, in our arrangements for the morning, it was proposed to take the doctors of both ships on shore, to visit him.
As the Chief had himself come on board, our plans for landing were interrupted, and we ascribed this early visit to his anxiety on account of his friend's health.
It was therefore taken for granted, that this sickly looking companion of the Chief, who, some how or other, got the title of the "Courtier," amongst us, was the patient alluded to last night; and no sooner were the first compliments over in the cabin, than the doctor was sent for to prescribe.
On his being introduced, the Courtier was made to hold out his tongue, have his pulse felt, and submit to various interrogatories, the object of which the unfortunate man could not divine, particularly as there was nothing at all the matter with him.
He submitted with so much patience to all these forms, and the Chief looked on with such grave propriety during all the examination, that they evidently considered the whole scene as a part of our ceremonial etiquette.
When this gentleman was released from the doctor's hands, he began to examine the books with the air of a person who understands what he is about.
He appeared desirous of passing for a literary character; and observing us hand the books about in a careless manner, ventured to ask for one, by drawing it towards himself with a begging look.
As he happened to select a volume of the Encyclopædia Britannica, I was under the necessity of refusing; but offered in its stead a less valuable, though more showy book, which he accepted with much gratitude.
No return, of course, had been looked for, and I was for a moment at a loss to understand what my friend meant, by slipping his fan into my hand, under the table.
He did this in so mysterious a way, when the Chief was looking in another direction, that I saw it was his wish to conceal what he had done, and the fan was sent privately away.
But unfortunately, my precaution was fruitless, for a few minutes afterwards, on finding the crowded cabin very hot, I called for a fan, and the servant, unconscious of the mischief he was doing, brought the Courtier's present; which no sooner met the old man's eye, than he rose half off his chair, and gave his unhappy companion such a look of furious anger, as made him tremble from top to toe: but he was soon pacified when he saw that we took an interest in the question, and the Courtier was allowed to keep his book.
After sitting half an hour, and drinking a glass of Constantia, the old man proposed to go upon deck.
I accordingly led the way, and had gone some steps up the ladder, in advance, before I perceived that he had stopped at the door of the gun-room, where the officers mess, and was looking in, with his usual curiosity.
I begged him to go in, which he accordingly did, and entertained himself for some time, with looking over the different cabins of the officers.
From having observed the pleasure which he took in the sight of any thing new, I was induced to propose his going round the lower deck, and he looked quite pleased when I pointed along the passage.
The state hat, which had been resolutely kept on during all this time, notwithstanding its perpetual inconvenience to himself and every one around him, was here destined to come off; for after making two or three attempts, he found it impossible to get along and wear the hat too; and being of a very inquisitive disposition, he chose the degrading alternative of being uncovered, and his researches proceeded without interruption.
Nothing escaped the old man's observation; whatever was shut or tied up, he requested to have opened; and in this way he rummaged the midshipmen's chests, and the sailors' bags, all along the lower deck.
He looked into the holds, took the lid off the boilers, and turned every thing topsy-turvy.
Seeing a cutlass tied to the deck, overhead, he took it down, and on drawing it from the scabbard, its lustre, and the keenness of its edge, surprised and delighted him so much, that I asked him to accept it.
At first he seemed willing enough, but after holding a consultation with the Courtier for five minutes, he reluctantly put it back again.
As he went along, he took samples of every thing that he could easily put into his sleeve, which served him instead of a sack; so that when he came upon deck, he was pretty well loaded, and looked about with the satisfaction of a school-boy, on having visited a show for the first time in his life.
Whilst we were below, one of the natives had been busily employed in taking the dimensions of the ship with a string, and another person was engaged under him, taking an account of the guns, shot, and rigging, all which details he wrote down; but not being able to ascertain, himself, the exact number of people on board, he had recourse to me for the information; this I communicated by opening eight times the fingers of both hands.
The only part of the ship to which he had not free access was the cabin under the poop, and from which he felt much annoyed at being excluded: but when told that a gentleman was shaving there, he shewed himself quite satisfied with the explanation, and waited patiently until the door was opened to him.
The old gentleman and his followers appearing anxious to see a shot fired, an eighteen pound carronade was loaded before them, and discharged with the muzzle so much depressed, that the shot struck the water close to us, and then rose and fell eight or ten times, to the great entertainment and surprise of the whole party.
In the mean time, Captain Maxwell had come on board, and breakfast being ready, we prevailed upon the Chief to sit down with us.
He ate heartily of our hashes, and of every thing else that was put before him, using a knife, fork, and spoon, which he now saw, probably, for the first time in his life, not only without awkwardness, but to such good purpose, that he declined exchanging them for Chinese chopsticks, which were provided for him.
In fact, he was so determined to adopt our customs in every respect, that when the tea was offered to him in the Chinese way, he looked to the right and left, and seeing ours differently prepared, held up his cup to the servant, for milk and sugar, which being given to him, the old gentleman remained perfectly satisfied.
The politeness and ease with which he accommodated himself to the habits of people so different from himself, were truly admirable; and when it is considered, that hitherto, in all probability, he was ignorant even of our existence, his propriety of manners should seem to point, not only to high rank in society, but to imply also a degree of civilization in that society, not confirmed by other circumstances.
Be this as it may, the incident is curious, as shewing, that however different the state of society may be in different countries, the forms of politeness are much alike in all.
This polished character was very well sustained by the old Chief; as he was pleased with our attempts to oblige him, and whatever we seemed to care about, he immediately took an interest in.
He was very inquisitive, and was always highly gratified when he discovered the use of any thing which had puzzled him at first.
But there was no idle surprise, no extravagant bursts of admiration, and he certainly would be considered a man of good breeding, and keen observation, in any part of the world.
Towards his own people, indeed, he was harsh and impatient at all times; but this may have arisen from his anxiety that no offence should be given to us by the other natives, whom he might know were less delicate and considerate than himself, and therefore required constant control.
When breakfast was over, and the old man once more upon deck, we endeavoured to signify to him that we meant to land, according to our engagement yesterday evening; but this he either did not, or would not comprehend; for whenever we pointed towards the shore, he directed our attention to the frigate.
At length he got into his boat, pushed off, and was making for the Alceste, when Captain Maxwell followed in his boat, and drawing up alongside of him, tried to prevail upon him to accompany us to the village: the Chief shook his head by way of disapprobation, and turning towards his attendants, entered into a discussion with them, which terminated by the Courtier and himself stepping into Captain Maxwell's boat.
We ascribed this measure to a desire on the Chief's part to show publicly that he had not himself invited us on shore, and had only acceded to our request to land.
We had not proceeded far before the Chief repented of his ready compliance, and tried to persuade us to return; but finding the ordinary signs of no avail, he held his head down and drew his hand across his throat, as if his head was to be cut off.
It was now our turn not to comprehend signs, and thinking it would be idle to lose so favourable an opportunity, spared no pains to reconcile the old man to our landing.
In this, however, we did not succeed, for, as we approached the shore, his anxiety increased, and he frequently drew his hand across his neck, as if to shew that he would lose his head if we persisted.
We again tried to re-assure him, by explaining that we had no intention of going near the village, but merely desired to walk about for a short time, and then to go to the frigate to dine.
He was of course included in this invitation; but his only answer consisted in pointing to us and making signs of eating, and then drawing his hand across his throat; by which he was understood to mean, that it might be very well for us to talk of eating, but, for his part, he was taken up with the danger of losing his head.
We could not but laugh at this, as we had no notion of any such apprehension being well grounded; and, in a short time, landed at the distance of half a mile from the village.
The old man was lifted out of the boat by several of his people, and we were amazed to find, when they set him down, that he was in tears, and looking altogether very unhappy.
In a few minutes a crowd, consisting of more than a hundred people, assembled round us, and we began to think we should pay dearly for our curiosity.
But the poor old man had no thoughts of vengeance, and was no better pleased with the crowd than we were; for turning to his soldiers, he desired them to disperse the mob, which they did in a moment by pelting them with great stones.
The Chief now began crying violently, and turning towards the village walked away, leaning his head on the shoulder of one of his people.
As he went along, he not only sobbed and wept, but every now and then bellowed aloud.
We had been nowise prepared for such a scene, and were extremely sorry for having pushed matters to this extremity.
It had never occurred to us that the old Chief's head was really in danger; and even now we could not satisfy ourselves whether he was sincere, or merely acting in order to prevail on us to retire.
The perfect tranquillity, nay even cheerfulness of the Courtier, who staid with us all this time, puzzled us extremely: nor could we account for the indifference of the other attendants, who looked on with as much composure as if such scenes were every day occurrences.
But at all events, it was necessary before proceeding any further, that the old man should be pacified; and in order to effect this, we sat down on the beach, upon which he turned about and came crying back again.
He seated himself by us, and waited very patiently whilst we remonstrated on the unreasonableness of his conduct, and contrasted the reception he had met with from us, with his present unaccountable behaviour.
This was expressed by a dumb show acting of all that had taken place since we came to anchor in the bay; and these signs we thought might be intelligible to the Chief, because they were so to all of us, although no words were used.
The signs used by different nations, however, are often dissimilar when the same thing is to be expressed: and it happened frequently with us that all attempts at explanation failed, on both sides, though the signs used appeared to be understood by all the people of the same nation with the person making the signs.
The old man made a long speech in reply; in the course which the beheading sign was frequently repeated.
It is curious that he invariably held his hands towards his throat after he had gone through this motion, and appeared to wash his hands in his blood: probably he did this in imitation of some ceremony used at executions.
Upon one occasion the Chief endeavoured to explain something to us which had a reference to a period of two days; this he did by pointing to the sun, making a motion twice from east to west, and, at the end of each time, closing his eyes as if asleep.
This sign was variously interpreted: some believed it to mean that in two days his head would be taken off: others imagined that in two days a communication might be made to his government, and that orders for our reception would be transmitted.
Whatever might have been meant by this particular sign, it seems very probable that some general instructions were in force along the whole of this coast by which the treatment of strangers is regulated.
The promptitude with which we were met at this place, where, perhaps, no ship ever was before, and the pertinacity with which our landing was opposed, seem to imply an extraordinary degree of vigilance and jealousy on the part of the government.
We expressed a desire to eat and drink, in the hopes of working on the old man's hospitality, and, perhaps, inducing him to entertain us in his house; but he made no motion towards the village, and merely sent off a servant for some water and a few small cockles.
When this sorry fare was laid on the beach, the old gentleman made signs for us to begin; but we did not choose to be pleased either with the entertainment itself, or with the place and manner in which it had been served.
We explained to him that the proper place to eat was in a house, and not on a wet dirty beach; he made no offer, however, of any other; but leaning his head pensively on his hands, seemed entirely resigned to his fate.
The case was now utterly hopeless; and after an ineffectual attempt to cheer him up, we went on board, as the last, and indeed only favour we could grant him.
Thus we quitted this inhospitable shore, after a stay of not quite an hour, in which time we had never been twenty yards from our own boats.
We saw the village, however, to some advantage; it is neatly built, and very pleasantly situated under fine trees, in a valley cultivated like a garden, in small square patches.
It was now determined to prosecute the voyage to the southward, and the Lyra was accordingly ordered to proceed as usual to sound the passages a-head of the frigate, but had not gone far before the Alceste, still at anchor, was observed to be surrounded with boats.
In about an hour she weighed and stood to sea.
Captain Maxwell had received another visit from the old Chief, whose appearance was described as being quite altered; his sprightliness and curiosity all gone, and his easy unceremonious manner exchanged for cold and stately civility: he looked embarrassed and unhappy, as it appeared, from an apprehension of having offended Captain Maxwell.
When this was discovered, no pains were spared to convince him that, in this respect, there was not the slightest cause for uneasiness.
He would not accept any presents, but appeared much relieved by the unexpected kindness with which he was received, and before he went away, was restored, in some degree, to his wonted spirits.
When looking over the books in the cabin, he was a good deal taken with the appearance of a Bible, but when offered to him he declined it, though with such evident reluctance, that it was again shewn to him just as he was pushing off in his boat, and he now received it with every appearance of gratitude, and took his leave in a manner quite friendly.
We quitted this bay without much regret.
The old Chief, indeed, with his flowing beard, and pompous array, and engaging manners, had made a strong impression upon us all; but his pitiable and childish distress, whatever might have been the cause, took away from the respect with which we were otherwise disposed to regard him: yet this circumstance, though it makes the picture less finished, serves to give it additional interest; whilst every thing ridiculous in the old man's character is lost in the painful uncertainty which hangs over his fate.
From this bay we steered amongst the islands, during all the 6th and 7th, to the S.W.
before the natives were met with again; we saw them indeed, but never got near enough to converse with them.
They were frequently observed seated in groups watching us on the islands which we passed.
We saw several fishing-boats, with a crew of about a dozen men, crowded on a sort of poop.
At a little distance these boats appeared to be formed of two vessels lashed together.
This appearance we believe to be caused by their having an outrigger on one side, on which their oars, sails, and masts are piled, in order probably to keep the boat clear when they are at anchor fishing.
Their mast is lowered down and hoisted up by means of a strong tackle from the mast-head to the stern, as in the barges on the Thames.
We threaded our way for upwards of a hundred miles amongst islands which lie in immense clusters in every direction.
At first we thought of counting them, and even attempted to note their places on the charts which we were making of this coast, but their great number completely baffled these endeavours.
They vary in size, from a few hundred yards in length to five or six miles, and are of all shapes.
From the mast-head other groups were perceived lying one behind the other to the east and south as far as the eye could reach.
Frequently above a hundred islands were in sight from deck at one moment.
The sea being quite smooth, the weather fine, and many of the islands wooded and cultivated in the valleys, the scene was at all times lively, and was rendered still more interesting by our rapid passage along the coast, by which the appearances about us were perpetually changing.
Of this coast we had no charts possessing the slightest pretensions to accuracy, none of the places at which we touched being laid down within sixty miles of their proper places.
Only a few islands are noticed in any map; whereas the coast, for near two hundred miles, is completely studded with them, to the distance of fifteen or twenty leagues from the main land.
These inaccuracies in the charts naturally gave a very high degree of interest to this part of the voyage; yet the navigation being at all times uncertain, and often dangerous, considerable anxiety necessarily mingled itself with the satisfaction produced by so new and splendid a scene.
We always anchored during the night, or when the tides, which were very rapid, prevented our proceeding in the deliberate manner absolutely required by the nature of the circumstances.
An instance of the necessity of these precautions occurred on the 7th of September, at four o'clock in the afternoon, when, it being quite calm, we were drifting along with the tide, which suddenly shifted and carried us rapidly towards a reef of rocks, which was invisible till the strong rippling of the water shewed us our danger: we let go the anchor immediately, but the jerk was so great, as to break the Lyra's cable.
A second anchor, however, brought her up at a sufficient distance from the reef.
As soon as the tide slacked, a boat was dispatched to examine the anchorage on the other side of an island near us.
The officer landed about sunset, and from the top of the island could discover a village on the other side, on the shores of a fine large bay.
He afterwards sounded the anchorage, and found it of a convenient depth.
On his way back he landed near the village, but though it was bright moonlight he saw none of the inhabitants.
8th of September.--About noon we weighed and sailed round the north end of the island, which had been visited last night.
The Alceste anchored nearly in the middle between the two islands which form the anchorage; but as the Lyra draws less water, she was placed as close off the village as was safe, being then about a quarter of a mile from the beach.
At this distance, by means of a telescope fixed on a table on the poop, we were enabled to see what was going on in the village, while the people were unconscious of being observed.
Mr. Clifford, who was too unwell to land with Captain Maxwell and myself, placed himself at the glass, and made many observations which must otherwise have escaped notice.
At first the only inhabitants visible were seated on the top of the hill watching us, the village itself being quite deserted; but shortly after our anchoring, the inhabitants began to assemble from different parts of the island.
Of these several were women, some of whom had children on their backs, and others carried them in their arms.
They looked stout, were fairer in complexion than the men, and were dressed in a long white robe, loose and open in front, with a petticoat of the same colour reaching a little below the knees; their hair was tied in a large knot behind; a small piece of white cloth was thrown loosely over the head to protect them from the rays of the sun.
Some women were engaged in husking rice in a mortar with a wooden beater; these had no dress above the waist.
The men and boys were seen carrying loads on a wooden frame hooked to the shoulders.
In a square flat place near the village a number of women and children were employed winnowing corn by pouring it from a height, so that the husks blew away.
Fishing-nets were spread to dry on most of the houses.
We landed about five o'clock, and found in the village only two men, who obstinately remained at one place without speaking, and looking anxious that we should go away; they refused the buttons which we offered them, and resisted our persuasions to accompany us to the upper part of the village, which we were anxious they should do, to shew that we had no intention of hurting any thing, but merely to look about us.
We went on alone, and on reaching a deserted house thought it a good opportunity to examine it.
Before the door, on a neat clean level space, enclosed by a hedge covered with a sweet-scented white flower, we found several heaps of corn and straw, and several of the wooden mortars in which the rice is pounded, also a number of vessels, some filled with water and others with rice.
Cooking utensils were lying about, and a number of fishing lines coiled neatly in baskets, and split fish spread out to dry on the top of little corn ricks on one side of the court.
The inside was dark and uncomfortable; the mud floor was full of hollow places; the walls were black with soot, and every thing looked dirty.
On the left of the entrance two large metal boilers, twenty inches deep, were sunk in the brickwork, the upper part being about a foot above the floor.
The fire-place was between the boilers, and on the hot embers lay three split fish.
On the wall opposite to the fire were shelves, having a number of cups, basons, and cooking utensils, principally of coarse stone ware, and some few of a sort of bell-metal.
The number of inhabitants in one house must be considerable, if we can form an estimate from the quantity of their dishes and vessels.
There were three neat small pieces of furniture on one of the shelves, the use of which we could not discover; they were made of wood, elegantly carved and varnished, with a round top about a foot in diameter, and four legs a foot and a half long.
The roof was well constructed, the rafters being mortised into the ends of the horizontal beams, and tied to the middle by a perpendicular beam or King-Post.
Over the rafters is laid a net-work of rods, to which the thatch is tied.
There was no chimney to this house, and only one window made of slender bars of wood, forming square spaces three inches by two, covered by a thin semi-transparent paper defended by the roof, which extends so far beyond the wall as to shelter it not only from the rain but from the sun.
Most of the houses had a sort of raised verandah under the eaves, about a foot or more above the ground, extending from the door on either hand to the end of the house; these places were neatly levelled, and must afford a cool seat.
The walls of the houses are from six to eight feet high, and from fourteen to twenty feet long; the top of the roof being about fourteen.
The walls are of stone and mud, the door moves on the bar, which forms one of its sides; this bar is prolonged, and works in holes in the beam above, and a stone below.
There was a back door to the house which we examined.
On opening this we found a bare bank of earth as high as the house, at the distance of three feet from the walls, and a hedge rising still higher on the top; this effectually excluded all light.
This minute survey of the house being completed, we returned to our friends, who seemed in some measure re-assured.
We tried to prevail upon them to accompany us in our walk, in hopes that the rest of the cottagers might be induced to return when they saw how peaceably we were disposed.
Captain Maxwell used every sign he could think of to no purpose, and tired at length of these attempts, took hold of the oldest man's hand, drew it through his arm, and walked off with him.
I followed his example with the other; and this familiarity amused the natives, who now accompanied us in perfect good humour.
The ease and apparent indifference with which they walked along with us was curious, and had so little of awkwardness in it, that one might have supposed it to be the fashion of Corea to walk arm in arm.
Having reached the house which we had before examined, we sat down in the verandah, and made signs that we wished to smoke a pipe with them.
In the meantime a boat was observed to come to the landing-place; the crew quitted her and came towards us at a rapid pace.
The quick manner of these people, so different from the ordinary behaviour of the Coreans we had seen, made us apprehend that some violence was meditated; but in this we were mistaken, for they sat down with us, gave us their pipes to smoke, and laughed immoderately at some of our words: we took the hint from them, and laughed heartily whenever we observed that any thing good had been said amongst them; this was well received, and proved afterwards a good mode of introduction.
Their curiosity was strongly excited by our clothing, which they examined minutely; they wished to see some parts of our dress taken off, and in order to gratify them they were allowed to have our coats, shoes, stockings, hats, &c. They were more struck with the stockings than with any thing else, frequently shouting "Hota!
Hota!"
This word, which is pronounced with a strong aspiration, was noted down in our list as the Corean word for stockings; but it was found afterwards to be an expression of approbation, applied indiscriminately to whatever they consider remarkably good.
After sitting some time with these people, and smoking several pipes with them, we gave up all hopes of seeing the villagers return while we were there, and as the night was falling we proposed taking a short walk with our friends, and then going on board.
But as soon as they saw us go up the hill instead of returning to the boat, they became very uneasy, and wanted us to turn back.
As we had reason, however, to conjecture that the women and children were on the other side of the hill, we went on in the expectation of getting a sight of them before dark.
This the Coreans prevented by following us with shouts wherever we went, so as to give warning of our approach.
The women and children probably retreated before us to a ravine on the north side of the island, for when we approached it the Coreans became more anxious than ever for our return; and one man seeing us still advance, took hold of my arm and gave it a sharp pinch.
I turned round and exclaimed, "Patience, Sir!"
He drew back on observing my displeasure, and a moment after called out himself, "Patience, Sir!"
The others hearing this caught the words too, and nothing was heard for some time amongst them but "Patience, Sir," pronounced in every instance with perfect propriety.
They seemed surprised themselves on discovering powers of imitation hitherto in all probability unexercised.
This incident brought us better acquainted, and we remained on the top of the hill teaching them English words till it was dark.
They were certainly entertained with our instructions, but nevertheless shewed much more satisfaction in attending us down hill again to our boats.
Before going on board we invited them to come to the ship next day, which one of the party was supposed to comprehend: he first made preparations for going to bed, then closed his eyes, hung his head on his hand, and snored very properly; after a time he opened his eyes, started and looked about him, then laid his hands on Captain Maxwell's shoulders with an air of welcome.
This was interpreted by some into a wish for our departure till the morning, and by others that he himself would visit us at daylight.
As he never came on board, and received us on landing next day with any thing but welcome, probably both guesses were wrong: of one thing there was no doubt, his anxiety to get rid of us; and his signs may have meant that it was time for all honest people to be in bed.
9th of September.--At sunrise we landed at the same village, and found it deserted as before.
We left it and made for the highest peak on the island, accompanied by a few of the Coreans, who did not interfere with us till about halfway up, when on our entering a grove of fir trees, with the appearance of which we had been struck, one of the Coreans objected; we went on, however, and upon reaching the stump of an old tree the Corean fell on his knees, bowed his head to the ground, and as he raised it again held his hands closed and pressed together towards the stump.
This had very much the air of a stratagem to dissuade us from going further in that direction, where the women probably were concealed.
Admitting this to have been the motive, it is curious that he should have supposed such a shew of religious form calculated to restrain us.
It is further remarkable as being the only circumstance which we have seen on this coast implying a knowledge of religion or religious ceremony.
There are here no temples, idols, nor tombs, whereas in China, villages much smaller than these of Corea have them in every corner.
The other Coreans took no notice of the stump, and the man who was prostrating himself before it finding that his behaviour produced nothing but a number of questions from us concerning the nature of the tree, got on his legs and walked sulkily away.
In the course of our walk we saw six bullocks of a small breed and very fat, but which the Coreans were not to be tempted to sell by any thing which we had to give them.
Dogs were the only quadrupeds besides that we saw.
There were pigeons, hawks, and eagles, but few small birds.
Crows were as numerous here as in every other part of the world.
We returned on board to breakfast, and afterwards set out on an excursion to the top of a high island lying some leagues to the south-east of us.
On our way we landed, and observed the sun's meridian altitude with an artificial horizon, by which we ascertained the latitude to be 34º 22' 39" north, the longitude by the mean of two chronometers is 126º 2' 45" east.
We passed, for the distance of five miles, amongst islands, all, except the very smallest, inhabited.
The villages are built in the valleys, where the houses are nearly hid by trees and hedges.
The sides of the hills are cultivated with millet and a species of bean; and in the numerous small gardens near the villages, we saw a great variety of plants.
As the peaked island which we had undertaken to climb was steep, and covered with a long coarse grass, it cost us a tiresome scramble to gain the top, which is about six hundred feet above the level of the sea.
The main land of Corea is just discernible in the north-east and east, from this elevation; but it commands a splendid view of the islands, lying in thick clusters, as far as the eye can reach, from north-west quite round by east to south.
We endeavoured to count them.
One person, by reckoning only such as were obviously separate islands, made their number one hundred and twenty.
Two other gentlemen, by estimating the numbers in each connected cluster, made severally, one hundred and thirty-six, and one hundred and seventy; a difference, which at once shews the difficulty of speaking with precision on this subject.
But when it is considered, that from one spot, which though considerably elevated, was not centrical, one hundred and twenty islands could be counted, and that our course for upwards of one hundred miles had been amongst islands no less crowded than these, some idea may be formed of this great Archipelago.
After enjoying this scene for some time, we went down on the other side of the peak, which is much less steep.
We found the boat's crew preparing dinner for us, under some trees, close to a well of cool water.
The village to which the well belonged not being many yards off, we proceeded to explore it, and found it deserted by all except an old woman and a man.
The woman, seated on a pile of stones, in the middle of the village, took no notice of us as we passed; and indeed, she was herself so very homely, as to occupy but little of our attention.
The man was seated at the door of a cottage, making a straw sandal: on our entering his inclosure, he looked up for an instant, and immediately resumed his work, with as much composure as if we had been a party of the villagers.
A button was offered to him, which he accepted without scruple: he agreed, with equal readiness, to exchange his unfinished sandal for another button, which having carelessly put away, in a bag lying near him, he took some straw and re-commenced his business, without seeming to notice that we were rummaging his house.
He is the only Corean we have met with, who has not shewn some slight symptoms of curiosity: indeed, he seemed totally indifferent about our staying or going, or about what we were doing in his house; and we left him without knowing whether to ascribe his apathy to fear, or to absolute stupidity.
On returning from the village, we saw a party of the natives assembled on a rising ground near us; they were invited, by signs, to join us at dinner, but they kept their places unmoved.
While we were at dinner, the sailors, who had been rambling about, joined the natives, and in a few minutes became very good friends with them; the natives giving up their pipes, and the sailors in return supplying them with tobacco.
We have frequently remarked during this voyage, that the sailors make acquaintance with the natives much sooner than the officers.
This seems the natural effect of the difference in our manners.
On meeting with natives, we feel so anxious to conciliate, and to avoid giving offence, that our behaviour, thus guarded and circumspect, has an air of restraint about it, which may produce distrust and apprehension on their part; whilst, on the other hand, Jack, who is not only unreflecting and inoffensive himself, but never suspects that others can possibly misconstrue his perfect good-will and unaffected frankness, has an easy, disengaged manner, which at once invites confidence and familiarity.
In about an hour after we had sat down, one of the natives hastily rose, and without appearing to deliberate, but as if actuated by a sudden impulse, strode rapidly down to us, and in the most unceremonious way possible, presented his lighted pipe for us to smoke.
We received him as kindly as we could, and prevailed upon him to take a glass of wine; which he had no sooner drank off, than he roared out, "Hota!
Hota!"
This exclamation brought the rest down, who seating themselves by us, drank freely, and became very cheerful and communicative, telling us the Corean names of every thing we pointed to, and asking, in return, the English names for our clothes.
[5] But though the wine made these people far more sociable than any we had yet seen, they never forgot the principal object of their thoughts, and suggested, every now and then, by pointing to our boats, the propriety of our going away.
After sunset, they became very impatient and uneasy at our stay; but when at length we yielded to their entreaties, the whole party accompanied us to the water's side, and took leave with the most lively marks of satisfaction at our departure.
10th of September.--This morning, about ten o'clock, we got under weigh, and stood to the southward.
By sunset we were clear of all the islands, and could just distinguish the island of Quelpaert in the south-east quarter.
The shortness of our stay on this coast, and the difficulty we experienced in communicating with the inhabitants, will account for the scanty and disjointed nature of the information obtained.
A future voyager would do well to be accompanied by a person who can write the Chinese character, and should have full leisure to overcome, by patient management, the distrust of strangers evinced by this unsociable people.
A chart of our track along this coast is subjoined to this work, in the hope that it may prove useful to a future voyager.
As it was constructed under circumstances of great haste, it is necessarily incomplete; yet it will probably be found more accurate than any maps or charts hitherto published.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: A servant of the embassy, left behind by accident at the Pei-ho river.]
[Footnote 2: We found the north-east end composed of a fine-grained granite; the middle of the island of a brittle micaceous schistus of a deep blue colour; the strata are nearly horizontal, but dip a little to the S.W.
This body of strata is cut across by a granite dyke, at some places forty feet wide, at others not above ten; the strata in the vicinity of the dyke are broken and bent in a remarkable manner; this dislocation and contortion does not extend far from the walls of the dyke, but veins of granite branch out from it to a great distance, varying in width from three feet to the hundredth part of an inch: the dyke is visible from the top of the cliff to the water's edge, but does not re-appear on the corresponding cliff of an island opposite to it, though distant only thirty yards.
This island is composed of the same schistus, and is cut in a vertical direction by a whin dyke, four feet wide, the planes of whose sides lie N.E.
and S.W., being at right angles to those of the great granite dyke in the neighbourhood, which run S.E.
and N.W.
The strata contiguous to the whin dyke are a good deal twisted and broken, but not in the same degree as at their contact with the granite dyke.
The whin dyke is formed of five layers or sets of prisms laid across in the usual way.
Beyond the small island cut by the whin dyke, at the distance of only forty or fifty feet, we came to an island rising abruptly out of the sea, and presenting a high rugged cliff of breccia, fronting that on which the granite dyke is so conspicuous: the junction of this rock with the schistus cut by the granite and the whin would have been interesting; but although we must have been at times within a few yards of it, the actual contact was every where hid by the sea.
The whole of the S.W.
end of this island is formed of breccia, being an assemblage of angular and water-worn pieces of schistus, quartz, and some other rocks, the whole having the appearance of a great shingle beach.
The fragments of the schistus in this rock are similar to that which forms the cliff first spoken of.
The theory which presented itself to us on the spot was, that the great mass of strata which forms the centre of the island was formerly at the bottom of the ocean; and that the western part, which is now a firm breccia, had been a beach shingle produced by the action of the waves on the strata: the granite which forms the eastern end of the island had been forced into its present situation from beneath the strata, with sufficient violence to dislocate and contort the beds nearest to it, and to inject the liquid granite into the rents formed by the heaving action of the strata as they were raised up.
It is natural to suppose that the ragged edges of the strata forming the sides of these cracks would be subjected to a grinding action, from which the strata more remote might be exempted; and in this way we may account for the extraordinary twisting, and separation of masses along the whole course of the granite dyke.
In the dyke, as well as in the veins which branch from it, there are numerous islands of schistus.
That this last was softened, seems to follow from the frequent instances which occur of its being bent back upon itself without producing cracks.
The same heat, propagated by the melted granite in the neighbourhood, may also be supposed to have reduced the shingle beach to a state of semifusion by the aid of some flux contained in the sand scattered amongst it.
We could not discover any circumstance by which the relative antiquity of the two dykes mentioned above, could be ascertained.]
[Footnote 3: _Note on the peculiar character of the written language in that quarter of the globe._ In China, Japan, Corea, and the islands in the adjacent seas, the spoken languages are different from one another; the written language, on the contrary, is the same in all.
Thus a native of China is unintelligible to a Corean or Japanese, while he is speaking, but they mutually understand one another when their thoughts are expressed in writing.
The cause of this may be thus explained.
We in Europe form an idea in the mind, and this we express by certain sounds, which differ in different countries; these sounds are committed to writing by means of the letters of the alphabet, which are only symbols of sounds, and, consequently, a writing in Europe is unintelligible to every one who is ignorant of the spoken language in which it happens to be written.
The Chinese and the other natives in these seas have, on the contrary, no alphabet; no symbols of sounds; their ideas are committed to writing at once without the intervention of sound, and their characters may therefore be called symbols of ideas.
Now, as the same characters are adopted in all these countries to express the same ideas, it is clear that their writings will be perfectly intelligible to each other, although their spoken languages may be quite incomprehensible.
The case of the Roman numerals in Europe furnishes a ready illustration of this symbolical language.
There is nothing in the symbols 1, 2, 3, &c. by which their pronunciation can be ascertained when presented to the eye, yet they communicate meaning independent of sound, and are respectively intelligible to the inhabitants of the different countries of Europe; while, at the same time, the sounds by which a native of one country distinguishes the written symbols 1, 2, 3, &c. are unintelligible to all the rest.
The knowledge of writing is supposed to be very generally diffused over the countries using what is called the Chinese character, and, as probably none but the lowest vulgar are ignorant of it, the surprise of these people on discovering our inability to read their papers is very natural.
The case, we may imagine, had never occurred to them before, and it was highly interesting to watch the effect which so novel an incident produced.
At first they appeared to doubt the fact of our ignorance, and shewed some symptoms of impatience; but this opinion did not last long, and they remained completely puzzled, looking at each other with an odd expression of surprise.]
[Footnote 4: This paper, presented by the Corean Chief, has been translated by Mr. Morrison at Canton, and is as follows: "Persons, of what land--of what nation (are you)?
On account of what business do you come hither?
In the ship are there any literary men who thoroughly understand, and can explain what is written?"]
[Footnote 5: See note at the end of the Loo-choo vocabulary.]
CHAPTER II.
Enter the Japan Sea--Sulphur Island--Volcano--See the Great Loo-Choo Island--Lyra nearly wrecked--First Interview with the Natives--Anchor at Napakiang--Natives crowd on Board--Their interesting Appearance and Manners--Several Chiefs visit the Alceste--Land to make Observations--Astonishment of the Natives--Six Chiefs visit the Ships--Alceste and Lyra proceed farther in Shore--A Chief of high Rank waits upon Captain Maxwell--Return his Visit--Feast--Projected Survey of the Anchorage--Visit Reef Island--The Lyra sent to look for another Harbour--Arrangements for landing the Alceste's Stores--Description of the Temple and Garden--First Acquaintance with Mádera--Study of the Language.
After leaving Corea, we stood to the southward and eastward, with a strong breeze from the north, and a mountainous swell from the north-east.
Shortly after daybreak on the 13th of September, we saw Sulphur Island, in the south-west quarter, and by eleven in the forenoon were close up to it.
We intended to land, but were prevented by the high wind, which caused so great a surf all round the island, as to render this impracticable.
The sulphuric volcano from which the island takes its name is on the north-west side; it emits white smoke, and the smell of sulphur is very strong on the lee side of the crater.
The cliffs near the volcano are of a pale yellow colour, interspersed with brown streaks: the ground at this place is very rugged, as the strata lie in all directions, and are much broken; on the top is a thin coat of brown grass.
The south end of the island is of considerable height, of a deep blood red colour, with here and there a spot of bright green: the strata, which are here nearly horizontal, are cut by a whin dyke running from the top to the bottom of the cliff, projecting from its face like a wall.
As the weather still looked threatening, we gave up the intention of examining this spot, and proceeded to the southward till four o'clock, at which time land was seen in the south-west quarter; but as there was not sufficient daylight to close with it, we hauled off to the westward for the night.
Shortly after sunset the sky became overcast, the wind veered about from one point to another, the air became suddenly quite chill, the sea rose high, and every thing, in short, seemed to indicate an approaching tyfoong or hurricane.
All our preparations were made to encounter a violent tempest; but we were much pleased at finding it turn out nothing more than an ordinary gale of wind.
14th of September.--The weather was still stormy, but being anxious to close with the land, we bore up, and steered in the supposed direction of the Great Lieou Kieou, or Loo-choo Island.
At eight o'clock we saw the Sugar Loaf of Captain Broughton, which is a small green island, having a high remarkable cone in the middle.
We left this to the eastward, and continued steering to the south south-west, hoping to get to leeward of the great island before night, where we might remain in smooth water till the weather became fine.
While going along at a quick rate, we suddenly saw breakers close to us; we instantly hauled to the wind, and made all the sail we could carry.
Our situation was now very critical, for the swell caused by the recent gale checked our way considerably, and a lee current drifted us gradually towards the reef.
From the mast head we could look down upon the reef, which was of a circular form, with a low island on its southern side; the surf broke all round, but in the inside the water was quite smooth, and being only a few feet deep, the coral, which was of a bright green, appeared distinctly through it.
At the distance of one-third of a mile from where we were, no bottom was to be found with our lead lines, so that anchoring was out of the question.
After being in this unpleasant predicament for some time, we succeeded in weathering the western end of the reef, which we had no sooner done, than we saw a passage four or five miles wide, by which we proceeded to leeward of the reef island, where we found the water perfectly smooth.
The Alceste rounded the reef without difficulty, being half a league farther off than the Lyra, which, as usual, had been stationed a-head to look out, but had not perceived the danger sooner, owing to the extreme haziness of the weather.
15th of September.--In the morning, it was arranged that the Lyra should proceed in shore in search of a harbour, while the frigate remained in deep water.
At ten o'clock I thought we had discovered a place of security, and having anchored the Lyra, sent three boats to examine it.
A sort of harbour was found, formed by coral reefs; but the passages being all intricate for large ships, and the water shallow inside, it is by no means safe.
We fell in with several people in canoes; one man, who seemed to know what we were searching for, directed us to a point of land to the northward, and waved for us to go round it.
While the boats were away, several natives came off to the Lyra.
No people that we have yet met with have been so friendly; for the moment they came alongside, one handed a jar of water up to us, and another a basket of boiled sweet potatoes, without asking or seeming to wish for any recompense.
Their manners were gentle and respectful; they uncovered their heads when in our presence, bowed whenever they spoke to us; and when we gave them some rum, they did not drink it till they had bowed to every person round.
Another canoe went near the Alceste, and a rope being thrown to them, they tied a fish to it, and then paddled away.
All this seemed to promise well, and was particularly grateful after the cold repulsive manners of the Coreans.
The day was spent in trying to beat round the point to windward, but the tide was too strong against us, and when it became dark, we found ourselves awkwardly situated.
To the east and west of us there were islands at the distance of a few miles.
To leeward was a circular coral reef, just appearing above the surface at low water; and to windward were seen the reefs upon which we were so nearly wrecked on Saturday.
As the exact position of these numerous dangers was unknown to us, we were determined to anchor for the night, though in eighty fathoms water.
16th of September.--At daylight we weighed, and beat to windward all the morning; but owing to the tide being contrary, it was two o'clock before we passed the point mentioned above; which we had no sooner done, than we came in sight of an extensive town, having a harbour filled with vessels at anchor.
On steering towards the town, we had to sound our way cautiously amongst coral reefs, which were tolerably well defined by the surf breaking upon them[6].
The Alceste followed as soon as we had ascertained that the passage was clear, and both ships anchored at the distance of half a mile from the town.
In a short time we were surrounded by canoes, full of the natives, who, with their children, flocked on board.
They wear a loose dress, tied with a belt round their waist; their hair is brought tight up from all sides, and formed into a knot on the top of the head, with two metal pins stuck in it.
In the course of an hour, a native came on board who appeared to be somewhat higher in rank than the rest; and we now discovered, to our great satisfaction, that this man understood our Chinese servant, who had been of no use to us at Corea.
As it was found that there were other chiefs on shore superior in rank to this man, Captain Maxwell declined receiving his visit; as well with the view of inducing the principal people to come on board, as of maintaining an appearance of dignity, a point of great importance in all transactions with the Chinese and their dependents, who invariably repay condescension with presumption.
As we had heard of these people being tributary to China, it was natural to conclude that there might be some similarity in manners.
At all events, it was evidently much easier at any future time to be free and cordial with them, after having assumed a distance and reserve in the first instance, than it would be to repress insolence, if at first encouraged by too hasty familiarity.
Before this man went on shore, he requested to know the reason of our coming into this port; the interpreter was instructed to acquaint him that the ships had experienced very bad weather, and had been a long time at sea; that the large ship had sprung a leak, and required repairs which could only be done in a secure harbour: further explanations, it was observed, would be given to the superior chiefs when they came on board.
We had been prepared for these inquiries, not only from the reception we had met with at Corea, but from the well-known character of the nations in this quarter of the globe; and it was so far fortunate, that the Alceste was actually in want of repairs; because to have assigned curiosity, and a desire of gaining information as our object, to people wholly unconscious of such feelings, would naturally have led them to ascribe our actions to some more interested, and consequently more dangerous motive.
The canoes which we have seen to-day are mostly made of one piece of wood; they have two sails, and are moved with considerable velocity, by two or more paddles, assisted by an oar over the stern, which acts both as a scull and a rudder.
There is a neat low seat, made of rattans, for each person in the canoe.
As the day closed, the fishing canoes came in great numbers from sea, and all came on board the ships on their way; some of the fishermen pulled up our lines and baited the hooks.
The whole shore abreast of the ships was covered with people, but the crowd was greatest on two pier-heads, forming the entrance to the harbour; and the variety of colour in their dresses made this a very lively exhibition.
In the evening, Captain Maxwell and I rowed round to examine the anchorage, which we found tolerably clear of rocks.
An officer was at the same time sent to examine the inner harbour, but he did not go far within the entrance, which was much too shallow for the frigate.
On returning to the Lyra, I found that Mr. Clifford had been entertaining several respectable looking natives who had paid him a visit.
As they readily comprehended his desire to know their words for various things, he has succeeded in collecting a considerable number, among which we are surprised to find their name for tobacco the same as ours; all the others are quite new to us.
17th of September.--I carried the interpreter to the Alceste, after breakfast, where I found two chiefs, who had been on board some time, and had been taken care of by the officers, as Captain Maxwell was not prepared to receive them.
A message was then sent to intimate that the Ta-yin (a Chinese title, used also by these people to persons of rank) was desirous of seeing the chiefs, and they were introduced into the after-cabin, where they were received in form.
They objected to sitting down, making at the same time many low obeisances, which they did by stooping the body, and raising the hands, closed one over the other, to their face.
Their scruples about being seated were at length overcome, and the first chief took his place on Captain Maxwell's left hand, the next on my left, and a third, who was evidently of a lower rank, sat beyond the second.
The chiefs sat respectfully silent, and Captain Maxwell finding that he was expected to speak first, communicated to them that the ships under his command belonged to the King of England; that they had gone to China with an Embassador, carrying presents to the Emperor, at Pekin; that on their way back to Canton, they had experienced very bad weather, and had been obliged to put in here to refit, and to procure supplies.
In reply, they expressed their willingness to assist us as much as lay in their power, but said that the harbour was too shallow for so large a ship, and recommended our proceeding to another harbour called Kinching, which they described as being secure and commodious, and only a few hours sail from this anchorage: they offered to furnish pilots and a boat to conduct us.
Captain Maxwell, however, was unwilling to quit this anchorage unless certain of finding a better; he therefore proposed to send the Lyra to examine and report upon the harbour alluded to.
The chiefs paused upon this, and said they could not take upon them to send pilots to the Brig without consulting the Great Man on shore.
We were very curious to know who this great personage might be, but they evaded all our inquiries.
Captain Maxwell asked where the king resided, and intimated his intention of waiting upon him; to this they strongly objected, declaring moreover, that it was impossible, as his majesty lived a thousand miles off.
They did not seem aware of their inconsistency, when they undertook, immediately afterwards, to get an answer from court about pilots for the Lyra, in a few hours.
We had been led to hope, from the frankness and kindness of these people, that no restraint would be imposed on us; and we were the more disappointed at observing, that whenever we spoke of landing, or asked any questions about the king, the chiefs became uneasy, and replied in a mysterious manner.
We consoled ourselves, however, with the supposition, that upon further acquaintance their apprehension would wear off.
Business being over, the chiefs were asked to walk round the cabin, an invitation which they accepted with manifest satisfaction.
During the conference they had preserved a gravity suited to an important ceremony, and, though surrounded by new and curious objects, had never expressed the least curiosity.
They were now no longer formal, and looked over the various articles with attention, taking particular notice of the globes, books, and mirrors.
Their manners are remarkably gentle and unassuming.
They are observant, and not without curiosity, but they require encouragement to induce them to come forward, being restrained, it would seem, by a genteel self-denial, from gratifying curiosity, lest it might be thought obtrusive.
Their dress is singularly graceful; it consists of a loose flowing robe, with very wide sleeves, tied round the middle by a broad rich belt or girdle of wrought silk, a yellow cylindrical cap, and a neat straw sandal, over a short cotton boot or stocking.
Two of the chiefs wore light yellow robes, the other dark blue streaked with white, all of cotton.
The cap is flat at top, and appears to be formed by winding a broad band diagonally round a frame, in such a manner, that at each turn a small portion of the last fold shall be visible above in front, and below at the hinder part.
The sandal is kept on by a stiff straw band passing over the instep, and joining the sandal near the heel; this band is tied to the forepart by a slight string, drawn between the great toe and the next, the stocking having a division like the finger of a glove for the great toe.
They all carry fans, which they stick in their girdles when not in use, and each person has a short tobacco pipe in a small bag, hanging, along with the pouch, at the girdle.
When they had satisfied themselves with looking over the cabin, they went away, with a promise of returning in the evening as soon as the answer from the Great Man should arrive.
During all this morning, the whole space between the ships and the shore has been covered with canoes, each containing about ten persons.
The scene was very lively, for few of the parties which came to visit the ships remained long on board, so that the canoes were continually passing backwards and forwards, and the number which came in this way must have been immense.
They all seemed highly gratified at being allowed to go wherever they liked over the ships, nor was this liberty ever abused.
The manners even of the lowest classes are genteel and becoming; their curiosity is great, but it never makes them rudely inquisitive: their language is musical, and in most cases easy of pronunciation.
We heard a boat song to-day, the air of which was sweet and plaintive; we tried in vain to catch the words, and unfortunately, none of us had skill enough to note down the air.
We observed several people in canoes, making drawings of the ships, but they hid their work when they were observed.
In consequence of what had been said last night of our wanting repairs, a party of shipwrights and caulkers was sent on board the Alceste this morning, but their tools were of a Lilliputian order, and quite unsuited to the rough work required.
The variety of colour and pattern in the dresses of the people to-day, is remarkable.
Many wear printed cottons, others have cotton dresses with the pattern drawn on it by hand, instead of being stamped; but blue, in all its shades, is the prevalent colour, though there were many dresses resembling in every respect Highland tartans.
The children, in general, wear more shewy dresses than the men, and of the dress of the women we can say nothing, as none have yet been seen.
Every person has one of the girdles before described, which is always of a different colour from the dress, and is, in general, richly ornamented with flowers in embossed silk, and sometimes with gold and silver threads.
This dress is naturally so graceful, that even the lowest boatmen have a picturesque appearance.
Their hair, which is of a glossy black, is shaved off the crown, but the bare place is concealed by their mode of dressing the hair in a close knot over it.
Their beards and mustachios are allowed to grow, and are kept neat and smooth.
They are rather low in stature, but are well formed, and have an easy graceful carriage, which suits well with their flowing dress.
Their colour is not good, some being very dark and others nearly white, but in most instances they are of a deep copper.
This is fully compensated for by the sweetness and intelligence of their countenance.
Their eyes, which are black, have a placid expression, and their teeth are regular and beautifully white.
In deportment they are modest, polite, timid, and respectful, and in short, appear to be a most interesting and amiable people.
Two of our friends who had visited us in the morning, and whose names we have discovered to be Ookooma and Jeema, came on board again about half past five, and staid an hour; they had not received any answer, they said, from the Great Man, and therefore could not send pilots to the "hoonee gua," or little ship.
They were accompanied by a chief whom we took to be a Chinese from his looks, and his appearing to understand the interpreter better than the others.
His formal and suspicious manner did not promise so well as that of the others.
They came to say that a present of stock and vegetables had been sent to the ships.
It was intimated to them that we intended to land the next day, and upon their objecting to this, we said that our wish was to wait upon the Great Man; to which they replied, that no person answering to this description resided here.
We then said, that it was right we should return their visit.
This argument they combated by saying that they were men of unequal rank to us, and therefore nowise entitled to such an honour; and that we, at the same time, would be degrading ourselves by such undue condescension.
This having failed, Captain Maxwell told them of his illness; upon which, our new acquaintance, who seemed more earnestly bent against our landing than the others, offered to send a physician on board to see him.
Captain Maxwell replied, that his own doctor had recommended a ride on shore; upon which they laughed, and turned the discourse to something else.
In this way every proposal to land, or even allusion to the shore, was industriously put aside; and as it was our wish to gain their good will, the matter was dropped for the present.
Before they went away, Captain Maxwell, pointing to their pipes, begged them to smoke if they wished it; they were grateful for this considerate attention, but would not on any account begin till we shewed them the example, by smoking with pipes which they prepared for us.
They appeared more at their ease after this incident, and after sitting for some time, took leave for the night on the most friendly terms.
18th of September.--Captain Maxwell sent to me to say that he meant to land on a point at some distance from the town, in order to observe the sun's meridian altitude with an artificial horizon.
Just as I was setting out to accompany him, I was taken by surprise by two well-dressed natives, who were halfway down the cabin ladder before I knew of their approach.
One came to superintend the measurement of the Lyra, and the other, who seemed of inferior rank, to explain why some poultry, only then sent, had not come on the preceding night, along with the other presents.
I forgot to mention, that a bullock, two hogs, two goats, a dozen and a half of fowls, some candles, wood, and water, were sent to each of the ships.
I asked them to sit down, and they were so well satisfied with the Constantia which I gave them, that they remained for some time; owing to which delay, I did not reach the shore till the time for observing the sun had gone by.
I found Captain Maxwell with Ookooma and several of the chiefs, and an immense crowd of the natives, all of whom had left the town on seeing the boat put off, and had hastened to this spot, either out of curiosity or respect, or more probably to watch our proceedings.
At our request, Ookooma, who appears to possess considerable authority, made the whole crowd, chiefs and all, sit down on the grass in a circle round us.
Their astonishment at our operations was strongly expressed in their countenances, and, indeed, our apparatus and behaviour must have looked, to perfect strangers, somewhat magical.
In the first place the quicksilver, which to them would appear like melted metal, was poured into a trough, in a fine stream from a wooden bottle; while it was running out the people repeated in an under tone "yi, yi, yi, yi!"
but were silent when the glass roof was placed over the trough.
The circular instrument and sextant, fixed on stands, next attracted their notice, and they looked on in profound silence while we were taking the sun's altitude.
As we were too late for the desired observation, we amused the natives by letting them look at the two reflected images of the sun through the telescope of the instruments.
Ookooma was the first who looked, and being quite unprepared for what he saw, started back in astonishment, as if he had unconsciously beheld something supernatural and forbidden.
The other chiefs, in their turn, placed themselves at the instrument, as well as several old men who stepped forward from the crowd.
Some testified their surprise by a sudden exclamation; others were perfectly calm, so that we could not guess what they thought; and some held up their hands, and looked as if the whole matter was totally beyond the reach of their comprehension.
When this was over, and there was no longer any necessity for the crowd being seated, they closed round and watched us while we were putting the instruments up.
Some of the boys held out their hands for quicksilver, with which they ran off, quite happy.
During this time we were about fifty yards from the foot of a cliff, on the brow of which was posted a group of women with baskets on their heads; we were unfortunately not near enough to discern their features, nor to make out their dress distinctly; it appeared, however, to be like that of the men, though somewhat shorter, and without any girdle round the waist.
The rock here rises in perpendicular rugged cliffs of coral, with a number of rude square excavations on its face, which, at first sight, appear to have been worn by the elements, but on examination shew evident traces of art.
Most of these caves are closed up by a wall of loose stones, but in one, of which the mouth was open, several human bones were found lying amongst the sand.
On removing a stone from a closed cave, a vase was observed in the inside, of an elegant shape; the people signified to us that these were the remains of the dead, but we did not make out distinctly whether the bones or the ashes only were thus preserved.
They made no objections to our examining these caves, though they certainly were not pleased with it.
No notice was taken of what Captain Maxwell and I did; but Mr. Clifford, who had remained below collecting words from some intelligent natives, was strongly recommended by Ookooma to go back to the boat; he walked up, however, without opposition, to the cave which we had been examining, and they ceased to importune him.
A number of little boys who had observed us occasionally pulling flowers and plants, ran about collecting for us, and after presenting what they had gathered, with much politeness, ran away laughing with an arch expression of ridicule at our curiosity.
On our way back, instead of going directly off to the ships, we coasted along shore in our boats, which gave us a new view of a stone bridge, of one arch, connecting two parts of the town.
On the south side of the bridge we passed a space of considerable extent, probably set apart as a burying ground.
We saw here a number of large horse-shoe tombs like those used in China, whitewashed, and apparently kept in good repair.
Most of the tombs, however, are in the form of small square houses, with low pyramidal roofs; some of these were tiled, others thatched.
It is evident that, in what relates to the dead, they follow, in some respects, the Chinese customs.
[Illustration: NAPAKIANG.]
The whole coast at this place is of coral cliffs, the base of which appears to have been scooped out by the action of the sea.
As this excavation is at some places higher than the waves of the sea can be supposed to have ever reached, there is difficulty in assigning the sea as the cause; yet the roof of the excavation is horizontal for a great extent, and its appearance, in every other respect, suggests that it has been formed by the dashing of the waves.
There is, moreover, some difficulty in accounting for coral cliffs being so much above the level of the sea, in which, according to every supposition, they must have been formed.
The scenery here, as in most countries in these climates, does not admit of a satisfactory description.
It may be said, however, that it is more pleasing to the eye than that of islands near the equator, where the vegetation is so profusely luxuriant, as to overload the picture with foliage to the exclusion of every thing else.
Here there is much variety; the numerous groves of pine-trees give some parts of it an English air, but the style of landscape is what is called tropical.
The general character of the scenery at this spot is faithfully preserved in the drawing of Napakiang.
19th of September.--No answer having yet come from the Great Man, we begin to apprehend that they are going to treat us in Chinese style, and exclude us from their country altogether.
We have tried in vain to discover whether the King is at this place, or a hundred, or as some maintain, a thousand miles off; in the mean time, as we know the island to be not more than sixty miles long, it is fair to suppose that they wish to deceive us.
We conjecture that a large building on a rising ground, three or four miles from us in an eastern direction, with two flag-staffs near it, is the palace mentioned in the account quoted by Pere Gaubil, Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, Tom.
XXIII.
The natives always refuse to give any information when asked about this building.
Whenever the natives come on board, if at all well dressed, they are asked into the cabin, where we treat them with cherry brandy and Constantia.
In the course of conversation they contribute a number of new words, and, in general, when they see what the object is, are very willing to lend their assistance, and take much pains to teach us the true pronunciation of their words.
One man, however, who was not so quick as they generally are, was in the cabin to-day for some time; Mr. Clifford was getting from him the Loo-choo words for sour, sweet, salt, &c.; and in order to make him comprehend the questions, made him taste different things that were sour, sweet, and so on: the poor fellow stood this very well, till some quassia was given to him to get the word "bitter;" he had no sooner tasted it, than he ran off quite astonished at the manner in which he had been entertained.
It blew hard this morning, so that there was little intercourse with the shore; but towards sunset it moderated, and Ookooma, Jeema, and four other Chiefs, came on board, bringing with them a present of a bullock, two hogs, goats, and vegetables.
The Chief whose name is Shayoon is the most clever of them all; he is next in rank to Ookooma, but he generally takes the lead in discussion; he has a quick intelligent look, with more determination in his manner than any of the others.
They were very particular on all these state occasions to observe the order of precedence, and no one sat down till his superior was seated.
When any subject was discussed, one at a time rose to speak, but not in order of rank, and they never attempted to interrupt one another.
The weather at this moment looked so stormy, that I went on board the Lyra to prepare for a gale; by which I lost a very interesting conference with the chiefs.
I learnt from Captain Maxwell afterwards, that he had remonstrated with them on their inconsistency and the pretended difficulty of getting answers from court; he gave them to understand, that he did not conceive it was treating the King of England with due respect to deny his officers permission to walk on shore.
Again, that they had promised to send pilots, but that none had come; and that many other promises had not been performed.
He desired the interpreter to say, that he was not pleased with their telling him so many different stories, all of which could not be true; first they said that the bullocks, hogs, &c. were gifts from themselves; then, that they were sent by the Great Man; then, that there was no Great Man here: in fine, he urged them strongly to tell him the truth on all points.
They made the interpreter repeat six times over what Captain Maxwell had desired him to say; they then consulted amongst themselves a long time, and at last assured Captain Maxwell, that a reply to the communications made by them to government would reach this place next day.
As the stock and vegetables received by the ships had, by this time, amounted to a considerable quantity, a bag of dollars was offered to them, and they were urged to take payment for what had been sent on board; this offer, which had been made more than once before, was still declined; upon which they were informed, that we considered it improper, as servants of government, to receive presents to such an extent from individuals.
Upon this they gave their assurance, that the stock had been sent on board by order of the Loo-choo government, on their being informed that the King of another country's ships had arrived.
No payment they said could therefore be taken.
With this Captain Maxwell was satisfied.
Their wish seems to be, to prevent our opening any communication with their government, and they appear so decided upon these matters, that they will probably succeed, notwithstanding all our efforts.
The chiefs have dresses adapted to the state of the weather; yesterday being cold and threatening, they all came on board with a sort of cloak or great coat made of a thick blue stuff like woollen cloth, buttoned in front.
It is tighter than the ordinary dress, and is worn over it.
It is only in fine weather, and on state occasions, that they wear the band turban, called by them "hatchee matchee;" at all other times they go uncovered, having their hair dressed like the rest of the people.
20th of September.--The mercury in the barometer fell last night from 29.
72, to 29.
51, and the sky assumed a yellow appearance.
We expected a heavy gale, more particularly as it was so near the equinox, but we were so sheltered by the land, that though it appeared to blow hard at sea, we felt nothing of it where we lay.
Three or four canoes came round the south-west point of land this forenoon; the people in them were supposed to have come from the other side of the island, for they did not appear to have seen the ships before.
One of these people was much delighted with a looking-glass which was shewn to him; he took it in his hands, and calling his companions about him, shewed them in turn its effect.
Having done so several times, he held it opposite to his own face for four or five minutes without altering his countenance in the least; at last he smiled, and immediately and involuntarily nodded assent to the image in the glass, which had so exactly expressed what he felt himself; he seemed, however, aware, that it was a reflection of his own countenance, as he pointed to himself, yet he could not restrain his curiosity from looking behind, but instantly turned it round again.
While the glass was in his hands, he made us several long speeches, in which he frequently repeated the word "Kagung," the Loo-choo name for mirror; but, from his behaviour, it is probable he knew it only by name.
One of this party sold his "Jeewa" or head ornaments for a wine glass.
Sometime afterwards, the others saw a bottle, which they wished to purchase in the same way; it was, however, given to them as a present, and they went away very well satisfied.
These canoes were of pine, from twelve to twenty feet long, and from two to four wide; their anchor is made of wood loaded with stones.
As no answer came this morning from the Great Man, Captain Maxwell took the ships into a more secure anchorage at the north-east corner of the bay; our first anchorage being too close to a reef, and moreover open to the south-west winds.
The place we had now shifted to, though apparently exposed, is, in fact, sheltered by a chain of reefs under water outside of us to the westward.
By this change, we have been brought close to the bridge spoken of before, and are now abreast the east end of the town: the Lyra not being more than a quarter of a mile from the shore.
A strict watch is kept on shore, so that no boat leaves the ships without being observed.
Orders have been given for the whole anchorage to be carefully sounded; in doing this, the boats often approach the shore, and whenever this happens, a crowd of the natives, headed by one or other of the chiefs, repair to the spot, and wave them to keep farther off.
21st of September.--There appears to be some embargo upon the canoes, for there has not been one near us this morning, and only one on board the Alceste.
It was found necessary to-day to move the frigate still farther in, and four or five hawsers were laid out for the purpose of warping her a-head.
While this was going on, the beach, and all the heights near us, were crowded with people, wondering, no doubt, how the ship was made to move without sails, for the hawsers were low down, and might have escaped their observation.
In the canoe which visited the Alceste, there came two men, who had not been seen before; they remained but a short time, which was spent in examining the hawsers and the mode of warping the ship.
As soon as they had made themselves master of this subject, they went on shore, as if to make a report.
During their visit they said little, being intent upon what was going on; but the interpreter learnt from one of them, that a Great Man had actually come, or was expected in the town to-day.
A report prevails, that the King of the island has lately been on board in disguise.
We cannot trace the report to any good foundation, and it is probably false.
At the same time, if his Majesty has any curiosity, it is not unlikely that he may have come near enough to see such a strange sight as we must be.
It is possible that our moving up so close to the town has alarmed the people, and may have prevented their visiting us as heretofore; at all events, it is very unfair in our friends, the Chiefs, neither to let the people come on board, nor to allow us to go on shore to look at them.
Our occupation in the mean time is to observe the natives through the telescope placed on a table on the Lyra's poop.
The stone bridge appears to be a great thoroughfare, several roads from the country leading to it; it seems also to be the only entrance to the town on this side.
Nobody crosses it without stopping to look at us, and a crowd of idle people have taken post on and about it.
We see a number of women coming from the country with baskets on their heads.
Their outer dress differs from that of the men, it is open in front, and they have no girdle; they have an under dress, or sack, which is also loose, but not open; in some we can see that this comes nearly to the feet, in others just to the knee, and we imagine that those who work in the fields have the short dress: most of them allow their upper garment to flow out with the wind behind them.
We observe a woman carrying a child across the hip as in India, with its hands on its mother's shoulder, while her arm is round the child's waist.
One young lady has been seen for some time amusing herself by making a dog bark at the ships.
We see women beating rice in wooden mortars.
On the banks of the stream which the bridge crosses, there are a number of people washing clothes, which they perform in the Indian way, by dipping the clothes in water and beating them on stones.
From one end of the beach to the other there is a range of people watching us, they are formed here and there into groups; one of which, on a craggy knoll abreast of the ships, has struck us as being particularly interesting.
A fine majestic looking man, whose full beard and flowing garments remind us of a figure in the Cartoons of Raphael, is standing in the middle of a circle of old men, who are lying on the grass, and appear to be listening to him.
22nd of September.--This morning brings us no news, no permission to land!
A number of flags and streamers are displayed on the masts of the vessels in the inner harbour, and there seems to be something going on on shore; no boats have come to us, and we have no occupation but looking through the glass, which, however, affords a good deal of entertainment, particularly as the people whom we see with it act in the usual way, being unconscious of our scrutiny.
In the afternoon a number of boats left the shore and proceeded to the Alceste in procession.
In the foremost boat there seemed to be a person of consequence, whom we immediately conjectured to be the Great Man alluded to by the people yesterday.
He got on board the Alceste before us, and the natives also had left their canoes, so that we found the ship's decks crowded with people.
The Chief, whom we found seated in the cabin, was clothed in purple silk, with a light purple hatchee matchee.
An official communication of our history was now repeated at the old man's request.
He listened with great attention till Captain Maxwell concluded his statement, by informing him that the ship was leaky and required frequent pumping.
He then begged permission to see this operation, if it would not give too much trouble.
As this was exactly what we wished, the chain pumps were ordered to be got ready, and the conference went on, consisting principally of compliments.
Observing that we took notice of his being a little deaf, he seemed anxious to explain that this was the effect of age.
He made us feel his pulse, and look at the withered state of his hand, then taking ours and feeling the pulse, held them up along with his own, and laughed with great good humour at the contrast which age had produced.
He was about sixty years old, and his beard of thin hair was as white as snow: he had a cheerfulness of expression, and a liveliness of manner, which are remarkable for a man of his years.
His manners were graceful and elegant, and from the first moment he seemed quite at his ease.
Every thing about him, in short, indicated good-breeding, and a familiarity with good society; and we could not help remarking his decided superiority in appearance over the other chiefs.
When the pumps were ready, he was escorted to the main deck, where he sat for some time in great admiration of the machinery; and seeing the labour required to work it, he seemed really affected at our situation, which he naturally thought must be very bad, from the immense quantity of water thrown out by the pumps.
The ship being upright, the water did not run off freely from the deck, and in a short time it flowed round the chair in which the old man was seated.
Three or four of the sailors seeing him somewhat uneasy at this inundation, took him up chair and all, and placed him on a dry spot.
The old gentleman was surprised, not displeased, and very graciously replied to the low bows which the sailors made him.
On returning to the cabin, they were all entertained as usual with sweet wine, cherry brandy, and pipes.
The old man filled pipes for us, and as soon as this part of the ceremonial had been gone through, a formal request was made for permission to land the Alceste's casks and stores, in order to stop the leak and make other repairs.
This produced a long discussion amongst the chiefs, in which the old man joined but little; he spoke, however, now and then, and whatever he said, appeared to be to the purpose.
Whenever the chiefs spoke, they rose and addressed themselves to him in a most respectful manner.
At length, having agreed about an answer, they communicated to Captain Maxwell that there was no good place here for the purposes he wanted, and that as our present anchorage was unsafe, they recommended our going round to the harbour alluded to on a former occasion.
At this place, which they call Winching or Oonching, he said we might put on shore whatever we chose.
On our asking if in Winching the water was deep enough to admit a large ship, a long discussion arose, during which they appeared to be considering the merits of the harbour.
They seemed apprehensive of giving it too high a character, and that on our reaching it we should be disappointed.
The old man at length suggested sending the "little ship" to see whether it would answer.
To this Captain Maxwell agreed, only requesting that a person might accompany us, in order to save time in the search.
Simple as this appears, they took a long time to consider it, and ended by saying that no reply could be given till the next day.
While the subject of this harbour was under discussion, the old man drew on a sheet of paper, a chart of the island, and pointed out the place where the harbour lay.
It proved afterwards, when we had surveyed the island, that this sketch possessed considerable accuracy, as the situation of the harbour of which they spoke corresponds exactly with that of Port Melville, discovered in the Lyra.
It is much to be regretted that this curious sketch is lost.
The Chief now walked about the cabin, examined the globes, books, and pictures, with great attention.
The wainscot struck him particularly, as well as the machinery and finish of the windows and sliding shutters.
Captain Maxwell tried to make him comprehend our track on the globe.
He had felt it becoming to preserve some state while business was going on, but he now became quite chatty and familiar.
He went all over the ship, accompanied by the other chiefs and his own personal suite, consisting of a pipe bearer, a man who carried his large camp chair, another with a cover of red cloth for the chair, and a man who carried a round Japan box for the hatchee-matchee.
Two others took it in turn to fan him, and to hold his arm by the elbow and wrist whenever he walked about; probably as a piece of state, for the ship had very little motion: these fanners were very expert at their business, for not content with cooling his face and neck, they lifted up his large sleeves and fanned his arms.
On returning to the cabin, he saw Mr. Clifford using gloves, and begged leave to try them on; with the right one he succeeded very well, but the nails of his left hand being about an inch long, he found it not so easy a matter: he seemed to think them the oddest things he had met with, and laughing much, held them up repeatedly to the other chiefs.
The old man brought a present for Captain Maxwell, and sent another to the Lyra, consisting of a hog, a kid, two bags of potatoes, a basket of charcoal, thirty bundles of eggs (five in each), a bundle of vermicelli, and a jar of an ardent spirit called samchew.
All the chiefs, who were in their best attire, were severally accompanied by a man carrying a box for the hatchee-matchee; their dresses were of various colours, and their sandals and stockings all alike.
On rising to go away, the old man bowed to me, and said that he meant to visit my ship; but this being evidently complimentary, I begged him not to take so much trouble: he, in return, expressed himself obliged to me for being satisfied with the politeness intended.
The Embassador's barge was manned to take him on shore, but as soon as he saw what was intended, he drew back, and declared that he could not land in any boat but his own.
As it was supposed that his modesty prevented his accepting this offer, he was urged to overcome his scruples, and land in the manner proposed; he still, however, declined the honour, but at last went down the ladder, and having stepped into the barge, made a bow to Captain Maxwell, as if in acknowledgment of the attention, but immediately afterwards went into his own boat and pushed off, under a salute of three guns from each ship.
Our intention of returning this visit the next day was not mentioned during the discussions in the cabin, from the certainty of its being combated, and perhaps overruled: but when the last of the chiefs was getting into the boat, the interpreter was desired to tell him, in a careless way, as a matter of course, that next morning this visit would be returned on shore.
As had been foreseen, this did not receive their approbation; the interpreter went into the boat, where every persuasion was used to convince him of the impropriety of our intention: they could not succeed, however, in making him yield this point, and at length went away.
This interpreter is called "John" by all parties, and though merely an under servant of the factory at Canton, he is a very shrewd fellow.
His English is certainly not the best, and probably the Chinese he speaks is the base provincial language of Canton; so that misunderstandings are no doubt often caused by his erroneous interpretation.
John's report after the boat had put off, and from which we gather that we shall be expected, was as follows: "They ax me, 'what for my Ta-yin come sho?'
I say, 'to make chin-chin[7] they Ta-yin;' they tell me, 'You Ta-yin too much great mandarine, no can come sho;' I say, 'What for my Ta-yin no come sho?
He great man; he[8] Ta-wang-tee too much great man; he let you Ta-yin come board ship, and you no let him come sho, chin-chin you Ta-yin; what for this?'
Then they speak long time together; by and by ax me, 'how many people bring sho you Ta-yin?'
So I shake my head, I no like give answer long time, (they always take long time answer me).
When they ax me again, I say, 'Ta-yin bring five people mo besides me.'
They say, 'too much men come;' I say, 'No, no too much.'
They ax, 'What time come?'
I give no answer."
23d September.--As we had not contemplated such adventures as these, we had made no preparations for them; and now that it was necessary to make some return to the chief whom we were going to visit, we found great difficulty in preparing a suitable present.
Captain Maxwell took with him several dozens of wine, some books, glasses, various trinkets, and a large piece of blue broad cloth.
I took half the quantity of Captain Maxwell's other presents, and a table cloth in place of the broad cloth.
Smaller presents were also made up for each of the chiefs.
At one o'clock we set out in the barge, with a large union jack flying, and as it blew fresh, we soon reached the harbour.
As we rowed past the shore, the people were seen running along all the roads leading to the town, so that by the time we reached the harbour, the crowd on both sides was immense: the trees, walls, and house tops, and in short every spot from which we could be seen, was literally covered with people, forming a sight as striking and animated as can well be conceived.
As we entered the harbour several of the chiefs were observed to come down to a point, and wave for us to go round the end of a pier or mole, forming the inner harbour, where there was a good landing-place.
The chiefs helped us out, and then led us along, Ookooma taking Captain Maxwell's hand, Shayoon mine, and Jeema Mr. Clifford's; the others, according to their rank, conducted Mr. M'Leod of the Alceste, Mr. Maxwell, and another midshipman, Mr. Browne.
They held our hands nearly as high as the shoulder, while a lane was formed for us through the crowd of people, who were perfectly silent.
The children were placed in front, and the next rank sat down, so that those behind could see us in passing.
At about a hundred and fifty yards from the landing-place, we came to the gate of a temple, where we were met by the Chief, who stood just on the outside of the threshold, on a small raised pavement: he took Ookooma's place, and conducted Captain Maxwell up a few steps into the temple, which was partly open on two sides, with deep verandahs, which made the interior shady and cool.
A large table, finely japanned, was spread, and two ornamented chairs were placed for us.
The Chief seated himself at one end of the table, and placed Captain Maxwell on his left.
He expressed himself much gratified and honoured by the visit, asked our ages, and if we were married.
He was greatly pleased with Captain Maxwell's account of his family, which nearly corresponded with his own.
He guessed Mr. Maxwell's age to be twenty-seven, and was with difficulty persuaded to believe that a person six feet high could be only sixteen.
The same mistake was made by all the natives, who invariably judged of the age of our young men by their height alone.
An entertainment was now served, beginning with a light kind of wine, called sackee, which was handed round in very diminutive cups, filled by Issacha, from a small high pot in which the sackee was kept hot.
They insisted on our emptying the cup every time, shewing us a fair example themselves.
During the whole feast the sackee never left the table, being considered apropos to all the strange dishes which we partook of.
The first of these consisted of hard boiled eggs, cut into slices, the outside of the white being coloured red.
A pair of chopsticks[9] was now given to each person, and these were not changed during the feast.
Next came fish fried in batter, which we found an excellent dish; then sliced smoked pork, next pig's liver sliced.
After this, tea was handed round in cups of a moderate size; the tea was quite new, resembling, as was observed, an infusion of hay.
Pipes and tobacco served to fill up the short intervals between the courses.
A man attended behind each of our chairs, whose sole business it was to fill and light the pipes.
The next dish was the strangest of any, and disgusted most of the party; it consisted of a mass of coarse, soft, black sugar, wrapped up in unbaked dough, powdered over with rice flour, dyed yellow.
After this we had dishes of round cakes, like gingerbread nuts; then cakes made in the form of wreaths, and in a variety of other shapes.
There was something like cheese given us after the cakes, but we cannot form a probable conjecture of what it was made.
Most of the dishes were so good that we soon made a hearty dinner, but the attendants still brought in more, till the Chief seeing that we did not eat, recommended the sackee to us.
The old gentleman's eyes at length began to glisten, and observing that we felt it hot, he requested us to uncover, shewing the example himself.
He seized the doctor's cocked hat and put it on, while the doctor did the same with his hatchee-matchee.
The oddity of the Chief's appearance produced by this change overcame the gravity of the attendants, and the mirth became general; nor was the joke relished by any body more than the Chief's two sons, who stood by his chair during all the entertainment: they were pretty little boys, with gaudy dresses, and their hair dressed in high shewy top-knots.
[Illustration: LOO-CHOO CHIEF and his TWO SONS.]
During the early part of the feast, our presents were brought in on trays, and laid at the feet of the Chief: the old man rose and saw them arranged, he then made a graceful bow, and acknowledged his satisfaction, observing that we had sent him too much, and had done him more honour than he was entitled to, and that he could not think of accepting the whole.
This we considered matter of form, and in reply lamented our inability to make suitable presents; upon which he sat down and said no more.
The other chiefs ran about shewing the list of their presents to their friends among the crowd.
The room in which this entertainment was given was open at first on two sides only, but afterwards the partitions on the other two sides were taken down, being contrived to slide in grooves; thus the rooms are enlarged or diminished at pleasure.
When the partition behind us was removed, several strange looking figures made their appearance, who we found were Bodezes or priests.
Their heads and faces were shaved, their feet bare, and their dress different from that worn by the rest of the people, being somewhat shorter, and much less free and flowing, without any belt round the waist, the robe being merely tightened a little by a drawing string tied at the side; over the shoulders hangs an embroidered band or belt, like that used by drummers: the colour of their dress is not uniform, some wearing black, others yellow, and some deep purple.
They have a timorous, patient, subdued sort of look, with a languid smile, and ghastly expression of countenance.
They are low in stature, and generally look unhealthy; they all stoop more or less, and their manners are without grace, so that a more contemptible class of people cannot easily be imagined.
Along with the Bodezes were several boys, whom we took to be their children from the resemblance they bore to them; but this mistake must have arisen from these boys being dressed like the priests, for the Bodezes are strictly confined to a life of celibacy.
From the circumstance of our being in a temple, as well as from our general habits of respect to persons filling sacred stations, we felt at first disposed to treat these Bodezes with attention, but this was looked upon as ridiculous by the chiefs, who seeing us bowing to them, begged we would take no further notice of them.
Instead of being the class most respected, they are considered the lowest, and if not held in contempt, are at least neglected by all other ranks.
During all the time we were at table, the crowd pressed round the verandahs, and perched themselves upon the walls and house-tops in the vicinity, or wherever they could get a peep at us.
The satisfaction here was mutual, as we were anxious to make the most of the opportunity, not knowing if we should ever be allowed to land again.
After sitting two hours we rose, and were escorted to the boats in the same order as when we landed.
An attempt had been made during the feast, when the whole party were in good humour, to prevail upon the old gentleman to sanction our taking a walk into the town; but the bare mention of such a thing sobered the whole party in an instant, and the subject was accordingly dropped.
The sailors, who had been kept in the boats for fear of their doing mischief, had not been neglected by the Chief, who had sent them part of the feast, nor did it seem that they had any objection to the sackee.
We looked anxiously on the right and left as we passed through the crowd, in hopes of seeing some of the women, but in this expectation we were disappointed.
At a considerable distance indeed, on the opposite side of the harbour, we saw a group of women, several of whom came down to the causeway to obtain a better view of the boats as they passed.
Six or eight young girls ran to the pier head, round some rocks near the end; they reached this spot just as we rowed past, but looked quite frightened at finding themselves so near us, and immediately drew back out of our sight.
We fancied that we could discover a good deal of beauty in some of their faces, and that their figures were handsome; but as we had not seen a fair lady's face for nearly half a year before, our judgment in this case is not perhaps to be depended on.
Ookooma and his associates put off to accompany us in one of their own boats, but as it blew hard, they came no farther than the pier head: Jeeroo, however, was sent along with us, to see that there were no stray sheep.
What is to follow is uncertain, but it is clear that we have made little progress of late, while fresh obstacles have been hourly rising against our landing; in the meantime, the Loo-chooans shew no little sagacity and kindness of disposition in supplying us liberally with all kinds of stock.
24th of September.--Last night and to-day it has blown a hard gale of wind, beginning at north north-east, and shifting to north-west, but the reefs and the land break its force, and enable us to ride in perfect security: in all probability it blew severely in the open sea.
The barometer fell from 29.62, to 29.50, yesterday; in the evening it had reached 29.48, and this morning stood at 29.40.
About four in the morning it began to rise rapidly, and the severity of the gale did not come on till it had risen a good deal.
The thermometer both in the day and night stands at 82º, with very little variation, but the sky being constantly clouded, no observations could be made.
25th of September.--Jeeroo came on board this morning with a present of vegetables and fruit, and afterwards went on board the Alceste to join Ookooma and Jeema.
They had preceded him with a present from the Chief, by whose desire they made a number of kind inquiries, and repeatedly expressed, in his name, surprise and satisfaction at our having been able to ride out the gale.
They also apologized for not visiting us yesterday, which the gale had rendered impossible.
It was represented in the conference to-day, that our limbs were getting quite stiff for want of exercise, and that it became absolutely necessary for us to land, on account of our health: they debated amongst themselves for some time, and then said that a final answer would be given to-morrow.
They have quite forgotten their promise to send a pilot for the harbour to the northward: they wish also that we should forget it, since they change the subject whenever it is spoken of, and affect total ignorance of our meaning.
The government probably think it best to keep us where we are, and therefore discourage our investigating the island any further.
Jeeroo, who begins to get quite familiar with us all, is a laughing good-humoured man, about thirty: he shakes every one cordially by the hand when he comes on board, and engages in all our amusements with great cheerfulness.
He is very useful to us, because the anxiety he has to learn English makes him communicate freely the knowledge of his own language: thus there is little difficulty in fixing him over a glass of Constantia, upon which occasions he contributes largely to Mr. Clifford's vocabulary.
Some of our words the Loo-chooans cannot pronounce; the letter _l_ preceded by _c_ appears the most difficult; they call Clifford "Criffar," and even this requires many efforts: not one of the natives has yet been able to make any thing of child; they call it shoidah, choiah, and chyad.
26th of September.--No boats have been near us to-day, and we might readily land if we chose it; but Captain Maxwell is resolved not to do so till he gets the consent of the natives.
27th of September.--As we were still prevented from going on shore, we amused ourselves by examining a reef which forms the north side of the anchorage.
We found a field of coral about half a mile square, dry at low water, with the surf breaking very high on the outer edge, which lies exposed to the waves from the north.
The surface of the rock is every where worn into small holes, which being left full of water as the tide goes out, are occupied by a number of beautiful blue fish.
The coral is exceedingly hard, and though at many places it sticks up in sharp points, it requires a hammer of considerable weight to break it, and emits sparks like flint when struck; in a short time it entirely defaces the hammer.
This extent of level space has suggested the idea of measuring a base on it in order to survey the anchorage, since there appears so little chance of our being allowed to land for this purpose on the beach.
While we were deliberating on this matter, we had a striking proof of the inconvenience to which we were likely to be exposed during this survey, by the tide rising and fairly washing us off.
Notwithstanding this, we determined to commence next morning, and returned to make preparations, in high spirits at the prospect of an occupation, if not on terra firma, at least out of the ship, within whose sides we had been confined so long.
On returning, we found that Captain Maxwell had arranged a party to visit the small island and reef which we were so close to on the 14th instant; the survey was therefore postponed.
Jeeroo sent us off some fresh fish to-day; some were red, and one or two blue: he came himself afterwards, and was happy to find us much gratified by his present.
A formal message was sent to-day to the chiefs in attendance, stating that both ships were in want of fresh water, and that the boats must go on shore with casks to bring some off.
In a short time after this message had been delivered, a number of canoes came alongside with large tubs of water; a strong proof of their alertness in getting rid of all our excuses for landing, and at the same time, it must be owned, of their readiness to supply our wants.
An elderly gentleman, not a chief, visited us to-day, accompanied by his secretary.
His appearance and manners being greatly in his favour, we paid him all the attention in our power.
His wish was to be permitted to go all over the ship at his leisure; and in this way he examined every thing on board with far more attention than any body had done before him.
His secretary, who was equally inquisitive, accompanied him in order to take notes.
He employed himself for about six hours in examining the upper deck, and never quitted any thing till he understood its use.
While he was thus occupied, he was attended by the sailors, who were pleased with his reverend appearance, and very readily assisted the old man in his enquiries.
It was interesting to observe, indeed, how early the gentle and engaging manners of all classes here won upon the sailors, no less than upon the officers.
The natives from the first were treated with entire confidence; no watch was ever kept over them, nor were they excluded from any part of the ships; and not only was nothing stolen, but when any thing was lost, nobody even suspected for an instant, that it had been taken by them.
The old man next came down to the cabin, where he remained a long time examining the books and furniture, and occasionally engaging in conversation with Mr. Clifford, for whose Vocabulary he supplied many new words, and corrected others which had been written down erroneously.
He would not accept any thing valuable, but was grateful for samples of rope, canvas, and cloth.
This old gentleman renewed his examination of the brig next day; nor was it till the third day that he completed his survey.
28th of September.--At sunrise we set out for Reef Island, which lies about six miles from the anchorage: we reached it in about an hour, but as it was low water, the coral was left almost bare for a considerable way out, and our large boat could not get near the beach.
In this dilemma we took possession of a canoe which was at anchor, and in several trips all the party landed.
Near a hut we saw about a dozen people who stood looking at us till we landed, and then ran away, leaving their tobacco-pipes, pouches, and various other things on the ground about the hut, in which we found a pot of boiled sweet potatoes and several jars of water.
Having, in vain, tried to allay the apprehensions of the natives by waving to them, to induce them to approach us, we sat down to breakfast; which we had hardly done, when two of them, an old man and a boy, came to the door of our tent and prostrated themselves before us, apparently in great alarm, for they answered incoherently, "ooa" (yes) to every question we asked them.
At last we raised the old man on his knees, but he would not quit this posture till we gave him a glass of rum, which re-assured him a little, and shortly afterwards he consented to stand on his legs.
Having thus gradually gained confidence, he made signs that we had taken his canoe: upon which an order was given to the coxswain to restore it.
He guessed immediately what was said, and in the joy of his heart was proceeding to prostrate himself again, but was stopped by our holding out buttons and some pieces of meat and bread to him, which he received in both hands, and touching his head each time with the presents, made three low obeisances and retired.
On rising from breakfast we found, near the tent, about a dozen natives, who, in most respects, resembled our friends at Napakiang, but were not so neatly dressed; and their hair, instead of being formed into a knot, was allowed to fly loose.
During the morning the party amused themselves in various ways.
Some took their guns and went in search of curlews and sea-snipes: others set out to explore the reefs; and two or three remained near the tent, for the purpose of making observations on the sun at noon; but as it became cloudy about this time, the latter party failed in their object.
The rest were more successful; the sportsmen having shot some game for dinner; and the other party having found all things favourable for inspecting the reef.
The examination of a coral reef during the different stages of one tide, is particularly interesting.
When the tide has left it for some time it becomes dry, and appears to be a compact rock, exceedingly hard and ragged; but as the tide rises, and the waves begin to wash over it, the coral worms protrude themselves from holes which were before invisible.
These animals are of a great variety of shapes and sizes, and in such prodigious numbers, that, in a short time, the whole surface of the rock appears to be alive and in motion.
The most common worm is in the form of a star, with arms from four to six inches long, which are moved about with a rapid motion in all directions, probably to catch food.
Others are so sluggish, that they may be mistaken for pieces of the rock, and are generally of a dark colour, and from four to five inches long, and two or three round.
When the coral is broken, about high water mark, it is a solid hard stone, but if any part of it be detached at a spot which the tide reaches every day, it is found to be full of worms of different lengths and colours, some being as fine as a thread and several feet long, of a bright yellow, and sometimes of a blue colour: others resemble snails, and some are not unlike lobsters in shape, but soft, and not above two inches long[10].
The growth of coral appears to cease when the worm is no longer exposed to the washing of the sea.
Thus, a reef rises in the form of a cauliflower, till its top has gained the level of the highest tides, above which the worm has no power to advance, and the reef of course no longer extends itself upwards.
The other parts, in succession, reach the surface, and there stop, forming in time a level field with steep sides all round.
The reef, however, continually increases, and being prevented from going higher, extends itself laterally in all directions.
But this growth being as rapid at the upper edge as it is lower down, the steepness of the face of the reef is still preserved.
These are the circumstances which render coral reefs so dangerous in navigation; for, in the first place, they are seldom seen above the water; and, in the next, their sides are so steep, that a ship's bows may strike against the rock before any change of soundings has given warning of the danger.
The island at high water is formed into three parts, which at low water are joined by reefs; the whole being about two and a half or three miles from east to west, and tolerably clear of rocks on the south side; but on the north it is guarded by a semicircle of coral extending upwards of a mile from the shore.
On the centre island is only one hut, which, as there was reason to believe it to be the actual abode of the inhabitants, it may be allowable to describe.
The walls were sunk under ground, so that only the roof appeared from without, the inside was fifteen feet by six: the walls of neatly squared stones, being two feet high, and the roof in the middle about six or seven high, formed of a ridge pole supported in the centre by a forked stick; the rafters of rough branches were covered with reeds, and thatched over with the leaf of the wild pine, which grows on all the coral islands.
The fire-place was at one end on a raised part of the floor, and the other end appeared to be the sleeping place.
It was conjectured, that this wretched place could only be meant as a temporary residence of fishermen, whose nets we saw lying about; but the number of water jars and cooking utensils which we found in and about it, gave it the appearance of a fixed habitation.
It was almost dark when we quitted the island, and the tide carrying us out of our proper course, we missed the ships and grounded on the reefs near the town; but as the tide was flowing, we easily got off, and by coasting along, soon gained the anchorage.
Sunday, 29th of September.--This day is memorable, on account of its being the first on which we were permitted to land.
Yesterday, when we were absent at Reef Island, the chiefs had come on board to say that we might land, but that our walk must be confined to the beach, and that we were neither to enter the town, nor to go into the country.
At one o'clock several of the chiefs came on board and accompanied us to the beach, where we landed amidst an immense crowd, and were handed along by Ookooma and the rest, who, in their desire to be civil, held us by the arms.
The day, however, being excessively hot, and the sand deep, we found this troublesome, and begged leave to walk alone, to which they reluctantly consented, and we proceeded along the beach for a quarter of a mile.
Beginning to get tired of our walk, we stopped and expressed some surprise at such a reception, and told them how disagreeable it was to us to be in the sun at such an hour.
But our remonstrances did not produce much effect, for, on our objecting particularly to the heat, they shewed us to a sort of cave in a rock on the beach, where they put down a mat and wished us to drink tea in the shade, since we disliked the sun.
This could not be submitted to, however, and we told them that our object in landing was not to sit down on the beach to drink tea, but to walk about under the trees in order to recover our health, impaired by a long stay on board ship.
They tried all their eloquence to persuade us that our walk, thus limited, was perfectly pleasant; till at length Captain Maxwell gave them to understand, that he wished to go to the top of the hills under the trees; but that, as he did not mean to advance a single step beyond what was approved of, he would return instantly to the ship if they persisted in confining him to the beach.
A consultation was held upon this, during which, frequent reference was made to several elderly men, whose opinions appeared to have great weight.
They did not wear the dress of chiefs, but, from all that passed, we suspected them to be persons about court, who had been sent to assist the councils of the local commission, without superseding its authority.
They at last agreed to our going to the top of the hill, taking the precaution before we set out, of sending on a couple of runners, probably to give warning to the women who might be in that direction.
About half way up the road, which winds along a steep face, there is a neatly-built well, supplied by a stream which runs along a carved water-course, and near it were three or four rudely carved stones about a foot long and four inches across, with slow matches and a small quantity of rice laid upon each.
Mr. Clifford distinctly made out that this was meant as a religious offering, but its precise object could not be discovered, though it was conjectured that the guardian deity of the well might have some title to the honour.
The side of the hill is cut into horizontal irregular terraces, which are cultivated with apparent care, and irrigated by means of ditches leading from the well.
On gaining the brow of the hill which overlooks the anchorage, the chiefs stopped, but as we were within a few yards of the summit, where we saw a shady grove, we begged them to proceed, to which, after a short deliberation, they consented.
By gaining this eminence, we commanded a view of an extensive valley more beautiful than any thing we had ever seen; and on the side opposite to us we saw the large building spoken of before, generally suspected to be the King's palace: our questions, however, on this subject were always answered in so evasive a manner, and with such apparent distress, that we seldom made any allusion either to it or to the King.
Here we remained under the trees for an hour, drinking tea and smoking pipes in company with all the chiefs, besides four or five of the old men mentioned before.
We amused them by lighting their pipes with a burning glass; but one old gentleman, who suspected some trick, and did not join in the surprise shewn by the rest, held out his hand that it might be exposed to the focus; and he was soon undeceived, to the great amusement of the circle.
The magnifying power of the glass engaged the attention of them all, but they were differently affected by it: a start and an exclamation of pleased surprise was the most usual effect; some laughed immoderately at every experiment, while others were made very grave by it, who had not been particularly serious before.
Advantage was taken of the moment when their admiration of the glass was at the highest, to present it to Jeeroo, whose good-will it was thought expedient to conciliate: he had not expected this, and felt obliged to us for so public a mark of our esteem.
A man on horseback happening to ride by, it was gravely suggested to the chiefs that nothing would so materially contribute to the establishment of our health as this species of exercise; but they insisted upon treating our request as a mere joke.
On the way back an attempt was made to vary the walk by turning to the left on reaching the brow of the hill, and so walking along the edge of the cliff to another road; the chiefs observed upon this that we should infallibly tumble down and kill ourselves; affecting, notwithstanding the absurdity of any such apprehensions, to be greatly distressed at our danger: so we turned back, after having had a short interview with an old man seated in a shed on the edge of the precipice.
His white beard, which covered his breast, suited well with his sedate and contemplative air, and gave him much the aspect of a hermit.
Our appearance did not in the least discompose him, nor did he take any notice of us till desired to do so by Ookooma; he then bowed slightly, but immediately resumed his fixed look, as if he had been quite alone.
As we drew near to the place where we had landed, our companions surprised us by an invitation to a feast, prepared, they said, on our account in a temple close to the shore.
Here they gave us painted eggs, smoked salt pork, and various preparations of eggs and fish, with sweet cakes in numberless forms, besides tea, pipes, and sackee, a light kind of wine made hot.
Nothing could be more cheerful than they all were to-day: they placed us on the floor at the upper end of the room, and, for some time, they would not allow us to move; but Mr. Clifford, who, from the progress he has made in their language, has become a great favourite, was invited to join a merry party in the verandah, to which they brought flowers, fruits, and every thing they could think of, in order to learn their English names, and give in return those of Loo-choo.
On reaching the boats, Jeeroo and two of his friends seemed disposed to go on board; they were accordingly invited to do so, which made him so happy, that he took a rudely-carved ivory ornament, in the shape of a monkey, from his tobacco-pouch, and gave it to me.
Dinner was on table when they came on board, but there was time before taking my friends below, to intimate to the servants, that these gentlemen were going to dine with me, so that when we reached the cabin, three plates were laid in addition.
They had probably not expected to find dinner ready for them on board, for they expressed surprise at these preparations having been made, and would not sit down for some time.
When the covers were removed, they became silent, and looked on either hand for directions how to proceed.
On being helped to soup, they did not stir till they saw us take spoons, in the management of which they shewed but little awkwardness.
The knife and fork gave them more trouble, but they set seriously about acquiring a knowledge of their use, and, in a short time, found no difficulty.
Their grave propriety on this occasion is the more worthy of remark, from its standing in some measure opposed to our own behaviour under similar circumstances: for instance, when we first tried to eat with their chopsticks: on that occasion there was a sort of giggling embarrassment shewn by some of us, a contempt as it were of ourselves, for condescending to employ an effort to acquire the use of a thing apparently so unimportant.
Their diminutive cups and odd dishes, too, sometimes excited mirth amongst us.
Our Loo-choo friends, however, never committed themselves in this way; a difference of manners, which may arise from their looking upon us as their superiors, and vice versâ; but even admitting this, which we were sufficiently disposed to do, it is certainly no excuse for us.
On this occasion Jeeroo and his friends had evidently made up their minds to find every thing quite new, for all three made a slight involuntary exclamation when one of the covers was lifted up, and shewed a dish of their own sweet potatoes.
They ate of every thing, using a great deal of salt, with the fineness and whiteness of which they were much pleased.
A tart, however, being put on the table, they all objected at first to touching it; they would not say why: they were at length prevailed upon to taste it, which they had no sooner done, than they exclaimed that it was "masa!
masa!"
(good!
good!)
It was made of Scotch marmalade, and Jeeroo, in recommending it to his friends, told them it was "injássa, amása," (bitter, sweet), a union which they appeared not to have met with before.
They drank wine with us, but said they feared it would make them tipsy; upon which we shewed them our mode of mixing it with water, which was evidently new to them, for they relished it so much in this form, that they were in a fair way of running unconsciously into the very excess which they dreaded.
As soon as the cloth was removed, they rose, and went to walk about the ship: on our shewing a wish to accompany them, they intreated us to keep our seats.
During dinner, though it was the first they had ever seen in the European style, these people not only betrayed no awkwardness, but adopted our customs, such as drinking wine with each other, so readily, that we were frequently at a loss to determine whether they had but just learned these customs, or whether their own usages in these cases were similar to ours.
As they pushed off in their boat they were asked to sing, which they did at once, and by their manner we suspected that the song had some allusion to us, but we could not make out the words.
30th of September.--During the whole of this morning we were engaged in the survey, accompanied by several of the midshipmen of both ships.
We measured a base, and continued taking angles till the tide rose and drove us off.
1st of October.--As a free intercourse was now established with the natives at this place, and little doubt remained of our being able to gain their permission in a day or two for landing the Alceste's stores, it became an object to ascertain, without further delay, whether or not this anchorage was better than the harbour described by the natives as being a few miles only to the northward.
While any apprehensions existed of our not being able to land here, it was not thought prudent to send the Lyra to look for that harbour, lest the chiefs should become still more suspicious of our intentions.
At this moment, however, there was reason to believe that the chiefs wished the Alceste to remain where she was, and it was expected that any show of moving to another harbour would stimulate their exertions to render our present situation agreeable.
The Lyra was accordingly ordered to weigh this morning at daylight, for the purpose of examining the coast for ten or twelve leagues to the northward.
We went out by a narrow passage through the reefs, and in the course of the morning beat up to Sugar Loaf Island.
We did not land upon it, but passed near enough to see that it is richly cultivated on the lower parts, and that all the houses are collected into villages, shaded as usual by large trees round the bottom, and for one-third of the way up the sides of the peak.
As this was our furthest point in the present survey, we tacked on reaching the Sugar Loaf, and coasted round the shores of a large square bay on the west side of the great island.
The wind shifted gradually as we sailed along, blowing directly off the shore at every place, by which means we were enabled to complete the circuit of the bay before dark, after which we anchored in sixty-five fathoms water.
Next morning we resumed our examination of the coast, but as the weather was fine, we hoisted out a boat and pulled close along the shore, while the brig kept her course at the distance of several miles.
In this manner we traced the whole shore, till we came close to Napakiang, without seeing any port.
We tried to land at several places, but were every where kept off by coral reefs stretching along the coast, at the distance of two or three hundred yards, and forming, to strangers at least, an impenetrable barrier.
The canoes of the natives paddled away from us, and passed through the surf by passages which we were afraid to approach.
We returned to the brig about two o'clock, and at three anchored in our former place at Napakiang.
The departure of the Lyra had excited a great sensation on shore; the chiefs came off to inquire of Captain Maxwell where the "honee gua" (little ship) was; but he did not choose to satisfy them, except by saying that they had trifled with him so long, and refused to let him land his casks and stores with such obstinacy, that he must endeavour to find some more favourable place at which to refit his ship.
The effect was exactly what he wished; they intreated him not to think of moving from Napakiang; offered him not only large boats to put his stores in, but said he should have store-rooms on shore for whatever he desired, while his ship was refitting.
They moreover granted him permission to land with his officers, and to go to the top of the hill without being guarded as formerly.
On the Lyra's anchoring, the chiefs came on board in great agitation, desiring to know what we had discovered.
As we had actually nothing to relate, there was little difficulty in keeping our secret.
They accompanied me on board the Alceste when I went to make my report, but Captain Maxwell, having found the advantage he had already gained by keeping them in ignorance of his intentions, was nowise communicative.
They now offered to allow his people to land for the purpose of washing their clothes, which they had before refused to do, and in short, were in a mood to grant any thing, provided we were willing to remain at this part of the island.
They did not pretend that this was out of regard for us, and it was easy to see that they apprehended more trouble in managing us any where else than at this place.
Amongst the arguments used by them to dissuade us from going to the other end of the island, they said it was inhabited by savages.
It came out accidentally too, that in the event of the ship's actually proceeding to other parts of the island, the six chiefs were to accompany us: so that they were probably influenced by considerations of personal convenience to make every exertion to prevent our moving.
3d of October.--The Lyra's crew were allowed to go on shore to-day to wash their clothes, and amuse themselves by running about on the side of the hill.
Two of the sailors of this party, who happened to be singing near the well, drew a number of natives round them, who expressed great pleasure at hearing their songs.
At first the crowd consisted entirely of the peasantry, who listened with great attention, and never interrupted the sailors; but in about half an hour, a person of some rank, with a number of attendants, came up, and begged them to sing several of their songs over again: we could not find out who this person was, but it was probably one of the chiefs, some of whom are remarkably fond of our music.
4th of October.--The survey on the reef was completed to-day: the only inconvenience we had experienced here, was the limited time which the tide allowed us each day, otherwise the situation was well adapted for a base, from its commanding a view of all parts of the anchorage.
During the progress of the principal survey, the young gentlemen sent by Captain Maxwell, in conjunction with the midshipmen of the Lyra, completed a survey of the reef itself.
A native of a genteel appearance, but not in the dress of a chief, visited the Lyra to-day, and gave me a present of two pipes and two bags of sweet potatoes.
5th of October.--Captain Maxwell called for me this morning at sunrise, on his way to the shore.
The chiefs had not expected us so early, and our only companion for some time was an old peasant, who now and then ran on before to give notice of our approach.
Two well dressed people shortly afterwards came up, and continued with us during our walk, which at first lay along the beach, but afterwards led into the country; some exception was taken to this by our companions, but as no attention was paid to them, they desisted.
After walking about a mile, we passed through a grove of young trees, and found ourselves close to a village, which lies in the bottom of a glen highly cultivated, the houses being almost entirely hid by trees, of which the bamboo is the most conspicuous.
This village is surrounded by a close hedge, and every separate house also has an inclosure: some of the houses have attached to them neat arbours, formed of a light frame of bamboo covered with a variety of creepers.
The rice fields are divided by small banks of earth, made to retain the water, and along the top of each bank there is a foot-path; the whole valley having much the air of a scene in India.
A number of the villagers, accompanied by their children, came out to meet us, but there were no women amongst them: we passed on, as they were evidently averse to our entering the village.
On our way across the valley we were attracted by the appearance of a cottage, so buried in foliage as to be completely hid from our view till we were within a few paces of the door.
It was surrounded by a slight fence of rods, about an inch apart, with a line of creepers along the top, and hanging down on both sides: a wicker gate admitted us, and we entered the house, which we found divided into two apartments, eight feet square, besides a small verandah at one end.
The floors, which were made of slips of bamboo, were raised about six inches from the ground, and covered with a straw mat.
The walls were five feet high, being neatly wattled with split bamboo, above which rose a pointed thatched roof.
It was occupied by an old man, whom we appeared to have disturbed at breakfast, for cups and tea-things were arranged on the floor; he asked us to sit down, and gave us pipes and tea.
The little apartment we were in was as neat as any thing we had ever seen: on one side there was a set of shelves, with cups, bowls, and cooking utensils; on the others were hung various implements of husbandry, with hats and various dresses, all clean and in order.
Higher up was a sort of loft or garret, formed by bamboo poles, laid horizontally from the top of the walls; on this were placed various tools, nets, and baskets.
The fire-place was in the middle of one side, and sunk below the level.
On the outside, in the space between the house and the fence, there was a pigeon house and a poultry yard, and close to the little verandah spoken of before, there stood two spinning-wheels of a light and ingenious construction.
All round on the outside of the fence, the trees were high and thick; and though the sun was above the hills, the house was completely shaded except at the end, where a small opening admitted the rays into the verandah.
We staid some time with the old farmer, trying to express our admiration of the simplicity and beauty of his cottage, and then went up the opposite side of the valley.
Here we found a road like a dressed walk in a garden: following this, we passed through a series of beautiful groves of bamboo and other trees, till at length, after winding about a good deal, we came to a double row of tall pine trees, interspersed with many others whose names we did not know, so as to form a walk which must be shady at all hours of the day.
This road we knew would lead to the town, and therefore when we had reached the highest point we turned to the right, and after a short walk reached the grove of trees which had been made the limit to our first walk on the 29th ultimo.
At this place Captain Maxwell surprised the natives a good deal by shooting several birds on the wing, but they could not be prevailed upon to fire themselves, nor even to pull the trigger when no powder was in the pan.
6th of October.--After divine service to-day on board the Alceste, a long conference was held between Captain Maxwell and the five chiefs, when, after a good deal of discussion, it was agreed on their part to allow the Alceste's stores to be landed, for the purpose of getting at the leak.
Our means of interpreting on these occasions are not the best that could be wished; but John, our Chinese, is nevertheless a keen fellow, and very ready with answers when pressed.
We generally explain as fully as possible to John what our wishes are, and then leave him to communicate them the best way he can.
An instance of his quickness occurred to-day, which seems worth mentioning.
John had communicated to them, by Captain Maxwell's desire, that as the leak complained of was in the magazine, it would be necessary to land the powder: they debated a long time upon this, and then asked John "Why the powder was not put on board the little ship?"
John, who was not aware of any good reason, affected to be surprised at this question, which he refused to interpret, saying that if Captain Maxwell thought such a measure right, he would surely not have waited till they suggested it.
The light in which he had thus put the question, made them earnestly desire him not to mention any thing about it, declaring at the same time, that they would willingly give a place for the powder, and for any other stores which Captain Maxwell might wish to land.
To-day for the first time they talked unreservedly of the king, whose name even they had hitherto studiously avoided: they spoke freely of his majesty's having sent all the stock and vegetables with which we were daily supplied.
Captain Maxwell, who of course was very desirous of opening a communication with the court, intimated his wish to pay his respects as soon as might be convenient.
They heard this with apparent satisfaction, and signified that his request should be made known to the king.
We are at a loss to discover what can have caused this change of manner.
We can only conjecture, that perhaps the king, on hearing so many reports about us, may have become desirous of seeing us himself.
At all events it is clear that some alteration in the instructions to the chiefs must have been made, otherwise they would have shewn their usual reserve when the king's name was mentioned, and would on no account have allowed us to talk of visiting him.
At one o'clock we went on shore to look at the place assigned by the chiefs for the reception of the Alceste's stores.
It is an oblong inclosure, sixty yards by forty, surrounded by a wall twelve feet high, rather well built with squared coral: the entrance is by a large gate on the south side, from which there extends raised gravel walks, with clipped hedges, the intermediate spaces being laid out in beds, like a garden.
The temple in which we were feasted on the day of our first visit, occupies one corner of the inclosure; it is completely shaded by a grove of trees, which also overhang the wall.
In that part of the garden directly opposite to the gate, at the upper end of the walk there is a smaller temple, nearly hid by the branches of several large banyan trees; and before it, at the distance of ten or twelve paces, a square awkward looking building, with a raised terrace round it.
The temple first spoken of is divided by means of shifting partitions into four apartments, and a verandah running all round, having a row of carved wooden pillars on its outer edge to support the roof, which extends considerably beyond it.
The floor of the verandah is two feet from the ground, the roof is sloping and covered with handsome tiles, those forming the eaves being ornamented with flowers and various figures in relief; there are also several out-houses, and a kitchen communicating with them by covered passages.
In one of the inner apartments, at the upper end, there is a small recess containing a green shrub, in a high narrow flower-pot, having a Chinese inscription on a tablet hanging above it on the wall.
On another side of the same room, there hangs the picture of a man rescuing a bird from the paws of a cat; the bird seems to have been just taken from a cage, which is tumbling over, with two other birds fluttering about in the inside: it is merely a sketch, but is executed in a spirited manner.
In one of the back apartments we find three gilt images, eighteen inches high, with a flower in a vase before them.
The roof of the temple within is ten feet high, and all the cornices, pillars, &c. are neatly carved into flowers and the figures of various animals.
The ground immediately round it is divided into a number of small beds, planted with different shrubs and flowers; and on a pedestal of artificial rock, in one of the walks close to it, is placed a clay vessel of an elegant form, full of water, with a wooden ladle swimming on the top.
On a frame near one of the out-houses, hangs a large bell, three feet high, of an inelegant shape, resembling a long bee-hive; the sides are two inches thick, and richly ornamented: its tone is uncommonly fine.
It was determined to appropriate part of the large temple to the use of the sick and their attendants; the assistant surgeon of the Alceste taking one room, and the gunner, who was to have the whole inclosure in his charge, another.
The small temple at the upper end, being a retired spot, was fixed upon for the Lyra's observatory; the square building in the centre seemed well adapted for a magazine.
At the gate a notice was hung up, both in English and Loo-choo, signifying that no person was to enter without a written pass from Captain Maxwell, or from one of the chiefs.
7th and 8th of October.--These days have been occupied in carrying the arrangements of Sunday into effect.
It was very interesting to observe the care which the natives took of the sick, whom they assisted all the way from the beach to the temple; a number of people attended to support such of them as had barely strength enough to walk.
When they were safely lodged, eggs, milk, fowls, and vegetables, were brought to them; and whenever any of them were tempted by the beauty of the scenery to walk out, several of the natives were ready to accompany them.
The powder was landed, and Mr. Holman, the gunner of the frigate, began the operation of drying it on hides spread in the sun round the magazine.
The cows and other stock were also landed.
One of the cows calved that night, to the surprise of every body, and the great joy of the natives, who took a great fancy to the little bull born amongst them.
Mr. Mayne, the master of the Alceste, took up his quarters in the temple, in order to be near his observatory, which was in the centre of the garden.
The stores of all kinds were sent on shore from the Alceste, which produced an apparent confusion, and the chiefs, seeing so many valuable things lying about, began to fear that they would be taken away; at least, it was supposed that they had such an apprehension, for the wall of the temple was immediately fenced in by a sort of net-work of long bamboo poles, the ends of which were fixed in the ground at the foot of the wall on the outside, and the tops made to cross one another four or five feet above the wall.
This contrivance, instead of rendering the place more secure, made it more accessible; but as our opinion was not asked, and we had no apprehensions of theft, we let them proceed in their own way.
Mrs. Loy, wife of the boatswain of the Alceste, was the only female in our squadron, and as such excited no small interest at this place.
She was a perfectly well behaved person, and sufficiently neat in her dress, but without great pretensions to good looks.
The natives, who from the first paid her much attention, shewed at all times their desire of granting her every indulgence.
They even went so far as to say she might go into the city; but, upon consulting with her husband, who was apprehensive of some accident, she declined it.
When this circumstance became known to us, we easily convinced the boatswain that no mischief could possibly arise from trusting his wife amongst such kind people; but Mrs. Loy could not be persuaded of this; and thus was lost the only opportunity of seeing the town which occurred during all our stay.
Two of the natives have been studying English with great assiduity, and with considerable success.
One is called Mádera, the other Anya.
They carry note books in imitation of Mr. Clifford, in which they record in their own characters every word they learn.
They are both keen fellows, and are always amongst the strangers.
From the respect occasionally paid to them, it is suspected that their rank is higher than they give out, and that their object in pretending to be people of ordinary rank, is to obtain a more free intercourse with all classes on board the ships.
Mádera, by his liveliness and his propriety of manners, has made himself a great favourite; he adopts our customs with a sort of intuitive readiness, sits down to table, uses a knife and fork, converses, and walks with us, in short, does every thing that we do, quite as a matter of course, without any apparent effort or study.
He is further recommended to us by the free way in which he communicates every thing relating to his country; so that as he advances in English, and we in Loo-choo, he may be the means of giving us much information.
As an instance of his progress in English, it may be mentioned, that one day he came on board the Lyra, and said, "The Ta-yin speak me, 'you go ship, John come shore;'" by which we understood that Captain Maxwell had sent him on board the brig for the interpreter.
This was about three weeks after our arrival.
[Illustration: PRIEST and GENTLEMAN of LOO-CHOO.]
Most of the natives have acquired a little English, so that Mr. Clifford has now no difficulty in finding people willing to instruct him, and to take pains in correcting his pronunciation.
One of his teachers, called Yáckabee Oomeejeéro, will not permit him to write down a single word till he has acquired the exact Loo-choo sound: but he is like the rest in shewing an invincible objection to giving any information about the women.
He admits that he is married, and gives the names of his sons: but when his wife or daughters are alluded to, he becomes uneasy, and changes the subject.
On Mr. Clifford's gravely telling him that he believed there were no women on the island, he was thrown off his guard, and answered hastily, that he had both a wife and daughter, but instantly checking himself, turned the conversation another way.
On the picture of an English lady being shewn to him, he commended it highly, saying, at the same time, "Doochoo innágo whoóco oorung" (Loo-choo women are not handsome.)
This old gentleman is a better teacher than scholar; he calls the letter L "airoo;" veal, "bairoo;" flail, "frayroo;" in which instances of mispronunciation, we may recognize a difficulty not uncommon amongst English children.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 6: This circumstance is by no means common, and therefore cannot be depended on.
In fine weather these reefs give no warning whatever, and a ship on approaching them ought invariably to have a boat a-head.]
[Footnote 7: Chin-chin in the corrupt dialect of Canton, means the ceremony of salutation, which consists in the action of holding up the closed hands, pressed together before the face, and bowing at the same time.]
[Footnote 8: Ta-whang-tee is Chinese for Emperor, King.]
[Footnote 9: Chopsticks are two pieces of ivory or wood, about a foot in length, of the thickness of a quill; they serve in China instead of a knife and fork, and are held in the right hand.
Until the difficult art of holding them is attained, they are perfectly useless.
The Chief at this feast, seeing that we made little progress, ordered sharp pointed sticks to be brought, which he good humouredly recommended our using instead of the chopsticks.]
[Footnote 10: A large collection, which was at this time made of these Zoophites, was unfortunately lost in the Alceste.]
CHAPTER III.
The Lyra sent to survey the Island of Loo-choo--Discovery of Port Melville--Description of that Harbour, and the Villages on its Banks--Lyra nearly wrecked--Interview with Natives at the South Point--Return to Napakiang--Behaviour of the Natives at a Seaman's Funeral--Mádera's Character and Conduct--Sociable Habits of the Natives--Dinner given to the Chiefs of the Island by Captain Maxwell--Mádera's Behaviour on this Occasion--Two Women seen--A Lady of Rank visits the Boatswain's Wife--Captain Maxwell fractures his Finger--Loo-choo Surgeon--Concern of the Natives--Visit of the Prince--Discussion about the King of Loo-choo's Letter--Mádera appears in a new Character--Feast given by the Prince--List of Supplies given to the Ships--Behaviour of the Prince on taking Leave--Preparations for Departure--Mádera's Distress--Last Interview with the Chiefs--Brief Memorandums upon the Religion, Manners, and Customs of Loo-choo--Advice to a Stranger visiting this Island.
As soon as the survey of Napakiang anchorage was completed, and a perfectly good understanding established with the natives, it was determined to make a survey of the whole island, and the Lyra was ordered upon this service.
She were absent about a week, during which period the general chart of the island was constructed.
It will be obvious to every one acquainted with the subject, that, in so short a time, a very exact survey of the coast of an island nearly sixty miles long could not have been made: yet, as the weather was in general fine, and other circumstances favourable, the chart will be found sufficiently correct for most practical purposes.
As the chart and the nautical and hydrographical details are given in the Appendix, I propose at present to relate only such particulars of the cruise as seem likely to interest the general reader.
9th of October.--At daybreak we got under weigh and stood to sea through a passage discovered by the boats; it was so extremely narrow, that the least deviation from the course brought us close to the rocks.
We were regulated in steering by two marks on the land, which lie in the same straight line with the centre of the passage; these it is necessary to keep always together: but not conceiving that such nicety was required while sailing out, the marks were allowed to separate, by which we found ourselves in a minute or two within a few yards of a coral reef, the ragged tops of which were distinctly seen two or three feet below the surface, whilst, at the same time, the leadsman on the opposite side sounded in nine fathoms.
This early proof of the danger of navigating amongst coral, by teaching us the necessity of extreme caution, was of great importance to us in our future operations.
As the coast lying between Napakiang and the Sugar Loaf had already been examined, we proceeded at once round that island, which, from its having the same aspect on every bearing, and being quite different in shape from any land in this quarter, is an excellent land-mark for navigators.
The natives call it Eegooshcoond, or castle[11].
The English name was given, I believe, by Captain Broughton.
Having rounded this peak and stood in for the north-west side of the Great Loo-choo, where there is a deep bight, a small island was observed close in shore, behind which it was thought there might be shelter for ships; the coast, however, being unknown to us, it was not thought safe to carry the brig very close in, and a boat was therefore dispatched with an officer to reconnoitre: he returned at eight o'clock to say that there was a harbour in the main land, the entrance to which lay on the inside of the small island mentioned before; but that the passages were narrow and winding, and that a more careful examination was necessary before the brig could venture in.
11th of October.--In the morning we again stood in, using the precaution of sending a boat a-head to sound the way; when we had nearly reached the entrance we anchored, and proceeded in three boats to examine the harbour discovered last night.
As it was near noon when we passed the small island, we landed and observed the meridian altitude of the sun; after which we entered the harbour in the main island, by an intricate passage of about a quarter of a mile in length, and at one place not two hundred yards wide.
Here we found ourselves in a circular bason upwards of half a mile across, with deep water, and completely sheltered from all winds.
On its western shore we saw a large and beautiful village almost hid amongst trees, with a high wooded range behind it stretching to the south.
The eastern shore was low and laid out in salt fields, with a few huts here and there.
At first sight this bason did not appear to have any outlet except by the one we had examined; but on rowing to its upper or southern side, we found that it joined by a narrow channel with another harbour still larger, and if possible more beautiful than the first, for here the land was high on both sides, and richly wooded from top to bottom.
Proceeding onwards through this bason, which had all the appearance of an inland lake, we came to another outlet, not above a hundred yards wide, formed by cliffs rising abruptly out of the water to the height of a hundred feet.
Both sides being covered with trees, which almost met overhead, the space below was rendered cool and pleasant, and the water, thus sheltered from every wind, was as smooth as glass.
We rowed along for some time by various windings through this fairy scene in total uncertainty of what was to come next, and at last, after advancing about three miles, it opened into an extensive lake several miles in length, studded with numerous small islands.
The depth of water in the lake varied from four to six fathoms; but in the narrow neck which connects it with the sea the depth is from ten to twenty fathoms, being deepest at the narrowest parts.
Ships might ride in any part of this extraordinary harbour, in perfect safety during the most violent tempests: and the shores are so varied, that every purpose of re-equipment might be served.
At some places natural wharfs are formed by the rocks, and eight and ten fathoms water close to them.
Ships might lie alongside these places, or might heave down by them: there are also shallow spots on which ships might be careened.
Many of the cliffs are hollowed into caves, which would answer for storehouses; and in the numerous lawns on both sides encampments might be formed of any number of people.
We rowed directly across, and landed at the southern side at the foot of a wooded range of hills, which forms the southern boundary of the lake.
As no road was observed, it was resolved to go directly up the hill, and, in about an hour, after a good deal of scrambling amongst the bushes and long grass, we gained the top, where we found a neat pathway with a ditch on each side, and a hedge growing on the top of the mound, formed of the earth from the ditch; it resembled not a little an English lane.
Without knowing where this might take us to, we followed it, in the hope of meeting some of the people, but in this we were disappointed.
Yet this place must, at times, be frequented, as we observed a number of similar paths leading to the right and left.
The trees on this range of hills are low, and of no great beauty; the fir is the most common, but we did not know the names of the rest.
After walking about a mile, our path took an abrupt turn down the brow of the hill, and appeared to lead to a large village at some distance.
The view from this elevation was very satisfactory, as it enabled us to check our rough eye draught of the harbour and coast.
The road down the hill was so steep that it was just possible to stand upon it, being inclined, as was conjectured on the spot, at an angle of 45º.
At the foot of the hill there was a little cottage, consisting of two parts, made of wattled rattans, connected by a light open bamboo roof, so covered with a large leaved creeper as to afford a complete shelter from the sun.
The cottage, which was thatched, was enveloped in creepers, encircled by the usual rattan fence at two or three yards distance.
One of the wings was occupied by goats; the other, which was dark, seemed to belong to the people, who had deserted it on our approach.
There being only a small hole in the wall to admit light and air, and to allow the smoke to escape, every thing inside was black and dirty.
Two spears hung on one side, which, upon enquiry afterwards, we were told were for striking fish.
On coming to our boats, we found them surrounded by a party of the natives, smaller in stature than our friends at Napakiang, and shewing less curiosity: probably their surprise at our sudden appearance had not subsided sufficiently to allow of their indulging curiosity in detail.
A large party of them watched attentively while a musket was loaded, and when pointed over their heads in the air, they seemed aware that something was going to happen, but from their not shrinking or removing out of the way, it seemed they knew not what.
When it was fired, the whole party fell as if they had been shot, but rose instantly again, and looking to the right and left of each other, indulged in a timorous laugh.
A cartridge was given to one man, with which he was nearly blowing himself up by placing it on his lighted pipe.
The officer of the boat informed us that a gentleman had come to him and offered his horse to ride; he had dismounted for that purpose, but the horse was frightened, and would not suffer the officer to get upon him.
We saw this person riding along when we were at the top of the hill; he called out to us repeatedly, probably to offer his horse, but we thought he wished to dissuade us from walking over the hill, and accordingly took no notice of him.
In the meantime Mr. Clifford, who had been unwell, and felt unequal to the labour of climbing the hill, proceeded in one of the boats towards a large village on the eastern side of the lake.
He was met by a number of the inhabitants, whose dress and appearance were inferior to what we had been accustomed to see at Napakiang; on his asking them in Loo-choo for some water, they gave it cheerfully; but they shewed little curiosity, and the party which followed wherever he went, seemed to have no other object than to prevent disturbance.
They made no objection to his going into the village, where he saw in one inclosure a complete farm-yard.
The principal house was closed, but to the offices there was free access.
In the stable were two handsome bay ponies; there was also a well stocked pig-sty, and a poultry-house.
In another quarter stood a mill for husking corn, consisting of a grooved solid cylinder of wood, fitting neatly into a hollow cylinder, the sides of which were also grooved; near this lay a hand flour-mill and several baskets of cotton.
In another part of the court was a granary erected on posts about six feet above the ground, having billets of fire-wood piled below it.
At another place, under a tree in the village, he saw a blacksmith's anvil fixed in a block; the forge was of masonry, having an air hole, but the bellows was wanting.
In the centre of the village stood a building like a temple, surrounded by a stone wall.
It was filled with elegant vases of different shapes and sizes, closed up and ranged in rows on the floor; the verandah encircling the building was also covered with vases.
According to the account of the natives, the remains of the dead are deposited in these jars.
Round the building bamboo poles were placed so as to lean against the thatched roof, having notches cut in them, to which bundles of flowers were hung, some fresh, others decayed, apparently funereal offerings; but their exact import Mr. Clifford was not able to learn.
The elegant shape of the vases, and the tasteful way in which they were arranged, with the flowers hanging all round, gave to this cemetery an air of cheerfulness, which we are in the habit of thinking unsuitable to a depository of the dead.
This village, which is at the head of a bay, is sheltered from the north wind by a row of trees between it and the beach; behind it is sheltered by a range of hills.
A broad road runs between it and the water; trees are planted among the houses, so as nearly to conceal them.
In the middle of the village near the cemetery, in an open square, there is a cluster of granaries like the one described above; the walls are made of wattled rattan, and overhang the lower part.
Mr. Clifford tried in vain to see the Chief of the village; but either there was no such person, or he was out of the way: the inhabitants pointed out a man on horseback as a Chief, who passed on to another village; this was probably the same man who offered his horse to Mr. Hall, the officer of the boat.
Mr. Clifford went to the top of the range behind the village, and afterwards into the valley on the other side, which he found highly cultivated.
From the heights we saw that the large space which was at first considered a lake, communicates with the sea to the north-eastward, as well as by the narrow passage through which we had come, but there was not time to allow of its being fully examined.
As we returned by the narrow straits, we called at some of the small villages on the eastern side.
At one of these, the people of the village, headed by a man who appeared to be superior to the rest, came towards the boat, and stopped for some minutes at the distance of fifty yards; after which, appearing to have gained confidence, they came on, with the old man in front, carrying a green bough in his hand.
He would not come close, however, till invited by Mr. Clifford in Loo-choo to look at the boat; he then advanced and presented his bough, in return for which we broke a branch from a tree, and gave it to him with the same formality he had used towards us.
Soon after this exchange was made, they left us, and went to examine the boat, to fishermen always an object of great interest.
On our entering the village we were met by a man who appeared to be the principal person of the place; he was very polite, shewed us through the village, and took us over his garden, where he had some sugar-cane growing; this we admired very much, upon which he ordered one of the finest of the canes to be taken up by the roots and presented to us; we immediately gave him a few buttons off our jackets, with which he was quite pleased.
On its beginning to rain while we were in the garden, he invited us into his house, which, from the walls being of wattled cane, looked like a large basket.
Rude pictures and carved wood-work figures were hanging on the walls, together with some inscriptions in Chinese characters.
On returning to the lower harbour of all, we went to the large village before spoken of, which is by far the most finished of any that we have seen on this island.
The streets are regular and clean swept; each house has a neat cane wall, as well as a screen before the door; plantain and other trees are growing so thickly in the inside of the fence, that they completely shade the house.
Near the beach were several large houses, in which a number of people were seated writing: on going up to them they gave us tea and cakes, and afterwards allowed us to go over the village without restraint; they were curious to know whether the brig was coming into the harbour or not, and if so, how many days we meant to stay; they expressed neither pleasure nor regret when we said that we were not coming in.
In front of the village, and parallel with the beach, there is a splendid avenue thirty feet wide, formed by two rows of large trees, whose branches join overhead, and effectually screen the walk from the sun; here and there are placed wooden benches, and at some places stone seats are fixed near the trees: this space, which is about a quarter of a mile long, is probably used as a public walk.
A range of hills of a semicircular form embraces the village, and limits its extent: at most places it is steep, but at the point where the north end joins the harbour, there is an overhanging cliff about eighty feet high, the upper part of which extends considerably beyond the base; at eight or ten yards from the ground on this inclined face, a long horizontal gallery has been hewn out of the solid rock: it communicates with a number of small square excavations still deeper in the rock, for the reception of the vases containing the bones of the dead.
The trees and creepers on the edge of the precipice hung down so as to meet the tops of those which grew below, and thus a screen was formed which threw the gallery into deep shade: every thing here being perfectly still, the scene was very solemn and imposing.
It took us somewhat by surprise, for nothing in its external appearance indicated the purpose to which the place was appropriated: happening to discover an opening amongst the trees and brushwood, and resolving to see what it led to, we entered by a narrow path winding through the grove.
The liveliness of the scenery without, and the various amusements of the day, had put us all into high spirits, but the unexpected and sacred gloom of the scene in which we suddenly found ourselves had an instantaneous effect in repressing the mirth of the whole party.
This village is called Oonting, and is certainly the same that is alluded to by the chiefs, and which we formerly wrote down Winching and Oonching.
This excellent harbour, which we discovered, has been named Port Melville, in honour of Lord Viscount Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty.
It was quite dark when we reached the brig.
As a heavy swell was rolling in, no time was lost in getting under weigh, but before we could succeed in running well off the reefs, the wind suddenly changed, and the weather, which before had been fine, became so dark and squally, that we almost lost sight of the shore.
Our situation was now very critical, for we had just sufficient knowledge of the coast, to be sensible how extremely dangerous it was; and the wind, which blew directly on the shore, came in such violent gusts, that there was every reason to apprehend the loss of our topmasts; to reef the sails was impossible, as the delay which this operation must have caused would have been fatal.
While things were in this state, it became necessary to tack, but owing to the heavy and irregular swell, the brig came round again against our will, and before the sails could be properly trimmed, she had gone stern foremost almost to the verge of the reef, on which the sea was breaking to a great height.
Had this occurred a second time, nothing could have prevented our being wrecked.
After beating about in this awkward predicament for two hours, the wind shifted a little, and enabled us to stretch off clear of all danger.
12th of October.--It blew so hard that we kept out at sea clear of the shore.
13th of October.--As the weather had become moderate, we stood in, and determined the position of five islands which lie to the northward of Port Melville.
14th of October.--During this day the whole of the east side of the great island was explored.
The north and north-east sides are high, and destitute of cultivation; nearly in the middle, on this side, there is a deep indenture on the coast, and the wind being such as to admit of sailing out again, we ran in under low sail with the usual precautions; notwithstanding which we were very nearly on the reefs, for the water shoaled suddenly from twenty-four to eight fathoms; and although the brig was instantly tacked, the soundings as she came round were only five fathoms, and to leeward of us the ragged tops of a rock just level with the surface were discovered at the distance of only fifty yards.
In exploring such places there ought to be a boat on each bow, as well as one a-head.
The coast from this bay to the south point of the island has a belt of coral reefs at the distance of ten and fifteen miles from the shore, and therefore cannot be approached by a ship without great danger.
The extreme south point is comparatively clear of coral; we therefore anchored off it at sunset, proposing to land next day to determine its position.
We found the iron cables of great use when anchoring amongst coral reefs.
15th of October.--It blew hard last night, but in the forenoon it moderated sufficiently to allow of our landing.
We ascertained the latitude of the extreme south point with precision, and made several other observations, all circumstances being favourable.
We had scarcely landed when the natives began to assemble in groups on the top of the cliffs, and in a short time they came down to us, most of them carrying long poles in their hands; we were sufficiently aware of their inoffensive character to have no apprehension of their intentions, otherwise their appearance would have been somewhat formidable.
There was no person of rank among them; they were communicative and full of curiosity, which difference in manner from the inhabitants on the shores of Port Melville may have arisen from these people knowing something of us by reports from Napakiang, which is not above ten miles distant.
It was to be expected that we should have become a topic of discourse at so short a distance, and probably what was said of us would be favourable, or at all events such as would excite curiosity rather than fear.
Most of these people had fish spears tatooed on their arms in the form of a trident, with rude barbs.
When drawn on the right arm it is called "Oódeemaw;" when on the left, "Toóga."
This is the only instance we have met with of this practice.
Our curiosity was farther excited by the appearance of these spears, from the circumstance of our never having seen any warlike weapon on this island; but the people invariably called them "Eéo stitchee" (fish spear).
Several of the tallest of these people were measured, but none were above five feet six inches; they are, however, strong limbed and well proportioned.
One of them wore a ring on his finger, which is the only instance we have met with of any ornament being worn at Loo-Choo.
The ring finger is called in the Loo-choo language, "Eébee gánnee," finger of the ring; and it seems a fair inference from this, that amongst some part of the community rings are habitually worn; probably by the women.
The coast here is formed of cliffs, about seventy or eighty feet high, with numerous caverns hollowed out by the waves.
The pools of water left by the tide were full of beautiful fish of a great variety of colours.
16th of October.--In the morning we weighed and stood to the westward, among the group of islands called Amakírrima by the natives.
At one of these there seemed at first sight to be a harbour for ships; but on sending the boats to explore, it proved only safe for small vessels being filled in every part with coral.
On our way across from the south point of the great island to the Amakírrimas, we passed near a coral reef exactly circular, and half a mile in diameter; it is just level with the water's edge at half ebb, so that in fine weather the sea does not break upon any part of it.
As it is upwards of seven miles from any land, and lies directly in the passage towards Napakiang, it is exceedingly dangerous, and ought not to be approached in the night by a stranger.
At four o'clock we anchored in our old place in-shore of the Alceste.
As we stood towards the anchorage we could see the coral from the mast-head so distinctly as to be able to trace the forms of all the reefs as we passed among them.
This can rarely be done, although the water is always clear, because an unusual degree of smoothness in the surface is requisite to make the rocks visible; and the sun must also shine upon the water at a particular angle.
A stranger cannot therefore calculate upon having the danger pointed out in this way; but when such circumstances do occur they may be taken advantage of to check the surveys of reefs made in boats.
We find things at Napakiang nearly as we left them; the best understanding seems to exist between Captain Maxwell and the chiefs.
Every body is allowed to walk about and do as he likes.
The frigate has been bountifully supplied with stock and vegetables; and the sick on shore are rapidly recovering under the kind care of the natives, who take a peculiar interest in their comfort.
A young man belonging to the Alceste had died during our absence.
When the natives were informed of this circumstance, they requested permission to make the grave, and begged Captain Maxwell to point out a place for this purpose.
Captain Maxwell said that no situation could be more appropriate than under the grove of trees near the temple, a spot already rendered sacred by many Loo-choo tombs.
Next day the body was carried to the grave with all the formalities usual on such occasions, Captain Maxwell, according to custom, walking last, with the officers and crew before him.
The ready politeness of the natives was never more strikingly displayed than now; for perceiving that those who were of the highest rank walked in the rear, they considered that their station must of course be in front; and they accordingly placed themselves at the head of the procession, and preserved throughout the ceremony the most profound silence.
They were all dressed in white robes, which we have reason to believe is their mourning.
On the next day the natives requested leave to raise a tomb over the grave; this was of course agreed to, and when it was completed, they performed their own funeral service over it, by sacrificing a large hog, and burning a quantity of spirits.
Jeeroo officiated on this occasion, and when he had done, he carried the hog to the sick in the hospital.
The chiefs also gave directions for a small square stone to be smoothed and prepared for an epitaph; which being traced upon the stone by Mr. Taylor, the clergyman of the Alceste, was carved very neatly by the natives.
The epitaph, after mentioning the name and age of the deceased, stated briefly, that he and his companions in his Britannic majesty's ships Alceste and Lyra, had been kindly treated by the inhabitants of this island.
When the purport of the writing was interpreted to the chiefs, they appeared very much gratified at our acknowledging their attentions.
18th of October.--Our friends expressed much pleasure on meeting us again, particularly Jeeroo, who seems to take great interest in our concerns: he carried us up to the sailor's tomb, where we were joined by Ookooma, Jeema, and some of the others, who unaffectedly expressed their sorrow for this man's untimely fate.
I found my people who had been landed previous to our sailing on the survey, much recovered, and very grateful for the kindness of the natives.
Milk, eggs, meat, and vegetables, had been brought to them every day, and whenever they felt disposed to walk they were accompanied by one or two of the natives, who took their arms on coming to rough ground, and often helped them up the steep side of the hill behind the hospital, to a pleasant grassy spot on the summit, where the natives lighted pipes for them: in short, I suppose sailors were never so caressed before.
The chiefs were anxious to know what we had been doing during the week in which we had been absent.
From an apprehension that they might be displeased at our having instituted a regular examination of the whole island, we said we had been looking at the harbour they had spoken of; they immediately mentioned the village of Oonting, and asked how we liked it.
But they guessed that we had been round the island, from seeing that we returned by the south, though we had sailed to the north; they said repeatedly, that the island was very small, appearing to be anxious to depreciate it; our reply of course was, that it was very large and beautiful.
Mádera has made great improvement in English, and his character is altogether more developed.
He is quite at his ease in our company, and seems to take the most extraordinary interest in every thing belonging to us; but his ardent desire to inform himself on all subjects sometimes distresses him a good deal; he observes the facility with which we do some things, and his enterprising mind suggests to him the possibility of his imitating us; but when he is made sensible of the number of steps by which alone the knowledge he admires is to be attained, his despair is strongly marked.
He sometimes asks us to read English aloud to him, to which he always listens with the deepest attention.
One day, on shore, he saw me with a book in my hand: he begged me to sit down under a tree, and read: Jeeroo was the only chief present, but there were several of the peasants in attendance upon him; they all lay down on the grass, and listened with an attention and interest which are natural enough: every one expressed himself pleased and satisfied except Mádera, whose anxiety was to read in the same manner himself.
From the earnest way in which he inquired into every subject, we were sometimes inclined to think that he must have been directed by the government to inform himself on these topics; and certainly a fitter person could not have been selected; for he adapted himself so readily to all ranks, that he became at once a favourite, and every person took pleasure in obliging him.
Jeeroo is esteemed in another way; he is uniformly good humoured and obliging, and not without curiosity; but he is not clever, and has none of the fire and enthusiasm of Mádera.
We all think kindly of Jeeroo, and shake him cordially by the hand when we meet him; but Mádera is admired and respected, as well as esteemed, and his society is courted for his own sake.
Mádera is about twenty-eight years of age, of a slender figure, and very active; his upper teeth project in front over the lower ones, giving his face a remarkable, but not a disagreeable expression.
He is always cheerful, and often lively and playful, but his good sense prevents his ever going beyond the line of strict propriety.
When required by etiquette to be grave, no one is so immoveably serious as Mádera, and when mirth rules the hour, he is the gayest of the gay: such indeed is his taste on these occasions, that he not only catches the outward tone of his company, but really appears to think and feel as they do.
His enterprising spirit and versatility of talent have led him to engage in a number of pursuits; his success, however, is the most remarkable in his acquisition of English.
About a month after our arrival, he was asked what had become of his companion Anya; he replied, "Anya, him mother sick, he go him mother house;" and when asked if he would return, he said, "Two, three day time, him mother no sick, he come ship."
With all these endowments and attainments he is unaffectedly modest, and never seems aware of his being superior to the rest of his countrymen.
We were a long time in doubt what was his real rank; for at first he kept himself back, so that he was well known to the midshipmen, before the officers were at all acquainted with him: he gradually came forward, and though he always wore the dress of the ordinary respectable natives, his manners evidently belonged, to a higher rank, but he never associated with the chiefs, and disclaimed having any pretensions to an equality with them.
Notwithstanding all this, there were occasional circumstances, which, by shewing his authority, almost betrayed his secret.
One morning a difficulty arose about some supplies which the chiefs had engaged to procure, but which they had neglected to send; as soon as Mádera was told of the circumstance, he went to Captain Maxwell, and undertook to arrange it to his satisfaction, at the same time begging that if any difficulty occurred in future, he might be applied to.
Whatever may be Mádera's rank in his own society, it is highly curious to discover in a country so circumstanced, the same politeness, self-denial, and gracefulness of behaviour which the experience of civilized nations has pointed out as constituting the most pleasing and advantageous form of intercourse.
The great interest which Mádera took in the English, and the curiosity he always expressed about our customs at home, suggested the idea of taking him with us to England, where he would have been an interesting specimen of a people so little known; and he also might have carried back knowledge of the greatest use to his country.
When it was proposed to him, he paused for some minutes, and then, shaking his head, said, "I go Injeree,--father, mother, childs, wife, house, all cry!
not go; no, no, all cry!"
In our absence a number of watch-houses had been erected on the heights round the anchorage; they are mere sheds of cane thatched over, in which three or four of the natives remain, day and night, in order to be ready to accompany any person who may happen to land, wherever it be.
They have also erected a long shed, with a floor of split bamboo; in this place, which is on the top of the hill above the usual landing place, the chiefs generally assemble in the morning; they invite every one who passes to drink tea and smoke pipes, which is very convenient when the boats happen not to be ready to take us on board.
Each of the chiefs is attended by a boy, generally his son, whose business it is to carry a little square box, in which there are several small drawers, divided into compartments, filled with rice, sliced eggs, small squares of smoked pork, cakes, and fish; and in one corner a small metal pot of sackee, besides cups and chopsticks.
By having this always with them, they can dine when and where they choose.
They frequently invite us to dine with them, and if we agree to the proposal, they generally ask any other of the chiefs whom they meet to be of the party and join dinners.
The place selected for these pic-nics is commonly under the trees, in a cool spot, where a mat is spread on the grass; and every thing being laid out in great order, the party lies down in a circle, and seldom breaks up till the sackee pot is empty.
An artist of the island brought a drawing of the Alceste on board to-day for Captain Maxwell: it is about two feet by one and a half, and is altogether a most extraordinary production, in which perspective and proportion are curiously disregarded.
The captain and officers are introduced in full uniform, and a number of the sailors on the rigging and masts.
With all its extravagance, however, it has considerable merit; there is nothing slovenly about it, and there is enough of truth in it to shew that it was sketched on the spot.
A dispute has arisen between John the interpreter and the chiefs, who it seems had positively promised to get a horse for Captain Maxwell to ride; as they have not kept their word, John declares that he will have nothing to say to people who do not speak truth.
They have again promised, however, that a horse will be got ready, and in the mean time, a fresh stock of beef and vegetables has been sent to both ships, which has pacified John a little.
We have had much occasion to lament not having been accompanied by one of the gentlemen of the factory acquainted with the Chinese language, for although to have John is much better than to be without any interpreter, it is probable that he is not very delicate in his requests, and makes use of expressions and arguments unsuited to our character, and contrary to our wishes and instructions.
19th of October.--In the morning, before breakfast, Captain Maxwell was informed by one of the chiefs, that a horse was ready for him on the beach; he landed accordingly, and found a little pony saddled, and two of the chiefs mounted.
They objected to his riding in the country, where the roads were uneven, so that for the present his ride was confined to the beach.
The saddle is made of wood, and so uneven as to be very unpleasant: it is proposed to have one made of a blanket and mats in future.
To the stirrup there is tied a box, large enough to receive the whole foot.
A dinner was given to-day by Captain Maxwell to the chiefs Ookooma, Shayoon, Issacha Sandoo, Jeema, and Issacha Hackeeboocoo; Jeeroo was also invited to it, but did not attend; being the junior, he had probably been left in charge of the beach and store-rooms.
Mádera also made one of the party, though not originally included in the invitation.
As he had never laid any claim to an equality in rank with the chiefs, it had not been thought right to invite him along with them: but Mádera, who probably knew that he would be very welcome, put himself in Captain Maxwell's way just before dinner, and was prevailed upon, after a little persuasion, to remain.
Dinner was served at five o'clock in as sumptuous a style as possible.
Ookooma was placed on Captain Maxwell's right, and Shayoon on his left; I sat beside the former, and Mr. Clifford next the other; then the two chiefs next in rank, and beside them two of the officers of the ship: the first lieutenant, Mr. Hickman, sat at the foot of the table, with Hackeeboocoo on his right, and Mádera on his left.
They were all in great spirits, and ate and drank freely, and though they complained of the size of the glasses, and of the strength of the wine, tasted every thing from punch to champagne: the briskness of the last indeed surprised them not a little, and effectually muddled two of them for some time.
Cheese was the only thing they all objected to, probably on account of its being made of milk, which they never taste.
The interpreter not being present, the conversation was carried on through Mr. Clifford and Mádera, and partly by signs.
Whether intelligibly or not, every body was talking.
Mádera has dined often on board the ship, and is quite perfect in our customs.
On this occasion he took great charge of the chiefs at his end of the table, speaking sometimes in one language and sometimes in the other.
Observing Jeema eating ham without mustard, he called to Captain Maxwell's servant, and pointing to Jeema, said, "Tom, take mustard to him."
When the desert was put on table, and the wine decanters ranged in a line, they exclaimed in astonishment, "Moo eeyroo noo sackee," six kinds or colours of wine; but the sweetmeats and prepared confectionary pleased them most.
After sitting about an hour and a half after dinner, and drinking with tolerable spirit, they rose to depart; but this they were not allowed to do, and they were informed that it was the English custom to sit a much longer time.
They represented that the sun had set, and they would never be able to find their way on shore, but would all be drowned in attempting it.
This alarming difficulty was easily overruled by a promise of the barge, and they sat down again.
While the discussion was going on between Captain Maxwell and his guests, Mádera kept his seat, and looked about him in his keen observant way, to discover, if he could, what was likely to be the issue of this adventure.
Having observed that in general we were anxious to keep our company at table as long as we could, he naturally enough thought that we would not let this opportunity pass of entertaining the chiefs according to our fashion.
He appeared to have settled this question with himself just as the chiefs resumed their seats, for rising half off his chair, and with a mixture of archness and simplicity, as if he had made an amusing discovery, cried out in English, "When all drunk then go ashore!"
Though Mádera, as will be seen, was not quite right in his guess, there was enough of truth in his remark to raise a hearty laugh among those who understood him; and as he joined in this laugh at his own joke, it was some time before he could explain what he had said to the chiefs, who, being in a merry humour themselves, took it in perfect good part, though their mirth was evidently dashed by a little apprehension of the fate which Mádera had anticipated for them.
The health of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent was then given, all the company standing in the most respectful manner.
This was followed by the health of the King of Loo-choo, which was drank with similar observances.
On sitting down after the latter toast, the chiefs conferred a few minutes across the table, and then all rose to propose Captain Maxwell's health; their wishes being explained by Mádera.
When they sat down, Captain Maxwell proposed the health of Ookooma and the other chiefs, but as we in return stood up to drink to them, their modesty disclaimed this part of the compliment, and they rose likewise; nor was it till a good deal of persuasion had been used, that they consented to be seated while we were standing.
These four bumpers made the party very merry, and it now was intimated to them, that as all the usual formalities had been observed, they might drink just as much as they liked, or pass the bottle altogether; a permission of which few of them took advantage.
They lighted their pipes, laughed, joked, and seemed so happy, that it was agreed on all hands, that conviviality is no where better understood than at Loo-choo.
After a time, at our request, they played some games, of which we had heard them speak.
The object of these games was drinking; a cup of wine being the invariable forfeit.
That every thing might be in character during the games, some of their own little cups were put on table.
One person holds the stalk of his tobacco-pipe between the palms of his hands, so that the pipe rolls round as he moves his hands, which he is to hold over his head, so as not to see them.
After turning it round for a short time, he suddenly stops, and the person to whom the bowl is directed has to drink a cup of wine.
Another is a Chinese game: one person holds his hand closed over his head, he then brings it quickly down before him with one or more fingers extended; the person he is playing with calls out the number of them, and if he guesses right, he has to drink the cup of wine.
These and other games caused a good deal of noisy mirth, and at length it was proposed by them to go out, in order to look at the sailors who were dancing on deck.
Before leaving the cabin, they shewed us a Loo-choo dance round the table: Mádera placed himself at the head before Ookooma, while the others ranged themselves in a line behind him; he began by a song, the air of which was very pretty, and nearly at the same time commenced the dance, which consisted principally in throwing the body into a variety of postures, and twisting the hands about.
Sometimes the hands were placed flat together, at others separate, but generally the former; the movements both of the body and hands were regular and of a waving description.
The head was made to incline slowly from side to side, so as almost to touch the shoulders; the feet were moved with a slight shuffling motion, with an occasional long sweeping step to one side and then back again; but the perfection of the dance appeared to be in the proper use of the hands and body.
The words of the dance song were "Sasa sangcoomah, sangcoomee ah!
sangcoomee ah!
kadee yooshee daw;" when they came to the last word they all joined in the chorus and clapped their hands.
Although Mádera was the leader both in the dance and song, he was occasionally joined in the latter by several of the others, the whole party repeating the last word several times over.
In this way they went several times round the table.
Mádera had a graceful carriage, and his dancing, though fantastic, was really elegant; his singing too was in good taste.
The others danced clumsily, though in perfect good time, and joined with some spirit in the chorus.
The ship was illuminated, and the sailors were dancing on the upper deck.
The chiefs were much pleased with this scene, which was lively enough.
After watching the dance of the sailors for a few minutes, Mádera, who, to use a common phrase, "was up to every thing," ran among the sailors, and seizing one of them by the shoulders, put him out of the dance, took his place, and kept up the reel with the same spirit, and exactly in the same style and step as the sailors.
The other dances were left off, and the whole ship's company assembling round Mádera, cheered and clapped him till the dance was done.
The chiefs joined in the applause, seeming no less surprised than ourselves at Mádera's skill, for his imitation of the sailors' odd steps and gestures was as exact as if he had lived amongst seamen all his life.
The officers then danced a country dance, after which the chiefs, unasked, and with a sort of intuitive politeness, which rendered every thing they did appropriate, instantly stepped forward and danced several times round the quarter-deck, to the infinite gratification of the sailors.
On returning to the cabin to tea, they were all in high spirits, and while amusing themselves with a sort of wrestling game, Ookooma, who had seen us placing ourselves in the boxer's sparring attitudes, threw himself suddenly into the boxer's position of defence, assuming at the same time a fierceness of look which we had never before seen in any of them.
The gentleman to whom he addressed himself, thinking that Ookooma wished to spar, prepared to indulge him; but Mádera's quick eye saw what was going on, and by a word or two made him instantly resume his wonted sedateness.
We tried in vain to make Mádera explain what were the magical words which he had used to Ookooma.
He appeared anxious to turn our thoughts from the subject, by saying, "Loo-choo man no fight; Loo-choo man write--no fight, no good, no, no.
Ingerish very good, yes, yes, yes; Loo-choo man no fight."
Possibly he considered that Ookooma was taking too great a liberty; or, perhaps, he thought even the semblance of fighting unsuitable with the strict amity subsisting between us.
Before they went away, Captain Maxwell, who had remarked the satisfaction with which the chiefs received any attention shewn to their children, ordered a large cake to be brought him, which he divided into portions for the family of each.
The chiefs were in a proper mood to feel this kindness, and they expressed themselves, as may be supposed, very warmly upon the occasion.
When they put off for the shore they began singing, and never left off till they landed.
20th of October.--The forenoon was passed at the Observatory, and afterwards we walked in the country without being observed, for the chiefs had not yet recovered from the effects of last night's gaiety: but we had not gone a mile before Jeeroo overtook us.
We were very anxious to gain the brow of a neighbouring hill, from which we imagined there would be a good view of the palace; but although Jeeroo was the most obliging creature in the world on every other occasion, he was resolute now in not letting us go far beyond our usual limits; we tried to overrule his objections by telling him that we should do no mischief, and would not go farther than the adjoining height.
He would listen, however, to nothing; and as we still walked slowly on, he at last sent off a messenger for assistance, but before this reinforcement arrived we had turned back, to Jeeroo's great relief.
Although the object proposed had not been accomplished, we got a better sight of the palace than we had yet obtained.
It is so much enclosed by trees that parts only can be seen, but it is undoubtedly a very large building.
On returning we met Hackeeboócoo, the fat chief, coming puffing and blowing up the hill; he had set out to overtake us on being told by Jeeroo's messenger what we were proposing to do.
He had drank a good deal of wine yesterday on board, and said he had been "weetee" (drunk), and that his head ached very much.
After he joined us we passed near a village, where we met two women at the turning of a road: they did not see us till within a few yards, and their alarm was great; they threw down the baskets, which they were carrying on their heads, and fled into the wood.
Our two companions were very uneasy at this rencontre, and would not listen to our reasoning upon the absurdity of their apprehensions, looking quite miserable till the subject, which seems to be an interdicted one, was changed.
We went afterwards to the high ground behind the hospital, in order to fill up by eye the edges of the reefs in our charts, for which regular triangles could not be taken in the survey.
While I was thus engaged, Mr. Clifford endeavoured to learn from Jeeroo whether or not the King lived in the large house spoken of before; Jeeroo as usual denied any knowledge of the King, and could not be prevailed upon to say what the house was, or who resided there; a peasant, however, who happened to be along with us was more communicative, and was giving all the information desired, when Jeeroo, observing what he was about, reprimanded him sharply.
On coming down from the height we found all the chiefs seated in a long room erected on the outside of the garden gate: they were very merry on the subject of last night's adventure.
21st of October.--While Mrs. Loy was employed at the well to-day washing clothes, at a moment when every body else was out of the way, she was visited by a Loo-choo lady, accompanied by a numerous guard of men.
She describes her as being about eighteen years of age, well dressed, fair in complexion, with small dark eyes, and not without beauty; her hair was of a glossy jet black, made up into a knot on one side of the head.
She wore a girdle tied at the side, and had on sandals like the men.
Mrs. Loy wished to touch her, but she shrunk back in alarm.
Whether these details be quite correct or not, the circumstance of a lady of rank having visited Mrs. Loy is so far interesting as it denotes a considerable degree of curiosity on the lady's part, together with the power of gratifying it, which, in a country where the women are strictly secluded, perhaps would not be allowed.
22d of October.--Ookooma and Jeeroo came to the Observatory to-day, together with a number of the most respectable of the natives; they were desirous of seeing the reflected images of the sun in the artificial horizon through the telescope of the sextant.
As this was placed on a stand there was no difficulty in satisfying their curiosity, for they had only to place their eye to the tube, the angle having been previously arranged.
Many of them were amused by the changes of colour in the reflected images by means of the different shades; others were more struck with the apparent motion of the two suns, which is very perceptible when a high magnifying power is used; a few endeavoured to understand the meaning of what they saw, but with the exception of Jeeroo, I think they had no conception of its cause.
Jeeroo appeared to have some notion of astronomy; his idea of eclipses was more accurate than could have been expected.
From him Mr. Clifford got the names of the days and months, and the various points of information respecting Time, which will be found in the Vocabulary.
Whenever we were actually taking observations, the natives invariably remained at a considerable distance.
They had been told that the least motion disturbed the surface of the quicksilver, and prevented our taking observations.
They had much patience, and sometimes sat quite still and silent for several hours, till invited to come forward to look at the instruments.
When Ookooma and Jeeroo came to us, we observed that they were in great distress, and upon our asking the cause, the former explained that Captain Maxwell during his ride this morning had fallen down, or rather that his horse, which was too weak for his weight, had fallen with him, and that his finger was broken: "Tayin ma tawrittee, Tayin no eebee ootee" (the Tayin's horse fell, Tayin's finger broke).
A Loo-choo doctor, he said, had gone on board, who would soon cure it.
On going to the Alceste we found that the Loo-choo surgeon had placed Captain Maxwell's broken finger in a thick paste made of eggs, flour, and some other substance which he brought along with him.
He then wrapped the whole in the skin of a newly-killed fowl.
This skin dried in a short time and held the paste firm, by which the broken finger was kept steady.
The doctor went through a number of ceremonies, such as feeling the pulse, looking at the tongue, and so on.
He had a box along with him, containing upwards of a hundred medicines.
Captain Maxwell mentioned, that while he was sitting in a shed after the accident, he was surprised to see a person enter the door crawling on all fours, and half dead with terror.
This it appeared was the surgeon, who had been sent for by the chiefs.
He was horror-struck at the accident, but soon recovered himself on observing Captain Maxwell's perfect tranquillity.
Captain Maxwell's gentleness and forbearance, and his uniform attention to the wishes of the natives, and the great personal kindness which he had shewn to so many of them, had very early won their confidence and esteem.
As our intercourse became more intimate, these feelings naturally became stronger, and the concern which the natives felt upon this occasion was very general, and was expressed, not only by Mádera and the chiefs, but by the lower orders, in a manner highly flattering to Captain Maxwell.
23d of October.--A deputation of the chiefs went on board the Alceste early this morning to say, that the Prince of the island, who was the next person in rank to the King, and heir to the throne, meant to come on board the frigate this afternoon, as well for the purpose of paying a visit of ceremony, as of enquiring into the state of Captain Maxwell's health after the accident.
At noon the four senior chiefs, dressed in their state robes and hatchee-matchees, came to announce the Prince's approach, and in about half an hour afterwards he was brought in a closed sedan-chair to the boat, through a concourse of people, to whom he seemed as much a show as to us.
The state boat was a large flat-bottomed barge, covered with an awning of dark blue, with white stars on it, the whole having much the appearance of a hearse.
It was preceded by two boats bearing flags with an inscription upon them, having in the bow an officer of justice carrying a lackered bamboo, and in the stern a man beating a gong.
A vast number of boats were in attendance, some bearing presents, and others following out of mere curiosity.
One of the Chiefs came on board with the Prince's card, which was of red paper forty-eight inches long, and eleven wide[12], and shortly afterwards the Prince's barge put off from the shore; upon which the rigging of both ships was manned, and a salute of seven guns fired; when he came on board he was received with a guard, and under a like salute.
Captain Maxwell, who had been confined to the cabin ever since his accident, desired me to receive the Prince.
No arrangement having been made with us respecting the ceremony of reception, I merely took off my hat and bowed: but all the chiefs fell on their knees the instant he came on the quarter-deck.
I took his hand from one of the chiefs who had assisted him up the accommodation ladder, and led him to the cabin.
When seated beside Captain Maxwell, the Prince made several anxious enquiries about his finger, expressing much regret that so disagreeable an accident should have occurred at Loo-choo.
He then called to his pipe-bearer, and having prepared a pipe, presented it to Captain Maxwell, who returned him this compliment, by giving him one of his own.
The usual questions as to our ages and families, and various complimentary speeches, having passed, he said he had heard much of the wonders of the ship, and should like to see them himself: he rose upon this and went to the globes, which he examined with great care.
He begged to be shewn Ingeree, Loo-choo, Quantoong (China); Niphon (Japan); Manilla, and Pekin.
The chiefs would not sit down in his presence, and never spoke to him without kneeling.
On his expressing a wish to look at the different parts of the ship, he was conducted all round the decks.
He observed every thing with attention, but without betraying any great degree of curiosity: he had heard of the boatswain's wife, and asked to see her; the lady, in her best dress, was presented to him; he stood for about half a minute looking at her with a sort of pleased surprise, and then, as if suddenly recollecting that this was somewhat rude, he drew his fan from his breast, and with an air of the utmost politeness, held it towards her, and upon Mrs. Loy curtsying in acknowledgment, he sent it to her by Mádera.
He asked to see the fire-engine worked, and appeared much gratified by seeing the water thrown to so great a height.
He had heard of the African negro, and begged that he might be sent for.
When the black man was brought before him he looked exceedingly surprised, and probably was in doubt whether the colour was natural, as one of his people was sent to rub his face, as if to discover whether it was painted or not.
The natives, who had flocked on board in crowds, fell on their knees whenever the Prince passed.
[Illustration: THE PRINCE of LOO-CHOO.]
On returning to the cabin, the Prince was invited to a collation prepared for him in the foremost cabin: for a long time he refused to sit down, nor could we conjecture what his objection was; at length, however, he complied, while the chiefs, who are neither allowed to sit down nor eat in his presence, retired to the after-cabin.
He tasted every thing which was offered him, but seemed afraid of the wines, having probably heard of the proceedings on the evening of the 19th.
In about half an hour he rose and went to the after-cabin; the chiefs and the people of his suite, to the number of fifteen, then sat down at the table he had left, and made ample amends for the temperance and moderation of his royal highness.
As soon as they rejoined the party in the after-cabin, business was entered upon by Captain Maxwell's returning thanks, in the name of the English government, for the liberal way in which we had been supplied with every kind of refreshment, and for the other assistance which had been given to us.
The Prince replied, that the King of Loo-choo was anxious to do every thing in his power for the King of England's ships.
Upon this Captain Maxwell observed, that he was very desirous of seeing his majesty, for the purpose of expressing in person his gratitude for the kindness we had received in this country.
The Prince answered, that it was contrary to the laws and customs of Loo-choo, for any foreigner to see the king, unless sent by his own sovereign, and charged with complimentary presents.
Coming from such high authority, this assurance was conclusive, and as nothing further could now be said on the subject, the hope of opening a communication with this court, which had been so anxiously desired, seemed now destroyed.
The Prince, however, unexpectedly resumed the subject, by saying that a letter would be written to the King of England, if Captain Maxwell would undertake to deliver it; his answer was, that nothing could give him more satisfaction than being made the bearer of such a communication: that he had earnestly desired the honour of paying his respects to his majesty, but from the moment that he had heard that it was contrary to the customs of the country, he had ceased to think of it.
As soon as it was interpreted that Captain Maxwell was willing to carry the letter alluded to, and that he no longer urged his desire to see the King, the Prince rose and pressed Captain Maxwell's hand and mine between his, while all the chiefs fell on their knees in a circle round us, shewing by the expression of their countenances, how great the anxiety had been from which they were relieved by Captain Maxwell's ready acquiescence with their wishes: the Prince in particular, who had hitherto looked full of anxiety, became all cheerfulness, and his manner assumed a totally different character.
The inference from this curious scene is, that the real object of the Prince's visit was to dissuade Captain Maxwell from urging his request to be allowed an interview with the King; and we conjectured that the circumstance of his accident was taken advantage of to pay a visit to the Alceste, where they naturally thought that the remonstrances of a man of such high rank as the Heir Apparent to the throne, would carry more weight than any which had yet been tried.
When the Prince again alluded to the letter, it appeared that it was to be written by the minister, and not by the King.
This altered the case materially, and Captain Maxwell most respectfully informed the Prince, that such a letter as he described could not be received, as it would be an indignity to our sovereign to offer his majesty a letter written by another king's minister.
The Prince at once seemed sensible of the propriety of what Captain Maxwell had said, and calling the chiefs round him, entered into a long discussion with them: at the close of which, he declared himself incompetent to decide upon so important an occasion, but said that he would consult with the King, whose pleasure would be communicated in a few days.
Captain Maxwell expressed his willingness to abide by his majesty's decision as far as was consistent with the respect due to his own sovereign.
The Prince seemed entirely satisfied with this answer, and said something to the chiefs, upon which they again fell on their knees before Captain Maxwell, notwithstanding all his efforts to prevent them.
Nothing more of any consequence passed.
In the early part of the interview the present was brought in, or at least such parts of it as were capable of being thus displayed.
The whole consisted of two bullocks, three hogs, three goats, and a quantity of vegetables and fruit; besides fifteen webs of the cloth of the island, thirty fans, and twelve pipes.
The Prince said he had sent a present to me, which I found to consist of half the above mentioned things.
He shortly afterwards rose to take leave.
The rigging was manned on his going away, and similar honours were paid him as were shewn when he came on board.
The Prince of Loo-choo, whose name is Shang Pung Fwee, and title Pochin Tay Foo, belongs to the highest of the nine orders of chiefs on the islands, the distinction of which rank is a hatchee-matchee of a pink ground, with perpendicular rows of black, yellow, blue, white, and green spots.
He was clothed in a robe of light blue silk, lined with silk a shade lighter, over which he wore a girdle richly embossed with flowers of gold and different coloured silks: in other respects his dress was like that of the chiefs.
He is about fifty years old, his beard is full and white, and his figure well proportioned.
In manners he is genteel and sedate, but occasionally a little awkward, which his retired habits sufficiently account for.
Towards the close of his visit, when his reserve had in some degree worn off, we observed him smile for an instant, now and then, with a shrewd expression in his eyes, as if he was observing what was passing more narrowly than we at first suspected.
It was thought, too, that in making inquiries about different things on board, he shewed more discrimination than most of those who had preceded him; but on the whole, there was nothing very interesting in him besides his rank.
While he was looking over the books and other things in the cabin, a picture of his majesty King George the Third was shewn to him.
As the interpreter was not present, we could not immediately explain who it was intended to represent, till it occurred to us to join our hands and bow to it in the Loo-choo manner: the Prince instantly saw what was meant, and turning towards the picture, made a low and respectful obeisance.
His suite consisted of several chiefs whom we had not seen before, and six or seven personal attendants, two of whom stood behind to fan him and light his pipe.
It is curious that these men, who from their dress and manner were certainly servants, derived a sort of rank from being about the Prince's person; for when the chiefs sat down to table after he had left it, they all stood by as if expecting to be invited to sit down also; but Mr. Clifford, to whom Captain Maxwell had given the party in charge, having observed how particular they were with respect to the distinctions of rank, did not think of asking them to be seated, till Jeema requested him to do so; still suspecting some mistake, he applied to Mádera, who said it was perfectly correct, and they were accordingly asked to sit down with the rest.
We had never been able to obtain from the natives any clear account of former visitors, and as the Prince was thought a likely person to be in possession of the desired information, questions were asked him upon this subject.
He said that a vessel had been here about twenty years ago, and that she went away immediately without holding any communication with the court.
This must have been the schooner in which Captain Broughton visited Napakiang in July, 1797, after he had been wrecked in his majesty's ship Providence, on the island of Typinsan[13].
He said that he knew of no other stranger who had visited Loo-choo.
On being interrogated as to the knowledge of other countries, he declared that they knew nothing of the English or French, or any nation indeed but the Chinese, Corean, and Japanese.
Something was said about Manilla, and from its not being very remote, it is possible that some communication may have existed between that place and Loo-choo.
Their accounts, however, were vague and unsatisfactory, and it is not impossible that we ourselves may have first suggested the name, and afterwards ascribed the use of it to them[14].
Nothing, however, that occurred to-day, attracted more notice than Mádera's assumption of his long concealed rank.
He came for the first time dressed in the robes and hatchee-matchee of a chief, and not only took precedence of all our old friends, but during the discussion in the cabin with the Prince, maintained a decided superiority over them all.
While all the rest were embarrassed in the Prince's presence, and crouching on their knees every time they spoke, Mádera, though always respectful, was quite at his ease; and we could not help fancying that he addressed the Prince as if accustomed to his society.
It was no less remarkable, that the Prince referred much oftener to him than to any of the rest, and listened to what he said with greater attention.
Whether Mádera owed such distinction to his actual rank, which may have placed him about the court, or to the ascendancy of his talents, or to the accidental circumstance of his having had better opportunities of knowing us than any other of the natives, we could never discover.
He admitted, when interrogated, that he had often seen the Prince before, while the other chiefs confessed their ignorance even of his person, before to-day.
As soon as the Prince was placed in his chair and carried away, Mádera came on board, and entered with great good humour into all the jokes which were made upon his new character.
He declined telling why he had kept his rank so long out of sight, but it was sufficiently obvious that his main object was to establish an intimacy with all the different classes on board the ships, and in this he completely succeeded; for he had gradually advanced in his acquaintance, first with the sailors, then the midshipmen, next with the officers, and last of all with the captains.
By this means he gained the confidence and good will of each class as he went along; and by rising in consequence every day, instead of putting forward all his claims at once, acquired not only substantial importance with us, but gained a much more intimate knowledge of our character and customs than he could have hoped to do in any other way.
24th of October.--Mr.
Clifford went along with me to-day for the purpose of sketching the bridge, which, though not above three hundred yards from the landing place, the chiefs have always objected to our examining.
We took Jeeroo with us without telling him our object, which he no sooner discovered than he became quite alarmed, and sent off for Mádera, who came to us immediately, and upon learning that nothing further was proposed than a mere examination of the bridge, he said that we might go on; having first made us promise solemnly not to go any further.
While Mádera was binding us down in this way, I expressed some little impatience at his doubting our simple declaration of nothing more being intended than what we avowed; but his duty I suppose was imperative, and he would not leave us till the matter was arranged in his own way.
As soon as he was satisfied on this point he said something to Jeeroo and left us; but turning back again, he came up to Mr. Clifford, and whispered, "captain no sulky?"
meaning, we supposed, to express his apprehension that I had been angry at the stipulations so positively required by him.
Mr. Clifford, having assured him that I was not sulky with him, detained him to ask him what it was he feared?
what he had seen in us to excite such dread of our going near the town?
He replied, "Loochoo woman see Ingeree man, Loochoo woman cry!"
He then returned; and Jeeroo, who remained in a boat close to the bridge while I was employed measuring it and drawing it stone by stone, was greatly interested by Mr. Clifford's account of the great age of our venerable Sovereign, and the number of his family, which excited his astonishment and admiration.
He conversed freely while the subject was the King of England, but the moment the slightest turn in the discourse was made towards the King of Loo-choo he drew up, and became impenetrable.
"He did not know," he said, "how old he was, nor how many children he had;" in short he seemed scarcely to admit that he had ever heard any thing about him.
From Mádera, however, who had no concealments, we learnt afterwards that the King has only one wife, but has twelve concubines; he is an old man, and has seven children.
It is curious that none of the chiefs will inform Captain Maxwell whether or not the Prince who visited the ships yesterday has any children; it is hardly possible that they can be ignorant of the fact; but either they are kept strangely in the dark as to what passes in the palace, or they carry their reserve on royal topics to a singular length.
From the bridge we went to the top of the hill above the well, where Jeeroo sung several songs.
On the way up we stopped at one of the large horse-shoe tombs mentioned before, which resembles in all respects the tombs of China.
On this similarity being pointed out to Jeeroo, he became anxious to explain that it was a Loo-choo tomb, and not exclusively Chinese; meaning probably that Loo-choo persons were contained in it.
He informed us that these tombs did not contain a single person only, or a single generation, but were used as cemeteries from age to age.
The bodies, according to his account, are put into coffins, and allowed to lie untouched for seven years, by which time the flesh is entirely decayed; the bones are then collected, and being put into cases are preserved by the families of the deceased with great care.
25th of October.--This being the anniversary of His Majesty's accession to the throne, the ships were dressed in colours, and a royal salute fired.
Upon the natives this produced a great effect; they had never seen any other flags than the single ensigns hoisted on Sundays, and this display of several hundred flags was well calculated to surprise and delight them.
They were informed some days before that there would be some ceremonies in honour of our King, and great numbers of people had assembled on the shore in consequence.
This morning had also been fixed upon for returning the Prince's visit; accordingly we left the Alceste at one o'clock, forming a procession of four boats, with flags in each.
Captain Maxwell took twelve of his officers and young gentlemen, and six accompanied me from the Lyra, all being dressed in full uniform.
We entered the harbour, and landed at the same part of the causeway as before, where the chiefs were in attendance, as on the occasion of our visit on the 23d ult.
The Prince advanced a few yards on the outside of the gate, and having taken Captain Maxwell's hand, conducted him to the temple, where an ingenious device was adopted to preserve the etiquette, requiring that none of inferior rank shall sit down in the Prince's company.
The temple was divided into three rooms by ranges of columns, which were deemed a sufficient separation; and, at the same time, no person in the other rooms could feel himself slighted by the exclusion, since the division by the pillars was merely nominal.
The feast was sumptuous, consisting of twelve regular courses, besides tea and sackee.
There were many new dishes, principally of meat, dressed in various ways in large bowls.
We saw what seemed to be wheaten bread for the first time to-day.
It being necessary to make some return for the presents brought on board by the Prince two days ago, Captain Maxwell now gave him several pieces of scarlet and blue superfine cloth, and samples of every species of cloths, from the finest damask to the coarsest sail canvas; also a set of cut crystal decanters and glasses, and three dozen of wine of ten different sorts, with several books, and a number of smaller articles.
It was also stated to the Prince, that a cow and calf had been left on shore in order to be offered to the King as a small mark of our sense of the kindness which we had experienced.
The Prince expressed much satisfaction at this gift, as the calf had become a great favourite with the natives.
My present consisted of half the quantity of wine given by Captain Maxwell, a mirror taken from a dressing-stand, samples of English stationary, Cary's map of England, an atlas, and a small brass sextant; which latter present had been suggested by the wonder which it had invariably excited at the observatory.
Mr. John Maxwell, to whom the Prince had sent a present of cloth and pipes after he landed yesterday, gave him a spy-glass and a map of London; the map was coloured, and round the edges were the palaces, Greenwich Hospital, and other public buildings, all of which he examined with great attention.
After he had looked over most of the things, and was satisfied with the explanations, he rose and said that a great deal too much had been given, to which it was replied, that a great deal too little had been given, and that they were not offered as being, in any respect, an equivalent for the supplies sent on board, but merely to shew our sense of the kindness and attention with which we had been received[15].
During the time that we sat at table to-day, the interpreter was hardly ever called in, as Mádera and Mr. Clifford contrived between them to explain every thing, if not as clearly as could have been wished, yet in a more satisfactory manner than could have been done through the medium of John the Chinaman, of whose fidelity we were nowise certain, and whose taste and delicacy in conveying our sentiments we had great reason to doubt.
The Prince, after a time, rose and proposed the King of England's health, which was accordingly drank in a cup of sackee.
In return we gave the King of Loo-choo.
As the surgeon had desired Captain Maxwell to drink no wine, there was very little drank at the Prince's table; but at the others every art was used to circulate the sackee pot.
Indeed, little persuasion was required, for the sackee, though not strong, was very good.
Ookooma presided at the table occupied by the officers, and Jeero at that where the midshipmen sat.
Ookooma having remarked on board, that whenever the King's health was drank, whether his Majesty of England, or of Loo-choo, the cups were always freely emptied, took advantage of this loyalty of sentiment, and gave "The King of Injeree's health" three or four times over, to which, of course, the officers were obliged to reply, by giving "The King of Loo-choo" as often.
He carried this rather farther than is customary with us on similar occasions, for observing that the company were rather backward in eating a bowl of sweet rice-meal porridge, he stood up with his bowl in his hand, and calling out "King of Injeree health!"
swallowed the whole of it, and invited the rest to follow his example.
The Prince seemed to enjoy the mirth of the other tables very much; he was himself more cheerful and disengaged than when we first saw him, though he appears to be naturally a silent man.
Ookooma, by overacting his part, got, we thought, a little tipsy, and came several times into the state chamber, talking louder than was proper, but of this the Prince took no notice.
When Ookooma came near my chair, I whispered to him, "Ya weetee," (you are drunk;) he turned round, and affecting to be angry, called out, "Weetee nang," (I am not drunk) in a voice and manner which were in direct contradiction to his assertion: his subsequent behaviour, however, was so correct and sedate when the feast broke up, and all were again upon duty, that he was probably merely pretending to be tipsy, in order to suit what was considered to be the humour of the company.
On rising to depart, the Prince led Captain Maxwell by the hand, not only through the gate, but about twenty yards along the causeway; here he stopped and took leave.
Captain Maxwell availed himself of this opportunity to repeat, for the last time, his thanks in the name of his government, for the numerous attentions and marks of kindness which we had received.
He requested that what he had said might be communicated to the King, and assured the Prince, in the most earnest and respectful manner, that all the circumstances of our reception and entertainment should be stated to our own government.
The Prince bowed to this in a manner which seemed to express his satisfaction at what was promised.
Captain Maxwell next observed, that besides the high public benefits of which he had just been speaking, he felt individually greatly honoured and obliged by the particular attention which had been shewn to himself, and to the captain of the little ship, and hoped that the Prince would accept from himself a small mark of his respect and gratitude.
As soon as this was interpreted to the Prince, Captain Maxwell took from his neck a small thermometer, set in silver, and presented it to the Prince, who leaned his head forward, and requested that it might be hung round his neck.
This may be supposed a curious place to hang a thermometer, but we had learned during our intercourse with the chiefs, that some management of this kind was necessary whenever it was intended to offer them presents; for their extreme delicacy made them unwilling to accept any thing of value, lest it might appear in the light of remuneration for their hospitality.
Whenever any thing merely ornamental, or of little value, was offered, and particularly if worn about the person, no objection was made to receiving it.
It thus became the practice, as being the most convenient method, to tie the proposed gift by a ribbon round the neck; and after a time, every one had rings, seals, watch-keys, or bank tokens with holes drilled in them, prepared for these occasions.
The thermometer which was given to the Prince had particularly attracted his notice when he was on board.
After Captain Maxwell had given his present, the Prince turned to me, and I put over his neck a cornelian ornament, suspended by a ribbon, in the same manner as the thermometer.
He was greatly delighted with these compliments, and immediately resuming Captain Maxwell's hand, led him along the whole length of the causeway to the boat, and then stepped upon the top of the parapet to see us row away.
As soon as we had put off, every one in the boats stood up and gave three cheers; to which the Prince bowed several times, with his hands closed and raised to his breast.
He remained on the parapet, and continued waving his fan to us as we rowed down the harbour, as long as we could see him.
As the boats rowed in procession out of the harbour, all the chiefs ran along to the end of the causeway, where they continued, along with a vast crowd of natives, waving their handkerchiefs and fans till we were a great way from the shore.
On each side of this group of chiefs a gong was beat incessantly.
On every side, the rocks, the trees, houses, and boats, in short, every spot was crowded with people, waving their hands, and cheering us as we went along.
This brilliant scene had less of novelty in it, to be sure, than what we had witnessed at the same place on the twenty-third of last month, but it was still more pleasing, for we had now become acquainted with many of the individuals forming this assemblage, and could feel assured that their expressions of kindness and respect were sincere.
On the first occasion, too, the natives being ignorant of our intentions, were very generally alarmed at our appearance; and accordingly, though there was much curiosity shewn, a profound silence and stillness prevailed over the whole crowd, very different from the friendly shouts and signs with which they greeted us as we passed among them to-day.
Precautions had been taken to prevent the ladies from indulging their curiosity as they had done on the first visit, not a female being seen any where.
26th of October.--Last night both the Alceste and Lyra were illuminated.
At nine o'clock a _feu de joie_ was fired, and a number of fire-works let off from the yard-arms.
A great concourse of the natives, who had been apprised of our intentions, assembled on the shore, and were very highly delighted with this brilliant exhibition.
[Illustration: SCENE after the PRINCE of LOO CHOO'S FEAST.]
The sick, as well as the remaining stores belonging to the Alceste, were removed on board this morning, and every preparation made for sea.
While employed in completing the series of observations at the observatory, Mádera joined us, having in his hand the sextant which I had given to the Prince yesterday.
It seemed that he had been ordered to make himself acquainted with the use of it; and a more hopeless enterprise could not have been proposed to any man.
But Mádera was not a man to be thrown into despair by difficulty; on the contrary, he persevered in observing with this sextant, and the more the difficulty was made apparent, the more keenly he laboured to overcome it.
The progress which he made in a few hours in the mere practical operation of taking angles and altitudes was not surprising, because there is in fact not much difficulty in it; but he was nowise satisfied with this proficiency, and seemed anxious to apply his knowledge to some useful purpose.
With a sextant on a stand, I made him take the distance between the sun and moon, four or five times; on every occasion he was wonderfully near the truth.
We endeavoured to confine him to one object, merely to ascertain the time of apparent noon; and I think we succeeded in explaining to him how this was to be done.
He expressed repeatedly his regret at our approaching departure, in which sentiment he was joined by Jeeroo and the rest of the chiefs, who were quite out of spirits.
Jeeroo, poor fellow, had prepared a handsome dinner for us under a tree near the observatory.
He made us drink what he called "wackaríttee," or the parting cup, several times over.
We had a number of visitors at the observatory, who saw the instruments packed up and sent off with looks of real regret.
They all said they were sorry we were going away.
One man gave Mr. Clifford, as a farewell gift, a curious drawing of the Alceste dressed in flags, and executed, he said, by his son.
The children, too, were all much affected by our preparations, and the wonted hilarity of the lower orders was quite gone.
Having taken our final leave of the shore, we went to the Alceste, where we found the chiefs in conference with Captain Maxwell, who made each of the chiefs a present of a cut wine glass, which he knew they had long desired to possess.
To Ookooma he gave a finely cut tumbler, in a red morocco case.
This was much beyond his expectations, and perhaps his wishes, for he appeared to observe the wine glasses of the others with somewhat of a disappointed look.
Captain Maxwell perceiving in a moment that Ookooma had set his heart upon a wine glass, opened the case, and placed one inside the tumbler, to Ookooma's great satisfaction; and soon afterwards the whole party went on shore, saying, before they left the ship, that in the morning the Bodzes would come on board in order to perform some sacrifice.
As they never came, it is probable that the interpreter misunderstood them, particularly as Isaacha Sandoo said to Mr. Clifford, "Acha hoonee nittee Doochoo mang hoonee oocooyoong."
"To-morrow the ships will go, and all the Loo-choo people will pray for them, or wish them well;" which was probably what was meant when the interpreter reported that the Bodzes were to come on board.
While we were at dinner, Mádera came into the Alceste's cabin for the purpose of asking some questions about the sextant.
He had not been aware of our being at dinner, and looked shocked at having intruded; and when invited to sit down, politely, but firmly declined.
From the cabin he went to the gun room, to see his friend Mr. Hoppner, the junior lieutenant of the Alceste, with whom he had formed a great friendship.
Mr. Hoppner gave him a picture of the Alceste and some other presents; upon which Mádera, who was much affected, said, "To-morrow ship go sea; I go my father house, two day distance: when I see my father, I show him your present, and I tell him, me, Henry Hoppner all same (as) brother," and burst into tears!
Sunday, 27th of October.--At daybreak we unmoored, and the natives, on seeing us take up one of our anchors, thought we were going to get under weigh immediately, and give them the slip, which was not at all intended.
This alarm, however, brought the chiefs off in a great hurry; not in a body in their usual formal way, but one by one, in separate canoes.
Old Jeema called on board the Lyra on his way to the frigate; he was a good deal agitated, and the tears came into his eyes when I put a ring on his finger.
He gave me in return his knife.
The other chiefs called alongside on their way to the frigate, but went on when I told them that I was just going to the Alceste myself.
In the mean time Mádera came on board, with the sextant in his hand; he was in such distress that he scarcely knew what he was about.
In this distracted state he sat down to breakfast with us, during which he continued lighting his pipe and smoking as fast as he could; drinking and eating whatever was placed before him.
After he had a little recovered himself, he asked what books it would be necessary to read to enable him to make use of the sextant; I gave him a nautical almanack, and told him that he must understand that in the first instance: he opened it, and looking at the figures, held up his hands in despair, and was at last forced to confess that it was a hopeless business.
He therefore put the sextant up and bade us farewell.
Before he left the Lyra he gave Mr. Clifford his pipe, tobacco pouch, and a crystal ornament; saying, as he held out the last, "You go Ingeree, you give this to your childs."
Mr. Clifford gave him a few presents in return, and expressed his anxiety to be considered his friend.
Mádera, with the tears streaming down his cheeks, placed his hand several times upon his heart, and cried, "Eedooshee, edooshee!"
My friend, my friend!
To me he gave a fan and a picture of an old man looking up at the sun, drawn, he said, by himself: he probably meant in his picture some allusion to my usual occupation at the observatory.
After he had put off in his boat, he called out, "Ingeree noo choo sibittee yootoosha," I shall ever remember the English people.
When he went to the Alceste, one of the chiefs remarked that he had neither his hatchee-matchee on nor his robes, and told him that it was not respectful to wait upon Captain Maxwell for the last time, in his ordinary dress; particularly as all the others were in full array.
Mádera, who, poor fellow, had been too much concerned about other matters to think of dress, was shocked at this apparent want of politeness, and went immediately to apologize to Captain Maxwell, who took him by the hand, and gave him a present, telling him, at the same time, that he was always too happy to see him, to notice what dress he had on.
On going into the cabin, I found the chiefs seated in a row, all very disconsolate, and apparently trying to conceal emotions different, in all probability, from any which they had ever before experienced.
Captain Maxwell had made them his parting present, and I therefore gave to each chief some trifle, receiving from them in return, their knives, pipes, pouches, and fans.
In the mean time the anchor was hove up, and every thing being ready for making sail, the chiefs rose to take leave.
Ookooma wished to say something, but was too much affected to speak, and before they reached their boats they were all in tears.
Mádera cried bitterly as he shook hands with his numerous friends, who were loading him with presents.
The chiefs, as well as the people in the numerous canoes which had assembled round the ships, stood up, and continued waving their fans and handkerchiefs till we were beyond the reefs, and could see them no longer.
* * * * * Almost every thing respecting the manners and customs of Loo-choo, with which we have had an opportunity of becoming acquainted, has been laid before the reader in the foregoing narrative.
It is proposed to insert here a few particulars which in the hurry of the moment were noted down without date.
They might easily have been embodied with the narrative, but it has been considered of less consequence to sacrifice arrangement, than to interfere in any way with the integrity of the Journal, in which nothing has been inserted out of the exact order in which it is known to have happened.
The religion of Loo-choo appears to be that of Fo, said to be introduced by the bodzes one thousand years ago[16].
We found great difficulty in discovering any thing precise on this subject from the natives; but from all that we could gather, religion does not appear to be made a matter of general instruction as in Europe, being left, as in China, to the priests.
This we infer from the careless way in which the subject was at all times treated by the natives, and the ignorance which they professed of the forms and ceremonies used in the temples.
The bodzes are not respected or esteemed in society; they are prevented from marrying, and are not allowed to eat meat: few people associate with them, and even the children turn them into ridicule.
On the occasion of the Loo-choo funeral service over the grave of the seaman, the bodzes stood behind, and were not called upon to officiate, the service being entirely performed by Jeeroo.
In the large temple we saw three gilt idols and various pictures; but with the exception of the funeral service just alluded to, we never met with any thing in the least degree resembling a religious ceremony.
The bodzes kept the temple clean swept, and took care of the walks and hedges, and this appeared to be their only employment.
It is fair to suppose, however, that the occupation of the temple by us may have caused a temporary cessation of their religious observances.
They have large tombs or cemeteries for their dead, being mostly of the Chinese form, viz.
that of a horse-shoe.
They are formed of stones and mortar, and are covered with a coat of cheenam, (shell lime), which is always kept nicely whitewashed and clean swept: some are more highly finished than others; their size varies from twenty to thirty feet in length, by twelve to fourteen broad.
The coffin, when closed, is placed in the vault under the tomb, and is not touched for six or seven years, by which time the flesh is found to have separated and wasted away; the bones are then collected, and put into jars ranged in rows on the inside of the vault.
Burning is never used at any stage of the proceedings, nor under any circumstances.
In the course of time, when these vaults become crowded, the vases are removed to houses appropriated to their reception above ground: such must have been the building described by Mr. Clifford in the village near Port Melville.
The lower orders, who cannot afford these expensive tombs, take advantage of hollow places in the rocks, which by a little assistance are made secure vaults.
In the cliffs behind the village of Oonting, the galleries cut for the reception of the vases must have been the work of men possessed of power and authority.
Not being fully aware what the Chinese customs are with respect to the dead, in ordinary cases, it is impossible for us to say how nearly they resemble those of Loo-choo, but there are certainly some points of resemblance.
From Mr. Clifford's notes on the Loo-choo inscriptions, I have extracted the following particulars.
"A number of carved stones, called by the natives Kawroo, were found at many places, particularly in the groves on the hill.
The Kawroo is two feet long, by one wide, and one high; it is excavated a little on the upper part, on which an offering of rice is placed.
On the sides of this stone are carved a variety of characters, denoting the rank of the person who makes the offering, as well as the object of his petition, together with the date.
"Two of these inscriptions, copied at the time, have since been translated by a gentleman acquainted with the Chinese characters.
The first gives an account of a man about to sail for China, in the reign of Kien Lung, the late monarch of that country; this person implores the divine aid in protecting him during his voyage.
The other is dated in the twenty-first year of the reign of Kia-King, the present emperor of China, answering to the year 1816, in which we visited Loo-choo.
This is an invocation to the deity for success in a literary pursuit.
"Two narrow strips of paper, with characters inscribed on them, which by consent of the natives were taken from a pillar in the temple, and which have since been translated, prove to be invocations, one to the supreme deity, and the other to the evil spirit.
The first is on a slip of paper, two feet long, by two inches wide, and contains a supplication for pardon.
The latter invocation begins by seven rows of the character symbolical of the Devil.
In the upper line there are seven, and in the last one, so that a triangular page is formed of twenty-eight characters, each signifying the Devil; and the prayer itself is written in a narrow perpendicular line underneath; the whole inscription resembling in form a kite with a long tail attached to it."
Polygamy is not allowed in Loo-choo as in China, and the king, it appears, is the only person permitted by law to have concubines; they invariably spoke with horror of the Chinese practice, which allows a plurality of wives, and were much gratified on learning that the English customs in this respect were similar to those of Loo-choo.
The women are not treated so well as we were led to expect from the mildness of character in the men, and their liberality of thinking in general.
The upper classes of women are confined a good deal to their houses, and the lower orders perform much of the hard work of husbandry.
We saw them at a distance, in great numbers, carrying loads on their heads.
Mádera says that the women are not treated with much indulgence, being even restricted from using fans; and that when they are met out of doors by the men, they take no notice of one another, whatever may be the degree of relationship or intimacy subsisting between them.
The perseverance with which they kept the women from our sight is curious, and leads us to conjecture that the general practice of the island is to seclude the women at all times.
In this respect they differ from the Japanese, who are said to allow wives to every stranger.
This degree of seclusion does not prevail in China, as we had opportunities of observing at several places never before visited by Europeans.
The Chinese account quoted in the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, vol.
23, states that the young men and women marry on this island by choice, and not, as in China, by a contract made without any personal knowledge of each other.
We took every opportunity of interrogating them on this subject, but as the question was always evaded, we fear that their practice in this respect is not so praiseworthy as that account would make it appear.
Of their literature we could get but few satisfactory accounts; they say that they have few books in their own language, the greater number on the island being Chinese.
The young men of rank are sometimes sent to China to be educated.
Jeeroo had been there when a boy.
None but the upper classes understand the spoken Chinese, and the peasantry are in general ignorant both of the spoken and written Chinese language.
They appear to have no money, and from all we could see or hear, they are even ignorant of its use.
Those, however, who have visited China cannot be so ill informed, and yet none of them set any value upon Spanish dollars, or upon any gold coins that we had.
Though we were incessantly trying to make out from Mádera and the others, what their medium of exchange was, we could never learn any thing distinct upon the subject, nor could they be made to comprehend our questions about money; a difficulty, it may be observed, which we should expect to meet with among people whose only mode of purchase was by barter.
The only circumstance which came to our knowledge bearing at all upon this question, was during the time when the garden was under preparation for the reception of the Alceste's stores; it was then remarked that each of the labourers employed had a little piece of paper stuck in his hair, with a single character written on it; this naturally excited our curiosity, but the inquiries we were enabled to make at that early stage of our knowledge of the language, led to nothing conclusive.
Afterwards, when our means in this respect were more ample, we could not recall the circumstance to the recollection of the chiefs.
As these papers were called by the people wearing them, "hoonátee," and as "hoónee" means ship, Mr. Clifford has conjectured that they may have been written passes to enable them to enter the gate on the ship's business.
We saw no arms of any kind, and the natives always declared that they had none.
Their behaviour on seeing a musket fired certainly implied an ignorance of fire-arms.
In a cottage at the north end of the island, we saw a spear which had the appearance of a warlike weapon, but we had every reason to believe that this was used for the sole purpose of catching fish, having seen others not very dissimilar actually employed in this way.
They looked at our swords and cutlasses, and at the Malay creeses and spears, with equal surprise, being apparently as little acquainted with the one as with the other.
The chiefs carried little case knives in the folds of their robes, or in the girdle, and the lower orders had a larger knife, but these were always of some immediate practical utility, and were not worn for defence nor as ornaments.
They denied having any knowledge of war either by experience or by tradition.
We never saw any punishment inflicted at Loo-choo: a tap with the fan, or an angry look, was the severest chastisement ever resorted to, as far as we could discover.
In giving orders, the chiefs were mild though firm, and the people always obeyed with cheerfulness.
There seemed to be great respect and confidence on the one hand, and much consideration and kind feeling on the other.
In this particular, more than in any other that fell under our notice, Loo-choo differs from China, for in the latter country we saw none of this generous and friendly understanding between the upper and lower classes.
One day when we were drinking tea and smoking pipes with the chiefs, on the top of the hill, a boy began to exhibit feats of tumbling before us; in a short time all eyes were turned towards him, and his modesty caused him to desist.
We offered him buttons and various things, but he would not resume his tumbling: we then asked Jeema to interfere; he did so, and told the youngster to go on; but he kept his seat, and Jeema became angry, or rather pretended to be so, yet the tumbler sat obstinately still.
"Well," said Jeema to us, "what is to be done?
It was for his own amusement that he began, and probably for his amusement he will do so again."
The boy, when left alone, in a short time resumed his tumbling.
I mention this to shew Jeema's good sense in not forcing the boy to do that as a task, which he had begun as an amusement, and which he had discernment enough to know would be unpleasant for us to witness in any other way.
By this treatment of their children, mutual cordiality and freedom of intercourse are encouraged.
It was probably owing to this mode of education that the children became at once familiar with us.
One day while I was employed sketching the village and trees near the bridge, a boy stopped near me, and without saying any thing, endeavoured to attract my notice by performing various gambols before me.
I took no notice of him for some time, but at last looked up and smiled; upon which the boy cried out in perfectly good English, "How do you do?
Very well, I thank you;" and ran off, quite delighted at having displayed his proficiency in English.
The chiefs were generally accompanied by one or two of their sons, who took their places near them, and were always put forward when there was any thing curious to be seen.
In this way they were encouraged to make themselves acquainted with every thing, and yet nothing could be more respectful or affectionate than they always were.
Great pains were taken to form the manners of the children, and we never observed an instance of rudeness in any one of them, though they were as full of life and spirits as the wildest English school-boys.
John the Chinaman afforded them much amusement: he was a great coxcomb, and therefore fair game for the boys; they used to surround him and pretend to pull his long tail; but they never actually pulled it, but merely teazed him a little, and then ran away.
These little traits seem worthy of notice, as they belong to a style of education quite different from what we had seen in China and some other eastern countries, where the children are made to look like men in miniature.
During our intercourse with these people, there did not occur one instance of theft.
They were all permitted to come on board indiscriminately; to go into the cabins, store-rooms, and wherever they liked, unattended.
At the temple the Alceste's stores of every kind were lying about, as well as the carpenter's and armourer's tools; and in the observatory, the instruments, books, and pencils were merely placed under cover; yet there was not a single article taken away, though many hundreds of people were daily admitted, and allowed to examine whatever they pleased.
This degree of honesty is a feature which distinguishes the people of Loo-choo from the Chinese, as well as from the inhabitants of the islands in the South Sea and of the Malay Archipelago; among whom even fear, as was ascertained by Captain Cook and other voyagers, is altogether insufficient to prevent theft.
At Loo-choo the people are considerably civilised; but they have few wants, and they appear to be perfectly contented.
Honesty is perhaps the natural consequence of such a state of society.
We saw no musical instruments of any kind; they were, however, aware of their use.
The natives almost all sing, and we heard several very sweet airs, principally plaintive: they had many jovial drinking songs, one of which we wrote down from their singing; it was inscribed on a drinking cup, and is as follows: "Ty´wack koo, tawshoo, shee kackoofing, "Chaw ung, itchee shaw, shooha neebooroo; "Ting shee, you byee, chee taroo shoo ninnee "Nooboo cadsee meesee carra shaw jeeroo "Shing coodee sackee oochee noo shing."
The Chinese characters on the drinking-cup were thus translated in China, "Tywack hoo[17], inspired by a jar of wine, writes an hundred pages of odes or verses without end.
At the market town of Chaw-ung[18] he entered a wine shop to sleep.
The Emperor summoned him to appear; in his haste to obey the summons, he forgot to put on his neckcloth, and rushing into the royal presence, exclaimed, 'I am the wine-loving immortal.'"
The Loo-choo dress has been so frequently mentioned, that a brief notice, in recapitulation, will suffice in this place.
Their loose robe was generally made of cotton, and of a great variety of colours.
The robe of a grown up person was never flowered or printed over with figures, being generally of a uniform colour, though instances occurred of striped cloths being worn by the chiefs.
This robe opened in front, but the edges overlapped, and were concealed by the folds, so as to render it difficult to say whether or not the robe was continued all round: the sleeves were about three feet wide: round the middle was bound a belt or girdle about four or five inches wide, always of a different colour from the dress, and in general richly ornamented with wrought silk and gold flowers.
The folds of the robe overhang the belt, but not so much as to hide it: the whole of the dress folds easily, and has a graceful and picturesque appearance.
The garments worn by the children were often gaudily printed with flowers.
In rainy or cold weather, a sort of great coat was worn by the chiefs only, of thick blue cloth, buttoning in front over the robe, and tighter both in body and sleeves than the other.
This cloth resembled the coarse cloth used in China; and it looked like woollen manufacture, and may possibly have been originally brought from England.
The sandals worn by all ranks were exactly the same; they were formed of straw wrought into a firm mat to fit the sole of the foot, smooth towards the foot, and ragged underneath: a stiff smooth band of straw, about as thick as one's little finger, passes from that part of the sandal immediately under the ancle and over the lower part of the instep, so as to join the sandal at the opposite side; this is connected with the foremost part of the sandal by a short small straw cord which comes between the great toe and the next one.
The upper classes wore stockings of white cotton, not unlike our half stockings, except that they button at the outside, and have a place like the finger of a glove for the great toe.
[Illustration: GENTLEMAN of LOO CHOO in his CLOAK.]
Their hair is of a jet black, and is kept glossy by juice expressed from a leaf.
There is no variety in the fashion of dressing it; it is pulled tight up all round, and is formed at top into a compact knot, so as to conceal the crown of the head, which is shaved; through the knot are thrust two metal pins, one of which has a square point and flowered head consisting of six leaves or divisions: the other pin has one end sharp, and the other shaped like a scoop: the length of these pins is from four to six inches.
We did not see the Prince's, as he remained covered during all the time of his visit; but the Chief of high rank, who visited the Alceste on the 23d of September, had the flowered end of one pin studded with precious stones.
The higher orders wear, on state occasions, what they called a "hatchee-matchee," which is a kind of turban, apparently made by winding a broad band round a cylinder, in such a way, that a small segment of each fold is shewn at every turn, in front above, and behind below; this is effected by giving a slight diagonal direction to each fold.
The lower orders occasionally tie a coloured cloth or handkerchief round the head; this they call "sadjee:" next the body they wear a thin cotton dress.
The men wear no ornaments through their flesh, nor are they tattooed: we saw, indeed, some fishermen who had fish spears marked on their arms, but this does not prevail generally.
An etching of these marks is given by Mr. Clifford in the second part of the Vocabulary.
The cattle on this island, which are of a small black breed, are used exclusively for agricultural purposes.
Hogs, goats, and poultry, with rice and a great variety of vegetables, form the food of the inhabitants: milk is never used.
We saw no geese, so that those left by Captain Broughton most probably did not thrive.
They have no sheep nor asses.
Their horses are of a small slight make, and the natives are very fond of riding.
We saw no carts or wheeled carriages of any kind, horses being used to carry loads; for this purpose the roads are numerous, and kept in excellent order, being from six to ten feet wide.
Their mode of dressing the ground is neat, and resembles the Chinese, particularly in manuring and irrigating it.
This is most attended to where the sugar-cane is cultivated: they have, besides, tobacco, wheat, rice, Indian corn, millet, sweet potatoes, brinjals, and many other vegetables.
The fields, which are nicely squared, have convenient walks on the raised banks running round each.
Along the sides of the hills, and round the villages, the bamboo and rattan grow to a considerable size.
The pine is the most conspicuous tree on the island, growing to a great height and size, which we infer from seeing canoes built with planks several feet wide; the trees, however, near the temple at Napakiang were not above ninety feet high, and from three to four in girt.
The banyan-tree of India was seen at several places; the finest one overhung the small temple at Napakiang, which circumstance led to the enquiry whether, as in India, this tree is held sacred, but we could gain no information on this subject.
In a little plot of ground in the temple garden, Mr. Phillips, purser of the Alceste, sowed mustard-seed, peas, and a variety of other seeds, the natives taking his directions for their culture.
Our total ignorance of botany prevented our making any observations on this subject while at Loo-choo; but to supply this deficiency, we collected specimens of every plant at the place.
These were preserved between sheets of brown paper, and given afterwards to Mr. Abel, the naturalist of the embassy, in order to be arranged; but they were subsequently lost, along with the whole of that gentleman's collection.
Of their manufactures it is difficult to speak with certainty.
By their own account the silks which they wear are Chinese, but the cotton cloths are made on this and the neighbouring islands; the printed patterns of these are not without elegance.
We saw no weaving looms, but as we were only in a few houses, this is not surprising: the webs are thirty-six feet long, and fourteen inches broad.
Tobacco-pipes and fans are made at Loo-choo; as well as the sepulchral vases, of which there is a manufactory at Napakiang, from whence they are exported to Oonting, and other parts of the island.
Some of the pouches of the chiefs were made of cloth, which they say comes from China; it is exactly like our broad cloth.
We tried in vain to learn what goods they send to China in exchange for silks: perhaps sulphur forms a part, which these islands are said to produce, as well as tin.
From the number of vessels constantly sailing out and in, it appears that they must have some trade, but our enquiries on this and many other topics, though sedulously pursued, led to nothing satisfactory, owing probably rather to our ignorance of the language, than to any wish on their part to withhold information; because, on topics which had no reference to the royal family or the women, they in general spoke freely.
We had frequent opportunities of seeing their method of making salt, and an account of it may, perhaps, be interesting.
Near the sea, large level fields are rolled or beat so as to have a hard surface.
Over this is strewn a sort of sandy black earth, forming a coat about a quarter of an inch thick.
Rakes and other implements are used to make it of a uniform thickness, but it is not pressed down.
During the heat of the day, men are employed to bring water in tubs from the sea, which is sprinkled over these fields by means of a short scoop.
The heat of the sun, in a short time, evaporates the water, and the salt is left in the sand, which is scraped up and put into raised receivers of masonry about six feet by four, and five deep.
When the receiver is full of the sand, sea water is poured on the top, and this, in its way down, carries with it the salt left by evaporation.
When it runs out below at a small hole, it is a very strong brine; this is reduced to salt by being boiled in vessels about three feet wide and one deep.
The cakes resulting from this operation are an inch and a half in thickness.
Of the population of this island we know nothing satisfactory: the natives invariably pleaded ignorance themselves; and as we had no precise data, our estimates were made at random, and as they never agreed with each other, they are not worthy of notice.
From the south point of this island, to five or six miles north of Napakiang, an extent of sixteen or eighteen miles, the country is highly cultivated, and is almost entirely covered with villages.
All round Port Melville too there are populous villages, but the north, north-east and eastern places are thinly peopled, and not cultivated to any extent.
We saw nothing like poverty or distress of any kind: every person that we met seemed contented and happy.
We saw no deformed people, nor any who bore indications of disease, except a few who were marked with the small-pox.
The style of living of those with whom we associated is generous and free; their custom of carrying about their dinner in boxes, and making little pic-nic parties, is peculiarly striking, and they appeared fully sensible of the advantage of bringing people together in this way, and expressed much satisfaction at the ready way in which we fell into a custom from which all formality was dismissed.
They shewed, moreover, a good deal of discernment, and could adapt themselves to the character of the particular persons they happened to be in company with, in a manner very remarkable; but this was evidently the result not of cunning, but of correct feelings, and of a polite habit of thinking.
Of their manners, little need be added here to what every page of the narrative will show.
It ought to be particularly noticed, however, that they are an exceedingly timorous people, and naturally suspicious of foreigners.
A stranger visiting Loo-choo ought therefore to keep these features of their character constantly in mind.
By imitating Captain Maxwell's wise plan of treating the natives with gentleness and kindness, and shewing every consideration for their peculiarities, he will stand the best chance of gaining their good-will and confidence.
But if he should betray any impatience, or be at all harsh in treating with them, he may rest assured that he will lose much time, and in all probability fail at last in his attempts to establish an unreserved and friendly intercourse.
As Loo-choo, however, lies quite out of the track of trading ships, and does not appear to produce any thing of value itself, and as the inhabitants seem indifferent about foreign commodities, and if they wished to possess them are without money to make purchases, it is not probable that this island will be soon revisited.
[Illustration: BRIDGE AT NAPAKIANG.]
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 11: We first discovered the meaning of this word by hearing one of the natives apply it to the castle on the chess board: he used the same term when drawings of towers and castles were shewn to him.]
[Footnote 12: The literal translation of the card is "Loo-choo nation, extender of laws, Great Person (called Ko), Heang, bows his head and worships," (the common visiting expression among the Chinese.)
It ought to be remarked, that the Prince's name is placed on one corner of the card, which is the most respectful mode that can be used, according to Chinese usage.]
[Footnote 13: See Broughton's Voyage, Book II.
Chap.
2. for a very interesting account of the natives of Typinsan, who appear to resemble the people of the Great Loo-choo Island.
In Book II.
Chap.
3.
Captain Broughton gives an account of his visit to Napachan.
He was received by the inhabitants with great kindness; they supplied his wants, but objected to his landing, and sent back to the schooner some of the officers who had been sent on shore to examine the town.
We found Captain Broughton's account of the people quite accurate.]
[Footnote 14: At Manilla we found that the Great Loo-choo Island was known only by name.
There appeared to be no intercourse between the two places.]
[Footnote 15: LIST OF SUPPLIES RECEIVED AT LOO-CHOO BY H.M.
SHIPS.
|Alceste.
| Lyra.
| Bullocks | 19 | 8 | Pigs | 23 | 10 | Goats | 15 | 7 | Fowls | *216 | 102 |*Not including Fish | 29 | 12 |extra supplies Eggs | 920 | 455 |to the officers.
Bags of sweet potatoes | *59 | 27 |*Not including Squashes | 34 | 14 |ditto.
Jars of Samchoo, each containing about | | | fifteen gallons | 6 | 3 | Baskets of oranges | 9 | 4 | Bundles of gingerbread | 8 | 3 | -----------Onions | 16 | 8 | -----------Radishes | 30 | 12 | -----------Celery | 12 | 5 | -----------Garlick | 8 | 4 | -----------Candles | 7 | 3 | -----------Wood | 16 | 8 | Pumpkins | 60 | 30 | Baskets of vermicelli | 7 | 3 | Boxes of sugar | 2 | 1 | Rolls of printed linen | 14 | 7 | Bundles of paper | 6 | 3 | ] [Footnote 16: See Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, vol.
23.]
[Footnote 17: A man celebrated in the Tung dynasty for his convivial disposition: he is known in China by the name of Jai-pe.]
[Footnote 18: The town of Chang-ngan in China, near the Great Wall.]
APPENDIX: CONTAINING CHARTS OF THE GULF OF PE-CHE-LEE, THE WEST COAST OF COREA, THE GREAT LOO-CHOO ISLAND, NAPAKIANG ROADS, AND PORT MELVILLE: WITH BRIEF EXPLANATORY NOTICES.
TABLE OF OBSERVATIONS MADE WITH DR. WOLLASTON'S DIP SECTOR: WITH AN ENGRAVING, AND A DESCRIPTION OF THIS INSTRUMENT, AND DIRECTIONS FOR ITS USE.
METEOROLOGICAL JOURNAL, FROM JULY TO NOVEMBER 1816, WHILE THE SHIPS WERE IN THE YELLOW AND JAPAN SEAS.
ABSTRACT OF THE LYRA'S VOYAGE, FROM LEAVING ENGLAND TILL HER RETURN; SHEWING THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT PLACES AT WHICH SHE TOUCHED, AND THE TIME TAKEN IN PERFORMING EACH PASSAGE.
GEOLOGICAL MEMORANDUM; BEING A DESCRIPTION OF THE SPECIMENS OF ROCKS COLLECTED ON THE SHORES OF THE YELLOW SEA, COREA, LOO-CHOO, MACAO, AND THE LADRONE ISLANDS.
CHARTS OF THE GULF OF PE-CHE-LEE, THE WEST COAST OF COREA, THE GREAT LOO-CHOO ISLAND, NAPAKIANG ROADS, AND PORT MELVILLE.
WITH BRIEF EXPLANATORY NOTICES.
[Illustration: Track of His Majesty's Sloop LYRA _and Honble.
Comps.
Ship INVESTIGATOR_ _along the Shores of the_ GULPH OF PETCHELEE By Captain Basil Hall R.N.
1816.
_East of Greenwich_] NOTICE EXPLANATORY OF A CHART OF THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE GULF OF PE-CHE-LEE, YELLOW SEA.
[Sidenote: First meridian used in constructing the chart.]
In constructing this chart, I have assumed the longitude of the fort at the mouth of the Pei-ho to be 117º 49' east of Greenwich, or 11' west of the place where the squadron lay at anchor.
From this the difference of longitude was measured by two chronometers.
The latitudes were ascertained by frequent observations of the stars, as well as of the sun.
[Sidenote: Aspect of the south and south-west coasts.]
[Sidenote: Soundings.]
The coast on the south and south-west sides of this Gulf is very low, resembling, in this respect, the shore at the entrance of the Pei-ho, or Pekin river, where it is uniformly low and sandy; occasionally a few houses are to be seen, and also square mounds or buildings like forts, but generally, a low white beach is all that can be discovered.
The coast is not visible till within about three leagues distance, and the eye elevated eighty feet from the sea, which is the height of the Lyra's foretop-gallant yard.
The depth of water when the land first came in sight, was generally five fathoms; at some places only four fathoms, and at the very bottom of the Gulf, it could not be discerned till in three and a half fathoms.
It may be said generally, that at ten miles distance the soundings are from four and a half to six fathoms; at twelve miles, from six to eight fathoms.
There is a wonderful uniformity in the depth from the Pei-ho round to the south-east corner of the Gulf; the bottom is mud, sometimes a little gritty, particularly towards the southern parts.
[Sidenote: Colour of the water.]
The colour of the water was mostly of the same dirty yellow or green which was observed off the Pei-ho, but we did not observe any red coloured water, as was frequently noticed at that place; at the bottom of the Gulf, indeed, there were several changes in the colour of the water, accompanied by long lines of foam, indicating, it would seem, the vicinity of a great river.
[Sidenote: Tides on the western side of the Gulf.]
On the west side of the Gulf the ebb tide runs to the south-east by south, and the flood north-west by west; the periods are very regular, being generally about six hours: they vary, however, in rapidity.
As we anchored on the flood we were enabled to measure its velocity; as we got deep in the Gulf it decreased: at the Pei-ho it frequently ran two and two and a half knots, but far south it was sometimes hardly perceptible; it is worthy of notice, too, that the perpendicular rise and fall decreased from ten feet off the Pei-ho, to one, or at most two feet, in the bottom of the Gulf.
[Sidenote: Bottom of the Gulf.]
The most southern point of our track was 37º 15' north; at this time we could perceive the low coast stretching to the east and west; the distance it is difficult to assign very accurately, but it was probably seven or eight miles, for with a glass we could perceive a number of people on the shore.
I took great pains to ascertain the latitude stated above, by the meridian altitudes of several stars; the longitude is 1º 39' east of the Pei-ho, or 119º 28' east of Greenwich.
[Sidenote: South-eastern side different from the opposite.]
The coast from the south-west corner of the Gulf to the peninsula of Teu-choo-foo, is of a totally different character from that opposite to it, for it is high, and well marked: a range of mountains stretches from south-west to north-east, at the distance of three or four leagues inland; their outline is peaked, and they are intersected by deep ravines without any verdure; the summits are also barren.
[Sidenote: Mount Ellis.]
One of these mountains is very remarkable, having two peaks or paps by which it can be distinguished at the distance of fifty miles, and bears the same aspect when viewed from all parts of the Gulf.
It lies in 37º 6' north, and 2º 11' east of the Pei-ho, or 120º east of Greenwich.
It has been called Mount Ellis, in honour of Mr. Ellis, the third commissioner of the Embassy.
[Sidenote: Aspect of the coast.]
[Sidenote: Jane's Isle.]
[Sidenote: Douglas Island.]
Between this range of hills and the shore, there is a lower belt of elevated ground in a state of high cultivation, covered with many towns and villages, and interspersed with scattered trees and several extensive woods; the ground, too, presents a varied surface, so that the whole offers a pleasing contrast with the rugged land behind.
There are two small islands on this line of coast; the southern one lies in 37º 21' north, and 2º 5' east of the Pei-ho; the other is in 37º 28' north, and 2º 19' east of the Pei-ho.
[Sidenote: Dangerous shoal.]
There is a dangerous shoal about five leagues off the shore, abreast of these islands, upon which the Lyra nearly struck at midnight on the 17th instant.
When at anchor just outside the shoal, the south island bore south 20º east, and the other, east 21º south; on the shoal there was two and a half fathoms, hard bottom.
It seems to extend in a north and south direction, and is very narrow.
It lies in 37º 32' north, which I ascertained by altitudes of the pole star, under favourable circumstances.
It is 1º 58' 30" east of the Pei-ho.
[Sidenote: Soundings and tides.]
The soundings on this side of the Gulf are somewhat deeper than on the other, but not so deep as might have been expected from the bold nature of the land.
The ebb tide runs to the north-eastward, and the flood into the Gulf.
[Sidenote: Winds.]
[Sidenote: Melville Point.]
[Sidenote: Teu-choo-foo city.]
The wind was south-east and quite light, from the 11th August to the 17th, when it shifted to north north-east till about eight P.M. when close in shore near the southern of the two islands; it then blew off, with all the appearance of a regular land breeze.
On the 19th it blew a gale of wind from the north-east, with a short, high sea; during the gale we lay at anchor off a remarkable point, connected with the main land by a low sandy neck; the ground felt soft to the lead, but it was probably rocky under the mud, as both ships lost a bower anchor by the cables being cut.
This point lies in 37º 42' north, and 2º 35' east of the Pei-ho.
We found the city of Teu-choo-foo to lie in 3º 4' east of the Pei-ho.
The latitude observed in Teu-choo-foo roads was 37º 53' north, and the longitude 2º 54' east of the Pei-ho.
The western Meadow Island bearing north.
[Sidenote: Cheatow Bay.]
The latitude of a small island at the north-east corner of the Bay of Cheatow or Zee-a-tow, was determined by the sun's meridian altitude on shore, to be 37º 35' 52" north, and longitude east of the Pei-ho 3º 45', or in 121º 34' east of Greenwich.
[Sidenote: Oei-hai-oei.]
The latitude of Oei-hai-oei was observed on shore to be 37º 30' 40" north, and lies 4º 25' east of the Pei-ho.
[Sidenote: Variation of the compass.]
The variation of the compass in the Yellow Sea was found to be 2º 16' westerly.
The rise and fall of the tide at the anchorage of the squadron off the Pei-ho was twelve feet.
It was high water at full, and change at III.
The flood tide runs to the west-south-west, and the ebb generally about east and east-south-east.
Its strength and direction are a good deal influenced by the prevalent winds.
NOTICE TO ACCOMPANY THE CHART OF THE WEST COAST OF COREA.
[Sidenote: Inadequate time allowed for so extensive a survey.]
This chart extends from 34º to 38º north latitude, and from 124º to 127º east longitude.
The time of our stay on the coast being only nine days, no great accuracy is to be expected, and this chart pretends to be little more than an eye-draught, checked by chronometers and meridian altitudes of the sun and stars.
Under circumstances of such haste, much has unavoidably been left untouched, and what is now given is presented with no great confidence.
[Sidenote: General remarks on the methods followed in the survey.]
What follows is extracted from notes made at the time by Mr. Clifford and myself.
The longitudes by chronometer have all been carefully recomputed, and the greatest care was taken in ascertaining the various latitudes.
The true bearings are in every instance set down, the variation being allowed for at the moment.
The variation of the compass recorded in this notice, was determined by two azimuth compasses, and the method recommended by Captain Flinders, of repeating the observations by turning the compass first one way and then the other, was invariably followed.
[Illustration: Track _of His Majesty's Ship_ ALCESTE _and_ LYRA _Sloop along the Western Coast of the PENINSULA of_ COREA by _Captain Basil Hall R.N._] [Sidenote: The ships leave China.]
[Sidenote: Make the coast of Corea.]
[Sidenote: Sir James Hall's group.]
[Sidenote: Anchorage on the south side of an island.]
His Majesty's ships Alceste and Lyra, after quitting the port of Oei-hai-oei, which is in latitude 37º 30' 40" north, and longitude 122º 16' east, on the north coast of Shantung Promontory, stood to the northward and eastward till in latitude 38º north, and then ran to the eastward.
On the morning of the 1st of September, 1816, we saw the land, bearing about east.
By sights with chronometer on the meridian of these islands, we ascertained that the west end of the northern one lies in 124º 44-1/2' east.
The latitude of the south end of the eastern island was ascertained by meridian altitude of the sun to be 37º 44-1/2' north.
There is a rocky white islet off the west end of the middle island.
We had from twenty to thirty fathoms on rounding the south-west end of the islands, but on the south side of the southern one there is a bight with seven fathoms, black sand in the centre: here we anchored.
There is good anchorage all over the bay, which is sheltered from all winds except between west south-west and south-east, being open to the southward.
There are two villages here.
From the top of the highest peak on this island, which is about seven or eight hundred feet high, we could discern the main land of Corea, high and rugged, stretching north north-west and south south-east, distant from eight to ten leagues.
Along the coast abreast of us there were seen many islands.
The channel between the middle island of the group and the one we were upon appeared clear and broad; but the northern and middle islands seemed connected by a reef which shews above water at several places.
[Sidenote: Character of the inhabitants.]
The inhabitants were suspicious and unfriendly: we saw some cattle and many fowls, but neither money nor any thing else that we had could induce them to part with either.
[Sidenote: Lose sight of the coast.]
In the evening we weighed and stood to the southward; next morning there was no land in sight.
At noon we were in longitude 124º 47' 52" east, and latitude 36º 44-1/2' north, no land in sight.
We hauled in shore to the eastward, and anchored in the night in deep water.
[Sidenote: Group of five islands.]
[Sidenote: Bearings.]
3rd of September.--Weighed at 3.30 and stood in shore; at 7.45 A.M. we were due south of the western of a group of islands.
Many sights were taken as we passed to settle the place of this group: it lies between 125º 42-1/2' east, and 125º 57-1/2' east, and in latitude 36º 44' north.
After passing this group we stood to the south-east towards a vast cluster of islands: at noon, when we were just entering the cluster, the latitude was observed 36º 18' 21" north, and longitude 126º 10' east.
The south-west extreme of the islands bore south 40º west.
There were eight islands near us between south-east and south-west, and a high bluff dark rock south one-quarter east, four miles: and on the main land a very high hill, east 19º north.
When we had got well among the islands it fell calm, and we anchored in eight and a half fathoms.
It remained calm during the night.
[Sidenote: Run among the islands.]
4th of September.--Weighed on a breeze springing up, and stood in shore.
Observed in 36º 13' north, longitude 126º 30' east; at this time the following bearings were taken.
[Sidenote: Bearings.]
A remarkable peak on the main land, east.
High mountain on the main land, east 38-1/2º north.
White cliff on the east end of the fourth island to the left of the wide entrance into the cluster, north.
Small round island, north 30º west.
Another, north 35º west.
Extremes of a large bluff island from north 38º west, to north 32-1/2º west.
Rock, north 72º west.
Outer island, north 75º west.
Extremes of the outer cluster, from north 77-1/2 west, to west 1º south.
Large island, from west 14º 30' south, to west 18º south.
[Sidenote: Basil's Bay.]
[Sidenote: Unsocial disposition of the inhabitants.]
These islands being within from ten to fifteen miles, were laid down by estimated distances, but it was quite impossible to assign places to the immense number of others which stretched away to the south and south-east, as far as the eye could reach.
We stood in shore for the purpose of discovering whether there was any place of shelter in the main land, but in general it proved shallow and unsafe.
At length we discovered a bay which promised shelter, but on running into it, the depth was found not to exceed three or four fathoms.
This bay is open towards the south, and is formed by a curved tongue of land on the north and west.
The longitude of the south end of this point is 126º 42' 22" east, and latitude 36º 7' 38" north.
We remained here during the night, and the forenoon of the 5th.
The natives came on board, but made great objections to our landing.
[Sidenote: Tides.]
The tide rose and fell fifteen feet and a half; it was low water at 8 P.M., and high water at 2.30 A.M.
This was two and a half days before full moon.
The Alceste's boats were sent to sound in the eastern quarter, but they found shoal water every where.
[Sidenote: Proceed to the south-westward.]
5th of September.--At 11 A.M. we got under weigh and stood to the south-west among the islands, carrying seven, eight, nine, ten, to fifteen fathoms, and occasionally deepening to seventeen fathoms.
At 4.45 we observed in longitude 126º 24-1/2' east, and latitude 35º 52' north at this time.
[Sidenote: Bearings.]
Two islands bore north half east, seven miles.
A remarkable small black island, west 32º, north four miles.
Another, west 22º north, seven miles.
A range of islands, from east 10º north, to east 16º south.
A long island, from south 25º east, to south 11º east.
The islands off which we anchored on the 2nd instant bearing about north 10º west.
Two islands, from south 16º west, to south 25º west.
[Sidenote: Main land.]
The main land from south south-east to north-east, high and rugged.
We had a sea breeze to-day, and fine weather.
Variation 2º 10' westerly.
We ran on by moonlight till 11 P.M., and then anchored among the islands.
Latitude, observed by Polaris 35º 26' north.
Longitude, at anchor by chronometer next morning 126º 23' 22" east.
From this spot the main land was seen from east 12º north, to south 20º east.
[Sidenote: Bearings.]
A rock, west 7º south, four miles.
An island, from west 15º north, to west 31º north, 4-1/2'.
Three islands, extending from west 36º south, to west 45º south, 3'.
Two distant ones in the same direction.
Cluster of islands, from west 64º south, to west 84-1/2º south.
Large island, north 12º west, ten or twelve miles.
A cluster of islands, from north 15º east, to north 28º east.
Two distant islands, north 32º east.
Two others, north 42º east.
[Sidenote: Channels between the islands generally deep.]
6th of September.--Weighed and stood to the southward.
At noon observed in 35º 17' north, longitude 126º 28-1/2' east, being then in the centre of a semicircle of islands, extending from north-east to south-east and south-west.
During the forenoon the flood tide set strong to the north north-east against us.
Most of the channels between the islands were deep, but to-day we tried one which had not more than five and a half fathoms.
At 4.30. took sights, when a long bluff island bore east north-east a quarter of a mile.
Longitude 126º 6' 37" east; latitude 35º 6' north.
This island is the most westerly of the range of islands which lie between the latitude 35º and 36º north.
High and connected land was faintly discernible to the eastward.
The soundings were generally from nine to fifteen fathoms, deepening in most cases on approaching the bluff islands.
[Sidenote: Flood tide runs to the northward.]
[Sidenote: Windsor Castle.]
[Sidenote: Bearings.]
7th of September.--We anchored last night about ten o'clock in seventeen fathoms; the flood tide had made; it ran north nearly three miles an hour, till four A.M. when we got under weigh, and drifted fast to the southward with the ebb.
At 9.30. got sights, which gave longitude 125º 52' 45" east, latitude 34º 42' north; at this time a very remarkable hill on an island bore east 8º south; it has the appearance of a turret or large chimney.
The other bearings from this spot were-Western extreme of a large island stretching west north-west, and east south-east; north 27º, east 4 or 5'.
Round rock, north 18º east, 8'.
Cluster of islands from north 50º west, to north 74º west.
Round bluff small island, west 9º south.
Large island, west 42º south, 7 or eight leagues.
Two small distant islands, west 53º south, 10' leagues.
Small island, south 11º east.
[Sidenote: Soundings.]
[Sidenote: Variation of the compass.]
Extreme of distant land, south 37º east: besides, as usual, innumerable distant islands.
The flood tide made against us between ten and eleven.
The soundings this morning have been from twenty-three to nineteen fathoms.
The weather extremely hot and the water smooth.
The ebb made about four, and there being no wind, it carried us rapidly towards some rocks joining two islands.
We anchored in twenty-one fathoms.
The variation of the compass 2-1/2º westerly.
The bearings at anchor this evening were as follows: [Sidenote: Bearings.]
Small island, south 3º 22' east.
Large island, from south to south 20-1/2º east.
A small island, south 22º east.
Another, south 28-1/2º east.
High bluff island, south 31º east.
Island from south 9º east, to south 18º west.
Sharp peaked rock, south 25º 40' west.
Island from south 63º west, to south 65º west.
Distant island, from south 63-1/2º west, to south 66º west, nine or ten leagues.
Distant small island, west 1º 10' north, seven or eight leagues.
[Sidenote: Bearings.]
Distant island, from west 6º 39' north, to west 9º north, formed of one large flat space and five hummocks, eight or nine leagues.
Island, west 28º 50' north.
Large island, from west 31º north, to west 38º 19' north.
Round bluff island, off which we observed at noon to-day, west 39º 52' north.
Distant small island, west 44º 28' north, four or five leagues.
Large island, from west 71º north, to west 81º 30' north.
An island, afterwards called Thistle Island, south 79º east, to east 14º 52' north, besides numberless islands, in thick clusters, extending as far as the eye could reach, in the north-east and east quarters.
In the afternoon a boat went inside Thistle Island, and reported that there was a clear anchorage.
[Sidenote: Sail into Murray's Sound.]
[Sidenote: Latitude observed on shore.]
[Sidenote: Longitude.]
[Sidenote: Tides.]
[Sidenote: Variation of the compass.]
8th of September.--At noon we weighed and sailed round the north end of Thistle Island, carrying seventeen fathoms, till the north end bore south; we then shoaled to ten and eleven, and one cast nine fathoms.
On rounding the island we steered south, and anchored in eleven fathoms, soft bottom, about four hundred yards from the middle part of the island.
The islands at this place are so situated as to form a capacious and secure anchorage, with passages among the islands in all directions.
The latitude observed with an artificial horizon on shore, was 34º 22' 39" north; longitude by mean of two chronometers, agreeing nearly, 126º 2' 52" east.
The tides run at the springs at the rate of three and four knots, the flood to the north north-east; the rise and fall is fifteen feet.
Strong eddies are felt among the islands.
The variation of the compass is 2º 30' westerly.
[Sidenote: Appearance of the Amherst Isles, from the top of a peaked island.]
On the 9th of September Captain Maxwell and a party went to the summit of a high peak, on an island to the south-east of the ships, in latitude 34º 20' north, and longitude 126º 6' east.
From this spot, elevated about seven or eight hundred feet above the sea, the view of the islands was very striking: we endeavoured to number them, but our accounts varied, owing to the difficulty of estimating the number in the distant groups; it will serve, however, to give some idea of this splendid scene, to say that the lowest enumeration gave one hundred and twenty islands.
Many of these islands are large and high, almost all are cultivated, and their forms present an endless diversity.
High land was seen to rise above the distant islands in the east and north-east; this probably was the main land of Corea, for it seemed more extensive and connected than any group of islands we had seen.
[Sidenote: Difficulty of estimating the number of islands on this coast.]
We had now ran along upwards of two hundred miles of this coast, and at every part which we approached, the islands were no less thickly sown than here; so that our attempts to enumerate them all, or even to assign places on the chart to those which we passed the nearest to, became after a time quite hopeless.
[Sidenote: Winds and weather.]
During our stay upon the coast of Corea, between the 1st and 10th of September, the winds were principally from the northward; the weather was moderate and clear; and occasionally calm during the heat of the day.
[Sidenote: Barometer and thermometer.]
The barometer rose and fell gradually between 29.
78. and 29.
98.
The thermometer was never above 82º, and never, even at night, under 72º For further details respecting the winds and weather, see the Meteorological Journal.
[Illustration: Chart of GREAT LOO CHOO Island _Surveyed in H.M. Sloop LYRA by Captain Basil Hall_ 1816] NOTICE TO ACCOMPANY THE GENERAL CHART OF THE GREAT LOO-CHOO ISLAND, AND THE CHARTS OF NAPAKIANG, AND PORT MELVILLE.
[Sidenote: Different names of this island.]
This island is called Loo-choo, and sometimes Doo-choo, by the natives.
In our maps it is variously written, but mostly Lekayo: the Chinese know it by the name of Low-kow.
The spelling used by Mr. Horsburgh in his directions, Lieou-kieou, or Lieu-chew.
[Sidenote: Geographical limits and general aspect.]
The island lies between 26º 4-3/4' and 26º 52-1/2', north, and between 127º 34' and 128º 18' east, being very nearly sixty miles long in a north-east direction, and preserving a tolerably uniform breadth of about ten or twelve miles.
The north end is high and bold, with wood on the top of the hills.
The north-east coast is also abrupt, but quite barren.
The south-east side is low, with very little appearance of cultivation.
The south, south-west, and western faces, particularly the two former, are of moderate height, and present a scene of great fertility and high cultivation: it is to this quarter that the mass of population have resorted.
The north-west side is generally rugged and bare.
[Sidenote: Deep bay.]
[Sidenote: Barrow's Bay.]
There are two deep indentures, one on each side of the island; that on the west has at least one hundred fathoms depth, and appears to have no coral in it: while the eastern bight is extremely shallow, and is not only skirted by a broad fringe of coral, but has reefs in the centre; and these last are very dangerous, for they give no warning either by breakers or discoloration of the water, or by soundings: and this remark will apply generally to all the reefs round this island, rendering the navigation, particularly at night, very dangerous.
[Sidenote: General caution respecting coral reefs.]
[Sidenote: Sugar Loaf or Eegooshcoond.]
The most remarkable headland is the island called by Captain Broughton the Sugar Loaf, and by the natives Eegooshcoond (tower or castle); it can be seen distinctly at the distance of twenty-five miles when the eye is elevated only fifteen feet.
It is a high conical mountain, varying very little in its aspect when viewed from different quarters: as there is no other peak like it on or near this island, it cannot be mistaken.
The latitude of the peak is 26º 43' north; and I have reason to believe that this is within one mile of the truth.
Its longitude is 127º 44', or 6' east of the observatory at Napakiang, by two chronometers.
The base of the cone and one-third of the way up is covered with houses; and the whole island has the appearance of a garden.
When nearly on the meridian of the Sugar Loaf its top seems rounded off.
[Sidenote: Two safe anchoring places.]
[Sidenote: Geographical position of Napakiang.]
There are two places where ships can ride in safety, Napakiang Roads on the south-west, and Port Melville on the north-west side of the island.
The first of these is the one in which his majesty's ships Alceste and Lyra lay for upwards of a month.
By means of a base of 1319 feet on a coral reef, which dried at half ebb, we were enabled to make the survey which accompanies this notice.
The latitude of the observatory was determined to be 26º 13' 34" north, the mean of three meridian altitudes of the sun by a sextant of Cary's, and five by a circle of Troughton's, the extreme difference being 20".
The longitude is 127º 38' east; this was ascertained by measuring the difference of longitude between the observatory and Lintin Island off Canton river in a run of six days; on which occasion two chronometers on board the Lyra gave within one mile the same difference of longitude, viz.
13º 50', with that shewn by two others on board his majesty's ship Alceste; the longitude of Lintin being 113º 48' east of Greenwich.
The longitude, by lunar observations, is 127º 37' 28".
The plan of Napakiang roads will be found sufficient without many directions for ships wishing to enter it.
The principal danger lies in the outer reefs, which do not show when the weather is very fine and there is little swell; on such occasions a boat ought to go a-head at least a quarter of a mile, and the ship should put about instantly upon approaching the reefs, which are every where bold.
A ship coming from the westward ought to steer between the north-eastern of the group of high islands to the south-westward, and a low green island with extensive reefs to the northward, in latitude 26º 15' north.
On passing which she should haul up east by south, giving Reef Island a birth of at least a mile.
[Sidenote: Plan of Napakiang.]
[Sidenote: Directions on approaching Napakiang.]
[Sidenote: Reef Island.]
[Illustration] [Sidenote: Directions for entering Napakiang roads.]
[Illustration: NAPAKIANG ROADS _on the S.W.
Side of the_ GREAT LOO CHOO Island _Laid down from actual survey by Captain Basil Hall R.N.
H.M. Sloop LYRA_ 1816] [Sidenote: Capstan Rock.]
[Sidenote: Best anchorage off the mouths of two rivulets.]
[Sidenote: The northern entrance.]
On approaching the main land a conspicuous wooded point will be seen, having rocks on its summit like the ruins of an abbey; this forms the south side of the anchorage, and is considerably more to the westward than the north-east side.
The harbour of Napakiang will soon be seen at the south side of the bay; steer directly in for this, giving Abbey Point a birth of half a mile, and when directly between the south end of the outer reefs and Abbey Point haul up east by north.
There is a very remarkable rock on the south-east side of the anchorage resembling the head of a capstan.
It would be safest to anchor when this bears about south-south-east half a mile at most, in order to avoid a dangerous coral tongue, which lies north a little easterly from it, three-quarters of a mile; but as this anchorage is exposed, the ship may proceed farther in as soon as the exact place of the reef has been ascertained by boats; and if she proposes staying any time, she may warp into Barnpool, taking the precaution of placing a boat on each side of the entrance.
There are two rivulets at this place, and probably the best anchorage is off their mouths, the bottom consisting of the mud brought down by the stream.
There is a well on the eastern side supplied by a spring, and there are landing places at the entrance of both harbours.
There is a safe passage between the reef, on which the base was measured, and the outer ones.
The Lyra passed through this three times; and if the object is to go to the northward it ought to be followed, provided the wind will admit of steering north and two points on each side of it.
The leading mark for going by this passage is Capstan Fort or Rock, on with a remarkable nose formed by the trees on the highest distant land; these are on when they bear about south by east half east.
It would certainly not be advisable for a stranger to enter by this passage, but he may run on coming from the northward along the shore at the distance of two or three miles till Reef Island bears west, and then he should look sharply out for the reefs, keeping outside them till near Abbey Point, then act as before directed.
On running down towards Napakiang from the northward a remarkable bluff table land will be seen to the southward of Abbey Point.
The west face of Abbey Point ought to be kept just on with the east end of the table land; this will take you further out than is absolutely necessary; but it is safe; and when Reef Island is just on with the northern of the group of distant islands you will be exactly off the north entrance.
[Sidenote: Appearance of land in coming from the northward towards Napakiang.]
[Sidenote: Not to be attempted by a stranger.]
[Sidenote: Dangerous coral reef about four leagues south-west by west from Napakiang.]
On coming from the southward the only danger that lies in the way is a coral reef even with the water's edge; it is of a circular form, and at low water several rocks shew on it.
On every occasion that we passed the sea broke high upon it; but from what we saw of other similar reefs, it seems very probable that when the water is smooth it will give no warning: it is about eight miles west, 15º north of the extreme south point of the island, and lies in latitude 26º 7' north, and longitude 127º 26' east of Greenwich.
[Sidenote: Port Melville.]
[Sidenote: Directions to approach it, and to anchor previous to entering the harbour.]
Port Melville is on the north-west side of the island.
A ship wishing to enter it ought to make the Sugar Loaf Peak, and steer between it and the cluster of islands to the northward, directly for the bottom of the bight, which lies between the Sugar Loaf and the north end of the island; here Herbert's Island will be seen close to the shore, run in towards its western end, anchor when it bears east one-third of a mile, and the Sugar Loaf west one-quarter north, barely shut in with a low dark green point of land; here you will have from seventeen to twenty fathoms.
[Sidenote: Boats should be sent to buoy the channel.]
The entrance of the harbour is narrow, and ought not to be attempted without previous examination by the boats of a ship wishing to enter it.
With a very little trouble the passage might be buoyed: a large ship will probably find it expedient to warp in and out.
[Sidenote: Eye-draught of Port Melville.]
The eye-draught, with the directions on it, render much further notice here superfluous.
The harbour is secure, and sufficiently capacious for a numerous fleet.
It extends in a north and south direction for about two miles, varying in breadth and form in a very remarkable manner; at the lower or north end there are two basons of a circular form, and have from nine to fifteen fathoms, soft bottom; these are about one-third of a mile across.
At some places the steep rocks which form the banks approach within an hundred yards of one another; here the water is sixteen, eighteen, and twenty fathoms.
There are many fine coves, some with shelving shores, and others steep-to.
Every part of the harbour is secured from the sea, and many parts from all winds: it is well calculated for the re-equipment of ships, for it is not only secure as an anchorage, but offers conveniences for landing men and stores, and also for heaving down or careening a ship.
[Sidenote: Villages of Cooee and of Oonting.]
There are several large villages on the shores of an extensive bay, communicating with the sea to the north-eastward, at the upper or south end of the line of harbours, and one called Oonting on the west side of the lower harbour; there is another of some extent, on the south side of Herbert's Island, called Cooee.
By permission of Captain Maxwell, I have named this excellent harbour, Port Melville, in honour of Lord Viscount Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty.
[Illustration: _Draught_ _of_ PORT MELVILLE _on the N.W.
side of_ _GREAT LOO-CHOO_ Island _by_ _Captain Basil Hall_ _and_ _the_ OFFICERS _of_ _His Majesty's Sloop_ LYRA _11th Octr.
1816._] From the top of a range of hills which we ascended, rising on the south side of the upper bay of Port Melville, we could see the south-west corner of the great western bay, the whole range of Port Melville, and the coasts adjacent.
[Sidenote: Geographical position of Port Melville.]
The latitude of Herbert's Island, which lies directly off the entrance of Port Melville, is 26º 42-2/3' north, by meridian altitude of the sun observed on shore.
Its longitude, which is also the longitude of Port Melville, is 127º 55' east, or 17' east of Napakiang observatory.
The Sugar Loaf bears from the centre of the island, west 4-1/2º north, about ten miles.
[Sidenote: Coast skirted by coral reefs.]
As the whole part of this coast is skirted by dangerous coral reefs, the greatest attention should be paid to the lead, and the ship ought to be put about the instant that the water shoals to eight, seven, or six fathoms.
On running in for the west end of Herbert's Island, on the morning of the 11th of October, we passed over a coral ledge having nine fathoms on it.
The west point of Herbert's Island bore at this time south 8º 40' west, distant four or five miles.
Before and after passing this we had from thirty to sixty fathoms; whether it was shoaler than nine fathoms at any place, was not ascertained, but the circumstance is deserving of notice, and ought to teach the necessity of constant vigilance, when near coral reefs.
[Sidenote: Montgomery islands.]
The cluster of islands to the northward of Port Melville lies between 26º 54' and 27º 4-1/2' north, the north end of the northern one being in longitude 127º 57' east, or 19' east of the observatory.
It does not appear that there is any good anchorage about them; and there are dangerous reefs off the south and south-western ones.
[Sidenote: Hope Point.]
The north end of the Great Loo-choo lies in 26º 52-1/2' north, and this is probably within one, or at most two miles of the truth.
We observed in 27º 00' 15" north, at which time the northern extreme bore east 59º south, nine miles by estimation, an inference which was checked by the distance run on a direct course afterwards.
The longitude is 128º 9' east, or 31' east of the observatory.
[Sidenote: Sidmouth Point.]
The coast from the north point runs south-east by east, with some minor deviations, nearly four leagues: great pains were taken to ascertain this precisely, as the former charts not only place it many miles further north, but make the coast at this end lie east and west.
The north-east point lies in 26º 47' north, and longitude 128º 18' east, or 40' east of the observatory.
The latitude was determined by the meridian altitude of Sirius and an altitude of Polaris, so near daylight that the horizon was well defined; but as this point, off which there is a small island, was some miles north of the ship at the time of observation, the above latitude may err possibly two miles.
It was intended to have examined two islands which lie to the north-eastward of the north point, but a strong current in the night carried us so far to leeward, that we could not effect this object; the situation, therefore, of these two islands, may perhaps not be accurately laid down in the chart.
[Sidenote: Barrow's Bay.]
The deep indenture about the middle of the east side of the island is unsafe to enter during the north-east monsoon: as the wind, however, had westing in it, we sailed up to within three or four miles of the top, carrying from thirty to twenty fathoms water; but when about to haul in for the north side, where there appeared to be a bay, we shoaled suddenly from twenty-four to eight fathoms: the helm was instantly put down, and when head to wind, we had only five fathoms.
While in stays the water was observed to wash on a rock not a hundred yards to leeward of us, on which we must infallibly have struck, had we bore up instead of tacking.
[Sidenote: South-east coast dangerous.]
From the north-east to the south-east point, the coast runs south 40º west; the shore to the north-east of this deep bight is bold, and seems clear; that on the south-west side of it presents a formidable barrier of islands and coral reefs, which break to a great distance: in fine weather this part of the coast ought to be approached very cautiously.
[Sidenote: South Point.]
[Sidenote: Reef.]
The southern extreme of this island lies in latitude 26º 4' 46" north, determined with great care by the meridian altitude of the sun on shore; and in longitude 127º 35' east, or 3' west of the observatory.
There is good anchorage from twenty to thirty fathoms, south a little easterly, of this point.
Between this point and the group of islands to the westward, there is a dangerous reef, already spoken of; it lies in 26º 7' north, and 127º 26' east; it bears 26' west, 15º north from the south point of the island, distant eight miles.
Immediately round the point on the west side there is a shallow harbour, formed by coral reefs, but the entrance is narrow and intricate.
[Sidenote: South-western group.]
We stood over to the largest of the south-west group, on the east side of which there stands out a conical rock, behind which it was thought that a harbour might lie, but upon examination, it proved only fit for boats; it lies in 26º 11' north.
[Sidenote: Reef Island.]
Reef Island lies west by north, about two leagues from Napakiang Roads; on the north side the reefs stretch a great way, but the south is more clear.
Between Napakiang and the Sugar Loaf there is no place for ships to lie in safety; the bay immediately to the north was examined by Mr. Mayne, master of his Majesty's ship Alceste, when two shallow harbours were found.
[Sidenote: Tides.]
The flood runs to the northward and eastward, along shore, and the ebb in an opposite direction.
The rise and fall is about nine feet perpendicular.
High water at full and change IX.
[Sidenote: Variation of the compass.]
The variation of the compass, determined with great precision by the transit azimuth instrument, was 52' westerly.
The longitude of the Lyra's observatory at Napakiang by the mean of thirty-six lunar observations on both sides of the moon, is 127º 37' 28" east; by four chronometers, agreeing nearly, 127º 38' 30" east.
The latitude is 26º 13' 39" north.
[Transcriber's Note: Crescent moons are denoted by [((] or [))]; a circle with a period therein is denoted by [(.)]]
OBSERVATIONS MADE AT NAPAKIANG OBSERVATORY, GREAT LOO-CHOO ISLAND.
Lunars with a Sextant.
Lunars with a Sextant.
[(.)]
West of [((] *[Greek: a] Arietis, East of [))] 25th September, 1816.
4th October, 1816 [(.)]
[((] 127º.
38'.
15" East.
* [))] 127º.
31'.
00" East.
35 .
15 37 .
00 36 .
15 43 .
00 34 .
45 52 .
30 33 .
00 54 .
30 36 .
00 38 .
45 30 .
45 52 .
45 28 .
30 50 .
15 32 .
15 50 .
30 31 .
30 127º.
33'.
39" Mean 41 .
45 40 .
30 26th October, 1816.
34 .
15 43 .
15 [(.)]
[((] 127 .
38 .
30 39 .
45 39 .
45 -----------41 .
30 Mean by sextant 127 .
43.
20 * East of [))] 44 .
15 44 .
30 Lunars by Circle.
32 .
15 [(.)]
West of [((] 33 .
00 31 .
45 4th October, 1816 31 .
15 [(.)]
[((] 127º.
38'.
45" 27 .
30 127º 36'.
16" Mean 32 .
30 ------------------------Mean by sextant 127 .
34 .
58 [(.)]
W. [((] Mean 127 .
35 .
37 by circle.
Mean by sextant [(.)]
west [))] 127º 34'.
58" * East [((] 127 .
43 .
20 -------------Mean longitude by sextant [(.)]
* [))] 127 .
39 .
9 by circle [(.)]
* [((] 127 .
35 .
37 -------------Mean longitude by 36 lunars 127 .
37 .
28 Longitude by chronometers 127 .
38 .
30 east of Greenwich.
LATITUDE OF NAPAKIANG.
_By Meridian Altitudes of the Sun and Altitudes taken near Noon._ By meridian altitudes observed.
By meridian altitudes deduced in the usual way from sights taken near noon.
1816.
1816.
Sextant.
8th Oct. mean of 3 A.M.} 26º.
13'.
30" circle.
17th Oct. 26º.
13'.
43" and 3 P.M. } 20th Oct. 26 .
13 .
44 20th Oct.
A.M.{ 26 .
13 .
46} sext.
{ 26 .
13 .
44} Circle.
26th Oct. 26 .
13 .
29 20th Oct.
P.M.{ 26 .
13 .
58} { 26 .
13 .
47} sext.
{ 26 .
13 .
57} 22d mean 2 A.M.& 2 P.M. 26 .
13 .
24} circle.
26th 3 P.M. 26 .
13 .
29} Latitude by mean of 3 meridian altitudes 26º.
13'.
39" sextant and circle.
mean of 5 altitudes near noon 26 .
13 .
50 sextant.
mean of 3 do.
do.
26 .
13 .
28 circle.
-----------Mean latitude 26 .
13 .
39 north.
* * * * * VARIATION OF THE COMPASS AT NAPAKIANG.
The declination of the magnetic meridian was ascertained with considerable precision by means of the transit azimuth instrument: the needle seldom showed the same variation, as it oscillated about ten minutes, but the mean position of the magnetic meridian was 52' 10" west of the true.
A coral reef was selected for the place of these observations, in order to avoid the attraction arising from buildings, or from inequalities in the ground.
* * * * * _Variation observed on board by Walker's Azimuth Compass._ 29th Sept. 1816, P.M. ship's head W. by S. variation by 1st azimuth 0º.
51'.
30" west.
2nd 0 .
53 .
30 3rd 1 .
17 .
30 Amplitude 1 .
15 .
00 30th A.M. 1st azimuth 0 .
55 .
30 2nd 0 .
34 .
15 3d Oct.
A.M. ship's head E.N.E.
1st azimuth 0 .
37 .
00 2nd 0 .
48 .
00 ----------Variation by mean of 7 azimuths and 1 amplitude 0 .
52 .
39 west.
TABLE OF OBSERVATIONS MADE WITH DR. WOLLASTON'S DIP SECTOR: WITH AN ENGRAVING, AND A DESCRIPTION OF THE INSTRUMENT, AND DIRECTIONS FOR ITS USE.
[Illustration: Wollaston's Dip Sector] EXPLANATION OF THE DIP SECTOR, AND REMARKS ON THE OBSERVATIONS MADE WITH IT IN HIS MAJESTY'S SLOOP LYRA.
In our tables for apparent dip of the visible horizon at different heights from the sea, as calculated from the known curvature of the earth, allowance is made for the refraction of the atmosphere, on a supposition of its being constant, but as it is known to vary, the tabular dip will often be erroneous, and, consequently, altitudes taken under different states of the atmosphere, will exhibit different instead of corresponding results.
It is foreign to the present purpose to shew what the causes are which have most effect in raising or depressing the apparent horizon.
It may be sufficient to mention, that changes in the relative temperature of the air and the sea must produce changes in the refraction near the surface.
Dr. Wollaston has published two papers in the Philosophical Transactions on this subject, in the volumes for 1800 and 1803, and to these I beg to refer the reader for precise information upon this very curious subject.
The object which this sector proposes to attain, is the actual admeasurement of the dip angle; that is, to ascertain how much the visible horizon is depressed below the horizontal plane passing through the eye of the observer.
The instrument is so contrived as to measure double the dip angle twice over, so that we obtain four times the required dip, and one quarter of this angle is what must be applied to vertical angles, measured from that part of the horizon which has been observed.
Figure I. is the instrument seen in perspective, and Fig.
II.
is a plan of it with the telescope removed.
In order to explain its use, let A and B (Fig.
II.)
represent the two reflecting glasses at right angles to the plane of the instrument, and also nearly at right angles to each other.
It is clear that when the plane of the instrument is held vertically, an eye situated at E, and looking through the unsilvered part of the glass A at a distant point C, will at the same time see by joint reflection from both glasses, another distant point D at 180º from C; and D will appear to correspond with C, if a suitable motion be given to the index glass B by the tangent screw F. The instrument may now be supposed to measure the arc CZD.
If the points C and D be each three minutes farther from the zenith than 90º, the entire angle will then exceed 180º by double that quantity.
The relative position of the glasses then corresponds to 180º 6', and the six minutes of excess would be shewn on the arc at F if there were no index error.
But, by reason of the index error, the real quantity will not be known till a similar observation has been made with the instrument in an opposite direction.
If the instrument be now inverted, so that the unsilvered glass is uppermost, the arc intended to be measured is CND, or the sum of the distances of the points C and D from the Nadir instead of the Zenith, which of course falls short of 180º by as much as the former arc exceeded that quantity.
The difference of the two arcs is consequently twelve minutes, and if the index be now moved till the objects C and D appear to correspond, the amount of this double difference will be shewn by the _change of position_ of the vernier.
Hence it is evidently unnecessary that the index error should be previously known, and even preferable that its amount should be such as to avoid the needless introduction of negative quantities by positions on different sides of zero.
In the preceding description, it is supposed that the eye is looking directly through the unsilvered glass at the horizon, and that it also perceives the opposite horizon after two reflections; but an inspection of the figure will shew that the observer's head would necessarily intercept the rays from the horizon behind him.
To obviate this, both the direct and the reflected rays are received in coming from the unsilvered glass, (and after passing through the field-glass of the telescope) on a mirror placed at an angle of 45º, which reflects them to the eye.
By this ingenious contrivance, the obstruction is removed, and the opposite points of the horizon may be both seen at one moment.
In practice, it is most convenient to direct the telescope to the same part of the horizon in both cases.
Thus, if the east and west parts of the horizon be observed, and that the index glass be uppermost, and telescope pointing to the west, the observer is on the south side, and his face must be turned to the north.
When the instrument is inverted, if the observer turn himself round at the same time, so as to face the south, then the telescope will be pointed as before to the west; but since the index glass is now undermost, the inferior arc will now be measured precisely as if his face were to the north, but with the advantage of the same lights seen in the erect position of the instrument.
In using this instrument at sea for the first time, considerable difficulty arises from the constant change in the plane of the instrument from the perpendicular position, in which it is absolutely necessary that it should be held, in order to obtain a correct observation.
What at first appears to be a defect, however, is a real advantage, namely, that whenever it is held in the least degree out of the vertical plane, the two horizons (that seen direct, and the reflected one) cross each other, and it is only when the plane is vertical that the horizons can appear parallel.
The object is to get the two horizons to coincide exactly, and for this purpose it will often be necessary to have them of different shades.
This is managed, as in the sextant, by means of the screw, which raises or lowers the telescope.
When the telescope is brought nearer to the plane of the instrument, the reflected horizon becomes dark and distinct, but when screwed off it becomes fainter, and is not so well defined.
Practice alone can teach the degree of intensity which is most favourable.
In general it is best to have one horizon dark, and the other light; then bring them very nearly to coincide, and wait till the ship is steady, at which moment a slight touch of the tangent screw brings them exactly to cover one another.
It will happen, of course, that when the coincidence is perfect, there is only one horizon to be seen, and a doubt remains whether all is right, but a slight motion of the instrument, by making the horizons cross each other, defines them at once.
It is advisable to take several observations, and the safest way is to take one first with the index glass uppermost, and then with the instrument inverted, after which to return to the first, and so on for two or three times each way.
In the pages which follow, there is given a table containing the result of all the observations made during this voyage, preceded by several sets of observations in the fullest detail.
From the table it will be observed how seldom the dip, actually measured, agrees with that inferred from the mean refraction.
Some of these experiments shew very remarkable differences, and point out the great utility of this instrument.
The practical navigator, particularly if he has been in hot climates, will recollect how discordant his observations for latitude always were, and how few even of the best observers agree in their determination of the latitude of the same place, simple as the observation is thought to be.
The cause is quite clear; and though it equally affects altitudes taken for absolute time, the disagreement is less obvious, and it will often happen that a chronometer going extremely well appears to vary every day from inaccuracy in the observations.
Thus it is, I think, generally admitted, that it is almost impossible to rate a chronometer from altitudes observed with the sea horizon.
Nor is this difficulty removed by taking equal altitudes, because the refraction in all probability will be different at the two observations.
With an artificial horizon, indeed, the changes in refraction are not felt, because, at a considerable elevation above the horizon, the changes are very trifling.
But it often happens in practice, that the artificial horizon cannot be used, and we are then reduced to the sea horizon, where the changes of refraction are always the greatest.
In the Yellow Sea, for instance, we had no opportunity of landing during all the time that the squadron was at anchor, till the day before we sailed.
So that during nearly a fortnight that the ships were at anchor, the sea horizon was necessarily used.
I need only to refer to the observations taken off the Pei-ho, viz.
from No.
37 to 62, to shew how extremely fallacious the results must have been.
It is much to be wished that this excellent instrument should be brought into general use in navigation.
THE FOLLOWING EIGHT OBSERVATIONS ARE SET DOWN IN THE FULLEST DETAIL, IN ORDER TO SHEW THE METHOD USED IN RECORDING THEM.
No.
31.
YELLOW SEA.
_July 23, 1816._--6 P.M. Index uppermost.
Instrument inverted.
A + 8'.
10" B 7'.
10" 8 .
05 7 .
10 8 .
00 7 .
10 ----------Mean 8 .
05 Mean 7 .
10 B.
Mean + 8 .
05 A.
------15 .
15 ------3 .
49 Dip.
3 .
50 Tabular.
1 Difference.
------Height of the eye, 15 feet, 3 inches.
Parts of the horizon observed, WSW.
and ENE.
Barometer 29 .
78 inches Thermometer {Air 82º {Sea 77º Latitude 35º north.
Longitude 124º east.
Wind light from south; horizon uncommonly well defined and sharp; sky clear, and sea perfectly smooth.
No.
40.
OFF THE PEI-HO, YELLOW SEA.
_July 29, 1816._--9 A.M. Index uppermost.
Instrument inverted.
A + 8'.
20" B 11'.
40" 8 .
45 11 .
35 8 .
30 11 .
50 -----------Mean 8 .
32 Mean 11 .
42 B.
Mean + 8 .
32 A.
------4) 20 .
14 5 .
3 Dip.
3 .
50 Tabular.
1 .
13 Difference + ------Height of the eye, 15 feet, 3 inches.
Parts of the horizon observed, NW.
and SE.
The low land just visible in the NW.
distant 12 or 14 miles.
Depth of the sea, 18 feet.
Barometer 29 .
60 inches.
Thermometer {Air 81º {Sea 84º Latitude 38º.
50' north.
Longitude 118º.
00' east.
There has been little wind this morning, after a very close night.
No.
43.
OFF THE PEI-HO, YELLOW SEA.
_August 6, 1816._--1 P.M. Index uppermost.
Instrument inverted.
A + 7'.
48" B 11'.
55" 7 .
48 11 .
45 7 .
55 11 .
45 -----------Mean 7 .
50 Mean 11 .
48 B.
Mean + 7 .
50 A.
------4) 19 .
38 ------4 .
54 Dip.
3 .
53 Tabular.
1 .
1 Difference + ------Height of the eye, 15 feet, 6 inches.
Parts of the horizon observed, SW. by S. and NE.
by N. Depth of the sea, 29 feet.
Barometer 29 .
64 inches.
Thermometer { Air 83-1/2º { Sea 81-1/2º Latitude 38º 50' north.
Longitude 118º 00' east.
Moderate breeze from SE.
by S.; rather hazy, but the horizon sharp and distinct.
No.
50.
OFF THE PEI-HO, YELLOW SEA.
_August 8, 1816._--6.15.
A.M. Index uppermost.
Instrument inverted.
A + 10'.
20" B 12'.
50" 10 .
18 12 .
45 10 .
35 13 .
00 ------------------Mean 10 .
24, 3 Mean 12 .
51.7 B.
Mean + 10 .
24.3 A.
---------4) 23 .
16 5 .
49 Dip.
3 .
50 Tabular.
1 .
59 Difference + ---------Height of the eye, 15 feet, 3 inches.
Parts of the horizon observed, NNE.
and SSW.
clear of the land.
Depth of the sea, 26 feet.
Barometer 29 .
65 inches.
Thermometer { Air 69-1/2º { Sea 78º Wind NNW.
moderate.
Latitude 38º.
50' north.
Longitude 118º.
00' east.
_Mem._--The top of the fort at the mouth of the river, is just visible at 30 feet from the surface of the water.
No.
53.
OFF THE PEI-HO, YELLOW SEA.
_August 10, 1816._--6.10.
A.M. Index uppermost.
Instrument inverted A + 13'.
55" B 7'.
30" 13 .
50 7 .
15 13 .
45 7 .
25 --------------Mean 13 .
50 Mean 7 .
23.3 B.
--------Mean + 13 .
50 A.
--------4) 21 .
13.3 5 .
18.3 Dip.
2 .
20 Tabular.
2 .
58 Difference + Height of the eye, 5 feet, 6 inches.
Depth of the water, 5 feet.
Parts of the horizon observed, N. by E. and S. by W. just clear of the land.
Barometer 29 .
69 inches. }
On board His Majesty's ship Lyra, Thermometer { Air 75º } distant three or four miles.
{ Sea 77º } Wind WNW.
About one mile from the fort of Tung-coo, at the entrance of the Pei-ho river.
_Note._--Instrument readjusted.
No.
58.
OFF THE PEI-HO, YELLOW SEA.
_August 10, 1816._--2 P.M. Index uppermost.
Instrument inverted.
A + 15'.
40" B 8'.
50" 15 .
30 8 .
50 15 .
35 8 .
50 --------------Mean 15 .
35 Mean 8 .
50 B.
Mean + 15 .
35 A.
4) 24 .
25 6 .
6.3 Dip.
3 .
50 Tabular.
2 .
16 Difference + Height of the eye, 15 feet, 3 inches.
Parts of the horizon observed, N. by E. and S. by W. Depth of the sea, 27 feet.
Barometer 29 .
68 inches.
Thermometer } Air 84º } Sea 83º Latitude 38º .
50' north.
Longitude 118º .
00' east.
No.
59.
OFF THE PEI-HO, YELLOW SEA.
_August 10, 1816._--2.
15.
P.M. Index uppermost.
Instrument inverted A + 15'.
10" B 7'.
50" 15 .
10 8 .
10 15 .
10 8 .
05 ----------------Mean 15 .
13.3 Mean 8 .
01.7 B.
Mean + 15 .
13.3 A.
--------4) 21 .
15 5 .
48.7 Dip.
3 .
50 Tabular.
1 .
59 Difference.
--------Height of the eye, 15 feet, 3 inches.
Parts of the horizon observed, NW.
by N. and SE.
by S. Depth of the water, 27 feet.
Barometer 29 .
68 inches.
Thermometer { Air 84º { Sea 83º Latitude 38º.
50' north.
Longitude 118º.
00' east.
The vessels in all parts of the horizon have an inverted image under them; this is very considerable, some having about a third of the sail, others only the hull.
No.
110.
OFF THE CAPE.
_July 28, 1817._--2.30.
P.M. Index uppermost.
Instrument inverted.
A + 6'.
35" B 5'.
00" 6 .
35 4 .
55 6 .
40 5 .
00 ---------------Mean 6 .
36.7 Mean 4 .
58.3 B.
Mean + 6 .
36.7 A.
--------4) 11 .
35 2 .
53.7 Dip.
3 .
49 Tabular.
55 Difference --------Height of the eye, 15 feet.
Parts of the horizon observed, SE.
and NW.
Thermometer { Air 64º { Sea 59º Depth of the sea, 222 feet.
Latitude 34º.
57' south.
Longitude 20º.
15' east.
Cape Lagullus due north, distant 6 or 8 miles.
Calm all day; sky clear, and weather hazy.
On the 29th and 30th of July we were off the Cape, but the weather was so bad as to prevent any sights being taken.
[Transcriber's Note: The final column of each of the following tables is transcribed beneath the table.]
--+--------+----+-----------+-----+-------+-------+-----+-------+------+------+ | |Height Dip.
|Diff.|Then.
|Differ.| | | | | | | of +-----------+--+--+---+---+---+---+ | | Long.|Sound-| No.
Date.
|eye.| Obs.
|Tab.|+ ||Sea|Air| + | |Baro.| Lat.
| East.| ings.| --+--------+----+------+----+--+--+---+---+---+---+-----+-------+------+------+ |1816.
|f.
i|' " |' "| "| "| º | º | | | | º ' | º ' | feet | 18|June 16.|15 3|4 35.0|3 50|45| |83 |82-|1/2| |29.86| 5 11 S|106 3 | 60 | | | | | | | | |1/2| | | | | | | 19|June 16.|15 3|4 33.0|3 50|43| |83-|82 | 1-| |29.86| 5 05 S|106 10| 56 | | | | | | | |1/2|sh.|1/2| | | | | | | | | | | | | |{85| | | | | | | 20|June 16.|14 0|3 59 |3 41|18| |84-|{sh|1/2| |29.83| 5 05 S|106 10| 48 | | | | | | | |1/2|{95| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |{su| | | | | | | 21|June 16.|14 |4 01 |3 41|20| |83 |81 | 2 | |29.85| 5 05 S|106 10| 57 | 22|June 27.|16 |4 21.0|3 56|25| |84 |82 | 2 | |29.81| 6 49 N|107 49| | 23|June 28.|16 |4 22.2|3 56|26| |84 |82 | 2 | |29.80| 8 00 |108 10| | 24|July 3.
|16 |4 08.2|3 56|12| |84-|81 | 3-| |29.77|13 29 |112 59| | | | | | | | |1/2| |1/2| | | | | | 25|July 6.
|16 |3 53 |3 56| | 3|84 |83-|1/4| |29.75|20 00 |114 | | | | | | | | | |3/4| | | | | | | 27|July 7.
|15 3|4 3 |3 50|13| |85 |85 | | |29.79|21 11 |114 | | 28|July 8.
|14 6|3 49 |3 45| 4| |84-|82 | 2-| |29.72| | | | | | | | | | |1/2| |1/2| | | | | | 29|July 16.|15 3|3 27 |3 50| |23|79 |79 | | |29.75|24 37 |118 56| | 30|July 21.|15 3|3 44 |3 50| | 6|77-|76 | 1-| |29.78|34 |124 | 270 | | | | | | | |1/2| |1/2| | | | | | 31|July 23.|15 3|3 49 |3 50| | 1|77 |82 | |5 |29.78|35 |124 | | 32|July 23.|15 3|3 49 |3 50| | 1|77 |82 | |5 |29.78|35 |124 | | 33|July 23.|15 3|3 44 |3 50| | 6|77 |82 | |5 |29.78|35 |124 | | 35|July 27.|15 3|4 02 |3 50|12| |76 |76 | | |29.70|38 55 |118 50| 72 | 36|July 27.|13 |3 35 |3 33| 2| |76 |76 | | |29.70|38 55 |118 50| 78 | 37|July 28.|15 3|4 21 |3 50|31| |83 |84 | |1 |29.62|38 50 |118 00 20 | 38|July 28.|15 3|4 06 |3 50|16| |83 |84 | |1 |29.62|38 50 |118 00| 20 | --+--------+----+------+----+--+--+---+---+---+---+-----+-------+------+------+ Remarks.
---+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 18 |Weather hazy.
The low land of Sumatra just visible.
The land wind has | |been blowing gently for about four hours.
| 19 |East and west parts of the horizon observed.
Coast of Sumatra just | |visible.
Hazy.
The land-wind dying away.
| 20 |The day has been extremely hot, and almost a calm.
The sea-breeze not yet | |set in, only a few light flaws.
| 24 |A fresh breeze from WNW.
The sun set in fiery dirty red clouds.
Weather | |squally, with occasional showers of rain.
Parts of the horizon observed | |east and west.
| 25 |Weather remarkably fine; sky clear; and a gentle breeze from the south.
| |The sun set about five minutes after these observations were taken.
| |Parts of the horizon observed east and west.
| 27 |The forenoon has been extremely hot and oppressive.
A rolling swell from | |the SW. | 28 |Parts of the horizon observed SSW and NNE, the first clear to seaward, | | the other clear horizon, but the mainland of China behind it, and | |various islands on each side of the NNE line.
| 29 |Very hazy weather: sky fiery.
| 30 |Clear weather, with a light breeze from the eastward.
Sun set behind a | |low range of dark clouds: sky in that quarter was unusually red.
A long | |swell from the northward.
| 31 |Wind light from south; horizon uncommonly well defined and sharp; sky | |clear; and the sea perfectly smooth.
These sights, and the two following, | |may be depended on, I think, within ten seconds.
| 32 |Circumstances similar to No.
31.
| 33 |Parts of the horizon observed were that immediately under the setting | |sun; viz.
W 21º N, and the opposite E 21º S, the sun being about 4º high.
| |Day has been remarkably clear, although the wind has been from the | |southward, which in these seas is said generally to bring fogs.
| 35 |Weather somewhat hazy; wind easterly.
| 36 |Wind easterly.
| 37 |These sights were taken while at anchor off the mouth of the Pei-ho.
The | |fort of Tung-coo, on the south bank of the river, bearing W 50º N, distant| |about four or five miles.
| ---+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ --+--------+----+-----------+------+--------+------+-----+------+------+------+ | |Height Dip.
|Diff.
|Then.
|Differ.| | | | | | | of +-----------+----+-+---+---+---+---+ | | Long.|Sound-| No.
Date.
|eye.| Obs.
|Tab.| + |-|Sea|Air| + | |Baro.| Lat.| East.| ings.| --+--------+----+------+----+----+-+---+---+---+---+-----+------+------+------+ |1816.
|f.
i|' " |' "|' " |"| º | º | | | | º ' | º ' | feet | 39|July 28.|15 3|3 46 |3 50| |4|82 |83-| | 1-|29.61|38 50 |118 | 23 | | | | | | | | |1/2| |1/2| | | | | 40|July 29.|15 3|5 3 |3 50|1 13| |84 |81 | 3 | |29.60|38 50 |118 | 18 | 41|July 29.|15 3|4 00.9|3 50| 10| |84 |83 | 1 | |29.58|38.50 |118 | 20 | 42|Aug.
6.
|15 3|5 09 |3 50|1 29| |80 |79 | 1 | |29.64|38 50 |118 | 22-| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1/2| 43|Aug.
6.
|15 6|4 54 |3 53|1 1| |81-|83-| | 2 |29.64|38 50 |118 | 29 | | | | | | | |1/2|1/2| | | | | | | 44|Aug.
6.
|15 3|4 47 |3 50 57| |81-|83-| | 2 |29.64|38 50 |118 | 29 | | | | | | | |1/2|1/2| | | | | | | 45|Aug.
6.
|15 3|4 59 |3 50|1 9| |81-|83-| | 1-|29.64|38 50 |118 | 29-| | | | | | | |1/2|1/2| |1/2| | | | 1/2| 46|Aug.
6.
| 3 9|2 39 |1 54| 45| |81 |84-| | 3-|29.62|38 50 |118 | 30 | | | | | | | | |1/2| |1/2| | | | | 47|Aug.
6.
| 6 |3 26 |2 25|1 1| |81 |84-| | 3-|29.62|38 50 |118 | 30-| | | | | | | | |1/2| |1/2| | | | 1/2| 48|Aug.
6.
|15 3|4 59.2|3 50|1 9| |82 |80 | 2 | |29.59|38 50 |118 | 30 | 49|Aug.
8.
|15 3|5 47 |3 50|1 57| |78 |69-| 8-| |29.65|38 50 |118 | 26 | | | | | | | | |1/2|1/2| | | | | | 50|Aug.
8.
|15 3|5 49 |3 59|1 59| |78 |69-| 8-| |29.65|38 50 |118 | 26 | | | | | | | | |1/2|1/2| | | | | | 51|Aug.
8.
|15 3|5 47 |3 50|1 57| |77-|73 | 4-| |29.66|38 50 |118 | 24 | | | | | | | |1/2| |1/2| | | | | | 52|Aug.
9.
|15 3|4 30.4|3 59| 40| |79-|75 | 4-| |29.72|38 50 |118 | | | | | | | | |1/2| |1/2| | | | | | 53|Aug.10.
| 5 6|5 18.3|2 20|2 58| |77 |75 | 2 | |29.69|38 50 |118 | 5 | 54|Aug.10.
| 5 6|4 28.3|2 20|2 8| | | | | | |38 50 |117 55| | 55|Aug.10.
| 5 6|4 7 |2 20|1 47| |77 |75 | 2 | |29.69|38 50 |117 55| 12 | 56|Aug.10.
| 5 6|3 55 |2 20|1 35| |77 |75 | 2 | |29.69|38 50 |118 | 13 | --+--------+----+------+----+----+-+---+---+---+---+-----+------+------+------+ Remarks.
--+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 39|The day has been exceedingly close with little wind.
| 40|There has been little wind this morning, after a very close night.
| 41|Nearly calm, there being only a very light air from the SE.--Day sultry.
| 42|Weather hazy; sky clear overhead; sea remarkably smooth; wind north.
| 43|Moderate breeze from SE by S; rather hazy; but the horizon sharp and | |distinct.
And this together with the four following observations, may be | |taken as very accurate, every circumstance being most favourable.
| 45|Parts of the horizon observed E by N and W by S. | 46|Parts of the horizon observed SSE and NNW.
Wind SE.
| 47|Wind SE.
| 48|Parts of the horizon observed E and W. The day, which has been remarkably | |fine, has resumed towards sunset a wild, stormy aspect.
Wind fresh at SE.
| 49|Parts of the horizon observed E by S and W by N. This morning unusually | |clear; so that when the sun's semi-diameter only was above the horizon, | |it was painful to look at him.
The horizon has a rugged appearance.
| 50|Parts of the horizon observed NNE and SSW.
Wind NNW, moderate.
| 51|Weather remarkably clear; horizon still rugged; wind NNW, moderate.
| 52|This morning cloudy, and looks rainy but the air seems clear.
Parts of the | |horizon observed NW by W and SE by E. | 53|Parts of the horizon observed N by E and S by W. Instrument readjusted.
| |Wind WNW.
| 54|Parts of the horizon observed WSW and ENE.
Wind NW.
These observations | |were taken close to the low land, near the mouth of the Pei-ho.
The night | |had been cold, and the morning was still keen; but unfortunately there | |was no thermometer in the boat; I suppose, however, that the air was | |about 66º At the time these sights were taken, I observed a vessel bearing | |N by W, the lower half of whose sail was inverted.
| 55|Wind NW.
| 56|Wind NW.
Parts of the horizon observed NW and SE.
During these | |observations,(53, 54, 55, 56) the vessels near the land had more or less | |an inverted image under them.
| --+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ --+--------+----+-----------+------+--------+------+-----+------+------+------+ | |Height Dip.
|Diff.
|Then.
|Differ.| | | | | | | of +-----------+----+-+---+---+---+---+ | | Long.|Sound-| No.
Date.
|eye.| Obs.
|Tab.| + |-|Sea|Air| + | |Baro.| Lat.| East.| ings.| --+--------+----+------+----+----+-+---+---+---+---+-----+------+------+------+ |1816.
|f.
i| ' " |' "|' " |"| º | º | | | | º ' | º ' | feet | 57|Aug.
10.|15 3| 5 37 |3 50|1 47| |78 |76-| 1-| |29.70|38 50 |118 | 26 | | | | | | | | |1/2|1/2| | | | | | 58|Aug.
10.|15 3| 6 6 |3 50|2 16| |83 |84 | | 1 |29.68|38 50 |118 | 27 | 59|Aug.
10.|15 3| 5 49 |3 50|1 59| |83 |84 | | 1 |29.68|38 50 |118 | 27 | 60|Aug.
11.|15 3| 5 3 |3 50|1 13| |79 |76 | 3 | |29.72|38 50 |118 | 26-| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1/2| 61|Aug.
11.|15 3| 5 13 |3 50|1 23| |80 |79 | 1 | |29.73|38 50 |118 | 24 | 62|Aug.
12.|16 | 4 52 |3 56| 56| |80 |79 | 1 | |29.79|38 50 |118 | 24 | 63|Aug.
12.|15 3| 4 35 |3 50| 45| |81 |79-| 1-| |29.77|38 36 |117 56| 29-| | | | | | | | |1/2|1/2| | | | | 1/2| 64|Aug.
13.|16 | 4 4 |3 56| 8| |79 |78 | 1 | |29.80|38 31 |118 09| 42 | 65|Aug.
13.|16 | 4 6 |3 56| 10| |79 |78 | 1 | |29.80|38 31 |118 09| 42 | 66|Aug.
13.|16 | 4 20 |3 56| 24| |81 |83 | | 2 |29.80|38 21 |118 04| 44 | 67|Aug.
14.|15 3| 4 30 |3 30|1 | |78 |79 | | 1 |29.71|38 30 |118 24| | 68|Aug.
14.|15 3| 4 25 |3 30| 55| |79-|80-| | 1 |29.70|38 30 |118 35| 50 | | | | | | | |1/2|1/2| | | | | | | 69|Aug.
15.|15 3| 4 39 |3 30|1 9| |80 |79 | 1 | |29.77|38 00 |118 35| 48 | 70|Aug.
15.|15 3| 4 53 |3 30|1 23| |81-|79 | 2-| |29.76|38 00 |118 54| 44 | | | | | | | |1/2| |1/2| | | | | | 71|Aug.
15.|15 3| 5 4 |3 30|1 34| |82 |79 | 3 | |29.70|37 54 |118 56| 40 | 72|Aug.
16.|15 3| 4 43 |3 30|1 13| |81 |76 | 5 | |29.17|37 38 |118 57| 39 | 73|Aug.
17.|15 3| 4 38 |3 30|1 8| |80 |79-|1/2| |29.73|37 21 |119 28| 30 | | | | | | | | |1/2| | | | | | | 74|Aug.
17.|14 | 4 29 |3 41| 48| |81-|81 |1/2| |29.75|37 19 |119 44| 33 | | | | | | | |1/2| | | | | | | | 75|Aug.
17.|15 3| 4 42 |3 30|1 12| |81-|82 | |1/2|29.70|37 21 |119 44| 30 | | | | | | | |1/2| | | | | | | | 76|Aug.
18.|16 | 4 39 |3 56| 43| |80 |77 | 3 | |29.76|37 29 |119 37| 48 | 77|Aug.
20.|16 | 4 20 |3 56| 24| |77 |72 | 5 | |29.85|37 50 |120 16| | 79|Aug.
21.|15 3| 4 42 |3 50| 52| |77 |71 | 6 | |29.80|37 52 |120 27| | 80|Aug.
21.| 4 | 2 37 |1 58| 39| |77 |79 | | 2 |29.80|37 52 |120 27| 60 | 81|Aug.
21.|15 3| 4 6 |3 50| 18| |77 |76 | 1 | |29.76| | | 60 | --+--------+----+------+----+----+-+---+---+---+---+-----+------+------+------+ Remarks.
--+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 57|Weather very clear.
Parts of the horizon observed ENE and WSW.
| 58|Parts of the horizon observed N by E and S by W. | 59|The vessels in all parts of the horizon have an inverted image under them; | |this is very considerable, some having about one-third of the sail, others | |only the hull.
| 60|Light wind from SE.
Sky cloudy, somewhat hazy; but the horizon sharp and | |unbroken.
| 61|The inversion of the vessels as conspicuous as before.
Parts of the | |horizon observed ESE and WNW.
| 62|A light breeze from the SE.
Cloudy and close.--N.B.
Instrument readjusted.
| 63|Part of the horizon observed N and S. | 64|Part of the horizon observed E and W. A moderate breeze from the SW. Clear | |overhead; hazy in the horizon.
| 65|Parts of the horizon observed N and S. | 66|Wind SE.
Sky clear, and the horizon sharp.
| 67|Light breeze from ESE.
Parts observed NE and SW. | 68|Light breeze at ESE.
Cloudy, with a haze in the horizon.
Parts observed NE | |and SW. | 69|Parts of the horizon observed E and W. Moderate breeze from ENE.
| |Remarkably clear weather.
| 70|Steady moderate breeze at ENE.
Very clear.
Horizon sharp, and well defined.| 72|Wind at East.
Sky cloudy and rather hazy.
| 73|Light wind at SW. Hazy weather.
| 74|Light breeze from the Northward.
Weather hazy.
Parts of the horizon | |observed SE and NW.
| 75|Parts of the horizon observed NE by E and SW by W. | 76|Moderate breeze from East.
Parts of the horizon observed WNW and ESE.
| 77|The wind has been blowing hard for two days from NE; this evening it has | |lulled, and the weather has cleared off: there remains however a high | |swell.
| 79|Land-wind South.
Fine clear morning.
| 80|Parts of the horizon observed SW by S and NE by N. | 81|The inversions which were so conspicuous this morning have been entirely | |removed since the sea breeze set in.
In some distant islands there is a | |slight inversion at the ends, but very trifling.
| --+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ --+--------+----+-----------+-------+-------+-------+-----+------+------+------+ | |Height Dip.
|Diff.
|Then.
|Differ.| | | | | | | of +-----------+----+--+---+---+---+---+ | | Long.|Sound-| No.
Date.
|eye.| Obs.
|Tab.| + | -|Sea|Air| + | |Baro.| Lat.| East.| ings.| --+--------+----+------+----+----+--+---+---+---+---+-----+------+------+------+ | 1816.
|f.
i| ' " |' "|' " | "| º | º | | | | º ' | º ' | feet | 82|Aug.
21.|14 | 3 26 |3 41| |15|76 |75 | 1 | |29.74| | | | 83|Aug.
21.|15 3| 3 29 |3 41| |12|76 |75 | 1 | |29.74| | | | 84|Aug.
22.|16 | 3 52 |3 56| | 4|75 |76 | 1 | |29.80| | | | 85|Sept.
4.|12 | 3 46 |3 25| 21| |81 |83 | | 2 |29.86| 36 10|126 30| 56 | 86|Sept.
4.|12 | 3 42 |3 25| 17| |81 |83 | | 2 |29.86| 36 8|126 35| 56 | 87|Sept.
5.|15 | 3 47 |3 49| | 2|79 |80 | | 1 |29.80| 35 40|126 17| | 88|Sept.
7.|15 3| 3 33 |3 41| | 8|74 |80 | | 6 |29.84| 34 32|126 34| | 89|Sept.
7.|15 3| 3 27 |3 41| |14|74 |80 | | 6 |29.84| 34 32|126 34| | | 1817.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | 90|Mar.
3.
|14 | 3 57 |3 41| 16| |82 |84-| | 2-|29.74| 2 18|102 20| | | | | | | | | |1/2| |1/2| | | | | 91|Mar.
5.
|14 8| 4 49 |3 46| 1 3| |83 |85 | | 2 |29.73| 3 40|100 35| | 92|Mar.
5.
|14 8| 4 50 |3 46| 1 4| |83 |85 | | 2 |29.73| | | 165 | 93|Mar.
5.
|14 8| 4 53 |3 46| 1 7| | | | | | | | | | 94|Mar.
8.
|14 8| 4 33 |3 46| 47| |84 |84 | | |29.86| 5 12|100 14| 120 | a)| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 94|Mar.
8.
|14 8| 4 58 |3 46|1 12| |84 |82-| 1-| |29.86| | | 120 | b)| | | | | | | |1/2|1/2| | | | | | --+--------+----+------+----+----+--+---+---+---+---+-----+------+------+------+ Remarks.
--+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 82|This and the following were observed towards sunset; they exhibit a | |considerable degree of refraction above what is usual.
The sights on this | |morning in the same place gave upwards of 1' greater dip.
| 83|All other circumstances the same as in No.
82.
| 84|Fresh breeze from SE, with a remarkably clear sky.
The horizon uncommonly | |sharp.
| 85|Wind moderate from WNW.
Clear weather.
| 86|All other circumstances the same as in No.
85.
Parts of the horizon | |observed SSW and NNE.
| 87|Parts of the horizon observed WNW and ESE.
| 88|The morning has been exceedingly hot before the breezes set in from sea at | |11 A.M. | 89|All other circumstances the same as in No.
89.
| 90|After a very hot day.
| 91|Parts of the horizon observed ESE and WNW.
See further remarks under 93.
| |Instruments readjusted.
| 92|Parts of the horizon observed NE and SW. All other circumstances as in No.
| |91.
| 93|Parts of the horizon observed SSE and NNW.
These three observations (Nos.
| |91, 92, and 93) were made under the most favourable circumstances, and may | |be considered as shewing the accuracy which the instrument is capable of | |attaining.
The sea was so perfectly smooth, that not the slightest motion | |could be detected.
The horizon at all the parts observed was sharp, and | |better defined than I recollect to have seen it; and, what is not often the | |case, the opposite parts were alike in strength of light &c. The day has | |been hot, but not close, with a light breeze from the Southward.
The dip is | |very great, but the observations were made with such care, that there can | |be no doubt of their accuracy.
| 94|There had been a light breeze from the North in the morning, but for an | a)|hour before these sights were taken it had been calm.
| 94|Nearly the same place as No.
94(a); but the other circumstances were | b)|changed, as the sea breeze at NW had set in about a quarter of an hour, | |whereas in the last instance it was calm.
The above angles were taken with | |great care.
The horizon sharp.
Parts of the horizon observed NW and SE.
| --+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ---+--------+----+-----------+------+-------+-------+-----+------+------+------+ | |Height Dip.
|Diff.
| Then.
|Differ.| | | | | | | of +-----------+--+---+---+---+---+---+ | | Long.|Sound-| No.| Date.
|eye.| Obs.
|Tab.| +| |Sea|Air| + | |Baro.| Lat.| East.| ings.| ---+--------+----+------+----+--+---+---+---+---+---+-----+------+------+------+ | 1817.
|f.
i|' " |' "| "|' "| º | º | | | | º ' | º ' | feet | 95|Mar.
19.|14 8| 3 51 |3 46| 5| |80 |82 | | 2 |29.84| | | | 96|Mar.
19.|14 8| 3 48 |3 46| 2| |80 |82 | | 2 |29.78|13 30 | 89 30| | 97|Mar.
20.|14 8| 3 48 |3 46| 2| |79-|82 | | 2-|29.83|14 30 | 89 15| | | | | | | | |1/2| | |1/2| | | | | 98|Mar.
21.|14 8| 3 48 |3 46| 2| |80 |82 | | 2 |29.84|15 00 | 89 00| | 99|Mar.
22.|14 8| 3 39 |3 46| | 7|79 |79-| |1/2|29.84|16 00 | 88 30| | | | | | | | | |1/2| | | | | | | 100|Mar.
23.|14 8| 3 47 |3 46| 1| |78-|79 | |1/2|29.80|17 00 | 88 00| | | | | | | | |1/2| | | | | | | | 101|Mar.
24.|14 8| 3 53 |3 46| 7| |78 |80 | | 2 |29.78|17 30 | 88 15| | | | | | | | | | | | | |South.| | | 102|July 22 |15 | 3 36 |3 49| | 13|71 |72 | | 1 | |34 0 | 26 | 400 | 103|July 24.|15 | 3 16 |3 49| | 33|59 |62 | | 3 | |34 25 | 24 56| 372 | 104|July 25.|15 | 3 36 |3 49| | 13|62 |63 | | 1 | |35 S | 23 45| 462 | 105|July 26.|15 | 3 30 |3 49| | 19|58 |60 | | 2 | |35 S | 23 | 462 | 106|July 26.|15 | 3 30 |3 40| | 19|60 |63 | | 3 | |34 52 | 22 23| 420 | 107|July 27.|15 | 2 55 |3 49| | 54|56 |59 | | 3 | |35 | 21 | 24 | 108|July 27.|15 | 2 47 |3 49| |1 2|56 |59 | | 3 | |35 | 21 | 240 | 109|July 28.|15 | 3 17 |3 19| | 32|58 |64 | | 6 | |34 58 | 20 15| | 110|July 28.|15 | 2 54 |3 49| | 55|59 |64 | | 5 | |34 57 | 20 15| 222 | ---+--------+----+------+----+--+---+---+---+---+---+-----+------+------+------+ Remarks.
---+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 95|The wind steady and moderate at NE; atmosphere clear; horizon well defined;| |a long swell from SW.
This swell, which was not high, produced an obvious | |effect on the dip angle, as observed, the two horizons alternately | |separating and overlapping; this change was however so slight that I have | |not been able to measure it.
| 96|All other circumstances as in Nov. 95.
Parts of the horizon observed NE | |and SW. | 97|During the night there has been a light breeze from the East; at this | |moment it is freshening up a little.
The atmosphere is clear; horizon | |sharp; a long low swell from SW, as yesterday.
| 98|It has been calm, or nearly so, during the night; occasionally a light air | |from SE and S. All circumstances favorable.
| 99|During the night there has been a light wind from SW.
The weather is more | |hazy than when the wind was from the Eastward, and the horizon not so | |distinctly marked; but the above sights are good.
There is still a swell | |from SW, which causes some little uncertainty as to the exact moment of | |taking the angle.
| 100|In the night there has been a light breeze from W by S. Weather hazy; but | |the horizon sharper than yesterday morning.
| 101|During the night almost calm; just now a light air from the NE.
Parts of | |the horizon observed NE and SW. | 102|Fine fair clear weather, but with so high a swell as to render the | |observation difficult.
Wind light from N, after having been blowing fresh.
| 103|Light breezes from the North-eastward; smooth water, and a clear cool air; | |hazy about the land.
The distance from the South cost of Africa was about | |8 or 9 leagues.
All circumstances seem favourable.
No current; we have | |probably been too near shore for it.
| 104|Light breeze from the SW, with a long swell.
Hazy weather.
The wind has | |been from the West for 24 hours; at first blowing hard, but latterly | |moderate, the current setting us to the SW about a mile an hour.
A very | |heavy dew falling this evening.
Parts of the horizon observed East and | |West.
| 105|Moderate breeze from the NE; air hazy; long high swell from the Westward.
| |From observations by stars and chronometers, it has been ascertained that | |there is not the least current.
Distance from the South coast of Africa | |about 50 miles.
A high range in sight to the Northward.
Parts of the | |horizon observed North and South.
| 106|A light breeze from the NE; air hazy; a long swell from the Westward.
| |About 50 miles distant from the land.
| 107|The wind has been moderate from the land all night; air hazy; weather raw; | |a very heavy dew falling all night.
The land in sight to the Northward, | |distant about 40 miles, is inverted from one end to the other.
| 108|Parts of the horizon observed NNE and SSW.
All other circumstances as in | |No.
107.
| 109|Parts of the horizon observed NE and SW. Cape Lagullas North 2 or 3 | |leagues.
A light breeze from the Eastward.
Air hazy.
| 110|Parts of the horizon observed SE and NW.
Cape Lagullas due North, distant | |6 or 8 miles.
Calm all day; sky clear; and weather hazy.
| | | |N.B.
On the 29th and 30th of July we were off the Cape, but the weather | |was so bad as to prevent any sights being taken.
| ---+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ METEOROLOGICAL JOURNAL, FROM JULY TO NOVEMBER 1816, WHILE THE SHIPS WERE IN THE YELLOW AND JAPAN SEAS.
-----+-------+---------+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------| | Thermom.| | | | | +----+----+ | | | Hour.|Barom.
|Air.|Sea.| Winds.| Lat.
| Long.
| -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | South | | |_Sunday, July 14, 1816._ 2 | | | | SSW | | | 3 | | | | | | |The wind continued quite 4 | | | | | | |light during the night, with 5 | | | | | | |one or two slight showers, but 6 | | | | | | |no squalls.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |30i.01h| | | SW | | |About 8 A.M. the wind 9 | | | | | | |hauled to about SW, from 10 | | | | | | |which quarter it blew a light 11 | | | | | N | E |breeze.
Noon.|30 .01 | 83º| 84º| |22º 07'|115º 26'| -----+-------+---------+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | | Coast of | 3 | | | | | China.
| 4 |29 .94 | | | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .98 | | | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | SW | | |_Monday, July 15, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |The same winds during the 4 | | | | | | |night.
5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 | | | | | | | 9 | | | | | | |Found that we had been 10 |29 .89 | | |SW by W| | |driven by a current, 11 | | | | | N | E |setting about E by N, 2-1/2 Noon.|29 .89 | 82 | 83 | WNW |22 .43 |117 .30 |miles an hour.
-----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | West | | 2 | | | | | SE Coast | 3 | | | | | of China.
|About 3 o'clock it became 4 | | | | | |extremely hazy; the sun set 5 | | | | | |in fiery clouds, and a blood 6 | | | | WSW | |red tint was given to the low 7 | | | | | |clouds all round the horizon.
8 |29 .76 | | | SW | | 9 | | | | | | 10 |29 .80 | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | SW | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Tuesday, July 16, 1816._ 3 | | | | WSW | | | 4 | | | | | | |During this day there has 5 | | | | | | |been a moderate breeze from 6 | | | | West | | |the SSW, with a thick haze, 7 | | | | | | |and dew at night.
8 |29 .74 | | | WSW | | | 9 | | | | | | |Soundings from 32 to 26 10 | | | | SW | | |fathoms: dark fine sand.
11 |29 .83 | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .74 | 83 | | |24 .37 |118 .50 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | | Straits of |We have seen no land all 3 | | | | | Formosa, |day, having ran along nearly 4 | | | | | China.
|parallel with the coast 5 | | | | | |of about 30 or 40 about 6 |29 .75 | | | | |Chusan, at the distance 7 | | | | | |leagues.
8 |29 .78 | 80 | 79 | SW | | | | |-1/2| | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .76 | 80 | 79 | | | | | |-1/2| | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Wednesday, July 17, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .74 | 80 | 80 | SSW | | |The weather is remarkably | | |-1/2| | | |hazy, and there is a very 5 | | | | | | |disagreeable sea coming after 6 |29 .76 | | | | | |us.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .80 | 82 | 81 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .81 | | | SW | | | 11 |29 .80 | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .81 | 82 | 80 |SW by S| 26 .1 |122 .6 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 |29 .80 | | | SSW | | 2 | | | | | Straits of |At night hazy with a heavy 3 | | | | | Formosa, |dew; soundings 52 fathoms.
4 |29 .76 | 82 | 81 | | China.
|To-day we quitted the Straits 5 |29 .76 | | | | |of Formosa, and stood towards 6 | | | | | |the Yellow Sea.
Last evening 7 |29 .76 | | | | |we were among a cluster of 8 |29 .79 | 82 | 80 | South | |large islands near the coast 9 | | | | | |of China, about two-thirds of 10 | | | | | |the way through the Straits 11 | | | | | |of Formosa.
Mid.|29 .80 | 81 | 80 |S by W | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | SW | | |_Thursday, July 18, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |The wind during all this day 4 | | | | | | |has been from the South 5 |29 .78 | | | | | |Westward.
6 | | | | | | | From noon till midnight it 7 | | | | | | |continued fresh and steady, 8 |29 .80 | 81 | 80 | WSW | | |after which it lulled.
9 | | | | | | |Weather very hazy, and at 10 |29 .86 | | | SW | | |night a heavy dew falling.
11 | | | | | N | | Depth of water from 35 to Noon.|29 .80 | 81 | 79 | SSW |26 .21 | |37 fathoms.
-----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | SW | | 2 |29 .80 | | | |To the northward| 3 | | | | |of the Straits | 4 |29 .80 | 81 | 80 |SW by W|of Formosa.
| 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .76 | | | SW | |No land seen to-day, being 7 | | | | | |about 30 leagues off shore, 8 |29 .76 | 81 | 79 | SSW | |to the Northward of the 9 | | | | | |Straits of Formosa.
10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Friday, July 19, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .78 | 79 | 78 |S by W | | |During this day there has 5 | | | | | | |been a moderate breeze from 6 |29 .75 | | | | | |the SSW, with a thick haze 7 | | | | | | |and dew at night.
8 |29 .78 | 78 | 78 | SSW | | | 9 | | | | | | |Soundings from 32 to 26 10 |29 .78 | | | SW | | |fathoms: fine dark sand.
11 |29 .78 | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .78 | 78 | 79 |SW by W|30 .54 |123 .50 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .75 | | | |Off the Islands | 3 | | | | |of Chusan 30 or | 4 |29 .72 | 80 | 80 | SSW |40 leagues.
| 5 | | | | | |We have seen no land this 6 |29 .72 | | | | |day, having ran along nearly 7 | | | | | |parallel with the coast about 8 |29 .72 | 79 | 80 | South | |Chusan, at the distance of 9 | | | | | |about 30 or 40 leagues.
10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .74 | 80 | 79 | | | -----+-------+---------+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | |S by W | | |_Saturday, July 20, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |Light SSW winds, with thick 4 |29 .69 | 79 | 76 | | | |haze and dew at night.
Regular 5 | | | | | | |soundings 20 fathoms: mud and 6 |29 .70 | | | | | |black sand.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .70 | 79 | 77 | South | | | 9 | | |-1/2| | | | 10 |29 .72 | | | | | | 11 |29 .70 | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .70 | 80 | 78 |S by W |32 .35 |123 .50 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | |To-day we are about halfway 2 |29 .70 | | |SW by W| Entering the |between the SE part of 3 | | | | | Yellow Sea.
|Corea and the Chusan islands, 4 |29 .66 | 80 | 77 | WSW | |each being about 50 leagues 5 | | | | | |distant; the mouth of the 6 |29 .68 | | | | |great river Yang-tse-kiang is 7 | | | | | |nearly W 50 leagues, and the 8 |29 .66 | 79 | 77 |SW by W| |promontory of Shan-tung N by 9 | | | | | |W 100 leagues.
10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .69 | 78 | 77 | WSW | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | |W by N | | |_Sunday, July 21, 1816._ 3 | | | | NNW | | | 4 | | | | | | |The wind after noon yesterday 5 | | | | | | |freshened up towards sunset 6 | | | | | | |from the WSW, and in the 7 | | | | | | |night it hauled to the NW 8 |29 .76 | 75 | 76 |N by W | | |gradually, and so to North; 9 | | | | | | |about noon it became quite 10 |29 .78 | | | | | |light as it drew to the 11 |29 .79 | | | | N | E |northward.
Noon.|29 .79 | 76 | 77 | North |33 .55 | 124 | | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+The weather has become quite 1 |29 .78 | | | | |clear since the change of the 2 |29 .80 | | | | Yellow Sea.
|wind.
3 | | | | | | 4 |29 .78 | 77 | 77 | NNW | | | | |-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | |Land in sight to-day about 6 |29 .79 | | |E by N | |East from us, supposed to be 7 | | | | | |the islands off the South end 8 |29 .79 | 77 | 77 | East | |of Corea.
| | |-1/2| | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | |E by S | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | SE | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | SSE | | |_Monday, July 22, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |In the night there was a 4 |9 .69 | 75 | 77 |S by W | | |breeze from the SSW with 5 | | | | | | |very thick weather, and 6 |29 .72 | | | | | |much lightning all round.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .71 | 77 | 76 |SW by W| | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .71 | | | SW | | | 11 |29 .75 | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .75 | 78 | 77 | SSW |34 .44 |123 .55 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .74 | | | SW | Yellow Sea.
|After noon it fell calm till 3 | | | | | |about 6 P.M. when there came 4 |29 .75 | 79 | 79 | Calm | |light breeze from the westward 5 | | | | | |which hauled to north, and 6 |29 .73 | | | NNE | |about morning fell nearly calm.
7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .73 | 76 | 77 |N by E | |Regular soundings from 44 to 9 | | | | | |43 fathoms: mud.
10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .74 | 75 | 76 | North | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | |N by W | | |_Tuesday, July 23, 1816._ 2 | | | | West | | | 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .76 | 75 | 76 | Calm | | |About 8 this morning a 5 | | | | | | |breeze sprung at South, which 6 | | | | | | |lasted during the day, 7 | | | | | | |freshening very gradually--sky 8 |29 .78 | 77 | 77 | SSE | | |clear.
9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .80 | | | SE | | |Regular soundings 43 11 | | | | | N | E |fathoms: mud.
Noon.|29 .80 | 79 | 78 | South |35 .06 |123 .06 | -----+-------+----+--+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .79 | | | | Yellow Sea.
| 3 | | | | | | 4 |29 .79 | 81 | 78 | SSW | | 5 | | | | | |A moderate breeze from the 6 |29 .78 | | | | |Southward, and fine clear 7 | | | | | |weather.
8 |29 .76 | 78 | 77 | SE | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | SSE | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .77 | 77 | 76 |S by E | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | SSE | | |_Wednesday, July 24, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |The wind during these 24 4 | | | | | | |hours has been moderate 5 | | | | | | |from the Southward.--Quite 6 | | | | | | |clear, not the least 7 | | | | | | |appearance of fog.
8 |29 .75 | 77 | 76 |SE by S| | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 |29 .77 | | | | | | 10 |29 .82 | | |S by E | | | 11 |29 .86 | | | NW | N | E | Noon.|29 .88 | 75 | 78 |NW by W|36 .27 |123 .01 |A very curious assemblage -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+of clouds passed over us at 1 | | | | | |noon from the NW.
2 |29 .70 | | |E by S | Yellow Sea.
| 3 | | | | | | 4 |29 .69 | 76 | 74 |SE by E| | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .70 | | | SSE | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .70 | 75 | 72 |S by E | |Soundings 40, 38, and 37 9 | | | | | |fathoms: brown mud.
10 | | | |S by W | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | SW | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Thursday, July 25, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .70 | 70 | 71 | SSW | | |The wind during the night 5 | | | | | | |hung to the SW, with rain 6 | | | | | | |occasionally.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .70 | 71 | 66 | Calm | | |After daybreak the 9 | | | | WNW | | |weather cleared up, and the 10 |29 .70 | | |NW by W| | |breeze fell gradually as we 11 |29 .70 | | | NW | N | E |rounded the NE point of the Noon.|29 .70 | 74 | 73 | |37 .32 |122 .37 |promontory of Shan-tung.
-----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .70 | | | East |Nearly on the | 3 | | | | |meridian of the | 4 |29 .66 | 77 | 72 | SE |NE point of | 5 | | | | |Shan-tung | 6 |29 .66 | | | SSE |promontory, | 7 | | | | |Yellow Sea.
|In the forenoon it felt 8 |29 .61 | 76 | 72 | | |calm, and towards sunset a 9 | | | | | |breeze sprung up from ESE 10 | | | | | |and SE which lasted during 11 | | | | | |the night.
Mid |29 .61 | 75 | 75 |S by W | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | |S by W | | |_Friday, July 26, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | South | | |As the day broke, the 4 |29 .61 | 74 | 72 | SSE | | |breeze which had been light 5 | | | | | | |during the night, freshened 6 | | | | | | |up, and the weather, hitherto 7 | | | | South | | |clear, became suddenly quite 8 |29.
61 | 74 | 72 | SSW | | |foggy; this however lasted 9 | | | | | | |only half an hour, and we 10 |29.
62 | | | | | |enjoyed during the day the 11 |29.
62 | | | | N | E |same fine clear weather, Noon.|29.
62 | 74 | 72 |S by W |38 .07 |122 .00 |with the exception indeed of -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+one thunder squall, which 1 | | | | SSW | |lasted only a few minutes, 2 |29.
62 | | | SW | |and passed over, going towards 3 | | | | | Yellow Sea.
|the SE.
4 |29.
59 | 76 | 66 | WNW | | 5 | | | | | |N.B.
This was the only 6 |29.
60 | | |SE by S| |instance of fog during the 7 | | | | SE | |six weeks that the ships were 8 |29.
60 | 73 | 68 | | |in the Yellow Sea.
| |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29.
60 | 75 | 74 |SE by E| | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | South | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Saturday, July 27, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | SSE | | |During the whole of this 5 | | | | | | |day we had a fresh breeze 6 | | | | | | |from East and ESE, with dark 7 | | | | | | |cloudy weather.
As we drew 8 |29.
69 | 77 | 77 | SE | | |across the Gulf of Petchelee | | |-1/2| | |we had the wind much stronger.
9 | | | | | | | 10 |29.
69 | | | East | | | 11 |29.
70 | | | | N | E | Noon.|29.
70 | 76 | 76 | ENE |38 .52 |117 .49 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29.
68 | | |E by S | | 3 | | | | | Yellow Sea.
|We anchored at seven 4 |29.
61 | 76 | 77 |E by N | |o'clock in 3-1/2 fathoms water.
5 | | | | | | 6 |29.
61 | | | East | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29.
80 | 77 | 82 |E by N | | 9 | | | | | |In the night it blew hard 10 |29.
84 | | |SE by E| |from the East, and at sunrise 11 | | | | | |we had a violent thunder Mid.| | | | | |storm.
-----+-------+----+----+-------+--------+-------+-----------------------------1 | | | |SE by E| | |_Sunday, July 28, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |After the thunder storm had 4 |29 .70 | 80 | 80 |SE by S| | |passed the weather cleared up, | | |-1/2| | | |and became quite fine.
5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .63 | 82 | 82 | SW | | | | |-1/2| | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .61 | | | | | | 11 |29 .62 | | | | N | | Noon.|29 .60 | 83 | 82 |W by N |38.52.42| | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+--------+-------+ 1 | | | |N by E | | 2 |29 .60 | | | North | Pei-ho, |During the day the breeze 3 | | | | | Yellow Sea.
|has been moderate, with fine 4 |29 .61 | 81 | 82 |E by S | |clear weather.
5 | | | | SSE | | 6 |29 .62 | | |S by E | | 7 | | | | | | 8 | | | | | | 9 |29 .61 | 83 | 82 | South | | 10 | | | |S by E | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .60 | 80 | 82 | SW | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | SW | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Monday, July 29, 1816._ 3 | | | | WSW | | | 4 |29 .59 | 79 | 81 | NNW | | |Light breezes and cloudy | | |-1/2| | | |weather.
5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .60 | 82 | 82 |E by N | | | 9 | | | | | | |Towards noon it fell calm.
10 | | | | | | | 11 |29 .62 | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .60 | 82 | 84 | NE |38 .56 |118 .00 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .59 | | | SE | |At anchor off the mouth of the 3 | | | | | |Pei-ho river, Yellow Sea.
4 |29 .53 | 83 | 84 | ESE | | | | |-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .55 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .55 | 82 | 82 | SE | |During the night a moderate | |-1/2| | | |breeze from the Eastward.
9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .63 | 80 | 82 |SE by E| | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Tuesday, July 30, 1816._ 2 | | | |SE by E| | | 3 | | | | | | |During this day there has 4 | | | | | | |been a light air from the 5 | | | | | | |Eastward, and fine clear 6 | | | | East | | |weather.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .50 | 82 | 82 | ENE | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .63 | | | | | | 11 |29 .63 | | | | | | Noon.|29 .62 | 81 | |E by N | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .65 | | | |At anchor off | 3 | | | | |the mouth of the| 4 |29 .68 | 81 | 84 |SE by E|Pei-ho, Yellow | 5 | | | | |Sea.
| 6 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .61 | 82 | 83 | | | | | |-1/2| | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | |At midnight it fell calm.
11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .69 | 83 | 82 | Calm | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Wednesday, July 31, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |This morning there is a 5 | | | | | | |light air from the eastward, 6 | | | | | | |inclining to calm.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .62 | 88 | 82 | SW | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .70 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .70 | 84 | 85 | WNW | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .70 | | | ESE |At anchor off | 3 | | | | |the mouth of the| 4 |29 .61 | 83 | 86 SE |Pei-ho, Yellow | 5 | | | | |Sea.
| 6 |29 .71 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .72 | 82 | 82 | SSE | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | |Towards night the breeze 10 | | | | | |freshened up from the SE.
11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .84 | 83 | 82 | South | | | | |-1/2| | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Thursday, August 1, 1816._ 2 | | | | SW | | | 3 | | | | | | |During the night there has 4 |29 .69 | 83 | 84 | West | | |been a fresh breeze from the 5 | | | | | | |SW, with rain and lightning.
6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .70 | 81 | 82 |SW by S| | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .69 | | | SSW | | |Towards noon it became more 11 | | | | | | |moderate.
Noon.|29 .70 | 81 | 82 |SW by S| | | | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .63 | | | |At anchor off | 3 | | | | |the mouth of the| 4 |29 .66 | 82 | 82 |S by E |Pei-ho, Yellow | 5 | | | | |Sea.
| 6 | | | | SE | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .66 | 80 | 82 |S by E | |And at night it was very 9 | | | | SSW | |squally, with rain.
10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .65 | 79 | 82 | SW | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | |W by S | | |_Friday, August 2, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |During the whole of the night 5 | | | | | | |it rained.
6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .62 | 78 | 82 | | | |Towards morning it blew fresh | |-1/2| | | | |from the Westward.
9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | | 11 |29 .68 | | | SSW | | | Noon.|29 .67 | 79 | 82 | | | | | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | |S by W | | 2 |29 .63 | | | SE |At anchor off |During the whole of the day 3 | | | | |the mouth of the|it has been very hazy with 4 |29 .68 | 78 | 83 | East |Pei-ho, Yellow |slight showers of rain.
| |-1/2| | |Sea.
| 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .63 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .65 | 78 | 82 | SSE | | | | |-1/2| | | 9 | | | | | |Midnight, fresh breezes and 10 | | | | | |clear.
11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .70 | 79 | 82 | East | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Saturday, August 3, 1816._ 2 | | | |E by N | | | 3 | | | | | | |Fresh breezes and cloudy 4 |29 .72 | 77 | 81 | NE | | |weather.
5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .84 | 77 | 81 | ENE | | | | |-1/2| | | | | 9 | | | | | | |Strong breezes and cloudy, 10 | | | | | | |with slight showers of rain 11 |29 .84 | | | NE | | |at intervals.
Noon.|29 .82 | 79 | 82 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .80 | | | |At anchor off | 3 | | | | |the mouth of the| 4 |29 .80 | 76 | 82 |NE by N|Pei-ho, Yellow | 5 | | | | |Sea.
| 6 |29 .84 | | | | |Towards evening it cleared 7 | | | | | |up.
8 |29 .90 | 76 | 80 | ENE | | 9 | | | | | |A short swell from the NE.
10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | |Moderate breezes and cloudy.
Mid.| | 75 | 80 |NE by N| | | | |-1/2| | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | North | | |_Sunday, August 4, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |Light airs and fine weather.
5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | NW | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .69 | 78 | 80 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .70 | | | | | | 11 |29 .70 | | | | | | Noon |29 .70 | 78 | 81 | West | | | | |-1/2| | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | NW | |Cloudy, with slight showers 2 |29 .68 | | | WNW |At anchor off |of rain at intervals.
3 | | | | |the mouth of the| 4 |29 .68 | 78 | 81 | WSW |Pei-ho, Yellow | 5 | | | | |Sea.
| 6 |29 .68 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .68 | 78 | 80 | West | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .68 | 77 | 81 | SW | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Monday, August 5, 1816._ 2 | | | |W by S | | | 3 | | | | | | |Moderate breezes and cloudy.
4 |29 .68 | 77 | 80 | WSW | | | 5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .68 | 78 | 80 |W by N | | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .69 | | | | | |In the forenoon we had a 11 | | | | | | |slight shower.
Noon.|29 .68 | 78 | 81 | SW | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .68 | | |W by S |At anchor off |Moderate breezes and cloudy.
3 | | | | |the mouth of the| 4 |29 .66 | 81 | 81 | WSW |Pei-ho, Yellow | | | |-1/2| |Sea.
| 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .65 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .64 | 81 | 82 | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | |Light breezes and cloudy.
11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .59 | | |W by S | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | SW | | |_Tuesday, August 6, 1816._ 3 | | | | NE | | | 4 |29 .65 | 71 | 79 | North | | |Alight breeze from the SW. 5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | |Towards 4 A.M. the wind 7 | | | | | | |shifted round to NW, and 8 |29 .64 | 73 | 77 | NNW | | |freshened up.
| | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .64 | | | | | | 11 | | | | WSW | | | Noon.|29 .63 | 76 | 81 |SW by W| | |Noon, a moderate breeze and | | | | | | |fine weather.
-----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .64 | 83 | 81 | SSE |At anchor off | | |-1/2|-1/2| |the mouth of the| 3 | | | | |Pei-ho, Yellow |After noon the breeze, which 4 |29 .60 | 82 | 81 | |Sea.
|had hauled round to SE, 5 | | | | | |freshened up considerably.
6 |29 .62 | | | | | 7 | | | | | |Towards sunset dark slaty 8 |29 .66 | 79 | 82 | SE | |clouds drew over us from the 9 | | | | | |land, moving in a contrary 10 | | | | | |direction from that of the wind 11 | | | | | |which we had.
Mid.|29 .66 | 80 | 81 |S by E | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Wednesday, August 7, 1816._ 2 | | | | South | | | 3 | | | | | | |At sunrise it was moderate, 4 | | | |E by N | | |but about nine o'clock the 5 | | | | | | |breeze freshened, and towards 6 | | | | | | |noon blew fresh from the 7 | | | | | | |Eastward.
8 |29 .67 | 79 | 81 | East | | | | |-1/2| | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .95 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|30 .00 | 77 | 80 |E by N | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |30 .00 | | | |At anchor off | 3 | | | |the mouth of the| 4 |29 .92 | 76 | 80 | NE |Pei-ho, Yellow |Fresh breezes and cloudy.
5 | | | | |Sea.
| 6 |29 .82 | | | | |Towards night it moderated.
7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .81 | 73 | 78 | | | | | |-1/2| | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | |At midnight a moderate breeze.
11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Thursday, August 8, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .65 | 71 | 78 | North | | |Moderate and cloudy.
5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .66 | 73 | 77 | NNW | | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .67 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .68 | 76 | 81 | | | |Moderate and fine.
-----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .66 | | | NNW |At anchor off | 3 | | | | |the mouth of the| 4 |29 .65 | 81 | | |Pei-ho, Yellow | | |-1/2| | |Sea.
| 5 | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .70 | 79 | 80 | NE | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | |Light airs.
Mid.|29 .71 | 77 | 79 | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Friday, August 9, 1816._ 2 | | | |N by E | | | 3 | | | | | | |Light airs and cloudy.
4 |29 .73 | 75 | 77 | NW | | | | | |-1/2| | | | 5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .74 | 76 | 79 | | | | | |-1/2| | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | |2 A.M. a moderate breeze 11 | | | | | | |sprung up at NW.
Noon.|29 .77 | 80 | 79 | ESE | | | | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .76 | | | |At anchor off | 3 | | | | |the mouth of the| 4 |29 .70 | 79 | 77 | SSE |Pei-ho, Yellow | | | |-1/2| |Sea.
| 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .70 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .70 | | | | |Moderate breezes.
9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .70 | 76 | 78 | NW | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | NW | | |_Saturday, August 10, 1816_ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | WNW | | |Moderate breezes and clear.
5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .60 | 75 | 77 | NW | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .70 | | | | | | 11 |29 .70 | | | | | |Calm and fine weather.
Noon.|29 .70 | 81 | 79 | Calm | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .69 | | | |At anchor off | 3 | | | | |the mouth of the| 4 |29 .67 | 79 | 78 | SSE |Pei-ho, Yellow | | | |-1/2| |Sea.
| 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .65 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .64 | 76 | 78 | SW | | 9 | | | | | | 10 |29 .72 | | | | | Moderate and cloudy.
11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .74 | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Sunday, August 11, 1816._ 3 | | | | SE | | | 4 |29 .70 | 75 | 78 | | | | 5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | |SE by S| | | 8 |29 .70 | 76 | 79 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .75 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .74 | 79 | 80 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ Moderate and clear weather.
1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .74 | | | SE |Off the River | 3 | | | | |Pei-ho, Yellow | 4 |29 .72 | 79 | 78 | |Sea.
| 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .72 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .72 | | | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | 75 | 79 | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .75 | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Monday, August 12, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | 75 | 78 | SE | | |Moderate breezes and cloudy.
5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .78 | 79 | 78 | | | | 9 | | | | | | |Moderate breezes from the 10 | | | | | | |SE, with fine clear weather: 11 | | | | | N | E |lightning at times.
Noon.|29 .79 | 79 | 79 |S by E |38 .38 |117 .44 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .79 | | | | Gulf of | 3 | | | | | Pe-che-lee.
| 4 |29 .78 | 81 | 82 | | | 5 | | | | | |Moderate and fine weather.
6 |29 .78 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .78 | 79 | 81 | SE | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | |Moderate breezes and clear, 10 | | | | | |with lightning.
11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .80 | 79 | 80 |SE by S| | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Tuesday, August 13, 1816._ 3 | | | |S by W | | | 4 | | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | |In the evening we had fresh 6 | | | | | | |breezes from the SE--sky 7 | | | | | | |assuming a threatening 8 |29 .79 | 89 | 79 | SSW | | |appearance.
Towards midnight 9 | | | | | | |it moderated, at which time it 10 |29 .80 | | | | | |fell calm.
11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .80 | 83 | 81 | SE | 38 .34| 118 .08| -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .74 | | | | Gulf of | 3 | | | | | Pe-che-lee.
| 4 |29 .77 | 80 | 80 | ESE | | | |-1/2| | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .80 | | | SE | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .79 | 79 | 78 | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | |SE by S| | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | Calm | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | |SE by S| | |_Wednesday, August 14, 1816._ 3 | | | | SE | | | 4 |29 .70 | 77 | 78 | WSW | | |After midnight a moderate 5 | | | | | | |breeze sprung up from the SE.
6 |29 .71 | 79 | 78 | South | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .72 | 79 | 78 | SSE | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .72 | | | | | |About 4 A.M. it shifted 11 | | | | | N | E |more to the Southward, and Noon.|29 .74 | 79 | 78 | |38 .29 |118.20 |remained so the rest of the day.
| |-1/2| | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ Weather fine.
1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .71 | | |S by E | Gulf of | 3 | | | | | Pe-che-lee.
| 4 |29 .74 | 80 | 80 | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .70 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .72 | 79 | 80 |E by N | | 9 | | | |E by S | | 10 | | | | ESE | |At midnight the wind drew 11 | | | | | |round to the Eastward.
Mid.|29 .75 | 76 | 79 |E by S | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Thursday, August 15, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | 76 | 79 | SE | | |Moderate and fine weather.
| | |-1/2| | | | 5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | East | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .77 | 78 | 80 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | | 11 |29 .79 | | | | N | E |During the day the wind Noon.|29 .78 | 78 | 81 | | 37.58 | 118.49 |remained at East and ENE, | |-1/2| | | | ||blowing a moderate breeze.
-----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .76 | | | | Gulf of | 3 | | | | | Pe-che-lee.
| 4 |29 .74 | 80 | 82 | ENE | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .74 | | | | | 7 | | | | | |Towards night it freshened 8 |29 .76 | 78 | | | |up, and remained quite steady.
9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .86 | 77 | 80 | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Friday, August 16, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |To-day the wind continued at 5 | | | | | | |East, the same as yesterday.
6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .79 | 79 | 81 |E by N | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | |E by S | | | 11 |29 .80 | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .80 | 79 | 81 |E by N | 37 .30| 118.57 | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | |E by S | | 2 |29 .74 | | | | Gulf of | 3 | | | | | Pe-che-lee.
|In the evening it became 4 |29 .74 | 80 | 81 | ENE | |squally, with rain.
5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .74 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .74 | 79 | 80 SE by S| | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | |Towards midnight the wind 10 | | | | | |hauled to the Southward.
11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | |S by W | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | S by W| | | 2 | | | | SSW | | |_Saturday, August 17, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .74 | 78 | 80 |SW by S| | |To-day we have had a breeze | |-1/2| | | | |from the SW. 5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 |29 .74 | | | | | | 8 | | | | | | | 9 |29 .74 | 79 | 84 | SW | | | | |-1/2| | | | | 10 | | | | | | | 11 |29 .74 | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .75 | 81 | 81 | | 37 .20| 119.33 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .74 | | | | Gulf of | 3 | | | | | Pe-che-lee.
|During the afternoon the 4 | | | | | |wind shifted to the Eastward, 5 | | | | | |where it remained, and blew a 6 |29 .70 | | | | |steady breeze.
7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .70 | 79 | 80 | East | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .71 | 79 | 80 |E by S | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | East | | |_Sunday, August 18, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .72 | 79 | 80 |E by N | | |After midnight we had a | |-1/2| | | | |moderate breeze from the 5 | | | | | | |Eastward, and at 4 A.M. it 6 | | | | | | |freshened up at ENE, where it 7 | | | | | | |continued until the evening, at 8 |29 .80 | 79 | 80 | | | |which time it shifted to the 9 | | | | | | |SE, with rain.
10 |29 .81 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .80 | 79 | 79 | | 37 .47| 119 .37| | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | |NE by E| | 2 |29 .82 | | | | Gulf of | 3 | | | | | Pe-che-lee.
|At eight it was nearly calm.
4 |29 .88 | 78 | 79 | ENE | | | |-1/2| | | | 5 | | | | | |About nine a breeze sprung 6 |29 .82 | | | | |up from the Eastward, 7 | | | |SE by S| |accompanied by rain.
8 |29 .90 | 78 | 78 | Calm | | 9 | | | | | | 10 |29 .98 | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .98 | 78 | 78 | East | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | NNE | | |_Monday, August 19, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |A light air.
5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .98 | 78 | 78 | ENE | | | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .94 | | | | | | 11 |29 .92 | | | | N | E |Towards noon the breeze Noon.|29 .92 | 74 | 77 | NE | 37.
40| 119.44 |freshened up at North-easterly, | | |-1/2| | | |where it continued all day, and -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+blew rather fresh, with a short 1 | | | | | |swell.
2 |29 .92 | | | | | 3 | | | | | Gulf of | 4 |29 .92 | 75 | 77 | | Pe-che-lee.
| | | |-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .94 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .99 | 74 | 76 |NE by N| | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Tuesday, August 20, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .95 | 76 | 78 | N by E| | |During the night it blew a 5 | | | | | | |steady fresh breeze from NNE, 6 | | | | | | |in which quarter it continued 7 | | | | | | |all this day.
8 |30 .00 | 76 | 77 | NNE | | | | | |-1/2| | | |The sky having a threatening 9 | | | | | | |appearance.
10 |30 .02 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.|30 .03 | 75 | | | 37 .46| 120 .08| -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | |Towards the evening moderated.
2 |30 .00 | | | | | 3 | | | | | Gulf of | 4 |29 .90 | 74 | 78 | | Pe-che-lee.
| 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .90 | | | | | 7 | | | | | |Near midnight the wind came 8 |29 .90 | 74 | 77 |NE by N| |round to the SW, and blew a | | |-1/2| | |moderate breeze.
9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | SW | | |_Wednesday, August 21, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |The early part of the day the 4 | | | | | | |wind has been moderate from the 5 | | | | SSW | | |Southward.
6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .80 | 74 | 77 |S by W | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | |About noon it died away, but 11 |29 .80 | | | | N | E |shortly after a breeze sprung Noon.|29 .80 | 79 | 77 | Calm | 37 .51| 120 .33|up from the Eastward, and blew -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+pretty steady from that quarter 1 | | | | | |till the evening, when it 2 |29 .78 | | | East | Gulf of |hauled round to the SE.
3 | | | | | Pe-che-lee.
| 4 |29 .76 | 76 | 77 | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .76 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .74 | 75 | 77 |SE by S| | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .82 | 74 | 73 |S by E | | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Thursday, August 22, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .80 | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | |During the early part of the 6 | | | | | | |day we had a moderate breeze 7 | | | | | | |from the SE.
8 |29 .80 | 77 | 78 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .80 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .74 | 80 | 78 | SE | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .74 | | | | Off Cheatow, |After noon it hauled to the 3 | | | | | Yellow Sea.
|Southward.
4 |29 .74 | 78 | 78 | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .72 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .72 | 77 | 78 | SSE | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Friday, August 23, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |During the night the wind has 4 |29 .70 | 78 | 78 | NE | | |been moderate, and steady 5 | | | | | | |from the Southward.
6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .70 | 80 | 78 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .72 | 81 | 78 | | | | | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | |SE by E| At anchor in |In the forenoon it veered to 3 | | | | | Cheatow Bay, |the NE, and towards night to 4 |29 .70 | 80 | 78 | SE | Yellow Sea.
|the Southward.
5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .68 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .66 | 79 | 78 | Calm | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .66 | 77 | 78 | South | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | South | | |_Saturday, August 24, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .70 | 77 | 78 | | | |During the morning the wind 5 | | | | | | |was steady from the Southward.
6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .68 | 78 | 78 | S by E| | | | |-1/2| | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .70 | | | | | | 11 |29 .68 | | | | | | Noon.|29 .68 | 79 | 78 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 |29 .68 | | | | | 2 |29 .66 | | | | Che-a-tow, | 3 |29 .66 | | | | Yellow Sea.
| 4 |29 .66 | 79 | 78 | | |Towards night the wind hauled 5 |29 .64 | | | | |to the Eastward, blowing a 6 |29 .64 | | | | |moderate breeze, and steady.
7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .62 | 78 | 78 | East | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .62 | 78 | 77 | E by S| | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Sunday, August 25, 1816._ 2 | | | | E by S| | | 3 | | | | | | |The wind continued to blow 4 |29 .74 | | | | | |from the NE quarter all the 5 | | | | | | |forenoon.
6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .64 | 78 | 78 | N by E| | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | NE | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .66 | 79 | 78 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | NE | Che-a-tow, | 3 | | | | | Yellow Sea.
|In the afternoon it hauled 4 | | | | N by E| |more to the Northward.
5 | | | | | | 6 | | | | E by S| | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .64 | 78 | 77 | | |At midnight it hauled to the | | |-1/2| | |SW, with fine clear weather.
9 | | | | | |A heavy dew falling.
10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | SW | | |_Monday, August 26, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .56 | 77 | 77 | WNW | | |After midnight it continued | | |-1/2| | | |to blow a moderate breeze from 5 | | | | | | |the SW. 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .56 | 78 | 77 |W by N | | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | | 11 |29 .56 | | | | | | Noon.|29 .56 | 79 | 78 | | | | | |-1/2| | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | |About 4 A.M. it shifted to 2 |29 .64 | | | | Che-a-tow, |the NW, from which quarter it 3 | | | | | Yellow Sea.
|blew the whole of the day.
4 |29 .52 | 79 | 78 | NW | | | | |-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .52 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .54 | 79 | 78 | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.
|29 .56 | 78 | 78 | | | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Tuesday, August 27, 1816._ 2 | | | | NW | | | 3 | | | | | | |Towards noon the wind hauled 4 |29 .58 | 77 | 77 | North | | |more to the Westward, with 5 | | | | | | |rain, thunder, and lightning.
6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .62 | | | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .64 | 78 | 78 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .62 | | |S by W | At anchor in | 3 | | | | | Oie-hai-oie | 4 |29 .62 | 76 | 77 | | harbour, | 5 | | | | | Yellow Sea.
| 6 |29 .62 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .61 | 76 | 77 | NNE | |In the evening the wind came 9 | | | | | |to the NNE.
10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.
|29 .64 | 75 | 77 | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Wednesday, August 28, 1816._ 3 | | | |NE by N| | | 4 | | | | | | |To-day the wind has been 5 | | | | | | |moderate and steady from the 6 | | | | | | |North-eastward.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .70 | 75 | 77 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .72 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .72 | 77 | 76 | | | | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | NE | Oie-hai-oie | 3 | | | | | harbour, | 4 |29 .70 | 77 | 76 | ENE | Yellow Sea.
| | |-1/2| | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | |Towards night the breeze 8 |29 .70 | 77 | 76 | NE | |freshened, and the sky became 9 | | | | | |cloudy, assuming a threatening 10 | | | | | |appearance.
11 | | | | | | Mid.
|29 .74 | 79 | 76 | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Thursday, August 29, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |After midnight the wind hauled 4 |29 .78 | 77 | 76 |E by N | | |to the Eastward, blowing fresh, 5 | | | | | | |the weather still looking very 6 | | | | | | |black.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .78 | 78 | 76 |S by E | | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .80 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .80 | 81 | 77 | South | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .92 | | | | Oie-hai-oie |After 4 it moderated, and the 3 | | | | | harbour, |weather cleared up and became 4 |29 .90 | 81 | 78 | SSE | Yellow Sea.
|quite fine.
5 | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | |About 8 P.M. the wind came 8 |29 .92 | 78 | 77 | SW | |to the Southward.
Towards 9 | | | | | |midnight it drew round to the 10 | | | | | |SW, and then to South again.
11 | | | | | | Mid.
|29 .94 | 79 | 77 | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Friday, August 30, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .96 | 78 | 77 |S by W | | |All the forenoon the wind 5 | | | | | | |has been light from the 6 | | | | | | |Southward and SW. 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .98 | 78 | 77 | SW | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .98 | | | West | | | 11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .96 | 80 | 76 | Calm |37 .58 |122 .58 |About noon it fell calm.
-----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .94 | |Calm| | Yellow Sea.
| 3 | | | | | | 4 |29 .92 | 80 | 81 | NNE | | 5 | | | | | |At 2 a breeze sprung up from 6 |29 .90 | | | | |the NE, with small drizzling 7 | | | | | |rain, and thick weather.
8 |29 .90 | 79 | 79 | ENE | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.
| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+-----------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Saturday, August 31, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | | 5 |29 .90 | 79 | 79 |W by N | | |After midnight a light breeze 6 | | | | | | |from the Eastward, inclining 7 | | | | | | |to calm.
8 |29 .92 | 80 | 79 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .94 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .96 | 80 | 79 |NW by N|37 .55 |123 .37 |About noon a breeze sprung up -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+from the Westward; weather 1 | | | | | |cloudy.
2 |29 .94 | | | NW | Yellow Sea.
| 3 | | | | | | 4 |29 .94 | 80 | 79 | | | | | |-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | |In the afternoon it died away 6 |29 .92 | | | | |quite light.
7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .92 | 79 | 79 | Calm | | | | |-1/2| | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | |Towards midnight a moderate 11 | | | | | |breeze from the Northward.
Mid.
| | | | NW | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | |NE by N| | | 2 | | | | | | |_Sunday, September 1, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | | 5 |29 .90 | 76 | 78 | N by E| | |During this day there has been 6 | | | | | | |a steady breeze at North and 7 | | | | | | |North by East.
8 |29 .90 | 76 | 76 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .92 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .90 | 76 | 76 | |37 .45 | 124 .48| -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | North | | 2 |29 .98 | | | | Yellow Sea.
|Towards night the wind 3 | | | | | |freshened up.
4 | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .98 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .98 | 75 | 75 | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.
| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Monday, September 2, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |About 2 A.M. the wind shifted 4 | | | | | | |to the Eastward, where it 5 | | | | | | |freshened.
6 | 29.82 | 78 | 79 | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 | 29.82 | 80 | 79 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | 29.82 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.| 29.82 | 81 | 80 |NW by N|36 .45 |124 .51 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | |S by W | West Coast of | 2 | 29.96 | | | | Corea.
| 3 | | | | | |In the afternoon it freshened 4 | 29.98 | 80 | 80 | SSE | |and shifted to the Southward, 5 | | | | | |accompanied by a slight shower 6 | 29.98 | | | | |of rain.
7 | | | | | | 8 | 30.04 | 80 | 80 |S by W | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.
| | | | South | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Tuesday, September 3, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | 30.02 | | | South | | | 4 | | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | |The wind during all the night 6 | | | | | | |has been steady from the 7 | | | | | | |Southward, and remained so all 8 | 30.04 | 77 | 79 |S by W | | |day until the evening, when it 9 | | | | | | |shifted to the Westward.
10 | 30.04 | | | SSW | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.| 30.00 | 79 | 78 | |36 .18 |126 .09 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 | 29.98 | | | SW | | 3 | | | | WSW | | 4 | 29.95 | 81 | 78 | West | |About sunset it fell calm.
5 | | | | | | 6 | 29.94 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 | 29.92 | 80 | 77 | Calm | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+---------+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Wednesday, September 4, 1816._ 2 | | | | Calm | | | 3 | | | | | | |It continued calm all night.
4 | | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | | 6 |29 .95 | 78 | 78 | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .95 | 79 | 78 | West | | |About 8 A.M. a light breeze 9 | | | | | | |from the Westward.
10 |29 .95 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .92 | 80 | 82 | NW |36 .13 | 126 .34| -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+At noon it freshened, hauling 1 | | | | | |from W to NW.
2 |29 .85 | | | West | West Coast of | 3 | | | | | Corea.
| 4 |29 .84 | 81 | 82 | WSW | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .84 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .84 | 79 | 80 |N by E | |Towards night the wind shifted 9 | | | | | |to the Northward, and 10 | | | | | |continued to blow steady.
11 | | | | N | | Mid.
| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | N | | |_Thursday, September 5, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | | 6 |29 .82 | 78 | 79 | | | | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | | 7 | | | | | | |About 7 it fell calm.
8 |29 .82 | 80 | 79 | Calm | | | | |-1/2| | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .82 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .82 | 80 | 80 | WNW |36 .05 |126 .42 |Towards noon a breeze sprung | | |-1/2| | | |up from WNW, with fine clear -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+weather.
1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .82 | | | WNW | | 3 | | | | | | 4 |29 .80 | 80 | 79 | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .80 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .80 | 80 | 79 | | | 9 | | | | | |Towards midnight the wind came 10 | | | | | |to the Northward.
11 | | | | | | Mid.
| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Friday, September 6, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | |N by E | | | 4 | | | | | | |The most part of this day the 5 | | | | | | |wind has been from the 6 |29 .86 | 78 | 78 | NNE | | |Northward, blowing a steady | |-1/2| | | | |moderate breeze.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .86 | 79 | 78 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .88 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .88 | 79 | 78 | |35 .17 |126 .24 | | |-1/2| | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | |North | | 2 |29 .89 | | | | West Coast of | 3 | | | | | Corea.
| 4 |29 .90 | 79 | 77 | | |Towards night the wind drew | | |-1/2| | Corea.
|round to ENE, and became quite 5 | | | |N by E | |light.
6 |29 .90 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .88 | 77 | 74 | ENE | |At midnight it fell calm.
| |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | Calm | | Mid.
| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | |NNW | | |_Saturday, September 7, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |After midnight a light breeze 4 | | | | | | |sprung up from NNW.
5 | | | | | | | 6 |29 .82 | | |N by E | | |About 4 it hauled round to NE, 7 | | | | | | |and at noon it was at North.
8 |29 .82 | 76 | 75 | | | | 9 | | | |ENE | | | 10 |29 .82 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N. | E. | Noon |29 .88 | 79 | 78 | |34 .32 |125 .50 | | |-1/2| | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | N | | 2 |29 .80 | | | | | 3 | | | | NNE | |At 2 the wind shifted to NE, 4 |29 .82 |80 | 72 | Calm | |and by 4 it fell calm.
5 | | | | | | 6 | | | | | |Towards 8 P.M. a breeze sprung 7 | | | | | |up from the Northward, and 8 |29 .82 |78 | 82 | N | |continued so the remainder of 9 | | | | | |the night.
10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | Calm | | Mid.
| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+--------+-------+------------------------------1 | | | | NNW | | |_Sunday, September 8, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | North | | |Shortly after midnight it fell 4 | | | | | | |calm; this did not last above 5 | | | | Calm | | |half an hour, before a breeze 6 | | | | NNW | | |sprung up from the Northward, 7 | | | | | | |which continued so all day.
In 8 |29 .86 | 74 | 70 | North | | |the night a heavy dew fell; and 9 | | | | | | |much lightning was observed in 10 |29 .82 | | | | | |the NE quarter.
11 | | | | | N | E | Noon |29 .81 | 78 | 71 | |34.22.30|126 .03| -----+-------+----+----+-------+--------+-------+ 1 | | | |N by E | | 2 |29 .80 | | | |Moored in | 3 | | | | |Murray's Sound, | 4 |29 .80 | 76 | 70 | |among the | 5 | | | | |islands which | 6 |29 .80 | | | |lie off the SW | 7 | | | | |extreme of | 8 |29 .79 | 74 | 70 | NNE |Corea.
| 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.
| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+--------+-------+-----------------------------1 | | | |N by W | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Monday, September 9, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |In the forenoon the wind came 5 | | | | | | |to NW, and continued so all 6 |29 .78 | 74 | 70 | | | |day, with a steady moderate 7 | | | | | | |breeze, and fine clear weather.
8 |29 .78 | 76 | 70 | NNW | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | | 11 |29 .80 | | | | N | E | Noon |29 .80 | 75 | 78 | |34.22.30|126 .03| -----+-------+----+----+-------+--------+-------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | NW | | 3 | | | | | | 4 |29 .80 | 74 | 71 | NNW | |A heavy dew fell during the 5 | | | | | |night.
6 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .78 | 74 | 70 | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.
|29 .78 | 73 | 69 | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Tuesday, September 10, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |The breeze continued at NW 4 |29 .76 | 72 | 68 | NW | | |until the afternoon, when it 5 | | | | | | |drew round to the Northward, 6 | | | | | | |and freshened up from that 7 | | | | | | |quarter, looking threatening 8 |29 .76 | 73 | 68 | | | |and squally.
9 | | | | | | | 10 |29.
77 | | | | | | 11 |29.
76 | 73 | 68 | | N | E | Noon.| | | | |34 .19 |126 .05 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29.
74 | 72 | 68 |North |Got under weigh | 3 | | | | |from Murray's | 4 |29.
78 | 76 | 80 |N by W |Sound, and stood|Midnight, strong breezes with 5 |29.
90 | | | |to the Southward|occasional showers of rain, and 6 |29.
90 | | | |into the Japan |a very high irregular swell from 7 | | | | |Sea.
Saw |the NE.
This seems to be the 8 |29.
74 | 76 | 80 | |Quelpaert.
|NE monsoon, which sets in to 9 | | | | | |the Northward much earlier than 10 | | | | | |in lower latitudes.
11 | | | | | | Mid.|29.
76 | 76 | 80 | North | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | _Wednesday, September 11, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |To-day we have had a strong 4 | | | | | | |breeze from the N by W, with 5 | | | | | | |a high irregular swell setting 6 | | | | | | |after us.
In the afternoon the 7 | | | | | | |wind hauled round to NW.
8 |29.
73 | 80 | 80 |N by W | | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29.
72 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.|29.
71 | 81 | 83 | NNW |31 .41 |126 .44 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29.
71 | | | | Japan Sea.
| 3 | | | | | | 4 |29.
71 | 82 | 82 | NW | | 5 | | | | | |Towards midnight it 6 |29.
71 | | | | |moderated: weather cloudy.
7 | | | | | | 8 |29.
73 | 79 | 82 | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29.
80 | | |North | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+-----------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Thursday, September 12, 1816._ 2 | | | | North | | | 3 | | | | | | |During the night the wind 4 | | | | | | |shifted to the Northward, with 5 | | | | | | |a moderate breeze, and fine 6 |29 .74 | 80 | 82 | | | |clear weather.
7 |29.
75 | | | | | | 8 |29.
75 | 82 | 82 | | | | | |-1/2| | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 75 | 82 | 83 | |29 .38 |127 .56 | | |-1/2| | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | |In the afternoon it became 2 | | | | | Japan Sea.
|squally, with a heavy shower 3 | | | | | |of rain.
4 |29.
70 | 83 | 83 |N by E | | 5 | | | |NE by N| |This wind, though not fixed, 6 |29.
72 | | | NE | |has much the appearance of 7 | | | | | |the monsoon.
8 |29.
78 | 83 | 83 | | | 9 | | | | | |Latitude by Polaris 30º 3 min.
10 | | | | | |30 in.
at 2 h. 57 min.
A.M. 11 | | | | | |13th.
Mid.
|29.
78 | 82 | 82 | | | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+-----------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Friday, September 13, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | |The wind continued at NE, 3 | | | | | | |with a steady fresh breeze; 4 | | | | | | |which towards noon freshened 5 | | | | | | |considerably, and a swell got 6 |29.
72 | | | N by E| | |up from the NE.
At noon 7 | | | | | | |observed in 27º 48' N latitude.
8 |29.
70 | 83 | 84 | | | |stormy 2º 30' it became dark 9 | | | | | | |and in the NE, and the signal 10 |29.
70 | | | | | |being made to shorten sail, we 11 |29.
76 | | | | N | E |brought the ship under the main Noon.|29.
78 | 84 | 84 | |27 .48 |128 .20 |topsail and foresail, and made -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+preparations for a gale.
At 4 1 |29.
60 | | | NE | |we saw the Loo-choo Islands SW 2 |29.
74 | | | | Off Sulphur |by S 20 miles.
At 5 the wind 3 |29.
75 | | | | Island, Japan |shifted from N to NE, and the 4 |29.
80 | | | | Sea.
|mountainous swell which we had 5 |29.
90 | | | | |experienced during the day 6 |29.
95 | | | | |rose still higher.
The wind did 7 |29.
94 | | | | |not blow fresh except in short 8 | | | | | |rainy squalls.
After 8 P.M. it 9 | | | | | |blew at times very fresh, and 10 | | | | | |also in the night, but when the 11 | | | | | |moon got up it became clear.
Mid.
|29.
52 | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Saturday, September 14, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |During the night the wind 4 | | | | | | |shifted from NE to NW, and 5 | | | | | | |continued to blow fresh with a 6 |29 .52 | | | | | |high irregular swell.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .52 | 83 | 82 | NW | | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 |29 .54 | | | | | | 10 |29 .54 | | |NW by W| | | 11 |29 .56 | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .60 | 83 | 82 | |27 .44 |127 .35 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 |29 .58 | | | | | 2 |29 .60 | | | | Off Loo-Choo, |Towards evening it became 3 |29 .64 | | | | Japan Sea.
|moderate and clear.
4 |29 .52 | 83 | 82 |NW by N| | 5 |29 .54 | | | | | 6 |29 .66 | | | NW | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .70 | 82 | 82 |NW by N| | 9 | | | | | |In the night fine clear 10 | | | | | |weather.
11 | | | | | | Mid.
|29 .74 | 81 | | NW | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+-----------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Sunday, September 15, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |A moderate breeze from NNW, 5 | | | | | | |with a clear sky; the swell 6 |29 .80 | | | NNW | | |much less, though still 7 | | | | | | |considerable.
8 |29 .78 | 80 |83 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .76 | | | | | | 11 |29 .71 | | |NW by N| N | E | Noon.|29 .75 | 83 |84 | |26 .44 |127 .32 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .75 | | | | Off Loo-Choo, | 3 | | | | | Japan Sea.
| 4 |29 .75 | 83 | 88 |N by W | | | | |-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | |Towards night the wind veered 6 |29 .75 | | | | |to NNE.
7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .80 | 81 | |North | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 |29 .81 | | | NNE | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.
|29 .80 | 81 | 84 |NE by N| | -----+-------+----+----+-------+--------+-------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Saturday, September 16, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |The wind continued at NNE.
4 | | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | |About 4 A.M. we had several 6 |29 .84 | | | NNE | | |showers of rain, but soon 7 | | | | | | |cleared off.
8 |29 .84 | 81 | 83 |N by E | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .90 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N | E |About noon the breeze Noon.|29 .90 | 82 | 83 | |26.13.39|127 .38|freshened.
-----+-------+----+----+-------+--------+-------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .80 | | | | At anchor in | 3 | | | | | Napakiang | 4 |29 .80 | 82 | 83 | NE |harbour, Great |In the afternoon we had a 5 | | | | |Loo-choo Island.|shower.
6 |29 .80 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .80 | 80 | 83 | | | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | |Midnight, clear weather, with 11 | | | | | |lightning in the SW. Mid.| 2 9.8 | 80 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Tuesday, September 17, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |The wind continued at NE, with 5 | | | | | | |a moderate breeze.
At 4 there 6 | | | | | | |was a slight shower of rain 7 | | | | | | |but it cleared up again in a 8 |29 .79 | 81 | 82 |NE by E| | |short time.
| |-1/2| | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .82 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .82 | 83 | 82 |E by N | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .78 | | | | Moored in |After noon the wind shifted 3 | | | | | Napakiang |to the Eastward: squally with 4 |29 .77 | 82 | 82 | | harbour.
|showers of rain.
5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .78 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .80 | 81 | 82 | ESE | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | |Midnight, clear: moderate 11 | | | | | |weather.
Mid.|29 .78 | 81 | 82 |E by N | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | _Wednesday, September 18, 1816._ 2 | | | | ENE | | | 3 | | | | | | |To-day the wind has been at NNE.
4 | | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | |After 4 A.M. we had several 7 | | | | | | |showers of rain.
8 |29 .72 | 80 | 82 |NE by E| | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29.
75 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | |Towards noon the breeze Noon.|29.
75 | 82 | 82 | ENE | | |freshened.
| | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29.
70 | | | | Napakiang | 3 | | | | | harbour.
| 4 |29.
72 | 82 | 82 |NE by E| | | | |-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29.
74 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 | | 82 |82 | NE | | 9 | | | | | |At night squally, with rain.
10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.
|29.
72 | | | NNE | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+-----------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Thursday, September 19, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |After midnight it continued to 5 | | | | | | |rain, with occasional squalls.
6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29.
63 | 81 |82 | NNE | | |As the day advanced it cleared 9 | | | | | | |up.
10 |29.
62 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29.
62 | 82 |83 | | | |At noon quite moderate.
| |-1/2| | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29.
50 | | | | | 3 | | | | | |In the evening it looked very 4 |29.
58 | 82 | 83 | NE | |black all round, and fell calm.
| | |-1/2| | |About 7 a breeze sprung up from 5 | | | | | |the Eastward, and it commenced 6 |29.
56 | | | Calm | |lightning.
About 8 the wind 7 | | | | | |shifted to SSE, and freshened, 8 |29.
54 | | | East | |with squalls.
9 | | | | | | 10 |29.
54 | | | SSE | |Towards midnight heavy squalls, 11 | | | | | |with rain: thunder and Mid.
|29.
54 | | | | |lightning.
-----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Friday, September 20, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |After midnight the same 4 | | | | | | |squally weather continued.
As 5 | | | | | | |the day advanced it cleared up.
6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .60 | 80 | 83 | SSE | | |In the afternoon it became | |-1/2| | | | |squally, with slight showers 9 | | | | | | |of rain.
Towards evening it 10 | | | | | | |looked very black all round.
11 |29 .62 | | | | | | Noon.|29 .63 | 84 | 83 |S by E | | | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | | Napakiang | 3 | | | | | harbour.
| 4 |29 .63 | | | SSE | | 5 | | | | | |It seems probable that this 6 |29 .64 | | | | |is the breaking up of the 7 | | | | | |monsoon.
We were so completely 8 |29 .69 |82 | 82 |E by S | |sheltered by the land, that we | | |-1/2| | |did not feel the wind much; 9 | | | | | |but it was evidently blowing 10 | | | | | |hard outside.
11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .69 | 81 | 82 | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Saturday, September 21, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .68 | | | | | |During the day the wind has 5 | | | | | | |been South-easterly, with 6 | | | | | | |occasional squalls and showers 7 | | | | | | |of rain, and lightning.
8 |29 .69 |80 |82 | SE | | | 9 | | | | | | |In the forenoon the wind 10 |29 .70 | | | | | |hauled to the Eastward, and 11 | | | | | | |cleared up.
Noon.|29 .70 | 83 | 83 |E by S | | | | |-1/2| | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .70 | | | ESE | | 3 | | | | | | 4 |29 .70 | 83 | 83 | | | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .70 | | |E by S | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .70 | 81 | 82 | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .70 | 80 | 82 | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Sunday, September 22, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |After midnight squally, with 5 | | | | | | |rain and lightning.
6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .70 | 81 | 82 | ENE | | |About 7 the wind hauled to the 9 | | | | | | |ENE, and cleared up, and 10 |29 .70 | | | | | |continued fine all day.
11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .70 | 83 | 82 |E by N | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | | Napakiang | 3 | | | | | harbour.
| 4 |29 .68 | 82 | 82 | ENE | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .66 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .66 | 81 | 82 | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .66 | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Monday, September 23, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |To-day the wind has been about 4 | | | | | | |NE; squally at times, with 5 | | | | | | |showers of rain, and every 6 | | | | | | |appearance of approaching bad 7 | | | | | | |weather.
8 |29 .62 | 80 | 82 |NE by E| | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .62 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .62 | 81 | 82 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | | 2 |29 .60 | | | ENE | | | 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .58 | 81 | 82 | | | | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | | 5 | | | | | | |During all this day the 6 |29 .50 | | | | | |barometer continued falling, 7 | | | | | | |in the evening it had reached 8 |29 .50 | | |NE by N| | |29.50.
The wind in the early 9 | | | | | | |part of the night hauled to 10 | | | | | | |NNE, and towards morning to 11 | | | | | | |the Northward.
Mid.| | | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Tuesday, September 24, 1816._ 2 | | | | NNE | | | 3 | | | | | | |In the night the wind has been 4 | | | |NE by N| | |about NNE.
About 4 A.M. it 5 | | | | | | |began to blow very fresh, with 6 |29 .43 | | | | | |squalls.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .42 | | | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | |About noon the wind shifted 11 | | | | | | |to NNW, and increased in Noon.|29 .40 | 81 | 81 | | | |strength.
| | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .40 | | | NNW | Napakiang |During the afternoon it blew 3 | | | | | harbour.
|hard, and gradually shifted to 4 |29 .44 | 81 | 81 | | |the North-westward, with fresh | | |-1/2| | |squalls of short duration.
At 5 |29 .50 | | | | |3 30 P.M. the mercury began 6 |29 .55 | | |NW by N| |to rise, and continued rising 7 |29 .56 | | | | |very rapidly.
8 |29 .63 | 79 | 81 | | | 9 |29 .65 | | | |The weather at sunset assumed 10 | | | | | |a very stormy appearance.
11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .66 | 78 | 80 | NW | | | | |-1/2| | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Wednesday, September 25, 1816.
3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |Shortly after midnight it 5 | | | | | | |cleared up and moderated.
6 |29 .72 | | |NW by W| | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .80 | 78 | 80 | NW | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .86 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .86 | 79 | 80 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | |During the day it has been 2 |29 .84 | | | | |blowing a steady moderate 3 | | | | | |breeze from the NW.
4 |29 .84 | 78 | 80 |NW by W| | | | |-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .86 | | | NW | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .92 | 77 | 79 | | | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | |Midnight, moderate and cloudy.
11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .95 | 77 | 78 |NW by N| | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Thursday, September 26, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |The wind continued about NNW 4 | | | | | | |all day, blowing a moderate 5 | | | | | | |breeze, with fine weather.
6 |29 .96 | | | NNW | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .96 | 78 | 80 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .99 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|30 .00 | 79 | 81 |NW by W| | | | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 | 30.00 | | | | Napakiang | 3 | | | | | harbour.
| 4 |29 .99 | 83 | 81 | | |8 P.M. it fell calm.
| | |-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .99 | | | Calm | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .99 | 79 | 81 | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | |Towards midnight a light 11 | | | | | |breeze sprung up from NNE.
Mid.|29 .99 | 79 | 80 | NNE | | | | |-1/2| | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | NNE | | |Friday, September 27, 1816.
3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |After midnight the wind died 5 | | | | | | |away.
6 |29 .99 | 70 | | Calm | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .99 | 76 | 81 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .99 | | | | | |Towards noon a breeze sprung 11 |29 .99 | | | | | |up from the Northward.
Noon.|29 .99 | 80 | 81 | North | | | | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .98 | | | | | 3 | | | | | |In the afternoon it shifted to 4 |29 .96 | 79 | 80 | ENE | |ENE.
| | |-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .96 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .94 | 78 | 80 | NE | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | |Midnight, calm and cloudy 11 | | | | | |weather.
Mid.|29 .94 | 77 | 79 | Calm | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Saturday, September 28, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |All the early part of the 4 | | | | | | |morning it was quite calm.
5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .90 | 76 | 79 | Calm | | | | |-1/2| | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | |About 8 A.M. a breeze sprung 11 |29 .94 | | | | | |up about ESE; in the afternoon Noon.|29 .94 | 81 | 81 | | | |it hauled round to East.
| |-1/2|-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .90 | | | ESE | Napakiang | 3 | | | | | harbour.
| 4 |29 .92 | 81 | 81 | | | 5 | |-1/2| | | | 6 |29 .90 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .90 | 80 | 81 | East | | 9 | | |-1/2| | | 10 | | | | | |Midnight, the breeze shifted 11 | | | | | |to NE, and was moderate.
Mid.|29 .90 | 76 | 79 | NE | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Sunday, September 29, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .90 | 75 | 79 | NE | | |During this day the wind 5 | | | | | | |shifted occasionally from NE to 6 | | | | | | |ENE, blowing a moderate breeze, 7 | | | | | | |with fine clear weather.
8 |29 .90 | 80 | 81 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .92 | | | ENE | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .92 | 82 | 81 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .94 | | |NE by E| | 3 | | | | | | 4 |29 .94 | 81 | 81 | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .95 | | | | |Towards night it became cloudy.
7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .95 | 80 | 80 | NE | | | | |-1/2| | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .95 | 78 | 80 | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | |NE by E| | |_Monday, September 30, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |During the forenoon the wind 5 | | | | | | |has been light from the NE.
6 |29 .96 | 79 | 80 | | | | | | |-1/2| | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .96 | | | | | | 9 | | | | | | |Towards noon it freshened up.
10 |29 .97 | | | | | | 11 |29 .98 | | | | | | Noon.|29 .98 | 82 | 81 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | |NE by N| | 2 |29 .91 | | | | Napkiang | 3 | | | | | harbour.
| 4 |29 .96 | 81 | 81 | | | | |-1/2| | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .95 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .95 | 80 | 80 | | | | | |-1/2| | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | |Midnight, cloudy weather.
Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Tuesday, October 1, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |After midnight the wind drew 5 | | | | | | |more to the Eastward, and the 6 |29 .95 | | | | | |sky became very black all 7 | | | | | | |round: squally, with rain at 8 |30 .02 | 79 | 80 | East | | |intervals.
| |-1/2| | | | | 9 | | | | | | |We got under weigh at daylight, 10 |30 .07 | | | | | |and proceeded along shore to 11 | | | | | N | E |the Northward.
Noon.|30 .07 | 80 | 80 | ESE | 26 .34| 127 .38| | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 |30 .00 | | | | | 2 |29 .94 | | | | Sugar Loaf |The wind continued to the 3 | | | | |Point.
N .24º E.|Eastward.
4 |29 .94 | 79 | 80 |E by S | | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .94 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .94 | 78 | 80 | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .92 | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Wednesday, October 2, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | | 4 |29 .91 | | | | | |The whole of this day the wind 5 | | | | | | |has been from the Eastward, 6 | | | | | | |blowing a moderate breeze, 7 | | | | | | |with fine weather.
8 |29 .91 | 78 | 80 |E by S | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .94 | | | | | | 11 |29 .96 | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .96 | 79 | 80 | | 26 .25| 127 .38| -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .92 | | | | | 3 | | | | | | 4 |29 .89 | 80 | 81 | East | |Towards night cloudy weather.
5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .88 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .99 | 79 | 81 | | | | | |-1/2| | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .90 | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | | |_Thursday, October 3, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | 4 | | | | | |During the night the wind 5 | | | | | |shifted to NE by E. 6 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | |Towards noon it shifted to 8 |29 .87 | 78 | 81 |NE by E| |East, and in the evening to 9 | | | | | |ENE again.
10 |29 .87 | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Noon.|29 .87 | 81 | 81 |E by S | | | | |-1/2| | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | East | Napakiang | 3 | | | | | harbour.
| 4 |20 .86 | 80 | 81 | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 | | | | ENE | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .86 | 78 | 81 | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .86 | 78 | 80 |E by N | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Friday, October 4, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |To-day we had a light breeze 5 | | | | | | |from the NE, until the 6 | | | | | | |afternoon, when it shifted to 7 | | | | | | |SE by E, but only remained a 8 |29 .87 | 78 | 81 | NE | | |short time, coming back to NE 9 | | | | | | |again, where it continued until 10 | | | | | | |near midnight, when it fell 11 | | | | | | |calm.
Noon.|29.87 | 79 | 84 | | | | | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .86 | | | ENE | Napakiang | 3 | | | | | harbour.
| 4 |29 .86 | 79 | 80 |SE by E| | | | |-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .85 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .85 | 79 | 80 | NE | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .85 | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Saturday, October 5, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |In the morning a breeze sprung 5 | | | | | | |up from the Eastward, where it 6 | | | | | | |remained until noon; then 7 | | | | | | |shifted to NE, and continued 8 |29 .86 | 78 | 80 | E by N| | |to blow from that quarter all | | |-1/2| | | |the rest of the day.
9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .87 | | | | | | 11 |29 .87 | | | | | | Noon.|29 .85 | 81 | 81 |NE by E| | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .84 | | | | | 3 | | | | | | 4 |29 .82 | 81 | 81 | N by E| | | |-1/2| | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .82 | | | NE | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .83 | 79 | | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .83 | 78 | 80 | | | | | |-1/2| | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Sunday, October 6, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |The early part of the day from 5 | | | | | | |wind has been moderate from the 6 | | | | | | |NE.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .83 | 78 | 80 |NE by N| | | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .84 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | |About noon the wind shifted to Noon.|29 .84 | 80 | 81 | North | | |the Northward.
-----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | | Napakiang | 3 | | | | | harbour.
| 4 |29 .83 | | | | |At night it came back to NE, 5 | | | | | |with rain.
6 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .83 | 79 | 80 | NE | | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.
|29 .86 | | | NNE | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | |NE by E| | |_Monday, October 7, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | |After midnight the wind 6 | | | | | | |continued at NE by E, with 7 | | | | | | |showers of rain.
8 |29 .80 | 78 | 80 | North | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | | 11 |29 .94 | | | | | | Noon.|29 .95 | 79 | 80 |N by E | | | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .92 | | | N by E| |At 4 A.M. the wind came to 3 | | | | | |north, and the weather cleared 4 |29 .93 | 79 | 80 | | |up: it blew a fresh breeze from 5 | | | | | |that quarter all day.
6 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .93 | 78 | 80 | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | |Towards midnight it moderated.
10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .96 | 78 | 79 | | | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Tuesday, October 8, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |To-day we have had a moderate 5 | | | | | | |breeze at NE by N. 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |30 .00 | 78 | 79 |NE by N| | |Squally at times.
| | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |30 .02 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|30 .02 | 78 | 79 | NNE | | | | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |30.
00 | | | | Napakiang | 3 | | | | | harbour.
| 4 |30.
00 | 78 | 79 |NE by N| | | | |-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | |Towards midnight fine clear 6 | | | | | |weather.
7 | | | | | | 8 |30.
00 | 76 | 78 | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.
|30 00 | 75 | 78 | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Wednesday, October 9, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |During the morning a moderate 5 | | | | | | |breeze from NE by E. 6 |30 .00 | | |NE by E| | | 7 | | | | | | |About 6 A.M. we got underweigh, 8 |30 .04 | 75 | 78 | | | |and stood to the Northward.
| | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |30 .10 | | | ENE | | | 11 |30 .10 | | | | N | E | Noon.|30 .10 | 77 | 78 | | 26 .34| 127 .26| | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |30 .06 | | | | | 3 | | | | | |In the afternoon the wind 4 |30 .00 | 78 | 78 | East | |shifted to the Eastward, and 5 | | | | | |continued so the remainder of 6 |30 .06 | | | | |the day.
7 | | | | | | 8 |30 .13 | 77 | 78 | E by S| | 9 | | | | | |At night, cloudy weather.
10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Thursday, October 10, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | |During this day the wind has 6 |30 .00 | | | | |been moderate from the 7 | | | | | | |Eastward.
8 |30 .00 | 77 | 79 | ESE | | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |30 .01 | | | | | | 11 | | | | East | N | E | Noon.|30 .01 | 78 | 79 | E by N| 26 .50| 127 .50| -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .98 | | | ENE | Off the Great | 3 | | | | |Loo-choo Island.| 4 |29 .98 | 79 | 79 | | | | | |-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .98 | | | NE | | 7 | | | | | |At night fine clear weather.
8 |29 .98 | | | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|29 .96 | 78 | 79 | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | NE | | |_Friday, October 11, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | |After midnight the wind 6 |29 .98 | | | | | |shifted from NE to SE, with a 7 | | | | | | |light air.
8 |29 .97 | 78 | 79 | SE | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |29 .97 | | | | | |Ten A.M. it fell calm.
11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .97 | 80 | 80 | | 26 .42| 127 .53| -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .96 | | | | Off Port | 3 | | | | | Melville.
| 4 |29 .96 | 80 | 80 | West | | 5 | | | | | |In the afternoon a breeze 6 |29 .96 | | | N by E| |sprung up from the Westward; 7 | | | | | |about 8 it looked very dark all 8 |29 .94 | | | NNE | |round, and shortly afterwards 9 | | | | | |began to blow fresh from N by 10 | | | | | |E, and continued so all night.
11 |30 .00 | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Saturday, October 12, 1816._ 2 | | | |NE by E| | | 3 | | | | NE | | |During the night the wind came 4 | | | | | | |to NE with a fresh breeze, and 5 | | | | | | |rain at intervals.
6 |30 .30 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |30 .26 | 76 | 79 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |30 .26 | | | | | | 11 |30 .22 | | | | N | E | Noon.|30 .22 | 76 | 79 | |25 .33 |127 .50 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |30 .20 | | | |Off Loo-choo.
| 3 | | | | | |In the afternoon a swell got up 4 |30 .20 | 76 | 79 | ENE | |from the NE; the wind 5 | | | | | |moderated, and drew round to 6 |30 .30 | | | | |ENE.
7 | | | | | | 8 |30 .34 | 76 | 79 | | | 9 | | | | | |Midnight, fresh breezes and 10 | | | | | |cloudy.
11 | | | | | | Mid.|30 .20 | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | ENE | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Sunday, October 13, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |After midnight it became quite 5 | | | | | | |moderate, with rain at times.
6 |30 .10 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |30 .06 | 75 | 78 | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |30 .04 | | | | | |In the forenoon it fell calm.
11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.|30 .04 | 75 | 78 | Calm |27 .00 |128 .03 | | | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |30 .00 | | | | | 3 | | | | | |During the afternoon a breeze 4 |30 .00 | 75 | 78 | NE | |sprung up at NE.
5 | | |-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |30 .00 | | | | | 7 | | | | | |Towards midnight it freshened 8 |30 .02 | 75 | 78 |NE by E| |considerably.
9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|30 .02 | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | |NE by N| | |_Monday, October 14, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |After midnight the wind 5 | | | | | | |moderated.
6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |30 .04 | 75 | 79 | | | |About 8 A.M. it fell nearly | | |-1/2| | | |calm, but shortly after it 9 | | | | | | |freshened at NNE.
10 |30 .02 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.|30 .00 | 75 | 79 | NNE |26 .36 |127 .56 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .94 | | | North |Off Loo-choo.
| 3 | | | | | | 4 |29 .97 | 75 | 79 | NNW | | | |-1/2| | | | 5 | | | | | |Towards midnight the wind 6 |29 .98 | | | | |shifted to NNW, and continued 7 | | | | | |to blow fresh.
8 |30 .02 | 75 | 79 | N by W| | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|30 .18 | | | NNW | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Tuesday, October 15, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |During this day the wind has 5 | | | | | | |been from the N by W, blowing 6 | | | | | | |a fresh breeze, with occasional 7 | | | | | | |squalls.
8 |30 .10 | | 78 |N by W | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |30 .10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.|30 .10 | 74 | 78 | North |26 .02 |127 .35 | | |-1/2| | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |30 .08 | | | | | 3 | | | | | | 4 |30 .08 | 74 | 78 | | |At midnight it moderated.
| |-1/2| | | | 5 | | | | North | | 6 |30 .08 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |30 .10 | 74 |79 | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Wednesday, October 16, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |During the night the wind drew 6 | | | | | | |round to N by E, with a 7 | | | | | | |moderate breeze.
About 7 A.M. 8 |30 .20 | 73 | 77 |N by E | | |we weighed and stood to the 9 | | | | | | |NW, shortly after the breeze 10 |30 .20 | | | | | |freshened, with squalls; at 11 | | | | | N | E |2 P.M. anchored in Napakiang Noon.|30 .10 | 74 | 77 | |26 .11 |127 .30 |harbour.
| | |-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |30 .00 | | | | Off Loo-choo.
| 3 | | | | | | 4 |30 .00 | 74 | 77 | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |30 .00 | | | | |Towards midnight the breeze 7 | | | | | |freshened.
8 |30 .00 | 74 | 77 | N by W| | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Thursday, October 17, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | |The whole of this day we have 6 | | | | | | |had a breeze from the NNE, with 7 | | | | | | |fine clear weather.
8 |30 .00 | 71 | 76 | NNE | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |30 .00 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|30 .00 | 75 | 77 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |30 .00 | | |NE by N| Napakiang | 3 | | | | | harbour.
| 4 |30 .00 | 75 | 77 | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |30 .01 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |30 .02 | 75 | 76 | | | | | |-1/2| | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.|30 .00 | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Friday, October 18, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |The wind continued about NE by 4 | | | | | | |N.
5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |30 .00 | 73 | 76 |NE by N| | | | |-1/2| | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |30 .00 | | | E by N| | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|30 .02 | 74 | 75 | | | |Towards noon it came to the | | |-1/2| | | |eastward with a moderate -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+breeze.
1 | | | | | | 2 |30 .02 | | | | Moored in | 3 | | | | | Napakiang | 4 | | | | | harbour.
| 5 | | | | | | 6 |30 .00 | | |NE by E| |At night it shifted to the NE.
7 | | | | | | 8 |30 .00 | 71 | 75 | NE | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | NE | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Saturday, October 19, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .98 | | | | | |During all this day the wind 9 | | | | | | |has been moderate and steady 10 | | | | | | |at NE, with fine clear weather.
11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .98 |76 | 76 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | NE | | 2 | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | 4 |29 .98 |73 | 75 | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .98 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .98 |73 | 75 | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Sunday, October 20, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |29 .98 | 72 | 75 | NE | | |The breeze still continues at | | | | | | | 9 | | | | | | |NE, with the same fine clear 10 |29 .98 | | | | | |weather as yesterday.
11 | | | | | | | Noon.|29 .98 | 73 | 75 | | | | | |-1/2|-1/2| | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .98 | | | | Napakiang | 3 | | | | | harbour.
| 4 |29 .98 | 73 |75 | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |29 .98 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .98 | 72 |75 |NE by N| | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Monday, October 21, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |After midnight the wind 5 | | | | | | |shifted to the N by E, with a 6 | | | | | | |moderate breeze.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |30 .00 | 73 | 75 |N by E | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |30 .00 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|30 .00 | 74 | 75 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | 4 |30 .00 | 73 |75 | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |30 .00 | | | | | 7 | | | | | |Towards night it fell almost 8 |30 .04 | 72 | 74 | NNE | |calm.
| | |-1/2| | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+-----------------------------1 | | | | NNE | | |_Tuesday, October 22, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |After midnight the breeze 4 | | | | | | |freshened up at NNE, and 5 | | | | | | |continued so all day, with 6 | | | | | | |fine clear weather.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |30 .06 | 72 | 74 | | | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | | 11 |30 .06 | | | | | | Noon.|30 .06 | 73 | 75 |NE by N| | | | |-1/2| | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |30 .00 | | | | Napakiang | 3 | | | | | harbour.
| 4 |30 .08 | 73 | 74 | | | | | |-1/2| | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |30 .08 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |30 .08 | 72 | 74 | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | |NE by N| | | 2 | | | | | | |_Wednesday, October 23, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |The wind continued steady at 5 | | | | | | |NNE, with the same fine weather 6 | | | | | | |as yesterday.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |30 .08 | 73 |75 | NNE | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |30 .10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|30 .10 | 74 |75 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |30 .10 | | | | | 3 | | | | | | 4 |30 .10 | 73 |74 |N by E | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |30 .12 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |30 .12 | 72 | 73 | | | 7 | | |-1/2| | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | |_Thursday, October 24, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |After midnight we had a 4 | | | | | | |moderate breeze at NNE.
5 | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |30 .04 | | |N by E | | | 9 | | | | | | |Towards noon it shifted to 10 | | | | | | |north, and freshened up in 11 | | | | | | |that quarter.
Noon.|30 .00 | 72 | 75 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .99 | | |North | Napakiang | 3 | | | | | harbour.
|After noon we had a slight 4 |29 .98 | | | | |shower of rain, but soon after 5 | | | | | |it cleared up.
6 |29 .98 | 72 | 74 | | | | | |-1/2| | | 7 | | | | | | 8 | | | | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.
| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | |North | | |_Friday, October 25, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |At daylight the breeze 5 | | | | | | |freshened.
6 |30 .05 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |30 .08 | 74 | 75 | | | | | | | | | | | 9 | | | | | | |At 9 the weather became 10 |30 .00 | | | | | |squally, with a shower of rain.
11 | | | | | | | Noon.|30 .00 | | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |30 .00 | | | NNW | | 3 | | | | | |After noon the wind hauled 4 |30 .00 | 74 | 74 | | |to NNW, and continued to blow | |-1/2|-1/2| | |a fresh breeze all day.
5 | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .96 | 73 | 74 | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | NNW | | |_Saturday, October 26, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |During this day the wind has 4 | | | | | | |been at north, blowing a fresh 5 | | | | | | |breeze, with occasional 6 | | | | | | |squalls.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |30 .04 | 74 | 74 | North | | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.|30 .00 | 74 |75 | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .99 | | | | Napakiang | 3 | | | | | harbour.
| 4 |29 .98 | | 74 | | | 5 | | | | | |Towards midnight it moderated.
6 |29 .98 | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 | | | 74 | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | Calm | | |_Sunday, October 27, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |After midnight it fell calm.
5 | | | | | | | 6 |30 .05 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |30 .08 | 68 |73 | NNE | | | 9 | | | | | | |About 9 A.M. a breeze sprung up 10 |30 .00 | | | | | |from NNE.
Weighed and stood out 11 | | | | | | |of the harbour.
Noon.|30 .00 | 70 | 74 |N by E | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |30 .00 | | | | | 3 | | | | | | 4 |30 .00 | 71 |74 | NNE | | 5 | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 |29 .96 | 72 |74 | | |Towards night the breeze 9 | | | | | |freshened.
10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | NNW | | |_Monday, October 28, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |During all this day the wind 4 | | | | | | |has been at NNE, blowing a 5 | | | | | | |steady fresh breeze.
6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 |30 .10 | 72 | 77 | North | | | | |-1/2| | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |30 .08 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.| | | | |24 .41 |126 .
00| -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .99 | | | | Japan Sea.
| 3 | | | | | | 4 |29 .98 |74 | 79 | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |30 .00 | | | | | 7 | | | | | |Towards night it shifted to NE.
8 |30 .05 | 74 | 79 | | | 9 | |-1/2| | | | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.
| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | Calm | | |_Tuesday, October 29, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |The wind has been from the NE, 5 | | | | | | |and a swell rising from that 6 | | | | | | |quarter.
7 | | | | | | | 8 |30 .02 | 76 | 79 | NNE | | | | |-1/2| | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |30 .02 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | N | E | Noon.|30 .02 | 76 | 79 |N by E |23 .24 |124 .01 | | |-1/2| | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |29 .95 | | | | | 3 | | | | | | 4 |29 .99 | 76 | 79 | NNE | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |30 .00 | | | | |Towards night the sky 7 | | | | | |assumed a threatening 8 |30 .00 | 76 | 79 | | |appearance.
9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | NNW | | |_Wednesday, October 30, 1816._ 2 | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | |During the night the wind 4 | | | | | | |shifted to the Northward, and 5 | | | | | | |continued to blow fresh, with 6 | | | | | | |a heavy swell.
Saw the islands 7 | | | | | | |of Botel-Tobago-Zima, and 8 |30 .50 | 72 | 77 | North | | |Formosa.
| |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 |30 .30 | | | | | | 11 |30 .00 | | | | N | E | Noon.|29 .92 | | | |24 .41 |126 .00 | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 |30 .50 | | | | | 3 | | | | | | 4 |30 .85 |74 | 79 | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 |31 .10 | | | | | 7 | | | | | |Towards night it shifted to NE.
8 |31 .00 | 74 | 79 | | | | |-1/2| | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------1 | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | |_Thursday, October 31, 1816._ 3 | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | |Passed Formosa, and entered 5 | | | | | | |the China sea.
6 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | 8 | | | | | | | 9 | | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | | Noon.| | | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+ 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | 8 | | | | | | 9 | | | | | | 10 | | | | | | 11 | | | | | | Mid.| | | | | | -----+-------+----+----+-------+-------+--------+------------------------------ABSTRACT OF THE LYRA'S VOYAGE, FROM LEAVING ENGLAND TILL HER RETURN; SHEWING THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT PLACES AT WHICH SHE TOUCHED, AND THE TIME TAKEN IN PERFORMING EACH PASSAGE.
ABSTRACT OF THE VOYAGES OF HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP LYRA, In 1816 and 1817.
The Lyra, in the short space of twenty months, viz.
from the 9th of February 1816, to the 14th of October 1817, visited Madeira, the Cape, Java, Macao, the Yellow Sea, the West Coast of Corea, the Great Loo-choo Island, Canton, Manilla, Prince of Wales's Island, Calcutta, Madras, the Mauritius, and St. Helena; having run, in direct courses, a distance of 11,940 nautic leagues, or 41,490 statute miles.
An abstract of the various passages, from place to place, during this voyage, illustrated by brief remarks on the particular circumstances of each, will probably be considered interesting.
* * * * * [Sidenote: England to Madeira and Cape, 2520 leagues.]
1.
Sailed through the Needles passage on the 9th of February, 1816.
Arrived at Madeira, 18th of February 9 days Crossed the equator in longitude 25º 20' west, 4th March 15 Reached the Cape of Good Hope, 14th April 41 --From England to the Cape, in 9 weeks, 2 days, or 65 days.
This is not a very good passage, considering that we carried the north-east trade wind to the latitude of 4º north, and longitude 23º west, where we got the south-east trade, without any interval of calms.
* * * * * 2.
[Sidenote: Cape to Java, 1800 leagues.]
Sailed from the Cape on the 26th April 1816.
Arrived at Anjier Point, Java, 7th June.
42 days.
--Six weeks.
After leaving the Cape we had strong westerly winds, with which we ran the longitude down, in the parallel of 38º and 39º south, till in longitude 57º east, where the weather being very stormy, we hauled to the north-east till in 35º south latitude, and then ran east till in 90º east, when we steered to the east-north-east, and crossed the tropic in 102º east, which was probably too far west.
The south-east trade hung far to the eastward, and made it difficult to fetch Java Head, which had we not succeeded in doing at first, might have caused considerable delay, as the wind still blew out of the Straits of Sunda.
* * * * * 3.
[Sidenote: Java to China, 600 leagues.]
Sailed from Anjier Point, Java, on the 12th June, 1816.
Reached Gaspar Straits on the 17th June 1816 5 days.
Arrived off Macao, 8th July 21 --From Java to Macao in 3 weeks 5 days, or 26 days.
This passage was unusually bad, it being nearly a week before we reached Gaspar Straits, an ordinary run of one day: in the south part of the China sea the south-west monsoon was very light.
An American brig, which sailed only one day before us from Anjier Point, carried the breeze along with her, and reached Macao twelve days before us.
* * * * * 4.
[Sidenote: Ladrone Islands to the Yellow Sea, 520 leagues.]
Sailed from the Ladrone Islands off Macao, on the 13th July 1816.
Rounded the promontory of Shantung and entered the Yellow Sea, 25th July 12 days.
From thence to the anchorage off the Pei-ho or Pekin River, 27th July 2 --Macao to Pekin River, in 2 weeks, or 14 days.
This voyage can be compared only with that of the Lion on the occasion of the former embassy.
The Lion was nearly three weeks, exclusive of the time at anchor at Chusan.
We had fine weather and steady south-west winds, with very heavy dews at night.
When nearly abreast of the south point of Corea, the wind became variable from the south-east and southward.
In the Yellow Sea we had easterly winds and no fogs.
* * * * * 5.
[Sidenote: Pei-ho to Oei-hai-oei in the Yellow Sea, 90 leagues.]
Sailed from the anchorage off the Pei-ho on the 11th August, 1816.
Arrived at Cheatow Bay, after having coasted from the anchorage along the south side of the Gulf of Pe-che-lee, 22d August 11 days.
From thence to the harbour of Oei-hai-oei, 23d August 1 --From Pekin River to harbour of Oei-hai-oei, 1 week 5 days, or 12 days.
In this cruise round the Gulf of Pe-che-lee we had constant easterly winds, which obliged us to tide the whole way.
It blew a gale of wind on the 19th from the north-east, with a high short sea.
With this exception, and a fresh breeze on the 3d and 6th, the weather was uniformly fine during our stay in the Yellow Sea, and we never experienced any fogs.
* * * * * 6.
[Sidenote: Yellow Sea to Corea, 40 leagues.]
Sailed from Oei-hai-oei, in China, on the 29th August, 1816.
Made the islands off the coast of Corea, 1st September 3 days.
Running along the coast of Corea till the 10th September 9 ---12 days.
On the coast of Corea the winds were mostly from the northward, and the weather uniformly fine, with heavy dews at night.
* * * * * 7.
[Sidenote: Corea to Loo-choo, 240 leagues.]
From the south-west end of Corea to the Great Loo-choo Island, on the 14th September, 1816, 4 days.
From Corea to the Great Loo-choo Island we had northeasterly and northerly winds, with one gale from the northward.
* * * * * 8.
[Sidenote: Loo-choo to China, 320 leagues.]
From Loo-choo to Lintin, off Canton.
27th October to the 2d November, 1816 6 days.
As the north-east monsoon was blowing fresh, this quick passage was to be expected.
* * * * * 9.
[Sidenote: China to Manilla, 200 leagues.]
From Lemma Islands to Manilla.
2d February to the 5th February, 1817 3 days.
A good passage for this season of the year.
* * * * * 10.
[Sidenote: Manilla to Penang, 600 leagues.]
From Manilla to Prince of Wales's Island.
21st February to 8th March, 1817 15 days.
In the north-east monsoon this is somewhat under the average passage.
* * * * * 11.
[Sidenote: Penang to Bengal, 400 leagues.]
From Prince of Wales's Island to Saugor Roads, Bengal.
13th March to the 27th March, 1817 14 days.
The average at this season is twenty-one days, consequently this passage is very good.
At this season of the year the north-east monsoon has entirely ceased in the centre of the Bay of Bengal; so that a ship which steers well out between the Nicobars and Andamans need not apprehend northerly winds; whereas in the north-eastern parts of the bay, the monsoon still blows faintly, with long intervals of calm.
A merchant brig, reputed a good sailer, left Prince of Wales's Island 6 days before us, and followed the inner route, while we went outside, and arrived 10 days before her at Calcutta.
* * * * * 12.
[Sidenote: Calcutta to Madras, 300 leagues.]
Sand Heads off Calcutta to Madras, against the south-west monsoon.
From 19th April to the 7th May, 1817 18-1/2 days.
Three weeks is said to be a good passage.
We beat down as far as the latitude 11º north, and longitude 87º east, before we hauled across.
We had fine weather all the way.
* * * * * 13.
[Sidenote: Madras to Mauritius, 1140 leagues.]
From Madras to the Mauritius.
1st June to the 1st July, 1817 30 days.
We were driven by the south-west monsoon as far as longitude 92º east, before crossing the equator; here we had a constant high swell.
We were much baffled, and did not get the steady south-east trade till in 7º south, and longitude 88º east.
The average passage is between five and six weeks at this season of the year.
* * * * * 14.
[Sidenote: Mauritius to rounding the Cape, 800 leagues.]
From Mauritius to making the land of Africa, about Algoa Bay.
8th July to the 22d July, 1817 14 days.
Thence to rounding the Cape on the 30th July 8 --Mauritius till round the Cape, 3 weeks 1 day, or 22 days.
The average from the Mauritius to rounding the Cape, is twenty-eight days; on this occasion we kept close in-shore: we had no current, and though in the depth of winter, the weather was invariably fine, and the water smooth.
At night a breeze generally blew off shore.
There was a heavy dew every night.
* * * * * 15.
[Sidenote: Cape to St. Helena, 570 leagues.]
From off the Cape to St. Helena on the 11th August 12 days.
Mauritius to the Cape (see above) 22 days.
--From Mauritius to St. Helena in 4 weeks 6 days, or 34 days.
[Sidenote: Mauritius to St. Helena, 1370 leagues.]
This is an excellent passage.
It appears to be a great object in making a passage from India to England, to pass the Cape without going in; for it is often easy to round the Cape and go to St. Helena, when it is difficult and tedious either to go to Simon's or Table Bay, and much delay is produced by the difficulty of getting out of the former anchorage.
* * * * * 16.
[Sidenote: St. Helena to Ireland, 1800 leagues.]
From St. Helena to Bantry Bay in Ireland.
Sailed from St. Helena on the 14th August, 1817.
Arrived off Bantry Bay, 14th October, 1817 61 days.
This passage was unusually long, owing to a succession of hard gales from north-east to south-east, which we encountered in latitude 47º north, longitude 13º west, beginning on the 27th of September, and continuing, with little intermission, till the 8th of October; after which period the weather became fine, but the wind hung constantly to the eastward, so as to render it difficult to fetch Ireland.
GEOLOGICAL MEMORANDUM; BEING A DESCRIPTION OF THE SPECIMENS OF ROCKS COLLECTED AT MACAO AND THE LADRONE ISLANDS, AND ON THE SHORES OF THE YELLOW SEA, THE WEST COAST OF COREA, AND THE GREAT LOO-CHOO ISLAND.
GEOLOGICAL MEMORANDUM.
It is greatly to be regretted, that, during this voyage, our means of gaining information on this interesting subject were so limited.
In China we were restrained, sometimes by the jealousy of the Chinese, and sometimes by an apprehension on our part of giving offence, or of exciting suspicion, by following up enquiries, the nature of which it was impossible to explain when interrogated by the inhabitants.
On the coast of Corea, the still greater jealousy of the natives rendered it impossible to prosecute geological investigations beyond the beach.
Both in China and on the coast of Corea our stay at each place was very short, and our time being often necessarily occupied by avocations foreign to such enquiries, many opportunities were lost merely for want of time.
Even at the Great Loo-choo Island, where we remained much longer, our researches were confined to a coast which offered nothing interesting.
Having therefore nothing of a general or striking nature to offer to the scientific world on this subject, I shall merely give an account of the specimens collected at the various places which we touched at during this voyage, accompanied by brief explanations from memorandums made on the spot.
The geologist will be struck with the resemblance which the rocks in this remote quarter of the globe bear to those with which he has been familiarly acquainted.
SPECIMENS FROM CHINA.
MACAO.
1.
Granite, composed of white quartz, porcelain clay, and greenish steatite, with veins of white quartz intersecting each other.
2.
Fine-grained granite, composed of yellowish feldspar, white quartz, and black mica.
Quartz dykes of great magnitude traverse the granite which forms this peninsula.
HONG-KONG, ONE OF THE LADRONE ISLANDS, OFF MACAO.
3.
Lead-coloured compact quartz rock, with imbedded crystals of flesh-coloured feldspar.
GREAT LEMMA, ONE OF THE LADRONE ISLANDS, OFF MACAO.
4.
Coarse-grained granite, with distinct crystals of feldspar.
SOUTHERN SHORE OF THE YELLOW SEA.
CHE-A-TOW.
5.
Fine-grained gneiss, composed of white quartz, white feldspar, and black mica, with a vein containing hornblend and crystals of feldspar.
6.
The strata are here very much contorted; the cliffs at some places being folded up like webs of cloth.
7.
Granular primitive lime-stone, containing greenish steatite.
8.
Quartz rock, alternating with gneiss.
9.
A specimen containing amorphous pieces of iron.
CUNG-CUNG-CHEEN ISLANDS.
10.
Very fine-grained gneiss, composed of white quartz, flesh-coloured feldspar, and black mica.
11.
Coarser variety of the same.
12.
Compact blueish-grey feldspar, with grains of quartz.
OEI-HAI-OEI.
13.
Gneiss, composed of yellowish feldspar, white quartz, and black mica.
LUNG-CUNG-TAO ISLANDS.
14.
Coarser variety of the rock described above.
WEST COAST OF COREA.
From an Island in Latitude 37º 45' North.
1.
Compact stratified pale-pink lime-stone; variegated in colour; strata highly inclined.
2.
Very compact slaty light-grey rock; strata inclined at an angle of 75º, dipping towards the north-east.
3.
Dark olive steatitic rock, containing fragments of granular marble.
4.
Very fine-grained greenish hornblend rock.
5.
Vine-grained purplish slate; the strata highly inclined.
6.
Greenish-grey slate, containing crystals of white feldspar and specks of hornblend: strata highly inclined, dipping towards the north-east.
SPECIMENS FROM HUTTON'S ISLAND, COAST OF COREA.
Latitude 36º 10' north, longitude 126º 13' east.
The following note is taken from the narrative at page 8.
We found the north-east end composed of a fine-grained granite[19]; the middle of the island of a brittle micaceous schistus of a deep blue colour[20]; the strata are nearly horizontal, but dip a little to the south-west.
This body of strata is cut across by a granite dyke[21], at some places forty feet wide, at others not above ten; the strata in the vicinity of the dyke are broken and bent in a remarkable manner: this dislocation and contortion does not extend far from the walls of the dyke, though veins of granite branch out from it to a great distance, varying in width from three feet to the hundredth part of an inch: the dyke is visible from the top of the cliff to the water's edge, but does not re-appear on the corresponding cliff of an island opposite to it, though distant only thirty yards.
This island is composed of the same schistus, and is cut in a vertical direction by a whin dyke[22], four feet wide, the planes of whose sides lie north-east and south-west, being at right angles to those of the great granite dyke in the neighbourhood, which run south-east and north-west.
The strata contiguous to the whin dyke are a good deal twisted and broken, but not in the same degree as at their contact with the granite dyke.
The whin dyke is formed of five layers or sets of prisms laid across in the usual way.
Beyond the small island cut by the whin dyke, at the distance of only forty or fifty feet, we came to an island rising abruptly out of the sea, and presenting a high rugged cliff of breccia[23], fronting that on which the granite dyke is so conspicuous: the junction of this rock with the schistus cut by the granite and the whin would have been interesting; but although we must have been at times within a few yards of it, the actual contact was every where hid by the sea.
The whole of the south-west end of this island is formed of breccia, being an assemblage of angular and water-worn pieces of schistus, quartz, and some other rocks, the whole having the appearance of a great shingle beach and cliffs.
The fragments of the schistus in this rock are similar to that which forms the cliff first spoken of.
(Specimen 8.)
The theory which presented itself to us on the spot was, that the lower part of the great mass of strata which now forms the centre of the island was formerly at the bottom of the ocean; and that the western part, now a firm breccia, had been a beach of shingle produced by the action of the waves on the upper strata, which may have formed a coast above the sea: the granite of the eastern end of the island had been forced into its present situation from beneath the strata, with sufficient violence to dislocate and contort the beds nearest to it, and to inject the liquid granite into the rents formed by the heaving action of the strata as they were raised up.
It is natural to suppose that the ragged edges of the strata forming the sides of these cracks would be subjected to a grinding action, from which the strata more remote might be exempted; and in this way we may account for the extraordinary twisting, and separation of masses along the whole course of the granite dyke.
In the dyke, as well as in the veins which branch from it, there are numerous insulated portions of schistus.
That this last was softened, seems to follow from the frequent instances which occur of its being bent back upon itself without producing cracks.
The same heat, generated by the melted granite in the neighbourhood, and which appears to have been just sufficient to soften the schistus, may be supposed to have reduced the shingle beach to a state of semi fusion by the aid of some flux contained in the sand scattered amongst the fragments.
We could not discover any circumstance by which the relative antiquity of the two dykes mentioned above could be inferred.
The junction of the granite and schistus above described, resembles very much the well known junction at the Lowrin mountain, in Galloway, described by my father, Sir James Hall, in the 7th vol.
of the Edinburgh Transactions.
It is also very like the junctions at the Cape of Good Hope, described in the same volume.
The same theory has been found to explain them all.
Specimen 7.
Fine-grained granite, composed of white quartz, white feldspar, and olive-green mica.
This rock (7) forms the eastern end of the island; the schistus next described (8) the centre, and the breccia mentioned immediately afterwards (9) the western end.
8.
Fine-grained compact micaceous schistus: some of the specimens appear to contain plumbago.
The strata lie north-west and south-east, dipping only a few degrees from the horizontal line.
9.
Breccia, composed of angular and contorted fragments of micaceous schistus, and angular pieces of feldspar and quartz.
This rock forms the western end of Hutton's Island[24]: it rises in high rugged cliffs.
The angular pieces of schistus are of a similar rock to that described above (8).
10.
Dyke, porphyritic granite, composed of white quartz, white feldspar, and bronze-coloured mica.
This dyke cuts across the schistus last mentioned, in a direction north-east and south-west.
It is nearly vertical, and varies in breadth from nine to forty feet, with numerous ramifications.
11.
Dyke of compact whin stone.
This dyke is composed of five layers of prisms, whose length is at right angles to the walls of the dyke.
It is nearly vertical.
Its direction north and south, and is about five feet thick.
MAIN LAND OF COREA.
12.
Lead-coloured, fine-grained, micaceous schistus.
From the main land of Corea, latitude 36º 10' north, longitude 126º 48' east.
The strata lie north-west and south-east, and are nearly vertical; the natives objected to our examining the cliffs, though distant less than a quarter of a mile from the beach.
ANOTHER ISLAND OFF THE COAST OF COREA.
Latitude 34º 23' north, longitude 126º east.
13.
Decomposing fine-grained rock; composed of flesh-coloured feldspar, white quartz, and porcelain clay.
ANOTHER ISLAND NEAR THE ABOVE.
14.
Rock composed of white feldspar and quartz.
The strata of this rock were very much contorted.
This rock is the most general of any in this range of islands, at least as far as we had opportunities of examining them.
The islands on this coast are very numerous; they lie in great clusters along a line of three degrees and a half of latitude.
The islands vary in length from five or six miles to as many yards, and are of all forms.
We saw none that were remarkably high, and none which seemed volcanic.
As our stay on the coast was only nine days, and as the ships were almost always under weigh except at night, it was quite impossible to make any careful or valuable geological observations.
It offers a splendid field to future voyagers.
GREAT LOO-CHOO ISLAND.
1.
Grey stratified lime-stone without shells.
This specimen was taken from the north end of the island, where the ranges of hills were mostly composed of it: the strata being highly inclined.
The hills rise to the height of four or five hundred feet, and present nothing interesting.
2.
Fawn-coloured, cellular, granular lime-stone.
The cliffs at Napakiang are composed of this rock; it also appears to stretch along the whole of the south-west and south parts of the coast.
In the narrative, this rock has been erroneously called coral.
These cliffs are curiously hollowed out into horizontal caves, which have all the appearance of having been worn by the dashing of the waves; but as it is obvious, that in their present situation the sea can never have reached the face of the cliffs, it seems probable that the whole coast may have been raised up, by a gentle movement, without dislocating the strata, or disturbing the horizontal position, in which it seems probable that these caves were formed.
The variety of coralines which girt the shores of this island was very great, and large collections were made, as well of these as of the numerous zoophites which filled up every part of the reefs below high-water mark.
This collection, of which unfortunately no duplicates were kept, was afterwards lost.
SULPHUR ISLAND Lies in latitude 27º 5' north, and longitude 128º 25' east.
An accurate representation of it is given as a frontispiece.
We attempted to land, but the surf broke every where so high against the rock that this was impossible.
There is a crater on the left side with white smoke issuing from it; this has a strong sulphuric smell.
The sides of the crater are stratified.
The south end of the island is about four or five hundred feet high, and is formed of a dark dingy red rock distinctly stratified; at several places it is cut vertically by great dykes, which being more durable than the strata which they intersect, stand out from the face of the cliffs to a considerable distance.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 19: Specimen 7, infra.]
[Footnote 20: Specimen 8.]
[Footnote 21: Specimen 10.]
[Footnote 22: Specimen 11, infra.]
[Footnote 23: Specimen 9.]
[Footnote 24: The island above described was so named by Captain Maxwell, in compliment to the memory of the distinguished philosopher whose theory has been used to explain the curious phenomena which it exhibits.]
END OF THE APPENDIX.
VOCABULARY OF THE LANGUAGE SPOKEN AT THE GREAT LOO-CHOO ISLAND, IN THE JAPAN SEA.
COMPILED BY HERBERT JOHN CLIFFORD, ESQ.
LIEUTENANT, ROYAL NAVY.
IN TWO PARTS.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE LOO-CHOO LANGUAGE.
Of the grammar of this language I pretend to little knowledge, but the following observations upon some points may perhaps be worth attending to.
The most striking circumstance, is the frequent use of the words _noo_ and _ka_; the former of which seems to signify _of_, or the _'s_ of the English language, as will appear in _choo noo ka_, a man's skin, or the skin of a man; _oóshee noo stínnoo_, the bullock's horn, or the horn of the bullock; and in _moo noo kee saw'teeyoong_, to dig potatoes out of the ground, or, literally, potatoes of the earth to dig out.
_Ka_, it will be observed, is used to denote skin, and also seems to signify a receiver or enclosure, as is expressed in the words _meézee ka_, a well of water, _meézee_ being water, and _ka_, the place containing the water; and in _ya ka saut eéchoong_, to go out of a place, _ka_ in this instance expressing the enclosure, _ya_ you, and _sawt eéchoong_ to go out from, as _eéchoong_ signifies to go.
The adjective is for the most part placed before the substantive, as _teeshoóee íckkeega_, an old man; _wúsa ya_, a mean house; and _wóckka innágo_, a young woman.
There is little variety in the termination of the verb, the tenses being expressed by other means.
I have throughout the vocabulary considered the termination _oong_ to denote the infinitive, and have translated it as such, even when the sense points to another mood, merely to preserve consistency; there are, however, a few exceptions to this, and some of the verbs will be found to terminate in _ang_, _ing_, _awng_, _ong_, and _ung_.
Those ending in _oong_ seem generally to make the participle terminate in _ee_, as _wóckkayoong_, to separate, makes the participle _wóckkatee_, separated.
The negative termination of the verb is generally _nang_ or _rang_, as _noómang_, not to drink, is the negative of _noómoong_, to drink; _meérang_, the negative of _meéoong_, to see; and _noóboorang_, the negative of _noóbooyoong_, to climb or ascend.
_Na_ is also used as a negative, _coónsoona_, not to rub out, being the negative of _coónshoong_, to rub out.
_Nang_, _nárang_, and _náshee_ are negatives used with a substantive, and are always placed after it, as _koómoo nang_, no clouds; _meézee nárang_, no water; and _feéjee náshee_, no beard.
Some peculiarities will be found by referring to the following words: deaf; the sole of the foot; head-ache; palm of the hand; the toe; and the wrist.
PART I.
VOCABULARY OF ENGLISH AND LOO-CHOO WORDS ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED, WITH NOTES, AND OCCASIONAL REFERENCES TO THE SENTENCES IN THE SECOND PART.
VOCABULARY OF THE LOO-CHOO LANGUAGE.
Note on the orthography used in the following vocabulary.--The sounds in the Loo-Choo words are expressed by the letters which in English correspond nearest to those sounds.
There are no mute vowels.
The letter _a_ is invariably sounded as in the English word _far_.
The emphasis is marked by an accent over the last vowel of the accented syllable.
_Ee_ and _oo_, whether accented or not, always express one syllable.
_English._ _Loo-Choo._ Above, or the top of a thing Wee.
Alive Itch-it´chee.
Alive, to be It´ch-chawng.
All (every one) Eénea, or I´gnea (Italian gn[25].)
All drink, every one drinks I´gnea noódung.
Anchor Eéki.
Angry Neétsa.
Ankle Shánna go oóshee.
Answer, to Aree ga aányoong.
Arm Teénoo.
Arrow Eéa.
Awake, to Oóking.
Awaking Oócatee.
Bad Neésha.
Bad man Yáwna moon, or Yánna choo.
Bad building Wása ya.
Bailer of a canoe Yoo-toóee.
Baize, red Moóshung.
Bake, to I´rreechang.
Bake bread, to Quáshee soókooyoong.
Bamboo-cane Dákee.
Bamboo (instrument of punishment) Boóchee.
Basket Teéroo.
Beads Támma.
Beard Feéjee.
Beardless Feéjee náshee.
Beat, to Soó-go-yoong.
----, as the heart Nácoo-choong.
---on the gong Tánna óchoong (lit.
to play on the gong.)
---to, with the bamboo Chíbbee oótchoong.
Bed Coócha.
Bell St´chee-gánnee.
Belly Wátta.
Belly, big Wátta mágesa.
Below, or the bottom of a thing Stcha.
Bend to, a thing Támmeeoong.
Bird Hótoo.
Birdcage Hótoo-coo.
Bishop at chess (lit.
priest) B[=o]dsee, or B[=o]dzee[26].
Bite to, as a dog Coóyoong[27].
Bitter Injássa.
Black Korósa.
Bleed, to, (lit.
to draw blood) Chee-hoóga-choong.
Blind Meégua.
Blind man Akee meégua.
Block Kooroóma.
Blood Chee[28].
Blow up, to, or light a fire Foó-tchoong.
Blowing (through a musical instrument) Gácoo.
Blue (colour) Táma-eeroo.
Blue (light colour) Meéz-eeroo.
Blunt Chírrarung.
Blush (lit.
red) Akássa.
Boat Tímma, or Sabánnee, Boat, the bottom of a Nakámma.
Boil, to Tájeeing.
Book Sheémootsee[29].
Bone Coótsee.
Bonnet, or head-dress worn by the natives Hat´chee Mat´chee.
Both alike, or all the same Neéchawng, or Yoónoomoong.
Bow to, to a person passing Deéshoong.
Bow Yoómee.
Bow, to pull a Yoómee feétchoong.
Bower Tánnan.
Boy (lit.
a man child) Ic´kkeega wárrabee.
Brass Cheéjackko, or Toong.
Bread Quáshee.
Bread-basket, or tray Quáshee boong.
Breadth Hábba.
Break, to, a stick Oóyoong[30].
---------a tea-cup Wy´oong.
Breakers Námee.
Breast Moónee.
Breathe, to It´chee shoong[31].
Bridge Háshee[32].
Bring here Moot´chee coo.
Bring fire here Feetoótee coo.
Brinjal (an Indian vegetable) Nasíbbee.
Broke Oótee, Chírreetee.
Brother Weékee.
Bucket Tágoo.
Bull Woo Oóshee.
Burn, to Yáddee, or A´kka.
Butterfly Habároo.
Button Hogánnee, or kánnee.
By and by A´tookára[33].
Cake, a sweet flowered Magía quáshee.
Calf Oóshee gua.
Calf of the leg Koónda.
Candle Daw.
Candlestick Soócoo[34].
Candle and stick together Daw´secoo.
Cannon I´shee-beéa.
Cap Cammoódee, Maw´tsee.
Carpenter's black line box Stínseeboo.
[35]Carry to, or take away Moótchee eéchoong.
------------, a basket on the head Téeroo kámmeetong[35].
------------, a child in the arms Dáchoong.
------------, with a bar on the shoulders[35] Katam´meeoong.
Carrying a basket on the arm Téeroo tenakíkakíttee.
Cask Soócoo.
Castle Eegoósecoo, or Gooseécoo.
Cat Mía, or My´a (Chinese).
Cat, to mew as a Náchoong deéoong.
Catch, to Kaoótoochung.
Catch, to, a butterfly Kabároo skéhdang.
Chair Ee (Chinese).
Charcoal Chácheejing.
Cheeks Hoo.
Cheese (literally cow's milk and fat) Oóshee noo[36] chee quátee.
Chessmen Choónjee.
Child (infant) Wórrabee.
Child, male (literally man-child) I´ckkeega wórrabee.
Child, female (literally woman-child) Innágo wórrabee.
Children Qua.
Chin Oootoóga.
Chin, the beard of the (lit.
lower beard) Stcha feéjee.
Chopsticks Fáshay, or May´shung.
Climb, to, a pine-tree Mátsee kee noóbooyoong.
Cloth, or clothes Ching.
Cloth, red Akássa nónoo.
Clouds Koómoo.
Cock Toóee.
Cocoa-nut tree Nash´ikee.
Cocoa-nuts Náee.
Cold Feésa.
Cold water Feézeeroo Meézee.
Colours Eéroo eéroo.
Come, to Choong[37].
Come here Cung coo.
Come, to, down a hill Oódeeyoong.
--------on board Choó-oong.
Coming up from below Nooboóteecoo.
Compass Kárahigh, or Kássee toóee[38].
Conk shell Neénya goóroo.
Cool Seedásha.
Copper Acoógannee.
Coral Oóroo Cover, to, over with sand Sínna sheeóstang.
Cough, to Sáck-quee.
Count, to Oohaw´koo-oong[39].
Country A´whfee.
Cow Mee Oóshee.
Crab Gaánnee.
Crab, to crawl as a Hóyoong.
Creep, to Haw´yoong.
Crow, to O´tayoong.
Crow Gárrasee.
Cry, to Nachoong.
Curlew U´nguainan.
Cut, to Cheéoong, or feéoong, or feéjoong.
Dance Oodoóee, or Makátta.
Dark Coórasing.
Daughter Innágo oóngua, or úngua.
Day (at Napakiang) Nit´chee[40].
---(in the north of the island) I´sheeree.
---after to-morrow Asáttee.
---the following Asá tínnacha.
Daylight Heéroo.
Dead Sheénoong, or gang.
Deaf (literally, ear not to hear) Mímmee chee karung.
Deep Fookássa.
Deity (the Indian God Boudha) Boósa (Chinese).
Dice Sheégo roócoo.
Dice, to play with Sheégo roócoo ochoong.
Die, to Níntoong.
Dig, to, up the ground Oóchoong.
----, potatoes Moo noo kee saúteeyoong.
Directly (by and by) Atookar´ree, or Atookára.
Dive, to, under water Seénoong.
Dog Ing.
Dog barks I´nnoo nachoong.
Don't stir (said to a person rising to Wfay´sa[41].
depart) Door Hasbírree.
Draw, to, a picture Eé-katchoong[42].
--------blood Chee na by´oong.
Dress, to Ching cheéoong.
Drink Noómoo.
Drink, to Noómoong[43].
--------wine Sack´kee noómoong.
-----, not to, wine Sack´kee noómang.
Drop, to, a thing Oocheérooshoong.
Drunk Weétee[44].
-----, to get Weéoong.
Dry, to Karacháoong.
-------, powder Eénshoo foóshoong.
Dung, cow, for manure Oóshee noo coósoo.
Duck, a tame A´feeroo.
Eagle Hack´ka.
Ear Mímmee.
---, left Feéjeeree noo mímmee.
---, right Meéjeree noo mímmee.
Ears, to pull the Mímmee feéoong, or feétchoong.
Earth Jee.
East Fingássee.
Eat, to Kámoong[45].
---, I Moónoo kámoong.
---, to, boiled rice Méeshee kámoong, or kánoung.
Eggs Coóga.
Eight [46]Kwat´chee, or fat´chee (Loo-Choo); Eeyat´see (Japan.)
Eighteen Kwat´chee joo, or fat´chee joo.
Eighty Hapáck coo, or Habbáck coo.
Elbow Teénoo feéjee.
Eleven Too.
Empty, to, or pour out Hárashoong.
Ends of a thing Yoókoo.
Every thing A´dee-coódee[47]?
Exchange, to, fans Káyra.
Exclamation of surprise Yeéah, or Cheé-oo-oo.
----------------------I´yi-yi-yi-yi.
Expression of respect, or salutation Taw.
------------thanks in returning How.
any thing Eye Mee.
Eyebrows Maí-oh.
Eyelashes Matsídjee.
Eyes, to open the Mee hoóra choong.
----, closing the Neeboóee.
Face Steéra, or Skeéra[48].
Fall, to Taw´shoong, or Taw´ring[49].
Fan O´jee.
---, to, one's self O´jeeshoong.
---, to offer a O´jee kára.
Fat Quaítee.
Father Shoo.
Feathers of a fowl Toóee noo han´nee.
Female Mee.
Fence of bamboo Dack´kee gat´chee.
Fiddle Neéshing.
------, to play on the Feétchoong (lit.
to pull.)
-----strings Cheéroo.
Fifteen Goónjoo.
Fifty Gooshácoo, or gooyácoo.
Fill, to I´ddeecoong.
Find, to Toómatung[50].
Finger Eébee.
------, fore Choo sháshee.
------, little Eébeegwaw.
------, middle Nack´ka eébee.
-----ring Nanna shee.
-----nail Thímmee.
Fire Fee.
----, to put out Fee cha-chee.
----, to, a gun Narashoong.
Fish Eeo[51].
----, a small Coosa eeo.
------------blueish Tamung eeo.
----, a large red Matchee eeo.
----, the back of a Kánjee.
----, the fin of a Hannay.
----, the gills of a Ajee.
----, the head of a Chee-boo-soo.
----, the tail of a Dzoo.
----, to catch Eéo kákeeoong.
---hook and line Cheéna.
---spear Eéo stit´chee.
Five Goo (Loo-Choo); Ittítsee (Japan)[52].
---sided figure Roo-ka-coo.
Flag Háta.
Flail[53] Coóra ma baw[53].
Flesh Shíshee.
Flesh, no Shíshee ning.
Flower, a red, the name of A´ckka hanna.
Flower of a plant Fánna.
Flute, to play on the Hánshaw.
Fly Háyeh.
Fly, to, as a bird Toóbeeoong.
Foot Shánna.
----, the sole of the Shánna watta (lit.
belly of the foot).
----, of a bird Físha.
Forehead Fitcháyeh.
Forty Speéakoo, or Sábacoo.
Four [54]Shee (Loo-Choo); Eéots see, or joo (Japan).
Four-sided figure Sícca Coódair.
Fourteen Sheénjoo.
Friend Eedoóshee.
Frog A´tta beétsee.
Full Meetchíttee.
----, half Ham´boong.
Get up Tá-tee.
Girdle O´bee.
Girl Tack´kee.
Give, to Queéoong[55].
Glass Kágung.
Go, to Eéchoong[56].
------, away Haddee.
------, in a boat Tímma ki eéchoong.
Go, to, fast Háyee sit´choong.
------, up a hill Noóbooyoong (lit.
to climb,).
--, not to, up a hill Noóboorang.
--, to, slow Yaw´na eéchoong.
------, on shore Amáki eéchoong, or moódoeéong.
Goat Feéja.
----, he Woo Feéja.
----, she Mee Feéja.
Going down below Oórittee coo.
Gold Ching.
Good (for eating) Mása.
---(proper) Choorása.
---man Yoókachoo, or Eéchoo.
---bye (taking leave) Wóckkatee.
---for nothing Máconárang.
----, not Worroósa.
Grand-children Soong mága.
Grass Goosit´chee, or Coosá.
-----, to cut Coosá cheéoong.
Grasshopper Sheéto, or Sáyeh.
Grave Háka.
Greybeard Feéjee sheerájee.
Great coat (made of straw, worn also New.
by the Chinese) Great man (Chinese Tajin) A´jee, or Páychin.
----many Oowhóko.
Green O´sa.
Grind, to, the teeth Ha gíssee gíssee.
Groaning Doónee.
Hair Kurrázzee[57].
Hammer Goóshung.
-----of a stone-cutter Oónoo.
Hand Kee[58].
----, right Meéjeeree.
----, left Feéjeeree.
Handkerchief Tee-sádjee[59].
Handsome Choorása.
Harp San´gshing.
Hat, worn by the natives Kássa.
---------------English Kamoóree.
Have not got Nang[60], or Nárang.
-----------water Meézee[61] nárang.
Head, human Boósee.
Head-ache (lit.
sick head) Seeboóroo yádong.
Head, of a bird Tseeboóroo.
Hear, to Sit´choong, or Skit´choong.
----, I Moónoo sit´choong[62].
----, I cannot (or understand) Sit´cheerang, or Sit´cheekárang.
Heart Nácoo.
Heaven Ting.
------, praying to Ting oóneewhfa[63].
Heavy Boósa.
Heel of the foot Shánna-a-roo.
Here Coo.
Hide, to, or cover (lit.
cannot see) Meérang.
---of a bullock Oóshee noo ka.
Him (a third person) A´ree (meéchay)[64].
Hips Gammácoo.
Hissing Seésee.
Hoe Quáya.
Hold, to take, of a person Kat´sameéoong.
Holding a thing (a butterfly) Meecháwree[65].
(Letting a thing escape) Oótoo Batch[65].
Hole A´nna.
---to make in the ground A´nna hoóyoong.
---in the jeeshee, or urn Mee hoojíttee[66].
Hoop of a cask Obee[67] Horn of a bullock Oóshee noo stínnoo.
Horse Ma[68] (Chinese).
Hot A´tteesa.
Hour Twit´chee[69].
House Ya, or Kat´chee.
House where salt is made Máshoo ya.
Hundred Sing.
Hungry Yása.
I, or me (a first person) Wang[70] (choóee).
Jar, a large earthen Kámee.
---, its top or cover Hoóta.
Inch, one Eésing.
Inches, ten; Eesháckkoo.
Infant Wórrabee.
Ink Sim´mee.
Inkstand Sim´mee shee.
Inside Oóchee.
----, or soft of bread Mee.
Iron Títzee.
Jump, to Móyoong.
Key Quaw.
Kick, to, with the foot King.
Kid (lit.
small goat) Feéja água.
Kill, to Sheémoong, or Koórashoong[71] ----, birds Hótoo eéchung.
----, by the fire of a gun Doogaítee sheénoung.
King, or monarch Kówung (Chinese).
King's palace Oogoós-coo.
Kiss, to, (lit.
kissing the mouth) Coóchee spoótee[72].
Kiss Sheemir´ree.
Knee Stínsee.
Kneel, to Shúmma git´cheeoong.
Kneeling Shúmma git´chee.
Knife, crooked, for cutting grass Eeránna.
-----, small (a penknife) Seégo.
Knight, at chess Samoóree.
Knot Coónja coótchee.
----, to tie a Coónjoong.
Knuckles Foóshee.
Lacker, to Noóyoong.
Ladder Háshee.
Lake, or light purple Coonmoóla sat´chee.
Land, or shore Amáki.
Lantern Tíndoo.
-------, folding Cháwching.
Lantern, glass Támma-doóroo.
Large Weésa.
Laugh, to Wárrayoong.
Laughing Wárratee.
Lead (metal) Meéjee kan´nee.
Leaf (of a tree) Wha.
----, green (lit.
the leaf of a tree) Kee noo wha.
----, withered (lit.
a dried leaf) Kárree wha.
Lean (not fat) Yaítee.
----, to, against a thing Yookátatoong[73].
Learning, or studying Cootooba[74].
Let, to, fall a thing Nágeeoong.
Letter, or character Jee.
------, to seal a Ing sit´choong.
------, to write a Jee kátchoong.
Letting go a thing O´too batch.
[75] Loo-Choo song Loóchoo, or Doóchoo oóta.
Lift, to, a thing Moóchoong.
Light, not dark (daylight) Feéroo, or Heéroo.
-----, not heavy Gása.
-----, to, a pipe Sheéoong.
Lips Seéba.
Lip, lower Stit´cha seéba.
---, upper Quaw seéba.
---, the beard on the lower Coofeéjee.
Liquor Sac´kkeedia, or Sam´tchoo (Chinese).
Live, or reside, to Sim´matong[76].
Lizard U´ndlecha.
Look, or see, to Meéoong, or Meéing[77].
----, to, at, or see the sun Teéda meéing.
----, at a distance Han´na-rat´chee.
Look, to, closely Teétsheeoong.
Looking-glass Kágung.
Long, or length Nagása.
Lose, to Oótoochung.
Make, to, clothes Ching náwyoong[78].
Make, a noise Hábbeecoong.
Make, a rope Cheéna oótchoong[79].
Make, salt Máshoo tátchoong.
Make, sugar Sáta skóyoong[80].
Make, a tea-pot Tácoo soókooyoong[80].
Making a false step Koonsínda dakat´chee.
Male Woo.
Mallet, wooden Cheé-chee.
Man (homo) Choo.
Man (vir) I´ckkeega[81].
Man, medical I´shsha.
Man, of rank Páychin, or Quángning (Chinese).
Man, short Injása.
Man, sick I´ckkeega yádong.
Man, the skin of a Choo-noo-ka.
Man, small Feecoósa.
Mast of a ship, or boat Hásseeda.
Mat Mooshoóroo, or Hátung.
Match, or fire-stick used in the temples Kaw[82].
Me, or I Wang.
Meal, 1st (at sunrise) Stim´mee teémoong.
Meal, 2nd (two hours after) A´ssa bung.
Meal, 3rd (at noon) Feéra moómoong.
----, 4th (at sunset) Yoó bung.
Measure, to Gáwjee háckkiyoong.
Melon Toóqua.
Men, a great many Oowhóko Ickkeega.
Mew, to, as a cat Nachoong deeoong.
Midday, or noon Teéda mátchoo.
Milk Chee.
----, to draw Chee háyoong.
Million Chaw.
Mine Coóra wa moong.
Mixed Bátee.
Moon, the Stchay.
----, or month, one It´chee stit´chee, or gwaútsee[83].
----, full Oostit´chee, or Mároo.
----, half Mécasit´chee.
Monkey Sároo.
More Gnáfing.
Morrow A´cha.
Mother Um´ma.
Mud Doóroo.
Musical instrument, to play on a Koótoo feétchoong.
Mustachios Wa feéjee.
Nail to hang things on Coójee.
Naked Harráka.
Name Na.
----, my Wa na.
----, your Ya na.
----, his A´rree ga na.
Navel Whoósoo[84].
Neck Coóbee.
----, short (lit.
no neck) Coóbee nang[85].
Needle Háyee skíttee.
Net, fishing Sheébee.
Night Yoóroo.
-----, one It´chee yoóroo.
Nine Coo[86] (Loo-Choo), Koónitsee (Japan).
Nineteen Coónjoo.
Ninety Coohácoo, or Queeshácoo.
Nipples Chee.
No Oóngba, or Oomba[87].
Nod, to Nájeechoong.
North Cheéta.
Nose Hónna.
Nostrils Hónnakee.
Octagon Hacac´koo.
Offer, to Ozágadee.
-----, wine Ozágadee sac´kkee.
-----, more, or again Mátta ozágadee.
Old Teeshoóee.
--man Teeshoóee ic´kkeega.
Olives Kárang.
One It´chee (Loo-Choo), Teétesee, or ta (Japan[88].)
Onions Dehchaw.
Open, to, or unlock A´keeoong[89].
Open it Akírree[2].
Orange, fruit Koóneeboo.
------, the rind of an Koóneeboo noo ka.
------, divisions Mee.
------, the seed of an Tánee.
Overturn, to, or upset Koóroobáshoong.
Outside Foóca.
-------, of bread (lit.
skin) Ka.
Paddle of a canoe Wayácoo.
Paint, to Oóroo[90] sheenoóstang.
Palanquin chair Kágoo.
Palm of the hand (lit.
belly of the hand) Tee noo wátta[91].
Pant, to Eétchee hoótoong.
Panting Eétchee.
Paper of any kind Kábee.
Path Yamána meetchee.
Paupaw apple Wangshoóee.
Pawns at chess Toómoo.
Pencil Hoódee.
Perspiration Ac´kkaddee[92].
Pepper pod Quáda coósha.
Pick up any thing, to Moóchoong.
Picture Keé-ee, or Kackkeé-ee.
Pig Boóta.
Pin worn in the hair of boys Jeépha, or Jeéwa.
--flower head worn by men Kam´mashíshee.
---, ladle head, do.
Oósheethúshee.
Pinch, to Kátcheemeéoong[93].
Pine, the wild Adánnee.
----, leaves of the Wha.
----, fruit of the Adánnee nay.
---tree Mátesee kee.
Pipe Shírree.
----, the mouth-piece of a Quee coótchee.
----, wooden part of a Saw.
----, bowl of a Sárra.
----, case of a Shírree bookoóroo.
Pitchfork Feéra.
Pivot on which the scull of a boat traverses Jeéco[94].
Place Skáta.
Plank of a boat Fánna[95].
Plant Mee boósha.
Plantain, leaf of a Woo noo fa.
Play, to, at chess Choónjee óchoong.
----, with dice Sheégo roócoo óchoong.
----, on a musical instrument Koótoo feétchoong[96].
----, on the flute Hánshaw.
----, on the violin Feétchoong.
Pleased Oósha.
Plough Sit´chee.
------, to Sit´choong.
Point, to, with the finger Noóchoong.
Potatoes, sweet Moo, or Moóndee.
Pour in, to I´rreeing.
---out, to Cheéjoong.
Pouring Cheéjee.
Praying to the Deity Boósa, or Bósa meéwhfa[97].
------to Heaven Ting oóneewhfa.
Powder Eéenshoo.
------, to dry or air Eénshoo foóshoong.
Pregnant Kássee jeétawng.
Press, to, or squeeze Sheétskeeoong.
Prick, to, with a knife Hoogáshoong[98].
Pricking Yátee.
Prickly pear bush Cooroójee.
Priest (Bonzes of China) Bódzee.
------, the silk dress of a Eéchoo coóroom.
------, the cotton dress of a Básha coóroom.
------, the belt of silk of a Quára.
Pull, to, or draw out Injat´chee.
----, out of the ground Noójoong.
----, a person Feétchoong, or fit´choong.
Purple Moóla sat´chee.
Push, to, with the hand Koóroo báshoong[99].
Put, to, a thing above or upright I´sheeoong.
-------, up a thing above, high Injáshoong.
-------, on the hat Kánjoong.
-------, or lay a thing down Oócheeking.
-------, a thing in I´ttee.
---------------under Kásseemeéoong.
-------, on clothes Ching cheéoong.
-------, out fire Fee cháchee.
-------, a ring on the finger Eébee gánnee sáshoong.
Quack, to, like a duck Náchoong.
Quarrel, to Títskoong.
Queen, also at chess Oónajerra.
Quick Háyee.
Quick, to be Yooháoong Rain A´mee.
----, to A´mee foóyoong.
----, heavy Sheejeékoo foóyoong.
----, lightly Koókoo foóyong.
Rainbow Noo-oójee.
Rat A´ck-a-sa.
Read, to Yoómoong, or Yoóno-oong.
Red Akása.
Rind of a shaddock Pow noo ka.
------an orange Koóneeboo noo ka.
---(lit.
skin) Ka.
Ribbon, silk Eéchoo.
Ribs Sáwkee.
Rice Coómee.
----, boiled U´mbang, or bang, or oómbang[100].
Ride, to, a horse Man´ayoong.
Right, in writing characters Kátchee yánjee.
Ring Coósayee.
---for the finger Eébee gánnee.
----, to put on a Eébee gánnee sáshoong.
Rise, to, from a chair Tátchoong.
Road Meéchee.
Rock See, or Weésa is´hee.
Root (bulb) Weé-ee.
Rope Chínna.
----, to make Chínna oóchoong.
Rough Soóroo soóroo.
Round Morroósa.
-----, a circle Maroódair.
Round, all round Maroóee.
Rowing in a boat Coójee.
Rub, to Soósooing, or soósootee oótooshung.
---, out Seéree oótooshoong, or Soósootee; oóteetung, or coónshoong.
---, not out Coónsoona.
Rubber, Indian Neéka.
Rum, or spirits Káraboo.
Run, to Háyay sit´choong[101].
Running Háyay.
Sail of a ship or boat Foo.
Sail, to, in a boat Hárashoong.
Salt Máshoo.
---water Spookarása Meézee.
---to the taste Spookarása Salute, to, a person Kámeeoong.
Sand Sínna.
Say it, I can Ang.
------, I cannot Nárang[102].
Sea Námmee.
---, the, or ocean Oóshoo.
---, shore Háma, or Oómee.
--weed Moo[103].
---, high Oonámmee.
Seal of a watch Ing, or Fang.
Seam between two planks Nágo.
Scrape, to Sájoong.
Scratching Weégosa.
Screw, to Meégoorashoong[104].
Screw Jírree.
Scull of a boat Doo.
Scull, to, a boat Meégoorashoong.
See to, or look, (lit.
to eye) Meéoong[105].
See, I cannot Meérang.
Seed Nigh.
Separate, to Wóckkayoong.
Seven Sit´chee(Loo-Choo); Nánnatsee (Japan).
Seventeen Sit´chee joo.
Seventy Sit´chee hácoo.
Servant Toómoo, or Eéree, or Sad´ge-ee.
Sew, to Náwyoong, or No-á-yoong.
Shade, or shady Kájee.
Shake, to Kátcheeming.
Shaking a thing Yoótoo yoótoo.
Shallow Asássa.
Sharp Aka, or chírraring?
Shave, to Soóyoong.
Shell Oósheemaw.
Shell fish (like a crab) A´mang.
Shield Timbáyee.
Ship Hoónee[106].
----, large Hooboónee, or Wesára Hoónee.
----, small Hoónee gua, or Coosára Hoónee.
---goes away Hoónee eéchoong.
---returns Moóchee eéchoong.
Shoes, or sandals Sábock, or Sabaugh.
Short Injása.
Shoulders Kútta.
Shrub, with leaves resembling a Sootítsee.
palm tree, probably sago tree Shut, to Meecheéoong.
Shut it Mechírree.
Skin Ka.
Skin, of a bullock Oóshee noo ka.
----, of a man Choo noo ka.
Sick Yádong.
---man Ic´kkeega yádong.
---belly Wátta éddee.
Side, of a person Hárraga.
----, of a thing Táttee.
Sigh, to Hoóee eéchee.
Silk Eéchoo.
Silver Jing.
Sing, to Oótashoong, or oótayooshoong, or oótayoong.
Sister O'nigh.
Sit down, to Eéoong.
--------, in a chair Eéchawng, or Eeree.
--------, on the ground Eémeesháwdee, or Eédee.
--------, or be seated Yoocoótee.
Six Roócoo (Loo-Choo); Moótsee (Japan).
Sixteen Roócoojoo.
Sixty Rookpáckcoo.
Sleep, to Nínjoong.
Sleeping Níntee.
Slow Yoóna, or Yáwna.
Small Coósa.
Smell, to Kánnoong, or Kasháshoong.
Smell Kabbásha[107].
Smoke, to Foótchoong, or koótchoong.
Smoke Kínsee.
Smoking tobacco Tobácco foókee.
Smooth Nándooroosa.
Smooth down, to Nádeeyoong.
Snake Háboo.
Snake stings Háboo coótee.
Snatch, to Kátayoong.
Sneeze, to Hónna feéoong.
Snore, to Níntoong.
Snuff (lit.
nose tobacco) Spáchee, or Hónna Tobácco.
Sole of the foot (lit.
belly of the foot) Shánna wátta.
Son Ic'kkeega oóngua.
Song Oóta[108].
Sore from riding Náutee.
Sorry Natskásha.
Sour Seésa.
South Whfa or fa.
Speak, to Moónooyoong[109].
Spear to catch fish with Toóga oóyoong.
Spectacles (lit.
eye-glass) Mee kágung.
Spider Coóba.
Spider's web Coóba mang.
Spit, to Simpáy-oong.
Spittle Simpáyee.
Spoon Káa.
Spy glass Toómee kágung.
Square Káckkoo.
------, of a stone mason Bánjaw gaúnnee.
Squeeze, to Mímmeejoong.
Stab, to Choong.
Stand up, to Tátteeoong.
Stand back to back Coósee noóchasa.
Stars Foóshee.
Stay on board ship Hoónee oótee.
Stem of a boat Oomoótee.
Stern of a boat Coóma toómo.
Stone Is´hee.
----cutter's hammer Oong.
-----, carved Káwroo[110].
Stop Mátee[111].
Straw Wárra.
Strike, to Réjeecoong.
String Ko-eéroo.
Strong Choósa.
-----wine Choozáckkee, or Sáckkeechoo.
Sucking Noódee[112].
Sugar Sáta.
----cane Oójee.
-----, to make Sáta skóyoong.
Sulky Hárradat´chee.
-----, not Hárradat´chee soóna.
Sun Teéda.
Sunset Teéda ságayoong[113].
Sunshine Teéda téttee.
Sunrise Teéda ágayoong.
Swallowing Noónootoósha.
Sweet Amása.
----wine A´mazac´kkee[114].
----potatoes Moo, or Moóndee.
Swim, to Weéjoong.
Swimming Weéjee.
Sword Tat´chee.
A flight of stone steps Keesíee.
A single step Coodámmee.
To stick a thing in the ground Táteeing.
Table, round Mádooee.
Tail of a bird Dzoo.
Take off the hat, to Hásseeoong.
[115] Tattoo marks on the right arm Oódeemaw.
--------------on the left arm Toóga.
Tea cup Cháwung.
-------, to break a Wy´oong.
--pot Tácoo.
---, in an octagon bucket Tácoo cee.
---, the metal pot in the inside of Tácoo mee.
the bucket ---, the cover of a Tácoo whfoóta.
---, the handle of a Tácoo tee.
---, the ears of the bucket of a Tácoo toódee.
Tear, to Yáyoong.
---a thing in pieces Cheéreetawng.
Tears Náda.
Teeth Há (an aspirate).
-----, to set on edge Ha gíshee gish.
Temple Meéa (Chinese).
-----yard Tírra.
Temples, human Koómeegung.
Ten Joo (Loo-Choo); Too (Japan).
Thank you Ka foóshee.
That A´ddee.
There Ic´kkee.
Thigh Moómoo.
Thirteen Sanjoo.
Thirty Sangbácoo.
This Coódee.
Thousand Mang.
--------, ten O´koo.
Three Sang (Loo-Choo); Meétesee (Japan).
Three sided figure Sang cac´kkoo.
Thread, sewing Eéchoo[116].
Thresh, to Oótchoong[117].
Throat Noódee[118].
Throw to, a stone at a mark Náging.
--------, away any thing Oóchung-ging.
Thumb Hoóee Eébee.
Tie to, a knot Coónjoong.
Tide Kádezee.
Tin Sheédookánnee.
Tired, or fatigued Amus´heenoo.
Tobacco Tobácco[119] (as in England).
------pouch Coóshee sat´chee, or foósa.
To-day A´choo.
To-morrow A´cha.
Toe Shánna eébee (lit.
foot finger).
Toe-nail Shánna thímmee.
Tomb Háka.
Tomb-stone Coóroo ishee.
Tongue Stcha.
Torn, part of any thing Yádee tung.
Touch, to Sáyoong, or sit´choong.
Town Meéattoo, or Métto.
Tray, or waiter Chírreedeh.
Tread, to Koóraming.
Tremble to, with cold Koórooyoong.
Tree Kee.
----, branch of a Eéda.
----, Banyan Gádesee mároo kee.
----, with red and white flowers Hoóyoo.
Tree, with large red flowers, which Dee-eégo-kee.
are called _acka banna_ Trowsers Coo, or Hackkáma.
Turban worn by the lower order of the Sájee.
natives Turn round to Meégoyoong.
Two Nee (Loo-Choo); tátesee (Japan).
Twelve Neéjoo.
Twenty Hácoo.
-----one Hácoo it´cheejoo.
-----two Hácoo neéjoo.
-----three Hácoo sánjoo.
-----four Hácoo sheénjoo, or sheehácoo.
-----five Hácoo goónjoo, or goohacoo.
-----six Hácoo roócoojoo.
-----seven Hácoo sit´cheejoo.
-----eight Hácoo fat´cheejoo.
-----nine Hácoo coójoo.
Tyger Toóra.
Vase, or urn Jeéshee.
Veins Kájee.
Very well (speaking of health) Oogánjoo.
--------(well done, good) Eétshang.
Victual or dinner box Píntaw.
-------, the drawers in it Joobáckkoo.
Ugly Ootooroósa.
Umbrella Shássee kássa.
Undress, to Ching hájeeing.
Untie, to, a knot Hoótoochoong.
Upper garment Eéshaw, or Hoónta.
Water Meézee, or Meésee.
-----, hot A´tsee meézee, or átcheeroo.
-----, cold Feésa meézee, or feézeeroo meézee.
-----, salt Spookoorása meézee.
-----, a large jar containing Tookoóee.
Water tub Meez-ofwhókee (cont.
of meézee and ofoowookee).
Walk, to At´choong.
----, or crawl as a butterfly Seégatong.
----, slow Yáwna eéchoong.
----, quick Háyee sit´choong.
Walking hand in hand, as the natives Teefeécha.
Wash, to A´rayoong.
----, or bathe Indeetáwoong.
----, clothes Ching árayoong.
Washing clothes Ching áratee.
Watch Kárahigh.
----key Sásee noo quaw.
We, or a fourth person Yoótay.
Weather Tínsee, or tínchee.
-------, fine Yetínsee[120], or tínchee.
-------, foul or bad Yánna tínsee, or tínchee.
Web-footed bird Itchoóma.
---------------, beak of a Coóchee (lit.
mouth).
--------------head Makarájjee.
--------------leg Sha.
--------------two legs Shándee.
--------------tail Májoo.
--------------wing Hónnee.
Well (lit.
water's skin) Meézee ka.
West Neéshee.
Wet Inneétee.
Wet, to I´ndeetáoong.
What do you call this?
Noóndeega.
Wheel of a ship Cooroóma.
Whiskers Bínta.
Whisper, to Mónotitchoong.
Whistling Feéfee.
---------, as a bird Hoósa.
White Sheeroósa.
Wick of a candle Skeecoótshee.
Will you give me Wang yee quírree[121].
Wind Kássee, or Kázzee.
---to come in Kássee noóchoong.
---to go out Kássee eéchoong.
----, little Kássee gua.
----, great Weésa kássee, or táychfoo[122].
Wind, to, up a watch Feénoyoong.
--------, a string round the finger Káramachoong.
Winking Mee oóchee.
Wine Sáckkee.
---glass Támma sáckka sit´chee.
---kettle Dáckkeezitza.
----, sweet Amazack´kee, compounded of amása and sackee.
----, strong Choozáckkee, or sáckkeechoo.
----, weak Eéawzáckkee, or sáckkee ya.
Wing of a bird Hánnay.
---feathers of a bird Kee.
Wipe, to, the face Soósooyoong.
Wish, to, or bid good bye Wóckkayoong.
Wrist (lit.
neck of the arm) Tee noo coóbee.
Write, to Kátchoong[123].
Writing-desk Sheékoo.
Wrong in writing characters Náwshoong.
Woman Innágo.
-----, plain Ootooroósa innágo.
-----, old Teeshoóee innágo.
-----, handsome Choorása innágo.
-----, young Wóckka innágo.
Wood of any kind Támoong.
Yawning A´coobee.
Year[124] Ning.
----, one It´chee ning.
Years, eighteen, of age Joo hat´chee.
-----, fourteen Joó shee.
-----, thirty Sánjoo.
-----, twenty-five Neéjoo goo.
Yellow Cheéroo.
------, dark Kássa cheéroo, or áka cheéroo.
------, dirty or dingy Cheéroo díngee.
Yes Oo.
Yesterday Cheénoo.
Yoke, across the shoulders of porters Baw.
You (a second person) Ya (tay).
Young Wock´ka.
----woman Wock´ka innágo.
Yours Coóra ya moong.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 25: This sound is the same as the Italian _gn_, and will be found in the words _Gnafing_, signifying more; _Quangning_, a man of rank; and also in _Neesa_, bad, and _Nee_, two, which are most commonly pronounced as if a _g_ were prefixed to the _n_.]
[Footnote 26: The _o_ in this word is sounded as in the English word _Bode_.]
[Footnote 27: See sentence No.
101, Part II.]
[Footnote 28: This word also signifies milk, and the female breast.]
[Footnote 29: In speaking of books with reference to their number, they say _teetsee sheemootsee_, one book; _tatsee sheemootsee_, two books; but of a single book they only say _sheemootsee;_ and we never found that they had any plural termination.]
[Footnote 30: See sentence No.
111.]
[Footnote 31: There is a great similarity between this word and that which signifies _to be alive_, (Itch-chawng).]
[Footnote 32: This word signifies both a ladder and a bridge.]
[Footnote 33: See Sentences Nos.
25 and 41.]
[Footnote 34: This word signifies both a cask and a candlestick.]
[Footnote 35: See Sentence No.
70.]
[Footnote 36: _Noo_ seems to express _of_, or the _'s_ used in the English language: as _Ooshee noo chee_, the cow's milk, or the milk of the cow; _Ooshee noo ka_, the bullock's skin, or the skin of the bullock; _Doochoo noo choe_, Loo-choo's people, or the people of Loo-choo; and will be found in a variety of other instances.]
[Footnote 37: See Sentences Nos.
18, 19, and 21.]
[Footnote 38: The compass was generally called _Kassee tooee_, which two words signify wind and a cock or fowl; but the landsmen called it _Karahigh_, which signifies a watch.]
[Footnote 39: This is probably _Oowhoko_, signifying a great many persons.]
[Footnote 40: The day at Loo-Choo is divided into six hours, as also the night.
In counting a number of days they apply the numerals in a similar manner to that which will be found in a note on _Twitchee_, an hour; but they did not seem to have any names to denote the days of the week.]
[Footnote 41: This word is generally used by the master of the house when his guest announces his intended departure, by saying, _Cung, cung_.]
[Footnote 42: See Sentences Nos.
74 and 76.]
[Footnote 43: See Sentences Nos.
29, 32, 33, and 37.]
[Footnote 44: See Sentences Nos.
24 and 107.]
[Footnote 45: See Sentences Nos.
31, 36, and 27.]
[Footnote 46: See Numerals, Loo-Choo and Japan, Part II.
after the Sentences.]
[Footnote 47: This word, which is composed of _addee_, this, and _coodee_, that, I am not positive of, and I have therefore affixed a query against it.]
[Footnote 48: This is a very difficult word to pronounce, and I am not certain of having conveyed its true sound.]
[Footnote 49: See Sentence No.
111.]
[Footnote 50: See Sentence No.
55.]
[Footnote 51: See Sentence No.
20.]
[Footnote 52: See note on Numerals.]
[Footnote 53: The nearest sound to that of _flail_ which a native of Loo-Choo could utter was that of _Freyroo_; generally speaking they found great difficulty in pronouncing English words.
The nearest sound to that of our _l_ was _Airoo_, and to that of _vil_ was _Bayroo_.]
[Footnote 54: See note on Numerals.]
[Footnote 55: See Sentences Nos.
45, 47, and 48.]
[Footnote 56: The intention of departing from a house is generally announced by _Cung, cung_.]
[Footnote 57: The hair of the natives is formed into a knot on the crown of the head, and fastened by two pins of silver or brass, the one ornamented by a flowered head, called _kamma-shishee_, and the other _ooshee-thushee_.
That worn by the children is called _jeefa_.]
[Footnote 58: This word is used to denote a _tree_ as well as a _hand_; this probably arises from the similarity; considering the _hand_ as the trunk, and the fingers the branches of the _tree_.]
[Footnote 59: A piece of China crape, or very fine paper, is used as a handkerchief by the superior classes of the natives, and is generally worn in the bosom: the lower orders substitute a coarser kind of paper.]
[Footnote 60: A negative in frequent use.]
[Footnote 61: This word may be applied to being in want of water.]
[Footnote 62: See Sentence No.
2.]
[Footnote 63: A strong aspirate.]
[Footnote 64: See note on _I_ or _me_ (first person) next page.]
[Footnote 65: These two expressions were obtained by catching a butterfly and then letting it go.]
[Footnote 66: The _jeeshee_, or _vase_, is a stone jar in which the bones of the dead are deposited at the expiration of seven years after burial.]
[Footnote 67: The same word (_obee_) signifies both the hoop of a cask and the girdle worn round the waist; this probably originated in the girdle being substituted for the hoop, which appears to have been worn formerly.]
[Footnote 68: _Ma_, signifying a horse, is a Chinese word, and was probably introduced into Loo-Choo with that animal.]
[Footnote 69: The names of the hours will be found in the second part; the divisions of time will be found under their different heads of day, month, year, &c.] [Footnote 70: While seeking to obtain from the natives the pronouns _I_, _you_, and _him_, I at first got _chooee, lay_, and _meechay;_ but on further enquiry I found that these had not that meaning, they were superseded by _wang_, _ya_, and _aree_, for _I_, _you_, and _him;_ but as I heard _chooee_, _lay_, and _meechay_ repeated in enumerating persons, I have set them down as first, second, and third persons, that being the sense which they seem to bear.
The word _chooee_, or _choo_, it would seem signifies man (homo) in a general sense.]
[Footnote 71: See Sentence No.
96.]
[Footnote 72: See Sentence No.
99.]
[Footnote 73: See Sentence No.
101.]
[Footnote 74: See Sentence No.
6.]
[Footnote 75: See note, "Holding a thing."]
[Footnote 76: See Sentences Nos.
81 and 82.]
[Footnote 77: See Sentences Nos.
38 to 44.]
[Footnote 78: Literally to sew clothes.]
[Footnote 79: Literally to work rope.]
[Footnote 80: _Skoyoong_, or _Sookooyoong_, signifies to bake.]
[Footnote 81: This word, which is composed of _ickkee_ and _ya_ (_ickkee_ signifying _there_, and _ga_, which may possibly have been originally _ya, you_), appeared to me to bear a similar meaning to our _you, sir_, or _you, there_, as the natives invariably called out _ickkeega_, when wishing to attract the attention of any one.]
[Footnote 82: See note on the _kawroo_.
The _kaw_ is also burned when an offering of rice is made on the _kawroo_.]
[Footnote 83: The following are the names of the months or moons.
January Shaw gwautsee.
February Nee gwautsee (lit.
2d month).
March Sang gwautsee (lit.
3d).
April Shee gwautsee (lit.
4th).
May Goo gwautsee (lit.
5th).
June Roocoo gwautsee (lit.
6th).
July Sitchee gwautsee (lit.
7th).
August Fatchee gwautsee (lit.
8th).
September Coo gwautsee (lit.
9th).
October Joo gwautsee (lit.
10th).
November Shee moo stitchee, or joo itchee gwautsee.
December Shee wasee, or joo nee gwautsee.
The twentieth day of the tenth month (October), _Joo gwautsee, neejoo nitchee_, was, according to Loo-Choo time, the second day of the tenth month, _joo gwautsee, nee nitchee_.]
[Footnote 84: A strong aspirate on the first syllable.]
[Footnote 85: The negative is almost invariably placed after the word.]
[Footnote 86: See note on numerals.]
[Footnote 87: The sound of the _oong_, or _oomb_, is very difficult, and can only be approximated by closing the teeth firmly and compressing the sound of _oong_.]
[Footnote 88: See note on Numerals.]
[Footnote 89: See Sentences Nos.
49 to 53.]
[Footnote 90: _Sheenoostang_ signifies to _cover over_, and possibly _ooroo_ should have been written _eeroo_, which is _colour_; and this word, signifying _painting_, would then be literally _to cover over with colour_.]
[Footnote 91: This is literally the _belly of the hand_, or the _hand's belly_.
For an explanation of the _noo_ see observations on the Loo-Choo language at the beginning.]
[Footnote 92: This word seems to derive its origin from _ackka_, _burning_.]
[Footnote 93: This word, _Katcheemeeoong_, to pinch, appears to be formed of the words _Ka_, skin, _chee_, blood, and _meeoong_, to see; and may be translated to _see the blood through the skin_, or _in the skin_.]
[Footnote 94: This sound is not unlike that which the screwing about the scull of a boat on the pivot causes.]
[Footnote 95: The same word signifies a flower.]
[Footnote 96: _Feetchoong_ signifies to pull, so that it may with more propriety be applied to the harp, or touching the strings of the violin with the fingers.]
[Footnote 97: A strong aspirate on the last syllable.]
[Footnote 98: See Sentence No.
105.]
[Footnote 99: Literally, to upset.]
[Footnote 100: For the sound of this word see note on the English word _no_.]
[Footnote 101: See Sentence No.
8.]
[Footnote 102: _Narang_, or _nang_, is used on most occasions as the negative.]
[Footnote 103: The same word signifies _sweet potatoes_.]
[Footnote 104: This word it will be observed signifies both _to screw_ and _to scull;_ this may originate in the screwing motion of the oar from side to side of the boat.]
[Footnote 105: See Sentences No.
38 to 44.]
[Footnote 106: The similarity in sound of this word to that of a character (_Hoonatee_) written on a piece of paper in the hats of the men employed working for the ships, has suggested the idea that the meaning of the character may have some reference to a ship.]
[Footnote 107: See Sentences Nos.
102 and 103.]
[Footnote 108: Words of Loo-Choo songs: "Sasa sangcoomeh sangcoomeah kadee yooshee daw, tantoong tantoong tang."
A boat song: "Whee yo ee.--Whee yo ee."
The steersman gave "Whee," and was followed by the other men with a repetition of "Whee yo ee."
Another boat song: "Quee yay hanno ha.--Quee yay hanno ha."
To both these airs the rowers kept very good time.]
[Footnote 109: See Sentences Nos.
1 to 7.]
[Footnote 110: The _kawroo_ is a small square stone excavated a little on the upper part, in which an offering of rice is made.
On the face of this stone is carved a variety of characters denoting the rank, &c. of the person who makes the offering.]
[Footnote 111: See Sentences in Part II.]
[Footnote 112: See Sentences Nos.
29, 32, 33, and 37.]
[Footnote 113: See Sentences Nos.
108, 109, and 110.]
[Footnote 114: _Amazackkee_ is a contraction of the words _amasa_, sweet, and _sackkee_, wine; the latter always changing _s_ into _z_ when preceded by any other word.
See _wine_, _strong_, _weak_, &c.] [Footnote 115: Tattoo marks will be found in Part II.]
[Footnote 116: _Eechoo._ This word is used to denote _thread_, silk_, and _ribbon._] [Footnote 117: _Ootchoong_, or _oochoong_, signifies _to work_, _to play_, and _to make_.]
[Footnote 118: Possibly this word implies the act of swallowing.]
[Footnote 119: The sound of this word is precisely the same as that of our _tobacco_.
I have, therefore, spelt it in the same manner.]
[Footnote 120: See Sentence No.
109.]
[Footnote 121: See Sentences Nos.
45, 47, and 48.]
[Footnote 122: This is probably the _tae fung_ (great wind of the Chinese, called by us _tyfoon_), a severe gale of wind in the China Sea.]
[Footnote 123: See Sentence No.
73.]
[Footnote 124: The year at Loo-Choo, according to Jeeroo's account, is divided into twelve months of thirty days each, making in all 360 days, and every sixth year one month is intercalated.]
NOTE.
In the following Sentences the English is given before the Loo-Choo.
No Sentence has been inserted the meaning of which was not distinctly ascertained; but it happened frequently that the precise import of some words in a Sentence was not made out, and in order to enable the reader to judge to what extent this took place, a literal translation of the words in each Sentence is given in the last column; and where a word occurs, the meaning of which is doubtful, an asterisk is put in its place.
In the last column it will be observed that every verb having the termination _oong_, _ung_, &c. is translated as if it were the infinitive, although the sense, as denoted in the first column, points to another mood.
SENTENCES, ENGLISH AND LOO-CHOO.
_Of Speaking._ No.
_English._ _Loo-Choo._ _Literal Translation._ 1.
I speak Moónooyoong I to speak.
2.
I speak, you hear Moónooyoong, ya sit´choong, I speak, you to hear, or Chickkee or hearing.
3.
I speak to you Ya, or ea moónooyoong, or You to speak, or I. wang.
Ya too moónooyoong You * to speak.
4.
I speak Chinese Wang Quántoong I Chinese to speak.
moónooyoong 5.
I cannot speak Chinese Wang Quántoong moónoorang I Chinese cannot speak.
6.
I am learning to speak Wang Doóchoo cootoóba I Loo-Choo learning or Loo-Choo yoóshoong[125] studying to *.
7.
Mádera speaks English I´ngere Mádera moónooyoong English Mádera to speak.
_Of Going and Coming._ 8.
A man running to the Háyay tímma ic´kkeega Running boat man.
boat 9.
I am going on shore Wang amáki eéchoong I shore to go.
10.
To-morrow I will return A´cha choó-oong To-morrow to come.
11.
To come back again A´mma ka choong[126] * * to come.
12.
I am going on board Timma ki eéchoong Boat * to go.
13.
I came yesterday Cheénoo chung Yesterday came.
14.
Go down there Amúnka ic´kkee * there.
15.
Come up here Nooboótee coo Ascend here.
16.
You go below Yá oódee meéshawdee You * *.
17.
To go out of a place Yá ka saut eéchoong * * * to go.
18.
To come into a place Yá ka saut choong * * * to come.
19.
Tayin[127] returns Tayin[127] choo-oong The great man to come.
20.
To go in a boat to Doóchoo timma eéchoong Loo-Choo boat to go Loo-Choo to carry fish eéo katámmeeoong fish to carry.
21.
To go to sea in a Timma eéchoong oóshoo Boat to go sea fish to boat to catch fish eéo cheéoong catch 22.
Where is Tayin gone Táyin makáyee ga ímjara Tayin * * *.
23.
Tayin has gone to Táyin eéchoong hooboónee Tayin to go large ship the other ship to meéyoong Sheenoóma to see *.
pay his respects 24.
When all are drunk I´gnea weétee amáki All drunk shore * we shall be permitted moótotee yoótoosha *.
to go on shore 25.
I am going now, he Atookárra wang eéchoong By and by I to go, by will come presently atookárra eéchoong and by to go.
26.
I am going on shore Wang amáki eéchoong I shore to go I to to dinner moónookámoong eat.
27.
I am going on board Wang hoónee ki eéchoong I ship * to go I to to dinner moónoo kámoong eat.
28.
When the ships depart A´cha hoónee níttee Doóchoo To-morrow ship * to-morrow all the mang hoónee Loo-Choo thousand Loo-Choo people will oócooyoong ship *.
pray _Of Eating and Drinking._ 29.
To drink wine Sac´kkee noómoong Wine to drink.
30.
Sweet wine Amazac´kkee Sweet wine.
31.
I eat Moónoo kámoong I to eat.
32.
I never drink tea Cha noódee nárang Tea drinking never.
33.
Tayin and you never Táyin ya sac´kkee noódee Tayin you wine drink drink wine nárang never.
34.
The parting glass Wóckkarittee Departing.
35.
It is good (to eat) Coódee mása This good (to eat).
36.
It is bad, throw it Neésba is´kung Bad *.
away 37.
It is tea, to drink Meézee tájeeing cha noódee Water to boil tea drinking.
_Of Looking and Seeing._ 38.
To look at the sun Teéda meéoong kágung Sun to see glass.
through a glass 39.
I look, or I see Moónoomeéoong I to see.
40.
The English gentleman I´ngere táyin meésheeoong English great man to is looking look at.
41.
Stop, you shall look Mátee*, atookárra ya Stop, by and by you presently meésheeoong to look at.
42.
Clouds obscure the Koómoo teéda oósooóstang Clouds sun to cover sun over.
43.
The branches of the Toómee kágung kee noo Spy-glass trees tree obstruct the káttakáshee meérang branches to hide.
sight 44.
If a Loo-Choo woman Doóchoo innágo I´ngere Loo-Choo woman English should see you she meéoong náchoong to see, to cry.
will be alarmed _Of Giving._ 45.
Will you give me that Wang yee quírree I * giving.
46.
Give me that pencil Hoódee moot´choo Pencil bring.
47.
I gave him some paper A´ree nee queétang Him * giving.
48.
By and by I will give Atookárra qua gnee queéoong By and by children * it to my children to give.
_Of Opening and Shutting._ 49.
Shut this, or it Akíttee nínjoong Shutting to sleep.
50.
Open this, or it Akíttee mírree, or Opening it.
akátindee 51.
Do you open this, Akátindee, or ya akírree Opening, or you or it opening.
52.
Open this book Ya sheémootsee akírree You book opening.
53.
Open your watch that Akátindee kárahigh meéoong Opening watch to see.
I may look at it _Of Losing and Finding._ 54.
To lose a pencil Hoódee oótoochung Pencil to lose.
55.
To find a pencil Hoódee toómatung Pencil to find.
_Of Quantity._ 56.
Two small suns Tátsee teéda gua Two suns small.
57.
A few boys Coósa wárrabee Few boys.
58.
A few Men Ic´kkeekoósa Men few.
59.
A great many men Ic´kkeerássa Men many.
60.
A few books Sheémootsee sánsatche Books few.
61.
A great many books Sheémootsee tóro Books many.
62.
Six kinds of wine Moóeeyroo noo sáckkee * of wine.
_Of Making._ 63.
Making a false step Koónsinda dákatchee * *.
64.
Vases made at Napa Nápa jeéshee scoótee Napa vases made.
65.
Sand spread on a level Sínna oóshoo sháee máshoo Sand sea * salt plain on which water tátchoong to make.
is sprinkled for making salt 66.
Sing a song Ya oóta yoóshoong You song to sing.
67.
Jeeroo sings well, Jeéroo oóta yoóshoong Jeeroo song to sing * or with good taste cheécheegoótoo * *.
_Of Bringing and Carrying._ 68.
Bring your children Ya qua saúteecoo You children bring.
69.
Bring fire here Fee toóteecoo Fire bring.
70.
This vessel carries Hoónee jeéshee káttamittee Ship vases * Oonting.
vases to Oonting Oónting 71.
Boy, bring fire to I´rree fee toóteecoo tobácco Boy fire bring, light my pipe foókee tobacco smoke.
72.
Bring a cup of water Cháwung náki meézee eéteecoo Teacup * water * here here.
_Of Writing and Sketching_ 73.
To write a letter Jee kátchoong A character to write.
74.
Tayin is sketching Táyin háshee noo Tayin bridge of to the bridge eékatchoong sketch.
75.
Tayin sketches very Táyin yoókatchee choorása Tayin * sketches well handsome.
76.
To sketch a Loo-Choo Doóchoo meéa eékatchoong Loo-Choo temple to temple sketch.
_Of Compliment._ 77.
Thank you Ká foóshee * * *.
78.
How do you do Yoo ky´moong * * *.
79.
Very well Oogánjoo * * *.
80.
I am very sorry Oomoótee shangcoómeh * * *.
_Of Living or Residing._ 81.
Tayin lives here Táyin simmájoo coo Tayin lives here.
82.
A man living in the Ickkeegá simmá áwhfee A man living country.
country 83.
I live on board the Wang hoónee gua ímmatong I ship small to live.
brigs _Of Burning and Scalding._ 84.
Fire will burn you Fee yáddee Fire burns.
85.
Water will scald you Meésee yáddee Water burns.
86.
Scalding oneself with Meézee fidgeroósa yoo Water hot * burns.
hot water yáddee _Of Enquiry and Reply._ 87.
What is the name of Noóndeega coóra na What is this name.
this 88.
The name of this is Coóra ga na ya This * name *.
89.
How many children Qui eecootiéga * * *.
have you 90.
How old are you or Eecoótseega * * *.
they 91.
I am fourteen years Joóshee Fourteen.
of age 92.
I am eighteen years Joohatc´hee Eighteen.
of age 93.
---twenty-five, &c. Neéjoogoo Twenty-five.
_Miscellaneous._ 94.
To boil potatoes Mootájeeing Potatoes to boil.
95.
I am very busy Yoo joónatan * * *.
96.
The sting of a snake Háboo coótee sheénoong Snake sting to kill.
will kill 97.
Sucking milk at the Chee noóma chee Milk * breast.
breast 98.
A child drinking milk Chee noódee wárrabee Milk drinking child.
at the breast 99.
A child kissing its Wárrabee úmma coóchee Child mother mouth mother spoótee kissing.
100.
A woman leaning Innágo kákatong eéki Woman to lean anchor.
on an anchor 101.
A live shell-fish Amang it´chchawng Shell-fish to be alive will bite coóyoong to bite.
102.
This flower has a Fánna mása kabásha Flower sweet smell.
pleasant smell 103.
This flower has no Fánna nang kabásha Flower no smell.
smell 104.
Loo-Choo women Doóchoo innágo fwhoóco Loo-choo woman great are not very ooórung many *.
handsome 105.
The sootitsee (sago Sootítsee wang tseéchoong Sootitsee I * *.
tree) pricked me yátee 106.
To plant potatoes Moo jee hoótee céyoong Potatoes ground * *.
107.
Drunk, I vomit Weétee moónoo háchoong Drunk I vomit.
108.
After sunset it is Teéda ságatee seedásha Sun setting cool.
cool 109.
When the sun Teéda téttee, koómoo nang, Sunshine, clouds none, shines, and there yaytínchee fine weather.
are no clouds, it is fine weather 110.
The sun sets at six Roócoo twit´chee teéda Six hours sun to set.
o'clock ságayoong 111.
The horse fell down, Ma táwrittee táyin noo Horse fell down, and the tayin eébee oótee tayin's finger broke.
broke his finger 112.
After seven years Sítchee ning, coótsee Seven years' bones we wash the bones arátee jeéshee ittee washing vase putting and put them into in.
a vase 113.
Without any flesh Shíshee ning Flesh none.
114.
The people of Doóchoo noo choo sibíttee Loo-choo people Loo-Choo I shall yoótoosha remember * *.
never forget 115.
You will soon Sibíttee wása Remember bad.
forget them 116.
Twelve hours make Joo nee twit´chee, it´chee Ten two hours, one one day nit´chee day.
117.
Thirty days make one Sánjoo nit´chee, it´chee Thirty days one month moon, or month gwaútsee 118.
One year consists of It´chee ning, joo nee One year, ten two twelve months gwaútsee months.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 125: _Yooshoong_ probably signifies _to recite_, as it is used in requesting a person to sing as well as in this instance.]
[Footnote 126: Probably instead of _amma ka_, this should have been _amaki_ (shore), which would makeit coming to the shore, which was the case.]
[Footnote 127: _Ta-jin_, in Chinese, signifies a _great man;_ it is translated by Mr. Morrison _his excellency_.]
[Transcriber's Note: Japanese characters in the table below are denoted as such.]
NUMERALS.
_English._ _Loo-Choo._ _Characters._ _Japan._ 1 One It´chee [Japanese character] Teétsee, or te 1.
2 Two Nee, or gnee [Japanese character] Tátsee, or ta 2.
3 Three Sang [Japanese character] Meétsee, or mee 3.
4 Four Shee [Japanese character] Eéotsee[128], or yoo 4.
5 Five Goo, or go [Japanese character] I´ttitsee 5.
6 Six Roóko [Japanese character] Moótsee 6.
7 Seven St´chee [Japanese character] Nánnatsee 7.
8 Eight Fat´chee, or [Japanese character] Eeyátsee 8. kwat´chee 9 Nine Coo [Japanese character] Koónnitsee 9.
10 Ten Joo, or dzoo [Japanese character] Too 10.
Both sets of these numerals are in common use at Loo-Choo, though it would not perhaps be correct to apply them to the same word, as I never recollect having heard a native say "itchee sheemootsee," one book, or "teétsee twit´chee," one hour, but always "teétsee sheémootsee," one book, and "itchee twitchee," one hour.
I at first imagined "teetsee, tatsee," &c. were ordinals, but I have since found from Captain Broughton's Voyage that they bear a great resemblance to the numerals of Japan, and as such I have inserted them.
The characters, of which the above are copies, were written by a native.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 128: The _o_ in this word is to be pronounced as the diphthong _oa_ in boat.]
NAMES OF PERSONS.
The Kowung, or King Sháng fwee.
The Pochin ta foo, or Prince Shang pung-fwee.
The Chief of the Paychins who attended the ship Oókooma Mowchowshoóa.
The second Paychin Madáyra Sháyoon.
The third do.
I´ssacha Sándoo.
The fourth do.
Jeéma Tsí-se-eu.
His eldest son Maátsee Tsí-chee.
His friend (an elderly man) Oóhoomee Chínchawhee.
The fifth Paychin I´ssecha Háckkeeboócoo.
The sixth do.
Jeéroo Jeéda.
The first Linguist Mádera Káwsheeoong.
The second Linguist A´nya Toónshoonfa.
His wife Oóshee.
One of the junior Paychins Yáma Too.
The teacher (an old man) Yáckkabee Oómeejeéroo.
His eldest son Yáckkabee Oómee-nee whaw.
A boy O´seejee.
One of the principal attendants of the} Pochin ta foo } Mádam Báshee.
Another Eévaroo.
NAMES OF PLACES.
Corea Córay.
Pekin Péking.
Fokien Fótchien.
China Quántoong.
Chusan Choósan.
England I´ngeree.
The island of Loo-Choo Loo-Choo, or Doó-Choo.
The town of Napakiang Nápa ummeátto.
The high distant islands seen from Napa A´makírreema.
The Sugar Loaf Island Eégoos eécoondee.
Japan Níphon.
Canton Cánton.
NAMES OF THE DAYS OF THE MOON FROM NEW TO FULL.
1.
Chee tátchee.
2.
Hádjee mee nitchee.
3.
Hádjee mee san nit´chee.
4.
Hádjee mee noo ka.
5.
Hádjee mee goo nit´chee.
6.
Hádjee mee roócoo nit´chee.
7.
Hádjee mee sit´chee nit´chee.
8.
Hádjee mee fatchee nit´chee.
9.
Hádjee mee coo nit´chee.
10.
Yoóka.
11.
Joo it´chee nit´chee.
12.
Joo nee nit´chee.
13.
Joo san nit´chee.
14.
Joo yoóka.
15.
Joo goo nit´chee.
THE NINE ORDERS OF RANK OF PAYCHINS, OR CHIEFS, WHO ARE DISTINGUISHED BY THE COLOUR OF THEIR BONNETS, CALLED HATCHEE MATCHEE.
{ A pink ground with spots, circles, 1st.
Ching neéstchoo noo Hat´chee { and diamonds, of black, yellow, blue, mat´chee { white, and green.
2nd.
A´cadjee noo Hat´chee mat´chee { A pink ground with spots, &c. of red { and yellow, blue and black.
3rd.
O´jee noo Hat´chee mat´chee { A green ground with spots, &c. of { red, yellow, blue, and black.
4th.
Moóla sat´chee noo Hat´chee { A pink or light purple ground, with mat´chee { spots of the same colour.
5th.
Cheéroo dínjee noo Hat´chee { A dingy yellow ground, with spots of mat´chee { the same colour.
6th.
Cheéroo sy ya noo Hat´chee { A bright yellow ground without mat´chee { spots.
7th.
Chíddeeming noo Hat´chee { A red ground without spots.
mat´chee 8th.
Akása noo Hat´chee mat´chee A red ground without spots.
9th.
O´sa noo Hat´chee mat´chee A green ground without spots.
The attendants of the chiefs wear a red Hatchee matchee of a coarser texture.
TATTOO MARKS ON THE ARMS OF SOME OF THE NATIVES OF THE GREAT LOO-CHOO ISLAND.
1.
3.
Right arm.
Right arm.
Left arm.
This man had [Illustration: [Illustration: [Illustration: not any mark Oódeemaw.]
Oódeemaw.]
toóga.]
on the left arm.
2.
4.
Right arm.
Right arm.
Left arm.
[Illustration: [Illustration] [Illustration: Coódee Oódemaw.]
toóga.]
The four men, whose arms were marked in the above manner, were young and of the lower order, probably fishermen.
It appeared to have been done by puncturing the skin, and staining it with Indian ink in the manner practised by our seamen.
The above marks are quite as large as the originals; they were on the inner part of the fore arm, close up to the elbow joint.
Some were marked on both arms, others only on the right, but we did not observe any who had them only on the left arm.
NAMES OF THE HOURS.
One hour, or one o'clock It´chee twit´chee } Two hours, or two Nee twit´chee } Three Sang twit´chee } The day Four Shee twit´chee } Five Goo twit´chee } Six Roócoo twit´chee } Seven Sit´chee twit´chee } Eight Fat´chee twit´chee } Nine Coo twit´chee } The night.
Ten Joo twit´chee } Eleven Joo it´chee twit´chee} Twelve Joo nee twit´chee } The day at Loo-Choo, i.e.
between sunrise and sunset, is divided into six hours, as is also the night.
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE JAPANESE AND LOO-CHOO LANGUAGES.
NOTE.
The following comparisons are given, with the view of pointing out as nearly as circumstances will permit what resemblance there is between the languages of the islands of Loo-Choo, Niphon, or Japan, and Insu, lying in the Japan Sea, and which by some voyagers have been considered the same language.
In the first comparison, viz.
that between the languages of Loo-Choo and Japan, the Japanese words are extracted from the translation of Thunberg's Voyage to Japan, printed in London 1795, 2d edit.
vol.
iii.
In the second, viz.
that between Loo-Choo and Insu, the Insu words are taken from Broughton's Voyage.
A third comparison is given between the languages of Loo-Choo, Niphon, and Insu, together with the two sets of Numerals in use at Loo-Choo, the Japanese from Thunberg, and the Insu from Broughton.
It ought to be recollected that as Mr. Thunberg was a foreigner, and wrote in a different language from that in which the Loo-Choo words have been recorded, a difference of sound may be suspected between them when no material difference really exists between the two languages.
The letter _u_ has been substituted in the spelling of the Japanese words for the _v_ used by Thunberg.
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE JAPANESE AND LOO-CHOO LANGUAGES.
_English._ _Japanese[129]._ _Loo-Choo._ All Mei Innea.
Anchor Ikari Eki.
Angry Fandatsuru Neetsa.
Answer, to Fento suru Aree ga aanyoong.
Arm Ude Teenoo.
Arrow Ja Eea.
Attendant Sairio Eeree.
Bad Warikakuse Neesha, or Wasa.
Bake, to Jaku Irree-chang.
Bare (naked) Haguru Harraka.
Bed Nedokuri Coocha.
Belly Stabara Watta.
Bend, to Oru Tammeeoong.
Bird Tori Hotoo.
Birdcage Tori no su Hotoo coo.
Bitter Nigaka Injassa.
Blood Tji, or Kjets Chee.
Blow, up the fire, to Fuku Footchoong.
Boat Temma Timma.
Boil, to Tagiru Tajeeing.
Bone Fone Cootsee.
Book Somots Sheemootsee.
Bow Jumi Yoomee.
Branch of a tree Jeda Kee.
Brass Sintju Cheejackkoo.
Breadth Jakohaba Habba.
Breast Mone Moonee.
Breathe, to Ikitsuku Itchooshoong.
Bridge Fae, hae Hashee.
Brother Kiodai Weekee.
Bucket Tango Tagoo.
Button Botan Kogannee.
Calf of the leg Stosone Koonda.
Candle Rosoku Daw.
Candlestick Rosoks tatti Soo-coo.
Cannon Issibia Isheebeea.
Carry away, to Mootsu Mootchee eechoong.
Cat Mio Mia.
Charcoal Sumi Chacheejing.
Cheeks Hogeta, fo Hoo.
Child Kodoma Warrabee.
Circle Maru Maroodair.
Castle, or tower Siro, so Eegooscoo.
Climb, to Nagoru Noobooyoong.
Cloth So king Ching.
Cock Otori Woo tooee.
Cold Samka kang Feesa.
Compass Fobari Karahigh.
Colour Iro Eeroo ceeroo.
Come, to Kuru Choong.
Cool Sususi Seedasha.
Copper Akaganni Acoogannee.
Count, to Kansju Oohawkoo-oong.
Cow Us Mee ooshee.
Creep, to Fau Hawyoong.
Cup, tea Tiawang Chawung.
Dark Mime Coorasing.
Daughter Musme, gogo Innago oongua.
Deep Fukai Fookassa.
Dig, to Foli Ooehoong.
Die Sinnoru sinu Nintoong.
Dice Saii Sheego roocoo.
Door To Hashirree.
Dog Inu Ing.
Drink Nomimono Noomoo.
Drink, to Nomu Noomoong.
Drunk, to be Namoji jeikfsari Weeoong.
Duck, tame Afiru Afeeroo.
Dry, to Karruru Karachoong.
Earth, the Tji dsi Jee.
Ear Mimi Mimmee.
East Figasi Fingassee.
Egg Tamago Cooga.
Elbow Ude, fisi Tenoo feejee.
Empty, to Akwuru Karashoong.
Exchange, to Kajuru Kayra (fans); to exchange fans at Loo-Choo.
Face Tsera Steera.
Fall, to Tawareta Tawshoong.
Fan Oge Ojee.
Farewell Kingo, nigoserru Wockkatee.
Father Tete, toto Shoo.
Fat Kojuru Quaitee.
Feather Tori no fa Tooee noo hannee.
Fin, a fin Jokofiri fire Hannay.
Finger Jubi Eebee.
Find, to Midassu Toomatung.
Fire Fi, finoko Fee.
Fish Iwo, sakkana Eeo.
Fish Iwo tsuru Eeo kakeeoong.
Fishing net Ami Sheebee.
Flag, a Hato Hata.
Flower Fanna Fanna.
Fly, a Hai Hayeh.
Fly, to Toobu Toobeeoong.
Friend Ftoobai Eedooshee.
Foot Assi Shanna.
Firewood Takigi Tamoong.
Full Mits Meetchetee.
Girl Komusime Tackkee.
Girdle Skimmawas sansakagi Obee.
Give, to Fureru, jaru Queeoong.
Go down to Ururu, iru Ooritteo coo.
Go up to Aguru Noobooyoong.
Goat, he Jagi Woo feeja.
Gold Sin Ching.
Good Jukka Choorasa.
Good man Jukka fito Yookachoo.
Good for nothing Jonaka Maconarang.
Hair Kami Kurrazzee.
Hammer Kanatsutji Gooshung.
Hand Tee Kee.
Handkerchief Te no goi Teesadgee.
Hat Kasa Kassa.
Head Kubi Boosee.
Head-ache Attamanna, itama, Seebooroo yadong.
dutso Heart Kokurro, sing Nacoo.
singnoso Hear, to Kikf Sitchoong, or skitchoong.
Heavens Ten Ting.
Heavy Omoka, omotaka Boosa.
Hen, a Mendori, metori Meetooee.
Hide, to Kaksu Meerang.
Hip Momo Gammacoo.
Hole, or cavity Anna Anna.
Horn Tsunno, kaku Stinnoo.
Horse Aki uma Ma.
Hot Atska Atteesa.
House Je Ya, or katchee.
Ink Sum, sumi Simmee.
Inkstand Susumi hake Simmee shee.
Iron Tets, furoganni Titzee.
Key Kagi Quaw.
Kill, to Korossu Sheenoung, or Koorashoong.
Kiss Umakutji, or Sheemirree.
Kwutjisu Kiss, to Umakutji suru Coochee spootee.
Knife Haka Seego.
Knee Fisa, fisa no sarra Stinsee.
Kneel, to Fisatatsuru Shumma gitcheeoong.
Knot, a Fimmo Coonja cootchee.
Laugh, to Warau Worrayoong.
Learning, or studying Narau, Kicku Cootooba.
Letter, or character Moisi, tsi mousi Jee.
Lift to, a thing Motjiagaru Moochoong.
Light to, a pipe Fitobusu, fitomusu Sheeoong.
Lip Tsuba Seeba.
Liquor Sakki Sackkeedia, or Samtchoo (Chinese).
Look to, or see Miru Meeoong, or meeing.
Looking-glass Kagami Kagung.
Long, or length Nagai Nagása.
Lose, to Song suru, makuru Ootoochung.
Live, to Inotji Simmatong.
Lacker, to Makie saru Nooyoong.
Man (homo) Momo Choo.
Man (vir) Otoko Ickkeega.
Mast Hobasi Hasseeda.
Mat Tattami Mooshooroo, or Hatung.
Match (fire-stick) Skedakki, skegi Kaw.
Measure, to Siakf, monosasa Gaujee hackkiyoong.
Mew, to (like a cat) Neko, naku Nachoong deeoong.
Milk Tji tji tji Chee.
Monkey Saru, salu Saroo.
Moon Tsuki Stchay.
----, full Mangets Oostitchee, or maroo.
Mother Fasa kasa Umma.
Mud Noro Dooroo.
Nail, finger Tsume, jassuru Thimmee.
Naked Hadaka Harraka.
Name Na Na.
Navel Fosso, feso Whoosoo.
Neck Kwabi, nodor Coobee.
Needle Fari Hayee skittee.
Night Josari, joru Yooroo.
Nipples Tjibusa Chee.
Nod, to Gatting suru Najeechoong.
North Kitta Cheeta.
Nose Fanna Honna.
Nostrils Fanna nosu Honnakee.
Offer, to Okuru, agurujasiaguOzagadee.
ru, nedoaskuru Old Tassijori, furuje Teeshooee.
furuke Open, to Akuru Akeeoong.
Overturn, to Tawaruru Kooroobashoong.
Paper Kami Kabee.
Pencil Fuda Hoodee.
Physician Isa Ishsha.
Pinch, to Nesumu Katcheemeeoong.
Pipe (tobacco) Kiseru Shirree.
Play to, with dice Sugoroko utsu Sheegoroocoo ochoong.
Plough Seri, seribetta, Sitchee.
tsuku tauts Plough, to Togajassu Sitchoong.
Pour in, to Tsugu Irreeing.
Powder (gun) Jenso Eenshoo.
Pregnant Mimotji, farami Kassee jeetaung.
Press, to Siburu Sheetskeeoong.
Priest Boos Bodzee.
Push, to Sukikakaru Kooroobashoong.
Quarrel, to Ijou Titskoong.
Quick Faijo, faijaki Hayee.
Rain Ame Amee.
Rain, to Ame no fiuru Amee fooyoong.
Rainbow Nisi Noo, oojee.
Rat Nisumi Ack a-sa.
Read, to Jomu Yoomoong.
Rice Kome Coomee.
Rice, boiled Mes Umbang.
Ride, to, a horse Noru Manayoong.
Ring (finger) Ibiganni Eebee gannee.
Root Ne Wee-ee.
Rope Tsuna no na Chinna.
Round Mami Marroosa.
Row, to, in a boat Roosu Coojee.
Run, to Ajiubu Hayay sitchoong.
Sail Hoo Foo.
Salt Siwo Mashoo.
Salt water Siwo mis usiwo Spookarasa meezee.
Salute, to Resuru Kameeoong.
Sand Tsunna Sinna.
Scrape, to Kusagu Sajoong.
Screw Nesi Jirree.
Sea Ume Ooshoo.
Seal Fang hang ingjo Ing, or fang.
See, to Miru Meeoong.
Seed Tanna Ni.
Separate, to Saru Wockkayoong.
Serpent Kutjinawa hebi Haboo.
Sew, to No, noi Nawyoong, or noayoong.
Shallow Assai assaka Assassa.
Shave, to Soru Sooyoong.
Shell Kai Oosheemaw.
Ship Fune Hoonee.
Shoe Kwutsu Sabock.
Shoulders Kata Kutta.
Sick Itami mono, bioki Yadong.
mono, jamai mono Silk Kinno Eechoo.
Silver Gin Jing.
Sing, to Utau Ootashoong, or ootayoong.
Sister (eldest) Musme are Oui.
Sleep Nur Nintee.
Sleep, to Nuru Ninjoong.
Slow Sisukamai, jojajora Yoona, yawna.
Small Ko, komaka Coosa.
Smell Nivi, niwoi Kabbasha.
Smell, to Kusamu Kannoung, kashashoong.
Smoke Honoo Kinsee.
Smoke, to Kemoli Footchoong.
Smoke tobacco, to Tabaco, nomu Tobacco, footchoong.
Sneeze, to Aksingu Honna feeoong.
Snore, to Ibikikaku Nintoong.
Snuff Fanna, tabak, kagi Spachee, honna, tob* Sour Suika Seesa.
South Minami Whfa, or fa.
Speak, to Monoju, musmasu, Moonooyoong.
ju, moosuru Spectacles Meganni, fanna, Meekagung.
meganni Spider Kwumo Cooba.
Spittle Subakki Simpaee.
Spit, to Subakki, hawk Simpayoong.
Spoon Saisi Kaa.
Square Sikaku Kackkoo.
Stand up, to Okiru Tatteeoong.
Stars Fosi Fooshee.
Stone Isi iwa Ishee.
Strike, to Wutsu, utsu, tataku Rejeecoong.
Sugar Satto Sata.
Sun Fi, nitji Teeda.
Sunset Fi no iri Teeda sagayoong.
Sunrise Fino, de, fino, Teeda agayoong.
agaru Swallow, to Nomikomu Noonootoosha.
Sweet Amaka, amai Amasa.
Swim, to Ojugu Weejoong.
Thigh Momo, solomomo Moomoo.
Thread Ito Eechoo.
Throw, to Naguru Naging.
Thumb Ojajubi, ojubi Hooee eebee.
Tiger Tora Toora.
Tin Susu Sheedookannee.
Tongue Sta, sita Stcha.
Tooth Jea Ha.
Touch, to Kamau, kakaru, Sayoong, or Sitchoong.
ateru Tower To Eegooscoo.
Town Matji, sotomatji Mecatto, metto.
Tremble Fururu Koorooyoong.
Ugly Kisannai Ootooroosa.
Umbrella Fisasi Shassee kassa.
Vein Susi Kajee.
Wake, to Okiteoru Ooking.
Waken, to Okusu Oocatee.
Walk, to Ita Atchoong.
Warm Nakka, atska Attesa.
Wash Arau Arayoong.
Watch Tokei Karahigh.
Water Mis Meezee.
Water tub Furo Meezofwokee.
Weather, fine Jukka, fiuri, jui Yeetinchee, or tinsee.
teng Weather, foul Warri fiuri Yannatinchee, or tinsee.
Well, a Jgawa Meezee ka.
West Nis Neeshee.
Wet Naroru Inneetee.
Wet, to Narassu Indeetaoong.
Wheel Kuruma Coorooma.
Wick of a candle Suku, saku Skee cootshee.
Wind Kase Kassee.
Wind up, to Sutsumu Feenoyoong.
Wing Toobu fanne Hannay.
Wink, to Manaku Meeoochee.
Wood Tagi Tamoong.
Write Kaku Katchoong.
Writing desk Fikidassi Sheekoo.
Year Fosi Ning.
Young Wakai Wockka.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 129: From Thunberg's Voyage.]
NUMERALS.
_Japan_.
_Insu[130]._ _Loo-Choo._ 1 Stozee Sheeneap Stitz Itchee Teetsee, tee.
2 Statze Too Statz Nee Tatsee, ta.
3 Mitzee Liep Mitz Sang Meetsee, mee.
4 Yeatze Eenep Yeatze Shee Eotsee, yoo.
5 Idotzee Asheak Itseitzy Goo Ittitsee.
6 Nitzee Ewan Nitz Roocoo Mootsee.
7 Nanatzee Arrawan Nanatzy Stehee Nannatsee.
8 Iosee Toopish Yeatz Fatchee Eyatsee.
9 Kikonitz Lepish Kokonitz Coo Koonnitsee.
10 Yoo Wanna Too Joo Too.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 130: From Broughton's Voyage.]
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE LANGUAGES OF LOO-CHOO AND INSU.
AN ISLAND IN THE JAPAN SEA.
_English._ _Insu[131]._ _Loo-Choo._ Come here Arkee Cung coo.
To walk Appeass Atchoong.
To enquire the name of Tambene Noondeega.
any thing A ship Penzy, or Foonil.
Hoonee.
A bow Koo Yoomee.
An arrow Ay Eea.
The beard Creak Feejee.
The teeth Meemack Ha.
A man Oikyo Ickkeega.
A woman Meanako Innago.
Fish net Ya Sheebee.
Tobacco pipe Tsheeree Shirree.
Water Wakha Meezee.
To drink Horopsee Noomoong.
A book Shoomootza Sheemootsee.
The finger Yewbee Eebee.
The thumb O yewbee Hoee eebee.
The thigh Momo Moomoo.
The arm Oondee Teenoo.
The middle finger Nagayewbee Nackkaeebee.
Paper Kame Kabee.
A dog Enoo Ing.
A cat Necko Mia.
A child Vasasso Warrabee.
The foot Assee Shanna.
The chin Olongyse Ootooga.
The ear Meemee Mimmee.
Yes O Oo.
No Ny Oongba.
Hair Kamu Kurrazzee.
A boat Timma Timma.
Tea Tcha Cha.
Sugar Sado Sata.
Tobacco Tabacco Tobacco.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 131: From Broughton's Voyage.]
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE LANGUAGES OF LOO-CHOO, JAPAN, AND INSU.
_English._ _Japanese[132]._ _Loo-Choo._ _Insu[133]._ To walk Ita Atchoong Appeass.
A ship Fune Hoonee Penzy, or foonil.
A bow Jumi Yoomee Koo.
An arrow Ja Eea Ay.
The finger Jubi Eebee Askippi, yewbee.
The teeth Ha Ha Meemack.
A man Otoko Ickkeega Oikyo.
A fish net Ami Sheebee Ya.
A knife Haka Seego Magiddee.
An oar Ro Wayacoo Kanzee.
Water Mis Meezee Wakha.
To drink Nomu Noomoong Horopsee.
A book Somots Sheemootsee Shomotza.
The thumb Ojajubi, ojubi Hooee eebee O yewbee.
The thigh Momo, soto momo Moomoo Momo.
The arm Ude Teenoo Oondee.
Paper Kami Kabee Kame.
A dog Inu Ing Enoo.
A cat Mio, neko Mia Necko.
A child Kodoma Warrabee Vassasso.
The lips Tsuba Seeba Koodge.
The foot Assi Shanna Assee.
The ear Mimi Mimmee Meemee.
The hair Kami Kurrazzee Karnu.
A boat Temma Timma Timma.
Tea Tsjaa Cha Tcha.
Sugar Satto Sata Sado.
Tobacco Tabako Tobacco Tabacco.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 132: From Thunberg's Voyage.]
[Footnote 133: From Broughton's Voyage.]
WORDS OBTAINED FROM THE INHABITANTS OF THE WEST COAST OF COREA.
_English._ _Corean._ No Poodong.
Water Bool.
A pipe Dewton.
Hair Bodee.
Eyes Doon.
Mouth Jeep.
Nose Ko.
Hand So-an.
Beard Shee-om.
Tongue Chay.
Ear Quee.
Teeth Jee.
Tree[134] Phang na moo.
Grass[134] Phee.
Good[134] Hota.
Earth[134] K,hool.
Knife[134] Khul.
Jacket Chouksa.
Trowsers Choongay.
Shoe Po schien.
Stockings, or boots Hung inn.
Tobacco pouch Samb-jee.
Rice (food) Pa-ap.
Fan Pootsa.
Stove Tok.
White hat Pan-a-ee.
Black hat Kat.
A cock Tac.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 134: These five words have the _h_ so strongly aspirated that it was rarely we could pronounce them to the satisfaction of the natives.
Their language, upon the whole, is not unpleasing, and it has none of the harsh Chinese sounds.
The natives have a remarkable facility in imitating our sounds, and they in general speak in a very loud tone of voice.]
THE END.
* * * * * T. DAVISON, Lombard-street, Whitefriars, London.