# Korea & Her Neighbours/Chapter VII

A FEW hours sufficed for settling in our very narrow- quarters, and by the end of the second day we had shaken down into an orderly routine. By dint of much driv- ing Kim was induced to start about seven, at which hour I had my flour and water stirabout. The halts for smoking, cook- ing, and eating were many, and about five o'clock he used to simulate exhaustion, a deception to which his lean form and thin face with its straight straggling white hair lent themselves effectively. Then followed the daily wrangle about the place to tie up, Kim naturally desiring a village and the proximity of junks, with much nocturnal smoking and gossip, while my wish was for solitude, quiet, and a pebbly river bottom, and with Mr. Miller's aid I usually carried my point. Between Kim's laziness and the frequent occurrence of rapids, lo miles came to be considered a good day's journey ! The same rapids made any settled plan of occupation impossible, yet on the early stages of the journey, when there were long quiet stretches of water between them, it was pleasant to elevate the roof and have a quiet morning's work till dinner at twelve. This, it must be confessed, was a precarious meal. Chickens for curry were not always attainable, and were often so small as to suggest the egg shell, and the river fish which were some- times got by pouncing on a boy fisherman were very minute and bony. Chestnuts often eked out a very scanty meal. Wong used to hunt along the river banks for wild onions and carrots, after the stock of the cultivated roots was exhausted, and he made paste of flour and water, rolled it with a bamboo on the top of a box, cut it into biscuits with the lid of a tin, and baked them in the frying-pan. Rice fritters too he made morning, noon, and night. Afternoon tea of Burrough's and Wellcome's “tabloids” was never omitted, and after tying up came supper, an impoverished repetition of dinner, the whole a wholesome regimen, invariably eaten with appetite.
Visiting villages and small towns, only to find the first a collection of mud hovels, and the last mud hovels with the ad- dition of ruinous official buildings and a forlorn Confucian temple, climbing to ridges bordering the Han to get a view of fertile and populous valleys, conversing with and interrogating the people through Mr. Miller and his servant, taking geo- graphical notes, temperatures, altitudes, barometric readings, and measurements of the river (nearly all unfortunately lost in a rapid on the downward journey), collecting and drying plants, photographing, and developing negatives under difficulties, all the blankets and waterproofs in the boat being requisitioned for the creation of a “dark room” — all these occupations made up busy and interesting days.
The first two days were spent in turning the flank of the range on which is the so-called fortress of Nam Han, with its priest soldiers, one of the four which are supposed to guard Seoul and offer refuge in times of trouble. On the right bank there are many villages of farmers, woodcutters, and charcoal burners, and on the left an expanse of cultivated sandy soil be- tween the mountains and the river, there a broad rapid stream rippling brightly over white sand or golden gravel. After pass- ing the Yang-kun magistracy, a large village with a long street, where a whole fleet of sampans was loading with country pro- duce for the capital, and a number of junks were unloading salt, the Han makes a sharp bend to the south, and after a long rapid expands into a very broad stream. The valley broadens also, and becomes flat, the hills, absolutely denuded even of scrub, are low, and recede from the river ; their serrated black ridges of rock, and their deeply scored, corrugated, flushed sides, which spring had scarcely tinged with green, are for- bidding, and though the valley was green with young wheat, that is quite the most monotonous and uninteresting part of the journey.
After circumventing the fine fortress summit of Nam Han, the river enters the mountains. From that time up to the head of possible navigation, the scenery in its variety, beauty, and unexpectedness exhausts the vocabulary of admiration.
A short distance above Han Kang is the Buddhist temple, of Ryeng-an Sa, dedicated to the Dragon, one of the two Buddhist sanctuaries on the long course of the Han. On the left bank a low stone wall encloses a spot on which a female dragon alighted from heaven in the days of the last dynasty, and where still, in times of flood or drought, sacrifices are offered and libations poured out to “Heaven.” The only other temple is that of Pyok-chol on the right bank of the Han, above Yo Ju, four days from Seoul. A steep wooded prom- ontory projects into the still, deep, green water, crowned with two brick and stone pagodas. In a wooded dell at the back there are some picturesque and elaborately carved and painted temples and monastic buildings, and a fine bell five centuries old, surmounted by an entanglement of dragons, which, with some medallions on the sides, are of very bold de- sign and successful workmanship, and the whole is said to have been cast in Chung-Chong Do before the Japanese stole the arts and artists ! A pavilion for the temple dramas was occu- pied for the afternoon by a large picnic of women and children from Y6 Ju. In one of the monastic courts there is a marble pagoda with some finely executed bas-reliefs on its sides, claiming a not distant kinship with those of the “marble pagoda” in Seoul. The establishment consisted of an abbot, nineteen monks, and four novices. The abbot was the most refined, intellectual, and aristocratic looking man that I saw in Korea, with an innate courtesy and refinement of manner rare anywhere. He carried the weight of seventy years with much grace and dignity, and made us cordially welcome. This was the last we saw of Buddhism till we reached the Diamond Mountain six weeks later.
At the village of Tomak-na-dali, where we tied up, they make the great purple-black jars and pots which are in univer- sal use. Their method is primitive. They had no objection to be watched, and were quite communicative. The potters pursue their trade in open sheds, digging up the clay close by. The stock-in-trade is a pit in which an uncouth potter's wheel revolves, the base of which is turned by the feet of a man who sits on the edge of the hole. A wooden spatula, a mason's wooden trowel, a curved stick, and a piece of rough rag are the tools, efficient for the purpose. Fifty li higher up, a few li from the river, are beds of kaolin used in the Government pottery and for the finer kinds of porcelain.
For two days the Han was about 400 yards wide, with a very tortuous course, abounding in rapids, shallows, and green islands, with great expanses of pure white sand on its left bank, and frequent villages of woodcutters and charcoal burn- ers on both. On the 16th we reached the forks at the village of Ma-chai. There the north branch, which was to be after- wards traversed, comes down, and the south branch, in every way more important, arrives from the southward. Between the two there is a pretty wooded island then pink with azalea blossom. Beyond is a fine stretch of alluvium, nearly 6 feet deep, bearing rich crops of barley and wheat, but entirely un- protected from the desolations of the river in its annual rise, which engulfs every year acres of this prolific soil. Ten years ago the Han, altering its course, brought down from the top of a steep bank at some distance a huge concrete double coffin 9 feet long and 16 inches thick ! The great alluvial expanse was make over to the Buddhists by the King, who receives annually a fixed amount of the produce.
Between Kim's laziness and plausibility, and the rapids, which though not severe were frequent, and the food hunt, which was a necessity, our progress was slow, and it was not till the 19th of April that we reached Yo Ju, the first town of any importance and the birthplace of the late Queen. It is memorable to me as being the first place where the crowd was obstreperous and obnoxious, though not hostile. It is humili- ating to be a “show” and to get nothing by it ! I went out on a rock in the river in the hope of using the prismatic com- pass in peace, and was nearly pushed into the water, and when I went up into the gate tower a stamping, curious crowd, climb- ing on everything that afforded a point of vantage, shook the old fabric so severely that the delicately balanced needle never came to rest. The crowd was dirty, the streets were foul and decayed, and worst of all was the magistrate's yamen, to which we had occasion to go, and where I found that a kwan-ja was powerless to obtain even common civility.
The yamen, though finely situated and enclosing in its grounds a large and much decorated pavilion for Royal use, but used as a children's playground, was in a state of wreck. The woodwork was crumbling, beams and rafters were falling down, lacquer and paint were scaling off, torn paper fluttered from the lattice windows, plaster hung from the grimy walls, the once handsome gate tower was on its last legs, in the court- yard some flagstones had subsided, others were exalted, and audacious ragweed and shepherd's purse grew in their crevices. Poverty, neglect, and melancholy reigned supreme. Within the gates were plenty of those persons who suck the lifeblood of Korea. There were soldiers in Tyrolese hats and coarse cotton uniforms in which blue predominated, yamen runners in abundance, writers, officers of injustice, messengers pre- tending to have business on hand, and many small rooms, in which were many more men sitting on the floor smoking long pipes, with writing materials beside them.
One attendant, by no means polite, took my kwan-ja to the magistrate, and very roughly led the way to two small rooms, in the inner one of which the official was seated on the floor, surrounded by a few elderly men. We were directed to stand at the opening between the two rooms, and behind us pressed as many of the crowd as could get in. I bowed low. No no- tice was taken. An attendant handed the magistrate a pipe, so long that it would have been impossible for him to light it for himself, and he smoked. Mr. Miller hoped that he was in good health. No reply, and the eyes were never raised. Mr. Miller explained the object of the visit, which was to get a lit- tle information about the neighborhood. There was only a very curt reply, and as the great man turned to one of his sub- ordinates and began to talk to him, and rude remarks were cir- culating, we took leave with the usual Korean phrases of po- liteness, which were not reciprocated.
We were told that there are many “high yang-bans” in Yo Ju, and it seemed natural that the magistrate of a town of only 700 houses should not be a man of high rank. The story goes that when he came they used “low talk” to him and or- dered him about as their inferior. So he lives chiefly in Seoul, and the man who sat in sordid state amidst the ruins of the spacious and elaborately decorated yamen does his work and divides the spoils, and the yang-bans are left to whatever their devices may be. But this is not an isolated case. Nearly all the river magistrates are mainly absentees, and spend their time, salaries, and squeezings in the capital. I had similar inter- views with three other magistrates. I asked nothing except change in cash for three yen, and on each occasion was told that the treasury was empty. My kwan-ja, a pompous doc- ument from the Foreign Office, was of this use only, it pro- cured me a chicken at a high price in a town where the people were unwilling to sell !
At Yo Ju I saw for the only time either in Korea or China the interior of an ancestral temple. It is a lofty building, with a curved tile roof and blackwood ceiling, approached by a roofed gateway. Opposite the entrance is an ebony stool, on which are a brass bowl and incense burner. Above this is a large altar, supporting two candlesticks with candles, and above that again an ebony stand on which rests a polished black marble tablet inscribed with the name of the deceased. Be- hind that, in a recess in the wall, with elaborate fretwork doors, is his life-sized portrait in Chinese style. The floor is covered with plain matting. In the tablet the third soul of the deceased is supposed to dwell. Food is placed before it three times daily for three years in the case of a parent, and there the relations, after the expiration of that period, meet at stated seasons every year and offer sacrifice and “worship.”
At the large and prosperous-looking village of Chon-yaing the people told us that a “circus” was about to perform and impelled us towards it ; but finding that it was in the court- yard of a large tiled-roof mansion, in good repair and of much pretension, we were retiring, when we were cordially invited to enter, and I was laid hold of (literally) by the serving- women and dragged through the women's court and into the women's apartments. I was surrounded by fully forty women, old and young, wives, concubines, servants, all in gala dress and much adorned. The principal wife, a very young girl wearing some Indian jewellery, was very pretty and had an exquisite complexion, but one and all were destitute of man- ners. They investigated my clothing, pulled me about, took off my hat and tried it on, untwisted my hair and absorbed my hairpins, pulled off my gloves and tried them on with shrieks of laughter, and then, but not till they had exhausted all the amusement which could be got out of me, they bethought themselves of entertaining me by taking me through their apartments, crowding upon me to such an extent as they did so that I was nearly carried off my feet. They took me through fourteen communicating rooms, with fine parquet floors, mostly spoiled by being covered in whole or in part with Brussels tapestry carpets of “loud” and vulgar patterns in hideous aniline dyes. Great mirrors in tawdry gilt frames glared from the tender coloring of the walls, and French clocks asserted their expensive vulgarity in every room.
In the outer court a rope was stretched for the rope-dancers, and kettledrums and reed-pipes gave promise of such music as Koreans love. I was escorted across two other courts sur- rounded by verandas supported on dressed stone, and with iron railings instead of wood, to an elevated reception room, where a foreign table and some tawdry velvet-covered chairs clashed with the tastefulness of the walls and the fine mats bordered with the Greek fret on the floor. French clocks, all keeping different time, were much en evidence. The host, a youth of eighteen, eldest son of the governor of one of the most important governorships in Korea, welcomed us, and seemed anxious to receive us courteously. Wine, soup, eggs, and kimchi, an elaborate sort of “sour kraut,” were produced, and had to be partaken of, our host meanwhile smoking an expensive foreign cigar, which gave him an opportunity for the ostentatious display of a showy diamond ring. He was dressed in sea-green silk, and wore a hat of very fine quality.
He wanted to see the inside of my camera and to be photo- graphed, for which purpose we retired to the back of the house to avoid the enormous crowd which had collected, and which was becoming every moment more impolite and dis- orderly. I made him exchange the foreign cigar, vulgar in a Korean's mouth, for the national long pipe. At this juncture some friends came up, hangers-on, who were feasting with him to celebrate his having obtained a good place in a recent ex- amination, and made a rudely-worded request for our immedi- ate departure. It was obvious that, after their unmannerly curiosity had been satisfied, our presence, and the courteous treatment extended to us, spoilt their amusement. The ring- leader spoke roughly to our host, who turned his back on us and retired meekly to his own apartments, although he is a son of an official of the highest rank, and a near relative of the late Queen. We could only make a somewhat ignominious exit, having been truly “played out.”
This rage for French clocks, German mirrors, foreign cigars, chairs upholstered in velvet, and a general foreign tawdriness is spreading rapidly among the young “swells” who have money to spend, vulgarizing Korean simplicity, and setting the example to those below them of an extravagant and purely selfish expenditure. The house, with its many courtyards, was new and handsome, and money glared from every point. I was glad to return to the simplicity of my boat, hoping that with the “plain living, high thinking” might be combined !
Beyond the mountains east of Yo Ju, the Han passes through a noble stretch of rich alluvium, bearing superb, and fairly clean crops, and bordered by low, serrated, denuded, and much corrugated ranges, faintly tinged with green. On this gently rolling plain are many towns and villages, among the larger of which are Won Ju, Chung Ju, Chong-phyong, and Tan-Yang, all on or near the river, by which they con- veniently export their surplus produce, chiefly beans, tobacco, and rice, and receive in return their supplies of salt and for- eign goods. Even at that season of low water the traffic was considerable.
Higher up, the scenery changes. Lofty limestone bluffs, often caverned, rise abruptly from the river, and wall in the fertile and populous valleys which descend upon it, giving place higher up to grand basaltic formation, range behind range, terraces of columnar basalt occasionally appearing. It was a lovely season, warm days, cold nights, brilliant sunshine, great white masses of sunlit clouds on a sky of heavenly blue, distances idealized in a blue veil which was not a mist, flowers at their freshest, every bird that has a note or a cry vocal, butterflies and red and blue dragon-flies hovering over the grass and water, fish leaping, all nature awake and jubilant. And every rift and bluff had its own beauty of blossoming scarlet azaleas, or syringas, contorted or stately pines, and Ampelopsis Veitchiana rose-pink in its early leafage. There was a note of gladness in the air.
Eight days above Seoul, on the left bank of the river, there is a ruinous pagoda built of large blocks of hewn stone, stand- ing solitary in the centre of a level plain formed by a bend of the Han. The people, on being asked about it, said, “When Korea was surveyed so long ago that nobody knows when, this was the centre of it.” They call it the “Halfway Place.” After that the only suggestions of antiquity are some stone foundations, and a few stone tombs among the trees, which, from their shape, may denote the sites of monasteries.
Near that pagoda were a number of men very drunk, and there were few days on which the habit of drinking to excess was not more or less prominent. The junkmen celebrated the evening's rest by hard drinking, and the crowd which nightly assembled on the shore when we tied up was usually enlivened by the noisy antics of one or more intoxicated men. From my observation on the Han journey and afterwards, I should say that drunkenness is an outstanding feature in Korea. And it is not disreputable. If a man drinks rice wine till he loses his reason, no one regards him as a beast. A great dignitary even may roll on the floor drunk at the end of a meal, at which he has eaten to repletion, without losing caste, and on becoming sober receives the congratulations of inferiors on being rich enough to afford such a luxury. Along with the taste for French clocks and German gilding, a love of foreign liquors is becoming somewhat fashionable among the young yang-bans and willing caterers are found who produce potato spirit rich in fusel oil as “old Cognac,” and a very effervescent cham- pagne at a shilling a bottle !
The fermented liquors of Korea are probably not unwhole- some, but the liking for them is an acquired taste with Euro- peans. They vary from a smooth white drink resembling buttermilk in appearance, and very mild, to a water-white spirit of strong smell and fiery taste. Between these comes the ordinary rice wine, slightly yellowish, akin to Japanese sake and Chinese samshu, with a faint, sickly smell and flavor. They all taste more or less strongly of smoke, oil, and alcohol, and the fusel oil remains even in the best. They are manu- factured from rice, millet, and barley. The wine-seller pro- jects a cylindrical basket on a long pole from his roof, resem- bling the “bush” formerly used in England for a similar pur- pose. Probably one reason that the Koreans are a drunken people is that they scarcely use tea at all even in the cities, and the luxury of “cold water” is unknown to them. The peasants drink hot rice water with their meals, honey water as a luxury, and on festive occasions an infusion of orange peel or ginger. The drying of orange peel is quite a business with Korean housewives. There were quantities of it hanging from the eaves of all the cottages.
Up to a short distance above this pagoda, the rapids for which the Han is famous, though they made our progress slow, had not suggested serious difficulty, far less risk, but for the remaining fortnight they were tortuous rocky channels, through which the river, compressed in width, rushes with great violence and tremendous noise and clatter, or they are successive broken ledges of rock, with a chaos of flurry and foam, varied by deep pools, presenting formidable, and at some seasons insuperable, obstacles to navigation. To all ap- pearance they are far more dangerous than the celebrated rapids of the Yangtze, and the remains of timber rafts and junks attest their destructive properties. They occur at shorter and shorter intervals as the higher waters are reached, till eventually the Han becomes an unbroken rapid or cataract.
Kim, though paid handsomely, was far too stingy to pay for any help en route, his ropes were manifestly bought in “the cheapest market,” and though Wong, my powerful sampan- man, worked with both strength and skill, and Mr. Miller and his servant toiled at the tow ropes, and in great exigencies I gave a haul myself, we sometimes made only 7 miles a day, and ofttimes took two hours to ascend a few yards, two poling with might and main in the boat, and three tugging with all their strength on shore. Often the ropes snapped, when the boat went spinning and flying to the foot of the rapid, some- times with injury to herself and her contents, sometimes escaping. After a few of such risks I habitually landed, either on a boatman's back or wading in waterproof Wellingtons, which caused great wonderment in the lookers on. The worst rapids were always in the most beautiful places, and the strolls and climbs of three or four hours along the river banks, through fields with bounteous crops, through odorous Spanish chestnut groves, through thickets with their fascinating be- wilderments of roses, clematis, and honeysuckle, and past farmhouses with their privacy of bamboo screens, and deep shade of blossoming fruit trees, were very delightful.
In ten days from Seoul we reach Chong-phyong, a town of some pretensions, where in connection with the yamen is a temple pavilion with a high white chair, facing a table with candlesticks upon it, floor, table, and chair deep in dust, though the building is used regularly for offering prayers and sacrifices for the King. Dust is not noteworthy in Korea, but the paintings in this temple are. On the end walls are vivid groups of six noblemen wearing fine horsehair palace hats with wings, each man holding a piece of folded paper in his hand, and listening intently as he bends forward towards the chair. The conception and technique of these paintings are admirable, and the sunset scenes on the back wall, though inferior in execution, are the work of a true artist.
Close by is a Royal pavilion hanging over the edge of a high bluff above the Han, surrounded by superb elms, some of their trunks from 20 to 23 feet in circumference. The view of the fertile valley and of the mountains beyond is very fine, and the decorative woodwork, painted in Korean style, has been very handsome; but the phrase “has been” describes most things Korean, and official squalor and neglect could scarcely go farther.
At Chong-phyong and elsewhere the common people, in spite of their overpowering curiosity, were not rude, and usually retired to a respectful distance to watch us eat ; but from the class of scholars who hang on round all yamens we met with a good deal of underbred impertinence, some of the men going so far as to raise the curtain of my compartment and introduce their heads and shoulders beneath it, brow- beating the boatmen when they politely asked them to desist. On the other hand, men of the non-cultured class showed us various small attentions, sometimes helping with a haul at the ropes at a rapid, only asking in return that their wives might see me, a request with which I always gladly complied. At Chong-phyong, so great was female curiosity that a number of women waded waist deep after the boat to peer under the mats of the roof, and one of them, scrambling out to a rock for a final stare, overbalanced herself and fell into deep water. At one point, in the very early morning, some women presented themselves at the boat, having walked several li with a present of eggs, the payment for which was to be a sight of me and my poor equipments, they having heard that there was a boat with a foreign woman on board. The old cambric curtains brought from Persia, with a red pattern on a white ground, always attracted them greatly, and the small Japanese cooking utensils.
In thirteen days from Seoul we reached Tan -Yang, a magis- tracy prettily situated on the left bank of the Han, with a picturesque Confucian temple on the hill above ; and a day later entered upon mountainous country of extreme beauty. The paucity of tributaries is very marked. Up to that point, except the north branch, there are but two — one which joins the Han at the village of Hu-nan Chang, on the right bank, and is navigable for 60 li, as far as the important town of Wan Ju; and another, which enters 2 li above the picturesquely-situated village of So-il, on the left bank. Above Tan-Yang the river forms long and violent rapids, alternating with broad stretches of blue, quiet water from 10 to 20 feet deep, rolling majestically, making sharp and extraordinary bends among lofty limestone precipices. Villages on natural terraces occur constantly, the lower terrace planted with mul- berry or weeping willows. Hemp is cultivated in great quan- tities, and is used for sackcloth for mourners' wear, bags, and rope. In my walks along the river I had several opportunities of seeing the curious method of separating the fibre, rude and primitive, but effectual. At the bottom of a stone paved pit large stones are placed, which are heated from a rough oven at the side. The hemp is pressed down in bundles upon these, and stakes are driven in among them. Piles of coarse Korean grass are placed over the hemp, and earth over all, well beaten down. The stakes are then pulled up and water is poured into the holes left by them. This, falling on the heated stones, pro- duces a dense steam, and in twenty-four hours the hemp fibre is so completely disintegrated as to be easily separated.
A grand gorge, 3 miles long, with lofty cliffs of much-cav- erned limestone, varied by rock needles draped with Ampelopsis and clematis, and giving foothold to azaleas, spirea, syringa, pear, hawthorn, climbing roses, wistaria, cyclamen, lycopo- dium, yellow vetches, many Labiatae, and much else, contains but one village, piled step above step in a deep wooded fold of the hills, on which millet culture is carried to a great height, on slopes too steep to be ploughed by oxen. This gorge opens out on slopes of rich soil, some of which is still uncultivated. The hamlets are small, and grow much hemp, and each has its hemp pit. They also grow Urtica Nivea, from the bleached fibre of which their grass cloth summer clothes are made. All these are surrounded with mulberry groves.
The large village of Cham-su-ki, at the head of two severe rapids, in ascending which our ropes snapped three times, offers a good example of the popular belief in spirits. It is approached under a tasselled straw rope, one end of which is wound round a fine tree with a stone altar below it. On another rope were suspended a few small bags containing offerings of food. If a person dies of the pestilence or by the roadside, or a woman dies in childbirth, the spirit invariably takes up its abode in a tree. To such spirits offerings are made on the stone altar of cake, wine, and pork, but where the tree is the domicile of the spirit of a man who has been killed by a tiger, dog's flesh is offered instead of pork. The Cham-su-ki tree is a fine well-grown elm. Gnarled trees, of which we saw several on hilltops and sides, are occupied by the spirits of persons who have died be- fore reaching a cycle, i.e. sixty years of age. A steep cliff above Cham-su-ki is also denoted as the abode of daemons by a straw rope and a stone altar.
We had some very cold and windy days near the end of April, the mercury falling to 34°, and one night of tempestuous rain. It would be absurd to write of sufferings, but at that tempera- ture in an open boat, with the roof lifting and flapping and threatening to take its departure, it was impossible to sleep. Afterwards the weather was again splendid.
Abrupt turns, long rapids full of jagged rocks, long stretches of deep, still water, abounding in fish, narrow gorges walled in by terraces of basalt, lateral ravines disclosing fine snow- streaked peaks, succeeded each other, the shores becoming less and less peopled, while the parallel valleys abounded in fairly well-to-do villages. Just below a long and dangerous rapid we stopped to dine, and though the place seemed quite solitary, a crowd soon gathered, and sat on the adjacent stones talking noisily, trying to get into the boat, lifting the mats, discussing whether it were polite to watch people at dinner, some taking one side and some another, those who were half tipsy taking the affirmative. Some said that they had got news from sev- eral miles below that this great sight was coming up the river, and it was a shame to deprive them of it by keeping the cur- tains down. After a good deal of obstreperousness, mainly the result of wine, a man overbalanced himself and fell into the river, which raised a laugh, and then they followed us good- naturedly up the rapid, one man helping to track, and asking as his reward that his wife might see me, on which I exhibited myself on the bow of the boat.
At the village of Pang-wha San, built, contrary to Korean practice, on a height of 800 feet, there is a stone platform, on which was nightly lighted one of that chain of beacon fires ter- minating at Nam-San in Seoul, which assured the King that his kingdom was at peace. 1 Another village, Ha-chin, was im- pressive from the frightful ugliness of its women. After leav- ing Tan-Yang the curiosity increased. People walked great dis- tances to see us, saying they had never seen foreigners, and bringing eggs to pay for the sight, which I paid for, telling the people that we had nothing to show ; but extravagant rumors of what was to be seen in the boat had preceded us, and as the people assembled at daylight and generally waited patiently, I always yielded to their wishes, raised the thatch, and made the most of the red and white curtains. In one place I gave them some tea to drink. They had never seen it, and thought it was medicine, and on tasting it said, “It must be very good for indigestion !”
1. The telegraph has now superseded this picturesque arrangement.