The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1883-07-05
UOrea and the COreans.

There is much natural beauty in the
country, the beauty of mountain, forest
and prairie, of profuse vegetation, and
plentiful rivers and cataracts. And the
people are not Indifferent to these beau
ties; they are a - SEEING race, and
proud (amOng themselves) of their
marine and mountain views. The
country is fertile, but the climate has
great extremes of heat and cold. The
Indian story of "the tiger that owns my
village" would be thoroughly appre-
ciated in COrea, where very large and
fierce species of that terrible animal
abOunds, and the idea of it pervades
all works of art. To Japanese chill
dren, Chosen is known as ''the land of
the tiger" LeOpards, bears and wolves
are also very numerous, the wild deer
and the wild hog abound, monkeys are
found in the southern provinces, and al
ligators and salamanders in the riv-
ers. The people are large eaters, espe-
cially of meat; small oxen in great
numbers supply them in the south, and
dogs are eaten commonly. Tea and
rice are rare luxuries, and fish is chiefly
devoured raw. Altogether, the ''diet"
chapter is an uncomfortable one.
Sheep are imported from China for sac
rificial purposes only, and goats are
I
/ fed; they live, like the Japanese, on
millet and beans. All classes use to-
! bacco very much. We may take it that
the manners and customs which MIR.
| Griffis describes as existing now are.
! just the same as they have been for ages;
| domestic slavery in its mildest form, for
| instance, the position of women, the fra
4 ternal principles on which trades and
! industries are conducted, and the curl
Gus ceremonies of marriage, burial and
mourning.
Women are not so i'll off in Corea as
| in many other less secluded heather
countries. They have no rights, and
are disposed of like the other animals;
but they are not ill-treated by their
owners, and though their personal in
significance actually extends to their
having no names, they receive titles of
| honor in public, their apartments are
secure from intrusion, they can not be
punished for any crime, the males of
the family being responsible for them,
and they are free (and-safe) to go about
at all hours. Widows of position are
not supposed to marry again, and are
expected to mourn all their lives, but a
man whose wife dies wears half mourn
ing for very short time. 1t is breach
of good manners TO be vehemently sorry
for ones wife, and the sex that makes
every law finds that one easy to keep.
A Corean King is a rather absurd per-
| sonage; nobody must touch him unbid-
den, and any one who accidentally
does so has henceforth to wear a red
cord round the neck. Metal, also, must
never approach the royal person. The
King has despotic power, but it is tenn
pered by MANY kindly customs; he
] 10; l.
is in constant communication with the
! populace, by means of commissioners.
The royal outings are tremendous af-
fairs, with caparisoned horses, dragon
| flags, and the sacred fan and umbrella.
The mobiles are a bad and cruel class,
| according to all accounts of them. The
officials and magistrates are Literary"
Literature has from time immemOrial
| been held in honor in Corea, from
whence the japanese adopted printing
in the twelfth century, when a work of
the Buddhist canon was printed from
wooden blocks. "A COrean book is
known which dates automatically from
/ the period 1317-1324, over a century
before the earliest printed book known
in Europe" The Coreans are Bud
dhists, but Shamanism has never lost its
hold upon them, and the old gods are
reverenced still, just as the old myths
remain in modern Greece. The air is
not empty for a COrean, and every
month has its three unlucky days-the
5th, the 18th and the 25th. The wor-
ship of ancestors and the Chinese system
of ethics, or COnfucianism, are their
ruling principles, and the fulfillment of
the parental and filial relations in an
admirable manner is the distinguishing
virtue of the hermit race.-LO1adOa
Spectator.