Evening star., 1904-02-27

little or nothing but the suffering caused
to Koreans will be more heavy TO bear,
perhaps. than the suffering Of either OF the
contending armies
A Great River Valley.
The next great river valley in this west
ern half of Korea is that OF the River Han;
at its mouth is the seaport OF Chemulpo.
where the Russian cruisers Variag and Ko-
rietz were recently sunk. Chemulpo bears
the same relation to Korea as Tampa does
TO Florida. The former is midway down
the Korean peninsula on the Yellow sea
coast; the latter is midway down Florida ON
the gulf coast. And Pensacola to the
nor orlhwest. pears much the relation to Tam
pa & as Port Arthur pears to Chemulpo.
Shch is the lay of the land" IT Is as If
Russia were throwing her army aro1,nd
from PENSACOLA to Tampa. and as though
the Japanese were spreading rorthward
from Tampa to meet it. The crash, unless
,o-.,s put sues defensive campaign, will
Yang. sehs-
After topography the next nost imnor.
taht FACTOR in Korea as battle ground is
veyance ~ 'Nis VI con-
The roads are no better than the old In
oIan trails of America. NomfnaIly they are
Oh three classes. but when it comes TO a
practical classification, any one wnuld ha
confused to find two classes To saw notb;ns5
OF three The old battle-scarred natb from
Seoul northward is one of six ersst roo5s
VI Korea, put 1t is really great only in tine
oepths OF its bottomless sloughs
A Bad Weather Horror.
The old hog wallow roads of Ohio and
INDIANA were not worse than the hes. of
ehese SIX imperial highways of Korea i'm
80 Dau "eather: We're II not an exceedingly
stony land. favorable to road-mak KING thaS,
would be quite impossible in the rai1, 81! sa
s oh VI the year, In midsummer Travellers
IN the interior of Korea have COME ,,ra,s
1io t,teie square pens planted fairly in the mid
uie oI the roadway, to find they were The
tops OF carts sunk out of sight srd ,.o. o -.
De recovered until spring - W
80 ~ 'he 'reachefous fords of the rivers the
ne e"Ie I ore desperate. On this western coast
OF Korea the tides of the Yellow saa ara
nlgher than anywhere In the world ou,side
tne Day OF fundy; and while the rivers oS
Eastern horea are clear streams that r1n
s,,n. smtntiy from The mountains. those on the
western SIDE are great, brown muddy rixy
ers up which the thirty-foot ocean tides
surge many miles. The rainy season IN
midsummer swell the rivers greatly, and IL
Is Hot uncommon to come to a stream and
ma that the bridge across it was carefully
folded up last May and put safely away
ana Will not be put up again until next SEN
tember. The floods would have claimed the
structure had not this foret bo,,gbt haa,1 -
ercised.
The armies now on these roads or bridle
paths of Korea viii find the matter of
of supplies and ammunition
as dlfhcult as Braddock found it in the AL
legheny mountains a century and a half
ago. Wheeled vehicles are not common in
Korea, the bad roads making them useless
for most of the year. The beasts of burden
are the little ponies and the sleek bulls.
which transport nine-tenths of all Korea's
freight.
Their Small Ponies.
The Korean pony is a very small affair.
averaging only eleven and a half or twelve
hands high, but in meanness he outrivals
any horse of the most heroic mold, Yet he
has some excellent points to make up for
being always cross; he can and will carry
most patiently very heavy loads for his
size. These run up to over 200 pounds in
good weather, and average $50 In bad. And
they are sure-footed as mountain goat.
They take their gait from the race they
serve, and. no Korean was ever known to
show such poor form as to hurry. The po-