The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1910-1920, 1910-12-24
The Land of the Morning Calm"


the patriarchs of Israel; in the civilization in
10 "hlch nave come science and invention
are In swaddling clothes, the Pyramids are vet
young the great Nations of Western Europe still
in the womb of Time.
Ihis at least is how have felt now that having
ieit Japan am travelling through Korea. 1.-The
Land of the Morning Calm" whose authentic re~
corded history runs back into the twelfth century
oelore the Christian era and whose general feat
ures must have changed but little in all this time
typical Korean view of the year 1910 might
wen De photographed to illustrate Sunday school
lesson from the Old Testament. The men in the
heids have seen pillow bullocks harnessed in the
primitive fashion of the earliest civilization Their
plow stocks are of wood rough hewn from their
native forest trees, the plowman here never
standing between the ''powhandles' as we say, be-
cause there is only one handle and that little bet
ter than stick OF fre-wood With sckles equal
primitive, have seen men cutting the ripe rice
in the fields; with fails, beating out their grain
Their houses are little more than four-square
rock walls with roofs OF straw, over which pump
kin vines Chamber which immense quaint
tiles OF red pepper are drying in the autumn sun.
Nor would the dress OF the people-everybody in
white Cor what was once white) garments-have
seemed strange in ancient Judea; there Is the
same mixture OF plains and peaks as Bible pic
lures OF the Holy Land have made familiar, and
at night as October's hunters moon glorifes all
the landscape, faint light cleaning here and
theTe from an opening IN the rock nuts, and with
Arcturus and the Pleiades Of Job In the sky, it
has seemed almost sacrege to mar the pncent
environment by such an anachronism a modern
railway locomotive. Rather, in looking out over
the picturesque mountains and valleys and smiling
the cool, dry air, you feel the call of the Wild
in your blood. Across long centuries the life Of
your far-gone nomadic ancestors calls to you, and
almost irresistibly you are moved to take a human
friend and friendly horse pony and pitch your
camp out under the stars-arger and brighter in
deed they do seem to burn here in the Orient
and feel the dew on your face you awaken in
the morning calm" OF the ancient Hermit King
dom. whose feeble life snuffed out, like the
flame OF 4 burnt-down candle, but few short
weeks ago.
The Fascination of u Primitive City.
AS came into Seoul three nights ago found
IL hardly less fascinating than the country through
which l had travelled during the day Through
ancient streets, unlit by any electric glare. strange
ly robed white figures were gliding here and there
in the moonlight, singly or in groups, and but q
few minutes ride in rickshas brought us to the
old South Gate-great monument OF dead era
relic OF the days when Seoul trusted to its ter
miles of massive stone walls (already century ole
when Columbus set sail from Palos) to keep ou
the Mongol and the Tartar.
In Japan found different world from tina
which had known, but world in which East ant
West strangely mingled much Of the ia
miar with the unfamiliar Here In Korea, OF
the contrary, have found the real East, the Ash;
Of romance, of tradition and OF fable, almost un
touched by Western innuences-dirty squalid
unprogressive. and yet with fascination all it
own. Great bare mountains look down thu
capital city, the old city wall climbing their steel
sides and the historic Hau flows through an ada
cent valley. The matched or tiled roofs of tn
houses are but little higher than ones head, and
shall never forget what a towering skyscraper eff
nv nh nj nhar'S twO
story studio building on the main street of the cit
practically every other building but little hghe
and not greatly larger as rule than the pens 4
which our American farmers fatten hogs in tn
fall Most American merchants would expect
make more in n day than the average white-robet