Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1921-10-05

from the rice-fields on each side of
the track. Ranks of women in
spreading dresses, all bent over at
a uniform angle, and all aligned
carefully to the right, waded along
wedding the rice. Great blue herons
rested on one leg and ambushed
frogs. The crow, who misses
nothing anywhere, superintended
things and cawed noisily. Little
villages, their roofs heavily matched
with straw, nestled in the scrub
pines on the hillsides. Women
carrying jars of water on their
heads contested space on rustic
bridges with bullock-teams. An
ocerloaded camel stretched out his
long neck and sneered at us as we
went by. Blue mountains in the
distance, green hills, dark scrub
pine, contrasting sharply with a
bright, reddish colored soil, and an
old long-whiskered grandfather, in
baggy trousers and tall hat slowly
pacing, with hands behind back,
the dixie of his rice-paddy, the while
he gazed meditatively toward a tenn
pie set in grove of trees.
We had hardly alighted from the
train at Seoul when very busy
little Japanese in a blue uniform
came busting up demanding to know
what state we were from. "Why?"
we asked. ooh nothing" he re-
piled, in an off-hand manner, II
thought maybe you might be from
Chicago. l went to grammar school
there" A Japanese soldier saluted
affably, and we knew him for
member of H. 1. j. MS Tientsin gar
rison. Thus our welcome was not
unfriendly.
Seoul was built by ancient build
ers with an eye for defense, for it
is set in a cleft in the barren, i'm
passable mountains. Great, sheer
cliffs of dry, naked rock surround it
on all sides. AS far as the eye can
reach, white peak after white peak
stretches away until the blue of the
sky mingles with the living rock.
But the old wall that once sur
rounded the city has been torn down
to make way for the modern build
ings of the progressive Jap. The
ancient Temple of Heaven now
adorns the rose-garden of the hotel,
where it is served up as an "at-
traction"
This hotel, like the rest of the
new city, is new and thoroughly
up-to-date." 1t has music (hidden
away in a screened balcony with
it's meals. The first night we were
there, a violin and base viol (both
Japanese) sawed away for dear life
in an endeavor to keep up with
player-piano in "Brass-Band
Ephraim Jones'" The men fiddled
hard, but lost the race, the player
piano finishing first, and tapping
the end of it's music-roll while the
rest of the field struggled in. How
ever, the hotel is good, and deserves
credit for being all that is claimed
for it.
AS Kipling says of Nagasaki, Seoul
is inhabited entirely by children
Japanese children. "a four-foot
child walks with three-foot child,
who is holding the hand of a two
foot child, who carries on her back
a one-foot child" Little blue-eyed
babies like dolls are carried on the
backs of larger dolls by cross
strap, haversack arrangement, that
permits the carryee to flop and loll
about in good-natured drollery.
Once we saw a Japanese swishing
and simpering along in his kimono,
and tanning himself in way that
anywhere else would have looked
like the mannerism of an affected
woman, old style. Yet he had GER
tain and peculiar dignity all his
own.
We passed two days in confu-
sion of curios, kimonos, Korean
chests, pergodas, lakes, hill-climb-
ing, view-seeing, and the STEADY
clump, clump of wooden sandals on
pavement; and spent our last eve
ming sitting about the fountain in
the rose-garden of the hotel talk
ing with the homesick men that
carry on Uncle Sans trade in far
countries. One of these men looked
about him with a bored expression
and said, YEARLY, that he would as
soon be stationed thousand miles
in the interior as in the giddy CAPT.
tai. He said he wondered what
was doing on Broadway.
A lady who spoke Familiarity and
Interestingly of Moji and
Shimonoseki, and the beautiful view
from Myoto (she had been out six
teen years. finally said, with a sigh,
that she had spent the best years of
her life out here, and regretted it
exceedingly. docs anyone in the
crowd know man named Ed.
Emerson?" we inquired. What,
Ed. En- aTson of Unsankinko? Why,
bless you, yes! My best friend at
the mine. He is nights journey
back along the line and fifty-one
miles from the railroad. Come
right in and we'll wire that you're
coming" We hadn't, at first, any
idea of such a trip, but we went in,
we wired, and we went.
We took the train at night, got
off about sunrise at the collection
of matched huts that is Mochurl,
and waited in the rain. Be 1t
known that the rains mean business
in Korea. To get stranded at the
mines when they come means
siege; for the roads are long, and
narrow, and muddy, and have hair
pin turns about the edges of breath
taking drops. Also, there are