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Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film6s i des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clichd, il est film6 d partir de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche it droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nicessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mithode. 1 2 3 1 o CO O w C/3 KOREAN SKETCHES BT Rev. James S. Gale, B.A. {Toronto Univcnity) Of the American Presbyterian Mission. Wonsan. Korea C. W. COATES, Mont William Briggs Wesley Buildings, Toronto ""-^L S. F. HUESTIS, Hal, FAX 0)57 G IS o Copyright, tSgS by Flkming H. Rkvell Compakt Preface Comparatively little has as yet been writ- ten that gives an idea of Korean life and char- acter. After some nine years of intimate asso- ciation with tliis quaintest and oldest of living races, I have put these sketches together, be- lieving that they give a correct picture of the Hermit people as it is, and as it has been since the long forgotten days before our Anglo-Saxon race came into existence. May they be instru- mental in drawing young men and women into deeper sympathy with our brothers and sisters of the Hermit Kingdom ! James S. Gale. WoNSAN, Korea. ON LIFE. Ye white gull of the sea So free! IVhat earthly care or rue. Is there for a bird like you. Swimming on the sea ? Tell of those happy islands where Poor mortals may resign their care, And follow after thee! Contents CHAP. PIOE I. First Impressions ii II. The Coolie 62 III. The Yalu and Beyond 72 IV. From Poverty to Riches 104 V. The Korean Pony 117 VI. Across Korea 127 VII. The Korean Boy 143 VIII. Korean New Year 157 IX. The Korean Mind 174 X. The Korean Gentleman 182 XI. Korea's Present Condition 194 XII. Some Special Friends 222 XIII. A Missionary Chapter 238 XIV. Methodist Episcopal Church South im Korea 257 ON LIFE. More than half of life is over. young again? no, never! never! Cease, then, from this grouing gray And as you are, so please to stay; These white hairs must surely knovc How to turn more slowly so J PHILOSOPHICAL This mountain green, these waters blue They were not made, they simply grew; And 'tween the hills and waters here' L too, have grown as I appear. Youth grows, until the years unfold. Then age com.es on by growing old. ' ALL AT ONE SHOVEL LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS J • Seoul .... Devil Posts , All at One Shovel , Some of the Inhabitants The Hope of the Nation The Coolie The Coolie's Wife The Korean Pony The Cangue % According to Law i The Wardrobe of the Gentry KosiKi (What-you-may-call-her) WGnsan Japanese Settlement Wonsan Chinese Settlemen H. H. Prince Eui Wha Korean Minister to the United States Buddhist Monks i Buddhist Pagoda j • • • • [ENT J iNT ) Frontispiece •• 9 Facing " 40 •t «« 4t •« «< «« «i 4( (( • « «* «« 52 118 200 222 234 t A KOREAN LOyE SONG, That rock heaved up on yonder shore, I'll chisel out and cut and score. And mark the hair, and make the horns. And put on feet, and ail the turns Required for a cow; And then, my l&ve, if you go 'way, I'll saddle up my bovine gray. And follozi) you somehow. KOREAN FILIAL PIETY. That pond'rous weighted iron bar I'll spin out thin in threads so far To reach the sun, and fasten on And tie him in before he's gone. That parents who are growing gray May not get old another day. Korean Sketches FIRST IMPRtF-^^ONS Korea, as doubtless you know, is a penin- Bula stretching soutliwart :-, in a po^^i^on to form a convenient highway for the Japanese, when on tlieir way to the Celestial Empire. Jt is supposed to contain a population of twelve mil- lions; I say supposed, as the census returns uro anything but accurate. The area is about the same as that of the state of Utah. The con- figuration of the land consists of a succession of mountain ranges so that, when travelling, you are kept on a constant tiptoe of expecta- tion, each pass revealing vistas beyond. Ko- reans have an expression that is frequently re- peated : San way you san san pool chin (over the hills, hills again, hills witliout number). In 1890, on a journey through the south, I called on the governor of Kyiing-sang, the largest province of the kingdom; and one of his first questions was, " Do the mountains sit as close together in your honorable country?" These mountains form sites for ancestral graves, n 12 Korean Sketches are looked upon as dragons, and, as the native vsays, distribute various atmospheres over the hind, prcjpitious and unprupitious. Tiie fulhjwiiig spring, the same governor was called upon to decide a dispute that arose con- cerning one of these dragon elevations, and as his decision gave dissatisfaction, he was given a dose of poison in a watermelon a week or two later ; so the grave dispute was settled. You ina}' maltreat Koreans with impunity, in fact a traveller may take possession of their rooms, and turn them out on the street, and they will take it as nothing serious, if not a joke ; but touch an ancestral grave and your life will pay for it. The people of Korea claim to be a race de- scended from the gods, slightl}' admixed witii Chinese ; no wonder they develop at times ex- traordinary traits. They have had a horror of foreigners, yang- irii or men of the sea, from time immemorial. Weather-worn tablets still stand by the road- side, in essence, marked thus: "If you meet a foreigner kill him ; he Avho lets him go by is a traitor to his country." It speaks well for Korea that slie could lay by these murderous traditions in a day, and bear with foreigners as she has since the signing of the treaties. It is ten years and more since the "barbarian" entered, ten years of political chaos it has been, First Impressions »3 and yet no European or American has been injured, or threatened, or treated in any otiier than the kindest way. Missionary work has gone on unmolested, and there are a thousand and more Christians, having many established places for regular wor- ship. Amongst my first impressions, I recall being quite overwhelmed by the wide pantaloons and white dress of a Korean, who came on board ship in Nagasaki harbor on my first ar- rival there. Why such a dress, and wherefore the topknot? Little did I dream that he valued his topknot so highly, or that in every seam of his wide pantaloons were stitched ancestral rev- erence, Confucian propriety, ancient traditions, and other tremendous considerations that cer- tainly required all that width of garment, and more too, could piece goods as wide as the wearer's aspirations be obtained. Our sliip came to anchor in Fusan bay, wliich has but two narrow openings and from the an- chorage appears landlocked. At the main en- trance are immense sentinel cliffs that stand guard looking seaward. In the year 1893, one pleasant June evening, we were just making the harbor through this entrance, when sud- denly the gong sounded to reverse engines, and all passengers made for the deck. The chief officer was ordering a boat to be lowered H Korean Sketches almost at the point of his revolver, as though life depended upon it, while the captain on the bridge was using strong English. What such a commotion could mean we were entirely at a loss to know, until word was passed, that a man was overboard. After ten minutes searching, we saw them fish up a drowning Chinaman, who, it seemed, in a mad freak, had jumped overboard. My wife remarked to a Russian lady passenger standing by, " Too bad about the poor Chinaman." • Humph! " said the Rus- sian lady with a shrug of her shoulders, "Plenty Chinaman ! " But I am digressing ; on this first trip, when the ship dropped anchor, we were in full view of the brown denuded hills which look so un- inviting in the chill December atmosphere. A passenger friend and I went ashore, and found on the landing a group of well-dressed natives wearing horsehair hats with ribbons tied under the chin. They had their hands buried far up in their wide sleeves, and stood immovable as a group of Buddhas. We set out on a walk for the town, a mile or so distant, and the natives began to move after us. They were an uncanny looking lot, so many seemed to wear an expres- sion of sore eyes and smallpox. The dogs, too, seemed all to have the mange. As soon as pos- sible we sought refuge from such company and went on board ship. First Impressions >5 Our voyage of more than four hundred miles from Fiisan to Chemulpo was among rocks, and along a dangerous, partially surveyed seacoast. A deal of faith is required to sail here, with not a single beacon fire or light to assist the navigator. Many a time since I have crossed this same sea, but never without a feeling of expectancy, as we passed in the darkness black banks of solid rock just visible above the water. One steamer with some of my own acquaint- ances and friends on board, struck and went down here. This wreck has left a solemn spot in the grim rocky sea. The wonder is we have not more of us sounded in person its yellow depths. At Chemulpo, where the tide rises about thirty feet, an immense sea rolls in and out twice a day. When it is in, it laps the foot of the cliffs and mountains along the coast line ; when it is out, miles of mud are seen, where crabs and turtles and octopus play leap- frog and pull-a-way together. At last we reached Seoul, through a journey and into surroundings as mysterious as dream- land. Viewed as a whole, Seoul is said to be the most picturesque city in the East ; viewed in detail, it contains much to make one shudder: but the people are kind, and entirely different from the cruel race I had thought them to be. I cannot however omit to mention this objec- i6 Korean Sketches tionable custom which prevails more or less throughout all the East, and which is so horri- fying to a newcomer, namely, the constant presence of the dead. Kindly and sorrowfully we bury our dead out of sight in the hope of a resurrection and meeting hereafte. ; but not so the Korean ; he ties bis dead in a mat and leaves him to bake and fester in the sun. The very atmosphere is tainted, and one becomes an ex- pert in distinguishing the noxious odors of smallpox and cholera victims from the ordinary smells of the far East. This subject reminds me of a beautiful landscape overlooking the sea at Fusan, which my Korean friend and I were enjoying one glorious afternoon, when we hap- pened suddenly upon a dead child, horrible in decay, planted on four bamboo poles. The river Styx is nothing to the sights and smells past which Confucius leads you on his way to heaven. Shortly after my arrival, while tak- ing a walk outside of the little east gate of the capital, I saw a hundred and more of these ob- jects covered with matting. " Wliat are they ? " I asked. '' Those are the dead." " The dead? Why don't you bury them?" ** Cannot ; you must first find a propitious site, otherwise burial will bring ruin to the family." A day or so later, two of us were riding on horseback along the main road to the east of the city, when sud- denly my horse gave a start, and there I beheld First Impressions »7 three decapitated bodies, with heads lying on the roadway. I returned home in disgust, feel- ing that I would like to get out of this country with its liorrible dead ; but time works wonders. I began to see another side — that the people loved these things as little as I — that it was a part of their Confucian religion — and that tiiey needed the real Light of Life so much the more. In March, 1889, I decided to make my first venture inland. Foreigners had travelled through the country, but no one had as yet at- tempted to take up his residence outside of the capital. The element of uncertainty, which adds interest to any undertaking, helped me. I sent seventy dollars by a trusty native with which to buy me a house in Haju, the capital of Whang-ha (Yellow sea) province. He returned with the money three weeks later as though the furies had been after him. The good citi- zens of Haju had heard that he was the emis- sary of a "barbarian," and so had rid their town of him forthwith. No foreign residence yet defiles the precincts of the sacred city of Haju. In spite of this act of defiance on the part of these good people, I felt that I would have to go, even though no house awaited me. With a horse or two, a soldier, a boy and a stableman, I bade my friends good-bye, and turned toward Haju, sending a letter ahead to a Mr. An living in Chang-yon, some dis- i8 Korean Sketches tance beyond, who was recommended to me, as honest. The soldier who accompanied me had a very red nose and a most fragrant atmosphere that smacked of sul (rice whiskey). He was evi- dently " up " in the arts of peace, quite as much as in the arts of war. He would jog along at a peculiar trot just in front of my pony until he saw a party coming, when at once his manner would become animated. He would shout his commands to clear the way, dismount, stop smoking, and attack them like a perfect whirl- wind. They in every case bore with abject submission to be kicked and cuffed. The first opportunity I called him, and said I would have to have this stopped, that I never could consent to go through the country like a brig- and, and that he would have to put a check on the exercise of his authority. He, however, explained that his was good Korean custom, and that if I did not go through the country with some degree of form, I never would be respected. I found later that the only way to escape this proper form, was to dismiss the soldier and travel in the company of a civilian. On leaving the capital, as I discovered later, the rascal had asked the magistrate of each dis- trict to send word ahead to the next official town, that the " great man " was coming. Who the " great man " was, or in what ca- First Impressions «9 pacity he was travelling, never once was raised, but every effort was made to show respect. Just as soon as a company of district runners left me others were on the way to act as escort. My passport was sufficient to call forth every attention, and the pretended humility of the people along this first trip inland was quite em- barrassing. To feel at the same time that I had repaid civility with abuse, was painful, ig- norant as I was of good Korean custom. Once night overtook us while still seven miles from our destination. The soldier kept well ahead shouting over his shoulder " push on I " The little lad of fifteen years who had charge of my pony, had already run thirty-three miles over the gummy roads proving his pow- ers of endurance. We crossed a ferry, and night rolled over us dark, and cold, and clammy. Now every voice echoed as we rode along. The horses were wearied, as was I, sitting since daylight in the cramped position in the saddle. But round and round we went, over hills skirting low woodlands, picking our way through the marshy rice fields where groups of white wild fowl stood like snowbanks in the mud. Peculiar calls there were. " What are those?" I asked. "PmAow^i," said he. "But what are puhUngi ? " " The bird with the big round eyes," said the boy. Along with these sounds, over every distant hamlet arose a ,• I 20 Korean Sketches white cloud of smoke, announcing fire for the evening meal. When so dark that we could no longer pro- ceed, we came to a halt before a small thatched hut, and here my soldier stood kicking and pounding the door ready to break it in. At last it was opened, and I saw him cuff the owner of the place and order him out at once. After a succession of Nei-i-i-s (yes), long drawn out, the proprietor came forth carrying a stiff narrow twist of straw, some ten feet in length. He lit one end, and then we saw what it meant. With this as torch he led the way. The spaiks flew into my eyes and over me in showers. Every few minutes he would break off the burned ends by poking it against the ground and then swing it to make it burn afresh. When we came to another hamlet, the first torch-bearer, who had been pressed into service, returned home leaving some one in this neighborhood to take his place. This last part of the seven miles was accomplished at a run, the soldier whipping up the torch- bearer when he lagged. With hurrahs and calls of various kinds, we went sweeping into our destination, the inhabitants peeking out of the partially opened door or window to see what manner of official could be passing in such state and with such variety of clatter and call. First Impressions 2] The marks of respect shown me through the indefatigable efforts of my soldier, increased to such an extent that, when a week later I en- tered the city of Haju, a large portion of the population came out to meet me. The morn- ing of that day had been exceedingly peaceful, the larks singing overhead, and the spring atmosphere softening the view on every hand ; but it was tlie peace that presages turmoil, for by noon, when still twelve miles from the citjs horses and men dressed in colors civil and military, were waiting to do me honor. There was no opportunity to decline these favors, so I received them boldly and made the best of them. A certain satisfaction in the irony of fate possessed me, when I beheld the defiant citizens of Haju, who had refused to sell me a house, kicked and tumbled by my incorrigible soldier, wliile I rode into the governor's yamen in proper Korean form. I remained in Haju two weeks, and several times was ushered into the presence of the gov- ernor, a nervous man, who seemed in a per- petual state of uneasiness. He asked my name, how old I was, if I was married, and what I had come to do in the land of Morning Calm. He wished to know my country, and when I said Mi-guk, he inquired of the servants gazing in at the window if they knew to which of the outskirts of the universe such a kingdom be- 22 Korean Sketches '!| . ! I longed. Of course they knew not, and the gov- ernor shook his head doubtfully. A great wall of China seemed to separate us. My country, my calling, my appearance, were all mysteries to him. For example, why had I taken my hat off on entering, when Korean cus- tom requires you to put it on if you will show respect. I tried to say, that our country, being on the other side of the earth, had fallen into many customs the very opposite of those in Korea. " The other side of the earth," what did that mean? And at once we were into the perplexing question of the shape of matter in general. But, says the governor, Confucius says that the heavens are round and the earth, square and flat, and here this foreign gentleman pretends the opposite ; and a shock of nervous- ness took him that threatened violent prostra- tion. The wall of China grew apace, till a serv- ant brought in a table of food, and His Excel- lency asked me to partake, eyeing me closely the while to see whether I ate the food or the brass bowls and cliopsticks ; for Koreans hold that different degrees of spiritual being require different material for food, some eat metal, some wood, some grass, some air, while the purely human eats rice, pork, raw fish, etc. The first spoonful (if rice I took levelled that wall of China. The governor had unfailing proof that I was human, and he could afford to overlook ' I First Impressions *3 minor differences on the question of the uni- verse, seeing that we had in common this capacity for rice that made us fellow mortals. Fifteen days of sightseeing more than suf- ficed to acquaint me with the characteristics of the city of Haju. Like everything else in Korea, it speaks of a prosperity that has passed away ages before. The walls were in ruins, the huts simply heaps of mud and sticks like a beaver camp. Yet in the midst of this squalor gentlemen were moving about in immaculate silken robes. The acquaintances I made were, just as I have since found Koreans, intel- ligent and interesting. The mystery is, that so many bright minds can be content with so low a civilization. Their excuse is, that Confucius commended Anja for living in ab- ject poverty, and there exemplifying the beau- ties of To (doctrine). It is certainly due in some way to the damaging influence of the Chinese classics. A company of educated natives will listen with marked indifference to any subject, interesting or uninteresting; but raise the question of the form of a Chinese character, and at once every mind is alert, as though it were a matter of importance whether you write it with two dots or four : the form of the character so often being the absorbing sub- ject rather than the meaning conveyed by it. One day a plain-looking countryman unex- H Korean Sketches ;ll| pectedly announced himself at my door, and said he was An to whose care I had been intrusted by the letter sent in advance. He asked me the ordinary questions, liow old I was, was my father alive, and then proposed that we start at once for his home in Chang-yun. A day later I was jogging along on a pack pony with two runners ahead in blue coats, wide hats, and red head tassels. Our adventures were numerous, for these runners whom the governor insisted on my taking, simply cleared the country-side of every traveller. Their calls were heard in the dis- tance, and unfortunates who found themselves on the king's highway fled wildly. It was in vain that I remonstrated. They would bow profoundly on both hands, and the next moment would so furiously set upon a fellow country- man, who, perhaps, had ventured with pipe in mouth to look at us, that all that was left of him was a confusion of topknot and padded trousers. In one case a whole town rose in arms, but, nothing daunted, these hangmen charged the entire community and scattered them in all directions. I was determined to be rid of them, so mak- ing them a present, liberal according to Mr. An's reckoning, said they might go. They were both prostrated in the dust and covered with confusion at this turn in affairs. The First Impressions »5 more violent runner wlio had but one eye, wept copiously through it, saying that he had hoped we might ever be together as he had had a better time in my service tlian he had ever had before. Partings are sad — but we parted. That same day, just as evening was coming on, Mr. An and I wound our way through a high mountain pass. He warned me repeat- edly of liorangi (tigers). A neighbor of his hud } ( tn carried off through this pass and eateu only a half moon before. At the summit, a rushing through tlie grass startled us, and there was one creature, and another, and another that went by us like a flash, six in all — not tigers — but deer. They had been feeding in the valley and were now on their way home. We breathed more freely and whipped up the ponies. It was nearly ten o'clock when we reached An's village, which was dark as Egypt, and would never have announced itself but for the dogs that smelt the foreigner and simply roared them- selves into hysteria. The room into which I was hurried had a feeble light in one corner that gasped and sput- tered. The mud walls, mud ceiling, mud floor, and atmosphere of smoke that enveloped every- thing, reminded me of a lodging place travel- lers might find who were on their way to the centre of the earth, or, as the ancients called it, Hades. 26 Korean Sketches The first moments were interrupted by the entrance of lialf a dozen natives. No subter- ranean dwellers could liave worn a wilder ap- pearance. They were partially dressed in what had once been white, but what was now as smoky in color as their own bodies. The hair, knotted in native style on the top, had un- ravelled itself over face and shoulders. One after another they squatted silently in the farther corners of the room, puffing, meanwhile, clouds of tobacco smoke. In this manner an hour or so passed. There is a feeling of loneliness and inde- scribable depression that comes over one^s soul when being long gazed at as a wild beast. The paper doors and windows are poked full of finger holes, and back of each a dark eye takes position and rivets you with unwinking gaze. A single eye without its companion orb or ac- companying facial expression to give it mean- ing, exerts an uncanny influence that prompts one to blow out the light by wliich it sees or turn a stream of water on it. The eyes that beset one in Korea, before and behind, have proven one of the hardest trials of missionary life. This first night at friend An's was no ex- ception, and the only way I could get rest and hleep was by consigning all to darkness. I was disturbed by the hard matting and the heated floor, and was glad when morning came. First Impressions 27 Breakfast was handed in through a rear door- way opening into the unexplored region where the women live. The mystery that compassed the room the previous night, had departed. Old-fashioned snnliglit, so matter-of-fact, had given it chase, and now overhead and about me were tlie friendly forms of mud and straw and cobwebs. The street that morning had been wild with tumult. Every now and then great sounds would explode just in front of my door. I asked my host what the war was about. " Noth- ing," said he, "no war," resuming his pipe. While trying to imagine what a riot could possibly be like when peace was so noisy, I was asked to take a walk to see the town. Passing tlie doorway we came upon a group of coolies whose appearance neither familiarity nor sun- light cMild civilize. They looked just as wild as ever as they walked round me continuing the survey of the evening before. The streets ol the place were narrow. Gutters cut through the clav here and there were half filled with jrtagnant water that charged the air with poisonous odors. The houses, as elsewhere, were low mud huts covered with straw, under the floors of which were smoking fires. The abode of Mr. An, where I slept, turned out to be a palatial residence compared with many. Every nlley was thronging with men, some pass- ■'ii ■H 28 Korean Sketches ing liurriedly, others grouped about smoking pipes two and three feet long. They ques- tioned An vigorously as to who I was and where I had come from. An did his part ex- ceedingly well, — seeing that he was getting only eight dollars a montli for the safe pres- ervation of my head, in a land, where execu- tions are as common as "a dollar and costs or thirty days " at home. All being satisfactory we moved on. Such a multitude of dogs and naked children I had never seen before. Tlie children ran on first ap- })roach, but not so the dogs. With glaring eyes and bristling necks they threatened me from beneath gateways, or gathered in howling con- ferences behind the bamboo paling. I remarked here in my best Korean, "For mercy's sake. An, why don't you kill these dogs?" "Too early yet," An replied, " we'll kill them later on." " But why don't you kill them now and quiet the town?" I asked. "Why," he said, "you know that dogs are nt)t good eating in spring. We wait till summer before we kill them. Do you eat them in spring in your country?" " Well, no I " I said with some surprise, " I would not like to be guilty of eating one of those at any time." " Don't you use them at all ? " he asked again. " No I Not in our country." An wore a look of disgusi at the thouglit of such fools ^6 we must be. By uoon we had again First Impressions 29 readied home after my first view of Chaiig-yun town. For the three months that I remained there life was very simple. I sat day after day in one end of the room, crosslegged on the stone floor, until my ankles were calloused harder than the heel, and my knees had grown accus- tomed to the new feat of bending outwards. Floor life is more sociable and conducive to conversation than being perched upon chairs. I always had callers. They would come from earliest dawn and put me through the list of questions that are unconsciously asked of every traveller in the Far East: What is your fam- ily name? Where do you reside? Have you come in peace? Are your parents alive? How old are you? How many brothers to you? Have you a son? What have you come to do? Do you know where the people live who have only one eye in their head? Where is the woman's kingdom? What s your salary? Can you pull your teeth out when 3'ou like, or your eyes? Have you medicine tliat will cure everything? An*s father, who was a vigorous old man, used to help me through tliis list after he had heard it often enougli to know my answers by heart. It seemed to delight him to impart such information to the passers-b}-. He would hail these and tell them to come inside and see a man that knew everything. "A very good n 30 Korean Sketches ,'rl •Hi man," grandfatlier An would say. " You can ask him anything you like and he'll answer you." Little did he know the pent-up disin- clinations that were often ready to burst forth on these never-ending interviewers. An senior always awoke me in the morning. He would spread a large mat on the ground just in front of my window, and empty beans or rice on it to dry in the morning sun. The chickens would make straight for the heap. Thereupon Mr. An would shout Hu-u-u-u ! Hu ! at the top of his voice. The hens did not mind it, but it always awoke me. My nights were passed on the stone floor with only a blanket between me and the hard matting. I used to dream in those days. The wooden block under my head seemed full of the spirit of night wandering, and scarcely a night passed without some gigantic effort in dreamland. The food, perhaps, was partly re- sponsible, it being only rice and weeds pickled in salt water. Sometimes I had an egg when the unseen Mrs. An could capture it for me. Eggs have peculiar ways in Korea. A much respected American friend of mine eats eggs when he travels, and plays the guitar at times to vary the monotony of life. One evening, while on a country tour, he arrived in an out- of-the-way town. Placing his guitar in a safe corner by itself he sat waiting for the m: First Impressions 3« eyening meal. lie asked the host to cook an egg or two with his rice. "Ah ! " said tlie host, **but there are no eggs in town. May I die and may the worms eat me if there is an egg to be had in all these quarters;" and the patient Bojonrner had to content himself with rice and plain weed steeped in salt water. When sup- per was over the people of the town gathered in, and one of the first questions was, " What is the instrument over in that corner?" "That's what I play on wlien I sing." " Would the great man please play some now?" every one asked at once. " I might," said he, " but then I have had no eggs for supper, and so have no heart to play." ** But there are not any eggs." ** Neither is there any music." ^^Kiihai / " A few minutes later a dozen as nice fresh eggs as ever gladdened his heart were laid at his feet, with the respectful request, " Will the great man please play?" The host was there too and enjoyed the music, in full view of the eggs that were spread out before him. We had a wedding while I was there, the bridegroom being An senior. His wife had died some years before, and now he was to marry again. An junior said of all unparal- leled pieces of folly dad's marrying again was the most foolish. But Korea permits of no re- monstrance on the part of children, so the wedding came off smoothly. The bride waa fl! t* ^' 32 Korean Sketches 1,1 t.' :i brought in a closed chair, and ushered into the inner quarters with bustle and call indicative of rank and importance. Though a young girl, she became mother-in-law to an elderly woman, wlio was the wife of An junior, and trouble began. Tlie Eastern Question is nothing com- pared with the entanglements henceforth in tlie house of An. Ilanp'y(^ng, who was An junior, came to me one night and said he thought he would die. He said his respected sire had evi- dently gone crazy, and that there would be no peace till this interloper was ejected. In those days as an extra dish, I had octopus to eat and fried sea slugs. Octopus I like fairly well as an article of diet, but in the long days of collapse that followed these wedding festivi- ties, the food ran very low. I told An senior that I was hungry for meat and that I would be glad to pay a good price for fowl or fish if lie could obtain it for me. The next day he came home in great glee, dragging along a huge stinging ray, or skate. "Now we have meat for the stranger," lie cried. He washed the loathsome-looking thing at a spring, then divided it and put on salt. For days hea})ed-up dishes of strong smelling fish spoiled even the rice on my table. During this time the birds had been company, though we could not capture them for the table. Here where there is really no gunning, First Impressions 33 various kinds of wild fowl become as tame as domestic birds at home. They stand in groups on one leg eyeing you as you go by. There are several varieties of the egret, the heron, and others more or less interesting. There are paddy birds, who, with their long-billed sisters, stalk about through the mud all day long; so wise they look with their heads to one side, deep in consideration of the respective merits of slug, eel, and tadpole. The tall, stately blue heron, with its pantaloons so tightly keyed up, is one of my most intimate friends of the rice flats of Choscin. Nearly three months had passed, and I was to leave early next morning for the capital, via the Yellow sea. Notwithstanding the fact that for this time I had heard no English, had seen none of my countrymen, had been living in circum- stances so uninviting, there was still an element of sadness in the thought of leaving the place, perhaps never to return. From the mandarin himself down to the coolies I had seen enough to know that there are gentlemen in every na- tion. They may wear a startling cut of dress ; they may believe that the world is flat and that the sun revolves around Korea ; they may, in the sultry days of summer, have a weakness for dogflesh — and yet differ much less than we im- agine from the average American. Long since the towu with its inhabitants had il<, f| •ij 34 Korean Sketches grown familiar. Even the dogs seldom gave more than a passing glance or growl, while tlic little boys would smile at mo in proof that our treaty of peace was genuine. Among those who at the last came to bid me go in peace, were two characters somewhat re- markable. One was the city physician, who though of few words, was looked upon by the people as a man mighty in thought. As for himself, he felt that he was a unit in space, having neither father nor mother, wife nor child. His name was Mr. Moon. I remem- bered it without difiSculty, as the placid brow and far-away expression of the face reminded me of that fair orb. He had a profound way when alone of talking and gesticulating with himself. At such times no doubt his thoughts were deeply professional. Only once did he venture to speak to me of his experience, more particularly in the line of surgery. I asked if he would show me his stock of instruments, that I might compare them with those of the West. At once he took from a cloth wrapper at his side a wooden case. Inside of this, wrapped carefully in paper, were two murder- ous-looking prongs, such as I had seen boys at home use in eel-fishing. I inquired as to how he used them. There was no reply, but taking one in his hand, he suddenly made a fierce, short gesture, between a guard and a thrust, ao First Impressions 3S i i>< companied by a flash of lightning in his eye ; lliat explained it ulL No wonder I had heard frantic cries b}^ night in the direction of Dr. Moon's. For convulsions he found that a burning ball of moxa punk, or a red-hot cash piece placed on the child's head some two inches above the brow, and left till it liad burned sizzling into the bone, served as a never failing remedy. A poultice of cow excrement was good for certain sores. Epi- demics he regarded as taxes that were due the great spirits, especially on the part of children, and the more gladly they paid them the sooner the spirit would be pacified. He was a marvel, was Dr. Moon, at acupuncture. He had probed into every joint of the human body, and could run his long needle into unexplored regions two and three inches. *' If you do it badly," said he, "the patient dies." In medicine his great success had rested on the classification of diseases under two heads, desperate cases, and general weakness. For the latter, he prescribed pills made from tiger bones. He reasoned logically that as the tiger is the strongest animal, and the bones the strongest part of him, consequently such pills must be strengthening in any case. For the former, he had a solemn mixture that he spoke of with bated breath. It was made of snakes and toads and centipedes carefully boiled to- in ;i: 'it m 'in kit m 36 Korean Ske*:ches H' I gether, and warranted without fail to kill or cure. For more specific cases he had a list of medi- cine that ran thus: Musk sack for melan- choly, beef's gall for digestion, bear's gall for the liver, dragon teeth for the heart, caterpil- lars for bronchitis, maggots for delirium, dried snake and cicada skins for cholic. Such was Dr. Moon as he sat in my room day after day a professional smile playing over his features. I realized that he was no ordi- nary mortal, but one of the few remarkable men that I had been privileged to know. The second, a less scientific character, whose goodbye I appreciated even more, was Mr. Quak. My attention was first called to him one afternoon during a disturbance. As I looked out, I saw Quak swinging a heavy club through the air, threatening the life of my best Korean friend. By a little explanation I man- aged to prevent bloodshed ; all quieted down, and ever after Quak and I were friends. As a coolie he fairly represented his class, and yet there was an air about him peculiarly his own. He talked frequently without taking the pipe from his mouth, or smoked it bowl downward in a free and defiant manner. He combed his hair once a month ; and it was said he washed at New Year — as to the latter I have some doubts. His working dress was a pair of First Impressions 37 in wide pantaloons that came to the knees, no coat, no hat, no bouts. He did not need these, fur tliough Jie ate only rice, he was brawny as Tubal Cain. Quak came regularly to our Christian meetings and listened reverently. He thought this religion a very good thing, but as it did not come exactly in tlie carrying line, it never could be his specialty. The curse of Korea is that it has so few work- ing men. It is a nation that has wasted away in idleness. It is therefore refreshing to find one whose hands are hard with toil ; and such was Quak. One day a Korean friend and I, upon near- ing a mountain pass, saw a coolie coming with an immense load of brushwood on his back. " Surely that is Quak," I said ; and Quak it turned out to be, laboring under the hot sun, but able, notwithstanding his burden, to greet us with an Asiatic smile. I said : " Quak, most a mile away I thought it was you." He never forgot the kindness of being thought of by a foreigner for "most a mile." On leaving that town the morning above mentioned, quite a number of middle and up- per class gentlemen, spectacled and dressed in Eastern fashion, came to see me off. Among them, however, was one whose uncombed, sun- burned head, contrasted strangely with the others, but whose " go-in-peace " was as genu* ;i ■ 'I Hi. 38 Korean Sketches ^i n I ine as any. lie disappeared among the trees; as far as I know, the last of Quuk forever. We had to make some two hundred miles southeastward across this part of the Yellow sea. Our boat was waiting for us, backed up against a sandbar. An Eastern leave-taking is quite touching. This company of white coats stood on the land- ing, bowing farewell to the first Westerner who had ever lived for any length of time among them. I really appreciated their kindness, though I fear I expressed it awkwardly. A moment later, I was aboard the junk, up went the sail and we were off to sea. The craft beneath us was neither barque nor schooner. She carried a prodigious mast that seemed to sweep the sky. I had learned in schoolboy days something about " a good ship tight and free," which I had been in the habit of associating with everything that carried a sail. A little closer ex.^mination, however, proved there was no room for poetry about this craft. Her creaking joints and decayed timbers gave evidence that she had entered upon a decline that was likely to be brief. The only thing that at all reassured me, was the old man at the helm, who would have made an excellent representative for the ancient mar- iner. Though the boat measured only about eight fi First Impressions 39 feet by twenty, there were in addition to a crew of tlireo, six Kdreun piisseiigers aboard. The old sailor had fitted up for my special benefit a stateroom under the after part of tlie deck. A view of this apartment was obtained by lifting the lid and peeiing in on hands and knees. The first thing I noticed were two or three rabbits fenced off in one corner, evidently bound for the capital. An, who was still with me, remarked, " We thought you would not object to these T'ok-ki (rabbits). They were imported from China, and we wish to take good care of them." I said, "An, I have no ob- jection to China, but 1 have to these rabbits ; please get them out of this." They were at once shifted forward where they took a steerage passage for the remainder of the journey. The stateroom was about the size and shape of a coffin, and when the hatches were closed, as dark as the grave itself. The pilot spread his mat and sat just above. My dreams during the voyage were more or less of the nature of suffocation, varying as the old man shifted his position to admit or retard the approach of fresh air through the chinks. Though I lacked oxygen, I was more than supplied with quanti- ties of dust that sifted through, affording ample material for breathing. The breeze that had carried us for some miles seaward, now suddenly died away, leav- % 'i fU tfi^ I jili 50 Korean Sketches A niglit and a day brouglit no relief. Tliirty- six hours later we were still sticking fast in the mud flat where the tide had left us. Time dragged along slowly. I had talked to the Koreans of everything in heaven above and earth beneath tliat I could get within the limits of my vocabulary ; had watched, till I was tired, the slimy things that live in the sea crawling through tlie mud ; had asked how far it was by land to the ca[)ital and found it one hundred and fifty miles and no horses to be had. At lust the evening of the fifth day brought relief. Once more we put tc sea, the sail fall of wind and the old man at the helm. That night we made famous time, for in the morning, eastward, we saw distinctly the hills of Kyong- keui province. We had entered a peculiar part of the sea, where the rise and fall of the tide is so great that at low water sand flats stretch in all directions with only salt rivers running here and there between. It was a bright, pleasant day ; every man was on deck happy. Ev^n An smiled. We were told, that if the wind kept fair we would make Chemulpo by night. I had faith in the old man, for I had seen that he had had long experience in these waters ; one might easily have put it at a hundred years, judging from his clothes or the wrinkles on his brow. vVe kept on following the course of one of m First Impressions 5> those (loop sea rivers, until tlie returning tide lifted us into open water. With the close of the afternoon we nighte I the foreign settlement on the liills at Chemulpo, reposing in pea(!0 under the beneficent wavings of the Union Jack and the Star Spangled Banner. My rejoicings at being once more in Western civilization were moderated by the thought of having to leave the ancient mariner and all who had shared my joys and sorrows. On reaching shore, beyond the regular fare, I di- vided among them the imi' ense sounding sum of one thousand cash, being about twelve and a-half cents for each sailor, and twenty-five for the shaggy old skipper. He seemed deeply moved, au he told me of the pride he had taken in this voyage and that I would be remem- bered by him for as many years as Lis hand might hold the rudder. A little later the boat set sail and the mists closed down upon the water. It was the last of the ancient mariner ; and An also with his pe- culiarities had sailed away. in ri! I:. ! \'} lil 1 1': i'' li If II THE COOLIE a.'o^.i li < !'' ' i' ( . Si II,' Few subjects present more of interest to a foreigner in Korea than the coolie. He it is, who alone exliibits in his person those peculiari- ties that have been smothered out of liis race by fumes of Confucianism. The Koreans hav- ing inhaled this teaching from childhood, have gradually lost their natural traits and have be- come more and more artificial, ever striving to mortify the man that they are, and to put on for new man, a ghost of antiquity. The coolie, however, is not in any such bondage, but ex- hibits a host of characteristics that make him in some respects the most interesting figure in the land of Morning Calm. From the first glimpse you have of him you recognize that he is a creature of repose. Noth- ing should be more restful to a nervous, impa- tient foreigner, than tlie sight of a coolie by the wayside, sitting on his heels, or as we generally say, squatting, (sometimes long rows of them), motionless as sea-fowl, indifferent to the boat of the sun, to the flies that congregate upon him, or to tlie pestiferous gutters that ooze beneath his feet. 62 Ui A O 'li 'iU 'J m '^1 i:; Mil'. 11 The Coolie 53 While other mortals ure in constant commo- tion, fearful of this and that, yet aching for change, the Korean coolie continues immovable throughout the ages, the muscles of his heels never growing tired, inhaling all the while at- mospheres that would depopulate a Western city, or by way of diversion, eating melons rind and all, in the face of cholera and other Egyptian plagues. It is an atmosphere of repose ratlier than in- difference, that envelopes him. Indifference suggests an evironment with which one is not in harmony, while repose indicates perfect agreement. Not only can he sit in a painful position for hours, but ho can sleep with head down and mouth wide open under the fiercest sun of the Orient, and rise as refreshed as though he had had a night on a spring mattress, followed b}"^ a morning bath. This is proof that it is not a matter of indifference with him, else he would have liad sunstroke. The fact that he rises refreshed to enjoy his pipe, proves it re- pose. Undoubtedly, he is the greatest living ex- ample of the absence of all excitement or an- imated interest of any kind whatever. He can eat an astounding dish of pap (rice), and be asleep with his head on a wooden block in less time than a foreigner requires to trim his tooth- pick. Nothing short of a bowl of vermicelli m •''?ii 54 Korean Sketches ill'. 1^: .;:;: M ' (^Jcuk-8u')y or the crack of doom, can create the slightest interest in him or prove that he has nerves at aU. This characteristic, while highly to be com- mended in some respects, has frequently proven a source of difference between the coolie and the foreigner. The latter proud of his watch- word — action, runs full tilt into the coolie who sits heavy in repose. It is like a railway train taking a header for a mud embankment — news- papers announce next day, " Smash up " — not of the embankment, but of the railway train. In view of this danger to the foreigner, the coolie has of late years done considerable to change his ways, although of course, even in foreign employ he still experiences old sensa- tions, and at times falls into his native repose. Only once do I recollect seeing marked ani- mation in coolies' eyes. It was at a stone fight, such as they used to indulge in in the brave days of old. Several hundred of the best marksmen of the capital chose sides, and armed with stones weighing one and two pounds each, assembled for the fray. When I arrived, missiles were flying through the air, any one of which would have done for a man as easily as a fifty pound projectile. All were alive to the danger, and the rush and scramble to escape was like a stampede of wild beasts. The throwing was magnificent. It seemed, in truth, The Coolie ss a little war of giants. The fight grew fast and furious. Begrimed with dust and sweat each side drew in closer, and sent rocks flying through the air in a way that was simply ap- palling. Then came a shock of cessation, a shout as though a goal were scored ; one of the best marksmen of the enemy had been struck squarely, and was killed. His body was carried off the field, and again the fight began. Before evening closed one had fallen on the other side, and thus the score was even. Such is the coolie, and yet a gentler, more lamb -like creature never lived. Apart from this one ancient custom he is peace itself; even his personal wars are merely threatenings. One of the amusing sights of the street is a fight — the combatants of course always being coolies, as no gentleman would soil his gar- ments wlio had a servant to eng.ige for him. It usually begins in dispute, passes through differ- ent stages, each marked by a special pitch of voice and rapidity of utterance, and at last ends in a climax of fury. A perfect stream of in- vectives is poureu f u'th, accompanied b}^ appeals to men and ajv';cls to behold the object of de- pravity. A fo:;:!['ner is horrified, convinced as he is that nouhing short of one life can relieve the pent-up CvO:\dition of affairs ; when sud- denly the v/Iiole case colkipses, and tlie com- batants are seen on each end of the piazza, f A ' ni 56 Korean Sketches I 1 I smoking as peacefully as if all within the four seas were brothers. The question has often arisen, Is the Korean coolie an arrant coward, or is he the bravest man alive since Jack the Giant Killer? Evi- dence is not lacking for the support of either supposition. On the first announcement of the Japan-China war, we saw him with personal effects on his back and considerable animation in his walk, making for the hills. We have seen him too, in the capacity of trespasser, being whipped out of a compound with a small willow switch, and wilting under the blows as though they had been sword cuts, repeating with imploring look, "Aigo! You've killed me! you've killed me ! " I once had the pleasure of seeing a small for- eigner of hasty temperament marshalling his men on a journey. The coolies he had were noted for strength, rather than agility, and as speed was the chief consideration, friction re- sulted. Matters came to a climax at last, and the small foreigner made a round of those coolies with his right foot, spreading consternation at every kick. No great damage was done, as a Korean's padded dress serves much as a bird's plumage would, under a similar form of attack. The group bowed to the inevitable, simply re- marking of the foreigner, that an offspring of The Coolie 57 II his kind was a caution {Keti nomeui chasik maknanio). But tliere exists just as strong evidence as to the coolie's pluck, lie will undergo a surgical operation without flinching where an American would require an anicsthetic. It has been said that he has no nerves, so does not feel it, but he felt the willow switch as keenly as you or 1 would. Considering his weapons and op- portunities, he gave a good account of himself in the old days in the defences at Kang-wha. Often, still, with wretched flint lock or fuse gun, he will steal his way among the rocks, and beard the tiger, capturing his game and return- ing home in triumph. Not being able to find a definite example of more than ordinary courage, I referred the mat- ter to my Korean friend, and he told mo the following, which in his mind bespoke a heroism rarely seen among mortals : '* A number of coolies had imprisoned a huge rat in a grain bin. The question now was, who would venture in bare handed, capture and dispatch the rat. One stout-looking fellow smiled broadly, and amid the applause of the on-lookers, volunteered to go. He pulled his jacket tight, tried his fingers as if to see that all were in working order, and advanced to the attack. Meanwhile the rat facing about, resolved to die game. Tlie parrying lasted a few minutes, then a pass, then tlf^l ii P\ 58 Korean Sketches ■ ii ih! 1 i 1; ■ * ■! y I ': a rush of confusion and sudden leap into mid air, all quick as lightning, and the coolie with one hand bleeding, held in the other the lifeless rat. Your common cricket bull," added my Korean friend, " is nothing ; but to catch a live rat, which is equal to a cricket ball charged with dynamite, requires courage indeed." Not only does the coolie at times exhibit sur- prising agility, but his strength is phenomenal. With a rack made of two forked limbs fastened together, as worn by Mr. Quak, he will carry a bale of piece-goods weighing four hundred pounds, or bring a perfectly paralyzing load of deer hides all the way from Kyiing-heung on the Russian border. In Korea there are really no carts or wheeled means of transportation. IMany of the roads will not admit of beasts of burden, so the strength of the nation has gone into the coolie's shoulders. With a load such as we often see, he reminds one of the Titan Atlas lifting the world. It has been a sorrow to many a foreigner that the coolie should be so slow in his mental move- ments, so obstinate about changing his mind or responding to an order, I it it is easily ex- plained. Like his body, his niind moves under a pressure of from one to four hundred pounds, Avhich accounts for its slowness of motion. Run violently against his inclinations, and he goes The Coolie 59 obstinately along, feeling it in fact as little as if you had collided with him when carrying his load of piece goods. Violence wins nothing and menus ultimate victory for the coolie. Even in Korea, how many Westerners have spent themselves in a brilliant charge on this coolie phalanx, with apparent victory for the time, but in the end, have won only ignominy, with the name Yang-Kwi-ja (foreign devil) firmly fixed upon them. My dislike for that name is not that it has any deep spiritual signification, but that it is not complimentary and embraces in its scope too many sorts and conditions of men. This repeated attempt to coerce the Far East, seen, not only in Korea, but elsewhere, has sug- gested the following lines that are especially applicable to the case of the coolie, though they may possibly have even a wider significance. Au Occidental newly sent, And keyed up for the tussle, Has come to rouse the Orient, And teach it how to hustle. ' || 'li "This East," he says, "man, woman, child, Is chronically lazy, I'll get a move on," and he smiled, "Or drive the country crazy." He kicked his cook, and sacked his groom, And raised a dire disaster. But all in vain his fret and fume, To move the Orient faster. 6o Korean Sketches i :! ■' ' in The horse he rode was like his l>oy, Whose maxim was to-morrow I His life became instead ol" joy, Accumulated sorrow. His nerve gave out, his brain went wild, Comi>lelely oft' tlie level, And, when he died, the Orient smiled, "A crazy foreign devil." In sj^ite of all the pressure, moral and mate- rial, that weighs against him, the coolie remains the managing director of the nation, the orna- ment of every corner and gateway in the city. I reverence him, in fact I always feel respect for any one who has cheated me as successfully and as often as he has. He does it fairly and squarely, a pure matter of business, the sharper man coming out best. On the other hand, sen- sations of humility creep over me, in remem- brance of a saying of my Scotch grandfathers, *' wha cheats me aince shame fa' him, wha cheats me twice shame fa' me." But there is a way to manage the coolie, take him gently rAid softly at first, with slightly in- creasing pressure as his being comes into mo- tion, and you can turn him this way and that as by the turning of a rudder ; for his condition is not one of obstinacy, but of inability. It has often been a question, how people who never read employ the mind, and with what do the^ store it. We can see so little in The Coolie 61 a lifetime, and can hear so much less at first hand, that we are indebted more largely to literature than to anything else for the delights of life, and for what we know ; but the coolie has no literature, yet his mind is stored to re- pletion; he can entertain you by the hour with tales of impossibilities. To liim everything worth repeating must be clothed with tlie mar- vellous. Tell him a plain truth, and he will for- get it before the morning. Tell him one of the latest yarns, and he will believe it; add to it, and pass it on to the second and third genera- tion. The mind must have its store, and if it cannot obtain it through literature, it will through tradition. Imagine this process going on from father to son for a tliousand years, and you can guess the kind of legends and myths that fill the coolie's mind ; interesting, some of them are, but quite as far removed from truth as from the generation that began them. Literature in Korea is a dead letter, so that the interesting field for research is, after all, the beliefs and traditions of the non-reading classes; and the coolie is the only one who possesses these intact. This is by itself so wide a subject that we cannot here touch upon it. His beliefs are legion, though not defined sufficiently to constitute his religion. Articles of dress, trees by the wayside, animals and birds, have endless signs and omens associated with them. ' ii if I'i SI M ij m 1^^^ 62 Korean Sketches I li M I I 'I Once while on a journey, my coolie called at my room in the carl}' morning in great distress, saying that the night before he liad left his straw shoes to dry in front of the kitchen stoke hole, and that in the dark before the dawn they had been swept intr the fire and burned. As they cost only a few cash^ we tried to comfort him by saying he could have another pair, but he said, " No ! no ! that's not it. To burn your shoes is an omen. I shall die." I tried to reason him out of it, but he was fixed in his faith, and that day went witli doleful face till we reached the capital. Two days later he sent saying he was very ill. I had a foreign physician see him, who pronounced his case typhus. The poor coolie with a most lugubri- ous face reminded me of the omen three nights before, as much as to say, that he and his straw shoes knew more in half an hour than I could tell them in years. Independence is a new thought to Korea, and a new word has been coined to express it. The native has never dreamed of an existence apart from that of others. In the Western world, ^ man may bear his own burden, just as t. oQ may stand by itself in a wide expanse of un- try ; but in the Orient men work in groups, and houses draw together into hamlets and villages. Ihe great forces with us are centrif- ugal, marked by extension, separation, and the •lii The Coolie 63 like ; while in the East, life tends toward tlie centre, and is characterized by contraction and limitation, the coolie being one of the largest factors in tliis process. The sphere of his nso- fiilness is so contracted in fact, that lie will undertake nothing without an assistant. He eyes the simplest task with a look of despair, unless you will engage his friend as well. Should it be the handling of a wood-saw, he must have a coolie at the other end ; not from necessity, but because it is custom and conforms to the etci' cd fitness of things. His use of a shovel too is striking. A de- scription of this I will quote from my friend the Rev. G. lieber Jones, one of the closest ob- servers and best students in Korea. *' This in- teresting invention occupies a front rank among labor-saving machines of Korea, for it saves from three to five men a vast deal of work. It consists of a long wooden shovel, armed with an iron shoe, to cut into the earth properly. The handle is about five feet long, and is worked (to a certain extent) by the captain of the crew. Two ropes, one on each side, are at- tached to the bowl of the shovel, and these are managed by the men who seek to save their labor. " While in operation the captain inserts the iron-shod point of the shovel sometimes as deep into the earth as three inches, and then the '■! * i! ■r n I 64 Korean Sketches ml^ I t \i ; I! ; V .! crew of two or four men give a lusty pull and a shout, and away will go a tablespoonful of earth fully six feet or more, into the distance. This operation is repeated thrse or four times, and then the weary crew take a recess, and re- fresh themselves with a pipe. It is a beautiful sight to watch a crew working these power shovels ; everything is executed with such clock- like regularity, especially the recess. They sometimes sing in a minor strain — for the Korean coolie can always be depended on, wlien putting in his time, to do it in as pleasant a manner as possible. ** That this implement belongs to the class of labor-saving machines there can be no doubt. It takes five men to do one man's work, but entails no reduction in the pay. In fact, the number of tlie crew can be extended to the limit of the shovel's ropes without risk of a strike among tlie laborers. Many interesting stories might be told to illustrate its name of the power shovel, one of which I will tell : We had a small patch of ground we wanted turned over, so we hired a coolie, and put into his hand a beautiful new spade from America. He at- tached two straw ropes to it, hired four other coolies, at our expense of course, and did the job in triumph. Such is the power of this in- strument over the Korean coolie's mind." No amount of money can tempt the coolie to The Coolie 6^ break faith with custom. He regards money as a convenience, but in no case as a necessity. Other things being satisfactory he will agree to accept of it, will demand more at times, or will regard with a look of scorn the largest amount you can offer him. He never descends to purely business relations. When you engage him for a piece of work he comes simply with a desire for your convenience, while in the evening you present him with cash expressive of your friendship and appreciation. Should the rela- tions during the day become strained, he will probably demand more ; should friendship be strengthened, he will accept less; should mu- tual disagreement break out, he will not work for you for any money, and in all probability will have you boycotted by others of the village. The coolie's religion consists in a worship of ancestors, and a hatred of all officialdom ; not that he really loves the former, or dislikes the latter; but custom requires that he attribute success to the virtue of his forefathers, and failure to the depravity of the district man- darin ; hence expressions of reverence for the one, and sworn hatred for the other. In the first prefecture I visited, the coolies of the village spent a large part of their time squatting on their heels, anathematizing the prefect who lived over the hills in the yamen. It seemed to me we were on the eve of an up- 'Hl 66 Korean Sketches ' It ■ 1 II 1- H iV J rising that would leave not even cotton wad- ding enough to tell of the fate of the hapless magistrate. During the course of the season, we became acquainted, and a more sleek, con- tented official it has never been my fortune to know — wholly oblivious he seemed to the storm brewing about his ears. The storm continued to brew, but never broke. Visits to other parts of the country have since demonstrated beyond doubt, that this discontent is the normal condi- tion of affairs in Korea ; and that the prefect would never be happy or safe without this cen- tripetal force to keep him within a reasonable orbit. While cherishing such hatred on the one hand, the coolie is quite emphatic in his loyalty to the king on the other. To him, his majesty is the peerless perfection of wisdom and be- nevolence — one who in fact cannot sin ; who though as wicked as Nero and unscrupulous as Ahab, would be spoken of as the son of divin- ity, the sinless jiide ruler, etc. ; while the offi'^ers whc surround him from ministers down, are re- garded as public outlaws, veritable banditti of state. The coolie has no visible fear of his fellow man. His enemies are tohgahi and kwuin^ which might be translated "little devils." He regards all distasteful conditions of life as under their control, and the earnestness with which he The Coolie 67 sets himself about the capture of the "little devil," and the corking of him in a bottle, and the burying him deep underground, has marked many an anxious line across the coolie's face, that was never marked by ordinary care or fear of mortal man. It takes the larger part of his personal earnings to pay P'ansu (blind fortune- tellers) and Mutang (sorceress) who come and dance and shout with cymbals and drums and gongs — enough to scare any devil. I have watched a sorceress when exorcising some spirit. She seemed in a state of ecstatic ex- hilaration, whirling and turning, until my own sight most lost its balance, and I saw no reason why I should not step into the circle and waltz round to. The poor coolie lives in constant dread lest even his topknot be not safe. A passing devil may cut it off in the dark, so he seldom goes out at night. Some who have had their topknots thus stolen have come and told me. Devils set fire to the house by throwing a ball of liv- ing flame against the thatch. This ball the tokgahi have brought all the way from Pluto's furnace. Dishes go clash, bang, in the kitchen without visible cause, while water is heard be- ing dashed against the wall. Meanwhile, the door is drawn tighter, the lock doubly fas- tened, and the wife trembling exclaims, these devils are worse than any mother-in-law. n .J '•'•m \n BBI 68 Korean Sketches N ^■! f ( 'I I I ! f M 1 have often wondered where all the wrinkles come from on the face of the coolie, when he takes life so evenly and is so indifferent about work. I conclude that they come from fear of devils, who through the coolie's lifetime hold him in bondage. The coolie's relation to his deceased ances- tors I have never been able to define. That he is devout in the performance of the sacred rites, is unquestioned ; but that he has a clear understanding of their purport, is exceedingly doubtful. A proof however of his grasp of the situation is seen in this, that he can point you out every grave of his ancestors to the fourth generation, and can talk as familiarly of a great-grandfather's second cousin as we could of a half sister. No spirit is forgotten in his round of yearly sacrifice. As to what it all means he leaves you in doubt. Prosperity in some mysterious way hangs upon it, and there the subject rests. I have often thought — though my Korean friend says it is not so — that the native carries a grudge against his deceased parent, such as an accomplice might feel toward one who had turned state's evidence. The parent departs this life, and in so doing, commits a heinous breach of propriety, leaving his posterity to bear the disgrace, while he is picnicking with his seniors and other distinguished spirits of The Coolie 69 antiquity. Calling himself "depraved exist- ence," " unconscionable sinner," the coolie mourner wanders for three years with a burden on his heart, and the shade of a wide hat over his countenance. The coolie's home life is simple. A mat or two on the mud floor, with a lire underneath, is comfort enough for the most fastidious. His iron jointed, supple sinewed wife, keeps all in motion. The Korean would long since have been reduced to dust and ashes had it not been for her. While her husband sits and smokes, she swings her batons, making the kitchen ring with her voice or the sounds of the cooking. Though unacquainted with the embroidered side of life, she is a faithful, decent woman, and does honor to the Far East. True to her husband, and kind to her cliildren, in spite of her unattractive appearance and emphatic man- ner, she takes her part in the struggle of life bravely and modestly, and does credit to wom- ankind the world over. Jhit now as we leave the coolie let us remem- ber only his virtues. lie takes life as it comes, and is always good-natured. Be it rough or smooth he shines with content. He seldom washes, has no second change of clothing, no carpets or sli})pers. He eats any kind of food, sleeps on the roadway when night overtakes him, and lies down to die with as little cere- 1^1 ^^^fii li I :ii 70 Korean Sketches W ! i i ;: ii: |''i mony as he lives. A rough, craggy kind of life, where strength of body and mind might both develop. Korean philosophy says strength, not beauty, is what men need. "Strength is the male, beauty is the female " : and the coolie is strong. You are never through with him, nor is he ever through with you. He jostles you on the streets, wipes his oily shoulders on you as he goes by, bows and smiles as sweetly as though his life were a holiday and his conscience clear. One coolie stands out prominently before me, a little man with brown face who accompanied me on trips into the interior, keeping the way clear, and acting throughout in my interest. One evening after a bleak day of nearly forty miles of travel, we entered quarters for the night, and were informed that there was no room, nothing to eat, and no use for a foreigner. All the town apparentl}^ had come out to tell us so. Here I was alone in the world, no one to depend on but the little man with brown face, and he had run forty miles already. Not wearied, but simply shortened in temper, he spent about eight seconds arguing the question with the townspeople, and when that did not avail, turned on the chief speaker, a tall lanky fellow, and taking a double hold of the after- part of his garments ran him down that street as though propelled by a locomotive. This The Coolie 7» was conclusive proof to the inhabitants that we, not they, were running the town, so they yielded us a room, rice and eggs, and comfort for the night. Many a day since, all my hopes have been centred in the little man with brown face, and never once has he failed me ; but has carried me on his back over streams, stood by through rain and snow — ever forgetful of his own com- forts ; has been the life of the party, providing situations of amusement clear across the penin- sula ; trustworthy as one's brother, and faithful as the sun — all for what ? A few cash that he could have earned with much less labor upon his own mud floor at home ; but down in his coolie's heart, it was for him a matter of friend- ship and honor. It is long now since a difference of location compelled us to separate, but frequently still, by post or courier, comes a thick wadded letter written in native script, wishing long life and blessing ; saying that he still lives and is well ; signed awkwardly and humbly by the little man with brown face. Ill THE YALU AND BEYOND I I ., fj '^ In giving a faithful account of a journey in an Eastern country there are many things to be mentioned that are other than pleasing. One endeavors, as far as possible, to see with a halo round each eye ; but in spite of such effort, the shock is often great for a tender, Western nervous system, so that it were best not to peer too closely into the mysteries of Oriental travel. Koyang is a little town of no importance, twelve miles northeast of Seoul. Here our party arrived about dark, and dined on rice, red peppers, and fish spawn, under the inspira- tion of which repast we turned in for the night. We had started from Seoul about noon, with two ponies so piled up with bundles that scarce anything could be seen of the original animals. In our party was a Mr. So, a Korean of consid- erable culture, who had spent most of his life in China and on the border land. We invited him to accompany us, first, because he was a pleasant gentleman, and second, because he spoke Chinese, and we did not know but we 78 The Yalu and Beyond 73 might go through Manchuria before returning. He was the awe-inspiring member of the party and lent it dignity. His monstrously padded clothes and huge black spectacles gave him the appearance of a double-eyed cyclop. His long pipe however reassured one, and demonstrated to the world that he was not a creature to be feared, but a gentle being of refinement and culture. We took along a boy called Keumdoli, a good-natured youth, whose face had been pimpled into a kind of pebbled leather by the smallpox. Another member of the party was a lialf- grown terrier, who cut capers as though ho were going on a picnic of an hour or two, instead of a journey of a thousand miles. He dived about here and there, and looked so nimble, that the natives were inclined to view him, not as a ca7iis, but as a kivisin (spirit) which these Westerners had taken along for congenial company. We called him Nip. He was the genteel Western member of the party. Koyang was peaceful and quiet after Seoul. We slept well, an ' next morning entered through a narrow pass into what is known as the robber district. We saw no highwayman, and the ordinary passers looked at our dog and not at us. Apart entirely from brigands, there are Lis- '(ii i\ mm 74 Korean Sketches 1^ M Hi torical reminiscences connected with this place. Five centuries ago, when Song-do was capital, this mountain district was filled with some hun- dred and more Buddhist temples. During that dynasty, which was favorable to Buddha, they remained unmolested, but upon the establish- ment of royalty in Han Yang (Seoul), the Buddhists were routed out, and their temples burned. ** Only one trace of them remains to- day," said Mr. So, "in snrinertime, the stones are lined with a yellow coating of bedbugs that have faded somewhat for having remained five hundred years without the proper means of subsistence." I am informed, in all serious- ness, that notwithstanding their long fasting some still weigh as much as half a pound. A little further along we came on two miryUk or colossal Buddhas, looking down from the mountain side with the everlasting apathy of Sukamoni written on their faces. It is the Sphinx and his wife, the riddle of the Far East standing out before you. They were chiselled from the solid rock, six or seven centuries ago, when Song-do was the capital. Song-do had looked with anxiety upon the increasing influence of Han Yang. Its soothsayers likened the mountains around Seoul to a huge cat, ready to pounce upon the rat hills of Song-do. The King of Korj^o, in fear lest he might perish along with the rats, caused his The Yalu and Beyond 75 people to cut these miryok so as to face Seoul and guard Song-do. On the afternoon of February 29th, after a tiresome walk, we came suddenly through a hill pass overlooking the Imchin river. The ice in breaking up, had formed a jam just in front of the gate which blocked our way, and noth- ing remained but to slide horses, men, and bag- gage over a neighboring slope and catch a boat further up where there was open water. The interestiiig feature of our descent, was the horseman's bringing the two ponies. He took a firm hold of the halter of one, tugged him into motion, made a bound for the edge, and never looked back until he had reached the bottom. The pony slid, and rolled, and in a twinkle was at the foot too, apparently very much to its own surprise ; the other followed in like manner. Three or four towsy-headed natives propelled us over in a scow that leaked ominously. At last they landed us, partly by carrying us on their backs, and partly by dumping us into the water, and, withal, amid great noise and confusion. Ten li further on we found an inn, where they kindled a fire beneath the floor, that not only warmed, but baked us the livelong night. This is only a trifling matter, and yet it is not as easy to endure the baking process gracefully, as a cold outsider might imagine. \i\ I .1 ill 76 Korean Sketches i M i-.i ;! Oil a promontory overlooking this river, which ia called Iiu-chin, we noticed a nioiiu- nieutiil building, (j[uitc insigniticant in appear- ance, and yet tlicre is i(>s(ciated with it an oft- repeated Korean tale: About four centuries ago there lived a prophet, called YUl-gok, who built here an oddly shaped structure. It was his custom frctiuently to oil the wotidwork, in- side and out, and, when asked the meaning, said he was preparing it to be burned. Said he, punning on the nanie of the river, "among the years to come, in the one called Im-chin, on a certain night (giving the date) this build- ing must be fired, or great disaster will over- tak(! the nation." Before the year of his prophecy had come, Yiil-gok fell sick and died, leaving his olde/ brother to keep the house oiled, and burn it on the appointed night. With the year Im-chin (1592), came the inva- sion of the Japanese, and their march on Seoul, The Korean king fled for his life. In the night, almost alone, he was trying in vain to find his way over these mountains, expecting every moment to be captured by those following hard after him. When darkness seemed to render escape impossible, suddenly a fire blazed up from a point just ahead, lighting the surround- ing countr3\ By means of it the king made his way over the mountains, across the river, and ultimately escaped. This was the predicted The Yiilu and Beyond 77 night and the oiled liouse of tlie prophet hud Siived tlie king. Now, npon the same i)r()nu)n- tory stands the buiUling we had seen, in modest connnenioration of tlie propliot's wisdom. The weather this day had been ! ihny and springlike — some of the willows already showed signs of life. On these and otlier trees by the roadside rags were tied, while underneath stones were heaped up. This is one Korean method of charming away the ill-luck that devils are su})posed to be constantly inflicting upon mor- tals. There is no special sacred tree in Korea, as this day we passed an oak, a maple and a cedar, all of them hanging with spirit offerings. According to Korean demonology, a tree is supposed to be the abiding place of various kinds of evil spirits. Inside of the bark and roots, everywhere in fact, legions of these are secreted. My boy awoke me one night, saying that he could not sleep, because devils were throwing sand against the window, and that they were coming out of an old tree behind the house. I went out to investigate, and found chips scattered about giving forth a pale phosphorescent light that the boy was sure were devils. The next day we were to enter Song-do the capital of the Wangs, the kings of the former dynasty. Rain came on and drowned our en- thusiasm and made walking anything but ■NKBan 78 Korean Sketches pleasant. One of the signs that we were ap* preaching the city was the hats we saw. They are of a shape peculiar to this district; are made of straw, wide, pointed, and umbrella-like. They rebcmble the hats worn by the Buddhists, and have come down from a time when it was fashionable to dress as Buddha did. About three o'clock we passed through a long, tablet- lined street, and put up at an inn just outside the South Gate. Here we waited till seven P. M. for lunch. One grows to bo patient and long- suffering in Korea, and, certainly, the sooner he becomes so the better for him. The only way to be happy, when travelling, is to give Koreans time. Let them work out their part of the pilgrimage in their own way. It is alto- gether useless to labor, and fret, and hurry them, for they will be just as slow as ever, and love you the less withal. Rather strange it is that a land so tedious should be so rich in the *' hurry up " style of word. Ossa^ quippe^ ullin^ sbki^ balli, pafpi,, chiksi^ chankam^ souipki, nalli nankum are a few of the more common that we try and that we hear every day. The na- tive hears them too, and they have as much effect on him as paper balls would have on ten inch armor-plate. We remained a few days in Song-do, medi- tating over its ruins. In the terraced ground the foundations are still solid, and cut stones The Yalu and Beyond 79 are tumbled here and there reminding us of the ancient palace that fell when the Angevins were ruling in England. The city contains some 50,000 inhabitants and lies at the foot of the Song Ak mountain. It has a sad, anti- quated look. Only a few buildings remain in- side the walls, and these are well on the way to ruin. Hereabouts we found a number of ginseng fields. Sheds, some three and a half feet high and of about the same width, are arranged in rows, the earth is built up under these, and neatly kept in place by slates ; and here the ginseng grows. Ginseng is Korea's elixir of life, the one great cure-all for mortal ailments. The culti- vated variety is valuable — very valuable in fact; but the value of the mountain variety no one knows. Men search for it as the}'' seek gold in the Kl^ndyke. The mania grows on tliem ; many jsekers are driven mad and disappear in tiiC mountains. We are told too that mortal vision is not sufilcient for the search ; that ginseng flowers are only seen by the spiritually enlightened — for the gods alone have to do with them. Every official carries among his choicest treas- ures a few roots of ginseng. Like whiskey in Scotland, it will warm you when cold and cool you when heated. It makes tiie aged young I f 8o Korean Sketches and spry, and gives the fading mother a new lease of life. II. II. Yi Chun Yong, whom I had the honor of meeting frequently in Japan, enclosed to my address once, along with some valuable relics of Korean art, a bundle of ginseng marked "eat and live." I ate of it — and still live. We also visited a far-famed quarter by the east wall. There is a stream here, with a stone bridge that has been partly railed round. Why the railing? Because of one sacred stone in the middle, on which are marks like blood. The story goes that at the fall of Song-do a certain Prince Cheung, who refused homage to the usurpers, while riding back to the city was murdered on this bridge. His blood sank into the stones, and five hundred years cannot wash out the stains. The natives believe implicitly in the legend, and to the pd'esent reigning fam- ily this bridge has ever been a sort of Banquo's ghost. Leaving the old capital, our road led north- ward through a mountainous district, cut here and there with slate quarries. On the first day out, being tired from the heavy roads, we stopped at an inn wliere a woman seemed to be the sole manager. We felt sorry for her at first, for she looked as though all tho seats of war since tlie Song-do dynast r had been mapped upon her face ; but on further acquaintance we The Yalu and Beyond 81 grew to fear her — tliere was a keen edge to her voice that made us reply in accents meek and low. Her toilet was grimy with time and smoke and was so arranged that everything seemed to centre just under her arms giving her a war- like as well as a domestic air. She smiled, and said kind things about our dog, so that we felt considerably drawn to her. Indeed we mention her because she is one of the few characters whom we still see in memory. At tue liighest point of the road was a slirine to some spirit or god supposed to be in posses- sion of the place. Inside cf it was the common picture we see of a Korean riding upon a tij^er. We noticed that the natives spoke respectfully of the tiger, calling him San-yiing-gam (the old gentleman of the mountain). They have all learned in Korea to be polite to their superiors — which accounts for this and the offerings that were made before the shrine. We felt, how- ever, that a more likely party to fear was the old lady at the foot of tlie liill ; and in case of any deviltry in those parts, we should make our offering to her, and give the tiger and kwisin (the demon) a second place. After a journey in all of some two hundred miles, we sighted the historic city of P'y^>ng-yang. It stands on the riglit bank of the Tatong river, which here flows south. The appioach through an avenue of trees skirting the bank is full of !•; a 82 Korean Sketches I i ■ pictiiresqueiiess. The crossing made, we en- tered the East Gate into perhaps the busiest city in Korea. Not its business however, but its antiquity is of special interest. To Koreans it is all sacred ground, for this was Keui-ja's home something about the time King David reigned in Jerusalem, and Keiii-ja is the father of Choson. Koreans speak of P'yimg-yang as the boat- shaped capital. The walls were outlined on this plan by its first founder, and it is still the floating city. No one is supposed to dig for water anywhere inside the walls, as that would be cutting through the bottom and sinking the ship. For this reason water is carried from the river even to the most distant quarters, and the peculiar gait of the water-carrier is one of the oddities of the street. The streets we found to be, as usual, narrow and filthy and crowded with shops of native wares. The people, whom we had often heard to be more warlike and in- dependent than other hermits, seemed to us in their appearance and disposition a very ordi- nary lot, perhaps a little less noisy and some- what more polite than the natives of the routh. Among the hills to the north are the Buddhists. Here they have a citadel of temples command- ing an excellent view of the river. Its beauty and strength of situation gives one an idea of the power Buddha once possessed in Choson. The Yalu and Beyond 83 lat- on the for aild the the the the Id to ded Ihom lin- s in rdi- me- iith. lists. and- aiity a of n. To the south, offsetting this, Is the Woi sinig (outer city), where the ancient palace of Keui-ja stood, and where his descendants still live. These ancients look upon present rank as but a ghost of nobility. Like the Jews, they feel that they are still the chosen people. So they and the Buddhists live, shut off from the city by massive walls, and from the world by cen- turies of time. One would think that they might enjoy each t ther's company, for we can scarcely imagine companions more likely to be congenial than an aged priest and an old soldier. Since this journey, the city of P'y()ng-yang has experienced the misfortunes of war. For a time it was the centre of interest. The Chinese marched in with the display and confidence that ignorance gives, and there wasted their time and strength in meaningless delay. The Japanese meanwhile, took possession of every means of exit and approach, and when their numbers had increased to the point where victory was in- sured, they fell upon their foes as wolves would upon sheep. The Chinese in hopeless confusion, fifty thousand of them at once, trampled each other in a wild rush for the North Gateway, in- tending to take the shortest and surest route for China. But some one had lost the key and there was no egress. Back they came for the South Gate like so many beasts in stampede, only to be mowed down in all directions. It !il M •I 9.*i 84 Korean Sketches was not a battle, but a slaughter of lielpless creatures who had not intelligence enough to plan an .escape, much less a campaign in mod- ern warfare. The society for the prevention of cruelty t^ animals should extend its beneficent influence to the Far East, and put a ban on sliooting inoffensive Chinamen, soldier or ci- vilian. After the slaughter, the city of P'yong-yang was strewn with corpses, and the once busy streets were silent, for the inhabitants had scat- tered, no one knew whither. A Korean with his wife and tliree children, escaped through the thick of the fight, and by climbing the wall reached safety. lie had been a man of some means, but of course had lost everything. lie said he was thankful he had his three children spared to him. The little black-eyed girl had heard and seen that night what she would never forget — the rattle of Murata rifles and the other hideous accompaniments of war. Many droll stories are told of the Oriental's ideas of warfare. Chinese cavalrymen came riding to the chaT-ge with fans and perfume bottles, while a servant brought up the re ir with a Winchester rifle. Most of those who later on came to tlie dis- pensary in MukJet^ for treatment were wounded in the back. " How is it that sons of tlie gods are wounded in their afterparts only?" asked The Yalu and Beyond 85 ■unie 'lime • ir (Us- Indeil I gods lisked tlie foreigner. "It looks us tliougli they hud run from the burburiuas." " We advunced uU right," suys the Chinuniun ; "according to niili- tary methods. Then we put on fierce faces like Chc-Ical-f/ani/^ the God of War, certain that the Wo-jen would ruii, as they should have, were they not hopeless savages, and unacquainted with Chinese characters. We rushed on them breathing forth fire, but they moved not. Then our general shouted Victory ! for we had para- lyzed them with our boldness. But suddenly a long row of guns raised like one arm, and, immortal gods! such a dastardly way to fight I never saw ! I know not why we were wounded in the back." For the few days that we remained in P'yimg- yang, we were followed bj' an innumerable company of spectators, whose outbursts of laughter, as we walked along, seemed to be- token something extraordinary in our personal appearance. Nevertheless we walked the streets until we made our final exit in safety, througli this Chinaman's trap, the North Gate- way'. Snow had fallen, and the roads were muddy and unpleasant. A few days more curried us out of the flat valleys, past Anju, and Pak-ch(')n, to where tlie road was lifted high and dry, affording glimpses of the Yellow sea to the left. We spent a pleasant day in a town called ^(1 4 86 Korean Sketches Kasan, and when we left, a few of the natives saw us safely out of the village and then threw stones after us. Fortunately they did not throw with the same precision that they do in Whang-ha, so we remain to tell our story. A little later, we passed a mound of some interest, called the Speaking Grave, which came by its name in an extraordinary way. About a hundred years or so ago, there came by a trav- eller, who, through unexpected delay, was over- taken by night. He saw before him the craggy pass over which we had just come, and fearing that tigers might be prowling about, made up his mind to sleep till daylight beside a grave that he found among the trees. About mid- night, he was awakened by a voice across the valley. "Hollo! Isn't to-morrow the anniver- sary of your burial ! " Before there was time to imagine what such a question could mean, lie heard a reply come from the grave beside him, *'Yes of my burial! " "In that case," said the other, "you'll go and see that the sacrificial food is ready in your home, will you not?" "I would go," said the voice in reply, " but I have a guest sleeping here and cannot leave." " Aha ! " said he across the valley, " I see, but then if you go, I'll be host till you return." " Thanks ! " said the ghost, and all was silent. He went, but soon returned announcing his presence by sounds of fury. " Here already I The Yalu and Beyond 87 how so soon?" asked tlie host pro tern. ** Fiends ! " siiid he, " what a mess ! " which was the only reply, till, cooling off a little, he added, " I went to the house, saw the food, and right in the middle of it, what think you? a snake coiled about. I have just sent a posse of hobgoblins for my youngest grandson. I'll teach them to offer me snakes ! " The ghosts expressed mutual horror, and all was silent. When morning came, our traveller liurried to a village near by, and inquired about the man buried 3^onder, who he was, and where he had lived. Arriving at the home, he found it was indeed the anniversary of the old man's funeral. Breathlessly he asked if all were well. Alas I no, their little boy had been drowned that night. He then explained what he had heard in the valley, and what the cause of it had been. "A serpent in the sacrificial food, where ? " they asked "where?" Searching carefully each dish, they found nothing that could resemble this except a long hair, which they at last con- cluded the ghost, with his transcendental vision, had taken for a serpent. The Speaking Grave is now carefully guarded and is one of tb3 sa- cred grovefj on the way north. In the town of Yong-chon, our attention wag called to a peculiar cUf.Lom that I have seen no- where eke in Korea. We had stopped at an inn filthy beyond all description, and after get- Mi jll 1; if If 88 Korean Sketches ■'■(! ling seated on as clean a spot as possible, we noticed what might be called a dagger in tlie ridge-log above us. It seems tu have been a cus- tom handed down from their ancestors. Should one die in tlie village on an unlucky day, they say the soul travels about, entering other homes with intent to carry off the living. On enter- ing, he glances at the ridge-log ; a dagger stick- ing there will scare him off and save the in- mates. We felt how invulnerable we were before these imaginary evils, when suddenly we were attacked by enemies that outrival all supersti- tion. It was the old story of roaches and bugs. Koreans say that roaches eat bugs, and again I have been told that bugs turn into roaches when they get old. Of one thing only am I certain, that both roaches and bugs eat mortal man, and neither one nor the other ever seems to grow old or to transmigrate into anything less objectionable. On an afternoon in March, as we were jour- neying along in an indifferent way. So suddenly called our attention to a range of peaks dimly outlined before us. '* That," said he, "is China beyond the Yalu." It was the first that we had seen of the Celestial Empire, and our hearts awoke as we recalled what we had heard of that far-famed land. Suiting a familiar metaphor to our surroundings, we fell that long centuries, The Yalu and Beyond 89 almond-eyed and cued, were looking down upon us from the heiglit of yonder niountuins. On we jonrncjyed, gradually ascending until we entered Eui ju, a modest town pleasantly situated looking south over the Yalu. It is a quaint, old-fashioned place, and might be called an Asiatic Antwerp. Tiiere were Chinese mer- chants, and a few Koreans engaged in business, but all spoke of trade as being dead now in contrast to some period before the opening of the treaty ports. Eui-ju, like the rest of Korea, is in poverty and ready to die of starvation. The products of the soil and manufactures are gradually growing less, while the mints are rolling out inferior copper cash. On a small scale it reminds one of France in 1774. It is the old question of differences of rank that threaten the existence of the nation ; in other words, is it better to be an immaculate, laun- dried aristocrat (^yang-haii)^ and die of starva- tion in a dignified manner, or to become a low class man and work out one's salvation with sun tanned face and hardened hands? The nakedness of the land too makes one sad, " Cest triste^"" said a French father to me when looking at its brown hills. There is really no timber in Korea. Tliere are indeed a few scattered remnants of what were doubtless for- ests in former times, but there remain no heavily timbered lauds. * 1! '■ hi ■ m I i ..it i IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I ill m 'i||M 11 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 -^ 6" — ► V} i9 VI >* 4' \ \ M 6^ ^b ■^ 9) i 90 Korean Sketches On an April morning we crossed the river flats and the three divisions of the Yalu. Our dog cut capers ou the sand banks, joyful no doubt in the thought of exchanging half -fam- ished Korea for great, porky, greasy, oily China. Only the Yalu divides these two, and yet they differ vastly. Dress, occupation, food, language, everything was new to us. Korea, idle or asleep ; China, strange to say, awake and busy ! Hav- ing asked for an inn, we were shown into a place that was blue with smoke. We resolved to wait outside until it had cleared away a lit- tle, but Pak, a friend whom we met at Eui-ju, told us it was always so in a Chinese inn, and that we must get used to it. So in we plunged. Chicken coop, pigpen, kitchen, sleeping apart- ments, were all one and the same room. Under greasy blankets lay Chinamen — some asleep, some puffing away at opium, others again half- dressed searching the seams of their clothing in a suspicious way, all more or less attracted by our arrival : for Western people are rare here. Razor-backed pigs walked about the ground floor, indifferent to the fate of their rehitives in the frying-pans just above them. The host brushed back and forth, keeping the on-lookers at a distance, as though he felt much responsi- bility on our behalf. Groups of oily urchins gathered about us. One little fellow, after looking at me for a moment, shouted ^^Yang I'lie Yalu and Beyond 9» :e. nd I in jrs isi- bis ber Kwe ja I " and ran, the proprietor following him in a most threatening manner. We felt that this " Kwe ja " must be an interesting word, and so looked it up in the lexicon, where it read "deviFs son" or "foreign devil." The dinner which they brought in consisted of strings of pork, vermicelli, and scrambled eggs. We looked at the pork, and then at the live pigs grunting by us, and considered how narrow the step between them and death. The eggs, of which there might have been a dozen on each plate, were so excessively scrambled that my companion declared a sight of them was enough for him. The vermicelli passed on its way with such rapidity of motion that there was really no time to taste it. We all dined squeamishly, except the dog, who fairly revelled in oil, and so continued from this day till we re- crossed the Yalu a month later, three hundred miles further up. Our carts were already in waiting, three mules on each, one in the shafts, one to the right, and one ahead. The one in the shafts was so time worn that his hide was bare in patches ; nevertheless he settled himself down to work in a way that showed he was still master of the situation. These carts are strongly built, and as we found afterward, can bump their way over all manner of rocky roads without being any the worse for it. To increase comfort, and a. ^ 92 Korean Sketches also to cheer our hearts on the way, Keumdoli had cushioned us carefully with bundles of Chinese confectionery. Our passports were asked for and sent into the y II •'i 96 I •* Korean Sketches destiniition and deposited us in an inn-yard just outside the city wall. I shall not attempt a description of the place. We visited the Temple of the Fox, Mohamme- dan Mosques, etc., and saw what interested us most, the everyday life of the Chinaman. Our view of the city was obscured by a series of sandstorms that increased in violence till the day of departure. Once more the cart road meandered across a monotonous plain. Here the sand flew, a perfect desert simoon. It curled up in drifts like snow. The mules coughed immoderately to clear their throats, while the rest of us helplessly drank it in at every pore. On the second day out we bade this confusion of sand, pork, and Mongol whirl- winds, farewell. It was mountainous and the scenery was charming from this to Teung-hwa- sung. We had every variety. Once or twice the mules were swept off their feet and almost carried away by the streams ; then we would leave the rivers for winding avenues of trees ; or, directly after being closed round by echoing crags, there would open before us some far rest- ful view. We almost longed for the capacity of a Rip Van Winkle that v/e might doze off among such hills. The less we saw of man, the cleaner, purer, and more delightful became our surroundings. There is aline in Korean sacred writing that "eads, The Yalu and Beyond 97 Hanal ami sai^ it man mulken kaondai sarami kajang qui hata (of all objects under heaven man is most precious). Looking at himself, one desires to feel that this teaching is true, but again taking a survey of others, he is in- clined to doubt it. We all have an idea how- ever, Koreans as well as Westerners, that man was originally this "precious object," but whether from ignorance or neglect, he now finds himself in a morbid, run-down condition, that even nineteenth century skill cannot diag- nose. For this reason certain meeting house people discard the sacred writings and sing "every prospect pleases and only man is vile." Can such pessimism be true anywhere but in New England? True it is in North China as well ; in fact it looks as though it were uni- versally true. We were not destined to escape the haunts of man for any great length of time, for one afternoon brought us out on the brow of a hill overlooking Teung-hwa-sung, sixty-five miles from the Yalu river. It is surrounded by mountains, and so seems entirely cut off from other thickly populated districts. We stopped at Teung-hwa-sung for a couple of days to rest our aches and pains after the cart ride. Among other things, we were told of a party of Englishmen who had come through a year or two before, and how they i\ l\ (j8 Korean Sketches hud twenty horses and guns innumerable. See- ing so few accoutrements in our compaii} , tliey shook tlieir licads expiessivc-ly, as if to say, England is not as powerful as she was a year or two ago. I liked the inn-master in the place. IMk told me he was a Manchurian. It was said he understood Manchu writing, and that he was a distant relative of the present imperial line. He was oily enough, certainly, to have been anointed for a dozen kingships. This no doubt accounted for the proud way in which he saun- tered about his own inn, and the dignity with which he behaved in general. He was kind to our whole party, to me in particular. He really seemed s[)ecially drawn to me. At night, too, he slept in our immediate neighborhood. Before retiring he would shed a few of his outer garments, skillfully going round the seams of these with his teeth, biting in every nook and corner. If the objects of his displeasure were specially numerous, he would engage his grandson to search for him, and the lad^s success could be noted by the sound of the victims cracked on the dining table. A most remark- able old man I But like all others we had to bid him farewell and start from Teung-hwa- sung. We still recall the morning of our departure. Cart number two had started ahead, and by ■ u<\ The Yalu and Beyond 99 Irtuve. id by some mishap was upset. Mr. Si) was ejected, as if sliot from a catapult, but after feeling of his heatUlress and person in general, said no liarm was done. It was not far from Teiing- hwa-snng, that we met two old wayfarers, eacli carrying a bundle and a heavy club. A sudden misunderstanding arose between tliem and our cartmen, over what we have never been able to understand. They talked together for a few minutes in an animated way without coming to any conclusion, and then armed with clubs all round, went for one another. There were no striking of attitudes and tableaux, such as we see in Korea, but good hard fighting with blows that echoed. It was refreshing indeed, for it taught us that there was life still in the Far East. We viewed it from our reserved seats in the cart, not without anxiety lest these tawny wayfarers should kill our cartmen, and leave the further education and bringing up of the mules on our hands. They fought so desperately that Pak and So climbed out to the rescue, and then it looked as though Koreans and all might perish. It was only upon the entrance of *' foreign-devils " upon the scene, that peace was finally restored. That same evening I made signs of inquiry to our cartman as to the general state of his health. He re- plied by trying to lift his right arm. When by dint of effort he got it to the horizontal, his ex- ni ! *1 m ii H lOO Korean Sketches pression of suffering reminded me of a fiice in an old copy of Dante's Inferno. With such variations to season our journeVf we left the clearings lieliind and entered the forest. On the outskirts we passed a number of coal-fields that showed some signs of life, but otherwise it was nearly all a wilderness. There was an inn in tlie pine forest to which the carts took us, but beyond there was only a f()()t[)ath. It was twenty miles from the Yalu, and as there was no coolie market to draw from, we had each to turn in and shoulder a bundle. It was April nineteenth, but in the shaded canon through which the path led the ice was still seven and eight feet thick. That afternoon we came upon a wretched Chinese family, moving, they said, to Ma-er-shan, a place near the foot of the Ever White Moun- tains. Their horse had fallen over a precipice and had scattered their few provisions and utensils everywhere. A poor woman, with several half frozen cliildren, was looking on hel[)lessly at the disintegrated pony. After ten miles that seemed twenty, we found a Korean hut, and, to our delight, dined on rice and kimclti (pickle) once more. Here lived one of the many squatters that we find beyond the Yalu. These people look more prosperous and contented there than in their native Choson. This strip of land was formerly The Yalu and Beyond lOl li neutral territory, but is now in the Imnds of the Cliiiieso. Wo slept peacefully, feeling as thoiipli we were lionie after our wanderings. Chinamen calle as to just what we were. (.)ne little boy carrying a pipo found liis way in likewise. This pipe he coolly li: d, and lit, and sat down to smoke before us. I inquir'Ml his age. Pak said he was five, l.^ough he did not look mure than four. Never liavii-.: seen as young an urchin in- dulging in the ait of tobacco smoking I asked Pak if he would sell his j>ipe. lie said *'No!'* Pak inquired again, and then young Manchuria began to cry, saying that he wuuld not sell his pipe for anything ; in which case we would not iiiaist. About this time his father came in, and hearing of the proposal that had l)een made, held a consultation with Iiis son. When tiiey liad considered the question on ail sides, Man- churia, junior, offered it to Pak for twenty centi We tl gave Uie price ev(.'n tliou th i. th on- lookers did smile and s;iy you eould buy a new one for less than tiiat. \Ve bought it, I say, and we keep it now as the pipe of the smallest boy in the world who can smoke and not get SIC) This day took us to the Yalu once again, though smaller tlian at Eui-ju, still a swift and powerful river. Our crossing was at a lumber •.' la M 102 Korean Sketches camp where several hundred Chinese coolies were hewing timber. Immense logs, four and five feet in diameter, had been floated down tiie Yalu, and were here cut up and carried inland. Our entrance was a signal to stop work. They gathered round us, not a very orderly looking group, and their laughter and wonderment v.as not of a cultured kind. Pak said they wanted eight dollars to scow us over the river ; and when he told them that we carried passports, issued by the almighty government of the Celestial Empire, these celestials merely grinned, saying they feared no law and were responsible to no empire. Pak said he would give no more than fifty cents if we waited there till New Year, so there was nothing for the rest of us to do but to wait on Pak. An hour or so later, he returned, having in some mysterious way completely won the victory, for they scowed us over for nothing — Pak making them a gift of our few remaining Chinese cash. It seems to me it requires as much good sense and skill to manipulate a Chinese lumber camp, as it does to settle a fisliery question or manage a political party. It was the same Pak that came home to Korea some fifteen years ago, teaching doctrines about resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment, so that his superior put him in the lockup and paddled him that he might sin no The Yalu and Bej'ond 103 more Pak's only answer in his far north dmiect was, " You may paddle me but you surely cannot stop my speaking." Long five That afternoon we sat on a mountain pass and took a last farewell of the lumber camp. «.e mountains round about, and the winding I IV FROM POVERTY TO RICHES It was a fierce winter day. I had ridden some forty miles across the plains that end in a stretch of mountains separating East and West Korea. It was part of a two weeks* journey, in which time I had been frost-bitten, snowed under, and last of all, liad had to break a way through the drifts for seventy miles. The mountains seemed to have been buried neck deep, and the guide, with three coolies ahead, appeared and disappeared at the mercy of the snow. The little Korean ponies, noted for their sure-footedness, completely lost their heads, and I was shot into the drifts time and again, while the poor pony, off the track, would go down hopelessly into the depths, pack and all. The five natives with me complained bitterly of the cold and of the wretched country through which we had been obliged to pass. They grew moody, as mortals do when weary; so we plodded on in silence, hoping to find a room in a village in the next ravine. Korean huts at their best are noisome dens; at their worst as you find them in mountain 104 From Poverty to Riches 105 villages, tliey are indescribable. A night i)assed in one of these has more soul-stirring horrors than all of Dante's vision. The wind that wliistles over the plains, deals with you in a fierce, yet clean-handed way, but the atmos- phere that enshrouds you at night, poisons your very lifeblood. It was in the vilhige of To'-Song or Earthen Walls that we were to stop. In the dusk of the evening we wound down into it and put up at an inn, wliere I noticed an old man, partly barefoot in the snow, tottering in with two buckets of water. His shattered condition caught my eye — for Koreans, thougli they have but few earthly blessings, dress well and fare sumptuously. When I had a chance to talk with him, I found liim a gentle spoken native, who as I learned afterward, carried under his ragged dress a tender heart and manifold ex- periences of want and suffering. He had walked four hundred miles from his home in Kapsan up to the capital which he had seen for the first time. He had thought to get work and to increase his little money, but the undertaking had proven a failure. With his money spent and the residents of the capital looking askance at a feeble old northerner, he had to turn homeward, and, working his way slowly, had reached To'-song, a quarter of the distance. n I! V ' 1 -->-■ I f U tfi a w M trii aihi l^j±tlM)tiMiMUAUiWa 106 Korean Sketches 1! I tried to draw tlie old man out in order to get a glimpse if possible of the inner self of one wlio possessed so little of the world's goods. lie was simple and childlike in his manner, and asked respectfully for my *' honor- able country." I told him I had come over the sea from away beyond everywhere to tell Koreans about the God who made tlie world, and who certainly loved them. He confessed that he was not as anxious about the life to come as he was about a little meat and drink and a few yards of plain clothing for this pres- ent world. I liked liis honesty, for it is so easy to find a pious oriental with full stomach and warm suit, all of which is due to a hard- working woman, proclaiming himself not of the earth earthy. Nam, for that was his name, did not seem in the least afraid of me, but sat chatting in the doorway, his deep hungry eyes and hollow cheeks telling his story of earth's pilgrimage. As I sat waiting for the evening meal I gave him a few cash, with a hint that I would be grateful for any assistance he could give me against the unseen armies of the night. The old man looked carefully about him, and then, with a precision that did my heart good, took the worth of several such strings of cash out of one or two disreputable insects that happened to be careering along the wall of the room. I From Poverty to Riches 107 date tliis point as the beginning of a friendsliip, which I hope may last many a year. The supper was brought in steaming, and smelling of pickle, soup, and stringy looking meats — usually called "dog" by foreigners who have never tasted of them. It was a welcome odor, and as I took up the chopsticks, Nam wished me a " mighty dinner " and with- drew. What were the old man's thoughts I know not, but if he had no greedy longing in his heart for my lot, I should say he was not far from the kingdom — as an Oriental so situ- ated would naturally speak iflatteriugly, while thinking, " see the foreign dog devouring the best of the land, while I, a child of ancestral promise, go hungry ! " In the course of time the supper odors and the musty room faded away, the dogs grew quiet, the ponies under the eaves ceased their munching, and with gates barred and doors pulled tight, we slept ; Nam to be free from want and poverty, and I to dream of a happy home awaiting me after the mountains and storms of the journey : in miniature a picture of a longer pilgrimage, and the Home of Light, awaiting all who trust in The Light of Life. I slept, baked almost brown by the frying- pan floor. This floor, by the way, is the delight of every truly Korean heart, and in no particu- lar does our barbarian nature seem to them ■|i I '«l i-j .1 a I 11 T' 108 Korean Sketches '' -••gged coat over his w,/.''^ P"' °" •■"««« so improved his .ll,\^''"'''"''' ^^hich ;- as though HfeSTS had come to see and fn / °^P'"""«e- He -hether I had son . ^'Z? r^' "'^ '° ^'-^ had wood to split, and rooL L , T''^ '°- ^ «o we entered into co, t^et iJ'^' I °''"^' ""'^ •»«■ and I to pay hi n a t ;r^''"; *° ^"■•'^ ^r -as so gentle a,fd mild hat^ f"^ '*, ^"'- «« ^vould suffer but little at) \ T""^ "'^ ^''^J^^ «o. for with toba CO erlt '"'''="'"' ^'«' "ot •ation, he faithfu reCl^ .f ''"' "" '"^P'" I can see hiu, stifl .s t '' '''^' ""'"'Sned. his adversity, his l^tle f^'' '" '^'"' '^"^^ "f -ood pile, and can fe his 'f.! '^'""'* "''" advice about the work ' '°'"^ ''"""'S my 'he\t^ra::Tg;:;:;::r--^^""' after variably regard, l T ^'^'^^^^ster. He ]„. J regards o-eiitleiipsQ r,f ^ sign of lurkin^r deceff TT ^"""""^ ^« a I (VI I ill' if If !'l "-!•" r 112 Korean Skctclits what in the way a thistle might look down upon a milkweed, feeling certain that the latter would come to no good end, and accused him of uttering falsehoods in his hearing. " He says," protested my assistant, ** tliat he has a home up north, cows, and fields, and sufficient to live on, and now he wants to make a little money so as to buy a few clothes and go back looking decent. The idea of an old offspring of that kind talking about owning cows." " Wait and see," I said, " don't condemn the old man so hastily ; " but his mind was like a millstone, and Nam henceforth stood con- demned. Two months passed, and he was still with us, little better in appearance, it is true, for he was saving his extra cash together with the clothes we gave him. He seemed happy, and every morning sat in the doorway listening to the Bible-story of sin and death and ransom. We tried to make it plain, and though seeming to fail, we trusted that God would open his heart to receive it. He thought it very wonderful that God should speak so plainly — that He should have come down to earth, and have lived, and been poor, and, stranger still, should have offered himself a sacrifice for us all. He was quite a farmer in his way. He taught me how to plant pines and willows. Said he " Plant the large end of the limb and From Poverty to Riches 1 13 you get a common willow? reverse it, plant tlie small end and you get a weeping willow ; which idea I found to be interesting even though it did not prove actually true. He managed the gardening, took care of the flowers, and would search out a bug or thieving insect with great success. He informed me one morning that a certain creature, something in the form of a mosquito (mo-gi), was after our strawberry plants. My wife's interest in strawberries had never flagged, even through whole seasons of bare vines, so I said " My wife would be glad, I know, if you could capture that bug." He came a few mornings later, saying that he was happy to report to me that he had risen before day- break and caught that mosquito, and that now we might expect strawberries in the near future. Another morning, all unexpectedly, the old man came to say that, now the snow was gone, he would have to go back to see how his home was in the far north (Kapsan). I told him how sorry we would be to have him go; but it seemed best, and Nam came with his new white overcoat on to bid us peace and farewell. I saw wrapped away in his little bundle of earthly possessions a few tracts and parts of the New Testament. Did he know the secret of these as we hoped and prayed ? With many expressions of thank- fulness, the worn face disappeared, and the > 11 ;j- kif i'l ; \ 114 Korean Sketches gentle spirit in its plebeian dress had gone and left us. A man's place in life is not always to be judged by what he owns or by the cut of coat he wears. Sometimes people that own nothing, and wear any kind of coat that is given them, have eyes that stir our souls, and lines in their faces that move to tears. A tender soul look- ing out inquiringly or trustingly from its earthly windows, is worth meeting in a world so full of hardness, and hatred, and cast-iron perfection. The summer wore round. Four months had passed away, when on a certain afternoon, a well-dressed figure with fresh lacquered hat came in at the gate, and turned toward my room. The face I knew, but there was some- thing strange. Whyl yes, it was Nam, all dressed up 'tis true, but just as gentle and re- spectful as ever. I said, " Why, friend Nam I Is it peace? How comes it?" He first in- quired for my wife and little girls, and then told me how he had been home, and was now returning with two of his cows to sell in the Japanese market. Two cows to sell I Why I could not have been more surprised if he had told me he was a millionaire ; and yet he did not look at me proudly. I saw he could be great, and not be ruined; something so little seen on earth. I told hiir. how glad I would be to have From Poverty to Riches iij; him call often while he stayed, and offered him a seat, which lie declined out of respect to me. My Egyptian assistant was as surprised as if the angel Gabriel had met him. He tried to reconcile this with human nature in generaL I doubt not he searched the Chinese classics to find if it were possible for gentleness and hu- mility ever t(> keep company with prosperity and earthly possessions. Yang said tome "I thought Nam So-bang was false, but he is true, every inch of him; in fact he is a wonderful old man." I went out to where he had his cows tethered on the hillside to see him. One was a red cow, the other brown, both in good con- dition. A few days later he sold them to the Japanese for forty-five dollars. It was the first time I had ever seen a man of the people with no debts and so large a supply of cash on hand. The Egyptian and his asso- ciates were speechless. I suggested that they might do well to koiv-tow (bow down) before so worthy a Korean as Nam, for as for me, I had seldom seen his like. One more interview. As he was leaving for his home he came to ask for four of the books that told about Jesus They had read what he had taken before, and now he wanted a New Testament each for three families, and one for his own. He said they could read the Chinese characters in these homes, aud besides, he would t' V \ !! 116 Korean Sketches tell them what he himself had heard about sal- vation. We told Nam that we would never forget him, and my wife joined me in wishing him peace on his journey — the peace that passeth under- standing. THE KOKEAN PONT ;i 1 Among the creatures that have crossed my path, the one that has had the most influence on my personal character is the Korean pony. It would be impossible to recount the varied experiences through which he has led me. In- stead of lifting my hand and pointing to some noted professor or eminent divine, as the master spirit of my life, 1 stand a safe distance off, point to the Korean pony, and say, " He has brought more out of me than all of the others combined." In his company I have been sur- prised at the amount of concentrated evil I have found in my heart; again, as he has car- ried me safely along the dizziest edge, I could have turned angel and taken him upon my back. My usual pony has been, not one of your well groomed steeds from the palace stables, but a longhaired, hide-bound one, for which your whole heart goes out in pity. *' Weak crea- ture," you say, " how easy it would be for him to expire." But after a little experience of his company you change your mind ; for you find his heels are charged with the vitality of forked 117 1 1 ii8 Korean Sketches lightning, and that upon slight provocation he could bite through six inch armor-plate. Experience has taught me to treat him care- fully, as you would an old fowling-piece loaded to kill, and in danger of going off at any mo- ment. Korean ponies hail principally from the south- ern island of Quelpart, from the group off the west of P'yimg-an, and from Ham-Kyong prov- ince. A Manchu breed is being introduced of late, but they are more bulky, harder to feed, and not nearly as good roadsters. The breeding districts are under charge of officers named Kammok. They have with them keepers, who twice each year, lasso a certain number of ponies and send them to the palace. There they pass their palmy days. When their liair grows long and they take on a sheep-like look, they are turned out through the back gate and become pack-ponies, carrying goods along the four main roads of Korea. They keep this up until they develop ringbone, spavin, raw- back, windgalls and heaves. Then they are bought by a Korean living near the "New Gate," and for the remainder of their mortal existence are used specially to carry foreigners. The fact that the animal is dangerously ill, and the risk so much the greater, accounts for the double charge made to all foreigners by the man at the ♦• New Gate." /. / ,y„ [! 1 1 The Korean Pony 119 The Korean pony figures in literary and 8ci« entific ways as well. He is the animal of the twenty-fifth constellation, and appears specially as the symbolical creature of the seventh Korean hour (11 A. M. to 1 P. M.). This doubtless re- fers to the fact that he eats his chook at that time, though 11 to 2 would have been a more correct division. We read also that his com- pass point is south. Probably the inventor of the Horary Table was on his way nortli at the time, and finding that his pony naturally gravitated the other way, marked it south. His poetical name is toncliang (honest sheep). While the noun here is well chosen, the adjective is purely fictitious, as we say "honest injun." In size, when alongside of a Western horse, he looks like a ten-year-old boy accompanying his grandfather, or like an ordinary Japanese walking out with Li Hung Chang. His gait is a peculiar pitter-patter, and rides very nicely until he reaches the raw-backed, spavin age, when he stumbles every few paces, calling forth remarks from the foreigner. The so-called Chinese ponies are all rough, awkward creatures. A pack on one of them heaves up and down like an old-fashioned walking-beam ; while a Korean pony, in good condition, glides along like a palace Pullman. For a journey over such roads as we have, a small Korean horse will use up a large Chinese pony in less fn ill 120 Korean Sketches J I 1' i' I. ' V i than three days, as I have found by actual ex- periment. Their sure-footedness is a marvel. If you have been fortunate enough to escape the man at the '' New Gate/' and have really s'^cured a good pony, then give him his way over all dangers of ice and precipice that you may chance to pass. Sit perfectly cool on your pack, for the danger is less when trusting to him than to your own feet. How my heart has risen to the occasion, and taken up its quarters in my mouth, as I have felt him glide along an eight inch path, overlooking a chasm with twelve feet of green cold water below. But never a failure, never once a slip. At such times, liad 1 been in search of a joss to crack my head to, I should have enshrined my Korean pony. And yet in spite of these excellencies my open- ing remarks are true, for in heart and soul he is a perfect fiend. Obstinacy is one of his com- monest characteristics. He will have his own way as assuredly as any Korean coolie will have his. When the notion takes him, his neck is of brass, and his ideas fixed as the king's ell. His diet is chook and chopped millet straw. Chook is boiled beans and rice chuff, and is fed to the pony in a trough of water. The beans are very few, the water very deep. The long The Korean Pony 121 lips and nose of the Korean pony is an evolu- tion of nature in order to capture that bean in the bottom of a trough of water : he has been after it for generations. Anotlier result is, the pony can breathe through his eyes while liis nose is a foot deep in chook water hunting beans. The fact that the water is always colored, leaves it uncertain as to the amount put in, and grievous are the disputations that arise over an equal division of these beans. On one of my journeys I had for groom (mapu) a huge trousered, pockmarked fellow, whose dis- position seemed to be to get into disputes and difficulties along the way. The pony I rode was a long nosed, dejected creature, that re- quired three hours to feed. On one occasion I went out to hurry the animal up, and found it eye deep in its trough, apparently having an extra good time. The innkeeper liappening to pass by saw the twinkle in the pony's eyes, and concluded that the mapu had " squeezed " his beans. Immediately a most interesting drama was enacted, passing rapidly through the various acts of a tragedy. '' To perdition, you and your beans," cries the mapu^ meanwhile, currying his pony. With that, in a burst of tragic frenzy, the innkeeper seizing the brimming trough of chook^ poised it in the air, and let fly at the mapu. With all the centrifugal force of a pro- ^ m w i . n 122 Korean Sketches jectile, the trough grazed the pony's back and shot by the mapu; the water, taking the centrip- etiil route, showered down over the head and shouklers of the innkeeper himself, the beans gliding gentl}^ down his neck. People speak of a horse-laugh, but a pony's smile is something that in walery richness of expression surpasses everything. That dejected looking pony smiled, and we resumed our journey. They never allow the pony to drink cold water, *' It is sure death," they say , neither do they allow him to lie down at night, but keep him strung up to a pole overhead by ropes, so that the creature is perfectly helpless, and all the roosters of the village warm their feet on his back and crow the place into a perfect pandemonium. The work of feeding ponies, as I have before mentioned seems endless to one un- initiated. For a seven o'clock start in the morning you hear them up at half-past one slop- ping, dishing, crunching, jangling, wearying the life out of the miserable ponies. I begged and implored, but it was all in vain, for when a Korean pony and a native combine in some pet scheme, it is as useless to remonstiate as it would be to ''pick a quarrel wi' a stane wa'." By way of poetic justice, I love to see the pony shod — see him pinioned tooth and nail, bound head, feet, and tail in one hard knot, bnig on his back unde The Korean Pony ^23 >r the t^-ee, with ti,e village smithy him t ,.,f i,„:..,.. ° _ "■> spreading chsstn him that biw^t'Z To r'^ ''"'""^ '"''^^ "'"o ^o-hesi,,3on.is:;::Xe':^i:;::j"-'^''^'^- -Lo conclude bv wour.p -n /^®"^®- a journey through t fe 2;^:?","; ^ , ' ^^«^ ^ province. There my ponv oL .Y"'^""'^ ^oing able to find onpf^. /''''' ='"'^ »«' the mayor of th city Th '' ' '^''^'^ °''« "^ Je»ve he .ent me .^u^id a T"""^ ^ ^^^^ t° a pony. This wL „ l^f^e f ''^^'"^ °^ ^e^'vioe. which necessihted ' """"" «>-ery five miles. In t,' '1 "'^"^'"^ ''"''^^^ '-""mals thatrenio,tdf i '"" ""^ ^^'^^n I had an excellentTefn :3trt "" V'"^ ''''^^• and defects of the ^^."'"""^'^"''on of the merits the first hor e t a" eT"^' ^^ '"^''"°-''. «l«o was in good conditio '"""r/' '''' "^^' °"« portioned. On lu S , '''"'' ^"''''^ ^^''^ P™" ''''^' - peculiar gi el * '"T^^'' ^ ^"""^ he efforts to Iocatfl,iJT„M':r,r'^''''"™>- entire beins- a ie,.f ., to possess his Boul in .bread's '£'• ^ ""' ^*^" --'« inmost ""'-wasindescd^r"T';"""°'""«"- "- the most uncomttbl!tr"se1';''"''"' '" had anything to do uiti, p,""/'' ^ have ever ;;"-verattLne;t;o".hoi!fr^''''r 1 ""-sr ■■1 i 124 Korean Sketches I I, of the yard brilliantly. The road skirted the bank of a river. A magnificent view, thought I, and a pleasant pony to ride on; when sud- denly he stopped, reversed all his ideas and be- gan backing at a dangerous pace directly for the edge. I managed to get off just in time to save myself, and then, thinking to teach him a lesson by a good shaking up, attempted to assist liim over the side. But no I he skillfully grazed the edge at an angle sufficient to have dumped anything from his back, and righted himself again as neatly as though he had done it a thousand times. Evidently, it was a scheme on his part to take my life. I tried him, found him guilty, and sentenced him to as many lashes as the whalebone in my possession would mete out. I used it up — the only thing in all my per- sonal effects that the natives admired — and then, on the advice of Mr. Yi, decided to walk till the landscape was a little less picturesque. When we had left the river and gained the open fields, I tried him again, thinking surely that his spirit must be broken by this time. But it was not long till the old sensations took him, and he was again backing up at terrific speed. As there was no immediate danger, I thought to let him back, which he did until he had run me into a bristling shrub, that lifted my hat off, combed me up generally, and marked my face. Having no more whaleboue I gave him up en- The Korean Pony tireJy, and footed \t fr.. *i distance. ' ^"' ^^'' rennunder of the was invariably sXZlT ^T'^'"'''' '^-^l^^'' I could have^ee^ ."ly'r"^'/'^^''''"' )'"le these answers n. aj u,""""^ '"^^ •nost imniaculatfl ,. " ^"'- ^^^'s"- one of the h'^d professed :Lert?e °" "" "'"^"' ^^ we again moved oT 'w I'tir""""^'""^' for eno.i}jh awav f.„^ !! ^ creature was 7-erfL;T:;t: 7.r:v;:--''i« down peacefully i„ the middle of ' f Tl>ere he remained until mZ\ ,-^^ """^■ '•"'d ears, and then hi V ! '""^''^ '^^ *»» «qu-,y'o„ the gri 1rV° P'!: '"'^ ^-' pony boys straiuiL ,' ' """• ""e two to i>old L eZt "''"'^'^'^^ '° t'-e utmost troubled with a Snesst'"-. /'* ''''' '^^^ Without the shvltest "' ^"''^ 1"'"'te'»- the time goin^ tw ZT^''"" '" "^^ =•» parts, however \ee,T,l ^ f °''' '^'^ binder strength could have ^ ^ ' '''"'■ " '"^ '•ore and aft, h miJhT J """"' "''"""^ '''^'ded po"y;buta • w"f„v;::v"''''«^p--w« have been the only hlel ^ ^^' *" '" ^""'^ "lily Honest turu-out. The crea- ! 126 Korean Sketches ture hobbled along, kept me in a. state of con- stant suspense, played on my ho[)es and fears most cruelly, and at last, in an nttor collapse, pitched me clear over his head, to the total de- struction of my personal appearance. VI ACKOSS KOKEA * During tlie past eight years it has been my misfortune, shall I say, to have crossed the peninsula of Korea twelve times, by different roads, and at different seasons of the year. No other American or European having had such a varied experience of the crossroads of the hermit kingdom, I have thought it a subject upon which I might venture to write. Korean historical associations are connected with the far north. Keui-ja, who was a sort of Christopher Columbus and George Washington combined, crossed the Yalu, bringing civiliza- tion and deliverance with him. The Puynites, an interesting race, who gradually overran the peninsula, lived at the foot of the Ever Wliite Mountain, which still stands, like a silent senti- nel, on guard against Russia. All the old tales of heroes and marv^ellous mysteries gather about the far north ; and it was in the hope of verifying some of these that I resolved to make a trip from Manchuria knowing that no West- erner had yet penetrated eastward from the Yalu through the region that I most desired to see. • Written for the Yokohama Literary Society, ' 127 If,- I * ill 'r 128 Korean Sketches r i There were seven of us in the party, five Koreans and two Americans, who, in the month of April, crossed the river three hundred miles from its mouth, about midway between the forty- first and forty-second parallels of latitude, and started eastward. The river, here some three hundred yards wide, is swift and powerful, and we should never have been able to cross, but for a yellow- faced opium-smoking Chinaman, who, after nearly half-a-day's parleying, agreed to let us have his boat. After a walk over abrupt hills covered with birch, beeches, and pines, we came suddenly upon the Korean town of Chasong situated in a valley on the bank of a river. It is built of low mud huts, with slabs of wood instead of thatch to protect from the rain. The inhabi- tants poured out with a rush, man, woman and child, to see what was coming. How so many white 3oats can assemble in so short a time, ia one of the mysteries that we never try to solve in Korea. One long, lanky fellow, to the amuse- ment of the crowd, made a sort of hunchback nod at me and said, " Ugh ! what are you ? " We took a step or two toward him, and gave a look to signify that we were from the cannibal islands. At once he was polite, and all his companions fell into line. They were exceed- ingly kind and gave us the best they had in the Across Korea 1^9 Vi way of fare; but to the last, I really believe they did not know whether we were men or evil spirits — never having seen a Westerner be- fore. The natives were dressed, as elsewliere, in a white suit made up of huge baggy trousers and padded jacket. For headgear they wore a horsehair band, keyed so tightly that every line of expression was stretched out of the face, with scarcely enough muscular freedom for the eyes to close. The whole was surmounted by a broad-brimmed, gauze hat, whose duty is not to shade the head, but to cage off that precious badge of citizenship, the topknot. The most overwhelming part of a Korean's dress is liis trousers. When worn they are not so surprising; but when seen on a clothes line or stretched on the <7rass to dry, they are simply prodigious. T r-'ightsay, that in width, an ordinary Korean's pantaloons would amply cover the nakedness of the largest Buddha in the far East, or pro- vide a loose underga- > ,.it for the Statue of Liberty, New York harbor. We were doomed to disappointment in this town, as one so often is when travelling in Korea. It seem.i th'ii the ferryman overdrank himself chat niglit und let his boat float away from unJor him. The next morning it was fast to a roc'', ha>i submerged in the middle of the river, ard tvo were informed that the way ' It!, ^3o Korean Sketches ii was closed against us to the Ever White Moun- tain. We sent a note, with a present, to the magistrate requesting him to rescue tlie boat and help us along. His reply was thu'u he would do so at once. Six hours later wlien we visited the spot to see how matters were pro- gressing, we found a nois}^ group on the bank wrangling at the top of their voices, a perfect fight all round, the boat meanwhile T.Lt ., the rock mocking us from the middle of the river. The result of it all was that they took tlie ferryman to the yamen., fastened him down face to the ground, and gave him thirty blows with a paddle large enough to break a man's back. This they said was in accordance with Korean law, and was done out of respect for us. Next morning our party had to wade the cold green water which, along with the humilittting sensa- tion that the magistrate had tricked us out of the boat, and that the poor ferryman had been beaten on our account, was depressing. The Korean system of bridging streams is one of the strangest in existence. The natives are amazed be3ond expression at the idea of a bridge standing all the year round, so up come their bridges at about the first of June, only to be replaced at the close of September. They say it is because of the rairy season, but the longest rainy season I have known has not ex- ceeded a month and a half. 1 rather think it ■'■'^ Across Korea '3> i is because of the idea of personality tliat tliey associate with the bridge as with so many other things. Feeling that he should have a rest with the summer season, they pile him up by the roadside and let liim bask and snooze in the sun, in order that he may set his limbs the more firmly for his task of spanning the stream through the winter. These bridges, at best, are only about four feet wide, with a flooring of pine brush and earth resting on poles planted in spans of eight feet. To lide over this on the top of a pack pony, and to feel it giving under your feet like a patent spring mattress, creates a sensation of exi)ectancy in one not unlike that produced by a Yokohama earthquake. Usually the luiLives are willing, for a few cash,, to carry one on the back over unbridged streams, but on this northern trip I was specially unfortunate. I came upon a mountain torrent, not deep, but sufficient to cover the boot-tops, and just on the bank met a stout, bare-legged coolie, leading a horse. Said I, " You'll help me now, over this bit of water, please ? " He looked at me with unspeakable contempt and replied, " Get yourself over." As I had never before met such an independent coolie I was quite startled. " But I'll [)ay you, my good man!" "None of your pay for me," said he, and proceeded to walk away. Not that I would smm 132 Korean Sketches Ji be intentionally impolite to a coolie, but the in« spiration of the moment in some way eauglit me, and I was onto his back tighter than the Old Man of the Sea. He muttered to himself threatenings, then proceeded slowly, stopping t' reconsider in the middle of the stream, but it ■ • ' hopeless, so he landed me safel3^ I apolc£..i"ed and expressed the hope that we might still be friends, adding some extra pay by way of indemnity. He however stood look- ing at me in speechless amazement — is stand- ing so yet for ought I know. We now struck a region of absolute destitu- tion. It is true we saw beehives here and there, but could get no honey. There was nothing but millet and wild onions — no rice, no chickens or meat of any kind ; and boiled millet is like so much sawdust in hot water. Our bundles too, seemed to grow heavier, and we could find no additional means of transporta- tion, excepting two extra coolies, whom we hired. A young fox-terrier, like ourselves, grew thinner every day, refusing to eat millet. The onl}^ thing he would eat was a sticky candy made from sorghum seeds, one variety of which actually pulled liis teeth out and left his mouth bleeding, so that it was with difficulty we got him through alive. Among the grains of the far north we found Barbadas millet {sorghum vulgare')^ having red Across Korea »33 seeds, also panicled millet with seeds of a grey color. These varieties are sown on damp low- lands in drills, and the yield is claimed to be two hundredfold. The distribution of these grains is general throughout Korea. I have found them about Fusan, in the south, as well as on the Chinese border. Common millet, having a yellow grain, is sown in drills on dry land. Its yield is also very large, and most of the northern inhabitants subsist upon it. Buck- wheat is also grown in the valleys, and is used in the preparation of vermicelli, the most popu- lar dish in Korea. Beans, peas, barley, oats, wheat and maize are also grown in small quantities. Oats and potatoes Koreans particu- larly dislike. One evening after a weary tramp, we called for something to eat at a small cabin, and the old dame in charge, said with a long face, she had nothing in the world but oats. This was a welcome sound to us after millet, so we ordered some boiled. But the Koreans of the \ydily de- clared that matters were getting worse and worse — for oats, they claim, will give one all the diseases in the catalogue. We each had our dish and turned in for the nighi. Toward morning. Si), my Korean friend, who slept next me, was up and down groaning as though in great distress. "What's the matter?" I in- quired. "I have an attack of 'summer com- 1 1 m n 134 Korean Sketches I I plaint,' '' said he. The day hefore we had walked ten miles througli a fall of snow, and I could hardly understand how lie could have an attack of " summer complaint." " Those oats," said he, " have done it." Sleeping in a small Korean hut I found, at first, to he one of my hardest trials. In a tight iv^om, eight hy eight, by six, without one particle of ventilation, the floor heated nearly t . iiic frying point, you spread your blanket. The inexperienced traveller, pursued by fiery dreams, baked almost brown, gasps for breath and wishes for the morning. But after a year or two of practice, one gets to like the hot floor, for as the natives say, it lets you out after a cold day's journey. The homes of the gentry (^yavglan) are usu- ally very neat and attractive, the rooms well papered and clean; but the inns and Inits in which we lodged on this nortlK'in trip were certainly far from comfortable. There is an oppressive odor common to a Korean room, that took me months to analyze. It seemed to prevail in large quantities everywhere. I found at last, that it was composed of two ingredi- ents, one from the castor-oil lamp that sputtered in the corner, the other from a row of festering bean-balls hanging from the ceiling. After gathering the dust and cobwebs of a winter, these bean-balls are placed in water till fer- Ujji«uli.i_Kr ^ Across Korea 135 mentation begins, tlien the liquor is strained off and boiled into soy. Because of this sleeping room, life was a burden, until a friend of mine invented a special dress that serves as a coat of-niail. It is a huge sack, with smaller bags for the arms, and a draw string at the neck. Clad in this panoply of war, you turn on an American in- vention, which we call a gatling gun, and scat- ter insect powder over your face, neck, and pil- low. This insures sleep. But until these mod- ern inventions were introduced, tlie nights were passed with what waging of war, what slaughter, what muttered imprecations. But there is still anotlier danger that neither coat- of-mail nor patent insufflator can protect from, and that is disease. As an illustration : on one of my last trips across Korea, after a cold day's journey, I spread my blanket on tlie floor of an eight foot square room that opened into an- other of the same size. When I was comfort- ably located for the night, I was disturbed by sounds of moaning from the room into whicli mine opened. It was so darkened that I could not see clearly, but I made out two chil- dren covered witli a quilt. I asked the grand- mother in charge what was wrong with them. Her reply was '* His Excellency tlie spirit of smallpox is with us," and she hastened to make her evening sacrifice of rice cake. No '.i hi m «!T J- vmm 136 Korean Sketches It other house being available, nothing remained but to sleep the night in couipany with this unclean spirit. However, no harm came of it. As in so many other cases in the East, the Great Spirit of Safety seems to accompany one through exposure and dangers that we would never dream of at home. Yet I do not think Korea objectionable. To me it is the most attractive country in the world. The climate is good; the people, a dig- nified, trustworthy, kind-hearted race ; their language and ancient customs most interesting. Natural beauty abounds. The hills and streams are alive with pheasants, wild duck, geese and turkeys. Herds of deer too, come cautiously down into the valley to feed, and above all, are frequent announcements of the regal presence of the tiger. But to continue our journey. Vie noticed a succession of tiger traps, such as Koreans build from logs and stones, with a door that falls on the entrance of the tiger. But tigers are too cunning to enter a trap readily. We had proofs of there being many of them in our immediate neighborhood. Their tracks showed that they journeyed by the same road we did. The first instinct of these animals seems to be to keep out of sight by day, so we seldom see them. I remember what I thought was a huge grey cat once being brought into ihc roum where I Across Korea 137 was sitting. Looking more closely I saw it was a young tiger, lie turned over on his back, took my slipper in his moutii, kicked it up into the air, tossed it from him, and then pranced about as frisky as a kilten. 1 saw the same animal a year or so later, when he had grown to be a fierce caged brute that nut even the man in charge dare approach. Here also we found the land fairly well tim- bered with pines and liardwood trees, two and three feet in diameter, rarely seen elsewhere in Korea. Doubtless the time will come when this timber will be lloated down the Yalu to some place where it can be put to good use. We passed only one town of any size, a place called lluchang, and there we found our road again blocked to the Ever VV^hite Mountain. We were almost witliin sight of his grey top, but melting snows and spring floods made it impassable. We had hoped to reach the water- shed of the Yalu and Tumen, but the road through the mountains was completely shut against us. So, full o^ disa[)poiutment, we were obliged to turn south. The simple-hearted people in this town of lluchang knew notliing whatever of the world. The magistrate came to call, bringing a live chicken or two by way of a propitiatory offering. It was then about noon, and he asked what time of day it might be in our honorable country. i!i ?i II '■ i' 'k^ r ■PHH 138 Korean Sketches i "Nighttime," we replied. He gave a startled look. '' What direction is your country from here? "and we pointed him toward the centre of the earth. lie caught hold of something to steady himself from the shock this gave him, and in([uirod if we lived underground. When we told him that the world was round and that we lived on the other side, we transcended the pale of his interest ; so he changed the suhject, and bade us go in peace as soon as possible. Here were mountain streams and fairly good fishing, 'i'rue, successful fishing is an art little understood by Koreans. They catch salmon and mullet during s[)awning season, and take fish, seasonable and unseasonable, whenever they can catch them. When we reached the east C(jast, we found nets hung on poles with long barriers that serve as drives stretching out to them, cabled fast to the shore by strands of peuraria creeper. These nets hang for some five months of the year. They are intended specially for herring, but they take also cod, tai, skate, flounder, sole, turbot, thornback and poisonous globe-fish. But it is an indolent kind of fishing that yields little profit. The only success the fishermen have is up north, be- yond the forty-first parallel of latitude, in catching pollack. This fish, not unlike a small cod, is taken in great quantities, dried, and Across Korea 139 shipped to all parts of tlie country, supplying a cheap and wholesome article of food. We left 1 1 uchang and started south. (Irud- ually the country grew less and less wooded, until notliing but scrubby jiines were to be seen. Tiie third (hiy out, we came upiiU a mining town witli smelting furnaces. Here they were separating coi)per fiom the ore, and shipping it by pack [)onies to P'yr)ng-yang, to be minted into cash. The mining industry in Korea is in the crudest state imaginable. They dig gold only from the alluvium, niaking no at- tempt to disturb the mountains, because they are all sacred. On the fourth day we came upon gold diggings. My companion and I asked a weather-beaten minor to wash us out a sample. Squatting down on the edge of the stream, he filled his wooden basin with water, rocked it back and forth until at last he had washed all the mud over tlie edge, and there lay three or four specks of '.:(/ld barely visible to the naked eye. It had taken two ponies to carry our traps at the start; when these failed us, four coolies could just manage ; now we reached a point where neither ponies nor coolies were to be had. We induced a farmer to let us have his two cows for a consideration, but the packs proved too heav}^ so he gave the job up. As there were not three cows to be had, we were left M:i: mm 140 Korean Sketches hopeless, ill a wretclied inn, full of all unclean- ness. I reuieniber well my sojourn ut that , as J had Ijoth cheer and discouragement liber- ally dealt out to me. The old grandmother asked if 1 had any good books with me. '' ^^'^l»y no," I said, "we have given them a^^ ay long ago; l)ut where did }ou ever hear of a good book?" "Oh!" she cried, "I know of the Western Book, and 1 kiiow westerners are good people, and that they have not come to harm us." This was en^'ouragement, like vnm on thirsty ground, after being pointed ou v weeks as foreign devils, etc. The good oid, dame ([uile won m^' heart. Of the old man however I was less sure. Feeling at home, I cast about for some amusement, and ha})pily came U[)on a fishing rod and line. Why should I, a member of the family, ask permission to go fishing? 80 I took the rod, and was soon com- fortably seated on a rock enjoying that delight- ful sport which, Dr. Johnson says, re(piires only a fly on one end and a fool on the other. Sud- denly 1 felt a shock, not from a bite, but from a call behind me to bring home that lishing rod. I pretended not to hear; the storm would blow over in a little. Ah! yes, there was a most interesting bite now; but a whirlwind suddenly caught me, in which I lost line, fish, interest and everything. When I came to, an old Korean, seventy years of age, was carefully Across Korea 141 putting a fishing rod back in its place, while an Aniciicaii was pretending to dig wild onions on the bank of the river, the viUage people mean- while looking on encouragingly. liut to return to my story. I said it was the baggiige that kept us. We had one Innidrcd and fifty miles still to go to the city of Ilam- heuiig, which is on the east coast of Korea. I low should wc ever make the distance? In answer there came by a mild looking native with a raw- boned cow bound for Ilam-heung. IMk, a Ko- rean of our party, asked this passer if he could devise some way of getting our boxes and blankets out of tliis wretched country-. The native turned them over, and after due con- sideration, said he and his cow would take them all. "But," we protested, "two cows failed alread}' ; how can one, and a thin cow at tliat, possibl}' manage?" "My cow," said he, "can out-carry any two bullocks that travel these mountains." Morning came, and they piled up Crumple Horn, until she looked like some prehistoric monster on cow's legs. Stead}' as a ship, she got under way and plodded on to the anuizement of us all, making thirty miles a day. Only on the last stage, when tliere were no beans to be had, did her faithful knees tremble, and we all felt deeply moved by the toil-worn expression in her browm face. A day or so after we reached home I called at the stable to f i I; ■n TfP wm 142 Korean Sketches fl see how she was, and found her peacefully din- ing off corn-stalks, with beans for dessert, scenting the evening air with her breath, as though her life had always been spent amid luxury and eternal pastures. Tlie night before reaching Ham-heung we passed in a miserable village near the summit of the mountains. They could get us nothing for breakfast but boiled potatoes p.nd salt — rather a slim preparation for a thirty mile walk. It was the first of May and snow still covered the mountains. About ten in the morning we reached the summit, an elevation of some two thousand feet. Away to the east was the Sea of Japan, witli a green summer valley lying be- tween. The next hour's descent carried us from winter into a season of leaves and flowers. In Ham-heung there was abundance to eat; and how our party enjoyed beef and white rice once more, after weeks of starvation, I leave you to judge. Thus prosaically ended our journey. We saw no remains of cities, no traces of fairy kings ; met no special heroes, but the old man with the fish-pole. lie belonged to the Puynite race, no doubt, or perhaps was some distant grandson of Keui-ja; but apart from him, all was a wilderness of bleak hills, low huts, tiger traps and millet. VII THE KOREAN BOY The boy may be aiiytliing from fifteen to fifty-five years of age. lie may be married or unmarried. He may even be male or female. He is the personal attendant of the Westerner and is par excelhnce the boy, or as they say in France, the garcon. He is the ever present shadow, as visible in cloudy weather as in sun- shine. He occupies the central f iace in the ex- istence and history of all WeL-cern life in the Far East. As well expect a state to stand without a capital or a temple to flourish with- out a god as to find a foreigner and no boy. The boy is in fact the moving principle of his life. Nothing is done without sanction of the boy, and nothing that the boy vetoes can ever come to pass. The fact that the foreigner is helpless in his hand, inclines him to worshii)the boy as a little god, for nothing so calls forth adoration as tyranny wisely exercised. It is a noticeable fact in Asia, that every Westerner has, in his immediate service, the best boy that has ever been seen. He does not stop to consider his own capabilities of choice, 143 I! ;1 ! i I • II ^1 r f I 144 Korean Sketches 'tr I 1. ; I i ! f ; or his length of experience: his boy is perfect, and every other boy in the neighborhood is a disgrace to his employer. He knows not why they, who pretend to be missionaries, should keep such on their premises. V is thankful that he is not as other men are. His boy may rise with unwashed, greasy face, may mix bread with one hand and arrange his oily locks with the other, may accomplish a long list of imper- fections, and yet the master will dilate on his excellence as boy. He is the god of the back kitchen, whose benign presence means life to the paleface in the inner room. He usually has another dirty little god or two to wait on liim. These the American or European detests as a spirit worshipper detests toJc(jahi (gohMu^). He tells the boy so and orders their dismissal. The boy says Nei-i-i (very well), and keeps his little gods. Like every other attending spirit, if you give the boy offense he leaves at once, and the crack of doom settles down over the unhappy head of his victim. Usually the boy comes back on increased pay and with less mercy than ever in his soul, and life moves on. We laugh at the Oriental's faithfulness to his cruel gods. He will fight for them even when their presence means death. Likewise, I have known Ameri- cans to threaten each other because one had spoken disparagingly of the frowzy-headed boy wmmm^fsart. The Korean Boy '45 in tlie backyard, who was mixing germs and bacteria into dishes for the paleface to eat. Like otlier inhabitants of the Orient, the boy- understands the whole before you have tanglit him half, and always adds a touch of his own to give the needed completeness. The Western wife is the one who reads deep- est into the mysteries of the boy. He reveals himself to her because her demands, being greater than those of the bachelor, give scope and variety for his attainments. My wife was once involved in the preparation of a dinner to be given to the distinguished Western popula- tion of the city of Seoul, in tlie days when the whole compan}' numbered less than the Knights of the Round Table. All the courses were safely under way and the kitchen was spread with the choicest dishes that those early days permitted. Canned vegetables, too, not so com- mon there as in America, were called into requi- sition. "Open this can carefully, boy," said my wife, "and then heat the peas on the stove." " Heat the peas and then open the can," says the boy to himself, by way of touch- ing off the order. My wife withdrew to the dining-room in the satisfaction of being at last ready for the guests. An Oriental bungalow is pretty ; the brown woodwork and rafters, with light papei' between, afford a pleasing combina- tion when set with flowers and napkins and \ :. ii ''■■'^ m ' !? 146 Korean Sketches !: lighted tapers. Bang! went the kitchen, as though struck by a torpedo. There was a skirmish, and lo ! dense darkness enshrouded the whole cooking paraphernalia. When tlie steam and particles of exploded peas had suffi- ciently settled to admit of entrance, the top- knot of the boy was discovered issuing from behind the stove, while these words were heard, *' Choson boy no savez." There were canned peas in every course that evening, to the confusion of my poor wife, but the story of their presence was accepted by the guests as more than compensation. The boy was burned by the exploding can, and to this day cannot understand wliy it blew up, unless the devils were in it. So the boy takes matters into his own hands. "I know," is his favorite motto {amnaita). He walks by faith in himself, and not by the sight of any mortal demonstration. He has un- bounded confidence in his power to pilot a way through culinary complications. My wife had a kettle of catsup almost at a finish, the boy was plucking a chicken in readiness for dinner. *' What is the red sauce for, madam ? " asked the boy. " To be used with meat," said my wife ; *' for example, chicken." " Oh," said the boy, '''•amnaita'' (I know). ^ly wife returned to the kitchen a half hour later, and there was the chicken, submerged in the pot of catsup, i f The Korean Boy HI id >y id 'y he jd las 1p» boiling languidly, while the boy sat and expa- tiated to his dirty-faced satellites on the art of Western cooking. The boy is full of resource ; a situation that will baffle him entirely is hard to imagine. He will improvise a rope out of a few straws from the rice field, or build a comfortable saddle for you in the howling wilderness. His world is made up of the simplicities that belonged to the age of Adam ; yet he can also take advantage of mod- ern conveniences and methods, if need be. The commissioner of customs paid us an afternoon call and we prevailed on him to re- main for dinner. When my wife informed the boy that we would have him for our guest, he said, " We have nothing in the world for the great man; not bread enough, and no roast; we shall all die." My wife told him she would take no bread, and that canned meat would suffice for "potluck"; and as the commissioner was a considerate gentleman, there really was no occasion for any one to expire. **We shall all die," said he, "and go to perdition " — mean- ing that the honor of our house would fall. Dinner was served, the boy came sweeping in with the soup as though there were an abun- dant supply. Later we were awaiting the mod- est remnants of bread and canned meat, when the door swung on its hinges, and the boy, with an expression of oily radiance peculiar to » i 1 5 I I, I I 'I it ■I 148 Korean Sketches I ■ i i I. the East, burst into the room with a roast of beef fit for Confucius. There was also bread enough and to spare. My wife sat as[)hyxiated. What could she do but accept a choice piece for herself, and express the hope that the com- missioner would be helped a second time ! It was an eminent success as a dinner, but the question of where a roast was procured in a city destitute of Christian beef, and bread, where there are no bakers, was bearing hard upon her; yet it was not curiosity, but fear, that filled her soul. When we withdrew for coffee she asked in breathless suspense, "Kam- yongi, where did you get the roast and the bread?" "Just sent to the commissioner's and said, * The great man (tain) will dine here, bring along anything you have cooked.' " With a look of mortification that was pitiful, my wife confessed then and there to the commissioner. He was an old hand in the East and the light of past days twinkled in his eye as he enjoyed to the full the joke of that most excellent dinner. The boy is the guardian spirit of the pale- face, notwithstanding the fact that he keeps him in torment. He will stand for his honor though he disturb a whole district in doing so. He has always been a source of fear to me lest he fall out with others on mv account. He is a master-hand at discovering conditions un- complimentary to those around him. "Boss," The Korean Boy 149 IS In he would say to the innkeeper, " this is the thirteenth centipede I luive killed on your veranda." " Indeed, where could they have come from?" says the innkeeper. ''Have you bugs, too?" "None since I posted up those characters." " What is tlie nanie of this col- lection of pigpens anyhow?" asks the boy. " The name of our humble village is Kdmal " (Dogtown), says the host. ** I thouglit so," says the boy. This is a sample of the conversation, all of which was intended by way of doing me honor, proving how superior I was to my sur- roundings. It is only fair to say that the average boy is trustworthy. He takes his "squeeze," which is as legitimate an operation in the Far East as the drawing of a salary at home. He expects to share in every variety of good fortune that befalls his master, without any thought of being dishonest; but there are of course questionable boys, as there are questionable people in every walk of life, and the following cases are cited to show the methods they adopt in deceiving their employer. The most afllicted person in this respect I have ever known was a Scotch- man, wlio came East on a matter of business. He hired a boy to do his work, cook and care for him. This boy was to come every night, render an account of the day's expenses, and re- ceive orders for the day following. Nothing ) ! ^^ 1 ' 1! ;« r i 'P 150 Korean Sketches I i\ palls on an impatient foreigner more than these visits of the boy with his book of Chinese char- acters; so the Scotchman would say, " Oh never mind, I'm tired to-night, come to-morrow." Several days would pass by, and then would come an evening of dire tussle and argument in a vain effort to straighten out accounts. "But," says the Scotchman, " I never ate forty eggs a day." " Oh yes ! makee blead pud- din', must liave plenty egg^^^ says the boy. The Scotcliman was silenced, though not con- vinced. This matter of accounts grew more and more aggravated. There was heaped up against liim a tremendous list of provisions — quantities of beel", mutton chop, ham, fruit, flour and eggs. Small portions of these to be sure he had eaten, but the meagre remnants that appeared for breakfast, tiffin, and dinner, were entirely out of proportion to the extravagant list of tlie evening. Resolved to investigate, tlie Scotchman dropped in about eleven from the office, to see what the supply looked like uncooked. He called the boy and asked what he liad bought. " My buy good loast, one chicken, plenty thing." "Bring them in to me," said he. The boy dis- appeared, the Scotchman waited long and patiently. " Boy ! " shouted he, but no an- swer. Determined to make an end once for all, he went into the kitchen and out to the The Korean Boy »;• back yard, and there was the boy plucking one of his favorite chickens, which he had killed in a desperate effort to make the supply tally with his account. He had meanwhile bor- rowed a piece of meat from a neighbor, and piled a few scraps on a plate, to which he called attention. The angry Scot caught the plate, and let fly, scraps, roast and all, straight at the boy's head. The concussion sent him spinning through the back gate, where he disap[)eared into a kind of nirvana, carrying the Scotch- man's anathemas with him. A second boy had been taught the necessary elements of his "pidgin," and the house was just beginning to get under way, when he an- nounced the fact that he would have to go, as his mother was dead ; but there was a boy that would take his place, *' Number one, very good boy." *^ Never you mind," said the West- erner, "if you are determined to go I'll hire my own boy." "But I catchee more better, number one." Number one, he said, was the son of his father's half sister^s cousin. " I don't care if he is the son of your great grandmother, I'll have nothing to do with him," said the Scotchman. The boy went, but returned again ; stood first on one foot and then on the other, hummed and hawed, and at last said, " There is a reason — " " Deed and I know it right well," said the Scot. " He give twenty '■ \ ' ' ; 1 1 A' ! fm 152 Korean Sketches • 1 dollar, catcliee my place, now money all gone, no can pay back." The Scotchman's self-con- trul had been worn down till his temper was poking through in holes. lie could endure it no longer. With a mad rush he bundled the domestic through the rear gateway, adding something about him and all his heathen rela- tions ; and so he was again free to begin do- mestic life anew. The boy of his own choice was now estab- lished in the kitchen and for a few days life flowed smoothly along. It was a new era in his existence. One morning in the most reasonable way imaginable the boy mentioned that he had some words he desired to say. " Say on then and be quick," said the impatient Aberdonian. " Master, makee buy one piece cow, catchee number one cleam." "Number one what?'* *' Cleam, good coffee." The boy at last pre- vailed, and the cow was bought. Then the boy was married, and took a native hut close by. He added an extra cow, from no one knew where, and pastured it in the master's flower garden. *' Whose cow is this ? " " That belong me," said the boy. " Take it out of my garden then," said the master. It soon developed that the boy was selling milk to the neighborhood — and the Scotchman on the whole commended him for his thrift. But the master's cream grew thinner every day, until nothing was forthcom- The Korean Boy »53 ' i ing but blue malarial fluid. "Buy, I want cream, not skini-milk," said he. " All right, can do." Next morning there was an improvement, but just as he was enjoying his own cup of coffoe there came a note from the consul's wife say- ing, '* My dear Mr. Shand: — I fear your boy is putting water into the milk lie brings us. Will you kindly see that this little matter is rectified." Confusion and sorrow were settling over the devoted head of the Scotchman. The herd of cows had now grown to six, pastured largely off his own ground, his only compensation being a few spoonfuls of cream for his coffee ; but yet it showed the thrift of the boy, and thrift is something a Scotchman always worships. Next morning there was coffee and sugar in abun- dance, but no cream at all. '* Boy ! where is the cream ? " " Master, very solly, to-day no have got cleam." " No have got cream and all these cows?" The boy explained that it had taken all he had to go round the neighborhood. "Confound it !" said the master,"! keep all these cows and get no cream ? " Then the boy began to weep and said if he watered it, all the people said " no can do ; " if he failed to give enough, they grumbled. Here he was, doing his duty, and every one was down on liim, even his master. He would die. "But," said the Scot, " you idiot ! What do you mean ? " The boy said he wished he were dead. A day or two latey »54 Korean Sketches l^i f! complaints begun coming in from people wlio had received no milk that morning — would Mr. Sliand please see to it? Tiie boy was called. "What about this wretched milk to-day?" " My no savez ; my tell my wife look, see. " " I have about made up my mind," said the ex- asperated Caledonian, " to be rid of both you and your cows." Next morning there was no milk for any one, and no breakfast for the Scotchman. His kitchen was as silent as the grave and as cold as Lapland. Where was the boy ? Again there were letters from women on the verge of nervous prostration — " Sir : Do you intend to rob us of our supply of milk ? We con- sider it very ungracious of you indeeJ." The Scotchman was a bachelor, and his blood was up. To think that this heathen should be the means of setting his lady friends against him was more than he could endure. He would horsewhip the brute, and hamstring his cow^. When he reached the hut, he found ♦! wile laid up from a beating she had .ved the night before for neglecting to mil, the boy had been arrested and was in jail for niaLreat- ing her; and the Scolchnnin was ahmc in tiie cold world, the fires of a purgatory burning hot wilhin him. The boy is really the executive officer of the state. He will solve a problem in bargaining or diplomacy that would baffle a Uutive gentle- The Korean Boy ^ss man indefinitely. Never give the luttera task in either ut" tiiese depuitnionts unless }t)U desire iL to be reduced to absolute confusion ; but set the boy on tlie trail, yield liini your conlidenee, and his devotion and executive skill will more than repay you. I have never yet hearci of a boy's betrayal of a trust that was so imposed. His unwearied , feet will cover long miles of dis- t'i ce in your belialf ; his tongue will tell the wondering listeners your praises — how great you are, .how wise, how generous, how rich, how glorious a master to serve. We have heard him speak so of others and sometimes of ourselves. Bless the boy ! He will fight a whole town that calls you "barbarian" — as my own Yongchuni did once when we entered a miserable raft of a place after nightfall. The people through the mouthpiece of a lanky mountaineer, said they had no stable room for savages. Quick as light- ning Yongchuni smacked him on the left cheek for his insolence. It was the touch of a button that piled all the loose population onto the prey like so many woolly dogs. Poor Yongchuni he was the prey, buried out of sight, overwhelmed by violence, and all on my account. I was compelled to turn in and help him. How we survived, is still a myster}-. As we moved ignominiously out of the place, I lectured him on keeping his temper. *' But master they in- sulted you, how could 1?" "But we must not r Ma 'r. IJ^^V 156 Korean Sketches i fight." This reproof brought the tears, where the violence of the mob had but whetted him iuto anger. I told him I prized his faithfulness, pununelled as he had been. After thinking it over carefully and weighing the motives, I drew from it a profitable lesson for myself, and con- cluded that I would rather have fought like that on behalf of another, than have kept my temper for years. I am given to understand by Orientals, that over-familiaiity with any spirit brings disaster. This spirit may be necessary to material pros- perit}"- during the earthly pilgrimage, but it should never be made a companion of or spoken t J in a loose or frivolous way. Keep it in its place, at a distance, and your house will flour- ish, your name will be great in the land. Never propitiate it in advance, but only on the ap- pointed day, and then strictly in accordance with furm. All of which rules apply in the case of the boy, and prove that if he be not a spirit or in league with spirits, he is in his being and characteristics like unto them, and so has ])ower to bring joy and satisfaction, or to blast life and keep his victim in perpetual hot water. < fl VIII I '' KOREAN NEW YEAR In their division of the year, Koreans, like the Chinese, prefer to follow the moon rather than the sun. Their confusion of the two re- minds one of the Scotchmen, who when on their way home from market fell out and fought about the orb shining above them, one claiming that it was the sun, and the other that it was the moon. Neither being sufficiently steady of foot to settle it by actual war, they decided to leave the matter to arbitration, and asked a third party who was passing what he thought about it. After considerable time spent in balancing himself, he managed this reply, "I'm a stranger in these pairts, no vera weel acquaint, but it seems to me there's twa there, but whether sun or moon I canna tell." I know of nothing that illustrates the Korean confusion of time and tide better than this story. His eye hns been long rendered un- steady by superstition ; and he stumbles along in his dim twilight thinking to himself that he is in full blaze of the sun. At the close of the New Year season, that is on the night of the fifteenth of the first month, the Korean spreads his mat on the nearest 157 I' I i Ml III 'W .58 Korean Sketches bridge and bows three times to the moon, ask- ing him for his light and guidance through the coming year. Each phase lias been carefully watched for centuries, the quality and charac- teristics noted down, so that every fortune-teller in the land is full of the moon — of his good points, his dangers, his peculiar whims, just as a Briton understands his horse. When the Japanese were marching upon P'yiwig-yaiig, I remember the Koreans saying that it was per- fectly safe for China yet, as it was not a fight- ing moon. And yet the ungrateful moon returns only evil for good. Every three years a moon is in- tercalated to fill up the deficiency in the lunar year. Once I remember this falling just at seed sowing, but not a Korean moved hand to sow his seed. When reminded that time was pass- ing he simply said, " The intercalary moon is not reckoned in the season, we shall wait till it is over and then begin." The result was they sowed tlieir seed a month late, and there was a famine in the land. The noted moon of the year is the crescent that shines on the first niglit of the first month. Every native in the land feels that with it old things have passed away and that all things have become new. He pays his debts, puts on a new suit of clothes, bows his congratulations to the old men of the village, and has the Korean New Year »59 younger men bow to him ; and yet after it all, there is a lack and an aching void. He acts not unlike Job d'd, when he said, '* Though I wash me with snow water and make my hands never so clean, yet wilt thou plunge me in the ditch and mine own clothes shall abhor me." Something dogs liis footsteps of which he tries very hard to be rid ; he calls in sorcerers, and fortune men, and during prolonged seances seeks their advice. A cook whom we left in Korea, had many times fallen a victim to a quarrelsome disposition, though he fought hard against it. We told him of the Christian way of combating such a foe, but it did not appeal to hira. He said Koreans had a way too, but he would have to await the New Year for its trial. When the New Year came, late at night we found him in the courtyard flying a kite on which he had first written, " Evil disposition, impatience, bad words, street fights," etc. It was so dark that no kite could be seen ; but when he had run the string out to its full length, he cut it and let it go, imagining that so he had rid himself of his enemies and could begin the year with new courage. Another regenerating method commonly practised is to prepare a straw image which contains in its inmost being a written state- ment of one's sins and shortcomings, together with a few cash. On New Year's night beg- ■ \} 6o Korean Sketches gars \vlio piny the part of scapegojit, come by asking for chyong or the image. It is 2)assed out to them, and they become possessed of tiie evil, selling their peace of soul for the cash witljin. \ Again another method of finding peace, is by making offerings before a mountain shrine. We had one such in front of our gate, to wliich, among others, came an old woman to rid herself of her sorrows and burdens, carry- ing a chicken and a bowl of rice. It was a live offering, for she left the chicken tied by its foot to the tree. Its peepings brought our cook upon the scene, who cut the string, gave the bird shelter, and when the old woman came by again, said, "Mother! here's your chicken.'* But grandma lifted up her hands in horror, re- fused to take it, and warned him against what he would inherit — terrors worse than he had dispossessed himself of when he flew his kite. The Korean is a marvel for mathematical calculations. "How much a mat?"] remem- ber once asking a dealer. "Five hundred cashy'' was the answer. "Verj" well, I'll take twenty mats." " Never ! " says he with indig- nation. " Cannot sell so many for less than six hundred a piece." Such reasoning is entirely inexplicable ; betokening that mathematics have gone to everlasting destruction. His reckoning of age is also peculiar. It is not based upon Korean New Year 161 revolutions of sun or moon, but upon the num- ber of New Year's dinners partaken of, with an extra year thrown in, for what reason I have never been able to understand. Thus, if a child is born in December, and on New Year's day joins the family circle for refreshments, it is said to be two years old, though its actual existence may number only five or six days. Though defective in mathematics, the Korean has other compensating excellencies. We have had a Parliament of Religions, at which we are glad he took no part ; but when we shall have a Parliament of National Amusements, we hope to have him there flying his New Year's kite, for it is the one form of recreation in which he especially excels. At this season the upper air of the capital is alive with kites, dancing nimbly in groups or moving mysteriously here and there. His kite is small and square without wings or tail, and its evolutions are marvellous. In fairly calm weather a skillful flyer can com- mand an arc of some ninety degrees with his kite. By a turn of the wrist and a sweep of the hand it goes straight up into mid air, like a rocket. Another turn and it makes a somer- sault like a tumbler pigeon, repeating it over and over. Then it wanders, seemingly with great labor, to the farthest limit of the arc, hesitates, considers, and the; 8 wee zontally back with great speed. ps 1 'm ■HBl , 1^^ 162 Korean Sketches I: Each New Year season there are contests in kite flying, the object being to cut the enemy's string and let liis kite go. Tn preparation for this, a string is twisted of silk and coated with ground glass and porcelain mixed with glue. As it flies singing off the reel you feel toward such, much as a bird might feel toward a wall capped with broken bottles. These contests are quite as exciting as any- thing seen on an American baseball field. The old men in thickly padded suits are seated on mats at some point where the view is unob- structed, while ordinary spectators fill tlie streets. The most tried and skillful man of tlie district has the kite in band. One of the safe- guards of the amusement is, that the actual combatants are many yards apart, sometimes nearly quarter of a mile, so there is no possible danger of a misunderstanding ending in a melee. Little boys in red jackets and white panta- loons are everywhere on tiptoe of expectation for fallen string or stray kite. One tournament in the capital we still re- member vividly. Different wards of the city had entered the lists, and even the coolies were excited. After due ceremony the kites rose slowly from the chosen centres. They were far apart and seemed as little in danger of attack- ing each other as the extreme ends of the Korean New Year 163 Dipper. They drew apart until sufficient string was off tlie reel, and then gradually pulled together until the distance was spanned. Now they were face to face, nodding politely, schottisliing back and forth, growing more animated till their motion assumed something of the form of a highland fling. Then they swooped at each other — passed and repassed — shot by at high speed — struck — one kite spun for a moment ; then dived underneath — the specta- tors held their breath. Now strings were crossed and the fight began, each party letting off glue and glass filings as fast us his reel would spin. It was the calling out of reserves for the final charge — a moment later one kite remained rid- ing triumphantly in the sky, while the other with tipsy motion floated off into the blue azure, the broken string falling over the roof-tops. A little lad with radiant face and red coat caught the string and, in his haste, took a grip of it and ran toward home, forgetful of tlio glass filings and glue. Some one caught the other end and drew it through his hand. At once he dropped it and looked, and there a line oozed out of his chubby fingers as red as his New Year's jacket. His features suddenly re- versed, and in bitterness and woe he went home to tell his mother of the sorrows and defeats of New Year's day. But over in the other ward there was feasting and music, and the mothers ] ! 164 Korean Sketches • i there said there never had been such kiteflying since the founding of the dynasty. In the evening the Korean closes his doors to keep out Santa Clans, whom he calls Ang- wangi. Angwangi is an old man who lives in the upper air and collects material for New Year's gifts. As in other parts of the East, the Korean leaves his shoes at the door, and Ang- wangi comes down on New Year's eve and tries them on, leaving a memento of his visit. He is not the genial Santa Claus we know however, but a villainous old fiend, whose gifts consist of typhus fever, cholera, leprosy and the like. There is no joyful expectation, but the most dismal fear of Angwangi. When a child cries, just as tlie French mothers used to say " Mal- broke or Marlborough is coming," so Korean motliorssay "Hush or Angwangi will catch you." Yet as against other common evils of tiie Orient, the natives have a protection provided. One way is to bring all the shoes inside and keep a light burning for the night; but in certain cases bringing the shoes indoors exposes the inmates to other misfortunes, and so it has taken much thoughtful consideration and study to meet this case of Angwangi. After baiting him with this and that and attempting in vain to propi- tiate him, it was found that a common flour- sieve left at the door would attract his atten- tion and render him oblivious to all the shoes ! . I' I Korean New Year 165 of the capital, for he has a mania fcr counting the meshes of the sieve. He counts and counts, and before he is aware tlie night has fled, and his opportunity to scatter New Year's pestilence is gone. So a sieve is always left beside the shoe mat on New Year's eve. As I mentioned in another chapter, stone fights are a characteristic of Korean New Year's season. Even young lads of ten and twelve will indulge in this, by way of practice for a real fight when they come of age. One day walking with a friend along the walls of the city near the West Gate, we came on some half-dozen boys throwing stones at a small group entrenched behind a mound on the other side of the wall. My friend who was emphatic in his manner attempted to remonstrate with the lads but they merely grinned at him and recommenced. We watched them to know what the end would be, finding much to interest us, until to our terror a stone grazed the wall of the city and struck the ];ug(n.t boy a, tre- mendous blow in the mouth. My emphatic friend fairly shook him and said, ''Didn't I tell you so ? " The lad made no reply but as Bret Harte says : "He smiled a sort of sickly smile, And curled up on the floor, And the suhsequent proceedings, Interested him no more," t ' !h^ >)i) i i 166 Korean Sketches ' Once when attempting an nnexplorecl region through the south I was overtaken by this fes- tive season, and yet it did not prove a time of unmixed happiness for me. The fact that no foreigner had been seen there before made me, to a miserable degree, the object of curiosity. The dogs in every town were simply beside themselves. They barked until overtaken by sheer exhaustion, when they lay down in de- spair, unable to do the occasion justice. An entire village, too, of the most immovable peo- ple on record, would collect, and have you pulled, handled, and inspected in the space of a few seconds. After a week of this, my Korean friend and I reached Tagu the capital of the southeastern province on the day pre- ceding New Year's eve. The governor having heard that something was coming, sent a com- pany of runners to intercept our entrance. We were made aware of their approach in the distance by their fluttering coats and red hat- streamers. The officer in charge carried a curved sabre, and gave his orders in a stento- rian voice. He halted me and demanded my passport. After giving him this I was ordered to wait in a small room near the South Gate, till the governor should see the passport and decide what disposition should be made of me. Here I waited. Meanwhile the population of the district began to gravitate toward the small Korean New Year 167 room, wliere soon every crevice and corner were filled with faces eager to see ; and the struggle that went on among the sight-seers for points of vantage was very violent. The comments and opinions expressed were not complimentary. All delusions that I had la- bored under concerning my personal appear- ance left nie that New Year's eve when I heard what those people had to say. " Look at the eyes ! Green and upside down. Tremendous nose ! Short coat and tight pantaloons. They must be out of cloth in his country. Behold the barbarian!" Happily the oiBficer returned with a red card from the governor and an order to come at once. I have learned that in the Orient it is best to glide gently with the tide of ceremony, when no question of right or honor is involved. So I was shown in on horseback with two runners ahead, each carry- ing a paddle about as large as we see on a man- of-war's boats. These paddles are associated, not with the word rOw^ but with the word row^ for they are used not to joropel, but to ^'^wpel, being the wooden arms of the law to enforce order. When hurrying through the streets, I understood as never before the meaning of the scriptural phrase, " The sound of a great multi- tude," for the people who had collected for the past hour were after us pell-mell. We reached the quadrangle in front of the governor's ya* i ! m V' i68 Korean Sketches II mfu^ and were told to wait. Here a confusion oi" dust and (Usoider coinnienced that is quite beyctnd dij,*fnption. Ilud I not been upon liorst'back, I should have been nipped like a ship among the icebergs ; but the pony that had tried my patience lor a wet k now stood friend for nie, and niadr amends for past short- comings. The only open space visible in all the scpiare, was just behind the pony's heels, a yard or two in radius. The people climbed up on each other's backs, shouted, fought and struggled. The only consolation I had when I heard their question "Is he devil or man?" WU8 a certain feeling of being associated with Tennyson's hero, "devil for ought they knew." M} Korean friend who had dismounted and who \\^A had his white dress crumpled and his patience trampled underfoot, remarked to tho people that they reminded him of a lot of cat- tle or swine, as far as their manners were con- cerned. His word was like a match to tinder, and we soon learned how great a matter a little fire kindleth. They resented this as one man, and were preparing to turn us out of town, when I left my pony and found shelter through a side gate in front of the yamen. Immediately on entering, the proprietor, who was a short man with a very red nose, showed true Oriental hos- pitality. A yard beyond his gate and he would have helped stone us, but the moment we en- Korean New Year 169 tered lifi freely offered us tlie shelter and pro- tection of his noisome den. il wiis un apart- ment rife with odor , eohl and damp. The owner, however, ielt not thu cold, for his heart hud been warmed by native sul (whiskey) and every word he spoke was charged witli alcoholic atmospheres, lie gave me his mat to sit upon, and while the front door tilled with sight-seers, squeezed himself close up to my side and shouted at the top of his voice, How old was I, and where had 1 conie from? While trying to satisfy his curiosity, word came that the gov- ernor was ready. Under an escort of men wearing the blue coats and red hat tassels, rny Korean friend and 1 passed through gate and passageway up a dozen stone stei)s or so, and were before the governor, his retinue being ranged on each side of him. lie asked a ques- tion or two — these I remember, Did we have a race of one-eyed cy clops in our country, or did we all wear two eves? Was it true tliat West- ern people could pull their teeth out and re- place them at will? After other etjjnological and scientific inquiries the interview ended, and I was sent to the mayor of the city, being prop- erly under his jurisdiction as to general be- havior. With the same escort we passed through his gate, and found under the eaves of his office a row of prisoners seated on the ground wear- ing a cangue, A cangue belongs to the same lyo Korean Sketches h. family as stocks or ankle-squeezers, but is worn round the neck. It is a plank a foot or more in width, and some four feet long, with a hole through the middle. Opened by a hinge, it can be locked round the neck, and there you are with a collar, that for width and historical as- sociation surpasses that of Henry IV. of France or Queen Elizabeth herself. As we passed be- fore this solemn row of prisoners, it looked like BO many winking heads out drying on a row of boards such as you see Japanese women stretch cloth on : for only the head was visible, the rest of the person being concealed behind the col- lar. I began to feel oppressed by this judicial atmosphere that seemed to partake of the na- ture of anything in the world but New Year's eve. Various styles of collars we have worn with satisfaction, feeling that the}'' fill an other- wise unhappy blank in the personal appear- ance ; but the style of collar in vogue in that yamen compound, lacked the association of la- dies and other respectable society. The mayor of the city was specially cold in his reception. When I entered he was taken with a violent fit of coughing that lasted nearly all the interview. During one period of cessa- tion he had a prisoner called, stretched on the ground before his window, and then beaten with the paddles I had seen carried through the streets. The beating^ was accompanied by pe- THK CANGUR. I 'ti- \, i..i ACCOKDINC. TO LAW. •H(i»'-'S I ! c t Korean New Year 171 cuUar long-drawn notes to which the paddles kept time. The prisoner, meanwliile in agony, howled to the gods and spirits of his ancestors to witness that he was innocent. When the poor man had been reduced almost to a pulp, he confessed that he had done the deed, and was removed forthwith to have his wooden col- lar locked on again, and to spend the night under the droppings of the eaves. We departed with- out further ceremony, for we were aware of the unfriendly spirit beliind such a reception. The escort had disappeared, and my Korean friend and I seemed quite alone. On passing out of the gate, a number of men caught jNIr. Yi and tried to pull him back into the courtyard, where they threatened to decorate us with collar and full evening dress. By keeping between him and his pursuers, we made our escape to the little room where the short man lived, who had the very red nose and the inquiring disposition. Koreans are a slow people to move, but when they do become excited, especially if it is about nothing, they are very violent; and now 1 be- gan to realize that my friend Yi's unguarded words, more especially his reference to swine, had brought a whirlwind upon us. In the mob that pushed into the court3'ard, I saw the form and cut of dress of the governor's chief secretary — each official grade has its par- ticular uniform by which it can be recognized. Jnkil I'' m ; ih 172 Korean Sketches A word or two with him iiiiglit avail something if I coiikl only catch his ear. A moment later he came in tlirougli the press, and I bad an op- portunity to ask him if he would lielp me. "Jn what particular?" said he. *' In this, ii is our Western New Year's eve to-niglit, and 1 would like quiet that I may write a letter to my fatlier and mother, for I always write them on Kew Year's eve." "Is your fatlier alive?" asked the secretary with some surprise. '' Yes," I said, ''alive, and has a very high regard indeed for Korea." He at once told those nearest liim that my father and mother were alive, and that I was going to write them about their Land of JMorning Calm. AVord passed that I was to be trusted, for I had been bt)rn of parents and showed unmistakable signs of filial affection. Gradually the tumult quieted, the people took their departure, and some of the old women ventured to the front door and shouted ques- tions about my maternal ancestiy. Neither years nor miles can carry one beyond the pro- tection that the Orient recognizes in the sacred names, father and mother. Mr. Yi looked as though a reprieve had come to him after sentence of death. He introduced himself to the chief secretarv and told him it was quite a misunderstanding, that we had not come to declare war, but [)urely on an errand of peace. 1 had now liberty to write, and the Korean New Year •73 secretary was mucli impressed at seeing nie taking notes; fur the ability to write is the iummum honum of a Korean gentleman's ex- istence. He of course reasoned from this that I was not a barbarian, but a distinguished sub- ject for entertainment, and so he provided an elaborate New Year's spread, and c.ime with his friends to help enjoy it ; while tlie governor, on the secretar3^'s recommendation I know, added a present of aates and persimmons. The short man with a very red nose had, as Koreans say, won face tremendously, for the refugees he sheltered had suddenly been ele- vated to the position of public guests. He became quite jubilant, while, if not the X-rays, the extraordinary rays that lit up his coun- tenance beamed with more spirit than ever. There is a Korean ceremony of watching out the Old Year; so to do us honor the company remained the greater part of the night, passing compliments, and asking questions about our customs and beliefs. We left next day, and have not since seen the ancient city of Tagu, though memory still goes back to our New Year's visit. A company of sympathetic hermits saw us beyond the gates and, with due ceremony, expressed their fare- wells, " Go in peace I " and "In peace may we meet again ! " :f. i'iii IX THE KOREAN MIND I! Tft; great problem that confronts all work in the Far East is the Oriental mind. It is comparatively easy to reach the heart, to gain the affection and esteem of the people, and yet at the same time to be perfectly mystified by the peculiar mental make-up that is the ground- work of all. So much of life seems reversed or standing on its head in their universe of thought, just as is actually the case iu the universe of matter. The Korean says, If it is true that the world is round, then we in the West must have power, like flies, to walk on the ceiling of the under world ; while we answer, No ! it is you who are upside down. Thus are we born hopelessly reversed, and thus must we ever continue unless we are given the gift to be all things to all men — to stand on our heads too, and learn something of our brother Oriental eye to eye. To this end we liave to review many of our axion > of litV, for we find them sad.y upset in tlie East. With all due respect to Korea, one cannot but s«e tliat love has yielded up ilie ghost to what seems to be necessity. Unselfish Hi i 1 The Korean Mind '75 love is a quantity foreign to the Oriental mind; in fact the Korean has no true word for love in his vocabulary ; 3'ou have to arrive at the thought by a combination of terms. lie talks of kindly condescension, reverence, esteem, etc., but he has no general word for love. The husband marries a wife whom he does not love, and this is proper in the mind of the Orient ; but on the death of the first lie takes a second whom he does love, and this is all wrong, in fact is a sin, and he feels that he has indeed outraged his conscience. 'J'he wife was not meant to be loved, but simply as an in- animate object to serve her use in supporting one span of the family line from father to son. Planted deep in the mire, she stands bearing her portion of the weight of this ancestral bridge connecting the ages. Once out walking, my wife and T found a man, like the ancient mariner, sitting alone on a stone weeping in a most hopeless way. What was the matter? He lifted his eves for a mo- ment and then bowed his head again and gave himself up to his grief. We persisted in know- ing. His wife had left him he said, Aigo I Aigo ! At last a true case of love it seemed. ''But," we said, to try him with the philosophy of this world, " If she does not love you, why should you love her?" "Love! who loves her ? But she made my clothes and cooked my i.'j .Ml It 176 Korean Sketches food — how can I live without her ? Aigo 1 Aigo ! " Neither does tlie independence of tlie West appeal to tlie Korean. The glory of the Amer- ican Eagle with his E j^lnt'i^iii^ unum^ he thinks to be sheer madness. Why men should ever think of such a horse-race existence, he cannot imagine. He conceives of life as a condition of subjection only. Independence to him suggests suspicion, mistrust of each other, lawlessness, etc. " Wliere are you going? " is the ordinary question of the street. " What's your busi- ness?" usually follows. "Whom is your letter from ? " they demand — while all join in help- ing to read it. It would be an outrage not to share these commonplaces with every comer. So we find them doubling up over work that is mere child's play ; bearing the inconvenience of companions in places where they might be doubly comfortable alone, were it not for their dread of independence, which seems to run con- trary to the flow of all their mental faculties. In education too. we are at the anti])otles. We aim at the develo})ment and preparation of the stmlent in a practical way for life before him; the Korean has no such thought. lie aims to fix or asphyxiate the mind, in order that he may shut the present out and live only in the past. Development is our idea ; limita- tion his. A Western student rejoices in a The Korean Mind '77 variety of attainments and tlie number of branches in which he has been introduced ; while the Korean, in the fact that he knows nothing of any subject but the reading and writ- ing of Ciiinese characters. Twenty years of seclusion in order that he may be able to read and write ; and many a student fails even of this after so lorig a time. With us education is an exercise of thv^ faculties, in order that the mind may grow ; in Korea it is like a foot bandage or plaster of paris jacket for tlie mind: once fairly put on, and all growth and develojiment is at an end. Hence the fact, Confucian scholars more than any others oppose the preaching of Christianity. However shiftless an American may be, lie feels deep down in his heart that labor is en- nobling. In theory, at any rate, children are taught the dignity of labor. In Korea there ex- ists the very opposite idea. The word for labor is zV, and its secondary meanings are dam- age, loss, evil, misfortuiic, all of which ideas are associated with, and expressed by, the word. An idle existence brings witii it no stings of conscience, in fact the native who can scheme to do nothing, proves by all the logic of anti([- uity his right to unc[uestionGd nobility. To us the mind acts as a sort of telegra})hic communication between the heart and the countenance. The joy or sorrow that overtakes M m • i III f|: 4i m 178 Korean Sketches '^|. 'i^ I 118, is flaslicd from one to tlie other, so that we learn naturally to read the inner soul by these waves of light and shadow. In Korea tlie mind has other duties, the principal one of which is to cut off communication between these two, and to make them entirely independent; to flood the countenance with mere surface expression, or, if need be, to transform it into an expression- less wilderness. A Korean, in his phlegmatic way, shows utter indifference when liis wife or his father dies ; while a Westerner, true to his feel- ings, expresses by voice and countenance all that his heart experiences. It needs but a short so- journ in the East to teach us that heart and countenance are not necessarily in communi- cation ; that there are beneath, hidden depths and undercurrents never dreamed of. One is often pained by mistaking mere ap- pearance for reality. Truth is not loved for truth's sake, but only in so far as it is necessary for appearances. The mind seems incapable of understanding what some of the commonest phases of truth are. When the Emperor goes out on procession the whole city is ransacked to con- tribute to the show. Red earth is sprinkled to keep the sacred palanquin from passing over polluted soil, but the sprinkling is less than the salt and pepper in an Irish stew. There is great pretense at bustle. Soldiers in confused haste are fleeing everywhere. Even The Korean \rincl 179 tho ponies take part and bite violonsly. Foath- ers and ilags; strag-gling lines of natives in nni- forni of five hnndred years ago ; squads with rattling poles to provide the necessary music ; kettle drums, sometimes beaten, and some- times merely threatened ; thousands of pairs of baggy trousers and straw shoes ; red coats and peacock feathers ; magnificent oflicials, perched on high saddles, holding on with both liands, bumping up and down, ready at any moment to fall backward or headlong ; im[)OS- ing banners with Chinese characters ; pipes to smoke and pipes to blow ; Remington rifles and matchlock guns ; bows and arrows and incense bottles ; Chicago corned beef and charms against devils ; bear's gall and snake skin ; modern helmets and ancient hats ; confusion, disorder, magnificence ; grandeur and squalor ; ten thousand strong, moving, rolling, bundling, in dust and cloud and clatter, a screaming mass of discord and color. The Westerner is amazed, while the native is in an ecstasy of delight at so magnificent nn ensemble, with no thought of how becoming, or genuine, or useful, the com- ponent parts may be. The more hangers-on he has the greater the man. A servant knows of no better way to lionor his master in the eyes of the community, than to urge him to hire an extra coolie or two to loaf about his kitchen or squeeze cash from ■ f if: tu e>. %. .v^. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) / O ///// y ^ > W^s Q. y. f/j Ctf 1.0 I.I ;~!a iiM 12^ IM 1.8 1-25 1.4 1.6 .^ 6" — ► V, ^ /a /. a^ /(^ Photographic Sciences Corporation # ^ S V \ \ ^9) V (S> 6^ 33 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14580 (716) 872-4S03 ■83 as Mihig^ and of Confucius as Kong, so that the names coupled together would read Mnng-kong. This word mdngkong has unfortunately an- other meaning, namely, the croaking of frogs. A Korean gentleman, who had travelled much abroad, and had learned foreign languages, came home quite' outdone with Korea's ancient civilization, and particularly set against Con- fucianism. In one of his public lectures in Seoul to a company of Koreans, he made use of the word mang-kong. " What benefit," said he, "has Confucius been to Korea? Those best versed in hio doctrines are the most helpless and useless people we have. They simply sit and croak tuing-kong, mangkong to everything." A Bcliolar who heard him, and whom I know well, left the meeting in a piping fury. "Nothing," said he, " but the knife for men like that." He had forgotten gei for the moment, and was will- ing to be an assassin, if only he might defend its sacred name. Anything that interferes with the rigid fulfill- ment of gei is of course to be avoided, for which reason no gentleman indulges in manual labor, or in fact in labor of any kind. His life con- sists in one supreme command of coolie ser,.je, while the coolie responds to every order. The lighting of his pipe or the rubbing of ink on the inkstone, must be done for him. Down to the simplest requirement of life he does noth- 184 Korean Sketches lf| I ing, so his hands become soft and his finger nails grow h)ng. From constant sitting his bones seem to disintegrate and he becomes ahnost a mollusk before he passes middle life. When once they have attained to this physical condition of pulp, they are in a measure im- nuine from the thumps and sliocks of ordinary life. It was my misfortune once to ride through a rough and mountainous country in company with a Korean gentleman. By keep- ing a constant hold on the halter rope, I man- aged to escMpe a back somersault whenever the pony jumped. I warned Mr. Clio of the dan- ger he ran in sitting bolt upright on the pack, \vith(nit girders or su})ports of any kind to protect him. He remarked, in reply, that it was not good Korean custom to hold on the halter as I advised, and so we proceeded. When the sun grew hot, he added to his al- ready toi)-heavy condition by opening an um- brella. The startled pony with one bound, shot Mr. Cho backward out of the saddle, and his fall, which is the point of my story, was marvellous to behold. On the uneven surface of the road he flattened out like a ball of paris plaster. Jacket and pantaloons were Iol-i sight of, even the hat, like a spot on the sun, was but an irregularity of color on an otherwise flattened surface. But from this mass came forth the man, illustrating how we have all The Korean Gentleman 185 LI proceeded from original protoplasm, for ho pulled liiinself together, and said he was none the worse, though I should certainly have been damaged seriously by such a fall. Not all the gentry by any means are scholars, thougli they ought to be if they came up to the Btandard of Confucian requirement. Tlioso who have attained to this are marked and hon- ored men; they are all but worshipped by the mass of the people, and are given tlie freedom of every city in the Kingdoiu ; they are admit- ted as distinguished guests into the presence of the liigliest, free of pass. Chinese characters seem to have for these few a consuming fascina- tion. Not so much the tiiought conveyed as the character itself, seems tlie object of venera- tion. From them he ** builds" (c7ii7a) forms of expression and verges as a child builds en- clianted castles from blocks of different sizes; and as tliere is no limit to the variations and combinations possible, so tliere is no limit to the charm they possess. Two scholars can find sufficient to interest them for a day in a single character, and as there are in use some 20,000 characters, they have a fund of interest to draw on that will last for lialf a century. No at- tempt is ever made to write more than original ditties or mottoes ; anything approaching to an original work in Chinese would be like an at- tempt to outdo Homer in Greek — presumption 1 86 Korean Sketches iU ), ■I unheard of. So the scholar phiys his life away with this uneiicliiig rosary of ideographs, that entwine not only liis neck, but his mind, and heart, and soul. For the unlettered gentry Chinese has no charm. They keep a few learned expressions at their finger ends, as a sort of bulwark of defence when hard pressed, but as far as pos- sible they avoid the subject. Their life, since shut off from intellectual pleasure, con- sists of material pleasure, dress and enjoyment. This class of scholar is exceedingly common in Korea. In immaculate white he emerges from the holes and corners of every mud village. If he is an ofTiciul of importance, he does not walk alone, but is assisted by the arms on each side. If he ventures by himself, it is with a magnificent stride that clears the street of in- different passers, and commands only on-look- ers. In one hand is a pipe three feet long, in the other a fan; over his eyes two immense discs of dark crjstal, not to assist hira in seeing, but to insure his being seen. How pre- cious these are ! Many a man will forego the necessaries of life if only he can gain a pair of KjlHHif-ju^ (spectacles), and so cover himself with gK)ry before an on-looking assemblage. I once offended greatly against yei in an effort to befriend an impecunious gentleman, who had told me of his financial embarrassments. He The Korean Gentleman .87 r, in ;nse in |pre- the ir of Lself I :t to had He was at the time wearing a pair of dark crystals, and thinking to make him a present under cover of a purchase, I oflered him thirty janrf or six American dollars fur his glasses, lie was iimazed to think that 1 shouUl virtually ask them for nothing, for lie had paid equal to fifteen dollars for them and a bargain they liad been at that. This is one of the absurdities of the Orient, where a man pays two or three montlis' income for something absolutely worth- less. Oriental methods are so extremely ab- surd that there is no hope of an Occidental demonstration by which to rectify them. The impecuniosity of a Korean gentleman is also a profound mystery. I have figured for years on the question as to how an idle man, with nothing left to-day, shall outlive to-mor- row ; but he lives, dresses just as well and misses none of his meals, lie will tell you frankly that the last of his hopes for a liveli- hood have perished, he is financially a total wreck, and his present condition is one of clinging to the rocks, where he is in momen- tary peril of the devouring element. You are exercised deeply on his behalf; much more deeply, you learn later, than he himself is. Months pass and he is still in the same condi- tion — a condition in extre mis. no better, no worse. By way of encouragement I have said: ** You have managed to eat and live for a i88 Korean Sketches I It nioiitli and more on nothing, just continue on in tliu siinie manner and you will do very well." '' Kat and live," says lie, "of course every dug eats and lives; you would not ex- pect me to lie down and die, would you?" AirI lie leaves in disgust, feeling that the deli- cate points of an Oriental (juestion can never penetrate the shell that encases the barbarian's brain. The fact that tradesmen and business people are regardeil as low, encourages the Korean gentleman to neglect thought and training in this line, lie is a veritable child in business. Many a foreigner entrusts his affairs to his native teacher, and wonders why they should turn out so unsatisfautorilv in the hands of a native. If business must be transacted an lionest " boy " will quite outdo in executive skill the best and most honest scholar. Not only in business but in other affairs of life the Korean gentleman is a master of in- accuracy. He })reLends to be absolutely certain of everything under the sun, and no subject ever daunts him or is beyond liis ability to elucidate. The slightest clue gives him a key to the whole ; merely let him see the smoke from the funnel and he will explain to you the why and wherefore of a steam engine, lie will tell you what a comet's tail is com what color the dog is that causes posed of, or the eclipse of The Korean Gentleman 189 )i a uu ive s of t iii- tuiu bject fty to . Ivey \ioke lu t\ie will |of, or )se of llio moon. lie compares tlio minor details of life about liim with what went on in the days of king Su)i — a contemporary of Noah - with as much assurance as wo would talk of the events of yestenhiy. The new arrival in the F.and of Morning Calm begins to think what a marvel of information this man is, and what a fund t)f accurate knowledge he has accpiired, and lie a heathen, too. It is only when you put his statements to the test you find he is astray in everything. Hy the rarest accident he may be riglit, l)ut it is tlie exception. He has no intention of deceiving you. The defect lies in the fact that there is some- thing radically wrong with his manner of reasoning, and of putting two and two to- getlier. He has a profound contem})t for woman, speaking of her generally as kcchip or female. He takes for wife tlie one his father barjxains for, raising no question as to her iuoKs, liealth or avoirdupois. She is a subject altogether beneath the consideration of a member of the male sex with 'ts massive understanding. She is relegated to the inner enclosure and lives a secluded life. He refers to her as bisi/ci (wliat- 3'ou-may-call-her), or kcu (she), and never loses an opportunity of showing liow little is the place she occupies in his extensive operations. If the truth were told, however, we would ('! 190 Korean Sketches il I 't know tliat tlie little woiiiiui within that en- closure is hy no means the eypiier he pretends lier to be; ))ut that slie is really mate and skip- per of the entire institution, and tliat no man was ever more thoroughly under petticoat gov- ernment than this same Korean gentleman. His prime object in life is to have a son who will sacrifice to liis shades when he is dead and gone. The boy is expected to obey his father implicitly. If he but develop that trait, ho may grow up to be quite as useless or more so tlian his sire, and yet be a model son. If no son is born to him, he adopts a nephew or near relative as the best substitute under the circumstances. Hut the stranger never wholly takes the place of the real son, who is reg;irded in this life as liis strong right arm, and in the life to come as Ids eternal satisfaction. In order to make sure of this eternal life through posterity, the gentleman marries his son off when he is still a mere boy, sometimes but nine or ten years of age. Child marriage is one of the old and respected customs in Korea. That it is not more common is because it retpiires an outlay of money which parents are not always willing or able to make, and so the lad is sometimes left unmarried till he cani^ provide for liimself. The serious question in the life of a Korean gentleman is the service of his ancestor-shades. llO Mi m or Till, w .\k:)i<()i;|', oi' riii. (.i;\ik\. life his lines |iage s in lause :eiit3 lid so canl. )reaii lades. KOSlkl (W H \l" ^ ol-M \V L \l,l, lll.K) I ! [I The Korean Gentleman 191 His life is marked by periods of mourning — three years for parents, and lesser periods for more distant relatives. A succession of fasts and feasts, requiring forms of dress and outlays of money, consumes more of his time and means than all the provision for the family living. To neglect these forms would degrade him to the level of a Mohammedan who had renounced his faith. We have glimpses occasionally of the gentle- man's ability, as he shares in the games of the outer guest chamber. Chess and patoky a kind of draughts, he plays frequently. A half hour's teaching will show him the moves on a foreign chess board, and a very respectable player he becomes from the outset. His best work is seen in the leisurely development of the game. Rapidity or excitement upsets him. I have seen excellent players, master amateurs of the board, who have had no gift whatever for the solving of problems. When one attempt failed they would give it up and say *' It can't be done." This again proves the jelly-fish in his nature, his condition being passive, not active. Anything like a determined effort he is entirely incapable of, as the mollusk is incapable of per- forming the feats of the shark or sword-fish. Were I to choose one common saying from the language that enters more largely into the life and character of the Korean gentleman than r li ll> Korean Sketches any otlier, it would be Mot liao or Hal »a upso (No help for it or It can't be done). A marked characteristic of a Korean gentle- man's home is its entire respectability. Tiiere is frankness and freedom in speech, but no looseness; and lew conditions exist that would offend in tlie best ordered Western household. Strange to say, even in a home where there are a number of concubines, propriety and good or- der obtain. I once made a journey to Japan with a strict and devout Korean Confucianist, Mr. Cheung, lie had heard much of Christ and Christianitv, and while he assented to, and rejoiced in, whatever of it agreed with his an- cient faith, he remained a Confucianist firm as ever. We took ship in one of the ports of Korea and started for Japan. lie had heard of the adoption of Western life and customs in the Sunrise Kingdom, and was desirous to see some- thing of the benefits it would confer upon a race. The first thing he saw was the depravity of the women ; " Selling themselves," said he, ** before the eyes of onlookers, and for copper money too." A year's residence in the country confirmed him in the belief that what he had seen was not the exception, but a national trait. " When women are so depraved the men must be equally so. They know nothing of Confu- cius and no fear of God is before their eyes. Western civilization merely tends to make their The Korean Gentleman 193 must fu- on eyes, their depravity more exceedingly depraved." lie lived as in a kind of nightmare — horror-stricken by nudity and obscenity such as he had never dreamed of in his isolated kingdom. He saw two drunken English and American sailors, and the so-called respectables whose life was but a whirl of pleasure seeking. " Your Christ," said he, " has but a meagre hold upon you after all." He had put off his dress and laid aside his top- knot, but his heart remained still faithful to the garments of his ancient faith. The more he saw of life abroad, the more he sighed for his straw roof and mud hut, where modesty and virtue had honor still, and where life was lived with some degree of regard for the teachings of the ancient sages. So he passes from us one of the last and most unique remains of a civilization that has lived its day. His composure, his mastery of self, his moderation, his kindliness, his scholarlj^ at- tainments, his dignity, his absolute good-for- nothingness, or better, unfitness for the world he lives in — all combine to make him a mystery of humanity, that you cannot but feel kindly toward and intensely interested in. I' Ill XI Korea's present condition i i 1, This small peninsula presents to those inter- ested in missions perhaps the most startling field opened up during this missionary century. Till within the last decade it was closed and barred against every one. Kven the Chinese, who, up till 1894, received the yearly ambassa- dor with Korea's tribute, knew as little as oth- ers of the inner life of the people. Since the distant past, Korea has remained entirely alone, and has endeavored to work her way independ- ent of others. The result has been tliat she has built up, as suitable for her life as a hermit, sys- tems that have been subjected to violent agita- tions since she has entered the company of treaty-making nations. At no point in her history of a thousand years has there been such overwhelming force brought to bear upon her cherished customs, as at the present time. A war with Japan three hundred years ago, cost Korea a great deal of life, and almost her individuality, destroyed her ancient monuments, and robbed her of her arts and manufactures ; but when the enemy withdrew, she revived slightly and continued 184 Korea's Present Condition 195 sys- ita- of sand Iforce lis, as :\iree ;al of toyed If her nemy linued to exist. A liundred years later, a Manchuriau swoop upon the cajutal left her in nominal sub- jection only ; and she still remained mistress of her own fortunes. But the opening of the ports lias rung a knell to ancient Chosnii (Korea). The influence that enters through these gales is an enemy that knows of no retreat, so that Korea's continuance as a hermit is no longer possible. The present period threatens to destroy not only her established means of livelihood, but also her social systems; and unless Christianity be brought her, nothing but superstition, agnos- ticism, and chaos will be lier portion. Her entrance into foreign life has been thnmgh a hideous nightmare, beginning with the Tong- haks, continuing through the Japan-China war^ and closing with the murder of the Queen. No wonder the Queen questioned the success of in- ternational fraternities. It is generally admit- ted that the rising of the Tonghaks was insti- gated by outside parties, wdio desired to bring on a war witii Cliina. Korea had no desire for independence. She regarded China as a child regards a parent — one from whom it would be unnatural to sever relationship, especially since this parent had been indulgent enough to leave Iier free to carve out her own fortunes. She felt in fact honored by recognition from the great middle kingdom, which is the glorious I l> 1:/ I 196 Korean Sketches centre of a Korean's universe. The battle cry of " Freedom for Korea ! " was one of those pretty conceits or deceits of the Orient, meant simply to throw unwary Occidentals off the scent. Such a cry reminds one of the fox, who being anxious lest the mother hen should sit too hard upon her chickens, made a special raid upon the poultry yard to rescue them from their thralldom. The great burden of the war fell on North Korea. P'yi'mg-yang was devastated. The country for miles about became a wilderness, poisoned by the stench from the battlefield. At last the armies crossed the Yalu, and the nation settled down under a new regime dic- tated by Japan. But a certain Stonewall Jack- son stood in the way of Japan's reforms. The ablest minister they could send found himself outwitted, checkmated, defeated, until he beat a retreat, gave up the fight, and went home. Who could but admire the courage, the shrewd- ness, the womanliness of this little Queen of Korea, who standing for the best interests of her country, so ably outgeneralled the Japanese minister and his wisest aides ! Who would liavo believed that so foul a deed could be committed in an age of fair play ! Four hundred men, pretending to stand for civilization, dressed in western uniforms with stars, gold lace and epaulettes, speaking the most graceful language Korea's Present Condition 197 I cry hose leant ; the fox, hould pecial I from North The erness, lefield. nd the we dic- 1 Jack- The himself le beat home, shrewd- ueen of rests of ipnnesQ lid have remitted ed men, ressed in ace and language i. of tlie Orient, made their way over the palace- wall at night, their mission being to murder one lielpless woman, and she the Queen of Korea. One is amazed to think that ajnong four hundred men there was not a single manly heart, but all four hundred of them unspeakable cowards, from the officer in command to the craven coolie in the rear. The common story, without ques- tion the true one, is: They hacked tlie Queen to death with "gallant " samauri swords, poured kerosene on her body and burned it to prevent recognition. They killed three or four other palace women to make sure they had the right one, and then marclied out — noble four hun- dred ! The people of Korea were horror- stricken, while the King himself remained a prisoner from October, 1895, to February, 1896. Then he made his escape into the Russian Legation, and the world that was civilized and aware of the facts shouted, hurrah ! But to enter more closely upon the fiicts. The year 1894 was one of special darkness for Chosini. With the opening of the fust moon there were rumors of Tonghaks everywhere, and not a native called but had some dire tale of massacre to tell. The Tonghaks were God worshipi)ers and man-slayers. They ate spirit medicines, and could kill by a look. They said a rifle bullet would have no more effect on them tlian Burns' whittle on llornie. We were all full of m J V 198 Korean Sketches Vh. % Tongliak. The government seemed to have been struck by leprosy or some other ghastly paralysis. Officials were plundered, the author- ity of His Majesty was trampled under foot, and so with outstretched hand, be implored Til guk (the Great Empire of China) to lielp liim. Ta-guk came in witli a lot of ragamuf- fins, and the Tonghaks increased as the season advanced. Friend Yi, who had sliared my joys and sorrows for six years, went in command of a company to help the sublime generalissimo of China annihilate the Tongliaks. Yi refuses to tell the experiences that belell liim during this march southward. lie came back neither in disgrace nor condemned to be beheaded, and so I conclude that he is one of the most unsuccess- ful military officers in the Far East. Mean- while China had stirred up so nnuih trouble, that Japan came in to put it down and they two declared war. At that time I was building a house on the east coast at Wonsan or Gensan, and had in my employ some twenty Chinamen. They were confident that a couple of months would suffice Ta-guk to change the Sunrise Kingdom into a region of everlasting darkness, and that the few remaining wo-jen would perish. On July 25th, the ivo-jcn sunk the Koivsliing with 1,200 Chinamen on board. They sighted the vessel and overhauled her with the Naniwa Jean, Korea's Present Condition 199 tve tiy lor- )0t, reel lelp nuf- ison of a 10 of es to r this > er in nd so ccess- ean- uble, they l)n the ad in They would gdom d that On with d the va lean* 9 The transport sliip was as liclpless as Hono- lulu would be in case of an attack by sea, and so she dropped anchor. A Japanese ofticial went on board and ordered the Chinese to fol- low as prisoners of war. Why the Chinese did not slioot the officer I do not know. They refused to go to Japan, and when the English captain threatened to leave the ship, they said they would shoot him if he did. So the Naniiva cleared her decks and prepared for action. One tremendous explosion, and the Kovshhig like the Maine was deep under water with her help- less cargo, generals and privates struggling for their lives. It is said upon good authority that Japan turned her machine guns on these poor wretclies. Can it possibly be true that Japan is as vindictively savage as some of these acts during the late war have shown her to be ! The sinking of the Kowshing^ the massacre at Port Arthur, the murder of the Queen of Korea! We wish Japan well, but one need not be a military officer or a diplomat to know that no wishing can avail to bring permanent success out of such barbarism. From amongst those struggling in the water the Japanese picked up the English officers, brought them aboard the Naniwa^ rubbed the captain dry lest he should take cold, warmed him with champagne, and we were told, pre- sented him with three thousand dollars which 200 Korean Sketches ri he might return on the day of judgment. A multitude of bubbles from the pattering of the leaden hail and the drowning Chinamen — and the sea was calm and beautiful. Four days later Jitpan turned her trained Western forces on u scattered rabble at Asan. The fleeing Chinamen made a circuit of Kang-W(in, Whang- ha and P'yoiig-an provinces to Pyung-yang. Along the way they spread terror everywhere. Korean women escaped to the hills and old men sat down and cried as these vandals from the Eni[)ire of Heaven plundered and robbed. Certainly the passage of the two armies con- trasted greatly, and if Japan ever scored in Korea, it was when she led her soldiers through the Peninsula, paying as they went, and respecting the lives and property of the people. Into P'ycing-yang the Chinese bun- dled, there joining the forces of General Tso, helping to devour the two liundred pigs that a Korean told me Wore slaughtered daily for the army. Meanwhile troops had landed at Wonsau. One bright Sunday morning in August as we were assembled in a Christian meeting, a half- dozen transports were sighted on the horizon. The hills everywhere were lined with eager and expectant natives, watching these fire ships and wondering what death-dealing cargo they would bring. It was not noon till the hills ug. ne. in WONSAN, lAPANESK SETTLEMENT ent, the buu- Tso, lat a the isan. Is we half- •izon* |r and ships they hillB WONSAN. CHINESE SETTLEMENT. MM OWWIW- l| I f I t ,•1 ';t '. ;i: Korea's Present Condition 201 that liad known only a people (hesscMl in wliite Avere alive with (liuuMUtive sohliers, unir(»iiuetl in blue, knupsacked and rilled. My twenty- three Chinamen had lost hope in the god of war. The old cook trembling in mortal terror, came rubbing his hands, bowing to ujy wife and crying: "Save me I Oh I save me!" She saved him by stowing him in an inner room be- hind tiie bed; a leg of chicken and a piece of pie were given him, and the Chinaman forgot the horrors of war under these reviving condi- tions of peace. Japs were everywhere. My friend Yi went out to talk with some of them, and they confessed that they were ready for England as well as China, if she liked to take a hand. A sage once said, *' A big man for peace, a little man for conceit, and a woman for war." The Japanese are noted for their women and their little men — in fact they are the littlest men on record. Two days later the army moved out of the port toward Seoul, one hundred and eighty-five miles distant. Then came a month when Wiinsan was left unprotected, at the mere}' of the Chinese, who could, at a moment's notice, have murdered the entire community. My house builders had fled, and bricks, mortar and timbers were lying in confusion. Reports reached us ever}'" day that the enemy was right on us, death was frequently in our ears. It .^" ! it' 202 Korean Sketches was a time of earnestness, for at tlie hands of tliese savages from Kirin, wife and family would have received no mercy. The available firearms were looked to ; the cook, boy and other natives said, " Master, if a fight comes we are with you." Though powerless, this de- sire to be faithful was gratifying. Later a Russian ship came by and some of the mission- aries left ; but my wife refused unless the hus- band went too. This was impossible, as tlie hope of the terrified natives rested on tlie Christian teacher's remaining. Great was the anxiety as the days passed, and the Chinese outposts and scouts came down to the very port to spy on us. One heavy summer night we sat together listening in the open ve- randa. Was it to be the tramp of soldiers over- land or search-lights by sea ? That morning an explosion had been heard. A ball of fire was seen coming from the north, moving toward the centre of the harbor, and there it exploded. We had heard the report which the natives re- garded with fear. As we sat looking out sea- ward, one faint light was seen toward Port- Lazareff. It was stationary and I guessed that a native fisherman had lighted it. There it rested for a half-hour or more, then it seemed to gather motion, and to turn southeast to- ward the usual anchorage of the Chinese fleet. On it came till we discovered by its rapid mo* Korea's Present Condition 203 i of iiily a)le and »me3 i de- er a islon- lius- s the 1 the IS the tiinese I very night II ve- over- ingan e was oward Aoded. es re- it sea- Port- d that here it eemed ast to- e fleet, id mo- tion, tliat a sliip was in port. Had a Chinese man-of-war eluded the guards and were we be- tween the fires, or was it a Japanese? Tlie lights in the port-town were extinguished, and every heart waited. It was a Japanese trans- port with one thousand soldiers on board. We were grateful, and I take ])lt'asure in recording here that we felt safe in the hands of the Ja[)- anese. They were less given to drunkenness and disorder than Western soldiers, and in nine cases out of ten acted as an eidiglitencd nation ; but in the tenth and test case they showed the old spots of the leopard with the varnish ofT. Some ten thousand troops in all arrived in rapid succession by transport, and moved west toward P'y**"g"y''^"g- ^ ^^w days later the city had fallen, and dead Chinamen marked the course of the retreating army. The medical corps put the wounded Chinese through Western forms of treatment, and red- cross mend)ers were evident, apparently on missions of mercy. These acts were so widely heralded and so skillfully published in tlie Western world, tliat some were inclined to question the genuineness of the sympathy ex- pressed. But Japan deserves credit for having surgeons and nurses abundant and skillful, showing her power to adapt lierself to Western wavs even in the storm and stress of war. ! ■Ij II k hi' i V i ,•!' 204 Korean Sketches The skill with wliich the Japanese managed their commissariat and kej^t in touch with the source of sup[)ly, showed them indeed a very wonderful people. Tlieir bridges they carried, their fuel, rice, beef and soy. No soldiers could have been better equipped, even to luxuries. Tlie remainder of the campaign was one round of victory in Manchuria, at the mouth of the Yalu, at Port Arthur, and later, before Wei-hai-wci. I asked an English cap- tain how they conducted themselves at the battle of the Yalu. "Their manoeuvring was splendid," said he, " apparently no better sea- men afloat." Startling indeed was this com- bination of big guns and little men. For weakness and puerile imbecility, commend all the world to China. Brave Admiral Ting, who fought his best, had to commit suicide to prevent the disgrace of being beheaded at Peking. Captain Choy in command of the torpedo boats, was also on the condemned list. It has been said tliat there are no lunatic {isyUinis in the Far East; but a glimpse at the government in Peking must convince every one, that for an assemblage of incapables they are very remarkable indeed. Korea was now firmly in the grasp of Japan. The King was obliged to proclaim his independ- ence. That he had no desire to do so, is ©videut from the very civilization that he and Korea's Present Condition 205 lend e to I at the list, latic It the one, ' are JLipan. )end- 50, is and all other kings of Korea prize so highly. China to him was " TS-guk " or "Chunguk," the Great or Middle Kingdom ; while Japan was Wai-guk, the despised land of dwarfs. Then came reforms so called. Off with the wide sleeves, and away with tlie long pipes. They were ordered to weai' black. Korea has no black dye and so the black to be worn was to come from Japan, all of which greatly offended the natives, and made them hate the Japanese more than ever. It shows again Japan's in- sufficiency for the task on her hands. This see- sawing continued from March till October, 1896. The Queen, whom all admit to have been a stronger character than the King, op- posed these mock reforms vigorously, deter- mined that her country should not come under the dominion of Japan. The fact too that Japanese influence put into office outlaws, whom the King had sentenced to death years before, showed the real attitude of Japan toward her weaker neighbor. She compelled the King to pardon Suh Kwang Pom and others. The absurdity of putting those the King hated and feared into his very presence as office-bearers, can only be explained on the ground of the absurdity of the Oriental mind. However capable a sojourn abroad may liave made these exiles, it was most impolitic, noc to say brutal, for Japan to coerce Korea I 1 1 • i 1 ■ Hi 206 Korean Sketches HI -l '^'i.ji 'i: into reform through their hands. The morale of the move was entirely out of joint. The year labored on till October 8th, 1895, when in the early morning we were awakened by sounds of firing in the direction of the palace. Three of us walked over to see what was the matter. The side gate was open and many natives in dishevelled confusion were passing out. Two companies of Japanese soldiers were also seen coming from the in- terior. We were told that Hong, general of the Korean army, had been shot where we stood, a half hour before. We were ignorant of the meaning of this coup tV etat. The Japanese were evidently in full possession of the palace. Later in the day a rumor was circulated that the Queen had been murdered. ]\Ir. Geo. Heber Jones and I were invited to remain near the apart- ments of the King, with Generals Dye and Legeudre, and to assist as we could in inter- preting the tragic mystery. The plight into which His Majesty had fallen was pitiful to be- hold. He wept for his Queen, the Japanese he said had murdered her. Could no one help him in this time of need ! He would cut off his liair and weave shoes of it for those who would avenge her death. But the palace was close guarded ; Japanese soldiers were quartered at the gate ; Korean traitors held the King a prisoner. Nothing but a strong force and a into be- he [lelp his )uld [lose ll at a id a Korea's Present Condition 207 declaration of war could have rescued him. Russia, England and America could only call daily and express such sympathy as was possible. Evidently the King's older brother — if not his fatlier — was a traitor too. The murderers were arrested and taken to Japan. Tliey were tried and acquitted, and tliis again made the King feel more than ever tliat his deadly enemies were the ivai-in or wo-jen. Tliough the gov- ernment at Tokyo washed its hands of the affair, it did not hesitate to take advantage for its own profit of what these cutthroats had done. This also had its damaging influence, not only on the Korean mind, but on the minds of others as well. Not even a hill god or a kitchen joss could acknowledge such dealings as honest. Meanwhile the royal prisoner and crown prince eked out their cheerless existence. There seemed indeed no hope of escape. A few women's chairs went daily through the gates, but there was no exit for royalty. A certain fiasco occurred during this time in wliich American missionaries were involved. They were criticised for having opinions regard- ing the death of the Queen and the King's pres- ent condition ; it was claimed that they were interfering in politics. The question however was not one of politics, but of common mercy. The year 1896 opened unauspiciouslvfor His j'l \. if 'At 1 i< if ("I ? ' 208 Korean Sketches Majesty still a prisoner of those whom he hated. There was a quiet plot working its underground way, and a loyal heart or two were bent on his rescue. Mr. Yi Pcira Chin, a relative whose an- cestral seat is the royal house of Chon-ju, was in communication. He had stood by ""he Kin^ in other days when there was danger. He had taken the Dowager Queen Clio, Queen Min and the crown prince and princess to his coun- try home during the emeute of 1884, and kept them till the King was restored. His father led the way against the Americans at Kangwha years ago, and he himself carries a bullet mark in his left arm, and suffers ^he pains of a broken ankle for his loyalty in days gone by. He was passing by stealth, closely written messages that reached the King through the hands of the naiin or palace maids. They came and went inspected by the guards as they passed the gates. The cold days of February prompted Mr. Yi to regale the shivering guards on hot dishes of various kinds. They were feasted frequently, never suspecting the meaning of it. On the 11th of February the King stowed his slight person into the back of a woman's chair, and a palace maid named Pak sat before him. The crown prince was likewise tucked in, and slowly they started for the gateway. The guards having been feasted that cold morning were inclined to be good to everybody. They Korea's Present Condition 209 ij that the went the npted hot asted of it. d his chair, } him. , and The rning They gave only a hurried glance at the chair, and iVIiss Pak said, '* Please put down the fronts why should you lift it so cold a morning ? " " Pass on," said the guard, and the second chair followed likewise. On they moved to the foreign part of the city, and an hour later the world read the telegram, '* The King of Korea has es- caped from the palace and is in the Russian legation." Mr. Yi Pom Chin who had engi' neered his escape was made chief minister, and the labor and sorrow and effort of Japan van- ished into smoke. The war passed like a cyclone over North Korea, leaving the country despoiled of its population, its ancestral groves and tablets. Confucianism binds a man to one piece of ground, separate him from that particular place and you have separated him from his gods ; so the population that came back after the war, came back to a certain degree without tlieir deities and shrines. Mr. MofFett, a missionary of well-deserved fame, was on the ground, with a knowledge of the language and a burning desire to have the people see Christ as Saviour, and the result has been that multitudes have come and a great revival has spread over the land. We trust that through much of the North the idols are gone never to be replaced. We believe that now is a special time to bring the gospel to these people, for remarkable 'ii. 3l ; If: i s' ■ i y 210 Korean Sketches l ^ i -i i I ul I changes are tailing place in tlieir material world. It is well known to every one acquainted with Korea that the ordinary native dress is white cotton. • It is the most extravagant and, withal, useless garb that one could imagine for a land subject to extremes of temperature, as this peninsula is ; but it is a dress that carries in every fold ancestral associations, and has come to be thought the most dignified and becoming outfit in the world. Cotton therefore is in de- mand in Korea, as woolen goods are at home, and the weaving of this is the most important calling in Korea, giving employment to a large percentage of the people. Tlie ports are opened, and in come bales of foreign cotton, cheaper than the natives can manufacture ; na- tive weaving is compelled to give way, as pur- chasers North and South find it more to their taste and pocket to dress in Western goods. Work in metal is on the decrease as well, quantities being shipped in from Japan for the manufacture of pipes — articles as common here as teaspoons are at home. Castor beans that were grown to supply oil for lamps have disap- peared, and a cheap kind of kerosene from Philadelphia does the lighting for Korea. The use of empty kerosene cans has all but anni- hilated the water bucket and crock-maker's trades. Dyestuffs are being crowded out by the introduction of cheaper and more attractive % Korea's Present Condition 211 m pur- tlieir s. well, Di the here 5 that disap- from The anni- aker's |ut by lactive qualities from Japan. Axes, knives, nails and in fact all kinds of hardware are imported and sold cheaper than the native manufacture. Tel- egraph lines to the four points of the peninsuhi, while appreciated and prized by the foreigner, are hated by the native broker and travelling merchant, whose profits lutve been cut off by this constant communication with the capital. Money has become more and more valueless. Rice has gone up to five times its cash value since the opening of the ports, and most of the articles in daily use have quadrupled in the same time. For this reason the native ships liis beans and fish away in autumn, in order to raise money, thus endangering the lives of those de- pending on him during tlie long winter to fol- low. In this destruction of tlie native's means of livelihood, no new calling seems to have arisen by which he can lielp to clothe and feed his people. Nothing has been provided to fill up the va- canc}', and so the land is swarming witli idlers and petty merchants, who make a doubtful liv- ing in handling foreign goods. The poverty of Korea is extreme , the manner of life and habits of tlie people such as to confirm one in tlie be- lief that they have readied the lowest condition possible ; and so we look for a financial change, which must of necessity be for the better. 1 1 r- :' li 212 Korean Sketches u There can he no douht that the resources of the country are great, hut as they remain un- developed they afford no amelioration of exist- ing conditions. While China has continued in the main unin- fluenced by Western Hie, because of her indus- trial prosperity, Korea's financially helpless condition tells how powerfully she is to be in- fluenced by intercourse with other nations. The average Korean is as proud as any man living, yet he is willing to adopt almost any sub- stitute that will offer a change and afford an exit from his present misery. A host of political offices have been created within the last ten years in order to provide for the new responsibility of entertaining and treating with tlie representatives of foreign countries. This means an increased demand for funds on the working classes. The nobility of the capital, whose names, justly or unjustly, have an ill savor in the country, are already, through this foreign influence, fallen into ex- travagances that the farming and tax-paying classes complain of bitterly. It is the proper thing now, especially with younger officials, to buy all that is possible of the Western world, from steamships, electric lights and gatling guns, to watches, clocks, and drawing-room ornaments. This may seem a small matter, yet it tells heavily on a people so impoverished. Korea's Present Condition 213 3S of I 1111- xist- Liiiin- [idus- ipless je in- tioiis. 1 mail y sub- )rd an reated t-ovide g and oreigii lemaiid obility justly, eady, to ex- paying proper lals, to world, gatliiig groom matter, jrished. r Until twelve years ago, there was notliing new under the sun upon which even unscrui)ulous nobility could squander the nation's money ; now the doors are open, and no one knows the limit to the possibility of purchase. These latter-day extravagances, together with the death of trade and manufacture, liave brought the Korean subject to a desperately ominous point in his history. It has been said by some careless observers that Korea is without a religious system. State- ments to this effect have appeared so often in American papers that some reason ought to be given for this misunderstanding. Perhaps it is because Korea has no religion aj)art from her national life — her whole existence, from king to coolie, being one complicated system of ances- tor worship — that one may so easily fail to no- tice what enters so subtly into every detail of her life. There is to be found at New Year's in every household a spread of ancestral food. Even the poorest puts forth an effort to make a lux- urious display in the j)resence of the spirits of his fathers. Fruit, rice, meats, distilled drinks, incense, candles, are some of the items on the list for ancestral worship. The natives put off their greasy garments and, dressed immacu- lately, sit out the night. When the first cock crows the candles are lighted before the tablet li If I ii ■' u 214 Korean Sketches I I i' I .. W M — this tablet consisting of two walnut slabs fastened together, witli an opening between where the spirit is said to reside. The wor- ship[)ers b(nv, offer drink, and call on the shades to ae(*e[)t tlieir sacrifice. Tlien when each in turn has made his salutation, they retire from the room and lock the door in order that the spirits may inhale the offering unend)arrassed by the presence of the living. Again they circle about and bow repeatedly until the end, when they set to and feast on what the spirit leaves — a dinner that is sup[)osed to bring tiiem earthly prosperity, but which to all appearances leaves them disordered in stomach and poorer in pocket for many days to come. New Year's is the sacrificial season, but it by no means includes all. For three years after the death of parents, night and morning the children offer food, meat, and tobacco, before the tablet in the room where the dead onco lived, making besides, numerous offerings at the grave. Fro i the palace to the lowest mud hut the thref, years of mourning and daily sac- rifice are observed with the utmost strictness. During such time the royal household is occu- pied entirely with the spirits of the dead, be- lieving that the prosperity of their dynasty hangs upon such worship. In the case of poor people, they bring their food and, staff in hand, with loud lamentations, spread it out before Korea's Present Condition 215 slabs wee 11 wov- Hides oh iu from xt the I'assed circle Avlieii leaves them I'linces poorer tit by I's after g the before . once ngs at st mud ly sac- ctness. s occu- iad, be- .ly nasty of poor n hand, before their father's ghost. After this period tliey limit the direct sacrifices to about six impor- tant days in the year— the four national fc'te days, and tlie anniversaries of birtli and death. A native absent from his ancestral home, will walk from the fartliest end of the peninsula, if necessary, to bo at the grave at the appointed day. Such devoutness in religious service I have never seen even among the strictest Ro- manists, nor have I read of anything surpassing it among Mohammedans or Hindus. As for the universality of these sacrifices I liave never heard of any failure except among the liandful of Buddhists and the few profess- ing Christians. To neglect this is to make one- self an outlaw in the land of one's fathers — *'dogs that ought not to live." A native called Kim went, according to custom, to pay his re- spects to an elder relative. The first greeting was, " You have failed of late to sacrifice ! " " Yes," says Kim, "I cannot sacrifice again." "Then away with you; no relative of mine; a repro- bate, that would mix with the dogs and forget his fathers." It is quite as much as a man's life is worth to neglect this sacred custom. The time between sacrificial ceremonies is taken up with searching the hills for a propi- tious site for burial. In this choice there are many points to be taken into consideration. So complicated and mixed are the methods em- 1i 31^ « I ,1 ■I i n fi ' H 'li . : 'I' 216 Korean Sketches li ployed for arriving at a proper conclusion, that a large number of people make it a special study and gain their living as experts in ge- omancy. A grave is cliosen on a mountain front if possible, having two arm -like ridges on either hand, one called the dragon side and one the tiger. There should be a mountain directly in the foreground culled the ansan^ to stand as a support to the family of the dead, otherwise the grave-luck would iiow down the valley and be dissipated. There must be free exit for streams or surface waters. This is the grave site in outline. Then come the special moun- tain peaks that are looked for on either side of the an-san. One will mean long life to the family, another numerous posterity, another rank, another wealth. Every mountain peak to right or left hand has its special message, which the geomancer holds in his professional grasp. After burial the native watches, as a matter of vital moment, to see that no one encroaches on, or interferes with, his ancestral graves. If it becomes a choice between feeding or clothing the living and making some outlay for this rest- ing place of the dead, he will decide in a breath in favor of the latter. Should a household meet w;>th repeated disaster, they exhume their an- cestors' bones and bury them elsewhere, think- ing thus to conciliate the spirits. From the -—IP the ther peak ^sage, lonal atter aches IS. If ithing Is rest- )reath meet jir an- bhink- the Korea's Present Condition 217 idea of certain localities being possessed, has grown the belief that there are spirits in every mound, rock, and tree. Also, from the years of sacrifice in the home, comes the idea of a guar- dian spirit, v/hich is worshipped by food, prayer, and characters posted on the walls. A species of venomous snake so commonly makes its home under the tiles, and is seen winding in and about the roofs of Korean huts, that they have associated with him this guardianship, and one of the commonest kinds of worship is prayer and offering to the serpent. To this has been added a host of other spirits, such as the guardian dragon, which they worship by drop- ping food into the well, his supposed retreat. In this guardianship they include weasels, swine, and unclean animals of every kind, giving to each so many days in the year, thus making a constant round of religious ceremony. Some i.'iiorested in Korea have thought that ther", ill ^j\\'n religiuns: one cultured and re- iiiio^y and understood to be ancestor worship ; tiio other heathenish throupfhout, the lowest form of fetichism. Koreans tliemselves how- ever make no diotinction ; they call it all kwisin worsliip, and kwishi is a word that is translated "demon '' in the Chinese and Korean New Testam-nt. Tliey themselves claim that their worship if r.U ,)f one origin, which agrees exactly with 1. Ccr. x ; iO, ** But I say that the ,1 i ;i t,. 2l8 Korean Sketches I ■ ' i I r things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God." The land is dotted over with little temples, reared in honor of those who have been faitliful to their parents, more especially after the piir- ents' death. Near my present home, there is a tablet, erected some hundred and fifteen years ago, with this inscription, " Kim Ik Pin, a faith- ful son lost his father at ten years of age. His mourning was like the mourning of a l. i'. ; ids flesh wasted away, and liis bones alone remaiiu^d. At seventeen, when the season of sacrifice came round, and there was no fish to be had because of the summer rains, he went out and prayed by the seashore, weeping in agony, when lo ! a fish from the water came falling at his feet. Again we see his devotion, for when fires had surrounded the mountains, threatening to en- velope his father's grave and burn his spirit, in he rushed at the risk of life, praying the gods to spare his ancestor's resting i)lace ; and down came the rainy season's floods and quenched the fire. Was he not a faithful son ! " Books used everywhere in schools, and taught tlie children, deal exclusively with the subject of sacrifice to King, parents, elder brotlieis, etc. I give Iuto a translation of a story fron? " The Five Social Virtues " — a book known to every one in Korea who has passed his pr.imer. " During the I Ian dynasty, tliere lived a man Korea's Present Condition 219 ace lies, liful ^, .ir- is a ,^ears . [aith- His \ ijis . came ecavise prayed lo! a s feet. es had to en- irit, in gods dowu lenched taught su\)iect ro W tlievs, from hown to :?mer a mau called Tong Vinig, a citizen of CluMig siuig dis- trict. His father died, and Yiing liaving no means of giving liim honorahle burial borrowed ten thousand cash, agreeing to [)ay the debt in money or give himself as bond slave. Return- ing from the funeral, he was on his way to slavery, when suddenly there appeared before him a queenly lady, who requested him to take her fo'' his wife. Yong, amazed, answered, ' I, so poor that I am even now on my way to bond service, why do you ask to become my wife?' The lady rei)lied, ' I wish to be your wife, that is enougli; your poverty and humble station give me no cause for shame.' Thus urged, he took her with him, and the debt-master asked if she understood any kind of handiwork. 'I can weave,' she answered. ' Then,* he replied, ' if you will weave me three hundred bales of silk, I'll give you both freedom.' This amount he knew to be more than the work of a lifetime. Within a month the three hundred bales were finished, and the master in fear, sent them quickly away. As they passed the spot again which had seen their first meeting, she said to Yong, ' I must leave you now ; for I am a woman come from the Weaver's Star. Heaven saw your filial piety, and being moved with love, sent me to pay your debt.' Thus speak- ing she ascended into heaven." It is the teaching of Confucius interpreted in m i\ I !■: i:i ni , 5 f I r } ''I 1: "I ^ I :■, ,; Korean Sketches and added to. The object of it all is to teach earthly prosperity as the reward of faithfulness. There has never been a time that so strongly I)roves this system a failure in this regard as the })resent, and yet they still continue to worship. Hither have their ancestral gods bro ;ht them, in spite of prayers and cere- mor '*"he land destitute of spiritual life as of earthly , "osperity, is unconsciously holding out her hands for help just now. May her mute appeal arouse our tenderest sympathy ! His Excellency Mr. Yi Pom Chin, the present Minister of Korea to the United States, told me on March 3d, 1898, that there were ten reforms he deemed necessary for his country, and that I might make them public with his name. No. 1. The education of the great mass of the people hitherto left in ignorance and su- perstition. No. 2. The encouragement of manufactures. People are forbidden to make anything their fathers knew not of. Western manufacture will break down prejudice. No. 3. The training of an army. Korea cannot expect to compete with the outside world in military art, but she needs forces to preserve order. No. 4. The abolition of sinecures. Offices fill the country that are of no service but to Korea's Present Condition 221 iSS. I as to rods iere- asof p out Liiute esent Id me forms 1 tliat tass of id su- ctures. their acture Korea )utside )rces to draw salary. Away with them for the fourth reform ! No. 5. The aholitiou of the present class gentry. That only those in office be regard (3d as superiors, and their children enrolled simply tl as tiie common peopl( No. 6. The granting of power according to office. " At present," says Mr. Yi, " officials are officials in name only. The very duties they are assigned to, are at the disposal of others above them, which virtually nullifies the office itself." No. 7. The teaching of Korea Western knowledge by nations specially qualified, viz : Germany for the army, England for the navy and finance, America for steam and electricity, Russia for cavalry drill, Japan for police, and China for silk manufacture. No. 8. Governmental reform on the basis of English and German law. No. 9. The prohibition of white as the or- dinary dress. No. 10. The abolition of Chinese literature and the establishment of Unmun as the national script. Offices but to f..! I g ywf i m •' I Ml XII SOME SPECIAL FRIENDS //. ff. Prince Eui Wha. It was my privilege while in Japan, to meet frequently with Prince Eui Wha, the second son of His Majesty, the Emperor of Korea. He had come in the autumn of .^:>95 on a special message from his govern- ment, and had remained since that time. It was tlj'r. fii'viL occasion in the history of Korea when a prince of the imperial family liad gone abroad, and his impressions of foreign life were to me a matter of very great interest. He lived for a few months in Koyama, in the city of Tokyo, surrounded by a number of his fellow country- men. Many of these being personally inter- ested in political movements in Korea, an at- mosphere was created which was distasteful to him, so he moved away during the summer of 1896 to keep himself free from even the appear- ance of political entanglement. He had learned, seemingly by intuition, to dress as a foreigner of good taste, a rare excep- tion in Japan, with its pot hats, white cotton gloves, and spare suits. Frequently during tlie summer he. made his way to Yokohama, and began study in prepa- 222 at- [ to of ;ai'- to jep- ttou his ipa- ^ 'J >h I I t!| i II Some Special Friends 223 ration for a journey to America. One of our trips taken together in company with Mr. Loomis (a constant friend and benefactor to Koreans) was to " Great Hell," a burning hill on tlie shore of Lake Hakone. While Korea shows signs of volcanic formation, the fires have long since become quiescent, so that an active volcano Avas of interest to the Prince. We came through a clump of trees into the region of fire, and found vegetation, that a year or two before had been green and luxuriant, cooked and dry. Our pathway led directly across this heated region. By driving a stick a foot or two into the ground and withdrawing it, a steam pipe resulted that would scald the passer if he came near it. We stood at last on the central part of the crater, the Prince being per- fectly cool and collected as he picked his way over the dangerous ground. Here we were within the precincts of this great power-house, that labored and shook, giving furious vent to its pressure through the openings round about. The Prince was particularly interested in a chasm, into which a foreigner was said to have fallen and lost his life a year nr two before. He joined us in rolling boulders into it to hear the dull thud in the bottom of the "hell" far underneath. It was a trip that showed us Prince Eui Wha's coolness and courage and powers of endurance. MNaaiMMilMMiMbH 224 Korean Sketches '\ f i'l '1' ■ i , , 3 In the evening we dined at a hotel wl 5re other foreigners were present — loud talking women, and men who smoked with heads back and feet up in the air. The Prince observed that there were no special marks of civilization on the foreigners who frequented that hotel. Some time later we attended a concert given by the Choral and Philharmonic Societies of Yoko- hama, and the whole programme was of great in- terest. The Prince enjoyed the music though it was still a foreign language to him. His only ad- verse criticism reminded me of a story of President Lincoln, who remarked of one of Mrs. Lincoln's evening dresses, that it would look better with a piece of the tail cut off and put round the neck. Oriental civilization is quite as much characterized by common sense and good judgment as is our own. The Prince learned while in Japan to ride a wheel, and after an hour or so of study each day, we would have a run over the drives about Yokohama. The Japanese policeman who accompanied him in a 'riksha, would have to be reinforced two or three times in order to keep within sight of the wheel. It was one of the pleasures the Prince enjoyed in his quiet way, to see how many knots an hour he could get out of 'riksha coolies. I have also seen much of the Prince during his stay in America, and have accompanied him Some Special FrienJs 2^5 2re tack •ved ,tion otel. nby 'oko- atin- igh it ,ly ad- iT of f Mrs. dlook d put quite e and ride a ly each drives liceman id have irder to one of IS quiet le could during lied him frequently through the turmoil of these great cities. American life to him is unlovely and associated with much uni)leasantne8S. This is not due to lack of courtesy in the American people, but to antagonistic parties at home who have succeeded in leaving him stranded. His condition of humiliation has proven more clearly than prosperity could, the high-bred aristocracy from which he is descended. Without com- plaint or threat, he has borne patiently an exile's life in a distant land. I am convinced of his worth apart altogether from the position that comes to him by inheritance. A neatly dressed, modest young man, seen passing fre- quently along Twelfth Street, Washington, is the second son of the emperor of Korea, though his surroundings and position betoken nothing imperial. I have heard of princes in disguise that lived long ago in fairy tales, of which stories a pecul- iar fulfillment is experienced, when I find my- self introducing one as plain Mr. Yi, who is a prince of the Hermit Kingdom, the last rem- nant of the fairylands of antiqu.ty. Through these little incidents of each da3% and through the quiet hours of stud}', we have learned to see the manliness, courage and true nobility of this son of the emperor. His ideas of, and desires for life, are of the highest type. We trust and pray that he may be so guided. 1 1 !l 226 Korean Sketches that he will yet be a blessing to his country, and we take the liberty of marking him as one of our special friends, in whom we are particu- larly interested, and for whom we h the highest admiration. 'It I , ; ,( 'i: Don Quixote. My unfortunate friend Kang had sometliiiig in his face and manner that re- minded me of the name by which I head this paragraph. So I learned to think of him, and so I always called him. One of his first remarks to me was that we were near the last days, and that it was about all up with the Land of jNIorning Calm. I first * b Don Quixote in a Buddhist temple do'.. jouth. Our friendship grew rapidly, to such an extent that he sent me three live hens and fifty eggs. I would have appreciated the gift more had not those hens been so hard to entertain. My boy, in a murderous way, managed to tether them by strings in a corner of the yard. While they lived, their lives were a confused struggle ; and when they di-^d, their cries threw a shadow over my soul. I felt at the time as though it argued unfavorably for my friendship with the Don. The old man told me that he was proprietor of a steamship he had bought from a Japanese pirate. I had heard a shrill whistling along the coast a few days before, which was thus ex- Some Special Friends 227 icu- tlie vang it re- 1 this hinii 3 first [\e last th t\ie t Don jouth- extent y eggs- [bad not ly boy, r them iiile tliey le ; and shadow hough it np •with [ropi'ietor Japanese lalong the thus ex- plained. The steamer was about the size of a canal-tug, with a long sliUi smokestack above deck, and a short thick-sot Japanese below, who was in charge of the engine. She scarcely looked seaworthy, so I asked the Don how far he had been in his ship. Said he " What's that big port in Mi-guk?" (America). " San Fran- cisco?" I asked. "So, so," says he, '^ Sung Prisko. I've been to Sang Prisko." The Don is older than I, so it was not proper for me to contradict or to tell him that he must be mis- taken, that lie and his matchbox would have been down with Davy Jones long before they reached " Sang Prisko." The Don often came to see me, drank tea and smoked his long pipe. One day he be- gan conversation in this way " Brother, you are known all over the world, and so am I." '' No ! no ! " I said, '' I'm not known at all except to one or two old friends who have not forgotten me." Pie would not believe this, and went on to say that he had two proposals to make and would come the next day to lay them before me. The next day came and the Don like- wise, aglow with his proposals. Said he, " One is this, that you come with me and be manager of my ship, and we will be traders ; and seeing that the world knows us she will give us wliat we ask." I thanked him but said that I was not a navigator, so could never run his ship ; that 1 1 228 Korean Sketches ; 11 jfc it took all the skill I had to steer my way on land. lie seemed very much cut up, and said that I was not unable but unwilling. Then lie came with his second proposal, took hold of my hand and spoke in a whisper. " I'll take a knife and open a vein in my wrist, and you open one in yours. We'll mix the blood and be one forever. If you die, I'll die with you, and if I die, you'll die with me." " Yes I let me see, I'm afraid I can't do that either." '' Why ? " he asked. " That might not be best, I might give you bad blood out of my veins." " I'll risk it," said the Don. i reasoned with him, and asked if wo couM not bo friends without this. After a long talk he concluded that it was not possible, wrote with his finger the char- acter " shin, " meaning " trust," which along with a shake of the head, meant there was no faith without the blood, and so we parted. Months passed. I moved back to the capital and took up my home in a little Korean room in a crowded part of the city. One evening, in the dusk, returning by the great South Gate- way, I heard some one call from tlie crowd " Keui li ! Keui-li ! " I turned and it was Don Quixote — poor old Don ! He looked hard up, his face more cadaverous than ever, his coat faded and soiled. I asked, with surprise, " Why, how do you happen to be liere ? Is it peace ? " " Peace," he replied, and then said ! Some Special Friends 229 ipital room ning» Gate- rowd Don d up, cout Iprise, Is it said lie had lost his ship, was out of money, cold and nearly starving. Would he not come round and have something to eat ? He said '' Nut now, some other day," and disappeared. Filled with sadness I returned, leaving him to wend his un- certain way "whitherward" — which way it seems was to the IIy()ng-jo or national prison where, under the shadow of the sabre, and awaiting his sentence for debt, and I know not what all, Don Quixote disappeared from view. There 1 had to leave him to rough through alone what remained of life. The bastinado, or what is often preferred to it, the turf outside the East Gate with its sword and executioner, are old, old stories in ChosiJn. Multitudes have marched by way of these to the eternity that awaits us all. Fare thee well ! poor old Don ! a longer journey it was than across the sea to ]\li-guk. lie thought to fight great armies sin- gle-handed and he failed. Old Kim. We had gone northeast to plant a Christian mission on the coast of Korea. We found a house, and then announced to this strange people the object of our coming. On the first day of meeting the room was filled, and in the farthest corner sat a little oldish man, with face afire, listening while I read. At the close he stood and made an address of his own. '* This doctrine," said he, " tells a mau in 230 Korean Sketches '^1 I 11 rf U' to hate his father and mother, and marry his brother's wife. Wrung ? Of course ! Away with it I Everybody knows it is wrong,*' and he left indignant. But he came again, and the liery face grew pinched with listening, lie drank in the words : '' Rest for the wanderer ; bread for the hungry ; all wlio are troubled, come ! And the man that was d d heard His voice ; and the poor outcast woman found that He cared for her ; and the thief, who deserved to die, was taken home to heaven ; and He Himself suffered with His hands nailed througli and His feet torn and His garments bedraggled with blood." The tears had come, and old Kim was on liis feet. With tenderness in his voice he told the people that he did not know how or why, but the story of Jesus was for him. He trusted that his heart was at peace with God, the first time in fifty years. There was a great consternation among tlie people. Kim's face was changed, the look of woe was gone and an expression of peace was written upon it. He went to the elders of the village and told them what had been done for him. They were all upset, and the town was in confusion, for Kim prayed so loud at night that he terrified the people. They in turn offered sacrifice, and cried to their gods to save the town from the spirit that had entered it. One bolder than others, defied God, threatened Kim, and bias* Some Special Friends 231 God, great face iud au He tliem lere all )r Klni led tlie le, and \om tlie >!• tliau td blas- phemed in his poor, ignorant wa}-, and then left for his home undeiriieath the hills. But a great rain came, and a part of the hill slid off and buried the man ; then Kim pra^-ed that God would save the people and stop the landslides. Gradually from a wicked man, Kim became wliat all the townsfolk called a good man, though a little crazy, and they nicknamed him Ohiiyn Y'uHg Kam (Little Old Man). Little he was in the eyes of his countrymen, and older than his age, for he lived not here, but beyond the eter- nities in the life to come. Only a year remained, and it was a hard year of suffering. " Once," said he, " I was cutting grass for fuel, and the weariness was so great that I knelt down among the reeds to tell Him of it; then He gave me such peace and such indescribable deliglit. Oh I If the people only knew it, they would all believe in Him." But we had no suitable meeting house in which the people could gather to hear, and the times were very hard. I told Kim I feared it was out of the question, but he rebuked me saying, "Brother! who runs this world?" and with that he went to the end of the veranda and prayed and shouted so loud, that all the people in the town could hear him. He wanted a meeting house in which to preach the good news, and he thanked God for the promise of answer. The meeting house is built now, but Kim never 232 Korean Sketches 1' m i I I '; saw it, for his body was already sleeping in the dust awaiting the resurrection. To the last he was faitliful, and when life was nearly ended and strength gone, he gave us who were left strength and encouragement. Death and resurrection ! The wisest seek in vain by wisdom to find out what they are, and have to give up the search and die forgotten ; while a poor old heathen, who has never known any- thing, linds the secret and dies triumphantly. On a sunn}' slope among the pines, near his little nuul cabin, tliere is a green mound that marks his grave. We knew him less than two years ; and after all he was only a poor back- woods Korean, but his going meant loneliness to us and his memory brings the tears. Auntie. Among the women of Korea, I have one old friend who sometimes does mending, and as the women have no name given them I call her Auntie. I a»ked Auntie why it was they made such prisoners of the women. She said, "it's custom, you know, custom (p'ung- sok), and } ou can't change custom." Auntie is sixty-three now, but she still wears a mantle as she walks the streets in remembrance of girl- hood days. She says, " I belonged to the work- ing class, you know. When I was quite young a yanghan (nobleman) brought me from the country to be his slave, and I never saw my Some Special Friends 233 was She luiig- lintie Imtle girl- 'ork- »ung the my home again. After some years 1 vis married, but my husband died wlien i was only thirty- four, and since then I've had to work hard to live." This is Auntie's history as she gives it. To judge from the white hair and deeply fur- rowed face, I would say that if it were all told, it would be a longer and more toilsome history than this. Ai id it all, if .untie says she would not mma it an, ii it were not for a sickness that she has had these ten summers now, " a breathing sickness " she calls it; something that catches her at tlie corners of the breath, and she adds, "• VVlien the breath won't go, nothing goes." She has been to see the magicians and medicine men and lastly the prophets, but it is all in vain. " They are very wise and ver}^ great," she says, *'but they can't make breath." The Abbot of Suk-ivang-sa. Um-sol-ha is the abbot of Sok-wang-sa. lie is a man of ponderous physique, and yet the mortal part of him is insufficient to lodge the soul, for he gasps and wheezes and pants from internal pressure. He is between seventy and eighty years of age, and so heavy are all his alignments, that his eyes have scarcely lifted their lids for a quarter of a century. Tiiough a man of peace, he has the voice of a blood- hound; and though born son of the Buddha, f ! 234 Korean Sketches . t \l ' :ff: ''l^^ lie lias tlie expressi(in and countenance of an eighty-ton gun. Mass, weight, and volcanic pressure attend him in this life ; while a )tir- vana of material nothingness awaits him in the world to come. Once after twenty miles across tlie plains, liot and malarial witli rice fields, we entered the shady avenues of the monastery, and passed the gateway into the outer guest chamber. Priests and monks welcomed us, and a moment later the abbot himself squeezed his way through the narrow door, and in a voice of dis- tant thunder said, "Peace!"' lie lifted his eyes, and looked long and inquiringly at the strangers. Could our honorable stomachs, he asked, tolerate the fare of his humble abbey ? We replied that our depraved digestion would be delighted to refresh itself on the viands of His Holiness' table ; and thus the necessary formalities being completed, we were left to converse freely. The doctrine we brought was of special interest. Was it like that of Buddha? And did v/e pray in Sanscrit and Pali, ^'' Suri suri su suri saha^'' just as he did, and they did in China and Anam and India? He called the monks in to hear what we had to say, and main- tained that a doctrine so simple and plain as ours ought to do every one good. We were in- terrupted by the piping of a mosquito that circled about, seeking some one to devour. Bl DDHISr MONKS. he 0] T to 'as in tlid Ihe iin- as liu- kiat ur. BUDDHIST PACiODA. I' I ' (' ■5:4 I Some Special Friends 235 The abbot motioned to a monk not to kill it, but to shoo it from the room, as you woukl a cliieken, cureful to take no life for the glory of the Buddha. Our evening meal of rice, pressed seaweed, and roots was over, and then we sat and read from the Gospel till late into tlie night ; all the monks listening, questioning and repeating, till the abbot reminded us that it was late and they must let us rest from our journey. He pointed me to an inscription on the wall, a charm he said against biters, bugs, and unclean insects of every kind, so, "rest ye in peace." It was after midnight, and I had just dozed off when the drums of the monastery, big and little, awoke, each answering to the other, slow and loud at first, but with dwindled flutterings at the end. Then all the monks began in con- sonance of pra^'er : ^'' Namu AmiC ahiil ! Namu AmWahul!'^ (I put my trust in Buddha! I put my trust in Buddha I). I looked through the chink of the doorway, and there they were with faces to the stone floor, repeating with all the "go " of a steam praying-wheel, faster and faster, "I believe in Buddha, I believe in Buddha" — while the brass -faced god leered at its worship- jjers in the dim monastic twilight. Through the sounds of worship came the rich sonorous voice of the chief of all the monastery, " I be- lieve in Buddha, I believe in Buddha." Seventy !■' ' 236 Korean Sketches I years of searcliings had brouglifc liim no an- swer, nothing but tlie leering face of his loudly painted god. Tlien the wurship ended with bells of different tones, soft and silvery, and once more gods and men slept. A week after my return home, two monks came with a present of wooden bowls from the abbot — bowls that lie himself had used on his table for years — and would I accept them in remembrance of an old priest whose soul was soon to transmigrate? He also wished the monks to stay and learn of the Jesus Buddha, whom I had said was greater than Sr)kamoni. But a question came into the abbot's life. One day a Westerner, who claimed to be a fol- lower of Jesus, alighted at the monaster}', brass-faced and iron-fisted. lie poked the Buddha with a club, told all the monks that they were destined to outer darkness, and when the grey-haired abbot sat by dignified and re- spectful, caught him by the back of the neck, and chucking his head to the floor said, " Bow to the image, you old heathen, bow! " In the abbot's mind Sokamoni was after all more to be desired than this Jesus Buddha. On a hot sultry day, with staff in hand, the abbot walked twenty miles to pay me a call and inquire concerning these things. lie admitted that his Buddha had not answered the ques- tionings of his heart. There was still a dark interrogation mark on his soul. But he said Some Special Friends that Bonietimes lie almost arrived at peace, wlieii lie beat the drums, rang the bells, and said one hundred and eight times, '^ I l)elieve in Buddha, I believe iii Buddha." And how could Jesus be good; for there was this man witli the club and the iron fist? I tokl him that Jesus could satisfy ; that the miseliief was with us. His foHowers, not with Ilim. The ab- bot's eyes are not large, but they have seen into life for a space of seventy years, and they are not to be deceived by a sham of godliness. One request he had, would I sliow him the house we lived in ; and my wife and family be- ing absent, I took liim through alone. The pictures on the walls — did we worship) them? A small harmonium he thought would be an admirable charm to wake tlie Buddlia. And then the books with the strange letters written in them — and a mirror or two — and the beauti- ful glass windows — and such fine dishes we ate out of — and chairs and curtains— all beautiful as nirvana. When we were tiirough, I asked the abbot what he would like best of all he saw. " Preserve me from covetousness," said he, "but the glass dish in the * wall box,' with the crystal cover and a knob on the top like a jewel in the lotus." "It is yours," I said, "only a very Iiumble present that cost me notliing." The abbot took his departure, his monk carrying a New Testament for him, and his precious pre- serve dish " clear as crystal." I: II 1 l! : i 'ii; m i-¥: I ' 11 XIII A MISSIONARY' CHAPTER We imagine in our liome land that the word heathen is a synonym for all that is evil and detestable in human nature, but this conception is ver}^ far from the truth. If you want the worst people in the world you will find them in America — in Sing-Sing, and out of Sing-Sing. The Gospel is a savor of death unto death, quite as much as it is a savor of life unto life. Where it is preached you will find the greatest evil as well as the greatest good. We believe that Korea merits quite as much as does India, what Max IMiiller says regarding the truthful character of the Hindus. In some respects a lack of truth is seen, as I mentioned in the chapter on the Korean mind ; but we have to specify, for at the next turning there may be discovered just as striking an example of the presence of this very virtue. I e been impressed by the quiet simi .ife of the people of Korea — especially in village cc i- munities — heathen idolaters though Uiey be. Their hospitality is a most striking ciiaracter- istic. There are no beggars, except about for- eign settlements. A hungry wayfarer needs 23d ling ome )ned we lere iple e the ' 1- be. ter- ror - 3eds A Missionary Chapter 239 but to step into the guest-room of a gentle- man's home, and he will be fed and cared for for nothing. A traveller, if he have no air of suspicion about him, may journey from end to end of the peninsula without money, confitlent that there is hospitality awaiting him at every turning. The simple, patriarchal style of life is more conducive to honesty than our complicated sys- tems. If you go with me to a farmhoutb you will see how country people live. There is the ho 3 where they grow the cotton. There, in a room in the inner inclosure of the house, the women spin and weave it into dress goods. For extras, the silk worms are busy feeding on mul- berry leaves and winding their cocoons. Thes*3 too are taken, spun, and woven ; and so in the compass of one home you find your dress ma- terials. The black hats and head -bands are usually bought, though the wide straw shades are woven by the men. Straw shoes too are made by any male member of the family. A Korean can accomplish marvels with a bundle of loose straw. He makes from what we would throw away as useless, shoes, ropes, and mats — all beautifully woven. Then there are the fields of rice and buckwheat. The rice is gathered in sheaves, and threshed out over a log before the door, the grain falling on mats. This again is hulled by a water pestle or large »i M: \'' •MMMIiMlli 240 Korean Sketches ^P' . i\ hammer, worked by a runnuig stream. The grain is put into a liollowed stone, and the hammer pounds away until all is hulled. Then it is ground by two women at the mill, one turning the stone and the other feeding the grain. Here is their food and clothing. Little is left for them to buy, so they require but little money. In some respects Koreans are exceedingly trustworthy ; more so than we are in our en- lightened land. I once knew an American lady who lived alone with two little children in the capital. She was quite unprotected by bolts or gates, and had plenty in her home to tempt tlie natives. Being aware of this we had one of tlie coolies of the street to sleep every night just before the stove by her bedroom door. Through the anxious hours he was there rolled up in his blanket, a bundle of un- kemptness, but faithful as a collie dog; and had it been necessary he v/ould have died for her. Once on the east coast I was in need of money and telegraphed for one liundred dollars by special courier. This was Thursday night, and the distance from the capital was one liun- dred and eighty miles. On Monday morning at breakfast, a mud-bespattered coolie an- nounced himself, and handed me wrapped in paper one hundred dollars. He had made A Missionary Chapter 241 nearly sixty miles a day over the rongliest rr)a(ls in Korea to bring me the money safely. He was not worth a dollar liimsclf, and a lumdred would have kept him Tor years. Why did lie not lun off or sav he had been robbed? l>e- ft/ cause he was too much of a man, wat to be trusted, and had a sense of lionor. The natives, too, are orderly. Markets and other gatherings scarcely recjuire police as ours do. They have a sense of fairness that enters into business relations. Business credit stands as high with them as with us, and a man's word in a bargain is taken for more than it is in America. If you pay for land, the public will stand by you in possession of it whether you have a deed or not. Another remarkable fact is the trustworthi- ness of liouse servants. Money and valuables can be left in their care witli perfect safety. Year after year will pass with not once a dis- honest act. This has been the experience of more than one foreigner. Some hold that it is from fear (>f punishment that they do not fall into sin, but fear never yet ke[)t a man h'Ug straight in anything. Fear would wear ol'l, and their real character come to ihe surface, in less time than we have given them for a test- ing. For eight years I had in my employ a young man who had been born with some means, and 1} 1^1 Korean Sketches 80 had not learned to work, lie had spent his life at school in the study of Chinese. I first met him in a little hut on tlie seashore many miles from the capital. He had an attractive manner that took my fancy, and I asked hiin if he would come with me. He agreed, and we made our first visit to Fusan together. Other natives had warned me against him, as being easily led into bad company, which was true, in a way ; but notwithstanding this defect, in all the eight years never once did he deceive or fail me. He was ever ready to sacrifice his own comfort or convenience to mine ; would give ex- tras from his table in his desire that 1 should fare well; would lay his few treasures, what- ever they might be, at my feet, if lie thought they could be of use ; was insulted and abused for standing for my honor — and yet, faithful in everything for eight long years, as far as his relationship to me and those around nw was concerned, his was the most faultless life I have ever seen. By nature Koreans are quite as good as we — better, I think. They need no Western school- ing or higher education to prepare them for the Gospel. They are prepared already, and are worthy of the best that we can give them. Not that they are without faults, but these excellen- cies they have, and more, for as a rule they are good to their wives, and kind to theii' children; A Missionary Chapter 243 his first any live m if 1 \ve (ther )eiiig true, 3t, ill ve or s own ve ex- liould what- ought bused ful in as his lio was 1 have Is we— ischool- for the Ind are Not Lcelleii- |hey are lildren ; but in th( lal world tb spiritual world tliey are all wrong, and here we discover the murks of heathenism. Their huts are the dwelling places of idolatry. They worship various spirits or gods in each room, one for the kitchen, one for the outer chamber, etc. Most of this fetichism is sanc- tioned by the men and carried on by the women. They throw rice into the well to quiet the dragon, and offer sacrifice to Ma-ma^ the god of smallpox and to other unclean spirits. They worship snakes, weasels, and pigs, and not a day goes by but the spirit of some animal must be propitiated. The sounds that awake you at night are most of them connected with heathen worship. " Aigo I Aigo ! Aigo ! '* means that some one is dead and tliey are sit- ting in sackcloth and ashes wailing thus. A gong that has a peculiar tin-pan Umc to it, has often disturbed me. It is meant as a kind of solace or requiem to the soul on its journey to the other land. Once a friend of mine was dy- ing, and as soon as it became known to the na- tives, an old woman or two came with gongs and sat outside the yard enclosure beating them till he passed away. A peculiar weird shriek, heard night and day in the streets of the capital, is from a fortune-teller or propliet who finds abundance of people to employ him. Along the roadway there are devil-posts cut with grinning teeth, and planted there to keep 244 Korean Sketches l| malignant spirits from passing. When cliolera broke out in 1895, we had them all about us with an inscription written along the front, "This is the general who is after the cholera devils." J3esides this a ditch would be dug across the roadway to make sure that no spirit should pass. Another mark of heatlienism is the idea that the exposure of decapitated bodies will serve as a preventative of evil doing. One day when riding past the execution ground beyond the East (xate, I saw a number of human heads on the roadway, trampled by the horses, the grass about bespattered with blood, and a little further on were the bodies with the ravens feed- ing on them. The people going by wagged their heads like the Jews past Golgotha. A soldier on the field of battle dies honorably, but the ghastliness of an execution ground is be- yond words to express ; and yet to this our Saviour came in His humiliation and suffering. One cold day on a trip into the country, I was ahead of the horses walking to keep warm, when I came upon a mat by the roadside from beneath which I saw hands and feet protruding. I asked my boy what this was, and he said, *'A dead Korean. Very cold you know, sir!" He was left right under two great gods cut out of the mountain side, that watched me all the afternoon ; but the gods were immovable — and A Missionary Chapter 245 the frozen man was immovablc-and the people were immovable as the stony-hearted gods they worship. ^ Long journeys fall to tlie lot of the mis- sionary, and on these ho has ample opportunity for studying the clu-acter of the people. Tliere are streams to be forded, little hovels to sleep in, vermin and disease to contend with, and all the varnish is worn off of life, and people go about in their true color, but you never find a horse-boy who is not willing to take you on his back over tlie fiercest torrent, if only his legs are long enough to fathom it. One chilly day we reached a boiling stream with a stony bot- tom, that went riglit across the roadway. My long thin 7napu (horse-boy) rolled up his panta- loons and took me on his back, for the horse had all it could do to make his own way over. Step by step he entered the aturm und drang, and then just midway, everything collapsed, and I was pitched into the cold watery con- fusion. The poor boy apologized again and again. He really had not felt so much shame since his father died. I was not so cold or wet but what I could appreciate the honest look of dejection in his face. Their speech too bears upon it the mark of the beast, for there are two different languages, where one easy one might serve. One is the written or eye-language, and the other is the gjinan 246 Korean Sketches spoken or ear-language. No one understands the eye-language when it is read, and no one thinks of writing the ear-language as it is si)oken. When you make a note of what is said, you have to translate it from tlie ear- language into the eye-language ; and when you read from a book to listeners, you have to translate from the eye-language into the ear- language. The languages in their eharacter and construction differ as widely as English differs from Syriac; for they belong to different families and are in no sense related wliatever. The ear-language, which all the people under- stand, is considered beneath the dignit}'' of the scholar and official class to use as a means of written communication, so they spend twenty years on the study of the eye-language, and then most of them fail to use it successfully. No more hopeless confusion exists than in the use of the original languages in Korea. From this confusion we are hoping to bring forth a Christian literature that will be understood and appreciated by tlie mass of the i)eople. No sooner do the people learn that we are there to teach Christianity than they come fr(;m all quarters, and from all sorts of motives — some for rice, some for work, some for money and some again to be freed from devils and evil spirits. None of course come from a de- sire for Christianity, unless they have heard of it A Missionary Chapter 247 from otliers, for a man cannot very well desire what he knows nothing about. Many who have been beset by evil influences, come in great terror and ask some way of deliverance. Our remedy is to read from tlie New Testament, translating the English into Korean as we x)roceed. They listen with eagerness, and I have seen those who were in bondage transformed entirely while dwelli'ig on these stories from the Gospel. As a result their homes have become cleaner and tidier, the idols and other objects of worship have disappeared, and you could feel that it was true, when they said they had experienced a great deliverance. Among the inquirers special ones seem to be sent. One Pak came in fear to know of salva- tion. We read to him, taught him, and he came the next day intensely in earnest: the day following he was gone with cholera. There was a poor worthless coolie by the name of Shin, wlio first called on us one morn- ing when we were busy. My writers, who con- sider themselves gentlemen, insisted on putting him out of the room because he was so dirty and carried so foul an odor. Shin knew that his company was not appreciated, and when he came afterward he sat in the farthest corner to listen. A few months later, a well-dressed man with clean hands and a pure heart, sat among the Christians, and showed in his every itnuWftiiM ni f III ' m i i i I T I if rr r T"" ■aneniMn 248 Korean Sketches feature what a change had been wrought in him. He had been a good-ior-nothing shive to sin for years. He was in tlie inner prison, his feet fast in the stocks. The forces of evil were on guard about him, and the prison doors were shut. He was asleep, unconscious of the sen- tence of death, till the angel of the Lord came and awoke him, and said, " Follow me." And he, not knowing what he did, followed, and the irons fell off, and the keepers were power- less, and the prison doors opened, and out into the great city he went, a free man. Shin's wife took cholera and the Christians gathered for prayer. Some of them maintained that no Christian would be taken, but she grew worse and worse. When we saw her, her face wore a deathly pallor, and her poor hands were livid. She had entered the stage of collapse, and it was only a matter of a few minutes. But their prayers were answered, and she lived. Korea we believe is worthy even of the brave comrades that have joined the noble army of martyrs, and have laid down their lives for her. The first was in the far South. Wliile living there we received word from J. H. Davies, who Iiad come from Australia, that he desired to make a journey to Fusan, and perhaps settle permanently. He left the capital in April, and came by way of Ch'ungch'ong and Cliolla prov- inces. It was a hard journey, especially for A Missionary Chapter 249 :o G Id one unacclimated and but slightly acquainted with the language. The natives had misunder- stood him, and had treated him in an unfriendly way. For three or four days before reaching Fusan he had been ill, but what was the matter he did not know. A card was brought me by a coolie one rainy afternoon, on which was written, '* Come at once I J. H. Davies." I found him in a hut about a mile from my room. He was tanned and travel-worn, but otherwise did not look particularly ill. The coolies were pestering him for extra pa}-, and he asked to be defended from them. The pay was settled, and he walked, leaning on my arm, until he reached my room, where he lay on the cot rest- ing. " ril be well now," said he, as he tried to eat some food. I called in a Japanese physi- cian. After an examination, disclosing marks on his body, he pronounced it smallpox. We watched all night, Mr. Yi and I. When I re- turned after Yi's watch, IMr. Davies said, "He was so kind to mo, he bathed my brow and lielped me to bear the suffering." Toward noon the next day symptoms of pneumonia set in, and the Japanese doctor, who spoke German, said, '' Er wird bald sterben," whioli was true, for he passed away in less than an hour. On a lonely hillside, in that far distant land, with only a dusky native or two to help me, I l#uried all that was left of J. H. Davies, a bravo, 250 Korean Sketches ^fi 'I Ml true-hearted Christian, who gave his life for Korea. It was only a few weeks later that two of my friends came overland, Mr. Fenwick and Dr. J. W. Heron, physician at that time to the vari- ous legations, and to His Majesty the king. After a stay of a day or two, the hitter insisted on my returning with him by steamer to Seoul, as I stood in need of a change. Not long after reaching the capital wo made a trip to Nam Han, to arrange a summer resort, to tide the foreigners over the hot season. We made a circuit of the walls one forenoon, picked flow- ers, and examined points of interest. There was in my friend's mind that morning the pros- pect of a visit home ; and many things spoken as commonplace then, have a peculiar deep meaning now. The walk had been recreation ; he must mount horse and get back to the city hos- pital, with its crowds of diseased and crippled waiting for his coming. Many a native, from the king to the poorest coolie, had found relief from bodily suffering under his skillful hand. He was a knight of Christian chivalry and his surgeon's lance was the weapon he wielded. None of his own people was forgotten either in his labors for the natives, for he felt that he was entrusted with their lives and safety too. How well he watched and guarded ! Brave, fearless brother! who commanded the respect A Missionary Chapter 251 of tho highest, and the hearts and affections of the lowest. His unselfish, kindly way, was the spiritual sermon that always accompanied his daily labors. But a week later he was down with a fell disease, and the one who had so often ministered to the sick was destined to go. A day or two of suffering, and a few of us watched by him as his spirit passed quietly away, without a ripple. His last words were to his soldier and native friends who gathered around him as retainers about their chief. *' Jesus," said he, '' loves you. He gave His life for you. Stand by Him!" The sleep was given that marked him as one beloved, and his body was laid to rest on the banks of the river Han. He stood among the noblest and best of men, and he laid down his life for the people of Korea. It was not long till we w^ere called upon to mourn the loss of another physician, Dr. Hall, who came out under the Methodist Board, and whose presence in Korea had been a benediction to us all. He too was of the sainted type that we meet but seldom in Christian experience. The great masters could not begin to picture the Saviour's face as truly as it was pictured in the face of Brother Hall. He so reflected that glory that I for one, at least, felt an increased sense of guilt and sin in his presence. It fell to Dr. Hall to open P'yung-yang along 252 Korean Sketches with I\Ir. JVIoffett. P'yihig yaiig had up till the time of tlie war been a stronghold of evil, and Dr. Hall lived in the worst part of the city. In my own mind I have ])ictured him through the tiuies of persecution and trial, pa- tient and long buffering, letting his light shine just as the Saviour did, often spending the time that health required in the sunlight, iu a dark little room praying and suj^plicating God that He would open P'yOng-yang city to the Saviour. The city is now open, and the dear brother's prayers are answered; but he himself is absent from us, and ne say, " Oil for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice tliat is still." He, too, sleeps beside his comrade, Dr. Heron, on the binks of the river Han: another who gave his liu^ for the people of Korea. The Korean is by nature a hero-worshipper. He loves a giant six feet three or four, with broad back and thick hand, who can play pitch and toss with the sorrows and burdens of life. This accounts for their admiration of missionary iMcKenzie from his first arrival. I have so often heard in connection with him that he was ehey-il (number one), in everything. Nobody so tall, or stout, or strong as he. He had a giant's voice, the}" said, and yet his Christlike- uess nuide him gentle as a lamb. He was uni- A Missionary Clmpter 253 versally hclovcd. I have lioiird i! rcpoa^od that nobody believed like Kim Moksa (McKciizie). lie was to tlioin the embodinicnt of Christian Btreiigth and courage. When the Toiighaks came down with murder and pill 'cje, all the natives ran but Kim Moksa ( McKenzie), not he. lie was like a rock planted deep, that nothing could move. So the Christians brought tluur goods to him to keep. And when war was going on, timid ones gathered under the Hag with a red cross that floated over the hut where he lived alone with his native friends. Murderers, with swords red with blood, who came down to kill the "foreign devil," skulked away like dogs, afraid of one who looked to them the lion of the Tribe of Judah. He not only raised np a Christian community, but he taught the boys to })lay ball, and to make men of them- selves physically, as well as spiritually. He was the light of the seaeoast of Western Whang-ha. But when he had borne witness through the time of trial, and had carried his brethren safely in his arms, his work was done. Disease that is stronger tiian the giant, fastened upon him. He suffered as a l)rave martyr, tasting in his death a humiliation, that to my mind made him more like his Saviour, for in an hour of unconsciousness, lie shot himself. The natives were heart-broken at this trial of their faith ; but they buried him, kindly and lovingly, I Wiii 254 Korean Sketches 'fj uiidcrneatli the trees on the seashore, where he had borne his witness and lived so bravely for hie Master. Tliere is still another of precious memory, whom we include in this martyr band, Dr. H. M. Brown, whose quick temper and warm heart breathed of the Highlands of Scotland. We remember Dr. Brown more for the kindness of his nature tlian for anything else. He was the embodiment of that Christian love and charity which fights against great odds, and conquers. He too, like his brother of the Highlands, McKenzie, was a man of powerful pliysique, and when at last lie had to lay down his arma and surrender, it was like the surrender of Napoleon. While on the field he made rapid progress in the language, and even when an in- valid, was building, studying, and teaching, as though he had been well. But consumption had gained its hold, and it was only a matter of time with liim, though his heart kept up and his courage was firm. There was an honesty and openness of character that was beautiful. Every thought was expressed, every conviction of his soul he stood by. This very honesty was the cause of his greatest mistakes. If he saw one downtrodden his Highland blood was up. One day while walking with him in the streets of the capital, we passed a group of men and boys intent on a cockfight. The birds A Missionary Chapter I55 were covered with blood and nearly exhausted. Quick as thought, Brown caught one under his arm, and marched straight ahead with a, howl- ing mob after him ordering him to drop it. One man caught him by the shoulder and meant to take the bird by force, when the doctor by a simple twist so reversed the man's ideas that he walked nimbly away. He intended to save the creature if possible, so when he reached a high enclosure he threw it over to the other side, and it disappeared among the roofs. Ills teacher too fell a victim to a most unjust charge and was locked up in the yamen to be beaten and maltreated under name of the law. Brown took the situation in in a flash, and in just about the style Sir William Wallace would have done it, broke open that yamen gate and set liis teacher free. Meanwhile the governor and his soldiers were looking on meekly from a safe distance in tlie rear. It was a mistake, yet I admire the man that it showed him to be, don't you? He was a Christian soldier, full of the spirit of chivalry. He never fought for self or for a selfish purpose, but for principle and for the riglits of others. When his strong hand could fight no more, lie lay down to his rest, in the conviction that his Lord was coming to set poor downtrodden, imprisoned, mortals free. Korea has cost us already the bravest and best that we liad, and all in the short space of Korean Sketches i' I, If twelve years. But tliere are now over a thou- sand Christians, whereas after the same time in Japan tliere were only ten, while in China they worked nearly forty years for ten. Thus Korea in making her returns is showing that it was not in vaiu that these brave men died. /(!