“down” upon her, and afraid to oppose them actively lest Japan should
be permanently successful.

On that same New Year’s Day there was more to be seen than headless
trunks. Through the length of Seoul, towards twilight, an odor of
burning hair overpowered the aromatic scent of the pine brush, and
all down every street, outside every door, there were red glimmers
of light. It is the custom in every family on that day to carry out
the carefully preserved clippings and combings of the family hair and
burn them in potsherds, a practice which it is hoped will prevent the
entrance of certain dæmons into the house during the year. Rude straw
dolls stuffed with a few _cash_ were also thrown into the street. This
effigy is believed to take away troubles and foist them on whoever
picks it up. To prevent such a vicarious calamity, more than one mother
on that evening pounced upon a child who childlike had picked up the
doll and threw it far from him.

On that night round pieces of red or white paper placed in cleft sticks
are put upon the roofs of houses, and those persons who have been
warned by the sorcerers of troubles to come, pray (?) to the moon to
remove them.

A common Korean custom on the same day is for people to paint images
on paper, and to write against them their troubles of body or mind,
afterwards giving the paper to a boy who burns it.

A more singular New Year custom in Seoul is “Walking the Bridges.” Up
to midnight, men, women, and children cross a bridge or bridges as many
times as they are years old. This is believed to prevent pains in the
feet and legs during the year.

This day, the “Great Fifteenth Day,” concludes the kite-flying and
stone fights which enliven Seoul for the previous fortnight, and every
Korean insists on keeping it as a holiday. Graves are formally visited,
and gathered families spread food before the ancestral tablets. Curious
customs prevail at this time. A few days before, the Palace eunuchs
chant invocations, swinging burning torches as they do so. This is
supposed to ensure bountiful crops for the next season. People buy
quantities of nuts, which they crack, hold the kernels in the mouth,
and then throw them away. This is to prevent summer sores and boils.
Also on the Great Fifteenth Day men try to find out the probable
rainfall for each month by splitting a small piece of bamboo, and
laying twelve beans side by side in one of the halves, after which it
is closed, and after being bound tightly with cord, is lowered into a
well for the night. Each bean represents a month. In the morning, when
they are examined in rotation, they are variously enlarged, and the
enlargement indicates the proportion of rain in that special moon. If,
on the contrary, one or more are wizened, it causes great alarm, as
indicating complete or partial drought in one or more months. Dogs do
not get their usual meal on the morning of the “Great Fifteenth,” in
the belief that the deprivation will keep them from being pestered with
flies during the long summer.

If a boy has been born during the year, poles bearing paper fish by day
and lanterns by night project from the house of the parents. The people
at night watch the burning of candles. If they are entirely burned, the
life of the child will be long; if only partially burned, it will be
proportionately shorter.

I left Seoul very regretfully on 5th February. The Japanese had
introduced _jinrikshas_, but the runners were unskilled, and I met with
so severe an accident in going down to Chemulpo that I did not recover
for a year. The line of steamers to Japan was totally disorganized by
the war, and in the week that I waited for the _Higo Maru_ war was
uppermost in people’s thoughts. There were some who even then could not
bring themselves to believe in the eventual success of the Japanese.
The fall of Wei-hai-wei and the capture of the Chinese fleet opened
many eyes. I was in the office of the “N.Y.K.” when the news came, and
the clerks were too wild with excitement to attend to me, apologizing
by saying, “It’s another victory!” Chemulpo was decorated, illuminated,
and processioned for victories, Li Hung Chang was burned in effigy, and
unlimited _sake_ for all comers was supplied from tubs at the street
corners.

There were indications of the cost of victory, however. The great
military hospitals were full, the cemetery was filling fast, military
funerals with military pomp and Shinto priests passed down the bannered
street, and 600 transport coolies tramping from Manchuria arrived in
rags and tatters, some clothed in raw hides and raw skins of sheep,
their feet, hands, and lips frost-bitten, and with blackened stumps of
fingers and toes protruding from filthy bandages. The Japanese schools
teach that Japan has a right to demand all that a man has, and that
life itself is not too costly a sacrifice for him to lay on the altar
of his country. Undoubtedly the teaching bears fruit. Not long before
at Osaka I saw the wharves piled high with voluntary contributions for
the troops, and the Third Army leave the city amidst an outburst of
popular enthusiasm such as I never saw equalled. Most of these coolies,
when they received new clothing, volunteered for further service, and
dying soldiers on battlefields and in hospitals uttered “_Dai Nippon
Banzai!_” (Great Japan forever!) with their last faltering breath.

When I left Korea the condition of things may be summarized
thus. Japan was thoroughly in earnest as to reforming the Korean
administration through Koreans, and very many reforms were decreed
or in contemplation, while some evils and abuses were already swept
away. The King, deprived of his absolute sovereignty, was practically
a salaried registrar of decrees. Count Inouye occupied the position of
“Resident,” and the Government was administered in the King’s name by a
Cabinet consisting of the heads of ten departments, in some measure the
nominees of the “Resident.”[35]

[Illustration: PLACE OF THE QUEEN’S CREMATION.]

FOOTNOTES:

[35] I repeat this statement in this form for the benefit of the
reader, and ask him to compare it with a summary of Korean affairs
early in 1897, given in the 36th chapter of this volume.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE ASSASSINATION OF THE QUEEN

In May, 1895, a treaty of peace between China and Japan was signed at
Shimonoseki, a heavy indemnity, the island of Formosa, and a great
accession of prestige, being the gains of Japan. From thenceforward no
power having interests in the Far East could afford to regard her as a
_quantité négligéable_.

After travelling for some months in South and Mid China, and spending
the summer in Japan, I arrived in Nagasaki in October, 1895, to hear a
rumor of the assassination of the Korean Queen, afterwards confirmed
on board the _Suruga Maru_ by Mr. Sill, the American Minister, who was
hurrying back to his post in Seoul in consequence of the disturbed
state of affairs. I went up immediately from Chemulpo to the capital,
where I was Mr. Hillier’s guest at the English Legation for two
exciting months.

The native and foreign communities were naturally much excited by the
tragedy at the Palace, and the treatment which the King was receiving.
Count Inouye, whose presence in Seoul always produced confidence, had
left a month before, and had been succeeded by General Viscount Miura,
a capable soldier, without diplomatic experience.

In an interview which Count Inouye had with the Queen shortly before
his departure, speaking of the ascendency of the Tai-Won-Kun, after the
capture of the Palace by Mr. Otori in the previous July, Her Majesty
said, “It is a matter of regret to me that the overtures made by me
towards Japan were rejected. The Tai-Won-Kun, on the other hand, who
showed his unfriendliness towards Japan, was assisted by the Japanese
Minister to rise in power.”

In the despatch in which Count Inouye reported this interview to his
Government he wrote:--

 I gave as far as I could an explanation of these things to the Queen,
 and after so allaying her suspicions, I further explained that it was
 the true and sincere desire of the Emperor and Government of Japan to
 place the independence of Korea on a firm basis, and in the meantime
 to strengthen the Royal House of Korea. _In the event of any member of
 the Royal Family, or indeed any Korean, therefore attempting treason
 against the Royal House, I gave the assurance that the Japanese
 Government would not fail to protect the Royal House even by force of
 arms, and so secure the safety of the kingdom._ These remarks of mine
 seemed to have moved the King and Queen, and their anxiety for the
 future appeared to be much relieved.

The Korean sovereigns would naturally think themselves justified
in relying on the promise so frankly given by one of the most
distinguished of Japanese statesmen, whom they had learned to regard
with confidence and respect, and it is clear to myself that when the
fateful night came, a month later, their reliance on this assurance
led them to omit certain possible precautions, and caused the Queen to
neglect to make her escape at the first hint of danger.

When the well-known arrangement between Viscount Miura and the
Tai-Won-Kun was ripe for execution, the Japanese Minister directed the
Commandant of the Japanese battalion quartered in the barracks just
outside the Palace gate to facilitate the Tai-Won-Kun’s entry into
the Palace by arranging the disposition of the _Kun-ren-tai_ (Korean
troops drilled by Japanese), and by calling out the Imperial force to
support them. Miura also called upon two Japanese to collect their
friends, go to Riong San on the Han, where the intriguing Prince was
then living, and act as his bodyguard on his journey to the Palace. The
Minister told them that on the success of the enterprise depended the
eradication of the evils which had afflicted the kingdom for twenty
years, and INSTIGATED THEM TO DISPATCH THE QUEEN WHEN THEY ENTERED THE
PALACE. One of Miura’s agents then ordered the Japanese policemen who
were off duty to put on civilian dress, provide themselves with swords,
and accompany the conspirators to the Tai-Won-Kun’s house.

At 3 A.M. on the morning of the 8th of October they left Riong San,
escorting the Prince’s palanquin, Mr. Okamoto, to whom much had been
entrusted, assembling the whole party when on the point of departure,
and declaring to them that on entering the Palace the “Fox” should be
dealt with according “as exigency might require.” Then this procession,
including ten Japanese who had dressed themselves in uniforms taken
from ten captured Korean police, started for Seoul, more than three
miles distant. Outside the “Gate of Staunch Loyalty” they were met by
the _Kun-ren-tai_, and then waited for the arrival of the Japanese
troops, after which they proceeded at a rapid pace to the Palace,
entering it by the front gate, and after killing some of the Palace
Guard, proceeded a quarter of a mile to the buildings occupied by the
King and Queen, which have a narrow courtyard in front.

So far I have followed the Hiroshima judgment in its statement of the
facts of that morning, but when it has conducted the combined force to
“the inner chambers” it concludes abruptly with a “not proven” in the
case of all the accused! For the rest of the story, so far as it may
interest my readers, I follow the statements of General Dye and Mr.
Sabatin of the King’s Guard, and of certain official documents.

It is necessary here to go back upon various events which preceded
the murder of Her Majesty. Trouble arose in October between the
_Kun-ren-tai_ and the Seoul police, resulting in the total defeat of
the latter. The _Kun-ren-tai_, numbering 1,000, were commanded by
Colonel Hong, who in 1882 had rescued the Queen from imminent danger,
and was trusted by the Royal Family. The Palace was in the hands of
the Old Guard under Colonel Hyön, who had saved Her Majesty’s life
in 1884. In the first week of October the strength of this Guard
was greatly reduced, useful weapons were quietly withdrawn, and the
ammunition was removed.

On the night of the 7th the _Kun-ren-tai_, with their Japanese
instructors, marched and countermarched till they were found on all
sides of the Palace, causing some uneasiness within. The alarm was
given to General Dye and Mr. Sabatin early on the morning of the
8th.[36] These officers, looking through a chink of the gate, saw a
number of Japanese soldiers with fixed bayonets standing there, who,
on being asked what they were doing, filed right and left out of the
moonlight under the shadow of the wall. Skulking under another part of
the wall were over 200 of the _Kun-ren-tai_. The two foreigners were
consulting as to the steps to be taken when heavy sounds of battering
came from the grand entrance gate, followed by firing.

General Dye attempted to rally the Guard, but after five or six volleys
from the assailants they broke with such a rush as to sweep the two
foreigners past the King’s house to the gateway of the Queen’s. No
clear account has ever been given of the events which followed. Colonel
Hong, the commander of the _Kun-ren-tai_, was cut down by a Japanese
officer at the great gate, and was afterwards mortally wounded by eight
bullets. The _Kun-ren-tai_ swarmed into the Palace from all directions,
along with Japanese civilians armed with swords, who frantically
demanded the whereabouts of the Queen, hauling the Palace ladies about
by the hair to compel them to point out Her Majesty, rushing in and out
of windows, throwing the ladies-in-waiting from the 7 feet high veranda
into the compound, cutting and kicking them, and brutally murdering
four in the hope that they had thus secured their victim.

Japanese troops also entered the Palace, and formed in military order
under the command of their officers round the small courtyard of
the King’s house and at its gate, protecting the assassins in their
murderous work. Before this force of Japanese regulars arrived there
was a flying rout of servants, runners, and Palace Guards rushing from
every point of the vast enclosure in mad haste to get out of the gates.
As the Japanese entered the building, the unfortunate King, hoping to
divert their attention and give the Queen time to escape, came into
a front room where he could be distinctly seen. Some of the Japanese
assassins rushed in brandishing their swords, pulled His Majesty about,
and beat and dragged about some of the Palace ladies by the hair in
his presence. The Crown Prince, who was in an inner room, was seized,
his hat torn off and broken, and he was pulled about by the hair and
threatened with swords to make him show the way to the Queen, but he
managed to reach the King, and they have never been separated since.

The whole affair did not occupy much more than an hour. The Crown
Prince saw his mother rush down a passage followed by a Japanese with
a sword, and there was a general rush of assassins for her sleeping
apartments. In the upper story the Crown Princess was found with
several ladies, and she was dragged by the hair, cut with a sword,
beaten, and thrown downstairs. Yi Kyöng-jik, Minister of the Royal
Household, seems to have given the alarm, for the Queen was dressed and
was preparing to run and hide herself. When the murderers rushed in, he
stood with outstretched arms in front of Her Majesty, trying to protect
her, furnishing them with the clue they wanted. They slashed off both
his hands and inflicted other wounds, but he contrived to drag himself
along the veranda into the King’s presence, where he bled to death.

The Queen, flying from the assassins, was overtaken and stabbed,
falling down as if dead, but one account says that, recovering a
little, she asked if the Crown Prince, her idol, was safe, on which
a Japanese jumped on her breast and stabbed her through and through
with his sword. Even then, though the nurse whom I formerly saw in
attendance on her covered her face, it is not certain that she was
dead, but the Japanese laid her on a plank, wrapped a silk quilt round
her, and she was carried to a grove of pines in the adjacent deer park,
where kerosene oil was poured over the body, which was surrounded by
faggots and burned, only a few small bones escaping destruction.

Thus perished, at the age of forty-four, by the hands of foreign
assassins, instigated to their bloody work by the Minister of a
friendly power, the clever, ambitious, intriguing, fascinating, and in
many respects lovable Queen of Korea. In her lifetime Count Inouye,
whose verdict for many reasons may be accepted, said, “Her Majesty has
few equals among her countrymen for shrewdness and sagacity. In the art
of conciliating her enemies and winning the confidence of her servants
she has no equals.”

A short time after daylight the Tai-Won-Kun issued two proclamations,
of which the following sentences are specimens:--

 1st, “The hearts of the people dissolve through the presence in the
 Palace of a crowd of base fellows. So the National Grand Duke is
 returned to power to inaugurate changes, expel the base fellows,
 restore former laws, and vindicate the dignity of His Majesty.”

 2nd, “I have now entered the Palace to aid His Majesty, expel the low
 fellows, perfect that which will be a benefit, save the country, and
 introduce peace.”

The Palace gates were guarded by the mutinous _Kun-ren-tai_ with fixed
bayonets, who allowed a constant stream of Koreans to pass out, the
remnants of the Old Palace Guard, who had thrown off their uniforms and
hidden their arms, each man being seized and searched before his exit
was permitted. Near the gate was a crimson pool marking the spot where
Colonel Hong fell. Three of the Ministers were at once dismissed from
their posts, some escaped, and many of the high officials sought safety
in flight. Nearly every one who was trusted by the King was removed,
and several of the chief offices of State were filled by the nominees
of the officers of the _Kun-ren-tai_, who, later, when they did not
find the Cabinet, which was chiefly of their own creation, sufficiently
subservient, used to threaten it with drawn swords.

Viscount Miura arrived at the Palace at daylight, with Mr. Sugimura,
Secretary of the Japanese Legation (who had arranged the details of the
plot), and a certain Japanese who had been seen by the King apparently
leading the assassins, and actively participating in the bloody work,
and had an audience of His Majesty, who was profoundly agitated. He
signed three documents at their bidding, after which the Japanese
troops were withdrawn from the Palace, and the armed forces, and even
the King’s personal attendants, were placed under the orders of those
who had been concerned in attack. The Tai-Won-Kun was present at this
audience.

During the day all the Foreign Representatives had audiences of the
King, who was much agitated, sobbed at intervals, and, believing the
Queen to have escaped, was very solicitous about his own safety, as
he was environed by assassins, the most unscrupulous of all being
his own father. In violation of custom, he grasped the hands of
the Representatives, and asked them to use their friendly offices
to prevent further outrage and violence. He was anxious that the
_Kun-ren-tai_ should be replaced by Japanese troops. On the same
afternoon the Foreign Representatives met at the Japanese Legation
to hear Viscount Miura’s explanation of circumstances in which his
countrymen were so seriously implicated.

Three days after the events in the Palace, and while the King and
the general public believed the Queen to be alive, a so-called Royal
Edict, a more infamous outrage on the Queen even than her brutal
assassination, was published in the _Official Gazette_. The King on
being asked to sign it refused, and said he would have his hands cut
off rather, but it appeared as his decree, and bore the signatures
of the Minister of the Household, the Prime Minister, and six other
members of the Cabinet.

ROYAL EDICT.

 It is now thirty-two years since We ascended the throne, but Our
 ruling influence has not extended wide. The Queen Min introduced her
 relatives to the Court and placed them about Our person, whereby
 she made dull Our senses, exposed the people to extortion, put Our
 Government in disorder, selling offices and titles. Hence tyranny
 prevailed all over the country and robbers arose in all quarters.
 Under these circumstances the foundation of Our dynasty was in
 imminent peril. We knew the extreme of her wickedness, but could not
 dismiss and punish her because of helplessness and fear of her party.

 We desire to stop and suppress her influence. In the twelfth moon of
 last year we took an oath at Our Ancestral Shrine that the Queen and
 her relatives and Ours should never again be allowed to interfere in
 State affairs. We hoped this would lead the Min faction to mend their
 ways. But the Queen did not give up her wickedness, but with her party
 aided a crowd of low fellows to rise up about Us and so managed as
 to prevent the Ministers of State from consulting Us. Moreover, they
 have forged Our signature to a decree to disband Our loyal soldiers,
 thereby instigating and raising a disturbance, and when it occurred
 she escaped as in the Im O year. We have endeavored to discover
 her whereabouts, but as she does not come forth and appear We are
 convinced that she is not only unfitted and unworthy of the Queen’s
 rank, but also that her guilt is excessive and brimful. Therefore
 with her We may not succeed to the glory of the Royal Ancestry. So We
 hereby depose her from the rank of Queen and reduce her to the level
 of the lowest class.

  Signed by
  YI CHAI-MYON, Minister of the Royal Household.
  KIM HONG-CHIP, Prime Minister.
  KIM YUN-SIK, Minister of Foreign Affairs.
  PAK CHONG-YANG, Minister of Home Affairs.
  SHIM SANG-HUN, Minister of Finance.
  CHO HEUI-YON, Minister of War.
  SO KWANG-POM, Minister of Justice.
  SO KWANG-POM, Minister of Education.
  CHONG PYONG-HA, Vice-Minister of Agriculture and Commerce.

On the day following the issue of this fraudulent and infamous edict,
another appeared in which Her Majesty, out of pity for the Crown Prince
and as a reward for his deep devotion to his father, was “raised” by
the King to the rank of “Concubine of the First Order”!

The diplomats were harassed and anxious, and met constantly to
discuss the situation. Of course the state of extreme tension was not
caused solely by “happenings” in Korea and their local consequences.
For behind this well-executed plot, and the diabolical murder of a
defenceless woman, lay a terrible suspicion, which gained in strength
every hour during the first few days after the tragedy till it
intensified into a certainty, of which people spoke as in cipher, by
hints alone, that other brains than Korean planned the plot, that other
than Korean hands took the lives that were taken, that the sentries
who guarded the King’s apartments while the deed of blood was being
perpetrated wore other than Korean uniforms, and that other than Korean
bayonets gleamed in the shadow of the Palace wall.

People spoke their suspicions cautiously, though the evidence of
General Dye and of Mr. Sabatin pointed unmistakably in one direction.
So early as the day after the affair, the question which emerged
was, “Is Viscount General Miura criminally implicated or not?” It
is needless to go into particulars on this subject. Ten days after
the tragedy at the Palace, the Japanese Government, which was soon
proved innocent of any complicity in the affair, recalled and arrested
Viscount Miura, Sugimura, and Okamoto, Adviser to the Korean War
Department, who, some months later, along with forty-five others, were
placed on their trial before the Japanese Court of First Instance at
Hiroshima, and were acquitted on the technical ground that there was
“no sufficient evidence to prove that any of the accused actually
committed the crime originally meditated by them,” this crime,
according to the judgment, being that two of the accused, “AT THE
INSTIGATION OF MIURA, DECIDED TO MURDER THE QUEEN, and took steps by
collecting accomplices ... more than ten others were directed by these
two persons to do away with the Queen.”

Viscount Miura was replaced by Mr. Komura, an able diplomatist, and
shortly afterwards Count Inouye arrived, bearing the condolences of
the Emperor of Japan to the unfortunate Korean King. A heavier blow
to Japanese prestige and position as the leader of civilization in
the East could not have been struck, and the Government continues
to deserve our sympathy on the occasion. For when the disavowal is
forgotten, it will be always remembered that the murderous plot was
arranged in the Japanese Legation, and that of the Japanese dressed as
civilians and armed with swords and pistols, who were directly engaged
in the outrages committed in the Palace, some were advisers to the
Korean Government and in its pay, and others were Japanese policemen
connected with the Japanese Legation--sixty persons in all, including
those known as _Soshi_, and exclusive of the Japanese troops.

The Foreign Representatives with one exception informed the Cabinet
that until steps were taken to bring the assassins to justice, till the
_Kun-ren-tai_ Guard was removed from the Palace, and till the recently
introduced members of the Cabinet who were responsible for the outrages
had been arraigned or at least removed from office, they declined to
recognize any act of the Government, or to accept as authentic any
order issued by it in the King’s name. The prudence of this course
became apparent later.

On 15th October, in an extra issue of the _Official Gazette_, it was
announced “By Royal Command” that, as the position of Queen must not
remain vacant for a day, proceedings for the choice of a bride were
to begin at once! This was only one among the many insults which were
heaped upon the Royal prisoner.

During the remainder of October and November there was no improvement
in affairs. The gloom was profound. Instead of Royal receptions and
entertainments, the King, shaken by terror and in hourly dread of
poison or assassination, was a close prisoner in a poor part of his
own palace, in the hands of a Cabinet chiefly composed of men who were
the tools of the mutinous soldiers who were practically his jailers,
compelled to put his seal to edicts which he loathed, the tool of men
on whose hands the blood of his murdered Queen was hardly dry. Nothing
could be more pitiable than the condition of the King and Crown Prince,
each dreading that the other would be slain before his eyes, not daring
to eat of any food prepared in the Palace, dreading to be separated,
even for a few minutes, without an adherent whom they could trust, and
with recent memories of infinite horror as food for contemplation.

General Dye, the American military adviser, an old and feeble man,
slept near the Palace Library, and the American missionaries in twos
took it in turns to watch with him. This was the only protection
which the unfortunate sovereign possessed. He was also visited daily
by the Foreign Representatives in turns, with the double object of
ascertaining that he was alive and assuring him of their sympathy and
interest. Food was supplied to him in a locked box from the Russian or
U. S. Legations, but so closely was he watched, that it was difficult
to pass the key into his hand, and a hasty and very occasional whisper
was the only communication he could succeed in making to these
foreigners, who were his sole reliance. Undoubtedly from the first he
hoped to escape either to the English or Russian Legation. At times he
sobbed piteously and shook the hands of the foreigners, who made no
attempt to conceal the sympathy they felt for the always courteous and
kindly sovereign.

Entertainments among the foreigners ceased. The dismay was too profound
and the mourning too real to permit even of the mild gaieties of
a Seoul winter. Every foreign lady, and specially Mrs. Underwood,
Her Majesty’s medical attendant, and Mme. Waeber, who had been an
intimate friend, felt her death as a personal loss. Her Oriental
unscrupulousness in politics was forgotten in the horror excited by the
story of her end. Yet then and for some time afterwards people clung
to the hope that she had escaped as on a former occasion, and was in
hiding. Among Koreans opinion was greatly concealed, for there were
innumerable arrests, and no one knew when his turn might come, but it
was believed that there was an earnest desire to liberate the King. A
number of foreign warships lay at Chemulpo, and the British, Russian,
and American Legations were guarded by marines.

Nearly a month after the assassination of the Queen, and when all
hope of her escape had been abandoned, the condition of things was so
serious under the rule of the new Cabinet, that an attempt was made
by the Foreign Representatives to terminate it by urging on Count
Inouye to disarm the _Kun-ren-tai_, and occupy the Palace with Japanese
troops until the loyal soldiers had been drilled into an efficiency
on which the King might rely for his personal safety. It will be
seen from this proposal how completely the Japanese Government was
exonerated from blame by the diplomatic agents of the Great Powers.
This proposal was not received with cordial alacrity by Count Inouye,
who felt that the step of an armed reoccupation of the Palace by the
Japanese, though with the object of securing the King’s safety, would
be liable to serious misconstruction, and might bring about very
grave complications. Such an idea was only to be entertained if Japan
received a distinct mandate from the Powers. The telegraph was set to
work, a due amount of consent to the arrangement was obtained, and when
I left Seoul on a northern journey on November 7th, it was in the full
belief that on reaching Phyöng-yang I should find a telegram announcing
that this serious _coup d’état_ had been successfully accomplished in
the presence of the Foreign Representatives. Japan, however, did not
undertake the task, though urged to do so both by Count Inouye and
Mr. Komura, the new Representative, and the _Kun-ren-tai_ remained in
power, and the King a prisoner. Had the recommendation of the Foreign
Representatives, among whom the Russian Representatives was the most
emphatic in urging the interference of Japan, been adopted, it is
more than probable that the present predominance of Russian influence
in Korea would have been avoided. It is only fair to the Russian
Government to state that it gave a distinct mandate to the Japanese
to disarm the _Kun-ren-tai_ and take charge of the King. The Japanese
Government declined, and therefore is alone responsible for Russia’s
subsequent intervention.

During November the dissatisfaction throughout Korea with the measures
which were taken and proposed increased, and the position became so
strained, owing to the demand of the Foreign Representatives and of
all classes of Koreans that the occurrences of the 8th of October must
be investigated, and that the fiction of the Queen being in hiding
should be abandoned, that the Cabinet unwillingly recognized that
something must be done. So on 26th November the Foreign Representatives
were invited by the King to the Palace, and the Prime Minister, in
presence of His Majesty, who was profoundly agitated, produced a
decree bearing the King’s signature, dismissing the special nominees
of the mutineers, the Ministers of War and Police, declaring that the
so-called Edict degrading the Queen was set aside and treated as void
from the beginning, and that she was reinstated in her former honors;
that the occurrences of the 8th October were to be investigated by the
Department of Justice, and that the guilty persons were to be tried and
punished. The death of Her Majesty was announced at the same time.

At the conclusion of this audience, Mr. Sill, the United States
Minister, expressed to the King “his profound satisfaction with the
announcement.” Mr. Hillier followed by “congratulating His Majesty on
these satisfactory steps, and hoped it would be the beginning of a time
of peace and tranquillity, and relieve His Majesty from much anxiety.”
These good wishes were cordially endorsed by his colleagues.

The measures proposed by the King to reassert his lost authority and
punish the conspirators promised very well, but were rendered abortive
by a “loyal plot,” which was formed by the Old Palace Guard and a
number of Koreans, some of them by no means insignificant men. It had
for its object the liberation of the sovereign and the substitution
of loyal troops for the _Kun-ren-tai_. Though it ended in a fiasco
two nights after this hopeful interview, its execution having been
frustrated by premature disclosures, its results were disastrous,
for it involved a number of prominent men, created grave suspicions,
raised up a feeling of antagonism to foreigners, some of whom (American
missionaries) were believed to be cognizant of the plot, if not
actually accessories, and brought about a general confusion, from
which, when I left Korea five weeks later, there was no prospect of
escape. The King was a closer prisoner than ever; those surrounding him
grew familiar and insolent; he lived in dread of assassination; and
he had no more intercourse with foreigners, except with those who had
an official right to enter the Palace, which they became increasingly
unwilling to exercise.

It was with much regret that I left Seoul for a journey in the interior
at this most exciting time, when every day brought fresh events and
rumors, and a _coup d’état_ of great importance was believed to be
impending; but I had very little time at my disposal before proceeding
to Western China on a long-planned journey.

FOOTNOTES:

[36] General Dye, late of the U.S. army, was instructor of the Old
Guard. Mr. Sabatin, a Russian subject, was temporarily employed as a
watchman to see that the sentries were at their posts.

CHAPTER XXIV

BURIAL CUSTOMS

After the interpreter difficulty had appeared as before insurmountable,
I was provided with one who acquitted himself to perfection, and
through whose good offices I came much nearer to the people than if I
had been accompanied by a foreigner. He spoke English remarkably well,
was always bright, courteous, intelligent, and good-natured; he had a
keen sense of the ludicrous, and I owe much of the pleasure, as well as
the interest, of my journey to his companionship. Mr. Hillier equipped
me with Im, a soldier of the Legation Guard, as my servant. He had
attended me on photographing expeditions on a former visit, and on the
journey I found him capable, faithful, quick, and full of “go,”--so
valuable and efficient, indeed, as to “take the shine” out of any
subsequent attendant. With these, a passport, and a _kwan-ja_ or letter
from the Korean Foreign Office commending me to official help (never
used), my journey was made under the best possible auspices.

The day before I left was spent in making acquaintance with Mr. Yi
Hak In, receiving farewell visits from many kind and helpful friends,
looking over the backs and tackle of the ponies I had engaged for
the journey, and in arranging a photographic outfit. Im was taught
to make curry, an accomplishment in which he soon excelled, and I
had no other cooking done on the journey. For the benefit of future
travellers I will mention that my equipment consisted of a camp-bed
and bedding, candles, a large, strong, doubly oiled sheet, a folding
chair, a kettle, two pots, a cup and two plates of enamelled iron,
some tea which turned out musty, some flour, curry powder, and
a tin of Edward’s “dessicated soup,” which came back unopened!
To the oft-repeated question, “Did you eat Korean food?” I reply
certainly--pheasants, fowls, potatoes, and eggs. Warm winter clothing,
a Japanese _kurumaya’s_ hat (the best of all travelling hats), and
Korean string shoes completed my outfit, and I never needed anything I
had not got!

The start on 7th November was managed in good time, without any of
the usual delays, and I may say at once that the _mapu_, the bugbear
and torment of travellers usually, never gave the slightest trouble.
Though engaged by the day, they were ready to make long day’s journeys,
were always willing and helpful, and a month later we parted excellent
friends. As this is my second favorable experience, I am inclined to
think that Korean _mapu_ are a maligned class. For each pony and man,
the food of both being included, I paid $1, about 2s., per day when
travelling, and half that sum when halting. Mr. Yi had two ponies, I
two baggage animals, on one of which Im rode, and a saddle pony, _i.e._
a pack pony equipped with my sidesaddle for the occasion.

Starting from the English Legation and the Customs’ buildings, we left
the city by the West Gate, and passing the stone stumps which up till
lately supported the carved and colored roof under which generations
of Korean kings after their accession met the Chinese envoys, who came
in great state to invest them with Korean sovereignty, and through
the narrow and rugged defile known as the Peking Pass, we left the
unique capital and its lofty clambering wall out of sight. The day was
splendid even for a Korean autumn, and the frightful black pinnacles,
serrated ridges, and flaming corrugations of Puk Han on the right
of the road were atmospherically idealized into perfect beauty. For
several miles the road was thronged with bulls loaded with faggots,
rice, and pine brush, for the supply of the daily necessities of
the city; then, except when passing through the villages, it became
solitary enough, except for an occasional group of long-sworded
Japanese travellers, or baggage ponies in charge of Japanese soldiers.

The road as far as Pa Ju lies through pretty country, small valleys
either terraced for rice, which was lying out to dry on the dykes,
or growing barley, wheat, millet, and cotton, surrounded by low but
shapely hills, denuded of everything but oak and pine scrub, but with
folds in which the _Pinus sinensis_ grew in dark clumps, lighted up
by the vanishing scarlet of the maple and the glowing crimson of the
_Ampelopsis Veitchii_.

On the lower slopes, and usually in close proximity to the timber, are
numerous villages, their groups of deep-eaved, brown-thatched roofs,
on which scarlet capsicums were laid out to dry, looking pretty enough
as adjuncts to landscapes which on the whole lack life and emphasis.
The villages through which the road passes were seen at their best, for
the roadway, serving for the village threshing floor, was daily swept
for the threshing of rice and millet, the passage of travellers being a
secondary consideration; everything was dry, and the white clothes of
the people were consequently at their cleanliest.

At noon we reached Ko-yang, a poor place of 300 hovels, with ruinous
official buildings of some size, once handsome. At this, and every
other magistracy up to Phyöng-yang, from 20 to 30 Japanese soldiers
were quartered in the _yamens_. The people hated them with a hatred
which is the legacy of three centuries, but could not allege anything
against them, admitting that they paid for all they got, molested no
one, and were seldom seen outside the _yamen_ gates. There the _mapu_
halted for two hours to give their ponies and themselves a feed.
This midday halt is one bone of contention between travellers and
themselves. No amount of hunting and worrying them shortens the halt by
more than ten minutes, and I preferred peace of spirit, only insisting
that when the road admitted of it, as it frequently did, they should
travel 12 _li_, or about three and three-quarter miles, an hour. At
Ko-yang I began the custom of giving the landlord of the inn at which
I halted 100 _cash_ for the room in which I rested, which gave great
satisfaction. I had my mattress laid upon the hot floor, and as Im,
by instinct, secured privacy for me by fastening up mats and curtains
over the paper walls and doors, these midday halts were very pleasant.
Almost every house in these roadside villages and small towns has a low
table of such food as Koreans love laid out under the eaves.

Beyond Ko-yang, standing out in endless solemnity above a pine wood on
the side of a steep hill, are two of the strangely few antiquities of
which Korea can boast. These are two _mirioks_, colossal busts, about
35 feet in height, carved out of the solid rock. They are supposed to
be relics of the very early days of Korean Buddhism, when men were
religious enough to toil at such stupendous works, and to represent the
male and female elements in nature. They are side by side. One wears
a round and the other a square hat. The Buddhistic calm, or rather
I should say apathy, rests on their huge faces, which have looked
stolidly on many a change in Korea, but on none greater than the last
year had witnessed.

During the day we saw three funerals, and I observed that a Japanese
detachment which occupied the whole road filed to the right and left
to let one of the processions pass, the men raising their caps to the
corpse as they did so. These funerals gave an impression of gaiety
rather than grief. Two men walked first, carrying silk bannerets which
designated the woman about to be interred as the wife of so and so, a
married woman having no name. Next came a man walking backwards with
many streamers of colored ribbon floating from his hat, ringing a large
bell, and accompanying its clang with a dissonance supposed to be
singing. The coffin, under a four-posted domed cover and concealed by
gay curtains, was borne on a platform by twelve men, and was followed
by a large party of male mourners, a man with a musical instrument, a
table, and a box of food. None of the faces were composed to a look of
grief. On the dome were two mythical birds resembling the phœnix. The
dome and curtains were brilliantly colored, and decorated with ribbon
streamers. Two corpses, each extended on a board and covered with white
paper pasted over small hoops, lay in the roadway at different places.
These were bodies of persons who had died far from home and were being
conveyed to their friends for burial. Later we met another funeral, the
corpse carried as before on a platform by twelve bearers, who moved
to a rhythmic chant of the most cheerful description, the whole party
being as jolly as if they were going to a marriage. There was a cross
in front of the gay hearse with an extended dragon on each arm, and
four large gaily painted birds resembling pheasants were on the dome.

Korean customs as to death and burial deserve a brief notice. When a
man or woman falls ill, the _mu-tang_ or sorceress is called in to
exorcise the spirit which has caused the illness. When this fails and
death becomes imminent, in the case of a man no women are allowed to
remain in the room but his nearest female relations, and in that of a
woman all men must withdraw except her husband, father, and brother.
After death the body, specially at the joints, is shampooed, and when
it has been made flexible it is covered with a clean sheet and laid for
three days on a board, on which seven stars are painted. This board is
eventually burned at the grave. The “Star Board,” as it is called, is
a euphemism for death, and is spoken of as we speak of “the grave.”
During these days the grave-clothes, which are of good materials in
red, blue, and yellow coloring, are prepared. Korean custom enjoins
that burial shall be delayed in the case of a poor man three days only,
in that of a middle class man nine days, of a nobleman or high official
three months, and in that of one of the Royal Family nine months, but
this period may be abridged or extended at the pleasure of the King.

Man is supposed to have three souls. After death one occupies the
tablet, one the grave, and one the Unknown. During the passing of
the spirit there is complete silence. The under garments of the dead
are taken out by a servant, who waves them in the air and calls him
by name, the relations and friends meantime wailing loudly. After
a time the clothes are thrown upon the roof. When the corpse has
been temporarily dressed, it is bound so tightly round the chest as
sometimes to break the shoulder blades, which is interpreted as a sign
of good luck. After these last offices a table is placed outside the
door, on which are three bowls of rice and a squash. Beside it are
three pair of straw sandals. The rice and sandals are for the three
_sajas_, or official servants, who come to conduct one of the souls
to the “Ten Judges.” The squash is broken, the shoes burned, and the
rice thrown away within half an hour after death. Pictures of the
_Siptai-wong_ or “Ten Judges” are to be seen in Buddhist temples in
Korea. On a man’s death one of his souls is seized by their servants
and carried to the Unknown, where these Judges, who through their spies
are kept well-informed as to human deeds, sentence it accordingly,
either to “a good place” or to one of the manifold hells. The influence
of Buddhism doubtless maintains the observance of this singular custom,
even where the idea of its significance is lost or discredited.

The coffin is oblong. Where interment is delayed, it is hermetically
sealed with several coats of lacquer. Until the funeral there is
wailing daily in the dead man’s house at the three hours of meals. Next
the geomancer is consulted about the site for the grave, and receives
a fee heavy in proportion to the means of the family. He is believed
from long study to have become acquainted with all the good and bad
influences which are said to reside in the ground. A fortunate site
brings rank, wealth, and many sons to the sons and grandsons of the
deceased, and should be, if possible, on the southerly slope of a hill.
He also chooses an auspicious day for the burial.

In the case of a rich man, the grave with a stone altar in front of it
is prepared beforehand, in that of a poor man not till the procession
arrives. The coffin is placed in a gaily decorated hearse, and with
wailing, music, singing, wine, food, and if in the evening, with many
colored lanterns, the _cortège_ proceeds to the grave. A widow may
accompany her husband’s corpse in a closed chair, though this appears
unusual, but the mourners are all men in immense hats, which conceal
their faces, and sackcloth clothing.

After the burial and the making of the circular mound over the coffin,
a libation of wine is poured out and the company proceeds to sacrifice
and to feast. Offerings of wine and dried fish are placed on the stone
altar in front of the grave if it has been erected, or on small tables.
The relatives, facing these and the grave, make five prostrations,
and a formula wishing peace to the spirit which is to dwell there is
repeated. Behind the grave similar offerings and prostrations are made
to the mountain spirit, who presides over it, and who is the host of
the soul committed to his care. The wine is thrown away, and the fish
bestowed upon the servants. It will be observed that no priest has any
part in the ceremonies connected with death and burial, and that two
souls have now been disposed of--one to the judgment of the Unknown,
and the other to the keeping of the mountain spirit.

A chair is invariably carried in a funeral procession containing the
memorial, or, as we say, the “ancestral tablet” of the deceased, a
strip of white wood, bearing the family name, set in a socket. A part
of the inscription on this is written at the house, and it is completed
at the grave. It is carried back with exactly the same style and
attendance that the dead man would have had had he been living, for the
third soul is supposed to return to the house with the mourners, and
to take up its abode in the tablet, which is placed in a vacant room
and raised on a black lacquer chair with a black lacquer table before
it, on which renewed offerings are made of bread, wine, cooked meat,
and vermicelli soup, the spirit being supposed to regale itself with
their odors. The mourners again prostrate themselves five times, after
which they eat the offerings in an adjoining room. It is customary for
friends to strew the route of the procession with paper money.

In the period between the death and the interment silence is observed
in the house of mourning, and only those visitors are received who come
to condole with the family and speak of the virtues of the departed.
It is believed that conversation on any ordinary topic will cause the
corpse to shake in the coffin and show other symptoms of unrest. For
the same reason the servants are very particular in watching the cats
of the household if there are any, but cats are not in favor in Korea.
It is terribly unlucky for a cat to jump over a corpse. It may even
cause it to stand upright. After the deceased has been carried out
of the house, two or three _mu-tangs_ or sorceresses enter it with
musical instruments and the other paraphernalia of their profession.
After a time one becomes “inspired” by the spirit of the dead man,
and accurately impersonates him, even to his small tricks of manner,
movement, and speech. She gives a narrative of his life in the first
person singular, if he were a bad man confessing his misdeeds, which
may have been unsuspected by his neighbors, and if he were a good man,
narrating his virtues with becoming modesty. At the end she bows, takes
a solemn farewell of those present, and retires.

After the tablet has been removed to the ancestral temple, and the
period of mourning is over, meals are offered in the shrine once every
month, and also on the anniversary of each death, all the descendants
assembling, and these observances extend backwards to the ancestors
of five generations. Thus it is a very costly thing to have many near
relations and a number of ancestors, the expense falling on the eldest
son and his heirs. A Korean gentleman told me that his nephew, upon
whom this duty falls, spends more upon it than upon his household
expenses.

It is not till the three years’ mourning for a father has expired that
his tablet is removed to the ancestral temple which rich men have near
their houses. During the period of mourning it is kept in a vacant
room, usually in the women’s apartments. A poor man puts it in a box on
one side of his room, and when he worships his other ancestors, strips
of paper with their names upon them are pasted on the mud wall. I have
slept in rooms in which the tablet lay smothered in dust on one of the
crossbeams. Common people only worship for their ancestors of three
generations. The anniversary of a father’s death is kept with much
ceremony for three years. On the previous night sacrifice is offered
before the tablet, and on the following day the friends pay visits of
condolence to the family, and eat varieties of food. During the day
they visit the grave and offer sacrifices to the soul and the mountain
spirit.

A widow wears mourning all her life. If she has no son she acts the
part of a son in performing the ancestral rites for her husband. It has
not been correct for widows to remarry. If, however, a widow inherits
property she occasionally marries to rid herself of importunities, in
which case she is usually robbed and deserted.

The custom of tolerating the remarriage of widows has, however, lately
been changed into the _right_ of remarriage.

CHAPTER XXV

SONG-DO: A ROYAL CITY

It grew dark before we reached Pa Ju, and the _mapu_ were in great
terror of tigers and robbers. It is unpleasant to reach a Korean
inn after nightfall, for there are no lights by which to unload the
baggage, and noise and confusion prevail.

When the traveller arrives a man rushes in with a brush, stirs up the
dust and vermin, and sometimes puts down a coarse mat. Experience has
taught me that an oiled sheet is a better protection against vermin
than a pony-load of insect powder. I made much use of the tripod of
my camera. It served as a candle-stand, a barometer suspender, and an
arrangement on which to hang my clothes at night out of harm’s way. In
two hours after arrival my food was ready, after which Mr. Yi came in
to talk over the day, to plan the morrow, to enlighten me on Korean
customs, and to interpret my orders to the faithful Im, and by 8.30 I
was asleep!

After leaving Pa Ju the country is extremely pretty, and one of the
most picturesque views in Korea is from the height overlooking the
romantically situated village of Im-jin, clustering along both sides of
a ravine, which terminates on the broad Im-jin Gang, a tributary of the
Han, in two steep rocky bluffs, sprinkled with the _Pinus sinensis_,
the two being connected by a fine, double-roofed granite Chinese
gateway, inscribed “Gate for the tranquillization of the West.” The
road passing down the village street reaches the water’s edge through
this relic, one of three or four similar barriers on this high-road
to China. The Im-jin Gang, there 343 yards broad, has shallow water
and a flat sandy shore on its north side, but a range of high bluffs,
crowned with extensive old defensive works, lines the south side, the
gateway being the only break for many miles. Below these the river is
a deep green stream, navigable for craft of 14 tons for 40 miles from
its mouth. There was a still, faintly blue atmosphere, and the sails of
boats passing dreamily into the mountains over the silver water had a
most artistic effect.

There are two Chinese bridges on that road, curved slabs of stone,
supported on four-sided blocks of granite, giving one a feeling of
security, even though they have no parapets. Korean bridges are poles
laid over a river, with matting or brushwood covered with earth upon
them, and are usually full of holes. These precarious structures had
just been replaced after the summer rains. A _mapu_ usually goes ahead
to test their solidity. The region is extremely fertile, producing
fine crops of rice, wheat, barley, millet, buckwheat, cotton, sesamum,
castor oil, beans, maize, tobacco, capsicums, egg plant, peas, etc. But
Russian and American kerosene is fast displacing the vegetable oils for
burning, and is producing the same revolution in village evening life
which it has effected in the Western Islands of Scotland. I never saw
a Korean hamlet south of Phyöng-yang, however far from the main road,
into which kerosene had not penetrated.

I was obliged to halt for the night when only 10 _li_ from Song-do, all
the more regretfully, because the people were unwilling to receive a
foreigner, and the family room which I occupied, only 8 feet 6 inches
by 6 feet, was heated up to 85°, was poisoned with the smell of cakes
of rotting beans, and was so alive with vermin of every description
that I was obliged to suspend a curtain over my bed to prevent them
from falling upon it.

The next morning, in an atmosphere which idealized everything, we
reached Song-do, or Kai-söng, now the second city in the kingdom, once
the capital of Hon-jö, one of the three kingdoms which united to form
Korea, and the capital of Korea five centuries ago. A city of 60,000
people, lying to the south of Sang-dan San, with a wall ten miles
in circumference running irregularly over heights, and pierced by
double-roofed gateways, with a peaked and splintered ridge extending
from Sang-dan San to the northeast, its higher summits attaining
altitudes of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, it has a striking resemblance to
Seoul.

The great gate is approached by an avenue of trees, and the road
is lined with _seun-tjeung-pi_, monuments to good governors and
magistrates, faithful widows, and pious sons. A wide street, its
apparent width narrowed by two rows of thatched booths, divides the
city. It was a scene of bustle, activity, and petty trade, something
like a fair. The women wear white sheets gathered round their heads and
nearly reaching their feet. The street was thronged with men in huge
hats and very white clothing, with boy bridegrooms in pink garments
and the quaint yellow hats which custom enjoins for several months
after marriage, and with mourners dressed in sackcloth from head to
foot, the head and shoulders concealed by peaked and scalloped hats,
the identity being further disguised by two-handled sackcloth screens,
held up to their eyes. In thatched stalls on low stands and on mats on
the ground were all Korean necessaries and luxuries, among which were
large quantities of English piece goods, and hacked pieces of beef
with the blood in it, Korean killed meat being enough to make any one
a vegetarian. Goats are killed by pulling them to and fro in a narrow
stream, which method is said to destroy the rank taste of the flesh;
dogs by twirling them in a noose until they are unconscious, after
which they are bled. I have already inflicted on my readers an account
of the fate of a bullock at Korean hands. It was a busy, dirty, poor,
mean scene under the hot sun.

The Song-do inns are bad, and a friend of Mr. Yi kindly lent me a
house, partly in ruins, but with two rooms which sheltered Im and
myself, and in this I spent two pleasant days in lovely weather,
Mr. Yi, who was visiting friends, escorting me to the Song-do
sights, which may be seen in one morning, and to pay visits in some
of the better-class houses. My quarters, though by comparison very
comfortable, would not at home be considered fit for the housing of
a better-class cow! But Korea has a heavenly climate for much of the
year. The squalor, dust, and rubbish in my compound and everywhere were
inconceivable, though the city is rather a “well-to-do” one. The water
supply is atrocious, offal and refuse of all kinds lying up to the
mouths of the wells. It says something for the security of Korea that a
foreign lady could safely live in a dwelling up a lonely alley in the
heart of a big city, with no attendant but a Korean soldier knowing not
a word of English, who, had he been so minded, might have cut my throat
and decamped with my money, of which he knew the whereabouts, neither
my door nor the compound having any fastening!

Points of interest in a Korean city are few, and the ancient capital is
no exception to the rule. There is a fine bronze bell with curiously
involved dragons in one of the gate towers, cast five centuries ago,
an archery ground with official pavilions on a height with a superb
view, the Governor’s _yamen_, once handsome, now ruinous, with Japanese
sentries, a dismal temple to Confucius, and a showy one to the God of
War. Outside the crowd and bustle of the city, reached by a narrow path
among prosperous ginseng farms and persimmon-embowered hamlets, are the
lonely remains of the palace of the Kings who reigned in Korea prior
to the dynasty of which the present sovereign is the representative,
and even in their forlornness they give the impression that the Korean
Kings were much statelier monarchs then than now.

The remains consist of an approach to the main platform on which the
palace stood, by two subsidiary platforms, the first reached by a
nearly obliterated set of steps. Four staircases 15 feet wide, of
thirty steps each, lead to a lofty artificial platform, faced with
hewn stone in great blocks, 14 feet high, and by rough measurement 846
feet in length. On the east side there are massive abutments. On the
west the platform broadens irregularly. At the entrance, 80 feet wide,
at the top of the steps, there are the bases of columns suggestive of
a very stately approach. The palace platform is intersected by massive
stone foundations of halls and rooms, some of large area. It is backed
by a pine-clothed knoll, and is prettily situated in an amphitheatre of
hills.

Song-do as a royal city, and as one of the so-called fortresses for
the protection of the capital, still retains many ancient privileges.
It is a bustling business town, and a great centre of the grain trade.
It has various mercantile guilds with their places of business, small
shops built round compounds with entrance gates. It makes wooden
shoes, coarse pottery and fine matting, and imports paper, which it
manufactures with sesamum oil into the oil paper for which Korea is
famous, and which is made into cloaks, umbrellas, tobacco-pouches, and
sheets for walls and floors. In answer to many inquiries, I learned
that trade had improved considerably since the war, but the native
traders now have to compete with fourteen Japanese shops, and to suffer
the presence of forty Japanese residents.

I have left until the last the commodity for which Song-do is famous,
and which is the chief source of its prosperity--ginseng. _Panax
Ginseng_ or _quinquefolia_ (?) is, as its name imports, a “panacea.” No
one can be in the Far East for many days without hearing of this root
and its virtues. No drug in the British Pharmacopœia rivals with us
the estimation in which this is held by the Chinese. It is a tonic, a
febrifuge, a stomachic, the very elixir of life, taken spasmodically or
regularly in Chinese wine by most Chinese who can afford it. It is one
of the most valuable articles which Korea exports, and one great source
of its revenue. In the steamer in which I left Chemulpo there was a
consignment of it worth $140,000. But valuable as the cultivated root
is, it is nothing to the value of the wild, which grows in Northern
Korea, a single specimen of which has been sold for £40! It is chiefly
found in the Kang-ge Mountains; but it is rare, and the search so
often ends in failure, that the common people credit it with magical
properties, and believe that only men of pure lives can find it.

The ginseng season was at its height. People talked, thought, and
dreamed ginseng, for the risks of its six or seven years’ growth were
over, and the root was actually in the factory. I went to several
ginseng farms, and also saw the different stages of the manufacturing
process, and received the same impression as in Siberia, that if
industry were lucrative, and the Korean were sure of his earnings, he
would be an industrious and even a thrifty person.

All round Song-do are carefully fenced farms on which ginseng is
grown with great care and exquisite neatness on beds 18 inches wide,
2 feet high, and neatly bordered with slates. It is sown in April,
transplanted in the following spring, and again in three years into
specially prepared ground, not recently cultivated, and which has not
been used for ginseng culture for seven years. Up to the second year
the plant has only two leaves. In the fourth year it is six inches
high with four leaves, standing out at right angles from the stalk. It
reaches maturity in the sixth or seventh year. During its growth it is
sheltered from both wind and sun by well-made reed roofs with blinds,
which are raised or lowered as may be required. When the root is taken
up it is known as “white ginseng,” and is bought by merchants, who get
it “manufactured,” about 3¹⁄₄ _catties_ of the fresh root making one
_cattie_ of “red” or commercial ginseng. The grower pays a tax of 20
cents per _cattie_, and the merchant 16 dollars a _cattie_ for the root
as received from the manufacturer.

The annual time of manufacture depends on orders given by the
Government. The growers and merchants make the most profit when the
date is early. Only two manufacturers are licensed, and one hundred
and fifty growers. The quantity to be manufactured is also limited.
In 1895 it was 15,000 _catties_ of red ginseng and 3,000 of “beards.”
The terms “beards” and “tails” are used to denote different parts of
the root, which eventually has a grotesque resemblance to a headless
man! It is possible that this likeness is the source of some of the
almost miraculous virtues which are attributed to it. Everything about
the factories is scrupulously clean, and would do credit to European
management. The row of houses used by what we should call the excisemen
are well built and comfortable. There are two officials sent from Seoul
by the Agricultural Department for the “season,” with four policemen
and two attendants, whose expenses are paid by the manufacturers,
and each step of the manufacture and the egress of the workmen are
carefully watched. Mr. Yi was sent by the Customs to make special
inquiries in connection with the revenue derived.

Ginseng is steamed for twenty-four hours in large earthen jars over
iron pots built into furnaces, and is then partially dried in a room
kept at a high temperature by charcoal. The final drying is effected
by exposing the roots in elevated flat baskets to the rays of the
bright winter sun. The human resemblance survives these processes,
but afterwards the “beards” and “tails,” used chiefly in Korea, are
cut off, and the trunk, from 3 to 4 inches long, looks like a piece
of clouded amber. These trunks are carefully picked over, and being
classified according to size, are neatly packed in small oblong baskets
containing about five _catties_ each, twelve or fourteen of these being
packed in a basket, which is waterproofed and matted, and stamped and
sealed by the Agricultural Department as ready for exportation. A
basket, according to quality, is worth from $14,000 to $20,000! In a
good season the grower makes about fifteen times his outlay. Ginseng
was a Royal monopoly, but times have changed. This medicine, which has
such a high and apparently partially deserved reputation throughout
the Far East, does not suit Europeans, and is of little account with
European doctors.

A Post Office had been established in Song-do under Korean management,
and I not only received but sent a letter, which reached its
destination safely! Buddhism still prevails to some extent in this
city, and large sums are expended upon the services of sorcerers. In
Song-do I saw, what very rarely may be seen in Seoul and elsewhere, a
“Red Door.” These are a very high honor reserved for rare instances of
faithfulness in widows, loyalty in subjects, and piety in sons. When
a widow (almost invariably of the upper class) weeps ceaselessly for
her husband, maintains the deepest seclusion, attends loyally to her
father- and mother-in-law, and spends her time in pious deeds, the
people of the neighborhood, proud of her virtues, represent them to the
Governor of the province, who conveys their recommendation to the King,
with whom it rests to confer the “Red Door.” The distinction is also
given to the family of an eminently loyal subject, who has given his
life for the King’s life.

The case of a son whose father has reached a great age is somewhat
different, and the honor is more emphatic still. His filial virtue is
shown by such methods as these. He goes every morning to his father’s
apartments, asks him how his health is, how he has slept, what he has
eaten for breakfast, and how he enjoyed the meal--if he has any fancies
for dinner, and if he shall go to the market and buy him some _tai_
(the best fish in Korea), and if he shall come back and assist him to
take a walk? The reader will observe how extremely material the pious
son’s inquiries are. Such assiduity continued during a course of years,
on being represented to the King, may receive the coveted red portal.
In former days, these matters used to be referred to the Suzerain, the
Emperor of China. In Song-do, as in the villages, a straw fringe is
frequently to be seen stretched across a door, either plain or with
bits of charcoal knotted into it. The former denotes the birth of a
girl, the latter that of a boy. A girl is not specially welcome, nor is
the occasion one of festivity, but neither is it, as in some countries,
regarded as a calamity, although, if it be a firstborn, the friends
of the father are apt to write letters of condolence to him, with the
consoling suggestion that “the next will be a boy.”

[Illustration: CHIL-SUNG MON, SEVEN STAR GATE.]

CHAPTER XXVI

THE PHYÖNG-YANG BATTLEFIELD

Glorious weather favored my departure from the ancient Korean capital.
The day’s journey lay through pretty country, small valleys, and
picturesquely shaped hills, on which the vegetation, whatever it
was, had turned to a purple as rich as the English heather blossom,
while the blue gloom of the pines emphasized the flaming reds of the
dying leafage. The villages were few and small, and cultivation was
altogether confined to the valleys. Pheasants were so abundant that the
_mapu_ pelted them out of the cover by the roadside, and wild ducks
abounded on every stream. The one really fine view of the day is from
the crest of a hill just beyond O-hung-suk Ju, where there is a second
defensive gate, with a ruinous wall carried along a ridge for some
distance on either side. The masonry and the gate-house are fine, and
the view down the wild valley beyond with its rich autumn coloring was
almost grand. It was evident that officials were expected, for the road
was being repaired everywhere--that is, spadefuls of soft soil were
being taken from the banks and roadsides, and were being thrown into
the ruts and holes to deepen the quagmire which the next rain would
produce. From four to seven men were working at each spade! A great
part of the male population had turned out; for when an official of
rank is to travel, every family in the district must provide one male
member or a substitute to put the road in order. The repairs of the
roads and bridges devolve entirely on the country people.

The following day brought a change of weather. My room had no hot
floor and the mercury at daybreak was only 20°! When we started, a
strong northwester was blowing, which increased to a gale by noon, the
same fierce gale in which at Chemulpo H.M.S. _Edgar_ lost her boat with
forty-seven men. My pony and I would have been blown over a wretched
bridge had not four men linked themselves together to support us;
and later, on the top of a precipice above a river, a gust came with
such force that the animals refused to face it, and one of them was
as nearly lost as possible. By noon it was impossible to sit on our
horses, and we fought the storm on foot. When Im lifted me from my pony
I fell down, and it took several men shouting with laughter to set me
on my feet again. When Mr. Yi and I spoke to each other, our voices had
a bobbery clatter, and sentences broke off halfway in an insane giggle.
I felt as if there were hardly another “shot in the locker,” but if a
traveller “says die,” the men lose all heart, so I summoned up all my
pluck, took a photograph after the noon halt, and walked on at a good
pace.

But the wind, with the mercury at 26°, was awful, gripping the heart
and benumbing the brain. I have not felt anything like it since I
encountered the “devil wind” on the Zagros heights in Persia. At some
distance from our destination Mr. Yi, Im, and the _mapu_ begged me to
halt, as they could no longer face it, though the accommodation for
man and beast at Tol Maru, where we put up, was the worst imaginable,
and the large village the filthiest, most squalid, and most absolutely
poverty-stricken place I saw in that land of squalor. The horses were
crowded together, and their baffled attempts at fighting were only less
hideous than the shouts and yells of the _mapu_, who were constantly
being roused out of a sound sleep to separate them.

My room was 8 feet by 6, and much occupied by the chattels of the
people, besides being alive with cockroaches and other forms of horrid
life. The dirt and discomfort in which the peasant Koreans live are
incredible.

An uninteresting tract of country succeeded, and some time was occupied
in threading long treeless valleys, cut up by stony beds of streams,
margined by sandy flats, inundated in summer, and then covered chiefly
with withered reeds, asters, and artemisia, a belated aster every now
and then displaying its untimely mauve blossom. All these and the dry
grasses and weeds of the hillsides were being cut and stacked for fuel,
even brushwood having disappeared. This work is done by small boys, who
carry their loads on wooden saddles suited to their size. That region
is very thinly peopled, only a few hamlets of squalid hovels being
scattered over it, and cultivation was rare and untidy, except in one
fine agricultural valley where wheat and barley were springing. No
animals, except a breed of pigs not larger than English terriers, were
to be seen.

One of the most dismal and squalid “towns” on this route is Shur-hung,
a long rambling village of nearly 5,000 souls, and a magistracy, built
along the refuse-covered bank of a bright, shallow stream. As if the
Crown official were the upas tree, the town with a _yamen_ is always
more forlorn than any other. In Shur-hung the large and once handsome
_yamen_ buildings are all but in ruins, and so is the Confucian temple,
visited periodically, as all such temples are, by the magistrate, who
bows before the tablet of the “most holy teacher” and offers an animal
in sacrifice.

The Korean official is the vampire which sucks the lifeblood of the
people. We had crossed the Tao-jol, the boundary between the provinces
of Kyöng-hwi and Hwang-hai, and were then in the latter. Most officials
of any standing live in Seoul for pleasure and society, leaving
subordinates in charge, and as their tenure of office is very brief,
they regard the people within their jurisdiction rather with reference
to their squeezeableness than to their capacity for improvement.

Forty Japanese soldiers found a draughty shelter within the tumble-down
buildings of the _yamen_. As I walked down the street one of them
touched me on the shoulder, asking my nationality, whence I came, and
whither I was going, not quite politely, I thought. When I reached my
room a dozen of them came and gradually closed round my door, which I
could not shut, standing almost within it. A trim sergeant raised his
cap to me, and passing on to Mr. Yi’s room, asked him where I came from
and whither I was going, and on hearing, replied, “All right,” raised
his cap to me, and departed, withdrawing his men with him. This was
one of several domiciliary visits, and though they were usually very
politely made, they suggested the query as to the right to make them,
and to whom the mastership in the land belonged. There, as elsewhere,
though the people hated the Japanese with an intense hatred, they were
obliged to admit that they were very quiet and paid for everything they
got. If the soldiers had not been in European clothes, it would not
have occurred to me to think them rude for crowding round my door.

A day’s ride through monotonous country brought us to Pong-san, where
we halted in the dirtiest hole I had till then been in. As soon as
my den was comfortably warm, myriads of house flies, blackening
the rafters, renewed a semi-torpid existence, dying in heaps in
the soup and curry, filling the well of the candlestick with their
singed bodies, and crawling in hundreds over my face. Next came the
cockroaches in legions, large and small, torpid and active, followed
by a great army of fleas and bugs, making life insupportable. To judge
from the significant sounds from the public room, no one slept all
night, and when I asked Mr. Yi after his welfare the next morning, he
uttered the one word “miserable.” Discomforts of this nature, less or
more, are inseparable from the Korean inn.

The following day, at a large village, we came upon the weekly market.
It is usual to inquire regarding the trade of a district, and as the
result of my inquiries, I assert that “trade” in the ordinary sense
has no existence in a great part of Central and Northern Korea, _i.e._
there is no exchange of commodities between one place and another, no
exports, no imports by resident merchants, and no industries supplying
more than a local demand. Such are to be found to some extent in
Southern Korea, and specially in the province of Chul-la. Apart from
Phyöng-yang, “trade” does not exist in the region through which I
travelled.

Reasons for such a state of things may be found in the debased coinage,
so bulky that a pony can only carry £10 worth of it, the entire lack
of such banking facilities as even in Western China render business
transactions easy; the general mutual distrust; prejudices against
preparing hides and working leather; caste prejudices; the general
insecurity of earnings, ignorance absolutely inconceivable, and the
existence of numerous guilds which possess practical monopolies.

Under Japanese influence, however, the superb silver _yen_ has made its
way slowly into the interior, and instead of having to carry a load of
_cash_, as on my former journey, or to be placed in great difficulties
by the want of it, this large silver coin was readily taken at all
the inns, although I did not see a single specimen of the new Korean
coinage.

“Trade,” as I became acquainted with it, is represented by Japanese
buyers, who visit the small towns and villages, buying up rice, grain,
and beans, which they forward to the ports for shipment to Japan, and
by an organized corporation of _pusang_ or pedlars, one of the most
important of the many guilds which have been among the curious features
of Korea.

There are no shops in villages, and few, where there are any, even
in small towns. It is, in fact, impossible to buy anything except on
the market-day, as no one keeps any stock of anything. At the weekly
market the usual melancholy dulness of a Korean village is exchanged
for bustle, color, and crowds of men. From an early hour in the morning
the paths leading to the officially appointed centre are thronged with
peasants bringing in their wares for sale or barter, chiefly fowls
in coops, pigs, straw shoes, straw hats, and wooden spoons, while
the main road has its complement of merchants, _i.e._ pedlars, mostly
fine, strong, well-dressed men, either carrying their heavy packs
themselves or employing porters or bulls for the purpose. These men
travel on regular circuits to the village centres, and are industrious
and respectable. A few put-up stalls, specially those who sell silks,
gauzes, cords for girdles, dress shoes, amber, buttons, silks in
skeins, small mirrors, tobacco-pouches, dress combs of tortoise-shell
for men’s topknots, tape girdles for trousers, boxes with mirror tops,
and the like. But most of the articles, from which one learns a good
deal about the necessaries and luxuries required by the Korean, are
exposed for sale on low tables or on mats on the ground, the merchant
giving the occupant of the house before which he camps a few _cash_ for
the accommodation.

On such tables are sticks of pulled candy as thick as an arm, some of
it stuffed with sesamum seeds, a sweetmeat sold in enormous quantities,
and piece goods, shirtings of Japanese and English make, Victoria
lawns, hempen cloth, Turkey-red cottons, Korean flimsy silks, dyes,
chiefly aniline, which are sold in great quantities, together with
saffron, indigo, and Chinese Prussian blue. On these also are exposed
long pipes, contraband in the capital, and Japanese cigarettes, coming
into great favor with young men and boys, with leather courier bags
and lucifer matches from the same country, wooden combs, hairpins with
tinsel heads, and, such is the march of ideas, purses for silver!
Paper, the best of the Korean manufactures, in its finer qualities
produced in Chul-la Do, is honored by stalls. Every kind is purchasable
in these markets, from the beautiful, translucent, buff, oiled paper,
nearly equal to vellum in appearance and tenacity, used for the floors
of middle- and upper-class houses, and the stout paper for covering
walls, to the thin, strong film for writing on, and a beautiful fabric,
a sort of frothy gauze, for wrapping up delicate fabrics, as well as
the coarse fibrous material, used for covering heavy packages, and
intermediate grades, applied to every imaginable purpose, such as the
making of string, almost all manufactured from the paper mulberry.

On mats on the ground are exposed straw mats, straw and string shoes,
flints for use with steel, black buckram dress hats, coarse, narrow
cotton cloth of Korean manufacture, rope muzzles for horses (much
needed), sweeping whisks, wooden _sabots_, and straw, reed, and
bamboo hats in endless variety. On these also are rough iron goods,
family cooking-pots, horseshoes, spade-shoes, door-rings, nails, and
carpenter’s tools, when of native manufacture, as rough as they can be;
and Korean roots and fruits, tasteless and untempting, great hard pears
much like raw parsnips, chestnuts, peanuts, persimmons which had been
soaked in water to take the acridity out of them, and ginger. There
were coops of fowls and piles of pheasants, brought down by falcons,
gorgeous birds, selling at six for a _yen_ (about 4d. each), and torn
and hacked pieces of bull beef.

One prominent feature of that special market was the native pottery,
both coarse and brittle ware, clay, with a pale green glaze rudely
applied, small jars and bowls chiefly, and a coarser ware, nearly black
and slightly iridescent, closely resembling iron. This pottery is of
universal use among the poor for cooking-pots, water-jars, refuse-jars,
receptacles for grain and pulse, and pickle-jars 5 feet high, roomy
enough to hold a man, two of which are a bull’s load. At that season
these jars were in great request, for the peasant world was occupied,
the men in digging up a great hard white radish weighing from 2 to 4
lbs., and the women in washing its great head of partially blanched
leaves, which, after being laid aside in these jars in brine, form one
great article of a Korean peasant’s winter diet.

Umbrella hats, oiled paper, hat-covers, pounded capsicums, rice, peas,
and beans, bean curd, and other necessaries of Korean existence,
were there, but business was very dull, and the crowds of people
were nearly as quiet as the gentle bulls which stood hour after hour
among them. Late in the afternoon, the pedlars packed up their wares
and departed _en route_ for the next centre, and a good deal of hard
drinking closed the day. I have been thus minute in my description
because the peripatetic merchant really represents the fashion of
Korean trade, and the wares which are brought to market are both the
necessaries and luxuries of Korean existence.

The reader will agree with me that, except for a certain amount of
insight into Korean customs which can only be gained by mixing freely
with Koreans, the journey from Seoul to Phyöng-yang tends to monotony,
though at the time Mr. Yi’s brightness, intelligence, sense of fun, and
unvarying good-nature made it very pleasant. Among the few features
of interest on the road are the “Hill Towns,” of which three are
striking objects, specially one on the hill opposite to the magistracy
of Pyeng-san, the hilltop being surrounded by a battlemented wall two
miles in circuit, enclosing a tangled thicket containing a few hovels
and the remains of some granaries. Unwalled towns are supposed to
possess such strongholds, with stores of rice and _soy_, as refuges in
times of invasion or rebellion, but as they have not been required for
three centuries, they are now ruinous. The one on a high hill above
Sai-nam, where the last Chinese gate occurs, is imposing from its fine
gateway and the extent of ground it encloses.

Two days before reaching Phyöng-yang we crossed the highest pass on
the road, and by a glen wooded with such deciduous trees, shrubs, and
trailers as ash, elæagnus, euonymus, hornbeam, oak, lime, _Acanthopanax
ricinifolia_, actinidia with scarlet berries, clematis, _Ampelopsis
Veitchii_, etc., descended to the valley of the Nam-chhon, a broad but
shallow stream which joins the Tai-döng. On the right bank, where the
stream, crossed by a dilapidated bridge, is 128 yards wide, the town
of Whang Ju is picturesquely situated, 36 _li_ from the sea, at the
base of two low fir-crowned hills, which terminate in cliffs above the
Nam-chhon.

A battlemented wall 9 _li_ in circumference, with several fine towers
and gateways, encloses the town, and being carried along the verge of
the cliff and over the downs and ups of the hills, has a very striking
appearance. It was a singularly attractive view. The Korean sky was
at its bluest, and the winding Nam-chhon was seen in glimpses here
and there through the broad fertile plain in reaches as blue, and the
broken sparkle of its shallow waters flashed in sapphire gleams against
the gray rock and the gray walls of the city. On the wall, and grouped
in the handsome Water Gate, were a number of Japanese soldiers watching
a crowd of Koreans spearing white fish with three-pronged forks from
rafts made of two bundles of reeds with a cask lashed between them, and
from the bridge the ruinous state of the walls and towers could not be
seen.

Whang Ju is memorable to me as being the first place I saw which had
suffered from the ravages of recent war. There the Japanese came upon
the Chinese, but there was no fighting at that point. Yet whatever
happened has been enough to reduce a flourishing town with an estimated
population of 30,000 souls to one of between 5,000 and 6,000, and to
destroy whatever prosperity it had.

I passed through the Water Gate into a deplorable scene of desolation.
There were heaps of ruins, some blackened by fire, others where the
houses had apparently collapsed “all of a heap,” with posts and rafters
sticking out of it. There are large areas of nothing but this and
streets of deserted houses, sadder yet, with doors and windows gone for
the bivouac fires of the Japanese, and streets where roofless mud walls
alone were standing. In some parts there were houses with windows gone
and torn paper waving from their walls, and then perhaps an inhabited
house stood solitary among the deserted or destroyed, emphasizing the
desolation. Some of the destruction was wrought by the Chinese, some by
the Japanese, and much resulted from the terrified flight of more than
20,000 of the inhabitants.

North of Whang Ju are rich plains of productive, stoneless, red
alluvium, extending towards the Tai-döng for nearly 40 miles. On these
there were villages partly burned and partly depopulated and ruinous,
and tracts of the superb soil had passed out of cultivation owing to
the flight of the cultivators, and there was a total absence of beasts,
the splendid bulls of the region having perished under their loads _en
route_ for Manchuria.

It was a dreary journey that day through partially destroyed villages,
relapsing plains, and slopes denuded of every stick which could be
burned. There were no wayfarers on the roads, no movement of any kind,
and as it grew dusk the _mapu_ were afraid of tigers and robbers,
and we halted for the night at the wretched hamlet of Ko-moun Tari,
where I obtained a room with delay and difficulty, partly owing to the
unwillingness of the people to receive a foreigner. They had suffered
enough from foreigners, truly!

The concluding day’s march was through a pleasant country, though
denuded of trees, and the approach to a great city was denoted by
the number of villages, dæmon shrines, and refreshment booths on the
road, the increased traffic, and eventually, by a long avenue of stone
tablets, some of them under highly decorated roofs, recording the
virtues of Phyöng-yang officials for 250 years!

The first view of Phyöng-yang delighted me. The city has a magnificent
situation, taken advantage of with much skill, and at a distance merits
the epithet “imposing.” It was a glorious afternoon. All the low ranges
which girdle the rich plain through which the Tai-döng winds were blue
and violet, melting into a blue haze, the crystal waters of the river
were bluer still, brown-sailed boats drifted lazily with the stream,
and above it the gray mass of the city rose into a dome of unclouded
blue.

It is built on lofty ground rising abruptly from the river, above which
a fine wall climbs picturesquely over irregular, but always ascending
altitudes, till it is lost among the pines of a hill which overhangs
the Tai-döng. The great double-roofed Tai-döng _Mön_ (river gate),
decorated pavilions on the walls, the massive curled roofs of the
Governor’s _yamen_, a large Buddhist monastery and temple on a height,
and a fine temple to the God of War, prominent objects from a distance,
prepare one for something quite apart from the ordinary meanness of a
Korean city.

Crossing the clear flashing waters of the Tai-döng with our ponies in
a crowded ferryboat, we found ourselves in the slush of the dark Water
Gate, at all hours of the day crowded with water-carriers. There are no
wells in the city, the reason assigned for the deficiency being that
the walls enclose a boat-shaped area, and that the digging of wells
would cause the boat to sink! The water is carried almost entirely in
American kerosene tins. I lodged at the house of a broker, and had nice
clean rooms for myself and Im, quite quiet, and with a separate access
from the street. It was truly a luxury to have roof, walls, and floor
papered with thick oiled paper much resembling varnished oak, but there
was no hot floor, and I had to rely for warmth solely on the “fire
bowl.”

Taking a most diverting boy as my guide, I went outside the city
wall, through some farming country to a Korean house in a very
tumble-to-pieces compound, which he insisted was the dwelling of the
American missionaries; but I only found a Korean family, and there were
no traces of foreign occupation in glass panes let into the paper of
the windows and doors. Nothing daunted, the boy pulled me through a
smaller compound, opened a door, and pushed me into what was manifestly
posing as a foreign room, gave me a chair, took one himself, and
offered me a cigarette!

I had reached the right place. It was a very rough Korean room, about
the length and width of a N.W. Railway saloon carriage. It had three
camp-beds, three chairs, a trunk for a table, and a few books and
writing materials, as well as a few articles of male apparel hanging on
the mud walls. I waited more than an hour, every attempt at departure
being forcibly as well as volubly resisted by the urchin, imagining
the devotion which could sustain educated men year after year in such
surroundings, and then they came in hilariously, and we had a most
pleasant evening. I shall say more of them later. It was a weird walk
through ruins which looked ghostly in the starlight to my curious
quarters in the densest part of the city by the Water Gate, where at
intervals through the night I heard the beat of the sorcerer’s drum and
the shrieking chant of the _mu-tang_.

It may be taken for granted that every Korean winter day is splendid,
but the following day in Phyöng-yang was heavenly. Three Koreans called
on me in the morning, very courteous persons, but as Mr. Yi and I had
parted company for a time on reaching the city, the interpretation was
feeble, and we bowed and smiled, and smiled and bowed with tedious
iteration without coming to much mutual understanding, and I was glad
when the time came for seeing the city and battlefield under Mr.
Moffett’s guidance.

On such an incomparable day everything looked at its very best, but
also at its very worst, for the brilliant sunshine lit up desolations
sickening to contemplate,--a prosperous city of 80,000 inhabitants
reduced to decay and 15,000--four-fifths of its houses destroyed,
streets and alleys choked with ruins, hill slopes and vales once
thick with Korean crowded homesteads, covered with gaunt hideous
remains--fragments of broken walls, _kang_ floors, _kang_ chimneys,
indefinite heaps in which roofs and walls lay in unpicturesque
confusion--and still worse, roofs and walls standing, but doors and
windows all gone, suggesting the horror of human faces with their eyes
put out. Everywhere there were the same scenes, miles of them, and very
much of the desolation was charred and blackened, shapeless, hideous,
hopeless, under the mocking sunlight.

Phyöng-yang was not taken by assault; there was no actual fighting in
the city, both the Chinese who fled and the Japanese who occupied posed
as the friends of Korea, and all this wreck and ruin was brought about
not by enemies, but by those who professed to be fighting to give her
independence and reform. It had gradually come to be known that the
“_wojen_ (dwarfs) did not kill Koreans,” hence many had returned. Some
of these unfortunate fugitives were picking their way among the heaps,
trying to find indications which might lead them to the spots where
all they knew of home once existed; and here and there, where a family
found their walls and roof standing, they put a door and window into
one room and lived in it among the ruins of five or six.

When the Japanese entered and found that the larger part of the
population had fled, the soldiers tore out the posts and woodwork, and
often used the roofs also for fuel, or lighted fires on house floors,
leaving them burning, when the houses took fire and perished. They
looted the property left by the fugitives during three weeks after the
battle, taking even from Mr. Moffett’s house $700 worth, although his
servant made a written protest, the looting being sanctioned by the
presence of officers. Under these circumstances the prosperity of the
most prosperous city in Korea was destroyed. If such are the results of
war in the “green tree,” what must they be in the “dry”?

During the subsequent occupation the Japanese troops behaved well, and
all stores obtained in the town and neighborhood were scrupulously paid
for. Intensely as the people hated them, they admitted that quiet and
good order had been preserved, and they were very apprehensive that
on their withdrawal they would suffer much from the _Kun-ren-tai_,
a regiment of Koreans drilled and armed by the Japanese, and these
had already begun to rob and beat the people, and to defy the civil
authorities. The main street on my second visit had assumed a bustling
appearance. There was much building up and pulling down, for Japanese
traders had obtained all the eligible business sites, and were
transforming the small, dark, low, Korean shops into large, light,
airy, dainty Japanese erections, well stocked with Japanese goods, and
specially with kerosene lamps of every pattern and price, the Defries
and Hinckes patents being unblushingly infringed.

Phyöng-yang has a truly beautiful situation on the right or north bank
of the clear, bright Tai-döng, 400 yards wide at the ferry. It occupies
an undulating plateau, and its wall, parallel for two miles and a half,
rises from the river level at the stately Water Gate, and following its
windings, mounts escarped hills to a height of over 400 feet, turning
westwards at the crest of the cliff at a sharp angle marked by a
pavilion, one of several, and follows the western ridge of the plateau,
where it falls steeply down to a fertile rolling plain where the one
real battle of the late war was fought.

This wall, which is in excellent repair, is a loopholed and
battlemented structure, 20 feet high, pierced by several gates with
gate towers. The city, large as it was, was once much larger, for the
old wall on the west side encloses a far larger area than the modern
one. The walk over the grassy undulations within the wall and up to
the northern pine-clothed summit is entrancing, and the views, even in
winter, are exquisite--eastwards over a rich plain to the mountains
through which the Tai-döng cuts its way, or northwest to one of its
affluents and the great battlefield over which in 1593 the joint forces
of Chinese and Koreans poured to recover Phyöng-yang from the Japanese,
or seawards where the clear bright waters wind through fertile and
populous country, or the hilly area within the walls where pine-clothed
knolls conceal the devastations, and the Governor’s _yamen_, temples,
and monasteries make a goodly show.

Between the city and the Chinese frontier is the largest and richest
plain in Korea; to the east where the violet shadows lay are the
valleys of the two branches of the Tai-döng, rich in silk, iron, and
cotton, while within 10 miles there are at least five coal-mines,[37]
and for all produce there is easy communication with the sea, 36
miles distant, for vessels of light draught, by means of the river
which flows below the city wall. Timber is rafted down the Tai-döng
in summer. The Peking road, which I had followed thus far, and which
for centuries has linked Phyöng-yang with the outer world and the
capital, is another element in the former prosperity of the city. It
was to photograph for the widow and family of General Tso of Mukden,
the commander of the best-disciplined and best-equipped cavalry brigade
in the Chinese army, the scenes connected with his last days and death
that I visited the hill within the wall.

The river wall of Phyöng-yang, after 2 miles of an undulating ascent,
turns sharply at a pavilion, outside of which the ground falls
precipitously, to rise again in a knife-like ridge, the three highest
points of which are crowned with Chinese forts. From this pavilion the
wall, following the lie of the hill, slopes rapidly down to a very
picturesque and narrow gate, the _Chil-sung Mön_ or Seven Star Gate,
after which it trends in a northwesterly direction to the _Potong Mön_.

In the pine wood, at the highest part of the angle formed by the
wall, General Tso had built three mud forts or camps with walls 10
feet high. The ground under the trees is dotted with the stone-lined
cooking holes of his men, blackened with the smoke of their last
fires. On the afternoon of the 15th of September, 1894, General Tso
and his force, which mustered 5,000 men when it left Mukden, but must
have been greatly diminished by desertion and death, made his fatal
sally, passing through the _Chil-sung Mön_ and down the steep zigzag
descent below it to the plain, meeting his death probably within 300
yards of the gate. The Koreans say that some of his men took up the
body, but were shot by the Japanese while removing it, and that it was
lost in the slaughter which ensued. A neat obelisk, railed round, was
erected by the Japanese at the supposed spot, bearing on one face the
inscription:--

 Tso Pao-kuei, commander-in-chief of the Fengtien division. Place of
 death.

And on the other----

 Killed while fighting with the Japanese troops at Phyöng-yang.

A graceful tribute to their ablest foe.

General Tso’s troops, demoralized by his death, sought refuge
everywhere from the deadly fire of the Japanese, a part flying back
to their forts within the wall, while many, probably blinded and
desperate, rode along the pine woods which densely cover the broken
ground outside, by a path along a wide dry moat, which, three weeks
later, when Mr. Moffett returned, was piled with the dead bodies of
their horses.

In the bright moonlight night which followed that day, the Japanese
stormed and took by assault the three Chinese forts on the three
summits of the ridge, which were the key of the position, enabling them
to throw their shell into the Chinese forts and camps within the wall.
The beautiful pavilion at the angle of the wall is much shattered, and
big fragments of shell are embedded in its pillars and richly carved
woodwork. So desperately hurried was the flight of the vanquished
from the last fort which held out, that they were mown down in numbers
as they ran down the steep hill, falling face foremost with their
outstretched hands clutching the earth.

All was then lost, and why that doomed army, numbering then perhaps
12,000 men, did not surrender unconditionally, I cannot imagine.
During the night, abandoning guns and all war material, the remains of
Tso’s brigade and all the infantry and unwounded men passed through
the deserted and silent city, surged out of the _Potong Mön_, crossed
a shallow stream, and emerged upon a plain girdled by low hills, and
intersected by the Peking road, the eastern extremity being occupied by
some Chinese forts and breastworks. Tso’s cavalry attempted to cross
the plain and gain the shelter of some low hills, while great numbers
of the infantry took to the Peking road.

The horrors of that night will never be accurately known. The battle of
Phyöng-yang was lost and won when the forts were taken. What remained
was less of a battle than a massacre. Before the morning, this force,
the flower of the Chinese army as to drill and equipment, had perished,
those who escaped never reappearing as an organized body. It is
estimated that from 2,000 to 4,000 men were slain, with thousands of
horses and bulls, the cavalry being literally mown down in hundreds,
and lying, men and horses, heaped “in mounds.” For the Japanese had
girdled the plain with a ring of fire. Mr. Moffett, who was there three
weeks later, described the scene even then as one of “indescribable
horror.” Still, there were “mounds” of men and horses stiffened in the
death-agony, many having tried vainly to extricate themselves from the
pile above them. There were blackened corpses in hundreds lying along
the Peking road, ditches filled up with bodies of men and animals,
fields sprinkled with them, and rifles, muskets, paper umbrellas, fans,
coats, hats, swords belts, scabbards, cartridge boxes, sleeves, and
everything that could be cast away in a desperate flight strewing the
ground. Numbers of the wounded crept into the deserted houses and
died there, some of the bodies showing indications of suicide from
agony, and throughout this mass of human relics which lay blackening
and festering in the hot sun, dogs, left behind by their owners, were
holding high carnival. Even in my walks over the battlefield, though
the grain of another year had ripened upon it, I saw human skulls,
spines with ribs, spines with the pelvis attached, arms and hands,
hats, belts, and scabbards.

On a lofty knoll within the wall, the Japanese have erected a fine
monolith to the memory of the 168 men they lost. They turned the
temple of the God of War into a hospital, and there, _cela va sans
dire_, their wounded were admirably treated, and in another building
the Chinese wounded were carefully attended to, though naturally not
till many of them had died of their wounds on the battlefield. A
ghastly retribution followed the neglect to bury the Chinese dead, for
typhus fever broke out, and its ravages among the Japanese troops may
be partially estimated by the long lines of graves in the military
cemetery at Chemulpo.

Outside the wall, in beautifully broken ground, roughly wooded with
the _Pinus sinensis_, there are still bullets in the branches, many of
which were splintered by the iron hail, and the temple at the tomb of
Kit-ze, the founder of Korean civilization, must have been the centre
of a deadly fight, for its woodwork is riddled with bullets and damaged
by shell, and on its floor are great dark stains, where, when the fight
was over, the Japanese wounded lay in pools of blood.

At some points, specially at the mud forts by the ferry, the Chinese
made a very determined stand for ten hours, so that the Japanese troops
wavered, and were only recovered by a gallant dash made by General
Oshima. Probably the battle of Phyöng-yang decided the fate of the
campaign.

[Illustration: ALTAR AT TOMB OF KIT-ZE.]

Mr. Yi found an old book in eighteen vols. for sale, which gives a
history of this city. Most Korean matters are lost in obscurity
after one or two centuries, but the story of Phyöng-yang takes a
bold backward leap and deals fearlessly with the events of centuries
B.C. Kit-ze, whose fine reputed tomb and temples in the wood are
still regarded with so much reverence that a stone tablet on the road
below warns equestrians to dismount in passing so sacred a place, and
who is said to have emigrated from China in 1122 B.C., and to have
founded a dynasty which lasted for seven centuries, made Phyöng-yang
his capital. The temple at his reputed grave, though full of bullets,
is in admirable repair, and its rich decorations have lately been
renovated, a phenomenon in Korea. Near the city is the standard of land
measurement which he introduced, illustrated by ditches and paths cut,
it is said, by himself.

The temple to the God of War at the foot of the hill is perhaps the
finest in Korea. Frescoes, as in the temple to the same god outside the
South Gate of Seoul, but on a far grander scale, cover the walls of the
corridors of one of the courtyards, and the gigantic figures round the
altar, with the sacrificial utensils, hangings, and dresses, are costly
and magnificent. Not far from this is a large and wealthy Buddhist
monastery.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] There are five coal-mines at distances varying from 10 to 30
_li_ from Phyöng-yang, those of Yang-tang, 15 _li_ away, producing
the best quality. With rich iron ore close to the river bank at Kai
Chhön, about 36 _li_ off, the elements of prosperity are ready to hand.
The “coal-owners” have no proper appliances for working the coal,
relying chiefly on Korean axes, and the “output” is very small. Much
money has been spent in trying to get the coal, and in two mines they
cannot proceed any farther with their present tools. The difficulties
of transport are great, and there is no demand for any quantity in
Phyöng-yang itself, but the mineral is there in abundance and of good
quality, and only awaits capital and enterprise. A tax of 5 per cent.
is levied on all coal sent away from the mines. The total export for
1895 was only 652 tons, valued at 4 dols. 20 cts. per ton (9s.).

CHAPTER XXVII

NORTHWARD HO!

For the northern journey simple preparations only were needed,
consisting of the purchase of candles and two blankets for Im, in
having two pheasants cooked, in dispensing with one pony, leaving us
the moderate allowance of two baggage animals, and in depositing most
of my money with Mr. Moffett. For there were rumors of robbers on the
road, and Mr. Yi left his fine clothes and elegant travelling gear also
behind.

On a brilliant morning (and when are Korean mornings not brilliant?),
passing through the gate out of which General Tso made his last sally,
and down the steep declivity on which it opens, we travelled for a
time along the An Ju road, skirting the base of the hill on which the
Chinese cavalry made their desperate attack on an intrenched position,
and near the ruins of two intrenched camps, where they fell in
hundreds before the merciless fire of the enemy, and where human bones
were still lying about. But where Death reaped that ghastly harvest
magnificent grain crops had recently been secured, and the mellow
sunlight shone on miles of stubble.

Shortly we turned off on a road untouched by the havoc of war, and
saw no more of the gaunt ruins or charred remains of cottages. In
that pleasant region ranges of hills with pines on their lower slopes
girdle valleys of rich stoneless alluvium, producing abundantly cotton,
tobacco, caster oil, wheat, barley, peas, beans, and most especially,
the red and white millet. Wherever a lateral valley descends upon the
one through which the road passes, there is a village of thatched
houses, pretty enough at a distance and embowered in fruit trees, while
clumps of pines, oaks, elms, and zelkawas denote the burial-places
of its dead, who are the guardians of the only fine timber which is
suffered to exist.

[Illustration: RUSSIAN SETTLER’S HOUSE.]

The hamlets along the road were cheerfully busy. Millet was stacked in
the village roadways, leaving only room for one laden animal to pass at
a time, and as all the threshing of rice and grain is done with double
flails also in the village street, one actually rides over the threshed
product. The red or large millet is nearly as useful to the Korean as
is the bamboo to the Chinese. Its stalks furnish fuel, material for
mats and thick woven fences, and even for houses, for in Phyöng-an Do
the walls are formed of bundles of millet stalks 8 feet high for the
uprights, across which single stalks are laid, the interstices being
filled up with mud.

After two days of somewhat monotonous prettiness, beyond Shou-yang-yi
the country became really beautiful. Some of the larger valleys were
specially attractive, with abundance of fruit and other deciduous trees
below the dark _Pinus sinensis_ on the hill slopes, and there were
plenty of large villages with a general look of prosperity, everything,
clothing included, being much cleaner than usual. There were fine
views of lofty dog-tooth peaks, and of serrated ranges running east
and west. Nearly every valley has its bright, rapid stream, on which
the hills descend on one side in abrupt and much caverned limestone
cliffs, the other side being level and fertile. The people there, and
doubtless everywhere, were taken up entirely with their own concerns,
the new system of taxation under which a fixed tax in money is levied
on the assessed value of the land meeting with their approval. Events
in Seoul had no interest for them. The recent murder of the Queen and
the imprisonment of the King did not concern them, as there were no
effects of either on their circumstances. After crossing the pass of
Miriok Yang, 816 feet in altitude, in a romantic region, we entered
poorer country with stony soil, often piled with large shingle by the
violence of streams then perfectly dry.

By misdirection, misunderstanding, or complexity or complete
illegibility of the track, we spent much of the day in losing and
retracing our way, scrambling up steep rock-ladders, etc., and when we
reached Kai-pang after dusk we were for some time refused admission
to the inn. The owner said he could not take in any one travelling
with so many _mapu_ (four) and a soldier. He was terrified. He said
we should go away in the morning without paying him, and should beat
him when he asked to be paid! However, the _mapu_ gave me such an
excellent character that at last he consented, and I had an excellent
room,--that is, the walls and roof were cream-washed, which gave it a
look of cleanliness. The timid innkeeper was old, and this brought out
the fact that when a local magistrate has aged parents, it is customary
for him to invite to an entertainment everybody in his district between
the ages of 60 and 100, and it is usual for the old men to take their
oldest grandsons with them as testimonies to their old age. As every
guest has to be accompanied fittingly, the company often numbers 200.

At Ka-chang and elsewhere the pigsties are much more solid than the
houses, being regular log cabins with substantial roofs for the
protection of their inmates from tigers, or in that neighborhood
from wolves (?). These pigs, of which every country family in Korea
possesses some, are of an absurdly small black breed, a full-grown
animal not weighing more than 26 lbs.

During the two days’ journey from the market-place of Sian-chöng, we
passed the magistracies of Cha-san and Un-san, ferrying the Tai-döng
just beyond Cha-san, where it is a fine stream 317 yards broad,
and is said by the ferrymen to be 47 feet deep. All that region is
well peopled and fertile. There are no resident _yang-bans_ in the
province of Phyöng-an. Gold is obtained by a simple process all round
the country, specially at Keum-san. At Wol-po, a prettily situated
village, and elsewhere, a quantity of the coarser descriptions of paper
is made. Paper and tobacco were the goods that were on the move, bound
for Phyöng-yang.

Paper is used for a greater variety of purposes in Korea than anywhere
else, and its toughness and durability render it invaluable. The
coarser sorts are made from old rags and paper, the finer from the
paper mulberry. Paper is the one article of Korean manufacture which
is exported in any quantity to China, where it is used for some of the
same purposes.

Oil paper about a sixth of an inch in thickness is pasted on the
floors instead of carpets or mats. It bears washing, and takes a
high polish from dry rubbing. In the Royal Palaces, where two tints
are used carefully, it resembles oak parquet. It is also used for
walls. A thinner quality is made into the folding, conical hat-covers
which every Korean carries in his sleeve, and into waterproof cloaks,
coats, and baggage covers. A very thick kind of paper made of several
thicknesses beaten together is used for trunks, which are strong enough
to hold heavy articles. Lanterns, tobacco-pouches, and fans are made
of paper, and the Korean wooden latticed windows from the palace to
the hovel are “glazed” with a thin, white, tough variety, which is
translucent. Much prized, however, were my photographic glass plates
when cleaned. Many a joyful householder let one into his window, giving
himself an opportunity of amusement and _espionage_ denied to his
neighbors.

The day’s journey from Ka-chang to Tok Chhön is through very
attractive scenery with grand mountain views. After crossing a low
but severe pass, we came down upon a large affluent of the Tai-döng,
which for want of a name I designate as the Ko-mop-so, flowing as
a full-watered, green stream between lofty cliffs of much caverned
limestone, fantastically buttressed, and between hills which throw out
rocky spurs, terminating or thinning down into high limestone walls,
resembling those of ruinous fortifications.

Again losing the way and our time, a struggle over a rough pass brought
us in view of the Tai-döng, with the characteristics of its mountain
course, long rapids with glints of foam and rocks, long reaches of
deep, still, slow-gliding jagged translucent green water broad and
deep, making constant abrupt turns, and by its volume suggesting great
powers of destructiveness when it is liberated from its mountain
barriers. In about a fortnight it would be frozen for the winter.
Diamond-flashing in the fine breeze, below noble cliffs and cobalt
mountains, across which cloud shadows were sailing in indigo, under
a vault of cloud-flecked blue, that view was one of those dreams of
beauty which become a possession for ever.

From that pass the road, if it can be called such, is shut in with the
Tai-döng for 30 _li_. In some places there is not room even for the
narrowest bridle track, and the ponies scramble as they may over the
rough boulders which margin the water, and climb the worn, steep, and
rocky steps, often as high as their own knees, by which the break-neck
track is taken over the rocky spurs which descend on the river. It is
one of the worst pieces of road I ever encountered, and it was not
wonderful that we did not meet a single traveller, and that there
should be only about nine a year! We made by our utmost efforts only
a short mile an hour, and it took us five hours of this severe work
to reach the wretched hamlet of Huok Kuri, a few hovels dumped down
among heaps of stones and great boulders, some of which served as backs
for the huts. Poverty-stricken, filthy, squalid, the few inhabitants
subsisted entirely on red millet! Poor Mr. Yi, who had had a wakeful
night owing to vermin, said woefully as he dismounted stiffly, “Sleepy,
tired, cold, hungry,”--and there was nothing to eat, and little for
the ponies either, which may have been the reason that they got up a
desperate fight, of which they bore the traces for some days.

[Illustration: UPPER TAI-DONG.]

The track continued shut in by the high mountains which line the
Tai-döng till within a mile of Tok Chhön, forcing the ponies to
climb worn rock-ladders, or to pick a perilous way among sharp-pointed
rocks. I had not thought that Korea could produce anything so emphatic!
As the road occasionally broke up in face of some apparently impassable
spur, we occasionally got into impassable places, and lost time so
badly that we were benighted when little more than halfway, but as
there were no inhabitants we pushed on as a matter of necessity. When
we got to better going the _mapu_, inspired by the double terror of
robbers and wild animals, hurried on the ponies, yelling as they drove,
and by the time we reached the Tok Chhön ferry a young moon had risen,
and the mountains in shadow, and the great ferryboat full of horses,
men in white, and bulls, in relief against the silvered water, made a
beautiful night scene. I sent on the ponies, and Im to prepare my room,
fully expecting comfort, as at Phyöng-yang, for though I could never
find anybody who had been at Tok Chhön, it was always spoken of as a
sort of metropolis.

It is indeed a magistracy, with a remarkably ruinous _yamen_ and a
market-place, and is the chief town of a very large region. It is
entered from the river by stepping-stones, through abominable slush,
by a long narrow street, from which we were directed on and on till we
came to a wide _place_, where the inns of the town are. There in the
moonlight a great masculine crowd had collected, and in the middle of
it were our _mapu_, with the loads still on their ponies, raging at
large, and Im rushing hither and thither like a madman. For they had
been refused accommodation, and every door had been barred against them
on the ground that I was a foreigner! They said, truly or falsely, that
no foreigner had ever profaned Tok Chhön by his presence, that they
lived in peace, and did not want to be “implicated with a foreigner”
(all foreigners being Japanese). It is most disagreeable to force
oneself in even the slightest degree on any one, but I had been twelve
hours in the saddle, it was 8 P.M., there was snow on the ground, and
it was freezing hard! The yard door of one inn was opened a chink for
a moment, our men rushed for it, but it was at once barred, and we were
all again left standing in the street, the centre of a crowd which
increased every moment.

Our men eventually forced open the door of one inn and got their ponies
in. Then the paper was torn off two doors, and Im was visible against
the light from within tearing about like a black dæmon. We had then
stood like statues for two hours with our feet in freezing slush, the
great crowd preserving a ring round us, staring stolidly, but not
showing any hostility. At last Im appeared at an open door, waving my
chair, and we got into a high, dark lumber-room; but the crowd was too
quick for us, and came tumbling in behind us till the place was full.
Then the landlord closed the doors, but they were smashed in, and he
had no better luck when he weakly besought the people to look at him
and not at the stranger, for his entreaty only produced an ebullition
of Korean wit, by no means complimentary. An official from the _yamen_
arrived and inquired if I had any complaint to make, but I had none,
and he sat down and took a prolonged stare on his own account, not
making any attempt to disperse the crowd.

So I sat facing the door, Mr. Yi not far off smoking endless
cigarettes, while Im battled for a room, after one he had secured had
its doors broken down by the crowd. I sat for two hours longer in that
cold, ruinous, miserable place, two front and three back doorways
filled up with men, the whole male population of Tok Chhön, and, never
moved a muscle or showed any sign of dissatisfaction! Some sat on the
doorsill, little men were on the shoulders of big ones, all, inside and
outside, clamoring at once.

The situation might have been serious had a European man been with me,
and the experiences of Mr. Campbell of the Consular Service, at Kapsan
might have been repeated. No Englishman could have kept his temper in
such circumstances from 8 P.M. till midnight. He would certainly have
knocked somebody down, and then there would have been a fight. The
ill-bred curiosity tires but does not annoy me, though it exceeded all
bounds that night. Fortunately for me, a Korean gentleman is taught
from his earliest boyhood that he must never lose his temper, and that
it is a degradation to him to touch an inferior, therefore he must
never strike a servant or one of the lower orders.

At midnight, probably weary of our passivity, and anxious for sleep,
the inn people consented to give me a room in the back-yard if I
did not object to one “prepared for sacrifice,” and containing the
ancestral tablets. The crowd then filled the back-yard, and attempted
to pour into my room, when Im’s sorely-tried patience gave way for only
the second time, and he knocked people down right and left. This, and
the contents of a fire bowl which was upset in the scrimmage, helped to
scatter the crowd, but it was there again at daylight, attempting to
enter every time Im opened the door!

The “room prepared for sacrifice” in aspect was a small barn, fearfully
dirty and littered with rubbish, and bundles of rags, rope, and old
shoes were tucked away among the beams and rafters. My camp-bed cut
it exactly in half. In the inner half there was a dusty table, and
behind it on a black stand a dusty black shrine, at the back of which
was a four-leaved screen covered with long strips of paper, on which
were poems in praise of the deceased. In front, dividing the room, and
falling from the roof to the floor, was a curtain made of two widths
of very dirty foreign calico. Among the poor, instead of setting food
before the ancestral shrine twice or thrice daily during the three
years of mourning for a parent, it is only placed there twice a month.
In a small white wooden tablet within the shrine popular belief places
the residence of the third soul of the deceased, as I have mentioned
before.

I spent two days at Tok Chhön. Properly speaking, the Tai-döng is never
navigable to that point, owing to many and dangerous rapids, and any
idea of the possibility of this highly picturesque stream becoming “a
great commercial highway” may be utterly dismissed. Small boats can
ascend it at all seasons to Mou-chin Tai, about 140 _li_ lower down,
and during two summer months, when the water is high, a few with much
difficulty get up to Tok Chhön, and even a few _li_ farther, and at the
same season rafts descend from the forests of the Yung-wön district,
from 30 to 40 _li_ higher; but owing to severe rapids, shallows, and
sandbanks which shift continually, the river is not really navigable
higher than Phyöng-yang, and all commercial theories built upon it
are totally chimerical. For 30 _li_ above Tok Chhön the river scenery
is far grander than below, the perpendicular walls of limestone rock
rising from 800 to 1,000 feet, with lofty mountains above them, the
peaks of which, even so early as the end of November, were crested with
new-fallen snow. I had been assured in Phyöng-yang that boats could be
hired at Tok Chhön, and I had planned to descend the river; but there
are no boats, except a few ferry scows, higher than Mou-chin Tai.

Tok Chhön and its district are lamentably poor. The people said that
the war had made the necessaries of life dearer, and that they had only
the same produce to barter or buy with. The reforms which were being
carried out farther south had not reached that region, and “squeezing”
was still carried on by the officials. Rice, the ordinary staff of
Korean life, is brought from An Ju, but is used only by the rich,
_i.e._ the officials. The poor live on large and small millet. Potatoes
and wheat are grown, but the soil is poor and stony. A little trade,
chiefly in dried fish and seaweed, is done with Wön-san. A few silk
lenos and gauzes of very poor quality are made, the industry having
been introduced by the Chinese. Piece goods are only a few _cash_
dearer than at Phyöng-yang. Those displayed on the market-day were
nearly all Japanese. It was the dullest market I have seen. The pedlars
carried away nearly as much as they brought. The country is absolutely
denuded of wood. There are no deciduous trees, and the region owes its
few groves of dwarfed and distorted pines to the horseshoe graves on
the hillsides. A _yamen_ which only hangs together from force of habit,
a Confucian temple, and a Buddhist temple on a height are the only
noteworthy buildings.

The district magistrate returned while I was in Tok Chhön, and the
people showed a degree of interest in the event. Runners lined the
river bank by the ferry, blowing horns, forty men in black gauze coats
over their white ones, and a few singing girls met his chair and ran
with it to the _yamen_, and a few men looked on apathetically. A more
squalid retinue could not be imagined.

Some magistrates had a thousand of such retainers paid by this
impoverished country. In a single province, there were at that time
44 district mandarins, with an average staff of 400 men each, whose
sole duties were those of police and tax-collecting, their food
alone, at the rate of two dollars per month, costing $392,400 a
year.[38] This army of 17,600 men, not receiving a “living wage,”
“squeezed” on its own account the peasant, who in Korea has neither
rights nor privileges, except that of being the ultimate sponge. As
an illustration of the methods of proceeding I give the case of a
village in a southern province. Telegraph poles were required, and the
Provincial Governor made a requisition of 100 _cash_ on every house.
The local magistrate increased it to 200, and his runners to 250,
which was actually paid by the people, the runners getting 50 _cash_,
the magistrate 100, and the Governor 100, a portion of which sum was
expended on the object for which it was levied. An edict abolishing
this attendance, and reducing the salaries of magistrates, had recently
been promulgated. At Tok Chhön, the ruin and decay of official
buildings, and the filth and squalor of the private dwellings, could go
no farther.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] My authority for this statement is Mr. W. K. Carles, formerly
H.B.M.’s Vice-Consul in Korea.

CHAPTER XXVIII

OVER THE AN-KIL YUNG PASS

Finding the Tai-döng totally impracticable, and being limited as to
time by the approach of the closing of the river below Phyöng-yang by
ice, I regretfully turned southwards, and journeyed Seoul-wards by
another route, of much interest, which touches here and there the right
bank of the Tai-döng.

As I sat amidst the dirt, squalor, rubbish, and odd and endism of
the inn yard before starting, surrounded by an apathetic, dirty,
vacant-looking, open-mouthed crowd steeped in poverty, I felt Korea to
be hopeless, helpless, pitiable, piteous, a mere shuttlecock of certain
great powers, and that there is no hope for her population of twelve
or fourteen millions, unless it is taken in hand by Russia, under
whose rule, giving security for the gains of industry as well as light
taxation, I had seen Koreans in hundreds transformed into energetic,
thriving, peasant farmers in Eastern Siberia.

The road, which was said, and truly, to be a very bad one, crosses
a small plain, and passing under a roofed gateway between two hills
which are scarred by remains of fortifications running east and west,
enters upon really fine scenery, which becomes magnificent in about 30
_li_, at first a fertile mountain-girdled basin, whose rim is spotted
with large villages, and then a narrowing valley with stony soil, and
a sparse population, walled in by savage mountains of emphatic forms,
swinging apart at times, and revealing loftier peaks and ranges then
glittering with new-fallen snow.

[Illustration: RUSSIAN OFFICERS, HUN-CHUN.]

In crossing the plain at a point where the road was good, I was
remarking to Mr. Yi what a pleasant and prosperous journey we had had,
and hoping our good fortune might continue, when there was a sudden
clash and flurry, I was nearly kicked off my pony, and in a moment we
were in the midst of disaster. One baggage pony was on his back on his
load, pawing the air in the middle of a ploughed field, his _mapu_
helpless for the time, lamed by a kick above the knee, sobbing, blood
and tears running down his face; the other baggage animal, having
divested himself of Im, was kicking off the rest of his load; and
Im, who had been thrown from the top of the pack, was sitting on the
roadside, evidently in intense pain--all the work of a moment. Mr. Yi
called to me that the soldier had broken his ankle, and it was a great