Читать книгу Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots; Or, Life in Korea - Lillias H. Underwood - Страница 9

Table of Contents

We Start on our Wedding Journey—Songdo—Guards at our Gates—Crossing the Tai-tong—Difficulties in Finding an Inn—Korean Launderings—An Old Man Seeks to be Rid of Sin—Mob at an Inn—A Ruffian Bursts Open my Door—Fight in the Inn Yard—Pat Defies the Crowd—Convenience of Top-knots—A Magistrate Refuses to Shelter Us—The “Captain” to the Rescue—Pack-ponies—We Lay a Deep Scheme—Torch Bearers—A Mountain Hamlet—Tiger Traps—Tigers—A Band of Thirty Conspire to Attack Us—Guns Used by Native Hunters—A Tiger Story.

We started on our trip at early dawn, turning directly north, on the road passing under the arch, which then marked the spot where the representatives of Korea yearly met the Chinese ambassadors who came to receive tribute. This custom was maintained until Korea’s independence was declared; in honor of which the old arch was then taken down and a finer one erected. Beyond this arch lay the pass, a narrow, muddy and stony way, leading through the mountain. It was crowded with oxen and pack-ponies, going to and from Seoul. Shouting mapoos and coolies added to the confusion, great rocks seemed just ready to fall from above and crush the unlucky passers, and many which had fallen from time to time impeded the road. Now a fine road has been made across the hill, and the old way of danger and discomfort is closed up. From its darkness, its fiendish noises, gruesome odors and bad going it would not have been an unfit image of Bunyan’s Valley of the Shadow of Death. The snow still remained in sheltered places, for it was only March, and the morning air was sharp and chill, but we found a very fine road all the way to Songdo.

We made our first halt at noon, at a small village between Seoul and Songdo, and I had my first experience of a native inn. The Korean inn is second only in filth, closeness, bad odors and discomfort to those in the interior of China. There is usually only one room for women, which has from one to four or five paper-covered doors or windows—they are nearly always the same size and bear the same name—opening into the kitchen, the court and the sarang. This room is often not more than eight by ten or twelve feet large, and very low. The paper which covers the door is commonly blackened with dirt, so that few indeed are the rays of light which manage to struggle in a disheartened way into these gloomy little apartments. They boast little or no furniture, perhaps a chang or Korean cabinet (most unique and antique-looking chests, much ornamented with brass or black iron hinges, locks, etc.) stands against the wall, upon which are piled a great many bright-colored quilts and pillows, not the wooden ones sometimes described and much used, but like old-style long sofa pillows, and very much more comfortable. At the center of the ceiling, just under the roof tree, may be seen a bunch of dirty rags, feathers and sticks, where the household Lares and Penates are supposed to roost. A wharrow or charcoal fire-pot with a smouldering fire probably stands somewhere on the floor. This should be promptly removed, as its presence often causes severe headache, and sometimes asphyxia, from which one of the missionaries was only resuscitated after repeated fainting and hours of effort on the part of a companion.

In most of the inns very picturesque tall brass or wooden lamp-stands are seen. They consist of a rod about two and a half feet high, on a good solid base with a little bracket at the top for a saucer of castor oil, and an ox horn hanging below containing the main supply of oil. The lamp or saucer contains a small wick which yields a very tiny light, just enough to emphasize and make visible the darkness. Often these lamps have a special niche, or little cupboard in the wall, where they are enclosed during the day. Nearly always a stout bar crosses the room about a foot from the wall, and three or four feet from the floor, on which garments may be hung, and as commonly there is a wide shelf running around two or three sides of the apartment, very near the roof, on which are sundry household utensils, winter vegetables, very likely piles of yeast cakes for the manufacture of beer, and, in fact, a heterogeneous collection, too numerous and varied to mention. Here lies a dusty old book, there a work basket, and further on the wooden block and clubs used for ironing, a bottle of medicine, a pile of rice bowls, or a box of matches.

The mats which are placed over the oiled paper, or more likely directly on the earth floor, are full of dust and vermin of all descriptions, which run riot everywhere. It is best not to begin to think how many people have, in that room and lying on these identical mats, been ill, and died, of dysentery, small-pox, cholera or typhus fever, since the room was even swept or the mats once shaken. A “really truly” cleaning they are ignorant of. Fumigation and disinfection are as far beyond the flights of their wildest imagination as the private life of the man in the moon. The miracle over which we never cease to wonder and admire is that so many people of clean antecedents who travel through the interior are able to resist the microbes, bacteria, germs and all similar enemies under whatsoever name which, according to all modern science, ought to attack and destroy them in short order.

In most of the inns, tall earthen jars, from two to three, or rarely four feet high, and two or three feet in diameter, in which Ali Baba’s cutthroat thieves could easily hide, are ranged along the side of the wall, but more frequently in the courtyard. They contain various kinds of grain, pickles, beer, wine, and there are always several holding kimchi (a sort of sauerkraut), without which they never eat rice.

Numbers of dogs, cats, chickens, pigs and ducks are under foot in the courtyard, oxen and ponies are noisily feeding in the stalls, under the same roof with ourselves, only just outside the paper door, and if one is to sleep it must be in spite of a combined grunting, squealing, cackling, blowing and barking, anything but conducive to repose. Most of the hotels have, as has been said, only one inner room, where it is proper for a woman to stay. Our helper, chair-coolies, mapoos and other travelers use the sarang, packed very likely like sardines in a box, and the host’s family turn out, and go to a neighbor’s for the night, unless the inn is a large one on the main road. A large and fashionable inn in Korea would have perhaps five, or even six, sleeping apartments—though I do not recollect having seen so many.

Now we travel with cot-beds which roll up and slip into heavy canvas bags, and take up very little room on the pack. These blessings keep us off the dirty floors, which are usually much too hot for health, unless, indeed, one has come in wet, cold, and aching from a long tramp, when they are a specific preventive of colds and rheumatism. On that first journey, however, we had nothing of this sort, but we sent out for some bundles of fresh clean straw used for thatch—one thing, at least, of which there is plenty in every village—and piled them at least a foot high. We spread thereon our bed, to the confusion and defeat of our little enemies, ploughing their weary way uselessly through the mazes of that straw all night. In this way we slept peacefully, except when the floor became intolerably hot, and our bed correspondingly so, then we rose, piled our straw in another place, remade our couch, and composed ourselves again to slumber. We never did this more than three times in one night, and it was a mere diversion.

The situation, however, develops into something quite beyond a joke, as was hinted in a former chapter, when one is forced to travel in hot weather. The rice and beans for men and animals must be cooked, which means—in nine cases out of ten—that a fire must be built under your room, and you must sleep on the stove, although the thermometer is already in the seventies before it is kindled. The room, you remember, is small and low, the windows opening to the court probably few. You look longingly at the open porch or maru, but there are leopards and tigers that prowl at night, or wanting these, no lack of rats, ferrets, and snakes; there are foul smells and rank poisonous vapors, pools of green water and sewage all about, a famous place in the damp night air to soak a system full of malaria, more deadly than wild beasts; so with a sigh you turn again to your oven, prepared for the worst. Up, up, steadily climbs the thermometer, your pulses throb, your head snaps, you gasp and pant for breath, and at length toward morning, when the fire is dead, and the hot stones a little cooled, you fall into an exhausted feverish sleep. But an early start is necessary to make the next stage, and by four o’clock at least a new fire is built to cook more rice, and you rush out of doors, to draw a whiff of pure air and cool your burning temples.

So even if it were not for the rains, flooded roads, and overflowing, unbridged rivers, we should not travel except from dire necessity in the summer. Tents have not been found practicable among the missionaries in the rainy season, and their use has been followed in several instances by severe and even fatal illness. One of the chief annoyances, especially on this our first trip, at the inns were the kugungers or sightseers. The paper doors are speedily made available as peep-holes for the foe. From all quarters the word “foreigner,” and above all “foreign woman,” spreads like wildfire. Never did a lion or an elephant create such excitement in an American village. The moment we entered an inn the house was instantly thronged, besieged, invested. Every door was full of holes made by dampening the finger and placing it with gentle pressure against the paper. It was dismaying, when we fancied ourselves quite alone, to see all those holes filled with hungry eyes. Never since have I cared to visit a show of wild animals or human freaks. I sympathize with them so fully, that there is no pleasure in the satisfaction of curiosity at such a cost. We wished to meet the people, but we could not talk with such a mob, in any satisfactory way, as their frantic curiosity about us made it impossible for them to attend to what we had to tell until they were in some measure satisfied. But to return to our trip.

Some twenty miles this side of Songdo the road crosses the Imgin river, where a ferry boat is in readiness to carry the traveler and his belongings to the other side. A story is told here of the patriotism of a nobleman who lived in a magnificent summer house on the bluff overlooking the river, at the time of the Hedioshi rebellion. His king, fleeing from the Japanese, arrived here at midnight, and to light him and his escort to the ferry this man set fire to his beautiful home. As a result of this, the king crossed in safety, and escaped his enemies. In token of his gratitude, he therefore ordered that a summer house should be kept perpetually in memory of his loyal friend on the site of the one which had been sacrificed, and loaded him with honors and rewards.

The city of Songdo is one of the largest in Korea, and from a Korean standpoint probably the most important commercially, as well as the richest. Here is grown the ginseng, so highly prized by Koreans, Chinese and Japanese, and sold—the best—at forty-five dollars a pound; more than its weight in gold. Though Songdo was formerly the nation’s capital, a successful rebel general, making himself king, established his seat of government in Seoul.

We arrived in this ancient city about sundown, and shortly afterwards met ten Christian inquirers. In a few days we sold all our books, and medicines, which we expected would last for the entire trip, and had to send back to Seoul for more. We were besieged by large crowds of people during our stay, so that we were obliged to ask for a guard at the gate. We admitted fifty at a time, and when their curiosity had been sated, their diseases treated, and they had bought as many books as they wanted, they were dismissed, to make room for another pushing, struggling, eagerly curious fifty. Mr. Underwood baptized no one, but met, examined and instructed inquirers, and directed and corrected his native helper’s work.

Songdo is about forty-five miles from Seoul, and has about two hundred thousand inhabitants. Thus far the Southern Methodists are the only ones who have a station there, though just why we other missionaries never started work in so important a center it would be hard to say; except that it did not seem to develop there at first as promisingly, shall I say, as insistently, as in some other places, where need was so pressing we never could obtain workers enough to supply the demand, far less start new centers.

TAI-TONG RIVER. PAGE 45

FERRY BOAT. PAGE 43

Songdo has no gates. It is said that they were removed, with the privileges as well of the Quaga, because the people of that city so persistently continued to despise and treat with contempt the authority of Seoul. Whereas it is the custom to speak of going up to Seoul, they would refer to going down to that city; they would not measure their grain from right to left, as in Seoul, but from left to right; and worst of all, from having constantly referred to the king as a pig, they came to speak of a pig by the king’s name!

From Songdo, we proceeded north, by short stages to Pyeng Yang, which was the next place of importance, where Mr. Underwood looked for inquirers and where there were already a few Christians. We reached the Tai-tong River, which lay just below the city gates between us and it, in a driving snow storm. Long and loudly did the various members of our party try their lungs in the effort to obtain a boat, but at length, when patience was quite exhausted, the ferryman, or one of them, arrived with a great flat-bottomed boat, which accommodated us all—ponies, packs, coolies, chair, helpers and missionaries—and landed us in mud and safety on the other side for a few cash. I had almost forgotten, however, to speak of the beautiful road leading up to this ferry, with its noble overarching trees and its variety of beautiful bushes and flowers. Even at that bleak and wintry season it was lovely, and a month later, when we returned, it was charming, with its green woodland shade and its wealth of sweet-scented blossoms. Now, alas! it is quite shorn of its beauty, for during the Japanese-Chinese war, the trees were all cut down.

We were no sooner within the city gates than a very noisy and constantly increasing crowd followed close at our heels, growing ever more annoying and demonstrative, till its dimensions and behavior were altogether too much like a mob. Respectable and frightened inn-keepers one after another turned us from their doors until the uncomfortable possibility of being obliged to spend the night in the streets suggested itself. However, after a time we found a refuge, and with the aid of a policeman from the magistracy we managed to keep the mob at bay, seeing only a stated number at a time, as in Songdo. It rained during most of our stay, and I could with no comfort or safety go out even in a chair to see the town, for if I so much as peeped out, some one caught sight of the foreign woman, and at once a crowd gathered which made it impossible to move or to accomplish anything. Once before we left I accompanied Mr. Underwood to a pleasant spot outside the gates, which he thought would be a good site for a sub-station, and we made a visit to the mother of one of our Christians. She was extremely sick, and as she recovered not long after we were very happy in having left a good impression and a grateful family behind us.

I had a practical illustration of the inconvenience of Korean methods of laundry in this town, for giving out a number of articles to the tender mercies of a Korean woman, they were returned minus all the buttons. They had pounded the garments on a stone in some stream, and as a precaution had removed all these little conveniences before doing so. There was no starch, no bluing, and no ironing. Korean clothes before ironing must be ripped, and are then pounded for hours on a smooth piece of wood until they obtain a beautiful gloss. Koreans are, however, not without iron irons. They have quite a large one, which holds hot charcoal, and two sorts of small ones, not more than half an inch wide by two or three inches in length, with a long handle, for pressing the seams of sleeves, and of garments which it is only desirable to press on the seam.

After a stay of about a week in Pyeng Yang, during which time we saw a great many visitors, most of whom came from curiosity, but none of whom went away without a printed or spoken word about the gospel, we again started out on our journey north. Oh, if one prophetic vision might have been granted us of what was to be in such a few years! If we could have seen those dreary and heart-sickening wastes of humanity transformed into fields of rich grain waiting in harvest glory for the sickle, if we could have seen the hundreds now gathered yearly into the garner, how our hearts would have burned within us! “But the love of God is broader than the measure of man’s mind,” and though we saw visions and dreamed dreams, we hardly dared hope they would all be fulfilled. God kept the future hidden as a sweet surprise. Just after leaving this city an old man of seventy-six came three miles to inquire of us “concerning the religion by which a man could be rid of sin,” one of the first fruits of that later harvest, which God permitted us to reap.

Ernsan, one of the small villages at which we spent the night, turned out to be a very rough sort of place. We were obliged in many of these towns to use the Foreign Office letter to obtain the shelter of the magistracies, as often the inns would not receive us or would prove no defense against the rudeness of the curious mobs, and we had no Christian constituency to fall back upon. At this particular place the magistrate was away, and the “chabin duli” (roughs) were not under ordinary restraint.

In the morning, as the time for leaving drew near, a crowd of about one hundred men and large boys assembled in the little courtyard waiting for a kugung (sight) of the two curiosities. My husband, well aware that a woman who permits herself to be viewed by strange men is not respected or respectable in Korea, had my chair brought into the house, and the door closed, so that I might be shut in there and pass out unseen. On finding themselves thus balked of perhaps the one great opportunity of their lives to behold these strange, wild animals, some of the baser fellows could not restrain their curiosity, and one of them, probably egged on by the others, broke open the door of my bedroom. Than this, no greater breach of law or propriety is recognized in the land, and the guilty wretch is amenable to almost any punishment the injured woman’s friends may choose to inflict. My husband, standing near the door, lifted his foot as the proper member with which to express his sentiments—the tongue being incapable of sufficient vigor and the hand too good—and this, though only a demonstration—the man was not touched—was sufficient encouragement to my chair coolies, who, considering their own honor bound up with mine for the time being, rushed forth to punish the “vile creature” who had insulted us all.

One of them, a brawny fellow whom we called Pat, from his resemblance to gentlemen of the nationality which favors that name, at a bound had singled out his prey from the midst of the crowd and dragged him forth from his encircling friends and protectors.

He dragged him forth in the usual approved Korean method, under such circumstances, by the top-knot, a very convenient and effective handle, for a man once in the grasp of his enemy in this way is practically at his mercy. He was soon on the ground being pummelled. But it must be remarked that we were but a little party, four coolies, one helper, one missionary, one woman, and they were a hundred or more strong. Our calling and dearest hopes forbade our using severe measures, nor would they, even firearms, have availed for long, but would only have served to make enemies for us on all sides, supposing we had frightened this crowd into order. So it behooved us to make peace, and speedily, for there were black looks and angry and threatening murmurings as the friends of the culprit drew near, preparing to defend him.

METHOD OF IRONING. PAGE 46

So Mr. Underwood rushed down into the crowd, drew off our exasperated coolie, and quieted the rising storm. But Patrick could not depart without giving some expression to his indignation, and waving his chair rod like a shillalah in the air around his head, he stood at the top of the steps, his back to the crowd (the pure Korean method in quarrels), vociferously announcing to whom it might concern his opinion of such actions in general, and this one in particular, and bidding them, in the spirit of James Fitz James at the ford

“Come one, come all, this rock shall fly

From its firm base as soon as I.”

But my husband saw that it would be best to get away while we could without exasperating them further, and before the temper of the crowd should change again for the worse. A similar occurrence in either China or Japan would almost certainly have ended very differently for us.

The Koreans do not bear malice, nor are they very revengeful or cruel without great provocation. We merely had to do with a rough crowd, who gathered thinking we were probably a base sort of people; and when they saw that we behaved as quiet, decent Koreans would do, they respected our reserve and curbed their curiosity, though a few boys threw stones and hooted, and they all followed us a few rods outside the village, but we soon found ourselves peacefully alone.

Before passing on I must say a few words on the general effectiveness of the top-knot method. It is a great pity men do not wear their hair in this way in America. We women who favor women’s rights would soon find it a mighty handle by which to manage them, for in the hands of a discerning woman it is indeed an instrument of unlimited possibilities. Who would care to wield a scepter abroad, who could wield a top-knot at home? By one of these well-tied arrangements have I beheld a justly irate wife dragging home her drunken husband from the saloon; and firmly grasping this, I have seen more than one indignant female administering that corporal punishment which her lord and master no doubt richly deserved. The Korean wife stands and serves her husband while he eats, she works while he smokes, but when family affairs come to a certain crisis, she takes the helm (that is to say, the top-knot) in hand, and puts the ship about.

At another of our stopping places on this road we found a magistrate who had been so long in the interior and who was so ignorant and illiterate that he neither knew the uses of a passport, nor could read it when presented. This was serious, indeed, for here with a rough and curious crowd to be refused the shelter of the magistracy might mean our being subjected to mob violence, and would almost certainly insure our passing the night on the road. Here we must exchange exhausted pack-ponies for fresh ones, here we must obtain money for the next stage, and food and fire for our tired coolies and ourselves. So when our helper returned with the disquieting news that the magistrate would none of us, “the captain” donned his harness, and passport in hand, strode into the presence, gesticulated, I am afraid, stamped, waved the passport in the air, flung it to the ground, and by dint of noise and vehemence succeeded in impressing the astonished little official with a sense of the dignity and importance of the Foreign Office passports in the hands of strenuous Westerners.

He promptly and politely gave us rooms, money, ponies, everything we needed, in order to rid himself of us and our arguments, I suppose, and no doubt he still recalls us as the most remarkable and alarming intruders who ever disturbed his quiet and uneventful life.

But although sheltered by the magisterial walls our annoyances were not over. Word had been passed far and near of the arrival of foreigners, and the crowds gathered thicker and thicker. They were only rude and good-naturedly curious, but curiosity is a strange passion when really aroused, as only those who have been its victims know. Men will travel miles, will undergo unheard-of fatigues and surmount great difficulties, and will pay very little regard to the convenience, comfort or even safety of those who try to oppose them in their desires to gratify this passion.

Aware that we were besieged, we hung shawls and rain coats round the room, before the doors and windows, hoping to prevent the usual peep-show made by perforating fingers, and thus fortified, seated ourselves in front of our trunk, which served for a table, to partake of our meal during the short respite thus gained. A smothered titter made us look quickly around. Long slender rods had been pushed through the peep-holes, the curtains lifted, multitudes of eyes applied to new holes, and we were well in view. I must honestly confess that in some of these baffled moments, in the hot fire of the enemy’s ungenerous triumph, I have thought with glee of the execution which could be done with a syringe well aimed at those eye-filled holes, if we were just common travelers and not longing to win all hearts and ready to bear all such small annoyances with patience for the love of these poor people, even the most annoying of them. And now that I am more fully seasoned, I endure these rude intrusions into my privacy with more sang froid, excusing and understanding it.

About this stage in our journey our provisions ran very low, and among other things sugar gave out. Natives do not have this article of food, but we were able to get the Korean buckwheat honey, than which I have never tasted any more delicious, and we found that it improved the flavor of the finest tea.

Here in these far recesses of the interior, where we were uncertain of the temper of the people, and where many more than doubtful characters were known to be in hiding, the magistrates thought it necessary to send at least one, sometimes two, officials with us.

At the town of Huiju we found the scenery growing quite wild, the hills rising into mountains (though not very high ones), the road zig-zagging up and up, while a brawling, hurrying brook ran noisily below. Here we found the first spring flowers under the lingering snow, and above the snow were butterflies darting about in the sunshine, quite sure that they were in the right place, since the Father sent them, even though it did look a little cold and bleak; and then if one only looked up, there was the sun. Just here in the steepest, dizziest and most difficult part of the ascent, two of those poor little pack-ponies which I had been pitying all along for the terrible way their relentless mapoos overloaded them, began fighting (loads and all), and after kicking each other in the liveliest fashion for some time, squealing like little fiends, while the poor mapoos were dancing and vociferating around them trying to bring about a truce, they finally scampered off in different directions, and then and there my heart hardened, and never since has pity for these animals entered it. They are, I firmly opine, as self-willed, spoiled, obstinate, quarrelsome, uncertain, tricky and tough little beasts as ever carried a load.

Among many other people treated at this little village, a woman came sixteen miles for medicine, and carried away as well the news of the Great Physician. Thus the mission to the body proves effective to the soul, and the seed is scattered far and wide. How that little seed prospered He only knows who has promised that those who cast it upon the water shall find it after many days.

Here, after we had eaten our supper, Mr. Underwood and I conceived a deep scheme to escape the stuffy little cage-like room and take a walk by moonlight in the midst of that lovely scenery. It would of course be futile to go out of the gate, for then the alarm would be given, and we should be hounded by the entire able-bodied portion of the populace. But the wall was low, and waiting till we supposed every one had retired for the night, we stealthily crept like a couple of criminals out of our quarters, surmounted the wall, and were at last free, and for once alone, away from staring eyes, to enjoy the sweet air and each other’s company. But alas! we had hardly gone twenty paces when a Korean cur (than which only a Korean pig is more detestable) espied or nosed us, and at once set up a loud and continuous bark. We hurried on, hoping to escape, but it was not to be; one white form after another appeared at the doorways, soon a quickly swelling stream of people were in our wake, and the game was up. We returned and retraced our steps, attended by a long retinue, entered by the gate, and hid our discomfiture within the walls of our little dungeon.

From Huiju our road led up farther, over a still higher mountain, and here we were provided, according to the conditions of our passport, with oxen instead of ponies to carry our loads (being stronger and surer footed), and also, as for all travelers belated and overtaken by darkness, torches of blazing pine knots or long grass carried by some of the villagers to a certain distance, where it was the business of others to meet us with new ones. The men who provide the oxen and torches are given the use of certain fields by the government in payment for such services, but often they are unfaithful. The belated traveler pounds long at their gates in vain. Some neighbor appears to say the man is sick or away. At length, when a reward has been given, and when patience has not only ceased to be a virtue, but ceased to exist at all, he or his wife appears and deliberately prepares the long-desired torch.

On the other side of this mountain, as we descended into the valley, we found a village which presented a very different aspect from any we had yet seen. The houses were not made of a basket work of twigs filled in with mud, like the ordinary native dwellings, but of heavy logs. The little compounds surrounding each house were enclosed with high fences made of strong timbers, each sharpened to a point at the top and firmly bound together, instead of the usual hedge of blossoming bushes or tile-covered mud wall. It all looked as if these farmers and foresters were prepared for a siege, but from what enemy?

There were no Indians or wild tribes here. It was a most picturesque place. The mountains rose grandly above us, all around were woods, and a beautiful stream rippled along between them and the village. It was a glorious moonlit night, the atmosphere seemed fairly to sparkle with brilliancy. Again, after supper, we prepared to take a walk. Few indeed had been our opportunities for such honeymoon observances as this, which are supposed to be the peculiar privilege and bounden duty of all the good newly married. As has been noted already, the large crowds which watched our every movement, and from whose observation not the smallest motion was lost, precluded any such folly on our part, but here, far off in the wild recesses of the woods and mountains, in a village whose inhabitants seemed nobly exceptional in the praise-worthy habit of keeping at home, here we might wander at will, in the enchanting light, listening anon to the silvery cadences of the stream. So we sauntered along in the most approved fashion of honeymooners until a few steps beyond the confines of the village, where woods closed in on all sides.

We had observed here and there as we passed along what looked like a sort of huge pen made of logs, weighted with great stones on top, strangely constructed, as if for the housing of some large animal. Now as we stood on the edge of the brook trying to decide whether to cross into the woods, a sound as of heavy and yet stealthy footsteps on the dry leaves in the shadow of the trees arrested our attention. An uncanny mystery seemed to hang over everything. Slightly startled by the sound, we awakened to the fact that the pens we had seen must be tiger traps, that this was a famous tiger tramping ground (they would naturally come to the brook to drink), that the enemy against whom the village was so strongly fortified were these beasts of prey, and that it would be in every way profitable to us to postpone our moonlight rambles for some more propitious time and place. So with a less lover-like and more business-like pace we returned to the prosaic but welcome shelter of the huts.

Korean tiger skins are very fine when the animal has been killed in the winter, but unfortunately the natives do not understand the proper method of preserving them, and those which are taken away, as well as the leopard skins, very soon become denuded of hair. The natives prize the claws very highly, and often remove them as soon as the beast is killed. They are found from the Manchurian border through the whole country, among the mountains; more than once have they been seen in the capital since my arrival, and only a few months after I landed a leopard was seen in the Russian legation compound next to our house. As our homes were all bungalows, and the extreme heat of summer nights necessitated open windows, I often lay awake after this for hours at night, certain that I heard the stealthy, heavy tread and deep breathing of one of these creatures in my room.

But to return to our experiences in the tiger valley, which were not yet done. While Mr. Underwood and I were taking a walk together that evening we heard in the valley below us the sharp report of a gun. The house in which we were was on the side of a hill, while our servants’ quarters, and indeed most of the village, was in the valley just below. Shortly some one came running to tell us that a tiger had just been shot. This was slightly exciting, but turned out later to have been a mere excuse to quiet any alarm I might have felt on hearing the explosion of the gun.

The real facts were, it seemed, that a band of some thirty men, probably fugitives from justice, and robbers, had conspired to visit us that night at midnight and destroy the vile foreigners who had dared to intrude into the sacred precincts of this mountain land, and thus warned, no more strangers should trouble their shores. They had drunk together to the success of their plot, and the leader had rather overdone this part of it. Far gone in intoxication, he had been too much fuddled to keep to the plan, had come several hours in advance of the time, had loudly boasted in the little inn of their intentions, and fired his gun in a fit of bravado. At the command of the head of the village he was immediately seized and locked up and his gun taken away. It was a poor old-fashioned affair, arranged with a long fuse wound around the bearer’s wrist, lighted when ready to fire, and inserted in an arm held up by the trigger, the pulling of which raised and removed a small cap which protected the priming powder and dropped the fuse upon it, thus firing the gun. It is with these awkward and clumsy weapons that the cool Korean hunters face and shoot the most formidable leopards, tigers, wild boars and bears which abound in the mountains of Korea. The Korean nobles use tiger and leopard skins on their carrying chairs, and the teeth and claws for ornaments, while the bones, when ground up, are supposed to be unrivalled as a tonic.

Many are the tiger stories told by Koreans; their folklore abounds with them. One very brief one is all I have time to insert. Once upon a time a fierce tiger crept stealthily into a village in search of prey. But every one was in bed, the cattle and pigs well guarded behind palisaded walls, not a child, a dog, or even a chicken lingered outside. He was about to retire in despair of finding a supper there when he spied through the small aperture at the bottom of a gate, such as is found in all gates for the egress of dogs and cats, a small and trembling dog. His majesty tried in vain to squeeze through this hole, and finding it hopeless, took a careful survey of the wall. It was high, it is true, and sharply spiked, but sharply set too was the royal appetite, and he resolved to try the leap, after carefully reckoning the height to be surmounted and his own strength. He was a great agile fellow, and with the exertion of all his might he jumped, barely escaping the spikes, and landed safely inside the inclosure, quite ready for his supper, well aware that he must snatch it quickly and be gone ere the hunter in the cottage should espy and shoot him. But puppy had gathered his tail between his legs, and with loud and long kiyies had slipped through the opening to the outer side of the wall. Nothing remained for our hungry prowler but to try another leap, only to find that his supper had again given him the slip. Alas, that his brains were not equal to his perseverance and industry! I grieve to be obliged to relate that this greedy fellow vaulted back and forth in pursuit of his meal, his anger and appetite growing with every leap, until he died of exhaustion and fell an ignominious prey to his small and elusive foe, illustrating the fact that might does not always win and that the small and weak need not always despair in the contest with size and strength.

In the little hamlet where we met the adventure with the man who meant to kill us we were treated to fine venison and delicious honey. All through the woods we found anemones and other spring flowers and saw specimens of the beautiful pink ibis, belonging to the same family as the bird so often worshiped in Egypt. On the road hither and all around us we saw stacked and ready for sale cords of fine dark hard woods, of which we did not know the names, but much of which looked like black walnut. No one who has traveled through this part of the country could possibly say there was a dearth of trees in Korea, or of singing birds, or sweet-scented flowers, or gorgeous butterflies.