KOREA, AND HER NEIGHBORS
[Illustration: MRS. BISHOP’S TRAVELING PARTY.]
KOREA
And Her Neighbors
A Narrative of Travel, with
an Account of the Recent
Vicissitudes and Present
Position of the Country
By
Isabella Bird Bishop, F.R.G.S.
_Author of “Unbeaten Tracks in Japan,” etc._
With a Preface by
Sir Walter C. Hillier, K.C.M.G.
_Late British Consul-General for Korea_
With Illustrations from Photographs by the Author,
and Maps, Appendixes and Index
[Illustration]
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
M DCCC XCVIII
Copyright 1897
BY
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
Preface.
I have been honored by Mrs. Bishop with an invitation to preface her
book on Korea with a few introductory remarks.
Mrs. Bishop is too well-known as a traveler and a writer to require
any introduction to the reading public, but I am glad to be afforded
an opportunity of indorsing the conclusions she has arrived at after
a long and intimate study of a people whose isolation during many
centuries renders a description of their character, institutions and
peculiarities, especially interesting at the present stage of their
history.
Those who, like myself, have known Korea from its first opening to
foreign intercourse will thoroughly appreciate the closeness of Mrs.
Bishop’s observation, the accuracy of her facts, and the correctness of
her inferences. The facilities enjoyed by her have been exceptional.
She has been honored by the confidence and friendship of the King and
the late Queen in a degree that has never before been accorded to any
foreign traveler, and has had access to valuable sources of information
placed at her disposal by the foreign community of Seoul, official,
missionary, and mercantile; while her presence in the country during
and subsequent to the war between China and Japan, of which Korea was,
in the first instance, the stage, has furnished her the opportunity of
recording with accuracy and impartiality many details of an episode in
far Eastern history which have hitherto been clouded by misstatement
and exaggeration. The hardships and difficulties encountered by Mrs.
Bishop during her journeys into the interior of Korea have been lightly
touched upon by herself; but those who know how great they were,
admire the courage, patience and endurance that enabled her to overcome
them.
It must be evident to all who know anything of Korea that a condition
of tutelage, in some form or another, is now absolutely necessary to
her existence as a nation. The nominal independence won for her by
the force of Japanese arms is a privilege she is not fitted to enjoy
while she continues to labor under the burden of an administration
that is hopelessly and superlatively corrupt. The _role_ of mentor
and guide exercised by China, with that lofty indifference to local
interests that characterizes her treatment of all her tributaries, was
undertaken by Japan after the expulsion of the Chinese armies from
Korea. The efforts of the Japanese to reform some of the most glaring
abuses, though somewhat roughly applied, were undoubtedly earnest and
genuine; but, as Mrs. Bishop has shown, experience was wanting, and
one of the Japanese Agents did incalculable harm to his country’s
cause by falling a victim to the spirit of intrigue which seems almost
inseparable from the diplomacy of Orientals. Force of circumstances
compelled Russia to take up the task begun by Japan, the King having
appealed in his desperation to the Russian Representative for rescue
from a terrorism which might well have cowed a stronger and a braver
man. The most partial of critics will admit that the powerful influence
which the presence of the King in the house of their Representative
might have enabled the Russian Government to exert has been exercised
through their Minister with almost disappointing moderation.
Nevertheless, through the instrumentality of Mr. M’Leavy Brown, LL.D.,
head of the Korean Customs and Financial Adviser to the Government,
an Englishman whose great ability as an organizer and administrator
is recognized by all residents in the farther East, the finances of
the country have been placed in a condition of equilibrium that has
never before existed; while numerous other reforms have been carried
out by Mr. Brown and others with the cordial support and co-operation
of the Russian Minister, irrespective of the nationality of the agent
employed.
Much, however, still remains to be done; and the only hope of advance
in the direction of progress--initiated, it is only fair to remember,
by Japan, and continued under Russian auspices--is to maintain an iron
grip, which the Russian Agents, so far, have been more careful than
their Japanese predecessors to conceal beneath a velvet glove. The
condition of Korean settlers in Russian territory described by Mrs.
Bishop shows how capable these people are of improving their condition
under wise and paternal rule; and, setting all political considerations
aside, there can be no doubt that the prosperity of the people and
their general comfort and happiness would be immensely advanced under
an extension of this patronage by one or other civilized Power. Without
some form of patronage or control, call it by what name we will, a
lapse into the old groove of oppression, extortion, and its concomitant
miseries, is inevitable.
Mrs. Bishop’s remarks on missionary work in China and Korea, based,
as they are, on personal and sympathetic observation, will be found
of great value to those who are anxious to arrive at a correct
appreciation of Christian enterprise in these remote regions.
Descriptions of missionaries and their doings are too often marred
by exaggerations of success on the one hand, which are, perhaps,
the natural outcome of enthusiasm, and harsh and frequently unjust
criticisms on the other, commonly indulged in by those who base
their conclusions upon observation of the most superficial kind.
Speaking from my own experience, I have no hesitation in saying that
closer inquiry would dispel many of the illusions about the futility
of missionary work that are, unfortunately, too common; and that
missionaries would, as a rule, welcome sympathetic inquiry into
their methods of work, which most of them will frankly admit to be
capable of improvement. But, while courting friendly criticism, they
may reasonably object to be judged by those who have never taken the
trouble to study their system, or to interest themselves in the objects
they have in view. In Mrs. Bishop they have an advocate whose testimony
may be commended to the attention of all who are disposed to regard
missionary labor as, at the best, useless or unnecessary. In Korea,
at all events, to go no farther, it is to missionaries that we are
assuredly indebted for almost all we know about the country; it is they
who have awakened in the people the desire for material progress and
enlightenment that has now happily taken root, and it is to them that
we may confidently look for assistance in its farther development.
The unacknowledged, but none the less complete, religious toleration
that now exists throughout the country affords them facilities which
are being energetically used with great promise of future success. I
am tempted to call attention to another point in connection with this
much-abused class of workers that is, I think, often lost sight of,
namely, their utility as explorers and pioneers of commerce. They are
always ready--at least such has been my invariable experience--to place
the stores of their local knowledge at the disposal of any one, whether
merchant, sportsman, or traveler, who applies to them for information,
and to lend him cheerful assistance in the pursuit of his objects. I
venture to think that much valuable information as to channels for the
development of trade could be obtained by Chambers of Commerce if they
were to address specific inquiries to missionaries in remote regions.
Manufacturers are more indebted to missionaries than perhaps they
realize for the introduction of their goods and wares, and the creation
of a demand for them, in places to which such would never otherwise
have found their way.
It is fortunate that Mrs. Bishop’s visit to Korea was so opportunely
timed. At the present rate of progress much that came under her
observation will, before long, be “improved” out of existence; and
though no one can regret the disappearance of many institutions and
customs that have nothing but their antiquity to recommend them, she
has done valuable service in placing on record so graphic a description
of experiences that future travelers will probably look for in vain.
WALTER C. HILLIER.
_October, 1897._
Author’s Prefatory Note.
My four visits to Korea, between January, 1894, and March, 1897, formed
part of a plan of study of the leading characteristics of the Mongolian
races. My first journey produced the impression that Korea is the most
uninteresting country I ever traveled in, but during and since the war
its political perturbations, rapid changes, and possible destinies,
have given me an intense interest in it; while Korean character and
industry, as I saw both under Russian rule in Siberia, have enlightened
me as to the better possibilities which may await the nation in the
future. Korea takes a similarly strong grip on all who reside in it
sufficiently long to overcome the feeling of distaste which at first it
undoubtedly inspires.
It is a difficult country to write upon, from the lack of books of
reference by means of which one may investigate what one hopes are
facts, the two best books on the country having become obsolete within
the last few years in so far as its political condition and social
order are concerned. The traveler must laboriously disinter each fact
for himself, usually through the medium of an interpreter; and as
five or six versions of each are given by apparently equally reliable
authorities, frequently the “teachers” of the foreigners, the only
course is to hazard a bold guess as to which of them has the best
chance of being accurate.
Accuracy has been my first aim, and my many foreign friends in Korea
know how industriously I have labored to attain it. It is by these,
who know the extreme difficulty of the task, that I shall be the most
leniently criticised wherever, in spite of carefulness, I have fallen
into mistakes.
Circumstances prevented me from putting my traveling experiences, as
on former occasions, into letters. I took careful notes, which were
corrected from time to time by the more prolonged observations of
residents, and as I became better acquainted with the country; but,
with regard to my journey up the South Branch of the Han, as I am
the first traveler who has reported on the region, I have to rely on
my observation and inquiries alone, and there is the same lack of
recorded notes on most of the country on the Upper Tai-döng. My notes
furnish the travel chapters, as well as those on Seoul, Manchuria, and
Primorsk; and the sketches in contemporary Korean history are based
partly on official documents, and are partly derived from sources not
usually accessible.
I owe very much to the kindly interest which my friends in Korea took
in my work, and to the encouragement which they gave me when I was
disheartened by the difficulties of the subject and my own lack of
skill. I gratefully acknowledge the invaluable help given me by Sir
Walter C. Hillier, K.C.M.G., H.B.M.’s Consul-General in Korea, and Mr.
J. M’Leavy Brown, LL.D., Chief Commissioner of Korean Customs; also
the aid generously bestowed by Mr. Waeber, the Russian Minister, and
the Rev. G. Heber Jones, the Rev. James Gale, and other missionaries.
I am also greatly indebted to a learned and careful volume on _Korean
Government_, by Mr. W. H. Wilkinson, H.B.M.’s Acting Vice-Consul
at Chemulpo, as well as to the _Korean Repository_ and the _Seoul
Independent_, for information which has enabled me to correct some of
my notes on Korean customs.
Various repetitions occur, for the reason that it appears to me
impossible to give sufficient emphasis to certain facts without them;
and several descriptions are loaded with details, the result of an
attempt to fix on paper customs and ceremonies destined shortly to
disappear. The illustrations, with the exceptions of three, are
reproductions of my own photographs. The sketch map, in so far as my
first journey is concerned, is reduced from one kindly drawn for me
by Mr. Waeber. The transliteration of Chinese proper names was kindly
undertaken by a well-known Chinese scholar, but unfortunately the
actual Chinese characters were not in all cases forthcoming. In justice
to the kind friends who have so generously aided me, I am anxious to
claim and accept the fullest measure of personal responsibility for the
opinions expressed, which, whether right or wrong, are wholly my own.
I am painfully conscious of the demerits of this work, but believing
that, on the whole, it reflects fairly faithfully the regions of which
it treats, I venture to present it to the public; and to ask for it
the same kindly and lenient criticism with which my records of travel
in the East and elsewhere have hitherto been received, and that it may
be accepted as an honest attempt to make a contribution to the sum of
the knowledge of Korea and its people, and to describe things as I saw
them, not only in the interior but in the troubled political atmosphere
of the capital.
ISABELLA L. BISHOP.
_November, 1897._
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 11
I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF KOREA 23
II. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE CAPITAL 35
III. THE KUR-DONG 49
IV. SEOUL, THE KOREAN MECCA 59
V. THE SAILING OF THE SAMPAN 66
VI. ON THE RIVER OF GOLDEN SAND 71
VII. VIEWS AFLOAT 82
VIII. NATURAL BEAUTY--THE RAPIDS 98
IX. KOREAN MARRIAGE CUSTOMS 114
X. THE KOREAN PONY--KOREAN ROADS AND INNS 121
XI. DIAMOND MOUNTAIN MONASTERIES 133
XII. ALONG THE COAST 150
XIII. IMPENDING WAR--EXCITEMENT AT CHEMULPO 177
XIV. DEPORTED TO MANCHURIA 185
XV. A MANCHURIAN DELUGE--A PASSENGER CART--AN
ACCIDENT 192
XVI. MUKDEN AND ITS MISSIONS 199
XVII. CHINESE TROOPS ON THE MARCH 206
XVIII. NAGASAKI--WLADIVOSTOK 213
XIX. KOREAN SETTLERS IN SIBERIA 223
XX. THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILROAD 239
XXI. THE KING’S OATH--AN AUDIENCE 245
XXII. A TRANSITION STAGE 261
XXIII. THE ASSASSINATION OF THE QUEEN 269
XXIV. BURIAL CUSTOMS 283
XXV. SONG-DO: A ROYAL CITY 292
XXVI. THE PHYONG-YANG BATTLEFIELD 301
XXVII. NORTHWARD HO! 320
XXVIII. OVER THE AN-KIL YUNG PASS 330
XXIX. SOCIAL POSITION OF WOMEN 338
XXX. EXORCISTS AND DANCING WOMEN 344
XXXI. THE HAIR-CROPPING EDICT 359
XXXII. THE REORGANIZED KOREAN GOVERNMENT 371
XXXIII. EDUCATION AND FOREIGN TRADE 387
XXXIV. DÆMONISM OR SHAMANISM 399
XXXV. NOTES ON DÆMONISM CONCLUDED 409
XXXVI. SEOUL IN 1897 427
XXXVII. LAST WORDS ON KOREA 445
APPENDIXES 461
APPENDIX A.--MISSION STATISTICS FOR KOREA 1896.
APPENDIX B.--DIRECT FOREIGN TRADE OF KOREA
1886-95.
APPENDIX C.--RETURN OF PRINCIPAL ARTICLES OF
EXPORT FOR THE YEARS 1896-95.
APPENDIX D.--POPULATION OF TREATY PORTS.
APPENDIX E.--TREATY BETWEEN JAPAN AND RUSSIA,
WITH REPLY OF H.E., THE KOREAN MINISTER
FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
INDEX 475
List of Illustrations.
PAGE
MRS. BISHOP’S TRAVELING PARTY _Frontispiece_
HARBOR OF CHEMULPO _Facing_ 30
GATE OF OLD FUSAN 34
JAPANESE MILITARY CEMETERY, CHEMULPO _Facing_ 38
TURTLE STONE 48
GUTTER SHOP, SEOUL _Facing_ 60
THE AUTHOR’S SAMPAN, HAN RIVER _Facing_ 66
KOREAN PEASANTS AT DINNER 81
A KOREAN LADY 120
THE DIAMOND MOUNTAINS _Facing_ 140
TOMBSTONES OF ABBOTS, YU-CHÖM SA _Facing_ 146
PASSENGER CART, MUKDEN 198
TEMPLE OF GOD OF LITERATURE, MUKDEN _Facing_ 200
GATE OF VICTORY, MUKDEN _Facing_ 208
CHINESE SOLDIERS _Facing_ 210
WLADIVOSTOK _Facing_ 214
RUSSIAN “ARMY,” KRASNOYE CELO _Facing_ 232
KOREAN SETTLER’S HOUSE 238
KOREAN THRONE _Facing_ 248
SUMMER PAVILION, OR “HALL OF CONGRATULATIONS” _Facing_ 254
ROYAL LIBRARY, KYENG-POK PALACE _Facing_ 256
KOREAN GENTLEMAN IN COURT DRESS 260
PLACE OF THE QUEEN’S CREMATION 268
CHIL-SUNG MON, SEVEN STAR GATE 300
ALTAR AT TOMB OF KIT-ZE _Facing_ 318
RUSSIAN SETTLER’S HOUSE _Facing_ 320
UPPER TAI-DÖNG _Facing_ 324
RUSSIAN OFFICERS, HUN-CHUN _Facing_ 330
SOUTH GATE _Facing_ 412
SEOUL AND PALACE ENCLOSURE _Facing_ 428
THE KING OF KOREA _Facing_ 430
KOREAN CADET CORPS AND RUSSIAN DRILL INSTRUCTORS 434
A STREET IN SEOUL _Facing_ 436
KOREAN POLICEMEN, OLD AND NEW 444
[Illustration: GENERAL MAP OF KOREA AND NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES
The Edinburgh Geographical Institute John Bartholomew & Co.
Fleming H. Revell Company.]
Korea and Her Neighbors
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER
In the winter of 1894, when I was about to sail for Korea (to
which some people erroneously give the name of “The Korea”), many
interested friends hazarded guesses at its position,--the Equator, the
Mediterranean, and the Black Sea being among them, a hazy notion that
it is in the Greek Archipelago cropping up frequently. It was curious
that not one of these educated, and, in some cases, intelligent people
came within 2,000 miles of its actual latitude and longitude!
In truth, there is something about this peninsula which has repelled
investigation, and until lately, when the establishment of a monthly
periodical, carefully edited, _The Korean Repository_, has stimulated
research, the one authority of which all writers, with and without
acknowledgment, have availed themselves, is the Introduction to Père
Dallet’s _Histoire de l’Église de Korée_, a valuable treatise, many
parts of which, however, are now obsolete.
If in this volume I present facts so elementary as to provoke the
scornful comment, “Every schoolboy knows that,” I venture to remind
my critics that the larger number of possible readers were educated
when Korea was little more than “a geographical expression,” and
had not the advantages of the modern schoolboy, whose “up-to-date”
geographical text-books have been written since the treaties of 1883
opened the Hermit Nation to the world; and I will ask the minority to
be patient with what may be to them “twice-told tales” for the sake of
the majority, specially in this introduction, which is intended to give
something of lucidity to the chapters which follow.
The first notice of Korea is by Khordadbeh, an Arab geographer of the
ninth century, A.D., in his _Book of Roads and Provinces_, quoted by
Baron Richofen in his work on China, p. 575. Legends of the aboriginal
inhabitants of the peninsula are too mythical to be noticed here, but
it is certain that it was inhabited when Kit-ze or Ki-ja, who will be
referred to later, introduced the elements of Chinese civilization
in the twelfth century B.C. Naturally that conquest and subsequent
immigrations from Manchuria have left some traces on the Koreans, but
they are strikingly dissimilar from both their nearest neighbors,
the Chinese and the Japanese, and there is a remarkable variety
of physiognomy among them, all the more noticeable because of the
uniformity of costume. The difficulty of identifying people which
besets and worries the stranger in Japan and China does not exist in
Korea. It is true that the obliquity of the Mongolian eye is always
present, as well as a trace of bronze in the skin, but the complexion
varies from a swarthy olive to a very light brunette.
There are straight and aquiline noses, as well as broad and snub noses
with distended nostrils; and though the hair is dark, much of it is so
distinctly a russet brown as to require the frequent application of
lampblack and oil to bring it to a fashionable black, while in texture
it varies from wiriness to silkiness. Some men have full moustaches and
large goatees, on the faces of others a few carefully tended hairs, as
in China, do duty for both, while many have full, strong beards. The
mouth is either the wide, full-lipped, gaping cavity constantly seen
among the lower orders, or a small though full feature, or thin-lipped
and refined, as is seen continually among patricians.
The eyes, though dark, vary from dark brown to hazel; the cheek bones
are high; the brow, so far as fashion allows it to be seen, is
frequently lofty and intellectual; and the ears are small and well set
on. The usual expression is cheerful, with a dash of puzzlement. The
physiognomy indicates, in its best aspect, quick intelligence, rather
than force or strength of will. The Koreans are certainly a handsome
race.
The physique is good. The average height of the men is five feet four
and a half[1] inches, that of the women cannot be ascertained, and is
_dis_proportionately less, while their figureless figures, the faults
of which are exaggerated by the ugliest dress on earth, are squat
and broad. The hands and feet of both sexes and all classes are very
small, white, and exquisitely formed, and the tapering, almond-shaped
finger-nails are carefully attended to. The men are very strong, and
as porters carry heavy weights, a load of 100 pounds being regarded as
a moderate one. They walk remarkably well, whether it be the studied
swing of the patrician or the short, firm stride of the plebeian when
on business. The families are large and healthy. If the Government
estimate of the number of houses is correct, the population, taking a
fair average, is from twelve to thirteen millions, females being in the
minority.
Mentally the Koreans are liberally endowed, specially with that
gift known in Scotland as “gleg at the uptak.” The foreign teachers
bear willing testimony to their mental adroitness and quickness of
perception, and their talent for the rapid acquisition of languages,
which they speak more fluently and with a far better accent than either
the Chinese or Japanese. They have the Oriental vices of suspicion,
cunning, and untruthfulness, and trust between man and man is unknown.
Women are secluded, and occupy a very inferior position.
The geography of Korea, or Ch’ao Hsien (“Morning Calm,” or “Fresh
Morning”), is simple. It is a definite peninsula to the northeast of
China, measuring roughly 600 miles from north to south and 135 from
east to west. The coast line is about 1,740 miles. It lies between 34°
17′ N. to 43° N. latitude and 124° 38′ E. to 130° 33′ E. longitude, and
has an estimated area of upwards of 80,000 square miles, being somewhat
smaller than Great Britain. Bounded on the north and west by the
Tu-men and Am-nok, or Yalu, rivers, which divide it from the Russian
and Chinese empires, and by the Yellow Sea, its eastern and southern
limit is the Sea of Japan, a “silver streak,” which has not been its
salvation. Its northern frontier is only conterminous with that of
Russia for 11 miles.
Both boundary rivers rise in Paik-tu San, the “White-Headed Mountain,”
from which runs southwards a great mountain range, throwing off
numerous lateral spurs, itself a rugged spine which divides the
kingdom into two parts, the eastern division being a comparatively
narrow strip between the range and the Sea of Japan, difficult of
access, but extremely fertile; while the western section is composed
of rugged hills and innumerable rich valleys and slopes, well watered
and admirably suited for agriculture. Craters of volcanoes, long since
passed into repose, lava beds, and other signs of volcanic action, are
constantly met with.
The lakes are few and very small, and not many of the streams are
navigable for more than a few miles from the sea, the exceptions
being the noble Am-nok, the Tai-döng, the Nak-tong, the Mok-po, and
the Han, which last, rising in Kang-wön Do, 30 miles from the Sea of
Japan, after cutting the country nearly in half, falls into the sea at
Chemulpo on the west coast, and, in spite of many and dangerous rapids,
is a valuable highway for commerce for over 170 miles.
Owing to the configuration of the peninsula there are few good harbors,
but those which exist are open all the winter. The finest are Fusan
and Wön-san, on Broughton Bay. Chemulpo, which, as the port of Seoul,
takes the first place, can hardly be called a harbor at all, the “outer
harbor,” where large vessels and ships of war lie, being nothing better
than a roadstead, and the “inner harbor,” close to the town, in the
fierce tideway of the estuary of the Han, is only available for five
or six vessels of small tonnage at a time. The east coast is steep and
rocky, the water is deep, and the tide rises and falls from 1 to 2 feet
only. On the southwest and west coasts the tide rises and falls from 26
to 38 feet!
Off the latter coasts there is a remarkable archipelago. Some of the
islands are bold masses of arid rock, the resort of seafowl; others
are arable and inhabited, while the actual coast fringes off into
innumerable islets, some of which are immersed by the spring tides. In
the channels scoured among these by the tremendous rush of the tide,
navigation is ofttimes dangerous. Great mud-banks, specially near the
mouths of the rivers, render parts of the coast-line dubious.
Korea is decidedly a mountainous country, and has few plains deserving
the name. In the north there are mountain groups with definite centres,
the most remarkable being Paik-tu San, which attains an altitude
of over 8,000 feet, and is regarded as sacred. Farther south these
settle into a definite range, following the coast-line at a moderate
distance, and throwing out so many ranges and spurs to the west as to
break up northern and central Korea into a congeries of corrugated and
precipitous hills, either denuded or covered with _chapparal_, and
narrow, steep-sided valleys, each furnished with a stony stream. The
great axial range, which includes the “Diamond Mountain,” a region
containing exquisite mountain and sylvan scenery, falls away as it
descends towards the southern coast, disintegrating in places into
small and often infertile plains.
The geological formation is fairly simple. Mesozoic rocks occur in
Hwang-hai Do, but granite and metamorphic rocks largely predominate.
Northeast of Seoul are great fields of lava, and lava and volcanic
rocks are of common occurrence in the north.
The climate is undoubtedly one of the finest and healthiest in the
world. Foreigners are not afflicted by any climatic maladies, and
European children can be safely brought up in every part of the
peninsula. July, August, and sometimes the first half of September,
are hot and rainy, but the heat is so tempered by sea breezes that
exercise is always possible. For nine months of the year the skies are
generally bright, and a Korean winter is absolutely superb, with its
still atmosphere, its bright, blue, unclouded sky, its extreme dryness
without asperity, and its crisp, frosty nights. From the middle of
September till the end of June, there are neither extremes of heat nor
cold to guard against.
The summer mean temperature at Seoul is about 75° Fahrenheit, that of
the winter about 33°; the average rainfall 36.03 inches in the year,
and the average of the rainy season 21.86 inches.[2] July is the
wettest month, and December the driest. The result of the abundant
rainfall, distributed fairly through the necessitous months of the
year, is that irrigation is necessary only for the rice crop.
The fauna of Korea is considerable, and includes tigers and leopards
in great numbers, bears, antelopes, at least seven species of deer,
foxes, beavers, otters, badgers, tiger-cats, pigs, several species of
marten, a sable (not of much value, however), and striped squirrels.
Among birds there are black eagles, found even near Seoul, harriers,
peregrines (largely used for hawking), pheasants, swans, geese,
spectacled and common teal, mallards, mandarin ducks, turkey buzzards
(very shy), white and pink ibis, sparrow-hawks, kestrels, imperial
cranes, egrets, herons, curlews, night-jars, redshanks, buntings,
magpies (common and blue), orioles, wood larks, thrushes, redstarts,
crows, pigeons, doves, rooks, warblers, wagtails, cuckoos, halcyon
and bright blue kingfishers, jays, snipes, nut-hatches, gray shrikes,
pheasants, hawks, and kites. But until more careful observations have
been made it is impossible to say which of the smaller birds actually
breed in Korea, and which make it only a halting-place in their annual
migrations.
The denudation of the hills in the neighborhood of Seoul, the coasts,
the treaty ports, and the main roads, is impressive, and helps to give
a very unfavorable idea of the country. It is to the dead alone that
the preservation of anything deserving the name of timber in much of
southern Korea is owing. But in the mountains of the northern and
eastern provinces, and specially among those which enclose the sources
of the Tu-men, the Am-nok, the Tai-döng, and the Han, there are very
considerable forests, on which up to this time the woodcutter has made
little apparent impression, though a good deal of timber is annually
rafted down these rivers.
Among the indigenous trees are the _Abies excelsa_, _Abies
microsperma_, _Pinus sinensis_, _Pinus pinea_, three species of
oak, the lime, ash, birch, five species of maple, the _Acanthopanax
ricinifolia_, _Rhus semipinnata_, _Elæagnus_, juniper, mountain
ash, hazel, _Thuja Orientalis_ (?), willow, _Sophora Japonica_
(?), hornbeam, plum, peach, _Euonymus alatus_, etc. The flora is
extensive and interesting, but, with the exception of the azalea and
rhododendron, it lacks brilliancy of color. There are several varieties
of showy clematis, and the _mille-fleur_ rose smothers even large
trees, but the climber _par excellence_ of Korea is the _Ampelopsis
Veitchii_. The economic plants are few, and, with the exception of the
_Panax quinquefolia_ (ginseng), the wild roots of which are worth $15
per ounce, are of no commercial value.
The mineral wealth of Korea is a vexed question. Probably between
the view of the country as an El Dorado and the scepticism as to the
existence of underground treasure at all, the mean lies. Gold is
little used for personal ornaments or in the arts, yet the Korean
declares that the dust of his country is gold; and the unquestionable
authority of a Customs’ report states that gold dust to the amount
of $1,360,279 was exported in 1896, and that it is probable that
the quantity which left the country undeclared was at least as much
again. Silver and galena are found, copper is fairly plentiful, and
the country is rich in undeveloped iron and coal mines, the coal being
of excellent quality. The gold-bearing quartz has never been touched,
but an American Company, having obtained a concession, has introduced
machinery, and has gone to work in the province of Phyöng-an.
The manufactures are unimportant. The best productions are paper of
several qualities made from the _Brousonettia Papyrifera_, among which
is an oiled paper, like vellum in appearance, and so tough that a man
can be raised from the ground on a sheet of it, lifted at the four
corners, fine grass mats, and split bamboo blinds.
The arts are _nil_.
Korea, or Ch’ao Hsien, has been ruled by kings of the present dynasty
since 1392. The monarchy is hereditary, and though some modifications
in a constitutional direction were made during the recent period of
Japanese ascendency, the sovereign is still practically absolute,
his edicts, as in China, constituting law. The suzerainty of China,
recognized since very remote days, was personally renounced by the
king at the altar of the Spirits of the Land in January, 1895, and
the complete independence of Korea was acknowledged by China in the
treaty of peace signed at Shimonoseki in May of the same year. There
is a Council of State composed of a chancellor, five councillors, six
ministers, and a chief secretary. The decree of September, 1896, which
constitutes this body, announces the king’s absolutism in plain terms
in the preamble.
There are nine ministers--the Prime Minister, Minister of the Royal
Household, of Finance, of Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs, War, Justice,
Agriculture, and Education, but the royal will (or whim) overrides
their individual or collective decisions.
The Korean army consists of 4,800 men in Seoul, drilled by Russians,
and 1,200 in the provinces; the navy, of two small merchant steamers.
Korea is divided into 13 provinces and 360 magisterial districts.
The revenue, which is amply sufficient for all legitimate expenses, is
derived from Customs’ duties, under the able and honest management of
officers lent by the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs: a land tax of
$6 on every fertile _kyel_ (a fertile _kyel_ being estimated at about
6¹⁄₃ acres), and $5 on every mountain _kyel_; a household tax of 60
cents per house, houses in the capital enjoying immunity; and a heavy
excise duty of $16 per _cattie_ on manufactured ginseng.
Up to 1876 Korea successfully preserved her isolation, and repelled
with violence any attempt to encroach upon it. In that year Japan
forced a treaty upon her, and in 1882 China followed with “Trade and
Frontier Regulations.” The United States negotiated a treaty in 1882,
Great Britain and Germany in 1884, Russia and Italy in 1886, and
Austria in 1892, in all which, though under Chinese suzerainty, Korea
was treated with as an independent state. By these treaties, Seoul and
the ports of Chemulpo (Jenchuan), Fusan, and Wön-san (Gen-san) were
opened to foreign commerce, and this year (1897) Mok-po and Chinnam-po
have been added to the list.
After the treaties were signed, a swarm of foreign representatives
settled down upon the capital, where three of them are housed in
handsome and conspicuous foreign buildings. The British Minister at
Peking is accredited also to the Korean Court, and Britain has a
resident Consul-General. Japan, Russia, and America are represented
by Ministers, France by a Chargé d’Affaires, and Germany by a Consul.
China, which has been tardy in entering upon diplomatic relations with
Korea since the war, placed her subjects under the protection of the
British Consul-General.
Until recently, the coinage of Korea consisted of debased copper
_cash_, 500 to the dollar, a great check on business transactions; but
a new fractional coinage, of which the unit is a 20-cent piece, has
been put into circulation, along with 5-cent nickel, 5-_cash_ copper,
and 1-_cash_ brass pieces. The fine Japanese _yen_ or dollar is now
current everywhere. The _Dai Ichi Gingo_ and Fifty-eighth Banks of
Japan afford banking facilities in Seoul and the open ports.
In the treaty ports of Fusan, Wön-san, and Chemulpo, there were in
January, 1897, 11,318 foreign residents and 266 foreign business firms.
The Japanese residents numbered 10,711, and their firms 230. The great
majority of the American and French residents are missionaries, and
the most conspicuous objects in Seoul are the Roman Cathedral and the
American Methodist Episcopal Church. The number of British subjects
in Korea in January, 1897, was 65, and an agency of a British firm in
Nagasaki has recently been opened at Chemulpo. The approximate number
of Chinese in Korea at the same time was 2,500, divided chiefly between
Seoul and Chemulpo. There is a newly-instituted postal system for the
interior, with postage stamps of four denominations, and a telegraph
system, Seoul being now in communication with all parts of the world.
The roads are infamous, and even the main roads are rarely more than
rough bridle tracks. Goods are carried everywhere on the backs of men,
bulls, and ponies, but a railroad from Chemulpo to Seoul, constructed
by an American concessionaire, is actually to be opened shortly.
The language of Korea is mixed. The educated classes introduce Chinese
as much as possible into their conversation, and all the literature
of any account is in that language, but it is of an archaic form, the
Chinese of 1,000 years ago, and differs completely in pronunciation
from Chinese as now spoken in China. _En-mun_, the Korean script,
is utterly despised by the educated, whose sole education is in the
Chinese classics. Korean has the distinction of being the only language
of Eastern Asia which possesses an alphabet. Only women, children,
and the uneducated used the _En-mun_ till January, 1895, when a new
departure was made by the official Gazette, which for several hundred
years had been written in Chinese, appearing in a mixture of Chinese
characters and _En-mun_, a resemblance to the Japanese mode of writing,
in which the Chinese characters which play the chief part are connected
by _kana_ syllables.
A further innovation was that the King’s oath of Independence and
Reform was promulgated in Chinese, pure _En-mun_, and the mixed script,
and now the latter is regularly employed as the language of ordinances,
official documents, and the Gazette; royal rescripts, as a rule, and
despatches to the foreign representatives still adhering to the old
form.
This recognition of the Korean language by means of the official use
of the mixed, and in some cases of the pure script, the abolition
of the Chinese literary examinations as the test of the fitness of
candidates for office, the use of the “vulgar” script exclusively in
the _Independent_, the new Korean newspaper, the prominence given to
Korean by the large body of foreign missionaries, and the slow creation
of scientific text-books and a literature in _En-mun_, are tending not
only to strengthen Korean national feeling, but to bring the “masses,”
who can mostly read their own script, into contact with Western science
and forms of thought.
There is no national religion. Confucianism is the official cult, and
the teachings of Confucius are the rule of Korean morality. Buddhism,
once powerful, but “disestablished” three centuries ago, is to be met
with chiefly in mountainous districts, and far from the main roads.
Spirit worship, a species of _shamanism_, prevails all over the
kingdom, and holds the uneducated masses and the women of all classes
in complete bondage.
Christian missions, chiefly carried on by Americans, are beginning to
produce both direct and indirect effects.
Ten years before the opening[3] of Korea to foreigners, the Korean
king, in writing to his suzerain, the Emperor of China, said, “The
educated men observe and practice the teachings of Confucius and Wen
Wang,” and this fact is the key to anything like a correct estimate
of Korea. Chinese influence in government, law, education, etiquette,
social relations, and morals is predominant. In all these respects
Korea is but a feeble reflection of her powerful neighbor; and though
since the war the Koreans have ceased to look to China for assistance,
their sympathies are with her, and they turn to her for noble
ideals, cherished traditions, and moral teachings. Their literature,
superstitions, system of education, ancestral worship, culture, and
modes of thinking are Chinese. Society is organized on Confucian
models, and the rights of parents over children, and of elder over
younger brothers, are as fully recognized as in China.
It is into this archaic condition of things, this unspeakable
grooviness, this irredeemable, unreformed Orientalism, this parody
of China without the robustness of race which helps to hold China
together, that the ferment of the Western leaven has fallen, and this
feeblest of independent kingdoms, rudely shaken out of her sleep of
centuries, half frightened and wholly dazed, finds herself confronted
with an array of powerful, ambitious, aggressive, and not always
overscrupulous powers, bent, it may be, on overreaching her and each
other, forcing her into new paths, ringing with rude hands the knell
of time-honored custom, clamoring for concessions, and bewildering her
with reforms, suggestions, and panaceas, of which she sees neither the
meaning nor the necessity.
And so “The old order changeth, giving place to new,” and many
indications of the transition will be found in the later of the
following pages.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The following are the measurements of 1,060 men taken at Seoul in
January, 1897, by Mr. A. B. Stripling:--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Highest. Lowest. Average.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Height 5 ft. 11¹⁄₄ in. 4 ft. 9¹⁄₂ in. 5 ft. 4¹⁄₂ in.
Size round chest 39¹⁄₄ in. 27 in. 31 in.
“ head 23¹⁄₄ “ 20 “ 21¹⁄₂ “
-------------------------------------------------------------------
[2] These averages are only calculated on observations taken during a
period of three and a half years.
[3] See appendix A.
CHAPTER I
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF KOREA
It is but fifteen hours’ steaming from the harbor of Nagasaki to Fusan
in Southern Korea. The Island of Tsushima, where the _Higo Maru_ calls,
was, however, my last glimpse of Japan; and its reddening maples and
blossoming plums, its temple-crowned heights, its stately flights of
stone stairs leading to Shinto shrines in the woods, the blue-green
masses of its pines, and the golden plumage of its bamboos, emphasized
the effect produced by the brown, bare hills of Fusan, pleasant enough
in summer, but grim and forbidding on a sunless February day. The
Island of the Interrupted Shadow, Chŏl-yong-To, (Deer Island), high and
grassy, on which the Japanese have established a coaling station and a
quarantine hospital, shelters Fusan harbor.
It is not Korea but Japan which meets one on anchoring. The lighters
are Japanese. An official of the _Nippon Yusen Kaisha_ (Japan Mail
Steamship Co.), to which the _Higo Maru_ belongs, comes off with
orders. The tide-waiter, however, is English--one of the English
_employés_ of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, lent to Korea,
greatly to her advantage, for the management of her customs’ revenue.
The foreign settlement of Fusan is dominated by a steep bluff
with a Buddhist temple on the top, concealed by a number of fine
cryptomeria, planted during the Japanese occupation in 1592. It is
a fairly good-looking Japanese town, somewhat packed between the
hills and the sea, with wide streets of Japanese shops and various
Anglo-Japanese buildings, among which the Consulate and a Bank are
the most important. It has substantial retaining and sea walls, and
draining, lighting, and roadmaking have been carried out at the expense
of the municipality. Since the war, waterworks have been constructed
by a rate of 100 _cash_ levied on each house, and it is hoped that the
present abundant supply of pure water will make an end of the frequent
epidemics of cholera. Above the town, the new Japanese military
cemetery, filling rapidly, is the prominent object.
Considering that the creation of a demand for foreign goods is not
thirteen years old, it is amazing to find how the Koreans have taken
to them, and that the foreign trade of Fusan has developed so rapidly
that, while in 1885 the value of exports and imports combined only
amounted to £77,850, in 1892 it had reached £346,608. Unbleached
shirtings, lawns, muslins, cambrics, and Turkey reds for children’s
wear have all captivated Korean fancy; but the conservatism of wadded
cotton garments in winter does not yield to foreign woollens, of which
the importation is literally _nil_. The most amazing stride is in the
importation of American kerosene oil, which has reached 71,000 gallons
in a quarter; and which, by displacing the fish-oil lamp and the dismal
rushlight in the paper lantern, is revolutionizing evening life in
Korea. Matches, too, have “caught on” wonderfully, and evidently have
“come to stay.” Hides, beans, dried fish, _bêche de mer_, rice, and
whale’s flesh are among the principal exports. It was not till 1883
that Fusan was officially opened to general foreign trade, and its
rise has been most remarkable. In that year its foreign population was
1,500; in 1897 it was 5,564.
In the first half of 1885 the Japan Mail Steamship Co. ran only one
steamer, calling at Fusan, to Wladivostok every five weeks, and a small
boat to Chemulpo, calling at Fusan, once a month. Now not a day passes
without steamers, large or small, arriving at the port, and in addition
to the fine vessels of the _Nippon Yusen Kaisha_, running frequently
between Kobe and Wladivostok, Shanghai and Wladivostok, Kobe and
Tientsin, and between Kobe Chefoo, and Newchang, all calling at Fusan,
three other lines, including one from Osaka direct, and a Russian mail
line running between Shanghai and Wladivostok, make Fusan a port of
call.
It appears that about one-third of the goods imported is carried inland
on the backs of men and horses. The taxes levied and the delays at
the barriers on both the overland and river routes are intolerable
to traders, a hateful custom prevailing under which each station is
controlled by some petty official, who, for a certain sum paid to the
Government in Seoul, obtains permission to levy taxes on all goods.[4]
The Nak-Tong River, the mouth of which is 7 miles from Fusan, is
navigable for steamers drawing 5 feet of water as far as Miriang, 50
miles up, and for junks drawing 4 feet as far as Sa-mun, 100 miles
farther, from which point their cargoes, transhipped into light
draught boats, can ascend to Sang-chin, 170 miles from the coast. With
this available waterway, and a hazy prospect that the much disputed
Seoul-Fusan railway may become an accomplished fact, Fusan bids fair
to become an important centre of commerce, as the Kyöng-sang Province,
said to be the most populous of the eight (now for administrative
purposes thirteen), is also said to be the most prosperous and
fruitful, with the possible exception of Chul-la.
Barren as the neighboring hills look, they are probably rich in
minerals. Gold is found in several places within a radius of 50 miles,
copper quite near, and there are coal fields within 100 miles.
To all intents and purposes the settlement of Fusan is Japanese. In
addition to the Japanese population of 5,508, there is a floating
population of 8,000 Japanese fishermen. A Japanese Consul-General
lives in a fine European house. Banking facilities are furnished by
the Dai Ichi Gingo of Tokio, and the post and telegraph services are
also Japanese. Japanese too is the cleanliness of the settlement,
and the introduction of industries unknown to Korea, such as rice
husking and cleaning by machinery, whale-fishing, _sake_-making, and
the preparation of shark’s fins, _bêche de mer_, and fish manure,
the latter an unsavory fertilizer, of which enormous quantities are
exported to Japan.
But the reader asks impatiently, “Where are the Koreans? I don’t want
to read about the Japanese!” Nor do I want to write about them, but
facts are stubborn, and they are the outstanding Fusan fact.
As seen from the deck of the steamer, a narrow up and down path keeping
at some height above the sea skirts the hillside for 3 miles from
Fusan, passing by a small Chinese settlement with official buildings,
uninhabited when I last saw them, and terminating in the walled town
of Fusan proper, with a fort of very great antiquity outside it,
modernized by the Japanese after the engineering notions of three
centuries ago.
Seated on the rocks along the shore were white objects resembling
pelicans or penguins, but as white objects with the gait of men moved
in endless procession to and fro between old and new Fusan, I assumed
that the seated objects were of the same species. The Korean makes
upon one the impression of novelty, and while resembling neither the
Chinese nor the Japanese, he is much better-looking than either,
and his physique is far finer than that of the latter. Though his
average height is only 5 feet 4¹⁄₂ inches, his white dress, which
is voluminous, makes him look taller, and his high-crowned hat,
without which he is never seen, taller still. The men were in winter
dress--white cotton sleeved robes, huge trousers, and socks; all
wadded. On their heads were black silk wadded caps with pendant sides
edged with black fur, and on the top of these, rather high-crowned,
somewhat broad-brimmed hats of black “crinoline” or horsehair gauze,
tied under the chin with crinoline ribbon. The general effect was
grotesque. There were a few children on the path, bundles of gay
clothing, but no women.
I was accompanied to old Fusan by a charming English “Una,” who,
speaking Korean almost like a native, moved serenely through the
market-day crowds, welcomed by all. A miserable place I thought it, and
later experience showed that it was neither more nor less miserable
than the general run of Korean towns. Its narrow dirty streets consist
of low hovels built of mud-smeared wattle without windows, straw
roofs, and deep eaves, a black smoke-hole in every wall 2 feet from
the ground, and outside most are irregular ditches containing solid
and liquid refuse. Mangy dogs and blear-eyed children, half or wholly
naked, and scaly with dirt, roll in the deep dust or slime, or pant and
blink in the sun, apparently unaffected by the stenches which abound.
But market-day hid much that is repulsive. Along the whole length of
the narrow, dusty, crooked street, the wares were laid out on mats on
the ground, a man or an old woman, bundled up in dirty white cotton,
guarding each. And the sound of bargaining rose high, and much breath
was spent on beating down prices, which did not amount originally to
the tenth part of a farthing. The goods gave an impression of poor
buyers and small trade. Short lengths of coarse white cotton, skeins
of cotton, straw shoes, wooden combs, tobacco pipes and pouches,
dried fish and seaweed, cord for girdles, paper rough and smooth, and
barley-sugar nearly black, were the contents of the mats. I am sure
that the most valuable stock-in-trade there was not worth more than
three dollars. Each vendor had a small heap of _cash_ beside him, an
uncouth bronze coin with a square hole in the centre, of which at that
time 3,200 _nominally_ went to the dollar, and which greatly trammelled
and crippled Korean trade.
A market is held in Fusan and in many other places every fifth day.
On these the country people rely for all which they do not produce,
as well as for the sale or barter of their productions. Practically
there are no shops in the villages and small towns, their needs
being supplied on stated days by travelling pedlars who form a very
influential guild.
Turning away from the bustle of the main street into a narrow,
dirty alley, and then into a native compound, I found the three
Australian ladies who were the objects of my visit to this decayed and
miserable town. Except that the compound was clean, it was in no way
distinguishable from any other, being surrounded by mud hovels. In one
of these, exposed to the full force of the southern sun, these ladies
were living. The mud walls were concealed with paper, and photographs
and other European knickknacks conferred a look of refinement. But
not only were the rooms so low that one of the ladies could not stand
upright in them, but privacy was impossible, invasions of Korean women
and children succeeding each other from morning to night, so that
even dressing was a spectacle for the curious. Friends urged these
ladies not to take this step of living in a Korean town 3 miles from
Europeans. It was represented that it was not safe, and that their
health would suffer from the heat and fetid odors of the crowded
neighborhood, etc. In truth it was not a “conventional thing” to do.
On my first visit I found them well and happy. Small children were
clinging to their skirts, and a certain number of women had been
induced to become cleanly in their persons and habits. All the
neighbors were friendly, and rude remarks in the streets had altogether
ceased. Many of the women resorted to them for medical help, and the
simple aid they gave brought them much good-will. This friendly and
civilizing influence was the result of a year of living under very
detestable circumstances. If they had dwelt in grand houses 2¹⁄₂ miles
off upon the hill, it is safe to say that the result would have been
_nil_. Without any fuss or blowing of trumpets, they quietly helped to
solve one of the great problems as to “Missionary Methods,” though why
it should be a “problem” I fail to see. In the East at least, every
religious teacher who has led the people has lived among them, knowing
if not sharing their daily lives, and has been easily accessible at all
times. It is not easy to imagine a Buddha or One greater than Buddha
only reached by favor of, and possibly by feeing, a gate-keeper or
servant.
On visiting them a year later I found them still well and happy. The
excitement among the Koreans consequent on the Tong-hak rebellion and
the war had left them unmolested. A Japanese regiment had encamped
close to them, and, by permission, had drawn water from the well in
their compound, and had shown them nothing but courtesy. Having in
two years gained general confidence and good-will, they built a small
bungalow just above the old native house, which has been turned into a
very primitive orphanage.
The people were friendly and kind from the first. Those who were the
earliest friends of the ladies are their staunchest friends now, and
they knew them and their aims so well when they moved into their new
house that it made no difference at all. Some go there to see the
ladies, others to see the furniture or hear the organ, and a few to
inquire about the “Jesus doctrine.” The “mission work” now consists of
daily meetings for worship, classes for applicants for baptism, classes
at night for those women who may not come out in the daytime, a Sunday
school with an attendance of eighty, visiting among the people, and
giving instruction in the country and surrounding villages. About forty
adults have professed Christianity, and regularly attend Christian
worship.
I mention these facts not for the purpose of glorifying these ladies,
who are simply doing their duty, but because they fall in with a theory
of my own as to methods of mission work.
There is a very small Roman Catholic mission-house, seldom tenanted,
between the two Fusans. In the province of Kyöng-sang in which they
are, there are Roman missions which claim 2,000 converts, and to
promulgate Christianity in thirty towns and villages. There are
two foreign priests, who spend most of the year in teaching in the
provincial villages, living in Korean huts, in Korean fashion, on
Korean food.
A coarse ocean with a distinct line of demarcation between the blue
water of the Sea of Japan and the discoloration of the Yellow Sea,
harsh, grim, rocky, brown islands, mostly uninhabited--two monotonously
disagreeable days, more islands, muddier water, an estuary and junks,
and on the third afternoon from Fusan the _Higo Maru_ anchored in the
roadstead of Chemulpo, the seaport of Seoul. This cannot pretend to
be a harbor, indeed most of the roadstead, such as it is, is a slimy
mud flat for much of the day, the tide rising and falling 36 feet.
The anchorage, a narrow channel in the shallows, can accommodate five
vessels of moderate size. Yet though the mud was _en évidence_, and
the low hill behind the town was dull brown, and a drizzling rain was
falling, I liked the look of Chemulpo better than I expected, and after
becoming acquainted with it in various seasons and circumstances,
I came to regard it with very friendly feelings. As seen from the
roadstead, it is a collection of mean houses, mostly of wood, painted
white, built along the edge of the sea and straggling up a verdureless
hill, the whole extending for more than a mile from a low point on
which are a few trees, crowned by the English Vice-Consulate, a
comfortless and unworthy building, to a hill on which are a large
decorative Japanese tea-house, a garden, and a Shinto shrine. Salient
features there are none, unless the house of a German merchant, an
English church, the humble buildings of Bishop Corfe’s mission on the
hill, the large Japanese Consulate, and some new municipal buildings on
a slope, may be considered such. As at Fusan, an English tide-waiter
boarded the ship, and a foreign harbormaster berthed her, while a
Japanese clerk gave the captain his orders.
[Illustration: HARBOR OF CHEMULPO.]
Mr. Wilkinson, the acting British Vice-Consul, came off for me,
and entertained me then and on two subsequent occasions with great
hospitality, but as the Vice-Consulate had at that time no guest-room,
I slept at a Chinese inn, known as “Steward’s,” kept by Itai, an honest
and helpful man who does all he can to make his guests comfortable, and
partially succeeds. This inn is at the corner of the main street of
the Chinese quarter, in a very lively position, as it also looks down
the main street of the Japanese settlement. The Chinese settlement is
solid, with a handsome _yamen_ and guild hall, and rows of thriving
and substantial shops. Busy and noisy with the continual letting off
of crackers and beating of drums and gongs, the Chinese were obviously
far ahead of the Japanese in trade. They had nearly a monopoly of the
foreign “custom”; their large “houses” in Chemulpo had branches in
Seoul, and if there were any foreign requirement which they could not
meet, they procured the article from Shanghai without loss of time.
The haulage of freight to Seoul was in their hands, and the market
gardening, and much besides. Late into the night they were at work,
and they used the roadway for drying hides and storing kerosene tins
and packing cases. Scarcely did the noise of night cease when the din
of morning began. To these hard-working and money-making people rest
seemed a superfluity.
The Japanese settlement is far more populous, extensive, and
pretentious. Their Consulate is imposing enough for a legation. They
have several streets of small shops, which supply the needs chiefly
of people of their own nationality, for foreigners patronize Ah Wong
and Itai, and the Koreans, who hate the Japanese with a hatred three
centuries old, also deal chiefly with the Chinese. But though the
Japanese were outstripped in trade by the Chinese, their position in
Korea, even before the war, was an influential one. They gave “postal
facilities” between the treaty ports and Seoul and carried the foreign
mails, and they established branches of the First National Bank[5]
in the capital and treaty ports, with which the resident foreigners
have for years transacted their business, and in which they have full
confidence. I lost no time in opening an account with this Bank in
Chemulpo, receiving an English check-book and pass-book, and on all
occasions courtesy and all needed help. Partly owing to the fact that
English cottons for Korea are made in bales too big for the Lilliputian
Korean pony, involving reduction to more manageable dimensions on being
landed, and partly to causes which obtain elsewhere, the Japanese
are so successfully pushing their cottons in Korea, that while they
constituted only 3 per cent. of the imports in 1887, they had risen
to something like 40 per cent. in 1894.[6] There is a rapidly growing
demand for yarn to be woven on native looms. The Japanese are well
to the front with steam and sailing tonnage. Of 198 steamers entered
inwards in 1893, 132 were Japanese; and out of 325 sailing vessels,
232 were Japanese. It is on record that an English merchantman was
once seen in Chemulpo roads, but actually the British mercantile flag,
unless on a chartered steamer, is not known in Korean waters. Nor was
there in 1894 an English merchant in the Korean treaty ports, or an
English house of business, large or small, in Korea.
Just then rice was in the ascendant. Japan by means of pressure
had induced the Korean Government to consent to suspend the decree
forbidding its export, and on a certain date the sluices were to be
opened. Stacks of rice bags covered the beach, rice in bulk being
measured into bags was piled on mats in the roadways, ponies and
coolies rice-laden filed in strings down the streets, while in the
roadstead a number of Japanese steamers and junks awaited the taking
off the embargo at midnight on 6th March. A regular rice babel
prevailed in the town and on the beach, and much disaffection prevailed
among the Koreans at the rise in the price of their staple article of
diet. Japanese agents scoured the whole country for rice, and every
_cattie_ of it which could be spared from consumption was bought in
preparation for the war of which no one in Korea dreamed at that time.
The rice bustle gave Chemulpo an appearance of a thriving trade which
it is not wont to have except in the Chinese settlement. Its foreign
population in 1897 was 4,357.
The reader may wonder where the Koreans are at Chemulpo, and in truth
I had almost forgotten them, for they are of little account. The
increasing native town lies outside the Japanese settlement on the
Seoul road, clustering round the base of the hill on which the English
church stands, and scrambling up it, mud hovels planting themselves
on every ledge, attained by filthy alleys, swarming with quiet dirty
children, who look on the high-road to emulate the _do-lessness_ of
their fathers. Korean, too, is the official _yamen_ at the top of the
hill, and Korean its methods of punishment, its brutal flagellations
by _yamen_ runners, its beating of criminals to death, their howls of
anguish penetrating the rooms of the adjacent English mission, and
Korean too are the bribery and corruption which make it and nearly
every _yamen_ sinks of iniquity. The gate with its double curved roofs
and drum chamber over the gateway remind the stranger that though the
capital and energy of Chemulpo are foreign, the government is native.
Not Korean is the abode of mercy on the other side of the road from the
_yamen_, the hospital connected with Bishop Corfe’s mission, where in
a small Korean building the sick are received, tended, and generally
cured by Dr. Landis, who himself lives as a Korean in rooms 8 feet by
6, studying, writing, eating, without chair or table, and accessible
at all times to all comers. The 6,700 inhabitants of the Korean town,
or rather the male half of them, are always on the move. The narrow
roads are always full of them, sauntering along in their dress hats,
not apparently doing anything. It is old Fusan over again, except
that there are permanent shops, with stocks-in-trade worth from one
to twenty dollars; and as an hour is easily spent over a transaction
involving a few _cash_, there is an appearance of business kept up.
In the settlement the Koreans work as porters and carry preposterous
weights on their wooden packsaddles.
[Illustration: GATE OF OLD FUSAN]
FOOTNOTES:
[4] According to Mr. Hunt, the Commissioner of Customs at Fusan, in
the Kyöng-sang province alone there are 17 such stations. Fusan is
hedged round by a cordon of them within a ten-mile radius, and on the
Nak-tong, which is the waterway to the provincial capital, there are
four in a distance of 25 miles.
[5] Now the _Dai Ichi Gingo_.
[6] For latest trade statistics see appendix B.