ON THE RIVER OF GOLDEN SAND
During the five weeks which I spent on the Han, though the routine
of daily life varied little, there was no monotony. The country and
the people were new, and we mixed freely, almost too freely, with the
latter; the scenery varied hourly, and after the first few days became
not only beautiful, but in places magnificent, and full of surprises;
the spring was in its early beauty, and the trees in their first
vividness of green, red, and gold; the flowers and flowering shrubs
were in their glory, the crops at their most attractive stage, birds
sang in the thickets, rich fragrant odors were wafted off on the water,
red cattle, though rarely, fed knee-deep in abounding grass, and the
waters of the Han, nearly at their lowest, were clear as crystal, and
their broken sparkle flashed back the sunbeams which passed through a
sky as blue as that of Tibet. There was a prosperous look about the
country too, and its security was indicated by the frequent occurrence
of solitary farms, with high secluding fences, standing under the deep
shade of fine walnut and persimmon trees.
Unlike the bare, arid, denuded hillsides between Chemulpo and Seoul,
the slopes along much of the route are wooded, and in many cases
forested both with coniferæ and deciduous trees, among which there are
occasionally picturesque clumps of umbrella pines. The _Pinus Sinensis_
and the _Abies Microsperma_ abound, and there are two species of oak
and three of maple, a _Platanus_, juniper, ash, mountain ash, birch,
hazel, _Sophora Japonica_, _Euonymus alatus_, _Thuja Orientalis_, and
many others. The heliotrope, pink, and scarlet azaleas were in all
their beauty, flushing the hillsides, and white and sulphur-yellow
clematis, actinidia, and a creeping _Euonymus_ were abundant. Of the
wealth of flowering shrubs, mostly white blossomed, I had never seen
one before either in garden or greenhouse, except the familiar syringa
and spirea. The beautiful _Ampelopsis Veitchiana_ was in its freshest
spring green and tender red, concealing tree trunks, depending from
branches, and draping every cliff and rock with its exquisite foliage;
and roses, red and white, of a free-growing, climbing variety, having
possession even of tall trees, hung their fragrant festoons over the
roads.
It was all very charming, though a little wanting in life. True, there
were butterflies and dragon-flies innumerable, and brilliant green
and brown snakes in numbers, and at first the Han was cheery with
mallard and mandarin-duck, geese and common teal. In the rice fields
the imperial crane, the egret, and the pink ibis with the deep flush
of spring on his plumage, were not uncommon, and peregrines, kestrels,
falcons, and buzzards were occasionally seen. But the song-birds
were few. The forlorn note of the night-jar was heard, and the loud,
cheerful call of the gorgeous ringed pheasant to his dowdy mate; but
the trilling, warbling, and cooing which are the charm of an English
copsewood in springtime are altogether absent, the chatter of the blue
magpie and the noisy flight of the warbler being poor substitutes for
that entrancing concert. Of beast life, undomesticated, there were no
traces, and the domestic animals are few. Sheep do not thrive on the
sour natural grasses of Korea, and if goats are kept I never saw any.
A small black pig not much larger than a pug is universal, and there
are bulls and ponies about the better class of farms. There are big
buff dogs, but these are kept only to a limited extent on the Han, in
the idea that they attract the nocturnal visits of tigers. The dogs are
noisy and voluble, and rush towards a stranger as if bent on attack;
but it is mere bravado--they are despicable cowards, and run away
howling at the shaking of a stick.
Leopards, antelopes, and several species of deer are found among the
mountains bordering the Han, but the beast by preëminence there,
as throughout Korea, is the tiger. At first I was very incredulous
regarding his existence and depredations. It was impossible to believe
that peaceful agricultural valleys surrounded by hills, thinly clothed
with dwarf oak scrub, could be ravaged by him, that dogs, pigs, and
cattle are continually carried off by him, and that human beings
visiting each other at night or belated on the roads are his frequent
prey. But the constant repetition of tiger stories, the terror of the
villagers, the refusal of _mapu_ and coolies to travel after dark, the
certainty that in several places the loss of life had been recent,
and that even in the trim settlement of Wön-san a boy and child
had been seized the day before I arrived and had been eaten on the
hillside above the town, have made me a believer. Possibly some of the
depredations attributed to tigers may be really the work of leopards,
which undoubtedly abound, and have been shot even within the walls of
Seoul. High up the Han, in a very lovely lake-like stretch, there is a
village recently deserted because of the persistency with which tigers
had carried off its inhabitants. The Korean tiger, judging from its
skin, in which the long hair grows out of a thick coat of fine fur,
resembles the Manchurian tiger. I have heard of one which measured
13 feet 4 inches, but never saw a skin more than 11 feet 8 inches in
length.
The tiger-hunters form what may be called a brigade or corps, and may
be called on for military service. They were conspicuous objects in
the _Kur-dong_, with their long matchlock guns, loose blue uniforms,
and conical-crowned, broad-brimmed hats. The tiger appears on the
Royal standard, and tigers’ skins are the insignia of high office, the
leopard skins, indicating lower rank. The Chinese give a very high
price for tigers’ bones as a medicine, considering them a specific for
strength and courage. Tiger-hunting as a business seems confined to
the northern provinces. On the Han, and specially along its northern
affluents, are found three if not four species of deer, and the horns,
in the velvet, of the large deer (_Cervus Manchuricus_), which fetch
from forty to sixty dollars a pair, are the prize most wanted by the
hunters. Pheasants are literally without number and are very tame;
I constantly saw them feeding among the crops within a few yards of
the peasants at their work. They are usually brought down by falcons,
which, when well trained, command as high a price as nine dollars. To
obtain them three small birds are placed in a cylinder of loosely woven
bamboo, mounted horizontally on a pole. On the peregrine alighting
on this, a man who has been concealed throws a net over the whole.
The bird is kept in a tight sleeve for three days. Then he is daily
liberated in a room, and trained to follow a piece of meat pulled over
the floor by a string. At the end of a week he is taken out on his
master’s wrist, and slipped when game is seen. He is not trained to
return. The master rushes upon him and secures him before he has time
to devour the bird. A man told me that he sometimes got between twenty
and thirty pheasants a day, but had to walk or run 100 _li_ to do it.
The season was nearly over, yet I bought fine pheasants on the Han for
threepence and fourpence each. They were cheaper than chickens.
The Han itself, rising in the Diamond Mountain of Kong-wön Do, and
formed by a number of nearly parallel affluents, next to the border
river Am-nok, is _the_ river of Korea, which it cuts nearly across,
its eastern extremity being within 25 miles of the Sea of Japan and
its western at Chemulpo. I ascended it to within 40 miles of the Sea
of Japan, and estimate the length of its navigable waters for small
flat-bottomed craft at about 170 miles. A clear bright stream with a
bottom of white sand, golden gravel or rock, chiefly limestone, with an
average width of 250 yards well sustained to the head of navigation,
narrowed at times by walls of rock or divided by grassy islands in its
lower course, full of pebbly shallows, over which it ripples gaily,
its upper waters abounding in rocky rapids, many of them severe and
dangerous, its most marked features, to my thinking, are its absence
of affluents after it emerges from the Diamond Mountain, and its
singular alternations of shallow with very deep water. It was a common
occurrence to have to drag my boat, drawing only 3 inches, through
water too shallow to float her, and at the top of the ripple to come
upon a broad, still, lake-like, deep, green expanse, 20 feet deep,
continuing for a mile or two.
After passing the forks there are 46 rapids, many of them very severe,
before reaching Yöng-Chhun, which for practical purposes may be
regarded as the limit of navigable water.
These are a most serious obstacle in the way of navigation, but as
there is usually a deep water channel in the middle, sailing junks of
25 tons, taking advantage of strong, favorable winds, get up as far
as Tan-Yang. Beyond, boats not twice the size of my _sampan_ must be
used, which are only poled and dragged, and as they must keep near the
shore, among rocks and furious water, their progress is very slow,
not more than 7 miles a day. Nevertheless, the Han, with all its
difficulties and obstructions, is the great artery of communication for
much of Kong-wön-Do and Kyöng-Kivi Do, and for the northeast portion
of Chung-Chöng Do; down it all the excess produce of this great region
goes to Seoul, and nearly all merchandise, salt, and foreign goods
come up it from the sea-board, to pass into the hands of the _posang_,
or merchant pedlars, at various points, and through them to reach the
market-places of the interior. During the first ten days from Han Kang
there were 75 junks a day on an average bound up and down stream.
There is a very large floating population on the Han. There is not a
bridge along its whole length, but communication is kept up by 47 free
ferries, provided by Government.
Not having been able to learn anything about the route or any of its
features, I was much surprised to find a very large population, not
only along the river, but in the parallel valleys, many of them of
great length and extreme fertility, in its neighborhood. It was only
necessary to climb a ridge or hill to see numbers of these, given up
to rice culture, and thickly sprinkled with farming villages. Along
the river banks only, between Han Kang and Yöng-Chhun, there are 176
villages. Much of the soil is rich alluvium, from 5 to 11 feet deep,
and most prolific, bearing two heavy crops a year (not rice lands) with
little or no manure. There is on the whole an air of greater ease and
prosperity about the Han valley than about any other region that I have
seen in Korea.[13]
The people are of fine physique and generally robust appearance. Some
of them had evidently attained great age. There were a few sore eyes
and some mild skin diseases, both produced by dirt, but there were no
sickly-looking people; infants abounded.
Except for a monastery and temple, both Buddhist, not far from
Seoul, and the Confucian temples at the magistracies, there were no
signs of any other cult than that of dæmons. There were two shrines
containing _mirioks_, in both cases water-worn boulders chafed into
some resemblance to humanity; spirit shrines on heights; and under
large trees heaps of stones sacred to dæmons; tall posts, with the tops
rudely cut into something suggestive of distorted human faces, painted
black and blue, with straw ropes with dependent straw tassels, like
those denoting Shinto shrines in Japan, stretched across the road to
prevent the ingress of malignant spirits, and trees with many streamers
of rag, as well as worn-out straw shoes hanging in their branches, as
offerings to these beings.
The dwellings do not vary much, except that the roofs of the better
class are tiled. In villages where there is a resident _yang-ban_
or squire-noble, his house is usually pretentious, and covers a
considerable area, but yields in stateliness to the family tomb, always
on a hill slope, a great grass mound on a grass platform backed by
horseshoe-shaped grass banks, and usually by a number of fine pines.
In front of the mound is invariably a stone altar on two stone drums,
stone posts which support the canopy used when sacrifices are offered
to the spirit of the deceased, and stone lanterns. A few of the grander
tombs are approached by a short avenue of stone figures of warriors,
horses, servants, and sheep.[14]
The peasant’s houses do not differ from those of the poorer classes in
Seoul. The walls are of mud, and the floors, also of mud, are warmed
by a number of flues, the most economical of all methods of heating,
as the quantity of dried leaves and weeds that a boy of ten can carry
keeps two rooms above 70° for twelve hours. Every house is screened
by a fence 6 feet high of bamboo or plaited reeds, and is usually
surrounded by fruit trees. In one room are _ang-pak_, great earthenware
jars big enough to contain a man, in which rice, millet, barley, and
water are kept. That is frequently in small houses the women’s room.
The men’s room has little in it but the mat on the floor, pillows
of solid wood, and large red and green hat-cases ranging from the
rafters, in which the crinoline dress hats are stowed away. Latticed
and paper-covered doors and windows denote a position above that of the
poorest. A pig-stye, much more substantial than the house, is always
alongside of it.
The villages from about 50 _li_ up the Han from Seoul may all be
described as “farming villages.” Lower down they export large
quantities of firewood and charcoal for the daily needs of a capital
which has left itself without a stick available for fuel in its
immediate neighborhood. No special industries exist. The peasants make
their rude wooden ploughs and spades shod with iron, and two villages
within 40 _li_ of Seoul supply them with their _ang-paks_ and culinary
utensils of the same coarse ware, which stands fire and serves instead
of iron pots. Such iron utensils as are used are imported from Seoul
along with salt, and foreign piece goods for dress clothes, and are
paid for with rice, grain, and tobacco.
The people are peasant farmers in the strictest sense, most of them
holding their lands from the _yang-bans_ at their pleasure. The
proprietor has the right to turn them out after harvest, but it does
not seem to be very oppressively exercised. He provides the seed, and
they pay him half the yield. Some men buy land and obtain title-deeds.
In 1894 they paid in taxes on one day’s ploughing, so much for
barley, beans, rice, and cotton, the sum varying; but a new system
of collecting tax on the assessed value of the land has come into
operation, which renders “squeezing” on the part of the tax collector
far more difficult. Money is scarcely current, business transactions
are by barter, or the peasant pays with his labor. His chief outlay
is on foreign piece cottons for his best clothes. These are 30 _cash_
per measure of 20 inches, dearer at Yöng-Wol, the reputed head of
navigation, than at Seoul.
The population of the Han valley is not poor, if by poverty is to be
understood scarcity of the necessaries of life. The people have enough
for themselves and for all and sundry who, according to Korean custom,
may claim their hospitality. Probably they are all in debt; it is very
rare indeed to find a Korean who has not this millstone round his
neck, and they are destitute of money or possessions other than those
they absolutely require. They appear lazy. I then thought them so, but
they live under a _régime_ under which they have no security for the
gains of labor, and for a man to be reported to be “making money,”
or attaining even the luxury of a brass dinner service, would be
simply to lay himself open to the rapacious attentions of the nearest
mandarin and his myrmidons, or to a demand for a loan from an adjacent
_yang-ban_. Nevertheless, the homesteads of the Han valley have a look
of substantial comfort.
Certainly the meals of the _men_ are taken in far greater tidiness than
is usual among laborers. The women, as is the fashion with women, eat
“anyhow,” and gobble up their lords’ leavings. All meals for men are
served on small, circular, dark wooden tables, a few inches high, one
for each person. Rice is the staple of diet, and is served in a great
bowl, but besides this, there are seldom fewer than five or six glazed
earthenware vessels containing savory, or rather tasty, condiments.[15]
Chop-sticks and small flattish spoons of horn or base metal are used
for eating.
In the villages, as distinguished from the hamlets, on the Han there
are schools, but they are not open to the public. Families club
together and engage a teacher, but the pupils are only of the scholarly
class, and only Chinese learning in Wenli is taught, this being the
stepping-stone to official position, the object of the ambition of
every Korean. _En-mun_ is despised, and is not used as a written
language by the educated class. I observed, however, that a great many
men of the lower orders on the river were able to read their own script.
With the exception of two small Buddhist establishments not far from
Seoul, priests are non-existent on the Han, nor is there any Christian
propaganda, Protestant or Roman, at work, though Roman missionaries
were formerly stationed at two points near the forks. Dæmon-worship
prevails throughout the whole region.
The river is frozen for from three to four months in the winter, and
tends to inundate the lower lands for two months in the summer. The
bridle tracks which skirt it and diverge from it are infamous. The
valley has no mails, and of course no newspapers. The Tong-haks
(rebels, or armed reformers) were strong in a region immediately to the
south of the great bend, which showed some dissatisfaction with things
as they were, and a desire for reform in some minds.
So far as I could learn, the region is not rich in ordinary minerals.
I could hear nothing of “the burning earth,” though the geological
formation renders its existence probable. Copper and iron are worked
not far from the north branch to a limited extent. But the Han is the
“River of Golden Sand,” and though the height of the gold season is
after the summer rains, the _auri sacra fames_ even then attracted
gangs of men to the river banks, and gold in the mountains was a
subject on which the Koreans were always voluble.
The attitude of the people was friendly. I never saw a trace of actual
hostility, though on the higher waters of the south branch it was very
doubtful whether they had seen a European before. Their curiosity was
naturally enormous, and whenever the boat tied up for a day it showed
itself by crowds sitting on the bank as close to it as they could get,
staring apathetically. They were frequently timid, and snatched up
their fowls and hid them when we came in sight, but a little friendly
explanation of our honesty of purpose, and above all, the sight of a
few strings of _cash_, usually set everything straight. A foreigner is
absolutely safe. During the ofttimes tedious process of hauling up the
rapids, when Mr. Miller and the servants were tugging at the ropes, I
constantly strolled for two or three hours by myself along the river
bank, and whether the path led through solitary places or through
villages, I never met with anything more disagreeable than curiosity
shown in a very ill-bred fashion, and that was chiefly on the part of
women. When the people understood that they would be paid it was not
difficult to procure the little they had to sell at fairly reasonable
rates. They were disposed to be communicative, and showed very little
suspicion, far less indeed than in parts of Korea where foreigners are
common. My Chinese servant was everywhere an object of most friendly
curiosity and a centre of pleasurable interest.
The mercury during April and May ranged from 42° to 72°, and the
barometer showed remarkable steadiness. There were two heavy rainfalls,
but the weather on the whole was superb, and the atmosphere clear and
dry.
[Illustration: KOREAN PEASANTS AT DINNER.]
FOOTNOTES:
[13] I am inclined to think that Europeans habitually underestimate the
population. The average I obtained is 8 to a house, taking 70 houses
at random, and this estimate is borne out by General Greathouse, for
some years in Korean Government service, and Mr. Moffett, a resident
and traveller in Korea for seven years, both of whom have given some
attention to the subject. It must be understood that a Korean household
rarely, if ever, consists of a man, wife and children only; there are
parents and relationly hangers-on, to say nothing of possible servants.
[14] Such figures where they occur are always spoken of by foreigners
as sheep, but I doubt whether this animal appears at any but royal
tombs, where it is probably represented as offered in sacrifice by the
King.
[15] These remarks apply to every part of Korea which I afterwards saw.