VIEWS AFLOAT
A few hours sufficed for settling in our very narrow quarters, and by
the end of the second day we had shaken down into an orderly routine.
By dint of much driving Kim was induced to start about seven, at
which hour I had my flour and water stirabout. The halts for smoking,
cooking, and eating were many, and about five o’clock he used to
simulate exhaustion, a deception to which his lean form and thin face
with its straight straggling white hair lent themselves effectively.
Then followed the daily wrangle about the place to tie up, Kim
naturally desiring a village and the proximity of junks, with much
nocturnal smoking and gossip, while my wish was for solitude, quiet,
and a pebbly river bottom, and with Mr. Miller’s aid I usually carried
my point. Between Kim’s laziness and the frequent occurrence of rapids,
10 miles came to be considered a good day’s journey! The same rapids
made any settled plan of occupation impossible, yet on the early stages
of the journey, when there were long quiet stretches of water between
them, it was pleasant to elevate the roof and have a quiet morning’s
work till dinner at twelve.
This, it must be confessed, was a precarious meal. Chickens for curry
were not always attainable, and were often so small as to suggest the
egg shell, and the river fish which were sometimes got by pouncing
on a boy fisherman were very minute and bony. Chestnuts often eked
out a very scanty meal. Wong used to hunt along the river banks for
wild onions and carrots, after the stock of the cultivated roots was
exhausted, and he made paste of flour and water, rolled it with a
bamboo on the top of a box, cut it into biscuits with the lid of
a tin, and baked them in the frying-pan. Rice fritters too he made
morning, noon, and night. Afternoon tea of Burrough’s and Wellcome’s
“tabloids” was never omitted, and after tying up came supper, an
impoverished repetition of dinner, the whole a wholesome regimen,
invariably eaten with appetite.
Visiting villages and small towns, only to find the first a collection
of mud hovels, and the last mud hovels with the addition of ruinous
official buildings and a forlorn Confucian temple, climbing to ridges
bordering the Han to get a view of fertile and populous valleys,
conversing with and interrogating the people through Mr. Miller and his
servant, taking geographical notes, temperatures, altitudes, barometric
readings, and measurements of the river (nearly all unfortunately lost
in a rapid on the downward journey), collecting and drying plants,
photographing, and developing negatives under difficulties, all the
blankets and waterproofs in the boat being requisitioned for the
creation of a “dark room”--all these occupations made up busy and
interesting days.
The first two days were spent in turning the flank of the range on
which is the so-called fortress of Nam Han, with its priest soldiers,
one of the four which are supposed to guard Seoul and offer refuge
in times of trouble. On the right bank there are many villages of
farmers, woodcutters, and charcoal burners, and on the left an expanse
of cultivated sandy soil between the mountains and the river, there a
broad rapid stream rippling brightly over white sand or golden gravel.
After passing the Yang-kun magistracy, a large village with a long
street, where a whole fleet of _sampans_ was loading with country
produce for the capital, and a number of junks were unloading salt, the
Han makes a sharp bend to the south, and after a long rapid expands
into a very broad stream. The valley broadens also, and becomes flat,
the hills, absolutely denuded even of scrub, are low, and recede from
the river; their serrated black ridges of rock, and their deeply
scored, corrugated, flushed sides, which spring had scarcely tinged
with green, are forbidding, and though the valley was green with young
wheat, that is quite the most monotonous and uninteresting part of the
journey.
After circumventing the fine fortress summit of Nam Han, the river
enters the mountains. From that time up to the head of possible
navigation, the scenery in its variety, beauty, and unexpectedness
exhausts the vocabulary of admiration.
A short distance above Han Kang is the Buddhist temple, of Ryeng-an
Sa, dedicated to the Dragon, one of the two Buddhist sanctuaries on
the long course of the Han. On the left bank a low stone wall encloses
a spot on which a female dragon alighted from heaven in the days of
the last dynasty, and where still, in times of flood or drought,
sacrifices are offered and libations poured out to “Heaven.” The
only other temple is that of Pyök-chol on the right bank of the Han,
above Yö Ju, four days from Seoul. A steep wooded promontory projects
into the still, deep, green water, crowned with two brick and stone
pagodas. In a wooded dell at the back there are some picturesque and
elaborately carved and painted temples and monastic buildings, and a
fine bell five centuries old, surmounted by an entanglement of dragons,
which, with some medallions on the sides, are of very bold design
and successful workmanship, and the whole is said to have been cast
in Chung-Chöng Do before the Japanese stole the arts and artists! A
pavilion for the temple dramas was occupied for the afternoon by a
large picnic of women and children from Yö Ju. In one of the monastic
courts there is a marble pagoda with some finely executed bas-reliefs
on its sides, claiming a not distant kinship with those of the “marble
pagoda” in Seoul. The establishment consisted of an abbot, nineteen
monks, and four novices. The abbot was the most refined, intellectual,
and aristocratic-looking man that I saw in Korea, with an innate
courtesy and refinement of manner rare anywhere. He carried the weight
of seventy years with much grace and dignity, and made us cordially
welcome. This was the last we saw of Buddhism till we reached the
Diamond Mountain six weeks later.
At the village of Tomak-na-dali, where we tied up, they make the great
purple-black jars and pots which are in universal use. Their method
is primitive. They had no objection to be watched, and were quite
communicative. The potters pursue their trade in open sheds, digging
up the clay close by. The stock-in-trade is a pit in which an uncouth
potter’s wheel revolves, the base of which is turned by the feet of
a man who sits on the edge of the hole. A wooden spatula, a mason’s
wooden trowel, a curved stick, and a piece of rough rag are the tools,
efficient for the purpose. Fifty _li_ higher up, a few _li_ from the
river, are beds of kaolin used in the Government pottery and for the
finer kinds of porcelain.
For two days the Han was about 400 yards wide, with a very tortuous
course, abounding in rapids, shallows, and green islands, with great
expanses of pure white sand on its left bank, and frequent villages of
woodcutters and charcoal burners on both. On the 16th we reached the
forks at the village of Ma-chai. There the north branch, which was to
be afterwards traversed, comes down, and the south branch, in every way
more important, arrives from the southward. Between the two there is a
pretty wooded island then pink with azalea blossom. Beyond is a fine
stretch of alluvium, nearly 6 feet deep, bearing rich crops of barley
and wheat, but entirely unprotected from the desolations of the river
in its annual rise, which engulfs every year acres of this prolific
soil. Ten years ago the Han, altering its course, brought down from the
top of a steep bank at some distance a huge concrete double coffin 9
feet long and 16 inches thick! The great alluvial expanse was make over
to the Buddhists by the King, who receives annually a fixed amount of
the produce.
Between Kim’s laziness and plausibility, and the rapids, which though
not severe were frequent, and the food hunt, which was a necessity,
our progress was slow, and it was not till the 19th of April that we
reached Yö Ju, the first town of any importance and the birthplace of
the late Queen. It is memorable to me as being the first place where
the crowd was obstreperous and obnoxious, though not hostile. It is
humiliating to be a “show” and to get nothing by it! I went out on a
rock in the river in the hope of using the prismatic compass in peace,
and was nearly pushed into the water, and when I went up into the gate
tower a stamping, curious crowd, climbing on everything that afforded a
point of vantage, shook the old fabric so severely that the delicately
balanced needle never came to rest. The crowd was dirty, the streets
were foul and decayed, and worst of all was the magistrate’s _yamen_,
to which we had occasion to go, and where I found that a _kwan-ja_ was
powerless to obtain even common civility.
The _yamen_, though finely situated and enclosing in its grounds
a large and much decorated pavilion for Royal use, but used as a
children’s playground, was in a state of wreck. The woodwork was
crumbling, beams and rafters were falling down, lacquer and paint were
scaling off, torn paper fluttered from the lattice windows, plaster
hung from the grimy walls, the once handsome gate tower was on its
last legs, in the courtyard some flagstones had subsided, others were
exalted, and audacious ragweed and shepherd’s purse grew in their
crevices. Poverty, neglect, and melancholy reigned supreme. Within
the gates were plenty of those persons who suck the lifeblood of
Korea. There were soldiers in Tyrolese hats and coarse cotton uniforms
in which blue predominated, _yamen_ runners in abundance, writers,
officers of _in_justice, messengers pretending to have business on
hand, and many small rooms, in which were many more men sitting on the
floor smoking long pipes, with writing materials beside them.
One attendant, by no means polite, took my _kwan-ja_ to the magistrate,
and very roughly led the way to two small rooms, in the inner one
of which the official was seated on the floor, surrounded by a few
elderly men. We were directed to stand at the opening between the two
rooms, and behind us pressed as many of the crowd as could get in. I
bowed low. No notice was taken. An attendant handed the magistrate
a pipe, so long that it would have been impossible for him to light
it for himself, and he smoked. Mr. Miller hoped that he was in good
health. No reply, and the eyes were never raised. Mr. Miller explained
the object of the visit, which was to get a little information about
the neighborhood. There was only a very curt reply, and as the great
man turned to one of his subordinates and began to talk to him, and
rude remarks were circulating, we took leave with the usual Korean
phrases of politeness, which were not reciprocated.
We were told that there are many “high _yang-bans_” in Yö Ju, and it
seemed natural that the magistrate of a town of only 700 houses should
not be a man of high rank. The story goes that when he came they used
“low talk” to him and ordered him about as their inferior. So he lives
chiefly in Seoul, and the man who sat in sordid state amidst the ruins
of the spacious and elaborately decorated _yamen_ does his work and
divides the spoils, and the _yang-bans_ are left to whatever their
devices may be. But this is not an isolated case. Nearly all the river
magistrates are mainly absentees, and spend their time, salaries,
and squeezings in the capital. I had similar interviews with three
other magistrates. I asked nothing except change in _cash_ for three
_yen_, and on each occasion was told that the treasury was empty. My
_kwan-ja_, a pompous document from the Foreign Office, was of this use
only, it procured me a chicken at a high price in a town where the
people were unwilling to sell!
At Yö Ju I saw for the only time either in Korea or China the interior
of an ancestral temple. It is a lofty building, with a curved tile
roof and blackwood ceiling, approached by a roofed gateway. Opposite
the entrance is an ebony stool, on which are a brass bowl and incense
burner. Above this is a large altar, supporting two candlesticks with
candles, and above that again an ebony stand on which rests a polished
black marble tablet inscribed with the name of the deceased. Behind
that, in a recess in the wall, with elaborate fretwork doors, is his
life-sized portrait in Chinese style. The floor is covered with plain
matting. In the tablet the third soul of the deceased is supposed to
dwell. Food is placed before it three times daily for three years in
the case of a parent, and there the relations, after the expiration of
that period, meet at stated seasons every year and offer sacrifice and
“worship.”
At the large and prosperous-looking village of Chön-yaing the people
told us that a “circus” was about to perform and impelled us towards
it; but finding that it was in the courtyard of a large tiled-roof
mansion, in good repair and of much pretension, we were retiring, when
we were cordially invited to enter, and I was laid hold of (literally)
by the serving-women and dragged through the women’s court and into
the women’s apartments. I was surrounded by fully forty women, old and
young, wives, concubines, servants, all in gala dress and much adorned.
The principal wife, a very young girl wearing some Indian jewellery,
was very pretty and had an exquisite complexion, but one and all were
destitute of manners. They investigated my clothing, pulled me about,
took off my hat and tried it on, untwisted my hair and absorbed my
hairpins, pulled off my gloves and tried them on with shrieks of
laughter, and then, but not till they had exhausted all the amusement
which could be got out of me, they bethought themselves of entertaining
me by taking me through their apartments, crowding upon me to such an
extent as they did so that I was nearly carried off my feet. They took
me through fourteen communicating rooms, with fine parquet floors,
mostly spoiled by being covered in whole or in part with Brussels
tapestry carpets of “loud” and vulgar patterns in hideous aniline dyes.
Great mirrors in tawdry gilt frames glared from the tender coloring
of the walls, and French clocks asserted their expensive vulgarity in
every room.
In the outer court a rope was stretched for the rope-dancers, and
kettledrums and reed-pipes gave promise of such music as Koreans
love. I was escorted across two other courts surrounded by verandas
supported on dressed stone, and with iron railings instead of wood,
to an elevated reception room, where a foreign table and some tawdry
velvet-covered chairs clashed with the tastefulness of the walls and
the fine mats bordered with the Greek fret on the floor. French clocks,
all keeping different time, were much _en évidence_. The host, a youth
of eighteen, eldest son of the governor of one of the most important
governorships in Korea, welcomed us, and seemed anxious to receive us
courteously. Wine, soup, eggs, and _kimchi_, an elaborate sort of “sour
kraut,” were produced, and had to be partaken of, our host meanwhile
smoking an expensive foreign cigar, which gave him an opportunity for
the ostentatious display of a showy diamond ring. He was dressed in
sea-green silk, and wore a hat of very fine quality.
He wanted to see the inside of my camera and to be photographed, for
which purpose we retired to the back of the house to avoid the enormous
crowd which had collected, and which was becoming every moment more
impolite and disorderly. I made him exchange the foreign cigar, vulgar
in a Korean’s mouth, for the national long pipe. At this juncture some
friends came up, hangers-on, who were feasting with him to celebrate
his having obtained a good place in a recent examination, and made a
rudely-worded request for our immediate departure. It was obvious that,
after their unmannerly curiosity had been satisfied, our presence,
and the courteous treatment extended to us, spoilt their amusement.
The ringleader spoke roughly to our host, who turned his back on us
and retired meekly to his own apartments, although he is a son of an
official of the highest rank, and a near relative of the late Queen.
We could only make a somewhat ignominious exit, having been truly
“played out.”
This rage for French clocks, German mirrors, foreign cigars, chairs
upholstered in velvet, and a general foreign tawdriness is spreading
rapidly among the young “swells” who have money to spend, vulgarizing
Korean simplicity, and setting the example to those below them of an
extravagant and purely selfish expenditure. The house, with its many
courtyards, was new and handsome, and money glared from every point. I
was glad to return to the simplicity of my boat, hoping that with the
“plain living, high thinking” might be combined!
Beyond the mountains east of Yö Ju, the Han passes through a noble
stretch of rich alluvium, bearing superb, and fairly clean crops, and
bordered by low, serrated, denuded, and much corrugated ranges, faintly
tinged with green. On this gently rolling plain are many towns and
villages, among the larger of which are Won Ju, Chung Ju, Chöng-phyöng,
and Tan-Yang, all on or near the river, by which they conveniently
export their surplus produce, chiefly beans, tobacco, and rice, and
receive in return their supplies of salt and foreign goods. Even at
that season of low water the traffic was considerable.
Higher up, the scenery changes. Lofty limestone bluffs, often caverned,
rise abruptly from the river, and wall in the fertile and populous
valleys which descend upon it, giving place higher up to grand
basaltic formation, range behind range, terraces of columnar basalt
occasionally appearing. It was a lovely season, warm days, cold nights,
brilliant sunshine, great white masses of sunlit clouds on a sky of
heavenly blue, distances idealized in a blue veil which was not a mist,
flowers at their freshest, every bird that has a note or a cry vocal,
butterflies and red and blue dragon-flies hovering over the grass and
water, fish leaping, all nature awake and jubilant. And every rift and
bluff had its own beauty of blossoming scarlet azaleas, or syringas,
contorted or stately pines, and _Ampelopsis Veitchiana_ rose-pink in
its early leafage. There was a note of gladness in the air.
Eight days above Seoul, on the left bank of the river, there is a
ruinous pagoda built of large blocks of hewn stone, standing solitary
in the centre of a level plain formed by a bend of the Han. The people,
on being asked about it, said, “When Korea was surveyed so long ago
that nobody knows when, this was the centre of it.” They call it the
“Halfway Place.” After that the only suggestions of antiquity are some
stone foundations, and a few stone tombs among the trees, which, from
their shape, may denote the sites of monasteries.
Near that pagoda were a number of men very drunk, and there were few
days on which the habit of drinking to excess was not more or less
prominent. The junkmen celebrated the evening’s rest by hard drinking,
and the crowd which nightly assembled on the shore when we tied up
was usually enlivened by the noisy antics of one or more intoxicated
men. From my observation on the Han journey and afterwards, I should
say that drunkenness is an outstanding feature in Korea. And it
is not disreputable. If a man drinks rice wine till he loses his
reason, no one regards him as a beast. A great dignitary even may
roll on the floor drunk at the end of a meal, at which he has eaten
to repletion, without losing caste, and on becoming sober receives
the congratulations of inferiors on being rich enough to afford such
a luxury. Along with the taste for French clocks and German gilding,
a love of foreign liquors is becoming somewhat fashionable among the
young _yang-bans_, and willing caterers are found who produce potato
spirit rich in fusel oil as “old Cognac,” and a very effervescent
champagne at a shilling a bottle!
The fermented liquors of Korea are probably not unwholesome, but the
liking for them is an acquired taste with Europeans. They vary from a
smooth white drink resembling buttermilk in appearance, and very mild,
to a water-white spirit of strong smell and fiery taste. Between these
comes the ordinary rice wine, slightly yellowish, akin to Japanese
_sake_ and Chinese _samshu_, with a faint, sickly smell and flavor.
They all taste more or less strongly of smoke, oil, and alcohol, and
the fusel oil remains even in the best. They are manufactured from
rice, millet, and barley. The wine-seller projects a cylindrical basket
on a long pole from his roof, resembling the “bush” formerly used in
England for a similar purpose. Probably one reason that the Koreans
are a drunken people is that they scarcely use tea at all even in the
cities, and the luxury of “cold water” is unknown to them. The peasants
drink hot rice water with their meals, honey water as a luxury, and
on festive occasions an infusion of orange peel or ginger. The drying
of orange peel is quite a business with Korean housewives. There were
quantities of it hanging from the eaves of all the cottages.
Up to a short distance above this pagoda, the rapids for which the
Han is famous, though they made our progress slow, had not suggested
serious difficulty, far less risk, but for the remaining fortnight they
were tortuous rocky channels, through which the river, compressed in
width, rushes with great violence and tremendous noise and clatter, or
they are successive broken ledges of rock, with a chaos of flurry and
foam, varied by deep pools, presenting formidable, and at some seasons
insuperable, obstacles to navigation. To all appearance they are far
more dangerous than the celebrated rapids of the Yangtze, and the
remains of timber rafts and junks attest their destructive properties.
They occur at shorter and shorter intervals as the higher waters are
reached, till eventually the Han becomes an unbroken rapid or cataract.
Kim, though paid handsomely, was far too stingy to pay for any help
_en route_, his ropes were manifestly bought in “the cheapest market,”
and though Wong, my powerful _sampan_-man, worked with both strength
and skill, and Mr. Miller and his servant toiled at the tow ropes, and
in great exigencies I gave a haul myself, we sometimes made only 7
miles a day, and ofttimes took two hours to ascend a few yards, two
poling with might and main in the boat, and three tugging with all
their strength on shore. Often the ropes snapped, when the boat went
spinning and flying to the foot of the rapid, sometimes with injury to
herself and her contents, sometimes escaping. After a few of such risks
I habitually landed, either on a boatman’s back or wading in waterproof
Wellingtons, which caused great wonderment in the lookers on. The worst
rapids were always in the most beautiful places, and the strolls and
climbs of three or four hours along the river banks, through fields
with bounteous crops, through odorous Spanish chestnut groves, through
thickets with their fascinating bewilderments of roses, clematis, and
honeysuckle, and past farmhouses with their privacy of bamboo screens,
and deep shade of blossoming fruit trees, were very delightful.
In ten days from Seoul we reach Chöng-phyöng, a town of some
pretensions, where in connection with the _yamen_ is a temple pavilion
with a high white chair, facing a table with candlesticks upon it,
floor, table, and chair deep in dust, though the building is used
regularly for offering prayers and sacrifices for the King. Dust is
not noteworthy in Korea, but the paintings in this temple are. On the
end walls are vivid groups of six noblemen wearing fine horsehair
palace hats with wings, each man holding a piece of folded paper in his
hand, and listening intently as he bends forward towards the chair.
The conception and technique of these paintings are admirable, and the
sunset scenes on the back wall, though inferior in execution, are the
work of a true artist.
Close by is a Royal pavilion hanging over the edge of a high bluff
above the Han, surrounded by superb elms, some of their trunks from 20
to 23 feet in circumference. The view of the fertile valley and of the
mountains beyond is very fine, and the decorative woodwork, painted
in Korean style, has been very handsome; but the phrase “has been”
describes most things Korean, and official squalor and neglect could
scarcely go farther.
At Chöng-phyöng and elsewhere the common people, in spite of their
overpowering curiosity, were not rude, and usually retired to a
respectful distance to watch us eat; but from the class of scholars
who hang on round all _yamens_ we met with a good deal of underbred
impertinence, some of the men going so far as to raise the curtain of
my compartment and introduce their heads and shoulders beneath it,
brow-beating the boatmen when they politely asked them to desist. On
the other hand, men of the non-cultured class showed us various small
attentions, sometimes helping with a haul at the ropes at a rapid, only
asking in return that their wives might see me, a request with which I
always gladly complied. At Chöng-phyöng, so great was female curiosity
that a number of women waded waist deep after the boat to peer under
the mats of the roof, and one of them, scrambling out to a rock for
a final stare, overbalanced herself and fell into deep water. At one
point, in the very early morning, some women presented themselves
at the boat, having walked several _li_ with a present of eggs, the
payment for which was to be a sight of me and my poor equipments, they
having heard that there was a boat with a foreign woman on board. The
old cambric curtains brought from Persia, with a red pattern on a white
ground, always attracted them greatly, and the small Japanese cooking
utensils.
In thirteen days from Seoul we reached Tan-Yang, a magistracy prettily
situated on the left bank of the Han, with a picturesque Confucian
temple on the hill above; and a day later entered upon mountainous
country of extreme beauty. The paucity of tributaries is very marked.
Up to that point, except the north branch, there are but two--one
which joins the Han at the village of Hu-nan Chang, on the right bank,
and is navigable for 60 _li_, as far as the important town of Wan Ju;
and another, which enters 2 _li_ above the picturesquely-situated
village of So-il, on the left bank. Above Tan-Yang the river forms
long and violent rapids, alternating with broad stretches of blue,
quiet water from 10 to 20 feet deep, rolling majestically, making sharp
and extraordinary bends among lofty limestone precipices. Villages
on natural terraces occur constantly, the lower terrace planted with
mulberry or weeping willows. Hemp is cultivated in great quantities,
and is used for sackcloth for mourners’ wear, bags, and rope. In my
walks along the river I had several opportunities of seeing the curious
method of separating the fibre, rude and primitive, but effectual.
At the bottom of a stone paved pit large stones are placed, which
are heated from a rough oven at the side. The hemp is pressed down
in bundles upon these, and stakes are driven in among them. Piles of
coarse Korean grass are placed over the hemp, and earth over all, well
beaten down. The stakes are then pulled up and water is poured into
the holes left by them. This, falling on the heated stones, produces a
dense steam, and in twenty-four hours the hemp fibre is so completely
disintegrated as to be easily separated.
A grand gorge, 3 miles long, with lofty cliffs of much caverned
limestone, varied by rock needles draped with _Ampelopsis_ and
clematis, and giving foothold to azaleas, spirea, syringa, pear,
hawthorn, climbing roses, wistaria, cyclamen, lycopodium, yellow
vetches, many _Labiatæ_, and much else, contains but one village,
piled step above step in a deep wooded fold of the hills, on which
millet culture is carried to a great height, on slopes too steep to be
ploughed by oxen. This gorge opens out on slopes of rich soil, some of
which is still uncultivated. The hamlets are small, and grow much hemp,
and each has its hemp pit. They also grow _Urtica Nivea_, from the
bleached fibre of which their grass-cloth summer clothes are made. All
these are surrounded with mulberry groves.
The large village of Cham-su-ki, at the head of two severe rapids, in
ascending which our ropes snapped three times, offers a good example
of the popular belief in spirits. It is approached under a tasselled
straw rope, one end of which is wound round a fine tree with a stone
altar below it. On another rope were suspended a few small bags
containing offerings of food. If a person dies of the pestilence or
by the roadside, or a woman dies in childbirth, the spirit invariably
takes up its abode in a tree. To such spirits offerings are made on the
stone altar of cake, wine, and pork, but where the tree is the domicile
of the spirit of a man who has been killed by a tiger, dog’s flesh
is offered instead of pork. The Cham-su-ki tree is a fine well-grown
elm. Gnarled trees, of which we saw several on hilltops and sides,
are occupied by the spirits of persons who have died before reaching
a cycle, _i.e._ sixty years of age. A steep cliff above Cham-su-ki is
also denoted as the abode of dæmons by a straw rope and a stone altar.
We had some very cold and windy days near the end of April, the mercury
falling to 34°, and one night of tempestuous rain. It would be absurd
to write of sufferings, but at that temperature in an open boat, with
the roof lifting and flapping and threatening to take its departure, it
was impossible to sleep. Afterwards the weather was again splendid.
Abrupt turns, long rapids full of jagged rocks, long stretches of deep,
still water, abounding in fish, narrow gorges walled in by terraces of
basalt, lateral ravines disclosing fine snow-streaked peaks, succeeded
each other, the shores becoming less and less peopled, while the
parallel valleys abounded in fairly well-to-do villages. Just below
a long and dangerous rapid we stopped to dine, and though the place
seemed quite solitary, a crowd soon gathered, and sat on the adjacent
stones talking noisily, trying to get into the boat, lifting the mats,
discussing whether it were polite to watch people at dinner, some
taking one side and some another, those who were half tipsy taking the
affirmative. Some said that they had got news from several miles below
that this great sight was coming up the river, and it was a shame to
deprive them of it by keeping the curtains down. After a good deal
of obstreperousness, mainly the result of wine, a man overbalanced
himself and fell into the river, which raised a laugh, and then they
followed us good-naturedly up the rapid, one man helping to track, and
asking as his reward that his wife might see me, on which I exhibited
myself on the bow of the boat.
At the village of Pang-wha San, built, contrary to Korean practice,
on a height of 800 feet, there is a stone platform, on which was
nightly lighted one of that chain of beacon-fires terminating at
Nam-San in Seoul, which assured the King that his kingdom was at
peace.[16] Another village, Ha-chin, was impressive from the frightful
ugliness of its women. After leaving Tan-Yang the curiosity increased.
People walked great distances to see us, saying they had never seen
foreigners, and bringing eggs to pay for the sight, which I paid for,
telling the people that we had nothing to show; but extravagant rumors
of what was to be seen in the boat had preceded us, and as the people
assembled at daylight and generally waited patiently, I always yielded
to their wishes, raised the thatch, and made the most of the red and
white curtains. In one place I gave them some tea to drink. They had
never seen it, and thought it was medicine, and on tasting it said, “It
must be very good for indigestion!”
FOOTNOTES:
[16] The telegraph has now superseded this picturesque arrangement.