SONG-DO: A ROYAL CITY
It grew dark before we reached Pa Ju, and the _mapu_ were in great
terror of tigers and robbers. It is unpleasant to reach a Korean
inn after nightfall, for there are no lights by which to unload the
baggage, and noise and confusion prevail.
When the traveller arrives a man rushes in with a brush, stirs up the
dust and vermin, and sometimes puts down a coarse mat. Experience has
taught me that an oiled sheet is a better protection against vermin
than a pony-load of insect powder. I made much use of the tripod of
my camera. It served as a candle-stand, a barometer suspender, and an
arrangement on which to hang my clothes at night out of harm’s way. In
two hours after arrival my food was ready, after which Mr. Yi came in
to talk over the day, to plan the morrow, to enlighten me on Korean
customs, and to interpret my orders to the faithful Im, and by 8.30 I
was asleep!
After leaving Pa Ju the country is extremely pretty, and one of the
most picturesque views in Korea is from the height overlooking the
romantically situated village of Im-jin, clustering along both sides of
a ravine, which terminates on the broad Im-jin Gang, a tributary of the
Han, in two steep rocky bluffs, sprinkled with the _Pinus sinensis_,
the two being connected by a fine, double-roofed granite Chinese
gateway, inscribed “Gate for the tranquillization of the West.” The
road passing down the village street reaches the water’s edge through
this relic, one of three or four similar barriers on this high-road
to China. The Im-jin Gang, there 343 yards broad, has shallow water
and a flat sandy shore on its north side, but a range of high bluffs,
crowned with extensive old defensive works, lines the south side, the
gateway being the only break for many miles. Below these the river is
a deep green stream, navigable for craft of 14 tons for 40 miles from
its mouth. There was a still, faintly blue atmosphere, and the sails of
boats passing dreamily into the mountains over the silver water had a
most artistic effect.
There are two Chinese bridges on that road, curved slabs of stone,
supported on four-sided blocks of granite, giving one a feeling of
security, even though they have no parapets. Korean bridges are poles
laid over a river, with matting or brushwood covered with earth upon
them, and are usually full of holes. These precarious structures had
just been replaced after the summer rains. A _mapu_ usually goes ahead
to test their solidity. The region is extremely fertile, producing
fine crops of rice, wheat, barley, millet, buckwheat, cotton, sesamum,
castor oil, beans, maize, tobacco, capsicums, egg plant, peas, etc. But
Russian and American kerosene is fast displacing the vegetable oils for
burning, and is producing the same revolution in village evening life
which it has effected in the Western Islands of Scotland. I never saw
a Korean hamlet south of Phyöng-yang, however far from the main road,
into which kerosene had not penetrated.
I was obliged to halt for the night when only 10 _li_ from Song-do, all
the more regretfully, because the people were unwilling to receive a
foreigner, and the family room which I occupied, only 8 feet 6 inches
by 6 feet, was heated up to 85°, was poisoned with the smell of cakes
of rotting beans, and was so alive with vermin of every description
that I was obliged to suspend a curtain over my bed to prevent them
from falling upon it.
The next morning, in an atmosphere which idealized everything, we
reached Song-do, or Kai-söng, now the second city in the kingdom, once
the capital of Hon-jö, one of the three kingdoms which united to form
Korea, and the capital of Korea five centuries ago. A city of 60,000
people, lying to the south of Sang-dan San, with a wall ten miles
in circumference running irregularly over heights, and pierced by
double-roofed gateways, with a peaked and splintered ridge extending
from Sang-dan San to the northeast, its higher summits attaining
altitudes of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, it has a striking resemblance to
Seoul.
The great gate is approached by an avenue of trees, and the road
is lined with _seun-tjeung-pi_, monuments to good governors and
magistrates, faithful widows, and pious sons. A wide street, its
apparent width narrowed by two rows of thatched booths, divides the
city. It was a scene of bustle, activity, and petty trade, something
like a fair. The women wear white sheets gathered round their heads and
nearly reaching their feet. The street was thronged with men in huge
hats and very white clothing, with boy bridegrooms in pink garments
and the quaint yellow hats which custom enjoins for several months
after marriage, and with mourners dressed in sackcloth from head to
foot, the head and shoulders concealed by peaked and scalloped hats,
the identity being further disguised by two-handled sackcloth screens,
held up to their eyes. In thatched stalls on low stands and on mats on
the ground were all Korean necessaries and luxuries, among which were
large quantities of English piece goods, and hacked pieces of beef
with the blood in it, Korean killed meat being enough to make any one
a vegetarian. Goats are killed by pulling them to and fro in a narrow
stream, which method is said to destroy the rank taste of the flesh;
dogs by twirling them in a noose until they are unconscious, after
which they are bled. I have already inflicted on my readers an account
of the fate of a bullock at Korean hands. It was a busy, dirty, poor,
mean scene under the hot sun.
The Song-do inns are bad, and a friend of Mr. Yi kindly lent me a
house, partly in ruins, but with two rooms which sheltered Im and
myself, and in this I spent two pleasant days in lovely weather,
Mr. Yi, who was visiting friends, escorting me to the Song-do
sights, which may be seen in one morning, and to pay visits in some
of the better-class houses. My quarters, though by comparison very
comfortable, would not at home be considered fit for the housing of
a better-class cow! But Korea has a heavenly climate for much of the
year. The squalor, dust, and rubbish in my compound and everywhere were
inconceivable, though the city is rather a “well-to-do” one. The water
supply is atrocious, offal and refuse of all kinds lying up to the
mouths of the wells. It says something for the security of Korea that a
foreign lady could safely live in a dwelling up a lonely alley in the
heart of a big city, with no attendant but a Korean soldier knowing not
a word of English, who, had he been so minded, might have cut my throat
and decamped with my money, of which he knew the whereabouts, neither
my door nor the compound having any fastening!
Points of interest in a Korean city are few, and the ancient capital is
no exception to the rule. There is a fine bronze bell with curiously
involved dragons in one of the gate towers, cast five centuries ago,
an archery ground with official pavilions on a height with a superb
view, the Governor’s _yamen_, once handsome, now ruinous, with Japanese
sentries, a dismal temple to Confucius, and a showy one to the God of
War. Outside the crowd and bustle of the city, reached by a narrow path
among prosperous ginseng farms and persimmon-embowered hamlets, are the
lonely remains of the palace of the Kings who reigned in Korea prior
to the dynasty of which the present sovereign is the representative,
and even in their forlornness they give the impression that the Korean
Kings were much statelier monarchs then than now.
The remains consist of an approach to the main platform on which the
palace stood, by two subsidiary platforms, the first reached by a
nearly obliterated set of steps. Four staircases 15 feet wide, of
thirty steps each, lead to a lofty artificial platform, faced with
hewn stone in great blocks, 14 feet high, and by rough measurement 846
feet in length. On the east side there are massive abutments. On the
west the platform broadens irregularly. At the entrance, 80 feet wide,
at the top of the steps, there are the bases of columns suggestive of
a very stately approach. The palace platform is intersected by massive
stone foundations of halls and rooms, some of large area. It is backed
by a pine-clothed knoll, and is prettily situated in an amphitheatre of
hills.
Song-do as a royal city, and as one of the so-called fortresses for
the protection of the capital, still retains many ancient privileges.
It is a bustling business town, and a great centre of the grain trade.
It has various mercantile guilds with their places of business, small
shops built round compounds with entrance gates. It makes wooden
shoes, coarse pottery and fine matting, and imports paper, which it
manufactures with sesamum oil into the oil paper for which Korea is
famous, and which is made into cloaks, umbrellas, tobacco-pouches, and
sheets for walls and floors. In answer to many inquiries, I learned
that trade had improved considerably since the war, but the native
traders now have to compete with fourteen Japanese shops, and to suffer
the presence of forty Japanese residents.
I have left until the last the commodity for which Song-do is famous,
and which is the chief source of its prosperity--ginseng. _Panax
Ginseng_ or _quinquefolia_ (?) is, as its name imports, a “panacea.” No
one can be in the Far East for many days without hearing of this root
and its virtues. No drug in the British Pharmacopœia rivals with us
the estimation in which this is held by the Chinese. It is a tonic, a
febrifuge, a stomachic, the very elixir of life, taken spasmodically or
regularly in Chinese wine by most Chinese who can afford it. It is one
of the most valuable articles which Korea exports, and one great source
of its revenue. In the steamer in which I left Chemulpo there was a
consignment of it worth $140,000. But valuable as the cultivated root
is, it is nothing to the value of the wild, which grows in Northern
Korea, a single specimen of which has been sold for £40! It is chiefly
found in the Kang-ge Mountains; but it is rare, and the search so
often ends in failure, that the common people credit it with magical
properties, and believe that only men of pure lives can find it.
The ginseng season was at its height. People talked, thought, and
dreamed ginseng, for the risks of its six or seven years’ growth were
over, and the root was actually in the factory. I went to several
ginseng farms, and also saw the different stages of the manufacturing
process, and received the same impression as in Siberia, that if
industry were lucrative, and the Korean were sure of his earnings, he
would be an industrious and even a thrifty person.
All round Song-do are carefully fenced farms on which ginseng is
grown with great care and exquisite neatness on beds 18 inches wide,
2 feet high, and neatly bordered with slates. It is sown in April,
transplanted in the following spring, and again in three years into
specially prepared ground, not recently cultivated, and which has not
been used for ginseng culture for seven years. Up to the second year
the plant has only two leaves. In the fourth year it is six inches
high with four leaves, standing out at right angles from the stalk. It
reaches maturity in the sixth or seventh year. During its growth it is
sheltered from both wind and sun by well-made reed roofs with blinds,
which are raised or lowered as may be required. When the root is taken
up it is known as “white ginseng,” and is bought by merchants, who get
it “manufactured,” about 3¹⁄₄ _catties_ of the fresh root making one
_cattie_ of “red” or commercial ginseng. The grower pays a tax of 20
cents per _cattie_, and the merchant 16 dollars a _cattie_ for the root
as received from the manufacturer.
The annual time of manufacture depends on orders given by the
Government. The growers and merchants make the most profit when the
date is early. Only two manufacturers are licensed, and one hundred
and fifty growers. The quantity to be manufactured is also limited.
In 1895 it was 15,000 _catties_ of red ginseng and 3,000 of “beards.”
The terms “beards” and “tails” are used to denote different parts of
the root, which eventually has a grotesque resemblance to a headless
man! It is possible that this likeness is the source of some of the
almost miraculous virtues which are attributed to it. Everything about
the factories is scrupulously clean, and would do credit to European
management. The row of houses used by what we should call the excisemen
are well built and comfortable. There are two officials sent from Seoul
by the Agricultural Department for the “season,” with four policemen
and two attendants, whose expenses are paid by the manufacturers,
and each step of the manufacture and the egress of the workmen are
carefully watched. Mr. Yi was sent by the Customs to make special
inquiries in connection with the revenue derived.
Ginseng is steamed for twenty-four hours in large earthen jars over
iron pots built into furnaces, and is then partially dried in a room
kept at a high temperature by charcoal. The final drying is effected
by exposing the roots in elevated flat baskets to the rays of the
bright winter sun. The human resemblance survives these processes,
but afterwards the “beards” and “tails,” used chiefly in Korea, are
cut off, and the trunk, from 3 to 4 inches long, looks like a piece
of clouded amber. These trunks are carefully picked over, and being
classified according to size, are neatly packed in small oblong baskets
containing about five _catties_ each, twelve or fourteen of these being
packed in a basket, which is waterproofed and matted, and stamped and
sealed by the Agricultural Department as ready for exportation. A
basket, according to quality, is worth from $14,000 to $20,000! In a
good season the grower makes about fifteen times his outlay. Ginseng
was a Royal monopoly, but times have changed. This medicine, which has
such a high and apparently partially deserved reputation throughout
the Far East, does not suit Europeans, and is of little account with
European doctors.
A Post Office had been established in Song-do under Korean management,
and I not only received but sent a letter, which reached its
destination safely! Buddhism still prevails to some extent in this
city, and large sums are expended upon the services of sorcerers. In
Song-do I saw, what very rarely may be seen in Seoul and elsewhere, a
“Red Door.” These are a very high honor reserved for rare instances of
faithfulness in widows, loyalty in subjects, and piety in sons. When
a widow (almost invariably of the upper class) weeps ceaselessly for
her husband, maintains the deepest seclusion, attends loyally to her
father- and mother-in-law, and spends her time in pious deeds, the
people of the neighborhood, proud of her virtues, represent them to the
Governor of the province, who conveys their recommendation to the King,
with whom it rests to confer the “Red Door.” The distinction is also
given to the family of an eminently loyal subject, who has given his
life for the King’s life.
The case of a son whose father has reached a great age is somewhat
different, and the honor is more emphatic still. His filial virtue is
shown by such methods as these. He goes every morning to his father’s
apartments, asks him how his health is, how he has slept, what he has
eaten for breakfast, and how he enjoyed the meal--if he has any fancies
for dinner, and if he shall go to the market and buy him some _tai_
(the best fish in Korea), and if he shall come back and assist him to
take a walk? The reader will observe how extremely material the pious
son’s inquiries are. Such assiduity continued during a course of years,
on being represented to the King, may receive the coveted red portal.
In former days, these matters used to be referred to the Suzerain, the
Emperor of China. In Song-do, as in the villages, a straw fringe is
frequently to be seen stretched across a door, either plain or with
bits of charcoal knotted into it. The former denotes the birth of a
girl, the latter that of a boy. A girl is not specially welcome, nor is
the occasion one of festivity, but neither is it, as in some countries,
regarded as a calamity, although, if it be a firstborn, the friends
of the father are apt to write letters of condolence to him, with the
consoling suggestion that “the next will be a boy.”
[Illustration: CHIL-SUNG MON, SEVEN STAR GATE.]