NORTHWARD HO!
For the northern journey simple preparations only were needed,
consisting of the purchase of candles and two blankets for Im, in
having two pheasants cooked, in dispensing with one pony, leaving us
the moderate allowance of two baggage animals, and in depositing most
of my money with Mr. Moffett. For there were rumors of robbers on the
road, and Mr. Yi left his fine clothes and elegant travelling gear also
behind.
On a brilliant morning (and when are Korean mornings not brilliant?),
passing through the gate out of which General Tso made his last sally,
and down the steep declivity on which it opens, we travelled for a
time along the An Ju road, skirting the base of the hill on which the
Chinese cavalry made their desperate attack on an intrenched position,
and near the ruins of two intrenched camps, where they fell in
hundreds before the merciless fire of the enemy, and where human bones
were still lying about. But where Death reaped that ghastly harvest
magnificent grain crops had recently been secured, and the mellow
sunlight shone on miles of stubble.
Shortly we turned off on a road untouched by the havoc of war, and
saw no more of the gaunt ruins or charred remains of cottages. In
that pleasant region ranges of hills with pines on their lower slopes
girdle valleys of rich stoneless alluvium, producing abundantly cotton,
tobacco, caster oil, wheat, barley, peas, beans, and most especially,
the red and white millet. Wherever a lateral valley descends upon the
one through which the road passes, there is a village of thatched
houses, pretty enough at a distance and embowered in fruit trees, while
clumps of pines, oaks, elms, and zelkawas denote the burial-places
of its dead, who are the guardians of the only fine timber which is
suffered to exist.
[Illustration: RUSSIAN SETTLER’S HOUSE.]
The hamlets along the road were cheerfully busy. Millet was stacked in
the village roadways, leaving only room for one laden animal to pass at
a time, and as all the threshing of rice and grain is done with double
flails also in the village street, one actually rides over the threshed
product. The red or large millet is nearly as useful to the Korean as
is the bamboo to the Chinese. Its stalks furnish fuel, material for
mats and thick woven fences, and even for houses, for in Phyöng-an Do
the walls are formed of bundles of millet stalks 8 feet high for the
uprights, across which single stalks are laid, the interstices being
filled up with mud.
After two days of somewhat monotonous prettiness, beyond Shou-yang-yi
the country became really beautiful. Some of the larger valleys were
specially attractive, with abundance of fruit and other deciduous trees
below the dark _Pinus sinensis_ on the hill slopes, and there were
plenty of large villages with a general look of prosperity, everything,
clothing included, being much cleaner than usual. There were fine
views of lofty dog-tooth peaks, and of serrated ranges running east
and west. Nearly every valley has its bright, rapid stream, on which
the hills descend on one side in abrupt and much caverned limestone
cliffs, the other side being level and fertile. The people there, and
doubtless everywhere, were taken up entirely with their own concerns,
the new system of taxation under which a fixed tax in money is levied
on the assessed value of the land meeting with their approval. Events
in Seoul had no interest for them. The recent murder of the Queen and
the imprisonment of the King did not concern them, as there were no
effects of either on their circumstances. After crossing the pass of
Miriok Yang, 816 feet in altitude, in a romantic region, we entered
poorer country with stony soil, often piled with large shingle by the
violence of streams then perfectly dry.
By misdirection, misunderstanding, or complexity or complete
illegibility of the track, we spent much of the day in losing and
retracing our way, scrambling up steep rock-ladders, etc., and when we
reached Kai-pang after dusk we were for some time refused admission
to the inn. The owner said he could not take in any one travelling
with so many _mapu_ (four) and a soldier. He was terrified. He said
we should go away in the morning without paying him, and should beat
him when he asked to be paid! However, the _mapu_ gave me such an
excellent character that at last he consented, and I had an excellent
room,--that is, the walls and roof were cream-washed, which gave it a
look of cleanliness. The timid innkeeper was old, and this brought out
the fact that when a local magistrate has aged parents, it is customary
for him to invite to an entertainment everybody in his district between
the ages of 60 and 100, and it is usual for the old men to take their
oldest grandsons with them as testimonies to their old age. As every
guest has to be accompanied fittingly, the company often numbers 200.
At Ka-chang and elsewhere the pigsties are much more solid than the
houses, being regular log cabins with substantial roofs for the
protection of their inmates from tigers, or in that neighborhood
from wolves (?). These pigs, of which every country family in Korea
possesses some, are of an absurdly small black breed, a full-grown
animal not weighing more than 26 lbs.
During the two days’ journey from the market-place of Sian-chöng, we
passed the magistracies of Cha-san and Un-san, ferrying the Tai-döng
just beyond Cha-san, where it is a fine stream 317 yards broad,
and is said by the ferrymen to be 47 feet deep. All that region is
well peopled and fertile. There are no resident _yang-bans_ in the
province of Phyöng-an. Gold is obtained by a simple process all round
the country, specially at Keum-san. At Wol-po, a prettily situated
village, and elsewhere, a quantity of the coarser descriptions of paper
is made. Paper and tobacco were the goods that were on the move, bound
for Phyöng-yang.
Paper is used for a greater variety of purposes in Korea than anywhere
else, and its toughness and durability render it invaluable. The
coarser sorts are made from old rags and paper, the finer from the
paper mulberry. Paper is the one article of Korean manufacture which
is exported in any quantity to China, where it is used for some of the
same purposes.
Oil paper about a sixth of an inch in thickness is pasted on the
floors instead of carpets or mats. It bears washing, and takes a
high polish from dry rubbing. In the Royal Palaces, where two tints
are used carefully, it resembles oak parquet. It is also used for
walls. A thinner quality is made into the folding, conical hat-covers
which every Korean carries in his sleeve, and into waterproof cloaks,
coats, and baggage covers. A very thick kind of paper made of several
thicknesses beaten together is used for trunks, which are strong enough
to hold heavy articles. Lanterns, tobacco-pouches, and fans are made
of paper, and the Korean wooden latticed windows from the palace to
the hovel are “glazed” with a thin, white, tough variety, which is
translucent. Much prized, however, were my photographic glass plates
when cleaned. Many a joyful householder let one into his window, giving
himself an opportunity of amusement and _espionage_ denied to his
neighbors.
The day’s journey from Ka-chang to Tok Chhön is through very
attractive scenery with grand mountain views. After crossing a low
but severe pass, we came down upon a large affluent of the Tai-döng,
which for want of a name I designate as the Ko-mop-so, flowing as
a full-watered, green stream between lofty cliffs of much caverned
limestone, fantastically buttressed, and between hills which throw out
rocky spurs, terminating or thinning down into high limestone walls,
resembling those of ruinous fortifications.
Again losing the way and our time, a struggle over a rough pass brought
us in view of the Tai-döng, with the characteristics of its mountain
course, long rapids with glints of foam and rocks, long reaches of
deep, still, slow-gliding jagged translucent green water broad and
deep, making constant abrupt turns, and by its volume suggesting great
powers of destructiveness when it is liberated from its mountain
barriers. In about a fortnight it would be frozen for the winter.
Diamond-flashing in the fine breeze, below noble cliffs and cobalt
mountains, across which cloud shadows were sailing in indigo, under
a vault of cloud-flecked blue, that view was one of those dreams of
beauty which become a possession for ever.
From that pass the road, if it can be called such, is shut in with the
Tai-döng for 30 _li_. In some places there is not room even for the
narrowest bridle track, and the ponies scramble as they may over the
rough boulders which margin the water, and climb the worn, steep, and
rocky steps, often as high as their own knees, by which the break-neck
track is taken over the rocky spurs which descend on the river. It is
one of the worst pieces of road I ever encountered, and it was not
wonderful that we did not meet a single traveller, and that there
should be only about nine a year! We made by our utmost efforts only
a short mile an hour, and it took us five hours of this severe work
to reach the wretched hamlet of Huok Kuri, a few hovels dumped down
among heaps of stones and great boulders, some of which served as backs
for the huts. Poverty-stricken, filthy, squalid, the few inhabitants
subsisted entirely on red millet! Poor Mr. Yi, who had had a wakeful
night owing to vermin, said woefully as he dismounted stiffly, “Sleepy,
tired, cold, hungry,”--and there was nothing to eat, and little for
the ponies either, which may have been the reason that they got up a
desperate fight, of which they bore the traces for some days.
[Illustration: UPPER TAI-DONG.]
The track continued shut in by the high mountains which line the
Tai-döng till within a mile of Tok Chhön, forcing the ponies to
climb worn rock-ladders, or to pick a perilous way among sharp-pointed
rocks. I had not thought that Korea could produce anything so emphatic!
As the road occasionally broke up in face of some apparently impassable
spur, we occasionally got into impassable places, and lost time so
badly that we were benighted when little more than halfway, but as
there were no inhabitants we pushed on as a matter of necessity. When
we got to better going the _mapu_, inspired by the double terror of
robbers and wild animals, hurried on the ponies, yelling as they drove,
and by the time we reached the Tok Chhön ferry a young moon had risen,
and the mountains in shadow, and the great ferryboat full of horses,
men in white, and bulls, in relief against the silvered water, made a
beautiful night scene. I sent on the ponies, and Im to prepare my room,
fully expecting comfort, as at Phyöng-yang, for though I could never
find anybody who had been at Tok Chhön, it was always spoken of as a
sort of metropolis.
It is indeed a magistracy, with a remarkably ruinous _yamen_ and a
market-place, and is the chief town of a very large region. It is
entered from the river by stepping-stones, through abominable slush,
by a long narrow street, from which we were directed on and on till we
came to a wide _place_, where the inns of the town are. There in the
moonlight a great masculine crowd had collected, and in the middle of
it were our _mapu_, with the loads still on their ponies, raging at
large, and Im rushing hither and thither like a madman. For they had
been refused accommodation, and every door had been barred against them
on the ground that I was a foreigner! They said, truly or falsely, that
no foreigner had ever profaned Tok Chhön by his presence, that they
lived in peace, and did not want to be “implicated with a foreigner”
(all foreigners being Japanese). It is most disagreeable to force
oneself in even the slightest degree on any one, but I had been twelve
hours in the saddle, it was 8 P.M., there was snow on the ground, and
it was freezing hard! The yard door of one inn was opened a chink for
a moment, our men rushed for it, but it was at once barred, and we were
all again left standing in the street, the centre of a crowd which
increased every moment.
Our men eventually forced open the door of one inn and got their ponies
in. Then the paper was torn off two doors, and Im was visible against
the light from within tearing about like a black dæmon. We had then
stood like statues for two hours with our feet in freezing slush, the
great crowd preserving a ring round us, staring stolidly, but not
showing any hostility. At last Im appeared at an open door, waving my
chair, and we got into a high, dark lumber-room; but the crowd was too
quick for us, and came tumbling in behind us till the place was full.
Then the landlord closed the doors, but they were smashed in, and he
had no better luck when he weakly besought the people to look at him
and not at the stranger, for his entreaty only produced an ebullition
of Korean wit, by no means complimentary. An official from the _yamen_
arrived and inquired if I had any complaint to make, but I had none,
and he sat down and took a prolonged stare on his own account, not
making any attempt to disperse the crowd.
So I sat facing the door, Mr. Yi not far off smoking endless
cigarettes, while Im battled for a room, after one he had secured had
its doors broken down by the crowd. I sat for two hours longer in that
cold, ruinous, miserable place, two front and three back doorways
filled up with men, the whole male population of Tok Chhön, and, never
moved a muscle or showed any sign of dissatisfaction! Some sat on the
doorsill, little men were on the shoulders of big ones, all, inside and
outside, clamoring at once.
The situation might have been serious had a European man been with me,
and the experiences of Mr. Campbell of the Consular Service, at Kapsan
might have been repeated. No Englishman could have kept his temper in
such circumstances from 8 P.M. till midnight. He would certainly have
knocked somebody down, and then there would have been a fight. The
ill-bred curiosity tires but does not annoy me, though it exceeded all
bounds that night. Fortunately for me, a Korean gentleman is taught
from his earliest boyhood that he must never lose his temper, and that
it is a degradation to him to touch an inferior, therefore he must
never strike a servant or one of the lower orders.
At midnight, probably weary of our passivity, and anxious for sleep,
the inn people consented to give me a room in the back-yard if I
did not object to one “prepared for sacrifice,” and containing the
ancestral tablets. The crowd then filled the back-yard, and attempted
to pour into my room, when Im’s sorely-tried patience gave way for only
the second time, and he knocked people down right and left. This, and
the contents of a fire bowl which was upset in the scrimmage, helped to
scatter the crowd, but it was there again at daylight, attempting to
enter every time Im opened the door!
The “room prepared for sacrifice” in aspect was a small barn, fearfully
dirty and littered with rubbish, and bundles of rags, rope, and old
shoes were tucked away among the beams and rafters. My camp-bed cut
it exactly in half. In the inner half there was a dusty table, and
behind it on a black stand a dusty black shrine, at the back of which
was a four-leaved screen covered with long strips of paper, on which
were poems in praise of the deceased. In front, dividing the room, and
falling from the roof to the floor, was a curtain made of two widths
of very dirty foreign calico. Among the poor, instead of setting food
before the ancestral shrine twice or thrice daily during the three
years of mourning for a parent, it is only placed there twice a month.
In a small white wooden tablet within the shrine popular belief places
the residence of the third soul of the deceased, as I have mentioned
before.
I spent two days at Tok Chhön. Properly speaking, the Tai-döng is never
navigable to that point, owing to many and dangerous rapids, and any
idea of the possibility of this highly picturesque stream becoming “a
great commercial highway” may be utterly dismissed. Small boats can
ascend it at all seasons to Mou-chin Tai, about 140 _li_ lower down,
and during two summer months, when the water is high, a few with much
difficulty get up to Tok Chhön, and even a few _li_ farther, and at the
same season rafts descend from the forests of the Yung-wön district,
from 30 to 40 _li_ higher; but owing to severe rapids, shallows, and
sandbanks which shift continually, the river is not really navigable
higher than Phyöng-yang, and all commercial theories built upon it
are totally chimerical. For 30 _li_ above Tok Chhön the river scenery
is far grander than below, the perpendicular walls of limestone rock
rising from 800 to 1,000 feet, with lofty mountains above them, the
peaks of which, even so early as the end of November, were crested with
new-fallen snow. I had been assured in Phyöng-yang that boats could be
hired at Tok Chhön, and I had planned to descend the river; but there
are no boats, except a few ferry scows, higher than Mou-chin Tai.
Tok Chhön and its district are lamentably poor. The people said that
the war had made the necessaries of life dearer, and that they had only
the same produce to barter or buy with. The reforms which were being
carried out farther south had not reached that region, and “squeezing”
was still carried on by the officials. Rice, the ordinary staff of
Korean life, is brought from An Ju, but is used only by the rich,
_i.e._ the officials. The poor live on large and small millet. Potatoes
and wheat are grown, but the soil is poor and stony. A little trade,
chiefly in dried fish and seaweed, is done with Wön-san. A few silk
lenos and gauzes of very poor quality are made, the industry having
been introduced by the Chinese. Piece goods are only a few _cash_
dearer than at Phyöng-yang. Those displayed on the market-day were
nearly all Japanese. It was the dullest market I have seen. The pedlars
carried away nearly as much as they brought. The country is absolutely
denuded of wood. There are no deciduous trees, and the region owes its
few groves of dwarfed and distorted pines to the horseshoe graves on
the hillsides. A _yamen_ which only hangs together from force of habit,
a Confucian temple, and a Buddhist temple on a height are the only
noteworthy buildings.
The district magistrate returned while I was in Tok Chhön, and the
people showed a degree of interest in the event. Runners lined the
river bank by the ferry, blowing horns, forty men in black gauze coats
over their white ones, and a few singing girls met his chair and ran
with it to the _yamen_, and a few men looked on apathetically. A more
squalid retinue could not be imagined.
Some magistrates had a thousand of such retainers paid by this
impoverished country. In a single province, there were at that time
44 district mandarins, with an average staff of 400 men each, whose
sole duties were those of police and tax-collecting, their food
alone, at the rate of two dollars per month, costing $392,400 a
year.[38] This army of 17,600 men, not receiving a “living wage,”
“squeezed” on its own account the peasant, who in Korea has neither
rights nor privileges, except that of being the ultimate sponge. As
an illustration of the methods of proceeding I give the case of a
village in a southern province. Telegraph poles were required, and the
Provincial Governor made a requisition of 100 _cash_ on every house.
The local magistrate increased it to 200, and his runners to 250,
which was actually paid by the people, the runners getting 50 _cash_,
the magistrate 100, and the Governor 100, a portion of which sum was
expended on the object for which it was levied. An edict abolishing
this attendance, and reducing the salaries of magistrates, had recently
been promulgated. At Tok Chhön, the ruin and decay of official
buildings, and the filth and squalor of the private dwellings, could go
no farther.
FOOTNOTES:
[38] My authority for this statement is Mr. W. K. Carles, formerly
H.B.M.’s Vice-Consul in Korea.