EN ROUTE FOR THE FRONT.
In Japan you must take the advice of St. Paul and follow after
patience. No country teaches the lesson so thoroughly. In Tokyo the
patience of hope gave place to the patience of despair, yet we had
promise of recompense. Captain Tanaka, the genial and inscrutable
aide-de-camp of General Kodama, wrote to me these words: “The men of
great patience will, I think, be crowned with an invaluable reward
and unfathomable blessing by Heaven!” I was beginning to doubt if I
should live long enough to wear that crown when the order came to
march. Whither we were not told and did not stop to inquire, for
Japanese generals, like soldiers of other countries, love to clothe in
mystery their most obvious movements and prefer always to “drink tea by
strategy.” It was enough that we were to proceed to Chemulpo and there
await further commands.
From Chemulpo we were ordered at once to Chianampo in the transport
Suminoye Maru. At dawn on April 10th we approached the mouth of the
Salee river and saw before us a glorious panorama of sea and shore.
Gleaming like a sheet of steel the channel stretched away in the grey
distance studded with brown bosses of islet and rock, like a huge
buckler slung before the harbour.
On the afternoon of April 12th, I left Chianampo with my interpreter,
Mr. Ito, and proceeded to Pyng-yang where orders awaited us. Weather
and hard usage had wiped out every trace of a track, and when my
restive Chinese pony was not wallowing in mire he was doing a tight
rope performance on a few inches of crumbling earth over the slimy
depths of a paddy field. After many hours we came to Ayshin, a squalid
hamlet of wattle walls in which lived and died the famous Chinese
classic Kwantaishi, whose essays are known to every scholar in the East.
Yongan was my resting place for the night. Here I was received by the
pay-master of a regiment of the Guards--a banker and former member of
the Japanese Parliament, who had quartered himself in the gaol, which
was certainly cleaner than any house in the village. Next morning
my host presented me with two sticks used for punishing criminals.
They are of hard wood about an inch square, inscribed with Chinese
characters denoting the number of strokes under which the unhappy
offender often dies. I resumed my journey under dismal conditions, for
rain had fallen in the night and a dense fog overhung the castle on
the hill in which Kato and the early Japanese invaders of Korea were
besieged and reduced to such straits that they ate the mud walls.
[Illustration: In comfortable Quarters.]
[Illustration: My Interpreter and Staff.]
For ten miles I waded through a quagmire, and my horse was mired to
the girths. Rain was still falling when I entered Kang-sye, a foul
village reeking with ages of filth. Our meal of rice that evening was
supplemented by two small birds, shot by an intelligent sergeant, who
also presented to me a manuscript copy of the Korean laws, and two
volumes of the history of Korea. Next morning the native Governor
arrived to pay his respects to the colonel in command of the depot.
He was an old man with the white beard of which Koreans are proud.
His top-knot was concealed under a black net of horsehair, over
which was a white hat, shaped like an upturned flower pot on a round
table. This strange head-gear is made of bamboo, split to a fineness
of a silk thread, and is the most distinctive feature in a Korean
scene. Under his loose white robe the Governor wore a sleeveless
waistcoat of purple. His dignity, and not his feebleness, required
the support of two retainers, who held the magistrate under his arms
as he stepped into the colonel’s room and squatted on the matted
floor. He had complaint to make of rice stolen, women frightened,
and shrines desecrated by the stalling of horses. The colonel
explained that offences of this kind were severely punished, but that
misunderstandings must arise owing to the difference in language. He
urged the Governor to encourage the people to return to their homes
as seed time was drawing near, and impressed on him the urgency of
repairing the roads.
From Kang-sye to Pyng-yang the journey was easy. The rain had ceased,
and the road was comparatively hard. Between the coast and the city
is an unbroken succession of mountains and valleys. The slopes of
the hills are cultivated, and the flats are paddy fields. The soil
is fertile, but the cultivation is primitive, and the people are
indolent. Rice, which is the staple food, is grown everywhere in great
quantities, and on every hand are fields of maize, barley and millet.
The Koreans are meat eaters, and breed immense herds of cattle, most
of which had been driven into the mountains in order to keep the
soldiers out of temptation. The ox is the common beast of burden, and
near Ping-yang I saw long lines of them laden with packs. They are
fine animals, much larger than the Japanese oxen, and are hardy and
tractable. We approached the city across a broad plain, which stretches
South-east to a distance of thirty miles. On the North and West are
wooded heights that reach within two or three miles of the walls. Round
the city proper is a wall of irregular shape, from six to seven miles
in circumference. The Eastern wall is thirty feet high, surmounted
by a crenelated parapet, and rises sheer from the bank of the river
Tai-tong, which is two hundred yards broad and twenty feet deep at this
point. On the South is the old city, surrounded by an earth wall, from
ten to fifteen feet high, broken down in many places, and embracing an
area of three miles by two.
Entering through a broad gate guarded by Japanese sentries we traversed
street after street of thatched houses and shops crowded with
soldiers and Koreans, who appeared to be doing a brisk trade in the
common necessities of life. The smells and abominations of the city
are surpassed--in my experience--only by those of Jerusalem. There
is one clean spot, and that is the American Mission, which is doing
excellent work, and reports most favourably on the intelligence of the
youth of the country, their eagerness to learn, and their capacity
for developing domestic virtues. The Koreans are commonly supposed to
have no religion except a complicated system of ancestor worship. This
is an error, for they also worship demons, and are full of strange
superstitions. Walking at night through one of the main streets--which
in the darkness I mistook for a sewer--my attention was arrested by the
tinkling of a bell, accompanied by a droning chant. Mr. Graham Lee, an
American missionary, guided me to a group of natives squatted at the
door of a house. In the middle of the throng sat a blind man tinkling a
tiny brass bell with a shell, and muttering an incantation over a bowl
of rice, some pickles, and three small cups of native spirit. He was
exorcising the devil that had entered a man who lay sick in the house,
and the food and drink were to tempt the evil spirit out of doors. The
duty of exorcist is the special province of the blind, who are the
wizards of the land.
I remained in Pyng-yang no longer than was necessary to secure a permit
to travel North, and to change some Japanese notes for the current
coin. Owing to the issue of nickles, the intrinsic value of which is
only one-eighteenth of their face value--without gold or silver to
redeem them--the number of counterfeit coins is enormous. Spurious
money is imported in large quantities from Japan, and permission to
coin nickles is freely granted to private individuals who can pay for
the privilege of robbing their neighbours. The only medium of exchange
is the half yang, of which twenty make one shilling, so that the bulk
and weight of even a few days’ expenditure are serious considerations
for the traveller. Cash, circular pieces of brass with a square hole,
are also in circulation.
At Syunan--a typical hamlet of mud walls and thatched roofs--I was
assigned to quarters in the house of a wealthy native who owns the
country-side. His abode differed only in size from that of his poorest
neighbour, for a corrupt government and official exactions not merely
destroy incentive to industry and enterprise but create a semblance
of indigence among the well-to-do who wish to retain their property.
Four mud walls and a mud floor, not over clean, gave me shelter, and I
shivered all night in my fur coat, for I travelled with nothing more
than my saddle bags in order that my progress might not be impeded. To
my ration of rice and beef the owner of the house added some ducks’
eggs and an infusion of wheat--the native substitute for tea.
On the way to Anju next day I passed miles of transport. The road was
white with Koreans laden with rice packed in straw for the Japanese
army. The coolie is strong and capable of much endurance. He will
walk--as I afterwards discovered--fifty miles a day for a week or
more; but he is unreliable, improvident, and incorrigibly lazy. He
carries his load on a small wooden frame called a “chikai,” fastened to
the shoulders with straw-padded loops. His ordinary burden is eighty
pounds, and a day’s march is sixty li or twenty miles. The Japanese
hired them of headmen, and paid by distance and load, so that they
secured a cheap and ready transport in a country where wheeled traffic
is almost unknown. They also made use of oxen, donkeys, and ponies.
The Korean pony is very hardy, stands from eleven to thirteen hands,
and can carry from 150 to 200 lbs. thirty miles a day. His feed is a
hot mash, and he is not allowed to drink cold water. His nostrils are
slit to make him long winded, and on the whole he is a very serviceable
little beast, though his morals are those of the poultry yard, and his
vices are legion.
At dusk we were still winding our weary way over mountains, through
passes and across valleys. Anju seemed a myth, but at night we entered
the city and were hospitably received by the Japanese. It is a town of
some importance, and stands on an eminence surrounded by a wall built
for defence against incursions from the North. The streets are narrow
and foul, and the hovels were crowded to overflowing with soldiers on
their way to the front. In the early morning I left Anju, and crossing
a broad river rode over a sandy plain that was at one time the bed
of a torrent. A few miles of broken country brought me to another
water course which, like most of the rivers of Korea, is shallow and
channelless. The Japanese had bridged this river, but in order to avoid
a long diversion I passed over in a ferry boat or lighter. By way of
Kasan I reached Tyon-ju on the 17th of April, having to travel through
very wild country and to walk eighteen miles, dragging behind me a very
weary horse. It was close upon midnight when I presented myself at
the depot, only to find the officer in command too much occupied with
a gift of oxen from the King of Korea to give heed to the “European
gentleman” who came hungry and footsore.
At Syen-chen, where I haltered next night, I had a delightful
welcome from the American Mission, of which Dr. Sharrocks is the
head. Head-quarters of the army were at Sharenkwan--a short day’s
march--and on the 19th of April Mr. McKenzie of the _Daily Mail_
(who had overtaken me at Tyon-ju, where I was detained by a slight
accident through miscalculating the height of a Korean door) and I
were presented to General Fujii, Chief of the Staff. We were just in
time, for head-quarters moved next day to Hiken-min-jori, and on the
following morning to the vicinity of Wiju, where we found the army
preparing to force the passage of the Yalu.