OUTPOSTS
_of_
ASIA
_By_
MORILLA MARIA NORTON
_Author of_
Songs of the Pacific
A Kingdom of the Sea
Verses from the Orient
Gloria Victis
[Illustration]
THE MAGNET PUBLISHING CO.
MANILA, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
COPYRIGHT, 1909
MORILLA MARIA NORTON
MANILA, PHILIPPINES
To M. B. N.
Great Mother, dead but living,
Living but dead,
The snow falls fast,
In this death month of all the year.
White flakes like messengers
Sent upon the blast,
From Heaven to light upon thy bier.
Like this death month of Nature
Such thou wert and art;
Cold with unsullied purity of will,
White with the soul’s austerity of charity,
Yet holding all the flames
Of summer’s glory in thy heart.
Yokohama
January 7, 1909
_FOREWORD_
In writing this book of a journey through Manchuria, Korea and Japan,
it is partly a tribute to the hospitality of the Imperial Railway
through whose kindness I made the picturesque tour on the track of the
fighting line across countries on which so much attention has been
focused in these last years, partly to fulfill a pledge made to the
Manila Merchants Association, to write in a book of travel through
Russia a chapter on Manila, which chapter is the last in the volume.
Among the few treasures which the traveler feels he must carry away
from that land of art--Japan--the writer chose a kakemono representing
the grim old fighter Ieyasu dressed in his stiff brocade of choice
pattern which the elegance of his life demanded.
He sits not on horse, nor in palanquin, but at ease and in reflective
mood in his home, his queer head-dress arching out from his falcon-like
head, holding in one hand a sword even in this hour of leisure, ready
to spring upon his country’s foes, in the other hand a roll of paper,
for he was like the great Charlemagne, a man of letters, as well as of
battles.
Sensitive, fine and piercing as a blade, is his glance, delicate as
a woman in the finish of his attitude, yet commanding, imperious,
indomitable and over all and through all, a scholar, not in the
infinitesimal detail of the school, but in the magnificent sense
of life, one who learns from all experience and progresses through
everything and acquires in every phase of fortune and misfortune,
leaving to the world the priceless inheritance of such scholarship,
hope, faith--nay, charity! What Ieyasu was, so to me seems his race,
imbued with the large serenity which grasps ages, not minutes; it can
conquer, or be conquered, with equal grace, without self-elation, or
self-abasement, but with the majestic nature of the true theist and the
true altruist advances to its destiny reaching as does all greatness
its maturity slowly, until it becomes the master of itself and of
others.
The ethical beauty of the home life of Japan, the charming routine of
the schools, the fraternal relations in the army and navy, the courtesy
between master and servant, in the factory and the shop, and in the
home is all delightful to see, and the welcome to the stranger, that
finest flower of civilization, as of character, to feel!
The soft grey coloring, the subdued green, the reserve of forest and
field, unlike our own exuberant Philippines, at first seem shy, demure,
not a little austere, but as you pass the days and nights there the
subtle influence of the Northern Italy works its miracle and you yield
as every one has before you, captivated by an influence too complex to
define. Japan has the “charme intime,” as the French say, the charm
which penetrates but holds forever.
Massive, Greek-like Korea and colossal Manchuria, bold, daring as the
fastnesses of Asia are, overwhelm the imagination and leave you stirred
to their heroic level!
But a glimpse, a panorama of these graphic countries is all these pages
can bring.
Each has a magnetism one must experience, and as one New Englander said
of his native town, it needs no pennies in their fountains to call you
back to retread their sublime and lofty pinnacles, or their exquisite
by-paths.
These pages were for the most part published in the daily press of
Japan, and were written “en voyage” or within the hospitable doors of
the Astor House, Seoul and the Bluff Hotel in Yokohama. They form notes
of travel rather than a conventional book.
_CONTENTS_
PORT ARTHUR 9
MOUKDEN 17
MANCHURIA 23
SEOUL 29
JAPANESE IN KOREA 37
TOKYO AND ITS MAYOR 43
JAPANESE RAILWAYS 49
MADAME SHIMODA 55
PEERESS’ SCHOOL 61
KANEKO 67
EXPOSITION NOTES 75
BARON TAKAHASHI 81
TOKYO OBSERVATORY 85
GOVERNMENT STEEL FOUNDRY 91
JAPAN IN NOVEMBER 95
MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES 101
PORT ARTHUR
Port Arthur is the most dramatic spot away from Europe: nothing that
Nature can do, or history suggest of grandeur is lacking in this
stupendous panorama!
Hills which have been swept bare by shot and shell are still bare and
will be as the palm of the hand, to denote what has passed over them!
A huge fortress-like eminence suggesting Gibraltar, stands out like the
champion of the army before the series of forts which lie behind it.
There are two bays, “Pigeon Bay” and “Kerr Bay,” which have dimpled
waters of sparkling blue and admit ships on both sides of this gigantic
promontory.
As you leave the station, you find yourself facing a long stretch of
unkempt ground, over which the new town is being erected inland.
Further behind lie the cliffs, rising one within another, with a series
of natural fortifications, one of which has begun its immortal fame,
“203 Metres Hill.”
Its sides are covered with huge stones, piled in volcanic confusion,
partly by nature, partly by the concussion of balls.
This point, as all remember, was surrounded by a barbed wire fence and
heaps of sand bags.
On one edge men passed over living flesh and dying flesh, their hands
torn from the sockets, as they mounted up a perpendicular side of some
three hundred feet.
The hills on the land side are well covered with the rough and tumble
of the up-torn rocks, pieces of bone and rusty implements and the torn
sand bags are still there. Seventeen thousand men fell on this hill and
it took five days to capture it.
Once on top after a climb of some twenty minutes of slow scrambling,
like the ascent of the pyramids, you reach the summit. Then you realize
why Russia wanted to keep it and Japan to win it at any cost. It is a
center of billowy hills on the land side and of the whole sweep of bays
and promontories stretching out towards the Yellow Sea and Pechilli Bay.
Port Arthur is the sharp beak of the promontory, which cuts into two
waters and can guard the lands of Japan, Korea and China. As you stand
then on the top of “203 Metres Hill” you have at your back hills,
in the front the towns, the circling mountains about the water, the
advanced cliffs of the defensive works and the bays and the sea. Your
guns can command any point and your view has every detail before it.
You are, as I remember, about one mile and a half from town.
This latter is composed of a small park from which the adorning center
has been removed, whether in disgrace as offensive to non-classical
taste or not I do not know.
The Civil Office building is new or repaired and not specially
attractive as the Japanese do not seem to care to put beauty in their
public buildings. A new and very elaborate hotel soon to be opened, is
being put up.
This is made out of concrete and stone, quarried, I believe, out of the
near-by mountains. The roads leave everything to be desired; they are
full of ruts and must be horrible in the rainy months.
The Czar’s mother built the “Red Cross Hospital” whose gigantic
outlines of red warm the heart during the frozen months of a Manchurian
winter.
Vice Admiral Hashimoto and his lovely family live in a palatial
residence, while set in wide gardens at only a few feet away is the
steep descent to the gate of the navy yard, where you can stroll about
with a guide seeing sunken ships being repaired and the “Amur,” one
of Russia’s relics lying on her side, kept there as a reminder of the
dreadful days gone.
Shops full of busy workmen are alongside and the little men who are
hard at work to the ceaseless blows of the hammer, bob about blithely
at their tasks, getting ready for another conflict.
Far up over one’s head, on the terraced gardens, I saw a marquise and
asked what it had been used for.
It was the Russian bandstand, where every evening the Russians played
their national airs; now only the breeze blows its requiem there, for
“dead souls.”
Nearby is the “Army and Navy Club” at whose inviting door I bade good
bye to the American Consul who had so gallantly chaperoned me for the
day.
The visit to Port Arthur for a lady alone, would not be agreeable. We
had the pleasure of meeting the commanding general, Membo Camio, and he
told us about his two dogs and they were introduced, one of them his
special favorite, “a left over” from Russian occupation!
Dog lovers know no geographical lines and his most interesting face
took on that peculiar “love me, love my dog” look seen on the faces of
those devoted to canine pets.
It was an easy task for me and while they talked diplomatic
compliments, I talked dog.
I told General Camio of a friend in Manila who possessed one from the
Russian fleet, a beautiful collie, given her from off the fugitive
Russian ships. How also on the Fourth of July the sensitive creature
crept away to avoid hearing the firing, which brings to mind that awful
day.
We were provided with a guide, by the kindness of the general, to the
war museum and to General Stossel’s house.
This residence was and is a very plain one, not very large, set on a
single hill commanding a view over the forts and town opposite and is
opposite the new palace of the civil governor.
General Nakamura, who was acting governor of Manchuria, a most affable
and agreeable personality, did us voluntarily a great service, which
he anticipated the moment we came into the room. He gave us our return
pass to Fusan, as Baron Goto of the South Manchurian Railway was away
from his home in Dalny.
The delicate way the Japanese, in their kindness even think for one, is
wonderful.
“’Twas fated I should seek this battle field and here above the
multitudinous dead, be the white victim, growing daily whiter. The
breath of death has rustled thru my hair! The shudder of death has
passed athwart my soul! I am all white, a sacrificial host!”
So felt the Duke of Reichstadt at Wagram, so feels every noble soul at
Port Arthur. It is for humanity, an altar of blood and fire!
The fields have been put under the plow, but labor cannot wait.
The necessities of existence have, perhaps fortunately, no sentiment.
Parts of our road are blasted thru the solid rock. We move towards
the battle field, watching alternately the dismantled homes and the
primitive methods of agriculture. Some buildings are left as wrecks.
The configuration grows every mile more sinister. In a distant low
roofed building we are told that General Stoessel surrendered but it is
all a dream; we are seeking something. There on the horizon! Yes, it
rises! Calm as at creation’s dawn, when its Maker saw this hour. “203
Metres Hill”! Name forever immortal!
Oh, the sublimity of the view over that billowy plain from its summit!
There “Pigeon Bay” and “Kerr Bay.” The monuments of Russia’s generosity
and Japan’s gratitude.
We visited the war museum and the Administration buildings. The blue of
that day’s sky, so blue, with the glory of the sun on the “Golden Hill”
and the “Tiger’s Tail” forts but the hosts were visible to the unseen
eye, the cries of agony and victory were in our ears and in the garden
of General Stoessel we found growing the flowers so thoughtless, or so
healing of it all! The flowers which have no memory!
“Les fleurs nont pas de memoire,
Nouvelles dans un monde ancien!”
General Stoessel’s house has still one room, kept as it was with some
startling brocade furniture, but the other rooms are being turned into
offices, I believe, of the war department.
Our minds were filled with an awful pathos as we wandered about and the
light jests of our companions did not seem in place. The garden was
much as it was, doubtless a tangle of marigolds and astors, and we were
told to carry away as much as our arms would hold, which we did. Ah,
nature, how little thou dost care!
The war museum has a fence surrounding it which shows every kind of
defense in the way of crossed spikes and barbed wire and other sorts of
infernal devices used in sieges.
Inside you can see war accoutrements, garments, implements, dynamos,
bombs, machines of every sort to destroy, until the mind sickens.
Plans of now disused forts show how they were taken, where blown up,
where tunneled; earthworks and redoubts we passed on our way over
and all the ingenious ways are still there of how men can protect
themselves from death and deal out death to each other.
I never heard once either in Japan or Manchuria, or Port Arthur, where
pride, military pride, if ever, would be admissible, one word of
boasting and one little Jap said at Port Arthur, “The Russians need
never be ashamed of Port Arthur. To the everlasting disgrace be it of a
nation which will punish men for doing as well as they could.”
To view this remarkable place which will be in time one of the great
tourist points of the East, one need count no fatigue too great.
No trip in Europe offers more grandeur both in natural setting and
historic significance.
Marathon, salute thy peers. The years have taken much, but left us men,
Men of thy stature, O, Sophocles, who asked the fairest boon,
To die like heroes, even if to taste life were still denied,
Thinking with scorn of late, or soon, the now, or then.
Empires may lose their monarchs and renown,
But never to be forgotten is this hill, dyed in the purple of man’s
supreme nobility,
For here the Hand which balances each crown,
Placed forevermore a diadem of heroes, on brothers death mowed down.
(Written on “203 Metres Hill”)
[Illustration]
MOUKDEN
The mountain effects as you near Moukden, are every day finer. The
august abysses and the tremendous onward sweep of the track, the
seemingly impossible turns and cavernous leaps are all indescribable!
As you near the city of Moukden you see a saddle-shaped height to which
the contending armies of the last war climbed and fought.
On one height you also see a shaft commemorative of the Japanese dead.
All is prophetic of what is beyond.
Moukden is at the heart of China with Port Arthur and Harbin about
equally distant. A strongly fortified place, a strategic point of China
life and politics and of a value well known to her friends and her
enemies!
Pekin is but two days away and the stone wall of wonderful fame but
twenty hours, and what means more than all to this traveler, we are
but one night’s ride from Port Arthur, over a good road which is being
double tracked and is to be furnished shortly with first class American
cars!
Moukden is built on a vast plain and has a horizon line worthy of the
plains of Dakota. A wall of truly Chinese dimensions encloses the
traffic which goes on with the usual Chinese volubility. A wide and new
boulevard is being made by the Japanese, running from the station to
the ancient city. This has a modern look, but not so what passes along
it! Such a motley array of human clothes and shapes!
It is indeed a Vanity Fair. The huge Manchurians with a “devil may
care” air. The Japanese looking anxious and uneasy at so much to be
done.
The ox carts with strange passengers inside them! The jinrickshas with
their Chinese runners with more “devil may care manners”! The street
hucksters, the few Europeans and the rich natives with their coolies,
the stir of one of the busiest cities of the East and one of the most
original, that all makes Moukden!
The recruits are exercising out in front of the American consulate
and raw they are, but quick, and the military steps are fast becoming
familiar to them.
An ancient pagoda surely contemporary with David is on this street:
this Parisian boulevard of Moukden, and much we wondered at its stone
form of concrete and its top of bronze, a crescent and ball!
Around the unique buildings of the consulate extends the plain, by
turns dusty or muddy, according to the season.
Our delight was the moonlight on the consulate! The court so imposing,
with its grotesque animals and its Chinese queerness! The rare old
Chinese windows and at evening time, the watchman “beating the fish,”
sounding a rattle to warn away all intruders!
The especial beauty of a real oriental house and furnishings; this one,
set in the heart of China, has as delightful a flavor as one may meet.
The tombs of the Emperors of the Manchu dynasty, the men rather, who
founded the reigning house, are of fitting elaborateness. They too,
like the palaces of Seoul, are falling to decay.
The one I went to see on a chilly autumn afternoon, was set in a park
of considerable dimensions guarded by the ever faithful stone dogs.
These faithful animals have kept the palaces intact and the sleepers
in their tombs for centuries!
We watched the old stern-faced tho not unkindly woods-men cutting the
winter fodder in the over-grown grounds. They work while the emperors
sleep and how much more impressive they are!
A huge gate as usual meets us at the entrance to the enclosure; indeed,
two gates.
The tomb itself or rather the shrine before the tomb is approached by
two stately avenues, where the dogs are relieved of their lonely watch
by two horses, two dromedaries and two elephants!
In a pagoda we saw the mammoth sea horse and on his back the memorial
tablet written in characters none but a scholar’s spectacles could
decipher!
The gate with its marvelous locks, certainly antedating Pharoah, opens
and we gaze at its ornaments of dragons’ heads, a sort of mask, as we
enter, to the central court, where we look up at the walls and mount
them to get the view and see the four corner towers of brilliant
workmanship and colors.
Descending, we approach the central shrine by steps of very fine
sculpture and artistic form and are told by our retinue of attendants
that curiosity can go no farther nor veneration for that matter, as the
key is lost!
The grave itself is beyond all this stone and wood arabesque; it is
without the wall, a simple heap, or mound of earth!
“Dust to dust,” after all, poor old Manchurian warrior of long ago!
But as it is autumn in the park, we gathered the red berries and the
men ornamented the jinrickshas with them and we ride home across the
plain in a glory of red that out lasts all. The sun is a perfect disk
magnified by the perspective of the plain into a gigantic size, worthy
of Manchuria, and there is the Japanese flag! May it bring better days
to this land of toil and patience! That is the heart’s wish for this
colossal country of Manchuria!
Over the mountains sky high, over the plains of Moukden, over more
mountains, and you approach the city of Dalny. There seems a stupendous
realization of Nature in it all, the scene is perfect. Dalny, to use a
histrionic term again, is the “curtain raiser” of Port Arthur.
The war cloud seems still hovering over it. If you are accustomed to
the birthplaces of national significance you feel it in the air. The
place has a somber air. Built to be a pillar of Russia’s all conquering
power, it was to pass in a few years in an awful avalanche of
disaster to another!
Across these streets men fought their way and others fled in terror!
There are places where nothing would astonish you. No miracle but would
seem possible, because a miracle has been. Such a place is Dalny. There
are spots of our earth sanctified by the sublimest emotions possible
to our human nature, above this mortal passing of days: such is Dalny!
Such is Port Arthur!
At Waterloo, at the Plains of Marathon, on the battle fields where all
our race rose in an hour to another epoch of its stupendous destiny,
what can be said! What is not felt!
At the entrance of these streets you feel it is other ground, you tread
softly for immortal valor is there before you. You have thoughts of
pride; a pride that wells as a gushing stream, to your heart. Yea, here
men were conquerors, not over a mortal foe, but over Death and Self.
The deadly enemies of men!
When there has been said this word to fate, “you cannot rob me,” then
all the hearts of men leap to that height and we are for a moment
deified. O glory to the heroes of that hour.
Russians or Japanese! All were in that sublime sense conquerors! All
shall be forever victors, enshrined in our memory, where we worship the
undying splendor of the soul!
[Illustration]
MOONLIGHT OVER MOUKDEN
Moon of harvests and of toil she slowly mounts the aged Chinese Sky,
A sky of fairness, alabaster, ivory, like an antique shrine
Of ancient lineage and proud, her charm mingled of the mellow
mystery of joy and tears;
In glory young, though old in years.
Glories indeed have been, an emperor sleeps within a tomb
Forgotten with the sigh, men breathed in his domain,
Nature and life rebuilt from death to radiant dreams,
Who notes the Past, as tolls the silver chime new hours?
Night speaks and light still streams;
Around her future like her rays, is mystery,
But as days die, new days begin, of history far mightier:
Great light appears across Time’s pageant, lighting to grander
victory;
Victory deathless as moonbeams, and Love builds temples through
all glooms.
MANCHURIA
“In the increased enthusiasm of Japan in her ardent effort to
strengthen her position in the world, by basing her international
conduct upon the fairest and best tried principles of human progress,
the effort is not free from occasional errors, but the large issue
grows clear in Japan’s mind.”
The force of such words as these in Mr. Asakawa’s book “Russo-Japanese
Conflict,” I feel as a traveller over four thousand miles of railroad
controlled by Japan, from Yokohama to Port Arthur. If Japan is the
country of loveliness par excellence, and Korea ranking with Greece and
Montenegro, in the dramatic and picturesque, Manchuria is the majestic
climax to both! Antoken, two days ride from Seoul, is the drop curtain
painted in strokes of impressionism, as wonderful an introduction as
the heart could wish to the farther grandeur of Asia. The Yalu has vast
perspectives in its reaches into the heart of the land and moves one as
do all great rivers, as the Neva, the Thames, commercially stupendous,
as well as wide and deep. It seems a colossal boundary separating Korea
from China, but in this respect it fails of its purpose since Japan has
crossed it! The conflict which began near the gates of Pyongyang grows
here more intense in retrospect and you see, still much as they were
used, the sand bags and the remains of the fortifications. Sitting in
a box car, with about twenty Japanese and Manchurians, we watched the
unfolding of the landscape of China at our leisure. Here for the first
time in our four years of the Orient we saw the horse doing his proper
work as we see him in Europe and America. They were drawing the heavy
vans as at home laden with harvest.
Antoken is a wild, unkempt town sprawling out in many directions, and
is being revolutionized by hard labor, as fast as toil, oriental toil,
can revolutionize it. The gaunt crags, the excavated cliffs, make it
stern in aspect and rather alarm one as to what may lie beyond. The
road seems a toy, but your admiration increases with the square of
the distance, as you wind on into the first “divide” on the edge of
precipices and over chasms for five hours of each day, through scenery
only the passes of the Alps or the Rockies can equal, and although
I have travelled through both, I think in certain aspects this trip
rivals either. The gauge is to be widened in two years and the distance
shortened. I was the guest on my return of the engineer in his private
car, so I had the pleasure of admiring the fruit of his brain with
the man who had conceived it. At the little mountain station where we
passed the night and which is provided with a good Japanese hotel, I
was told that here will be the centre of a health resort, and of course
the game is all any sportsman can desire. At this station we met a
French engineer, on his return to Paris from Tonkin, and his wit and
interest in all he saw did much to enliven the stay. His grey hairs
had not dimmed his delight in the superb panoramas of Nature, and
his enthusiasm was added to our own. These heights covered with the
rich hues of autumn are in fine contrast to the treeless, improvident
mountains of Korea!
I have regretted not being able to accept an invitation to visit
the American mines in Korea, but as it meant a trip in an ox cart I
felt with Manchuria before me I had all I could have the heroism for.
These mountains of Manchuria are supposed to be unfit for mining. The
first farmyards in our home sense begin, soon out of Antoken, with the
picturesque confusion of the autumn fruits. The soft greens of the
intervals remind us of the country outside of Paris in spring. The cows
and pigs are everywhere and in spite of the swineherds, who reminded
us of our Spanish reading and the story of the “Prodigal Son” most
vividly, they do get in the way of the slowly moving train. One little
black fellow had his last race and fell, as so much rustic valor has
before him, before the wheels we call progress, or Juggernaut according
to our mood. One old swineherd in tatters came to the car door. Never
off the stage have I seen a character so like the quaint creations of
Shakespeare’s dramas. We made him happier with a few persimmons and a
few coins, realizing from his extra crimson nose, that he was indeed
in “a far country.” Now we were as the days wore on climbing ridges,
now descending into abysses, every moment full of awe and of pleasure.
Along one of the slopes I saw a letter carrier with just that easy
lope he has on Broadway: so far gone that humanizes the letter! Caves,
caverns, stupendous effects at every turn, on we climb. The mists on
the heights in early morning are most exquisite. We pass military posts
and one where there are rich coal mines. Being the only European on the
train, and a woman, we are the “chief animal of the show.” We afford
great amusement to the sightseers of Manchuria. Huge woods, men cutting
logs, or at their arduous toil, it is all reciprocated and we part the
best of friends, the sturdy mountaineers and the woman, strange indeed.
They are, in their uncouth way, chivalrous, and as chivalry is dying
out in every country we may yet have to seek it alone in Manchuria!
At one stopping place, I was attracted by a shrine, of which you see
so many, and as we had an hour’s wait, went to investigate. I fell in
with the native kindness and was asked in with the greatest show of
hospitality to see the interior. It was of course a farm house! How
bare! There was the raised platform where, as in Russia, the family
slept. All was blackened with smoke and all, including the family,
needed a lot of water to bring them to the original color, but the
children were very bright under their coat of dirt and very graceful,
in a way far more attractive than most civilized mannikins. The advent
of a foreigner made an event in the village annals and we soon had
quite an audience of the neighbors. It took us back again to days
of the One who went about doing good. I did not see a church spire
from Antoken to Dalny; am told that there are Catholic missions and a
cathedral in Moukden. The villages are all inclosed in mud walls and
are compact and occasionally one sees a temple much the worse for the
“tooth of time.”
[Illustration]
SEOUL
If you should fall asleep over a volume of the “Arabian Nights” as I
have done many times in childhood and should awaken in Seoul, you would
not find the transition in the least startling.
There is no city which could better fit in its glowing pages. Its
coloring is as fantastic as are the episodes of the “thousand and
one nights,” and to be accurate when therein describing its manifold
glories, as I saw them, is to me impossible.
The editor of one of the very spicy journals which keep the Japanese
busy asked me to give my impressions and when I did, said they were far
and away too poetical and too imaginative for a daily paper, but they
did not approach the reality; not by half!
There are two railway stations in Seoul and they are modern and very
brisk in their air as we whirled into the second one late at night
after a day’s ride in this wonderland of amber and gold mountains. I
was too sleepy to do aught but fall into the comfortable bed of the
“Astor House,” one of the best kept hotels in the Orient if you refer
to the cuisine.
The next morning I awoke to find myself up under the shadow of a huge
Chinese wall and beyond were fascinating towers and spires and distant
flag poles of consulates and not many hours were lost before we took
a Sunday morning stroll uphill and thru gigantic gates flashing with
mural paintings of dragons and wild impressionistic colors and weird
symbolism, and found ourselves in front of a Russian church where the
bells were ringing. We entered to the strains of that Slavic harmony
which allures as no other and there we found blond priests, with long
hair, worn in the same way as in the old Greek paintings and the
profile of the angelic Northern saint type; it was a strange paradox
to be in this chapel which represented a power now a removed obstacle
to Japanese dominion, and see its worshipers calmly allowed to go on
singing as of old. “One day they will come singing back again,” said
a bright young American observer. All Korea has two influences very
marked in its civilization, Arabic and Chinese, and a still more unique
aspect of a Grecian tradition. It is all three and Indian above all
three!
There is something of the wild free stride of all mountain peoples in
their walk as you watch them in their flowing white robes and pot hats
along the highroads and there is a wild glance in the eyes of the men
not fierce, but the glance of some gentle animal untamed. The women, as
all know, are the household drudges and are completely under the thumb
of the male element, having neither name nor station apart from these
very self-important masters.
They are kept in rich houses quite as in Turkey and they wear a silk
mantle over their faces when in the street. You can see their large
wondering furtive eyes looking out as you pass from station to station,
where the dapper Japanese officials keep them in check.
They wear the most delicious shoes in the world, these same shy
sisters; they are Turkish and turned up slightly at the toes and are
silk besides, and very dainty in shade. The upper class wear this
flowing garment and the mantle of white silk in the street and the
middle class the green mantle.
The poorest class, as is so often the case, gives the most picturesque
tone to the city streets and we have had our breath quite taken away by
meeting some woman, whose fancy ran a riot of color which would have
eclipsed Turner himself!
I was invited to an evening entertainment at one of the hospitals,
where the girls were in their house costume, and it consists of a
bolero jacket and baggy trowsers, or divided skirt, it appeared to be.
Many of the girls were pretty and as animated as one could wish. A
debate was held and for diplomatic reasons I will not give the subject,
but it was as full of fire as a Greek patriot’s and carried on amid the
roars of laughter a school girl’s performance usually meets with.
One of the faces of the nurses was so beautiful and so pathetic I could
not help remarking on its sublimity and my chief hostess told me a
little of its tragedy.
The face was minus a nose, which a jealous husband in a moment of
frenzy cut off.
The woman is a christian and the meek glory of her face will remain one
of the memories of a lifetime.
No Madonna I ever saw in Europe equals it for sweetness.
Another inmate of this hospital, so admirably bringing medical aid and
training to Korean women, was a little girl without arms or legs, but
still smiling and happy!
All the world has heard of the great wave of Christianity which swept
over Korea in these last years and the glory of it belongs to the
rare, very rare men and women, who are there; men and women talented in
letters as in religious devotion and their fame is great, such as Dr.
James Gale and others.
But oh, the streets of Seoul! Wander up on the citadel and gaze from
its ramparts down on the palace gardens, the new palace where you can
of a morning see the Emperor ride forth to visit his mother’s tomb or
go to meet a distinguished guest as we saw him the morning the Crown
Prince of Japan came, when the brilliant city was decorated with the
magic talent of those past masters of scenic effect, the Japanese.
By one of the arches we saw the most unique spectacle as the Emperor
and suite and the two young princes side by side swept on in that
silent awe of Oriental homage, so unlike our own.
We saw Togo and Ito and the others who have made the most brilliant
history of modern times, Togo laughing like a school boy, at all the
parade, which without him would never have been. We wondered if thru
his modest head any such thoughts passed!
Flags of Korea and Japan were in every possible nook and corner and
arches of pine so solid in their construction that they did not look
paltry beside the superb wall, which girts the whole city and with
true Chinese irony runs up the hills and towards the sky and where the
wondrous Korean mountains stand bare, bleak and awful.
Koreans have cut all timber from their peaks and left them like their
kingdom exposed from shiftlessness, a prey: now Japan is to make them
again, to wave with Nature’s fairest plumes the giants of the forest.
These gaunt rocks made, however, a truly majestic and fantastic
background to the oriental brilliancy of the streets with their rows on
rows of open shops, full of tempting wares such as we cannot often find.
You can buy in Seoul furniture that is a marvel of luxury and
usefulness and the mother of pearl inlaid ornaments and the wonderful
brass decorated articles are almost an enthrallment. The American
Consulate in Seoul is as rich in its interior beauty of decoration,
as in its hospitality. Its mistress is one of the most lovely women
of our land, or of any land. There we met the forceful Englishwoman
who had tutored the Crown Prince, until he left for Japan; a charming
personality whose reminiscences would fill volumes of delightful
romance, as she has been in the “inner circle” for years and that,
indeed, in a country as full of brilliant scenes and of thrilling
events as a drama of the most Victor Hugan sort.
You can buy amber and silk and the wonder of Eastern fabrication and
you can exhaust your prose and your purse and your vocabulary over it
both, in admiration and exasperation.
Seoul is in part modern, that is, a little modern, and it has a street
car line very much like we used to have in Manila in the good old days
“before de war.”
I always took it with the thrilling sense of not knowing where I was
to land and indeed, altho Seoul looks easy to the traveler, you can
get lost as quickly as in Boston. I was lost several times, but found
myself again just where I started.
After dark the streets are lighted with huge Chinese lanterns and small
Korean lanterns which are carried in the hands and you can follow your
neighbor, as you do very gratefully, home this way.
Seoul has a new boulevard since the Japanese occupation and the streets
are, oh, marvel of marvels, being cleaned!
Koreans would never have thought of that in all their years of
philosophical wandering into the unseen, where they like so much to go!
My trip to Seoul proved to be of more importance than I anticipated,
as I had a hole in one of the principal streets filled up, to my great
astonishment, again proving that “where there is a will there is a
way.” It had threatened for some time to break many hundreds of legs,
which passed that way every hour of the day and Stygian night!
Seoul lies in a cup of gigantic hills and it must be not a little like
Jerusalem, in situation a “joy of the whole earth.” It has superb
moonlight nights and radiant days and it is as majestic and dreamy and
sad and glorious as a Greek tragedy.
If you go into the parks of the two ancient palaces and wander for
hours and hear the birds sing and watch the tall fading on castle walls
and the glory that was Seoul and the grandeur that was Korea and watch
thru the trees, arches and bridges of lovely shape and the pagodas
richly tinted, where rested the lovely forms of long ago and see the
art and the dead, forgotten beauty of an age when beauty was enough,
when an emperor sued within those bowers and the days were long and
careless and the great lotus flowers now on their stems, as then lulled
to sleep all of man’s longings, why you will have to literally tear
yourself away, not to want to drop to sleep never to wake up, as you
did over the book which told it all, how they lived and dreamed and
loved and hated in--Seoul, yes, so long ago when there was a king who
had a son beautiful and good and a daughter as fair as the moon, you
remember!
JAPANESE IN KOREA
The question of the relations between the Koreans and the Japanese in
Korea is a delicate one--one which requires an insight into past causes
and present issues somewhat beyond that of a casual observer.
It is a question which finds its parallel in the relations of the
Filipinos to the Americans in the Philippine Islands. Taking into
consideration some of the minor differences, it is strikingly the same.
Unwillingly, by the fortunes of war, both these helpless people, people
loving very little the “strenuous life” and enjoying ease with little,
far more than much without it, are being forced to arouse themselves
to action along new paths into a complex existence to which their
child-like and primitive needs do not call them. They are both more
given to reflection than action, and to theory rather than practice.
The same pride of those who take refuge in dreams is found in both,
but in the case of the Korean it is even harder to obliterate the past
tendencies, as they are not anxious to change even when at slight
cost to themselves. But here we must make a second observation,--that
along the normal and intellectual paths they do desire improvement.
They will sacrifice much to educate their children, and will go to any
privation to get an education. For example, the nurses in training in
the Seoul hospital, the “Po Ku Nyo Koan,” take six years of study and
pay for tuition, and do it gladly and with enthusiasm to obtain their
diplomas. I saw several of these young ladies who would do credit to
Johns Hopkins, so noble and self-poised did they appear. But stubborn
they most surely are, and refractory to those new forms of life which
mean other customs and other laws. The missionaries find them open to
spiritual truth and tractable to the practice of it in their lives.
Both essentially Oriental and gentle when left to themselves, the
Filipino and the Korean become sullen, and even fierce when forced
against their will.
Both Americans and Spaniards, as a Spanish gentleman said to me, become
heady and inflated with their own importance as soon as they “round
Corregidor.” The least desirable traits come into focus when vulgar
people are in the foreground. The Japanese have suffered somewhat by
crossing the Tsushima Straits. Insolence and a swagger of “we are the
people” we fancied we had left behind us in the “Pearl of the Orient,”
and which is slowly passing away, however, is recognizable at a glance
in Korea. A jinrikisha man, who seems to be a “thorn in the flesh” of
Yokohama, becomes a festering sore in Korea; he runs over unwary men
and women without a grimace, and bullies the rider into double fare
with the air of a bandit.
The meddling “in other men’s business,” conspicuous also where
ignorance and lawlessness come into play, as in the Philippines and
Korea, is also characteristic. There is no bound to the impertinence of
those who feel like the bad boy of the nursery that the governess will
never dare tell, for she would get the worst of it if she did. Fair
play is not conspicuous in Korea, nor always in the Philippines. Great
complaint is made by foreigners in Korea as to the wholesale disregard
of property rights, the absolute impossibility of getting justice
before the law. Fortunately the parallel stops here; we have Filipino
judges who enjoy nothing better than sending an American up for a long
term! I hope the time is not far distant when a Korean judge can enjoy
the same ironical pleasure. Of course the greatest difficulty lies in
this adjusting of ignorance to another ignorance in the lower classes,
the ignorance of both being absolutely impenetrable. The educated
Japanese recognize this and acknowledge their inability to cope with it
at times. Occasionally this takes a tragic aspect, as when in working
on the telegraph wires in the streets of Seoul they warned to no
purpose over and over again a poor Korean, to whom electricity and its
deadly power was as unknown a quantity as a Sanskrit root to a London
fishwife, and at last they hit him a blow, and he fell--dead!
But force is always the weapon of men who have power over others and
none over themselves, whether in Bombay, Manila or Seoul. But that the
patience of English and American and Japanese is often tried to the
uttermost is also true, doubtless. “Patience conquers all things”; this
saying of Saint Theresa is needed by them all; and by the Filipino and
Korean, above all. In conversation with foreigners, with Japanese and
with Koreans, you feel this absolutely.
A Korean boy said to me pitifully, “Oh, they do not understand,” and a
very astute and able man of prominence in finance in Seoul, a Japanese,
acknowledged the same difficulty of harmonizing such divergent
elements, meaning exactly what the boy could not express. Some of the
foreigners are strongly influenced by their hearts in favor of the
Koreans, citing incidents of their ill-treatment by the coolies and the
merchants. Others, relying on their heads, say, “No, Japan is doing as
well as under the circumstances is possible with a delicate, obstinate,
inflexible people, who do not wish to develop in the modern sense.” As
to the Japanese soldiers and their behavior, I heard only praise, which
is certainly, considering the opportunity they have to be otherwise,
admirable.
The Korean has by no means the courtesy towards strangers of the
Japanese, but it is said that once you show yourself their friend they
go further in their cordiality and are far more unselfish in their
devotion.
The less attractive qualities of the Koreans have been greatly
overdrawn. They are kindly and attractive, the women especially so,
even winsome, graceful, and possessing that dignity and poise, partly
characteristic of the British Indian and partly of the Mohammedan. They
are sticklers for tradition and punctilious in etiquette, and like
such people usually are rather more anxious for the “letter” than the
“spirit.” Sensitive to the feelings of a stranger as the Japanese are,
they certainly are not. The prosperity of Korea is tempting to the
avaricious Japanese, and they have been guilty of such transactions as
are some of the monopolies of America, crushing to the wall the less
clever. It is an old story; Japan can show England and America nothing
new in greed. We have exhausted the repertoire!
Seoul is one of the most enchanting cities in the world; its situation
is marvelous, its picturesqueness only Constantinople can rival.
Korea is a land of stupendous beauty and attractiveness, the kingdom of
toil, and it is to this they are looking. To the onward marching lines
of men who see the future, Korea and Manchuria are the stepping stones.
The wide fields extend in every direction, the hills “rejoice on every
side.” Japan marches her soldiers at every station, law and order go
with her, and out of chaos, Asiatic chaos, she will bring--who that
sees her at work can doubt--civilization in the modern sense.
[Illustration]
TOKYO AND ITS MAYOR
One of the most interesting experiences of my stay in Japan was my
visit to the parliament, where I was privileged to have as a guide the
mayor of Tokyo, Mr. Ozaki, a man who has had a seat in that body every
year since it has had its existence.
The buildings are not in the least imposing. They show the same
paradoxical simplicity which we find in so much of this most stately
people’s ways.
Over the president’s desk hang eight portraits in oil and on a raised
platform under them a group of distinguished workingmen, whom I took to
be in part officials and visitors.
Our seat in the diplomatic gallery was directly opposite that of the
president, Mr. Sugita, a most distinguished appearing man who looked
not a little like our late John Hay. The vice president, Mr. Minsura,
sat by the president’s side, a serious man of sedate face.
The chief secretary is Mr. Hayashida.
It was a most curious thing to look about the room and to contrast
the individualities with those scenes we had watched in Congress, the
German reichstag, and in Paris in the senate chamber.
Mayor Ozaki has the distinction of being one of the three best
speakers in the parliament, and his rare penetration, wide travel,
and far-seeing intellect, as well as his wide knowledge of affairs in
a practical sense, furnish him splendid equipment in sustaining the
oratorical eminence he has gained. The speakers on this afternoon were
many and, judging from the rapid firing from the seats and the frequent
laughter, they were both witty and well directed. The members showed
every age from grey hair to the trim dapper young thirty with its
brocade waist coat. Every style of Japanese dress of old feudal days,
which is a most dignified and becoming garment, to the latest work of
the European tailor, was in evidence.
The voices were for the most part the well-bred modulated ones of the
upper class Japanese, but some were impassioned and some were silvery
and persuasive.
In front of the president’s desk stand the different members expressing
their views in as many fashions as there are men. Groups of men stood
about laughing and talking as is usual at such places and in the
lobbies there was the usual passing and doubtless buttonholing. On
every hand might be seen deep eyes of astute glance and the still
deeper eyes of a far-seeing statesmanship.
The sitting lasted till four, and in times of eager debate when much
is at stake, they sometimes do not rise till nine p.m. This making
of laws is a noble profession, but it has its humdrum side as do all
professions, and men seek to escape from this tedious side in different
ways characteristic of themselves.
There is a restaurant on the ground, indeed, two of them, and we dined
at one with his excellency and listened to the brilliant conversation
which he added as a sauce to the food. Very appetizing food, by the way!
In Mr. Ozaki, Tokyo has a very unique mayor, a man with as many sided
an existence as his city! “Self made,” as he proudly said, he has been
a public man all his life and yet likes the quiet of his country life
and the family quite as much as the most humble man of the city. A
great reader of men and of events, he is a democrat to the backbone and
has a manner simple as a child and a mind as keen as one of the damioes
swords. He was once exiled from his city as a dangerous character, “for
I am always in the opposition,” he laughingly said, “always a fighter,”
and then he told us of the first three positions he held, from which
he resigned in one, two and three months respectively. He has a dash
of dare devil still, this excessively quiet, self-contained man, but
years, years how they take the fight out of the bravest! We learned
from him of the great undertakings which he as mayor has in view: the
building of a harbor for Tokyo, the new sewerage, the 10,000,000 yens
to invest for the coming exposition and the other things with figures
of something like one hundred million yens. It reminded us of hearing
President Harper talk of laying out Mr. Rockefeller’s millions. Such a
juggler in figures he seemed.
The Ginza has been widened and one of the finest systems of water works
in the world just terminated. This alone would make the administration
famous. Tokyo elects her mayor every six years, and this mayor has
served five only to begin to learn he claims, the duties of his office.
Mayor Ozaki in his younger days was a journalist and he has an able
pen. The municipality has in its care a very interesting “Alms House,”
of which we may write later. It is, with other of her institutions, a
most creditable one.