THE DIAMOND MOUNTAINS AND NORTHWARD
Korea is quite a mountainous country, though not so much so as Formosa,
or perhaps even old Japan. But it has one cluster of mountains that are
considered more picturesque and beautiful than any others in the
Japanese Empire. Yet few travelers through Korea see Kongo-san—the
Diamond Mountains, we might call them in English—for they are far over
on the eastern coast of the peninsula, many miles from the main railway
line.
The branch line to Gensan, however, will bring you quite near them. You
can either get off at a town along the way, taking a Ford or a rickshaw
from there or traveling on your own feet, or you may go on to the end of
the line, as I did, and catch a queer little Japanese coasting steamer
down the edge of the peninsula. In either case you will soon find
yourself in the midst of ancient Buddhist monasteries.
If the Diamond Mountains were in China, probably there would be coolies
waiting to carry visitors all about them in chairs; and certainly if
they were in Japan hundreds of tourists would come to them every year.
But the Koreans do not like to carry people, and only those who are very
good climbers and walkers can get about Kongo-san at all.
I had the good luck to find a coolie to carry my baggage, however, and
one who not only was good company but who could keep up with me. I
happened to have only four days to spare, and it takes eight or ten to
make the circuit of the mountains properly, so we had to move rapidly. I
was very sorry for this, because nothing would have pleased me more than
to be free to wander for a month through that wonderful cluster of
mountains which so few people ever see.
[Illustration:
Looking up a valley in the Diamond Mountains of Korea, where nature
shows striking beauties that even the camera tries in vain to
picture adequately.
]
Many centuries ago, when the Buddhist faith came from India across China
to Korea, the kings of Chosen, as it was called even in those early
days, all helped the priests and monks to build monasteries and temples
in this fantastic group of peaks on the eastern coast. Later many of the
buildings were burned, and as they are made entirely of wood a great
many have simply fallen away in decay. But there are still dozens of
quaint old structures tucked away in all sorts of queer places among the
mountains. The region has become the holy land of Korean Buddhists.
[Illustration:
Needle-pointed peaks of the Diamond Mountains. Photographs give but a
poor idea of how wonderful these mountains are.
]
The Scenery and Temples of Kongo-san
I wish I could describe the steep trails of Kongo-san, its raging
mountain torrents, the narrow log bridges over great chasms, so that you
could get some idea of how hard it was to visit all its most important
places in four days. But I should be still more pleased if I could
picture to you the beautiful forests piled into the sky all about those
trails, the great stone cliffs rising high on either side of the rushing
streams. Some of those cliffs are carved with gigantic figures that have
been there more than a thousand years. The little finger of one such
Buddha was longer than my coolie was tall.
[Illustration:
One of the many beautiful old temples or monasteries scattered through
the Diamond Mountains (Kongo-san). They are made entirely of wood,
but are richly painted and decorated.
]
In the ancient temples, with their upturned roof corners and their gaudy
wooden gods, live monks who take care of visitors, even foreigners.
Perhaps they are really glad to see outsiders, for though they have
tried to get away as far as possible from the rush and troubles of the
world, they must sometimes long for a bit of news from it. Especially in
winter, when snow makes it impossible to enter or leave the mountains,
the monks can imagine themselves on quite another planet. I saw great
piles of firewood ready for the next winter, and other supplies were
hidden away in the storerooms and in the queer denlike kitchens.
[Illustration:
This kitchen of a Buddhist monastery in Kongo-san (the Diamond
Mountains) is made of stones and mud, like all Korean kitchens, yet
it seems to be satisfactory for cooking the food of the monks, of
whom there are thousands scattered through these beautiful
mountains. The monks eat no meat.
]
But now it was summer; pilgrims came every day, and sometimes a foreign
traveler. We had to eat just the same food as the monks. Although they
are not allowed by their religion ever to eat meat, you would be
surprised to see how many appetizing dishes their cooks can prepare
entirely from vegetables. The Korean style of bed, however, which is
nothing but the floor, without even the thinnest mattress on it, you
would probably not find so pleasant. I certainly did not. Often, too, I
was awakened by the ringing of gongs and the pounding of drums, for the
monks have services every few hours during the night as well as during
the day. I think they actually sleep more in the daytime than at night.
[Illustration:
The young monks of a monastery in the Diamond Mountains are fond of
tennis.
]
Wonderful Mountain Scenery
[Illustration:
These huge figures were carved in solid rock in the Diamond Mountains
of Korea many centuries ago. They are connected with the Buddhist
religion, of which Kongo-san is a sanctuary.
]
I have seen many mountains, in many parts of the world, but I do not
remember any that have such hundreds of marvelous peaks as Kongo-san.
Most of them are of granite so clear that it looks like white marble.
Some are piled up in dozens of sharply pointed steeples; some have the
form of strange animals; some look like the skyscrapers of New York in
ruins. Wonderful as they are, the highest is only three or four thousand
feet above the level of the sea, which is not very high as mountains go.
But climbing them was almost like going up the side of a hundred-story
building, with each brick and window ledge sharpened to a needle point.
When I got down to earth again hardly enough of my clothing was left to
be worth throwing away.
[Illustration:
Going through the Diamond Mountains the author carries his coolie’s
load for awhile, in order to see how the Korean _jicky_ feels on the
back.
]
Small Japanese steamers run from Gensan on up the coast, touching at
several little ports, and sometimes going on to Vladivostok in Russian
Siberia. From one of those ports a little railway line goes almost to
the northern frontier. Along this, between the Japanese Empire and
Russia, stretches a great range, which the Koreans call the Ever White
Mountains. Even during the hot Korean summers their tops are always
covered with snow. In the heavy forests on their sides there are many
wild animals, such as great hunters like to track. Antelope and foxes
you expect to find in such a place, and also bears, perhaps even
leopards. But it seems strange that in so cold a region there should
also be fierce man-eating tigers.
[Illustration:
A fencing match in Seoul, at a Japanese school.
]
From Seoul Northward
[Illustration:
Looking across Song-do or Kaijo, once a capital of Korea, now a
typical medium-sized town, having many more roofs smoothly thatched
of rice-straw than tile roofs which cost so much more.
]
If we had time to stop, we should find many interesting things in the
cities and towns and villages on the long railway journey northward from
Seoul into China. There is Song-do, for instance, formerly the capital,
with the foundations of ancient palaces scattered for miles about it.
Comparatively speaking, Seoul is very young; it has been the capital
only since a hundred years before Columbus crossed the Atlantic.
Song-do, or Kaijo, is also famous for its _gin-seng_. This is a plant
the root of which the Chinese and Koreans consider very valuable as
medicine. As it takes seven years to grow, and must be protected from
the direct rays of the sun during most of that time, the people have
built endless rows of tiny _gin-seng_ sheds. The train passes mile after
mile of these on either side of the ancient capital.
[Illustration:
A tennis game with wooden rackets in the back streets of Song-do, one
of the several former capitals of Korea.
]
At some stations there are great bales of silk cocoons. The people of
the surrounding villages, especially the women and children, will throw
these into boiling hot water, unwind the fine threads which the worm
inside spent so much time in weaving into a nest for itself, and finally
will eat the worm itself. Of all the cities north of the capital the
most important is Pingyang. That also was once the capital, but now it
has more factory chimneys than loafing ex-officials. There are more
clipped heads and fewer topknots than in Seoul, and there do not seem to
be so many “plug” hats. Among the many long streets of shops in Heijo,
as the Japanese call Pingyang, I saw a great many knitting machines,
making stockings and similar things. The workers still wind their thread
on queer little bamboo wheels such as were used hundreds of years ago;
but it was a very up-to-date sound that came from those knitting
machines, clashing away in hut after hut. It made one feel that perhaps
Korea will soon be one of the modern manufacturing nations of the world,
as Japan proper has become. In some ways this will be fortunate and in
some unfortunate.
[Illustration:
Winding thread in a machine-fitted stocking factory of Pingyang,
second largest city of Korea and formerly a capital of the “Land of
Morning Calm.” Though the stockings are now made by machinery, and
the town sounds very busy as you make your way through the streets,
the thread is still wound in the old-fashioned way, by hand.
]
Farther north there are fields of corn and of millet, then fields of
_kaoliang_, much like the sorghum of our own South. Two or three large
towns slip past, but they are so much like the other towns of Korea that
we do not lose much by not stopping. Then suddenly we come to the great
Yalu River. Here the Russians and Japanese had one of their bloodiest
battles during the war of 1904–05. Huge rafts of logs from the forests
on the slopes of the Ever White Mountains come floating down the Yalu on
their way to China. But the most interesting thing about this big
stream, wider than the Connecticut River, is that it is the boundary
line between Japan and China. Manchuria on the other side of it is as
Chinese as Chosen is Japanese. The traveler is startled at the
suddenness of the change from one people to another. The white garments
and “plug” hats disappear as quickly as if a fog were to sweep them from
view, and dirty Chinese streets, along which hobble women in bound feet,
spring up to give us a hint of the sights to be seen in the ancient land
of China.
[Illustration:
The Central Circle of Dairen, surrounded by handsome buildings,
reminds one of a European city. This view shows the Yamato Hotel.
]