Inland journeying—Ponies, servants, interpreters, food and
accommodation—What to take and how to take it—Up the Han River,
frolic and leisure
Travelling in the inland regions of Korea is not the most comfortable
pastime which can be devised, although it has many attractions. The
lively bustle of the roads gradually gives place to the passing panorama
of the scenery, which presents in constant variation a landscape of
much natural beauty, with hills and meadows, bush-clad mountains and
rice-fields, rivers, lakes, and raging torrents as prominent features.
The shifting camp soon leaves the outposts of civilisation behind. This
slow passing into the wilderness gives a subtle charm to the journey.
Each turn of the track emphasises the desolation of the ever-changing
scene. The wide expanse of plains and valleys makes way for the depths
of wild and gloomy forests, where the ragged mountain-paths are slippery
and dangerous. The ozone of a new life pervades the air. There is no
doubt that such moments seem, for the time, the most perfect existence
imaginable. Freedom is untrammelled by a care; the world for the day is
comprised within a space as great as can be seen. Upon the morrow, its
limitation is only a little more remote. The birds of the air, the beasts
of the field, the game in the bushes, supply the provender of the camp.
Villages provide rice, vegetables and eggs, the hillside springs give
water, the rivers permit bathing. The air is pure, and the whole aspect
of life is beautiful and joyous.
At the end of a trying day, one, perhaps, marred by an accident to an
animal, trouble with the native servants, rain, fog, or the difficulties
of the track, there is the evening camp. Those hours of rest and
idleness, when the horses are fed and groomed, the packs unswung, the
camp-beds slung beneath the mosquito curtains, and the evening meal
prepared, are full of a supreme sensation of contentment. I have always
loved these moments of peace, accepting what they brought as the best
that life held for me at the time. At such an hour the refinements of
civilisation and the restrictions of convention seem puerile enough.
Moreover, there is much material benefit to be derived from such an
undertaking. The trials and difficulties develop stability of character;
the risks and dangers promote resource and self-reliance. There is much
to be learnt from this contact with a human nature differing so radically
from the prescribed types and patterns of the Western standard. There
is something new in every phase of the experience. If it be only an
impression, such as I have endeavoured to trace in these few lines, it is
one which lingers in the mind long after other memories have faded.
Preparation for an inland journey of any extent takes a considerable
time; ponies have to be hired, servants engaged, and interpreters
secured. It is as well to personally examine the pack ponies which
are to carry the loads. Koreans treat their animals shamefully, and
the missionaries make no efforts to lighten the lot of these unhappy
beasts. In consequence of the carelessness with which the ponies are
treated by their Korean masters, the poor little brutes suffer from
back-sores larger and more dreadful than anything I have seen in any
other part of the globe. If the Koreans could be taught the rudiments
of horse-mastering and a more humane principle of loading and packing
their rough saddles, as well as some practical veterinary knowledge, the
lot of the unlucky little pony of the capital might be softened. But the
spectacle of broken knees, raw necks, bleeding backs, and sore heels
which these poor animals present, as they pass in quick succession along
the streets of Seoul, is revolting. The American missionaries boast so
much of their good deeds that it seems strange that they should neglect
such a crying evil as this. There is, I presume, no credit to be “gotten”
from alleviating the sufferings of a mere, broken-down, Korean pack pony.
Large numbers of the pack ponies of Korea come from Quelpart. They
are diminutive in size, little larger than the Shetland breed, and
rather smaller than the Welsh pony. They are usually stallions, given
to fighting and kicking amongst themselves, and reputed savage. Their
wildness is aggravated through a daily irritation by the rough surfaces
of their pack saddles of the inflamed swellings on their backs. They
endure longer marches and shorter food allowances than almost any
other species of horse; they are quick in their gait, very strong, and
willing, good feeders, and reveal extraordinary obstinacy, tenacity,
and patience. Much of the pleasure in my travels in Korea, however, was
entirely spoilt by the abominable neglect with which the native grooms
treated their charges. Their dreadful condition goaded one to fury, and
almost daily I remonstrated with one or other of the grooms for gross
cruelty. My remarks had not the smallest effect, however, save that they
wore me out, and in the end I abandoned my expeditions to avoid the
horrors of such spectacles. The Korean is quite callous to the sufferings
of his animals. He will feed them well, and he will willingly disturb
himself at night to prepare their food; but he will not allow ulcerated
and running wounds to interfere with the daily work of the poor beasts.
This is comprehensible; but he will not, upon his own initiative, even
endeavour to bridge the sore by the tricky placing of a pad. However
bad the gathering may be, on goes the load, the agony of the poor pony
manifesting itself in a flourish of kicks, bites, and squeals.
In demonstration of this extreme callousness I may mention this incident.
Once, outside Won-san, I saw a Korean seat himself upon the side of a
stone, and leisurely proceed to rain blows upon the head of a dog which
he was holding, until the poor thing collapsed insensible. He then beat
it about the ribs, and put the body on the embers of a fire. We were
several hundred yards off when this attracted my notice; but I chased the
brute across two paddy stretches, until the heavy going compelled me to
abandon it. At a later time I noticed that the grooms were most careful
to dress the backs of the horses at our different halts, and also to
endeavour to prevent the pack saddles from rubbing the wounds, prompted,
I have no doubt, to this most desirable kindliness by the lesson which
they had read between the lines upon the occasion of the dog incident.
The character of the native followers who accompany these journeys is
a matter of great importance to the future welfare of the traveller.
The proprietor of the Station Hotel, Seoul, secured me an excellent
boy. Shortly after entering my service, an American missionary, who had
been hankering after the lad for some time before he was brought to
me, suborned him. He deserted me upon the eve of my second expedition.
This trick is seldom perpetrated east of Suez between Europeans with
native servants; it is one of the few unwritten laws of the East and
observed everywhere. I reported the matter to the American Minister, Dr.
Allen, but the missionary kept the boy. Servants, grooms, and a coolie
of a sort, are all necessary upon these expeditions; one groom to each
horse is a wise allowance. Koreans like to send three horses to two men;
however, my division is the better. Europeans require a body-servant, who
will look after the personal effects of his master, and wait at table.
An interpreter, who can speak Chinese and some European language, either
German, French, or English, is invaluable. It is safer in each case to
take men who are not converts. A coolie is useful and gives a little
variety to the beasts of burden; he carries the camera, water-bottles,
and small impedimenta of the hour. A _chef_ is not really necessary—my
interpreter voluntarily served as cook. The interpreter in any journey
inland should be mounted; it saves considerable friction if the personal
servants be allowed to ride on the baggage ponies. Interpreters receive
from thirty to forty dollars a month; personal servants from eight to
twenty dollars a month; coolies from eight to ten dollars a month. The
hire for the horses, with whom the grooms are included, is a dollar a
day, half the amount paid down in advance upon the day of starting.
All calculations are made in Korean currency. The entire staff, except
the horses and grooms, is fed by the traveller. The interpreter takes
charge of the accounts. He will, if ordered, take down the Chinese and
Korean names of the villages, streams, lakes, valleys, plains, mountains
and roads which are passed. This is useful; the map of Korea is most
hopelessly out of date, and by forwarding these names to the Geographical
Society some little good is accomplished. The interpreter will pay the
coolies, grooms, and other servants in debased currency, and charge the
account in Mexican dollars, making a profit of seventy-five per cent.;
he is greedy and tenacious to the interests of his pocket, and he will
suggest that he requires a servant. For this remark he should be flogged.
He will muddle his accounts whenever he can; he will lose receipts if
he can find no other way of squeezing. He is apparently an innocent,
transparently honest, and devoted to the principles of sobriety and
virtue—unless there is an opportunity to go the usual path. Under every
condition he should be watched.
The Korean does not approach the Chinaman as a body-servant; he has
neither initiative nor the capacity for the work, while he combines
intemperance, immorality, and laziness in varying degrees. The master
usually ends by waiting upon his man. There is, however, an antidote
for this state of things. If sufficient point be put into the argument,
and the demonstration be further enforced by an occasional kick, as
circumstances may require, it is possible to convert a first-class,
sun-loving wastrel into a willing, if unintelligent, servant. Under any
conditions, his dishonesty will be incorrigible.
It is never necessary to take any large stock of provisions when
travelling in Korea. Eggs, fowl, fresh fish, fruit, matches, tobacco,
vegetables, and crushed rice flour can be procured at any village in
large quantities. The inhabitants will perhaps declare that there are no
such things in the village; that they are miserably poor. The village
usually bears the stamp of its condition pretty plainly, and I found
that where this occurred the most effectual remedy was to call up the
oldest man visible, to offer him a cigarette, to calm him down, and then
to give the interpreter some money and to send off the pair of them. Once
this system failed in a flea-infested hole on the west coast, where the
village inn had no stables, and I really thought there were no fowls;
of a sudden, as though satirising the expression of regret of several
villagers, two fowls fluttered over a wall into the road. The meeting
broke up in confusion. The grooms, the servants and the interpreter at
once tackled the mob, laying about them with their whips; little damage
was done, but considerable commotion ensued, and stables, fowls and eggs
were at once forthcoming and as promptly paid for. In regard to payments
made to the villagers, it is as well to make certain that the grooms pay
for the horses’ accommodation; if they can avoid it they will do so, and
a memory of this lingering in the mind of the inn-keeper, makes him shut
his doors when the next foreigner is passing. But, in a general way, if
everything is paid for, anything is procurable—even crockery and charcoal
stoves, at a pinch, when the difficulties of the precipitous track have
played unusual havoc in the china basket.
In the routine of the march, it is pleasant to camp beyond the village
for the noonday halt; near the river, if the weather permits bathing.
The food can be prepared in the sunlight under some trees. This picnic
halt gives an agreeable change from the native inn, over which the
missionaries wail perpetually; it is, indeed, always to be avoided.
I was several times in Korean inns, driven in by some sudden and
temporary downpour, which cut off my retreat. The evening camp made me
independent of them in general; every evening the interpreter found
the cleanest-looking private house and bargained with its proprietor
to let two rooms for the time of my visit. The arrangement was never
refused, nor was I ever subjected to rudeness or to any insult upon these
occasions. The family would freely help my servants, and when the grooms
had removed themselves and their horses to the inn stables, no one was
disturbed. The boy prepared breakfast in the morning. The space allotted
to us was always ample for my camp-bed, kit, and mosquito curtains. It
opened, as a rule, upon the courtyard, around which the house is built.
There was plenty of air, as one side was open; the flooring was of
thick timbers, raised from the ground. If the weather proved inclement
the place afforded warmth and shelter. Moreover, this system has much
to commend it on the score of cleanliness; the price paid by me, half
a dollar, for the rooms was of course usually double the price which
had been arranged. Occasionally while travelling, when these private
houses were unprocurable, other makeshifts had to be adopted, an open
encampment or the official quarters at the _Yamen_. This latter place was
inconvenient, and we always accepted anything of a private nature rather
than venture into the _Yamen_ or the inn. Many nights were passed upon
the verandahs of these houses, with a private room leading from it at the
back, in case it became necessary. Our beds were pitched as much in the
open as possible, the silent beauty of the night hours quite justifying
the measure. Many nights I undressed upon the edge of the street,
my camp-bed pitched beneath a verandah, a peaceful and inoffensive
crowd of Koreans smoking and watching me a few feet off. I would get
into my sleeping-suit, roll into my camp-bed, and close the mosquito
curtains, upon which the crowd would quietly disperse. As publicity was
unavoidable, and it was useless to object, it was easier to accept the
situation than to struggle with the curiosity of the spectators.
It is always well to dispense with everything which can be discarded.
A camp-bed well off the ground and more strongly made than those of
the usual American pattern, is essential; a field kit canvas valise,
the Wolseley pattern, containing a pocket at either end, with a cork
mattress, is also indispensable. It will carry all personal effects.
Flannel shirts, towels, socks and the like, including a book or
two, writing materials, mackintosh sheets, mosquito curtains, and
insect-powder are all which need to be included. Fresh mint is useful
against fleas if thrown about near the sleeping things in little heaps.
It is an invaluable remedy and usually effective, though, by the way,
I found the fleas and bugs in the houses of New York and Philadelphia
infinitely less amenable to such treatment than any I came across in
Korea during my stay there. A camera, a colonial saddle, Zeiss glasses,
a shot-gun, a sporting-rifle, a revolver, a hunting-knife, and a large
vulcanite water-bottle are necessary. A supply of sparklets is to be
recommended; these articles, with a coil of rope, balls of string, jam,
cocoa, tea, sugar, alcohol, potted meats, tinned fruits, and biscuits,
enamelled ware eating and cooking things, with a few toilet accessories,
completed my materials. It is good policy to take a small hamper of wines
and luxuries, in case the opportunity occurs of extending hospitality to
an official or some other travelling European. They are very serviceable
among the officials. Native tobacco is light, mild, and easily smokable.
I carried a pouch of it invariably. Canvas valises of the service type
are better than any kind of a box. With this arrangement there are no
corners or sharp edges to hurt the horses, and as a load, too, they do
not make such hard, unyielding objects against the side of a horse as any
leather, tin, or wooden contrivance. My bed and field-kit just balanced
upon one pony; my provisions and servants’ baggage fitted another. There
was one spare pony. The interpreter and myself rode; the servants were
mounted upon the baggage animals, the coolie walked.
At one time, when I was travelling with a German friend, our retinue
was exceedingly numerous; we each had our personal establishment and a
combined staff for the expedition. This, however, is not quite the way
to rough it. It was, moreover, comparatively expensive and a bother,
inasmuch that so large a cavalcade required no little managing. There
was, however, something luxurious and enjoyable in that procession across
Korea, although it is not the plan to be adopted in general.
There was little further to be accomplished by me in Korea. My journey
overland had taken me from Fusan to Seoul, and again from Seoul to
Won-san, my examination of the inland and coast centres of mining and
industry was concluded: the beauties of the Diamond Mountains, with their
Buddhist monasteries, had been studied. At the end of these labours,
I was weary and ill at ease; moreover the time was approaching when
my long journey overland from Seoul, the ancient capital of Korea, to
Vladivostock, the seat of Russian authority upon the Pacific coast, would
have to be begun. The heat in Seoul had been most oppressive, when one
day Mr. Gubbins, the British Minister, suggested a short spell of rest
and recuperation upon an island a few miles up the Han River. Before
nightfall, my staff and I were floating, with the turn of the tide, up
the estuary of the river. Sea breezes blew over the mighty expanse of
the smoothly gliding waters, and the burden of weariness which had been
depressing me, lightened under the influence of these gusty winds and
the freshening air from the harbour. The change from the hot and stuffy
surroundings of the capital, where the crowds had ceased to be attractive
and domestic bothers, arising from the preparation for my Vladivostock
journey, had begun to jar upon the nerves, was most entrancing. When the
moon burst out from behind a blackened canopy of cloud, as we sailed
easily against the rapid current of the river, the rugged outline of the
cliffs across the waters proved the reality of the transformation. During
the small hours of the night I lay awake, playing with the bubbles and
froth of the water in sweet contentment. I resolved to dally for a few
days upon the small islands in the stream, halting in the heat of the
sun and moving forward at night or in the twilight, when sea-birds could
be killed for the pot and fish dragged from their cool depths for the
breakfast dish. How delightful were the plunges into that swift current;
and how often they were taken in the cool shade of some island backwater!
Care and anxiety dropped away in those days of idle frolic, giving the
mind, worn by the strain of many months of travel and the hardships of
two campaigns, opportunity to recover its vigour. Then came some pleasant
weeks in the island monastery, where, from a Buddhist haunt, perched high
upon a lofty peak on Kang-wha, mile upon mile of smiling scenery lay open
to inspection from my chamber window.
[Illustration: BEYOND THE AMUR]
The salt water estuary of the Han is tempestuous and deep, given over
to much shipping and small craft. The river itself does not begin for
twenty miles above the tide-water mouth, the intervening stretch of
water belonging more correctly to the sea. Above Chemulpo, where the
full force of the Han current is hardly felt, the velocity of the stream
is quite five knots an hour. Where the breadth of the river narrows the
rapidity of the flow increases. At a point, where the river makes a
sudden sweep round some overhanging bluffs, which confront each other
from opposite banks, the heavy volume of water thus tumbling down becomes
a swirling, boisterous mill-race, as it twists and foams through its
tortuous channels into another tide-swollen reach. The place of meeting
between the sea and the river current shows itself in a line of choppy
water, neither rough nor smooth. The water is always bubbling and always
breaking at this point, in a manner poetically suggestive of the spirits
of the restless deep. The Han river gives access to Seoul. In the days
before the railway, the choice of route to the capital lay between
spending a night aground upon one of the many shifting sand-banks in
the river or the risks of a belated journey overland, with pack ponies
and the delights of a sand-bath in the Little Sahara. There were many
who found the “all land” way preferable to the “land and water system,”
to which many groundings and much wading reduced the experiment of
travelling by junk or steam-launch in those days. Now, however, the iron
horse rules the road.
[Illustration: ON THE HAN RIVER]