Corea or Cho-sen

n-Coolies-Currency-Mode of carrying w

ST GAT

ness which still remained in my ankle. At a short distance from the port I came to a steep incline of a few hundred yards, and crossing the hill-range which formed the background to Chemulpo as one looks at it from the sea, I soon descended on the other side, from which point the road was nearly level all the way to the capital. The road is not a bad one for Corea, but is, of course, o

popular among the Coreans, who, if carried at all, prefer to be carried either in a sedan-chair, an easy and comfortable way of going about, or else, should they be in a hurry and not wish to travel in grand style, on pony or donkey's back. Europeans, as a rule, like the latter mode of travelling best, as the Corean se

which was to enrich Corea by the products of silk-worms, but which, of course, turned out a complete failure, and cost the Government much money and no end of worry instead. Here and there a small patch might be seen cultivated as kitchen garden near a hut, but with that exception the

ong ghastly face is rudely carved out of the wood and painted white and red; the eyes are black and staring, and the mouth, the chief feature of the mask, is of enormous size, opened, showing two fine rows of pointed teeth, which might hold their own with those of the sharks of

pported on either side by a servant, while another man, the Mapu, led the steed by hand. The ponies are so very small that even the Coreans, who are by no means tall people, their average he

of the journey, which he will immediately go and lose in gambling. He speaks of politics as if he were the axis of the political world, and will criticise the magistracy, the noble, and the king if he is under the impression that you are only a merchant, while evil words enough would be at his command to represent the meanness and bad manners of the commercial classes, if his pony is honoured by being sat upon by a nobleman! Such is the world even in Cho-sen. The Mapu will sing to you, and crack jokes, and again will swear at you and your servants, and at nearly every Mapu that goes by. The greater the gentleman his beast is carrying, the more quarrelsome is he with everybody. The road, wide though it be, seems to belong solely to him. He is in constant trouble with citizens and the police, and it is generally on account of his insignificance, poverty, and ignorance that so many of his evil doings and wrongs are forgiven. None the less it must be said for them that they take fairly good care of their minuscule quadrupeds. They feed them, usually three times a day, with boiled chopped straw and beans, and grass in summer-time, and with this

frail pony is discarded and replaced by the sturdy ox. These horned carriers are pretty much of a size, and fashioned, so far as I could see, after the style of our oxen, except that they are apparently leaner by nature, and almost always black or very dark grey in colour; their horns, however, are rather short. They carry huge weights on a wooden angular saddle which is planted on their backs, and a Mapu invariably accompanies each animal when loaded; indeed, in the case of the ponies the man even carrie

of a halfpenny, with a square hole in the centre, by which they are strung together, generally a hundred at a time. There are usually as many as two thousand to two thousand eight hundred cash to a Mexican dollar, the equivalent of which is at present about two shillings; you can, therefore, easily imagine what the weight of one's purse is if it contains even so small a sum as a pennyworth in Corean currency. Should you, however, be under an obligation to pay a sum of, say, ￡10 or ￡20, the hire of two oxen or six or eight coolies becomes an absolute necessity, for a sum which t

vinces, is probably as old as any of these, and is still occasionally found in use. The coins, as I have said, are strung together by the hundred on a straw rope; a knot is tied when this number is reached, when another hundred is passed through, and so on, until several thousands are sometimes strung to one string. As curious as this precious load itself was the way in which it was carried. It is, in fact, the national way which all Corean coolies have adopte

NGEMENT FOR C

orked at the upper end, with which every coolie is provided. When in this position, the cargo is put on and tied with a rope if necessary; then, the stick being carefully removed, squatting down gently so as not to disturb the position of the load, the coolie quickly passes his arms through the straps and thus slings the thing on to the back, the stick being now used as a help to the man to rise by instalments from his difficult position without collapsing or coming to grie

Naples, he will at once go and drink a good part of what he has received; then, in a state of intoxication, he will gamble the next half; and after that he will go to sleep for twenty-four hours on a stretch, and remain the next twelve squatting on the ground, basking in the sun by the side of his carrying-machine, pondering, still half asleep, on his foolishness, and se

millet, a few rice-fields also being found nearer the water-side. Finally, having arrived at the river-side, after shouting for half an hour to the ferry boatman to come and pick me up, I in due course landed on the other side. The river Han makes a most wonderful detour between its estuary and this point. As the river was left behind, more habitations in the shape of miserable and filthy mud-huts, with thatched roofs, became visible; shops of eatables and na

red with the tide entering the mouth of a running river. I threw myself into the thick of the in-going flow, and with my feet trampled upon by passing ponies; now knocking against a human being, now face to face with a bull, I finally managed to get inside. Well do I remember the hoarse voices of the gate-keepers, as they shouted out that time was up, and hurried the weary travellers within the precincts of the royal city; well also do I recollect, as I stood watching their doings from the inside, how they pushed back and ill-treated, with words and kicks, the last people who passed through, and then, out of patience, revolved the heavy gates on their huge and rusty hinges, finally closing the city until sunrise next day. Shouts of people, just

, where he was employed as architect to His Majesty the King of Corea, and he most politely invited me to stay at his house for a few days; and it is to his kind hospitality, therefor