This morning we are to explore the strange city of Seoul.  A Korean who speaks English acts as our guide, and we are escorted also by two of the native soldiers who are furnished to our legation by the king.  There is no danger, but appearances are everything in Korea, and great people, among whom we are now classed, since we are the guests of the minister from the United States, never go out without soldiers and servants about them.

We have to watch where we step.  The streets in most parts of the city are narrow and winding, and the sewage flows through them in open drains which take up much of the roadway.  There were until lately no waterworks in Seoul except the Korean water carrier, who almost fills the street as he goes from one part of the town to the other, carrying his two buckets, hung one on each end of a pole across his back.  The clouds still do much of the work of sprinkling the streets, and the servants still take dippers and ladle the dirty water out of the sewers to settle the dust.

The smell is disgusting at times, and mixed with it just now is smoke, for all Seoul is cooking its breakfast.  Each of the huts has a chimney which juts out into the street at right angles with the wall, about two feet from the ground.  The people use straw for fuel, and this produces the great smoke which the chimneys are pouring out into the streets.

Ours eyes smart as we walk on through the city.  We try to keep out of the way of the porters, the water carriers, and the people who are going to the markets, which are situated at the foot of the chief business street, and about the gate through which we entered the city.  We follow the crowd, and soon find ourselves in the busiest place in Korea.

There are thousands of men in all sorts of costumes, selling and buying.  There are porters by scores who have brought loads of fresh fish from the seashore on their backs over the mountains, and there are butchers by dozens who are selling beef, venison and other kinds of game.  There are booths devoted to the selling of rice.  White-gowned men squat on the ground with bushels of red peppers before them.  There are boys peddling Korean matches, which are shavings with their ends dipped in sulphur, and which have to be touched with a burning coal before they will light.  There are hundreds of men buying grain, and carrying on all sorts of wholesale and retain business.

See that man in a black hat and white gown, with a pile of clubs before him!  They are not unlike baseball bats, and we wonder if our American game has not been brought out to Korea.  We ask our guide, and he tells us those are ironing clubs, and shows us how the women use them for ironing.  The clothes are first washed in cold water and dried on the grass.  They are then taken into the house and wrapped around a stick, which is laid on the floor.  Now one or two women squat down before the stick, and pound upon the cloth with these wooden clubs until it becomes as smooth and glossy as the best work of an American laundry.

Our guide points to his own gown of snow white, and tells us that it was ironed in this way, and as we go on through the city we hear the musical rat-tat-tat which comes from the ironing.  This noise is to be heard throughout Seoul at every hour of the day, and during nearly every hour of the night.  The garments are such that they must be ripped apart whenever they are washed.  It takes a long time to iron them, and when they are finished they must be again sewed together, so that you see Korean girls have quite as much to do as our girls at home.

"and pound upon the cloth"

 

Leaving the markets, we walk through the crowd up the street till we come to the little temple containing the bell which sounds the opening and closing of the gates.

This is in the business center of the city, and the streets surrounding it are thronged with merchants and peddlers, with dandies and loafers, from sunrise to sunset.  The ordinary Korean store is a little booth or straw shed which juts out into the street, and which contains, perhaps, a bushel-basketful of goods.  The merchants wear white gowns and black hats, and we see them squatting outside their stores with their hats on, smoking as they wait for their customers.

About the little temple there are large buildings or bazaars, each of which is devoted to the selling of one kind of goods. These buildings have many little rooms, each the size of very small closet, and every little room is a store.  The merchants sit in the halls outside the closets, with their hats on, and bring out piece by piece as you order.  They are by no means anxious to sell, and the more goods you want, the higher the price they will ask. 

What is the noise we hear coming from that little hut just off the main street?

That is a Korean school.  The teacher squats on the floor in a gown of white or of some bright color.  Today he wears rose pink, and he has a cap of black horsehair. The glasses of his spectacles are as big as trade dollars, and his appearance is very imposing.  His scholars squat about on straw mats studying their lessons out loud.  They sway themselves back and forth as they sing out again and again the words they are trying to learn, all shouting at once.  If one stops, the teacher thinks he is not studying, and calls him up for a whipping.  At our request, the teacher shows us how scholars are punished.  A little fellow, well knowing that he has done nothing wrong and will not be hurt, stretches himself on his stomach flat on the floor, while the teacher takes a rod and taps him a few blows on he thighs.  We laugh.  The little Korean laughs too, and when we have given him some coins worth about a cent of our money, he runs back to his seat, the happiest, as well as the richest, boy in school.

The studies of Korean boys are made up chiefly of learning by heart the sayings of great Chinese scholars. They do not now have the advantages of our American children, but changes are going on in the country, and the little Koreans will soon have schools like our own.

It is through public examinations that the officials of the country are chosen.  The Koreans have great respect for good scholars.  They are lovers of poetry.  Young men often have poetry parties, where each guest shows his skill in writing verses upon a subject given out at the time.

We find other curious customs, some good and some bad, which have grown up during the ages the Koreans have lived by themselves.  The people have much natural refinement.  They are intelligent and kind, and, as we travel among them, we feel that with a good government, new laws and equal rights for all men, they will make as respectable a little nation as can be found anywhere.  They are improving their country.  There are electric lights and electric cars in Seoul, and new railroads are fast being built.

We feel sorry to leave Seoul, but we must go across the peninsula to the east coast, in order to get a ship for Siberia.  We travel on ponies, riding for seven days up and down the mountains, passing through thousands of rice fields, and now and then skirting the wilds where we dare not do after dark for fear of the tigers.  We find numerous villages of thatched huts, and notice that the farmers live in villages and not on their farms.  We stop sometimes at Korean inns, where we sleep on the brick floors, half baked by the straw fires beneath us.  Sometimes we stay with the magistrates, who, on our departure, as a mark of honor furnish us with trumpeters to toot us out of the town.  At last we reach the fine harbor known as Gensan.  Here we board a Japanese steamer on its way from Nagasaki to Vladivostok, and after a few days’ sail northward we find ourselves at anchor in the Gulf of St. Peter the Great, with the largest seaport of Siberia lying before us.