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KOREA. S35
whole peninsula, under the forms of Kaokiuli, Korai, and Kaoli. When all the
principalities were fused in one monarchy, towards the close of the fourteenth cen-
tury, the country, at that time subject to China, took the official title of Chaosien
that is, " Serenity of the Morning "
(Tsiosen)
in allusion to its geographical position
east of the empire. Thus it is now designated by a poetical expression which
exactly indicates its position between China and Japan. While for the people of
Fig. 156. GENERAL VIEW OF KANU-IIOA, LOWEU HANO-KIANO.
the continent Japan is the land of the Rising Sun, Korea is the "Serene" land,
illumined by the morning rays.
Although washed by two much-frequented seas, and yearly sighted by thousands
of seafarers, Korea is one of the least known Asiatic regions. Even the seaboard,
which presents so many dangers to navigation, has been so imperfectly surveyed
that its contour, as laid down on the charts, is still largely hypothetical. Before
the seventeenth century European geographers supposed that Korea was an island,