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EAST ASIA.
question, they treated it with derision and insolence. On one occasion, being
anxious to buy a clumsy sort of rake made of reeds, I succeeded in explaining my
wish to the owner, one of the lowest class of villagers. He laughed at first good-
humouredly, but immediately afterwards seized the rake, which was in my hand,
and gave it a rude push towards me, with a disdainful fling of the arm, accompany-
ing this gesticulation by words, which seemed to imply a desire to give anything
upon condition of our going away. One man expressed the general wish for our
departure by holding up a piece of paper like a sail, and then blowing upon it in
the direction of the wind, at the same time pointing to the ships, thereby denoting
that the wind was fair, and that we had only to set sail and leave the island."
Being almost closed to foreign markets, the country produces little beyond
what is needed for the local demands. As in China, the staple food is rice, besides
which wheat, millet, maize, and all sorts of fruits and vegetables are cultivated.
But the watery climate deprives the fruits of their flavour, as it does the flowers of
their perfume. Cotton, introduced about five hundred years ago, is widely
cultivated, and ginseng forms an important item in the contraband trade across the
border. Tea grows wild in the south, but is little cultivated ; this beverage being
almost restricted to the upper classes. The vine also yields choice grapes, from
which no wine is made ; but tobacco is largely grown on the uplands, which also
produce millet and hemp.
Two thousand years ago masters of the Japanese in most arts, the Koreans now
excel only in the manufacture of certain arms, and of paper prepared from the pulp
of the Bnmonetia papyri/era. They weave and dye linens and cottons, but not
woollen stuffs, which would be so useful in the cold season. Silks are imported
from China ;
but the superb conic head-dresses, with upturned brims about a yard
broad, are chiefly produced in the island of Quelpaert, from bainboo fibre dyed
yellow or black-lacquered. The native houses are mostly mere mud hovels raised on
piles and thatched with rice straw. In the towns the finest buildings resemble
those of Japan in their structure and fittings. Work being held in dishonour,
misery is very general. For the upper classes, usury and legalised plunder of all
sorts are almost the sole means of existence.
" From these and other causes, the Koreans are often reduced to such distress
that they are driven to cross the frontiers into Russian territory, where the charac-
teristics of the race may be more conveniently studied than in the country itself.
The extensive floods and famine of the year 1869 compelled so many to take
refuge in the neighbouring lands that their further immigration was prohibited by
the Russian Government. Some of the unfortunate fugitives were escorted back
to Korea, where they were decapitated, the sentence of death being the penalty
attached to all leaving the country without permission.
"Those who are settled in Vladivostok are described as very industrious. They
dress in white, and tie up their hair in the shape of a horn. Their summer-hats
resemble those of the Gilyaks, except that they are hexagonal instead of circular.
I went into some of their houses, the walls of which were of mud plastered on a
* Op. at, p. 2, et seq.