KOREAN MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAINEERS. 231 



and supplies all the material necessary for reputation as a trav- 

 eler. Buddhism evidently found a home in these secluded mount- 

 ains soon after its introduction into Korea, which Chinese and 

 native records tell us occurred in the latter half of the fourth 

 century after Christ. A Korean book the Keum Kang San 

 Record states that Ch'ang-An-Sa was restored or rebuilt at the 

 beginning of the sixth century, and at the monastery itself tradi- 

 tion dates the oldest relics from the T'ang period (a. d. 618 to 907). 

 At present upward of forty shrines, tended by three or four hun- 

 dred monks, a few nuns, and a host of lay servitors, are scattered 

 over the east and west slopes of the Diamond Mountains. The 

 great majority of the monks are congregated at the four chief 

 monasteries, and the nuns possess a small sanctuary or two where 

 they find sufficient to do, apart from religious exercises, in weav- 

 ing cotton and hempen garments and other womanly occupations. 

 The monks, when not in residence at the monasteries, travel all 

 over the country, alms-bowl in hand, chanting the canons of 

 Buddha from door to door, soliciting subscriptions to the building 

 of a new altar or for the repair of an old one, and begging from 

 day to day the food and resting-place which are rarely denied 

 them." 



The route followed a rough torrent winding up the west slope 

 to the water-shed which is 4,200 feet above sea-level, and the 

 highest point reached in the journey across Korea and descended 

 the eastern flank by a wild mountain-path. " The monastery of 

 Ch/ang-An is superbly situated a little way up the west slope. 

 The lofty hills which wall in the torrent on the north recede for 

 a few hundred yards, and rejoin it again, leaving in the interval 

 a semicircular space of level ground, upon which the temple is 

 built. Nothing could be more effective than the deep-green set- 

 ting of this half-circlet of hills, rising up like a rampart from the 

 rear of the buildings, and rendered additionally pleasing to the 

 eye by a symmetrical covering of leafy forest and shrub. In 

 front, the water swishes and swirls through rough, tumbled gran- 

 ite blocks, here and there softening into a clear pool, and beyond 

 this again towers a conical buttress of the Keum Kang San, thickly 

 clothed with pines and tangled undergrowth for half its height. 

 The peak possesses the characteristics of the range. Gaping 

 seams and cracks split it vertically from the summit down until 

 vegetation hides the rock, at sufficiently regular intervals to give 

 one the impression of looking at the pipes of an immense organ. 

 The topmost ribs are almost perpendicular, and gleam bare and 

 blue in the evening sun ; but lower down the cracks and ledges 

 afford a precarious lodging to a few conifers and stunted oaks." 

 The other mountains along the route occupy equally pretty situ- 

 ations. Soon after crossing the Keum Kang range, Mr. Campbell 



