KOREAN MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAINEERS. 233 



hemp. At first our way lay through a forest of spruce, pine, 

 birch, and oak, broken by an occasional marshy glade ; to this 

 succeeded an undulating country, which bore traces of being 

 recently cleared. Clearings were made simply by setting fire to 

 the forest a process which I saw in operation. The population 

 was scanty, but evidently increasing; the houses were log-huts, 

 plastered with clay, roofed with thatch or shingle, and fenced 

 with palisades of stakes six or eight feet high. Game hereabouts 

 was very plentiful. . . . Tigers, leopards, and bears are also said 

 to be easily obtainable. The tiger, indeed, is a fruitful subject 

 of discussion. From Wen-san to Peik-tu San, and thence to 

 Peng-yang, I heard endless stories of the brute's ravages, and 

 more than once I was asked to delay my journey to shoot a ' man- 

 eater.' In the Yalu backwoods I passed through a deserted 

 clearing, where four out of a total of ten inhabitants, had become 

 the prey of a man-eating tiger during the previous winter and 

 spring." Large tracts of cultivated land became common near 

 Kap-san ; and the neighborhood is said to contain most of the 

 mineral wealth of Korea ; gold, silver, and lead being worked at 

 several places, but with sorry appliances and little skill. There 

 is no doubt that the country is rich in useful and valuable min- 

 erals, but it has yet to be ascertained whether they can be worked 

 at a profit. 



The first view of the White Head Mountain was obtained from 

 the crest of the ridge overlooking the Yalu, about thirty miles 

 north of Kap-san. " Its renown was at once comprehensible, for, 

 distant as it was, the view was majestic. The white, irregular 

 mass towered, without any marked or prominent peak, head and 

 shoulders over the surrounding hills, though one could see that 

 it was not lofty, as mountains go. . . . Just at the point where 

 this mountain is first visible a small temple has been erected for 

 the purpose of offering sacrifices, which is done by the King of 

 Korea every year on the 4th of the eighth moon (August) to the 

 Peik-tu San deities. At Seoul I was led to believe that the offi- 

 cials deputed to perform this function actually ascended the 

 mountain, but they evidently preferred a compromise, the efficacy 

 of which has apparently never been doubted." 



The rest of the journey to the mountain, with only hunters' 

 paths and blazes through the forest, which was made in the first 

 days of October, was beset with difficulties on account of the 

 wintry weather. The last settler's hut was passed, and after that 

 the party had to depend on the hunters' huts, which had been 

 deserted for the winter. When two or three miles from the end 

 of the journey, the best guide who could be depended upon fell 

 in a fit brought on by overexertion. The superstitious Koreans 

 attributed his paroxysms to the malevolent san sin, or mountain 



