A VISIT TO KOREA 295 



in the interior is not an unalloyed pleasure, and a camp cannot 

 well be made. The ponies, hardy, but very small animals, used 

 for riding and baggage, have to be stabled every night, and are 

 never allowed to drink or eat when travelling. They are fed, 

 however, three times a day on boiled beans and chopped straw, 

 for the preparation of which iron pots are found in every inn. 

 The men, therefore will not camp away from a village inn, which, 

 by the way, is known by a wicker-work wine (beer) strainer sus- 

 pended on a pole. A laden pony will do thirty miles a day. 

 When passing through a village one often hears the sound of 

 a tom-tom it is the witch-woman driving out the bad spirits 

 from some sick or otherwise afflicted being. Dressed as a man, 

 but in red, she dances and throws her arms about, sprinkles 

 water on the floor, and beats a small double drum, shaped like 

 an hour-glass. The exorcism goes on for hours, so long as 

 money is forthcoming. Some loose earth thrown on the ground 

 just outside the door means " not at home." 



Besides geese, swans, ducks, pheasants (ringed), and quail, 

 both the larger and the smaller bustard are met with, and in 

 Northern Korea deer, leopards, and tigers. Leopards are often 

 called tigers by the people, but there are long-haired Man- 

 churian tigers in the forests of the north. The Chinese have 

 a proverb : " The Koreans hunt the tiger during half the year, 

 and the tiger the Korean during the other half." Most of these 

 are caught in pitfalls and smoked to death, but some are shot 

 with old matchlocks by the " tiger hunters," a guild of their 

 own forming a guard on special occasions to the Sovereign. 

 When I was in Korea the members were nearly all away after 

 geese and ducks, of which plenty find their way into the markets. 

 Geese were selling at about one shilling, ducks at sixpence, and 

 swans at eighteenpence ; pheasants at sixpence and less. A 

 hunter whom I interviewed was dressed in grass sandals, white 

 gaiters, blue loose breeches and jacket ; he had an old Tower 

 musket, a very old powder flask, carved in wood in the image of 

 a turtle, a curio which I greatly coveted ; a bag with bullets, 

 and another filled with iron slugs, were hanging from a belt. 



The most common bird in Korea is the magpie, which seems 

 to thrive here in immense numbers. Although not considered 

 a holy bird, he is never molested. 



I paid a visit to the very old city of Kong-wha, surrounded, 



