Korea and the Koreans. 237 
the government, who desire to promote the efficiency of the sys- 
tem, and partly owing to the general accumulation of private 
needs of various kinds. A letter or parcel is thus rapidly trans- 
mitted from relay to relay, moving onward by day and night— 
except in certain mountainous districts of the north, where the 
fear of the tiger prevents night travel. Supplies of fruit and 
game for the royal table are forwarded in this manner to the 
capital from the most distant parts of the kingdom. 
The pong-wa, or signal-fire stations, are indicated upon the map 
by small squares placed at the summit of the mountains. They 
are especially numerous in the coast districts, where their sites are 
chosen with great care, in such manner that the fires that are 
lighted at each station at night-fall may be observed at some ad- 
vanced point of the interior, whence a single fire may be again 
flashed on, to form a member of a more extended group. And 
so the lights proceed, re-collected and re-forwarded until the final 
combinations are gathered into a final group at the capital, to 
show that allis well throughout the kingdom. 
The faint network of lines extending over the whole country, 
as shown in the map of the southeastern province, represents the 
chief public highways, upon the determination of whose length 
and relative bearing the development of the map is based. In 
general, roads in Korea are well maintained, and during the 
greater part of the year are in fair condition. It would be found 
impossible to take a wheeled vehicle of any kind over them, how- 
ever ; for such use they are not intended, travel in Korea being 
performed afoot, or with the aid of horse or sedan. -During the 
summer rains the streams rise rapidly ; the waters pour down from 
the mountains, each rivulet becomes a torrent and the bridges are 
swept away. When the floods subside the local authorities com- 
pel the peasants to turn out in force and make the necessary re- 
pairs ; delays of travel are thus reduced to a minimum. 
Korea is preéminently a mountainous country. With the ex- 
ception of the alluvial plains at the mouths of the rivers, low 
ranges of mountains with narrow intervening valleys are found 
everywhere, and are characteristic. The main chain, forming the 
back-bone of the peninsula, is not clearly defined, as it is formed 
principally by the overlappings and intersections of minor chains, 
so that it is quite irregular as to direction, but a glance at the 
sources of the rivers, considered with reference to the intervening 
line of water-sheds, shows that it springs from the mountains 
