DEER-SHOOTING AND OTHER MATTERS. 85 



garmeuts, which had done many a day's duty on the 

 person of some Western grogshop-keeper or merchant 

 skipper. This deluded mortal was very proud of a 

 few words of English which he had picked up, and 

 would keep airing them for my benefit. If he had 

 known the feeling of pity and regret which I had for 

 him, as well as for the whole of his nation, he would 

 have kept to his native language. This was but 

 an ever-recurring instance of the change which has 

 come over these people. Flinging from them their old 

 customs, particularly the good ones, and snatching 

 eagerly at new ideas from the West, civilisation — or 

 what is usually understood by that term — had cast its 

 shadow over this fairy land some time before I visited 

 Kingkosan. Of this, however, I may say something 

 hereafter. So to return to the island : Quantities of 

 deer were feeding on the open slopes, and being haid 

 up for fresh meat, I asked my friend in the old black 

 suit if he objected to my shooting one or two. " Cer- 

 tainly not," he answered. " Although they were once, 

 and still really are, sacred, yet now we don't mind. 

 Shoot away." I roamed over the lovely undulating 

 ground, and reached the conical peak of the island, 

 1000 feet high, and from here had a grand view. On 

 my return I shot a hiud, and when my men were 



