Korea & Her Neighbours/Author's Prefatory Note

My four visits to Korea, between January, 1894, and March, 1897, formed part of a plan of study of the leading characteristics of the Mongolian races. My first journey produced the impression that Korea is the most uninteresting country I ever traveled in, but dur-ing and since the war its political perturbations, rapid changes, and possible destinies, have given me an intense interest in it_; while Korean character and industry, as I saw both under Russian rule in Siberia, have enlightened me as to the better possibilities which may await the nation in the future. Korea takes a similarly strong grip on all who reside in it sufficiently long to overcome the feeling of distaste which at first it undoubtedly inspires.

It is a difficult country to write upon, from the lack of books of reference by means of which one may investigate what one hopes are facts, the two best books on the country having become obsolete within the last few years in so far as its political condition and social order are concerned. The traveler must laboriously disinter each fact for himself, usually through the medium of an inter-preter ; and as five or six versions of each are given by apparently equally reliable authorities, frequently the "teachers" of the for-eigners, the only course is to hazard a bold guess as to which of them has the best chance of being accurate.

Accuracy has been my first aim, and my many foreign friends in Korea know how industriously 1 have labored to attain it. It is by these, who know the extreme dftficulty of the task, that I shall be the most leniently criticised wherever, in spite of carefulness, I have fallen into mistakes.

Circumstances prevented me from putting my traveling experiences, as on former occasions, into letters. I took careful notes, which were corrected from time to time by the more prolonged ob-servations of residents, and as I became better acquainted with the country ; but, with regard to my journey up the South Branch of the Han, as I am the first traveler who has reported on the region, I have to rely on my observation and inquiries alone, and there is the same lack of recorded notes on most of the country on the Upper Tai-dong. My notes furnish the travel chapters, as well as those on Seoul, Manchuria, and Primorsk ; and the sketches in contemporary Korean history are based partly on official documents, and are partly derived from sources not usually accessible.

I owe very much to the kindly interest which my friends in Ko-rea took in my work, and to the encouragement which they gave me when I was disheartened by the diflaculties of the subject and my own lack of skill. I gratefully acknowledge the invaluable help given me by Sir Walter C. Hillier, K.C.M.G., H.B.M.'s Consul-General in Korea, and Mr. J. M'Leavy Brown, LL.D., Chief Com-missioner of Korean Customs; also the aid generously bestowed by Mr. Waeber, the Russian Minister, and the Rev. G. Heber Jones, the Rev. James Gale, and other missionaries. I am also greatly indebted to a learned and careful volume on Korean Government, by Mr. W. H. Wilkinson, H.B.M.'s Acting Vice-Consul at Chemulpo, as well as to the Korean Repository 2lVl& the Seoul Independent, for in-formation which has enabled me to correct some of my notes on Korean customs.

Various repetitions occur, for the reason that it appears to me impossible to give sufficient emphasis to certain facts without them; and several descriptions are loaded with details, the result of an attempt to fix on paper customs and ceremonies destined shortly to disappear. The illustrations, with the exceptions of three, are re-productions of my own photographs. The sketch map, in so far as my first journey is concerned, is reduced from one kindly drawn for me by Mr. Waeber. The transliteration of Chinese proper names was kindly undertaken by a well-known Chinese scholar, but unfortunately the actual Chinese characters were not in all cases forthcoming. In justice to the kind friends who have so gen-erously aided me, I am anxious to claim and accept the fullest measure of personal responsibility for the opinions expressed, which, whether right cr wrong, are wholly my own.

I am painfully conscious of the demerits of this work, but believ-ing that, on the whole, it reflects fairly faithfully the regions of which it treats, I venture to present it to the public; and to ask for it the same kindly and lenient criticism with which my records of travel in the East and elsewhere have hitherto been received, and that it maybe accepted as an honest attempt to make a contribution to the sum of the knowledge of Korea and its people, and to de-scribe things as I saw them, not only in the interior but in the troubled political atmosphere of the capital.

ISABELLA L. BISHOP. November 1897.