Page:Every-day life in Korea (1898).djvu/20

 tone of soliloquy), "where is Korea?" I answered, "You surely must know where Korea is — the scene of the late war in the Far East." "Oh," was his reply, "I never before saw it spelled with a K. " He smiled, and evidently his mind was relieved. Allow me to remark, parenthetically, that the up-to-date spelling of the name of the countr}^ followed by all who reside there, is K-o-r-e-a, with a "K." With all the gratuitous advertising given the country by the comparatively recent Chino-Japanese war, it is a matter of surprise that so many people at home persist in thinking of Korea as an "island" located somewhere "in the tropics." In view of this fact a brief study of the geography of the country may not be out of place in this opening chapter.

Directly west from the crescent-shaped Hondo, the largest of the islands of Japan, lies the long and narrow peninsula of Korea. With no very great strain upon the imagination one may see, in the contour of the country, the resemblance to a rabbit sitting erect. If, too, we may take for our conception of the modest little animal, Joel Chandler Harris' portrait of "Br'er Rabbit," in his fascinating animal tales, the analogy may likewise hold true of the character of the people, who, in the main, are mild-mannered, interesting, keen of intellect and bright, especially in the arts of deception. "Br'er Rabbit he lay low."

Draw a line from Milwaukee to Atlanta, and you have about the range of the latitude of the