Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/314

 290 COBEA. centuries of warfare, dating from times anterior to the Christian era^ when the kingdom of Chaohien, ... in the second century B.C., gave abundance of trouble to the Chinese emperors of the Han dynasty." This paragraph, coming from one so able, and usually so well informed as the reputed author, greatly astonished ma The statement regarding "the ingrained distrust and dislike'' is much too general The " stringent severity " does not exist at all as far as the Chinese are concerned ; it is all on the Corean side ; for the laws or customs of the Chinese on this subject are made in deference to Corean wishes The Chinese, like the Manchus in Moukden, have always desired closer bonds of relationship ; the hostility to which is on the Corean side. The Chinese people welcome all Coreans who fly across the Yaloo ; and the Chinese magistrate winks at the presence of Corean subjects, until the fugitive comes under the searching gaze of his native magistrate, or until a crime of more than common gravity compels him to send the Corean back to his own country. All Coreans are gladly received on the west of the Yaloo ; but the Chinaman crossing it eastwards is put to deatL The small power fears for its independent existence ; the large neither fears nor hatea As to the "centuries of warfare," we have seen what they were ; and yet we have observed how much the Coreans suffered from Manchu hands for their faithful attachment to the cause of tiie "Ming" or Chinese, the descendants of their cruel oppressors ; yet with the Manchus up till that time they never had any wara This proves that whatever ill feelings existed during those early wars had long died out The isolation of the Coreans is their own deed, not the act of the Chinese ; and it is caused by fear for the future, not by hate from the past Yet one other extract and we are done with the distasteful work of fault-finding : — " When . . . Peking was given up to the victorious Manchus, the reigning king of Corea^ who had been taken prisoner some time previously by the conquerors in one of their inroads into his country, was brought in their train to the capital of China> and became acquainted with the