Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/325

 THE EANG. 301 ever sees : for even his father does not enter into the daughter-in-law's rooms. But if the father is unwell, she goes into his room to nurse and attend to him. The house is never a double one. From eave to eave it is from 25 to 30 feet wide, the rooms from 16 to 20, the rest of the roof projecting so far on each side as to cover from the sun a wooden platform, 6 feet wide, along the whole length of the house, on which, in the heat of summer, the inmates take their food and often sleep. It is roofed with tiles. The inside is partitioned into rooms, like the Chinese houses, and with "kangs^' instead of beds, couches, or sofas. Bed. This kang is, in Chinese houses, of six feet wide, built two feet or more high, with a facing of burnt brick ; or in the better houses, of fine wood covering the brick, and always with a coping of good strong wood on the edge of the kang. This kang is internally divided by brick partitions into many flues, running from one central hole in one end of the kang, outside the partition wall, to the other end, where they converge into the chimney. Over these flues is placed one layer of burnt brick, 2J inch thick, which has over it a coating of clayey earth mixed with water into mud, making the flues air tight. Outside the partition wall, is a low square frame of a few rows of brick, on which rests the great circular wide-mouthed iron pot or boiler, in which all the household cooking is done. This is the fire-place, where the most of the straw grown in the fields is utilised in boiling and the pot heating the kang ; for the flame and hot smoke pass directly from under the pot into the flues, so that, with thermometer below zero, the surface of the kang can be so heated at a trifling expense as to make it unbearably hot A straw mat> woven of the slit-up, outer skin of millet stalk, covers the mud, so as to prevent any dust flying about after the heated kang bakes it dry. A rug of fur, thick felt or padded cotton on the mat, forms the seat or bed ; the hardness of which is compensated for by the warmth from the