Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/245

Rh hemp. At first our way lay through a forest of spruce, pine, birch, and oak, broken by an occasional marshy glade; to this succeeded an undulating country, which bore traces of being recently cleared. Clearings were made simply by setting fire to the forest—a process which I saw in operation. The population was scanty, but evidently increasing; the houses were log-huts, plastered with clay, roofed with thatch or shingle, and fenced with palisades of stakes six or eight feet high. Game hereabouts was very plentiful. . . . Tigers, leopards, and bears are also said to be easily obtainable. The tiger, indeed, is a fruitful subject of discussion. From Wen-san to Peik-tu San, and thence to Peng-yang, I heard endless stories of the brute's ravages, and more than once I was asked to delay my journey to shoot a 'maneater.' In the Yalu backwoods I passed through a deserted clearing, where four out of a total of ten inhabitants, had become the prey of a man-eating tiger during the previous winter and spring." Large tracts of cultivated land became common near Kap-san; and the neighborhood is said to contain most of the mineral wealth of Korea; gold, silver, and lead being worked at several places, but with sorry appliances and little skill. There is no doubt that the country is rich in useful and valuable minerals, but it has yet to be ascertained whether they can be worked at a profit.

The first view of the White Head Mountain was obtained from the crest of the ridge overlooking the Yalu, about thirty miles north of Kap-san. "Its renown was at once comprehensible, for, distant as it was, the view was majestic. The white, irregular mass towered, without any marked or prominent peak, head and shoulders over the surrounding hills, though one could see that it was not lofty, as mountains go. . . . Just at the point where this mountain is first visible a small temple has been erected for the purpose of offering sacrifices, which is done by the King of Korea every year on the 4th of the eighth moon (August) to the Peik-tu San deities. At Seoul I was led to believe that the officials deputed to perform this function actually ascended the mountain, but they evidently preferred a compromise, the efficacy of which has apparently never been doubted."

The rest of the journey to the mountain, with only hunters' paths and blazes through the forest, which was made in the first days of October, was beset with difficulties on account of the wintry weather. The last settler's hut was passed, and after that the party had to depend on the hunters' huts, which had been deserted for the winter. When two or three miles from the end of the journey, the best guide who could be depended upon fell in a fit brought on by overexertion. The superstitious Koreans attributed his paroxysms to the malevolent san sin, or mountain