Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/248

236 flows along the southern edge of Siberia. . . . The whole of this country shows signs of a volcanic origin. There is no doubt that this mountain Peik-tu San was formerly a volcano, and that this lake is the crater of the volcano."

Mr. Campbell's narrative and the discussion furnished some pleasing pictures of Korean life and character. It is a curious fact and suggestive that the most conspicuous and seemingly the most lasting traces left of ancient Korean settlements are the strawberries. The beauty of the situations of the Buddhist monasteries was remarked upon. For centuries Buddhism has been under a ban in the country, and its followers, driven from the settled country to the mountains, have established their monasteries there, out of the way. In selecting the most beautiful retreats for the study of their religion, they have followed, said one of the speakers, the bent of Korean character. "These monasteries form hotels for those travelers in the country who take their delight in leaving town life, taking simple food, and traveling day after day, piping their way on the roads, rejoicing in the beauty of the country. I should think in hardly any country in the world the ordinary rustic takes so much delight in Nature as in Korea; when he goes with you up the mountains, and, on arriving at the top, you expect him to sigh as if nearly dead, he will expatiate on the beauty of the scene before him. In this love of scenery, as in many other points, the Korean differs greatly from his neighbors the Chinese."

The Korean hamlets are of two kinds, "the purely agricultural, and those which depend as much on the entertainment of travelers as on farming. The site of the agricultural village is a hill-slope facing the south. Over this, low, mud-walled, straw-thatched hovels, each standing in its own piece of garden, which is protected by a neat fence of interlaced stems, are scattered at random, and there is not much of an attempt at a street anywhere. Every house has its thrashing-floor of beaten clay, the workshop of the family. The stream which runs past the foot of the hill, or courses down a gully in its side, is lined with women and girls washing clothes with sticks instead of soap, preparing cabbages for pickle, or steeping hemp. Seen from a distance, these places are quite picturesque. The uneven terraces of thatch are brightened by the foliage and flowers of gourds and melons which climb all over the huts. In the gardens surrounding each house are plots of red chilli, rows of castor-oil plants, and fruit trees such as peach, apricot, pear, and persimmon. The roadside village, on the other hand, is generally a most unlovely spot. The only street is the main highway, which is lined on both sides by a straggling collection of the huts I have mentioned. Heaps of refuse, open drains, malodorous pools, stacks of brushwood for fuel, nude, sun-tanned