Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/105

 the Yalu, determined that Koguryu must be destroyed. Three hundred thousand of them crossed the river and marched on Pyeng-yang, but they were drawn into an ambush and cut down by the thousands. The remainder fled, but lost their way and were destroyed one by one, so that of those three hundred thousand men only seven thousand went back across the Yalu alive.

The kingdom of Pakche was like neither of the other two. She attended neither to the arts of peace nor to those of war. Her whole history is one of self-gratification and pleasure. We learn of no great acts that she performed, nor of any praiseworthy achievements. She generally gained by deceit and treachery what she wanted, but had not the courage to wage a war of conquest with either of her neighbours. There are many things which attest the high civilisation which Silla attained. To-day there hangs in the town of Kyongju, Silla's old capital, a huge bell, the largest in Korea and one of the largest in the world. It was cast in the early days of Silla, only a few centuries after Christ. This alone would go far to prove the point, for the ability to cast a bell of that size argues a degree of mechanical and industrial skill of no mean dimensions. But besides this, there is still to be seen near that same town a stone tower that was used for astronomical purposes. We read in the records that Silla kept strict account of the various meteorological phenomena, such as eclipses of the sun and of meteors. At one place we read that an expected eclipse of the sun failed to take place, which indicates that they could calculate the date of such events in advance.

It was about three hundred years after Christ that Buddhism found entrance to Korea from China. Envoys from the various states in Korea met representatives of this cult at the court of China, and, as it was exceedingly popular there, the kings of the Korean realms asked that monks be sent to teach the tenets of the new religion here. One of the most celebrated of these was one Mararanta, whose name savours more of India than of