Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/307

 reset each year for two or three years before the seeds get killed out, but no new mud must be added, or it will all have to be done over again.

Meanwhile the window and door frames have been put up, and the mural spaces have been filled in with a strong wattle, upon which clay mud is plastered. After this mud has dried and is seamed in every direction with cracks, a kind of plaster is applied which is made of a mixture of fine loamy earth, sand and horse-manure, the last ingredient taking the place of hair. The inside and outside are made the same, for the overhanging eaves are supposed to keep the weather from the outer walls. When this is covered with the strong, fibrous Korean paper, it makes a very thorough and durable wall.

The floor is an important matter, as it is both floor and stove. From the level of the ground up to the level of the floor they build with mud and stone, making, as it were, three or four ditches, which converge into one at each end of the room. The whole floor is then covered with large slabs of stone about two inches thick. The joints are carefully sealed with cement so that no smoke can come through into the room. Over the stones a thin layer of cement is spread, and then the whole is covered with a heavy oiled paper which under the tread of stockinged feet soon wears as smooth as silk. The opening to the fireplace is outside the room, and above it is generally set the great kettle for boiling the family rice. This is the kitchen, and it is simply the dirt floor, with whatever benches, shelves and implements are necessary. A room heated this way is called a pang, and it differs from the Chinese kang in no essential particular except that the latter occupies only part of the room and is raised above the floor like a divan, while the Korean forms the whole of the floor itself. A small house will contain only one room like this, with a kitchen attached and one or two storerooms; but a large gentleman's establishment, while built in the same general way, will contain perhaps a dozen or more such rooms and a long row of servants' quarters, making in all as many as a hundred and