Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/320

 CHAPTER XVIII HE condition of any people can be fairly estimated by the facilities they enjoy for intercommunication. Judged by this standard, the Koreans must be set down as among the least favoured of peoples. Throughout most of the country the roads are simply bridlepaths of the roughest description, over which it would be almost impossible for a jinrikisha to pass, to say nothing of a carriage or a cart. There are a few localities where carts can be used within a limited radius, but these are so few compared with the whole extent of the country that they merely form an exception to the rule. On the great road between Seoul and the Chinese border or between Seoul and a few of the more important provincial centres there may be an occasional and spasmodic attempt at repairs, but it is only when the roads become almost entirely impassable, and some disgusted official makes a momentary stir over the matter in Seoul, that a few hundred dollars may be given for repairs. Of this sum three-fourths goes into someone's pockets and the rest into the repairs. This sort of thing is always looked upon as more or less of a joke, and, when repairs are in progress, the country people wink at each other and ask which official it is now that has been stuck in the mud.

On ordinary roads there are frequent places where nothing wider than a bicycle could pass on wheels, and even this ubiquitous vehicle has to be picked up bodily and carried over rough places every few miles. The constant shuffling of feet along these narrow paths through so many centuries has worn the road down below the level of the ground, especially where it passes over hills, for here the wind has full play and sweeps