Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/324

 the llama to the Peruvian. Not once but many times a sweeping scourge has killed off a large fraction of the cattle in one section or other of Korea, and in each instance it has precipitated a famine. The heavy mud of the rice-fields cannot be cultivated without this animal, and in case of his death the farmer simply lets his field lie fallow. Korea can boast of a sturdy, patient and tractable breed of cattle. These bullocks which wind in and out among the hills of this country, carrying every sort of produce, are not the fierce and rampageous animals that are supposed in our own land to accept every challenge of a red rag. They are docility itself. This heavy, slow-plodding animal, docile, long-suffering, uncomplaining, would make a fitting emblem of the Korean people. How often have we seen a brutal, drunken bullock-driver vent his spleen on someone else by beating his animal with a club or violently jerk the rope tied to the wooden ring that passes through the cartilage of its nose. But the patient bullock never remonstrates or attempts to defend itself. Just so through the long centuries have the Korean people borne the burdens of their rulers and taken their blows without complaint, until at last patience has become a second nature, and the Western on-looker marvels at the amount of oppression that the ordinary Korean will endure without revolt. The bullock could turn and rend his master with utmost ease, even as the people could relieve themselves of oppression, but the patience of the Korean has reached a point where it ceases to be a virtue.

Next in importance comes the Korean pony. Nowhere else in Asia is this diminutive creature matched. The only thing like him is the Shetland pony, but, while the latter is a stocky and shaggy beast, proportioned very differently from the ordinary horse, the Korean animal is simply a miniature of the larger breed, and his proportions are often as perfect as are found in the best of our own boasted horses. History and tradition have much to say about this breed of horse. As far back as ancient Yemak, which flourished at the beginning of our era,