Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/343

 have enjoyed postal and telegraph facilities. One of the few successful enterprises of the government along foreign lines was the running of telegraph wires to some of the important centres of the land and to the Yalu River, where the wires were connected with the Chinese system, thus completing communication with Europe. This was done some twenty years ago, but the present postal facilities are of much more recent date. An attempt was made to establish a sort of postal system in 1884, but the severe disturbances of that year and the return to power of the conservative element postponed the final establishment of the system until about ten years ago. The question naturally arises as to what the Koreans did during all those long centuries before the introduction of these modern methods. In the "good old days" there was no need to hurry, except in case of very serious disturbance in the provinces, due to invasion or rebellion. If either of these evils threatened the government, it had a method of learning about it almost as soon as it could have done by the modern telegraph. The whole country is dotted with fire-mountains, so situated that the beacon fires flashed from peak to peak without interruption from one end of the peninsula to the other. Each station was in the care of a keeper, whose duty it was to pass the word along each night by flare of torch. Every evening the beacon fires flashed across the valleys from the four quarters of the land, and focussed at the station on Namsan, or South Mountain, within the walls of the capital. This station was plainly visible from the gates of the palace, and each night an official stood waiting the message.

When the light flared up, he waited to see whether more than one was to be shown. If not, he carried to the King the message that the whole country was at peace. This pleasant sight used to be one of the features of life in Seoul in the old days, but to-day the small boys festoon with their kites the web of telegraph wires that has been woven over the city, and the uneasy burr of the telegraph receiver has taken the place of the genial flash of the evening beacon.