Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/357

 KOREAN INDUSTRIES 275 ing. Foreigners have looked over this ground with some care, and they affirm that there are practically unlimited quantities of the finest iron ore, awaiting the hand of modern scientific workmanship.

Copper, silver, lead and nickel are all found in moderate quantities in the peninsula, but with the exception of silver they are not of enough account to warrant extended description.

The primitive occupations of hunting and trapping still have their followers in Korea. In the north there is a regular guild or brotherhood of tiger-hunters, and their bravery and pluck are beyond dispute. It was from their ranks that the garrison of Kang-wha was chosen, which inflicted such punishment upon the French in 1866. The chances which' these hunters take in the pursuit of their chosen calling would make your modern Nimrod stare with incredulity. They use old match-locks, which are discharged by letting the smouldering end of a thick cord fall into the flash-pan. This cord is wound around the arm, and when the moment for action comes, the hunter blows upon the smouldering end and fastens it in a fork of the hammer, so that when the trigger is pulled there is some small chance of the thing "going off." One of these hunters well described the difference between their antiquated weapons and the modern repeating rifle:
 * "Korean hunter meet tiger. Bang! Wreough! Dead hunter! Foreign man meet tiger. Bang - click - bang - click - bang ! Dead tiger!"

Cobblers, coopers, hatters, farriers, blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, joiners, carvers, dyers, tailors, carters, saddlers and all the other handicraftsmen who go to make up the industrial army of a complicated civilisation are sufficiently described by their names. It might be well to add that the tools which these men use are of the most primitive kind. Every native nail is hammered out by hand. Every yard of twine is twisted by hand. This is what insures the growth of foreign commerce, for an American firm can place nails on the Korean market