Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/80

68 in them but mud. This is true, there being only the corner posts to each room, with two smaller posts for each door and such small timbers as are needed to hold the posts in position and support the walls, which are made by first weaving in a sort of basketwork of small sticks and tying them with straw rope. Mud is plastered to this till the wall is about three inches thick. The best of these walls are finished up with a coat of lime and sand, but the larger part of these houses never get this finishing touch. The rafters are small round poles which support the straw roof. In former times not a nail was used in the construction of one of these houses, but where nails would be ordinarily used straw rope was used instead. Now that the wire nail has found its way into the Hermit Nation, it is displacing the straw rope to some extent in house-building.

The floor is the most important part in a Korean house. It is to this that the occupant must look for warmth to keep him and his family from freezing during the long winter nights. It is made of flat stones about three inches thick. These stones are placed over a set of flues that extend the entire length of the room and distribute the heat to all parts of the floor. The entire floor is plastered over with mud to prevent the smoke from coming into the room and at the same time to give a smooth surface to the floor. Those who can afford it cover this floor with oiled paper, of which the Koreans produce the best in the world; and when it has been roasted for a while it becomes a most beautiful mahogany color. The