SEOUL, COREA'S CAPITAL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5092, 27 October 1894, Page 7

SEOUL, COREA'S CAPITAL.

{Frank 0. Carpenter, in the Detroit Free Press.) The capital of Coroa lies in a basin in the mountains, and it U perhaps tha most beautifully located capital on the face of the globe. It is only twenty-six miles from the sea, and it is connected with the port of Chemulpo by a poor waggon road, which climbs up the hills and over the mountains to get to it. I hare spent days .in wandering through its streets. I have been inside of it 3 prisons, and have walked through its palaces. I have talked with all classes, and have seen all sorts of new thiug3 at every turn. There are no guide books of Asia. You will not find accurate descriptions of Seoul in any books of travel. The tourist who comes here without introductions could not find a lodging place. There are no hotels, and I am indebted to my friends among the mUsiion&rieß, among the diplomats, and with some of the high Cpreans, for pay entortainment through these many days. The Corean capital is different from any other city on the face of the globe* It ia such a masa of the beautiful and the ugly, of civilisation and barbarism, of the old and the new, that I don't know how to describe it. Take its situation. It lies in a great basin surrounded by mountains, the tops of which often rest in tha clouds, and masses of vapour hang in their recesses above the green* plain upon which the city is built. They change in their hues with overy change of the heavens, and they give Seoul a SETTING MORE QOEGEOUS THAN JEWELS. The basin below ia just about; large enough to contain the town, and a great gray wall from thirty to forty feet high runs along the sides of these hills, bounding the basin and mounting here and there almost to the tops of the lower mountains. Ifc scales one hill of at least 1000 feet in height, and this wall encloses the whole city. It wan built in nine months by an army of 200,000 workmen, about 500 yeara ago, and it is a, piece of solid masonry, consisting of two thick walls of granite packed down in the middle with earth and etonas. Its top is ao wide that two carriages could easily bo driven about it, and it has, on the sido facing the country, a crenellated battlement, with holes largo enough for its defenders to shoot through with arrows. There &ro no cannon upon it, and it will be no means of defence against the batteries of the Chinese or the Japs in the present struggle. Its only use in late years has been to keep out the tigers and leopards. This wall is more than six miles in length. It is pierced by eight gates, the arches of which are beantifully laid and cut. Each of these great arches lisa a curved roof of black tiles. This rests upon carved wooden pillars, which rise above the tops of the walls and which form watch-towers for the soldiers. Over the great south gate, the main entrance to the capital, there are two such roofs; one above the other, which are guarded at their corners by miniature demons of porcelain, who neem to be crawling along the edgos of the structure. It would not take much more than a Gatling gun to batter down the heavy doors by which thesa arches are closed. These doorß are bigger than those of any barn in our country. They are swung on pivots made by pins fitting into the masonry at the top and the bottom. They are sheathed with plates o! iron riveted on with big bolta, and until now the common Coreans have believed them a defence agaiusfe the enemy. They have as much ceremony oonnooted with them ss other nations have with their forts, and there are officers in charge of them who would lose their heads if they failed in their duty. Every night just at sundown these gates are closed, and they ara not opened again until four in the morning. The signal of their closing and opening is t^e ringing of a massive bell in the exact centre of the city. After this those who are in cannot get out, and those who are outside cannot got in. 3NOBMOUB LOCKS. The greatest care is taken of the keys to theao gates. The looks close with a spring and the keys are kept in the king's palace, except at the time that they are ÜBed at the gates. The keys themselves are guarded all day at the palace, and are only brought to the gatea a short time before closing the city. I wish I -could show one of these locke. Each gate has two of them, and when I tried to lift one I found my back Btrained. They are of iron, and made in the shape of a box, two feet wide, and at leaßt a foot thick. They lock with a spring much like that of a padlock, and it takes a hammer to put them together. I waited and watched THE CLOSING OF THE GATKB. First two men came from the gate 'house and sang out in Corean* the words that the gates were closing and the time was short Their voices were as shrill an thoße of an iman of a Mohammedan mosque when he calls out the hour of prayer from the minareti, and they held on to their final tones for the space of twelve eeoonde by my watch. As they cried there was a

grand rush for the g;Ues. Hundreds of men in black hats and whit* gowns ran ghost-like through the darknesß. Bareheaded coolies dragged great bullocks with packs on thoir backs through the doors, ! and porters by the scores, loaded down i with all sorts of wares, came stumbling ; | along. There were coolies bearing closed • boxes, in which wero their mistresses, i There were officials on horseback and nobles : ■ on foot, all pushing and scrambling to got in before the gates closed. As I watched the big bell pealed out its knell, and the • two men grasped the great dooto and 1 j pulled them together with a bang. It j \ took the strength of both to move each one ; i of them, and the gateß locked with a spring. I The key, which remains with the king over I night, is not brought back from the palace < } till the morning. It is a massive bar of j ; iron, and it takes a sledge hammer to drive j jit into the lock. Similar locks are on the gates to the wall which incloses the palace of the king, and on each of TEE SIGHT GATES OF THE CITT. Inside this great wall, within this setj ting of mountains, lies the city of Seoul. ' ; It contains more than 300,000 people, and< • it has scarcely a house that is more than j one story high. It is a city of wide streets j ; and narrow, winding alleys. It is a city of j ; thatched huts and tiled one-story build* i i ings. On one side of it are the palaces of ; the King. They cover an area aB large as | that of a thousand-acre farm, and they are j j massive one-story buildings surrounded by ; great walls and laid out with all the regu- 1 I larity of a city. As you stand on the walls ; J of Seoul and look over this medley of build- \ ings, your first impression is that you are j in the mid&t of a vast hayfield, interspersed ] here and there with tiled barns, and the i [three biggest streets that cut through theßO i | myriad haycocks look like a road through the fields. You note the shape of the thatohed houses. They are all formed like horseshoes, with the heel of the shoe resting on the street. The roofs are tied on i with strings, and the thatch n&6 grown old, : and under the soft light of the setting sun it assumes the rich colour of brown plush, and there is a velvety softness to the whole. ! As you look closer, you Bee that the city is divided up into streets, and that these j narrow and widen and twist and turnwithj out regularity or order. One part of the city j is made almost entirely of tiled buildings. < These are THE HOMES OP THK SWELLS. Come down now and take a walk with me through the city. There are no pave- i mentg on the streets, and you look in vain I for gas lam D 8 or the signs of an electric i light. This city of 300,000 people is j entirely without sanitary arrangements. There are no waterworks, except the ; Corean water carrier, who, with a pole , across his back, takes' up the whole side- ! walk as he carries two buckets of water ; along with him through tho streets. The j 1 clouds are 'left to do the sprinkling of the ; I highways, Bave where here and there • a householder takes a dipper and ladles out the sewer fluid to lay the dust. All the slops of each house fun into ditches along the sidewalk. Mixed with the smell from the sewage is tho Biucke. This comes out of chimneys about two feet above the ground, which jut out from the walls of the houses into ; the streets. Fit a stovepipe into your house at a parallel with the floor of the porch and you have the average Corean chimney. At certain hours of the morning and evening each of these chimneys vomits forth the smoke of the straw which the people use for the fires for their cooking and the air becomes blue. The doors to the houses along the street are more like those of a stable or barn thnn the entrances to residences. They are very rude, and in the bottom of each is cut a hole for the dog. Such doors &s are opp.n give no inoi^ht to the home 3 of the people, and I was in Seoul for some time before I knew that these doorß facing the street were merely the entrance gates to large compounds or. yards in which were very com- i fortable buildings. I thought that the nobles lived in these thatched huts. They are in reality only the quarters of the i Borvant?, and the homes of the better classes contain many rooms, and are, in | some cases almost as well fitted for comfort as those of our own. Their houses along the streets have no windows to speak of. There ara under the roof little openings about a foot square. These are filled with lattice and backed with paper. They permit the light to come in, but you cannot see through them. THEBE ARE NO BTBANOffiR PEOPLE ON THE FACE OF THE GLOBS. A masquerade of 'tho nations could not furnish more strange costumes, and in going through Seoul you rub your eyes again and again to find whether you are dreaming- or waking. The kingdom of Corea is . made up of many classes of people, and each has its costume. There are hundreds of officials connected with the palace, each of whom wears a different dress. The nobles strut about in all sorts of gowns, with their retainers in all sorts of liveries, and you ara all the while apparently looking into a great kaleidoscope of almond-eyed humanity which changes .in colours and costumes at every turn of the barrel. There are different costumes for all positions in life, and every man weara a dozen different kinds of dresß during a year. If he goes to a wedding he has his own outfit, and if he goes to his relative's funeral he must put on the garb of the mourner. Death gives more work to the tailors than weddings, and the mourners of Corea wear long yellow gowns, with hats as big aB umbrellas above them. You can tell something about the position of a man by the size of his sleeve, and there is no place where a hat means so much as in Corea. For a long time I feasted my eyes upon what I considered the pretty little girls of tKe country. They were dressed in bright gowns. They parted their hair in the middle, and they tied the long braid which hung down their backs with neat little ribbono. Once or twice I smirked and I smiled, but I could get no smiles in return, and I know now that these little girla wero no girls at all, but merely young boys, who, not being married, have to wear their hair down their backs. After they are wedded they will put on hats and wrap their hair up on the tops of their head a in waterfall. All of the men of Corea wear waterfalls or topnots. These are lust about as big as tho fist of a baby, and they rest on the crown of the head. They wear gorgeous hats, and they are, Ibslievn, the beat dressed men in the world. Their I customs are as queer as their dress.