Arnold Henry Savage-Landor

CHAPTER I. Christmas on board - Fusan - A body-snatcher - The Kiung-sang Province - The cotton production - Body-snatching extraordinary - Imperatrice Gulf - Chemulpo.

 

It was on a Christmas Day that I set out for Corea. The year was 1890. I had been several days at Nagasaki, waiting for the little steamer, Higo-Maru, of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha (Japan Steamship Company), which was to arrive, I think, from Vladivostock, when a message was brought to me saying that she was now in port, and would sail that afternoon for Tsushima, Goto, and the Corean ports.

CHAPTER XIV. Religion - Buddhism - Bonzes - Their power - Shamanism - Spirits - Spirits of the mountain - Stone heaps - Sacred trees - Seized by the spirits - Safe-guard against them - The wind - Sorcerers and sorceresses - Exorcisms - Monasteries.

 

The question of religion is always a difficult one to settle, for - no matter where one goes - there are people who are religious and people who are not.

CHAPTER II. Chemulpo - So-called European hotels - Comforts - Japanese concession - The Guechas - New-Year's festivities - The Chinese settlement - European residents - The word "Corea" - A glance at Corean history - Cho-sen.

 

When I land in a new country a strange sense of the unknown somehow takes possession of me. Perhaps in this, however, I am not alone. The feeling is in part, I think, due to one's new surroundings, though chiefly to the facial expressions of the people, with which one is not familiar and probably does not quite understand.

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