Korea & Her Neighbours/Chapter XIX
THE chief object of my visit to Russian Manchuria was to settle for myself by personal investigation the vexed question of the condition of those Koreans who have found shelter under the Russian flag, a number estimated in Seoul at 20,000. It was there persistently said that Russia was banish- ing them in large numbers, and that several thousands of them had already recrossed the Tumen, and were in such poverty that the King of Korea had sent agents to the north who were to settle them on lands in Ham-gyong Do.
But in Wladivostok the servant-interpreter difficulty was ab- solutely insurmountable. No efforts on the part of my friends could obtain what did not exist, and I was on the verge of giving up what proved a very interesting journey, when the Director of the Siberian Telegraph Lines very kindly liberated the senior official in his department, who had not had a holi- day for many years, to go with me. Mr. Heidemann, a Ger- man from the Baltic provinces, spoke German, Russian, and English with nearly equal ease, and as a Russian official was able to make things smoother than they might otherwise have been in a very rough part of Primorsk. He was tall, good- looking, and verging on middle age, very gentlemanly, never failed in any courtesy, understood how to manage moujiks, and was a capable and willing interpreter ; but he was official, reticent, and uninterested, and gave me the impression of be- ing frozen into his uniform !
Fortified as to my project by the cordial approval of the Governor, the courtesy of the Telegraph Department, and the singular splendor of the weather, I left Wladivostok by a red sunrise in a small steamer, which accomplished the 60 miles to Possiet Bay in seven hours, landing us in a deep inlet of clear water and white sand, soon to be closed by ice, at the foot of low and absolutely barren hills fringing off into sandy knolls, where Koreans with their ox-carts awaited the steamer. A well spread tea-table at the house of the Russian postmaster was very welcome. Such a strong-looking family I had seldom seen, but afterwards I found that size and strength are charac- teristic of the Russian settlers in Primorsk.
Possiet Bay is a large military station of fine barracks and storehouses. It scarcely seemed to possess a civil population, but there are Korean settlements at no great distance, from which much of the beef supply of Wladivostok is derived. We met a number of strong, thriving-looking Koreans driving 60 fine fat cattle down to the steamer.
The post wagon, in which we were cramped up among and under the mail-bags, took us at a two hours' gallop along frozen inlets of the sea and across frozen rivers, over grassy, hilly country, scarcely enlivened by Korean farms in the val- leys, to Nowo Kiewsk, which we reached after nightfall, and were hospitably received by the representative of Messrs. Kuntz and Albers, whose large brick and stone establishment is the prominent object in the settlement.
Nowo Kiewsk is a great military post, to which 1,000 civilians, chiefly Koreans and Chinese, have been attracted by the prospect of gain. Koreans indeed form the bulk of this population, and do all the hauling of goods and fuel with their ox-teams. The centre of the town is a great dusty slope inter- sected by dusty and glaring roads, which resound at intervals from early morning till sunset with the steady tramp of brown- ulstered battalions. Between Possiet Bay and Nowo Kiewsk there were 10,000 infantry and artillery, and at the latter post 8 pieces of field artillery and 24 two-wheeled ammunition wagons. Barracks for 10,000 more men were in course of rapid construction. Long wooden sheds shelter the artillery ponies, and villages of low mud houses of two rooms each, with windows consisting of a single small pane of glass, the families of soldiers. There are great drill and parade grounds and an imposing Greek church of the usual pattern.
With its great open spaces and wide streets, Nowo Kiewsk looks laid out for futurity, straggling along a treeless and bushless hill slope for 2 miles. In addition to Kuntz and Albers, with their polyglot staff of clerks, among whom a young Korean in European dress was conspicuous for his gen- tlemanliness and alacrity, there is another German house, and there are forty small shops, chiefly kept by Chinese, at all of which schnaps and vodka are sold.
I was detained there for three days while arrangements for my southern journey were being made, and during that time the Chief of Police, who spoke French, took me to several Korean villages. So far as I saw and heard, the whole agri- cultural population of the neighborhood is Korean, and is in a very prosperous condition. There, and down to the Korean frontier, most of these settlers are doing well, and some of them are growing rich as contractors for the supply of meat and grain to the Russian forces. At this they have beaten their Chinese neighbors, and they actually go into Chinese Manchuria, buy up lean cattle, and fatten them for beef. To those who have only seen the Koreans in Korea, such a statement will be hardly credible. Yet it does not stand alone, for I have it on the best authority that the Korean settlers near Khabaroffka have competed so successfully with the Chinese in market garden- ing that the supplying that city with vegetables is now en- tirely in their hands !
The Russian tarantass is one of the most uncouth of civil- ized vehicles— all that can be said of it is that it suits the roads, which in that region are execrable. On two sets of stout wheels and axles, attached to each other by long solid timbers, a long shallow box is secured, with one, two, or even three boards, cushioned or not, "roped“ across it for seats. It maybe drawn by either two or three horses abreast, one in the shafts and one or two outside, each with the most slender attachment to the vehicle, and his head held down and inwards by a tight strap. This outer animal is trained to a showy gallop, which never slackens even though the shaft horse may keep up a decorous trot. The tarantass has no springs, and, going at a gallop, bumps and bounces over all obstacles, holes, hillocks, ruts and streams being alike to it.
The tarantass of the Chief of Police made nothing of the obstacles on the road to Yantchihe, where we were to hear of a Korean interpreter. The level country, narrowing into a valley bordered by fine mountains, is of deep, rich black soil, and grows almost all cereals and roots. All the crops were gathered in and the land was neatly ploughed. Korean hamlets with houses of a very superior class to those in Korea were sprinkled over the country. At one of the largest villages, where 140 families were settled on 750 acres of rich land, we called at several of the peasant farmers' houses, and were made very welcome, even the women coming out to welcome the official with an air of decided pleasure. The farmers had changed the timid, suspicious, or cringing manner which is characteristic of them to a great extent at home, for an air of frankness and manly independence which was most pleasing.
The Chief of Police was a welcome visitor. The Koreans had nothing to fear, unless his quick scent discerned an in- sanitary odor or his eye an anwarrantable garbage heap ! The farmyards were clean and well swept, and the domestic animals were lodged in neat sheds. The houses, of strictly Korean architecture, were large, with five or six rooms, carefully thatched, and very neat within, abounding in such comforts and plenishings as would only be dreamed of by mandarins at home. It is insisted on, however, that, instead of the flues which heat the floors vomiting forth their smoke through many blackened apertures in the walls, they shall unite in sending it heavenwards through a hollow tree trunk placed at a short dis- tance from the house. This, and cleanly surroundings in the interests of sanitation, are the only restrictions on their Korean habits. The clothing and dwellings are the same as in Korea, and the *' topknot “ flourishes.
A little farther on there is the large village of Yantchihe, with a neat schoolhouse, in which Russian and Korean pupils sit side by side at their lessons, a Greek church, singularly rich in internal decorations, and a priest's house adjoining. This is a very prosperous village. In the neat police station a Korean sergeant wrote down my requirements and sent off a smart Korean policeman in search of an interpreter. Four hundred Koreans in this neighborhood have conformed to the Greek Church and have received baptism. On asking the priest, who was more picturesque than cultivated, and whose large young family seemed oppressively large for the house, what sort of Christians they made, he replied suggestively that they had “a. great deal to learn,“ and that there would be “ more hope for the next generation.“
I am not clear in my own mind as to the cause of the suc- cess which has attended “ missionary effort “ at Yantchihe and elsewhere. The statements I received on the subject differed widely, and in most cases were made hesitatingly, as if my in- formants were not sure of their ground. My impression is that while Russia is tolerant of devil-worship, or any other worship which is not subversive of the externals of morality, “conformity” is required to obtain for the Korean alien those blessings which belong to naturalization as a Russian subject.
Preparations being completed for travelling to the Korean frontier, and into Korea as far as Kyong-heung, a town which a Trade Convention in 1888 opened to the residence of Rus- sian subjects in the hope of creating a market there after the style of Kiachta, I had an interview with Mr. Matunin, the Frontier Commissioner, who gave me a very unpleasant ac- count of insecurity on the frontier owing to the lawlessness of the Chinese troops, and an introduction to the Governor of Kyong-heung.
A large tarantass with three ponies and a driver, a Korean on another pony, and the Korean headman of a neighboring village, who spoke Russian well, and our saddles were our modest outfit. The details of the two days' journey to the Tumen are too monotonous for infliction on the reader. The road was infamous, and at times disappeared altogether on a hillside or in a swamp, and swamps are frequent for the first 40 versts. The tarantass, always attempting a gallop, bounced, bumped, and thumped, till breathing became a series of gasps. Occasionally we stuck fast in swampy streams where the ice was broken, being extricated by a tremendous, united, and apparently trained, jump on the part of the ponies, which compelled a strong grip of the vehicle with hands and feet, and would have dislocated any other. Mr. Heidemann smoked cigarettes unceasingly, and made no remarks.
We crossed the head of Possiet Bay and other inlets at a gallop on thin ice, forded several streams in the aforesaid fashion, and passed through several Korean coast villages given up to the making of salt by a rude process, the finished product being carted away to Hun-chun in China in baskets of finely woven reeds. These Chinese carts are drawn by seven mules each, constantly driven at a gallop.
After 30 versts the country became very hilly, with rugged mountains in the distance, all without a tree or bush, and covered with coarse and fine grasses mixed up with myriads of with- ered flower stalks of Composita and Umbelliferce, and here and there a lonely, belated purple aster shivered in the strong keen wind, which made an atmosphere at zero somewhat hard to face. The valleys are flat and broad, and their rich black soil, the product of ages of decaying vegetation, is absolutely stoneless. Almost all crops can be raised upon it. Besides being a rich agricultural country, the region is well suited for cattle breeding. There were large herds on the hills, and hay- stacks thickly scattered over the landscape indicated abundance of winter keep. The potato, which flourishes and is free from the disease, is largely cultivated, and is now with the Koreans an article of ordinary diet.
The whole of this fine country is settled by Koreans, for the few hamlets of wretched, tumble-down Chinese houses are of no account. Whether as squatters or purchasers, they are making the best of the land. The number of their domestic animals enables them to fertilize it abundantly ; they plough deep, and rotate their crops, and get a splendid yield from their lands. We halted at Saretchje, a village of 120 families, admirably housed, and with all material comforts abounding about them. Out of its 600 inhabitants, 450 have “con- formed.” The Koreans, having no religion, are apparently not unwilling to secure the possible advantages of conversion, and though none of the Greek priests who conversed with me were enthusiastic about their “consistency,” it is at least more satisfactory to see an “Ecce Homo” on the wall than the family daemon.
At distances of 3 and 4 miles there are Korean villages, of which prosperity in greater or less degree is a characteristic. The houses are large and well built, and the farmyards are well stocked with domestic animals, the people and children are well clothed, and the village lands carefully cultivated.
A long ascent, during which the road, which for some time had been intermittent, gradually disappeared, leads to the summit of a high hill, from which the mountainous frontiers of Russia, China, and Korea are seen to converge. After losing our way and our time, and crossing several ranges of hills without a road, just as the winter sun was setting in a flood of red gold, glorifying the mountains on the Chinese frontier, a turn round a bluff revealed what is geographically and politically a striking view.
The whole of the Russo-Korean frontier, 11 miles in length, and a broad river full of sandbanks, passing through a desert of sandhills to the steely blue ocean, lay crimson in the sun- set. On a steep bluff above the river a tall granite slab marks the spot where the Russian and Chinese frontiers meet. Across the Tumen, the barren mountains of Korea loomed purple through a haze of gold. Three empires are seen at a glance. A small and poor Korean village is situated in a val- ley below. Close to the Boundary Stone, on the high steep bluff above the Tumen, there is a large mud hut from which most of the whitewash had scaled off, with thatch held on by straw ropes, weighted with stones.
It was a very lonely scene. A Korean ' told us that it was absolutely impossible for us to sleep at the village. A Cos- sack came out of the hut, took a long look at us, and returned. Then a forlorn-looking corporal appeared, who also took a long look, and having hospitable instincts, came up and told us that the village was impossible except for the drivers and horses, but that he could put us up roughly in the hut, which consisted of one fair sized room, another very small one, and a lean-to.
The latest English papers had stated that “Russia has lately massed 5,000 men on the Korean frontier, and 4,000 at Hun- chun.” It is not desirable to make any inquiries about the positions and numbers of Russian troops, and I had prudently abstained from asking questions, and had looked forward with interest to seeing a great display of military force. This hut is the military post of Krasnoye Celo, and the “army“ of Russia “ massed on her Korean frontier “ consisted of 15 men and a corporal, the officer being required to endure the isola- tion of the position for six months, and the privates for one. The roars of laughter which greeted the English statement were not complimentary to newspaper accuracy.
The corporal's small room was of no particular shape, and was furnished with only a deal chair and small table, and a big earthen jar of water, but it was well warmed, and had an iron camp-bed in a recess with a wire-wove mattress, much broken and “sagging,” the sharp points of the broken wires sticking up in several places through the one rug with which I attempted to mollify their asperities. This recess, which just contained the bed, was curtained off for me, and the corporal, Mr. Heidemann, and three Korean headmen lay closely packed on the floor. The corporal, glad to have people to talk with, talked more than half the night, and began again before day- break. We supped on barrack fare — black bread, barley brose, and tea, with the addition of a little kwass, a very slightly fermented drink, made from black bread, raisins, sugar, and a little vodka, schnaps and vodka containing 40 per cent, of alcohol. At 9 p.m. I was surprised and delighted with the noble strains of a Greek Litany, chanted in well-balanced parts from the barrack-room, the evening worship of the Cos- sacks.
My last sunset view of the Tumen was of a sheet of ice. The headmen of the Korean villages of Sajorni and Krasnoe, who were in council till near midnight, thought it was impos- sible to get across, and they said that the ferryboat was drawn ashore and was frozen in for the winter, and that two Russian Commissioners and a General, after waiting for three days, had left the day before, having failed. However, yielding to my urgency, they set all the able-bodied men of Sajorni to work at 2 a.m. to dig the boat out, and by 7 she had moved some yards towards the river, which, however, was still a sheet of ice. Later, the corporal sent i4 of his men to help the Koreans, laughingly saying that I had the “whole Russian frontier army to get me across.” At 9 word came that the boat was nearly afloat, and we started, on horseback, with two baggage ponies, and rode a mile over the hills and through the prosperous Korean village of Sajorni, down to a dazzling expanse of sand through which the Tumen flows to the sea, there 10 miles off.
The river ice was breaking np into large masses under the morning sun, and between Russia and Korea there was much open water about 600 feet broad. The experts said if we could get over at all it would be between noon and 2, after which the ice would pack and freeze together again. Koreans and Cossacks worked with a will, breaking the ice, digging under the boat, and moving her with levers, but it was noon before the unwieldy craft, used for the ferriage of oxen, moved into the water, accompanied by a hearty cheer. She leaked badly, two men were required to bale her, and the stern plat- form, by which animals enter her, was carried away. The baggage was carried in by men wading much over their knees, and then came the turn of the ponies, but not the whole Rus- sian army by force or persuasion could get those wretched animals embarked.
After a whole hour's work and any amount of kicking, plunging, and injuries, from getting one or two legs over the bulwarks, and struggling back, and rolling backwards into the river, two were apparently safe in the ferryboat, when sud- denly they knocked over the man who held them and jumped into the water, one blind animal being rescued with difficulty, and the other cutting his legs considerably. The ice was then fast forming, but the soldiers made one more attempt, which failed, owing to what Americans would not inaptly call the “cussedness” of the Siberian ponies. For the first time on any journey I had to confess myself baffled, for it was impos- sible to swim the contumacious animals across, owing to the heavy ice floes and the low temperature of the water. I had sat on my pony watching these proceedings for nearly four hours, watching too the grand Korean mountains as they swept down to the icy river in every shade of cobalt blue, varied by indigo shadows of the white cloud masses which sailed slowly across the heavenly sky. At that point from which I most re- luctantly turned back, the Tumen has a large volume of water, but above and below sandbanks render the navigation so diffi- cult that it is only in the rainy season that flat-bottomed boats make the attempt, and not always with success, to reach the Korean town of K'wan, 80 versts, or something over 50 miles, above Krasnoye Celo. The Chinese, in the insane notion that Japan was about to land a large force on the south bank of the Tumen, had seized all the boats above the Russian post.
I photographed the “Russian army” and the barracks as well as the Boundary Stone, and the corporal slouching against the scaly forlorn quarters on the desolate height in an attitude of extreme dejection, as we drove away leaving him to his usual dulness.
The days of the return journey gave me a good opportunity of learning something of the condition of the Koreans under another Government than their own. So long ago as 1863, 13 families from Ham-gyong Do crossed the frontier and settled on the river Tyzen Ho, a little to the north of Possiet Bay. By 1866 there were 100 families there, very poor, among which the Russian Government distributed cattle and seed for cultivation.
During 1869, a year of very great scarcity in Northern Korea, 4,500 Koreans migrated, hunger-driven, into Pri- morsk, some 3,800 of them being absolutely destitute. These had to be supported, no easy thing, as the territory, only ceded to Russia a few years before, was but a thinly peopled wilderness, and was also suffering from a bad harvest.
In 1897 there were in Primorsk 32 village districts, i.e. vil- lages with outlying hamlets, divided into 5 administrative dis- tricts. Besides these, one village belongs to the city of Kha- baroffka on the Amur, and there are large Korean settlements adjacent to Wladivostok and Nikolskoye. The total number of Korean immigrants is estimated at from 16,000 to 18,000. It must be remembered that several thousands of these were liter- ally paupers, and that they subsisted for nearly a year on the charity of the Russian authorities, and after that were indebted to them for seed corn. They settled on the rich lands of the Siberian valleys mostly as squatters, but have been unmolested for many years. Many have purchased the lands they occupy, and in other cases villages have acquired community rights to their adjacent lands. It is the intention of Government that squatting shall gradually be replaced by purchase, the purchas- ers receiving legal title-deeds.
These alien settlers practically enjoy autonomy. At the head of each district is an Elder or Headman, with from one to three assistants according to its size. The police and their officers are Korean. In each district there are two or three judges with their clerks, who try minor offences. The head- men, who are responsible for order and the collection of taxes, are paid salaries, or receive various allowances. All these officials are Koreans, and are elected by the people themselves from among themselves. The Government taxation is lo roubles (about ￡I) on each farm per annum. The local tax- ation, settled by the villagers in council for their own pur- poses, such as roads, ditches, bridges, and schools, is limited to 3 roubles per farm per annum. Men who are not land- holders pay from i to 2 roubles per annum.
Koreans settled in Siberia prior to 1884 can claim rights as Russian subjects, and at this time those who can prove that they have been settled on purchased lands for ten years can do so, as well as certain others, well reported of as being of set- tled lives and good conduct. Owing to the steady influx of settlers from Southern Russia, the rich lands near the railroad are required for colonization, and further immigration from Korea has been prohibited. The sending of Koreans who are either squatters or of unsettled lives to the Amur Province is under discussion.
The villages between Krasnoye Celo and Nowo Kiewsk are fair average specimens of Russo-Korean settlements. The roads are fairly good, and the ditches which border them well kept. Sanitary rules are strictly enforced, the headman being made responsible for village cleanliness. Unlike the poor, ragged, filthy villages of the peninsula, these are well built in Korean style, of whitewashed mud and laths, trimly thatched, the compounds or farmyards are enclosed by whitewashed walls, or high fences of neatly woven reeds, and look as if they were swept every morning, and the farm buildings are substantial and well kept. Even the pigsties testify to the Argus eyes of the district chiefs of police.
Most of the dwellings have four, five, and even six rooms, with papered walls and ceilings, fretwork doors and windows, “glazed” with white translucent paper, finely matted floors, and an amount of plenishings rarely to be found even in a mandarin's house in Korea. Cabinets, bureaus, and rice chests of ornamental wood with handsome brass decorations, low tables, stools, cushions, brass samovars, dressers display- ing brass dinner services, brass bowls, china, tea-glasses, brass candlesticks, brass kerosene lamps, and a host of other things, illustrate the capacity to secure comfort. Pictures of the Tsar and Tsaritza, of the Christ, and of Greek saints, and framed cards of twelve Christian prayers, replace the coarse daubs of the family demons in very many houses. Out of doors full granaries, ponies, mares with foals, black pigs of an im- proved breed, draught oxen, and fat oxen for the Wladivostok market, with ox-carts and agricultural implements, attest solid material prosperity. It would be impossible for a traveller to meet with more cordial hospitality and more cleanly and com- fortable accommodation than I did in these Korean homes.
But there is more than this. The air of the men has under- gone a subtle but real change, and the women, though they nominally keep up their habit of seclusion, have lost the hang- dog air which distinguishes them at home. The suspicious- ness and indolent conceit, and the servility to his betters, which characterize the home-bred Korean have very generally given place to an independence and manliness of manner rather British than Asiatic. The alacrity of movement is a change also, and has replaced the conceited swing of the yang- ban and the heartless lounge of the peasant. There are many chances for making money, and there is neither mandarin nor yang-ban to squeeze it out of the people when made, and com- forts and a certain appearance of wealth no longer attract the repacious attentions of officials, but are rather a credit to a man than a source of insecurity. All who work can be com- fortable, and many of the farmers are rich and engage in trade, making and keeping extensive contracts.
Those Koreans who are not settled on lands chiefly in the direction of the Chinese frontier, and who subsist by wood cutting and hauling, are less well off, and their hamlets have something of squalor about them.
In Korea I had learned to think of Koreans as the dregs of a race, and to regard their condition as hopeless, but in Pri- morsk I saw reason for considerably modifying my opinion. It must be borne in mind that these people, who have raised themselves into a prosperous farming class, and who get an excellent character for industry and good conduct alike from Russian police officials, Russian settlers, and military officers, were not exceptionally industrious and thrifty men. They were mostly starving folk who fled from famine, and their prosperity and general demeanor give me the hope that their countrymen in Korea, if they ever have an honest adminis- tration and protection for their earnings, may slowly develop into men.
In parts of Western Asia I have had occasion to note the success of Russian administration in conquered or acquired provinces, and with subject races, specially her creation of an orderly, peaceful, and settled agricultural population out of the nomadic and predatory tribes of Turkestan. Her success with the Korean immigrants is in its way as remarkable, for the material is inferior. She is firm where firmness is neces- sary, but outside that limit allows extreme latitude, avoids harassing aliens by petty prohibitions and irksome rules, en- courages those forms of local self-government which suit the genius and habits of different peoples, and trusts to time, edu- cation, and contact with other forms of civilization to amend what is reprehensible in customs, religion, and costume.
A few days later I went to Hun-chun on the frontier of Chinese Manchuria, from its position an important military post, and was most hospitably received by the Commandant and his married aide-de-camp. There, as everywhere in Pri- morsk, and from the civil as well as the military authorities, I not only received the utmost kindness, courtesy, and hospital- ity, but information was frankly given on the various topics I was interested in, and help towards the attainment of my ob- jects. Hun-chun is in the midst of mountainous country, de- nuded of wood in recent years, and abounding in rich, well- watered valleys inhabited only by Koreans. A wilder, drear- ier, and more wind-swept situation it would be hard to find.
Instead of “4,000 troops” there were only 200 Cossacks, housed in a good brick barrack, one-half of which is a much decorated chapel, besides which there are only open thatched sheds for their hardy, active Baikal horses, a small, well- arranged hospital, a wooden house for the Colonel Command- ant, and some terra-cotta mud-houses for the officers and married troopers. The whole Russian military force from Hun-chun to the Amur consisted of 1,500 Cossacks, distributed among thirty frontier posts. The Commandant told me that their chief duty at that time was the “daily” arresting of Chinese brigands who crossed the frontier to harry the Korean villages, and who, on being marched back and handed over to the mandarins, were at once liberated to repeat their forays.
The Chinese had “massed” several thousand of their Manchu troops at Hun-chun, and they had created such a reign of terror that the peasant farmers had deserted their homes over a large area of country. The soldiers, robbed by their officers of their nominal pay, and only half fed, relied on unlimited pillage for making up the deficiency, and neither women nor property were safe from their brutality and violence. So desperately undisciplined were they that only a few days before the Secretary and Interpreter of the Russian frontier Commissioner at Nowo Kiewsk, visiting Hun-chun on official business, narrowly escaped actual violence at their hands, and the Chinese Governor told them that he had no control at all over the troops. It was only the rigid discipline of the Cos- sacks which prevented scrimmages which might have produced a serious conflagration.