Seoul, the capital of Korea
![In this picture a Korean family is standing together. Three women are wearing dresses. Two boys are wearing long coats. One girl is wearing her pajamas. A fat man is wearing a bath robe, a rope around his chest, and a black cowboy hat that is too small for him.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_1_pic_1.jpg/470px-Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_1_pic_1.jpg)
THE
BURTON HOLMES
LECTURES
With Illustrations from Photographs
By the Author
COMPLETE IN TEN VOLUMES
VOL. X
BATTLE CREEK, MICHIGAN
THE LITTLE-PRESTON COMPANY, LIMITED
M C M I
COPYRIGHT 1901
BY E. BURTON HOLMES
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
SEOUL, THE CAPITAL OF KOREA
![This picture is a map. It shows from left to right: China, the Yellow Sea, the Korean peninsula, the Japan Sea, and Japan.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cf/Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_4_enhancement.jpg/470px-Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_4_enhancement.jpg)
![This picture is a drawing of people walking toward a village. Some are wearing hats shaped like an umbrella. The caption is Seoul – Capital of Korea. The letter "S" of the word, Seoul, is drawn over a little map. The little map shows the city of Seoul on the Han River. It also shows a canal going south from the Han River. It shows the Chemulpo dock in Incheon as if on that canal rather than the bay farther south.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_5_pic_1.jpg/470px-Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_5_pic_1.jpg)
THE CITY of Seoul is the quaintest I have ever seen. A visit to the Korean capital is one of the choicest tidbits on the menu of modern travel. The usual approach to Korea is by way of Nagasaki, in a Japanese steamer which first touches Fusan, a thriving port at the southern end of the peninsula that we call Korea but which is known to the Japanese as "Cho-Sen" – "The Land of the Morning Freshness," and to its own people by |
![This photo shows a beach on Fusan Bay in southeast Korea. Little sail boats are anchored by the sand. No passenger or cargo ships are seen at this angle.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1d/Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_7_pic_1.jpg/470px-Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_7_pic_1.jpg)
the language of the Mikado's land. They have been here in force for more than three hundred years; since the great invasion in 1592 they have never relinquished this foothold on the continent of Asia. Wise indeed in their forethought, |
![This picture shows seashore of hills as seen off Chi-Fu Harbor, China west of Seoul, Korea.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_7_pic_2.jpg/470px-Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_7_pic_2.jpg)
![This picture is from a hill overlooking the rooftops of a neighborhood on the shore. The sea looks like a lake because on the right side of the picture the land curves up around the water to a hilly shore on the other side of the water. On the left side of the picture, however, the water reaches the left edge of the picture. In the upper right corner, a map is sketched. It shows Korea is near Japan and that Fusan is in the southeast of the Korean peninsula.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_8_pic_1.jpg/470px-Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_8_pic_1.jpg)
for there is now a railway in construction that will make this obscure port one of the termini of the Trans-Asiatic line, surpassing Vladivostok and Port Arthur in point of proximity to the main traveled waterways of the Far Eastern Seas. |
![In this photo, several black men are standing around on the sidewalk of a concrete boat dock in China. The dock is in the center and left of the photo; the water is on the right side of the photo. A stairwell next to the water is inset in the dock. On the far side of the stairwell is the top of the stairs. Two black men, facing the viewer, are carrying suitcases down the stairs. The water is calm. Rowboats are tied along the concrete dock, from near to about six rowboats away. Then, the seawall makes a right turn. Beyond the water and the dock are wooden buildings at the top of the photo. They are one and two stories high. A map is sketched lower left which shows where Chi-fu is in relation to Seoul.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_8_pic_2.jpg/470px-Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_8_pic_2.jpg)
![In this picture, on the left side of the picture a sailor is standing on the deck of a metal ship and facing to the right with has his hands on the steering wheel of the ship. In the center of the picture Burton Holmes, in a black suit, is standing and facing to the right with his head turned toward the camera. In front of him is something that looks like a bird bath which might possibly be a big compass. On the right side of the picture, a sailor is standing and facing the camera. In front of him is a pedestal with two handles on it. In the background is the railing of the side of the ship. Beyond that is fog.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_9_pic_1.jpg/470px-Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_9_pic_1.jpg)
Two sailors and the author, Burton Holmes, on the deck of a ship in the fog.
But we approach Korea not from the Japanese, but from the Chinese, side. We sail from Taku, Peking’s port; transship at Chi-Fu, and cross the entrance to the Gulf of Pe-chi-li on a steamer of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha – the Royal Mail Line of Japan – for the enterprise of Japan is as conspicuous in Korean waters as upon Korean shores. The ship threads her way toward Chemulpo, the chief port of Korea, through |
![In this picture, taken from a ship, a rowboat nears the ship. People are standing on the deck of the ship, left, and sitting in the rowboat, right. In the distance there is land. In the upper right of the picture is a map showing the ship’s route east from China to Korea.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_9_pic_2.jpg/470px-Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_9_pic_2.jpg)
an enchanted archipelago – a constellation of shimmering islands set in the placid firmament of a deep, calm, silent sea. Isle after isle glides by – some rocky, savage, and fantastic, some soft, inviting, and luxuriant, but all apparently unpeopled; and the sea itself is lonely as a desert – no signs of life, no ships, no junks; and yet we are within an hour's sail of Korea’s busiest and most important port. Surely the people of Ta-han must fear the sea which washes three sides of their land, or else these waters would not be left for the exclusive furrowing of foreign keels. We are already in full view of Chemulpo before we see the first Korean craft – a sampan that has ventured out to meet the ship. The boatmen, however, do not lack daring, for they drive the little boat full tilt at the passing steamer, strike the hull just forward of the gangway, and then as the big hull brushes past, two men succeed in gripping ropes or railings and swing themselves with monkey-like agility up to the deck. Meantime their fellows have made fast a rope, and the sampan is trailing gaily in our wake at the end of a long tow-line. Other acrobatic sampan men repeat this maneuver, boarding our ship like pirates in their eagerness to |
![This is a picture of a small island as seen from a ship. It is near other small islands. Below the picture is a map showing the group of islands. They are near, and to the northwest and southwest of, Inchon, South Korea, which used to be called Chemulpo, Korea.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_10_pic_1.jpg/470px-Burton_Holmes_Lectures_%E2%80%93_Seoul%2C_Korea_p_10_pic_1.jpg)