COREA. AND HER NEIGHBOURS.* THE title of Mrs. Bishop's book

upon Corea indicates the chief point of the interest which the rest of the world is now taking in that country. There is little in the past history of the Hermit Kingdom, or in its present condition, to attract our attention,—were it not for the pressing question of its future destiny in relation to its three neighbours, Russia, China, and Japan. The author prudently refrains from making any forecast as to what that future may be, and is content with giving a graphic description of the country as she knew it, both before and after the Chino-Japanese War, while she carefully notes the influence which the three neighbouring countries have hitherto exercised upon its fortunes. Mrs. Bishop is a shrewd and practical observer of men and things, besides being a very skilful reporter of what she has seen, and when she writes,

as she does in this instance, without prejudice of any kind whatever, her testimony is as valuable as it is always in- teresting.

To judge from the author's experience, though she is more

disposed to minimise than to exaggerate the discomforts of her wanderings, Corea must be a particularly vile country to travel in. The abject poverty of the country population—

whether real or feigned, for poverty is the only protection against the tyrannous exactions of the noble class—makes the question of food and lodging always a very difficult one. The natives, too, naturally distrustful of all foreigners, are only made the more unwilling to entertain them by the fact that they are bearers of an official passport, imagining that, like the officials themselves, the foreign travellers will take everything they can get and pay for nothing. Even when patient argument and generous promises overcame this reluctance, the best that could be offered was generally ex- tremely wretched. Here is the author's account of the accommodation obtained in an average inn. The scene outside—framed in lovely distant views of mountain, sea, and sky-

" A long, crooked, tumble-down narrow street, with narrower off-shoots, heaps of fish offal and rubbish, in which swine, mangy, blear-eyed dogs, and children, much afflicted with skin disease, were indiscriminately routing and rolling, pools covered with a thick brown scum, a stream which had degenerated into an open sewer, down which thick green slime flowed tardily,"

—and other features equally disagreeable. Inside-

" The inn, if inn it was, gave me a room 8 feet by 6, and 5 ft. 2 inches high. Aug-pals, for it was the family granary, iron shoes of ploughs and spades, bundles of foul rags, sea-weed, ears of millet hanging in bunches from the roof, pack-saddles, and worse than all else, rotten beans fermenting for soy, and malodorous half-salted fish, just left room for my camp-bed- This den opened on a vile yard, partly dung-hill and partly pig- pen, in which is the well from which the women of the house, with sublime sang-froid, draw the drinking water ! Outside is a swamp, which throughout the night gave off sickening odours. When I entered, the mercury was at 87°. After that, cooking for man and beast and the kang floor raised it to lor. at

• Korea and her Neighbours. By Mn, Bishop. 2 yobi. London; John Murray. [21s.]

which point it stood till morning, vivifying into revoltingly active life myriads of cockroaches and vermin which revel in heat, not to speak of rats, which ran over my bed, ate my candle, gnawed my straps, and would have left me without boots, had I not long before learned to hang them from the tripod of my camera."

As a set-off against this dismal picture of Corean hospitality it is well to say that Mrs. Bishop expresses the liveliest admiration for the beauty of Corean scenery, and has nothing but praise for the climate. So it is evident that any traveller who could make himself independent of native board and lodging might yet journey with pleasure to himself. There will always remain, however, the drawback of bad roads and the somewhat doubtful means of locomotion that the country offers. According to our author, the two chief methods of progression are found in the Corean bull and the rough country pony. The bull, which she describes as a noble animal, is tame, well-fed, dignified, and slow, and is generally in use for the carriage of brush-wood or merchandise. The pony, upon whose aid the traveller has to depend, possesses admirable bodily qualities sadly modified by his spiritual shortcomings. His paces are good, his endurance and willingness more than excellent, but his temper is fiendish. If the traveller relaxes his watchful vigilance for one moment, he is likely to see his string of patient, plodding animals converted into a herd of shrieking devils rolling and biting each other in the dust. Another drawback to Corean travel would seem to be the insatiable curiosity of the Coreana themselves, a curiosity which in the case of young men of the idle and upper class takes the form of aggressive insolence.

Indeed the native Corean as described by the author, especially when a yang-ban, an official or noble, does not enlist our sympathies. The yang-ban seems, as a rule, to be little better than a worthless drone, living by the most shameless plunder of his poorer neighbours, while the poor and labouring class must surely be the most spiritless race of serfs in all the world. Religion, in the proper sense of the

word, does not exist. There are Buddhist monasteries, and Buddhism has left its traces here and there in family and State observances; but the only really active and living belief among the Coreans is to be found in what the author calls Shamanism, the incessant propitiation of innum erable hostile spirits. Of this Dmmonism, to call it by a more accurate term, the author gives a most interesting account, contrasting it with the like superstitions of Northern Asia, and showing how in Corea it has been modified by Buddhist influence. It is but a sorry world into which the Corean is born. From his birth upwards he is surrounded by legions of unseen enemies, all yearning for his destruction. They lurk everywhere ; abroad they lie in wait for him on both sides of the road, throughout mountain, river, and valley, and at home they hide in the rafters of his roof or lie close in his cooking-pot. There is nothing, animate or inanimate, that does not contain a demon of some kind, and generally a malicious one. Wherefore, whenever anything goes wrong, when sickness befalls him or fate is unpropitious, the Corean knows that his only resource is to call in the services of the Shaman, and turn away the wrath of the spirit legions with gifts. One can hardly be surprised that the author computes the annual cost of Shamanism to Corea as something above two and a half millions of dollars. Corea certainly offers a promising field to the missionaries.

Of the missionaries already established in this country— chiefly American, we gather—the author speaks with some admiration, though she is careful to distinguish between their methods of carrying on their work. And this brings us to the question of the Corean future. Mrs. Bishop had unique oppor- tunities for observing the internal administration of the country and its political relations with its neighbours. She was re- ceived by the King and Queen, and on more than one occasion was made the confidante of the former's political wishes. She was a witness, too, of the Japanese intrigues which

ended in the abominable murder of the Queen herself and the seclusion of the King. And she had further opportunities of visiting the King when he had freed himself from Japanese control and found protection with the Russian representative.

Of both the past and present condition of Corean politics she speaks not only with knowledge, but also with a most com- mendable impartiality. She gives the Japanese Government credit for the good faith with which they tried to introduce reform into the internal administration of Corea. and while she naturally condemns some of the means employed, she acquits them of direct complicity in the Queen's murder. On the other hand, she is inclined to deplore the present influence of Russia—or, rather, the non- exercise of Russian influence —which seems directly calculated to allow the return of al/ those abuses which Japan had attempted to abolish. The reason of this Russian policy of inaction is perhaps not far to seek. It is evident, however, that the author would not be

sorry if the work of the regeneration of Corea should ulti- mately fall into Russian hands. She has seen something of

Corean life under Russian rule, in the shape of settlements of Corean exiles in Siberia :—

"In Korea I had learned to think of Koreans as the dregs of a race, and to regard their condition as hopeless, but in Primorsk r 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 demeanour give me the hope that their countrymen in Korea, if they even have an honest administration and protection for their earnings, may slowly develop into men."

And the author goes on to pay a warm tribute of admiration to the success of Russian administration in conquered or acquired provinces in Western Asia. This is hardly the moment in which one would like to express an opinion, and one can only recommend the public to read Mrs. Bishop's book and judge for themselves what would be the beat solu- tion of the Corean problem. They can hardly find, we think„

a better source of information.