The mastery of the Far East Author:Arthur Judson Brown Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VI A RAMBLE IN THE INTERIOR Korea is changing rapidly under the new conditions of recent years, and railways now make travelling as easy as it is unr... more »omantic. I shall always be glad that I enjoyed a rambling journey through some of the provinces in the quaint old style of former days. It was during my first visit in the beautiful spring weeks of 1901. My party consisted of my wife and two experienced missionaries, O. R. Avison, M.D., and the Reverend C. E. Sharp, who proved to be not only indispensable guides and interpreters but delightfully congenial companions. Before starting from Seoul we obtained a travelling passport called the kwan-ja, which called on all magistrates to whom it might be presented to furnish whatever we required in the way of food, lodging, money, animals, and carriers. We did not use it, however. Local magistrates do not take kindly to such passports. Some travellers had abused then- privileges under them, and when magistrates had found it impracticable to comply with then- peremptory demands, the travellers had become insolent and threatening. A magistrate, even though weak and corrupt, is a human being with some rights, and he cannot always place himself at the disposal of a wandering foreigner. In the rice-planting or harvesting season, when every able-bodied man is toiling in the fields, it is intolerable to have a white man come along and present a government order for carriers. The magistrates had learned, too, that money advanced to travellers on a kwan-ja was not always repaid. The traveller might honestly pay the amount on his return to Seoul, but the official who received it might pocket it. The unhappy magistrate did not dare to make remonstrance, and he knew that if he did he would get no redress. The sensible, kindly traveller wh...« less