Chapter XIX: The Diamond Mountains and Northward

Korea is quite a mountainous country, though not so much so as Formosa, or perhaps even old Japan. But it has one cluster of mountains that are considered more picturesque and beautiful than any others in the Japanese Empire. Yet few travelers through Korea see Kongo-san—the Diamond Mountains, we might call them in English—for they are far over on the eastern coast of the peninsula, many miles from the main railway line.

The branch line to Gensan, however, will bring you quite near them. You can either get off at a town along the way, taking a Ford or a rickshaw from there or traveling on your own feet, or you may go on to the end of the line, as I did, and catch a queer little Japanese coasting steamer down the edge of the peninsula. In either case you will soon find yourself in the midst of ancient Buddhist monasteries.

If the Diamond Mountains were in China, probably there would be coolies waiting to carry visitors all about them in chairs; and certainly if they were in Japan hundreds of tourists would come to them every year. But the Koreans do not like to carry people, and only those who are very good climbers and walkers can get about Kongo-san at all.

I had the good luck to find a coolie to carry my baggage, however, and one who not only was good company but who could keep up with me. I happened to have only four days to spare, and it takes eight or ten to make the circuit of the mountains properly, so we had to move rapidly. I was very sorry for this, because nothing would have pleased me more than to be free to wander for a month through that wonderful cluster of mountains which so few people ever see.

Looking up a valley in the Diamond Mountains of Korea, where nature
shows striking beauties that even the camera tries in vain to
picture adequately.
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Many centuries ago, when the Buddhist faith came from India across China to Korea, the kings of Chosen, as it was called even in those early days, all helped the priests and monks to build monasteries and temples in this fantastic group of peaks on the eastern coast. Later many of the buildings were burned, and as they are made entirely of wood a great many have simply fallen away in decay. But there are still dozens of quaint old structures tucked away in all sorts of queer places among the mountains. The region has become the holy land of Korean Buddhists.

Needle-pointed peaks of the Diamond Mountains. Photographs give but a
poor idea of how wonderful these mountains are.
]

The Scenery and Temples of Kongo-san

I wish I could describe the steep trails of Kongo-san, its raging mountain torrents, the narrow log bridges over great chasms, so that you could get some idea of how hard it was to visit all its most important places in four days. But I should be still more pleased if I could picture to you the beautiful forests piled into the sky all about those trails, the great stone cliffs rising high on either side of the rushing streams. Some of those cliffs are carved with gigantic figures that have been there more than a thousand years. The little finger of one such Buddha was longer than my coolie was tall.

One of the many beautiful old temples or monasteries scattered through
the Diamond Mountains (Kongo-san). They are made entirely of wood,
but are richly painted and decorated.
]

In the ancient temples, with their upturned roof corners and their gaudy wooden gods, live monks who take care of visitors, even foreigners. Perhaps they are really glad to see outsiders, for though they have tried to get away as far as possible from the rush and troubles of the world, they must sometimes long for a bit of news from it. Especially in winter, when snow makes it impossible to enter or leave the mountains, the monks can imagine themselves on quite another planet. I saw great piles of firewood ready for the next winter, and other supplies were hidden away in the storerooms and in the queer denlike kitchens.

This kitchen of a Buddhist monastery in Kongo-san (the Diamond
Mountains) is made of stones and mud, like all Korean kitchens, yet
it seems to be satisfactory for cooking the food of the monks, of
whom there are thousands scattered through these beautiful
mountains. The monks eat no meat.
]

But now it was summer; pilgrims came every day, and sometimes a foreign traveler. We had to eat just the same food as the monks. Although they are not allowed by their religion ever to eat meat, you would be surprised to see how many appetizing dishes their cooks can prepare entirely from vegetables. The Korean style of bed, however, which is nothing but the floor, without even the thinnest mattress on it, you would probably not find so pleasant. I certainly did not. Often, too, I was awakened by the ringing of gongs and the pounding of drums, for the monks have services every few hours during the night as well as during the day. I think they actually sleep more in the daytime than at night.

The young monks of a monastery in the Diamond Mountains are fond of
tennis.
]

Wonderful Mountain Scenery

These huge figures were carved in solid rock in the Diamond Mountains
of Korea many centuries ago. They are connected with the Buddhist
religion, of which Kongo-san is a sanctuary.
]

I have seen many mountains, in many parts of the world, but I do not remember any that have such hundreds of marvelous peaks as Kongo-san. Most of them are of granite so clear that it looks like white marble. Some are piled up in dozens of sharply pointed steeples; some have the form of strange animals; some look like the skyscrapers of New York in ruins. Wonderful as they are, the highest is only three or four thousand feet above the level of the sea, which is not very high as mountains go. But climbing them was almost like going up the side of a hundred-story building, with each brick and window ledge sharpened to a needle point. When I got down to earth again hardly enough of my clothing was left to be worth throwing away.

Going through the Diamond Mountains the author carries his coolie’s
load for awhile, in order to see how the Korean _jicky_ feels on the
back.
]

Small Japanese steamers run from Gensan on up the coast, touching at several little ports, and sometimes going on to Vladivostok in Russian Siberia. From one of those ports a little railway line goes almost to the northern frontier. Along this, between the Japanese Empire and Russia, stretches a great range, which the Koreans call the Ever White Mountains. Even during the hot Korean summers their tops are always covered with snow. In the heavy forests on their sides there are many wild animals, such as great hunters like to track. Antelope and foxes you expect to find in such a place, and also bears, perhaps even leopards. But it seems strange that in so cold a region there should also be fierce man-eating tigers.

A fencing match in Seoul, at a Japanese school.
]

From Seoul Northward

Looking across Song-do or Kaijo, once a capital of Korea, now a
typical medium-sized town, having many more roofs smoothly thatched
of rice-straw than tile roofs which cost so much more.
]

If we had time to stop, we should find many interesting things in the cities and towns and villages on the long railway journey northward from Seoul into China. There is Song-do, for instance, formerly the capital, with the foundations of ancient palaces scattered for miles about it. Comparatively speaking, Seoul is very young; it has been the capital only since a hundred years before Columbus crossed the Atlantic. Song-do, or Kaijo, is also famous for its _gin-seng_. This is a plant the root of which the Chinese and Koreans consider very valuable as medicine. As it takes seven years to grow, and must be protected from the direct rays of the sun during most of that time, the people have built endless rows of tiny _gin-seng_ sheds. The train passes mile after mile of these on either side of the ancient capital.

A tennis game with wooden rackets in the back streets of Song-do, one
of the several former capitals of Korea.
]

At some stations there are great bales of silk cocoons. The people of the surrounding villages, especially the women and children, will throw these into boiling hot water, unwind the fine threads which the worm inside spent so much time in weaving into a nest for itself, and finally will eat the worm itself. Of all the cities north of the capital the most important is Pingyang. That also was once the capital, but now it has more factory chimneys than loafing ex-officials. There are more clipped heads and fewer topknots than in Seoul, and there do not seem to be so many “plug” hats. Among the many long streets of shops in Heijo, as the Japanese call Pingyang, I saw a great many knitting machines, making stockings and similar things. The workers still wind their thread on queer little bamboo wheels such as were used hundreds of years ago; but it was a very up-to-date sound that came from those knitting machines, clashing away in hut after hut. It made one feel that perhaps Korea will soon be one of the modern manufacturing nations of the world, as Japan proper has become. In some ways this will be fortunate and in some unfortunate.

Winding thread in a machine-fitted stocking factory of Pingyang,
second largest city of Korea and formerly a capital of the “Land of
Morning Calm.” Though the stockings are now made by machinery, and
the town sounds very busy as you make your way through the streets,
the thread is still wound in the old-fashioned way, by hand.
]

Farther north there are fields of corn and of millet, then fields of _kaoliang_, much like the sorghum of our own South. Two or three large towns slip past, but they are so much like the other towns of Korea that we do not lose much by not stopping. Then suddenly we come to the great Yalu River. Here the Russians and Japanese had one of their bloodiest battles during the war of 1904–05. Huge rafts of logs from the forests on the slopes of the Ever White Mountains come floating down the Yalu on their way to China. But the most interesting thing about this big stream, wider than the Connecticut River, is that it is the boundary line between Japan and China. Manchuria on the other side of it is as Chinese as Chosen is Japanese. The traveler is startled at the suddenness of the change from one people to another. The white garments and “plug” hats disappear as quickly as if a fog were to sweep them from view, and dirty Chinese streets, along which hobble women in bound feet, spring up to give us a hint of the sights to be seen in the ancient land of China.

The Central Circle of Dairen, surrounded by handsome buildings,
reminds one of a European city. This view shows the Yamato Hotel.
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