Korea -- History; Korea -- Social life and customs
The bays and islands, which have been visited by foreign navigators,
retain their names on European or Japanese charts. Some of these are
not very complimentary, as Deception Bay, Insult Island, and False
River. At Basil’s Bay, named after Captain Basil Hall, Gutzlaff also
landed in 1832, planted potatoes, and left seeds and books. The
archipelago to the northwest was, in 1866, named after the Prince
Imperial, who met his death in Zululand in 1878. Prince Jerome’s Gulf
is well known as the scene of the visits of the Rover and the Emperor,
with the author of “A Forbidden Land” on board. Haimi, a town several
times mentioned by him, is at the head of Shoal Gulf, which runs up
into the Nai-po. Two other bays, named Caroline and Deception, indent
the Nai-po peninsula.
The large shoal off the coast is called Chasseriau. Other wide and
dangerous shoals line parts of the coast, making navigation exceedingly
difficult. Fogs are frequent and very dense, shrouding all landmarks
for hours. The tides and currents are very strong, rising in some
places even as high as sixty feet. The international body-snatching
expedition, undertaken by a French priest, a German merchant, and an
American interpreter, in 1867, to obtain the bones or ancestral relics
of the Regent, was planned to take advantage of a certain “nick of
time.” The river emptying into the Prince Jerome Gulf, runs some thirty
miles inland, and can be ascended by a barge, or very light-draught
steamer, only within the period of thirty hours during spring tides,
when the water rises to a height of three feet at the utmost, while
during the rest of the month it dries up completely. On account of
delays, through grounding, miscalculated distances, and the
burglar-proof masonry of Corean tombs, the scheme failed. The narrative
of this remarkable expedition is given in a certain book on Corea, and
in the proceedings of the United States Consular Court at Shanghae,
China, for the year 1867.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account