Formerly, and until the Russians occupied the Primorskaia territory, an annual or bi-annual fair was held at the Corean city of Kion-wen, which lies close to the border. The Manchiu and Chinese merchants bartered tea, rice, pipes, gold, and furs for the Corean ginseng, hides, and household implements. Furs of a thousand sorts, cotton stuff, silks, artificial flowers, and choice woods, changed hands rapidly, the traffic lasting but two or three days, and sometimes only one day, from noon until sunset. Such was the bustle and confusion that these fairs often terminated in a free fight, which reminds one of the famous Donnybrook. One of the articles most profitable to the Coreans was their cast-off hair. Immense quantities cut from the heads of young persons, and especially by those about to be married, were and are still sold by the Chinese to lengthen out their “pig-tails”—that mark of subjection to their Manchiu conquerors. During the time of trade no Chinese or Manchiu was allowed to enter a Corean house, all the streets and doorways being guarded by soldiers, who at the end of the fair drove out any lingering Chinese, who, if not soon across the border, were forced to go at the point of the spear. Any foreigner found inside the border at other seasons might be, and often was, ruthlessly murdered. The nearest town beyond the frontier, at which the Chinese merchants were wont to assemble, is Hun-chun. [9] This loophole of entrance into Corea, corresponded to Ai-chiu at the Yalu River in the west. As at the latter place, foreigners and Christian natives have attempted to penetrate the forbidden country at Kion-wen, but have been unsuccessful. An outline of the political history of the part of the peninsula now called Ham-kiung shows that many masters have in turn been its possessors. When the old kingdom of Chō-sen, which comprehended Liao Tung and that part of the peninsula between the Ta-tong and the Tumen Rivers, was broken up toward the end of the first century, the northern half of what is now Ham-kiung was called Oju or Woju, the southern portion forming part of the little state of Wei, or Whi. These were both conquered by Kokorai, which held dominion until the seventh century, when it was crushed by the Chinese emperors of the Han dynasty, and the land fell under the sway of Shinra, whose borders extended in the ninth and tenth centuries, from Eastern Sea to the Tumen River. After Shinra, arose Korai and Chō-sen, the founders of both states being sprung from this region and of the hardy race inhabiting it. From very ancient times, the boundaries of this province, being almost entirely natural and consisting of mountain, river, and sea, have remained unchanged. CHAPTER XXIV. THE KING AND ROYAL PALACE.