“On entering a village to know its usages,” is our “When in Rome do as the Romans do.” “To destroy jade and gravel together,” refers to indiscriminate destruction. “Without wind and without cloud,” describes a serene life. “Go to sea,” is a provincial malediction heavier than a tinker’s, and worse than “Go to grass.” “I am I, and another is another,” is a formula of selfish, and Corean for “ego et non ego,” “I and not I.” “A poor horse has always a thick tail”—talent and capacity are badly located. The large number of morals pointed and tales adorned by the tiger are referred to elsewhere. CHAPTER XXXVI. THE COREAN TIGER. The one royal quadruped associated with Corea, as the white elephant is with Siam, the bison with the United States, or the dromedary with Egypt, is the tiger. Unlike his relative in India that roams in the hot jungles and along the river bottoms, the Corean “king of the mountains” is seen oftenest in the snow and forests of the north, ranging as far as the fiftieth parallel. Both actually and ideally the tiger is the symbol of power and fierceness. The flag of the tiger-hunters, from the northern provinces of Ping-an or Ham-kiung, who so bravely faced the rifles of the United States marines and sailors in “our little war with the heathen,” in 1871, was a winged tiger rampant, spitting fire, holding the lightnings in his lifted fore-claws, and thus embodying the powers of earth, air, and heaven. It reminds one of the winged leopard in the vision of Daniel, “After this, I beheld, and lo another like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl.” It is the tutelary genius of the descendants of the aboriginal worshippers of the tiger, who even yet cling to the religion of the soil. [11] The caps of the body-guard of the sovereign are decorated with the cheek and whiskers of the tiger, in order to inspire terror among beholders. The Corean beauty carries among the jewelry and “charms” in the reticule at her waist, a claw of the dreaded pem or tiger, nor can the hardy mountaineer put in the hand of his bride a more eloquent proof of his valor than one of these weapons of a man-eater. It means even more than the edelweiss of other mountain lands. On the floors of the better class of houses the tiger-skin rug not only adorns the best room, but makes the children’s play-ground, or the baby’s cushion in lieu of cradles, which are unknown. The soft hair of these natural rugs is often a finger long. Curious toys are made of the fur.