Few experiences tend more to develop all the manly virtues than facing a tiger on foot in his native wilds. The Coreans know this, and in their lack of drilled troops capable of meeting the soldiers of Europe—their “army” consisting almost entirely of archers, spearmen, and jingal-firers—they summoned the tiger-hunters from Ping-an to fight the Frenchmen of Admiral Roze’s expedition of 1866. Underrating their enemy, the Frenchmen, in attempting to storm a fortified monastery garrisoned by the hunters, were completely defeated. When the marines and sailors of the American naval expedition of 1871 assaulted “Fort McKee,” after it had been swept by the shells of the fleet, they were amazed at the stern courage of their dark-visaged enemies, who, with matchlock, spear, and sword, fought against the shells and breech-loaders to the last. The Americans speak admiringly of these brave fellows, so worthy of their lead and steel. CHAPTER XXXVII. RELIGION. A careful study of the common names applied to the mountains, rivers, valleys, caves, and other natural features of the soil and landscape of any country will lay bare many of the primitive or hidden beliefs of a people. No words are more ancient than the aboriginal names given to the natural features of a country amid which the childhood of a nation has been spent. With changing customs, civilization, or religion, these names still hold their place, reflecting the ancient, and often modified, or even vanished, faith. Even a casual examination of the mountain, river, and other local names of places in Corea will give one a tolerably clear outline of the beliefs once fully held by the ancient dwellers of this peninsula. Against the tenets and influences of Buddhism these doctrines have held their sway over the minds of the people and are still the most deeply-seated of their beliefs. The statements of ancient Chinese, and later of Japanese writers, of foreign castaways, and of the French missionaries all concur in showing us that Shamanism is the basis of the Corean’s, and especially the northern Corean’s, faith. In the first historic accounts of Fuyu, Kokorai, and the Sam-han, we find the worship of the spirits of heaven and earth, and of the invisible powers of the air, of nature, the guardian genii of hills and rivers, of the soil and grain, of caves, and even of the tiger. They worshipped especially the morning-star, and offered sacrifice of oxen to heaven. From such scanty notices of early Corea, especially of the northern parts, we may form some idea of the cultus of the people before Buddhism was introduced. From the reports of recent witnesses, Dutch, Japanese, and French, and the evidence of language, we incline to the belief that the fibres of Corean superstition and the actual religion of the people of to-day have not radically changed during twenty centuries, in spite of Buddhism. The worship of the spirits of heaven