Empires and Emperors of Russia, China, Korea, and Japan: Notes and Recollections by Monsignor Count Vay de Vaya and LuskodVay, Péter
History
Empires and Emperors of Russia, China, Korea, and Japan: Notes and Recollections by Monsignor Count Vay de Vaya and Luskod
Vay, Péter
Asia -- Description and travel; Eastern question (Far East)
Returning home by a circuitous route, I find the streets even more
thronged than in the morning. I glance into a few shops, but there is
not much worth seeing. The furriers, who are engaged in cutting out and
sewing a number of tunics, capes, and fur coats, seem to be the busiest.
There are also a good many jackets and still more waistcoats without
sleeves to protect the chest and back. Over these are worn white linen
kaftans. No wonder the wearers look like walking eider-down quilts.
To the right I noticed a tavern, much like the Chinese roadside inn, and
in the large open stable a row of small rough-haired horses were
standing with straw rugs on their backs. A coolie was carrying water
from the well in two brass vessels, hanging on the ends of a long pole.
The pole does not, however, rest upon his shoulders, but is fastened
crosswise to his back, giving man and load the appearance of a living
pair of scales.
Next come some unpretentious little barracks, which, in their smallness,
are after the pattern of the soldiers, a number of whom are looking out
of the windows. In the absence of any better occupation, they are
chewing pumpkin-seeds.
Now we arrive at the curiosity shops displaying several porcelain
articles, a few of bronze, many tiles, and a farrago of rubbish.
On the cross-road are some more barracks, comprised in a long low
building, the little men in front of which were wearing, not only red
collars, but also red dolmans. Here the cavalry are garrisoned, and a
little scrap of a hussar is just galloping home. This warrior is not a
whit taller than Hop o' my Thumb, his charger scarce larger than a
well-developed calf of two months.
By the side of this toy hussar rattled a formidable sabre, which seemed
in danger of pulling him down from his horse.
Without that impediment his seat is poor enough. On his coming nearer I
see that the murderous instrument is an ordinary cavalry sword. His
uniform is the most chequered I ever saw. The dolman of the Korean
hussar is of a cinnamon colour, his collar and cuffs emerald-green, and
his breeches stripes saffron. If the pattern of his uniform was the
plumage of a parrot, the imitation is indeed most successful.
I was wandering farther on, when in front of a gate some dogs nearly
knocked me down.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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