And so “The old order changeth, giving place to new,” and many indications of the transition will be found in the later of the following pages. FOOTNOTES: [1] The following are the measurements of 1,060 men taken at Seoul in January, 1897, by Mr. A. B. Stripling:-- ------------------------------------------------------------------- Highest. Lowest. Average. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Height 5 ft. 11¹⁄₄ in. 4 ft. 9¹⁄₂ in. 5 ft. 4¹⁄₂ in. Size round chest 39¹⁄₄ in. 27 in. 31 in. “ head 23¹⁄₄ “ 20 “ 21¹⁄₂ “ ------------------------------------------------------------------- [2] These averages are only calculated on observations taken during a period of three and a half years. [3] See appendix A. CHAPTER I FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF KOREA It is but fifteen hours’ steaming from the harbor of Nagasaki to Fusan in Southern Korea. The Island of Tsushima, where the _Higo Maru_ calls, was, however, my last glimpse of Japan; and its reddening maples and blossoming plums, its temple-crowned heights, its stately flights of stone stairs leading to Shinto shrines in the woods, the blue-green masses of its pines, and the golden plumage of its bamboos, emphasized the effect produced by the brown, bare hills of Fusan, pleasant enough in summer, but grim and forbidding on a sunless February day. The Island of the Interrupted Shadow, Chŏl-yong-To, (Deer Island), high and grassy, on which the Japanese have established a coaling station and a quarantine hospital, shelters Fusan harbor. It is not Korea but Japan which meets one on anchoring. The lighters are Japanese. An official of the _Nippon Yusen Kaisha_ (Japan Mail Steamship Co.), to which the _Higo Maru_ belongs, comes off with orders. The tide-waiter, however, is English--one of the English _employés_ of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, lent to Korea, greatly to her advantage, for the management of her customs’ revenue. The foreign settlement of Fusan is dominated by a steep bluff with a Buddhist temple on the top, concealed by a number of fine cryptomeria, planted during the Japanese occupation in 1592. It is a fairly good-looking Japanese town, somewhat packed between the hills and the sea, with wide streets of Japanese shops and various Anglo-Japanese buildings, among which the Consulate and a Bank are the most important. It has substantial retaining and sea walls, and draining, lighting, and roadmaking have been carried out at the expense of the municipality. Since the war, waterworks have been constructed by a rate of 100 _cash_ levied on each house, and it is hoped that the present abundant supply of pure water will make an end of the frequent epidemics of cholera. Above the town, the new Japanese military cemetery, filling rapidly, is the prominent object.