Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... VIII KOREA AND THE KOREANS According to the verdict of certain scientists our aborigines are supposed to have come from Korea. In the comparatively short time during which the Spanish kept records on our Pacific coast, over one hundred junks are said to have drifted across that ocean, along the Aleutian Islands and the Alaskan coast, in the track of the Japan current. This would indicate that considerable numbers of human beings may have so reached what are now our shores during the centuries that preceded the advent of the European. When in Washington with the Korean Legation in 1888, the then minister from Nicaragua expressed himself to me as much struck with the resemblance of the Koreans to the educated natives of his country. Certainly there is a strong resemblance between some of our native Indian tribes and the Koreans. A White Man's Land.--Korea has been aptly termed " A white man's land." Although it is a continuation of Siberia, extending down between the Yellow and the Japan Seas, it has a climate much the same as that of our northern central states, with more equable winters, and a regular rainy season during two of the summer months. The winters are one succession of bright sunny days with just enough gray days to relieve the monotony, and growing almost imperceptibly colder day by day until the great navigable river at the capital is frozen over so that the cart road is extended across the ice. The mornings are overcast until the sea breeze blows away the vapours towards noon. This gives to the country its name of the land of the morning calm. Products.--The great product of Korea is rice, which is the staple of diet. Next come beans, which are largely used as a food for man and beast, being mixed with rice in the human...
