Littell's Living Age/Volume 139/Issue 1890/Treaty between Japan and Corea

The treaty between Japan and Corea of February 26, 1876, gave the Japanese the right to settle and trade on certain points of the Corean coasts. The first of these settlements was formed in Fusan, not far from Torai, and a correspondent thence to the Japanese journal Sakigake Shinbun says:—

It was very cold in January at Fusan: the thermometer stood between –2° and –22° F. (–19° and –30° C.). Our settlement numbers about a hundred houses, with about eight hundred Japanese inhabitants of both sexes. A school for teaching the Corean language was lately opened in the newly-built temple of Honganji. The populous city of Torai, which is about three ri (seven miles) from our settlement, is frequently infested by tigers, and on that account every door is closed early in the evening, after which no one ventures into the streets. An animal called "tonpi" by the Coreans, and which resembles a cat, attacks the tiger, which seems to fear it greatly. Noticing this, the Coreans, when they go into the hills, put on a cap of tonpi-skin. Very few of the lower class of Coreans sleep in beds; most of them have only a sheet of Corean paper for a couch, and keep up a fire beside them for warmth. The articles of import are chiefly muslin, silk, dyes, tin, copper, and various small wares. The Coreans, on the other hand, bring golden and other valuable manufactured goods for export. No customs are paid in trading.