Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/24

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Village Life in Korea.

then imagine it thus continuing for hours or even days, and you will begin to understand what a real rainy season is like. Everything gets damp and moldy; even the shoes that one takes off at night are sometimes covered with mold by the following morning. O how one longs for the sun under circumstances like these! It bursts forth unexpectedly, and you have a day without a cloud, only to be followed the next day with a downpour to remind you that every day is not sunshine in the "Land of the Morning Calm." However, my experience is that the rainy season is not half so bad as one usually thinks it is before he has tried it for himself. Taking everything into consideration, I believe Korea has about the best climate in the Far East. It is certainly far superior to that of Japan or Central and Southern China.

Korea is truly the land of mountains. Go where you will and look in whatever direction you may, mountains are to be seen on every side. I have been ten years in the country, during which time I have traveled much, and have never been out of sight of the mountains. The principal range rises on the Russian border, in the extreme north, and extends along the east coast till it reaches the southern point of the peninsula, where it is lost in the sea. This is not like one of the great ranges of mountains in the United States, but is more broken, being made up of many mountains of various heights more or less closely joined together and extending in the same direction. This range rises to its greatest height in the extreme north, and is called the Whitehead Mountain, or the