In the second place these invasions were made by peoples who, though not literary themselves, had a somewhat high regard for literature, and there could have been no such reason for destroying histories as might exist where one dynasty was forcibly ejected by another hostile one. In the third place the monasteries were the great literary centers during the centuries preceding the rise of the present dynasty, and we may well believe that the Mongols would not seriously molest these sacred repositories. On the whole then we may conclude that from the year 57 B.C. Korean histories are fairly accurate. Whatever comes before that is largely traditional and therefore more or less apocryphal.
One of the greatest difficulties encountered is the selection of a system of romanisation which shall steer a middle course between the Scilla of extreme accuracy and the Charybdis of extreme simplicity. I have adopted the rule of spelling all proper names in a purely phonetic way without reference to the way they are spelled in native Korean. In this way alone can the reader arrive at anything like the actual pronunciation as found in Korea. The simple vowels have their continental sounds: a as in “father,” i as in “ravine,” o as in “rope” and u as in “rule.” The vowel e is used only with the grave accent and is pronounced as in the French “recit.” When a vowel has the short mark over it, it is to be given the flat sound: ă as in “fat,” ŏ as in “hot,” ŭ as in “nut.” The umlaut ö is used but it has a slightly more open sound thanthan in German. It is the “unrounded o” where the vowel is pronounced without protruding the lips. The pure Korean sound represented by oé is a pure diphthong and is pronounced by letting the lips assume the position of pronouncing o while the tongue is thrown forward as if to pronounce the short e in “met.” Eu is nearly the French eu but with a slightly more open sound. As for consonants they have their usual sounds, but when the surds k, p or t in the body of a word are immediately preceded by an open syllable or a syllable ending with a sonant, they change to their corresponding sonants: k to g, p to b and t to d. For instance, in the word Pak-tu, the t of the tu would be d if the first syllable were open. No word begins with the sonants g, b or d.
In Korean we have the long and short quantity in vowels. Han may be pronounced either simply han or longer haan, but the distinction is not of enough importance to compensate for encumbering the system with additional diacritical marks.
In writing proper names I have adopted the plan most in use by sinologues. The patronymic stands alone and is followed by the two given names with a hyphen between them. All geographical names have hyphens between the syllables. To run the name all together would often lead to serious difficulty, for who would know, for instance, whether Songak were pronounced Son-gak or Song-ak?
In the spelling of some of the names of places there will be found to be a slight inconsistency because part of the work was printed before the Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society had determined upon a system of romanization, but in the main the system here used corresponds to that of the Society.
This is the first attempt, so far as I am aware, to give to the English reading public a history of Korea based on native records, and I trust that in spite of all errors and infelicities it may add something to the general fund of information about the people of Korea.
H.B.H.
Seoul, Korea, 1905.
Introductory Note.
Geography is the canvas on which history is painted. Topography means as much to the historian as to the general. A word, therefore, about the position of Korea will not be out of place.
The peninsula of Korea, containing approximately 80,000 square miles, lies between 33° and 43° north latitude, and between 124° 30′ and 130° 30′ east longitude. It is about nine hundred miles long from north to south and has an average width from east to west of about 240 miles. It is separated from Manchuria on the northwest by the Yalu or Am-nok River, and from Asiatic Russia on the northeast by the Tu-man River. BetweenBetween the sources of these streams rise the lofty peaks of White Head Mountain, called by the Chinese Ever-white or Long-white Mountain. From this mountain whorl emanates a range which passes irregularly southward through the peninsula until it loses itself in the waters of the Yellow Sea, thus giving birth to the almost countless islands of the Korean archipelago. The main watershed of the country is near the eastern coast and consequently the streams that flow into the Japan Sea are neither long nor navigable, while on the western side and in the extreme south we find considerable streams that are navigable for small craft a hundred miles or more. While the eastern coast is almost entirely lacking in good harbors the western coast is one labyrinth of estuaries, bays and gulfs which furnish innumerable harbors. It is on the western watershed of the country that we will find most of the arable land and by far the greater portion of the population.
We see then that, geographically, Korea’s face is toward China and her back toward Japan. It may be that this in part has moulded her history. During all the centuries her face has been politically, socially and religiously toward China rather than toward Japan.
The climate of Korea is the same as that of eastern North America between the same latitudes, the only difference being that in Korea the month of July brings the “rainy season” which renders nearly all roads in the interior impassable. This rainy season, by cutting in two the warmer portion of the year, has had a powerful influence on the history of the country; for military operations were necessarily suspended during this period and combatants usually withdrew to their own respective territories upon its approach.
The interior of Korea is fairly well wooded, although there are no very extensive tracts of timber land. A species of pine largely predominates but there is also a large variety of other trees both deciduous and evergreen.
Rice is the staple article of food throughout most of the country. Among the mountain districts in the north where rice cannot be grown potatoes and millet are largely used. An enormous amount of pulse is raised, almost solely for fodder, and other grains are also grown. The bamboo grows sparsely and only in the south. Ginseng is an important product of the country.
The fauna of Korea includes several species of deer, the tiger, leopard, wild pig, bear, wolf, fox and a large number of fur bearing animals among which the sable and sea-otter are the most valuable. The entire peninsula is thoroughly stocked with cattle, horses, swine and donkeys, but sheep are practically unknown. The fisheries off the coast of Korea are especially valuable and thousands of the people earn a livelihood on the banks. Pearls of good quality are found. Game birds of almost infinite variety exist and all the commoner domestic birds abound.
As to the geology of the country we find that there is a back bone of granite formation with frequent outcroppings of various other forms of mineral life. Gold is extremely abundant and there