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It is a strange fact in nature that the vicious are often more interesting than the virtuous. So it is with the Corean bonzes. Morals they have none; if it were possible, one might say even less than none. They lead a lazy and vicious life in these monasteries, gambling among themselves and spending much time in orgies.
A couple of American Army instructors were employed by the King to coach the soldiery in the art of foreign warfare, and to teach them how to use their weapons, but, if I remember rightly, one of the greatest difficulties they had to contend with was the utter want of discipline; for to this the easy-going Corean Tommy Atkins could on no account be made to submit.
There is probably no place in the world in which intrigue is so rampant as in the Corean Capital. The Queen herself is said to exercise an enormous influence over the King, and, according to Corean reports, it is really she, and not the King, that rules Cho-sen.
She is said to be much in favour of the emancipation of the Corean woman, but she has made no actual effort, that I am aware of, to modify the comparatively strict rules of their seclusion. She comes of one of the oldest families in Cho-sen, and by a long way the noblest, that of the Mins.
His ministers sprinkled water on his face, and after a considerable time he revived. When he had uttered this oath, the tree immediately began to grow from the roots, and it has continued to grow till now, when it is nearly 100 cubits in height. Perhaps "a former birth" is the best translation. The Corean reading of Kasyapa Buddha is certainly preferable to the Chinese "Sakya Buddha."
He had not quite grasped the meaning of the word "twin"; for, in answer to a question I put to him, "Yes, sir," said he, boisterously, proud apparently of the command he had attained over his latest language, "Yes, sir, I have a twin brother who is three years older than myself." The Corean magistrates think that to over-educate the lower classes is a mistake, which must end in great unhappiness.
After all, on thinking the matter over and bearing in mind that with us a marriage is indeed a lottery, I cannot see why the Corean wedding should not be equivalent to two lotteries! Very often, weddings are arranged by letter, in which case misunderstandings frequently occur.
Such a thing, though, very seldom happens, for, as women go, the Corean specimens of feminine humanity seem to be very sensible, and not much given to jealousy or to worrying their little heads unnecessarily about such small failings.
Remusat says in a note that "the heretics limited themselves to speak of the duties of man in his actual life without connecting it by the notion that the metempsychosis with the anterior periods of existence through which he had passed." But this is just the opposite of what Fa-Hsien's meaning was, according to our Corean text.
Along the shore were gathered the Corean army. Their triangular fringed banners, inscribed with dragons, flapped in the breeze. As soon as their sentinels caught sight of the Japanese fleet, the signal was given, and the Corean line of war galleys moved gaily out to attack the Japanese. The empress posted her archers in the bows of her ships and waited for the enemy to approach.
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