Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook/Chapter 18
CHAPTER. XVIII.
THE SEVEN WONDERS OF COREA.
The love of the marvellous, which forms so distinguishing a characteristic of all Eastern and a few Western nations, recently led a Japanese editor to regale his readers with a vivid account of the wonders of Corea. We are no longer told of golden sarcophagi and royal tombs bursting with inexhaustible treasures. That fable seems to have died out, and in its place we are assured that Corea is a land where Nature, and not art, has played some of her strangest freaks. The Seven Wonders of the Old World were all the works of men. The Seven Wonders of Corea are natural—or, as we suppose we ought to say, supernatural. It is a beautiful and fertile land, and it would, perhaps, be strange if no myths were found to be associated with the mountains and forests and rivers which diversify its aspect. The graceful superstitions of classic Greece find but few analogues in the Far East. There is nothing in the mythology of China to compare with them in point of imagery or aesthetic beauty. The naiads and dryads which played at hide-and-seek amid the bosky dells and woodland scenery of the Peloponnesus may be said to have had a few distant relations in the mythology of Chinese fairy-tales, but the relationship was exceedingly remote. There is not wanting, however, even there, in those prosaic Eastern lands, much in the way of folk-lore that is worthy of attention, especially when the legends are of such a nature as to attract the traveller, and induce him to visit the scenes of the alleged marvels himself. Briefly, the Seven Wonders of Corea are as follow. The first is a certain hot mineral spring near a place called Kin-shan-tao, the healing properties of which are believed to be miraculous. There is no necessity to wait until an angel troubles the water. Its virtues are in constant vigour, and so great are they that they have never failed in efficacy within the memory of man. No matter what disease may afflict the patient, a dip in these healing waters will prove as sure a cure as the bath in Jordan did to leprous Naaman. Therefore, the spring is believed to be divine, and is spoken of accordingly. The second wonder is also connected with water. There are two springs, situated at a considerable distance from each other—in fact, there is almost the breadth of the entire peninsula between them. These have two peculiarities. They are arranged, apparently, on the principle of the "little-man-and-his-wife" of those cottage barometers which are still seen in primitive parts of England. When one is in, the other goes out; or, in plainer words, when one is full, the other is empty; and the Coreans seem to believe that, somewhere deep in the bowels of the earth, there is a mysterious tide, which ebbs and flows with marvellous rapidity at stated intervals of time, filling one spring while it empties the other. But the strangest part of the phenomenon is, that the water is so strongly sweet that whatever is cooked in it, no matter how bad it may be of itself, immediately acquires a most delicious taste. The third is called Cold-wind Cavern. This is a cave somewhere in the mountains, in which a mysterious wind blows perpetually—a wind so cold as to pierce to the very bones, and so strong that the most powerful man is unable to stand against it. There is something like this to be found in the Western Hills near Peking. Among the ruins of an old temple on the hillside there is a little cave, quite open to the air, and at the farther end of it a hole, opening apparently into the earth, up which rushes a strong blast of cold wind. The entire cave is several degrees colder than the surrounding atmosphere, and the line which divides the two temperatures is very precisely defined. The fourth wonder of Corea is the Ineradicable Forest. This is a large grove of pinetrees, which sprout again directly they are cut down. It matters not what injury is done to the root; the tree may be hacked to pieces or burnt with fire—nothing will avail to destroy it, but up it will sprout again in no time, like a phoenix from its own ashes. The fifth wonder is more wonderful still. This is the Floating Stone, and a temple has been reared in its honour, called the Fou Shih Miao. In front of the temple stands, or appears to stand, the extraordinary stone. It is of great bulk, and a sort of irregular cube in shape. To all appearance it is resting on the ground, and perfectly free from all supports on any side. But if two men, standing at opposite ends of it, hold each the opposite ends of a thread, they will find themselves able to pass the thread under the stone without encountering any obstacle! In other words, the stone is actually hovering a little way above the earth, and the miracle can be tested in the way described by anybody who cares to pay the priest a trifling sum for the privilege of doing so. The sixth wonder also consists of a stone, but a stone of a more practically useful nature. It is called the Warm Rock—very flat and smooth, and forms the summit of a hill upon which there is a pavilion or kiosque for the benefit of travellers. Here they may rest and pass the night. However cold the weather may be, there is no stove, nor any need for one; the stone on which the resthouse stands diffuses its wonderful and benign warmth through every room in it, and the poorest may bask in its comfort. About the seventh wonder we believe that some slight uncertainty exists. There are two objects which are both entitled to the honour. One is simply a relic of Sakya "Ju-lai"—the Buddha who thus comes—in the form of a small chest or case of exquisitely fine workmanship. This is to be seen in a temple somewhere near the sea. The other is far more extraordinary, and we think there should not be a doubt of its claim to "wonder"-ship. It is a drop of the sweat of Buddha. Around the large temple where it is enshrined, for thirty paces square, not a blade of grass will grow; there are no trees, no flowers; the very birds and animals desert it, instinctively recoiling from profaning with their footfalls a plot of ground so holy. The association of ideas is not particularly happy, for the more natural impression would be that the presence of a relic of so benign a personage would have had a genial and fertilising effect, and instead of a bare blank patch we should have looked for a lovely oasis, gay with lotuses and summer flowers, and full of the song and gambols of those innocent creatures, the protection of whose helplessness forms so distinctive a feature of the gentle teachings of Ju-lai.