Inside a Korean House 105
fear of the tigers outside and the heated stones and poisoned air within was usually one of misery. Between May and October one had an Ephraim-like feeling of being half-baked. The "sitz-fieish," as our German friends say, may be well roasted, while the part furthest from the floor may be in polar cold. The usual sensation is that of being in an incubator and wanting to break the shell to get air and life. In time the veteran traveller in Korea learns to sympathise with an egg, but knows not whether to call himself that, or an oyster, "stewed, fried, roasted or in the shell." Nevertheless "while in Rome, one must do as the Romans do" and so, for economy and the peace and satisfaction of native patients, even modern hospitals in Korea are built with a kang, or heated cement floor, for old people who are afraid to lie on the raised bedsteads—for fear they may fall out.
For the building of a house, the ground is first selected and measured. Holes are then dug at intervals of eight feet apart, into which pebbles or broken stone are cast. Then lusty laborers seize the ropes and raise or let fall from pulleys, a heavy iron weight working on the principle of an ore-stamp, or a pile-driver. In the village, the builder may use a ram of heavy timber to pound the rubble into a hard mass. Water worn pebbles or blocks of square-faced rock are then laid in the half-filled holes. On these again the upright beams that support the whole frame are set. The roof timbers are of heavy squared tree trunks, which
