Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/214

190 SINLO. The dragon's voice disturbs the pool so deep ; On the high steppes you see the tiger leap ; The heaven-made rocks so strange, the gems so rare,»- Such forest scenes yon fail to find elsewhere." We may be allowed here to say, parenthetically, that the Chinese poets manifested a passionate love of nature thousands of years before Soott or Wordsworth ; and Chinese philosophers loved the grand and the beautiful ever so many centuries before Samuel Johnson made his ill-natured remark about a "huge pro- tuberanca When the emperor got to the mountains, he found them so vast and wide, and so covered with forests, that he appointed many separate bands of men, each to go in a fixed direction, to find out the wondrous nest. 'lis pity those forests do not now ornament the bare flanks of those fine mountains. Chi Gwoyuen and his companion went in an eastward direction, till they got to the shoulder of the mountain, where they were much astonished to find the talented scholar, Mr Hii Maogoong. In answer to his query, they inform him why they came thither. "Who does not know, said he, "that the Funghwang builds her nest under the Wootoong tree ; and as those trees are before your eyes, where else would you go seek ? " — " Can it be here ? asked Gwoyuen, — " Go and see, said Mr Hii. So they went, and searched on till they came to the last Wootoong tree, under- neath which they saw little stones. Over those stones was a laige slab, as if of crow-black gold, — an intensely jet, gleaming black, which threw out a great light like a reflecting mirror. Its face could reflect the persons of ever so many people. It was high as a man and a hand, and five feet wida At its base were variegated stones, scarcely a foot long, tapering at both ends, thick in the middle, somewhat like an olive. Stepping back, and looking attentively about under the glossy slab, they observed a hollow cavity, and were assured they had found the Funghwang's nest They were, therefore, to return and report their discovery to his majesty ; and Gwoyuen bent down to take up one of the tapering stones, as proo£ He found it heavy