Notices of the proceedings at the meetings of the members of the Royal Institution of Great Britain with abstracts of the discourses . om the crowd. They seemto lead the procession. Their dress is glaring, of green, purple andscarlet silk, with their dark hair encircling their foreheads in gleam-ing plaits. They are also decked out with flowers and butterflies. Behind them a large box painted red and polished is is evidently the dowry. Now follow the dancers, in pairs, butwidely apart from each other. Their costume—I cannot describe it!Almost shapeless, it consisted of skirt over
Notices of the proceedings at the meetings of the members of the Royal Institution of Great Britain with abstracts of the discourses . om the crowd. They seemto lead the procession. Their dress is glaring, of green, purple andscarlet silk, with their dark hair encircling their foreheads in gleam-ing plaits. They are also decked out with flowers and butterflies. Behind them a large box painted red and polished is is evidently the dowry. Now follow the dancers, in pairs, butwidely apart from each other. Their costume—I cannot describe it!Almost shapeless, it consisted of skirt over skirt, kerchiefs, veils, allpell-mell, and of every colour of the rainbow. I take note of many things which to-morrow might escape me. Street life is one ever flowing stream. In Seoul, I observe, every-body lives on the thoroughfares. That is probably the reason whyits streets are so wide and the dwellings so cramped. In this traitthe Korean is like the Spaniard or Italian. He is never so happy aswhen out of doors. There he stands on his threshold, or basking inthe sunny courtyard, or he lights his pipe and strolls up and down. m 1904.] on First Impressions o f Seoul. 505 for hours. His carriage is slow and stately. I wonder where he isgoing to and what he is thinking of—nowhere and of nothing—ilnYine. There is no suitable word in another language for thisaimless meandering. Loitering indicates only physical slowness,aud moral vacuum is not simultaneously connoted by it. The Korean T. Atkins. Now and again a private comes by. He is the coming man! Ifhe learns nothing in the barrack-yard, he does learn how to walk. He has had his pigtail shorn. At first he bemoaned it; for thishead-dress of his embodied a general principle. With its departurehe was cut adrift from all his old associations and traditions. But like the child he is at heart, he soon forgets his pigtail andits traditions along with it, and to-day is proud of the metamorphosis. As the man of progress and of the
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Keywords: ., bookauthorroyalins, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, bookyear1851
