The country in which I soon found myself presented a field of industry and of prosperity such as I had seen nowhere else in Korea.  Between the somewhat desolate mountain ranges and great stretches of sandy soil we came upon innumerable thriving villages.  Every possible bit of land, right up the hillsides, was carefully cultivated.  Here were stretches of cotton, with bursting pods all ready for picking, and here great fields of buckwheat white with flower.  The two most common crops were rice and barley, and the fields were heavy with their harvest.  Near the villages were ornamental lines of chilies and beans and seed plants for oil, with occasional clusters of kowliang, fully twelve and thirteen feet high.

In the centre of the fields was a double-storied summer-house, made of straw, the centre of a system of high ropes, decked with bits of rag, running over the crops in all directions.  Two lads would sit on the upper floor of each of these houses, pulling the ropes, flapping the rags, and making all kinds of harsh noises, to frighten away the birds preying on the crops.

The villages themselves were pictures of beauty and of peace.  Most of them were surrounded by a high fence of wands and matting.  At the entrance there sometimes stood the village “joss,” although many villages had destroyed their idols.  This “joss” was a thick stake of wood, six or eight feet high, with the upper part roughly carved into the shape of a very ugly human face, and crudely coloured in vermilion and green.  It was supposed to frighten away the evil spirits.

The village houses, low, mud-walled, and thatch-roofed, were seen this season at their best.  Gay flowers grew around.  Melons and pumpkins, weighted with fruit, ran over the walls.  Nearly every roof displayed a patch of vivid scarlet, for the chilies had just been gathered, and were spread out on the housetops to dry.  In front of the houses were boards covered with sliced pumpkins and gherkins drying in the sun for winter use.  Every courtyard had its line of black earthenware jars, four to six feet high, stored with all manner of good things, mostly preserved vegetables of many varieties, for the coming year.

I had heard much of the province of Chung-Chong-Do as the Italy of Korea, but its beauty and prosperity required seeing to be believed.  It afforded an amazing contrast to the dirt and apathy of Seoul.  Here every one worked.  In the fields the young women were toiling in groups, weeding or harvesting.  The young men were cutting bushes on the hillsides, the father of the family preparing new ground for the fresh crop, and the very children frightening off the birds.  At home the housewife was busy with her children and preparing her simples and stores; and even the old men busied themselves over light tasks, such as mat-making.  Every one seemed prosperous, busy, and happy.  There were no signs of poverty.  The uprising had not touched this district, save in the most incidental fashion.