In many a lonely village not an ounce nor a grain of
anything could be bought, and yet there might be standing around
scores of white-garmented, stalwart Koreans, smoking yard-long pipes
and chattering, chattering--ceaselessly chattering. Love, money, or
force could not procure from them a horseshoe or a horseshoe nail.
"Upso," was their invariable reply. "Upso," cursed word, which means
"Have not got."
They had tramped probably forty miles that day, down from their
hiding-places, just for a "look see," and forty miles back they would
cheerfully tramp, chattering all the way over what they had seen.
Shake a stick at them as they stand chattering about your camp-fire,
and the gloom of the landscape will be filled with tall, flitting
ghosts, bounding like deer, with great springy strides which one
cannot but envy. They have splendid vigour and fine bodies, but they
are accustomed to being beaten and robbed without protest or
resistance by every chance foreigner who enters their country.
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