esides being of enormous size, are said to be very fierce
and fond of human flesh. Even the walls of the town are no protection
against them. Not unfrequently they make a nocturnal excursion through
the streets, leaving again early in the morning with a farewell bound
from the rampart, but carrying off inside their carcases some unlucky
individual in a state of pulp.

The Coreans may, therefore, be forgiven if, besides showing almost
religious veneration for their feline friend--who reciprocates this in
his own way--they have also the utmost terror of him. Whenever I went for
long walks outside the town with Coreans, I noticed that when on the
narrow paths I was invariably left to bring up the rear, although I was a
quicker walker than they were. If left behind they would at once run on
in front of me again, and never could I get any one to be last man. This
conduct, sufficiently remarkable, has the following explanation.

It is the belief of the natives, that when a tiger is suddenly
encountered he always attacks and makes a meal of the last person in the
row; for which reason, they always deem it advisable, when they have a
foreigner in their company, to let him have that privilege. I, for my
part, of course, did not regard the matter in the same light, and
generally took pretty good care to retain a middle position in the
procession, when out on a country prowl, greatly to the distress and
uneasiness of my white-robed guardian angels.

CHAPTER XIV

Religion--Buddhism--Bonzes--Their power--Shamanism--Spirits--Spirits
of the mountain--Stone heaps--Sacred trees--Seized by the
spirits--Safe-guard against them--The wind--Sorcerers and
sorceresses--Exorcisms--Monasteries--Temples--Buddha--Monks--Their
customs and clothing--Nuns--Their garments--Religious ceremonies--The
tooth-stone.

The question of religion is always a difficult one to settle, for--no
matter where one goes--there are people who are religious and people who
are not.

The generality of people in Corea are not religious, though in former
days, especially in the Korai-an era, between the tenth and fourteenth
centuries, they seem to have been ardent Buddhists. Indeed, Buddhism as a
religion seems to have got a strong hold in Cho-sen during the many
Chinese invasions; it only passed over Cho-sen, however, like a huge
cloud, to vanish again, though leaving here and there traces of the power
it once exercised.

The bonzes (priests) had at one tim