occurs, to what else can it be due
than to their evil and invisible operation? To old age, to diseases
natural and zymotic, the expiration of life is never ascribed; these
everlasting evil spirits have to answer for it all.

The most prominent spirits are probably those of the mountain. According
to Corean accounts, the mountains and hills seem to be full of these
heroes of witchcraft: this being probably due to the fact that the dead
are buried on hilly ground and that their souls, therefore, are most
likely to make their nocturnal hoverings in such neighbourhoods, until a
fresh career is found for them in the body of some animal. They are not
_gods_ of the mountains, as some writers have been pleased to call them,
for, so far as I could judge, the natives are more terror-stricken when
thinking about them than inclined to worship them. No Corean, of sound
mind and body, however brave and fearless of death in battle, can ever be
induced to walk out at night on the mountain-slopes; and even in the
day-time a great deal of uneasiness is manifested by the natives should
they have to climb a hill. On such occasions they provide themselves
with armfuls of stones, which, as they go up, they throw violently one
by one at these imaginary beings, thus showing them that their company is
neither required nor wished for, and that they had better keep aloof. If
this simple precaution is used, the obliging and scorned spirits seldom
interfere with the traveller's welfare. The hills close to the towns are
simply covered with heaps of stones, so thrown at these mythical dwellers
of the mountains. Such is the effect produced by terror on the people's
imagination, that frequently in their imagination they feel the actual
touch of the spirits. Probably, if there is any physical touch in those
cases, it is only a leaf or a twig falling from a tree. Still, when that
occurs a regular fight ensues, the men continuing to fire stones at their
imaginary foes, until in their mental vision they see them disappear and
fade away in the air. Others not so brave prefer an accelerated retreat,
only stopping now and again to throw a stone at the pursuers.

From their very childhood the Coreans are imbued with horrid and
fantastic accounts of the doings of these spirits, and so vividly are the
usual habits of these ghostly creatures depicted to them, that they
cannot but remain for ever indelibly impressed on their minds.

Another very common sight, be