act I am positive, that the Eastern
people feel pain much less than we do, partly because they are accustomed
from childhood to be insensitive to bodily agony, but chiefly because
they are differently constituted to us. In our case, the brain, by means
of which it is that we judge of the amount of pain inflicted on us, has
been trained to receive impressions so quickly, transmitted as they are
in an instant from any part of the body to the centre of our system,
that, indeed, many times we actually feel the pain before it has been
physically communicated to us at all. With the Corean, as with the Manchu
or the Chinese, a reverse action takes place. With them, the brain works
so very slowly that, supposing a bad ache is taking place in any part of
the body, whence is being conveyed to the drowsy brain the unpleasant
news of the agony that that part is undergoing; well, what in that case
happens in the Corean skull? By the time the brain has grasped the idea
that the aforesaid part of the body is really in a state of suffering,
the pain is almost gone. This, roughly stated, is I believe, a truthful
explanation of their going to death with so much bravery.

It is a common occurrence in China for criminals, kneeling in a row to be
executed, to crack jokes among themselves, and even at the executioner's
expense. In Corea, they cannot go quite so far as that, for things are
done somewhat differently. In the latter country, the prisoners are
detained in the gaols sometimes for months and even years, undergoing
judgments and sentences, floggings and milder tortures innumerable, so
that it is almost with a feeling of relief and gladness that, finally,
being proved guilty, they receive the news of their fast approaching end.
When their time is come, they are removed from prison, and dragged out
into a courtyard, within which, with the first rays of light, have been
brought some little carts with heavy and roughly-made wooden wheels, each
drawn by a sturdy bull. On the ground some wooden crosses have been set
up, and to each of these a criminal is tied with ropes, his chest and
arms being bare, and cut into by the tightened cords, and only his padded
trousers being left. Each cross with its human freight is then planted
and made firm on a bull cart; and then, when all is ready, the ghastly
procession, headed by the executioner, a few _kissos_ (soldiers), armed
with old fashioned flint locks or with spears, makes its way slowly
throu