ple them and put
them in the dirt.

Bread there was none, but we ate white rice (the strength of which
resides in one's muscles not long), a meat which we found to be dog
(which animal is regularly butchered for food in Cho-Sen), and the
pickles ungodly hot but which one learns to like exceeding well. And
there was drink, real drink, not milky slush, but white, biting stuff
distilled from rice, a pint of which would kill a weakling and make a
strong man mad and merry. At the walled city of Chong-ho I put Kim and
the city notables under the table with the stuff--or on the table,
rather, for the table was the floor where we squatted to cramp-knots in
my hams for the thousandth time. And again all muttered "Yi Yong-ik,"
and the word of my prowess passed on before even to Keijo and the
Emperor's Court.

I was more an honoured guest than a prisoner, and invariably I rode by
Kim's side, my long legs near reaching the ground, and, where the going
was deep, my feet scraping the muck. Kim was young. Kim was human. Kim
was universal. He was a man anywhere in any country. He and I talked
and laughed and joked the day long and half the night. And I verify ate
up the language. I had a gift that way anyway. Even Kim marvelled at
the way I mastered the idiom. And I learned the Korean points of view,
the Korean humour, the Korean soft places, weak places, touchy places.
Kim taught me flower songs, love songs, drinking songs. One of the
latter was his own, of the end of which I shall give you a crude attempt
at translation. Kim and Pak, in their youth, swore a pact to abstain
from drinking, which pact was speedily broken. In old age Kim and Pak
sing:

"No, no, begone! The merry bowl
Again shall bolster up my soul
Against itself. What, good man, hold!
Canst tell me where red wine is sold?
Nay, just beyond yon peach-tree? There?
Good luck be thine; I'll thither fare."

Hendrik Hamel, scheming and crafty, ever encouraged and urged me in my
antic course that brought Kim's favour, not alone to me, but through me
to Hendrik Hamel and all our company. I here mention Hendrik Hamel as my
adviser, for it has a bearing on much that followed at Keijo in the
winning of Yunsan's favour, the Lady Om's heart, and the Emperor's
tolerance. I had the will and the fearlessness for the game I played,
and some of the wit; but most of the wit I freely admit was supplied me
by Hendrik Hamel.

And so we journeyed u