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Sunday, February 5, 2012

INSIDE THE HERMIT KINGDOM by GEORGE FOULK part2

http://www.samuelhawley.com/hermitkingdom2.html


PHOTOGRAPHS: INSIDE THE HERMIT KINGDOM (PART 2)
These are images from a 10-page photo spread for Inside the Hermit Kingdom that the publisher was unable to include in the book.



Porters traversing a mountain pass on the sort of narrow path Foulk followed on the rougher portions of his trip. "Passed today many pack men laden with glazed jars and bowls and pots of all sizes and shapes."


A Korean village such as Foulk passed by the score.


Laden oxen and drivers at a firewood market. Foulk grew wary of market towns on market days on account of the mobbing that greeted his foreign presence.

Korean soldiers, 1884. They did not impress Foulk. "[T]he court contained two long lines of probably fifty straggling soldiers with rag banners &c., a sorry, shabby, ugly pack. Some had muskets, which they handled like poles in a helter-skelter way."


A young kisaeng entertainer. Korean officials offered women to Fouk during his journey but he declined. He was on the whole not much attracted to Korean women, whose exposed breasts he likened to "walnut-stained door knobs."

One of the very few surviving photographs Foulk took during his 1884 journey. His handwritten caption reads: "Great Buddha at Unchin, S.W. Korea,...origin unknown. G.C.F. - first and only foreigner who has visited this place."


Another of Foulk's photos from his 1884 journey. The caption reads: "Kang Kyong, a revenue rich shipping port on Kum River, S.W. Korea. First visisted by G.C.F."


Another Foulk photo: "A building compound of a Korean great noble. G.C.F."



The southern port of Pusan (this shot circa the 1890s) where Foulk rested for three days before returning to Seoul.


A pavilion in the mountain fortress of Namhansansong south of Seoul, where Foulk, in fear for his life, took refuge following the attempted coup d'etat of December 4, 1884.


US minister to Korea Lucuis Foote and wife Rose Foote on the steps of the legation in Seoul, 1884, where George Foulk ended his journey on the eveniing of December 14, 1884. "Thus ends my second trip into the interior of Korea, one of varied and wonderful experience, 900 miles of worry, anxiety, living (while with a Christian heart) the life of a Korean in almost every detail. Not again...will Korea be seen as I have seen it..."

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