you please, but all you will hear is the faintest "Kamapso," and away she
runs to show the gift to her mother. She will seldom go into fits of
merriment in your presence, but, of course, her delight cannot fail to be
at times depicted in her beaming eyes. She is more unfortunate than her
brother in the number of toys she receives, and though her treatment is
not so very severe, she begins from her earliest years a life of drudgery
and work. As soon as her little brain begins to command her tiny fingers,
she is compelled to struggle with a needle and thread. When her fragile
arms get stronger she helps her mother in beating the clothes, and from
the moment she rises to the time she goes to rest, ideas as to her future
servility, humility, and faithfulness to man are duly impressed upon her.

As in Japan, so in Corea, a custom prevails of adopting male children by
parents who have none of their own. The children adopted are generally
those of poorer friends or of relations who chance to have some to spare.
When the adoption is accomplished, with all the rules required by the law
of the country, and with the approval of the king, the adopted son takes
the place of a real son, and has a complete right of succession to his
adoptive father in precedence to the adoptive mother and all the other
relations of the defunct.

The Corean boy begins to study when very young. If the son of a rich man,
he has a private tutor; if not, he goes to school, where he is taught the
letters of the Corean alphabet, and Chinese characters. All official
correspondence in Corea is done with Chinese characters, and a lifetime,
as everybody knows, is hardly enough to master these. The native Corean
alphabet, however, is a most practical and easy way of representing
sounds, and I am not sure but that in many ways it is even more practical
than ours. I will give the reader the opportunity of judging of this for
himself by-and-by (_see_ chapter xiii.). Arithmetic is also pounded into