My Corean friends Yi and Chung were much interested in the Elephant. They had never seen him, but they had heard of his sagacity, his honesty, his gentlemauliness. These virtues, coupled with his enormous size, greatly' impressed them, for they like all Coreans are hero-worshippers, and one of the requisites of their hero is that he be big. Littleness they despise. A diminutive Western they pity. Insult from the like of him they reckon as unworthy of notice. But the Elephant, K'o-Kiri (Long-noser), think of him! Twelve feet high, twelve feet long, tipping the scales at 8,000 pounds, living, like the gods, hundreds of years, lord of beasts, mightiest of the mighty! Certainly he belonged to a class to be worshipped; the rumour of him alone was enough to inspire enlightened men with reverence. They did homage afar off, hoping some day that they might set eyes upon him.
Fortune had shuflled us across the sea; Yi, Chung, and I were in the picturesque harbour-city of Yokohama, where everything was wonderful, undreamed-of, indescribable. Up to this date these two Core~ ans had lived unconscious of the world they breathed in; they did not even realise that they themselves wore gauze hats, white suits, and quilted trousers; now for the first time this fact, too, dawned upon them. Chung had been accustomed to a measure of respect at home, was a gentleman, no less, and entitled to deference when he walked the streets. He had power, too, and could put. uncivil loafers under the paddle if need be. Behold him now in Yokohama, the butt of all the world, man, woman, and child pointing, poking, jeering. "The wretches have no manners,"said he, and his desire was to leave at once, but this being impossible, with many tears and with much trembling at the thgaght of his ancestors, he had his top-mot cut and dressed himself out in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.