Note 106 — INLEIDING.

“It was not until the seventeenth century that Europeans came in contact with Coreans, when some unfortunate Dutchmen were shipwrecked on the coast and held captive for years. The narrative of the Dutch supercargo Hamel, written towards the close of the seventeenth century, gives a graphic account of Corean manners and customs, and, as read at the present time, conveys an exact picture of the people and country. Place after place which he mentions in their captive wanderings have been identified, and every scene and every feature can be recognised as if it were a tale told of to-day. So strong is native conservatism both in language and habits that Hamel’s description of two hundred years ago reproduces every feature of present Corean life” (Scott, Stray notes on Corean History etc., Journal China Branch R. A. S. New Ser. XXVIII, 1893–94, bl. 215).—“Hendrik Hamel was plainly a shrewd observer, and much of his description of the country and the people and their customs tallies well with our own experience of the last thirty years, though one would not care to subscribe to every one of his statements”. (Foreword van M. N. Trollope bij de uitg. van Hamel’s Journaal in Transactions Corea Branch R. A. S. IX, 1918, bl. 94).