In the meantime he had become bitten with the desire to learn Corean—a language of which practically nothing was known. He made friends with the skipper of a Corean junk trading with Chifu, on board of which he lived for some weeks. He urged his friend to let him sail with him for Seoul, but the Hermit Kingdom, as it was called, resolutely shut its gates to all foreigners, and to approach it was death. Nothing daunted, Mr. Thomas ended by gaining his point, and the skipper consented to take him, on condition that he should wear the native dress, in mourning, which meant that a veil should hang from the brim of the tall hat, completely concealing the face. The voyage was successful, the venturesome Englishman was not discovered, and it was not long after his return that I met him. He was a singularly attractive personality, handsome, clever and, in spite of a certain modest reticence, very interesting. There is an old French saying, _Qui a bu boira_. Mr. Thomas was not contented with his unique achievement; he must needs go back again. He could not rest. At last, after many vain trials, by holding out prospects of great gain, he persuaded the captain of a small American ship to sail for Corea with himself as interpreter. It is known that they reached Chemulpho and anchored in the Seoul River. In the night the Coreans came down in force and set fire to the ship. “The rest is silence!”—not a soul escaped. It was at Peking that I heard the news some months later; and it was there that I realized how wise he had been when he refused to degrade our Faith by attempting to expound it to a people singularly alive to the dignity of letters. There was in Peking in my time one of the best men that I ever knew. He was a Scot, possessed of some means of his own, besides a salary from the Society which sent him out as missionary. He worked like a slave at the language, and translated the “Pilgrim’s Progress” into Chinese, which he published with pictures of Christian and all the great characters dressed in the Chinese costume with pig-tails. Alas! in many removals my copy, which he gave me, has been lost. He also wore the native dress, lived on a _tiao_, something like sixpence of our money, a day, and gave the rest of his ample means to the poor. He had no particle of linguistic talent, and yet he would preach! I have heard him address a crowd of Chinese outside the Chien Mên, the great gate of the Tartar city, from the top of a cart, preaching in Chinese pronounced with a strong Aberdonian accent, and when he had finished call out “_Ni mên tung tê pu tung tê_” (“Do you understand?”), and with one accord the crowd cried back, shaking their hands from side to side: “_Pu tung tê!_” (“We don’t understand”).