Courageous, too, when in the presence of danger, his ready wit furnished him with every appliance necessary to his safety and protection. His familiarity with Chinese character was remarkable; he knew when and where and how to domineer and command, where it was safe to assume authority. In China, one of the common instruments of government is to send from the court secret spies, whose persons are unknown, and the object of whose mission is to report confidentially to the emperor on the shortcomings or misdoings of the great mandarins. It was often Huc's fortune to be thought one of these mysterious but redoubtable visitants, and he turned the suspicion to excellent account. The fact of his speaking Manchoo, and being well acquainted with Tartar forms and usages, very naturally strengthened the conclusion that it was most desirable to obtain his patronage and favorable opinion in the confidential communications to be made to the Tartar dynasty. No doubt many a functionary has trembled, self-condemned, in the presence of the missionary, and has courted his indulgent judgment by those attentions which are supposed to conciliate. Bribes, large and attractive, representing the estimated value of the service to be rendered, are constantly offered and frequently received by the traveller who is believed to have the ear of the supreme authority. I have heard that from twenty to thirty thousand pounds sterling are sometimes collected in a district circuit, the collection being made at the risk of either the bribed or the briber, or of both, each being necessarily at the mercy of the other in case of betrayal. But, at the same time, Father Huc possessed all the arts of prostration and deference when the circumstances of the case required them. There was, however, less of assumption in his lowliness than in his loftiness; his was never "a pride that aped humility." The acting was when he played the part of a ruler. He was altogether a natural man--unobtrusive, but fluent in the presence of those interested--and who could fail to be interested in his strange adventures? He never recovered the free use of his limbs after he returned to Europe; and died in France, leaving much undone--the doing of which would have been most useful to his race.