The morning was dedicated to the commander-in-chief, Prince Min-Young-Huan.  Since to go on foot, even though the distance was only a few hundred yards from Mr. Greathouse’s, where I was living, would have been, according to Corean etiquette, a disgrace and an insult, I rode up to his door on horseback.  His house stood, surrounded by a strong wall of masonry and with impregnable iron-banded gates, in the centre of a large piece of ground.  His ensign flew at one corner of the enclosure, and a detachment of picked troops was always at his beck and call in the immediate neighbourhood.  At the door were sentries, and it was curious to note the way in which guard is mounted in the land of Cho-sen.

I suppose what I am going to narrate will not be believed, but it is none the less perfectly true.  The Corean Tommy Atkins mounts guard curled up in a basket filled with rags and cotton-wool!  Even at the royal palace one sees them.  The Cho-senese warrior is not a giant; on the contrary, he is very small, only a little over five feet, or even less, so that the round basket which contains him is made only about four feet in diameter, and three-and-a-half feet deep.  In the inner enclosures of the royal palace, where two soldiers at a time are on guard, the baskets are bigger, and the two men contained in them squat or curl up together like two birds in a nest.  Their rifles are generally left standing against the wall; but, occasionally, when the position to be guarded is a very responsible one, they are nursed in the basket.

The infantry soldier, seen at his best, is a funny individual.  He thinks he is dressed like a European soldier, but the reader can imagine the resemblance.  His head-gear consists of a felt hat with a large brim, which he keeps on his head by means of two ribbons tied under his chin; for the fashion is, in military circles, to have a head-gear many times too small for his head.  He wears a pair of calico trousers of a nondescript colour resembling green and black, under which his own padded “unmentionables” are concealed, a fact which of itself is sufficient to make him look a little baggy.  Then there is his shortish coat with large sleeves and woollen wristlets; and a belt, with a brass buckle, somewhere about five inches above or below his waist, according to the amount of dinner he has eaten and the purses he has stuffed under his coat.  Yes, the Coreans are not yet civilised enough to possess pockets, and all that they have to carry must be stuffed into small leather, cloth, or silk purses with long strings.  By ordinary individuals these purses are fastened inside or outside the coat, but among the military it is strictly forbidden to show purses over the coat; wherefore the regulation method is to carry these underneath, tied to the trouser’s band.  Accordingly, as the number of purses is larger or smaller, the belt over the jacket is higher or lower on the waist, the coat sticking out in the most ridiculous manner.