ry, carried off
immense quantities of spoil, sold multitudes of prisoners into slavery,
and in seven or eight years slaughtered over one hundred thousand
soldiers and citizens of China. The raids resembled those made at an
earlier date by the Normans on the coast of France and the Danes on that
of England, the sea-rovers pouncing down at unexpected times and places
and plundering and burning at will.

These forays of the pirates, in which the government took no part, were
followed in 1592 by an invasion in force of the kingdom of Corea. In
this the invaders rapidly swept all before them, quickly overrunning the
southern half of the kingdom and threatening China. The Chinese then
came to the aid of their helpless neighbors, and for six years the war
went on, the Japanese being usually successful in the field, but
gradually forced back from want of supplies, as the country was
devastated and their own land distant. In the end Hideyoshi, the shogun,
died, and the army was withdrawn, Japan holding the port of Fusan as the
sole result of its costly effort. This Corean port it still retains.

And now three hundred years passed away in which Corea remained free and
isolated from the world. It wanted no more intercourse with foreigners.
Once a year a fair was held in the neutral zone between China and Corea,
but any Chinaman found on Corean soil after the fair ended was liable to
be put to death. The Japanese were kept out by laws as severe. In fact,
the doors of the kingdom were closed against all of foreign birth, the
coasts carefully patrolled, and beacon-fires kindled on the hill-tops to
warn the capital whenever any strange vessel came within sight. All
foreigners wrecked on the coast were to be held as prisoners until
death. Such was the threatened fate of some Dutch sailors wrecked there
during the seventeenth century, who escaped after fourteen years'
confinement. Dread of China and Japan induced the king to send envoys
with tribute to Peking and Yedo, but the tribute was small, and the
isolation was maintained, Corea winning for itself the names of the
Hermit Nation and the Forbidden Land.

It was not until within recent years that this policy of isolation was
overthrown and Corea opened to the world. How this was done may be
briefly told. In spite of the Corean watchfulness, some French
missionaries long ago penetrated into the land and made many converts,
who were afterwards severely persecuted. French fleets were