But the Marquis Ito understood the people of Chosun. He knew they were a peaceful race, puritan in habit, whose highest caste were not samurai, as in Europe or Japan, but scholars. He knew that Chosun had no army, and he knew, moreover, that the Koreans were the Irish of the Orient, changeable, mercurial. And he knew that a mercurial race, with its moods of alternate elation and despondency, may often be manipulated.
