With the Empress Dowager of China

such a delightful surprise to me. I had heard and read so much of her, before I went to the Palace, and nothing that I had heard or read had at all prepared me for the reality, so charming, so unusual was her personality. Not charming and interesting by fits and starts, but always so! She was so considerate and tactful, and seemed so really kind in her relations with those who surrounded her. I had been now nearly a month in daily contact with her. I saw her, not only when she sat for the portrait; I was with her the greater part of the day, and I began to let myself go in my admiration of her. The days seemed flat and stale when I could not see her⁠—so full of interest and charm I found her. She was a woman of such infinite variety! There was always something new and fresh to study in her. She was the very embodiment of the Eternal Feminine. She was at once a child and a woman with strong, virile qualities. She would go into the Audience Hall, transact weighty affairs of State for three hours, and then go for her walks or excursions, and take a childish interest in the simplest pleasures. She would be seated in one of her Throne-rooms in trivial conversation with her Ladies, when an Official Despatch, in its yellow silk case, would be brought in, and presented by the eunuch on bended knees. Her face would immediately become full of serious interest; she would bend her brows and become the statesman; a few moments later, when she had duly considered, and given orders relative to the despatch, she became again the woman, full of interest in her flowers, dresses, and jewels.

A distinguished Frenchman once said of Her Majesty the Empress Dowager, “C’est le seul homme de la Chine,” and she deserves the appellation of “man,” if it goes to mean superior intelligence and executive ability; but it was not the “statesman” that I had the best opportunity of studying. It was the woman in her private life; and I had unusual advantages for this study, and the more I saw of her, the more remarkable I found her! Her favors to the Ladies of the Court were very impartially distributed. She had her favorites, but she did not allow them to gain any supremacy over her, nor to warp her judgment. Although her entourage never expressed an opinion contrary to hers, in her presence, and though she always accepted their expressed views in the most courteous manner, one could see she was not imposed upon, and that she knew, perfectly well, their real opinions, so great was her natural penetration.

I was astonished to find in what veneration the Empress Dowager was really held by the Ladies of the Court and her entourage. Her favorite title, and that by which she has been longest known to the courtiers, is, “Lao-Fo-yeh,” the “Old Buddha,” which shows that they invest her with sacred qualities. After her return from Hsi-An Fu, where the Court went when the allied troops occupied Peking, and where the sacred Persons of Her Majesty and the Emperor suffered so many hardships and endured them so bravely, the courtiers gave her another, a closer and more affectionate appellation, “Lao-Tzu-Tzung” (The Old Ancestress). This was the title by which she was called in the Palace, by the Emperor, Empress, and Princesses, and by which she allowed me to address her.

On our arrival at the Sea Palace, the day of my second visit there, after making our bows to Her Majesty, we started, in our chairs, to the Hall of the Mongolian Princes. This is a magnificent hall in the northeastern part of the park, some distance away from Her Majesty’s and the Emperor’s Palaces. It is of one story, as usual, but this nearly forty feet high. The interior is spacious, with only a few dragon tables and chairs and no ornaments or other furniture. There is a raised dais at the back, with several steps leading up to it. Upon the dais stood a splendid Throne of archaic design, and over the Throne there are two huge tablets of black marble, with inscriptions in Chinese and Manchu characters. This great hall is used only for receiving the Mongolian Princes on their annual visit to Peking, when they come in state, with hundreds of followers and retainers, to pay homage and tribute to the Emperor of China. The rear of the hall opens on a court surrounded by smaller buildings, which are used as waiting-rooms for the retainers and followers of the Princes.

From this hall we were carried in our chairs along the banks of the lake, beyond the Marble Bridge to a distant part of the grounds, where stands the famous Dragon Wall. Most of the Chinese houses have a sort of stone screen opposite the principal gate of entrance. This screen, called “A Wall of Respect,” often has some sort of painted or carved representation of a dragon, which is supposed to chase away evil spirits. This superstition does not seem to obtain as regards the residences of the Son of Heaven, for I never saw a dragon wall built in front of any of the entrances to the buildings in the Palace enclosures. Perhaps the Son of Heaven is immune from the visit of demons, or is it that the rampant Double Dragon on everything Imperial serves as sufficient protection to the Palace? The Dragon Wall, in the Sea Palace, must have formed a part of some of the outside palaces or temples which were brought into the sacred enclosure when the Emperor Hsien-Feng decided to make it a place of residence and enlarge its domain. Many foreigners in Peking can remember when the beautiful Marble Bridge, of such noble proportions, of such exquisite design, now within the Precincts, was used by the public. However it got there, the Dragon Wall