THE PALACE OF THE EMPEROR’S FATHER
(PRINCE CH’UN, THE SEVENTH PRINCE)
The Palace of the Emperor’s Father, which the Empress Dowager had set
aside for me to live in while I was at work on her portrait, was a
splendid demesne, with a noble park and spacious buildings. It had been
much injured by the foreign troops in 1900 and had been unoccupied
since, until Her Majesty decided it would be a suitable dwelling-place
for her “Portrait Painter.” She had it hastily restored and refurnished
for our occupation, but many of the pavilions and summer-houses in the
grounds were in ruins, and the stables but partly rebuilt. Except the
grounds immediately surrounding the buildings in which the Yu-Kengs
and I lived, which were well kept and garnished, the greater part of
the extensive park was in a fascinating state of natural wildness. The
Palace, like all others in China, consisted of a network of verandahed
pavilions built around spacious courts. There was a small Theater with
the Prince’s loge and stalls for his guests, and numerous tea and
summer houses were scattered over different parts of the grounds.
I selected, as my abiding-place, a charming group of buildings in a
walled-in garden, fronting on a lotus-covered lake, with a winding
stream at the back, spanned by a picturesque bridge. The principal
pavilion of this group had a lofty central hall, out of which opened,
on one side, bedrooms and dressing-rooms, and on the other dining-room
and dependencies. Great doors in the center of the hall, which I had
decided to use as my living-room, opened on a wide verandah which ran
the whole length of the building. Marble steps led from this into a
court filled with flowering shrubs. Two sides of the charming court had
smaller pavilions similar to the central hall, and opposite this latter
was a quaint stone wall, the upper part of tiled lattice-work, with
curiously shaped openings at irregular intervals. In the center of this
wall, massive wooden doors opened out on a beautiful terrace, shaded
by fine old elms, over the lake. It was a charming dwelling-place,
and this group of buildings soon came to be known as the “Ker-Gunia
Fu,” “Ker-Gunia” being “Miss Carl” rendered into Chinese, and “Fu”
meaning “Palace,” for the Chinese are very fond of nicknames. I learned
later that these pavilions had been the dwelling-place of the Seventh
Prince’s son, the present Emperor Kwang-Hsu, after he had been chosen
as Heir to the Throne and until he went to live regularly at the
Imperial Palace.
As Her Majesty gave me my morning sittings after the Audience was
finished (which lasted from eight A.M. to ten or eleven), I had
plenty of time, after my cup of tea, to explore the grounds of our
Palace, and I discovered new beauties each day. The Park was inclosed
by high walls, for the Chinese are jealous of their privacy. Parts of
the grounds were gently undulating, and all the eminences, where views
could be had, were surmounted by charming summer-houses and belvederes.
In one of these, where I loved to go in the early morning to refresh
myself by the contemplation of the calm and peaceful lake beneath,
and drink in the faint perfume of the stately lotus flowers, which
grew in rich profusion on its bosom, I found an inscription on a large
flat stone at the left of the entrance. I had seen enough of Chinese
characters to know the inscription looked like a “poem.” The Chinese
poem is rarely more than a phrase: the expression, in elegant and
concise form, of some dainty fancy, some bit of philosophy, and is more
properly a “verse” than a poem.
I found, later, the inscription on the stone at the entrance of the
summer-house was really a “poem,” and had been written by no less a
personage than the Seventh Prince himself! This had been his favorite
place for rest and contemplation, and one day, as he reclined upon a
cushion at the entrance, he had written this poem on the flat stone
which lay conveniently near. The Chinese write with a brush well
charged with liquid India ink, and their writing accommodates itself
to almost any surface. Their characters, one for each word, take up
less space than our combination of letters, and are infinitely more
picturesque! Chinese gentlemen, or some attendant, generally carry
about with them tablets of writing-ink and a brush, and they thus have
the means at hand for jotting down a thought as it comes to them.
This little poem had been written with a brush, and some of the
Prince’s followers had afterward cut the characters in the stone,
so that it became a permanent record of a fleeting thought. It had
evidently been inspired by the lotus flowers growing beneath; so
gloriously beautiful to-day, and to-morrow shorn of their splendor. It
was a plaint on the transience of worldly glory--
... Which to-day, like the lotus fair,
Lifts its head in pride;
But to-morrow lies low,
Bathed in the stagnant waters of oblivion.
One day I came upon a number of small tombstones, in a beautiful
shady corner, near the stables. I learned that these marked the last
resting-places of the Prince’s favorite dogs and horses. Each stone had
an inscription with the name, and extolled the virtues of the favorite,
whose bones lay beneath it. The Prince was a great lover of animals,
and is said to have had the best kennels and stables of any of the
Imperial Princes.
In my morning rambles, I also often came upon stones engraved with
some character or a phrase from the classics. The ideographic Chinese
characters, always picturesque, are doubly so when deeply engraved,
or standing out in high relief on some rugged stone in a charming
spot in the landscape. The picturesque form of the characters is
sometimes heightened by being painted in vermilion or gilded; and the
glowing color makes a delightful contrast with the cool gray of the
stone. Even though I could not decipher the characters, nor read the
phrases, I loved to come upon them in my morning walks. How much more
interesting they must have been to the scholarly Chinese who understood
them! How fine, when out for rest and contemplation, to come upon some
thought of their great Sages cut in the living rock, or to see some
character meaning “Peace” or “Prosperity” standing out, in bold relief
or glowing color, from some shady nook, as if to bless him!
From another of the summer-houses in the Park I could see the
stone-paved highway leading from the Capital to the Summer Palace.
During Their Majesties’ residence at the Summer Palace, this is a
busy thoroughfare. When I did not care for peaceful contemplation
or quiet rambles over the grounds, I would go to this summer-house,
whence I could see the carts and “chairs” of the officials, with their
outriders, going to and from the Palace; messengers galloping past,
bearing despatches; all sorts of itinerant venders, with their wares;
heavily laden wagons, with small yellow banners flying, which showed
they carried supplies to the Palace. Sometimes a group of horsemen
would dash gaily past, the retainers of some splendidly attired
young Prince, who rode in their midst on a red-saddled, handsomely
caparisoned horse with silver trappings. Anon, the cumbersome, red,
fringe-bedecked cart of some Princess, preceded and followed by from
fifteen to thirty outriders, according to her rank in the Princely
hierarchy, the black carts of her women bringing up the rear.
One can tell the rank of the Chinese from the outsides of their
chairs or carts. Only a reigning Emperor and Empress can go abroad in
yellow chairs. The Emperor’s secondary wives ride in orange-colored
chairs. The relicts of an Emperor, first or secondary, go in yellow or
orange-colored carts. Princesses go abroad in red carts. Mandarins of
the first and second degrees ride in green chairs; those of the third
and fourth in blue chairs; and there is still another shape and style
of chair for the ordinary individual, who may prefer a chair to a cart.
The rank and file go in carts. These carts, peculiar to Peking, curious
two-wheeled vehicles with heavy, iron-studded wheels, are uniformly
covered in blue cloth. The wealth and standing of their occupants are
discernible from the quality of the cloth and its trimmings, and the
richness of the harness and trappings of the mule which is always used
in the Peking carts. The mule in North China is a magnificent animal,
much finer than the Chinese horse, which is only a pony.
The Seventh Prince (Prince Ch’un) must have been a most interesting
personality. He was brother to the Emperor Hsien-Feng, the husband of
the present Empress Dowager; and his wife, the mother of the present
Emperor, was Her Majesty’s sister. This Prince was a valued friend of
the two Empresses, the present Empress Dowager and She of the Eastern
Palace, while they were Co-Regents during the minority of the late
and a part of that of the present Emperor, and he remained, up to the
time of his death, one of the most trusted advisers of the Regency.
He was recognized by foreigners, as well as by the Chinese, to be an
enlightened Prince as well as a man of fine character. The esteem
in which he was held may have had something to do with the choice of
his second son as the Successor of the late Emperor Tung-Chih, who
died childless. The Chinese Emperors and their Council may choose the
Successor to the Throne. If there be but one son, he is chosen as the
next Heir; if there be a number, a selection may be made from them of
the one seeming to be most suited for the exalted position. If there be
no sons, the Successor is chosen from the nephews without reference to
their age or to their being the sons of an elder or younger brother.
The present Emperor’s Father, Prince Ch’un, was the seventh brother of
the Emperor Hsien-Feng, hence his Chinese name of “Seventh Prince.”