SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF HER MAJESTY--SECOND
VISIT TO THE SEA PALACE
I spent the next day at the Legation, and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I
was glad to think that I was to spend the following day at the Palace
again. The study of Her Majesty had now become to me like a thrilling
novel. I could not bear to lay it down; and when I was forced to do
so, I was longing to be able to resume it. She was 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
inclosures. 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 inclosure 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 is at present within the Palace inclosure, though
in an unused part of the grounds--not in front of any “residence,”
and hence not filling its mission as a “Wall of Respect,” to keep
the wicked spirits from crossing the threshold. This Dragon Wall of
beautiful white marble is of great beauty, exquisitely carved in its
minutest details, and fine in general conception and line.
[Illustration: CHINESE ARCHITECTURE]
Her Majesty had returned from the Audience when we got back to the
Palace from our morning promenade. She was now attending to household
affairs. The eunuchs were bringing up, for her inspection, the baskets
of splendid fruits, which are daily sent into the Palace. Among others,
there was a basket of magnificent grapes. She was delighted with their
beauty, and held up one splendid bunch against the light, before she
tasted them, remarking that “the beautiful color lent an added zest
to the delicious fruit.” Her Majesty then lunched, while we joined
the Empress and Princesses on the verandah, after which we lunched
again in this beautiful Throne-room. The meals taken with the young
Empress and Ladies of the Court had now come to be gay reunions. Her
Majesty would ask us every day to lunch or dine at her table, and I
rarely took a meal in my own quarters. I had discarded the knife and
fork and was learning to use the chop-sticks. I thought them such
graceful implements when wielded by the beautiful hands of the Chinese
Ladies, that I determined to learn their use. Though I never became
an adept with them, I found these dainty implements perfectly adapted
for eating the Chinese food. They are used both in the same hand like
twin fairy wands, and seemed to me much more delicate and graceful
than a knife and fork. My efforts at using them, and my desire to try
all the new dishes, amused and pleased the Ladies. Each would give me
special tidbits from her favorite dishes; they tried to teach me the
Chinese names of the viands. My efforts at pronouncing these names,
or my giving them to the wrong dishes, sometimes raised peals of
laughter from the whole table. Her Majesty often heard the merriment,
and would ask us, when we went into her private apartments after the
meal, what had been the cause; and sometimes she would say, “What has
‘Kergunia’[4] said?”
[4] My Chinese name.
We had scarcely finished luncheon, on this my second day at the Sea
Palace, before the chairs were ordered for a promenade. It had begun
to rain, and the air was chilly; but Her Majesty had made up her mind
to have a walk at that hour, and nothing ever interfered with her
plans, in so far as she was able to carry them out. No weather, however
disagreeable or severe, ever kept her from an outdoor promenade that
she had planned. The open chairs were brought, as if the day were fine.
Her Majesty and the Empress took their seats in their yellow chairs.
Their attendant eunuchs unfurled the huge yellow umbrellas, used only
for Their Imperial Majesties and the young Empress; the second Empress
took her orange-colored chair; the Princesses and the rest of us seated
ourselves in our red chairs, and our eunuchs raised the red umbrellas
over us. Her Majesty the Empress and Princesses, clothed in the
brilliant colors daily worn, the eunuchs still wearing their richly
embroidered gala costumes, the chair-bearers still clad in the festive
red, the yellow and red chairs with the big yellow, orange, and red
umbrellas made a quaint procession, bright with color, that started off
through the courts into the gardens.
Her Majesty loves every phase of nature and every kind of weather;
but it seemed to me as if she particularly loved rain. She once said
it lent such a poetic charm to the landscape, bathing it in a soft
mystery and washing away all defects. Peking is a dry place, and rain
is a rarity, which probably accounts for this predilection. Her Majesty
was in great good humor, but her partiality for rain was not shared by
the other Ladies of the Palace, and these rainy promenades were never
indulged in by them with any great show of delight. Her Majesty likes
moving swiftly, and the chair-bearers always run when she leads the
procession. We sped along for about fifteen minutes, when the chairs
suddenly stopped. I looked to see for what reason, as we were in the
open, with no shelter anywhere near, and the rain still falling. I was
surprised to see Her Majesty was already out of her chair and walking
off toward a “gourd-arbor” at the side of the paved walk.
The gourd is much esteemed by the Chinese. It is emblematic of
Fruitfulness and Prosperity, and is a special favorite of Her
Majesty’s. Those cultivated at the Palace, and known all over China as
the “Imperial Gourd,” have long been famous; but have reached a greater
state of perfection than ever before, under the special care and
training given them during Her Majesty the Empress Dowager’s reign.
They are of one shape only, with a contracted neck and two equal parts
above and below; but they are of all sizes, from one to twelve inches,
the one-inch size being as perfect as the larger ones. They are grown
on trellises, about seven feet high, and the vines are very carefully
trained, so that each of the much-prized fruit may attain its best
development and have its proper quota of light and sun.
Her Majesty walked through the mud to the arbor. The white kid
six-inch-high soles of her shoes sank deep into the soft, rain-soaked
soil. The eunuchs made vain attempts to protect her from the rain, but
she went imperturbably on and was soon under the gourd-arbor. Here she
leisurely tried several of the gourds, to see if they were properly
ripe; for they must be pulled at a certain time or they do not dry
well. After looking at and trying a number, she had several gathered
and went back to her chair. The young Empress and the other Ladies had,
of course, got out of the chairs when Her Majesty stopped. Luckily, she
did not ask us to go into the arbor with her; but etiquette obliged
us to stand on the marble walk, which though not muddy and not so
disagreeable as the walk to the gourd-arbor, was, however, running with
water. When Her Majesty took her chair again, we resumed ours, with a
sigh of relief; for, though we were unprotected even in the chairs, we
felt the truth of the Oriental saying, “It is better to be sitting than
standing,” etc.
After another quarter of an hour, the chair-bearers stopped again. We
had come to another gourd-arbor! Her Majesty got out of her chair
and examined the gourds in this arbor with the same deliberation and
interest as she had looked at those where we first stopped. The rain
was now falling in torrents, but Her Majesty’s spirits seemed to go
up in proportion to its coming down. The Ladies were again obliged
to get out of their chairs! They stood in two dejected lines, with
the eunuchs holding, as best they might, the red umbrellas over
each, and they vainly tried to keep up an appearance of interest
and enjoyment. The brave finery of the eunuchs, who may not carry
umbrellas when on service, was now hanging in limp folds about them,
and their fine feathers were much bedraggled. The Chinese Ladies had
their two-inch-high, kid-covered cork soles to protect their feet from
the water; but mine, in thin kid slippers, were soaking. The picture
of the dejected Ladies, the rain-soaked eunuchs, was, however, so
amusing, that I quite forgot my own discomfort and thoroughly enjoyed
the situation. After another twenty minutes’ run, with the rain still
falling, Her Majesty gave the word and the procession turned toward the
Hall of the Mongolian Princes. The great doors were thrown open, and we
were, at last, under shelter.
A yellow chair was placed for Her Majesty in front of the dais, and she
had some of the gourds she had gathered brought to her. She selected
one for herself, gave one to her principal Lady-in-waiting, Sih-Gerga,
and handed one to the Chief Eunuch Li--the Princess and the Chief
Eunuch both being proficient in the art of scraping them. A sharpened
piece of bamboo was brought to Her Majesty and she began to work on
the gourd she had taken, scraping off the outer skin. She told me to
stand near and watch her scrape it, as it was a very difficult thing
to do well! She certainly did it well, and it was most interesting to
watch her beautiful little hands, as they gracefully moved the piece
of bamboo back and forth, quickly removing the outer skin, in the most
approved way. Though apparently thoroughly interested in scraping her
gourd, she asked me how I had enjoyed my promenade of the day before,
and what I thought of the Sea Palace. She called my attention to the
inscriptions on the tablets behind the Throne, saying they were in
Manchu and Chinese characters, pointing out their difference of form
and also speaking of the differences in the two languages. She said she
thought Manchu would be easier for a foreigner to learn than Chinese,
as Manchu has an alphabet and is constructed more on the lines of a
European language. Presently Her Majesty turned to speak to some one
else, and I immediately withdrew, as is the custom at the Palace. We
went out and joined the Empress and Princesses, who had already retired
from the Throne-room and were having tea and cigarettes reclining on
the couches in one of the rooms in the rear. After an hour’s rest in
the Mongolian Hall, the rain having ceased, we continued our promenade
through the grounds much more pleasantly than we had begun it, and Her
Majesty took me for a walk in the Gardens of the Sea Palace, as she had
promised.
After dinner, we were rowed over the lake to the Gates. Just beyond
them a company of archers was practising with their bows and arrows;
for archery is still in vogue in China, and fine marksmanship among the
archers is rewarded by substantial advancement in the army. Archery is
also practised as a sport by the young Manchu nobles. It is said to
educate the eye and materially develop the chest and arms. The Chinese
pay great attention to position in archery. They stand stiffly erect,
the chest thrown well forward, the head held high, the bow and arrow
at rigidly prescribed angles; and if this position be not observed,
however true the flight of the arrow, it goes for naught. From the
shelter of my chair, I watched the company’s practice until I heard
the “Sunset call” resounding through the Palace grounds; echoed and
reëchoed until it reached the outer gates, which began to move upon
their huge hinges until they clanged together for the night.