Palace Customs
The Empress Dowager is an early riser, but the joint Audiences which Their Majesties now hold are never at the extraordinary hours in vogue when His Majesty ruled alone. When there is a press of business, and many heads of departments to be seen, the Audiences begin very early, but they rarely extend past eleven o’clock—the usual hours being from half-past seven to eleven.
When the Empress Dowager sleeps, a maid watches in her room, two eunuchs stand on guard in the antechamber to the room, four watch at the door of the antechamber, and her bodyguard of eunuchs fill the building where her private apartments are situated. The maid and eunuchs who watch in the night are changed every second day. Only the High Eunuchs are entrusted with the duty of guarding her bedchamber and Throne-room. At the Summer Palace, Her Majesty’s bedroom is not more than fifteen feet square; the bed, like all in North China, is built into an alcove in the room. Shelves run around the three enclosed sides of the alcove, and on these are placed Her Majesty’s favorite ornaments—small jade curios, books, and, of course, clocks. In this bedroom I counted fifteen timepieces on the bed shelves, and all running. Their ticking and striking, not at all simultaneous, was enough to run a nervous European woman wild; but Her Majesty takes so much outdoor exercise, she seemed to have no nerves. There were no flowers in her bedroom, but the antechamber, leading into it, was always full of flowers, pyramids of apples, and “Buddha’s hands.” The bed-alcove is separated from the room by satin curtains, suspended from a handsomely embroidered valance, with two long embroidered bands to loop them back.