Just beyond the last of these guardhouses, our official “green chairs” were put down between two high walls, with forbidding gates in front of us. Here we took the red Palace chairs which were awaiting us. We were swiftly carried through still other gates and past a very labyrinth of walls. The courts were all paved in large flagstones of white marble, and surrounded by high walls with heavy doors. We finally reached a charming court, where, standing under the overhanging branches of a beautiful cedar, we found the young Empress and Princesses, in full Court dress, already awaiting the coming of Her Majesty. It was a pretty group that stood there, gowned in their splendid Court costumes, the sunlight glinting upon the jeweled crowns of their fur caps, and giving a touch of nature to the brilliant flowers in their hair. My plain, foreign, tailor-made gown was the only dark spot in this bright group of gorgeously attired ladies.
Presently the cymbals and flutes sounded the weird notes of the “Imperial Hymn.” The great wooden doors of the court were thrown open and the Imperial procession came in sight. Splendidly gowned eunuchs advanced in two lines, walking with rigid bodies and stately step. At a sign from the young Empress, a hush fell upon the chattering group of Princesses and each took her proper place. Then the Imperial chair-bearers crossed the threshold, with Her Majesty sitting erect in one of her “open chairs,” for as soon as she gets into the Palace grounds she leaves the closed palanquin, in which she is obliged to travel abroad and which she very much dislikes on account of its stuffiness. The Ladies, as if moved by one impulse, made the formal bow at her approach, and repeated the usual Imperial salutation “ Lao-Tzu-Tzung Chee-Siang ,” which I repeated with the others. Her Majesty had her chair stopped in the center of the Court and got out, and I went up to salute her. She shook hands, and said she hoped I would be happy in the Winter Palace, but that it was a dull, depressing sort of a place, with too many walls and gates, after the open brightness, of the Summer Palace. After a few minutes’ conversation she went into the Throne-room, followed by the Empress and Ladies.