strange world. A sense of loneliness crept over me, and I feared the strangeness of my position might affect my work, and that, after all, I should not accomplish what I had remained in the Palace to do. I stood for a few minutes pondering my position, but was soon joined by the Ladies Yu-Keng with a message from the Empress Dowager that I need not return to the Theater, as she had gone to rest. She sent word that she thought it would be well for me to go to my apartments and try to sleep a little. She hoped I would be happy in the Palace and find the pavilion she had set aside for me comfortable. She added that I must not hesitate to order anything I wished and must make myself perfectly at home.
The Summer Palace, like all Chinese palaces and temples, and even the dwelling-houses of the rich, consists of a series of verandahed buildings, built on stone foundations which rise about eight feet from the ground, generally of one story, around the four sides of rectangular or square courts, connected by open verandah-like corridors. The apartments set aside for my private use, while in the Precincts, were to the left of the Empress Dowager’s Throne-room and quite near it—in order that I might go and come to my painting with ease. These apartments occupied an entire pavilion. It was charming. Its shining marble floors and beautifully carved partitions, its painted walls and charming outlook over flowery courts, made it a delightful spot. These pavilions at the Palace have movable partitions and the rooms may be made as small as closets or as large as the whole building.
My pavilion consisted of two sitting-rooms, a dining-room, and a charming bedroom, separated from each other by screen-like walls of beautifully carved open woodwork, with blue silk showing through the interstices. In the larger spaces were artistic panels of flowers painted on white silk, alternating with poems and quotations from the classics, in the picturesque, ideographic writing of the Chinese. On one of the solid walls was a large watercolor painting on white silk, representing a realistically painted peafowl in a flowery field; an immense mirror formed