A VISIT TO THE CHINESE EMPEROR.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXI, Issue V, 30 July 1898, Page 131

A VISIT TO THE CHINESE EMPEROR.

A Berlin journal publishes (says the ‘Globe’) the following account, from the pen of a well-known German traveller, of an audience granted by the Emperor of China to the foreign Ambassadors at Peking. The writer was the only noil-diplomatic person present:—

Headed by the highest dignitaries of the Celestial Empire, our procession moved on between rows of Privy Councillors of the first class, bodyguards armed with bows and arrows, civic authorities holding valuable old swords under their arms, and unarmed soldiers of the Palace. We passed by the black tents with the little peeping windows, in which the Ambassadors foregathered in former years before they were received by the Emperor. Silently and pompously we passed over the dark carpet woven out of black camels’ hair, and ascended some steps leading to the widely-opened folding doors of a building, from the front wall of which the outside had peeled off, leaving the casing and timbers exposed to view, mouldy and wormeaten. Thus we reached the audiencechamber, and were within three paces of the ‘Son of Heaven,’ Kouang Sau, the ‘Ruler of the Middle Kingdom.’ He was seated upon a raised platform, approached by five steps and three gangways, while from the right and left two narrow paths also gave access to the dais. The latter and the balustrade were covered with red cloth, and trimmed with yellow. On either side of the Emperor stood one of the Manchurian Princes, upright, motionless, and with a stony stare, as though he were keeping watch over a bier. In this hall, the ‘Hall of the Flowers of Literature,’ the ‘Son of Heaven’ sat before a table on the platform, so that only the upper portion of his body was visible.

His Majesty looks older than he really is. With sunken head and yellow face, he looked shyly at the assembled diplomats, and his heavy eyes were lit up for the occasion by opium or morphia. A sorrowful, weary, and rather childish smile played about his mouth. When his lips are parted, his long, irregular yellow teeth appear, and there are great hollows in either cheek. His face is not entirely wanting in sympathy, but rather betokens indifference, and from its features nothing of interest can be read; in fact, the Emperor impressed me as being self-restrained, cold, apathetic, wanting in capacity, worn out, and as though half-dead. I felt that whatever passed before his eyes had not the slightest interest for him, and that it mattered not in the least to him whether he understood the meaning of the ceremony. After a deathly silence of some minutes, the Doyen of the Diplomatic Corps, Colonel Denby, Minister of the United States, read an address in English. Prince Kung had previously been made acquainted with the text of this address; he mounted with difficulty the smaller staircase on the right, bowed very low, knelt before the Emperor on the left, touched the floor with his forehead, and translated the address into the Manchurian tongue. The ‘Son of Heaven’ lisped in Manchurian a few words that could scarcely be heard; Prince Kung then interpreted these Imperial remarks to the audience in Chinese, and finally the Dragoman of the Russian Embassy gave them out in very faulty French. Prince Kung then shuffled backwards down the steps of the throne. We drew back three paces, and, keeping our faces towards the Emperor, passed backwards in his presence through the front door, and thus quitted the ‘Hall of Flowers of Literature.’ It may here be remarked that hitherto Ambassadors had been obliged to leave this hall by a side door.

The Emperor remained seated upon his throne. To have turned one’s back upon him would have meant punishment by death.