About an hour after prayers the great drums at the palace entrance would sound for the morning meal. When the family were assembled, the following form of grace was given by the master of the house, or, in the absence of the Chung-wang, by his brother:—
"Heavenly Father, the Great God, bless us thy little ones. Give us day by day food to eat and clothes to wear. Deliver us from evil and calamity, and receive our souls into heaven."
After breakfast the household would disperse upon their various daily occupations,—the ladies to their private apartments, there to employ themselves with embroidering the exquisitely ornamented shoes and silken garments in vogue among the Ti-pings, to perform more domestic duties, or amuse themselves with music and singing.
The Chung-wang's cousin, Yu-wang (the Admired Prince), being Vice-President of the Board of War, and member of the Tien-wang's Privy Council, seemed generally overwhelmed with business. First he would gallop off with a numerous escort to the offices of the "Board of War." Having returned from thence, after the mid-day meal he would don his state robes and attend the royal court. This chief possessed a high reputation for wisdom in council, sanctity in living, and bravery in the field.
Besides his civil appointments, he was a general of the "Loyal troops of the palace of the Tien-wang" (the veteran élite of the Ti-ping forces). He was married to but one wife, though many of his associates were polygamists, and, although a young man, was of a remarkably grave and religious character, so much so, that even his little running pages seemed affected by it and forgot their wild mischievous propensities.
Each day the major-domo mustered his people to prayers, to feed, and to work. The captain of a detachment of the Chung-wang's body-guard regularly drilled them in the large courtyard of the palace. The Commander-in-Chief's adjutant-general, Lee-wang, daily conducted the business connected with his office, employing an immense number of scribes, officials, and soldiers, who waited and carried away huge sheets of yellow proclamations almost larger than themselves. In another part of the Chung-wang's palace his private secretaries seemed for ever writing, or rather painting, interminable Chinese characters on large-sized paper and small-sized paper, which they continually added to the vast heaps of manuscript piled up around them, while I have often wondered what it could all be about.
These various duties were executed with a wonderful exactitude and regularity, almost mechanical; indeed, throughout Nankin and every part of Ti-pingdom I have always found a similar state of methodical organization.
I frequently visited the Minister of the Interior, the Chang-wang (Accomplished Prince), and other chiefs, with my two companions, and we were always received with such kindness and hospitality that every house in Nankin became our home. We usually employed a part of each day instructing the Ti-ping soldiers in gunnery or drilling them upon a plan combining the line and column formation of European tactics with their own more undisciplined manœuvres. The Chinese are well known for their imitative ingenuity; but we found these free Chinamen still more easily taught, their quick acquirement of English words and extraordinary aptitude for every kind of instruction being really marvellous.
When I look back upon the unchangeable and universal kindness I have always met with from the Ti-pings, even while their dearest relatives were being slaughtered by my countrymen, or captured by the Manchoos to be tortured to death and their wives and daughters when not killed infamously outraged and passed from hand to hand by the rabble Imperialist soldiery, it almost seems to be a dream, so difficult is it to comprehend their magnanimous forbearance, when, according to the lex talionis in vogue among civilized nations, they should have executed every Englishman they met with similar barbarities to those practised upon the unfortunate Ti-ping prisoners given up by British officers (during the years 1862-3-4) to the Manchoo authorities.
During all my intercourse with the Ti-pings I can recollect nothing more unpleasant than being made "bogie" to frighten unruly children; and even this was of rare occurrence, so great a feeling of respect for Englishmen did their parents entertain. Sometimes, while strolling through a city, I have been pointed out as a white man bogie to little yellow-skinned Ti-pings by their black-haired pretty mother, qualified, however, in most cases by a polite invitation to enter and partake of a cup of tea; and so the only offence that could be taken at becoming "bogie" would be from the unflattering opinion one's appearance caused in the juvenile imagination. How different are the scowling looks and the epithet "Yang-quitzo" applied to us with the aspiration of hate by our Manchoo allies!