The Prince of Kung is the brother of the late Emperor, and in 1860 was entrusted by him with the negotiations with Lord Elgin and Baron Gros. During the minority of the present Emperor, who is about twelve years old, the two Empresses-dowager[7] are nominally regents; but the Prince has the care of the Emperor’s education, and is virtually the regent of the empire. He was very nearly meeting with the fate of Humpty-Dumpty a little while back, for he was accused of selling places, abuse of patronage, and insolence in the Presence. His accuser was supposed to have been instigated by one of the Empresses who is hostile to him, and to have been made cat’s-paw of by a court intrigue. However that may be, the Empresses issued an edict in the style of the chorus in the Agamemnon which shows how prosperity leads to insolence, and insolence to retribution, and the Prince was deprived of all his offices and glories. For a few days he remained in disgrace, but his brothers came to the rescue, a Grand Council was held, and the Prince was reinstated in the office of Foreign Affairs in consideration of his great services. This, however, did not look well for the Prince, as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs carries with it such unpopularity that its possession alone might be esteemed a doubtful pleasure; and it was not until his former honours were one by one restored to him that he could be said to be reinstated in court favour. The charges against him were declared unfounded, and it was agreed that the question of insolence was a family matter, and should not interfere with public affairs. Meanwhile his accuser goes about at large, but about as free as a mouse that a cat lets slip out of her claws for a second or two. I would not be in his skin for something.
A little before the hour fixed for the Prince’s visit, Hêng-Chi and Tung, two of the Board of Foreign Affairs, arrived to meet him. Hêng-Chi is the man whose name became known in Europe during the war in 1860, and during Parke’s and Loch’s captivity. He is a little thin old man very like Mr. Meadows, the actor at the Princesses’ Theatre, and a great dandy. He wore a pearl gray silk dress turned up with blue. His fan-case, chopstick-case, and other knick-knacks which he wears at his girdle, are richly embroidered, and mounted with seed pearls and a peculiar clouded pink coral which the Chinese call baby-face coral. His snuff-bottle is of the finest Fei Tsui, or emerald green jade, which is worth its weight in diamonds here, but of all his possessions none is in his eyes more charming than a large silver Geneva turnip watch which he displays with much pride. In his boot, which is of black satin, he carries his pipe with its tiny silver bowl, and a gorgeous Fei Tsui mouthpiece, together with sweetmeats, pills, and other trifles. His white cap with the red tassel of office hanging all round it, has a pink coral button (Hêng-Chi is a mandarin of the first button), and the peacock’s feather which falls from it is mounted in more Fei Tsui. To crown all, he wears a pair of spectacles as big as saucers, with broad silver rims. Never was a little old man so pleased with himself; his little airs and graces and petit-maître ways are very funny. Tung is a jolly, fat, old mandarin and a great contrast to Hêng-Chi. He is a great man of letters, and has translated Longfellow’s “Psalm of Life” into Chinese verse. That is, Wade gave him a literal version of the English, and he made a poem of it, which is said to have great merit.
In due course of time the Prince arrived in his chair attended by a number of running footmen, and an escort mounted on ponies. Wade and I received him, and I was presented to him as Mi-ta-jên, the official name by which my arrival was announced to the Chinese Foreign Office—we are all obliged to have monosyllabic names for our intercourse with the Chinese. Sir F. Bruce was Pu-ta-jên (the Chinese cannot pronounce an R, so they rendered his name as Pu-lu-su), Wade is Wei-ta-jên. Ta-jên, literally “great man,” is a title denoting official rank, and is that which is borne by the mandarins.
The Prince is a young man about 28 years of age, judging by appearances. He is pockmarked, as indeed is almost every Chinaman I have seen. He is very shortsighted, and has the same trick of screwing up his eyes that I have, and I could not help thinking what a caricature we should have made as we sat opposite each other making faces. As soon as the Prince had taken his seat he drew his pipe out of his boot, and one of his own attendants brought him fire, serving him kneeling on one knee. Tea was brought as a matter of course, and then the conversation began. The great man had a short, flippant manner, and this it was that so nearly brought him to grief. He was immensely amused by an English bell-pull, and a mother-of-pearl paper-knife which lay on the table. My single eyeglass was a real boon to the Prince. Whenever he was getting the worst of an argument, and was at a loss for an answer, he would stop short, throw up his hands in amazement, and pointing at me cry out, “A single eyeglass! marvellous!” By thus creating a diversion at my expense he gave himself time to consider his reply. He seemed very friendly with Wade, and full of jokes and fun—of course I could not understand a word of what was said, but I took refuge behind a big cigar, and looked on vastly amused by our guest’s ways. I thought I detected a cruel, cunning look behind all his affectation of good-humour.
When the Prince had gone, Hêng-Chi, who, besides being part-Minister for Foreign Affairs, is also a general officer, and many other things, for pluralism is the order of the day, invited us to a review and breakfast afterwards on the 3rd of June, at six in the morning.
It may be a calumny, but I strongly suspect Hêng-Chi of dyeing his tail.
Note.—The senior Empress-dowager, who had been the first wife of the Emperor Hsien Fêng, appears to have been more or less a cypher. The real power was wielded by the Empress-mother Tsu Hsi. This remarkable lady was according to some accounts a slave girl, according to others the daughter of a member of the imperial family. Nor are the two statements incompatible in a country where adoption of children holds good. The Emperor wishing to raise a girl in his harem to the highest position would only need to command one of his relations to adopt her, and she would at once be an imperial princess as much as if she had been born in the purple, or rather in the yellow.
The senior Empress-dowager, or Eastern Empress as she was called, died on 18th April 1881, and the power was then absolutely and solely in the hands of the Empress-mother. The latter’s son, the Emperor Tung Chi, had died without issue in 1875, and his cousin, a child of four, was raised to the Lung Wei or Dragon’s throne in his stead. The regency remained as before with the two Dowager-empresses.
Dr. Wells Williams, in his Middle Kingdom, a perfect encyclopædia on all Chinese matters, says, “The Empress-dowager is the most important subject within the palace, and His Majesty does homage at frequent intervals, by making the highest ceremony of nine prostrations before her. When the widow of Kia King reached the age of sixty in 1836 many honours were conferred by the Emperor. An extract from the ordinance issued on this festival will exhibit the regard paid her by the Sovereign:—
“Our extensive dominions have enjoyed the utmost prosperity under the shelter of a glorious and enduring state of felicity—our exalted race has become most illustrious under the protection of that honoured relative to whom the whole court looks up. To her happiness, already unalloyed, the highest degree of felicity has been super-added, causing joy and gladness to every inmate of the Six Palaces. The grand ceremonies of the occasion shall exceed in splendour the utmost requirements of the ancients in regard to the human relations, calling forth the gratulation of the whole Empire. It is indispensable that the observances of the occasion should be of an exceedingly unusual nature, in order that our reverence for our august parent and care of her may both be equally and gloriously displayed.... In the first month of the present winter occurs the sixtieth anniversary of Her Majesty’s sacred natal day. At the opening of the happy period the sun and the moon shed their united genial influences on it. When commencing anew the revolution of the sexagenary cycle the honour thereof adds increase to her felicity. Looking upward and beholding her glory, we repeat our gratulations, and announce the event to heaven, to earth, to our ancestors, and to the patron-gods of the empire. On the nineteenth day of the tenth moon, in the fifteenth year of Tao Kwang, we will conduct the princes, the nobles, and all the high officers, both civil and military, into the presence of the great Empress, benign and dignified, universally placid, thoroughly virtuous, tranquil, and self-collected, in favours unbounded; and we will then present our congratulations on the glad occasion, the anniversary of her natal day. The occasion yields a happiness equal to what is enjoyed by goddesses in heaven, and while announcing it to the gods and to our people, we will tender to her blessings unbounded.”—Middle Kingdom, vol. i. p. 410.