CHAPTER XV—A VISIT TO THE TARTAR GENERAL
Hsiung Hsi Ling, Premier of China—Preparations for a call—A cart of State—An elderly mule—Waiting in the gate—The yam en—Mr Wu, the secretary—“Hallo, Missus!”—The power of a Chinese General—“Plenty robber, too much war”—Ceremonial farewell—A cultivated gentleman—Back to past ages for the night.
Up in Jehol they called the General commanding the three thousand odd troops the Tartar General, why I do not know, but it seems it is the title by which he is commonly known among the country people. He was Hsiung Hsi Ling, the man who is now Premier of China, and to him I brought letters of introduction so that I might be admitted to the Imperial Palace and Park and be treated as a person of consequence, otherwise I imagine a foreigner and a woman at that would have but small chance of respect in China. The Chinese letters lifted me to the rank of the literati, which must have been rather surprising to the Chinese, and these in English were such that I felt I must bear myself so as to live up to them.
The yamen was about five minutes' walk from the mission station, and in my ignorance I had thought I would stroll up some morning when I had recovered from the fatigues of the journey, but the missionaries, steeped in the lore of Chinese etiquette, declared such a proceeding was not suitable. A person of consequence, such as my letters proclaimed me, must bear herself more becomingly.
“Write and ask if ten o'clock on Tuesday morning will be a suitable time for you to call on the General, and send your letters by your servant. I dare say there will be somebody who can read them, though I am sure there will be nobody who can write an answer,” said the missionary. “The General's English-speaking secretary is away.”
Accordingly I sent off Tuan, who was more than sure that he was equal to the task, and he returned without a letter, as the missionary had prophesied, but saying: “She say all right.”
“And now you must have a cart,” said that missionary who was more worldly wise than I expected an enthusiast to be, “and don't get down till the yamen gates are opened. It would never do to wait with the servants in the gate.”
How Eastern it sounded! And then his wife came and superintended my toilet. The weather was warm, not to say hot, and I had thought a black and white muslin a most fitting and suitable array. But she was horrified at the effect. It was made in the mode of 1913, and did not suggest, as the long Manchu robes do, that I was built like a pyramid, broadest at the base.