very grand. Since we are here we may as well go in. Good gracious! it is
a tumble-down place. In olden days it used to be the king's palace, and
if you follow me you can see how big the grounds are. For some reason or
other this place, with all its accessories, buildings, &c., has been
abandoned by the Court simply because of rumours getting abroad that
ghosts haunted it. Evil spirits were reported to have been seen prowling
about the grounds, and in the royal apartments, and it would never have
done for a king to have been near such company; so the Court went to
great expense to build a fresh abode for the royal personage, and the old
palace was abandoned and left to decay. The grounds that were laid out as
pretty gardens were, many years later, used for a plantation of
mulberries, a foreign speculation which was to enrich the King and the
country, but which turned out instead a huge _fiasco_. The mulberry trees
are still there, as you may see. Let us, however, proceed a little way up
this hill and go and pay a visit to the two eunuchs who are the sole
inhabitants of this huge place, and who will take us round it. These
eunuchs occupy a little room about ten feet square and of the same height
in the inner enclosure. They are very polite, and joining their hands by
way of salute to you, invite you to go in--to drink tea and smoke a pipe.
Poor wretches! One of them, a fat fellow of an unwholesome kind, as if he
were made of putty, having learnt the European way of greeting people,
insisted on shaking hands with me, but, oh, how repulsive it was! His
cold, squashy sort of boneless hand, gave you the impression that you had
grasped a toad in your hand. And his face! Did you ever see a weaker,
more depraved and inhuman head than that which was screwed on his
shoulders? His cadaverous complexion was marked with the results of
small-pox, which were certainly no improvement to his looks; his eyes had
been set in his head anyhow, and each seemed to move of its own accord;
his mouth seemed simply to hang like a rag, showing his teeth and his
tongue.