Province at Tientsin, sent an official to my father to prepare the
time and place for this function, which is an extremely pretty
one. When arrangements had been made, both my father and Yuan Shih
Kai dressed in their full ceremonial robes, which is the dragon
long robe, with a reddish black three-quarter length coat over it,
chao chu (amber beads), hat with peacock feather and red coral
button, and repaired at once to the Wan Shou Kung (10,000 years
palace), which is especially built for functions of this kind,
where they were met by a large number of officials of the lower
grades. At the back centre of this Temple, or Palace, stands a
very long narrow table on which are placed the tablets of the
Emperor and Empress Dowager, on which is written, "Wan sway, wan
sway, wan wan sway" (10,000 years times 10,000 years times 10,000
10,000 years). The Viceroy, or in this case Yuan Shih Kai, and the
other officials arrived first. Yuan stood at the left side of this
table and the others arranged themselves in two diminishing lines
starting from the front corners of the table. Soon afterward my
father came and knelt directly in front of the centre of the table
and said, "Ah ha Ching Sheng An" (Your servant gives you
greeting). After this ceremony was over my father immediately
arose and inquired after Their Majesties' health, and Yuan replied
that they were quite well. This closed the function.

We stayed in Tientsin for three days, arriving in Peking on the
twenty-ninth. My father's condition was much worse and he begged
for four months' leave of absence, in which to recuperate, which
was granted by Her Majesty, the Empress Dowager. As our beautiful
mansion, which we had built and furnished just before leaving for
Paris, was burned during the Boxer Rising of 1900, entailing a
loss of over taels 100,000, we rented and moved into a Chinese