palace,
her parents, like many others, had every reason to consider it a piece
of ill-fortune which had visited their home. The future was veiled from
them. The Forbidden City, surrounded by its great crenelated wall, may
have seemed more like a prison than like a palace. True, they had other
children, and she was "only a girl, but even girls are a small
blessing," as they tell us in their proverbs. She had grown old enough
to be useful in the home, and they no doubt had cherished plans of
betrothing her to the son of some merchant or official who would add
wealth or honour to their family. Neither father nor mother, brother
nor sister, could have conceived of the potential power, honour and
even glory, that were wrapped up in that girl, and that were finally to
come to them as a family, as well as to many of them as individuals.
Their wildest dreams at that time could not have pictured themselves
dukes and princesses, with their daughters as empresses, duchesses, or
ladies-in-waiting in the palace. But such it proved to be.

II

The Empress Dowager--Her Years of Training

The kindness of the Empress is as boundless as the sea.
Her person too is holy, she is like a deity.
With boldness, from seclusion, she ascends the Dragon Throne,
And saves her suffering country from a fate we dare not own.
--"Yuan Fan," Translated by I. T. C.

II

THE EMPRESS DOWAGER--HER YEARS OF TRAINING

The year our little Miss Chao entered the palace was a memorable one in
the history of China. The Tai-ping rebellion, which had begun in the
south some three years earlier (1850), had established its capital at
Nanking, on the Yangtse River, and had sent its "long-haired" rebels
north on an expedition of conquest, the ultimate aim of which was
Peking. By the end of the year 1853 they had arrived within one hundred
miles of the capital, conquering everything before them, and leaving
devastation and destruction in their wake.

Their success had been extraordinary. Starting in the southwest with an
army of ten thousand men they had eighty thousand when they arrived
before the walls of Nanking. They were an undisciplined horde, without
commissariat, without drilled military leaders, but with such reckless
daring and bravery that the imperial troops were paralyzed with fear
and never dared to meet them in the open field. Thousands of common
thieves and robbers flocked to their standards with every new conquest,
impell