d as they were well acquainted
with each other, though one was a Manchu prince and the other a Chinese
official, conversation was easy and natural.

We talked, of course, in Chinese only, of the improvements and
advantages that railroads bring to a country, for Governor Hu, among
other things, was the superintendent of the Imperial Railways of north
China. This led us to speak of the relative comforts of travel by land
and by sea, for Prince Chun had gone half round the world and back. We
listened to the American minister toasting the young Emperor of China,
his princes, and his subjects; and then to Prince Ching toasting the
young President of the United States, his officials, and his people, in
a most dignified and eloquent manner. And then as the buzz of
conversation went round the table again, and perhaps because of their
having spoken of the YOUNG Emperor and the young President, I turned to
Governor Hu, who had an unusually long, white beard which reached
almost to his waist as he sat at table, and said:

"Your Excellency, what is your honourable age?"

"I was seventy years old my last birthday," he replied.

"And he is still as strong as either of us young men," said I, turning
to Prince Chun.

"Oh, yes," said the Prince; "he is good for ten years yet, and by that
time he can use his beard as an apron."

"It is an ill wind that blows no one good," says the proverb, and this
was never more forcibly illustrated than in the case of the death of
the lamented Baron von Kettler. Had it not been for this unfortunate
occurrence, Prince Chun would not have been sent to Germany to convey
the apologies of the Chinese government to the German Emperor, and he
would thus never have had the opportunity of a trip to Europe; and the
world might once more have beheld a regent on the dragon throne who had
never seen anything a hundred miles from his own capital.

Prince Chun started on this journey with such a retinue as only the
Chinese government can furnish. He had educated foreign physicians and
interpreters, and, like the great Viceroy Li Hung-chang, he had a round
fan with the Eastern hemisphere painted on one side and the Western on
the other, and the route he was to travel distinctly outlined on both,
with all the places he was to pass through, or to stop at on the trip,
plainly marked. He was intelligent enough to observe everything of
importance in the ports through which he passed, and it was interesting
to hear