and others of a like nature,
all covered with yellow titles, and known to tourists, who see them
from the Tartar City wall, as the palace buildings. These, however, are
not the buildings in which the royal family live. They are the places
where for the past five hundred years all those great diplomatic
measures--and dark deeds--of the Chinese emperors and their great
officials have been transacted between midnight and daylight.

If you will go with me at midnight to the great gate which leads from
the Tartar to the Chinese city--the Chien men--you will hear the
wailing creak of its hinges as it swings open, and in a few moments the
air will be filled with the rumbling of carts and the clatter of the
feet of the mules on the stone pavement, as they take the officials
into the audiences with their ruler. If you will remain with me there
till a little before daylight you will see them, like silent spectres,
sitting tailor-fashion on the bottom of their springless carts,
returning to their homes, but you will ask in vain for any information
as to the business they have transacted. "They love darkness rather
than light," not perhaps "because their deeds are evil," but because it
has been the custom of the country from time immemorial.

Immediately to the north of this row of imperial palace buildings, and
just outside the north gate, there is an artificial mound called Coal
Hill, made of the dirt which was removed to make the Lotus Lakes. It is
said that in this hill there is buried coal enough to last the city in
time of siege. This, however, was not the primary design of the hill.
It has a more mysterious meaning. There have always been spirits in the
earth, in the air, in every tree and well and stream. And in China it
has ever been found necessary to locate a house, a city or even a
cemetery in such surroundings as to protect them from the entrance of
evil spirits. "Coal Hill," therefore, was placed to the north of these
imperial palace buildings to protect them from the evil spirits of the
cold, bleak north.

Just inside of that north gate there is a beautiful garden, with
rockeries and arbours, flowering plants and limpid artificial streams
gurgling over equally artificial pebbles, though withal making a
beautiful sight and a cool shade in the hot summer days. In the east
side of this garden there is a small imperial shrine having four doors
at the four points of the compass. In front of each of these doors
there is