a large cypress-tree, some of them five hundred years old,
which were split up from the root some seven or eight feet, and planted
with the two halves three feet apart, making a living arch through
which the worshipper must pass as he enters the temple. To the north of
the garden and east of the back gate there is a most beautiful Buddhist
temple, in which only the members of the imperial family are allowed to
worship, in front of which there is also a living arch like those
described above, as may also be found before the imperial temples in
the Summer Palace. This is one of the most unique and mysterious
features of temple worship I have found anywhere in China, and no
amount of questioning ever brought me any explanation of its meaning.

Now if you will go with me to the top of Coal Hill I will point out to
you the buildings in which their Majesties have lived. There are six
parallel rows of buildings, facing the south, each behind the other, in
the northwest quarter of this Forbidden City, protected from the evil
spirits of the north by the dagoba on Prospect Hill.

Perhaps you would like to go with me into these homes of their
Majesties--or, as a woman's home is always more interesting than the
den of a man, let me take you through the private apartments of the
greatest woman of her race--the late Empress Dowager. She occupied
three of these rows of buildings. The first was her drawing-room and
library, the second her dining-room and sleeping apartments, and the
third her kitchen.

One was strangely impressed by what he saw here. There was no gorgeous
display of Oriental colouring, but there was beauty of a peculiarly
penetrating quality--and yet a homelike beauty.

No description that can be written of it will ever do it justice. Not
until one can see and appreciate the paintings of the old Chinese
masters of five hundred years ago hanging upon the walls, the beautiful
pieces of the best porcelain of the time of Kang Hsi and Chien Lung,
made especially for the palace, arranged in their natural surroundings,
on exquisitely carved Chinese tables and brackets, the gorgeously
embroided silk portieres over the doorways, and the matchless
tapestries which only the Chinese could weave for their greatest
rulers, can we appreciate the beauty, the richness, and the refined
elegance of the private apartments of the great Dowager.

I went into her sleeping apartments. Others also entered there, sat
upon her couch, and h