ad their friends photograph them. I could not
allow myself to do so. I stood silent, with head uncovered as I gazed
with wonder and admiration at the bed, with its magnificently
embroidered curtains hanging from the ceiling to the floor, its
yellow-satin mattress ten feet in length and its great round, hard
pillow, with the delicate silk spreads turned back as though it were
prepared for Her Majesty's return. On the opposite side of the room
there was a brick kang bed, such as we find in the homes of all the
Chinese of the north, where her maids slept, or sat like silent ghosts
while the only woman that ever ruled over one-third of the human race
took her rest. The furnishings were rich but simple. No plants, no
intricate carvings to catch the dust, nothing but the two beds and a
small table, with a few simple and soothing wall decorations, and the
monotonous tick-tock of a great clock to lull her to sleep.

If Shakespeare could say with an English monarch in his mind, "Uneasy
lies the head that wears a crown," we might repeat it with added
emphasis of Tze Hsi. For forty years she had to rise at midnight,
winter as well as summer, and go into the dark, dreary, cold halls of
the palace, lighted much of the time with nothing but tallow dips, and
heated only with brass braziers filled with charcoal, and there sit
behind a screen where she could see no one, and no one could see her,
and listen to the reports of those who came to these dark audiences.
Then she must, in conjunction with them, compose edicts which were sent
out to the Peking Gazette, the oldest and poorest newspaper in the
world, to be carved on blocks, and printed, and then sent by courier to
every official in the empire. Ruling over a conquered race, she must
always be watching out for signs of discontent and rebellion; being
herself the daughter of a poor man, and beginning as only the concubine
of an emperor, and he but a weak character, she must be alert for
dissatisfaction on the part of the princes who might have some title to
the throne. She must watch the governors in the distant provinces and
the viceroys who are in charge of great armies, that they do not direct
them against instead of in defense of the throne.

When her husband died while a fugitive two hundred miles from her
palace, she must see to it that her three-year-old child was placed
upon the throne with her own hand at the helm, and when he died she
must also be ready with a successor, w