ts place a silver vessel which the
head priest carried, and the others regarded with much solemnity.

From the gateway leading into the sacrificial hall the floor of the
court had been raised even with the door of the house and the gate, a
height of about five feet, and forty feet wide, and was covered with
the same kind of rope matting that was on the floors. On the canopied
verandas there were stacks of cakes, incense, fruit and money. These
were the most novel sights I have ever seen in China. They were ten or
twelve feet high. They were a very pretty sight, and it required some
scrutiny to discover that they were made of cakes and fruit. How they
were able to build them thus, tier upon tier, and prevent their falling
when they were touched is beyond my comprehension. What magic there is
in it I do not know.

As one entered the door of the sacrificial hall, towering above
everything else, was the great catafalque, draped in cloth of gold, and
in front of it were stacks of these sacrificial cakes. Near them there
was a table on which there were great white, square candles, five
inches or more in diameter, the four sides of which were stamped with
figures of fairies and immortals. On this table there were also various
savoury dishes, together with cakes and fruit, prepared to feed the
spirit of the dead. In front of this table again there was another
about a foot high on which were placed the sacrificial wine vessels,
and before which the guests knelt. As we entered I saw the gentlemen
kneeling to the left, while the ladies, separated from them by white
curtains, were kneeling to the right.

After we had seen the various customs without, I was taken into the
dining-room, where I sat down with the young Princess and her two
aunts, daughters of the Dowager. They were very kind and polite, and
did all in their power to make me feel at home. We were attended by
white-robed eunuchs, who knelt when they spoke to the Princess. There
was such a lot of them.

"How many servants do you use ordinarily?" I asked the eldest daughter.

"About four hundred," she replied.

I thought of the task of robing four hundred servants in new white
sackcloth, and attending to all the other things that I had seen, in
the forty-eight hours since the death of the Dowager Princess. Even the
bread, instead of being dotted with red as it is ordinarily, was dotted
with black!

As we were finishing our supper we heard the horns of the priests a