nding to the court ladies of
previous times. As a function this was interesting, for every woman
brought her servant and most of her children. Some appeared to have two
servants, one big-footed maid for herself and one bound-footed as a
nurse for the children. Her own servant hands her the cup of tea. All
the children are fed at the same time as the grown-ups, and after their
superiors the servants get something in the kitchen. I don't know yet
what that something is, but probably an inferior tea. The tea we drank
is that famous jasmine tea from Hangchow. It costs something like
fifteen dollars a pound here. It is very good, with a peculiar spicy
flavor, almost musky and smoky, from the jasmine combined with the tea
flavor, which is strong. It is a delicious brown tea, but I do not like
to drink it so well as I like the best green tea.

Well, I wish you could see the Taitai. The wife of the governor is about
twenty-five, or may be a little more. She is a substantial young person,
with full-grown feet, a pale blue dress of skirt and coat scalloped on
the edges and bound with black satin, her nice hair parted to one side
on the right and pinned above her left ear with a white artificial rose.
Her maid had black coat and trousers. She had some bracelets on, but her
jewels were less beautiful than those of the other women. One very
pretty woman had buttons on her coat of emeralds surrounded with pearls,
and on her arm a lovely bracelet of pearls. After tea, the great ladies
went into an inner room, with the exception of two. One of these two had
a very sad face. I watched her and finally had a chance to ask her how
many children she had. She said she had none, but she would like to have
a daughter. I was told after that her husband was a Christian pastor and
she was trying to be Christian. The other one who stayed was the pretty
one with the emerald buttons. I finally decided the ladies had left us
to play their cards and asked if I might go and see them. They were not
playing cards, but had just gone off to gossip among themselves,
probably about the foreigners. One of the ladies said she would take me
some day to see their card games. It is said they play in the morning
and in the afternoon and all the night till the next morning when they
go to bed. It is commonly said this is all they do, and the losses are
very disastrous sometimes.

But they were not playing then and came back, some of them with their
children, and s