of our king; the king alone enjoys the
happiness of prostrating himself in the presence of the Old Buddha (the
Emperor)." He entered then into long details about the ceremony of the
first day of the year, and the relations between the Chinese Emperor and
the tributary kings.

The foreign sovereigns, under the dominating influence of the China
empire, repair to Peking; first, as an act of obeisance and submission:
secondly, to pay certain rents to the Emperor, whose vassals they
consider themselves. These rents, which are decorated with the fine name
of offerings, are, in fact, imposts which no Tartar king would venture to
refuse the payment of. They consist in camels, in horses remarkable for
their beauty, and which the Emperor sends to augment his immense herds in
the Tchakar. Every Tartar prince is, besides, obliged to bring some of
the rarer productions of his country; deer, bear and goat venison;
aromatic plants, pheasants, mushrooms, fish, etc. As they visit Peking
in the depth of winter, all these eatables are frozen; so that they bear,
without danger of being spoiled, the trial of a long journey, and even
remain good long after they have arrived at their destination.

One of the Banners of the Tchakar is especially charged with sending to
Peking, every year, an immense provision of pheasant's eggs. We asked
the minister of the King of the Alechan, whether these pheasant's eggs
were of a peculiar flavour, that they were so highly appreciated by the
Court. "They are not destined to be eaten," he answered; "the Old Buddha
uses them for another purpose." "As they are not eaten, what are they
used for?" The Tartar seemed embarrassed, and blushed somewhat as he
replied that these eggs were used to make a sort of varnish, which the
women of the imperial harem used for the purpose of smoothing their hair,
and which communicates to it, they say, a peculiar lustre and brilliancy.
Europeans, perhaps, may consider this pomatum of pheasant's eggs, so
highly esteemed at the Chinese court, very nasty and disgusting; but
beauty and ugliness, the nice and the nasty, are, as everybody knows,
altogether relative and conventional matters, upon which the various
nations that inhabit this earth have ideas remotest from the uniform.

These annual visits to the Emperor of China are very expensive and
extremely troublesome to the Tartars of the plebeian class, who are
overwhelmed with enforced labour, at the pleasure of their m