the king of the Alechan told us that a sight of the
Emperor is not easily obtained. One year, when his master was ill, he
was obliged to take his place at Peking, in the ceremony of the temple of
the ancestors, and he then hoped to see the Old Buddha, on his way down
the peristyle, but he was altogether mistaken in his expectation. As
minister, the mere representative of his monarch, he was placed in the
third file, so that, when the Emperor passed, he saw absolutely nothing
at all. "Those who are in the first line," he said, "if they are
cautiously dexterous, may manage to get a glimpse of the yellow robe of
the son of heaven; but they must take heed not to lift up their heads,
for such an audacity would be considered a great crime, and be punished
very severely."

All the Tartar princes are pensioned by the Emperor; the sum allotted to
them is a small matter, but it effects a considerable political result.
The Tartar princes, in receiving their pay, consider themselves the
slaves, or at least, as the servants of him who pays them; and concede,
in consequence, to the Emperor the right of requiring their submission
and obedience. It is about the first day of the year that the tributary
sovereigns receive, at Peking, the allotted pension, which is distributed
by some of the great Mandarins, who are said, by slanderous tongues, to
speculate in this lucrative employment, and never fail to make enormous
profits at the expense of the poor Tartars.

The minister of the king of the Alechan related, for our edification,
that in a particular year, all the tributary princes received their
pension in ingots of gilt copper. All found it out at once, but were
fain to keep silence, afraid to make public an affair that might result
in a catastrophe, compromising, not only the highest dignitaries of the
empire, but the Tartar kings themselves. As, in fact, the latter were
supposed to receive their money from the hands of the Emperor himself, a
complaint would, in some sort, have been to charge the Old Buddha, the
son of heaven, with being a coiner. They received accordingly their
copper ingots with a prostration, and it was not until they returned into
their own countries, that they declared, not indeed that they had been
cheated, but that the Mandarins, charged with distributing the money, had
been the dupes of the Peking bankers. The Tartar Mandarin who related
the adventure, gave us completely to understand that neither the