disorder."...

Ki-Chan then inquired after Palmerston, and asked if he was
still intrusted with foreign affairs?... "And Ilu,[17] what has
become of him--do you know?" "He has been recalled; your fall
caused his." "I am sorry for it. He had an excellent heart, but
he knew not how to take a resolution. Has he been put to death,
or exiled?" "Neither; in Europe we do not make such short work
of these things as at Pekin." "True, true; your Mandarins are
much better off than we are. Your government is much better
than ours: our Emperor cannot know every thing, and yet he
judges every thing, and no one may find fault with his acts.
Our Emperor says to us, This is white.... We fall down and
answer, Yes, this is white. He then shows us the same object,
and says, This is black.... We fall down and answer, Yes, this
is black." "But, after all, suppose you were to say that the
same thing could not be black and white?" "The Emperor would,
perhaps, say to any one courageous enough to do it, Thou art
right; but at the same time he would have him strangled or
beheaded."... He then added, that for his own part he was
convinced that the Chinese could never cope with Europeans,
unless they altered their arms, and changed their old habits;
but that he would take good care never to say so, seeing that
the counsel, besides being useless, would probably cost him his
life.

At other times, the whole court would assist at some exhibition of
European wonders:

One day when we were speaking of observatories and astronomical
instruments, the Regent asked us if we would allow him to
examine the curious, strange-looking machine that we kept in a
box. He meant the microscope.... One of us ran home, and
returned with the wonderful instrument. While we were putting
it together, we attempted to give, as well as we could, some
notion of optics to our auditory; but as we perceived that the
theory excited but little interest, we proceeded at once to
experiments. We asked if any person in the company would favor
us with a louse. The thing was far easier to obtain than a
butterfly. A noble Lama, who was secretary to his Excellency
the first Kalon, had only to slip his hand beneath his silk
robe to produce a fully developed specimen. We seized it
immediately with our twe