re made from roots,
and I can always find out whether I am receiving the right medicine,
as I have a book which explains what each different medicine is for.
Another thing I have heard is that foreign doctors generally operate
on you with a knife, while we cure the same sickness by means of our
medicine. Li Lien Ying told me that one of our little eunuchs had a boil
on his wrist and someone advised him to go to the hospital. Of course
they didn't know what they would do, and the foreign doctor there opened
the boil with a knife, which frightened the child very much. I was very
much surprised when I heard he was all right again in a couple of days."
Continuing, Her Majesty said: "A year ago one of the foreign ladies came
to the Palace, and hearing me cough a lot, gave me some black pills and
told me to swallow them. I did not like to offend her, so I took the
pills and told her I would take them by and bye. However, I was afraid
to take them and threw them away." Of course I answered that I didn't
know much about medicines, to which she replied that she had seen me
take foreign medicines whenever I was not feeling well. She then said:
"Of course I know there are people in Peking who do take the medicines
given them by foreign doctors and even some of my own relatives
patronize these foreigners also. They try not to let me know, but I do
know for all that. In any case, if they choose to kill themselves by
taking these things, it is none of my business; that is the reason why,
when they are sick, I never send my own doctors to attend them."

When Her Majesty had completely recovered from her illness she used to
go out on the lake a great deal, sometimes in an open boat and at other
times in a steam launch. She always appeared to enjoy this kind of
thing. For some reason or other she always insisted on taking the west
side of the lake, which was very shallow, and invariably the launch
would get stuck fast in the mud, which seemed to afford Her Majesty
great enjoyment; she simply loved to feel the launch strike the bottom.
The open boats would then come alongside and we would have to get out
of the launch and enter the boats and proceed to the top of the nearest
hill to watch the efforts of the eunuchs trying to refloat the launch.
It was a characteristic of Her Majesty to experience a keen sense of
enjoyment at the troubles of other people. The eunuchs knew this quite
well, and whenever opportunity offered, they would do som