ncing on a large globe. This
especially pleased Her Majesty and she insisted on the performance being
repeated several times. Another item of interest was the trapeze act. Of
course nobody present with the exception of my mother, sister and myself
had ever seen a circus performance before, and Her Majesty was very
much afraid that the man would fall from the trapeze and kill himself.
Another thing which interested Her Majesty was the bare-back riding,
which she thought simply wonderful. The only objection to the whole show
which she raised was when it was suggested to bring in the lions and
tigers, etc. She said it was not safe to bring wild beasts into the
Palace and that she would rather not see this part of the performance.
The proprietor of the circus, however, brought in a small baby elephant
which performed several clever tricks. This delighted Her Majesty more
than anything else and when the proprietor saw how pleased she was he
offered the elephant as a present, which she accepted. However, after
the performance was over we tried to make him go through his tricks
again but he would not budge an inch, so we had to give it up as a
bad job and send him away to be placed along with the other elephants
belonging to the Palace.

Altogether there were three performances given by the circus, and before
the final performance, the circus Manager told me that he would very
much like to show the lions and tigers: there was no chance of any
accident and it really would be worth seeing. So after a lot of
discussion Her Majesty finally consented to allow them to be brought
in but on the distinct understanding that they should not be let out of
their cages.

When they were brought in the ring all the eunuchs gathered around Her
Majesty, and after remaining in the ring for a few minutes Her Majesty
ordered them to be taken away again. She said: "I am not afraid for
myself, but they might get loose and hurt some of the people." This item
finished the whole of the performance and the circus departed richer by
some Taels 10,000 which Her Majesty had ordered to be given to them.

For the next couple of days we discussed the merits of the circus but
afterwards, Her Majesty, when referring to the subject, expressed great
disappointment with the whole thing. She said she had expected
something entirely different and far more wonderful. This was another
characteristic of Her Majesty; nothing pleased her for more than
five minutes at