On the 5th March all the Foreign Ministers, with their Secretaries, Interretors and Attachés, left the different tions, all in green chairs, for the Tve Kuang Ko. Comment was provoked by this indiscriminate mode of progression, for nobody knew which was the Minister and which the subordinate, the green chair, 'a mark of the highest distinction, being fused even by young and quite inconside able persons not officially attached to the Legations. When the procession reached the North gate leading into the garden near the Marble Bridge, the Ministers and others left their chairs and proceeded on foot to a kind of small pavilion where a collation was served, and where the party waited an hour surrounded by mandarins and a crowd of roughs, chair coolies (not those of the legations, who had been left outside), workmen, gardeners, porters and coolies, who peered in at the windows even allowed themselves to make digital examination of the uniforms and decorations of the ministers. After the lapse of an hour the party were conducted into three tents erected at the foot of the steps of the Tze Kuang Ko, where, divided into three groups—Ministers, Attachés, and Interpreters,—they remained half an-hour. Then the Emperor arrived, and M. Von Brandt was the first to enter the presence, where he remained exactly five minutes, all ceremonies included. He was followed by the other Ministers in turn, the audience occupying barely five minutes for each. Then the suites of the Ministers entered, in three ranks. Three salvoes were given on entrance and three on retiring, back: wards.
The Audience itself was conducted as follows; Mr. von Brandt delivered a very short. speech in English, which M. Pop translated into Chinese; Prince Ch'ing repeated it kneeling, in Manchu, at the foot of the Throne. The Emperor said a fe pared words li ly which were ttaneated in the reverse onder, and' the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.