The Son of Heaven sleeps in a big bed made at Ningpo, richly decorated with gold and ivory, the very same as that used by his illustrious ancestor Kang-Hy. He is treated by the eight eunuchs in attendance on his person with as much reverence as was the great founder of the now weakened dynasty, and as are the Lamas in the convents on the lofty plateaux of Thibet and Mongolia, where the modified form of Buddhism known as Lamaism is practised. [Illustration: FIG. 56.--A CHINESE SEDAN-CHAIR AND BEARERS.] The person of the Emperor is held so sacred that neither iron nor steel is ever allowed to touch him, which of course makes it impossible for him to receive surgical aid should he be suffering from any of the diseases requiring the use of the knife. Fortunately he was vaccinated when an infant in the cradle, before those in charge of him had any suspicion of the great destiny in store for him. The story goes that a doctor who proposed to save the life of a Chinese Emperor by bleeding him, nearly lost his own head as a punishment. The same superstition prevails in Corea, where one of the kings died in the eighteenth century, when he might have been saved if he, or rather those about him, could have been induced to allow a lancet to be used on his sacred person. The young Emperor was declared of age in 1889, and he was at once informed that the foreign ministers would be glad to be allowed to pay their respects to him on this auspicious occasion. To their great surprise consent to their reception was given not very long afterwards, that consent being published in the _Pekin Gazette_ in the following year in terms most flattering to all concerned. After the usual preamble the Emperor was made to say: [Sidenote: AN IMPORTANT INTERVIEW]