The Chinese having a great horror of the word “_death_,” they substitute in its place various periphrases, such as “absent,” “rambling among the genii,” “he being sick, occasioned a vacancy,” i. e., dead. The empress having died during the month of June, 1833, an imperial mandate was published, stating that “her _departure took place_ at four o’clock on the sixteenth of the month.” His majesty says he was married to Tung-kea twenty-six years previously; that she was the _principal person_ in the _middle harem_, that she was ever full of tenderness, filial piety, and was most obedient--but being attacked by an inveterate dysentery, she had taken the “long departure,” and that it caused him much pain at the loss of his “domestic helper”--his “interior assistant.” His majesty set forth her great virtues, ever since she had been consort to _heaven_, (i. e. the emperor,) during the thirteen years that she had held the relative situation of _earth_ to imperial heaven. An edict was published at her death, ordering, that no officer should have his head shaved during one hundred days, nor have any marriage in his family during twenty-seven days, nor play on any musical instrument during one year; and that the soldiers and people should not shave their heads for one month, nor engage in marriages during seven days, nor play on any musical instrument during one hundred days. Other marks of mourning, are the use of blue ink in the public offices in the place of red, and the removal of the red fringe which usually ornaments the Chinese caps. [Sidenote: IMPERIAL MOURNING.]