One day, as our attendant was leading me to our teaching-hall, we were near meeting a lady of high rank with her long train of servants. Now, I did not require my attendant to crouch before me, and she would naturally infer that with her I would prostrate myself in the presence of this lady of rank. So, touching my arm, she warned me of the approach of the royal personage, expecting me to meet her as an inferior and prostrate myself before her. “Oh,” I said, “I am an American; our customs are different from yours.” I had met this lady before, and she knew me and met me with a pleasant salutation, while my attendant and all the train of maidens were down to the earth in a moment. Now, the natural thought among these prostrate ones would be, “Here is a person who stands on a footing with our great ones, yet she does not require us to prostrate ourselves before her.” Little by little are such miserable customs worn away by persistent Christian effort. Our visits to the houses of the different ladies of the palace became more and more extended. These houses were not the clean, sweet, pleasant homes of an intelligent Christianity. Only a few of them had much that was attractive about them. In many of them flowers were cultivated, and they wrought in fancy-work. For their gala-days their servants would bring in large quantities of flowers, which they would turn into fanciful forms to grace the festive occasions. One day I was seated with a princess upon an elevated platform in her court. She and her maidens were at work with artificial flowers, and a cup of paste and vessels with the parts of the flowers and leaves were scattered here and there among them. All at once a pet monkey which had become loose marched to the stage and suddenly appeared among us. Undaunted, he walked about, put his nose into the cup of paste and tipped it over, passed his paws over the delicate parts prepared for the complete flowers and made himself master of the situation. I sat in mute consternation, while the princess and her maidens seemed as quiet as if no monkey were there. By and by he marched around to a place where a servant could secure him, and she made him fast. I asked why they allowed him to march around their work and commit such depredations. “Ah,” said one of them, “if we had attempted to take him then, he would have bitten us and would have made greater havoc among our flowers; better to wait till he works himself into a place where he can be secured without danger.”