I was told it always delighted them so much to see blood and torture. They always invited others to drink some wine with them to celebrate an occasion such as this. This cruel deed was always done outside of the wall of the Audience Hall but that day the crow flew towards Her Majesty's own Palace while she was sleeping and the powder exploded while the bird was passing the courtyard. After the head eunuch had told Her Majesty what had happened, she was very angry and ordered that this young eunuch be brought in and receive punishment in her presence. I noticed one of the head eunuch's attendants push the culprit out from the crowd. The head eunuch immediately gave orders to lay this man on the ground and two eunuchs stood on each side of him and beat him on his legs with two heavy bamboo sticks one at a time. The victim never uttered a word while this was going on. The head eunuch counted until this man had received one hundred blows, then he gave orders to stop. Then he knelt in front of Her Majesty waiting for her orders and at the same time kowtowed on the ground until his head made a noise on the stone steps, asking to be punished for his carelessness and neglect of duty. Her Majesty said that it was not his fault and ordered him to take the offender away. During all this time the offender was still on the ground, and did not dare to move. Two eunuchs each took hold of a foot and dragged him out of the courtyard. We were all afraid even to breathe aloud for fear Her Majesty would say that we were pretending to be frightened at witnessing this punishment, at the same time when it was over we would go and gossip about how cruel she was. No one was surprised at what had happened, as we were accustomed to seeing it almost every day and were quite used to it. I used to pity them, but I changed my mind very soon after I had arrived. The first person I saw punished was a servant girl, she had made a mistake about Her Majesty's socks and had brought two which were not mates, Her Majesty finding that out, ordered another servant girl to slap her face ten times on each cheek. This girl did not slap hard enough, so Her Majesty said they were all good friends and would not obey her orders, so she told the one who had been slapped to slap the other. I thought that was too funny for anything and wanted to laugh the worst way, but of course did not dare. That night I asked those two girls how they felt slapping each other that way. The reason why I asked them was because they were laughing and joking as usual immediately they were out of Her Majesty's bedchamber. They told me that was nothing; that they were quite used to it and never bothered themselves about such small things. I in turn soon became used to it, and was as callous as they were.