The drama, with this little maiden as heroine, was played by Her Majesty’s actors on the day of the Moon Festival, and the finale of the plays that day was one of the most beautiful spectacular tableaux I have ever seen. The Chinese obtain most artistic effects in their illuminations, and by the most simple means. The stage represented a lake covered with luminous lotus, with the full moon floating above. Throned on a gigantic lotus flower in the center of the lake sat an immense, golden Buddha, impassible and serene, ingeniously illuminated lotus flowers and luminous birds, emblems of Immortality, hovered over the lake, and the whole tableau was supposed to represent Nirvana, when the soul is absorbed into Nature and forms a part of it. It was really fairy-like. The Ladies dined in Her Majesty’s loge, and this beautiful, illuminated tableau was scarcely finished before we were obliged to hurry away to join Their Majesties, who had already started for the gardens where the ceremony was to take place. The procession, with the Emperor and Empress Dowager and Ladies in full dress, as usual for a ceremony, was accompanied by hundreds of lantern-bearing eunuchs. It wound, in and out, through the verandahed corridors and the paths of the garden like some great glow-worm, until it came to the marble terrace beneath the Temple of the Ten Thousand Buddhas, on the great terrace over the lake. Here, in an open space bathed in the rays of the softly glowing moon, with the glory of the setting sun still in the west, in front of the great Stone Pai-lou stood a beautifully illuminated floral pai-lou and an altar decorated with the usual pyramids of fruits, floral offerings, and flagons of wine. The pai-lou to the Moon was entirely of chrysanthemums, with an inscription “To the Glory of the Chaste and Pure Celestial Orb” in white blooms, like gleaming stars, across the top.