Her Majesty was to receive the prostrations of the Emperor and Empress,[6] Princesses, and members of the Imperial Family, on a Throne in the Palace, that was built half-way up the terraced hill crowned by the Temple of Ten Thousand Buddhas. She did not receive these prostrations in the Great Audience Hall: this was set aside, by tradition, for the Emperor, alone. Had she been reigning for him, she would have received them there, but as she was reigning with him, she received them in the other Palace. The elevation of this Palace permitted all who were allowed to enter the Precincts to offer their congratulations, to get a glimpse of Her Majesty. As the weather was getting cold, the marble steps leading up to this Palace, the courts, and even a large part of the terrace over the lake, were covered with carpets of gala red. [6] It has been said by foreigners, that Her Majesty the Empress Dowager obliges the Emperor and Empress to make the prostrations before her on her Birthday as an indignity to them and to show her authority. The truth is, that every son in China kneels before his parents on their birthdays, and should the Emperor fail to do so, the whole of China would be horrified and cry out against his unfilial conduct. Her Majesty is not only the wife of his uncle, the Emperor Hsien-Feng, but the sister of his mother, and, more than all else, the Empress Dowager is the Emperor’s adopted mother. The duties of an adopted child to his adopted parents are the same, in China, as to his own parents. In the Viceroy Chang-Chih-Tung’s famous ode to the Emperor, he speaks of this filial piety as one of the Emperor’s greatest qualities: “Who does not admire the filial reverence and piety with which he waits upon his august mother? Setting a brilliant example to all, he inquires early and late after her well-being and watches over her meals in person. Let us now add a new ode, extolling to the skies our Emperor’s fidelity to his Imperial mother.” The congratulations and prostrations were to begin at 2 A.M., the hour of her birth. There were three pairs of huge silver candelabra standing at either side of the Throne to hold the enormous wax candles of Imperial yellow, entwined with golden dragons, which weighed fifty pounds each. They stood five feet high. Lanterns with the ever-present character “Sho” and others inscribed “Wan-Sho-Wu-Chiang” (no limit to Imperial longevity) stood on each step of the long flight leading up to the Palace. The whole terrace below, all the temples and buildings in the grounds, were brilliantly illuminated with splendid lanterns, elaborately ornamented with tassels of red silk, with the characters for longevity emblazoned thereon in vermilion.