As Her Majesty gave me my morning sittings after the Audience was finished (which lasted from eight A.M. to ten or eleven), I had plenty of time, after my cup of tea, to explore the grounds of our Palace, and I discovered new beauties each day. The Park was inclosed by high walls, for the Chinese are jealous of their privacy. Parts of the grounds were gently undulating, and all the eminences, where views could be had, were surmounted by charming summer-houses and belvederes. In one of these, where I loved to go in the early morning to refresh myself by the contemplation of the calm and peaceful lake beneath, and drink in the faint perfume of the stately lotus flowers, which grew in rich profusion on its bosom, I found an inscription on a large flat stone at the left of the entrance. I had seen enough of Chinese characters to know the inscription looked like a “poem.” The Chinese poem is rarely more than a phrase: the expression, in elegant and concise form, of some dainty fancy, some bit of philosophy, and is more properly a “verse” than a poem. I found, later, the inscription on the stone at the entrance of the summer-house was really a “poem,” and had been written by no less a personage than the Seventh Prince himself! This had been his favorite place for rest and contemplation, and one day, as he reclined upon a cushion at the entrance, he had written this poem on the flat stone which lay conveniently near. The Chinese write with a brush well charged with liquid India ink, and their writing accommodates itself to almost any surface. Their characters, one for each word, take up less space than our combination of letters, and are infinitely more picturesque! Chinese gentlemen, or some attendant, generally carry about with them tablets of writing-ink and a brush, and they thus have the means at hand for jotting down a thought as it comes to them. This little poem had been written with a brush, and some of the Prince’s followers had afterward cut the characters in the stone, so that it became a permanent record of a fleeting thought. It had evidently been inspired by the lotus flowers growing beneath; so gloriously beautiful to-day, and to-morrow shorn of their splendor. It was a plaint on the transience of worldly glory-- ... Which to-day, like the lotus fair, Lifts its head in pride; But to-morrow lies low, Bathed in the stagnant waters of oblivion. One day I came upon a number of small tombstones, in a beautiful shady corner, near the stables. I learned that these marked the last resting-places of the Prince’s favorite dogs and horses. Each stone had an inscription with the name, and extolled the virtues of the favorite, whose bones lay beneath it. The Prince was a great lover of animals, and is said to have had the best kennels and stables of any of the Imperial Princes.