I knew no painting could be done during these festivities, and I expected to go back to the United States Legation. I never dreamed I should be invited to participate in this celebration, hitherto unseen by any foreigner. A week before the Birthday itself, when out for one of our walks with Her Majesty, she called me up to her side and said the Emperor’s Birthday was to be celebrated the next week, and invited me to remain in the Palace for these festivities. I was, of course, overjoyed at this gracious mark of her favor, and delighted to be able to see the Oriental pomp and pageantry that accompanied these ceremonial celebrations in China. There were to be magnificent theatrical performances, splendid fireworks and decorations, and all sorts of pageants. The Imperial company of actors had already begun rehearsing special poems and plays, written to celebrate the occasion. Eunuchs were constantly bringing Her Majesty specimens of the work of the decorators and painters who were carrying out her designs as to special scenes and tableaux, or coming to ask for further instructions. The literati, who were preparing the original poems, sent in their manuscripts, that she might judge of their merits and make suggestions. She herself overlooked every detail, and seemed most interested and anxious to have everything successful. The festivities began four days before the Birthday with gala performances at the Theater. Each day the decorations of the buildings, the courts, and gardens increased in beauty. In the principal courts, magnificent bronzes, all sorts of antique instruments of music, used only on these great occasions, were brought out as decorations; for music forms part of every ceremonial, official or religious, in China. Among the curious instruments were splendid bronze frames, with several superposed octaves of triangular musical-stones suspended therefrom; elaborately carved supports for different-toned bells; huge “triangles”; immense bronze “tam-tams,” curiously and beautifully wrought; big drums on splendid bronze stands; wonderfully chased bells; and many other quaint instruments, used only for official and state processions in honor of Their Celestial Majesties. The slanting and projecting, upturned roofs of the different buildings forming the Palaces were decorated with scarfs of vari-colored silk, knotted into a curious sort of fringe of rosettes, about two feet long; yellow, the Imperial color, and red, the festive color, predominating, but other colors were introduced into the color-scheme to accentuate these.