In our own land the
interspersal of umbrellas, musical instruments, and banners, with an
occasional firework, would have given a greater animation to the
scene; but with this exception I have never taken part in a more
impressive and well-extended procession. Even while I looked, the
helmets of other official watchers appeared in the distance, as
immature junks upon the storm-tossed Whang-Hai, apparently striving
fruitlessly to reach us.
As I was by no means sure what attitude was expected of me, I smiled
with an all-embracing approval, and signified to the one at my side,
by way of passing the time pleasurably together, that the likelihood
of his nimble-witted friends reaching us with unruffled garments was
remote in the extreme.
"Don't you let that worry you, Li Hung Chang," he said, in a tone that
had the appearance of being outside itself around a deeper and more
bitter significance; "if we get out again with any garments at all it
won't be your fault. Why, you--well, YOU ought to have been put on the
Black List long ago, by rights."
This, exalted one, although I have not yet been able to learn the
exact dignity of it from any of the books of civil honours, is
undoubtedly a mark of signal attainment, conferred upon the few for
distinguishing themselves by some particular capacity; as our Double
Dragon, for instance. Anxious to learn something of the privileges of
the rank from one who evidently was not without influence in the
bestowal, and not unwilling to show him that I was by no means of
low-caste descent, I said to the official, "In his own country one of
this person's ancestors wore the Decoration of the Yellow Scabbard,
which entitled him to be carried in his chair up to the gate of the
Forbidden Palace before descending to touch the ground.
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