MUKDEN, THE MANCHU HOME 



311 



chair itself. In the side rooms large 

 blue and white vases of the Kanghsi 

 period were tumbled recklessly together 

 in huge casks, without as much as a rag 

 or a wisp of straw to protect them. 

 Smaller vases were ranged on shelves 

 in duplicates and duplicates of rare blue 

 and white beauty past counting. 



The throne room was only a grand 

 palace pantry when I saw it, imperial 

 yellow, powder-blue, and chicken-liver- 

 red plates and rice bowls stacked all over 

 the floor to the area of nearly an acre. 

 All were dirt - encrusted and spider- 

 webbed together in a way to make one 

 gasp, and the attendants pottered around 

 over and among this fragile treasure, 

 sorting it and carrying out by the basket- 

 ful to the court, where leisurely ones 

 scraped off the first dirt crusts with 

 twigs, and then washed the pieces to 

 near-clean stages. 



Things that are treasured in glass cases 

 and satin-lined boxes in western mu- 

 seums were strewn all over the flagged 

 court. When Tang Shao li was start- 

 ing off on his spectacular tour of all 

 great nations, he had permission to 

 choose from this storehouse gifts for all 

 the potentates and benefactors he was 

 likely to meet. He chose for American 

 gifts eight pairs of great ribbed celadon 

 vases, some famille vert jardinieres, and 

 some smaller celadon and sang de bceuf 

 pieces, and a single peach-blow vase as 

 the particular gift to President Roose- 

 velt, who promptly sent it to the National 

 Museum, where it is now on exhibition 

 with other such official gifts from for- 

 eign rulers. 



The Yale-graduate governor of Muk- 

 den listened to me with doubt when it 

 was suggested that he offer this palace 

 porcelain collection as security or collat- 

 eral for any loan he might wish to raise 

 for the colonization and development of 

 Manchuria. He looked with more in- 

 credulity when it was suggested that a 

 certain American banker might jump at 

 it at two per cent, with such a collateral, 

 and then pray and pray for a chance to 

 foreclose. 



ROSARY OR OFFICIAL NECKLACE OE LARGE 



PEARLS WHICH BELONGED TO THE 



EMPEROR KIENLUNG: MUKDEN 



PALACE (see page 312) 



TREASURES NOT TREASURED 



The western storehouse, the Hsiang 

 Feng Ko, is a still richer treasury. Tt 

 contains personal relics of the Manchu 

 emperors, a great accumulation of jew- 

 eled arms, ancient bronze mirrors, 

 jewels, and precious stones, crystal, ena- 

 mel, bronzes, and more than ten thou- 

 sand paintings of the Ming and early 

 Ching dynasty. All is kept without 

 much order or care in big red cupboards, 

 closed by padlocks as large as a hand, 

 and sealed with strips of paper that the 

 keepers paste on and lift off with their 

 long talons of finger nails with a simple 

 ingenuousness that is startling, consid- 

 ering the tales of craft and graft and 

 villainy that run up and down the em- 

 pire and the incredible value of the con- 

 tents of those cupboards. 



