TUNG-CHOW. 
95 
so bruised, as to feel no desire for a repetition of the same discipline. 
Little did we expect what was awaiting us in our Yuen-Ming-Yuen 
expedition. 
The Duke received the Commissioners and Mr. Morrison in a 
small hall, in front of which was a court-yard. As usual, no accom- 
modation was provided for the other members, who were permitted 
to take their choice between a drenching in a heavy rain, and suffo- 
cation in a crowded room of ill-savoured and importunate Chinese. 
Fortunately for us, the audience soon terminated. The Duke had 
insisted on the performance of the ceremony of prostration, and the 
Ambassador had peremptorily refused to comply with it. The Duke 
had threatened to send him from the empire without seeing the 
celestial face of the Emperor, and His Excellency had declared his 
readiness to depart. The latter, however, put into the hands of 
the former a letter addressed to His Chinese Majesty, containing 
his reasons for declining to perform the ceremony. This letter 
was readily received by the Duke, who appeared glad of a plea for 
moderating the high tone he had assumed. On this letter now 
seemed to depend our only chance of visiting Pekin. During the 
conference, the voice of the Duke was heard very high and decisive 
in all parts of the court-yard. 
We returned from the hall of audience in the same manner as we 
went to it, again undergoing the cart exercise, but were unable to 
observe much order in starting. The Chinese muleteers hurried us 
into the vehicles; -and as soon as they saw their respective passengers 
fairly seated, carried them off without waiting for their companions. 
On this, and on every other occasion in which the British Embassy 
appeared in public, the Chinese seemed to imagine, that the only 
persons necessary to accommodate or oblige, were the heads of the 
Mission. When they were induced to attend to the convenience of 
its other members, they were generally influenced either by fear or 
interest. 
In returning to the Ambassador’s house, we were obliged to con- 
tent ourselves with a mere passing glance at the city and its inhabitants. 
