Soon after my arrival my nephew informed me that the compradores of my brother's firm here wished to honour me by a dinner. Now I had always rather eschewed luxuries, believing that in such a climate as China plain fare was best ; but such politeness demanded politeness, so I accepted the kindly invitation. As is customary when a foreigner is invited to dine, he can take one or two guests with him, and my nephew and Mr. Drysdale accompanied me. It was with the latter I hoped to travel to Jehol. His know ledge of the language and the food proved useful, and greatly helped the entertainment at a restaurant in the native city. The tables were lavishly set out in a fine large room. The number of small dishes on the table were very numerous, and a continuous stream of surprises were borne in by the many attendants. My appetite was not great, so that I was in a position to pick and choose ; but I had difficulty in discovering what each course was. My friends told me there were many delicacies on the table, but this did not help me in making choice, and I limited myself to tasting one or two dishes, and pleading doctor's orders for not partaking more heartily of all the good things. One dish I noticed in particular contained dark, very shiny, gelatinous-looking, egg-shaped objects. I was told they were a great luxury and very expensive—eggs which for a long time had been buried in the ground. I found shark's-fin soup rather coarse and salty.
While dining we were entertained by dancing and singing girls. In " The Attache at Peking " there is given an excellent description of a Chinese meal, and it almost exactly describes that at which I was present :— " A Chinese meal exactly reverses the order of things which is practised in Europe. First came cups of tea, and, when these were all cleared away, two tiny saucers were placed before each person. Then the dessert and sweets were put on the table, oranges and apples, candied walnuts, sweets of all kinds, hemp-seed done up with flour and sugar, apricot kernels preserved in oil and dried, and other delicacies. Next came the savoury meats ; of these the most remarkable were sea-slugs—like turtle-soup in taste, bamboo sprouts, sharks' fins, and deer's sinews. All
gelatinous dishes are the most highly prized ; the famous bird's-nest soup is just like isinglass not quite boiled down. Finally came a sort of soup of rice. I found it very difficult at first to eat with chop-sticks. The manner of eating is to dip your chop-sticks into any one of the bowls and transfer a morsel to your own saucers, which are not changed, neither are the chop-sticks wiped during the whole proceeding. If you wish to pay a personal compli ment, you select a tit-bit with your own chop-sticks and put it on your neighbour's plate, and he does the same in return. This gives the entertainment the appearance of an indecorous scramble, for one is continually leaning across two or three people to pay some civility. The dishes are very rich, and I should think unwholesome in the extreme. There were upwards of sixty different eatables put upon the table, and I must own that although my chop-sticks went into nearly every little bowl, there was not one which did not please my taste. Native wine was served to us in little cups of the size of our liqueur glasses ; it had rather a pleasant taste and was very dry. As soon as the meal was over the Chinese gentlemen produced out of their boots (which seem an inexhaustible receptacle for everything, from tobacco to state papers) small pieces of paper, with which they wiped their mouths and ivory chop-sticks ; and then came a piece of Chinese politeness which is very offensive to Europeans ; for it is good manners here, out of compliment to the host, and in token of having eaten well and been satisfied, to produce the longest and loudest eructations, and Heng-Chi and the two generals left nothing to be desired in that respect, making a great display of good breeding. Tea and conversation in the court of the temple brought my first Chinese entertain ment to a close. I can't tell you how strange it seemed to me, to begin with dessert and end with soup."