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that the Imperial audience would be granted them on the conditions desired by them, after the Japanese Ambassador had been received in special audience. The following day Soyejima sent an interpreter to the Yamen, formally accepting the audience under the condition specified by Bunsho, and the date of the ceremony was fixed on the 29th. The audience finally took place in Shiko-den (Purple Light Hall). This was the beginning of the foreign Ministers being received personally by the Chinese Emperor, after years of interruption, and was due solely to the efforts of Taneomi Soyejima.

But the story told by the venerable Privy Councillor^[1] does not end here. According to the Chinese custom, the Diplomatic Corps was invited to Court déjeuner after the ceremony, but, as it was already inconveniently warm, they all declined, except our Ambassador, who, understanding Chinese etiquette perfectly, gladly accepted it as a matter of the greatest honour. It was rumoured afterwards that the Chinese Princes and Ministers expressed deep approbation of the Japanese Ambassador understanding ‘the right way,’ and complained of the European and American Ministers dishonouring their ‘Father and Lord’—i.e., the Emperor.

The day following the audience the British Minister called on Soyejima, and thanked him in the name of his colleagues. On the Ambassador’s leaving China, the Taotai of Tientsin, representing Li-Hung-Chang, escorted him to Taku, and twenty-one guns were fired from the forts decorated with flags, this being the first occasion such honours were shown to foreign representatives under ordinary circumstances.

On arriving in Tokyo, all the foreign Ministers paid a visit to him together, and, commenting on his success in Peking, gave him the following remarkable assurance: ‘We wish we could say we have always done so, but as a fact we will from this day regard you as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of a really independent State;’ and they collectively invited him to a congratulatory dinner.

Within the walls of the Peking Court there are several halls, each allotted to separate ceremonial services. Shiko-den, in which the audience took place, was one originally devoted to the reception of tributary Mongol Princes. This fact having become known in 1889, the Ministers of the Powers in Peking demanded that the place of audience be hereafter transferred to Bunkwa-den; but the Court removed it to Sho-kwo-den, which was more important than Shiko-den, but less so than