Note 315 — LVI. DR. TSÊNG’S DREAM.

The retinue of a high mandarin is composed as follows:—First, gong-bearers, then bannermen, tablet-bearers (on which tablets are inscribed the titles of the official), a large red umbrella, mounted attendants, a box containing a change of clothes, bearers of regalia, a second gong, a small umbrella or sunshade, a large wooden fan, executioners, lictors from hell, who wear tall hats; a mace (called a “golden melon”), bamboos for “bambooing,” incense-bearers, more attendants, and now the great man himself, followed by a body-guard of soldiers and a few personal attendants, amounting in all to nearly one hundred persons, many of whom are mere street-rowdies or beggars, hired at a trifling outlay when required to join what might otherwise be an imposing procession. The scanty retinues of foreign officials in China still continue to excite the scorn of the populace, who love to compare the rag-tag and bob-tail magnificence of their own functionaries with the modest show even of H.B.M.’s Minister at Peking. return to footnote anchor 315 return to footnote 394 return to footnote 510 return to footnote anchor 624