to the Chief Executive turned over his
credentials from the Chinese Emperor.

The banquet that evening, given by former American diplomats to the
Celestial Empire, began at six o'clock, as Li wished to set for the
Western world the example of early retiring. In his attentions to the
splendid repast before him he was most abstemious, but he finished by
smoking a cigar. John E. Ward, a former Minister to China, began the
speech-making by a toast to the Emperor, the President of the United
States, and Li Hung Chang. George F. Seward, another former Minister to
China, lauded the Ambassador's long and distinguished services to his
country and to the world at large. After a brief response through his
interpreter, Li left the banquet hall at eight-thirty, and went to his
night's rest. His hosts, however, were not to be balked of their
evening's entertainment, and the oratorical feast was continued till
midnight.

About General Grant's tomb, when Li visited it, a crowd of more than
twenty thousand persons was gathered. From his carriage Li stepped into
his chair of state, and was borne to the tomb by four policemen. At the
stairway he left the chair and made his way slowly and laboriously on
foot into the vault. To those about him Li said that this visit to the
hero's tomb was one of the chief things he had in mind in planning his
journey to America, and that he had thought of it continually during the
trip. General Horace Porter recalled that Li's contribution of five
hundred dollars, one of the first received, was something that had never
been forgotten by the American people. Other events of the Prime
Minister's stay in New York were his reception of a delegation of
American missionary societies, his visits to Chinatown, and to Brooklyn,
and the dinner given to him at Delmonico's the evening of September 2nd.

Earlier events of the Avenue fade into comparative unimportance when we
come to September 30, 1899. For Admiral George Dewey had come home, and
Fifth Avenue had the chance to acclaim the victor of Manila Bay. Down
the broad street, from Fifty-ninth Street, under the Arch at Madison
Square, and on to Washington Square, the procession in the hero's honour
passed. This was the order of march:

Major-General Roe and Staff.
Sousa's Band.
Sailors of the Admiral's Flagship, the "Olympia."
Admiral Dewey, seated beside Mayor Van Wyck
of New York in a carriage, at the head of a
line of carriages containing