as a source of danger, a perilous experiment.

As yet the intercourse was one-sided: envoys came; but none were
sent. Embassies were no novelty; but they had always moved on an
inclined plane, either coming up laden with tribute, or going down
bearing commands. Where there was no tribute and no command, why
send them? Why send to the very people who had robbed China of her
supremacy! It was a bitter pill, and she long refused to swallow
it. Hart gilded the dose and she took it. Obtaining leave to go
home to get married, he proposed that he should be accompanied by
his teacher, Pinchun, a learned Manchu, as unofficial envoy--with
the agreeable duty to see and report. It was a travelling commission,
not like that of 1905-06, to seek light, but to ascertain whether
the representative of a power so humbled and insulted would be
treated with common decency.

The old pundit was a poet. All Chinese pundits are poets; but Pinchun
had real gifts, and the flow of champagne kindled his inspiration.
Everywhere wined and dined, though accredited to no court, he was
in raptures at the magnificence of the nations of the West. He
lauded their wealth, culture, and scenery in faultless verse; and
if he indulged in satire,
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it was not for the public eye. He was attended by several of our
students, to whom the travelling commission was an education. They
were destined, after long waiting as I have said, to revisit the
Western world, clothed with higher powers.

The impression made on both sides was favourable, and the way was
prepared for a genuine embassy. The United States minister, Anson
Burlingame, a man of keen penetration and broad sympathies, had made
himself exceedingly acceptable to the Foreign Office at Peking. When
he was taking leave to return home, in 1867, the Chinese ministers
begged his good offices with the United States Government and with
other governments as occasion might offer--"In short, you will
be our ambassador," they said, with hearty good-will.

Burlingame, who grasped the possibilities of the situation, called at
the Customs on his way to the Legation. Hart seized the psychological
moment, and, hastening to the _Yamen_, induced the ministers
to turn a pleasantry into a reality. The Dowagers (for there were
two) assented to the proposal of Prince Kung, to invest Burlingame
with a roving commission to all the Treaty powers, and to associate
with him a Manchu and a Chinese with the rank of ministe