to his duties and procedure in
the fulfilment of his really important office.

"Among the many necessary and venerable ceremonies observed during the
changing periods of the year, none occupy a more important place than
those for which the fifteenth day of the month of Feathered Insects is
reserved, conveying as they do a respectful and delicately-fashioned
petition that the various affairs upon which persons in every
condition of life are engaged may arrive at a pleasant and remunerative
conclusion. At the earliest stroke of the gong the versatile Emperor,
accompanied by many persons of irreproachable ancestry and certain
others, very elaborately attired, proceeds to an open space set apart
for the occasion. With unassuming dexterity the benevolent Emperor for
a brief span of time engages in the menial occupation of a person of
low class, and with his own hands ploughs an assigned portion of land in
order that the enlightened spirits under whose direct guardianship the
earth is placed may not become lax in their disinterested efforts to
promote its fruitfulness. In this charitable exertion he is followed
by various other persons of recognized position, the first being, by
custom, the Guarder of the Imperial Silkworms, while at the same time
the amiably-disposed Empress plants an allotted number of mulberry
trees, and deposits upon their leaves the carefully reared insects
which she receives from the hands of their Guarder. In the case of the
accomplished Emperor an ingenious contrivance is resorted to by which
the soil is drawn aside by means of hidden strings as the plough passes
by, the implement in question being itself constructed from paper of the
highest quality, while the oxen which draw it are, in reality,
ordinary persons cunningly concealed within masks of cardboard. In this
thoughtful manner the actual labours of the sublime Emperor are greatly
lessened, while no chance is afforded for an inauspicious omen to be
created by the rebellious behaviour of a maliciously-inclined ox, or by
any other event of an unforeseen nature. All the other persons, however,
are required to make themselves proficient in the art of ploughing,
before the ceremony, so that the chances of the attendant spirits
discovering the deception which has been practised upon them in the case
of the Emperor may not be increased by its needless repetition. It was
chiefly for this reason that Lo Yuen had urged Quen to journey to Peking
as speedi