n the
veranda watching us but she was too far away to see well and with all
that noise, we knew she could not hear us laughing. We tried our best
to separate the crowd, but were laughing so much we did not have enough
strength to hurt any of them. All of a sudden all the eunuchs became
quiet and stopped talking, for one of them saw the head eunuch, Li Lien
Ying, followed by all his attendants coming towards them. Everyone
of them became frightened and stood there like statues. We stopped
laughing, too, and turned back each with a stick in our hand, walking
toward Her Majesty. Li Lien Ying was having a nap, too, and had heard
the noise and had come to enquire what the trouble was and to report it
to Her Majesty. It seemed one of the young eunuchs caught a crow. (The
eunuchs hated crows, as they are considered an unlucky bird. The people
in China called eunuchs crows because they were very disagreeable. That
was the reason why the eunuchs hated them so.) They always set traps to
catch them and then tied a huge fire-cracker to their legs, set fire to
the cracker and then set the unfortunate birds free. Naturally the poor
birds would be glad to fly away and by the time the powder exploded
would be high up in the air and the poor bird would be blown to pieces.
It seemed this was not the first time the eunuchs had played this cruel
trick. I was told it always delighted them so much to see blood and
torture. They always invited others to drink some wine with them to
celebrate an occasion such as this. This cruel deed was always done
outside of the wall of the Audience Hall but that day the crow flew
towards Her Majesty's own Palace while she was sleeping and the powder
exploded while the bird was passing the courtyard. After the head eunuch
had told Her Majesty what had happened, she was very angry and ordered
that this young eunuch be brought in and receive punishment in her
presence. I noticed one of the head eunuch's attendants push the culprit
out from the crowd. The head eunuch immediately gave orders to lay this
man on the ground and two eunuchs stood on each side of him and beat him
on his legs with two heavy bamboo sticks one at a time. The victim never
uttered a word while this was going on. The head eunuch counted until
this man had received one hundred blows, then he gave orders to stop.
Then he knelt in front of Her Majesty waiting for her orders and at
the same time kowtowed on the ground until his head made a noise