ay." She gave the Court ladies each a beautiful embroidered gown
and a few hundred taels, the same to the Young Empress and the Secondary
wife. The presents which she gave us were a little different, consisting
of two embroidered gowns, several simple ones, jackets and sleeveless
jackets, shoes, and flowers for the Manchu headdress. She said that
we had not so many gowns, and instead of giving us the money, she had
things made for us. Besides that, she gave me a pair of very pretty
earrings, but none to my sister, for she noticed that I had a pair of
ordinary gold earrings, while my sister had a pair set with pearls and
jade. Her Majesty said to my mother: "Yu Tai Tai. I can see you love one
daughter better than the other. Roonling has such pretty earrings and
poor Derling has none." Before my mother could answer her she had turned
to me while I was standing at the back of her chair: "I will have a nice
pair made for you. You are mine now." My mother told her that I did not
like to wear heavy earrings. Her Majesty laughed and said: "Never mind,
she is mine now, and I will give her everything she needs. You have
nothing to do with her." The earrings she gave me were very heavy. Her
Majesty said that if I would wear them every day I would get used to
them, and so it proved that after some time I thought nothing of it.

Now about this Feast. It is also called the Dragon Boat Feast. The fifth
of the fifth moon at noon was the most poisonous hour for the poisonous
insects, and reptiles such as frogs, lizards, snakes, hide themselves in
the mud, for that hour they are paralyzed. Some medical men search
for them at that hour and place them in jars, and when they are dried,
sometime use them as medicine. Her Majesty told me this, so that day I
went all over everywhere and dug into the ground, but found nothing. The
usual custom was that at noon Her Majesty took a small cup filled with
spirits of wine, and added a kind of yellow powder (something like
sulphur). She took a small brush and dipped it into the cup and made a
few spots of this yellow paint under our nostrils and ears. This was to
prevent any insects from crawling on us during the coming summer. The
reason why it was also called the Dragon Boat Festival was because at
the time of the Chou Dynasty the country was divided into several parts.
Each place had a ruler. The Emperor Chou had a Prime Minister named Chi
Yuan, who advised him to make alliance with the other six co