CHAPTER XXIV. 200

THE WINTER PALACE The Empress Dowager’s Love of the Summer Palace--Return to Peking--Young Empress and Ladies Precede and Receive Her on the Threshold of her Own Throne-room--City of Peking, the Palace within the Forbidden City--Its many Walls within Walls--The Guard-Houses--The Ceremony of Reception--The Throne-room of the Winter Palace--The Interior Dome--Her Majesty’s Sitting-room--Private Chapel--Portraits of Queen Victoria--The Three Great Halls--The Spirit-Stairway--The Central Hall--Presents from European Royalties--Where I was to Paint--The Emperor’s Precincts--Tradition at the Winter Palace.