Ki-Chan then inquired after Palmerston, and asked if he was still intrusted with foreign affairs?... "And Ilu,[17] what has become of him--do you know?" "He has been recalled; your fall caused his." "I am sorry for it. He had an excellent heart, but he knew not how to take a resolution. Has he been put to death, or exiled?" "Neither; in Europe we do not make such short work of these things as at Pekin." "True, true; your Mandarins are much better off than we are. Your government is much better than ours: our Emperor cannot know every thing, and yet he judges every thing, and no one may find fault with his acts. Our Emperor says to us, This is white.... We fall down and answer, Yes, this is white. He then shows us the same object, and says, This is black.... We fall down and answer, Yes, this is black." "But, after all, suppose you were to say that the same thing could not be black and white?" "The Emperor would, perhaps, say to any one courageous enough to do it, Thou art right; but at the same time he would have him strangled or beheaded."... He then added, that for his own part he was convinced that the Chinese could never cope with Europeans, unless they altered their arms, and changed their old habits; but that he would take good care never to say so, seeing that the counsel, besides being useless, would probably cost him his life.
At other times, the whole court would assist at some exhibition of European wonders:
One day when we were speaking of observatories and astronomical instruments, the Regent asked us if we would allow him to examine the curious, strange-looking machine that we kept in a box. He meant the microscope.... One of us ran home, and returned with the wonderful instrument. While we were putting it together, we attempted to give, as well as we could, some notion of optics to our auditory; but as we perceived that the theory excited but little interest, we proceeded at once to experiments. We asked if any person in the company would favor us with a louse. The thing was far easier to obtain than a butterfly. A noble Lama, who was secretary to his Excellency the first Kalon, had only to slip his hand beneath his silk robe to produce a fully developed specimen. We seized it immediately with our tweezers; seeing which, the Lama objected to the experiment, alleging that we were going to cause the death of a living being. "Never fear," we said, "we have only got hold of him by his skin; and besides, he seems sufficiently sturdy to get over the trial." The Regent, whose creed, as we before said, was more spiritualized than that of the vulgar, told the Lama to hold his tongue, and let us alone. We therefore proceeded with the experiment, and fixed into the object-glass the little animal, who was struggling in our tweezers. We then requested the Regent to apply his eye to the glass at the top of the machine. "Tsong-Kaba!" said he; "the louse is as big as a rat."... Having viewed it for an instant, he hid his face in his hands, saying, that it was a horrible sight. He tried to prevent the others from looking, but his expostulations were unavailing. Every body in turn bent over the microscope, and started back with cries of horror. The Secretary-Lama perceiving that his little animal scarcely moved, put in a word in its behalf. We raised the tweezers and restored the louse to its owner. Alas! the unfortunate victim was lifeless. The Regent said, laughingly to his secretary, "I fear your louse is unwell; go and see if you can physic him, or he'll never recover."