CHAPTER VI
The passing of the Emperor—An Imperial pageant
The Emperor passed one morning in procession from the Imperial Palace, which adjoins the British Legation upon its south wall, to the newly erected Temple of Ancestors, the eastern wall of which marks the limits of the Legation grounds. The festival was in no way public; yet, such was the splendour of the pageant, that this progress of eight hundred yards, leaving the Palace by its south gate and entering again by the eastern gate, cost over two thousand pounds. No warning of the Imperial plans was given to his Majesty's subjects. Just before the hour of his departure, however, the Emperor expressed the hope that the British Minister and myself would be interested in the procession, inviting us to watch the spectacle from the Legation domain. Information of the movements of the Court was, of course, bruited abroad. Large crowds gathered around the precincts of the Palace and the Temple, attracted by the efforts which the soldiers were making to form a cordon round the scene. Hundreds of soldiers were told off to guard the approaches to the Temple. One battalion of infantry was installed in the grounds of the Imperial Korean Customs, another occupied the gates and garden of the British Legation.
