The old pundit was a poet.  All Chinese pundits are poets; but Pinchun had real gifts, and the flow of champagne kindled his inspiration.  Everywhere wined and dined, though accredited to no court, he was in raptures at the magnificence of the nations of the West.  He lauded their wealth, culture, and scenery in faultless verse; and if he indulged in satire, [Page 212] it was not for the public eye.  He was attended by several of our students, to whom the travelling commission was an education.  They were destined, after long waiting as I have said, to revisit the Western world, clothed with higher powers.

The impression made on both sides was favourable, and the way was prepared for a genuine embassy.  The United States minister, Anson Burlingame, a man of keen penetration and broad sympathies, had made himself exceedingly acceptable to the Foreign Office at Peking.  When he was taking leave to return home, in 1867, the Chinese ministers begged his good offices with the United States Government and with other governments as occasion might offer—­“In short, you will be our ambassador,” they said, with hearty good-will.

Burlingame, who grasped the possibilities of the situation, called at the Customs on his way to the Legation.  Hart seized the psychological moment, and, hastening to the Yamen, induced the ministers to turn a pleasantry into a reality.  The Dowagers (for there were two) assented to the proposal of Prince Kung, to invest Burlingame with a roving commission to all the Treaty powers, and to associate with him a Manchu and a Chinese with the rank of minister.  An “oecumenical embassy” was the result.  Some of our students were again attached to the suite; reciprocal intercourse had begun; and Burlingame has the glory of initiating it”.

In the work of reform three viceroys stand pre-eminent, viz., Li Hung Chang, Yuen Shi Kai and Chang Chitung.  Li, besides organising an army and [Page 213] a navy (both demolished by the Japanese in 1895), founded a university at Tienstin, and placed Dr. Tenney at the head of it.  Yuen, coming to the same viceroyalty with the lesson of the Boxer War before his eyes, has made the army and education objects of special care.  In the latter field he had had the able assistance of Dr. Tenney, and succeeded in making the schools of the province of Chihli an example for the Empire.

Viceroy Chang has the distinction of being the first man (with the exception of Kang Yuwei) to start the emperor on the path of reform.  Holding that, to be rich, China must have the industrial arts of the West, and to be strong she must have the sciences of the West, he has taken the lead in advocating and introducing both.  Having been called, after the suspension of the Imperial University, to assist this enlightened satrap in his great enterprise, I cannot better illustrate the progress of reform than by devoting a separate chapter to him and to my observations during three years in Central China.