Read "With the Empress Dowager of China" by Katharine A. Carl online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The Summer Palace, the Empress Dowager's favorite residence, is really a superb domain. Its naturally picturesque situation among the beautiful Western Hills, sixteen miles from Peking, has been improved wherever possible, by the devices of art. The many buildings that constitute an Oriental Palace have been most picturesquely grouped on the banks of its great lake. The eminences and natural undulations have all been made the most of as sites for Palaces and temples, and the grounds are laid out with all the art the Chinese landscape artist has at his command.
The buildings of the Palace proper, where Their Majesties and their suites live, are all massed in one great town-like group at the southeastern end of the lake. In this group are the Theater, with its courts, and the Great Audience Hall. Palaces, temples, summerhouses, tea-booths, dot the whole surface of the great park, and all the vantage-points have been utilized for constructions.