Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 10/Ch-ng P-ng; or, The Sphinx of Pekin

​
CH-NG P-NG; OR THE SPHINX OF PEKIN.

​
Many centuries ago, when all countries and dynasties except China were yet young, there flourished in that wonderful empire a sovereign by race and temper a Tartar, who ruled his people with a rod of iron; his name was Ching Ping. Great and absolute monarch as he was, he was not, however, entirely supreme in his empire, for one, a female, ruled him; a lady, who, even more than her father, inherited all the attributes of the Tartar race, but of such a surpassing and miraculous beauty, that to see even her shadow was to become enamoured. Of course she had many suitors at the time of the opening of my tale, when she had just turned sixteen; but you must know that from her earliest girlhood she had had suitors, and nearly every sovereign in the known world had made proposals of marriage, and laid his own particular net to catch the mighty prize who was being dandled in her nurse's arms. The first proposal made to the Princess in person, whose name was Chang Pang, was at the age of fourteen, by a young emperor of India, an alliance which would have been honourable to both parties. It is said that on this occasion her heart was slightly touched w

Đọc bản gốc tại Wikisource tiếng Anh