 CHAPTER XII. The Carpenters' Whimsical Contrivance. The inhabitants came wandering down the shore to look at us, and seeing the ship lie down on one side in such a manner, and healing in towards the shore, and not seeing our men who were at work on her bottom with stages, and with their boats on the offside, they presently concluded that the ship was cast away, and lay fast on the ground. On this supposition they came about us in two or three hours' time, with ten or twelve large boats, having some of them eight, some ten men in a boat, intending, no doubt, to have come on board and plundered the ship, and if they found us there, to have carried us away for slaves. When they came up to the ship, and began to row round her, they discovered us all hard at work on the outside of the ship's bottom and side, washing and graving and stopping, as every seafaring man knows how. They stood for a while gazing at us, and we, who were a little surprised, could not imagine what their design was, but being willing to be sure we took this opportunity to get some of us into the ship, and others to hand down arms and ammunition, to those that were at work, to defend themselves with if there should be occasion. And it was no more than need, for in less than a quarter of an hour's consultation they agreed, it seems, that the ship was really a wreck, and that we were all at work endeavouring to save her, or to save our lives by the help of our boats, and when we handed our arms into the boat, they concluded, by that act, that we were endeavouring to save some of our goods. Upon this they took it for granted we all belonged to them, and away they came directly upon our men, as if it had been in a line of battle. Our men, seeing so many of them, began to be frightened, for we lay but in an ill posture to fight, and cried out to us to know what they should do. I immediately called to the men that worked upon the stages to slip them down, and get up the side into the ship, and bade those in the boat to row round and come on board. The few who were on board worked with all the strength and hands we had to bring the ship to rights. However, neither the men upon the stages nor those in the boats could do as they were ordered before the coach in Chinese were upon them, when two of their boats boarded our long boat, and began to lay hold of the men as their prisoners. The first man they laid hold of was an English seaman, a stout strong fellow, who, having a musket in his hand, never offered to fire it, but laid it down in the boat like a fool as I thought, but he understood his business better than I could teach him, for he grappled the pagan, and dragged him by main force out of their boat into ours, where, taking him by the ears, he beat his head so against the boat's gunnel that the fellow died in his hands. In the meantime a Dutchman, who stood next, took up the musket, and with the but end of it so late about him, that he knocked down five of them who attempted to enter the boat. But this was doing little towards resisting thirty or forty men, who, fearless because ignorant of their danger, began to throw themselves into the long boat, where we had but five men in all to defend it, but the following accident, which deserved our laughter, gave our men a complete victory. Our carpenter, being prepared to grave the outside of the ship, as well as to pay the seams where he had caulked her to stop the leaks, had got two kettles just let down into the boat, one filled with boiling pitch, and the other with rosin, tallow, and oil, and such stuff as the shipwrights use for that work, and the man that attended the carpenter had a great iron ladle in his hand, with which he supplied the men that were at work with the hot stuff. Two of the enemy's men entered the boat just where this fellow stood in the four sheets. He immediately saluted them with a ladle full of the stuff, boiling hot which so burned and scalded them, being half-naked, that they roared out like bulls, and enraged with the fire, leaped both into the sea. The carpenter saw it and cried out, Well done, Jack! Give them some more of it! And stepping forward himself takes one of the mops, and dipping it in the pitch pot, he and his man threw it among them so plentifully that, in short, of all the men in the three boats, there was not one that escaped being scalded in a most frightful manner, and made such a howling and crying that I never heard a worse noise. I was never better pleased with a victory in my life, not only as it was a perfect surprise to me, and that our danger was imminent before, but as we got this victory without any bloodshed, except of that man the seaman killed with his naked hands, and which I was very much concerned at. Though it may be a just thing because necessary, for there is no necessary wickedness in nature, yet I thought it was a sad sort of life when we must be always obliged to be killing our fellow creatures to preserve ourselves, and indeed I think so still, and I would even now suffer a great deal rather than I would take away the life even of the worst person injuring me, and I believe all considering people who know the value of life would be of my opinion if they entered seriously into the consideration of it. All the while this was doing, my partner and I, who managed the rest of the men on board, had with great dexterity brought the ship almost to rights, and having got the guns into their places again, the gunner called to me to bid our boat to get out of the way, for he would let fly among them. I called back again to him and bid him not offer to fire, for the carpenter would do the work without him, but bid him heat another pitch-kettle which our cook who was on board took care of. However, the enemy was so terrified with what they had met with in their first attack that they would not come on again, and some of them who were farthest off, seeing the ship swim, as it were, upright, began as we supposed to see their mistake, and gave over the enterprise, finding it was not as they expected. Thus we got clear of this merry fight, and having got some rice and some roots and bread, with about sixteen hogs on board two days before, we resolved to stay here no longer, but go forward whatever came of it, for we made no doubt, but we should be surrounded the next day with rogues enough, perhaps more than our pitch-kettle would dispose of for us. We therefore got all our things on board the same evening, and the next morning were ready to sail. In the meantime, lying at anchor some distance from the shore, we were not so much concerned, being now in a fighting posture, as well as in a sailing posture, if any enemy had presented. The next day, having finished our work within board, and finding our ship was perfectly healed of all her leaks, we set sail. We should have gone into the bay of Tonkwin, for we wanted to inform ourselves of what was to be known concerning the Dutch ships that had been there, but we durst not stand in there, because we had seen several ships go in, as we supposed, but a little before. So we kept on northeast towards the island of Formosa, as much afraid of being seen by a Dutch or English merchant ship, as a Dutch or English merchant ship in the Mediterranean is of an Algerian man of war. When we were thus got to sea, we kept on northeast as if we would go to the Manila's, or the Philippine islands, and this we did that we might not fall into the way of any of the European ships, and then we steered north till we came to the latitude of twenty-two degrees thirty seconds, by which means we made the island of Formosa directly, where we came to an anchor, in order to get water and fresh provisions, which the people there, who are very courteous in their manners, supplied us with willingly, and dealt very fairly and punctually with us in all their agreements and bargains. This is what we did not find among other people, and may be owing to the remains of Christianity which was once planted here by a Dutch missionary of Protestants, and it is a testimony of what I have often observed, viz that the Christian religion always civilizes the people, and reforms their manners where it is received, whether it works saving effects upon them or no. From thence we sailed still north, keeping the coast of China at an equal distance, till we knew we were beyond all the ports of China where our European ships usually come, being resolved, if possible, not to fall into any of their hands, especially in this country, where, as our circumstances were, we could not fail of being entirely ruined. Being now come to the latitude of thirty degrees, we resolved to put into the first trading port we should come at, and standing in for the shore, a boat came of two leagues to us with an old Portuguese pilot on board, who, knowing us to be a European ship, came to offer his service, which, indeed, we were glad of, and took him on board, upon which, without asking us whether we would go, he dismissed the boat he came in, and sent it back. I thought it was now so much in our choice to make the old man carry us whether we would, that I began to talk to him about carrying us to the Gulf of Nanking, which is the most northern part of the coast of China. The old man said he knew the Gulf of Nanking very well, but smiling asked us what we would do there. I told him we would sell our cargo and purchase China wares, calicoes, raw silks, tea, wrought silks, etc., and so we would return by the same course we came. He told us our best port would have been to put in at Macau, where we could not have failed of a market for our opium to our satisfaction, and might for our money have purchased all sorts of China goods as cheap as we could at Nanking. Not being able to put the old man out of his talk, of which he was very opinionated or conceded, I told him we were gentlemen as well as merchants, and that we had a mind to go and see the great city of Peking, and the famous court of the monarch of China. Why, then, says the old man, you should go to Ningpo, where by the river which runs into the sea there you may go up within five leagues of the great canal. This canal is a navigable stream which goes through the heart of that vast empire of China, crosses all the rivers, passes some considerable hills by the help of sluices and gates, and goes up to the city of Peking, being in length near two hundred and seventy leagues. Well, said I, sing your Portuguese, but that is not our business now. The great question is if you can carry us up to the city of Nanking from whence we can travel to Peking afterwards. He said he could do so very well, and that there was a great Dutch ship gone up that way just before. This gave me a little shock, for a Dutch ship was now our terror, and we had much rather have met the devil, at least if he had not come in too frightful a figure, and we depended upon it that a Dutch ship would be our destruction, for we were in no condition to fight them, all the ships they trade with into those parts being of great burden, and of much greater force than we were. The old man found me a little confused and under some concern when he named a Dutch ship, and said to me, Sir, you need be under no apprehensions of the Dutch. I suppose they are not now at war with your nation. No, said I, that's true, but I know not what liberties men may take when they are out of the reach of the laws of their own country. Why, says he, you are no pirates what need you fear. They will not meddle with peaceable merchants, sure. These words put me into the greatest disorder and confusion imaginable, nor was it possible for me to conceal it so, but the old man easily perceived it. Sir, says he, I find you are in some disorder in your thoughts at my talk. Pray be pleased to go which way you think fit, and depend upon it. I'll do you all the service I can. Upon this we fell into further discourse, in which, to my alarm and amazement, he spoke of the villainous doings of a certain pirate ship that had long been the talk of mariners in those seas, no other in a word than the very ship he was now on board of, and which we had so unluckily purchased. I presently saw there was no help for it but to tell him the plain truth, and explain all the danger and trouble we had suffered through this misadventure, and in particular our earnest wish to be speedily quit of the ship altogether, for which reason we had resolved to carry her up to Nankine. The old man was amazed at this relation, and told us we were in the right to go away to the North, and that, if he might advise us, it should be to sell the ship in China, which we might well do, and buy or build another in the country, adding that I should meet with customers enough for the ship at Nankine, that a Chinese junk would serve me very well to go back again, and that he would procure me people both to buy one and sell the other. Well but, senor, said I, as you say they know the ship so well, I may perhaps, if I follow your measures, be instrumental to bring some honest innocent men into a terrible broil, for wherever they find the ship they will prove the guilt upon the men by proving this was the ship. Why, says the old man, I'll find out a way to prevent that, for as I know all those commanders you speak of very well, and shall see them all as they pass by, I will be sure to set them to rights in the thing, and let them know that they had been so much in the wrong, that though the people who were on board at first might run away with the ship, yet it was not true that they had turned pirates, and that in particular these were not the men that first went off with the ship, but innocently bought her for their trade, and I am persuaded they will so far believe me, as at least to act more cautiously for the time to come. In about thirteen days' sale we came to an anchor, at the southwest point of the Great Gulf of Nankine, where I learned by accident that two Dutch ships were gone the length before me, and that I should certainly fall into their hands. I consulted my partner again in this exigency, and he was as much at a loss as I was. I then asked the old pilot if there was no creek or harbor which I might put into, and pursue my business with the Chinese privately, and be in no danger of the enemy. He told me if I would sail to the southward about forty-two leagues, there was a little port called Quinchang, where the fathers of the mission usually landed from Macau, on their progress to teach the Christian religion to the Chinese where no European ships ever put in, and if I thought to put in there I might consider what further course to take when I was on shore. He confessed he said it was not a place for merchants, except that at some certain times they had a kind of fair there, when the merchants from Japan came over thither to buy Chinese merchandises. The name of the port I may perhaps spell wrong, having lost this, together with the names of many other places set down in a little pocket-book which was spoiled by the water by an accident, but this I remember that the Chinese merchants we corresponded with called it by a different name from that which our Portuguese pilot gave it, who pronounced it Quinchang. As we were unanimous in our resolution to go to this place, we weighed the next day, having only gone twice on shore where we were to get fresh water, on both which occasions the people of the country were very civil, and brought abundance of provisions to sell to us, but nothing without money. We did not come to the other port, the wind being contrary, for five days, but it was very much to our satisfaction, and I was thankful when I set my foot on shore, resolving, and my partner, too, that if it was possible to dispose of ourselves and effects any other way, though not profitably, we should never more set foot on board that unhappy vessel. Indeed, I must acknowledge, that of all the circumstances of life that ever I had any experience of, nothing makes mankind so completely miserable as that of being in constant fear. Well does the scripture say, the fear of man brings a snare? It is a life of death, and the mind is so entirely oppressed by it, that it is capable of no relief. Nor did it fail of its usual operations upon the fancy, by heightening every danger, representing the English and Dutch captains to be men incapable of hearing reason, or of distinguishing between honest men or rogues, or between a story calculated for our own turn, made out of nothing, on purpose to deceive, and a true genuine account of our whole voyage, progress, and design, for we might many ways have convinced any reasonable creatures that we were not pirates, the goods we had on board, the course we steered, our frankly showing ourselves, and entering into such and such ports, and even our very manner, the force we had, the number of men, the few arms, the little ammunition, short provisions, all these would have served to convince any men that we were no pirates, the opium and other goods we had on board would make it appear the ship had been at Bengal, the Dutchmen, who it was said had the names of all the men that were in the ship, might easily see that we were a mixture of English, Portuguese, and Indians, and but two Dutchmen on board, these and many other particular circumstances might have made it evident to the understanding of any commander, whose hands we might fall into, that we were no pirates. But fear, that blind, useless passion, worked another way, and threw us into the vapours. It bewildered our understandings, and set the imagination at work to form a thousand terrible things that perhaps might never happen. We first supposed, as indeed everybody had related to us, that the seamen on board the English and Dutch ships, but especially the Dutch, were so enraged at the name of a pirate, and especially at our beating off their boats and escaping, that they would not give themselves leave to inquire whether we were pirates or no, but would execute us offhand, without giving us any room for a defense. We reflected that there really was so much apparent evidence before them, that they would scarce inquire after any more, as first that the ship was certainly the same, and that some of the seamen among them knew her, and had been on board her, and secondly, that when we had intelligence of the river of Cambodia that they were coming down to examine us, we fought their boats and fled. Therefore we made no doubt but that they were as fully satisfied of our being pirates as we were satisfied of the contrary, and, as I often said, I know not but I should have been apt to have taken those circumstances for evidence if the tables were turned, and my case was theirs, and have made no scruple of cutting all the crew to pieces without believing or perhaps considering what they might have to offer in their defense. But let that be how it will, these were our apprehensions, and both my partner and I scarce slept a night without dreaming of halters and yard arms, of fighting and being taken, of killing and being killed, and one night I was in such a fury in my dream, fanciing the Dutchmen had boarded us, and I was knocking one of their seamen down that I struck my doubled fist against the side of the cabin I lay in, with such a force as wounded my hand grievously, broke my knuckles, and cut and bruised the flesh, so that it awaked me out of my sleep. Another apprehension I had was the cruel usage we might meet with from them if we fell into their hands, then the story of Amboina came into my head, and how the Dutch might perhaps torture us, as they did our countrymen there, and make some of our men by extremity of torture, confess to crimes they never were guilty of, or own themselves and all of us to be pirates, and so they would put us to death with a formal appearance of justice, and that they might be tempted to do this for the gain of our ship and cargo, worth altogether four or five thousand pounds. We did not consider that the captains of ships have no authority to act thus, and if we had surrendered prisoners to them they could not answer the destroying us or torturing us, but would be accountable for it when they came to their country. However, if they were to act thus with us, what advantage would it be to us that they should be called to an account for it, or if we were first to be murdered, what satisfaction would it be to us to have them punished when they came home? I cannot refrain taking notice here what reflections I had now upon the vast variety of my particular circumstances, how hard I thought it that I, who had spent forty years in a life of continual difficulties, and was at last come, as it were, to the port or haven which all men drive at, vis to have rest and plenty, should be a volunteer in new sorrows by my own unhappy choice, and that I, who had escaped so many dangers in my youth, should now come to be hanged in my old age, and in so remote a place for a crime which I was not in the least inclined to, much less guilty of. After these thoughts something of religion would come in, and I would be considering that this seemed to me to be a disposition of immediate providence, and I ought to look upon it and submit to it as such, for, although I was innocent as to men, I was far from being innocent as to my maker, and I ought to look in and examine what other crimes in my life were most obvious to me, and for which providence might justly inflict this punishment as a retribution, and thus I ought to submit to this, just as I would to a shipwreck, if it had pleased God to have brought such a disaster upon me. In its turn natural courage would sometimes take its place, and then I would be talking myself up to vigorous resolutions, that I would not be taken to be barbarously used by a parcel of merciless wretches in cold blood, that it were much better to have fallen into the hands of the savages, though I were sure they would feast upon me when they had taken me, than those who would perhaps glut their rage upon me by inhuman tortures and barbarities, that in the case of the savages I always resolved to die fighting to the last gasp, and why should I not do so now? Whenever these thoughts prevailed I was sure to put myself into a kind of fever with the agitation of a supposed fight. My blood would boil and my eyes sparkle as if I was engaged, and I always resolved to take no quarter at their hands, but even at last if I could resist no longer I would blow up the ship and all that was in her, and leave them but little booty to boast of. CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XIII. Arrival in China. The greater weight the anxieties and perplexities of these things were to our thoughts while we were at sea, the greater was our satisfaction when we saw ourselves on shore, and my partner told me he dreamed that he had a very heavy load upon his back, which he was to carry up a hill, and found that he was not able to stand longer under it, but that the Portuguese pilot came and took it off his back and the hill disappeared, the ground before him appearing all smooth and plain, and truly it was so, they were all like men who had a load taken off their backs. For my part I had a weight taken off from my heart that it was not able any longer to bear, and as I said above we resolved to go no more to sea in that ship. When we came on shore the old pilot who was now our friend got us a lodging together with a warehouse for our goods. It was a little hut with a larger house adjoining to it, built and also palasadoed round with canes to keep out pilferers, of which there were not a few in that country, however the magistrates allowed us a little guard, and we had a soldier with a kind of half-pike who stood sentinel at our door, to whom we allowed a pint of rice and a piece of money about the value of three pence per day so that our goods were kept very safe. The fare or mart usually kept at this place had been over some time, however we found that there were three or four junks in the river and two ships from Japan with goods which they had bought in China, and were not gone away having some Japanese merchants on shore. The first thing our old Portuguese pilot did for us was to get us acquainted with three missionary Romish priests who were in the town, and who had been there some time converting the people to Christianity, but we thought they made but poor work of it and made them but sorry Christians when they had done. One of these was a Frenchman whom they called Father Simon, another was a Portuguese, and a third a Genoese. Father Simon was courteous and very agreeable company, but the other two were more reserved, seemed rigid and austere, and applied seriously to the work they came about, vis to talk with and insinuate themselves among the inhabitants wherever they had opportunity. We often ate and drank with those men, and though I must confess the conversion, as they call it, of the Chinese to Christianity is so far from the true conversion required to bring heathen people to the faith of Christ, that it seems to amount to little more than letting them know the name of Christ and say some prayers to the Virgin Mary and her son in a tongue which they understand not and to cross themselves and the like, yet it must be confessed that the religionists whom we call missionaries have a firm belief that these people will be saved and that they are the instruments of it, and on this account they undergo not only the fatigue of the voyage and the hazards of living in such places, but often times death itself and the most violent tortures for the sake of this work. Father Simon was appointed, it seems, by order of the chief of the mission, to go up to Peking, and waited only for another priest who was ordered to come to him from Macau to go along with him. We scarce ever met together, but he was inviting me to go that journey, telling me how he would show me all the glorious things of that mighty empire, and among the rest Peking the greatest city in the world. A city, said he, that your London and our Paris put together cannot be equal to, but as I looked on those things with different eyes from other men, so I shall give my opinion of them in a few words when I come in the course of my travels to speak more particularly of them. Dining with Father Simon one day and being very merry together, I showed some little inclination to go with him, and he pressed me and my partner very hard to consent. Why, Father, says my partner, should you desire our company so much, you know we are heretics, and you do not love us, nor cannot keep us company with any pleasure. Oh, says he, you may perhaps be good Catholics in time. My business here is to convert he then, and who knows but I may convert you too. Very well, Father, said I, so you will preach to us all the way, I will not be troublesome to you, says he, our religion does not divest us of good manners, besides we are here like countrymen, and so we are compared to the place we are in, and if you are Huguenots and I a Catholic, we may all be Christians at last. At least we are all gentlemen, and we may converse so without being uneasy to one another. I liked this part of his discourse very well, and it began to put me in mind of my priest that I had left in the Brazils, but Father Simon did not come up to his character by a great deal, for though this friar had no appearance of a criminal levity in him, yet he had not that fund of Christian zeal, strict piety, and sincere affection to religion that my other good ecclesiastic had. But to leave him a little, though he never left us, nor solicited us to go with him, we had something else before us at first, for we had all this while, our ship and our merchandise to dispose of, and we began to be very doubtful what we should do, for we were now in a place of very little business. Once I was about to venture to sail for the river of Kilam, and the city of Nankin, but Providence seemed now more visibly, as I thought, than ever to concern itself in our affairs, and I was encouraged from this very time to think I should, one way or another, get out of this entangled circumstance, and be brought home to my own country again, though I had not the least view of the manner. Providence, I say, began here to clear up our way a little, and the first thing that offered was that our old Portuguese pilot brought a Japan merchant to us, who inquired what goods we had, and in the first place he bought all our opium, and gave us a very good price for it, paying us in gold by weight, some in small pieces of their own coin, and some in small wedges of about ten or twelve ounces each. While we were dealing with him for our opium, it came into my head that he might perhaps deal for the ship, too, and I ordered the interpreter to propose it to him. He shrunk up his shoulders at it when it was first proposed to him, but in a few days after he came to me, with one of the missionary priests for his interpreter, and told me he had a proposal to make to me, which was this. He had bought a great quantity of our goods, when he had no thoughts of proposals made to him of buying the ship, and that, therefore, he had not money to pay for the ship. But if I would let the same men who were in the ship navigate her, he would hire the ship to go to Japan, and would send them from thence to the Philippine Islands with another loading, which he would pay the freight of before they went from Japan, and that at their return he would buy the ship. I began to listen to his proposal, and so eager did my head still run upon rambling, that I could not but begin to entertain a notion of going myself with him, and so set sail from the Philippine Islands away to the South Seas. Accordingly, I asked the Japanese merchant if he would not hire us to the Philippine Islands, and discharge us there. He said no, he could not do that, for then he could not have the return of his cargo, but he would discharge us in Japan at the ship's return. Well, still I was for taking him at that proposal and going myself, but my partner, wiser than myself, persuaded me from it, representing the dangers as well of the seas as of the Japanese, who are a false, cruel and treacherous people, likewise those of the Spaniards at the Philippines, more false, cruel and treacherous than they. But to bring this long turn of our affairs to a conclusion, the first thing we had to do was to consult with the captain of the ship, and with his men, and know if they were willing to go to Japan. While I was doing this, the young man whom my nephew had left with me as my companion came up, and told me that he thought that voyage promised very fair, and that there was a great prospect of advantage, and he would be very glad if I undertook it, but that if I would not, and would give him leave, he would go as a merchant, or as I pleased to order him, that if ever he came to England, and I was there and alive, he would render me a faithful account of his success, which should be as much mine as I pleased. I was loathed to part with him, but considering the prospect of advantage, which really was considerable, and that he was a young fellow likely to do well in it, I inclined to let him go, but I told him I would consult my partner and give him an answer the next day. I discoursed about it with my partner, who thereupon made me a most generous offer. You know it has been an unlucky ship, said he, and we both resolve not to go to see in it again, if you're steward, so he called my man, will venture the voyage, I will leave my share of the vessel to him, and let him make the best of it, and if we live to meet in England, and he meets with success abroad, he shall account for one half of the profits of the ship's freight to us, the other shall be his own. If my partner, who was no way concerned with my young man, made him such an offer, I could not do less than offer him the same, and all the ship's company being willing to go with him, we made over half the ship to him in property, and took a writing from him, obliging him to account for the other, and away he went to Japan. The Japan merchant proved a very punctual, honest man to him, protected him at Japan, and got him a license to come on shore, which the Europeans in general have not lately obtained. He paid him his freight very punctually, sent him to the Philippines, loaded with Japan and China wares, and a supercargo of their own, who, trafficking with the Spaniards, brought back European goods again, and a great quantity of spices. And there he was not only paid his freight very well, and at a very good price, but not being willing to sell the ship, then the merchant furnished him with goods on his own account, and with some money, and some spices of his own which he brought with him, he went back to the Manila's, where he sold his cargo very well. Here, having made a good acquaintance at Manila, he got his ship made a free ship, and the governor of Manila hired him to go to Acapulco, on the coast of America, and gave him a license to land there, and to travel to Mexico, and to pass in any Spanish ship to Europe with all his men. He made the voyage to Acapulco very happily, and there he sold his ship, and having there also obtained allowance to travel by land to Portobello, he found means to get to Jamaica, with all his treasure, and about eight years after came to England exceeding rich. But to return to our particular affairs, being now to part with the ship and ship's company, it came before us, of course, to consider what recompense we should give to the two men that gave us such timely notice of the design against us in the River Cambodia. The truth was they had done us a very considerable service, and deserved well at our hands, though by the way they were a couple of rogues, too. For as they believed the story of our being pirates, and that we had really run away with the ship, they came down to us, not only to betray the design that was formed against us, but to go to see with us as pirates. One of them confessed afterwards that nothing else but the hopes of going a roguing brought him to do it. However, the service they did us was not the less, and therefore, as I had promised to be grateful to them, I first ordered the money to be paid them, which they said was due to them on board their respective ships. Over and above that, I gave each of them a small sum of money in gold which contented them very well. I then made the Englishman Gunner in the ship, the Gunner being now made second mate and purser, the Dutchman I made Boson, so they were both very well pleased, and proved very serviceable, being both able seamen and very stout fellows. We were now on shore in China. If I thought myself banished and remote from my own country at Bengal, where I had many ways to get home for my money, what could I think of myself now when I was about a thousand leagues farther off from home, and destitute of all manner of prospect of return? All we had for it was this, that in about four months' time there was to be another fair at the place where we were, and then we might be able to purchase some various manufacturers of the country, and with all might possibly find some Chinese junks from Tonkwin for sale that would carry us and our goods wither we pleased. This I liked very well and resolved to wait, besides as our particular persons were not obnoxious, so if any English or Dutch ships came thither, perhaps we might have an opportunity to load our goods and get passage to some other place in India nearer home. Upon these hopes we resolved to continue here, but to divert ourselves we took two or three journeys into the country. First we went ten days' journey to Nankin, a city well worth seeing. They say it has a million of people in it, it is regularly built, and the streets are all straight and cross one another in direct lines. But when I come to compare the miserable people of these countries with ours, their fabrics, their manner of living, their government, their religion, their wealth, and their glory as some call it, I must confess that I scarcely think it worth my while to mention them here. We wonder at the grandeur, the riches, the pomp, the ceremonies, the government, the manufactures, the commerce and conduct of these people. Not that there is really any matter for wonder, but because having a true notion of the barbarity of those countries, the rudeness and the ignorance that prevail there, we do not expect to find any such things so far off. Otherwise what are their buildings to the palaces and royal buildings of Europe? What their trade to the universal commerce of England, Holland, France, and Spain? What are their cities to ours for wealth, strength, gaiety of apparel, rich furniture, and infinite variety? What are their ports supplied with a few junks and barks to our navigation, our merchant fleets, our large and powerful navies? Our city of London has more trade than half their mighty empire, and English, Dutch, or Frenchmen of war of eighty guns would be able to fight almost all the shipping belonging to China, but the greatness of their wealth, their trade, the power of their government, and the strength of their armies may be a little surprising to us, because as I have said, considering them as a barbarous nation of pagans, little better than savages, we did not expect such things among them. But all the forces of their empire, though they were to bring two millions of men into the field together, would be able to do nothing but ruin the country and starve themselves. A million of their foot could not stand before one embattled body of our infantry, posted so as not to be surrounded, though they were not to be one to twenty in number. Nay, I do not boast if I say that thirty thousand German or English foot, and ten thousand horse, well managed, could defeat all the forces of China. Or is there a fortified town in China that could hold out one month against the batteries and attacks of a European army? They have firearms, it is true, but they are awkward and uncertain in their going off, and their powder has but little strength. Their armies are badly disciplined and want skill to attack or temper to retreat, and therefore I must confess it seemed strange to me when I came home, and heard our people say such fine things of the power, glory, magnificence, and trade of the Chinese, because as far as I saw they appeared to be a contemptible herd or crowd of ignorant, sordid slaves, subjected to a government qualified only to rule such a people, and were not its distance inconceivably great from Muscovy, and that empire in a manner as rude, impotent, and ill-governed as they, the Tsar of Muscovy might with ease drive them all out of their country and conquer them in one campaign, and had the Tsar, who is now a growing prince, fallen this way, instead of attacking the war like Swedes, and equally improved himself in the art of war as they say he has done, and if none of the powers of Europe had envied or interrupted him, he might by this time have been emperor of China, instead of being beaten by the king of Sweden at Narva, when the latter was not one to six in number. As their strength and their grandeur, so their navigation, commerce, and husbandry are very imperfect compared to the same things in Europe. Also in their knowledge, their learning and in their skill in the sciences, they are either very awkward or defective, though they have globes or spheres, and a smattering of the mathematics, and think they know more than all the world besides, but they know little of the motions of the heavenly bodies, and so grossly and absurdly ignorant are their common people, that when the sun is eclipsed they think a great dragon has assaulted it, and is going to run away with it, and they fall a clattering with all the drums and kettles in the country to fright the monster away just as we do to hive a swarm of bees. As this is the only excursion of the kind which I have made in all the accounts I have given of my travels, so I shall make no more such. It is none of my business nor any part of my design, but to give an account of my own adventures through a life of inimitable wanderings, and a long variety of changes which, perhaps, few that come after me will have heard the like of, I shall therefore say very little of all the mighty places, desert countries, and numerous people I have yet to pass through, more than relates to my own story, and which my concern among them will make necessary. I was now as near as I can compute in the heart of China, about thirty degrees north of the line, for we were returned from Nanking. I had indeed a mind to see the city of Peking, which I had heard so much of, and Father Simon importuned me daily to do it. At length his time of going away being set, and the other missionary who was to go with him being arrived from Macau, it was necessary that we should resolve either to go or not, so I referred it to my partner, and left it wholly to his choice, who at length resolved it in the affirmative, and we prepared for our journey. We set out with a very good advantage as to finding the way, for we got leave to travel in the retinue of one of their mandarins, a kind of viceroy or principal magistrate in the province where they reside, and who take great state upon them, traveling with great attendance and great homage from the people, who are sometimes greatly impoverished by them, being obliged to furnish provisions for them and all their attendance in their journeys. I particularly observed in our traveling with his baggage that though we received sufficient provisions both for ourselves and our horses from the country, as belonging to the mandarin, yet we were obliged to pay for everything we had after the market price of the country, and the mandarin's steward collected it duly from us. Thus our traveling in the retinue of the mandarin, though it was a great act of kindness, was not such a mighty favour to us, but was a great advantage to him, considering there were above thirty other people travelled in the same manner besides us, under the protection of his retinue, for the country furnished all the provisions for nothing to him and yet he took our money for them. We were twenty-five days travelling to Pekin, through a country exceeding populace, but I think badly cultivated, the husbandry, the economy, and the way of living miserable, though they boasts so much of the industry of the people, I say miserable, if compared with our own, but not so to these poor wretches who know no other. The pride of the poor people is infinitely great, and exceeded by nothing but their poverty, in some parts which adds to that which I call their misery, and I must needs think the savages of America live more happy than the poorer sort of these, because as they have nothing, so they desire nothing, whereas these are proud and insolent in the main and are in many parts mere beggars and drudges, their ostentation is inexpressible, and if they can, they love to keep multitudes of servants or slaves, which is to the last degree ridiculous, as well as their contempt of all the world but themselves. I must confess I travelled more pleasantly afterwards in the deserts and vast wildernesses of grand tartary than here, and yet the roads here are well paved and well kept, and very convenient for travelers, but nothing was more awkward to me than to see such a haughty, imperious, insolent people in the midst of the grossest simplicity and ignorance, and my friend Father Simon and I used to be very merry upon these occasions to see their beggarly pride. For example, coming by the house of a country gentleman, as Father Simon called him, about ten leagues off the city of Nankine, we had first of all the honour to ride with the master of the house about two miles. The state he rode in was a perfect Don Quixotism, being a mixture of pomp and poverty. His habit was very proper for a merry Andrew, being a dirty calico, with hanging sleeves, tassels and cuts and slashes almost on every side. It covered a taffety vest, so greasy as to testify that his honour must be a most exquisite sloven. His horse was a poor, starved hobbling creature, and two slaves followed him on foot to drive the poor creature along. He had a whip in his hand, and he belaboured the beast as fast about the head as his slaves did about the tail, and thus he rode by us, with about ten or twelve servants, going from the city to his country's seat, about half a league before us. We travelled on gently, but this figure of a gentleman rode away before us, and as we stopped at a village about an hour to refresh us, when we came by the country seat of this great man, we saw him in a little place before his door, eating a repast. It was a kind of garden, but he was easy to be seen, and we were given to understand that the more we looked at him the better he would be pleased. He sat under a tree, something like the palmetto, which effectually shaded him over the head, and on the south side, but under the tree was placed a large umbrella which made that part look well enough. He sat lolling back in a great elbow chair, being a heavy corpulent man, and had his meat brought him by two women's slaves. He had two more, one of whom fed the squire with a spoon, and the other held the dish with one hand, and scraped off what he let fall upon his worship's beard and taffety vest. Leaving the poor wretch to please himself with our looking at him, as if we admired his idle pomp, we pursued our journey. Father Simon had the curiosity to stay to inform himself what dainties the country justice had to feed on in all his state, which he had the honor to taste of, and which was, I think, a mess of boiled rice, with a great piece of garlic in it, and a little bag filled with green pepper, and another plant which they have there, something like our ginger, but smelling like musk, and tasting like mustard. All this was put together, and a small piece of lean mutton boiled in it, and this was his worship's repast. Four or five servants more attended at a distance, who we supposed were to eat of the same after their master. As for our mandarin with whom we traveled, he was respected as a king, surrounded always with his gentlemen, and attended in all his appearances with such pomp that I saw little of him but at a distance. I observed that there was not a horse in his retinue, but that our carrier's pack horses in England seemed to me to look much better, though it was hard to judge rightly, for they were so covered with equipage, mantles, trappings, et cetera, that we could scarce see anything but their feet and their heads as they went along. I was now light-hearted, and all my late trouble and perplexity being over, I had no anxious thoughts about me, which made this journey the pleasanter to me, in which no ill accident attended me, only in passing or fording a small river my horse fell and made me free of the country, as they call it, that is to say, threw me in. The place was not deep, but it wedded me all over. I mention it because it spoiled my pocket-book, wherein I had set down the names of several people and places which I had occasion to remember, and which not taking due care of, the leaves rotted, and the words were never after to be read. At length we arrived at Peking. I had nobody with me, but the youth whom my nephew had given me to attend me as a servant, and who proved very trusty and diligent, and my partner had nobody with him but one servant who was a kensman. As for the Portuguese pilot, he being desirous to see the court, we bore his charges for his company, and for our use of him as an interpreter, for he understood the language of the country and spoke good French and a little English. Indeed this old man was most useful to us everywhere, for we had not been above a week at Peking when he came laughing, Last in your English, says he, I have something to tell will make your heart glad. My heart glad, says I, what can that be? I don't know anything in this country can either give me joy or grief to any great degree. Yes, yes, says the old man, in broken English. Make you glad, me sorry. Why, said I, will it make you sorry? Because, said he, you have brought me here twenty-five days journey, and will leave me to go back alone. In which way shall I get to my port afterwards without a ship, without a horse, without Pecune, so he called money, being his broken Latin, of which he had abundance to make us marry with. In short, he told us, there was a great caravan of Muscovite and Polish merchants in the city, preparing to set out on their journey by land to Muscovy, within four or five weeks, and he was sure we would take the opportunity to go with them and leave him behind to go back alone. I confess I was greatly surprised with this good news, and had scarce power to speak to him for some time, but at last I said to him, how do you know this? Are you sure it is true? Yes, says he, I met this morning in the street an old acquaintance of mine, an Armenian who is among them. He came last from Astrakhan, and was designed to go to Tonkwin, where I formerly knew him, but has altered his mind, and is now resolved to go with the caravan to Musco, and so down the river Volga to Astrakhan. Well, senor, says I, do not be uneasy about being left to go back alone. If this be a method for my return to England, it shall be your fault if you go back to Macau at all. We then went to consult together what was to be done, and I asked my partner what he thought of the pilot's news, and whether it would suit with his affairs. He told me he would do just as I would, for he had settled all his affairs so well at Bengal, and left his effects in such good hands, that as we had made a good voyage, if he could invest it in China's silks, wrought and raw, he would be content to go to England, and then make a voyage back to Bengal by the company's ships. Having resolved upon this, we agreed that if our Portuguese pilot would go with us, we would bear his charges to Moscow or to England if he pleased, nor indeed were we to be esteemed over generous in that either, if we had not rewarded him further, the service he had done us being really worth more than that. For he had not only been a pilot to us at sea, but he had been like a broker for us on shore, and his procuring for us a Japan merchant was some hundreds of pounds in our pockets. So being willing to gratify him, which was but doing him justice, and very willing also to have him with us besides, for he was a most necessary man on all occasions, we agreed to give him a quantity of coin gold, which as I computed it, was worth one hundred and seventy-five pounds sterling between us, and to bear all his charges, both for himself and horse, except only a horse to carry his goods. Having settled this between ourselves, we called him to let him know what we had resolved. I told him he had complained of our being willing to let him go back alone, and I was now about to tell him we designed he should not go back at all, that as we had resolved to go to Europe with the caravan, we were very willing he should go with us, and that we called him to know his mind. He shook his head and said it was a long journey, and that he had no pecune to carry him thither, or to subsist himself when he came there. We told him we believed it was so, and therefore we had resolved to do something for him that should let him see how sensible we were of the service he had done us, and also how agreeable he was to us, and then I told him what we had resolved to give him here, which he might lay out as we would do our own, and that as for his charges, if he would go with us we would set him safe on shore, life and casualties accepted, either in Muscovy or England, as he would choose, at our own charge, except only the carriage of his goods. He received the proposal like a man transported, and told us he would go with us over all the whole world, and so we all prepared for our journey. However, as it was with us, so it was with the other merchants, they had many things to do, and instead of being ready in five weeks, it was four months and some days before all things were got together. It was the beginning of February, new style, when we set out from Peking. My partner and the old pilot had gone express back to the port where we had first put in, to dispose of some goods which we had left there, and I, with a Chinese merchant whom I had some knowledge of at Nanking, and who came to Peking on his own affairs, went to Nanking, where I bought ninety pieces of fine damasques with about two hundred pieces of other very fine silk of several sorts, some mixed with gold, and had all these brought to Peking against my partner's return. Besides this we bought a large quantity of raw silk and some other goods, our cargo amounting in these goods only to about three thousand five hundred pounds sterling, which together with tea and some fine calicoes, and three camel's loads of nutmegs and cloves, loaded in all eighteen camels for our share, besides those we rode upon, these, with two or three spare horses, and two horses loaded with provisions, made together twenty-six camels and horses in our retinue. The company was very great, and as near as I can remember, made between three and four hundred horses, and upwards of one hundred and twenty men, very well armed and provided for all events, for as the eastern caravans are subject to be attacked by the Arabs, so are these by the Tartars. The company consisted of people of several nations, but there were above sixty of them merchants or inhabitants of Moscow, though of them some were Livonians, and to our particular satisfaction, five of them were Scots, who appeared also to be men of great experience in business, and of very good substance. When we had travelled one day's journey, the guides, who were five in number, called all the passengers, except the servants, to a great council, as they called it, at this council every one deposited a certain quantity of money to a common stock, for the necessary expense of buying forage on the way, where it was not otherwise to be had, and for satisfying the guides, getting horses and the like. Here too they constituted the journey, as they call it, vis they named captains and officers to draw us all up, and give the word of command, in case of an attack, and give every one their turn of command, nor was this forming us into order any more than what we afterwards found needful on the way. The road all on this side of the country is very populous, and is full of potters and earth-makers, that is to say, people that temper the earth for the China-ware. As I was coming along, our Portuguese pilot, who had always something or other to say to make us marry, told me that he would show me the greatest rarity of all in the country, and that I should have this to say of China, after all the ill-humoured things that I had said of it, that I had seen one thing which was not to be seen in all the world beside. I was very important to know what it was, at last he told me it was a gentleman's house built with China-ware. Well, says I, are not the materials of their buildings the products of their own country, and so it is all China-ware, is it not? No, no, says he, I mean it is a house all made of China-ware, such as you call it in England, or as it is called in our country Porcelain. Well, says I, such a thing may be, how big is it? Can we carry it in a box upon a camel? If we can, we will buy it. A PONEL CAMEL! says the old pilot, holding up both his hands. Why, there is a family of thirty people lives in it. I was then curious indeed to see it, and when I came to it it was nothing but this. It was a timber house, or a house built, as we call it in England, with lath and plaster, but all this plastering was really China-ware, that is to say it was plastered with the earth that makes China-ware. The outside, which the sun shone hot upon, was glazed and looked very well, perfectly white, and painted with blue figures as the large China-ware in England is painted, and hard as if it had been burnt. As to the inside, all the walls, instead of wainscot, were lined with hardened and painted tiles, like the little square tiles we call galley tiles in England, all made of the finest China, and the figures exceeding fine indeed, with extraordinary variety of colors, mixed with gold, many tiles making but one figure, but joined so artificially, the mortar being made of the same earth, that it was very hard to see where the tiles met. The floors of the room were of the same composition, and as hard as the earthen floors we have in use in several parts of England, as hard as stone and smooth, but not burnt and painted except some smaller rooms like closets, which were all, as it were, paved with the same tile, the ceiling and all the plastering work in the whole house, were of the same earth, and after all the roof was covered with tiles of the same, but of a deep shining black. This was a China-ware house indeed, truly and literally to be called so, and had I not been upon the journey I could have stayed some days to see and examine the particulars of it. Between me there were fountains and fishponds in the garden, all paved on the bottom and sides with the same, and fine statues set up in rows on the walks entirely formed of the porcelain earth burnt whole. As this is one of the singularities of China, so they may be allowed to excel in it, but I am very sure they excel in their accounts of it, for they told me such incredible things of their performance in crockery-ware, for such it is, that I care not to relate as knowing it could not be true. They told me in particular of one workman that made a ship with all its tackle and masts and sails in earthenware, big enough to carry fifty men. If they had told me he launched it and made a voyage to Japan in it, I might have said something to it indeed, but as it was I knew the whole of the story, which was in short that the fellow lied, so I smiled and said nothing to it. This odd sight kept me two hours behind the caravan, for which the leader of it for the day find me about the value of three shillings, and told me if it had been three days' journey without the wall, as it was three days within, he must have find me four times as much, and made me ask pardon the next council day. I promised to be more orderly, and indeed I found afterwards the orders made for keeping all together were absolutely necessary for our common safety. In two days more we passed the great China Wall, made for a fortification against the Tartars, and a very great work it is, going over hills and mountains in an endless track, where the rocks are impassable, and the precipices, such as no enemy could possibly enter, or indeed climb up, or where, if they did, no wall could hinder them. They tell us its length is near a thousand English miles, but that the country is five hundred in a straight measured line, which the wall bounds without measuring the windings and turnings it takes. It is about four fathoms high, and as many thick in some places. I stood still an hour or thereabouts without trespassing on our orders, for so long the caravan was in passing the gate, to look at it on every side near and far off. I mean what was within my view, and the guide who had been extolling it for the wonder of the world was mighty eager to hear my opinion of it. I told him it was a most excellent thing to keep out the Tartars, which he happened not to understand as I meant it, and so took it for a compliment. But the old pilot laughed, "'Oh, Signor Inglési,' he says, you speak in colors. In colors,' said I, what do you mean by that? Why, you speak what looks white this way and black that way, gay one way and dull another. You tell him it is a good wall to keep out Tartars. You tell me by that it is good for nothing but to keep out Tartars. I understand you, Signor Inglési. I understand you, but Signor Chinese understood you his own way. Well, says I, do you think it would stand out an army of our country people, with a good train of artillery, or our engineers with two companies of miners, would not they batter it down in ten days that an army might enter in Battalia, or blow it up in the air, foundation and all, that there should be no sign of it left? I, I, says he, I know that.' The Chinese wanted mightily to know what I said to the pilot, and I gave him leave to tell him a few days after, for we were then almost out of their country, and he was to leave us a little time after this. But when he knew what I said he was dumb all the rest of the way, and we heard no more of his fine story of the Chinese power and greatness while he stayed. After we passed this mighty nothing called a wall, something like the Pict's walls so famous in Northumberland, built by the Romans, we began to find the country thinly inhabited, and the people rather confined to live in fortified towns, as being subject to the inroads and depredations of the Tartars, who rob in great armies, and therefore are not to be resisted by the naked inhabitants of an open country, and here I began to find the necessity of keeping together in a caravan as we traveled, for we saw several troops of Tartars roving about, but when I came to see them distinctly, I wondered more that the Chinese Empire could be conquered by such contemptible fellows, for they are a mere horde of wild fellows, keeping no order and understanding no discipline or manner of it. Their horses are poor lean creatures, taught nothing, and fit for nothing, and this we found the first day we saw them, which was after we entered the wilder part of the country. Our leader for the day gave leave for about sixteen of us to go a hunting, as they call it, and what was this but a hunting of sheep. However it may be called hunting too, for these creatures are the wildest and swiftest of foot that ever I saw of their kind. Only they will not run a great way, and you are sure of sport when you begin the chase, for they appear generally thirty or forty in a flock, and like true sheep always keep together when they fly. In pursuit of this odd sort of game it was our hap to meet with about forty tartars, whether they were hunting mutton, as we were, or whether they looked for another kind of prey, we know not. But as soon as they saw us, one of them blew a hideous blast on a kind of horn. This was to call their friends about them, and in less than ten minutes a troop of forty or fifty more appeared, at about a mile distance, but our work was over first as it happened. One of the Scots merchants of Moscow happened to be amongst us, and as soon as he heard the horn he told us that we had nothing to do but to charge them without loss of time, and drawing us up in a line he asked if we were resolved. We told him we were ready to follow him, so he rode directly towards them. They stood gazing at us like a mere crowd, drawn up in no sort of order at all, but as soon as they saw us advance they let fly their arrows, which missed us very happily. Not that they mistook their aim, but their distance, for their arrows all fell a little short of us, but with so true an aim that had we been about twenty yards nearer we must have had several men wounded if not killed. Immediately we halted, and though it was at a great distance we fired, and sent them leaden bullets for wooden arrows, following our shotful gallop to fall in among them sword in hand, for so our bold scot that led us directed. He was indeed but a merchant, but he behaved with such vigor and bravery on this occasion, and yet with such cool courage, too, that I never saw any man in action fitter for command. As soon as we came up to them we fired our pistols in their faces and then drew, but they fled in the greatest confusion imaginable. The only stand any of them made was on our right, where three of them stood, and by signs, called the rest to come back to them, having a kind of scimitar in their hands, and their bows hanging to their backs. Our brave commander, without asking anybody to follow him, gallops up close to them, and with his fusee knocks one of them off his horse, killed the second with his pistol, and the third ran away. Thus ended our fight, but we had this misfortune attending it, that all our mutton we had in chase got away. We had not a man killed or hurt, as for the Tartars there were about five of them killed. How many were wounded we knew not, but this we knew, that the other party were so frightened with the noise of our guns that they fled, and never made any attempt upon us. We were all this while in the Chinese dominions, and therefore the Tartars were not so bold as afterwards, but in about five days we entered a vast wild desert, which held us three days and nights march, and we were obliged to carry our water with us in great leathern bottles, and to encamp all night, just as I have heard they do in the desert of Arabia. I asked our guides whose dominion this was in, and they told me this was a kind of border that might be called no man's land, being a part of great Karkathi, or grand Tartary. That however it was all reckoned as belonging to China, but that there was no care taken here to preserve it from the inroads of thieves, and therefore it was reckoned the worst desert in the whole march, though we were to go over some much larger. In passing this frightful wilderness we saw, two or three times, little parties of the Tartars, but they seemed to be upon their own affairs, and to have no design upon us, and so, like the man who met the devil, if they had nothing to say to us, we had nothing to say to them, we let them go. Once however, a party of them came so near as to stand and gaze at us. Whether it was to consider if they should attack us or not, we knew not, but when we had passed at some distance by them, we made a rear-guard of forty men and stood ready for them, letting the caravan pass half a mile or thereabouts before us. After a while they marched off, but they saluted us with five arrows at their parting, which wounded a horse so that it disabled him, and we left him the next day, poor creature, in great need of a good farrier. We saw no more arrows or Tartars that time. We travelled near a month after this, the ways not being so good as at first, though still in the dominions of the Emperor of China, but lay for the most part in the villages, some of which were fortified because of the incursions of the Tartars. When we were come to one of these towns, about two days and a half's journey before we came to the city of Naome, I wanted to buy a camel, of which there are plenty to be sold all the way upon that road, and horses also, such as they are, because so many caravans coming that way they are often wanted. The person that I spoke to, to get me a camel, would have gone and fetched one for me, but I, like a fool, must be officious and go myself along with him. The place was about two miles out of the village, where it seems they kept the camels and horses feeding under a guard. I walked it on foot with my old pilot and a Chinese, being very desirous of a little variety. When we came to the place it was a low marshy ground, walled round with stones, piled up dry, without mortar or earth among them, like a park, with a little guard of Chinese soldiers at the door. Having bought a camel and agreed for the price, I came away, and the Chinese that went with me led the camel, when on a sudden came up five tartars on horseback. Two of them seized the fellow and took the camel from him, while the other three stepped up to me and my old pilot, seeing us, as it were, unarmed, for I had no weapon about me but my sword, which could but ill defend me against three horsemen. The first that came up stopped short upon my drawing my sword, for they are errant cowards, but a second coming upon my left gave me a blow on the head, which I never felt till afterwards, and wondered when I came to myself what was the matter and where I was, for he laid me flat on the ground. But my never-failing old pilot, the Portuguese, had a pistol in his pocket, which I knew nothing of, nor the tartars either. If they had, I suppose they would not have attacked us, for cowards are always boldest when there is no danger. The old man seeing me down, with a bold heart, stepped up to the fellow that had struck me, and laying hold of his arm with one hand, and pulling him down by main force a little towards him, with the other shot him into the head, and laid him dead upon the spot. He then immediately stepped up to him who had stopped us, as I said, and before he could come forward again, made a blow at him with a scimitar, which he always wore, but missing the man, struck his horse in the side of his head, cut one of the ears off by the root, and a great slice down by the side of his face. The poor beast, enraged with the wound, was no more to be governed by his rider, though the fellow sat well enough, too, but away he flew and carried him quite out of the pilot's reach, and at some distance, rising upon his hind legs, threw down the tartar and fell upon him. In this interval the poor Chinese came in who had lost the camel, but he had no weapon. However, seeing the tartar down and his horse fallen upon him, away he runs to him, and seizing upon an ugly weapon he had by his side, something like a poleaxe, he wrenched it from him and made shift to knock his tartarian brains out with it, but my old man had the third tartar to deal with still, and seeing he did not fly as he expected, nor come on to fight him as he apprehended, but stood stock still, the old man stood still still, too, and fell to work with his tackle to charge his pistol again, but as soon as the tartar saw the pistol away he scoured, and left my pilot, my champion, I called him afterwards, a complete victory. By this time I was a little recovered. I thought, when I first began to wake, that I had been in a sweet sleep, but as I said above, I wondered where I was, how I came upon the ground, and what was the matter. A few moments after, as since returned, I felt pain, though I did not know where, so I clapped my hand to my head, and took it away bloody. Then I felt my head ache, and in a moment memory returned, and everything was present to me again. I jumped upon my feet instantly, and got hold of my sword, but no enemies were in view. I found a tartar lying dead, and his horse standing very quietly by him, and looking further I saw my deliverer, who had been to see what the Chinese had done, coming back with his hangar in his hand. The old man, seeing me on my feet, came running to me, and joyfully embraced me, being afraid before that I had been killed. Seeing me bloody, he would see how I was hurt, but it was not much, only what we call a broken head. Neither did I afterwards find any great inconvenience from the blow, for it was well again in two or three days. We made no great gain, however, by this victory, for we lost a camel and gained a horse. I paid for the lost camel and sent for another, but I did not go to fetch it myself. I had had enough of that. The city of Neum, which we were approaching, is a frontier of the Chinese Empire, and is fortified in their fashion. We wanted, as I have said, above two days' journey of this city when messengers were sent express to every part of the road to tell all travellers and caravans to halt till they had a guard sent for them, for that an unusual body of tartars, making ten thousand in all, had appeared in the way about thirty miles beyond the city. This was very bad news to travellers, however it was carefully done of the Governor, and we were very glad to hear we should have a guard. Accordingly, two days after, we had two hundred soldiers sent us from a garrison of the Chinese on our left, and three hundred more from the city of Neum, and with these we advanced boldly. The three hundred soldiers from Neum marched in our front, the two hundred in the rear, and our men on each side of our camels, with our baggage and the whole caravan in the centre. In this order, and well prepared for battle, we thought ourselves a match for the whole ten thousand mogul tartars if they had appeared, but the next day, when they did appear, it was quite another thing. CHAPTER XV Early in the morning, when marching from a little town called Changu, we had a river to pass, which we were obliged to ferry, and had the tartars had any intelligence, then had been the time to have attacked us, when the caravan being over the rear guard was behind, but they did not appear there. About three hours after, when we were entered upon a desert of about fifteen or sixteen miles over, we knew by a cloud of dust they raised that the enemy was at hand, and presently they came upon the spur. Our Chinese guards in the front, who had talked so big the day before, began to stagger, and the soldiers frequently looked behind them, a certain sign in a soldier that he is just ready to run away. My old pilot was of my mind, and being near me called out, Senor Englaze, these fellows must be encouraged, or they will ruin us all, for if the tartars come on they will never stand it. I am of your mind, said I, but what must be done? Done, says he, let fifty of our men advance and flank them on each wing, and encourage them. They will fight like brave fellows in brave company, but without this they will every man turn his back. Immediately I rode up to our leader and told him, who was exactly of our mind, accordingly fifty of us marched to the right wing and fifty to the left, and the rest made a line of rescue, and so we marched, leaving the last two hundred men to make a body of themselves, and to guard the camels, only that if need were they should send a hundred men to assist the last fifty. At last the tartars came on, and an innumerable company they were. How many we could not tell, but ten thousand we thought at the least. A party of them came on first, and viewed our posture, traversing the ground in the front of our line, and as we found them within gun-shot, our leader ordered the two wings to advance swiftly, and gave them a salvo on each wing with their shot, which was done. They then went off, I suppose, to give an account of the reception they were like to meet with. Indeed that salute cloyed their stomachs, for they immediately halted, stood a while to consider of it, and wheeling off to the left they gave over their design for that time, which was very agreeable to our circumstances. Two days after we came to the city of Nayun or Nayom, we thanked the governor for his care of us, and collected to the value of a hundred crowns or thereabouts which we gave to the soldiers sent to guard us, and here we rested one day. This is a garrison indeed, and there were nine hundred soldiers kept here, but the reason of it was that formerly the Muscovite frontiers lay nearer to them than they now do, the Muscovites having abandoned that part of the country, which lies from this city west for about two hundred miles, as desolate and unfit for use, and more especially being so very remote and so difficult to send troops thither for its defense, for we were yet above two thousand miles from Muscovy properly so-called. After this we passed several great rivers, and two dreadful deserts, one of which we were sixteen days passing over, and on the thirteenth of April we came to the frontiers of the Muscovite dominions. I think the first town or fortress, whichever it may be called, that belonged to the Tsar, was called Arguna, being on the west side of the river Arguna. I could not but feel great satisfaction that I was arrived in a country governed by Christians, for though the Muscovites do, in my opinion, but just deserve the name of Christians, yet such they pretend to be, and are very devout in their way. It would certainly occur to any reflecting man who travels the world as I have done, what a blessing it is to be brought into the world where the name of God and a Redeemer is known, adored, and worshipped, and not where the people, given up to strong delusions, worship the devil, and prostrate themselves to monsters, elements, horrid shaped animals, and monstrous images. Not a town or city we passed through but had their pagodas, their idols, and their temples, and ignorant people worshipping even the works of their own hands. Now we came where, at last, a face of the Christian worship appeared, where the knee was bowed to Jesus, and whether ignorantly or not, yet the Christian religion was owned, and the name of the true God was called upon and adored, and it made my soul rejoice to see it. I saluted the brave Scott's merchant with my first acknowledgment of this, and, taking him by the hand, I said to him, Blessed be God, we are once again amongst Christians. He smiled and answered, Do now rejoice too soon, countryman, these Moskovites are but an odd sort of Christians, and but for the name of it you may see very little of the substance for some months further of our journey. Well, says I, but still it is better than paganism and worshipping of devils, why I will tell you, says he, except the Russian soldiers in the garrisons and a few of the inhabitants of the cities upon the road, all the rest of this country for about a thousand miles farther is inhabited by the worst and most ignorant of pagans, and so indeed we found it. We now launched into the greatest piece of solid earth that is to be found in any part of the world. We had at least twelve thousand miles to the sea eastward, two thousand to the bottom of the Baltic sea westward, and above three thousand if we left that sea, and went on west to the British and French channels. We had full five thousand miles to the Indian or Persian sea south, and about eight hundred to the frozen sea north. We advanced from the river Argruna by easy and moderate journeys, and were very visibly obliged to the care the Tsar has taken to have cities and towns built in as many places as it is possible to place them, where his soldiers keep garrison, something like the stationary soldiers placed by the Romans in the remotest countries of their empire, some of which I had read of were placed in Britain for the security of commerce and for the lodging of travellers. Thus it was here, for wherever we came, though at these towns and stations the garrisons and governors were Russians, and professed Christians, yet the inhabitants were mere pagans, sacrificing to idols and worshipping the sun, moon, and stars, or all the host of heaven, and not only so, but were, of all the heathens and pagans that ever I met with, the most barbarous except only that they did not eat men's flesh. Some instances of this we met with in the country between Argruna, where we enter the Muscovite dominions, and a city of Tartars and Russians together, called Nortziotsky, in which is a continued desert or forest which cost us twenty days to travel over. In a village near the last of these places I had the curiosity to go and see their way of living, which is most brutish and unsufferable. They had, I suppose, a great sacrifice that day, for there stood out upon an old stump of a tree, a diabolical kind of idol made of wood. It was dressed up, too, in the most filthy manner, its upper garment was of sheepskins, with the wool outward, a great tartar bonnet on the head, with two horns growing through it. It was about eight feet high, yet had no feet or legs, nor any other proportion of parts. This scarecrow was set up at the outer side of the village, and when I came near to it there were sixteen or seventeen creatures all lying flat upon the ground, round this hideous block of wood. I saw no motion among them, any more than if they had been all logs, like the idol, and at first I really thought they had been so, but when I came a little nearer they started up upon their feet and raised a howl as if it had been so many deep-mouthed towns, and walked away as if they were displeased at our disturbing them. A little way off from the idol, and at the door of a hut, made of sheep and cowskins dried, stood three men with long knives in their hands, and in the middle of the tent appeared three sheep-killed and one young bullock. These it seems were sacrifices to that senseless log of an idol. The three men were priests belonging to it, and the seventeen prostrated wretches were the people who brought the offering, and were offering their prayers to that stock. I confess I was more moved at their stupidity and brutish worship of a hobgoblin than ever I was at anything in my life, and overcome with rage I rode up to the hideous idol, and with my sword made a stroke at the bonnet that was on its head and cut it in two, and one of our men that was with me, taking hold of the sheepskin that covered it, pulled at it, when behold a most hideous outcry ran through the village, and two or three hundred people came about my ears so that I was glad to scour for it, for some had bows and arrows, but I resolved from that moment to visit them again. Our caravan rested three nights at the town, which was about four miles off, in order to provide some horses which they wanted, several of the horses having been lame and jaded with the long march over the last desert, so we had some leisure here to put my design in execution. I communicated it to the scots merchant, of whose courage I had sufficient testimony. I told him what I had seen, and with what indignation I had since thought that human nature could be so degenerate. I told him if I could get but four or five men well armed to go with me, I was resolved to go and destroy that vile, abominable idol, and let them see that it had no power to help itself, and consequently could not be an object of worship or to be prayed to, much less help them that offered sacrifices to it. He at first objected to my plan as useless, seeing that, owing to the gross ignorance of the people, they could not be brought to profit by the lesson I meant to teach them, and added that from his knowledge of the country and its customs, he feared we should fall into great peril by giving offence to these brutal idol-worshippers. This somewhat stayed my purpose, but I was still uneasy all that day to put my project in execution. And that evening, meeting the scots merchant in our walk about the town, I again called upon him to aid me in it. When he found me resolute he said that on further thoughts he could not but applaud the design, and told me I should not go alone, but he would go with me. But he would go first and bring a stout fellow, one of his countrymen, to go also with us. And one, said he, as famous for his zeal as you can desire any one to be, against such devilish things as these. So we agreed to go, only we three and my manservant, and resolved to put it in execution the following night about midnight, with all possible secrecy. We thought it better to delay it till the next night, because the caravan being to set forward in the morning we supposed the governor could not pretend to give them any satisfaction upon us when we were out of his power. The scots merchant, as steady in his resolution for the enterprise as bold in executing, brought me a tartar's robe or gown of sheepskins and a bonnet with a bow and arrows, and had provided the same for himself and his countrymen, that the people, if they saw us, should not determine who we were. All the first night we spent in mixing up some combustible matter, with aqua-vitai, gunpowder, and such other materials as we could get, and having a good quantity of tar in a little pot, about an hour after night we set out upon our expedition. We came to the place about eleven o'clock at night, and found that the people had not the least suspicion of danger attending their idol. The night was cloudy, yet the moon gave us light enough to see that the idol stood just in the same posture and place that it did before. The people seemed to be all at their rest, only that in the great hut where we saw the three priests, we saw a light, and going up close to the door we heard people talking as if there were five or six of them. We concluded therefore that if we set wildfire to the idol, those men would come out immediately, and run up to the place to rescue it from destruction, and what to do with them we knew not, once we thought of carrying it away, and setting fire to it at a distance, but when we came to handle it we found it too bulky for our carriage, so we were at a loss again. The second Scotsman was for setting fire to the hut, and knocking the creatures that were there on the head when they came out, but I could not join with that, I was against killing them if it were possible to avoid it. Well then, said the Scots merchant, I will tell you what we will do, we will try to make them prisoners, tie their hands, and make them stand and see their idol destroyed. As it happened we had twine or pack thread enough about us, which we used to tie our firelocks together with, so we resolved to attack these people first, and with as little noise as we could. The first thing we did we knocked at the door, when one of the priests coming to it we immediately seized upon him, stopped his mouth, and tied his hands behind him, and led him to the idol, where we gagged him that he might not make a noise, tied his feet also together, and left him on the ground. Two of us then waited at the door, expecting that another would come out to see what the matter was, but we waited so long till the third man came back to us, and then nobody coming out we knocked again gently, and immediately out came two more, and we served them just in the same manner, but were obliged to go all with them, and lay them down by the idol some distance from one another. When going back we found two more were come out of the door, and a third stood behind them within the door. We seized the two, and immediately tied them, when the third, stepping back and crying out, my Scots merchant went in after them, and taking out a composition we had made that would only smoke and stink, he set fire to it and threw it in among them. By that time the other Scotsman and my man, taking charge of the two men already bound, and tied together also by the arm, led them away to the idol, and left them there to see if their idol would relieve them, making haste back to us. When the fuse we had thrown in had filled the hut with so much smoke that they were almost suffocated, we threw in a small leather bag of another kind, which flamed like a candle, and following it in we found there were but four people who, as we supposed, had been about some of their diabolical sacrifices. They appeared in short frightened to death, at least so as to sit trembling and stupid, and not able to speak either for the smoke. We quickly took them from the hut, where the smoke soon drove us out, bound them as we had done the other, and all without any noise. Then we carried them all together to the idol, when we came there we fell to work with him. First we daubed him all over, and his robes also, with tar, and tallow mixed with brimstone, then we stopped his eyes and ears and mouth full of gunpowder, and wrapped up a great piece of wildfire in his bonnet. Then sticking all the combustibles we had brought with us upon him, we looked about to see if we could find anything else to help to burn him. When my Scotsman remembered that by the hut where the men were, there lay a heap of dry forage, away he and the other Scotsman ran and fetched their arms full of that. When we had done this we took all our prisoners and brought them, having untied their feet and un-gagged their mouths, and made them stand up, and set them before their monstrous idol, and then set fire to the whole. We stayed by at a quarter of an hour or thereabouts, till the powder in the eyes and mouth and ears of the idol blew up, and as we could perceive had split all together, and in a word, till we saw it burned so that it would soon be quite consumed. We then began to think of going away, but the Scotsman said, No, we must not go, for these poor deluded wretches will all throw themselves into the fire, and burn themselves with the idol. So we resolved to stay till the forage has burned down, too, and then came away and left them. After the feat was performed we appeared in the morning among our fellow travelers, exceedingly busy in getting ready for our journey, nor could any man suppose that we had been anywhere but in our beds. But the affair did not end so, the next day came a great number of the country people to the town gates, and in a most outrageous manner demanded satisfaction of the Russian Governor for the insulting their priests and burning their great Chamchitangu. The people of Nerzhynke were at first in great consternation, for they said the Tartars were already no less than thirty thousand strong. The Russian Governor sent out messengers to appease them, assuring them that he knew nothing of it, and that there had not a soul in his garrison been abroad, so that it could not be from anybody there. But if they could let him know who did it, they should be exemplarily punished. They returned hotly that all the country reverenced the great Chamchitangu, who dwelt in the sun, and no mortal would have dared to offer violence to his image but some Christian miscreant, and they therefore resolved to denounce war against him and all the Russians, who they said were miscreants and Christians. The Governor, unwilling to make a breach or to have any cause of war alleged to be given by him, the Tsar having strictly charged him to treat the conquered country with gentleness, gave them all the good words he could. At last he told them there was a caravan gone towards Russia that morning, and perhaps it was some of them who had done this injury, and that if they would be satisfied with that, he would send after them to inquire into it. This seemed to appease them a little, and accordingly the Governor sent after us, and gave us a particular account how the thing was, intimating with all that if any in our caravan had done it they should make their escape, but that whether we had done it or no we should make all the haste forward that was possible, and that in the meantime he would keep them in play as long as he could. This was very friendly in the Governor, however, when it came to the caravan there was nobody knew anything of the matter, and as for us that we were guilty we were least of all suspected. However, the captain of the caravan for the time took the hint that the Governor gave us, and we travelled two days and two nights without any considerable stop, and then we lay at a village called Plothus, nor did we make any long stop here, but hastened on towards Jarawina, another Muscovite colony, and where we expected we should be safe. But upon the second day's march from Plothus, by the clouds of dust behind us at a great distance, it was plain we were pursued. We had entered a vast desert, and had passed by a great lake called Shanksozer, when we perceived a large body of horse appear on the other side of the lake to the north, we travelling west. We observed they went away west as we did, but had supposed we would have taken that side of the lake, whereas we very happily took the south side, and in two days more they disappeared again, for they believing we were still before them pushed on till they came to the Uda, a very great river when it passes farther north, but when we came to it we found it narrow and fortable. The third day they had either found their mistake or had intelligence of us, and came pouring in upon us towards dusk. We had to our great satisfaction just pitched upon a convenient place for our camp, for as we had just entered upon a desert above five hundred miles over, where we had no towns to lodge at, and indeed expected none but the city Jarawina, which we had yet two days' march to, the desert, however, had some few woods in it on this side, and little rivers, which ran all into the great river Uda, it was in a narrow straight, between little but very thick woods, that we pitched our camp that night, expecting to be attacked before morning. As it was usual for the Mogul Tartars to go about in troops in that desert, so the caravans always fortify themselves every night against them, as against armies of robbers, and it was, therefore, no new thing to be pursued. But we had this night a most advantageous camp, for as we lay between two woods, with a little rivulet running just before our front, we could not be surrounded or attacked anyway but in our front or rear. We took care also to make our front as strong as we could, by placing our packs, with the camels and horses, all in a line, on the inside of the river, and felling some trees in our rear. In this posture we encamped for the night, but the enemy was upon us before we had finished. They did not come on like thieves as we expected, but sent three messengers to us, to demand the men to be delivered to them that had abused their priests and burned their idol, that they might burn them with fire, and upon this they said they would go away and do us no further harm, otherwise they would destroy us all. Our men looked very blank at this message, and began to stare at one another to see who looked with the most guilt in their faces, but nobody was the word, nobody did it. The leader of the caravan sent word he was well assured that it was not done by any of our camp, that we were peaceful merchants travelling on our business, that we had done no harm to them or to any one else, and that therefore they must look further for the enemies who had injured them, for we were not the people, so they desired them not to disturb us if they did we should defend ourselves. They were far from being satisfied with this for an answer, and a great crowd of them came running down in the morning by break of day to our camp, but seeing us so well posted they durst come no farther than the brook in our front, where they stood in such number as to terrify us very much. Indeed some spoke of ten thousand. Here they stood and looked at us a while, and then, setting up a great howl, let fly a crowd of arrows among us, but we were well enough sheltered under our baggage, and I do not remember that one of us was hurt. Some time after this we saw them move a little to our right, and expected them on the rear, when a cunning fellow, a Cossack of Jarawina, calling to the leader of the caravan, said to him, I will send all these people away to Sibayilka. This was a city four or five days journey, at least to the right, and rather behind us. So he takes his bow and arrows, and getting on horseback, he rides away from our rear directly, as it were, back to Nertsinskay. After this he takes a great circle about, and comes directly on the army of the Tartars as if he had been sent express to tell them a long story, that the people who had burned the Chamchitongu were gone to Sibayilka, with a caravan of miscreants, as he called them, that is to say, Christians, and that they had resolved to burn the god Skalisar, belonging to the Tonguses. As this fellow was himself a Tartar, and perfectly spoke their language, he counterfeited so well that they all believed him, and away they drove in a violent hurry to Sibayilka. In less than three hours they were entirely out of our sight, and we never heard any more of them, nor whether they went to Sibayilka or no. So we passed away safely on to Jarawina, where there was a Russian garrison, and there we rested five days. From this city we had a frightful desert which held us twenty-three days March. We furnished ourselves with some tents here, for the better accommodating ourselves in the night, and the leader of the caravan procured sixteen wagons of the country, for carrying our water or provisions, and these carriages were our defense every night round our little camp, so that had the Tartars appeared, unless they had been very numerous indeed, they would not have been able to hurt us. We may well be supposed to have wanted rest again after this long journey, for in this desert we neither saw house nor tree, and scarce a bush, though we saw abundance of the Sable hunters, who are all Tartars of Mogul Tartary, of which this country is a part, and they frequently attack small caravans, but we saw no numbers of them together. After we had passed this desert we came into a country pretty well inhabited, that is to say we found towns and castles settled by the Tsar with garrisons of stationary soldiers to protect the caravans and defend the country against the Tartars, who would otherwise make it very dangerous traveling, and his Tsarish Majesty has given such strict orders for the well guarding the caravans, that if there are any Tartars heard of in the country, detachments of the garrison are always sent to see the travelers safe from station to station. Thus the Governor of Adenskoy, whom I had an opportunity to make a visit to, by means of the Scots merchant, who was acquainted with him, offered us a guard of fifty men if we thought there was any danger to the next station. I thought long before this that as we came nearer to Europe we should find the country better inhabited and the people more civilized, but I found myself mistaken in both, for we had yet the nation of the Tonguses to pass through, where we saw the same tokens of paganism and barbarity as before, only as they were conquered by the Muscovites they were not so dangerous, but for rudeness of manners and idolatry no people in the world ever went beyond them. They are all clothed in skins of beasts and their houses are built of the same, you know not a man from a woman neither by the ruggedness of their countenance nor their clothes, and in the winter when the ground is covered with snow they live underground in vaults, which have cavities going from one to another. If the Tartars had their Chamchitangu for a whole village or country these had idols in every hut and every cave. This country I reckon was, from the desert I spoke of last, at least four hundred miles, half of it being another desert, which took us up twelve days severe travelling without house or tree, and we were obliged again to carry our own provisions as well water as bread. After we were out of this desert and had travelled two days, we came to Janizze, a Muscovite city or station, on the Great River Janizze, which they told us there parted Europe from Asia. All the country between the River Obie and the River Janizze is entirely pagan, and the people as barbarous as the remotest of the Tartars. I also found, which I observed to the Muscovite governors whom I had an opportunity to converse with, that the poor pagans are not much wiser or nearer Christianity for being under the Muscovite government which they acknowledged was true enough, but that, as they said, was none of their business, that if the Tsar expected to convert his Siberian, Tanguze or Tartar subjects it should be done by sending clergymen among them, not soldiers, and they added, with more sincerity than I expected, that it was not so much the concern of their monarch to make the people Christians as to make them subjects. From this river to the Obie we crossed a wild, uncultivated country, barren of people and good management, otherwise it is in itself a pleasant, fruitful and agreeable country. What inhabitants we found in it are all pagans, except such as are sent among them from Russia, for this is the country, I mean on both sides the river Obie, whither the Muscovite criminals that are not put to death are banished, and from whence it is next to impossible they should ever get away. I have nothing material to say of my particular affairs till I came to Tobolski, the capital city of Siberia, where I continued some time on the following account. We had now been almost seven months on our journey, and winter began to come on a pace, whereupon my partner and I called a council about our particular affairs, in which we found it proper, as we were bound for England, to consider how to dispose of ourselves. They told us of sledges and reindeer to carry us over the snow in the winter time, by which means indeed the Russians travel more in winter than they can in summer, as in these sledges they are able to run night and day, the snow being frozen is one universal covering to nature, by which the hills, veils, rivers and lakes are all smooth and hard as a stone, and they run upon the surface without any regard to what is underneath. But I had no occasion to urge a winter journey of this kind. I was bound to England, not to Moscow, and my route lay two ways, either I must go on as the caravan went till I came to Jarislaw, and then go off west for Narva and the Gulf of Finland, and so on to Danzig, where I might possibly sell my China cargo to good advantage, or I must leave the caravan at a little town on the Dvina, from whence I had but six days by water to Archangel, and from thence must be sure of shipping either to England, Holland, or Hamburg. Now to go any one of these journeys in the winter would have been preposterous, for as to Danzig the Baltic would have been frozen up and I could not get passage, and to go by land in those countries was far less safe than among the mogul tartars. Likewise, as to Archangel in October, all the ships would be gone from thence, and even the merchants who dwell there in summer retire south to Moscow in the winter, when the ships are gone, so that I could have nothing but extremity of cold to encounter with a scarcity of provisions, and must lie in an empty town all the winter. Therefore, upon the whole, I thought it much my better way to let the caravan go, and make provision to winter where I was, at Tobolski, in Siberia, in the latitude of about sixty degrees, where I was sure of three things to wear out a cold winter with, vis, plenty of provisions, such as the country afforded, a warm house with fuel enough, and excellent company. I was now in quite a different climate from my beloved island where I never felt cold, except when I had my ague. On the contrary, I had much to do to bear any clothes on my back, and never made any fire but without doors, which was necessary for dressing my food, etc. Now I had three good vests, with large robes or gowns over them, to hang down to the feet, and button close to the wrists, and all these lined with furs to make them sufficiently warm. As to a warm house, I must confess I greatly dislike our way in England of making fires in every room of the house, in open chimneys, which, when the fire is out, always keeps the air in the room cold as the climate. So I took an apartment in a good house in the town, and ordered a chimney to be built like a furnace, in the center of six several rooms, like a stove. The funnel to carry the smoke went up one way, the door to come at the fire went in another, and all the rooms were kept equally warm, but no fire seen, just as they heat baths in England. By this means we had always the same climate in all the rooms, and an equal heat was preserved, and yet we saw no fire, nor were ever incommodated with smoke. The most wonderful thing of all was, that it should be possible to meet with good company here, in a country so barbarous as this, one of the most northerly parts of Europe. But this being the country where the state criminals of Muscovy, as I observed before, are all banished, the city was full of Russian noblemen, gentlemen, soldiers, and courtiers. Here was the famous Prince Galitsin, the old German Robostiske, and several other persons of note, and some ladies. By means of my scotch merchant, whom, nevertheless, I parted with here, I made an acquaintance with several of these gentlemen, and from these, in the long winter nights in which I stayed there, I received several very agreeable visits. End of Chapter 15.