It was the beginning of February, new style, when we set out from Pekin.
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 Nankin, and
who came to Pekin on his own affairs, went to Nankin, where I bought
ninety pieces of fine damasks, with about two hundred pieces of other
very fine silk of several sorts, some mixed with gold, and had all these
brought to Pekin 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 camels' 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, viz. 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 merry, told me he would show
me the greatest rarity in all 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 importunate 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."--"Upon a 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 colours, 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 rooms 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 warehouse 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. They
told 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
fined 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 fined 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,
Seignior Inglese," says he, "you speak in colours."--"In colours!" 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, Seignior Inglese, I
understand you; but Seignior 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?"--"Ay, ay," 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
Picts' 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 travelled,
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 shot full
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 vigour 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
Karakathy, 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 Naum),
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 arrant
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 pole-axe, 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 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 sense 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 hanger 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 Naum, 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 Naum, and with these we advanced boldly. The three hundred soldiers
from Naum marched in our front, the two hundred in our 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.