number, called all the gentlemen and merchants, that is to say, all the
passengers, except the servants, to a great council, as they termed it.
At this great 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. And here they constituted the journey, as
they called it, viz. they named captains and officers to draw us all up
and give the 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
found needful upon the way, as shall be observed in its place.
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 tempered the
earth for the China ware; and, as I was going along, our Portuguese
pilot, who had always something or other to say to make us merry, came
sneering to me, and told me, he would shew the greatest rarity in all
the country; and that I should have this to say of China, after all the
ill humoured things 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
all with China ware. “Well,” said I, “are not the materials of their
building the product 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 so in England; or, as it is called in our
country, porcelain.”—“Well,” said 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!” said 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 see 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 the 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 gally 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 with 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,
especially Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, &c. 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
ceilings, and, in a word, 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 staid some days to see
and examine the particulars of it. They told me there were fountains and
fish-ponds in the garden, all paved at the bottom and sides with the
same, and fine statues set up in rows on the walks, entirely formed of
the porcelain earth, and 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.—One told me, in particular, of a workman that made a
ship, with all its tackle, and masts, and sails, in earthenware, big
enough to carry fifty men. If he 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 story, which was, in short, asking pardon for
the word, 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: so I promised to be more
orderly; for, 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: ’tis about
four fathom 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; I say, I stood
still an hour to look at it, on every side, near and far off; I mean,
what was within my view; and the guide of our caravan, 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 off the
Tartars, which he happened not to understand as I meant it, and so took
it for a compliment; but the old pilot laughed: “O, Seignior Inglese,”
said 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 way: 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; or, will keep out none but Tartars. I
understand you, Seignior Inglese, I understand you,” said he, joking;
“but Seignior Chinese understand you his own way.”
“Well,” said I, “Seignior, 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 they not 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,”
said he, “I know that.” The Chinese wanted mightily to know what I said,
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 in a little time
afterwards; but when he knew what I had 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 staid.
After we had passed this mighty nothing, called a wall, something like
the Picts wall, so famous in Northumberland, and built by the Romans, we
began to find the country thinly inhabited, and the people rather
confined to live in fortified towns and cities, 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 how that the Chinese
empire could be conquered by such contemptible fellows; for they are a
mere herd or crowd of wild fellows, keeping no order, and understanding
no discipline, or manner of fight.
Their horses are poor, lean, starved creatures, taught nothing, and are
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 hunting of sheep! However, it may be called hunting
too; for the 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 by
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, I know not; but as soon as they
saw us, one of them blew a kind of horn very loud, but with a barbarous
sound that I had never heard before, and, by the way, never care to hear
again. We all supposed this was to call their friends about them; and so
it was; for in less than half a quarter of an hour, 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, in short, that we had nothing to
do but to charge them immediately, 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 up to them. They stood gazing at us,
like a mere crowd, drawn up in no order, nor shewing the face of any
order at all; but as soon as they saw us advance, they let fly their
arrows; which, however, missed us very happily: it seems they mistook
not 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, resolving 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 that vigour and bravery on this occasion, and yet with such
a 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
at their backs. Our brave commander, without asking any body to follow
him, galloped up close to them, and with his fusil knocked one of them
off his horse, killed the second with his pistol, and the third ran
away; and thus ended our fight; but we had this misfortune attending it,
viz. that all our mutton that we had in chase got away. We had not a man
killed or hurt; but, 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 was so frighted 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 great wild desert, which held us three days and nights
march; and we were obliged to carry our water with us in great leather
bottles, and to encamp all night, just as I have heard they do in the
deserts 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 part of
the Great Karakathy, or Grand Tartary; but that, however, it was
reckoned to China; 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 wilderness, which, I confess, was at the first view very
frightful to me, 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 what they should do, viz. to attack us, or
not attack us, we knew not; but when we were 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, only we found they assaulted us with five arrows
at their parting; one of 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 suppose they might shoot more arrows, which might fall short
of us; but we saw no more arrows, or Tartars, at that time.
We travelled near a month after this, the ways being not so good as at
first, though still in the dominions of the emperor of China; but lay,
for the most part, in villages, some of which were fortified, because of
the incursions of the Tartars. When we came to one of these towns, (it
was about two days and a half’s journey before we were to come 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 of horses also, such as they are,
because so many caravans coming that way, they are very often wanted.
The person that I spoke to to get me a camel, would have gone and
fetched it 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 in company, and a Chinese, being
desirous, forsooth, of a little variety. When we came to this place, it
was a low marshy ground, walled round with a stone wall, piled up dry,
without mortar or earth among it, like a park, with a little guard of
Chinese soldiers at the doors. Having bought a camel, and agreed for the
price, I came away; and the Chinese man, 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 with me, and
where I was, for he laid me flat on the ground; but my never-failing old
pilot, the Portuguese (so Providence, unlooked for, directs deliverances
from dangers, which to us are unforeseen,) had a pistol in his pocket,
which I knew nothing of nor the Tartars neither; if they had, I suppose
they would not have attacked us; but 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, he
shot him into the head, and laid him dead on the spot; he then
immediately stepped up to him who had stopped us, as I said, and before
he could come forward again (for it was all done as it were in a moment)
made a blow at him with a scimitar, which he always wore, but, missing
the man, cut his horse into the side of his head, cut one of his ears
off by the root, and a great slice down the side of his face. The poor
beast, enraged with the wounds, 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, he runs to him, and seizing upon an ugly ill-favoured weapon
he had by his side, something like a pole-axe, but not a pole-axe
either, 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 falls to work with his tackle to charge his pistol again: but
as soon as the Tartar saw the pistol, whether he supposed it to be the
same or another, I know not; but away he scoured, and left my pilot, my
champion I called him afterwards, a complete victory.
By this time I was a little awake; for I thought, when I first began to
awake, 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: in a
word, a few minutes after, as sense returned, I felt pain, though I did
not know where; I clapped my hand to my head, and took it away bloody;
then I felt my head ache, and then, in another moment, memory returned,
and every thing was present to me again.
I jumped up upon my feet instantly, and got hold of my sword, but no
enemies in view. I found a Tartar lie dead, and his horse standing very
quietly by him; and looking farther, I saw my champion and 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 embraced me with a great deal of joy, being afraid before that I
had been killed; and seeing me bloody, 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, other than the place which
was hurt, and which 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: but that which was remarkable, when we came back to
the village, the man demanded to be paid for the camel; I disputed it,
and it was brought to a hearing before the Chinese judge of the place;
that is to say, in English, we went before a justice of the peace. Give
him his due, he acted with a great deal of prudence and impartiality;
and having heard both sides, he gravely asked the Chinese man that went
with me to buy the camel, whose servant he was? “I am no servant,” said
he, “but went with the stranger.”—“At whose request?” said the justice.
“At the stranger’s request,” said he. “Why then,” said the justice, “you
were the stranger’s servant for the time; and the camel being delivered
to his servant, it was delivered to him, and he must pay for it.”
I confess the thing was so clear, that I had not a word to say; but
admiring to see such just reasoning upon the consequence, and so
accurate stating the case, I paid willingly for the camel, and sent for
another; but you may observe, _I sent_ for it; I did not go to fetch it
myself any more; I had had enough of that.
The city of Naum is a frontier of the Chinese empire: they call it
fortified, and so it is, as fortifications go there; for this I will
venture to affirm, that all the Tartars in Karakathy, which, I believe,
are some millions, could not batter down the walls with their bows and
arrows; but to call it strong, if it were attacked with cannon, would be
to make those who understand it laugh at you.
We wanted, as I have said, about 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 to 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 those 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.
It was early in the morning, when marching from a little well-situated
town, called Changu, we had a river to pass, where 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, behold, by a cloud of dust they raised,
we saw an enemy was at hand; and they were at hand indeed, for they came
on upon the spur.
The Chinese, our guard on the front, who had talked so big the day
before, began to stagger, and the soldiers frequently looked behind
them; which is 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, he called out:
“Seignior Inglese,” said he, “those 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 course must be
done?”—“Done?” said he; “let fifty of our men advance, and flank them
on each wing, and encourage them, and they will fight like brave fellows
in brave company: but without it, they will every man turn his back.”
Immediately I rode up to our leader, and told him, who was exactly of
our mind; and accordingly fifty of us marched to the right wing, and
fifty to the left, and the rest made a line of reserve; for so we
marched, leaving the last two hundred men to make another body to
themselves, and to guard the camels; only that, if need were, they
should send a hundred men to assist the last fifty.
In a word, the Tartars came on, and an innumerable company they were;
how many, we could not tell, but ten thousand we thought was 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 give them a
_salvo_ on each wing with their shot, which was done; but they went off,
and I suppose went back to give an account of the reception they were
like to meet with; and, indeed, that salute clogged their stomachs; for
they immediately halted, stood awhile to consider of it, and, wheeling
off to the left, they gave over the design, and said no more to us for
that time; which was very agreeable to our circumstances, which were but
very indifferent for a battle with such a number.
Two days after this we came to the city of Naum, or Naunm. We thanked
the governor for his care for us, and collected to the value of one
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 do
now, the Muscovites having abandoned that part of the country (which
lies from the 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 hither for its defence; for we had yet above
two thousand miles to 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 which, as I said, was to
be called No Man’s Land; and on the 13th of April we came to the
frontiers of the Muscovite dominions. I think the first city, or town,
or fortress, whatever it might be called, that belonged to the czar of
Muscovy, was called Argun, being on the west side of the river Argun.