If my partner, who was no way concerned with my young man, made him such an offer, I could do no 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 licence to come on shore, which the Europeans in general have not lately obtained, paid him his freight very punctually, sent him to the Philippines, loaded him 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 cloves and other spice; and there he was not only paid his freight very well, and at a very good price, but being not willing to sell the ship then, the merchant furnished him with goods on his own account; that for some money and some spices of his own, which he brought with him, he went back to the Manillas, to the Spaniards, where he sold his cargo very well. Here, having gotten a good acquaintance at Manilla, he got his ship made a free ship; and the governor of Manilla hired him to go to Acapulco in America, on the coast of Mexico; and gave him a licence to land there, and 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 Porto Bello, he found means, some how or other, to go to Jamaica with all his treasure; and about eight years after came to England, exceeding rich; of which I shall take notice in its place; in the mean time, I 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 theriver of Cambodia. The truth was, they had done us a 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 sea with us as pirates; and 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 to them, which they said was due to them on board their respective ships; that is to say, the Englishman nineteen months pay, and to the Dutchman seven; and, over and above that, I gave each of them a small sum of money in gold, which contented them very well: then I made the Englishman gunner of the ship, the gunner being now made second mate and purser; the Dutchman I made boatswain: 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 gotten about a thousand leagues farther off from home, and perfectly 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 that place where we were, and then we might be able to purchase all sorts of the manufactures of the country, and withal might possibly find some Chinese junks or vessels from Nanquin, that would be to be sold, and would carry us and our goods whither 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 mighthave 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 journies into the country; first, we went ten days journey to see the city of Nanquin, a city well worth seeing indeed: they say it has a million of people in it; which, however, I do not believe: it is regularly built, the streets all exactly straight, and cross one another in direct lines, which gives the figure of it great advantage.
But when I came 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, I do not so much as think it worth naming, or worth my while to write of, or any that shall come after me to read.
It is very observable, that we wonder at the grandeur, the riches, the pomp, the ceremonies, the government, the manufactures, the commerce, and the conduct of these people; not that they are to be wondered at, or, indeed, in the least to be regarded; but because, having first a 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 their cities to ours, for wealth, strength, gaiety of apparel, rich furniture, and an infinite variety? What are their ports, supplied with a few junks and barks, to our navigation, our merchants’ fleets, our large and powerful navies? Our city of London has more trade than all their mighty empire. One English, or Dutch, or French man of war of eighty guns, would fight with and destroy all the shipping of China. But the greatness of their wealth, their trade, the power of their government, and strengthof their armies are 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; and this, indeed, is the advantage with which all their greatness and power is represented to us: otherwise, it is in itself nothing at all; for, as I have said of their ships, so it may be said of their armies and troops; 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. If they were to besiege a strong town in Flanders, or to fight a disciplined army, one line of German cuirassiers, or of French cavalry, would overthrow all the horse of China; 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 30,000 German or English foot, and 10,000 French horse, would fairly beat all the forces of China. And so of our fortified towns, and of the art of our engineers, in assaulting and defending towns; there is not a fortified town in China could hold out one month against the batteries and attacks of an European army; and at the same time, all the armies of China could never take such a town as Dunkirk, provided it was not starved; no, not in ten years siege. They have fire-arms, it is true, but they are awkward, clumsy, and uncertain in going off; they have powder, but it is of no strength; they have neither discipline in the field, exercise in their arms, skill to attack, nor 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, riches, glory, magnificence, and trade of the Chinese, because I saw and knew that they were a contemptible herd or crowd of ignorant, sordid slaves, subjected to a government qualified only to rule such a people; and, in a word, for I am now launched quite beside my design, I say, in a word, were not its distanceinconceivably great from Muscovy, and were not the Muscovite empire almost as rude, impotent, and ill-governed a crowd of slaves as they, the czar of Muscovy might, with much ease, drive them all out of their country, and conquer them in one campaign; and had the czar, who I since hear is a growing prince, and begins to appear formidable in the world, fallen this way, instead of attacking the warlike Swedes, in which attempt none of the powers of Europe would have 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 imperfect and impotent, compared to the same things in Europe. Also, in their knowledge, their learning, their skill in the sciences; they have globes and spheres, and a smatch of the knowledge of the mathematics; but when you come to inquire into their knowledge, how short-sighted are the wisest of their students! They know nothing of the motion of the heavenly bodies; and so grossly, absurdly ignorant, that when the sun is eclipsed, they think it is a great dragon has assaulted and run away with it; and they fall a-cluttering 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 this kind which I have made in all the account I have given of my travels, so I shall make no more descriptions of countries and people: it is none of my business, or any part of my design; but giving an account of my own adventures, through a life of infinite wanderings, and a long variety of changes, which, perhaps, few have heard the like of, I shall say nothing of 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 the latitude of thirtydegrees north of the line, for we were returned from Nanquin; I had indeed a mind to see the city of Pekin, 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 Macao, it was necessary that we should resolve either to go, or not to go; so I referred him 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 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, travelling with great attendance, and with great homage from the people, who are sometimes greatly impoverished by them, because all the countries they pass through are obliged to furnish provisions for them, and all their attendants. That which I particularly observed, as to our travelling with his baggage, was this; 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 every thing we had after the market-price of the country, and the mandarin’s steward, or commissary of the provisions, collected it duly from us; so that our travelling in the retinue of the mandarin, though it was a very great kindness to us, was not such a mighty favour in him, but was, indeed, a great advantage to him, considering there were about thirty other people travelling in the same manner besides us, under the protection of his retinue, or, as we may call it, under his convoy. This, I say, was a great advantage to him; for the country furnished all the provisions for nothing, and he took all our money for them.
We were five-and-twenty days travelling to Pekin, through a country infinitely populous, but miserably cultivated; the husbandry, economy, and the way of living, all very miserable, though they boast so muchof the industry of the people: I say miserable; and so it is; if we, who understand how to live, were to endure it, or to compare it with our own; but not so to these poor wretches, who know no other. The pride of these people is infinitely great, and exceeded by nothing but their poverty, which adds to that which I call their misery. I must needs think the naked savages of America live much more happy, because, as they have nothing, so they desire nothing; whereas these are proud and insolent, and, in the main, are mere beggars and drudges; their ostentation is inexpressible, and is chiefly shewed in their clothes and buildings, and in the keeping multitudes of servants or slaves, and, which is to the last degree ridiculous, 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 travellers: 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; for all their famed ingenuity is no more. My friend Father Simon, and I, used to be very merry upon these occasions, to see the beggarly pride of those people. For example, coming by the house of a country-gentleman, as Father Simon called him, about ten leagues off from the city of Nanquin, 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.
The habit of this greasy Don was very proper for a scaramouch, or merry-andrew; being a dirty calico, with all the tawdry trappings of a fool’s coat, such as hanging sleeves, taffety, and cuts and slashes almost on every side: it covered a rich taffety vest, as greasy as a butcher, and which testified, that his honour must needs be a most exquisite sloven.
His horse was a poor, lean, starved, hobbling creature,such as in England might sell for about thirty or forty shillings; and he had 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; and we were told he was going from the city to his country-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 his repast; it was a kind of a garden, but he was easy to be seen; and we were given to understand, that the more we looked on him, the better he would be pleased.
He sat under a tree, something like the palmetto-tree, which effectually shaded him over the head, and on the south side; but under the tree also 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 his meat being brought him by two women-slaves: he had two more, whose office, I think, few gentlemen in Europe would accept of their service in, viz. one 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, with the other; while the great fat brute thought it below him to employ his own hands in any of those familiar offices, which kings and monarchs would rather do than be troubled with the clumsy fingers of their servants.
I took this time to think what pain men’s pride puts them to, and how troublesome a haughty temper, thus ill-managed, must be to a man of common sense; and, leaving the poor wretch to please himself with our looking at him, as if we admired his pomp, whereas we really pitied and contemned him, we pursued our journey: only Father Simon had the curiosity to stay to inform himself what dainties thecountry justice had to feed on, in all his state; which he said he had the honour to taste of, and which was, I think, a dose that an English hound would scarce have eaten, if it had been offered him, viz. a mess of boiled rice, with a great piece of garlick 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 lump or piece of lean mutton boiled in it; and this was his worship’s repast, four or five servants more attending at a distance. If he fed them meaner than he was fed himself, the spice excepted, they must fare very coarsely indeed.
As for our mandarin with whom we travelled, he was respected like 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; but this I observed, that there was not a horse in his retinue, but that our carriers’ pack-horses in England seem to me to look much better; but they were so covered with equipage, mantles, trappings, and such-like trumpery, that you cannot see whether they are fat or lean. In a word, we could scarce see any thing but their feet and their heads.
I was now light-hearted, and all my trouble and perplexity that I had given an account of being over, I had no anxious thoughts about me; which made this journey much the pleasanter to me; nor had I any ill accident attended me, only in the 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 wetted 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, to my great loss, as to the names of some places which I touched at in this voyage.
At length we arrived at Pekin; I had nobody with me but the youth, whom my nephew the captain 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 kinsman. As for the Portuguese pilot, he being desirous to see the court, we gave him his passage, that is to say, bore his charges for his company; and to use him as an interpreter, for he understood the language of the country, and spoke good French and a little English; and, indeed, this old man was a most useful implement to us every where; for we had not been above a week at Pekin, when he came laughing: “Ah, Seignior Inglese,” said he, “I have something to tell you, will make your heart glad.”—“My heart glad,” said I; “what can that be? I don’t know any thing in this country can either give me joy or grief, to any great degree.”—“Yes, yes,” said the old man, in broken English, “make you glad, me sorrow;” sorry, he would have said. This made me more inquisitive. “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; and 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 merry with.
In short, he told us there was a great caravan of Muscovy and Polish merchants in the city, and that they were 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 surprised with this news: a secret joy spread itself over my whole soul, which I cannot describe, and never felt before or since; and I had no power, for a good while, to speak a word to the old man; but at last I turned to him: “How do you know this?” said I: “are you sure it is true?”—“Yes,” he said, “I met this morning in the streetan old acquaintance of mine, an Armenian, or one you call a Grecian, who is among them; he came last from Astracan, and was designing to go to Tonquin; where I formerly knew him, but has altered his mind, and is now resolved to go back with the caravan to Moscow, and so down the river of Wolga to Astracan.”—“Well, Seignior,” said 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 Macao 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 made a good voyage here, if he could vest it in China silks, wrought and raw, such as might be worth the carriage, he would be content to go to England, and then make his 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 part neither, if we had not rewarded him farther; for the service he had done us was really worth all that, and more; for he had not only been a pilot to us at sea, but he had been also like a broker for us on shore; and his procuring for us the Japan merchant was some hundreds of pounds in our pockets. So we consulted together about it; and, being willing to gratify him, which was, indeed, 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 coined gold, which, as I compute it, came to about one hundred and seventy-five pounds sterling between us, and to bear his charges, both for himself and horse, except only a horse to carry his goods.
Having settled this among ourselves, we called himto let him know what we had resolved: I told him, he had complained of our being like to let him go back alone, and I was now to tell him we were resolved he should not go back at all: that as we had resolved to go to Europe with the caravan, we resolved also 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 he had no pecune to carry him thither, nor to subsist himself when he came thither. We told him, we believed it was so, and therefore we had resolved to do something for him, that would 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 ashore (life and casualties excepted), either in Muscovy or in England, which he would, 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 the whole world; and so, in short, we all prepared ourselves for the 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 odd days before all things were got together.
It was the beginning of February, our 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 he had left there; and I, with a Chinese merchant, whom I had some knowledge of at Nanquin, and who came to Pekin on his own affairs, went to Nanquin, where I bought ninety pieces of fine damasks, with about two hundred pieces of other very fine silks, of several sorts, some mixed with gold, and had all these brought to Pekin against my partner’s return: besides this,we bought a very 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-loads of nutmegs and cloves, loaded in all eighteen camels for our share, besides those we rode upon; which, with two or three spare horses, and two horses loaded with provisions, made us, in short, 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 camels, and upward of a 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; but they are not altogether so dangerous as the Arabs, nor so barbarous when they prevail.
The company consisted of people of several nations, such as Muscovites chiefly; for there were about sixty of them who were 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 very good substance.
When we had travelled one day’s journey, the guides, who were five in 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 sameearth, 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 theyexcelin 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 tendays, 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 comeback 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, andstood 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, norcome 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 gravelyasked 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 sentfor 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 thoughtourselves 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, traversingthe 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 asalvoon 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.
I could not but discover an infinite satisfaction; that I was now arrived in, as I called it, a Christian country; or, at least, in a country governed by Christians: for though the Muscovites do, in my opinion, but justdeserve the name of Christians (yet such they pretend to be, and are very devout in their way:) it would certainly occur to any man who travels the world as I have done, and who had any power of reflection; I say, it would occur to him, to reflect, what a blessing it is to be brought into the world where the name of God, and of a Redeemer, is known, worshipped, and adored—and not where the people, given up by Heaven to strong delusions, worship the devil, and prostrate themselves to stocks and stones; worship monsters, elements, horrible-shaped animals, and statues, or images of monsters. Not a town or city we passed through but had their pagods, their idols, and their temples; and ignorant people worshipping even the works of their own hands!
Now we came where, at least, 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 the very recesses of my soul rejoice to see it. I saluted the brave Scotch merchant I mentioned above, with my first acknowledgment of this; and, taking him by the hand, I said to him, “Blessed be God, we are once again come among Christians!” He smiled, and answered, “Do not rejoice too soon, countryman; these Muscovites 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 farther of our journey.”
“Well,” said I, “but still it is better than paganism, and worshipping of devils.”—“Why, I’ll tell you,” said he; “except the Russian soldiers in garrisons, and a few of the inhabitants of the cities upon the road, all the rest of this country, for above a thousand miles farther, is inhabited by the worst and most ignorant of pagans.” And so indeed we found it.
We were now launched into the greatest piece of solid earth, if I understand any thing of the surface of the globe, that is to be found in any part of the world: we had at least twelve hundred miles to the sea, eastward;we had at least two thousand to the bottom of the Baltic sea, westward; and almost three thousand miles, 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 miles to the Frozen sea, north; nay, if some people may be believed, there might be no sea north-east till we came round the pole, and consequently into the north-west, and so had a continent of land into America, no mortal knows where; though I could give some reasons why I believe that to be a mistake too.
As we entered into the Muscovite dominions, a good while before we came to any considerable town, we had nothing to observe there but this: first, that all the rivers run to the east. As I understood by the charts which some of our caravans had with them, it was plain that all those rivers ran into the great river Yamour, or Gammour. This river, by the natural course of it, must run into the east sea, or Chinese ocean. The story they tell us, that the mouth of this river is choked up with bulrushes of a monstrous growth, viz. three feet about, and twenty or thirty feet high, I must be allowed to say I believe nothing of; but as its navigation is of no use, because there is no trade that way, the Tartars, to whom alone it belongs, dealing in nothing but cattle; so nobody that ever I heard or, has been curious enough either to go down to the mouth of it in boats, or to come up from the mouth of it in ships; but this is certain, that this river running due east, in the latitude of sixty degrees, carries a vast concourse of rivers along with it, and finds an ocean to empty itself in that latitude; so we are sure of sea there.
Some leagues to the north of this river there are several considerable rivers, whose streams run as due north as the Yamour runs east; and these are all found to join their waters with the great river Tartarus, named so from the northernmost nations of the Mogul Tartars, who, the Chinese say, were the first Tartarsin the world; and who, as our geographers allege, are the Gog and Magog mentioned in sacred story.
These rivers running all northward, as well as all the other rivers I am yet to speak of, made it evident that the northern ocean bounds the land also on that side; so that it does not seem rational in the least to think that the land can extend itself to join with America on that side, or that there is not a communication between the northern and the eastern ocean; but of this I shall say no more; it was my observation at that time, and therefore I take notice of it in this place. We now advanced from the river Arguna by easy and moderate journies, and were very visibly obliged to the care the czar of Muscovy has taken to have cities and towns built in as many places as are 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 were particularly placed in Britain for the security of commerce, and for the lodging of travellers; and thus it was here; though wherever we came at these towns and stations the garrisons and governor were Russians and professed 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 man’s flesh, as our savages of America did.
Some instances of this we met with in the country between Arguna, where we enter the Muscovite dominions, and a city of Tartars and Russians together, called Nertzinskay; in which space is a continued desert or forest, which cost us twenty days to travel over it. In a village near the last of those 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, an idol made of wood, frightful as the devil; at least as any thing we can think of torepresent the devil that can be made. It had a head certainly not so much as resembling any creature that the world ever saw; ears as big as goats’ horns, and as high; eyes as big as a crown-piece; and a nose like a crooked ram’s horn, and a mouth extended four-cornered, like that of a lion, with horrible teeth, hooked like a parrot’s under bill. It was dressed up in the filthiest manner that you can suppose; its upper garment was of sheep-skins, 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, or any other proportion of parts.
This scarecrow was set up at the outside of the village; and when I came near to it, there were sixteen or seventeen creatures, whether men or women I could not tell, for they make no distinction by their habits, either of body or head; these lay all flat on the ground, round this formidable block of shapeless wood. I saw no motion among them any more than if they had been logs of wood, like their idol; 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 howling cry, as if it had been so many deep-mouthed hounds, and walked away as if they were displeased at our disturbing them. A little way off from this monster, and at the door of a tent or hut, made all of sheep-skins and cow-skins, dried, stood three butchers: I thought they were such; for when I came nearer to them, I found they had long knives in their hands, and in the middle of the tent appeared three sheep killed, and one young bullock, or steer. These, it seems, were sacrifices to that senseless log of an idol; and these three men priests belonging to it; and the seventeen prostrated wretches were the people who brought the offering, and were making their prayers to that stock.
I confess I was more moved at their stupidity, and this brutish worship of a hobgoblin, than ever I was at any thing in my life: to see God’s most glorious and best creature, to whom he had granted so manyadvantages, even by creation, above the rest of the works of his hands, vested with a reasonable soul, and that soul adorned with faculties and capacities adapted both to honour his Maker and be honoured by him; I say, to see it sunk and degenerated to a degree so more than stupid, as to prostrate itself to a frightful nothing, a mere imaginary object dressed up by themselves, and made terrible to themselves by their own contrivance, adorned only with clouts and rags; and that this should be the effect of mere ignorance, wrought up into hellish devotion by the devil himself; who, envying his Maker the homage and adoration of his creatures, had deluded them into such gross, surfeiting, sordid, and brutish things, as one would think should shock nature itself.
But what signified all the astonishment and reflection of thoughts? Thus it was, and I saw it before my eyes; and there was no room to wonder at it, or think it impossible. All my admiration turned to rage; and I rode up to the image or monster, call it what you will, and with my sword cut the bonnet that was on its head in two in the middle, so that it hung down by one of the horns; and one of our men that was with me, took hold of the sheep skin that covered it, and pulled at it, when, behold, a most hideous outcry and howling ran through the village, and two or three hundred people came about my ears, so that I was glad to scour for it; for we saw 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 lamed and jaded with the badness of the way, and our long march over the last desert; so we had some leisure here to put my design in execution. I communicated my project to the Scots merchant, of Moscow, of whose courage I had had a sufficient testimony, as above. 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, I wasresolved, if I could get but four or five men well armed to go with me, to go and destroy that vile, abominable idol; to 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 laughed at me: said he, “Your zeal may be good; but what do you propose to yourself by it?”—“Propose!” said I: “to vindicate the honour of God, which is insulted by this devil-worship.”—“But how will it vindicate the honour of God,” said he, “while the people will not be able to know what you mean by it, unless you could speak to them too, and tell them so? and then they will fight you too, I will assure you, for they are desperate fellows, and that especially in defence of their idolatry.”—“Can we not,” said I, “do it in the night, and then leave them the reasons in writing, in their own language?”—“Writing!” said he; “why, there is not in five nations of them one man that knows any thing of a letter, or how to read a word in any language, or in their own.”—“Wretched ignorance!” said I to him: “however, I have a great mind to do it; perhaps nature may draw inferences from it to them, to let them see how brutish they are to worship such horrid things.”—“Look you, Sir,” said he; “if your zeal prompts you to it so warmly, you must do it; but in the next place, I would have you consider these wild nations of people are subjected by force to the czar of Muscovy’s dominion; and if you do this, it is ten to one but they will come by thousands to the governor of Nertzinskay, and complain, and demand satisfaction; and if he cannot give them satisfaction, it is ten to one but they revolt; and it will occasion a new war with all the Tartars in the country.”
This, I confess, put new thoughts into my head for a while; but I harped upon the same string still; and all that day I was uneasy to put my project in execution. Towards the evening the Scots merchant met me by accident in our walk about the town, and desiredto speak with me: “I believe,” said he, “I have put you off your good design; I have been a little concerned about it since; for I abhor the idol and idolatry as much as you can do.”—“Truly,” said I, “you have put it off a little, as to the execution of it, but you have not put it all out of my thoughts; and, I believe, I shall do it still before I quit this place, though I were to be delivered up to them for satisfaction.”—“No, no,” said he, “God forbid they should deliver you up to such a crew of monsters! they shall not do that neither; that would be murdering you indeed.”—“Why,” said I, “how would they use me?”—“Use you!” said he: “I’ll tell you how they served a poor Russian, who affronted them in their worship just as you did, and whom they took prisoner, after they had lamed him with an arrow, that he could not run away: they took him and stripped him stark naked, and set him upon the top of the idol monster, and stood all round him, and shot as many arrows into him as would stick over his whole body; and then they burnt him, and all the arrows sticking in him, as a sacrifice to the idol.”—“And was this the same idol:” said I.—“Yes,” said he, “the very same.”—“Well,” said I, “I will tell you a story.” So I related the story of our men at Madagascar, and how they burnt and sacked the village there, and killed man, woman, and child, for their murdering one of our men, just as it is related before; and when I had done, I added, that I thought we ought to do so to this village.
He listened very attentively to the story; but when I talked of doing so to that village, said he, “You mistake very much; it was not this village, it was almost a hundred miles from this place; but it was the same idol, for they carry him about in procession all over the country.”—“Well,” said I, “then that idol ought to be punished for it; and it shall,” said I, “if I live this night out.”
In a word, finding me resolute, he liked the design, and told me, I should not go alone, but he would gowith 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.” In a word, he brought me his comrade a Scotsman, whom he called Captain Richardson; and I gave him a full account of what I had seen, and also what I intended; and he told me readily, he would go with me, if it cost him his life. So we agreed to go, only we three. I had, indeed, proposed it to my partner, but he declined it. He said, he was ready to assist me to the utmost, and upon all occasions, for my defence; but that this was an adventure quite out of his way: so, I say, we resolved upon our work, only we three, and my man-servant, and to put it in execution that night about midnight, with all the secresy imaginable.
However, upon second thoughts, we were willing 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 to enterprise it as bold in executing, brought me a Tartar’s robe or gown of sheep-skins, and a bonnet, with a bow and arrows, and had provided the same for himself and his countryman, that the people, if they saw us, should not be able to determine who we were.
All the first night we spent in mixing up some combustible matter with aqua-vitæ, 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 jealousy 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, or tent as we called it, where we saw the three priests, whom we mistook forbutchers, 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, these men would come out immediately, and run up to the place to rescue it from the destruction that we intended for it; 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 tent or 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 was possible to be avoided. “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 packthread enough about us, which we used to tie our fire-works 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 to 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 merchantwent in after him, 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 furze we had thrown in had filled the hut with so much smoke that they were almost suffocated, we then 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 left, who, it seems, were two men and two women, and, as we supposed, had been about some of their diabolic sacrifices. They appeared, in short, frighted to death, at least so as to sit trembling and stupid, and not able to speak neither, for the smoke.
In a word, we took them, bound them as we had the other, and all without any noise, I should have said, we brought them out of the house, or hut, first; for, indeed, we were not able to bear the smoke any; more than they were. When we had done this, we carried them all together to the idol: when we came there we fell to work with him; and first we daubed him all over, and his robes also, with tar, and such other stuff as we had, which was tallow mixed with brimstone; then we stopped his eyes, and ears, and, mouth full of gunpowder; then we wrapped up a great piece of wildfire in his bonnet; and then sticking all the combustibles we had brought with us upon him, we looked about to see if we could find any thing else to help to burn him; when my Scotsman remembered that by the tent, or hut, where the men were, there lay a heap of dry forage, whether straw or rushes I do not remember: 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 ungagged their mouths, and made them stand up, and set themall before their monstrous idol, and then set fire to the whole.
We stayed by it a quarter of an hour, or thereabouts, til the powder in the eyes, and mouth, and ears of the idol blew up, and, as we could perceive, had split and deformed the shape of it; and, in a word, till we saw it burnt into a mere block or log of wood; and then igniting the dry forage to it, we found it would be soon quite consumed; so we 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 was burnt down too, and then we came away and left them.
In the morning we appeared among our fellow-travellers, exceeding busy in getting ready for our journey; nor could any man suggest that we had been any where but in our beds, as travellers might be supposed to be, to fit themselves for the fatigues of that day’s journey.
But it did not end so; for the next day came a great multitude of the country people, not only of this village, but of a hundred more, for aught I know, 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 Cham-Chi-Thaungu; such a hard name they gave the monstrous creature they worshipped. The people of Nertzinskay were at first in a great consternation; for they said the Tartars were no less than thirty thousand, and that in a few days more they would be one hundred thousand stronger.
The Russian governor sent out messengers to appease them, and gave them all the good words imaginable. He assured them he knew nothing of it, and that there had not a soul of his garrison been abroad; that it could not be from any body there; and if they would let him know who it was, he should be exemplarily punished. They returned haughtily, That all the countryreverenced the great Cham-Chi-Thaungu, who dwelt in the son, and no mortal would have dared to offer violence to his image, but some Christian miscreant; so they called them, it seems; and they therefore denounced war against him, and all the Russians, who, they said, were miscreants and Christians.
The governor, still patient, and unwilling to make a breach, or to have any cause of war alleged to be given by him, the czar having straitly charged him to treat the conquered country with gentleness and civility, gave them still 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 them 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 withal, that if any in our caravan had done it, they should make their escape; but that whether they 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 any thing of the matter; and, as for us that were guilty, we were the least of all suspected; none so much as asked us the question; however, the captain of the caravan, for the time, took the hint that the governor gave us, and we marched or 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 Jarawena, another of the czar of Muscovy’s colonies, and where we expected we should be safe; but it is to be observed, that here we began, for two or three days march, to enter upon a vast nameless desert, of which I shall say more in its place; and which if we had now been upon it, it is more than probable we had been all destroyed. It was the second day’s march from Plothusthat by the clouds of dust behind us at a great distance, some of our people began to be sensible we were pursued; we had entered the desert, and had passed by a great lake, called Schanks Osier, when we perceived a very great 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 should have taken that side of the lake, whereas we very happily took the south side: and in two days more we saw them not, for they, believing we were still before them, pushed on, till they came to the river Udda: this is a very great river when it passes farther north, but when we came to it, we found it narrow and fordable.