Chapter XIII. Arrival in China

by Daniel Defoe

　　The greater weight the anxieties and perplexities of these thingswere to our thoughts while we were at sea, the greater was oursatisfaction when we saw ourselves on shore; and my partner told mehe dreamed that he had a very heavy load upon his back, which hewas to carry up a hill, and found that he was not able to standlonger under it; but that the Portuguese pilot came and took it offhis back, and the hill disappeared, the ground before him appearingall smooth and plain: and truly it was so; they were all like menwho had a load taken off their backs. For my part I had a weighttaken off from my heart that it was not able any longer to bear;and as I said above we resolved to go no more to sea in that ship.When we came on shore, the old pilot, who was now our friend, gotus a lodging, together with a warehouse for our goods; it was alittle hut, with a larger house adjoining to it, built and alsopalisadoed round with canes, to keep out pilferers, of which therewere not a few in that country: however, the magistrates allowedus a little guard, and we had a soldier with a kind of half-pike,who stood sentinel at our door, to whom we allowed a pint of riceand a piece of money about the value of three-pence per day, sothat our goods were kept very safe.The fair or mart usually kept at this place had been over sometime; however, we found that there were three or four junks in theriver, and two ships from Japan, with goods which they had boughtin China, and were not gone away, having some Japanese merchants onshore.The first thing our old Portuguese pilot did for us was to get usacquainted with three missionary Romish priests who were in thetown, and who had been there some time converting the people toChristianity; but we thought they made but poor work of it, andmade them but sorry Christians when they had done. One of thesewas a Frenchman, whom they called Father Simon; another was aPortuguese; and a third a Genoese. Father Simon was courteous, andvery agreeable company; but the other two were more reserved,seemed rigid and austere, and applied seriously to the work theycame about, viz. to talk with and insinuate themselves among theinhabitants wherever they had opportunity. We often ate and drankwith those men; and though I must confess the conversion, as theycall it, of the Chinese to Christianity is so far from the trueconversion required to bring heathen people to the faith of Christ,that it seems to amount to little more than letting them know thename of Christ, and say some prayers to the Virgin Mary and herSon, in a tongue which they understood not, and to crossthemselves, and the like; yet it must be confessed that thereligionists, whom we call missionaries, have a firm belief thatthese people will be saved, and that they are the instruments ofit; and on this account they undergo not only the fatigue of thevoyage, and the hazards of living in such places, but oftentimesdeath itself, and the most violent tortures, for the sake of thiswork.Father Simon was appointed, it seems, by order of the chief of themission, to go up to Pekin, and waited only for another priest, whowas ordered to come to him from Macao, to go along with him. Wescarce ever met together but he was inviting me to go that journey;telling me how he would show me all the glorious things of thatmighty empire, and, among the rest, Pekin, the greatest city in theworld: "A city," said he, "that your London and our Paris puttogether cannot be equal to." But as I looked on those things withdifferent eyes from other men, so I shall give my opinion of themin a few words, when I come in the course of my travels to speakmore particularly of them.Dining with Father Simon one day, and being very merry together, Ishowed some little inclination to go with him; and he pressed meand my partner very hard to consent. "Why, father," says mypartner, "should you desire our company so much? you know we areheretics, and you do not love us, nor cannot keep us company withany pleasure." - "Oh," says he, "you may perhaps be good Catholicsin time; my business here is to convert heathens, and who knows butI may convert you too?" - "Very well, father," said I, "so you willpreach to us all the way?" - "I will not be troublesome to you,"says he; "our religion does not divest us of good manners; besides,we are here like countrymen; and so we are, compared to the placewe are in; and if you are Huguenots, and I a Catholic, we may allbe Christians at last; at least, we are all gentlemen, and we mayconverse so, without being uneasy to one another." I liked thispart of his discourse very well, and it began to put me in mind ofmy priest that I had left in the Brazils; but Father Simon did notcome up to his character by a great deal; for though this friar hadno appearance of a criminal levity in him, yet he had not that fundof Christian zeal, strict piety, and sincere affection to religionthat my other good ecclesiastic had.But to leave him a little, though he never left us, nor solicitedus to go with him; we had something else before us at first, for wehad all this while our ship and our merchandise to dispose of, andwe began to be very doubtful what we should do, for we were now ina place of very little business. Once I was about to venture tosail for the river of Kilam, and the city of Nankin; but Providenceseemed now more visibly, as I thought, than ever to concern itselfin our affairs; and I was encouraged, from this very time, to thinkI should, one way or other, get out of this entangled circumstance,and be brought home to my own country again, though I had not theleast view of the manner. Providence, I say, began here to clearup our way a little; and the first thing that offered was, that ourold Portuguese pilot brought a Japan merchant to us, who inquiredwhat goods we had: and, in the first place, he bought all ouropium, and gave us a very good price for it, paying us in gold byweight, some in small pieces of their own coin, and some in smallwedges, of about ten or twelves ounces each. While we were dealingwith him for our opium, it came into my head that he might perhapsdeal for the ship too, and I ordered the interpreter to propose itto him. He shrunk up his shoulders at it when it was firstproposed to him; but in a few days after he came to me, with one ofthe missionary priests for his interpreter, and told me he had aproposal to make to me, which was this: he had bought a greatquantity of our goods, when he had no thoughts of proposals made tohim of buying the ship; and that, therefore, he had not money topay for the ship: but if I would let the same men who were in theship navigate her, he would hire the ship to go to Japan; and wouldsend them from thence to the Philippine Islands with anotherloading, which he would pay the freight of before they went fromJapan: and that at their return he would buy the ship. I began tolisten to his proposal, and so eager did my head still run uponrambling, that I could not but begin to entertain a notion of goingmyself with him, and so to set sail from the Philippine Islandsaway to the South Seas; accordingly, I asked the Japanese merchantif he would not hire us to the Philippine Islands and discharge usthere. He said No, he could not do that, for then he could nothave the return of his cargo; but he would discharge us in Japan,at the ship's return. Well, still I was for taking him at thatproposal, and going myself; but my partner, wiser than myself,persuaded me from it, representing the dangers, as well of the seasas of the Japanese, who are a false, cruel, and treacherous people;likewise those of the Spaniards at the Philippines, more false,cruel, and treacherous than they.But to bring this long turn of our affairs to a conclusion; thefirst thing we had to do was to consult with the captain of theship, and with his men, and know if they were willing to go toJapan. While I was doing this, the young man whom my nephew hadleft with me as my companion came up, and told me that he thoughtthat voyage promised very fair, and that there was a great prospectof advantage, and he would be very glad if I undertook it; but thatif I would not, and would give him leave, he would go as amerchant, or as I pleased to order him; that if ever he came toEngland, and I was there and alive, he would render me a faithfulaccount of his success, which should be as much mine as I pleased.I was loath to part with him; but considering the prospect ofadvantage, which really was considerable, and that he was a youngfellow likely to do well in it, I inclined to let him go; but Itold him I would consult my partner, and give him an answer thenext day. I discoursed about it with my partner, who thereuponmade a most generous offer: "You know it has been an unluckyship," said he, "and we both resolve not to go to sea in it again;if your steward" (so he called my man) "will venture the voyage, Iwill leave my share of the vessel to him, and let him make the bestof it; and if we live to meet in England, and he meets with successabroad, he shall account for one half of the profits of the ship'sfreight to us; the other shall be his own."If my partner, who was no way concerned with my young man, made himsuch an offer, I could not do less than offer him the same; and allthe ship's company being willing to go with him, we made over halfthe ship to him in property, and took a writing from him, obliginghim to account for the other, and away he went to Japan. The Japanmerchant proved a very punctual, honest man to him: protected himat Japan, and got him a licence to come on shore, which theEuropeans in general have not lately obtained. He paid him hisfreight very punctually; sent him to the Philippines loaded withJapan and China wares, and a supercargo of their own, who,trafficking with the Spaniards, brought back European goods again,and a great quantity of spices; and there he was not only paid hisfreight very well, and at a very good price, but not being willingto sell the ship, then the merchant furnished him goods on his ownaccount; and with some money, and some spices of his own which hebrought with him, he went back to the Manillas, where he sold hiscargo very well. Here, having made a good acquaintance at Manilla,he got his ship made a free ship, and the governor of Manilla hiredhim to go to Acapulco, on the coast of America, and gave him alicence to land there, and to travel to Mexico, and to pass in anySpanish ship to Europe with all his men. He made the voyage toAcapulco very happily, and there he sold his ship: and havingthere also obtained allowance to travel by land to Porto Bello, hefound means to get to Jamaica, with all his treasure, and abouteight years after came to England exceeding rich.But to return to our particular affairs, being now to part with theship and ship's company, it came before us, of course, to considerwhat recompense we should give to the two men that gave us suchtimely notice of the design against us in the river Cambodia. Thetruth was, they had done us a very considerable service, anddeserved well at our hands; though, by the way, they were a coupleof rogues, too; for, as they believed the story of our beingpirates, and that we had really run away with the ship, they camedown to us, not only to betray the design that was formed againstus, but to go to sea with us as pirates. One of them confessedafterwards that nothing else but the hopes of going a-roguingbrought him to do it: however, the service they did us was not theless, and therefore, as I had promised to be grateful to them, Ifirst ordered the money to be paid them which they said was due tothem on board their respective ships: over and above that, I gaveeach of them a small sum of money in gold, which contented themvery well. I then made the Englishman gunner in the ship, thegunner being now made second mate and purser; the Dutchman I madeboatswain; so they were both very well pleased, and proved veryserviceable, being both able seamen, and very stout fellows.We were now on shore in China; if I thought myself banished, andremote from my own country at Bengal, where I had many ways to gethome for my money, what could I think of myself now, when I wasabout a thousand leagues farther off from home, and destitute ofall 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 theplace where we were, and then we might be able to purchase variousmanufactures of the country, and withal might possibly find someChinese junks from Tonquin for sail, that would carry us and ourgoods whither we pleased. This I liked very well, and resolved towait; besides, as our particular persons were not obnoxious, so ifany English or Dutch ships came thither, perhaps we might have anopportunity to load our goods, and get passage to some other placein India nearer home. Upon these hopes we resolved to continuehere; but, to divert ourselves, we took two or three journeys intothe country.First, we went ten days' journey to Nankin, a city well worthseeing; they say it has a million of people in it: it is regularlybuilt, and the streets are all straight, and cross one another indirect lines. But when I come to compare the miserable people ofthese countries with ours, their fabrics, their manner of living,their government, their religion, their wealth, and their glory, assome call it, I must confess that I scarcely think it worth mywhile to mention them here. We wonder at the grandeur, the riches,the pomp, the ceremonies, the government, the manufactures, thecommerce, and conduct of these people; not that there is really anymatter for wonder, but because, having a true notion of thebarbarity of those countries, the rudeness and the ignorance thatprevail there, we do not expect to find any such thing so far off.Otherwise, what are their buildings to the palaces and royalbuildings of Europe? What their trade to the universal commerce ofEngland, Holland, France, and Spain? What are their cities toours, for wealth, strength, gaiety of apparel, rich furniture, andinfinite variety? What are their ports, supplied with a few junksand barks, to our navigation, our merchant fleets, our large andpowerful navies? Our city of London has more trade than half theirmighty empire: one English, Dutch, or French man-of-war of eightyguns would be able to fight almost all the shipping belonging toChina: but the greatness of their wealth, their trade, the powerof their government, and the strength of their armies, may be alittle surprising to us, because, as I have said, considering themas a barbarous nation of pagans, little better than savages, we didnot expect such things among them. But all the forces of theirempire, though they were to bring two millions of men into thefield together, would be able to do nothing but ruin the countryand starve themselves; a million of their foot could not standbefore one embattled body of our infantry, posted so as not to besurrounded, though they were not to be one to twenty in number;nay, I do not boast if I say that thirty thousand German or Englishfoot, and ten thousand horse, well managed, could defeat all theforces of China. Nor is there a fortified town in China that couldhold out one month against the batteries and attacks of an Europeanarmy. They have firearms, it is true, but they are awkward anduncertain in their going off; and their powder has but littlestrength. Their armies are badly disciplined, and want skill toattack, or temper to retreat; and therefore, I must confess, itseemed strange to me, when I came home, and heard our people saysuch fine things of the power, glory, magnificence, and trade ofthe Chinese; because, as far as I saw, they appeared to be acontemptible herd or crowd of ignorant, sordid slaves, subjected toa government qualified only to rule such a people; and were not itsdistance inconceivably, great from Muscovy, and that empire in amanner as rude, impotent, and ill governed as they, the Czar ofMuscovy might with ease drive them all out of their country, andconquer them in one campaign; and had the Czar (who is now agrowing prince) fallen this way, instead of attacking the warlikeSwedes, and equally improved himself in the art of war, as they sayhe has done; and if none of the powers of Europe had envied orinterrupted him, he might by this time have been Emperor of China,instead of being beaten by the King of Sweden at Narva, when thelatter was not one to six in number.As their strength and their grandeur, so their navigation,commerce, and husbandry are very imperfect, compared to the samethings in Europe; also, in their knowledge, their learning, and intheir skill in the sciences, they are either very awkward ordefective, though they have globes or spheres, and a smattering ofthe mathematics, and think they know more than all the worldbesides. But they know little of the motions of the heavenlybodies; and so grossly and absurdly ignorant are their commonpeople, that when the sun is eclipsed, they think a great dragonhas assaulted it, and is going to run away with it; and they fall aclattering with all the drums and kettles in the country, to frightthe monster away, just as we do to hive a swarm of bees!As this is the only excursion of the kind which I have made in allthe accounts I have given of my travels, so I shall make no moresuch. It is none of my business, nor any part of my design; but togive an account of my own adventures through a life of inimitablewanderings, and a long variety of changes, which, perhaps, few thatcome after me will have heard the like of: I shall, therefore, sayvery little of all the mighty places, desert countries, andnumerous people I have yet to pass through, more than relates to myown story, and which my concern among them will make necessary.I was now, as near as I can compute, in the heart of China, aboutthirty degrees north of the line, for we were returned from Nankin.I had indeed a mind to see the city of Pekin, which I had heard somuch of, and Father Simon importuned me daily to do it. At lengthhis time of going away being set, and the other missionary who wasto go with him being arrived from Macao, it was necessary that weshould resolve either to go or not; so I referred it to my partner,and left it wholly to his choice, who at length resolved it in theaffirmative, and we prepared for our journey. We set out with verygood advantage as to finding the way; for we got leave to travel inthe retinue of one of their mandarins, a kind of viceroy orprincipal magistrate in the province where they reside, and whotake great state upon them, travelling with great attendance, andgreat homage from the people, who are sometimes greatlyimpoverished by them, being obliged to furnish provisions for themand all their attendants in their journeys. I particularlyobserved in our travelling with his baggage, that though wereceived sufficient provisions both for ourselves and our horsesfrom the country, as belonging to the mandarin, yet we were obligedto pay for everything we had, after the market price of thecountry, and the mandarin's steward collected it duly from us.Thus our travelling in the retinue of the mandarin, though it was agreat act of kindness, was not such a mighty favour to us, but wasa great advantage to him, considering there were above thirty otherpeople travelled in the same manner besides us, under theprotection of his retinue; for the country furnished all theprovisions for nothing to him, and yet he took our money for them.We were twenty-five days travelling to Pekin, through a countryexceeding populous, but I think badly cultivated; the husbandry,the economy, and the way of living miserable, though they boast somuch of the industry of the people: I say miserable, if comparedwith our own, but not so to these poor wretches, who know no other.The pride of the poor people is infinitely great, and exceeded bynothing but their poverty, in some parts, which adds to that whichI call their misery; and I must needs think the savages of Americalive much more happy than the poorer sort of these, because as theyhave nothing, so they desire nothing; whereas these are proud andinsolent and in the main are in many parts mere beggars anddrudges. Their ostentation is inexpressible; and, if they can,they love to keep multitudes of servants or slaves, which is to thelast degree ridiculous, as well as their contempt of all the worldbut themselves.I must confess I travelled more pleasantly afterwards in thedeserts and vast wildernesses of Grand Tartary than here, and yetthe roads here are well paved and well kept, and very convenientfor travellers; but nothing was more awkward to me than to see sucha haughty, imperious, insolent people, in the midst of the grossestsimplicity and ignorance; and my friend Father Simon and I used tobe very merry upon these occasions, to see their beggarly pride.For example, coming by the house of a country gentleman, as FatherSimon called him, about ten leagues off the city of Nankin, we hadfirst of all the honour to ride with the master of the house abouttwo miles; the state he rode in was a perfect Don Quixotism, beinga mixture of pomp and poverty. His habit was very proper for amerry-andrew, being a dirty calico, with hanging sleeves, tassels,and cuts and slashes almost on every side: it covered a taffetyvest, so greasy as to testify that his honour must be a mostexquisite sloven. His horse was a poor, starved, hobblingcreature, and two slaves followed him on foot to drive the poorcreature along; he had a whip in his hand, and he belaboured thebeast as fast about the head as his slaves did about the tail; andthus he rode by us, with about ten or twelve servants, going fromthe city to his country seat, about half a league before us. Wetravelled on gently, but this figure of a gentleman rode awaybefore us; and as we stopped at a village about an hour to refreshus, when we came by the country seat of this great man, we saw himin a little place before his door, eating a repast. It was a kindof garden, but he was easy to be seen; and we were given tounderstand that the more we looked at him the better he would bepleased. He sat under a tree, something like the palmetto, whicheffectually shaded him over the head, and on the south side; butunder the tree was placed a large umbrella, which made that partlook well enough. He sat lolling back in a great elbow-chair,being a heavy corpulent man, and had his meat brought him by twowomen slaves. He had two more, one of whom fed the squire with aspoon, and the other held the dish with one hand, and scraped offwhat he let fall upon his worship's beard and taffety vest.Leaving the poor wretch to please himself with our looking at him,as if we admired his idle pomp, we pursued our journey. FatherSimon had the curiosity to stay to inform himself what dainties thecountry justice had to feed on in all his state, which he had thehonour to taste of, and which was, I think, a mess of boiled rice,with a great piece of garlic in it, and a little bag filled withgreen pepper, and another plant which they have there, somethinglike our ginger, but smelling like musk, and tasting like mustard;all this was put together, and a small piece of lean mutton boiledin it, and this was his worship's repast. Four or five servantsmore attended at a distance, who we supposed were to eat of thesame after their master. As for our mandarin with whom wetravelled, he was respected as a king, surrounded always with hisgentlemen, and attended in all his appearances with such pomp, thatI saw little of him but at a distance. I observed that there wasnot a horse in his retinue but that our carrier's packhorses inEngland seemed to me to look much better; though it was hard tojudge rightly, for they were so covered with equipage, mantles,trappings, &c., that we could scarce see anything but their feetand their heads as they went along.I was now light-hearted, and all my late trouble and perplexitybeing over, I had no anxious thoughts about me, which made thisjourney the pleasanter to me; in which no ill accident attended me,only in passing or fording a small river, my horse fell and made mefree 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 itbecause it spoiled my pocket-book, wherein I had set down the namesof several people and places which I had occasion to remember, andwhich not taking due care of, the leaves rotted, and the words werenever after to be read.At length we arrived at Pekin. I had nobody with me but the youthwhom my nephew had given me to attend me as a servant and whoproved very trusty and diligent; and my partner had nobody with himbut one servant, who was a kinsman. As for the Portuguese pilot,he being desirous to see the court, we bore his charges for hiscompany, and for our use of him as an interpreter, for heunderstood the language of the country, and spoke good French and alittle English. Indeed, this old man was most useful to useverywhere; for we had not been above a week at Pekin, when he camelaughing. "Ah, Seignior Inglese," says he, "I have something totell will make your heart glad." - "My heart glad," says I; "whatcan that be? I don't know anything in this country can either giveme joy or grief to any great degree." - "Yes, yes," said the oldman, in broken English, "make you glad, me sorry." - "Why," said I,"will it make you sorry?" - "Because," said he, "you have broughtme here twenty-five days' journey, and will leave me to go backalone; and which way shall I get to my port afterwards, without aship, without a horse, without PECUNE?" so he called money, beinghis broken Latin, of which he had abundance to make us merry with.In short, he told us there was a great caravan of Muscovite andPolish merchants in the city, preparing to set out on their journeyby land to Muscovy, within four or five weeks; and he was sure wewould take the opportunity to go with them, and leave him behind,to go back alone.I confess I was greatly surprised with this good news, and hadscarce power to speak to him for some time; but at last I said tohim, "How do you know this? are you sure it is true?" - "Yes," sayshe; "I met this morning in the street an old acquaintance of mine,an Armenian, who is among them. He came last from Astrakhan, andwas designed to go to Tonquin, where I formerly knew him, but hasaltered his mind, and is now resolved to go with the caravan toMoscow, and so down the river Volga to Astrakhan." - "Well,Seignior," says I, "do not be uneasy about being left to go backalone; if this be a method for my return to England, it shall beyour fault if you go back to Macao at all." We then went toconsult together what was to be done; and I asked my partner whathe thought of the pilot's news, and whether it would suit with hisaffairs? He told me he would do just as I would; for he hadsettled all his affairs so well at Bengal, and left his effects insuch good hands, that as we had made a good voyage, if he couldinvest it in China silks, wrought and raw, he would be content togo to England, and then make a voyage back to Bengal by theCompany's ships.Having resolved upon this, we agreed that if our Portuguese pilotwould go with us, we would bear his charges to Moscow, or toEngland, if he pleased; nor, indeed, were we to be esteemed over-generous in that either, if we had not rewarded him further, theservice he had done us being really worth more than that; for hehad not only been a pilot to us at sea, but he had been like abroker for us on shore; and his procuring for us a Japan merchantwas some hundreds of pounds in our pockets. So, being willing togratify him, which was but doing him justice, and very willing alsoto have him with us besides, for he was a most necessary man on alloccasions, we agreed to give him a quantity of coined gold, which,as I computed it, was worth one hundred and seventy-five poundssterling, between us, and to bear all his charges, both for himselfand horse, except only a horse to carry his goods. Having settledthis between ourselves, we called him to let him know what we hadresolved. I told him he had complained of our being willing to lethim go back alone, and I was now about to tell him we designed heshould not go back at all. That as we had resolved to go to Europewith the caravan, we were very willing he should go with us; andthat we called him to know his mind. He shook his head and said itwas a long journey, and that he had no PECUNE to carry him thither,or to subsist himself when he came there. We told him we believedit was so, and therefore we had resolved to do something for himthat should let him see how sensible we were of the service he haddone us, and also how agreeable he was to us: and then I told himwhat we had resolved to give him here, which he might lay out as wewould do our own; and that as for his charges, if he would go withus we would set him safe on shore (life and casualties excepted),either in Muscovy or England, as he would choose, at our owncharge, except only the carriage of his goods. He received theproposal like a man transported, and told us he would go with usover all the whole world; and so we all prepared for our journey.However, as it was with us, so it was with the other merchants:they had many things to do, and instead of being ready in fiveweeks, it was four months and some days before all things were gottogether.