The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe - 58

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 strength of 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 distance inconceivably 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 thirty degrees 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 much of 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 the country 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 street an 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 him to 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.