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 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 COLLECTION 
 
 CHINA AND THE CHINESE' 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 
 CLASS OF 1876 
 
 1918 
 
3 1924 063 828 473 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924063828473 
 
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 A SPANISH SHIP OF WAR. 
 
REMARKABLE 
 
 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS 
 
 JAMES -BLACKWOOD & CO., LOVELL'S COURT, 
 PATERNOSTER ROW 
 
^LACKWOOD's JInIYERSAL JLlIBRAI^Y OF ^TANDARD ^UTHORS. 
 
 REMARKABLE 
 
 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS, 
 
 CONSISTINO OF 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGES ROUND THE WORLD; STEPHENS' INCIDENTS 
 
 OF TRAVEL IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA AND POLAND; 
 
 AND KCEMPEER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 Illustrated. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JAMES BLACKWOOD & CO., LOVELL'S COURT, 
 
 PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
Wis. I 
 
 GLASGOW: 
 
 C. L. W R I G H T, 
 
 PKIKTEB. 
 
PART I. 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGES ROUND 
 THE WORLD. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK FIEST. PAOi 
 
 Ch*p. I. Of the eqaipment of the squadron. The incidents relating thereto, from its first appointment to its 
 
 Betting sail from St. Helens . . . . . 1 
 
 n. The passage from St. Helens to the Island of Madeira; with a short account of that Island, and of 
 
 our stay there . 5 
 
 III. The history of the squadron commanded hy Don Joseph Fizarro .... . . 6 
 
 ly. From Madeira to St. Catherine's . .11 
 
 y. Proceedings at St. Catherine's, and a description of the place, with a Rhort account of Brazil . . 13 
 
 yi. The run from St. Catherine's to port St. Julian, with some account of that port, and of the country 
 
 to the southward of the river of Plate . . 18 
 
 VII. Departure from the Bay of St. Julian, and the passage from thence to Straits Le Maire , . 22 
 
 VIIT. From Straits Le Maire to Cape Noir .... 24 
 
 IX. Ohserrations and directions for facilitating the passage of our future Cruisers round Cape Horn . 26 
 
 X. From Cape Noir to the Island of Juan Fernandes 30 
 
 BOOK SECOND. 
 
 Chap, L The arrival of the Centurian at the Island of Juan Fernandes, with a description of that Island . 34 
 
 II. The arrival of the Gloucester and Ihe Anna pink at the Island of Juan Fernandes, and the transac- 
 tions at that place during this interval 39 
 
 III. A short narrative of what befel the Anna pink before she joined us, with an account of the loss of the 
 
 "Wager, and of the putting back of the Severn and Pearl, the two remaining ships of the squadron 42 
 
 ly. Conclusion of our proceedings at Juan Fernandes, from the arrival of the Anna pink, to our final 
 
 departure ftom thence . ... .... .... 43 
 
 y. Our cruise, from the time of our leaving Juan Fernandes, to the taking the town of Paila . . 52- 
 
 yi. The taking of Paita, and our proceedings till we left the coast of Peru 58 
 
 yiL From our departure from Paita, to our arrival at Quibo ,..*.... .64 
 
 VlIL Our proceedings at Quibo, with an account of the place ... 67 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Chap. IX. From Quibo to the Coast of Mexico G9 
 
 X An account of the coininerce carried on between the city of Manila oa the Island of Luconia, and 
 
 the port of Acapulco on the coast of Mexico , . 72 
 
 XI. Our cruise off the port of Acapulco for the Manila ship 77 
 
 XII. Description of the Harbour of Chequetan, and of the adjacent coast and country . . . .80 
 
 XIIL Oar proceedings at Chequetan and on the adjacent coast, till our setting sail for Asia . . .83 
 
 XIV. A brief account of what might have been expected from our squidron. had it arrived in the South 
 
 Seas in good time 86 
 
 BOOK THIRD. 
 
 Chap, L The run from the cdast of Mexico to the Ladrones or Marian Islands 89 
 
 IL Our arrival at Tinian, and an account of the island, and of our proceedings there, till the Centurian 
 
 drove out to sea, . .... 93 
 
 III. Transactions at Tinian after the departure of the Ceuturian . 08 
 
 IV. Proceedings on board the Centurion, when driven out to sea ... . . 101 
 
 V. Employment at Tinian, till the final departure of the Centurion from thencci with a description of 
 
 the Ladrones . . . . .... 103 
 
 VI. From Tinian to Macao , lOfi 
 
 VII. Proceedings at Macao 208 
 
 VIII From Macao to Cape Esphitu Santo. The taking of the ITanila galleon, and returning back again 113 
 
 IX. Transactions in the river of Canton ]18 
 
 X. Proceedings at the city of Canton, and the return of the Centurian to England .... 123 
 
ANSON'S 
 VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD, 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 >OJiy<t equipment of ihe Squadron. The incidents relating 
 thereto, front its first appointment to its setting sail from 
 St. Helens. 
 
 The squadron under the command of Mr. Anson 
 (of which I here propose to recite the most mate- 
 rial proceedings) liaving undergone many clianges 
 in its destination, its force, and its equipment, in 
 the ten months between its first appointment and 
 its final sailing from St. Helens, I conceive the 
 his '.ory of these alterations is a detail necessary to 
 be made pubUc, both for the honour of those who 
 first planned and promoted this enterprise, and 
 for the justification of those who have been en- 
 trusted with its execution. Since it will from 
 hence appear, that the accidents the expedition 
 was afterwards exposed to, and which prevented 
 it from producing all the national advantages the 
 strength of the squadron and the expectation of 
 the public seemed to presage, were principally 
 owing to a series of inteiTuptions, which delayed 
 the commander in the course of his preparations, 
 and which it exceeded his utmost industry either 
 to avoid or get removed. 
 
 When in the latter end of the summer of the 
 year 1739, it was foreseen that a war with Spain 
 was inevitable, it was the opinion of several con- 
 siderable persons then trusted with the admini- 
 stration of affairs, that the most prudent step the 
 nation could take, on the breaking out of the war, 
 was attacking that crown in her distant settle- 
 ments ; for by this means (as at that time there 
 was the greatest probability of success) it was 
 supposed that we should cut oS' the principal re- 
 sources of the enemy, and reduce them to the 
 necessity of sincerely desiring a peace, as they 
 would hereby be deprived of the returns of that 
 treasure by which alone they could be enabled to 
 tarry on a war. 
 
 In pursuance of these sentiments, several pro- 
 jects were examined, and several resolutions taken 
 in council. And in all these deliberations it was 
 from the first determined, that George Anson, 
 £sq., then captain of the Centurion, should be 
 employed as commander-in-chief of an expedition 
 of this kind ; and he then being absent on a 
 cruise, a vessel was dispatched to his station so 
 early as the beginning of September, to order him 
 to return with his ship to Portsmouth. And soon 
 after he came there, that is, on the 10th of Novem- 
 ber following, he received a letter from Sir Charles 
 
 Wager, ordering him to repair to London, and to 
 attend the board of Admiralty ; where, when he 
 arrived, he was informed by Sir Charles that two 
 squadrons would be immediately fitted out for two 
 secret expeditions, which however would have 
 some connection with each other ; that he. Mi*. 
 Anson, was intended to command one of them, 
 and Mr. Cornwall (who hath since lost his life 
 gloriously in the defence of his country's honour) 
 the other. That the squadron under Mr. Anson 
 was to take on board three independent compa- 
 nies of a hundred men each, and Bland's regiment 
 of foot ; that colonel Bland was likewise to embark 
 with his regiment, and to command the land 
 forces ; and that, as soon as this squadron could 
 be fitted for the sea, they were to set sail, with 
 express orders to touch at no place till they camo 
 to Java-Head, in the East Indies : that there they 
 were only to stop to take in water, and tlience to 
 proceed directly to the city of Manila, situated on 
 Luconia, one of the Philippine Islands. That the 
 other squadron was to be of equal force with this 
 commanded by Mr. Anson, and was intended to 
 pass round Cape Horn into the South Seas, and 
 there to range along that coast ; and after cruising 
 upon the enemy in those parts, and attempting 
 their settlements, this squadron in its return was 
 to rendezvous at Manila, and there to join the 
 squadron under Mr. Anson, where they were to 
 refresh their men and refit their ships, and per- 
 haps receive further orders. 
 
 This scheme was doubtless extremeiy well pro- 
 jected, and could not but greatly advance the 
 public service, and at the same time the reputa- 
 tion and fortune of those concerned in its execu- 
 tion ; for had Mr. Anson proceeded for Manila 
 at the time and in the manner proposed by Sir 
 Charles Wager, he would in all probability have 
 arrived there before they had received any advice 
 of the war between us and Spain, and conse- 
 quently before they had been in the least pre- 
 pared for the reception of an enemy, or had any 
 apprehensions of their danger. The city of Manila 
 might be well supposed to have been at that time 
 in the same defenceless condition with all the 
 other Spanish settlements, just at the breaking 
 out of the war : that is to say, their fortifications 
 neglected, and in many places decayed ; their can- 
 non dismounted, or useless, by the mouldering of 
 their carriages ; their magazines, whether of mili- 
 tary stores or provision, all empty ; their garrisons 
 unpaid, and consequently thin, ill-affected, and 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 dispirited ; and the royal chests in Peru, whence 
 alone all these disorders could receive their re- 
 dress, drained to the very bottom. This, from 
 the intercepted letters of their viceroys and go- 
 vernors, is well known to have been the defence- 
 less state of Panama, and the other Spanish places 
 on the coast of the South Sea, for near a twelve- 
 month after our declaration of w.ar. And it can- 
 not be supposed that the city of Manila, removed 
 still farther by almost half the circumference of 
 the globe.should have experienced from theSpanish 
 government a greater share of attention and con- 
 cern for its security than Panama and the other 
 important ports in Peru and Chili, on which their 
 possession of that immense empire depends. 
 Indeed, it is well known, that Manila was at that 
 time incapable of making any considerable de- 
 fence, a7id in all prebability would have surren- 
 dered only on the appearance of our squadron 
 before it. The consequence of this city, and the 
 island it stands on, may be in some measure esti- 
 mated, from the healthiness of its air, the excel- 
 lency of its port and bay, the number and wealth 
 of its inhabitants,, and the very extensive and 
 beneficial commerce which it carries on to the 
 principal ports in the East Indies and China, and 
 its exclusive trade to Acapulco, the returns for 
 which, being made in silver, are, upon the lowest 
 valuation, not less than three millions of dollars 
 per annum. 
 
 And on this scheme Sir Charles Wager was so 
 intent, that in a tew days after this first confer- 
 ence, that is, on November 1 8, Mr. Anson re- 
 ceived an order to talie under his command the 
 Argyle, Severn, Pearl, Wager, and Tryal sloop ; 
 and other orders were issued to him in the same 
 month, and in the December following, relating to 
 the victualling of this squadron. But Mr. Anson 
 attending the Admiralty the beginning of January, 
 he was informed by Sh- Charles Wager, that, for 
 reasons with which he. Sir Charles, was not ac- 
 quainted, the expedition to Manila was laid aside. 
 It may be conceived that Mr. Anson was ex- 
 tremely chagrined at the losing the command of 
 so infallible, so honourable, and in every respect 
 so desirable an enterprise, especially too as he had 
 already, at a very great expense, made the neces- 
 sary provision for his own accommodation in this 
 voyage, which he had reason to expect would 
 prove a very long one. However, Sir Charles, to 
 render this disappointment in some degree more 
 tolerable, informed him that the expedition to the 
 South Seas was still intended, and that he, Mr. 
 Anson, and his squadron, as their first destination 
 was now countermanded, should be employed in 
 that service. And on the 10th of January he 
 received his commission, appointing him com- 
 ■Jiander-in-chief of the forementioned squadron, 
 which (the Argyle being in the course of their 
 preparation changed for the Gloucester) was the 
 same he sailed with above eight months after from 
 St. Helens. On this change of destination, the 
 equipment of the squadron was still prosecuted 
 with as much vigour as ever, and the victualling, 
 and whatever depended on the commodore, was 
 so far advanced, that he conceived the ships might 
 be capable of putting to sea the instant he should 
 receive his final orders, of which he was in daily 
 expectation. And at last, on the 28th of June, 
 1740, the duke of Newcastle, principal secretary 
 
 of state, delivered to him his majesty's instruc- 
 tions, dated January 31, 1739, with an additional 
 instruction from the lords justices, dated June 
 19, 1740.1 On the receipt of these, Mr. Anson 
 raimediately repaired to Spithead, with a resolu- 
 tion to sail with the first fair wind, flattering him- 
 self that all his delays were now at an end. For 
 though he knew hy the musters that his squadron 
 wanted three hundred seamen of their comple- 
 ment (a deficiency which, with all his assiduity, he 
 had not been able to get supplied), yet, as Sir 
 Charles Wager informed him that an order from 
 the board of Admiralty was despatched to Sir 
 John Norris to spare him the numbers which he 
 wanted, he doubted not of his complying there- 
 with. But on his arrival at Portsmouth he found 
 himself greatly mistaken and disappointed in this 
 persuasion ; for on his application Sir John Norris 
 told him he could spare him' none, for he wanted 
 men for his own fleet. This occasioned an inevit- 
 able and a very considerable delay, for it was the 
 end of July before this deficiency was by any 
 means supplied, and all that was then done was 
 extremely short of his necessities and expecta- 
 tion. For Admiral Balchen, who succeeded to the 
 command at Spithead after Sir John Norris had 
 sailed to the westward, instead of three hundred 
 able sailors, which Mr. Anson wanted of his com- 
 r-lement, ordered on board the squadron a hun- 
 dred and seventy men only ; of whom thirty-twO' 
 were from the hospital and sick quarters, thirty- 
 seven from the Salisbury, with three officers of 
 Colonel Lowther's regiment, and ninety-eight ma- 
 rines, and these were all that were ever granted 
 to make up the forementioned deficiency. 
 
 But the commodore's mortification did not end 
 here. It has been already observed, that it was 
 at first intended that Colonel Bland's regiment, 
 and three independent companies of a hundred 
 men each, should embark as land-forces on board 
 the squadron. But this disposition was now 
 changed, and all the land-forces that were to be 
 allowed, were five hundred invalids to be collected 
 from the out-pensioners of Chelsea college. As 
 these out-pensioners consist of soldiers who, from 
 their age, wounds, or other infirmities, are incapa- 
 ble of service in marching regiments, Mr. Anson 
 was greatly chagrined at having such a decrepit 
 detachment allotted him ; for he was fully per- 
 suaded that the greatest part of them would perish 
 long before they arrived at the scene of action, 
 since the delays, he had already encountered, 
 necessarily confined his passage round Cape Horn 
 to the most rigorous season of the year. Sir 
 Charles Wager, too, joined in opinion with the 
 commodore, that invalids were no ways proper 
 for this service, and solicited strenuously to have 
 them exchanged ; but he was told that persons, 
 who were supposed to be better judges of soldiers 
 than he or Mr. Anson, thought them the properest 
 men that could be employed on this occasion.* 
 And upon this determination they were ordered 
 on board the squadron on the 5th of August ; but 
 
 ' See these instructions in the Introduction. 
 
 » " The feelings of these excellent judges are not to be 
 envied, when they were afterwards made acquainted with 
 the fact, that not one of these unfortunate individuals 
 who went on the voyage survived to reach their native 
 land — every man had perished." — Sir John Barrow's Life 
 of Lord Anson. 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 instead of five hundred, there came on board no 
 more than two hundred and fifty-nine ; for all 
 those who had limbs and strength to walk out of 
 Portsmouth deserted, leaving behind them only 
 such as were literally invalids, most of them being 
 sixty years of age, and some of them upwards of 
 seventy Indeed it is difficult to conceive a more 
 moving scene than the embarkation of these un- 
 happy veterans : they were themselves extremely 
 averse to the service they were engaged in, and 
 fully apprised of all the disasters they were after- 
 wards exposed to ; the apprehensions of which 
 were strongly marked by the concern that appeared 
 in their countenances, which was mixed with no 
 small degree of indignation, to be thus hurried 
 from their repose into a fatiguing employ, to which 
 neither the strength of their bodies, nor the vigour 
 of their minds, were any ways proportioned, and 
 where, without seeing the face of an enemy, or in 
 the least promoting the success of the enterprise 
 they were engaged in, they would in all proba- 
 bility uselessly perish by lingering and painful 
 diseases ; and this too, after they had spent the 
 activity and strength of their youth in their coun- 
 try's service. 
 
 And I cannot but observe, on this melancholy 
 incident, how extremely unfortunate it was, both 
 to this aged and diseased detachment, and to the 
 expedition they were employed in ; that amongst 
 all the out-pensioners of Chelsea Hospital, which 
 were supposed to amount to two thousand men, 
 the most crazy and infirm only should be culled 
 out for so fatiguing and perilous an undertaking. 
 For it was well known, that however unfit invalids 
 in general might be for this service, yet by a pru- 
 dent choice, there might have been found among 
 them five hundred men, who had some remains of 
 vigour left : and Mr. Anson fully expected, that 
 the best of them would have been allotted him ; 
 whereas the whole detachment that was sent to 
 him, seemed to be made up of the most decrepit and 
 miserable objects, that could be collected out of the 
 whole body; and by the desertion above-mentioned, 
 these were a second time cleared of that little health 
 and strength which were to be found amongst 
 them, and he was to take up with such as were 
 much fitter for an infirmary, than for any military 
 duty. 
 
 And here it is necessary to mention another 
 material particular in the equipment of this squad- 
 ron. It was proposed to Mr. Anson, after it was 
 resolved that he should be sent to the South-Seas, 
 to take with him two persons under the denomina- 
 tion of agent-victuallers. Those who were men- 
 tioned for this employment had formerly been in 
 the Spanish West-Indies, in the South-Sea Com- 
 pany's service, and it was supposed that by their 
 knowledge and intelligence on thatcoast, they might 
 often procure provisions for him by compact with 
 the inhabitants, when it was not to be got by force 
 of arms. These agent-victuallers were, for this 
 purpose, to be allowed to carry to the value of 
 15,000i. in merchandise on board the squadron ; 
 for they had represented, that it would be much 
 easier for them to procure provisions with goods, 
 than with the value of the same goods in money. 
 Whatever colours were given to this scheme, it 
 was diflttcult to persuade the generality of mankind, 
 that it was not principally intended for the enrich- 
 ment of the agents, by the beneficial commerce 
 
 they proposed to carry on upon that coast. Mi. 
 Anson, from the beginning, objected both to the 
 appointment of agent victuallers, and the allowing 
 them to carry a cargo on board the squadron r 
 for he conceived, that in those few amicable ports 
 where the squadron might touch, he needed not 
 their assistance to contract for any provisions the- 
 place afforded ; and on the enemy's coast, he did 
 not imagine that they could ever procure him the- 
 necessaries he should want, unless (which he was 
 resolved not to comply with) the military opera- 
 tions of his squadron were to be regulated by the- 
 ridiculous views of their trading projects. Ali 
 that he thought the Government ought to have 
 done on this occasion, was to put on board to the 
 value of 2 or .'^000/. only of such goods, as the 
 Indians, or the Spanish planters in the less culti- 
 vated part of the coast, might be tempted with ;. 
 since it was in such places only that he imagined 
 it would be worth while to truck with the enemy 
 for provisions : and in these places, it was suffi- 
 ciently evident, a very small cargo would suffice. 
 
 But though the commodore objected both to 
 the appointment of these officers, and to their 
 project ; yet, as they had insinuated that their 
 scheme, besides victualling the squadron, might 
 contribute to settling a trade upon that coast, 
 which might be afterwards carried on without 
 difficulty, and might thereby prove a very con- 
 siderable national advantage, they were much 
 listened to by some considerable persons : and of 
 the 15,000/. which was to be the amount of their 
 cargo, the Government agreed to advance them 
 10,000 upon imprest, and the remaining 5000 they 
 raised on bottomry bonds ; and the goods pur- 
 chased with this sum were all that were taken to- 
 sea by the squadron, how much soever the amount 
 of them might be afterwards magnified by common 
 report. 
 
 This cargo was at first shipped on board the- 
 Wager store-ship, and one of the victuallers ; no 
 part of it being admitted on board the men-of- 
 war. But when the commodore was at St. Cathe- 
 rine's, he considered, that in case the squadron 
 should be separated, it might be pretended that 
 some of the ships were disappointed of provisions 
 for want of a cargo to truck with, and therefore^ 
 he distributed some of the least bulky commo- 
 dities on board the men-of-war, leaving the re- 
 mainder principally on board the Wager, where 
 it was lost : and more of the goods perishing by 
 various accidents to be recited hereafter, and no 
 part of them being disposed of upon the coast, 
 the few that came home to England, did not 
 produce, when sold, above a fourth part of the 
 original price. So true was the commodore'* 
 prediction about the event of this project, which 
 had been by many considered as infallibly pro- 
 ductive of immense gains. But to return to the 
 transactions at Portsmouth. 
 
 To supply the place of the two hundred and 
 forty invalids who had deserted, as is mentioned 
 above, there were ordered on board two hundred J 
 and ten marines detached from different regi- 
 ments : these were raw and undisciplined men,. 
 for they were just raised, and had scarcely any 
 thing more of the soldier than their regimentals, 
 none of them having been so far trained, as to be 
 permitted to fire. The last detachment of these 
 marines came on board the 8th of August, and 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 on the 10th the squadron sailed from Spithead to 
 St. Helens, there to wait for a wind to proceed on 
 the expedition. 
 
 But the delays we had ali'eady suffered had not 
 jet spent all their influence, for we were now 
 advanced into a season of the year, when the 
 westerly winds are usually very constant, and 
 very violent ; and it was thought proper that we 
 «hould put to sea in company with the fleet com- 
 tnanded by Adniix*al Balclien, and the expedition 
 under Lord Catheart. And as we made up in all 
 twenty-one men of war, and a imndred and twenty- 
 four sail of merchantment and transports, we had 
 no hopes of getting out of the channel with so large 
 a, number of ships, without the continuance of a 
 fair wind, for some considerable time. This was 
 ■what we had every day less and less reason to 
 expect, as the time of the equinox drew near ; so 
 that our golden dreams, and our ideal possession 
 of the Peruvian treasures, grew each day more 
 I'aint, and the difflcultics and dangers of the pas- 
 sage round Cape Horn in the winter season filled 
 our imaginations in their room. l'"or it was forty 
 •days from our an-ival at St. Helens, to our final 
 departure from thence : and even then (having 
 ■ordera to proceed without Lord Catheart) we tided 
 it down the channel with a contrary wind. But 
 this interval of forty days was not free from the 
 displeasing fatigue of often setting sail, and being 
 ■as often obliged to return ; nor exempt from 
 dangers, gi-eater thiin have been sometimes ex- 
 perienced in surrounding the globe. For the wind 
 •coming fair for the first time, on the 23d of August, 
 we got under sail, and Mr. Balchen showed him- 
 ■self truly solicitous to have proceeded to sea, but 
 the wind soon returning to its old quarter, obliged 
 ■us to put back to St. Helens, not without consider- 
 able hazard, and some dam.ige received by two 
 of the transports, which, in tacking, ran foul of each 
 •other : besides this, we made two or three more 
 attempts to sail, but without any better success. 
 And, on the 6th of Septemlier, being returned to 
 an anchor at St. Helens, after one of these fruitless 
 •efforts, the ^yind blew so fresh, that the whole fleet 
 sti'uck their yards and topmasts to prevent their 
 •driving. And, notwithstanding this precaution, 
 the Centurion drove the next evening, and brought 
 both cables a-liead, and we were in no small danger 
 •of driving foul of the Prince Frederick, a seventy- 
 gun ship, moored at a small distance under our 
 stern ; which we happily escaped, by her driving 
 at the same time, and so preserving her distance : 
 nor did we think ourselves secure, till we at last 
 let go the sheet-anchor, which fortunately brought 
 us up. 
 
 However, on the 9th of September, we were in 
 some degree relieved from this lingering vexatious 
 situation, by an order which Mr. Anson received 
 from the lords justices, to pat to sea the first 
 ■opportunity with his own squadron only, if Lord 
 Catheart should not be ready. Bemg thus freed 
 from the troublesome company of so large a fleet, 
 our commodore resolved to weigh and tide it down 
 channel as soon as the weather should become 
 sufficiently moderate, and this might easily have 
 been done with our own squadron alone full two 
 months sooner, had the orders of the Admiralty, 
 for supplying us Avith seamen, been punctually 
 complied with, and had we met with none of those 
 other delays mentioned in tliis naiTation. It is 
 
 true, our hopes of a speedy depai-ture were even 
 now somewhat damped by a subsequent order 
 which Mr. Anson received on the 12th of Septem- 
 ber; for by that he was required to take under his 
 convoy the St. Albans with the Turkey fleet, and 
 to join the Dragon, and the Winchester, with the 
 Straits' and the American trade at Torbay or Ply- 
 mouth, and to proceed with them to sea as far as 
 their way and ours lay together : this incumbrance 
 of a convoy gave us some uneasiness, as we feared 
 it might prove the means of lengthening our pas- 
 sage to the Madeii-as. However, Mr. Anson, now 
 having the command himself, resolved to adhere to 
 his former determmation, and to tide it down the 
 channel with the first moderate weather ; and that 
 the junction of his convoy might occasion as little 
 a loss of time as possible, he immediately sent 
 directions to Torbay, that the fleets he was there 
 to take under his care, might be in a readiness to 
 join him instantly on his approach. And at last, 
 on the 18th of September, he weighed from St. 
 Helens ; and though the wind was at first contrary, 
 had the good fortune to get clear of the channel in 
 four days, as will be more particularly related in 
 the ensuing chapter. 
 
 Having thus gone through the respective steps 
 taken in the equipment of this squadrop, it is suffi- 
 ciently obvious how different an aspect this expe- 
 dition bore at its first appointment in the beginning 
 of January, from what it had in the latter end of 
 September, when it left the channel; and how 
 much its numbers, its strength, and the probability 
 of its success were diminished, by the various inci- 
 dents which took place in that interval. For 
 instead of having all our old and ordinary seamen 
 exchanged for such as were young and able, (which 
 the commodore was at first promised,) and having 
 our numbers completed to their full complement, 
 we were obliged to retain our first crews, which 
 were very indifferent ; and a deficiency of three 
 hundred men in our numbers was no otherwise 
 made up to us, than by sending us on board a 
 hundred and seventy men, the greatest part com- 
 posed of such as were discharged from hospitals, 
 or new-raised marines who had never been at sea 
 before. And in the land-forces allotted us, the 
 change was still more disadvantageous, for there, 
 instead of three independent companies of a hun- 
 dred men each, and Bland's regiment of foot, which 
 was an old one, we had only four hundred and 
 seventy mvalids and marines, one part of them 
 incapable for action by age and infii-mities, and the 
 other part useless by their ignorance of their duty. 
 But the diminishing the strength of the squadron 
 was not the greatest inconvenience which attended 
 these alterations ; for the contests, representations, 
 and difficulties which they continually produced, 
 (as we have above seen, that m these cases the 
 authority of the Admiralty was not always sub- 
 mitted to,) occasioned a delay and waste of time, 
 wliich, in its consequences, was the source of all 
 the disasters to which this enterprise was after- 
 wards exposed : for, by this means we were obliged 
 to make our passage round Cape Horn, in the most 
 tempestuous season of the year, whence proceeded 
 the reparation of our squadron, the loss of numbers 
 of our men, and the imminent hazard of our total 
 destruction : and by this delay too, the enemy had 
 been so well informed of our designs, that a person 
 who had been employed in the South-Sea cuni- 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 panys service, and aiT^ved fi;om Panama three or 
 four daya before we left Portsmouth, was able to 
 relate to Mr. Anson most of the particulars of the ' 
 destination and strength of our squadron, from 
 what he had learnt amongst the Spaniards before 
 he left them. And this was afterwards confii'med 
 by a more extraordinary circumstance: for we 
 shall find, that when the Spaniards (fully satisfied 
 that our expedition was intended for the South- 
 Seas) had fitted out a squadron to oppose us, which 
 had so far got the start of us, as to arrive before us 
 off the island of Madeira, the commander of this 
 squadron was so well instructed in the form and 
 make of Mr. Anson's broad pennant, and had imi- 
 tated it so exactly, that he thereby decoyed the 
 Pearl, one of our squadron, within gun-shot of him, 
 before the captain of the Pearl was able to discover 
 his mistake. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 27*if Passage from St. Helens to the Island of Madeira i 
 with a short account of that Island^ atid of our stay 
 there. 
 
 On the 18th of September, 1740, the squadron, 
 as we have observed in the preceding chapter, 
 weighed from St. Helens with a contrary wind, the 
 commodore proposing to tide it down the channel, 
 as he dreaded less the inconveniences he should 
 thereby have to struggle with, than the risk he 
 should run of ruining the enterprise, by an uncer- 
 tain, and in all probability, a tedious attendance for 
 a fair wind. 
 
 The squadron allotted to this service consisted of 
 five men-of-war, a sloop-of-war, and two victualling 
 ships. They were the Centurion of sixty guns, 
 four hundred men, George Anson, Esq. commander ; 
 the Gloucester of fifty guns, three hundred men, 
 Richard Norris, commander ; the Severn of fifty 
 puns, three hundred men, the honourable Edward 
 Legg, commander ; the Pearl of forty guns, two 
 hundred and fifty men, Matthew Mitchel, com- 
 mander; the Wager of twenty-eight guns, one 
 hundred and sixty men, Dandy Kidd, commander ; 
 and tile Tryal sloop of eight guns, one hundred 
 men, the honourable John Murray, commander. 
 The two victuallers were pinks, the largest of about 
 four hundred, and the other of about two hundred 
 tons burthen ; these were to attend us, till the pro- 
 visions we had taken on board were so far con- 
 sumed as to make room for the additional quantity 
 they carried with them, which, when we had taken 
 into our ships, they were to be discharged. Besides 
 the complement of men borne by the above-men- 
 tioned ships as their crews, there were embarked on 
 board the squadron about four hundred and seventy 
 invalids and marines, under the denomination of 
 land-forces, as has been particularly mentioned in 
 the preceding chapter, which were commanded by 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Cracherode. With this squad- 
 ron, together with the St. Albans and the Lark, 
 and the trade under their convoy, Mr. Anson, after 
 weighing from St. Helens, tided it down the chan- 
 nel for the first forty-eight hours ; and, on the 
 20th, in the morning, we discovered off the Ram- 
 Head the Dragon, Winchester, South-Sea Castle, 
 and Rye, with a number of merchantmen under 
 their convoy : these we joined about noon the same 
 day, our commodore having orders to see them 
 
 (together with the St. Albans and Lark) as far 
 into the sea as their course and ours lay to- 
 gether. When we came in sight of this last men- 
 tioned fleet, Mr. Anson first hoisted his broad 
 pennant, and was saluted by all the men-of-war 
 in company. 
 
 When we had joined this last convoy, we made 
 up eleven men-of-war, and about one hundred and 
 fifty sail of merchantmen, consisting of the Turkey, 
 the Straits', and the Ajnerican trade. Mr. Anson, 
 the same day, made a signal for all the captains of 
 the men-of-war to come on board him, where lie 
 delivered them their fighting and sailing instruc- 
 tions, and then, with a fair wind, we all stood 
 towards the south-west ; and the next day at noon, 
 being the 21st, we had run forty leagues from the 
 Ram-Head ; and being now clear of the land, our 
 commodore, to render our view more extensive, 
 ordered Captain Mitchel, in the Pearl, to make 
 sail two leagues a-head of the fleet every morning,, 
 and to repaii- to his station every evening. Thus 
 we proceeded till the 25th, when the Winchester 
 and the American convoy made the concerted sig- 
 nal for leave to separate, which being answered by 
 the commodore, they left us : as the St. Albans and 
 the Dragon, with the Turkey and Straits' convoy,, 
 did on the tdth. After which separation, there re- 
 mained in company only our own squadron and our 
 two victuallers, with which we kept on our course 
 for the island of Madeira. But the winds were so- 
 contrary, that wc had the mortification to be forty 
 days in our passage thither from St. Helens, though 
 it is known to be often done in ten or twelve. 
 This delay was a most unpleasing circumstance, 
 productive of much discontent and ill-humour 
 amongst our people, of which those only can have 
 a tolerable idea, who have had the experience of a 
 like situation. And besides the peevishness and 
 despondency which foul and contrary winds, and a 
 lingering voyage, never fail to create on all occa- 
 sions, we, in particular, had very substantial rea- 
 sons to be greatly alarmed at this unexpected impe- 
 diment. For as we had departed from England 
 much later than we ought to have done, we had. 
 placed almost all our hopes of success in the chance 
 of retrieving, in some measure at sea, the time we 
 had so unhappily wasted at Spithead and St. Helens. 
 However, at last, on Monday, October the S.^th,, 
 at five in the morning, we, to our great joy, made 
 the land, and in the afternoon came to an anchor ini 
 Madeira Road, in forty fathom water ; the Brazen- 
 head bearing from us E. by S., the Loo N.N.W.,. 
 and the Great Church N.N.E. We had hardly let 
 go our anchor, when an English privateer sloop, 
 ran under our stern, and saluted the commodore 
 \vith nine guns, which we returned with five.. 
 And, the next day, the consul of the islaud coming, 
 to visit the commodore, we saluted him with nine- 
 guns on his coming on board. 
 
 This island of Madeira, where we are now 
 arrived, is famous through all our American settle- 
 ments for its excellent wines, which seem to be 
 designed by Providence for the refreshment of the- 
 inhabitants of the torrid zone. It is situated in 
 a fine climate, in the latitude of 32° 27'nortli ; an* 
 in the longitude from London of, by our different 
 reckonings, from 18° ^ to 19° ^ west, though laid 
 down in the charts in 17°. It is composed of one 
 continued hill, of ? considerable height, extending 
 itself from east to west : the declivity of which, on 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 the south-side, is cultivated and interspersed with 
 vineyards; and in the midst of this slope the 
 -merchants have fixed their country-seats, which 
 help to form an agreeable prospect. There is but 
 one considerable town in the whole island, it is 
 named Fonchiale, and is seated on the south part 
 ■of the island, at the bottom of a large bay. This 
 is the only place of trade, and indeed the only one 
 where it is possible for a boat to land. Fonchiale, 
 towards the sea, is defended by a high wall, with a 
 battery of cannon, besides a castle on the Loo, 
 \\hich is a rock standing in the water at a small 
 distance from the shore. Even here the beach is 
 ■covered with large stones, and a violent surf con- 
 tinually beats upon it ; so that the commodore did 
 not care to venture the ships' long-boats to fetch 
 the water off, as there was so much danger of their 
 being lost ; and therefoi-e ordered the captains of 
 the squadi'on to emplov Portuguese boats on that 
 -service. 
 
 We continued about a week at this island, 
 watering our ships, and providing the squadron 
 with wine and other refreshments. And, on the 
 3rd of November, Captam Richard Norris having 
 signified, by a letter to the commodore, his desire 
 to quit his command on board the Gloucester, in 
 order to return to England for the recovery of his 
 health, the commodore complied with his request ; 
 and thereupon was pleased to appoint Captain 
 Matthew Mitchel to command the Gloucester in 
 his room, and to remove Captain Kidd from the 
 Wager to the Pearl, and Captain Murray from the 
 Tryal sloop to the Wager, giving the command of 
 the Tryal to Lieutenant Cheap. These promotions 
 being settled, with other changes in the lieutenan- 
 cies, the commodore, on the following day, gave to 
 the captams their orders, appointing St. Jago, one 
 of the Cape de Verd islands, to be the first place 
 of rendezvous in case of separation ; and du-ecting 
 them, if they did not meet the Centurion there, to 
 make the best of their way to the island of St. 
 Catherine's on the coast of Brazil. The water for 
 the squadron being tlie same day completed, and 
 each ship supplied with as much wme and other 
 refreshments as they could take in, we weighed 
 anchor in the afternoon, and took our leave of the 
 island of Madeira. But before I go on with the 
 narration of our own transactions, I think it ne- 
 ■cessary to give some account of the proceedings of 
 the enemy, and of the measures they had taken 
 to render all our designs abortive. 
 
 When Mr. Anson visited the governof of Ma- 
 ■deira, he received information from him, that for 
 three or four days, in the latter end of October, 
 there had appeared, to the westward of that island, 
 seven or eight ships of the line, and a patache, 
 which last was sent every day close in to make the 
 land. The governor assured the commodore, upon 
 his honour, that none upon the island had either 
 given them intelligence, or had in any sort com- 
 municated with them, but that he believed them 
 to be either French or Spanish, but was rather 
 inclined to think them Spanish. On this intelli- 
 gence Mr. Anson sent an officer in a clean sloop, 
 -eight leagues to the westward, to reconnoitre them, 
 .and, if possible, to discover what they were : but 
 the officer returned without being able to get a 
 Bight of them, so that we still remained in uncer- 
 tainty. However, we could not but conjecture, 
 -Ibat this fleet was intended to put a stop to our 
 
 expedition, which, had they cruised to the east- 
 ward of the island instead of the westward, they 
 could not but have executed with great facility. 
 For as, in that case, they must have certainly 
 fallen in with us, we should have been obliged to 
 tlirow overboard vast quantities of provision to 
 clear our ships for an engagement, and this 
 alone, without any regard to the event of the action, 
 would have efiectuaJly prevented our progress. 
 This was so obvious a measure, that we could not 
 help imagining reasons which might have pre- 
 vented them from pursuing it. And we therefore 
 supposed, that this French or Spanish squadron 
 was sent out, upon advice of our sailing in com- 
 pany with Admiral Balchen and Lord Cathcart's 
 expedition : and thence, from an apprehension of 
 being over-matched, they might not think it ad- 
 visable to meet with us, till we had parted com- 
 pany, which they might judge would not happen, 
 before our arrival at this island. These were our 
 speculations at that time ; and from hence we had 
 reason to suppose, that we might still fall in with 
 them, in our way to the Cape de Verd islands. 
 And afterwards, in the course of our expedition, 
 we were many of us persuaded, that this was the 
 Spanish squadron commanded by Don JosepI) 
 Pizarro, which was sent out purposely to traverse 
 the views and enterprises of our squadron, to 
 which, in strength, they were greatly superior. 
 As the Spanish armament then was so nearly con- 
 nected with our expedition, and as the catastrophe 
 it underwent, though not effected by our force, 
 was yet a considerable advantage to this nation, 
 produced in consequence of our equipment, 1 have, 
 in the following chapter, given a summary account 
 of their proceedings, from their first setting out 
 from Spain in the year 1 740, till the Asia, the only 
 ship which returned to Europe of the whole squa- 
 dron, arrived at the Groyne in the begimiing of 
 the year 1746. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The history of the Squadron commanded hy Don Joseph 
 Pizarro. 
 
 The squadron fitted out by the court of Spain 
 to attend our motions, and traverse our projects, 
 we supposed to have been the ships seen off Ma- 
 deira, as mentioned in the preceding chapter. And 
 as this force was sent out particularly against our 
 expedition, I cannot but imagine that the following 
 history of the casualties it met with, as far as by 
 intercepted letters and other information the same 
 has come to my knowledge, is a very essential part 
 of the present work : for by this it will appear we 
 were the occasion, that a considerable part of the 
 naval power of Spain was diverted from the pro- 
 secution of the ambitious views of that court in 
 Europe ; and the men and ships, lost by the enemy 
 in this undertaking, were lost in consequence of 
 the precautions they took to secure themselves 
 against our enterprises. This squadron (besides 
 two ships intended for the West Indies, which did 
 not part company till after they had left the Ma- 
 deiras) was composed of the following men-of-war, 
 commanded by Don Joseph Pizarro : 
 The Asia of sixty-six guns, and seven hundred 
 
 men ; this was the admiral's ship. 
 The Guipuscoa of seventy-four guns, and seveq 
 
 hundred men. 
 
ansojs'S voyage round the world. 
 
 The Hermipna of fifty-fpur guiis, and five hundred 
 
 men. 
 The Esperanza of fifty guns, and four hundred and 
 
 fifty men. 
 The St. Estevan of'forty guns, and three hundred 
 
 and fifty men. 
 And a patache of twenty guns. 
 
 These ships, over and above tlieir complement of 
 sailors and marines, had on board an old Spanish 
 regiment of foot, intended to reinforce the garri- 
 sons on the coast of the South Seas. When this 
 fleet had cruised for some days to the leeward of 
 the Madeiras, as is mentioned in the preceding 
 chapter, they left that station in the beginning of 
 November, and steered for the river of Plate, 
 where they arr'ived the 5th of January, 0. S., and 
 coming to an anchor in the bay of Maldonado, at 
 the mouth of that river, their Admiral Pizarro 
 sent immediately to Buenos Ayres for a supply of 
 provisions ; for they had departed from Spain with 
 only four months' provisions on board. While 
 they lay here expecting this supply, they received 
 intelligence, by the treachery of the Portuguese 
 governor of St. Catherine's, of Mr. Anson's hav- 
 ing arrived at that island on the 21st of December 
 preceding, and of his preparing to put to sea again 
 with the utmost expedition. Pizarro, notwith- 
 standing his superior force, had his reasons (and 
 as some say, his orders likewise) for avoiding our 
 squadron anywhere short of the South Seas. He 
 was besides extremely desirous of getting round 
 Cape Horn before ns, as he imagined that step 
 alone would effectually baffle all our designs ; and, 
 therefore, on hearing that we were in his neigh- 
 bourhood, and that we should soon be ready to 
 proceed for Cape Horn, he weighed anchor with 
 the five large ships, (the patache being disabled 
 and condemned, and the men taken out of her) 
 after a stay of seventeen days only, and got under 
 sail without his provisions, which arrived at Mal- 
 donado within a day or two after his departure. 
 But notwithstanding the precipitation with which 
 he departed, we put to sea from St. Catherme's 
 four days before him, and in some part of cur pas- 
 sage to Cape Horn, the two squadrons were so 
 near together, that the Pearl, one of our ships, 
 being separated from the rest, fell in with the 
 Spanish fleet, and mistaking the Asia for the Cen- 
 turion, had got within gun-shot of Pizarro, before 
 she discovered her error, and narrowly escaped 
 being taken. 
 
 It being the 22d of January when the Spaniards 
 weighed from Maldonado, (as has been already 
 mentioned) they could not expect to get into the 
 latitude of Cape Horn before the equinox ; and as 
 they had reason to apprehend very tempestuous 
 weather in doubling it at that season, and as the 
 Spanish sailors, being for the most part accustomed 
 to a fair-weather country, might be expected to be 
 very averse to so dangerous and fatiguing a navi- 
 gation, the better to encourage them, some part of 
 their pay was advanced to them in European 
 goods, which they were to be permitted to dispose 
 of in the South Seas, that so the hopes of the great 
 profit each man was to make on his small ven- 
 ture might animate him in his duty, and render 
 him less disposed to repine at the labour, the hard- 
 ships and the perils he would in all probability 
 meet with before his arrival on the coast of Peru. 
 
 Pizarro with his squadron having, towards the 
 
 latter end of February, run the length of Cape 
 Horn, he then stood to the westwai'd in order to 
 double it ; but in the night of the last day of Fe- 
 bruary, 0. S., while with this view they were turn- 
 ing to windward, the Gnipuscoa, the Hermiona, 
 and the Esperanza, were separated from the ad- 
 miral ; and, on the 6th of March following, the 
 Gnipuscoa was separated from the other two ; and 
 on the 7th (being the day after we had passed 
 Straits le Maire) there came on a most furious 
 storm at N. W., which, in despite of all their 
 efforts, drove the whole squadron to the eastward, 
 and obliged them, after several fruitless attempts, 
 to bear away for the river of Plate, where Pizarro 
 in the Asia arrived about the middle of May, and 
 a few days after him the Esperanza and the Este- 
 van. The Hermiona was supposed to founder at 
 sea, for she was never heard of more ; and the 
 Guipuscoa was run ashore, and sunk on the coast 
 of Brazil. The calamities of all kinds, which this 
 squadron underwent in this unsuccessful naviga- 
 tion, can only be paralleled by what we ourselves 
 experienced in the same climate, when buff'eted by 
 the same stoiins. There was indeed some diver- 
 sity in our distresses, which rendered it difficult to 
 decide whose situation was most worthy of com- 
 miseration. For to all the misfortunes we had in 
 common with each other, as shattered rigging, 
 leaky ships, and the fatigues and despondency, 
 which necessarily attend these disasters, there was 
 superadded on board our squadron the ravage of 
 a most destructive and incurable disease, and on 
 board the Spanish squadron the devastation of 
 famine. 
 
 For this squadron, either from the hurry <.. 
 their outset, their presumption of a supply at 
 Buenos Ayres, or from other less obvious motives, 
 departed from Spain, as has been already observed, 
 with no more than four months' provision, and 
 even that, as it is said, at short allowance only ; 
 so that, when by the stonns they met' with oft 
 Cape Horn, their continuance at sea was pro- 
 longed a month or more beyond their expecta- 
 tion, they were thereby reduced to such infinite 
 distress, that rats, when they could be caught, 
 were sold for four dollars a-piece ; and a sailor, 
 who died on board, had his death concealed for 
 some days by his brother, who, during that time 
 lay in the same hammock with the corpse, only 
 to receive the dead man's allowance of provisions. 
 In this dreadful situation they were alarmed (if 
 their horrors were capable of augmentation) by 
 the discovery of a conspiracy among the marines, on 
 board the Asia, the admiral's ship. This had taken 
 its rise chiefly from the miseries they endured : 
 for though no less was proposed by the conspira- 
 tors than the massacring the officers and the 
 whole crew, yet their motive for this bloody reso- 
 lution seemed to be no more than their desire of 
 relieving their hunger, by appropriating the whole 
 ship's provisions to themselves. But their designs 
 were prevented, when just upon the point of exe- 
 cution, by means of one of their confessors, and 
 three of their ringleaders were immediately put 
 to death. However, though the conspiracy was 
 suppressed, their other calamities admitted of no 
 alleviation, but grew each day more and more 
 destructive. So that by the complicated distress 
 of fatigue, sickness, and hunger, the three ships 
 which escaped lost the greatest part of their men : 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 tne jvsia, tneir admiral's ship, arrived at Monte 
 Video in the river of Plate, with half her crew 
 only ; the St. Estevan had lost in like manner 
 half her hands, when she anchored in the bay of 
 Barragan ; the Esperanza, a fifty-gun ship, was 
 still more unfortunate, for of four hundred and 
 fifty hands which she brought from Spain, only 
 fifty-eight remained alive, and the whole regi- 
 ment of foot perished except sixty men. But to 
 give the reader a more distinct and particular 
 idea of what they underwent upon this occasion, 
 I shall lay before him a shoi't account of the fate 
 of the Guipuscoa, from a letter written by Don 
 Joseph Mendinuetta her captain, to a person of 
 distinction at Lima ; a copy of which fell into our 
 hands afterwards in the South Seas. 
 
 He mentions, that he separated tx"om the tier- 
 miona and the Esperanza in a fog, on the 6th of 
 March, being then, as I suppose, to the S. E. of 
 Staten-Land, and plying to the westward ; that in 
 the night after, it blew a furious stoi-m at N. W., 
 which, at half an hour after ten, split his main- 
 sail, that obliged him to bear away with his fore- 
 sail ; that the ship went ten knots an hour with a 
 prodigious sea, and often ran her gangway under 
 water ; that he likewise sprang his main-mast ; 
 and the ship made so much water, that with four 
 pumps and baling he could not free her. That 
 on the 19th it was calm, but the sea continued so 
 high, that the ship in rolling opened all her upper 
 works and seams, and started the butt ends of her 
 planking and the greatest part of her top timbers, 
 the bolts being drawn by the violence of her roll. 
 That in this condition, with other additional dis- 
 asters to the hull and rigging, they continued 
 beating to the westward till the 12th : that they 
 were then in sixty degrees of south latitude, in 
 great want of provisions, numbers every day 
 perishing by the fatigue of pumping, and those 
 who survived being quite dispirited by labour, 
 hunger, and the severity of the weather, they hav- 
 ing two spans of snow upon the decks : that then 
 finding the wind fixed in the western quarter, and 
 blowing strong, and consequently their passage 
 to the westward impossible, they resolved to bear 
 away for the river of Plate : that on the 22nd, 
 they were obliged to throw overboard all the 
 upper deck guns, and an anchor, and to take six 
 turns of the cable round the ship to prevent her 
 opening : that on the 4th of April, it being calm 
 but a very high sea, the ship rolled so much that 
 tlie main-mast came by the board, and in a few 
 hours after she lost, in lilie manner, her fore-mast 
 and her mizen-mast ; and that, to accumulate 
 their misfortunes, they were soon obUged to cut 
 away their bowsprit to diminish, if possible, the 
 leakage at her head : that by this time he had 
 lost two hundred and fifty men by hunger and 
 fatigues : for those who were capable of working 
 at the pumps (at which every officer without ex- 
 ception took his turn) were allowed only an ounce 
 and half of biscuit pi-r diem ; and those who were 
 so sick or so weak that they could not assist in 
 this necessary labour, had no more than an ounce 
 of wheat ; so that it was common for the men to 
 fall down dead at the pumps : that, including the 
 officers, they could only muster from eighty to a 
 hundred persons capable of duty : that the south- 
 west winds blew so fresh after they had lost 
 their masts, that they could not immediately set 
 
 up jury masts, but were obligea to arive lilte a 
 wreck between the latitudes of thirty-two and 
 twenty-eight till the 24 th of April, when they 
 made the coast of Brazil, at Rio de PataS, ten 
 leagues to the southward of the Island of St. 
 Catherine's ; that here they came to an anchor,, 
 and that the captain was very desirous of proceed- 
 ing to St. Catherine's if possible, in order to save 
 the hull of the ship, and the guns and stores on 
 board her ; but the crew instantly left off pumping, 
 and being enragtid at the hai-dships they hafl suf- 
 fered, and the numbers they had lost, (there being 
 at that time no less that thirty dead bodies lying 
 on the deck,) they all with one voice cried out " on 
 shore, on shore," and obliged the captain to run 
 the ship in directly for the land, where, the 5th 
 day after, she sunk with her stores, and all her 
 furniture on board her, but the remainder of the 
 crew, whom hunger and fatigue had spared to 
 the number of four hundred, got safe on shore. 
 
 From this account of the adventures and ca- 
 tastrophe of the Guipuscoa, we may foi-m some 
 conjecture of the manner in which the Hermiona 
 was lost, and of the distresses endured by tlie 
 three remaining ships of the squadron, which got 
 into the river of Plate. These last being in gi-eat 
 want of masts, yards, rigging, and all kind of naval 
 stores, and having no supply at Buenos Ayres, 
 nor in any other of their settlements, Pizarro de- 
 spatched an advice boat with a letter of credit to 
 Rio Janeiro, to purchase what was wanting from 
 the Portuguese. He at the same time sent an 
 express across the continent to San Jago, in Chili, 
 to be thence forwarded to the viceroy of Peru, 
 informing him of the disasters that had befallen 
 his squadron, and desiring a remittance of 200,000 
 dollars from the royal chests at Lima, to enable 
 him to victual and refit his remaining ships, that 
 he might be again in a condition to attempt the 
 passage to the South Seas, as soon as the season 
 of the year should be more favourable. It is men- 
 tioned by the Spaniards as a most extraordinary 
 circumstance that the Indian charged with this 
 express, (though it was then the depth of winter, 
 when the Cordilleras are esteemed impassable on j 
 account of the snow,) was only thirteen days in 
 his journey from Buenos Ayres to St. Jago in 
 Chili ; though these places are distant three hun- 
 dred Spanish leagues, near forty of which are 
 amongst the snows and precipices of the Cor- 
 dilleras. 
 
 The return to this despatch of'Pizarro's from the 
 viceroy of Peru, was no ways favourable ; instead" 
 of 200,000 dollars, the sum demanded, the vice- 
 roy remitted hun only 100,000, telling him, that 
 it was with great difficulty he was able to procure 
 him even that : though tiie inhabitants at Lima, 
 who considered the pre.ience of Pizarro as abso- 
 lutely necessary to their security, were much dis- 
 contented at this procedure, and did not fail to 
 assert, that it was not the want of money, but th& 
 interested views of some of the viceroy's confi- 
 dants, that prevented Pizarro from having the 
 whole sum he had asked for. 
 
 The advice-boat sent to Rio Janeiro also exe- 
 cuted her commission but imperfectly ; for though 
 she brought back a considerable quantity of pitch, 
 tar, and cordage, yet she could not procure either 
 masts or yards : and, as an additional misfortune, 
 Pizarro was disappointed of some masts he ex 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 pocted from Paraguay ; for u carpenter, whom 
 he entrusted with a large sum of money, and had 
 sent there to cut masts, instead of prosecuting the 
 business he was employed in, had married in the 
 country, and refused to return. However, by re- 
 moving the masts of the Esperanza into the Asia, 
 and making use of what spare masts and yards 
 they had on board, they made a shift to refit the 
 Asia and the St. Estevan. And in the October 
 following, Pizarro was preparing to put to sea with 
 these two ships, in order to attempt the passage 
 round Cape Horn a second time ; but the St. 
 Estevan, in coming down the river Plate, ran on 
 a shoal, and beat off her rudder, on which, and 
 other damages she received, she was condemned 
 and broke up, and Pizarro in the Asia proceeded 
 to sea without her. Having now the summer 
 before him, and the winds favourable, no doubt 
 was made of his having a fortunate and speedy 
 passage ; but being off Cape Horn, and going 
 right before the wind in very moderate weather, 
 though in a swelling sea, by some misconduct of 
 the officer of the watch the ship rolled away her 
 masts, and was a second time obliged to put back 
 to the river of Plate in great distress. 
 
 The Asia having considerably suffered in this 
 second unfortunate expedition, the Esperanza, 
 which had been left behind at Monte Video, was 
 ordered to be refitted, the command of her being 
 given to Mindinuetta, who was captain of the 
 Guipuscoa when she was lost. He, in the No- 
 vember of the succeeding year, that is, in No- 
 vember, 1742, sailed from the river of Plate for 
 the South Seas, and arrived safe on the coast of 
 Chili ; where his commodore Pizarro passing over 
 land from Buenos Ayres met him. Thex*e were 
 great animosities and contests between these two 
 gentlemen at their meeting, occasioned principally 
 by the claim of Pizarro to command the Esperanza, 
 which Mindinuetta had brought round : for Min- 
 dinuetta refused to deliver her up to hun ; in- 
 sisting, that as he came into the South Seas alone, 
 and under no superior, it was not now in the 
 power of Pizarro to resume that authority which 
 he had once parted with. However, the presi- 
 dent of Chili interposing and declaring for Pizarro, 
 Mindinuetta, after a long and obstinate struggle, 
 was obliged to submit. 
 
 But Pizarro had not yet completed the series 
 of his adventures ; for when he and Mindinuetta 
 came back by land from Chili to Buenos Ayres, 
 in the year 1745, they found at Monte Video the 
 Asia, which near three years before they had left 
 there. This ship they resolved, if possible, to 
 carry to Europe, and with this view they refitted 
 her in the best manner they could : but their 
 great difficulty was to procure a sufficient number 
 of hands to navigate her, for all the remaining 
 sailors of the squadron to be met with in the 
 neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres, did not amount 
 to a hundred men. They endeavoured i to supply, 
 this defect by pressrag many of the inhabitants of ' 
 Buenos Ayres, and putting on board besides all 
 the English prisoners then in their custody, toge- 
 ther with a number of Portuguese smugglers, 
 whom they had taken at different times, and some 
 of the Indians of the country. Among these last 
 there was a chief and ten of his followers, who 
 had been surprised by a party of Spanish soldiers 
 about three months before. The name of this 
 
 chief was Orellana,he belonged to a very powerful 
 tribe, which had committed great ravages in the 
 neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres. With this motley 
 crew (all of them, except the European Spaniards, 
 extremely averse to the voyage) Pizarro set sail 
 from Monte Video in the river of Plate, about the 
 beginning of November 1745, and the native 
 Spaniards being no strangers to the dissatisfaction 
 of their forced men, treated both those, the Eng- 
 lish prisoners and the Indians, with great inso- 
 lence and barbarity ; but more particularly the 
 Indians, for it was common for the meanest offi- 
 cers in the ship to beat them most cruelly on the 
 slightest pretences, and oftentimes only to exert 
 their superiority. Orellana and his followers, 
 though in appearance sufficiently patient and sub- 
 missive, meditated a severe revenge for all these 
 inhumanities. As he conversed very well in 
 Spanish, (these Indians having in time of peace a 
 a great intercourse with Buenos Ayres) he affected 
 to talk with such of the English as understood 
 that language, and seemed very desirous of being 
 informed how many Englishmen there were on 
 board, and which they were. As he knew that 
 the English were as much enemies to the Spaniards 
 as himself, he had doubtless an intention of dis- 
 closing his purposes to them, and making them 
 partners in the scheme be had projected for re- 
 venging his wrongs, and recovering his liberty ; 
 but having sounded them at a distance, and not 
 finding them so precipitate and vindictive as he 
 expected, he proceeded no further with them, but 
 resolved to trust alone to the resolution of his ten 
 faithful followers. These, it should seem, readily 
 engaged to observe his dh'cctions, and to execute 
 whatever commands he gave them ; and having 
 agreed on the measures necessary to be taken, 
 they first furnished themselves with Dutch knives 
 sharp at the point, which being the common knives 
 used in the ship, they found no difficulty in pro- 
 curing : besides this, they employed their leisure 
 in secretly cutting out thongs from raw hides, of 
 which there were great numbers on board, and 
 in fixing to each end of these thongs the double- 
 headed shot of the small quarter-deck guns ; this, 
 when swung round their heads, according to the 
 practice of their country, was a most mischievous 
 weapon, in the use of which the Indians about 
 Buenos Ayres are trained from their infancy, and 
 consequently are extremely expert. These par- 
 ticulars being in good forwardness, the execution 
 of their scheme was perhaps precipitated by a 
 particular outrage committed on Orellana himself. 
 For one of the officers, who was a very brutal j 
 fellow, ordered Orellana -aloft, which being what 
 he was incapable of performing, the officer, un- 
 der pretence of his disobedience, beat him with 
 such violence, that he left him bleeding on the 
 deck, and stupified for some time with his bruises 
 and wounds. This usage undoubtedly heightened 
 his thirst for revenge, and made him eager and 
 impatient till the means of executing it were in 
 his power ; so that, within a day or two after this 
 incident, he and his followers opened their des- 
 perate resolves in the ensuing manner. 
 
 It was about nine in the evening, vhon many 
 of the principal officers were on the quarter-deck, 
 indulging in the freshness of the night air ; the 
 v/aist of the ship was filled with live cattle, and the 
 forecastle was manned with its customary watch. 
 B 
 
10 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WOELD. 
 
 Orellana and his companions, under cover of the 
 night, having prepared their weapons, and thrown 
 off their trowsers and the more cumbrous part of 
 their dress, came all together on the quarter-deck, 
 and drew towards the door of the great cabin. 
 The boatswain immediately reprimanded them, 
 and ordered them to be gone,,^ On this Orellana 
 spoke to his followers in his native language, when 
 four of them drew off, two towards ^ach gangway, 
 and the chief and the six remaining Indians 
 seemed to be slowly quittmg the quarter-deck. 
 When the detached Indians had taken possession 
 of the gangway, Orellana placed his hands hollow 
 to his mouth, and bellowed out the war-cry used 
 by those savages, which is said to be the harshest 
 and most terrifying sound known in nature. This 
 liideous yell was the signal for beginning the mas- 
 sacre : for on this they all drew their knives, and 
 brandished their prepared double-headed shot, 
 and the six with their chief, who remained on 
 the quarter-deck, immediately fell on the Spani- 
 ards, who were intermingled with them, and laid 
 near forty of them at their feet, of whom above 
 twenty were killed on the spot, and the rest dis- 
 abled. Many of the officers, in the beginning of 
 the tumult, pushed into the great cabin, where 
 they put out the lights, and barricadoed the door. 
 And of the others, who had avoided the first fury 
 ©f the Indians, some endeavoured to escape along 
 the gangways into the forecastle, but the Indians, 
 placed there on purpose, stabbed the greatest part 
 of them, as they attempted to pass by, or forced 
 them off the gangways into the waist. Others 
 threw themselves voluntarily over the barricadoes 
 into the waist, and thought themselves happy to 
 lie concealed amongst the cattle ; but the greatest 
 part escaped up the main shrouds, and sheltered 
 themselves either in the tops or rigging. And 
 though the Indians attacked only the quarter- 
 deck, yet the watch in the forecastle finding their 
 communication cut off, and being terrified by the 
 wounds of the few who, not being killed on the 
 spot, had sufficient strength to force their passage 
 along the gangways, and not knowing either who 
 their enemies were, or what were their numbers, 
 they hkewise gave all over for lost, and in great 
 confusion ran up into the rigging of the fore-mast 
 and bowsprit. 
 
 Thus these elcin Indians, with a resolution 
 perhaps without example, possessed themselves 
 almost in an instant of tfie quarter-deck of a ship 
 mounting sixty-six guns, with a crew of near five 
 hundred men, and continued in peacable possession 
 of this post a considerable time. For the officers 
 in the great cabin, (amongst whom were Pizarro 
 and Mindinuetta) the crew between decks, and 
 those who had escaped into the tops and rigging, 
 were only anxious for their own safety, and were 
 for a long time incapable of forming any project 
 for suppressing the insurrection, and recovering 
 ihe possession of the ship. It is true, the yells of 
 the Indians, the groans of the wounded, and the 
 confused clamours of the crew, all heightened by 
 the obscurity of the niglit, had at first greatly mag- 
 nified their danger, and had filled them with the 
 imaginary terrors wdiich darkness, disorder, and an 
 ignorance of the real strength of an enemy, never 
 fail to produce. For as the Spaniards were sensi- 
 ble of the disaffection of their pressed hands, and 
 were also conscious of their barbarity to their pri- 
 
 soners, they imagined the conspiracy was general, 
 and considered their own destruction as infallible ; 
 so that, it is said, some of them had once taken the 
 resolution of leaping into the sea, but were pre 
 vented by their companions. 
 
 However, when the Indians had entirely cleared 
 the quarter-deck, the tumult in a great measure 
 subsided ; for those who had escaped were kept 
 silent by their fears, and the Indians were inca- 
 pable of pursuing them to renew the disorder. 
 Orellana, when he saw himself master of the 
 quarter-deck, broke open the arm-chest, which, 
 on a slight suspicion of mutiny, had been ordered 
 there a few days before, as to a place of the greatest 
 security. Here, he took it for granted, he should 
 find cutlasses sufficient for himself and his com- 
 panions, in the use of which weapon they were all 
 extremely skilful, and with these, it was imagined, 
 they proposed to have forced the great cabin : but 
 on opening the chest, there appeared nothing but 
 fire-arms, which to them were of no use. There 
 were indeed cutlasses in the chest, but they were 
 hid by the fire-arms being laid over them. This 
 was a sensible disappointment to them, and by 
 this time Pizarro and his companions in the great 
 cabin were capable of conversing aloud, through 
 the cabin windows and port-holes, with those in 
 the gun-room and between decks, and from hence 
 they learnt, that the English (whom they prin- 
 cipally suspected) were all safe below, and had 
 not intermeddled in this mutiny ; and by other par- 
 ticulars they at last discovered, that none were 
 concerned in it but Orellana and his people. On 
 this Pizarro and the officers resolved to attack 
 them on the quarter-deck, before any of the dis- 
 contented on board should so far recover their 
 first surprise, as to reflect on the facility and cer- 
 tainty of seizing the ship by a junction with the 
 Indians in the present emergency. With this 
 view Pizarro got together what arms were in the 
 cabin, and distributed them to those who were 
 with him : but there were no other fire-arms to 
 be met with but pistols, and for these they had 
 neither powder nor ball. However, having now 
 settled a correspondence with the gun-room, they 
 lowered down a bucket out of the cabin-window, 
 into which the gunner, out of one of the gun-room 
 ports, put a quantity of pistol cartridges. When 
 they had thus procured ammunition, and had 
 loaded their pistols, they set the cabin-door partly 
 open, and fired some shot amongst the Indians on 
 the quarter-deck, at first without effect. But at 
 last Mindinuetta, whom we have often mentioned, 
 had the good fortune to shoot Orellana dead on 
 the spot ; on which his faithful companions, aban- 
 doning all thoughts of farther resistance, instantly 
 leaped into the sea, where they every man pe- 
 rished. Thus was this insurrection quelled, and 
 the possession of the quarter-deck regained, after 
 it had been full two hours in the power of this 
 great and daring chief, and his gpllant and unhappy 
 countrymen. 
 
 Pizarro, having escaped this imminent peril, 
 steered for Europe, and arrived safe on the coast 
 of Galicia, in the beginning of the year 1746, after 
 having been absent between four and five years, 
 and having, by his attendance on our expedition, 
 diminished the naval power of Spain by above 
 three thousand hands (the flower of their sailors) 
 and by four considerable ships of war and a patache 
 
'4 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 II 
 
 for we have seen, that the Hermiona foundered 
 fit sea ; the Guipuseoa was stranded, and sunk On 
 the coast of Brazil ; the St. Estevan was con- 
 demned, and broke up in the river of Plate ; and the 
 Esperanza being left in the South Sea-s, is doubt- 
 less by this time incapable of returning to Spain. 
 So that the Asia only, with less than one hundred 
 hands, may be considered as all the remains of 
 that squadron with which Pizarro first put to 
 sea. And whoever attends to the very large pro- 
 portior. which this squadron bore to the whole 
 'Uavy of Spain, will, I believe, confess, that liad our 
 undertaking been attended with no other advan- 
 tages than that of ruining so great a part of the 
 sea-force of so dangerous an enemy, this alone 
 would be a sufficient equivaJent for our equip- 
 ment, and an incontestible proof of the service 
 which the nation has thence received. Havuig 
 thus concluded this summary of Pizarro's adven- 
 tures, I shall now return again to the narration 
 ■nf our own transactions.. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 From Madeira to St. Catherine*!: 
 
 I HAVE already mentioned that, on the 3d of 
 I^^ovember, we weighed from Madeira, after ordei-s 
 Tiad been given to the captains to rendezvous at 
 St. Jago, one of the Cape de Verd Islands, in case 
 the squadron was separated. But the next day, 
 when we got to sea, the commodore considering 
 that the season was far advanced, and that toueh- 
 'Tig at St. Jago would create a new delay, he for 
 uDiS reason thought proper to alter his rendezvous, 
 and to appoint the island of St. Catherine's, on 
 the coast of Brazil, to be the first place to which 
 the ships of the squadron were to repair in case 
 of separation. 
 
 In our passage to the island of St. Catherine's, 
 we found the direction of the trade-winds to differ 
 considerably from what we had reason to expect, 
 both from the general histories given of these 
 winds, and the experience of former navigators. 
 For the learned Dr. Halley, in his account of the 
 trade-winds which take place in the Ethiopic and 
 Atlantic Ocean, tells us, that from the latitude of 
 28° N.,to the latitude of 10° N., there is generally 
 a fresh gale of N. E. wind, which towards the 
 A&ican side rarely comes to the eastward of 
 E. N. E., or passes to the northward of N. N. E. : 
 but on the American side, the wind is somewhat 
 more easterly, though most commonly even there 
 it is a point or two to the northward of the cast. 
 That from 1 0° N. to 4° N., the calms and torna- 
 does take place ; and from 4° N. to 30° S., the 
 winds are generally and perpetually between the 
 south and east.i This account we expected to 
 have verified by our own experience ; but we 
 found considerable variations from it, both in re- 
 spect to the steadiness of the winds, and the quar- 
 ter from whence they blew. For though we met 
 with a N. E. wind about the latitude of 28° N., 
 yet from the latitude of 25° to the latitude of 18° 
 N., the wind was never once to the northward of 
 the east, but on the contrary, almost constantly to 
 the southward of it. However, from thence to 
 the latitude of 6° 20' N., we had it usually to 
 the northward of the east, though not entirely. 
 
 it having for a short time changed to E. S. E. 
 From hence, to about 4° 46' N., the weather was 
 very unsettled ; sometimes the wind was N. E. 
 then changed to S. E., and sometimes we had a 
 dead calm attended with small rain and lightning. 
 After this, the wind continued almost invariably 
 between the S. and E., to the latitude of 7o W S. ; 
 and then again as invariably between the N. and 
 E., to the latitude of 15° 30' S. ; then E. and S. E., 
 to 21° 37' S. But after this, even to the 
 latitude of 27° 44' S., the wind was never once 
 between the S. and the E., though we had it at 
 times in all the other quarters of the compass. 
 But this last circumstance may be in some mea- 
 sure accounted for, from our approach to the 
 main continent of the Brazils. I mention not 
 these particulars with % view of cavilling at the 
 received accounts of these trade-winds, which I 
 doubt not are in general sufficiently accurate ; but 
 I thought it a matter worthy of public notice, that 
 such deviations from the established rules do 
 sometimes take place. This observation may not 
 only be of service to navigators, by putting them 
 on their guard against these hitherto unexpected 
 irregularities, but may perhaps contribute to the 
 solution of that great question about the causes of 
 trade-winds, and monsoons ; a question, which in 
 my opinion, has not been hitherto discussed with 
 that clearness and accuracy, which its importance 
 (whether it be considered as a naval or philoso- 
 phical inquiry) seems to demand. 
 
 On the 16th of November, one of our victuallers 
 made a signal to speak with the commodore, and 
 we shortened sail for her to come up with us. 
 The master came on board, and acquainted Mr. 
 Anson, that he had complied with the terms of his 
 charter-party, and desired to be unloaded and 
 dismissed. Mr. Anson, on consulting the captains 
 of the squadron, found all the ships had still such 
 quantities of provision between their decks, and 
 were withal so deep, that they could not without 
 great difficulty take in their several proportions 
 of brandy from the Industry pink, one of the vic- 
 tuallers only : and, consequently, he was obliged 
 to continue the other of them, the Anna pink, in 
 the service of attending the squadron. And the 
 next day the commodore made a signal foi^ the 
 ships to bring to, and to take on board their shares 
 of the brandy from the Industry pink ; and in 
 this, the long-boats of the squadi-on were employed 
 the three following days ; that is, till the 19th in 
 the evening, when the pink being unloaded, she 
 parted company with us, being bound for Barba- 
 does, there to take in a freight for England. Most 
 of the officers of the squadron took the opportunity 
 of writing to their friends at home by this ship ; 
 but she was afterwards, as I have been since in- 
 formed, unhappily taken by the Spaniards. 
 
 On the 20th of November, the captains of the 
 squadron represented to the commodore, that their 
 ships' companies were very sickly, and that it was 
 their own opinion as well as their surgeons', that 
 it would tend to the preservation of the men to let 
 in more air between decks ; but that their ships 
 were so deep, they could not possibly open their 
 lower ports. On this representation, the commo- 
 dore ordered six air-scuttles to be cut in each ship, 
 in such places where they would least weaken it. 
 
 And on this occasion I cannot but observe, how 
 much it is the duty of all those who, either by office 
 
12 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE KOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 or authority, have any influence in the direction 
 of our naval affairs, to attend to this important 
 article, the preservation of the lives and health of 
 our seamen. If it could be supposed that the 
 motives of humanity were insufficient for this pur- 
 pose, yet policy, and a regard to the success of our 
 arms, and the interest and honour of each parti- 
 cular commander, should naturally lead us to a 
 careful and impartial examination of every proba- 
 ble method proposed for maintaining a ship's crew 
 in health and vigour. But hath this been always 
 done ? Have the late invented plain and obvious 
 methods of keeping our ships sweet and clean, by 
 a constant supply of fresh air, been considered 
 with that candour and temper, which the great 
 benefits promised hereby ought naturally to have 
 inspired ! On the contrary, have not these salu- 
 tary schemes been often treated with neglect and 
 contempt i And have not some of those who have 
 been entrusted with experimenting their effects, 
 been guilty of the most indefensible partiality, in the 
 accounts they have given of these trials ? Indeed, 
 it must be confessed, that many distinguished per- 
 sons, both in the direction and command of our 
 fleets, have exerted themselves on these occasions 
 with a judicious and dispassionate examination, 
 becoming the interesting nature of the inquiry ; 
 but the wonder is, that any could be found irra- 
 tional enough to act a contrary part, in despite 
 of the strongest dictates of prudence and humanity. 
 I must, however, own, that I do not believe this 
 conduct to have arisen from motives so savage, 
 as the first reflection thereon does naturally sug- 
 gest: but I rather impute it to an obstinate, and in 
 somesmall degree superstitious, attachment to such 
 practices as have been long established, and to 
 a settled contempt and hatred of all lands of 
 innovations, especially such as are projected by 
 landsmen and persons residing on shore. But 
 let us return from tliis, I hope not, impertinent 
 digression. 
 
 We crossed the equinoctial with a fine fresh 
 gale at S.E., on Friday the 28th of November, at 
 four in the morning, being then in the longitude 
 of 27° 59' W. from London. And on the 2d of 
 December, in the morning, we saw a sail in the 
 N. W. quarter, and made the Gloucester's and 
 Tryal's signals to chase ; and half an hour after, 
 we let our reefs and chased with the squadron ; 
 and about noon a signal was made for the Wager 
 to take our remaining victualler, the Anna pink, 
 in tow. But at seven in the evening, finding we 
 did not near the chase, and that the Wager was 
 very far a-steru, we shortened sail, and made 
 a signal for the cruisers to join the squadron. 
 The next day but one we again discovered a sail, 
 wliich, on a nearer approach, we judged to be the 
 same vessel. We chased her the whole day, and 
 though we rather gained upon her, yet night ea,me 
 on before we could overtake her, and obliged us 
 to give over the chase, to collect our scattered 
 squadron. We were much chagrined at the escape 
 of this vessel, as we then apprehended her to be 
 an advice-boat sent from Old Spain to Buenos 
 Ayres, with notice of our expedition. But we 
 have since learned that we were deceived in this 
 conjecture, and that it was our East-India Com- 
 pany's packet, bound to St. Helena. 
 
 On the 10th of December, being by our accounts 
 in the latitude of 20" S., and 3G" 30' longitude 
 
 west from London, the Tryal fired a gun to denote- 
 soundings. We nnmediately sounded, and found* 
 sixty fathom water, the bottom coarse ground 
 with broken shells. The Tryal being a-head of 
 us, had at one time thii-ty- seven fathom, which 
 afterwards increased to 90. And then she found 
 no bottom, which happened to us too at our second' 
 trial, though we sounded with a hundred and fifty 
 fathom of line. Tliis is the shoal which is laidi 
 down in most charts by the name of the Abrollos ;. 
 and it appeared we were upon the very edge of it;, 
 perhaps farther in it may be extremely dangerous. 
 We were then, by our diffei-ent accounts, from 
 ninety to sixty leagues east of the coast of Brazil, 
 The next day but one we spoke with a Portuguese' 
 brigantine from Rio Janeiro, bound to Bahia del 
 Todos Santos, who informed us that we wers' 
 thirty-four leagues from Cape St. Thomas, and 
 forty leagues from Cape Frio, which last bore from 
 us W. S. W. By our accounts we were near eighty 
 leagues from Cape Frio ; and though, on the in- 
 formation of this brigantine, we altered our course 
 and stood more to the southward, yet by our coming 
 in with the land afterwards, we were fully con- 
 vinced that our reckoning was much correcter 
 than our Portuguese intelligence. We found a 
 considdrable current setting to the southward,, 
 after v/e had passed the latitude of 1 6" S. And the 
 same took place all along the coast of Brazil, and 
 even to the southward of the river of Plate, it 
 amounting sometimes to thirty miles in twenty- 
 four hours, and once to above forty miles. 
 
 If this current is occasioned (as it is most 
 probable) by the running off of the water accu- 
 mulated on the coast of Brazil by the constant 
 sweeping of the eastern trade-wind over the. 
 Ethiopic Ocean, then it is most natural to sup- 
 pose, that its general course is determined by the- 
 bearings of the adjacent shore. Perhaps too. In 
 almost every other instance of currents, the same 
 may hold true, as I believe no examples occur of 
 considerable currents being observed at any great 
 distance from land. If this then could be laid 
 down for a general principle, it would be always 
 easy to correct the reckoning by the observed la- 
 titude. But it were much to be wished, for the- 
 general interests of navigation, that the actual 
 settings of the different currents which are known 
 to take place in various parts of the world, were 
 examined more frequently and accurately than 
 hitherto appears to have been done. 
 
 We now began to grow impatient for a sight of 
 land, both for the recovery of our sick, and for 
 the refreshment and security of those who as yet 
 continued healthier. When we departed from 
 St. Helens, we were in so good a condition, that 
 we lost but two men on board the Centurion, in 
 our long passage to Madeira. But in this pre- 
 sent run between Madeira and St. Catherine's we 
 have been very sickly, so that many died, and 
 great_ numbers were confined to their hammocks,, 
 both in our own ship and in the rest of the squa- 
 dron, and several of these past all hopes of re- 
 covery. The disorders they in general labour 
 under are such as are common to the hot climates, 
 and what most ships bound to the southward ex- 
 perience in a greater or less degree. These are 
 those kind of fevers which they usually call 
 calentures : a disease, which was not only terrible 
 in its first instance, but even the remains of it 
 
 — V 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE KOUND THE WOELD. 
 
 often prove fatal to those who considered them- 
 selves as recovered from it. For it always left 
 them in a very weak and helpless condition, and 
 usually afflicted with fluxes and tenesmuses. And 
 liy our continuance at sea all our complaints were 
 tvery day increasing, so that it was with great 
 joy that we discovered the coast of Brazil on the 
 18th of December, at seven in the morning. 
 
 The coast of Brazil appeared high and moun- 
 tainous land, extending from the W. to W. S. W., 
 and when we first saw it, it was about seventeen 
 leagues distant. At noon we perceived a low 
 double land, bearing W. S. W., about ten leagues 
 distant, which we took to be the island of St. 
 ■Catherine's. That afternoon and the next morn- 
 ing, the wind being N.N.W., we gained very 
 "little to windward, and were apprehensive of being 
 driven to the leeward of the island ; but a little 
 before noon, the next day, the wind came about 
 to the southward, and enabled us to steer in be- 
 -tween the north point of St. Catherine's, and the 
 neighbouring island of Alvoredo. As we stood 
 in for the land, we had regular soundings, gi-adually 
 decreasing from thii-ty-six to twelve fathom, all 
 ■muddy ground. In this last depth of water we 
 let go our anchor at five o'clock in the evening of 
 the 18th, the north-west point of the island of 
 St. Catherine's bearing S.S.W., distant three 
 miles ; and the island Alvoredo N.N.E., distant 
 two leagues. Here we found the tide to set S. S. E. 
 and N.N.W., at the rate of two knots, the tide of 
 flood coming from the southward. We could from 
 •our ships observe two fortifications at a consider- 
 able distance within us, which seemed designed to 
 prevent the passage of an enemy between the 
 island of St. Catherine's and the main. And we 
 ■could soon perceive that our squadron had alarmed 
 the coast, for we saw the two forts hoist theii- co- 
 lours, and fire several guns, which we supposed to 
 i)e intended for assembling the inhabitants. To 
 prevent any confusion, the commodore immediately 
 sent a boat with an officer on shore, to compli- 
 ment the governor, and to desire a pilot to carry 
 •us into the road. The governor returned a very 
 civil answer, and ordered us a pilot. On the 
 tnoming of the 20th, we weighed and stood hi, and 
 towards noon the pilot came on board of us, who, 
 the same afternoon, brought us to an anchor in five 
 •fathom and a half, in a large commodious bay on 
 the continent side, called by the French, Bon 
 Port. In standing from our last anchorage to this 
 place, we everywhere found an oozy bottom, with 
 •a depth of water first regularly decreasing to five 
 fathom^ and then increasing to seven, after which 
 ■Ave had six and five fathom alternately. The next 
 morning we weighed agaui with the squadron, in 
 ■order to run above the two fortifications we have 
 mentioned, which are called the castles of Santa 
 Cruiz and St. Juan. And now the soundings be- 
 'tween the island and the main were four, five, and 
 six fathom, with muddy ground. As we passed 
 ■by the castle of Santa Cruiz "we saluted it with 
 eleven guns, and were answered by an equal num- 
 ber ; and at one in the afternoon, the squadron 
 came to an anchor in five fathom and a half, the 
 Governor's Island bearing N.N.W., St. Juan's 
 Castle N.E. ^ E., and the island of St. Antonio 
 south In this position we moored at the island 
 ^f St. Catherine's, on Sunday the 21st of Decem- 
 i)er, the whole squadi'on being, as I have already 
 
 mentioned, sickly, and in great want of rctvesh- 
 ments : both which inconveniences we ho])ed to 
 have soon removed at this settlement, celebrated 
 by former navigators for its healthiness and its 
 provisions, and for the freedom, indulgence, arid 
 friendly assistance there given to the ships of all 
 European nations in amity with the cro^vn of 
 Portugal. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Proceedinps at St. Catherint^St and a Description ctf the 
 placet with a short Account of Brazil. 
 
 Cue first care, after having moored our sliips, 
 was to send our sick men on shore, each ship 
 being ordered by the commodore to erect two 
 tents for that purpose : one of thera for the re- 
 ception of the diseased, and the other for the ac- 
 commodation of the surgeon and his assistants. 
 We sent about eighty sick from the Centurion, 
 and the other ships sent nearly as many, in pro- 
 portion to the number of their hands. As soon 
 as we had performed this necessary duty, we 
 scraped our decks, and gave our ship a thorough 
 cleansing ; then smoked it between decks, and 
 after all washed every part well with vinegar. 
 These operations were extremely necessary for 
 coiTectiug the noisome stench on board, and de- 
 stroying the vermin ; for from the number of our 
 men, and the heat of the climate, both these nui- 
 sances had increased upon us to a very loathsome 
 degi'ee, and besides being most intolerably ofl'en- 
 sive, they were doubtless in some sort productive 
 of the sickness we had laboured under for a con- 
 sidei-able time before our ai-rival at this island. 
 
 Our next employment was wooding and water- 
 ing our squadron, caulking our ships' sides and 
 decks, overhauling the rigging, and securing our 
 masts agamst the tempestuous weather we were, 
 in all probability, to meet with in our passage 
 round Cape Horn, in so advanced and inconvenient 
 a season. Bnt before I engage in the particulars 
 of these transactions, it will not be improper to 
 give some account of the present state of the 
 island of St. Catherine's, and of the neighbouring 
 country ; both as the circumstances of this place 
 are now greatly changed from what they were in 
 the time of former writers, and as these changes 
 laid us under many more difficulties and perplex- 
 ities than we had reason to expect, or than other 
 British ships, hereafter bound to the South Seas, 
 may perhaps thuik it prudent to struggle with. 
 
 'riiis island is esteemed by the natives to be no- 
 where above two leagues in breadth, though about 
 nine in length ; it lies in 49° 45' of west longitude 
 from London, and extends from the south latitude 
 of 27° 35' to that of 28°. Although it be of a con- 
 siderable height, yet it is scarcely discernible at the 
 distance of ten leagues, being then obscured under 
 the contment of Brazil, whose mountains are ex- 
 ceedingly high ; but on a nearei approach it is easy 
 to be distinguished, and may be readily known by 
 a number of small islands lying at each end, and 
 scattered along the east side of it. 
 
 The north entrance of the harbour is in breadth 
 about five miles, and the distance from thence to 
 the island of St. Antonio is eight miles, and the 
 course from the entrance to St. Antonio is S.S.W 
 ■^ W. About the middle of the island, the har- 
 
14 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 hour is contracted by two points of land to a nar- 
 row channel, no more than a quarter of a mile 
 broad ; and to defend this passage, a battery was 
 erecting on the point of land on the island side. 
 But this seems to be a very useless work, as the 
 channel has no more than two fathom water, and 
 consequently is navigable only for barks and 
 boats, and therefore seems to be a passage that 
 an enemy could have no inducement to attempt, 
 especially as the common passage at the north end 
 of the island is so broad and safe, that no squadron 
 can be prevented from coming in by any of their 
 fortifications, when the sea-breeze is made. How- 
 ever, the Brigadier Don Jose Sylva de Paz, the 
 governor of this settlement, is esteemed an expert 
 engineer, and he doubtless imderstands one branch 
 of his business very well, which is the advantages 
 which new works bring to those who are entrusted 
 with the care of erecting them : for besides the 
 battery mentioned above, there are three other 
 forts carrying on for the defence of the harbour, 
 none of which are yet completed. The first of 
 these, called St. Juan, is built on a point of St. 
 Catherine's near Parrot Island ; the second, in 
 the form of a half moon, is on the island of St. 
 Antonio ; and the third, which seems to be the 
 chief, and has some appearance of a regular forti- 
 fication, is on an island near the continent, where 
 the governor resides. 
 
 The soil of the island ia truly luxuriant, pro- 
 ducing fruits of most kinds spontaneously ; and 
 the ground is covered over with one continued 
 forest of trees of a perpetual verdure, which, from 
 the exuberance of the soil, are so entangled with 
 briars, thorns, and underwood, as to form a thicket 
 absolutely impenetrable, except by some narrow 
 pathways which the inhabitants have made for 
 their own convenience. These, with a few spots 
 cleared for plantations along the shore facing the 
 continent, are the only uncovered parts of the 
 island. The woods are extremely fragrant, from 
 the many aromatic trees and shrubs with which 
 they abound ; and the fruits and vegetables of all 
 climates thrive here, almost without culture, and 
 are to be procured in great plenty ; so that here 
 is no want of pine-apples, peaches, grapes, oranges, 
 lemons, citrons, melons, apricots, nor plantains. 
 There are besides great abundance of two other 
 productions of no small consideration for a sea- 
 store, I mean onions and potatoes. The provi- 
 sions of other kinds are however inferior to their 
 vegetables : there are small wild cattle to be 
 purchased, somewhat like buffaloes, but these are 
 very indifferent food, their flesh being of a loose 
 contexture, and generally of a disagreeable flavour, 
 which is probably owing to the wUd calabash on 
 which they feed. There are likewise great plenty 
 of pheasants, but they are much inferior in taste 
 to those we have in England. The other provi- 
 sions of the place are monkeys, parrots, and fish 
 of various sorts, which abound in the harbour, 
 and are all exceedingly good, and are easily caught, 
 for there are a great number of small sandy bays 
 very convenient for hauling the seine. 
 
 The water both on the island and the opposite 
 continent is excellent, and preserves at sea as well 
 as that of the Thames. For after it has been in 
 the cask a day or two it begins to purge itself, and 
 stinks most intolerably, and is soon covered aver 
 with a green scum : but this, in a few days, sub- 
 
 sides to the bottom, and leaves the water as clear 
 as crystal, and perfectly sweet. The French 
 (who during their South Sea trade in Queen Anne's 
 reign first brought this place into repute) usually 
 wooded and watered in Bon Port, on the continent 
 side, where they likewise anchored with great 
 safety in six fathom water ; and this is doubtless 
 the most commodious road for such ships as intend 
 to make only a short stay. But we watered on ' 
 the St. Catherine's side, at a plantation opposite^ 
 to the island of St. Antonio. 
 
 These are the advantages of this island of St. 
 Catherine's ; but there are many inconveniences 
 attending it, partly from its climate, but more 
 from its new regulations, and the late form of 
 government established there. With regard to 
 the climate, it must be remembered that the 
 woods and hills which surround the harbour pre- 
 vent a free circulation of the air. And the vigor- 
 ous vegetation which constantly takes place there, 
 furnishes such a prodigious quantity of vapour,, 
 that all the night and a great part of the morning 
 a thick fog covers the whole country, and con- 
 tinues till either the sun gathers strength to dis- 
 sipate it, or it is dispersed by a brisk sea breeze. 
 This renders the place close and humid, and pro- 
 bably occasioned the many fevers and fluxes we 
 were there afflicted with. To these exceptions I 
 must not omit to add, that all the day we were 
 pestered with great numbers of musquitoes, which 
 are not much unlike the gnats in England, but 
 more venomous in their stings. And at sun-set,, 
 when the musquitoes retired, they were succeeded 
 by an infinity of sand-flies, which, though scarce 
 discernible to the naked eye, make a mighty buzz- 
 ing, and wherever they bite raise a small bump in 
 the flesh, which is soon attended with a painful 
 itching, like that arising from the bite of an English- 
 harvest-bug. 
 
 But as the only light in which this place deserves- 
 our consideration, is its favourable situation for 
 supplying and refreshing our cruisers intended fer- 
 tile South Seas, in this view its greatest inconve- 
 niences remain still to be related ; and to do this 
 more distinctly, it will not be amiss to consider the 
 changes which it has lately undergone, both in its- 
 inhabitants, its police, and its governor. 
 
 In the time of Frezier and Shelvocke, this place 
 served only as a retreat to vagabonds and outlaws, 
 who fled thither from all parts of Brazil. They 
 did indeed acknowledge a subjection to the crown 
 of Portugal, and had a person among them whom , 
 they called their captain, who was considered in- 
 some sort as their governor : but both their alle- 
 giance to their king, and their obedience to their 
 captain, seemed to be Uttle more than verbal. For 
 as they had plenty of provisions but no money,, 
 they were in a condition to support themselves 
 without the assistance of any neighbouring settle- 
 ments, and had not amongst them the means of 
 tempting any adjacent governor to busy his au- 
 thority about them. In this situation they were 
 extremely hospitable and friendly to such foreign 
 ships as came amongst them For these ships 
 wanted only provisions, of whicn the natives had 
 great store ; and the natives wanting clothes, (for 
 they often despised money, and refused to take 
 it) which the ships furnished them with in exchange 
 for their provisions, both sides found their account 
 in this trafiic ; and their captain or governor had. 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 neither power nor interest to restrain it or to tax it. 
 But of late (for reasons which shall be hereafter 
 mentioned) these honest vagabonds have been 
 obliged to receive amongst them a new colony, 
 and to submit to new laws and government. In- 
 stead of their former ragged bare-legged captain 
 (whom, however, tliey took care to keep innocent) 
 they have now the honour to be governed by Don 
 Jose Sylva de Paz, a brigadier of the armies of 
 Portugal. This gentleman has with him a garri- 
 son of soldiers, and has consequently a more ex- 
 tensive and a better supported power than any of 
 his predecessors ; and as he wears better clothes, 
 and lives more splendidly, and has besides a much 
 better knowledge of the importance of money than 
 they could ever pretend to, so he puts in practice 
 certain methods of procuring it with which they 
 were utterly unacquainted. But it may be much 
 doubted, if the Inhabitants consider these methods 
 as tending to promote either their interests, or 
 that of their sovereign the king of Portugal. 
 This is certain, that his behaviour cannot but be 
 extremely embarrassing to such British ships as 
 touch there in their way to the South Seas. For 
 one of his practices was placing sentinels at all 
 the avenues, to prevent the people from selling us 
 any refreshments, except at such exorbitant rates 
 as we could not atfof d to give. His pretence for 
 this extraordinary stretch of power was, that he 
 was obUged to preserve their provisions for up- 
 wards of a hundred families, which they daily 
 expected to reinforce their colony. Hence he 
 appears to be no novice in his profession, by his 
 readiness at inventing a plausible pretence for his 
 interested management. However, this, though 
 sufficiently provoking, was far from being the 
 moat exceptionable part of his conduct. For by 
 the neighbourliood of the river Plate, a consider- 
 able smuggling traffic is carried on between the 
 Portuguese and the Spaniards, especially in the 
 exchanging gold for silver, by which both princes 
 are defrauded of their fifths ; and in this prohibited 
 commerce Don Jose was so deeply engaged, that 
 in order to ingratiate himself with his Spanish 
 correspondents (for no other reason can be given 
 for his procedure) he treacherously despatched 
 an express to Buenos Ayres in the river of Plate, 
 where Pizarro then lay, with an account of the 
 arrival, and of the strength of our squadron ; par- 
 ticularly the number of ships, guns and men, and 
 every circumstance which he could suppose our 
 enemy desirous of being acquainted with. And 
 the same perfidy every British cruiser may expect, 
 who touches at St. Catherine's, while it is under 
 the government of Don Jose Sylva de Paz. ., 
 
 Thus much, with what we shall be necessitated 
 to relate in the course of our own proceedings may 
 suffice as to the present state of St. Catherine's, 
 and the character of its governor. But as the 
 reader may be desirous of knowing to what causes 
 the late new modelling of this settlement is 
 owing ; to satisfy him in this particular, it will be 
 necessary to give a short account of the adjacent 
 continent of Brazil, and of the wonderful dis- 
 coveries which have been made there within these 
 last forty years, which, from a country of but 
 mean estimation, has rendered it now perhaps the 
 most considerable colony on the face of the globe. 
 
 This country was first discovered by Americus 
 VesputiO] a Florentine, who bad the good fortime 
 
 to be honoured with giving his name to the im- 
 mense continent, some time before found out by 
 Columbus : he being in the service of the Por- 
 tuguese, it was settled and planted by that nation, 
 and, with the othe/ dominions of Portugal, de- 
 volved to the crown of Spain, when that kingdom 
 became subject to it. During the long war be- 
 tween Spain and the States of Holland, the Dutch 
 possessed themselves of the northernmost part of 
 Brazil, and were masters of it for some years. 
 But when the Portuguese revolted from the Span- 
 ish government, this country took part in the 
 revolt, and soon repossessed themselves of the 
 places the Dutch had taken ; since which time it 
 has continued without interruption under the 
 crown of Portugal, being, till the beginning of the 
 present century, only productive of sugar and 
 tobacco, and a few other commodities of very little 
 account. 
 
 But this country, which for many years was 
 only considered fdr the produce of its plantations, 
 has been lately discovered to abotmd with the two 
 minerals which mankind hold in the greatest 
 esteem, and which they exert their utmost art 
 and industry in acquiring, I mean, gold and dia- 
 monds. Gold was first found in the mountains 
 which lie adjacent to the city of Rio Janeiro. 
 The occasion of its discovery is variously related, 
 but the most common account is, that the Indians, 
 lying on the back of the Portuguese settlements, 
 were observed by the soldiers employed in an 
 expedition against them to make use of this metal 
 for their fish-hoolis , and their manner of procur- 
 ing it being inquired into, it appeared that great 
 quantities of it were annually washed from the 
 hills, and left amongst the sand and gravel, which 
 remained in the valleys after the running off or 
 evaporation of the water. It is now little more 
 than forty years since any quantities of gold worth 
 notice have been imported to Europe from Brazil; 
 but since that time the annual imports from thence 
 have been continually augmented by the discovery 
 of places in other provinces, where it is to be met 
 with as plentifully as at firat about Rio Janeiro. 
 And it is now said, that there is a small slender 
 vein of it spread through all the country, at about 
 twenty-four feet from the surface, but that this 
 vein is too thin and poor to answer the expense of 
 digging ; however, where the rivers or rains have 
 had any course for a considerable time, there gold 
 is always to be collected, the water having sepa- 
 rated the metal from the earth, and deposited it in 
 the sands, thereby saving the expenses of digging : 
 so that it is esteemed an infallible gain to be. able 
 to divert a stream from its channel, and to ran- 
 sack its bed. From this account of gathering this 
 metal, it should follow that there are properly no 
 gold mines in Brazil ; and this the governor of 
 Rio Grande (who being at St. Catherine's, fre- 
 quently visited Mr. Anson) did most confidently 
 affirm, assuring us, that the gold was all collected 
 either from rivers, or from the beds of torrents 
 after floods. It is indeed asserted that, in the 
 mountains, large rocks are found abounding with 
 this metal ; and I myself have seen the fragment 
 of one of these rocks with a considerable lump of 
 gold entangled in it ; but even in this case, the, 
 workmen break off the rocks, and do not properly 
 mine into them ; and the great expense in sub- 
 sisting among these mountains, and afterwards in 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 separating the metal from the stone, makes this 
 method of procuring gold to be but rarely put in 
 practice. 
 
 The examining the bottoms of rivers, and the 
 gullies of torrents, and the washing the gold found 
 therein from the sand and dirt, with which it is 
 always mixed, are works performed by slaves, 
 who are principally negi-oes, kept in great num- 
 bers by the Portuguese for these purposes. The 
 regulation of the duty of these slaves is singular : 
 for they are each of them obliged to furnish 
 their master with the eighth part of an ounce of 
 gold per diem ; and if they are either so fortunate 
 or industrious as to collect a greater quantity, the 
 surplus is considered as their own property, and 
 they have the liberty of disposing of it as they 
 think fit. So that it is said some negi-oes who 
 have accidentally fallen upon rich washing places 
 have themselves purchased slaves, and have lived 
 afterwards in great splendour, their original master 
 having no other demand on them than the daily 
 supply of the forementioned eighth; which as the 
 Portuguese ounce is somewhat lighter than our 
 troy ounce, may amount to about nine shillings 
 sterling. 
 
 The quantity of gold thus collected in the Bra- 
 zils, and returned annually to Lisbon, may be in 
 some degi-ee estimated from the amount of the 
 king's fifth. This hath of late been esteemed 
 one year with another to be one hundred and fifty 
 arroves of 3"2i Portuguese weight, each of which, 
 at 4/. the troy ounce, makes very near 300,000/. 
 sterling ; and consequently the capital, of which 
 this is the fifth, is about a million and a half ster- 
 ling. And the annual return of gold to Lisbon 
 cannot be less than this, though it be difficult to 
 detei-mine how much it exceeds it ; perhaps we 
 may not be very much mistaken in our conjecture, 
 if we suppose the gold exchanged for silver with 
 the Spaniards at Buenos Ayres, and what is 
 brouglit privily to Europe, and escapes the duty, 
 amounts to near half a million more, which will 
 make the whole annual produce of the Brazilian 
 gold near two millions sterling ; a prodigious 
 sum to be found m a country which, a few 
 years since, was not known to furnish a single 
 grain. 
 
 I have already mentioned, that besides gold this 
 country does hkewise produce diamonds. The 
 discovery of these valuable stones is much more 
 recent than that of gold, it being as yet scarce 
 twenty years since the first were brought to 
 Europe. They are foimd in the same manner 
 as the gold, in the gullies of torrents and beds 
 of rivers, but only in particular places, and not 
 so universally spread through the country. They 
 were often found in washing the gold before they 
 were Imown to be diamonds, and were conse- 
 quently thro^vn away with the sand and gravel 
 separated from it. And it is very well remem- 
 bered, that numbers of very large stones, which 
 would have made the fortunes of the possessors, 
 have passed unregarded through the hands of 
 those, who now with impatience support the mor- 
 tifying reflection. However, about twenty years 
 since, a person acquainted with the appearance of 
 rough diamonds, conceived that these pebbles, as 
 they were then esteemed, were of the same kind : 
 but it is said, that there was a considerable inter- 
 val between the first starting of this opinion, and 
 
 the confirmation of it by proper trials and examin- 
 ation, it proving difficult to persuade the inhabit- 
 ants, that what they had been long accustomed 
 to despise, could be of the importance represented 
 by the discovery ; and I have been informed, that 
 in this interval, a governor of one of their places 
 procured a good number of these stones, which he 
 pretended to malie use of at cards to mark with, 
 instead of counters. But to proceed : it was at 
 last confirmed by skilful jewellers in Europe, 
 consulted on this occasion, that the stones thus 
 found in Brazil were truly diamonds, many of 
 which were not inferior either in lustre, or any 
 other quality, to > those of the East-Indies. On 
 this determination the Portuguese, in tlie neigh- 
 bom-hood of those places where they had first 
 been observed, set themselves to search for them 
 with great assiduity. And they were not without 
 great hopes of discovering considerable masses 
 of them, as they found large rocks of crystal in 
 many of the mountains, from whence the streams 
 came which washed down the diamonds. 
 
 But it was soon represented to the king of 
 Portugal, that if such plenty of diamonds should 
 be met with as their sanguine conjectures seemed 
 to indicate, this would so debase their value, and 
 diminish their estimation, that besides ruining all 
 the Europeans who had any quantity of Indian 
 diamonds in their possession, it would render the 
 discovery itself of no importance, and would pre- 
 vent his Majesty from receiving any advantages 
 from it. And on these considerations his Majesty 
 has thought proper to restrain the general search 
 of diamonds, and has erected a Diamond Company 
 for that purpose, with an exclusive charter. This 
 company, in consideration of a sum paid by them 
 to the king, have the property of all diamonds 
 found in Brazil: but to hinder their collecting too 
 large quantities, and thereby debasing their value, 
 they are prohibited from employing above eight 
 hundred slaves in searching after them. And tc 
 prevent any of his other subjects from acting the 
 same part, and likewise to secure the company 
 from being defrauded by the interfering of inter- 
 lopers in their trade, he has depopulated a large 
 town, and a considerable district round it, and 
 has obliged the inhabitants, who are said to 
 amount to six thousand, to remove to another 
 part of the country ; for this town being in the 
 neighbourhood of the diamonds, it was thought 
 impossible to prevent such a number of people, 
 who were on the spot, from frequently smug- 
 gling- 
 
 In consequence of these important discoveries 
 in Brazil, new laws, new governments, and new 
 regulations have been established in many parts 
 of the country. For not long since, a considerable 
 tract, possessed by a set of inhabitants, who from 
 their principal settlement were called Paulists, 
 almost independent of the crown of Portugal, to 
 which they scarcely acknowledged more than i. 
 nominal allegiance.- These are said to be descen- 
 dants of those Portuguese, who retired from the 
 northern part of Brazil, when it was invaded and 
 possessed by the Dutch. And being for a, long 
 time neglected and obliged to provide for theii 
 own security and defence, the necessity of their 
 afiairs produced a kind of government amongst 
 them, which they found sufficient for the confined 
 manner of life to which they were inured. And 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 17 
 
 therefore rejecting and despising the authority 
 and mandate of the court of Lisbon, they were 
 often engaged in a state of downright rebellion : 
 and the mountains surrounding their country, 
 lind the difficulty of clearing the few passages 
 that open into it, generally put it in tlieir power 
 to make their own terms before they submitted. 
 But as gold was found to abound in this country 
 »f the Paulists, the present king of Portugal 
 (during whose reign almost the whole discover- 
 ies I have mentioned were begun and completed) 
 thought it incumbent on him to reduce this pro- 
 vince, which now became of great consequence, 
 to the same dependence and obedience with the 
 rest of the country which, I am told, he has at 
 iast, though mth great difficulty, happily effected. 
 And the same motives which induced his majesty 
 to undertake the reduction of the Paulists, has 
 also occasioned tlie clianges I have mentioned, to 
 have taken place at the island of St. Catherine's. 
 For the governor of Rio Grande, of whom I have 
 already spoken, assured us, that in the neighbonr- 
 iiood of this island there were considerable rivers 
 which were found to be extremely rich, and that 
 this was the reason that a gan-ison, a military 
 irovernor, and a new colony was settled there. 
 Ani as the harbour at this island is by much the 
 «ecurest and the most capacious of any on the 
 toast, it is not improbable, if the i-iches of the 
 neighbourhood answer theu* expectation, but it 
 may become in time the principal settlement in 
 Brazil, and the most considerable port in all South 
 America. 
 
 Thus much I have thought necessary to insert, 
 in relation to the present state of Brazil, and of 
 Ihe island of St. Catherine's. For as this last 
 place has been generally recommended as the 
 most eligible port for our cruisers to refi-esh at, 
 which are bound to the South Seas, I believed it 
 to be my duty to instruct my countrymen, in the 
 liitherto unsuspected inconveniences which at- 
 tend that place. And as the Brazilian gold and 
 diamonds are subjects about which, from theii" 
 novelty, very few particulars have been hitherto 
 published, I conceived this account I had collected 
 ■of them would appear to the reader to be neither 
 a trifling nor a useless digression. These sub- 
 jects being thus despatched, I shall now return to 
 the series of our own proceedings. 
 
 When we first arrived at St. Catheiine's we 
 were employed in refreshing our sick on shore, in 
 wooding and watering the squadron, cleansing our 
 iships, and examining and securing our masts and 
 rigging, as I have already observed in the fore- 
 going chapter. At the same time Mr. Anson 
 fave directions, that the ships' companies should 
 e supplied with fresh meat, and that they should 
 be victualled with whole allowance of all the kinds 
 of provision. In consequence of these orders, we 
 had fresh beef sent on board us continually for 
 our daily expense, and what was wanting to make 
 up our allowance we received from our victualler 
 the Anna pink, in order to preserve the provi- 
 sions on board our squadron entire for our future 
 service. The season of the year growing each 
 day less favourable for our passage round Cape 
 Horn, Mr. Anson was very desirous of leaving 
 this place as soon as possible ; and we were at first 
 in hopes that our whole business would be done, 
 and we should be in readiness to sail in about a 
 
 fortnight from our arrival : but, on examining 
 the Tryal's masts, we, to our no small vexation, 
 found inevitable employment for twice that time. 
 For, on a survey, it was found that the main-mast 
 was sprang at the upper woulding, though it was 
 thought capable of being secured by a couple of 
 fishes ; but the fore-mast was reported to be unfit 
 for service, and thereupon the carpenters wero 
 sent into the woodt, ;■> endeavour to find a stick 
 proper for a fore-mast. But after a search of 
 four days, they returned without having been able 
 to meet with any tree fit for the purpose. This 
 obliged them to come to a second consultation 
 about the old fore-mast, when it was agreed to 
 endeavour to secure it by casuig it with three 
 fishes : and in this work the carpenters were 
 employed, till within a day or two of our saililig. 
 In the mean time, the commodore thinking it 
 necessary to have a clean vessel on our arrival 
 in the South Seas, ordered the Tryal to be hove 
 down, as this would not occasion any loss of time, 
 but might be completed while the carpenters 
 were refitting her masts, which was done on 
 shore. 
 
 On the 27th of December we discovered a sail 
 in the offing, and not knowing but she might be a 
 Spaniard, the eighteen-oai-ed boat was manned 
 and armed, and sent under the command of our 
 second lieutenant, to examine her before sho 
 arrived within the protection of the forts. Sho 
 proved to be a Portuguese brigantine from Rio 
 Grande. And though our officer, as it appeared 
 on inquiry, had behaved with the utmost civility 
 to the master, and had refused to accept a calf, 
 which the master would have forced on him as a 
 present : yet the governor took great offence at 
 our sending our boat ; and talked of it in a high 
 strain, as a violation of the peace subsisting be- 
 tween the crowns of Great Bi-itain and Portugal. 
 We at first imputed this ridiculous blustering to 
 no deeper a cause than Don Jose's insolence ; 
 but as we found he proceeded so far as to charge 
 our officer with behaving rudely, and opening 
 letters, and particularly with an attempt to take 
 out of the vessel, by violence, the very calf which 
 we knew he had refused to receive as a present (a 
 circumstance which we were satisfied the governor 
 was well acquainted with,) we had hence reason to 
 suspect that he purposely sought this quarrel, 
 and had more important motives for engaging in 
 it, than the mere captious bias of his temper. 
 What these motives were, it was not so easj' for 
 us to determine at that time ; but as we after- 
 wards found by letters, which fell into our hands 
 in the South Seas, that he had despatched an ex- 
 press to Buenos Ayres, where Pizarro then lay, 
 with an account of our squadron's ari'ival at St. 
 Catherine's, together with the most ample and 
 circumstantial intelligence of our force and con- 
 dition, we thence conjectured that Don Jose had 
 raised this groundless clamour, only to prevent 
 our visiting the brigantine when she should put 
 to sea again, least we might there find proofs ni 
 his perfidious behaviour, and perhaps at the same 
 time discover the secret of his smuggling cor- 
 respondence witli his neighbouring governors, and 
 the Spaniards at Buenos Ayres. But to proceed. 
 It was near a month before the Tryal was re- 
 fitted ; for not only her lower masts were defec- 
 tive, as hath been already mentioned, but hea 
 
 L 
 
18 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 main top-mast and fore-yard were likewise de- 
 cayed and rotten. While this work was carrying 
 on, the other ships of the squadron fixed new 
 standing rigging, and set up a sufficient number 
 of preventer shrouds to each mast, to secure them 
 in the most effectual manner. And in order to 
 render the ships stiffer, and to enable them to 
 carry more sail abroad, and to prevent their 
 labouring in hard gales of wind, each captain had 
 orders given him to strike down some of their 
 great guns into the hold. These precautions being 
 complied with, and each ship having taken in as 
 much wood and water as there was room for, 
 the Tryal was at last completed, and the whole 
 squadron was ready for the sea : on which the 
 tents on shore were struck, and all the sick were 
 received on board. And here we had a melan- 
 choly proof how much the healthiness of this 
 place had been over-rated by former wi-iters, for 
 we found that though the Centurion alone had 
 buried no less than twenty-eight men since our 
 arrival, yet the number of her sick had in the 
 same interval increased from eighty to ninety-six. 
 And now our crews being embarked, and every 
 thing prepared for our departure, the commodore 
 made a signal for all captains, and delivered them 
 their orders, containing the successive places of 
 rendezvous from hence to the coast of China. And 
 then, on the next day, being the 1 8th of January, 
 the signal was made for weighing, and the squadron 
 put to sea, leaving without regret this island of 
 St Catherine's ; where we had been so extremely 
 disappointed in our refreshments, in our accom- 
 modations, and in the humane and friendly offices 
 which we had been taught to expect in a place, 
 which hath been so much celebrated for its hos- 
 pitality, freedom, and convenience. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Tfie run from St. Catherine's to port St. Julian^ with some 
 account of that port, and of the country to the southward 
 (if the river of Plate. 
 
 In leaving St. Catherine's, we left the last ami- 
 cable port we proposed to touch at, and were now 
 proceeding to a hostile, or at best, a desert and 
 inhospitable coast. And as we were to expect a 
 more boisterous climate to the southward than 
 any we had yet experienced, not only our danger 
 of separation would by this means be much greater 
 than it had been hitherto, but other accidents of a 
 more pernicious nature were likewise to be appre- 
 hended, and as much as possible to be provided 
 against. And therefore Mr. Anson, m appointing 
 the various stations at which the ships of tlie 
 squadi'on were to rendezvous, had considered, that 
 it was possible his own ship might be disabled 
 from getting round Cape Horn, or might be lost, 
 and had given proper directions, that even in that 
 case the expedition should not be abandoned. 
 For the orders delivered to the captains, the day 
 before we sailed from St. Catherine's, were, that 
 in case of separation, which they were with the 
 utmost care to endeavour to avoid, the first place 
 of rendezvous should be the bay of port St. Julian ; 
 describing the place from Sir John Narborough's 
 account of it. There they were to supply them- 
 selves with as much salt as they could take in, 
 
 both for then- own use, and for the use of the 
 squadron ; and if, after a stay there of ten days, they 
 were not joined by the commodore, they were 
 then to proceed through Straits le Maire round 
 Cape Horn, into the South Seas, where the next 
 place of rendezvous was to be the island of Nostra 
 Senora del Socoro, in the latitude of iit" South,, 
 and longitude from the Lizard 71" 12 West. 
 They were to bring this island to bear E.N.E, and 
 to cruise from five to twelve leagues distance from it,, 
 as long as their store of wood and water would per- 
 mit, both which they were to expend with the utmost 
 frugality. And when they were und^r an absolute 
 necessity of a fresh supply, they were to stand in, 
 and endeavour to find out an anchoring-plaoe ; 
 and in case they could not, and the weather made 
 it dangerous to supply their ships by standing off 
 and on, they were then to make the best of their 
 way to the island of Juan Fernandes, in the lati- 
 tude of 33° 37' South. And as soon as they had 
 there recruited their wood and water, they were 
 to continue cruising oif the anchoring-place of that 
 island for fifty-six days ; in which time, if they 
 were not joined by the commodore, they might 
 conclude that some accident had befallen him, 
 and they were forthwith to put themselves under 
 the command of the senior officer, who was to use 
 his utmost endeavours to annoy the enemy both 
 by sea and land. That with these views their 
 new commodore was to continue in those seas a.s 
 long as his provisions lasted, or as long as they 
 were recruited by what he should take from the 
 enemy, reserving only a sufficient quantity tO' 
 carry him and the ships under his command to 
 Macao, at the entrance of the river Tigris near 
 Canton on tlie coast of China, where having sup- 
 plied himself with a new stock of provisions, he 
 was thence, without delay, to make the best of his 
 way to England. , And as it was found impossible 
 as yet to unload our victualler the Anna pink, the 
 commodore gave the master of hor the same ren- 
 dezvous, and the same orders to put himself under 
 the command of the remaining senior officer. 
 
 Under these orders the squadron sailed from 
 St. Catherine's on Sunday the 1 8th of January, as 
 liath been already mentioned in the preceding 
 chapter. The next day we had very squally wea- 
 ther, attended with rain, lightning and thunder,, 
 but it soon became fair again with light breezes,, 
 and continued thus till Wednesday evening,, 
 when it blew fresh again ; and increasing all 
 night, by eight the next morning it became a most 
 violent storm, and we had with it so thick «, fog, 
 that it was impossible to see at the distance of 
 two ships' length, so that the whole squadron dis- 
 appeared. On this, a signal was made, by firing 
 guns, to bring to with the larboard tacks, the wind 
 being then due east. We ourselves immediately 
 handed the top-sails, bunted the main-sail, and 
 lay to under a reefed mizen till noon, when the 
 fog dispersed, and we soon discovered ail the ships 
 of the squadron except the Pearl, which did not join 
 us till near a month afterwards. The Tryal sloop 
 was a great way to leeward, having lost her main- 
 mast in this squall, and having been obliged, for 
 fear of bilging, to cut away tlie raft. We bore 
 down with the squadron to her relief, and the 
 Gloucester was ordered to take her in tow, for 
 the weather did not entirely abate till the day 
 after, and even then, a great swell continued from 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 !!► 
 
 the eastward, in consequence of the preceding 
 storm. ^ 
 
 After this accident we stood to the southward 
 witli little interruption, and here we experienced 
 the same setting of the current, which we had 
 observed before our arrival at St. Catherine's ; 
 that is, we generally found ourselves to the south- 
 ward of our reckomiig, by about twenty miles 
 each day. This error continued, with a little 
 variation, till we had passed the latitude of the 
 river of Plate ; and even then, we found that the 
 same current, however difficult to be accounted 
 for, did yet undoubtedly take place ; for we were 
 not satisfied in deducing it from the error in our 
 reckoning, but we actually tried it more than once, 
 when a calm made it practicable. 
 
 When we had passed the latitude of the river 
 of Plate, we liad soundings all along the coast of 
 Patagonia. These soundings, when well ascer- 
 tained, being of great use in determining the 
 position of the ship, and we having tried them 
 more frequently, in greater depths, and with 
 more attention, than I believe had been done be- 
 fore us, 1 shall recite our observations as suc- 
 cinctly as I can. In the latitude of SS' 52' we 
 had sixty fathom of water, with a bottom of fine 
 black and grey sand ; from thence, to 39° S.i', 
 we varied our depths from fifty to eighty fathom, 
 though we had constantly tlii same bottom as 
 before ; between the last mentioned latitude, and 
 43° 16', we had only fine grey sand, with the 
 same variation of depths, except that we once or 
 twice lessened our water to forty fathom. After 
 this, we continued in forty fathom for about half 
 a degree, having a bottom of coarse sand and 
 broken shells, at which time we were in sight of 
 laud, and not above seven leagues from it. As we 
 edged from the land, we met with variety of sound- 
 ings ; first black sand, then muddy, and soon after 
 rough ground with stones ; but then increasing 
 our water to forty-eight fathom, we had a muddy 
 bottom to the latitude of 46° 10'. We then re- 
 turned again into thirty-six fathom, and kept 
 shoaling our water, till at length we came into 
 twelve fathom, having constantly small stones and 
 pebbles at the bottom. Part of this time we had 
 a view of Cape Blanco, which lies in about the 
 latitude of 46° 52', and longitude west from 
 London 66° 43'. This is the most remarkable 
 land upon the coast. Steering from hence S. by 
 E. nearly, we, in a run of about thirty leagues, 
 deepened our water to fifty fathom, without once 
 altering the bottom ; and then drawing towards the 
 shore with a S.W. course, varying rather to the 
 westward, we had everywhere a sandy bottom, 
 till our coming into thirty fathom, where we had again 
 a sight of land, distant from us about eight leagues, 
 lying in the latitude of 48° 31'. We made this 
 land on the 17th of February, and at five in the 
 afternoon we came to an anchor upon the same 
 bottom, in the latitude of 4S» 58', the souther- 
 most land then in view bearing S.S.W., the 
 northermost N. ^ E, a small island N.W., and the 
 westermost hummock W. S.W. In this station 
 we found the tide to set S. by W. ; and weighing 
 again at five the next morning, we, an hour after- 
 wards, discovered a sail, upon which the Severn and 
 Gloucester were both directed to give chase ; but 
 we soon perceived it to be the Pearl, which sepa- 
 rated from us a few days after we left St. Cathe- 
 
 rine's, and on this we made a signal for the Severn 
 to rejoin the squadron, leaving the Gloucester 
 alone in the pursuit. And now we were surprised 
 to see, that on the Gloucester's approach, the 
 people on hoard the Pearl increased their sail, 
 and stood from her. However, the Glouce.ster 
 came up with them, but found them with their 
 hammocks in their nettings, and everything ready 
 for an engagement. At two in the afternoon the 
 Pearl joined us, and running up under our stern. 
 Lieutenant Salt hailed the commodore, and ac- 
 quainted him that Captain Kidd died on the 31 st 
 of January. He likewise informed him, that he 
 had seen five large ships the 10th instant, which 
 he for some time imagined to be our squadron : 
 that he suffered the commanding ship, which 
 wore a red broad pennant, exactly resembling that 
 of the commodore, at the main top-mast head, to 
 come within gun-shot of him before he discovered 
 his mistake ; but then finding it not to be the 
 Centurion, he haled close upon the wind, and 
 crowded from them with all his sail, and standing 
 cross a ripling, where they hesitated to follow 
 him, he happily escaped. He made them to be 
 five Spanish men of war, one of them exceedingly 
 like the Gloucester, which was the occasion of his 
 apprehensions when the Gloucester chased him^ 
 By their appearance he thought they consisted of 
 two ships of seventy guns, two of fifty, and one of 
 forty guns. The whole squadron continued in 
 chase of him all that day, but at night finding^ 
 they could not get near him, they gave over the 
 chase, and directed their course to the southward* 
 
 And now had it not been for the necessity we 
 were under of refitting the Tryal, this piece of 
 intelligence would have prevented our making 
 any stay at St. Julian's ; but as it was impossible 
 for that sloop to proceed round the Cape in her 
 present condition, some stay there was inevitable,. 
 and therefore the same evening we came to an 
 anchor again in twenty-five fathom water, the 
 bottom a mixture of mud and sand, and the high 
 hummock bearing S.W. by W. And weighing 
 at nine in the morning, we soon after sent the 
 two cutters belonging to the Centurion and Severn 
 in shore, to discover the harbour of St. Julian, 
 while the ships kept standing along the coast, 
 at about the distance of a league from the land. 
 At six o'clock we anchored in the bay of St. Ju- 
 lian, in nineteen fathom, the bottom muddy ground 
 with sand, the northermost land in sight bearing 
 N. and by E., the southermost S. ^ E., and the 
 high hummock, to which Sir John Narborough 
 formerly gave the name of Wood's Mount, W.S. W, 
 Soon after, the cutter returned on board, having 
 discovered the harbour, which did not appear to 
 us in our situation, the northermost point shutting 
 in upon the southermost, and in appearance clos- 
 ing the entrance. 
 
 Being come to an anchor in thi.^ Day of St. 
 Julian, principally with a view of K fitting the 
 Tryal, the carpenters were immediately employed 
 in that business, and continued so during our whole 
 stay at the place. The Tryal's- main-mast having 
 been carried away about twelve feet below the cap, 
 they contrived to make the remaining part of the 
 mast serve again ; and the Wager was ordered U> 
 supply her with a spare main-top-mast, which tho 
 carpenters converted into a new fore-mast. And 
 I cannot help observing, that this accident tu tlwf 
 
2(> 
 
 ANSOM'S VOYAGE KOUND THE WOELD. 
 
 i 
 
 Tryai's mast, whicli gave us so much uneasiness 
 at tliat time, on account of the delay it occasioned, 
 Avas, in all probability, the means of preserving 
 tlie sloop, and all her crew. For before this, her 
 masts, how well soever proportioned to a better 
 climate, were much too lofty for these high 
 southern latitudes: so that had they weathered 
 the preceding storm, it would have been impos- 
 -sible for them to have stood against those seas 
 and tempests we afterwards encountered in passing 
 round Cape Horn ; and the loss of masts, in that 
 ■boisterous climate, would scarcely have been at- 
 tended with less than the loss of the vessel, and of 
 every man on board her ; since it would have been 
 impracticable for the other ships to have given 
 ihem any relief, during the continuance of those 
 impetuous storms. 
 
 Whilst we stayed at this place, the commodore 
 ■appointed the Honourable Captain Murray to suc- 
 ceed to the Pearl, and Captain Cheap to the Wager, 
 ■and he promoted Mr. Charles Saundere, his first 
 lieutenant, to the command of the Tryal sloop. 
 But Captain Saunders lying dangerously ill of a 
 fever on board the Centurion, and it being the 
 opinion of the surgeons that the removing him on 
 Jboari his own ship, in his present condition, might 
 tend to the hazard of his life ; Mr. Anson gave an 
 ■order to Mr. Saumarez, first heutenant of the 
 ■Centurion, to act as master and commander of 
 the Tryal, during the illness of Captain Saunders. 
 
 Here the commodore too, in order to ease the 
 •expedition of all unnecessary expense, held a far- 
 ther consultation with his captains about unload- 
 ing and discharging the Anna pink ; but they re- 
 ijjresented to him that they were so far from being 
 in a condition of taking any part of her loading ou 
 loard, that they had still great quantities of pro- 
 visions in the way of their guns between-decks, 
 -and that their ships were withal so very deep, that 
 they were not fit for action without being cleared. 
 This put the commodore under a necessity of 
 Tetaining the pink in the seiwice ; and as it was 
 apprehended we should certainly meet with the 
 ■Spanish squadron in passing the Cape, Mr. Anson 
 thought it advisable to give orders to the captains 
 to put all their provisions, which were in the way 
 •of their guns, on board the Anna pink, and to 
 remount such of their guns as had formerly, for 
 the ease of their ships, been ordered into the hold. 
 
 This bay of St. Julian, where we were now at 
 anchor, being a convenient rendezvous, in case of 
 separation, for all cruisers bound to the southward, 
 .and the whole coast of Patagonia, from the river 
 of Plate to the Straits of Magellan, lying nearly 
 .parallel to their usual route, a short account of 
 the singularity of this country, with a particular 
 description of port St. JuUan, may perhaps be 
 neither unacceptable to the curious, nor unworthy 
 the attention of future navigators, as some of them, 
 -by imforeseen accidents, may be obliged to run in 
 with the land, and to make some stay on this coast, 
 in which case the knowledge of the country, its 
 produce and inhabitants, cannot but be of the 
 utmost consequence to them. i 
 
 To begin then with the tract of couniry usu- 
 ally styled Patagonia. This is the name often 
 given to the southermost part of South America, 
 which is unpossessed by the Spaniards, extending 
 from their settlements to the Straits of Magellan. 
 On the east side, this country is extremely remark- 
 
 able for a peculiarity not to be paralleled m any 
 other known part of the globe ; for though the 
 whole territory to the northward of the river of 
 Plate is full of wood, and stored with immense 
 quantities of large timber trees, yet to the south- 
 ward of the river no trees of any kind are to be met 
 with, except a few peach-trees, first planted and 
 cultivated by the Spaniards, in the neighbourhood 
 of Buenos Ayres : so that on the whole eastern 
 coast of Patagonia, extending near four hundred 
 leagues in length, and reaching as far back as any 
 discoveries have yet been made, no other wood has 
 been found than a few insignificant shrubs Sir 
 John Narborough in particular, who was sent out, 
 by King Charles the second, expressly to examine 
 this country, and the Straits of Magellan, and who 
 in pursuance of his orders wintered upon thif 
 coast in port St. Julian and port Desire, in the 
 year lfi70; Sir John Narborough, I say, tells uf^ 
 that he never saw a stick of wood in the country 
 large enough to make the handle of a hatchet. 
 
 But though this country be so destitute of wood, 
 it abounds with pasture. For the land appears in 
 general to be made up of downs of a light dry 
 gravelly soil, and produces great quantities of long 
 coarse grass, which grows in tufts interspersed with 
 large b.arren spots of gravel between them. This 
 grass, in many places, feeds immense herds of 
 cattle : for the Spaniards at Buenos Ayre.s, having 
 brought over a few black cattle from Europe at 
 their firat settlement, they have thriven prodi- 
 giously by the plenty of herbage which they found 
 here, and are now increased to that degree, and 
 are extended so far into the country, that they are 
 not considered as private property; but many 
 thousands at a time are slaughtered every yrir by 
 the hunters, only for their hides and tallow The 
 manner of killing these cattle, being a practice pecu- 
 liar to that part of the world, merits a more cu-cum- 
 stantial description. The hunters employed on this 
 occasion being all of them mounted on horseback 
 (and both the Spaniards and Indians in that part 
 of the world are usually most excellent horsemen), 
 they arm themselves with a kind of spear, which, 
 at its end, instead of a blade fixed in the same 
 luie with the wood in the usual manner, has its 
 blade fixed across ; with this instrument they ride 
 at a beast, and surround him. The hunter that 
 comes behind him hamstrings him ; .and as after 
 this oper.ation the beast soon tumbles, without 
 being able to raise himself again, they leave him 
 on the ground, and pursue others, whom they serve 
 in the same manner. Sometimes there is a second 
 party, who attend the hunters, to skin the cattle 
 as they fall : but it is said, that at other times 
 the hunters choose to let them languish in tor- 
 ment till the next day, fi-om an opinion that the 
 anguish, which the animal in the meantime endures, 
 may burst the lymphatics, and thereby facilitate 
 the separation of the skin from the carcase : and 
 though their priests have loudly condemned this 
 most barbarous practice, and have gone so far, if 
 my memory does not fail me, as to excommunicate 
 those who follow it, yet all their efforts to put an 
 entire stop to it have hitherto proved ineffectual. 
 
 Besides the numbers of cattle which are every 
 year slaughtered for their hides and tallow, in the 
 manner already described, it is often necessary 
 for the purposes of agriculture, and likewise with 
 other viewsj to take them alive, and without wound 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE KOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 21 
 
 ing them. This is perfomied with a most won- 
 derful and almost incredible dexterity, and prin- 
 cipally by the use of a machine which the Knglish 
 who have resided at Buenos Ayrea generally de- 
 nominate a lash. It is made of a thong of several 
 fathoms iu length, and very strong, with a running 
 noose at one end of it : this the hunters (who iu 
 this case are also mounted on horseback) take in 
 their right hands, it being first properly coiled up, 
 and having its end opposite to the noose fastened 
 to the saddle ; and thus prepared, they ride at a 
 lierd of cattle. . /hen they arrive within a certain 
 distance of a beast, they throw their thong at him 
 with such exiictness, that they never fail of fixing 
 the noose about his horns The beast, when he 
 finds himself entangled, generally runs, but the 
 horse, being swifter, attends him, and prevents 
 the thong from being too much strained, till a 
 second hunter, who follows the game, throws 
 another noose about one of its hind legs : and this 
 being done, both horses (they being trained for 
 this purpose) instantly turn dift'erent ways, in order 
 to straiu the two thongs in contrary du-ections; 
 oa which the beast, by their opposite pulls, is pre- 
 sently overthrown, and then the horses stop, keep- 
 ing the thongs still upon the stretch • being thus 
 on the ground and incapable of resistance, (for he 
 is extended between the two horses) the hunters 
 alight, and secure him in such a manner, that they 
 afterwards easily convey him to whatever place 
 they please. In the same manner they noose 
 horses, and, as it is said, even tigers ; and however 
 strange this last cu'cumstance may appear, there 
 are not wanting persons of credit who assert it. 
 Indeed, it must be owned, that the address both 
 of the Spaniards and Indians in that part of the 
 world, in the use of this lash or noose, and the cer- 
 tainty with which they throw it, and fix it on any 
 intended part of the beast at a considerable 
 distance, are matters only to be believed from 
 the repeated and concurrent testimony of all who 
 have frequented that country, and might reason- 
 ably be questioned, did it rely on a single report, 
 or had it been ever contradicted or denied by any 
 one who had resided at Buenos Ayres. 
 
 The cattle which are killed in the manner 1 have 
 already observed, are slaughtered only for their 
 hides and tallow, to which sometimes are added 
 theu" tongues, and the rest of their flesh is left to 
 putrify, or to be devoured by the birds and wild 
 beasts ; but the greatest part of this cai-rion falls 
 to the share of the wild dogs, of which there are 
 immense numbers to be found in that country. 
 They are supposed to have been originally produced 
 by Spanish dogs from Buenos Ayres, who, allured 
 by the great quantity of carrion, and the facility 
 they had by that means of subsisting, left theu- 
 masters, and ran wild amongst the cattle; for they 
 are plainly of the breed of the European dogs, an 
 animal not originally found in America. But though 
 these dogs are said to be some thousands in a com- 
 pany, they hitherto neitherdiminish norprevent the 
 increase of the cattle, not daring to attack them, 
 by reason of the numbers which constantly feed 
 together; but contenting themselves with the 
 carrion left them -by the hunters, and perhaps 
 now and then with a few stragglers who, by acci- 
 dents, are separated from the herd they belong to. 
 
 iiesides the wild cattle which have spread them- 
 selves in such vast herds from Buenos Ayres to- 
 
 wards the southward, the same country is in lik& 
 manner furnished with horses. These too were- 
 first brought from Spain, and are also prodigiously 
 inci-eased, and run wild to a much greater distance' 
 than the black cattle : and though many of them 
 are excellent, yet their number makes them of 
 very httle value ; the best of them being often 
 sold, in a country where money is plenty and com- 
 modities very dear, for not more than a dollar a- 
 piece. It is not a.s yet certain how far to the south- 
 ward these herds of wild cattle and horees have 
 extended themselves ; but there is some i-eason to- 
 conjecture, that stragglers of both kinds are to be 
 met with very near the Straits of Magellan ; and 
 they will in time doubtless fill the southern part 
 of this continent with their breed, which cannot 
 fail of proving of considerable advantage to such- 
 ships as may touch upon the coast ; for the horses 
 themselves are said to be very good eating, and 
 as such to be preferred by some of the Indians 
 even before the black cattle. But what-ever plenty 
 of this kind may be hereafter found here, there is 
 one material refreshment which this eastern side 
 of Patagonia seems to be very defective in, and 
 that is fresh water ; for the land being generally 
 of a nitrous and saline nature, the ponds and 
 streams are frequently brackish. However, as 
 good water has been found there, though in small 
 quantities, it is not improbable but, on a further 
 search, this inconvenience miiy be removed. 
 
 Besides the cattle and horses which I have 
 mentioned, there are in all parts of this country 
 a good number of vicunnas or Peruvian sheep; 
 but these, by reason of their shyness and swiftness, 
 are killed with difficulty. On the eastern coast, 
 too, there abound immense quantities of seals, and 
 a vast variety of sea-fowl, amongst which the most 
 remarkable are the penguins : they are in size and 
 shape like a goose, but instead of wings they have 
 short stumps like fins, which are of no use to them 
 except in the water ; their bills are narrow, like 
 that of an albatross, and they stand and walk iut 
 an erect posture. From this, and their white 
 belhes. Sir John Narborough has whimsically 
 likened them to little children standing up in white 
 aprons. 
 
 The inhabitants of this eastern coast (to which 
 I have all along hitherto confined my relation) 
 appear to be but few, and have rarely been seen 
 more than two or three at a time, by any shipa 
 that have touched here. We, during our stay 
 at the port of St. Julian, saw none. However, 
 towards Buenos Ayres they are sufiiciently nume- 
 rous, and oftentimes very troublesome to the Spa- 
 niards ; but there the greater breadth and variety 
 of the country, and a milder climate, yield them a 
 better protection ; for in that place the continent is 
 between three and four hundred leagues in breadth, 
 whereas at port St. Julian it is little more than a 
 hundred : so that I conceive the same Indians, 
 that frequent the western coast of Patagonia and 
 the Straits of Magellan, often ramble to this side. 
 As the Indians near Buenos Ayres exceed these 
 southern Indians in number, so they greatly sur- 
 pass them in activity and spirit, and seem in their 
 manners to be nearly allied to those gallant Chilian 
 , Indians, who have long set the whole SpanLsh 
 powerat defiance, have often ravaged their country, 
 and remain to this hour independent. I., For the 
 Indians about Buenos Ayres liave leai-nt to be 
 
'22 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUNB THE WORLD. 
 
 exrellent horsemen, and are extremely expert in 
 the management of all cutting weapons, diough 
 ignorant of the use of fire-arms, which the Spaniards 
 are very solicitous to keep out of their hands. And 
 of the vigour and resolution of these Indians, the 
 behaviour of Orellana and his followers, whom we 
 have formerly mentioned, is a memorable instance. 
 Indeed, were we disposed to aim at the utter sub- 
 version of the Spanish power m America, no means 
 seem more probable to effect it, than due encou- 
 ragement and assistance given to these Indians 
 and those of Chili. 
 
 Thus much may sufl"ice m relation to tne eastern 
 coast of Patagonia. The western coast is of less 
 extent ; and by reason of the Andes which skirt it, 
 and stretch quite down to the water, is a very rocky 
 and dangerous shore. However, I sliall be hereafter 
 necessitated to make further mention of it, and 
 therefore sliall not enlarge thereon at this time. 
 But it must be remembered, that the bar at the 
 entrance is often shifting, and has many holes in it. 
 The tide flows here N. and S., and at full and 
 change, rises four fathom. 
 
 We, on our firat arrival here, sent an officer on 
 shore, in order to procure a quantity of salt for the 
 use of the squadron. Sir John Narborough having 
 observed, when he was here, that the salt produced 
 in that place was very white and good, and that in 
 February there was enough of it to fill a thousand 
 ships ; but our officer returned with a sample 
 which was very bad, and he told us, that even of this 
 there was but little to be got : I suppose the wea- 
 ther had been more rainy tlian ordinary, and had 
 ■destroyed it. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Departure from the Bay of St. Julian, and the passage 
 from thence to Straits Le Maire. 
 
 The Tryal being nearly refitted, which was our 
 principal occupation at this bay of St. Julian, 
 and the sole occasion of our stay, the commodore 
 thought it necessary, as we were now directly 
 bound for the South Seas and the enemy's coasts, 
 to regulate the plan of his future operations : and, 
 therefore, on the 24th of February, a signal was 
 made for all captains, and a council of war was 
 held on board the Centurion, at which were present 
 the Honourable Edward Legg, Captain Matthew 
 Mitchel, the Honourable George Murray, Captain 
 David Cheap, together with Colonel Mordaunt 
 Cracherode, commander of the land forces. At 
 this council Mr. Anson proposed, that then- first 
 attempt, after their arrival in the South Seas, should 
 be the attack of the town and harbour of Baldivia, 
 the principal frontier of the district of Chili ; Mr. 
 Anson informing them, at the same time, that 
 it was an article contained in his Majesty's in- 
 structions to him, to endeavour to secure some 
 port in the South Seas, where the shipp of the 
 squadron might be careened and refitted o To this 
 proposition made by the commodore, the council 
 unanimously and readily agreed ; and in conse- 
 quence of this resolution, new instructions were 
 given to the captains of the squadron, by which, 
 though they were still directed, in case of separa- 
 tion, to make the best of their way to the island 
 of Nuestra Seuora del Socoro, yet (notwithstand- 
 ing the orders they had foimerly given them at 
 
 St. Catherine's) ihey were to cruise off that island 
 only ten days ; from whence, if not joined by the 
 commodore, they were to proceed, and cruise off 
 the harbour of Baldivia, making the land between 
 the latitudes of 40° and 40° 30', and taking care 
 to keep to the southward of the port ; and, if in 
 fourteen days they were not joined by the rest of 
 the squadron, they were then to quit this station, 
 and to direct their course to the island nf Juan 
 Fernandes, after which they were to i-egulate 
 their further proceedings by their former orders. 
 The same directions were also given to the master 
 of the Anna pink, and he was particularly instructed 
 to be very careful in answering the signals made 
 by any ship of the squadron, and likewise to destroy 
 his papera and orders, if he should be so unfortu- 
 nate as to fall into the hands of the enemy. ' And 
 as the separation of the squadron might prove of 
 the utmost prejudice to His Majesty's service, 
 each captain was ordered to give it in charge to 
 the respective officers of the watch, not to keep 
 their ship at a greater distance from the Centurion 
 than two miles, as they would answer it at their 
 peril ; and if any captain should find his ship 
 beyond the distance specified, he was to acquaint 
 the commodore with the name of the officer, who 
 had thus neglected his duty. 
 
 These necessary regulations being established, 
 and the Tryal sloop completed, thesquadron weighed 
 on Friday the 27th of February, at seven in the 
 morning, and stood to the sea ; the Gloucester 
 indeed found a difficulty in purchasing her anchor, 
 and was left a considerable way a-stern, so that in 
 the night we fired several guns as a signal to her 
 captain to make sail, but he did not come up to 
 us till the next morning, when we found that they 
 had beeu obliged to cut their cable, and leave 
 their best bower behind them. At ten in the 
 morning, the day after our departure. Wood's 
 Mount, the highland over St. Julian, bore from 
 us N. by W. distant ten leagues, and we had fifty- 
 two fathom of water. And now standing to the 
 southward, we had great expectation of falling in 
 with Pizarro's squadron ; for, during our stay at 
 port St. Julian, there had generally been hard 
 gales between the W. N. W. and S. W., so that 
 we had reason to conclude the Spaniards had 
 gained no ground upon us in that interval, And 
 it was the prospect of meeting with them, that 
 had occasioned our commodore to be so very 
 solicitous to prevent the separation of our ships : 
 for had we been solely intent on getting round 
 Cape Horn in the shortest time, the properest 
 method for this purpose would have been to have 
 ordered each ship to have made the best of her 
 way to the rendezvous, without waiting for the rest.' 
 
 1 " The calamities that attended Anson's squadron, after 
 passing through the Straits of Magellan at an improper 
 season of the year, were unquestionahly owing, in a great 
 degree, to the delay in leaving England ; but many of them 
 ■would have been avoided, had this passage then been as 
 well understood as now, when the smallest ships of war, 
 merchantmen, and whalers, go round the Cape, or through 
 the Straits, at allseasons of the year. The ships of Anson, 
 were, however, most wretchedly manned ; and Sir Charles 
 Wager, an excellent seaman, and a man of good sound 
 sense, could not contend with the Secretaries of State and 
 their excellencies the Lords Justices, who appear to have 
 taken entirely upon themselves the setting forth of this 
 expeditionif' Anson, when at Spithead, ventured to send 
 on shore two invalid officers, who from age and infirmity 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 23 
 
 From our departure from St. Julian to the 4th 
 ■>{ March, we had little wind, with thick hazy 
 weather, and some rain ; and our soundings were 
 generally from forty to fifty fathom, with a bottom 
 of black and grey sand, sometimes intermixed 
 with pebble stones. On the 4th of March we 
 were in sight of Capr Virgin Mary, and not more 
 than six or seven leagues distant from it : this is 
 the northern cape of the Straits of Magellan ; it 
 lies in the latitude of 52° 21' South, and longi- 
 tude from Loudon 71° 44' West, and seems to 
 be a low flat land, ending in a point. Off this 
 Cape our depth of water was from thirty-five 
 to forty-eight fathom. The afternoon of this day 
 was very bright and clear, with small breezes of 
 wind, inclinable to a calm, and most of the cap- 
 tains took the opportunity of this favourable 
 weather to pay a visit to the commodore ; but 
 while they were in company together, they were 
 all greatly alarmed by a sudden flame, which 
 burst out on board the Gloucester, and which was 
 succeeded by a cloud of smoke. However, they 
 were soon relieved from their apprehensions, by 
 receiving information, that the blast was occa- 
 sioned by a spark of fire from the forge, Ughting 
 on some gunpowder and other combustibles, which 
 an oflicer on board was preparing for use, in case 
 we should fall in with the Spanish fleet ; and that 
 it had been extinguished, without any damage to 
 the ship. 
 
 We here found what was constantly verified by 
 ^11 our observations in these high latitudes, that 
 fair weather was always of an exceeding short 
 duration, and that when it was remarkably fine, 
 it was a certain presage of a succeeding storm, for 
 the calm and sunshine of our afternoon ended in 
 a most turbulent night, the wind freshening from 
 the S.W. as the night come on, and increasing 
 ita violence continually till nine in the morning the 
 next day, when it blew so hard, that we were 
 obliged to bring-to with the squadron, and to con- 
 tinue under a reefed mizen till eleven at night, 
 having in that time from forty-three to fifty-seven 
 fathom water, with black sand and gravel ; and 
 by an observation we had at noon, we concluded 
 a current had set us twelve miles to the southward 
 of our reckoning. Towards midnight, the wind 
 abating, we made sail again ; and steering south, 
 we discovered in the morning for the first time 
 the land, called Terra del Fuego, stretching from 
 the S. by W., to the S.E. by E. This indeed aff'orded 
 us but a very uncomfortable prospect, it appearing 
 of a stupendous height, covered every where with 
 snow. We steered along this shore all day, having 
 soundings from forty to fifty fathom, with stones 
 and gravel. And as we intended to pass through 
 Straits Le Maire next day, we lay-to at night, 
 that we might not overshoot them, and took this 
 opportunity to prepare ourselves for the tem- 
 pestuous climate we were soon to be engaged in ; 
 with which view, we employed ourselves good part 
 of the night in bending an entire new suit of sails 
 to the yards. A.t four the next morning, being 
 the 'th of March, we made sail, and at eight saw 
 the land ; and soon after we began to open the 
 Straits, at which time Cape St. James bore from 
 
 declared themeelves incapable of doing any duty : he im- 
 mediately received an order, by directions of the Lords 
 Justices, that they should again he received on board, and 
 aomaaeiiovlihedi3raTSBed."—Barrow'sLf/t(ifLordAnso7i. 
 
 usE.S.E.,Cape St. Vincent S.E. by E., the middle- 
 most of tlie Three Brothers S. and by W., Monte- 
 gorda South, and Cape St. Bartholomew, which 
 is the southermost point of Statenland, E.S.E . 
 Though Terra del Fuego had ah aspect extremely 
 barren and desolate, yet this island of Statenland 
 far surpasses it, in the wildnoss and horror of its 
 appearance : it seeming to be entirely composed 
 of inaccessible rocks, without the least mixture of 
 earth or mould between them. These rocks ter- 
 minate in a vast number of ragged points which 
 spire up to a prodigious height, and are all of 
 them covered with everlastmg snow ; the points 
 themselves are on every side surrounded with 
 frightful precipices, and often overhang in a most 
 astonishing manner ; and the hills which bear 
 them are generally separated from each other by 
 narrow clefts, which appeared as if the country 
 had been rent by earthquakes ; for these chasms 
 are nearly perpendicular, and extend through the 
 substance of the main rocks, almost to their very 
 bottoms : so that nothing can be imagined more 
 savage and gloomy, than the whole aspect of this 
 coast. 
 
 I have above mentioned, that on the 7th of 
 March, in the morning, we opened Straits Le 
 Maire, and soon after, or about ten o'clock, tht 
 Pearl and the Tryal being ordered to keep a-head 
 of the squadron, we entered them with fair weather 
 and a brisk gale, and were hurried through by the 
 rapidity of the tide in about two hours, though the;', 
 are between seven and eight leagues in length 
 As these Straits are often considered as th« 
 boundary between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, 
 and as we presumed we had nothing now before 
 us but an open sea, till we should arrive on those 
 opulent coasts where all our hopes and wishes 
 centred, we could not help flattering ourselves 
 that the greatest difficulty of our passage was now 
 at an end, and that our most sanguine dreams 
 were upon the point of being realised ; and hence 
 we indulged our imaginations in those romantic 
 schemes, which the fancied possession of the 
 Chilian gold and Peruvian silver might be con- 
 ceived to inspire. These joyous ideas were 
 heightened by the brightness of the sky, and the 
 serenity of the weather, which was indeed most 
 remarkably pleasing ; for though the winter was 
 now advancing apace, yet the morning of this day, 
 in its brilliancy and mildness, gave place to none 
 we had seen since our departure from England. 
 Thus animated by these delusions, we traversed 
 these memorable Straits, ignorant of the dreadful 
 calamities that were then impending, and just ready 
 to break upon us ; ignorant that the time drew 
 near, when the squadron would be separated never 
 to unite again, and that this day of our passage 
 was the last cheerful day that the greatest part ol 
 us would ever live to enjoy. 
 
 1 " On the 7th of March, I entered the Straits Le Maire 
 with a favourable gale and fine weather ; but had no 
 sooner got through the Straits than I met very hard gales 
 of wind from the high lands of Terra del Fuego ; inso- 
 much that I was obliged to reef my courses, which con- 
 tinued reefed fifty-eight days."— ..^njon'* official report. 
 
24 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 From Straits Le Mairc to Cape Noir, 
 
 We had scarcely reached the southern extre- 
 mity of the Straits of Le Maire, when our flattering 
 liopes were instantly lost in the apprehensions of 
 immediate destruction : for before the sternmost 
 ships of the squadron were clear of the Straits, 
 the serenity of the sky was suddenly changed, and 
 gave us all the presages of an impending storm ; 
 and immediately the wind shifted to the south- 
 ward, and blew in such violent squalls, that we 
 were obliged to hand our top-sails, and reef our 
 main-sail : the tide too, which had hitherto favour- 
 ed us, now turned against us, and drove us to the 
 eastwai'd with prodigious rapidity, so that we were 
 in great anxiety for the Wager and the Anna pink, 
 the two sternmost vessels, fearing they would be 
 dashed to pieces against the shore of Staten-land ; 
 nor were our apprehensions without foundation, 
 for it was with the utmost difficulty they escaped. 
 And now the whole squadron, instead of pursuing 
 their intended course to the S.W. were driven to 
 the eastward, by the united force of the storm and 
 of the currents ; so that next day in the morning 
 we found ourselves near seven leagues to the east- 
 ward of Staten-land, which then bore from us 
 N.W. The violence of the current which had set 
 us with so much precipitation to the eastward, 
 together with the force and constancy of the 
 westerly winds, soon taught us to consider the 
 doubling of Cape Horn as an enterprise that 
 might prove too mighty for our efforts, though 
 some amongst us had lately treated the difficulties 
 which former voyagers were said to have met 
 with in this undertaking, as little better than 
 chimerical, and had supposed them to arise rather 
 from timidity and unskilfulness, than from the 
 real embarrassments of the winds and seas ; but 
 we were severely convinced, that these censures 
 were j',ash and ill grounded : for the distresses 
 with which we struggled, during the three suc- 
 ceeding months, will not easily be paralleled in the 
 relation of any former naval expedition. This 
 will, 1 doubt not, be readily allowed by those who 
 shall carefully peruse the ensuing narration. 
 
 From the storm which came on before we had 
 well got clear of Straits Le Maire, we had a con- 
 tinual succession of such tempestuous weather, 
 as surprised the oldest and most experienced 
 mariners on board, and obliged them to confess, 
 that what they had hitherto called storms were 
 inconsiderable gales, compared with the violence 
 of these winds, which I'aised such short, and at 
 the same time such mountainous waves, as greatly 
 surpassed in danger all seas known in any other 
 part of the globe : and it was not without great 
 reason, that this unusual appeai'ance filled us with 
 continual terror ; for had any one of these waves 
 broke fairly over us. It must, in all probability, 
 have sent us to the bottom. Nor did we escape 
 with teiTor only ; for the ship rolling incessantly 
 gunwale-to, gave us such quick and violent mo- 
 tions, that the men were in perpetual danger of 
 being dashed to pieces against the decks, or sides 
 of the ship. And though we were extremely care- 
 ful tc secure ourselves from these shocks, by 
 gr.asping some fixed body, yet many of our people 
 
 were forced from their liold ; some of whom were 
 killed, and others greatly injured ; in particular, 
 one of our best seamen was canted overboard and 
 drowned, another dislocated his neck, a third was 
 thrown into the main-hold and broke his thigh, 
 and one of our boatswain's mates broke his collar- 
 bone twice ; not to mention many other accidents 
 of the same kind. These tempests, so dreadful 
 in themselves, though unattended by any other un- 
 favourable circumstance, were yet rendered more 
 mischievous to us by their inequality, and the 
 deceitful intervals which they at sometimes afford- 
 ed ; for though we were oftentimes obliged to lie- 
 to ior days together under a reefed mizen, and 
 were sometimes reduced to lie at the merey of the 
 waves under our bare poles, yet now and then we 
 ventured to make sail with our courses double- 
 reefed ; and the weather proving more tolerable, 
 would perhaps encourage us to set our top-sails ; 
 after which, the wind, without any previous notice, 
 would return upon us with redoubled force, and 
 would in an instant tear our sails from the yards. 
 And that no circumstance might be wanting which 
 could aggrandize our distress, these blasts gene- 
 rally brought with them a great quantity of snow 
 and sleet, which cased our rigging, and froze our 
 sails, thereby rendering them and our cordage 
 brittle, and apt to snap upon the sHghtest strain; 
 adding great difficulty and labour to the working 
 of the ship, benumbing the limbs of our people, 
 and making them incapable of exerting themselves 
 with their usual activity, and even disabling many 
 of them, by mortifying their toes and fingers. It 
 were indeed endless to enumerate the various dis- 
 asters of different kinds which befel us ; and I 
 shall only mention the most material, which will 
 sufficiently evince the calamitous condition of the 
 whole squadron, during the course of this navigation. 
 
 It was on the 7th of March, as has been already 
 observed, that we passed Straits Le Maire, and 
 were immediately afterwards driven to the east- 
 ward by a violent storm, and the force of the cur- 
 rent which set that way. For the four or five 
 succeeding days we had hard gales of wind from 
 the same quarter, with a most prodigious swell ; 
 so that though we stood, during all that time, 
 towards the S.W., yet we had no reason to 
 imagine we had made any way to the westward. 
 In this interval we had frequent squalls of rain 
 and snow, and shipped great quantities of water ; 
 after which, for three or four days, though the 
 seas ran mountains high, yet the weather was 
 rather more moderate : but, on the I Bth, we had 
 again strong gales of wind with extreme cold, and 
 at midnight the main top-sail split, and one of the 
 straps of the main dead-eyes broke. From hence, 
 to the 23rd, the weather was more favourable, 
 though often intermixed with rain and sleet, and 
 some hard gales ; but, as the waves did not sub- 
 side, the ship, by labouring in this lofty sea, was 
 now grown so loose in her upper works, that she 
 let in the water at every seam, so that every part 
 within board was constantly exposed to the sea- 
 water, and scarcely any c2 the officers ever lay in 
 dry beds. Indeed it was very rare, that two nights 
 ever passed without many of them being driven 
 from their beds, by the deluge of water that came 
 upon them. 
 
 On the 23rd, we had a most violent storm of 
 wind, hail, and rain, with a vei-y great sea ; and 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 '2& 
 
 though we handed the main top-sail before the 
 height of the squall, yet we found the yard sprung; 
 and soon after the foot rope of the main-sail break- 
 ing, the main-sail itself split instantly to rags, and, 
 in spite of our endeavours to save it, much the 
 greater part of it was blown overboard. On this 
 the commodore made the signal for the squadron 
 to bring-to ; and the storm at length flattening to 
 I a calm, we had an opportunity of getting down our 
 main top-sail yard to put the carpenters at work 
 upon it, and of repairing our rigging ; after which, 
 having bent a new main-sail, we got under sail 
 again with a moderate breeze ; but in less than 
 twenty-four hours we were attacked by another 
 storm still more furious than the former ; for it 
 proved a perfect hurricane, and reduced us to the 
 necessity of lying-to under our bare poles. As our 
 ship kept the wind better than any of the rest, we 
 were obliged in the afternoon to wear ship, in order 
 to join the squadron to the leeward, which other- 
 wise we should have been in danger of losing in 
 the night : and as we dared not venture any sail 
 abroad, we were obliged to make use of an expe- 
 dient, which answered our purpose ; this was 
 putting the helm a-weather, and manning the fore- 
 shrouds : but though this method proved success- 
 ful for the end intended, yet in the execution of it 
 one of our ablest seamen was canted overboard ; 
 and notwithstanding the prodigious agitation of the 
 waves, we perceived that he swam very strong, 
 and it was with the utmost concern that we found 
 oui-selves incapable of assisting him ; and we were 
 the more grieved at his unhappy fate, since we lost 
 sight of him struggling with the waves, and con- 
 ceived, from the manner in which he swam, that 
 he might continue sensible, for a considerable time 
 longer, of the horror attending his irretrievable 
 situation.' 
 
 Before this last mentioned storm was quite 
 abated, we found two of pur main-shrouds and one 
 mizeu-shroud broke, all which we knotted, and 
 set up immediately ; and from hence we had an 
 interval of three or four days less tempestuous 
 than usual, but accompanied with a, thick fog, in 
 which we were obliged to fire guns almost every 
 half hour, to keep our squadron together. On 
 the 31st, we were alarmed by a gun fired from the 
 (xloucester, and a signal made by her to speak with 
 the commodore ; we immediately bore down to 
 her, and were prepared to hear of some terrible 
 disaster ; but we were apprised of it before we 
 joined her, for we saw that her main-yard was 
 broke in the slings. This was a grievous misfor- 
 tune to us all at this juncture ; as it was obvious 
 it would prove a hindrance to our sailing, and 
 would detain us the longer in these inhospitable 
 latitudes. But our future success and safety was 
 not to be promoted by repining, but by resolution 
 and activity ; and therefore, that this unlucky 
 incident might delay us as little as possible, the 
 commodore ordered several carpenters to be put 
 
 ^ It was with referenee to this affecting circurabtance 
 that Cowper composed his beautiful verses on '* The Cast- 
 away." One of the stanzas is as follows : — 
 •• He long survives, who lives an hour 
 In ocean, self-upheld : 
 And so long he, with unspent power, 
 
 His destiny repeird : 
 And ever, as the minutes fiew. 
 Entreated help, or cried — ' Adieu.* " , 
 
 onboard the Gloucester from the other ships of tha 
 squadron, in order to repair her damage with the 
 utmost expedition. And the captain of the Tryal 
 complaining at the same time that his pumps were 
 so bad, and the sloop made so great a quantity of 
 water, that he was scarcely able to keep her free, 
 the commodore ordered him a pump ready fitted 
 from his own ship. It was very fortunate for the 
 Gloucester and the Tryal, that the weatlier proved 
 more favourable this day than for many days, both 
 before and after ; since by this means they were 
 enabled to receive the assistance which seemed 
 essential to their preservation, and which they 
 could scarcely have had at auy other time, as it 
 would have been extremely hazardous to have 
 ventured a boat on board'. 
 
 The next day, that is, on the 1st of April, the 
 weather returned again to its customary bias, the 
 sky looked dark and gloomy, and the wind began 
 to freshen and to blow in squalls ; however, it was 
 not yet so boisterous, as to prevent our caiTying 
 our top-sail close reefed ; but its appearance was 
 such, as plainly prognosticated that a still severei' 
 tempest was at hand : and accordingly, on the 3d 
 of April, there came on a storm, which both in 
 its violence and continuation (for it lasted three 
 days) exceeded all that we had hitherto encoun- 
 tered. In its first onset we received a furious 
 shock from a sea which broke upon our larboard 
 quarter, where it stove in the quarter gallery, 
 and rushed into the ship like a deluge ; our 
 rigging too suffered extremely, for one of the 
 straps of the main dead-eyes was broke, as was 
 also a main-shroud' and puttock-shroud, so that to 
 ease the stress upon the masts and shrouds, we 
 lowered both our main and fore-yards, and furled 
 all our sails, and in this posture we lay-to for three 
 days, when the stoi-m somewhat abating, we ven- 
 tured to make sail under our courses only ; but 
 even this we could not do long, for the next day,, 
 which was the 7th, we had another hard gale of 
 wind, with lightning and rain, which obliged us to 
 lie-to again till night. It was wondeHul, that not- 
 withstanding the hard weather we had endured,, 
 no extraordinary accident had happened to any oi 
 the squadron since the breaking of the Gloucester's- 
 main-yard : but this wonder soon ceased ; for at 
 three the next morning, several guns were fired 
 to leeward as signals of distress. And the com- 
 modore making a signal for the squadron to bring- 
 to, we, at daybreak, saw the Wager a considerable 
 way to leeward of any of the other ships ; and we 
 soon perceived that she had lost her mizen-mast, 
 and main top-sail yard. We immediately bore 
 down to her, and found this disaster had arisen 
 from the badness of her iron-work ; for all the 
 chain-plates to windward had given way, upon 
 the ship's fetching a deep roll. This proved the 
 more unfortunate to the Wager, as her carpenter 
 had been on board the Gloucester ever since the 
 3 1 St of March, and the weather was now too severe 
 to permit him to return : nor was the Wager the 
 only ship of the squadron that had suffered in 
 the last tempest ; for, the next day, a signal of 
 distress was made by the Anna pink, and, upon 
 speaking with the master, we learnt that they 
 had broken their fore-stay and the gammon of 
 
 * In Anson's Report of the Slst of March, he makes the 
 first mention o/ the scurvy, as follows :— " Men falling 
 down every day with scorbutic complaints.' I 
 
 C I 
 
'.X 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 the bowsprit, and were in no small danger of 
 •laving all the masts come by the board : so that 
 we were obliged to bear away until they had made 
 a!l fast, after which we haled upon a wind again. 
 
 And now, after all ouv solicitude, and the nu- 
 merous ills of every kind, to which we had been 
 incessantly exposed for near forty days, we had 
 great consolation in the flattering hopes we enter- 
 tained, that our fatigues were drawing to a period, 
 and that we should soon arrive in a more hospit- 
 able climate, where we should be amply repaid 
 for all our past sufferings. For, towards the latter 
 «nd of March, we were advanced, by our reckon- 
 ing, near 10" to the westward of the westermost 
 point of Terra del Fuego, and this allowance being 
 <louble wliat former navigators have thought ne- 
 cessary to be taken, in order to compensate the 
 drift of the eastern current, we esteemed ourselves 
 to be well advanced within the limits of the south- 
 ern ocean, and had therefore been ever since stand- 
 ing to the northward, with as much expedition as 
 ■the turbulence of the weather, and our frequent 
 disasters, permitted. And, on the 1 3th of April, 
 we were but a degree in latitude to the southward 
 ^>f the west entrance of the Straits of Magellan ; 
 3o that we fully expected, in a very few days, to 
 have experienced the celebrated tranquillity of the 
 Pacific Ocean. 
 
 But these were delusions which only served to 
 Tender our disappointment more terrible ; for the 
 next morning, between one and two, as we were 
 standing to the northward, and the weather, which 
 had till then been hazy, accidentally cleared up, 
 the pink made a signal for seeing land right a- 
 hcad ; and it being but two miles distant, we 
 were all under the most dreadful apprehensions 
 of running on shore ; which, had either the wind 
 blown from its usual quarter with its wonted 
 vigour, or had not the moon suddenly shone out, 
 not a ship amongst us could possibly have avoided: 
 but the wind, which some few hours before blew 
 in squalls from the S.W. having fortunately shifted 
 to W.N.W., we were enabled to stand to the 
 southward, and to clear ourselves of this unex- 
 pected danger ; so that by noon we had gained an 
 -offing of near twenty leagues. 
 
 By the latitude of this land we fell in with, it 
 was agreed to be a part of Terra del Fuego, near 
 the southern outlet described in Frezier's chart of 
 'the Straits of Magellan, and was supposed to be 
 that point called by him Cape Noir. It was indeed 
 most wonderful, that the currents should have 
 driven us to the eastward with such strength ; for 
 the whole squadron esteemed themselves upwards 
 of ten degrees more westerly than this land, so that 
 in running down, by our account, about nineteen 
 degrees of longitude, we had not really advanced 
 above half that distance. And now, instead of 
 having our labours and anxieties relieved by ap- 
 proaching a warmer climate and more tranquil 
 -seas, we were to steer again to the southward, 
 ■and were again to combat those western blasts, 
 which had so often terrified us ; and this too, 
 when we were weakened by our men falling 
 ^ck, and dying apace, and when our spirits, de- 
 jected by a long continuance at sea, and by our 
 late disappointment, were much less capable of 
 supporting us in the various difficulties, which we 
 «ould not but expect in this new undertaking. Add 
 to all this too, the discouragement we received by 
 
 the diminution of the strength of the squadron ; 
 for, three days before this, we lost sight of the 
 Severn and the Pearl in the morning ; and though 
 we spread our ships, and beat about for some time, 
 yet we never saw them more ; whence we had 
 apprehensions that they too might have fallen in 
 with this land in the night, and by being less 
 favoured by the wind and the moon than we were, 
 might have run on shore and have perished. Full 
 of these dejected thoughts and gloomy presages, 
 we stood away to the S.W., prepared by our late 
 disaster to suspect that how large soever an al- 
 lowance we made in our westing for the drift of 
 the eastern current, we might still, upon a second 
 trial, perhaps find it insufficient. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Observations and directions for facilitating the passage of 
 our future Cruisers round Cape Horn. 
 
 The improper season of the year in which we 
 attempted to double Cape Horn, and to which is to 
 be imputed the disappointment (recited in the fore- 
 going chapter) in falling in with Terra del Fuego, 
 when we reckoned ourselves at least a hundred 
 leagues to the westward of that whole coast, and 
 consequently well advanced into the Pacific Ocean; 
 this unseasonable navigation, I say, to which we 
 were necessitated by our too late departure from 
 England, was the fatal source of all the misfor- 
 tunes we afterwards encountered. For from hence 
 proceeded the separation of our ships, the destruc- 
 tion of our people, the ruin of our project on 
 Baldivia, and of all our other views on the Spanish 
 places, and the reduction of our squadron from the 
 formidable condition in which it passed Straits 
 Le Maire, to a couple of shattered half-manned 
 cruisers and a sloop, so far disabled, that in many 
 climates they scarcely durst have put to sea. To 
 prevent therefore, as much as in me lies, all ships 
 hereafter bound to the South-Seas from suffering 
 the same calamities, I think it my duty to insert 
 in this place, such directions and observations, as 
 either my own experience and reflection, or the 
 converse of the most skilful navigators on board 
 the squadron could furnish me with, in relation to 
 the most eligible manner of doubling Cape Horn, 
 whether in regard to the season of the year, the 
 course proper to be steered, or the places of 
 refresliment both on the east and west side of 
 South America. 
 
 And first with regard to the proper place for 
 refreshment on the east side of South America. 
 For this purpose the island of St. Catherine's has 
 been usually recommended by former writers, and 
 on their faith we put in there, as has been fturaerly 
 mentioned : but the treatment we met with, and 
 the small store of refreshments we could procure 
 there, are sufficient reasons to render all ships for 
 the future cautious, how they trust themselves in 
 the government of Don Jose Silva dePaz ; for (hey 
 may certainly depend on having their strength, 
 condition and designs betrayed to the Spaniards, 
 as far as the knowledge, the governor can procure 
 of these particulars, will give leave. And as this 
 treacherous conduct is inspired by the views of 
 private gain, in the illicit commerce carried on to 
 the river of Plate, rather than by any national 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND TUE WORLD. 
 
 27 
 
 ;aS'ection which the Portuguese bear the Spaniards, 
 the same perfidy may perhaps be expected from 
 most of tlie governors of the Brazil coast ; since 
 these smuggHng engagements are doubtless very 
 ■extensive and general. And though the governors 
 should themselves detest so faithless a procedure, 
 jret as ships are perpetually piissing from some or 
 other of the Brazil ports to tlie river of Plate, the 
 Spaniards could scarcely fail of receiving, by this 
 means, casual intelligence of any British ships upon 
 the coast ; vvhich, however imperfect such intelli- 
 gence might be, would prove of dangerous import 
 to the views and mterests of those cruisers who 
 were thus discovered. 
 
 For the Spanish trade in the bouth-Seas running 
 ^ in one ti'ack from north to south, with very little 
 deviation to the eastward or westward, it is in the 
 power of two or three cruisers, properly stationed 
 in different parts of this track, to possess them- 
 ■selves of every ship that puts to sea : but this is 
 ■only so long as they can continue concealed from 
 the neighbouring coast ; for, the instant an enemy 
 is known to be in those seas, all navigation is 
 -stopped, and consequently all captures are at an 
 «nd ; since the Spaniards, well apprised of these 
 advantages of the enemy, send expresses along the 
 •coast, and lay a general embargo on all their trade : 
 ji measure which, they prudentially foresee, will 
 not only prevent their vessels being taken, but 
 will soon lay any cruisers, who have not strength 
 sufficient to attempt their places, under a necessity 
 •of returning home. Hence then appears the great 
 importance of conceaUng all expeditions of this 
 kind ; and hence too it follows, how extremely pre- 
 judicial that intelligence may prove, which is given 
 by the Portuguese governors to the Spaniards, in 
 relation to the designs of ships touching at the 
 ports of Brazil. 
 
 However, notwithstanding the inconveniences 
 we have mentioned of touching on the coast of 
 Brazil, it will oftentimes happen that ships bound 
 round Cape Horn will be obliged to call there for a 
 supply of wood and water, and other refreshments. 
 In this case St. Catherine's is the last place 1 
 would recommend, both as the proper animals for 
 & live stock at sea, as hogs, sheep, and fowls can- 
 not be procured there, (for want of which we 
 found ourselves greatly distressed, by being reduced 
 to Uve almost entirely on salt provisions) but also 
 because, from its being nearer the river of Plate 
 than many of their other settlements, the induce- 
 ments and conveniences of betraying us are much 
 stronger. The place I would recommend is Rio 
 Janeiro, where two of our squadron put in after 
 they were separated from us in passing Cape Horn; 
 for here, as I have been Informed by one of the 
 gentlemen on board those ships, any quantity of 
 hogs and poultry may be procured ; and this place 
 being more distant from the river of Plate, the 
 difficulty of intelligence is somewhat enhanced, 
 and consequently the chance of continuing there 
 undiscovered, in some degree augmented. Other 
 measures, which may effectually obviate all these 
 embarrassments, will be considered more at large 
 hereafter. 
 
 And now I proceed to the consideration of the 
 proper course to be steered for doubling Cape 
 Horn. And here, I think, 1 am sufficiently autho- 
 rised by our own fatal experience, and by a careful 
 comparison and examination of the journals of 
 
 former navigators, to give this piece of advice, 
 which in prudence, I think, ought never to be 
 departed from : that is, that all ships bound to the 
 South Seas, instead of passing through Straits le 
 Maire, should constantly pass to the e.istward of 
 Staten-land, and should be invariably bent on run- 
 ning to the southward as far as the latitude of 61 
 or 62 degrees, before they endeavour to stand 
 to the westward ; and that when they are got into 
 that latitude, they should then make sure of suffi- 
 cient westing, before they once think of steering to 
 the northward. 
 
 But as directions diametrically opposite to these 
 have been formerly given by other writers, it ia 
 incumbent on me to produce my reasons for each 
 part of this maxim. And first, as to the passing 
 to the eastward of Staten-land. Those who have 
 attended to the risk we ran in passing Straits Le 
 Maire, the danger we were in of being driven 
 upon Staten-land by the current, when, thougli we 
 happily escaped being put on shore, we were yet 
 carried to the eastward of that island : those who 
 reflect on this, and on the lilce accidents which 
 have happened to other ships, will surely not 
 esteem it prudent to pass through Straits Le 
 Maire, and run the risk of shipwreck, and after 
 all find themselves no farther to the westward 
 (the only reason hitherto given for this practice) 
 than they might have been in the same time, by a 
 secure navigation in an open sea. 
 
 And next, as to the directions I have given for 
 running into the latitude of 61 or 62 south, before 
 any endeavour is made to stand to the westward. 
 The reasons for this precept are, that in all pro- 
 bability the violence of the currents will be hereby 
 avoided, and the weather will prove less tempes- 
 tuous and uncertain. This last circumstance we 
 ourselves experienced most remarkably ; for after 
 we had unexpectedly fallen in with the land, as 
 has been mentioned in the preceding cliapter, we 
 stood away to the southward to run clear of it, and 
 were no sooner advanced into sixty degrees or up- 
 wards, but we met with much better weather, and 
 smoother water than in any other part of the whole 
 passage : the air indeed was very cold and sharp, 
 and we had strong gales, but they were steady and 
 uniform, and we had at the same time sunshine 
 and a clear sky ; whereas in the lower latitudes, 
 the winds every now and then intermitted, as it 
 were, to recover new strength, and then returned 
 suddenly in the most violent gusts, threatening at 
 each blast the loss of our masts, which must have 
 ended in our certain destruction. And that the 
 currents in this high latitude would be of much 
 less efficacy than nearer the land, seems to be 
 evinced from these considerations, that all currents 
 run with greater violence near the shore than at 
 sea, and that at greater distances from shore they 
 are scarcely perceptible : indeed the reason of this 
 seems sufficiently obvious, if we consider, that 
 constant cuiTents are, in all probability, produced 
 by constant winds, the wind driving before it, 
 though With a slow and imperceptible motion, a 
 large body of water, which being accumulated 
 upon any coast that it meets with, this super- 
 fluous water must escape along the shore by the 
 endeavours of its surface, to reduce itself to the 
 same level with the rest of the ocean. And it is 
 reasonable to suppose, that those violent gusta of 
 wind which we experienced near the shore, Bo 
 
2K 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 very different from what we found in the latitude 
 of sixty degrees and upwards, may be owing to a 
 similar cause ; for a westerly wind almost perpe- 
 tually prevails in the southern part of the Pacific 
 Ocean : and this ciuTcnt of 'air being interrupted 
 by those immense hills called the Andes, and by 
 the mountains on Terra del Fuego, which to- 
 gether bar up the whole country to the southward 
 as far as Cape Horn, a part of it only can escape 
 over the tops of those prodigious precipices, and 
 tlie rest must naturally follow the direction of the 
 coast, and must range down the land to the south- 
 ward, and sweep with an impetuous and irregular 
 blast round Cape Horn, and the southermost part 
 of Terra del Fuego. However, not to rely on 
 these speculations, we may, I believe, establish, as 
 iucontestal)le, these matters of fact, that both the 
 rapidity of tlie currents, and the violence of the 
 weatorn gales, are less sensible in the latitude of 
 61 or 62 degreps, than nearer the shore of Terra 
 del Fuego. 
 
 But though I am satisfied, both from our own 
 experience and the relations of other navigators, 
 of the importance of the precept I here insist on, 
 that of runnuig into the latitude of 61 Cif 62 de- 
 grees, before any endeavours are made to stand 
 to the westward ; yet I would advise no ships 
 hereafter to trust so fai to this management, as 
 to neglect another moat -;sontial maxim, which is 
 the making this passage n the lieight of summer, 
 that is, in the months of December and January ; 
 and the more distant the time of passing is taken 
 from this season, the more disastrous it may be 
 reasonably expected to prove. Indeed, if the 
 mere violence of the western winds be considered, 
 the time of our passage, which was about the 
 equinox, was perhaps the most unfavourable sea- 
 son ; but then it must be considered, that in the 
 depth of winter there are many other inconveni- 
 ences to be apprehended in this navigation, which 
 are almost insuperable : for the severity of the 
 cold, and the shortness of the days, would render 
 it impracticable at that season to run so faa' to the 
 southward as is here recommended ; and the 
 same reasons would greatly augment the alarms 
 of sailing in the neighbourhood of an unknown 
 shore, dreadful in its'appearance in the midst of 
 . summer, and would make a winter navigation on 
 this coast to be, of all others, the most dismaying 
 and terrible. As I would, therefore, advise all 
 ships to make their passage in December and 
 January, if possible, so I would warn them never 
 to attempt the seas to the southward of Cape Horn, 
 after the month of March. 
 
 And now as to the remaining consideration, that 
 is, the properest port for cruisera to refresh at on 
 their first arrival in the South Seas. On this head 
 there is scarcely any choice, the island of Juan 
 Fernandes being the only place that can be pru- 
 dently recommended for this purpose. For though 
 there are many ports on the western side of Pata- 
 gonia, between the Straits of Magellan and the 
 Spanish settlements, where ships might ride in 
 great safety, might recruit their wood and water, 
 and might procure some few refreshments ; yet 
 that coast is in itself so terrible, from the rocks 
 and brealiers it abounds with, and from the vio- 
 lence of the western winds, which blow constantly 
 full upon it, that it is by no means advisable to fall 
 iu with that land, at least till the roads, channels. 
 
 and anchorage in each part of it are accurately 
 surveyed, and both the dangers and shelter it 
 abounds with are more distinctly known. 
 
 Thus having given the best dii-ections in my 
 power for the snecess of future cruisers bound iy 
 the South Seas, it might be expected that I shouli 
 again resume the thread of my narration. But 
 as both in the preceding and subsequent parts of 
 this work, I have thought it my duty not only to 
 recite all such facts and to inculcate such maxims, 
 as had the least appearance of proving beneficial 
 to future navigators, but also occasionally to re- 
 commend such measures to the public, as I con- 
 ceive are adapted to promote the same laudable 
 purpose, I cannot desist from the present subject 
 without beseeching those to whom the conduct of 
 our naval affairs is committed, to endeavour to- 
 remove the many perplexities and embarrass- 
 ments with which the navigation to the South 
 Seas is, at present, necessarily encumbered. Ab 
 effort of this kind could not fail of proving highly 
 honourable to themselves, and extremely benefi- 
 cial to their country. For it is to me sufficiently 
 evident, that whatever advantages navigation shall 
 receive, either by the invention of methods that 
 shall render its practice less hazardous, or by tli» 
 more accurate delineation of the coasts, roads and 
 ports already known, or by the discovery of new- 
 nations, or new species of commerce ; it is evi- 
 dent, I say, to me, that by whatever means navi- 
 gation is promoted, the conveniences hence arising 
 must ultimately redound to the emolument of 
 Great Britain. Since, as our fleets are at present 
 superior to those of the whole world united, it 
 must be a matchless degree of supineness or meaii- 
 spiriteduess, if we permitted any of the advan- 
 tages which new discoveries, or a more extended 
 navigation may produce to mankind, to be ravished 
 from us. 
 
 As therefore it appears that all our future ex- 
 peditions to the South Seas must run a consider- 
 able risk of proving abortive, whilst we are under 
 the necessity of touching at Brazil in our passage- 
 thither, an expedient that might relieve us from 
 this difficulty would surely be a subject worthy ot 
 the attention of the public ; and this seems capa- 
 ble of being effected, by the discovery of soma 
 place more to the southward, where ships might 
 refresh and supply themselves with the necessary 
 sea-stock for their voyage round Cape Horn. And 
 we have in reality the imperfect knowledge of two 
 places, which might, perhaps, on examination,, 
 prove extremely convenient for this purpose : the- 
 first of them is Pepys's Island, in the latitude of 
 47° south, and laid down, by Dr. Halley, about 
 eighty leagues to the eastward of Cape Blanco, on 
 the coast of Patagonia ; the second is Falkland's- 
 Isles, in the latitude of 61°i nearly south of Pepys's- 
 Island. The first of these was discovered by 
 Captain Cowley, in his voyage round the world, in 
 the year 1686 ; who represents it as a commodious- 
 place for ships to wood and water at, and says it 
 is provided with a very good and capacious har- 
 bour, where a thousand sail of ships might ride at 
 anchor in great safety ; that it abounds with fowls,, 
 and as the shore is either rocks or sands, it seems 
 to promise great plenty of fish. The second place, 
 or Falkland's Isles, have been seen by many ships, 
 both French and English, being the land laid down 
 by Frezier in his chart of the extremity of Soutb 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 2!) 
 
 America, under the title of tlie New Islands. 
 Woods Rogers, who ran along the N.E. coast of 
 these isles in the year 1 708, tells us, that tliey ex- 
 tended about two degrees in length, and appeared 
 with gentle descents from hill to hill, and seemed 
 to be good ground, with woods and harbours. 
 Either of these places, as they are islands at a 
 considerable distance from the continent, may be 
 supposed, from their latitude, to lie in a climate 
 sufficiently temperate. It is true, they are too 
 little known to be at present recommended for 
 proper places of refreshment for ships bound to 
 the southward : but if the Admiralty should thin); 
 it advisable to order them to be surveyed, which 
 m.iy be done at a very small expense, by a vessel 
 fitted out on purpose ; and if, on this examina- 
 tion, one or both of these places should appear 
 proper for the purpose intended, it is scarcely to 
 ie conceived of what prodigious import a conve- 
 nient station might prove, situated so far to the 
 southward, and so near Cape Horn. The DuUe 
 and Duchess of Bristol were but thirty-five days 
 frum their losing sight of Falkland's Isles, to 
 their arrival at Juan Fernandes in the South 
 Se;is : and as the returning back is much facili- 
 tated by the western winds, I doubt not but a 
 voyage might be made from Falkland's Isles to 
 'Juan Fernandes, and back again, in little more 
 than two months. This, even in time of peace, 
 might be of great consequence to this nation ; and, 
 in time of war, would make us masters of those 
 seas. 
 
 And as all discoveries of this kind, though ex- 
 tremely honourable to those who direct and pro- 
 tnote them, may yet be carried on at an inconsi- 
 ■dei-able expense, since small vessels are much the 
 properest to be employed in this service, it were 
 to be wished, that the whole coast of Patagonia, 
 Terra del Fuego, and Staten-land, were carefully 
 surveyed, and the numerous channels, roads, and 
 iiarbours, with which they abound, accurately ex- 
 amined ; this might open to us facilities of passing 
 into the Pacific Ocean, which as yet we may be 
 unacquainted with, and would render all that 
 southern navigation infinitely securer than at pre- 
 sent ; and particularly, an exact draught of the 
 west coast of Patagonia, from the Straits of Ma- 
 gellan to the Spanish settlements, might perhaps 
 furnish us with better and more convenient ports 
 for refreshment, and better situated for the pur- 
 poses either of war or commerce, and above a 
 fortnight's sail nearer to Falkland's Islands, than 
 the island of Juan Fernandes. The discovery of 
 this coast hath formerly been thought of such con- 
 sequence, by reason of its neighbourhood to the 
 Araucos and other Chilian Indians, who are gene- 
 rally at war, or at least on ill terms with their 
 Spanish neighbours, that Sir John Narborough 
 was purposely fitted out in the reign of King 
 Charles II., to survey the Straits of Magellan, the 
 neighbouring coast of Patagonia, and the Spanish 
 ports on that frontier, with directions, if possible, 
 to procure some intercourse with the ChiUan In- 
 dians, and to establish a commerce and a lasting 
 correspondence with them. His Majesty's views 
 in employing Sir John Narborough in this expe- 
 dition, were not solely the advantage he might 
 hope to receive from the alliance of those savages, 
 in restraining and intimidating the crown of 
 Spain ; but he conceived, that independent of those 
 
 motives, the immediate traific with these Indians 
 might prove extremely advantageous to the Eng- 
 lish nation. For it is well known, that at the first 
 discovery of Chili by the Spaniards, it abounded 
 with vast quantities of gold, much beyond what it 
 has at any time produced hince it has been in 
 their possession. And hence it has been generally 
 believed, that the richest mines are prudently con- 
 cealed by the Indians, as well knowing that the 
 discovery of them to the Spaniards would only 
 excite in them a greater thirst for conquest and 
 tyranny, and render their own independence pre- 
 carious. But with respect to their commerce 
 with the English, these reasons would no longer 
 influence them ; since it would be in our power to 
 furnish them with arms and ammunition of al' 
 kinds, of which they are extremely desirous, to- 
 gether with many other conveniences, which their 
 intercourse with the, Spaniards has taught them 
 to relish. They would then, in all probability, 
 open their mines, and gladly embrace a traffic of 
 such mutual convenience to both nations ; for then 
 their gold, instead of proving the means of enslav- 
 ing them, would procure them weapons to assert 
 their liberty, to chastise their tyrants, and to se- 
 cure themselves for ever from the Spanish yoke ; 
 whilst with our assistance, and under our protec- 
 tion, they might become a considerable people, and 
 might secure to us that wealth, which formerly 
 by the house of Austria, and lately by the house 
 of Bourbon, has been most mischievously lavished 
 in the pursuit of universal monarchy. 
 
 It is true that Sir John Narborough did not 
 succeed in opening this commerce, which in ap- 
 pearance promised so many advantages to this 
 nation. However, his disappointment was merely 
 accidental, and his transactions upon that coast 
 (besides the many valuable improvements he fur- 
 nished to geography and navigation) are rather 
 an encouragement for future trials of this kind, 
 tlian any objection against them ; his principal 
 misfortune being the losing company of a small 
 barque which attended him, and having some of 
 his people trapanned at Baldivia. However, it 
 appeared, by the precautions and fears of the 
 Spaniards, that they were fully convinced of the 
 practicability of the scheme he was sent to exe- 
 cute, and extremely alarmed with the apprehen- 
 sion of its consequences. 
 
 It is said, that his Majesty King Charles the 
 Second was so far prepossessed v,'Hh the hopes of 
 the advantages redounding from this expedition, 
 and so eager to be informed of the event of it, 
 that having intelligence of Sir John Narborough's 
 passing through the Downs, on hi? return, he 
 had not patience to attend his aiTival at court, 
 but went himself in his barge to Gravesend to 
 meet him. 
 
 The two most celebrated charts hitherto pub- 
 lished of the southermost part of South America, 
 are, those of Dr. Halley, in his general chart of 
 the magnetic variation, and of Frezier in his 
 voyage to the South Seas. But besides these, 
 there is a chart of the Straits of Magellan, and 
 of some part of the adjacent coast, by Sir John 
 Narborough above-mentioned, which is doubtless 
 infinitely exacter in that part than Frezier, and 
 in some respects superior to Halley, particularly 
 in what relates to the longitudes of the different 
 parts of those Straits. The coast from Cape 
 
30 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLb. 
 
 Blanco to Terra del Fuego, and thence to Straits 
 Le Maire, we were in some measure capable of 
 coiTecting by our own observations, as we ranged 
 that shore genei'ally in sight of land. The posi- 
 tion of the land, to the northward of the Straits 
 of Magellan, on the west side, is doubtless laid 
 down in our chart but very imperfectly ; and yet 
 I believe it to be much nearer the truth than 
 what has hitherto been done: as it is drawn from 
 the information of some of the Wager's crew, who 
 were shipwrecked on that shore, and afterwards 
 coasted it down ; and as it agrees pretty nearly 
 with the description of some Spanish manusci-ipts 
 I have seen. 
 
 The channel dividing Terra del Fuego is dra^vn 
 from Frezier ; but in the Spanish manuscripts 
 there are several channels delineated, and I have 
 reason to suppose, that whenever this country is 
 thoroughly examined, this circumstance will prove 
 true, and Terra del Fuego will be found to consist 
 of several islands. 
 
 And having mentioned Fi'ezier so often, I must 
 not omit warning all future navigators, against 
 relying on the longitude of Straits Le Maire, 
 or of any part of that coast, laid down in his 
 chart ; the whole being being from 8 to 10 degrees 
 too far to the eastward, if any faith can be given 
 to the concurrent evidences of a great number of 
 journals, verified in some particulars by astro- 
 nomical observation. For instance : Sir John 
 Narbox'ough lays down Cape Virgin Mary in 
 65" 42' of West longitude from the Lizard, that 
 is, in 71° 20' from London. And the ships of 
 our squadron, who took their departure from St. 
 Catherine's (where the longitude was rectified by 
 an observation of the eclipse of the moon) found 
 Cape Virgin Mary to be from 70° 46', to 71° 
 30' from London, according to their different 
 reckonings : and there were no circumstances in 
 our run that could render it considerably erro- 
 neous, so that it cannot be esteemed in less than 
 71 degrees of West longitude ; whereas Frezier 
 lays it down in less than 66 degrees from Paris, 
 that is, little more than 63 degrees from London, 
 which is doubtless 8 degrees short of its true 
 qiiantity. Again, our squadron found Cape Virgin 
 Mary and Cape St. Bartholomew, on the eastern 
 side of Straits Le Maire, to be only 2° 8' dif- 
 ferent in longitude, which in Frezier are distant 
 near 4 degrees ; so that not only the longitude of 
 Cape St. Bartholomew is laid do\vn in him near 
 10 degrees too little, but the whole coast, from 
 the Straits of Magellan, to Straits Le Maii'e, is 
 enlarged to near double its real extent. 
 
 But to have done with Frezier, whose errors, 
 the importance of the subject and not a fondness 
 for cavilling, has obliged me to remark (though 
 his treatment of Dr. H alley might, on the present 
 occasion, authorise much severer usage), I must, 
 in the next place, pai'tieularise wherein the chart 
 I have here mentioned difi'ers from that of our 
 Iparned countrjTnan. 
 
 It is well known that this gentleman was sent 
 abroad by the public, to make such geographical 
 and astronomical observations as might facilitate 
 the future practice of navigation ; and particularly 
 ' to determine the variation of the compass in such 
 places as he should toucli at, and if possible, to 
 ascertain its general Jaws and affections. 
 
 These things Dr. Hailey, to' his immortal repu- 
 
 tation and the honour of our nation, in good" 
 measure accomplished, particularly with regard 
 to the variation of the compass ; a subject of all 
 others the most interesting to those employed in- 
 the art of navigation. He likewise corrected the- 
 position of the coast of Brazil, which had been 
 very erroneously laid down by all former hydro- 
 graphers ; and by a judicious comparison of the 
 observations of others, has happily succeeded iu 
 settling the geography of many parts of the globe, 
 where he had not himself been. So that the chart 
 he published, with the variation of the needle 
 marked thereon, being the result of his labours 
 on this subject, was allowed by all Europe to be 
 far completer in its geography than any that had 
 then appeared, and at the same time most sur- 
 prisingly exact in the quantity of variation as- 
 signed to the different parts of the globe ; a subject 
 so very intricate and perplexing, that all general 
 determinations about it had till then appeared' 
 impossible. 
 
 But as the only means he had of correcting 
 those coasts where he did not touch himself was 
 the observations of others ; where those observa- 
 tions were wanting, or were inaccurate, it was no- 
 imputation on his skill that his determinations- 
 were defective. And this, upon the best compa- 
 rison I have beeji able to make, is the case with 
 regard to that part of his chart which contains 
 the south part of South America. For though 
 the coast of Brazil, and the opposite coast of Peru 
 on the South Seas, are laid down, I presume, with 
 the greatest accuracy, yet from about the river of 
 Plate on the east side, and its opposite point on 
 the west, the coast gradually declines too much I 
 to the westward, so as at the Straits of Magellan 
 to be, as I conceive, about fifty leagues removed 
 from its true position : at least, this is the result 
 of the observations of our squadron, which agree 
 extremely well with those of Sir John Narborough. 
 I must add, that Dr. Halley has, in the Philoso- 
 phical Transactions, given the foundation on which 
 he has proceeded in fixing port St. Juhan in 
 76° i of west longitude (which the concurrent 
 journals of our squadron place from 70° | to 71° ^)r 
 this, he tells us, was an observation of an eclipse 
 of the moon, made at that place by Mr. Wood,, 
 then Sir John Narborough's lieutenant, and which 
 is said to have happened there at eight in the 
 evening, on the 18th of September, 1670. But 
 Capt. Wood's journal of this whole voyage under 
 Sir John Narborough is since published, together 
 with this observation, in which he determines 
 the longitude of port St. Julian to be 73 degrees 
 from London, and the time of the eclipse to have 
 been different from Dr. Halley's account. But 
 the numbers he has given are so faultily printed, 
 that nothing can be determined from them. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 From Cape Noir to the Island of Juan Fernanda 
 After the mortifying disappointment of falling 
 in with the coast of Terra del Fuego, when we 
 esteemed ourselves ten degi-ees to the westward 
 of it ; after this disappointment, I say, recited in 
 the eighth chapter, we stood away to the S.W. till 
 the 22^ of April, when we were in upwards of 60° of 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 31 
 
 South latitude, and by our account near 6° to tlie 
 westward of Cape Noir ; and in this run we had 
 a series of as favourable weather as could well be 
 expected in that part of the world, even in a better 
 season : so that this interval, setting the inquie- 
 tude of our thoughts aside, was by far the most 
 eligible of any we enjoyed from Straits Le Maii-e 
 to the West coast of America. This moderate 
 weather continued, with little variation, till the 
 24th ; but on the 24th, in the evening, the wind 
 began to blow fresh, and soon increased to a pro- 
 digious storm ; and the weather being extremely 
 thick, about midnight we lost sight of the other 
 four ships of the squadron, which, notwithstand- 
 ing the violence of the preceding storms, had 
 hitherto kept in company with us. Nor was this 
 our sole misfortune ; for, the next morning, 
 endeavouring to hand the top-sails, the clew-lines 
 and bunt-lines broke, and the sheets being half 
 flown, every seam in the top-sails was soon split 
 from top to bottom, and the main top-sail shook 
 so strongly in the wind, that it carried away the 
 top-lantern, and endangered the head of the 
 mast ; however, at length, some of the most 
 daring of our men ventured upon the yard, and 
 cut the sail away close to the reefs, though with 
 the utmost hazard of their lives. At the same 
 time, the foretop-sail beat about the yard with 
 so much fury, that it was soon blown to pieces ; 
 and that we might have full employment, the 
 main-sail blew loose, which obhged us to lower 
 do^vn the yard to secure the sail, and the fore- 
 yard being Ukewise lowered, we lay-to under a 
 mizen : and besides the loss of our top-sails, we 
 had much of our other .rigging broke, and lost a 
 main studding sail-boom out of the chains. 
 
 On the 25th, about noon, the weather became 
 more moderate, which enabled us to sway up our 
 yards, and to repair, in the best manner we could, 
 our shattered rigging ; but still we had no sight 
 of the rest of our squadron, nor indeed were we 
 joined by any of them again, till after our arrival 
 at Juan Fernandes ; nor did any two of them, as 
 we have since learned, continue in company to- 
 gether : and this total separation was the more 
 wonderful, as we had hitherto kept together for 
 seven weeks, through all the reiterated tempests 
 .of this turbulent cUmate. It must indeed be 
 owned, that this separation gave us room to 
 expect, that we might make our passage in a 
 shorter time, than if we had continued together, 
 because we could not make the best of our way 
 without being retarded by the misfortunes of the 
 other ships ; but then we had the melancholy 
 reflection, that we ourselves were hereby deprived 
 of the assistance of others, and our safety would 
 depend upon our single ship ; so that if a plank 
 started, or any other accident of the same nature 
 should take place, we must all irrecoverably 
 perish ; or should we be driven on shore, we had 
 the uncomfortable prospect of ending our days on 
 some desolate coast, without any reasonable hope 
 of ever getting away ; whereas with another ship 
 in company, all these calamities are much less 
 formidable, since, in every kind of danger, there 
 would be some probability that one ship at least 
 might escape, and might be Gj.pable of preservmg 
 or relievuig the crew of the other. 
 
 The remaining part of this uionth of April we 
 had generally haid g.i,les, although we had been 
 
 everyday, since the 22d, edgmgto the northward j 
 however, on the last day of the month, we flatteredi 
 ourselves with the hopes of soon terminating alfi 
 our sufferings, for we that day found ourselves in. 
 the latitude of 52 ", 13 ', which being northward oi 
 the Straits of Magellan, we were assured that we 
 had completed our passage, and had arrived in 
 the confines of the Southern Ocean ; and this- 
 Ocean being denominated Pacific, from the equa- 
 biUty of the seasons which are said to prevait 
 there, and the facility and security with whicli 
 navigation is there carried on, we doubted not but 
 we should be speedily cheered with the moderate 
 gales, the smooth water, and the temperate air,, 
 for which that tract of the globe has been so re- 
 nowned. And under the influence of these pleas- 
 ing circumstances, we hoped to experience some- 
 kind of compensation for the complicated miseries- 
 which had so constantly attended us for the last 
 eight weeks. But here we were again disappointed,, 
 for in the succeeding month of May, our suffering* 
 rose to a much higher pitch than they had ever 
 yet done, whether we consider the violence of 
 the stonns, the shattering of our sails and rigging,^ 
 or the diminishing and weakening of our crew by 
 deaths and sickness, and the probable prospect of: 
 our total destruction. All this will be sufficiently, 
 evident, from the following cii'cumstantial account 
 of our diversified misfortunes. 
 
 Soon after our passing Straits Le Maire, tho- 
 scurvy began to make its appearance amongst us ;. 
 and our long continuance at sea, the fatigue we 
 underwent, and the various disappointments wn 
 met with, had occasioned its spreading to such at 
 degree, that at the latter end of April there were' 
 but few on board, who were not in some degree 
 afflicted with it, and in that month no less than, 
 forty-three died of it on board the Centurion. 
 But though we thought that the distemper had 
 then risen to an extraordinary height, and were 
 willing to hope that as we advanced t( the north- 
 ward its malignity would abate ; yet, we found, oia 
 the contrary, that in the month of May, we lost 
 near double that number : and as we did not get 
 to land till the middle of June, the mortality went 
 on increasing, and the disease extended itself so 
 prodigiously, that after the loss of above two hun- 
 dred men, we could not at last muster more than, 
 six fore-mast men in a watch capable of duty. 
 
 This disease, so frequently attending all long: 
 voyages, and so particularly destructive to us, is 
 surely the most singular and unaccountable of any 
 that affects the human body. For its symptoms 
 are inconstant and innumerable, and its progress- 
 and effects extremely irregular: for scarcely any 
 two persons have the same complaints, and where 
 there hath been found some conformity in the 
 symptoms, the order of their appearance has been . 
 totally different. However, though it frequently 
 puts on the form of many other diseases, and is 
 therefore not to be described by any exclusive 
 and infallible criterions; yet there are some 
 symptoms which aye more general than the rest j 
 and therefore, occurring the oftenest, deserve a 
 more particular enumeration. These common 
 appearances are large discoloured spots dispersed 
 over the whole surface of the body, swelled legs, 
 putrid gums, and, above all, an extraordinary las- 
 situde of the whole body, especially after any ex- 
 ercise, however mcon.siderable ; and this lassitude- 
 
32 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE "WORLD. 
 
 at last degenerates into a proneness to swoon on 
 the least exertion of strength, or even on the least 
 motion. 
 
 This disease is liliewise usually attended with 
 a strange dejection of the spirits, and with shiver- 
 ings, tremblings, and a disposition to be seized with 
 the most dreadful terrors on the slightest accident. 
 Indeed it was most remarkable, in all our reiterated 
 experience of this malady, that whatever diseou- 
 I'aged our people, or at any time damped their 
 hopes, never failed to add new vigour to the dis- 
 tomper ; for it usually killed those who were in the 
 last stages of it, and confined those to their ham- 
 mocks who were before capable of some kind of 
 duty ; so that it seemed as if alacrity of mind, and 
 sanguine thoughts, were no contemptible preser- 
 vatives fi'om its fatal malignity. 
 
 But it is not easy to complete the long roll of 
 the various concomitants of this disease ; for it 
 often produced putrid fevers, pleurisies, the jaun- 
 dice, and violent rheumatic pains, and sometimes 
 it occasioned an obstinate costiveness, which was 
 generally attended with a difficulty of breathing ; 
 and this was esteemed the most deadly of all the 
 scorbMf.c symptoms: at other times the whole 
 body, but more especially the legs, were subject 
 to ulcers of the worst kind, attended mth rotten 
 bones, and such a luxuriancy of fungous flesh, as 
 N-ielded to no remedy. But a most extraordinary 
 circumstance, and what would be scarcely credible 
 upon any single evidence, is, that the scars of 
 wounds which had been for many years healed, 
 were forced open again by this virulent distemper : 
 of this, there was a remarkable instance in one of 
 the invahds on board the Centurion, who had been 
 wounded above fifty years before at the battle of 
 the Boyne : for though he was cured soon after, 
 and had continued well for a great number of 
 years past, yet on his being attacked by the scurvy, 
 Ills wounds, in the progress of his disease, broke 
 nut afresh, and appeared as if they had never been 
 liealed : nay, what is still more astonishing, the 
 callus of a broken bone, which had been com- 
 pletely formed for a long time, was found to 
 be hereby dissolved, and the fracture seemed as if 
 it had never been consolidated. Indeed, the effects 
 of this disease were in almost every instance won- 
 derful ; for many of our people, though confined 
 to their hammocks, appeared to have no inconsider- 
 able share of health, for they ate and drank 
 lieartily, were cheerful, and talked with much 
 seeming vigour, and with a loud strong tone of 
 voice ; and yet on their being the least moved, 
 ihough it was only from one part of the ship to 
 the other, and that in their hammocks, they have 
 immediately expu*ed ; and others, who have con- 
 fided in their seeming strength, and have resolved 
 to get out of their hammocks, have died before 
 they could well reach the deck ; and it was no un- 
 common tiling for those who were able to walk 
 the deck, and to do some kind of duty, to drop 
 down dead in an instant, on any endeavours to act 
 with their utmost vigour : many of our people 
 having perished in this manner during the course 
 of this voyage. 
 
 With this terrible disease we struggled the 
 jveatest part of the time of our beating round 
 'Jupe Horn ; and though it did not then rage with 
 its utmost violence, yet we buried no less than 
 forty-three men on board the Centurion, in the 
 
 month of April, as hath l)een already observed ; 
 but we still entertained hopes, that when we .should 
 have once secured our passage round the Cape, 
 we should put a period to this and all the otheJ 
 evils which had so constantly pursued us. But it 
 was our misfortune to find, that the Pacific Ocean 
 was to us less hospitable than the turbulent neigh- 
 bourhood of Terra del Fuego and Cape Horn : 
 for being arrived, on the flth of May, off the island 
 of Socoro, which was the firet rendezvous ap- 
 pointed for the squadron, and where we hoped to 
 have met with some of our companions, we cruised 
 for them in that station several days. And here 
 we were not only disappointed in our hopes of 
 being joined by our friends, and were thereby 
 induced to favour the gloomy suggestions of their 
 having all perished ; but we were likewise per- 
 petually alarmed with the fears of being driven on 
 shore upon this coast, which appeared too craggy 
 and irregular to give us the least hopes that, in 
 such a case, any of us could possibly escape imme- 
 diate destruction. For the land had indeed a most 
 tremendous aspect: the most distant part of it, 
 and which appeared far within the country, being 
 the mountains usually called the Andes or Cordil- 
 leras, was extremely high, and covered with snow ; 
 and the coast itself seemed quite rocky and baiTen; 
 and the water's edge skirted with precipices. In 
 some places indeed there appeared several deep 
 bays running into the land, but the entrance into 
 them was generally blocked up by numbers of 
 little islands; and though it was not improbable 
 but there might be convenient shelter in some of 
 those bays, and proper channels leading thereto; 
 yet as we were utterly ignorant of the coast, had 
 we been driven ashore by the western winds which 
 blew almost constantly there, we did not expect to 
 have avoided the loss of our ships, and of our 
 lives. 
 
 And this continued peril, which lasted for above 
 a fortnight, was greatly aggravated by the diffi- 
 culties we found in working the ship ; as the 
 scurvy had by this time destroyed so great a part 
 of our hands, and had in some degree affected 
 almost the whole crew.' Nor did we, as we hoped, 
 find the winds less violent, as we advanced to the 
 northward ; for we had often prodigious squalls 
 which split our sails, greatly damaged our rigging, 
 and endangered our masts. Indeed, during the 
 greatest part of the time we were upon this coast, 
 the wind blew so hard, tV.at in another situation, 
 where we had sufficient sea-room, we should 
 certainly have lain-to ; but in the present exi- 
 gency we were necessitated to carry both our 
 courses and top-sails, in order to keep clear of 
 this lee-shore. In one of these squalls, which was 
 attended by several violent claps of thunder, a 
 sudden flash of fire darted along our decks, which, 
 dividing, exploded with a report like that of 
 several pistols, and wounded many of our men 
 and officers as it passed, marking them in different 
 parts of the body : this flame was attended with a 
 strong sulphurous stench, and was doubtless of the 
 same nature with the larger and more violent 
 blasts of lightning which then filled the air. 
 
 It were endless to recite minutely the various 
 
 • In Anson's official report, 8tli May, he states that " he 
 had not men able to keep the deck sufficient to take in a 
 topsail, all being violently afflicted with the scurvy, uid 
 every day lessening our number by six, eight, or ten." 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 33 
 
 tisasters, fatigues and terrors which we encoun- 
 tered on tills cosist ; all these went on increasing 
 liU the 22d of May, at whicli time, the fury of all 
 the storms which we had hitherto encountered 
 neemed to be combined, and to have conspired our 
 'lestruction. In this hurricane almost all our 
 sails were split, and great part of our standing rig- 
 i^ing broken ; and, about eight in the evening, a 
 mountainous overgrown sea, took us upon our 
 starboard quarter, and gave us so prodigious a 
 shock, that several of our shrouds brol;e with the 
 jerk, by which our masts were greatly endangered; 
 our ballast and stores too were so sti-angely shifted, 
 that the ship heeled afterwards two streaks to port. 
 Indeed it was a most tremendous blow, and we were 
 thrown into the utmost consternation from the 
 apprehension of instantly foundering ; and though 
 the wind abated in a few hours, yet, as we had no 
 I more sails left in a condition to beud to our yards, 
 I the ship laboured very much in a hollow sea, 
 \ rolling gunwale to, for want of s:iil to steady her : 
 I so that we expected our masts, which were now 
 very slenderly supported, to come by the board 
 «very moment. However, we exerted ourselves 
 the best we could to stirrup our shrouds, to reeve 
 new lanyards, and to mend our sails ; but while 
 these necessary operations were carrying on, we 
 ran great risk of being driven on shore on the 
 island of Chiloe, which was not far distant from 
 us ; but in the midst of our peril the wind happily 
 ; *hifted to the southward, and we steered off the 
 I i.ind with the mainsail only, the master and 
 myself undertaking the management of the helm, 
 while every one else on board was busied in 
 securing the masts, and bending the sails as fast 
 as they could be repaired. This was the last 
 effort of that stonny climate ; for in a day or two 
 iifter, we got clear of the land, and found the 
 weather more moderate than we had yet expe- 
 rienced siuce our passing Straits Le Maire. And 
 !iOW having cruised in vain for more than a fort- 
 :iight in quest of the other ships of the squadron. 
 It was resolved to take the advantage of the px^esent 
 favourable season and the offing we had made from 
 this terrible coast, and to make the best of our 
 vay for the island of Juan Fernandea. r- For 
 "hough our next rendezvous was appointed off 
 ;he harbour of Baldivia, yet as we had hitherto 
 -^een none of our companions at this first rendez- 
 vous, it was not to be supposed that any of them 
 would be found at the second : indeed we had the 
 t^eatest reason to suspect, that all but ourselves 
 had perished. Besides, we were by this time 
 reduced to so low a condition, that instead of at- 
 tempting to attack the places of the enemy, our 
 utmost hopes could only suggest to us the possi- 
 Ijility of saving the ship, and some part of the re- 
 maining enfeebled crew, by our speedy arrival at 
 Juan Femandes ; for this was the only road in 
 that part of the world where there was any pro- 
 liability of our recovering our sick, or refitting our 
 vessel, and consequently our getting thither was 
 the only chance we had left to avoid perishing at 
 sea. 
 
 Our deplorable situation then allowing no room 
 for deliberation, we stood for the island of Juan 
 Femandes ; and to save time, which was now ex- 
 tremely precious (our men dying, four, five and 
 six in a day), and hkewise to avoid being engaged 
 
 again with a lee-shore ; we resolved, if possible, 
 to hit the island upon a meridian. And, on the 
 28th of May, being nearly in the parallel upon 
 which it is laid down, we had gi-eat expectations 
 of seeing it : but not finding it in the position in 
 which the charts had taught us to expect it, we 
 began to fear that we had got too far to the west- 
 ward ; and therefore, though the commodore himself 
 was strongly persuailed that he saw it on the 
 morning of the 28th, yet his ofiicers believing it 
 to be only a cloud, to which opinion the haziness 
 of the weather gave some kind of countenance, it 
 was, on a consultation, resolved to stand to the 
 eastward, in the parallel of the island ; as it was 
 certain, that by this course we should either fall 
 in with the island, if we were already to the west- 
 ward of it ; or should at least make the main-land 
 of Chili, from whence we might take a new de- 
 parture, and assure ourselves, by running to the 
 westward afterwards, of not missing the island a 
 second time. 
 
 On the HOth of May we had a view of the con- 
 tinent of Chili, distant about twelve or thirteen 
 leagues ; the land made exceeding high and 
 uneven, and appeared quite white ; what we saw 
 being doubtless a part of the Cordilleras, which 
 are always covered with snow. Though by this 
 view of the land we ascertained our position, yet 
 it gave us great uneasiness to find that we had so 
 needlessly altered our course, when we were, in 
 all probability, just upon the point of making the 
 island ; for the mortality amongst us was now 
 increased to a most dreadful degree, and those 
 who remained alive were utterly dispirited by this 
 new disappointment, and the prospect of their 
 longer continuance at sea : our water too began 
 to grow scarce ; .so that a general dejection pre- 
 vailed amongst us, which added much to the 
 virulence of the disease, and destroyed numbers 
 of our best men ; and to all these calamities there 
 was added this vexatious circumstance, that when, 
 after having got a sight of the main, we tacked 
 and stood to the westward in quest of the island, 
 we were so much delayed by calms and contrary 
 winds, that it cost us nine days to regain the 
 westing, which, when we stood to the eastward, 
 we ran down in two. In this desponding condi- 
 tion, with a crazy ship, a great scarcity of fresh 
 water, and a crew so universally diseased, that 
 there were not above ten fore-mast men in a 
 watch capable of doing duty, and even some of 
 these lame, and unable to go aloft : under these 
 disheartening circumstances, I say, we stood to the 
 westward ; and, on the 9th of Junt-, at dr.y-break, 
 we at last discovered the long-wished-for island 
 of Juan Fernandes. And with this discovery I 
 shall close this chapter, and the first book ; after 
 observing (which will furnish a very strong image 
 of our unparalleled distresses) that by our sus- 
 pecting ourselves to be to the westward of the 
 island on the 2Hth of May, and, in consequence of 
 this, standing in for the main, we lost between 
 seventy and eighty of our men, whom we should 
 doubtless have saved had we made the island that 
 day, which, had we kept on our course for a few 
 hours longer, we could not have failed to have 
 done. 
 
 END OV BOOK I. 
 
j4 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The arrival of -V'e Centurion at the Island of Juan Fer- 
 nandes, with a description of that Island, 
 
 On the 9th of June, at day-break, as is men- 
 tioned in the preceding chapter, we first descried 
 the island of Juan Fernandes, hearing N. by E. { 
 E., at eleven or twelve leagues' distance. And 
 though, on this first view, it appeared to be a very 
 mountainous place, extremely ragged and irre- 
 gular ; yet as it was land, and the land we sought 
 for, it was to us a most agreeable sight : for at 
 this place only we could hope to put a period to 
 those terrible calamities we had so long struggled 
 with, which had already swept away above half 
 our crew, and which, had we continued a few 
 days longer at sea, would inevitably have com- 
 pleted our destruction. For we were by this 
 time reduced to so helpless a condition, that out of 
 two hundred and odd men which remained alive, 
 we could not, taking all our watches together, 
 muster hands enough to work the ship on an 
 emergency, though we included the officers, their 
 servants, and the boys. 
 
 The wind being northerly when we first made 
 the island, we kept plying all that day, and the 
 next night, in order to get in with the land ; and 
 wearing the ship in the middle watch, we had u, 
 melancholy instance of the almost incredible de- 
 bility of our people ; for the lieutenant could 
 muster no more than two quarter-masters, and 
 six fore-mast men capable of working ; so that 
 without the assistance of the officers, servants and 
 the boys, it might have proved impossible for us 
 to have reached the island, after we had got sight 
 of it ; and even with this assistance they were two 
 hours in trimming the sails : to so wretched a 
 condition was a sixty-gun ship reduced, which had 
 passed Straits Le Maire but three months be- 
 fore, with between four and five hundred men, 
 almost all of them in health and vigour. 
 
 However, on the Iflth, in the afternoon, we got 
 under the lee of the island, and kept ranging along 
 it, at about two miles' distance, in order to look out 
 for the proper anchorage, which was described to 
 be in a bay on the north side. And now being 
 nearer in with the shore, we could discover that 
 the broken craggy precipices, which had appeared 
 so unpromising at a distance, were far from barren, 
 being in most places covered with woods ; and 
 that between them there were everywhere inter- 
 spersed the finest valleys, clothed with a most 
 beautiful verdure, and watered with numerous 
 streams and cascades; no valley, of any extent, 
 being unprovided of its proper rill. The water 
 too, as we afterwards found, was not inferior to 
 any we had e\er tasted, and was constantly clear : 
 so that the aspect of this country would, at all 
 times, have been extremely delightful, but in our 
 distressed situation, languishing as we were for 
 the land and its vegetable productions, (an inch 
 nation constantly .attending every stage of the sea- 
 scurvy) it is scarcely credible with what eagerness 
 and transport we viewed the shore, and with how 
 much impatience we longed for the greens and 
 
 other refreshments which were then in sight, an* 
 particularly for the water, for of this we had beea 
 confined to a very sparing allowance for a con- 
 siderable time, and had then but five tons remain- 
 ing on board. Those only who have endured a 
 long series of thirst, and who can readily recall the 
 desire and agitation which the ideas alone of 
 springs and brooks have at that time raised in 
 them, can judge of the emotion with which we eyed 
 a large cascade of the most transparent water, 
 which poured itself from a rock near a hundred 
 feet high into the sea, at a small distance from 
 the ship. Even those amongst the diseased, v/hty 
 were not in the very last stages of the distemper, 
 though they had been long confined to their ham- 
 mocks, exerted the small remains of strength that 
 was left them, and crawled up to the deck to feast 
 themselves with this reviving prospect. Thus we 
 coasted the shore, fully employed in the contem- 
 plation of this diversified landscape, which still 
 improved upon us the farther we advanced. But 
 at last the night closed upon us, before we had 
 satisfied ourselves which was the proper bay to 
 anchor in ; and therefore we resolved to keep in 
 soundings all night, (we having then from sixty- 
 four to seventy fathom) and to send our boat next 
 morning to discover the road : however, the current 
 shifted in the night, and set us so near the land, 
 that we were obliged to let go the best bower in 
 fifty-six fathom, not half a mile from the shore. At 
 four in the morning, the cutter was despatched 
 with our third lieutenant to find out the bay we 
 were in search of, who returned again at noon 
 with the boat laden with seals and grass ; for 
 though the island abounded with better vegetables, 
 yet the boat's-crew, in their short stay, had not 
 met with them ; and they well knew that even 
 grass would prove a dainty, and indeed it was all 
 soon and eagerly devoured. The seals too were 
 considered as fresh provision ; but as yet were not 
 much admired, though they grew afterwards into 
 more repute : for what rendered them less valu- 
 able at this juncture, was the prodigious quantity 
 of excellent fish, which the people on board had 
 taken, during the absence of the boat. 
 
 The cutter, in this expedition, had discovered 
 the bay where we intended to anchor, which we 
 found was to the westward of our present station ; 
 and, the next morning, the weather proving 
 favourable, we endeavoured to weigh, in order 
 to proceed thither : but though on this occasion, 
 we mustered all the strength we could, obliging 
 even the sick, who were scarce able to keep on 
 their legs, to assist us ; yet the capstan was so 
 weakly manned, that it was near four hours before 
 we hove the cable right up and down: after which, 
 with, our utmost efforts, and with many surges and 
 some purchases we made use of to increase our 
 power, we found ourselves incapable of starting 
 the anchor from the ground. However, at noon, 
 as a fresh gale blew towards the bay, we were 
 induced to set the sails, which fortunately tripped 
 the anchor ; on which we steered along shore, till 
 we came a-breast of the point that forms the 
 eastern part of the bay. On the opening of the 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 bay, the wind, that had befriended us thus far, 
 shifted and blew from thence in squalls ; but by 
 means of the head-way we had got, we luffed 
 close in, till the anchor brought us up in fifty-six 
 fothom. Soon after we had thus got to our new 
 berth, we discovered a sail, which we made no 
 doubt was one of our squadron ; and on its nearer 
 approach, we found it to be the Tryal sloop. We 
 immediately sent some of our bauds on board 
 her, by whose assistance she was brought to an 
 anchor between us and the land. We soon found 
 that the sloop had not been exempted from those 
 calamities which we had so severely felt ; for her 
 commander, Captain Saunders, waiting on the 
 commodore, informed him, that out of his small 
 complement, he had buried thirty-four of his men; 
 and those that remained were so universally 
 afflicted with the scurvy, that only himself, his 
 lieutenant, and three of his men, were able to 
 stand by the sails. The Tryal came to an anchor 
 within us, on the 1 2th, about noon, and we carried 
 our hawsers on board her, in order to moor our- 
 selves nearer in-shore ; but the wind coming off 
 the land in violent gusts, prevented our mooring 
 in the birth we intended, especially as our princi- 
 pal attention was now employed on business rather 
 of more importance ; for we were now extremely 
 occupied in sending on shore materials to raise 
 tents for the reception of the sick, who died apace 
 on board, and doubtless the distemper was con- 
 siderably augmented by the stench and filtliiness 
 in which they lay ; for the number of the diseased 
 was so great, and so few could be spared from the 
 necessary duty of the sails to look after them, that 
 it was impossible to avoid a great relaxation in 
 the article of cleanliness, which had rendered the 
 ship extremely loathsome between decks. But 
 'notwitlistanding our desire of freeing the sick 
 from their hateful situation, and their own ex- 
 treme impatience to get on shore, we had not 
 hands enough to prepare the tents for their I'ecep- 
 tion before the 16th ; but on that and the two 
 following days we sent them all on shore, amount- 
 ing to a hundred and sixty-seven persons, besides 
 at least a dozen who died in the boats, on their 
 being exposed to the fresh air. The greatest part 
 of our sick were so infirm, that we were obliged 
 to carry them out of the ship in their hammocks, 
 and to convey them afterwards in the same man- 
 ner from the water-side to their tents, over a stony 
 beach. This was a work of considerable fatigue 
 to the few who were healthy, and therefore the 
 commodore, with his accustomed humanity, not 
 only assisted herein with his own labour, but 
 obliged his officers, without distinction, to give 
 their helping hand. The extreme weakness of 
 our sick may in some measure be collected from 
 the numbers who died after they had got on shore; 
 for it had generally been found that the land, and 
 the refreshments it produces, very soon recover 
 most stages of the sea-scurvy ; and we flattered 
 ourselves, that those who had not perished on 
 'this first exposure to the open air, but had lived 
 'to be placed in their tents, would have been 
 speedily restored to their health and vigour : but, 
 to our great mortification, it was near twenty days 
 after their landing, before the mortality was tole- 
 rably ceased; and for the first ten or twelve days, 
 we buried rarely less tlian six each day, and many 
 of those, who sux'vived, recovered by very slow 
 
 and insensible degrees. Indeed, those who were- 
 well enough at their first getting on shore, to 
 creep out of their tents, and crawl about, were- 
 soon relieved, and recovered their health anil 
 strength in a very short time ; but in the rest, 
 the disease seemed to have acquired a degree ol 
 inveteracy which was altogether without example.. 
 
 Having proceeded thus far, and got our sick on 
 shore, I think it necessary, before I enter into any 
 longer detail of our transactions, to give a distinct 
 account of this island of Juan Fernandes, its situa- 
 tion, productions, and all its conveniences. These 
 particulai's we were well enabled to be minutely 
 instructed in, dux'ing our three months' stay there;, 
 and as it is the only commodious place in those 
 seas, wliere British cruisers can refresh and 
 recover their men after their passage round Cape 
 Horn, and where they may remain for some time 
 without alarming the Spanish coast, these its 
 advantages well merit a chxumstantial descrip- 
 tion. And indeed Mr. Anson was particularly 
 industrious in directing the roads and coasts to 
 be surveyed, and other observations to be made, 
 knowing, from his own experience, of how great 
 consequence these materials might prove to any 
 Britisli vessels hereafter employed in those seas. 
 For the uncertainty we were in of its position, 
 and our standing in for the main on the 28th of 
 May, in order to secure a sufficient easting, when 
 we were indeed extremely near it, cost us the 
 lives of between seventy and eighty of our men,, 
 by our longer continuance at sea : from which 
 fatal accident we might have been exempted, 
 had we been furnished with such an account of 
 its situation as we could fully have depended on. 
 
 The island of Juan Fernandes lies in the lati- 
 tude of 33° 40' South, and is a hundred and ten 
 leagues distant from the continent of Chili. It is 
 said to have received its name from a Spaniard, 
 who formerly procured a grant of it, and resided 
 there some time with a view of settling it, but 
 afterwards abandoned it. The island itself is of 
 an u-regular figure ; its greatest extent being 
 between four and five leagues, and its greatest 
 breadth somewhat short of two leagues. The 
 only safe anchoring at this island is on the North 
 side, where there are three bays, but the middle- 
 most, known by the name of Cumberland Bay, is 
 the widest and deepest, and in all respects much 
 the best ; the other two bays, denominated the 
 East and West bays, are scarcely more than good 
 landing-places, where boats may conveniently put 
 their casks on shore. Cumberland bay is pretty 
 well secured to the southward, lying only exposed 
 from the N. by W. to the E. by S. ; and as the 
 northerly winds seldom blow in that climate, and 
 never with any violence, the danger fyom that 
 quarter is not worth attending to. 
 
 As Cumberland Bay is by far the most commodious 
 road in the island, so it is advisable for all ships 
 to anchor on the western side of this bay, within 
 little more than two cables' length of the beach. 
 Here they may ride in forty fathom of water, and 
 be, in ii gi-eat measure, slieltered from a large 
 heavy sea, which comes rolling in wlieiiever an 
 eastern or a western wind blows. It is liowever 
 expedient, in tliis case, to cackle or ai-m the cables 
 with an iron chain, or good rounding, for five or 
 six fathom from the anchor, to secure them from 
 being rubbed by the foulness of the ground. 
 
3(? 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 I have before observed, that a northerly wind, 
 <o which alone this bay is exposed, very rarely 
 lilew during our stay here ; and as it was then 
 ■winter, it may be supposed, in other seasons, to 
 he less frequent. Indeed, in those few instances, 
 when it was in that quarter, it did not blow with 
 siny great force : but this perhaps might be owing 
 to the highlands on the southward of the bay, 
 which checked its current, and thereby abated 
 its violence ; for we had reason to suppose that, 
 a few leagues off, it blew with considerable force, 
 since it sometimes drove before it a prodigious 
 «ea, in which we rode fore castle-in. But though 
 the northern winds are never to be apprehended, 
 jet the southern winds, which generally prevail 
 here, frequently blow off the land in violent gusts 
 and squalls, which however rarely last longer 
 than two or three minutes. This seems to be 
 owing to the obstruction of the southern gale by 
 the hills in the neighbourhood of the bay ; for 
 the wind being collected by this means, at last 
 forces its passage through the narrow valleys, 
 which, like so many funnels, both facilitate its 
 escape and increase its violence. These frequent 
 and sudden gusts make it difficult for ships to 
 work in with the wind off-shore, or to keep a clear 
 hawse when anchored. 
 
 The northern part of this island is composed 
 of high craggy hills, many of them inaccessible, 
 though generally covered with trees. The soil 
 of this part is loose and shallow, so that very large 
 trees on the hills soon perish for want of root, and 
 ■are easily overturned; which occasioned the unfor- 
 tunate death of one of our sailors, who being upon 
 the hills in search of goats, caught hold of a tree 
 upon the declivity to assist him in his ascent, and 
 this giving way, he immediately rolled down the 
 hill, and though in his fall he fastened on another 
 tree of considerable bulk, yet that too gave way, 
 and he fell amongst the rocks, and was dashed 
 to pieces. Mr, Brett too met with an accident 
 only by resting his back against a tree, near 
 as large about as himself, which stood on a 
 slope ; for the tree giving way, he fell to a con- 
 siderable distance, though without receiving any 
 harm. 
 
 The southern, or riither the S. W. part of the 
 Island, is widely different from the rest, being 
 ■dry, stony, and destitute of trees, but very flat 
 and low, compared with the hills on the northern 
 part. This part of the island is never fre- 
 quented by ships, being surrounded by a steep 
 shore, and having little or no fresh water ; and 
 besides, it is exposed to the southerly wind, 
 which generally blows here the whole vear round, 
 and in the winter solstice very hard. The trees 
 of which the woods on the northern side of 
 the island are composed, are most of them 
 aromatics, and of many different sorts : there 
 are none of them of a size to yield any consi- 
 derable timber, except the myrtle-trees, which 
 are the largest on the island, and supplied us 
 with all the timber we made use of ; but even 
 these would not work to a greater length than 
 forty feet. The top of the myrtle-tree is circular, 
 and appears as uniform and regular, as if it had 
 been clipped by art ; it bears on its bark an 
 excrescence like moss, which in taste and smell 
 resembles garlic, and was used by our people 
 instead of it. We found here too the pimento- 
 
 tree, and likewise the cabbage-tree, though in no 
 great plenty. 
 
 Our prisoners observed, that the appearance 
 of the hills in some part of the island resembled 
 that of the mountains in Chih, where the gold is 
 found : so that it is not impossible but mines 
 might be discovered here. We observed, in some 
 places, several hills of a peculiar sort of red earth, 
 exceeding vermilion in colour, which perhaps, 
 on examination, might prove useful for many 
 purposes. 
 
 Besides a great number of plants of various 
 kinds which axe to be met with upon the island, 
 but which we were not botanists enough either to 
 describe or attend to, we found there almost all 
 the vegetables which are usually esteemed to be 
 particularly adapted to the cure of those scorbutic 
 disorders, which are contracted by salt diet and 
 long voyages. For here we had great quantities 
 of water-cresses and purslain, with excellent wild 
 sorrel, and a vast profusion of turnips and Sicilian 
 radishes: these two last, having some resemblance 
 to each other, were confounded by our people 
 under the general name of turnips. We usually 
 preferred the tops of the turnips to the roots, 
 which were often stringy ; though some of them 
 were free from that exception, and remarkably 
 good. These vegetables, with the fish and flesh 
 we found here, and which I shall more particularly 
 describe hereafter, were not only extremely grate- 
 ful to our palates, after the long course of salt 
 diet which we had been confined to, but were 
 likewise of the most salutary consequence to our 
 sick in recovering and invigorating them, and of 
 no mean service to us who were well, in destroy- 
 ing the lurking seeds of the scurvy, from which 
 perhaps none of us were totally exempt, and in 
 refreshing and restoring us to our wonted strength 
 and activity. 
 
 Besides the vegetables I have mentioned, of 
 which we made perpetual use, we found many 
 acres of ground covered with oats and clover. 
 There were also some few cabbage-trees upon the 
 island, as observed before ; but as they generally 
 grew on the precipices, and in dangerous situa- 
 tions, and as it was necessary to cut down a large 
 tree for every single cabbage, this was a dainty 
 that we were able but rarely to indulge in. 
 
 The excellence of the climate and the looseness 
 of the soil render this place extremely proper for 
 all kinds of vegetation ; for if the ground be any- 
 where accidentally turned up, it is immediately 
 overgrown with turnips and Sicilian radishes ; 
 and therefore Mr. Anson having with him garden- 
 seeds of all kinds, and stones of different sorts of 
 fruits, he, for the better accommodation of his 
 countrymen who should hereafter touch here, 
 sowed both lettuces, carrots, and other garden 
 plants, and set in the woods a great variety of 
 plum, apricot, and peach stones : and these last 
 he has been informed have since thriven to a very 
 remarkable degree ; for some gentlemen, who in 
 their passage from Lima to Old Spain were taken 
 and brought to England, having procured leave to 
 wait upon Mr. Anson, to thank him for his gene- 
 rosity and humanity to his prisoners, some of 
 whom were their relations, they, in casual dis- 
 course with him about his transactions in the 
 South Seas, particularly asked him, if he had not 
 planted a great number of fruit-stones on the 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 37 
 
 island of Juan Femandes, for they told him, 
 their late navigators had discovered there num- 
 bers of peach-trees and apricot-trees, which being 
 fruits before unobserved in that place, they con- 
 cluded them to be produced from kernels set by 
 him. 
 
 And this may in general suffice as to the soil 
 and vegetable productions of this place : but tht 
 face of the country, at least of the north part of 
 the island, is so extremely singular, that I cannot 
 avoid giving it a particular consideration. I have 
 already taken notice of the wild, inhospitable air 
 with which it first appeared to us, and the gradual 
 improvement of this uncouth landscape as we drew 
 nearer, till we were at last captivated by the nu- 
 merous beauties we discovered on the shore. 
 And I must now add, that we found, during the 
 time of our residence there, that the inland parts 
 of the island did no ways fall short of the sanguine 
 prepossessions which we fiist entertained in their 
 favour. 
 
 For the woods which covered most of the steepest 
 hills, were free from all bushes and underwood, and 
 affpl Jed an easy passage through every part of them ; 
 and the irregularities of the hills and precipices, in 
 the northern part of the island, necessarily traced 
 out by their various combinations a great number 
 of romantic valleys ; most of which had a stream 
 of the clearest water running through them, that 
 tumbled in cascades from rock to rock, as the 
 bottom of the valley, by the course of the neigh- 
 bouring hills, was at any time broken into a sud- 
 den sharp descent: some particular spots occurred 
 in these valleys, where the shade and fragi-ance of 
 the contiguous .woods, the loftiness of the over- 
 hanging rocks, and the transparency and frequent 
 falls of the neighbouring streams, presented scenes 
 of such elegance and dignity, as would perhaps 
 with difficulty be rivalled in any other part of 
 the globe. It is in this place, perhaps, that the 
 simple productions of unassisted nature may be 
 said to excel all the fictitious descriptions of the 
 most animated imagination. I shall finish this 
 article with a short account of that spot where the 
 commodore pitched his tent, and which he made 
 choice ol for his own residence, though I despair 
 of conveying an adequate idea of its beauty. The 
 piece of ground which he chose was a small lawn, 
 that lay on a little ascent, at the distance of about 
 half a mile from the sea. In the front of his tent 
 there was a large avenue cut through the woods 
 to the sea-side, which sloping to the water, with a 
 gentle descent, opened a prospect of the bay and 
 the ships at anchor. This lawn was screened 
 behind by a tall wood of myrtle sweeping round 
 it, in the form of a theatre, the ground on which 
 the wood stood rising with a much sharper ascent 
 than the lawn itself, though not so much but that 
 the hills and precipices within land towered up 
 considerably above the tops of the trees, and added 
 to the grandeur of the view. There were, besides, 
 two streams of. crystal water, which ran on the 
 right and left of the tent, within a hundred yards' 
 distance, and were shaded by the trees which 
 skirted the lawn on either side, and completed 
 the symmetry of the whole. 
 
 It remains now only that we speak of the animals 
 and provisions which we met with at this place. 
 Former writers have related, that this island 
 abounded with vast numbers of goats, and their 
 
 accounts are not to be questioned, this place being 
 the usual haunt of the buccaneei's and privateers, 
 who formerly frequented those seas. And ther& 
 are two instances ; one of a Musquito Indian, and 
 the other of Alexander Selkirk, a Scotchman, whO' 
 were left by their respective ships, and lived alone- 
 upon this island for some years, and consequently 
 were no strangers to its produce '. Selkirk, who 
 was the last, after a stay of between four and five 
 years, was taken off the place by the Duke and 
 Duchess privateers of Bristol, as may be seen at 
 large in the journal of their voyage : his manner 
 of life, during his solitude, was in most particulai-s 
 very remarkable ; but there is one circumstance 
 he relates, which was so strangely verified by our 
 own observation, that I cannot help reciting it. 
 lie tells us, among other things, as he often caught 
 more goats than he wanted, he sometimes marked 
 their ears and let them go. This was about thu-ty- 
 two years before our arrival at the island. Now 
 it happened, that the first goat that was killed by 
 our people at their landing had his ears slit, whence 
 we concluded that he had doubtless been formerly 
 under the power of Selkirk. This was indeed aii 
 animal of a most venerable aspect, dignified with 
 an exceeding majestic beard, and with many other 
 symptoms of antiquity. During our stay on the 
 island, we met with others marked in the same 
 manner, all the males being distinguished by aa 
 exuberance of beard, and everv other cha.i'acteristie 
 of extreme age. 
 
 But the great numbers of goats, which former 
 writers described to have been found upon this 
 island, are at present very much diminished : for 
 the Spaniards being informed of the advantage* 
 which the buccaneers and privateers drew fronv 
 the provisions which goat's-flesh here furnished 
 them with, they have endeavoured to extirpate the 
 breed, thereby to deprive their enemies of this 
 relief. For this purpose, they have put on shore 
 great numbers of large dogs, which have increasedi 
 apace, and have destroyed all the goats in the 
 accessible part of the country ; so that there now 
 remain only a few amongst the crags and pre- 
 cipices, where the dogs cannot follow them. These 
 are divided into separate herds of twenty or thirty 
 each, which inhabit distinct fastnesses, and never 
 mingle with each other : by this means we found 
 it extremely difficult to kill them ; and yet we- 
 were so desirous of their flesh, which we all agreed 
 much i-esembled venison, that we got knowledge,. 
 I beheve, of all their herds, and it was conceived, 
 by comparing their numbers together, that they 
 scarcely exceeded two hundred upon the whole 
 island. I x*emember we had once an oppoi-tunity 
 of observing a remarkable dispute betwixt a herd 
 of these animals and a number of dogs ; for going 
 in our boat into the eastern bay, we saw some dogs. 
 running very eagerly upon the foot, and being; 
 willing to discover what game they were after, we 
 lay upon our oars some time to view them, and at 
 last we saw them take to a hill, and looking a little 
 further, we observed upon the ridge of it a her(> 
 of goats, which seemed drawn up for their recep- 
 tion ; there was a very narrow path skirted on 
 each side by precipices, on which the master u( 
 the herd posted himself fronting the enemy, tl i 
 
 ' It was from the circumstance of Alexander Selkirli V 
 sojourn on this beautiful island, that De Foe produced Ina. 
 I popular and interesting narrative of Robinsc n Ci-usoo 
 
38 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 rest of the goats being all behind him, where the 
 gi'ound was more open : as this spot was inacces- 
 sible hy any other path, excepting where this 
 champion had placed himself, the dogs, though 
 they ran up-hill with great alacrity, yet when they 
 came within about twenty yards of him, durst 
 cot encounter him, (for he would infallibly have 
 driven them down the precipice) but gave over the 
 «hase, and quietly laid themselves down, panting 
 at a great rate. 
 
 The dogs, who, as I nave mentioned, are mas- 
 ters of all the accessible parts of the island, are 
 of various kmds, but some of them very large, and 
 «,re multiplied to a prodigious degree. They some- 
 times came down to our habitations at night, and 
 etole our provision ; and once or twice they set 
 upon single persons, but assistance being at hand, 
 they were driven off without doing any mischief. 
 As at present it is rare for goats to fall in their 
 way, we conceived that they lived principally upon 
 joung seals ; and indeed same of our people had 
 the curiosity to IdU dogs sometimes and dress 
 them, and they seemed to agree that they had a 
 fishy taste. 
 
 Goat's-flesh, as I have mentioned, being scarce, 
 we rarely being able to kill above one a day, and 
 our people growing tired of fish, (which, as I shall 
 hereafter observe, abounds at this place) they at 
 last condescended to eat seals, which by degrees 
 they came to relish, and called it lamb. The seal, 
 numbers of which haunt this island, hath been 
 so often described by fonner writers, that it is 
 unnecessary to say any thing particular about 
 them in this place. But there is another amphi- 
 bious creature to be met with here, called a sea- 
 lion, that bears some resemblance to a seal, though 
 it is much larger. This too we ate, under the de- 
 nomination of beef ; and as it is so extraordinary 
 an animal, I conceive, it well merits a particular 
 annotation. They are in size, when arrived at 
 their full gron-th, from twelve to twenty feet in 
 length, and from eight to fifteen in circumference : 
 they are extremely fat, so that after having cut 
 through the skiu, which is about an inch in tliick- 
 ness, there is at least a foot of fat before you can 
 come at either lean or bones ; and we experienced, 
 more than on.ce, that the fat of some of the largest 
 afforded us a butt of oil. They are likewise very 
 full of blood, for if they are deeply wounded in a 
 ■dozen places, there will instantly gush out as many 
 fountains of blood, spouting to a considerable dis- 
 tance ; and to try what quantity of blond they 
 contained, we shot one first, and then cut its 
 throat, and measuring the blood that came from 
 him, we found, that besides what remained in the 
 vessels, which to be sure was considerable, we got 
 at least two hogsheads. Their skins are covered 
 with short hair of a light dun colour, but their 
 tails, and their fins, which serve them for feet on 
 shore, are almost black ; their fins or feet ai-e 
 divided at the ends like fingers, the web which 
 joins them not reaching to the extremities, and 
 each of these extremities is furnished with a nail. 
 They have a distant resemblance to an overgrown 
 seal, though in some particulars there is a mani- 
 fest difference, especially in the males, who have a 
 large snout or trunk hanging down five or six 
 inches below tlie end of the upper jaw ; this par- 
 ticular the females have not, and this renders the 
 countenance of the male and female easy to be 
 
 distinguished from each other, and besides, the 
 males are of a much larger size. One of them 
 was the master of the flock, and from his driving 
 off the other males, and keeping a gr'eat number 
 of females to himself, he was by the seamen ludi- 
 crously styled the Bashaw. These animals divide 
 their time equally between the land and sea, con- 
 tinuing at sea all the summer, and coming on 
 shore at the setting in of the winter, where they 
 reside during that whole season. In this interval 
 they engender and bring forth their young, and 
 have generally two at a birth ; these they suckle 
 with their milk, they being at first about the size 
 of a full-grown seal. During the time of these 
 animals' continuance on shore, they feed on the 
 grass and verdure which grows near the bank of 
 the fresh-water streams ; and, when not employed 
 in feeding, sleep in herds in the most miry places 
 they can find out. As they seem to be of a very 
 lethargic disposition, and not easily awakened, each 
 herd was observed to place some of their males 
 at a distance in the nature of sentinels, who never 
 failed to alarm them, whenever our men attempted 
 to molest, or even to approach them ; and they 
 were very capable of alarming, even at a consi- 
 derable distance, for the noise they make is very 
 loud and of different kinds, sometimes grunting 
 like hogs, and at other times snorting like horses 
 in full vigour. They often, especially the males, 
 have furious battles with each other, principally 
 about their females ; and we were one day ex- 
 tremely surprised by the sight of two animals, 
 which at first appeared different from all we had 
 ever observed ; but, on a nearer approach, they 
 proved to be two sea-lions, who had been goring 
 each other with tlieir teeth, and were covered 
 over with blood : and the Bashaw before-men- 
 tioned, who generally lay surrounded with a 
 seraglio of females, which no other male dared 
 to approach, had not acquired that envied pre- 
 eminence without many bloody contests, of which 
 the marks still remained in the numerous scars 
 which were visible in every part of his body. 
 We killed many of them for food, particularly for 
 their hearts and tongues, which we esteemed ex- 
 ceeding good eating, and preferable even to those 
 of bullocks : and in general there was no diffi- 
 culty in killing them, for they were incapable 
 either of escaping or resisting, their motion being 
 the most unwieldy that can be conceived, their 
 blubber, all the time they are moving, being agi- 
 tated in large waves under their skins. However, 
 a sailor one day being carelessly employed in 
 skinning a young sea-lion, the female, from whence 
 he had taken it, came upon him unperceived, and 
 getting his head in her mouth, she with her teeth 
 scored his skull in notches in many places, and 
 thereby wounded him so desperately, that though 
 all possible care was taken of him he died in a few 
 days. 
 
 These are the principal animals which we found 
 upon the island : for we saw but few birds, and 
 those chiefly hawks,blackbirds, owh, and humming- 
 birds. W e saw not the pardela, which burrows 
 in the ground, and which fonner writers have 
 mentioned to be found here ; but as we met with 
 their holes, we supposed that the dogs had de- 
 stroyed them, as they have almost done the cats, 
 which were very numerous in Selkirk's time, but 
 we saw not above one or two during our whole 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 3!>! 
 
 stay. However, the rats still keep their ground, 
 and continue here iu great numbers, and were 
 very troublesome to us, by infesting our tents 
 nightly. 
 
 But that which furnished us with the most 
 delicious repasts at this island, remains still to be 
 described. This was the fish, with which the 
 whole hay was most plentifully stored, and with 
 the greatest variety : for we found here cod of a 
 prodigious size ; and by the report of some of our 
 crew, who had been formerly employed in the 
 Newfoundland fishery, not in less plenty than is 
 to be met with on the banks of that island. We 
 caught also cavallies, gropers, large breams, maids, 
 silver-fish, congers of a peculiar kind, and above 
 all, a black fish which we most esteemed, called 
 by some a chimney-sweeper, in shape resembling 
 a carp. Indeed the beach is everywhere so full 
 of rocks and loose stones, that there is no possi- 
 bility of hauling the seine ; but with hooks and 
 lines we caught what mimbers we pleased, so that 
 a boat with two or three lines would return loaded 
 with fish in aboiit two or three hours' time. The 
 only interruption we ever met with, arose from 
 great quantities of dog-fish and large sharks, which 
 sometimes attended our boats and prevented our 
 sport. Besides the fish we have already mention- 
 ■ed, we found here one delicacy in greater perfec- 
 tion, both as to size, fiavour and quantity, than is 
 perhaps to be met with in any other part of the 
 world : this was sea craw-fish ; they generally 
 weighed eight or nine pounds apiece, were of a 
 most excellent taste, and lay in such abundance 
 near the water's edge, that the boat-hooks often 
 struck into them, in putting the boat to and from 
 the shore. 
 
 These are the most material articles relating 
 to the accommodations, soil, vegetables, animals, 
 and other productions of the island of Juan Fer- 
 nandes : by which it must appear how properly 
 that place was adapted for recovering us from the 
 deplorable situation to which our tedious and un- 
 fortunate navigation round Cape Horn had reduced 
 us. And having thus given the reader some idea 
 ■of the site and cu'cumstances of this place, which 
 was to be our residence for three months, I shall 
 now proceed, in the next chapter, to relate all 
 that occurred to us in that interval, resuming my 
 narration from the 1 8th day of June, being the 
 4a,y in which the Tryal sloop, having by a squall 
 been driven out to sea three days before, came 
 again to her moorings, the day in which we 
 finished the sending our sick on shore, and about 
 «ight days after our first anchoring at this island. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The arrival of the Gloucester and the Anna pink at the island 
 <y Juan Fernandes, and the transactions at that place 
 during this interval. > 
 
 The arrival of the Tryal sloop at this island, so 
 soon after we came there ourselves, gave us great 
 hopes of being speedily joined by the rest of the 
 squadron ; and we were for some days continually 
 looking out, in expectation of their coming in sight. 
 But near a fortnight being elapsed, without any 
 of them having appeared, we began to despair of 
 ever meeting them again ; as we knew that had 
 
 our ship continued so much longer at sea, we should 
 every man of us have perished, and the vessel, 
 occupied by dead bodies only, would have been 
 left to the caprice of the winds and waves : and 
 this we had great reason to fear was the fate of 
 our consorts, as each hour added to the probability 
 of these desponding suggestions. 
 
 But on the '21st of June, some of our people, 
 from an eminence on shore, discerned a ship to 
 leeward, with her courses even with the horizon : 
 and they, at the same time, particularly observed, 
 that she had no sail abroad except her courses 
 and her main-topsail. This circumstance made 
 them conclude that it was one of our squadron, 
 which had probably suffered in her sails and rig- 
 ging as severely as we had done : but they were 
 prevented from forming more definite conjectures 
 about her ; for, after viewing her for a short time, 
 the weather grew thick and hazy, and they lost 
 sight of her. On this report, and no ship appear- 
 ing for some days, we were all under the greatest 
 concern, suspecting that her people were in the 
 utmost distress for want of water, and so dimin- 
 ished and weakened by sickness, as not to be able 
 to ply up to windward ; so that we feared that, 
 after having been in sight of the island, her whole 
 crew would notwithstanding perish at sea. How- 
 ever, on the 26th, towards noon, we discerned a 
 sail in the north-east quai-ter, which we conceived 
 to be the very same ship that had been seen before, 
 and our conjectures proved tme ; and about one 
 o'clock she approached so near, that we could dis- 
 tinguish her to be the Gloucester. As we had no 
 doubt of her being in great distress, the commodore 
 immediately ordered his boat to her assistance, 
 laden with fresh water, fish, and vegetables, which 
 was a very seasonable relief to them ; for our ap- 
 prehensions of their calamities appeared to be but 
 too well grounded, as perhaps there never was 
 a crew in a more distressed situation. They had 
 already thrown overboard two thirds oftheii^ com- 
 plement, and of those that remained alive, scarcely 
 any were capable of doing duty, except the officers 
 and their servants. They had been a considerable 
 time at the small allowance of a pint of fresh water 
 to each man for twenty-four hours, and yet they 
 had so little left, that, had it not been for the sup- 
 ply we sent them, they must soon have died of 
 thirst. The ship plied in within three miles of the 
 bay ; but, the winds and currents being contrary, 
 she could not reach the road. However, she con- 
 tinued in the offing the next day, but had no chance 
 of coming to an anchor, unless the wind and cur- 
 rents shifted ; and therefore the commodore re- 
 peated his assistance, sending to her the Tryal's 
 boat manned with the Centurion's people, and a 
 further supply of water and other refreshments. 
 Captain Mitchel, the captain of the Gloucester, was 
 under a necessity of detaining both this boat and 
 that sent the preceding day ; for without the help 
 of their crews he had no longer strength enough 
 to navigate the ship. In this tantalising situation 
 the Gloucester continued for near a fortnight, with- 
 out being able to fetch the road, though frequently 
 attempting it, and at some times bidding very fair 
 for it. On the Dth of July, we observed her stretch- 
 ing away to the eastward at a considerable distance, 
 which we supposed was with a design to get to the 
 southward of the island ; but as we soon lost sight 
 of her, and she did not appear for near a week, we 
 
40 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 ■were prodigiously concerned, knowing that she 
 must be again iu extreme distress for want of water. 
 After great impatience about her, we discovered 
 her agaiu on the 16th, endeavouring to come round 
 the eastern point of the island ; but the wind, still 
 blowing directly from the bay, prevented her get- 
 ting nearer than within four leagues of the land. 
 On this, Captain Mitchel made signals of distress, 
 and our long-boat was sent to him with a store of 
 water, and plenty of fish, and other refreshments. 
 And the long-boat being not to be spared, tlie 
 coxswain had positive orders from the commodore 
 to return again immediately ; but the weather 
 proving stormy the next day, and the boat not 
 appearing, we much feared she was lost, which 
 would have proved an irretrievable misfortune to 
 us all : but, the third day after, we were relieved 
 from this anxiety, by the joyful sight of the long- 
 boat's sails upon the water ; and we sent the cutter 
 immediately to her assistance, who towed her along- 
 side in a few hours. The crew of our long-boat 
 had taken in six of the Gloucester's sick men to 
 bring them on shore, two of which had died in the 
 boat. And now we learnt that the Gloucester was 
 in a most dreadful condition,having scarcely a man 
 in health on board, except those they received from 
 us ; and, numbers of their sick dying daily, we 
 found that, had it not been for the last supply sent 
 by our long-boat, both the healthy and diseased 
 must have all perished together for want of water. 
 And these calamities were the more terrifying, as 
 they appeared to be without remedy : for tlie Glou- 
 cester had already spent a montli in her endeavours 
 to fetch the bay, and she was now no farther ad- 
 vanced than at the first moment she made the 
 island ; on the contrary, the people on board her 
 tdd worn out all their hopes of ever succeeding in 
 it, by the many experiments they had made of its 
 difficulty. Indeed, the same day her situation 
 grew more desperate than ever, for after she had 
 received our last supply of refreshments, we again 
 lost sight of her ; so that we in general despaired 
 of her ever coming to an anchor. 
 
 Thus was this unhappy vessel bandied about 
 within a few leagues of her intended harbour, 
 whilst the neighbourhood of that place aiid of those 
 circumstances, which could alone put an end to 
 the calamities they laboured under, served only to 
 aggravate their distress by torturing them with a 
 view of the relief it was not in their power to 
 reach. But she was at last delivered from this 
 dreadful situation, at a time when we least expected 
 it ; for after having lost sight of her for several 
 days, we were pleasingly surprised, on the morn- 
 ing of the 23rd of July, to see her open the N. W. 
 point of the bay with a iiowing sail ; wlien we 
 immediately despatched what boats we had to her 
 assistance, and in an hour's time from our first 
 perceiving her, she anchored safe within us in the 
 bay. And now we were more particularly con- 
 vinced of the importance of the assistance and 
 refreshments we so often sent them, and how ijn- 
 possible it would have been for a man of them to 
 have survived, had we given less attention to their 
 wants ; for notwithstanding the water, the greens, 
 and fresh provisions which we supplied them with, 
 and the hands we sent them to navigate the ship, 
 by which the fatigue of their own people was 
 diminished, their sick relieved, and the mortality 
 abated ; notwithstanding thk indulgent care of 
 
 the commodore, they yet buried three-fourtha ol 
 their crew, and a very small proportion of the 
 remainder were capable of assisting in the duty 
 of the ship. On their commg to an anchor, our 
 first care was to assist them in mooring, and our 
 next to send the sick on shore : these were now 
 reduced by deaths to less than fourscore, of which 
 we expected to lose the greatest part ; but whether 
 it was, that those farthest advanced in the distem- 
 per were all dead, or that the greens and fresh 
 provisions we had sent on board had prepared 
 those which remained for a more speedy recovery, 
 it happened, contrary to our expectations, that 
 their sick w ere in general relieved and restored 
 to their strength, iu a much shorter time than our 
 own had been when we first came to the island, 
 and very few of them died on shore. 
 
 I have thus given an account of the principal 
 events relating to the arrival of the Gloucester, in 
 one continued narration : I shall only add, that 
 we never were joined by any other of our ships, 
 except our victualler, the Anna pink, who came 
 in about the middle of August, and whose history 
 I shall more particularly relate hereafter. And 
 I shall now return to the account of our own 
 transactions on board and on shore, during the 
 interval of the Gloucester's frequeut and ineffectual 
 attempts to reach the island. 
 
 Our next employment, after sending our sick on 
 shore from the Centurion, was cleansing our ship 
 and filling our water. The first of these measures 
 was indispensably necessary to our future health, 
 as the numbers of sick, and the unavoidable 
 negligence arising from our deplorable situation 
 at sea, had rendered the decks most intolerably 
 loathsome. And the filling our water was a cau- 
 tion that appeared not less essential to our futuri- 
 security, as we had reason to apprehend that acci- 
 dents might oblige us to quit the island at a very 
 short warning ; for some appearances, which we 
 had discovered on shore upon our first landing, 
 gave us grounds to believe, that there were Spa- 
 nish cruisers in tliese seas, which had left tht^ 
 island but a short time before our arrival, aud 
 might possibly return there again, either for a. 
 recruit of water, or in search of us : for as we 
 could not doubt, but that the sole business they 
 had at sea was to intercept us, so we knew that 
 this island was the likeliest place, in their own 
 opinion, to meet wiih us. The circumstances, 
 which gave rise to these reflections (in part of 
 which we were not mistaken, as shall be observed 
 more at large hereafter), were our finding on shore 
 several pieces of earthen jars, made use of iu 
 those seas for water and other liquids, which 
 appeared to be fresh broken : we saw, too, many 
 heaps of ashes, and near them fish-bones and 
 pieces of fish, besides whole fish scattered here 
 and there, which plauily appeared to have been 
 but a short time out of the water, as they were- 
 but just beguining to decay. These appearances 
 were certain indications that there had been ships 
 at this place but a short time before we .came 
 there ; and as all Spanish merchantmen are in- 
 structed to avoid the island, on account of its being 
 the common rendezvous of their enemies, we con- 
 eluded those who had touched here to be ships ot 
 force ; and not knowing that Pizarro was returned 
 to Buenos Ayres, and ignorant what strength might 
 have been fitted out at Callao, we were under some- 
 
> 
 
 o 
 w 
 5 
 
 o 
 z 
 
 > 
 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD, 
 
 41 
 
 concern for our safety, being in so wretched and 
 
 enfeebled a condition, that notwithstanding the 
 
 i»nk of our ship, and the sixty guns slie carried 
 
 on board, which would only have aggravated our 
 
 dishonour, there was scarcely a privateer sent to 
 
 sea, that was not an over-match for us. Hdwever, 
 
 our fears on this head proved imaginary, and we 
 
 I were not exposed to the disgrace, which might 
 
 have been expected to have befallen us, had we 
 
 ' been necessitated (as we must have been, had the 
 
 i enemy appeared) to fight our sixty-gun ship with 
 
 ' no more than thirty hands. 
 
 Whilst the cleaning our ship and the filling our 
 ] water went on, we set up a large copper-oven on 
 ' shore near the sick tents, in which we baked bread 
 I every day for the ship's company, being extremely 
 j desirous of recovering our sick as soon as possible, 
 ; and conceiving that new bread, added to their 
 ! greens and fresh fish, might prove a powerful 
 ■ article In their relief. Indeed we had all ima- 
 ' ginable reason to endeavour at the augmenting 
 I our present strength, as every little accident, which, 
 to a full crew would be insignificant, was extremely 
 alarming in our present helpless situation : of 
 this, we had a troublesome instance on the 30th 
 of June ; for at five in the morning, we were 
 astonished by a violent gust of wind directly off 
 shore, which instantly parted our small bower 
 cable about ten fathom from the ring of the anchor : 
 the ship at once swung off to the best bower, 
 which happily stood the violence of the jerk, and 
 brought us up with two cables an end in eighty 
 fathom. At this time we had not above a dozen 
 seamen in the ship, and we were apprehensive, if 
 the squall continued, that we should be driven to 
 sea in this wretched condition. However, we sent 
 the boat on shore, to bring off all that were ca- 
 pable of acting ; and the wind, soon abating of its 
 f'lry, gave us an opportunity of receiving the boat 
 back again with a reinforcement. With this ad- 
 ditional strength we immediately went to work, to 
 heave in what remained of the cable, which we 
 suspected had received some damage from the 
 foulness of the ground before it parted ; and 
 agreeable to our conjecture, we found that seven 
 fathom and a half of the outer end had been 
 rubbed, and rendered unserviceable. In the after- 
 noon, we bent the cable to the spare anchor, and 
 got it over the ship's side ; and the next morning, 
 July 1, being favoured with the wind in gentle 
 breezes, we warped the ship in again, and let go 
 the anchor in forty-one fathom ; the eastermost 
 point now bearing from us E. j S. ; the westermost 
 N.W. by W. ; and the bay as before, S.S.W. ; a 
 situation, in which we remained secure for the 
 future. But we were much concerned for the loss 
 of our anchor, and swept frequently for it, in 
 hopes to have recovered it ; but the buoy having 
 sunk at the very instant that the cable parted, we 
 were never able to find it. 
 
 And now as we advanced in July, some of our 
 men being tolerably recovered, the strongest of 
 them were employed in cutting down trees, and 
 splitting them into billets ; whileothers, who were 
 too weak for this employ, undertook to carry the 
 billets by one at a time to the water-side : this 
 they performed, some of them with the help of 
 crutches, and others supported by a single stick. 
 We next sent the forge on shore, and employed 
 our smiths, who were but just capable of working, 
 
 in mending our chain-plates, and our other broken 
 and decayed iron-work. We began too the re- 
 pairs of our rigging ; but as we had not a suffi- 
 cient quantity of junk to make spun-yarn, ws 
 deferred the general over-haul, in hopes of the 
 daily arrival of the Gloucester, who we knew had 
 a great quantity of junk on board. However, that 
 we might make as great despatch as possible iiL 
 our refitting, we set up a large tent on the beaclt 
 for the sail-makers ; and they were immediately 
 employed in repairing ou old sails, and making 
 us new ones. 
 
 These occupations, with our cleansing and 
 watering the ship (which was by this time pretty 
 well completed), the attendance on our sick, and 
 the frequent relief sent to the Gloucester, were 
 the principal transactions of our infirm crew, till 
 the arrival of the Gloucester at an anchor in the 
 bay. And then Captain Mitchel waiting on the 
 commodore, informed him, that he had been forced 
 by the winds, in his last absence, as far as the 
 small island called Masa-Fuero, lying about 
 twenty-two leagues to the westward of Juan Fer- 
 nandes ; and that he endeavoured to send his boat 
 on shore at this place for water, of which he could 
 observe several streams, but the wind blew so 
 strong upon the shore, and occasioned such a surf, 
 that it was impossible for the boat to land ; though 
 the attempt was not altogether useless, as they re- 
 turned with a boat-load of fish. This island had 
 been represented by former navigators as a barren 
 rock ; but Captain Mitchel assured the commo- 
 dore, that it was almost everywhere covered with 
 trees and verdure, and was near four miles in 
 length ; and added, that it appeared to him far 
 from impossible but some small bay might be 
 found on it, which might afford sufficient shelter 
 for any ship desirous of refreshing there. 
 
 As four ships of our squadron were missing, 
 this description of the Island of Masa-Fuero gave 
 rise to a conjecture, that some of them might 
 possibly have fallen in with that island, and have 
 mistaken it for the true place of our rendezvous ; 
 and this suspicion was the more plausible, as we 
 had no draught of either island that could be re- 
 lied on. In consequence of this reasoning, Mr. 
 Anson determined to send the Tryal ^loop thither, 
 as soon as she could be fitted for the sea, in order 
 to examine all its bays and creeks, that we might 
 be satisfied whether any of our missing ships were 
 there or not. For this purpose, some of our best 
 hands were sent on board the Tryal the next 
 morning, to overhaul and fix her rigging ; and 
 our long-boat was employed in completing her I 
 water ; and whatever stores and necessaries she 
 wanted were immediately supplied, either from 
 the Centurion or the Gloucester. But it was the 
 4th of August before the Tryal was in readiness 
 to sail, when having weighed, it soon after fell 
 calm, and the tide set her very near the eastern 
 shore : Captain Saunders hung out lights, and 
 fired several guns to acquaint us with his danger : 
 upon which all the boats were sent to his relief, 
 who towed the sloop into the bay ; where she 
 anchored until the next morning, and then 
 weighing again, proceeded on her cruise with a 
 fair breeze. 
 
 And now, after the Gloucester's arrival, we 
 were employed in earnest in examining and re- 
 pairing our rigging ; but in the stripping our 
 
42 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 foremast, we were alarmed by discovering it was 
 sprung just above the paitners of tli6 upper deck. 
 The spring was two inches in depth, and twelve 
 in circumference ; but the carpenters inspecting 
 it, gave it as their opinion, that fishing it with 
 two leaves of an anchor-stock would render it as 
 secure as evei But our greatest difficulty in 
 refitting was the want of cordage and canvas ; for 
 though we had taken to sea much greater quan- 
 tities of both than had ever been done before, 
 yet the continued bad weather we met with had 
 occasioned such a consumption of these stores, 
 that we were driven to great straits : for after 
 working up all our junk and old shrouds, to make 
 twice-laid cordage, we were at last obliged to 
 unlay a cable to work into running rigging. And 
 with all the canvas and remnants of old sails 
 that could be mustered, we could only make up 
 one complete suit. 
 
 Towards the middle of August, our men being 
 indififerently recovered, they were permitted to 
 quit their sick tents, and to build separate huts 
 for themselves, as it was imagined that, by living 
 apart, they would be much cleanlier, and conse- 
 quently likely to recover their strength the 
 sooner ; but at the same time particular orders 
 were given, that on the firing of a gun from the 
 ship, they should instantly repair to the water- 
 side. Their employment on shore was now either 
 the procuring of refreshments, the cutting of 
 wood, or the making of oil from the blubber of 
 the sea-lions. This oil served us for several 
 uses, as burning in lamps, or mixing with pitch to 
 pay the ships* sides, or, when mixed with wood- 
 ashes, to supply the use of tallow, of which we 
 had none left, to give the ship boot-hose tops. 
 Some of the men too were occupied in saltmg of 
 cod ; for there being two Newfoundland fishermen 
 in the Centurion, the commodore made use of 
 them in laying in a considei'able quantity of salted 
 cod for a sea-store ; but very little of it was made 
 iise of, as it was afterwards thought to be as pro- 
 ductive of the scurvy as any other kind of salt 
 provisions. 
 
 I have before mentioned, that we had a copper- 
 oven on shore to bake bread for the sick ; but it 
 happened that the greatest part of the flour, for 
 the use of the squadron, was embarked on board 
 our victualler the Anna pink : and X should 
 have mentioned, that the Tryal sloop, at her 
 arrival, had informed us, that on the 9th of May 
 she had fallen in with our victualler, not far 
 distant from the continent of Chili ; and had 
 kept company \vith her for four days, when they 
 were parted in a hard gale of wind. This gave 
 us some room to hope tl\.T,t she was safe, and that 
 she might soon join us ; but all June and July 
 being past without any news of her, we suspected 
 she was lost ; and at the end of July the commo- 
 dore ordered all the ships to a short allowance of 
 bread. And it was not in our bread only, that 
 we feared a deficiency ; for since our arrival at 
 this island, we discovered that our former pureer 
 had neglected to take on board lirge quantities of 
 several kinds of provi.sions, which the commodore 
 had expressly ordered him to receive ; so that 
 the supposed loss of our victualler was, on all 
 accounts, a mortifying consideration. However, 
 on Sunday, the 16th of August, about noon, we 
 espied a sail in tlie northei"n quarter, and a gun 
 
 was immediately fired from the Centurion, to call 
 off the people from shore ; who readily obeyed the 
 summons, and repaU-ed to the beach, where the 
 boats waited to carry them on board. And now 
 being prepared for the reception of this ship in 
 view, whether friend or enemy, we had various 
 speculations about her ; at first, many imagined 
 it to be the Tryal sloop returned from her cruise ; 
 but as she drew nearer this opinion was confuted, 
 by observing she was a, vessel with three masts ; 
 and then other conjectures were eagerly can- 
 vassed, some judging it to be the Severn, others 
 the Pearl, and several affirming that it did not 
 belong to our squadron : but about three in the 
 afternoon our disputes were ended, by a una- 
 nimous persuasion that it was our victualler the 
 Anna pink. This ship, though, like the Gloucester, 
 she had fallen in to the northward of the island, 
 had yet the good fortune to come to an anchor in 
 the bay, at five in the afternoon. Her arrival 
 gave us all the sincerest joy ; for each ship's 
 company was now restored to their full allowance 
 of bread, and we were now freed from the appre- 
 hensions of our provisions fallmg short, before we 
 could reach some amicable port ; a calamity, 
 which in these seas is of all others the most irre- 
 trievable. This was the last ship that joined us ; 
 and the dangers she encountered, and the good 
 fortune which she afterwards met with, being 
 matters worthy of a separate narration, I shafl 
 refer them, together with a short account of the 
 other ships of the squadron, to the ensuing 
 chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A short narrative of what hefdl the Anna pink be/ore sht 
 Joined us, with an account o/the loss of the Wager, and 
 nf the putting back of the Severn and Pearly the two 
 remaining ships of the squadron' 
 
 On the first appearance of the Anna pink, it 
 seemed wonderful to us how the crew of a vessel, 
 which came to this rendezvous two months after 
 us, should be capable of working their ship in the 
 manner they did, with so little appearance of 
 debility and distress: but this difficulty was soon 
 solved when she came to an anchor ; for we then 
 found that they had been in harbour since the 
 middle of May, which was near a month before we 
 arrived at Juan Fernandes : so that their sufier- 
 ings (the risk they had run of shipwreck only 
 excepted) were greatly short of what had been 
 undergone by the rest of the squadron. It seems, 
 on the 1 6th of May, they fell in with the land, 
 which was then but four leagues distant, in the 
 latitude of 45" 15' south. On the first sight of it, 
 they wore ship and stood to the southward, but 
 their fore-topsail splitting, and the wind being 
 W.S.W., they drove towards the shore ; and the 
 captain at last, either unable to clear the land, or 
 as others say, resolved to keep the sea no longer, 
 steered for the coast, with a view of discovering 
 some shelter amongst the many islands which then 
 appeared in sight: and about four hours after thi 
 fust view of the land, the pink had the fortune to 
 come to an anchor, to the eastward of the island 
 of Inchin ; but as they did not run sufficiently 
 near to the east shore of that island, and had not 
 hands to veer away the cable briskly, they were 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 43 
 
 eoon driven to tho easttvard, deepening their water 
 from twenty-five fathom to thirty-five, and still 
 continuuig to drive, they, the next day, the 17th 
 •of May, let go their sheet-anchor ; Which though 
 it brought them up for a short time, yet, on the 
 1 8th, they drove again, till they came into sixty- 
 five fathom water, and were now within a mile of 
 the land, and expected to be forced on shore every 
 moment, in a place where the coast was Very high 
 and steep too, that there was not the least prospect 
 of saving the ship or cargo : and their boats being 
 very leaky, and there being no appearance of a 
 landing- place, the whole crew, consisting of six- 
 teen men and boys, gave themselves over for lost, 
 fdr they apprehended, that if any of them by some 
 extraordinary chance should get on shore, they 
 would, in all probability, be massacred by the 
 savages on the coast : for these, knowing no other 
 Kuropeans but Spaniards, it might be expected 
 they would treat all strangers with the same 
 cruelty which they had so often and so signally 
 exerted against their Spanish neighbours. Under 
 these terrifying circumstances, the pink drove 
 nearer and nearer to the I'ocks wh_ch formed the 
 shore : but at last, when the crew expected each 
 instant to strike, they perceived a small opening 
 in the land, which raised their hopes : and imme- 
 <liately cutting away their two anchors, they steered 
 for it, and found it to be a small channel betwixt 
 an island and the main, which led them into a 
 most excellent harbour, which, for its security 
 against all winds and swells, and the smoothness 
 of its waters, may perhaps compare with any in 
 the known world. And this place being scarcely 
 two miles distant fi'om the spot where they de'emed 
 their destruction inevitable, the horrors of ship- 
 wreck and of immediate death, which had so 
 long and so strongly possessed them, vanished 
 almost instantaneously, and gave place to the 
 more joyous ideas of security, repose, and refresh- 
 ment. 
 
 In this harbour, discovered in this almost mi- 
 raculous manner, the pink came to an anchor in 
 twenty-five fathom water, with only a hawser, and 
 a small anchor of about three hundred-weight : 
 and here she continued for near two months 
 refreshing her people, who were many of them ill of 
 the scurvy, but were soon restored to perfect health 
 by the fresh provisions, of which they procured 
 good store, and the excellent water with which 
 the adjacent shore abounded. But as this place 
 tony prove of the greatest impoi-tance to future 
 navigators who may be forced upon this coast by 
 the westerly winds, which are almost perpetual 
 in 'that part of the world; I shall, before I enter 
 into any farther particulars of the adventures of 
 the pink, give the best account I could collect 
 of this port, its situation, conveniences and pro- 
 ductions. 
 
 Itslatitude, which isindeedanlinportarit point, is 
 not well ascertained, the pink having no observation 
 either the day before she came here, or within a 
 day of her leaving it : but it is supposed that it 
 is not very distant from 45" 30 south, and the 
 large extent of the bay before the harbour renders 
 this uncertainty the less material. The island of 
 Inchin lying before the bay is supposed to be one of 
 the islands of Clionos, which are mentioned in the 
 Spanish accounts, as spreading all along that coast ; 
 and are said by them to be inhabited by a barbarous 
 
 people, famous for their hatred of the Spaniards, 
 and for their cruelties to such of that nation as have 
 fallen into their hands: and it is possible too that the 
 land, neai- which tho harbour itself lies, may be 
 another of those islands, and that the continent 
 may be considerably farther to the eastward. 
 There are two coves where ships may conveniently 
 heave down, the water being constantly smooth : 
 and there are several fine runs of excellent fresh 
 water, which fall into the harbour, and some of 
 them so luckily situated, that the casks may be 
 filled in the long-boat with a hose : the most re- 
 markable of these runs is a fresh-water river, and 
 here the pink's people got some few mullets of an 
 excellent flavour ; and they were persuaded that, in 
 a proper season (it being winter when they were 
 there) it abounded with fish. The principal 
 refreshments they met with in this j/ort were greens, 
 as wild celery, nettle-tops, &c. (which after so long 
 a continuance at sea they devoured with great eager- 
 ness) ; shell-fish, as cockles and muscles of an ex- 
 traordinary size, and extremely delicious ; and good 
 store of geese, shags, and penguins. The climate, 
 though it was the depth of winter, was not remark- 
 ably rigorous ; nor the trees, or the face of the 
 country destitute of verdure ; and doubtless in the 
 summer many other species of fresh provision, 
 besides these here enumerated, might be found, 
 there. And notwithstanding the tales of the 
 Spanish historians, in relation to the violence and' 
 barbarity of the inhabitants, it doth not appear 
 that their numbers are sufficient to give the least 
 jealousy to any ship of ordinary force, or thai 
 their disposition is by any means so mischievous 
 or merciless as hath hitherto been represented : 
 and besides all these advantages, it is so far re- 
 moved from the Spanish frontier, and so little 
 known to the Spaniards themselves, that there is 
 reason to suppose, that with )iroper precautions a 
 ship might continue here undiscovered for a long 
 time. It is also a place of great defence ; for by 
 possessing the island that closes up the harbour, 
 and which is accessible in very few places, a 
 small force might defend this port against all the 
 strength the Spaniards could muster in that part 
 of the world ; for this island towards the harbour 
 is steep too, and has six fathom water close to the 
 shore, so that the pmk anchored within forty yards 
 of it : whence it is obvious how impossible it would 
 prove, either to board or to cut out any vessel 
 protected by a force posted on shore within pistol- 
 shot, and where those who were thus posted could 
 not themselves be attacked. All these circum- 
 stances seem to render this place worthy of a 
 more accurate examination ; and it is to be hoped 
 that the important uses which this rude account of 
 it seems to suggest, may hereafter recommend it to 
 the consideration of the public, and to the atten- 
 tion of those who are more immediately eutiiisted 
 with the conduct of our naval affairs. 
 
 After this description of the place where the 
 pink lay for two months, it may be expected that 
 1 should relate the discoveries made by the crew 
 on the adjacent coast, and the jirincipal incidents 
 during their stay there : but here 1 must observe, 
 that, being only a few in number, they did not 
 dare to detach any of their pco])le on distant dis- 
 coveries ; for they were perpetually terrified with 
 the apprehension that they should be attacked 
 either by the Spaniards or the Indians ; so that 
 
44 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 their excursions were generally confined to that 
 tract of land which suiTOunded the port, and where 
 tliey were never out of view of the ship. But 
 even had they at first known how little foundation 
 there was for these fears, yet the country in the 
 neighbourhood was so grown up with wood, and 
 traversed with mountains, that it appeared im- 
 practicable to penetrate it : so that no account of 
 the inland parts could be expected from them. 
 Indeed they were able to disprove the relations 
 given by Spanish writers, who had represented 
 this coast as inhabited by a fierce and powerful 
 people : for they were certain that no such inhabit- 
 ants were there to be found, at least during the 
 winter season ; since all the time they continued 
 there, they saw no more than one Indian family, 
 which came into the harbour in a periagua, about 
 a month after the arrival of the pink, and con- 
 sisted of an Indian near forty years old, his 
 wife, and two children, one three years of age, 
 and the other still at the breast. They seemed 
 to have with them all their property, which 
 was a dog and a cat, a fishing-net, a. hatchet, a 
 knife, a cradle, some bark of trees intended 
 for the covering of a hut, a reel, some worsted, 
 a flint and steel, and a few roots of a yellow hue 
 and a very disagreeable taste, which served them 
 for bread. The master of the pink, as soon as he 
 perceived them, sent his yawl, who brought them 
 on boai'd ; and fearing lest they might discover 
 him if they were permitted to go away, he took, 
 as he conceived, proper precautions for securing 
 them, but without any mixture of ill usage or 
 violence : for in the day-time they were permitted 
 to go where they pleased about the ship, but at 
 night were locked up in the forecastle. As they 
 were fed in the same manner with the rest of the 
 crew, and were often indulged vvith brandy, which 
 they seemed greatly to relish, it did not at first 
 appear that they were much dissatisfied with their 
 situation, especially as the master took the Indian 
 on shore when he went a shooting (who always 
 seemed extremely delighted when tile master 
 killed his game), and as all the crew treated them 
 with great humanity : but it was soon perceived, 
 that though the woman continued easy and cheer- 
 ful, yet the man grew pensive and restless at his 
 confinement. He seemed to be a person of good 
 natural parts, and though not capable of conversing 
 with the pink's people, otherwise than by signs, 
 was yet very curiou^ and inquisitive, and showed 
 great dexterity in the manner of making himself 
 understood. In particular, seeing so few people on 
 board such a large ship, he let them know that 
 he supposed they were once more numerous : and 
 to represent to them what he imagined was become 
 of their companions, he laid himself down on the 
 deck, closing his eyes, and stretching himself out 
 motionless, to imitate the appearance of a dead 
 body, ^ But the strongest proof of his sagacity was 
 the manner of his getting away ; for after being in 
 custody on board the pink eight days, the scuttle 
 of the forecastle, where he and his family were 
 locked up every night, happened to be unnailed, 
 and the following night being extremely dark and 
 stormy, he contrived to convey his wife and chil- 
 dren through the unnailed scuttle, and then over 
 the ship's side into the yawl ; and to prevent being 
 pursued, he cut away the long-boat, and his own 
 periagua.i^hichweretowingastern,andimmediately 
 
 rowed ashore. All this he conducted with so much 
 diligence and secrecy,that though there was awatchi 
 on the quarter-deck with loaded arms, yet he was 
 not discovered by them till tlie noise of his oars- 
 in the water, after he had put off from the .ship^ 
 gave them notice of his escape ; and then it was 
 too late either to prevent him or to pursue him ; 
 for, theb boats being all adrift, it was a consider- 
 able time before they could contrive the means of 
 getting on shore themselves to search for their 
 boats. The Indian too by this effort, besides the 
 the recovery of his liberty, was in some sort re- 
 venged on those who had confined him, both by 
 the perplexity they were involved in from the loss 
 of their boats, and by the terror he threw them 
 into at his departure ; for on the first alarm of the 
 watch,whocriedout "The Indians !" thewholeship 
 was in the utmost confusion, believing themselvea 
 to be boarded by a fleet of armed periaguas. 
 
 The resolution and sagacity with which th» 
 Indian behaved upon this occasion, had it been 
 exerted on a more extensive object than the re- 
 trieving the freedom of a single family, might 
 perhaps have immortalised the exploit, and hav& 
 given him a rank amongst the illustrious names of 
 antiquity. Indeed his late masters did so much 
 justice to his merit, as to own that it was a most 
 gallant enterprise, and that they were grieved they 
 had ever been necessitated, by their attention to 
 their own safety, to abridge the liberty of a person 
 of whose prudence and courage they had now such 
 a distinguished proof. And as it was supposed by 
 some of them that he still continued in the woods in 
 the neighbourhood of the port, where it was feared 
 he might suffer for want of provisions, they easily 
 prevailed upon the master to leave a quantity of 
 such food as they thought would be most agree- 
 able to him, in a particular part where they iina» 
 gined he would be Ukely to find it : and there was. 
 reason to conjecture that this piece of humanity 
 was not altogether useless to him ; for, on visiting 
 the place some time after, it was found that the 
 provision was gone, and in a manner that made- 
 them conclude it had fallen into his hands. 
 
 But however, though many of them were satis- 
 fied that this Indian still continued near them;., 
 yet others would needs conclude that he was gone 
 to the island of Chiloe, where they feared he would 
 alarm the Spaniards, and would soon return with 
 a force sufiicient to surprise the pink : and on 
 this occasion the master of the pink was pre- 
 vailed on to omit firing the evening gun ; for 
 it must be remembered, (and there is a par. 
 ticular reason hereafter for attending to this cir- 
 cumstance,) that the master, from an ostentatious 
 imitation of the practice of men-of-war, had 
 hitherto fired a gun every evening at the setting 
 of the watch. This he pretended was to awe the 
 enemy, if there was any within hearing, and to- 
 convince them that the pink was always on her 
 guard ; but it being now represented to him that 
 his great security was his concealment, and that 
 the evening gun might possibly discover him, and 
 serve to guide the enemy to him, he was prevailed 
 on, as has been mentioned, to omit it for the futures 
 and his crew being now well refreshed, and their 
 wood and water sufficiently replenished, he, in a 
 few days after the escape of the Indian, put to 
 sea, and had a fortunate passage to the rendez- 
 vous at the island of Juan Fernandes, where he 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE "WORLD. 
 
 «ri-ived on the Ib'th of August, as hath been 
 already mentioned in the preceding chapter. 
 
 Tliis vessel, the Anna pink, was, as I have 
 observed, the last that joined the commodore at 
 Juan Femandes. The remaining ships of the 
 squadron were the Severn, the Pearl, and the 
 Wager store-ship : the Severn and Pearl parted 
 company with tlie squadron off Cape Noir, and, 
 as we afterwards learnt, put back to the Brazils : 
 Bo that of all the ships which came into the South 
 Seas, the Wager, Captain Cheap, was the only one 
 that was missing This ship had on board some 
 field-pieces mounted for land service, together 
 with some cohorn mortars, and several kinds of 
 •artillery, stores and tools, intended for the opera- 
 tions on shore : and therefore, as the enterprise 
 on Baldivia had been resolved on for the first 
 undertaking of the squadi-on. Captain Cheap was 
 «xtremely solicitous that these materials, which 
 were in his custody, might be ready before Bal- 
 •divia ; that if the squadron should possibly ren- 
 dezvous there (as he knew not the condition they 
 were then reduced to), no delay nor disappointment 
 «night be imputed to him. 
 
 But whilst the Wager, with these views, was 
 tnaking the best of her way to her first rendezvous 
 «ff the island of Socoro, whence (as there was 
 little probability of meeting any of the squadron 
 there) she proposed to steer directly for Baldivia, 
 «he made the laud on the fourteenth of May, about 
 the latitude of 47° South ; and, the captain ex- 
 erting himself on this occasion, in order to get 
 «lear of it, he had the misfortune to fall down the 
 after-ladder, and thereby dislocated his shoulder, 
 which rendered him incapable of acting. This 
 Accident, together with the crazy condition of the 
 ship, which was little better than a wreck, pre- 
 vented her from getting off to sea, and entangled 
 her more and more with the land, so that the 
 next morning, at day-break, she struck on a 
 sunken rock, and soon after bilged, and grounded 
 fcetween two small islands, at about a musket-shot 
 from the shore. 
 
 In this situation the ship continued entire a 
 Jong time, so that all the crew had it in their 
 ^ower to get safe on shore ; but a general con- 
 fusion taking place, numbers of them, instead of 
 consulting their safety, or reflecting on their 
 ■calamitous condition, fell to pillaging the ship, 
 arming themselves with the first weapons that 
 ■came to hand, and threatening to murder all who 
 should oppose them. This frenzy was greatly 
 heightened by the liquors they found on board, 
 with which they got so extremely drunk, that some 
 ■of them tumbling down between decks, were 
 browned, as the water flowed in, being incapable 
 of getting up and retreating to other places where 
 the water had not yet entered : and the captain, 
 having done his utmost to get the whole crew on 
 ■shore, was at last obliged to leave these mutineers 
 beliind him, and to follow his officers, and such as 
 he had been able to prevail on ; but he did not 
 fail to send back the boats, to persuade those who 
 Teraained, to have some regard to their preserva- 
 tion ; though all his efforts were for some time 
 without success. However, the weather next day 
 proving stormy, and there being great danger of 
 the ship's parting, they began to be alarmed with 
 the fears of perishing, and were desirous of getting 
 <to land ; but it seems their madness had not yet 
 
 left them, for the boat not appearing to fetch 
 them off so soon as they expected, they at last 
 pointed a four-pounder, which was on the quarter- 
 deck, against the hut where they knew the cap- 
 tain resided on shore, and fired two shot, which 
 passed but just over it. 
 
 From this specimen of the behaviour of part 
 of the crew, it will not be difficult to frame some 
 conjecture of the disorder and anarchy which 
 took place, when they at last got all on shore. 
 For tlie men conceived that, by the loss of the 
 ship, the authority of the officers was at an end ; 
 and, they being now on a desolate coast, where 
 scarcely any other provisions could be got except 
 what should be saved out of the wreck, this wa« 
 another insurmountable source of discord : for as 
 the working upon the wreck, and the securing the 
 provisions, so that they might be preserved for 
 future exigencies as much as possible, and the 
 taking care that what was necessary for immediate 
 subsistence might be sparingly and equally dis- 
 tributed, were matters not to be brought about 
 but by discipline and subordination ; the mutinous 
 disposition of the people, stimulated by the im- 
 pulses of immediate hunger, rendered every 
 regulation made for this purpose ineffectual : so 
 that there were contiimal concealments, frauds and 
 thefts, which animated each man against his fellow, 
 and produced infinite feuds and contests. And 
 hence there was constantly kept on foot a perverse 
 and malevolent turn of temper, which "rendered 
 them utterly ungovernable. ' 
 
 But besides these heart-burnings occasioned by 
 petulance and hunger, there was another important 
 point, which set the greatest part of the people 
 at variance with the captain. This was their 
 differing with him in opinion, on the measures to 
 be pursued in the present exigency : for the cap- 
 tain was determined, if possible, to fit up the boats 
 in the best manner he could, and to proceed with 
 them to the northward. For having with him 
 above a hundred men in health, and having gotten 
 some fire-arms and ammunition from the wreck, 
 he did not doubt but they could master any Spanish 
 vessel they should meet with in those seas : and 
 he thought he could not fail of meeting with one 
 in the neighbourhood of Chiloe or Baldivia, in 
 which, when he had taken her, he intended to 
 proceed to the rendezvous at Juan Femandes ; 
 and he farther insisted, that should they meet with 
 no prize by the way, yet the boatsalone would easily 
 carry them there. But this was a scheme that, 
 however prudent, was no ways relished by the 
 generality of his people ; for, being quite jaded 
 with the distresses and dangers they had already 
 run through, they could not think of prosecuting 
 an enterprise farther, which had hitherto proved 
 so disastrous : and therefore the common resolution 
 was to lengthen ttie long-boat, and with that and 
 the rest of the boats to steer to the southward, to 
 pass though the Straits of Magellan, and to range 
 along the east side of South America, till they 
 
 ^ " It was in consequence of the mutinous and bad con- 
 duct of the shipwrecked seamen of the Wager, that Anson, 
 11^1748, when he had the management of the Admiralty in 
 the absence of the Duke of Bedford and Lord Sandwich, 
 got an act passed i2l George 2nd.) for extending the dis- 
 cipline of the navy to the crews of his Majesty's ships, 
 wrecked, lost, or taken, and continuing to them their 
 wages upon certain conditionB." — Itarrow's Life of Lord 
 Anion, 
 
46 
 
 ANSON'S VaYAtJE ROUND "TKE WORLD. 
 
 should arrive at Brazil, where they doubted not to 
 be well received, and to procure a passage to 
 Great Britain. This project was at first sight 
 infinitely more hazardous and tedious than what 
 was proposed by the captain ; but as it had the 
 air of returning home, and flattered them with the 
 hopes of bringing them once more to their native 
 country, this circumstance alone rendered them 
 inattentive to all its inconveniences, and made them 
 adhere to it with insurmountable obstinacy ; so 
 that the captain himself, though he never changed 
 his opinion, was yet obliged to give way to the 
 torrent, and in appearance to acquiesce in this 
 resolution, whilst he endeavoured underhand to 
 give it all the obstruction he could ; particularly 
 in the lengthening of the long-boat, which he con- 
 trived should be of such a size, that though it might 
 serve to carry them to .Juan -Fernaudes, would 
 yet, he hoped, appear incapable of so long a navi- 
 gation as that to the coast of Brazil. 
 
 But the captain, by his steady opposition at first 
 to this favourite project, had much embittered 
 the people against him ; to which likewise the 
 following unhappy accident greatly contributed. 
 There was a midshipman whose name was Cozens, 
 who had appeared the foremost in all the refrac- 
 tory proceedings of the crew. He had involved 
 himself in brawls with most of the ofiicers who had 
 adhered to the captain's authority, and had even 
 treated the captain himself with great abuse and 
 insolence. As his turbulence and brutality grew 
 every day more and more intolerable, it was not 
 in the least doubted, but there were some violent 
 measures in agitation, in which Cozens was en- 
 gaged as the ringleader : for which reason the 
 captain, and those about him, constantly kept 
 themselves on their guard. But at last the pureer, 
 having, by the captain's order, stopped the allow- 
 ance of a fellow who would not work ; Cozens, 
 though the man did not complain to him, inter- 
 meddled in the affair witli great eagerness ; and 
 grossly insulting the purser, who was then deliver- 
 ing out provisions just by the captain's tent, and 
 was himself suificiently violent, the jiureer, enraged 
 by his scurrility and perhaps piqued by former rjuar- 
 rels, cried out " a mutiny ! " adding, " that the dog 
 had pistols," and then himself fired apistol at Cozens, 
 which however missed him : but the captain, on 
 this outcry and the report of the pistol, rushed out 
 of his tent ; and, not doubting but it had been fired 
 by Cozens as the commencement of a mutiny, he 
 immediately shot him in the head without farther 
 deliberation, and though he did not kill him on 
 the spot, yet the wound proved morta 1, and he died 
 about fourteen days after. 
 
 This incident, however displeasing tj tne people, 
 did yet, for a considerable time, awe them to their 
 duty, and rendered them more submissive to the 
 captain's authority : but at last, when towards the 
 middle of Octuber the long-boat was nearly com- 
 pleted, and they were preparing to put to sea, the 
 additional provocation he gave them by covertly 
 traversing their project of proceeding through the 
 Straits of Magellan, and their fears that he might 
 at length engage a party sufficient to overturn this 
 favourite measure, made them resolve to make use 
 of the death of Cozens as a reason for depriving 
 him of his command, under pretence of carrymg 
 him a prisoner to England, to be tried for murder ; 
 and he was accordingly confined under a guard. 
 
 But they never intended to carry him with them, 
 as they too well knew what they had to apprehend 
 on their return to England, if their commander 
 should be present to confront them : and there- 
 fore, when they were just ready to put to sea, thSy 
 set him at Uberty, leaving him, and the few who 
 chose to take their fortunes with him, no othdr 
 embarkation but the yawl, to which the barge was. 
 afterwards added, by the people on board her' 
 bping prevailed on to return back. I 
 
 OWhen the ship was wrecked, there remained! 
 alive on board the Wager near a hundred and 
 thirty persons ; of these above thirty died during 
 tlieir stay upon the place, and near eighty went off 
 in the long-boat and the cutter to the southwards 
 so that there remained with the captain, after 
 then- departure, no more than nineteen persons,; 
 which however was as many as the barge and the 
 yawl, the only embarkations left them, could well 
 carry off. It was the 13th of October, five months 
 after the shipwreck, that the long-boat, convertM. 
 into a schooner, weighed, and stood to the souths 
 ward, giving the captain, who, with Lieutenant 
 Hamilton of the land forces, and the surgeon, was 
 then on the beach, three cheers at their departure. 
 It was the 29th of January following before they 
 arrived at Rio Grande, on the coast of Brazi^ : 
 and having, by various accidents, left about twenfy 
 of their people on shore at the different places, 
 they touched at, and a greater number having 
 perished by hunger during the course of their 
 navigation, there were no more than thirty of them 
 left, when they arrived in that port. Indeed, the 
 undertaking of itself was a most extraordinary one ;. 
 for, not to mention the length of the run, the 
 vessel was scarcely able to contain the number 
 that first put to sea in her ; and their stock of pro- 
 visions (being only what they had saved out of the 
 ship) was extremely slender, and the cutter, the 
 only boat they had with them, soon broke away 
 from the stern, and was staved to pieces ; so that 
 when their provision and their water failed them, 
 they had frequently no means of getting on shore 
 to search for a fresh supply. 
 
 When the long-boat and cutter were gone, the 
 captain, and those who were left with him, pro- 
 posed to pass to the northward in the barge and 
 yawl : but the weather was so bad, and the diffi- 
 culty of subsisting so great, that it was two months 
 after the departure of the long-boat before he w.is 
 able to put to sea. It seems the place, where the 
 Wager was cast away, was not a part of the con- 
 tinent, as was first imagined, but an island at some 
 distance from the main, which afforded no other 
 sorts of provision but shell-fish, and a few herbs ; 
 and as the greatest part of what they had gotten 
 from the ship was carried off in the long-boat, the 
 captain and his people were often in great neces- 
 sity, especially as they chose to preserve what little 
 sea-provisions remained, for their store when they 
 should go to the northward. During their resi- 
 dence at this island, which was by the seamen 
 denommated Wager's Island, they had now and 
 then a straggling canoe or two of Indians, which 
 came and bartered their fish and other provisions 
 with our people. This was indeed some little 
 succour, and at another season might perhaps have 
 been greater ; for as there were several Indian 
 huts on the shore, it was supposed that in some 
 years, during the height of summer, many of thesa 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 47 I 
 
 sivvages might resort thither to fish : and from 
 what has been related in the account of the Anna 
 pink, it should seera to be the general practice of 
 those Indians to frequent this coast in the sum- 
 mer-time for the benefit of fishing, and to retire 
 in the winter into a better climate, more to the 
 northward. • 
 
 And, on this mention of the Anna pink, I can- 
 not but observe, how much it is to be lamented 
 that the Wager's people had no knowledge of her 
 being so near them on the coast ; for as she was 
 not above thirty leagues distant from them, and 
 came into their neighbourhood about the same 
 time the Wager was lost, and was a fine roomy 
 ship, she could easily have taken them all on board, 
 and have carried them to Juan Femandes. In- 
 deed, I suspect she was still nearer to them than 
 what is here estimatejl ; for several of the Wager's 
 people, at diffei'ent times, heard the report of a 
 cannon, which I conceive could be no other than 
 the eveping-gun fired from the Anna pink, espe- 
 cially as what was heard at Wager's Island was 
 about the same time of the day. But to return to 
 Captain Cheap. 
 
 Upon the 14th of December, the captain and 
 his people embarked in the barge and the yawl, 
 in order to proceed to the northward, taking on 
 boai'd with them all the provisions they could 
 amass from the wreck of the ship ; but they had 
 scarcely been an hour at sea, when the wind began 
 to blow hard, and the sea ran so high, that they 
 were obliged to throw the greatest part of their 
 provisions overboard, to avoid immediate destruc- 
 tion. This was a terrible misfortune, in a part of 
 the world where food is so difficult to be got : 
 however, they still persisted in their design, putting 
 on shore as often as they could to seek subsistence. 
 But about a fortnight after, another dreadful acci- 
 dent befell them, for the yawl sunk at an anchor, 
 and one of the men in her was drowned ; and as 
 the barge was incapable of carrying the whole 
 company, they were now reduced to the hard 
 necessity of leaving four marines behind them on 
 that desolate shore. But they still kept on their 
 course to the northward, struggling with their 
 disasters, and greatly delayed by the perverseness 
 of the winds, and the frequent interruptions which 
 their search* after food occasioned : till at last, 
 about the end of January, having made three un- 
 successful attempts to double a headland, which 
 they supposed to be what the Spaniards called 
 Cape Tres Montes, it was unanimously resolved to 
 give over this expedition, the difficulties of which 
 appeared insuperable, and to return again to Wa- 
 ger Island, where they got back about the middle 
 of February, quite disheartened and dejected with 
 their reiterated disappointments, and ahnost perish- 
 ing with hunger and fatigue. i: 
 
 However, on their return they had the good 
 luck to meet with several pieces of beef, which 
 had been washed out of the ship, and were swim- 
 ming in the sea. This was a most seasonable relief 
 to them, after the hardships they had endured ; 
 and to complete their good fortune, there came, in 
 a short time, two canoes of Indians, amongst which 
 was a native of Chiloe, who spoke a Uttle Spanish ; 
 and the surgeon, who was with Captain Cheap, un- 
 derstanding that language, he made a bargain with 
 the Indian, that if he would carry the captain and 
 his peppJeito.Cbiloein the barge, he should have 
 
 her, and all that belonged to her, for his pains. Ac- 
 cordingly, on the 6th of March, the eleven persons 
 to which the company was now reduced, embarked 
 in the barge on this new expedition ; but after 
 having proceeded for a few days, the captain and 
 four of his principal officers being on shore, the 
 six, who together with an Indian remained in 
 the barge, put off with her to sea, and did not return. 
 
 By this means there were left on shore, Cap- 
 tain Cheap, Mr. Hamilton lieutenant of marines, 
 the Honourable Mr. Byron, and Mr. Campbel, 
 midshipmen, and Mr. Elliot, the surgeon. On© 
 would have thought that their distresses had long 
 before this time been incapable of augmentation ; 
 but they found, on reflection, that their present 
 situation was much more dismaying than anything 
 they had yet gone through, being left on a desolate 
 coast, without any provision, or the means of pro- 
 curing any ; for their arms, ammunition, and every 
 convenience they were masters of, except the 
 tattered habits they had on, were all carried away 
 in the barge. 
 
 But when they had sufficiently revolved in their 
 own minds the various circumstances of this un- 
 expected calamity, and were persuaded that they 
 had no relief to hope for, they perceived a canoe 
 at a distance, which proved to be that of the Indian, 
 who had undertaken to carry them to Chiloe, he 
 and his family being then on board it. He made 
 no difficulty of coming to them ; for it seems he 
 had left Captain Cheap and his people a little before 
 to go a fishing, and had in the mean time com- 
 mitted them to the care of the other Indian, whom 
 the sailors had carried to sea in the barge. But 
 when he came on shore, and found the barge gone 
 and his companion missing, he was extremely con- 
 cerned, and could with difficulty be persuaded that 
 the other Indian was not murdered ; but, being at 
 last satisfied with the account that was given him, 
 he still undertook to carry them to the Spanish 
 settlements, and (as the Indians are well skilled 
 in fishing and fowling) to procure them provisions 
 by the way. 
 
 About the middle of March, Captain Cheap and 
 the four who were left with him, set out for Chiloe, 
 the Indian having procured a number of canoes, 
 and gotten many of his neighbours together for 
 that purpose. Soon after they embarked, Mr. 
 Elliot the surgeon died, so that there now remained 
 only four of the whole company. At last, after a 
 very complicated passage by land and water. Cap- 
 tain Cheap, Mr. Byron, and Mr. Campbel, arrived 
 in the beginning of June at the island of Chiloe, 
 where they were received by the Spaniards with 
 great humanity ; but, on account cf some quarrel 
 among the Indians, Mr. Hamilton did not get 
 thither till two months after. Thus, above a 
 twelvemonth after the loss of the Wager, ended 
 this fatiguing peregrination, which by a variety 
 of misfortunes had diminished the company from 
 twenty to no more than four,-and those too brought 
 so low, that had their distresses continued but a 
 few days longer, in all probability none of them 
 would have survived. For the captain himself 
 was with difficulty recovered ; and the rest were 
 so reduced by the severity of the weather, their 
 labour, and their want of all kinds of necessaries, 
 that it was wonderful how they supported them- 
 selves so long. After some stay at Chiloe, the 
 captain and the three who were with him were 
 
48 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 Bent to Valparaiso, and thenee to St. Jago, the 
 capital of Chili, where they continued above a year: 
 but on the advice of a cartel being settled between 
 Great Britain and Spain, Captain Cheap, Mr. Byron, 
 and Mr. Hamilton, were permitted to return to 
 Europe on board a French ship. The other mid- 
 shipman, Mr. Campbel, having changed his reli- 
 gion, whilst at St. Jago, chose to go back to Buenos 
 Ayres with Pizarro and his officers, with whom 
 he went afterwards to Spain on board the Asia ; 
 and there having failed in his endeavours to pro- 
 ture a commission from the court of Spain, he 
 returned to England, and attempted to get rein- 
 stated in the British navy ; and has since pub- 
 lished a nan'ation of his adventures, in which he 
 complains of the injustice that had been done him, 
 and strongly disavows his ever beingin the Spanish 
 service : but as the change of his religion, and his 
 offering himself to the court of Spain (though not 
 accepted) are matters which, he is conscious, are 
 capable of being ineontestably proved ; on these 
 two heads he has been entirely silent. And now, 
 after this account of the accidents which befell 
 the Anna pink, and the catastrophe of the Wager, 
 I shall again resume the thread of our own story. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 C(n.!ution of our proceedings at Juan Fernandes,/rom 
 the arrival ofiheAnna pink, to our Jinal departure from 
 thence. 
 
 About a week after the arrival of our victualler, 
 the Tryal sloop, that had been sent to the island 
 of Masa-Fuero, returned to an anchor at Juan 
 Fernandes, after having been round that island, 
 without meeting any part of our squadron. As, 
 upon this occasion, the island of Masa-Fuero was 
 more particularly examined than, I dare say, it 
 had ever' been before, or perhaps ever will be 
 again ; and as the knowledge of it may, in certain 
 circumstances, be of great consequence hereafter, 
 I think it incumbent on me to insert the accounts 
 given of this place, by the officers of the Tryal 
 sloop. 
 
 The Spaniards have generally mentioned two 
 islands, under the name of Juan Fernandes, styling 
 them the greater and the less : the greater being 
 that island where we anchored, and the less being 
 the island we are now describing, which, because 
 it is more distant from the continent, they have 
 distinguished by the name of Masa-Fuero. The 
 Tryal sloop found that it bore from the greater 
 Juan Fernandes W. by S., and was about twenty- 
 two leagues distant It is much larger than has 
 been generally reported ; for former writers have 
 represented it as a barren rock, destitute of wood 
 and water, and altogether inaccessible ; whereas 
 our people found it was covered with trees, and 
 that there were several fine falls of water pouring 
 'lown its sides into the sea : they found too, that 
 there was a place where a ship might come to an 
 anchor on the north side of it, though indeed the 
 itnchorage is inconvenient ; for the bank extends 
 but a little way, is steep too, and has very deep 
 water upon it, so that you must come to an anchor 
 very near the shore, and there lie exposed to all 
 t!ie winds but a southerly one : and besides the 
 inconvenience of the anchorage, there is also a 
 
 reef of rocks running off the eastern point of the 
 island, about two miles in length ; but there is 
 little danger to be feared from them, because they 
 are always to be seen by the seas breaking over 
 them. This place has at present one advantage 
 beyond the island of Juan Fernandes ; for it 
 abounds with goats, who, not being accustomed to 
 be disturbed, were no ways shy or apprehensive 
 of danger, till they had been frequently fired at. 
 These animals reside here in great tranquillity, 
 tTnk Spaniards not having thought the island con- 
 siderable enough to be frequented by their enemies^ 
 and therefore they have not been solicitous in de- 
 stroying the provisions upon it ; so that no dogs 
 have hitherto been set on shore there. And be- 
 sides the goats, our people found there vast num- 
 bers of seals and sea-lions : and upon the whole, 
 they seemed to imagine, that though it was not 
 the most eligible place for a ship to refresh at, yet 
 in case of necessity it might afford some sort of 
 shelter, and prove of considerable use, especially 
 to a single ship, who might apprehend meeting 
 with a superior force at Fernandes. 
 
 The latter part of the month of August was spent 
 in unloading the provisions from the Anna pink ; 
 and here we had the mortification to find that 
 gnnt quantities of our provisions, as bread, rice, 
 gi-oats, &c. were decayed, and unfit for use. Thig 
 Wiis owing to the water the pink had made by 
 her working and straining, in bad weather ; for 
 hereby several of her casks had rotted, and 
 her bags were soaked through. And now, as we 
 hail no farther occasion for her service, the com- 
 modore, pursuant to his orders from the board 
 of Admiralty, sent notice to Mr. Gerard her 
 master, that he discharged the Anna pink from 
 the service of attending the squadron ; and gave 
 him, at the same time, a certificate, specifying 
 how long she had been employed. In consequence 
 of this dismission, her master was at liberty, either 
 to return directly to England, or to make the best 
 of his way to any port, where he thought he could 
 take in such a cargo as would answer the interest 
 of his owners. But the master, being sensible 
 of the bad condition of the ship and of her unfit- 
 ness for any such voyage, \vrote the next day an 
 answer to the commodore's message, acquainting 
 Mr. Anson that, from the great quantity of water 
 the pink had made in her passage round Cape 
 Hora, and since that, in the tempestuous weather 
 he had met with on the coast of Chili, he had 
 reason to apprehend that her bottom was very 
 much decayed ; and that besides, her upper-works 
 were rotten abaft ; that she was extremely leaky ; 
 that her fore-beam was broke ; and that, in his 
 opinion, it was impossible to proceed to sea with 
 her, before she had been thoroughly refitted : he 
 therefore requested the commodore, that the car- 
 penters of the squadron might be directed to 
 survey her, that their judgment of her condition 
 might be knoWn. In compliance with this desire, 
 Mr. Anson immediately ordered the carpenters to 
 take a careful and strict survey of the Anna pink, 
 and to give him a faithful report under their hands 
 of the condition in which they found her, directing 
 them at the same time to proceed herein with 
 such circumspection, that, if they should be here- 
 after called upon, they might be able to make oath 
 of the veracity of their proceedings. Pursuant tc 
 these orders, the carpenters immediately set about 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 49 
 
 tiie examination, and the next day made their 
 report ; which was, that the pink liad no less 
 tlian fourteen knees and twelve beams broken 
 and decayed ; that one breast-hook was broken, 
 and another rotten ; that her water-ways were 
 open and decayed ; that two standards were 
 broken, as also several clamps, besides others 
 which were rotten ; that all her iron-work was 
 greatly decayed ; that her spirkiting and timbers 
 were very rotten ; and that, having ripped off 
 part of her sheathing, they found her wales and 
 outside planks extremely defective, and her bows 
 and decks very leaky ; and in consequence of 
 these defects and decays, they certified, that in 
 their opinion she could not depart from the island 
 without great hazard, unless she was first of all 
 thoroughly refitted. 
 
 The thorough refitting of the Anna pink, pro- 
 posed by the carpenters, was in our present situ- 
 ation impossible to be complied with, as all the 
 plank and iron in the squadron was insufficient 
 for that purpose. And now the master finding 
 his own sentiments confirmed by the opinion of 
 all the carpenters, he offered a petition to the 
 commodore in behalf of his owners, desiring that, 
 since it appeared he was incapable of leaving the 
 island, Mr. Anson would please to purchase the 
 hull and furniture of the pink for the use of the 
 squadron. Hereupon the commodore ordered an 
 inventory to be taken of every particular belong- 
 ing to the pink, with its just value : and as by 
 this inventory it appeared that there were many 
 stores which would be useful in refitting the other 
 ships, and which were at present very scarce in 
 the squadron, by reason of the great quantities 
 that had been already expended, he agreed with 
 Mr. Gerard to purchase the whole together for 
 three hundred pounds. The pinlc being thus 
 broken up, Mr. Gei-ard, with the hands belonging 
 to the pink, were sent on board the Gloucester ; 
 ■as that ship had buried the greatest number of 
 men in proportion to her complement. But after- 
 wards, one or two of them were received on board 
 the Centurion on their own petition, they being 
 extremely averse to sailing in the same ship with 
 their old master, on account of some particular 
 ill usage they conceived they had suffered from 
 tiim. 
 
 This transaction brought us down to the begin- 
 ning of September, and our people by this time 
 were so far recovered of the .scurvy, that there 
 was little danger of burying any more at present ; 
 and therefore I shall now sum up the total of 
 ■our loss since our departure from England, the 
 better to convey some idea of our past suffer- 
 ings, and of our present strength. We had 
 buried on board the Centurion, since our leaving 
 St. Helens, two hundred and ninety-two, and had 
 now remaining on board two hundred and four- 
 teen. This will doubtless appear a most extra- 
 ordinary mortality : but yet on board the Glou- 
 -cester it had been much greater ; for out of a 
 much smaller crew than ours they had buried 
 the same number, and had only eighty-two 
 remaining alive. It might be expected that on 
 board the Tryal, the slaughter would have been 
 the most terrible, as her decks were almost con- 
 stantly knee-deep in water ; but it happened 
 otherwise, for she escaped more favourably than 
 *he rest, since she only buried forty-two, ajid had 
 
 now thirty-nine remaining alive. The havoc of 
 this disease had fallen still severer on the invalids 
 and marines than on the sailors ; for on board 
 the Centurion, out of fifty invalids and seventy- 
 nine marines, there remained only four invalids 
 including officers, and eleven marines ; and on 
 board the Gloucester every invalid perished ; and 
 out of forty-eight marines, only two escaped. 
 From this account it appears, that the three 
 ships together departed from England with nine 
 hundred and sixty-one men on board, of whom 
 six hundred and twenty-six were dead before this 
 time ; so that the whole of our remaining crews, 
 which were now to be distributed amongst three 
 ships, amounted to no more than three hundred 
 and thirty-five men and boys ; a number greatly 
 insufficient for the manning the Centurion alone, 
 and barely capable of navigating all the three, 
 with the utmost exertion of their strength and 
 vigour. This prodigious reduction of our men 
 was still the more terrifying, as we were hitherto 
 uncertain of the fate of Pizarro's squadron, and 
 had reason to suppose, that some part of it at 
 least had got round into these seas : indeed, we 
 were satisfied, from our own experience, that they 
 must have suffered greatly in their passage ; but 
 then every port in the South Seas was open to 
 them, and the whole power of Chili and Peru 
 would doubtless be united in refreshing and 
 refitting them, and recruiting the numbers they 
 had lost. Besides, we had some obscure know- 
 ledge of a force to be refitted out from Callao ; 
 and, however contemptible the ships and sailors 
 of this part of the world may have been gene- 
 rally esteemed, it was scarcely possible for any 
 thing, bearing the name of a ship of force, to be 
 feebler or less considerable than ourselves. And 
 had there been nothing to be apprehended from 
 the naval power of the Spaniards in this part 
 of the world, yet our enfeebled condition would 
 nevertheless give us the greatest uneasiness, as 
 we were incapable of attempting any of their 
 considerable places ; for the risking of twenty 
 men, weak as we then were, was risking the safety 
 of the whole : so that we conceived we should be 
 necessitated to content ourselves with what few 
 prizes we could pick up at sea, before we were 
 discovered ; after which, we should in all proba- 
 bility be obliged to depart with precipitation, and 
 esteem ourselves fortunate to regain our native 
 country, leaving our enemies to triumph in the 
 inconsiderable mischief they had received from a 
 squadron, whose equipment had filled them with 
 such dreadful apprehensions. This was a subject 
 on which we had reason to imagine the Spanish 
 ostentation would remarkably exert itself ; though 
 the causes of our disappointment and their security 
 were neither to be sought for in their valour nor 
 our misconduct. 
 
 Such were the desponding reflections which at 
 that time arose on the review and comparison of 
 our remaining strength with our original numbers: 
 indeed our fears were far from being groundless, 
 or disproportioned to our feeble and almost despe- 
 rate situation. It is true, the final event proved 
 more honourable than we had foreboded ; but 
 the intermediate calamities did likewise greatly 
 surpass our most gloomy apprehensions, and 
 could they have been predicted to us at this 
 island of Juan Fernandes, they would doubtless 
 
ftO 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 have appeared insurmountable. But to return 
 from this digression. 
 
 In the beginning of September, as has been al- 
 ready mentioned, our men were tolerably well 
 recovered; and now, the time of navigation in 
 this climate drawing near, we exerted ourselves 
 in getting our ships in readiness for the sea. We 
 converted the fore-mast of the victualler into a 
 main-mast for the Tryal sloop ; and still flattering 
 ourselves with the possibility of the arrival of 
 some other ships of our squadron, we intended to 
 leave the main-mast of the victualler, to make 
 a mizen-mast for the Wager. Thus aU hands 
 being employed in forwarding our departure, we, 
 on the 8th, about eleven in the morning, espied a 
 sail to the N.E., which continued to approach us, 
 till her courses appeared even with the horizon. 
 In this interval we all had hopes she might prove 
 one of our own squadron ; but at length finding 
 she steered away to the eastward, without hauling 
 in for the island, we concluded she must be a 
 Spaniard. And now great disputes were set on 
 foot about the possibility of her having discovered 
 our tents on shore, some of us strongly insisting, 
 that she had doubtless been near enough to have 
 perceived something that had given her a jealousy 
 of an enemy, which had occasioned her standing 
 to the eastward without hauling in ; but leavmg 
 these contests *o be settled afterwards, it was re- 
 solved to pursue her, and, the Centurion being in 
 the greatest forwardness, we immpiiiately got all our 
 hands on board, set up our rigging, bent our sails, 
 andbyfivein the afternoongotundersail. Wehadat 
 this time very little wind, so that all the boats were 
 employed to tow us out of the bay ; and even what 
 wind there was lasted only long enough to give us an 
 offing n,' two or three leagues, when it flattened to 
 a calm The night coming on we lost sight of 
 the chase, and were extremely impatient for the 
 return of day-light, in hopes to find that she had 
 been becalmed as well as we ; though I must con- 
 fess, that her grea ter distance from the land was a 
 reasonable ground for suspecting the contrary, as 
 we indeed found in the morning, to our great mor- 
 tification ; for though the weather continued per- 
 fectly clear, we had no sight of the ship from the 
 mast-head. But as we were now satisfied that it 
 was an enemy, and the first we had seen in these 
 seas, we resolved not to give over the search lightly; 
 and, a small breeze springing up from the W.N. W., 
 we got up our top-gallant masts and yards, set 
 all the saUs, and steered to the S.E., in hopes 
 of retrieving our chase, which we imagined to be 
 bound to Valparaiso. We continued on this course 
 all that day and the next, and then not getting 
 sight of our chase we gave over the pursuit, con- 
 ceiving that by that time she must in all probability 
 have reached her port. And now we prepared to 
 return to Juan Fernandes, and hauled up to the S.W. 
 with that view, having but very little wind till the 
 r2th, when, at three in the morning, there spi-ang 
 cp a fresh gale from the W.S.W., and we tacked 
 and stood to the H.W. : and at day-break we were 
 agreeably surprised with the sight of a sail on our 
 weather-bow, ijetween four and five leagues distant. 
 On this we crowded all the sail we could, and 
 stood after her, and soon perceived it not to be the 
 same ship we originally gave chase to. She at 
 first bore down upon us, showing Spanish coloura, 
 And maldng a signal, as to her consort ; but observ- 
 
 ing that we did not answer her signal, she instantly 
 luffed close to the wind, and stood to the south- 
 ward. Our people were now all in spirits, and 
 put the ship about with great alacrity ; and as the 
 chase appeared to be a large ship, and had mis- 
 taken us for her consort, we conceived that she 
 was a man of war, and probably one of Pizarro's 
 squadron: this induced the commodore to order 
 all the officers' cabins to be knocked down and 
 thrown overboard, with several casks of water and 
 provisions which stood between the guns ; SO that 
 we had soon a clear ship ready for an engagement. 
 About nine o'clock we had thick hazy weather 
 and a shower of rain, during which we lost sight 
 of the chase ; and we were apprehensive, if the 
 weather should continue, that by going upon the 
 other tack, or by some other artifice, she might 
 escape us ; but it clearing up in less than an hour,, 
 we found that we had both weathered and fore- 
 reached upon her considerably ; and now we wei-e 
 near enough to discover that she was only a 
 merchantman, without so much as a single tier of 
 guns. About half an hour after twelve, being then 
 within a reasonable distance of her, we fired four 
 shot amongst her rigging ; on which they lowered 
 their top-sails and bore down to us, but in very 
 great confusion, their top-gallant sails and stay- 
 sails all fluttering in the wind : this was owing to 
 their having let run their sheets and halyards just 
 as we fired at them ; after which, not a man 
 amongst them had courage enough to venture 
 aloft (for there the shot had passed but just before) 
 to take them in. As soon as the vessel came 
 within hail of us, the commodore ordered them to 
 bring-to under his lee quarter, and then hoisted 
 out the boat, and sent Mr. Saumarez, his first 
 lieutenant, to take possession of the prize, with 
 directions to send all the prisoners on board the 
 Centurion, but first the officers and passengers. 
 When Mr. Saumarez came on board them, they re- 
 ceived him at the side with the strongest tokens of 
 the most abject submission; for they were all of them 
 (especially the passengers, who were twenty-five in 
 number) extremely terrified, and under the great- 
 est apprehensions of meeting with very severe and 
 cruel usage ; but the lieutenant endeavoured, with 
 great courtesy, to dissipate their fright, assuring 
 them that their fears were altogether groundless, 
 and that they would find a generous enemy in the 
 commodore, who was not less remarkable for his 
 lenity and humanity, than for his resolution and 
 courage. The prisoners, who were first sent on 
 board the Centurion, informed us, that our prize 
 was called Nuestra Senora del Monte Carmclo, 
 and was commanded by Don Manuel Zamorra. 
 Her cargo consisted chiefly of sugar, and great 
 quantities of blue cloth made in the province of 
 Quito, somewhat resembhng our English coarse 
 broad cloths, but inferior to them. They had 
 besides several bales of a coareer sort of cloth, of 
 different colours, somewhat like Colchester bays, 
 called by them pannia da iierra, with a few bale* 
 of cotton and tobacco ; which, though strong, was 
 not ill flavoured. These were the principal goods 
 on board her ; but we found besides, what was to 
 us much more valuable than the rest of the cargo 
 this was some trunks of wrought plate, and twenty 
 three seroous of dollars, each weighing upwards ol 
 20l)lbs. avoirdupois. The ship's burthen was about' 
 four hundi-ed and fifty tons; she had fifty-tliret 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WOKtD. 
 
 6V 
 
 sailors on board, both whites, and blacks ; she 
 came from Callao, and had been twenty-seven days 
 at sea, before she fell into our hands. She was 
 bound to the port of Valparaiso in the kingdom of 
 Chili, and proposed to have returned from thence 
 loaded with corn and Chili wiiie, some gold, dried 
 beef, and small cordage, which at Callao they con- 
 vert into larger rope. Our prize had been built 
 upwai-ds of thirty years ; yet as they lie in har- 
 bour all the winter months, and the climate is 
 favom-able, they esteemed it no very great age. 
 Her rigging was very indifferent, as were like- 
 wise her sails, which were made of cotton. She 
 had only three four -pounders, which were 
 altogether unserviceable, their carriages being 
 scarcely able t'o support them ; and there were no 
 fuaiX arms on board, except a few pistols, belong- 
 ing to the passengers. The pi-isoners informed us 
 that they left Callao in company with two other 
 ships, whom they had parted with some days 
 before, and that at first they conceived , us to be 
 one of their company ; and by the description we 
 gave them of the ship we had chased from Juan 
 Fernandes, they assured us, she was of their num- 
 ber, but that the coming in sight of tlrnt island was 
 lirectly repugnant to the merchants' instructions, 
 who had expressly forbid it, as knowing that if any 
 Elnglish squadron was in those seas, the island of 
 Fernandes was most probably the place of their 
 rendezvous. 
 
 And now, after this short account of the ship 
 ind her cargo, it is necessary that I should relate 
 the important intelligence which we met with on 
 board her, partly from the information of the 
 prisonei-s, and partly from the letters and papers 
 which fell into our hands. We here first learnt 
 with certainty the force and destination of that 
 squadron, which cruised off the Madeiras at our 
 arrival there, and afterwards chased the Pearl in 
 our passage to port St. Julian. This we now knew 
 was a squadron composed of five large Spanish ships, 
 commanded by Admiral Pizarro, and purposely 
 fitted out to traverse our designs ; as hath been 
 already more amply related in the 3rd chapter of 
 the Ist book. And we had, at the same time, the 
 satisfaction to find, that Pizarro, after his utmost 
 endeavours to gain his passage into these seas, had 
 been forced back again into the river of Plate, with 
 the loss of two of his largest ships : and besides 
 this disappointment of Pizarro, which considering 
 our great debility, was no unacceptable intelligence, 
 we farther learnt that an embargo had been laid 
 upon all shipping in these seas, by the viceroy of 
 Peru, in the month of May preceding, on a suppo- 
 sition that about that time we might arrive upon 
 the coast. But on the account sent over-land by 
 Pizarro of his own distresses, part of which they 
 knew we must have encountered, as we were at 
 sea during the same time, and on their having no 
 news of us in eight months after we were known 
 to set sail from St. Catherine's, they were fully 
 persuaded that we were either shipwrecked, or 
 had perished at sea, or at least had been obliged to 
 put back again ; for it was conceived impossible for 
 any ships to continue at sea during so long an in- 
 terval : and therefore, on the application of the 
 merchants, and the firm persuasion of our having 
 miscarried, the embargo had been lately taken 
 off. 
 
 , This last article made us flatter ourselves, that, 
 
 as the enemyiwas still a stranger to our having got 
 round Cape Horn, and the navigation of these seas 
 was restored, we might meet with some consider- 
 able captures, and might thereby indemnify our- 
 selves for the incapacity we were now under of 
 attempting any of their considerable settlements 
 on shore. And thus much we were certain of, 
 from the information of our prisoners, that, what- 
 ever our success might be as to the prizes we 
 might light on, we had nothing to fear, weak as 
 we were, from the Spanish force in this part o{ 
 the world ; though we discovered that we had 
 been in most imminent peril from the enemy, wheii 
 we least apprehended it, and when our other di^- 
 tresses were at the greatest height ; for we learnt, 
 fi'ora the letters on board, that Pizarro, in the ex' 
 press he despatched to the viceroy of Peru, after 
 his return to the river of Plate, had intimated t* 
 him, that it was possible some part, at least, of the 
 English squadron might get round : but that, as ht 
 was certain from his own experience, that if they 
 did arrive in those seivs, it must be in a very weak 
 and defenceless condition, he advised the viceroy^ 
 in order to be secure at all events, to fit out what 
 ships of force he had, and send them to the south 
 ward, where, in all probability, they would inter- 
 cept us singly, and before we had an op[>ortunity 
 of touching anywhere for refreshment ; in which 
 case, he doubted not but we should prove an easy 
 conquest. The viceroy of Peru approved of this- 
 advice, and immediately fitted out four ships of 
 force from Callao ; one of fifty guns, two of forty 
 guns, and one of twenty-four guns : three of them 
 were stationed off the port of Conception, and one 
 of them at the island of Fernandes ; and in these 
 stations they continued cruising for us till the 6 th 
 of June, when not seeing anything of us, and con- 
 ceiving it to be impossible tliat we could have 
 kept the seas so long, they quitted their cruise 
 and returned to Callao, fully satisfied that we had 
 either perished, or at least had been driven back. 
 As the time of their quitting their station was but 
 a few days before our arrival at the island of Fer- 
 nandes, it is evident, that had we made that island 
 on our first search for it, without hauling in for the 
 main to secure our easting, (a circumstance which 
 at that time we considered as very unfortunate to 
 us, on account of the numbers which we lost by 
 our longer continuance at sea) had we, 1 say, made 
 the island on the 28th of May, when we first ex- 
 pected to see it, and were in reality very near it, 
 we had doubtless fallen in with some part of the 
 Spanish squadron ; and in the distressed condition 
 we were then in, the meetiug with a healthy well- 
 provided enemy was an incident that could not 
 but have been perplexing, and might perhaps have 
 proved fatal, not only to us, but to the Tryal, the 
 Gloucester, and the Anna pink, who separately 
 joined us, and who were each of them less 
 capable than we were of making any considerable 
 resistance. I shall only add, that these Spanish 
 ships, sent out to intercept us, had been greatly 
 shattered by a storm during their cruise ; and 
 that, after their arrival at Callao, they had been laid 
 up. And our prisoners assured us, that whenever 
 intelligence was received at Lima of our being in 
 these seas, it would be at least two months before 
 this armament could be again fitted out. 
 
 The whole of this intelligence was as favourable 
 as we in our reduced circumstances could wish for> 
 
52 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 And now we were fully satisfied as to the broken 
 jar«, ashes, and fish-bones, which we had observed 
 at our first landing at Juan Fernandes, these things 
 being doubtless the relics of the craisers stationed 
 off that port. Having thus satisfied ourselves in 
 thp material articles, and having gotten on board 
 the Centurion most of the prisoners, and all the 
 silver, we, at eight in the same evening, made sail 
 to the northward, in company with our prize, and 
 at six the next morning discovered the island of 
 Fernandes, where, the next day, both we and our 
 prize came to an anchor. 
 
 And here I cannot omit one remarkable incident 
 which occurred, when the prize and her crew came 
 into the bay, where the rest of the squadron lay. 
 The Spaniards in the Carmelo had been sufficiently 
 informed of the distresses we had gone through, 
 and were greatly surprised that we had ever sur- 
 mounted them : but when they saw the Tryal 
 flloop at anchor, they were still more astonished, 
 that after all our fatigues, we had the industry 
 {besides refitting our other ships) to complete such 
 A vessel in so short a time, they taking it for granted 
 that she had been built upon the spot. And it was 
 with great difficulty they were prevailed on to be- 
 lieve that she came from England with the rest 
 «f the squadron ; they at first insisting, that it 
 •was impossible sucVi a bauble as that could pass 
 round Cape Horn, when the best ships of Spain 
 were obliged to put back. 
 
 By the time we arrived at Juan Fernandes, the 
 letters found on board our prize were more mi- 
 nutely examined : and, it appearing from them, 
 und from the accounts of our prisoners, that several 
 other merchantmen were bound from Callao to 
 Valparaiso, Mr. Anson despatched the Tryal sloop 
 tile very next morning to cruise off the last-men- 
 tioned port, reinforcing him with ten hands from 
 ■on board his own ship. Mr. Anson likewise re- 
 fiolved, on the intelligence recited above, to sep,arate 
 the ships under his command, and employ them 
 in distinct cruises, as he thought that by this means 
 we should not only increase our chance for prizes, 
 but that we should likewise run a less risk of 
 ■alarming the coast, and of being discovered " And 
 now the spirits of our people being greatly raised, 
 and their despondency dissipated by this earnest 
 of success, they forgot all their past distresses, and 
 resumed their wonted alacrity, and laboured inde- 
 fatigably in completing our water, receiving our 
 lumber, and in preparing to take our farewell of 
 the island : but as these occupations took us up 
 four or five days with ail our industry, the com- 
 modore, in that interval, directed that the guns 
 belonging to the Anna pink,beingfour six-pounders, 
 four four-pounders, and two swivels, should be 
 mounted on board the Carmelo, our prize : and 
 having sent on board the Gloucester six passengers, 
 and twenty-three seamen to assist in navigating 
 the ship, he directed Captain Mitchel to leave the 
 island as soon as possible, the service requiring 
 the utmost despatch, ordering him to proceed to 
 the latitude of five degrees South, and there to 
 cruise off the highland of Paita, at such a distance 
 from shore as should prevent his being discovered. 
 On this station he was to continue till he should 
 be joined by the commodore, which would be 
 whenever it should be known that the viceroy 
 <iad fitted out the ships at Callao, or on Mr. 
 Anson's receiving any other intelligence, that 
 
 should make it necessary to unite our strength 
 These orders being delivered to the captain of 
 the Gloucester, and all our business completed, 
 we, on the Saturday following, being the 19th of 
 September, weighed our anchor, in company with 
 our prize, and got out of the bay, taking our hist 
 leave of the island of Juan Fernandes, and steer- 
 ing to the eastward, with an intention of joining 
 the Tryal sloop in her station off' Valparaiso. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Our cruise^ from the time of our leaving Juan Fernanda, 
 to the taking the town of Paita. 
 
 Althodgh th4 Centurion, with her prize, the 
 Cai-meJo, weighed from the bay of Juan Fernandes 
 on the 19th of September, leaving the Gloucester 
 at anchor behind her ; yet, by the irregularity and 
 fluctuation of the winds in the offing, it was the 
 22nd of the same month, in the evening, before we 
 lost sight of the island : after which, we continued 
 our course to the eastward, in order to reach our 
 station, and to join the Tryal off Valparaiso. The 
 next night, the weather proved squally, and we 
 split our maintop-sail, which we handed for the 
 present, but got it repaired, and set it again the 
 next morning. And now, on the 24th, a little 
 before sunset, we saw two sail to the eastward ; 
 on which, our prize stood directly from us, to 
 avoid giving any suspicion of our being cruisers ; 
 whilst we, in the mean time, made ourselves ready 
 for an engagement, and steered towards the two 
 ships we had discovered with all our canvas. We 
 soon perceived that one of these, which had the 
 appearance of being a very stout ship, made directly 
 for us, whilst the other kept at a very great dis- 
 tance. By seven o'clock we were within pistol- 
 shot of the nearest, and had a broadside ready to 
 pour into her, the gunners having their matches 
 in their hands, and only waiting for orders to firej 
 but as we knew it was now impossible for her to 
 escape us, Mr. Anson, before he permitted them to 
 fire, ordered the master to hail the ship in Spanish; 
 on which the commanding officer on board her, who 
 proved to be Mr. Hughs, lieutenant of the Tryal, 
 answered us in English, and informed us, that she 
 was a prize taken by the Tryal a few days before, 
 and that the other sail at a distance was the Tryal 
 herself, disabled ui her masts. We were soon 
 after joined by the Tryal ; and Captain Saunders, 
 her commander, came on board the Centurion. 
 He informed the commodore, that he had taken 
 this ship the 18th instant ; that she was a prime 
 sailer, and had cost him thirty-six hours' chase, 
 before he could come up with her ; that for some 
 time he gained so little upon her, that he began to 
 despair of taking her ; and the Spaniards, though 
 alarmed at first with seeing nothing but a cloud 
 of sail in pursuit of them, the Tryal's hull being 
 so low in the water that no part of it appeared, 
 yet knowing the goodness of their ship, and find- 
 ing how little the Tryal neared them, they at length 
 laid aside then* fears, and, recommending them- 
 selves to the blessed Virgin for protection, began 
 to think themselves secure. And indeed their 
 success was very near doing honour to their Ave 
 Marias ; for, altering their course in the night, 
 and shutting up their windows to prevent any of 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGl!, ivOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 6a 
 
 their lights from being seen, they had some chance 
 of escaping ; but a small crevice in one of the 
 shutters rendered all their invocations ineffectual; 
 for through tliis crevice the people on board the 
 Tryal perceived a light, which they chased, till 
 they arrived within gun-shot ; and then Captain 
 Saunders alarmed them unexpectedly with a broad- 
 side, when they flattered themselves they were got 
 out of his reach : however, for some time after 
 they still kept the same sail abroad, and it was 
 lot observed that this first salute had made any 
 impression on them ; but, just as the Tryal was 
 preparing to repeat her broadside, the Spaniards 
 crept from their holes, lowered their sails, and 
 submitted without any opposition. She was one 
 of the largest merchantmen employed in those 
 seas, being about six hundred tons burthen, and 
 was called the Arranzazu. She was bound from 
 Callao to Valparaiso, and had much the same 
 cargo with the Carmelo we had taiien before, 
 except that her silver amounted ^nly to about 
 5000;. sterhng. 
 
 But to balance this success, we had the mis- 
 foi-tune to find that the Tryal had sprung her 
 main-mast, and that her maintop-mast had come 
 by the board ; and as we were all of us standing 
 to tlie eastward the next morning, with a fresh 
 gale at South, she had the additional ill-luck to 
 spring her fore-mast : so that now she had not a 
 mast left, on which she could carry sail. These 
 unhappy incidents were still aggravated by the 
 impossibility we were just then under of assisting 
 her ; for the wind blew so hard, and raised sucn 
 a hollow sea, that we could not venture to hoist 
 out our boat, and consequently could have no 
 communication with her ; so that we were obliged 
 to lie-to for the greatest part of forty-eight hours 
 to attend her, as we could have no thought of 
 leaving her to herself in her present unhappy 
 situation : and as an accumulation to our misfor- 
 tunes, we were all the while di'iving to the leeward 
 of our station, at the very time when, by our intel- 
 ligence, we had reason to expect several of the 
 enemy's ships would appear upon the coast, who 
 would now gain the port of Valparaiso without 
 obstruction. And I am verily persuaded, that 
 the ei nbarrassment we received from the dismast- 
 ing of the Tryal, and our absence from our intended 
 station occasioned thereby, deprived us of some 
 very considerable captures. 
 
 The weather proving somewhat more moderate 
 on the 27th, we sent our boat for the captain of 
 the Tryal, who, when he came on board us, pro- 
 duced an instrument, signed by himself and all his 
 officers, representing that the sloop, besides being 
 dismasted, was so very leaky m her hull, that even 
 in moderate weather it was necessary to keep the 
 pumps constantly at work, and that they were then 
 scarcely sufficient to keep her free ; so that in the 
 late gale, though they had all been engaged at the 
 pumps by turns, yet the water had increased upon 
 them ; and, upon the whole, they apprehended her 
 to be at present so very defective, that if they met 
 with much bad weather, they must all inevitably 
 perish ; and therefore they petitioned the commo- 
 dore to take some measures for their future safety. 
 But the refitting of the Tryal, and the repairing 
 of her defects, was an undertaking that in the pre- 
 sent conjuncture greatly exceeded his power ; for 
 we had no masts to spare her, we had uo stores to 
 
 complete her rigging, nor had we any port where 
 she might be hove down, and her bottom examined: 
 besides had a poi-t and proper requisites for this 
 purpose been in our possession, yet it would have 
 been extreme imprudence, in so critical a conjunc- 
 ture, to have loitered away so much time as would 
 have been necessary for these operations'. The 
 commodore therefore had no choice left him, but 
 that of taking out her people, and destroying herr 
 but, at the same time, as he conceived it necessary 
 for his Majesty's service to keep up the appearance 
 of our force, he appointed the Tryal's prize (which 
 had been often employed by the viceroy of Peru 
 as a man of war) to be a frigate in his Majesty's 
 service, manning her with the Tryal's crew, and 
 giving new commissions to the captain and all the 
 inferior officei-s accordingly. This new frigate, 
 when in the Spanish service, had mounted thirty- 
 two guns ; but she was now to have only twenty,, 
 which were the twelve that were on board the 
 Tryal, and eight that had belonged to the Anna 
 pink. When this affair was thus far regulated, 
 Mr. Anson gave orders to Captain Saunders to 
 put it in execution, directing him to take out of the 
 sloop the arms, stores, ammunition, and every 
 thing that could be of any use to the other ships, 
 and then to scuttle her and sink her. And after 
 Captain Saunders had seen her destroyed, he w aa 
 to proceed with his new frigate (to be called the 
 Tryal's prize) and to cruise off the highland of 
 Valparaiso, keeping it from him N.N.W., at the 
 distance of twelve or fourteen leagues : for as all 
 ships bound from Valparaiso to the northward steer 
 that course, Mr. Anson proposed by this means 
 to stop any intelligence, that might be despatched 
 to Callao, of two of their ships being missing, which 
 might give them apprehensions of the English 
 squadron being in their neighbourhood. Tlie 
 Tryal's prize was to continue on this station 
 twenty-four days, and, if not joined by the com- 
 modore at the expiration of that term, she wa» 
 then to proceed down the coast to Pisco or Nasca, 
 where she would be certain to meet with Mr. An- 
 son. The commodore likewise ordered lieutenant 
 Saumarez, who commanded the Centurion's prize, 
 to keep company with Captain Saunders, both to- 
 assist him in unloading the sloop, and also that, 
 by spreading in their cruise, there might be less 
 danger of any of the enemy's ships slipping by 
 unobserved. These orders being despatched, the 
 Centurion parted from them at eleven in the even- 
 ing, on the 27th of September, directing her course 
 to the southward, with a view of cruising for som^ 
 days to the windward of Valparaiso. 
 
 And now by this disposition of our ships we 
 flattered ourselves, that we had taken all the 
 advantages of the enemy that we possibly could 
 with our small force, since our disposition was 
 doubtless the most prudent that could be project- 
 ed. For, as we might suppose the Gloucester by 
 this time to be drawing near her station off the 
 highland of Paita, we were enabled, by our sepa- 
 rate stations, to intercept all vessels employed 
 either betwixt Peru and Chili to the southward, 
 or betwixt Panama and Peru to the northwardr 
 since the principal trade from Peru to Chili being 
 carried on to the port of Valparaiso, the Centurion 
 cruising to the windward of Valparaiso, would, in 
 all probability, meet with them, as it is the con- 
 stant practice of those ships to lull in with the 
 
^4 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 coast, to the windward of that port : and the 
 <ilouce8ter would, in like manner, lie in the way 
 of the trade bound from Panama or the northward, 
 to any part of Peru ; since the highland off which 
 «he was stationed \= constantly made by all ships 
 in that voyage And whilst the Centurion and 
 Gloucester were chus situated for interrupting the 
 enemy's trade, the Tryal's prize and Centurion's 
 prize were as conveniently stationed for prevent- 
 ing all intelligence, by intercepting all ships bound 
 from Valparaiso to the northward ; for it was on 
 board these vessels that it was to be feared so»ie 
 account of us might possibly be sent to Peru. 
 
 But the most pi'udent dispositions carry with 
 thera only a probability of success, and can never 
 insure its certainty: since those chances, which 
 it was reasonable to overlook in deliberations, are 
 sometimes of most powerful influence in execution. 
 Thus in the present case, the distress of the Tryal, 
 and the quitting our station to assist her (events 
 which no degree of prudence could either foresee 
 or obviate) gave an opportunity to all the ships, 
 bound to Valparaiso, to reach that pore without 
 molestation, during this unlucky interval.' ^ So that 
 though, after leaving Captain Saunders, we were 
 very expeditious in regaining our station, where 
 we got the 29th at noon, yet in plying on and off 
 till the ()th of October, we had not the good lortunc 
 to discover a sail of any sort : and then, havin" 
 lost all hopes of making any advantage by a longer 
 stay, we made sail to the leeward of the port, in 
 order to join our prizes ; but when we arrived on 
 the station appointed for them, we did not meet 
 A'ith them, though we continued there four or five 
 days. We supposed that some chase had occa- 
 sioned their leaving their station, and therefore we 
 proceeded down the coast to the highland of Nasca, 
 ^\'he^e Captain Saunders was directed to join us. 
 Here we arrived on the 21st, and were in great 
 expectation of meeting with some of the enemy's 
 6hii>s on the coast, as both the accounts of former 
 royages, and the information of our prisoners 
 assured us, that all ships bound to Callao constantly 
 make this laud to prevent the danger of running 
 to the leeward of the port. But notwithstanding 
 the advantages of this station, we saw no sail till 
 the 2nd of November, when two ships appeared in 
 sight together ; we immediately gave them chase, 
 but soon perceived that they were the Tryal's and 
 Centurion's prizes : as they had the wind of us, 
 we brought to and waited their coming up ; when 
 Captain Saunders came on board us, and acquainted 
 the commodore, that he had cleared the Tryal 
 pursuant to his orders, and having scuttled hei-, 
 he remained by her till she sunk, but that it was 
 the 4 th of October before this was effected ; for 
 there ran so large and hollow a sea, that the sloop, 
 having neither masts nor sails to steady her, relied 
 and pitched so violently, that it was impossible for 
 a boat to lay along-side of her, for the greatest 
 part of the time : and during this attendance on 
 the sloop, they were all driven so far to the north- 
 west, that they were afterwards obliged to stretch 
 a long way to the wcutward to regain the gi'ound 
 they had lost ; wliich was the reason that we had 
 not met with them on their station as we expected. 
 We found they had not been more fortunate in 
 their cruise than we were, for they had seen no 
 vessel since they separated from us. The little 
 iuccesiS we all had, and our eertaiuty, tliat had any 
 
 ships been stirring in these seas for some time pasti 
 we must have met with them, made us believo,i 
 that the enemy at Valparaiso, on the missing of 
 the two ships we had taken, had suspected us to be 
 in the neighbourhood, and had consequently laid 
 an embargo on all the trade in the southern parts. 
 We likewise apprehended, that they might by this 
 time be fitting out the men of war at Callao ; for 
 we knew that it was no uncommon thing for an 
 express from Valparaiso to reach Lima in twenty- 
 nine or thirty days, and it was now more than fifty 
 since we had taken our first prize. These appre- 
 hensions of an embargo along the coast, and of the 
 equipment of the Spanish squadron at Callao, 
 determined the commodore to hasten down to the 
 leeward of Callao, and to join Captain Mitchel 
 (who was stationed off Paita) as soon as possible, 
 that our strength being united, we might be pre- 
 pared to give the ships from Callao a warm 
 reception, if they dared to put to sea. With this 
 view we bore away the same afternoon, taking 
 particular care to keep at such a distance from 
 the shore, that there might be no danger of our 
 being discovered from thence ; for we knew that 
 all the country ships were commanded, under the 
 severest penalty, not to sail by the poi*t of Callao 
 without stopping ; and as this order was con- 
 stantly complied with, 'ire should undoubtedly be 
 known for enemies, if <« were seen to act contrary 
 to it. In this new navigation, not being certain 
 whether we might not meet the Spanish squadron 
 ui our route, the commodore took on board the 
 Centurion part of his crew, with which he had 
 formerly manned the Carmelo. And now standing 
 to the northward, we, before night came on, had 
 a view of the small island called St. Gallan, which 
 bore from us N.N.E. ^ E., about seven leagues 
 distant. This island Ues in the latitude of about 
 fourteen degrees South, and about five miles to 
 the northward of a highland, called Morro Veijo, 
 or the old man's head. I mention this island, 
 and the highland near it, more particularly, 
 because between them is the most eligible station 
 on that coast for cruising upon the enemy ; as all 
 ships bound to Callao, whether from the north- 
 ward or the southward, run well in with the land 
 in this part. By the 5th of November, at three 
 in the afternoon, we were advanced within view 
 of the highland of Barranca, lying in the latitude 
 of 10" 36' South, bearing from us N. E. by E., 
 distant eight or nine leagues ; and an hour and 
 a half afterwards we had the satisfaction, we had 
 so long wished for, of seeing a sail. She first 
 appeared to leeward, and we all immediately gave 
 her chase ; but the Centurion so much outsailed 
 the two prizes, that we soon r.in them out of 
 sight, and gained considerably on the chase : how- 
 ever, night coming on before we came up with 
 her, we, about seven o'clock, lost sight of her, and 
 were in some perplexity what course to steer ; 
 but at last Mr. Anson resolved, as we were then 
 before the wind, to keep all his sails set, and not 
 to change his course : for though we had no doubt 
 but the chase would alter her course in the night ; 
 yet, as it was uncertain what tack she would go 
 upon, it was thought more prudent to keep on our 
 course, as we must by this means unavoidably near 
 her, than to change it on conjecture ; when, if 
 wo should mistake, we must infallibly lose her. 
 Thus tnen we continued the chase about an hour 
 
ANSON'S yOYAGE ROUND THE .WORLD. 
 
 55 
 
 »nd a half in the dark, some one or other on 
 board us constantly imagining they discerned her 
 sails right a-liead of us ; but at last Mr. Brett, 
 then our second lieutenant, did really discover 
 her about four points on the larboard-bow, steer- 
 ing off to the seaward : we immediately clapped 
 the helm a-weather, and stood for her ; and in 
 less than an hour came up with her, and having 
 fired fourteen shot at her, she struck. Our third 
 lieutenant, Mr. Dennis, was sent in the boat with 
 sixteen men, to take possession of the prize, and 
 to return the prisoners to our ship. This ship 
 was named the Santa Teresa de Jesus, built at 
 Guaiaquil, of about three hundred tons burthen, 
 and was commanded by Bartolome Urrunaga, a 
 Biscayer : slie was bound from Guaiaquil to Cal- 
 lao ; her loadmg consisted of timber, cocoa, cocoa- 
 nuts, tobacco, hides, Pito thread (which is very 
 strong, and is made of a species of grass) Quito 
 cloth, wax, &c. The specie on board her was 
 inconsiderable, being principally small silver 
 money, and not amounting to more than 170/. 
 sterling. It is true, her cargo was of great value, 
 could we have disposed of it ; but, the Spaniards 
 having strict orders never to ransom their ships, 
 all the goods that we took in these seas, except 
 what little we had occasion for ourselves, were of 
 no advantage to us. Indeed, though we could 
 make no profit thereby ourselves, it was some 
 satisfaction to us to consider, that it was so much 
 really lost to the enemy, and that the despoiling 
 them was no contemptible branch of that ser- 
 vice, in which we were now employed by our 
 country. 
 
 Besides our prize's crew, which amounted to 
 forty-five hands, there were on board her ten 
 passengers, consisting of four men and three 
 women, who were natives of the country, born of 
 Spanish parents, and three black female slaves 
 that attended them. The women were a mother 
 and her two daughters, the eldest about twenty- 
 one, and the youngest about fourteen. It is not 
 to be wondered at, that women of these years 
 should be excessively alarmed at tlie falling into 
 the hands of an enemy whom, from the foi'mer 
 outrages of the buccaneers, and by the artful 
 insinuations of theu* priests, they had been taught 
 to consider as the most terrible and brutal of all 
 mankind. These apprehensions, too, were in the 
 present instance exaggerated by the singular 
 beauty of the youngest of the women, and the 
 riotous disposition which they might well expect 
 to find in a set of sailors, that had not seen a 
 woman for near a twelvemonth. Full of these 
 terrors, the women all hid themselves when our 
 officer went on board, and when they were found 
 out, it was with great difficulty that he could per- 
 suade them to approach the light : however, he 
 • soon satisfied them, by the huinanity of his conduct 
 and his assurances of their future security and 
 honourable treatment, that they had nothing to 
 fear.t And the commodore being informed of the 
 matter, sent directions that they should be con- 
 tinued on board their own ship, with the use of 
 the same apartments, and with all the other con- 
 veniences they had enjoyed before, giving strict 
 orders that they should receive no kind of inqui- 
 etude or molestation whatever : and that they 
 might be the more certain of having these orders 
 complied with, or of complaining if they were not, • 
 
 the commodore permitted the pilot, who in Spanish 
 ships is generally the second person on board, to 
 stay Avith them, as their guardian and protector. 
 He was particularly chosen for this purpose by 
 Mr. Anson, as he seemed to be extremely inter- 
 ested in all that concerned the women, and had 
 at first declared that he was married to the 
 youngest of them ; though it afterwards appeared, 
 both from the information of the rest of the 
 prisoners, and other circumstances, that he had 
 asserted this with a view the better to secure thera 
 from the insults they expected on their first falling 
 into our hands. By this compassionate and in- 
 dulgent behaviour of the commodore, the con- 
 sternation of ourfemale prisoners entirely subsided, 
 and they continued easy and cheerful during the 
 whole time they were with us, as I shall have 
 occasion to mention more particularly hereafter. 
 
 I have before observed, that at the beginning 
 of this chase, the Centurion ran her two consCrts 
 out of sight, for which reason we lay by all the 
 night, after we had taken the prize, for Captain 
 Saunders and Lieutenant Saumarez to join us, 
 firing guns, and making false fires every half-liour, 
 to prevent their passing us unobserved ; but they 
 were so far a-stern, that they neither heard nor 
 saw any of our signals, and were not able to coma 
 up with us till broad day-light. When they had 
 joined us we proceeded together to the northward, 
 being now four sail in company. We here found 
 the sea, for many miles round us, of » beautiful 
 red colour : This, upon examination, we imputed 
 to an immense quantity of spawn spread upon its 
 surface ; and taking up some of the water in a 
 wine-glass, it soon changed from a dirty aspect to 
 a clear crystal, with only some red globules of a 
 slimy nature floating on the top. And now having 
 a supply of timber on board our new prize, the 
 commodore ordered our boats to be repaired, and 
 a swivel gun-stock to be fixed in the bow both of 
 the barge and pinnace, in order to increase their 
 force, in case we should be obliged to have recourse 
 to them for boarding ships, or for any attempts 
 on shore. 
 
 As we stood from hence to the northward, 
 nothing remarkable occurred for two or three days, 
 though we spread our ships in such a manner, 
 that it was not probable any vessel of the enemy 
 could escape us. In our run along this coast we 
 generally observed, that there was a current which 
 set us to the northward, at the rate often or twelve 
 miles each day. And now being in about eight 
 degrees of South latitude, we began to be attended 
 with vast numbers of flying fish and bonitos, which 
 were the first we saw after our departure from 
 the coast of Brazil. But it is remarkable that on 
 the east side of South America they extended to 
 a much higher latitude than they do on the west 
 side ; for we did not lose them on the coast of 
 Brazil till we approached the southern tropic. The 
 reason for this diversity is doubtless the difl'erenl 
 . degrees of heat obtaining in the same latitude on 
 different sides of that continent. And on this 
 occasion I must beg leave to make a short digres- 
 sion on the heat and cold of different climates, 
 and on the varieties which occur in the same 
 place in different parts of the year, and in dif- 
 ferent places lying in the same degree of latitude. 
 
 The ancients, as appears in many places, con- 
 ceived that of the five zones, into which they 
 
56 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WOKLL>. 
 
 divided the surface of the globe, two only were 
 habitable, supposing tliat all between the tropics 
 was too hot, and all withiii the polar cu'cle too 
 cold, to be supported by mankind. The falsehood 
 of this reasoning has been long evinced ; but the 
 particular comparisons of the heat and cold of these 
 various climates, has as yet been very imperfectly 
 considered. However, enough is known safely to 
 determine this position, that all places between 
 the tropics are far from being the hottest on the 
 globe, as many of those within the polar circles 
 are far from enduring that extreme degree of cold, 
 to which their situation should seem to subject 
 them : that is to say, in other words, that the 
 temperature of a place depends much more upon 
 other circumstances, than upon its distance from 
 the pole, or its proximity to the equinoctial. 
 
 This proposition relates to the general temper- 
 ature of places, taking the whole year round ; and 
 in this sense it cannot be denied but that the city 
 of London, for instance, enjoys much warmer sea- 
 sons than the bottom of Hudson's Bay, which is 
 nearly in the same latitude with it ; for there the 
 severity of the winter is so great, that it will 
 scarcely permit the hardiest of our garden plants 
 to live. And if the comparison be made between 
 the coast of Brazil and the western shore of South 
 America, as, for example, betwixt Bahia and 
 Lima, the difference will be still more remarkable; 
 for though the coast of Brazil is extremely sultry, 
 yet the coast of the South Seas in the same lati- 
 tude is perhaps as temperate and tolerable as any 
 part of the globe ; since in ranging along it we 
 did not once meet with so warm weather as is 
 frequent in a summer's day in England : and this 
 was the more remarliable, as there never fell any 
 rains to refresh and cool the air. 
 
 The causes of this temperature in the South 
 Seas are not difficult to be assigned, and shall be 
 hereafter mentioned. I am now only solicitous 
 to establish the truth of this assertion, that the 
 latitude of a place alone is no rule whereby to 
 judge of the degree of heat and cold which obtains 
 there. Perhaps this position might be more 
 briefly confii-med by observing, that on the tops 
 of the Andes, though under the equinoctial, the 
 snow never melts the whole year round ; a cri- 
 terion of cold, stronger than what is known to 
 take place in many parts far removed within the 
 polar circle. 
 
 I have hitherto considered the temperature of 
 the air all the year through, and the gross esti- 
 mations of heat and cold which every one makes 
 from his own sensation. If this matter be exam- 
 ined by means of thermometers, which in respect 
 to the absolute degree of heat and cold are doubt- 
 less the most unerring evidences ; if this be done, 
 the result will be indeed most wonderful ; for it 
 will appear that the heat in very high latitudes, 
 as at Petersburg for instance, is at particular 
 times much greater than any that has been hitherto 
 observed between the tropics ; and that even at 
 London, in the year 1746, there was the part of 
 one day considerably hotter than what was at any 
 time felt by a ship of Mr. Anson's squadron, in 
 running from hence to Cape Horn and back again, 
 and passing twice under the sun ; for in the sum- 
 mer of that year, the thermometer in London 
 (being one of those graduated according to the 
 method of Fahrenheit) stood once at 78°; and the 
 
 greatest height at which a thermometer of t\v 
 same kind stood in the foregoing ship, I find to b. 
 76° : this was at St. Catherine's, in the latter euo 
 of December, when the sun was within about threi 
 degrees of the vertex. And as to Petersburg, ] 
 find, by the acts of the Academy established there, 
 that in the year 1 734, on the 20th and 25th ol 
 July, the thermometer rose to 98" in the shade, 
 that is, it was twenty-two divisions higher than it 
 was found to be at St. Catherine's ; which is u 
 degree of heat that, were it not authorised by the 
 regularity and cu-cumspection with which the 
 observations seem to have been made, would 
 appear altogether incredible. 
 
 If it should be asked, how it comes to pass then, 
 that the heat in many places between the tropics 
 is esteemed so violent and insufierable, when it 
 appears, by these instances, that it is sometimes 
 rivalled or exceeded in very high latitudes not far 
 from the polar circle ? I should answer, that the 
 estimation of heat, in any particular place, ought 
 not to be founded upon that degree of heat which 
 may now and then obtain there, but is rather to 
 be deduced from the medium observed in a whole 
 season, or perhaps in a whole year : and in this 
 light it will easily appear, how much more intense 
 the same degree of heat may prove, by being long 
 continued without remarkable variation. For 
 instance, in comparing together St. Catherine's 
 and Petersburg, we will suppose the summer 
 heat at St. Catherine's to be 76°, and the winter 
 heat to be twenty divisions short of it : I do not 
 make use of this last conjecture upon sufficient 
 observation ; but I am apt to suspect that the 
 allowance is full large. Upon this supposition 
 then, the medium heat all the year round will be 
 66°, and this perhaps by night as well as day, with 
 no great variation : now those who have attended 
 to thermometers will readily own that a continu- 
 ation of this degree of heat for a length of firae 
 would by the generality of mankind be styled vio- 
 lent and suffocating. But now at Petersburg, 
 though a few times in the year the heat, by the 
 thermometer, may be considerably greater than 
 at St. Catherine's, yet, as at other times the cold 
 is immensely sharper, the medium for a year, or 
 even for one season only, would be far short of 
 66". For I find that the variation of the ther- 
 mometer at Petersburg is at least five time» 
 greater, from its highest to its lowest point, than 
 what I have supposed to take phice at St. Ca- 
 therine's. 
 
 But besides this estimation of the heat of a 
 place, by taking the medium for a considerable 
 time together, there is another circumstance which 
 will still augment the apparent heat of the warmer 
 climates, and diminish that of the colder, though 
 I do not remember to have seen it remarked ip 
 any author. To explain myself more distinctly 
 upon this head, I must observe, that the measure 
 of absolute heat, marked by the thermometer, is 
 not the certain criterion of the sensation of heat, 
 with which human bodies are affected : for as the 
 presence and perpetual succession of fresh air is 
 necessary to our respiration, so there is a species 
 of tainted or stagnated air, which is often pro- . 
 duced by the continuance of great heats, which 
 never fails to excite in us an idea of sultriness and 
 suffocating warmth, much beyond what the mere 
 heat of the air alone, supposin? it pure and agi 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WOULD. 
 
 hi 
 
 tat»'d, would occasion. Hence it follows that the 
 laere inspection of the theniionmter will never 
 (ietermine the heat which the human body feels 
 from this cause ; and hence it follows too, that 
 the heat in most places between the tropics must 
 bi- much more troublesome and uneasy, than the 
 ».inie degree of absolute heat in a high latitude : 
 for the equabilitj- and duration of the tropical 
 heat contribute to impregnate the air with a mul- 
 titude of steams and vapours from the soil and 
 water, and these being, many of then;, of an ira- 
 1111 le and noxious kind, and being not easily re- 
 moved, by reason of the regularity of the winds 
 in those parts, which only shift the exhalations 
 fi-om place to place, without dispersing them, the 
 atmosphere is by this means rendered less proper 
 for respiration, and mankind are consequently 
 affected with what they style a most intense and 
 stifling heat : whereas in the higher latitudes 
 these vapours are probably rais<)d in smaller quan- 
 tities, and the irregularity and violence of the 
 winds frequently disperse them ; so that, the air 
 being in general pure and less stagnant, the same 
 degree of absolute heat is not attended with that 
 uneasy and suffocating sensation. This may suf- 
 fice in general with respect to the present i^jecu- 
 lation ; but I cannot help wishing, as it is a sub- 
 ject in which mankind, especially travellers of all 
 sorts, are very much interested, that it were more 
 thoroughly and accurately examined, and that all 
 ships bound to the warmer climates would furnish 
 themselves with thermometers of a known fabric, 
 and would observe them daily, and register their 
 observations ; for considering the turn to philo- 
 sophical subjects, which has obtained in Europe 
 for the last fourscore years, it is mcredible how 
 very rarely anything of this kind has been at- 
 tended to. Fdr my own part, I do not recollect 
 that I have ever seen any observations of the 
 heat and cold, either in the East or West Indies, 
 which were made by mariners or officers of ves- 
 sels, except those made by Mr. Anson's order, on 
 board the Centurion, and by Captain Lcgge on 
 board the Severn, which Was another ship of our 
 squadron. 
 
 This digression I have been in some measure 
 drawn into by tlje consideration of thte fine weather 
 we met with on the coast of Peru, even Under the 
 equinoctial itself, but the particularities of this 
 weather. I have not yet described : 1 shall now 
 therefore add, that in this climate every circum- 
 stance concurred that could render the open air 
 and the daylight desirable. For in other coun- 
 tries the scorching heat of, the sun in summer 
 renders the greater part of the day unapt either 
 for labour or amusement ; and the frequent i-ains 
 are not less troublesome in tjie more , temperate 
 parts of the year. But in this happy climate the 
 sun rarely appears : not that the heavens have at 
 any time a dark and glopmy look ; but there is 
 constantly a cheerful grey sky, just sufficient to 
 screen the sun, and to mitigate the violence of its 
 perpendicular ;rays, without obscuring the air, or 
 tinging the daylight with an unpleasant or melan- 
 choly hue. By this means all parts of the day 
 are proper for labour or exercise abroad, nor is 
 there wanting that refreshment and pleasing re- 
 frigeration ofthe air, which is sometimes produced 
 ill other climates by rains ; for here Uie same 
 effect is brought about by the fresh bi'eezes from 
 
 the cc:>lor regions to tliesont'M\;ird. Itisreason- 
 abli; to suppose that this frntunate complexion of 
 the heavens is principally owing to the neighbour- 
 hood of those vast hills, called the Andes, which 
 running nearly parallel to the shore, and at a small 
 distance from it, and extending themselves im- 
 mensely higher than any other mountains upon 
 the globe, form upon their sides and declivitica a 
 prodigious tract of country, where, acco^-diiif; to 
 the different approaches to t^e summit, all kinds 
 of climates may at all seasons of the year be found. 
 These mountains, by intercepting great part of the 
 eastern winds which generally blow over the con- 
 tinent of South America, and by c ooling that part 
 of the air which forces its way over their tops, 
 and by keeping besides a prodigious extent of the . 
 atmosphere perpetually cool, by its contiguity to 
 the snows with which they are covered ; these hills, ' 
 I say, by thus extending the influence of their; 
 frozen crests to the neighbouring coasts and seas ' 
 of Peru, are doubtless the cause of the tempera- 
 ture and equability which constantly prevail there. 
 For when we were advanced beyond the equinoc- 
 tial, where these mountains left us, and had no- 
 thing to screen us to the eastward, but the high 
 lands on the isthmus of Panama, which are but 
 mole-hills to the Andes, we then soon found that 
 in a short run we had totally changed our climate, 
 passing in two or three days from the temperate 
 air of Peru to the sultry burning atmosphere' of 
 the West Indies. But it is time to return to our 
 narration. 
 
 On the 1 0th of November we were three leagues 
 south of the southermost island of Lobos, lying 
 in the latitude 6° 27' South. There are two 
 islands of this name ; this, called Lobos de' la 
 Mar, and another, which lies to the northward 
 of it, very much resembling it in shape and ap- 
 pearance, and often mistaken for it, called Lobos 
 de Tiemu We were now i^rawing near to the 
 station appointed to the Gloucester, for Which 
 reason, fearing to mi^ her, we made an easy sail 
 all night. The next morning, at day-break, we 
 saw a ship in-shore, and to windward, plying up 
 to the coast : she had passed , by us with the 
 favour of. the night, and we soon perceiving her 
 not to be the Gloucester, got our tacks on board, 
 and gave her chase ; but i^ proving very, little 
 wind, so that neither of us could make much way, 
 the commodore ordered the barge,' his pinnace, 
 and the Tryal's pinnace, to be manned and armed, 
 and to pursue the chase anil board her. Lieu- 
 tenant Brett, who commanded the barge. Came 
 up with her first, about nine o'clock, and running 
 alpng-side of her, he fired a volley of small shot 
 between the masts, just ovei* thp heads of the 
 people on board, and then instantly entered with 
 the greatest pul of his men ; but the enemy 
 ttiade no resistance, being sufficiently fright^njed 
 by the dazzling of the cutlasses, and the vblley 
 they had just received. Lieutenant Brett order^ 
 the sails to be trimmed, and bore down to the 
 commodore, taking up in his.way the two pinnaces. 
 '(Vhen h6 was arriv«l Within about four miles of 
 us he put off in the barge, hringing with him a 
 number of the prisoners, who had given him 
 some material intelligent, whith he was desirofia 
 the oon^mtiodore should he acquainted With as soon 
 as possible. On hia arrival we learnt, that the 
 prize was called Nuestra Senora del CUimii, of 
 B 
 
53 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 about two hundred and seventy tons burthen ; 
 she was commanded by Marcos Morena, a native 
 of Venice, and had on board forty-three mariners : 
 she was deep laden with steel, iron, wax, pepper, 
 cedar, plank, snuff, rosarios, European bale goods, 
 powder-blue, cinnamon, Romish indulgences, and 
 ot^ier species of merchandize : and though this 
 «argo, in our present circumstances, was but of 
 little value to us, yet with respect to the Spaniards, 
 it was the most considerable capture that fell 
 into our hands in this part pf the world ; for it 
 amounted to upwards of 400,000 dollars prime 
 cost at Panama. This ship was bound to Callao, 
 and had stopped at Paita in her passage, to take 
 in a recruit of water and provisions, and had not 
 left that place above twenty-four hours, before 
 «he fell into our hands. 
 
 I have mentioned that Mr. Brett had received 
 some important intelligence from the prisoners, 
 which he endeavoured to acquaint the commo- 
 dore Avith immediately. The first person he re- 
 ceived it from (though upon further examination 
 it was confirmed by the other prisoners) was one 
 ■John Williams, an Irishman, whom he found on 
 board the Spanish vessel. Williams was a papist, 
 who worked his passage from Cadiz, and had 
 travelled over all the kingdom of Mexico as a 
 pedlar : he pretended by this business he had got 
 4 or 5000 dollars • but that he was embarrassed 
 by the papists, who knew he had money, and was 
 at last stripped of all he had. He was indeed at 
 present all in rags, being but just got out of Paita 
 gaol, where he had been confined for some mis- 
 demeanor : he expressed great joy upon seeing 
 his countrymen, and immediately informed them, 
 ■that a few days before, a vessel came into Paita, 
 where the master of her informed the governor, 
 that he had been chased in the offing by a very 
 large ship, which from her size, and the colour of 
 her sails, he was persuaded must be one of the 
 English squadron: this we then conjectured to 
 have been the Gloucester, as we afterwards found 
 it was. The governor, upon examining the master, 
 was fully satisfied of his relation, and immediately 
 sent away an express to Lima to acquaint the 
 viceroy therewith : and the royal officer residing 
 at Paita, being apprehensive of a visit from the 
 English, was busily employed in removing the 
 king's treasure and his own to Piura, a town 
 within land, about fourteen leagues distant. We 
 further learnt from our prisoners, that there was 
 a very considerable sum of money belonging to 
 some merchants at Lima, that was now lodged at 
 the Custom-house at Paita ; and that this was in- 
 tended to be shipped on board a vessel, which 
 was then in the port of Paita ; and was preparing 
 to sail with the utmost expedition, being bound 
 for the bay of Sonsonnate, on the coast of Mexico, 
 in order to purchase a part of the cargo of the 
 Manila ship. This vessel at Paita was esteemed 
 a prime sailer, and had just received a new coat 
 of tallow on her bottom ; and, in the opinion of 
 the prisoners, she might be able to sail the suc- 
 ceeding morning. The character they gave us of 
 this vessel, in which the money was to be shipped, 
 left us little reason to believe that our ship, which 
 had been in the water near two years, could have 
 any chance of coming up with her, if we once 
 suSered her to escape out of the port. And 
 therefore, as we were now discovered, and the 
 
 coast would be soon alarmed, and as our cruising 
 in these parts any longer would answer no purpose, 
 the commodore resolved to surprise the place, 
 having first minutely informed himself of its 
 strength and condition, and being fully satisfied, 
 that there was little danger of losing many of our 
 men in the attempt. This surprise of Paita, be- 
 sides the treasure it promised us, and its being 
 the only enterprise it was in our power to under- 
 fake, had these other advantages attending it, 
 .that we should in all probability supply ourselves 
 with great quantities of live provision, of which 
 we were at this time in want : and we should 
 likewise have an opportunity of setting our pri- 
 soners on shore, who were now very numerous, 
 and made a greater consumption of our food than 
 our stock that remained was capable of furnishing 
 long. In all these lights the attempt was a most 
 eligible one, and what our necessities, our situation, 
 and every prudential consideration, prompted us 
 to. How it succeeded, and how far it answered 
 our expectations, shall be the subject of the 
 following chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The taking of Paita, and our proceedings till ice left the 
 coast of Peru. 
 
 The town of Paita is situated in the latitude of 
 .5" 12' south, in a most barren soil, composed 
 only of sand and slate : the extent of it is but 
 small, containing in all less than two hundred 
 families. The houses are only ground-floors ; the 
 walls built of split cane and mud, and the roofs 
 thatched with leaves ; these edifices, though ex- 
 tremely slight, are abundantly sufficient for a 
 climate, where rain is considered as a prodigy, 
 and i? w*t seen in many years : so that it is said, 
 that a small quantity of rain falling in this country 
 in the year 1728, it ruined a great number of 
 buildings, which mouldered away, and as it were 
 melted before it. The inhabitants of Paita are 
 principally Indians and black slaves, or at least a 
 mixed breed, the whites being very few. Thp 
 port of Paita, though in reality little more than » 
 bay, is esteemed the best on that part of the 
 coast ; and is indeed a very secure and commo 
 dious anchorage. It is greatly frequented bj 
 all vessels, coming from the north ; since it is 
 here only that the ships from Acapulco, Son- 
 sonnate, Relaleijo and Panama, can touch and 
 refresh in their passage to Callao : and the length 
 of these voyages (the wind for the greatest part 
 of the year being full against them) renders it 
 impossible to perform them without calling upon 
 the coast for a recruit of fresh water. It is true, 
 Paita is situated on so parched a spot, that it 
 does not itself furnish a drop of fresh water, or 
 any kind of greens or provisions, except fish and 
 a few goats : but there is an Indian town called 
 Colan, about two or three leagues distant to the 
 northward, from whence water, maize, greens, 
 fowls, &c. are brought to Paita on balsas or floats, 
 for the convehiency of the ships that touch here ; 
 and cattle axe sometimes brought from Piura, a 
 town which lies about fourteen leagues up in the 
 country. The water brought from Colan is whitish, 
 and of a disagreeable appearance, but it is said to 
 
 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 6» 
 
 t)e Tery wholesome : for it is pretended by the 
 inhabitants, that it runs through large woods of 
 sarsaparilla, and that it is sensibly impregnated 
 therewith. This port of Paita, besides furnishing 
 the northern trade bound to Callao with water 
 and necessaries, is the usual place where pas- 
 sengers from Acapnlco or Panama, bound to 
 Jjima, disembark ; for, as it is two hundred leagues 
 from henqe to Callao, the port of Lima, and as 
 the wind is generally contrary, the passage by, 
 sea is very tedious and fatiguing, but by land 
 there is a tolerably good road parallel to the 
 coast, with many stations and villages for the 
 accommodation of travellers. 
 
 The town of Paita is itself an open place ; its 
 sole protection and defence being a single fort. 
 It was of consequence to us to be well informed 
 of the fabric and strength of this fort ; and by the 
 examination of our prisoners we found, that there 
 were eight pieces of cannon mounted in it, but 
 that it had neither ditch nor outwork, being only 
 surrounded by a plain brick wall ; and that the 
 garrison consisted of only one weak company, 
 but the town itself might possibly arm three 
 hundred men more. 
 
 ' Mr. Anson having informed himself of the 
 strength of the place, resolved (as hath been said 
 in the preceding chapter) to attempt it that very 
 night. We were then about twelve leagues distant 
 from the shore, far enough to prevent our being 
 discovered ; yet not so far but that, by making 
 411 the sail we could, we might arrive in the bay 
 with our ships in the night. However, the com- 
 modore prudently considered that this would be 
 an improper method of proceeding, as our ships 
 lieing. such large bodies might be easily discovered 
 at. a distance even in the night, and might tl\ereby 
 alarm- the inhabitants, and give them an oppor- 
 tunity of removing their valuable effects. He 
 therefore, as ttie strength of the place did not 
 require our whole force, resolved to attempt it 
 with our boats only, ordering the eighteen-oared 
 barge, and our own and the Tryal's pinnaces, on 
 that service ; and having picked out fifty-eight 
 men to man them, well provided with arras and 
 ammunition, he gave the command of the expe- 
 dition to Lieutenant Brett, and gave him his 
 necessary orders. And the better to prevent the 
 disappointment and confusion which might arise 
 from the darkness of the night, and the ignorance 
 of the streets and passages of the place, two of 
 the Spanish pilots were ordered to attend the 
 heutenant, and to conduct him to the most con- 
 venient landing-place, and were afterwards to be 
 his guides on shore ; and that we might have the 
 greater security for their faithful behaviour on 
 this occasion, tlie commodore took care to assure 
 all our prisoners, that if the pilots acted properly, 
 they should all of them be released, and set on 
 shore at this place ; but in case of any misconduct 
 or treachery, he threatened them that the pilots 
 should be instantly shot, and that he would carry 
 all the rest of the Spaniards, who were on board 
 liim, prisoners to England. So that the prisoners 
 themselves were interested in our success, and 
 therefore we had no reason to suspect ou'" con- 
 ductors either of negligence or perfidy. 
 
 And on this occasion I cannot but remark a 
 -singular circumstance of one of the pilots employed 
 •by IS in this business. It seems (as we afterwards 
 
 learnt) he had been taken by Captain Clipperton 
 above twenty years before, and had been forced 
 to lead Clipperton and his people to the surprise 
 of Truxillo, a town within land to the southward 
 of Paita, where, however, he contrived to alarm 
 his countrymen, and to save them, though the 
 place was taken. Now that the only two attempts 
 on shore, which were made at so long an interval 
 from each other, should be guided by the same 
 person, and he too a prisoner both times, and 
 forced upon the employ contrary to liis inclination, 
 is an incident so vei'y extraordinary, that I could 
 not help taking notice of it. B"t to return to the 
 matter in hand. 
 
 During our prepai<i.,.ons, the ships themselves 
 stood towards the port with all the sail they could 
 make, being secure that we were yet at too great 
 a distance to be seen. But, about ten o'clock at 
 night, the ships being then within five leagues of 
 the place. Lieutenant Brett, with the boats under 
 his command, put off, and arrived at the mouth 
 of the bay without being discovered ; but no sooner 
 had he entered it, than some of the people on 
 board a vessel, riding at anchor there, perceived 
 him, who instantly put off in their boat, rowing 
 towards the fort, shouting and crying, " The En- 
 glish, the English dogs," &c. by which the whole 
 town was suddenly alarmed, and our people soon 
 observed several hghts hurrying backwards and 
 forwards in the fort, and other marks of the inha- 
 bitants being in great motion. Lieutenant Brett, 
 on this, encouraged his men to pull briskly up to 
 the shore, that they might give the enemy as 
 little time as possible to prepare for then* defence 
 However, before our boats could reach the shore, 
 the people in the fort had got ready some of theii 
 cannon, and pointed them towards the landing- 
 place ; and though in the darkness of the night it 
 might be well supposed that chance had a greater 
 share than skill in their direction, yet the first 
 shot passed extremely near one of the boats, whist- 
 ling just over the heads of the crew. This made 
 our people redouble their efforts ; so that they had 
 reached the shore, and were in part disembarked, 
 by the time the second gun fired. As soon as our 
 men landed, they were conducted by one of the 
 Spanish pilots to the entrance of a narrow street, 
 not above fifty yards distant from the beach, where 
 they were covered from the fire of the fort ; and 
 being formed in the best manner the shortness of 
 the time would allow, they immediately marched 
 for the parade, which was a large square at the end 
 of this street, the fort being one sidfc of the square, 
 and the governor's house another. In this march 
 (though performed with tolerable regularity) the 
 shouts and clamours of threescore sailors, who had 
 been confined so long on shipboard, and were now, 
 for the first time, on shore in an enemy's country, 
 joyous as they always are when they land, and 
 animated besides in the present case with the 
 hopes of an immense pillage ; the huzzas, I say, 
 of this spirited detachment, joined with the noise 
 of their drums, and favoured by the night, had 
 augmented their numbers, in the opinion of the 
 enemy, to at least three hundred ; by which per- 
 suasion the inhabitants were so greatly intimidated, 
 that they were much more solicitous about the 
 means of their flight than of their resistance : so 
 that though upon entering the parade, our people 
 received a volley from the merchants who owned 
 
60 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 the treasure then in the town ; and who, with a 
 few; others, had ranged themselves in a gallery 
 that ran round the governpr's house, yet that post 
 was immediately abandoned upon the fii'st fire 
 made by our people, who were thereby left in 
 quiet possession of the parade. 
 
 On this sueceBs Lieutenant Brett divided his 
 men into two parties, ordering one of them to 
 surround the gorernor's house, and if poBsihle to 
 secure the gpTernor, whilst he himself with the 
 other marched to the fdrt, with an intent to force 
 it. But, contrary to his expectation, he entered it 
 without opposition ; for the enemy, on his approach, 
 abandoned it, and made their escape over the 
 walls. By this means the whole place was mas- 
 tered in lees tfaali a quarter of an hour's time from 
 the first landing, with no other loss than that of 
 9ne man killed on the spot, and two wounded ; 
 one of which was the Spanish pilot of. the Teresa, 
 who received aslight bruise by a ball which grazed 
 on his wrist : indeed, another of the ootnpanyj the 
 Honourable Sir. Keppet^ son to the Earl of Albe- 
 marle, had a very narrow escape ; for having, on 
 a jockey cap^ one side of the pefik was shaved off 
 dloae to his temple by a ball, whichi however did: 
 him no ptiier injury. 
 
 , And nowj Lieutenant Brett, after this success, 
 placed, a guard at the fort, and another at the 
 (lovemor's house, and appointed sentinels at ail 
 the avenues of the towii, both fo prevent any sur- 
 p^rise from the enemy, and to secure the eifects in^ 
 the place fi*om being embezzled. And this being 
 done, his next care was to seize on the custom- 
 house where the treasure lay, and to examine if 
 any of the inhabitants remained in the town, that 
 he might know what farther precautions it was 
 necessary to take ; but he soon found that the 
 numbers left behind were no ways formidable ; 
 for the greatest part of them (being in bed when 
 the pla^ was surprised) had run away with so 
 much precipitation, that they had not given them- 
 •elvea iiiue to put on their clothes. And in this 
 precipitate to<it the governor was not the last to 
 secure himself, for he fled betimes- half naked, 
 . leaving his wife, a young' lady of about seventeen 
 years of age, to whom he had been married but 
 three or foiir days, behind him, though she too 
 was afterwards carried off in her shift by a couple 
 of sentinels, just: as the detachment, ordered to 
 invest the house, arrived before it 
 
 This escape of the governor was an unpljeasing 
 circumstance, as Mr. Anson had particulai'ly 
 recommended it to Lieutenant Brett to secure his 
 person, if possible, m hopes- that by that means we 
 toight be able to feat for the ransom of the place ; 
 but it seems his alertness rendered it impossible 
 to seize him. The few inhabitants who remained 
 were confined in one of' the churches under a 
 guard, except some stout negroes which were 
 found in the place ; these, instead of being shut 
 up, were employed the remaining part of the night 
 to assist in carrying the treasure from the custom- 
 house and other places to the fort. However, 
 there was care taken that' they should be always 
 attended by a file of musketeei's. 
 
 The transporting the treasure from the custom- 
 house to thefort, was the principal occupation of 
 Mr. Brett's people, after he had got possession of 
 the place. But the sailors, while they were thus 
 employed^ could not be prevcanted &om entei-ing 
 
 the houses which lay near them, in search of pri- 
 vate pillage. And the first things which occun-ed 
 to them, being the clothes which the Spaniards ui 
 their flight had left beliind them, and *hich, ac- 
 cording to the custom of the country, were most 
 of them either embroidered or laced, our people 
 eagerly seized these glittering habits, and.piit them 
 on over their own dii-ty trowsers and jackets ; not 
 forgetting, at the same time, the tie or bag-wig 
 and laced hat, wliich ivei-e generally found with 
 the clothes ; and when this practice was oric» 
 begun, there was no preventing, the whole detach, 
 ment from imitating it. And those, who cams 
 latest into tlie fashion, not finding men's clothe* 
 sufficient to equip themselves, they were obliged 
 to take up with women's gowns and petticBats> 
 which (provided there was finery enough) they 
 made no scruple of putting on, and blending' with 
 their own greiisy dress. So that when a party of 
 them thus ridiculously metamorphosed . first ap- 
 peared before Mr. Brett, he was extremely sur- 
 prised at their appearance, and could not imme- 
 diately be satisfied they were hi^ own people. 
 
 These were the transactions of our detacljmtat 
 on shore at Paita the first night. And how to 
 return to what was done on board the Centuriibn 
 in that interval. I must observe, that after the 
 boats were gone off, we lay by till one o'clock' in 
 thie morning, and then supposing our detachment 
 to be near landing, we made an easy sail 'fpr the 
 bay. About seven in the morning we began t> 
 open the bay, .and soon aftci' we had a view of fiie 
 town ; and though we had no reason to doubt of 
 the success of the enterprise, yet it was witb' great 
 joy that we first discovered an infallible signal of 
 the certainty of our hopes ; this was by means ol 
 our perspectives, for through them wei saw an 
 English flag hoisted on the flag-staff of Uie fdrtj 
 which to Us was an inoO)n testable proof that our 
 people had got p'Msession of the town. We' plied 
 into the bay with as much expeditipn as the wind, 
 which then blew off shore, would perinit us; And 
 at eleven, the Tryal's boat came oh board ns^ 
 loaden with dollars and church-plate ; and (be 
 officer who commanded her informed us of the 
 preceding ni^t's transactions^ such as we HaVe 
 already related them. About two in the afteiSoon; 
 we cdme to an ahchor in ten fathom and a Ba1f„ 
 at a mile and a half distance from the toWff,' and 
 were consequently aear enough' to have a 'moifo 
 immediate intercourse with those oir shore. And 
 now we found that' Mr. Brett' liad hiflierfo. gbno^ 
 on in collecting and removing the treasure without 
 interruption ; but that the enemyliad rendezvoused 
 from all parts of the country (in 'a hUl, at the back 
 of the town, where they liiade no inconsiderable 
 appearance : for amctngst the rest of their force^ 
 there were two hundred horse seemingly very 
 well armed and mounted, and, as we conceived, 
 properly trained and regimeiited, being furnished 
 with trumpets, driuns, and standards. ThiBSe'troops 
 paraded about the hill with great ostentation,, 
 sounding their military musicj and practising every 
 art to intimidate us (as our numbers on shbre were 
 by this time net Unknown to them), in hopes that 
 we might be induced by our fears to abandon the- 
 plaoe before the pillage was completed. But we 
 were not so ignorant as to belieVe thiit this body 
 of horse, which seemed to be what the enemy 
 principally depended on, would dare to venture io 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THfe AVORLD. 
 
 61 
 
 streets and amongst houaee, even had their num- 
 liL'rs been thi'ee times as groat ; and therefore, 
 notwithstanding their menaces, we wemt on, as 
 Jong sia the dkj-light lasted, calmly, in sending off 
 thei treasure, and in employing the boats to caiTy 
 •on boatd the refreshments, snch as hogs, fowls, 
 &c. which we foiiud here in great abundance. But, 
 Jit nightj to preTent any surprise, the commodore 
 «ent on shore a reinforcement; who posted them- 
 selves in all the streets leading to the parade ; and 
 for their greater security, thoy traversed the 
 streets with bahneadoes six feet; high. And the 
 *nemy continuing quiet all night, we at day-break 
 returned again to our labotir of loiidiiig the boats 
 «nd sending them on. 
 
 By this titde we were convinced of, what con- 
 
 ceqtience it would have been to us, ha<} fortune 
 
 fiec^nded the prudent views of the commodore, by 
 
 permitting us to have secured the governor. For 
 
 we found in the place many store-houses full of 
 
 v:Uuable effects, which were Useless to us at pre- 
 
 t'cnt, and such as we cotild nbt i|nd room for on 
 
 tiuard. But had the goivernbr been ih our pbwer, 
 
 lie wottld, in aH probability^ have treated for a 
 
 I'ansom, which would have been extremely advan- 
 
 tiigeons both to him ajdd us : wherejls, he being 
 
 iiow at liberty, an(J haviiig collected all the force 
 
 of the country, for many leagues round, arid having 
 
 <!ven got si body of miUtia from Piura, which' was 
 
 fourteen leag;ues distailt, he was so elated with his 
 
 numbers, atid sb fond of his new milltftry command, 
 
 that he seeitaed not to trouble hiiksdlf »bout the 
 
 fate of his government. So that though Mr. Anson 
 
 ! «i'nt several meSBages to him by the inhabitants, 
 
 i ^vho were in bar pbwer, desiring him to enter into 
 
 j a treaty for the ransom of the town and goods ; 
 
 S'vi'nghim, at the same time, an intimation that 
 
 I lie sho.uld 'be far from insisting on a rigorous 
 
 equivalent, but perhaps might be satisfied with 
 
 some live cattle, and a few necessaries fpr the use 
 
 «{ the squacfrorij and issuring him too, that if he 
 
 would not* Condescend it least to treat, he would 
 
 set fire to the town alnd all the warehouses ; yet 
 
 the governor was so ilttprudent and arrogant, that 
 
 lie despised all thete reiterated applications, arid 
 
 ^id not deign even 10 return the least answer to 
 
 them. 
 
 On the second day of Our being in possession 
 of the pla^e, several negro-slaves deserted from 
 the enemy on the bill, and coming into the town, 
 voluntatrily entered into' our service : one of these 
 was well known to a gentleman 6n board, who 
 rimembered him formerly at F^ama. And the 
 8 paniards without the town being in extreme want 
 of wSter, many Of their sla.ves crept irito the place 
 by stealth; ^d carried away several jars of water 
 io their piasters on the hill ; and though some of 
 them were seized by our men in the attempt, yet 
 the thirst among the enemy was so pressing, that 
 they continued this pralctice till we left the place. 
 And now, on this second day we were assured^ 
 both by the deserters and by these prisoneirs we 
 took, tiiat the Spariiards on the hill, who were by 
 this time increased to a formidable number, had 
 resolved to storm the town and fort the succeed- 
 ing flight ; and that one Gordon, a Scotch papist, 
 and captitm ef a Ship in those seas, was to have 
 the command of this cnieriwise. But we not- 
 vithstaiiding, continued sending off our boats, 
 and prosecuted our wdrk Without the least hurry 
 
 or precipitation till the evening ; and then a rein- 
 forcement was again sent on shore, by the com- 
 modore, and Lieutenant Brett ^douhled his guards 
 at each of the barricadoCs ; and our posts being 
 connected hy tKe means of sentinels placed within 
 call of each other, and thp whole being visited by 
 frequent rounds, attending with a drum, these 
 marks of our vigilance, which the enemy could 
 not be ignorant of, as they could doubtless hear 
 the drum, if not the calls of the sentinels ; these 
 marks, I say of our vigilance, and of our readiness 
 to receive them, cooled their resolution, and made 
 them forget the vaunts of the preceiling day } so 
 that we passed this second night with as }ittle 
 molestation as we had done the liirst. 
 
 We had finished sending the treasure on board 
 the Centurion the evening before ; so that the 
 third morning, being the 1 5th of November, the 
 boats were employed in carrying off the most 
 valuable part of the effects that, remained in th^ 
 town. And the commodore intending to sail thi^ 
 day, he, aboiit ten o'clock, pursuant to hip promise, 
 sent all his prisoriers, amounting to eighty-eight, 
 on shore, ^ving brde^ to Lieutenant Brett to 
 secure them in one of the churcheis, und^* a strict 
 guard, till he was ready to embark his men. Mr. 
 Birett was at the same time ordered , to set the 
 whole town on fire, except the two churches 
 ('which by good fortune stood at some distance 
 from the othei^ houses), and then he was to aban 
 don the place, and to come on board. These 
 orders were punctuaJly complied with ; for Mr 
 Brett immediately set his men to work, to distri- 
 bute pitch, tar, and other combustibles (of which 
 great quantities were found here) into houses 
 sittiated in different streets of the town, so that, 
 the place being fired in many quarters at the 
 same time, the destruction might be more violent 
 and sudden, arid the enemy, after our depart4re. 
 Blight not be able to extinguish it. Dhese pre- 
 parations being made, he in tlie next place ordered 
 the cannon, which he found in the fort, to be 
 nailed up ; and then setting fire to those honsefS 
 which Were rpost windward, he collected his men, 
 and marched towards the beach, where the boats 
 Waited to carry them off Arid the part of the 
 beach where he intended to embark being an open 
 place without the town, the Spaniards on the hill 
 perceiving ^he was retreating, ,res<?lved to try if 
 they could not precipitate his departure,' and 
 thereby by some foundation for their future 
 boasting. And for this purppsc a small squadron 
 of their horse, consisting of about sixty, picked 
 out, as I suppose, for this service, inarched down 
 the hill with much seeming resolution ; so that, 
 had We riot been prepossessed with a juster opinion 
 of their prowess, we riiight have suspected that, 
 now we were on the open beach with no advan- 
 tage of situation, they would certainly have charged 
 us : bflt we presumed (and we were not mistaken) 
 that this was mere ostentation. For, notwith- 
 stariding the pomp and parade they advanced 
 with, &. Brett had rib sooner ordered his men 
 to halt and face about, but the enemy stopped 
 their career, and never dared to advance a ptep, 
 further. 
 
 ^hen our people were arrived at their boats, 
 and were ready to go on board, they were for 
 Boriie time delayed, by missing orie o^ their nuni- 
 ber ; but being unable, by their mutual inquiries 
 
02 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLT). 
 
 amongst each other, to inform themselves where 
 he was left, or by what accident he was detained, 
 they, after a considerable delay, resolved to get 
 hito their boats, and to put off without him. And 
 the last man was actually embarked, and the boats 
 just putting off, when they heard him calling to 
 them to take him in. The town was by this time 
 so thoroughly on fire, and the smoke covered the 
 beach so effectually, that they could scarcely see 
 him, though they heard his voice. The lieutenant 
 instantly ordered one of the boats to his relief, 
 who found him up to the chin in water, for he 
 had waded as far as he durst, being extremely 
 frightened with the apprehensions of falling into 
 the hands of an enemy, enraged, as they doubtless 
 were, with the pillage and destruction of their 
 town. On inquiring into the cause of his stay- 
 ing behind, it was found that he had taken that 
 morning too large a dose of brandy, which had 
 thrown him into so sound a sleep, that he did not 
 awake till the fire came near enough to scorch 
 him. He was strangely amazed, on first opening 
 his eyes, to see the place all in a blaze on one 
 side, and several Spaniards and Indians not far 
 from him on the other. The gi'eatness and sud- 
 denness of his fright insta,ntly reduced him to a 
 state of sobriety, and gave him sufficient presence 
 of mind to push through the thickest of the 
 smoke, as the likeliest means to escape the 
 enemy ; and making the best of his way to the 
 beach, he ran as far into the water as he durst, 
 (for he could not swim) before he ventured to 
 look back. 
 
 And here I cannot but observe, to the honour 
 of our people, that though there were gi'eat quan- 
 tities of wine and spiritUous liquors found in the 
 place, yet this man was the only one who was 
 known to have so far neglected his duty, as to get 
 drunk. Indeed, their whole behaviour, while they 
 were on shore, was much more regular than could 
 well have been expected from sailors, who had 
 been so long confined to a ship : and though part 
 of this prudent demeanour must doubtless be 
 imputed to the diligence of their officers, and to 
 the excellent discipline to which they had been 
 long inured on board the commodore, yet it was 
 doubtless no small reputation to the men, that 
 they should in general refrain from indulging 
 themselves in those intoxicating liquors, which 
 they found ready to their hands in almost every 
 warehouse. 
 
 And having mentioned this single instance of 
 drunkenness, I cannot pass by another oversight, 
 which was likewise the only one of its kind, and 
 which was attended with very particular circum- 
 stances. There was an Englishman, who had 
 formerly wrought as a ship-carpenter in the yard 
 at Portsmouth, but leaving his country, had after- 
 wards entered into the Spanish service, and was 
 employed by them at the port of Guaiaquil ; and 
 it being well known to his friends in England that 
 he was then in that part of the world, they put 
 letters on board the Centurion, dh'ected to him. 
 This man being then by accident amongst the 
 Spaniards, who were retired to the hill at Paita, 
 he was desirous (as it should seem) of acquiring 
 some reputation amongst his new masters With 
 this view he came down unarmed to a sentinel of 
 ours, who was placed at some distance from the 
 fort towards the enemy, and pretended to be 
 
 desirous of surrendering himself, and of entering 
 into our service. Our sentinel had a cocked pistol, 
 but being deceived by the other's fair speeches,, 
 he was so imprudent as to let him approach much 
 nearer than he ought ; so that the shipwright, 
 watching his opportunity, rushed on the sentinel, 
 and seizing his pistol, wrenched it out of his hand,, 
 and instantly ran away with it up the hill. By 
 this time, two of our people, who seeing the fellow 
 advance, had suspected his intention, were making 
 towards him, and were thereby prepared to pur- 
 sue him ; but he got to the top of the hill before 
 they could reach hini, and then turning about, 
 fired the pistol ; at which instant his pursuers, 
 fired at him, and though he was at a great dis;- 
 tance, and the crest of the hill hid him as soon as. 
 they had fired, so that they took it for granted 
 they had missed him, yet we afterwards learnt 
 that he was shot through the body, and had fallen 
 down dead the very next step he took after he- 
 was out of sight. The sentinel too, who had been 
 thus grossly imposed upon, did not escape unpuit 
 ished ; for he was ordered to be severely whipj 
 for being thus shamefully surprised upon his post, 
 and for having given an example of carelessness, 
 which, if followed in other instances, might prove 
 fatal to us all. But to return : 
 
 By the time our people had taken their com- 
 rade out of the water, and were making the best 
 of their way for the squadron, the flames had 
 ta,ken possession of every part of the town, and 
 had got such hold, both by means of combustibles 
 that had been distributed for that purpose, and 
 by the slightness of the materials of which the 
 houses were composed, and their aptitude to take 
 fire, that it was sufficiently apparent no efforts of 
 the enemy (though they flocked down in great 
 numbers) could possibly put a stop to it, or pre- 
 vent the entire destruction of the place, and all 
 the merchandise contained therein. A whol? 
 town on fire at once, especially a place that burnt 
 with such facility and violence, being a very 
 singular and awful spectacle. 
 
 Our detachment under Lieutenant Brett having 
 safely joined the squadron, the commodore pre- 
 pared to leave the place the same evening. He 
 found, when he first came into the bay, six vessels 
 of the enemy at anchor ; one of which was the 
 ship, which, according to our intelhgence, was to 
 have sailed with the treasure to the coast of 
 Mexico, and which, as we were persuaded she 
 was a good sailer, we resolved to take with us ! 
 the others were two snows, a bark, and two row- 
 galleys of thirty-six oars a-piece: these last, as we 
 were afterwards informed, with many others of the 
 same kind built at different ports, were intended 
 to prevent our landing in the neighbourhood of 
 Callao: for the Spaniards, on the first intelligence 
 of our squadron and its force, expected that we 
 would attempt the city of Lima. The commodore, 
 having no occasion for these other vessels, had 
 ordered the masts of all five of them to be cut 
 away on his first aiTivai ; and now, at his leaving 
 the place, they were towed out of the harbour, 
 and scuttled and sunk ; and the command of the 
 remaining ship, called the Solidad, being given 
 to Mr. Hughs, the lieutenant of the Tryal, who 
 had with him a crew of ten men to navigate her, 
 the squadron towards midnight, weighed anchor, 
 and sailed out of the bay, being now augmented 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 6» 
 
 to six sail, that is the Centurion and the Tryal 
 prize, together with the Csirmelo, the Teresa, the 
 Cannin, and our last acquired vessel the Solidad. 
 
 And now, before I entirely quit the account of 
 our transactions at this place, it may not perhaps 
 be improper to give a succinct relation of the 
 booty we made here, and of the loss the Spaniards 
 sustained. I have before observed, that there 
 were great quantities of valuable effects in the 
 town ; but aa the greatest part of them were what 
 we could neither dispose of nor carry away, the 
 total amount of this merchandise can only be 
 rudely guessed at. But the Spaniards, in the re- 
 presentations they made to the court of Madrid 
 (as we were afterwards assured), estimated their 
 whole loss at a million and a half of dollars ; and 
 when it is considered, that no small part of the 
 goods we burnt there were of the richest and most 
 expensive species, as broad-cloths, silks, cambrics, 
 velvets, &c., I cannot but think their valuation 
 sufficiently moderate. As to our pai-ts, our ac- 
 quisition, though inconsiderable in comparison 
 of what we destroyed, was yet in itself far from 
 despicable ; for the wrought plate, dollars and 
 other coin, which fell into our hands amounted to 
 upwards of 30,000/. sterling, besides several rings, 
 bracelets, and jewels, whose intrinsic value we 
 could not then determine ; and over and above all 
 this, the plunder which became the property of the 
 immediate captors, was very great : so that upon 
 the whole It was by much the most important booty 
 we made upon that coast. 
 
 There remains, before I take leave of this place, 
 another particularity to be mentioned, which, on 
 account of the great honour which our national 
 character in those parts has thence received, and 
 the reputation which our commodore in particular 
 has thereby acquired, merits a distinct and cir- 
 cumstantial discussion. It has been already related, 
 that all the prisoners taken by us in our preced- 
 ing prizes were put on shore, and discharged at 
 this place ; amongst which there were some per- 
 sons of considerable distinction, particularly a 
 youth of about seventeen years of age, son of the 
 vice-president of the Council of Chili. Aji the 
 barbarity of the buccaneers, and the artful use 
 the ecclesiastics had made of it, had filled the 
 natives of those countries with the most terrible 
 ideas of the English cruelty, we always found our 
 prisoners, at their first coming on board us, to be 
 extremely dejected, and under great horror and 
 anxiety. In particular, this youth, whom I last 
 mentioned, having never been from home before, 
 lamented his captivity in the most moving manner, 
 regretting, in very plaintive terms, his parents, 
 his brothers, his sisters, and his native country ; 
 of all which he was fully persuaded he had 
 taken his last farewell, believing that he was now 
 devoted, for the remaining part of his life, to an 
 abject and cruel servitude ; nor was he singular in 
 his feara, for his companions on board, and indeed 
 all the Spaniards that came into our power, had 
 the same desponding opinion of their situation. 
 Mr. Anson constantly exerted his utmost endea- 
 voura to efface these inhuman impressions they 
 had received of us; always taking care, that as 
 many of the principal people among them as there 
 was room for, should dine at his table by turns ; 
 and giving the strictest orders too, that theyshould 
 at all times, and in every circumstance, be treated 
 
 with the utmost decency and humanity. But not- 
 withstanding this precaution, it was generally 
 observed, that for the first day or two they did not 
 quit their fears, but suspected the gentleness of 
 their usage to be only preparatory to some un- 
 thought-of calamity. However, being confirmed 
 by time, they grew perfectly easy in their situation 
 and remarkably cheerful, so that it was often dis- 
 putable, whether or no they considered their being 
 detained by us as a misfortune. For the youth I 
 have above-mentioned, who was near two months 
 on board us, had at last so far conquered hi» 
 melancholy surmises, and had taken such an affec- 
 tion to Mr. Anson, and seemed so much pleased 
 with the manner of life, totally different from all 
 he had ever seen before, that it is doubtful to me 
 whether, if his own opinion had been taken, he 
 would not have preferred a voyage to England ii» 
 the Centurion, to the being set on shore at Paita,. 
 where he was at liberty to return to his country 
 and his friends. 
 
 This conduct of the commodore to his prisoners, 
 which was continued without interruption or devi- 
 ation, gave them all the highest idea of his human- 
 ity and benevolence, and induced them likewise 
 (as mankind are fond of forming general opinions) 
 to entertain very favourable thoughts of the whole 
 English nation. But whatever they might be dis- 
 posed to think of Mr. Anson before the taking of 
 the Teresa, their veneration for him was prodigi- 
 ously increased by his conduct towards those 
 women, whom (as I have already mentioned) he 
 took in that vessel : for the leaving them in the 
 possession of their apartments, the strict ordera 
 given to prevent all his people on board from ap 
 preaching them, and the permitting the pilot t* 
 stay with them as their guardian, were measures 
 that seemed so different from what might be ex- 
 pected from an enemy and a heretic, that the 
 Spaniards on board, though they had themselves 
 experienced his beneficence, were surprised at 
 this new instance of it ; and the more so, as all this 
 was done without his ever having seen the women, 
 though the two daughters were both esteemed 
 handsome, and the youngest was celebrated for her 
 uncommon beauty.^ The women themselves, too, 
 were so sensible of the obligations they owed him 
 for the care and attention with which he had pro- 
 tected them, that they absolutely refused to go on 
 shore at Paita, till they had been permitted to 
 wait on him on board the Centurion, to return 
 him thanks in person. Indeed, all the prisoners 
 left us with the strongest assurances of their grate- 
 ful remembrance of his uncommon treatment. A 
 Jesuit in particular, whom the commodore had 
 taken, and who was an ecclesiastic of some dis- 
 tinction, could not help expressing himself with 
 great thankfulness for the civilities he and his 
 countrymen had found on board, declaring that he 
 should consider itas hisduty todo Mr. Anson justice 
 
 1" We have heard a great deal of the continence of Scipio 
 Africanus. when that conqueror of Spain refused to see a 
 beautiful princess that had fallen into h is power. If Anson , 
 under the circumstances of the times and country, bo 
 denied the meed of praise bestowed on the Roman general, 
 as an example of stem Roman virtue, he was amply 
 repaid for his generosity and humanity to his prisoners, by 
 their cordial and grateful remembrance of his treatment, 
 which was applauded and circulated through every corner 
 of Spanish America." — Barrow's Li/e of tord Anton, 
 
64 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE. WORLD. 
 
 at -all times ; addrog,ihat his visage of the men- 
 prisoners was such as could never bs; fOrgot, and 
 such as he' could never fail to acknowledge and 
 recite upon all occasions : but that his behaviour 
 to , the women was 80 extraordinary, and so ex- 
 tremely honourable, that he doubted all the regard 
 due to his own ecclesiastical character, would be 
 scarcely sufiBcient to render it credible. And in- 
 deed we were afterwards informed, that both he 
 and the rest uf our prisoners had not been sileilt 
 on this head, but had, both at liiraa and at other 
 places, given the greatest encomiums to our com- 
 modore ; the jesilit in particular, as we were told, 
 hsnng on his account interpreted in a lax and 
 hypothetical sense thkt article of his Church, which 
 asserts the impossibility' of heretics being saved. 
 
 : And let it not be imagined, that the impressions 
 Nvhich the Spaniards hence received to our advan- 
 tage, is a matter of small import ; for, not to tnen- 
 tjon several of our countrymen who have already 
 felt the good effects of these prepossessions, the 
 Spaniards are a nation, 'whose good opinion' of us 
 is doubtless of more consequence than that of all 
 the world besides : not only as the commerce we 
 have formerly carried on withi thetn, and perhaps 
 may again hereafter, is so extremely valuable; 
 but also as the transacting it does so immediately 
 depend on the honour and good faith of those who 
 are entrusted with its management. But, how- 
 ever, had no national conveniences attended it, 
 the commodore's equity and good temper would 
 not less have deterred him from all tyranny and 
 cruelty to those whom the fortune of 'war had 
 put into his hands. I shall only add, that< by his 
 constant attachtnent to these humane and prudent 
 maxims, he 1ms acquired a distinguished reputation 
 amongst the Creolian Spaniards, which is not 
 cpnfined merely to the coast of the South Seas, but 
 is extended through' all the Spanish settlements in 
 America; so that his name is frequently to be 
 met -with in the moutlis of most of the Spanish in- 
 habitants of that prodigious empire.' 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 From our departure /rtrni Paita,io our- arrival at Quibo. 
 , When we got under sail- from the road of Paita 
 (which, as I have already observed, was about 
 midnight, on the 16th of November) we stood to 
 the westward, and in the morning the commodore 
 gave orders that the whole squadron should spread 
 tiiemselves, in order to look out for the Gloucester. 
 For we now drew near to the station where-Captain 
 Mitchel had been directed to cruise, and hourly 
 expected to get sight of him ; but thfe whole day 
 passed without seeing him. 
 
 And now a jealousy, which -had taken its rise at 
 Paita, between those who had been ordered on 
 shore for the attack, and those who had continued 
 on board, grew to such a height that the commo- 
 dore, being made acquainted with it, thought it 
 necessary to interpose his anttority to appease 
 it. The ground of this animosity was the plun|- 
 
 > " Even to tbiB day the'name of Anson is held in th6 
 highest respect in the Spanish prOviiioea of America, while 
 the fate of Faita is forgotten, or, ■ if remembered, is ao 
 chiefly to reprobate the obstinacy of the governor "— fiar*- 
 rouj's Life of Lord Anton. 
 
 der gotten at Paita, which those who had atlod 
 on shore ba4 appropriated to themselves, . and 
 consider-,- .s as a reward for ,the rislis: they 
 had run, and the resolution they had shown in 
 that service. But those who had remained on 
 board considered this as a very partial and unjust 
 procedure, urging, that had it been left to their 
 choice, they should have preferred the acting on 
 shore to the continuing on board ; that their duty, 
 while their comrades were on shore, was extremely 
 fatiguii^; for besides the labour of the day, they 
 were constantly under arms all nighti to secure the 
 prisoners, whose numbers exceeded their own, and 
 of whom it was then necessaryto be extremely 
 watchful, to prevent any attempts they mighthave 
 formed in that criti(!al conjuncture ; that upon the 
 whole it could not be denied, but that the presence 
 of a sufficient force on board was as necessary to 
 the success of the enterprise as the action of the 
 others on shore ; and therefore those who had con- 
 tinued on board insisted, that they <:ould not be 
 deprived of their share of the : plunder without 
 manifest injustice. These were the contests 
 amongst our men, which were carried . on witli 
 great heat on both sides : and though th^ plunder 
 in question was a very trifle,' in comparison of 
 the treasure .taken in the place (in which there 
 was no doubt but those on board had an equal 
 right), yet as the obstinacy of sailors is notalways 
 regulated by- tlie importance .of the matter 'in 
 dispute, the commodore tliought it necessary to 
 put a stop to this ferment betimes.:- And.occor^ 
 dingly, the morning after our leaving of Paita, he 
 ordered all hands upon the quarter-deck ; where, 
 addressing himself to those, who had been detached 
 on shore, he commended their behaviour,' and 
 thanked them fop their services-on that occasion: 
 but then representing to them the reasons urged, 
 by those who had cojitinued.on board, for an eijual 
 distribution of the plunder^ he .told them thati he 
 thought these reasons very conclusive, 'and ■ that 
 the ' expectations of their .comrades .were justly 
 founded; and therefore he ordered,'that not only 
 the men, but .all the ofiicers. likewise, who had 
 been employed in taking, the place,' should pro- 
 duce. the whole of' thoir plunder immediately upon 
 the quarter-deck ; and that it should be impartially 
 divided amongst the whole crew, in proportion to 
 each man?s rank and commission'; and to prevent 
 those who had been in possession of the plunder 
 from murmuring at this diminution of their share; 
 the commodore added, that as an encouragement 
 to others who might be hereaftra- employed on 
 like services, he would giyc'his entire share tO' be 
 distributed amongst those who had been detached 
 for the attack of the place. Thus this troublesome 
 aSair, which if permitted to have gone on, might 
 perhaps have been attended with mischievous 
 consequences,) was by the commodore's prudence 
 soon appeased, to the general satisfaction of the 
 ship's company: not but there were some few, 
 whose selfish dispo^tions were uninfluenced by 
 the justice of this procedure, and who were inca- 
 pable of discerning the force of. equity, however 
 glaring, when it. tended to deprive them of any 
 part of what they had once got into their hands. 
 
 This important business employed the best part 
 of the day, after we came from Paita. And now, 
 at night, having no sight of the Gloucester, the 
 commodore ordered the squadron to bring-to, tlbat 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROtJND THE WORLD. 
 
 . 
 
 we might not pass he* m the dark. The next 
 niorniitg we again lo6ked out for lier, and at ten 
 we saw a sail, to which we gave chaise ; and at 
 two in the afternoon we came near enough to her 
 to discovec her to be the Gloucester, with a small 
 vessel in tow. About an hour after, we wei'e 
 joined'hy them ; and then we learnt that Captain 
 Mitchel, in the whole time of his cruise, had only 
 taken two prizes ; one of them being a small 
 snow, whose cargo consisted chiefly of wiue, 
 brandy, and olives in jars, with about 7000/. in 
 s-pecie ; and the other a large boat or launch, 
 which the Gloucester's barge came up with near 
 the shore. The prisoners on board this vessel 
 alleged, that they were very poor, and that their 
 lading consisted only of cotton ; though the circum- 
 stances in which the barge surprised them, seemed 
 to insinuate that they were more opulent than 
 they pretended to be ; for the GloueeBter's people 
 found tliera at dinner upon pigeon-pie, served 
 up in silver dishes. However, the officer who 
 commanded the barge having opened several of 
 the jars on board, to satisfy his curiosity, and 
 finding nothihg in them but cotton, he was in- 
 clined to believe the Recount the prisoners gave 
 him : buttiie'cargo being taken into the Gloucester, 
 , and there examined more strictly, they were 
 agreeably surprised to find, that the whole was a 
 very extraordinary- piece of false package ; and 
 that there was concealed amongst the cotton, in 
 t every- jar, &■' considerable quantity of double 
 i doubloons and dollai's, to the jtmount in the whole 
 of near 12,000/. This treasure was going to 
 Paita, and belonged' to th6 same merchants who 
 vv^ie the proprietors of the greatest part of the 
 money we had taken there ; so that, had this boat 
 escap^ the Gloucester, it is probable her cargo 
 would have fallen into Our handsl B^sidfes these 
 two prizes which we have mentioned^ the Glou- 
 cester's' people told us, that they had been in 
 sight of two or three other ships of tlie enemy 
 wbiieh had escaped th^m ; and one of them we 
 liad reason to believe^ fr6m some of our intel- 
 ligence, was of an immense value. "> 
 
 Being now joined by the Gtoucester and her 
 pi4ze, it was resolved that we should stand to the 
 northward, and make the best of our Way either 
 to^Cape St. Lucas on California, or to Cape Cori- 
 entes on thccoast of-Mexico. Iiideed' the com- 
 modore, when at Juan Femandes^ had determined 
 with himself to touch in- the neighbourhood of 
 Panama, and to endeavour to get some corres- 
 poudende over-land with the- fleet under the com- 
 mand of Admiral Vernon. For when we departed 
 from rEngland, we left a large fotce at Portsmouth, 
 which was intended to be sent to the West Indies, 
 there to be employed in an expedition against 
 some of the "Spanish settlements. And Mr. Anson 
 taking' it. foi' granted, that this enterprise had 
 succeeded, and thai Porto' Belle perhaps might 
 be then garrisoned by British troops, he hoped 
 that on hiS' arrival at the isthmus, he should easily 
 procure an intercourse with our countryinen on 
 the other side, either by the Indians^ who were 
 greatly ^disposed ■ in our favour, or even by the 
 Spani^ds. '-themselves, some of whom^^orprpper 
 rewards^ might be induced to carry on this iu- 
 telligeiicc, which, after it was once begun, might 
 be: oontinned with 'very little difficulty ; so that 
 Ur. Anaoo flattered himself, that he might by 
 
 this means have ifeceiyed a reinforcement of men 
 from the other side, and that by settHiig a prudent 
 plan of operations witb our comman4ers in the 
 West-Indies, he might have taken even Panama 
 itself; which would have given to the British 
 nation the possession of that isthmus, wher«by 
 we should have been in effect masters of all tht^ 
 treasures of Peru, and should have had in our 
 hands an equivalent for any demands, however 
 extraordinary, which We mi^ht' have I>^en indiiced 
 to have niade on either of *he branches of the 
 house of Bourbon. 
 
 Such were the projects which the commodora 
 levolVed in his ui'oughts at the island of Juan 
 Femandes, not;ivithstanding the feeble condition 
 to which he was then reduced. And indeed, had 
 the success of our force in the West Indies b^n 
 answerable to the general expectation, it cannot 
 be denied but these views would haije been the 
 most prudent that could have been thouglit of, 
 But in ej^amining the papers which were found 
 on board the Carmelo, the first prize we took, 
 we learnt (though I then omitted to monition it) 
 that our attempt against Carthagena, had failed, 
 and that there "was no probability that our fleet, 
 in that part of the world, would engage in any 
 new enterprise, that would at all facilitate this 
 plan. And , therefore Mr. Anson gave over all 
 hopes of being reinforced across the , isthmu^ 
 and consequently ha^ no indiicenlent at present 
 to prbfeeed to Panama,, as V was incapaW^ of 
 attacking the place ; aiid there was gr^at reason 
 to believe, that by this time there was a general 
 embargo on all the coast. 
 
 The only feasible measure tb^n which was |eft 
 us, was to get as soon as possible to the southern 
 parts of California, or to the adjacent coast of 
 Mexico, theire to emige for the Manila galleon, 
 which we knew was now at sea,' bound to the 
 port of Acapulco. And we doubted not to get on 
 that station, time enough to intercept her ; fo^ 
 this ship does not actually arrive at Acapulco till 
 towards the middle of January, and we were now 
 but in the middle of November, and did not con- 
 ceive that our passage thither woujd' cost ns 
 above a month or five weeks ; so ; that we ima- 
 gined, we -had near twice as much' time as was 
 necessary for our porpo^. Indeed tljere was a 
 business which we foresaw would occasion some 
 delay, but we flattered ourselves that it would be 
 despatched in forn'or five days, and therefore 
 could not interrupt our project. This was the 
 recruiting of our Water ; for the number of pri- 
 soners -we had entertained on board, sinpe our 
 leaving the island of Femandes, had so far ex- 
 hausted our stock, that it was impossible to think 
 of- 'Venturing -upon this -passage to the coast of 
 Mexico, till we had procured a fresh suppljr ; 
 especially as at Paita, where we had some hopes 
 of getting a quantity, we did not find enough for 
 our consumption during the time we staid there. 
 It was for some time a. matter of deliberation, 
 where we shoiild take in this necessary article ; 
 but by consulting the accounts of former navi- 
 gaMca, and examining our prisoners, we at last 
 resolved' for the island of Quibo, situated at the 
 mouth of the bay of Panama : ' nor was it but ' on 
 gaed grounds tl^ the comn>odore conceived this 
 to be theproperestplace forwatering the squadron. 
 Indeed, there was a small island called CoroS, 
 
66 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 which was less out of our way than Quibo, where 
 some of the buccaneers have pretended they 
 found water ; but none of our prisoners liuew 
 anything of it, and it wag thought too hazardous 
 to risk the safety of the squadron, and expose 
 ourselves to the hazard of not meeting with water 
 when we came there, on the mere authority of 
 these legendary writers, of whose misrepre- 
 sentations and falsities we had almost daily ex- 
 perience. Besides, by going to Quibo we were 
 not without hopes that some of the enemy's ships 
 bound to or from Panama might fall into our 
 hands, particularly such of them as were put to 
 sea before they had any intelligence of our 
 squadron. 
 
 Having determined therefore to go to y,uibo, 
 we directed our course to the northward, being 
 eight sail in company, and consequently having 
 the appearance of a very formidable fleet ; and 
 on the 19tli, at day-break, we discovered Cape 
 Blanco, bearing S.S.E.^E. seven miles distant. 
 This cape lies in the latitude of 4° 15' south, and 
 is always made by ships bound either to windward 
 or to leeward ; so that off this cape is a most 
 excellent station to cruise upon the enemy. By 
 this time we found that our last prize, the Solidad, 
 was far from answering the character given her 
 of a good sailer ; and she an(t the Santa Teresa 
 delaying us considerably, the commodore ordered 
 them both to be cleared of everything that might 
 prove useful to the rest of the ships, and then to 
 be burnt ; and having given proper instructions, 
 and a rendezvous to the Gloucester and the other 
 prizes, we proceeded in our course for Quibo ; 
 and, on the 22d in the morning, saw the island 
 of Plata, bearing east, distant four leagues. Here 
 one of our prizes was ordered to stand close in 
 with it, both to discover if there were any ships 
 between that island and the continent, and like- 
 wise to look out for a stream of fresh water, 
 which was reported to be there, and which would 
 have saved us the trouble of going to Quibo ; but 
 she returned without having seen any ship, or 
 finding any water. At three in the afternoon 
 Point Manta bore S.E. by E., seven miles dis- 
 tant ; and there beinga town of thesame name in the 
 neighbourhood, Captain Mitchel took this oppor- 
 tunity of sending away several of his prisoners 
 from the Gloucester in the Spanish launch. The 
 boats were now daily employed in distributing 
 provisions on board the Tryal and other prizes, 
 to complete their stock for six months : and that 
 the Centurion might be the better prepared to 
 give the Manila ship (one of which we were told 
 was of an immense size) a warm reception, the 
 carpenters were ordered to fix eight stocks in the 
 main and fore tops, which were proj^irly fitted 
 for the mounting of swivel guns. 
 
 On the 25th we had a sight of the island of 
 Gallo, bearing E.S.E.^E., four leagues distant ; 
 and from hence we crossed the bay of Panama 
 with a N.W. course, hoping that this would have 
 carried us in a direct Une to the island of Quibo. 
 But we afterwards found that we ought to have 
 stood more to the westward ; for the winds in a 
 short time began to incline to that quarter, and 
 made it difScult for us to gain the island. And 
 now, after passing the equinoctial, (which we did 
 on the 22d,) and leaving the neighbourhood of the 
 Cordilleras, and standing more and more towards 
 
 the isthmus, where the communication of the 
 atmosphere to the eastward and the westward was 
 no longer interrupted, we found in very few days 
 an extraordinary alteration in the cUmate. For 
 instead of that uniform temperature, where neither 
 the excess of heat or cold was to be complained 
 of, we had now for several days together close 
 and sultry weather, resembling what we had be- 
 fore met with on the coast of Brazil, and in other 
 parts between the tropics on the eastern side of 
 America. We had besides frequent calms and 
 heavy rains ; which we at first ascribed to the 
 neighbourhood of the Line, where this kind of 
 weather is generally found to prevail at all seasons 
 of the year ; but observing that it attended us to 
 the latitude of seven degrees north, we were at 
 length induced to believe that the stormy season, 
 or, as the Spaniards call it, the Vandevals, was 
 not yet over ; though many writei's, particularly 
 Captain Shelvocke, positively assert, that this 
 season begins in June, and is ended in November ; 
 and our prisoners all affirmed the same thing. 
 But perhaps its end may not be always con- 
 stant, and it might last this year longer than 
 usual. 
 
 On the 27th, Captain Mitchel having finished 
 the clearing of his largest prize, she was scuttled, 
 and set on fire ; but we still consisted of five 
 ships, and were fortunate enough to find them all 
 good sailers ; so that we never occasioned any 
 delay to each other. Being now in a rainy cli- 
 mate, which we had been long disused to, we 
 found it necessary to caulk the decks and sides of 
 the Centurion, to prevent the rain-water from 
 running into her. 
 
 On the 3rd of DecemTjer we had a view of the 
 island of Quibo ; the east end of which then bore 
 from us N.N.W., four leagues distant, and the 
 island of Quicara W.N.W., at about the same 
 distance. Here we struck ground with sixty-five 
 fathoms of line, and found the bottom to consist of 
 grey sand, with black specks. When we had thus 
 got sight of the land, we found the wind to hang 
 westerly ; and therefore, night coming on, we 
 thought it advisable to stand off till morning, a* 
 there are said to be some shoals in the entrance 
 of the channel. At six the next morning Point 
 Mariato bore N.E.AN., three or four leagues 
 distant. In weathermg this point, all the squad- 
 ron, except the Centurion, were very near it ; and 
 the Gloucester, being the leewardmost ship, was 
 forced to tack and stand to the southward, so that 
 we lost sight of her. At nine, the island Sebaeo 
 bore N.W. by N., four leagues distant ; but the 
 wind still proving unfavourable, we were obliged 
 to ply on and off for the succeeding twenty-four 
 hours, and were frequently taken aback. How- 
 ever, at eleven the next morning, the wind happily 
 settled in the S.S.W., and we bore away for the 
 S.S.E. end of the island, and about three in the 
 afternoon entered the Canal Bueno, passing round 
 a shoal which stretches off about two miles from 
 the south point of the island. This Canal Bueno, 
 or Good Channel, is at least six miles in breadth ; 
 and as we had the wind large, we kept in a good 
 depth of water, generally from twenty-eight to 
 thirty-three fathoms, and came not within a mile 
 and a half distance of the breaker's ; though, in all 
 probability, if it had been necessary, we might 
 have ventured much nearer without incurring the 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 07 
 
 least danger. At seven in the evening we came 
 to an anchor in thirty-three fathoms muddy 
 ground ; the south point of the island bearing 
 S.E. by S., a remarkable high part of the island 
 W. by N., and the island Sebaco E. by N. Being 
 thus arrived at this island of Q,uibo, the account 
 of the place, and of our transactions there shall 
 be refeiTed to the ensuing chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Our procfedings at Quibo, with an account of Vie place. 
 
 The next morning, after our egming to an 
 anchor, an officer was despatched on shore to dis- 
 cover the watering-place, who having found it, 
 returned before noon ; and then we sent the long- 
 boat for a load of water, and at the same time we 
 weighed and stood farther in with our ships. At 
 two we came again to an anchor in twenty-two 
 fathoms, with a bottom of rough gravel intermixed 
 with broken shells, the watering place now bearing 
 from us N.W.^N., only three quarters of a mile 
 distant. 
 
 This island of Quibo is extremely convenient 
 for wooding and watering ; for the trees grow 
 close to the high-water mark, and a large rapid 
 stream of , fresh water runs over the sandy beach 
 into the sea : so that we were little more than 
 two days in laying in all the wood and water we 
 wanted. The whole island is of a very moderate 
 height, excepting one part. It consists of a con- 
 tinued wood spread over the whole surface of the 
 country, which preserves its verdure all the year 
 round. Amongst the other wood we found there 
 abundance of cassia and a few lime trees. It 
 appeared singular to us that, considering the cli- 
 mate and the shelter, we should see no other birds 
 there than parrots, parroquets, and macaws ; in- 
 deed of these last there were prodigious flights. 
 Next to these birds, the animals we found there 
 in most plenty were monkeys and guanos, and 
 these we frequently killed for food ; for though 
 there were many herds of deer upon the place, 
 yet the difficulty of penetrating the woods pre- 
 vented our coming near them, so that though we 
 saw them often, we killed only two during our 
 stay. Our prisoners assured us that this island 
 abounded with tigers ; and we did once discover 
 the print of a tiger's paw upon the beach, but the 
 tigers themselves we never saw. The Spaniards, 
 too, informed us that there was often found in the 
 woods a most mischievous serpent, called the flying 
 snake, which they said darted itself from the 
 boughs of trees on either mau or beast that came 
 within its reach ; and whose sting they believed 
 to be inevitable death. Besides these mischievous 
 land animals, the sea hereabouts is infested with 
 great numbers of alligators of an extraordinary 
 size ; and we often observed a large kind of fiat- 
 fish, jumping a considerable height out of the 
 water, which we. supposed to be the fish that is 
 said frequently tc destroy the pearl divers, by 
 clasping them in its fins as they rise from the 
 bottom ; and we were told that the divers, for their 
 security, are now always armed with a sharp knife, 
 which, when they are entangled, they stick into 
 the belly of the fish, and thereby disengage them- 
 selves from its embraces. 
 
 Whilst the ship continued here at anchor, the 
 commodore, attended by some of his officers, went 
 in a boat to examine a bay which lay to the north- 
 ward ; and they afterwa,rds ranged all along the 
 eastern side of the island. And in the places where 
 they put on shore in the course of this expedition, 
 they generally found the soil to be extremely rich, 
 and met with great plenty of excellent water. In 
 pai-ticular, near the N.E. point of the island, they 
 discovered a natural cascade, which surpassed, as 
 they conceived, everything of this kind which 
 human art or industry has hitherto produced. It 
 was a river of transparent water, about forty yards 
 wide, which ran down a declivity of near a hundred 
 and fifty yards in length. The channel it ran in 
 was very irregular ; for it was entirely formed of 
 rock, both its sides and bottom being made up of 
 large detached blocks ; and by these the course 
 of the water was frequently interrupted : for in 
 some places it ran sloping with a rapid but uni- 
 form motion, while in other parts it tumbled over 
 the ledges of rocks with a perpendicular descent. 
 All the neighbourhood of this stream was a fine 
 wood ; and even the huge masses of rock which 
 overhung the water, and which, by their various 
 projections, formed the inequalities of the channel, 
 were covered with lofty forest trees. Whilst the 
 commodore, and those who were with him, were 
 attentively viewing this place, and were remark- 
 ing the dMerent blendings of the water, the rocks 
 and the wood, there came in sight (as it were 
 with an intent still to heighten and animate the 
 prospect) a prodigious flight of macaws, which 
 hovering over this spot, and often wheeling and 
 playing on the wing about it, afforded a most 
 brilliant appearance, by the glittering of the suu 
 on their variegated plumage ; so that some ol 
 the spectators cannot refrain from a kind oi 
 transport, when they recount the complicated 
 beauties which occurred in this extraordinary 
 waterfall. 
 
 In this expedition, which the boat made along 
 the easteim side of the island, though they met 
 with no inhabitants, yet they saw many huts upon 
 the shore, and great heaps of shells of fine mother- 
 of-pearl scattered up and down in different places: 
 these were the remains left by the pearl-fishers 
 from Panama, who often frequent this place in 
 the summer season ; for the pearl oysters, which 
 are to be met with everywhere in the bay of Pa- 
 nama, are so plentiful at Quibo, that by advancing 
 a very httle way into the sea, you might stoop 
 down and reach them from the bottom. They are 
 usually very large, and out of curiosity we opened 
 some of them with a view of tasting them, but 
 we found them extremely tough and unpalatable. 
 And having mentioned these oysters and the pearl- 
 fishery, I must beg leave to recite a few particu- 
 lars relating, thereto. 
 
 The oysters most productive of pearls are those 
 found in considerable depths ; for though what 
 are taken up by wading near shore are of the 
 same species, yet the pearls found in them are 
 very rare and very small. It is said too that the 
 pearl partakes in some degree of the quality ot 
 the bottom on which the oyster is found ; so that 
 if the bottom be muddy the pearl is dark and iil- 
 coloured. 
 
 The taking up oysters from great depths for 
 the sake of the pearls they contain, is a work per- 
 
C8 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE \VORL,p. 
 
 formed by negro slaves, of which the inhabitants , 
 ■of Panama and the neighbouring coast formerly 
 •kept great numbers, which wore carefully trained 
 to this business. And these are eaid not to be 
 ■esteemed complete divers till they have by de- 
 i^reeB been able to protract their stay under water 
 30 long, that the blood gushes out from their nose, 
 mouth, and ears. And it is the tradition of the 
 country, that when this accident has once befallen 
 them, they dive for the future with m\ich greater, 
 facility than before ; and they have no apptehen- 
 «ion either that any inconvenience can attend it, 
 the bleeding generally stopping of 'itself, or that 
 there is any probability of their being ever sub- 
 ject to it a second time. But to rettim from this 
 digression. 
 
 Though the pearl-oyster, as has been said, w&s 
 incapable of being eaten, yet the sea at this place 
 fiirmshed us with another dainty, in the greateBt 
 plenty and perfection : this was tlie turtle, of 
 which we took here, what quantity we pleased. 
 There are generally reckoned four species of tur- 
 tle ; that is, the trunk turtle, the loggerhead, the 
 hawksbill, and the green turtle. The two first 
 are rank and unwholesome ; the hawksbill (which 
 furnishes the tortoiseshell) is but indifferent food, 
 tiiough better than the other two ; but the green 
 turtle is generally esteemed, by the greatest part 
 of those who are acqtiainted with its taste, to be 
 the most delicious of all eatables ; and that it is a 
 ■most wholesome food, we are amply convinced by 
 our, own experience : for we fed on this last spe- 
 cies, or the green turtle, for near four months, and 
 consequently, had it been in any degree noxious, 
 its ill effects could not possibly have escaped us. 
 At this island we took what quantity we pleased 
 with great facility ; for as they are an amphibious 
 animal, and get on shore to lay their eggs, which 
 they generally deposit in a large hole in the sand, 
 itist above the high-water mark, covering them up, 
 imd leaving them to be hatched by the heat of the 
 spn, we usually dispersed several of our men alorig 
 the beach, whose business it was to turn them on 
 their backs when they came to land ; and the tiir- 
 tle being thereby prevented fro^ getting away, w^ 
 carried them, off at our leisure : by this means we, 
 not-Only secured a sufficient stock for the time we 
 ■staid on the island, but we took a number of 
 them with us to sea, which proved of great service 
 both in lengthening out our store of provision, and 
 in heartening the whole crew with an almost con- 
 stant supply of fresh and palatable food ; for the 
 turtle b^ng large, they generally weighing about 
 2001bs. weigljt each, those we took with us lasted 
 us near a month, and by that time we met with a 
 fresh recruit on the coast of Mexico, where we 
 often saw them in the heat of the day floating in 
 great numbers on the surface of the water fast 
 asleep. When we discovered them we usually sent 
 out our boat with a man in the bow, who was a 
 dexterous diver, and when the boat came within 
 a few yards of the turtle, the diver plunged into 
 the water, and took care to rise close upon it ; and 
 seizing the shell ne^ar the tail, and pressing down 
 the binder parts, the turtle, when awakened, began 
 to -strike with its claws,, which motion supported 
 both it and the diver, till the boal; came up and 
 took them in. By this management we never 
 wanted turtle for the succeeding four months in 
 which we continued at sea ; and though, when at 
 
 Quibo, we had already been three months, on 
 board, without otherwise putting our feet on shore,, 
 than in the few days we stayed at , this island of 
 Quibo, (except those employed in the attack of 
 Paita,) yet in the whole seven months, from our 
 leaving Juan Fernandes to our anchoring in the 
 harbour of Chequetan, we buried no more in |he 
 whole squadron than two men ; a mo^t incontest- 
 able proof that the turtle, on which we fed for the 
 last four months of this term, was at least innocent, 
 if not something more. 
 
 Considering the scarcity of provisions on some 
 part of the cqast of these seas, it appears wondeir- 
 ful, tliat a species of food so very palatable and 
 salubrious as turtle, ?jid so much abounding in, 
 those parts, should be proscribed by the Spaniards 
 as unwholesoine, and little less than poisoQoujS, 
 Perhaps the strange appearance of thi^ aniip^* 
 may have been the f6;i;idation of this ridiciilpns 
 ' and superstitious aversion, which is strongly rop^ed 
 in all the inhabitants, of that coast, and of whichi 
 we had many instances in the .course of tljis navi-| 
 gation. I have already observed, that we put onr 
 Spaiiish prisoners on snore at' Paita, and that the, 
 Gloucester sent theirs to Manta, ; but as we had 
 taken in' our prizes some lhdia.n and negro slaves, 
 we did not set these on shore with their ma;^, 
 ters, but continued theju on board, as piir erewjs 
 were thin, to aaai^i in navigating our sbips. Thc^ 
 poor people being possessed with the prejudices , 
 of the country they came from, were , astonished 
 at our feeding on turtle, and seemed fully per- 
 suaded that it would soon destroy us ; but ^udto,g 
 that none of us died, nor eveia suffered in ouf 
 health b^ a continuation of this diet^ they at last 
 got 80 far ibe better of their aversion, as to lie 
 persuaded to taste it, to which the absence of all 
 other kinds of fresh provisions might not a little 
 contribute. However, it was with great reluctance, 
 and very sparingly, that' they firpt beg^n to eat of, 
 it : but the relish improving upon, them by degreep, 
 they at last grew extremely fond of it, and pre- 
 ferred it to eyery other kind of food, and ,6ffen 
 felicitated each other on the happy experiepoe 
 they had acquired, and the delicious and plentiful , 
 repasts it would be always in their power to pro- 
 cure,' when they should again return bac^ to .tiJejiT, 
 country. Those who are acquainted with the, 
 manner of life of thfese unhappy wretches, need not 
 be told, that next to large draughts of spiritubiis 
 Uquors, plenty of tolerable food is the, greatest joy 
 they know, and consequently the discovering a 
 method which would always supply them with 
 what quantity they pleased, of a food more luxu- 
 rious to the palate than any their-haughty lorcls 
 and masters could indulge in, was doubtl^ a cixr 
 cumstance which they cop^idered as the most for- 
 tunate that could befal them. 
 
 After this digresdon, which the prodigiqns 
 quantity of turtle on this island of Qaibo, and the , 
 store qf it we thence took to sea,' in i, \tai meafiure 
 led me into, I shall now return' to uar wn pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 In three days' time we had completed f)nr btisi- 
 ness at this p&ce, and were extremely impatient 
 to put to sea, that we might arrive time enough 
 on the coast of .Mexico to intercept the Manila 
 galleon. But the wind being contrary, detained 
 us a night ; and the next day, when we got into , 
 the offing, (which we did through the same bhah- 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THL WORLD. 
 
 G» 
 
 nel by which we entered,) we were obliged to keep 
 hovering about the is(Iand, in hopes of getting sight 
 of the Glouoeater ; which, as I have in the last 
 chapter mentioned, was separated fi-om us on our 
 first arrival. It was the 9th of December, in the 
 morning, when we put to sea ; and continuing to 
 the southward of the island, looking out for the 
 Gloucester, we, on the 10th, at five in the after- 
 noon, discerned ;» small sail to the northward of 
 us, to which we gave cliase, and, coming up with 
 her, took her. She proved to be a barque from 
 Panama, bound to Cheripe, an inconsiderable 
 village on the continent, and was called the Jesu 
 Nazareno. She had nothing on board but some 
 oakum, about a ton of rock-salt, and between 30/., 
 and 40/. in specie, most of it consisting of small 
 silver money, intended for purchasing a cargo of 
 provisions at Cheripe. 
 
 And on occasion of this prize I eannat but 
 observe, for the use of future cruisers, that had 
 we been in want of provisions, we had by this 
 Cloture an obvious methpd of supplying ourselves. 
 For at Cheripe, whither she was bound, there is a 
 constant store of provisions prepared for the ves- 
 sels who go thither every week from Panama, the 
 market of ^ Panama being chiefly supplied from 
 thence ; so that by putting a few of our hands on 
 board our prize, we might easily have seized a 
 large store without any hazard, since Cheripe is a 
 place of no .strength. And as provisions are the 
 staple commodity of that place and of its neigh- 
 bourhood, the knowledge of this circumstance may 
 be of great- use to such cruisers as find their 
 provisions grow scant, and yet are desii'ous of con- 
 tinuing on that coast as long as possible. But to 
 return : 
 
 On the 12th of December, we were at last 
 relieved from the perplexity we had suffered by 
 the separation of the Gloucester ; for on that day 
 she joined us, and inf6rmed us that in tacking to 
 the southward, on our first arrival, she had sprung 
 her foretop-mast, which had disabled her from 
 working to windward, arid prevented her from 
 joining us soonei*. And now we scuttled and sunk 
 the Jesu Nazareno, the prize we took last ; and 
 having the greatest impatience to get into a pro- 
 per station for the galleon, we stood all together 
 to the westward, leaving the islani of Quito (not- 
 with^taiiding all the impedinjents' we met with) 
 in about nine' days after our first coming in sight 
 of it. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 From Quibo to UUcoast of Mexico. 
 
 Oh the 12th of December we stood from Quibo 
 to the Westward, and the same day the cdpmodore 
 delivered freeh mstruction? to the captains of the 
 iiieii-of-war, and the coihma|ider8 of our prizes, 
 appointing then), t'he rendezvouses they were to 
 make, and the cbnrs^ they were to gtfeer, in case 
 of a separation. And first, they were directed to 
 use all possible d^pa^ch in getting to the north- 
 ward of the harbour <if Acapulco, where they were 
 td endeavour to fall in witli the land, between the 
 latitiides of 18 arid 19 degrees ; from thence, they 
 were to bea£ up the coast at, eight or ten leagues' 
 distilnce from the shore, till tUey came abreast of 
 G»pe CorienteS, in die latitude of 20° 20'. Whan 
 
 they aiTived there, they were to continue cruising 
 oh that station till the 14th of February ; arid then 
 they were to proceed to the middle island of the 
 Tres Marias, in the latitude of 21" 25', bearing 
 from Cape Corieiites N.W. by N., twc^iity-fiva 
 leagues distant. Kai if at this island tliey did 
 not meet the commodore, they were there to re- 
 cruit their wood and w^ter, and tiien to make the 
 best of their way to the island of Macao, on the' 
 coast of China. These orders being distributed 
 to all the ships, we had little doubt of arriving 
 soon upon our intended station, as we expected, 
 upon the increasing our offing from Quibo, to fall ' 
 in with the regular trade- wind. But, to our ex- 1 
 treme vexation, we were baffled for near a month, 
 either with tempestuous weather from the western 
 quarter, or with dead cahns and heavy rains, at-? 
 tended with a sultry air ; so that it was the 25th 
 of December before we got a sight of the island, 
 of Cocos, which by our reckoning was only a hun- 
 dred leagues fi*om the continent ; and we had the- 
 raortiiication to make so little way, that we did 
 not lose sight of it again in five days. This island 
 we found to be in the latitude of 5"^ 20' north. It 
 has a high hummock towards the western part, 
 which descends gradually, and at last terminates 
 in a low point to the eastward. From the island 
 of Cocos we stood W. by N., and were till the 9th 
 of January in running a hundred leagues more^ 
 We had at first flattered ourselves, that the uncer- 
 tain weather and western gales we met with wer9 
 owing to the neighbourhood of the continent, fronji 
 whieh,as we got moredistant, weexpected everyday 
 to be relieved, by falling in with the eastern trader- 
 wind : but as our hopes were so long baffled, and 
 our patience quite exhausted, we began at length 
 to despair of succeeding in the gre^t purpose wo 
 had in view,that of intercepting th^ Manila galleon j 
 and this produced a general dejection amongst us,, 
 as we had at first considered this project as almost 
 infallible, and had indulged ourselves in the most 
 boundless hopes of tlie advantages we should thence^ 
 receive. However, our despondency was at last 
 somewha.t alleviated, by a, favourable change of 
 the wind ; for on the 9th of^ January, a gale for 
 the first time sprang up from the If.E., and on 
 this we took the CJaririelo in tow, as the Gloucester 
 did the Carmiri, making' all the saif we could t^ 
 improve the advantage, for we still suspected thai 
 it was qnly a temporary gale, which' woi^Id not last 
 long ; but the next day we had the satisfaction to- 
 find, that the wind did ndt only' continue' in tho^ 
 same quarter, but blew with so riiucli briskness, 
 and steadiness, that we now nq longer doubted of 
 its being the true trade-wind. And as we advanced 
 apace towards our station, our hopes began to- 
 revive, and our former despair by degrees gavo 
 place to more s.inguine prejudices : for though 
 the customary season of the arrival of the galleon 
 at Acapulco was already elapsed^ yet we were by 
 this time unreasonable enongh to flatter our- 
 selves, that some accidental delay might, for our 
 advantage, lengthen out her passage beyond its 
 usual limits. 
 
 When we got into the trade-wind, we found no' 
 alteration in it till the 17th of Januarj-, when wp 
 were advanced to the latitude of 12" 50', but on 
 that day it shifted to the westward of the north : 
 this, chaiige we imputed to our having hauled up 
 too soon, though we then esteeiied buraelves full 
 
70 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 seventy leagues from the coast, which plainly 
 sliows that the trade-wind does not take place 
 but at a considerable distance from the continent. 
 After this, the wind was not so favourable to us 
 as it had been : however, we stiU continued to 
 advance, and, on the 26th of January, being then 
 to the northward of Acapulco, we' "tacked and 
 stood to the "astward, with a view of making the 
 land. 
 
 In the preceding fortnight we caught some turtle 
 on the surface of the water, and several dolphins, 
 bonitos, and albicores. One day, as one of the 
 sail-maker's mates was fishing from the end of the 
 jib-boom, he lost his hold, and dropped into the 
 sea ; and the ship, which was then going at the 
 rate of six or seven knots, went directly over him : 
 but as we had the Carmelo in tow, we instantly 
 called out to the people on board her, who threw 
 him over several ends of ropes, one of which he 
 fortunately caught hold of, and twisting it round 
 his arm, they hauled him into the ship, without 
 his having received any other injury than a wrench 
 in his arm, of which he soon recovered. 
 
 When, on the 26th of January, we stood to the 
 eastward, we expected, by our reckonings, to have 
 fallen in with the' land on the 28th ; but though 
 the weather was perfectly clear, we had no sight 
 bf it at sunset, and therefore we continued on 
 our course, not doubting but we should see it by 
 the next morning. About ten at night we disco- 
 vered a light on the larboard-bow, beaiing from 
 ns N.N.E. The Tryal's prize, too, which was about 
 a mile ahead of us, made a signal at the same 
 time for seeing a sail ; and as we had none of us 
 any doubt but what we saw was a ship's light, we 
 were all extremely animated with a firm persua- 
 sion that it was the Manila galleon, which had 
 teen so long the object of our wishes ; and what 
 added to our alacrity, was our expectation of 
 meeting with two of them instead of one, for we 
 took it for granted that the light in view was 
 carried in the top of one ship for a direction to her 
 consort. We immediately cast off the Carmelo 
 and pressed forward with all our canvas, making 
 a signal for the Gloucester to do the same. Thus 
 we chased the light, keeping all our hands to their 
 respective quarters, under an expectation of en- 
 gaging in the next half hour, as we sometimes 
 conceived the chase to be about a mile distant, 
 and at other times to be within reach of our guns ; 
 and some on board us positively averred, that be- 
 sides the light, they could plainly discern her sails. 
 The commodore himself was so fully persuaded 
 that we should be soon alongside of her, that he 
 sent for his first lieutenant, who commanded be- 
 tween decks, and directed him to see all the great 
 guns loaded with two round-shot for the first 
 broadside, and after that with one round-shot and 
 one grape ; strictly charging him, at the same time, 
 \ not to suffer a gun to be fired, till he, the commo- 
 1 dore, should give orders, which he informed the 
 , lieutenant would not be till we arrived within pis- 
 i tol-shot of the enemy. In this constant and eager 
 i attention we continued all night, always presum- 
 j ing that another quarter of an hour would bring 
 i us up with this Manila ship, whose wealth, with 
 ! that of her supposed consort, we now estimated 
 ■ by round millions. But when the morning broke, 
 and daylight came on, we were most strangely 
 and vexatiously disappointed, by finding that the 
 
 hght which had occasioned all this bustle and ex- 
 pectancy, was only a fire on the shore. Indeed 
 the circumstances of this deception are so extra- 
 ordinary as to be scarcely credible ; for, by our 
 run during the night, and the distance of the land 
 in the morning, there was no doubt to be made 
 but this fire, when we first discovered it, was 
 above twenty-fivSs leagues from us : and yet I be- 
 lieve there was no person on board who doubted 
 of its being a ship's light, or of its being near 
 at hand. It was indeed upon a very high moun- 
 tain, and continued burning for several days after- 
 wards ; it was not a volcano, but rather, as I sup- 
 pose, stubble or heath set on fire for some purpose 
 of agriculture. 
 
 At sun-rising, after this mortifying delusion, we 
 found ourselves about nine leagues off the land, 
 which extended from the N.W. to E.-JN. On 
 this land we observed two remarkable hummocks, 
 such as are usually called paps, which bore north 
 from us : these, a Spanish pilot and two Indians, 
 who were the only persons amongst us that pre- 
 tended to have traded in this part of the world, 
 affirmed to be over the harbour of Acapulco. 
 Indeed, we very much doubted their knowledge 
 of the coast ; for we found these paps to be in the 
 latitude of 17° 56', whereas those over Acapulco 
 are said to be in 17 degrees only ; and we after. 
 wards found our suspicions of their skill to be 
 well grounded : however, they were very con- 
 fident, and assured us, that the height of the 
 mountains was itself an infallible mark of the 
 harbour ; the coast, as they pretended (though 
 falsely) being geuerally low to the eastward and 
 westward of it. 
 
 And now being Ui the track of the Manila 
 galleon, it was a great doubt with us (as it wa* 
 near the end of January) whether she was or wai; 
 not arrived : but examining our prisoners about 
 it, they assured us, that she was sometimes known 
 to come in after the middle of February ; and 
 they endeavoured to persuade us, that the fire we 
 had seen on shore was a proof that she was as yet 
 at sea, it being customary, as they said, to make 
 use of these fires as signals for her direction, when 
 she continued longer out than ordinary. On this 
 information, strengthened by our propensity to 
 believe them in a matter which so pleasingly 
 flattered our wishes, we resolved to cruise for her 
 for some days ; and we accordingly spread our 
 ships at the distance of twelve leagues from the 
 coast, in such a manner, that it was impossible 
 she should pass us unobserved : however, not 
 seeing her soon, we were at intervals inclined to 
 suspect that she had gained her port already ; 
 and as we now began to want a harbour to refresh 
 our people, the uncertainty of our present situa- 
 tion gave us great uneasiness, and we were very 
 solicitous to get some positive intelligence, which 
 might either set us at liberty to consult our 
 necessities, if the galleon was arrived, or might 
 animate us to continue on our present cruise with 
 cheerfulness, if she was not. With this view the 
 commodore, after examining our prisoners very 
 particukrly, resolved to send a boat, under colour 
 of the night, into the harbour of Acapulco, to see 
 if the Manila ship was there or not, one of the 
 Indians being very positive that this might be 
 done without the boat itself being discovered. To 
 exfecute this project, the barge was despatched 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 71 
 
 the 5th of February, with a sufficient crew and 
 two officere, who took with them a Spanish pilot, 
 and the Indian who had insisted on thepracticahility 
 of this measure, and had undertalcen to conduct 
 it. Our barge did not return to us again till the 
 eleventh, when the officers acquainted Mr. Anson, 
 that, agreeable to our suspicion, there was nothing 
 like a harbour in the place where the Spanish 
 pUots had at first asserted Acapuico to lie ; that 
 when they had satisfied themselves in this par- 
 ticular, they steered to the eastward, in hopes of 
 discovering it, and had coasted k longshore thirty- 
 two leagues ; that in this whole range they met 
 chiefly with sandy beaches of a great length, over 
 which the sea broke with so much violence, that 
 it was impossible for a boat to land ; that at the 
 end of their run they could just discover two paps 
 at a very great distance to the eastward, which 
 from their appearance and their latitude, they 
 concluded to be those in the neighbourhood of 
 Acapuico ; but that not having a sufHcient quan- 
 tity of fresh water and provision for their passage 
 thither and back again, they were obliged to 
 return to the commodore, to acquaint him with 
 their disappointment. On this intelligence we all 
 made sail to the eastward, in order to get into the 
 neighbourhood of that port, the commodore re- 
 solving to send the barge a second time upon the 
 same enterprise, when we were arrived within -a 
 moderate distance. And the next day, which was 
 the 1 2th of February, we being by that time con- 
 siderably advanced, the barge was again dis- 
 patched, and particular instructions given to the 
 officers to preserve themselves from being seen 
 from the shore. On the thirteenth we espied a high 
 land to the eastward, which we first imagined to 
 be that over the harbour of Acapuico ; but we 
 afterwards found that it was the high land of 
 Seguateneio, where there is a small harbour, of 
 which we shall have occasion to make more ample 
 mention hereafter. 
 
 And now, having waited six days without any 
 news of our barge, we began to be uneasy for 
 her safety ; but, on the seventh day, that is, 
 on the 19th of February, she returned. The 
 officer* informed the commodore, that they had 
 discovered the harbour of Acapuico, which 
 they esteemed to bear from us E.S.E., a1 least 
 fifty leagues distant : that on the 17th, about two 
 in the morning, they were got within the island 
 that lies at the mouth of the harbour, and yet 
 neither the Spanish pilot, nor the Indian, who 
 were with them, could give them any information 
 where they then were ; but that while they were 
 lying upon their oars in suspense what to do, 
 being ignorant that they were then at the very 
 place they sought for, they discerned a small 
 light upon the surface of the water, on which they 
 instantly plied their paddles, and moving as sUently 
 as possible towards it, they found it to be in a fish- 
 ing canoe, which they surprised, with three negroes 
 that belonged to it. It seems the negroes at first 
 attempted to jump overboard ; and being so near 
 the land, they would easily have swum on shore ; 
 but they were prevented by presenting a piece at 
 "them, on which they readily submitted, and ivapi 
 taken into the barge. The officers further added, 
 that they had immediately turned the canon adrift 
 against the face of a rock, where it would inevi- 
 tably be dashed to pieces by the fnry of the, sea. 
 
 This they did to deceive those who perhaps might 
 be sent from the town to search after the canoe ; 
 for upon seeing several pieces of a wreck, they 
 would immediately conclude that the people on 
 board her had been drowned, and would have no 
 suspicion of their having fallen into our hands. 
 When the crew of the barge had taken this pre- 
 caution, they exerted their utmost strength in 
 pulling out to sea, and by dawn of day had gained 
 such an offing, as rendered it impossible for them , 
 to be seen from the coast. 
 
 And now having gotten the three negroes in 
 our possession, who were not ignorant of the. 
 transactions at Acapuico, we were soon satisfied, 
 about the most material points which had long 
 kept us in suspense : and on examination we 
 found, that we were indeed disappointed in our 
 expectation of intercepting the galleon before her 
 arrival at Acapuico ; but we learnt other circum- , 
 stances which still revived our hopes, and which, 
 we then conceived, would more than balance the 
 opportunity we had already lost ; for though our 
 negro prisoners informed us that the galleon, 
 arrived at Acapuico on our 9th of January, which 
 was about twenty days before we fell in with this 
 coast, yet they at the same time told us, that the- 
 galleon had delivered her cargo, and was taking 
 in water and provisions for her return, and that 
 the viceroy of Mexico had, by proclamation, fixed 
 her departure from Acapuico to the 14th of 
 March, N. S. This last news was most joyfully 
 received by us, as we had no doubt but she must 
 certainly fall into our hands, and as it was much 
 more ehgible to seize her on her return, than it 
 would have been to have taken her before her 
 arrival, as the specie for which she had sold her 
 cargo, and which she would now have on board, 
 would be prodigiously more to be esteemed by us 
 than the cargo itself ; great part of which would 
 have perished on our hands, and no part of it 
 could have been disposed of by us at so advan- 
 tageous a mai-t as Acapuico. 
 
 Thus we were a second time engaged in an 
 eager expectation of meeting with this Manila 
 ship, which, by the fame of its wealth, we had 
 been taught to consider as the most desirable 
 prize that was to be met with in any part of the 
 globe. As all our future projects will be in some 
 sort regulated with a view to the possession of 
 this celebrated galleon, and as the commerce which 
 is carried on by means of these vessels between 
 the city of Manila and the port of Acapuico is 
 perhaps the most valuable, in proportion to its 
 quantity, of any in the known world, I shall en- 
 deavour, in the ensuing chapter, to give as distinct 
 an account as I can of all the particulars i-elating 
 thereto, both as it is a matter in which I conceive 
 the pubUc to be in some degree interested, and as 
 I flatter myself, that from the materials which 
 have fallen into my hands, I am enabled to describe 
 it with more distinctness than has hitherto heea 
 done, at least in our language. 
 
72 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ^n aitount o/lhe comm-cfce carried on between the dtp of 
 ■ Manila on the island of Luconia, and ttie port c/Aca- 
 pulco on the coast of Mexico. 
 
 Asotrr the end of the 1 5th century, and the 
 beginning of the 16th, tlie discovery of new- 
 countries and of new bi-anehes of commerce was 
 the reigning passion of several of the European 
 princes. But those who engaged most deeply 
 and fortunately in these pursuits were the kings 
 •f Spain and Portugal ; the first of these liaving 
 discovered' the immense and opulent cohtinent of 
 America and its adjacent islands, whilst the other, 
 by doubling the Cape of Good Hope; had opened 
 to his fleets a passage to the S6uthera coast of 
 Asia, usually called the East Indiesy and by his 
 settleraeuts in that part of the globe becaine pos- 
 seeeed of many of tiie manufalcthres and natural 
 productions with which it abounded, and which, 
 foi* some Bge^, had been the wonder and delight 
 of the more polished and' InXurioua part of man- 
 kind. 
 
 In the mean time, these two nation^ of Spain 
 »nd Pdrtugal, Whtf were thus prosecuting the same 
 TJewB, though in differbnt quartei'S of the world, 
 grew extremely jealous of each other, and became 
 alpprehensiVe of mutual eneroachmentg, and there- 
 fore, to quiet their jealousies, and to enable them 
 with moi-e trancjnillity to pursue the propagation 
 of the catholic faitli in these distant countries, 
 (they having both of them given distinguished 
 liiarks of their zeal for thei* mi'ther choifeh, by 
 their butchery of innocentpsigans,) Pope Alexander 
 Vr. gi-anted to the Spiinish crown the property 
 and dominion of' all places either already dis- 
 <^T^red, or that should be discovered, a hundred 
 l*»g(ies to thfe westward of the islands of Azlor^, 
 tearing all the unknown countries to the eastward 
 of thib'limit, tb the industry and futut« disquisition 
 of the Portuguese ; and' this boundary being after- 
 wards ^enlbVed two hundred and fifty leagues 
 niore to ths westward, by tlie agreement of both 
 notions, it was iinkgined that by this'regulktion all 
 the «eeds of future contests were suppressed; 
 For the Spaniards presumed, that the Portngnese 
 would be hereby prevented from' meddling with 
 their colonies ui Allierica : and the Portuguese 
 supposed that their East Indian settleuibnts; and 
 particularly the Spice Islands, A-hich' they had 
 liien' nfewly' discovered, - were secured from any 
 future attempts of the Spanish' nation. 
 
 But it seems that the infallibility of the holy 
 faUier had, on this occasion, d^erted' him, and 
 for want of being more conversant in geography, 
 he had not foreseen tha;t the Spaniards; by pushing 
 their discoveries to the* west, And the PbrtugiiesS 
 to the east; might at last m^et with^ each other, 
 and be again einbroiled ; as it actually happened 
 within a few years afterwards. For Frederick 
 Magellan, who was an ofiieei' in the king of Por- 
 tugal's service, having received some disgust from 
 that courts either by the defalcation of his pay, or 
 by having his parts, as he conceived, too cheaply 
 considered, he entered into the service of the king 
 of Spain , and being, as it appears, a man of 
 ability, h was very desirous of signalizing hia 
 talents by some enterprise, which might prove 
 extremely vexatious to his former masters, and 
 
 might teach them to estimate his worth by the 
 greatness of the mischief he brought upon them ; 
 this being the most obvious and natural turn of 
 all fugitives, and more especially of those who, 
 being really men of capacity, have quitted their 
 country by reason of tlio small account that hius 
 been made of them. Magellan, in pureuarice of 
 these vindictive views, knowing that the, Por- 
 tuguese court considered their pbssession of the 
 Splee Ishinds as their most important acquisition 
 in th(i East Indies, resolved with himself to in- 
 stigate the court lof Spain to an enterprise which^ 
 by still pushing their discoveries, would give them 
 a right to interfere both in the property and 
 comraerce of those renowned Pox-tugnese settle- 
 ments ; and the king Of, Spain approying.'of thift 
 project, Magellan, in the year 1519, set Sad from 
 the portof"Sevrlle,in order to carry this enterprise 
 into execution. He had with him a considerable 
 fotce, consisting of five ships and two hundj'ed 
 and thirty-four men, with which he stood for the 
 coast of South America, and ranging along' the 
 shore, he at Idst, towards the end of Octobei', 
 1 S'20, had the good fortune to discover those 
 straits, which have since been denominated from 
 him, and Which opened him a pasjsage into the 
 Pacific Ocean. And this' first paft 6f his scheme 
 being thus happily accomplished, he,' after some 
 stay on the coast of Peru, set sail again' to the 
 westward, with a view of falling in with the Spiee 
 Islands. In this extensive ruii he first discovered 
 the Ladrones or Marian Islands ; and continuing 
 on his course, he at length reached the Philippine 
 Islands,' which are the most eastern part of Asia^ 
 where, venturing on 'shore in a hostile manner, 
 and skimsishing with the Indians, he was slain. 
 
 By the death of Magellan, the original project 
 of securing some of the Spice Islands was defeated •„ 
 for those *ho' were left in command contented 
 themselves with ran^ilig through them, and pur- 
 chasing some spices from the natives ; after which 
 they returned home round the Gape of Good Hope, 
 being the first ships which had ever sUrrouilded 
 this terraqueous globe j and thereby demonstrated^ 
 by a palpable experiment bbvious to the grossest 
 aud most vulgar ciipacity, the reality of its long 
 disputed spherical figure. 
 
 But though Sfttindid not hereby acquire the 
 property of any of thfe Spice Islahds, yet the dis- 
 covei^y made lii this expedition of the^ Philippine 
 Islands was'thought" too considiprable to b^ neg- 
 lected 7 for these were not far distant from' those- 
 places which produced spiceSjand were very wfeU 
 situated for the Chinese trade, and for the com- 
 merce of bther parts of India ; and, therefore^ a 
 communication was soon established' and carefully' 
 supported between these islahds and the Spanish 
 colonies on the coast of Peru : so that the city of 
 Manila (which was built 6n the isliand of Luconia, 
 the chief of the Philippines) soon became the 
 mart for all Indian coniitiodities, which were 
 boiightup by the inhabitants, atid Were annuilly 
 sent to the South Seas t<J be there vended on their 
 account ; and the returns' of this commerce to 
 Manila, being' principally rtadfe in silver, the place 
 by degrees grew extremely opulent and consi- 
 derable, and'its trade so far increased as to engage 
 the attention of the Court of Spdin, and to be 
 frequently controlled and regulated by royal 
 ' edicts. 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WOHLD. 
 
 73 
 
 In the infancy of this trade, it was carried on 
 from the port of Callao to the city of Manila, in 
 which voyage the trade-wind continually favoured 
 them ; so that notwithstanding these places were 
 distant between three and four thousand leagues, 
 yet the voyage was often made in little more than 
 two months : but then tlie return from Manila 
 was extremely troublesome and tedious, and is 
 said to have sometimes taken them up above a 
 twelvemonth, which, if they pretended to ply up 
 within the limits of the trade-wind, is not at all 
 to be wondered at ; and it is asserted that, in their 
 firat voyages, they were so imprudent and unskil- 
 ful as to attempt this course. However, that route 
 was soon laid aside, by the advice, as it is said, 
 of a Jesuit, who persuaded them to steer to the 
 northward till they got clear of the trade-winds, 
 and then, by the favour of the westerly winds, 
 which generally prevail in high latitudes, to 
 stretch away for the coast of California. This has 
 been the practice for at least a hundred and sixty 
 years past : for Sir Thomas Cavendish, in the 
 year 1586, engaged, off the south end of California, 
 a vessel bound from Manila to the American 
 coast. And it was in compliance with this new 
 plan of navigation, and to shorten the run both 
 backwards and forwards, that the staple of this 
 coihraerce to and from Manila was removed from 
 Callao, on the coast of Peru, to the port of 
 Acapulco on the coast of Mexico, where it con- 
 tinues fixed at this time. 
 
 Such was the commencement, and such were 
 the early regulations, of this commerce ; but its 
 present condition being a much more interesting 
 tubject, I must beg leave to dwell longer on this 
 bead, and to be indulged in a more particular 
 oarration, beginning with a description of the 
 island of Luconia, and of the port and bay of 
 Manila. 
 
 The island of Luconia, though situated in the 
 latitude of 15 degrees north, is esteemed to be in 
 general extremely healthy, and the water that is 
 found upon it is said to be the best in the world ; 
 it produces all the fruits of the warm climates, 
 and abounds in a most excellent breed of horses, 
 supposed to be carried thither first from Spain : 
 it is very well situated for the Indian and Chinese 
 trade ; and the bay and port of Manila, which 
 lies on its western side, is perhaps the most re- 
 markable on the whole globe, the bay being a 
 large circular basin, near ten leagues in diameter, 
 and great part of it entirely land-locked. On the 
 east side of this bay stands the city of Manila, 
 which is very large and populous ; and which, at 
 the beginning of this war, was only an open 
 place, its principal defence consisting in a small 
 fort, which was in great measure surrounded on 
 every side by houses ; but they have lately made 
 considerable additions to its fortifications, though 
 I have not yet learnt m what manner. The poi-t, 
 peculiar to the city, is called Cabite, and lies near 
 two leagues to the southward ; and in this port 
 all the ships employed in the Acapulco trade are 
 usually stationed. 
 
 The city of Manila itself is in a very healthy 
 situation, is well watered, and is in the neighbour- 
 hood of a very fruitful and plentiful country ; but 
 as the principal business of this place is its trade 
 to Acapulco, it lies under some disadvantage from 
 the difficulty there is in getting to sea to the east- 
 
 ward : for the passage is among islands and 
 through channels where the Spaniards, by reason 
 of their unskilfulnesa in marine afiaii-s, waste much 
 time, and are often in great danger. 
 
 The trade carried on from this place to China 
 and different parts of India, is principally for such 
 commodities as are intended to supply the kmg- 
 doms of Mexico and Peru. These are spices, al 
 sorts of Chinese silks and manufactures ; parti- 
 cularly silk stockings, of which I have heard that 
 no less than fifty thousand pair were the usual 
 number shipped on board the annual ship ; vast 
 quantities of Indian stuff's, as calicoes and chintz, 
 which are much worn in America, together with 
 other minuter articles, as goldsmiths' work, &c., 
 which is principally done at the city of Manila 
 itself by the Chinese ; for it is said there are at 
 least twenty thousand Chinese who constantly re- 
 side there, either as servants, manufacturers, or 
 brokers. All these different commodities are 
 collected at Manila, thence to be transported 
 annually in one or more ships, to the port of 
 Acapulco, in the kingdom of Mexico. 
 
 But this trade to Acapulco is not laid open to 
 all the inhabitants of Manila, but is confined by 
 very particular regulations, somewhat analogous 
 to those by which the trade of the register-ships 
 from Cadiz to the West Indies is Restrained. The 
 ships employed herein are found by the king of 
 Spain, who pays the officers and crews ; and the 
 tonnage is divided into a certain number of bales, 
 all of the same size ; these are distributed amongst 
 the convents at Manila, but principally to the 
 Jesuits, as a donation for the support of then' 
 mission for the propagation of the catholic faith 
 and these convents have hereby a right to embark 
 such a quantity of goods on board the Manila 
 ship, as the tonnage of their bales amounts to ; 
 or if they choose not to be concerned in trade 
 themselves, they have the power of selling this 
 privilege to otliers ; and as the merchants to 
 whom they grant their shares are often unpro- 
 vided of a stock, it is usual for the convents to 
 lend them considerable sums of money on bot- 
 tomry. 
 
 The trade is, by the royal edicts, limited to a 
 certain value, which the annual cargo ought not 
 to exceed. Some Spanish manuscripts I have 
 seen, mention this limitation to be 600,000 dollars ; 
 but the annual cargo does certainly surpass this 
 sum ; and though it may be difficult to fix its 
 exact value, yet, from many comparisons, I con- 
 clude, that the return cannot be greatly short of 
 three millions of dollars. 
 
 It is sufficiently obvious that the greatest part 
 of the treasure, returned from Acapulco to Manila^ 
 does not remain in that place, but is again dis- 
 persed into different parts of India. And as all 
 European nations have generally esteemed it good 
 policy to keep their American settlements in an 
 immediate dependence on their mother country, 
 without permitting them to carry on du'ectly any 
 gainful traffic with other powers, these considera- 
 tions have occasioned many remonstrances to be 
 presented to the court of Spain against the Indiaii 
 trade, hereby allowed to the kingdom of Peru and 
 Mexico ; it having been urged, that the silk ma- 
 nufactures of Valencia and other parts of Spain 
 are hereby greatly prejudiced, and the linens car- 
 ried from Cadiz are much injured in their sale 
 
74 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 since the Chinese sillis coming almost directly to 
 Acapulco, can be aflbrded much cheaper there 
 than any European manufactures of equal good- 
 ness ; and the cottons from the Coromandel coast 
 make the European linens almost useless. So that 
 the Manila trade renders both Mexico and Peru 
 less dependent upon Spain for a supply of their 
 necessities than they ought to be ; and exhausts 
 those countries of a considerable quantity of silver, 
 the greatest part of which, were this trade pro- 
 hibited, would centre in Spain, either in payment 
 for Spanish commodities, or in gains to the Spanish 
 merchant ; whereas now the only advantage which 
 ■arises from it is, the enriching the Jesuits and a 
 few particular persons besides, at the other ex- 
 tremity of the world. These arguments did so 
 far influence Don Joseph Patinho, who was then 
 prime minister, but an enemy to the Jesuits, that 
 about the year 1 725, he had resolved to abolish 
 this trade, and to have permitted no Indian com- 
 modities to be introduced into any of the Spanish 
 ports in the West Indies, but what were carried 
 there in the register ships from Europe. But 
 the powerful intrigues of the Jesuits prevented 
 this regulation from taking place. 
 
 This trade from Manila to Acapulco and back 
 again, is usually carried on in one or at most two 
 annual ships, which set sail from Manila about 
 July, and arrive at Acapulco in the December, 
 January, or February following, and having there 
 disposed of then- effects, return for Manila some- 
 time in March, where they generally arrive in 
 June ; so that the whole voyage takes up verj' 
 near an entire year ; for this reason, though there 
 is often no more than one ship employed at a 
 time, yet there is always one ready for the sea 
 when the other arrives ; and, therefore, the com- 
 merce at Manila are provided with three or four 
 stout ships, that, in case of any accident, the 
 trade may not be suspended. The largest of these 
 ships, whose name I have not learnt, is described 
 as little less than one of our first-rate men-of-war, 
 and indeed she must be of an enormous size, for 
 it is known that when she was employed with 
 other ships from the same port, to cruise for our 
 China trade, she had no less than twelve hundred 
 men on board. Their other ships, though far 
 inferior in bulk to this, are yet stout large ves- 
 sels, of the burthen of twelve hundred tons and 
 upwards, and usually carry from three hundred 
 and fifty to six hundred hands, passengers in- 
 cluded, with fifty odd guns. As these are all 
 king's ships, commissioned and paid by him, there 
 is usually one of the captains, who is styled the 
 {general, and who carries the royal standard of 
 Spain at the main-top gallant mast-head, as we 
 shall more particularly observe hereafter. 
 
 And now, having described the port of Manila 
 and the shipping they employ, it is necessary to 
 ^ive a more cu'cumstantial detail of their navi- 
 gation. The ship having received her cargo on 
 board, and being fitted for the sea, generally 
 v.eighs from the mole of Cabite about the middle 
 ■of July, taking the advantage of the westerly 
 monsoon, which then sets in, to carry them to 
 sea. It appears that the getting through the 
 Boccadero to the eastward must be a trouble- 
 some navigation, and, in fact, it is sometimes the 
 end of August before they get clear of the land. 
 When they have got through this passage, and 
 
 are clear of the islands, they stand to the north- 
 ward of the east, in order to get into the latitude 
 of 30 odd degrees, where they expect to meet 
 with westerly winds, before which they run away 
 for the coast of California. It is most remark- 
 able that, by the concurrent testimony of all the 
 Spanish navigators, there is not one port, nor even 
 a tolerable road, as yet found out betwixt the 
 Philippine Islands and the coast of Cahfornia 
 and Mexico ; so that from the time the Manila 
 ship first loses sight of land, she never lete go her 
 anchor till she arrives on the coast of California^ 
 and very often not till she gets to its southernmost 
 extremity ; and, therefore, as this voyage is rarely 
 of less than six months' continuance, and the ship 
 is deep laden with merchandise and crowded with 
 people, it may appear wonderful how they can be 
 supplied with a stock of fresh water for so long 
 a time ; and indeed their method of procuring 
 it is extremely singular, and deserves a very par- 
 ticular recital. 
 
 It is well known to those who are acquainted 
 with the Spanish customs in the South Seas, that 
 their water is preserved on ship-board, not iji 
 casks, but in earthen jars, which in some sort 
 resemble the large oil jars we often see in Europe. 
 When the Manila ship first puts to sea, they take 
 on board a much greater quantity of water than 
 can be stowed between decks ; and the jars which 
 contain it are hung all about the shrouds and stays, 
 so as to exhibit at a distance a very odd appear- 
 ance. And though it is one convenience of their 
 jars that they are much more manageable thail 
 caslcs, and are liable to no leakage, unless thej 
 are broken, yet it is sufficiently obvious that a 
 six, or even a three months' store of water could 
 never be stowed in a ship so loaded, by any ma- 
 nagement whatsoever ; and therefore without some 
 other supply, this navigation could not be per- 
 formed. A supply, indeed, they have ; but the 
 reliance upon it seems at first sight so extremely 
 precarious, that it is wonderful such numbers 
 should risk the perishing by the most dreadful 
 of all deaths, on the expectation of so casual a 
 circumstance. In short, their only method of 
 recruitmg their water is by the rains, which they 
 meet with between the latitudes of 30° and 40" 
 north, and which they are always prepared to 
 catch. For this purpose they take to sea with 
 them a great number of mats, which they plac6 
 slopingly against the gunwale, whenever the rain 
 descends ; these mats extend from one end of the 
 ship to the other ; and their lower edges rest oil 
 a large split bamboo, so that all the water which 
 falls on the mats drains into the bamboo, and by 
 this, as a trough, is conveyed into a jar ; and this 
 method of supplying their water, however acci- 
 dental and extraordinary it may at first sight 
 appear, has never been known to fail them ; so 
 that it is common for them, when their voyage is 
 a little longer than usual, to fill all their water- 
 jars several times over. 
 
 However, though their distresses for fresh 
 water are much short of what might be expected 
 in so tedious a navigation, yet thei'e are other in- 
 conveniences generally attendant upon a long con- 
 tinuance at sea, from which they are not exempted. 
 The principal of these is the scurvy, which some 
 times rages with extreme ■violence, and destroys 
 great numbers of the people ; but at other times 
 
1 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 7& 
 
 iheir passage to Acapuico (of which alone I 
 would be here understood to speak) is performed 
 ■with little loss. 
 
 The length of time employed in this passage, 
 so much beyond what usually oceui-s in any other 
 navigation, is perhaps in part to be imputed to 
 the indolence and unskilfulness of the Sp.anisli 
 sailors, and to an unnecessary degree of caution 
 and concern for so rich a vessel ; for it is said 
 that they never set their main-sail in the night, 
 and oftun lie by unnecessarily. And indeed the 
 instructions given to theii' captains (which I have 
 seen) seem to liave been drawn up by such as 
 were more apprehensive of too strong a gale, 
 though favourable, than of the inconveniences and 
 mortality attending a lingering and tedious voyage ; 
 for the captain is particularly ordered to make 
 bis passage in the latitude of thirty degrees, if 
 possible ; and to be extremely careful to stand no 
 farther to the northward than is absolutely neces- 
 -sary for the getting a westerly wind. This, ac- 
 cording to our conceptions, appears to be a very 
 jibsurd restriction ; since it can scarcely be doubted, 
 but th.at in the higher latitudes the westerly winds 
 are much steadier and brisker tlian in the lati- 
 tude of tliirty degrees ; so that the whole conduct 
 of this navigation seems liable to very great cen- 
 sure. For if, instead of steering E.N.E. into the 
 latitude of tliirty odd degrees, they at first stood 
 N.E., or even still more northerly, into the lati- 
 tude of forty or forty-five degrees, in part of which 
 course the trade-winds would greatly assist them, 
 I doubt not but by tliis management they might 
 considerably contract their voyage, and perhaps 
 perform it in half the time which is now allotted 
 for it ; for in the journals I have seen of these 
 voyages, it appears, that they are often a mouth 
 or six weeks after their laying the land, before 
 they get into the latitude of thirty degrees ; 
 whereas, with a more northerly course, it might 
 «asily be done in a fourth part of the time ; and 
 when they were once well advanced to the noi-th- 
 ward, the westerly winds would soon blow them 
 over to the coast of California, and they would 
 be thereby freed from the other embarrassments 
 to which they are now subjected, only at the ex- 
 pense of a rough sea and a stiff gale. And this is 
 not merely matter of speculation ; for I am credi- 
 bly informed that, about the year 1721, a French 
 ship, by pursuing this course, ran from the coast 
 of China to the valley of Vanderas, on the coast 
 of Mexico, in less than fifty days. But it was 
 said that this ship, notwithstanding the shortness 
 of her passage, suffered prodigiously by the scurvy, 
 so that she had only four or five of her crew left 
 when she arrived in America. nf 
 
 However, I shall descant no longer on the pro- 
 bability of performing this voyage in a much shorter 
 time, but shall content myself with reciting the 
 actual occurrences of the present navigation. The 
 Manila sliip having stood so far to the northward 
 as to meet with a westerly wind, stretches away 
 nearly in the same latitude for the coast of Cali- 
 fornia. And when she has run into the longitude 
 of ninety-six degrees from Cape Espiritu Santo, 
 she generally meets with a plant floating on the 
 sea, which, being called porra by the Spaniards, 
 is, I presume, a species of sea-leek. On the sight 
 of this plant they esteem themselves sufficiently 
 near the Californian shore, and immediately stand 
 
 to the southward ; and they rely so much on this 
 circumstance, that on the fii-st discovery of the 
 plant the whole ship's company chant a solemn 
 Te Deam, esteeming the difficulties and hazards 
 of their passage to be now at an end ; and they 
 constantly correct their longitude thereby, without 
 ever coming within sight of land. After falling in 
 with these signs, as they denominate them, they 
 steer to the southward, without endeavouring to 
 fall in with the coast, till they have run into a 
 lower latitude ; for as there are many islands and 
 some shoals adjacent to California, the extreme 
 caution of the Spanish navigators makes them very 
 apprehensive of being engaged with the land ; 
 however, when they draw near its southern extre- 
 mity, they venture to haul in, both for the sake of 
 making Cape St. Lucas to ascertain their reckon- 
 ing, and also to receive intelligence from the Indian 
 inhabitants, whether or no there are any enemies 
 on the coast ; and this last circumstance, which is 
 ib particular article in the captain's instructions, 
 makes it necessary to mention the late proceedings 
 of the Jesuits amongst the Californian Indians. 
 
 Since the first discovery of California, there 
 have been various wandering missionaries who 
 have visited it at different times, though to little 
 purpose ; but of late years the Jesuits, encouraged 
 and supported by a large donation from the Mar- 
 quis de Valero, a most munificent bigot, have 
 fixed themselves upon the place, and have estab- 
 lished a very considerable mission. Their princi- 
 pal settlement lies just within Cape St. Lucas, 
 where they have collected a great number uf sa- 
 vages, and have endeavoured to inure them to 
 agriculture and other mechanic arts. And theii' 
 efforts have not been altogether ineffectual ; for 
 they have planted vines at their settlements with 
 very good success, so that they ali-eady make a 
 considerable quantity of wine, resembling in 
 flavour the inferior sort of Madeira, which begins 
 to be esteemed in the neighbourmg kingdom of 
 Mexico. 
 
 The Jesuits, then, being thus firmly rooted on 
 California, they have already extended their ju- 
 risdiction quite across the country from sea to 
 sea, a/id are endeavouring to spread their influence 
 farther to the northward ; with which view they 
 have made several expeditions up the gulf between 
 California and Mexico, in order to discover the 
 nature of the adjacent countries, all which they 
 hope hereafter to bring under their power. And 
 being thus occupied in advancing the interests of 
 their society, it is no wonder if some share of at- 
 tention is engaged about the security of the Manila 
 ship, in which theij? convents at Manila are so 
 deeply concerned. For this purpose there are 
 refreshments, as fruits, wine, water, &c., con- 
 stantly kept in readiness for her ; and there is 
 besides care taken, at Cape St. Lucas, to look out 
 for any ship of the enemy, which might be cruising 
 there to intercept her ; this being a station where 
 she is constantly expected, and where she has 
 been often waited for and fought with, though 
 generally with little success. In consequence then 
 of themeasures mutually settled between the Jesuits 
 of Manila and their brethren at California,' the 
 captain of the galleon is ordei-ed to fall in with the 
 land to the northward of Cape St. Lucas, where 
 the inhabitants are directed, on sight of the vessel, 
 to make the proper signals with fire? ; and on 
 
V6 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 discovering these fires, the captain is to send 
 his launch on shore with twenty men, well 
 amied'^ who ai'e to carry with them the letters 
 from the convents at Manila to the Californian 
 misjsionaries, and are to brmg back the refresh- 
 ments ' which *ill be prepared for them, and 
 Ukewise intelligence whether or no there are any 
 enemies on the coast. And if the captain finds, 
 from the aocount which is sent hun, that he has 
 nothiiig to fear, he is directed to proceed for 
 Cape Sti Lucas, and thence to Cape Corientes, 
 •ifter which, he is to coast it along for tlie port of 
 AcapulcOw ■ • *■ 
 
 Thfe most usual time of the arrival of the galleon 
 at Acapulcoi is towards the middle of January ; but 
 this navigation is so uncertain, that she sometimes 
 gets- in a month sooner, and at other times has 
 been detained at sea above a month longer. The 
 portof Acapulco is by much the securest and finest 
 in all the northern yai-ts of the Pacific Ocean ; 
 being, as it were, a basin surrounded by very high 
 mountains. But the town is a most wretched 
 place, and*extremely unhealthy, for the air about 
 it is so pent up by the hills, that it has scarcely 
 any circulation. The place is, besides, destitute 
 of fresh Tvater, except what is brought from a 
 considerable distance,;' and is in all respects so 
 inconvenient, that, except at the time of the mart, 
 whilst the Manila gliUeon is in the port, it is almost 
 deserted. ■ 
 
 When the galleon- arrives in this port, she is 
 generally moored on its western side, and her 
 cargo is delivered with all possible expedition. 
 And now the -town of Acapulco, from almost a 
 solitude, is immediately thronged with merchants 
 from all ■ parts of the kingdom of Mexico. The 
 cargo being landed and disposed of, the silver and 
 the goods intended for Manila are taken on board, 
 together with provisions and water, and the ship 
 prepares to put to sea with the utmost expedition. 
 There is indeed no time to be lost ; for it is an 
 express order to the captain to he out of the port 
 of Acapulco, on his return, before the fii'st day of 
 April, N. S. 
 
 And having tmentioned the goods intended for 
 Manila, I must observe, that the principal return 
 is always-made in silver, and, consequently^ the 
 rest-of the cargo is .but of little account j the other 
 ai*ticles, besides tlia- silver, being some cochineal 
 and a'fewsweetmeats, the produce of the Ame- 
 rican settlements, together with European milU- 
 nery ware for the women at Manila, and some 
 Spanisli wines, such as tent and sherry, which are 
 intended for the use of their priests in "^'le admi- 
 nistration of the sacrament. . 
 
 And this difference in the cargo oJ tne ship to 
 and from Manila, occasions a very remarkable 
 variety hi the manner of equipping the ship for 
 these two different voyages. For the galleon, when 
 she sets-sail from Manila, being deep laden with a 
 variety of bulky goods, she has not the conve- 
 nience of -mounting her lower tier of guns, but 
 carries them iu her hold till she draws near Cape 
 St. Lucas, and is apprehensive of an enemy. Her 
 hands too are as few as is consistent with the 
 safety of the ship, that she may be less pestered 
 with the stowage of provisions. But on her re- 
 tiu'n from Acapulco, as her cargo lies in less 
 rpom, her lower tier is (or ought to be) always 
 mounted before she leaves the port, and her crew 
 
 is augmented with a supply of sailors, and with 
 one or two companies of foot, which are intended 
 to reinforce the garrison at Manila. And there 
 being, besides, many merchants who take their pas- 
 sage to Manila on hoard the galleon, her whole- 
 number of hands on her return is usually little 
 short of six hundred, all which are easily pro- 
 vided for by reason of the small stowage necessary 
 for the silver. 
 
 The galleon being thus fitted for her return, the 
 captain, on leaving the port of Acapulco, steers for 
 the latitude of 13" or 14", and runs on that paral- 
 lel till he gets sight of the island of Guam, one of 
 the Ladrones. In this run the captain is particu- 
 larly directed to be careful of the shoals of St. 
 Bartholomew, and of the island of Gasparico. He 
 is also told in his instructions that, to prevent 
 his passing the Ladrones in the dark, there are 
 orders given that, through all the month of June, 
 fires shall be lighted every night on the highest 
 part of Guam and Rota, and kept in till the 
 morning. 
 
 At Guam there is a small Spanish garrison, (as 
 will be more particularly mentioned hereaftar,) 
 purposely intended to secure that place for the re- 
 freshment of the galleon, and to yield her all the 
 assistance in their power. However, the danger 
 of the road at Guam is so great, that though the 
 galleon is ordered to call there, yet she rarely stays 
 above a day or two, but getting her water and re- 
 freshments on board as soon as possible, she steers 
 away directly for Cape Espiritu Santo, on the island 
 of Samal. Here the captain is again ordered to look 
 out for signals ; and he is told, that sentinels wift 
 be posted not only on that cape, but likewise in 
 Catanduanas, Butusan, Birriborongo, and on the 
 island of Batan. These sentinels are instructed 
 to make a fire when they discover the ship, which- 
 the captain is carefully to observe : for if, after 
 this first fire is extinguished, he perceives that 
 four or more are lighted up again, he is then to 
 conclude that -there are enemies on the coast ; and 
 on this he is immediately to endeavour to speak 
 with the sentinel on shore, and to procure from 
 him more particular intelligence of their force,i 
 and of the station they cruise in : pursuant tff 
 which, he is to regulate his conduct, and to en- 
 deavour to gain some secure port amongst thosei 
 islands, without coming in sight of the enemy y 
 and in case he should be discovered when in porlj. 
 and should be apprehensive of an attack, he i* 
 then to land his treasure, and to take some of his 
 artillery on shore for its defence, not neglecting !» 
 send frequent and particular accounts to the city 
 of Manila of all that passes. But if, after the 
 first fire on shore, the captain observes that two 
 others only are made by the sentinels, he is then 
 to conclude, that there is nothing to fear ; and he 
 is to pursue his course without interruption, and 
 to make the best of his way to the port of Cabite,; 
 which is the port to the city of Manila, and the 
 constant station for all the ships employed in this- 
 commeree to Acapulco. 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 77 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Our cruitt o,tr the port (i/Acapulco for the Manila 
 ship. 
 
 I HAVE already mentioned, in the ninth chapter, 
 tliat the return of our barge from the port of 
 Acapulco, where she had surprised three negro 
 fishermen, gave us inexpressible satisfaction, as 
 wo learnt from our prisoners that the galleon was 
 then preparing to put to sea, and that her de- 
 parture was fixed, by an edict of the viceroy of 
 Mexico, to the 14th of March, N.S., that is, to the 
 3d of March according to our reckoning. 
 
 What related to this Manila ship being the 
 natter to which we were most attentive, it was 
 necessarily the first article of our examination ; 
 lut having satisfied ourselves upon this head, we 
 then indulged our curiosity in inquiring after 
 other news ; when the prisoners informed us 
 that they had received intelligence at Acapulco of 
 our having plundered and burnt the town of Paita; 
 and that on this occasion the governor of Acapulco 
 had augmented the fortifications of the place, and 
 had taken several precautions to prevent us from 
 forcing our way into the harbour ; that, in parti- 
 cular, he had placed a guard on the island which 
 lies at the harbour's mouth, and that this guard 
 had been withdi'awn but two nights before the 
 arrival of our barge : so that had the barge suc- 
 ceeded in her first attempt, or had she arrived at 
 the port the second time two days sooner, she 
 ■could scarcely have avoided being seized on, or if 
 *he had escaped, it must have been with the loss 
 of the greatest part of her crew, as she would have 
 been under the fire of the guard before she had 
 kjiown her danger. 
 
 The withdrawing of this guard was a cirenm- 
 ■atance that greatly encouraged us, as it seemed to 
 •demonstrate, not only that the enemy had not as 
 yet discovered us, but likewise that they had now 
 no farther apprehensions of our visiting their co.ist. 
 indeed the prisoners assured us that they had no 
 knowledge of our being in those seas, and that they 
 had therefore flattered themselves that, in the long 
 interval since our taking of Paita, we had steered 
 another course. But we did not consider the 
 ojjinion of these negro prisoners as so authentic a 
 ■proof of our being hitherto concealed, as the with- 
 drawing of the guard from the harbour's mouth ; 
 :for this; being the action of the governor, was of 
 all arguments the most convincing, as he might be 
 ■supposed to have intelligence with which the rest 
 ■of the inhabitants were unacquainted. 
 ■ Satisfied, therefore, that wo were undiscovered, 
 ard that the time was fixed for the departure of 
 the galleon from Acapulco, we made all necessary 
 preparations, and ^vaited with the utmost impa- 
 tience for the important day. As this was the ;.d of 
 March, and it was the 1 !'th of February when the 
 barge returned and brought us our intelligence, 
 the commodore resolved to continue the greatest 
 'pa rt of the intei'mediate time on his present sta- 
 "tiim, to the westward of Acapulco, conceiving that 
 in this situation there would be less danger of his 
 'being seen from the shore, which was the only 
 ■circumstance that could deprive us of the immense 
 I treasure on which we had at present so eagerly 
 ■fixed our thoughts. During this interval we were 
 -«rtipIoyed in scrubbing and cleansing our ships' 
 
 bottoins, in bringing them into their most advan- 
 tageous trim, and in regulating the orders, signals, 
 and stations, to be observed wlicn we should arrive 
 off Acapulco, and the time of the departure of the 
 galleon should draw nigli. 
 
 And now, on the first of Maxell, We rostde tl^e 
 high lands, usually called the paps, over Aeapulcb, 
 and got with all possible expedition into the situa^ 
 tion prescribed by the Commodore's' orders,' The 
 distribution of our squadron on this occasion^ both 
 for the intercepting the gallbon and for the'^void- 
 ing a discovery from the shore; was so very judi- 
 cious, that it well merits to be distinctly described. 
 The order of it was thus : . - 
 
 TheCenturion brought the'paps oVer'the harbour 
 to bear N.N.E., at fifteen leagues' distance, which 
 was a sufficient ofiing to prevent our being seen 
 by the enemy. To the'westward'of the Centurion 
 there was stationed the Carmelo, and to; the east- 
 ward were the Tryal prize, the 'GloUcestetj arid 
 the Carmin. These were all ranged in a cii-culir 
 line, and each ship was three leagues distant frorii 
 the next ; so that the Carmelo and the Carmin, 
 which were the two extremis, were twelve leagues' 
 distance from each other': and as the galleon 
 could without doubt be discerned at six. leagues' 
 distance from either extremity, the whole ^weep 
 of our squadron, within which nothing could, pass 
 undiscovered, was at least twenty-four' leagues in 
 extent ; and yet we were so connected by our sig- 
 nals, as to be easily and speedily infoi-med of what 
 was seen in any part of the line : and to render 
 this disposition still more cdmplete, and to prevent 
 even the possibility of the galleon's escaping, us in 
 the night, the two cutters belonging to the.. Cen- 
 turion and the Gloucester' were both manned and 
 sent in shore, and were ordered, to lie all day at 
 the distance of fouror^five-leagues from the en- 
 trance of the port, where, by'reaso'n of their suiall- 
 ness, they could not possibly be discovered.-.; hut 
 in the night they were directed to stand nearer to 
 the harbour's mouth, and a-s the light of the moi-n- 
 ing came on, they were to i-eturn back again to 
 their day-posts. When the ' cutters . should .first 
 discover the Manila ship, one of them was ordered 
 to letum to the squadron, and to make a signal 
 whether the galleon stood to the eastward or to 
 the westward, whilst the othei' was to follow the 
 galleon at a distance, andj if it grew dark, was to 
 direct the squadron in their chase by showing: false 
 fires. : ' ■- ■■ 
 
 Besides the care we had taken to prevent the 
 galleon from passing by us unobserved, we had 
 not been inattentive to the.'means of engaging her 
 to atlvantage when we came up witli-her,-: for,, con- 
 sideiing the thinness of 0UB> hands, and the vaunt- 
 ing ;ii'countB given by the Spaniards of her size, 
 lier guns, and her strength, this was .a consider,a- 
 tion not to be neglected. . As we- supposed, that 
 none of our ships bujt the Centurion and-the Glou- 
 cester were capable of lying alongside of her, we 
 took on board the Centilrion all the hands belong- 
 ing to the Carmelo and thte Carn)in,..'exoept whiit 
 were just sufficient, to- navigate those' shi[)s ; and 
 Captain Saunders was ordered 'to send from the 
 Tryal prize ten Englishmen, and -as many negroes, 
 to "reinforce the crew of 'tire -Glouoestter : and- for 
 the encouragement of our negroes-, of -which we 
 had a considerable nUnJbet on board, we pl-otnised 
 tliem that on their' good beha^ieur thev should iill 
 
73 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE "WORLD. 
 
 have their freedom ; and as they had been almost 
 every day trained to the management of the great 
 guns for the two preceding months, they were 
 very well qualified to be of service to us ; and 
 from their hopes of liberty, and in return for the 
 usage they had met with amongst us, they seemed 
 disposed to exert themselves to the utmost of their 
 power. ^ 
 
 And now being thus prepared for the reception 
 of the galleon, we expected with the utmost im- 
 patience the so often mentioned 3d of March, the 
 day fixed for her departure. And on that day we 
 were all of us most eagerly engaged in looking out 
 towards Acapulco ; and we were so strangely pre- 
 possessed with the certainty of our inteUigonce. 
 and with an assurance of her coming out of port, 
 that some or other on board us were constantly 
 imagining that they discovered one of our cutters 
 returning with a signal. But, to our extreme 
 vexation, both this day and the succeeding night 
 passed over without any news of the galleon. How- 
 ever we did not yet despair, but were all heartily 
 disposed to flatter ourselves that some unforeseen 
 accident had intervened, which might have put oif 
 her departure for a few days ; and suggestions of 
 this kind occurred in plenty, as we knew that the 
 time fixed by the viceroy for her sailing, was often 
 prolonged on the petition of the merchants of 
 Mexico. Thus we kept up our hopes, and did not 
 abate of our vigilance ; and as the 7th of March 
 was Sunday, the beginning of Passion-\5'eek, which 
 is observed by the papists with great strictness 
 and a total cessation from all kinds of labour, so 
 that no ship is permitted to stir out of port during 
 the whole week, tliis quieted our apprehensions 
 for some days, and disposed us not to expect the 
 galleon till the week following. On the Friday in 
 this week our cutters returned to us, and the 
 officers on board them were very confident that 
 the galleon was still in port, for that she could not 
 possibly have come out but they must have seen 
 her. On the Monday morning succeeding Pas- 
 sion-week, that is, on the I5tli of March, the cut- 
 ters were again despatched to their old station, 
 and our hopes were once more indulged in as 
 sanguine prepossessions as before ; but in a week's 
 time our eagerness was greatly abated, and a 
 ' general dejection and despondency took place in 
 its room. It is true there were some few amongst 
 us who still kept up their spirits, and were very 
 ingenious in finding out reasons to satififv them- 
 selves that the disappointment we had hitherto 
 met with had only been occasioned by a casual 
 delay of the galleon, which a few days would re- 
 move, and not by a total suspension of her de- 
 parture for the whole season. But tliese specu- 
 lations were not relished by the generality of our 
 people, for they were persuaded that the enemy 
 had by some accident discovered our being upon 
 the coast, and had therefore laid an embargo on 
 iJif galleon till the next year. And indeed this 
 persuasion was but too well founded, for we after- 
 wards learnt that our barge, when sent on the 
 discovery of the port of Acapulco, had been seen 
 from the shore, and that this circumstance (no 
 embarkations but canoes ever frequenting that 
 coast) was to them a sufficient proof of the neigh- 
 bourhood of our squadron ; on which they stopped 
 the galleon till the succeeding year. 
 ■ The commodore himself, though he declarea ^°^ 
 
 hie opinion,Vas yet in his own thoughts very ap- 
 prehensive that we were discovered, and that the- 
 departure of the galleon was put off ; and he had, 
 in consequence of this opinion, formed a plan tor 
 possessing himself of Acapulco ; for he had no 
 doubt but the treasure as yet remained in the town, 
 even though the orders for the despatching of the 
 galleon were countermanded. Indeed the place 
 was too well defended to be carried by an open 
 attempt ; for, besides the garrison and the crew nf 
 the galleon, there were in it at least a thousand 
 men, well anned, who had marched thitlior as 
 guards to the treasure, when it was brought down 
 from the city of Mexico ; for the roads thereabouts, 
 are so much infested, either by independent Indians 
 or fugitives, that the Spaniards never trust the 
 silver without an armed force to protect it And 
 besides, had the strength of the place been less 
 considerable, and such as might have appeareil 
 not superior to the efforts of our squadron, yet a 
 declared attack would have prevented us from 
 receiving any advantages from its success ; since,, 
 upon the first discovery of our squadron, all the 
 treasure would have been ordered into the country, 
 and in a few hours would have been out of our 
 reach ; so that our conquest would have been only 
 ii desolate town, where we should have foun^ 
 nothing that could have been of the least conse- 
 quence to us. , 
 For these reasons, the surprisal of the place was 
 the only method that could at all answer our pur- 
 pose ; and, therefore, the manner in which Mr 
 Anson proposed to conduct this enterprise wa^, 
 by setting sail with the squadron in the evening,, 
 time enough to arrive at the port in the night,;- 
 and as there is no danger on that coast, he would J 
 have stood boldly for the harbour's mouth, wherje-:, 
 he expected to arrive, and might perhaps havej 
 entered it before the Spaniards were acquainted 
 with his designs. As soon as he had run into the 
 harbour, he intended to have pushed two hundred, 
 of his men on shore in his boat?, who were imme- 
 diately to attempt the fort ; whilst he, the com- 
 modore, with liis ships, was employed in firing, 
 upon the town, ,md the other batteries. And these 
 different operations, which would have been ev 
 ecuted with great regularity, could hardly have 
 failed of succeeding against an enemy, who would 
 have been prevented by the suddenness of the 
 attack, and by the want of daylight, from concert- 
 ing any measures for their defence ; so that it 
 was extremely probable that we should have- 
 carried the fort by storm ; and then the other 
 batteries, being open behind, must have been soon^ 
 abandoned ; after which, the town, and- its inha- 
 bitants, and all the treasui'e, must necessarily have 
 fallen into our hands, for the place is so cooped 
 up with mountains, that it is scarcely possible to 
 escape out of it, but by the great road, which 
 passes under the fort. This was the project which 
 the commodore had settled in general in his 
 thoughts ; but when he began to inquire into such 
 circumstances as were necessary to be considered 
 in order to regulate the particulars of its execu- 
 tion, he found there was a difficulty, which, being 
 insuperable, occasioned the enterprise to be laid 
 aside : for on examining the prisoners about the 
 winds which prevail near the shore, he learned 
 (and it was afterwards confirmed by the officei» 
 I of our cutters) that nearer in-shore there wa» 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 /» 
 
 always a dead calm for the greatest part of the 
 uiijht, and that towards morning, when a gale 
 sprung up, it constantly blew off the land ; so that 
 the setting sail from our present station in the 
 evening, and arriving at Acapulco before day- 
 light, was impossible. 
 
 This scheme, as has been said, was formed by 
 the commodore upon a supposition that the galleon 
 was detained till the next year ; but as this was a 
 matter of opinion only, and not founded on intel- 
 ligence, and there was a possibility that she might 
 still put to sea in a short time, the commodore 
 thought it prudent to continue his cruise upon this 
 station, as long as the necessary attention to his 
 stores of wood and water, and to the convenient 
 season for his future passage to China, would giv-e 
 him leave ; and, therefore, as the cutters had been 
 ordered to remain before Acapulco till the 23d of 
 March, the squadron did not change its position 
 till that day ; when the cutters not appearing, we 
 were in some pain for them, apprehending they 
 might have suffered either from the enemy or the 
 weather ; but we were relieved from our concern 
 the next morning, when we discovered them, 
 though at a great distance, and to the leeward of 
 the squadron. We bore down to them and took 
 them up, and were informed by them, that, con- 
 formable to their orders, they had left theii- station 
 the day before, without having seen anything of 
 the galleon ; and we found that the reason of their 
 being so far to the leeward of us was a strong 
 current, which had driven the whole squadron to 
 windward. 
 
 And here it is necessary to mention that, by 
 information which was afterwards received, it 
 appeared that this prolongation of our cruise was 
 a very prudent measure, and afforded us no con- 
 temptible chance of seizing the treasure, on which 
 we had so long fixed our thoughts. For it seems, 
 after the embargo was laid on the galleon, as is 
 before mentioned, the persons principally inter- 
 ested in the cargo sent several expresses to Mexico 
 to beg that she might still be permitted to depart. 
 I'or as they knew, by the accounts sent from Paita, 
 that we had not more than three hundred men in 
 all, they insisted that there was nothing to be 
 feared from us ; for that the galleon (carrying 
 above twice as many hands as our whole squadron) 
 would be greatly an overmatch for us. Artd 
 though the viceroy was inflexible, yet, on the 
 account of their representation, she was kept ready 
 for the sea for near three weeks after the first 
 order came to detain her. 
 
 When we had taken up the cutters, all the ships 
 being joined, the commodore made a signal to 
 speak with their commanders ; and upon inquiry 
 into the stock of fresh water remaining on board 
 the squadron, it was found to be so very slender, 
 that we were under a necessity of quitting our 
 station to procure a fresh supply ; and consulting 
 what place was the most proper for this purpose, 
 it was agreed, that the harbour of Seguataneo or 
 Chequetan, being the nearest to us, was on that 
 account the most ehgible ; and it was therefore 
 immediately resolved to make the best of our way 
 thither. And that, even while we were recruiting 
 our water, we might not totally abandon our views 
 upon the galleon ; which, perhaps upon certain 
 intelligence oi our being employed at Chequetan, 
 might venture to slip out to sea. our cutter, under 
 
 the command of Mr. Hughes, the lieutenant of the 
 Tryal prize, was ordered to cruise off the port ot 
 Acapulco for twenty-four days ; that if the galleon 
 should set sail in that interval, we might be 
 speedily informed of it. 1 In pursuance of these 
 resolutions, we endeavoured to ply to the westward 
 to gain our intended port ; but were often inter- 
 rupted in our progress by calms and adverse 
 currents. In these intervals we employed our- 
 selves in taldng out the most valuable part of the 
 cargoes of the Camielo and Camiin prizes, which 
 two ships we- intended to destroy as soon as we^ 
 had tolerably cleared them. 
 
 By the first of April we were so far advanced 
 towards Seguataneo, that we thought it expedient 
 to send out two boats, that they might i-ange 
 along the coast and discover the watering-place 7 
 they were gone some days, and our water being 
 now very short, it was a particular felicity to 
 us that we met with daily supplies of turtle, for 
 had we been entirely confined to salt provi- 
 sions, we must have suffered extremely in so 
 warm a climate. Indeed, our present circum- 
 stances were sufficiently alarming, and gave the 
 most considerate amongst us as much concern 
 as any of the numerous perils we had hitherto 
 encountered ; for our boats, as we conceived 
 by their not returning, had not as yet discovered 
 a place proper to water at, and by the leakage 
 of our casks and other accidents, we had not 
 ten days' water on board the whole squadron : 
 so that, from the known difficulty of procuring 
 water on this coast, and the little reliance we had 
 on the buccaneer writers, (the only guides we had 
 to trust to,) we were apprehensive of being soon 
 exposed to a calamity, the most terrible of any in 
 the long disheartening catalogue of the distresses 
 of a sea-faring life. 
 
 But these gloomy suggestions were soon happily 
 ended ; for our boats returned on the fifth of April, 
 having discovered a place proper for our purpose, 
 about seven miles to the westward of the rocks of 
 Seguataneo, which, by the description they gave 
 of it, appeared to be the port, called by Dumpier 
 the harbour, of Chequetan. The- success of our 
 boats was highly agreeable to us, and they were 
 ordered out again the next day, to sound the har- 
 bour and its entrance, which they had represented 
 as very narrow. At their return they reported 
 the place to be free from any danger ; so that on 
 the seventh we stood in, and that evening came to 
 an anchor in eleven fathoms. The Gloucester came 
 to an anchor at the same time with us ; but the 
 Carraelo and the Carmin having fallen to leeward, 
 the Tryal prize was ordered to join them, and to 
 bring them in, which in two or three days she 
 effected. 
 
 Thus, after a four months' continuance at sea, 
 from the leavmg of Quibo, and having but six 
 days' water on board, we arrived in the harbour 01 
 Chequetan, the description of which, and of the 
 adjacent coast, shall be the business of the ensuing 
 chapter. 
 
80 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE HOUND THE WOULD. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 2hse*^ption of the harbour of Ckequetan, and of the adja- 
 cent coast and country. 
 
 The harbour of Chequetan, wjiich we here pro- 
 pose to describe, lies in the latitude of 17" 36' 
 north, and is about thirty leagues to the westward 
 of Aeapulco. It is easy to be discovered by any 
 ship that will keep well in with the land, especially 
 by such as range down coast from Aeapulco, and 
 will attend to the following particulars. 
 
 There is a beach of sand which extends eigh- 
 teen leagues from the harbour of Aeapulco to the 
 westward, against which the sea breaks with such 
 violence, that it is impossible to land in any part 
 of it ; but yet the ground ia so clean that ships, 
 in the fair season, may anchor in great safety, 
 at the distance of a mile or two from the shore. 
 The land adjacent to this beach is generally low, 
 full of villages, and planted with a great number 
 of trees ; and on the tops of some small eminences 
 there are several look-out towers ; so that the face 
 of the country affords a very agreeable prospect. 
 For the cultivated part, which is the part here 
 described, extends some leagues back from the 
 chore, and there appears to be bounded by the 
 chain of mountains, which stretch to a consider- 
 able distance on either side of Aeapulco. It is a 
 most remarkable particularity, that in this whole 
 extent, being, as has been mentioned, eighteen 
 leagues, and containing, in appearance, the most 
 populous and best planted district of the whole 
 coast, there should be neither canoes, boats, nor 
 any other erabax'kations either for fishing, coasting, 
 or for pleasure. 
 
 The beach here described is the surest guide 
 for finding the harbour of Chequetan ; for five 
 miles to the westward of the extremity of this 
 beach there appears a hummock, which at first 
 makes like an island, and is in shape not very 
 unlike the hill of Petaplan hereafter mentioned, 
 though much smaller. Three miles to the west- 
 ward of this hummock is a white rock lying near 
 the shore, which cannot easily be passed by un- 
 observed. It is about two cables' length from the 
 land, and lies in a large bay about nine leagues 
 over. The westward point of this bay is the hill 
 of Petaplan. This hill, too, like the fore-men- 
 tioned hummock, may be at first mistaken for an 
 island, though it be in reality a peninsula, which 
 is joined to the continent by a low and narrow 
 isthmus, covered over with shrubs and small trees. 
 The bay of Seguataneo extends from this hill a 
 great way to the westward ; at a small distance 
 from the hill, and opposite to the entrance of the 
 bay, there is an assemblage of rocks, which are 
 wrhite from the excrements of boobies and tropical 
 birds. Four of these rocks are high and large, 
 and, together with several smaller ones, are, by the 
 help of a little imagination, pretended to resemble 
 the form of a cross, and are called the " White 
 Friars." These rocks bear W. by N. from Peta- 
 plan ; and about seven miles to the westward of 
 them lies the harbour of Chequetan, which is still 
 more minutely distinguished by a large and single 
 rock, that rises out of the water a mile and a 
 half distant from its entrance, and bears S. ^ W. 
 from the middle of it. 
 
 These are the infallible marks by which the 
 harbour of Chequetan may be known to those whc 
 keep well in with the land ; and I must add, that 
 the coast is no ways to be dreaded from the middle 
 of October to the beginning of May, nor is there 
 then any danger from the winds ; though, in the 
 remaining part of the year, there are frequent and 
 violent tornadoes, heavy rains, and hard gales in 
 all directions of the compass. But, as to those 
 who keep at any consideralble distance from the 
 coast, there is no other method to be taken by 
 them for finding this harbour, than that of making 
 it by its latitude : for there are so many ranges of 
 mountains rising one upon the back of another 
 within land, that no drawings of the appearance of 
 the coast can be at all depended on, when off at 
 sea ; for every little change of distance or variation 
 of position brings new mountains in view, and pro- 
 duces an infinity of different prospects, which would 
 render all attempts of delineating the aspect of the 
 coast impossible. 
 
 This may sufiice as to the methods of' discover- 
 ing the harbour of Chequetan. Its entrance is 
 but about half-a-raile broad ; the two points which 
 form it, and which are faced with rocks that are 
 almost perpendicular, bear from each Other S.E. 
 and N.W. The harbour is environed on all sides, 
 except to the westward, with high mountains over- 
 spread with trees. The passage into it is very safe 
 on either side of the rock that lies off the mouth of 
 it, though we, both in coming in and going out, 
 left it to the eastward. The ground without the 
 harbour is gravel mixed with stones, but within 
 it is a soft mud : and it must be remembered 
 that, in coming to an anchor, a good allowanct 
 should be made for a large swell, which frequentlj 
 causes a great send of the sea ; as Ukewise, for 
 the ebbing and flowing of the tide, which we 
 observed to be about fivfe feet, and that it set nearly 
 E. and W. 
 
 The watering-place for fresh water has the 
 appearance of a large standing lake, without any 
 visible outlet into the sea, from which it is separated 
 by a part of the strand. The origin of this lake is 
 a spring, that bubbles out of the ground near half- 
 a-mile within the country. We found the water a 
 little brackish, but more considerably so towards 
 the sea-side ; for the nearer we advanced towards 
 the spring-head, the softer and fresher it proved : 
 this laid us under a necessity of filling all our casks 
 from the furthest part of the lake,'and occasioned 
 us some trouble ; and would have proved still 
 more difficult, had it not been for our particular 
 management, which, for the convenience of it, 
 deserves to be recommended to all who shall here- 
 after water at this place. Our method consisted 
 in making use of canoes which drew but Uttle 
 water ; for, loading them with a number of small 
 casks, they easily got up the lake to the spring- 
 head, and the small casks being there filled, 
 were in the same manner transported back again 
 to the beach, where some of our hands always 
 attended to start them into other casks of a larger 
 size. 
 
 Though this lake, during our continuance there, 
 appeared to have no outlet into the sea, yet there 
 is reason to suppose that in the wet season it 
 overflows the strand, and commr.3icates with the 
 ocean ; for Dampier, who was formerly here 
 speaks of it as a large river. Indeed there must 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 8- 
 
 he a very great body of watei- amassed before the 
 lake can rise high enough to overflow the strand ; 
 for the neighbouring country is so low, that great 
 part of it must be covered with water, before it 
 can run out over the beach. 
 
 As tlie country in the neighbourhood, particu- 
 larly the tract which we have already described, 
 ppeared to be well peopled, and cultivated, we 
 Hoped thence to have procured fi-esh provision and 
 other refreshments which we stood in need of. 
 With this view, the morning after we came to an 
 anchor, the commodore ordered a party of forty 
 men, well armed, to march mto the country, and 
 to endeavour to discover some town or village, 
 where they were to attempt to set on foot a cor- 
 respondence with the inhabitants j for we doubted 
 not, if we could have any intercoui-se with them, 
 but that by presents of some of the coarae mer- 
 chandise, with which our prizes abounded (whicii, 
 though of little consequence to us, would to them 
 be extremely valuable) we should allure them to 
 furnish us with whatever fruits or fresh provisions 
 were in their power. Our people were directed on 
 this occasion to proceed with the greatest circum- 
 c|)ection, and to make as little ostentation of 
 niistility as possible ; for we were sensible, that we 
 could meet with no wealth here worth our notice, 
 and that what necessaries we really wanted, we 
 should in all probability be better supplied with 
 l)y an open amicable traffic, than by violence and 
 force of arms. But this endeavour of opening an 
 intercourse with the inhabitants proved ineffectual ; 
 for towards evening, the party which had been 
 •ordered to march into the country, returned greatly 
 fatigued with their unusual exercise, and some of 
 them so far spent as to have fainted by the way, 
 and to be obliged to be brought back upon the 
 shoulders of their companions. They bad marched 
 in -all,- as they conceived, about ten miles, in a 
 beaten road, where they often saw the fresh dung 
 of horses or mules. When they had got about 
 five miles from the harbour, the road divided 
 between the mountains into two branches, one 
 Tanning to the east, and the other to the west : 
 after some deliberation about the coui-se they 
 should take, they agreed to pursue the eastern 
 Toad, which, when they had followed for some time, 
 led them at once into a large plain or savannah; 
 on one side of which they discovered a sentinel on 
 horseback with a pistol in his hand : it was sup- 
 posed that when they first saw him he was asleep, 
 but his horse startled at the glittering of their arms, 
 and turning round suddenly rode off with his 
 master, who was very near being unhorsed in the 
 surprise, but he recovered his seat, and escaped 
 with the loss only of his hat and his pistol, which 
 he dropped on the ground Our people ran after 
 him, in hopes of discovering some village or habi- 
 tation whicli he would retreat to, but as he had the 
 advantage of being on horseback, he soon lost sight 
 of them. However, they were unwilling to come 
 back without making some discovery, and therefore 
 still followed the track they were in ; but the heat 
 of the day increasing, and finding no water to 
 quench their thirst, they were at first obliged to 
 Halt, and then resolved to return ; for as they saw 
 no signs of plantations or cultivated land, they had 
 no reason to believe that there was any village or 
 settlement near them : but to leave no means 
 untried of procuring some intercourse with the 
 
 people, the officers stuck up several poles in the 
 road, to which were affixed declarations, written 
 in .'ipanish, encouraging the inhabitatits to conjp 
 down to- the harbour, and to traffic with us, giving; 
 the strongest assurances of a kind reception, and 
 faithful payment for any provisions they should 
 bring us. , This was doubtless a very prudent mea- 
 sure, but yet it pj'oduced no effect ; for we never 
 saw any of them during tlie whole time of our con- 
 tinuance at this port of Chequetan. But had our 
 men, upon the division of the path, taken the 
 western road instead of the eastern, it would soon 
 have led them to a village or town, whicli in some 
 Spanish manuscripts is mentioned as being in 
 the neighbourhood of this port, and which we 
 afterwards learned was -not above two miles from 
 that turning. 
 
 And on this occasion I cannot help mentioning 
 another , adventure, whicli hi-ippened to some of 
 our people in the bay of Petaplan, as it may help 
 to give the reader a just idea of the tenjper of the 
 inliabitants of this part of the world. Some time 
 after our arrival at Chequetan, Lieutenant Brett 
 was sent by the commodore, with two of our boats 
 under his command, to examine the coast to the 
 eastward, particularly to make observations on 
 the bay and watering-place of Petaplan. As Mr. 
 Brett, with one of the boats, was preparing to 
 go on shore towards the hill of Petaplan, he 
 accidentally looking across tlie bay, perceived, on 
 the opposite strand, three small squadrons of horse 
 parading upon the beach, and -seeming . to advance 
 towards the place where he proposed to land. On 
 sight of this he immediately put off the boat, though 
 lie had but sixteen men with him,: and stood over 
 the bay towards them : and he soon came near 
 enough to perceive that they were mounted on 
 very sightly horses, and were armed with carbines 
 and lances. On seeing him make towards them, 
 they formed upon the beach, and seemed resolved 
 to dispute his landing, firing several distant shot at 
 him as he drew near ; till at last the boat beirig 
 arrived within a reasonable distance of the most 
 advanced squadron, Mr. . Brett ordered his people 
 to fire, upon which this resolute cavalry instantly 
 ran in great confusion into the wood, thro.ugh a 
 small opening. In this precipitate flight one 
 of their horses fell down and threw hisridei 
 hut, whether he was wounded or not we could 
 not learn, for both man and . horse soon got up 
 again, and followed the rest into the wood. - In 
 the mean time, the other two squadrons, who 
 were. drawn up at a gi'eat distance behind, out 
 of the reach of our shot, were calm speotatoi'S 
 of the rout of their comrades ; for they had halted 
 on our- first approach, and never advanced after- 
 wards. It was doubtless fortunate for our people 
 that the enemy acted with so little prudence, and 
 exerted, so little spirit ; for had they concealed 
 themselves till our men had landed, it is scarcely 
 possible but the whole boat's crew must have fdllen 
 into their hands ; since the Spaniards were not 
 much short of two hundred, and the whole mmi- 
 ber, with Mr. Brett, as hath been already men 
 tinned, only amounted to sixteen. However, the 
 discovery of so considerable a force, collected in 
 this bay of Petaplan, obliged us constantly to keep 
 a boat or two before it : for we were apprehensive 
 that the cutter, which we had left to cruise off 
 Acapuleo, might, on her return, be surprised tj 
 
S2 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE KOUND THE WORLD 
 
 the enemy, if she did not receive timely informa- 
 tion of her danger. But now to proceed with the 
 account of the harbonr of Chequetan. 
 
 After our unsuccessful attempt to engage the 
 people of the country to furnish us with the ne- 
 cessaries we wanted, we desisted from any more 
 endeavours of the same nature, and were obliged 
 to be contented with what we could procure for 
 ourselves in the neighbourhood of the port. We 
 caught fish here in tolerable quantities, especially 
 when the smoothness of the water permitted us to 
 haul the seine. Amongst the rest, wo got there 
 cavallies, breams, mullets, soles, fiddle-fishj sea- 
 eggs, and lobsters ; and we here, and in no other 
 place, met with that extraordinary fish called 
 the torpedo, or numbing "fish, which is in shape 
 very like the fiddle-fish, and is not to be known 
 from it but by a brown circular spot of about the 
 bigness of a crown-piece near the centre of its 
 back ; perhaps its figure will be better understood, 
 when I say it ip a flat fish, much resembling the 
 tliorn-back. This fish, the torpedo, is indeed of 
 a most singular nature, productive of the strangest 
 effects on the human body : for whoever handles 
 it, or happens even to set his foot upon it, is pre- 
 sently seized with a numbness all over him ; but 
 which is more distinguishable in that limb which 
 was in immediate contact with it. The same 
 effect too will be in some degree produced by 
 touching the fish with anj-thing held in the hand ; 
 for I myself had a considerable degree of numb- 
 ness conveyed to my right arm, through a walking 
 cane which I rested on the body of the fish for 
 some time ; and I make no doubt but I should 
 have been niuch more sensibly affected, had not 
 the fish been near expiring when I made the 
 experiment : for it is observable that this in- 
 fluence acts with most vigour when the fish is 
 first taken out of the water, and entirely ceases 
 when it is dead, so that it may be then handled 
 or even eaten without any inconvenience. I 
 shall only add that the numbness of my arm 
 on this occasion did not go off on a sudden, as 
 the accounts of some naturalists gave me reason 
 to expect, but diminished gradually, so that 1 
 had some sensation of it remaining till the next 
 day. 
 
 To the account given of the fish we met with 
 here, I must add, that though turtle now grew 
 scarce, and we met with none in this harbour of 
 Chequetan, yet our boats, which, as I have men- 
 tioned, were stationed off Petaplan, often supplied 
 us therewith ; and though this was a food that we 
 had now been so long as it were confined to, (for 
 5twas the only fresh provisions which we had tasted 
 for near six months,) yet we were far from being 
 cloyed with it, or from finding that the relish we 
 had of it at all diminished. 
 
 The animals we met with on shore were princi- 
 pally guanos, with which the country abounds, and 
 which are by some reckoned delicious food. We 
 saw no beasts of prey here, except we should es- 
 teem chat amphibious animal, the alligator, as such, 
 several of which our people discovered, but none 
 of them very large. However, we were satisfied 
 that there were gi'eat numbers of tigers in the 
 woods, though none of them came in sight ; for 
 we every morning found the beach near the water- 
 ing place imprmted very thick with their footsteps: 
 bi. t we never apprehended any mischief from them ; 
 
 for they are by no means so fierce as the Asiatitr 
 or African tiger, and are rarely, if ever, kno^vn to 
 attack mankind. Birds were here in sufficient 
 plenty ; for we had abundance of pheasants of 
 different kinds, some of them of an uncommon 
 size, but they were very dry and tasteless food. 
 And besides these we had a variety of smaller 
 birds, particularly parrots, which we often killed 
 for food. 
 
 The fruits and vegetable refreshments at this 
 place were neither plentiful, nor of the best kinds: 
 there were, it is true, a few bushes scattered about 
 the woods, which supplied us with limes, but we 
 scarcely could procure enough for our present use;. 
 and these, with a small plum of an a^eeable acid, 
 called in Jamaica the hog-plum, together with 
 another fruit called the papah, were the only fruits 
 to be foimd in the woods. Nor is there any other 
 useful vegetable here worth mentioning, except 
 brooklime : this indeed grew in great quantities 
 near the fresh-water banks. ; and, as it was es- 
 teemed an antiscorbutic, we fed upon it frequently, 
 though its extreme bitterness made it very un- 
 palatable. 
 
 These are the articles most worthy of notice in 
 this harbour of Chequetan. I shall only mention 
 a particular of the coast lying to the westward of 
 it, that to the eastward having been already de- 
 scribed. As Mr. Anson was always attentive to 
 whatever might be of consequence to those who 
 might frequent these seas hereafter ; and, as we 
 had observed that there was a double land to the 
 westward of Chequeta,n, which stretched out to a 
 considerable distance, with a kind of opening, which 
 appeared not unlike the inlet to some harbour, th<» 
 commodore, soon after we came to an anchor, sent 
 a boat to discover it more accurately, and it was 
 found, on a nearer examination, that the two hills, 
 which formed the double land, were joined together 
 by a valley, and that there was no harbour nor 
 shelter between them. 
 
 By all that has been said, it will appear that 
 the conveniences of this port of Chequetan, par- 
 ticularly in the articles of refreshment, are not 
 altogether such as might be desired : but yet, 
 upon the whole, it is a place of considerable 
 consequence, and the knowledge of it may be of 
 great import to future cruisers.^ For it is the 
 only secure harbour in a vast extent of coast, 
 except Acapulco, which is in the hands of the 
 enemy. It lies at a proper distance from Aca- 
 pulco for the convenience of such ships as may 
 have any designs on the Manila galleon ; and it 
 is a place where wood and water may be taken 
 in with great security, in despite of the efforts of 
 the inhabitants of the adjacent district for tliore 
 is but inr. j^ r-(,,v path which leads through the 
 woods into the country, and this is easily to be 
 secured by a very small party, against all the strength 
 the Spaniards in that neighbourhood can muster. 
 After this account of Chequetan, and , the coast 
 contiguous to it, we shall return to the recital of 
 our own proceedings. 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 n:» 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Oiir prooeedinys at Cheqitrfan arid on the adjacent coast, 
 till our sftting fail for Asia. 
 
 The next morning, after our coming to an 
 anchor in the harbour of Chequetan, yve sent about 
 ninety of our men well armed on shore, forty of 
 whom were ordered to march into the country, as 
 has been mentioned, and the remaining fifty were 
 employed to cover the watering-place, and to pre- 
 vent any interruption from the natives. 
 
 Here we completed the unloading of the Car- 
 melo and Carmin, which we had begun at sea ; at 
 least we took out of them the indigo, cacao, and 
 cochineal, with some iron for ballast, which were 
 all the goods we intended to preserve, though they 
 did not amount to a tenth of their cargoes. Here, 
 too, it was agreed, after a mature consultation, to 
 destroy the Tryal's prize, as well as the Carmelo 
 and Carmin, whose fate had been before resolved 
 on. Indeed the ship was in good repair and fit 
 for the sea ; but as the whole numbers on board 
 our squadron did not amount to the complement 
 of a fourth-rate man-of-war, we found it was im- 
 possible to divide them into three ships, without 
 rendering them incapable of navigating in safety 
 in tte tempestuous weather we had reason to ex- 
 pect on the coast of China, where we supposed we 
 should arrive about the time of the change of the 
 monsoons. These considerations determined the 
 commodore to destroy the Tryal's prize, and to re- 
 inforce the Gloucester with the greatest part of 
 her crew. And in consequence of this resolve, all 
 the stores on board the Tryal's pi-ir.e were re- 
 moved into the other ships, and the prize herself, 
 with the CaiTOelo and Carmin, were prepared for 
 scuttling with all the expedition we were masters 
 of ; but the greatest difficulties we were under in 
 laying in a store of water (which have been al- 
 ready touched on) together with the necessary 
 repairs of our rigging and other unavoidable 
 occupations, took us up so much time, and found 
 us such unexpected employment, that it was near, 
 the end of April before we were in a condition to 
 leave the place. 
 
 During our stay here, there happened an inci- 
 dent, which, as it proved the means of convincing 
 our friends in England of our safety, which for 
 some time they had despaii-ed of, and were then 
 in doubt about, I shall beg leave particularly to 
 recite. I have observed, in the preceding chapter, 
 that from this harbour of Chequetan there was 
 but one pathway which led through the woods into 
 the country. This we found much beaten, and 
 were thence convinced that it was well known to 
 the inhabitants. As it passed by the spring-head, 
 and was the only avenue by which the Spaniards 
 could approach us, we, at some distance beyond 
 the spring-head, felled several large trees, and laid 
 them one upon the other across the path ; and at 
 this barricade we constantly kept a guard : and we 
 besides ordered our men employed in watering to 
 have their arms ready, and, in case of any alarm, 
 to march instantly to this post. And though our 
 principal intention was to prevent our being dis- 
 turbed by any sudden attack of the enemy's horse, 
 yet it answered another purpose, which was not 
 in itself less important ; this was to hinder our 
 own people from straggling singly into the country, 
 
 where we had reason to believe they would be 
 surprised by the Spaniards, who would doubtIe.<;s 
 be extremely solicitous to pick up some of them, 
 in hopes of getting intelligence of our future designs. 
 To avoid" this inconvenience, the strictest orders 
 wore given to the sentinels to let no person what- 
 ever pass beyond their post : but notwithstanding 
 this precaution we missed one Lewis Leger, who 
 was the commodore's cook : and as he was a 
 Frenchman, and suspected to be a papist, it was 
 by some imagmed that he had deserted with a view 
 of betraying all that he knew to the enemy ; but 
 tlii.^ appeared, by the event, to be an ill-grounded 
 surmise ; for it was afterwards known that he had 
 been taken by some Indians, who cai'ried him 
 prisoner to Acapulco, from whence he was trans- 
 ferred to Mexico, and thence to Vera Cruz, where 
 he was shipped on board a vessel bound to Old 
 Spain : and the vessel being obliged by some acci- 
 dent to put into Lisbon, Leger escaped on shore, 
 and was by the British consul sent from thence to 
 England ; where he brought the first authentic 
 account of the safety of the commodore, and of 
 what he had done in the South Seas. The relation 
 he gave of his own seizure was, that he had ram- 
 bled uito the woods at some distance from the 
 baiTicado, where he had first attempted to pass, 
 but had been stoppedand threatened to be punished; 
 that his principal view was to get a quantity of 
 limes for his master's store ; and that in this oc- 
 cupation he was sui-prised unawares by four Indians, 
 who stripped him naked, and carried him in that 
 condition to Acapulco, exposed to the scorching 
 heat of the sun, which at that time of the year 
 shone with its greatest violence : and afterwards 
 at Mexico his treatment in prison was sufficiently 
 severe, and the whole course of his captivity was 
 a continued instance of the hatred which the Spa- 
 niards bear to all those who endeavour to disturb 
 them in the peaceable possession of the coasts of 
 the South Seas. Indeed Leger's fortune was, upon 
 the whole, extremely singular ; for after the hazards 
 he had run in the commodore's squadron, and the 
 severities he had suffered in his long confinement 
 amongst the enemy, a more fatal disaster attended 
 him on his return to England : for though, when 
 he arrived in London, some of Mr. Anson's friends 
 interested themselves in relieving him from the 
 poverty to which his captivity had reduced him ; 
 yet he did not long enjoy the benefit of their hu- 
 manity, for he was killed in an insignificant night 
 brawl, the cause of which could scarcely be dis- 
 covered. 
 
 And here I must observe that though the ene- 
 my never appeared in sight during our stay in this 
 harbour, yet we perceived that there were large 
 parties of them encamped in the woods about us ; 
 for we could see their smokes, and could thence 
 determine that they were posted in a circular line 
 surrounding us at a distance ; and just before our 
 coming away they seemed, by the increase of their 
 fires, to have received a considerable reinforcement. 
 But to return : 
 
 Towards the latter end of April, the unloading 
 of our three prizes, our wooding and watering, 
 and, in short, all our proposed employments at tho 
 harbour of Chequetan, were completed : so that, 
 on the 27th of April, the Tryal's prize, the Car- 
 melo and the Carmin, all which we here intended 
 to destroy, were towed on shore and scuttled, and 
 
«4 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WOELD. 
 
 a quantity of combustible materials were distri- 
 buted in their upper works ; and the next morn- 
 ing the Centurion and the Gloucester weighed 
 jinchor, but as there was but little wind, and that 
 not in their favour, they were obliged to warp out 
 of the harbour. When they had reached the 
 ■offing, one of the boats was despatched back again 
 to set fire to our prize, which was accordingly 
 ■executed. And a canoe was left fixed to a grap- 
 ael in the middle of the harbour, with a bottle in 
 it well corked, inclosing a letter to Mr. Hughes, 
 who commanded the cutter, which was ordered to 
 -cruise before the port of Acapulco, when we came 
 •off that station. And on this occasion I must 
 mention- more particularly than 1 have yet done, 
 the views of the commodore in leaving the cutter 
 before that port. 
 
 When we were necessitated to make for Che- 
 <juetan to take in our water, Mr. Anson considered 
 that our being in that harbour would soon be 
 known at Acapulco ; and therefore he hoped that, 
 ■on the intelligence of our being employed in port, 
 the galleon might put to sea, especially as Cheque- 
 tan is so very remote from the coarse generally 
 steered by the galleon : he therefore ordered the 
 cutter to cruise twenty-four days oif the port of 
 Acapulco, and htr commander was directed, on 
 perceiving the galleon under sail, to make the best 
 of his way to the commodore at Chequetan. As 
 ■the Centurion ■\vas doubtless a much better sailer 
 than the galleon, Mr. Anson, in this case, resolved 
 to have got to sea as soon as possible, and to have 
 ■pursued the galleon across the Pacific Ocean : and 
 supposing he should not have met with her in his 
 passage, (which, considering that he would have 
 kept nearly the same parallel, was not very im- 
 probable,) yet he was certain of an-iving off Cape 
 Espiritu Santo, on the island of Samal, before her ; 
 ■and that being the first land she makes on her 
 return to the Philippines, we could not have failed 
 ' to have fallen in with. her, by cruising a fewdays 
 in that station. But the viceroy of Mexico ruined 
 this project by keeping the galleon in the port of 
 Acapulco all that year. 
 
 The letter left in the canoe for Mr. Hughes, 
 the commanderof the cutter, (the time of whose 
 return was now considerably elapsed,) dii-ected 
 him to go back immediately to his former station 
 Jjefore Acapulco, where he would find Mr. Anson, 
 who resolved to cruise for him there for a certain 
 number of days ; after which, it was added, that 
 i the commodore would return to the southward 
 to join the rest of the squadron. This last article 
 was inserted to deceive the Spaniards, if they got 
 ■possession of the canoe, (as we afterwards learnt 
 they did,) but could not impose on Mr. Hughes, 
 who well knew that the commodore had no 
 ■squadron to join, nor any intenti'on of steering 
 back to Peru. 
 
 Being now in the offing of Chequevan, bound 
 across the vast Pacific Ocean in our way to China, 
 we were impatient to run off the coast as soon as 
 possible ; for as the stormy season was approach- 
 ing apace, and as we had no further views in the 
 American seas, we had hoped that nothing would 
 Jiave prevented us from standing to the westward, 
 the moment we got out of the harbour of Clie- 
 quetan: and it was no small mortification to ns, 
 that our necessary employment there had detained 
 us so much longer than we expected ; and now 
 
 we were farther detained by the absence of the 
 cutter, and the standing towards Acapulco in 
 search of her. Indeed, as the time of her cruise 
 had been expired for near a fortnight, we sus- 
 pected that she had been discovered from the 
 shore ; and that the governor of Acapulco had 
 thereupon sent out a force to seize her, which, a>- 
 she carried but six hands, was no very difRcuk 
 enterprise However, this being only conjecture, 
 the commodore, as soon as he was got clear of the 
 liarbour of Chequetan, stood along the coast to 
 the eastward in search of her: and to prevent 
 her from passing by us in the dark, we brought- 
 to every night ; and the Gloucester, whose station 
 was a league within us towards the shore, carried 
 a light, which the cutter could not but perceive, 
 if she kept along-shore, as we supposed she would 
 do ; and as a farther security, the Centurion and 
 the Gloucester alternately showed two false fires 
 every half hour. Indeed, had she escaped us, 
 she would have found orders in the canoe to have 
 returned immediately before Acapulco, where Mr. 
 Anson proposed to cruise for her some days. 
 
 ■ By Sunday, the 2d of May, we were advanced 
 within three leagues of Acapulco, and having seen 
 nothing of our boat, we gave her over for lost. 
 which, besides the compassionate concern for our 
 ship-mates, and for what it was apprehended they 
 might have suffered, was in itself a misfortune, 
 which, in our present scarcity of hands, we were 
 all greatly interested in : for the crew of the 
 cutter, consisting of six men and the lieutenant, 
 were the very flower of our people, purposely 
 picked out for this service, and known to be every 
 one of them of tried and approved resolutionj and 
 as skilful seamen as ever trod a deck. However, 
 as It was the general belief among' us that they 
 were taken and carried into Acapulco, the com- 
 modore's prudence suggested a project which we 
 hoped would recover them. This was founded 
 on our having many Spanish and Indian prisoner 
 in our possession, and a number of sick negroes, 
 who could be of no service to us in the navigating 
 of the ship. The commodore therefore wrote a 
 letter the same day to the governor of Acapulco, 
 telling him, that he would release them all, pro- 
 vided the governor returned the cutter's crew ; 
 and the letter was despatched the same afternoon 
 by a Spanish officer, of whose honour we had a 
 good opinion, and who was furnished with a 
 launch belonging to one of our prizes, and a crew 
 of six other prisoners who all gave their parole 
 for their return. T)ie officer, too, besides the 
 commodore's letter, carried with him a joint 
 petition signed by all the rest of the prisoners, 
 beseeching his Excellency to acquiesce in the 
 terms proposed for their liberty. From a con- 
 .sidei*ation of the number of our prisoners^ and 
 the quality of some of them, we did not doubt but 
 the governor would readily comply with Mr. 
 Anson's proposal, and therefore we kept plying 
 on and off the whole night, intending to keep weU 
 in with the land, that we might receive an answer 
 at the limited time, which was the next day, being 
 Monday : but both on the Monday and Tuesday we 
 were driven so far off shore, that we could not 
 hope to'receive any answer ; and on the Wednesday 
 morning we found Ourselves fourteen leagues from 
 the harbour of Acapulco ; but as the wind was 
 now favourable, we pressed forwards with all our 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 8& 
 
 sail, and did not doubt of getting in with the land 
 in a few hours. Wliilst we were tlius standing 
 in, the man at the mast-head called out that he 
 saw a boat under sail at a considerable distance 
 to the south-eastward : this we took for granted 
 was the answer of the governor to the commo- 
 dore's message, and we instantly edged towards 
 it ; but when we drew nearer, we found to our 
 unspeakable joy that it was our own cutter. 
 While she was still at a distance, we imagined 
 that she had been discharged out of the port of 
 Acapulco by the governor ; but when she drew 
 nearer, the wan and meagre countenances of the 
 crew, the length of their beards, and the feeble 
 and hollow tone of their voices, convinced us that 
 they had suffered much greater hardships than 
 could be expected from even the severities of a 
 Spanish prison. They were obliged to be helped 
 into the ship, and were immediately put to bed, 
 and with rest, and nourishing diet, which they 
 were plentifully supplied with from the commo- 
 dore's table, they recovered their health and 
 vigour apace : and now we learnt that they had 
 kept the sea the whole time of their absence, 
 which was above six weeks ; that when they finished 
 their cruise before Acapulco, and had just begun 
 to ply to the westward in order to join the squadron, 
 a sti'ong adverse current had forced them down 
 the coast to the eastward in spite of all their 
 efforts ; that at length their water being all ex- 
 pended, they Were obliged to search the coast 
 farther on to the eastward, in quest of some con- 
 venient landing-place, where they might get a 
 fresh supply ; that in this distress they ran 
 upwards of eighty leagues to leeward, and found 
 everywhere so large a surf, that there was not 
 the least possibility of their landing ; that they 
 passed some days in this dreadful situation, without 
 water, and having no other means left them to 
 allay their thirst than sucking the blood of the 
 tui*tle which they caught ; and at last, giving up 
 all hopes of relief, the heat of the climate too 
 augmenting their necessities, and rendering their 
 sufferings insupportable, they abandoned them- 
 selves to despaii', fully persuaded that tUey should 
 perish by the most terrible of all deaths ; but that 
 they were soon after happily relieved by a most 
 unexpected incident, for there fell so heavy a, 
 rain, tliat by spreading their sails horizontally, 
 and by putting bullets in the centers of them to 
 draw them to a point, they caught as much water 
 as filled all their cask ; that immediately upon this 
 fortunate supply they stood to the westward in 
 quest of the commodore ; and being now luckily 
 favoured by a strong current, they joined us in 
 less than fifty hours, from the time they stood to 
 the westward, after having been absent from us 
 full forty-three days. Those who have ah idea of 
 the inconsiderable size of a cutter belonging to a 
 aixty-gun ship, (being only an open boat about 
 twenty-two feet in length,) and who will attend to 
 the various accidents to which she was exposed 
 during a six weeks' continuance alone, in the oi>en 
 ocean, on so impracticable and dangerous a coast, 
 will readily own, that her return to us at last, 
 after all the difRculties which she actually expe- 
 rienced, and the hazards to which she wa.s each 
 nour exposed, may be considered as little short of 
 miraculous. 
 
 I cannot finish tlie article of this cutter, with- 
 
 out remarking how little reliance navigators 
 ought to have on the accounts of the buccaneer 
 writera: for though in this run of hers, eighty 
 leagues to the eastward of Acapulco, she found 
 no place where it was possible for a boat to laud,, 
 yet those writers have not been ashamed to feign 
 harbours and convenient watering-places within 
 these limits ; thereby exposing such as should 
 confide in thou' relations, to the risk of being 
 destroyed by thirst. 
 
 And now having redived our cutter, the 80I& 
 object of our coming a second time before Aca- 
 pulco, the commodore resolved not .to lose a 
 moment's time longer, but to run off the coast 
 with the utmost expedition, both as the stormy 
 season on the coast of Mexico was now approach- 
 ing apace, and as we were apprehensive of having 
 the westerly monsoon to struggle with when we 
 came upon the coast of China ; and therefore he 
 no longer stood towards Acapulco, as he now 
 wanted no answer from the governor ; but yet 
 he resolved not to deprive his prisoners of the 
 liberty, which he had promised them ; so that 
 they wex-e ail immediately embarked in two lauuche» 
 which belonged to our prizes, those from the 
 Centurion in one launch, and those from the 
 Gloucester in the other. The launches were well 
 equipped with masts, sails and .oars ; and, lest the 
 wind might prove unfavourable, they had a stock 
 of water and provisions put on board them suffi- 
 cient for fourteen days. There were discharged 
 thirty-nine persons from on board the Centurion, 
 and eighteen from the Gloucester, the greatest 
 part of them Spaniards, the rest Indians and sick 
 negroes: but as our crews were very weak, we 
 kept the mulattoes and some of the stoutest of th& 
 negroes, with a few Indians, to assist us ; but we 
 dismissed every Spanish prisoner whatever. We 
 have since learnt, that these two launches arrived 
 safe at Acapulco, where the prisoners could not 
 enough extol the humanity with which they had 
 been treated ; and that the governor, before their 
 arrival, had returned a very obliging answer to 
 tlie commodore's letter, and had attended it with 
 a present of two boats laden with the choicest 
 refreshments and provisions which were to be got 
 at Acapulco ; but that these boats not having 
 found our ships, were at length obliged to put 
 back again, after having thrown all their pro- 
 visions overboard in a storm which threatened 
 their destruction. 
 
 The sending away our prisoners was our la.st 
 transaction on the American coast ; for no sooner 
 had we parted with them, than we and the 
 Gloucester made sail to the S.W., proposing to 
 get. a good offing from the land, where we hoped, 
 in a few days, to meet with the regular trade- 
 wind, which the accounts of former navigators 
 had represented as mucli brisker and steadier in 
 this ocean, than in any other part of the globe t 
 for it has been esteemed no uncommon passage, 
 to run from hence to the easternmost parts of Asia 
 in two months ;■ and we flattered ourselves that 
 we were as capable of making an expeditious 
 passage, as any ships that had ever run this 
 course before us : so that we hoped soon to gain 
 the. coast of China, for which we were now bound. 
 And conformable to the. general idea of this 
 navigation given by former voyagers, we consi- 
 dered it as free from all kinds of embarrassment 
 
»i6 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 of bad weather, fatigue, or sickness ; and conse- 
 quently we undertook it with alacrity, especially 
 as it was no contemptible step towards our arrival 
 at our native country, for which many of us by 
 this time began to have great longings. Thus, on 
 the 6th of May, we, for the last time, lost sight 
 of the mountains of Mexico, persuaded, that in a 
 few weeks we should arrive at the river of Canton 
 in China, where we expected to meet with many 
 English ships, and numbers of our countrymen ; 
 and hoped to enjoy the advantages of an amicable, 
 well-frequented port, inhabited by a polished 
 people, and abounding with the convenience? 
 and indulgences of a civilised life ; blessings, 
 which now for near twenty months had never 
 been once in our power. But there yet remains 
 (before we take our leave of America) the con- 
 sideration of a matter well worthy of attention, 
 the discussion of which shall be referred to the 
 ensuing chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A bri^accQunt of what might have been exprcted from our 
 squadron, had it arrived in the South Seas in (food time. 
 
 After the recital of the transactions of the 
 commodore, and the ships under his command, on 
 the coasts of Pei-u and Mexico, as contained in 
 the preeedmg part of this book, it will be no use- 
 less digression to examine what the whole squadron 
 might have been capable of achieving, had it ar- 
 rived in those seas in so good a plight, as it would 
 probably have done, had the passage round Cape 
 Horn been attempted in a more seasonable time 
 of the year. This disquisition may be serviceable 
 to those who shall hereafter form projects of the 
 like nature for that part of the world, or may be 
 entrusted with their execution. And therefore I 
 propose, in this chapter, to consider, as succinctly 
 as 1 can, the numerous advantages which the pub- 
 lic might have received from the operations of the 
 squadron, had it set sail from England a few 
 months sooner. 
 
 And first, I must suppose, that in the summer- 
 time we might have got round Cape Horn with an 
 inconsiderable loss, and without any damage to 
 our ships or rigging. For the Duke and Duchess 
 of Bristol, who between them had above three 
 hundred men, buried no more than two, from the 
 coast of Brazil to Juan Fernandes ; and out of a 
 hundred and eighty-three hands which were on 
 board the Duke, there were only twenty-one sick 
 of the scurvy, when they arrived at that island : 
 whence, as men-of-war are much better provided 
 with all conveniences than privateers, we might, 
 doubtless, have appeared before Baldivia in full 
 strength, and in a condition of entering imme- 
 diately on action ; and therefore, as that place was 
 in a very defenceless state, its cannon incapable of 
 service, and its garrison in great measure un- 
 armed, it was impossible that it could have op- 
 posed our force, or that its half -starved inhabitants, 
 most of whom are convicts banished tliither from 
 other parts, could have had any other thoughts than 
 that of submitting ; and Baldivia, which is a most 
 excellent port, being once taken, we should imme- 
 diately have been terrible to the whole kingdom 
 of Chih, and should, doubtless, have awed the 
 most distant parts of the Spanish empire. Indeed, \ 
 
 it is far from improbable that, by h, prudent use 
 of our advantages, we might have given a violent 
 shock to the authority of Spain on that whole con- 
 tinent ; and might have rendered some, at least, 
 of her provinces independent. This would, doubt- 
 less, have turned the whole attention of the Spa- 
 nish ministry to that part of the world, where 
 the danger would have been so pressing. And 
 thence Great Britain and her allies might have 
 been rid of the numerous embarrassments, which 
 the wealth of the Spanish Indies, operatmg in con- 
 junction with the Gallic intrigues, have constantly 
 thrown in her way. 
 
 And that I may not be thought to over-rate the 
 force of this squadron, by ascribing to it a power 
 of overturning the Spanish government in Ame- 
 rica, it is necessary to premise a few observations 
 on tlie condition of tlie provinces bordering on the' 
 South Seas, and on the disposition of the inhabit- 
 ants, both Spaniards and Indians, at that time j 
 by which it will appear, that there was great dis- 
 sension amongst the governors, and disafi'ection 
 among the Creohans ; that they were in want of 
 arms and stores, and had fallen into a total neglect 
 of all military regulations in their garrisons ; and 
 that as to the Indians on their frontier, they were 
 universally discontented, and seemed to be watch- 
 ing with impatience for the favourable moment, 
 when they might take a severe revenge for the 
 barbarities they had groaned under for more than 
 two ages ; so that every circumstance concurred 
 to facilitate the enterprises of our squadron. Of 
 all these particulars we were amply informed by the 
 letters we took on board our prizes, none of these 
 vessels, as I remember, having had the precaution 
 to throw her papei-s overboard. 
 
 The ill blood amongst the governors was greatly 
 augmented by their apprehensions of our squadron ; 
 for every one being willing to have it believed, that 
 the bad condition of his government was not the 
 effect of negligence, there were continual demands 
 and remonstrances amongst them, in order to 
 throw the blame upon each other. ' Thus, for in- 
 stance, the president of St. Jago in Chili, the pre- 
 sident of Panama, and many other governors and 
 military officers, were perpetually soliciting the 
 viceroy of Peru to furnish them with the necessax-y 
 supplies of money for putting their provinces and 
 places in a proper state of defence to oppose our 
 designs. But the customary answer of the vice- 
 roy to these representations was the emptiness of 
 the royal chest at Lima, and the difficulties he was 
 under to support the expenses of his owTi govern- 
 ment ; and in one of his letters (which we inter- 
 cepted), he mentioned his apprehensions that he 
 might even be necessitated to stop the pay of the 
 troops, and of the garrison of Callao, the key of the 
 whole kmgdom of Peru. Indeed he did at times 
 remit to these governors some part of their de- 
 mauds ; but as what he sent them was greatly short 
 of theii- wants, it rather tended to the raising 
 jealousies and heart-burnings amongst them, than 
 contributed to the purposes for which it was in- 
 tended. 
 
 And besides these mutual janglings amongst the 
 governors, the whole body of the people were ex- 
 tremely dissatisfied ; for they were fully persuaded 
 that the affairs of Spain; for many years before, 
 had been managed by the influence of a particular 
 foreign interest, wliich was altogetlier detached 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 BT ! 
 
 from the advantages of the Spanish nation. So 
 that tlie inhabitants of these distant provinces be- 
 lieved themselves to be sacrificed to an ambition, 
 wliich never considered their convenience or in- 
 terests, or paid any regard to the reputation of 
 theh' name, or the honour of their country. Tliat 
 [his was the temper of tlie Creolian Spaniards at 
 that time, miglit be evinced from a hundi-ed in- 
 stances ; but I shall content myself with one, 
 which is indeed conclusive. This is the testimony 
 of the Frencli mathematicians sent hito America, 
 to measure the magnitude of an equatorial degree 
 of Jatitude. For in the relation of the murder of 
 a surgeon belonging to their comj)any in one of 
 the cities of Peru, and of the popular tumult oc- 
 ciisioned thereby, written by one of those astro- 
 nomers, the author confesses, that the inhabitants, 
 during the uproar, all joined in imprecations on 
 their bad governors, and bestowed the most abusive 
 language upon the French, detestmg them, in all 
 probability, more particularly as belonging to a 
 nation, to whose influence in the Spanish councils 
 the Spaniards imputed all their misfortunes. 
 
 And whilst the Creolian Spaniards were thus 
 dissatisfied, it appears by the letters we inter- 
 cepted, that the Indians, on almost every frontier, 
 were ripe for a revolt, and would have taken up 
 :u:ms on the slightest encouragement ; in particu- 
 lar, the Indians in the southern parts of Peru ; as 
 likewise the Arraucos, and the rest of the Chilian 
 Indians, the most powerful and terrible to the 
 Spanibh name of any on that continent. For it 
 seems, that in the disputes between the Spaniards 
 and the Indians, which happened some time before 
 our arrival, the Spaniards had msulted the In- 
 dians with an account of the force, which they 
 I'xpected from Old Spain, under the command of 
 -Admiral Pizarro, and had vaunted that he was 
 coming thither to complete the great work which 
 nad been left unfinished by his ancestors. These 
 threats alarmed the Indians, and made them be- 
 lieve that their extu-pation was resolved on. For 
 the Pizarros being the first conquerors of that 
 coast, the Peruvian Indians held the name, and all 
 that bore it, in execration ; not having forgot the 
 destruction of their monarchy, the massacre of 
 their beloved Inca, Atapalipa, the extinction of 
 then- religion, and the slaughter of their ancestors ; 
 all perpetrated by the family of the Pizarros. The 
 Chilian Indians, too, abhorred a chief descended 
 from those, who, by their lieutenants, had first 
 attempted to enslave them, and had necessitated 
 their tribes, for more than a century, to be conti- 
 nually wasting their blood in defence of their in- 
 dependence. 
 
 And let it not 'e supposed, that among those 
 barbarous nations the traditions of such distant 
 transactions could not be continued till the pre- 
 sent times ; for all who have been acquainted with 
 that part of the world agree, that the Indians, in 
 their public feasts, and annual solemnities, con- 
 stantly revive the memory of these tragic inci- 
 dents ; and those who have been present at these 
 spectacles have observed, that all the recitals and 
 representations of this kind were received with an 
 enthusiastic rage, and with such vehement emo- 
 tions, as plainly evinced how strongly the memory 
 of their former wrongs was implanted in them, 
 and how acceptable the means of revenge would 
 at all times prove. To this account I must add, 
 
 too, that the Spanish governors themselves were 
 so fully informed of the disposition of the Indians, 
 and were so apprehensive of a general defection 
 among them, that they employed all then- industry 
 to reconcile the most dangerous tribes, and tc 
 prevent them from immediately taking up ai-ms. 
 Among the rest, the president of Chili ui par- 
 ticular made large concessions to the Arraucos, 
 and the other Chilian Indians, by which, and by 
 distributing considerable presents to their leading 
 men, he at last got them to consent to a prolonga- 
 tion of the truce between the two nations. But 
 these negociatious .were not concluded at the time 
 when we might have been iu the South Seas ; and 
 had they been completed, yet the hatred of these 
 1 ndians to the Spaniards was so great, that it would 
 have been unpossible for tlieir chiefs to have pre- 
 vented their joining us. 
 
 Thus, then, it appears that on our arrival in the 
 South Sea we might have found the whole coast 
 unprovided with troops, and destitute even of arms ; 
 for we well knew, from very particular intelligence, 
 that there were not three hundred fire-arms, of 
 which too the greatest part were matchlocks, in 
 all the province of Chili. At the same time, the 
 Indians would have been ready to revolt, the 
 Spaniards disposed to mutiny, and the governors 
 enraged with each other, and C';u;h prepared to 
 rejoice at the disgrace of his antagonist ; whilst 
 we, on the other hand, might have consisted of 
 near two thousand men, the greatest part in health 
 and vigour, all well ai-med and united under a 
 chief, whose enterprising genius (as we have seen) 
 could not be depressed by a continued series of 
 the most sinister events, and whose equable and 
 prudent turn of temper would have remained un- 
 varied, in the midst of the greatest degree of good 
 success ; and who besides possessed, in a distin- 
 guished manner, the two qualities, the most neces- 
 sary in these uncommon undertakings ; I mean, 
 that of maintaining his authority, and preservmg, 
 at the same time, the affections of his people. Our 
 other ofiicers too of every rank, appear, by the 
 experience the public has since had of them, to 
 have been equal to any enterprise they might 
 have been charged with by their commander ; 
 and our men (at all times brave if well conducted) 
 in such a cause where treasure was the object, 
 and under such leaders, would doubtless have 
 been prepared to rival the most celebrated achieve- 
 ments hitherto performed by British mariners. 
 
 It cannot then be contested, but that Baldivia 
 must have surrendered on the appearance of our 
 squadron ; after which it may be presumed that 
 the Arraucos, the Pulches, and Penguinches, in- 
 habitmg the banlis of the river Imperial, about 
 twenty-five leagues to the northward of this place, 
 would have immediately taken up arms, being 
 disposed, as has been already related, and en- 
 couraged by the arrival of so considerable a force 
 in their neighbourhood. As these Indians can 
 bring into the field near thirty thousand men, 
 the greatest part of them horse, their first step 
 would doubtless have been the invading the pro- 
 vince of Chili, which they would have found totally 
 unprovided of ammunition and weapons ; and as 
 its inhabitants are a luxurious and efi"eminate 
 race, they would have been incapable, on such an 
 emergency, of giving any opposition to this i-ugged 
 enemy ; so that it is no strauied conjecture to 
 
m 
 
 A.NSOIN'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 imagine, that the liidiaus would soon have been 
 masters of the whole country. ■ And the other 
 Indians on the frontiers of Peru being equally 
 disposed with the Arraucos to shake-off the Spa- 
 nish yoke, it is highly probable, that they like- 
 wise would have embraced the occasion,- and that 
 a general insurrection would have taken place 
 through all the Spanish territories in South 
 America ; in which case, the only resource left to 
 the Creolians (dissatisfied as they were with the 
 Spanish government) would have been to have 
 made the best terms they could with theu- Indian 
 neighbours, and to have withdrawn themselves 
 from the obedience of a master, who had shown 
 so little regard to their security. This last suppo- 
 sition may perhaps appear chimerical to those 
 who measure the possibility of all events by the 
 scanty standard of their own experience ; but the 
 temper of the times, and the strong dislike of the 
 natives to the measures then pursued by the 
 Spanish court, sufficiently evince at least its pos- 
 sibility. But not to insist on the presumption of 
 a general revolt, it is sufficient for our purpose 
 to conclude that the Arraucos would scarcely 
 have failed of taking arms on our appearance ; 
 for this alone would so far have embarrassed the 
 enemy that they would no longer have thotight of 
 opposing us, but would have turned all their 
 care to the Indian affairs ; as they still remem- 
 ber, with the utmost horror, the sacking of itheu- 
 cities, the rifling of their convents, the captivity 
 of their wives and daughters, and the desolation 
 of their country by these resolute savages, in the 
 last war between the two nations. . For it must 
 be remembered, that this tribe of Indians have 
 been frequently successful against the Spaniards, 
 and possess at this time a large- tract of country, 
 which was formerly full of Spanish towns and 
 villages, whose inhabitants were all either de- 
 stroyed or carried into captivity by the Arraucos 
 and the neighbouring Indians, who, in a war 
 against the Spaniards, never fail to join theii- 
 forces. 
 
 But even independent of an Indian revolt, there 
 were but two places on all the coast of the South 
 Sea, which could be supposed capable of resisting 
 our squadron ; these were the cities of Panama 
 and Callao : as to the fixst of these, its fortifica- 
 tions were so decayed, and it was so much in 
 want of powder, that the governor himself, in an 
 intercepted letter, acknowledged it was incapable 
 of being defended ; so that I take it for granted 
 it would have given us but little trouble, espe- 
 cially if we had opened a communication across 
 the Isthmus with our fleet on the other side : and 
 for the city and port of Callao, its condition was 
 not much better than that of Panama ; for its 
 walls are built upon the plain ground, without 
 either outwork or ditch before them, and consist 
 only of very slender feeble masonry, without any 
 earth behind them; so that a battery of five or six 
 pieces of cannon, raised anywhere within four or 
 five hundred paces of the place, would have had 
 a full view of the whole rampart, and would have 
 opened it in a short time ; and the breach hereby 
 formed, as the walls are so extremely thin, could 
 not have been difficult of ascent : for the ruins 
 would have been but little higher than the surface 
 of the ground ; and it would have yielded this 
 [larticular advantaj^e to the assailants, that the 
 
 bullets, which grazed upon it, would have ilrivei 
 before them such shivera of brick and stone, as, 
 would, have prevented the garrison from form- 
 ing behind it, supposing that the troops employed 
 in the defence of the place, should have so far 
 surpassed the usual limits of Creolian braveiy, 
 as to resolve to stand a general assault : indeed, 
 such a resolution cannot be imputed to ithem 
 for the garrison and people were in general dis- 
 satisfied with t)ie viceroy's behaviour, and were 
 never expected to act a vigorous part. The vice- 
 roy himself greatly apprehended that the commo- 
 dore would make him a visit at Lima, the. capital 
 of the kingdom of Peru ; to prevent which, if 
 possible, he had ordered twelve galleys to be built 
 at Guaiaquil and other places, which were intended 
 to oppose the landing of our boats, and to hinder 
 us from pushing our men on shore. But this was 
 an impracticable project^ and proceeded on the- 
 supposition that our ships, when we should land 
 our men, would keep at such a distance, that these- 
 galleys, by drawing little water, would have been 
 out of the reach of their guns ; whereas the com- 
 modore, before he had made such an attempt,, 
 would doubtless have been possessed of several 
 prize ships, which he would not have hesitated to 
 have run on shore for the protection of his boats ; 
 and besides there were many places on that coast,, 
 and one in particular in the neighbourhood of 
 Callao, where there was good anchoring, though 
 a great depth of water, within a cable's length of 
 the shore ; so that the cannon of the men-of-war- 
 would have swept all the coast to above a . mile's 
 distance from the water's edge, and would have 
 effectually prevented any force from assembling 
 to oppose the landing and forming of our men : 
 and the place had this additional advantage, that it 
 was but two leagues distant from the city of Lima j. 
 so that we might have been at that city within 
 four hou-VS after we should have been first disco- 
 vered from the shore. The place I have here in 
 view is about two leagues south of Callao, and 
 j ust to the northward of the head-land called, in 
 Frezier's draught of that coast, Mon'o Solar. 
 Here- there is seventy or eighty fathoms of water 
 within two cables' length of the shore ; and the 
 Spaniards themselves were so apprehensive of our 
 attempting to land there, that they had projected 
 to build a fort close to the water ; but there being 
 no money in the royal chests, they could not go 
 on with that work, and therefore they contented 
 themselves with keeping a guard of a hundred 
 horse there, that they might be sure to receive 
 early notice of our appearance on that coast. 
 Indeed some of them (as we were told) conceiving 
 our management at sea to be as pusillanimous as 
 their own, pretended that the commodore would 
 never dare to bring in his ships there, for fear 
 that in so great a depth of water their anchors 
 could not hold them. 
 
 And here let it not be nnagined that I am pro- 
 ceeding upon groundless and extravagant pre- 
 sumptions, when I conclude that fifteen hundred 
 or a thousand of our people, well conducted, 
 should have been an over-match for any numbers 
 the Spaniards could muster in South America. 
 For not to mention the experience we had of theto 
 at Paita and Petaplan, it must be remembered, 
 that our commodore was extremely solicitous to 
 have all his men trained to the dextrous use of 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE KOUND THE WOULD. 
 
 iJ!) 
 
 their fire-arms ; whereas the Spaniards iu this 
 part of the world were in great want of arms, and 
 >»ere very awkward in the management of the 
 few they had ; and though, on their repeated re- 
 presentations, the court of Spain had ordered 
 ■leveral thousand firelocks to be put on board 
 I'izarro's squadron, yet those, it is evident, could 
 not have been in America time enough to have 
 l)een employed against us ; so that by our arms, 
 and our readiness in the use of them, (not to insist 
 on the timidity and softness of our enemy,) we 
 should in some degree have had tlie same advan- 
 tages which the Spaniards tliemselves had, in the 
 Hrst discovery of this country, against its naked 
 and unarmed inhabitants. 
 
 And now let it be considered what were the 
 events which we had to fear, or what were the 
 circumstances which could have prevented us 
 from giving law to all the coast of South America, 
 and thereby cutting off from Spain the resources 
 which she drew from those immense provinces. 
 By sea there was no force capable of opposing 
 us ; for how soon soever we had sailed, Pizarro's 
 squadron could not have sailed sooner than it did, 
 and therefore could not have avoided the fate it 
 met with ; as we should have been masters of the 
 ports of Chili, we could there have supplied our- 
 selves with the provisions we wanted in the greatest 
 plenty ; and from Baldivia to the equinoctial we 
 ran no risk of losing our men by sickness, (that 
 being of all climates the most temperate and 
 healthy,) nor of having our ships disabled by bad 
 weather ; and had we wanted hands to assist 
 in the navigating our squadron, whilst a consi- 
 derable part of our men were employed on shore, 
 we could not have failed of getting whatever num- 
 bers we pleased in the ports we should have taken, 
 and the prizes which would have fallen into our 
 hands ; and I must observe that the Indians, who 
 are the principal sailors in that part of the world, 
 are extremely docile and dextrous, and though 
 they ai'e not fit to struggle with the inclemencies 
 of a cold climate, yet in temperate seas they are 
 most useful and laborious seamen. 
 
 Thus, then, it appears what important revolu- 
 tions might have been brought about by our squa- 
 
 dron, had it departed from England as early as it 
 ought to have done : and from hence it is easy to 
 conclude, what immense advantages might have 
 thence accrued to the public. /For, as on our 
 success it would have been impossible for the 
 kingdom of Spain to have received any treasure 
 from the provinces bordering on the South Seas, 
 or even to have had any communication with 
 them, it is certain that the whole attention of that 
 monarchy must have been immediately employed 
 in regaining the possession of these inestimable 
 territories, either by force or compact. By the 
 first of these methods it was scarcely possible 
 they could succeed ; for it must have been at 
 least a twelvemonth from our arrival, before any 
 ships from Spain could get into the South Seas, 
 and those perhaps separated, disabled, and sickly ; 
 and by that time they would have had no port in 
 their possession, either to rendezvous at or to 
 refit in ; whilst we might have been supplied 
 across the Isthmus with whatever necessaries, 
 stores, or even men we wanted, and might thereby 
 have maintained our squadron in as good a plight 
 as when it first set sail from St. Helens. In short, 
 it required but Uttle prudence in the conduct of 
 this business to have rendered all the efforts of 
 Spain, seconded by the power of France, inef- 
 fectual, and to have maintained our conquests iu 
 defiance of them both : so that they must either 
 have resolved to have left Great Britain masters 
 of the wealth of South America, (the principal 
 support of all their destructive projects,) or they 
 must have submitted to her terms, and have been 
 contented to receive these provinces back again as 
 an equivalent for those restrictions to their future 
 ambition, which her prudence should have dictated 
 to them. Having thus discussed the prodigious 
 weight which the operations of our squadron might 
 have added to the national influence of this king- 
 dom, I shall here end this second book, refer- 
 ring to the next, the passage of the shattered . 
 remains of our force across the Pacific Ocean, 
 and all their future transactions till the commo- 
 dore's arrival in England. 
 
 END OF BOOK II. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The run from the coast of Mexico to the Ladrones or 
 Marian islandg. 
 
 When, on the sixth of May, 1742, we left the 
 coast of America, we stood to the S.W. with a 
 view of meeting with the N.E. trade-wind, which 
 the accounts of former writers made us expect at 
 seventy or eighty leagues' distance from the land : 
 we had besides another reason for standing to the 
 southward, which was the getting into the latitude 
 of 13 or 1 4" north ; that being the parallel where 
 the Pacific Ocean is most usually crossed, and 
 consequently where the navigation is esteemed the 
 safest; this last purpose we had soon answered, 
 being in a day or two sufficiently advanced to the 
 south. At the same time we were also farther 
 from the shore than we had presumed was neces- 
 
 sary for the falling in with the trade-wind : but in 
 this particular we were most grievously disap- 
 pointed ; for the wind still continued to the west- 
 ward, or at best variable. As the getting into 
 the N.E. trade, was to us a matter of the last con- 
 sequence, we stood more to the southward, and 
 made many experiments to meet with it ; but all 
 our efforts were for a long time unsuccessful : so 
 that it was seven weeks, from our leaving the 
 coast, before we got into the true trade-wind. This 
 was an interval, in which we believed we should 
 well nigh have reached the easternmost parts of 
 Asia: but we were so baffled with the contrary 
 and variable winds, which for all that time per- 
 plexed us, that we were not as yet advanced 
 above a fourth part of the way. The delay alone 
 would have been a sufficient mortification ; but 
 there were other circmnstances attending it, which 
 G 
 
:m 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 rendered this situation not less terrible, and our 
 appreliensious periiaps still greater than in any of 
 our past distresses. ""For our two ships were by 
 this time extremely crazy; and many days had 
 not passed, before we discovered a spring in the 
 foremast of the Centurion, which rounded about 
 twenty-six inches of its circumference, and which 
 was judged to be at least four inches deep : and no 
 sooner had our carpenters secured this with fish- 
 ing it, but the Gloucester made a signal of distress ; 
 and we learnt that she had a dangerous spring in 
 her main-mast, twelve feet below thetrussel-trees; 
 so that she could not carry any sail upon it. Our 
 carpenters, on a strict examination of this mast, 
 found it so very rotten and decayed, that they 
 judged it necessary to cut it down as low as it ap- 
 peared to have been injured ; and by this it was 
 reduced to nothing but a stump, which served only 
 as a step to the topmast. These accidents aug- 
 mented our delay, and occasioned us great anxiety 
 about our future security : for on our leaving the 
 coast of Mexico, the scurvy had began to make its 
 appearance again amongst our people; though from 
 our departure from Juan Fernandes we had till 
 then enjoyed a most uninterrupted state of health. 
 We too well knew the effects of this disease, from 
 our former fatal experience, to suppose that any- 
 thing but a speedy passage could secure the 
 greater part of our crew from perishing by it : and 
 as, after being seven weeks at sea, there did not 
 appear any reasons that could persuade us we 
 were nearer the trade-wind than when we first set 
 out, there was no ground for us to suppose but 
 our passage would prove at least three times as 
 long as we at first expected ; and consequently we 
 had the melancholy prospect, either of dying by 
 the scurvy, or perishing with the ship for want of 
 hands to navigate her. Indeed, some amongst us 
 were at first willing to believe, that in this warm 
 climate, so different from what we felt ia passing 
 I'ound Cape Horn, the violence of this disease, and 
 its fatality, might be in some degree mitigated; as it 
 had not been unusual to suppose that its particular 
 virulence in that passage was in a great measure 
 owing to the severity of the weather: but the 
 havoc of the distemper, in our present circum- 
 stances, soon convinced us of the falsity of this 
 speculation; as it likewise exploded some other 
 opinions, which usually pass current ab"ut the 
 cause and nature of this disease. 
 
 For it has been generally presumed, that plenty 
 of fresh provisions and of water are effectual pre- 
 ventives of this malady ; but it happened that in 
 the present instance we had a considerable stock 
 of fresh provisions on board, as hogs and fowls, 
 which were taken at Paita ; and we besides almost 
 every day caught great abundance of bonitos, dol- 
 phins, and albicores ; and the unsettled season, 
 which deprived us of the benefit of the trade-wind, 
 proved extremely rainy ; so that we were enabled 
 to fill up our water-casks, almost as fast as they 
 were empty ; and each man lii.^, five pints of 
 water allowed him every day, during the passage. 
 But notmthstanding this plenty of water, and 
 that the fresh provisions were distributed amongst 
 the sick, and the whole crew often fed upon fish, 
 yet neither were the sick hereby reUevedi nor the 
 progress and advancement of the disease retarded : 
 nor was it in these instances only that we found 
 ourselves disappointed; for though it has been 
 
 usually esteemed a necessary piece of management 
 to keep all ships, where the crews are large, as 
 clean and airy between decks as possible ; and it 
 has been believed by many, that this particular, 
 if well attended to, would prevent the appearance 
 of the scurvy, or at least, mitigate its effects ; yet 
 we observed, during the latter part of our run, 
 that though we kept all our ports open, and took 
 uncommon pains in cleansing and sweetening the 
 ships, yet neither the progress nor the virulence 
 of the disease were thereby sensibly abated. 
 
 However, I would not be understood to assert, 
 that fresh provisions, plenty of water, and a con- 
 stant fresh supply of sweet air between decks, are 
 matters of no moment : I am, on the contrary, well 
 satisfied, that they are all of them articles of great 
 importance, and are doubtless extremely conducive 
 to the health and vigour of a crew, and may in many 
 cases prevent the fatal malady we are now speak- 
 ing of from taking place. All I have aimed at, in 
 what I have advanced, is only to show that in 
 some instances, both the cure and the prevention 
 of this disease is impossible to be effected by any 
 management, or by the application of any remedies 
 which can be made use of at sea- Indeed, I am 
 myself fully persuaded, that when it has once got 
 to a certain head, there are no other means in 
 nature for relieving the diseased, but carrying 
 them on shore, or at least bringing them into the 
 neighbourhood of land. Perhaps a distinct and 
 adequate knowledge of the source of this disease 
 may never be discovered ; but in general, there ia 
 no difficulty in conceiving that as a continued 
 supply of fresh air is necessary to all animal fife, 
 and as this air is so particular a fluid, that without 
 losing its elasticity, or any of its obvious proper- 
 ties, it may be rendered unfit for this purpose, by 
 the mixing with it some very subtle and oflierwise 
 imperceptible effluvia ; it may be conceived, I say, 
 that the steams arising from the ocean may have 
 a tendency to render the air they are spread 
 through less properly adapted to the support of 
 the life of terrestrial animals, unless these steams 
 are corrected by effluvia of another kind, and 
 which perhaps the land alone can supply. 
 
 To what hath been already said in relation to 
 this disease, I shall add, that our surgeon (who 
 during our passage round Cape Horn, had ascribed 
 the mortality we suffered to the severity of the 
 climate) exerted himself in the present run to the 
 utmost, and at last declared, that all his measures 
 were totally iueffectual, and did not in the least 
 avail his patients : on which it was resolved by the 
 commodore to try the effects of two medicines, 
 which, just before his departure from England, 
 were the subject of much discourse, I mean the 
 pill and drop of Mr. Ward. For however violent 
 the effects of these medicines are said to have some 
 times proved, yet in the present instance, where 
 destruction seemed inevitable without somex-emedy, 
 the experiment at least was thought advisable: 
 and therefore, one or both of them, at different 
 times, were given to persons in every stage of the 
 distemper. Out of the numbers that took them, 
 one, soon after swallowing the pill, was seized with 
 a violent bleeding at the nose : he was before given 
 over by the surgeon, and lay almost at the point 
 of death ; but he immediately found himself much 
 better, and continued to recover, though slowly, till 
 we arrived on shore, which was near a fortnight after. 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 yi 
 
 A few others too were relieved for some days, but the 
 disease returned again with as mucli violence as ever ; 
 though neither did these, nor the rest, who received 
 no benefit, appearto be reduced to a worse condition 
 than they would have been if they had taken nothing. 
 The most remarkable property of these medicines, 
 and what was obvious in almost every one that took 
 them, was, that they operated in proportion to the 
 vigour of the patient; so that those who were within 
 two or three days of dying were scarcely affected ; 
 and as the patient was differently advanced in the 
 disease, the operation was either a gentle perspir- 
 ation, an easy vomit, or a moderate purge : but if 
 they were taken by one in full strength, they then 
 produced all the before-mentioned effects with con- 
 siderable violence, which sometimes continued for 
 six or eight hours together, with little intermission. 
 But to return to the prosecution of our voyage. 
 
 I have already observed, that, a few days after 
 our running off the coast of Mexico, the Gloucester 
 had her main-mast cut down to a stump, and we 
 v/ere obliged to fish our fore-mast ; and that these 
 misfortunes were greatly aggravated, by our 
 meeting with contrary and variable winds for near 
 seven weeks. I shall now add, that when we 
 I'eached the trade-wind, and it settled between the 
 north and the east, yet it seldom blew with so 
 much strength, but the Centurion might have 
 carried all her small sails abroad with the greatest 
 safety ; so that now, had we been a single ship, we 
 might have run down our longitude apace, and 
 have reached the Ladrones soon enough to have 
 recovered great numbers of our men, who after- 
 wards perished. But the Gloucester, by the loss 
 ■of her main-mast, sailed so very heavily, tlrnt we 
 ■had seldom any more than our top-sails set, and 
 jet were frequently obliged to lie-to for her : and, 
 I conceive, that in the whole we lost little less than 
 a month by our attendance upon her, in conse- 
 quence of the various mischances she encountered. 
 In all this run it was remarkable, that we were 
 rarely many days together, without seeing great 
 numbers of birds ; which is a proof that there are 
 many islands, or at least rocks, scattered all along 
 at no very considerable distance from our track. 
 Some indeed there are marked in the Spanish 
 «hart, hereafter mentioned ; but the frequency of 
 the birds, seem to evince that there are many 
 more than have been hitherto discovered ; for the 
 greatest part of the birds we observed were such 
 as are known to roost on shore ; and the manner 
 of their appearance sufficiently made out, that they 
 *ame from some distant haunt every morning, and 
 returned thither again in the evening; for we 
 never saw them early or late ; and the hour of 
 their arrival and departure gradually varied, which 
 we supposed was occasioned by our running nearer 
 their haunts or getting further from them. 
 
 The trade-wind continued to favour us without 
 any fluctuation, from the end of June till towards 
 the end of July. But on the 26th of July, being 
 then, as we esteemed, about three hundred leagues 
 distant from the Ladrones, we met with a westerly 
 wind, which did not come about again to the east- 
 ward in four days' time. This was a most dispirit- 
 ing incident, as it at once damped all our hopes of 
 speedy relief, especially too as it was attended with 
 ■a vexatious accident to the Gloucester : for in one 
 part of these four days the wind flattened to a calm, 
 ■and the ships rolled very deep ; by which means 
 
 the Gloucester's forecap split, and her top-mast 
 came by the board, and broke her fore-yard 
 directly in the slings.* As she was hereby rendered 
 incapable of making any sail for some time, we 
 were obliged, as soon as a gale sprang up, to take 
 her in tow ; and near twenty of the healthiest and 
 ablest of our seamen were taken from the business 
 of our own ship, and were employed for eight or 
 ten days together on board the Gloucester in re- 
 pairing her damages : but these things, mortifying 
 as we thought them, were but the beginning of our 
 disasters; for scarce had our people finished their 
 business in the Gloucester, before we met with a 
 most violent storm in the western board, which 
 obliged us to lie-to. In the beginning of this storm 
 our ship sprang a leak, and let in so much water, 
 that all our people, officers included, were employed 
 continually in working the pumps : and the next 
 day we had the vexation to see the Gloucester, with 
 her top-mast once more by the board ; and whilst 
 we were viewing her with great concern for this 
 new distress, we saw her main-top-mast, which 
 had hitherto served as a jury main-mast, share the 
 same fate. This completed our misfortunes, and 
 rendered them without resource ; for we knew the 
 Gloucester's crew were so few and feeble, that 
 without our assistance they could not be relieved : 
 and our sick were now so far increased, and those 
 that remained in health so continually fatigued 
 with the additional duty of our pumps, that it was 
 impossible for us to lend them any aid. Indeed 
 we were not as yet fully apprised of the deplorable 
 situation of the Gloucester's crew ; for when the 
 storm abated, (which during its continuance pre- 
 vented all communication with them,) the Glou- 
 cester bore up under our stem ; and captain 
 Mitchel informed the commodore, that besides the 
 loss of his masts, which was all that had appeared to 
 us, the ship had then no less than seven feet of 
 water in her hold, although his officers and men 
 had been kept constantly at the pumps for the last 
 twenty-four hours. 
 
 This last circumstance was indeed a most terri- 
 ble accumulation to the other extraordinary dis- 
 tresses of the Gloucester, and required, if possible, 
 the most speedy and vigorous assistance ; which 
 Captain Mitchel begged the commodore to send 
 him : but the debility of our people, and our own 
 immediate preservation, rendered it impossible 
 for the commodore to comply with his request. 
 All that could be done was to send our boat on 
 board for a more particular condition of the ship ; 
 and it was soon suspected that the taking her 
 people on board us, and then destroying her, was 
 the only measure that could be prosecuted in the 
 present emergency, both for the security of their 
 lives and of our own. 
 
 Our boat soon returned with a representation 
 of the state of the Gloucester, and of her several 
 defects, signed by Captain Mitchel and all his 
 
 * " On the 15th of June the Gloucester found her main- 
 mast sprung at the head, which, upon examination, -was 
 discovered to he entirely rotten. On the 20th of July the 
 Gloucester carried away her foretop-mast and fore-yard. 
 My ship's company are now miserably afflicted with the 
 scurvy, the ship very leaky, the men and officers tha, 
 were well being only able to make one spell at the 
 pump." — Anson's Official Report. 
 
 " This is all," observes Sir John Barrow, "that Anson 
 says of the second attack of this afflicting malady ; hut, 
 coming from the commodore, it spealcs volumes." 
 
n 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 officers ; by which it appeared, tliat she liad 
 sprung a lealc by the stern-post being loose, and 
 working with every roll of the ship, and by two 
 beams a-midships being broken in the orlop ; no 
 part of which the carpenters reported was possible 
 to be repaired at sea : that both ofiicers and men 
 had worked twenty-four hours at the pumps with- 
 out intermission, and were at length so fatigued, 
 that they could continue their labour no longer, 
 but had been forced to desist, with seven feet of 
 water in the hold, which covered their casks, so 
 that they could neither come at fresh-water, nor 
 provision : that they had no mast standing, except 
 the fore-mast, the mizen-mast, and the mizen top- 
 mast, nor had they any spare masts to get up in 
 the room of those they had lost : that the ship 
 was besides extremely decayed in every part, for 
 her knees and clamps were all worked quite loose, 
 and her upper works in general were so loose, 
 that the quarter-deck was ready to drop down : 
 and that her crew was greatly reduced, for there 
 remained alive on board her no more than seventy- 
 seven men, eighteen boys, and two prisoners, 
 oiBcers included ; and that of this whole number, 
 only sixteen men and eleven boys were capable 
 of keeping the deck, and several of these very 
 infirm. 
 
 The commodore, on the perusal of this melan- 
 choly representation, presently ordered them n, 
 supply of water and provisions, of which they 
 seemed to be in immediate want, and at the same 
 time sent his own carpenter on board them, to 
 examine into the truth of every particular ; and 
 it being found, on the strictest inquiry, that the 
 preceding account was in no instance exaggerated, 
 it plainly appeared, that there was no possibility 
 of preserving the Gloucester any longer, as her 
 leaks were irreparable, and the united hands on 
 board both ships, capable of working, would not 
 be able to free her, even if our own ship should 
 not employ any part of them. What then could 
 be resolved on, when it was the utmost we our- 
 selves could do to manage our own pumps ? in- 
 deed there was no room for deliberation ; the only 
 step to be taken was, the saving the lives of the 
 few that remained on board the Gloucester, and 
 getting out of her as much as possible before she 
 was destroyed. And therefore the commodore 
 immediately sent an order to Captain Mitchel, as 
 the weather was now calm and favourable, to send 
 his people on board the Centurion as expeditiously 
 as he could ; and to take out such stares as he 
 could get at, whilst the ship could be kept above 
 water. And as our leak required less attention, 
 whilst the present easy weather continued, we sent 
 our boats with as many men as we could spare, *o 
 Captain Mitchel's assistance. 
 
 The removing the Gloucester's people on board 
 us, and the getting out such stores as could most 
 easily be come at, gave us full employment for 
 two days. Mr. Anson was extremely desirous to 
 have gotten two of her cables and an anchor, but 
 the ship rolled so much, and the men were so 
 excessively fatigued, that they were incapable of 
 effecting it ; nay, it was even with the greatest 
 difficulty that the prize-money, which the Glou- 
 cester had taken in the South Seas, was secured, 
 and sent on board the Centurion : however, the 
 prize-goods on board her, which amounted to 
 severs' *housand pounds in value, and were prin- 
 
 cipally the Centurion's property, were entirely, 
 lost ; nor could any morf provision be got out 
 than five casks of flour,0 hree of which were 
 spoiled by the salt-water. Their sick men, amount- 
 ing to near seventy, were removed into boats with- 
 as much care as the circumstances of that time' 
 would permit ; but three or four of them expired 
 as they were hoisting them into the Centurion. 
 
 It was the 15th of August, in the evening, before 
 the Gloucester was cleared of every thing that 
 was proposed to be removed ; and though the 
 hold was now almost full of water, yet as the 
 carpenters were of opinion that she might still 
 swim for some time, if the calm should continue,, 
 and the water become smooth, she was set on fire; 
 for we knew not how near we might now be to- 
 the island of Guam, which was in the possession 
 of our enemies, and the wreck of such a ship' 
 would have been to them no contemptible acqui- 
 sition. When she was set on fire. Captain Mitehek 
 and his officers left her, and came on board the 
 Centurion : and we immediately stood from the 
 wreck, not without some apprehensions (as we- 
 had now only a light breeze) that if she blew up 
 soon, the concussion of the air might damage our- 
 rigging ; but she fortunately burnt, though very 
 fiercely, the whole night, her guns firing succe."!-^ 
 sively, as the flames reached them. And it was. 
 six in the morning, when we were about four- 
 leagues distant, before she blew up ; the report 
 she made upon this occasion was but a small one,, 
 but there was an exceeding black pillar of smoke, 
 which shot up into the air to a very considerable 
 height. 
 
 Thus perished his Majesty's ship the Gloucester.. 
 And now it might have been expected, that being: 
 freed from the embarrassments which her frequent 
 disasters had involved us in, we might proceect 
 on our way much brisker than we had hithert* 
 done, especially as we had received some small 
 addition to our strength, by the taking on board: 
 the Gloucester's crew ; but our anxieties were not 
 yet to be relieved ; for, notwithstanding all that 
 we had hitherto suffered, there remained muclit 
 greater distresses, which we were still to struggle- 
 with. For the late storm, which had proved so- 
 fatal to the Gloucester, had driven us to the north- 
 ward of our intended course ; and the current 
 setting the same way, after the weather abated, 
 had forced us still a degree or two farther, so that 
 we were now in 17° 5 of North latitude, instead of 
 being in 13° i, which was the parallel we pro- 
 posed to keep, in order to reach the island of 
 Guam : and as it had been a perfect cahn for 
 some days since the cessation of the 6torm, and' 
 we were ignorant how near we were to the meri- 
 dian of the Ladrones, and supposed ourselves not 
 to be far from it, we apprehended that we might 
 be driven to the leeward of them by the current,, 
 without discovering them : in this case, the only 
 land we could make would be some of the easteri) 
 parts of Asia, where, if we could arrive, we shouldi 
 find the western monsoon in its full force, so that 
 it would be impossible for the stoutest best-manned, 
 ship to get in. And this coast being removed 
 between four and five hundred leagues farther,, 
 we, in our languishing circumstances, could expect 
 no other than to be destroyed by the scurvy, long 
 before the most favourable gale could carry us to 
 such » distance : for our deaths were now ex- 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE KOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 tremely alarming, no day passing in which we did 
 «ot bury eight or ten, and sometimes twelve, of 
 our men ; and those, who had hitherto continued 
 healthy, began to fall down apace. Indeed we 
 made the best use we could of the present calm, 
 by employing our carpenters in searching after 
 the leak, which was now considerable, notwith- 
 standing the little wind we had : the carpenters 
 4it length discovered it to be in the gunner's fore- 
 store-room, where the water rushed in under the 
 breast-hook, on each side of the stem ; but though 
 they found where it was, they agi-eed that it was 
 impossible to stop it, till we should get into port, 
 ■and till they could come at it on the outside; how- 
 ever, they did the best they could within-board, 
 and were fortunate enough to reduce it, which 
 was a considerable relief to us. 
 
 We had hitherto considered the calm which 
 succeeded the storm, and which continued for 
 some days, as a very great misfortune ; since the 
 currents were driving us to the northward of our 
 parallel, and we thereby risked the missing of the 
 Ladrones, which we now conceived ourselves to be 
 very near. But when a gale sprang up, our con- 
 dition was stHl worse ; for it blew from the S.W., 
 and consequently was directly opposed to the course 
 we wanted to steer : and though it soon veered to 
 the N.E., yet this served only to tantalise us, for 
 it returned back again in a very short time to its 
 old quarter. However, on the 22d of August we 
 iiad the satisfaction to find that the current was 
 shifted, and had set us to the southward : and 
 the 23d, at day-break, we were cheered with the 
 iliscovery of two islands in the western board : 
 this gave us all great joy, and raised our drooping 
 spirits; for before this, a imiversal dejection had 
 seized us, and we almost despaired of ever seeing 
 (and again : the nearest of these islands we after- 
 wards found to be Anatacan ; we judged it to be 
 full fifteen leagues from us, and it seemed to be 
 high land, though of an indifferent length : the 
 ■other was the island of Serigan ; and had rather 
 the appearance of a high rock, than a place we 
 could hope to anchor at. We were extremely 
 impatient to get in with the nearest island, where 
 we expected to meet with anchoring-ground, and 
 an opportunity of refreshing our sick : but the 
 wind proved so variable all day, and there was so 
 little of it, that we advanced towards it but slowly; 
 however, by the next morning we were got so far 
 to the westward that we were in view of a third 
 island, which was that of Paxaros, though marked 
 in the chart only as a rock. This was small and 
 very low land, and we had passed within less than a 
 mile of it, in the night, without seeing it: and now 
 at noon, being within four miles of the island of 
 Anatacan, the boat was sent away to examine the 
 anchoring-ground and the produce of the place ; 
 and we were not a Uttle solicitous for her return, 
 as we then conceived our fate to depend upon the 
 report we should receive : for the other two islands 
 were obviously enough incapable of furnishing us 
 with any assistance, and we knew not then that 
 there were any others which we could reach. In 
 the evening the boat came back, and the crew 
 informed us that there was no place for a ship to 
 anchor, the bottom being everywhere foul ground, 
 ■and all, except one small spot, not less than fifty 
 fathoms in depth ; that jn that spot there was 
 thirty fathoms, though not above half a mile from 
 
 the shore ; and that the bank was steep too, and 
 could not be depended on : they farther told us, 
 that they had landed on the island, but with some 
 difficulty, on account of the greatness of the swell; 
 that they found the ground was everywhere 
 covered with a kind of wild cane, or rush ; but 
 that they met with no water, and did not believe 
 the place to be inhabited ; though the soil was 
 good, and abounded with groves of cocoa-nut trees. 
 This account of the impossibility of anchoring 
 at this island occasioned a general melancholy on 
 board ; for we considered it as little less than the 
 prelude to our destruction ; and our despondency 
 was increased by a disappointment we met with 
 the succeeding night ; for, as we were plying 
 under topsails, with an intention of getting nearer 
 to the island, and of sending our boat on shore to 
 load with cocoa-nuts for the refreshment of our 
 sick, the wind proved squally, and blew so strong 
 off shore, that we were driven so far to the south- 
 ward, that we dared not send off our boat. And 
 now the only possible circumstance, that could 
 secure the few which remained alive from perish- 
 ing, was the accidental falling in with some other 
 of the Ladrone Islands better prepared for our 
 accommodation ; and as our knowledge of these 
 islands was extremely imperfect, we were to trust 
 entii'ely to chance for our guidance ; only as they 
 are all of them usually laid down near the same 
 meridian, and we had conceived those we had 
 already seen to be part of them, we concluded to 
 stand to the southward as the most probable means 
 of falling in with the next. Thus, with the most 
 gloomy persuasion of our approaching destruction, 
 we stood from the island of Anatacan, having all 
 of us the strongest apprehensions (and those not 
 ill founded) either of dying of the scurvy, or of 
 perishing with the ship, which, for want of hands 
 to work her pumps, might in a short time be ex- 
 pected to founder. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Our arrival at Tiniarit and an account of the Island, and 
 of our proceedings there, till the Centurion drove out 
 to Sea. 
 
 It was on the 26th of August, 1742, in the morn- 
 ing, when we lost sight of Anatacan. The next 
 morning we discovered three other islands to the 
 eastward, which were from ten to fourteen leagues 
 from us. These were, as we afterwards learnt, 
 the islands of Saypan, Tinian, and AguiganQWe 
 immediately steered towards Tinian, which was 
 the middlemost of the three, but had so much of 
 calms and light airs, that though we were helped 
 forwards by the currents, yet next day, at day- 
 break, we were at least five leagues distant from 
 it. However, we kept on our course, and about 
 ten in the morning we perceived a proa under sail 
 to the southward, between Tinian and Aguigan. 
 As we imagined from hence that these islands 
 were inhabited, and knew that the Spaniards had 
 always a force at Guam, we took the necessary 
 precautions for our own security, and for prevent- 
 ing the enemy from taking advantage of our present 
 wretched circumstances, of which they would be 
 sufficiently informed by the manner of our work- 
 ing the ship ; we therefore mustered all our hands 
 
E4 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THK WOELD. 
 
 who were capable of standing to their arms, ami 
 loaded our upper and quarter-deck guns with 
 grape-shot ; and that we might the more readily 
 procure some intelligence of the state of these 
 islands, we showed Spanish colours, and hoisted a 
 red flag at the fore top-mast-head, to give our 
 =-hip the appearance of the Manila galleon, hoping 
 therehy to decoy some of the inhabitants on board 
 as. ^Thus preparing ourselves, and standing to- 
 wards the land, we were near enough, at three in 
 the afternoon, to send the cutter in shore, to find 
 out a proper berth for the ship ; and we soon per- 
 ceived that a proa came o£F the shore to meet the 
 cutter, fully persuaded, as we afterwards found, 
 that we were the Manila ship, • As we saw the 
 cutter returning back with the proa in tow, we 
 immediately sent the pinnace to receive the proa 
 and the prisoners, and to bring them on board, 
 that the cutter might proceed on her errand. The 
 pinnace came back with a Spaniard and four 
 Indians, which were the people taken in the proa. 
 The Spaniard was immediately examined as to the 
 produce and circumstances of this island of Tinian, 
 and his account of it surpassed even our most 
 sanguine hopes ; for he informed us that it was 
 uninhabited, which, in our present defenceless 
 condition, was an advantage not to be despised, 
 especially as it wanted but few of the conveniences 
 that could be expected in the most cultivated 
 •■ountry ; for he assured us, that there was great 
 plenty of very good water, and that there were an 
 incredible number of cattle, hogs, and poultry 
 running wild on the island, all of them excellent 
 in their kind ; that the woods produced sweet and 
 sour oranges, limes, lemons, and cocoa-nuts in 
 great plenty, besides » fruit peculiar to these 
 islands (called by Dampier, bread-fruit) ; that 
 from the quantity and goodness of the provisions 
 produced here, the Spaniards at Guam made use 
 of it as a store for supplying the garrison ; that 
 he himself was a Serjeant of that garrison, and 
 was sent there with twenty-two Indians to jerk 
 beef, which he was to load for Guam on board a 
 small bark of about fifteen tons, which lay at an- 
 chor near the shore. 
 
 This account was received by us with inexpres- 
 sible joy : part of it we were ourselves able to 
 verify on the spot, as we were by this time near 
 enough to discover several numerous herds of cattle 
 feeding in different places of the island ; and we did 
 not any ways doubt the rest of his relation, as the 
 appearance of the shore prejudiced us greatly in 
 its favour, and made us hope, that not only our 
 necessities might be there fully relieved, and our 
 diseased recovered, but that, amidst those pleasing 
 scenes which were then in view, we might procure 
 ourselves some amusement and relaxation, after 
 the numerous fatigues we had undergone : for the 
 prospect of the country did by no means resemble 
 that of an uninhabited and uncultivated place, but 
 had much more the air of a magnificent planta- 
 tion, where large lawns and statelj Woods had 
 been laid out together with great sldh, and where 
 the whole had been so artfully combined, and so 
 judiciously adapted to the slopes of the hiUs, and 
 the inequalities of the groimd, as to produce a 
 mo.st striking effect, and to do honour to the in- 
 vention of the contriver. Thus (an event not un- 
 like what we had already seen) we were forced 
 upon the most desirable and salutary measures by 
 
 accidents, which at first sight we considered as the 
 greatest of misfortunes ; for had we not been 
 driven by the contrary winds and currents to ths 
 northward of oar course, (a circumstance, which 
 at that time gave us the most terrible apprehen- 
 sions,) we should, in all probability, never have 
 arrived at this delightful island, and consequently, 
 we should have missed of that place, where alone alf. 
 our wants could be most amply relieved, our sick 
 recovered, and our enfeebled crew once more re- 
 freshed, and enabled to put again to sea. 
 
 The Spanish Serjeant, from whom we received 
 the account of the island, having informed us 
 that there were some Indians on shore under his 
 command, employed in jerkui* beef, and that 
 there was a barque at anchor to take it on board, 
 we were desirous, if possible, to prevent the Indian* 
 from escaping, who doubtless would have given 
 the governor of Guam intelligence of our arrival 
 and we therefore immediately dispatched the pin- 
 nace to secure the barque, which the Serjeant told 
 us was the only embarkation on the place ; and' 
 then, about eight in the evening, we let go our 
 anchor in twenty-two fathoms ; and though it was 
 almost calm, and whatever vigour and spirit was 
 to be found on board was doubtless exerted to the 
 utmost on this pleasing occasion, when, after 
 having kept the sea for some months, we wert- 
 going to take possession of this little paradise, yet 
 we were full five hours in furling our sails : it is- 
 true, we were somewhat weakened by the crews 
 of the cutter and pinnace, which were sent on 
 shore ; but it is not less true, that, including those 
 absent with the boats and some negro and Indian 
 prisoners, all the hands we could muster capablf 
 of standing at a gun amounted to no more thai- 
 seventy-one, most of which number, too, were in- 
 capable of duty ; but on the greatest emergencies* 
 this was all the force we could collect, in our 
 present enfeebled condition, from the united crews 
 of the Centurion, the Gloucester, and the Tryal. 
 whioh, when we departed from England, consisted 
 altogether of near a thousand hands. 
 
 When we had furled our sails, the remaining 
 part of the night was allowed to our people, for 
 their repose, to recover them from the fatigue they 
 had undergone ; and in the morning a party was 
 sent on shore, well armed, of which I myself was- 
 one, to make ourselves masters of the landing- 
 place, as we were not certain what opposition 
 might be made by the Indians on the island : we 
 landed without difficulty, for the Indians having 
 perceived, by our seizure of the barque the night 
 before, that we were enemies, they immediately 
 fled into the woody parts of the island. . We found 
 on shore many huts which they had inhabited, 
 and which saved us both the time and trouble of 
 erecting tents ; one of these huts which the Indians 
 made use of for a store-house was very large, 
 being twenty yards long and fifteen broad ; this 
 we immediately cleared of some bales of jerked 
 beef, which we found in it, and converted it into 
 an hospital for cmr sick, who, as soon as the place 
 was ready to receive them, were brought on shore, 
 being in all a hundred and twenty-eight : numbers 
 of these were so very helpless, that we were obliged 
 to carry them from the boats to the hospital upon 
 our shoulders, in which humane employment (as- 
 before at Juan Femandes) the commodore him- 
 self, and every one of his officers, were engaged 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 without distinction ; and, notwithstanding the great 
 debility and the dying aspects of tlie greatest part 
 of our sick, it is almost incredible how soon they 
 began to feel the salutary influence of the land ; 
 for, though we buried twenty-one men on this and 
 the preceding day, yet we did not lose above ten 
 men more during our whole two months' stay here ; 
 and in general, our diseased received so much 
 benefit from the fruits of the island, particularly 
 the fruits of the acid kind, that, in a week's time, 
 there were but few who were not so far recovered, 
 as to be able to move about without help. 
 
 And now being in some sort established at this 
 place, we were enabled more particularly to exa- 
 mine its qualities and productions ; and that the 
 reader may the better judge of our manner of life 
 here, and future navigators be better apprised of 
 the conveniences we met with, I shall, before I 
 proceed any farther in the history of our own ad- 
 ventures, throw together the most interesting par- 
 ticulars that came to our knowledge, in relation to 
 the situation, soil, produce, and conveniences of 
 this island of Tinian. 
 
 This island Ues in the latitude of 15° 8' north, 
 and longitude from Acapulco 114° 50' west. Its 
 length is about twelve miles, and its breadth about 
 half as much; it extending from the S.S.W. to 
 N.N.E. The soil is everywhere dry and healthy, 
 and somewhat sandy, which being less disposed 
 than other soils to a rank and over luxuriant vege- 
 tation, occasions the meadows and the bottoms of 
 the woods to be much neater and smoother than 
 is customary in hot climates. The land rises by 
 easy slope, from the very beach where we watered 
 to the middle of the island ; though the general 
 course of its ascent is often interrupted and tra- 
 versed by gentle descents and valleys ; and the 
 inequaUties that are formed by the different com- 
 binations of these gradual swellings of the ground, 
 are most heautifuUy diversified with large lawns, 
 which are covered with a very fine trefoil, inter- 
 mixed with a variety of flowers, and are sldrted by 
 woods of tall and well-spread trees, most of them 
 celebrated either for their aspect or their fruit. 
 The turf of the lawns is quite clean and even, and 
 the bottoms of the woods in many places clear of 
 all bushes and underwoods ; and the woods them- 
 selves usually terminate on the lawns with a regu- 
 lar outline, not broken, nor confused with strag- 
 gling trees, but appearing as uniform, as if laid 
 out by art. Hence arose a great variety of the 
 most elegant and entertaining prospects, formed 
 by the mixture of these woods and lawns, and 
 their various intersections with each other, as 
 they spread themselves differently through the 
 valleys, and over the slopes and decUvities with 
 which the place abounds. The fortunate animals, 
 too, which for the greatest part of the year are the 
 sole lords of this happy soil, partake in some mea- 
 sure of the romantic cast of the island, and are no 
 small addition to its wonderful scenery: for the 
 cattle, of which it is not uncommon to see herds of 
 some thousands feeding together in a large meadow, 
 are certainly the most remarkable in the world ; 
 for they are all of them milk-white, except their 
 ears, which are generally black. Ajid though 
 there are no inhabitants here, yet the clamour and 
 frequent parading of domestic poultry, which range • 
 the woods in great numbers, perpetually excite 
 the ideas of the neighbourhood of farms and 
 
 villages, and greatly contribute to the cheerfulness 
 and beauty of the place. The cattle on the island 
 we computed were at least ten thousand ; and we 
 had no difficulty in getting near them, as they 
 were not shy of us(;;Our first method of killing 
 them was shooting them ; but at last, when, by 
 accidents to bo hereafter recited, we were obliged 
 to husband our ammunition, our men ran them 
 down with ease. Their flesh was extremely well 
 tasted, and was believed by us to be much more 
 easily digested, than any we had ever met with. 
 The fowls too were exceeding good, and were like- 
 wise run down with little trouble ; for they could 
 scarcely fly further than a hundred yards at a 
 flight, and even that fatigued them so much, that 
 they could not readily rise again ; so that, aided 
 by the openness of the woods, we could at all 
 times furnish ourselves with whatever number we 
 wanted. Besides the cattle and the poultry, we 
 found here abundance of wild hogs : these were 
 most excellent food ; but as they were a very fierce 
 animal, we were obliged either to shoot them, or 
 to hunt them with large dogs, which we found 
 upon the place at our landing, and which belonged 
 to the detachment which was then upon the island 
 amassing provisions for the garrison of Guam. As 
 these dogs had been purposely trained to the kill- 
 ing of the wild hogs, they followed us very readily, 
 and hunted for us ; but though they were a large 
 bold breed, the hogs fought with so much fury, 
 that they frequently destroyed them, so that we 
 by degrees lost the greatest part of them. 
 
 But this place was not only extremely grateful 
 to us from the plenty and excellence of its fresh 
 proraions, but was as much perhaps to be admired 
 for its fruits and vegetable productions, which 
 were most fortunately adapted to the cure of the 
 sea scurvy, which had so terribly reduced us. For 
 in the woods there were inconceivable quantities 
 of cocoa-nuts, with the cabbages growing on the 
 same tree : there were besides guavoes, limes, 
 sweet and sour oranges, and a kind of fruit, pecu- 
 liar to these islands, called by the Indians, rima, 
 but by us the bread-fruit, for it was constantly 
 eaten by us during our stay upon the island instead 
 of bread, and so universally preferred to it, that 
 no ship's bread was expended during that whole 
 interval. It grew upon a tree which is somewhat 
 lofty, and which, towards the top, divides into 
 large and spreading branches. The leaves of this 
 tree are of a remarkable deep green, are notched 
 about the edges, and are generally from a foot to 
 eighteen inches in length. The fruit itself grows 
 indifferently on all parts of the branches ; it is in 
 shape rather elliptical than round, is covered with 
 a rough rind, and is usually seven or eight inches 
 long ; each of them grows singly and not in clusters. 
 This fruit is fittest to be used when it is full grown, 
 but is still green ; in which state its taste has some 
 distant resemblance to that of an artichoke bot- 
 tom, and its texture is not very different, for it 
 is soft and spongy & As it ripens it grows softer 
 and of a yellow colour, and then contracts a lus- 
 cious taste, and an agreeable smell, not unlike a 
 ripe peach ; but then it is esteemed unwholesome, 
 and is said to produce fluxes. Besides the frnit"! 
 already enumerated, there were many other vege- 
 tables extremely conducive to the cure of the 
 malady we had long laboured, under, such as 
 water-melons, dandelion, creeping purskin, mmt. 
 
9R 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 scurvy-grass, and sorrel ; all which, together with 
 the fresh meats of the place, we devoured with 
 great eagerness, prompted thereto by the strong 
 inclination which nature never fails of exciting in 
 scorbutic disorders for these powerful specifics. 
 
 It will easily be conceived from what liath be-^n 
 already said, that our cheer upon this island was 
 in some degree luxurious, hut I have not yet 
 recited all the varieties of provision which we here 
 indulged in. Indeed we thought it prudent totally 
 to abstain from fish, the few we caught at our 
 first arrival having surfeited those who ate of 
 them ; but considering how much we had been 
 inured to that species of food, we did not regard 
 this circumstance as a disadvantage, especially as 
 the defect was so amply supplied by the beef, pork, 
 and fowls already mentioned, and by great plenty 
 of wild fowl ; for I must observe, that near the 
 centre of the island there were two considerable 
 pieces of fresh water, which abounded with duck, 
 teal, and curlew: not to mention the whistling 
 plover, which we found there in prodigious plenty. 
 
 And now perhaps it may be wondered at, that 
 an island, so exquisitely furnished with the conve- 
 niences of life, and so well adapted, not only to 
 the subsistence, but likewise to the enjoyment of 
 mankind, should be entirely destitute of inhabit- 
 ants, especially as it is in the neighbourhood of 
 other islands, which in some measure depend 
 upon this for their support. To obviate this diffi- 
 culty, I must observe, that it is not fifty years 
 since the island was depopulated. The Indians 
 we had in our custody assured us, that formerly 
 the three islands of Tinian, Rota, and Guam, were 
 all full of inhabitants ; and that Tinian alone con- 
 tained thirty thousand souls: but a sickness 
 raging amongst these islands which destroyed 
 multitudes of the people, the Spaniards, to recruit 
 their numbers at Guam, which were greatly dimi- 
 nished by this mortality, ordered all the inhabit- 
 ants of Tinian thither ; where, languishing for 
 their former habitations, and their customary 
 method of life, the greatest part of them in a few 
 years died of grief. Indeed, independent of that 
 attachment which all mankind have ever shown to 
 the places of their birth and bringing up, it should 
 seem, from what has been already said, that there 
 were few countries more worthy to be regretted 
 than this of Tinian. 
 
 These poor Indians might reasonably have ex- 
 pected, at the great distance from Spain where 
 they were placed, to have escaped the violence 
 and cruelty of that haughty nation, so fatal to a 
 large proportion of the whole human race : but it 
 seems their remote situation could not protect them 
 from sharing in the common destruction of the 
 western world, all the advantage they received 
 from their distance being only to perish an age or 
 two later. It may perhaps he doubted, if the 
 number of the inhabitants of Tinian, who were 
 banished to Guam, and who died the repining for 
 their native home, was so great as what we have 
 related above ; but, not to mention the concurrent 
 assertion of our prisoners and the commodious- 
 ness of the island and its great fertility, there are 
 still remains to be met with on the place which 
 evince it to have been once extremely populous, 
 for there are in all parts of the island a great 
 number of ruins of a veiy particular kind ; they 
 nsiKilly consi?t of two rows of square pyramidnl 
 
 pillars, each pillar being about six feet from the 
 next, and the distance between the rows being 
 about twelve feet ; the pillars themselves are 
 about five feet square at the base, and about thu-- 
 teen feet high, and on the top of each of them 
 there is a semi-globe, with the flat part upwards ; 
 the whole of the pillars and semi-globe is solid, 
 being composed of sand and stone cemented to- 
 gether and plastered ovc. If the account our 
 prisoners gave us of these structures was true, the 
 island must indeed have been extremely populous, 
 for they assured us that they were the foundations 
 of particular buildings set apart for those Indians 
 only who had engaged in some rehgious vow ; 
 and monastic institutions are often to be met with 
 in many Pagan nations. However, if these ruins 
 were originally the basis of the common dwelling- 
 houses of the natives, their numbers must have 
 been considerable, for in many parts of the island 
 they are extremely thick planted, and sufficiently 
 evince the great plenty of former inhabitants. But 
 to return to the present state of the island. 
 
 Having mentioned the conveniences of this 
 place, the excellence and quantity of its fruits and 
 provisions, the neatness of its lawns, the stateli- 
 ness, freshness, and fragrance of its woods, the 
 happy inequality of its surface, and the variety and 
 elegance of the views it afforded, I must now 
 observe that all these advantages were greatly 
 enhanced by the healthiness of its climate, by the 
 almost constant breezes which prevail there, and 
 by the frequent showers which fall, and which, 
 though of a very short and almost momentary 
 duration, are extremely gi-ateful and refreshing, 
 and are perhaps one cause of the salubrity of the 
 air, and of the extraordinary influence it was ob- 
 served to have upon us, in increasing and invigo- 
 rating our appetites and digestion. This was so 
 remarkable, that those among our officers who 
 were at all other times spare and temperate eatere,, 
 who, besides a slight breakfast, made but one mo- 
 derate repast a day, were here, in appearance, 
 transformed into gluttons ; for instead of one rea- 
 sonable flesh-meal, they were now scarcely satis- 
 fied with three, and eadi of them so prodigious in 
 quantity, as would at another time have produced 
 a fever or a surfeit : and yet our digestion so well 
 corresponded with the keenness of our appetites, 
 that we were neither disordered nor even loaded 
 by this repletion ; for after having, according to 
 the custom of the island, made a large beef break- 
 fast, it was not long before we began to consider 
 the approach of dinner as a very desirable though 
 somewhat tardy incident. 
 
 And now having been thus large in my enco- 
 miums on this island, in which, however, I con- 
 ceive I have not done it justice, it is necessary I 
 should speak of those circumstances in which it is 
 defective, whether in point of beauty or utility. 
 
 >And first, with respect to its water. I must 
 own that before I had seen this spot I did not 
 conceive that the absence of running water, of 
 which it is entirely destitute, could have been so 
 well replaced by any other means as it is in this 
 island ; for though there are no streams, yet the 
 water of the wells and springs, which are to be 
 met with everywhere near the surface, is extremely 
 good ; and in the midst of the island there are two 
 or three considerable pieces of excellent water, 
 whose edges are as neat and even as if they had 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 97 
 
 <ieen basons purposely made for the decoration of 
 the place. It must however be confessed that, 
 with regard to the beauty of the prospects, the 
 want of rills and streams is a very great defect, 
 not to be compensated either by large pieces of 
 standing water, or by the neighbourhood of the 
 sea, though that, by reason of the smallness of the 
 island, generally makes a part of every extensive 
 view. 
 
 As to the residence upon the island, the princi- 
 pal inconvenience attending it is the vast numbers 
 ■^f musquitos and various other species of flies, 
 together with an insect called a tick, which, though 
 pi-incipally attached to the cattle, would yet fre- 
 <iuently fasten upon our limbs and bodies, and if 
 not perceived and removed in time would bury its 
 head under the skin and raise a painful inflamma- 
 tion. We found here too centipedes and scor- 
 pions, which we supposed were venomous, but 
 none of us ever received any injury from them. 
 
 But the most important and formidable excep- 
 tion to this place remains still to be told. This is 
 the inconvenience of the road, and the little secu- 
 rity there is at some seasons for a ship at anchor. 
 The only proper anchoring-place for ships of bur- 
 then is at the S.W. end of the island. In this 
 place the Centurion anchored in twenty and twenty- 
 two fathom water, opposite to a sandy bay, and 
 about a mile and a half distant from the shore. 
 Vhe bottom of this road is full of sharp-pointed 
 coral rocks, which, during four months of the 
 year, that is from the middle of June to the mid- 
 lUe of October, renders it a very unsafe place to 
 lie a;t. This is the season of the western mon- 
 woons, when near the full and change of the moon, 
 but more particularly at the change, the wind is 
 usually variable all round the compass, and seldom 
 fails to blow with such fury that the stoutest cables 
 iue not to be confided in. What adds to the 
 •Janger at these times is the excessive rapidity of 
 the tide of flood, which sets to the S.E. between 
 this island and that of Aguiguan, a small island 
 near the southern extremity of Tinian. This tide 
 runs at first with a vast head and overfall of water, 
 and occasions such a hollow and overgrown sea as 
 is scarcely to be conceived ; so that (as will be here- 
 after more particularly mentioned) we were under 
 the dreadful apprehension of being pooped by it, 
 though we were in a sixty-gun ship. In the re- 
 maining eight months of the year, that is, from 
 the middle of October to the middle of June, there 
 is a constant season of settled weather, when, if 
 the cables are but well armed, there is scarcely 
 any danger of their being so much as rubbed ; so 
 that during all that mterval it is as secure a road 
 as could be wished for. I shall only add, that the 
 anchoring bank is very shelving, and stretches 
 along the S.W. end of the island, and that it is 
 entirely free from shoals, except a reef of rocks 
 which is visible and lies about half a mile from 
 the shore, and affords a narrow passage into a 
 small sandy bay, which is the only place where 
 boats can possibly land. After this account of the 
 island and its produce, it is necessary to return to 
 our own history. 
 
 Our first undertaking after our ari'ival was the 
 removal of our sick on shore, as hath been men- 
 tioned. Whilst we were thus employed, four of 
 the Indians on shore, being part of the Spanish 
 •erjeant's detaj^hment, came and surrendered 
 
 themselves to us, so that with those we took in 
 the proa we had now eight of them in our custody. 
 One of the four who submitted undertook to show 
 us the most convenient place for killing cattle, and 
 two of our men were ordered to attend him on 
 that service ; but one of them unwarily trusting 
 the Indian with his firelock and pistol, the Indian 
 escaped with them into the woods : his country- 
 men who remained behind were apprehensive of 
 suffering for this perfidy of their comrade, and 
 therefore begged leave to send one of their own 
 party into the country, who they engaged should 
 both bring back the arms and persuade the whole 
 detachment from Guam to submit to us. The 
 commodore granted their request, and one of them 
 was despatched on this errand, who returned next 
 day and brought back the firelock and pistol, but 
 assured us he had met with them in a pathway in 
 the wood, and protested that he had not been able 
 to meet with any one of his countrymen. This 
 report had so little the air of truth, that we 
 suspected there was some treachery carrying on, 
 and therefore, to prevent any future communica- 
 tion amongst them, we immediately ordered all 
 the Indians who were in our power on board the 
 ship, and did not permit them to return any more 
 on shore. 
 
 When our sick were well settled on the island, 
 we employed all the hands that could be spared 
 from attending them, in arming the cables with a 
 good rounding several fathom from the anchor, 
 to secure them from being rubbed by the coral 
 rocks which here abounded. And this being com- 
 pleted, our next attention was our leak, and in 
 order to raise it out of water, we, on the first of 
 September, began to get the guns aft to bring the 
 ship by the stern ; and now the carpenters, being 
 able to come at it on the outside, ripped off the old 
 sheathing that was left, and caulked all the seams 
 on both sides the cut-water and leaded them over, 
 and then new sheathed the bows to the surface of 
 the water. By this means we conceived the defect 
 was sufiiciently secured ; but upon our beginning 
 to bring the guns into their places, we had the 
 mortification to perceive that the water rushed 
 into the ship in the old place with as much violence 
 as ever. Hereupon we were necessitated to begin 
 again ; and that our second attempt might be 
 more eff'eetual we cleared the fore store-room, and 
 sent a hundred and thirty barrels of powder on 
 board the small Spanish bark we had seized here, 
 by which means we raised the ship about thi-ee 
 feet out of the water forwards, and the carpenters 
 ripped off' the sheathing lower down, and new 
 caulked all the seams, and afterwards laid on new 
 sheathing ; and then, supposing the leak to be 
 effectually stopped, we began to move the guns 
 forwards ; but, the upper deck guns were scarcely 
 in their places, when, to our amazement, it burst 
 out again ; and now, as we durst not cut away the 
 fining within board, lest a but-end oi \ plank 
 might start, and we might go down immediately 
 we had no other resource left than chincing and 
 caulking within-board ; and indeed by this means 
 the leak was stopped for some time ; but when oui 
 guns were all in their places, and our stores were 
 taken on board, the water again forced its way 
 through a hole in the stem, where one of the bolts 
 was driven in ; and on this we desisted from all 
 farther efforts, being now well assured that the 
 
i8 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 iefect was in the stem itself, and that it was not 
 to be remedied till we should have an opportunity 
 of heaving down. 
 
 Towar<& the middle of September several of our 
 sick were tolerably recovered by their residence 
 on shore ; and on the 12th of September all those 
 who were so far relieved, since their arrival, as to 
 be capable of doing duty were sent on board the 
 ship. And then the commodore, who was him- 
 self ill of the scurvy, had a tent erected for him 
 on shore, where he went with the view of staying a 
 .ew days for the recovery of his health, being con- 
 anced, by the general experience of his people, 
 hat no other method but living on the land was 
 -0 be trusted to for the removal of this dreadful 
 inalady. The place where his tent was pitched 
 on this occasion was near the well, whence we got 
 all our water, and was indeed a most "ilegant 
 spot. 
 
 As the crew on board were now reinforced by 
 the recovered hands returned from the island, we 
 began to send our casks on shore to be fitted up, 
 which till now could not be done, for the coopers 
 were not well enough to work. We hkewise 
 weighed our anchors that we might examine our 
 cables, which we suspected had by this time re- 
 ceived considerable damage. And as the new 
 moon was now approaching, when we apprehended 
 violent gales, the commodore, for our greater 
 security, ordered that part of the cables next to 
 the anchors to be armed with the chains of the 
 fire-grapnels ; and they were besides cackled 
 twenty fathom from the anchors, and seven fathom 
 from the service, with a good rounding of a 4i 
 inch hawser ; and to all these precautions we added 
 that of lowering the main and fore-yard close 
 down, that in case of blowing weather the wmd 
 might have less power upon the ship to make her 
 ride a strain. 
 
 Thus effectually prepared, as we conceived, we 
 expected the new moon, which was the 1 8th of 
 September, and riding safe that and the three 
 succeeding days (though the weather proved very 
 equally and uncertain), we flattered oui'selves (for 
 I was then on board) that the prudence of our 
 measures had secured us from all accidents ; but 
 on the 22nd the wind blew from the eastward with 
 such fury, that we soon despaired of riding out the 
 storm ; and therefore we should have been ex- 
 tremely glad that the commodore and the rest of 
 our people on shore, which were the greatest part 
 of our hands, had been on board with us, since 
 our only hopes of safety seemed to depend on our 
 putting immediately to sea ; but all communication 
 with the shore was now effectually cut off, for there 
 was no possibility that a boat could live, so that 
 we were necessitated to ride it out till our cables 
 parted. Indeed it was not long before this hap- 
 pened, for the small bower parted at five in the 
 afternoon, and the ship swung off to the best bower ; 
 and as the night came on the violence of the wind 
 still increased ; but notwithstanding its inexpressi- 
 ble fury, the tide ran with so much rapidity as to 
 prevail over it ; for the tide having set to the 
 northward in the beginning of the storm, turned 
 suddenly to the southward about six in the even- 
 ing, and forced the ship before it in despite of 
 the storm which blew upon the beam. And now 
 the sea broke most surprisingly all round us, and 
 a large tumbling swell threatened to poop us ; the 
 
 long-boat, which was at this time moored a-stem, 
 was on a sudden canted so high, that it broke the 
 transom of the commodore's gallery, whose cabin 
 was on the quarter-deck, and would doubtless have 
 risen as high as the tafferel, had it not been for 
 this stroke which stove the boat all to pieces ; but 
 the poor boat- keeper, though extremely bruised, 
 was saved almost by miracle^ About eight the 
 tide slackened, but the wind did not abate ; so 
 that at eleven the best bower cable, by which alone 
 we rode, parted. Our sheet anchor, which was 
 the only one we had left, was instantly cut from 
 the bow ; but before it could reach the bottom we 
 were driven from twenty.two into thirty-five 
 fathom ; and after we had veered away one whole 
 cable, and two thirds of another, we could not find 
 ground with sixty fathom of line. This was a 
 plain indication that the anchor lay near the edge 
 of the bank, and could not hold us long. In this 
 pressing danger, Mr. Saumarez, our first lieutenant, 
 who now commanded on board, ordered several 
 guns to be fired, and lights to be shown, as a signal 
 to the commodore of our distress ; and in a short 
 time after, it being then about one o'clock, and 
 the night excessively dark, a strong gust, attended 
 with rain and lightning, drove us off the bank and 
 forced us out to sea, leaving behind us on the 
 island, Mr. Anson, with many more of our ofBcers, 
 and great part of our crew, amounting in the whole 
 to a hundred and thirteen persons. Thus were 
 we all, both at sea and on shore, reduced to the 
 utmost despair by this catastrophe, those on shore 
 conceiving they had no means left them ever to 
 leave the island, and we on board utterly unpre- 
 pared to struggle with the fury of the seas and 
 winds we were now exposed to, and expecting 
 each moment to be our last. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Transactions at Tinian after the departure of the 
 Centurion. 
 
 The stoi-m which drove the Centurion to sea, 
 blev/ with too much turbulence to permit either 
 the commodore or any of the people on shore to 
 hear the guns, which she fired as signals of dis- 
 tress ; and the frequent glare of the hghtning had 
 prevented the explosions from being observed. 
 So that, when at day-break, it was perceived from 
 the shore that the ship was missing, there was the 
 utmost consternation amongst them. For much 
 the greatest part of them immediately concluded 
 that she was lost, and intreated the commodore 
 that the boat might be sent round the island to 
 look for the wreck ; and those who beUeved her 
 safe, had scarcely any expectation that she would 
 ever be able to make the island again. For the 
 wind continued to blow strong at east, and they 
 knew how poorly she was manned and provided 
 for struggling with so tempestuous a gale. And 
 if the Centurion was lost, or should be incapable 
 of returning, there appeared in either case no 
 possibiUty of their ever getting off the island ; for 
 they were at least six hundred leagues from Macao, 
 which was their nearest port', and they were 
 masters of no other vessel than the small Spanish 
 bark of about fifteen tons, which they seized at 
 their first arrival ind which would not even hold 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 ac 
 
 a foui-th part of their number. And the chance 
 of their being taken off the island by the casual 
 arrival of any other ship was altogether desperate ; 
 ii3 perhaps no European ship had ever anchored 
 here before, and it were madness to expect that 
 like incidents should send another here in a 
 hundred ages to come. So that their desponding 
 thoughts could only suggest to them tlie melan- 
 'iholy prospect of spending the remainder of their 
 days on this island, and bidding adieu for ever to 
 their country, their friends, their families, and all 
 their domestic endearments. 
 
 Nor was this the worst tliey had to fear : for 
 they had reason to expect, that the governor of 
 Guam, when he should be informed of their situ- 
 ation, might send a force sufficient to overpower 
 them, and to remove them to that island ; and 
 then, the most favourable treatment they could 
 hope for would be to be detained prisoners for 
 life ; since, from the Imown policy and cruelty of 
 the Spauiai'ds in their distant settlements, it was 
 rather to be expected that the governor, if he 
 once had them in his power, would make their 
 want of commissions (all of them being on board 
 the Centurion) a pretext for treating them as 
 pirates, and for depriving them of their- lives with 
 infamy.' 
 
 In the midst of these gloomy reflections, Mr. 
 Anson had doubtless his share of disquietude ; but 
 he always kept up his usual composure and steadi- 
 ness : and having soon projected a scheme for 
 extricating himself and his men from their present 
 anxious situation, he first communicated it to some 
 of the most intelligent persons about him ; and 
 having satisfied himself that it was practicable, he 
 then endeavoured to animate his people to a speedy 
 and vigorous prosecution of it. With this view he 
 represented to them, how little foundation there 
 was for their apprehensions of the Centurion's 
 being lost : that he should have hoped, they had 
 been all of them better acquainted with sea affairs, 
 than to give way to the impression of so chimerical 
 a fright ; and that he doubted not, but if they 
 would seriously consider what such a ship was 
 capable of enduring, they would confess that there 
 was not the least probability of her liaving perished : 
 that he was not without hopes that she might 
 return in a few days ; but if she did not, the worst 
 that could be supposed, was, that she was driven 
 so far to the leeward of the island that she could 
 not regain it, and that she would consequently be 
 obUged to bear away for Macao on the coast ol 
 China : that as it was necessary to be prepared 
 against all events, he had, in this case, con- 
 sidered of a method of carrying them off the island, 
 and joining their old ship the Centurion again at 
 Macao : that this method was to hale the Spanish 
 bark on shore, to saw her asunder, and to lengthen 
 her twelve feet, which would enlarge her to near 
 
 * ''An enterprising Englishman, JohnOxnam byname, 
 having been active in his attacks upon the Spaniards, was 
 at length taken prisoner at the Pearl Islands, by an 
 expedition despatched from Panama, under the command 
 of Juan de Ortega, in 1575. Being carried to that place, 
 and questioned by the governor, as to whether he had the 
 Queen of England's commission, or a licence from any 
 other prince or state ? He replied, that he had no com- 
 mission, but that he acted upon his own authority, and at 
 his own risk. Upon this answer, Oxnara and his men 
 were condemned to death, aud the whole, except five boys, 
 were executed."— Burn«y'» llittinu <if Discoveries. 
 
 forty tons burthen, and would enable her to carry- 
 them all to China : that he had consulted the car- 
 penters, and they had agreed that this proposal 
 was very feasible, and that nothing was wanting to- 
 execute it but the united resolution and industry 
 of the whole body : he added, that for his owo 
 part, he would share the fatigue aud labour with 
 them, and would expect no more from any man 
 than what he, the commodore himself, was ready 
 to submit to ; and concluded with representing to- 
 them the importance of saving time ; aud that, in. 
 order to be the better prepared for all events, it 
 was necessary to set to work immediately, and to- 
 take it for granted, that the Centurion would not 
 be able to put back (which was indeed the com- 
 modore's secret opinion) ; since, if she did return^ 
 they should oply throw away a few days' appli- 
 cation ; but, if she did not, their situation, and 
 the season of the year, required their utmost 
 despatch. 
 
 These remonstrances, though not without efiect, 
 did not immediately operate so powerfully as Mr. 
 Anson could have wished : he indeed raised their 
 spirits, by showing them the possibility of their 
 getting away, of which they had before despaired ; 
 but then, from their confidence of this resource,, 
 they grew less apprehensive of their situation, gave 
 a greater scope to their hopes, and flattered them,- 
 selves that the Centurion would return and prevent 
 the execution of the commodore's scheme, which 
 they could easily foresee would be a work of con- 
 siderable labour : by this means it was some days 
 before they were all of them heartily engaged in 
 the project ; but at last, being in general convinced 
 of the impossibility of the ship's return, they set 
 themselves zealously to the different tasks allotted 
 them, and were as industrious and as eager as 
 their commander could desire, punctually assem-^ 
 bling at daybreak at the rendezvous, whence they 
 were distributed to their different employments,, 
 which they followed with unusual vigour till night 
 came on. 
 
 And here I must interrupt the course of this 
 transaction for a moment, to relate an incident 
 which for some time gave Mr. Anson more concern 
 than all the preceding disasters. A few days after 
 the ship was driven off, some of the people on shore 
 cried out, "A sail!" This spread a general joy,every 
 one supposing that it was the ship returning ; but 
 presently a second sail was descried, which quite- 
 destroyed their first conjecture and made it diffi- 
 cult to guess what they were. The commodore 
 eagerly turned his glass towards them, and saw 
 they were two boats ; on which it immediately oc- 
 curred to him that the Centurion was gone to the 
 bottom, and that these were her two boats coming 
 back with the remains of her people ; and this 
 sudden and unexpected suggestion wrought on 
 him so powerfully that, to conceal his emotion, 
 he was obliged (without speaking to any one) in- 
 stantly to retire to his tent, where he passed some 
 bitter moments in the firm belief that the ship 
 was lost, and that now all his views of farther dis- ^ 
 tressing the enemy, and of stUl signalizing hia 
 expedition by some important exploit, were at an 
 end. 
 
 But he was soon relieved from these disturbing 
 thoughts by discovering that the two boats in th» 
 offing were Indian proas ; and, perceiving that 
 XhJ^- stood towards the sliore, he dii'ected every 
 
too 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE KOtTNU THE WORLD. 
 
 ■appearance that could give them any suspicion tt 
 he removed, and concealed his people in the ad 
 jacent thickets, prepared to secure the Indians 
 when they should land. But after the proas had 
 stood in within a quarter of a mile of the land, 
 they suddenly stopped short, and remaining there 
 motionless for near two hours they then made sail 
 again and stood to the southward. But to return 
 to the projected enlargement of the bark. 
 
 If we examine how they were prepared for going 
 through with this undertaking, on which their 
 safety depended, we shall find that, independent 
 of other matters which were of as much import- 
 ance, the lengthening of the bark alone was at- 
 tended with great difficulty. Indeed, in a proper 
 piace, where all the necessary materials and tools 
 were to be had, the embarrassment would have 
 ^leen much less ; but some of these tools were to 
 -be made, and many of the materials were want- 
 ing, and it required no small degree of invention 
 to supply all these deficiencies. And when the 
 hull of the bark should be completed this was but 
 one article, and there were many others of equal 
 weight which were to be well considered : these 
 were the rigging it, the victualling it, and, lastly, 
 ihe navigating it for the space of six or seven 
 liundred leagues, through unknown seas, where 
 no one of the company had ever passed before. 
 In some of these particulars such obstacles occur- 
 red that, without the intervention of very extra- 
 ordinary and unexpected accidents, the possibility 
 of the whole enterprise would have fallen to the 
 ground, and their utmost industry and efforts must 
 have been fruitless. Of all these circumstances I 
 shall make a short recital. 
 
 It fortunately happened that the carpenters, 
 both of the Gloucester and of the Tryal, with their 
 chests of tools, were on shore when the ship drove 
 out to sea ; the smith too was on shore, and had 
 ■with him his forge and some tools, but unhappily 
 ■liis bellows had not been brought from on board, 
 so that he was incapable of working, and without 
 ■his assistance they could not hope to proceed with 
 ■their design. Their first attention therefore was 
 to make him a pair of bellows, but in this they 
 •were for some time puzzled by their want of lea- 
 ther; however, as they had hides in sufficient 
 plenty, and they had found a hogshead of lime, 
 Avhich the Indians or Spaniards had prepared for 
 their own use, they tanned some hides with this 
 time ; and though we may suppose the workman- 
 ship to be but indifferent, yet the leather they 
 thus made served tolerably well, and the bellows 
 ^to which a gun-barrel served for a pipe) had no 
 i-ther inconvenience than that of being somewhat 
 strong scented from the imperfection of the 
 tanner's work. 
 
 Whilst the smith was preparing the necessary 
 iron-work, others were employed in cutting down 
 trees and sawing them into planks ; and this being 
 the most laborious task, the commodore wrought 
 at it himself for the encouragement of his people. 
 As there were neither blocks nor cordage sufficient 
 for tackles to hale the bark on shore, it was pro- 
 posed to get her up on rollers, and for these the 
 body of the cocoa-nut tree was extremely useful, 
 for its smoothness and circular turn prevented 
 much labour, and fitted it for the purpose with 
 very httle worlonanship : a number of these trees 
 Ti'ere therefore felled and the ends of them pro- 
 
 perly opened for the reception of handspikes, and 
 in the meantime a dry-dock was dug for the bark, 
 and ways laid from thence quite into the sea, to 
 facilitate the bringing her up. And besides those 
 who were thus occupied in preparing measures 
 for the future enlargement of the bark, a partj 
 was constantly ordered for the killing and pre- 
 paring of provisions for the rest : and though in 
 these various employments, some of which de- 
 manded considerable dexterity, it might have been 
 expected there would have been great confusion 
 and delay, yet good order being once established, 
 and all hands engaged, then- preparations ad- 
 vanced apace. Indeed the common men, I pre- 
 sume, were not the less tractable for their want of 
 spirituous liquors ; for, there being neither wine 
 nor brandy on shore, the juice of the cocoa-nut 
 was their constant drink, and this, though ex- 
 tremely pleasant, was not at all intoxicating, but 
 kept them very cool and orderly. 
 
 And now the officers began to' consider of all 
 the articles necessary for the fitting out the bark ; 
 when it was found, that the tents on shore, and 
 the spare cordage accidentally left there by the 
 Centurion, together with the sails and rigging 
 already belonging to the bark, would serve to rig 
 her indifferently well, when she was lengthened : 
 and as they had tallow in plenty, they proposed 
 to pay her bottom with a mixture of tallow and 
 lime, which it was known was well adapted to 
 that purpose : so that with respect to her equip- 
 ment, shfe would not have been very defective. 
 There was, however, one exception, which would 
 have proved extremely inconvenient, and that was 
 her size : for as they could not make her quite 
 forty tons burthen, she would have been incapa- 
 ble of containing half the crew below the deck, 
 and she would have been so top-heavy, that if 
 they were all at the same time ordered upon deck, 
 there would be no small hazard of her overset- 
 ting ; but this was a difficulty not to be removed, 
 as they could not augment her beyond the size 
 already proposed. After the manner of rigging 
 and fitting up the bark was considered and regu- 
 lated, the next essential point to be thought on 
 was, how to procui-e a sufficient stock of provisions 
 for their voyage ; and here they were greatly at a 
 loss what course to take ; for they had neither 
 grain nor bread of any kind on shore, their bread- 
 fruit, which would not keep at sea, having all along 
 supplied its place : and though they had live cat- 
 tle enough, yet they had no salt to cure beef for a 
 sea-store, nor would meat take salt in that climate. 
 Indeed, they had preserved a small quantity of 
 jerked beef, which they found upon the place at their 
 landing ; but this was greatly disproportioned to 
 the run of near six hundred leagues, which they 
 were to engage in, and to the number of hands 
 they should have on board. It was at last, how- 
 ever, resolved to take on board as many cocoa-nuts 
 as they possibly could ; to make the most of then 
 jerked beef, by a very sparing distribution of it ; 
 and to endeavour to supply their want of bread 
 by rice ; to furnish themselves with which, it was 
 proposed, when the bark was fitted up, to make 
 an expedition to the island of Rota, where they 
 were told that the Spaniards had large planta- 
 tions of rice under the care of the Indian inhaj)it- 
 ants : but as this last measure was to be executed 
 by force, it became necessary to examine what 
 
ANSOK'8 VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 lOi 
 
 wnmunition had been left on shore, and to pre- 
 lerve it carefully ; and on this inquiry, they had 
 the mortification to find, that the utmost that 
 could he collected by the strictest seareh, did not 
 amount to more than ninety charges of powder 
 for their firelocks, which was considerably short 
 of one a-piece for each of the company, and was 
 indeed a very slender stock of ammunition, for 
 such as were to eat no grain or bread for a 
 mouLh, but what they were to procure by force 
 of arms. 
 
 But the most alarming circumstance, and what, 
 without the providential interposition of very im- 
 probable events, had rendered all their schemes 
 abortive, remains yet to be related. The general 
 idea of the fabric and equipment of the vessel was 
 settled in a few days ; and when this was done, it 
 was not difficult to make some estimation of the 
 time necessary to complete her. After this, it 
 was natural to expect that the ofiicers would con- 
 sider on the course they were to steer, and the land 
 they were to make. These reflections led them 
 to the disheartening discovery, that there was 
 neither compass nor quadrant on the island. In- 
 deed the commodore had brought a pocket-com- 
 pass on shore for his own use ; but Lieutenant Brett 
 had borrowed it to determine the position of the 
 neighbouring islands, and he had been driven to 
 sea in the Centurion, without returning it : and as 
 to a quadrant, that could not be expected to be 
 found on shore, for as It was of no use at land, there 
 could be no reason for bringing it from on board 
 the ship. It was eight days, from the departure 
 of the Centurion, before they were in any degree 
 relieved from this terrible perplexity : at last, in 
 rummaging a chest belonging to the Spanish bark, 
 they found a small compass, which, though little 
 better than the toys usually made for the amuse- 
 ment of school-boys, was to them an invaluable 
 treasure. And a few days after, by a similar 
 piece of good fortune, they found a quadrant on 
 the sea-shore, which had been thrown overboard 
 amongst other lumber belonging to the dead : the 
 quadrant was eagerly seized, but on examination, 
 it unluckily wanted vanes, and therefore in its 
 present state was altogether useless ; however, 
 fortune still continuing in a favourable mood, it 
 was not long before a person out of curiosity pull- 
 mg out the drawer of an old table, which had been 
 driven on shore, found therein some vanes, which 
 fitted the quadrant very well ; and it being thus 
 completed, it was examined by the known latitude 
 of the place, and was found to answer to a suffi- 
 cient degree of exactness. 
 
 And now, all these obstacles being in some de- 
 gree removed, (which were always as much as 
 possible concealed from the vulgar, that they 
 might not grow remiss with the apprehension of 
 labouring to no purpose) the work proceeded very 
 successfully and vigorously : the necessary iron- 
 work was in great forwardness ; and the timbers 
 and planks (which, though not the most exquisite 
 performances of the sawyer's art, were yet suffi- 
 cient for the purpose) were all prepared ; so that, 
 on the 6th of October, being the fourteenth day from 
 the departure of the ship, they haled the bark on 
 shore, and, on the two succeeding days she was 
 sawn asunder, (though with great care not to cut 
 her planks) and her two parts were separated the 
 proper distance from each other, and, the mate- 
 
 rials being all ready before-hand, they, the next 
 day, being tlie 9th of October, went on with grea' 
 despatch in their proposed enlargement of her ;r 
 and by this time they had all their future opera- 
 tions so fairly in view, and were so much masters^ 
 of them, that they were able to determine when 
 the whole would be finished, and had accordingly 
 fixed the 5th of November for the day of their 
 putting to sea. But their projects and labours- 
 were now drawing to a speedier and happier conclu- 
 sion ; for on the 1 1 th of October, in the afternoon,, 
 one of the Gloucester's men, being upon a hill in 
 the middle of the island, perceived the Centurion 
 at a distance, and running down with his utmost 
 speed towards the landing-place, he, in the way, 
 saw some of his comrades, to whom he hallooed' 
 out with great ecstacy, " The ship, the ship ! " This 
 being heard by Mr. Gordon, a lieutenant of ma- 
 rines, who was convinced by the fellow's transport 
 that his report was true, Mr. Gordon ran towards 
 the place where the commodore and his people- 
 were at work, and being fresh and in breath, easily 
 outstripped the Gloucester's man, and got before 
 him to the commodore, who, on hearing this happy 
 and unexpected news, threw down his axe with 
 which he was then at work, and by his joy broke- 
 through, for the first tune, the equable and unva- 
 ried character which he had hitherto preserved ;; 
 the others, who were with him, instantly ran dowiy 
 to the sea-side in a kind of frenzy, eager to feast 
 themselves with a sight they had so ardently wished 
 for, and of which they had now for a considerable 
 time despaired. By five in the evening, the Cen- 
 turion was visible in the offing to them all ; and, 
 a boat being sent off with eighteen men to reinforce 
 her, and with fresh meat and fruits for the refresh- 
 ment of her crew, she, the next afternoon, happily" 
 came to an anchor in the road, where the commo- 
 dore immediately came on board her, and was 
 received by us with the sincerest and heartiest 
 acclamations : for, from the following short recitaf 
 of the fears, the dangers and fatigues we in the- 
 ship underwent, during our nineteen days' absence 
 from Tinian, it may be easily conceived, that a 
 harbour, refreshments, repose, and the joining of 
 our commander and shipmates, were not le 
 pleasing to us, than our return was to them. 
 
 CHAPTEH, IV. 
 
 Proceedings on board the Centurion, when driven ou^ 
 to sea. 
 
 The Centurion being now once more safely- 
 arrived at Tinian, to the mutual respite of the 
 labours of our divided crew, it is high time that 
 the reader, after the relation already given of th» 
 projects and employment of those left on shore^ 
 should be apprised of the fatigues and distresses,, 
 to which we, who were driven off to sea, were 
 exposed during the long interval of nineteen days- 
 that we were absent from the island. 
 
 It has been already mentioned, that it was th© 
 22nd of September, about one o'clock, in an ex- 
 tremely dark night, when by the united violence of 
 a prodigious storm, and an exceedmg rapid tide^. 
 we were driven from our anchors and foi'ced to- 
 sea. Our condition then was truly deplorable i 
 we were in a leaky ship, with three cables in o'jr- 
 
lOU 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WOKLI). 
 
 liawses, to one of which huug our only remaming' 
 -anchor ; we had not a gun on board lashed, nor a 
 fiort barred in ; our shrouds were loose, and our 
 top-masts unrigged, and we had struck our fore 
 and main yards close down before the storm came 
 on, so that there were no sails we could set, except 
 our mizen. ■ 't 
 
 In this dreaai'ul extremity we could muster 
 no more strength ou board, to navigate the 
 ship, than a hundred and eight hands, several 
 negroes and Indians included : this was scarcely 
 the fourth part of our complement ; and of these 
 the greater number were either boys, or such as, 
 1 ^eing lately recovered from the scurvy, had not yet 
 arrived at half their former vigour.ONo sooner 
 were we at sea, but by the violence of the storm, 
 and the working of the ship, we made a great 
 quantity of water through our hawse-holes, ports 
 and scuppers, which, added to the constant effect 
 of our leak, rendered our pumps alone a sufficient 
 employment for us all : but though this leakage, 
 by being a short time neglected, would inevitably 
 end in our destruction, yet we had other dangers 
 then impending, which occasioned this to be re- 
 garded as a secondary consideration only. For 
 we all imagined, that we were driving directly on 
 the neighbouring island of Aguiguan, which was 
 about two leagues distant ; and as we had lowered 
 our main and fore yards close down, we had no 
 sails we could set but the mizen, which was alto- 
 gether insufficient to carry us clear of this instant 
 -peril : we therefore immediately applied ourselves 
 -to work, endeavouring, by the utmost of our effijrts,, 
 -0 heave up the main and fore yards, in hopes that, 
 if we could but be enabled to malce use of our 
 lower canvas, we might possibly weather the 
 island, and thereby save ourselves from this im- 
 pending shipwreck. But after full three hours' 
 ineffectual labour, the jeers broke, and the men 
 being quite jaded, we were obliged, by mere 
 debility, to desist, and quietly to expect our fate, 
 which we then conceived to be unavoidable : for 
 we imagined ourselves by this time to be driven 
 gust upon the shore, and the night was so extremely 
 dark, that we expected to discover the island no 
 otherwise than by striking upon it ; so that the 
 belief of oiu: destruction, and the uncertainty of 
 the point of time when it would take place, occa- 
 sioned us to pass several hours under the most 
 «erious ap.prehensions that each succeeding mo- 
 ment would send us to the bottom. Nor did these 
 -continued terrors, of instantly strilciag and sinking, 
 ■end but with the daybreak ; when we with great 
 transport perceived, that the island, we had thus 
 ■dreaded, was at a considerable distance, and that 
 a strong northern current had been the cause of 
 our preservation. 
 
 The turbulent weather, which forced us from 
 Tinian, did not begin to abate till three days after ; 
 and then we swayed up the fore-yard, and began 
 to heave up the main-yard, but the jeers broke 
 and killed one of our men, and prevented ns at that 
 time from proceeding. The next day, being the 
 2l)th of September, was a day of most severe fa- 
 tigue to us all ; for it must be remembered, that in 
 these exigencies no rank or office exempted any 
 person from the manual application and bodily 
 labour of a common sailor. The business of this 
 ^y was no less than an attempt to heave up the 
 -«heet-anchor, which we had hitherto dragged at 
 
 our bows with two cables an end '. This was a 
 work of great importance to our future preserva- 
 tion. For, not to mention the impedunent to oijr 
 navigation, and the hazard it would be to our ship, 
 if we attempted to make sail with the anchor in 
 its present situation, we had this most interestinz 
 consideration to animate us, that it was the only 
 anchor we had left ; and, without securing it, ws 
 ' should be under the utmost difficulties and hazards 
 whenever we made the land again ; and therefore 
 being all of us fully apprised of the consequence of 
 this enterprise, we laboured at it with the severest 
 application for full twelve hours, when we had in- 
 deed made a considerable progress, having brought 
 the anchor in sight ; but it then growing dark, and 
 we being excessively fatigued, we were obliged to 
 desist, and to leave our work unfinished till the 
 next morning, when, by the benefit of a night's 
 rest, we completed and hung the anchor at our bow. 
 It was the 27th of September in the morning, 
 that is, five days after our departure, when we 
 thus secured our anchor ; and the same day we 
 gbt up our main-yard. And having now conquered, 
 in some degree, the distress and disorder which 
 we were necessarily involved in at our first driving 
 out to sea, and being enabled to make use of oui 
 canvas, we set our courses, and for the first tun« 
 stood to the eastward, in hopes of regaining the 
 island of Tinian, and joining our commodore in a 
 few days. For we were then, by our accounts, 
 onlyforty-sevenleagues to the south-west of Tinian; 
 so that on the first day of October, having then 
 run the distance necessary for making the island 
 according to our reckoning, we were in full ex- 
 pectation of seeing it ; but we were unhappily 
 disappointed, and were thereby convinced that a 
 current had driven us to the westward. And as 
 we could not judge how much we might hereby 
 have deviated, and, consequently, how long we 
 might still expect to be at sea, we had great ap- 
 prehensions that our stock of water might prove 
 deficient ; for we were doubtful about the quan- 
 tity we had on board, and found many of onr 
 casks so decayed, as to be half-leaked out. How- 
 ever, we were delivered from our uncertainty the 
 next day, by having a sight of the island of Guam, 
 by which we discovered that the currents had 
 driven us forty-four leagues to the westward of our 
 accounts. This sight of land having satisfied ns 
 of our situation, we kept plying to the east' 
 ward, though with excessive labour, for the wind 
 continuing fixed in the eastern board, we were 
 obUged to tack often, and our crew were so weak, 
 that without the assistance of every man on board, 
 it was not in our power to put the ship about. 
 This severe employment lasted till the 11th of 
 October, being the nineteenth day from our de- 
 parture ; when arriving in the offing of Tinian, we 
 were reinforced from the shore, as hath been al- 
 ready mentioned ; and on the evening of the same 
 day, we, to our inexpressible joy, came to an anchor 
 in the road, thereby pEOcuring to our shipmates on 
 shore, as well as to ourselves, a cessation from the 
 fatigues and apprehensions which this disastrous 
 incident had given rise to. 
 
 1 The nautical reader will be surprised at tliis passage. 
 Tlie first object should have been to huave up the anchor ; 
 for how was it possible for the ship to perform, even if they 
 had succeeded in swaying the yards up and making sail, 
 with the sheet anchor at the end of 200 fathoms -'400 yardf ,i 
 of cable towing at the bows ? 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WOKJii/. 
 
 lOa 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Employment at Ti?i/an, till the final depaHure of the 
 Centurion from thence ; with a description of the La^ 
 drona. 
 
 When the commodore came on board the Cen- 
 turion, on her return to Tinian, as abeady men- 
 tioned, he resolved to stay no longer at the island 
 than was absolutely necessary to complete our 
 stock of water, a work which we immediately set 
 onreelves about. But the loss of our long-boat, 
 which was staved against our poop, when we were 
 driven out to sea, put us to great inconveniences 
 in getting our water on board ; for we were obliged 
 to raft off all our casks, and the tide ran so strong, 
 that, besides the frequent delays and difficulties 
 it occasioned, we more than once lost the whole 
 raft. Nor was this our only misfortune ; for, on 
 the 14th of October, being but the third day after 
 ■our arrival, a sudden gust of wind brought home 
 our anchor, forced us off the bank, and drove the 
 ship out to sea a second time. The commodore, 
 it is true, and the principal officers, were now on 
 board ; but we had near seventy men on shore, 
 who had been employed in filling our water, and 
 procuring provisions. These had with them our 
 two cutters ; but as they were too many for the 
 cutters to bring off at once, we sent the eighteen- 
 oared barge to assist them ; and at the same time 
 naaile a signal for all that could to embark. The 
 «wo cutters soon came off to us full of men ; but 
 forty of the company, who were employed in kill- 
 ing cattle in the wood, and in bringing them down 
 to the landing-place, were left behind ; and though 
 the eighteen-oared bai'ge was left for their con- 
 veyance, yet, as the ship soon drove to a consi- 
 derable distance, it was not in their power to join 
 us. However, as the weather was favourable, and 
 our crew was now stronger than when we were 
 first driven out, we, in about five days' time, re- 
 turned again to an anchor at Tinian, and relieved 
 those we had left behind us from their second 
 fears of being deserted by their ship. 
 
 On our arrival, we found that the Spanish bark, 
 the old object of their hopes, had undergone a 
 new metamorphosis. For those we had left on 
 shore began to despair of our return ; and con- 
 ceiving that the lengthening the bark, as formerly 
 proposed, was both a toilsome and unnecessary 
 measure, considering the small number they con- 
 sisted of, they had resolved t« join her again, 
 and to restore her to her first state ; and in this 
 scheme they had made some progress ; for they 
 had brought the two parts together, and would 
 have soon completed her, had not our coming 
 lack put a period to their labours and disquie- 
 tudes. 
 
 These people we had left behind informed us, 
 that just before we were seen in the offing, two 
 proas had stood in very near the shore, and had 
 continued there for some time ; but on the appear- 
 ance of our ship, they crowded away, and were 
 presently out of sight. And, on this occasion I 
 must mention an incident, which, though it hap- 
 pened during the first absence of the ship, was then 
 omitted, to avoid interrupting the course of the 
 narration. 
 
 It hath already been observed, that a part of 
 tas detachment sent to this island under the com- 
 
 mand of the Spanish Serjeant, lay concealed in the 
 woods ; and we were the less solicitous to find them 
 out, as our prisoners all assured us that it was 
 impossible for them to get off, and, consequentlyj 
 that it was impossible for them to send any intel- 
 ligence about us to Guam. But when the Centu- 
 rion drove out to sea, and left the commodore ori 
 shore, he one day, attended by some of his officers, 
 endeavoured to make the tour of the islana. In 
 this expedition, being on a rising ground, they 
 perceived in the valley beneath them the appear- 
 ance of a small thicket, which, by observing mors 
 nicely, they found had a progressive motion. This 
 at first surprised them ; but they soon discovered 
 that it was no more than several large cocoa- 
 bushes, which were dragged along the ground, by 
 persons concealed beneath them. They imme- 
 diately concluded that these were some of the Ser- 
 jeant's party (which was indeed true) ; and there- 
 fore the commodore and his people made after 
 them, in hopes of finding out their retreat. The 
 Indians soon perceived they were discovered, and 
 hurried away with precipitation ; but Mr. Anson 
 was so near them, that he did not lose sight of 
 them till they arrived at their cell, which he and 
 his officers entering found to be abandoned, there 
 being a passage from it down a precipice contrived 
 for the convenience of flight. They found here 
 an old firelock or two, but no other arms. How- 
 ever, there was a great quantity of provisions 
 particularly salted spareribs of pork, which were 
 excellent ; and from what our people saw here, 
 they concluded, that the extraordinary appetite 
 which they had found at this island was not con- 
 fined to themselves alone ; for, it being about noon, 
 the Indians had laid out a very plentiful repast, 
 considering their numbers, and had their bread- 
 fruit and cocoa-nuts prepared ready for eating,' 
 and in a manner which plainly evinced that, with 
 them too, a good meal was neither an uncommon 
 nor an unheeded article. The commodore having 
 in vain endeavoured to discover the path by which 
 the Indians had escaped, he and his officers con. 
 tented themselves with sitting down to the dinner 
 which was thus luckily fitted to their present 
 appetites ; after which they returned back to their 
 old habitation, displeased at missing the Indians, 
 as they hoped to have engaged them in our ser- 
 vice, if they could have had any conference with 
 them. But notwithstanding what our prisoners 
 had asserted, we were afterwards assured, that 
 these Indians were carried off to Guam long 
 before we left the place. But to return to oui 
 history. 
 
 On our coming to an anchor agaih, after onr 
 second driving off to sea, we laboured indefatigablj 
 in getting in our water ; and having, by the 20th 
 of October, completed itto fifty tons, which we 
 supposed would be sufficient for our passage to 
 Macao, we, on the next day, sent one of each mess 
 on shore, to gather as large a quantity of oranges, 
 lemons, cocoa-nuts, and other fruits of the island, 
 as they possibly could, for the use of themselves 
 and messmates, when at sea. And these pur- 
 veyors returning on board us on the evening of 
 the same day, we then set fire to the bark and 
 proa, hoisted in our boats, and got under sail, 
 steering away for the south end of the island of 
 Formosa, and taking our leaves, for the third and 
 last time, of the island of Tinian : aa island whicl-i. 
 
104 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD, 
 
 whether we consider the excellence of its pro- 
 ductions, the heauty of its appearance, the elegance 
 of its woods and lawns, the healthiness of its air, 
 or the adventures it gave rise to, may in all these 
 views be truly styled romantic. 
 
 And now, postponing for a short time our run 
 to Formosa, and thence to Canton, I shall inter- 
 rupt the narration with a description of that range 
 of islands, usually called the Ladrones, or Marian 
 Islands, of which this of Tinian is one. 
 
 These islands were discovered by Magellan in 
 the year 1521 ; and by the account given of the 
 two he first fell in with, it should seem that they 
 were the islands of Saypan and T inia n ; for they 
 are described in his expedition as very beautiful 
 islands, and as lying between fifteen and sixteen 
 degrees of north latitude. These characteristics 
 are particularly applicable to the two above-men- 
 tioned places ; for the pleasing appearance of 
 Tinian hath occasioned the Spaniards to give it 
 the additional name of Buenavista ; and Saypan, 
 which is in the latitude of 15° 22' north, affords 
 no contemptible prospect when seen from the 
 sea. 
 
 There are usually reckoned twelve of these 
 islands ; but if the small islets and rocks are 
 counted in, then their whole number will amount 
 to above twenty. They were formerly most of 
 them well inhabited ; and, even not sixty years 
 ago, the three principal islands, Guam, Rota, and 
 Tinian, together, are said to have contained above 
 fifty thousand people : but since that time Tinian 
 has been entirely depopulated ; and only two or 
 ; three hundred Indians have been left at Rota to 
 cultivate rice for the island of Guam ; so that now 
 «o more than Guam can properly be said to be 
 mhabited. This island of Guam is the only settle- 
 ment of the Spaniards ; here they keep a governor 
 and garrison, and here the Manila ship generally 
 touches for refreshment in her passage from Aca- 
 pulco to the Philippines. It is esteemed to be 
 about thirty leagues in circumference, and contains, 
 by the Spanish accounts, near four thousand in- 
 habitants, of which a thousand are said to live in 
 the city of San Ignatio de Agand, where the 
 governor generally resides, and where the houses 
 are represented as considerable, being built with 
 stone and timber, and covered with tiles, a very 
 uncommon fabric for these warm climates and 
 savage countries : besides this city there are upon 
 the island thirteen or fourteen villages. As this 
 is a post of some consequence, on account of the 
 refreshment it yields to the Manila ship, there 
 are two castles on the seashore ; one is the castle 
 of St. Angelo, which lies near the road, where the 
 Manila ship usually anchors, and is but an insig- 
 nificant fortress, mounting only five guns, eight- 
 pounders ; the other is the castle of St. Lewis, 
 which is N.E. from St. Angelo, and four leagues 
 distant, and is intended to protect a road where a 
 small vessel anchors, which arrives here every 
 other year from Manila.'' This fort mounts the 
 same number of guns as the former : and besides 
 these forts there is a battery of five pieces of can- 
 non, on an eminence near the seashore. The 
 Spanish troops employed on this island consist of 
 three companies of foot, from forty to fifty men 
 each ; and this is the principal strength the 
 governor has to depend on ; for he cannot rely on 
 any assistance from the Indian inhabitants, being 
 
 generally upon ill terms with them, and so apprs- 
 hensive of them, that he has debarred them the 
 use of fire-arms or lances. '. ^ 
 
 The rest of these islands, though not inhabitedi 
 do yet abound with many kinds of refreshmen' 
 and provision ; but there is no good harbour oi 
 road to be met with amongst them all : of that o! 
 Tinian we have treated largely already ; nor it 
 the road of Guam much better : for it is not un- 
 usual for the Manila ship, though she proposes tc 
 stay there but twenty-four hours, to be forced tc 
 sea, and to leave her boat behind her. This isac 
 inconvenience so sensibly felt by the commerce at 
 Manila, that it is always recommended to the 
 governor at Guam to use his best endeavours for 
 the discovery of some safe port in this part of the 
 world. How industrious he may be to comply 
 with his instructions I know not ; but this is cer- 
 tain, that, notwithstanding the many islands 
 already found out between the coast of Mexica 
 and the Philippines, there is not yet known any 
 one safe port in that whole tract ; though in. 
 other parts of the world it is not uncommon for 
 very small islands to furnish most excellent har- 
 bours. 
 
 From what has been said it appears that the 
 Spaniards, on the island of Guam, are extremely 
 few compared to the Indian inhabitants ; and 
 formerly the disproportion was still greater, as 
 may be easily conceived from what has been said, 
 in another chapter, of the numbers heretofore on 
 Tinian alone. These Indians are a bold well- 
 limbed people ; and it should seem from some of 
 their practices that they are no ways defective m 
 understanding ; for their flying proas in particular, 
 which have been for ages the only vessels used by 
 them, are so singular and extraordinary an inven- 
 tion, that it would do honour to any nation, how- 
 ever dexterous and acute. For if we consider tha 
 aptitude of this proa to the particular navigation 
 of these islands, which, lying all of them nearly 
 under the same meridian, and within the limits of 
 the trade-wind, require the vessels made use of m. 
 passing from one to the other to be particularly 
 fitted for sailing with the wind upon the beam ; | 
 or, if we examine the uncommon simplicity and : 
 ingenuity of its fabric and contrivance, or the' 
 extraordinary velocity with which it moves, we 
 shall, in each of these articles, find it worthy of 
 our admiration, and meriting a place amongst the^ 
 mechanical productions of the most civilised nations,, 
 where arts and sciences have most eminently 
 flourished. As former navigators, though they 
 have mentioned these vessels, have yet treated of 
 them imperfectly ; and, as I conceive that, besides 
 their curiosity, they may furnish both the ship- 
 wright and seaman with no contemptible observa- 
 tions, I shall here insert a very exact description! 
 of the built, rigging, and working of these vessels 
 which I am well enabled to do ; for one of them,, 
 as I have mentioned, fell into our hands at our 
 first arrival at Tinian, and Mr. Brett took it to 
 pieces, on purpose to deUneate its fabric and 
 dimensions with greater accuracy : so that the 
 following account may be relied on. 
 
 The name of flying proa given to these vessels, 
 is owing to the stiffness with which they sail. Of 
 this the Spaniards assert such stories as appear 
 altogether incredible to those who have never seen 
 these vessels move ; nor are the Spaniards the 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 IU5 
 
 only people who relate these extraordinary tales 
 of their celerity. For those who shall have the 
 curiosity to inquire at the dock at Portsmouth, 
 about a trial made there some years since with a 
 very imperfect one built at that place, will meet 
 with accounts not less wonderful than any the 
 Spaniards have given. However, from some rude 
 estimations made by our people of the velocity with 
 which they crossed the horizon at a distance, while 
 we lay at Tinian, I cannot help believing that, with 
 a brisk trade-wind, they will run near twenty miles 
 an hour : which, though greatly short of what the 
 Spaniards report of them, is yet a prodigious degree 
 of swiftness. But let us give a distinct idea of its 
 figure. 
 
 The construction of this proa is a direct contra- 
 diction to the practice of all the rest of mankind. 
 For as the rest of the world make the head of their 
 vessels different from the stem, but the two sides 
 »like ; the proa, on the contrary, has her head 
 »nd stern exactly alike, but her two sides very 
 different ; the side intended to be always the lee- 
 side being flat ; and the windward-side made 
 rounding, in the manner of other vessels ; and, to 
 prevent her oversetting, which, from her small 
 breadth, and the straight run of her leeward-side, 
 would, ^vithout this precaution, infallibly happen, 
 there is a frame laid out from her to windward, to 
 the end of which is fastened a log fashioned into 
 the shape of a small boat, and made hollow : the 
 weight of the frame is intended to balance the 
 proa, and the small boat is by its buoyancy (as it 
 is always in the water) to prevent her oversetting 
 to windward ; and this frame is usually called an 
 outrigger. The body of the proa (at least of that 
 we took) is made of two pieces joined endways, and 
 sewed together with bark, for there is no iron used 
 about her : she is about two inches thick at the 
 bottom, which at the gunwale is reduced to less 
 than one : the mast is supported by a shroud, and 
 by two stays : the sail is made of matting, and the 
 mast, yard, boom, and outriggers, are all made of 
 bamboo : the heel of the yard is always lodged in 
 one of the sockets, accoring to the tack the proa 
 goes on ; and when she alters her tack, they bear 
 away a little to bring her stern up to the wind, 
 then by easing the halyard and raising the yard, 
 and carrying the heel of it along the lee-side of 
 the proa, they fix it in the opposite socket ; whilst 
 the boom at the same time, by letting fly one sheet, 
 ; and haling the other sheet, shifts into a contrary 
 situation to what it had before, and that which was 
 the stem of the proa now becomes the head, and 
 she is trimmed on the other tack. When it is 
 necessary to reef or furl the sail, this is done by 
 rolling it round the boom. ©The proa generally 
 carries six or seven Indians ; two of which are 
 p'aced in the head and stem, who steer the vessel 
 i-temately with a paddle according to the tack 
 she goes on, he in the stem being the steersman ; 
 the other Indians are employed either in baling 
 out the water which she accidentally ships, or in 
 setting and trimming the sail. From the descrip- 
 tion of these vessels it is sufiBciently obvious how 
 dexterously they are fitted for ranging this collec- 
 tion of islands called the Ladrones : for as these 
 islands lie nearly N. and S. of each other, and are 
 all within the limits of the trade-wind, the proas, 
 fcy sailing most excellently on a wind, and with 
 either end foremost, can run from one of tnese 
 
 islands to the other and back again, only by shift- 
 ing the sail, without ever putting about ; and, by 
 the flatness of their lee-side, and their small breadth, 
 they are capable of lying much nearer the wind 
 than any other vessel hitherto known, and thereby 
 have an advantage which no vessels that go large 
 can ever pretend to : the advantage I mean is 
 that of running with a velocity nearly as great, 
 and perhaps sometimes greater than that with 
 which the wind blows. This, however paradox- 
 ical it may appear, is evident enough in similar 
 instances on shore : for it is well known that the 
 sails of a windmill often move faster than the 
 wind ; and one great superiority of common wind- 
 mills over all others, that ever were, or ever will 
 be contrived to move with a horizontal motion, 
 is analogous to the case we have mentioned of a 
 vessel upon a wind and before the wind : for the 
 sails of a horizontal windmill, the faster they move, 
 the more they detract from the impulse of the 
 wind upon them ; whereas the common windmills, 
 by moving perpendicular to the torrent of air, are 
 nearly as forcibly acted on by the wind when they 
 are in motion as when they are at rest. 
 
 Thus much may suffice as to the description and 
 nature of these singular embarkations. I must 
 add that vessels bearing some obscure resemblance 
 to these are to be met with in various parts of the 
 Kast Indies ; but none of them, that I can learn, 
 to be compared with those of the Ladrones, either 
 in their construction or celerity ; which should 
 induce one to believe that this was originally the 
 invention of some genius of these islands, and was 
 afterwards imperfectly copied by the neighbour- 
 ing nations : for though the Ladrones have no 
 immediate intercourse with any other people, yet 
 there he to the S. and S.W. of them a great num- 
 ber of islands, which are supposed to extend to 
 the coast of New Guinea. These islands are so 
 near the Ladrones that canoes from them have 
 sometimes, by distress, been driven to Guam ; and 
 the Spaniards did once despatch a bark for their 
 discovery, which left two Jesuits amongst them, 
 who were afterwards murdered : and the inhabit- 
 ants of the! Ladrones with their proas may, by like 
 accident, have been driven amongst these islands. 
 Indeed I should conceive that the same range of 
 islands extends to the S.E. as well as the S.W. 
 and that to a prodigious distance : for Schouten, 
 who traversed the south part of the Pacific Ocean 
 in the year 1615, met with a large double canoe 
 full of people, at above a thousand leagues distance 
 from the Ladrones towards the S.E. If this double 
 canoe was any distant imitation of the flying proa, 
 which is no very improbable conjecture, this can 
 only be accounted for by supposing that there is 
 a range of islands, near enough to each other to be 
 capable of an accidental communication, which is 
 extended from the Ladrones thither. And indeed 
 all those who have crossed from America to the 
 East Indies in a southern latitude, have never 
 failed of meeting with several very small islands 
 scattered over that immense ocean. 
 
 And as there may be hence some reason to 
 suppose that the Ladrones are only a part of an 
 extensive chain of islands spreading themselves to 
 the southward towards the unknown boundaries 
 of the Pacific Ocean ; so it appears from the 
 Spanish chart, elsewhere spoken of, that the same 
 chain is extended from the norUiward of the 
 
106 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE KOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 Ladrones to Japan : so that in this light the 
 Ladrones will be only one small portion of a range 
 of islands, reaching from Japan perliaps to the 
 unknown southern continent. After this short 
 account of these places, I shall now return to the 
 prosecution of our voyage. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 From Tinian to Macao 
 
 I HATE already mentioned, that, on the 21st of 
 October, in the evening, we took our leave of the 
 island of Tinian, steering the proper course forMacao 
 in China. The eastern monsoon was now, we reck- 
 oned, fairly settled ; and we had a constant gale 
 blowing right upon our stem : so that we generally 
 ran from forty to fifty leagues a-day. But we had a 
 large hollow sea pursuing us, which occasioned 
 the ship to labour much ; whence we received 
 great damage in our rigging, which was grown 
 very rotten, and our leak was augmented : but 
 happily for us, our people were now in full 
 health ; so that there were no complaints of fatigue, 
 but all went through theu- attendance on the 
 pumps, and every other duty of the ship, with ease 
 and cheerfulness. 
 
 Having now no other but our sheet-anchor left, 
 except our prize-anchors, which were stowed in 
 the hold, and were too light to be depended on, 
 we were under great concern how we should 
 manage on the coast of China, where we were all 
 entire strangers, and where we should doubtless 
 be frequently under the necessity of coming to an 
 anchor. Our sheet-anchor being obviously- much 
 too heavy for a coasting anchor, it was at length 
 resolved to fix two of our largest prize-anchors 
 into one stock, and to place between their shanks 
 two guns, four pounders, which was accordingly 
 executed, and it was to serve as a best bower : 
 and a third prize-anchor being in like manner 
 joined with our stream-anchor, with guns between 
 them, we thereby made a small bower ; so that, 
 besides our sheet-anchor, we had again two others 
 at our bows, one of which weighed 3900 and the 
 other 2900 pounds. 
 
 The 3d of November, about three in the after- 
 noon, we saw an island, which at first we ima- 
 gined to be the island of Botel Tobago Ximo : but 
 on our neai-er approach we found it to be much 
 smaller than that is usually represented ; and 
 about an hour after we saw another island, five 
 or six miles farther to the westward. As no chart, 
 nor any journal we had seen, took notice of any 
 other island to the eastward of Formosa, than 
 Botel Tobago Ximo, and as we had no observation 
 of our latitude at noon, we were in some per- 
 plexity, being apprehensive that an extraordinary 
 current had driven us into the neighbourhood of 
 the Bashee islands ; and therefore, when night 
 came on, we brought to, and continued in this 
 posture till the next morning, which proving dark 
 and cloudy, for some time prolonged our uncer- 
 tainty ; but it cleared up about nine o'clock, when 
 we again discerned the two islands above-men- 
 ^oned ; we then pressed forward to the westward, 
 *nd by eleven got sight of the southern part of 
 the island of Formosa. "This satisfied us that the 
 second island we saw was Botel Tobago Xuno, 
 
 and the first a small island or rock, lying five or 
 six miles due east from it, which, not being men- 
 tioned by any of our books or charts, was the 
 occasion of our fears. 
 
 When we got sight of the island of Formosa 
 we steered W. by S. in order to double its ex- 
 tremity, and kept a good look out for the rocks of 
 Vele Rete, which we did not see till two in the 
 afternoon. They then bore from us W.N.W. 
 three miles distant, the south end of Formosa at 
 the same tune bearing N. by W. ^ W., about five 
 leagues distant. To give these rocks a good berth, 
 we immediately hauled up S. by W., and so left 
 them between us and the land. Indeed we had 
 reason to be careful of them ; for though thej 
 appeared as high out of the water as a ship's hull 
 yet they are environed with breakers on all sides, 
 and there is a shoal stretching from them at leasi 
 a mile and a half to the southward, whence the" 
 may be truly called dangerous. The course fron 
 Botel Tobago Ximo to these rocks, is S.W. by W 
 and the distance about twelve or thirteen leagues 
 and the south end of Formosa, off which they lis 
 is in the latitude of 21° 50' north, and in 23° 50 
 west longitude from Tinian, according to our most 
 approved reckonings, though by some of our ac- 
 counts above a degree more. 
 
 While we were passing by these rocks of Vele 
 Rete, there was an outcry of fire on the forecas- 
 tle ; this occasioned a general alarm, and the whole 
 crew instantly flocked together in the utmost con- 
 fusion, so that the officers found it difficult foi 
 some time to appease the uproar : but having at 
 last reduced the people to order, it was perceived 
 that the fire proceeded from the furnace ; and 
 pulling down the brick-work, it was extinguished 
 with great facility, for it had taken its rise from 
 the bricks, which, being over-heated, had begun to 
 communicate the fire to the adjacent wood-work. 
 In the evening we were surprised with a view o^ 
 what we at first sight conceived to have been 
 breakers, but, on a stricter examination, we found 
 them to be only a great number of fires on the 
 island of Formosa. These, we imagined, were 
 intended by the inhabitants of that island as signals 
 for us to touch there, but that suited not our views, 
 we being impatient to reach the port of Macao as 
 soon as possible. From Formosa we steered 
 W.N.W., and sometimes still more northerly, 
 proposing to fall in with the coast of China, to 
 the eastward of Pedro Blanco ; for the rock so 
 called is usually esteemed an excellent direction for 
 ships bound to Macao. We continued this course 
 tin the following night, and then frequently brought 
 to, to try if we were in soundings : but it was the 
 5th of November, at nine in the morning, before 
 we struck ground, and then we had forty-two 
 fathom, and a bottom of grey sand mixed with 
 shells. When we had got about twenty miles 
 farther W.N.W., we had thirty-five fathom, and 
 the same bottom, from whence our soundings 
 gradually decreased from thh-ty-five to twenty-five 
 fathom ; but soon after, to our great surprise, they 
 jumped back again to thirty fathom : this was an 
 alteration we could not very well account for, smce 
 all the charts laid down regular soundings every- 
 where to the northward of Pedro Blanco ; and for 
 this reason we kept a very careful look-out, and 
 altered our course to N.N.W.^ md having run 
 thirty -five miles in this direction, our sounding* ' 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 107 
 
 ngaiu graduallydiminished to twenty-two fathom, and 
 we at last, about midnight, got siglit of the main- 
 land of Cliina, bearing N. by W., four leagues 
 •distant : we then brought the ship to, with lier 
 head to the sea, proposing to wait for tlie morning ; 
 and before sunrise we were surprised to find our- 
 selves in the midst of an incredible number of fish- 
 ing-boats, which seemed to cover the surface of 
 the sea as far as the eye could reach. I may well 
 «tyle their number incredible, since I cannot be- 
 lieve, upon the lowest estimate, that there were 
 -SO few as six thousand, most of them manned with 
 five hands, and none of those we saw with less 
 than three. Nor ^Vas this swarm of fishing vessels 
 peculiar to this spot ; for, as we ran on to the 
 westward, we found them as abundant on every 
 part of the coast. We at first doubted not but 
 ive should procure a pilot from them to carry us 
 to Macao ; but though many of them came close 
 to the ship, and we endeavoured to tempt them 
 by showing them a number of dollars, a most 
 alluring bait for Chinese of all ranks and profes- 
 sions, yet we could not entice them on board us, 
 nor procure any directions from them ; though, 
 I presume, the only diificulty was their not com- 
 prehending what we wanted them to do, for we 
 -could have no communication with them but by 
 ^igns : indeed we often pronounced the word 
 -Macao ; but this we had reason to suppose they 
 ■understood in a diiferent sense ; for in return 
 i they sometimes held up fish to us, and we after- 
 wards learnt, that the Chinese name for fish is 
 ■of a somewhat similar sound. But what surprised 
 us most, was the inattention and want of curiosity, 
 which we observed in this herd of fishermen : a 
 ship like ours had doubtless never been in those 
 seas before ; perhaps, there might not be one, 
 amongst all the Chinese employed in this fishery, 
 who had ever seen any European vessel ; so that 
 we might reasonably have expected to have been 
 considered by them as a very uncommon and 
 extraordinary object ; but though many of their 
 vessels came close to the ship, yet they did not 
 appear to be at all interested about us, nor did 
 thfey deviate in the least from their course to 
 regard us ; which insensibihty, especially in mari- 
 time persons, about a matter in their own profes- 
 •sion, is scarcely to be credited, did not the general 
 behaviour of the Chinese, in other instances, fur- 
 nish us with continual proofs of a similar turn of 
 mind : it may perhaps be doubted, whether this 
 cast of temper be the effect of nature or educa- 
 tion ; but, in either case, it is an incontestible 
 symptom of a mean and contemptible disposition, 
 and is alone a sufficient confutation of the extras 
 vagant panegyrics, which many hypothetical wri- 
 ters have bestowed on the ingenuity and capacity 
 of this nation. But to return : 
 
 Not being able to procure any information from 
 the Chinese fishermen about our proper course to 
 Macao, it was necessary for us to rely entirely 
 ■on our own judgment ; and concluding from our 
 latitude, which was 22° 42' North, and from our 
 soundings, which were only seventeen or eighteen 
 fathoms, that we were yet to the eastward of 
 Pedro Blanco, we stood to the westward : and 
 for the assistance of future navigators, who may 
 hereafter doubt about the parts of the coast they 
 are upon, I must observe, that besides the latitude 
 of Pedro Blanco, which is 22° 1 8', and the depth 
 
 of water, which to the westward of that rock 
 is almost everywhere twenty fathoms, there is 
 another circumstance which will give great assist- 
 ance in judging of the position of the ship : this 
 is the kind of ground; for, till we came within 
 thirty miles of Pedro Blajico, we had constantly a 
 sandy bottom ; but there the bottom changed to 
 soft and muddy, and continued so quite to the 
 island of Macao ; only while we were in sight oi 
 Pedro Blanco, and very near it, we had for a short 
 space a bottom of greenish mud, intermixed with 
 Siind. 
 
 It was on the 5th of November, at midnight, 
 when we first made the coast of China ; and the 
 next day, about two o'clock, as we were standing 
 to the westward within two leagues of the coast, 
 and still surrounded by fishing vessels in as great 
 numbers as at first, we perceived that a boat 
 a-head of us waved a red flag, and blew a horn : 
 this we considered as a signal made to us, either 
 to warn us of some shoal, or to inform us that 
 they would supply us -with a pilot, and in this 
 belief we immediately sent our cutter to the boat, 
 to know their intentions ; but we were soon made 
 sensible of our mistake, and found that this boat 
 was the commodore of the whole fishery, and that 
 the signal she had made was to order them all to 
 leave off' fishing, and to return in shore, which we 
 saw them instantly obey. On this disappointment 
 we kept on our course, and soon after passed by 
 two very small rocks, which lay four or five miles 
 distant from the shore ; but night came on before 
 we got sight of Pedro Blanco, and we therefore 
 brought to till the morning, when we had the 
 satisfaction to discover it. It is a rock of a small 
 circumference, but of a moderate height, and, both 
 in shape and colour, resembles a sugar-loaf, and 
 is about seven or eight miles from the shore. 
 We passed within a mile and a half of it, and 
 left it between us and the land, still keeping on to 
 the westward ; and the next day, being the 7th, 
 we were a-breast of a chain of islands, which 
 stretched from east to west. These, as we after- 
 wards found, were called the islands of Lema ; 
 they are rocky and barren, and are in all, small 
 and great, fifteen or sixteen ; and there are, 
 besides, a great number of other islands between 
 them and the mainland of China. These islands 
 we left on the starboard side, passing within four 
 miles of them, where we had twenty-four fathom 
 water. We were still surrounded by fishing- 
 boats ; and we once more sent the cutter on 
 board one of them, to endeavour to procure a 
 pilot, but could not prevail ; however one of the 
 Chinese directed us by signs to sail round the 
 westernmost of the island or rocks of Lema, and 
 then to hale up. We followed this direction, and 
 in the evening came to an anchor in eighteen 
 fathom. 
 
 After having continued at anchor all night, we 
 on the 9th, at four in the morning, sent our cutter 
 to sound the channel, where we proposed to pass ; 
 but before the return of the cutter, a Chinese pilot 
 put on board us, and told us, in broken Portuguese, 
 he would carrj' us to Macao for thirty dollars. 
 These were immediately paid him, and we then 
 weighed and made sail ; and soon after several 
 other pilots came on board us, who, to recommend 
 themselves, produced certificates from the captains 
 of several ships they had piloted in, but we con- 
 
 4 
 
108 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WOKLU. 
 
 tinued the ship under the management of the 
 Chinese who came first on board. By this time 
 we learned that we were not far distant from 
 Macao, and that there were in the river of Canton, 
 at the mouth of which Macao lies, eleven European 
 ships, of which four were English. Our pilot 
 carried us between the islands of Bamboo and 
 Cabouce, but the winds hanging in the northern 
 board, and the tides often settmg strongly against 
 us, we were obliged to come frequently to an 
 anchor, so that we did not get through between 
 the two islands till the 12th of November, at two 
 in the morning. In passing through, our depth 
 of water was from twelve to fourteen fathom ; and 
 as we still steered on N. by W. -J W., between a 
 number of other islands, oui- soundings underwent 
 little or no variation till towards the evening, when 
 they increased to seventeen fathom ; in which 
 depth (the wind dying away) we anchored not far 
 from the island of Lantoon, which is the largest of 
 all this range of islands. At seven in the morn- 
 ing we weighed again, and steering W. S. W. and 
 S. W . by W., we at ten o'clock happily anchored 
 in Macao road, in five fathom water, the city of 
 Macao bearing W. by N., three leagues distant ; 
 the peak of Lantoon E. by N., and the grand 
 Ladrone S. by E., each of them about five leagues 
 distant. Thus, after a fatiguing cruise of above 
 two years' continuance, we once more arrived in 
 an amicable port in a civilised country ; where 
 the conveniences of life were in great plenty ; 
 where the naval stores, which we now extremely 
 wanted, could be in some degree procured ; where 
 we expected the inexpressible satisfaction of re- 
 ceiving letters from our relations and friends ; 
 and where our countrymen, who were lately arrived 
 from England, would be capable of answering the 
 numerous inquiries we were prepared to make, 
 both about public and private occurrences, and to 
 relate to us many particulars, which, wliether of 
 importance or not, would be listened to by us with 
 the utmost attention, after the long suspension of 
 our correspondence with our country, to which 
 the nature of our undertaking had hitherto sub- 
 jected us. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Proceedings at Macao, 
 The city of Macao, in the road of which we came 
 to an anchor on the 12th of November, is a Por- 
 tuguese settlement, situated in an island at the 
 mouth of the river of Canton. It was formerly a 
 very rich and populous city, and capable of de- 
 fending itself against the power of the adjacent 
 Chinese governors ; but at present it is much 
 fallen from its ancient splendour ; for though it is 
 Inhabited by Portuguese, and hath a governor 
 nominated by the king of Portugal, yet it subsists 
 merely by the sufferance of the Chinese, who can 
 starve the place, and dispossess the Portuguese, 
 whenever they please '^his obhges the governor 
 of Macao to behave with great circumspection, 
 and carefully to avoid every circumstance that 
 may give ofience to the Chinese. The river of 
 Canton, at the mouth of which this city lies, is the 
 only Chinese port frequented by European ships ; 
 and this river is indeed a more commodious har- 
 bour, on many accounts, than Macao. But the 
 
 peculiar customs of the Chinese, only adapted 
 to the entertainment of trading sliips, and the ap- 
 prehensions of the commodore, lest he should 
 embroil the East-India Company with the regenoj 
 of Canton, if he should insist on being treated upoa 
 a different footing than the merchantmen, mada 
 him resolve to go firat to MacaCy before he ven- 
 tured into the port of Canton. Indeed, had not 
 this reason prevailed with him, he himself had 
 nothing to fear ; for it is certain that he might 
 have entered the port of Canton, and might have 
 continued there as long as he pleased, and after- 
 wards have left it again, although the whole power 
 of the Chinese empiro had been brought togethei 
 to oppose him. 
 
 The commodore, not to depart from his usual 
 prudence, no sooner came to an anchor in Macac 
 road, than he despatched an ofiicer with his com- 
 pliments to the Portuguese governor of Macao, 
 requesting his excellency, by the same officer, to 
 advise him in what manner it would be proper to 
 act to avoid offending the Chinese ; which, as there 
 were then four of our ships in then- power at 
 Canton, was a matter worthy of attentiouj The 
 difficulty which the commodore principally appre- 
 hended, related to the duty usually paid by al> 
 ships in the river of Canton, according to theii 
 tonnage. For as men of war are exempted in. 
 every foreign harbour from all manner of port 
 charges, the commodore thought it would be de- 
 rogatory to the honour of his country, to submit 
 to this duty in China : and therefore he desired 
 the advice of the governor of Macao, who, being, 
 a European, could not be ignorant of the pri- 
 vileges claimed by a British man of war, and con- 
 sequently might be expected to give us the best 
 lights for avoiding this perplexity. Our boat 
 returned in the evening with two officers sent by 
 the governor, who informed the commodore, that 
 it was the governor's opinion, that if the Centurion 
 ventured into the river of Canton, the duty would 
 certainly be demanded ; and, therefore, if the 
 commodore approved of it, he would send him a 
 pilot, who should conduct us into another safe 
 harbour, called the Typa, which was every wa> 
 commodious for careening the ship (an operation 
 we were resolved to begin upon as soon as pos- 
 sible) and where the above-mentioned duty would 
 in all probability be never asked for. 
 
 This proposal the commodore agreed to, and m 
 the morning we weighed anchor, and under the 
 direction of the Portuguese pilot, steered for the 
 intended harbour. As we entered two islands, 
 which form the eastern passage to it, we found 
 our soundings decreased to three fathom and a 
 half. But the pUot assuring us that this was the 
 least depth we should meet with, we continued 
 our course, till at length the ship stuck fast in the 
 mud, with only eighteen foot water abaft ; and 
 the tide of ebb making, the water sewed to sixteen 
 feet, but the ship remained perfectly upright ; we ■. 
 then sounded all round us, and finding the water 
 deepened to the northward, we carried out our 
 small bower with two hawsers an end, and at the 
 return of the tide of flood, hove the ship afloat J 
 and a small breeze springing up at the same 
 instant, we set the tore-top sail, and slipping the 
 hawser, ran into the harbour, where we moored 
 in about five fathom water. This harbour of the 
 Typa is formed by a number of islands, and i» 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 !■ 
 
 about six miles distant from Macao. Here we 
 saluted the castle of Macao with eleven guns, 
 which were returned by an equal number. 
 
 The next day the commodore paid a visit in 
 person to the governor, and was saluted at his 
 landing by eleven guns ; which were returned by 
 the Centurion Mr. Anson's business in this visit, 
 was to solicit the governor to grant us a supply of 
 provisions, and to furnish us with such stores as 
 were necessary to refit the ship. The governor 
 seemed really inclined to do us all the service he 
 «ould, and assured the commodore, in a friendly 
 manner, that he would privately give us all the 
 assistance in his power ; but he, at the same time, 
 frankly owned, that he dared not openly furnish 
 «s with anything we demanded, unless we first 
 procured an order for it from the viceroy of Can- 
 ton ; for that he neither received provisions for 
 his garrison, nor any other necessaries, but by 
 yermissiou from the Chinese government ; and as 
 they took care only to furnish him from day to 
 day, he was indeed no other than their vassal, 
 whom they could at all times compel to submit to 
 their own terms, only by laying an embargo on his 
 provisions. 
 
 On this declaration of the governor, Mr. Anson 
 xesolved himself to go to Canton, 'to procure a 
 license from the viceroy ; and he accordingly 
 dired a Chinese boat for himself and his atten- 
 •dante ; but just aa he was ready to embark, the 
 tioppo, or Chinese custom-house officer at Macao, 
 refined to grant a permit to the boat, and ordered 
 ■the watermen, not to proceed, at their peril. The 
 ■commodore at first endeavoured to prevail with 
 the hoppo to withdraw his injunction, and to grant 
 a, permit ; and the governor of Macao employed 
 his interest with the hoppo to the same purpose. 
 Mr. Anson, finding the ofiicer inflexible, told him 
 •the next day, that if he longer refused to grant 
 the permit, he would man and arm his own boats 
 to carry him thither ; asking the hoppo, at the 
 :same time, who he imagined would dare to oppose 
 him. This threat immediately brought about what 
 hislntreaties had laboured for in vain. The per- 
 Tnit was granted, and Mr. Anson went to Canton. 
 On his arrival there, he consulted with the super- 
 cargoes and officers of the English ships, how to 
 |)rocure an order from the viceroy for the neces- 
 ^saries he wanted. But in this he had reason to 
 suppose that the advice they gave him, though 
 ■doubtless well intended, was yet not the most pru- 
 •dent. For as it is the custom with these gentlemen 
 never to apply to the supreme magistrate himself, 
 whatever ifficulties they labour under, but to 
 transact all matters relating to the government 
 by the mediation of the principal Chinese mer- 
 ■chante, Mr. Anson was advised to follow the same 
 method upon this occasion, the English promising 
 (in which they were doubtless sincere) to exert 
 iail their interest to engage the merchants in his 
 favour. And when the Chinese merchants were 
 applied to, they readily undertook the management 
 ■of it, and promised to answer for its success ; but 
 ^ter near a month's delay, and reiterated excuses, 
 ■during which interval they pretended to be often 
 upon the point of completing the business, they at 
 iast (being pressed, and measures being taken for 
 •delivering a letter to the viceroy) threw off the 
 mask, and declared they neither had applied to the 
 viceroy, nor could they ; for he was too great a 
 
 man, they said, for them to approach on any occa 
 sion. And, not contented with having themselves 
 thus grossly deceived the commodore, they now 
 used all their persuasion with the English at 
 Canton, to prevent them from intermeddling with 
 anything that regarded him, representing to them, 
 that it would in all probability embroil them with 
 the government, and occasion them a great deal 
 of unnecessary trouble ; which groundless insinua- 
 tions had indeed but too much weight with those 
 they were applied to. 
 
 It may be difficult to assign a reason for this 
 perfidious conduct of the Chinese merchants: 
 interest indeed is known to exert a. boundless 
 influence over the inhabitants of that empire ; but 
 how their interest could be affected in the present 
 case, is not easy to discover ; unless they appre- 
 hended that the presence of a ship of force might 
 damp their Manila trade, and therefore acted in 
 this manner with a view of forcing the commodore 
 to Batavia; but it might be as natural in this light 
 to suppose, that they would have been eager to have 
 got him despatched. I therefore rather impute 
 their behaviour to the unparalleled pusillanimity 
 of the nation, and to the awe they are under of the 
 government : for as such a ship as the Centurion, 
 fitted for war only, had never been seen in those 
 parts before, she was the horror of these dastards, 
 and the merchants were in some degree terrified 
 even with the idea of her, and could not think oi 
 applying to the viceroy (who is doubtless fond of 
 all opportunities of fleecing them) without repre- 
 senting to themselves the pretences which a hungry 
 and tyrannical magistrate might possibly find, for 
 censuring their intermeddling in so unusual a 
 transaction, in which he might pretend the interest 
 of the state was immediately concerned. However, 
 be this as it may, the commodore was satisfied 
 that nothing was to be done by the interposition 
 of the merchants, as it was on his pressing them 
 to deliver a letter to the viceroy, that they had 
 declared they durst not intermeddle, and had con- 
 fessed, that notwithstanding all their pretences of 
 serving him, they had not yet taken one step to- 
 wards it. Mr. Anson therefore told them, that he 
 would proceed to Batavia, and refit his ship there ; 
 but informed them, at the same time, that this 
 was impossible to be done, unless he was supplied 
 with a stock of provisions sufficient for his passage. 
 The merchants, on this, undertook to procure him 
 provisions,but assured him, that it was what thej 
 durst not engage in openly, but proposed to manage 
 it in a clandestine manner, by putting a quantity 
 of bread, flour, and other provisions on board 
 the English ships, which were now ready to sail ; 
 and these were to stop at the mouth of the Typa, 
 where the Centurion's boats were to receive it. 
 This article, which the merchants represented as 
 a matter of great favour, being settled, the com- 
 modore, on the 16th of December, returned from 
 Canton to the ship, seemingly resolved to proceed 
 to Batavia to refit, as soon as he should get his 
 suppUes of provision on board. 
 
 But Mr. Anson (who never intended going to 
 Batavia) found, on his return to the Centurion, 
 that her main-mast was sprung in two places, and 
 that the leak was considerably increased ; so that, 
 upon the whole, he was fully satisfied, that thougih 
 he should lay in a sufficient stock of provisions, 
 yet it would be impossible for him to put to sea 
 
J 10 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WOKLL). 
 
 without refitting: for, if he left the port with 
 'lis ship in her present condition, she would be in 
 the utmost danger of foundering ; and therefore, 
 notwithstanding the difficulties he had met with, 
 he resolved at all events to have her hove down, 
 before he left Macao. He was fuUj' convinced, 
 by what he had observed at Canton, that his 
 great caution not to injure the East-India Com- 
 pany's affairs, and the regard he had shown to 
 the "advice of their officers, nad occasioned all 
 his embarrassments. For he now saw clearly, 
 that if he had at first carried his ship into 
 the river of Canton, and had immediately ap- 
 phed himself to the mandarins, who are the 
 chief officers of state, instead of employing the 
 merchants to apply for him ; he would, in all pro- 
 bability, have had all his requests granted, and 
 would have been soon despatched. He had 
 already lost a month, by the wrong measures he 
 had been put upon, but he resolved to lose as little 
 more time as possible ; and therefore, the 17th of 
 December, being the next day after his return from 
 Canton, he wrote a letter to the viceroy of that 
 place, acquainting him, that he was commander-in- 
 chief of a squadron of his Britannic Majesty's ships 
 of war, which had been cruising for two years past 
 in the South Seas against the Spaniards, who were 
 at war with the king his master ; that, in his way 
 back to England, he had put into the port of Macao, 
 having a considerable leak in his ship, and being 
 in great want of provisions, so that it was impos- 
 sible for him to proceed on his voyage, till his ship 
 was repaired, and he was supplied with the neces- 
 saries he wanted ; that he had been at Canton, in 
 hopes of being admitted to a, personal audience 
 of his excellency; but being a stranger to the 
 customs of the country, he had not been able to 
 inform himself what steps were necessary to be 
 taken to procure such an audience, and therefore 
 was obliged to apply to him in this manner, to 
 desire his excellency to give order for his being 
 permitted to employ carpenters and proper work- 
 men to refit his ship, and to furnish himself with 
 provisions and stores, thereby to enable him to 
 pursue his voyage to Great Britain with this mon- 
 soon, hoping, at the same time, that these orders 
 would be issued with as little delay as possible, 
 est it might occasion his loss of the season, and 
 ne might he prevented from departing till next 
 winter. 
 
 This letter was translated into the Chinese lan- 
 guage, and the commodore delivered it himself to 
 the hoppo or chief officer of the emperor's customs 
 at Macao, desiring him to forward it to the viceroy 
 of Canton, with as much expedition as he could. 
 The officer at first seemed unwilling to take charge 
 of it, and raised many objections about it, so that 
 Mr. Anson suspected him of being in league with 
 the merchants of Canton, who had always shown 
 a great apprehension of the commodore's having 
 any immediate intercourse with the viceroy or 
 mandarins ; and therefore the commodore, with 
 some resentment, took back his letter from the 
 hoppo, and told him he would immediately send 
 an officer with it to Canton in his own boat, and 
 would give him positive orders not to return with- 
 out an answer from the viceroy.. The hoppo per- 
 ceiving the commodore to be in earnest, and fearing 
 to be called to an account for his refusal, begged 
 to be entrusted with the letter, and promised to 
 
 deliver it, and to procure an answer as soon as 
 possible. And now it was soon seen how justly 
 Mr. Anson had at last judged of the proper man. 
 ner of dealing with the Chinese; for this letter 
 was written but the 17 th of December, as hath 
 been already observed; and, on the 19th in the 
 morning a mandarin of the first rank, who was 
 governor of the city of Janson, together with two 
 mandarins of an inferior class, and a great retinue 
 of officers and servants, having with them eighteen 
 half galleys decorated with a greater number of 
 streamers, and furnished with music, and full of 
 men, came to grapnel a-head of the Centurion 
 whence the mandarin sent a message to the com 
 raodore, telling him that he (the mandarin) wa* 
 ordered, by the viceroy of Canton, to examine the 
 condition of the ship, and desu-ing the ship's boav 
 might be sent to fetch him on board, ii The Cen- 
 turion's boat was immediately despatched, and; 
 preparations were made for receiving him; for 
 a hundred of the most sightly of the crew were 
 uniformly dressed in the regimentals of the marines,, 
 and were drawn up under arms on the main-deck; 
 against his arrival. When he entered the ship 
 he was saluted by the drums, and what other 
 military music there was on board ; and passing 
 by the new-formed guard, he was met by the com- 
 modore on the quarter-deck, who conducted hin> 
 to the great cabin. Here the mandarin explained^ 
 his commission, declaring that his business was tc 
 examine all the particulars mentioned in. the com- 
 modore's letter to the viceroy, and to confront 
 them with the representation that had been given 
 of them; that he was particularly instructed to 
 inspect the leak, and had for that purpose brought, 
 with him two Chinese carpenters ; and that for the 
 greater regularity and despatch of his business, he 
 had every head of enquiry separately written down., 
 on a sheet of paper, with a void space opposite tc 
 it, where he was to insert such information and 
 remarks thereon, as he could procure by liis own 
 observation. 
 
 This mandarin appeared to be a person ofvery 
 considerable parts, and endowed with more frank- 
 ness and honesty, than is to be found in the gene- 
 rality of the Chinese. After the proper inquiries 
 had been made, particularly about the leak, which 
 the Chinese carpenters reported to be as dangerous-- 
 as it had been represented, and consequently that 
 it was impossible for the Centurion to proceed to 
 sea without being refitted, the mandarin expressed 
 himself satisfied with the account given in the- 
 commodore's letter.'"' And this magistrate, as he 
 was more intelligent than any other person of his 
 nation that came to our knowledge, so likewise 
 was he more curious and inquisitive, viewing each- 
 part of the ship with particular attention, and -ap- 
 pearing greatly surprised at the largeness of the 
 lower deck guns, and at the weight and size of the 
 shot. The commodore, observing his astonisiiment, 
 thought this a proper opportunity to convince the^ 
 Chinese of the prudence of granting him a speedy 
 and ample supply of all he wanted: with this view he 
 told the mandarin, and those who were with hrm, that, 
 besides the demands he made for a general supply^ 
 he had a particular complaint against the proceeil- 
 ings of the custom-house of Macao ; that at his^ 
 first aiTival the Chinese boats had brought on. 
 board plenty of greens, and variety of fresh pro- 1 
 visions for daily use, for which they had alway* 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WOKLD. 
 
 Ill 
 
 been paid to their full satisfaction, but tliat the 
 custom-house officers at Macao had soon forbid 
 them, by which means he was deprived of those 
 refreshments which were of the utmost conse- 
 quence to the health of his men, after their long 
 and sielily voyage ; that as they, the mandarins, 
 had informed themselves of his wants, and were 
 eye-witnesses of the force and strength of his ship, 
 they might be satisfied it was not for want of power 
 to supply himself, that he desired the permission 
 of the government to purchase what provisions he 
 stood in need of; that they must be convinced 
 that the Centurion alone was capable of destroying 
 the whole navigation of the port of Canton, or of 
 any other port in China, without runnmg the least 
 risl£ from all the force the Chinese could collect ; 
 that it was true, this was not the manner of pro- 
 ceeding between nations in friendship with each 
 other; but it was likewise true, that it was not 
 customary for any nation to permit the ships of 
 their friends to starve and sinlc in their ports, 
 when those friends had money to supply their 
 wants, and only desired Uberty to lay it out ; that 
 they must confess, he and his people had hitherto 
 behaved with great modesty and reserve ; but that, 
 as his wants were each day increasing, hunger 
 would at last prove too strong for any restraint, 
 and necessity was acknowledged in all countries to 
 be superior to every other law ; and therefore it 
 could not be expected that his crew would long 
 continue to starve in the midst of that plenty to 
 which their eyes were every day witnesses: to 
 this the commodore added, (though perhaps with 
 a less serious air) that if by the delay of supplying 
 him with provisions his men should be reduced to 
 the necessity of turning cannibals, and preying 
 upon their own species, it was easy to be foreseen 
 that, independent of their friendship to their com- 
 rades, they would, in point of luxury, prefer the 
 plump well-fed Chinese to their own emaciated 
 shipmates. The first mandarin acquiesced in 
 the justness of this reasoning, and told the commo- 
 dore, that he should that night proceed for Canton ; 
 that on his arrival, a council of mandarins would 
 be summoned, of which hehimseK was a member ; 
 and that by being employed in the present com- 
 mission, he was of course the commodore's advo- 
 cate; that, as he was fully convinced of the 
 urgency of Mr. Anson's necessity, he did not 
 doubt but, on his representation, the council would 
 be of the same opinion ; and that all that was 
 demanded would be amply and speedily granted : 
 and with regard to the commodore's complaint of 
 tne custom-house of Macao, he undertook to rectify 
 *hat immediately by his own authority ; for desir- 
 mg a list to be given him of the quantity of 
 provisions necessary for the expense of the ship 
 for a day, he wrote a permit under it, and delivered 
 it to one of his attendants, directing him to see 
 that quantity sent on board early every morning ; 
 and this order, from that time forwards, was 
 punctually complied with. 
 When this weighty affair was thus in some de- 
 ee regulated, the commodore invited him and 
 is two attendant mandarins to dinner, telling 
 them at the same time, that if his provisions, either 
 in kind or quantity, was not what they might ex- 
 pect, they must thank themselves for having con- 
 lined him to so hard an allowance. One of his 
 dishes was beef, which the Chinese all dislike. 
 
 CTei 
 his 
 
 though Mr. Anson was not apprised of it ; this 
 seems to be derived from the Indian superstition, 
 which for some ages past has made a great progress 
 in China. However, his guests did not entirely 
 fast ; for the three mandarins completely finished 
 the white part of four large fowls. But they were 
 extremely embarrassed with their knives and forks, 
 and were quite incapable of malting use of them : 
 so that, after some fruitless attempts to help them- 
 selves, which were sufficiently awkward, one of the 
 attendants was obliged to cut their meat in smaii 
 pieces for them. But whatever difficulty thej 
 might have in complying with the European manner 
 of eating, they seemed not to be novices in drink 
 ing. The commodore excused himself in this part 
 of tlie entertainment under the pretence of illness, 
 but there being another gentleman present, of a 
 florid and jovial complexion, the chief mandarin 
 clapped him on the shoulder, and told him by the 
 interpreter, tliat certainly he could not plead sick- 
 ness, and therefore insisted on his bearing him 
 company ; and that gentleman perceiving, that 
 after they had despatched four or five bottles of 
 Frontiniafi, the mandarin still continued unruffled, 
 he ordered a bottle of citron-water to be brought 
 up, which the Chinese seemed much to relish ; 
 and this being near finished, they arose from table, 
 in appearance cool and uninfluenced by what they 
 had drunk, and the commodore having, according 
 to custom, made the mandarin a present, they 
 all departed in the same vessels that brought 
 them. 
 
 After their departure the commodore with great 
 impatience expected the resolution of the council, 
 and the necessary licenses for his refitment. For 
 it must be observed, as has already appeared from 
 the preceding narration, that he could neither 
 purchase stores nor necessaries with his money, 
 nor did any land of workmen dare to engage them- 
 selves to work for him, without the permission of 
 the government first obtained. And in the execu- 
 tion of these particular injunctions the magistrates 
 never fail of exercising great severity ; they, not- 
 withstanding the fustian eulogiums bestowed upon 
 them by the catholic missionaries and their Euro- 
 pean copiers, being composed of the same fragile 
 materials with the rest of mankind, and often 
 making use of the authority of the law, not to 
 suppress crimes, but tQ. enrich themselves by the 
 pillage of those who commit them ; for capital 
 punishments are rare in China, the effeminate 
 genius of the nation, and their strong attachment 
 to lucre, disposing them rather to make use of 
 fines ; and hence arises no inconsiderable profit to 
 those who compose their tribunals : consequently 
 prohibitions of all kinds, particularly such as the 
 allm-ing prospect of great profit may often tenipt 
 the subject to infringe, cannot but be favourite 
 institutions in such a government. But to re- 
 turn : 
 
 Some time before this Captain Saunders took 
 his passage to England on board a Swedish ship, 
 and was charged with despatches from the com- 
 modore ; and soon after, in the month of Decem- 
 ber, Captain MitcheL ?Jolonel Cracherode, and 
 Mr. Tassel, one of the agent-victuallers, with his 
 nephew Mr. Charles Harriot, embarked on board 
 some of our Company's ships ; and I, havmg ob- 
 tained the commodore's leave to return home, 
 embarked with them. I must observe too (havinK 
 
 I 
 
 J 
 
112 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 omitted it before) that whilst we lay here at Macao, 
 we were informed by some of the officers of our 
 Indiamen, that the Severn and Pearl, the two ships 
 of our squadron which had separated from us off 
 Cape Noir, were safely arrived at Rio Janeiro on 
 ^the coast of Brazil. I have formerly taken notice 
 that, at the time of their separation, we appre- 
 hended them to be lost. /i.nd there were many 
 reasons which greatly favoured this suspicion: for 
 we knew that the Severn iu particular was ex- 
 tremely sickly ; and this was the more obvious to 
 the rest of the ships, as in the preceding part of 
 the voyage her commander Captain Legge had been 
 remarkable for his exemplary punctuality in keep- 
 ing his station, till, for the last ten days before his 
 separation, his crew was so diminished and en- 
 feebled, that with his utmost efforts it was not 
 possible for him to maintain his proper position 
 with his wonted exactness. The extraordinary 
 sickness on board him was by many imputed to 
 the ship, wliich was new, and on that account was 
 believed to be the more unhealthy ; but whatever 
 was the cause of it, the Severn was by much the 
 most sickly of the squadron : for before her de- 
 parture from St. Catherine's she buried more men 
 than any of them, insomuch that the commodore 
 was obliged to recruit her with a number of fresh 
 hands ; and, the mortality still continuing on board 
 her, she was suppUed with men a second time at 
 sea after our setting sail from St. Julians ; and, 
 notwithstanding these different reinforcements, she 
 was at last reduced to the distressed condition I 
 have already mentioned : so that the commodore 
 himself was firmly persuaded she was lost ; and 
 therefore it was with great joy we received the 
 news of her and the Pearl's safety, after the strong 
 persuasion, which had so long prevailed amongst 
 us, of their having both perished. But to proceed 
 with the transactions between Mr. Anson and the 
 Chinese. 
 
 Notwithstanding the favourable disposition of 
 the mandarin governor of Janson at his leaving 
 Mr. Anson, several days were elapsed before he 
 had any advice from him ; and Mr. Anson was 
 privately informed there were great debates in 
 council upon his affair ; partly perhaps owing to 
 its being so unusual a case, and in part to the 
 influence, as I suppose, of the intrigues of the 
 French at Canton : for they had a countryman 
 and fast friend residing on the spot who spoke the 
 language very well, and was not unacquainted with 
 the venality of the government, nor with the per- 
 sons of several of the magistrates, and consequently 
 could not be at a loss for means of traversing the 
 assistance desired by Mr. Anson. And this oppo- 
 sition of the French was not merely the effect of 
 national prejudice or contrariety of political in- 
 terests, but was in a good measure owing to their 
 vanity, a motive of much more weight with the 
 generality of mankind than any attachment to the 
 public service of their community: for, the French 
 pretending their Indiamen to be men-of-war, their 
 officers were apprehensive that any distinction 
 granted to Mr. Anson, on account of his bearing 
 the king's commission, would render them less 
 considerable in the eyes of the Chinese, and would 
 establish a prepossession at Canton in favour of 
 ships of war, by which they, as trading vessels, 
 would suffer in their importance : and I wish the 
 affectation of endeavouring to pass for men-of-war. 
 
 and the fear of sinking in the estimation of tnu 
 Chinese, if the Centurion was treated in a differem 
 manner from themselves, had been confined to tne 
 officers of the French ships only. However, not- 
 withstanding all these obstacles, it should seem 
 that the representation of the commodore to the 
 mandarins of the facUitjOwith which he could 
 right hknself, if justice were denied him, had at 
 last its effect : for, on the 6th of January, in the 
 morning, the governor of Janson, the commodore's 
 advocate, sent down the viceroy of Canton's 
 warrant for the refitment of the Centurion, and for 
 supplying her people with all they wanted ; and, 
 the next day, a number of Chinese smiths and car- 
 penters went on board, to agree for all the work 
 by the great. They demanded at first to the amount 
 of a, thousand pounds sterling for the necessary 
 repairs of the ship, the boats, and the masts : this 
 the commodore seemed to think an unreasonable 
 sum, and endeavoured to persuade them to work 
 by the day ; but that proposal they would not 
 hearken to ; so it was at last agreed that the car- 
 penters should have to the amount of about six 
 hundred pounds for their work ; and that the 
 smiths shouldbe paid for their iron-work by weight, 
 allowing them at the rate of three pounds a hun^-ed 
 nearly for the small work, and forty-six shillings 
 for the large. 
 
 This being regulated, the commodore exerted 
 himself to get this most important business com- 
 pleted ; I mean the heavmg down the Centurion, 
 and examining the state of her bottom : for this 
 purpose the first lieutenant was despatched to 
 Canton to hire two country vessels, called in their 
 language junks, one of them being intended to 
 heave down by, and the other to serve as a maga- 
 zine for the powder and ammunition : at the same 
 time the ground was smoothed on one of the 
 neighbouring islands, and a large tent was pitched 
 for lodging the lumber and provisions, and near a 
 hundred Chinese caulkers were soon set to work 
 on the decks and sides of the ship. But all these 
 preparations, and the getting ready the careening 
 gear, took up a great deal of time ; for the Chinese 
 caulkers, though they worked very well, were far 
 from being expeditious ; and it was the 26th of 
 January before the junlis arrived ; and the neces- 
 sary materials, which were to be purchased at 
 Canton, came down very slowly ; partly from tho 
 distance of the place, and partly from the delays 
 and backwardness of the Chinese merchants. And 
 in this interval Mr. Anson had the- additional per 
 plexity to discover that his fore-mast was broken 
 asunder above the upper deck partners, and was 
 only kept together by the fishes which had been 
 formerly clapt upon it. 
 
 However, the Centurion's people made the most 
 of their time, and exerted themselves the best 
 they could ; and as, by clearing the ship, the car- 
 penters were enabled to come at the leak, they 
 took care to secure that effectually whilst the 
 other preparations were going forwards. The leak 
 was found to be below the fifteen foot mark, and 
 was principally occasioned by one of the bolts being 
 worn away and loose in the joining of the stem 
 where it was scarfed. " 
 
 At last, all things being prepared, they, on the 
 22nd of February, in the morning, hove out the 
 first course of the Centurion's starboard side, ant 
 had the satisfaction to find that her bottom ^P 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 113 
 
 peored sound and good; and, the next day, (having 
 by that time completed the new sheatliing of the 
 first course) they righted her again to set up anew 
 thecareening rigging, which stretched much. Thus 
 they continued heaving down, and often righting 
 the ship from a suspicion of their careening tackle, 
 till the 3rd of March ; when, having completed the 
 paying and sheathing the bottom, which proved 
 to be everywhere very sound ; they, for the last 
 time, righted the ship, to their great joy ; for not 
 •only the fatigue of careening had been consider- 
 able, but they had been apprehensive of being 
 ^.ttacked by the Spaniards, whilst the ship was 
 thus incapacitated for defence. Nor were their 
 fears altogether groundless ; for they learnt after- 
 wards, by a Portuguese vessel, that the Spaniards 
 a.t Maiiila had been informed that the Centurion 
 was in the Typa, and intended to careen there ; 
 and that thereupon the governor had summoned 
 hi^ council, and had proposed to them to endeavour 
 to burn her whilst she was careening, which was 
 an enterprise which, if properly conducted, might 
 have put them in great danger : they were farther 
 told, that this scheme was not only proposed, but 
 resolved on ; and that a captain of a vessel had 
 actually undertaken to perform the business for 
 forty thousand dollars, which he was not to receive 
 unless he succeeded ; but the governor pretending 
 tliat there was no treasure in the royal chest, and 
 insisting that the merchants should advance the 
 money, and they refusing to comply with the 
 •demand, the affair was dropped : perhaps the 
 merchants suspected that the whole was only a 
 pretext to get forty thousand dollars from them ; 
 and indeed this was affirmed by some who bore 
 the governor no good will, but with what truth it 
 is difficult to ascertain. 
 
 As soon as the Centurion was righted, they took 
 in her powder, and gunner's stores, and proceeded 
 in getting in their guns as fast as possible, and then 
 «sed their utmost expedition in repairing the fore- 
 mast, and in completing the othier articles of her 
 refitment. And being thus employed, they were 
 alarmed, on the 10th of March, by a Chinese fish- 
 erman, who brought them intelligence that he had 
 been on board a large Spanish ship off the Grand 
 Ladrone, and that there were two more in com- 
 pany with her : he added several particulars to 
 his relation ; as that he had brought one of their 
 •officers to Macao ; and that, on this, boats went off 
 early in the morning from Macao to them : and the 
 better to establish the belief of his veracity, he said 
 he desired no money, if his information should not 
 prove true. This was presently believed to be 
 the forementioned expedition from Manila ; and 
 the commodore immediately fitted his cannon and 
 small arms in the best manner he could for defence; 
 and having then his pinnace and cutter in the 
 •offing, which had been ordered to examine a Por- 
 tuguese vessel, which was getting under sail, he 
 sent them the advice he had received, and directed 
 them to look out strictly : but no such ships ever 
 •appeared, and they were soon satisfied the whole 
 ■of the story was a fiction ; though it was difficult 
 to conceive what reason could induce the fellow 
 to be at such extraordinary pams to impose on 
 ^em. 
 
 It was the beginning of April before they had 
 inew-rigged the ship, stowed their provisions and 
 'S'ater on board, and had fitted her for the sea ; 
 
 and before this time the Chinese giiew very uneasy, 
 and extremely desirous that she should be gone ; 
 either not knowing, or pretending not to believe, 
 that this was a point the commodore was as 
 eagerly set on as they could be. On the ."ird of 
 April, two mandarin boats came on board from 
 Macao to urge his departure ; and this having 
 been often done before, though there had been no 
 pretence to suspect Mr. Anson of any affected 
 delays, he at this last message answered them in 
 a determined tone, desiring them to give him no 
 further trouble, for he would go when he thought 
 proper, and not before. On this rebuke the 
 Chinese (though it was not in their power to 
 compel him to be gone) immediately prohibited 
 all provisions from being carried on board him, 
 and took such care that their injunctions should 
 be complied with, that from that time forwards 
 nothing could be purchased at any rate what- 
 ever. 
 
 On the 6th of April, the Centurion weighed 
 from the Typa, and warped to the southward; and, 
 by the 15th, she was got into Macao road, com- 
 pleting her water as she passed along, so that there 
 remained now very few articles more to attend to; 
 and her whole business being finished by the 19th, 
 she, at three in the afternoon of that day, weighed 
 and made sail, and stood to sea. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 From Macao to Cape Espiritu Santo ; the taking of iM 
 Manila gaUeoUt and returning back again. 
 
 The commodore was now got to sea, with his 
 ship very well refitted, his stoi'es replenished, and 
 an additional stock of provisions on board: his 
 crew too was somewhat reinforced ; for he had 
 entered twenty-three men during his stay at 
 Macao, the greatest part of which were Lascars 
 or Indian sailors, and some few Dutch.' He gave 
 out at Macao, that he was bound to Batavia, and 
 thence to England; and though the westerly mon- 
 soon was now set in, when that passage is con- 
 sidered as impracticable, yet, by the confidence 
 he had expressed in the strength of his ship, and 
 the dexterity of his people, he had persuaded not 
 oAly his own crew, but the people at Macao like- 
 wise, that he proposed to try this unusual experi- 
 ment ; so that there were many letters put on 
 board him by the inhabitants of Canton and 
 Macao for their friends at Batavia. 
 
 But his real design was of a very different 
 nature : for he knew, that instead of one annual 
 ship from Acapulco to Manila there would be 
 this year, in all probability, two ; since, by being 
 before Acapulco, he had prevented one of them 
 from putting to sea the preceding sezison. He 
 therefore resolved to cruise for these returning 
 vessels off Ca;pe Espiritu Santo, on the island of 
 Samal, which is the first land they always make 
 in the Philippine Islands. And as June is gene- 
 rally the month in which they arrive there, he 
 doubted not but he should get to his intended 
 
 " 1 The number of men I have now borne i3 two hundred 
 and one, amongst which are included all the officers and 
 boys which I had out of the Gloucester, Tryal prize, and 
 Anna pink, so that I have not before the mast more than 
 forty-five able seamen."— .in»on'i official report. 
 
114 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 station time enough to intercept them. It is true 
 they were said to be stout vessels, mounting forty- 
 four guns a-piece, and carrying above five hundred 
 hands, and might be expected to return in com- 
 pany ; and he himself had but two hundred and 
 twenty-seven hands on board, of which near thirty 
 were boys : but this disproportion of strength did 
 not deter him, as he Imew his ship to be much 
 better fitted for a sea-engagement than theirs, 
 and as he had reason to expect that his men 
 would exert themselves in the most extraordinary 
 manner, when they had in view the immense 
 wealth of these Manila galeons. 
 
 This project the commodore had resolved on in 
 his own thoughts, ever since his leaving the coast 
 of Mexico. And the greatest mortification which 
 he received, from the various delays he had met 
 with in Chma, was his apprehension, lest he might 
 be thereby so long retarded as to let the galleons 
 escape him. Indeed, at Macao it was incumbent 
 on him to keep these views extremely secret ; for 
 there being a great intercourse and a mutual con- 
 nexion of interests between that port and Manila, 
 he had reason to fear, that if his designs were dis- 
 covered, intelligence would be immediately sent to 
 Manila, and measures would be taken to prevent 
 the galleons from falling into his hands : but being 
 now at sea, and entirely clear of the coast, he 
 summoned all his people on the quarter-deck, 
 and informed them of his resolution to cruise for 
 the two Manilla ships, of whose wealth they were 
 not ignorant. He told them he should choose a 
 station, where he could not fail of meeting with 
 them ; and though they were stout ships, and full 
 manned, yet, if his own people behaved with their 
 accustomed spirit, he was certain he should prove 
 too hard for them both, and that one of them at 
 least could not fail of becoming his prize : he 
 further added, that many ridiculous tales had 
 been propagated about the strength of the sides 
 of these ships, and their being impenetrable to 
 cannon-shot ; that these fictions had been princi- 
 pally invented to palliate the cowardice of those 
 who had formerly engaged them ; but he hoped 
 there were none of those present weak enough to 
 give credit to so absurd a story: for his own part, 
 he did assure them upon his word, that, whenever 
 he met with them, he would fight them so near 
 that they should find, his bullets, instead of being 
 stopped by one of then- sides, should go through 
 them both. 
 
 This speech of the cummodore's was received 
 by his people with great joy : for no sooner had 
 he ended, than they expressed their approbation, 
 according to naval custom, by three strenuous 
 cheers, and all declared their determination to 
 succeed or perish, whenever the opportunity pre- 
 sented itself. And now their hopes, whicV since 
 their departure from the coast of Mexico, had 
 entirely subsided, were again revived ; and they 
 all persuaded themselves, that, notwithstanding 
 the various casualties and disappointments they 
 had hitherto met with, they should yet be repaid 
 the price of their fatigues, and should at last return 
 home enriched with the spoils of the enemy : for 
 firmly relying on the assurances of the commodore, 
 that they should certainly meet with the vessels, 
 they were all of them too sanguine to doubt a 
 moment of mastering them ; so that they con- 
 sidered themselves as having them already in 
 
 their possession. And this confidence was so 
 universally spread through the whole ship's com- 
 pany, that, the commodore having taken some 
 Chinese sheep to sea with him for his own pro- 
 vision, and one day inquiring of his butcher, why, 
 for some time past, he had seen no mutton at his 
 table, asking him if all the sheep were killed, the 
 butcher very seriously rephed, that there were 
 indeed two sheep left, but that if his honour 
 would give him leave, he proposed to keep those 
 for the entertainment of the general of the galleons. 
 
 When the Centurion left the port of Macao, she 
 stood for some days to the westward ; and, on the 
 first of May, they saw part of the island of For- 
 mosa ; and, standing thence to the southward, 
 they, on the 4th of May, were in the latitude of 
 the Bashee islands, as laid down by Dampier ; 
 but they suspected his account of inaccuracy, as 
 they found that he had been considerably mistaken 
 in the latitude of the south end of Formosa : for 
 this reason they kept a good look-out, and about 
 seven in the evening discovered from the mast- 
 head five small islands, which were judged to be- 
 the Bashees, and they had afterwards a sight of 
 Botel Tobago Ximo. By this means they had 
 an opportunity of correcting the position of the- 
 Bashee islands, which had been hitherto laid down 
 twenty-five leagues too far to the westward : for 
 by their observations, they esteemed the middle 
 of these islands to be in 21° 4' north, and to bear 
 from Botel Tobago Ximo S.S.E. twenty leagues 
 distant, that island itself being in 21° 57' north. 
 
 After getting a sight of the Bashee islands, they 
 stood between the S. and S.W. for Cape Espiritu 
 Santo ; and, the 20th of May at noon, they first 
 discovered that cape, which about four o'clock 
 they brought to bear S.S.W., about eleven leagues 
 distant. It appeared to be of a moderate height,, 
 with several round hummocks on it. As it was 
 known that there were sentinels placed upon this 
 cape to make signals to the Acapulco ship, when 
 she first falls in with the land, the commodore 
 immediately tacked, and ordered the top-gallant 
 sails to be taken in, to prevent being discovered j 
 and, this being the station in which it was resolved 
 to cruise for the galleons, they kept the cape between 
 the south and the west, and endeavoured to con- 
 fine themselves between the latitude of 12° 50 
 and 13° 5', the cape itself lying, by their observa- 
 tions, in 12° 40' north and in 4° of east longitude 
 from Botel Tobago Ximo. 
 
 It was the last of May, by the foreign style, 
 when they arrived off this cape ; and, the month 
 of June, by the same style, being that in which the 
 Manila ships are usually expected, the Centurion's 
 people were now waiting each hour with the utmost 
 impatience for the happy crisis which was to bal- 
 ance the account of all their past calamities. As 
 from this time there was but small employment 
 for the crew, the commodore ordered them almost 
 every day to be exercised in the management of 
 the great guns, and in the use of their small arms. 
 This had been his practice, more or less, at all 
 convenient seasons during the whole course of his 
 voyage ; and the advantages which he received 
 from it, in his engagement with the galleon, were 
 an ample recompense for all his care and atten- 
 tion. Indeed, it should seem that there are few 
 particulars of a commander's duty of more import- 
 ance than this, how much soever it may hiive 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 115^ 
 
 been sometimes overlooked or misunderstood : 
 for it will, I suppose, be confessed, that in two 
 ships of war, equal in the number of their men 
 and guns, the disproportion of strength, arising 
 from a greater or less dexterity ia the use of their 
 great guns and smaU arms, is what can scarcely 
 be balanced by any other circumstances whatever. 
 For, as these are the weapons with which they are 
 to engage, what greater inequality can there be 
 betwixt two contending parties, than that one 
 side should perfectly understand the use of their 
 weapons, and should have the skill to employ 
 them in the most effectual manner for the annoy- 
 ance of their enemy, while the other side should, 
 by their awkward management of them, render 
 them^ rather terrible to themselves, than mischiev- 
 ous to their antagonists 3 This seems so plain and 
 natural a conclusion, that a, person unacquainted 
 with these affairs would suppose the first care of 
 a commander to be the training his people to the 
 use of their arms. 
 
 But human affairs are not always conducted by 
 the plain dictates of common sense. There are 
 many other principles which influence our trans- 
 actions : and there is one in particular, which 
 though of a very erroneous complexion, is scarcely 
 ever excluded from our most serious deliberations ; 
 1 mean custom, or the practice of those who have 
 preceded us. This is usually a power too mighty 
 for reason to grapple with; and is the most terrible 
 to those who oppose it, as it has much of super- 
 stition in its nature, and pursues all those who 
 question its authority with unrelenting vehemence. 
 However, in these later ages of the world, some 
 lucky encroachments have been made upon its 
 prerogative ; and it may reasonably be hoped, 
 that tie gentlemen of the navy, whose particular 
 profession hath of late been considerably improved 
 by a number of new inventions, will of all others 
 be the readiest to give up those practices which 
 have nothing to plead but prescription, and will 
 not suppose that every branch of their business 
 hath already received all the perfection of which 
 it is capable. Indeed, it must be owned, that if a 
 dexterity in the use of small arms, for instance, 
 bath been sometimes less attended to on board 
 our ships of war, than might have been wished 
 for, it hath been rather owing to unskilful methods 
 of teaching it, than to negligence: for the common 
 sailors, how strongly soever attached to their own 
 prejudices, are very quick-sighted in finding out 
 the defects of others, and have ever shown a great 
 contempt for the formalities practised in the train- 
 ing of land troops to the use of their arms ; but 
 when those who have undertaken to instruct the 
 seamen have contented themselves with incul- 
 cating only what was useful, and that in the sim- 
 plest manner, they have constantly found their 
 people sufficiently docile, and the success hath 
 even exceeded their expectation. Thus on board 
 Mr. Anson's ship, where they were only taught 
 the shortest method of loading with cartridges, 
 and were constantly trained to fire at a mark, 
 which was usually hung at the yard-arm, and 
 where some little reward was given to the most 
 expert, the whole crew, by this management, 
 were rendered extremely skilful, quick in load- 
 ing, all of them good marksmen, and some of 
 them most extraordinary ones ; so that I doubt 
 not but, in the use of small aims, they were more 
 
 than a match for double their number, who had 
 not been habituated to the same kind of exercise. 
 But to return : 
 
 It was the last of May, N.S. as hath been, 
 already said, when the Centurion arrived off Cape- 
 Espiritu Santo ; and consequently the next day 
 began the month in wliieh the galleons were to be- 
 expected. The commodore therefore made all 
 necessary preparations for receiving them, havings 
 hoisted out his long-boat, and lashed her along- 
 aside, that the ship might be ready for engaging, 
 if they fell in with the galleons in the night. AU 
 this time too he was very soUcitous to keep at sucb 
 a distance from the cape, as not to be discovered • 
 but it hath been since learnt, that notwithstanding 
 his care, he was seen from the land ; and advic& 
 of him was sent to Manila, where it was at first dis- 
 believed, but on reiterated intelligence (for it seems- 
 he was seen more than once) the merchants were- 
 alarmed, and the governor was applied to, who- 
 undertook (the commerce supplying the lu eessary 
 sums) to fit out a force consisting oi two ships ef 
 thirty-two guns, one of twenty guns and two sloopit 
 of ten guns, each, to attack the Centurion on hei^ 
 station : and some of these vessels did actually 
 weigh with this view ; but the prmcipal ship not 
 being ready, and the monsoon being against them,.- 
 the commerce and the governor disagreed, and 
 the enterprise was laid aside. This frequent dis- 
 covery of the Centurion from the shore was some- 
 what extraordinary ; for the pitch of the cape is 
 not high, and she usually kept from ten to fifteen 
 leagues distant ; though once indeed, by an in- 
 draught of the tide, as was supposed, they found 
 themselves in the morning within seven leagues 
 of the land. 
 
 As the month of June advanced, the expectancy 
 and impatience of the commodore's people each 
 day increased. And I think no better idea, can 
 be given of their great eagerness on this occasion,, 
 than by copying a few paragraphs from the jour- 
 nal of an officer, who was then on board ; as it 
 will, I prefume, be a more natural picture of the- 
 full attachment of their thoughts to the business 
 of their ci uise, than can be given by any other 
 means. The paragraphs I have selected, as they 
 occur in order of time, are as follow : 
 
 " May 31, Exercising our men at their quarters, 
 in great expectation of meeting with the galleons- 
 very soon ; this being the eleventh of June their 
 style." 
 
 " .June 3, Keeping in our stations, and looking^. 
 out for the galleons." 
 
 " June 5, Begin now to be in great expectation,, 
 this being the middle of June their style." 
 
 "June 11, Begin to grow impatient at not seeing 
 the galleons." 
 
 "June 13, The wind having blown fresh easterly 
 for the forty-eight hours past, gives us great ex- 
 pectations of seeing the galleons soon." 
 
 "June 15, Cruising on and off, and looking out 
 strictly." 
 
 "June 1.9, This being the last day of June, N.S. 
 the galleons, if they arrive at all, must appear 
 soon." 
 
 From these samples it is sufficiently evident,, 
 how completely the treasure of the galleons had 
 engrossed their imagination, and how anxiously 
 they passed the latter part of their cruise, whent> 
 
110 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 •the certainty of the arrival of these vessels was 
 •dwiadled down to probability only, and that pro- 
 bability became each hour more and more doubt- 
 ful. However, on the 20th of June 0. S., being 
 just a month from their arrival on their station, 
 they were relieved from this state of uncertainty ; 
 when, at sun-rise, they discovered a sail from the 
 mast-head, in the S.E. quarter. Ou this, a general 
 joy spread through the whole ship ; for they had 
 no doubt but this was one of the galleons, and they 
 expected soon to see the other. The commodore 
 instantly stood towards her, and at half an hour 
 after seven they were near enough to see her from 
 the Centurion's deck ; at which time the galleon 
 fired a gun, and took in her top-gallant sails, 
 which was supposed to be a signal to her consort, 
 ■to hasten her up ; and therefore the Centurion 
 fired a, gun to leeward, to amuse her. The com- 
 anodore was surprised to find, that in all this time 
 the galleon did not change her course, but con- 
 tinued to bear down upon him ; for he hardly 
 believed, what afterwards appeared to be the case, 
 that she knew his ship to be the Centurion, and 
 resolved to fight him. 
 
 About noon the commodore was little more than 
 .a league distant from the galleon, and could fetch 
 her wake, so that she could not now escape ; and, 
 no second ship appearing, it was concluded that 
 :she had been separated from her consort. Soon 
 ^fter, the galleon hauled up her fore-sail, and 
 ibrought-to under top-sails, with her head to the 
 northward, hoisting Spanish colours, and having 
 the standard of Spain flying at the top-gallant 
 mast-head. Mr. Anson, in the mean time, had 
 jirepared all things for an engagement on board 
 the Centurion, and had taken all possible care, 
 toth for the most effectual exertion of his small 
 istuength, and for the avoiding the confusion and 
 tumult, too frequent in actions of this kind. He 
 picked out about thirty of his choicest hands and 
 I iest marksmen, whom he distributed into his tops, 
 and who fully answered his expectation, by the 
 signal services they performed. As he had not 
 hands enough remaining to quarter a sufficient 
 number to each great gun, in the customary man- 
 ner, he therefore, on his lower tier, fixed only two 
 men to each gun, who were to be solely employed 
 on loading it, whilst the rest of his people were 
 •divided into different gangs of ten and twelve 
 men each, which were constantly moving about 
 ' the decks, to run out and fire such guns as were 
 loaded. By this management he was enabled to 
 make use of all his guns ; and, instead of firing 
 "broadsides with intervals between them, he kept 
 up a constant fire without intermission, whence 
 he doubted not to procure very signal advantages ; 
 for it is common with the Spaniards to fall down 
 >upon the decks when they see a broadside prepar- 
 ing, and to continue in that posture tiU it is given ; 
 after which they rise again, and, presuming the 
 Kjanger to be some time over, work their guns, 
 :and fire with great briskness, till another broad- 
 !side is ready : but the firing gun by gun, in the 
 manner directed by the commodore, rendered this 
 practice of theirs impossible. 
 
 The Centurion being thus prepared, and nearing 
 the galleon apace, there happened, a little after 
 aioon, several squalls of wind and rain, which often 
 •obscured the galleon from their sight ; but when- 
 •«v«r it cleared up, they observed her resolutely 
 
 lying-to ; and, towards one o'clock, the Centurion 
 hoisted her broad pendant and colours, she being 
 then within gun-shot of the enemy. And the 
 commodore observing the Spaniards to have neg- 
 lected clearing their ship till that time, as he then 
 saw them throwing overboard cattle and lumber, 
 he gave orders to fire upon them with the chase- 
 g"ms, to embarrass them in their work, and prevent 
 them from completing it, though his genera! 
 du'ections had been not to engage till they were 
 within pistol-shot. The galleon returned the fire 
 with two of her stern-chasers ; and the Centurion 
 getting her sprit-sail-yard fore and aft, that if 
 necessary she might be ready for boarding ; the 
 Spaniards in a bravado rigged their sprit-sajl-yard 
 fore and aft likewise. Soon after, the Centurion 
 came abreast of tlie enemy within pistol-shot, 
 keeping to the leeward with a view of preventing 
 them from putting before the wind, and gaining 
 the port of Jalapay, from which they were about 
 seven leagues distant. And now the engagement 
 began in earnest, and, for the first half hour, Mr. 
 Anson over-reached the galleon, and lay on her 
 bow ; where, by the great wideness of his ports 
 he could traverse almost all his guns upon the 
 enemy, whilst the galleon could only bring a part 
 of hers to bear. Immediately on the commence- 
 ment of the action, the mats, with which the gal- 
 leon had stuffed her netting, took fire, and burnt 
 violently, blazing up half as high as the mizen- 
 top. This accident (supposed to be caused by the 
 Centurion's wads) threw the enemy into great 
 confusion, and at the same time alarmed the 
 commodore, for he feared lest the galleon should 
 be burnt, and lest he himself too might suffer by 
 her driving on board him : but the Spaniards at 
 last freed themselves from the fire, by cutting 
 away the netting, and tumbling the whole mass 
 which was in flames, into the sea. But still the 
 Centurion kept her first advantageous position, 
 firing her cannon with great regularity and brisk- 
 ness, whilst at the same time the galleon's decks 
 lay open to her top-men, who, having at their first 
 volley driven the Spaniards from their tops, made 
 prodigious havoc with their small arms, killing 
 or wounding every officer but one that ever 
 appeared on the quarter-deck, and wounding in 
 particular the general of the galleon himself. And 
 though the Centurion, after the first half hour, 
 lost her original situation, and was close along- 
 side the galleon, and the enemy continued to fire 
 briskly for near an hour longer, yet at last the 
 commodore's grape-shot swept their decks so 
 effectually, and the number of their slain and 
 wounded was so considerable, that they began to 
 fall into great disorder, especially as the general, 
 who was the life of the action, was no longer 
 capable of exerting himself. Their embarrassment 
 was visible from on board the commodore. For 
 the ships were so near, that some of the Spanish 
 officers were seen running about with great assi- 
 duity, to prevent the desertion of their men from 
 their quarters : but all their endeavours were in 
 vain ; for after having, as a last effort, fired five 
 or six guns with more judgment than usual, they 
 {,'ave up the contest ; and, the galleon's colours 
 being singed off the ensign-staff in the beginning 
 of the engagement, she struck the standard at her 
 main-top-gaJlant mast-head, the person who vnii 
 employed to do it having been in imminent peril 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WORLD. 
 
 117 
 
 of being killed, had not the commodore, who per- 
 ceived what he was about, given express orders to 
 his people to desist from firing. 
 
 Thus was the Centurion possessed of this rich 
 prize, amounting in value to near a million and a 
 half of dollars. She was called the Nostra Signora 
 de Cabadonga, and was commanded by the gene- 
 ral Don Jeronimo de Montero, a Portuguese by 
 birth, and the most approved officer for skill and 
 courage of any employed in that service. The 
 galleon was much larger then the Centurion, had 
 five hundred and fifty men and thirty-six guns 
 mounted for action, besides twenty-eight pidreroes 
 in her gunwale, quarters and tops, each of which 
 carried a four-pound ball. She was very well fur- 
 nished with small-arms, and was particularly pro- 
 vided against boarding, both by her close quarters, 
 and by a strong net-work of two inch rope, which 
 was laced over her waist, and was defended by 
 half pikes. She had sixty -seven killed in the 
 action, and eighty-four wounded, whilst the Cen- 
 turion had only two killed, and a lieutenant and 
 sixteen wounded, all of whom, but one, recovered: 
 of so little consequence are the most destructive 
 arms in untutored and unpractised hands ! 
 
 The treasure thus taken by the Centurion having 
 been for at least eighteen months the great object 
 of their hopes, it is impossible to describe the trans- 
 port on board, when, after all their reiterated dis- 
 appointments, they at last saw their wishes accom- 
 plished. But their joy was near being suddenly 
 damped by a most tremendous incident : for no 
 sooner had the galleon struck, than one of the 
 lieutenants coming to Mr. Anson to congratulate 
 him on his prize, whispered him at the same time, 
 that the Centurion was dangerously on fire near 
 the powder-room. The commodore received this 
 dreadful news without any apparent emotion, and, 
 taking care not to alarm his people, gave the 
 necessary orders for extinguishing it, which was 
 happily done in a short time, though its appearance 
 at first was extremely terrible. It seems some 
 cartridges had been blown up by accident between 
 decks, whereby a quantity of oakum in tlie after- 
 hatchway, near the after powder-room, was set 
 on fire ; and the great smother and smoke of the 
 oakum occasioned the apprehension of a more ex- 
 tended and mischievous fire. At the same instant, 
 too, the galleon fell on board the Centurion on the 
 starboard quarter, but she was cleared without 
 doing or receiving any considerable damage. 
 
 The commodore made his first lieutenant, Mr. 
 Samnarez, captain of this prize, appointing her a 
 post-ship in his Majesty's service. Captain Sau- 
 marez, before night, sent on board the Centurion 
 all the Spanish prisoners, but such as were thought 
 the most proper to be retained to assist in naviga- 
 ting the galleon. And now the commodore learnt, 
 from some of these prisoners, that the other ship, 
 which he had kept in the port of Acapulco the pre- 
 ceding year, instead of returning in company with 
 the present prize as was expected, had set sail 
 from Acapulco alone much sooner than usual, and 
 had, in all probability, got into the port of Manila 
 long before the Centurion arrived off' Espiritu 
 Santo ; so that Mr. Anson, notwithstanding his 
 present success, had great reason to regret his loss 
 of time at Macao, which prevep*'-' '>>m from taking 
 two rich prizes instead of one. 
 
 The commodore, when the action was ended. 
 
 resolved to make the best of his way with hi» 
 prize for the river of Canton, being in the mean 
 time fully employed in securing his prisoners, and 
 in removing the tre^-aure from on board the galleon 
 into the Centurion. ^The last of these operations 
 was too important to be postponed; for as the 
 navigation to Canton was through seas but little 
 known, and where, from the season of the year, 
 much bad weather might be expected, it was of 
 great consequence that the treasure should be sent 
 on board the Centurion, which ship, by the presence 
 of the commander-in-chief, the greater number of 
 her hands, and her other advantages, was doubt- 
 less much safer agamst all the casualties of winds 
 and seas than the galleon : and the securing th& 
 prisoners was a matter of still more consequence, 
 as not only the possession of the treasure, but the- 
 lives of the captors, depended thereon. This was 
 indeed an article which gave the commodore much 
 trouble and disquietude ; for they were above- 
 double the number of his own people ; and some 
 of them, when they were brought on board the 
 Centurion, and had observed how slenderly she 
 was manned, and the large proportion which the 
 striplings bore to the rest, could not help express- 
 ing themselves with great indignation, to be thus 
 beaten by a handful of boys. The method which 
 was taken to hinder them from rising, was by 
 placing all but the officers and the wounded in the- 
 hold, where, to give them as much air as possible, 
 two hatchways were left open ; but then (to avoid 
 all danger whilst the Centurion's people should be 
 employed upon the deck) there was a square par- 
 tition of thick planks, made in the shape of a funnel, 
 which enclosed each hatch-way on the lower deck, 
 and reached to that du-ectly over it on the upper- 
 deck ; these funnels served to communicate the 
 air to the hold better than could have been done 
 without them ; and, at the same time, added greatly 
 to the security of the ship ; for they being seven 
 or eight feet high, it would have been extremely 
 difficult for the Spaniards to have clambered up ; 
 and still to augment that difficulty, four swivel- 
 gnns, loaded with musket-bullets, were planted at 
 the mouth of each funnel, and a sentinel with a 
 lighted match constantly attended, prepared to 
 fire into the hold amongst them, in case of any 
 disturbance. Their officers, who amounted to 
 seventeen or eighteen, were all lodged in the first 
 lieutenant's cabin, under a constant guard of six 
 men ; and the general, as he was wounded, lay in 
 the commodore's cabin with a sentinel always with 
 him ; and they were all informed, that any violence 
 or disturbance would be punished with instant 
 death. And that the Centurion's people might be 
 at all times prepared, if, notwithstanding these 
 regulations, any tumult should arise, the small 
 arms were constantly kept loaded in a proper 
 place, whilst all the men went armed with cutlasses 
 and pistols; and no officer ever pulled off his 
 clothes, and when he slept had always his arms 
 lying ready by him. 
 
 These measures were obviously necessary, con- 
 sidering the hazards to which the commodore and 
 his people would have been exposed, had they been 
 less careful. Indeed, the sufferings of the poor 
 prisoners, though impossible to be alleviated, were 
 much to be commiserated; for the weather was 
 extremely hot, the stench of the hold loathsome, 
 beyond aU conception, and their allowance of wate 
 
.118 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 l)ut just suiEcient to keep them alive, it not being 
 ■practicable to spare them more than at the rate 
 of a pint a day for each, the crew themselves 
 having only an allowance of a pint and a half. 
 All this considered, it was wonderful that not a 
 man of them died during their long confinement, 
 •except three of the wounded, who died the same 
 .night they were taken: though it must be confessed, 
 that the greatest part of them were strangely me- 
 tamorphosed by the heat of the hold ; for when they 
 were first taken, they were sightly, robust fellows ; 
 but when, after above a month's imprisonment, 
 they were discharged in the river of Canton, they 
 were reduced to mere skeletons; and their air 
 and looks con-esponded much more to the concep- 
 tion formed of ghosts and spectres, than to the 
 figure and appearance of real men. 
 
 Thus employed in securing the treasure and the 
 prisoners, the commodore, as hath been said, stood 
 for the river of Canton ; and, on the 30th of June, 
 at six in the evening, got sight of Cape Delangano, 
 which then bore west ten leagues distant; and 
 the next day he made the Bashee islands, and the 
 wind being so far to the northward, that it was 
 -difficult to weather them, it was resolved to stand 
 through between Grafton and Monmouth islands, 
 where the passage seemed to be clear ; but in 
 getting through, the sea had a very dangerous 
 aspect, for it rippled and foamed, as if it had been 
 full of breakers, wliich was still more terrible, as 
 it was then night. But the ships got through 
 very safe (the prize always keeping a-head), and 
 itwas found thattheappearance which had alarmed 
 them had been occasioned only by a strong tide. 
 I must here observe, that though the Bashee islands 
 are usually reckoned to be no more than five, yet 
 there are many more lying about them to the west- 
 ward, which, as the channels amongst them are 
 not at all known, makes it advisable for ships 
 rather to pass to the northward or southward, than 
 through them; and indeed the commodore pro- 
 posed to have gone to the northward, between 
 them and Formosa, liad it been possible for him 
 to have weathered them. From hence the Cen- 
 turion steering the proper course for the river of 
 Canton, she, on the 8th of July, discovered the 
 island of Supata, the westernmost of the Lema 
 islands, being the double-peaked rock, formerly 
 referred to. This island of Supata they made 
 to be a hundred and thirty-nine leagues distant 
 from Grafton's island, and to bear from it north 
 82° 37' west: and, on the 11th, having taken on 
 board two Chinese pilots, one for the Centurion, 
 and the other for the prize, they came to an anchor 
 off the city of Macao. 
 
 By this time the particulars of the cargo of the 
 galleon were well ascertained, and it was found 
 that she had on board 1,313,843 pieces of eight, 
 and 35,682 oz. of virgin silver, besides some cochi- 
 neal, and a few other commodities, which, however, 
 were but of small account, in comparison of the 
 specie. $ And this being the commodore's last prize, 
 it hence appears, that all the treasure taken by the 
 Centurion was not much short of 400,000/. inde- 
 pendent of the ships and merchandise, which she 
 ■either burnt or destroyed, and which, by the most 
 reasonable estimation, could not amount to so 
 Jittle as 600,000?. more : so that the whole loss of 
 the enemy, by our squadron, did doubtless exceed 
 a million sterling. To which, if there be added 
 
 the great expense of the court of Spain, in fitting 
 out Pizarro, and m paying the additional cha?ges 
 in America, incurred on our account, together 
 with the' loss of their men-of-war, the total of all 
 these articles will be a most exorbitant sum, and 
 is the strongest conviction of the utility of tha 
 expedition, which, with all its numerous disadvan- 
 tages, did yet prove so extremely prejudicial to 
 the enemy. I shall only add, that there were 
 taken on board the galleon several draughts and 
 journals, from some of which many of the parti- 
 culars recited in the 10th chapter of the second 
 book are collected. Among the rest there was 
 found a chart of all the ocean, between the Philip- 
 pine and the coast of Mexico, which was what 
 was made use of by the galleon in her own navi- 
 gation. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Transactions in the river of Canton. 
 
 The commodore having taken pilots on board, 
 proceeded with his prize for the river of Canton ; 
 and, on the 14th of July, came to an anchor short 
 of the Bocca Tigris, which is a narrow passage 
 forming the mouth of that river: this entrance he 
 proposed to stand through the next day, and to 
 run up as far as Tiger Island, which is a very safe 
 road, secured from all winds. But whilst the 
 Centurion and her prize were thus at anchor, a 
 boat with an officer came off from the mandarin, 
 commanding the forts at Bocca Tigris to examine 
 what the ships were, and whence they came. 
 Mr. Anson informed the officer, that his ship was 
 a ship of war, belonging to the king of Great 
 Britain ; and that the other in company with him 
 was a prize he had taken ; that he was going into 
 Canton river to shelter himself against the hur- 
 ricanes which were then coming on ; and that as 
 soon as the monsoon shifted, he should proceed 
 for England. The officer then desired an account 
 of what men, guns, and ammunition were on board, 
 a list of all which he said was to be sent to the 
 government of Canton. But when these articles 
 were repeated to him, particularly when he was 
 told that there were in the Centurion four hundred 
 firelocks, and between three and four hundred 
 barrels of powder, he shrugged up his shoulders, 
 and seemed to be terrified with the bare recital, 
 saying, that no ships ever came into Canton river 
 armed in that manner ; adding, that he durst not 
 set down the whole of this force, lest it should 
 too much alarm the regency. After he had 
 finished his inquiries, and was preparing to depart, 
 he desired to leave two custom-house officers behind 
 him; on which the commodore told him, that 
 though as a man-of-war he was prohibited from 
 trading, and had nothing to do wit5,^;ustoms or 
 duties of any kind, yet, for the satisfaction of the 
 Chinese, he would permit two of their people to be 
 left ou board, who might themselves be witnesses 
 how punctually he should comply with his mstrue- 
 tions. The officer seemed amazed when Mr. Anson 
 mentioned being exempted from all duties, and told 
 him, that the emperor's duty must be paid by all 
 ships that came into his ports : and it is supposed, 
 that on this occasion, private directions were given 
 by him to the Chinese pilot, not to carry the com- 
 modore through the Bocca Tigris; which make" 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 119 
 
 it necessary, more particularly, to describe that 
 entrance. 
 
 The Bocca Tigris is a narrow passage, little more 
 than musket-shot over, formed by two points of 
 land, on each of which there is a fort, that on the 
 -Starboard side being a battery on the water's edge, 
 with eighteen embrasures, but where there were 
 no more than twelve iron cannon mounted, seem- 
 ing to be four or six pounders;; the fort on the 
 larboard side is a large castle, resembling those 
 old buildings which here in England we often 
 find distinguished by that name ; it is situated on 
 a high rock, and did not appear to be furnished 
 with more tlian eight or ten cannon, none of which 
 were supposed to exceed six-pounders. These 
 are the defences which secure the river of Can- 
 ton ; and which the Chinese (extremely defective 
 in all military skill) have imagined were suifi- 
 <:ient to prevent any enemy from forcing his way 
 through. 
 
 But it is obvious, from the description of these 
 forts, that they could have given no obstruction to 
 Mr. Anson's passage, even if they had been well 
 supplied with gunners and stores ; and therefore, 
 though the pilot, after the Chinese officer had been 
 on board, refused at first to take charge of the 
 ship, till he had leave from the forts, yet as it was 
 necessary to get through without any delay, for 
 fear of the bad weather which was hourly expected, 
 the commodore weighed on the 15th, and ordered 
 the pilot to carry him by the forts, threatening him 
 that, if the ship ran aground, he would instantly 
 hang him up at the yard-arm. The pilot, awed 
 by these threats, carried the ship through safely 
 the forts not attempting to dispute the passage. 
 Indeed the poor pilot did not escape the resent- 
 ment of his countrymen, for when he came ^n 
 shore, he was seized and sent to prison, and was 
 rigorously disciplined with the bamboo. However, 
 he foimd means to get at Mr. Anson afterwards, 
 to desire of him some recompense for the chastise- 
 ment he had undergone, and of which he then 
 carried very significant marks about him; and 
 Mr. Anson, in commiseraftion of his sufierings, 
 gave him such a sum of money, as would at any 
 time have enticed a Chinese to have undergone a 
 dozen bastinadings. 
 
 Nor was the pilot the only person that suffered 
 on this occasion ; for the commodore soon after 
 seeing some royal junks pass by him from Bocca 
 Tigris towards Canton, he learnt, on inquiry, that 
 the mandarin commanding the forts was a pri- 
 soner on board them ; that he was already turned 
 out, and was now carrying to Canton, where it 
 was expected he would be severely punished for 
 having permitted the ships to pass; and the 
 commodore urging the unreasonableness of this 
 procedure, from the inability of the forts to have 
 done otherwise, explaining to the Chinese the 
 great superiority his ships would have had over 
 the forts, by the number and size of their guns, 
 the Chinese seemed to acquiesce in his reasoning, 
 and allowed that their forts could not have stopped 
 him ; but they still asserted, that the mandarin 
 would infallibly suffer, for not having done, what 
 all hit judges were convinced, was impossible. 
 To such indefensible absurdities are those obliged 
 to submit, who think themselves concerned to 
 support their authority, when the necessary ibrce 
 is wanting. But to return : 
 
 On tlie 1 6th of July the commodore sent hig 
 second lieutenant to Canton, with a letter to the 
 viceroy, informing him of the reason of the Cen- 
 turion's putting into tliat port ; and that the 
 commodore himself soon proposed to repair to 
 Canton, to pay a visit to the viceroy. The lieu- 
 tenant was very civilly received, and was promised 
 that an answer should be sent to the commodore 
 the next day. In the mean time Mr. Anson gave 
 leave to several of the officers of the galleon to go 
 to Canton, they engaging their parole to return 
 in two days. When these prisoners got to Canton, 
 the regency sent for them, and examined them, 
 inquiring particularly by what means they had 
 fallen into Mr. Anson's power. And on this 
 occasion the prisoners were honest enough to 
 declare, that as the kings of Great Britain and of 
 Spain were at war, they had proposed to them- 
 selves the taking of the Centurion, and had bore 
 down upon her with that view, but that the event 
 had been contrary to their hopes : however, they 
 acknowledged that they had been treated by the 
 commodore, much better than they beUeved they 
 should have treated him, had he fallen into their 
 hands. This confession from an enemy had great 
 weight with the Chinese, who, till then, though 
 they had revered the commodore's power, had 
 yet suspected his morals, and had considered him 
 rather as a lawless freebooter, than as one com- 
 missioned by the state for the revenge of public 
 injuries. But they now changed their opinion, 
 and regarded him as a more important person ; to 
 which perhaps the vast treasure of his prize 
 might not a little contribute ; the acquisition of 
 wealth being a matter greatly adapted to the 
 estimation and reverence of the Chinese nation. 
 
 In this examination of the Spanish prisoners, 
 though the Chinese had no reason in the main to 
 doubt of the account which was given them, yet 
 there were two circumstances which appeared to 
 them so singular,- as to deserve a more ample 
 explanation; one of them was the great dispro- 
 portion of men between the Centurion and the 
 galleon ; the other wa sthe humanity, with which 
 the people of the galleon were treated after they 
 were taken. The mandarins therefore asked 
 the Spaniards, how they came to be overpowered 
 by so inferior a force ; and how it happened, since 
 the two nations were at war, that they were not 
 put to death when they came into the hands of 
 the English. To the first of these inquiries the 
 Spaniards replied, that though they had more 
 hands than the Centurion, yet she being intended 
 solely for war, had a great superiority in the size 
 of her guns, and in many other articles, over the 
 galleon, which was a vessel fitted out principally 
 for traffic : and as to the second question, they 
 told the Chinese, that amongst the nations of 
 Europe, it was not customary to put to death 
 those who submitted ; though they readily owned, 
 that the commodore, from the natural bias of his 
 temper, had treated both them and their country- 
 men, who had formerly been in his power, with 
 very unusual courtesy, much beyond what they 
 could have expected, or than was required by the 
 customs established between nations at war with 
 each other. These replies fully satisfied the 
 Chinese, and at the same time wrought very 
 powerfully in the commodore's favour. 
 
 On the 20th of July, in the morning, three 
 
120 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 mandarins, with a great number of boats, and a 
 vast retinue, came on board the Centurion, and 
 delivered to the commodore the viceroy of Canton's 
 order for a daily supply of provisions, and for 
 pilots to carry the ships up the river as far as the 
 second bar ; and at th same time they delivered 
 him a message from t ip viceroy, in answer to the 
 letter sen t to Canti.a. The substance of the mes- 
 sage was, that the viceroy desired to be excused 
 from receiving the commodore's visit, during the 
 then excessive hot weather ; because the assem- 
 bling the mandarins and soldiers, necessary to 
 that ceremony, would p]?ove extremely incon- 
 venient and fatiguing ; but that in September, 
 when the weather would be more temperate, he 
 should be glad to see both the commodore himself, 
 and the English captain of the other ship that 
 was with him. As Mr. Anson knew that an 
 express had been despatched to the court at Pekin, 
 with an account of the Centurion and her prize 
 being arrived in the river of Canton, he had no 
 doubt but the principal motive for putting off 
 this visit was, that the regency at Canton might 
 gain time to receive the emperor's instructions, 
 about their behaviour in this unusual affair. 
 
 When the mandarins had delivered their 
 message, they began to talk to the commodore 
 about the duties to be paid by his ships ; but he 
 immediately told them, that he would never submit 
 to any demand of that kind ; that as he neither 
 brought any merchandise thither, nor intended to 
 carry any away, he could not be reasonably deemed 
 to be within the meaning of the emperor's orders, 
 which were doubtless calculated for trading vessels 
 only ; adding, that no duties were ever demanded 
 of men-of-war, by nations accustomed to their 
 reception, and that his master's orders expressly 
 forbade him from paying any acknowledgment for 
 his ships anchoring in any port whatever. 
 
 The mandarins being thus cut short on the 
 subject of the duty, they said they had another 
 matter to mention, which was the only remaining 
 one they had in charge ; this was a request to 
 the commodore, that he would release the pri- 
 soners he had taken on board the galleon ; for that 
 the viceroy of Canton apprehended the emperor, 
 his master, might be displeased, if he should be 
 informed, that persons, who were his allies, and 
 carried on a great commerce with his subjects, 
 were under confinement in his dominions. Mr. 
 Anson was himself extremely desirous to get rid 
 of the Spaniards, having, on his first arrival, sent 
 about a hundred of them to Macao, and those 
 who remained, which were near four hundred 
 more, were on many accounts, a great incum- 
 brance to him. However, to inhance the favour, 
 he at first raised some diificulties ; but permitting 
 himself to be prevailed on, he at last told the 
 mandarins, that to show his readiness to oblige 
 the viceroy, he would release the prisoners, 
 whenever they, the Chinese, would send boats to 
 fetch them off'. This matter being thus adjusted, 
 the mandarins departed ; and, on the 28th of 
 Julji, two Chinese junks were sent from Canton, 
 to take on board the prisoners, and to carry them 
 to Macao. And the commodore, agreeably to his 
 promise, dismissed them all, and ordered his 
 purser to send with them eight days' provision for 
 their subsistence, during their sailing down the 
 river ; this being despatched, the Centurion and 
 
 her prize came to her moorings, about the second 
 bar, where they proposed to continue till the 
 monsoon shifted. 
 
 Though the ships, in consequence of the vice- 
 roy's permit, found no difficulty in piu'ohasing 
 provisions for their daily consumption, yet it was 
 impossible for the commodore to proceed to Eng- 
 land, wiihdut laying in a large quantity both of 
 provisions and stores for his use, during the 
 voyage : the procuring this supply was attended 
 with much embarrassment ; for there were people 
 at Canton who had undertaken to furnish him 
 with biscuit, and whatever else he wanted ; and 
 his linguist, towards the middle of September, 
 had assured him, from day to day, that all was 
 ready, and would be sent on board him imme- 
 diately. But a fortnight being elapsed, and nothing 
 being brought, the commodore sent to Canton to 
 inquire more particularly into the reasons of this 
 disappointment : and he had soon the vexation to 
 be informed, that the whole was an illusion ; that 
 no order had been procured from the viceroy, to 
 furnish him with his sea-stores, as had been pre- 
 tended ; that there was no biscuit baked, nor any 
 one of the articles in readiness, which had been 
 promised him ; nor did it appear, that the eon- 
 tractors had taken the least step to comply with 
 their agreement. This was most disagreeable 
 news, and made it suspected, that the furnishing 
 the Centurion for her return to Great Britain 
 might prove a more troublesome matter than had 
 been hitherto imagined ; especially, too, as the 
 month of September was nearly elapsed, without 
 Mr. Anson's having received any message from 
 the viceroy of Canton. 
 
 And here perhaps it might be expected that 
 some satisfactory account should be given of the 
 motives of the Chinese for this faithless procedure. 
 But as I have already, in a former chapter, made 
 some kind of conjectures about a similar event, I 
 shall not repeat them again in this place, but shall 
 observe, that after all, it may perhaps be im- 
 possible for a European, ignorant of the customs 
 and manners of that nation, to be fully apprised 
 of the real incitements to this behaviour. Indeed, 
 thus much may undoubtedly be asserted, that in 
 artifice, falsehood, and an attachment to all kinds 
 of lucre, many of the Chinese are difficult to be 
 paralleled by any other people; but then the 
 combination of these talents, and the manner in 
 which they are applied in particular emergencies, 
 are often beyond the reach of a foreigner's pene- 
 tration ; so that though it may be safely concluded, 
 that the Chinese had some interest in thus amusing 
 the commodore, yet it may not be easy to assign 
 the individual views by which they were influ- 
 enced. And that I may not be thought too severe 
 in ascribing to this nation a fraudulent and selfish 
 turn of temper, so contradictory to the character 
 given of them in the legendary accounts of the 
 Roman missionaries, I shall here mention an ex- 
 traordinary transaction or two, which I hope will 
 be some kind of confirmation of what I have 
 advanced. 
 
 When the commodore lay first at Macao, one 
 of his officers, who had been extremely ill, desired 
 leave of him to go on shore every day on a neigh- 
 bouring island, imagining that a walk upon the 
 land would contribute greatly to the restormg oi 
 his health : the commodore would have dissuaded 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 121 
 
 him, suspecting the tricks of the Chinese, but the 
 officer contiuuing importunate, in the end the 
 Ijoat was ordered to carry Km. The first day he 
 was put on shore he took his exercise, and re- 
 tui-ned without receiving any molestation, or even 
 seeing any of the inhabitants ; but the second day, 
 he was assaulted, soon after his arrival, by a 
 great number of Chinese who had been hoeing 
 lice in the neighbourhood, and who beat him so 
 violently with the handles of their hoes, that they 
 soon laid him on the ground incapable of resist- 
 ance ; after which they robbed him, taking from 
 him his sword, the hilt of which was silver, his 
 money, his watch, gold-headed cane, snuff-box, 
 sleeve-buttons and hat, with several other trinkets: 
 in the mean time the boat's crew, who were at 
 some Uttle distance, and had no arms of any kind 
 with them, were incapable of giving him any 
 assistance ; till at last one of them flew on the 
 fellow who had the sword in his possession, and 
 wresting it out of his hands drew it, and with it 
 was preparing to fall on the Chinese, some of 
 whom he could not have failed of killing ; but the 
 officer, perceiving what he was about, immediately 
 ordered him to desist, thinking it more prudent 
 to submit to the present violence, than to embroil 
 his commodore in an inextricable squabble with 
 the Chinese government, by the death of their 
 subjects ; which calmness in this gentleman was 
 the more meritorious, as he was known to be a 
 person of an uncommon spirit, and of a somewhat 
 hasty temper: by this means the Chinese reeo- 
 vei'ed the possession of the sword, which they 
 soon perceived was prohibited to be made use of 
 against them, and carried off their whole booty 
 unmolested. No sooner were they gone, than a 
 Chinese on horseback, very well dressed, and who 
 had the air and appearance of a gentleman, came 
 down to the shore, and, as far as could be under- 
 stood by his signs, seemed to censure the conduct 
 of his countrymen, and to commiserate the officer, 
 being wonderfully officious to assist in getting him 
 on board the boat : but notwithstanding this be- 
 havioiu', it was shrewdly suspected that he was 
 an accomplice in the theft, and time fully evinced 
 the justice of those suspicions. 
 
 When the boat returned on board, and reported 
 what had passed to the commodore, he imme- 
 diately complained of it to the mandarin, who 
 attended to see his ship supplied ; but the man- 
 darin coolly replied, that the boat ought not to 
 have gone on shore, promising, however, that if 
 the thieves could be found out, they should be 
 punished ; though it appeared plain enough, by 
 his manner of answering, that he would never 
 give himself any trouble in searching them out. 
 However, a considerable time afterwards, when 
 some Chinese boats were selling provisions to the 
 Centurion, the person who had wrested the sword 
 from the Chinese came with great eagerness to 
 the commodore, to assure him that one of the 
 principal thieves was then in a provision-boat 
 along-side the ship ; and the officer, who had 
 been robbed, viewing the fellow on this report, 
 and well remembering his face, orders were im- 
 mediately given to seize him ; and he waa accor- 
 dingly secured on board the ship, where strange 
 discoveries were now made. 
 
 This thief, on his being first apprehended, ex- 
 pressed so much fright in liis couutenance, that it 
 
 was feared he would have died upon the spot ; the 
 mandai'in too, who attended the ship, had visibly 
 no small share of concern on the occasion. Indeed 
 he had reason enough to be alarmed, since it was 
 soon evinced that he had been privy to the whole 
 robbei-y ; for the commodore declaring that he 
 would not deliver up the thief, but would himself 
 order him to be shot, the mandarin immediately 
 put off the magisterial air, with which he had at 
 first pretended to demand him, and begged his 
 release in the most abject manner : and the com- 
 modore appearing inflexible, there came on board, 
 in less than two hours' time, five or six of the 
 neighbouring mandarins, who all joined in the 
 same intreaty, and, with a view of facilitating their 
 suit, offered a large sum of money for the fellow's 
 liberty. Whilst they were thus soliciting, it was 
 discovered that the mandarin who was the most 
 active amongst them, and who seemed to be most 
 interested in the event, was the very gentleman 
 who came to the officer, just after the robbery, 
 and who pretended to be so much displeased with 
 the villany of his countrymen. And, on further 
 inquiry it was found that he was the mandarin of 
 the island ; and that he had, by the authority of 
 his office, ordered the peasants to commit that 
 infamous action. And it seemed, as far as could 
 be collected from the broken hints which were 
 casually thrown out, that he and his brethren, who 
 were all privy to the transaction, were terrified 
 with the fear of being called before the tribunal at 
 Canton, where the first article of their punishment 
 would be the stripping them of all they were worth j 
 though their judges (however fond of inflicting a 
 chastisement so lucrative to themselves) were per- 
 haps of as tainted a complexion as the delinquents, 
 Mr. Anson was not displeased to have caught the 
 Chinese in this dilemnv.* ; and he entertained him- 
 self for some time with their perplexity, rejecting 
 their money with scorn, appearing inexorable to 
 their prayers, and giving out that the thief should 
 certainly be shot ; but as he then foresaw that he 
 should be forced to take shelter in their ports a 
 second time, when the influence he might hereby 
 acquire over the magistrates would be of great 
 service to him, he at length permitted himself to 
 be persuaded, and as a favour released his prisoner, 
 but not till the mandarin had collected and returned 
 all that had been stolen from the officer, even to 
 the minutest trifle. 
 
 But notwithstanding this instance of the good 
 intelUgenee between the magistrates and criminals, 
 the strong addiction of the Chinese to lucre often 
 prompts them to bijak through this awful con- 
 federacy, and puts them on defrauding the autho- 
 rity that protects them of its proper quota of the 
 pillage. For not long after the above-mentioned 
 transaction (the former mandarin, attendant on 
 the ship, being, in the meantime, relieved by an- 
 other), the commodore lost a topmast from his 
 stern, which, after the most diUgent inquiry, could 
 not be traced : and as it was not his own, but had 
 been borrowed at Macao to heave down by, and 
 was not to be replaced in that part of the world, 
 he was extremely desirous to recover it, and pub- 
 lished a considerable reward to any who would 
 bring it him again. There were suspicions from 
 the first of its being stolen, which made him con- 
 clude a reward was the likeliest method of getting 
 it back : accordingly, soon after, the mandarin told 
 I 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 him that some of his, the mandarin's, people had 
 found the topmast, desiring the commodore to send 
 his boats to fetch it, which heing done, the man- 
 darin's people received the promised reward ; but 
 the commodore told the mandarin that he would 
 make him a present besides for the care he had 
 taken in directing it to be searched for ; and ac- 
 cordingly Mr. Anson gave a sum of money to his 
 Unguist, to be delivered to the mandarin ; but the 
 linguist Imowing that the people had been paid, 
 and ignorant that a further present had been pro- 
 mised, kept the money himself : however, the 
 mandarin fully confiding in Mr. Anson's word, and 
 suspecting the linguist, he took occasion, one morn- 
 iji"', to admire the size of the Centurion's masts, 
 and thence, on a pretended sudden recollection, 
 he made a digression to the topmast which had 
 been lost, and asked Mr. Anson if he had not got 
 it again. Mr. Anson presently perceived the bent 
 of this conversation, and inquired of him if he had 
 not received the money from the linguist, and 
 finding he had not, he offered to pay it him upon 
 the spot. But this the mandarin refused, having 
 now somewhat more in view than the sum which 
 had been detained : for the next day the linguist was 
 seized, and was doubtless mulcted of all he had 
 gotten in the commodore's service, which was sup- 
 posed to be little less than two thousand dollars ; 
 he was besides so severely bastinadoed with the 
 bamboo, that it was with diiSculty he escaped with 
 his life ; and when he was upbraided by the com- 
 modore (to whom he afterwards came begging) 
 with his folly, in risking all he had suffered for 
 fifty dollars, (the present intended for the man- 
 darin) he had no other excuse to make than the 
 strong bias of his nation to dishonesty ; replying, 
 in his broken jargon, " Chinese man very great 
 rogue truly, but have fashion, no can help" 
 
 It were endless to recount all the artifices, ex- 
 tortions, and frauds which were practised on the 
 commodore and his people, by this interested race. 
 The method of buying all things in China being by 
 weight, the tricks made use of by the Chinese to 
 increase the weight of the provision they sold to 
 the Centurion, were almost incredible. One time 
 a large quantity of fowls and ducks- being bought 
 for the ship's use, the greatest part of them pre- 
 sently died. This alarmed the people on board 
 with the apprehension that they had been killed 
 by poison ; but on examination it appeared that it 
 was only owing to their being crammed with stones 
 and gravel to increase their weight, the quantity 
 thus forced into most of the ducks being found to 
 amount to ten ounces in each. The hogs too, which 
 were bought ready killed of the Chinese butchers, 
 had water injected into them for the same pur- 
 pose ; so that a carcass, hung up all night for the 
 water to drain from it, has lost above a stone of 
 its weight ; and when, to avoid this cheat, the hogs 
 were bought alive, it was found that the Chinese 
 gave them salt to increase their thirst, and having 
 by this means excited them to drink great quanti- 
 ties of water, they then took measures tO prevent 
 them from discharging it again by urine, and sold 
 the tortured animals in this inflated state. |;; When 
 the commodore first put to sea from Macao, they 
 practised an artifice of another kind ; for as the 
 Chinese never object bi the eating of any food that 
 dies of itself, they took care, by some secret prac- 
 tices, that great part of his live sea-store should 
 
 die in a short time after it was put on board, 
 hoping to make a second profit of the dead carcases 
 which they expected would be thrown overboard ; 
 and two-thirds of the hogs dying before the Cen- 
 turion was out of sight of land, many of the Chi- 
 nese boats followed her only to pick up the carrion, 
 These instances may serve as a specimen of the 
 manners of this celebrated nation, which is often 
 recommended to the rest of the world as a pattern 
 of all kinds of laudable qualities. But to return : 
 
 The commodore, towards the end of September, 
 having found out (as has been said) that those who 
 had contracted to supply him with sea-provisions 
 and stores had deceived him, and that the viceroy 
 had not sent to him according to his promise, he 
 saw it would be impossible for him to surmount 
 the embarrassment he was under without going 
 himself to Canton, and visiting ihe viceroy ; and 
 therefore, on the 27th of September, he sent a 
 message to the mandarin who attended the Cen- 
 turion, to inform him that he, the commodore, 
 intended, on the first of October, to proceed in his 
 boat to Canton ; adding, that the day after he got 
 there, he should notify his arrival to the viceroy, 
 and should desire him to fix a time for his audience; 
 to which the mandarin returned no other answer, 
 than that he would acquaint the viceroy with the 
 commodore's intentions. In the meantime all 
 things were prepared for this expedition ; and the 
 boat's crew in particular, which Mr. Anson pro- 
 posed to take with him, were clothed in a imiform 
 dress, resembling that of the watermen on the 
 Thames ; they were in number eighteen and a 
 coxswain ; they had scarlet jackets and blue silk 
 waistcoats, the whole trimmed with silver buttons, 
 and with silver badges on then- jackets and caps. 
 As it was apprehended, and even asserted, that the 
 pajTnent of the customary duties for the Centurion 
 and her prize, would be demanded by the regency 
 of Canton, and would be insisted on previous to 
 the granting a permission for victualling the ship 
 for her future voyage ; the commodore, who was 
 resolved never to establish so dishonourable a pre- 
 cedent, took all possible precaution to prevent the 
 Chinese from facilitating the success of their un- 
 reasonable pretensions by having him in their 
 power at Canton : and therefore, for the security 
 of his ship, and the great treasure on board her, 
 he appointed his first lieutenant, Mr. Brett, to be 
 captain of the Centurion under him, giving him 
 proper instructions for his conduct ; directing him, 
 particularly, if he, the commodore, should be de- 
 tained at Canton on account of the duties in dis- 
 pute, to take out the men from the Centurion's 
 prize, and to destroy her ; and then to proceed 
 down the river through the Bocca Tigris, with 
 the Ce;iiurion alone, and to remain without that 
 entrance till he received further orders from Mr. 
 Anson. 
 
 These necessary steps being taken, which were 
 not unknown to the Chinese, it should seem as if 
 their deliberations were in some sort embarrassed 
 thereby. It is reasonable to imagine that they 
 were in general very desirous of getting the duties 
 to be paid them ; not perhaps solely in consider- 
 ation of the amount of those dues, but to keep up 
 their reputation for address and subtlety, and to 
 avoid the imputation of receding from claims on 
 which they had already so frequently insisted. 
 However, as they now foresaw that they had no 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 123 
 
 otiier method of succeeding than by violence, and 
 that even against this the commodore was pre- 
 pared, they were at last disposed, I conceive, to 
 let the affair drop, rather than entangle themselves 
 in a hostile measure, which they found would only 
 expose them to the risk of having the whole 
 navigation of their port destroyed, without any 
 ■certain prospect of gaining their favourite point 
 thereby. 
 
 However, though there is reason to imagine that 
 these were their thoughts at that time, yet they 
 could not depart at once from the evasive conduct 
 to which they had hitherto adhered. For when 
 the commodore, on the morning of the first of 
 -October, was preparing to set out for Canton, his 
 linguist came to him from the mandarin who 
 -.attended his ship, to tell him that a letter had been 
 received from the viceroy of Canton, desiring the 
 commodore to put off his going thither for two or 
 three days : but in the afternoon of the same day 
 another linguist came on board, who, with much 
 seeming fright, told Mr. Anson that the viceroy 
 had expected him up that day, that the council 
 was assembled, and the troops had been under 
 arms to receive him ; and that the viceroy was 
 highly offended at the disappointment, and had 
 sent the commodore's linguist to prison chained, 
 -supposing that the whole had been owing to the 
 linguist's negligence. This plausible tale gave the 
 commodore great concern,and made him apprehend 
 that there was some treachery designed him, 
 which he could not yet fathom ; and though it 
 -afterwards appeared that the whole was a fiction, 
 not one article of it having the least foundation, 
 .yet (for reasons brat known to themselves) this 
 falsehood was so well supported by the artifices of 
 the Chinese merchants at Canton, that, three days 
 .afterwards, the commodore received a letter signed 
 by all the supercargoes of the English ships then 
 at that place, expressing their great uneasiness at 
 what had happened, and intimating their fears that 
 some insult would be offered to his boat if he came 
 thither before the viceroy was fully satisfied about 
 the mistake. To this letter Mr. Anson replied, 
 that he did not believe there had been any mistake ; 
 but was persuaded it was a forgery of the Chinese 
 to prevent his visiting the viceroy ; that therefore 
 fie would certainly come up to Canton on the 13th 
 of October, confident that the Chinese would not 
 -dare to offer him an insult, as well knowing it would 
 i>e properly returned. 
 
 On the 13th of October, the commodore con- 
 tinuing firm to his resolution, all the supercargoes 
 •of the English, Danish, and Swedish ships came on 
 ■board the Centurion, to accompany him to Canton, 
 for which place he set out in his barge the samo 
 ■day, attended by his own boats, and by those of 
 the trading ships, which on this occasion came to 
 form his retinue ; and as he passed by Wampo, 
 wnere the European vessels lay, he was saluted by 
 all of them but the French, and in the evening 
 he arrived safely at Canton. His reception at that 
 -city,and the most material transactions from hence- 
 forward, till his arrival in Great Britain, shall be 
 iiie subject of the ensuing chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Proceedings at the city of Canton, and the returr ct/ ihi 
 Centurion to England. 
 
 When the commodore arrived at Canton he 
 was visited by the principal Chinese merchants, 
 who affected to appear very much pleased that he 
 had met with no obstruction in getting thither, 
 and who thence pretended to conclude, that the 
 viceroy was satisfied about the former mistake, 
 the reality of which they still insisted on ; they 
 added, that as soon as the viceroy should be in- 
 formed that Mr. Anson was at Canton, (which 
 they promised should be done the next morning) 
 they were persuaded a day would be immediately 
 appointed for the visit, which was the prin- 
 cipal business that had brought the commodore 
 thither. 
 
 The next day tne merchants returned to Mr. 
 Anson, and told him, that the viceroy was then so 
 fully employed in preparing his despatches for 
 Pekin, that there was no getting admittance to 
 him for some days ; but that they had engaged 
 one of the officers of his court to give them infor- 
 mation, as soon as he should be at leisure, when 
 they proposed to notify Mr. Anson's arrival, and 
 to endeavour to fix the day of audience. The 
 commodore was by this time too well acquainted 
 with their artifices, not to perceive that this was 
 a falsehood ; and had he consulted only his own 
 judgment, he would have applied directly to the 
 viceroy by other hands : but the Chinese mer- 
 chants had so far prepossessed the supercargoes 
 of our ships with chimerical fears, that they (the 
 supercargoes) were extremely apprehensive of 
 being embroiled with the government, and of 
 suffering in their interest, if those measures were 
 taken, which appeared to Mr. Anson at that time 
 to be the most prudential : and therefore, lest 
 the malice and double-dealing of the Chinese 
 might have given rise to some sinister incident, 
 which would be afterwards laid at his door, he 
 resolved to continue passive, as long as it should 
 appear that he lost no time, by thus suspending 
 his own opinion. With this view, he promised not 
 to take any immediate step himself for getting 
 admittance to the viceroy, provided the Chinese, 
 with whom he contracted for provisions, would 
 let him see that his bread was baked, his meat 
 salted, and his stores prepared with the utmost 
 despatch ; but if by the time when all was in 
 readiness to be shipped off, (which it was sup- 
 posed would be in about forty days) the merchants 
 should not have procured the viceroy's permission, 
 then the commodore proposed to apply for it him- 
 f.eil'. These were the terms Mr. Anson thought 
 proper to offer, to quiet the uneasiness of the 
 supercargoes ; and notwithstanding the apparent 
 equity of the conditions, many difficulties and 
 objections were urged ; nor would the Chinese 
 agree to them, till the commodore had consented 
 to pay for every article he bespoke before it was 
 put in hand. However, at last the contract being 
 passed, it was some satisfaction to the commodore 
 to be certain that his preparations were now going 
 on, and being himself on the spot, he took care to 
 hasten them as much as possible. 
 
 During this interval, in which the stores and 
 itrovisioue were getting ready, the merchants con- 
 
124 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 tinually entertained Mr. Auson with accounts of 
 their various endeavours to get a license from 
 the viceroy, and their frequent disappointments ; 
 which to liim was now a matter of amusement, as 
 he was fully satisfied there was not one word of 
 truth in any thing they said. But when all was 
 completed, and wanted only to be shipped, which 
 was about the 24th of November, at which time- 
 too the N.E. monsoon was set in, he then resolved 
 to apply himself to the viceroy to demand an 
 audience, as he was persuaded that, without this 
 ceremony, the procuring a permission to send his 
 stores on board would meet with great difficulty. 
 On the 24th of November, therefore, Mr. Anson 
 sent one of his officers to the mandarin, who 
 commanded the guard of the principal gate of the 
 city of Canton, with a letter du'ected to the vice- 
 roy. When this letter was delivered to the man- 
 darin, he received the officer who brought it very 
 civilly, and took down the contents of it in Chinese, 
 and promised that the viceroy should be imme- 
 diately acquainted with it ; but told the officer, it 
 was not necessary for hun to wait for an answer, 
 because a message would be sent to the commo- 
 dore himself. 
 
 On this occasion Mr. Anson had been under 
 great difficulties about a proper interpreter to 
 send with his officer, as he was well aware that 
 none of the Chinese, usually employed as lin- 
 guists, could be reUed on : but he at last prevailed 
 with Mr. Flint, an English gentleman belonging 
 to the factory, who spoke Chinese perfectly well, 
 to accompany his officer. This person, who upon 
 this occasion and many others was of singular 
 service to the commodore, had been left at Canton 
 when a youth, by the late Captain Rigby. The 
 leaving him there to learn the Chinese language 
 was a step taken by that captain, merely from his 
 own persuasion of the great advantages which the 
 East India Company might one day receive from 
 an English interpreter ; and though the utihty of 
 tlus> measure lias greatly exceeded all that was 
 expected from it, yet I have not heard that it has 
 been to this day imitated: but we imprudently 
 choose (except in this single instance) to carry on 
 the vast transactions of the port of Canton, either 
 by the ridiculous jargon of broken EngUsh whicii 
 some few of the Chinese have learnt, or by the sus- 
 pected interpretation of the linguists of other nations. 
 
 Two days after the sending the above-mentioned 
 letter, a fire broke out in the suburbs of Canton. 
 On the first alarm, Mr. Anson went thither with 
 his officers, and his boat's crew, to assist the 
 Chinese. When he came there, he found that it 
 had begun in a sailor's shed, and that by the 
 slightness of the buildings, and the awkwardness 
 of the Chinese, it was getting head apace : but h« 
 perceived, that by pulling down some of the adja- 
 cent sheds it might easily be extinguished ; and 
 particularly observing that it was rumiing along a 
 wooden cornice, which would soon communicate 
 it to a great distance, he ordered his people to 
 begin with tearing away that cornice ; this was 
 presently attempted, and would have been soon 
 executed ; but, in the mean time, he was told, 
 that, as there was no mandarin there to direct 
 what was to be done, the Chinese would make 
 him, the commodore, answerable for whatever 
 should be pulled down by his orders. On this his 
 people desisted ; and he sent them to the English 
 
 factory, to assist in securing the Company's treasure^ 
 and effects, as it was easy to foresee that no distance 
 was a protection agamst the rage of such a fire, 
 where so little was done to put a stop to it ; for all 
 this time the Chinese contented themselves with 
 viewing it, and now and then holding one of their 
 idols near it, whicli they seemed to expect should 
 check its progress : however, at last, a mandarin 
 came out of the city, attended by four or five hun- 
 dred firemen : these made some feeble efforts to 
 pull down the neighbouring houses ; but by this, 
 time the fire had greatly extended itself, and was 
 got ami^igst the merchants' warehouses ; and the 
 Chinese firemen, wanting both skill and spirit, 
 were mcapable of checking its violence ; so that 
 its fury increased upon them, and it was feared 
 the whole city would be destroyed. In this gene- 
 ral confusion the viceroy himself came thither, 
 and the commodore was sent to, and was entreated 
 to afford his assistance, being told that he might 
 take any measures he should think most prudent 
 in the present emergency. And now he went 
 thither a second time, carrying with him about 
 forty of his people ; who, upon this occasion, ex- 
 erted themselves in such a manner, as in that 
 country was altogether without example: for they 
 were rather animated than deterred by the flames 
 and falling buildings amongst which they wrought ; 
 so that it was not uncommon to see the most for- 
 ward of them tumble to the ground on the roofs, 
 and amidst the ruins of houses, which their own 
 effoi'ts brought down with them. By their boldness 
 and activity the fire was soon extinguished, to the 
 amazement of the Chinese ; and the builduigs- 
 bemg all on one floor, and the materials shght, 
 the seamen, notwithstanding their daring beha- 
 viour, happily escaped with no other injuries than 
 some considerable bruises. 
 
 The fire, though at last thus luckily extinguish- 
 ed, did great mischief during the time it continued; 
 for it consumed a hundred shops and eleven streets, 
 full of warehouses, so that the damage amounted 
 to an immense sum ; and one of the Chinese 
 merchants, well known to the English, whose 
 name was Succoy, was supposed, for his own share, 
 to have lost near two hundred thousand pounds 
 sterling. It raged indeed with unusual violence, 
 for in many of the warehouses there were large- 
 quantities of camphor which greatly added to its. 
 fury, and produced a column of exceeding white 
 flame, which shot up into the air to such a pro- 
 digious height, that the flame itself was plainly 
 seen on board the "Centurion, though she was. 
 thirty miles distant. 
 
 Whilst the commodore and his people were 
 labouring at the fire, and the terror of its becom- 
 ing general still possessed the whole city, several 
 of the most considerable Chinese merchants came 
 to Mr. Anson, to desire that he would let each of. 
 them have one of his soldiers (for such they styled 
 his boat's crew from the uniformity of their dress), 
 to guard their warehouses and dwelling-houses, 
 which, from the known dishonesty of the populace, 
 they feared would be pillaged in the tumult. Mr.- 
 Anson granted them this request ; and all the 
 men that he thus furnished to the Chinese behaved 
 greatly to the satisfaction of their employers, who 
 afterwards highly applauded their great diligence- 
 and fidelity. 
 
 By this means, the resolution of the English at 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE BOUND THE WOBLD. 
 
 »26 
 
 itlie fire and their trustiness, and punctuality else- 
 where, was the general subject of conversation 
 amongst the Chinese : and the next morning, many 
 ■of the principal mhabitants waited on the commo- 
 dore to thank him for his assistance ; frankly 
 owning to him, that they could never have extin- 
 guished the fire themselves, and that he had saved 
 their city from being totally consumed. ,5 And soon 
 after a message came to the commodore from the 
 viceroy, appointing the 30th of November for his 
 .audience ; which sudden resolution of the viceroy, 
 in a matter that had been so long agitated in vain, 
 was also owing to the signal services performed 
 by Mr. Anson and his people at the fire, of which 
 the viceroy himself had been in some measme an 
 -eye- witness. 
 
 The fixing this business of the audience was, on 
 all accounts, a circumstance which Mr. Anson was 
 much pleased with ; as he was satisfied that the 
 ■Chinese government would not have determined 
 this point, without having agreed among themselves 
 to give up their pretensions to the duties they 
 <;laimed, and to grant him all he could reasonably 
 jisk ; for as they well knew the commodore's sen- 
 timents, it would ha.ve been a piece of imnrudence, 
 not consistent with the refined cunmng of the 
 <3iinese, to have admitted him to an audience, 
 only to have contested with him. And therefore, 
 being himself perfectly easy about the result of his 
 visit, he made all necessary preparations against 
 the day ; and engaged Mr. Flint, whom I have 
 mentioned before, to act, as interpreter in the 
 •conference ; who, in this affair, as in all others, 
 acquitted himself much to the commodore's satis- 
 ifaction ; repeating with great boldness, and doubt- 
 less with exactness, all that was given in chargey a 
 part which no Chinese linguist would ever have 
 :performed with any tolerable fidelity. 
 
 At ten o'clock in the morning, on the day ap- 
 pointed, a mandarin came to the commodore, to 
 iet him know that the viceroy was ready to receive 
 him; on which the commodore and his retinue 
 immediately set out : and as soon as he entered 
 the outer gate of the city, he found a guard of two 
 liundred soldiers drawn up ready to attend him ; 
 these conducted him to the great parade before 
 the emperor's palace, where the viceroy then 
 resided. In this parade, a body of troops, to the 
 number of ten thousand, were drawn up under 
 a,rms, and made a very fine appearance, being 
 all of them new clothed for this ceremony: 
 and Mr. Anson and his retinue having passed 
 through the middle of them, he was then cnn- 
 ducted to the great hall of audience, where ne 
 found the viceroy seated under a rich canopy in 
 the emperor's chair of state, with all his council 
 of mandarins attending : here there was a vacant 
 seat prepared for the commodore, in which he was 
 ' placed on his arrival : he was ranked the third in 
 order from the viceroy, »here being above him 
 only the head of the law, and of the treasury, who 
 in the Chinese government take place of all mili- 
 tary ofiicers. When the commodore was seated, 
 he addressed liimself to the viceroy by his inter- 
 preter,and began with reciting the various methods 
 liL- had formerly taken to get an audience ; adding, 
 that he imputed the delays he had met with to the 
 insincerity of those he had employed, and that he 
 liad therefore no other means left, than to send, as 
 lie had done, his own officer with a letter to the 
 
 gate. On the mention of this the viceroy stopped 
 the iijterpreter, and bade him assure Mr. Anson, 
 that the first knowledge they had of his being at 
 Canton was from that letter. Mr. Anson then 
 proceeded, and told him, that the subjects of tlie 
 king of Great Britain trading to China had com- 
 plained to him, the commodore, of the vexatious 
 impositions both of the merchants and inferior 
 custom-house officers, to which they were fre- 
 quently necessitated to submit, by reason of the 
 difficulty of getting access to the mandarins, who 
 alone could grant them redress : that it was his 
 (Mr. Anson's) duty, as an officer of the king of 
 Great Britain, to lay before the viceroy these 
 grievances of the British subjects, which he hoped 
 the viceroy would take into consideration, and 
 would give orders, that for the future there should 
 be no just reason for complaint. Here Mr. Anson 
 paused, and waited some time in expectation 
 of an answer ; but nothing being said, he asked 
 his interpreter, if he was certain the viceroy 
 understood what he had urged ; the interpreter 
 told him he was certain it was unaerstood, 
 but he believed no reply would be made to it. 
 Mr. Anson then represented to the viceroy the 
 case of the ship Hastingfield, which, having been 
 dismasted on the coast of China, had arrived in 
 the river of Canton but a few days before. The 
 people on board this vessel had been great sufferers 
 by the fire ; the captain in particular had all his 
 goods burnt, and had lost besides, in the confusion, 
 a chest of treasure of four thousand five hundred 
 tahel, which was supposed to be stolen by the 
 Chinese boat men. Mr. Anson therefore desired 
 that the captain might have the assistance of the 
 government, as it was apprehended the money 
 could never be recovered without the interposition 
 of the mandarins. And to this request the vice- 
 roy made answer, that in settling the emperor's 
 customs for that ship, some abatement should be 
 made in consideration of her losses. 
 
 And now the commodore having despatched the 
 business with which the officers of the East-India 
 Company had entrusted him, he entered on his own 
 affairs ; acquainting the viceroy, that the proper 
 season was now set in for returning to Europe, and 
 that he waited only for a license to ship off his 
 provisions and stores, which were all ready ; and 
 that as soon as this should be granted him, and 
 he should have gotten his necessaries on board, he 
 intended to leave the river of Canton, and to make 
 the best of his way for England. The viceroy 
 replied to this that the license should be imme- 
 diately issued, and that everything should be 
 ordered on board the following day. And finding 
 that Mr. Anson had nothing farther to insist on, 
 the viceroy continued the conversation for some 
 time, acknowledging in very civil terms how much 
 the Chinese were obliged to him for his signal ser- 
 vices at the fire, and owning that he had saved 
 the city from being destroyed : and then observing 
 that the Centurion had been a good while on their 
 coast, he closed his discourse, by wishing the 
 commodore a good voyage to Europe. After 
 which, the commodore, thanking him for his 
 civility and assistance, took his leave.' 
 
 * The following is Anson's own account of these proceed- 
 ings : — " Finding 1 could not obtain the provisions and 
 stores to enable me to proceed to Europe, I was under the 
 necessity of visiting the Vice King, notwithstanding tha 
 
l-'fi 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 As soon as the commodore was out of the hall 
 of audience, he was much pressed to go into a 
 neighbouring apartment, where there was an en- 
 tertainment provided ; but finding, on inquiry, 
 that tlie viceroy himself was not to be present, he 
 dedined the invitation, and departed, attended in 
 the same manner as at his arrival ; only at his 
 leaving the city he was saluted by three guns, 
 which are as many as in that country are ever 
 fired on any ceremony. Thus the commodore, to 
 his gi'eat joy, at last finished this troublesome 
 affair, which, for the preceding four months, had 
 given him great disquietude. Indeed he was 
 highly pleased with procuring a license for the 
 shipping of his stores and provisions ; for thereby 
 he was enabled to return to Great Britain with 
 the first of the monsoon, and to prevent all intel- 
 ligence of his being expected : but this, though a 
 very important point, was not the circumstance 
 which gave him the greatest satisfaction ; for he 
 was more particularly attentive to the authentic 
 precedent established on this occasion, by which 
 his majesty's ships of war are for the future 
 exempted from all demands of duty in any of the 
 ports of China. 
 
 In pursuance of the promises of the viceroy, 
 the provisions were begun to be sent on board 
 the day after the audience ; and, four days after, 
 the commodore embarked at Canton for the Cen- 
 turion ; and, on the 7th of December, the Centurion 
 and her prize unmoored, and stood down the 
 river, passing through the Bocca Tigris on the 
 10th. And on this occasion I must observe, that 
 the Chinese had taken care to man the two forts, 
 on each side of that passage, with as many men 
 as they could well contain, the greatest part of 
 them armed with pikes and match-lock muskets. 
 These garrisons affected to show themselves as 
 much as possible to the ships, and were doubtless 
 intended to induce Mr. Anson to think more re- 
 verently than he had hitherto done of the Chinese 
 military power : for this purpose they were equipped 
 with much parade, having a great number of 
 colours exposed to view; and on the castle in 
 particular there were laid considerable heaps of 
 large stones ; and a soldier of unusual size, dressed 
 
 Europeans were of opinion that the Emperor's duties 
 would be insisted upon, and that my refusing to pay them 
 would embarrass the trade of the East India Company : 
 not knowing what means they might make use of, when 
 tliey had me in their power, I gave orders to Captain 
 Brett, whom upon this occasion 1 had appointed captain 
 under me, that, if he found me detained, he should destroy 
 the galleon (out of which I had removed all the treasure, 
 amounting to one million three hundred and thirteen 
 thousand eight hundred and forty-three pieces of eight, 
 and thirty-five thousand six hundred and eighty-two 
 ounces of virgin silver and plate) and proceed with the 
 Centurion v.'ithout the river's mouth, out of gun-shot of 
 the two forts. 
 
 " Contrary to the general opinion of the Europeans, the 
 Vice-King received me with ^eat civility and politeness, 
 having ten thousand soldiers drawn up, and his council of 
 Mandarins attending the audience, and granted me every 
 thing I desired. I had great reason to be satisfied with the 
 -uccess of my visit, having obtained the principal point I 
 had in view, which was establishing a precedent upon 
 record that the Emperor's duties and measurage had not 
 'leen demanded from me, by which means His Majesty's 
 ^hip.5 will bo under no difficulties in entering into any of 
 •he Emperor of China's ports for the tatiire."~Anson's 
 •fiicialrepoil. 
 
 in very sightly armour, stalked about on th» 
 parapet with a battle-axe in his hand, endeavourinff 
 to put on as important and martial an air as- 
 possible, though some of the observers on boar* 
 the Centurion shrewdly suspected, from the ap- 
 pearance of his ai-mour, that instead of steel, it 
 was composed only of a particular kind of glitter- 
 iui paper. 
 
 'The Centurion and her prize being now withouf 
 the river of Canton, and consequently upon the' 
 point of leaving the Chinese jurisdiction, I beg* 
 leave, before I quit all mention of the Chinese- 
 affaix'S, to subjoin a few remai-ks on the dispo- 
 sition and genius of that extraordinary people. 
 And though it uay be supposed, that observations- 
 made at Canton only, a place situated in the 
 corner of the empire, are very imperfect materials- 
 on which to found any general conclusions, yet as 
 those who have had opportunities of examining 
 the inner parts of the country, have been evi- 
 dently influenced by very ridiculous prepossessions,, 
 and as the transactions of Mr. Anson with the 
 regency of Canton were of an uncommon nature, 
 in which many circumstances occurred, different 
 perhaps from any which have happened before, I 
 hope the tbllowing reflections, many of them drawn 
 from these incidents, will not be altogether un- 
 acceptable to the reader. 
 
 That the Chinese are a very ingenious and in- 
 dustrious people is sufficiently evinced from the- 
 great number of curious manufactures which are- 
 established amongst them, and which are eagerly ! 
 sought for by the most distant nations ; but though j 
 skill in the handicraft arts seems to be the most 
 important qualification of this people, yet their I 
 talents therein are but of a second-rate kind ; for 
 they are much outdone by the Japanese in those 
 manufactures wliich are common to both countries^, 
 and they are in numerous instances incapable of 
 rivalling the mechanic dexterity of the Europeans. 
 Indeed, their principal excellence seems, to be- 
 imitation ; and they accordingly labour under that 
 poverty of genius which constantly attends all 
 servile imitators. This is most conspicuous in 
 works which require great truth and accuracy, as- 
 in clocks, watches, fire-arms, &c., for in all tliese,. 
 though they can copy the different parts, and can 
 form some resemblance of the whole, yet they 
 never could arrive at such a justness in their fabric- 
 as was necessary to produce the desired effect. 
 And if we pass from their manufactures to artists- 
 of a superior class, as painters, statuaries, &c., in 
 these matters they seem to be still more defective;.| 
 their painters, though very numerous and in great 
 esteem, rarely succeeding in the drawing or colour- 
 ing of human figures, or in the grouping of large 
 compositions ; and though in flowers and birds- 
 their performances are much more admired, yet 
 even in these some part of the merit is rather to 
 be imputed to the native brightness and excellency 
 of the colours, than to the skill of the painter ;. 
 since it is very unusual to see the light and shade- 
 justly and naturally handled, or to find that ease 
 and grace in the drawing which are to be met 
 with in the works of European artists. In short,, 
 there is a stiffness and minuteness in most of the 
 Chinese productions, which are extremely dis- 
 nleasiiig : and it may perhaps be asserted with 
 griat truth, that these defects in their arts ai* 
 entirely owing to the peculiar turn of the people^ 
 
ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND TTIP: WORLD. 
 
 127 
 
 amongst whom nothing great or spirited is to he 
 luet with. 
 
 If we next examine the Chinese literature, ^taking 
 our accountsfrom the writers who have endeavoured 
 to represent it in the most favourable light) we 
 shall find that on this head their obstiuaey and 
 absurdity are most wonderful : for though, for 
 many ages, they have been surrounded by nations 
 to whom the use of letters was familiar, yet they, 
 the Chinese alone, have hitherto neglected to avail 
 themselves of that almost divine invention, and 
 have continued to adhere to the rude and inartifi- 
 cial method of representing words by arbitrary 
 marks ; a method which necessarily renders the 
 number of their characters too great for human 
 memory to manage, makes writing to be an art 
 that requires prodigious application, and in which 
 no man can be otherwise than partially skilled ; 
 whilst all reading, and understanding of what is 
 written, is attended with infinite obscurity and 
 confusion ; for the connexion between these marks, 
 and the words they represent, cannot be retained 
 in books, but must be dehvered down from age to 
 age by oral tradition : and how uncertain this 
 must prove in such a complicated subject, is sufti- 
 ciently obvious to those who have attended to the 
 variation which all verbal relations undergo when 
 they are transmitted through three or four hands 
 only. Hence it is easy to conclude that the his- 
 tory and inventions of past ages, recorded by these 
 perplexed symbols, must frequently prove unin- 
 telligible ; and consequently the learning and 
 boasted antiquity of the nation must, in numerous 
 instances, be extremely problematical. 
 
 But we are told by some of the missionaries, 
 that though the skill of the Chinese in science is 
 indeed much inferior to that of the Europeans, yet 
 the moraUty and justice taught and practised by 
 them are most exemplary. And from the descrip- 
 tion given by some of these good fathers, one should 
 be induced to bejieve that the whole empire was 
 & well-governed affectionate family, where the only 
 contests were, who should exert the most humanity 
 and beneficence '. but our preceding relation of the 
 behaviour of the magistrates, merchants and trades- 
 men at Canton sufficiently refutes these Jesuitical 
 fictions. And as to their theories of moraUty, if 
 we may judge from the specimens exhibited in the 
 works of the missionaries, we shall find them solely 
 employed in recommending ridiculous attachments 
 to certain immaterial points, instead of discussing 
 the proper criterion of human actions, and regu- 
 lating the general conduct of mankind to one an- 
 other on reasonable and equitable principles. In- 
 deed, the only pretension of the Chinese to a more 
 refined morality than their neighbours, is founded, 
 not on their integrity or beneficence, but solely on 
 the affected evenness of their demeanour, and their 
 constant attention to suppress all symptoms of pas- 
 sion and violence. But it must be considered, that 
 hypocrisy and fraud are often not less mischievous 
 to the general interests of mankind than impetuosity 
 and vehemence of temper : since these, though 
 usually liable to the imputation of imprudence, do 
 not exclude sincerity, benevolence, resolution, nor 
 many other laudable qualities. And perhaps, if 
 this matter were examined to the bottom, it would 
 appear that the calm and patient turn of the Chi- 
 nese, on which they so much value themselves, and 
 which distinguishes the nation from all others, is 
 
 in reality the source of the most exceptionable 
 part of their character ; for it has been often ob- 
 served, by those who have attended to the nature 
 of mankind, that it is difficult to curb the more 
 robust and violent passions, without augmenting 
 at the same time the force of the selfish ones : so 
 that the timidity, dissimulation, and dishonesty of 
 the Chinese may, in some sort, be owing to the 
 composure, and external decency, so universally 
 prevailing in that empire. 
 
 Thus much for the general disposition of the 
 people : but I cannot dismiss this subject without 
 adding a few words about the Chinese government, 
 that too having been the subject of boundless pane- 
 gyric. And on this head I must observe, that the 
 favourable accounts often given of their prudent 
 regulations for the administration of their domestic 
 affairs, are sufficiently confuted by their transac- 
 tions with Mr. Anson : for we have seen that their 
 magistrates are corrupt, their people thievish, and 
 their tribunals crafty and venal. Nor is the con- 
 stitution of the empire, or the general orders of 
 the state, less liable to exception : since that form 
 of government which does not in the first place 
 provide for the security of the public against the 
 enterprises of foreign powers, is certainly a most 
 defective ii/stitution : and yet this populous, this 
 rich and extensive country, so pompously cele- 
 brated for its refined wisdom and policy, was con- 
 quered about an age since by a handful of Tartars; 
 and even now, by the cowardice of the inhabitants, 
 and the want of proper military regulations, it 
 continues exposed not only to the attempts of any 
 potent state, but to the ravages of every petty 
 invader. Nor is the state provided with ships of 
 considerable force to protect them : for at Canton, 
 where doubtless their principal naval power is 
 stationed, we saw no more than four men-of-war 
 j units, of about three hundred tons burthen, and 
 mounted only with eight or ten guns, the largest 
 of which did not exceed a four-pounder. This 
 may suffice to give an idea of the defenceless state 
 of the Chinese empire. But it is time to return 
 to the commodore, whom I left with his two 
 ships without the Bocca Tigris ; and who, on the 
 r2th of December, anchored before the town of 
 Macao. 
 
 Whilst the ships lay here, the merchants of 
 Macao finished their agreement for the galleon, for 
 which they had offered 6000 dollars ; this was 
 much short of her value, but the impatience of 
 the commodore to get to sea, to which the mer- 
 chants were no strangers, prompted them to insist 
 on so unequal a bargain. Mr. Anson had learnt 
 enough from the English at Canton to conjecture, 
 that the war betwixt Great Britain and Spain was 
 still continued ; and that probably the French 
 might engage in the assistance of Spain, before he 
 could arrive in Great Britain ; and therefore, 
 knowing that no intelligence could get to Europe 
 of the prize he had taken, and the treasure he 
 had on board, till the return of the merchantmen 
 from Canton, he was resolved to make all possible 
 expedition in getting back, that he might be hun- 
 self the first messenger vf his own good fortune, 
 and might thereby prevent the enemy from form- 
 ing any projects to intercept him : for these rea- 
 sons, he, to avoid all delay, accepted of the sum 
 offered for the galleon ; and she being dehvered to 
 the merchants, the 15th of December 1743, the 
 
128 
 
 ANSON'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 Centurion, the same day, got under sail, on her 
 return to England. And, on the 3rd of January, 
 she came to an anchor at Prince's Island in the 
 Straits of Sunda, and continued there wooding 
 and watering till the 8th ; when she weighed and 
 stood for the Cape of Good Hope, where, on the 
 1 1th of March, she anchored in Table-bay. 
 
 The Cape of Good Hope is situated in a tempe- 
 rate climate, where the excesses of heat and cold 
 are rarely known ; and the Dutch inhabitants, who 
 are numerous, and who here retain their native 
 industry, have stocked it with prodigious plenty of 
 all sort of fruits and provisions ; most of which 
 either from the equality of the seasons, or the 
 peculiarity of the soil, are more delicious in their 
 kind tLun can be met with elsewhere : so that by 
 these, jjud by the excellent water which abounds 
 there^ this settlement is the best provided of any 
 in the known world, for the refreshment of sea- 
 men after long voyages. Here the commodore 
 continued till the beginning of April, highly de- 
 lighted with the place, which by its extraordinary 
 accommodations, the healthiness of its an-, and 
 the picturesque appearance of the country, all 
 enUvened by the addition of a civilised colony, was 
 not disgraced in an imaginary comparison with the 
 Talleys of Juan Fernandes, and the lawns of Tinian. 
 During his stay he entered about forty new men ; 
 and havmg, by the 3rd of April 1744, completed 
 his water and provision, he, on that day, weighed 
 and put to sea ; and, the 1 9th of the same month, 
 they saw the island of St. Helena, which however 
 they did not touch at, but stood on their way ; 
 and, on the 10th of June, being then in soundings, 
 "Jiey spoke with an English ship from Amsterdam 
 tound for Philadelphia, whence they received the 
 
 first intelligence of a French war ; the twelfth, 
 they got sight of the Lizard ; and the fifteenth, in 
 the evening, to their infinite joy, they came safe 
 to an anchor at Spithead. But that the signal 
 perils which had so often threatened them, in the 
 preceding part of the enterprise, might pursue 
 them to the very last, Mr. Anson learnt, on his 
 arrival, that there was a French fleet of consider- 
 able force cruising in the chops of the Channel ; 
 which, by the account of their position, he found 
 the Centurion had run thi-ough, and had been all 
 the time concealed by a fog. Thus was this expe- 
 dition finished, when it had lasted three years and 
 nine months ; after having, by its event, strongly 
 evinced this important truth, that though prudence, 
 intrepidity, and perseverance united, are not ex- 
 empted from the blows of adverse fortune ; yet in 
 a long series of transactions, they usually rise 
 superior to its power, and in the end rarely fail of 
 proving successful.' 
 
 1 "Thisremark (observes Sir John Barrow) iscertiiinly 
 just ; and no parallel is to be found, in tiie history of navi- 
 gation, to the "Voyage of Anson, unless it be that of Sir 
 Francis Drake, which c^mes nearest to it, and in some 
 respects is perhaps still more extraordinary. He left 
 England with five ships, his own, the Hind, of 100 tone, 
 the second S£ the third 30, a fly-boat 50, and a pinnace 
 cf i£ tons. He lost, or broke up, or left behind him, all 
 but his own : plundered the Spaniards on the western 
 coast, preceded nearly to 50" N. to look for a north-east 
 passage into the Atlantic, crossed the Pacific, proceeded 
 round the Cape of Good Hope, and after an absence of two 
 years and ten months, reached England with only his oavd 
 ship and about 50 men out of 160." 
 
 One of the survivors of Anson's voyage, a seaman named 
 George Gregory, died so late as 1804, at Kingston, at the 
 great age of 109, having never known a day's illness since 
 he went to sea in 1714. 
 
PART 11. 
 
 STEPHENS' TRAVELS 
 
 IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA AND POLAND. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER L PAHH 
 
 A Hurricane. — An Adventure. — Missolonghi, — Siege of Misaolonglii. — Byron — IMarco Bozzaris Visit to 
 
 tlie Widow, Daugliters, and Brother of Bozzaris ...... . , 1^J3 
 
 CH.iPTER II. 
 
 Choice of a Servant — A Turn out. — An Evening Clmt Scenery of the Road — Lepanto. — A projected Visit. 
 
 — Change of Purpose. — Padras. — Vostitza. — Variety and Magnificence of Scenery .... 137 
 
 CHAPTER ni. 
 
 Quarrel with the Landlord. — M%va&, — Sicyon.^ — Corinth. — A distinguished Reception.— Desolation of Corinth. 
 
 — The Acropolis. — View from the Acropolis Lechasum and Cenchreffi.- — Kaka Scala. — An-ivalat Athen?^ 1 il 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 American Missionary School Visit to the Schopl. — Mr. Hill and the Male Department.— Mrs, Hill and 
 
 the Female Department Maid of Athens. — Letter from Mr. HiU — Revival of Athens — Citizens of the 
 
 World U5 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Ruins of Athens. — ^Hill of Mars. — Temple of the Winds..— Lantern of Demosthenes — Arch of Adrian. — Temple 
 of Jupiter Olympus. — Temple of Theseus.— The Acropolis.— The Parthenon. — Pentelican Mountain.— 
 Mount Hymettus. — The Pirffius. — Greeli Fleas — Napoli ... t48 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 Argos.— Parting and Farewell.— Tomb of Agamemnon.— Mycens Gate of the Lions.— A Misfortune.— 
 
 Meeting in the Mountains.— A Landlord's Troubles.- A Midnight Quarrel.- One good Turn deserves 
 another. — Gratitude of a Greek Family. — Megara. — The Soldier's Revel . • • • • 155 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 A Dreary Funeral. — Marathon. — Mount Pentelicus. — A Mystery. — Woes of a Lover.— Reveries of Glory. — 
 
 Scio's Rocky Isle.— A blood-stained Page of History.— A Greek Prelate.— Desolation.— The Exile's Return ICO 
 
 CHAPTER Vni. 
 A Noble Grecian Lady— Beauty of Scio.— An Original.— Foggi.— A Turkish Coflfee-hnuse.— Mussulman at 
 
 Prayers Easter Sunday.— A Greek Priest.— A Tartar Guide— Turkish Ladies.— Camel Scenes.— Sight 
 
 of a Harem.. — Disappointed Hopes., — A rare Concert. — Arrival at Smyrna . . . • .108 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 First Sight of Smyrna.— Unveiled Women.— Ruins of Ephesus.— Ruin, all Ruin.— Temple of Diana.— 
 
 Encounter with a WoU.— Love at first Sight Gatherings on the Road 17.5 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Position of Smyrna.— Consular Privilege8.^-The Case of the Lover. — End of the Love Affair.— The Missionary's 
 
 Wife TheCasino. — Only a Greek Row.— Rambles in Smyrna.— The Armenians.- Domestic Enjoyments 179 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 An American Original. — Moral Changes in Turkey. — Wonders of Steam Navigation. — The March of Mind. — 
 
 Classic Localities. — Sestos and Abydos.— Seeds of Pestilence . . 183 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Mr. Chmxjhill.— Commodore Porter.- Castle of the Seven Towers.— The Sultan's Naval Architect— Launch 
 of the Great Ship.— Sultan Mahmoud.— Jubilate.— A National Grievance.- Visit to a Mosque.— The 
 Burlal-groimda • 1 87 
 
 CHAPTER Xra. 
 Visit to the Slave-market— Horrors of STavery.— Departure from Stamboul.— The stormy Euxine.— Odessa.— 
 
 The Lazaretto.— Russian Civility.— Returning Good for Evil Lfl 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Guardiano One too many.— An excess of Kindness.— The last Day of Quarantine.— Mr. Baguet.— Rise 
 
 of Odessa. — City-making. — Coimt Wor<mzow A Gentleman Farmer. — An American Russian . . 196 
 
132 CONTENTS. 
 
 CnAPTER XV. FA,iH 
 
 Choice 0* a Cuimeyanee.— Hiring a Servant.— Another American. —Beginning of Troubles. — A Bivouao.— 
 RuBsiaii Jews.— The Steppes of Russia.— A Traveller's Story — Approach to Chioff.— How to get riii a* 
 a Servant — History of Chioff . . . . . . 20(J 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 A hicky encounter.— Church of the Catacombs.— A Visit to the Saints — A tender Parting.— Pilgrims.— 
 
 Rough Treatment.— A Scene of Starvation Russian Serfs.— Devotion of the Serf s.— Approach to Moscow 206 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Moscow.— A sevei-e Operation.— An Exile by Accident. — Meeting with an Emigrd.— A civil Stranger — A Spy. 
 
 —The Kremlin.— Sepulcli res of the Czars.— The great Bell— The great Gun — Precious Relies . . 210 
 
 CHAPTER XVni. 
 
 The Drnsky.— Salle des Nobles.— Russian Gaming.- Gastronomy.— Pedrosld.- A Sunday in Moscow.— A 
 
 Gipsy Belle —Tea-drinking The Emperor's Garden — Retrospective .... . 216 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Getting a Passport— Parting with the Marquis— The Langua(?e of Signa— A Ir^uacious Traveller.- From 
 Moscow to St. Petersburgh.— The Wolga.— Novogorod.— Nevvski Perspective. — An unfortimate Mistake. 
 —Northern Twilight . . . ...... -220 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Police Requisites.— The Russian Capital.— Equestrian Statue of Peter the Great— The Alexandrian Column. 
 —Architectural Wonders.— The Summer Islands.— A perilous Achievement— Origin of St. Feterehurgh. 
 — Tombs of dead Monarchs. — Origin of the Russian Navy . . . - 224 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 A new Friend.— The Winter Palace.— Importance of a Hat.— An artificial M ne.— Remains of a Viuge 
 Monster. — Peter the Great's Workshop. — The Greek Religion — Tomb of a Hero. — A Saint Militant— 
 Another Love Affair. — The Hermitage. — The Winter and Summer Gardens ... . 229 
 
 Cfl AFTER XXIL 
 
 An Imperial Fete, — Nicolas of Russia. — Varied Splendours. — A Soliloquy.' — House of Peter the Great— A 
 
 Boat Race. — Czarskoselo. — The Amber Chamber. — Catharine II. — The Emperor Alexander . . . 235 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 The Soldier's Rewaid.— Review of the Russian Army. — American Cannibals.- Palace of Potemkin.— Palace 
 of the Grand-duke Michael.— Equipments for Travelling— Rough Riding —Poland.— Vitepsk —Napo- 
 leon in Polami. — The Disastrous Retreat.— Passage of the Berezina ... . 238 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Travel by Night.— A Rencounter — A Traveller's Message.— Lithuania.— Poverty of the Country— Agricultural 
 Implements. — Minsk. — Ptilish Jews. — A Coin of Freedom. — Riding in a Basket. — Brezc. — The Bug.— A 
 searching Operation.^ Women Labourers — Warsaw ...... . 245 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Warsaw. — A Polish Doctor.—Battle of Grokow.— The Outbreak. — The fatal Issue. — Present Condition of 
 
 Poland.— Polish Exiles.— Aspect of Warsaw.— Traits of the Poles . . ... 250 
 
 CHAPTER XXVL 
 Religion of Poland. — Sunday in Warsaw. — Baptized Jews — Palaces of the Polish Kings. — Sobieski. — Field of 
 Vola. — VVreck of a Warrior. — The Poles in America.— A Polish Lady. — Troubles of a Passport- Depar- 
 ture from Warsaw. — An official Rachel. — A mysterious Visiter . . ..... 254 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 Friendly Solicitude. — Raddom. — Symptoms of a Difficulty.— A Court of Inquisition. — Showing a proper Spirit. 
 — Troubles thickening. — Approaching the Climax. — Woman's Influence. — The Finale. — Utility of the 
 Classics. — ^Another Latinist — A lucky Accident — Arrival at Cracow . .... . 'J59 
 
 CHAPTER XXVHL 
 
 Jcacow.— Casimir the Great. — Kosciusko. — Tombs of the Polish Kings. — A Polish Heroine. — Last Words of 
 a King.— A Hero in Decay.— The Salt-mines of Cracow — The Descent.— The Mines.— Uuder<TOUnil 
 itcditations.— The Farewell • . iGb 
 
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A Hurricane. — An Adventure. — Missolonghi. — Siege of 
 Missnlonghi. — Byron. — Marco Bozzaris. — Visit to the 
 WidoWj Daughters, and Brother of Bozzaris. 
 
 On the evening of the — February, 1835, by 
 a bright starlight, after a short ramble among the 
 Ionian Islands, I sailed from Zante, in a beauti- 
 ful cutter of about forty tons, for Padras. My 
 companions were Doctor W., an old and valued 
 friend from New York, who was going to Greece 
 merely to visit the Episcopal missionary school at 
 Athens, and a young Scotchman, who had tra- 
 velled with me through Italy, and was going 
 farther, like myself, he knew not exactly why. 
 There was hardly a breath of air when we left 
 the harbour, but a breath was enough to fill our 
 little sail. The wind, though of the gentlest, 
 was fair ; and as we crawled from under the lee 
 of the island, in a short time it became a fine 
 sailing breeze. We sat on the deck till a late 
 hour, and turned in with every prospect of being 
 at Padras in the morning. Before daylight, 
 however, the wind chopped about, and set in 
 dead a-head, and when I went on deck in the 
 morning it was blowing a hurricane. We had 
 passed the point of Padras ; the wind was driving 
 down the Gulf of Corinth, as if old iEolus had 
 determined on thwarting our purpose ; and our 
 little cutter, dancing like a gull upon the angry 
 waters, was driven into the harbour of Missolonghi. 
 
 The town was full in sight, but at such a dis- 
 tance, and the waves were running so high, that 
 we could not reach it with our small boat. A 
 long flat extends several miles into the sea, 
 making the harbour completely inaccessible, ex- 
 cept to small Greek caiques, built expressly for 
 Buch navigation. We remained on board all day ; 
 and the next morning, the gale stUl continuing, 
 made signals to a fishing-boat to come off and 
 take us ashore. In a short time she came along- 
 side ; we bade farewell to our captain — an Italian, 
 and a noble fellow, cradled and as he said bom to 
 die on the Adriatic — and in a few moments struck 
 the soil of fallen but immortal Greece. 
 
 Our manner of striking it, however, was not 
 such as to call forth any of the warm emotions 
 struggling in the breast of the scholar, for we 
 >»ere literally stuck in the mud. We were yet 
 
 four or five miles from the shore, and the water 
 was so low that the fishing-boat, with the addi- 
 tional weight of four men and luggage, could not 
 swim clear. Our boatmen were two long, sinewy 
 Greeks, with the red tarbouch, embroidered jacket, 
 sash, and large trousers, and with their long poles 
 set us through the water with prodigious force ; 
 but, as soon as the boat struck, they jumped out, 
 and, putting their brawny shoulders under her 
 sides, heaved her through into better water, and 
 then resumed their poles. In this way they pro 
 pejled lier two or three miles, working alternately 
 with their poles and shoulders, until they got he*' 
 into a channel, when they hoisted the sail, laid 
 directly for the harbour, and drove upon the beach 
 with canvass all flying. 
 
 During the late Greek revolution, Missolonghi 
 was the great debarking-place of European ad- 
 venturers ; and, probably, among all the despe- 
 radoes who ever landed there, none were more- 
 destitute, and in better condition to " go a-head " 
 than I ; for I had all that I was worth on my 
 back. At one of the Ionian Islands I had lost 
 my carpet-bag, containing my note-book, and 
 every article of wearing apparel except the suit 
 in which I stood. Every condition, however, has 
 its advantages ; mine put me above porters and 
 custom-house officers ; and while my companions 
 were busy with these plagues of ti-avellers, I 
 paced, with great satisfaction, the shore of Greece,, 
 though I am obliged to confess that this satis- 
 faction was for reasons utterly disconnected with 
 any recollections of her ancient glories. Business- 
 before pleasure : one of our first inquiries was for 
 a breakfast. Perhaps, if we had seen a monu- 
 ment, or solitary column, or ruin of any kind,, 
 it would have inspired us to better things ; but 
 there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that could 
 recall an unage of the past. Besides, we did not 
 expect to land at Missolonghi, and were not 
 bound to be inspired at a place into which we 
 were thro^vn by accident ; and more than all, a, 
 drizzling rain was penetrating to our very hones j 
 we were wet and cold, and what can men do ia 
 the way of sentiment when their teeth are chat- 
 tering ! 
 
 The town stands upon a flat, marshy plain,, 
 which extends several miles along the shore. 
 The whole was a mass of new-made ruins-— o£' 
 
 i 
 
181 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 "houses demolished and black with smoke — the 
 tokens of savage and desolating war. In front, 
 and running directly along the shore, was a long 
 street of miserable one-story shantees, run up 
 since the destruction of the old town, and so near 
 the shore that sometimes it is washed by the sea, 
 and at the time of our landing it was wet and 
 muddy from the rain. It was a cheerless place, 
 and reminded me of Comraunipaw, in bad weather. 
 It had no connexion with the ancient glory of 
 Oreece, no name or place on her historic page, 
 and no hotel where we could get a breakfast ; 
 but one of the officers of the customs conducted 
 us to a shantee filled with Bavarian soldiers 
 lirinking. There was a sort of second story, ac- 
 cessible only by a ladder ; and one end of this 
 was partitioned off with boards, but had neither 
 bench, table, nor any other article of house- 
 keeping. We had been on and almost in the 
 -water since daylight, exposed to a keen wind and 
 drizzling rain, and now, at eleven o'clock, could 
 probably have eaten several chickens a-piece ; 
 but nothing came amiss, and; as we could not get 
 chickens, we took eggs, which for lack of any 
 vessel to boil them in, were roasted. We placed 
 a huge loaf of bread on the middle of the floor, 
 and seated ourselves around it, spreading out so 
 as to keep the eggs from rolling away, and each 
 hewing off bread for himself. Fortunately, the 
 Greeks have learnt from their quondam Turkish 
 masters the art of making coffee, and a cup of 
 this Eastern cordial kept our dry bread from 
 choking us. 
 
 When we came out again, the aspect of matters 
 was more cheerful ; the long street was swarming 
 with Greeks, many of them armed with pistols 
 a,nd yataghan, but miserably poor in appearance, 
 and in such numbers that not half of them could 
 find the shelter of a roof at night. We were ac- 
 costed by one dressed in a hat and frock-coat, 
 .and, who, in occasional visits to Corfu and Trieste, 
 had picked up some Italian and French, and a 
 suit of European clothes, and was rather looked 
 up to by his untravelled countrymen. As a man 
 of the world who had received civilities abroad, 
 he seemed to consider it incumbent upon him to 
 reciprocate at home, and, with the tacit consent of 
 all around, he undertook to do the honours of 
 Missolonghi. 
 
 If, as a Greek, he had any national pride about 
 
 bim, he was imposing upon himself a severe task ; 
 
 for all that he could do was to conduct us among 
 
 ruins, and as he went along, tell us the story of 
 
 the bloody siege which had reduced flie place to 
 
 its present woeful state. For more than a year, 
 
 under unparalleled hardships, its brave garrison 
 
 resisted the combined strength of the Turkish 
 
 and Egyptian armies, and when all hope was 
 
 gone, resolved to cut tlieir way through the enemy 
 
 or die in the attempt. Many of the aged and 
 
 I sick, the wounded and the women, refused to jom 
 
 in the sortie and preferred to shut themselves up 
 
 I in an old mill, with the desperate purpose of re- 
 
 \ sisting until they should bring around them a large 
 
 ' crowd of Turks, when they would blow all up to- 
 
 ! gether. \.n old invalid soldier seated himself in 
 
 j a mine under the Bastion Bozzaris (the ruins of 
 
 which we saw), the mine being charged with 
 
 tli'rty kegs of gunpowder ; the last sacrament 
 
 «as administered by the bishop and priests to the 
 
 whole population, and, at a signal, the besieged 
 made their desperate sortie. One body dashed 
 through the Turkish ranks, and, with many 
 women and children, gained the mountains ; but 
 the rest were driven back. Many of the women 
 ran to the sea and plunged in with their children ; 
 husbands stabbed their wives with their own 
 hands to save them from the Turks, aad the old 
 soldier under the bastion set fire to the train, and 
 the remnant of the heroic garrison buried them- 
 selves under the ruins of Missolonghi. 
 
 Among them were thirteen foreigners, of whom 
 only one escaped. One of the most distinguished 
 was Meyer, a young Swiss, who entered as a 
 volunteer at the beginning of the revolution, be- 
 came attached to a beautiful Missolonghiote girl, 
 married her, and, when the final sortie was made, 
 his wife being sick he remained with her, and 
 was blown up with the others. A letter written 
 a few days before his death, and brought away 
 by one who escaped in the sortie, records the 
 condition of the garrison. 
 
 " A wound which I have received in my shoul- 
 der, while I am in daily expectation of one which 
 will be my passport to eternity, has prevented me 
 till now from bidding you a last adieu. We are 
 reduced to feed upon the most disgusting animals. 
 We are suffering horribly from hunger and thirst.^ 
 Sickness adds much to the calamities which over- 
 whelm us. Seventeen hundred and forty of our 
 brothers are dead ; more than a hundred thou- 
 sand bombs and balls, thrown by the enemy, have 
 destroyed our bastions and our homes. We have 
 been ten-ibly distressed by the cold, for we have 
 suffered great want of food. Notwithstanduig so 
 many privations, it is a great and noble spectacle 
 to behold the ardour and devotedness of the gar- 
 rison. A few days more, and these brave men 
 will be angelic spirits, who will accuse before God 
 the indifference of Christendom. In the name of 
 all our brave men, among whom are Notho Boz- 
 zaris, * * * I announce to you the resolution 
 sworn to, before Heaven, to defend, foot by foot, 
 the land of Missolonghi, and to bury ourselves, 
 without listening to any capitulation, under the 
 ruins of this city. We are drawing near our final 
 hour. History will render us justice. I am 
 proud to think that the blood of a Swiss, of a 
 child of William Tell, is about to mingle with 
 that of the heroes of Greece." 
 
 But Missolonghi is a subject of still greater in- 
 terest than this, for the reader will remember it 
 as the place where Byron died. Almost the first 
 questions I asked were about the poet, and it 
 added to the dreary interest which the place in- 
 spired, to listen to the manner in which the Greeks 
 spoke of him. It might be thought that here, on 
 the spot wheri! he breathed his last, malignity, 
 would have held her accursed tongue ; but it was 
 not so. He had committed the fault, unpardon- 
 able in the eyes of political opponents, of attach- 
 ing himself to one of the great parties that then 
 divided Greece ; and though he had given her all 
 that man could give, in his own dying words, 
 " his time, his means, his health, and, lastly, his 
 life," the Greeks spoke of him with all the ran- 
 cour and bitterness of party spirit. Even death 
 had not won oblivion for his political offences ; 
 and I heard those that saw him die in her cause 
 affirm that Byron was no friend to Greece. 
 
IN GREECt., TDRK^-S, BUSaiA, AND POLAND. 
 
 135 
 
 His tody, the reader will remember, was trans- 
 ported to England and interred in the family 
 sepulchre.. The church where it lay in state is 
 a heap of ruins, and there is no stone or monument 
 recording his death ; but wishing to see some 
 memorial connected with his residence here, we 
 followed our guide to the house in which he 
 died. It was a large square building of stone ; 
 one of the walls still standing, black with smoke, 
 the rest a confused and shapeless mass of ruins. 
 After his death it was converted into a hospital 
 and magazine ; and, when the Turks entered the 
 city, they set fire to the powder ; the sick and 
 dying were blown into the air, and we saw the 
 ruins lying as they fell after the explosion. It 
 was a melancholy spectacle, but it seemed to have 
 a sort of moral fitness with the life and fortunes 
 of the poet. It was as if the same wild destiny, 
 the same wreck of hopes and fortunes that at- 
 tended him through life, were hovering over his 
 grave. Living and dead, his actions and his 
 character have been the subject of obloquy and 
 reproach, perhaps justly ; but it would have soft- 
 ened the heart of his bitterest enemy to see the 
 place in which he died. 
 
 It was in this house that, on hia last birthday, 
 he came from his bedroom and produced to his 
 friends the last notes of his dying muse, breatliing 
 a spirit of sad foreboding and melancholy re- 
 collections ; of devotion to the noble cause in which 
 he had embarked, and a prophetic consciousness 
 of his approaching end. 
 
 " My days arc in the yellow leaf, 
 
 The flowers and fruits of love are gone ; 
 The worm, the canker, and the grief 
 
 Are mine alone. 
 • •*♦*» 
 
 ** If thou regrei'st thy youth, why livef 
 The land of honourahle death 
 Is here : up to the field, and give 
 Away thy breath ! 
 " Seek out — ^less often sought than found — 
 A soldier's grave, for thee the best ; 
 TbiMi look around, and choose thy ground. 
 And take thy rest." 
 
 Moving on beyond the range of ruined houses, 
 though still within the line of crumbling walls, we 
 came to a spot perhaps as interesting as any that 
 Greece in her best days could show. It was the 
 tomb of Marco Bozzaris ! no monumental marble 
 emblazoned his deeds and fame ; a few round 
 stones piled over his head, which but for our guide, 
 we should have passed without noticing, were 
 all that marked his grave. I would not disturb a 
 proper reverence for the past : time covers with its 
 dim and twilight glories both distant scenes and the 
 men who acted in them ; but, to my mind, Miltia- 
 des was not more of a hero at Marathon, or Leo- 
 nidas at Thermopylae, than Marco Bozzaris at 
 Missolonghi. When they went out against the 
 hosts of Persia, Athens and Sparta were great and 
 free, and they had the prospect of glory and the 
 praise of men, to the Greeks always dearer than 
 life. But when the Suliote chief ieev his sword, 
 his country lay bleeding at the feet of a giant, and 
 all Europe condemned the Greek revolution as 
 fool-hardy and desperate. For two months, with 
 but a few hundred men, protected only by a ditch 
 and slight parapet of earth, he defended the town 
 where hia body now rests against the whole Egyp- 
 
 tian army. In stormy weather, living upon bad 
 and unwholesome bread, with no covering but his 
 cloak, he passed his days and nights in constant 
 vigil ; in every assault his sword cut down the 
 foremost assailant, and his voice rising above the 
 din of battle, struck terror into the hearts of the 
 enemy. In the struggle which ended with his hfe, 
 with two thousand men he proposed to attack the 
 whole army of Mi;staphaPacha,andcalled upon all 
 who were willing to die for their country to stand 
 forward. The whole band advanced to a man. 
 Unwilling to sacrifice so many brave men in a 
 death-struggle, he chose three hundred, the sacred 
 number of the Spartan band, his tried and trusty 
 Suliotes., At midnight he placed himself at their 
 head, directing that not a shot should be fired till 
 he sounded his bugle ; and his last command was, 
 "If you lose sight of me, seek me in the pacha's 
 tent." In the moment of victory he ordered the 
 pacha to be seized, and received a ball in the 
 loins ; his voice still rose above the din of battle, 
 cheering his men until he was struck by another 
 ball in the head, and borne dead from the field of 
 his glory. 
 
 Not far from the grave of Bozzaris was a pyra- 
 mid of sculls, of men who had fallen in the last 
 atta.ck upon the city, piled up near the blackened 
 and battered wall which they had died in defend- 
 ing. In my after wanderings I learned to look 
 more carelessly upon these things ; and, perhaps, 
 noticing everywhere the light estimation put upon 
 human life in the East, learned to think more 
 lightly of it myself ; but, then, it was melancholy 
 to see bleaching in the sun, under the eyes of 
 their countrymen, the unburied bones of men 
 who, but a little while ago, stood with swords in 
 their hands, and animated by the noble resolution 
 to free their country or die in the attempt. Our 
 guide told us that they had all been collected in 
 that place with a view to sepulture ; and that 
 King Otho, as soon as he became of age and took 
 the government in his own hands, intended to 
 erect a monument over them. In the meantime, 
 they are at the mercy of every passing traveller , 
 and the only remark that our guide made was a 
 comment upon the force and unerring precision 
 of the blow of the Turkish sabre, almost every 
 scull being laid open on the side nearly down to 
 the ear. 
 
 But the most interesting part of our day at 
 Missolonghi was to come. Returning from a 
 ramble round the walls, we noticed a large square 
 house, which, our guide told us, was the residence 
 of Gonstantiue, the brother of Marco Bozzaris. 
 We were all interested in this intelligence, and 
 our interest was in no small degree increased 
 when he added that the widow and two of the 
 children of the Suliote chief were living with his 
 brother. The house was surrounded by a high 
 stone wall, a large gate stood most invitmgly wide 
 open, and we turned toward it in the hope of catch- 
 ing a glimpse of the inhabitants ; but, bcfcre we 
 reached the gate, our interest had increased to 
 such a point that, after consulting with our guide, 
 we requested him to say that, if it would not be 
 considered an intrusion, three travellers, two oi 
 them Americans, would feel honoured in being 
 permitted to pay their respects to the widow and 
 children of Marco Bozzaris. 
 
 We were invited in, and shown into a large 
 
136 
 
 INCIDteNTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 room on the right, where three Greeks were sit- 
 ting cross-legged on a divan, smoking the long 
 Turkish chibouL. Soon after the brother entered, 
 a man about iifty, of middling height, spare-built, 
 and wearing a Bavarian uniform, as holding a 
 colonel's commission in the service of King Otho. 
 In the dress of the dashing Suliote he would have 
 better looked the brother of Marco Bozzaris, and 
 I might then more easily have recognised the 
 daring warrior who, on the field of battle, in a 
 moment of extremity, was deemed, by universal 
 acclamation, worthy of succeeding the fallen hero. 
 Now the straight military frock-coal, buttoned 
 tight across the breast, the stock, tight panta- 
 loons, boots and straps, seemed to repress the 
 free energies of the mountain warrior ; and I 
 could not but think liow awkward it must be for 
 one who had spent all his life in a dress which 
 hai'dly touched him, at fifty to put on a stock, and 
 straps to his boots. Our guide introduced us, 
 with an apology for our intrusion. The colonel 
 received us with great kindness, thanked us for 
 the honour done his brothex''s widow, aud re- 
 questing us to be seated, ordered coffee and pipes. 
 
 And here, on the very first day of our arrival 
 In Greece, and from a source which made us 
 proud, we had the first evidence of what after- 
 ward met me at every step, the warm feeling 
 existing in Greece toward America ; for almost 
 the first thing that the brother of Marco Bozzaris 
 said was to express his gratitude, as a Greek, for 
 the services rendered his country by our own ; 
 and, after referring to the provisions sent out for 
 his famishing countrymen, his eyes sparkled and 
 his cheek flushed as he told us that, when the 
 Greek revolutionary flag first sailed into the port 
 of Napoli di Romania, among hundreds of vessels 
 of all nations, an American captaiu was the first 
 to recognise and salute it. 
 
 In a few moments the widow of Marco Bozzaris 
 entered. I have often been disappointed in my 
 preconceived notions of personal appearance, but 
 it was not so with the lady who now stood before 
 me ; she looked the widow of a hero ; as one of 
 her Grecian mothers, who gave their hair for 
 bowstrings, their girdle for a sword-belt, and, 
 while their heart-strings were cracldng, sent their 
 young lovers from their arms to fight and perish 
 for their country. Perhaps it was she that led 
 I Marco Bozzaris into the path of immortality ; 
 that roused him from the wild guerilla warfare ui 
 which he had passed his early life, and fired him 
 mth the high and holy ambition of freeing his 
 country. Of one thing I am certain, no man 
 could look in her face without finding his waver- 
 ing purposes fixed, without treading more firmly 
 in the path of high and honourable enterprise. 
 She was under forty, tall and stately in person, 
 and habited in deep black, fit emblem of her 
 widowed condition, with a white handkerchief laid 
 flat over her head, giving the Madonna cast to 
 her dark eyes and marble complexion. We all 
 rose as she entered the room : and though living 
 secluded, and seldom seeing the face of a stranger, 
 she received our compliments and returned them 
 with far less embarrassment than we both felt 
 and exhibited. 
 
 But our embarrassment, at least I speak for 
 myself, was induced by an unexpected circum- 
 stance. Much as I was interested in her appear- 
 
 ance, I was not insensible to the fact that sht 
 was accompanied by two young and beautiful 
 girls, who were introduced to us as her daughters, 
 This somewhat bewildered me. While waiting 
 for their appearance, and talldng with Constantine 
 Bozzaris, I had in some way conceived the idea 
 that the daughters were mere children, and had 
 fully made up my mind to take them both on my 
 knee and kiss them ; but the appearance of the 
 stately mother recalled me to the grave of Boz- 
 zaris ; and the daughters would probably have 
 thought that I was taking liberties upon so Aort 
 an acquaintance if I had followed up my bene- 
 volent purpose in regard to them ; so that, with 
 the long pipe in my hand, which, at that time, 
 I did not know how to manage well, I cannot 
 flatter myself that I exhibited any of the benefit 
 of continental travel. 
 
 The elder was about sixteen, and even in the 
 opinion of my friend Doctor W., a cool judge 
 in these matters, o beautiful girl, possessing m 
 its fullest extent all the elements of Grecian 
 beauty: a dark, clear complexion, dark hair, 
 set off by a little red cap embroidered with gold 
 thread, and a long blue tassel hanging down 
 behind, and large black eyes, expressing a melan- 
 choly quiet, but which might be excited to 
 shoot forth glances of fire more terrible than 
 her father's sword. Happily, too, for us, she 
 talked French, having learned it from a French 
 marquis who had served in Greece and been 
 domesticated with them ; but young and modest, 
 and unused to the company of strangers, sht 
 felt the embarrassment common to young ladies 
 when attempting to speak a foreign language. 
 And we could not talk to her on common themes. 
 Our lips were sealed, of course, upon the sub- 
 ject which had brought us to her house. We 
 could not sound for her the jiraises of her gallant 
 father. At parting, however, I told them that 
 the name of Marco Bozzaris was as familiar in 
 America as that of a hero of our own revolution, 
 and that it had been hallowed by the inspiration 
 of an American poet ; and I added that, if it 
 would not be unacceptable, on my return to my 
 native country I would send the tribute referred 
 to, as an evidence of the feeling existing in 
 America toward the memory of Marco Bozzaris. 
 My offer was gi-atefully accepted ; and afterward, 
 while in the act of mounting my hoi-se to leave 
 Missolonghi, our guide, who had remained behind, 
 came to me with a message fi'om the widow and 
 daughters reminding me of my promise. 
 
 I do not see that there is any objection to my 
 mentioning that I wrote to a friend, requesting 
 him to procure Halleck's " Marco Bozzaris," and 
 send it to my banker at Paris. My friend, think- 
 ing to enhance its value, applied to Mr. Halleck 
 for a copy in his own handwriting. Mr. Halleck, 
 with his characteristic modesty, evaded the appli- 
 cation ; and on my return home I told him the 
 story of my visit, and reiterated the same request. 
 He evaded me as he had done my friend, but 
 promised me a copy of the new edition of his 
 poems, which he afterward gave me, and which, I 
 hope, is now in the hands of the widow and 
 daughters of the Grecian hero. 
 
 I make no apology for introducing in a book 
 the widow and daughters of Marco Bozzaris. 
 True, I was »'eceived by them in private, mthout 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 137 
 
 any expectation, either on their part or mine, 
 that all the particulars of the interview would be 
 noted and laid before the eyes of all who choose 
 to read. I hope it will not be considered invad- 
 ing the sanctity of private life ; but, at all events, 
 I make no apology ; the widow and children of 
 Marco Bozzaris are the property of the world. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Choice of a Servant — A Turnout. — An Evening Chat — 
 Scenery of the Road — Lepanto. — A projected Visit. — 
 Change of Purpose. — Padras. — Vostitza. — ^Variety and 
 Magnificence of Scenery. 
 
 Barren as our prospect was on landing, our 
 first day in Greece had already been full of 
 interest. Supposing that we should not find any- 
 thing to engage us long, before setting out on 
 our ramble we had directed our servant to pro- 
 cure horses, and when we returned we found all 
 ready for our departure. 
 
 One word with regard to this same servant. 
 We had taken him at Corfu, much against my 
 inclination. We had a choice between two, one 
 a full-blooded Greek in fustinellas, who in five 
 minutes established himself in my good graces, so 
 that nothing but the democratic principle of sub- 
 mitting to the will of the majority could make 
 me give him up. He held at that time a very 
 good office in the police at Corfu, but the eager- 
 ness which he showed to get out of regular busi- 
 ness and go roving, warmed me to him irresistibly. 
 He seemed to be distracted between two opposing 
 feelings : one the strong bent of his natural vaga- 
 bond disposition to be rambUng, and the other 
 a sort of tugging at his heart-strings by wife and 
 children, to keep him in a place where he had a 
 regular assured living, instead of trusting to the 
 precarious business of guiding travellers. He 
 had a boldness and confidence that won me ; and 
 when he drew on the sand with his yataghan a 
 map of Greece, and told us the route he would 
 take us, zigzag across the Gulf of Corinth to 
 Delphi and the top of Parnassus, I wondered that 
 my companions could resist him. 
 
 Our alternative was an Italian from somewhere 
 on the coast of the Adriatic, whom I looked upon 
 with an unfavourable eye, because he came be- 
 tween me and my Greek ; and on the morning of 
 our departure I was earnestly hoping that he had 
 overslept himself, or got into some scrape and 
 been picked up by the guard ; but, most provok- 
 ingly, he came in time, and with more baggage 
 than all of us had together. Indeed, he had so 
 much of his own, that, in obedience to Nature's 
 first law, he could not attend to ours, and in 
 puttmg ashore some British soldiers at Cephalonia 
 he contrived to let my carpet-bag go with their 
 ("gS^g^- This did not increase my amiable feel- 
 ing toward him, and, perhaps, assisted in making 
 me look upon him throughout with a jaundiced 
 eye ; in fact, before we had done with him, I re- 
 garded him as a slouch, a knave, and a fool, and 
 had the questionable satisfaction of finding that 
 my companions, though they sustained him as 
 long as they could, had formed very much the 
 fame opinion. 
 
 It was to him, then, that, on our return from 
 
 our visit to the widow and daughters of Marco 
 Bozzaris, we were indebted for a turnout that 
 seemed to astonish even the people of Missolonghi. 
 The horses were miserable little animals, hidden 
 under enormous saddles made of great clumps of 
 wood over an old carpet or towcloth, and cover- 
 ing the whole back from the shoulders to the tail 
 the luggage was perched on th« tops of these 
 saddles, and with desperate exertions and the 
 help of the citizens of Missolonghi we were 
 perched on the top of the luggage. The little 
 animals had a knowing look as they peered from 
 under the superincumbent mass, and, supported 
 on either side by the by-standers till we got a 
 little steady in our seats, we put forth from Mis- 
 solonghi. The only gentleman of our party was 
 our servant, who followed on a European saddle 
 which he had brought for his own use, smoking 
 his pipe with great complacency, perfectly satis- 
 fied with our appearance and with himself. 
 
 It was four o'clock when we crossed the broken 
 walls of Missolonghi. For three hours our road 
 lay over a plain extending to the sea. I have no 
 doubt, if my Greek had been there, he would 
 have given an interest to the road by referring to 
 scenes and incidents connected with the siege of 
 Missolonghi ; but Demetrius — as he now chose to 
 call himself — knew nothing of Greece, ancient or 
 modern ; he had no sympathy of feeling with the 
 Greeks ; had never travelled on this side of the 
 Gulf of Corinth before ; and so he lagged behind 
 and smoked his pipe. 
 
 It was nearly dark when we reached the mise- 
 rable little village of Bokara. We had barely 
 light enough to look around for the best khan in 
 which to pass the night. Any of the wretched 
 tenants would have been glad to receive us for the 
 little remuneration we might leave with them in 
 the morning. The khans were all alike, one 
 room, mud floor and walls, and we selected one 
 where the chickens had already gone to roost, 
 and prepared to measure off the dirt floor ac- 
 cording to our dimensions. Before we were ar- 
 ranged a Greek of a better class, followed by 
 half a dozen villagers, came over, and, with many 
 regrets for the wretched state of the country, 
 invited us to his house. Though dressed in the 
 Greek costume, it was evident that he had ac- 
 quired his manners in a school beyond the bounds 
 of his miserable little village, in which his house 
 now rose Hke the Leaning Tower of Pisa, higher 
 than everything else, but rather ricketty. In a 
 few minutes we heard the death-notes of some 
 chickens, and at about nine o'clock sat down to a 
 not unwelcome meal. Several Greeks dropped 
 in during the evening, and one, a particular friend 
 of our host's, supped with us. Both talked 
 French, and had that perfect ease of manner and 
 savoir faire which I always remarked with admi- 
 ration in all Greeks who had travelled. They 
 talked much of their travels ; of time spent in 
 Italy and Germany, and particularly of a long 
 residence at Bucharest. They talked, too, of 
 Greece ; of her long and bitter servitude, her 
 revolution, and her independence ; and from their 
 enthusiasm I could not but think that they had 
 fought and bled in her cause. I certainly was not 
 lying in wait to entrap them, but I afterward 
 gathered from their conversation that they had 
 taken occasion to be on their travels at the tima 
 K 
 
138 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 when the bravest of their countrymen were pour- 
 ing out their blood like water to emancipate their 
 native land. A few years before I might have felt 
 indignation and contempt for me^ who had left 
 their country in her hour of utmost need, and re- 
 turned to enjoy the privileges purchased with 
 other men's blood ; but I had already learned to 
 take the world as I found it, and listened quietly 
 while our host told us that, confiding in the per- 
 manency of the government secured by the three 
 great powers, England, France, and Russia, he 
 had returned to Greece, and taken a lease of a 
 large tract of laud for fifty years, paying a thou- 
 sand drachms, — a drachm being one-sixth of a 
 dollar, — and one-tenth of the annual fruits, at the 
 end of which time one-half of the land under 
 cultivation was to belong to his heirs in fee. 
 
 As our host could not conveniently accommo- 
 date us all, M. and Demetrius returned to the 
 khan at which we had first stopped, and where, 
 to judge from the early hour at which they came 
 over to us the next morning, they had not spent 
 the night as well as we did. At daylight we took 
 our coffee, and again perched our luggage on the 
 backs of the horses, and ourselves on the top of 
 the luggage. Our host wished us to remain with 
 him, and promised the next day to accompany us 
 to Padras ; but this was not a sufiicient induce- 
 ment ; and taking leave of him, probably for ever, 
 we started for Lepanto. 
 
 We rode about an hour on the plain ; the 
 mountains towered on our left, and the rich soil 
 was broken into rough sandy gullies running 
 down to the sea. Our guides had some appre- 
 hensions that we should not be able to cross the 
 torrents that were running down from the moun- 
 tain ; and when we came to the first, and had to 
 walk up along the bank, looking out for a place 
 to ford, we fully participated in their apprehen- 
 sions. Bridges were a species of architecture 
 entirely unknown in that part of modern Greece ; 
 indeed, no bridges could have stood against the 
 mountain torrents. There would have been some 
 excitement in encountering these rapid streams if 
 we had been well mounted ; but, from the manner 
 in which we were hitched on our horses, we did 
 not feel any great confidence in our seats. Still 
 nothing could be wilder or more picturesque than 
 our process in crossing them, except that it might 
 have added somewhat to the effect to see one of 
 us floating down-stream, clinging to the tail of 
 his horse. But we got over or through them all. 
 A range of mountains then formed on our right, 
 cuttuig us off from the sea, and we entered a 
 valley lying between the two parallel ranges. At 
 first the road, which was exceedingly difiicult for 
 a man or a sure-footed horse, lay along a beauti- 
 ful stream, and the whole of the valley extending 
 to the Gulf of Lepanto is one of the loveUest 
 regions of country I ever saw. Tne ground was 
 rich and verdant, and, even at that early season 
 of the year, blooming with wild flowers of eveiy 
 hue, but wholly uncultivated, the olive-trees hav- 
 ing all been cut down by the Turks, and without 
 a single habitation on the whole route. My 
 Scotch companion, who had a good eye for the 
 picttiresque and beautiful in natural scenery, was 
 in raptures with this valley.^ I have since tra- 
 velled in Switzerland, not, however, in all the 
 districts frequented by tourists; but iu what I 
 
 saw, beautiful as it is, I do not know a j.lace where 
 the wildness of mountam scenery is so delight- 
 fully contrasted with the softness of a rich valley.: 
 
 At the end of the valley, dh'ectly opposite 
 Padras, and on the borders of the gulf, is a wild 
 road called Scala Cativa, running along the sides 
 of a rocky, mountainous precipice, overlooking 
 the sea; It is a wild and almost fearful road ; in 
 some places I thought it like the perpendicular 
 sides of the Palisades ;* and when the wind blows 
 in a particular direction it is impossible to make 
 headway against it. Our host told us that we 
 should find difficulty that day ; and there was just 
 rudeness enough to make us look well to our 
 movements. Directly at our feet was the gulf of 
 Corinth ; opposite a range of mountains ; and in 
 the distance the island of Zante. On the other 
 side of the valley is an extraordinary mountain, 
 very high, and wanting a large piece in the middle, 
 as if cut out with a chisel, leaving two strait 
 parallel sides, and called by the unpoetical name 
 of the Armchair. In the wildest part of the Scala, 
 where a very slight struggle would have precipi- 
 tated us several hundred feet into the sea, an 
 enormous shepherd's dog came bounding and bark- 
 ing towards us ; and we were much relieved when 
 his master, who was hanging with his flock of 
 goats on an almost inaccessible height, called him 
 away. At the foot of the mountain we entered' a 
 rich plain, where the shepherds were pasturing 
 their flocks down to the shore of the sea, and in 
 about two hours arrived at Lepanto. 
 
 After diligent search by Demetrius (the name 
 by which we had taken him, whose true name, 
 however, we found to be Jerolamon), and by all 
 the idlers whom the arrival of strangers attracted, 
 we procured a room near the farthest wall ; it Was 
 reached by ascending a flight of steps outside, and 
 boasted a floor, walls, and an apology for a roof. 
 We piled up our baggage in one corner, or rather, 
 my companions did theirs, and went prowling 
 about in search of something to eat. Our servant 
 had not fully apprised us of the extreme poverty 
 of the country, the entire absence of all accommo- 
 dations for travellers, and the absolute necessity 
 of carrying with us everything requisite for com- 
 fort. He was a man of few words, and probably 
 thought that, as between servant and master, 
 example was better than precept, and that the 
 abundant provision he had made for himself might 
 serve as a lesson for us; but in our case, the 
 objection to this mode of teaching was, that it 
 came too late to be profitable. At the foot of the 
 hill fronting the sea was an open place, in one side 
 of which was a little cafteria, where all the good- 
 for-nothing loungers of Lepanto were assembled. 
 We bought a loaf of bread and some eggs, and, 
 with a cup of Turkish coffee, made our evening meal 
 
 We had an hour before dark, and strolled along ' 
 the shore. Though in a ruinous condition, Lepanto 
 is in itself interesting, as giving an exact idea of 
 an ancient Greek city, being situated in a com- 
 manding position on the side of a mountain run- 
 ning down to the sea, with its citadel on the top, 
 and enclosed by walls and turrets. The port is 
 shut within the walls, which run into the sea, and 
 are erected on the foundations of the ancient 
 Naupactus. At a distance was the pro montory o f 
 
 * Itocks so called, rising along tho river Hudson, & few 
 miles above New York. — Ed. 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 139 
 
 Actium, where Cleopati-a, with her fifty ships, 
 abandoned Antony and left to Augustus the empire 
 ■of the world ; and directly before us, its surface 
 aotied witn a few straggling Greek caiques, was 
 tne scene of a battle which has rung throughout 
 the world, the great battle of the Cross against the 
 Crescent, where the allied forces of Spain, Venice, 
 and the pope, amounting to nearly three hundred 
 sail, under the command of Don John of Austria, 
 humbled for ever the naval pride of the Turks. 
 One hundred and thirty Turkish galleys were taken 
 and fifty-five sunk ; thirty thousand Turks were 
 killed, ten thousand taken prisoners, fifteen thou- 
 sand Christian slaves delivered ; and Pope Pius 
 VI., with holy fervour, exclaimed, " There was a 
 inan sent from God, and his name was John." 
 Cervantes lost his left hand in this battle ; and it 
 is to wounds he received here that he makes a 
 touching allusion when reproached by a rival: 
 " What I cannot help feeling deeply is, that I am 
 stigmatized with being old and maimed, as though 
 it belonged to me to stay the course of time ; or 
 as though my wounds had been received in some 
 tavern broil, instead of the most lofty occasion 
 which past ages have yet seen, or which shall 
 ever be seen by those to come. The scars which 
 the soldier wears on his person, instead of badges 
 -of infamy, are stars to guide the daring in the 
 path of glory. As for mine, though they may 
 not shine in the eyes of the envious, they are at 
 least esteemed by those who know where they 
 were received ; and, even was it not yet too late 
 to choose, I would rather remain as I am, maimed 
 and mutilated, than be now whole of my wounds, 
 without having taken part in so glorious an achieve- 
 jnent." 
 
 I shall, perhaps, be reproached for mingling 
 with the immortal names of Don John of Austria 
 and Cervantes those of George Wilson, of Provi- 
 dence, Rhode Island, and James Williams, a black 
 of Baltimore, cook on board Lord Cochrane's flag- 
 ship in the great battle between the Greek and 
 Turkish fleets. George Wilson was a gunner on 
 loard one of the Greek ships, and conducted him- 
 self with so much gallantry, that Lord Cochrane, 
 ^t a dinner in commemoration of the event, 
 publicly drank his health. In the same battle 
 ■James WilUams, who had lost a finger in the 
 United States' service under Decatur at Algiers, 
 and had conducted himself with great coolness and 
 intrepidity in several engagements, when no Greek 
 could be found to take the helm, volunteered his 
 services, and was struck down by a splinter, which 
 broke his legs and arms. The historian will pro- 
 hably never mention these gallant fellows in his 
 quarto volumes ; but I hope the American tra- 
 veller, as he stands at sun-set by the shore of the 
 trulf of Lepanto, and recalls to mind the great 
 -achievements of Don John and Cervantes, will not 
 forget George Wilson and James Williams. 
 
 At evening we returned to our room, built a 
 fire in the middle, and, with as much dignity as 
 we could muster, sitting on the floor, received a 
 number of Greek visiters. ' When they left us we 
 wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and lay down to 
 sleep. Sleep, however, is not always won when 
 wooed. Sometimes it takes the perverse humour 
 of the wild Irish boy : « The more you call me 
 the more I won't come." Our room had no 
 t.umney; and though, as I lay all night looking 
 
 up at the roof, there appeared to bo apertnres 
 enough to let out the smoke, it seemed to have a 
 loving feeling toward us in our lowly position, 
 and clung to us so closely that we were obliged to 
 let the fire go out, and lie shivermg till morning. 
 
 Every schoolboy knows how hard it is to write 
 poetry, but few know the physical difficulties of 
 climbing the poetical mountain itself. We had 
 made arrangements to sleep the next night at 
 Castri, by the side of the sacred oracle of Delphi, 
 a mile up Parnassus. Our servant wanted to 
 cross over and go up on the other side of the gulf, 
 and entertained us with several stories of rob- 
 beries committed on this road, to which we paid 
 no attention. The Greeks who visited us in the 
 evening related, with much detail, a story of a 
 celebrated captain of brigands having lately re- 
 turned to his haunt on Parnassus, and attacked 
 nine Greek merchants, of whom he killed three ; 
 the recital of which interesting incident we ascribed 
 to Demetrius, and disregarded. 
 
 Early in the morning we mounted our horses 
 and started for Parnassus. At the gate of the 
 town we were informed that it was necessary, 
 before leaving, to have a passport from the epar- 
 chos, and I returned to procure it. The eparchos 
 was a man about forty-five, tall and stout, with a 
 clear olive complexion and a sharp black eye, 
 di-essed in a rich Greek costume, and, fortunately, 
 able to speak French. He was sitting cross-legged 
 on a divan, smoking a pipe, and looking out upon 
 the sea ; and when I told him my business, he laid 
 down his pipe, repeated the story of the robbery 
 and murder that we had heard the night before, 
 and added that we must abandon the idea of tra- 
 velling that road. He said, farther, that the 
 country was in a distracted state; that poverty 
 was driving men to desperation ; and that, though 
 they had driven out the Turks, the Greeks were 
 not masters of their own country. Hearing that 
 I was an American, and as if in want of a bosom 
 in which to unburden himself, and as one assured 
 of sympathy, he told me the whole story of their 
 long and bloody struggle for independence, and 
 the causes that now made the friends of Greece 
 tremble for her future destiny. I knew that the 
 seat of the muses bore a rather suspicious cha- 
 racter, and, in fact, that the rocks and caves about 
 Parnassus were celebrated as the abodes of rob- 
 bers, but I was unwilling to be driven from our 
 purpose of ascending it. I went to the military 
 commandant, a Bavarian officer, and told him 
 what I had just heard from the eparchos. He 
 said frankly that he did not know much of the 
 state of the country, as he had but lately arrived 
 in it ; but, with the true Bavarian spirit, advised 
 me, as a general rule, not to believe anything a 
 Greek should tell me. I returned to the gate, 
 and made my double report to my companions. 
 Dr. W. returned with me to the eparchos, where 
 the latter repeated, with great earnestness, all he 
 had told me ; and when I persisted in combating 
 his objections, shrugged his shoulders in a man- 
 ner that seemed to say, " your blood be on your 
 own heads;" that he had done his duty, and 
 washed his hands of the consequences. As we 
 were going out he called me back, and, recurring 
 to our previous conversation, said that he had 
 spoken to me as an American more freely than he 
 would have done to a stranger, and begged that. 
 
14U 
 
 INCIDENTS OK TKAVKL, 
 
 as I was going to Athens, I would not repeat his 
 words where they could do him injury. I would 
 not mention the circumstance now, but that the 
 political clouds which then hung over the horizon 
 of Greece have passed away ; King Otho has taken 
 his seat on the throne, and iuy friend has probably 
 long since been driven or retired from public life. 
 E was at that time a stfanfjer to the internal poli- 
 ' ties of Greece, but I afterward found that the 
 I eparchos was one of a then imwerful body of Greeks 
 ! opposed to the Bavarian influence, and interested 
 in representing the state of the country as more 
 unsettled than it really wa'i. I took leave of him, 
 however, as one who had Ictended me a kindness, 
 and, returning to the gate, found our companion 
 sitting on his horse, waiting the result of our far- 
 ther inquiries. Both he and my fellow-envoy were 
 comparatively indifferent upon the subject, while 
 I was rather bent on drinking from the Castalian 
 fount, and sleeping on the top of Parnassus. 
 Besides, I was in a beautiful condition to be rob- 
 bed ! I had nothing but what I had on my back, 
 and I felt sure that a Greek mountain robber 
 , would scorn my stiff coat a^id pantaloons and black 
 hat. My companions, however, were not so well 
 situated, particularly M., who had drawn money 
 at Corfu, and had no idea of trusting it to the 
 tender mercies of a Greek bandit. In the teeth 
 of the advice we had received, it would, perhaps, 
 have been foolhardy to proceed ; and, to my gi-eat 
 subsequent regret, for the first and the last time in 
 my rarablings, I was turned aside from my path by 
 fear of perils on the road. Perhaps, after all, I 
 had a lucky escape ; for if the Greek tradition be 
 true, whoever sleeps on the mountain becomes an 
 inspired poet or a madman, either of which, for a 
 professional man, is a catastrophe to be avoided. 
 
 Our change of plan suited Demetrius exactly ; 
 he had never travelled on.this side of the Gulf of 
 Corinth ; and besides that, he considered it a great 
 triumph that his stories of robbers were con- 
 firmed by others, showingjbis superior knowledge 
 of the state of the country ; he was glad to get on 
 a road which he had travelled before, and on 
 which he had a chance of meeting some of his old 
 travelling acquaintance. In half an hour he had 
 us on board a caique. We put out from the har- 
 bour of Lepanto with a sti-ong and favourable 
 wind ; our little boat danced lightly over the waters 
 of the Gulf of Corinth ; and in three hours, passing 
 between the frowning castles of Romelia and 
 Morea, under the shadow of the walls of which 
 were buried the bodies of the Christians who fell 
 in the great naval battle, we arrived at Padras. 
 
 The first thing we recognised was the beautiful 
 little cutter which we had left at Missolonghi, 
 riding gracefully at anchor in the harbour, and 
 the first man we spoke to on landing was our old 
 friend the captain. We exchanged a cordial greet- 
 ing, and he conducted us to Mr. Robertson, the 
 British vice-consul, who, at the moment of our 
 entering, was in the act of directing a letter to 
 me at Athens. The subject was my interesting 
 carpet-bag. There being no American consul at 
 Padras, I had taken the liberty of writing to Mr. 
 Robertson, requesting him, if my estate should 
 find its way into his hands, to forward it to me at 
 Athens, and the letter v,'as to assure me of his 
 attention to my wishes. It may be considered 
 treason against classical t^ste, but it consoled me 
 
 somewhat for the loss of Parnassus, to find a 
 stranger taking so warm an interest in my fugi- 
 tive habiliments. 
 
 There was something, too, in the appearance of 
 Padras, that addressed itself to other feelings, 
 than those connected with the indulgence of a 
 classical humour. Our bones were still aching 
 with the last night's rest, or, rather, the want of 
 it, at Lepanto ; and when we found ourselves in 
 a neat little locauda, and a complaisant Greek 
 asked us what we would have for dinner, ajid 
 showed us our beds for the night, we almost 
 agreed that climbing Parnassus and such things 
 were fit only for boys just out of college. 
 
 Padras is beautifully situated at the mouth of 
 the Gulf of Corinth, and the windows of our 
 loeanda commanded a fine view of the bold 
 mountains on the opposite side of the gulf, and. 
 the parallel range forming the valley which leads 
 to Missolonghi. It stands on the site of the 
 ancient Patree, enumerated by Herodotus among 
 the twelve cities of Achaia. During the intervals 
 of peace m the Peloponnesian war, Alclbiades,. 
 about four hundred and fifty years before Christ, 
 persuaded its inhabitants to build long walls down 
 to the sea. Philip of Macedon frequently landed 
 there in his expeditions to Peloponnesus. Augustus. 
 Csesar, after the battle of Actium, made it a. 
 Roman colony, and sent thither a large body o( 
 his veteran soldiers ; and, in the time of Cicero,, 
 Roman merchants were settled there just as 
 French and Italians are now. The modern town 
 has grown up since the revolution, or rather since 
 the accession of Otho, and bears no marks of the 
 desolation at Missolonghi and Lepanto. It con- 
 tains a long street of shops well supplied with, 
 European goods ; the English steamers from Corfu 
 to Malta touch here ; and, besides the little Greek 
 caiques tradmg in the Gulf of Cormth, vessel* 
 from all parts of the Adriatic are constantly ia 
 the harbour. 
 
 Among others, there was an Austrian man-of- 
 war from Trieste, on her way to Alexandria. By 
 a singular fortune, the commandant had been in 
 one of the Austrian vessels that carried to New 
 York the unfortunate Poles; the only Austrian, 
 man-of-war which had ever been to the United 
 States. A day or two after their arrival at New 
 York I had taken a boat at the Battery and gone 
 on board this vessel, and had met the officers at 
 some parties given to them at which he had been 
 present ; and though we had no actual acquaint- 
 ance with each other, these circumstances were 
 enough to form an immediate link between us, 
 particularly as he was enthusiastic in his praises 
 of the hospitality of our citizens and the beauty of 
 our women. Lest, however, any of the latter 
 should be vainglorious, at hearmg that their 
 praises were sounded so far from home, I con- 
 sider it my duty to say that the commandant was 
 almost blind, very slovenly, always smoking a 
 pipe, and generally a little tipsy. 
 
 Early in the morning we started for Athens. 
 Our turnout was rather better than at Missolonghi, 
 but not much. The day, however, was fine; the 
 cold wind which, for several days, had been 
 blowing down the Gulf of Corinth, had ceased, 
 and the air was warm, and balmy, and invigo- 
 rating. We had already found that Greece had 
 something to attract the stranger besides the 
 
p. 141. 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND , POLAND. 
 
 lU 
 
 TeeollectionB of her ancient glories, and often 
 forgot that the ground we were travelling was 
 consecrated by historians and poets, in admiration 
 VI its own wild and picturesque beauty. Our 
 r.ad for about three hours lay across a plain, and 
 tiien close along the gulf, sometimes winding by 
 the foot of a wild precipitous mountain, and then 
 again over a plain, with the mountains rising at 
 s.ime distance on our right. Sometimes we rose 
 and crossed their rugged summits, and again 
 -dL'Scended to the sea-shore On our left we had 
 constantly the gulf, bordered on the opposite side 
 by a range of mountains, sometimes receding and 
 then rising almost out of the water, while high 
 above the rest rose the towering summits of Par- 
 nassus covered with snow. 
 
 It was after dai-k when we arrived at Vostitza, 
 beautifully sititated on the banks of the Gulf of 
 Corinth. This is the representative of the aucient 
 jEgium, one of the most celebrated cities in 
 Greece, mentioned by Homer as having supplied 
 vessels for the Trojan war, and in the second 
 century containing sixteen sacred edifices, n 
 theatre, a portico, and an agora. For many ages 
 it was the seat of the Achaian Congress. Probably 
 the worthy delegates who met here to deliberate 
 upon the affairs of Greece had better accom- 
 modations than we obtained, or they would be 
 likely, I should imagine, to hold but short sessions. 
 
 We stopped at a vile locanda, the only one in 
 the place, where we found a crowd of men in a 
 small room, gathered around a dirty table, eating, 
 one of whom sprang up and claimed me as an old 
 acquaintance. He had on a Gi'eek capote, and a 
 large foraging cap slouched over his eyes, so that 
 i had some difficulty in recognising him as an 
 Italian who, at Padras, had ti'ied to persuade me 
 to go by water up to the head of the gulf. He 
 had started that morning, about the same time 
 we did, with a crowd of passengers, half of whom 
 were already by the ears. Fortunately, they were 
 obliged to return to their boats, and left all the 
 house to us ; which, however, contained little 
 besides a strapping Greek, who called himself its 
 *|)roprietor. 
 
 Before daylight we were again in the saddle. 
 ■During the whole day's ride the scenery was 
 magnificent. Sometimes we were hemmed in as 
 ■if for ever enclosed in an amphitheatre of wild 
 and gigantic rocks ; then from some lofty summit 
 we looked out upon lesser mountains, broken, and 
 torn, and thrown into every wild and picturesque 
 form, as if by an earthquake ; and after riding 
 among deep dells and craggy steeps, yawning 
 ravines and cloud-capped precipices, we descended 
 to a quiet valley and the sea-shore. 
 
 At about four o'clock we came down, for the 
 last time, to the shore, and before us, at some 
 ■distance, espied a single khan, standing almost on 
 ' the edge of the water. It was a beautiful resting- 
 place for a traveller ; the afternoon was mild, and 
 we walked on the shore till the sun set. The 
 khan was sixty or seventy feet long, and contained 
 an upper room running the whole length of the 
 building.. This room was our bedchamber. We 
 built a fire at one end, made tea, and roasted 
 some eggs, the smoke ascending and curling around 
 the rafters, and finally passing out of the openings 
 •in the roof ; we stretched ourselves in our cloaks, 
 y»nd, with the murmur of the waves in our ears, 
 
 . 
 
 looked through the apertures m the roof upon the 
 stars, and fell asleep. 
 
 About the middle of the night the door opened 
 with a rude noise, and a tall Greek, almost filling 
 the doorway, stood on tl.v, threshold. After pausing 
 a moment he walked in, followed by half-a-dozen 
 gigantic companions, their tall figures, full dresses, 
 and the shining of thsir pistols and yataghans, 
 wearing a very ugly look to a man just roused 
 from slumber. But they were merely Greek 
 pedlars or travelling merchants, and, without any 
 more noise, kindled the fire anew, drew their 
 capotes around them, stretched themselves upon 
 the floor, and were soon asleep. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Quarrel with the Landlord. — jEgira Sicyon.^ — Corintt. 
 
 — A distinguished Receptiun Desolation of Corinth.— 
 
 The Acropolis — View from the Acropolis. — Leehseum and 
 Cenchreffi.' — Kaka Seala.' — Arrival at Athens. 
 
 In the morning Demetrius had a roaring quarrel 
 with the keeper of the locanda, in which he tried 
 to keep back part of the money we gave him to 
 pay for us. He did this, however, on principle, 
 for we had given twice as much as our lodging 
 was worth, and no man ought to have more. His 
 character was at stake in preventing any one 
 irom cheating us too much ; and, in order to do 
 this, he stopped our funds in transitu. 
 
 We stai'ted early, and for some time our road 
 lay along the shore. It was not necessary, sur- 
 jounded by such magnificent scenery, to draw 
 upon historical recollections for the sake of giving 
 interest to the road ; still it did not diminish that 
 interest to loiow tliat,;many centuries ago, great 
 cities stood here, whose sites are now desolate, or 
 occupied a-s the miserable gathering-places of a 
 starving population. Directly opposite Parnassus, 
 and at the foot of a hill crowned with the ruins of 
 an acropolis, in perfect desolation now, stood the 
 ancient jEgira ; once numberini^ a population of 
 ten thousand inhabitanto, and in the second century 
 containing three hier&, a temple, and another 
 sacred edifice. Farther on, and toward the head 
 of the Gulf of Corinth, the miserable village of 
 Basihco stands on the site of the ancient Sicyon, 
 boasting as high an antiquity as any city in 
 Greece, and long celebrated as the first of her 
 schools of painting. la' five hours we came in 
 sight of the Acropolis of Corinth, and, shortly 
 after, of Corinth itself. 
 
 The reader need not fear my plunging him 
 deeply into antiquities. Greece has been explored, 
 .ind examined, and written upon, till the subject 
 is almost threadbare ; and I do not flatter myself 
 that I discovered in it anything new. Still no 
 man from such a distant country as mine can 
 find himself crossing the plain of Corinth, and 
 ascending to the ancient city, without a strange 
 and indescribable feeling. We have no old monu- 
 ments, no classical associations ; and our history 
 hardly goes beyond the memory of that venerable 
 personage, " the oldest inhabitant." Corinth is 
 so old that its early records are blended with the 
 history of the heathen gods. The Corinthians 
 say that it was called after the son of Jupiter, and 
 its early sovereigns were heroes of the Grecian 
 mythology. It was th^ friend of Sparta and the 
 
 .; 
 
142 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 rival of Athens ; the first city to build war-galleys, 
 9,nd send forth colonies, which became great 
 Empires. It was the assembling-place of their 
 delegates, who elected Philip, and afterward 
 Alexander the Great, to conduct the war against 
 the Persians. In painting, sculpture, and archi- 
 tecture, surpassing all the achievements of Greece 
 or which the genius of man has ever since accom- 
 plished. Conquered by the then barbarous Romans, 
 her walls were razed to the ground, her men put 
 to the sword, her women and children sold into 
 captivity ; and the historian who records her fall, 
 ^v^ites that he saw the finest pictures thrown 
 wantonly on the ground, and Roman soldiers 
 playing on them at draughts and dice. For many 
 years deserted, Corinth was again peopled ; rose 
 rapidly from its ruins ; and, when St. Paul abode 
 there " a year and six months" — to the Christian 
 the most interesting period in her history — she 
 was again a populous city, and the Corinthians a 
 luxurious people. 
 
 Its situation in the early ages of the world 
 could not fail to make it a great commercial 
 emporium. In the inexperienced navigation of 
 early times itwas considered difficult and dangerous 
 to go around the point of the Peloponnesus, and 
 there was a proverb, " Before the mariner doubles 
 Cape Malea, he should forget all he holds dearest 
 in the world." Standing on the isthmus com- 
 manding the Adriatic and .ffigean Seas ; receiving 
 in one hand the riches of Asia, and in the other 
 those of Europe ; distributing them to every 
 quarter of the then known world, wealth followed 
 commerce, and then came luxury and extravagance 
 to such an extent that it became a proverb, " It 
 is not for every man to go to Corinth." 
 
 As travellers having regard to supper and 
 lodging, we should have been glad to see some 
 vestige of its ancient luxury ; but times are 
 changed; the ruined city stands where stood 
 Corinth of old, but it has fallen onoe more ; the 
 sailor no longer hugs the well-known coasts, but 
 launches fearlessly into the trackless ocean, and 
 Corinth can never again be what she has been. 
 
 Our servant had talked so much of the hotel at 
 Corinth, that perhaps the idea of bed and lodging 
 was rather too prominent in our reveries as we 
 approached the fallen city. He rode on before 
 to announce our coming, and, working our way 
 up the hill through narrow streets, stared at by 
 all the men, followed by a large representation 
 from the juvenile portion of the modern Corin- 
 thians, and barked at by the dogs, we turned into 
 a large enclosure, something like a bai'uyard, on 
 which opened a ruined balcony, forming the 
 entrance to the hotel Demetrius was standing 
 before it with our host, as unpromising a looking 
 scoundrel as ever took a traveller in. He had 
 been a notorious captain of brigands ; and when 
 his lawless band was broken up, and half of its 
 number hanged, he could not overcome his dispo- 
 sition to prey upon travellers, but got a couple of 
 mattresses and bedsteads, and set up a hotel at 
 Corinth. Demetrius had made a bargain for us 
 at a price that made him hang his head when he 
 told it, and we were so indignant at the extortion 
 that we at first refused to dismount. Our host 
 stood aloof, being used to such scenes, and per- 
 fectly sure that, after storming a Uttle, we should 
 be glad to take the only beds between Padras and 
 
 Athens. In the end, however, we got the better 
 both of him and Demetrius ; for, as he had fixed- 
 separate prices for dinner, beds, and breakfast^ 
 we went to a little Greek coffee-house, and raised 
 half Corinth to get us something to eat, and paid 
 him only for our lodging. 
 
 We had a fine afternoon before us, and our 
 first movement was to the ruins of a temple, the 
 only monument of antiquity in Corinth. The' 
 city has been so often sacked and plundered, that 
 not a column of the Corinthian order exists in the 
 place from which it derives its name. Sevea 
 columns of the old temple are still standing, 
 fluted and of the Doric order, though wanting in 
 height the usual proportion to the diameter ; built 
 probably before that order had attained its per- 
 fection, and long before the Corinthian order was 
 invented ; though when it was built, by whom, or 
 to what god it was consecrated, antiquaries cannot 
 agree m deciding Contrasted with these solitary 
 columns of an unlmown antiquity, are ruins of 
 yesterday. Houses fallen, burned, and black with 
 smoke, as if the wretched inmates had fled before- 
 the blaze of their dwellings ; and high above the- 
 ruined city, now as in the days when the Persian 
 and Roman invaded it, still towers the Acropolis,, 
 a sharp and naked rock, rising abruptly a thou- 
 sand feet from the earth, inaccessible and impreg- 
 nable under the science of ancient war; and in all 
 times of invasion and public distress, from her 
 earliest history down to the bloody days of the- 
 late revolution, the refuge of the inhabitants. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when we set out 
 for the Acropohs. About a mile from the city we- 
 came to the foot of the hill, and ascended by a 
 steep and difficult path, with many turnings and' 
 windings, to the first gate. Having been in the 
 saddle since early in the morning, we stopped 
 several times to rest, and each time lingered and 
 looked out with admiration upon the wild and 
 beautiful scenery around us ; and we thought of 
 the frequently recurring times when hostile armies 
 had drawn up befoi'e the city at our feet, and the 
 inhabitants, in terror and confusion, had hurried 
 up this path and taken refuge within the gate- 
 before us. 
 
 Inside the gate were the ruins of a city, and 
 here, too, we saw the tokens of ruthless war : the- 
 fire-brand was hardly yet extinguished, and the- 
 houses were in ruins. Within a few years it has- 
 been the stronghold and refuge of infidels and 
 Christians, taken and retaken, destroyed, rebuilt,, 
 and destroyed again, and the ruii^s of Turkish 
 mosques and Christian churches are mingled 
 together in undistinguishable confusion. This 
 enclosure is abundantly supplied with water 
 issuing from the rock, and is capable of contaming 
 several thousand people. The fountain of Pyrene,. 
 which supplies the Acropolis, called the most salu- 
 brious in Greece, is celebrated as that at which 
 Pegasus was drinking when taken by Bellerophon. 
 Ascending among ruined and deserted habitations, 
 we came to a second gate flanked by towers. A 
 wall about two miles in circumference encloses 
 the whole summit of the rock, including two prin- 
 cipal points which still rise above the rest. One 
 is crowned with a tower and the other with a 
 mosque, now In ruins ; probably erected where 
 once stood a heathen temple. Some have mis- 
 taken it for a Christian church, but all agreftibat 
 
IN GREECE, TURICEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 U3 
 
 it is a place built and consecrated to divine use, 
 and that, for unknown ages, men have gone up to 
 this cloud-capped point to worship their Creator. 
 It was a sublime idea to erect on this lofty pin- 
 nacle an altar to the Almighty. Above us were 
 ooiv ihe unclouded heavens ; the sun was setting 
 witn that brilliancy which attends his departing 
 jlory nowhere but in the East ; and the sky was 
 glowing with a lurid red, as of some great confla- 
 gration. The scene around and below was won- 
 ilrously beautiful. Mountains and rivers, seas and 
 islands, rocks, forests, and plains, thrown together 
 in perfect wantonness, and yet in the most perfect 
 harmony, aud every feature in the expanded land- 
 scape consecrated by the richest associations. On 
 one side the Saronic Gulf, with its little islands, 
 ani/Egina and Salamis, stretching off to " Suniura's 
 marble height," with the ruins of its temple 
 looking out mournfully upon the sea ; on the 
 other, the Gulf of Corinth or Lepanto, bounded 
 by the dark and dreary mountains of Cytheron, 
 where Actseon, gazing at the goddess, was changed 
 into a stag, and hunted to death by his own 
 hounds ; and where Bacchus, with his train of 
 satjTS and frantic bacchantes, celebrated his 
 orgies. Beyond were Helicon, sacred to Apollo 
 and the Muses, and Parnassus, covered with snow. 
 Behind us towered a range of mountains stretch- 
 ing away to Argos and the ancient Sparta, and in 
 front was the dim outline of the temple of the 
 Acropolis at Athens. The shades of evening 
 gathered thick around us while we remained on 
 the top of the Acropolis, and it was dark long 
 before we reached our locanda. 
 
 The next morning we breakfasted at the coffee- 
 house, and left Corinth wonderfully pleased at 
 having outwitted Demetrius and our brigand host, 
 who gazed after us with a surly scowl as we rode 
 away, and probably longed for the good old days 
 when, at the head of his hanged companions, he 
 could have stopped us at the first mountain-pass 
 and levied contributions at his own rate. I pro- 
 bably condemn myself when I say that we left 
 this ancient city with such a trifle uppermost in 
 our thoughts, but so it was ; we bought a loaf of 
 bread as we passed through the market-place, 
 and descended to the plain of Corinth. We had 
 still the same horses which we rode from Padras ; 
 they were miserable animals, and I did not mount 
 mine the whole day. Indeed, this is the true way 
 to travel in Greece ; the country is mountainous, 
 and the road or narrow horse-path so rough and 
 precipitous that the traveller is often obliged to 
 dismount and walk. The exercise of clambering 
 up the mountains and the purity of the air brace 
 every nerve in the body, and not a single feature 
 of the scenery escapes the eye 
 
 But, as yet, there are other things beside 
 scenery ; on each side of the road and within 
 sight of each other are the ruins of the ancient 
 cities of Lechaeum and Cenchreae, the ports of 
 Corinth on the Corinthian and Saronic Gulf's ; the 
 former once connectea with it by two long walls, 
 and the road to the latter once lined with temples 
 and sepulchres, the ruins of which may still be 
 seen. The isthmus connecting the Peloponnesus 
 with the continent is about six miles wide, and 
 Corinth owed her commercial greatness to the 
 profits of her merchants in transporting mer- 
 chandise across it. Entire vessels were sometimes 
 
 carried from one sea and launched into the other. 
 The project of a canal across suggested itself both 
 to the Greeks and Romans, and there yet exist 
 traces of a ditch commenced for that purpose. 
 
 On the death of Leonidas, and in apprehension 
 of a Persian invasion, the Peleponnesians built a 
 wall across the isthmus from Lechaeum to Cen- 
 chrese. This wall was at one time fortified with 
 a hundred and fifty towers ; it was often de- 
 stroyed and as often rebuilt ; and in one place, 
 about three miles from Corinth, vestiges of it may 
 still be seen. Here were celebrated those Isth- 
 mian games so familiar to every tyro in Grecian 
 literature and history ; toward Mount Oneus 
 stands on an eminence an ancient mound supposed 
 to be the tomb of Melicertes, their founder, and 
 near it is at this day a grove of the sacred pine, 
 with garlands of the leaves of which the victors 
 were crowned. 
 
 In about three hours from Cormtli we crossed 
 the isthmus, and came to the village of Kalamaki, 
 on the shore of the Saronic Gulf, containing a 
 few miserable buildings, fit only for the miserable 
 people who occupied them. Directly on the shore 
 was a large coffee-house enclosed by mud walls, 
 and having branches of trees for a roof ; and in 
 front was a little flotilla of Greek caiques. 
 
 Next to the Greek's love for his native moun 
 tains is his passion for the waters that roll at their 
 feet ; and many of the proprietors of the rakish 
 little boats in the harbour talked to us of the 
 superior advantage of the sea over a mountainous 
 road, and tried to make us abandon our horses 
 and go by water to Athens ; but we clung to the 
 land, and have reason to congi-atulate ourselves 
 upon having done so, for our road was one of the 
 most beautiful it was ever my fortune to travel 
 over. For some distance I walked along the 
 shore, on the edge of a plain running from the 
 foot of Mount Geranion. The plain was inter- 
 sected by mountain-torrents, the channel-beds of 
 which were at that time dry. We passed the 
 little village of Caridi, supposed to be the Sidus 
 -of antiquity, while a ruined church and a few old 
 blocks of marble mark the site of ancient Crom- 
 myon, celebrated as the haunt of a wild boar de 
 stroyed by Theseus. 
 
 At the other end of the plain we came to the 
 foot of Mount Geranion, stretching out boldly to 
 the edge of the gulf, and followed the road along 
 its southern side close to and sometimes over- 
 hanging the sea. From time immemorial this has 
 been called the Kaka Scala, or bad way. It is 
 narrow, steep, and rugged, and wild to sublimity 
 Sometimes we were completely hemmed in by 
 impending mountains, and then rose upon a lofty 
 eminence, commanding an almost boundless view 
 On the summit of the range the road runs 
 directly along the mountain's brink, overhanging 
 the sea, and so narrow that two horsemen can 
 scarcely pass abreast, where a stumble woult* 
 plunge the traveller several hundred yards into 
 the waters beneath. ^ Indeed, the horse of one oi 
 my companions stumbled and fell, and put him in 
 such peril that both dismounted and accompanied 
 me on foot. In the olden time this wild and 
 road was famous as the haunt of the 
 
 robber Sciron, who plundered the luckless tra 
 vellers, and then threw them from this precipice. 
 The fabulous account is, that Theseus, three 
 
144 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 thousand years before, on his first visit to Athens* 
 encountered the famous robber, and tossed him 
 from the same precipice whence he had thrown 
 so many better men According to Ovid, the 
 earth and the sea refused to receive the bones of 
 Sciron, which continued for some time suspended 
 in the open air, until they were changed into large 
 rocks, whose points still appear at the foot of the 
 precipice ; and to this day, say the sailors, knock 
 the bottoms out of the Greek vessels. In later 
 days this road was so infested by corsairs and 
 pirates that even the Turks feared to travel on 
 it ; at one place, that looks as though it might 
 be intended as a jumping-off point into another 
 world, Ino, with her son Melicertes in her arms 
 (so say the Greek poets), threw herself into the 
 sea to escape the fury of her husband ; and we 
 know that in later days St. Paul travelled on this 
 road to preach the gospel to the Corinthians. 
 
 But, independently of all associations, and in 
 spite of its difficulties and dangers, if a man were 
 by accident placed on the lofty height without 
 knowing where he was, he would be struck with 
 the view which it commands, as one of the most 
 beautiful that mortal eyes ever beheld. It was 
 my fortune to pass over it a second time on foot, 
 and I often seated myself on some wild point, and 
 waited the coming up of my muleteers, looking 
 out upon the sea, calm and glistening as if plated 
 with silver, and studded with islands in continuous 
 clusters stretching away into the .lEgean. 
 
 During the greater part of the passage of the 
 Kaka Scala, my companions walked with me ; and, 
 as we always kept in advance, when we seated our- 
 selves on some rude rock overhanging the sea to 
 wait for our beasts and attendants, few things 
 could be more picturesque than their approach. 
 
 On the summit of the pass we fell into the 
 ancient paved way that lead^ from Attica into the 
 Peloponnesus, and walked over the same pave- 
 ment which the Greeks ti-avelled, perhaps, three 
 thousand years ago. A ruined wall and gate 
 mark the ancient boundary ; and near this an 
 early traveller observed a large block of white 
 marble projecting over the precipice, and almost 
 ready to fall into the sea, which bore an inscrip- 
 tion, now illegible. Here it is supposed stood the 
 Stele erected by Theseus, bearing on one side the 
 inscription, *' Here is Peloponnesus, not Ionia ;" 
 and on the other the equally pithy notification, 
 "Here is notPeloponnesus, but Ionia." It would 
 be a pretty place of residence for a man in mis- 
 fortune : for besides the extraordinary beauty of 
 the scenery, by a single step he might avoid the 
 service of civil process, and set the sheriff' of Attica 
 or the Peloponnesus at defiance. Descending, 
 we saw before us a beautiful plain, extending from 
 the foot of the mountain to the sea, and afar off, 
 on an eminence commanding the plain, was the 
 little town of Megara. » 
 
 It is unfortunate for the reader that every 
 mined village on the road stands on the site of an 
 ancient city. The ruined town before us was the 
 birth-place of Euclid, and the representative of 
 that Megara which is distinguished in history more 
 than two thousand years ago ; which sent forth its 
 armies in the Persian and Peloponnesian wars ; 
 alternately the ally and enemy of Corinth and 
 Athens ; contaming numerous temples, and the 
 largest public-houses in Greece ; and though ex- 
 
 posed, with her other cities, to the violence oi » 
 fierce democracy, as is recorded by the histoiiau. 
 " the Megareans retained their independence aim 
 lived in peace." As a high compliment, the peopii> 
 off'ered to Alexander the Great the freedom of 
 their city. When we approached, it its appear- 
 ance was a speaking comment upon human pride. 
 
 It had been demolished and burned by Greeks 
 and Turks, and now presented little more than a 
 mass of blackened ruins. A few apartments had 
 been cleared out and patched up, and occasionally 
 I saw a solitary figure stalking amid the desola- 
 tion. 
 
 I had not mounted my horse all day ; had lucked 
 out a pair of Greek shoes on my walk, and was 
 almost barefoot when I entered the city. A little 
 below the town was a large building enclosed by a 
 high wall, with a Bavarian soldier lounging at the 
 gate. We entered, and found a good coffee-room 
 below, and a comfortable bed-chamber above, 
 where we found good quilts and mattresses, and 
 slept like princes. 
 
 Early in the morning we set out for Athens, 
 our road for some time lying along the sea. About 
 half way to the Piraeus, a ruined village, with a 
 starving population, stands on the site of the 
 ancient Eleusis, famed throughout all Greece for 
 the celebration of the mysterious rites of Ceres. 
 The magnificent temple of the goddess has dis- 
 appeared, and the colossal statue made by the 
 immortal Phidias now adorns the vestibule of the 
 University at Cambridge. We lingered a little 
 while in the village and soon after entered the Via 
 Sacra, by which, centuries ago, the priests and 
 people moved in solemn religious processions from 
 Athens to the great temple of Ceres. At first we 
 passed underneath the cliff along the shore, then 
 rose by a steep ascent among the mountains, barren 
 and stony, and wearing an aspect of desolation 
 equal to that of the Roman Campagna ; then we 
 passed through a long defile, upon the side of 
 which, deeply cut in the rock, are seen the marks 
 of chariot- wheels ; perhaps of those used in the 
 sacred processions. We passed the ruined monas- 
 tery of Daphne, in a beautifully picturesque 
 situation, and in a few minutes saw the rich plain 
 of Attica ; and our muleteers and Demetrius, with 
 a burst of enthusiasm, perhaps because the journey 
 was ended, clapped their hands and cried out, 
 « Atinae! Atinse ! !" 
 
 The reader, perhaps, trembles at the name of 
 Athens, but let him take courage. I promise to 
 let him off easily. A single remark, however, 
 before reaching it. The plain of Attica lies be- 
 tween two parallel ranges of mountains, and 
 extends from the sea many miles back into the 
 interior. On the border of the sea stands the 
 Piraeus, now, as in former times, the harbour of 
 the city ; and towai-ds the east, on a little eminence, 
 Athens itself, like the other cities in Greece, pre- 
 senting a miserable appearance, the effects of 
 protracted and relentless wars. /Jut high above 
 the ruins of the modern city towers the Acropolis, 
 holding up to the skies the ruined temples of other 
 days, and proclaiming what Athens was. We 
 wound around the temple of Theseus, the most 
 beautiful and perfect specimen of architecture that 
 time has spared ; and in striking conti'ast with 
 this monument of the magnificence of past days, 
 here, in the entrance to the city, our horses were 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 145 
 
 sbTiggling and sinking up to their saddle-girths in 
 the mud. 
 
 We did in Athens what we should have done in 
 Boston or Philadelphia ; rode up to the best 
 hotel, and, not being able to obtain accommoda- 
 tion there, rode to another ; where, being again 
 refused admittance, we were obliged to distribute 
 ourselves into three parcels. Dr. Willet went to 
 Mr. Hill's (of whom more anon). M. found en- 
 trance at a new hotel in the suburbs, and I betook 
 myself to the Hotel de France. The gar f on was 
 rather bothered whe>' I threw him a pair of old 
 boots which I had hanging at my saddle-bow, and 
 told him to take care of my baggage ; he asked 
 me when the rest would come up ; and hardly 
 knew what to make of me when I told him that 
 was all I travelled with. 
 
 I was still standing in the court of the hotel, 
 almost barefoot, and thinking of the prosperous 
 condition of the owner of a dozen shirts, and other 
 things conforming, when Mr. Hill came over and 
 introduced himself ; and telling me that his house 
 was the house of every American, asked me to 
 Ivaive ceremony aud bring ray luggage over at once. 
 This was again hitting my sore point ; everybody 
 seemed to take especial interest in my luggage, 
 and I was obliged to tell my story more than once. 
 I declined Mr. Hill's kind invitation, but called 
 upon him early the next day, dined with him, and 
 during the whole of my stay in Athens, was in the 
 habit, to a great extent, of making his house my 
 home ; aud this, I believe is the case with all the 
 Americans who go there ; besides which, some 
 barrow his money, and others his clothes. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 American Missionary Scliool — Visit to the School Mr. 
 
 Hill and the Male Department. — Mrs. Hill and the 
 Female Department — Maid of Athens. — Letter from Mr. 
 HilL— Revival of Athens — Citizens of the World. 
 
 The first thing we did in Athens was to visit 
 the American missionary school. Among the 
 extraordinary changes of an ever-changing world, 
 it is not the least that the young America is at 
 this moment paying back the debt which the 
 world owes to the mother of science, and the 
 citizen of a country which the wisest of the 
 Greeks never dreamed of, is teaching the des- 
 cendants of Plato and Aristotle the elements of 
 their own tongue. I did not expect among the 
 ruins of Athens to find anything that would par- 
 ticularly touch my national feelings, but it was a 
 subject of deep and interesting reflection that, in 
 the city which surpassed all the world in learn- 
 ing, where Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle 
 taught, and Cicero went to study, the only door 
 of instruction was that opened by the hands of 
 American citizens, and an American missionary 
 was the only schoolmaster ; and I am ashamed to 
 say that I was not aware of the existence of such 
 an institution until advised of it by my friend 
 Dr. W. ' 
 
 In eighteen hundred and thirty the Rev. 
 Messrs. Hill and Robinson, with their families, 
 sailed from this city (New York) as the agents of 
 the Episcopal missionary society, to found schools 
 in Greece. They first established themselves in 
 
 the island of Tenos ; but, finding that it was not 
 the right field for their labours, employed them- 
 selves in acquiring a knowledge of the language, 
 and of the character and habits of the modern 
 Greeks. Their attention was directed to Athens, 
 and in the spring of eighteen hundred and thirty- 
 one they made a visit to that city, and were so 
 confirmed in their impressions, that they pur- 
 chased a lot of ground on which to erect edifices 
 for a permanent establishment, and, in the mean 
 time, rented a house for the immediate commence- 
 ment of a school. They returned to Tenos for 
 their families and effects, and again arrived at 
 Athens about the end of June following. From 
 the deep interest taken in their struggle for liberty, 
 and the timely help famished them in their hour 
 of need, the Greeks were warmly prepossessed in 
 favour of our countrymen ; and the conduct of 
 the missionaries themselves was so judicious, that 
 they were received with the greatest respect and 
 the warmest welcome by the public authorities 
 and the whole population of Athens. Their fur. 
 niture, printing-presses, and other effects, were 
 admitted free of duties ; and it is but justice to 
 them to say that, since that time, they have moved 
 with such discretion among an excitable and sus- 
 picious people, that, while they have advanced in 
 the great objects of their mission, they have grown 
 in the esteem and good-will of the best and most 
 influential inhabitants of Greece ; and so great 
 was Mr. Hill's confidence in their affections, that, 
 though there was at that time a great political 
 agitation, and it was apprehended that Athens 
 might again become the scene of violence and 
 bloodshed, he told me he had no fears, and felt 
 perfectly sure that, in any out-breaking of popular 
 fury, himself and family, and the property of the 
 mission, would be respected.* 
 
 In the middle of the summer of their arrival at 
 Athens, Mrs. Hill opened a school for girls in the 
 magazine or cellar of the house in which they 
 resided ; the first day she had twenty pupils, and 
 in two months one hundred and sixty-seven. Of 
 the first ninety-six, not more than six could read 
 at all, and that very imperfectly ; and not more 
 than ten or twelve knew a letter. At the time of 
 our visit the school numbered nearly five hun- 
 dred ; and when we entered the large room, and 
 the scholars all rose in a body to greet us as 
 Americans, I felt a deep sense of regret that, per- 
 sonally, I had no hand in such a work, and almost 
 envied the feelings of my companion, one of its 
 patrons and founders. Besides teaching them 
 gratitude to those from whose country they de- 
 rived the privileges they enjoyed, Mr. Hill had 
 wisely endeavoure.d to impress upon their minds 
 a respect for the constituted authorities, particu- 
 larly important in that agitated and unsettled 
 community ; and on one end of the wall, directly 
 fronting the seats of the scholars, was printed in 
 large Greek characters, the text of Scripture, 
 " Fear God, honour the king." 
 
 It was all-important for the missionaries not to 
 offend the strong prejudices of the Greeks by any 
 attempt to withdraw the children from the reli- 
 
 * Since my return home I have seen in a newspaper an 
 account of a popular commotion at Syra, in which the 
 printing-presses and books of the missionaries were de- 
 stroyed, and Mr. Robinson was threatened with personal 
 violence. 
 
146 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 gion of their fathers ; and the school purports to 
 be, and is intended for, the diffusion of elemen- 
 tary education only ; but it is opened in the 
 morning with prayer, concluding with the Lord's 
 Prayer as read in our churches, which is repeated 
 by the whole school aloud ; and on Sundays, 
 besides the prayers, the Creed, and sometimes 
 the Ten Commandments, are recited, and a chap- 
 ter from the Gospels is read aloud by one of the 
 scholars, the missionaries deeming this moi-e expe- 
 dient than to conduct the exercises themselves. 
 The lesson for the day is always the portion 
 appointed for the gospel of the day in their own 
 church ; and they close by singing a hymn. The 
 room is thrown open to the public, and is fre- 
 quently resorted to by the parents of the children 
 and strangers ; some coming, perhaps, says Mr. 
 Hill, to " hear what these babblers will say," and 
 " other some " from a suspicion that " we are 
 setters forth of strange gods." 
 
 The boys' school is divided into three depart- 
 ments, the lowest under charge of a Greek quali- 
 fied on the Lancasterian system. They were of 
 all ages, from three to eighteen ; and, as Mr. 
 Hill told me, most of them had been half-clad, 
 dirty, ragged little urchins, who, before they were 
 put to their A, B, C, or rather, their Alpha, Beta, 
 Gamma, Delta, had to be thoroughly washed, 
 rubbed, scrubbed, doctored, and dressed, and, but 
 for the school, would now, perhaps, be prowling 
 vagabonds in the streets of Athens, or training 
 for robbery in the mountains. They were a body 
 of fine-looking boys, possessing, as Mr, Hill told 
 me, in an extraordinary degree, all that liveli- 
 ness of imagination, that curiosity and eagerness 
 after knowledge, which distinguished the Greeks 
 of old, retaining, under centuries of dreadful 
 oppression, the recollection of the greatness of 
 their fathers, and, what was particularly interest- 
 ing, many of them bearing the great names so 
 familiar in Grecian history ; I shook hands with 
 a little Miltiades, Leonidas, Aristides, &c., in 
 features and apparent intelligence worthy des- 
 cendants of the immortal men whose names they 
 6ear. And there was one who startled me ; he 
 was the son of the Maid of Athens ! To me the 
 Maid of Athens was almost an imaginary being, 
 something fanciful, a creation of the brain, and 
 not a corporeal substance, to have a little urchin 
 of a boy. But so it was. The Maid of Athens is 
 married. She had a right to marry, no doubt ; 
 and it is sa.d that there is poetry in married life, 
 and, doubtless, she is a much more interesting 
 person now than the Maid of Athens at thirty-six 
 could be ; but the Maid of Athens is married to 
 a Scotchman ! the Maid of Athens is now Mrs. 
 Blaek I wife of George Black ! head of the police ! 
 and her son's name is * * • * • Black ! 
 and she has other little Blacks ! Comment is 
 unnecessary. 
 
 But the principal and most interesting part of 
 this missionary school was the female department, 
 under the direction of Mrs. Hill, the first, and, 
 except at Syra, the only school for females in all 
 Greece, and particularly interesting to me from 
 the fact that it owed its existence to the active 
 benevolence of my own countrywoman. At the 
 close of the Greek revolution, female education 
 was a thing entirely unknown in Greece, and the 
 •romen of all classes were in a most deplorable 
 
 state of ignorance. When the strong feeling that 
 ran through our country in favour of this strug 
 gling people had subsided, and Greece was freed 
 from the yoke of the Mussulman, an association 
 of ladies in the httle town of Troy, perhaps insti- 
 gated somewhat by an inherent love of power and 
 extended rule, and knowing the influence of their 
 sex in a cultivated state of society, formed the 
 project of establishing at Athens a school exchi- 
 sively for the education of females ; and, humble 
 and unpretending as was its commencement, it is 
 becoming a more powerful instrument in the 
 civilization and moral and religious improvement 
 of Greece, than all that European diplomacy has 
 ever done for her. The girls were distributed 
 in different classes, according to their age and 
 advancement ; they had clean faces and hands, a 
 rare thing with Greek children, and were neatly 
 dressed, many of them wearing frocks made by 
 ladies at home (probably at some of our sewing 
 societies) ; and some of them had attained such 
 an age, and had such fine, dark, rolling eyes as 
 to make even a northern temperament feel the 
 powerful influence they would soon exercise over 
 the rising, excitable generation of Greeks, and 
 almost make him bless the hands that were direct- 
 ing that influence aright. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Hill accompanied us through the 
 whole establishment, and being Americans, we 
 were everywhere looked upon and received by 
 the gbls as patrons and fathers of the school, 
 both which characters I waived in favour of my 
 friend ; the one because he was really entitled to 
 it, and the other because some of the girls were 
 so well grown that I did not care to be regarded 
 as standing in that venerable relationship. The 
 didaskalissas, or teachers, were of this descrip- 
 tion, and they spoke English. Occasionally Mr. 
 Hill called a little girl up to us, and told us her 
 history, generally a melancholy one, as, being 
 reduced to the extremity of want by the revolu- 
 tion ; or an orphan, whose parents had been 
 murdered by the Turks ; and I had a conversa- 
 tion with a little Penelope, who, however, did not 
 look as if she would play the faithful wife of 
 Ulysses, and, if I am a judge of physiognomy, 
 would never endure widowhood twenty years for 
 any man. 
 
 Before we went away the whole school rose at 
 once, and gave us a glorious finale with a Greek 
 hymn. In a short time these girls will grow up 
 into women and return to their several families ; 
 others will succeed them, and again go out, and 
 every year hundreds will distribute themselves in 
 the cities and among the fastnesses of the moun- 
 tains, to exercise over their fathers, and brothers, 
 and lovers, the influence of the education acquired 
 here ; instructed in all the arts of woman in civi- 
 lised domestic life, firmly grounded in the prin- 
 ciples of morality, and of religion purified from 
 the follies, absurdities, and abominations of tlie 
 Greek faith. _ have seen much of the missionary 
 labours in the East, ^ut I do not know an institu- 
 tion which promises so surely the happiest results. 
 If the women are educated, the men cannot remain 
 ignorant ; ifthe women are enlightened in religion, 
 the men cannot remain debased and degraded 
 Christians. 
 
 The ex-secretary Rigos was greatly affected at 
 the appearance of this female school ; and, after 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, A?fD POLAND. 
 
 U7 
 
 surveying it attentively for some moments, pointed 
 to the Parthenon on the summit of the Acropolis, 
 and said to Mrs. Hill, vi^ith deep emotion, " Lady, 
 you are erecting in Athens a monument more 
 enduring and more noble than yonder temple ;" 
 and the king was so deeply impressed with its 
 value, that, a short time before my arrival, he 
 proposed to Mr. Hill to take hito his house 
 girls from different districts and educate them as 
 teachers, with the view of sending them back to 
 their districts, there to organise new schools, and 
 carry out the great work of female education. 
 Mr. Hill acceded to the proposal, and the American 
 missionary school now stands as the nucleus of a 
 large and growing system of education in Greece ; 
 andj, very opportunely for my purpose, within a 
 few days I have received a letter from Mr. Hill, 
 in which, in relation to the school, he says, " Our 
 missionary establishment is much increased since 
 you saw it ; our labours are greatly increased, 
 and I think I may say we have now reached the 
 summit of what we had proposed to ourselves. 
 We do not think it possible that it can be extended 
 farther without much larger means and more per- 
 sonal aid. We do not wish or intend to ask for 
 either. We have now nearly forty persons residing 
 with us, of whom thirty-five are Greeks, all of 
 whom are brought within the influence of the 
 gosj.el ; the greater part of them are young girls 
 from different parts of Greece, and even from 
 Egypt and Turkey (Greeks, however), whom we 
 are preparing to become instructresses of youth 
 hereafter in their various districts. We have five 
 hundred, besides, under daily instruction in the 
 different schools under our care, and we employ 
 under us in the schools twelve native teachers, 
 who have themselves been instructed by us. We 
 have provided for three of our dear pupils (all of 
 whom were living with us when you were here), 
 who are honourably and usefully settled in life. 
 One is married to a person every way suited to 
 her, and both husband and wife are in our mis- 
 sionary service. One has charge of the govern- 
 ment female school at the Pirseus, and supports 
 her father and mother and a large family by her 
 salary ; and the third has gone with our mission- 
 aries to Crete, to take charge of the female schools 
 there. We have removed into our new house " 
 (of which the foundation was just laid at the time 
 of my visit), " and, large as it is, it is not half 
 large enough. We are trying to raise ways and 
 means to enlarge it considerably, that we may 
 take more boarders under our own roof, which 
 we look up to as the most important means of 
 making sure of our labour ; for every one who 
 comes to reside with us is taken away from the 
 corrupt example exhibited at home, and brought 
 within a wholesome influence. Lady Byron has 
 just sent us one hundred pounds towards enlarging 
 our house with this view, and we have commenced 
 the erection of three additional dormitories with 
 the money." 
 
 Athens is again the capital of a kingdom. En- 
 thusiasts see in her present condition the promise 
 of a restoration to her ancient greatness ; but 
 reason and observation assure us that the world 
 is too much changed for her ever to be what she 
 has been. In one respect, her condition resem- 
 bles that of her best days ; for, as her fame then 
 attracted strangers from every quarter of the 
 
 world to study in her schools, so now the capitoL 
 of King Otho has become a great gathering-place- 
 of wandering spirits from many near and distant 
 regions. For ages difficult and dangerous of" 
 access, the ancient capital of the arts lay shrouded 
 in darlmess, and almost cut off from the civilised 
 world. At long intervals, a few solitary travellers 
 only found their way to it ; but, since the revo- 
 lution, it has again become a place of frequent 
 resort and intercourse. It is true that the an- 
 cient halls of learning are still solitary and 
 deserted, but strangers from every nation now 
 turn hither j the scholar to roam over her classic- 
 soil, the artist to study her ancient monuments, 
 and the adventurer to carve his way to fortune. 
 
 The first day I dined at the hotel, I had an op- 
 portunity of seeing the variety of material con- 
 gregated in the reviving city. We had a long 
 table, capable of accommodating about twenty 
 persons. The manner of living was a-la-carie^. 
 each guest dining when he pleased, but, by tacit 
 consent, at about six o'clock all assembled at the- 
 table. We presented a curious medley. No two 
 were from the same country. Our discourse was. 
 in English, French, Italian, German, Greek,. 
 Russian, Polish, and I Imow not what else, as if 
 we were the very people stricken with confusion- 
 of tongues at the tower of Babel. Dinner over,, 
 all fell into French, and the conversation became 
 general. Every man present was, in the fullest 
 sense of the term, a citizen of the world. It had 
 been the fortune of each, whether good or bad, 
 to break the little circle in which so many are- 
 born, revolve, and die ; and the habitual mingling 
 with people of various nations had broken down 
 all narrow prejudices, and given to every one- 
 freedom of mmd and force of character. All had. 
 seen much, had much to communicate, and felt 
 that they had much yet to learn. By some acci- 
 dent, moreover, all seemed to have becbme parti- 
 cularly interested in the East. They travelled 
 over the whole range of Eastern politics, and to 
 a certain extent considered themselves identified 
 with eastern interests. Most of the company 
 were or had been soldiers, and several wore 
 uniforms and stars, or decorations of some de- 
 scription. They spoke of the different campaigns 
 in Greece in which some of them had served ; of 
 the science of war ; of Marlborough, Eugene,, 
 and more modem captains ; and I remember that 
 they startled my feelings of classical reverence by 
 talking of Leonidas at Thermopylae and Miltiade* 
 at Marathon, in the same tone as of Napoleon at 
 Leipsic and Wellington at Waterloo. One of 
 them constructed on the table, with the knives- 
 and forks and spoons, a map of Marathon, and 
 with a sheathed yataghan pointed out the position 
 of the Greeks and Persians, and showed where 
 Miltiades, as a general, was wrong. They were 
 not blinded by the dust of antiquity. They had 
 been knocked about till all enthusiasm and all 
 reverence for the past were shaken out of them, 
 and Ihey had learned to give things their right 
 names. A French engineer showed us the skeleton 
 of a map of Greece, which was then preparing 
 under the direction of the French Geographical 
 Society, exhibiting an excess of mountains and 
 deficiency of plain which surprised even those wh(> 
 had travelled over every part of the kingdom. 
 One had just come from Constantinople, where li«- 
 
148 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 'ha4 seen the sultan going to mosque ; another 
 liad escaped from an attack of the plague in Egypt ; 
 Ti third gave the dimensions of the Temple of the 
 "Pun at Baalbeck ; and a fourth had been at 
 liabylon, and seen the ruins of the tower of Babel. 
 1 a short, eveiy man had seen something which 
 "the others had not seen, and all their knowledge 
 was thrown into a common stock. ^ I found myself 
 at once among a new class of men ; and I turned 
 from him who sneered at Miltiades to him who 
 had seen the sultan, or to him who had been at 
 Bagdad, and listened with interest, somewhat 
 qualified by consciousness of my own inferiority. 
 I was lying in wait, however, and took advantage 
 of an opportunity to throw in something about 
 America ; and, at the sound, all turned to me 
 •with an eagerness of curiosity that I had not 
 anticipated. 
 
 In Europe, and even In England, I had often 
 found extreme ignorance of my own country; but 
 ihere I was astonished to find, among men so 
 familiar with all parts of the Old World, such 
 total lack of information about the New. A 
 gentleman opposite me, wearing the unifoiTU of 
 the King of Bavaria, asked me if I had ever been 
 in America. I told him that I was bom, and, as 
 they say in Kentucky, raised there. He begged 
 my pardon, but doubtfully suggested, " You are 
 jiot black ?" and I was obliged to explain to him 
 that in our section of America the Indian had 
 almost entirely disappeared, and that his place was 
 •occupied by the de>eendants of the Gaul aud the 
 Briton. I was forthwith received into the frater- 
 nity, for my home was farther away than any of 
 them had ever been ; my friend opposite con- 
 sidered me a bijou, asked me innumerable ques- 
 •tions, and seemed to be constantly watching for 
 the brealdng out of the cannibal spu-it, as if 
 expecting to see me bite my neighbour. At first 
 I had felt myself rather a small affair ; but, before 
 separating, tAm^ricain, or le sauvage, or, finally, 
 te cannibal, found himself something of a lion. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Ruins of Athens.— Hill of Jlars.— Temple of the Winds. 
 ^—Lantern of Demosthenes — Arch of Adrian — Temple of 
 
 Jupiter Olympus — Temple of Theseus The Acropolis. — 
 
 The Parthenon. — Penteliean Mountain. — Mount Hymet- 
 ius. — The Piraeus. — Greek Fleas. — Napoli. 
 
 The next morning I began my survey of the 
 Tuins of Athens. It was my intention to avoid 
 any description of those localities and monuments, 
 because so many have preceded me, stored with 
 all necessary knowledge, ripe in taste aud sound 
 in judgment, who have devoted to them all the 
 time and research they so richly merit ; but as, 
 in our community, through the hurry and multi- 
 plicity of business occupations, few are able to 
 bestow upon these things much time or attention, 
 aud, furthermore, as the books which treat of 
 them are not accessible to all, I should be doing 
 injustice to my readers if I were to omit them 
 altogether. Besides, I should be doing •violence 
 to my own feehngs, and cannot get fairly started 
 in Athens, without recurring to scenes which I 
 Tegarded at the time ivith extraordinary interest. 
 I have since visited most of the principal cities in 
 Europe, existiri;j as weU as ruined, and I hardly 
 
 know any to which I recur with more satisfaction 
 than Athens. If the reader tire in the briei 
 reference I shall make, he must not impute it to 
 any want of interest in the subject ; and as I am 
 not in the habit of going Into heroics, ne will 
 believe me when I say that, if he have any rever- 
 ence for the men or things consecrated bv the 
 respect and admiration of ages, he will find it 
 called out at Athens, (n the hope that I may be 
 the means of mducing some of my countrymen to 
 visit that famous city, I will add another induce- 
 ment, by saying tha* ho may have, as I had, Mr. 
 Hill for a cicerone, This gentleman is familiar 
 with every locality, and monument around or in 
 the city, and, which I afterward found to be an 
 unusual thing with those living in places conse- 
 crated in the minds of strangers, he retains for 
 them all that freshness of feeUng which we pos- 
 sess who only know them from books and pictures. 
 
 By an arrangement made the evening before, 
 early in the morning of my second day in Athens, 
 I\Ir. Hill was at the door of my hotel to attend us. 
 As we descended the steps a Greek stopped him, 
 and, bowing with his hand on his heart, addressed 
 him in a tone of earnestness which we could not 
 understand; but we were struck with the sonorous 
 tones of his voice and the musical cadence of his 
 sentences ; and when he had finished, Mr. Hill 
 told us that he had spoken in a strain which, in 
 the original, was poetry itself, beginning, " Ame- 
 ricans, I am a Stagyrite. I come from the land of 
 .\ristotle, the disciple of Plato," &c. &c. ; telling 
 him the whole story of his journey from the 
 ancient Stagyra and his arrival in Athens ; and 
 that, having understood that Mr. Hill was distri- 
 buting books among his countrymen, he begged 
 for one to take home with him. Mr. Hill said 
 that this was an instance of every-day occurrence, 
 showing the spirit of inquiry and thirst for know- 
 ledge among the modern Greeks. This little scene 
 with a countryman of Aristotle was <i fit prelude 
 to our morning ramble. 
 
 The house occupied by the American mission- 
 ary as a school stands on the site of the ancient 
 Agora, or market-place, where St. Paul "disputed 
 daily with the Athenians." A few columns still 
 remain ; and neai- them is an inscription mention- 
 ing the price of oil. The school-house is built 
 partly from the ruins of the Agora ; and to us it 
 was an interesting circumstance, that a mission- 
 ary from a newly-discovered world was teaching 
 to the modern Greeks the same saving religion 
 which, eighteen hundred years ago, St. Paul, on 
 the same spot, preached to their ancestors. 
 
 Winding around the foot of the AcropoUs, 
 within the ancient and outside the modem wall, 
 we came to the Areopagus, or Hill of Mars, 
 where in the early days of Athens, her judges sat 
 in the open air ; and, for many ages, decided with 
 such wisdom and impartiality, that to this day the 
 decisions of the court of Areopagites are regarded 
 as models of judicial purity. We ascended this 
 celebrated hill, and stood on the precise spot 
 where St. Paul, pointing to the temples which 
 rose from every section of the city and towered 
 proudly on the Acropolis, made his celebrated 
 address : " Ye men of Athens, I see that in all 
 things ye are too superstitious.'' "The ruins of 
 the very temples to -n-hich he pointed were before 
 our eyes. 
 
IN GllEECE, TURKES:, KUSSIA, AND POL AND 
 
 149- 
 
 Dosceuding, and rising toward the summit of 
 another hill, we came to the Pnyx, where Demos- 
 thenes, in the most stirring words that ever fell 
 from human lips, roused his countrymen against 
 the Macedonian invader. Above, on the very 
 summit of the hill, is the old Pnyx, commanding 
 a view of the sea of Salamis, and of the liill where 
 Xerxes sat to behold the great naval battle. 
 During the reign of the thirty tyrants the Pnyx 
 was removed beneath the brow of the hill, exclud- 
 ing the view of the sea, that the oi-ator might not 
 inflame the passions of the people by directing 
 their eyes to Salamis, the scene of their naval 
 glory. But, without this, the orator had material 
 enough; for, when he stood on the platform facing 
 the audience, he had before him the city which 
 the Athenians loved and the temples in which 
 they worshipped, and I could well imagine the 
 irresistible force of an appeal to these objects of 
 their enthusiastic devotion, their firesidet and 
 altars. The place is admirably adapted for public 
 speaking. The side of the hill has been worked 
 into a gently inclined plane, semicircular m form, 
 and supported in some places by a wall of immense 
 stones. This plain is bounded above by the brow 
 of the hill, cut down perpendicularly. In the 
 centre the rock projects into a platform about 
 eight or ten feet square, which forms the Pnyx, 
 or pulpit for the orator. The iiscent is by three 
 steps cut out of the rock, and in front is a place 
 for the scribe or clerk. We stood on this Pnyx, 
 beyond doubt on the same spot where Demos- 
 thenes thundered his Philippics in the ears of the 
 Athenians. On the road leading to tjie Museum 
 hill we entered a chamber excavated in. the rock, 
 which tradition hallows as the prison of Socrates ; 
 aud though the authority for this is doubtful, it is 
 not uninteresting to enter the damp and gloomy 
 cavern wherein, according to the belief of the 
 modem Athenians, the wisest of the Greeks drew 
 his last breath. Farther to the south is the hill 
 of Philopappus, so called after a Roman governor 
 of that name. On the very summit, near the 
 extreme angle of the old wall, and one of the most 
 conspicuous objects around Athens, is a monument 
 erected by the Roman governor in honour of the 
 emperor Trajan. The marble is covered with the 
 names of travellers, most of whom, like Philopap- 
 pus himself, would never have been heard of but 
 for that monument. 
 
 Descending tov/ard the Acropolis, and entering 
 the city among streets encumbered with ruined 
 houses, we came to the Temple of the Winds, a 
 marble octagonal tower, built by Andronicus. 
 On each side ia a sculptured figure, clothed in 
 drapery adapted to the wind he represents ; and 
 on the top was fornieriy a Triton with a rod in his 
 hand, pointing to the figure marking the wind. 
 The Triton is gone, and great part of the temple 
 buried under i-uins. Part of the interior, however, 
 has been excavated, and probably, before long, the 
 whole will be restored. 
 
 East of the foot of the Acropolis, and on the 
 way to Adrian's Gate, we came to the Lantern 
 of Demosthenes (I eschew its new name of the 
 Choragic Monument of Lysichus), where, accord- 
 ing to an absurd tradition, the orator shut himself 
 up to study the rhetorical art. It is considered 
 one of the most beautiful monuments of antiquity, 
 '.T"J the capitals are most elegant specimens of the 
 
 Corinthian order refined by Attic taste. It Ls^ 
 now in a mutilated condition, and its many repairs 
 make its dilapidation more perceptible. Whether 
 Demosthenes ever lived here or not, it derives an 
 interest from the fact that Lord Byron made it 
 his residence during his visit to Athens. Farther' 
 on, and forming part of the modern wall, is the 
 Arch of Adrian, bearing on one side an inscription 
 in Greek, " This is the city of Theseus ; " and 
 on the other, " But this is the city of Adrian." 
 On the arrival of Otho, a placard was erected, on 
 which was inscribed, " These were the cities of 
 Theseus and Adrian, but now of Otho." Many or 
 the most ancient buildings in Athens have totally 
 disappeared. The Turks destroyed many of them, 
 to construct the wall around the city, and even 
 the modern Greeks have not scrupled to build, 
 their miserable houses with the plunder of the 
 temples in which iheir ancestors worshipped. 
 
 Passing under the Arch of Adrian, outside the 
 gate, on the plain toward the Ilissus, we came tO' 
 the ruined Temple of Jupiter Olympus, perhaps 
 once the most magnificent in the world. It was 
 built of the purest white marble, having a front oi" 
 nearly two hundred feet, and more than three- 
 hundred and fifty in length, and contained one- 
 hundred and twenty columns, sixteen of which 
 are all that now remain ; and these, fluted and 
 having rich Corinthian capitals, tower more thaitt 
 sixty feet above the plain, perfect as when they 
 were reared. I visited these ruins often, particu- 
 larly in the afternoon: they are at all times mourn- 
 fully beautiful, but I have seldom known anything; 
 more touching than, when the sun was setting, to- 
 walk over the marble floor, and look up at the 
 Tonely columns of this ruined temple. I cannot 
 imagine anything more imposing than it must 
 have been when, with its lofty roof supported.' 
 by all its columns, it stood at the gate of the city,, 
 its doors wide open, inviting the Greeks to wor- 
 ship. That such an edifice should be erected for 
 the worship of a heathen god! On the architrav& 
 connecting three of the columns a hermit built 
 his lonely cell, aud passed his life in that elevated 
 solitude, accessible only to the crane and the 
 eagle. The hermit is long suice dead, but his 
 little habitation still resists the whistling of the- 
 wind, and awakens the curiosity of the wondering 
 traveller. 
 
 The Temple of Theseus is the last of the prin- 
 cipal monuments, but the first which the traveller 
 sees on entering Athens. It was built after the 
 battle of Marathon, and in commemoration of the 
 victory which drove the Persians from the shores 
 of Greece. It is a small but beautiful specimen 
 of the pure Doric, built of Pentelican marble, 
 centuries of exposure to the open air giving it a 
 yellowish tint, which softens the brilliancy of the 
 white. Three Englishmen have been buried with- 
 in this temple. The first time I visited it a com- 
 pany of Greek recruits, with some negroes among 
 them, was drawn up in front, going through the 
 manual exercise under the direction of a German 
 corporal ; and, at the same time, workmen were 
 engaged in fitting it up for the coronation of King 
 Otho! 
 
 These are the principal monuments around the 
 city, and except the temples at Pijestum, they are 
 more worthy of admiration than all the ruins in 
 Italy ; but towermg above them in position, and 
 
T50 
 
 INDIDENTS OF TRA.VET/ 
 
 far exceeding them in interest, are the ruins of 
 %he Acropolis. I have since wandered among tlie 
 ruined monuments of Egypt and the desolate city 
 •of Petra, but I look back with unabated reverence 
 to the Athenian Acropolis. Every day I had 
 gazed at it from the balcony of my hotel, and 
 from every part of the city and suburbs. Early 
 on my arrival I had obtained the necessary permit, 
 paid a hurried visit, and resolved not to go again 
 until I had examined all the other interesting 
 objects On the fourth day, with my friend M., 
 I went again. We ascended by a broad road 
 paved with stone. The summit is inclosed by a 
 wall, of which some of the foundation stones, very 
 large, and bearuig an appearance of great anti- 
 <juity, are pointed out as part of the wall built by 
 Themistocles after the battle of Salamis, four 
 hundred and eighty years before Christ. The 
 rest is Venetian and Turldsh, falling to decay, and 
 marring the picturesque eflFect of the ruins from 
 below. The guard examined our permit, and we 
 passed under the gate. A magnificent propylon 
 of the finest white marble, the blocks of the largest 
 size ever laid by human hands, and having a wing 
 of the same material on each side, stands at the 
 •entrance. Though broken and ruined, the world 
 contains nothing like it even now. II my first 
 impressions do not deceive me, the proudest 
 portals of Egyptian temples suffer in comparison. 
 Passing this magnificent propylon, and ascending 
 several steps, we reached the Parthenon, or ruined 
 Temple of Minerva ; an immense white marble 
 skeleton, the noblest monument of architectural 
 genius which the world ever saw. Standing on 
 the steps of this temple, we had around us all 
 that is interesting in association and all that is 
 beautiful in art. We might well forget the capital 
 of King Otho, and go back in imagination to the 
 golden age of Athens. Pericles, with the illustri- 
 ous throng of Grecian heroes, orators, and sages, 
 had ascended there to worship, and Cicero and 
 the noblest of the Romans had gona there to 
 admire ; and probably, if the fashion c- iQiodern 
 tourists had existed iu their days, we should see 
 their names inscribed with their own hands on its 
 walls. The great temple stands on the very sum- 
 mit of the Acropolis, elevated far above the Pro- 
 pyleea and the surrounding edifices. Its length is 
 two hundred and eight feet, and breadth one 
 hundred and two. At each end were two rows of 
 eight Doric columns, thirty-four feet high and six 
 feet in diameter, and on each side were thirteen 
 more. The whole temple within and without was 
 adorned with the most splendid works of art, by 
 the first sculptors in Greece, and Phidias himself 
 wrought the statue of the goddess, of ivory and 
 gold, •'wenty-six cubits high, having on the top of 
 her helmet a sphinx, with griffins on each of the 
 sides ; on the breast a head of Medusa wrought 
 in ivory, and a figure of Victory, about four cubits 
 high, holding a spear in ner hand and a shield 
 lying at her feet. Until the latter part of the 
 seventeenth century, this magnificent temple, with 
 all its ornaments, existed entire. During the siege 
 of Athens by the Venetians, the central part was 
 used by the Turks as & magazine ; and a bomb, 
 aimed with a fatal precision or by a not less fatal 
 chance reached the magazine, and with a tremen- 
 dous explosion, destroyed a great part of the 
 buildings. Subsequently the Turks used it as a 
 
 quarry, and antiquaries and travellers, foremost 
 among whom is Lord Elgin, have contributed to 
 destroy " what Goth, and Turk, and Time had 
 spared." 
 
 Around the Parthenon, and covering the whole 
 summit of the Acropolis, aa-e strewed columns and 
 blocks of polished white marble, the ruins of 
 ancient temples. The remains of the Temples of 
 Erectheus and Minerva Polias are pre-eminent 
 in beauty ; the pillars of the latter are the most 
 perfect specimens of the Ionic in existence, and 
 its light and graceful proportions are in elegant 
 contrast with the severe and simple majesty of 
 the Parthenon. The capitals of the columns are 
 wrought and ornamented with a delicacy surpass- 
 ing anything of which I could have believed mar- 
 ble susceptible. Once I was tempted to knock off 
 a corner and bring it home, as a specimen of the 
 exquisite skill of the Grecian artist, which it would 
 have illustrated better than a volume of descrip- 
 tion ; but I could not do it ; it seemed nothmg 
 less than sacrilege. 
 
 Afar off, and almost lost in the distance, rises 
 the Pentelican mountain, from the body of which 
 were hewed the rough rude blocks which, wrought 
 and perfected by the sculptor's art, now stand the 
 lofty and stately columns of the ruined temple. 
 What labour was expended upon each single 
 column ! how many were employed in hewing it 
 from its rocky bed, in bearing it to the foot of 
 the mountain, transporting it across the plain of 
 Attica, and raising it to the summit of the Acro- 
 polis ! and then what time, and skill, and labour, 
 in reducing it from a rough block to a polished 
 shaft, in adjusting its proportions, in carving its 
 rich capitals, and rearing it where it now stands, 
 a model of majestic grace and beauty ! Once, 
 under the direction of Mr. Hill, I clambered up 
 to the very apex of the pediment, and, lying down 
 at full length, leaned over and saw under the frieze 
 the acanthus leaf delicately and beautifully painted 
 on the marble, and, being protected from exposure, 
 still retaining its freshness of colouring. It was 
 entirely out of sight from below, and had been 
 discovered, almost at the peril of his life, by the 
 enthusiasm of an English artist. The wind was 
 whistling around me as I leaned over to examine 
 it, and, until that moment, I never appreciated 
 fully the immense labour employed and the exqui- 
 site-finish displayed in every portion of the temple. 
 
 The sentimental traveller must already mourn 
 that Athens has been selected as the capital of 
 Greece. Ah'eady have speculators and the whole 
 tribe of " improvers " invaded the glorious city ; 
 and while I was lingering on the steps of the 
 Parthenon, a German, who was quietly smoking 
 among the ruins, a sort of superintendant, whom 
 I had met before, came up, and offering me a 
 cigar, and leaning against one of the lofty columns 
 of the temple, opened upon me with " his plans 
 of city improvements ; with new streets, and pro- 
 jected railroads, and the rise of lots." At first I 
 almost tJiought it personal, and that he was 
 making a fiing at me in allusion to one of the 
 greatest hobbies of my native city ; but 1 soon 
 found that he was as deeply bitten as if he had 
 been in Chicago or Dunkirk ;* and the way in 
 which he talked of moneyed facihties, the wants 
 of the community, and a great French bank then 
 
 * Towns lately laid out. in the United States.— Ed- 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 151 
 
 contemplated at the Piroeus, would have been no 
 discredit to some of my friends at home. The 
 removal of the court has created a new era in 
 Athens ; but, in my mind, it is deeply to be 
 regretted that it has been snatched from the ruin 
 ■ to which it was tending. Even I, deeply imbued 
 with the utilitarian spirit of my country, and 
 myself a quonoKn speculator in " up-town lots," 
 would fain s'we Athens from the ruthless hand 
 of renovation ; trom tne building mania of modern 
 speculators. 1 would have her go on till there 
 was not a hr'^itation among her ruins ; till she 
 stood, like Pompeii, alone in the wilderness, a 
 sacred desert, where the traveller might sit down 
 and meditate alone and undisturbed among the 
 relics of the past. But ah-eady Athens has be- 
 come a heterogeneous anomaly ; the Greeks in 
 their wild costume are jostled in the streets by 
 Englishmen, Frenchmen, Italians, Dutchmen, 
 Spaniards, and Bavarians, Russians, Danes, and 
 sometimes Americans. European shops invite 
 purchasers by the side of Eastern bazars, coifee- 
 houses, and billiard-rooms, and French and Ger- 
 man restaurants are opened all over the city. 
 Sir Pulteney Malcolm has erected a house to hire 
 near the site of Plato's Academy. Lady Franklin 
 has bought land near the foot of Mount Hymettus 
 for a country-seat. Several English gentlemen 
 have done the same. Mr. Richmond, an American 
 clergyman, has purchased a farm in the neigh- 
 bourhood ; and in a few years, if the " march of 
 improvement" continues, the Temple of Theseus 
 will be enclosed in the garden of the palace of 
 Otho ; the Temple of the Winds will be concealed 
 by a German opera-house, and the Lantern of 
 Demosthenes by a row of " three-story houses." 
 
 I was not a sentimental traveller, but I visited 
 all the localities around Athens, and, therefore, 
 briefly mention that several times I jumped over 
 the poetic and perennial lUssus, trotted my horse 
 over the ground where Aristotle walked with his 
 Peripatetics, and got muddied up to my knees in 
 the garden of Plato. 
 
 One morning my Scotch friend and I set out 
 early to ascend Mount Hymettus. The mountain 
 is neither high nor picturesque, but a long flat 
 ridge of bare rock, the sides cut up into ravines, 
 fissures, and gullies. There is an easy path to 
 the summit, but we had no guide, and about mid- 
 day, after a wild scramble, were worn out, and 
 descended without reaching the top, which is 
 exceedingly fortunate for the reader, as otherwise 
 he would be obliged to go through a description 
 of the view therefrom. 
 
 Returning, we met the king taking his daily 
 walk, attended by two aides, one of whom was 
 young Marco Bozzaris. Otho is tall and thin, 
 and, when I saw him, was dressed in a German 
 militai-y frock-coat and cap, and altogether, for a 
 king, seemed to be an amiable young man enough. 
 All the world .speaks well of him, and so do I. 
 We touched our hats to him, and he returned the 
 oiviUty ; and what could he do jnore without 
 inviting us to dinner ? In old times there was a 
 divinity about a king ; but now, if a king is a 
 gentleman, it is as much as we can expect. He 
 has spent his money like a gentleman, that is, he 
 cannot tell what has become of it. Two of the 
 three-millions loan are gone, and there is no 
 colonisation, no agricultural prosperity, no open- 
 
 ing of roads, no security in the mountains ; not a 
 town in Greece but is in ruins, and no money to 
 improve them. Athens, however, is to be em- 
 bellished. With ten thousand pounds in the 
 treasury, he is building a palace of white Pen- 
 telican marble, to cost three hundred thousand 
 pounds. 
 
 Otho was very popular, because, not being of 
 age, all the errors of his administration were 
 visited upon Count Armansperg and the regency, 
 who, from all accounts, richly deserved it ; and it 
 was hoped that, on receiving the crown, he would 
 shake off the Bavarians who were preying upon 
 the vitals of Greece, and gather around him his 
 native-born subjects. In private life he bore a 
 most exemplary character. He had no circle of 
 young companions, and passed much of his tune 
 in study, being engaged, among other things, in 
 acquiring the Greek and English languages. His 
 position is interesting, though not enviable ; and 
 if, as the first king of emancipated Greece, he 
 entertains recollections of her ancient greatness, 
 and the ambition of restoring her to her position 
 among the nations of the earth, he is doomed to 
 disappointment. Otho is since crowned and mar- 
 ried. The pride of the Greeks was considerably 
 humbled by a report that their king's proposals 
 to several daughters of German princes had been 
 rejected ; but the king had great reason to con- 
 gratulate himself upon the spirit which induced 
 the daughter of the Duke of Oldenburgh to accept 
 his hand. From her childhood she had taken an 
 enthusiastic interest in Greek history, and it had 
 been her constant wish to visit Greece ; and when 
 she heard that Otho had been called to the throne, 
 she naively expressed an ardent wish to share it 
 with him. Several years afterward, by the merest 
 accident, she met Otho at a German watering- 
 place, travelling with his mother, the Queen of 
 Bavaria, as the Count de Missolonghi ; and in 
 February last she accompanied him to Athens, to 
 share the throne which had been the object of her 
 youthful wish. 
 
 M. dined at my hotel, and, returning to his 
 own, he was picked up and carried to the guard- 
 house. He started for his hotel without a lantern, 
 the requisition to carry one being imperative in 
 all the Greek and Turkish cities ; the guard could 
 not understand a word he said until he showed 
 them some money, which made liis English per- 
 fectly intelligible ; and they then carried him to a 
 Bavarian corporal, who, after two hours' deten- 
 tion, escorted him to his hotel. After that we 
 were rather careful about staying out late at 
 night. 
 
 " Thursday. I don't know the day of the 
 month." I find this in my notes, the caption of 
 a day of business, and at this distance of time will 
 not undertake to correct the entry. Indeed, I am 
 inclined to think that my notes in those days are 
 rather uncertain and imperfect ; certainly not 
 taken with the precision of one who expected to 
 publish them. Nevertheless, the residence of the 
 court, the diplomatic corps, and strangers, form 
 an agreeable society at Athens. I had letters to 
 some of the foreign ministers, but did not present 
 them, as I was hardly presentable myself without 
 my carpet-bag. On " Thursday," however, in 
 company with Dr. W., I called upon Mr. Daw- 
 kins, the Bi"itish minister. Mr. Dawkins went to 
 
1q2 
 
 INCIDENTS OK rilAVEJi 
 
 Greece on a special mission, wliich lie supposed 
 would detain him six months from home, and had 
 remained there ten years. He is a high tory, but 
 retained under a whig administration, because his 
 services could not well be dispensed witli. He 
 gave us much interesting information in regard to 
 the present condition and future prospects of 
 Greece ; and, in answer to my suggestion that the 
 United States were not represented at all in 
 Greece, not even by a consul, he said, with em- 
 phasis, " You are better represented than any 
 power in Europe. Mr. Hill has more influence 
 here than any minister plenipotentiary among us." 
 A few days after, when confined to my room by 
 indisposition, Mr. Dawkins returned my visit, and 
 again spoke in the same terms of high commenda- 
 tion of Mr. Hill. It was pleasing to me, and I 
 have no doubt it will be so to Mr. Hill's numerous 
 friends in this country, to know that a private 
 American citizen, in a position that keeps him 
 aloof from politics, was spoken of in such terms 
 by the representative of one of the great powers 
 of Europe. I had heard it intimated that there 
 was a prospect of Mr. Dawkins being transferred 
 to this country, and parted with him in the hope 
 at some future day of seeing him the representa- 
 tive of his government here. 
 
 I might have been presented to the king, but 
 my carpet-bag — Dr. W. borrowed a hat, and was 
 presented ; the doctor had an old white hat, 
 which he had worn all the way from New York. 
 The tide is rolling backward ; Athens is borrowuig 
 her customs from the barbarous nations of the 
 north ; and it is part of the etiquette to enter a 
 drawing-room with a hat (a black one) under the 
 arm. The doctor, in his republican simplicity, 
 thought that a hat, good enough to put on his 
 own head, was good enough to go into the king's 
 presence ; but he was advised to the conti-ary, 
 and took one of Mr. Hill's, not very much too 
 
 large for him. He was presented by Dr. , a 
 
 German, the king's physician, with whom he had 
 discoursed much of the different medical systems 
 in Germany and America. Dr. W. was much 
 pleased with the king. Did ever a man talk 
 with a king who was not pleased with him ? But 
 the doctor was particularly pleased with King 
 Otho, as the latter entered largely into discourse 
 on the doctor's favourite theme, Mr. Hill's school, 
 and the cause of education in Greece. Indeed, 
 it speaks volumes in favour of the young king, 
 that education is one of the things in which he 
 takes the deepest interest. The day the doctor 
 was to be presented we dined at Mr. Hill's, 
 having made arrangements for leaving Athens 
 that night ; the doctor and M. to return to Europe. 
 In the afternoon, while the doctor remained to be 
 presented, M. and I walked down to the Pirteus, 
 now, as in the days of her glory, the harbour of 
 Athens. The ancient harbour is about five miles 
 from Athens, and was formerly joined to it by 
 long walls built of stone of enormous size, sixty 
 feet high, and broad enough on the top for two 
 waggons to pass abreast. These have long since 
 disappeared, and the road is now over a plain 
 shaded a great part of the way by groves of 
 olives. As usual at this time of day, we met 
 many parties on horseback, sometimes with ladies ; 
 and 1 remember particularly the beautiful and 
 accomplished daughters of Count Armansperg, 
 
 both of whom are since married and dead.* Itia 
 a beautiful ride, ui tlie afternoon particularly, as 
 then the dark outline of the mountains beyond, 
 and the reflections of light and shade, give a 
 peculiarly interesting effect to the rums of the 
 Acropolis. Toward the other end we paced be- 
 tween the ruins of the old walls, and entered upon 
 a scene which reminded me of home. Eight 
 months before there was only one house at the 
 Pu'aeus ; but, as soon as the court removed to 
 Athens, the old harbour revived ; and already we 
 saw long ranges of stores and warehouses, and all 
 the hurry and bustle of one of our rising western 
 towns. A railroad was in contemplation, and 
 many other improvements, which have since 
 failed ; but an omnibus ! that most modern and 
 commonplace of inventions, is now running regu- 
 larly between the Pirseus and Athens. A friend 
 who visited Greece six months after me brought 
 home with him an advertisement printed in Greek, 
 English, French, and German, the English being 
 in the words and figures following, to wit : 
 
 •■ ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 " The public are hereby informed, that on the nine- 
 teenth instant an omnibus will commence running be- 
 tween Athens and the Pirseus, and will continue to do so 
 every day at the undermentioned hours until further 
 notipe. 
 
 Hours of departure. 
 From Athens. From PiraRus. 
 
 Half past seven o'clock A.M. Half past eighto'clock A.M. 
 
 Ten o'clock A.M. Eleven o'clock A.M. 
 
 Two o'clock P.M. Three o'clock P.M. 
 
 Half past four P.M. Half past five P.M. 
 
 " The price of a seat in the omnibus is one drachme. 
 
 " Baggage, if not too bulky and heavy, can be taken on 
 the roof. 
 
 *• Smoking cannot be allowed in the omnibus, nor can 
 dogs be admitted. 
 
 " Small parcels and packages may be sent by this con- 
 veyance at a moderate charge, and given to the care of the 
 conducteur. 
 
 " The omnibus starts from the corner of the Hermes 
 and .Solus streets at Athens, and from the Bazar at the 
 Pirsus, and will wait five minutes at each place, during 
 which period the conducteur will sound his horn. 
 
 " Athens, 17th, 2S)th September, IMS." 
 
 Old things are passing away, and all things are 
 becoming new. For a little while yet we may 
 cling to the illusions connected with the past, but 
 the mystery is fast dissolving, the darkness is 
 breaking away, and Greece and Rome, and even 
 Egj-pt hereelf, henceforward claim our attention 
 with objects and events of the present hour. 
 Already they have lo.st much of the deep and ab- 
 sorbing interest with which men turned to them a 
 generation ago. All the hallowed associations of 
 these ancient regions are fading away. We may 
 regret it, we may mourn over it, but we cannot 
 help it. The world is marching onward ; I have 
 met parties of my own townsmen while walkingin 
 the silent galleries of the Coliseum. I have seen 
 Americans drinking champagne in an excavated 
 dwelling of the ancient Pompeii, and I have 
 
 * They married two brothers, the young princes Canta- 
 cuzenes. Some scruples being raised against this double 
 alliance on the score of consanguinity, the difficulty wa" 
 removed by each couple going to separate churches with 
 separate priests to pronounce the mystic words at precisely 
 the same moment ; so that neither could be said to espouse 
 his sister-in-law. 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 ma 
 
 dinud with Knglishmen among the ruius of 
 Thebes, but, blessed be my fortune, I never rode 
 in an omnibus fiom the Piraeus to Athens. 
 
 We put our baggage on board the caique, and 
 lounged among the little shops till dark, when wc 
 betook ourselves to a dirty little coffee-house, 
 filled with Greeks dozing and smoking pipes. 
 We met there a boat's crew of a French man-of- 
 war, waiting for some of the officers, who were 
 dining with the French ambassador at Athens. 
 One of them had been born to a better condition 
 than that of a common sailor. One juvenile in- 
 discretion after another had brought him down, 
 and, without a single vice, he was fairly on the 
 road to ruin. Once he brushed a tear from his 
 eyes as he told us of prospects blighted by his 
 own follies ; but, rousing himself, hurried away, 
 iiud his reckless laugh soon rose above the noise 
 and clamour of his wild companions. 
 
 About ten o'clock the doctor came in, drenched 
 with rain and up to his knees in mud. We 
 wanted to embark immediately, but the appear- 
 ance of the weather was so unfavourable that the 
 laptain preferred waiting till after midnight. The 
 Greeks went away from the coffee-house, the 
 proprietor fell asleep in his seat, and we extended 
 ourselves on the tables and chairs ; and now the 
 fleas, which had been distributed about among 
 all the loungers, made a combined onset upon us. 
 Life has its cares and troubles, but few know that 
 of being given up to the tender-mercies of Greek 
 fleas. We bore the infliction till human nature 
 could endure no longer ; and, at about three in 
 the morning, in the midst of violent wind and 
 rain, broke out of the coffee-house and went in 
 search of our boat. It was very dark, but we 
 found her and got on board. She was a caiqne, 
 laving an open deck with a small covering over 
 the stern. Under this we crept, and with our 
 cloaks and a sailcloth spread over us, our heated 
 Mood cooled, and we fell asleep. When we woke 
 we were on the way to Epidam'us. The weather 
 was raw and cold. We passed within a stone's- 
 throw of Salamis and Mgma, and at about three 
 o'clock, turning a point which completely hid it 
 from view, entered a beautiful little bay, on which 
 stands the town of Epidaurus. The old city, the 
 birth-place of Esculapius, stands upon a hill pro- 
 jecting into the bay, and almost forming an island. 
 In the middle of the village is a wooden building 
 containing a large chamber, where the Greek de- 
 legates, a band of mountain warriors, with arms 
 in their hands, " in the name of the Greek nation, 
 proclaimed before Gods and men its indepen- 
 dence." 
 
 At the locanda thert- was by chance one bed, 
 which cot being large enough for three, I slept on 
 the floor. At seven o'clock, after a quarrel with 
 our host, and paying him about half his demand, 
 we set out for Napoli di Romania. For about an 
 hour, we moved in the valley running off from the 
 beautiful shore of Epidaurus ; soon the valley 
 deepened into a glen, and in an hour we turned off 
 on a path that led into the mountains, and, riding 
 through wild and rugged ravines, fell into the dry 
 bed of a torrent ; following which, we came to the 
 Hieron Elios, or Sacred Grove of Esculapius. 
 This was the great watering-place for the invalids 
 of ancient Greece, the prototype of the Chelten- 
 ham and Saratoga of modern days. It is situated 
 
 in a valley surrounded by high mountains, ana 
 was formerly inclosed by walls, within which, that 
 the credit of the god might not be impeached, 710 
 man was allomed to die, and no woman to be deli 
 vered. Within this inclosure were temples, por- 
 ticoes, and fountains, now lying in ruins hardly 
 distinguishable. The theatre is the most beautiful, 
 and best preserved. It is scooped out of the side 
 of the mountain, rather more than semicircular ir 
 form, and containing fifty-four seats. These seat* 
 are of pink marble, about fifteen inches high ann 
 nearly three feet wide. In the middle of each 
 seat is a groove, in which, probably, woodwork 
 was constructed, to prevent the feet of those above 
 from incommoding them who sat below, and also 
 to support the backs of an invalid audience. The 
 theatre faces the north, and is so arranged that 
 with the mountain towering behind it, the audi • 
 ence was shaded nearly all the day. It speaks 
 volumes in favour of the intellectual character of 
 the Greeks, that it was their favourite recreation 
 to listen to the recitation of their poets and players 
 And their superiority in refinement over the Ro- 
 mans, is in no way manifested more clearly than by 
 the fact, that in the ruined cities of the former ai o 
 found the remains of theatres, and in the latter ol 
 amphitheatres, showing the barbarous taste of thr 
 Romans for combats of gladiators and wild beasts 
 It was in beautiful keeping with this intellectual 
 taste of the Greeks, that their places of assem- 
 bling were in the open air, amid scenery calculate<l 
 to elevate the mind ; and, as I sat on the marble 
 steps of the theatre, I could well imagine the high 
 satisfaction with which the Greek, under the shade 
 of the impending mountain, himself all enthu- 
 siasm and passion, rapt in the interest of some 
 deep tragedy, would hang upon the strains of 
 Euripides or Sophocles. What deep-drawn excla- 
 mations, what shouts of applause had rung through 
 that solitude, what bursts of joy and grief had 
 echoed from those silent benches ! And then, too, 
 what flirting and coquetting ! the taste of society 
 at the springs in the Grove of Esculapius being 
 probably much the same as at Saratoga in om- 
 own days. The whole grove is now a scene of 
 desolation. The lentisculns is growmg between 
 the crevices of the broken marble ; birds sing 
 undisturbed among the bushes ; the timid hare 
 steals among the ruined fragments ; and some- 
 times the snake is seen gliding over the marble 
 steps. 
 
 We had expected to increase the interest of our 
 visit by taking our noonday refection on the steps 
 of the theatre, but it was too cold for a picnic 
 al fresco ; and, mounting our horses, about two 
 o'clock we came in sight of Argos, on the opposite 
 side of the great plain ; and in half an hour more, 
 turning the mountain, saw Napoli di Romania 
 beautifully situated on a gentle elevation on the 
 shore of the gulf. The scenery in every direction 
 around Napoli is exceedingly beautiful ; and, when 
 we approached it, bore no marks of the sangui- 
 nary scenes of the late revolution. The plain was 
 better cultivated than any part of the adjacent 
 country ; and the city contained long ranges of 
 houses and streets, with German names, such as 
 Heidecker, Maurer-street, &c., and was seemingly 
 better reguhited than any other city in Greece. 
 We drove up to the Hotel des Quatre Natiiyna, 
 the beat we had found in Greece ; dined at a res- 
 L 
 
154 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TKAVKL 
 
 taui'ant with a crowd of Bavarian officers and 
 adventurers, and passed the evening in the streets 
 and coffee-houses. 
 
 Tlie appearance of Otho-street, which is the 
 principal, is very respectable ; it runs from what 
 was the palace to the grand square or esplanade, 
 on one side of which are the barracks of the 
 Bavarian soldiers, with a park of artillery posted 
 so as to sweep the square and principal streets ; 
 a speaking comment upon the libei-ty of the 
 Greeks, and the confidence reposed in them by 
 llie government ! 
 
 Every thing in Napoli recalls the memory of 
 (he brief and unfortunate career of Capo d'Isti*ia. 
 Its recovery from the horroi's of barbarian war, 
 and the thriving appearance of the country around, 
 are ascribed to the impulse given by his adminis- 
 ti'ation. A Greek by birth, while his country lay 
 groaning under the Ottoman yoke, he entered the 
 Russian service, distinguished himself in all the 
 diplomatic correspondence during the French in- 
 vasion, was invested with various high offices and 
 honours, and subscribed the treaty of Paris in 
 1815 as imperial Russian plenipotentiary. He 
 withdrew from her service because Russia disap- 
 proved the efforts of his countrymen to free them- 
 selves from the Turkish yoke ; and, after passing 
 five years in Germany and Switzei'land, chiefly at 
 Geneva, in 1827 he was called to the presidency 
 of Greece. On his arrival at Napoli, amid the 
 miseries of war and anarchy, he was received by 
 the whole people as the only man capable of 
 saving their country. Civil war ceased on the 
 very day of his arriv^al, and the traitor Grievas 
 placed in his hands the key of the Palimethe. I 
 shall not enteis into any speculations upon the 
 character of his administration. The rank he 
 had attained in a foreign service is conclusive 
 e^-idence of his talents, and his withdrawal from 
 that service for the reason stated is as conclusive 
 of his patriotism ; but from the moment he took 
 into his hands the reins of government, he was 
 assailed by every so-called liberal press in Europe 
 with the party cry of Russian influence. The 
 Greeks were induced to believe that he intended 
 to sell them to a stranger ; and Capo d'Istria, 
 strong in his own integrity, and confidently rely- 
 ing on the fidelity and gratitude of his country- 
 men, was assassinated in the streets on his way to 
 mass. Young Mauromichalis, the son of the old 
 Bey of Maina, struck the fatal blow, and fled for 
 refuge to the house of the French ambassador. 
 A gentleman attached to the French legation told 
 me that he himself opened the door when the 
 murderer rushed in with the bloody dagger in his 
 hand, exclaiming, " I have killed the tyrant." 
 He was not more than twenty-one, tall and noble 
 in his appearance, and animated by the enthusi- 
 astic belief that he had delivered his country. 
 My informant told me that he barred all the doors 
 and windows, and went up stairs to inform the 
 minister, who had not yet risen. The latter was 
 embarrassed and in doubt what he should do. A 
 large crowd gathered roimd the house ; but, as 
 yet, they were aU Mauromichalis' friends. , The 
 young enthusiast spoke of what he had done with 
 a high feeling of patriotism and pride ; and while 
 the clamour out of doors was becoming outrage- 
 ous, he ate his breakfast and smoked his pipe 
 with the utmost composure. He remained at the 
 
 embassy more than two hours, and until the regu- 
 lar troops drew up before the house. The French 
 ambassador, though he at first refused, was obliged 
 to deliver him up ; and my informant saw him 
 shot under a tree outside the gate of Napoli, dying 
 gallantly in the firm conviction that he had played 
 the Brutus ana freed his country from a Csesar. 
 
 The fate of Capo d'Istria again darkened the 
 prospects of Greece, and the throne went begging 
 for an occupant until it was accepted by the king 
 of Bavaria for his second son Otho. '^he young 
 monarch arrived at Napoli in February, 1833. 
 The whole population came out to metf him, and 
 the Grecian youth ran breast-deep in the water 
 to touch his barge as it approached the shore. In 
 February, 1834, it was decided to estabhsh Athens 
 as the capital. The propriety of this removal has 
 been seriously questioned, for Napoli possessed 
 advantages in her location, harbour, fortress, and 
 a town already built ; but the king of Bavaria, a 
 scholar and an antiquary, was influenced more, 
 perhaps, by classical feeling than by regard for 
 the best interests of Greece. Napoli has received 
 a severe blow from the removal of the seat of 
 govei-nment, and the consequent withdrawal of 
 the court, and the manufacturers and mechanics 
 attendant upon it. Still it was by far the most 
 European in its appearance of any city I had seen 
 in Greece. It had several restaurants and coffee- 
 bouses, which were thronged all the evening with 
 Bavarian officers and broken-down European ad- 
 venturers, discussing the internal affairs of that 
 unfortunate country, which men of every nation 
 seemed to think they had a right to assist in 
 governing. Napoli had always been the great 
 gathering-place of the phil-Hellenists, and many 
 appropriating to themselves that sacred name 
 were hanging round it still. All over Europe 
 thousands of men are trained up to be shot at for 
 so much per day ; the soldier's is as regular a 
 business as that of the lawyer or merchant, and 
 there is always a large class of turbulent spirits 
 constantly on the look-out for opportunities, and 
 ever ready with their swords to carve their way 
 to fortune.- To them the uproar of a rebellion is 
 nmsic, for they know that, in the general turning 
 up of the elements, something may be gained by 
 him who has nothing to lose ; and when the Greek 
 revolution broke upon the astonished people of 
 Europe, these soldiers of fortune hastened to take 
 their part in the struggle, and win the profits of 
 success. I believe that there were men who em- 
 barked in the cause with as high and noble pur- 
 poses as ever animated the warrior ; but of many 
 of these chivalric patriots there is no lack of cha- 
 rity in saying that, however good they might be 
 as fighters, they were not much as men ; and I 
 am sorry to add that, from the accounts I heard 
 in Greece, the American phil-Hellenists were a 
 rather shabby set. Jarvis was about the most 
 active and distinguished, and I never heard in 
 Greece any imputations on his character. Mr. M., 
 then resident in Napoli, was accosted one day m 
 the streets by a young man, who asked him where 
 he could find General Jarvis. •' What do you 
 want with him !" said Mr. M. « I hope to obtain 
 a commission in his army." " Do you see that 
 dirty fellow yonder ?" said Mr. M., pointing to a 
 ragged patriot passing at the moment : " well, 
 twenty such fellows compose Jarvis'a army, and 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 155 
 
 •JaiTJs himself is no better off." " Well, then," 
 «aid the young American, " I believe I'll join the 
 Turks !" Allen, another American patriot, was 
 JiungatConstantinople. Another behaved gallantly 
 as a soldier, but sullied his laurels by appropri- 
 ■ating the money intrusted to him by the Greek 
 committee. One bore the sacred name of Wash- 
 ington ; a brave but unprincipled man. Mr. M. 
 had heard him say, that if the devil himself 
 should raise a regiment, and would give him a 
 good commission, he would willingly march under 
 him. He was struck by a shot from the fortress 
 in the harbour of Napoli, while directing a battery 
 -against it ; was taken on board his Britannic ma- 
 jesty's ship Asia, and breathed his last, uttering 
 curses on his country. 
 
 I could have passed n week with great satis- 
 faction in Napoli, if it were only for the luxury of 
 its hotel ; but time would not permit, and I went 
 to bed resolving to make up for the last night, 
 -and sleep a little in advance for the next. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Argos.' — Parting and Farewell. — Tomb of Agamemnon. 
 — Mycenic. — Gate of the Lions. — A Misfortune. — Meeting 
 in the Mountains. — A Landlord's Troubles. — A Midnight 
 
 'Quarrel One good Turn deserves another. — Gratitude of 
 
 -a Greek Family. — Megara. — The Soldier's Revel. 
 
 In the morning, finding a difficulty in procuring 
 torees, some of the loungers about the hotel told 
 us there was a carriage in Napoli, and we ordered 
 it to be brought out, and soon after saw moving 
 ■majestically down the principal street a bella ca- 
 Tozza, imported bj* its enterprising proprietor 
 from the Strada Toledo at Naples. It was painted 
 ^bright flaring yellow, and had a big-breeched 
 Albanian for coachman. While preparing to 
 embark, a Greek came up with two horses, and 
 we discharged the bella carozza. My companion 
 hired the horses for Padras, and I threw my 
 •cloak on one of them and followed on foot. 
 
 The plain of Argos is one of the most beautiful 
 I ever saw. On every side, except toward the 
 ■sen, it is bounded by mountains, and the contrast 
 between these mountains, the plain, and the sea 
 is strikingly beautiful. The sun was beating with 
 intense heat; the labourers were almost naked, 
 or in several places lying asleep on the ground, 
 while the tops of the mountains were covered with 
 *now. I walked across the whole plain, being 
 only six miles, to Argos. This ancient city is 
 long since in ruins ; her thirty temples, her costly 
 'Sepulchres, her gymnasium, and her numerous and 
 Jnagnificent monuments and statues, have disap- 
 peared, and the only traces of her former greatness 
 -are some remains of her Cyclopean walls, and a 
 ruined theatre cut in the rock and of magnificent 
 proportions. Modern Argos is nothing more than 
 •a straggling village. Mr. Riggs, an American 
 missionary, was stationed there, but was at that 
 time at Athens with an invalid wife. I was still 
 ■on foot, and wandered up and down the principal 
 ■street looking for a horse. Every Greek in 
 Argos soon knew my business, and all kinds of 
 four-legged animals were brought to me at 
 exorbitant prices. When I was poring over the 
 ■Iliad, I Uttle thought that I sho'.i!d ever visit 
 ■Argos ; still less that I should create a sensation 
 
 in the ancient city of the Danai ; but man little 
 knows for what he is re.served. 
 
 Argos has been so often visited, that Homer is 
 out of date. Evex'y middy from a Mediterranean 
 cruiser has danced on the steps of her desolate 
 theatre, and, instead of busying myself with her 
 ancient glories, I roused half the population in 
 hu'ing a horse. In fact, in this ancient city I 
 soon became the centre of a regular horse-market. 
 Every rascally jockey swore that his horse was 
 the best, and, according to the descendants of the 
 respectable sons of Atreus, blindness, lameness, 
 spavin, and staggers, were a recommendation, ii A. 
 Bavarian offi.cer, whom I had met in the bazars, 
 came to my assistance, and stood by me while I 
 made my bargain. I had more regard to the 
 guide than the horse ; and picking out one wlio 
 had been particularly noisy, hired him to conduct 
 me to Corinth and Athens. He was a lad of 
 about twenty, with a bright sparkhng eye, who 
 laughing roguishly at his unsuccessful competi- 
 tors, wanted to pitch me at once on the horse and 
 be off'. I joined my companions, and in a few 
 minutes we left Argos. 
 
 The plain of Argos has been immortalised by 
 poetic genius as the great gathering-place of the 
 kings and armies that assembled for the siege of 
 Troy. To the scholar and poet few plains in the 
 ■ft'orld are more interesting. It caiTies him back 
 to the heroic ages, to the history of times border- 
 ing on the fabulous, when fact and fiction are so 
 beautifully blended that we would not separate 
 them if we could. I had but a little while longer 
 to remain with my friends, for we were approach- 
 ing the point where our roads separated, and 
 about eleven o'clock we halted and exchanged our 
 farewell greetings. We parted in the middle of 
 the plain, they to return to Padras and Europe, 
 and I for the tomb of Agamemnon, and back to 
 Athens, and I hardly knew where besides. Dr. 
 W. I did not meet again until my retui-n home. 
 About a year afterward, I ai-rived in Antwerp in 
 the evening from Rotterdam. The city was filled 
 with strangers, and I was denied admission at a 
 third hotel, when a young man brushed by me in 
 the doorway, and I recognized Maxwell. I hailed 
 him, but in cap and cloak, and with a, large red 
 shawl around my neck, he did not know me. I 
 unrolled and discovered myself, and it is needless 
 to say that I did not leave the hotel that night. 
 It was his very last day of two years' travel on 
 the Continent ; he had taken his passage in the 
 steamer for London, and one day later I should 
 have missed him altogether. 1 can give but a 
 faint idea of the pleasure of this meeting. He 
 gave me tlie first information of the whereabout 
 of Dr. W. ; we talked nearly all night, and about 
 noon the next day I again bade him farewell on 
 board the steamer. 
 
 I have for some time neglected our' servant. 
 When we separated, the question was who should 
 not keep him. We were all heartily tired of him, 
 and I would not have had him with me on any 
 account. Still, at the moment of parting in that 
 wild and distant region, never expecting to see 
 him again, I felt some slight leaning toward him. 
 Touching the matter of shirts, it will not be sur- 
 prising to a man of the world that, at the moment 
 of parting, I had one of M.'s on my back ; and, in 
 justice to him, I must say it was a very good one, 
 
156 
 
 INCIDENTS O* TRA\EL 
 
 and iasteJ a long time. A friend once wrote to 
 me on a like occasion not to wear his out of its 
 turn, but M. laid no such restriction upon me. 
 But this trifling gain did not indemnify me for the 
 loss of my friends. 1 had broken the only link 
 that connected me with home, and was setting out 
 alone for I knew not where. I felt at once the 
 great loss I had sustained, for my young muleteer 
 could speak only his own language, and, as Queen 
 Elizabeth said to Sir Walter Raleigh of her 
 Hebrew, we had " forgotten our" Greek. 
 
 But on that classical soil I ought not tu have 
 been lonely. I should hare conjured up the 
 ghosts of the departed Atridse, and held converse 
 on their own ground with Homer's heroes. Never- 
 theless, I was not in the mood ; and, entirely for- 
 getting the glories of the past, I started my horse 
 into a gallop. My companion followed on a full 
 run, close at my heels, belabouring my horse with 
 a stick, which when he broke, he pelted him with 
 stones ; indeed, this mode of scampering over the 
 ground seemed to hit his humour, for he shouted, 
 hurraed, and whipped, and sometimes laying hold 
 of the tail of the beast, was dragged along sevei-al 
 paces with little effort of his own. I soon tired of 
 this, and made signs to him to stop ; but it was his 
 turn now, and I was obhged to lean back till I 
 reached him with my cane before I could make 
 him let go his hold, and then he commenced 
 shouting and pelting again with stones. 
 
 In this way we approached the village of Kra- 
 bata, about a mile below the ruins of Mycenit-, 
 and the most miserable place I had seen in Greece. 
 With the fertile plain of Argos uncultivated before 
 them, the inhabitants exhibited a melancholy 
 picture of the most abject poverty. As I rode 
 through, crowds beset me with outstretched arms 
 imploring charity; and a miserable old woman, 
 darting out of a wretched hovel, laid her gaunt 
 and bony hand upon my leg, and attempted to stop 
 me. I shrank from her grasp, and, under the 
 effect of a sudden impulse, threw myself off on the 
 other side, and left my horse in her hands. 
 
 Hurrying through the village, a group of boys 
 ran before me, crying out " Agamemnon," " Aga- 
 memnon." I followed, and they conducted me to 
 the tomb of " the king of kings," a gigantic struc- 
 ture, still in good preservation, of a conical form, 
 covered with turf ; the stone over the door is 
 twenty-seven feet long and seventeen wide, larger 
 than any hewn stone in the world except Pompey 's 
 Pillar. I entered, my young guides going before 
 with torches, and walked within and around this 
 ancient sepulchre. A worthy Dutchman, Herman 
 Van Creutzer, has broached a theory that the 
 Trojan war is a mere allegory, and that no such 
 person as Agamemnon ever existed. Shame upon 
 the cold-blooded heretic ! I have my own sins to 
 an!5wer for in that way, for I have laid my de- 
 stroying hand upon many cherished illusions ; 
 but I would not, if I could, destroy the mystery 
 that overhangs the heroic ages, The royal se- 
 pulchre was forsaken and empty ; the shepherd 
 drives within it his flock for shelter ; the traveller 
 sits under its shade to his noonday meal ; and, at 
 the moment, a goat was dozing quietly in one 
 corner He started as I entered, and seemed to 
 regard me as an intruder ; and when I flared 
 before him the light of my torch, he rose up to 
 butt me. I turned away and left him in quiet 
 
 possession. The boys ivere waiting outside, and 
 crying " Mycense," " Mycente," led me away. 
 All was solitude, and I saw no marks of a city 
 until I reached the relics of her Cyclopean walls. 
 1 never felt a greater degree of reverence than 
 when I approached the lonely ruins of Mycena;. 
 At Argos I spent most of my time in the horse- 
 mai'ket, and I had galloped over the great plain 
 as carelessly as if it had been the road to Harlem ;• 
 but all the associations connected with this most 
 interesting ground here pressed upon me at once. 
 Its extraordinary antiquity, its gigantic remains, 
 and its utter and long-continued desolation, came 
 home to my heart. I moved on to the Gate ot 
 the Lions, and stood before it a long time without 
 entering. A broad street led to it between two 
 immense parallel walls ; and this street may, per- 
 haps, have been a market-place. Over the gate 
 are two lions rampant, like the supporters of a 
 modern coat-of-arms, rudely carved, and supposed 
 to be the oldest sculptured stone in Greece. 
 Under this very gate Agamemnon led out his 
 forces for the siege of Troy ; three thousand years • 
 ago he saw them filing before him, glittering in 
 brass, in all the pomp and panoply of war ; and I 
 held in my hand a book which told me that this 
 city was so old that, more than seventeen hundred 
 years ago, travellers came as I did to visit its 
 ruins ; and that Pausanias had found the Gate of 
 the Lions in the same state in which I beheld it 
 now. A great part is buried by the rubbish (if 
 the fallen city. I crawled under, and found my- 
 self within the walls, and then mounted to the 
 height on which the city stood. It was covered 
 with a; thick soil and a rich carpet of grass. My 
 boys left me, and I was alone. I walked all over 
 it, following the line of the walls. I paused iit 
 the great blocks of stone, the remnants of Cyclo- 
 pic masonry, the work of wandering giants. The 
 heavens were unclouded, and the sun was beam- 
 ing upon it with genial warmth. Nothing could 
 exceed the quiet beauty of the scene. I became 
 entangled in the long grass, and picked up wild 
 flowers growing over long-buried dwellings. Under 
 it are immense caverns, their uses now unknown : 
 and the earth sounded hollow under my feet, as if' 
 I were treading on the sepulchre of a buried city. 
 I looked across the plain to Argos : all was as 
 beautiful as when Homer sang its praises ; the 
 plain, and the mountains, and the sea were the 
 same, but the once magnificent city, her numerous- 
 statues and gigantic temples, were gone for ever;, 
 and but a few remains were left to tell the passing 
 traveller the story of her fallen greatness. 1 
 could have remained there for hours ; I could 
 have gone again and again, for I had not found a 
 more interesting spot in Greece ; but my reveries 
 were disturbed by the appearance of my muleteer 
 and my juvenile escort. They pointed to the sun 
 as an intimation that the day was passmg ; audi 
 crying " Cavallo," " Cavallo," hurried me away. 
 To them the ruined city was a playground ; they 
 followed capering behind ; and, in descending, 
 three or four of them rolled down upon me ; they 
 hurried me through the Gate of the Lions, and I 
 came out with my pantaloons, my only pantaloons, 
 rent across the knee almost iiToparably. In an 
 instant I was another man ; I railed at the ruins 
 for their strain upon wearing apparel, and be- 
 
 * A village so called, neur New York. — Et). 
 
IN GREECE, TUItKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 ir, 
 
 moaiiJil my unhappy lot in not having with me a 
 nt't'dlo and thread. I looked up to the old gate 
 with a sneer. This was the city that Homer had 
 made such a noise about ; a man could stand on 
 the citadel and almost throw a stone beyond the 
 boundary-line of Agamemnon's kingdom. In full 
 sight, and just at the other side of the plain, was 
 the kingdom of Argos. Tlie little state of Rhode 
 Island would make a bigger kingdom than both of 
 them together. 
 
 But I had no time for deep meditation, having 
 a long journey to Corinth before me. Fortunately, 
 my young Greek had no tire in him ; he started 
 me off on a gallop, whipping and pelting my horse 
 with stones, and would have hurried me on, over 
 rough and smooth, till either he, or I, or the horse 
 broke down, if I had not jumped off and walked. 
 As soon as I dismounted he mounted, and tlien he 
 moved so leisurely that I had to hurry him on in 
 turn. In tliis way we approached the range of 
 mountains separating the plain of Argos from the 
 Isthmus of Corinth. Entering the pass, we rode 
 along a mountain torrent, of which the channel- 
 bed was then dry, and ascended to the summit of 
 the first 'range. Looking back, the scene was 
 magnificent. On my right and left were the 
 xuined heights of Argos and Mycenae ; before me, 
 "the towering Acropolis of Napoli di Romania ; at 
 my feet, the rich plain of Argos, extending to the 
 .shore of the sea ; and beyond, the island-studded 
 .£gean. I turned away with a feeling of regret 
 that, in all probability, 1 should never see it more. 
 I moved on, and in a narrow pass, not wide 
 enough to turn my horse if I had been disposed to 
 take to my heels, three men rose up from behind 
 a lock, armed to the teeth with long guns, pistols, 
 yataghans, and sheep-skin cloaks — the dress of 
 the klept, or mountain robber — and altogether 
 presenting a most diabolically cut-throat appear- 
 ance. If they had asked me for my purse I 
 should have considered it all regular, and given 
 up the r«mnant of my stock of borrowed money 
 without a murmur ; but I was relieved from im- 
 mediate apprehension by the cry of Passe porta ! 
 King Otho has begun the benefits of civilised 
 government in Greece by introducing passports, 
 and mountain warriors were stationed in the dif- 
 ferent passes to examine strangers. They acted, 
 hi 'wever, as if they were more used to demanding 
 purses than passports, for they sprang into the 
 ruad and rattled the butts of their guns on the 
 rock with a violence that was somewhat startling. 
 Unluckily, my passport had been made out with 
 those of my companions, and was in their posses- 
 sion, and when we parted, neither thought of it ; 
 and this demand to me, who had rothing to lose, 
 was worse than that of my purse. A few words 
 of explanation might have relieved me from all 
 difficulty, but my friends qould not understand a 
 word I said, I was vexed at the idea of being 
 sent back, and thought I would try the effect of a 
 little impudence ; so, crying out " Americanos," 
 I attempted to pass on ; but they answered me 
 " Nix," and turned my horse's head towards Argos. 
 The scene, which a few moments before had 
 seemed so beautiful, was now perfectly detestable. 
 Finding that bravado had not the desired effect, 
 I lowered my tone and tried a bribe ; this was 
 touching the right chord ; half a dollar i-emoved 
 all suspicions from the minds of these trusty 
 
 guardians of the pass ; and, released from their 
 attentions, I hurried on. 
 
 Tlie whole road across the mountain is one of 
 the wildest in Greece. It is cut up by numerous 
 i-avines, sufiiciently deep and dangerous, which at 
 every step threaten destruction to the incautious 
 traveller. During the late revolution, the soil of 
 G reece had been drenched with blood ; and my 
 whole journey had been through cities and over 
 battle-fields, memorable for scenes of slaughter 
 unparalleled in the annals of modern war. In the 
 narrowest pass of the mountains, my guide made 
 gestures indicating that it had been the scene of 
 a desperate battle. When the Turks, having 
 penetrateS to the plain of Argos, were compelled 
 to fall back again upon Corinth, a small band of 
 Greeks, under Niketas and Demetrius Ypsilanti, 
 waylaid them in this pass. Concealing themselves 
 behind the rock, and waiting till the pass was 
 filled, all at once they opened a tremendous fire 
 upon the solid oolumn below, and the pass was in- 
 stantly filled with slain. Six thousand were cut 
 down in a few hours. The terrified survivors 
 recoiled for a moment ; but, as if impelled by 
 an invisible power, rushed on to meet their fate. 
 " The Mussulman rode into the passes with his 
 sabre in his sheath and his hands before his eyes, 
 the victim of destiny." The Greeks again poured 
 upon them a shower of lead, and several thousand 
 more were cut down before the Moslem army 
 accomplished the passage of this teiTible defile. 
 
 It was nearly dark when we rose to the summit 
 of the last range of mountains, and saw, under the 
 rich lustre of the setting sun, the Acropolis of 
 Corinth, with its walls and turrets, towering to the 
 sky ; the plain fonning the Isthmus of Corinth ; 
 tlie dark, quiet waters of the Gulf of Lepanto ; 
 undthe gloomy mountains of Cithseron, and Heli- 
 con, and Parnassus covered with snow. It was 
 after dark when we passed the region of the Ne- 
 mean Grove, celebrated as the haunt of the lion 
 and the scene of the first of the twelve labours of 
 Hercules. We were yet three hours from Co- 
 rinth ; and, if the old lion had still been prowling 
 in the grove, we could not have made more haste 
 to escape its gloomy solitude. Reaching the plain, 
 we heard behind us the clattering of horses' hoofs, 
 at first sounding in the stillness of evening as if a 
 regiment of cavah-y or a troop of banditti was at 
 our heels, but it proved to be only a single ti*a- 
 veller, belated like ourselves, and hurrying on to 
 Corinth. I could see through the darkness the 
 shining butts of his pistols and hilt of his yatag- 
 han, and took his dimensions with more anxiety, 
 perhaps, than exactitude. He recognised my 
 Frank dress, and accosted me in bad Italian, 
 which he had picked up at Padras (being just the 
 Italian on which I could meet him on equal 
 ground), and told me that he had met a party of 
 Franks on the road to Padras, whom, from his 
 description, I recognised as my friends. 
 
 It was nearly midnight when we rattled up 
 to the gate of the old locanda. The yard was 
 thronged with horses and baggage, and Greek and 
 Bavarian soldiers. On the balcony stood my old 
 brigand host, completely crest-fallen, and literally 
 turned out of doors in his own house ; a detach- 
 ment of Bavarian soldiers had arrived that after- 
 noon from Padras, and taken entire possession, 
 giving him and his wife the freedom of the out- 
 
158 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 side. He did not recognise me, and, taking me 
 for an Englishman, began, " Sono Inglesi Signor" 
 (he had lived at Corfu under the British domi- 
 nion) ; and, telling me the whole particulars of his 
 unceremonious ouster, claimed, through me, the 
 arm of the British government to resent the in- 
 jury to a British subject ; his wife was walking 
 about in no very gentle mood, but, in truth, very 
 much the contrary. I did not speak to her, and 
 she did not trust herself to speak to me ; but, 
 addressing myself to the husband, introduced the 
 subject of my own immediate wants, a supper and 
 night's lodging. The landlord told me, however, 
 that the Bavarians had eaten everything in the 
 house, and he had not a room, bed, blanket, or 
 coverlet to give me ; that I might lie down in the 
 hall or the piazza, but there was no other place. 
 
 I was outrageous at the hard treatment he had 
 received from the Bavarians, It was too bad to 
 turn an honest innkeeper out of his house, and 
 deny him the pleasure of accommodating a tra- 
 veller who had toiled hard all day, with the per- 
 fect assurance of finding a bed at night. I saw, 
 however, that there was no help for it ; and 
 noticing an opening at one end of the hall, went 
 into a sort of store-room filled with all kinds of 
 rubbish, particularly old barrels. An unhinged 
 door was leaning against the wall, and this I laid 
 across two of the barrels, pulled off my coat and 
 waistcoat, and on this extemporaneous couch went 
 to sleep. 
 
 I was roused from my first nap by a terrible 
 fall against my door. I sprang up ; the moon was 
 shining through the broken casement, and seizing 
 a billet of wood, I waited another attack. In the 
 meantime I heard the noise of a violent scuffling 
 on the floor of the hall, and, high above all, the 
 voices of husband and wife, his evidently coming 
 from the floor in a deprecating tone, and hers in 
 a high towering passion, and enforced with severe 
 blows of a stick. As soon as I was fairly awake I 
 saw through the thing at once. It was only a httle 
 matrimonial tele-atete. The unamiable humour 
 in which I had left them against the Bavarians 
 had ripened into a private quarrel between them- 
 selves, and she had got him down, and was pum- 
 melling him with a broomstick or something of 
 that kind. It seemed natural and right enough, 
 and was, moreover, no business of mine ; and 
 remembering that whoever interferes between man 
 and wife is sure to have both against him, I kept 
 quiet. Others, however, were not so considerate, 
 and the occupants of the different rooms tumbled 
 into the hall in every variety of fancy night-gear, 
 among whom was one whose only clothing was a 
 military coat and cap, with a sword in his hand. 
 When the hubbub was at its highest I looked out, 
 and found, as I expected, the husband and wife 
 standing side by side, she still brandishing the 
 stick, and both apparently outrageous at every- 
 thing and everybody around them. I congratu- 
 lated myself upon my superior knowledge of human 
 nature, and went back to my bed on the door. 
 
 In the morning I was greatly surprised to find 
 that, instead of whipping her husband, she had 
 been taking his part. Two German soldiers, 
 already half intoxicated, had come into the hall, 
 and insisted upon having mere wine ; the host re- 
 fused, and when they moved toward my sleeping- 
 olace, where the wine was kept, he interposed, and 
 
 all came down together with the noise which hal 
 woke me. His wife came to his aid, and the 
 blows which, in my simplicity, I had supposed tn 
 be falling upon him, were bestowed on the two 
 Bavarians. She told me the story herself ; and 
 when she complained to the officers, they had 
 capped the climax of her passion by telling her 
 that her husband deserved more than he got. 
 She was still in a perfect fury ; and as she looked 
 at them in the yard arranging for their departure, 
 she added, in broken English, with deep, and, as 
 I thought, ominous passion, " 'Twas better to be 
 under the Turks." 
 
 I learned all this while I was making my toilet 
 on the piazza, that is, while she was pourini' 
 water on my hands for me to wash ; and, just as 
 I had finished, my eye fell upon my muleteer 
 assisting in loading their horses. At first I did 
 not notice the subdued expression of his usually 
 bright face, nor that he was loading my horse^ 
 with some of their camp equipage ; but all at once- 
 it struck me that they were pressing him into- 
 their service. I was already roused by ivhat the 
 woman had told me, and resolving that they 
 should not serve me as they did the Greeks^ 
 sprang off the piazza, cleared my way through 
 the crowd, and going up to my horse, already 
 staggering under a burden poised on his back^ 
 but not yet fastened, put my hand under one side 
 and tumbled it over with a crash on the other. 
 The soldiers cried out furiously ; and, while they 
 were sputtering German at me, I sprang into the- 
 saddle. I was in admirable pugilistic condition,, 
 with nothing on but pantaloons, boots, and shirt,, 
 and just in a humour to get a whipping, if nothing 
 worse ; but 1 detested the manner in which the- 
 Bavarians lorded it in Greece ; and riding up to a 
 group of officers who were staring at me, tolc^. 
 them that I had just tumbled their luggage off my 
 horse, and they must bear in mind that they could 
 not deal with strangers quite so arbitrarily as they 
 did with the Greeks. The commandant was dis- 
 posed to be indignant and very magnificent ; but. 
 some of the others malting suggestions to him, he 
 said he understood I had only hired my horse as- 
 far as Corinth ! but, if I had taken him for 
 Athens, he would not interfere ; and, apologising 
 on the ground of the necessities of government,, 
 ordered him to be released. I apologised back 
 again, returned the horse to my guide, whose eyes- 
 sparkled with pleasure, and went in for my hat 
 and coat. 
 
 I dressed myself, and, telling him to be ready 
 when I had finished my breakfast, went out ex- 
 pecting to start forthwith ; but, to my surprise, 
 my host told me that the lad refused to go any 
 farther without an increase of pay: and, sure 
 enough, there he stood, making no preparation for 
 moving. The cavalcade of soldiers had gone, and 
 taken with them every horse in Corinth, and the 
 young rascal intended to take advantage of my 
 necessity. I told him that I had hired him to 
 Athens for such a price, and that I had saveii 
 him from impressment, and consequent loss ot 
 wages, by the soldiers ; which he admitted. J 
 added that he was a young rascal ; which hi- 
 neither admitted nor denied, but answered witli 
 a roguish laugh. The extra price was no objecc 
 compared with the vexation of a day's detention ; 
 bul a ti-aveller is apt to tliink that all the world i» 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 159 
 
 conspiring to impose upon him, and, at times, to 
 be very resolute in resisting. I was peculiarly so 
 then, and, after a few words, set off to complain 
 to the head of the police. Without any ado he 
 trotted along with me, and we proceeded together, 
 followed by a troop of idlers, I in something of a 
 passion, he perfectly cool, good-natured, and con- 
 siderate, merely keeping out of the way of my 
 stick. Hurrying along near the columns of the 
 old temple, I stumbled, and he sprang forward to 
 assist me, his face expressing great interest, and 
 a fear that I had hurt myself ; and when I walked 
 towai'd a house which I had mistaken for the 
 bureau of the police department, he ran after me 
 to direct me right. AH this mollified me con- 
 siderably ; and before we reached the door, the 
 affair began to strike me as rather ludicrous. 
 
 I stated my case, however, to the eparchos, a 
 Greek in Frank dress, who spoke French with 
 great facility, and treated me with the greatest 
 consideration. He was so full of professions that 
 I felt quite sure of a decision in my favour ; but, 
 assuming my story to be true, and without asking 
 the lad for his excuse, he shrugged his shoulders, 
 and said it would take time to examine the matter, 
 and, if I was in a hurry, I had better submit. To 
 be sure, he said, the fellow was a great rogue, and 
 he gave "his countrymen in general a character 
 that would not tell well in print ; but, added in 
 their justification, that they were imposed upon 
 and oppressed by everybody, and therefore con- 
 sidered that they had a right to take their advan- 
 tage whenever an opportunity offered. The young 
 man sat down on the floor, and looked at me with 
 the most frank, honest, and open expression, as if 
 perfectly unconscious that he was doing anything 
 wrong. I could not but acknowledge that some 
 excuse for him was to be drawn from the nature 
 of the school in which he had been brought up, 
 and, after a little parley, agreed to pay him the 
 additional price, if, at the end of the journey, I 
 was satisfied with his conduct. This was enough ; 
 his face brightened, he sprang up and took my 
 hand, and we left the house the best friends in the 
 world. He seemed to be hurt as well as sur- 
 prised at my finduig fault with him, for to him all 
 seemed perfectly natural ; and, to seal the recon- 
 ciliation, he hurried on ahead, and had the horse 
 ready when I reached the locanda. I took leave 
 of my host with a better feeling than before, and 
 set out a second time on the road to Athens. 
 
 At Kalamaki, while walking along the shore, a 
 'ireek who spoke the lingua Franca came from 
 m board one of the little caiques, and when he 
 learned that I was an American, described to me 
 the scene that had taken place on that beach upon 
 the arrival of provisions from America; when 
 thousands of miserable beings who had fled from 
 the blaze of their dwellings, and lived for months 
 upon plants and roots , grayheaded men, mothers 
 with infants at their breasts, emaciated with 
 hunger and almost frantic with despair, came 
 down from their mountain retreats to receive the 
 welcome reUef. He might well remember the 
 scene, for he had been one of that starving people ; 
 and he took me to his house, and showed me his 
 wife and four children, now nearly all grown, teli- 
 mg me that they had been rescued from death by 
 the generosity of my countrymen. I do not know 
 why, but in those countries it did not seem un- 
 
 manly for a bearded and whiskered man to weep : 
 I felt anything but contempt for him when, with 
 his heart oveiflowing and his eyes filled with 
 tears, he told me, when I returned home, to say 
 to my countrymen that I had seen and talked with 
 a recipient of their bounty; and though the 
 Greeks might never repay us, they could never 
 forget what we had done for them. I remembered 
 the excitement in our country in their behalf, in 
 colleges and schools, from the graybearded sena- 
 tor to the prattling school-boy, and reflected that, 
 perhaps, my mite, cast carelessly upon the waters, 
 had saved from the extremity of misery this grate- 
 ful family. I wish that the cold-blooded prudence 
 which would have checked our honest enthusiasm 
 in favour of a people, under calamities and hor- 
 rors worse than ever fell to the lot of man strug- 
 gling to be free, could have listened to the gratitude 
 of this Greek family. With deep interest I bade 
 them farewell, and, telling my guide to follow with 
 my horse, wallced over to the foot of the mountain. 
 
 Ascending, I saw in one of the openings of the 
 road a packhorse and a soldier in the Bavariaa 
 uniform, and, hoping to find some one to talk 
 with, I hailed him. He was on the top of the 
 mountain, so far off that he did not hear me ; and 
 when, with the help of my Greek, I had suc- 
 ceeded in gaining his attention, he looked for 
 some time without being able to see me. When 
 he did, however, he waited ; but, to my no small 
 disappointment, he answered my first question 
 with the odious " Nix." We tried each other in 
 two or three dialects ; but, finding it of no use, I 
 sat down to rest, and he, for courtesy, joined me; 
 my young Greek, in the spirit of good-fellowship, 
 doing the same. He was a tall, noble-looking 
 fellow, and, like myself, a stranger in Greece ; 
 and, though we could not say so, it was under- 
 stood that we were glad to meet and travel 
 together as comrades. The tongue causes more 
 evils than the sword ; and, as we were debarred 
 the use of this mischievous member, and walked 
 all day side by side, seldom three paces apart, 
 before night we were sworn friends. 
 
 About five o'clock in the afternoon, we arrived 
 at Megara. A group of Bavarian soldiers was 
 lounging round the door, of the khan, who wel- 
 comed their expected comrade and me as his 
 companion. My friend left me, and soon returned 
 with the compliments of the commandant, and an 
 invitation to visit him in the evening. I had, 
 however, accepted a prior invitation from the 
 soldiers for a rendezvous in the locanda. I 
 wandered till dark among the ruined houses of 
 the town, thought of Euclid and Alexander the 
 Great, and returning, went up to the same room 
 in which I had slept with my friends, pored 
 over an old map of Greece hanging on the wall, 
 made a few notes, and throwing myself back on 
 a sort of divan, while thinking what I should do 
 fell asleep. 
 
 About ten o'clock I was roused by the loud 
 roar of a chorus, not like a sudden burst, but a 
 thing that seemed to have swelled up to that 
 point by degrees ; and rubbing my eyes, and 
 stumbling down stairs, I entered the banqueting- 
 hall ; a long, rough wooden table extended the 
 whole length of the room, supplied with only two 
 articles, wine-flaggons and tobacco-pouches ; forty 
 or fifty soldiers were sitting round it, smokinp 
 
IGO 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 pipes and singing with all their souls, and, at the 
 moment I entered, waving theii- pipes to the 
 dying cadence of a hunting chorus. Then fol- 
 lowed a long thump on the table, and they all 
 rose ; my long travelling friend, with a, young 
 soldier who spoke a little French, came up, and, 
 escorting me to the head of the table, gave me a 
 seat by the side of the chairman. One of them 
 attempted to administer a cup of wine, and the 
 other thrust at me the end of a pipe, and I should 
 have been obliged to kick and abscond but for 
 the relief afforded me by the entrance of another 
 new-comer. This was no other than the corporal's 
 wife ; and if I had been received warmly, she was 
 greeted with enthusiasm. Half the table sprang 
 forward to escort her, two of them collared the 
 president and hauled him off his seat, and the 
 whole company, by acclamation, installed her in 
 his place. She accepted it without any hesitation, 
 while two of them, with clumsy courtesy, took off 
 her bonnet, which I, sitting at her right hand, 
 took charge of. All then resumed their places, 
 and the revel went on more gaily than ever. The 
 lady president was about thirty, plainly but neatly 
 dressed, and, though not handsome, had a frank, 
 amiable, and good-tempered expression, indicating 
 tiiat greatest of woman's attributes, a good heart. 
 In fact, she looked what the young man at my 
 side told me she was, the peace-malier of the 
 regiment ; and, he added, that they always tried 
 to have her at their convivial meetings, for when 
 slie was among them the brawling spirits were 
 kept down, and every man would be ashamed to 
 ([uarrel in her presence. There was no chivalry, 
 no heroic devotion about them, but their manner 
 toward her was as speaking a tribute as was ever 
 paid to the influence of woman ; and I question 
 whether beauty in her bower, surrounded by 
 lielted knights and barons bold, ever exercised in 
 her more exalted sphere a more happy influence. 
 I talked with her, and with the utmost simplicity 
 slie told me that the soldiers all loved her ; that 
 tliey were all kind to her, and she looked upon 
 them all as brothers. We broke up at about 
 twelve o'clock with a song, requiring each person 
 to take the hand of his reighbour ; one of her 
 hands fell to me, and I took it with a respect 
 seldom surpassed in touching the hand of woman ; 
 for I felt that she was cheering the rough path of 
 a soldier's life, and, among scenes calculated to 
 harden the heart, reminding them of mothers, and 
 sisters, and sweet-hearts at home. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A Dreary Funeral. — Marathon.^Mount Pentelicus.' — A 
 Mystery — Woes of a Lover. — Reveries of Glory. — Scio's 
 Rocky Isle. — X Tjlood-stained Page of History. — A Greek 
 Prelate. — Desolation- — The Exile's Return. 
 
 Earlt in tlie morning I again started. In a 
 little khan at Eieusis I saw three or four Bavarian 
 soldiers di-inking, and ridiculing the Greek pro- 
 prietor, calling him patriot! and capitani. The 
 Greek bore their gibes and sneers without a word ; 
 but there was a deadly expression in his look, 
 which seemed to say, " I bide my time ;" and I 
 remember then thinking that the Bavarians were 
 ruunmg up an account which would one day be 
 
 settled with blood. In fact, the soldiers went too 
 far ; and, as I thought, to show off before me, one 
 of them slapped the Greek on the back, and made 
 him spill a measure of wine which he was carrying 
 to a customer, when the latter turned upon him 
 like lightning, threw him down, and would have 
 strangled him if he had not beer pulled off by the 
 by-standers. Indeed, the Greeks had already 
 learned both their intellectual and physical supe- 
 riority over the Bavarians ; and, a short time 
 before, a party of soldiers sent to subdue a barn" 
 of Maniote insurgents had been captured, and, 
 after a farce of selling them at auction at a dollar 
 a head, were kicked, and whipped, and sent off. 
 
 About four o'clock I arrived once more at 
 Athens, dined at my old hotel, and nassed the 
 evening at Mr. Hill's. 
 
 The next day I lounged about the city. I had 
 been more than a month without my cai-pet-bag, 
 and the way in which I managed during that 
 time is a thing between my travelling companions 
 and myself. A prudent Scotchman used to boast 
 of a careful nephew, who, in travelling, instead of 
 leaving some of his clothes at every hotel on the 
 road, always brought home more than he took 
 away with him. I was a model of this kind of 
 carefulness while my opportunities lasted ; but 
 my companions had left me, and this morning I 
 went to the bazars and bought a couple of shirts. 
 Dressed up in one of them, I strolled outside the 
 walls ; and while sitting in the shadow of a 
 column of the Temple of Jupiter, I saw coming 
 from the ciiy, through Adrian's Gate, four nie;i, 
 carrying a burden by the corners of a coverlet, 
 followed by another having in his hands a bottle 
 and spade. As they approached I saw they were 
 bearing the dead body of a woman, whom, on 
 joining them, I found to be the wife of the man 
 who followed. He was an Englishman or an 
 American (for he called himself either, as occasion 
 required) whom I had seen at my hotel and at 
 Mr. Hill's ; had been a sailor and probably de- 
 serted from his ship, and many years a resident 
 of Athens, where he married a Greek woman. 
 He was a thriftless fellow, and, as he t'lld me, had 
 lived principally by the labour of his wife, who 
 washed for European travellers. He had been 
 so long in Greece, and his connexions and asso- 
 ciations were so thoroughly Greek, that he had 
 lost that sacredness of feeling so powerful both in 
 Englishmen and Americans of every class in re- 
 gard to the decent burial of the dead, though he 
 did say that he had expected to procure a cofBn, 
 but the police of the city had sent officers to take 
 her away and bury her. There was soihething so 
 forlorn in the appearance of this rude funeral, 
 that my first impulse was to turn away ; but I 
 checked myself and followed. Several times the 
 Greeks laid the corpse on the ground and stopped 
 to rest, chattering indifferently on various sub- 
 jects. We crossed the Ilissus, and at some dis- 
 tance came to a little Greek chapel excavated in 
 the rock. The door was so low that we were 
 obliged to stoop on entering, and when within we 
 could hardly stand upright. The Greeks laid 
 down the body in front of the altar ; the husband 
 went for the priest, the Greeks to select a place 
 for a grave, and I remained alone with the dead. 
 I sat in the door-way, looking inside upon the 
 corpse, and out upon the Greeks digging the 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, IIUSSTA, AND POLAND. 
 
 grave. In a short time the husband returned 
 with a priest, one of the most miserable of that 
 class of " blind teachers " who swarm in Greece. 
 He immediately commenced the funeral service, 
 which continued nearly an hour, by which time 
 the Greeks returned, and, taking up the body, 
 rarried it to the grave-side and laid it within. ■ I 
 l<iiew the hollow sound of the first clod of earth 
 which falls upon the lid of a coffin, and shrunk 
 from its leaden fall upon the uncovered boJy. I 
 turned away, and, when at some distance, looked 
 back and saw them packing the earth over the 
 grave. I never saw so dreary a burial-scene. 
 
 Returning, I passed by the ancient stadium of 
 Herodes Atticus, Duce capable of containing 
 twenty-five thousand spectators ; the whole struc- 
 ture was covered with the purest white marble. 
 AH remains of its magnificence ai-e now gone ; 
 but I could still trace on the excavated side of the 
 hill its ancient foi'm of a horse-shoe, and walked 
 through the subterraneous passage by which the 
 vanquished in the games retreated from the pre- 
 sence of the spectators. 
 
 Returning to the city, I learned that an affray 
 had just taken place between some Greeks and 
 Bavarians, and, hurrying to the place near the 
 bazars, found a crowd gathered round a soldier 
 who had been stabbed by a Greek. According to 
 the Greeks, the affair had been caused by the 
 habitual msults and provocation given by the 
 Bavarians, the soldier having wantonly knocked a 
 drinking-cup out of the Greek's hand while he 
 was drinlting. In the crowd I met a lounging 
 Italian (the same who wanted me to come up from 
 Padras by water), a good-natured and good-for- 
 nothing fellow, and skilled in tongues ; and going 
 with him into a coffee-house thronged with Bava- 
 rians and Europeans of various nations in the 
 service of government, heard another story, by 
 which it appeared that the Greeks, as usual, were 
 in the wrong, and that the poor Bavarian had 
 been stabbed without the slightest provocation, 
 purely from the Greeks' love of stabbing. Tired 
 of this, I left the scene of contention, and a few 
 streets off met an Athenian, a friend of two or 
 three days' standing, and stopping under a window 
 illuminated by a pair of bright eyes from above, 
 happened to express my admiration of the lady 
 who owned them, when he tested the strength of 
 ray feelings on the subject by asking me if I would 
 like to marry her. I was not prepared at the 
 moment to give precisely that proof, and he fol- 
 lowed up his blow by telling me that, if I wished 
 it, he would engage to secure her for me before 
 the next morning. The Greeks are almost uni- 
 versally poor. With them every traveller is rich, 
 and they are so thoroughly civilised as to think 
 that a rich man is, of course, a good match. 
 
 Toward evening I paid my last visit to the 
 Acropolis. SoUtude, silence, and sunset are the 
 nursery of sentiment. I sat down on a broken 
 capital of the Parthenon ; the owl was already 
 flitting among the ruins. I looked up at the 
 majestic temple and down at the ruined, and 
 newly-regenerated city, and said to myself, " Lots 
 must rise in Athens !" I traced the line of the 
 ancient walls, ran a railroad to the Pirseus, and 
 calculated the increase on " up-town lots " from 
 building the king's palace near the Garden of 
 Plato. Shall I or shall I not " njake an opera- 
 
 tibn " in Athens ! The court has removed here, 
 the country is beautiful, climate fine, government 
 fixed, steamboats are running, all the world is 
 coming, and lots must rise. 1 bought (in imagi- 
 nation) a tract of good tillable land, laid it out in 
 streets, had my Plato, and Homer, and Washing- 
 ton Places, and Jackson Avenue, built a row of 
 houses to improve the neighbourhood where 
 nobody lived, got maps lithographed, and sold off 
 at auction. I was in the right condition to " go 
 in," for I had nothing to lose ; but, unfortunately, 
 the Greeks were very far behind the spirit of the 
 age, knew nothing of the beauties of the credit 
 system, and could not be brought to dispose of 
 their consecrated soil " on the usual terms," ten 
 per cent, down, balance on bond and mortgage; 
 so, giving up the idea, at dark I bade farewell to 
 the ruins of the Acropolis, and went to my hotel 
 to dinner. 
 
 Early the next morning I started for the field 
 of Marathon. I engaged a servant at the hotel to 
 accompany me, but he disappointed me, and I set 
 out alone with my muleteer. Our road lay along 
 the base of Mount Hymettus, on the borders of 
 the plain of Attica, shaded by thick groves of 
 olives. At noon I was on the summit of a lofty 
 mountain, at the base of which, still and quiet as 
 if it had never resounded with the shock of war, 
 the great battle-ground of the Greeks and Per- 
 sians extended to the sea. The descent was one 
 of the finest things I met with in Greece ; wild, 
 rugged, and, in fact, the most magnificent kind of 
 mountain scenery. At the foot of the mountain 
 we came to a ruined convent, occupied by an old 
 white-bearded monk. I stopped there and lunched, 
 the old man laying before me his simple store of 
 bread and olives, and looking on with pleasure at 
 my voracious appetite. 
 
 This over, I hurried to the battle-field. To- 
 ward the centre is a large mound of earth, erected 
 over the Athenians who fell in the battle. I made 
 directly for this mound, ascended it, and threw the 
 reins loose over my horse's neck ; and, sitting on 
 the top,read the accountof the battle in Herodotus. 
 
 After all, is not our reverence misplaced, or, 
 rather, does not our respect for deeds hallowed 
 by time render us comparatively unjust ? The 
 Greek revolution teems with instances of as des- 
 perate courage, as great love of country, as patri- 
 otic devotion, as animated the men of Marathon, 
 and yet the actors in these scenes are not known 
 beyond the boundaries of their native land! 
 Thousands whose names were never heard of, 
 and whose bones, perhaps, never received burial, 
 were as worthy of an eternal monument as they 
 upon whose grave I sat. Still that mound is a 
 hallowed sepulchre ; and the shepherd who looks 
 at it from his mountain home, the husbandman 
 who drives his plough to its base, and the sailor 
 who hails it as a landmark from the deck of his 
 caique, are all reminded of the glory of their 
 ancestors. But away with the mouldering reUcs 
 of the past I Give me the green grave of Marco 
 Bozzaris. I put Herodotus in my pocket, ja- 
 thered a tew blades of grass, as a memorial, de- 
 scended the mound, betook myself to my saddle, 
 and swept the plain on a gallop, from the moun- 
 tain to the sea. 
 
 It is about two miles in width, and bounded by 
 yocky heights inclosing it at either extremity. 
 
163 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 Toward the shore the ground is marshy, and at 
 the place where the Persians escaped to their 
 ships are some unlaiowu ruins ; in several places 
 the field is cultivated, and toward evening, on my 
 way to the village of Marathon, I saw a Greek 
 ploughing ; and when I told him that I was an 
 American, he greeted me as the friend of Greece. 
 It is the last time I shall recur to this feeling ; 
 but it was music to my Iieart to hear a ploughman 
 on immortal Marathon sound in my ears the 
 praises of my country. 
 
 I intended to pass the night at the village of 
 Marathon ; but every khan was so cluttered up 
 with goats, chickens, and children, that I rode 
 back to the monastery at the foot of the mountain. 
 It was nearly dark when I reached it. The old 
 monk was on a little eminence at the door of his 
 chapel, clapping two boards together to call his 
 flock to vespers. With his long white beard, his 
 black cap and long black gown, his picturesque 
 position and primitive occupation, he seemed a 
 guardian spirit hovering on the borders of Mara- 
 thon in memory of its ancient glory. He came 
 down to the monastery to receive me, and, giving 
 me a paternal welcome, and spreading a mat on 
 the floor, returned to his chapel. I followed, and 
 saw his little flock assemble. The ploughman 
 came up from the plain, and the shepherd came 
 down from the mountain ; the old monk led the 
 way to the altar, and all kneeled down and pros- 
 trated themselves on the rocky floor. I looked at 
 them with deep interest. I had seen much of 
 Greek devotion in cities and villages, but it was 
 a spectacle of extraordinary interest to see these 
 wild and lawless men assembled on this lonely 
 mountain to worship in all sincerity, according to 
 ftie best light they had, the God of their fathers. 
 I could not follow them in their long and repeated 
 kneelings and pi-ostrations ; but my young Greek, 
 as if to make amends for me, and, at the same 
 time, to show how they did things in Athens, led 
 tlie van. The service over, several of them de- 
 scended witli us to the monastery ; the old monk 
 spread his mat, and again brought out his frugal 
 store of bread and olives. I contributed what I 
 had brought from Athens, and we made our 
 evening meal. If I had judged from appearances, 
 I should have felt rather uneasy at sleeping among 
 such companions ; but the simple fact of having 
 seen them at their devotions gave me confidence. 
 Though I had read and heard that the Italian 
 bandit went to the altar to pray forgiveness for 
 tlie crimes he mtended to commit, and, before 
 washing the stains from his hands, hung up the 
 bloody poniard upon a pillar of the church, and 
 asked pardon for murder, I always felt a certain 
 degree of confidence in him who practised the 
 duties of his religion, whatever that religion might 
 be. I leaned on my elbow, and, by the blaze of 
 the fire, read Herodotus, while my muleteer, as I 
 judged from the frequent repetition of the word 
 Americanos, entertained them with long stories 
 about me. By degrees the blaze of the fire died 
 away, the Greeks stretched themselves out for 
 sleep, the old monk handed me a bench about 
 four inches high for a pillow, and, wrapping my- 
 self in my cloak, in a few moments I was wander- 
 ing in the land of dreams. 
 
 Before daylight my companions were in motion. 
 X intended to return to the marble quarries on 
 
 the Pentelican Mountain ; and crying " Cavallo ' 
 in the ear of my still sleeping muleteer, in a fe» 
 minutes I bade farewell for ever to the good olc 
 monk of Marathon. Almost from the door of the 
 monastery we commenced ascending the moun 
 tain. It was just peep of day, the weather raw 
 and cold, the top of the mountain covered with 
 clouds, and in an hour I found myself in the 
 midst of them. The road was so steep and dan- 
 gerous that I could not ride ; a false step of mv 
 horse might have thrown me over a precipice 
 several hundred feet deep ; and the air was so 
 keen and penetrating, that, notwithstanding the 
 violent exercise of walking, I was perfectly chilled. 
 The mist was so dense, too, that, when my guide 
 was a few paces in advance, I could not see him, 
 and I was literally groping my way through the 
 clouds. I had no idea where I was, nor of the 
 scene around me, but I felt that I was in a 
 measure lifted above the earth. The cold blasts 
 drove furiously along the sides of the mountain, 
 whistled against the precipices, and bellowed m 
 the hollows of the rocks, sometimes driving so 
 furiously that my horse staggered and fell back. 
 I was almost bewildered in struggling blindly 
 against them ; but, just before reaching the toji 
 of the mountain, the thick clouds were lifted as ii 
 by an invisible hand, and I saw once more the 
 gloi^ous sun pouring his morning beams upon a 
 rich valley extending a great distance to the foot 
 of the Pentelican Mountain. About half-way 
 down we came to a beautiful stream, on the banks 
 of which we took out our bread and olives. Our 
 appetites were stimulated by the mountain air, 
 and we divided till our last morsel was gone. 
 
 At the foot of the mountain, lying between it 
 and Mount Pentelicus, was a large monastery, 
 occupied by a fraternity of monks. We entered 
 and walked through it, but found no one to re- 
 ceive us. In a field near by we saw one of thr 
 monks, from whom we obtained a direction to the 
 quarries. Moving on to tlie foot of the mountain, 
 which rises with a peaked summit into the clouds, 
 we commenced ascending, and soon came upon 
 the strata of beautiful white marble for which 
 Mount Pentelicus has been celebrated thousands 
 of years. Excavations appear to have been made 
 along the whole route, and on the roadside were 
 blocks, and marks caused by the friction of the 
 heavy masses transported to Athens. The great 
 quarries are toward the summit. The surface has 
 been cut perpendicularly smooth, perhaps eighty 
 or a hundred feet high, and one hundred and 
 fifty or two hundred feet in width, and excava- 
 tions have been made within to an unknown ex- 
 tent. Whole cities might have been built with 
 the materials taken away, and yet, by comparison 
 with what is left, there is nothing gone, In front 
 are entrances to a large chamber, in one comer oi 
 which, on the right, is a chapel with the painted 
 figure of the Virgin to receive the Greeks' prayers. 
 Within are vast humid caverns, over which the 
 wide roof awfully extends, adorned with hollow 
 tubes like icicles, while a small transparent petri- 
 fying stream trickles down the rock. Ou one side 
 are small chambers communicating with subter- 
 raneous avenues, used, no doubt, as places of 
 refuge during the revolution, or as the haunts o! 
 robbers. Bones of anunals and stones blackened 
 with smoke showed that but lately some part had 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 163 
 
 been occupied as a habitation. The great exca- 
 vations around, blocks of marble lying as they fell, 
 perhaps two thousand years ago, and the appear- 
 ances of having been once a scene of immense 
 industry and labour, stand in striking contrast 
 with the desolation and . solitude now existing. 
 Probably the hammer and chisel will never be 
 heard there more, great temples will no more 
 be raised, and modern genius will never, like the 
 Greeks of old, make the rude blocks of marble 
 speak. 
 
 At dark I was dining at the HStel tie France, 
 when Mr. Hill came over with the welcome intel- 
 ligence that my carpet-bag had an-ived. On it 
 was pinned a large paper, with the words " Huz- 
 7.ah!" "Huzzah!" " Huzzah !" by my friend 
 Maxwell, who had met it on horseback on the 
 shores of the Gulf of Lepanto, travelling under 
 the charge of a Greek in search of me. I opened 
 it with apprehension, and, to my great satisfac- 
 tion, found undisturbed the object of my greatest 
 anxiety, the precious note-book from which I now 
 write, saved from the peril of an anonymous pub- 
 lication, or of being used up for gun-waddings. 
 
 The next morning, before I was up, I heard a 
 gentle rap at my door, which was followed by 
 the entrance of a German, a missionary, whom I 
 had met several times at Mr. Hill's, and who had 
 dined with me once at my hotel. I apologised for 
 being caught in bed, and told him that he must 
 possess a troubled spirit to send him so early 
 from his pillow. He answered that I was right ; 
 that he did indeed possess a troubled spirit ; and 
 closing the door carefully, came to my bedside, 
 and said he had conceived a great regard for me, 
 and intended confiding in me an important trust. 
 I had several times held long conversations with, 
 him at Mr. Hill's, and very little to my edifica- 
 tion, as his English was hardly intelligible ; but 
 I felt pleased at having, without particularly 
 striving for it, gained the favourable opinion of 
 one who bore the character of a very learned and 
 a' very good man. I requested him to step into 
 the dining-room while I rose and dressed myself ; 
 but he put his hand upon my breast to keep me 
 down, and drawing a chair, began, " You are 
 going to Smyrna." He then paused, but, after 
 some moments of hesitation, proceeded to say 
 that the first name I would hear on my arrival 
 there would be his own ; that, unfortunately, it 
 was in everybody's mouth. My friend was a 
 short and very ugly middle-aged man, with a very 
 large mouth, speaking English with the most dis- 
 agreeable German sputter, lame from a fall, and, 
 altogether, of a most uninteresting and unsenti- 
 mental aspect ; and he surprised me much by 
 laying before me a veritable affaire du cteur. It 
 was so foreign to my expectations, that I should 
 as soon have expected to be made a confidant in 
 a love affair by the Archbishop of York. After 
 a few preliminaries, he went into particulars : 
 lavished upon the lady the usual quota of charms 
 " in such case made and provided," but was un- 
 certain, rambling, and discursive in regard to the 
 position he held in her regard At first I under- 
 stood that it was merely the old story, a flirtation 
 and a victim ; then that they were very near being 
 married, which I afterward understood to be only 
 so near as this, that he was willing and she not ; 
 and, finally, it settled down into the every-day 
 
 occurrence, the lady smiled, while the parents and 
 a stout two-fisted brother frowned, I could but 
 think, if such a homely expression may be intro- 
 duced in describing these tender passages, that 
 he had the boot on the wrong leg, and that tlia 
 parents were much more likely than the daughter 
 to favour such a suitor. However, on this point 
 I held my peace. The precise business he wished 
 to impose on me was, immediately on my arrival in 
 Smyrna to form the acquaintance of the lady and 
 her family, and use all my exertions in his favour, 
 I told him I was an entire stranger in Smyrna, 
 and could not possibly have any influence with the 
 parties ; but, being urged, promised him that, if 
 I could interfere without intruding myself impro- 
 perly, he should have the benefit of my mediation. 
 At first he intended giving me a letter to the lady, 
 but afterward determined to give me one to the 
 Rev. Mr. Brewer, an American missionary, who, 
 he said, was a particular friend of his, and intimate 
 with the beloved and her family, and acquainted 
 with the whole affair. Placing himself at my 
 table, on which were pens, ink, and paper, h& 
 proceeded to write his letter, while I lay quietly 
 till he turned over the first side, when, tired of 
 waiting, I rose, dressed myself, packed up, and,, 
 before he had finished, stood by the table with my 
 carpet-bag, waiting until he should have done, to 
 throw in my ivriting materials. He bade megood-by 
 after I had mounted my horse to leave, and, when 
 I turned back to look at him, I could not but feel 
 for the crippled, limping victim of the tender pas- 
 sion, though, in honesty, and with the best wishes 
 for his success, I did not think it would help his 
 suit for the lady to see him. 
 
 An account of my journey from Athens to 
 Smyrna, given in a letter to friends at home, was 
 published during my absence and without my 
 knowledge, in successive numbers of the American 
 Monthly Magazine, and perhaps the favourable 
 notice taken of it had some influence in inducing 
 me to write a book. I give the papers as tliey 
 were then published. 
 
 Smyrna; April, ?835. 
 My dear *****j 
 I have just arrived at this place, and I live to 
 tell it. I have been three weeks performing a 
 voyage usually made in three days. It has been 
 tedious beyond all things ; but, as honest Dog- 
 berry would say, if it had been' ten times as 
 tedious, I could find it in my heart to bestow it 
 all upon you. To begin at the beginning : on the 
 morning of the second instant, I and my long-lost 
 carpet-bag left the eternal city of Athens, without 
 knowing exactly whither we were going, and sin- 
 cerely regretted by Miltiades Panajotti, the garden 
 of the hotel. We wound round the foot of the 
 Acropolis, and, giving a last look to its ruined 
 temples, fell into the road to the Pirceus, and in 
 an hour found ourselves at that ancient harbour, 
 almost as celebrated in the history of Greece as 
 Athens itself. Here we took counsel as to farther 
 m'ovemcnts, and concluded to take passage in a 
 caique to sail that evening for Syra, being advised 
 that that island was a great placo of rendezvous 
 for vessels, and that from it we could procure a 
 passage to any place we chose. Having disposed 
 of my better half, (I may truly call it so, for what 
 is man without pantaloons, vests, and shirts X) I 
 
Mi4 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 Iriok a little sail-boat, to float around the ancient 
 liarbour and muse upon its departed glories. 
 
 The day that I lingered there before bidding 
 farewell, perhaps for ever, to th3 shores of Greece, 
 is deeply impressed upon my mind. I had hardly 
 begun to feel the magic influence of the land of 
 poets, patriots, and heroes, until the very moment 
 of my departiu'e I had travelled in the most 
 interesting sections of the country, and found all 
 enthusiasm dead within me when I had expected 
 to be carried away by the remembrance of the 
 past ; but here, I know not how it was, without 
 any efibrt, and in the mere act of whiling away 
 my time, all that was great, and noble, and beau- 
 tiful in her history nished upon me at once ; the 
 -sun and the breeze, the land and the sea, con- 
 tributed to throw a witchery around me ; and in a 
 rich and delightful frame of mind, I found myself 
 among the monuments of her better days, gliding 
 by the remains of the immense wall erected to 
 inclose the harbour during the Peloponnesian 
 war, and was soon floating upon the classic waters 
 of Salamis. 
 
 If I had got there by accident it would not have 
 occurred to me to dream of battles and all the 
 fierce panoply of war upon that calm and silvery 
 siu'face. But I knew where I was, and my blood 
 was up. I was among the enduring witnesses of 
 the Athenian glory. Behind me was the ancient 
 tity, the Acropolis, with its ruined temples, the 
 toll-tale monuments of by-gone days, towering 
 aliove the plain; here was the harbour from 
 Mhich the galleys carried to the extreme parts of 
 the then known world the glories of the Athenian 
 name ; before me was unconquered Salamis ; here 
 the invading fleet of Xerxes ; there the little 
 navy, the last hope of the Athenians ; here the 
 island of ^gina, from which Aristides, forgetting 
 bis quarrel with Themistocles, embarked in a 
 rude boat, during the hottest of the battle, for the 
 ship of the latter ; and there the throne of Xerxes, 
 where the proud invader stationed himself as 
 spectator of the battle that was to lay the rich 
 plain of Attica at his feet. There could be no 
 mistake about localities ; the details have been 
 handed down from generation to generation, and 
 iive as well known to the Greeks of the present 
 <lay as they were to their fathers. So I went to 
 work systematically, and fought the whole battle 
 through. I gave the Persians ten to one, but I 
 made the Greeks fight like tigers ; I pointed 
 them to their city, to their wives and children ; I 
 bronght on long strings of little innocents, urging 
 them as in the farce, " Sing out, young uns !" I 
 carried old Themistocles among the Persians like 
 a modern Greek fireship among the Turks ; I 
 sunk ship after ship, and went on demolishing 
 them at a most furious rate, until I saw old Xerxes 
 scudding from his throne, and the remnant of the 
 Persian fleet scampering aw^y to the tune of 
 " Devil takt the hindmost." By this time I had 
 got into the spirit of the thing ; and moving 
 rapidly over that water, once red with the blood 
 ■ of thousands from the fields of Asia, I steered for 
 the shore and mounted the vacant throne of 
 Xerxes. This throne is on a hill near the shore, 
 not very high, and as pretty a place as a, man 
 could have selected to see his friends whipped and 
 keep out of harm's way himself; for you will re- 
 onlleet th)it in thoHd d-avn thpi'o wa.s no ffunnowder 
 
 nor cannon-balls, and, consequently, no danger 
 from long chance shots. I selected a particular 
 stone, which I thought it probable Xerxes, as a 
 reasonable man, and with an eye to perepective, 
 might have chosen as his seat on the eventful day 
 of the battle ; and on that same stone sat down to 
 meditate upon the vanity of all earthly great- 
 ness. But, most provokiugly, whenever I think of 
 Xerxes, the first thing that presents itself to my 
 mind is the couplet in the Primer, 
 
 •• Xerxes the Great did die. 
 And BO must you and I." 
 This is a very sensible stanza, no doubt, and 
 worthy of always being borne in mind ; but it was 
 not exactly what I wanted. I tried to drive it 
 away; but the more I tried, the more it stuck to 
 me. It was all in vain. I railed at early educa- 
 tion, and resolved that acquired knowledge hurts 
 a man's natural faculties ; for if I had not received 
 the first rudiments of education, I should not have 
 been bothered with the vile couplet, and should 
 have been able to do something on my own 
 account. As it was, I lost one of the best oppor- 
 tunities ever a man had for moralising j and you, 
 
 my dear , have lost at least three pages. 
 
 give you, however, all the materials ; put yourself 
 on the throne of Xerxes, and do what you can, 
 and may your early studies be no stumbling-block 
 in your way. As for me, vexed and disgusted 
 with myself, I descended the hill as fast as the 
 great king did of yore, and jumping into my boat, 
 steered for the farthest point of the Pirteus ; from 
 the throne of Xerxes to the tomb of Themistocles. 
 I was prepared to do something here. This 
 was not merely a place where he had been ; I was 
 to tread upon the earth that covered his bones ; 
 here were his ashes ; here was all that remained 
 of the best and bravest of the Greeks, save his 
 immortal name. As I approached I saw the 
 large square stones that enclosed his grave, and 
 mused upon his history ; the deliverer of his 
 country, banished, dying an exile, his bones begged 
 by his repenting countrymen, and buried with 
 peculiar propriety near the shore of the sea com- 
 manding a full view of the scene of his naval 
 glory. For more than two thousand years the 
 waves have almost washed over his grave, the sun 
 has shone and the winds have howled over him ; 
 while, perhaps, his spirit has mingled with the 
 sighing of the winds and the murmur of the 
 waters, in moaning over the long captivity of his 
 countrymen ; perhaps, too, his spirit has been 
 with them in their late struggle for liberty ; has 
 hovered over them in the battle and the breeze, 
 and is now standing sentinel over his beloved and 
 liberated country. I approached as to the grave 
 of one who will never die. His great name, his 
 great deeds, hallowed by the lapse of so many 
 ages ; the scene — I looked over the wall with a 
 feeling amounting to reverence, when, directly 
 before me, the first thing I saw, the only thing I 
 could see, so glaring and conspicuous that nothmg 
 else could fix my eye, was a tall, stifi', wooden 
 headboard, painted white, with black letters, to 
 the memory of an Englishman with as unclassical 
 a name as that of John Johnson. My eyes were 
 blasted with the sight ; I was ferocious ; I railed 
 at him as if he had buried himself there with his 
 own hands. What had he to do there 1 I railed 
 at liis friends. Did thev exnect to give him a 
 
IN GRKECE, TURKFY, RUSSIA, ANP POLAND 
 
 10.^ 
 
 naine by miiiglinn; him with the ashes of the im- 
 mortal dead ! Did they expect to steal immor- 
 tality like fire from the flint i I dashed back to 
 my boat, steered directly for the harbour, gave 
 sentiment to the dogs, and in hulf-iin-hour was 
 eating a most voracious and spiteful dinner. 
 
 In the evening I embarked on board ray little 
 caique. She was one of the most rakish of that 
 rakish description of vessels. I drew my cloak 
 around me and stretched myself on the deck as 
 we glided quietly out of the harbour ; saw the 
 throne of Xerxes, the island of Salamis, and the 
 shores of Greece gradually fade from view ; looked 
 at the dusky forms of the Greeks in their capotes 
 lying asleep around me ; at the helmsman sitting 
 cross-legged at his post, apparently without life 
 or motion ; gave one thought to home, and fell 
 
 In the morning I began to examine my com- 
 panions. They were, in all, a captain and six 
 sailors, probably all part owners, and two passen- 
 gers from one of the islands, not one of whom 
 could speak any other language than Greek. My 
 knowledge of that language was confined to a few 
 rolhng hexameters, which had stuck by me in 
 some unaccountable way as a sort of memento of 
 college days. These, however, were of no parti- 
 cular use, and, consequently, I vvas pretty much 
 tongue-tied during the whole voyage. I amused 
 myself by making my observations quietly upon 
 my companions, as they did more openly upon 
 me, for I frequently heard the word " Ameri- 
 canos" pass among them. I had before had 
 occasion to see something of Greek sailors, and to 
 admire their skill and general good conduct, and 
 I was fortified in my previous opinion by what I 
 saw of my present com])anions Their tempe- 
 rance in eating and drinking is very remarkable, 
 and all my comparisons between them and Euro- 
 pean sailors were very much in their favour. 
 Indeed, I could not help thinking, as they sat 
 collectively, Turkish fashion, around their frugal 
 meal of bread, caviari, and black olives, that 
 I had never seen finer men. Their features were 
 regular, in that style which we to this day re- 
 cognise as Grecian ; their figures good, and their 
 faces wore an aii* of marked chai'acter and ia- 
 telligence ; and these advantages of person were 
 set off by the island costume, the fez or red cloth 
 cap, with a long black tassel at the top, a tight 
 vest and jacket, embroidered and without collars, 
 large Turkish trousers coming down a little be- 
 low tlie knee, legs bare, sharp-pointed slippei-s, 
 and a sash round the waist, tied under the left 
 side, with long ends hanging down, and a knife 
 sticking out about six inches. There was some- 
 thing bold ana daring in their appearance ; indeed, 
 I may say, rakish and piratical ; and I could 
 easily imagine that, if the Mediterranean should 
 again become infested with pirates, my friends 
 would cut no contemptible figure among them. 
 But I must not detain you as long on the voyage 
 as I was myself. The sea was calm ; we had 
 hardly any wind ; our men were at the oars 
 nearly all the time, and passing slowly by Mgiaa,, 
 Cape Sunium, v/ith its magnificent ruins mourn- 
 fully overlooking the sea, better known in modern 
 times as Colonna's Height, and the scene of 
 Falconer's shipwreck, passing also the island of 
 Zea, the ancient Chios, Thermia, and other islands 
 
 of lesser note, in the afternoon of the third day 
 we arrived at Syra. 
 
 With regard to Syra I shall say but little ; I an» 
 as loath to IJaiger about it now as I was to stay- 
 there then. The fact is, I cannot think of the 
 place with any degree of satisfaction. The eve/i- 
 ing of my arrival I heard, through a Greek mer- 
 chant to whom I had a letter from a friend in' 
 Athens, of a brig to sail the next day for Smyrna ;.. 
 and 1 lay down on a miserable bed in a miserable 
 locanda, in the confident expectation of I'esummg 
 my journey in the morning. Before mornings 
 however, I was roused by " blustering Boreas " 
 rushing through the broken casement of my win- 
 dow ; and for more than a week all the winds 
 ever celebrated ir the poetical history of Greece 
 were let loose upon the island. We were com- 
 pletely cut off from all communication with the 
 rest of the world. Not » vessel could leave the 
 port, while vessel after vessel put in there for 
 shelter. I do not mean to go into any details j 
 indeed, for my own credit's sake, I dare not ; for- 
 if I were to draw a true picture of things as I 
 found them ; if I were to write home the truth, I 
 should be considered as utterly destitute of taste- 
 and sentiment ; I should be looked upon as a most 
 unpoetical dog, who ought to have been at hom& 
 poring over the revised statutes instead of breath- 
 ing the pure air of poetry and song. And now, if 
 I were writing what might by chance come under 
 the eyes of a sentimental young lady or a your.g 
 gentleman in his teens, the truth would be tlie 
 last thing I would think of telling. No, though 
 my teeth chatter, though a cold sweat comes over 
 me when I think of it, I would go through the 
 usual rhapsody, and huzzah for " the land of the- 
 East and the clime of the sun." Indeed, I have 
 a scrap in my portfolio, written with my cloak and 
 greatcoat on, and my feet over a brazier, begin- 
 ning in that way. But to you, my dear , who 
 
 know my touching sensibilities, and who, more- 
 over, have a tender regard for my character and 
 will not publish rae, I would as soon tell the truth 
 as not. And I therefore do not hesitate to say^ 
 but do not whisper it elsewhere, that in one of the- 
 beautiful islands of the jEgean ; in the heart of tlie 
 Cyclades, in the sight of Delos, and Pares, and 
 Antiparos, any one of which is enough to throw 
 one who has never seen them into raptures with, 
 their fancied beauties, here, in this paradise of a. 
 young man's di*eams, in the middle of April, I 
 would have hailed " chill November's surly blast"' 
 as a zephyr ; I would have exchanged all the 
 beauties of this balmy clime for the sunny side of 
 Kamtschatka ; I would have given my room and. 
 the whole island of Syra for a third-rate lodging 
 in Communipaw. It was utterly impossible to 
 walk out, and equally impossible to stay in my 
 room ; the house, to suit that delightful climate,, 
 being built without windows or window-shutters^ 
 If I could forget the island, I could remcmber- 
 with pleasure the society I met there. I passed 
 my mornings in the library of Mr. R., one of onr 
 worthy American missionaries ; and my evenings- 
 at the house of Mr. W., the British consul. This, 
 gentleman married a Greek lady of Smyrna, and 
 had three beautiful daughters, more than half 
 Greeks in their habits and feelings ; one of theiik 
 Is married to an English baronet, another to a, 
 Greek merchant of Syra, and the third— 
 
lG(i 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAATEI 
 
 Oa tho ninth day tne wina fell, the suu once 
 •iiore sliono brightly, and in the evening I cm- 
 i lariced on board a ricketty brig for Smyrna. At 
 About six o'cloeli, F. M., thirty or forty vessels 
 •vere quietly crawling out of the harbour like rats 
 after a storm. It was atlraost a calm when we 
 started : in about two hours we had a favourable 
 breeze ; we turned in, going at the rate of eight 
 miles an hour, and rose with a strong wind dead 
 a-head. We beat about all that day; tlie wind 
 Increased to a gale, and toward evening we took 
 -<5hrlter in the harbour of Scio. 
 
 The history of this beautiful little island forms 
 one of the bloodiest pages in the history of the 
 world, and one glance told that dreadful history. 
 Once the most beautiful island of the Archipelago, 
 it is now a mass of ruins. Its fields, which once 
 ■" budded and blossomed as the rose," have be- 
 come waste places ; its villages are deserted, its 
 towns are in ruins, its inhabitants murdered, in 
 captivity, and in exile. Before the Greel: revolu- 
 tion the Greeks of Scio were engaged in extensive 
 commerce, and ranked among the largest mer- 
 chants in the Levant. Though living under hard 
 taskmasters, subject to the exactions of a rapa- 
 cious pacha, their industry and enterprise, and 
 the extraordinary fertility of their island, enabled 
 them to pay a heavy tribute to the Turks, and to 
 become rich themselves. For many years they 
 had enjoyed the advantages of a college, with 
 ju'ofessors of high literary and scientific attain- 
 Jiients, and their library was celebrated through- 
 out all that country ; it was, perhaps, the only 
 -Spot in Greece where taste and learning still held 
 ;i seat. But the island was far more famed for 
 its extraordinary natui'al beauty and fertility. 
 Its bold mountains and its soft valleys, the mild- 
 ness of its climate and the richness of its produc- 
 tions, bound the Greeks to its soil by a tie even 
 stronger than the chain of their Turkish masters. 
 1 n the early part of the revolution, the Sciotes 
 iook no part with theii- countrymen in their 
 glorious struggle for liberty. Forty of their prin- 
 cipal citizens were given up as hostages, and they 
 were suffered to remain in peace. Wrapped in 
 the rich beauties of their island, they forgot the 
 freedom of their fathers and their own chains ; 
 ^nd, under tlie precarious tenure of a t^Tant's will, 
 gave themselves up to the full enjoyment of all 
 that wealth and taste could purchase. We must 
 not be too hard upon human nature ; the cause 
 seemed desperate ; they had a little paradise at 
 stake ; and if there is a spot on earth, the risk of 
 losing which could excuse men in forgetting that 
 they were slaves in a land where their fathers 
 were free, it is the island of Scio. But the sword 
 hung suspended over them by a single hair. In 
 an unexpected hour, without the least note of 
 ]ireparation, they were startled by the thunder of 
 the Turkish cannon ; fifty thousand Turks were 
 let loose like blood-hounds upon the devoted 
 Island. The affrighted Greeks lay unarmed and 
 helpless at their feet, but they lay at the feet of 
 men who did not know mercy even by name ; at 
 the feet of men who hungered and thu-sted after 
 blood ; of men, in comparison with whom wild 
 beasts are as lambs. The wildest beast of the 
 forest may become gorged with blood ; not so 
 -with the Turks at Scio. Their appetite " grew 
 ■with what it fed on," and still longed for blood 
 
 when there was not a victirj left to bleed. Womon 
 were ripped open, children dashed against the 
 walls, the heads of whole families stuck on pikes 
 out of the windows of their houses, while their 
 murderers gave themselves up to riot and plunder 
 within. The forty hostages v.-ere hung in a row 
 from the walls of the castle ; an indiscriminate 
 and universal burning and massacre took place ; 
 in a few days the ground was covered with the 
 dead, and one of the loveliest spots on earth was 
 a pile of smoking ruins. Out of a population of 
 one hundred and ten thousand, sixty thousand are 
 supposed to have been murdered, twenty thousand 
 to have escaped, and thirty thousand to have been 
 sold into slavery. Boys and young gh-ls were 
 sold publicly in the streets of Smyrna and Con- 
 stantinople at a dollar a-head. And all this did 
 not arise from any irritated state of feeling toward 
 them. It originated in the cold-blooded, calcu- 
 lating policy of the sultan, conceived in the same 
 spirit which drenched the streets of Constantinople 
 with the blood of the Janisaries ; it was intended 
 to strike teri-or into the hearts of the Greeks, but 
 the murderer failed in his aim. The groans of 
 the hapless Sciotes reached the eai^ of their i 
 countrymen, and gave a headlong and irresistible 
 impulse to the spirit then struggling to be free. 
 And this bloody tragedy was performed in our 
 own days, and in the face of the civilised world. 
 Surely, if ever Heaven visits in judgment a nation 
 for a nation's crimes, the burning and massacre 
 at Scio will be deeply visited upon the accursed 
 Turks. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when I landed, and 
 my landing was under peculiarly interesting cb- 
 cumstances. One of my fellow-passengers was a 
 native of the island, who had escaped during the ' 
 massacre, and now revisited it for the first time. ] 
 He asked me to accompany him ashore, promising ' 
 to find some friends at whose house we might 
 sleep ; but he soon found himself a stranger in his 
 native island : where he had once known every- 
 body he now knew nobody. The town was a 
 complete mass of ruins ; the walls of many fine 
 buildings were still standing, crumbling to pieces, 
 and still black with the fire of the incendiary 
 Turks. The town that had grown up upon the 
 ruins consisted of a row of miserable shantees, 
 occupied as shops for the sale of the mere neces- 
 saries of life, where the sliopman slept on his ivin- 
 dow-shutter in front. All my companion's efforts 
 to find an acquaintance who would give us a 
 night's lodging were fruitless. We were deter- 
 mined not to go on board the vessel, if possible to 
 avoid it ; her last cargo had been oil, the odour of 
 which still remained about her. The weather 
 would not permit us to sleep ou dtck, and the 
 cabin was intolerably disagreeable To add to 
 our unpleasant position, and, at the same time, to 
 heighten the cheerlessness of the scene around 
 us, the rain began to fall violently. Under the 
 guidance of a Greek we searched among the ruins 
 for an apartment where we might build a fire and 
 shelter ourselves for the night, but we searched 
 in vain ; the work of destruction was too complete. : 
 
 Cold, and thoroughly drenched with rain, we 
 were retracing our way to our boat, when our 
 guide told my companion that a Greek archbishop 
 had lately taken up his abode among the ruins. 
 We immediately went there, and found him occu 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 107 
 
 pying apartmonts, partially repaired, in what had 
 once been one of the finest houses in Scio. The 
 entrance through a large stone gateway was im- 
 posing ; the house was cracked from top to bottom 
 by fire, nearly one half had fallen down, and the 
 stones lay scattered as they fell ; but enough re- 
 mained to show that in its better days it had been 
 almost a, palace. We ascended a flight of stone 
 steps to a terrace, from which we entered into a 
 large hall, perhaps thirty feet wide and fifty feet 
 long. On one side of this hall the wall had fallen 
 down the whole length, and we looked out upon 
 tlie mass of ruins beneath. On the other side, in 
 a small room in one corner, we found the arch- 
 bishop. He was sick, and in bed with all his 
 cloUies on, according to the universal custom 
 here, but received us Idndly. The furniture con- 
 sisted of an iron bedstead with a mattress, on 
 which he lay with a quilt spread over him, a 
 wooden sofa, three wooden chairs, about twenty 
 books, and two large leather cases containing 
 clothes, napkins, and, probably, all his worldly 
 goods. The rain came through the ceiling in 
 several places ; the bed of the poor archbishop 
 had evidently been moved from time to time to 
 avoid it, and I was obliged to change my posi- 
 tion twice. An air of cheerless poverty reigned 
 through the apartment. I could not hel,p com- 
 paring his lot with that of more favoured and, 
 perhaps, not more worthy servants of the church. 
 It was a style so different from that of the priests 
 at Rome, the pope and his cardinals, with their 
 gaudy equipages and multitudes of footmen rat- 
 tling to the Vatican ; or from the pomp and state 
 of the haughty English prelates, or even from 
 the comforts of our own missionaries in different 
 parts of this country, that I could not help feeling 
 deeply for the poor priest before me. But he 
 seemed contented and cheerful, and even thankful 
 that, for the moment, there were others worse off 
 than himself, and that he had it in his power to 
 befriend them. 
 
 Sweetmeats, coffee, and pipes were served ; and 
 in about an hour we were conducted to supper in 
 a large room, also opening from the hall. Our 
 supper would not have tempted an epicure, but 
 suited very well an appetite whetted by exercise 
 and travel. It consisted of a huge lump of bread 
 and a large glass of water for each of us, caviari, 
 bla«k olives, and two kinds of Turkish sweet- 
 meats. We were waited upon by two priests : 
 one of them, a handsome young man, not more 
 than twenty, with long black hair hanging over 
 his shoulders like a girl's, stood by with a napkin 
 on his arm and a pewter vessel, with which he 
 poured water on our hands, receiving it again in 
 a basin. This was done both before and after 
 eating ; then came coffee and pipes. During the 
 evening the young priest brought out an edition 
 of Homer, and I surprised him, and astounded 
 'nyself, by being able to translate a passage in the 
 Iliad. I translated it in French, and my com- 
 panion explained it in modern Greek to the young 
 priest. Our beds were cushions laid on a raised 
 platform or divan extending around the walls, 
 with a quilt for each of ua. In the morning, after 
 sweetmeats, coffee, and pipes, we paid our respects 
 to the good old archbishop, and took our leave. 
 When v/e got out of doors, finding that the wind 
 was the same, and that there was no possibility of 
 
 sailing, my friend proposed a ride into tlie country. I 
 We procured a couple of mules, took a small 
 basket of provisions for a collation, and started. 
 _ Our road lay directly along the shore ; on one 
 side the sea, and on the other the ruins of houses 
 and gardens, almost washed by the waves. At 
 about three miles' distance we crossed a little 
 stream, by the side of which we saw a sarcopha- 
 gus, lately disinterred, containing the usual vases 
 of a Grecian tomb, including the piece of money 
 to pay Charon his ferriage over the river Styx, 
 and six pounds of dust ; being all that remained of 
 a man — perhaps one who had filled a large space 
 in the world ; perhaps a hero — buried probably 
 more than two thousand years ago, 4fter a ride 
 of about five miles we came to the ruins of a large 
 village, the style of which would anywhere have 
 fixed the attention, as having been once a favoured 
 abode of wealth and taste. The houses were of 
 brown stone, built together, strictly in the Vene- 
 tian style, after the models left during the occu- 
 pation of the island by the Venetians, large and 
 elegant, with gardens of three or four acres, en- 
 closed by high walls of the same kind of stone, 
 and altogether in a style far superior to anything 
 I had seen in Greece. These were the country- 
 houses and gardens of the rich merchants of Scio. 
 The manner of living among the proprietors here 
 was somewhat peculiar, and the ties that bound 
 them to this little village were peculiarly strong. 
 This was the family home ; the community was 
 essentially mercantile, and most of their business 
 transactions were carried on elsewhere. When 
 there were three or four brothers in a family, one 
 would be in Constantinople a couple of years, 
 another at Trieste, and so on, while another re- 
 mained at home ; so that those who were away, 
 while toiling amid the perplexities of business, 
 were always looking to the occasional family re- 
 union ; and all trusted to spend the evening of 
 their days among the beautiful gardens of Scio. 
 What a scene for the heart to turn to now ! The 
 houses and gardens were still there, some standing 
 almost eutii-e, others black with smoke and crum- 
 bling to ruins. But where were they who once 
 occupied them? Where were they who should 
 now be coming out to rejoice in the return of a 
 friend and to v.'elcome a stranger 1 An awful so- 
 litude, a stillness that struck a cold upon the heart, 
 reigned around us. We saw nobody ; and our 
 own voices, and tht tramping of our horses upon 
 the deserted pavement, sounded hollow and sepul- 
 chral in our ears. It was like walking among the 
 ruins of Pompeii ; it was another city of the dead ; 
 but there was a freshness about the desolation 
 that seemed of to-day ; it seemed as though the 
 inhabitants should be sleeping and not dead. In- 
 deed, the high walls of the gardens, and the out- 
 side of the houses too, were generally so fresh and 
 in so perfect a state, that it seemed like riding 
 through a handsome village at an early hour 
 before the inhabitants had risen ; and I sometimes 
 could not held thinking that in an hour or two the 
 streets would be thronged with a busy population. 
 My friend continued to conduct me through the 
 solitary streets ; telling me, as we went along, 
 that this was the house of such a family, this of 
 such a family, with some of whose members I had 
 become acquainted in Greece, until, stopping be- 
 fore a large stone gateway, he dismounted at the 
 
IP"! 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TEAVEL 
 
 gjito of his father's house. In that house he was 
 born ; there he had spent his youth ; he had 
 escaped from it during the dreadful massacre, and 
 this was the first time of his revisiting it. What 
 a tide of recollections must have rushed upon 
 him ! 
 
 We entered through the large stone gateway 
 into a courtyard beautifully paved in mosaic in 
 the form of a star, with small black and white 
 round stones. On our left was a ^arge stone re- 
 servoir, perhaps twenty-five feet square, still so 
 perfect as to hold water, witli an arbour over it 
 supported by marble columns ; a venerable grape- 
 vine completely covered the arbour. The garden 
 covered an extent of about four acres, filled with 
 orange, lemon, almond, and fig-trees ; overrun 
 with weeds, roses, and flowers, growing together 
 in wild confusion. On the right was the house, 
 and a melancholy spectacle it was ; the wall had 
 fallen down on one side, and the whole was black 
 with smoke. We ascended a flight of stone steps, 
 with marble balustrades, to the terrace, a platform 
 about twenty feet square, overlooking the garden. 
 From the terrace we entered the saloon, a large 
 room with high ceilings and fresco paintings on 
 the walls ; the marks of the fire kindled on the 
 stone floor still visible, ail the woodwork burned 
 to a cinder, and the whole black with smoke. It 
 was a perfect picture of wanton destruction. The 
 day, too, was in conformity with the scene ; the 
 Bun was obscured, the wind blew through the 
 ruined building, it rained, was cold and cheerless. 
 What were the feelings of my friend, t cannot 
 imagine ; the houses of three of his uncles were 
 immediately adjoining ; one of these uncles was 
 one of the forty hostages, and was hanged ; the 
 other two were murdered ; his father, a venerable- 
 looking old man, who came down to the vessel 
 when we started to see him off, had escaped to 
 the mountains, from thence in a caique to Ipsara, 
 and from thence into Italy. I repeat it, I cannot 
 imagine what were his feelings ; he spoke but 
 little ; they must have been too deep for utter- 
 ance. I looked at everything with intense inte- 
 rest ; I wanted to ask question after question, but 
 could not, in mercy, probe his bleeding wounds. 
 We left the house and walked out into the garden. 
 It showed that there was no master's eye to watch 
 over it ; I plucked an orange which had lost its 
 flavour ; the tree was withering from want of 
 eai-e ; our feet became entangled among weeds, 
 and roses and rare hothouse plants, growing wildly 
 together. I said that he did not talk much ; but 
 the little he did say amounted to volumes. Pass- 
 ing a large vase in which a beautiful plant was 
 running wildly over the sides, he nmrmured in- 
 uistinctly " the same vase", (le mfime vase), and 
 once he stopped opposite a tree, and, turning to 
 me, said, " 'This is the only tree I do not remem- 
 Toer. " 'These, and other little incidental remarks 
 showed how deeply all the particulars were en- 
 graved upon his mind, and told me, plainer than 
 words, that the wreck and ruin he saw around 
 I him harrowed his very soul. Indeed, how could 
 it be otherwise ? This was his father's house, the 
 home of his youth, the scene of his earliest, 
 dearest, and fondest recollections. Busy memory, 
 that source of all our gi'eatest pains as well as 
 
 greatest pleasures, must have pressed sorely upon 
 hina, must have painted the ruined and desolate 
 
 scene around him in colours even brighter, fai 
 brighter, than they ever existed in ; it must have 
 called up the faces of well-known and well-loved 
 friends ; indeed, he must have asked himself, in 
 bitterness and in anguish of spirit, " The friends 
 of my youth I where are they i" while the fatal 
 answer fell upon his heart, " Gone, nmrdered, in 
 captivity and in exile." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A Noble Gret.'ian Lady. — Beauty of Scio. — An Original. 
 — Fogpi. — A Turkish (-'offee-house. — MuBSulinan at Pray- 
 ers. — Easter Sunday. — A Greek Priest.. — A Tartar Guide 
 
 — Turkish Ladies. — Camel Scenes. — Sight of a Harem 
 
 Disappointed Hopes.. — A rare Concert.^ — Arrival at Smyrna. 
 
 fContintiation of the Letter. t 
 
 We returned to the house, and seeking out ii 
 room less ruined than the rest, partook of a slight 
 collation, and set out on a visit to a relative of m_\ 
 Sciote friend. 
 
 On our way my companion pointed out a con- 
 vent on the side of a hill, where six thousand 
 Greeks, who had been prevailed upon to comt 
 down from the mountains to ransom themselves, 
 were treacherously murdered to a man ; their un- 
 buried bones still whiten the ground within the 
 walls of the convent. Arriving at the house of 
 his relative, we entered through a large gateway 
 into a handsome courtyard, with reservoir, gar- 
 den, &c., ruinous, though in better condition than 
 those we had seen before. This relative was a- 
 widow, of the noble house of Mavrocordato, one 
 of the first families in Greece, and perhaps the 
 most distinguished name in the Greek revolution. 
 She had availed herself of the sultan's amnesty to 
 return ; had repaired two or three rooms, and sat 
 down to end her days among the scenes of her 
 childhood, among the ruins of her father's house. 
 She was now not more than thirty ; her counte- 
 nance was remarkably pensive, and she had seen 
 enough to drive a smile for ever from her face. 
 The meeting between her and my friend was ex- 
 ceedingly affecting, particularly on her part. She 
 wept bitterly, though, with the elasticity peculiar 
 to the Greek character, the smile soon chased 
 away the tear. She invited us to spend the night 
 there, pointing to the divan, and promising us 
 cushions and coverlets. We accepted her invi- 
 tation, and again set forth to ramble among the 
 ruins. 
 
 I haa heard that an American missionary had 
 lately come into the island, and was Uving some- 
 where in the neighbourhood. I found out his 
 abode, and went to see him. He was a young 
 man from Virginia, by name ******, had 
 man-ied a lady from Connecticut, who was unfor- 
 tunately sick in bed. He was living in one rooui 
 in the corner of a ruined building, but was then 
 engaged in repairing a house into which he 
 expected to remove soon As an American, the 
 first whom they had seen in that distant island, 
 they invited me into the sick-room. In a strangt 
 land, and among a people whose language thej 
 did not understand, they seemed to be all in all tc 
 each other ; and I left them, probably for ever, 
 in the earnest hope that the wife n'ight soon b( 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 169 
 
 restored to health, that hand-in-hand they might 
 sustain each other in the rough path before them. 
 Toward evening we returned to the house of 
 my friend's relative. We found there a nephew, 
 a young man about twenty-two, and a cousin, a 
 man about thirty-five, both accidentally on a visit 
 to the island. As I looked at the little party before 
 me, sitting around a brazier of chai'coal, and tallc- 
 ing earnestly in Greek, I could hardly persuade 
 myself thatwhat I had seen and heai'd that day was 
 real. All tiij.t I had ever read iu history of the 
 ferocity of tne Turldsh character ; all the wild 
 stories of corsairs, of murdering, capturing, and 
 carrying into captivity, that I had ever read in 
 romances, crowded upon me, and I saw living 
 witnesses that the bloodiest records of history 
 and the wildest creations of romance were nut 
 overcharged. They could all testify in their own 
 persons that these things were true. They had 
 all been stripped of their property, and had their 
 houses burned over their heads ; had all narrowly 
 escaped being murdered ; and had all suffered in 
 their nearest and dearest connexions. The nephew, 
 then a boy nine years old, had been saved by a 
 maid-servant ; his father had been murdered ; 
 a brother, a sister, and many of his cousins, were 
 at that moment, and had been for years, in slavery 
 among the Turks ; my friend, with his sister, had 
 found refuge in the house of the Austrian consul, 
 and from thence had escaped into Italy ; the 
 cousin was the son of one of the forty hostages 
 who were hung, and was the only member of his 
 father's family that escaped death ; while our 
 pensive and amiable hostess, a bride of seventeen, 
 iiad seen her young husband murdered before 
 her eyes ; had herself been sold into slavery, and, 
 after two years' servitude, redeemed by her 
 friends. 
 
 In the morning I rose early and walked out 
 upon the terrace. Nature had put on a different 
 garb. The wind had fallen, and the sun was 
 shining warmly upon a scene of softness and luxu- 
 riance surpassing all that I had ever heard or 
 dreamed of the beauty of the islands of Greece. 
 Away with all that I said about Syra ! skip the 
 page. The terrace overlooked the garden filled 
 with orange, lemon, almond, and fig-trees ; with 
 plants, roses, and fiowers of every description, 
 growing in luxuriant wildness. But the view was 
 not confined to the garden. Looking back to the 
 harbour of Scio, was a bold range of rugged moun- 
 tams bounding the view on that side ; on the right 
 was the sea, then calm as a lake ; on both the 
 other sides were ranges of mountains, irregular 
 and picturesque in their appearance, verdant and 
 blooming to their very summits ; and within these 
 hmits, for an extent of perhaps five miles, were 
 continued gardens like that at my feet, filled with 
 the choicest fruit-trees, with roses, and the 
 greatest variety of rire plants and flowers that 
 ever unfolded their beauties before the eyes of 
 man; above all, the orange-trees, the peculiar 
 favourite of the island, then almost in full bloom, 
 covered with blossoms, from my elevated position 
 on the terrace made the whole valley appear an 
 immense bed of flowers. All, too, felt the fresh- 
 ening influence of the rain ; and a gentle breeze 
 brought to me from this wilderness of sweets the 
 Woet delicious perfume that ever greeted the 
 Bsnses. Do not think me extravagant when I 
 
 say that, in your wildest dreams, you could never 
 fancy so rich and beautiful a scene. Even among 
 ruins, that almost made the heart break, I could 
 hardly tear my eyes from it. It is one of the love- 
 liest spots on earth. It is emphatically a Paradise 
 lost, for the hand of the Turks is upon it ; a hand 
 that withers all that it touches. In vain does the 
 sultan invite the survivors, and the children made 
 orphans by his bloody massacre, to return ; in vair 
 do the fruits and the flowers, the sun and the soil, 
 invite them to return ; their wounds are still 
 bleeding ; they cannot forget that the wild beast's 
 paw might again be upon them, and that their own 
 blood might one day moisten the flowers which 
 grow over the graves of their fathers. But I must 
 leave this place. I could hardly tear myself away 
 then, and I love to linger about it now. While I 
 was enjoying the luxury of the terrace, a messen- 
 ger came from the captain to call us on board. 
 With a feeling of the deepest interest I bade fare- 
 well, probably for ever, to my sorrowing hostess 
 and to the beautiful gardens of Scio. 
 
 We mounted our mules, and in an hour were at 
 the port. My feelings were so wrought upon, that 
 I felt my blood boil at the first Turk I met in the 
 streets. I felt that I should hke to sacrifice him 
 to the shades of the murdered Greeks. I won- 
 dered that the Greeks did not kill every one on 
 the island. I wondered that they could endure 
 the sight of the turban. We found that the cap- 
 tain had hurried us away unnecessarily. We could 
 not get out of the harbour, and were obliged to 
 lounge about the town all day. We again made a 
 circuit among the ruins ; examined particularly 
 those of the library, where we found an old woman 
 who had once been an attendant there, living in a 
 little room in the cellar, completely buried under 
 the stones of the fallen building ; and returning, 
 sat down with a chibouk before the door of an old 
 Turkish coffee-house fronting the harbour. Here 
 I met an original, in the person of the Dutch 
 consul. He was an old Italian, and had been in 
 America during the revolutionary war as drago- 
 man, as he called it, to the Count de Grasse, 
 though, from his afterward incidentally speaking 
 of the count as "my master," I am inclined to 
 think that the word dragoman, which here means 
 a person of great character and trust, may be in- 
 terpreted as "valet-de-chambre." The old consul 
 was in Scio during the whole of the Huassacre, 
 and gave me many interesting particulars respect- 
 ing it. He hates the Greeks, and spoke with great 
 mdignation about the manner in which their dead 
 bodies lay strewed about the streets for months 
 after the massacre. "D— n them," he said, " he 
 could not go anywhere without stumbling over 
 them." As I began to have some apprehensions 
 about being obliged to stay here another night, I 
 thought I could not employ my time better than 
 in trying to work out of the consul an invitation 
 to spend it with him. But the old fellow was too 
 much for me. When I began to talk about the 
 unpleasantness of being obliged to spend the night 
 on board, and the impossibility of spending it on 
 shore, having no acquaintance there, he began to 
 talk poverty in the most up and down terms. I 
 was a little discouraged, but I looked at his mili- 
 tary coat, his cocked hat and cane, and consider- 
 ing his talk merely a sort of apology for the infe- 
 rior style of housekeeping I should find, was inge- 
 
170 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 niously working things to a, point, when he sent 
 me to the right-ahout by enumerating the little 
 instances of kindness he had received from stran- 
 gers who happened to visit the island ; among 
 others, from one — he had his name in his pocket- 
 book ; he should never forget tim ; perhaps I had 
 heard of him — who, at parting, shook him affec- 
 tionately by the hand, and gave him a doubloon 
 and a Spanish dollar. I hauled off from the re- 
 presentative of the majesty of Holland, and per- 
 haps, before this, have been served up to some 
 new visiter as the " mean, stingy American." 
 
 In the evening we again got under weigh ; be- 
 fore morning the wind was again blowing dead 
 a-head ; and about mid-day we put into the har- 
 bour of Foggi, a port in Asia Minor, and came to 
 anchor under the walls of the castle, under the 
 blood-red Mussulman flag. We immediately got 
 into the boat to go ashore. This was my first 
 port in Turkey. A huge ugly African, marked 
 with the small-pox, with two pistols and a yataghan 
 in his belt, stood on a little dock, waited till we 
 were in the act of landing, and then rushed for- 
 ward, ferocious as a tiger from his native sands, 
 throwing up both his hands, and roaring out 
 " Quarantino." This was a new thing in Turkey. 
 Heretofore the Turks, with their fatalist notions, 
 had never taken any precautions against the 
 plague ; but they had become frightened by the 
 terrible ravages the disease was then making in 
 Egypt, and imposed a quarantine upon vessels 
 coming from thence. We were, however, suffered 
 to land, and our first movement was to the coffee- 
 house directly in front of the dock. The coffee- 
 house was a low wooden building, covering con- 
 siderable ground, with a, large piazza, or rather 
 projecting roof, all around it. Inside and out 
 there was a raised platform against the wall. 
 This platfoi-m was one step from the floor, and on 
 this step every one left his shoes before taking his 
 seat on the matting. There were, perhaps, fifty 
 Turks inside and out ; sitting cross-legged, smok- 
 ing the chibouk, and drinking coffee out of cups 
 not larger than the shell of a Madeira nut. 
 
 We kicked our shoes off on the steps, seated 
 ourselves on a mat outside, and took our chibouk 
 and coffee with an air of savoir faire that would 
 not have disgraced the worthiest Moslem of them 
 all. Verily, said I, as I looked at the dozing, 
 smoking, coffee-sipping congregation around me, 
 there are some good points about the Turks, after 
 all. They never think — that hurts digestion ; and 
 they love chibouks and coffee — that shows taste 
 and feeUng. I fell into their humour, and for a 
 while exchanged nods with my neighbours all 
 around. Suddenly the bitterness of thought came 
 upon me ; I found that my pipe was exhausted. 
 I replenished it, and took a sip of coffee. Verily, 
 said I, there are few better things in this world 
 than chibouks and coffee ; they even make men 
 forget there is blood upon their hands. The 
 thought started me ; I shrank from contact with 
 my neighbours, cut my way through the volumes 
 of smoke, and got into the open air. 
 
 My companion joined me. We entered the walls 
 and made a cu-cuit of the town. It was a dirty 
 little place, having one principal street lined with 
 shops or bazars ; every third shop, almost, being 
 a cafteria, where a parcel of huge turbaned fel- 
 lows were at their daily labours of smoking pipes 
 
 and drinking coffee. The first thing I remarked 
 as being strikingly different from a European city 
 was the total absence of women. The streets 
 were thronged with men, and not a woman was to 
 be seen, except occasionally I caught a glimpse of 
 a white veil or a pair of black eyes sparkling 
 through the latticed bars of a window. Afterward 
 however, in walking outside the walls into the 
 country, we met a large party of women. When 
 we first saw them they had their faces uncovered • 
 but, as soon as they saw us coming toward them 
 they stopped and arranged their long white shawls 
 winding them around their faces so as to leave 
 barely space enough uncovered to allow them to 
 see and breathe, but so that it was utterly impos- 
 sible for us .,0 distinguish a single one of theu' 
 features. 
 
 Going on in the direction from which they came, 
 and attracted by the mourning cypress, we came 
 to a large burying-ground. It is situated on the 
 side of a hill almost washed by the waves, and 
 shaded by a thick grove of the funereal tree. 
 There is, indeed, something peculiarly touching 
 in the appearance of this tree ; it seems to be 
 endowed with feelings, and to mourn over the 
 dead it shades. The monuments were generally 
 a single upright slab of marble, with a turban on 
 the top. There were many, too, in form like one 
 of our oblong tombstones ; and, instead of a slab 
 of marble over the top, the interior was filled with 
 earth, and the surface overrun with roses, ever- 
 greens and flowers. The burying-grounds in the 
 East are always favourite places for walking in ; 
 and it is a favourite occupation of the Turkish 
 women to watch and water the flowers growing 
 over the graves of their friends. 
 
 Toward evening we returned to the harbonr. 
 I withdrew from my companion, and, leaning 
 against one of the gates of the city, fixed my eyes 
 upon the door of a minaret, watching tUl the 
 muezzin should appear, and, for the last time 
 before the setting of the sun, call all good Mussul- 
 mans to prayer. The door opens towards Mecca, 
 and a little before dark the muezzin came out, 
 and, leaning over the railing with his face toward 
 the tomb of the Prophet, in a voice, every tone of 
 which fell distinctly upon my ear, made that 
 solemn call which, from the time of Mohammed, 
 has been addressed five times a day from the tops 
 of the minarets to the sons of the faithful. " Allah ! 
 Allah ! God is God, and Mohammed is his pro- 
 phet. To prayer ! to prayer ! " Immediately aii 
 old Turk by my side fell upon his knees, with his 
 face to the tomb of the Prophet ; ten times, in 
 quick succession, he bowed his forehead till it 
 touched the earth ; then clasped his hands and 
 prayed. I never saw more rapt devotion than m 
 this pious old Mussulman. 1 have often marked 
 in Italy the severe observance of religious cere- 
 monies ; I have seen, for instance, at Rome, fifty 
 penitents at a time mounting on their knees, and 
 kissing, as they mounted, the steps of the Scala 
 Santa, or holy staircase, by which, as the priests 
 tell them, our Saviour ascended into the presence 
 of Pontius Pilate. I have seen the Greek pros- 
 trate himself before a picture until he was phy- 
 sically exhausted ; and I have seen the humble 
 and pious Christian at his prayers beneath the 
 simple fanes and before the peaceful altars of my 
 own land ; but I never saw that perfect abandon- 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, SUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 171 
 
 went with which a Turk gives himself up to his 
 •God in prayer. He is perfectly abstracted from 
 ithe things of this world ; he does not regard time 
 -or pla«e ; in his closet or in the street, alone or 
 in a orowd, he sees nothing, he hears nothing ; 
 the world is a blank ; his God is everything. He 
 is lost in the intensity of his devotion. It is a 
 ■spectacle almost sublime ; and for the moment you 
 -forget the polluted fountain of his religion, and 
 ihe thousand crimes it sanctions, in your admira- 
 tion of his sincerity and faith. ' 
 
 Not being able to find any place where we could 
 sleep ashore, except on one of the mats of the 
 ^wfiee-house, head and heels with a dozen Turks, 
 we went on board, and toward morning again got 
 under weigh. We beat up to the mouth of the 
 <julf of Smyrna, but, with the scirocco blowing 
 directly in our teeth, it was impossible to go far- 
 ther. I We made two or three attempts to enter, 
 butintaclcing the last time our old brig, which 
 had hardly ballast enough to keep her keel under 
 water, received such a rough shaking that we got 
 ijier away before the wind, and at three o'clock 
 ■i'.M. were again anchored in the harbour of Foggi. 
 I now began to think that there was a spell upon 
 my movements, and that Smyrna, which was 
 becoming to me a sort of land of promise, would 
 never greet my longing eyes. 
 
 I was somewhat comforted, however, by remem- 
 4)ering that I had never yet reached any port in 
 ihe Mediterranean for which I had sailed, without 
 touching at one or two intermediate ports ; and 
 41iat, so far, I had always worked right at last. 
 1 was still farther comforted by our having the 
 good fortune to be able to procure lodging ashore, 
 at the; house of a Greek, the son of a priest. It 
 was the Saturday before Easter Sunday, and the 
 resurrection of our Saviour was to be celebrated 
 at midnight, or, rather, the beginning of the next 
 -^y, according to the lites and ceremonies of the 
 <3reek church. It was also the last of the forty 
 -days' fasting, and the next day commenced feast- 
 ing. Sapper was prepared for us, at which meat 
 was put on the table for me only ; my Greek friend 
 ■being supposed not to eat meat during the days of 
 fasting. He had been, however, two years out of 
 •<treeee ; and though he did not like to offend the 
 prejudices of his countrymen, he did not like 
 lasting. I felt for my fellow-traveller ; and, 
 -cutting up some meat in small parcels, kept my 
 eye upon the door while he whipped them, into his 
 mouth. After supper we lay down upon the divan, 
 with large quilts over us, my friend having pro- 
 jmised to rise at twelve o'clock and accompany me 
 to the Greek church. 
 
 At midnight we were roused by the chant of 
 the Greeks in the streets, on their way to the 
 «hurch. We turned out, and fell into a proces- 
 -tion of five hundred people, making the streets as 
 light as day with their torches. At the door of 
 the church we found our host, sitting at a table 
 with a parcel of wax tapers on one side and a box 
 to receive money on the other. We each bought 
 a taper and went in. After remaining there at 
 least two iiours, listening to a monotonous and 
 unintelligible routine of prayers and chants, the 
 priests came out of the holy doors, bearing aloft 
 ■an image of our Saviour on the cross, ornamented 
 with gold leaf, tassels, and festoons of artificial 
 ■fcwers ; passed through the church, and out of 
 
 the opposite door. The Greeks lighted tkoit 
 tapei-B and formed into a procession behind them, 
 and we did the same, immediately outside the 
 door, up the staircase, and on each side of the 
 corridor, allowing merely room enough for the 
 procession to pass, were arranged the women, 
 dressed in white, with long white veils, thrown 
 back from their faces however, laid smooth over 
 the tops of their heads, and hanging down to their 
 feet. Nearly every woman, old or young, had a 
 child in her arms. In fact, there seemed to be 
 as great a mustering of children as of men and 
 women, and, for aught that I could see, as much 
 to the edification of the former as the latter. A 
 continued chant was kept up during the move- 
 ments of the procession, and perhaps for half an 
 hour after the arrival of the priests at the court- 
 yard, when it rose to a tremendous burst. The 
 tox'ches were waved in the air ; a wild, unmean- 
 ing, and discordant scream or yell rang through 
 the hollow cloistei-s, and half a dozen pistols, two 
 or three muskets^ and twenty or thirty crackers 
 were fired. This was intended as a feu-de-joie, 
 and was supposed to mark the precise moment of 
 our Saviour's resurrection. In a few moments the 
 frenzy seemed to pass away ; the noise fell from 
 a wild clamour to a slow chant, and the proces- 
 sion returned to the church. The scene was 
 striking, particularly the part outside the church ; 
 the dead of night ; the waving of torches ; the 
 women with their long white dresses, and the 
 children in their arms, &c. ; but, from beginning 
 to end, there was nothing solemn in it. 
 
 Returned to the church, a priest came round 
 with a picture of the Saviour risen ; and, as far 
 as I could make it out, holding in his hand the 
 Greek flag, followed by another priest with a 
 plate to receive contributions. He held out the 
 picture to be kissed, then turned his hand to 
 receive the same act of devotion, keeping his eye 
 all the time upon the plate which followed to 
 receive the ofi'erings of the pious, as a sort of pay- 
 ment for the privilege of the Idss. His manner 
 reminded me of the -Dutch parson, who, immedi- 
 ately after pronouncing a couple man and wife, 
 touching the bridegroom with his elbow, said, 
 " And now where ish mine dollar ? " I kissed 
 the picture, dodged his knuckles, paid my money, 
 and left the church. I had been there four hours, 
 during which time, perhaps, more than a thousand 
 persons had been completely absorbed in their 
 religious ceremonies ; and though' beginning in 
 the middle of the night, I have seen more yawn- 
 ing at the theatre or at an Italian opera than I 
 saw there. They now began to disperse, though 
 I remember I left a crowd of regular amateurs, 
 at the head of whom were our sailors, still hang- 
 ing round the desk of an exhorting priest, with 
 an earnestness that showed u still craving appe- 
 tite. 
 
 I do not wonder that the Turks look with con- 
 tempt upon Christians, for they have constantly 
 under their eyes the disgusting mummeries of the 
 Greek church, and see nothing of the pure and 
 sublime principles our religion inculcates. _ Still, 
 however, there was something striking and inter- 
 esting in the manner in which the Greeks in this 
 Turkish town had kept themselves, as it were a 
 pepuliar people, and, in spite of the brands of 
 « dog" and " infidel," held fast to the religion 
 
172 
 
 IxNClDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 they received from their fathers. There was 
 nothing interesting about tliem as Greelis ; they 
 had taken no part with their countrymen in their 
 glorious struggle for liberty ; they were engaged 
 in petty business, and bartered the precious 
 chance of freedom once before them for base pro- 
 fits and ignoble ease : and even now were content 
 to live in chains, and Ifiss the rod that smote them. 
 
 We returned to the house where we had slept ; 
 and, after coffee, in company with our host and 
 his father, the priest, sat down to a meal, in which, 
 for the first time in forty days, they ate meat. I 
 had often remarked the religious observance of 
 fast-days among the common people in Greece. 
 In travelling there I had more than once offered 
 an egg to my guide on a fast-day, but never could 
 get one to accept anything that came so near to 
 animal food, though, by a strange confusion of 
 the principles of religious obligation, perhaps 
 the same man would not have hesitated to commit 
 murder if he had any inducement to do so. Mrs. 
 Hill, at Athens, told me that, upon one occasion, 
 a little girl in her school refused to eat a piece of 
 cake because it was made with eggs. 
 
 At daylight I was lying on the floor looking 
 through a crevice of the window-shutter at the 
 door of the minaret, waiting for the muezzin's 
 morning cry to prayer. At six o'clock I went out, 
 and finding the wind still in the same quarter, 
 without any apparent prospect of change, deter- 
 mined, at all hazards, to leave the vessel and go 
 on by land. My friend and fellow-passenger was 
 also very anxious to get to Smyrna, but would not 
 accompany me, from an indefinite apprehension 
 of plague, robbers, &c. I had heard so many of 
 these rumours, all of which had proved to be un- 
 founded, that I put no faith in any of them. I 
 found a Turk who engaged to take me through 
 in fourteen hours ; and at seven o'clock I was in 
 my saddle, charged with a dozen letters from 
 captains, supercargoes, and passengers, whom I 
 left behind waiting for a change of wind. 
 
 My Tartar was a big swarthy fellow, with an 
 extent of beard and mustaches unusual even 
 among his bearded countrymen. He was armed 
 with a pair of enormous pistols and a yataghan, 
 and was, altogether, a formidable fellow to look 
 upon. But there was a something about him that 
 I lilied. There was a doggedness, a downright 
 stubbornnsss that seemed honest. I knew nothing 
 about him. I picked him up in the street, and 
 took him in preference to others who offered, 
 because he would not be beaten down in his price. 
 When he saw me seated on my horse he stood 
 by my side a little distance off, and looking at 
 me without opening his lips, drew his belt tight 
 around him, and adjusted his pistols and yataghan. 
 His manner seemed to say that he took charge of 
 me as a bale of goods, to be paid for on safe 
 delivei-y, and that he would carry me through 
 with fire and sword if necessary. And now, said 
 I, " Let fate do her worst ;" I have a good horse 
 imder me, and in fourteen hours I shall be in 
 Smyrna. " Blow winds and crack your cheeks ;" 
 I defy you. 
 
 My Tartar led off at a brisk trot, never opening 
 his lips nor turning his head except occasionally 
 te see how I followed him across a stream. At 
 about ten o'clock he turned off from the horse- 
 path into a piece of fine pasture, and slipping the 
 
 bridle off his horse, turned him loose to feed. 
 He then did the same with mine, and, spreading 
 my cloak on the ground for me to sit upon, Kat 
 down by my side and opened his wallet. Hi» 
 manner seemed to intimate a disposition to throvy- 
 provisions into a common stock, no doubt expect- 
 ing the gain to be on his side ; but as I could only 
 contribute a couple of rolls of bread which I 
 bought as we rode through the town, I aia 
 inclined to think that he considered me i-ather a 
 sponge. 
 
 While we were sitting there a travelling party- 
 came up, consisting of five Turks and three 
 women. The women were on horseback, ridiii* 
 crosswise, though there were so many quilts 
 cushions, &c. piled or the backs of their horses 
 that they sat rather on seats than on saddles. 
 After a few words of parley with my Tartar, the 
 men lifted the women from the horses, taking 
 them in their arms, and, as it were, hauling them 
 off, not very gracefully, but very kindly ; and, 
 spreading their quilts on the ground at a short 
 distance from us, turned their horses loose to feed, 
 and sat down to make their morning meal. An 
 unusual and happy thing for me, the women had 
 their faces uncovered nearly all the time, though 
 they could not well have carried on the process of 
 eating with them muffled up in the usual style. 
 One of the women was old, the other two were 
 exceedingly young ; neither of them more than' 
 sixteen ; each had a child in her arms, and, with- 
 out any allowance for time and place, both were 
 exceedingly beautiful. I do not say so under the 
 influence of the particular circumstances of our 
 meeting, nor with the view of making an incident 
 of it, but I would have singled them out as such 
 if I had met them in a ball-room at home. I was 
 particularly struck with their delicacy of figure 
 and complexion. Notwithstandmg then- laughing 
 faces, their mirth, and the kind treatment of the- 
 men, I could not divest myself of the idea that 
 they were caged birds longing to be freed. 1 
 could not believe that a woman belonging to a 
 Turk could be otherwise than unhappy. Unfor- 
 tunately, I could not understand a word of their 
 language ; and as they looked from their turbaned 
 lords to my stiff hat and frock-coat, they seemed 
 to regard me as something the Tartar had just 
 caught and was taking up to Constantinople as a 
 present to the sultan. I endeavoured to show, 
 however, that I was not the wild thing they took 
 me to be ; that I had an eye to admu'e their 
 beauty, and a heart to feel for their servitude. I 
 tried to procure from them some signal of distress ; 
 I did all that I could to get some sign to come t» 
 their rescue, and to make myself generally agree- 
 able. I looked sentimentally. This they did not 
 seem to understand at all. I smiled ; this seemed 
 to please them better ; and there is no knowing 
 to what a point I might have arrived, but my 
 Tartar hurried me away ; and I parted on the 
 wild plains of Turkey with two young and beau- 
 tiful women, leading almost a savage life, whoso 
 personal graces would have made them ornaments 
 in polished and refined society. Verily, said I, 
 the Turks are not so bad after all ; they have 
 handsome wives, and a handsome wife comes next 
 after chibouks and coffee. 
 
 I was now reminded at every step of my being 
 in an oriental country by the caravans I was con- 
 
IN GRKECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 173 
 
 «taiitly meeting. Caravans and camels are more 
 ^>r less associated with all the fairy scenes and 
 glowing pictures of the East. Tliey have always 
 presented themselves to my mind with a sort of 
 poetical imagery, and they certainly have a fine 
 effect in a description or in a picture ; but, after 
 all, they are ugly-looking things to meet on the 
 road. I would rather see the two young Turk- 
 ^sses again, than all the caravans in the East. 
 The caravan is conducted by a guide on a donkey, 
 with a halter attached to the first camel, and so 
 on from camel to camel through the whole 
 «aravan. The camel is an exceedingly ugly 
 animal in his proportions, and there is a dead 
 uniformity in his movement ; with a dead, vacant 
 expression in his face, that is really distressing. 
 If a man were dying of thirst in the desert, it 
 would be enough to drive him to distraction to 
 iook in the cool, unconcerned, and imperturbable 
 face of his camel. But their value is inestimable 
 in a country like this, where there are no carriage 
 roads, and where deserts and drought present 
 themselves in every direction. 
 
 One of the camel scenes, the encampment, is 
 very picturesque, the camels arranged around on 
 their knees in a circle, with their heads to the 
 ■centre, and the camel-drivers with their bales 
 piled up within ; and I was struck with another 
 scene ; we came to the borders of a stream, which 
 it was necessary to cross in a boat. The boat 
 was then on the other side, and the boatman and 
 •eamel-driver were trying to get on board some 
 4;amels. When we came up they had got three 
 on board, down on their knees in the bottom of 
 the boat, and were then in the act of coercing the 
 fourth. The poor brute was frightened terribly ; 
 resisted with all his might, and put forth most 
 piteous cries ; I do not know a more distressing 
 noise than the cry of a brute suffering from fear ; 
 it seems to partake of the feeling that causes it, 
 and carries with it something fearful ; but the 
 cries of the poor brute were vain ; they got him 
 on board, and in the same way urged on board 
 three others. They then threw in the donkey, 
 -and seven camels and the donkey were so stowed 
 in the bottom of the boat, that they did not take 
 op much more room than calves on board of our 
 -country-boats. 
 
 In the afternoon I met another travelling party 
 ■of an entirely different description. If before I 
 Had occasionally any doubts or misgivings as to 
 ■the reality of my situation ; if sometimes it seemed 
 to be merely a dream, that it could not be that I 
 was so far from home, wandering alone on the 
 |>laius of Asia, with a guide whom 1 never saw till 
 'that morning, whose language I could not under- 
 «tand, and upon whose faith I could not rely ; if 
 the scenes of turbaned Turks, of veiled women, 
 •of caravans and camels, of graveyards with their 
 mourning cypress and thousands of tombstones, 
 where every trace of the cities which supplied 
 them with their dead had entirely disappeared ; if 
 these and the other strange scenes around me 
 would seem to be the mere creations of a roving 
 imagination, the party which I met now was so 
 marked in its character, so peculiar to an oriental 
 
 I country, and to an oriental country only, that it 
 roused me from my waking dreams, fixed my wan- 
 , dering thoughts, ahd convinced me, beyond all 
 peradventure, that I was indeed far from home. 
 
 among a people " whose thoughts are not as our 
 thoughts, and whose ways are not as our ways ;" 
 in short, in a land where ladies are not the omni- 
 potent creatures that they are with us. 
 
 This party was no other than the ladies of a 
 hai'em. They were all dressed in white, with 
 their white shawls wrajjped around their faces, 
 so that they effectually concealed every feature, 
 and could bring to bear only the artillery of their 
 eyes. I found this, however, to be very potent, 
 as it left so much room for the imagination ; and 
 it was a very ea,sy matter to make a Fatima of 
 every one of them. They were all on horseback, 
 not riding sidewise, but otherwise ; though I ob- 
 served, as before, that their saddles were so pre- 
 pared that their delicate limbs were not subject to 
 that extreme expansion required by the saddle of 
 the rougher sex. They were escorted by a party 
 of armed Turks, and followed by a man in Frank 
 dress, who, as I after understood, was the phy- 
 sician of the harem. They were thirteen in num- 
 ber, just a baker's dozen, and belonged, to a pacha 
 who was making his annual tour of the different 
 posts under his government, and had sent them on 
 before to have the household matters all arranged 
 upon his ai'rival. And no doubt, also, they were 
 to be in readiness to receive him with their smiles ; 
 and if they continued in the same humour in 
 which I saw them, he must have been a happy 
 man who could call them all his own. I had not 
 fairly recovered from the cries of the poor camel 
 when I heard theii- merry voices : verily, thought 
 1, stopping to catch the last musical notes, there 
 are exceedingly good points about the Turks : 
 chibouks, coffee, and as many wives as they please. 
 It made me whistle to think of it. Oh, thought 
 I, that some of our ladies could see these things ; 
 that some haughty beauty, at whose feet dozens of 
 worthy and amiable young gentlemen are sighing 
 themselves into premature wrmkles and ugliness, 
 might see these things ! 
 
 1 am no rash innovator. I would not sweep 
 away the established customs of our state of 
 society. I would not la^ my meddling fingers 
 upon the admitted prerogatives pf our ladies ; 
 but I cannot help asking myself i, in the rapid 
 changes of this turning world, changes which com- 
 pletely alter rocks and the hardest substances of 
 nature, it may not by possibility happen that the 
 tenour of a lady's humour will change. What a 
 goodly spectacle to see those who are never con- 
 tent without a dozen admirera in their train, 
 following by dozens in the train of one man ! 
 But I fear me much that this will never be, at 
 least in our days. Our system of education is 
 radically wrong. The human mind, says some 
 philosopher, and the gentleman is right, is like 
 the sand upon the shore of the sea. You may 
 write upon it what character you please. We 
 begin by writing upon their innocent uufoi-med 
 minds, that, " Born for their use, we live but to 
 oblige them." The consequence is, I will not say 
 what ; for I hope to return among them and kiss 
 the rod in some fair hand ; but this I do know, 
 that here the " twig is so bent " that they become 
 as gentle, as docUe, and as tractable as any 
 domestic animal. I say again, there are many 
 exceeding good points about the Turks. 
 
 At about six o'clock we came in sight of 
 Smyrna, on the opposite side of the gulf, and still 
 
174 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 a long way off. At dusk we were directly oppo- 
 site the city ; and although we had yet to make a 
 long circuit round the head of the gulf, I was 
 revelling in the bright prospect before me. 
 Dreams of pulling off my pantaloons ; delightful 
 visions of clean sheets and a Christian bed, flitted 
 before my eyes. Yes, said I to my pantaloons 
 and shirt, ye worthy and faithful servants, this 
 night ye shall have rest. While other garments 
 have fallen from me by the way, ye have stuck to 
 me. And thou, my grey pantaloons, little did 
 the neat Parisian tailor who made thee think that 
 the strength of his stitching would ever be tested 
 by three weeks' uninterrupted wear ; but to- 
 morrow thou shalt go into the hands of a master, 
 who shall sew on thy buttons and sew up thy 
 rents : and thou, my — I was going on with words 
 of the same affectionate import to ray shirt, 
 stoeldngs, and drawers, which, however, did not 
 deserve so well of me, for they had in a measure 
 dropppd off on the way, when my Tartar came 
 to a dead stop before the door of a cabin, dis- 
 mounted, and made signs to me to do the same. 
 But I began now to have some notions of my 
 own ; heretofore I had been perfectly passive ; I 
 had always done as I was told, but in sight of 
 Smyrna I became restive. I talked and shouted to 
 him, pointed to the city, and turned my horse 
 as though I was going on alone. My Tartar, how- 
 ever, paid no attention to me ; he very coolly took 
 off my carpet-bag and carried it into the cabin, 
 Hghted his pipe, and sat down by the door, looking 
 at me with the most imperturbable gravity. I 
 had hardly had time to admire his impudence, 
 and to calculate the chances of my being able, 
 alone at night, to cross the many streams which 
 emptied into the gulf, when the wind, which had 
 been rising for some time, became very violent, 
 and the rain began to fall in torrents. With a 
 sigh I bade farewell to the bright visions that had 
 deludad me, gave another sigh to the uncertainty 
 of all human calculations, the cup and the lip, &c. 
 and took refuge in the cabin. 
 
 What a substitute for the pretty little picture I 
 had drawn ! Three Turks were sitting round a 
 brazier of charcoal frying dough-balls. Three 
 rugs were spread in three comers of the cabin, 
 and over each of them were the eternal pistols and 
 yataghan. There was nothing there to defend ; 
 their miserable lives were not worth taking ; why 
 were these weapons there ? The Turks at first 
 took no notice of me, and I had now to make 
 amends for my backwardness in entering. I re- 
 solved to go to work boldly, and at once elbowed 
 among them for a seat around the brazier. The 
 one next me on my right seemed a little struck by 
 my easy ways ; he put his hand on his ribs to 
 feel how far my elbow had penetrated, and then 
 took his pipe from his mouth and offered it to me. 
 The ice broken, I smoked the pipe to the last 
 whiff, and handed it to him to be refilled ; with 
 all the horrors of dyspepsy before my eyes, I 
 scrambled with them for the last doughball, and, 
 when the attention of all of them was particularly 
 directed toward me, took out my watch, held it 
 over the lamp, and wound it up. I addressed 
 myself particularly to the one who had first taken 
 notice of me, and made myself extremely agi-ee- 
 able by always smoking his pipe. After coffee 
 and half a dozen pipes, he gave me to understand 
 
 that I was to sleep with him upon his mat, at 
 which I slapped him on the back and cried out, 
 " Bono," having heard him use that word, appa- 
 rently with a knowledge of its meaning. 
 
 I was surprised in the course of the evening to 
 see one of thera begin to undress, knowing that 
 such was not the custom of the country, but found 
 tlrnt it was only a temporary disrobing for sport- 
 ing purposes, to hunt fleas and bedbugs ; by 
 which I had an opportunity of comparing the 
 Turldsh with some I had brought with me from 
 Greece ; and though the Turk had great reason- 
 to be proud of his, I had no reason to be ashamed 
 of mine. I now began to be drowsy, and should 
 soon have fallen asleep ; but the youngest of the 
 party, a sickly and sentimental young man, 
 melancholy and musical, and, no doubt, in love,, 
 brought out the common Turkish instrument, a 
 sort of guitar, on which he worked with untiring 
 vivacity, keeping time with his head and heels. 
 My friend accompanied him with his voice, and 
 this brought out my Tartar, who joined in with 
 groans and grunts which might have awakened, 
 the dead. But my cup was not yet full. During 
 the musical festival my friend and intended bed- 
 fellow took down from a shelf above me a large- 
 plaster, which he warmed over the brazier. He 
 then unrolled his turban, took off a plaster from 
 the back of his head, and disclosed a wound, raw, 
 gory, and ghastly, that made my heart sink within 
 me : I knew that the plague was about Smyrna ;.. 
 I had heard that it was on this road ; I involun- 
 tarily recurred to the Italian prayer, " Save me 
 from three miseries of the Levant : plague, fire,, 
 and the dragoman." I shut my eyes ; I had slept 
 but two hours the night before ; had ridden,! 
 twelve hours that day on horseback ; I drew my 
 cloak around me ; my head sank upon my carpet- 
 bag, and I fell asleep, leaving the four Turks^ 
 playing cards on the bottom of a pewter plate-. 
 Once during the night I was awakened by my bed- 
 fellow's mustaches tickling my lips, I turned my i 
 back and slept on. 
 
 In the morning my Tartar, with one jerk, stoodi 
 me upright on the floor, and holding me in that 
 position until I got awake, kicked open the door,, 
 and pointed to my horse standing before it ready 
 saddled and bridled. In three hours I was cro3.5-, 
 ing the caravan bridge, a bridge over the beauti- 
 ful Melissus, on the banks of which Homer was. 
 bom ; and picking my way among caravans, which 
 for ages have continued to cross this bridge ladea 
 with all the riches of the East, I entered the long-/ 
 looked-for city of Smyrna, a city that has braved 
 the reiterated efforts of conflagrations, plagues, 
 and earthquakes ; ten times destroyed, and ten 
 times risen from her ruins ; the queen of the cities 
 of Anatolia ; extolled by the ancients as Smyrna 
 the lovely, the crown of Ionia, the pride of Asia.» 
 But old things have passed away, and the ancient 
 city now figures only under the. head of arrivals 
 in a newspaper, in the words and figures following,t 
 that is to say, " Brig Betsy, Baker master, 57 
 days from Smyrna, with figs and raisins to orderj^ 
 Mastic dull, opium rising." 
 
 In half-an-hour I was in the full enjoyment of 
 a Turkish bath ; lolled half an hour on a divan, 
 with chibouk and coffee, and came out fresh as if 
 I had spent the last three weeks training for th» 
 ring, OhjtheseTurksareluxuriousdogsi chibouk^ 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND PO];,AND. 
 
 175 
 
 coffee, hot-baths, and as many wives as they please. 
 What a catalogue of human enjoyments ! But 1 
 intend Smyrna as a place of rest, and, in charity, 
 give you the benefit of it. « * « 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 First Sight of Smyrna.^TJnveiled Women. — Ruins of 
 Bpliesus— Ruin, all Ruin.— Temple of Diana.— Encounter 
 with a Wolf.— liOve at first Sight.— Gatherings on the 
 Road. 
 
 (Another Letter, } 
 
 Mt dear ••••••, 
 
 After my bath I returned to my hotel, break- 
 fasted, and sallied out for a walk. It was now 
 about twelve o'clock, Sunday — the first Sunday 
 after Easter — and all the Frank population was 
 in the streets. My hotel was in an out-of-the-way 
 quarter, and when turning a corner, I suddenly 
 found myself in the main street, I was not prepared 
 for the sight that met my eye. Paris on a fHe 
 day does not present so gay and animated a scene. 
 It was gay, animated, striking, and beautiful, and 
 entirely different from anything I had ever seen 
 in any European city. Franks, Jews, Greelis, 
 Turks, and Armenians, in their various and strik- 
 ing costumes, were mingled together in agreeable 
 confusion ; and making all due allowance for the 
 circumstance that I had for some time been de- 
 barred the sight of an unveiled woman, 1 cer- 
 tainly never saw so much beauty, and I never 
 saw a costume so admirably calculated to set off 
 beauty. At the same time the costume is ex- 
 ceedingly trying to a lady's pretensions. Being 
 no better than one of the uninitiated, I shall not 
 venture upon such dangerous ground as a lady's 
 toilet. I will merely refer to that part which 
 particularly struck me, and that is the head-dress: 
 no odious broad-brimmed hat ; no enormous veils 
 enveloping nose, mouth, and eyes ; but simply a 
 large gauze turban, sitting lightly and gracefully 
 on the head, rolled back over the forehead, leav- 
 ing the whole face completely exposed, and exhi- 
 biting clear dark complexions, rosy lips closing 
 over teeth of dazzling whiteness ; and then such 
 eyes, large, dark, and rolling. It is matter of 
 history, and it is confirmed by poetry, that 
 
 " The angelic youths of old, 
 
 Burning for maids of mortal mould. 
 
 Bewildered, left the glorious skieb, 
 
 And lost their heaven for woman's ej'es." 
 
 My dear friend, this is the country where such 
 things happened ; the throne of the Thunderer, 
 high Olympus, is almost in sight, and these are 
 the daughters of the women who worked such 
 lairacles. If the age of passion, like the age of 
 chivalry, were not over and for ever gone, if this 
 were not emphatically a bank-note world, I would 
 say of the Smyrniotes, above all others, that they 
 are that description of women who could 
 " Raise a mortal to the skies. 
 Or briQg an angel down." 
 
 And they walk, too, as if conscious of their 
 high pretensions, as if conscious that the reign of 
 beauty is not yet ended ; and, under that enchant- 
 ing turban, charge with the whole artillery of their 
 charms. It is a perfect immasked battery ; no- 
 thing can stand before it. I wonder the sultan 
 
 allows it. The Turks are as toucby as tinder ; 
 they take fire as quick as any of the old demi 
 gods, and a pair of black eyes is at any time 
 enough to put mischief in them. But the Turks 
 are a considerate people. They consider that the 
 Franks, or rather the Greeks, to whom I particu- 
 larly refer, have periodical fits of insanity ; that 
 they go mad twice a year, during carnival and 
 after Lent ; and if at such a time a follower of 
 the Prophet, accidentally straggling in the Frank 
 quarter, should find the current of his blood dis- 
 turbed, he would sooner die, nay, he would sooner 
 cut off his beard, than hurt a hair of any one of 
 the light heads that he sees flitting before him. 
 There is something remarkable, by-the-way, in 
 the tenacity with which the Grecian women have 
 sustained the rights and prerogatives of beauty in 
 defiance of Turkish customs and prejudices ; while 
 the men have fallen into the habits of their quon- 
 dam masters, have taken to pipes and coffee, and 
 in many instances to turbans and big trousers, the 
 women have ever gone with their faces uncovered, 
 and to this day one and all eschew the veil of the 
 Turkish women. 
 
 Pleased and amused with myself and everything 
 I saw, I moved along unnoticed and unknown, 
 staring, observing, and admiring ; among other 
 things, I observed that one of the amiable customs^ 
 of our own city was in full force here, viz., that 
 of the young gentlemen, with light sticks in their 
 hands, gathering around the door of the fashionable 
 church to stare at the ladies as they came out. 1 
 was pleased to find such a mark of civilisation in 
 a land of barbarians, and immediately fell into a 
 thing which seemed so much like home ; but, in 
 justice to the Smyrniote ladies, I must say I can- 
 not flatter myself that Lstared a single one out of 
 countenance. 
 
 But I need not attempt to interest you in 
 Smyrna ; it is too every-day a place ; every Capo 
 Cod sailor knows it better than I do. I have 
 done all that I could ; I have waived the musty 
 reminiscences of its history ; I have waived ruin.«- 
 which are said to exist here, and have endea- 
 voured to give you a faint but true picture of its 
 living and existing beauties, of the bright and 
 beautiful scene that broke upon me the first 
 morning of my arrival ; and now, if I have not 
 touched you with the beauty of its women, 1 
 should despair of doing so by any description of 
 its beautiful climate, its charming environs, and 
 its hospitable society. 
 
 Leave, then, what is, after all, but the city of 
 figs and raisins, and go with me where, by com- 
 parison, the foot of civilised man seldom treads ; 
 go with me into the desert and solitary places ; 
 go with me among the cities of the seven churches 
 of Asia ; and, first, to the ruins of Ephesus. I 
 had been several days expecting a companion to 
 make this tour with me, but, being disappointed, 
 was obliged to set out alone. I was not exactly 
 alone, for I had with me a Turk as guide and a 
 Greek as cicerone and interpreter, both well 
 mounted and armed to the teeth. We started at 
 two o'clock in the morning, under the light ol 
 thousands of stars ; and the day broke upon us in 
 a country wild and desolate, as if it were removed 
 thousands of miles from the habitations of men. 
 There was little variety and little incident in our 
 ride. During the whole day it lay through a 
 
1/ti 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 country decidedly handsome, the soil rich and 
 fertile, but showing with appalling force the fatal 
 effects of misgovernraent, wholly uncultivated, 
 and almost wholly uninhabited. Indeed, the only 
 habitations were the little Turkish coffee-houses 
 and the black tents of the Turcomans. These are 
 a wandering tribe, who come out from the desert, 
 and approach comparatively near the abodes of 
 civilisation. They are a pastoral people ; their 
 riches are their flocks and herds ; they lead a 
 wandering life, free as the air they breathe ; they 
 have no local attachments ; to-day they pitch their 
 tents on the hill-side, to-morrow on the plain ; and 
 wherever they sit themselves down, all that they 
 have on earth, wife, children and friends, are 
 immediately around them. There is something 
 primitive, almost patriarchal, in their appearance ; 
 indeed, it carries one back to a simple and per- 
 haps a purer age, and you could almost realise 
 that state of society when the patriarch sat in the 
 <ioor of his tent and called in and fed the passing 
 traveller. 
 
 The general character of the road is such as 
 to prepare one for the scene that awaits him at 
 Ephesus ; enormous burying-grounds, with thou- 
 sands of head-stones shaded by the mourning 
 cypress, in the midst of a desolate country, where 
 not a vestige of a human habitation is to be seen. 
 They stand on the road-side as melancholy tell- 
 tales that large towns or cities once existed in 
 their immediate neighbourhood, and that the 
 generations who occupied them have passed away, 
 furnishing fearful evidence of the decrease of the 
 Turkish population, and perhaps that the gigantic 
 ■empire of the Ottoman is tottering to its fall. 
 
 For about three hours before reaching Ephesus, 
 the road, crossing a rich and beautiful plain 
 watered by the Cayster, lies between two moun- 
 tains ; that on the right leads to the sea, and on 
 the left are the ruins of Ephesus. Near, and in 
 the immediate vicinity, storks were calmly march- 
 ing over the plain and building among the ruins ; 
 they moved as if seldom disturbed by human 
 footsteps, and seemed to look upon us as intruders 
 upon a spot for a long time abandoned to birds 
 ^md beasts of prey. About a mile this side are 
 the remains of the Turkish city of Aysalook, or 
 Temple of the Moon, a city of comparatively 
 modem date, reared into a brief magnificence out 
 of the ruins of its fallen neighbour. A sharp hill, 
 almost a mountain, rises abruptly from the plain, 
 ■on the top of which is a ruined fortress, with 
 many ruins of Turkish magnificence at the base ; 
 broken columns, baths overgrown with ivy, and 
 the remains of a grand mosque, the roofs sustained 
 by four granite columns from the Temple of 
 Diana ; the minaret fallen, the mosque deserted ; 
 the Mussulman no more goes there to pray ; bats 
 ■and owls were building in its lofty roof, and 
 snakes and lizards were crawling over its marble 
 floor. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when I arrived at 
 the little coffee-house at Aysalook ; a caravan had 
 already encamped under some fine old sycamores 
 before the door, preparatory to passing the night. 
 I was somewhat fatigued, and my Greek, who had 
 me in charge, was disposed to stop and wait for 
 the morrow ; but the fallen city was on the oppo- 
 tiite hill at but a short distance, and the shades of 
 "vening seemed well calculated to heighten the 
 
 effect of a ramble among its ruins. In a right 
 line it was not more than half a mile, but we snoL 
 found that we could not go directly to it ; a piece 
 of low swampy ground lay between, and we had 
 not gone far before our horses sank up to their 
 saddle-girths. We were obliged to retrace our 
 steps, and work our way around by a circuitous 
 route of more than two miles. This, too, added 
 to the effect of our approach. It was a dreary 
 reflection, that a city, whose ports and whose 
 gates had been open to the commerce of the then 
 known world — whose wealth had invited the tra- 
 veller and sojourner within its walls, should lie a 
 ruin upon a hill-side, with swamps and morassefi 
 extending around it, in sight but out of reach, 
 near but unapproachable. A warning voice seemed 
 to issue from the ruins, " Procul, 6 proeul este, 
 profani," my day is past, my sun is set, I hav« 
 gone to my grave ; pass on, stranger, and disturb 
 not the ashes of the dead. 
 
 But my Turk did not understand Latin, and 
 we continued to advance. We moved along ia 
 perfect silence, for besides that my Turk never 
 spoke, and my Greek, who was generally loqua- 
 cious enough, was out of humour at being obliged 
 to go on, we had enough to do in picking our 
 lonely way. But silence best suited the scene ; 
 the sound of the human voice seemed almost a 
 mockery of fallen greatness. We entered by a 
 large and ruined gateway into a place distinctly 
 marked as having been a street, and, from the 
 broken columns strewed on each side, probably 
 having been lined with a colonnade. I let my 
 reins fall upon my horse's neck ; he moved about 
 in the slow and desultory way that suited my 
 humour ; now sinking to his knees in heaps of 
 rubbish, now stumbling over a Corinthian capital, 
 and now sliding over a marble pavement. The 
 whole hill-side is covered with ruins to an extent 
 far greater than I expected to find, and they are 
 all of a kind that tends to give a high idea of the 
 ancient magnificence of the city. To me, these 
 ruins appeared to be a confused and shapeless 
 mass ; but they have been examined by antiqua- 
 ries with great care, and the character of many 
 of them identified with great certainty. I had, 
 however, no time for details ; and, indeed, the 
 interest of these ruins in my eyes was not in the 
 details. It mattered little to me that this was the 
 stadium and that a fountain ; that this was a gym- 
 nasium and that a markSt-place ; it was enough 
 to know that the broken columns, the mouldering 
 walls, the grass-grown streets, and the wide- 
 extended scene of desolation and ruin around me 
 were all that remained of one of the greatest cities 
 of Asia, one of the earliest Christian cities in the 
 world. But what do I say ? Who does not re- 
 member the tumults and confusion raised by 
 Demetrius the silversmith, "lest the temple of 
 the great goddess Diana should be despised, and 
 her magnificence be destroyed ;" and how the 
 people, having caught " Gaius and Aristarchns, 
 Pauls compauions in travel," rushed with one 
 accord into the theatre, crying out, "Great is 
 Diana of the Ephesians. ' My dear friend, I sat 
 among the ruins of that theatre ; the stillness of 
 death was around me ; far as ihe eye could reach, 
 not a living soul was to be seen, save my two 
 companions and a. group of lazy Turks smoking 
 at the coffee-house in Aysalook. A man of strong 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 177 
 
 imagination might almost go wild with the inten- 
 sity of his own reflections ; and do not let it sur- 
 prise you, tha{ even one like me, brought up 
 among the technicalities of declarations and repli- 
 cations, rebutters and sun-ebutters, and in nowise 
 given to the illusions of the senses, should find 
 himself roused, and irresistibly hurriej back to 
 the time when the shapeless and confused mass 
 around him formed one of the most magnificent 
 cities in the world ; when a large and busy popu- 
 lation was hun-yiug through its streets, intent 
 upon the same pleasures and the same business 
 that engage men now ; that he should, in imagi- 
 nation, see before him St. Paul preaching to the 
 Ephesians, shaking their faith in the gods of their 
 fathers, gods made with their own hands ; and 
 the noise and confusion, and the people rushing 
 tumultuously up the very steps where he sat ; 
 that he should almost hear their cry ringing in 
 his ears, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians ;" and 
 then that he should turn from this scene of former 
 glory and eternal ruin to his own fai'-distant land ; 
 a land that tlie wisest of the Ephesians never 
 dreamed of ; where the wild man was striving 
 with the wild beast when the whole world rang 
 with the greatness of the Ephesian name ; and 
 which bids fair to be growing greater and greater 
 when the last vestige of Ephesus shall be gone, 
 and its very site unknown. 
 
 But where is the temple of the great Diana, the 
 temple two hundred and twenty years in building ; 
 the temple of one hundred and twenty-seven 
 columns, each column the gift of a king ? Can it 
 be that the temple of the " Great goddess Diana," 
 that the ornament of Asia, the pride of Ephesus, 
 and one of the seven wonders of the world, has 
 gone, disappeared, and left not a trace behind ? 
 As a traveller, I would fain be able to say that I 
 have seen the ruins of this temple ; but, unfortu- 
 nately, I am obliged to limit myself by facts. Its 
 site has of course engaged the attention of anti- 
 quaries. I am no sceptic in these matters, and 
 am disposed to believe all that my cicerone tells 
 me. You remember the countryman who com- 
 plained to his minister that he never gave him 
 any Latin in his sermons ; and when the minister 
 ans*ered that he would not understand it, the 
 countryman replied that he paid for the best, and 
 ought to have it. 1 am like that honest country- 
 man ; but my cicerone understood himself better 
 (ban the minister ; he knew that I paid him for 
 the best ; he knew what was expected from him, 
 and that his reputatiou was gone for ever if, in 
 such a place as Ephesus. he could not point out 
 the ruins of the great temple of Diana. He ac- 
 cordingly had his temple, which he stuctt to with 
 as much pertinacity as if he had built it himself ; 
 but I am sorry to be obliged to say, in spite of his 
 authority and my own wish to believe him, that 
 the better opinion is, that now not a single stone 
 is to be seen. 
 
 Topographers have fixed the site on the plain, 
 near the gate of the city which opened to the sea. 
 The sea, which once almost washed the walls, has 
 receded or been driven back for several miles. 
 For many years a new soil has been accumulating, 
 and all that stood on the plain, including so much 
 of the remains of the temple as had not been plmi- 
 dered and carried away by different conquprors, is 
 probably now buried many feet under its surface. 
 
 It was dark when I returned to Aysalook. I 
 had remarked, in passing, that several caravans 
 had encamped there, and on my return found the 
 camel-drivera assembled in the little coffee-house 
 in which I was to pass the night. I soon saw 
 that there were so many of us that we should 
 make a tight fit in the sleeping part of the khan, 
 and immediately measured off space enough to tit 
 my body, allowing turning and kicking room. I 
 looked with great complacency upon the light 
 slippers of the Turks, which they always throw 
 off', too, when they go to sleep, and made an 
 ostentatious display of a pair of heavy iron-nailed 
 boots, and in lying down, gave one or two pre- 
 liminary thumps to show them that I was restless 
 in my movements, and, if they came too near me, 
 these iron-nailed boots would be uncomfortable 
 neighbours. 
 
 And here I ought lO have spent half the night 
 in musing upon the strange concatenation of cir- 
 cumstances which had broken up a quiet practis- 
 ing attorney, and sent him a straggler from a busy, 
 money-getting land, to meditate among the ruins 
 of ancient cities, and sleep pell-mell with turbaned 
 Turks. But I had no time for musing ; I was 
 amazingly tired ; I looked at the group of Turks 
 in one corner, and regretted that I could not talk 
 with them ; thought of the Tower of Babel and the 
 wickedness of man , which brought about a confu- 
 sion of tongues ; of camel drivers, and Arabian 
 Nights' Entertainments ; of home, and my own 
 comfortable room in the third story ; brought my 
 boot down with a thump that made them all start, 
 and in five minutes was asleep. 
 
 In the morning I again went over to the ruins. 
 Daylight, if possible, added to their effect ; and a 
 little tiling occurred, not much in itself, but which, 
 under the circumstances, fastened itself upon my 
 mind in such a way that I shall never forget it. 
 I had read that here, in the stillness of the night, 
 the jackall's cry was heard ; that, if a stone was 
 rolled, a scorpion or lizard slipped from under it ; 
 and, while picking our way slowly along the lower 
 part of the city, a wolf of the largest size came 
 out above, as if indignant at being disturbed in his 
 possessions. He moved a few paces towards us 
 with such a resolute air that my companions both 
 drew their pistols ; then stopped, and gazed at us 
 deliberately as we were receding from him, until, 
 as if satisfied that we intended to leave his domi- 
 nions, he turned and disappeared among the ruins. 
 It would have made a fine picture ; the Turk first, 
 then the Greek, each with a pistol in his hand, 
 then myself, all on horseback, the wolf above us, 
 the valley, and the ruined city. I feel my inabi- 
 lity to give you a true picture of these ruins. In- 
 deed, if I could lay before you every particular, 
 block for block, fragment for fragment, here a 
 column and there a column, I could not convey 
 a full idea of the desolation that marks the scene. 
 
 To the Christians, the ruins of Ephesus carry 
 with them a pecuhar interest ; for here, upon the 
 wreck of heathen temples, was established one of 
 the earliest Christian churches ; but the Christian 
 church has followed the heathen temple^ .and the 
 worshippers of the true God have followed the 
 worshippers of the great goddess Diana ; and ia 
 the city where Paul preached, and where, in the 
 words of the apostle, "much people were gathered 
 unto the Lord," now not a solitary Christian dwells. 
 
178 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 Verily, in the prophetic language of iuspiration, 
 " the candlesticlt is removed from its place ;" a 
 curse seems to have fallen upon it, men shun it, 
 not a human heing is to be seen among its ruins ; 
 and Ephesus, in faded glory and fallen grandeur, 
 is given up to birds and beasts of prey, a monu- 
 ment and a warning to nations. 
 
 From Ephesus I went to Scala Nova, hand- 
 somely situated on the shore of the sea, and com- 
 manding a fine view of the beautiful island of 
 Samos, distant not more than four miles. I had 
 a letter to a Greek merchant there, who received 
 me kindly, and introduced me to the Turkish go- 
 vernor. The governor, as usual, was seated upon 
 a divan, and asked us to take seats beside him. 
 We were served with coffee and pipes by two 
 handsome Greek slaves, boys about fourteen, with 
 long hair hanging down their necks, and liand- 
 somely dressed ; who, after serving us, descended 
 from the platform, and waited with folded arms 
 until we had finished. Soon after a third guest 
 came, and a third lad, equally handsome and 
 equally well dressed, served him in the same 
 manner. This is the style of the Turkish gran- 
 dees, a slave to every guest. I do not know to 
 what extent it is carried, but am inclined to think 
 that, in the present instance, if one or two more 
 guests had happened to come in, my friend's 
 retinue of slaves would have fallen short. The 
 governor asked me from what country I came, 
 and who was my king ; and when I told him that 
 we had no king, but a president, he said, very 
 graciously, that our president and the grand seig- 
 nior were very good friends ; a compliment which 
 I aolcnowledged with all becoming humility. Want- 
 ing to show off M little, I told him that we were 
 going to fight the French, and he said we should 
 certainly whip them if we could get the grand 
 seignior to help us, 
 
 I afterwards called on my own account upon 
 the English consul. The consuls in these little 
 places are originals. They have nothing to do, 
 but they have the government anns blazoned over 
 their doors, and strut about in cocked hats and 
 regimentals, and shake their heads, and look 
 knowing, and talk about their government ; they 
 do not know what their government will think, 
 &c., when half the time their government hardly 
 knows of the existence of its worthy representa- 
 tives. This was an old Maltese, who spoke French 
 and Italian. He received me very kindly, and 
 pressed me to stay all night. I told him that I 
 was not an Englishman, and had no claim upon 
 his hospitality ; but he said that made no ditfex-- 
 ence ; that he was consul for all civilised nations, 
 among which he did me the honour to include 
 mine. 
 
 At thx'ee o'clock I took leave of the consul. My 
 Greek friend accompanied me outside the gate, 
 where my horses were waiting for me ; and, at 
 parting, begged me to remember that I had a 
 friend, who hardly knew what pleasure was, ex- 
 cept in serving me. I told him that the happiness 
 of my life was not complete before I met him ; 
 we threw ourselves mto each other's arms, and, 
 after a two hours' acquaintance, could hardly tear 
 away from each other's embraces. Such is the 
 force of sjTnpathy between congenial spirits. My 
 friend was a man about fifty, square-built, broad- 
 shouldered, and big-mustached ; and the beauty 
 
 of it was, that neither could understand a word 
 the other said ; and all this touching interchange 
 of sentiment had to pass through ipy mustached, 
 big-whiskered, double-fisted, six-feet interpreter. 
 
 At four o'clock, we set out on our return ; at 
 seven we stopped in a beautiful valley surrounded 
 by mountains, and on the sides of the mountains 
 were a number of Turcomans' tents. The khan 
 was worse than any I had yet seen.. -It had no 
 floor and no mat. The proprietor of the khan, if 
 such a thing, consisting merely of four mud walls 
 with a roof of branches, which seemed to have 
 been laid there by the winds, could be said to 
 have a proprietor, was uncommonly sociable ; he 
 set befoi'e me my supper, consisting of bread and 
 yort — a preparation of milk — and appeared to be 
 much amused at seeing me eat. He asked my 
 guide many questions about me ; examined my 
 pistols, took off his turban, and put my hat upon 
 his shaved head, which transformed hun from a 
 decidedly bold, slashing-looking fellow, into a 
 decidedly sneaking-looking one. I had certainlj 
 got over all fastidiousness in regard to eating, 
 drinking, and sleeping ; but I could not stand 
 the vermin at this khan. In the middle of the 
 night I rose and went out of doors ; it was a bril- 
 liant starlight night, and, as the bare earth was iii 
 any case to be my bed, I exchanged the mud flooi- 
 of my khan for the greensward and the broad 
 canopy of heaven. My Turk was sleeping on the 
 ground, about a hundred yards from the house, 
 with his horse grazing around him, I nestled close 
 to liim, and slept perhaps two hours. Toward 
 morning I was awakened by the cold, and, with 
 the selfishness of misery, I began punching my 
 Turk under the ribs to wake him. This was no 
 easy matter ; but, after a while, I succeeded, go( 
 him to saddle the horses, and in a few minutes we 
 were off, my Greek not at all plea-sed with having 
 his slumbers so prematurely disturbed. 
 
 At about two o'clock, we passed some of the 
 sultan's volunteers. These were about fifty men 
 chained together by the ivrists and ankles, who 
 had been chased, run down, and caught in some 
 of the villages, and were now on their way to Con- 
 stantinople, under a guard, to be trained as soldiers. 
 I could but smile as I saw them, not at them, for, 
 in truth, there was nothing in their condition to 
 excite a smile, but at the recollection of an article 
 I had seen a few days before in a European paper, 
 which referred to the new levies making by the 
 sultan, and the spirit with which his subjects en- 
 tered into the service. They were a speaking 
 comment upon European insight into Turkish 
 poUtics. But, without more ado, sufiice it to say, 
 that at about four o'clock I found myself at the 
 door of my hotel, my outer garments so covered 
 with creeping things that my landlord, a prudent 
 Swiss, with many apologies, begged me to shake 
 myself before going into the house ; and my nether 
 garments so stained with blood, that I looked as 
 if a corps of the sultan's regulars had pricked me 
 with their bayonets. My enthusiasm on the sub- 
 ject of the seven churche* was in no small degree 
 abated, and just a^ that moment I was wilUng to 
 take upon trust the condition of the others, that 
 all that was foretold of them in the Scriptures had 
 come to pass. I again betook me to the bath, 
 and, in thinking of the luxury of my repose, I feel 
 for you, and come to a full stop. 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 17!>- 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Position of Smyrna. — Consular Privileges.'— The Case of 
 the Lover. — ^End of the Love Affair. — The Jlissionarj''s 
 Wife. — The Casino. — Only a Greek Row. — Rambles in 
 Smyrna. — The Armenians, — Domestic Enjoyments. 
 
 Bdt I must go back a little and make the 
 amende honorable, for, in truth, Ghiaour Isniir, 
 or Infidel Smyrna, with its wild admi-xture of 
 European and Asiatic population, deserves better 
 than the rather cavalier notice contained in my 
 letter. 
 
 Before reaching it I had remarked its exceeding 
 beauty of position, chosen as it is with that happy 
 taste which distinguished the Greeks in selecting 
 the sites of their ancient cities, on the declivity of 
 a mountain running down to the shore of the bay, 
 with houses rising iu terraces on its sides ; its 
 domes and minarets, interspersed with cypresses, 
 rising above the tiers of houses, and the summit 
 of the hill crowned with a large solitary castle. 
 It was the first large Turkish city I had seen, and 
 it differed, too, from all other Turkish cities in 
 the strong foothold obtained there by Europeans. 
 Indeed, remembering it as a place where often, 
 and within a very few years, upon a sudden out- 
 breaking of popular fury, the streets were deluged 
 with Christian blood, I was particularly struck, 
 not only with the air of confidence and security, 
 but, in fact, with the bearing of superiority 
 assumed by the " Christian dog !" among the 
 followers of the Prophet. 
 
 Directly on the bay is a row of large houses, 
 running along the whole front of the city, among 
 which are seen emblazoned over the doors the 
 aims of most of the foreign consuls, including the 
 American. By the treaties of the Porte with 
 Christian powers, the Turkish tribunals have no 
 jurisdiction of matters touching the rights of 
 foreign residents ; and all disputes between these, 
 and even criminal offences, fall under the cogni- 
 zance of their respective consuls. This gives the 
 consuls in all the maritime ports of Turkey great 
 power and position ; and all over the Levant they 
 are great people ; but at Smyrna they are far 
 more important than ambassadors and ministers 
 at the European capitals ; and, with their janisa- 
 ries and their appearance on all public occasions 
 iu uniforfii, are looked up to by the Levantines 
 somewhat like the consuls sent abroad under 
 the Roman Empire, and by the Turks as almost 
 sultans. 
 
 The morning after my arrival I delivered letters 
 of mtroduction to Mr. OfBey, the American consul, 
 a native of Philadelphia, thirty years resident in 
 Smyrna, and married to an Armenian lady, Mr. 
 Langdon, a merchant of Boston, and Mr. Styth, 
 of Baltimore, of the firm of Issaverdens, Styth, 
 and Company ; one to Mr. Jetter, a German mis- 
 sionary, whose lady told me, while her husband 
 waa reading it, that she had met me in the street 
 the day before, and on her return home, told him 
 that an American had just arrived. I was curious 
 to know the mark by which she recognised me as 
 an American, being rather dubious whether it was 
 by reason of anything praiseworthy or the reverse ; 
 but she could not tell. 
 
 I trust the reader has not forgotten the victim 
 "f . the tender passion who, in the moment of my 
 
 leaving Athens, had reposed in my sympathising 
 bosom the burden of his hopes and fears. At the- 
 very first house in which I was introduced to the- 
 female members of the family, I found, making a 
 morning call, the lady who had made such inroads 
 upon his afi'ections. I had already heard her spoken 
 of as being the largest fortune, and, par conse- 
 quent, the greatest belle in SmjTua, and I hailed 
 it as a favourable omen that I accidentally made 
 her acquaintance so soon after my arrival. I made 
 my observations, and could not help remarking 
 that she was by no means pining away on account 
 of the absence of my friend. I was almost indig- 
 nant at her heartless happiness, and, taking advan- 
 tage of an opportunity, introduced his name hoping^ 
 to see a shade come over her, and, perhaps, t» 
 strike her pensive for two or three minutes ; but 
 her comment was a death-blow to my friend's- 
 prospects, and my mediation : " Poor M. ! " and 
 all present repeated " Poor M." with a portentous 
 smile, and the next moment had forgotten his 
 existence. I went away in the full conviction that 
 it was all over with " Poor M. ! " and murmuring^ 
 to myself. Put not your trust in woman, I dined, 
 and in the afternoon called with my letter of intro- 
 duction upon his friend the Rev. Mr. Brewer, 
 and Mr. Brewer's comment on reading it was 
 about equal to the lady's " Poor M." He asked 
 me in what condition I left our unfortunate friend* 
 I told him his leg was pretty bad, though he con- 
 tinued to hobble about ; but Mr. Brewer inter- 
 rupted me ; he did not mean his leg, but, he 
 hesitated, and with reluctance, as if he wished ta 
 avoid speaking of it outright, added, his mind, I 
 did not comprehend him, and, from his hesitation 
 and delicacy, imagined that he was alluding to the 
 lover's heart ; but he cleared the matter up, and 
 to my no small surprise, by telling me, that, some 
 time before he left Smyrna, " Poor M." had 
 shoivn such strong marks of abeiTation of intel- 
 lect, that his friends had deemed it advisable to 
 put him under the charge of a brother missionary 
 and send him home, and that they hoped great 
 benefit from travel and change of scene. I was- 
 surprised, and by no means elevated in my own 
 conceit, when 1 found that I had been made the 
 confidant of a crazy man. Mr. Hill, not knowing, 
 of any particular intimacy between us, and pro- 
 bably not wishing to publish his misfortune unne- 
 cessarily, had uot given me the slightest intimation 
 of it, and I had not discovered it. I had con- 
 sidered his communication to me strange, and his 
 general conduct not less so, but I had no idea 
 that it was anything more than the ordinaiy 
 derangement which every man is said to labour 
 imder when in love. I then told Mr. Brewer my 
 story, and the commission with which I was 
 intrusted, which he said was perfectly chanacter- 
 istic, his malady being a sort of monomania on 
 the subject of the tender passion ! and every 
 particle of interest which 1 might nevertheless 
 have taken in the affair, in connecting his derange- 
 ment iu some way with the lady in question, was 
 destroyed by the volatile direction of his passion, 
 sometimes to one object and sometimes with 
 another ; and in regard to the lady to whom I was 
 accredited, he had never shown any penchant 
 toward her in particular, and must have given mo 
 her name because it happened to be the first 
 that suggested itself at the moment of his uubur- 
 
180 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 thening himself to me. Fortunately,* I had not 
 ■exposed myself by any demonstrations in behalf 
 of my friend, so I quietly dropped him. On leaving 
 Mr. Brewer I suggested a doubt whether I could 
 lie regarded as an acquaintance upon the intro- 
 duction of a crazy man ; but we had gone so far 
 that it was decided, for that specific purpose, to 
 admit his sanity. I should not mention these 
 particulars if there was any possibility of their 
 ■ever wounding the feelings of him to whom they 
 i^fer ; but he is now beyond the reach either of 
 calumny or praise, for about a year after I heard, 
 with great regret, that his malady had increased, 
 .accompanied with a, general derangement of 
 health ; and, shortly after his return home, he 
 died. 
 
 My intercourae with the Franks was confined 
 ■principally to my own countrymen, v^ose houses 
 were open to me at all times ; and I cannot help 
 mentioning the name of Mr. Van Lennup, the 
 Dutch consul, the great friend of the missionaries 
 ^n the Levant, who had been two years resident 
 in the United States, and was intimately acquainted 
 •with many of my friends at home. Society in 
 Smyrna is purely mercantile ; and haying been so 
 long out of the way of it, it was actually grateful to 
 me once more to hear men talking with all their 
 souls about cotton, stocks, exchanges, and other 
 topics of interest, in the literal meaning of the 
 word. Sometimes lounging in a merchant's count- 
 ing-room, I took up an American paper, and 
 heard Boston, and New York, and Baltimore, and 
 cotton, and opium, and freight, and quarter per 
 cent, less bandied about, until I almost fancied 
 myself at home ; and when this became too severe 
 I had a resource with the missional'ies, gentle- 
 manly and well-educated men, well acquainted 
 with the countries and the places worth visiting, 
 with just the books I wanted, and, I had almost 
 said, the wives ; I mean with wives always glad 
 to see a countryman, and to talk about home. 
 There is something exceedingly interesting in a 
 missionary's wife. A soldier's is more so, for she 
 follov/s him to danger, and, perhaps, to death ; 
 but glory waits him if he falls, and while she weeps 
 she is proud. Before I went abroad the only 
 missionary I ever knew I despised, for I believed 
 him to be a canting hypocrite ; but I saw much 
 •of them abroad, and made many warm friends 
 among them ; and, I repeat it, there is something 
 exceedingly interesting in a missionary's wife. 
 She who had been cherished as a plant that the 
 winds must not breathe on too rudely, recovers 
 from the shock of a separation from her friends to 
 find hersi;lf in a land of barbarians, where her loud 
 cry of distress can never reach their ears. New 
 ties twine round her heart, and the tender and 
 ■helpless girl changes her ver, mature, and becomes 
 the staff and support of the man. In his hours 
 of despondency she raises his drooping spirits ; 
 she bathes his aching head ; she smooths his 
 pillow of sickness ; and, after months of weari- 
 some silence, I have entered her dwelling, and 
 her heart instinctively told her that I was from 
 the same land. I have been welcomed as a bro- 
 ther ; answered her hurried, and anxious, and 
 ea^er questions ; and sometimes, when I have 
 linown any of her friends at home, I have been 
 for a moment more than recompensed for all the 
 >toils and privations of a traveller in the East. I 
 
 have left her dwelling burdened with remem- 
 brances to friends whom she will perhaps never 
 see again. I bore a letter to a father, which was 
 opened by a widowed mother. Where I could, I 
 have discharged every promise to a missionai'y's 
 wife ; but I have some yet undischarged which I 
 rank among the sacred obligations of my life. It, 
 is true, the path of the missionary is not strewed 
 with roses ; but often, in leaving his house at 
 night, and following my guide with a lantern 
 through the narrow streets of a Turkish city, I 
 have run over the troubles incident to every con- 
 dition of life, not forgetting those of a traveller, 
 and have taken to whistluig, and, as I stumbled 
 into the gate of an old convent, have murmured 
 involuntarily, " After all, these missionaries are 
 happy fellows." 
 
 Every stranger, upon his an-ival in Smyrna, ii 
 introduced at the Casino. I went there the fii-st 
 time to a concert. It is a large building, erected 
 by a club of merchants, with a suite of rooms on 
 the lower floor, billiards, cards, reading and sitting 
 room, and a ball-room above covering the whole. 
 The concert was given in the ball-room, and, from 
 what I had seen in the streets, I expected an ex- 
 traordinary display of beauty ; but I was much 
 disappointed. The company consisted only of the 
 aristocracy or higher mercantile classes, the fami- 
 lies of the gentlemen composing the club, and 
 excluded the Greek and Smyrniote women, among 
 whom is found a great portion of the beauty of 
 the place. A patent of nobility in Smyrna, as in 
 our own city, is founded upon the time since the 
 possessor gave up selling goods, or the number of 
 consignments he receives in the course of a year. 
 The Casino, by the way, is a very aristocratic 
 institution, and sometimes knotty questions occur 
 in its management. Captains of merchant-vessels 
 are not admitted. A man eame out as owner of 
 a vessel and cargo, and also master : quere, could 
 he be admitted ? His consignee said Yes ; but 
 the majority, not being interested in the sale of 
 his cargo, went for a strict construction, and 
 excluded him. 
 
 The population of Smyrna, professing three 
 distinct religions, observe three different Sab- 
 baths ; the Mohammedans Friday, the Jews 
 Saturday, and the Christians Sunday, so that 
 there are only four days in the week in which all 
 the shops and bazars are open together, and there 
 are so many i^te days that these are much broken 
 in upon. The most perfect toleration prevails, 
 and the religious festivals of the Greeks often 
 terminate in midnight orgies which debase and 
 degrade the Christian in the eyes of the pious 
 Mussulman. ' 
 
 On Saturday morning I was roused from ray 
 bed by a loud cry and the tramp of a crowd 
 through the street. I ran to my window, and 
 saw a Greek tearing down the street at full speed, 
 and another after him with a drawn yataghan in 
 his hand ; the latter gained ground at every step, 
 and, just as he turned the corner, stabbed the 
 first in the back He returned with the bloody 
 poniard in his hand, followed by the crowd, and 
 rushed into a little Greek drinking-shop next door 
 to my hoteh There was a loud noise and scuf- 
 fling inside, and presently I saw him pitched out 
 headlong into the street, and the door closed upon 
 him. In a frenzy of passion he rushed back. 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 181 
 
 »nd drove his yataglian with all hia force into 
 the door, stamped against it with his feet, and 
 battered it with stones ; unable to force it open, 
 he sat down on the opposite side of the street, 
 occasionally renewing his attack upon the door, 
 talking violently with those inside, and sometimes 
 the whole crowd laughing loud at the answers 
 from within. Nobody attempted to interfere. 
 Giuseppe, my host, said it was only a row among 
 the Greeks. The Greek kept the street in an up- 
 roar for more than an hour, when he was secured 
 and taken into custody. 
 
 After diiuier, under the escon of a merchant, a 
 Jew from Trieste residing at the same hotel, I 
 visited the Jews' quarter. The Jews of Smyrna 
 are the descendants of that unhappy people who 
 were driven out from Spain by the bloody perse- 
 cutions of Ferdinand and Isabel ; they still talk 
 Spanish in their families ; and though compara- 
 tively secure, now, as ever, they live the victims 
 of tyranny and oppression, ever toiling and accu- 
 mulating, and ever fearing to exhibit the fruits of 
 their industry, lest they should excite the cupid'ty 
 of a rapacious master. Their quarter is by far 
 the most miserable in Smyrna, and within its 
 narrow limits are congregated more than ten 
 thousand of " the accursed people." It was with 
 great difficulty that I avoided wounding the feel- 
 ings of my companion by remarking its filthy and 
 disgusting appearance ; and wishing to remove 
 my unfavourable impression by introducing me to 
 some of the best families first, he was ^obliged to 
 drag me through the whole range of its narrow 
 and dirty streets. From the external appearance 
 of the tottering houses, I did not expect any- 
 thing better within ; and, out of I'egard to his 
 feelings, was really sorry that I had accepted his 
 offer to visit his people ; but with the first house 
 I entered I was most agreeably disappointed. 
 Ascendmg outside by a tottering staircase to the 
 second story, within was not only neatness and 
 comfort, but positive luxury. At one end of a 
 spacious room was a raised platform opening upon 
 a large latticed window, covered with rich rugs ' 
 and divans along the wall. The master of the ' 
 house was taking his afternoon siesta, and while 
 we were waiting for him I expressed to ray grati- 
 fied companion my surprise and pleasure at the 
 unexpected appearance of the interior. In a few 
 minutes the master entered, and received us with 
 the greatest hospitality and kindness. He was 
 about thirty, with the high square cap of black 
 felt, without any rim or border, long silk gown 
 tied with a sash around the waist, a strongly- 
 marked Jewish face, and amiable expression. In 
 the house of the Israelite the welcome is the same 
 as in that of the Turk ; and seating himself, our 
 host clapped his hands together, and a boy en- 
 tered with coffee and pipes. After a little con- 
 versation he clapped his hands agaui ; and hearing 
 a clatter of wooden shoes, I turned my head and 
 saw a little girl coming across the room, mounted 
 on high wooden sabots almost like stilts, who 
 stepped up the platform, and with quite a womanly 
 air took her seat on the divan. I looked at her, 
 and thought her a pert, forward little miss, and 
 was about asking her how old she was, when my 
 companion told me she was our host's wife. I 
 checked myself, but in a moment felt more than 
 ever tempted to ask the same question ; and, 
 
 upon inquii-ing, learned that she had attaineoi 
 the respectable age of thirteen, and had been 
 then two years a wife. Our host told us that she 
 had cost him a great deal of money, and the ex- 
 pense consisted in the outlay necessary for pro- 
 curing a divorce from another wife. He did not 
 like the other one at all ; his father had married 
 him to her, and he had great difficulty in prevail- 
 ing on his father to go to the expense of getting 
 him freed. This wife was also provided by his 
 father, and he did not like her much at first ; he 
 had never seen her till the day of marriage, but 
 now he began to like her very well, though sh& 
 cost him a great deal for ornaments. All this, 
 time we were looking at her, and she, with a per- 
 fectly composed expression, was listening to th& 
 conversation as my companion interpreted it, and 
 following with her eyes the different speakei-s. I 
 was particularly struck with the cool, imperturb- 
 able expression of her face, and could not help 
 thinking that, on the subject of likings and dis- 
 likings, youAg as she was, she might have some 
 curious notions of her own ; and since we had 
 fallen into this little disquisition on family matters,. 
 and thinking that he had gone so far himself that 
 I might waive delicacy, I asked him whether she 
 liked him ; he answered in that easy tone of con- 
 fidence of which no idea can be given in words,, 
 " Oh yes ;" and when I intimated a doubt, he told 
 me I might ask herself. But I forbore, and did 
 not ask her, and so lost the opportunity of learn- 
 ing from both sides the practical operation of 
 matches made by parents. Our host sustained, 
 them ; the plan saved a great deal of trouble, and 
 wear and tear of spirit ; prudent parents always 
 selected such as were likely to suit each other;, 
 and being thrown together very young, they in- 
 sensibly assimilated in tastes and habits ; he- 
 admitted that he had missed it the first time, but 
 he had hit it the second, and allowed that the 
 system would work much better if the cost ol 
 procuring a divorce was not so great. With the- 
 highest respect, and a pressing invitation to come 
 again, seconded by his wife, I took my leave of the 
 self-satisfied IsraeUte. 
 
 From this we went into several other houses, in, 
 all of which the interior belied, in the same man- 
 ner, their external appearance. I do not say that 
 they were gorgeous or magnificent, but they were 
 clean, comfortable, and striking by their Oriental 
 style of arcliitecture and furniture ; and being 
 their Sabbath, the women were in their best 
 attire, with their heads, necks, and wrists adorned 
 with a profusion of gold and silver ornaments.. 
 Several of the houses had libraries, with old 
 Hebrew books, in which an old rabbi was reading 
 or sometimes instructing children. In the last 
 house a son was going through his days of mourn- 
 ing on the death of his father. He was lying 
 in the middle of the floor, with his black cap on, 
 and covered with a long black cloak. Twenty 
 or thirty friends were sitting on the floor around 
 him, who had come in to condole with him. 
 When we entered, neither he nor any of his 
 friends took any notice of us, except to make room 
 on the floor. We sat down with them. It was 
 growing dark, and the light broke dimly through 
 the latticed windows upon the dusky figures of 
 the mourning Israelites ; and there they sat, with 
 stern visages and long beards, the feeble remnant 
 
382 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 of a fallen people, under scorn, and eoutmnely, 
 and persecution, and oppression, holding on to the 
 traditions received from their fathers, practising 
 in the privacy of their houses the same rites as 
 •when the priests bore aloft the ark of the covenant, 
 -and out of the very dust in which they he still 
 looking for the restoi-ation of their temporal king- 
 dom. In a room adjoining sat the widow of the 
 deceased, with a group of women around her, all 
 perfectly silent ; and they too took no notice of us 
 either when we entered or when we went away. 
 
 The next day the shops were shut, and the 
 streets again thronged as on the day of my arrival. 
 I went to church at the English chapel attached 
 to the residence of the British consul, and heard a 
 sermon from a German miasionai-y. I dined at 
 one o'clock, and, in company with mine host of 
 the Pension Suisse, and a merchant of Smyrna 
 resident there, worked my way up the hill through 
 the heart of the Turks' quarter to the old castle 
 -standing alone and in ruins on its summit. We 
 rested a httle while at the foot of the castle, and 
 looked over the city and the tops of the minarets 
 upon the beautiful bay, and descending in the 
 rear of the castle, we came to the river Meles 
 winding through a deep valley at the foot of the 
 hill. This stream was celebrated in Grecian 
 poetry three thousand years ago. It was the 
 pride of the ancient Smymeans, once washed the 
 walls of the ancient city, and tradition says that 
 on its banks the nymph Critheis gave birth to 
 Homer. We followed it in its winding course 
 •down the valley, murmuring among evergreens, 
 •Over it in two places were the ruins of aqueducts 
 which carried water to the old city, and in one or 
 two places it turns an overshot-mill. On each side, 
 at intervals along its banks, were Oriental summer- 
 houses, with verandahs, and balconies, and lat- 
 ticed windows. Approaching the caravan bridge 
 we met straggling parties, and by degrees fell into 
 a crowd of people, Franks, Europeans of every 
 nation, Greeks, Turks, and Armenians, in all 
 their striking costumes, sitting on benches under 
 the shade of noble old sycamores, or on the grass, 
 or on the river's brink, and moving among them 
 were Turks cleanly dressed, with trays of re- 
 freshment, ices, and sherbet. There was an un- 
 usual collection of Greek and SmjTniote women, 
 -and an extraordinary display of beauty ; none of 
 them wore hats, but the Greek women a light 
 gauze turban, and the Smyrniotes a small piece of 
 red cloth worked with gold, secured on the top of 
 the head by the folds of the hair, with a long 
 tassel hanging down irom it. Opposite, and in 
 striking contrast, the great Turkish burying- 
 ground, with its thick grove of gloomy cypress, 
 approached the bank of the river. I crossed over 
 and entered the burying-ground, and penetrated the 
 grove of funeral trees ; all around were the graves 
 of the dead ; thousands and tens of thousands 
 who but yesterday were like the gay crowd I saw 
 flitting through the trees, were sleeping under my 
 feet. Over some of the graves the earth was still 
 fresh, and they who lay in them were already for- 
 gotten — but no, tliey were not forgotten ; woman's 
 love still remembered them, for Turkish women, 
 with long white shawls wrapped around their 
 faces, were planting over them myrtle and flosvers, 
 believing that they were paying an acceptable 
 tribute to the souls of the dead. I left the bury- 
 
 ing-ground, and plunged once more amon^ the 
 crowd. It may be that memory paints these 
 scenes brighter than they were ; but, if that does 
 not deceive me, I never saw at Paris or Vienna so 
 gay and beautiful a scene, so rich in landscape 
 and scenery, in variety of costume, and in beaufy 
 of female form and feature. 
 
 We left the caravan bridge early to visit the 
 Armenian quarter, this being the best day for 
 seeing them collectively at home ; and I had not 
 passed through the first street of their beautiful 
 quarter before I was forcibly struck with the ap- 
 pearance of a people different from any I had yet 
 seen in the East. The Armenians are one of the 
 oldest nations of the civilised world, and, amid all 
 the revolutions of barbarian war and despotism, 
 have maintained themselves as a cultivated people. 
 From the time when their first chieftain fled from 
 Babylon, his native place, to escape from the 
 tyranny of Belus, king of Assyria, this warlike 
 people, occupying a mountainous country near the 
 sources of the Tigris and Euphrates, battled the 
 Assyrians; Modes, the Persians, Macedonians, 
 and Arabians, until their country was depopulated 
 by the shah of Persia. Less than two millions are 
 all that now remain of that once powerful people. 
 Commerce has scattered them, like the Israelites, 
 among all the principal nations of Europe and 
 Asia, and everywhere they have preserved their 
 stern integrity and uprightness of character. The 
 Armenian merchant is now known in every quar- | 
 ter of the globe, and everywhere distinguished by ' 
 superior cultivation, honesty, and manners. As 
 early as thfe fourth century, the Armenians em- 
 braced Christianity ; they never had any sympathy 
 with, and always disliked and avoided, the Greek 
 Christians, and constantly resisted the endeavours 
 of the popes to bring them within the Catholic ' 
 pale. Their doctrine differs from that of the 
 orthodox chiefly in their admitting only one nature ' 
 in Christ, and believing the Holy Spirit to issue ' 
 from the Father '.lone. Their first abode. Mount 
 Ararat, is even at the present day the centre of ' 
 their religious and political union. They are dis- 
 tiuguished by a patriarchal simplicity in their 
 domestic manners ; and it was the beautiful exhi- 
 bition of this trait in their character that struck 
 me on entering their quarter at Smyrna. In style 
 and appearance their quarter is superior to any in 
 Smyrna ; their streets are broad and cl^an ; their 
 houses large, in good order, and well painted ; 
 Oriental in their style of architecture, with large 
 balconies and latticed windows, and spacious halls 
 running through the centre, floored with small 
 black and white stones laid in the foi-m of stars 
 and other fanciful devices, and leading to large 
 gardens in the rear, ornamented with trees, vines, 
 shrubs, and flowers, then in full bloom and beauty. 
 All along the streets the doors of the houses were 
 thrown wide open, and the old Armenian " Knick- 
 erbockers" were sitting outside or in the doorway, 
 in their flowing robes, grave an.i sedate, with long 
 pipes and large amber mouth-pieces, talking with 
 their neighbours ; while the younger members were 
 distributed along the hall or strolling through 
 the garden, and children climbing the trees and 
 arbours. It was a f£te day for the whole neigh- 
 bourhood. All was social, and cheerful, and beau- 
 tiful, without being gay or noisy, and all wiis open 
 to the observation of every passer-by. ' My com- 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 183 
 
 panion, an old resident of Smyrna, stopped with 
 me at the house of a large banker, whose whole 
 family, with several neighbours, young and old, 
 were assembled in the hall. 
 
 In the street the Armenian ladies observe the 
 Turkish custom of wearing the shawl tied around 
 the face, so that it is difficult to see their features, 
 though I had often admired the dignity and grace 
 of their walk, and their propriety of manners ; but 
 in the house there was a perfect absence of all 
 concealment ; and I have seldom seen more in- 
 teresting persons than the whole group of Arme- 
 nian ladies, and particularly the young Armenian 
 girls. They were not so dark, and wanted the 
 bold, darmg beauty of the Greek, but altogether 
 were far more attractive. The great charm of 
 their appearance was an exceeding modesty, united 
 with affability and elegance of manner : in fact, 
 there was a calm and quiet loveliness about them 
 that would have made any one of them dangerous 
 to be shut up alone with, i. e., if a man could talk 
 with her mthout an interpreter. This was one of 
 the occasions when I numbered among the pains 
 of life the confusion of tongues. But, notwith- 
 standing this, the whole scene was beautiful ; and, 
 with all the simplicity of a Dutchman's fireside, 
 the style of the house, the pebbled hall, the garden, 
 the foliage, and the Oriental costumes, threw a 
 charm around it which now, while I write, comes 
 over me again. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 An American Original. — Moral Changes in Turkey — 
 Wonders of Steam Navigation. — The March of Mind.— 
 Classic Localities. — Sestos and Abydos. — Seeds of Pesti- 
 lence. 
 
 On my return from Ephesus I heard of the 
 arrival in Smyrna of two American travellers, 
 father and son, from Egypt ; and the same day, 
 at Mr. Langdon's, I met the father. Dr. N. of 
 Mississippi. The doctor had made a long and 
 interesting tour in Egj'pt and the Holy Land, in- 
 terrupted, however, by a severe attack of ophthal- 
 mia on the Nile, from which he had not yet re- 
 covered, and a narrow escape from the plague at 
 Cairo, lie was about fifty-five, of a strong, active, 
 and inquiring mind ; and the circumstances which 
 had brought him to that distant country were so 
 peculiar, that I cannot help mentioning them. 
 He had pa-ssed all his life on the banks of the 
 Mississippi, and for many years had busied himself 
 with speculations in regard to the creation of the 
 world. Year after year he had watched the de- 
 posits and formation of soil on the banks of the 
 Mississippi, had visited every mound and moun- 
 tain indicating any peculiar geological formation, 
 and, unable to find any data to satisfy him, he 
 started from his plantation directly for the banks 
 of the Nile. He possessed all the wann, high- 
 toned feelings of the Southerner, but a thorough 
 contempt for the usages of society and everything 
 like poUsh of manners. He came to New York 
 and embarked for Havre. He had never been 
 even to New York before ; was utterly ignorant 
 of any language but his own ; despised all 
 foreigners, and detested their "jabber." He 
 woi-ked his way to Marseilles with the intention 
 
 of embarking for Alexandria, but was taken sick, 
 and retraced his steps directly to his plantation 
 on the Mississippi. Recovering, he again set out 
 for the Nile the next year, accompanied by his 
 son, a young man of about twenty-three, ac- 
 quainted with foreign languages, and competent to 
 profit by foreign travel. This time he was more 
 successful, and, when I saw him, he had rambled 
 over the pyramids and explored the ruined temples 
 of Egypt. The result of his observations had 
 been to fortify his preconceived notions, that the 
 age of this world far exceeds six thousand years. 
 Indeed, he was firmly persuaded that some of the 
 temples of the Nile were built more than six 
 thousand years ago. He had sent on to Smyrna 
 enormous boxes of earth and stones, to be shipped 
 to America, and was particularly curious on the 
 subject of trees, havmg examined and satisfied 
 himself as to the age of the olive-trees in the Gar- 
 den of Gethsemane and the cedars of Lebanon. 
 I accompanied him to his hotel, where I was in- 
 troduced to his son ; and I must not forget 
 another member of this party, who is, perhaps, 
 already known to some of my readers by the 
 name of Paolo Nuozzo, or, more familiarly, Paul. 
 This worthy individual had been travelling on the 
 Nile with two Hungarian counts, who discharged 
 him, or whom he discharged (for they differed as 
 to the fact), at Cairo. Dr. N. and his son were 
 in want, and Paul entered their ssrvice as drago- 
 man and superintendant of another man, who, 
 they said, was worth a dozen of Paul. I have a 
 very imperfect recollection of my first interview 
 with this original. Indeed, I hardly remember 
 him at all until my arrival at Constantinople, and 
 have only an indistinct impression of a dark, 
 surly-looking, mustached man following at the 
 heels of Dr. N., and giving crusty answers in 
 horrible English. 
 
 Before my visit to Ephesus I had tallced with a 
 Prussian baron of going up by land to Constanti- 
 nople, but on my return I found myself attacked 
 with a recurrence of an old malady, and deter- 
 mined to wait for the steam-boat. The day 
 before I left Smyrna, accompanied by Mr. 0. 
 Langdon, I went out to Boujac to dine with 
 Mr. Styth. The great beauty of Smyrna is its 
 surrounding country. Within a few miles there 
 are three villages, Boumabat, Boujac, and Sedi- 
 guey, occupied by Franks, of which Boujac is the 
 favourite. The Franks are always looking to the 
 time of going out to their country houses, and 
 consider their residences in their villages the 
 most agreeable part of their year ; and from 
 what I saw of it, nothing can be more agreeable. 
 Not more than half of them had yet moved out, 
 but after dinner we went round and visited all 
 who were there. They are all well acquainted, 
 and, living in a strange and barbarous country, 
 are drawn closer together than they would be in 
 their owa Every evening there is a reunion at 
 some of their houses, and there is among them an 
 absence of all unnecessary form and ceremony, 
 without which there can be no perfect enjoyment 
 of the true pleasures of social intercourse. These 
 villages, too, are endeared to them as places of 
 refuge during the repeated and prolonged visita- 
 tions of the plague, the merchant going into the 
 city every morning and returning at night, and 
 during the whole continuance of the disease 
 
181 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 avoiding to touch any member of his family. 
 The whole region of country around their villages 
 is beautiful in landscape and scenery, producing 
 the choicest flowers and fruits ; the fig-tree, par- 
 ticularly, growing with a luxuriance unknown in 
 any other part of the world. But the whole of 
 this beautiful region lies waste and uncultivated, 
 although, if the government could be relied on, 
 holding out, by reason of its fertility, its climate, 
 and its facihty of access, particularly now by 
 means of steam-boats, far greater inducements to 
 European emigration than any portion of our own 
 country. I will not impose upon the reader my 
 speculations on this subject ; my notes are bur- 
 dened with them ; but, in my opinion, the Old 
 World is in process of regeneration, and at this 
 moment offers greater opportunities for enterprise 
 than the New. 
 
 On Monday, accompanied by Dr. N. and his 
 son and Paolo Nuozzo, I embarked on boa^'d the 
 steam-boat Maria Dorothea for Constantinople ; 
 and here follows another letter, and the last, dated 
 from the capital of the Eastern empire. 
 
 Constantinople, May — , 1835. 
 My DEAR * * » 
 
 Oh, you who hope one day to roam in Eastern 
 lands, to bend your curious eye upon the people 
 warmed by the rising sun, come quickly, for all 
 things are changing. You who have pored over 
 the story of the Turk, who have dreamed of him 
 as a gloom}' enthusiast, hating, spurning, and 
 slaying all who do not believe and call upon the 
 Prophet ; 
 
 " One of that saintly, murderous brood, 
 To carnage and the Koran given. 
 Who thinic through unbelievers' blood 
 Lies their directest path to heaven;" 
 
 come quickly, for that description of Turk is 
 passing away. The day has gone by when the 
 haughty Mussulman spurned and persecuted the 
 " Christian dog." A few years since, it would 
 have been at peril of a man's hfe to appear in 
 many parts of Turkey in a European dress ; but 
 now the European is looked upon, not only a.s a 
 creature fit to live, but as a man to be respected. 
 The sultan himself, the great head of the nation 
 and the religion, the vicegerent of God upon 
 earth, has taken off the turban, and all the 
 officers of government have followed his example. 
 The army wears a bastard European unifoi'm, 
 and the great study of the sultan is to introduce 
 European customs. Thanks to the infirmities of 
 human nature, many of these customs have begun 
 to insinuate themselves. The pious follower of 
 the Prophet has dared to raise the wine-cup to his 
 lips ; and in many instances, at the peril of losing 
 his paradise of houris, has given himself up to 
 strong drink. Time was, when the word of a 
 Turk was sacred as a precept of the Koran ; 
 now he can no more be relied upon than a Jew or 
 a Christian. He has fallen with great facility into 
 lying, cheating, and drinking, and if the earnest 
 efforts to change him are attended with success, 
 perhaps we may soon add stealing and having but 
 one wife. And all this change, this mighty fall, 
 is ascribed by the Europeans here to the de- 
 struction of the janisaries, a band of men dan- 
 gerous to government, brave, turbulent, and 
 bloody, but of indomitable pride ; who were 
 
 above doing little things, and who gave a high 
 tone to the character of the whole people. If I 
 was not bent upon a gallop, and could stop for 
 the jogtrot of an argument, I would say that the 
 destruction of the janisaries is a mere incidental 
 circumstance, and that the true cause is — steam 
 navigation. Do not laugh, but listen. The 
 Turks have ever been a proud people, possessing 
 a sort of peacock pride, an extravagantly good 
 opinion of themselves, and a superlative contempt 
 for all the rest of the world. Heretofore they 
 have had comparatively little intercourse with 
 Europeans, consequently but little opportunity of 
 making comparisons, and consequently, again, but 
 little means of discovering their own inferiority. 
 But lately things have changed ; the universal 
 peace in Europe and the introduction of steam- 
 boats into the Mediterranean, have brought the 
 Europeans and the Turks comparatively close 
 together. It seems to me that the effect of 
 steam-boats here has as yet hardly begun to be 
 felt. There are but few of them, indifferent 
 boats, constantly getting out of order, and run- 
 ning so irregularly that no reliance can be placed 
 upon them. But still their effects are felt, their 
 convenience is acknowledged ; and, so far as my 
 knowledge extends, they have never been in- 
 troduced anywhere yet without multiplying in 
 numbers, and driving all other vessels off the 
 water. Now the Mediterranean is admirably 
 suited to the use of steamboats ; indeed, the 
 whole of these inland waters, the Mediterranean, 
 the Adriatic, the Archipelago, the Dardanelles, 
 the Sea of Marmora, the Bosphorus, and the 
 Black Sea, from the Straits of Gibraltar to the 
 Sea of Azoff, offer every facility that can be 
 desired for steam navigation ; and when we con- 
 sider that the most interesting cities in the world 
 are on the shores of these waters, I cannot but 
 believe that in a very few years they wiil be, to a 
 certain extent, covered with steamboats. At all 
 events, I have no doubt that in two or three years 
 you will be able to go from Paris to Constanti- 
 nople in fifteen or twenty days ; and, when that 
 time comes, it will throw such numbers of Euro- 
 peans into the East as will have a sensible effect 
 upon the manners and customs of the people 
 These eastern countries will be invaded by all 
 classes of people, travellers, merchants, and me- 
 chanics, gentlemen of elegant leisure, and black- 
 smiths, shoemakers, tinkers, and tailors, nay, 
 even mantua-makers, milliners, and bandboxes, 
 the last being an incident to oiviUsed life as yet 
 unknown in Turkey. Indeed, wonderful as the 
 effects of steamboats have been under our own 
 eyes, we are yet to see them far more wonderful 
 in bringing mto close alliance, commercial and 
 social, people from distant countries, of different 
 languages and habits ; in removing national pre- 
 judices, and in breaking down the great charac- 
 teristic distinctions of nations. Nous verrons, 
 twenty years hence, what steamboats will havu 
 done in this part of the world ! 
 
 But, in standing up for steam-boats, I must not 
 fail in doing justice to the grand signior. His high 
 ness has not always slept upon a bed of roses. He 
 had to thank the petticoats of a female slave for 
 saving his life when a boy, and he had hardly got 
 upon his throne before he found that he should 
 have a hard task to keep it. It lay between hun 
 
IN GKEECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 185 
 
 and the janisaries. In spite of them and of the 
 general prejudices of tlie people, he deteiinined to 
 organise an army according to European tactics. 
 He staked his throne and his head upon the issue ; 
 and it was not until he had been pushed to the 
 desperate expedient of unfurling the sacred stan- 
 dard of the Prophet, parading it through the 
 streets of Constantinople, and calling upon all 
 good Mussulmans to rally round it ; in short, it 
 was not until the dead bodies of thirty thousand 
 janisaries were floating down the Bosphorus, that 
 he found himself the master in his own dominions. 
 Since that time, either because he is fond of new 
 things, or because he really sees farther than those 
 around him, he is constantly endeavouring to in- 
 troduce European improvements. For this pur- 
 pose he invites talent, particularly mechanical and 
 military, from every country, and has now around 
 him Europeans among his most prominent men, 
 and directpg nearly ail his public works. 
 
 The Turks are a sufficiently intelligent people, 
 and cannot help feeling the superiority of strangers. 
 Probably the immediate effect may be to make 
 them prone rather to catch the faults and vices 
 than the vu-tues of Europeans ; but afterward 
 better things will come ; they will fall into our 
 better ways ; and perhaps, though that is almost 
 more than we dare hope for, they will embrace a 
 better religion. 
 
 But, however this may be, or whatever may be 
 the cause, all ye who would see the Turk of Mo- 
 hammed ; the Turk who swept the plains of Asia, 
 who leaned upon his bloody sword before the walls 
 of Vienna, and threatened the destruction of Christ- 
 endom in Europe ; the Turk of the turban, and 
 the pipe, and the seraglio, come quickly, for he is 
 becoming another man. A little longer, and the 
 great characteristic distinctions will be broken 
 down ; the long pipe, the handsome pipe-bearer, 
 »nd the amber mouthpiece, are gone, and oh, deatli 
 to all that is beautiful in Eastern romance ! the 
 walls of the seraglio are prostrated, the doors of 
 the harem thrown open, the black eunuch and the 
 veiled woman are no more seen ; while the honest 
 Turk trudges home from a quiet tea-party stripped 
 of his retinue of fair ones, with his one and only 
 wife tucked under his arm, his head drooping be- 
 tween his shoulders, taking a lecture from his 
 better half for an involuntary sigh to the good old 
 days that are gone. And oh you who turn up your 
 aristocratic noses at such parvenus as Mohammed 
 and the Turks ; who would go back to those dis- 
 tant ages which time covers with its dim and 
 twilight glories, 
 
 " When the world was fresh and young. 
 And the great deluge still had left it green ;" 
 you who come piping-hot from college, your brains 
 teeming with recollections of the heroic ages ; who 
 would climb Mount Ida, to sit in council with the 
 gods, come quickly, also, for all things are chang- 
 mg. A steam-boat — shades of Hector, Ajax, and 
 Agamennon, forgive the sins of the day !— an 
 Austrian steam-boat is now splashing the island- 
 studded iEgean, and paddling the classic waters 
 of the Hellespont. Oh ye princes and heroes who 
 armed for the Trojan war, and covered these 
 waters with your thousand ships, with what, pious 
 horror mu.st you look down from your blessed 
 abodes upon the impious modern monster of the 
 deep, which strips the tall mast of its flowing 
 
 . 
 
 canvas, renders unnecessary the propitiation of 
 the gods, and flounders on its way in spite of 
 wind and weather ! 
 
 A new and unaccountable respect for the classics 
 almost made me scorn the new-fangled convey- 
 ance, though much to the comfort of wayfaring 
 men ; but sundry recollections of Greek caiques, 
 and also an apprehension that there might be 
 those yet living who had heard me in early days 
 speak anything but respectfully of Homer, sug- 
 gested to me that one man could not stem the 
 current of the times, and that it was better for a 
 humble individual like myself to float with the 
 tide. This idea, too, of currents and tides made 
 me think better of Prince Metternich and his 
 steam-boat ; and smothering, as well as I could, 
 ray sense of shame, I sneaked on board the Maria 
 Dorothea for a race to Constantinople. Join me, 
 now, in this race ; and if your heart does not 
 break at going by at the rate of eight or ten miles 
 an hour, I will whip you over a piece of the most 
 classic ground consecrated in history, mythology, 
 or poetry, and in less time than even the swift- 
 footed Achilles could have travelled it. At eleven 
 o'clock on a bright sunny day the Maria Dorothea 
 turned her back upon the city and the beautiful 
 bay of Smyrna ; in about two hours passed the 
 harbour of Vourla, then used as a quarantine 
 station, the yellow plague flag floating in the city 
 and among the shipping ; and toward dark, turn- 
 ing the point of the gulf, came upon my old ac- 
 quaintance Foggi, the little harbour into wliich I 
 had been twice driven by adverse winds. My 
 Greek friend happened to be on board, and in the 
 honesty of his heart, congratulated me upon being 
 this time independent of the elements, without 
 seeming to care a fig whether he profaned the me- 
 mory of his ancestors in travelling by so unclas- 
 sical a conveyance. If he takes it so coolly, 
 thought I, what is it to me I they are his relations, 
 not mine. In the evening we were moving close 
 to the island of Mitylene, the ancient Lesbos, the 
 counti'y of Sappho, Alcueus, and Terpander, famed 
 for the excellence of its wine and the beauty of its 
 women, and pre-eminently distinguished for dissi- 
 pation and debauchery, the fatal plague flag now 
 floating mournfully over its walls, marking it as 
 the abode of pestilence and death. 
 
 Early in the morning I found myself opposite 
 the promontory of Lectum, now Cape Baba, sepa- 
 rating the ancient Troas from .^olia ; a little to 
 the right, but hardly visible, were the ruins of 
 Assos, where the apostles stopped to take in Paul : 
 a little farther the ruins of Alexandria Troas, one 
 of the many cities founded by Alexander during 
 his conquest in Asia; to the left, at some dis- 
 tance in the sea, is the island of Lemnos, in the 
 songs of the poets overshadowed by the lofty 
 Olympus, the island tljat received Vulcan aftei 
 he was kicked out of heaven by Jupiter. A little 
 farther, nearer the land, is the island of Tenedos, 
 the ancient Leucophrys, where ParLi first landed 
 after carrying ofi' Helen, and behind which the 
 Greeks withdrew their fleet when they pretended 
 to have abandoned the siege of Troy. Still far- 
 ther on the mainland, is the promontory of Sigseum, 
 where the Scamander empties into the sea, and 
 near which were fought the principal of Homer'a 
 battles. A little farther — but hold, stop the en- 
 gine ' If there be a spot of ground on earth iu 
 N 
 
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 ■vhieh the historical, and the poetical, and the 
 fabulous, are so beautifully blended together that 
 we would not separate them even to discover the 
 truth, it is before us now. Extending for a great 
 ilistance along the shore, and back as far as the 
 eye can reach, under the purest sky that ever 
 Dvershadowed the earth, lies a rich and beautiful 
 plain, and it iis the plain of Troy, the battle-ground 
 of heroes. Oh field of glory and of blood, little 
 does he know, that surly Turk who is now lazily 
 following his plougli over thy surface, that every 
 blade of thy grass could tell of heroic deeds, tlie 
 shock of armies, the meeting of war-chariots, the 
 crashing of armour, the swift flight, the hot pur- 
 suit, the shouts of victors, and the groans of the 
 dying. Beyond it, towering to the heavens, is a 
 lofty mountain, and it is Mount Ida, on whose top 
 Paris adjudged the golden apple to the goddess of 
 beauty, and paved the way for those calamities 
 which brought on the ten years' siege, and laid in 
 ruins the ancient city of Priam. Two small streams 
 tailing their rise from the mountain of the gods, 
 join each other in the middle of the plain ; Sca- 
 inander and Simois, whose waters once washed 
 the walls of the ancient city of Dardanus ; and 
 that small, confused, and shapeless mass of ruins, 
 tbat beautiful sky and the songs of Homer, are all 
 that remain to tell us that ** Troy was." Close 
 to the sea, and rising like mountains above the 
 plain, are two immense mounds of earth ; they 
 are the tombs of Ajax and Achilles. Shades of 
 departed heroes, fain would we stop and pay the 
 tribute which we justly owe, but we are hurried 
 past by an engine of a hundred-horse power. 
 
 Onward, still onward ! We have reached the 
 ancient Hellespont, the Dardanelles of the Turks, 
 famed as the narrow water that divides Europe 
 from Asia, for the beauties that adorn its banks, 
 and for its great Turkish fortifications. Three 
 miles wide at the mouth, it becomes gradually 
 narrower, until, in the narrowest part, the natives 
 of Europe and Asia can talk together from the 
 opposite sides. For sixty miles (its whole length) 
 it presents a continued succession of new beauties, 
 and in the hands of Europeans, particularly En- 
 ;;lish, improved as country-seats, would make one 
 iif the loveliest countries in the world. I had just 
 time to reflect that it was melancholy, and seemed 
 inexplicable, that this and other of the fairest por- 
 tions of the earth should be in the hands of the 
 Turks, who neither improve it themselves nor 
 allow others to do so. At three o'clock we ar- 
 rived at the Dardanelles, a little Turkish town in 
 the narrowest and most beautiful part of the 
 straits ; a strong fort with enormous cannon stands 
 frowning on each side. These are the terrible 
 fortifications of Mohammed II., the keys of Con- 
 stantinople. The guns are enormous ; of one in 
 particular, the muzzle is two feet three inches in 
 diameter ; but, with Turkish ingenuity, they are 
 80 placed as to be discharged when a ship is di- 
 rectly opposite. If the ship is not disabled by the 
 first fire, and does not choose to go back and take 
 another, she is safe. At every moment a new 
 picture presents itself ; a new fort, a new villa, or 
 the ruins of an ancient city. A naked point on 
 the European side, so ugly compared with all 
 around it as to attract particular attention, pro- 
 jects into the strait, and here are the ruins of 
 Sestos ; here Xerxes bnilt his bridge of boats to 
 
 carry over his millions to the conquest of Greece • 
 and here, when he returned with the wreck of hi« 
 army, defeated and disgraced, found his bridge 
 desti'oyed by a tempest, and, in his rage, ordered 
 the chains to be thrown into the sea and the 
 waves to be lashed with rods. From this point 
 too, Leander swam the Hellespont for love of 
 Hero, and Lord Byron and Mr. Ekenhead for fun. 
 Nearly opposite, close to a Turkish fort, are the 
 ruins of Abydos. Here Xerxes, and Leander, and 
 Lord Byron, and Mr. Ekenhead, landed. 
 
 Our voyage is drawing to a close. At Gallipoli, 
 a large Turkish town handsomely situated at the 
 mouth of the Dardanelles, we took on board the 
 Turkish governor, with his pipe-bearer and train 
 of attendants, escorted by thirty or forty boats, 
 containing three or four hundred people, his 
 mightiness taking a deck passage. Toward even- 
 ing we were entering the Sea of Marmora, the 
 ancient Propontis, like one of our small lakes, 
 and I again went to sleep lulled by the music of a 
 high-pressure engine. Kt daylight we were ap- 
 proaching Constantinople ; twelve miles this side, 
 on the bank of the Sea of Marmora, is the village 
 of St. Stephano, the residence of Commodore 
 Porter. Here the domes and minarets of the an- 
 cient city, with their golden points and glittering 
 crescents, began to appear in sight. High above 
 the rest towered the mosque of Sultan Achmet 
 and the beautiful dome of St. Sophia, the ancient 
 Christian church, but now, for nearly four hun- 
 dred years, closed against the Christians' feet. 
 We approach the walls and pass a range of gloomy 
 turrets ; there are the Seven Towers, prisons, 
 portals of the grave, whose mysteries few live 
 to publish ; the bowstring and the sea reveal no 
 secrets. That palace, with its blinded windows 
 and its superb garden, surrounded by a triple 
 range of wails, is the far-famed Seraglio ; there 
 beauty lingers in a splendid cage, and, lolling on 
 her rich divan, sighs for the humblest lot and 
 freedom. In front, that narrow water, a thousand 
 caiques shooting through it like arrows, and its 
 beautiful banks covered with high palaces and 
 gardens in the Oriental style, is the Thracian 
 Bosphorus. We float around the walls of the 
 seraglio, enter the Golden Horn, and before us, 
 with its thousand mpsques and its myriad of mi- 
 narets, their golden points glittering in the sun, is 
 the Roman city of Constantinople, the Thracian 
 Byzantium, the Stamboul of the Turks ; the city 
 which, more than all othei-s, excites the imagina.' 
 tion and interests the feelings ; once dividing with 
 Rome the empire of the world ; built by a Chris- 
 tian emperor, and consecrated as a Christian city, 
 a " burning and a shining light'' in a season ot 
 universal darkness, all at once lost to the civilised 
 world ; falling into the hands of a strange and 
 fanatic people, the gloomy followers of a success- 
 ful soldier ; a city which, for nearly four centuries, 
 has sat with its gates closed in sullen distrustand 
 haughty defiance of strangers ; which once sect 
 forth large and terrible armies, burning, slaying; 
 and destroying, shaking the hearts of princes and 
 people, now lying like a fallen giant, huge, un- 
 wieldy, and helpless, ready to fall into the hands 
 of the first invader, and dragging out a preca- 
 rious and ignoble existence, but by the mercy or 
 policy of the great Christian powers. The morn- 
 ing sun, now striking upon its domes and rama- 
 
IN GRICECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 187 
 
 rets, covers it, as it were, with burnished gold ; a 
 beautiful verdure surrounds it, and pure waters 
 wasli it on every side. Can this beautiful city, 
 rich with the choicest gifts of heaven, be pre- 
 eminently the abode of pestilence and death i 
 where a man carries about with him the seeds of 
 disease to all whom he holds dear ! if he extend 
 the hand of welcome to » friend, if he embrace 
 his child or rub against a stranger, the friend, and 
 the ehild,and the stranger, follow him to the grave ? 
 where, year after year, the angel of death stalks 
 through the streets, and thousands and tens of 
 thousands look him calmly in the face, and mur- 
 murmg " Allah, Allah, God is merciful," with a 
 fatal trust in the Prophet, lie down and die ? We 
 -enter the city, and these questions are quickly 
 answered. A lazy, lounging, and filthy popula- 
 tion ; beggars basking in the sun, and dogs licking 
 their sores ; streets never cleaned but by the 
 winds and rains ; immense burying-grounds all 
 over the city ; tombstones at the corners of the 
 streets ; graves gaping ready to throw out their 
 half-buried dead, the whole approaching to one 
 vast charnel-house, dispel all illusions and remove 
 all doubts, and we are ready to ask ourselves if it 
 be possible that, in such a place, health can ever 
 •dwell. We wonder that it should ever, for the 
 briefest moment, be free from that dreadful 
 scourge which comes with every summer's sun 
 and strews its streets with dead. — J. L. S. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Mr. Churchill — Commodore Porter. — Castle of the Seven 
 Towers. — ^The Sultan's Naval Architect.— Laimch of tin- 
 Great Ship. — Sultan Mahmoud. — Jubilate. — A JVational 
 ■Grievance. — Visit to a Mosque. — The liurial-grounds. 
 
 Theue is p, good chance for an enterprising 
 ■Connecticut man to set up an hotel in Constanti- 
 nople. The reader will see that I have travelled 
 with my eyes open, and I trust this shrewd ob- 
 servation on entering the city of the Coesars will 
 be considered characteristic and American. Paul 
 was at home in Pera, and conducted us to the 
 Hotel d' Italia, which was so full that we could not 
 get admission, and so vile a place that we were 
 not sorry for it. We then went to Madame 
 ■Josephine's, a sort of private boarding-house, but 
 excellent of its kind. We found there a collection 
 •of travellers, English, French, German, and Rus- 
 ■«ian, and the dinner was particularly social ; but 
 Dr. N. was so disgusted with the clatter of foreign 
 tongues, that he left the table with the first course, 
 and swore he would not stay there another day. 
 We tried to persuade him. I reminded him that 
 there was an Englishman among them, but this 
 only made him worse ; he hated an Englishman, 
 and wondered how I, as an American, could talk 
 with one as I had with him. In short, he was re- 
 solved, and had Paul running about every street 
 in Pera looking for rooms. Notwithstanding his 
 ■impracticabilities as a traveller, I liked the doctor 
 and determined to follow him, and before breakfast 
 ^e next morning we were installed in a suite of 
 rooms in the third story of a house opposite the 
 old palace of the British ambassador. 
 
 For two or three days I was hors de combat, 
 and put myself under the hands of Dr. Zohrab, 
 
 an Armenian, educated at Edinburgh, whom I 
 cordially recommend both for his kindness and 
 medical skill. On going out, one of my first visits 
 was to my banker, Mr. Churchill, a gentleman 
 whose name has since rung throughout Europe, 
 and who at one time seemed likely to be the cause 
 of plunging the whole civilised world into a war. 
 He was then living at Sedikuey, on the site of the 
 ancient Chalcedon, in Asia ; and I have seldom 
 been more shocked than by reading in a news- 
 paper, while in the lazaretto at Malta, that, having 
 accidentally shot a Turkish boy with a fowling- 
 piece, he had been seized by the Turks, and in 
 defiance of treaties, ba<!tinadoed till he was almost 
 dead. I had seen the infliction of that horrible 
 punishment ; and, besides the physical pain, there 
 was a sense of the indignity that roused every 
 feeling. I could well imagine the ferocious spirit 
 with which the Turks would stand around and see 
 a Christian scourged. The civilised world owes a 
 deep debt of gratitude to the English government 
 for the uncompromising stand taken in this matter 
 with the sultan, and the firmness with which it 
 insisted on, and obtained, the most ample redress 
 for Mr. Churchill, and atonement for the insult 
 offered to all Christendom in his person. 
 
 My companions and myself had received several 
 invitations from Commodore Porter, and, accom- 
 panied by Mr. Dwight, one of our American mis- 
 sionaries, to whom I am under particular obliga- 
 tions for his kindness, early in the morning we 
 took a caique with three athletic Turks, and, after 
 a beautiful row, part of it from the seraglio point 
 to the Seven Towers, a distance of five niiles, 
 being close under the walls of the city, in two 
 hnnrs reached the commodore's residence at St. 
 Stephano, twelve miles from Constantinople, on 
 the borders of the Sea of Marmora. The situation 
 is beautiful, abounding in fruit-trees, among which 
 are some fig-trees of the largest size ; and the 
 commodore was then engaged in building a large 
 addition to his house. It will be remembered 
 that Commodore Porter was the first envoy ever 
 sent by the United States' government to the 
 Sublime Porte. He had formerly lived at Bu- 
 yukdere, on the Bosphorus, with the other mem- 
 bers of the diplomatic corps ; but his salary as 
 charge being inadequate to sustain a becoming 
 style, he had withdrawn to this place. I had 
 never seen Commodore Porter before. I after- 
 ward passed a month with him in the lazaretto at 
 Malta, and 1 trust he will not consider me pre- 
 suming when I say that our acquaintance ripened 
 into friendship. He is entirely different from the 
 idea I had formed of him ; small, dark, weather- 
 beaten, much broken in health, and remarkably 
 mild and quiet in his manners. His eye is his 
 best feature, though even that does not indicate 
 the desperate hardihood of character which he 
 has exhibited on so many occasions. Perhaps I 
 ought not to say so, but he seemed ill at ease in 
 his position, and I could not but think that he 
 ought still to be standing in the front rank of that 
 service he so highly honoured. He spoke with 
 great bitterness of the Foxardo affair, and gave 
 me an account of an interesting interview between 
 General Jackson and himself on his recall from 
 South America. General Jackson wished him to 
 resume his rank in the navy, but he answered that 
 he would never accept service with men who had 
 
le 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 suspended him for doing what, they said in their 
 sentL^uce of condemnation, was done " to sustain 
 the honour of the American flag." 
 
 At the primitive hour of one we sat down to a 
 regular family dinner. We were all Americans. 
 The commodore's sister, who was living with him, 
 presided, and we looked out on the Sea of Mar- 
 mora and talked of home. I cannot describe the 
 satisfaction of these meetings of Americans so far 
 from their own country. I have often experienced 
 it most powerfully in the hou.ses of the missionaries 
 in the East. Besides having, in many instances, 
 thc^ same acquaintances, we had all the same habits 
 and ways of thinking ; their articles of furniture 
 were familiar to mo, and there was scarcely a 
 house in which I did not find an article unknown 
 except among Americans, a Boston rocking-chair. 
 
 We talked over the subject of our difficulties 
 with France, then under discussion in the Cham- 
 ber of Deputies, and I remember that Commodore 
 Porter was strong in the opinion that the bill pay- 
 ing the debt would pass. Before rising from table, 
 the commodore's janisary came down from Con- 
 .stantinople, with papers and letters just arrived 
 by the courier from Paris. He told me that I 
 should have the honour of breaking the seals, and 
 I took out the paper so well known all over 
 Europe, " Galignani's Messengei-," and had the 
 satisfaction of reading aloud, m confirmation of 
 the commodore's opinion, that the bill for paying 
 the American claims had passed the Chamber of 
 Deputies by a large majority. 
 
 About four o'clock we embarked in our caique, 
 to return to Constantinople. In an hour Mr. D. 
 and T landed at the foot of the Seven Towers, 
 and few things in this ancient city interested me 
 more than my walk around its walls. We fol- 
 lowed them the whole extent on the land side, 
 from the Sea of Marmoi-a to the Golden Horn. 
 They consist of a triple range, with five gates, the 
 principal of which is the Cannon Gate, through 
 which Mohammed II. made his triumphal entry 
 into the Christian city. They have not been re- 
 paired since the city fell into the hands of the 
 Turlis, and are the same walls which procured 
 for it the proud name of the " well-defended 
 city ;" to a great extent, they are the same walls 
 which the first Constantino built and the last 
 Constantine died in defending. Time has laid his 
 ruining hand upon them, and they are everywhere 
 weak and decaying, and would fall at once before 
 the thunder of modern war. The moat and fosse 
 have alike lost their warlike character, and bloom 
 and blossom with the vine and fig-tree Beyond, 
 hardly less interesting than the venerable walls, 
 and extending as far as the eye can r*'ach, is one 
 continued burying-ground, with thonsands and 
 tens of thousands of turbaned headstones, shaded 
 by thick groves of the mourning cyprew. Opposite 
 the Damascus Gate is an elevated enclosure, dis- 
 connected from all around, containing five head- 
 stones in a row, over the bodies of AU Pacha, the 
 rebel chief of Yanina, and his four sons. The 
 fatal mark of death by the bowstring is conspicuous 
 en the tombs, as a warning to rebels that they 
 cannot esciipe the sure vengeance of the Porte. 
 It was toward the sunset of a beautiful evening, 
 and all Stamboul was out among the tombs. At 
 dark we reached the Golden Horn, crossed over 
 in a caique, and in a few miuutes were in Pera. 
 
 The next day I took a caique at Tophana, and 
 went up to the ship-yards at the head of th« 
 Golden Horn to visit Mr. Rhodes, to whom I haa 
 a letter from a friend in Smyrna. Mr. Rhodes is 
 a native of Long Island, but from his boyhood a 
 resident of this city, and I take great pleasure in 
 saying that he is an honour to our state and 
 country. The reader will remember that, some 
 years ago, Mr. Eckford, one of our most prominent 
 citizens, under a pressure of public and domestic 
 calamities, left his native city. He sailed from 
 New York in a beautiful corvette, its destination 
 unlcnown, and came to anchor under the walls of 
 the seraglio in the harbour of Constantinople. The 
 sultan saw her, admired her, and bought her ; and 
 I saw her " riding like a thing of life " on the 
 waters of the Golden Horn, a model of beauty. 
 
 The fame of his skill, and the beautiful specimen 
 he carried out with him, recommended Mr. Eck- 
 ford to the sultan as a fit instrument to build up 
 the character of the Ottoman navy ; and after- 
 ward, when his full value became known, tlio 
 sultan remarked of him that America must be a 
 great nation if she could spare from her service 
 such a man. Had he lived, even in the decline of 
 life he would have made for himself a reputation 
 in that distant quarter of the globe equal to that 
 he had left behind him, and doubtless would have 
 reaped the attendant pecuniary reward. Mr. 
 Rhodes went out as Mr. Eckford's foreman, and 
 on his death the task of completing his employer's 
 work devolved on him. It could not have fallen 
 upon a better man. From a journeyman ship- 
 builder, all at once Mr. Rhodes found himself 
 brought into close relations with the seraakier 
 pacha, the reis effendi, the grand vizier, and the 
 sultan himself ; but his good sense never deserted 
 him. He was then preparing for the launch of 
 the great ship ; the longest, as he said, and he 
 knew the dimensions of every ship that floated, in 
 the world. I accompanied him over the ship and 
 through the yards, and it was with no small 
 degree of interest that I viewed a townsman, an 
 entire stranger in the country, by his skill alone 
 standing at the head of the great naval establish- 
 ment of tho sultan. He was dressed in a blue 
 roundabout jacket, without whiskers or mustache, 
 and, except that he wore the tarbouch, was 
 thorough American in his appearance and manners, 
 while his dragoman was constantly by his side, 
 communicating his orders to hundreds of mus- 
 tached Tuiks, and in the same breath he was 
 talking with me of shipbuilders in New York, and 
 people and things most familiar in our native city. 
 Mr. Rhodes knows and cares but little for things 
 that do not immediately concern him ; his whole- 
 thoughts are of his business, and in that he pos- 
 sesses an ambition and industry worthy of all 
 praist As an instance of his discretion, parti- ' 
 cularly proper in the service of that suspicious 
 and despotic government, I may mention that, 
 while standing near the ship and remarking a 
 piece of cloth stretched across her stern, I asked 
 him her name, and he told me he did not know ; 
 that it was painted on her stern, and his drago- 
 man knew, but he had never looked under, that 
 he might not be able to answer when asked. I 
 have seldom met a countryman abroad with whom. 
 I was more pleased, and at parting he put himsen 
 on a pinnacle in my estimation by telling me that, 
 
IN GKEECK, TURKEY, ItUSSlA, AND TOLANl). 
 
 if I came to the yard the next day at one, I would 
 «ee the sultan ! There was no man .living whom 
 I had a greater curiosity to see. At twelve o'clock 
 I was at the yard, but the sultan did not come. I 
 went again, and his highness had come two hours 
 before the time ; had accompanied Mr. Rhodes 
 over the ship, and left tlie yard less than five 
 minutes before my arrival ; his caique was still 
 lying at the little dock, his attendants were carry- 
 ing trays of refreshments to a shooting-ground in 
 the rear, and two black eunuchs belonging to the 
 seraglio, handsomely dressed in long black cloaks 
 of fine pelisse cloth, with gold-headed canes and 
 rings on their fingers, were still lingering about 
 the ship, their effeminate faces and musical voices 
 at once betraying their neutral character. 
 
 Tlie next was the day of the launch ; ana early 
 in the morning, in the suite of Commodore Porter, 
 I went on boai-d an old steamer provided by the 
 sultan expressly for the use of Mr. Rhodes's 
 American friends. The waters of the Golden 
 Horn were already covered ; thousands of caiques, 
 with their high sharp points, were cutting through 
 it, or Testing like gulls upon its surface ; and 
 there were ships with the still proud banner of 
 the crescent, and strangers with the flags of every 
 nation in Christendom, and sail-boats, long-boats, 
 and row-boats, ambassadors' barges, and caiques 
 -of etfendis, beys, and pachas, with red silk flags 
 streaming in the wind, while countless thousands 
 were assembled on the banks to behold the extra- 
 ordinary spectacle of an American ship, the largest 
 in the world, launched In the harbour of old Stam- 
 boul. The sultan was then living at his beautiful 
 palace at Sweet Waters, and was obliged to pass 
 by our boat ; he had made a great affair of the 
 launch ; had invited all the diplomatic corps, and, 
 through the reis effendi, particularly requested 
 the presence of Commodore Porter ; had stationed 
 his harem on the opposite side of the river ; and 
 as I saw prepared for himself near the ship a tent 
 of scarlet cloth trimmed with gold, 1 expected to 
 see him appear in all the pomp and splendour of 
 the greatest potentate on earth. I had already 
 seen enough to convince me that the days of 
 Eastern magnificence had gone by, or that the 
 gorgeous scenes which my imagination had always 
 connected with the East had never existed ; but 
 still I could not divest myself of the lingering idea 
 of the power and splendour of the sultan, c His 
 commanding style to his own subjects : " 1 com- 
 mand you, , my slave, that you bring the 
 
 head of , my slave, and lay it at my feet ;" 
 
 and then his lofty tone with foreign powers : " I, 
 who am, by the infinite grace of the great, just, 
 and all-powerful Creator, and the abundance of 
 the miracles of the chief of his prophets, emperor 
 of powerful emperors ; refuge of sovereigns ; dis- 
 tributor of crowns to the kings of the earth ; 
 keeper of the two very holy cities (Mecca and 
 Medina) ; governor of the holy city of Jerusalem ; 
 master of Europe, Asia, and Africa, conquered 
 with our victorious sword and our ten'ible lance ; 
 lord of two seas (Black and White) ; of Damascus, 
 the odour of Paradise ; of Bagdad, the seat of the 
 flalifs ; of the fortresses of Belgrade, Agra, and a 
 multitude of countries, isles, straits, people, gene- 
 rations, and of so many victorious armies who 
 repose under the shade of our Sublime Porte ; I, 
 •«n short who am the shadow of God upon earth." 
 
 I was rolling these things through my mind when 
 a murmur, " The sultan is coming," turned me to 
 the side of the boat, and one view dispelled all my 
 gorgeous fancies. There was no style, no state ; 
 a citizen king, a republican president, or a demo- 
 cratic governor, could not have made a more un- 
 pretending appearance than did this " shadow of 
 God upon earth."^ He was seated in the bottom 
 of a large caique, dressed in the military frock-coat 
 and red tarbouch, with his long black beard, the 
 only mark of a Turk about him, and he moved 
 slowly along the vacant space cleared for his 
 passage, boats with the flags of every nation, and 
 thousands of caiques falling back, and the eyes of 
 the immense multitude earnestly fixed upon him, 
 but without any shouts or acclamations ; and 
 when he landed at the little dock, and his great 
 officers bowed to the dust before him, he looked 
 the plainest, mildest, kindest man among them. 
 I had wished to see him as a wholesale murderer, 
 who had more blood upon his hands than any 
 man living ; who had slaughtered the janisaries, 
 drenched the plains of Greece, to say nothing of 
 bastinadoes, impalements, cutting off heads, and 
 tying up in sacks, which are taking place every 
 moment ; but I will not believe that Sultan Mah- 
 moud finds any pleasure in shedding blood. Dire 
 necessity, or, as he himself would say, fate, has 
 ever been driving him on. I look upon him as 
 one of the most interesting characters upon earth, 
 as the creature of circumstances, made bloody 
 and cruel by the necessities of his position. 1 look 
 at his past life and at that which is yet in store 
 for him, through all the stormy scenes he is to 
 pass until he completes liis unhappy destiny, the 
 last of a powerful and once-dreaded race, bearded 
 by those who once croviched at the ibotstool of his 
 ancestors, goaded by reJ^'liioua vassals, conscious 
 that lie is going a downward road, and yet unable 
 t" resist the impulse tliat drives him on. I^ike the 
 strong man encompasstd b/ a net, he finds no 
 avenue of escape, and cannot break through it. 
 
 The auraskier pacha and < llier principal officers 
 escorted bun to ids tent, and now all the interest 
 which I had taken in the aultan was transferred 
 to Mr. Rhodes. He had j;rc-at anxiety about tha 
 launch, and many difiicuities to contend with ; 
 first, in the Turks.' jealousy of a stranger, which 
 obliged him to keep constantly on the watch lest 
 some of his ropes should be tut or fastenings 
 knocked away ; and he had another Turkish pre- 
 judice to struggle against: the day had been fixed 
 twice before, biit the astronomers found an unfor- 
 tunate conjunction of the stars, and it was post- 
 poned, and even then the stars were unpropitious ; 
 but Mr. Rhodes had insisted that the work had 
 gone so far that it could not be stopped. And, 
 besides these, he had another great difficulty in 
 his ignorance of their language. With more than 
 a thousand men under him, all his orders had to 
 pass through interpreters, and often, too, the most 
 prompt action was necessary, and the least mistake 
 might prove fatirl. Fortunately, he was protected 
 from treachery by the kindness of Jlr. Churchill 
 and Dr. Zohrab, one of whom stood on the bow 
 end the other in the stern of the ship, and through 
 whom every order was transmitted in Turkisii. 
 Probably none there felt the same interest that 
 we did) for the flaos of the barbarian and every 
 nation in Chiistendom were waving around us, 
 
190 
 
 INCIDENTt, OF TRAVEL 
 
 and at that distance ifrom home, the enterprise of 
 a single citizen enlisted the warmest feelings of 
 every American. We watched the ship with as 
 keen an interest as if our own honour and success 
 in life depended upon her movements. For a 
 long time she remained perfectly quiet. At length 
 she moved, slowly and almost imperceptibly ; and 
 then, as if conscious that the eyes of an innnense 
 multitude were on her, and that the honour of a 
 distant nation was in some measure at stake, she 
 marched proudly to the water, plunged in with a 
 force that almost buried her, and, rising like a 
 huge leviathan, parted the foaming waves with 
 her bow, and rode triumphantly upon them. Even 
 Mussulman indifference was disturbed ; all petty 
 jealousies were hushed ; the whole immense mass 
 was roused into admiration ; loud and long-con- 
 tinued shouts of applause rose with one accord 
 from Tux-ks and Christians, and the sultan was so 
 transported that he jumped up and clapped his 
 hands like a school-boy. 
 
 Mr. Rhodes's triumph was complete ; the sultan 
 called him to liLs tent^ and with his own hands 
 fixed on the lapel of his coat a gold medal set in 
 diamonds, representing the launching of a ship. 
 Mr. Rhodes has attained among strangers the 
 mark of every honourable man's ambition, the 
 head of his profession. He has put upon the 
 water what Commodore Porter calls the finest 
 ship that ever floated, and has a right to be proud 
 of his position and prospects under " the shade of 
 the Sublime Porte." The sultan wishes to confer 
 upon him the title of chief naval constructor, and 
 to furnish him with a house and a caique with 
 four oars. In compliment to his highness, who 
 detests a hat, Mr. Rhodes wears the tarbouch ; but 
 he declines all offices and honours, and any thing 
 that may tend to fix him as a Turlvish subject, 
 and looks to return and enjoy in his own counti*y 
 and among his own people the fruits of his 
 honourable labours. If the good wishes of a friend 
 can avail him, he will soon return to our city rich 
 with the profits of untiring industry, and an 
 honourable testimony to his countrymen of the 
 success of American skill and enterprise abroad. 
 
 To go back a moment. All day the great ship 
 lay ill the middle of the Golden Horn, while per- 
 haps more than a hundred thousand Turks shot 
 round her in their little caiques, looking up from 
 the surface of the water to her lofty deck ; and in 
 Pera, wherever I went, perhaps because I was an 
 American, the only thing I heard of was the 
 American ship. Proud of the admiration excited 
 so far from home by this noble specimen of the 
 skill of an American citizen, I unburden myself of 
 a long-smothered subject of complaint against my 
 country. I cry out with a loud voice for reform^ 
 not in the hackneyed sense of petty politicians, 
 but by a liberal and enlarged expenditure of public 
 money ; by increasing the outfits and salaries of 
 our foreign ambassadors and ministers We 
 claim to be rich, free from debt, and abi.ndant 
 in resources, and yet every Amgrican abroad is 
 struck with a feeling of mortification at the in- 
 ability of his representative to take that position 
 in social life i/. which the character of his country 
 entitles him. We may talk of republican sim- 
 plicity as we will, but there are certain usages of 
 society and certain appendages of rank which, 
 though they may he unmeaning and worthless, are 
 
 sanctioned, if not by the wisdom, at least by the- 
 practice of all civilised countries. We have com- 
 mitted a fatal error since the time when Franklui 
 appeared at the court of France in a plain citizen'^ 
 dress ; everywhere our representative conforms to 
 the etiquette of the court to which he is accredited 
 and it is too late to go back and begin anew ; and 
 now, unless our representative is rich and willing- 
 to expend his own fortune for the honour of the 
 nation, he is obliged to withdraw from the circles- 
 and position in which he has a right and ought to 
 move, or to move in them on an inferior footing,. 
 under an acknowledgment of inability to appear 
 as an equal. 
 
 And again : our whole consuUr system is radi- 
 cally wrong, disreputable, and injurious to our 
 character and interests. While other nations 
 consider the support of their consuls a part of the 
 expenses of their government, we suffer ourselves- 
 to be represented by merchants, whose pecuniary 
 interests are mixed up with all the local and poli- 
 tical questions that affect the place, and who are 
 under a strong inducement to make their office 
 subservient to their commercial relations. I 
 make no imputations against any of them. I couliB 
 not if I would, for I do not know an Amerieait 
 merchant holding the office who is not a respect- 
 able man ; but the representative of our country 
 ought to be the representative of our country only ^ 
 removed from any distracting or conflicting inter- 
 ests, standing like a watchman to protect the 
 honour of his nation and the rights of her citizens. 
 And more than this, all over the Mediterraneal^ 
 there are ports where commerce presents no iu- 
 ducements to the American merchant, and there- 
 the office falls into the hands of the natives ; aud 
 at this day the American arms are blazoned on 
 the doors, and the American flag is waving over 
 the houses, of Greeks, Italians, Jews, and Arabs,, 
 and all the mongrel population of that inland sea j, 
 and in the ports under the dominion of Turkey 
 particularly, the office is coveted as a means of 
 protecting the holder against the liabilities to his 
 own government, and of revenue by selling that 
 protection to others. "^ will not mention them by 
 name, for I bear them no ill-will personally, an# 
 I have received kindness from most of the pettj 
 vagabonds who live under the folds of the Ameri- 
 can flag ; but the consuls at Gendoa and Algiers 
 are a disgrace to the American name. Congress 
 has lately turned its attention to this subject, and 
 will, before long, I hope, effect a complete change 
 in the character of our consular department, amt 
 give it the respectability which it wants ; the onl> 
 remedy is by following the example of other 
 nations, in fixing salaries to the office, and forbid 
 ding the holders to engage in trade. Besides the 
 leading inducements to this change, thA'e is a 
 secondary consideration, which, in my eyes, is nov 
 without its value, in that it would furnish a valu- 
 able school of instruction for our young men- 
 The offices would be sought by such. A thousan'* 
 or fifteen hundred dollars a year would maintain 
 them respectably in most of the ports of the 
 Mediterranean, and young men resident in those 
 places, living upon salai'ies, and not obliged ti- 
 engage in commerce, would employ their leisure 
 ] hours in acquu'ing the language of the country? 
 j in communicating with the interior, and among 
 I them would return upon us an accumulation o' 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 191 
 
 knowledge far more than repaying us for all the 
 expense of supporting them abroad. 
 
 Doubtless the reader expects other things in 
 Constantinople ; but all thmgs are changing. The 
 day has gone by when a Christian could not cross 
 the threshold of a mosque and live. Even the 
 sacred mosque of St. Sophia, the ancient Christian 
 church, so long closed against the Christians' feet, 
 row, upon great occasions, again opens its doors 
 to the descendants of its Christian builders. One 
 of these great occasions happened while I was 
 there. The sultan gave a, firman to the French 
 ambassador, under which all the European resi- 
 dents and travellers visited it. Unfortunately, I 
 was unwell, and could not go out that day, and 
 was obliged afterwards to content myself with 
 walking around its walls, with uplifted eyes and a 
 heavy heart, admiring the glittering crescent and 
 thinking of the prostrate cross. 
 
 But no ti-aveller can leave Constantinople with- 
 out having seen the interior of a mosque ; and 
 accordingly under the guidance of Mustapha, the 
 janisary of the British consul, I visited the mosque 
 of Sultan Suliman, next in point of beauty to that 
 of St. Sophia, though far inferior in historical in- 
 terest. At an early hour we crossed the Golden 
 Horn to old Stamboul ; threaded our way through 
 its narrow and intricate streets to an eminence 
 near the seraskier pacha's tower ; entered by a 
 fine gateway into a large courtyard, more than a 
 thousand feet square, handsomely paved and orna- 
 mented with noble trees, and enclosed by a high 
 wall ; passed a marble fountain of clear and abun- 
 dant water, where, one after another, the faithful 
 stopped to make their ablutions ; entered a large 
 colonnade, consisting of granite and marble pillars 
 of every form and style, the plunder of ancient 
 temples, worked in without much regard to archi- 
 tectural fitness, yet, on the whole, producing a 
 fine effect ; pulled off our shoes at the door, and, 
 with naked feet and noiseless step, crossed the 
 sacred threshold of the mosque. Silently we 
 moved among the kneeling figures of the faithful 
 scattered about in different parts of the mosque 
 and engaged in prayer ; paused for a moment under 
 the beautiful dome sustained by four columns from 
 the Temple of Diana at Ephesus ; leaned against 
 a marble pillar which may have supported, two 
 thousand years ago, the praying figure of a wor- 
 shipper of the great goddess ; gazed at the thou- 
 sand small lamps suspended from the lofty ceiling, 
 each by a sepai-ate cord, and with a devout feeling 
 left the mosque. 
 
 In the rear, almost concealed from view by a 
 thick grove of trees, shrubs, and flowers, is a 
 circular building about forty feet in diameter, 
 containing the tomb of Suliman, the founder of 
 the mosque, his brother, his favourite wife Roxala, 
 and two other wives. The monuments are in the 
 form of sarcophagi, with pyramidal tops, covered 
 with rich Cachmere shawls, having each at the 
 head a, large white turban, and enclosed by a 
 railing covered with mother-o'-pearl. The great 
 beauty of the sepulchral chamber is its dome, 
 which is highly ornamented, and sparkles with 
 brilliants. In one comer is a plan of Mecca, the 
 holy temple, and tomb of the Prophet. 
 
 In the afternoon I went for the last time to the 
 Ai-menian burying-gi'ound. In the East the 
 graveyards aie the general promenades, the j)laces 
 
 of rendezvous, and the lounging-places ; and in 
 Constantinople the Armenian burying-ground is 
 the most beautiful, and the favourite. Situated 
 in the suburbs of Pera, overlooking the Bosphorus, 
 shaded by noble palm-trees, almost regularly to- 
 war(J Evening I found myself sitting upon the 
 same tombstone, looking upon the silvery water 
 at my feet, studded with palaces, flashing and 
 glittering with caiques from the golden palace of 
 the sultan to the seraglio point, and then turned 
 to the animated groups thronging the burying- 
 ground ; the Armenian in his flowing robes, the 
 dashing Greek, the stiff and out-of-place-looking 
 Frank ; Turks in their gay and bright costume, 
 glittering arms, and solemn beards, enjoying the 
 superlative of existence in dozing over their pipe ; 
 and women in long white veils, apart under some 
 delightful shade, in little picnic parties, eating 
 ices and confectionary. Here and there, toward 
 the outskirts, was the araba, the only wheeled 
 carriage known among the Turks, with a long low 
 body, highly carved and gilded, drawn by oxen 
 fancifully trimmed with ribands, and filled with 
 soft cushions, on which the Turkish and Arme- 
 nian ladies almost buried themselves. Instead oi 
 the cypress, the burying-ground is shaded by 
 noble plane-trees ; and the tomb-stones, instead oi 
 being upright, are all flat, having at the head a 
 couple of little niches scooped out to hold water, 
 with the beautiful idea to induce birds to come 
 there and drink and sing among the trees. Their 
 tombstones, too, have another mark, which, in a 
 country where men are apt to forget who their 
 fathers were, would exclude them even from that 
 place where all mortal distinctions are laid low, 
 viz., a mai'k indicating the profession or occupa- 
 tion of the deceased ; as, a pair of shears to mark 
 the grave of a tailor ; a razor that of a barber ; 
 and on many of them was another mark indicating 
 the manner of death, the bowstring, or some other 
 mark, sho\ving that the stone covered a victim of 
 Turkish cruelty. But all these things are well 
 known ; nothing has escaped the prying eyes oi 
 curious travellers ; and I merely state, for my own 
 credit's sake, that J followed the steps of those 
 who had gone before i»ie, visited the Sweet Waters, 
 Scutary, and Belgrade, the reservoirs, aqueducts, 
 and ruins of the palace of Constantine, and saw 
 the dancing dervishes ; rowed up the Bosphorus 
 to Buyukdere, lunchea under the tree where God- 
 frey encamped with his gallant crusaders, and 
 looked out upon the Black Sea from the top oi 
 the Giant's Mountain. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Visit to the Slave-market— Horrors of Slavery.— Dcpar 
 ture from Stamboul.— The stormy Euxine. — Odessa, — Tlit 
 Lazaretto. — Russian Civility. — ^Returning Good for Evil. 
 
 The day before I left Constantinople I went, in 
 company with Dr. N. and his son, and attended 
 by Paul, to visit the slave-market ; crossing over 
 to Stamboul, we picked up a Jew in the bazara, 
 who conducted us through a perfect labyrinth oi 
 narrow streets to a quarter of the city from which 
 it would have been utterly impossible for me to 
 extricate myself alone I only know that it was 
 situated on high ground, and that we passed 
 
192 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 fJirough a gateway into a hollow square of about 
 a hundred and fifty or two hundred feet on each 
 side. It was with no small degree of emotion 
 that I entered this celebrated place, where so 
 many Christian liearts have trembled ; and, before 
 crossing the threshold, I ran over in my mind all 
 the romantic stories and all the horrible realities 
 that I could remember connected with its history : 
 the tears of beauty, the pangs of brave men, and 
 so down to the unsentimenta^*ii exclamation of 
 Johnson to his new friend Don Juau : 
 
 ** Yon black eunuch seems to eye us ; 
 I wish to God that somebody would buy us." 
 The bazar forms a hollow square, with little 
 chambers about fifteen feet each way around it, in 
 which the slaves belonging to the different dealers 
 are kept. A large shed or portico projects in front, 
 under which, and in front of each cliamber, is a 
 i-aised platform, with a low railing around it, 
 where the slave-merchant sits and gossips, and 
 <iozes over his coffee and pipes. I had heard so 
 little of this place, and it was so little known 
 among Europeans, taking into consideration, 
 moreover, that in a season of universal peace 
 the market must be without a supply of captives 
 gained in war, that I expected to see but a rem- 
 nant of the ancient traffic, supposing that I should 
 find but few slaves, and those only black ; but, to 
 my surprise, I found there twenty or thirty white 
 women. Bad, horrible as this traffic is under any 
 circumstances, to my habits and feelings it loses a 
 shade of its horrors when confined to blacks ; but 
 here whites and blacks were exposed together in 
 the same bazar. The women were from Circassia 
 and the regions of the Caucasus, that country so 
 renowned for beauty ; they were dressed in the 
 Turkish costume, with the white shawl wrapped 
 around the mouth and chin, and over the fore- 
 head, shading the eyes, so that it was difficult to 
 judge with certainty as to their personal appear- 
 ance. Europeans are not permitted to purchase, 
 and tlieir visits to this bazar are looked upon with 
 suspicion. If we stopped long opposite a door, it 
 was closed upon us ; but I was not easily shaken 
 off, and returned so often at udd times, that I 
 succeeded in seeing pretty distinctly all that was 
 to be seen. In general, the best slaves are not 
 exposed in the bazars, but are kept at the houses 
 of the dealers ; but there was one among them 
 not more than seventeen, with a regular Circassian 
 face, a brilliantly fair complexion, a mild and 
 clieerful expression ; and in the slave-market, 
 under the partial disguise of the Turkish shawl, 
 it required no great effort of the imagination to 
 make her decidedly beautiful. Paul stopped, 
 and with a burst of enthusiasm, the first I had 
 discovered in him, exclaimed, " Quelle beaute !"' 
 She noticed my repeatedly stopping before her 
 bazar ; and, when I was myself really disposed to 
 be sentimental, instead of drooping her head with 
 the air of a distressed heroine, to my great sur- 
 prise she laughed and nodded, and beckoned me 
 to come to her. Paul was very much struck ; 
 and repeating his warm expression of admiration 
 at her beauty, told me that she wanted me to 
 buy her. Without waiting for a reply, he went 
 off and inquired the price, which was two hun- 
 dred and fifty dollars ; and added that he could 
 easily get some Turk to let me buy her in his 
 lame, and then I could put her on board a vessel, 
 
 and can-y her where I pleased. I told him it was 
 hardly worth while at present ; and he, thinkin" 
 my objection was only to the person, ia all 
 honesty and earnestness told me he had been 
 there frequently, and never saw anything half so 
 handsome ; adding that, if I let slip this oppor- 
 tunity, I would scarcely have another as good, 
 and wound up very significantly by declaring 
 that, if he was a gentleman, he would not hesitate 
 a moment. A gentleman, in the sense in which 
 Paul understood the word, is apt to fall into 
 irregular ways in the East. Removed from the 
 restraints which operate upon men in civilised 
 countries, if he once breaks through the trammels 
 of education, he goes all lengths ; and it is said 
 to be a matter of general remark, that slaves are 
 always worse treated by Europeans than by the 
 Turks. The slave-dealers are principally jfews, 
 who buy children when young, and, if they have 
 beauty, train up the girls in such accomplishments 
 .IS may fascinate the Turks. Our guide told us 
 that, since the Greek revolution, the slave-market 
 had been comparatively deserted ; but during the 
 whole of that dreadful struggle, every day pre- 
 sented new horrors ; new captives were brought 
 in, the men raving and struggling, ,and vainly 
 swearing eternal vengeance against the Turlis, 
 and the women shrieking distractedly in the 
 agony of a separation. After the massacre at 
 Scio, in particular, hundreds of young girls, with 
 tears streaming down their cheeks, and burstuig 
 hearts, were sold to the unhallowed embraces of 
 the Turks for a few dollars a-head. We saw 
 nothing of the horrors and atrocities of this cele- 
 brated slave-market. Indeed, except prisoners of 
 war and persons captured by Turkish corsau's, the 
 condition of those who now fill the slave-market 
 is not the horrible lot that a warm imagmation 
 might suppose. They are mostly persons in a 
 semi-barbarous stite ; blacks from Sennaar and 
 Abyssinia, or whites from the regions of the 
 Caucasus, bought from their parents for a string 
 of beads or a shawl ; and, in all probabiUty, the 
 really beautiful girl whom I saw had been sold by 
 parents who could not feed or clothe her, who 
 considered themselves rid of an encumbrance, 
 and whom she left without regret ; and she, 
 having left poverty and misery behind her, looked 
 to the slave-market as the sole means of advancing 
 her fortune ; and, in becoming the favoured in- 
 mate of a harem, expected to attain a degree of 
 happiness she could never have enjoyed at home. 
 I intended to go from Constantinople to Egypt, 
 but the plague was raging there so violently that 
 it would have been fool-hardy to attempt it ; and 
 while making arrangements with a Tartar to re- 
 turn to Europe on horseback across the Balkan, 
 striking the Danube at Semlin and Belgrade, a 
 Russian government steamer was advertised for 
 Odessa ; and as this mode of travelling at that 
 moment suited my health better, I altered my 
 whole plan, and determined to leave the ruined 
 countries of the Old World for a land just emerg- 
 ing from a state of barbarism, and growing into 
 gigantic greatness. With great regret I took leave 
 of Dr. N. and his son, who sailed the same day for 
 Smyrna, and I have never seen them since. Paul 
 was the last man to whom I said farewell. At 
 the moment of starting my shirts were brought in 
 dripping wet, and Paul bestowed a malediction 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 i9 
 
 npon the Greek while he wrung them out and 
 tumbled them into my carpet bag. I afterward 
 found him at Malta, whence he accompanied me 
 on my tour in Egypt, Arabia Petrsea, and the 
 Holy Laud, by which he is, perhaps, already known 
 to some of my readers. 
 
 With my carpet-bag on the shoulders of a Turk, 
 I walked for the last time to Tophana. A hun- 
 dred caiquemen gathered around me, but I pushed 
 them all back, and kept guard over my carpet-bag, 
 looking out for one whom I had been in the habit 
 of employing ever since my arrival in Constanti- 
 nople. He soon spied me ; and when he took my 
 luggage and myself into his caique, manifested 
 that he knew that it was for the last time. Having 
 an hour to spare, I directed him to row once 
 more under the walls of the seraglio ; and still 
 loath to leave, I went on shore and walked around 
 the point until I was stopped by a Turkish bayonet. 
 The Turk growled, and his mustache curled 
 fiercely as he pointed it at me. I had been stopped 
 by Frenchmen, Italians, and by a mountaui Greek, 
 but found nothing that brings a man to such a 
 dead stand as the Turkish bayonet. 
 
 I returned to my caique, and went on board the 
 steamer. She was a Russian government vessel, 
 more classically called a pyroscaphe, a miserable 
 old thing ; and yet as much form and circumstance 
 were observed in sending her off as in fitting out 
 an exploring expedition. Consuls' and ambassa- 
 dors' boats were passing and repassing, and after 
 an enormous fuss and preparation, we started 
 under a salute of cannon, which was answered from 
 one of the sultan's frigates. We had the usual 
 scene of parting with friends, waving of handker- 
 chiefs, and so on ; and feeling a little lonely at the 
 idea of leaving a city containing a million inha- 
 bitants without a single friend to bid me Godspeed, 
 I took my place on the quarter-deck, and waved 
 my handkerchief to ray caiqueman, who, I have 
 no doubt, independent of the loss of a few piasters 
 per day, was very sorry to lose me ; for we had 
 been so long together, that, in spite of our igno- 
 rance of each other's language, we understood each 
 other perfectly. 
 
 I found on board two Englishmen whom I had 
 met at Corfu, and a third, who had joined them 
 at Smyrna, going to travel in the Crimea ; our 
 other cabin-passengers were, Mr. Luoff, a Russian 
 ofBcer, and aide-de-camp of the emperor, just 
 returned from travels in Egypt and Syria ; Mr. 
 Perseani, secretary to the Russian legation in 
 Greece ; a Greek merchant, with a Russian pro- 
 tection, on his way to the Sea of Azoff ; and a 
 French merchant of Odessa. The tub of a steam- 
 boat dashed up the Bosphorus at the rate of three 
 miles an hour ; while the classic waters, as if 
 indignant at having such a bellowing, blowing, 
 blustering monster upon their surface, seemed to 
 laugh at her unwieldy and ineffectual efforts. 
 Slowly we mounted the beautiful strait, lined on 
 the European side almost with one continued 
 range of houses, exhibiting in every beautiful 
 nook a palace of the sultau, and at Terapeia and 
 Bnyukdere the palaces of the foreign ambassa- 
 dors ; passed the Giant's Mountain, and about an 
 hour before dark were entering a new sea, the 
 dark and stormy Euxine. 
 
 Advancing, the hills became more lofty and 
 nigged, terminating on the Thraeian side in high 
 
 rooky precipices. The shores of this extremity of 
 the Bosphorus were once covered with shrines, 
 altars, and temples, monuments of the fears or 
 gratitude of mariners who were about to leave, or 
 who had escaped, the dangers of the inhospitable 
 Euxine ; and the remains of these antiquities were 
 so great that a traveller almost in our day de- 
 scribes the coast as " covered by their ruins." 
 The castles on the European and the Asiatic side 
 of 'he strait are supposed to occupy the sites 
 where stood, in ancient days, the great temples of 
 Jupiter Serapis and Jupiter Urius. The Bos- 
 phorus opens abruptly, without any enlargement 
 at its mouth, between two mountains. The part- 
 ing view of the strait, or, rather, of the coast on 
 each side, was indescribably grand, presenting a 
 stupendous wall opposed to the great bed of the 
 waters, as if torn asunder by an earthquake, leav- 
 ing a narrow rent for their escape. On each side 
 a miserable lantern on the top of a tower, hardly 
 visible at the distance of i few miles, is the only 
 light to guide the mariner at night ; and as there 
 is another opening called the false Bosphorus, the 
 entrance is difficult and dangerous, and many 
 vessels are lost here annually. 
 
 As the narrow opening closed before me, I felt 
 myself entering a new world ; I was fairly em- 
 barked upon the wide expanse of water which 
 once, according to ancient legends, mingled with 
 the Caspian, and covered the great Oriental plain 
 of Tartary, and upon which Jason, with his adven- 
 turous Argonauts, having killed the dragon and 
 carried off the golden fleece from Colchis, if those 
 same legends be true (which some doubt), sailed 
 across to the great ocean. I might and should 
 have speculated upon the great changes in the 
 face of nature, and the great deluge recorded by 
 Grecian historians and poets, which burst the 
 narrow passage of the Thraeian Bosphorus for thp 
 outlet of the mighty waters ; but who could phi- 
 losophise in a steam-boat on the Euxine ? Oh, 
 Fulton ! much as thou hast done for mechanics 
 and the useful arts, thy hand has fallen rudely 
 upon all cherished associations. We boast of thee : 
 I have myself been proud of thee as an American ; 
 but as I sat at evening on the stern of the steamer, 
 and listened to the clatter of the engine, and 
 watched the sparks rushing out of the high pipes, 
 and remembered that this was on the dark and 
 inhospitable Euxine, I wished that thy life had 
 begun after mine was ended. I trust I did his 
 memory no wrong ; but if 1 had borne him malice, 
 I could not have wished him worse than to have 
 all his dreams of the past disturbed by the clatter 
 of one of his own engines. 
 
 I turned away from storied associations to a 
 new country grown up in our own day. We 
 escaped, and, I am obliged to say, without noticing 
 them, the Cyanese, " the blue Symplegades," or, 
 " wandering islands," which, lying on the Euro- 
 pean Asiatic side, floated about, or, according to 
 Pliny, " were alive, and moved to and fro more 
 swiftly than the blast," and in passing through 
 which the good ship Argo had a narrow escape, 
 and lost the extremity of her stern. History and 
 poetry have invested this sea with extraordinary 
 and ideal terrors ! but my experience both of the 
 Mediterranean and Black Sea was unfortunate 
 for realising historical and poetical accounts. I 
 had known the beautiful Mediterranean a sea of 
 
194: 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TKAVEL 
 
 storm aud sunshine, in which the storm greatly 
 predominated. I found the stormy Euxine calm 
 as an untroubled lake ; in fact, the Black Sea is 
 in reality nothing more than a lake, not as large 
 as many of our own, receiving the waters of the 
 great rivers of the north : the Don, the Cuban, the 
 Phase, the Dnieper, and the Danube, and pouring 
 their collected streams through the nari-ow pas- 
 sage of the Bosphorus into the Mediterranean. 
 Still, if the number of shipwrecks be any evidence 
 of its character, it is indeed entitled to its ancient 
 reputation of a dangerous sea, though probably 
 these accidents proceed, in a great measure, from 
 the ignorance and unskilfulness of mariners, and 
 the want of proper charts and of suitable light- 
 houses at the opening of the Bosphorus. At all 
 events, we outblustered the winds and waves with 
 our steam-boat ; passed the Serpent isles, the 
 ancient Leuce, with a roaring that must have 
 astonished the departed heroes whose souls, 
 according to the ancient poets, were sent there to 
 enjoy perpetual paradise, and scared the aquatic 
 birds which every morning dipped their wings in 
 the sea, and sprinkled the Temple of Achilles, 
 and swept with tlieir plumage its sacred pava- 
 ment. 
 
 On the third day we m'lde the low coast of 
 Moldavia or Bessarabia, within a short distance 
 of Odessa, the great seaport of Southern Russia. 
 Here, too, there was nothing to realise precon- 
 ceived notions ; for, instead of finding a rugged 
 region of eternal snows, we were suffering under 
 an intensely hot sun when we cast anchor in the 
 harbour of Odessa. The whole line of the coast 
 is low and destitute of trees ; but Odessa is situ- 
 ated on a high bank ; and, with its beautiful 
 theatre, the exchange, the palace of the governor, 
 &c., did not look like a city which, thirty years 
 ago, consisted only of a few fishei-men's huts. 
 
 The harbour of Odessa is very much exposed 
 to the north and east winds, which often cause 
 great damage to the shipping. Many hundred 
 anchors cover the bottom, which cut the rope 
 cables ; and, the water being shallow, vessels are 
 often injured by striking on them. An Austrian 
 brig going out, having struck one, sank iu ten 
 muiutes. There are two moles, the quarantine 
 mole, in which we came to anchor, being the 
 principal. Quarantine flags were flying about the 
 harbour, the yellow indicating those undergoing 
 purification, and the red the fatal presence of the 
 plague. We were prepared to undergo a vexa- 
 tious process. At Constantinople I had heard 
 wretched accounts of the rude treatment of laza- 
 retto subjects, and the rough, barbarous manners 
 of the Russians to traveller, and we had a fore- 
 taste of the light in which we were to be regarded, 
 in the conduct of the health officer who came 
 alongside. He off'ered to take charge of any let- 
 tei-s for the town, purify them that night, and 
 deliver them in the morning ; and, according to 
 his directions, we laid them down on the deck, 
 where he took them up with a pair of long iron 
 tongs, auu putting them into an iron box, shut it 
 up and rowed off. 
 
 In the morning, having received notice that the 
 proper officers were ready to attend us, we went 
 ashore. We landed in separate boats at the 
 end of ii long pier, and, forgetting our supposed 
 pestiferous influence, were walking up toward a 
 
 crowd of men whom we saw there, wheu the'i 
 retrograde movements, their gestures, and unin- 
 telligible shouts, reminded us of our situation. 
 One of our party, in a sort of ecstaey at being o!i 
 shore, ran capering up the docks, putting to flighi 
 a group of idlers, and, single-handed, might havr 
 depopulated the city of Odessa, if an ugly soldiev 
 with a bayonet had not met him in full career ami 
 put a stop to his gambols. The soldier conducted 
 us to a large building at the upper end of the pier ; 
 and carefully opening the door, and falling bad: 
 so as to avoid even the wind that might blow fron; 
 us in his direction, told us to go in. At the other 
 end of a large room, divided by two parallel rail- 
 mgs, sat officers and clerks to examine our pass- 
 ports and take a general account of us. We were 
 at once struck with the military aspect of things, 
 every person connected with the establishment 
 wearing a military uniform ; and now commenceil 
 a long process. The first operation was to exa- 
 mine our passports, take down our names, anti 
 make a memorandum of the purposes for whicli 
 we severally entered the dominions of the emperoi- 
 and autociut of all the Russias. We were all 
 called up, one after the other, captain, cook, and 
 cabin-boy, cabin and deck passengers ; and never, 
 perhaps, did steam-boat put forth a more motlev 
 assemblage than we presented. We were Jews, 
 Turks, and Christians ; Russians, Poles, and Ger- 
 mans ; English, French, and Italians ; Austrians. 
 Greeks, and Illyrians ; Moldavians, Wallachians, 
 Bulgarians, and Sclavonians ; Armenians, Geor- 
 gians, and Africans ; and one American. I had 
 before remarked the happy facility of the Russiai):i 
 in acquiring languages, and I saw a striking in- 
 stance in the officerwho conducted the examination, 
 and who addressed every man iu his own language 
 with apparently as much facility as though it had 
 been his native tongue. After the oral commenced » 
 corporeal examination. We were ordered one by 
 one into an adjoining room, where, on the other 
 side of a railing, stood a doctor, who directed us 
 to open our shirt bosoms, and slap our hands 
 smartly under our arms and upon our groins, 
 these being the places where the fatal plague- 
 marks first exhibit themselves. 
 
 This over, we were forthwith marched to the 
 lazaretto, escorted by guards and soldiers, who 
 behaved very civilly and kept at a respectful dis- 
 tance from us. Among our deck passengers were 
 forty or fifty Jews, dirty and disgusting objects, 
 just returned from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem 
 An old man, who seemed to be, in a. manner, the 
 head of the party, and exceeded them all in rags 
 and filthiness, but was said to be rich, in going up 
 to the lazaretto amused us and vexed the officers 
 by sitting down on the way, paying no regard to 
 them when they urged him on, being perfectly 
 assured that they would not dare to touch him. 
 Once he resolutely refused to move ; they threat- 
 ened and swore at him, but he kept his place 
 until one got a long pole and punched him on 
 a-head. 
 
 In this way we entered the lazaretto ; but if it 
 had not been called by that name, and if we had 
 not looked upon it as a place where we were com- 
 pelled to stay for a certain time, nolens volens, we 
 should have considered it a beautiful spot. It is 
 situated on high ground, within an enclosure oi 
 some fifteen or twenty acres, overlooking the 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 19.-, 
 
 Black Sea, laid out in lawn and gravel walks, and 
 ornamented with rows of acaeia-trees. Fronting 
 the sea was a long range of buildings divided into 
 separate apartments, each with a little courS-yard 
 in front containing two or three acacias. The 
 director, a fine, military-looking man, with a deco- 
 ration on his lapel, met us on horseback within 
 the enclosure, and with great suavity of manner 
 said that he could not bid us welcome to a prison, 
 but that we should have the privilege of walking 
 at will over the grounds, and visitmg each other, 
 subject only to the attendance of a guardiano ; 
 and that all that could coutribuie to our comfort 
 should be done for us. 
 
 We then selected our rooms, and underwent 
 another pereonal examination. This was the real 
 touchstone ; the first was a mere preliminary ob- 
 servation by a medical understrapper ; but this 
 was conducted by a more knowing doctor. We 
 were obliged to strip naked ; to give up the clothes 
 we pulled ofiF, and put on a flamiel gown, drawers, 
 and stockings, and a woollen cap provided by the 
 government, until our own should be smoked and 
 purified. In everything, however, the most scru- 
 piilflus regard was paid to our wishes, and a dis- 
 position was manifested by all to make this rather 
 vexatious proceeding as little annoying as possible. 
 The bodily examination was as delicate as the 
 nature of the case would admit ; for the doctor 
 merely opened the door, looked in, and went out 
 without taking his band from off the knob. It was 
 none of my business, I know, and may be thought 
 impertinent, but, as he closed the door, I could 
 not help calling him back to ask him whether he 
 held the same inquisition upon the fair sex ; to 
 which he replied, with a melancholy upturning of 
 the eyes, that in the good old days of Russian 
 barbarism this had been part of his duties, but 
 that the march of improvement had invaded his 
 rights, and given this portion of his professional 
 duties to a sage femme. 
 
 All oiir effects were then taken to another 
 chamber, and arranged on lines, each person 
 superintending the disposition of his own, so as to 
 prevent all confusion, and left there to be fumi- 
 gated with sulphuric acid for twenty-four hours. 
 So particular were they in fumigating everything 
 susceptible of infection, that I was obliged to 
 leave there a black riband which I wore round 
 my neck as a guard to my watch. Toward even- 
 ing the principal director, one of the most gentle- 
 manly men I ever met, came round, and with 
 many apologies and regrets for his inability to 
 receive us better, requested us to call upon him 
 freely for anything we might want. Not knowing 
 any of us personally, he did me the honour to say 
 that he understood there was an American in the 
 party, who had been particularly recommended to 
 him by a Russian officer and fellow-passenger. 
 Afterward came the commissary, or chief of the 
 department, and repeated the same compliments, 
 and left, us with an exalted opinion of Russian 
 politeness. I had heard horrible accounts of the 
 rough treatment of travellers in Russia, and I 
 made a note at the time, lest aftij vexations 
 should make me forget it, that I had received 
 more politeness and civility from these northern 
 barbarians, as they are called by the people of the 
 south of Europe, than I ever found amid their 
 boasted civilisation. 
 
 Having still an hour before dark, I strolled out, 
 followed by my guardiano, to take a more parti- 
 cular survey of our prison. In a gravel- walk lined 
 with acacias, immediately before the door of my 
 little court-yard, I came suddenly upon a lady of 
 about eighteen, whose dark hair and eyes I at 
 once recognised as Grecian, leading by the hand 
 a little child. \ am sure my face brightened at 
 the first glimpse of this vision which promised to 
 shine upon us in our solitude ; and perhaps my 
 satisfaction was made too manifestby my involun- 
 tarily moving toward her. But my presumption 
 received a severe and mortifying check ; for 
 though at first she merely crossed to the other 
 side of the walk, she soon forgot all ceremony^ 
 and, fairly dragging the child after her, ran over 
 the grass to another walk to avoid me ; my 
 mortification, however, was but temporary ; for 
 though, in the first impulse of delight and admi- 
 ration, I had forgotten time, place, and circmn- 
 stance, the repulse I had received made me turji 
 to myself, and I was glad to find an excuse for the 
 lady's flight in the flannel gown and long cap and 
 slippers, which marked me as hav'ug just entered 
 upon my season of purification. 
 
 I was soon initiated into the rou'ine of lazaretto 
 ceremonies and restrictions. By touching a qua- 
 rantine patient, both parties are subjected to the 
 longest term of either ; so that if a person on the 
 last day of his term should come in contact with 
 another just entered, he would lose all the benefit 
 of his days of purification, and be obliged to wait 
 the full term of the latter. I have seen, in various 
 situations of life, a system of operations called 
 keeping people at a distance, but I never saw it so 
 effectually practised as in quarantine. For this 
 night, at least, I had full range. I walked where 
 I pleased, and was very sure that every one 
 would keep out of my way. During the whole 
 time, however, I could not help treasuring up the 
 precipitate flight of the young lady ; and I after- 
 ward told her, and, I hope, with the true spirit of 
 one ready to return good for evil, that if she had 
 been in my place, and the days of my purification 
 had been almost ended, in spite of plague and 
 pestilence she might have rushed into my arms 
 without my offering the least impediment. 
 
 In making the tour of the grounds, I had 
 already an opportunity of observing the relation 
 in which men stand to each other in Russia. 
 When an officer spoke to a soldier, the latter 
 stood motionless as a statue, with his head unco- 
 vered during the whole of the conference ; and 
 when a soldier on guard saw an officer, no matter 
 at what distance, he presented arms, and remained 
 in that position until the officer was out of sight. 
 Returning, I passed a grating, through which I 
 saw our deck-passengers, forty or fifty in number, 
 including the Jewish pilgrims, miserable, dirty- 
 looking objects, turned in together for fourteen 
 days, to eat, drink, and sleep as best they might, 
 like brutes. With a high idea of the politeness of 
 the Russians toward the rich and great, or those \ 
 whom they believed to be so, and with a strong 
 impression already received confirming the ac- 
 counts of the. degraded condition of the lower 
 classes, I returned to my room, and, with a French- 
 man and a Greek for my room-mates, my window 
 opening upon the Black Sea, I spent my fii-st 
 night in quarantine. 
 
j6 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Guariliano.— One too many.— An Excess of Kind- 
 ness.— The last Day of Quarantine.— Mr. Baguet — ^Rise of 
 Odessa— City-making.— Count VVoronzow. — A Gentleman 
 V'aimer.— An American Russian. 
 
 I SHALL pass over briefly the whole of our pra- 
 tique. The next morning I succeeded in getting 
 a room to myself. A guardiano was assigned to 
 each room, who took his place in the ante-cham- 
 ber, and was always in attendance. These guar- 
 dianos are old soldiers, entitled by the rules of the 
 establishment to so much a-day ; but, as they 
 always expect a gratuity, their attention and ser- 
 vices are regulated by that expectation. I was 
 exceedingly fortunate in mine ; he was always in 
 the ante- chamber, cleaning his musket, mending 
 his clothes, or stretched on a mattress looking at 
 the wall ; and, whenever I came through with my 
 hat on, without a word he put on his belt and fol- 
 lowed me; and very soon, instead of regarding 
 him as an encumbrance, I became accustomed to 
 him, and it was a satisfaction to have him with me. 
 Sometimes, in walking for exercise, I moved so 
 briskly that it tired him to keep up with me ; and 
 then I selected a walk where he could sit down 
 -and keep his eye upon me, while I walked back- 
 ward and forward before him. Besides this, he 
 kept my room in order, set my table, carried my 
 notes, bi-ushed my clothes, and took better care of 
 rae than any servant I ever had. 
 
 Our party consisted of eight, and being sub- 
 jected to the same quarantine, and supposed to 
 have the same quantum of infection, we were 
 allowed to visit each other ; and every afternoon 
 we met in the yard, walked an hour or two, took 
 tea together, and returned to our own rooms, 
 where our guardianos mounted guard in the ante- 
 chamber ; our gates were locked up, and a soldier 
 walked outside as sentinel. I was particularly 
 intimate with the Russi.in ofificer, whom I found 
 ■one of the most gentlemanly, best educated, and 
 most amiable men I ever met. He had served 
 and been wounded in the campaign against Po- 
 land ; had with him two soldiers, his own serfs, 
 who had served under him in that campaign, and 
 had accompanied him in his tour in Egypt and 
 Syria. He gave me his address at St. Peters- 
 burgh, and promised me the full benefit of his 
 Acquaintance there. X have before spoken of the 
 three Englishmen. Two of them I had met at 
 Corfu ; the third joined them at Smyrna, and 
 added another proof to the well-established maxim 
 that three spoil company ; for I soon found that 
 they had got together by the ears ; and the new- 
 comer having connected himself with one of the 
 others, they were anxious to get rid of the third. 
 Many causes of offence existed between them ; 
 and though they continued to room together, 
 they were merely waiting till the end of our 
 pratique for an opportunity to separate One 
 morning the one who was about being thrown off 
 came to my room, and told me that he did not 
 care about going to the Crimea, and proposed 
 accompanying me. This suited me very well ; it 
 was a long and expensive journey, and would cost 
 a mere fraction more for two than for one ; and 
 when the breach was widened past all possibility 
 of being healed, the cast-off and myself agreed to 
 
 travel together. I saw much of the secretary of 
 legation, and also of the Greek and Frenchman, 
 my room-mates for the first night. Indeed, I 
 think I may say that I was an object of special 
 interest to all our party. I was unwell, and my 
 companions overwhelmed me with prescriptions 
 and advice ; they brought in their medicine- 
 chests ; one assuring me that he had been cured 
 by this, another by that, and each wanted me to 
 swallow his own favourite medicine, interlarding 
 their advice with anecdotes of whole sets of pas- 
 sengers who had been detained, some forty, some 
 fifty, and some sixty days, by the accidental sick- 
 ness of one. I did all 1 could for them, always 
 having regard to the circumstance that it was not 
 of such vital importance to me, at least, to hold 
 out fourteen days if I broke down on the fifteenth. 
 In a few days the doctor, in one of his rounds, 
 told me he understood I was unwell, and I con- 
 fessed to hira the reason of my withholding tho 
 fact, and took his prescriptions so well, that, at 
 parting, he gave me a letter to a friend in Chioff, 
 and to his brother, a distinguished professor in the 
 university of St. Petersburgh. 
 
 We had a restaurant in' the lazaretto, with a 
 new bill of fare every day ; not first-rate, perhaps, 
 but good enough. I had sent a letter of intro- 
 duction to Mr. Baguet, the Spanish consul, also 
 to a German, the brother of a missionary at Con 
 stantinople, and a note to Mr. Ralli, the American 
 consul, and had frequent visits from them, ant' 
 long talks at the parlatoria through the grating. 
 The German was a knowing one, and came often ; 
 he had a smattering of English, and would talk in 
 that language, as I thought, in compliment to me ; 
 but the last time he came he thanked me kindly, 
 and told me he had improved more in his English 
 than by a year's study. When I got out he never 
 came near me. 
 
 Sunday, June seventh, was our last day in 
 quarantine. We had counted the days anxiously J 
 and though our time had passed as agreeably as, 
 under the circumstances, it could pass, we were 
 in high spirits at the prospect of our liberation. 
 To the last, the attention and civility of the ofiicers 
 of the yard continued unremitted. Every morn- 
 ing regularly the director knocked at each gate tc 
 inquire how we had passed the night, and whether 
 he could do anything for us ; then the doctor, to 
 inquire into our corporeal condition ; and every 
 two or three days, toward evening, the director, 
 with the same decoration on the lapel of his coat^ 
 and at the same hour, inquired whether we had 
 any complaints to make of want of attendance or 
 improper treatment. 
 
 Our last day in the lazaretto is not to be for- 
 gotten. We kept as clear of the rest of the in- 
 mates as if they had been pickpockets, though 
 once I was thrown into a cold sweat by an act of 
 forgetfulness. A child fell down before me ; I 
 sprang forward to pick him up, and should infal- 
 libly have been fixed for ten days longer if my 
 guardiano had not caught me. Lingering for the 
 last time on the walk overlooking the Black Sea, 
 I saw a vessel coming up under full sail, bearing, 
 as I thought, the American flag. My heart 
 almost bounded at seeing the stars and stripes on 
 the Black Sea ; but I was deceived, and, almost 
 dejected with the disappointment, called my guar- 
 [ diano, and returned for the last time to my room. 
 
IN GRE]i:OE, TUlllCEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 197 
 
 Tlie next moraing we waited in our rooms till 
 the doctor paid his final visit, and soon after we 
 all gathered before the door of the directory, ready 
 to sally forth. Every American who has made a 
 European voyage linows the metamorphosis in the 
 appearance of the passengere on the day of landing. 
 It was much the same with us ; we had no more 
 slipshod, long-bearded companions, but all were 
 clean-shirted and shaved becomingly, except our 
 old Jew and his party, who probably had not 
 changed a garment or washed their faces since the 
 first day in quarantine, nor perhaps for many 
 years before. They were people from whom, 
 under any circumstances, one would be apt to 
 keep at a respectful distance ; and to the last they 
 carried everything before them. 
 
 We had still another vexatious process in pass- 
 ing our luggage through the custom-house. We 
 had handed in a list of all our effects the night 
 before, in which I intentionally omitted to mention 
 Byron's poems, these being prohibited in Russia. 
 He had been my companion in Italy and Greece, 
 and I was loath to part with him ; so I put the 
 boek under my arm, threw my cloak over me, and 
 walked out unmolested. Outside the gate, there 
 was a general shaking of hands ; the director, 
 whom we had seen every day at a distance, was 
 the firet to greet us, and Mr. Baguet, the brother 
 of the Spanish consul, who was waiting to receive 
 me, welcomed me to Russia. With sincere regret 
 I bade good-bye to my old soldier, mounted a 
 drosky, and in ten minutes was deposited in an 
 hotel, in size and appearance equal to the best in 
 Paris. It was a pleasure once more to get into a 
 wheel-carriage ; I had not seen one since I left 
 Italy, except the old hack I mentioned at Argos, 
 and the iirabas at Constantinople. It was a plea- 
 sure, too, to see hats, coats, and pantaloons. 
 Early associations will cling to a man ; and, in 
 spite of a transient admiration for the dashing 
 costume of the Greek and Turk, I warmed to the 
 ungraceful covering of civilised man, even to the 
 long surtout and bell-crowned hat of the Russian 
 marchand; and, more than all, I was attracted by 
 an appearance of life and energy particularly 
 striking after coming from among the dead-and- 
 alive Turks. 
 
 While in quarantine I had received an invita- 
 tion to dine with Mr. Baguet, and had barely time 
 to make one tour of the city in a drosky before it 
 was necessary to dress for dinner. Mr. Baguet 
 was a Dacnelor of about forty, living in pleasant 
 apartments, in an unpretending and gentlemanly 
 style. As in all the poi-ts of the Levant, except 
 where there are ambassadors, the consuls are the 
 nobility of the place. Several of them were pre- 
 sent ; and the European consuls in those places 
 are a different class of men from ours, as they are 
 paid by salaries from their respective govern- 
 ments, while ours, who receive no pay, are gene- 
 rally natives of the place, who serve for the 
 honour or some other accidental advantage. We 
 had, therefore, the best society in Odessa at Mr. 
 Baguet's, the American consul not being present, 
 which, by-the-way, I do not mean in a disre- 
 spectful sense, as Mr. Ralii seemed every way 
 deserving of all the benefits that the station gives. 
 In the evening the consul and myself took two 
 or tliree turns on the boulevards, and at about 
 eleven I returned to my hotel. After what I have 
 
 said of this establishment, tlio reader will be sur- 
 prised to learn that, when I went to my room, J 
 found there a bedstead, but no bed or bedclothes. 
 I supposed it was neglect, and ordered one to be 
 prepared ; but, to my surprise, was told that there 
 were no beds in the hotel. It was kept exclusively 
 for the rich seigneurs who always carry their own 
 beds with them. Luckily, the bedstead was not 
 corded, but contained a bottom of plain slabs of 
 wood, about six or eight inches wide, and the same 
 distance apart, laid crosswise, so that lengthwise 
 there was no danger of falling through ; and, 
 wrapping myself in my cloak, and putting my 
 carpet-bag under my head, I went to sleep. 
 
 Before breakfast the next morning I had learned 
 the topography of Odessa. To an American 
 Russia is an interesting country. True, it is not 
 classic ground ; but as for me, who had now tra- 
 velled over the faded and worn-out kingdoms of 
 the Old World, I was quite ready for something 
 new. Like our own, Russia is a new country, and 
 in many respects resembles ours. It is true lliat 
 we began life differently. Russia has worked lier 
 way to civilisation from a state of absolute barba- 
 rism, while we sprang into being with the ad- 
 vantage of all the lights of the Old World. StiU 
 there are many subjects of comparison, and even 
 of emulation, between us ; and nowhere in all 
 Russia is there a more proper subject to begia 
 with than my first landing-place. 
 
 Odessa is situated in a small bay between the 
 mouths of the Dnieper and Dniester. Forty 
 years ago it consisted of a few miserable fisher- 
 men's huts on the shores of the Black Sea. In 
 1796 the Empress Catherine resolved to build a 
 city there ; and the Turks being driven from 
 the dominion of the Black Sea, it became a place 
 of resort and speculation for the English, Aus- 
 trians, Neapolitans, Dutch, Ragusans, and Greeks 
 of the Ionian republic. In eighteen hundred and 
 two, two hundred and eighty vessels arrived from 
 Constantinople and the Mediterranean ; and the 
 Duke de Richelieu, being appointed governor- 
 general by Alexander, laid out a city upon a 
 gigantic scale, which, though .at first its growth 
 was not commensurate with his expectations, now 
 contains sixty thousand inhabitants, and bids fair 
 to realise the extravagant calculations of its foun- 
 der. Mr. Baguet and the gentlemen whom I met 
 at his table were of opinion that it is destined to 
 be the greatest commercial city in Russia, as the 
 long winters and the closing of the Baltic with ice 
 must ever be a great disadvantage to St. Peters- 
 burgh ; and the interior of the country can as well 
 be supplied from Odessa as from the northern 
 capital. 
 
 There is no country where cities have sprung 
 up so fast and increased so rapidly as in ours j 
 and, altogether, perhaps nothing in the world can 
 be compared to our Buffalo, Rochester, Cinein ■ 
 nati, &c. But Odessa has grown faster than any 
 of these, and has nothing of the appearance of 
 one of our new cities. We are both young, and 
 both marching with gigantic strides to greatness, 
 but we move by dift'erent roads ; and the whole^ 
 face of the country, from the new city on the bor- 
 ders of the Black Sea to the steppes of Siberia, 
 shows a different order of government and a dif- 
 ferent constitution of society. With us, a few 
 individuals cut down the trees of the forest, or 
 
198 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 ■settle themselves by the banks of a streani, where 
 they happen to find some local advantages, and 
 Duild houses suited to their necessities ; others 
 come and join them ; and by degrees, the little 
 jettlement becomes a large city. But here a 
 gigantic government,endowed almost with creative 
 powers, says, " Let there be a city," and imme- 
 diately commences the erection of large buildings. 
 The rich seigneurs follow the lead of government, 
 and build hotels to let out in apartments. Tlie 
 theatre, casino, and exchange at Odessa, are per- 
 haps superior to any buildings in the United 
 States. The city is situated on an elevation about 
 a hundred feet above the sea ; a promenade three 
 <iuarters of a mile long, terminated at one end by 
 the exchange, and at the other by the palace of 
 the governor, is laid out in front along the margin 
 of the sea, bounded on one side by an abrupt pre- 
 cipice, and adorned witli trees, shi'ubs, flowers, 
 statues, and busts, like the garden of the Tuile- 
 ■ries, the Borghese Villa, or the Villa Recall, at 
 Naples. On the other side is a long range of 
 hotels built of stone, running the whole length of 
 the boulevards, some of them with fa^des after 
 the best models in Italy. A broad street runs 
 through the centre of the city, terminating with a 
 semicircular enlargement at the boulevards, and 
 in the centre of this stands a large equestrian 
 statue erected to the Duke de Richelieu ; and 
 •parallel and at right angles are wide streets lined 
 with large buildings, according to the most ap- 
 proved plans of modern architecture. The custom 
 which the people have of taking apartments in 
 hotels causes the erection of large buildings, 
 which add much to the general appearance of the 
 ■city ; while with us the universal disposition of 
 •every man to have a house to himself, conduces 
 to the building of small houses, and, consequently, 
 detracts from general effect. The city, as yet, is 
 not generally paved, and is, consequently, so 
 dusty, that every man is obliged to wear a light 
 cliiak to save his dress. Paving-stone is brought 
 from Trieste and Malta, and is very expensive. 
 
 About two o'clock Mr. Ralli, our consul, called 
 upon me. Mr. Ralli is a Greek of Scio. He left 
 his native island when a boy ; has visited every 
 port in Europe as a merchant, and lived for the 
 last eight years in Odessa. He has several bro- 
 thers in England, Trieste, and some of the Greek 
 islands, and all are connected in business. When 
 Mr. Rhind,' who negotiated our treaty with the 
 Porte, left Odessa, he authorised Mr. Ralli to 
 transact whatever consular business might be 
 required, and on his recommendation Mr. Ralli 
 sifterward received a regular appointment as 
 •consul. Mr. Rhind, by-the-way, expected a great 
 trade from opening the Black Sea to American 
 bottoms ; but he was wrong in his anticipations, 
 and there have been but two American vessels 
 there since the treaty. Mr. Ralli is rich and 
 respected, being vice-president of the commercial 
 board, and very proud of the honour of the 
 American consulate, as it gives him a position 
 among the dignitaries of the place, enables him 
 to wear a uniform and sword on public occasions, 
 and yields him other privileges which are gratify- 
 ing, at least, if not intrinsically valuable. 
 
 No traveller can pass through Odessa without 
 having to acknowledge the politeness of Count 
 Wovonzow, the governor of the Crimea, one of 
 
 the richest seigneurs in Russia, and one of the 
 pillars of the throne. At the suggestion of Mr. 
 Ralli, I accompanied him to the palace and was 
 presented. The palace is a magnificent buildin" 
 and the interior exhibits a combination of wealth 
 and taste. The walls are hung with Italian paint- 
 ings, and, for interior ornaments and finish, the 
 palace is far superior to those in Italy ; the knobs 
 of the doors are of amber, and the doors of the 
 illning-room from the old imperial palace at St. 
 Petersburg. The count is a military-looking man 
 of about fifty, six feet high, with sallow complexion 
 and grey hair. His father married an English 
 lady of the Sydney family, and his sister married 
 the Earl of Pembroke. He is a soldier in bear- 
 ing and appearance, held a high rank during the 
 Fi-ench invasion of Russia, and distinguished 
 himself particularly at Borodino ; in rank and 
 power he is the fourth military officer in the 
 empire. He possesses immense wealth in all parts 
 of Russia, particularly in the Crimea ; and his 
 wife's mother, after Demidoff and Scheremetieff, 
 is the richest subject in the whole emph-e. He 
 speaks English remarkably well, and, after a few 
 commonplaces, with his characteristic politeness 
 to strangers, invited me to dine at the palace the 
 next day. I was obliged to decline, and he him- 
 self suggested the reason, that probably I was 
 engaged •ft-ith my countryman, Mr. Sontag (of 
 whom more anon), whom the count referred to as 
 his old friend, adding, that he would not interfere 
 with the pleasure of a meeting between two coun- 
 trymen so far from home, and asked me for the 
 day after, or any other day I pleased. 1 apolo- 
 gised on the ground of my intended departure, 
 and took my leave. 
 
 My proposed travelling companion had com- 
 mitted to me the whole arrangements for our 
 journey, or, more properly, had given, me the 
 whole trouble of making them ; and, accompanied 
 by one of Mr. Ralli's clerks, I visited all the 
 carriage repositories to purchase a vehicle, after 
 which I accompanied Mr. Ralli to his country- 
 house to dine. He occupied a pretty little place 
 a few versts from Odessa, with a large fruit and 
 ornamental garden. Mr. Ralli's lady is also a 
 native of Greece, with much of the cleverness 
 and spirituel character of the educated Greeks. 
 One of her bons-mots current in Odessa is, that 
 her husband is consul for the other world, A 
 young Italian, with a very pretty wife, dined with 
 us, and, after dinner and a stroll through the 
 garden, we walked over to Mr. Perseani's, the 
 father of our Russian secretary ; another walk in 
 the garden with a party of ladies, tea, and I got 
 back to Odessa in time for a walk on the boule- 
 vards and the opera. 
 
 Before my attention waa turned to Odessa, I 
 should as soon have thought of an opera-house at 
 Chicago as there ; but I already found, what 
 impressed itself more forcibly upon me at every 
 step, that Russia is a country of anomalies. The 
 new city on the Black Sea contains many French 
 and Italian residents, who are willing to give all 
 that is not necessary for food and clothing for the 
 opera ; the Russians themselves are passionately 
 fond of musical and theatrical entertainments, and 
 goveroment makes up all deficiencies. The inte- 
 rior of the theatre corresponds with the beauty of 
 i(« exterior. All the decorations are in good 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 VM 
 
 lasfo, MiJ the Corinthian columns, running from 
 the loot to the toj), particularly beautiful. The 
 opera was the Barber of Seville ; the companj 
 in full undress, and so barbarous as to pay atten- 
 tion to the performance. I came out at about tea 
 o'clock, and, after a turn oi- two on the boule- 
 vards, took an ice-cream at the cafe of the Hotel 
 (ie Petersbourg. This hotel is beautifully situ- 
 ated at one corner of the main street, fronting the 
 boulevards, and opposite the statue of the Duke de 
 Richelieu ; and looking from the window of the 
 cafe, furnished and fitted up in a style superior to 
 most in Paris, upon the crowd still thronging the 
 boulevards, I could hardly believe that I was 
 really on the borders of the Black Sea. 
 
 Having purchased a carriage and made all »ny 
 arrangements for starting, I expected to pass this 
 day with an unusual degree of satisfaction ; and 
 I was not disappointed. I have mentioned inci- 
 dentally the name of a countryman resident in 
 Odessa; and, being so far from home, I felt a 
 yearning toward an American. In France or 
 Italy I seldom had this feeling, for there Ameri- 
 cans congregate in crowds ; but in Greece and 
 Turkey I always rejoiced to meet u, compatriot ; 
 and when, on my arrival at Odessa, before going 
 into the lazaretto, the captain told me that there 
 was an American residing there, high in character 
 and office, who had been twenty years in Russia, 
 [ requested him to present my compliments, and 
 say that, if he had not forgotten his father-land, 
 a countryman languishing in the lazaretto would 
 he happy to see him through the gratings of his 
 prisou-house. 1 afterward regretted having sent 
 this message, as I heard from other sources that 
 he was a prominent man, and during the whole 
 term of my quarantine I never heard from him 
 personally. I was most agreeably disappointed, 
 however, when, on the first day of my release, I 
 met him at dinner at the Spanish consul's. He 
 had been to the Crimea with Count Woronzow ; 
 had only returned that morning, and had never 
 heard of my being there until invited to meet me 
 at dinner. I had wronged him by my distrust ; 
 tor, though twenty years an exile, his heart beat 
 as true as when he left our shores. Who can 
 shake off the feeling that binds him to his native 
 land ! Not hardships nor disgrace at home ; not 
 favour nor success abroad ; not even time, can 
 drive from his mind the land of his birth, or the 
 friends of his youthful days. 
 
 General Sontag was a native of Philadelphia ; 
 had been in our navy, and served as sailing- 
 master on board the Wasp ; became dissatisfied 
 from some cause which he did not mention, left 
 our navy, entered the Russian, and came round 
 to the Black Sea as captain of a frigate ; was 
 transferred to the land service, and, in the cam- 
 pai^ of 1314, entered Paris with the allied 
 armies as colonel of a regiment. In this campaign 
 he formed a friendship with Count Woronzow, 
 which exists m full force at this day. He left the 
 army with the rank of brigadier-general. By the 
 influence of Count Woronzow, he was appointed 
 inspector of the port of Odessa, in which office 
 he stood next in rank to the governor of the 
 Crimea, and, in fact, on one occasion, during the 
 absence of Count Woronzow, hved in the palace 
 and acted as governor for eight months. He 
 married a lady of rank, with An estate and several 
 
 hundred slaves at Moscow ; wears two or three 
 ribands at his hutton-hole, badges of dilterem 
 orders ; has gone through the routine of offices 
 and honours up to the grade of grand-councillor 
 of the empire ; and a letter addressed to him 
 under the title of " His Excellency" will come to 
 the right hands. He was then living at his country 
 place, about eight versts from Odessa, and asked 
 me to go out and pass the next day with him. I 
 was strongly tempted, but, in order that I might 
 have the full benefit of it, postponed the pleasure 
 until 1 had completed my arrangements for tra- 
 velling. The next day General Sontag called 
 upon me, but I did not see him ; and this morn- 
 ing, accompanied by Mr. Baguet the younger, I 
 rode out to his place. The land about Odessa is 
 a dead level, the road was excessively dry, and 
 we were begrimed with dust when we arrived. 
 General Sontag was waiting for us, and, in the 
 true spirit of an American farmer at home, pro- 
 posed taking us over his grounds. His farm is 
 his hobby : it contains about six hundred acres, 
 and we walked' all over it. His crop was wheat, 
 and, although I am no great judge of these mat- 
 ters, I think I never saw finer. He showed me a 
 field of very good wheat which had not been 
 sowed-in three years, but produced by the fallen 
 seed of the previous crops. We compared it with 
 our Genesee wheat, and to me it was an interest- 
 ing circumstance to find an American cultivating 
 land on the Black Sea, and comparing it with the 
 products of our Genesee flats, with which he was 
 perfectly familiar. 
 
 One thing particularly struck me, though, as 
 an American, perhaps I ought not to have been 
 so sensitive. A large number of men were at 
 work in the field, and they were all slaves. Such 
 is the force of education and habit, that I have 
 seen hundreds of black slaves without a sensation ; 
 but it struck rudely upon me to see white men 
 slaves to an .American, and he one whose father 
 had been a soldier of the Revolution, and had 
 fought to sustain the great principle that " all men 
 are by nature free and equal." Mr. Sontag told 
 me that he valued his farm at about six thousand 
 dollars, on which he could live well, have a bottle 
 of Crimea wine, and another every day for a 
 friend, and lay up one thousand dollars a year : 
 but I afterward heard that he was a complete 
 enthusiast on the subject of his farm ; a bad 
 manager, and that he really knew nothing of its 
 expense or profit. 
 
 Returning to the house, we found Madame 
 Sontag ready to receive us. She is an a'.'thoress 
 of great literary reputation, and of such character 
 that, while the emperor was prosecuting the 
 Turkish war in person, and the empress remainsd 
 in Odessa, the young archduchesses were placed 
 under her charge. At dinner she talked with much 
 interest of America, and expressed a hope, though 
 not much expectation, of one day visiting it. But 
 General Sontag himself, surrounded as he is by 
 Russian connexions, is al! .Imeriean. Pointing 
 to the riband on his button-hole, he said he was 
 entitled to one order which he should value above 
 all others ; that his father had been a soldier of 
 the revolution, and member of the Cincinnati 
 Society, and that in Russia the decoration of that 
 order would be to him the proudest badge of 
 honour that an American could wear. Aflei 
 
200 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 dining we retired into a little room fitted up as a 
 library, which he calls America, furnished with all 
 the standard American books, Irving, Paulding, 
 Cooper, &c., engiavings of distinguished Ameri- 
 cans, maps, chartii, canal and railroad reports, &c. ; 
 and his daughter, a lovely little girl and only 
 child, has been taught to speak her father's tongue 
 and love her father's land, ^n honour of me 
 she played on the piano " Hail, Columbia !" and 
 " Yankee Doodle," and the day wore away too 
 soon. We took tea on the piazza, and at parting 
 I received from him a letter to his agent on his 
 estate near Moscow, and from Madame Sontag 
 one which carried me into the imperial household, 
 being directed to Monsieur I'Intendant du Prince 
 heritier, Petersburg]!. A few weeks ago I received 
 from him a letter, in which he says, " the visit of 
 one of my countrymen is so great a treat, that I 
 can assure you you are never forgotten by any 
 one of my little family ; and when my daughter 
 wishes to make me smile, she is sure to succeed 
 if she sits down to her piano and plays ' Hail, 
 Columbia,' or ' Yankee Doodle ;' this brings to 
 
 mind Mr , Mr. , Mr. , and Mr. , 
 
 who have passed through this city ; to me alone 
 it brings to mind my country, parents, friends, 
 youth, and a world of things and ideas past, never 
 to return. Should any of our countrymen be 
 coming this way, do not forget to inform them 
 that in Odessa lives one who will be glad to see 
 them." And I say now to any of my countrymen 
 whom chance may throw upon the shores of the 
 Black Sea, that if he would receive so far from 
 
 \ home the welcome of a true-hearted American, 
 General Sontag will be glad to render it. 
 
 It was still early in the evening when I returned 
 to the city. It was moonlight, and I walked im- 
 mediately to the boulevards. I have not spoken 
 as I ought to have done of this beautiful prome- 
 nade, on which I walked every evening under the 
 light of a splendid moon. The boulevards are 
 bounded on one side by the precipitous shore of 
 the sea ; are three quarters of a mile in length, 
 with rows of trees on each side, gi-avel wallcs and 
 statues, and terminated at one end by the exchange, 
 and at the other by the palace of Count Woronzow. 
 At this season of the year it was the promenade 
 of all the beauty and fashion of Odessa, from an 
 hour or two before dark until midnight. This 
 evening the moon was brighter, and the crowd 
 was greater and gayer than usual. The great 
 
 1 number of officers, with their dashing uniforms, 
 the clashing of their swords, and rattling of their 
 spurs, added to the effect ; and women never look 
 so interesting as when leaning on the arm of a 
 soldier Even in Italy or Greece I have seldom 
 seen a finer moonlight scene than the columns of 
 the exchange through the vista of trees lining the 
 boulevards. I expected to leave the next day, 
 and 1 lingered till a late hour. I strolled up and 
 down the promenade, alone among thousands. I 
 sat down upon a bench, and looked for the last 
 time on the Black Sea, the stormy Euxine, quiet 
 in the moonbeams, and glittering like a lake of 
 burnished silver. By degrees the gay throng 
 disappeared ; one after another, party after party 
 withdrew : a few straggling couples, seeming all 
 the world to each other, still lingered, like me, 
 unable to tear themselves away. It was the hour 
 and the place for poetry and feeling. A. young 
 
 officer and a lady were the last to leave ; they 
 passed by me, but did not notice me ; they had 
 lost all outward perceptions ; and as, in passing 
 for the last time, she raised her head for a moment, 
 and the moon shone full upon her face, I saw 
 therf an expression that spoke of heaven. I 
 followed them as they went out, murmured invo- 
 luntarily ," Happy dog !" whistled " Heigho, says 
 Thimble," and went to my hotel to bed. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Choice of a conveyance. — Hiring a Servant. — Another 
 
 American. — Beginning of Troubles. — A Bivouac Russian 
 
 Jews — Tiie Steppes of Russia. — A Traveller's Story..— Ap- 
 proaeli to Chioflf. — How to get rid of a Servant. — History 
 of Cliioff. 
 
 I HAD before me a journey of nearly two thou- 
 sand miles, through a country more than half bar- 
 barous, and entu-ely destitute of all accommoda- 
 tion for travellers. Southern Russia was the 
 Scythia of Darius, " savage from the remotest 
 time." " All the way," says an old traveller, " ] 
 never came in a house, but lodged in the wilder- 
 ness by the i-iver side, and carried provisions by 
 the way, for there be small succour in those parts ;" 
 and we were advised that a century had made but 
 little change in the interior of the empire. There 
 were no public conveyances, and we had our choice 
 of three modes of travelling ; first, by a Jew's 
 waggon, in which the traveller stretches out his 
 bed, and is trundled along like a bale of goods, 
 always with the same horses, and therefore, of 
 necessity, making slow progress ; secondly, the 
 char-de-poste, a mere box of wood on four wheels, 
 with straw in the bottom ; very fast, but to be 
 changed always with the post horses ; and thirdly, 
 posting with our own carriage. We did not hesitate 
 long in choosing the last, and bought a carriage, 
 fortunately a good one, a large raltche which an 
 Italian nobleman had had made for his own use 
 in travelling on the Continent, and which he now 
 sold, not because he did not want it, but because 
 he wanted money more. Next %ve procured a 
 podoroshni, under which, " By order of his Ma- 
 jesty Nicholas the First, autocrat of all the Rus- 
 sias, from Odessa to Moscow and Petersburgh, all 
 
 the post-offices were commanded to give and 
 
 , with their servant, four horses with their 
 
 drivers, at the price fixed by law." Besides this, 
 it was necessary to give security that we left no 
 debts behind us ; and if Mr. Ralli undertakes for 
 all Americans the same obligation he did for me, 
 it may happen that his office of consul will be no 
 sinecure. Next, and this was no trifling matter, 
 we got our passports arranged ; the Russian 
 ambassador at Constantinople, by-the-way, had 
 given me a new passport in Russian, and my com- 
 panion, that he might travel with the advantages 
 of rank and title, got himself made " noble " by an 
 extra stroke of his consul's pen. 
 
 The last thing was to engage a servant. Wc 
 had plenty of applications, but, as very few talked 
 any language we understood, we had not much 
 choice ; one, a German, a capital fellow, was 
 exactly the man we wanted, only he could not 
 speak a word of Russian, which was the principal 
 qualification we required in a servant. At length 
 
IN GRKKCE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 201 
 
 came a Frenchman, with an unusual proportion of 
 whisltera and mustaches, and cue of the worst of 
 the desperate emigres whom the French Revolu- 
 tion, or, rather, the Restoration, sent roaming in 
 foreign lands. He had natui-ally a most unpre- 
 possessing physiognomy, and this was heightened 
 by a sabre-cut which had knocked out several of 
 liis teeth, and left a huge gash in his cheek and 
 lip, and, moreover, made him speak very unintel- 
 ligibly. When I asked him if he was a French- 
 man, he drew himself up with great dignity, and 
 replied, " Monsieur, je suis Parisien." His ap- 
 pearance was a gross libel upon the Parisians ; 
 but, as we could get no one else, we took him, 
 upon little recommendation, the day before our 
 departure, and, during the same day, threatened 
 half-a-dozen times to discharge him. The police 
 regulation, obliging him to pay his debts before 
 leaving Odessa, he seemed to consider peculiarly 
 hard ; and, all the time he was with us, kept 
 referring to his having been obliged to fritter 
 away thirty or forty rubles before he could leave. 
 We ought to have furnished ourselves with pro- 
 visions for the whole road to Moscow, and even 
 cooking utensils ; but wc neglected it, and carried 
 with us only tea and sugar, a tin teapot, two tin 
 cups, two tin plates, two knives and forks, and 
 some Bologna sausages, trusting, like Napoleon 
 when he invaded Russia, to make up the rest by 
 foraging. 
 
 Before beginning our journey we had a fore- 
 taste of the difficulty of travelling in Russia. We 
 had ordered post-horses three times, and had sent 
 for them morning and evening, and received for 
 answer that there were none in. At the third 
 disappointment, our own consul being out of town, 
 my friend the Spanish consul went with me to the 
 director of the post, and found that during the 
 time in which they had told us they had no 
 horaes, they had sent out more than a hundred. 
 Instead of taxing them with their rascality, he 
 talked the matter over very politely, paid the 
 price of the horses, gave them a bonus of ten 
 rubles, and obtained a promise by all the saints 
 in the Russian calendar for daylight the next 
 morning. 
 
 The next morning at eight o'clock the horses 
 came, four shaggy, wild-looking little animals, 
 which no comb or brush had ever touched, har- 
 nessed with a collar and rope lines. They were 
 tied in with rope traces, all abreast, two on each 
 side the pole, and a postilion with a low wool cap, 
 sheepskin coat and trowsers, the woolly side next 
 the skin, who would make an English whip stare, 
 mounted the box. Henri followed, and my com- 
 panion and myseli-took our seats within. The 
 day before we had a positive quarrel upon a point 
 unnecessary here to mention, in which I thought 
 and still thuik he acted wrong, and the dispute 
 had run so high that I told him I regretted ex- 
 ceedingly having made arrangements for travelling 
 with him, and proposed even then to part com- 
 pany : he objected, and as we had purchased a 
 carriage jointly, and particularly our passports 
 were prepared, our podoroshni made out, and 
 servant hired in our joint names, I was fain to go 
 on ; and in this inauspicious humour toward each 
 other we set out for a journey of nearly two thou- 
 ^nd miles, through a wild and desolate country, 
 imong a half-civilised people, whose language we 
 
 could not understand, and with a servant whom 
 we distrusted and disliked. 
 
 In spite of all this, however, I felt a high degree 
 of excitement in starting for the capital of Russia i 
 and I will do my companion the justice to say that 
 he had been always ready to receive my advances, 
 and to do more than meet me half way, which I 
 afterward learned was from an apprehension of 
 the taunts of his companions, who, not satisfied 
 with getting rid of him, had constantly told him 
 that it was impossible for an Englishman and an 
 American to travel together, and that we would 
 quarrel and fight the first day. I believe that I 
 am enough of an American in my feelings, but 
 such an idea had never entered my head ; I met 
 many Englishmen, and with some formed a friend- 
 ship which, I trust, will last through life ; and 
 among all t met, these two were the only young 
 men so far behind the spirit of the age as to 
 harbour such a thought. I did meet one old gen- 
 tleman, who. though showing me personally tlie 
 greatest kindness, could not forget the old grudge. 
 But men cannot be driving their elbows into each 
 other's ribs, comparing money accounts, and con- 
 sulting upon the hundred little things that present 
 themselves on such a journey, without getting 
 upon at least sociable terras ; and before night of 
 the first day the feelings of my companion and 
 myself had undergone a decided change. 
 
 But to go back to Odessa. At the barrier we 
 found a large travelling-carriage stopping the way, 
 in which was my friend Mr. Ralli, with his lady, 
 on his way to Nicolaif ; part of his business there 
 was to erect a monument to the memory of a 
 deceased countryman. Mr. Mum'oe, son of a 
 former postmaster in Washington, is another in- 
 stance of the success of American adventurers in 
 Russia. He went out to St. Petersburgh with 
 letters from the Russian ambassador and others, 
 and entered the army, the only road to distinction 
 in Russia. He accompanied the Grand-duke Con- 
 stantino to Poland, and was made one of his aid- 
 de-camps, and on the death of Constantine was 
 transferred to the staff of the Emperor Nicholas. 
 At the time of the invasion of Turkey by the 
 Egyptians under Ibrahim Pacha, Mr. Munroe 
 held the rank of colonel in the army sent to the 
 aid of the sultan. While the Russians were en- 
 camped at the foot of the Giant's Mountain, he 
 visited Constantinople, and became acquainted 
 with the American missionaries, who all spoke of 
 him in the highest terms. He was =i tall, well- 
 made man, carried himself with a military air, 
 and looked admii-ably well in the Russian uniform. [ 
 On the withdrawal of the Russians from the Black 
 Sea, Mr. Munroe was left in some important 
 charge at Nicolaif, where he died in the opening 
 of a, brilliant career. I heard of him all over 
 Russia, particularly from officers of the army ; 
 and being often asked if I knew him, regretted to 
 be obliged to answer, no. But, though personally 
 unacquainted, as an American I was gratified with 
 the name he had left behind him. 
 
 To return again to our journey : a few rubles 
 satisfied the officer at the barrier that we were 
 carrying nothing prohibited out of the " free port" 
 of Odessa, and we started on a full run, to the 
 great peril of our necks, and, to use tlie climax ot 
 a Dutch proclamation, " what's more, of breakini; 
 our carria.'e." In lebs tlian an hour we lirougat 
 V 
 
i02 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 up before the door of a posthouse. Our wheels 
 were smoking when we stopped. On our hind 
 axle we carried a bucket of grease ; half-a-dozen 
 bipeds in sheepskin whipped off the wheels and 
 greased theni ; four quadrupeds were tied into the 
 carriage, Muother b^te mounted the box, and we 
 were off again at a full run. My companion un- 
 dertook to keep a memorandum of expenses, and 
 we put a certain sum in a purse and paid out of it 
 till all was gone. This was a glorious beginning 
 for a journey of two thousand miles. The country 
 possessed little interest, being mostly level, and 
 having but few villages. On the way we saw a 
 natural phenomenon that is common enough in 
 Egypt and the East, where the country is level, 
 and known by the name of mirage. At a distance 
 it seemed a mere pond or lake, and a drove of 
 cattle passing over it looked as if they were 
 walking in the water. We rolled on rapidly all 
 day, passed through Balgarha, Kodurseve, and 
 Pakra, timing ever post and noting every village 
 with a particularity which it would be tedious 
 here to repeat, and at about eight in the evening 
 dashed into the little town of Vosnezeuski, one 
 hundred and thirty versts from Odessa. Here we 
 came to a dead stand. We had begun to entertain 
 some apprehensions from the conduct of Monsieur 
 Henri, who complained of the hardness of his seat, 
 and asked if we did not intend to stop at night, 
 recommending Vosnezeuski as a place where we 
 could sleep in the posthouse ; we told him that we 
 had no idea of stopping but to change horses, and 
 should go on immediately. 
 
 Vosnezeuski lies on the river Bog, and is the 
 chief town of the Cossacks on the Bog. This river 
 is navigable for large vessels for one hundred and 
 fifty versts ; beyond this for three or four hundred 
 versts it is full of cataracts. The Cossacks of the 
 Bog are a warlike tribe, numbering from six to 
 seven thousand, and living under the same military 
 system with the Cossacks of the Don. But we 
 fell into worse hands than the Cossacks. The 
 postmaster was a Jew, and at fi-rst told us that he 
 had no horses ; then that he had no postilion, but 
 would hire one if we would pay him a certain sum, 
 about four times the amount fixed by law. We 
 bad been obliged before to pay a few extra rubles, 
 I)Ut this was our first serious difficulty with the 
 postmasters ; and, in pursuance of the advice 
 received at Odessa, we talked loud, demanded the 
 book which is nailed to the table in every post- 
 house for travellers to enter complaints in, and 
 threatened the vengeance of Count Woronzow 
 and every one else, up to the emperor ; but the 
 Jew laughed in our faces ; looked in our podo- 
 roshni, where we were described as simple travel- 
 lers, without any of the formidable array of titles 
 which procure respect in Russia ; told us we were 
 no grand seigneurs, and that we must either pay 
 the price or wait, as «ur betters had done before 
 us We found too soon, as we had been advised 
 at Odessa, that these fellows do not know such a 
 character in society as a private gentleman ; and 
 if a man is not described in his podoroshni as a 
 count, duke, or lord of some kind, or by some 
 high-sounding military title, they think he is a 
 merchant or manufacturer, or some other common 
 fellow, and pay no regard to him. I relied some- 
 what upon my companion's having been made 
 "' noble," but now found that his consul had been 
 
 rather chary of his honours, and, by the Russian 
 word used, had not put him up high enough to be 
 of any use. We had a long wrangle with the Jew, 
 the result of which was, that we told him, pro- 
 bably in no very gentle phrase, that we would 
 wait a month rather than submit to his extor- 
 tion ; and, drawing up the window of our carriage, 
 prepared to pass the night at the door of the 
 posthouse. 
 
 One of our party was evidently well satisfied 
 with this arrangement, and he was Monsieur 
 Henri. We had hired him by the day to Moscow, 
 and, if we wanted him, to St. Petersburgh, and 
 very soon saw that he was perfectly content with 
 the terms, and in no hurry to bring our journey 
 to a close. From the moment of our arrival we 
 suspected him of encouraging the postmaster in 
 his efforts to detain us, and were so much fortified 
 in this opinion by after circumstances, that, when 
 he was about moving toward the house to pass 
 the night within, we peremptorily ordered him to 
 mount the box and sleep there ; he refused, we 
 insisted ; and as this was the first day out, and 
 the first moment of actual collision, and it was all- 
 hnportant to decide who should be master, we 
 told him that, if he did not obey, we would dis- 
 charge him on the spot, at the risk of bemg obliged 
 to work our way back to Odessa alone. And as 
 he felt that, in that case, his debts would have 
 been paid to no purpose, with a, string of sup- 
 pressed sacres he took his place on the box. Our 
 carriage was very comfortable, well lined and 
 stuffed, furnished with pockets and everything 
 necessary for the road, and we expected to sleep 
 in it ; but, to tell the truth, we felt rather cheap 
 as we woke during the night, and looked at the 
 shut door of the posthouse, and thought of the 
 Jew sleeping away m utter contempt of us, and 
 our only satisfaction was in hearing an occasional 
 groan from Henri. 
 
 That worthy individual did not oversleep him- 
 self, nor did he sufier the Jew to do so either. 
 Early in the morning, without , a word on our 
 part, the horses were brought out and harnessed 
 to our vehicle, and the same man whom he pro- 
 fessed to have hired expressly for us, and who, no 
 doubt, was the regular postilion, mounted the 
 box. The Jew maintained his impudence to the 
 last, coming round to my window, and then asking 
 a few rubles as a douceur. Good English would 
 have been thrown away upon him, so I resented 
 it by drawing up the window of the carriage and 
 scowling at him through the glass. 
 
 Many of the postmasters along this road were 
 Jews ; and I am compelled to say that they were 
 always the greatest scoundrels *e had to deal with ; 
 and this is placing them on very high ground, for 
 their inferiors in rascality would be accounted 
 masters in any other country. No men can bear 
 a worse character than the Russian Jews, and I 
 can truly say that ^ found them all they were 
 represented to be. <5;They are not allowed to come 
 within the territory of old Russia. Peter the 
 Great refused their application to be permitted to 
 approach nearer, smoothing his refusal by telling 
 them that his Russian subjects were greater Jews 
 than they were themselves. The sagacious old 
 monarch, however, was wrong ; for all the money 
 business along the road is in their hands. They 
 keep Uttle taverns, where they sell vodka, a species 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 203 
 
 of brandy, and wring from the peasant all his 
 earnings, lending the money again to the seigneurs 
 jvt exorbitant interest. Many of them are rich, 
 jind tliough .alike despised by rich and poor, by 
 4,he seigneur and the serf, they are proud of exhi- 
 ibitiug their wealth, particularly in the jewels and 
 ornaments of their women. At Savonka, a little 
 village on the confines of old Poland, where we 
 T^ere detained waiting for horses, I saw a young 
 ^irl about sixteen, a Polonese, sitting on the steps 
 -of a miserable little tavern, sewing together some 
 ribands, with a head-dress of brown cloth, orna- 
 mented with gold chains and pearls worth six 
 imndred rubles, diamond ear-rings worth a hun- 
 dred, and a necklace of ducats and other Dutch 
 ^old pieces worth four hundred rubles ; altogether, 
 in our currency, worth perhaps two hundred and 
 fifty dollars. 
 
 Here, too, while sitting with Henri on the steps 
 •of the posthouse, I asked him in a friendly way 
 how he could be such a rascal as to league with 
 !the postmaster to detain us at Vosnezeuski, where- 
 upon he went at once into French heroics, exclaim- 
 ing, "Monsieur, je snis vieux militaire — j'^tais 
 •chasseur de Napoleon — mon honneur," &c. ; that 
 he had never travelled before except with grand 
 seigneurs, and then in the carriage, more as com- 
 pagnon de voyage than as a servant, and intimated 
 iliat it was a great condescension to travel with us 
 ■at all. 
 
 We passed through several villages, so much 
 ^like and so uninteresting in appearance that I did 
 not note even their names. As night approached 
 we had great apprehensions that Henri would 
 -contrive to make us stop again ; but the recollec- 
 tion of his bed on the box served as a lesson, and 
 we rolled on without interruption. At daylight 
 "We awoke, and found ourselves upon the wild 
 -steppes of Russia, forming part of the immense 
 lilain which, beginning in northern Germany, 
 •extends for hundreds of miles, having its surface 
 -occasionally diversified by ancient tumuli, and 
 termmates at the long chain of the Urals, which, 
 rising like a wall, separates them from the equally 
 vast plains of Siberia. The whole of this immense 
 plain was covered with a luxuriant pasture, but 
 hare of trees like our own prairie lands, mostly 
 uncultivated, yfel everywhere capable of producing 
 the same wheat which now draws to the Black 
 -Sea the vessels of Turkey, Egypt, and Italy, 
 making Russia the granary of the Levant ; and 
 which, within the last year, we have seen brought 
 SIX thousand miles to our own doors. Our road 
 -over these steppes was in its natural state ; that is 
 'o say, a mere track worn by caravans of wag- 
 gons ; there were no fences, and sometimes the 
 route was marked at intervals by heaps of stones, 
 intended as guides when the ground should be 
 -covered with snow. I had some anxiety about 
 our carriage ; the spokes of the wheels were all 
 strengthened and secured by cords wound tightly 
 around them, and interlaced so as to make a 
 network ; but the postilions were so perfectly 
 reckless as to the fate of the carriage, that every 
 crack went through me Uke a shot. The breaking 
 of a wheel would have left us perfectly helpless 
 ni a desolate country, perhaps more than a hun- 
 "dred miles from any place where we could get it 
 repaired. Indeed, on the whole road to Chioff 
 Mere was not a single place where we could have 
 
 any material injury repaired ; and the remark of 
 the old traveller is yet emphatically true, that 
 " there be small succour in these parts." 
 
 At about nine o'clock we whirled furiously into 
 a little village, and stopped at the door of the 
 posthouse. Our wheels were smoking with the 
 rapidity of their i-evolutions ; Henri dashed a 
 bucket of water over them to keep them from 
 burning, and half a dozen men whipped them off 
 and greased them.* Indeed, greasing the wheels 
 is necessary at every post, as otherwise the hubs 
 become dry, so that there is actual danger of 
 their taking fire ; and there is a traveller's story 
 told (but I do not vouch for its truth) of a pos- 
 tilion, waggon and passengers, being all burned 
 up on the road to Moscow by the ignition of the 
 wheels. 
 
 The village, like all the others, was built of 
 wood, plastered and whitewashed, with roofs of 
 thatched straw, and the houses were much cleaner 
 than I expected to find them. We got plenty of 
 fresh milk ; the bread, which to the traveller in 
 those countries is emphatically the staft' of life, we 
 found good everywhere in Russia, and at Moscow 
 the whitest I ever saw. Henri was an enormous 
 feeder, and, wherever we stopped, he disappeared 
 for a moment, and came out with a loaf of bread 
 in his hand, and his mustache covered with the 
 froth of quass, a Russian small beer. He said he 
 was not always so voracious, but his seat was so 
 hard, and he was so roughly shaken, that eating 
 did him no good. 
 
 Resuming our journey, we met no travellers. 
 Occasionally we passed large droves of cattle, but 
 all the way from Odessa the principal objects were 
 long trains of waggons, fifty or sixty together, 
 drawn by oxen, and transporting merchandise 
 toward Moscow or grain to the Black Sea. Their 
 approach was indicated at a great distance by 
 immense clouds of dust, which gave us timely 
 notice to let down our curtains and raise our 
 glasses. The waggoners were short, ugly-looking 
 fellows, with huge sandy mustaches and beards, 
 black woolly caps, and sheepskin jackets, the wool 
 side next the skin ; perhaps, in many cases, trans- 
 ferred warm from the back of one animal to that 
 of the other, where they remained till worn out or 
 eaten up by vermin. They had among them 
 blacksmiths and wheelwrights, and spare wheels, 
 and hammer, and tools, and everything necessary 
 for a journey of several hundred miles. Half of 
 them were generally asleep on the top of their 
 loads, and they encamped at night in caravan 
 style, arranging th^waggons in a square, bifflding 
 a large fire, and sleeping around it. About mid- 
 day we saw clouds gathering afar off in the horizon, 
 and soon after the rain began to fall, and we could 
 see it advancing rapidly over the immense level, 
 till it broke over our heads, and in a few moments 
 passed off, leaving the ground smoking with exha- 
 lations. 
 
 Late in the afternoon we met the travelling 
 equipage of a seigneur returning from Moscow to 
 his estate in the country. It consisted of four 
 carriages, with six or eight horses each. The first 
 was a large, stately, and cumbrous vehicle, padded 
 and cushioned, in which, as we passed rapidly by, 
 we caught a glimpse of a corpulent Russian on the 
 back seat, with his feet on the front, bolstered all 
 around with pillows and cushions, almost burying 
 
20+ 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVKL 
 
 every part of him but his face, and looking the 
 very personification of luxurious indulgence ; and 
 yet, probably, that man had been a soldier, and 
 slept many a night on the bare ground, with no 
 covering but his military cloak. Next came 
 another carriiige, fitted out in the same luxurious 
 style, with the seigneur's lady and a little girl ; 
 then another with nurees and childreu ; then beds, 
 baggage, cooking utensils, and servants, the latter 
 hanging on everywhere about the vehicle, much 
 in the same way with the pots and kettles. Alto- 
 gether, it was an equipment in caravan style, 
 somewhat the same as for a journey in the desert, 
 the traveller carrying with him provision and 
 everything necessary for his comfort, as not ex- 
 pecting to procure anything on the road, nor to 
 sleep under a roof during the whole journey. 
 He stops when he pleases, and his servants pre- 
 pare his meals, sometimes in the open air, but 
 generally at the posthouse. We had constant 
 difficulties with Henri and the postmasters, but, 
 e.Kcept when detained for an hour or two by 
 these petty tyrants, we rolled on all night, and 
 in the morning again woke upon the same bound- 
 less plain. 
 
 The posthouse was usually in a village, but 
 sometimes stood alone, the only object to be seen 
 on the great plain. Before it was always a high 
 square post, with black and white stripes, mark- 
 ing the number of versts from station to station ; 
 opposite to this Henri dismounted, and presented 
 the podoroshni or imperial order for horses. But 
 the postmastei-s were high above the laws ; every 
 one of them seemed a little autocrat in his own 
 riglit, holding his appointment rather to prey 
 upon than to serve travellers ; and the emperor's 
 government would be but badly administered if 
 his ukases and other high-sounding orders did not 
 carry with them more weight than his podoroshni. 
 The postmasters obeyed it when they pleased, and 
 when they did not, made a new bargain. They 
 always had an excuse ; as, for instance, that they 
 had no horses, or were keeping them in reserve 
 for a courier or grand seigneur ; but they listened 
 to reason when enforced by rubles, and, as soon as 
 a new bargain was made, half-a-dozen animals in 
 sheepskin went out on the plain and drove up 
 fifteen or twenty horses, small, rugged, and tough, 
 with long and shaggy manes and tails, which no 
 comb or brush had ever touched, and, diving 
 among them promiscuously, caught four, put on 
 rope headstalls, and tied them to our rope traces. 
 The postilion mounted the box, and shouting and 
 whipping his horses, and sometimes shutting his 
 eyes, started from the post on a full gallop, carried 
 us like the wind, ventre a-terre, over the immense 
 plain, sometimes without a rut or any visible mai'k 
 to guide him, and brought us up all standing in 
 front of the next post. A long delay and a short 
 post, and this was the same over and over again 
 during the whole journey. The time actually 
 consumed in making progress was incredibly 
 short, and I do not know a more beautiful way of 
 getting over the ground than posting in Russia 
 with a man of high military rank, who can make 
 the postmast^re give him horses immediately on 
 his aiTival. As for us, after an infinite deal ol' 
 vexation and at a ruinous expense, on the morn- 
 mg of the foui'th day we were within one post of 
 CliiofiF. Here we heard with great satisfaction 
 
 that a diligence was advertised for Moscow, and 
 we determined at once to get rid of carriage, 
 posting, and Henri. We took our seats for the 
 last time in the caliche, gave the •poetilion a 
 double allowance of kopeks, and in half an hour' 
 saw at a great distance the venerable city of 
 Chioff, the ancient capital of Russia. It stands at 
 a great height, on the crest of an amphitheatre- 
 of hills, which rise abruptly in the middle of an 
 immense plam, apparently thrown up by sonifr 
 wild freak of nature, at once curious, unique, and 
 beautiful. The style of its architecture is ad- 
 mirably calculated to give effect to its peculiar 
 position ; and, after a dreary journey over the- 
 wild plains of the Ukraine, it breaks ujKin thfr 
 traveller with all the glittering and gorgeous- 
 splendour of an Asiatic city. For many centuries- 
 it has been regarded as the Jerusalem of the- 
 North, the sacred and holy city of the Russians;, 
 and, long before reaching it, its numerous con- 
 vents and churches, crowning the summit an* 
 hanging on the sides of the hill, with their quad- 
 rupled domes, and spires, and chains, and crosses,, 
 gilded with ducat gold and glittering in the sun,, 
 gave the whole city the appearance of golden 
 splendour. The churches and monasteries hav& 
 one large dome in the centre, with a spire sur- 
 mounted by a cross, and several smaller domes, 
 around it, also with spires and crosses connected 
 by pendent chains, and gilded so purely that they 
 never tarnish. We drove rapidly to the foot of 
 the hill, and ascended by n- long wooden paveA 
 road to the heart of the city. | 
 
 During the whole of our last post our mterestl 
 had been divided between the venerable city and' 
 the rogue Henri. My companion, who, by-the- 
 way, spoke but little French, ?isliked him from the 
 first. We had long considered him in league with 
 all the Jews and postmasters on the road, and had i 
 determined under no circumstances to take him 
 farther than Chioff ; but as we had hired him tO'. 
 Moscow, the difiiculty was how to get rid of him> 
 He might take it into his head, that, if we did notl 
 know when we had a good servant, he knew when' 
 he had good masters ; but he was constantly; 
 grumbling about his seat, and calculated upon 
 three or four days' rest at Chioff. So, as soon as- 
 we drove up to the door of the hotel, we told him 
 to order breakfast and post-horses. He turned 
 round as if he had not fully comprehended us. 
 We repeated the order, and for the tiret time since- 
 he had been with us he showed something like- 
 agility in dismounting ; fairly threw himself from- 
 the box, swore he would not ride another verst 
 that day for a thousand rubles, and discharged us 
 on the spot. We afterward paid him to his entire 
 satisfaction, jidemnifjing him for the money he 
 had squandered in paying his debts at Odessa, 
 and found him more useful at Chioff than he had 
 been at any time on the road. Indeed, we after- 
 ward learned, what was rather ludicrous, viz., 
 that he, our pilot and interpreter through the 
 wilderness of Russia, knew but little more of 
 Russian than we did ourselves. He could ask for 
 post-horses and the ordinary necessaries of lite, 
 count money, &c. but could not sujiport a con- 
 nected conversation, nor speak nor underatand a 
 long sentence. This changed our suspicions of 
 liis honesty into admiration of his impudence; 
 but, in the mean time, when he discliai-ged us, | 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 205 
 
 we should have been rather destitute if it had not 
 been for the servant of a Russian traveller, who 
 «poke French, and, taking our direction from him, 
 we mounted a drosky and rode to the office of the 
 <liligence, which was situated in the Podolsk or 
 lower town, and at which we found ourselves 
 particularly well received by the proprietor. He 
 :said that the attempt to run a diligence was dis- 
 couraging ; that he had advertised two weeks, and 
 had not booked a single passenger ; but, if he 
 ■could get two, he was determined to try the 
 .experiment. We examined the vehicle, which 
 was very large and convenient, and, satisfied that 
 there was no danger of all the places being taken, 
 we left him until we could make an effort to 
 dispose of our carriage. Relieved from all anxiety 
 as to our future movements, we again mounted 
 ■our drosky. Ascending the hill, we passed the 
 fountain where St. Vladimu* baptised the first 
 Russian converts ; tlie spring is held sacred by 
 the Christians now, and a column bearing a cross 
 is erected over it, to commemorate the pious act 
 .and the ancient sovereignty of Chiofi". 
 
 The early history of this city is involved in 
 some obscurity. Its name is supposed to be 
 ■derived from Kiovi or Kii, a Sarmatian word 
 signifying heights or mountains ; and its inhabit- 
 .ants, a Sarmatian tribe, were denominated Kivi, 
 or mountaineers. It is known to have been a 
 ■place of consequence in the fifth century, when 
 ihe Suevi, driven from their settlements on the 
 Danube, established themselves here and at Novo- 
 ^orod. In the beginning of the tenth century it 
 was the capital and most celebrated and opulent 
 ■city in Russia, or in that part of Europe. Boles- 
 laus the Terrible notched upon its " golden gate " 
 his "miraculous sword," called by the monks 
 ■" The sword of God," and the Poles entered and 
 plundered it of its riches. In the latter part of 
 ■the same century, the capital of Russia again fell 
 ■before the conquering arms of the Poles. Kiev 
 was at that time the foster-child of Constantinople 
 and the Eastern empire. The voluptuous Greeks 
 had stored it with all the luxuries of Asia ; the 
 noble architecture of Athens was festooned with 
 the gaudy tapestry of Lydia, and the rough metal 
 of Russian swords embossed with the polished 
 gold of Ophir and Persia. Boleslaus II., shut up 
 mthin the " golden gate '' of this city of volup- 
 tuousness, quaffed the bowl of pleasure till its 
 intoxicating draught degraded all the nobler 
 energies of his nature. His army of warriors 
 followed his example, and slept away month 
 after month on the soft couches of Kiev ; and in 
 the language of the historian, as if they had eaten 
 -of the fabled fruit of the lotos-tree, at length 
 forgot that their houses were without masters, 
 their wives without husbands, and their children 
 without parents. 
 
 But these tender relations were not in like man- 
 ner oblivious ; and, after seven years of absence, 
 the Poles were roused from their trance of plea- 
 sure by the tidings of a revolt among the women 
 at home, who, tired of waiting their return, in 
 revenge gave themselves up to the embraces of 
 •their slaves. Burning under the disgrace, the 
 Poles hurried home to wreak their vengeance on 
 Tvives and paramours ; but they met at Warsaw 
 a bloody resistance ; the women, maddened by 
 ■ ■despair, urged on their lovers, many of them 
 
 fighting in person, and seeking out on the battle- 
 field their faithless husbands : an awful warning 
 to married men 1 
 
 For a long time Kiev was the prey alternately 
 of the Poles, the Lithuanians, and the Tartars, 
 until in 1 68'i it was finally ceded by the Poles to 
 Russia. The city is composed of three distinct 
 quarters ; the old, with its Polish fortifications, 
 containing the palace of the emperor, and being 
 the court end ; the Petcherk fortress, built by 
 Peter the Great, with ditches and high ramparts, 
 and an arsenal capable of containing eighty or a 
 hundred thousand stand of arms ; and the Podolsk, 
 or business part, situated at the foot of the hill on 
 the banks of the Dnieper. It contains thirty 
 thousand inhabitants, besides a large military 
 garrison, partly of Cossack troops, and one pretty 
 good hotel ; but no beds, and none of those soft 
 couches which made the hardy Poles sleep away 
 their senses ; and though a welcome resting-place 
 for a traveller through the wild plains of Russia, 
 it does not now possess any such attraction as to 
 put in peril the faith and duties of husbands. 
 By its position secluded from intercourse with 
 strangers, Kiev is still thoroughly a Russian city, 
 retaining in full force its Asiatic style of architec- 
 ture ; and the old Russian, wedded to the man- 
 ners and customs of his fathers, clings to it as a 
 place which the hand of improvement has not yet 
 reached ; among other relics of the olden time, 
 the long beard stiil flourishes with the same 
 solemn djgnity as in the days of Peter the Great. 
 Lying a hundred miles away from the direct road 
 between Moscow and the Black Sea, few European 
 travellers visit it ; and though several of them 
 have done so since, perhaps I was the first Ame- 
 rican who ever passed through it. 
 
 We passed the morning in riding round to the 
 numerous convents and chnrches, among which is 
 the church of St. Softhia, the oldest in Russia, 
 and, if not an exact model of the great St. Sophia 
 of Constantinople, at least of Byzantine design ; 
 and toward evening went to the emperor's garden. 
 This garden is more than a mile in length, bounded 
 on one side by the high precipitous bank of the 
 hill, undulating in its surface, and laid out like 
 an English park with lawn, gravel-walks, and 
 trees ; it contains houses of refreshment, arbours, 
 or summer-houses, and a summer theatre. At the 
 foot of the hill flows the Dnieper, the ancient 
 Borysthenes, on which, in former days, thr de- 
 scendants of Odin and Ruric descended to plunder 
 Constantinople. Two or three sloops were lying, 
 as it were, asleep in the lower town, telling of a 
 still interior country, and beyond was a boundlews 
 plain covered with a thick forest of trees. The 
 view from this bank was unique and extraordinary, 
 entirely different from anything 1 ever saw in 
 natural scenery, and resembling moi'e than any- 
 thing else a boundless marine prospect. 
 
 At the entrance of the garden is an open square 
 or table of land overlooking the plain, where, 
 every evening at seven o'clock, the military band 
 plays. The garden is the fashionable promenade, 
 the higher classes resorting to it in carriages and 
 on horseback, and the common people on foot ; 
 the display of equipages was not very striking, 
 although there is something stylish in the Russian 
 manner of driving four horses, the leaders with 
 very long traces and a postilion ; and soldiers and 
 
20S 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 ^fficel■s, with their splendid uniforms, caps, and 
 plumes, added a brilliant eifect. 
 
 Before the music began, all returned from the 
 promenade or drive in the garden, and gathered 
 in the square. It was a beautiful afternoon in 
 June, and the assemblage was unusually large and 
 brilliant ; the carriages drew up iu a line, the 
 ladies let down tlie glasses, and the cavaliers dis- 
 mounted, and talked and flirted mth them just as 
 in civilised countries. All ChiofiF was there, and 
 the peasant in his dirty sheepskin jacket, the 
 shoplieeper with his long surtout and beard, tlie 
 postilion on his horse, the etiachman on his box, 
 the dashing soldier, the haughty noble and super- 
 cilious lady, touched by the same chord, forgot 
 their temporal distinctions, and listened to tlie 
 swelling strains of the music till the last notes died 
 away. The whole mass was then in motion, and 
 in a few moments, except by a few stragglers, of 
 whom I was one, the garden was deserted. At 
 about ten o'clock, I returned to my hotel. We 
 had no beds, and slept in our cloaks on settees 
 stuffed with straw and covered with leather. We 
 had no coverlets ; still, after four days and nights 
 in a carriage, it was a luxury to have plenty of 
 kicldng room. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A lucky Encounter.' — Church of the Catacombs.' — A Visit 
 to theSaints. — A tender Parting. — Pilgrims Hough Treat- 
 ment.— A Scene of Starvation. — Russian Serfs.^-Devotion 
 of the Serfs. — Approach to Moscow. 
 
 Early in the morning, while I was standing in 
 the yard of the hotel, chaffering with some Jews 
 about the sale of our carriage, an of5eer in a faded, 
 threadbare uniform, with two or three ribands at 
 his button-hole, and stars .sparkling on his breast, 
 came up, and, taking me by the hand, told me, 
 ill capital English, that he had just heard of the 
 arrival of two English gentlemen, and had hurried 
 down to see them ; that he was a great admirer of 
 the English, and happy to have an opportunity, 
 in the interior of his own country, to show its 
 hospitalities to the natives of the Island Queen. 
 At the risk of losing the benefit of his attentions, 
 I w.Ti obliged to disclaim my suppo.sed English 
 cha; icter, and to publish, in the heart of a grinding 
 despotism, that I was a citizen of a free republic. 
 Nor did I suffer for ray candour ; for, by one of 
 those strange vagaries which sometimes happen, 
 we cannot tell how or why, this officer in the ser- 
 vice of Russia had long looked to America and her 
 republican government as the perfection of an 
 ideal system. He was iu Chioff only by accidnnt. 
 Wounded in the last campaign against the Turks, 
 he had taken up his abode at Ismail, where, upon 
 his pension and a pittance of his own, he was aljle 
 to live respectably as a poor officer. With no 
 friends or connexions, and no society at Ismail, 
 his head seemed to have run principally upon two 
 things, apparently having no connexion with each 
 other, but intimately connected in his mind, viz., 
 the British possessions in India and the United 
 States of America ; and the cord that bound them 
 together was the wide diffusion of the English 
 language by means of these powerful agents. He 
 t«ld me mora than I ever knew of the constimtioii ' 
 
 and government of the East India Company, an* 
 their plan of operations ; and, in regard to oui 
 own country, his knowledge was astonishing ; h» 
 knew the names and character, and talked fami- 
 liarly of all our principal men, from the time of 
 Washington to the present day ; had read all our 
 standard works, and was fai more familiar with 
 those of Franklin Irving, &c., tlian I was ; in 
 short, he told me that he had read every American, 
 book, pamphlet, or paper he could lay his hands, 
 on ; and so intimate was his knowledge of detail,, 
 that he mentioned Chestnut-street by name as one- 
 of the principal streets in Philadelphia. It may 
 be supposed that I was not sorry to meet such 
 a man in the heart of Russia. He devoted himself 
 to us, and seldom left us, except at night, until we 
 left the city. 
 
 After breakfast, accompanied by our new friend 
 with as unpronounceable a name as the best in. 
 Russia, we visited the catacombs of the Petcherskoi 
 monastery. I have before remarked that Chioff 
 is the holy city of the Russians, and the crowds o{ 
 pilgrims we met at every turn in the streets con- 
 stantly reminded us that this was the great season. 
 of the pilgrimage. I was but imperfectly ac- 
 quainted with the Russian character, but in no- 
 one particular had 1 been so ignorant as in regard 
 to their religious impressions. I had seen Italian^ 
 Greek, and Turkish devotees, but the Russian 
 surpassed them all ; and, though deriving their 
 religion from strangers, they exceed the (luncti- 
 lions Greeks themselves in the observance of hit 
 minutest forms. Censurable, indeed, would he be- 
 considered who should pass, in city or in highway, 
 the figure of the cross, the image of the Virgin, or 
 any of the numerous family of saints, without 
 taking off his hat and making on his breast thi- 
 sacred sign of the cross ; and in a city like Chioff, 
 where every turn presents some new object claim- 
 ing their worship, the eyes of our drosky boy 
 were rapidly turning from one side to the other, 
 and his hand was almost constantly iu a quid; 
 mechanical motion. 
 
 The Church of the Catacombs, or the Cathedra* 
 of the Assumption, attached to the monaster}-, | 
 stands a little out of the city, on the banks of thi- 1 
 Dnieper. It was founded in ten hundi-ed am! 
 seventy-three, and has seven golden domes with 
 golden spires, and chains connecting them. Thi- 
 dome of the belfry, which rises above the hill ti- : 
 the height of about three hundred feet, and above ' 
 the Dnieper to that of five hundred and eighty- ; 
 six, is considered by the Russians a chef-oPceuvre 
 of architecture. It is adorned with Doric and 
 Ionic columns and Corinthian pilasters ; the whole 
 interior bears the venerable garb of antiquity, ami 
 is richly ornamented with gold, silver, and pre- \ 
 cious stones and paintings ; indeed, it is altogether • 
 very far superior to any Greek church I had then 
 seen. 
 
 In the immense catacombs under the monastery 
 lie the unburied bodies of the Russian saints, and 
 year after year thousands and tens of thousands^ 
 come from the «ilds of Siberia and the confines of 
 Tartary to kneel at their feet and pray, Inoneot 
 the porches of the church we bought wax taper?, 
 and, with a long procession of pilgrims, bare- 
 headed and with lighted tapers in our hands, 
 descended a long wooden staircase to the mouth of 
 the catacomb. On each side along the staircasi- 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND 
 
 i07 
 
 I 
 
 was ranged a line of kneeling devotees, of the same 
 misei-able description I had so often seen about 
 the churches in Italy and Greece. Entering the 
 excavated passages of the catacombs, the roof of 
 which was black from the smoke of candles, we 
 saw on each side, in niches in the walls, and in 
 open coffins, enveloped in wrappers of cloth and 
 silk, ornamented with gold and silver, the bodies 
 (if the Russian saints. These saints are persons 
 who have led particularly pure and holy lives, and 
 byreason thereof have ascended into heaven,where 
 they are supposed to exercise an influence with 
 the Father and Son ; and their bodies are left 
 unburied that their brethren may come to them 
 for intercession, and, seeing their honours after 
 death, study to imitate them in the purity of their 
 lives. The bodies are laid in open coffins, with 
 the stiffened hands so placed as to receive the 
 kisses of pilgiims, and on their breasts are written 
 their names, and sometimes a history of their 
 vu:tuous actions. But we saw there other and 
 worse things than these, monuments of wild and 
 desperate fanaticism ; for besides the bodies of 
 saints who had died at God*8 appointed time, in 
 one passage is a range of small windows, where 
 men had with their own hands built themselves 
 in with stones against the wall, leaving open only 
 ., small hole by which to receive their food ; and 
 died with the impious thought that they were 
 doing their Maker good service. These little 
 windows close their dwelling and their tomb ; and 
 the devoted Russian, while he kneels before them, 
 believes that their unnatural death has purchased 
 for them everlasting life, and place and power 
 among the spirits of the blessed. 
 
 We wandered a long time in this extraordinary 
 burial-place, everywhere strewed with the kneeling 
 figures of praying pilgrims. At every turn we 
 saw hundreds from the farthest parts of the im- 
 mense empire of Russia ; perhaps at that time 
 more than three thousand were wandering in these 
 sepulchral chambers. 
 
 The last scene I shall never forget. More than 
 a hundred were assembled in a little chapel, 
 around which were arranged the bodies of men 
 who had died in peculiar sanctity. All were 
 kneeling on the rocky floor, an old priest, with a 
 long white beard streaming down his breast, was 
 in the midst of them, and all there, even to the 
 little children, were listening with rapt attention, 
 as if he were preaching to them matters of eternal 
 moment. There was no hypocrisy or want of 
 faith in that vast sepulchre ; surrounded by their 
 sainted dead, they were searching their way to 
 everlasting life, and in all honesty believed that 
 they saw the way before them. We ascended once 
 more to the regions of upper air, and stopped a 
 few moments in the courtyard of the monastery, 
 where the beggar pilgrims were eating the hard 
 bread distributed to them by the monks from the 
 bounty of government. No man seemed more 
 relieved than the maj-ir. He was a liberal in 
 religion as well as in politics, but he crossed him- 
 self everywhere most devoutly, to avoid, as he 
 said, offending the prejudices of his countrymen, 
 though once he rather scandalised a group of 
 pdgrims by cross-questioning a monk about a new 
 samt, who seemed to be receiving more than a 
 usual share of veneration, and who, he said, Had 
 been canonised since he was there last. 
 
 But there is a time for all things, and nothin;. 
 is more absolutely fixed by nature's laws than 
 time for dinner. Almost at the first moment oi 
 our acquaintance the major had told me of an 
 engraving representing a scene in New York, 
 which was to be found at a second or third-rate 
 hotel, and I proposed to him, in compliment to the 
 honest publican who had the good taste to have 
 such a picture in his house, to go there and dine. 
 We went, and in a large room, something like a 
 bar-room in our hotels, saw on one of the walls, 
 in a black wooden frame, a gaudy and flarinp 
 engraving representing the pulling down of the 
 statue of George the Second in the Bowling Greon. 
 The Bowling Green was associated with my earliest 
 recollections. It had been my playground when 
 a boy ; hundreds of times I had climbed over it."^ 
 fence for my ball, and I was one of a band of boys 
 who held on to it long after the corporation in- 
 vaded our rights. Captain Cook mentions the 
 effect produced upon his crew by finding at one 
 of the savage islands he visited a silver spoon 
 marked " London ;" my feelings were, in a smali 
 way, of the same nature. The grouping of the 
 picture was rude and grotesque, the ringleadei- 
 being a long negro stripped to his trousers, and 
 straining with all his might upon a rope, one enc' 
 of which was fastened to the head of the statue, 
 and the other tied around his own waist, his whitt' 
 teeth and the whites of his eyes being partieularl.\ 
 conspicuous on a heavy ground of black. It was 
 a poor specimen of art, but it was a home scene , 
 we drew up our table opposite the picture, an<J 
 here, in the very head-quarters of despotism, ] 
 found a liberal spirit in an officer wearing tlu 
 uniform of the autocrat, who pledged me in the 
 toast, " Success to liberty throughout the world." 
 
 I had another occupation, which savoured more 
 of home, and served to keep my faculties from 
 rusting ; and that was the sale of our carriage. 
 We had made a calculation, and found that il 
 would be cheaper, to say nothing of other advan 
 tages, to give it away, and take the diligence tc 
 Moscow, than go on posting. We accordingly 
 offered it for sale, and every time we returned t« 
 the house found a group of Jews examining it. 
 Tho poor thing found no favour in their eyes ; 
 they told us that we had been riding in it at peril 
 of our lives ; that we might be thankful it had not 
 broken down on the road ; and, in short, that it 
 was worth nothing except for old iron, .ind for that 
 it was worth forty -five rubles, or about ydne dollars. 
 We could not stand this. It had cost us one hun- 
 dred and forty less than a week before, was cheap 
 at that, and as good now as when we bought it. 
 On the eve of departure, therefore, we offered it 
 to our landlord for three days' board ; but the old 
 Turk (he was a Jew turned Christian, and in hi.'* 
 regenerated worse than his natural state) refused 
 our offer, thinking that we would go awpy and 
 leave it on his hands. But we resolved to burn 
 it fii-st ; and while hesitating about offering it to 
 our friend the major, he relieved us from all 
 delicacy by telling us that he did not want it, and 
 had no horses to put to it ; to save us from impo- 
 sition, he would willingly give us the full value, 
 but he was not worth the money. He had, how- 
 ever, a piece of fifty rubles, or about ten dollars, 
 iu his pocket, and, if we would take that, he would 
 Keep the carriage as a souvenir. We gladly ac- 
 
208 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 cepted his offer, and had the satisfaction of finding 
 that we had grievously disappointed both the Jews 
 and our landlord. 
 
 In the morning the proprietor of the diligence, 
 learning that we had sold our vehicle, raised the 
 price of places fifty rubles a-piece ; the major heard 
 of itj and insisted upon our taking back the car- 
 riage, when the proprietor took another tone, 
 talked of the expense of sending his huge vehicle 
 with only two passengers, and we listened and as- 
 sented. We started to accompany him, and just 
 at the door of the hotel saw two runaway horses 
 coming furiously down the street with a drosky, 
 and an officer entangled and dragging on the 
 ground. We picked him up and carried him into 
 the hotel. He was a noble-looking man, who but 
 a few minutes before had attracted my attention 
 by his proud and manly bearing, now a miserable 
 mangled object, his clothes torn, his plume soiled 
 with mud, and his face covered with dust and 
 blood, and, when we left it was uncertain whether 
 he would live or die. 
 
 The major accompanied us to the office of the 
 diligence, and our parting was ratner tender ; he 
 rubbed his rnustache on both my cheeks, wrote his 
 name in my memorandum-book, and I gave him 
 my address ; he said that our visit had been an 
 interlude relieving the dull monotony of his life ; 
 that we were going to new scenes, and would soon 
 forget him, but he would not forget us. Nor shall 
 I forget him, although it is not prob.able that he 
 and I will ever meet again. 
 
 We took our seats in the diligence for Moscow, 
 and set off with an uncommon degree of satisfac- 
 tion at having got rid of posting and of Henri, and, 
 with them, of all our troubles. We had nothing 
 to do, no wrangling with postmasters, no cheating 
 to undergo from Jews, and were in that happy 
 state which made the honest Hibernian indifferent 
 to an upset or a breakdown ; that is to say, we 
 were merely passengei-s. With great pomp and 
 cu'cumstance we drove through the principal 
 streets, to advise the Knickerbockers of Chioff of 
 the actual departure of the long-talked-of diligence, 
 the conducteur sounding his trumpet, and the 
 people stopping in the streets and running to the 
 doors to see the extraordinary spectacle. 
 
 We descended the long wooden road to the river, 
 and crossed the Dnieper on a bridge about half a 
 mile long. On the opposite bank I turned for the 
 last time to the sacred city, and I never saw any- 
 thing more unique and strikingly beautiful than 
 the high, commanding position of " this city on a 
 hill," crowned with its golden cupolas and domes, 
 that reflected the sun with dazzling brightness. 
 
 For a short distance the country was rather un- 
 dulating, but soon settled into the regular steppe. 
 We rolled on all day without anything to annoy 
 us or even to interest us, except processions of 
 pilgi'ims on their way to Chioff. They travelled 
 on foot in bands of one or two hundred, men, 
 women and children, headed by a. white-bearded 
 monk, barefooted, and leaning on a staff. During 
 the night 1 was roused by a loud chant, and look- 
 ing out, saw a group of more than a hundred 
 pilgrims gathered round a fire, with an old monk 
 in the midst of them, breaking the stillness of the 
 night w itli songs of devotion ; and all the night 
 long as we rode swiftly by, I saw by the bright 
 moonlight groups of forty, fifty, or a hundred lying 
 
 by the roadside asleep under the trees. More 
 than fifty thousand pilgrhns that year visited the 
 catacombs of Kiev, coming from every part of the 
 immense empire of Russia, and many from Kamt- 
 scliatka and the most distant region of Siberia 
 performing the whole journey on foot, seldom 
 sleeping under a roof, and living upon the preca- 
 rious charity of the miserable peasants on the road, 
 I have since seen the gathering of pilgrims at 
 Jerusalem, and the whole body moving together 
 from the gates of the city to bathe in the Jordan, 
 and I have seen the great caravan of forty thou- 
 sand true believers tracking their desolate way 
 through the deserts of Arabia to the tomb of the 
 Prophet at Mecca ; but I remember, as if they 
 were before me now, the groups of Russian pil- 
 grims strewed along the road and sleeping under 
 the pale moonlight, the bare earth their bed, the 
 heavens their only covering. 
 
 In the morning we stopped at a little town, where 
 the posthouse had in front four Corinthian colunms, 
 supporting a balcony. Inside, mats were placed 
 against the broken windows, the walls were rough 
 logs, the floor of mud, with pigs and children dis- 
 puting its possession, and the master and mistress 
 stood in special need of the purifying influence of 
 a Russian bath. We brought the tea-urn out ou 
 the balcony, and had a cow brought up and milked 
 in our presence. After breakfast we lighted our 
 pipes and strolled up the street. At the upper 
 end, an old man in a civil uniform hailed us from 
 the opposite side, and crossed over to meet us ; 
 supposing him to be some dignitary disposed to 
 show us the civilities of the town, we waited to 
 receive him with all becoming respect ; but, as he 
 approached, were rather startled by the loud tone 
 of his voice and the angry expression of his face, 
 and more so when, as soon as within reach, he gave 
 my pipe-stick a severe rap with his cane, which 
 knocked it out of my mouth, broke the bowl and 
 scattered the contents on the ground. I picked 
 up the stick, and should, perhaps, have laid it 
 over his head but for his grey hairs ; and ray 
 companion, seeing him tread out the sparlts of fire, 
 recollected that there was a severe penalty in 
 Russia against smoking in the streets. The houset 
 are all of wood ; whole villages and towns are often 
 burned down at once, and probably the old man 
 had begun by a civil intimation to that effect ; but, 
 indignant at my quietly smoking in his face, had 
 used more summary measures. He was in a per- 
 fect fury ; and calling at the top of his voice to a 
 man up the street, the latter went off with such a 
 suspicious looking-for-a-police-of&cer movement, 
 that we hurried back to the diligence, which hap- 
 pened to be ready and waiting for us, and started 
 from the town on a full run. 
 
 That|,night, in a miserable posthouse in a miser- 
 able village, we found an old billiard-table. It 
 seemed strangely out of place, and 1 had a great 
 curiosity to know how it had found its way there : 
 but it was twelve o'clock, and all were asleep but 
 the postilion. I can give no account of the rest 
 of the night's work. I had a large cushioned seat 
 of the diligence to myself, certainly the softest bed 
 I had yet had in Russia ; and when I put my feet 
 out of the window, it was so comfortable that 1 
 felt myself in some danger of falling into luxurious 
 habits. 
 
 A t d,-iylight we arrived in a large village, the 
 
IN GKKECK, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 209 
 
 inhabitants of which were not yet stirring, and the 
 streets were strewed with peasants, grim, yellow- 
 bearded fellows, in ^sh<!ep-skin dresses and caps, 
 lying on their backs asleep, each of them with a 
 log of wood under his head for a pillow. I de- 
 scended from the diligence, and found tliat the 
 whole village consisted of a single street, with log- 
 louses on each side, having their g.ible ends in 
 ''ront ; the doors were all open, and I looked in and 
 saw men and women with ail their clothes on, pigs, 
 sheep, and children, strewed about the floor. 
 
 In every house was the image of the Fanagia, 
 or all-holy Virgin, or the picture of some tutelary 
 saint, the face only visible, the rest covered with a 
 tin frame, with a lamp or taper burning before it; 
 and regularly as the serf rose he prostrated him- 
 self, and made his orisons at this domestic shrine. 
 
 About noon we passed the chateau and grounds 
 of a seigneur ; belonging to the chateau was a 
 large church standing in a conspicuous situation, 
 with a gi-een dome, surmounted by the Greek 
 cross ; and round it were the miserable and filthy 
 habitations of his slaves. Entering the village, we 
 saw a spectacle of wretchedness and misery seldom 
 surpassed even on the banks of the Nile. The 
 whole population was gathered in the streets, in a 
 state of absolute starvation. The miserable serfs 
 had not raised enough to supply themselves with 
 food, and men of all ages, half-grown boys, and 
 little children, were prowling the streets or sitting 
 in the door-ways, ravenous with hunger, and 
 waiting for the agent to come down from the 
 chateau and distribute among them bread. I had 
 found in Russia many interesting subjects of com- 
 parison between that country n,nd my own, but it 
 was with deep humiliation I felt that the most 
 odious feature in that despotic government found 
 a, parallel in ours. At this day, with the excep- 
 tion of Russia, some of the West India Islands, 
 and the republic of the United States, every 
 country in the civilised world can respond to the 
 proud boast of the English common law, that the 
 moment a slave sets foot on her soil he is free. I 
 respect the feelings of others and their vested 
 rights, and would be the last to suffer those feel- 
 ings or those rights to be wantonly violated ; but 
 I do not hesitate to say that, abroad, slavery stands 
 as a dark blot upon our national character. There 
 it will not admit of any palliation ; it stands in 
 glaring contrast with the spirit of our free institu- 
 tions ; it belies our words and our hearts ; and the 
 American who would be most prompt to repel 
 •any calumny upon his country withers under this 
 reproach, and writhes with mortification when the 
 taunt is hurled at the otherwise stainless flag of 
 the free republic. I was forcibly struck with a 
 parallel between the white serfs of the north of 
 Europe and African bondsmen at home. Tlie 
 Russian boor, generally wanting the comforts 
 ■which are supplied to the negro on our best or- 
 dered plantations, appeared to me to be not less 
 degraded in intellect, character, and personal 
 bearing ludeedthe marks of physical and per- 
 sonal degradation were so strong, that I was in- 
 sensibly compelled to abandon certain theories not 
 uncommon among my countrymen at home, in 
 regard to the intrinsic superiority of the white race 
 over all others. Perhaps, too, this impression wa-s 
 aided by my having previou.-'ly met with Africans 
 of intelligence and capacity, standing upon a foot- 
 
 ing of perfect equality as soldiers and officers in 
 the Greek army and the sultan's. 
 
 The serfs of Russia differ from slaves with us in 
 the important particular that they belong to the 
 soil, and cannot be sold except with the estate ; 
 they may change masters, but cannot be torn from 
 their connexions or their birth-place. One sixth 
 of the whole peasantry of Russia, amounting to six 
 or seven millions, belong to the crown, and inhabit 
 the imperial demesne, and pay an annual tax. In 
 particular districts, many have been enfranchised, 
 and become burghers and merchants ; and the 
 liberal and enlightened policy of the present em- 
 peror is diffusing a more general system of melio- 
 ration among these subjects of his vast empire. 
 The rest of the serfs belong to the nobles, and are 
 the absolute property and subject to the absolute 
 control of their masters, as much as the cattle on 
 their estates. Some of the seigneurs possess from 
 seventy to more than a hundred thousand ; and 
 their wealth depends upon the skill and manage- 
 ment with which the labour of these serfs is em- 
 ployed. Sometimes the seigneur sends the most 
 intelligent to Petersburgh or Moscow to learn some 
 handicraft, and then employs them on his own 
 estates, hires them out, or allows them to exercise 
 their trade on their own account, on payment of 
 an annual sum. And sometimes, too, he gives the 
 serf a passport, under which he is protected all 
 over Russia, settles in a city, and engages in trade, 
 and very often accumulates enough to ransom 
 himself and his family. Indeed, there are many 
 instances of a serf's acquiring a large property, 
 and even rising to eminence. But he is always 
 subject to the control of his master ; and I saw at 
 Moscow an old mongik who had acquired a very 
 large fortune, but was still a slave. His master's 
 price for his freedom had advanced with his grow- 
 ing wealth, and the poor serf, unable to bring 
 himself to part with his hard earnings, was then 
 rolling in wealth with a collar round his neck ; 
 struggling with the inborn spirit of freedom, and 
 hesitating whether to die a beggar or a slave. 
 
 The Russian serf is obliged to work for his 
 master but three days in the week ; the otlier 
 three he may work for himself on a portion of 
 land assigned to him by law on his master's estate. 
 He is never obliged to work on Sunday, and every 
 saint's day or ffite day of the church is a holiday. 
 This might be supposed to give him an opportu- 
 nity of elevating his character and condition ; but 
 wanting the spirit of a free agent, and feeling him- 
 self the absolute property of another, he labours 
 grudgingly for his master, and for hunself barely 
 enough to supply the rudest necessaries of life 
 and pay his tax to the seigneur. A few rise above 
 their condition, but millions labour like beasts of 
 burden, content with bread to put in their mouths, 
 and never even thinking of freedom. A Russian 
 nobleman told me that he believed, if the serfs 
 were all free, he could cultivate his estate to better 
 advantage by hired labour ; and I have no doubt 
 a dozen Connecticut men would cultivate more 
 ground than a Jiundred Russian serfs, allowing 
 their usual non-working days and holidays. They 
 have no interest in the soil, and the desolate and 
 uncultivated wastes of Russia show the truth of 
 the judicious reflection of Catharine II., "that 
 agriculture can never flourish in that nation where 
 the husbandman possesses no property." 
 
210 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TKAVEL 
 
 It is from this great body of peasantry that 
 Russia recruits her immense standing army, or, 
 in case of invasion, raises in a moment a vast body 
 of soldiers. Every person in Russia entitled to 
 hold land is known to the government, as well as 
 the number of peasants on his estate ; and, upon 
 receiving notice of an imperial order to that effect, 
 the numbers required by the levy are marched 
 forthwith from every part of the empire to the 
 places of rendezvous appointed. It might be 
 asked. What have these men to fight for ? They 
 have no country, and are brought up on immense 
 levels, wanting the rocks, rivers, and mountains 
 that inspire local attachments. It is a singular 
 fact, that, with the Russian serf, there is always 
 an unbounded love for him who stands at the head 
 of the system of oppression under which theygroan, 
 the emperor whom they regard as their protector 
 against the oppression of their immediate masters; 
 but to whatever cause it may be ascribed, whether 
 inability to estimate the value of any change in 
 their condition, or a feeling of actual love for the 
 soil on which they were born, dui-ing the invasion 
 of Napoleon the serfs of Russia presented a noble 
 spectacle ; and the spirit of devotion which ani- 
 mated the corps of ten thousand in the north ex- 
 tended to the utmost bounds of the empire. They 
 received orders to march from St. Petersburgh to 
 meet the advance of the French army ; the em- 
 peror reviewed them, and is said to have shed 
 teal's at their departure. Arrived at the place 
 appointed, Witgenstein ordered them to fall back 
 to a certain point, but they answered " No ; the 
 last promise we made the emperor our father was, 
 that we would never fly before the enemy, and we 
 keep our word." Eight thousand of their number 
 died on the spot ; and the spirit which animated 
 them fired the serfs throughout the whole empire. 
 The scholar may sneer, but I defy him to point to 
 a nobler page in Grecian or Roman history. 
 
 I shall make amends for this long discussion by 
 hurrying on to Moscow. We rode hundreds of 
 miles without meeting a hill ; the country was bare 
 of trees, and almost everywhere presenting the 
 same appearance. We saw the first disk of the 
 sun peeping out of the earth, watched it while 
 soaring on its daily round, and, without a bush to 
 obstruct the view, saw it sink below the horizon ; 
 and woke up at all times of night and saw the 
 stars 
 
 " Rolling lilce living cars of light 
 For gods to journey by.'* 
 
 The principal and only large towns on our road 
 were Orel and Tenia, the former containing a po- 
 pulation of four or five thousand, and presenting 
 an imposing display of churches and monasteries 
 gaudily painted and with gilded domes ; the houses 
 were principally of wood, painted yellow. Toula 
 is the largest manufacturing town, and is called the 
 Sheffield of Russia, being particularly celebrated 
 for its cutlery. Everywhere the diligence created 
 a great sensation ; the knowmg ones said it would 
 never do ; but at Orel one spirited individual said 
 if we would wait three days for him he would go 
 on with us. It can hardly seem credible, in our 
 steam-boat and railroad community, that a public 
 conveyance could roll on for seven days and nights, 
 through many villages and towns, toward the 
 capital of an immense empu*e, and not take in a 
 single way-passenger ; but such was the fact ; and 
 
 on the morning of the seventh day, alone as wr- 
 started from Chioff, we were approaching the 
 burned and rebuilt capital of the czai-s, Moscow 
 with gilded cupolas, the holy Moscow, the sancti- 
 fied city, the Jerusalem of Russia beloved of God, 
 and dear to men. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Moscow. —A severe Operation. — An Exile by Accideni,. 
 — Meeting with an Emigre, — A civil Stranger. — A Spy.— 
 The Kremlin. — Sepulchres of the Czars. — The great Bell. 
 — The great Gun.^Precious Relics. 
 
 At daylight we arrived at the last post ; and 
 here, for the first time, we saw evidences of oui- 
 approach to a great city. Four or five travelUng- 
 carriages were waiting for horses, some of which 
 had been waiting all night ; but our diligence 
 being a "public accommodation," we were pre- 
 ferred, and had the first that came in. We took 
 our places for the last time in the diligence, and 
 passed two or three fine chateaux, our curiosity 
 and interest increasing as we approached, until, 
 at about five versts from Moscow, as we reached 
 the summit of a gentle eminence, the whole city 
 broke upon us at one view, situated in the midst 
 of a great plain, and covering an extent of more 
 than thirty versts. Moscow is emphatically the 
 city of churches, containing more than six hun- 
 dred, many of which have five or six domes, witl 
 steeples, and spires, and crosses, gilded and con 
 nected together with golden chains like those oi 
 Chioff'. Its convents, too, are almost innumerable, 
 rivalling the churches in size and magnificence, 
 and even to us, coming directly from the capital 
 of the Eastern empire, presenting a most striking 
 and extraordinary appearance. As we passed the 
 barrier, two of the most conspicuous objects on 
 each side were the large Greek convents, enclosed 
 by high walls, with noble trees growing above 
 them ; and as we rode through the wide and 
 showy streets, the first thing that struck me as 
 strange, and, in this inhospitable climate (alway.*- 
 associated in my mind with rude and wintrj 
 scenes), as singularly beautiful, was the profusion 
 of plants and flowers, with the remarkable degree 
 of taste and attention given to their cultivation. 
 In Gi'eece and Turkey I had seen the rarest 
 plants and flowers literally " wasting their sweet- 
 ness on the desert air ;" while here, in the heart 
 of an inhospitable country, every house had a 
 court-yard or garden, and in front a light open 
 portico or veranda, ornamented with plants, and 
 shrubs, and flowers, forced into a glowing though 
 unnatural beauty. The whole appearance of the 
 city is Asiatic ; and as the exhibition of flowers- 
 in front of the better class of houses was almost 
 universal, Moscow seemed basking in the mild 
 climate of Southern Asia, rioting in its briel 
 period of vernal existence, and forgetting that, u 
 a few weeks, a frost would come and cover then 
 beauty with the dreary drapery of winter. 
 
 At the office of the diligence my companion and 
 myself separated. He went to an hotel kept bv 
 an English woman, with English company, and 1 
 believe, too, with English comfort, and I rode 
 to the Hnlel (.iermanica, an old and favourite 
 stopping-place with the Russian seigneurs when 
 
IN GREECE, T0RKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 2!t 
 
 they come up from their estates in the country. 
 Having secured my room, I mounted a drosky 
 and hurried to a bath. Riding out to the suburbs, 
 the drosky boy stopped at. a large wooden build- 
 ing, pouring forth steam from every chiuk and 
 crevice. At the entrance stood several half-uaked 
 men, one of whom led me to an apartment to 
 undress, and then conducted me to another, in 
 one end of which were a furnace and apparatus 
 for generating steam. I was then familiar with 
 the Turkish bath, but \,.^e worst I had known was 
 like the breath of the gentle south wind compared 
 with the heat of this apartment. The operator 
 stood me in the middle of the floor, opened the 
 upper door of the stove, and dashed into it a 
 bucketftil of water, which sent forth volumes of 
 steam like a thick fog into every part of the room, 
 and then laid me down on a platform about three 
 feet high and rubbed my body with a mop dipped 
 in soap and hot water : then he raised me up, 
 and deluged me with hot water, pouring several 
 tubfuls on my head ; then laid me down again, 
 and scrubbed me with soap and water from my 
 head to my heels, long enough, if the thing were 
 possible, to make a blackamoor white ; then gave 
 me another sousing with hot water, and another 
 scrubbing with pure water, and then conducted 
 me up a flight of steps to a high platform, stretched 
 me out on a bench within a few feet of the ceiling, 
 and commenced whipping me with twigs of birch, 
 with the leaves on them, dipped in hot water. It 
 was as hot as an oven where he laid me down on 
 the bench ; the vapour, which almost suff'ocated 
 me below, ascended to the ceiling, and, finding no 
 avenue of escape, gathered round my devoted 
 body, fairly scalding and blistering me ; and when 
 I removed my hands from my face, I felt as if I 
 had carried away my whole profile. I tried to 
 hold out to the end, but I was burning, scorching, 
 and consuming. In agony I cried out to my 
 tormentor to let me up ; but he did not under- 
 stand me, or was loath to let me go, and kept 
 thrashing me with the bunch of twigs until, per- 
 fectly desperate, I sprang off the bench, tumbled 
 him over, and descended to the floor. Snow, 
 snow, a region of eternal snow seemed paradise ; 
 6iit my tormentor had not done with me ; and, as 
 I was hurrying to the door, he dashed over me a 
 tub of cold water. I was so hot that it seemed 
 to hiss as it touched me ; he came at me with 
 another, and at that moment I could imagine, 
 what had always seemed a traveller's story, the 
 high satisfaction and perfect safety with which the 
 Russian in mid-winter rushes from his hot-bath 
 and rolls himself in the snow. The grim features 
 of my tormentor relaxed as he saw the change 
 that came over me. I withdrew to my dressing- 
 room, dozed an hour on the settee, and went out 
 a new man. In half an hour I stood in the palace 
 of the czars, within the walls of the Kremlin. 
 
 Toward evening I i-eturned to my hotel. In 
 all the large hotels in Russia, it is the custom for 
 every man to dine in his own apartment. Tra- 
 velling alone, I always avoided this when I could, 
 as, besides my dislike of the thing itself, it pre- 
 vented my making acquaintances and acquiring 
 such information as I needed in a strange city ; 
 and I was particularly averse to dine alone the 
 first day of my arrival at Moscow ; but it was the 
 etiqueue of the house to do so, and as I had a 
 
 letter of introduction which I intended to deliver, 
 from Count Woronzow to Prince Galitzin, the 
 governor of Moscow, I was bound to make some 
 sacrifice for the credit of my acquaintance. After 
 the table was spread, however, finding it too severe 
 a trial, I went down stairs and invited myself to 
 dine with my landlord. He was a German of 
 about fifty-five or sixty, tall, stout, with grey hail-, 
 a frank, manly expression, and great respecta- 
 bility of appeai'ance and manners ; and before the 
 dinner was over I regarded him emphatically as 
 what a Frenchman would call un brave homme. 
 He had been in Russia during the whole of the 
 French invasion, and among the other incidents of 
 a stirring life, had been sent in exile to Siberia ; 
 and the curious part of it was, that he was sent 
 there by mistake. Rather an awkward mistake, 
 though, as he said, not so bad as being knouted 
 or hanged by mistake ; and in his case it turned 
 out a rather interesting adventure. He was taken 
 by the French as a Russian spy, and retaken by 
 the Russians as a French spy, when, as he said, 
 he did not care a fig for either of them. He was 
 hurried off to Siberia, but on the journey suc- 
 ceeded in convincing the officer who escorted the 
 prisoners that there was an error in the case, and 
 on his arrival was merely detained in exile, with- 
 out being put to hard labour, until, through the 
 medium of friends, he had the matter brought 
 before the proper tribunal, and the mistake cor- 
 rected, when he came back post, in company with 
 a Russian officer, smoking his pipe all the way, at 
 the expense of the government. He gav^ me many 
 interesting particulars in regard to that celebrated 
 country, its mines, the sufferings of the noble 
 exiles ; and much, also, that was new to me, 
 touching its populousness and wealth, and the 
 comfort and luxury of a residence there. He 
 spoke of Tobolsk as a large, gay, and populous 
 city, containing hotels, theatres, and all kinds of 
 places of amusement. The exiles, being many of 
 them of rank, have introduced there all the 
 luxuries of the capital, and life at Tobolsk is 
 much the same as life at Moscow. 
 
 As the rage for travelling is excited by hearing 
 from the lips of a traveller stories of the countries 
 he has visited, before the dinner was over I found 
 myself infected with a strong disposition for a 
 journey to Siberia. Small matters, however, pro- 
 duce great changes in the current of a man's 
 feelings, and in a few moments I had entirely 
 forgotten Siberia, and was carried directly home. 
 While we were smoking our pipes, an old gentle- 
 man entered, of singularly aristocratic appearancej 
 whom my host received with the greatest con- 
 sideration and respect, addressing him as the 
 
 Marquis de P He was a Frenchman, an old 
 
 militaire, and a noble specimen of a race almost 
 extinct ; tall, thin, and grey-headed, wearing a 
 double-bi-easted blue frockcoat, buttoned up to the 
 throat, with a cane, in his hand, and a red riband 
 in his button-hole, the decoration of the Knights 
 of Malta ; and when my host introduced me as 
 an American traveller arrived that day in Moscow, 
 he welcomed nie with more than the usual forms 
 of courtesy, and told me that, far off as it wtis, and 
 little as he knew of it, he almost regarded America 
 as his own country ; that, on the downfall of "the 
 emperor," and in a season of universal scattering, 
 some of his nearest relatives, particularly a sistci' 
 
212 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 ■maiTied to a fellow-soldier and his dearest friend, 
 had taken refuge on the other side of the Atlantic ; 
 that, eighteen years before, he had met an Ame- 
 rican secretary of legation who knew them, but 
 since that time he had not heard from them, and 
 <3iJ not know whether they were living or dead. 
 1 asked him the name, with very little expectation 
 of being able to give him any information about 
 them ; and it was with no small degree of pleasure 
 that I found I was particularly acquainted with 
 the condition of his relatives. His brother-in- 
 law and old comrade was dead, but I brought him 
 a satisfaction to which he had loug been a stranger, 
 by telling him that his sister was still living, occu- 
 pying a large property in a neighbouring state, 
 surrounded by a family of children, in character 
 and standing, ranking among the first in our 
 country. They were intimately connected with 
 the family of one of my most intimate friends, 
 letters to and from different members of which 
 had very often passed through my hands ; 1 knew 
 the names of all his nieces, and personally one of 
 his nephews, a lieutenant, and one of the most 
 promising officers in our navy ; and about a year 
 before I had accompanied the friends to whom I 
 refer on a vi&'ii to these relatives. At Philadel- 
 phia I left them under the charge of the lieu- 
 tenant ; and on my return from Washington, 
 according to agreement, the lieutenant came down 
 to an intersecting point on the rail-road to fake 
 me home with him ; but cii'cumstances prevented 
 my going, and much as I regretted my disappoint- 
 ment then, I regretted it far more now, as other- 
 wise I might have gladdened the old man's heart 
 by telling him that within a year I had seen his 
 sister. His own history was brief. Born to the 
 possession of rank and fortune, and having won 
 honours and decorations by long service in the 
 field, and risen to the rank of inspector-general in 
 the army of Napoleon, he was taken in the cam- 
 paign against Russia in 1813, and sent a prisoner 
 of war to Moscow, where he had remained ever 
 since. Immediately on their arrival, his brother- 
 in-law and sister had written to him from America, 
 telling him that, with the wreck of their fortune, 
 they had purchased a large landed estate, and 
 begging him to come over and share their abund- 
 ance ; but, as he told me, he scorned to eat the 
 bread of idleness and dependence ; mani'ully 
 turned to account the advantages of an accom- 
 plished education ; and now, at the advanced age 
 of seventy-eight, sustained himself by his pencil, 
 -an honoured guest at every table, and respected 
 by the most distinguished inhabitants of Moscow. 
 He had accidentally given up his rooms a few 
 days before, and was residing temporarily at the 
 fame hotel with myself. He was much agitated 
 by this unexpected intelligence from friends he 
 never expected to hear of more, and left me 
 with a promise to call upon me early in the 
 morning. 
 
 Too much interested myself to go back to Sibe- 
 ria with my host, I went to the French theatre. 
 The play was some little every-day thing, and the 
 house but tliinly attended. I took my seat in the 
 pit, which was on a dead level, instead of ascend- 
 ing from the stage, containing large cushioned 
 seats, and sprinkled with officers talking with 
 ladies in the boxes above. At the end of the first 
 j ^ct, as whole benches wore empty above me, I 
 
 moved up to put myself nearer a pair of bright 
 eyes that were beaming from the box upon a pair 
 of epaulettes below. I was hardly seated before 
 one of the understrappers came up and whispered, 
 or rather muttered, something in my ear. As I 
 did not understand a word he said, and his manner 
 was exceedingly rude and ungracious, I turned 
 my back upon him and looked at the lady with 
 the bright eyes. The fellow continued muttering 
 in my ear, and I began to be seriously annoyed 
 and indignant, w'n en a Frenchman sitting two or 
 three benches behind me came up, and, in an 
 imperious tone, ordered him away. He then 
 cureed the Russians as a set of canaille, from the 
 greatest seigneurs to the lowest serf ; remarked 
 that he saw I was a stranger, and, with the easy 
 freedom of a man of the world, took a seat by my 
 side. He was above six feet high, about thirty- 
 three or thirty-four years of age, in robust health, 
 with a large pair of whiskers, rather overdressed, 
 and of manners good, though somewhat imperious 
 and bordering on the swagger. He seemed per- 
 fectly at home in the theatre ; knew all the actors, 
 and before the evening was over, offered to intro- 
 duce me to all the actresses. I was under obliga- 
 tions to him, if not for the last offer, at least for 
 relieving me from the impertinent doorkeeper ; 
 and, when the curtain fell, accepted his invitation 
 to go to a restaui'ant and take a petit souper. I 
 accompanied him to the Restaurant au coin du 
 pont des Mareschaux, which I afterward ascer- 
 tained to be the first in Moscow. He was per- 
 fectly at home with the carte, knew exactly what 
 to order, and, in fact, he was a man of great 
 general information, perfectly familiar with all 
 continental Europe, geographically and politically, 
 and particularly at home in Moscow ; and he 
 offered his services in showing me all that was 
 curious and interesting. We sat together more 
 than two hours, and in our rambling and discur- 
 sive conversation I could not help remarking that 
 he seemed particularly fond of railing at the 
 government, its tyranny and despotism, and ap- 
 pealing to me as an American and a liberal, to 
 sustain him. I did not think anything of it then, 
 
 j though in a soldier under Charles the Tenth, 
 driven out, as he said, by the revolution of July, 
 
 1 it was rather strange ; but, at any rate, either 
 from a spirit of contradiction, or because I had 
 really a good feeling toward everything in Russia, 
 I disagi-eed with him throughout ; he took upon 
 himself the whole honours of the entertainment, 
 scalded the servants, called in the landlord, and, 
 as I observed, after a few words with him, went 
 out without paying. I saw that the landlord knew 
 him, and that there was something constrained 
 and peculiar in his behaviour. I must confess, 
 however, that I did not notice these things at the 
 time so clearly as when I was induced to recur to 
 them by after circumstances, for we went out of 
 the house the best friends in the world ; and, as 
 it was then raining, we took a drosky and rode 
 home together, with our arms round each other's 
 neck, and my cloak thrown over us both. About 
 two o'clock, in a heavy rain, I stopped at my 
 hotel, bade him good night, and lent him my cloak 
 to go home with. 
 
 The reader, perhaps, smiles at my simplicity, 
 but he is wrong in his conjecture ; ray cloak came 
 home the next morning, and was my companion 
 
 I 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 2131 
 
 and only covering many a night afterward. My 
 friend followed it, sat with me a few minutes, and 
 was taking his departure, having made an appoint- 
 ment to call for me at twelve o'clock, when there 
 was a knock at the dooi', and my friend the mar- 
 quis entered. I presented them to each other, 
 and the latter was in the act of bending his body 
 with the formality of a gentleman of the old 
 school, when he caught a full view of my friend of 
 the theatre, and, breaking off his unfinished bow, 
 recovered his erect position, and staring from hhn 
 to me, and from me to hira, seemed to demand an 
 explanation. I had no explanation to give, nor 
 had my friend, who, cocking his hat on one side, 
 and brushing by the marquis with more than his 
 usual swagger, stamped down stairs. The marquis 
 looked after him till he was at the foot of the 
 stau^, and then turning to me, asked how, in the 
 name of wonder, I had already contrived to pick 
 up such an acquaintance. I told him the history 
 of our meeting at the theatre, our supper at the 
 restaurant, and our loving ride home, to which 
 he listened with breathless attention ; and after 
 makmg me tax my memory for the particulars of 
 the conversation at the restaurant, told me that 
 my friend was a disgrace to his country ; that he 
 had, no doubt, been obliged to leave Fi-anee for 
 fiome rascality, and was now entei'tained by the 
 emperor of Russia as a spy, particularly upon his 
 own countrymen ; that he was well fed and clothed, 
 and had the entree of all the theatres and public 
 houses without paying. With the earnestness of 
 a man long used to a despotic government, and to 
 seeing slight offences visited with terrible punish- 
 ments, the marquis congratulated me upon not 
 having fallen into what he called the snare laid 
 for me. 
 
 It is almost impossible for an American to be- 
 lieve that even in Russia he incurs any risk in 
 speaking what he thinks ; he is apt to regard the 
 stories of summary punishment for freedom of 
 speech as bugbears or by-gone things. In my own 
 case, even when men looked cautiously around 
 the room and then spoke in whispers, I could not 
 believe that there was any danger. Still I had 
 become prudent enough not to talk with any un- 
 necessary indiscretion of the constituted autho- 
 rities, and, even in writing home to my friends, 
 not to say any thing that could prejudice me if 
 the letter should fall into wrong hands ; and now, 
 although I did not consider that I had run any 
 gi'cat risk, I was rather pleased that I had said 
 nothing exceptionable ; and though I had no ap- 
 prehension, particularly since I had been put on 
 my guard, I determined to drop my new acquaint- 
 ance, and did not consider myself bound to observe 
 any great courtesy in the mode of doing it. 1 had 
 had a supper, which it was my original intention 
 to return with a dinner ; but I did not consider 
 myself under any obligation to him for civilities 
 shown in the exercise of his despicable calling. 
 The first time I met him I made no apology for 
 haying been out when he called according to ap- 
 pointment, and did not ask him to come again. I 
 continued to meet him in the streets and at every 
 public place, but our greetings became colder and 
 colder, auu the day before I left Moscow we 
 brushed against each other without speaking at 
 all^ So much for acquaintances who, after an 
 intimacy of three or four hours, had ridden home 
 
 under the same cloak, with their arms around 
 each other's neck. 
 
 But to return : as soon as the marquis left me I 
 again went to the Kremlin, to me the great, I had 
 almost said the only, object of interest in Moscow. 
 I always detested a cicerone : his bowing, fawning, 
 and prating ajmoyed me ; and all through Italy, 
 withniy map and guide-book under my ai-m, l 
 was in the habit of rambling about alone. I did 
 the same at Moscow, and again walked to the 
 Kreir-lin unaccompanied. Unlike many of th& 
 places I had visited, all the interest I had felt 
 in looking forward to the Kremlin was increased 
 when I stood within its walls. I had thought of 
 it as the rude and barbarous palace of the Ozars ; 
 but I found it one of the most extraordinary, 
 beautiful, and magnificent objects I ever beheld. 
 I rambled over it several times with admiration, 
 without attemptmg to comprehend it at all. Jt» 
 commanding situation on the banks of the Moskwa 
 river ; its high and venerable walls ; its numerous 
 battlements, towei-s, and steeples ; its magnificent 
 and gorgeous palaces ; its cathedrals, churches, 
 monasteries, and belfries, with their gilded, cop- 
 pered, and tin-plated domes ; its mixture of bar- 
 barism and decay, magnificence and ruins ; its^ 
 strong contrast of architecture, including the Tar- 
 tarian, Hindoo, Chinese, and Gothic ; and, rising 
 above all, the lofty tower of Ivan Veliki, with its 
 golden ball reflecting the sun with dazzling bril- 
 liancy, altogether exhibited a beauty, grandeur, 
 and magnificence strange and indescribable. 
 
 The Kremlin is " the heart " and « sacred I 
 place " of Moscow, once the old fortress of the 1 
 Tartars, and now the centre of the modern city.^ | 
 It is nearly triangular in form, enclosed by a high i 
 brick wall painted white, and nearly two miles in 
 extent, and is in itself a city. It has five gates, at 
 four of which there are high watch-towers. Th& 
 fifth is '■ our Saviour's," or the Holy Gate, through 
 whose awe-commanding portals no male, not even 
 the emperor and autocrat of all the Russias, can 
 pass except with uncovered head and bended body.. 
 Bareheaded, I entered by this gate, and passed oa 
 to a noble esplanade, commanding one of the most 
 interesting views of Moscow, and having in front 
 the range of palaces of the Czars. I shall not 
 attempt to describe these palaces. They are a 
 combination of every variety of taste and every 
 order of architecture, Grecian, Gothic, Italian, 
 Tartar, and Hindoo, rude, fanciful, grotesque, gor- 
 geous, magnificent, and beautiful. The churches, 
 monasteries, arsenals, museum, and public build- 
 ings are erected with no attempt at regularity of 
 design, and in the same wild confusion of archi- 
 tecture. There are no regular streets, but three 
 open places or squares, and abundance of room 
 for carriages and foot-passengers, with which, in 
 summer afternoons, it is always throngfed. 
 
 Having strolled for some time about the Krem- 
 lin, I entered the Cathedral of the Assumption, 
 the most splendid church in Moscow. It was 
 founded in 1325, and rebuilt in 1472. It is loaded 
 with gorgeous and extravagant ornaments. The 
 iconastos, or screen, which divides the sanctuary 
 from the body of the church, is in many parts 
 covered with plates of solid silver and gold, richly 
 and finely wrought On the walls are painted ilie 
 images of more than two thousand three hundred 
 saints, some at full length and some of a colossa' 
 
■214 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 ■eize, and the whole interior seems illuniinateil 
 -with gold, of which more than two hundred and 
 ■ten thousand leaves have been employed in em- 
 bellishing it. From the centre of the roof is sus- 
 pended a cro\vn of massive silver, with forty-eight 
 chandeliers, all in a single piece, and weighing 
 nearly three thousand pounds. Besides the por- 
 traits of saints and martyrs, there are portraits of 
 the old historians, whose names, to prevent con- 
 fusion, are attached to their resemblances; as 
 Aristotle, Anaeharsis, Thucydides, Plutarch, &c. 
 Some of the paintings on wood could not fail to 
 delight an antiq^uary, inasmuch as every vestige 
 of paint being obUterated, there is abundance ot 
 room for speculation as to their age and character. 
 There is also an image of the Virgin, painted by 
 St. Luke's own hand ! ! ! the face dark, almost 
 black, the head encircled with a glory of precious 
 stones, and the hands and the body gilded. It is 
 reverenced for its miraculous powers, guarded 
 with great care, and enclosed within a large silver 
 covering, which is never removed but on great 
 religious festivals, or on payment of a ruble to the 
 verger. Here, too, is a nail from the cross, a robe 
 of our Saviour's, and part of one of the Virgin's ! I ! 
 And here, too, are the tombs of the church patri- 
 archs, one of whom, St. Phillippe, honoured by 
 a silver monument, dared to say to John the 
 Terrible, " We respect you as an image of the 
 Divinity, but as a man you partake of the dust of 
 the earth." 
 
 The Cathedral of the Assumption is honoured 
 -as the place where the sovereigns of Russia are 
 crowned, and there is but. a step from their throne 
 to their grave, for near it is the Cathedral of the 
 archangel Michael, the ancient burial-place where, 
 in raised sepulchres, lie the bodies of the Czars, 
 from the time when Moscow became the seat of 
 empire until the close of the seventeenth century. 
 The bodies rest in raised tombs or sepulchres, 
 «ach covered with a velvet pall, and having on it 
 a silver plate, bearing the name of the occupant 
 and the date of his decease. Close by is an odd- 
 looking church, constantly thronged with devotees ; 
 a humble structure, said to be the oldest Christian 
 ehurch in Moscow. It was built in the desert, 
 before Moscow was thought of, and its walls are 
 atrong enough to last till the gorgeous city shall 
 become a desert again. 
 
 After strolling through the churches I ascended 
 the tower of Ivan Veliki, or John the Great, the 
 first of the Czars. It is about two hundred and 
 seventy feet high, and contains thirty-three bells, 
 the smallest weighing seven thousand, and the 
 largest more than one hundred and twenty-four 
 thousand pounds English. On festivals they are 
 all tolled together, the Muscovites being extremely 
 fond of Ivan Veliki's music. This celebrated tower 
 rises above every other object in the Kremlin, 
 and its large gilded dome and cross are conspicu- 
 ous from every part of the city. From its top I 
 had the finest view of Moscow and the surround- 
 ing country, and, perhaps, the finest panoramic 
 view in the world. Hundreds of churches were 
 in sight, with theii almost innumerable domes, 
 and spires, and crosses glittering mth gold, Tar- 
 taric battlements, terraces, balconies, and ram- 
 parts, Gothic steeples, Grecian columns, the star, 
 the crescent, and the cross, palaces, mosques, and 
 Tartar temples, pagodas, pavilions, and verandas. 
 
 monastiiries peeping out over high walls and 
 among noble trees, the stream of the Jloskwa 
 winding prettily below, and in the distance the 
 Sparrow Hills, on which the French army first 
 made its appearance on the invasion of Moscow. 
 It may seem strange, but I did not feel myself a 
 stranger on the top of that tower Thousands of 
 miles away I had read its history. I knew that 
 the magnificent city at my feet had been a sheet 
 of fire, and that, when Napoleon fled by the light 
 of its conflagration, a dreadful explosion shook 
 to their foundation the sacred precincts of the 
 Kremlin, and rent from its base to its top the lofty 
 tower of Ivan. 
 
 3 descended, and the cnstode conducted me to 
 another well-known object, the great bell, the 
 largest, and the wonder of the world. It is only 
 a short distance from the foot of the tower, in an 
 excavation under ground, accessible by a trap- 
 door, like the covered mouth of a well. I de- 
 scended by a broken ladder, and can hardly 
 explain to myself the curiosity and interest with 
 which I examined this monstrous piece of metal. 
 I have no knowledge of or taste for mechanics, 
 and no particular penchant for bells, even when 
 spelled with an additional e ,• but I knew all about 
 this one, and it added wonderfully to the interest 
 with which I strolled through the Kremlin, that, 
 from accidental circumstances, I was familiar with 
 every object within its walls. I impeach, no doubt, 
 my classical taste, but, before seeing either, I had 
 dwelt with more interest upon the Kremlin, and 
 knew more of it, than of the Acropolis at Athens ; 
 and I stood at the foot of the great bell almost 
 with a feeling of reverence. Its perpendicular 
 height is twenty-one feet four inches, and the ex- 
 treme thickness of the metal twenty-three inches j 
 the length of the clapper is fourteen feet, the 
 greatest circumference sixty-seven feet four inches, 
 its weight upward of four hundred thousand pounds 
 English, and its cost has been estimated at more 
 than three hundred and sixty-five thousand pounds 
 sterling. There is some question whether this 
 immense bell was ever hung, but it is supposed 
 that it was suspended by ^ great number of beams 
 and crossbeams ; that it was rung by forty or fifty 
 men, one half on either side, who pulled the clap- 
 per by means of ropes, and that the sound amazed 
 and deafened the inhabitants. On one side is a 
 crack large enough to admit the figure of a man. 
 I went inside and called aloud, and received an 
 echo like the reverberations of thunder. 
 
 Besides the great bell, there is another noisy 
 musical instrument, namely the great gun, like 
 the bell, the largest in the world, being a four 
 thousand three hundred and twenty pounder. It 
 is sixteen feet long, and the diameter of its caUbre 
 nearly three feet. I jumped in and turned round in 
 its mouth, and sat upright, my head not reaching 
 the top. All around were planted cannon taken 
 from the French in their unhappy expedition 
 against the capital of Russia ; immense field- pieces, 
 whose throats once poured their iron hail against 
 the walls within which they now repose as trophies. 
 I was attracted by a crowd at the door of one of 
 thi principal buildings, which I found to be the 
 treasury, containing what a Russian prizes as his 
 birthright, the repository of sacred heirlooms ; the 
 door-keeper demanded a permit, and I answered 
 him with rubles and entered the treasury. On 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 215 
 
 *h« first, floor are the ancient imperial carriages ; 
 large, heavy, and extraordinary vehicles, covered 
 with carving and gilding, and having large plate- 
 glass windows ; among them was an enormous 
 ■sleigh, carved and profusely gilded, and containing 
 a long table with cushioned seats on each side ; all 
 together, these vehicles were most primitive and 
 Asiatic in appearance, and each one had some 
 long and interesting story connected with it. 
 
 I ascended by a noble staircase to the bel etage, 
 & gallery composed of five parts, in the first of 
 which are the portraits of all the emperors and 
 czars and their wives, in the exact costume of the 
 times in which they lived ; in another is a model 
 ^)f a palace projected by the Empress Catharine to 
 unite the whole Kremlin under one roof, having 
 a circumference of two miles, and make of it one 
 magnificent palace ; if it had been completed ac- 
 cording to the plan, this palace would probably 
 have surpassed the temple of Solomon or any of 
 the seven wonders of the world. In another is a 
 collection of precious relics, such as the crowns 
 worn by the different emperors and Czars, loaded 
 witluprecious stones ; the dresses worn at their 
 marriages ; the canopies under which the emperors 
 are married, surmounted by magnificent plumes ; 
 two canopies of red velvet, studded with gold, and 
 1 throne with two seats. The crown of Prince 
 Vladimir is surmounted by a golden cross, and 
 imamented with pearls and precious stones, and, 
 ^mtil the time of Peter the Great, was used to 
 ;rown tlie Czars ; the crown of the conquered 
 Jiingdom of Cazan was placed there by the victo- 
 I'ious hands of John Vassilivitch. Besides these 
 were the crowns of the conquered countries of 
 Astrachan and Siberia. That of John Alexius 
 ■has eight hundred and eighty-one diamonds, and 
 under the cross which surmounts it is an immense 
 ruby. There were also the crown of Peter the 
 •Oreat, containing eight hundred and forty-seven 
 diamonds ; that of Catharine the First, his widow, 
 containing two thousand five hundred and thirty- 
 ' six fine diamonds, to which the Empress Anne 
 added a ruby of enormous size, bought by the 
 Russian ambassador at Pekin ; and, lastly, the 
 crown of unhappy Poland ! It is of polished gold, 
 surmounted by a cross, but no other ornament. 
 And there were other emblems of royalty : a 
 throne or Greek fauteuil of ivory, in arabesque, 
 presented to John the Great by the ambassadors 
 who accompanied from Rome to Moscow the 
 Princess Sophia, whom he had demanded in mar- 
 riage. She was the daughter of Thomas Paleologus 
 Porphyrogenitus, brother of Constantino Paleolo- 
 gus, who died in 1453, after seeing his empire fall 
 into the hands of the Turks. By this marriage 
 John considered himself the heir of Constantine, 
 and took the title of Czar, meaning Csesar (this is 
 one of the derivations of the name), and thus the 
 emperor and autocrat of all the Russias has the 
 fairest claim to the throne of the Caesars, and, 
 consequently, has always had an eye upon Con- 
 stantinople. Then there are the throne of Boris, 
 adorned with two thousand seven hundred and 
 sixty turquoises and other precious stones ; that 
 of Michel, containing eight thousand eight hundred 
 and twenty-four precious stones ; that of Alexius, 
 Jontaining eight hundred and seventy-six dia- 
 inonds, one thousand two hundred and twenty- 
 our other jewels, and many pearls, bought of a 
 
 company of merchants traificking to Ispahan ; the 
 throne of the Czars John and Peter, made of 
 massive silver, separated in the middle, the back a 
 cloth of gold, concealing a hole through which thu 
 Czarina used to dictate answers to the foreign 
 ambassadors ; and, lastly, the throne of Poland ! 
 
 In the armoury are specimens of ancient ar- 
 mour, the workmanship of every age and nation ; 
 coats of mail, sabres adorned with jewels, swords, 
 batons, crosses in armour, imperial robes, ermines 
 in abundance, and, finally, the clothes in which 
 Peter the Great worked at Saardam, including his 
 old boots, from which it appears that he had a 
 considerable foot. These memorials were all inter- 
 esting, and I wandered through the apartments 
 till ordered out by the footman, when I returned 
 to my hotel to meet ray old friend the marquis, 
 who was engaged to dine with me. At his suggestion 
 we went to a new restaurant, patronised by a dif- 
 ferent set of people from those who frequented 
 the Restaurant au coin du Pont des Mareschaux, 
 being chiefly Frenchmen, manufacturers, and 
 small merchants of various kinds, who, while they 
 detested the country, found it a profitable business 
 to introduce Parisian luxuries and refinements 
 among the barbarous Russians. A party of about 
 twenty sat at a long table, and relieved the seve- 
 rity of exile by talking of their beautiful and be- 
 loved France ; many of them were old militaires; 
 and my octogenarian friend, as a soldier distin- 
 guished under the empire, and identified with the 
 gloiy of the French arms, was treated with a con- 
 sideration and respect honourable to them and 
 flattering to himself. At another table was another 
 circle of strangers, composed almost exclusively 
 of Swiss, forming here, as elsewhere, one of the 
 most valuable parts of a foreign population ; keep- 
 ing alive by intercourse with each other the recol- 
 lections of home, and looking to the time when, 
 with the profits of successful industry, they might 
 return to their wild and beloved native mountains. 
 
 *' Dear is that hill to which his soul conforms. 
 And dear that cliflf which lifts him to the storms." 
 
 Before we rose from table, my friend of the 
 theatre came in and took his seat at one end ; he 
 talked and laughed louder than any one else, and 
 was received generally with an outward appear- 
 ance of cordiality ; but the old marquis could not 
 endure his presence. He said he had become too 
 old to learn, and it was too late in life to temporise 
 with dishonour ; that he did not blame his country- 
 men ; fair words cost nothuig, and it was not worth 
 their while wilfully to make an enemy who would 
 always be on their haunches ; but as to himself, 
 he had but a few years to live, and he would not 
 sully the last moments of his life by tolerating a 
 man whom he regarded as a disgrace to his coun- 
 try. We rose from the table, the old marquis 
 leaning on my arm, and pouring in my ears his 
 honest indignation at the disgraceful character of 
 his countryman, and proceeded to the Kitaigorod, 
 or Chinese Town, the division immediately encir- 
 cling the Kremlin. It is enclosed by a wall w.th 
 battlements, towers, and gates ; is handsomely and 
 compactly built, with wide, clean, and regular 
 streets, and thronged with every variety of people, 
 Greeks, Turks, Tartars, Cossacks, Chinese, Mus- 
 covites, French, Italians, Poles, and Germans, in 
 the costumes of their respective nations^ The 
 quarter was entirely Russian, and I did not find 
 
:ii6 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 in the shops a single pereon wlio could speak any 
 language but Russian. In one of them where I 
 was conducted by the marquis, I found the old 
 mongik to whom I before referred, who could not 
 agree with his master for the price of his ransom. 
 The principal shops resemble the bazars in the 
 Kast, though they are far superior even to those 
 in Constantinople, being built of stone, and gene- 
 rally in the form of arcades. They are well filled 
 with every description of Asiatic goods ; and some 
 of them, particularly their tea, and tobacco, and 
 pipe shops, are models of propriety and cleanliness. 
 The facade of the great bazar or market is very 
 imposing, resting the whole length on Corinthian 
 columns. It fronts on a noble square, bounded 
 on the opposite side by the white walls of the 
 Kremlin, and contains six thousand " bargaining 
 shops." The merchants live at a distance, and, 
 on leaving their shops at sundown, each of them 
 winds a piece of cord round the padlock of his 
 door, and seals it with soft wax ; a seal being with 
 the Russians more sacred than a lock. 
 
 In another section of the Kitaigorod is the finest 
 part of the city, containing the hotels and resi- 
 dences of the nobles, many of which are truly 
 magnificent. The hotel at which I put up would 
 in Italy be called a palace. As we moved slowly 
 along the street by the Pont des Mareschaux, we 
 discoursed of the terrible inroads at this moment 
 making by the French iu the capital of the North, 
 almost every shop having an inviting sign of nou- 
 veautes from Paris. Foiled in their attempt with 
 the bayonet, they are now advancing with appa- 
 rently more feeble but far more insidious and fatal 
 weapons ; and the rugged Russian, whom French 
 arms could not conquer, bows to the supremacy of 
 the French modistes and artistes, and quietly 
 wears the livery of the great mistress of fashion. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The Drosky Salle des Nobles. — Ru5.sian Gaming, — 
 
 Gastrnnomy.^Pedroski. — A Sunday in Moscow — A Gipsy 
 Belle. — Tea drinking. — The Emperor's Garden. — Itetro- 
 epective. 
 
 Eaelt the next morning I mounted a drosky 
 and rode to a celebrated garden or springs, fur- 
 nished with every description of mineral water. 
 I have several times spoken of the drosky. This 
 may be called the Russian national vehicle, for it 
 is found all over Russia, and nowhere else that I 
 know of, except at Warsaw, where it was intro- 
 duced by its Russian conquerors. It is on four 
 wheels, with a long cushioned seat running length- 
 wise, on which the rider sits astride as on horse- 
 back, and so low that he can mount from the 
 street. It is drawn by two horses ; one in shafts, 
 with a high arched bow over the neck called the 
 douga, and the other, called " le furieux," in 
 traces alongside, this last being trained to curb 
 his neck and canter while the shaft-horse trots. 
 The seat is long enough for two besides the driver, 
 the riders sitting with their feet on different sides ; 
 or sometimes there is a cross-seat behind, on which 
 tlie riders sit, with their faces to the horses, and 
 the drosky boy, always dressed in a long surtout, 
 with a bell-crowned hat turned up at the sides, 
 sits on the end. But to return to the springs. 
 The waters are prepared under the direction of 
 
 medical men, who have the chymical analysis o{ 
 all the principal mineral waters known, and 
 manufacture them to order. As is universally the 
 case in Russia, where there is any attempt at 
 style, the establishment is upon a magnificent 
 scale. The building contains a room perhaps one 
 hundred and fifty feet long, with a clean and 
 highly-polished floor, large looking-glasses, elegant 
 sofas, and mahogany chairs and tables. The 
 windows open upon a balcony extending along the 
 whole front, wliieh is furnished with tables and 
 rustic chairs, and opens upon a large garden 
 ornamented with gravel-walks, trees, and the most 
 rare and valuable plants and flowers, at the time 
 of my visit in full bloom. Every morning, from 
 sunrise till noon, crowds of people, and particu- t 
 larly the nobility and higher classes, frequent this 
 establishment, and that morning there was a larger 
 collection than usual. Russian hospitality is con- 
 spicuous at a place like this. A stranger, instead 
 of being avoided, is sought out ; and after one or 
 two promenades I was accosted by more than one 
 gentleman, ready to show me every civility. In 
 the long room and on the balconies, scattei'ed 
 about at the different tables, I saw the gourmand 
 who had distended his stomach almost to bursting, 
 and near him the gaunt and bilious dyspeptic, 
 drinking their favourite waters ; the dashing 
 officer and the blooming girl, the lover and 
 coquette, and, in short, all the style and fashion of 
 Moscow, their eyes occasionally turning to the 
 long mirrors, and then singly, in pairs and in 
 groups, strolling gently through the gardens, en- 
 joying the music that was poured forth from 
 hidden arbours. 
 
 Returning through a street not far from my 
 hotel, I saw a line of carriages, and gentlemen and 
 ladies, passing under a light arcade whicli formed 
 the entrance to a large building. I joined the 
 throng, and was put back by the door-keeper 
 because I was not in a dress-coat. I ran to my 
 hotel and changed my frock-coat, but now I had 
 no biglietlo of enti'ance. A few rubles obviated 
 this difficulty and admitted me to the Salle des 
 Nobles, a magnificent apartment surrounded by a 
 colonnade, capable of containing more than three 
 thousand peisons, and said to be the finest ball- 
 room in Europe. It belongs to a club of the 
 nobility, and none are admitted as members but 
 nobles. All games of hazard are forbidden ; but, 
 nevertheless, all games of hazard are played. 
 Indeed, among the " on dits" which a traveller 
 picks up, gambling is said to be the great vice ol 
 Russia. Young men who have not two rubles to 
 rub together will bet thousands ; and, when all 
 other resources fail, the dishonourable will cheat, 
 but the delicate-minded will kill themselves. It 
 is not uncommon for a young man to say at the 
 card-table over night, " I must shoot myself to- 
 morrow ;" and he is as good as his word. The 
 Salle was open for a few days, as a sort of fair, for 
 the exhibition of specimens of Russian manufac- 
 ture ; and, besides tables, work-boxes, &c., there 
 were some of the finest livmg specimens of genumt 
 Russian men and women that I had yet seen 
 though not to be compared, as a Russian office! 
 said, to whom I made the remark, with the exhi- 
 bition of the same specimens in the waltz am 
 niazourka, when the Salle was lighted up ant' 
 decorated for a ball. 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 317 
 
 I returned to my hotel, where I found my old 
 friend the marquis waiting, according to appoint- 
 ment, to dine with me. He would have accompa- 
 nied me everywhere, but I saw that he suffered 
 from the exertion, and would not allow it. Meet- 
 ing with me had struck a chord that had not been 
 touched for years, and he was never tired of talk- 
 ing of his friends in America. Every morning he 
 breakfasted in my room, and we diued together 
 every day. We went to the restaurant where I 
 had supped with my friend of the theatre. The 
 saloon was crowded, and at a table next us sat a 
 seigneur, who was dining upon a delicacy that 
 will surprise the reader, viz., one of his own 
 female sLives, a veiy px-etty girl, whom he had 
 lured to the keeper of the restaurant for her 
 maintenance and a dinner a-volonte per annum 
 for himself. This was the second time he had 
 dined on her account, and she was then waiting 
 upon him ; a pretty, modest, delicate-looking girl, 
 and the old noble seemed never to know when he 
 had enough of her. We left him gloating over 
 still untasted dishes, and apparently mourning 
 that human abiUty could hold out no longer. In 
 going out my old friend, in homely but pithy 
 phrase, said the only difference between a Russian 
 seigneur and a Russian serf is, that the one wears 
 his shirt inside his trousers and the other outside ; 
 but my friend spoke with the prejudices of a 
 soldier of France aggravated by more than twenty, 
 years of exile. So far as my observation extended, 
 the higher classes are rather extraordinary for 
 talent and acquirements. Their government is 
 unfortunate for the development and exercise of 
 abilities. They have none of the learned profes- 
 sions ; merchandise is disgraceful, and the army is 
 the only field. With an ardent love of country, 
 and an ambition to distinguish himself, every 
 nobleman becomes a soldier, and there is hardly 
 an old or middle-aged individual of this class who 
 was not in arms to repel the invasion of Napoleon, 
 and hardly a young man who did not serve lately 
 in it less noble cause, the campaign in Poland. 
 The consequence of service in the army seems to 
 have been generally a passion for display and 
 expensive living, which sent them back to their 
 estates, after their terms of service expired, over 
 head and ears in debt. Unable to come often to 
 the cities, and obliged to live at their chateaux, 
 deprived of all society, surrounded only by slaves, 
 and feeling the want of the excitement incident to 
 a military life, many of them become great gour- 
 mands, or rather, as my French friend said, 
 gluttons. They do not eat, said he, they swallow; 
 and the manner in which, with the true spirit of 
 a Frenchman who still remembered the cuisine of 
 the Palais Royal, he commented upon their eat- 
 ing entremets, hors-d'ceuvre, rfltis, and desserts 
 all pellmell, would have formed a proper episode 
 to Major Hamilton's chapter upon Americans 
 eatmg eggs out of wine-glasses^ The old marquis, 
 although he retained all his French prejudices 
 against the Russians, and always asserted, as the 
 Russians themselves admit, that, but for the early 
 setting in of winter. Napoleon would have con- 
 quered Russia, allowed them the virtue of un- 
 bounded hospitality, and enumerated several 
 principal families at whose tables he could at any 
 time take a seat without any express invitation, 
 and with whom he was always sure of being a 
 
 welcome guest ; and he mentioned the case of a 
 compatriot who for years had a place regularly 
 reserved for him at the table of a seigneur, which 
 he took whenever he pleased without any ques- 
 tions being asked, until, having stayed away longer 
 than usual, the seigneur sent to inquire for him, 
 and learned that he was dead. 
 
 But to return. Toward evening I parted with 
 the marquis, mounted a drosky, and rode to the 
 country theatre at Pedroski. Pedroski is a place 
 dear to the heart of every Russian, having been 
 the favourite i-esidence of Peter the Great, to whom 
 Russia owes its existence among civilised nations. 
 It is about three versts from the ban-ier, on the 
 St. Petersburgh road. The St. Petersburgh Gate 
 is a very imposing piece of architecture. Six 
 spirited horses rest lightly upon the top, like the 
 brazen horses at St. Mark's in Venice. A wide 
 road, divided into avenues for carriages .and pedes- 
 trians, gravelled and lined with trees, leads from 
 the gate. The chateau is an old and singular, but 
 interesting building of red brick, with a green 
 dome and white cornices, and inclosed by a cir- 
 cular wall flanked with turrets. In the plain in 
 front two regiments of Cossack cavalry were going 
 through their exercises. The grounds around the 
 chateau are very extensive, handsomely laid out 
 for carriages and promenades, public and retired,, 
 to suit every taste. The principal promenade is 
 about a mile in length, through a forest of majestic- 
 old trees. On each side is a handsome footpatli 
 of continual shade ; and sometimes, almost com- 
 pletely hidden by the luxuriant foliage, are beauti- 
 ful little summer-h';uses, abundantly supplied with 
 all kinds of refre-shments. 
 
 The theatre is at a little distance from the 
 extreme end of the great promenade, a plain and 
 unpretending building; and this and the grand 
 opera-house are the only theatres I have seen, 
 built like ours, merely with continued rows of 
 seats, and not partitioned off into private boxes. 
 The opera was some httle Russian piece, and was 
 followed by the grand ballet, the Revolt of the 
 Seraglio. He who goes to Russia expecting to 
 see a people just emerging from a state of bar- 
 barism, will often be astonished to find himself 
 suddenly in a scene of Parisian elegance and 
 refinement ; and in no place will he feel this 
 wonder more than in an opera-house at Moscow.. 
 The house was rather full, and contained more oi 
 the Russian nobility than I had yet seen at any 
 one time. They were well dressed, adorned with' 
 stars and ribands, and, as a class of men, the- 
 " biggest in the round" I ever saw. Orders and 
 titles of nobility, by-the-way, are given with a 
 liberality which makes them of no value ; and all 
 over Russia princes are as plenty as pickpockets 
 in London. 
 
 The seigneurs of Russia have jumped over all 
 intermediate grades of civilisation, and plunged at 
 once into the luxuries of metropolitan life. Tbe 
 ballet was, of course, inferior to that of Paris or 
 London, but it is speaking in no mean praise of it 
 to say, that at this country theatre it might be 
 made a subject of comparison. The dancers were 
 the prettiest, the most interesting, and, what I 
 was particular'ly struck with, the most modest- 
 looking I ever saw on the stage. It was melan- 
 choly to look at those beautiful girls, who, amid 
 the glare and glitter of the stage, and in the 
 P 
 
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 ;i'aceful movements of the dance, were perfectly 
 iiaptivating and enrtrancing, and who, in the shades 
 "f domestic life, might fill the measure of man's 
 liappiness on earth, and know them to be slaves. 
 The whole ti-oop belongs to the emperor. They 
 ire selected when young with reference to their 
 Leauty and talents, and are brought up with great 
 i-are and expense for the stage. With light fairy 
 tigures, seeming rather spirits than corporeal sub- 
 stances, and trained to inspire admiration and 
 love, they can never give way to these feelings 
 themselves, for their affections and marriages are 
 regulated entirely by the manager's convenience. 
 What though they are taken fi'om the very poorest 
 class of life, leaving their parents, their brothers 
 and sisters, the tenants of miserable cabins, 
 oppressed and vilified, and cold and hungry, while 
 they are rolling in luxuries ] A chain does not 
 gall the less because it is gilded. Raised from the 
 lot to which they were born, taught ideas they 
 would never have known, they but feel more sen- 
 sibly the weight of their bonds ; and the veriest 
 sylph, whose graceful movements have brought 
 down the loudest thunders of applause, and whose 
 little heart flutters with the admiration she has 
 excited, would probably give all her short-lived 
 triumph for the privilege of bestowing that little 
 flutterer where it would be loved and cherished. 
 There was one among them whom I long remem- 
 bered. I followed her with my eyes till the curtain 
 fell and left a blank around me. I saw her go 
 out, and afterward she passed me in one of a long 
 train of dark blue carriages belonging to the 
 direction, in which they are carried about like 
 merchandise from theatre to theatre ; but, like 
 many other bright visions that broke upon me for 
 a moment, I never saw her again. 
 
 At about eleven I left the steps of the theatre 
 to return home. It was a most magnificent night, 
 or, rather, it is almost profanation to call it by so 
 black a name, for in that bright northern climate 
 the day seemed to linger, unwilling to give place 
 before the shades of night. I strolled on alone, 
 wrapped in lonely but not melancholy meditations ; 
 the carriages rolled rapidly by me, and I was 
 almost the last of the throng that entered the gate 
 of Moscow. 
 
 A Sunday at Moscow. To one who had for a 
 long time been a stranger to the sound of the 
 " church-going bell," few things could be more 
 interesting than a Sunday at Moscow. Any one 
 who has rambled along the Maritime Alps, and has 
 heard, from some lofty eminence, the convent bell 
 ringing for matins, vespers, and midnight prayers, 
 will long remember the not unpleasing sounds. 
 To me there is always something touching in the 
 sound of the church bell ; in itself pleasing by its 
 effect upon the sense, but far more so in its asso- 
 ciations. And these feelings were exceedingly 
 fresh when I awoke on Sunday in the holy city of 
 Moscow. In Greece and Turkey there are no 
 bells ; in Russia they are almost innumerable, 
 but this was the first time' I had happened to pass 
 the Sabbath in the city. I lay and listened, almost 
 fearing to move lest I should lose the sounds ; 
 thoughts of home came over me ; of the day of 
 rest, of the gathering for chm-ch, and the greet- 
 ing of friends at the church-door. But he who 
 has never heard the ringing of bells at Moscow 
 does not know its music. Imagine a city con- 
 
 taining more than six hundred churches and innu- 
 merable convents, all with bells, and these all 
 sounding together, from the sharp, quick, ham- 
 mer-note, to the loudest, deepest peals that ever 
 broke and lingered on the ear, struck at long 
 intervals, and swelling on the air as if unwilling 
 to die away. I arose and threw open my window, 
 dressed myself, and after breakfast, joining the 
 throng called to their respective churches by their 
 well-known bells, I went to what is called the 
 English chapel, whei-e, for the first time in many 
 months, I joined in a regular church service, and 
 listened to an orthodox sermon. I was surprised 
 to see so large a congregation, though I remarked 
 among them many English governesses with chil- 
 dren, the English language being at that moment 
 the I'age among the Russians, and multitudes of 
 cast-off chambermaids being employed to teach 
 the rising Russian nobility the beauties of the 
 English tongue. 
 
 All over the Continent, Sunday is the great day 
 for observing national manners and customs. I 
 dmed at an early hour with my friend the marquis, 
 and under his escort, mounting a drosky, rode to 
 a great promenade of the people, called L'AUie 
 des Peuples. It lies outside the barrier, and be- 
 yond the state prisons, where the exiles for Siberia 
 are confined, on the land of Count Schremetow, 
 the richest nobleman in Russia, having one hun- 
 dred and thirty thousand slaves on his estate ; the 
 chateau is about eight versts from the city, and a 
 noble road through his own land leads from the 
 barrier to his door. 
 
 This promenade is the great rendezvous of the 
 people ; that is, of the merchants and shopkeepers 
 of Moscow. The promenade is simply a large 
 piece of ground ornamented with noble trees, and 
 provided with everything necessary for the enjoy- 
 ment of all the national anmsements, among which 
 the Russian mountain is the favourite ; and re- 
 freshments were distributed in great abundance. 
 Soldiers were stationed at different points to pre- 
 serve order, and the people seemed all cheerful 
 and happy ; but the life and soul of the place 
 were the Bohemian or gipsy girls. Wherever they 
 moved, a crowd gathered round them. They were 
 the first I had seen of this extraordinary people, 
 coming no one knows whence, and living no one 
 knows how ; wanderers from their birth, and with 
 a history enveloped in doubt. It was impossible 
 to mistake the dark complexion and piercing coal- 
 black eyes of the gipsy women. The men were 
 nowhere to be seen, nor were there any old 
 women with them ; and these young girls, well 
 dressed, though, in general, with nothing peculiar 
 in their costume, moved about in parties of five 
 or six, singing, playing, and dancing to adrairmg 
 crowds. One of them, with a red silk cloak 
 trimmed with gold, and a gold band round her 
 hair, struck me as the very beau ideal of a gipsy 
 queen. Recognising me as a stranger, she stopped | 
 j ust in front of me, struck her castanets and danced, 
 at the same time directing the movements of her 
 comjianions, who formed a circle around me. 
 There was a beauty in her face, combined \yith 
 intelligence and spirit that riveted my attention, 
 and when she spoke her eyes seemed to read me j 
 through. I ought, perhaps, to be ashamed of it, j 
 but in all my wanderings I never regretted so , 
 much my ignorance of the language as when i» I 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 219 
 
 denied me the pleasure of conversing with that 
 gipsy girl. I would fain have known whether 
 her soul did not soar above the scene and the em- 
 ployment in which I found her ; whether she was 
 not formed for better things than to disjilay her 
 ueautiful person before crowds of boors ; but I am 
 sorry to aidd, that the chai-acter of my queen was 
 not above reproach ; and, as I had nothing but 
 my character to stand upon in Moscow, 1 was 
 obliged to withdi-aw from the observation which 
 lier attention fixed upon me. 
 
 Leaving my swarthy princess with this melan- 
 choly reflection, and leaving the scene of humbler 
 enjoyment, I mounted a drosky, and, depositing 
 my old friend in the suburbs of the city, in half 
 an hour was in another world, in the great pro- 
 menade of Pedixiski, the gathering-place of the 
 nobility, where all the rank and fashion of Moscow 
 were vying with each other in style and magnifi- 
 cence. The extensive grounds around the old 
 chateau are handsomely disposed and ornamented 
 with trees, but the great carriage promenade is 
 equal to anything I ever saw. It is a straight road, 
 more tlian a mile in length, through a thick forest 
 of noble trees. For two hours before dark all 
 the equipages in Moscow paraded up and down 
 this promenade. These equipages were striking 
 and showy without being handsome, and the Rus- 
 sian manner of drivmg four horses makes a very 
 dashing appearance, the leaders being harnessed 
 with long traces, perhaps twenty feet from the 
 wheel hoi-ses, and guided by a lad riding the near 
 leader, the coachman sitting as if nailed to the 
 box, and merely holding the reins. All the rules 
 <)f good taste, as understood in the capitals of 
 -Southern Europe, were set at defiance ; and many 
 .a seigneur, who thought he was doing the thing 
 in the very best style, had no idea how much his 
 iturn-out would have shocked an English whip. 
 But all this exti'avagance, in my eyes, added much 
 ■to the effect of the scene ; and the star-spangled 
 JVIuscovite who dashed up and down the promenade 
 on horseback, with two Calmuc Tartars at his 
 iieels, attracted more of my attention than the 
 plain gentleman who paced along with his English 
 jockoy and quiet elegance of equipment. The stars 
 Jind decorations of the seigneurs set them ofi' to 
 great advantage ; and scores of officers, with their 
 showy uniforms, added brilliancy to the scene, 
 while the footmen made as good an appearance as 
 Jtheir masters. 
 
 On either side of the grand promenade is a 
 walk for foot passengers, and behind this, almost 
 hidden from view by the thick shade of trees, are 
 little cottages, arbours, and tents, furnished with 
 tees and all kinds of refreshments suited to the 
 ■season. I should have mentioned long since that 
 tea, the -very pabulum of all domestic virtues, is 
 the Russian's favourite beverage. They say that 
 they have better tea than can be obtained in Eu- 
 rope, which they ascribe to the circumstance of its 
 being brought by caravans over-land, and saved 
 the exposure of a sea voyage. Whether this be the 
 cause or not, if I am any judge, they are right as 
 to the superiority of their article ; and it was one 
 "Of the most striking features in the animating 
 scene at Pedroski to see family groups distributed 
 about, all over the grounds, under the shade of 
 ooble trees, with their large brass urn hissing 
 wfore them, and taking their tea under the pass- 
 
 ing gaze of thousands of people, with as much 
 unconcern as if by their own firesides. 
 
 Leaving for a moment the thronged promenade, 
 I turned into a thick forest and entered the old 
 chateau of the great Peter. There all was solitude : 
 the footman and I had the palace to ourselves. 
 I followed him through the whole range of apart- 
 ments, in which there was an appearance of staid 
 respectability that quite won my heart, neither of 
 them being any better furnished than one of our 
 old-fashioned country-houses. The pomp and show 
 that 1 saw glittering through the openings in the 
 trees were unknown in the days of the good old 
 Peter ; the chateau was silent and deserted ; the 
 hand that built it was stiff and cold, and the heart 
 that loved it had ceased to beat ; old Peter was in 
 his grave, and his descendants loved better theii 
 splendid palaces on the banks of the Neva. 
 
 When Moscow was burning, Napoleon fled to 
 this chateau for refuge I stopped for a moment 
 in the chamber where, by the blaze of the burn- 
 ing city, he dictated his despatches for the capital 
 of France ; gave the attendant a ruble, and again 
 mixed with the throng, with whom I rambled up 
 and down the principal promenade, and at eleven 
 o'clock v/ns at my hotel. I ought not to forget 
 the Russian ladies ; but, after the gay scene at 
 Pedroski, it is no disparagement to them if I say 
 that, in my quiet walk home the dark-eyed gipsy 
 girl was uppermost in my thoughts. 
 
 The reader may perhaps ask if such is indeed 
 what the traveller finds in Russia ; " Where are 
 the eternal snows that cover the steppes and the 
 immense wastes of that northern empire, that 
 chill the sources of enjoyment, and congeal the 
 very fountains of life i " I answer, they have but 
 just passed by, and they will soon come again ; 
 the present is the season of enjoyment ; the Rus- 
 sians know it to be brief and fleeting, and like 
 butterflies, unfold themselves to the sun, and 
 flutter among the fiowei's. 
 
 Like them, 1 made the most of it at Moscow. 
 Mounted in a drosky, I hurried from church to 
 church, fi'om convent to convent, and from quarter 
 to quarter. But although it is the duty of a 
 traveller to see everything that is to be seen, and 
 although there is a kind of excitement in hurry- 
 ing from place to place, which he is apt to mis- 
 take for pleasure, it is not in this that his real 
 enjoyment is found. His true pleasure is in 
 turning quietly to those things which are inter- 
 esting to the imagination as well as to the eyes, 
 and so I found myself often turning from the 
 churches and palaces, specimens of architecture 
 and art, to the sainted walls of the Kremlin. Here 
 were the first and last of my visits ; and when- 
 ever I sauntered forth without any specific object, 
 perhaps to the neglect of many other places I 
 ought to have seen, my footsteps mvoluntarily 
 turned thitherward. 
 
 Outside and beneath the walls of the Kremlin, 
 and running almost the whole extent of its circum- 
 ference, are boulevards and a public garden, 
 called the Emperor's, made within a few years, 
 and the handsomest thing of the kind in Moscow ; 
 I am not sure but that I may add anywhere else. 
 I have compared it in my mind to the gardens 
 of the Luxembourg and Tuileries, and in many 
 respects hold it to be more beautiful. It is more 
 agreeably irregular and undulating in its surface. 
 
220 
 
 INCIDENTS Oh' TRAVEL 
 
 and has a more rural aspect, and the groves and 
 plants are better arranged, although it has not 
 the statues, lakes, and fountains of the pride of 
 Paris. I loved to stroll through this garden, 
 having on one side of me the magnificent build- 
 ings of the great Russian princes, seigneurs, and 
 merchants, among the finest and most conspicuous 
 of which is the former residence of the unhappy 
 Queen of Georgia ; and on the other side, visible 
 through the foliage of the trees, the white walls of 
 the Kremlin, and, towering above thera, the domes 
 of the palaces and churches within, and the lofty 
 tower of Ivan Veliki Thence I loved to stroll to 
 the Holy Gate of the -Kremlin. It is a vaulted 
 portal, and over the entrance is a picture, with 
 a lamp constantly burnmg ; and a sentinel is 
 always posted at the gate. I loved to stand by it 
 and see the haughty seigneurs and the degraded 
 serf alike humble themselves on crossing the 
 sacred threshold, and then, with my hat in my 
 hand, follow the footsteps of the venerating Rus- 
 sian. Once I attempted to brave the interdict, 
 and go in with my head covered ; but the soldier 
 at the gate stopped me, and forbade my violating 
 the sacred prohibition. Within the walls I wan- 
 dered about, without any definite object, some- 
 times entering the great church and beholding for 
 a moment the prostrate Russian praying before 
 the image of some saint, or descending to take 
 another look at the great bell, or at other times 
 mounting the tower and gazing at the beautiful 
 panorama of the city. 
 
 On the last day of my stay in Moscow, a great 
 crowd drew me to the door of the churcli, where 
 some f<!te was in course of celebration, in honour 
 of the birth, marriage, or some other Incident in 
 the life of the emperor or empress. The arch- 
 bishop, a venerable-looking oldman,was officiating, 
 and when he carae out, a double line of men, 
 women, and children was drawn up from the door 
 of the church to his carriage, all pressing forward 
 and struggling to kiss his hands. The crowd 
 dispersed, and I strolled once more through the 
 repository of heirlooms, and imperial reliques 
 and trophies ; but, passing by the crowns loaded 
 with jewels, the canopies and thrones adorned 
 with velvet and gold, I paused before the throne 
 of unhappy Poland ! I have seen great cities 
 desolate and in ruins, magnificent temples buried 
 in the sands of the African desert, and places once 
 teeming with fertility now lying waste and silent ; 
 but no monument of fallen greatness ever affected 
 me more than this. It was covered with blue 
 velvet and studded with golden stars. It had 
 been the seat of Casimir, and Sobieski, and Sta- 
 nislaus Augustus. Brave men had gathered round 
 it and sworn to defend it, and died in redeeming 
 their pledge. Their oaths are registered in hea- 
 ven, their bodies rest in bloody graves ; Poland is 
 blotted from the list of nations, and her throne, 
 unspotted with dishonour, brilliant as the stars 
 which glitter on its surface, is exhibited as a 
 Russian trophy, before which the stoutest man- 
 hood need not blush to drop a tear. 
 
 Toward evening I returned to my favourite 
 place, the porch of the palace of the Czars. I 
 seated myself on the step, took out my tablets, 
 and commenced a letter to my friends at home. 
 What should I write 1 Above me was the lofty 
 tower of Ivan Veliki ; below, a solitary soldier, in 
 
 his grey overcoat, was retiring to a sentry-box l» 
 avoid a drizzling rain. His eyes were fixed upon 
 me, and I closed my book. I am not given to 
 musing, but I could not help it. Here was tlie 
 theatre of one of the most extraordinary events 
 iu the history of the world. After sixty battles 
 and a march of more than two thousand miles 
 the grand army of Napoleon entered Moscow, anrl 
 found no smoke issuing from a single chimney 
 nor a Muscovite even to gaze upon them from the 
 battlements or walls. Moscow was deserted, her 
 magnificent palaces forsaken by their owners, her 
 three hundred thousand inhabitants vanished as 
 if they had never been. Silent and amazed, the 
 grand army filed through its desolate streets. 
 Approaching the Kremlin, a few miserable, fero- 
 cious, and intoxicated wretches, left behind as a 
 savage token of the national hatred, poured a 
 valley of musketry from the battlements. At 
 midnight the flames broke out in the city ; Napo- 
 leon, driven from his quarters in the' suburbs, 
 hurried to the Kremlin, ascended the steps, and 
 entered the door at which I sat. For two days 
 the French soldiers laboured to repress the fierce 
 attempts to burn the city. Russian police-officers 
 were seen stirring up tho, fire with tarred lances ; 
 hideous-looking men and women, covered with 
 rags, were wandering like demons amid the 
 flames, armed with torches, and striving to spread 
 the conflagration. At midnight again the whole 
 city was in a blaze ; and while the roof of the 
 Kremlin was on fire, and the panes of the window 
 against which he leaned were burning to the 
 touch. Napoleon watched the couree of the flames 
 and exclaimed, " What a tremendous spectacle ! 
 These are Scythians indeed." Amid volumes of 
 smoke and fire, his eyes blinded by the intense 
 heat, and his hands burned in shielding his face 
 from its fury, and traversing streets arched with 
 fire, he escaped from the burning city. 
 
 Russia is not classic ground. It does not stand 
 before us covered with the shadow of great men's 
 deeds. A few centuries ago, it was overrun by 
 wandering tribes of barbarians ; but what is there 
 in those lands which stand forth on the pages of 
 history, crowned with the glory of their ancient 
 deeds, that, for extraordinary daring, for terrible 
 sublimity, and undaunted patriotism, exceeds the 
 burning of Moscow i Neither Marathon, nor Ther- 
 mopylae, nor the battle of the Horatii, nor the 
 defence of Cocles,%or the devotion of the Decii, 
 can equal it ; and when time shall cover with its 
 dim and quiet glories that bold and extraordinary 
 deed, the burning of Moscow will be regarded as 
 outstripping all that we read of Grecian or Roman 
 patriotism, and the name of the Russian governor 
 (Rostopchin), if it be not too tough a name to 
 hand down to posterity, will never be forgotten. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Getting a Passport Parting with the Maiquis.— The 
 
 Language of Signs.^A Loquacious Traveller. — From 
 Moscow to St. Petersburgh.— TheWolga.— Novogorod.— ' 
 Newski Perspective.— An unfortunate Mistake.— Northern ; 
 Twilight. 
 
 Unable to remain longer in Moscow, I prepared 
 for my journey for St. Petersburgh. Several 
 diligences run regularly between these two great 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND 
 
 221 
 
 ■cities ; one of which, the Velocifnre, is superior to 
 any public conveyance on the continent of Europe. 
 I took my place in that, and two days beforehand 
 «ent my passport to be vised. 1 sent for it the 
 next day, and it was not ready. I went myself, 
 and could not get it. I knew that nothing could 
 be done at the Russian offices without paying for 
 it, and was ready and willing to do so, and time 
 after time I called the attention of the officer to 
 my passport. He replied coolly, " Dans un in- 
 Mant" and, turning to something else, kept me 
 waiting two hours ; and when at length he took 
 it up and arranged it, he led me down stairs out 
 of sight to receive the expected douceur. He was 
 ji well-dressed man, with the large government 
 button on his coat, and rather distingue in his 
 -appearance and manners. I took the passport, 
 folded it up, and put it in my pocket with a cool- 
 ness equal to his own, and with malicious pleasure 
 put into his hand a single ruble, equal to twenty 
 cents of our money ; he expected at least twenty- 
 '< tire rubles, or about five dollars, and his look of 
 rage and disappointment amply repaid me for all 
 the vexation he had caused by his delay. I bade 
 liim farewell with a smile that almost drove him 
 luad. 
 
 Bribery is said to be almost universal among 
 the inferior officers of government, and there is a 
 story of a Frenchman in Russia which illustrates 
 the system. He had an office, of which the salary 
 was so small that he could not live upon it. At 
 first he would not take bribes, but stern necessity 
 drove him to it, and while he was about it he did 
 the thing handsomely. Having overreached the 
 mark, and being guilty of being detected, he was 
 <)rought before the proper tribunal ; and when 
 disked, " Why did you take a bribe 1 " his answer 
 was original and conclusive, " I take, thou takest, 
 he takes, we take, you take, they take ! " 
 
 I told the marquis the story of my parting 
 interview at the police-office, which he said was 
 -capital, but startled me by suggesting that, if there 
 ■should happen to be any irregularity, I would 
 have great trouble in getting it rectified ; even 
 this, however, did not disturb my immediate satis- 
 faction, and, fortunately, all was right. 
 
 The morning of my departure, before I was out 
 •of bed, the marquis was in my room. Meeting 
 with me had revived in him feelings long since 
 <lead ; and at the moment of parting he told me, 
 what his pride had till that moment concealed, 
 that his heart yearned once more to his kindred : 
 •and that, if he had the means, old as he was, he 
 would go to America. And yet, though his ft-ame 
 trembled, and his voice was broken, and his 
 lamp was almost burned out, his spirit was as 
 high as when he fought the battles of the empire ; 
 and he told me to say to them that he would not 
 come to be a dependant upon their bounty ; that 
 he could repay all they should do for him by 
 teaching their children. He gave me his last 
 painting, which he regarded with the pride of an 
 artist, as a souvenir for his sister ; but having no 
 means of carrying it safely, I was obliged to return 
 It to him. He remained with me till the moment 
 of my departure, clung to my hand after I had 
 taken my place in the drosky, and when we had 
 started I looked back and saw him still standing 
 ! in the road. It seemed as if the last link that 
 j bound him to earth was broken. He gave me a 
 
 letter, which I forwarded to his friends at home ; 
 h'is sister was still living, and had not forgotten 
 her long-lost brother ; she had not heard from him 
 in twenty years, and had long believed him dead. 
 Pecuniary assistance was immediately sent to him ; 
 and, unhappily, since my return home, intelligence 
 has been received that it arrived only at the last 
 moment when human aid could avail him ; in 
 time to smooth the pillow of death by the assurance 
 that his friends had not forgotten him. And, 
 perhaps, in his dying moments, he remembered 
 me. At all events, it is some satisfaction, amid 
 the recollections of an unprofitable life, to think 
 that, when his checkered career was drawing to 
 its close, I had been the means of gladdening for 
 a moment the old exile's heart. 
 
 I must not forget my host, the quondam exile to 
 Siberia. In his old days his spirit too was chafed 
 at living under despotism, and, like the marquis, 
 he also hoped, before he died, to visit America. I 
 gave him my address, with the hope, but with very 
 little expectation, of seeing him again. A travel- 
 ling companion once remarked, that if every 
 vagabond to whom I gave my address should find 
 his way to America, I would have a precious set 
 to present to my friends. Be it so ; there is not 
 a vag^ond among them whom I would not be 
 glad to see. 
 
 My English companion and myself had seen but 
 little of each other at Moscow. He intended to 
 remain longer than I did, but changed his mind, 
 and took a place in the same diligence for St. 
 Petersburgh. This diligence was the best I ever 
 rode in ; and, for a journey of nearly five hundred 
 miles, we could not have been more comfortably 
 arranged. It started at the hour punctually, as 
 from the Messagerie in Paris. We rolled for the 
 last time through the streets of Moscow, and in a 
 few minutes passed out .at the St. Petersburgh 
 Gate. Our companions were, a man about thirty- 
 five, a cattle-driver, with his trousers torn, and his 
 linen hanging out ostentatiously in diflerent places, 
 and an old man about sixty-five, just so far civil- 
 ised as to have cut off the long beard and put on 
 broadcloth clothes. It was the first time the old 
 man had ever been on a, journey from home ; 
 everything was new to him, and he seemed puzzled 
 to know what to make of us ; he could not com- 
 prehend how we could look, and walk, and eat 
 like Russians, and not talk like them. My place 
 was directly opposite his, and, as soon as we were 
 seated, he began to talk to me. I looked at him 
 and made no answer ; he began again, and went 
 on in an uninterrupted strain for several minutes, , 
 more and more surprised that I did not answer, 
 or answered only in unintelligible sounds. After 
 a while he seemed to come to the conclusion that 
 I was deaf and dumb, and turned to my companion, 
 iis to my keeper, for an explanation. Finding he 
 could do nothing there, he appeared alarmed, and 
 it was some time before he could get a clear idea 
 of the matter. When he did, however, he pulled 
 off an amazingly white glove, took my hand and 
 shook it, pointed to his head, shook it, and touched 
 my head, iiien put his hand to his heart, then to 
 my heart ; all which was to say, that though our 
 heads did not understand each other, our hearts 
 did. But though he saw we did not understand 
 him, he did not on that account stop talking; 
 indeed, he talked incessantly, and the only way of 
 
INCIDENTS OF TEAVEL 
 
 stopping him was to look directly in his face and 
 talk back again; and I read him long lectures, 
 particularly upon the snares and temptations of 
 the world into which he was about to plunge, and 
 wound up with stanzas of poetry and scraps of 
 Greek and Latin, all which the old man listened 
 to without ever interrupting me, bending his ear 
 as if he expected every moment to catch some- 
 thing he understood ; and when I had finished, 
 after a moment's blank expression he whipped off 
 his white glove, took my hand, and touched signi- 
 ficantly his head and heart. Indeed, a dozen times 
 a day he did this ; and particularly whenever we 
 got out, on I'esumiiig our seats, as a sort of renewal 
 of the compact of good fellowship, the glove in- 
 variably came off, and the significant movement 
 between the hand, head, and heart was repeated. 
 The second day a young seigneur named Chickoff, 
 who spoke French, joined the diligence, and 
 through him we had full explanations with the 
 old Russian. He always called me the American 
 graft' or noble, and said that, after being presented 
 to the emperor, I should go down with him into 
 the country. 
 
 My worthy comrade appeared at first to be not 
 a Uttle bored by the old man's garrulous humour ; 
 but at length, seized by a sudden whim, began, as 
 he said, to teach him English. But such English ! 
 He taught him, after a fashion peculiarly his own, 
 the manner of addressing a lady and gentleman 
 in English ; and very soon, with the remarkable 
 facility of the Russians in acquiring languages, the 
 old man, utterly unconscious of their meaning, 
 repeated the words with extraordinary distinct- 
 ness ; and regularly, when he took his place in the 
 diUgence, he accompanied the significant move- 
 ments of his hand, head, and heart to me with the 
 not very elegant address taught him by my com- 
 panion. Though compelled to smile inwardly at 
 the absurdity of the thing, I could not but feel the 
 inherent impropriety of the conduct of my eccentric 
 fellow-traveller ; and ventured to suggest to him 
 that, though he had an undoubted right to do as 
 he pleased in matters that could not implicate me, 
 yet, independent of the very questionable character 
 of the joke itself (for the words savoured more of 
 Wapping than of St. James's), as we were known 
 to have travelled together, a portion of the credit 
 of having taught the old Russian English might 
 fall upon me — an honour of which I was not 
 covetous, and, therefore, should tell the old man 
 never to repeat the words he had been taught, 
 which I did without assigning any reason for it, 
 and before we arrived at St. Petei-sburgh he had 
 forgotten them. 
 
 The road from Moscow to St. Petersburgh is 
 now one of the best in Europe. It is Macadamized 
 nearly tlie whole way, and a great part is bordered 
 with trees ; the posthouses are generally large 
 and handsome, under the direction of government, 
 where soup, cutlets, &c. are always ready at a 
 intiment's notice, at prices regulated by a tariff' 
 hanging up in the room, which, however, being 
 written in Russian, was of no particular use to us. 
 The country is comparatively thickly settled, and 
 villages are numerous. Even on this road, how- 
 ever, the villages are forlorn things, being generally 
 the property and occupied by the serfs of the 
 seigneurs, and consisting of a single long street, 
 with houses on both sides built of logs, the better 
 
 sort squared, with the gable end to the street, the- 
 roofs projecting two or three feet from the houses . 
 and sometimes ornamented with rude carving and 
 small holes for windows. We passed several 
 chateaux, large, imposing uildings, with parks 
 and gardens, and a large church, painted white 
 with a green dome, surmounted by a cross. 
 
 In many places on the road are chapels with 
 figures of the Panagia, or all-holy Virgin, or some 
 of the saints ; and our old Russian, constantly on 
 the look-out for them, never passed one without 
 taking off his hat and going through the whole 
 formula of crosses ; sometimes, on entering a town,, 
 they came upon us in such quick succession, first 
 on one side, then on the other, that, if he had not 
 been engaged in, to him, a sacred ceremony, hip 
 hurry and perplexity would have been hidicroas. 
 During the night we saw fires ahead, and a little- 
 off the road were the bivouacs of teamsters oi- 
 wayfarers, who could not pay for lodging in a 
 miserable Russian hut. All the way we met the- 
 great caravan teams carrying tallow, hides, hemp^ 
 and otiier merchandise to the cities, and bringing 
 back wrought fabrics, groceries, &c., into the- 
 interior. Tliey were generally thirty or forty 
 together, one man or woman attending to three or 
 four carts, or, rather, neglecting them, as tlu- 
 driver was generally asleep on the top of his load 
 The horses, however, seemed to know what thej 
 were about ; for as the diligence came rolling: 
 toward them, before the postilion could reach 
 them with his whip, they intuitively hurried out 
 of the way. The bridges over the streams and 
 i-ivers are strong, substantial structures, built of 
 heavy hewn granite, with iron balustrades, and 
 ornamented in the centre with the double-headed 
 eagle, the arms of Russia. 
 
 At Tver we passed the Wolga on a bridge of 
 boats. This noble river, the longest in Europe^ 
 navigable almost from its source for an extent of 
 four thousand versts, dividing, for a great part of 
 its course, Europe and Asia, runs majestically 
 through the city, and rolls on, bathing the walk 
 of the city of Astraehan, till it reaches the distant 
 Caspiaii ; its banks still inhabited by the same- 
 tribes of warlike Cossacks who hovered on the- 
 skirts of the French army during their invasion of 
 Russia. By its junction with the Tverza, a 
 communication is made between the Wolga and 
 Neva, or, in other words, between the Caspian and 
 Baltic. The impetus of internal improvement- 
 has extended even to the north of Europe, and 
 the Emperor Nicolas is now actively engaged in 
 directing surveys of the great rivers of Russia for 
 the purpose of connecting them by canals and 
 railroads, and opening steam communications 
 throughout the whole interior of his empire. ^ A 
 great number of boats of all sizes, for carryinfr 
 grain to the capital, were lying off the city. These 
 boats are generally provided with one mast, which, 
 in the largest, may equal a frigate's mainmast. 
 " The weight of the matsail," an English officei- 
 reraarks, " must be prodigious, having no fewei- 
 than one hundred breadths in it ; yet the facilitv 
 with which it is managed bears comparison with 
 that of the Yankees with tlieir boom-mainsail ht 
 their fore-and-aft clippers." The rudder is a 
 ponderous machine, being a broad piece of timber 
 Heating astern twelve or fifteen feet, and fastened 
 to the tiller by a pole, which descends perpondicii- 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 223 
 
 larly into the water ; the tiller ia from thirty to 
 forty feet long, and the pilot who turns it stands 
 upon a scaffold at that distance from the stern. 
 Down the stream a group of Cossacks were bath- 
 ing, and I could not resist the temptation to throw 
 myself for a moment into this king of rivers. 
 The diligence hurried me, ;md, as it came along, 
 I gathered up my clothes and dressed myself 
 inside. 
 
 About eighty versts from ot. Petersburgh, we 
 came to the ancient city of Novogorod. In the 
 words of an old traveller, " Next unto Moscow, 
 the city of Novogorod is reputed the chiefest in 
 Russia ; for although it be in majestie inferior to 
 it, yet in greatness it goeth beyond it. It is the 
 chiefest and greatest mart-town of all Muscovy ; 
 and albeit the emperor's seat is not there, but at 
 Moscow, yet the commodiousness of the river, 
 falling into that gulf which is called Sinus Finni- 
 ous, whereby it is well frequented by merchants, 
 makes it more famous than Moscow itself." Few 
 of the ruined cities of the Old World present so 
 striking an appearance of fallen greatness as this 
 comparatively unknown place. There is an ancient 
 saying, " Who can resist the gods and Novogorod 
 the Great?" Three centuries ago it covered an 
 area of sixty-three versts in circumference, and 
 contained a population of more than four hundred 
 thousand inhabitants. Some parts of it are still 
 in good condition, but the larger portion has fallen 
 to decay. Its streets present marks of desolation, 
 mouldering walls, and ruined churches, and its 
 population has dwindled to little more than seven 
 thousand inhabitants. The steeples in this ancient 
 city bear the cross, unaccompanied by the crescent, 
 the proud token showing that the Tartars, in all 
 their invasions, never conquered it, while in the 
 reconquered cities the steeples all exhibit the cres- 
 cent surmounted by the cross. 
 
 Late in the afternoon of the fourth day we were 
 approaching St. Petersburgh. The ground is low 
 and flat, and I was disappointed in the first view 
 of the capital of Russia ; but passing the barrier, 
 and riding up the Newski Perspective, the most 
 magnificent street in that magnificent city, I felt 
 the stories of its splendour were not exaggerated, 
 and that this was, indeed, entitled to the proud 
 appellation of the ".Palmyra of the North." My 
 English companion again stopped at a house kept 
 by an Englishwoman and frequented by his coun- 
 trymen, and I took an apartment at an hotel in a 
 broad street with an unpronounceable Russian 
 name, a little oft' the Newski Perspective. I was 
 worn and fatigued with my journey, but I could 
 not resist the inclination to take a gentle prome- 
 nade along the Newski Perspective. While in 
 the coffee-room refreshing myself with a cup of 
 the best Russian tea, I heard some one outside the 
 door giving directions to a tailor, and presently a 
 man entered, whom, without looking at him, I 
 told he was just the person I wanted to see, as I 
 had a paii- of pantaloons to be mended. He made 
 no answer, and, without being able to see dis- 
 tinctly, I told him to wait till I could go up stairs 
 and change them, and that he must mend them 
 strongly and bring them back in the morning. In 
 all probability, the next moment I should have 
 been sprawling on the floor, but the landlady, a 
 clever Frenchwoman, who saw my error, stepped 
 up, and crying out, "Ah, Monsieir le Colonel, al- 
 
 tendez, altendez," explained my mistake as clearly 
 as I could have done myself, and I followed closely 
 with an apology, adding that my remark could 
 not be intended as disrespectful to him, inasmuch 
 ae even then, with the windows closed, 1 could 
 scarcely distinguish his person. He understood 
 the thing at once, accepted my apology with great 
 frankness, and, instead of knocking me down, or 
 challenging me to fight with sabre or some other 
 diabolical thing, finding I was a stranger just 
 arrived from Moscow, sat down at the table, and 
 before we rose ofi'ered to accompany me in my 
 walk. 
 
 There could be no mistake as to the caste oi 
 my new friend. The landlady had called him 
 colonel, and, in repeUing the imputation of his 
 being a tailor, had spoken of him as a rich sei- 
 gneur, who for ten years had occupied the front 
 apartments au premier in her hotel. We walked 
 out into the Newski Perspective, and strolled 
 along that magnificent street down to the Admi- 
 ralty, and along the noble quays of the Neva. 1 
 had reached the terminus of my journey ; for 
 many months I had been moving farther and far- 
 ther away, and the next step I took would carry 
 me toward home. It was the eve of the fourth of 
 July ; and as I strolled through the broad streets 
 and looked up at the long ranges of magnificent 
 buildings, I poured into the ear of my companion 
 the recollections connected with this moment at 
 home : in boyhood, crackers and fireworks in 
 readiness for the great jubilee of the morrow ; 
 and, latterly, the excursion into the country to 
 avoid the bustle and confusion of "the glorious 
 fourth."* 
 
 At Moscow and during the journey I had ad- 
 mired the exceeding beauty of che twilight in these 
 northern latitudes, but this night in St. Petersburgh 
 it was magnificent. I cannot describe the pecu- 
 liar shades of this northern twilight. It is as if 
 the glare and brilliancy of the sun were softened 
 by the mellowing influence of the moon, and the 
 city, with its superb ranges of palaces, its statues, 
 its bridges, and its clear and rapid river, seemed, 
 under the reflection of that northern light, of a 
 brilliant and almost unearthly beauty. I fell 
 as if I should like rambling all night. Even 
 though worn with three days' travel, it was with 
 me as with a young lady at her first ball ; the 
 night was too short. I could not bear to throw 
 it away in sleep. My companion was tough, 
 and by no means sentimental, and the scene 
 was familiar to him ; but he told me that, even 
 in his eyes, it never lost its interest. Moonlight 
 is something, but this glorious twilight is a thing 
 to enjoy and to remember ; and, as the colonel 
 remarked when we sat down in his apartment 
 to a comfortable supper, it always gave him 
 such an appetite ! After supper I walked through 
 a long corridor to my apartment, threw myself 
 upon my bed and tried to sleep, but the mellow 
 twilight poured through my window and reproached 
 me with the base attempt. I was not restless, but 
 I could not sleep ; lest, however, the reader 
 should find himself of a different humour, I will 
 consider myself asleep the first night in St. 
 Petersburgh. 
 
 ♦ The anniversarj- of the American " declaration of 
 independence," July 4th, 1776, held as a holiday in tlii- 
 United States— Eo. 
 
224 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Police Requisites.— The Russian Capital.— Equestrian 
 Statue of Peter tlie Great.— Tlie Alexandrine Column. — 
 Architectural Wonders.— The Summer Islands.- A peril- 
 
 nus Achievement Origin of St. Petersburgh.— Tombs of 
 
 dead Monarchs.- Origin of the Russian Navy. 
 
 July Fourth I had intended to pass this day 
 
 at Moscow, and to commemoi-ate it in Napoleon 
 style by issuing a bulletin from the Kremlin, but 
 it was a long time since I had heard from home. 
 At Constantinople I had written to Paris, direct- 
 ing my letters to be sent to Petersburgh, and, 
 notwithstanding ray late hours the night before, I 
 was at the post-oifice before the doors were open. 
 1 had never been so long without hearing from 
 home, and my lips quivered when I asked for 
 letters, my hand shook when I received them, and 
 I hardly drew breath till I had finished the last 
 postscript. My next business was at the bureau of 
 general police for a carte tie sejour, without which 
 no stranger can remain in St. Petersburgh. As 
 usual, I was questioned as to my reasons for 
 coming into Russia ; age, time of sojourn, destina- 
 tion, &c. ; and, satisfied that I bad no intention of 
 preaching democi'atic doctrines or subverting the 
 government of the autocrat, I received permission 
 to remain two weeks, which, according to direction, 
 I gave to my landlord to be entered at the police- 
 iiffice of his district. As no stranger can stay in 
 Petersburgh without permission, neither can he 
 leave without it ; and, to obtain this, he must 
 advertise three times in the Government Gazette, 
 stating his name, address, and intention of leaving 
 the empire ; and as the Gazette isonly published 
 twice a week, this formality occupies eight days. 
 One of the objects of this is to apprise his creditors, 
 and give them an opportunity of securing their 
 debts ; and few things show the barbarity and im- 
 perfect civilization of the Russians more clearly 
 than this ; making it utterly impossible for a gen- 
 tleman to spend a winter in St. Petersburgh and 
 go away without paying his landlord. This must 
 prevent many a soaring spirit from wending its 
 way hither, and keep the residents from being 
 enlivened by the flight of those birds of pasFage 
 which dazzle the eyes of the denizens of other 
 cities. As there was no other way of getting out 
 of the dominions of the czar, I caused my name 
 and intention to be advertised. It did not create 
 much of a sensation ; and though it was proclaimed 
 in three different languages, no one except my 
 landlord seemed to feel any interest in it. After 
 all, to get in debt is the true way to make friends; 
 a man's creditors always feel an interest in him ; 
 hope no misfortune may happen to him, and always 
 wish him prosperity and success. 
 
 These formalities over, I turned to other things. 
 Different from every other principal city I had 
 visited, St. Petersburgh had no storied associa- 
 tions to interest the traveller. There is no Colos- 
 seum, as at Rome ; no Acropolis, as at Athens ; 
 no Rialto, as at Venice ; and no Kremlin, as at 
 Moscow ; nothing identified with the men and 
 scenes hallowed in our eyes, and nothing that can 
 touch the heart. It depends entirely upon itself 
 for the interest it creates in the mind of the tra- 
 veller. 
 
 St. I'etcrsbui'gh is situated at the month of the 
 
 Neva, at the eastern extremity of the Gulf of Fin. 
 land. It is built partly on islands formed hy the 
 Neva, and partly on both sides of that river. But 
 little more than a century ago, the ground now 
 covered with stately palaces consisted of wild 
 morasses and primeval forests, and a few huts 
 tenanted by savage natives, who lived upon the 
 fish of the sea. In seventeen hundred and three, 
 Peter the Great appeared as a captain of grena- 
 diers, luider the orders of one of his own generals, 
 on the wild and dreary banks of the Neva, drove 
 the Swedes frqm their fortress at its mouth, cut 
 down the forests on the rude islands of the river, 
 and laid the foundations of a city which now sur- 
 passes in architectural magnificence every other 
 in the world. I do not believe that Rome, when 
 Adrian reared the mighty Colosseum, and the 
 Palace of the Csesars covered the Capitoline Hill, 
 exhibited such a range of noble structures as now 
 exists in the Admiralty Quarter. The Admiralty 
 itself is the central point, on one side fronting the 
 Neva, and on the other a large open square, auq 
 has a facade of marble, with ranges of columns a 
 quarter of a mile in length. A beautiful golden 
 spire shoots up from the centre, towering above 
 every other object, and seen from every part of 
 the city glittering in the sun ; and three principal 
 streets, each two miles in length, radiate from this 
 point. In front is a range of boulevards, orna- 
 mented with trees, and an open square, at one 
 extremity of which stands the great church of St. 
 Isaac, of marble, jasper, and porphyry, upon a 
 foundation of granite ; it has been once destroyed, 
 and reared again with increased splendour, enor- 
 mous columns of a single block of red granite 
 already lifting their capitals in the air. 
 
 On the right of the facade, and near the Isaac 
 Bridge, itself a magnificent structure, a thousand 
 and fifty feet long, and si.xty feet wide, witli two 
 drawbridges, stands the well-known equestrian 
 statue of Peter the Great. The huge block of 
 granite forming the pedestal is fifteen hundred 
 tons in weight. The height of the figure of the 
 emperor is eleven feet, that of the horse seventeen 
 feet, and the weight of the metal in the group 
 nearly thirty-seven thousand pounds. Both the 
 idea and the execution of this superb monument 
 are regarded as masterpieces of genius. To im- 
 mortahze the enterprise and personal courage 
 with which that extraordinary man conquered all 
 difficulties and converted a few fishermen's huts 
 into palafces, Peter is represented on a fiery steed, 
 rushing up a steep and precipitous rook to the very 
 brink of a precipice ; the horse rears with his fore- 
 feet in the air, and seems to be impatient of re- 
 straint, while the imperial rider, in an attitude of 
 triumph, extends the hand of protection over his 
 capital rising out of the waters. To aid the inspi- 
 ration of the artist, a Russian officer, the boldest 
 rider of his time, daily rode the wildest Arabian 
 of Count Orloff's stud to the summit of a steep 
 mound, where he halted him suddenly, with his 
 fore-legs raised pawing the air over the brink of 
 the precipice. The monument is surrounded by 
 an iron railing, and the pedestal bears tlie simple 
 inscription, Petro Primo Catharina Secunua, 
 MnrCLXxxii. 
 
 On the other "side of the square, and in front of 
 the Winter Palace, raised within the last two 
 years, and the most gigantic work of modern 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 22r, 
 
 days, rivalling those magnificent monuments in the 
 Old World whose ruins now startle the wondering 
 traveller, and towering to the heavens, as if to 
 proclaim that the days of architectural greatness 
 aro not gone by for ever, is the great Alexandrine 
 Column, a single shaft of red granite, exclusive of 
 pedestal and capital, eighty-four feet high. On 
 the summit stands an angel holding a cross with 
 the left hand, and pointing to heaven with the 
 right. The pedestal contains the simple inscrip- 
 tion, " To Alexander I. Gr.ateful Russia." 
 
 Surrounding this is a crescent of lofty buildings, 
 denominated the Ktat-Major, its central portion 
 having before it a majestic colonnade of the Co- 
 rinthian order, placed on a high rustic basement, 
 with a balustrade of solid bronze, gilt between the 
 columns. In the middle is a triumphal arch, 
 which, with its frieze, reaches nearly to the upper 
 part of the lofty building, having a span of seventy 
 feet, the entablature sculptured with military tro- 
 phies, allegorical figures, and groups in alto-ri- 
 llevo. Next, on a line with the Admiralty, and 
 fronting the quay, stands the fii-st of a long range 
 of imperial palaces, extending in the form of a 
 crescent for more than a mile along the Neva. 
 The Winter Palace is n, gigantic and princely 
 structure, built of marble, with a fa9ade of seven 
 hundred and forty feet. Next are the two palaces 
 of the Hermitage, connected with it and with each 
 other by covered galleries on bold arches ; the 
 beautiful and tasteful fronts of these palaces are 
 j strangely in conti'ast with their simple and un- 
 pretending names. Next is the stately Grecian 
 theatre of the Hermitage. Beyond this are the 
 barracks of the guards, then the palace of the 
 French ambassador, then the marble palace built 
 by Catharine II. for her favourite. Prince Orloif, 
 with a basement of granite and superstructure of 
 bluish marble, ornamented with marble columns 
 and pillars. In this palace died Stanislaus Ponia- 
 towsky, the last of the Polish sovereigns. This 
 magnificent range, presenting an uninterrupted 
 front of marble palaces upward of a mile in length, 
 unequalled in any city in the world, is terminated 
 by an open square, in which stands a colossal 
 ntatoe of Suwarrow ; beyond this, still on the 
 Neva, is the beautiful summer garden fronting the 
 palace of Paul II. ; and near it, and at the upper 
 end of the square, is the palace of the Grand-duke 
 Michael. 
 
 Opposite is the citadel, with its low bastions of 
 solid granite, washed all round by the Neva ; 
 beautiful in its structure, and beautifully decorated 
 by the tall, slender, and richly-gilded spire of its 
 church. On the one side of the Admiralty is the 
 senatorial palace, and beyond opens the English 
 Quay, with a range'of buildings that might well be 
 called the residence of " merchant princes ;" while 
 the opposite bank is crowded with public buildings, 
 among which the most conspicuous are the palace 
 of the Academy of the Fine Arts ; the Obelisk, 
 nsuig in the centre of a wide square, recording 
 the glory of some long-named Russian hero ; the 
 building of the Naval Cadet Corps, with its hand- 
 some front, and the barracks of the Guard of 
 Finland ; finally, the great pile of palace-like 
 buildings belonging to the Military Cadet Corps, 
 reaching neai-ly to the palace of the Academy of 
 Sciences, and tenninating with the magnificent 
 Grecian front of the Exchange. I know that a 
 
 verbal description can give but a faint idea of the 
 character of this scene, nor would it help the 
 understanding of it to say that it exhibits all that 
 wealth and architectural skill can do, for few in 
 our country know what even these powerful engines 
 can effect ; as for myself, hardly noting the details, 
 it was my greatest delight to walk daily to the 
 bridge across the Neva, at the Summer Gardens, 
 the view from which more than realised all the 
 crude and imperfect notions of architectural mag- 
 nificence that had ever floated through my miud ; 
 a result that I had never found in any other city 
 I had yet seen, not excepting Venice the rich, or 
 Genoa the proud, although the latter is designated 
 in guide-books the « city of palaces." 
 
 Next to the palaces in solidity and beauty of 
 structure are the bridges crossing the Neva, and 
 the magnificent quays along its course ; these last 
 being embankments of solid granite, lining the 
 stream on either side the whole length of its wind- 
 ing course through the city. 
 
 I was always at a loss whether to ride or walk 
 in St. Petersburgh ; sometimes I mounted a drosky 
 and rode up and down the Newski Perspective, 
 merely for the sake of rolling over the wooden 
 pavement. This street is perhaps more than twice 
 as wide as Broadway ; the gutter is in the middle, 
 and on each side are wooden pavements wide 
 enough for vehicles to pass each other freely. 
 The experiment of wooden pavement was first 
 made in this street, and found to answer so well 
 that it has since been introduced into many others ; 
 and as the frost is more severe than with us, and 
 it has stood the test of a Russian winter, if rightly 
 constructed it will, no doubt, prove equally suc- 
 cessful in our own city. The road is first covered 
 with broken stone, or Macadamised ; then logs 
 are laid across it, the interstices being filled up 
 with sand and stone, and upon this are placed 
 hexagonal blocks of pine about eighteen inches 
 long, fitted like joiner's-work, fastened with long 
 pegs, and covered with a preparation of melted 
 lead. 
 
 When I left Paris I had no expectation of tra- 
 velling in Russia, and, consequently, had no letter 
 of introduction to Mr. Wilkins, our minister ; but, 
 long before reaching St. Petersburgh, I had made 
 it a rule, immediately on my arrival in a strange 
 place, to call upon our representative, whatever 
 he might be, from a minister plenipotentiary down 
 to a little Greek consul. I did so here, and was 
 probably as well received upon my crfu introduc- 
 tion as tf I had been recommended by letter ; for 
 I got from Mr. Wilkins the invitation to dinner 
 usuallyconsequent upon a letter,and besides,much 
 interesting information from home, and, more than 
 all, a budget of New York newspapers. It was a 
 long time since I had seen », New York paper, 
 and I hailed all the well-known names, infoi-med 
 myself of every house to let, every vessel to sail, 
 all the cotton in market, and a new kind of shav- 
 ing soap for sale at Hart's Bazaar ; read with par- 
 ticular interest the sales of real estate by James 
 Bleecker and Sons ; wondered at the rapid increase 
 of the city in creating a demand for building lots 
 in one hundred and twenty-seventh street, and 
 reflected that some of my old friends had probably 
 grown so rich that they would not recognise me 
 on my return. 
 
 Having made arrangements for the afternoon to 
 
226 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 visit the Summer Islands, I dined with my friend 
 
 the colonel, in company with Prince (1 have 
 
 his name in my pocket-book, written by himself, 
 and could give a Tac-simile of it, but I could not 
 spell it). The prince was about forty-five, a high- 
 toned gentleman, a, nobleman in his feeUngs, and 
 courtly in his manners, though, for a prince, 
 rather out at elbows in fortune. The colonel and 
 he had been fellow-soldiers, had served in the 
 guards during the whole of the French invasion, 
 and entered Paris with the allied armies as officers 
 in the same regiment. Like most of the Russian 
 seigneurs, they had run through their fortunes in 
 their military career. The colonel, however, had 
 been set up again by an inheritance from a rela- 
 tive, but the prince remained ruined. He was 
 uow living upon a fragment saved from the wreck 
 of his estate, a pension for his military services, 
 and the bitter experience acquired by a course of 
 youthful extravagance. Like many of the reduced 
 Russian seigneurs, he was disaffected toward the 
 government, and liberal in politics ; he was a 
 warm admirer of liberal institutions, had specu- 
 lated upon and studied them both in France and 
 America, and analysed understandingly the spirit 
 of liberty as developed by the American and 
 French revolutions ; when he talked of Washing- 
 ton, he folded his hands and looked up to heaven, 
 as if utterly unable to express the fulness of his 
 emotions. With us, the story of our revolution is 
 a hackneyed theme, and even the sacred name of 
 Washington has become almost commonplace ; 
 but the freshness of feeling with which the prince 
 spoke of him, invfsted him in my eyes with a new 
 and holy character. Aftor dinner, and while on 
 our way to the Summer Islands, we stopped at his 
 apartments, when he showed me the picture of 
 Washington conspicuous on the wall ; under it, 
 by way of contrast, was that of Napoleon ; and he 
 summed up the characters of both in few words, 
 by saying, that the one was all for himself, the 
 other all for his country. 
 
 The Summer Islands on Sundays and fSte-days 
 are the great promenade of the residents of the 
 capital, and the approach to them is either by 
 land or water. We preferred the latter, and at 
 the Admiralty took a boat on the Neva. All along 
 the quay are flights of steps cut in the granite, 
 and descending to a granite platform, where boats 
 are constantly in attendance for passengers. These 
 boats are fantastically painted, and have the stern 
 raised some three or four feet ; sometimes they 
 are covered with an awning. The oar is of dis- 
 proportionate thickness toward the handle, the 
 blade very broad, always feathered in rowing, and 
 the boatman, in his calico or linen shirt and pan- 
 taloons, his long yellowish beard and mustaches, 
 looks like any thiag but the gondolier of Venice. 
 In passing down the Neva I noticed, about half 
 way between low-water mark and the top of the' 
 quay, a ring which serves to fasten vessels, and is 
 the mark to which if the water rises an inundation 
 may be expected. The police are always on the 
 watch, and the fearful moment is announced by 
 the firing of cannon, by the display of white flags 
 from the Admiralty steeple by day, and by lanterns 
 and the tolling of the bells at night. In the last 
 dreadful inundation of 1824, bridges were swept 
 away, boats floated in some parts of the town 
 above the tops of the houses, and many villages 
 
 were entirely destroyed. At Cronstadt, a vessel 
 of one hundred tons was left in the middle of one 
 of the principal streets ; eight thousand dead 
 bodies were found and buried, and probably many 
 thousands more were hurried on to the watere ol 
 the Gulf of Finland. 
 
 It was a fto-day in honour of some church 
 festival, and a great portion of the population of 
 St. Petersburgh was bending its way toward the 
 Summer Islands. The emperor and empress were 
 expected to honour the promenade with their pre- 
 sence, and all along the quay boats were shooting 
 out loaded with gay parties, and, as they approached 
 the islands, they formed into a fleet, almost cover- 
 ing the surface of the river. We wer^ obliged to 
 wait till perhaps a dozen boats had discharged 
 their passengers, before we could land. 
 
 These islands are formed by the branches of the 
 Neva, at about three versts from St. Petersburgh. 
 They are beautifully laid out in grass and gravel- 
 walks, ornamented with trees, lakes, shrubs, and 
 flowers, connected together by light and elegant 
 bridges, and adorned with beautiful little summer- 
 houses. These summer-houses are perfectly cap- 
 tivating ; light and airy in their construction, and 
 completely buried among the trees. As we walked 
 along we heard music or gentle voices, and now 
 and then came upon a charming cottage, with a 
 beautiful lawn or garden, just enough exposed to 
 let the passer-by imagine what he pleased ; and on 
 the lawn was a light fanciful tent, or an arbour 
 hung with foliage, under which the occupants, 
 with perhaps a party of friends from the city, 
 were taking tea, and groups of rosy children were 
 romping around them, while thousands were pass- 
 ing by and looking on, with as perfect an appear- 
 ance of domestic abandon as if in the privacy of 
 the fireside. I have sometimes reproached myself 
 that my humour changed with every passing 
 scene ; but, inasmuch as it generally tended toward 
 at least a momentary satisfaction, I did not seek 
 to check it ; and though, from habit and education, 
 I would have shrunk from such a family exhibi- 
 tion, here it was perfectly delightful. It seemed 
 like going back to a simpler and purer age. The 
 gay and smiling faces seemed to indicate happy 
 hearts ; and when I saw a mother playing on the 
 green with a little cherub daughter, I felt how I 
 hung upon the community, a loose and disjointed 
 member, and would fain have added myself to 
 some cheerful family group. A little farther on, 
 however, I saw a papa flogging a chubby urchin, 
 who drowned with his bellowing the music from 
 a neighbouring arbour, which somewhat broke 
 the charm of this public exhibition of scenes of 
 domestic life. 
 
 Besides these little retiring places or summer 
 residences of citizens, restaurants and houses of 
 refreshment were distributed in great abundance, 
 and numerous groups were sitting under the shade 
 of trees or arbours, taking ices or refreshments ; 
 and the grounds for promenade were so large and 
 beautifully disposed, that, although thousands 
 were walking through them, there was no crowd, 
 except before the door of a principal refectory, 
 where a rope-dancer was flourishing in the air 
 among the tops of the trees. 
 
 In addition to the many enchanting retreats and 
 summer residences created by the taste, luxm"y, 
 and wealth of private individuals, there are sum- 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 227 
 
 mer theatres and imperial villas. But the gem of 
 the islands is the little imperial palace at Cam- 
 menoi. I have walked through royal palaces, and 
 admired their state and magnificence without one 
 wish to possess them, but I felt a strong yearning 
 toward this imperial villa. It is not so grand and 
 stately as to freeze and chill one, but a thing of 
 extraordinary simplicity and elegance, in a beauti- 
 fully picturesque situation, heightened by a charm- 
 ing disposition of lawn and trees, so elegant, and, 
 if I may add sueh an unpoetical word in the 
 description of this imperial residence, so comfort- 
 able, that I told the prince if I were a Rasselas 
 escaped from the Happy Valley, I would look no 
 farther for a resting place. The prince replied, 
 that in the good old days of Russian barbarism, 
 when a queen swayed the sceptre, Russia had 
 been a great field for entei'prising and adventurous 
 young men, and in more than one instance a palace 
 had been the reward of a favourite. We gave a 
 sigh to the memory of those good old days, and at 
 eleven o'clock returned to the city on the top of 
 an omnibus. The whole road from the Summer 
 Islands and the great street leading to the Admi- 
 ralty were lighted with little glass lamps, arranged 
 on the side walks about six feet apart, but they 
 almost realised the conceit of illuminating ihe sun 
 by hanging candles around it, seeming ashamed 
 of their own sickly glare, and struggling vainly 
 with the glorious twilight. 
 
 The next morning the valet, who had taken me 
 as his master, and who told others in the house 
 that he could not attend to them, as he was in my 
 service, informed me that a traveller, arrived from 
 Warsaw the night before, had taken apartments 
 m the same hotel, and could give me all necessary 
 information in regard to that route ; and, after 
 breakfast, I sent him, with my compliments, to ask 
 the traveller if he would admit me, and shortly 
 after called myself. He was a young man, under 
 thirty, above the middle size, strong and robust of 
 frame, with good features, light complexion, but 
 very much freckled, a head of extraordinarily red 
 hair, and a mustache of the same brilliant colour ; 
 and he was dressed in a coloured stuff morning- 
 gown, and smoking a pipe with an air of no small 
 dignity and importance. I explained the purpose 
 of my visit, and he gave me as precise information 
 as could possibly be had ; and the most gratifying 
 part of the interview was, that before we separated 
 he told me that he intended returning to Warsaw 
 in about ten days, and would be liappy to have me 
 bear him company. I gladly emta-aced his offer, 
 and left him, better pleased with the result of my 
 interview than I had expected from his rather un- 
 prepossessing appearance. He was a Frenchman 
 by descent, born in Belgium, and educated and 
 resident in Poland, and possessed in a striking 
 degree the compounded amor patria incident to 
 the relationship in which he stood to these three 
 countries. But, as 1 shall be obliged to speak of 
 him frequently hereafter, I will leave him for the 
 present to his morning-gown and pipe. 
 
 Well pleased with having my plans arranged, I 
 went out without any specific object, and found 
 myself on the banks of the Neva. Directly opposite 
 the Winter Palace, and one of the most conspicuous 
 objects on the whole line of the Neva, is the cita- 
 del or old fortress, and, in reality, the foundation 
 of the city. I looked long and intently on the 
 
 golden spire of its church, shooting toward the sky 
 and guttering in the sun. This spire, which rises 
 tapering till it seems almost to fade away into 
 nothing, is surmounted by a large globe, on which 
 stands an angel supporting a cross. This angel, 
 being made of corruptible stuff', once manifested 
 symptoms of decay, and fears were entertained 
 that he would soon be numbered with tho fallen. 
 Government became perplexed how to repair it, for 
 to raise a scaffolding to such a height would cost 
 more than the angel was worth. Among the crowd 
 which daily assembled to gaze at it from below was 
 a roofer of houses, who, after a long and silent 
 examination, went to the government and offered 
 to repair it without any scaffolding or assistance of 
 any kind. His offer was accepted ; and on the 
 day appointed for the attempt, provided with 
 nothing but a coil of cords, he ascended inside to 
 the highest window, and, looking for a moment at 
 the crowd below and at the spire tapering away 
 above him, stood up on the outer ledge of the 
 window. The spire was covered with sheets of 
 gilded copper, which, to beholders from below, 
 presented only a smooth surface of burnished gold ; 
 but the sheets were roughly laid, and fastened by 
 large nails, which projected from the sides of the 
 spire. He cut two pieces of cord, and tied loops 
 at each end of both, fastened the upper loops over 
 two projecting nails, and stood with his feet in the 
 lower; then, clinching the fingers of one hand 
 over the rough edges of the sheets of copper, 
 raised himself till he cpuld hitch one of the loops 
 on a higher nail with the other hand ; he did the 
 same for the other loop, and so on he raised one 
 leg after the other, and at length ascended, nail 
 by nail, and stirrup by stirrup, till he clasped his 
 arms around the spire directly under the ball. 
 Here it seemed impossible to go any farther, for 
 the ball was ten or twelve feet in circumference, 
 with a smooth and glittering surface, and no pro- 
 jecting nails, and the angel was above the ball, as 
 completely out of sight as if it were in the habita- 
 tion of its prototypes. But the daring roofer was 
 not disheartened. Raising himself in his stii-rnps, 
 he encircled the spire with a cord, which he tied 
 round his waist; and, so supported, leaned gra- 
 dually back until tlie soles of his feet were braced 
 against the spire, and his body fixed almost hori- 
 zontally in the air. In this position he threw a 
 cord over the top of tlie ball, and threw it so coolly 
 and skilfully that at the first attempt it fell down 
 on the other side, just as he wanted it ; then he 
 drew himself up to his original position, and, by 
 means of his cord, climbed over the smooth sides 
 of the globe, and in a few moments, amid thunder.'; 
 of applause from the crowd below, which at that 
 great height sounded only lilte a faint murmur, he 
 stood by the side of the angel. After attaching a 
 cord to it he descended, and the next day carried 
 up with him a ladder of ropes, ant. effected the 
 necessary repairs. 
 
 But to return. With my eyes fixed upon the 
 spire, I crossed the bridge and entered the gate of 
 the fortress. It is built on a small island, fortified 
 by five bastions, which, on the land side, are mere 
 ramparts, connected with St. Petersburgh quarter 
 by drawbridges, and on the river side it is sur- 
 rounded by walls cased with granite, in the centre 
 of which is a large gate or sally-port. As a fortress 
 it is now useless; but it is a striking object of 
 
.'28 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 embellishment to the river, and an interesting 
 monument in the history of the city. Peter him- 
 self selected this spot for his citadel and the 
 foundation of his city. At tliat time it contained 
 two fishing-huts in ruins, the only original habita- 
 tions on the island. It was necessary to cut down 
 the trees, and elevate the surface of the island 
 with dirt and stone brought from other places, 
 before he commenced building the fortress ; and 
 the labour of the work was immense, no less 
 than forty thousand workmen being employed at 
 one time. Soldiers, Swedish prisoners, Ingrians, 
 Carelians, and Cossacks, Tartars, and Calmucs, 
 were brought from their distjint solitudes to lay 
 the foundation of the imperial city, labouring 
 entirely destitute of all the comforts of life, sleep- 
 ing on the damp ground and in the open air, often 
 without being able, in that wilderness, to procure 
 their daily meal ; and, moreover, without pick- 
 axes, spades, or other instruments of labour, and 
 using only their bare hands for digging ; but, in 
 spite of all this, the work advanced with amazing 
 rapidity, and in four months the fortress was com- 
 pleted. The principal objects of interest it now 
 contains are the Imperial Mint and the Cathedral 
 of St. Peter and St. Paul. Brought up in a com- 
 munity where " making money " is the great 
 business of life, I ought, perhaps, to have entered 
 the former, but I turned away from the ingots of 
 gold and silver, and entered the old church, the 
 burial-place of Peter the Great, and nearly all the 
 czars and czarinas, emperors and empresses, 
 since his time. Around the walls were arranged 
 flags and banners, trophies taken in war, prin- 
 cipally from the Turks, waving mournfully over 
 the tombs of the dead. A sombre light broke 
 through the lofty windows, and I moved directly 
 to the tomb of Peter. It is near the great altar, 
 of plain marble, in the shape of a square coffin, 
 without any ornament but a gold plate, on one 
 end of which are engraved his name and title ; 
 and at the moment of my entrance an old Russian 
 was dusting it with a brush. It was with a mingled 
 feeling of veneration and awe that I stood by the 
 tomb of Peter. I had always felt a profound 
 admiration for this extraordinary man, one of 
 those prodigies of nature which appear on the 
 earth only once in many centuries ; a combination 
 of greatness and cruelty, the sternness of whose 
 temper spared neither age nor sex, nor the dearest 
 ties of kindred ; whose single mind changed the 
 face of an immense empire and the character of 
 millions, and yet who often remarked with bitter 
 compunction, " I can reform my people, but I 
 cannot reform myself." 
 
 By his side lies the body of his wife, Catharine I., 
 the beautiful Livonian, the daughter of a peasant 
 girl, and the wife of a common soldier, who, by a 
 wonderful train of events, was raised to wield the 
 sceptre of a gigantic empire. Her fascination 
 soothed the savage Peter in his moodiest hours. 
 She was the mediatrix between the stern monarch 
 and his subjects ; mercy was ever on her lips, and 
 one who luiew her well writes what might be 
 inscribed in letters of gold upon her tomb : " She 
 was a pretty, well-looked woman, but not of that 
 sublimity of wit, or, rather, that quickness of 
 imagnation which some people have supposed. 
 The great reason why the Czar was so fond of her 
 was her exceeding good temper ; she never was 
 
 seen peevish or out of humour ; obliging and civil 
 to all, and never forgetful of her former condition, 
 and withal mighty grateful." 
 
 Near their imperial parents lie the bodies ol 
 their two daughters, Anne of Holstein and the 
 Empress Elizabeth. Peter, on his dealh-bed, in 
 an interval of delirium, called to him his daughter 
 Anne, as it was supposed with the intention of 
 settling upon her the crown, but suddenly relapsed 
 into insensibility ; and Anne, brought up in the 
 expectation of two crowns, died in exile, leaving 
 one son, the unfortunate Peter III. 
 
 Elizabeth died on the throne, a motley character 
 of goodness, indolence, and voluptuousness, and 
 extremely admired for her great personal attrac- 
 tions. She was never married, but, as she 
 frequently owned to her confidants, never happy 
 but when in love. She was so tender of heart 
 that she made a vow to inflict no capital punish- 
 ment during her reign ; shed tears upon the news 
 of every victory gained by her troops, from the 
 reflection that it could not have been gained with- 
 out bloodshed, and would never give her consent 
 for the execution of a felon, however deserving : 
 and yet she condemned two noble ladies, one of 
 them the most beautiful woman in Russia, to 
 receive fifty strokes of the knout in the open 
 square of St. Petersburgh. 
 
 I strolled for a few moments among the other 
 imperial sepulchres, and returned to the tombs of 
 Peter's family. Separate monuments are erected 
 over their bodies, all in the shape of large oblong 
 tomb-stones, ornamented with gold, and enclosed 
 by high iron railings. As I leaned against the 
 railing of Peter's tomb, I missed one member of 
 his imperial family. It was an awful chasm. 
 Where was his first-born child and only son ! the 
 apparent heir of his throne and empire ! Early 
 the object of his unnatural prejudice, excluded 
 from the throne, imprisoned, tortured, tried, con- 
 demned, sentenced to death by the stern decree 
 of his offended father. 
 
 The ill-staiTed Alexius lies in the vaults of the 
 church, in the imperial sepulchre, but without any 
 tomb or inscription to perpetuate the recollection 
 of his unhappy existence. And there is something 
 awful in the juxta-position of the dead; he lies 
 by the side of his unhappy consort, the amiable 
 Princess Charlotte, who died the victim of his 
 brutal neglect ; so subdued by affliction that, in a 
 most affecting farewell to Peter, unwilling to dis- 
 turb the tranquillity of her last hour, she never 
 mentioned his name, and welcomed death as a 
 release from her sufferings. 
 
 Leaving the church, I went to a, detached 
 building within the fortress, where is preserved, 
 in a separate building, a four-oared boat, as a 
 memorial of the origin of the Russian navy. Its 
 history is interesting. About the year 1C91 Peter 
 saw this boat at a village near Moscow ; and 
 inquiring the cause of its being built differently 
 from those he was in the habit of seeing, learned 
 that it was contrived to go against the wind. 
 Under the direction of Brandt, the Dutch ship- 
 wright who built it, he acquired the art of manag- 
 ing it. He afterward had a large pleasure-yateh 
 constructed after the same model, and from this 
 beginning went on till he surprised all Europe by 
 a large fleet on the Baltic and the Black Sea. 
 Twenty years afterward he had it brought up from 
 
liV GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 220 
 
 Moscow, and gave a grand public entertainment, 
 whicli he called the consecration of the " Little 
 Grandsire." The fleet, consisting of twenty-seven 
 men-of-war, was arranged at Cronstadt in the 
 shape of a half-moon. Peter embarked in the 
 Little Grandsire, himself steering, and three admi- 
 rals and Prince Mendzikoff rowing, and made a 
 circuit in the gulf, passing by the fleet, the ships 
 striking their flags and saluting it with their guns, 
 while the Little Grandsire returned each salute by 
 a discharge of three small pieces. It was then 
 towed up to St. Petersburgh, where its arrival was 
 celebrated by a masquerade upon the waters, 
 and, Peter again steering, the boat proceeded to 
 the fortress, and under a discharge of all the 
 artillery it was deposited where it now lies. 
 
 Returning, I took a bath in the Neva. In 
 bathing, as in everything else, the Russians profit 
 by the short breath of summer, and large public 
 bathing-houses are stationed at intervals along the 
 quay of the river, besides several smaller ones, 
 tasteful and ornamental in appearance, being the 
 private property of rich seigneurs. I went into 
 one of the former, where a swimming-master was 
 teaching a school of boys the art of swimming. 
 The water of the Neva was the first thing I had 
 found regularly Russian, that is, excessively cold ; 
 and though I bathed in it sevei-al times afterward, 
 I always found it the same. 
 
 At five o'clock I went to dine with Mr. Wilkins. 
 He had broken up his establishment and taken 
 apartments at the house of an English lady, where 
 he lived much in the same style as at home. He 
 had been at St. Petersburgh but a short time, and, 
 1 believe, was not particularly well pleased with 
 it, and was then making arrangements to return. 
 I had never met with Mr. Wilkins in our own 
 country, and I consider myself under obligations 
 to him ; for, not bringing him any letter, I stood 
 an entire stranger in St. Petersburgh, with nothing 
 but my passport to show that I was an American 
 citizen, and he might have even avoided the 
 dinner, or have given me the dinner, and troubled 
 himself no more about me. But the politeness 
 which he had shown me as a stranger increased 
 to kindness ; and I was in the habit of calling 
 upon him at all times, and certainly without any 
 expectation of ever putting him in print. We had 
 at table a parti quarr^, consisting of Mr. Wilkins, 
 Mr. Gibson, who has been our consul I believe 
 for twenty years, if, he being still a bachelor, it be 
 not unfriendly to carry him back so far, and Mr. 
 Clay, the secretary of legation, who had been 
 twice left as charge-d'aftaires at the imperial 
 court, and was then lately married to an English 
 lady in St. Petersburgh.* After dinner, three or 
 four American merchants came in ; and at eleven 
 o'clock, having made an appointment to go with 
 Mr. Wilkins and see a boat-race on the Neva, 
 Mr. Clay and 1 walked home along the quay, 
 under that enchanting twilight which I have 
 already so often thrust upon the reader, and which 
 I only regret that I cannot make him i-ealise and 
 enjoy. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 A new Friend — The Winter Palace Importance of a 
 
 Hat. — An artificial Mine. — Remains of u huge Monster 
 
 Peter the Great's Workshop The Greek Religion Tomb 
 
 of a Hero. — A Saint Militant. — Another Love Affair,— 
 The Hermitage. — The Winter and Summer Gardens. 
 
 Early in the morning, while at breakfast, I 
 heard a loud knock at my door, which was opened 
 without waiting for an answer, and in stalked a 
 tall, stout, dashing-looking young man, with a 
 blue frock, white pantaloons, and a vest of many 
 colours, a heavy gold chain around his neck, an. 
 enormous Indian cane in his hand, and a broad- 
 brimmed hat brought down on one side, over his 
 right eye in particular. He had a terrible scowl, 
 on his face, which seemed to be put on to sustain 
 the dignity of his amazing costume, and he bowed 
 on his entrance with as much hauteur as if he 
 meant to turn me out of my own room. I stared 
 at him in unfeigned astonishment, when, putting 
 his cane under his arm, and pulling ofl" his hat,, 
 his intensely red head broke upon me with a blaze 
 of beauty, and I recognised my friend and intended 
 fellow-traveller, the French Belgian Pole, whom 
 I had seen in an old morning-gown and slippers- 
 I saw through my man at once ; and speedily 
 knocking in the head his overwhelming fonnaUty, 
 can;e upon him with the old college salutation, 
 asking him to pull off his clothes and stay a week j 
 and he complied almost literally, for in less than 
 ten minutes he had off his coat and waistcoat,, 
 cravat and boots, and was kicking up his heels on 
 my bed. 1 soon discovered that he was a capital 
 fellow, a great beau in his little town on the fron- 
 tiers of Poland, and one of a class by no means 
 uncommon, that of the very ugly men who ima- 
 gine themselves very handsome. While he wa» 
 kicking his heels over the footboard, lie asked me- 
 what we thought of red hair in America ; and I 
 told him that I could not undertake to speak the 
 public voice, but that, for myself, I did not admire 
 it as much as some people did, though, as to his, 
 there was something striking about it, which waa 
 strictly true, for it was such an enormous mop, 
 that, as his head lay on the pillow, it looked like 
 a bust set in a large red frame. All the time he- 
 held in his hand a pocket lookmg-glass and a 
 small brush, with which he kept brushing his 
 mustaches, giving them a peculiar twirl toward 
 the ears. I told him that he was wrong about the 
 mustache ; and, taking the brush, brought them 
 out of their twist, and gave them an inclination il 
 la Turque, recommending my own as a model ; 
 but he soon got them back to their place, and 
 rising, shook his gory locks and began to dres* 
 himself, or, as he said, to put himself in parch- 
 ment for a walk. 
 
 My new friend was for no small game, and pro- 
 posed visiting some of the palaces. On the way 
 he confided to me a conquest he had already made 
 since his arrival ; a beautiful young lady, of course,, 
 the daughter of an Italian music-master, who 
 resided directly opposite our hotel. He said he 
 had applied for an apartment next to mine, which, 
 commanded a view of the window at which she 
 sat, and asked me, as a friend, whether it would 
 be interfering with me. Having received my 
 assurance that I had no intentions in that quarter. 
 
i.O 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 ho said he would order his effects to be removed 
 the same day. 
 
 By this time we "had arrived at the Winter 
 Palace, presenting, as 1 have before remarked, a 
 marble front on the Neva of more than seven 
 hundred feet, or as long as the side of Washington 
 Square, and larger and more imposing than that 
 of the Tuileries, 6r any other royal palace in 
 Europe. We approached the large door of en- 
 trance to this stately pile, and, notwithstanding 
 my modest application, backed by my companion's 
 (lashing exterior, we were turned away by the 
 imperial footman because we had not on dress- 
 coats. We went home and soon returned equipped 
 its the law of etiquette requires, and were admitted 
 to the imperial residence. We ascended the prin- 
 cipal story by the gi-eat marble staircase, remark- 
 able for its magnificence and the grandeur of its 
 architecture. There are nearly a hundred prin- 
 cipal rooms on the first floor, occupying an area 
 of four hundred thousand square feet, and forming 
 almost a labyrinth of splendour. The great 
 banquetting-hall is one hundred and eighty-nine 
 feet by one hundred and ten, incrusted with the 
 finest marble, with a row of columns at each end, 
 •and the side decorated with attached columns, 
 rich gilding, and splendid mirrors. The great 
 ■Hall of St. George is one of the richest and most 
 superb rooms on the Continent, not excepting the 
 pride of the Tuileries or Versailles. It is a 
 (larallelogram of one hundred and forty feet by 
 liixty, decorated with forty fluted Corinthian i 
 4;olumns of porphyritic marlile, with capitals and 
 bases of bronze richly gilded, and supporting a 
 gallery with a gilded bronze balustrade of exqui- 
 site workmanship. At one end, on a platform, 
 is the throne, approached by a flight of eight steps, 
 covered with the richest Genoa velvet, embroidered 
 with gold, with the double-headed eagle expanding 
 iiis wings above it. The large windows on both 
 sides are hung with the richest drapery, and the 
 room is embellished by magnificent mirrors and 
 colossal candelabra profusely gilded. 
 
 We passed on to the salle blanche, which is 
 ■nearly of the same dimensions, and beautifully 
 chaste in design and finish. Its elevation is 
 greater, and the sides are decorated with pilasters, 
 columns, and bas-reliefs of a soft white tint, with- 
 out the least admixture of gaudy colours. The 
 space between the Hall of St. George and the salle 
 blanche is occupied as a gallery of national por- 
 traits, where the Russians who distinguished 
 themselves during the French invasion are exhi- 
 bited in half-length portraits as rewards for their 
 military services. The three field-marshals, Ku- 
 tuzow, Barclay de Tolly, and the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, are represented at full length. The symbol 
 which accompanies the hero of Waterloo is that 
 of imperishable strength, the British oak, " the 
 triumpher of many storms." >.. 
 
 I will not carry the reader through all the mag- 
 nificent apartments, but I cannot help mentioning 
 the Diamond Room, containing the crowns and 
 jewels of the imperial family. Diamonds, rubies, 
 .and emeralds, are arranged round the room in 
 •small cases, of such dazzling beauty that it is 
 almost bewildering to look at them. I had already 
 acquired almost a passion for gazing at precious 
 -stones. At Constantinople I had wandered through 
 iJie bazars, under the guidance of a Jew, and seen 
 
 all the diamonds collected and for sale in the 
 capital of the East, but I was astonished at the 
 brilliancy of this little chamber, and, in my 
 strongly-awakened admiration, looked upon the 
 miser who, before the degrading days of bonds 
 and mortgages, converted his wealth into jewels 
 and precious stones, as a man of elegant and 
 refined taste. The crown of the emperor is adorned 
 with a chaplet of oak-leaves made of diamonds of 
 an extraordinary size, and the imperial sceptre 
 contains one supposed to be the largest in the 
 world, being the celebrated stone purchased by 
 the .Empress Catharine II. from a Greek slave for 
 four hundred and fifty thousand rubles and a large 
 pension for life. Eighty thousand persons were 
 employed in the construction of this palace ; up- 
 wards of two thousand habitually reside in it, and 
 even a larger number when the emperor is in St. 
 Petersburgh. The imperial flag was then floating 
 from the top of the palace, as an indication to his 
 subjects of his majesty's presence in the capital ; 
 and about the time that his majesty sat down to 
 his royal dinner, we were working upon, a cole- 
 lette de mouton, and drinking, in vin ordinaire, 
 health and long life to Nicolas the First ; and 
 afterward, in talking of the splendour of the 
 imperial palace and the courtesy of the imperial 
 footmen, we added health and long life to the 
 Lady Autocrat and all the little autocrats.* 
 
 After dinner we took our coff'ee at the Cafe 
 Chinois, on the Newski Perspective, equal, if not 
 superior, in style and decoration to anything in 
 Paris. Even the rules of etiquette in France ai'e 
 not orthodox all over the world. In Paris it is 
 not necessary to take off" the hat on entering a cafe 
 or restaurant, and in the south of France a 
 Frenchman will sit down to a dinner next a lady 
 with his head covered ; but in Russia, even on 
 entering an apartment where there are only gen- 
 tlemen, it is necessary to uncover the head. I 
 neglected this rule from ignorance and want of 
 attention, and was treated with rudeness by the 
 proprietor, and afterward learned the cause, with 
 tile suggestion that it was fortunate that 1 had 
 not been insulted. This is a small matter, but a. 
 man's character in a strange place is often affected 
 by a trifling circumstance ; and Americans, at 
 least I know it to be the case with myself, are, 
 perhaps, too much in the habit of neglecting tho 
 minor rules of etiquette. 
 
 That night my new friena had his effects 
 removed to a room adjoining mine, and the next 
 morning I found him sitting in his window with a 
 book in his hand, watching the young lady oppo- 
 site. He was so pleased with his occupation that 
 I could not get him away, and went off without 
 him. Mr. Wilkins having offered to accompany 
 me to some of the public institutions, I called for 
 him ; and, finding him disengaged, we took a 
 boat on the Neva, and went first to the Academy 
 of Arts, standing conspicuously on the right bank 
 opposite the English Quay, and, perhaps, the 
 chastest and most classical structure in St. Peters- 
 burgh. In the court are two noble Egj^tia" 
 sphynxes. A magnificent staircase, with a double 
 flight of granite steps, leads to a grand la nding- 
 
 « The Winter Palace has since been destroyed by fiie. 
 The author has not seen any account of the particulan, 
 but has heard that the contents of the Diamond Chambe' 
 were saved 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 2S1 
 
 place with broad galleries around it, supporting, 
 by means of Ionic columns, the cupola, which 
 crowns the whole. The Rotunda is a fine apart- 
 ment of exquisite proportions, decorated with 
 statues and busts ; and at the upper end of the 
 Conference-room stands a large table, at the head 
 of which is a full-length portrait of Nicolas under 
 a rich canopy. In one room are a collection of 
 models from the antique, and another of the 
 paintings of native artists, some of which are con- 
 sidered as indicating extraordinary talen< 
 
 From hence we went to the Hotel ^es Alines, 
 where the name of the American minister pro- 
 cured us admission without the usual permit. 
 The Hotel des Mines was instituted by the great 
 Peter for the purpose of training a mining engineer 
 corps, to explore scientifically the vast mineral 
 resources of the empire, and also engineers for the 
 army. Like all the other public edifices, the 
 huilding is grand and imposing, and the arrange- 
 ment of the different rooms and galleries is admir- 
 able. In one room is a large collection of medals, 
 and in another of coins. Besides specimens of 
 general mineralogy of extraordinary beauty, there 
 are, native iron from the Lake Olouetz, silver ore 
 from Tobolsk, and gold sand from the Oural 
 Mountains ; and in iron-bound cases, beautifully, 
 ornamented, there is a rich collection of native 
 gold, found either in the mines belonging to 
 government or in those of individuals, one piece 
 of which was discovered at the depth of three 
 and a half feet in the sand, weighing more than 
 twenty-four pounds. The largest piece of platinum 
 in existence, from the mines of Demidoff, weighing 
 ten pounds, is here also ; and, above all, a colossal 
 specunen of amalachite, weighing three thousand 
 four hundred and fifty-six pounds, and, at the 
 common average price of this combination of 
 copper and carbonic acid, worth three thousand 
 seven hundred and fifty pounds sterling. 
 
 But the most curious part of this valuable repo- 
 sitory is under ground, being the model of a mine 
 in Siberia. Furnished with lighted tapers, we 
 followed our guides through winding passages cut 
 into the bowels of the earth, the sides of which 
 represented, by the aggregation of real specimens, 
 the various stratifications, with all the different 
 •ores, and minerals, and different species of earth, 
 as they were found in the natural state ; the coal 
 formation, veins of copper, and in one place of 
 gold, being particularly well represented, forming 
 an admirable practical school for the study of 
 geology, though under a chillness of atmosphere 
 which would be likely very soon to put an end to 
 studies of all kinds. 
 
 From here we passed to the imperial Academy 
 of Sciences, by far the most interesting part of 
 our day's visiting. This, too, was founded by the 
 Great Peter. I hardly know why, but I had 
 already acquired a warm admiration for the stout 
 old czar. There was nothing high or ehivalric 
 about him, but every step in Russia, from the 
 Black Sea to the Baltic, showed me what he had 
 done to advance the condition of his people. I 
 knew all this as matter of history, but here I felt 
 it as fact. We strolled through the mineralogical 
 and zoological repositories, and stopped before the 
 skeleton of that stupendous inhabitant of a former 
 world, denominated the mammoth, whose fame 
 had been carried over the waste of waters even to 
 
 our distant country, and beside which even the 
 skeletons of elephants looked insignificant. What ( 
 was he S where did he live, and is his race extinct.' 
 It gave rise to a long train of interesting specu- 
 lation, to endow him with life, and see him striding 
 with gigantic steps, the living tenant of a former 
 world ; and more interesting still to question, as 
 others had done, whether he was not, after all, 
 one of a race of aninaals not yet extinct, and per- 
 haps wandering even now within a short distance 
 of the Polar Sea. 
 
 There is also in this part of the museum a col- 
 lection of anatomical specimens and of human 
 monsters; an unpleasing exhibition, though, no 
 doubt, useful to medical science ; among them was 
 a child with two heads from America. More 
 interesting to me was a large collection of insects, 
 of medals, and particularly of the different objects 
 in gold found in the tumuli of Siberia, consisting 
 of bracelets, vases, crowns, bucklers, rings, sabres 
 with golden hilts, Tartar idols, &c., many of them 
 of great value and of very elegant workmanship, 
 which have given rise to much interesting specu- 
 lation in regard to the character of the people who 
 formerly inhabited that country. The Asiatic 
 museum contains a library of Chinese, Japanese, 
 Mongolese, and Tibetan books and manuscripts ; 
 Mohammedan, Chinese, and Japanese coins ; an 
 interesting assemblage of Mongolese idols cut in 
 bronze and gilded, and illustrating the religion of 
 Buddha. Tlaere is also an Egyptian museum, 
 containing about a thousand articles. The cabinet 
 of curiosities contains figures of all the different 
 people conquered under the government of Russia^ 
 habited in their national costumes ; also of Chinese, 
 Persians, Aleutans, Carelians, and the inhabitants 
 of many of the Eastern, Pacific, or Northern 
 islands discovered or visited by Russian travellers 
 and navigators, as well as of the different nations 
 inhabiting Siberia. 
 
 But by far the most interesting part of the 
 museum is the cabinet of Peter himself, consisting 
 of a suite of apartments, in which the old czar 
 was in the habit of passing his leisure hours 
 engaged in some mechanical employment. In one 
 room are several brass cylinders turned by his 
 own hands, and covered with battle-scenes of his 
 own engraving. Also an iron bar forged by him ; 
 bas-reliefs executed in copper, representing his 
 desperate battles in Livonia ; an ivory chandelier 
 of curious and highly-wrought workmanship, and 
 a group in ivory representing Abraham offering 
 up his son Isaac, the ram and the angel Gabriel 
 cut out entire In another room is his workshop, 
 containing a vt^riety of vessels and models etched 
 in copper, and a copper-plate with an unfinished 
 battle-scene. His tools and implements are strewed 
 about the room precisely in the.state in which he 
 left them the last time he was there. In another 
 chamber were the distended skin of his French 
 body-servant, seven feet high ; the Arabian horse 
 which he rode at the bloody battle of Pultowa, 
 and the two favourite dogs which always accom- 
 panied him ; and in another the figure of the old 
 czar himself in wax, as large as life ; the featurcH, 
 beyond doubt, bearing the exact resemblance to 
 the original, being taken from a cast applied to 
 his face when dead, and shaded in imitation of 
 his real complexion. The eyebrows and hair are 
 black, the eyes dark, the complexion swarthy, the 
 
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 aspect stern. This figure is surrounded by the 
 portraits of his predecessors, in their barbarian 
 costumes, himself seated in an arm-chair in tlie 
 same splendid dress which he wore when with his 
 own hands he placed the imperial crown on the 
 head of his beloved Catharine. Here, also, are his 
 uniform of the guards, gorget, scarf, and sword ; 
 and hat shot through at the battle of Pultowa ; 
 and the last thing which the guide put into my 
 hands was a long stick measuring his exact height, 
 and showing him literally a great man, being six 
 Russian feet. I must not forget a pair of shoes 
 made by his own hands ; but the old czar was no 
 shoemaker. Nevertheless, these memorials were 
 all deeply interesting ; and though I had seen the 
 fruits of his labours from the Black Sea to the 
 Baltic, I never felt such a strong personal attrac- 
 tion to him as I did here. 
 
 I was obliged to decline dining with Mr. Wil- 
 kins, in consequence of an engagement with my 
 friend the Pole ; and, returning, I found him at 
 the window with a book in his hand, precisely 
 in the same position in which 1 had left him. 
 After dinner, a servant came in and delivered a 
 message, and he proposed a walk on the Admii'alty 
 Boulevards. It was the fashionable hour for 
 promenade, and, after a turn or two, he discovered 
 liis fair enslaver, accompanied by her father and 
 several ladies and gentlemen, one of whom seemed 
 particularly devoted to her. She was a, pretty 
 little girl, and seemed to me a mere child, certainly 
 not more than fifteen. His admiration had com- 
 menced on the Boulevards the first afternoon of 
 J his arrival, and had increased violently during 
 the whole day, while he was sitting at the window. 
 He paraded me up and down the walk once or 
 twice, and, when they had seated themselves on a 
 bench, took a seat opposite. He was sure she 
 was j)leased with his admiration, but I could not 
 see that her look indicated any very flattering 
 acknowledgment. In fact, I could but remark 
 that the eyes of the gentlemen were turned toward 
 us quite as often as those of the lady, and sug- 
 gested that, if he persisted, he would involve us 
 in some difficulty with them ; but he said there 
 could not be any difEculty about it, for, if he 
 offended them, he would give them satisfaction. 
 As this view of the case did not hit my humour, I 
 told him that, as I had come out with him, I 
 would remain, but if he made any farther demon- 
 strations, I should leave him, and, at all events, 
 after that, he must excuse me from joining his 
 evening promenades. Soon after they left the 
 Boulevards, and we returned to our hotel, where 
 he entertained me with a history of his love adven- 
 tures at home, and felicitations upon his good 
 fortune in finding himself already engaged in 
 one here. t 
 
 Sunday. Until the early part of tlie tenth cen- 
 tury the religion of Russia was a gross idolatry. 
 In nine hundred and thirty-five, Olga, the widow 
 of Igor, the son of Runic, sailed down the Dnieper 
 from Kief, was baptized at Constantinople, aud 
 introduced Christianity into Russia, though her 
 family and nation adhered for a long time to the 
 idolatry of their fathers. The gi-eat schism be- 
 tween the Eastern and Western churches had al- 
 ready taken place, and the Christianity derived 
 from Constantinople was of course of the Greek 
 persuasion. The Greek Church beheves in the 
 
 doctrines of the Trinity, but differs from the Ca- 
 tholic in some refined and subtle distinction iii 
 regard to what is called the procession of the Holy 
 Ghost. It enjoins the invocation of saints as me- 
 diators, and permits the use of pictures as a means 
 of inspiring and strengthening devotion. The 
 well-informed understand the use for which thev 
 are intended, but these form a very small portion 
 of the community, and probably the great bulk oi 
 the people worship the pictures themselves. The 
 clergy are, in general, very poor, and very igno- 
 rant. The priests are not received at the tables 
 of the upper classes, but they exercise an almoiit 
 controlling influence over the lower, and they ex- 
 hibited this influence in rousing the serfs against 
 the French, which may be ascribed partly, per- 
 haps, to feelings of patriotism, and partly to the 
 certainty that Napoleon would strip their churches 
 of their treasures, tear down their monasteries, 
 and turn themselves out of doors. But of the 
 population of fifty-five millions, fifteen are divided 
 into Roman Catholics, Armenians, Protestants. 
 Jews, and Mohammedans, and among the Cauca- 
 sians, Georgians, Circassians, and Mongol tribes, 
 nearly two millions are pagans or idolaters, Brah- 
 mins, Lamists, and worshippers of the sun. 
 
 For a people so devout as the Russians, tlic 
 utmost toleration prevaDs throughout the whole 
 empire, and particularly in St. Petersburgli. 
 Churches of every denomination stand but a short 
 distance apart on the Newskl Perspective. The 
 Russian cathedral is nearly opposite the great 
 Catholic chapel ; near them is the Armenian, then 
 the Lutheran, two churches for Dissentere, and a 
 mosque for the Mohammedans ! and on Sunday 
 thousands are seen bending their steps to their 
 separate chuivhes, to worship according to the 
 faith handed down to them by their fathers. 
 
 Early in the morning, taking with me a valet, 
 and joining the crowd that was already hurrying 
 with devout and serious air along the Newsti 
 Perspective, I entered the Cathedral of our Ladj 
 of Cazan, a splendid monument of architecture, 
 and more remarkable as the work of a native artist, 
 with a semicircular colonnade in front, consisting 
 of one hundred and thirty-two Corintliian columns 
 thirty-five feet high, somewhat after the style of 
 the great circular colonnade of St. Peter's at Home, 
 and surmounted by a dome crowned with a cross oi 
 exquisite workmanship, supported on a large gilded 
 ball. Within, fifty noble columns, each of one 
 piece of solid granite from Finland, forty-eight 
 feet high and four feet in diameter, surmounted 
 by a rich capital of bronze, and resting on a mas- 
 sive bronze base, support an arched roof richly 
 ornamented with flowers in bas-relief. The jewels 
 and decorations of the altar are rich and splendid,, 
 the doors leading to the sanctum sanctorum, with 
 the railing in front, bemg of silver. As in the 
 Catholic churches, there are no pews, chairs, or 
 benches, and all over the floor were the prayuig 
 figures of tile Russians. Around the walls were 
 arranged military trophies, flags, banners, and the 
 keys of fortresses wrested from the enemies of 
 Russia ; but far more interesting than her columns, 
 and colossal statues, and military trophies, is the 
 tomb of the warrior Kutuzow ; sunple, and re- 
 markable for the appropriate warlike trophy over 
 it, formed of French flags and the eagles of ^»- 
 poleou. Admiration for heroism owns no geogra- 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 233 
 
 phical or territonal limits, and I pity the man who 
 could stand by the grave of Kutuzow without feel- 
 ing it a sacred spot. The Emperor Alexander 
 with his own hands took the most precious jewel 
 from his crown and sent it to the warrior, with a 
 letter announcing to him his elevation to the rank 
 of Prince of Smolensko ; but richer than jewels or 
 principalities is the tribute which his countrymen 
 pay at his tomb. 
 
 The church of our Lady of Cazan contains 
 another monument of barbarian patriotism. The 
 celebrated leader of the Cossacks, during the period 
 of the French invasion, having intercepted a great 
 part of the booty which the French were carrying 
 fi-om Moscow, sent it to the metropolitan or head 
 of the church, with a characteristic letter, direct- 
 ing it to be "made into an image of the four 
 Evangelists, and adorn the church of the Mother 
 of God of Cazan." The concluding paragraph is, 
 " Hasten to erect in the temple of God this monu- 
 ment of battle and victory ; and while you erect it, 
 say with thankfulness to Providence, the enemies 
 of Russia are no more ; the vengeance of God has 
 overtaken them on the soil of Russia ; and the 
 road they have gone has been strewed with their 
 bones, to the utter confusion of their frantic and 
 proud ambition. 
 
 (Signed) " Platoff." 
 
 From the church of our Lady of Cazan I went 
 to the Protestant church, where I again joined in 
 an orthodox service. The interior of the church is 
 elegant, though externally it can scarcely be dis- 
 tinguished from a private building. The seats are 
 free, the men sitting on one side and the women on 
 tlie other. Mr. Law, the clergyman, has been 
 there many years, and is respected and loved by 
 his congregation. After church I walked to the 
 convent of Alexander Newski, the burial-place of 
 Prince Alexander, who obtained in the thirteenth 
 century a splendid victory over the allied forces of 
 Sweden, Denmark, and Livonia ; afterwards he 
 became a monk, and for his pure and holy life was 
 canonized, and now ranks among the principal 
 saints in the Russian calendar. The warrior was 
 first buried at Moscow, but Peter the Great had 
 his remams transported with great ceremony to 
 this place, a procession of a thousand priests walk- 
 ing barefoot all the way. The monastery stands 
 at the extreme end of the Newski Perspective, 
 and withm its precincts are several churches, and 
 a large cemetery. It is the residence of the dis- 
 tinguished prelates of the Greek Church and a 
 large fraternity of monks. The dress of the monks 
 18 a loose black cloak and round black cap, and no 
 one can be admitted a member until the age of 
 thirty. We entered a grand portal, walked up a 
 long avenue, and, crossing a bridge over a stream, 
 worked our way between lines of the carriages of 
 nobles and ladies, and crowds of the people in 
 their best bell-crowned hats ; and, amid a throng 
 of miserable beggars, penetrated to the door of the 
 principal church, a large and beautiful specimen 
 of modem Corinthian architecture. I remarked 
 the great entrance, the lofty dome, the fresco 
 pamtmgs on the ceilings, and the arabesque deco- 
 rations on the walls ; the altar-piece of white 
 Carrara marble, paintings by Rubens and Van- 
 dyck, the holy door in the iconastos, raised on a 
 flight of steps of rich gilded bronze, and surmount- 
 ed by the representation of a. dazzling aureola of 
 
 different-coloured metals, and in the centre the 
 initials of that awful name which none in Israel 
 save the initiated were permitted to pronounce. I 
 walked around and paused before the tomb of the 
 wai-rior saint. 
 
 A sarcophagus, or coffin of massive silver, stand- 
 ing on an elevated platform, ornamented In bas- 
 relief, representing scenes of battles with the 
 Swedes, contain his relics ; a rich ermine lies upon 
 the coffin, and above is a silver canopy. On each 
 side is a warrior clothed in armour, with his hel- 
 met, breastplate, shield and spear, also of massive 
 silver. The altar rises thirty feet in height, of 
 soUd silver, with groups of military figures and 
 trophies of warriors, also of silver, as large as life; 
 and over it hangs a golden lamp, with a magnifi- 
 cent candelabrum of silver, together with a vessel 
 of curious workmanship holding the bones of seve- 
 ral holy men, the whole of extraordinary magni- 
 ficence and costliness of material, upward of four 
 thousand pounds' weight of silver having been used 
 in the construction of the chapel and shrine. The 
 dead sleep the same whether in silver coftins or in 
 the bare earth, but the stately character of the 
 church, dimly lighted, and the splendour and rich- 
 ness of the material, gave a peculiar solemm'ty to 
 the tomb of the warrior saint. 
 
 Leaving the churches, I strolled through the 
 cloisters of the monastery and entered the great 
 cemetery. There, as in the great cemetery of 
 Pere-la-Chaise, at Paris, all that respect, and love, 
 and afi'ection, can do to honour the memory of the 
 dead, and all that vanity and folly can do to ridi- 
 cule it, have been accomplished. There are seen 
 epitaphs of affecting brevity, and elaborate ampli- 
 fication ; every design, every device, figure, em- 
 blem, and decoration ; every species of material, 
 from native granite to Carrara marble and pure 
 gold. Among the simpler tombs of poets, warriors, 
 and statesmen, a monument of the most gigantic 
 proportions is erected to snatch from oblivion the 
 name of arich Russian merchant. The base isasolid 
 cubic block of the most superb marble, on which is 
 a solid pedestal of black marble ten feet square, 
 bearing a sarcophagus fourteen feet high, and of 
 most elegant proportions, surmounted by a gold 
 cross twenty feet in height. At each of the four 
 comers is a colossal candelabrum of cast iron, with 
 entwining sei-pents of bronze gilded. The ground 
 alone cost a thousand pounds, and the whole 
 monument about twenty thousand dollars. Near 
 the centre of this asylum of the dead, a teti'astyle 
 Ionic temple of the purest white marble records 
 the virtues of an interesting lady, the Countess of 
 Potemkin ; and alto-relievos of the most exquisite 
 execution on three sides of the temple tell the 
 melancholy story of a mother snatched from three 
 lovely children. The countess, prophetically con- 
 scious of her approaching fate, is looking up 
 calmly and majestically to the figure of religion, 
 and resting with confidence her left hand on the 
 symbol of Christianity. In front are the inscrip- 
 tion and arms of the family in solid gold. 
 
 But what are the Russian dead to me ? Tlie 
 granite and marble monument of the merchant is 
 a conglomeration of hides, hemp, and tallow ; a man 
 may be excused if he linger a moment at the tomb 
 of an interesting woman, a mother cut off in her 
 prime ; but melancholy is infectious, and induces 
 drowsiness and closing of the book, 
 Q 
 
234 
 
 IISCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 In consideration for my valet, at the grand 
 poi-tal I took a drosky, rolled over the wooden 
 pavement of the Newski Perspective, and, with 
 hardly motion enough to disturb my reverie, was 
 set down at the door of my hotel. My Pole was 
 waiting to dine with me, and roused me from my 
 dreams of the dead to recount his dreams of the 
 living. All day he had sat at his window, and a 
 few straggling glances from the lady opposite had 
 abundantly rewarded him, and given him great 
 spirits for his evening's promenade on the Boule- 
 vards. I declined accompanying him, and he went 
 alone, and returned in the evening almost in rap- 
 tures. We strolled an hour by the twihght and 
 retired early. 
 
 It will hardly be believed, but early the next 
 moriying he came to my room with a letter on fine 
 pink paper addressed to his fair enslaver. The 
 reader may remember that this was not the first 
 time I had been made a confidant in an affaire du 
 coeur. To be sure, the missionary at Smyrna 
 turned out to be crazy ; and on this point, at least, 
 my Pole was a little touched ; nevertheless, I 
 listened to his epistle. It was the regular old- 
 fashioned document, full of hanging, shooting, 
 drowning, and other extravagances. He sealed it 
 with an amatory device, and, calling up a servant 
 in his confidence, told him to carry it over, and 
 then took his place in my window to watch the 
 result. In the meantime, finding it impossible to 
 dislodge him, and that I could not count upon 
 him to accompany me on my visits to the palaces 
 as he had promised, I went to the Hermitage 
 alone. The Great and Little Hermitages are con- 
 nected with the Winter Palace and with each 
 other by covered galleries, and the theatre is con- 
 nected with the two Hermitages by means of 
 another great arch thrown over a canal, so that 
 the whole present a continued line of imperial 
 palaces, unequalled in extent in any part of Europe, 
 measuring one thousand five hundred and ninety- 
 six feet, or one-third of an English mile. If I 
 were to select a building designed to realise the 
 most extravagant notions of grandeur and luxury, 
 it would be the gorgeous palace known under the 
 modest name of the Hermitage. I shall not 
 attempt any description of the interior of this 
 splendid edifice, but confine myself to a brief 
 enumeration of its contents. I ascended by a 
 spacious staircase to the ante-room, where I gave, 
 or, rather, where my cane was demanded by the 
 footman, and proceeded through a suite of mag- 
 nificent rooms, every one surpassing the last, and 
 richer in objects of the fine arts, science, and 
 literature ; embellished throughout by a profusion 
 of the most splendid ornaments and furniture, 
 and remarkable for beauty of proportion and 
 variety of design. In rooms and galleries appro- 
 priated to the separate schools and masters are 
 upward of thirteen hundred paintings by Raphael, 
 Titian, Guide, Andi'ea del Sarto, Luca Giordano, 
 the Caracci, Perugino, Coreggio, and Leonard! da 
 Vinci ; here is also the best collection in existence 
 of pictures by Wouvermans and Teniers, with some 
 of the masterpieces of Rubens and Vandyck. of 
 the French Claude, Poussin, and Vemet. The 
 celebrated Houghton collection is here, with a 
 gallery of paintings of the Spanish schools, many 
 of them Murillos. In one room is a superb vase 
 of Siberian jasper, of a lilac colour, five feet 
 
 high, and of exquisite form and polish ; in another 
 are two magnificent candelabras, said to be valued 
 at two hundred and twenty thousand rubles, or 
 about fifty thousand dollars ; I must mention alao 
 the great musical clock, representing an antique 
 Grecian temple, and containing within a combi- 
 nation of instruments, having the power of two 
 orchestras, which accompany each other ; two 
 golden tripods, seven feet high, supporting the 
 gold salvers on which salt and bread were ex- 
 hibited to the Emperor Alexander on his triumphal 
 return from Paris, as emblems of wisdom and 
 plenty ; a large musical and magical secretary, 
 which opens spontaneously in a hundred directions 
 at the sound of music, purchased by the late 
 emperor for eight hundred guineas : a room sur- 
 rounded with books, some of which were originals, 
 placed there by Catharine for the use of the domes- 
 tics, as she said, to keep the devil out of their 
 heads ; a saloon containing the largest collection 
 of engravings and books of engravings in Europe, 
 amounting to upward of thirty thousand ; a library 
 of upward of one hundred and ten thousand vo- 
 lumes ; an extensive cabinet of medals, and another 
 of gems and pastes ; a jewel cabinet containing 
 the rich ornaments which have served for the 
 toilets of succeeding empresses, innumerable pre- 
 cious stones and pearls, many of extraordinary 
 magnitude ; a superb collection of antiques and 
 cameos, amounting to upwai'ds of fifteen thousand, 
 the cameos alone afi'ording employment for days. 
 In one room are curious works in ivory and fish- 
 bones, by the inhabitants of Archangel, who are 
 skilled in that species of workmanship ; and in 
 another is the celebrated clock, known by the 
 name of L'Horloge du Paon. It is enclosed in a 
 large glass case ten feet high, being the trunk oi 
 a golden tree, with its branches and leaves all of 
 gold. On the top of the trunk sits a peacock, 
 which, when the chimes begin, expands its bril- 
 liant tail, while an owl rolls its eyes with its ow" 
 peculiar stare, and, instead of a bell striking the 
 hours, a golden cock flaps his wings and crows. 
 The clock is now out of order, and the machinery 
 is so complicated that no artist has hitherto been 
 able to repair it. 
 
 But perhaps the most extraoramary and mte- 
 resting of the wonders of the Hermitage are the 
 Winter and Summer Gardens. As I strolled 
 through the suites of apartments, and looked out 
 through the windows of a long gallery, it was 
 hardly possible to believe that the flourishing 
 trees, shrubs, and flowers stood upon an artificial 
 soil, raised nearly fifty feet above the surface of 
 the earth. The Winter Garden is a large quad- 
 rangular conservatory, planted with laurels and 
 orange-trees, in which linnets and Canary birds 
 formerly flew about enjoying the freedom of 
 nature ; but the feathered tribe have disappeared. 
 The Summer Garden connected with it is four 
 hundred feet long ; and here, suspended as it were 
 in the air, near the top of the palace, I strolled 
 along gravel- walks, and among parterres of shrubf 
 and flowers growing in rich luxuriance, and 
 under a thick foliage inhaled their delightful fra 
 grance. It is idle to attempt a description of thj.-- 
 scene. 
 
 I returned to my Pole, whom I found at ht- 
 window with a melancholy and sentimental visage, 
 his beautiful epistle returned upon his hands— 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 235 
 
 'tiaving, in sportsman's phrase, entirely missed 
 ifire — and then lying with a most reproving look on 
 (his table. My friend had come up to St. Peters- 
 fcurgh in consequence of a lawsuit, and as this 
 ^)ccupied but a small portion of his time, he had 
 involved himself in a love-suit, and so far as I 
 "Could see, with about an equal chance of success 
 ■in both. L'amour was the great business of his 
 life, and he could not be content unless he had 
 "«hat he called une affaire du cceur 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 An imperial F6te — Nicolas of Russia. — Varied Splen- 
 •dours. — A Soliloquy. — House of Peter the Great. — A Boat- 
 race.— Czarskoselo. — The Amber Chamber Catharine II. 
 
 —The Emperor Alexander. 
 
 The next day was that appointed for the great 
 ftte at Peterfioff. In spite of the confining nature 
 of his two suits, my Pole had determined to 
 accompany me thither, being prompted somewhat 
 by the expectation of seeing his damsel ; and, no 
 way disheartened by the fate of his first letter, he 
 had manufactured another, by comparison with 
 which the first was an icicle. I admitted it to be 
 a masterpiece, though when he gave it to a servant 
 to carry over, as we were on the point of setting 
 off, suggested that it might be worth while to wait 
 and pick it up when she threw it out of the 
 window. But he had great confidence, and thought 
 much better of her spirit for sending back his first 
 letter. 
 The whole population of Petersburgh was already 
 
 ^ in motion and on the way to Peterhoff. It was 
 expected that the fflte would be more than usually 
 
 ? splendid, on account of the presence of the Queen 
 of Holland, then on a visit to her sister the empress ; 
 and at an' early hour the splendid equipages of 
 the nobility, caniages, droskys, telegas, and carts, 
 were hurrying along the banks of the Neva, while 
 steam-boats, sail-boats, row-boats, and craft of 
 every description, were gliding on the bosom of 
 the river. 
 
 As the least trouble, we chose a steam-boat, and 
 at twelve o'clock embarked at the English Quay. 
 The boat was crowded with passengers, and among 
 them was an old English gentleman, a merchant 
 of thirty years' standing in St. Petersburgh. I 
 soon became acquainted with him, how I do not 
 tnow, and his lady told me that the first time I 
 passed them she remarked to her husband that 
 I was an American. The reader may remember 
 that a lady made the same remark at Smyrna ; 
 without knowing exactly how to understand it, I 
 mentioned it as a fact showing the fine discrimina- 
 tion acquired by persons in the habit of seeing 
 travellers from different countries. Before land- 
 ing, the old gentleman told me that his boys had 
 gone down in a pleasure-boat, abundantly provided 
 with materials, and asked me to go on board and 
 lunch with them, which, upon the invitation being 
 extended to my friend, I accepted. 
 
 Peterhoff is about twenty-five versts from St. 
 Petersburgh, and the whole bank of the Neva on 
 that side is adorned with palaces and beautiful 
 Bummer residences of the Russian seigneurs. It 
 «^nds at the mouth of the Neva, on the borders 
 of the Gulf of Finland. Opposite is the city of 
 
 Cronstadt, the seaport of St. Petersburgh and th< 
 anchorage of the Russian fleet. It was then 
 crowded with merchant ships of every nation, with 
 flags of every colour streaming from their spars 
 in honour of the day. On landing, we accompanied 
 our new friends, and found " the boys," three fine 
 young fellows just growing up to manhood, in a 
 handsome little pleasure-boat, with a sail arranged 
 as an awning, waiting for their parents. We were 
 introduced and received with open arms, and sat 
 down to a cold collation in good old English style, 
 at which, for the first time since I left home, I 
 fastened upon an old-fashioned sirloin of roast- 
 beef. It was a delightful meeting for me. The 
 old people talked to me about my travels ; and 
 the old lady particularly, with almost a motherly 
 interest in a straggling young man, inquired about 
 my parents, brothers, and sisters, &c. ; and I 
 made my way with the frank-hearted " boys" by 
 talking " boat." Altogether, it was a regular 
 home family scene ; and, after the lunch, we left 
 the old people under the awning, promising to 
 return at nine o'clock for tea, and with " the 
 boys" set off to view the f^te. 
 
 Fi'om the time when we entered the grounds, 
 until we left at three o'clock the next morning, 
 the whole was a fairy scene. The grounds extended 
 some distance along the shore, and the palace 
 stands on an embankment perhaps a hundred and 
 fifty feet high, commanding a full view of the 
 Neva, Cronstadt with its shipping, and the Gulf 
 of Finland. We followed along the banks of a 
 canal five hundred yards long, bordered by noble 
 trees. On each side of the canal were large wooden 
 frames about sixty feet high, filled with glass 
 lamps for the illumination; and at the foot of 
 each was another high framework with lamps, 
 forming, among other things, the arms of Russia, 
 the double-headed eagle, and under it a gigantic 
 star thirty or forty feet in diametei*. At the head 
 of the canal was a large basin of water, and in the 
 centre of the basin stood a colcssal group in brass, 
 of a man tearing open the jaws of a rampant lion ; 
 and out of the mouth of the lion rushed a jet- 
 d'eau perhaps a hundred and fifty feet high. On 
 each side of this basin, at a distance of about three 
 hundred feet, was a smaller basin, with a jet-d'eau 
 in each about half its height, and all around were 
 ^ets-d^eau of various kinds, throwing water verti- 
 cally and horizontally ; among them I remember 
 a figure larger than life, leaning forward in the 
 ittitude of a man throwing the discus, with a 
 powerful stream of water rushing from his clenched 
 fist. These basins were at the foot of the embank- 
 ment on which stands the palace. In the centre 
 was a broad flight of steps leading to the palace, 
 and on each side was a continuous range of marble 
 slabs to the top of the hill, over which poured 
 down a sheet of water, the slabs being placed so 
 high and far apart as to allow lamps to be arranged 
 behind the water. All over, along the public 
 walks and in retired alcoves, were frames hung 
 with lamps ; and everywhere, under the trees and 
 on the open lawn, were tents of every size and 
 fashion, beautifully decorated; many of them, 
 Oriental in style and elegance, were fitted up as 
 places of refreshment. Thousands of people, 
 dressed in their best attire, were promenading the 
 grounds, but no vehicles were to be seen, until, in 
 turning a point, we espied at some distance up an 
 
23li 
 
 1MU1DENT8 OF TRAVEL 
 
 avenue, and coming quietly toward us, a plain 
 open carriage, with two liorses and two English 
 jockey outriders, in "which were a gentleman and 
 lady, whom, without the universal taking off of 
 hats around us, I recognised at once as the 
 emperor and empress. I am not apt to be carried 
 away by any profound admiration for royalty, but, 
 without consideration of their rank, I never saw a 
 finer specimen of true gentility ; in fact, he looked 
 every inch a king, and she was my beau ideal of a 
 queen in appearance and manners. They bowed 
 as they passed, and, as I thought, being outside of 
 the line of Russians and easily recognised as a 
 stranger, their courtesy was directed particularly 
 to me ; but I found that my companion took it 
 very much to himself, and no doubt every long- 
 bearded Russian near us did the same. Injustice 
 to myself, however, I may almost say that I had a 
 conversation with the emperor ; for although his 
 imperial highness did not speak to me, he spoke in 
 a language which none but I (and the queen and 
 his jockey outriders) understood ; for, waving his 
 hand to them, I heard him say in English, " To 
 the right." After this interview with his majesty 
 we walked up to the palace. The splendid regi- 
 ments of cavalier guards were drawn up around 
 it, every private carrying himself like a prince ; 
 and I did not admire all his palaces, nor hardly 
 his queen, so much as this splendid body of armed 
 followers. Behind the palace is a large plain cut 
 up into gravel-walks, having in one place a basin 
 of water, with waterworks of various kinds, among 
 which were some of pecuUar beauty falling in the 
 form of a semiglobe. 
 
 A httle before dark we retired to a, refectory 
 under a. tent until the garden was completely 
 lighted up, that we might have the full effect of 
 the illumination at one coup-d'ceif, and, when we 
 went out, the dazzling brilliancy of the scene 
 within the semicircular illumination around the 
 waterworks was beyond description. This semi- 
 circular framework enclosed in a large sweep the 
 three basins, and terminated at the embankment 
 on which the palace stands, presenting all around 
 an immense fiery scroll in the air, sixty or eighty 
 feet high, and HUed with ail manner of devices ; 
 and for its back-ground a broad sheet of water 
 falling over a range of steps, with lighted lamps 
 behind it, forming an illuminated cascade, while 
 the basins were blazing with the light thrown 
 upon them from myriads of lamps, and the colossal 
 figures of a reddened anU. unearthly hue were 
 spouting columns of water into the air. More 
 than two hundi-ed thousand people were supposed 
 to be assembled in the garden, in every variety of 
 g.ay, brilliant, and extraordinary costume. St. 
 Petersburgh was half depopulated, and thousands 
 of peasants were assembled from the neighbouring 
 provinces. I was accidentally separated from all 
 my companions ; and, alone among thousands, sat 
 down on the grass, and for an hour watched the 
 throng passing through the illuminated circle, and 
 ascending the broad steps leading toward the 
 palace. Among all this immense crowd there was 
 no rabble ; not a dress that could offend the eye ; 
 but intermingled with the ordinary costumes of 
 Europeans were, the Russian shopkeeper, with his 
 long surtout, his bell-crowned hat, and solemn 
 beard; Cossacks, and Circassian soldiers, and 
 Calmuo Tai"tars, and cavalier guards ; hussars, 
 
 with the sleeves of their rich jackets dangling 
 loose over their shoulders, tossing plumes, and 
 helmets glittering with steel, intermingled through- 
 out with the gay dresses of ladies ; while near me 
 and, like me, carelessly stretched on the grass 
 under the light of thousands jf lamps, was a group- 
 of peasants from Finland fiddUng and dancings 
 the women with light hair, bands around their- 
 heads, and long jackets enwrapping their square 
 forms, and the men with long gi-eat-eoats, broad- 
 brimmed hats, and a bunch of shells in front. 
 
 Leaving this brilliant scene, I joined the thron» 
 on the steps, and by the side of a splendid hussar,, 
 stooping his manly figure to whisper in the ears 
 of a lovely young girl, I ascended to the palace, 
 and presented my ticket of admission to the baf 
 masque, so called from there being no masks there 
 I had not been presented at court, and, coiisa 
 quently, had only admission to the outer apart- 
 ments with the people. I iiad, however, the 
 range of a succession of splendid rooms, richly 
 decorated with vases and tazzas of precious stones,, 
 candelabras, couches, ottomans, superb mirrors,, 
 and inlaid floors ; and the centre room, extending 
 several hundred feet in length, had its lofty walls 
 covered to the very ceilings with portraits of all 
 the female beauties in Russia about eighty years 
 ago. I was about being tired of gazing at these 
 pictures of long-sleeping beauties, when the great 
 doors at one end were thrown open, and the 
 emperor and empress, attended by the whole 
 court, passed through on their way to the banquet- 
 ting-hall. Although I had been in company with 
 the emperor before in the garden, and though I 
 had taken off my hat to the empress, both passed 
 without recognising me. The court at St. Peters- 
 burgh is admitted to be the most brilliant in 
 Europe ; the dresses of the members of the diplo- 
 matic corps and the uniforms of the general and 
 staff-officers being really magnificentj while those 
 of the ladies sparkled with jewels. Besides the 
 empei-or and empress, the only acquaintance I 
 recognised in that constellation of brilliantly- 
 dressed people were Mr. Wilkins and Mr. Clay, 
 who, for republicans, made a very fair blaze. I 
 saw them enter the banquetting-hall, pamted in 
 Oriental style to represent a tent, and might have- 
 had the pleasure of seeing the emperor and empress 
 and all that brilliant collection eat ; but, turning 
 away from a. noise that destroyed much of the 
 illusion, viz., the clatter of knives and forks, and 
 a little piqued at the cavalier treatment .1 had 
 received from the court circles, I went out on the 
 balcony and soUloquised, " Fine feathers make 
 fine birds; but look back a little, ye dashing 
 cavaliers and supercilious ladies. In the latter 
 part of the seventeenth century, a French traveller 
 in Russia wrote that ' most men treat their wives 
 as a necessary evil, regarding them with a proud 
 and stern eye, and even beating them after.' Dr. 
 Collins, physician to the Czar in 1670, as an evi- 
 dence of the progress of civilisation in Russia, says 
 that the custom of tying up wives by the hab of 
 the head and flogging them ' begins to be left off;' 
 accounting for it, however, by the prudence of 
 parents, who made a stipulative provision in the 
 marriage contract that their daughters were not 
 to be whipped, struck, kicked, &c. But, even lu 
 this improved state of society, one man ' put upon 
 his wife a shirt dipped in ardent spirits, and 
 S 
 
IN GUEECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 ■Sir 
 
 ibiuned her to death,' and was not punished, there 
 jjeing, according to the doctor, ' no punishment in 
 Russia for killing a wife or a slave.' When no 
 iprovision was made in the marriage contract, he 
 -says, they were accustomed to discipline their 
 wives very severely. At the marriage the bride- 
 «i'Oora had a whip in one boot and a jewel in the 
 other, and the poor girl ti'icd her fortune by 
 «l>oosing. ' If she happens upon the jewel,' says 
 .another traveller, ' she is lucky ; but if on the 
 wliip, she gets it.' The bridegroom rarely saw 
 his companion's face till after the marriage, when, 
 it is said, ' if she be ugly she pays for it soundly, 
 maybe the first time he sees her.' Ugliness being 
 punished witli the whip, the women painted to 
 great excess ; and a traveller in sixteen hundred 
 and thirty-six saw the gi-and duchess and her 
 ladies on horseback, astride, most wickedly be- 
 painted.' The day after a lady had been at an 
 ■entertainment, the hostess was accustomed to ask 
 liow she got home ; and the polite answer was, 
 -* Your ladyship's hospitality made me so tipsy that 
 I don't know how I got home ;' and for the climax 
 of their barbarity it can scarcely be believed, 
 but it is recorded as a fact, that the women did 
 not begin to wear stays till the beginning of the 
 present century ! " 
 
 Soothed by these rather ill-natured reflections, 
 I turned to the illumiq^ted scene and the throng- 
 ing thousands below, descended once more to the 
 gai'den, passed down the steps, worked my way 
 through the crowd, and fell into a long avenue, 
 like all the rest of the garden, brilliantly lighted, 
 but entirely deserted. At the end of the avenue 
 I came to an artificial lake, opposite which was a 
 small square two-story cottage, being the old resi- 
 dence of Peter the Great, the founder of all the 
 magnificence of Peterhofl'. It was exactly in the 
 style of our ordinary country houses, and the fur- 
 niture was of a simplicity that contrasted strangely 
 with tlie surrounding luxury and splendour. The 
 door opened into a little hall, in which were two 
 old-fashioned Dutch mahogany tables, with oval 
 leaves, legs tapering and enlarging at the feet into 
 something like a horse-shoe ; just such a table as 
 every one may remember in his grandfather's 
 house, and recalling to mind the simple style of 
 ■our own country some thirty or forty years ago. 
 In a room on one side was the old czar's bed, a 
 low, broad wooden bedstead, with a sort of canopy 
 •over it, the covering of the canopy and the coverlet 
 being of striped calico ; the whole house, inside 
 and out, was hung with lamps, illumining with a 
 glare that was almost distressing the simplicity of 
 Peter's residence ; and, as if to give greater con- 
 trast to this simplicity, while I was standing in 
 the door of the hall, I saw roll by me, in splendid 
 equipages, the emperor and empress, with the 
 whole of the brilliant court which I had left in the 
 banquetting-hall, now making a tour of the gardens. 
 The carriages were all of one patteni, long, hung 
 low, without any tops, and somewhat like our om- 
 nibuses, except that, instead of the seats being on 
 one side, there was a partition in the middle not 
 higher than the back of a sofa, with large seats 
 like sofas on each side, on which the company sat 
 in a row, with their backs to each other ; in front 
 was a high and large box for the coachmen, and 
 a footman behind. It was so light that I could 
 ffistinguish the face of every gentleman and lady 
 
 as they passed ; and there was something so unique 
 in the exhibition, that, with the splendour of tho 
 coui't dresses, it seemed the climax of the brilliant 
 scenes at PeterhoS'. I followed them with my 
 eyes till they were out of sight, gave one more 
 look to the modest pillow on which old Peter re- 
 posed his careworn head, and at about one o'clock 
 in the morning left the garden. A frigate bril- 
 liantly illuminated was firing u, salute, the flash 
 of her guns lighting up the dark surface of the 
 water as I embarked on board the steam-boat. At 
 two o'clock, the morning twilight was like that of 
 day ; at three o'clock I was at my hotel, and, pro- 
 bably, at ten minutes past, asleep. 
 
 AlQout eiglit o'clock the next morning my Pole 
 came into my room. He had returned from 
 PeterhofT before me, and found waiting for him 
 his second epistle, with a note from the mother of 
 the young lady, which he read to me as I lay in 
 bed. Though more than half asleep, I was rather 
 roused by the strange effect this letter had upon 
 him, for he was now encouraged to go on with his 
 suit, since he found that the backwardness of the 
 young lady was to be ascribed to the influence of 
 the mother, and not to any indifference on her 
 part. 
 
 In the afternoon I went to a boat-race between 
 English amateurs that had excited some interest 
 among the Ijlnglish residents. The boats were 
 badly matched ; a six-oared boat thirty-two feet 
 long, and weighing two hundred and thirty pounds, 
 being pitted against three pairs of scnlls, with a 
 boat twenty-eight feet long and weighing only ono 
 hundred and eight pounds. One belonged to tho 
 English legation .and the other to some Englisli 
 merchants. The race was from the English Quay 
 to the bridge opposite the Suwarrow monument at 
 the foot of the Summer Garden, and back, a little 
 more than two miles each way. The rapidity of 
 the current was between two and three miles an 
 hour, though its full strength was avoided by both 
 boats keeping in the eddies along shore. It was 
 a beautiful place for a boat-race ; the banks of the 
 Neva were lined with spectators, and the six-oared 
 boat beat easily, performing the distance in thirty- 
 one minutes. 
 
 The next morning, in company with a French- 
 man lately arrived at our hotel, I set out for the 
 imperial palace of Czarskoselo, about seventeen 
 versts from St. Petersburgh. About seven versts 
 from the city we passed the imperial seat of 
 Zechenne, built by the Empress Catharine to 
 commemorate the victory obtained by Orloff over 
 the Turks on the coast of Anatolia. The edifice 
 is in the form of a Turkish pavilion, with a central 
 rotunda containing the full-length portraits of the 
 sovereigns cotemporary with Catharine. Since 
 her death this palace has been deserted. In 1825 
 Alexander and the empress passed it on their way 
 to the south of Russia, and about eight months 
 after their mortal remains found shelter in it for 
 a night, on their way to the imperial sepulchre. 
 There was no other object of interest on the road 
 until we approached Czarskoselo. Opposite the 
 " Caprice Gate " is a cluster of white houses, in 
 two rows, of different sizes, diminishing as they 
 recede from the road, and converging at the far- 
 thest extremity ; altogether a bizarre arrangement, 
 and showing the magnificence of Russian gallantry. 
 The Empress Catharine at the theatre one night 
 
238 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 r.appened to express hei- pleasure at the perspec- 
 tive view of a small town, and the next time she 
 visited Czarskoselo she saw the scene realised in 
 a town erected by Count Orloff at immense ex- 
 pense before the gate of the palace. The facade 
 of the palace is unequalled by any royal residence 
 in the world, being twelve hundred feet in length. 
 Originally, every statue, pedestal, and capital of 
 the numerous columns, the vases, carvings, and 
 other ornaments in front, were covered with gold 
 leaf, the gold used for that purpose amounting to 
 more than a million of ducats. In a few years 
 the gilding wore off, and the contractoi's engaged 
 in repairing it offered the empress nearly half a 
 million of rubles (silver) for the fragments of gold ; 
 but the empress scornfully refused, saying, " Je 
 ne suis pas dans Vusage de vendre mes vieilles 
 hardes." I shall not attempt to carry the reader 
 through the magnificent apartments of this palace. 
 But I must not forget the famed amber chamber, 
 the whole walls and ceilings being of amber, some 
 of the pieces of great size, neatly fitted together, 
 and even the frames of the pictures an elaborate 
 workmanship of the same precious material. But 
 even this did not strike me so forcibly as when, 
 conducted through a magnificent apartment, the 
 walls covered with black paper shining like ebony, 
 and ornamented with gold and immense looking- 
 glasses, the footman opened a window at the other 
 end, and we looked down into the chapel, an 
 Asiatic structure, presenting an ensemble of rich 
 gilding of surpassing beauty, every part of it, the 
 groups of columns, the iconastos, and the gallery 
 for the imperial family, resplendent with gold. In 
 one of the state-rooms where the empress's mother 
 resides, the floor consists of a parquet of fine wood 
 inlaid with wreaths of mother-of-pearl, and the 
 panels of the room were incrusted with lapis lazuli. 
 But to me, all these magnificent chambers 
 were as nothing compared with those which were 
 a,ssociated with the memory of the late occupant. 
 " Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ;" and 
 perhaps it is for this reason that I like to look 
 upon the pillow of a king, far more on that of a 
 queen. The bedchamber of Catharine II. is 
 adorued with walls of porcelain and pillars of 
 purple glass ; the bedclothes are those under which 
 she slept the last time she was at the palace, and 
 in one place was a concealed door, by which, as the 
 unmannerly footman, without any respect to her 
 memory, told us, her imperial highness admitted 
 her six-feet paramours. In the bedchamber of 
 Alexander were his cap, gloves, boots, and other 
 articles of dress, lying precisely as he left them 
 previous to his dep.arture for the southern part of 
 his empire. His bed was of leather, stuffed with 
 straw, and his boots were patched over and over 
 worse than mine, which I had worn all the way 
 from Paris, I tried on his cap and gloves, and 
 moralized over his patched boots. I remembered 
 Alexander as the head of a gigantic empire, 
 the friend and ally, and then the deadly foe, of 
 Napoleon ; the companion of kings and princes ; 
 the arbiter of thrones and empires, and playing 
 with crowns and sceptres. I sat with the patched 
 boots in my hand. Like old Peter, he had con- 
 siderable of a foot, and I respected him for it. 
 saw him, as it were, in an undress, simple and 
 unostentatious in his habits ; and there was a 
 domestic air in his whole suite of apartments that 
 
 interested me more than when I considered hira 
 on his throne. His sitting-room showed quiet and 
 gentlemanly as well as domestic habits, for along 
 the wall was a border of earth, with shrubs and 
 flowers growing out of it, a delicate vine trailed 
 around and almost covering a little mahogany 
 railing. .. The grounds around the palace are 
 eighteen miles in circumference, abounding in 
 picturesque and beautiful scenery, improved by 
 taste and an unbounded expenditure of money 
 and at this time they were in the fulness of sum- 
 mer beauty. We may talk simplicity and repub- 
 licanism, but, after all, it must be a pleasant tiling 
 to be an emperor. I always felt this, particularly 
 when strolling through imperial parks or plea- 
 sure-grounds, and sometimes I almost came to the 
 unsentimental conclusion, that, to be rural, a man 
 must be rich. 
 
 We wandered through the grounds without any 
 plan, taking any path that offered, and at every 
 step some new beauty broke upon us : a theatre \. 
 Turkish kiosk, or Chinese pagoda ; splendid' 
 bridges, arches, and columns ; and an Egyptian 
 gate ; a summer-house in the form of an Ionic 
 colonnade, a masterpiece of taste and elegance, 
 supporting an aerial garden crowded with flowers ; 
 and a Gothic building called the Admiralty, on 
 the borders of an extensive lake, on which lay 
 several boats rigged as frigates, elegant barges and 
 pleasure-boats, and beautiful white swans floating 
 majestically upon its surface ; on the islands and 
 the shores of the lake were little summer-houses ; 
 at the other end was a magnificent stone landing, 
 and in full view a^marble bridge, with Corinthian 
 columns of polished marble ; an arsenal, wit!i many 
 curious and interesting objects, antique suits of 
 armour, and two splendid sets of horse-trappings, 
 holsters, pistols, and bridles, all studded with 
 diamonds, presented by the sultan on occasion 
 of the peace of Adrianople. Nor must I forget 
 the dairy, and a superb collection of goats and 
 lamas from Siberia. Amid this congregation of 
 beauties, one thing offended me ; a Gothic tower, 
 built as a ruin for the sake of the picturesque, 
 which, wanting the associations connected with 
 monuments ruined by time, struck me as a down- 
 right mockery. We had intended to visit the 
 palace of Paulowsky, but time slipped away, and 
 it was six o'clock before we started to return to 
 St. Petersburgh. 
 
 CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 The Soldiei-'s Keward Review of the Russian Army. 
 
 American Cannibals Palace of Potemkin.— Palace of the- ^ 
 
 Grand-duke Michael. —Equipments for Travfcliing.—Rougi/ 
 Riding. — Poland.— Vitepsk.— Napoleon in Poland.— The 
 Disastrous Retreat Passage of the Berezina. 
 
 Eakly the next morning I went out abotit 
 twelve vei-sts from ihe city to attend a grand mili- 
 tary review by the emperor in person. The go- 
 vernment of Russia is a military despotism, and 
 her immense army, nominally amounting to a 
 million, even on the peace establishment numbei's. 
 actually six hundred thousand, of which sixty 
 thousand follow the person of the emperor, and 
 were at that time under arms at St. Petersburgh. 
 When I rode on the parade-ground, the spectacle- 
 of this great army, combining the elite of barbaric 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 239 
 
 chivalry with soldiers trained in the best schools 
 of European discipline, drawn up in battle's stern 
 array, and glittering with steel, was brilliant and 
 almost sublime ; in numbers and military bearing, 
 in costliness of armour and equipment, far sur- 
 passing any martial parade that I had seen, not 
 excepting a grand review of French troops at 
 Paris, or even a fourth of July parade at home. 
 I once had the honour to be a paymaster in tlie 
 valiant one hundred and ninety-seventh regiment 
 of New York State Militia ; and I can say — what, 
 perhaps, no other man who ever served in our 
 army can say — that I served out my whole term 
 without being once promoted. Men came in below 
 and went out above me ; ensigns became colonels 
 and lieutenants generals, but 1 remained the same. 
 It was hard work to escape promotion, but I was 
 resolute. Associated with me was a friend as 
 quartermaster, with as little of the spirit of a sol- 
 dier in him as myself, for which we were rather 
 looked down upon by the warriors of our day ; 
 and when, at the end of our term, in company 
 with several other officers, we resigned, the next 
 regimental orders were filled with the military pane- 
 gyrics, such as, " the colonel has received, with the 
 greatest regret, the resignation of Lieutenant A. ;" 
 " the country has reason to deplore the loss of the 
 services of Captain B.," and wound up with, 
 " Quartermaster G. and Paymaster S. have ten- 
 dered their resignations, both of which are hereby 
 accepted." But when strains of martial music 
 burst from a hundred bands, and companies, and 
 regiments, and brigades wheeled and manoeuvred 
 before me, and the emperor rode by, escorted 
 by general and field officers, and the most mag- 
 nificent staff in Europe, and the earth shook under 
 the charge of cavalry, I felt a strong, martial 
 spirit roused within me ; perhaps I was excited 
 by the reflection that these soldiers had been 
 in battles, and that the stars and medals glitter- 
 ing on their breasts were not mere holiday orna- 
 ments,but the tokens of desperate service on bloody 
 battle-fields. 
 
 In a body, the Russian soldiers present an ex- 
 ceedingly fine appearance. When the serf is 
 enrolled, his hair and beard are cut off, except on 
 the upper lip, his uniform is simple and graceful, 
 a belt is worn tightly round the waist, and the 
 breast of the coat is thickly padded, increasing the 
 manliness of the figure, though sometimes at the 
 expense of health. In evolutions they move Uke 
 a great machine, as if all the arms and legs were 
 governed by a single impulse 
 
 The army under review was composed of repre- 
 sentatives from all the nations under the swa^ of 
 Russia ; Cossacks of the Don, and the Wolga, 
 and the Black Sea, in jackets and wide panta- 
 loons of blue cloth, riding on small horses, with 
 high-peaked saddles, and carrying speai's eight or 
 ten feet in length. One regiment had the privi- 
 lege of wearing a ragged flag and caps full of 
 holes, as proofs of their gallant service, being the 
 only regiment that fought at Pultowa. And there 
 were Calmucs in their extraordinary war-dress ; 
 a helmet with a gilded crest, or a chain-cap with 
 a net-work of iron rings falling over the head and 
 shoulders, and hanging as low as the eyebrows in 
 front ; a shirt of mail, composed of steel rings 
 matted together, and yielding to the body, the 
 anns protected by plates, and the back of the 
 
 hand by steel net-work fastened to the plates on 
 each side ; their offensive weapons were bows and 
 arrows, silver-mounted pistols peeping out of their 
 holsters, cartridge-boxes on each side of the breast, 
 and a dagger, sword, and gun. 
 
 The Kirguish, a noble-looking race, come from 
 the steppes of Siberia. Their uniform is magni- 
 ficent, consisting of a blue frock-coat and panta- 
 loons covered with silver lace, a Grecian helmet, 
 and a great variety of splendid arms, the yataghan 
 alone costing a. thousand rubles. They are all 
 noble, and have no regular duty, except to attend 
 the imperial family on extraordinary occasions. 
 At home they are always at war among them- 
 selves. They are Mohammedans ; and one of 
 them said to an American friend who had a long 
 conversation with him, that he had four wives at 
 home ; that some had more, but it was not consi- 
 dered becoming to exceed that number A bearded 
 Russian came up and said that these Kirguish ate 
 dogs and cats, against which the Kirguish pro- 
 tested. The same Russian afterwards observed 
 that the Americans were worse than the Kirguish, 
 for that a patriarch of the church had written, and 
 therefore it must be true, that the number of human 
 beings eaten by Americans could not be counted ; 
 adding, with emphasis, " Sir, you were created in 
 the likeness of your Maker, and you should en- 
 deavour to keep yourself so." He continued that 
 the Russians were the first Christians, and he 
 felt much disposed to send missionaries among the 
 Americans to meliorate their condition. 
 
 The Imperial Guards are the finest-looking set 
 of men I ever saw. The standard is six feet, and 
 none are admitted below that height. Their uni- 
 form is a white cloth coat, with buckskin breeches, 
 boots reaching up to the hips, and swords that 
 Wallace himself would not have been ashamed to 
 wield. But perhaps the most striking in that 
 brilliant army was the emperor himself ; seeming 
 its natural head, towering even above his gigantic 
 guards, and looking, as Mr. Wilkins once said of 
 him, like one who, among savages, would have 
 been chosen for a chief. In the midst of this 
 martial spectacle, the thought came over me of 
 militia musters at home ; and though smiling at 
 the insignificance of our military array as I rode 
 back in my di-osky, I could but think of the hap- 
 piness of our isolated position, which spares us the 
 necessity of keeping a large poriion of our coun- 
 trymen constantly in arms to preserve the rest in 
 the enjoyment of life and fortune. 
 
 The next morning my Polish friend, hopeless of 
 success either in his lawsuit or his lovesuit, fixed a 
 day for our departure ; and with the suggestion 
 that I am about leaving St. Petersburgh, I turn 
 once more, and for the last time, to the imperial 
 palaces. Not far from the Hermitage is the 
 marble palace ; a colossal pile, built by the Em- 
 press Catharine for her favourite. Count Orloff, 
 presenting one of its fronts to the Neva. All the 
 decorations are of marble and gilded bronze, and 
 the capitals and bases of the columns and pilas- 
 ters, and the window-frames and balustrades of 
 the balconies, of cast bronze richly gilded. The 
 effect is heightened by the unusually large dimen- 
 sions of the squares of fine plate-glass. A travel- 
 ler in seventeen hundred and fifty-nine says, " that 
 the prodigies of enchantment which we read of in 
 the Tales of the Genii are here called forth into 
 
;!40 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 reality ; and the temples reared by the luxuriant 
 fancy of our poets may be considered as a picture 
 of the marble palace, which Jupiter, when the 
 burden of cares drives him from heaven, might 
 make his delightful abode." At present, however, 
 there are but few remains of this Olympian 
 magnificence, and I think Jupiter at the same 
 expense would prefer the Winter Palace or the 
 Hermitage. 
 
 The Taurida Palace, erected by Catharine II. 
 for her lover, Potemkin, in general effect realises 
 the exaggerated accounts of travellers. The 
 entrance is into a spacious hall, which leads to a 
 circular vestibule of extraordinary magnitude, 
 decorated with busts and statues in marble, with 
 a dome supported by white columns. From thence 
 you pass between the columns into an immense 
 hall or ball-room, two hundred and eighty feet 
 long and eighty wide, with double colonnades of 
 lofty Ionic pillars decorated with gold and silver 
 festoons, thirty-five feet high and ten feet in cir- 
 cumference. From the colonnade, running the 
 whole length of the ball-room, you enter the 
 Winter Garden, which concealed flues and stoves 
 keep always at the temperature of summer ; and 
 here, upon great occasions, under the light of 
 magnificent lustres and the reflection of numerous 
 mirrors, during the fierceness of the Russian 
 winter, when the whole earth is covered with 
 snow, and " water tossed in the air drops down in 
 ice," the imperial visiter may stroll through 
 gravel-walks bordered with the choicest plants 
 and flowers, blooming hedges and groves of orange, 
 and inhale the fragrance of an Arabian garden. 
 Paul, in one of his " darkened hours," converted 
 this palace into barracks and a riding-school ; but 
 it has since been restored, in some degree, to its 
 ancient splendour. 
 
 The palace of Paul in which he was assassinated, 
 has been uninhabited since his death. But the 
 triumph of modern architecture in St. Petersburgh 
 is the palace of the Grand-duke Michael. I shall 
 not attempt any description of this palace ; but, 
 to give some notion of its splendours to my calcu- 
 lating countrymen, I shall merely remark that it 
 cost upward of seventeen millions of rubles. But 
 I am weary of palaces ; of wandering through 
 magnificent apartments, where scene after scene 
 bursts upon my eyes, and, before I begin to feel 
 at home in them, I find myself ordered out by the 
 footman. Will the reader believe me ! On the 
 opposite side of the river is a little wooden house, 
 more interesting in my eyes than all the palaces 
 in St. Petersburgh. It is the humble residence 
 of Peter the Great. I visited it for the last time 
 after rambling through the gorgeous palace of the 
 Grand-duke Michael. It is one story high, low- 
 roofed, with a little piazza around it, and contains 
 a sitting-room, bed-room, and dining-parlours ; and 
 Peter himself, with his own axe, assisted in its 
 construction. The rooms are only eight feet in 
 height, the sitting-room is fifteen feet square, the 
 dining-room fifteen feet by twelve, and the bed- 
 chamber ten feet square. In the first there is a, 
 chapel and shrine, where the Russian visiter per- 
 forms his orisons and prays for the soul of Peter. 
 Around the cottage is a neat garden, and u, boat 
 made by Peter himself is suspended to one of the 
 walls. I walked around the cottage, inside and 
 5ut ; listened attentively, without understanding 
 
 a word he said, to the garrulous Russian cicerone 
 and sat down on the step of the front piazza. 
 Opposite was that long range of imperial palaces 
 extending for more than a mile on the Neva, and 
 surpassing all other royal residences in Europe or 
 the world. When Peter sat in the door of this 
 humble cottage, the ground where they stood was 
 all morass and forest. Where I saw the lofty 
 spires of magnificent churches, he looked out upon 
 fishermen's huts. My eyes fell upon the golden 
 spire of the church of the citadel glittering in the 
 sunbeams, and reminding me that in its dismal 
 charnel-house slept the tenant of the humble cot- 
 tage, the master-spirit which had almost created 
 out of nothing all this splendour. I saw at the 
 same time the beginning and the end of greatness. 
 The humble dwelling is preserved with religious 
 reverence, and even now is the most interesting 
 monument which the imperial city can show. 
 
 And here, at this starting-point in her career, 
 I take my leave of the Palmyra of the North. 1 
 am compelled to omit many things which he who 
 speaks of St. Petersburgh at all ought not to 
 omit : her magnificent churches ; her gigantic and 
 splendid theatres ; her literary, scientific, and 
 eleemosynary institutions, and that which might 
 form the subject of a chapter in her capital, her 
 government and laws. I might have seen some- 
 thing of Russian society, as my friend Luoff had 
 arrived in St. Petersburgh ; but, with my limited 
 time, the interchange of these civilities interfered 
 with my seeing the curiosities of the capital. 
 
 My intimacy with the colonel had fallen off, 
 though we still were on good terms.. The fact is, 
 I believe I fell into rather queer company in St. 
 Petersburgh, and very soon found the colonel to 
 be the most thorough rou^ 1 ever met. He seemed 
 to think that travelling meant dissipating ; he had 
 never travelled but once, and that was with the 
 army to Paris ; and, except when on duty, his 
 whole time had been spent in riot and dissipation ; 
 and though sometimes he referred to hard fighting, 
 he talked more of the pleasures of that terrible 
 campaign than of its toils and dangers. In con- 
 sideration of my being a stranger and a young 
 man, he constituted himself my Mentor, and the 
 advice which, in all soberness, he gave me as the 
 fruits of his experience, was a beautiful guide for 
 the road to ruin. I have no doubt that, if I had 
 given myself up entirely to him, he would have 
 feted me all the time I was in St. Petersburgh ; 
 but this did not suit me, and I afterward fell in 
 with the Pole, who had his own vagaries too, and 
 who, being the proprietor of a cloth manufactory, 
 did not suit the aristocratic notions of the colonel, 
 and so our friendship cooled. My intimacy with 
 his friend the prince, however, increased. I called 
 upon him frequently, and he off'ered to accompany 
 me everywhere ; but as in sight-seeing I love to 
 be alone, I seldom asked him, except for a twilight 
 walk. Old associations were all that now bound 
 togetiier him and the colonel ; their feelings, their 
 fortunes, and their habits of life, were entirely 
 diff'erent ; and the colonel, instead of being dis- 
 pleased with my seeking the prince in preference 
 to himself, was rather gratified. Altogether, the 
 colonel told me, he was much mistaken in me, 
 but he believed I was a good fellow after all ; 
 excused my regular habits somewhat on the 
 ground of my health ; and the day before that 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 241 
 
 fixed for my departure, aslced rae to pass the 
 evening with him, and to bring my friend the 
 Pole. lu the evening we went to the colonel's 
 apartments. The prince was there, and, after an 
 elegant little supper, happening to speak of a 
 Frenchman and a Prussian living in the hotel, 
 with whom I had become acquainted, he sent 
 down for them to come up and join us. ^ Ihe 
 table was cleared, pipes and tobacco were brought 
 on, and champagne was the only wine. We had 
 a long and interesting conversation on the subject 
 of the road to Warsaw, and particularly in regard 
 to the bloody passage of the Berezina, at which 
 both the colonel and the prince were present. 
 The servant, a favourite serf (who the next day 
 -ebbed the colonel of every valuable article in his 
 apartment), being clumsy in opening a new bottle 
 of champagne, the colonel said he must return to 
 army practice, and reaching down his sabre, with 
 a scientific blow took oft' the neck without mate- 
 rially injuring the bottle or disturbing the con- 
 tents. This military way of decanting champagne 
 aided its circulation, and head after head fell 
 rapidly before the naked sabre. I had for some 
 time avoided emptying my glass, which, in the 
 general hurry of business, was not noticed ; but, 
 as soon as the colonel discovered it, he cried out, 
 " Treason, treason against good fellowship, — 
 America is a traitor." I pleaded ill health, but 
 lie would not listen to me ; upbraided me that the 
 friend and old ally of Russia should fail him ; 
 turned up his glass on the table, and swore he 
 would not touch it again unless I did him justice. 
 All followed his example ; all decided that Ame- 
 rica was disturbing the peace of nations ; the 
 glasses were turned up all around, and a dead 
 stop was put to the merriment. I appealed, 
 begged, and protested ; and the colonel became 
 positive, dogged, and outrageous The prince 
 came to my aid, and proposed that the diificulty 
 between Russia and America should be submitted 
 to the arbitration of France and Prussia. He had 
 observed these powers rather backing out. The 
 eyes of France were already in a fine frenzy roll- 
 ing, and Prussia's tongue had long been wander- 
 ing ; and, in apprehension of their own fate, these 
 mighty powers leaned to mercy. It was neces- 
 sary, however, to propitiate the colonel, and they 
 decided that, to prevent the efiiision of blood, I 
 should start once more the flow of wine ; that we 
 should begin again with a bumper all around ; 
 and, after that, every man should do as he pleased. 
 The colonel wiis obliged to be content ; and swear- 
 ing that he would drink for us all, started anew. 
 
 The Prussian was fi;om Berlin, and this led the 
 colonel to speak of the stirring scenes that had 
 taken place in that capital on the return of the 
 Russian army from Paris ; and, after awhile, the 
 Prussian, personally unknown to the colonel, told 
 him that his name was still remembered in Berlin 
 as a leader in Russian riot and dissipation, and 
 particularly as having carried off, in a most daring 
 manner, a lady of distinguished family ; and — 
 " go on," said the colonel — " killed her husband." 
 — " He refused my challenge," said the colonel, 
 " but sought my life, and I shot him like a dog." 
 The whole party now became uproarious ; the 
 colonel begged me, by all the friendly relations 
 between Russia and America, to hold on till 
 breakfast-time ; but, being the coolest man present, 
 
 and not knowing what farther developments might 
 take place, I broke up the party. 
 
 In the morning ray passport was not ready. I 
 went off to the police-office for it, and when I re- 
 turned the horses had not come, and the valot 
 brought me the usual answer, that there were 
 none. My Pole was glad to linger another day 
 for the sake of his flirtation with the little girl 
 opposite, and so we lounged through the day, 
 part of the time in the bazar of a Persian, where 
 I came near ruining myself by an offer I made for 
 a beautiful emerald ; and after one more, and the 
 last twilight stroll on the banks of the Neva and 
 up the Newski Perspective, we returned at an 
 early hour, and, for the last time in Russia, slept 
 in ,a bed. 
 
 At nine o'clock the next morning a kibitka 
 drove up to the door of our hotel, demanding an 
 American and a Pole for Warsaw. All the ser- 
 vants of the hotel were gathered around, arr.anging 
 the luggage, and making a great parade of getting 
 off the distinguished travellers. The travellers 
 themselves seemed equipped for a long journey 
 One wore a blue roundabout jacket, military cap. 
 and cloak, with whiskers and a mustache tending 
 to red ; the other a tall, stout, Herculean fellow, 
 was habited in the most outre costume of a Rus- 
 sian traveller ; a cotton dressing-gown of every 
 variety of colours, red and yellow predominating ; 
 coarse grey trowsers ; boots coming above his 
 knees ; a cap iout-a-fait farouche, and there was 
 no mistake about the colour of his hair and mus- 
 taches : he was moving slowly around the kibitka 
 in his travelling dress, and looking up to the win- 
 dow opposite, to give his Dulcinea the melancholy 
 intelligence that he was going away, and perhaps 
 to catch one farewell smile at parting. The car- 
 riage of these distinguished travellers was the 
 kibitka, one of the national vehicles of Russia, 
 being a long, round-bottomed box or cradle on 
 four wheels, probably the old Scythian waggon, 
 resting, in proud contempt of the effeminacy of 
 springs, on the oaken axles ; the hubs of the 
 wheels were two feet long, the linch-pins of wood, 
 the body of the carriage fastened to the wheels by 
 wooden pins, ropes, and sticks ; and, except the 
 tires of the wheels, there was not a nail or piece 
 of iron about it. The hinder part was covered 
 with matting, open in front somewhat like an 
 old-fashioned bonnet, and supported by an arched 
 stick, which served as a linch-pin for the hind 
 wheels ; a bucket of grease hung under the hind 
 axle, and the bottom of the kibitka was filled 
 with straw ; whole cost of outfit, thirteen dollars. 
 Before it were three horses, one in shafts and one 
 on each side, the centre one having a high bow 
 over his neck, painted yellow and red, to which a 
 rein was tied for holding up his head, and also a 
 bell, to a Russian postilion more necessary than 
 harness. The travellers took their places in the 
 bottom of the kibitka, and the postilion, a rough 
 brutal-looking fellow, in grey coat and hat turned 
 up at the sides, mounted in front, catching a seat 
 where he could on the rim of the waggon, about 
 three inches wide ; and in this dashing equipage 
 we started for a journey of a thousand miles to the 
 capital of another kingdom. We rolled for the 
 last time through the streets of St. Petersburgh, 
 gazed at the domes, and spires, and magnificent 
 palaces, and in a few moments passed the barrier. 
 
242 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 I left St. Petersburgh, as I did every other city, 
 with a certain feeling of regret that, in all proba- 
 bility, I should never see it more ; still the crack- 
 ing of the postilion's whip and the galloping of 
 the horses created in me that high excitement 
 which I always felt in setting out for a new region. 
 Our first stage was to Czarkoselo, our second to 
 Cazena, where there was another palace It was 
 dark when we reached the third, a small village, 
 of which I did not even note the name. I shall 
 not linger on this road, for it was barren of interest 
 and incident, and through a continued succession 
 of swamps and forests. For two hundred miles 
 it tried the tenure of adhesion between soul and 
 body, being made of the trunks of trees laid trans- 
 versely, bound down by long poles or beams fast- 
 2ned into the ground with wooden pegs, covered 
 with layers of boughs, and the whole strewed over 
 with sand and earth ; the trunks in general were 
 lecayed and sunken, and the sand worn or washed 
 vway, reminding me of the worst of our western 
 corduroy roads. Our waggon being without 
 springs, and our seats a full-length extension on 
 straw on the bottom, without the bed, pillows, and 
 cushions which the Russians usually have, I found 
 this ride one of the severest trials of physical 
 endm-ance I ever experienced. My companion 
 groaned and brushed his mustaches, and talked of 
 the little girl at St. Petersburgh. In my previous 
 journey in Russia I had found the refreshment of 
 tea, and on this, often when almost exhausted, I 
 was revived by that precious beverage. I stood it 
 three days and nights, but on the fourth completely 
 broke down. I insensibly slipped down at full 
 length in the bottom of the waggon ; the night 
 was cold and rainy ; my companion covered me up 
 to the eyes with straw, and I slept from the early 
 part of the evening like a dead man. The horses 
 were changed three times ; tlie waggon was lifted 
 up under me, and the wheels greased ; and three 
 times my companion quarrelled with the post- 
 master over my body without waking me. About 
 six o'clock in the morning he roused me. I could 
 not stir hand or foot ; my mouth was full of dust 
 and straw, and I felt a sense of suffocation. In a 
 few moments I crawled out, staggered a few steps, 
 and threw myself down on the floor of a wretched 
 post-house. My companion put my carpet-bag 
 under my head, wrapped cloaks and great-ooats 
 around, and prepared me some tea ; but I loathed 
 everything. I was in that miserable condition 
 which every traveller has some time experienced ; 
 my head ringing, every bone aching, and perfectly 
 reckless as to what became of me. While my 
 companion stood over me I fell asleep, and believe 
 I should have been sleeping there yet if he had not 
 waked me. He said we must go on at all risks 
 nntU we found a place where we could remain 
 with some degree of comfort. 1 begged and en- 
 treated to be left to myself, but he was hiexorable. 
 He lifted me up, hauled me out to the kibitka, 
 which was filled with fresh straw, and seated me 
 within, supporting me on his shoulder. 
 
 It was a beautiful day. We moved moderately, 
 and toward evening came to a post-house kept by 
 a Jew, or rather, a Jewess, who was so kind and at- 
 tentive that we determined to stay there all night. 
 She brought in some clean straw and spread it on 
 the floor, where 1 slept gloriously. My companion 
 was tougher than I, but he could not stand the 
 
 fleas and bugs, and about midnight went out and 
 slept in the kibitka. In the morning we found 
 that he had been too late ; that the kibitka had 
 been stripped of every article except himself and 
 the straw. Fortunately my carpet-bag had been 
 brought in ; but I received a severe blow in the 
 loss of a cane, an old friend and travelling com- 
 panion, which had been with me in every variety 
 of scene, and which I had intended to carry home 
 yvith me, and retain as a companion through life. 
 It is almost inconceivable how much this little in- 
 cident distressed me It was a hundred times 
 worse than the loss of ray carpet-bag. I felt the 
 want of it every moment ; I had rattled it on the 
 Boulevards of Paris, in the eternal city, the Colos- 
 seum, and the places thereabout ; had carried it up 
 the burning mountain, and poked it into the red 
 hot lava ; had borne it in the Acropolis, on the field 
 of Marathon, and among the ruins of Ephesus ; 
 had flourished it under the beard of the sultan, and 
 the eyes and nose of the emperor and autocrat of 
 all the Russias; in deserts and in cities it had been 
 my companion and friend. Unsparing Nemesis, 
 let loose your vengeance upon the thief who stole 
 it ! The rascals had even carried off the rope traces, 
 and every loose article about the kibitka. 
 
 Notwithstanding this, however, I ought not to 
 omit remarking the general security of travelling 
 in Russia and Poland. The immense plains ; the 
 distance of habitations ; the number of forests ; the 
 custom of travelling by night as well as by day ; 
 the negligence of all measures to ensure the safety 
 of the roads ; all contribute to favour robbery and 
 murders ; and yet an instance of either is scarcely 
 known in years. It was difficult on those immense 
 levels, which seemed independent of either general 
 or individual proprietors, to recognise even the 
 bounds of empires. The dwina, however, a na- 
 tural boundary, rolls between Russia and Poland; 
 and at Vitepsk we entered the territories of what 
 was once another kingdom. The surface of Po- 
 land forms part of that immense and unvaried 
 plain which constitutes the northern portion of all 
 the central European countries. A great portion 
 of this plain is overspread with a deep layer of 
 sand, alternating, however, with large clayey tracts 
 and extensive marshes ; a winter nearly as severe 
 as that of Sweden, and violent winds blowing unin- 
 terruptedly over this wide open region, are conse- 
 quences of its physical structure and position. The 
 Roman arms never psnetrated any part of this great 
 level tract, the whole of which was called by them 
 Sarmatia; and Sarmatia and Scythia were in their 
 descriptions always named together as the abode of 
 nomadic and savage tribes. From the earliest era 
 it appears to have been peopled by the Sclavonic 
 tribes; a race widely diffused, and distmguished by 
 a peculiar language, by a strong national feeling, 
 and by a particular train of superstitious ideas. 
 Though shepherds, they did not partake of the 
 migratory character of the Teutonic or Tartar 
 nations ; and were long held in the most cruel 
 bondage by the Huns, the Goths, and other nations 
 of Asia, for whom their country was a path to the 
 conquest of the west of Europe 
 
 In the tenth century the Poles were a powerful 
 and warlike nation. In the fourteenth, Lithuania 
 was incorporated with it, and Poland became one 
 of the most powerful monarchies in Europe. For 
 two centuries it was the bulwark of Ctaistendom 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND 
 
 2i3, 
 
 against the alarming invasions of the Turks ; the 
 reigns of Sigismund and Sobieski hold a high place 
 in military history ; and, until the beginning of the 
 last century, its martial character gave it a com- 
 manding iniluence in Europe. 
 
 It is unnecessary to trace the rapid and irre- 
 coverable fall of Poland. On the second partition, 
 Kosciusko, animated by his recent struggle for 
 liberty in America, roused his countrymen to arms. 
 But the feet of three giants were upon her breast; 
 and Suwarrow, marching upon the capital, storm- 
 ing the fortress of Praga, and butchering in cold 
 blood thirty thousand inhabitants, extinguished, 
 apparently for ever, the rights and the glories 
 of Poland. Living as we do apart from the 
 rest of the world, with no national animosities 
 transmitted by our fathers, it is impossible to 
 realise the feeling of deadly hatred existing between 
 neighbouring nations from the disputes of ances- 
 tors centuries ago. The history of Russia and 
 Poland presents a continued series of Wood-stained 
 pages. Battle after battle has nourished their 
 mutual hate, and for a long time it had been the 
 settled feeling of both that Russia or Poland must 
 fall. It is perhaps fortunate for the rest of 
 Europe that this feeling has always existed ; for, if 
 they were united In heart, the whole south of 
 Europe would lie at the mercy of their invading 
 armies. Napoleon committed a fatal error in 
 tampering with the brave and patriotic Poles ; for 
 ne might have rallied around him a nation of sol- 
 diers who, in gratitude, would have stood by him 
 until they were exterminated. 
 
 But to return to Vitepsk. Here, for the first 
 time, we fell into the memorable road traversed by 
 Napoleon on his way to Moscow. The town stands 
 on the banks of the Dwina, built on both sides of 
 the river, and contains a population of about fifteen 
 thousand, a great portion of whom are Jews. In 
 itself, it has but little to engage the attention of 
 the traveller; but I strolled through its streets with 
 extraordinary interest, remembering it as the place 
 where Napoleon decided on his fatal march to Mos- 
 cow. It was at the same season and on the very 
 same day of the year that the " grand army," 
 having traversed the gloomy forests of Lithuania 
 in pursuit of an invincible and intangible enemy, 
 with the loss of more than a hundred thousand 
 men, emerged from the last range of woods and 
 halted at the presence of the hostile fires that 
 covered the plain before the city. Napoleon slept 
 in his tent on an eminence at the left of the main 
 road, and before sunrise appeared at the advanced 
 posts, and by its first rays saw the Russian army, 
 eighty thousand strong, encamped on a high plain 
 commanding all the avenues of the city. Ten 
 thousand horsemen made a show of defending its 
 passes ; and at about ten o'clock, Murat le Beau 
 Sabreur, intoxicated by the admiration his pre- 
 sence excited, at the head of a single regiment of 
 chasseurs charged the whole Russian cavalry. He 
 was repulsed, and driven back to the foot of the 
 hillock on which Napoleon stood. The chasseurs 
 of the French guards formed a circle around him, 
 drove off the assailant lancers, and the emperor 
 ordered the attack to cease ; and pointing to the 
 city, his pai-ting words to Murat were, " To-mor- 
 row at five o'clock the sun of Austerlitz." 
 
 At daylight the camp of Barclay de Tolly w.is 
 deserted ; not a weapon, not a single valuable left 
 
 behind; and a Russian soldier asleep under a 
 bush was the sole result of the day expected to be 
 so decisive. Vitepsk, except by a few miserable 
 Jews and Jesuits, like the Russian camp, was also 
 abandoned. The emperor mounted his horse and 
 rode through the deserted camp and desolate 
 streets of the city. Chagrined and mortified, he 
 pitched his tents in an open court-yard ; but, after 
 a council of war with Murat, Eugene, and others 
 of his principal officers, laid his sword upon the 
 table, and resolved to finish in Vitfepsk the cam- 
 paign of that year. Well had it been for him had 
 he never changed that determination. He traced 
 his line of defence on the map, and explored 
 Vitepsk and its environs as a place where he was 
 likely to make a long residence ; formed estabhsh- 
 ments of all kinds ; erected large ovens capable of 
 baking at once thirty thousand loaves of bread ; 
 pulled down a range of stone houses which injured 
 the appearance of Ihe square of the palace, and 
 made arrangements for opening the theatre with 
 Parisian actors. But in a few days he was 
 observed to grow restless; the members of his 
 household recollected his expression at the first 
 view of the deserted Vitepsk, "Do you thmk I 
 have come so far to conquer these miserable huts V 
 Segur says that he was observed to wander about 
 his apartments as if pursued by some dangerous 
 temptation. Nothing could rivet his attention. 
 Every moment he began, stopped, and resumed 
 his labour. At length, overwhelmed with the 
 importance of the considerations that agitated 
 him, " he threw himself on the floor of his apart- 
 ment ; his frame, exhausted by the heat and the 
 struggles of his mind, could only bear a covering 
 of the slightest texture. He rose from his sleep- 
 less pillow possessed once more with the genius of 
 war ; his voice deepens, his eyes flash fire, and his 
 countenance darkens. His attendants retreat from 
 his presence, struck with mingled awe and respect. 
 His plan is fixed, his determination taken, his 
 order of march traced out." 
 
 The last council occupied eight hours. Berthier, 
 by a melancholy countenance, by lamentations, 
 and even by tears ; Lobau by the cold and haughty 
 fi-ankness of a warrior ; Caulaincourt, with obsti- 
 nacy and impetuosity amounting to violence ; 
 Duroo, by a chilling silence, and afterward by 
 stern replies ; and Daru, straightforward and with 
 firmness immoveable, opposed his going ; but, as 
 if driven on by that fate he almost defied, he broke 
 up the council with the fatal determination ; " Blood 
 has not been shed, and Russia is too great to yield 
 without fighting. Alexander can only negotiate 
 after a great battle, I will proceed to the holy 
 city in search of that battle, and I will gain it. 
 Peace waits me at the gates of Moscow." From 
 that hour commenced that train of terrible dis- 
 asters which finally drove him fi'om the throne 
 of France, and sent him to die an exile on a small 
 island in the Indian Ocean. I walked out on the 
 Moscow road, by which the gi'and army, with 
 pomp and martial music, with Murat, and Ney, 
 and Duroc and Daru, inspired by the great names 
 of Smolensk and Moscow, plunged into a region 
 of almost pathless forests, where most of them were 
 destined to find a grave. I was at first surprised 
 at the utter ignorance of the inhabitants of Vitepsk, 
 in regard to the circumstances attending the 
 occupation of the city by Napoleon. A Jew wf»s- 
 
214 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 my cicerone, who talked of the great scenes of 
 which this little city had in his own day been the 
 theatre, almost as matter of tradition, and with- 
 out half the interest with which, even now, the 
 Greek points the stranger to th-) ruins of Argos 
 or the field of Marathon ; and this ignorance in 
 regard to the only matters that give an interest 
 to this dreary road I remarked during the whole 
 journey. I was so unsuccessful in my questions, 
 and the answers were so unsatisfactory, that my 
 companion soon became tired of acting as my in- 
 tei-preter. Indeed, as he said, he himself knew 
 more than any one I met, for he had travelled it 
 before in company with an uncle of the Polish 
 Jegion; but even he was by no means familiar 
 with the ground. 
 
 We left Vitepsk with a set of miserable horses, 
 rode all night, and at noon of the next day were 
 approaching the banks of the Berezina, memor- 
 able for the dreadful passage which almost annihi- 
 lated the wretched remnant of Napoleon's army. 
 It was impossible, in passing over the same ground, 
 not to recur to the events of which it had been the 
 scene. The " invincible legions," which left 
 Vitepsk two hundred thousand strong, were now 
 fighting their dreadful retreat from Moscow 
 through regulars and Cossacks, reduced to less 
 than twelve thousand men marching in column, 
 with a train of thirty thousand undisciplined fol- 
 lowers, sick, wounded and marauders of every 
 •description. The cavalry which crossed the 
 Xiemen thirty-seven thousand in number was 
 reduced to one hundred and fifty men on horse- 
 back. Napoleon collected all the oiRcers who 
 remained mounted, and formed them into a body, 
 in all about five hundred, which he called his 
 sacred squadron ; officers served as privates, and 
 generals of divisions as captains. He ordered the 
 carriages of the officers, many of the waggons, 
 and even the eagles belonging to the different corps, 
 to be burned in his presence ; and drawing his 
 sword with the stern remark that he had suffi- 
 ciently acted the emperor, and must once more 
 play the general, marched on foot at the head of 
 his old guard. He had hardly reorganized before 
 theimmensepineforests whichborder the Berezina 
 echoed with the thunder of the Russian artillery. 
 In a moment all remains of discipline were lost ; 
 in the last stage of weakness and confusion they 
 were roused by loud cries before them, and, to 
 their great surprise and joy, recognised the ai'mies 
 of Victor and Oudinot. The latter luiew nothing 
 of the terrible disasters of the army of Moscow, 
 and they were thrown into consternation and then 
 melted to tears when they saw behind Napoleon, 
 instead of the invincible legions which had left 
 them in splendid equipments, a train of gaunt 
 and spectral figures, their faces black with dirt, 
 and long bristly beards, covered with rags, female 
 pelisses, pieces >f carpet, with bare and bleeding 
 feet, or bundled with rags, and colonels and gene- 
 rals marching pellmell with soldiers, unarmed 
 and shameless, without any order or discipline, 
 kept together and sleeping round the same fires 
 only by the instinct of self-preservation. 
 
 About noon v/e drove into the town of Borizoff. 
 It stands on the banks of the Berezina, and is an 
 old, irregular-looking place, with a heavy wooden 
 church in the centre of an open square. As usual, 
 at the door of the post house a group of Jews 
 
 gathered around us. When Napoleon took pos- 
 session of Borizoff, the Jews were the only inhabit- 
 ants who remained ; and they, a scattered, wander- 
 ing, and migratory people, without any attachment 
 of soil or country, were ready to serve either the 
 French or Russians, according to the inducements 
 held out to them. A few noble mstances are re- 
 corded where this persecuted and degraded people 
 exhibited a devotion to the land that sheltered 
 them, honourable to their race and to the cha- 
 racter of man ; but in general they were false and 
 faithless. Those who gathered round us in Borizoff 
 looked as though they might be the very people 
 who betrayed the Russians. One of them told us 
 that a great battle had been fought there, but we 
 could not find any who had been present at the 
 fatal passage of the river. We dined at the post- 
 house, probably with less anxiety than was felt by 
 Napoleon or any of the flying Frenchmen ; but 
 even we were not permitted to eat in peace ; for, 
 before we had finished, our vehicle was ready, 
 with worse horses than usual, and a surlier posti- 
 lion. We sent the postilion on a-head, and walked 
 down to the bank of the river. On the night pre- 
 ceding the passage. Napoleon himself had com. 
 mand of Borizoff, with six thousand guards pre- 
 pared for a desperate contest. He passed tha 
 whole night on his feet ; and while waiting for the 
 approach of daylight in one of the houses on the 
 border of the river, so impracticable seemed the 
 chance of crossing with the army, that Murat pro- 
 posed to him to put himself under the escort of 
 some brave and determined Poles, and save him- 
 self while there was yet time; but the emperor 
 indignantly rejected the proposition as a cowardly 
 flight. The river is here very broad, and divided 
 into branches. On the opposite side are the remains 
 of an embankment that formed part of the Russian 
 fortifications. When the Russians were driven 
 out of Borizoff by Oudinot, they crossed the river, 
 burned the bridge, and erected these embank- 
 ments. 
 
 Besides the sanguinary contest of the French 
 and Russians, this river is also memorable for 
 a great battle between my companion and our 
 postilion. In the middle of the bridge the pos- 
 tilion stopped and waited till we came up : he 
 grumbled loudly at being detained, to which my 
 companion replied in his usual conciliatory and 
 insinuating manner, by laying his cane over the 
 fellow's shoulders ; but on the bridge of Borizoff 
 the blood of the Lithuanian was roused ; and, 
 perhaps, urged on by the memory of the deeds 
 done there by his fathers, he sprang out of the 
 waggon, and with a war-cry that would not have 
 disgraced a Cossack of the Don, rushed furiously 
 upon my friend. Oh for a Homer to celebrate 
 that fight on the bridge of Borizoff ! The warriors 
 met, not like Grecian heroes with spear and shield, 
 and clad in steel, but with their naked fists, and 
 faces bare to take the blows. My friend was a 
 sublime spectacle. Like a rock, firm and im- 
 moveable, he stood and met the charge of the 
 postilion ; in short, in the twinkling of an eye he 
 knocked the postilion down. Those who know 
 say that it is more trying to walk over a field of 
 battle after all is over than to be in the fight; 
 and I beheve it from my experience in our trying 
 passage of the Berezina ; for, when I picked up 
 the discomfited postilion, whose face was covered 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 245 
 
 with blood, I believe that I had the worst of it 
 All great victories are tested by their results, and 
 nothing could be more decisive than that over the 
 postilion. He arose a wiser and much more tract- 
 able man. At first he looked very stupid when 
 he saw me leaning over him, and very startled 
 when he rubbed his hand over his face and saw 
 it stained with blood ; but, raising himself, lie 
 caught sight of his victor, and without a word got 
 into the waggon, walked the horses over the 
 bridge, and at the other end got out and threw 
 himself on the ground. 
 
 It was a beautiful afternoon, and we hngered 
 on the bridge. Crossing it, we walked up the 
 bank on the opposite side toward the place where 
 Napoleon erected his bridges for the passage ol 
 his anny. All night the French worked at the 
 bridges by the light of the enemy's fires on the 
 opposite side. At daylight the fires were aban- 
 doned, and the Russians, supposing the attempt 
 here to be a feint, were seen in full retreat. The 
 emperor, impatient to get possession of the oppo- 
 site bank, pointed it out to the bravest. A French 
 aide-de-camp and Lithuanian count threw them- 
 selves into the river, and, in spite of the ice, which 
 cut their horses' breasts, reached the opposite 
 bank in safety. About one o'clock the bank on 
 which we stood was enth-ely cleared of Cos.<acks, 
 and the bridge for the infantry was finished. The 
 first division crossed it rapidly with its cannon, 
 the men shouting " Vive Vempereur ! " The 
 passage occupied three days. The number of 
 stragglers and the quantity of baggage were im- 
 mense. On the night of the twenty-seventh the 
 stragglers left the bridge, tore down the whole 
 village, and made fires with the materials, around 
 wliich they crouched theii- .shivering figures, and 
 from which it was impossible to tear themselves 
 away. At daylight they were roused by the 
 report of Witgenstein's cannon thundering over 
 their heads, and again all rushed tumultuously to 
 the bridges. The Russians, with Platow and his 
 Cossacks, were now in full communication on both 
 sides of the river. On the left bank. Napoleon's 
 own presence of mind and the bravery of his 
 soldiers gave him a decided superiority ; but, in 
 the language of Scott, the scene on the right bank 
 had become the wildest and most horrible which 
 war can exhibit. 
 
 "Victor, with eight or ten thousand men, 
 covered the retreat over the bridges; while behind 
 his fire thousands of stragglers, old men, women, 
 and children, were wandering by the side of this 
 river, like the fabled spectres which throng the 
 banks of the infernal Styx, seeking in vain for 
 passage. The balls of the Russians began to fall 
 among the disordered mass, and the whole body 
 rushed like distracted beings toward the bridges, 
 every feeling of prudence or humanity swallowed 
 up by the animal instinct of self-preservation. 
 The weak and helpless either shrank from the 
 fray and sat down to wait their fate at a distance, 
 or, mixing in it, were thrust over the bridges, 
 crushed under carriages, cut down with sabres, 
 or trampled to death under the feet of their coun- 
 trymen. All this while the action continued with 
 fnry; and, as if the heavens meant to match their 
 wrath with that of man, a hurricane arose and 
 added terrors to a scene which was already of a 
 character so di-eadful. About mid- day the lareer 
 
 bridge, constructed for artillery and heavy car- 
 riages, broke down, and multitudes were forced 
 into the water. The scream of the despairing 
 multitude became at this crisis for a moment so 
 universal, that it rose shrilly above the wild whist- 
 ling ofthe tempest and the sustained and redoubled 
 hurras of the Cossacks. The dreadful scene con- 
 tinued till dark. As the obscurity came on, Victor 
 abandoned the station he had defended so bravely,, 
 and led the remnant of his troops in their turn 
 across. All night the miscellaneous multitude con- 
 tinued to throng across the bridge under the fire- 
 of the Russian artillery. At day-break the French 
 engineers finally set fire to the bridge, and all that 
 remained on the other side, including many pri- 
 soners, and a great quantity of guns and baggage, 
 became the property of the Russians. The amount 
 of the French loss was never exactly known ; but 
 the Russian report concerning the bodies of the 
 invaders, which were collected and burned as soon 
 as the thaw permitted, states that upwards of 
 thirty-six thousand were found in the Berezina." 
 
 The whole of this scene was familiar to me as 
 matter of history ; the passage of the Berezina 
 had in some way fastened itself upon my mind as- 
 one of the most fearful scenes in the annals of 
 war ; and, besides this, at St. Petersburgh the 
 colonel and prince had given me a detailed account ^ 
 of the horrors of that dreadful night,for they were 
 both with Witgenstein's army, by the light of the 
 snow, the course of the river, and the noise, direct- 
 ing a murderous fire of artillery against the dark 
 mass moving over the bridge ; and nearer still, 
 my companion had visited the place in company 
 with his uncle, of the Polish legion, and repeated 
 to me the circumstances of individual horror which 
 he had heard from his relative, surpassing human 
 belief. The reader will excuse me if I have lin- 
 gered too long on the banks of that river ; and 
 perhaps, too, he will excuse me when I tell him 
 that, before leaving it, I walked down to its brink 
 and bathed my face in its waters. Others have- 
 done so at the classic streams of Italy and 
 Greece ; but I rolled over the Arno and the 
 Tiber in a vetturino without stopping, and tho 
 reader will remember that I jumped over thfr 
 Ilissus. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 Travel by Night. — A Rencounter. — A Traveller's mes- 
 sage Lithuania Poverty of the Country — Agricultural 
 
 Implements.— Minsk Polish Jews.— A Coin of Freedom. 
 
 —Riding in a Basket.- Brczc— The Bug.— A searching 
 Operation. — Women Labourers. — Warsaw. 
 
 It was after dark when we returned to our 
 waggon, still standing at the end of the bridge 
 oppositie Borizoff. Our postilion, like a sensible 
 man, had lain down to sleep at the head of his 
 horses, so they could not move without treading 
 on him and waking him ; and, when we roused 
 him, the pain of his beating was over, and with it 
 all sense of the indignity ; and, in fact, we made 
 him very grateful for the flogging by promising 
 him a few additional kopeks. 
 
 We hauled up the straw and seated ourselves 
 in the bottom of our kibitka. Night closed upon 
 us amid the gloomy forests borderiug tho banks of 
 the Bore>aiia, We tAjked inr a liMJn wliilo. am> 
 
.-21ti 
 
 INCIDENTS OP TfiAVEL 
 
 ly degrees drawing our cluaks around us, each 
 fell into a reverie. The continued tinkling of the 
 bell, which, on my first entering Russia, grated 
 <in my ear, had become agreeable to me, and in a 
 -dark night particularly was a pleasing sound. The 
 song of the postilion, too, harmonised with the 
 repose of spirit at that moment most grateful to 
 us ; that too died away, the bell almost ceased its 
 tinkling, and in spite of the alarm of war which 
 we had all day been ringing in our own ears, we 
 ■should probably soon have fallen into a sleep as 
 sound, for a little while at least, as that of them 
 who slept under the waters of the Berezina, but 
 we were suddenly roused by a shock as alarming 
 to quiet travellers as the hurra of the Cossack 
 hi the ears of the flying Frenchmen. Our horses 
 sprang out of the road, but not in time to avoid a 
 concussion with another waggon going towai'd 
 BorizoflF. Both postilions were thrown oflF their 
 seats ; and the stranger, picking himself up, came 
 at us with a stream of Lithuanian Russian almost 
 harsh enough to frighten the horses. I will not 
 suggest what its effect was upon us, but only that, 
 as to myself, it seemed at first equal to the voice 
 of at least a dozen freebooters and marauders ; and 
 if the English of it had been " stand and deliver," 
 I should probably have given up my carpet-bag 
 without asking to reserve' a change of linen. But 
 I was restored by the return fire of our postilion, 
 who drowned completely the attack of his adver- 
 sary by his outrageous clamour ; and when he 
 stopped to take breath my companion followed up 
 the defence, and this brought out a fourth voice 
 from the bottom of the opposite waggon. A truce 
 was called, and waving the question on which side 
 the fault lay, we all got out to ascertain the damage. 
 Our antagonist passenger was a German merchant, 
 used to roughing it twice every year between Ber- 
 lin, Warsaw, Petersburgh, and Moscow, and took 
 our smashing together at night in this desolate 
 forest as coolly as a rub of the shoulders in the 
 streets ; and, when satisfied that his waggon was 
 not injured, liindly asked us if we had any bones 
 broken. We returned his kind inquiries ; and, after 
 farther interchanges of politeness, he said that he 
 was happy to make our acquaintance, and invited 
 vs to come and see him at Berhn. Wc' wanted 
 liim to go back and let us have a look at him by 
 torchlight, but he declined ; and, after feeling him 
 stretched out in his bed in the bottom of his 
 waggon, we started him on his way. 
 
 We resumed our own places, and without dozing 
 again, arrived at the posthouse, where first of all 
 ive made ourselves agreeable to the postmaster by 
 •delivering our German friend's message to him, 
 that he ought to be whipped and condemned to 
 live where he was till he was a hundred years old, 
 for putting the neck of a traveller at the mercy of 
 a sleepy postilion ; but the postmaster was a Jew, 
 and thought the vile place where he lived equal 
 to any on earth. He was a miserable, squalid- 
 looking object, with a, pine torch in his hand 
 lighting up the poverty and filthiness of his 
 wretched habitation, and confessed that he should 
 be too happy to enjoy the fortune which the Ger- 
 man would have entailed upon him as a curse. He 
 ofi'ered to make us a bed of some dirty straw which 
 had often been slept on before ; but we shrank 
 trora it ; and, as soon as we could get horses, 
 returned to our kibitka and resumed our journey. 
 
 The whole province of Lithuania is much the 
 same in appearance. We lost nothing by travel- 
 ling through it at night ; indeed, every -itep that 
 we advanced was a decided gain, as it brought us 
 so much nearer its farthermost border. The vast 
 provinces of Lithuania, formerly a part of the 
 kingdom of Poland, and, since the partition of 
 that unhappy country, subject to the throne of 
 Russia, until the fourteenth century were inde- 
 pendeut of either. The Lithuanians and Samo^i- 
 tians are supposed to be of a different race from 
 the Poles, and spoke a language widely dissimilar 
 to the Polish or Russian Their religion was a 
 strange idolatry ; they worshipped the god of 
 thunder, and paid homage to a god of the harvest ; 
 they maintained priests, who were constantly 
 feeding a sacred fire in honour of the god of the 
 seasons ; they worshipped trees, fountains, and 
 plants ; had sacred serpents, and believed in 
 guardian spirits of trees, cattle, &c. Their govern- 
 ment, like that of all other barbarous nations, was 
 despotic, and the nobles were less numerous and 
 more tyrannical than in Poland. In the latter 
 part of the fourteenth century, on the death of 
 Louis, successor to Casimir the Great, Hedwiga 
 was called to the throne of Poland, under a stipu- 
 lation, however, that she should follow the will of 
 the Poles in the choice of her husband. Many 
 candidates ofi'ered themselves for the hand dowered 
 with a kingdom ; but the offers of Jagellon, duke 
 of Lithuania, were' most tempting ; he promised 
 to unite his extensive dominions to the territory 
 of Poland, and pledged himself for the conversion 
 to Christianity of his Lithuanian subjects. But 
 queens are not free from the infirmities of human 
 nature ; and Hedwiga had fixed her affections 
 upon her cousin, William of Austria, whom she 
 had invited into Poland ; and when Jagellon 
 came to take possession of his wife and crowu, she 
 refused to see him. The nobles, however, sent 
 William back to his papa, and locked her up as if 
 she had been a boarding-school miss. And again, 
 queens are not free from the infirmities of human 
 nature : Hedwiga was inconstant ; the handsome 
 Lithuanian made her forget her first love, and 
 Poland and Lithuania were united under one 
 crown. Jagellon was baptised, but the inhabitants 
 of Lithuania did not so readily embrace the Chris- 
 tian religion ; in one of the provinces they clung 
 for a long time to their own strange and wild 
 superstitions ; and even in modem times, it is said, 
 the peasants long obstinately refused to use ploughs 
 or other agricultural instruments furnished with 
 iron, for fear of wounding^the bosom of mother 
 Eai*th, 
 
 All theway from Borizoffthe road passes through 
 a country but Uttle cultivated, dreary, and covered 
 with forests. When Napoleon entered the_ pro- 
 vince of Lithuania his first bulletins proclaimed, 
 " Here, then, is that Russia so formidable at a 
 distance ! It is a desert for which its scattered 
 population is wholly insufiicient. They will be 
 vanquished by the very extent of territory which 
 ought to defend them;" and, before I had tra^ 
 veiled in it a day, I could appreciate the feeling 
 of the soldier from La Belle France, who hearing 
 his Polish comrades boast of their countiy, 
 exclaimed, « Et ces gueux U appellent ce pi>ys 
 une patrie!" 
 
 The villages are a miserable collection of strag- 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 247 
 
 jjliiig huts, without plan or arrangement, and 
 sepai'ated from each other by large spaces of 
 ground. They are about ten or twelve feet square, 
 made of the misshapen trunks of trees heaped on 
 each other, with the ends projecting over ; the 
 roof of large shapeless boards, and the window a 
 small hole in the wall, answering the double 
 purpose of admitting light and letting out smoke. 
 The tenants of these wretched hovels exhibit the 
 same miserable appearance both In person and 
 manners. They are hard-boned, and sallow-com- 
 plexioned ; the men wear coarse white woollen 
 frocks, and a round felt cap lined with wool, and 
 shoes made of the bark of trees, and their uncombed 
 hair hangs low over their heads, generally of a 
 flaxen colour. Their agricultural implements are 
 of the rudest kind. The plough and harrow are 
 made from the branches of the fir-tree, without 
 either iron or ropes ; their carts are put together 
 without iron, consisting of four small wheels, each 
 of a single piece of wood ; the sides are made of 
 tlie bark of a tree bent round, and the shafts are 
 a couple of fir branches ; their bridles and traces 
 platted from the bark of trees, or composed merely 
 of twisted branches. Their only instrument to 
 construct their huts and make their carts is a 
 hatchet. They were servile and cringing in their 
 expressions of respect, bowing down to the ground 
 and stopping their carts as soon as we came near 
 tliem, and stood with their caps in their hands till 
 we were out of sight. She whole country, except 
 in some open places around villages, is one immense 
 forest of firs, perhaps sixty feet in height, compact 
 and thick, but very slender. As we approached 
 Minsk the road was sandy, and we entered by a 
 wooden bridge over a small stream and along an 
 avenue of trees. 
 
 Minsk is one of the better class of Lithuanian 
 towns, being the chief town of the government of 
 Minsk, but very dirty and irregular. The prin- 
 cipal street terminates in a large open square 
 of grass and mean wooden huts. From this 
 another street goes off at right angles, containing 
 large houses, and joining with a second square, 
 where some of the principal buildings are of brick. 
 From this square several streets branch off, and 
 enter a crowd of wooden hovels irregularly huddled 
 together, and covering a large space of ground. 
 The churches are heavily constructed, and in a 
 style peculiar to Lithuania, their gable ends front- 
 ing the street, and terminated at each comer by 
 a square spire, with a low dome between them. 
 The population is half Catholic and half Jewish, 
 and the Jews are of the most filthy and abject 
 class. 
 
 A few words with regard to the Jews in Poland. 
 From the moment of crossing the borders of Lithu- 
 ania, I had remarked in evei'y town and village 
 swarms of people differing entirely from the other 
 mhabitants in physical appearance and costume, 
 and in whose sharply-drawn features, long beards, 
 and flowing dresses, with the coal-black eyes and 
 oriental costumes of the women, I at once recog- 
 nised the dispersed and wandering children of 
 Israel. On the second destruction of Jerusalem, 
 when the Roman general drove a plough over the 
 site of the Temple of Solomon, t?ie political exist- 
 ence of the Jewish nation was annihilated, their 
 /and was portioned out among strangers, and the 
 descendants of Abraham were forbidden to pollute 
 
 with their presence the holy city of their fathers. 
 In the Roman territories, their petition for the 
 reduction of taxation received the stern answer of 
 the Roman, " Ye demand exemption from tribute 
 for your soil ; I will lay it on the air you breathe ; " 
 and, in the words of the historian, " Dispersed and 
 vagabond, exiled from their native soil and air, 
 they wander over the face of the earth without 
 a king, either human or divine, and even as 
 strangers they are not permitted to saint* with 
 their footsteps their native land." History fur- 
 nishes no precise records of the emigration or of 
 the first settlement of the Israelites in the different 
 countries of Europe ; but for centuries they have 
 been found dispersed, as it was foretold they would 
 be, over the whole habitable world, a stiange, 
 unsocial, and isolated people, a living and con- 
 tinued miracle. At this day they are found in all 
 the civilised countries of Europe and America, in 
 the wildest regions of Asia and Africa, and even 
 within the walls of China ; but, after Palestine, 
 Poland is regarded as their Land of Promise ; and 
 there they present a more extraoi-dinary spectacle 
 than in any country where their i-ace is known. 
 Centuries have rolled on, revolutions have con- 
 vulsed the globe, new and -strange opinions have 
 disturbed the human race, but the Polish Jew 
 remains unchanged : the same as the dark super- 
 stition of the middle ages made him ; the same in 
 his outward appearance and internal dispositions, 
 in his physical and moral condition, as when he 
 fled thither for refuge from tlie swords of the 
 crusaders. 
 
 As early as the fourteenth century, great privi- 
 leges were secured to the Jews by Casimir the 
 Great, who styled them his "faithful and able 
 subjects," induced, according to the chronicles of 
 the times, like Ahasuerus of old, by the love 
 of a beautiful Esther. While in Germany, Italy 
 Spain, Portugal, and even in England and France, 
 their whole history is that of one continued perse- 
 cution, — oppressed by the nobles, anathematised 
 by the clergy, despised and abhorred by the popu- 
 lace, flying from city to city, arrested and tortured, 
 and burned alive, and sometimes destroying them- 
 selves by thousands to escape horrors worse than 
 death ! while all orders were arrayed in fierce 
 and implacable hatred against them, in Poland the 
 race of Israel found rest ; and there they remain 
 at this day, after centuries of residence, still a 
 distinct people, strangers and sojourners in the 
 land, mingling with their neighbours in the every- 
 day business of life, but never mingling their blood * 
 the direct descendants of the Israehtes who, three 
 thousand years ago, went out from the land of 
 Egypt ; speaking the same language, and practising 
 the laws delivered to Moses on the mountain of 
 Sinai ; mourning over their fallen temple, and still 
 looking for the Messiah who shall bring together 
 their scattered nation and restore their temporal 
 kingdom. 
 
 But notwithstanding the interest of their his- 
 tory and position, the Polish Jews are far from 
 being an interesting people ; they swarm abont 
 the villages and towns, intent on gain, and mono- 
 polising all the petty traffic of the country. Out 
 ward degradation has worked inward upon their 
 minds ; confined to base and sordid occupations, 
 their thoughts and feeUngs are contracted to their 
 stations, and the despise'* have become despicable. 
 
248 
 
 IN'CIDENTS OF TIIAA'EL 
 
 It was pvlncipally in his capacity of innl;eepcr 
 thai I became acquainted with the Polish Jew. 
 Tlie inn is generally a miserable hovel communi- 
 cating with, or a room partitioned off in one corner 
 of, a large shed serving as a stable and yard for 
 vehicles ; the entrance is under a low porch of 
 timber ; the floor is of dirt ; the furniture consists 
 of a long table, or two or three small ones, and 
 in one corner a bunch of straw, or sometimes a 
 few raised boards formed into a platfornj, with 
 straw spread over it, for beds ; at one end a narrow 
 door leads into a sort of hole filled with dirty 
 beds, old women, half-grown boys and girls, and 
 children not overburdened with garments, and so 
 filthy that, however fatigued, I never felt disposed 
 to venture among them for rest. Here the Jew, 
 assisted by a dirty-faced Rachel, with a keen and 
 anxious look, passes his whole day in serving out 
 to the meanest customers, beer, and hay, and corn ; 
 wrangling with and extorting money from intoxi- 
 cated peasants ; and, it is said, sometimes, after 
 the day's drudgery is over, retires at night to his 
 miserable hole to pore over the ponderous volumes 
 filled with rabbinical lore ; or sometimes his mind 
 takes a higher flight, meditating upon the nature 
 of the human soul ; its relation to the Divinity ; 
 the connexion between the spirit and the body ; 
 and indulging in the visionary hope of gaining, 
 by means of cabalistic form ilse, command over 
 the spirits of the aii-, the fire, the flood, and the 
 earth. 
 
 Though the days of bitter persecution and hatred 
 have gone by, the Jews are still objects of con- 
 tempt and loathing. Once I remember pointing 
 out to my postilion a beautiful Jewish girl, and, 
 with the fanatic spirit of the middle ages, him- 
 self one of the most degraded serfs in Poland, he 
 scorned the idea of marrying the fair daughter of 
 Israel. But this the Jew does not regard ; all he 
 asks is to be secured from the active enmity of 
 mankind, " Like the haughty Roman banished 
 from the world, the Israelite throws back the sen- 
 tence of banishment, and still retreats to the lofty 
 conviction that his race is not excluded as an un- 
 worthy, but kept apart as a sacred, people ; humi- 
 liated, indeed, but still hallowed, and reserved 
 for the sure though tardy fulfilment of the Divine 
 promises." 
 
 The Jews in Poland are still excluded from all 
 offices and honours, and from all the privileges 
 and distinctions of social life. Until the accession 
 of Nicolas, they were exempted from military 
 service on payment of a tax ; but since his time 
 they have been subject to the regular conscription. 
 They regard this as an alarming act of oppression, 
 for the boys are taken from their families at 
 twelve or thirteen, and sent to the army or the 
 common military school, where they imbibe notions 
 utterly at variance with the principles taught them 
 by their fathers ; and, probably, if the system 
 continues, another generation will work a great 
 change in the character of the Jews of Poland. 
 
 But to return to the Jews at Minsk. As usual, 
 they gathered around us before we were out of 
 our kibitka, laid hold of our baggage, and in 
 Hebrew, Lithuanian, and Polish, were clamorous 
 in off'ers of service. They were spare in figure, 
 dressed in high fur caps and long black muslin 
 gowns, .shining and glossy from long use, and tied 
 around the waist with a sash ; and here I re- 
 
 marked what has often been remarked by other 
 travellers, when the features were at rest, a style 
 of face and expression resembling the pictures of 
 the Saviour in the galleries in Italy. While my 
 companion was wranging for post-horses and 
 dinner, I strolled through the town alone,, that is 
 with a dozen Israehtes at my heels ; and on my 
 return I found an accession of the stiff-necked and 
 unbelieving race, one of whom arrested my atten- 
 tion by thrusting before me a silver coin. It was 
 not an antique, but it had in my eyes a greater 
 value than if it had been dug from the rums of a 
 buried city, and bore the image of Julius Ceesar. 
 On the breaking out of the late revolution, one of 
 the first acts of sovereignty exercised by the pro- 
 vincial government was to issue a national coin 
 stamped with the arms of the old kingdom of 
 Poland, the white eagle and the armed cavalier, 
 with an inscription around the rim, " God protect 
 Poland." When the revolution was crushed, with 
 the view of destroying in the minds of the Poles 
 every memento of their brief but glorious moment 
 of liberty, this coin was called in and suppressed, 
 and another substituted in its place, with the 
 Polish eagle, by way of insult, stamped in a small 
 character near the tip end of the wing of the 
 double-headed eagle of Russia. The coin offered 
 me by the Jew was one of the emission of the re- 
 volution, and my companion told me it was a rare 
 thing to find one. I bought it at the Jew's price, 
 and put it in my pocket as a memorial of a brave 
 and fallen people. 
 
 I will not inflict upon the reader the particulaw 
 of our journey through this dreary and unin- 
 teresting country. We travelled constantly, except 
 when we were detained for horses. We never 
 stopped at night, for there seldom was any shelter 
 on the road better than the Jews' inns, and even 
 in our kibitka we were better than there. But 
 unluckily, on the seventh day, our kibitka broke 
 down ; the off hind-wheel snapped in pieces, and 
 let us down rather suddenly in one of the auto- 
 crat's forests. Our first impulse was to congra- 
 tulate ourselves that this accident happened in 
 day-light ; and we had a narrow escape, for the 
 sun had hardly begun to find its way into the dark 
 forest. Fortunately, too, we were but two or 
 three versts from a posthouse. I had met with 
 such accidents at home, and rigged a small tree 
 (there being no such things as rails, property there 
 not being divided by rail fences) under the hind- 
 axle, supporting it on the front. We lighted our 
 pipes and escorted our crippled vehicle to the 
 posthouse, v/here we bought a wheel off another 
 waggon, much better than the old one, only about 
 two inches lower. This, however, was not so bad 
 as might be supposed, at least for me, who sat on 
 the upper side, and had the stout figure of ray 
 companion as a leaning-post. 
 
 At Sloghan, about two hundred versts from 
 Brezc, the frontier town of Poland, we sold our 
 kibitka for a breakfast, and took the char-de-poste, 
 or regular troika. This is the postboy's favourite 
 vehicle ; the body being made of twigs interlaced 
 like a long basket, without a particle of iron, and 
 so light that a man can lift up either end with one 
 hand. Our speed was increased wonderfully by 
 the change ; the horses fairly played with the 
 little car at their heels ; the drivers vied with each 
 other, and several posts in succession we made 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 349- 
 
 nearly twenty verets in an hour. It will probably 
 be difficult to throw the charm of romance around 
 tlie troika driver ; but he comes from the flower of 
 the peasantry ; his life, passed on the wild high- 
 ways, is not without its vicissitudes, and he is made 
 the hero of the Russian's favourite popular ballads : 
 Away, away, along the road 
 
 The gallant troika hounds ; 
 While 'neath the douga, sadly sweet. 
 
 Their \'aldai bell re&oundb."* 
 
 We passed the house of a very respectable sei- 
 gUL-ur who had married his own sister. We stopjied 
 at his village and talked of him with the post- 
 master, by whom he was considered » model of 
 the domestic virtues. The same day we passed 
 the chateau of a nobleman who wrote himself 
 cousin to the Emperore of Russia and Austria, 
 confiscated for the part he took in the late Polish 
 revolution : a melancholy-looking object, deserted 
 and falling to ruins, its owner wandering in exile 
 with a price upon his head. It rained hard 
 during the day, for the first time since we left 
 Petei'sburgh ; at night the rain ceased, but the 
 sky was still overcast. For a long distance, and, 
 in fact, a great part of the way from Petersburgh, 
 the road was bordered with trees. At eleven 
 o'clock we stopped at a wretched posthouse, boiled 
 water, and refreshed ourselves with deep potations 
 of hot tea. We mounted our troika, the postiUon 
 shouted, and set off on a run. Heavy clouds were 
 hanging in the sky ; it was so dark that we could 
 not see the horses, and there was some little 
 danger of a break-down ; but there was a high and 
 wild excitement in hurrying swiftly through the 
 darkness on a run, hearing the quick tinkling of 
 a bell and the regular fall of the horses' hoofs, 
 and seeing only the dark outline of the trees. 
 We continued this way all night, and toward 
 morning we were rattling on a full gallop through 
 the streets of Brezc. We drove into a large stable- 
 yard filled with kibitkas, troikas, and all kinds of 
 Russian vehicles, at one end of which was a long 
 low building kept by a Jew. We dismounted, 
 andso ended nearly three thousand miles of posting 
 in Russia. The Jew, roused by our noise, was 
 ah-eady at the door with a lighted taper in his 
 hand, and gave us a room with a leather-covered 
 sofa and a leather cushion for a pillow, where we 
 slept till eleven o'clock the next day. 
 
 We breakfasted, and in the midst of a violent 
 ram crossed the Bug, and entered the territory of 
 Poland Proper. For many centuries, the banks 
 of the Bug have been the battle-ground of the 
 Russians and Poles. In the tune of Boleslaus the 
 Terrible, the Russians were defeated there with 
 great slaughter, and the river was so stained with 
 blood that it has retained ever since the name of 
 the Horrid. Before crossiiig we were obliged to 
 exchange our Russian money for Polish rubles 
 "nd florins, losing, of course, heavily by the oper- 
 ation, besides being subjected to the bore of study- 
 ing a new currency ; and the moment we planted 
 our feet on the conquered territory, though now 
 nominally under the same government, we were 
 obliged to submit to a most vexatious process. 
 The custom-house stood at the end of the bridge, 
 ^n d, as matt er of course our postilion stopped 
 
 * The ilouga is the bow over the neck of the middle 
 horse, to which the bell is attached ; and Valdai the place 
 ■^n the Moscow road where the best bells are made. 
 
 there. Our luggage was taken off the waggon, 
 carried inside, every article taken out and laid on 
 the floor, and a Russian soldier stood over, com- 
 paring them with a list of prohibited articles as 
 long as my arm. Fortunately for me, the Russian 
 government had not prohibited travellers from 
 wearing pantaloons and shirts in Poland, though 
 it came near faring hard with a morning-gown. 
 My companion, however, suffered terribly ; his 
 wearing apparel was all laid out on one side, 
 while a large collection of curious and pretty 
 nothings, which he had got together with great 
 affection at the capital, as memorials ^for his 
 friends at home, were laid out separately, boxes 
 opened, papers unrolled, and, with provoking 
 deliberation, examined according to the list of 
 prohibited things. It was a new and despotic 
 regulation unknown to him, and he looked on in 
 agony, every condemned article being just the one 
 above all others which he would have saved ; and 
 when they had finished, a large pile was retained 
 for the examination of another ofiicer, to be sent 
 on to Warsaw in case of their being allowed to 
 pass at all. I had frequently regretted having 
 allowed the trouble and inconvenience to prevent 
 my picking up curiosities ; but when I saw the 
 treasures of my friend taken from him, or, at 
 least, detained for an uncertain time, I congratu- 
 lated myself upon my good fortune. My friend 
 was a man not easily disheartened ; he had even 
 got over the loss of his love at St. Petersburgh ; 
 but he would rather have been turned adrift in 
 Poland without his pantaloons than be stripped of 
 his precious baubles. I had seenhim roused several 
 times on the road, quarrelling with postmasters 
 and thumping postilions, but I had never before 
 seen the full development of that extraordinary 
 head of hair. He ground his teeth and cursed the 
 whole Russian nation, from the Emperor Nicolas 
 down to the soldier at the custom-house. He was 
 ripe for revolution, and, if a new standard of 
 rebellion had been set up in Poland, he would 
 have hurried to range himself under its folds. I 
 soothed him by striMng the key-note of his heart. 
 All the way from St. Petersburgh he had sat 
 mechanically, with his pocket-glass and brush, 
 dressing his mustaches ; but his heart was not in 
 the work, until, as we approached the borders of 
 Poland, he began to recover from his Petersburgh 
 affair, and to talk of the beauty of the Polish women. 
 I turned him to this now. 
 
 It is a fact that, while for ages a deadly hatred 
 has existed between the Russians and the Poles, 
 and while the Russians are at this day lording it 
 over the Poles with the most arbitrary insolence 
 and tyranny, beauty still asserts its lawful supre- 
 macy, and the Polish women bring to their feet 
 the conquerors of their fathers, and husbands, and 
 brothers. The first posthouse at which we stopped 
 confirmed all that my companion had said ; for 
 the postmaster's daughter was brilliantly beautiful, 
 particularly in the melting wildness of a, dark eye> 
 indicating an Asiatic or Tartar origin ; and her 
 gentle influence was exerted in soothing the savage 
 humour of my friend, for she sympathised in his 
 misfortunes, and the more sincerely when she 
 heard of the combs, and rings, and slippers, and 
 other pretty little ornaments for sisters and female 
 friends at home ; and my Pole could not resist the 
 sympathy of a pretty woman. 
 R 
 
250 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 We had scarcely ieft the postmaster's daughter, 
 on the threshold of Poland, almost throwing a 
 romance about the Polish women, before I saw 
 the most degrading spectacle I ever beheld in 
 Europe, or even in the barbarous countries of the 
 East. Forty or fifty women were at work in the 
 fields, and a large, well-dressed man, with a pipe 
 in his mouth and a long stick in his hand, was 
 walking among them as overseer. In our country 
 the most common labouring man would revolt at 
 the idea of his wife or daughter working in the 
 open fields. I had seen it, however, in gallant 
 France and beautiful Italy ; but I never saw, even 
 in the barbarous countries of the East, -so de- 
 grading a spectacle as this ; and 1 could have 
 borne it almost anywhere better than ia chivabic 
 Poland. 
 
 We were now in the territory called Poland 
 Proper ; that is, in that part which, after the 
 other provinces had been wrested away and 
 attached to the dominions of the colossal powers 
 around, until the revolution and conquest of 1 830 
 had retained the cherished name of the kingdom 
 of Poland The whole road is macadamised, 
 smooth and level as a floor, from the banks of 
 the Bug to Warsaw ; the posthouses and post- 
 masters are much better, and posting is better 
 regulated, though more expensive. The road lay 
 through that rich agricultural district which had 
 for ages made Poland celebrated as the granary 
 of Europe ; and though the face of the country 
 was perfectly flat, and the scenery tame and un- 
 interesting, the soil was rich, and at that time, 
 in many places, teeming with heavy crops. As 
 yet, it had not recovered from the desolating 
 effects of the war of the revolution. The whole 
 road had been a battle-ground, over which the 
 Poles had chased the Russians to the frontier, 
 and been driven back to Warsaw ; time after 
 time it had been drenched with Russian and 
 Polish blood, the houses and villages sacked and 
 burned, and their blackened ruins still cumbered 
 the ground, nursing in the conquered but un- 
 subdued Pole his deep, undying hatred of the 
 Russians. 
 
 On this road Diebitsch, the crosser of the Balkan, 
 at the head of eighty thousand men, advanced to 
 Warsaw. His right and left wings manoeuvred 
 to join him at Siedler, the principal town, through 
 which we passed. We changed horses three times, 
 and rolled on all night without stopping. In the 
 morning my companion pointed out an old oak, 
 where a distinguished colonel of the revolution, 
 di-awiug up the fourth Polish regiment against the 
 Imperial Guards, with a feeling of mortal hate 
 commanded them to throw away their primings, 
 and charge with the bayonet, " coeur-i-cceur." In 
 another place, five hundred gentlemen, dressed in 
 black, with pumps, silk stockings, and small swords, 
 in a perfect wantonness of pleasure at fighting with 
 the Russians, and, as they said, in the same spirit 
 with which they would go to a ball, threw them- 
 selves upon a body of the guards, and, after the 
 most desperate fighting, were cut to pieces to a 
 man. Farther on, a little off from the road, on the 
 borders of the field of Grokow, was a large mound 
 covered with black crosses, thrown up over the 
 graves of the Poles who had fallen there. About 
 eleven o'clock^ we approached the banks of the 
 Vistula. We parsed the suburbs of Praga, the 
 
 last battle-ground of Kosciusko, where the blood, 
 stained Suwarrow butchered in cold blood thirty 
 thousand Poles. Warsaw lay spread out on the 
 opposite bank of the river, the heroic but fallen 
 capital of Poland, the city of brave men and beau- 
 tiful women ; of Stanislaus, and Sobiesld, and 
 Poniatowsky, and Kosciusko, and, I will not with- 
 hold it, possessing, in my eyes, a romantic interest 
 from its associations with the hero of my schoolboy 
 days, Thaddeus of Warsaw. On the right is the 
 chateau of the old kings of Poland, now occupied 
 by a Russian viceroy, with the banner of Russia 
 waving over its walls. We rode over the bridge 
 and entered the city. Martial music was sounding, 
 and Russian soldiers, Cossacks, and Cu-cassians 
 were filing through its streets. We held up to let 
 them pass, and they moved like the keepers of a 
 conquered city, with bent brows and stern faces, 
 while the citizens looked at them in gloomy silence. 
 We drove up to the Hotel de Leipsic (which, 
 however, I do not recommend), where I took a 
 bath and a doctor. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Warsaw.— A Polish Doctor.— Battle of Grokow The 
 
 Outbreak —The fatal Issue — Present Condition of Poland, 
 —Polish Exiles. — Aspect of Warsaw.— Traits of the Polsa. 
 
 A LETTER dated at Warsaw to my friends at 
 home begins thus : " I have reached this place to 
 be put on my back by a Polish doctor. How long 
 he will keep me here I do not know. He promisee 
 to set me going again in a week ; and, as he has 
 plenty of patients without keeping me down, I 
 have great confidence in him. Besides, having 
 weathered a Greek, an Annenian, and a Russian, 
 I tiiink I shall be too much for a Pole." There 
 was not a servant in the house who understood 
 any language I spoke, and my friend kindly pro- 
 posed my taking a room with him ; and, as he 
 'lad many acquaintances in Warsaw, who thronged 
 to see him, he had to tell them all the history of 
 the American in the bed in one corner. All the 
 next day I lay in the room alone on a, low bed- 
 stead, looking up at the ceiling and counting the 
 cracks in the wall. I was saved from a fit of the 
 blues by falling into a passion, and throwing my 
 boots at the servant because he could not under- 
 stand me. Late in the evening my friend returned 
 from the theatre with three or four companions, 
 and we made a night of it, I taking medicine and 
 they smoking pipes. They were all excellent fel- 
 lows, and, as soon as they heard me moving, came 
 over to me, and, when I fell back on my pillow, 
 covered me up, and went back, and talked till I 
 wanted them again. Toward daylight I fell asleep, 
 and, whan the doctor came in the morning, felt 
 myself a new man. My doctor, by-the-way, was 
 not a Pole, but » German, physician to the court, 
 and the first in Warsaw ; he occupied a Uttle 
 country-seat a few miles fi-om Warsaw, belonging 
 to Count Nympsiewitch, the poet and patriot, who 
 accompanied Kosciusko to our country, and mar- 
 ried a lady of New Jersey ; returned with him to 
 Poland, was with him on his last battle-field, and 
 almost cut to pieces by his side.. 
 
 In the afternoon, one of my companions of the 
 night before came to see me. He had been u) 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 251 
 
 ) 
 
 Warsaw during the revolution, and talked with 
 enthusiasm of their brief but gallant struggle ; and, 
 as it was a beautiful afternoon, proposed strolling 
 to a little eminence near at hand, commanding a 
 view of the first battle-ground. I went with him, 
 and he pointed out on the other side of the Vistula 
 the field of Grokow. Below it was the bridge over 
 which General Roraarino carried his little army 
 during the night, having covered the bridge, the 
 horses' hoofs, and the wheels of the carriages with 
 straw. This general is now in France under 
 sentence of death, with a price set upon bis head. 
 
 The battle of Grokow, the greatest in Europe 
 since that of Waterloo, was fought on the twenty- 
 fifth of February 1831, and the place where I 
 stood commanded a view of the whole ground. 
 The Russian army was under the command of 
 Diebitsch, and consisted of one hundred and forty- 
 two thousand infantry, forty thousand cavalry, and 
 three hundred and twelve pieces of cannon. This 
 enormous force was arranged in two lines of com- 
 batants, and a third of reserve. Its left wing, 
 between Wavre and the marshes of the Vistula, 
 consisted of four divisions of infantry of forty-seven 
 thousand men, three of cavalry of ten thousand 
 five hundred, and one hundred and eight pieces of 
 cannon ; the right consisted of three and a half 
 divisions of infantry of thirty-one thousand men, 
 four divisions of cavalry of fifteen thousand seven 
 hundi-ed and fifty men, and fifty-two pieces of 
 cannon. Upon the borders of the great forest 
 opposite the Forest of Elders, conspicuous from 
 where I stood, was placed the reserve, commanded 
 by the Grand-duke Constantine. Against this 
 immense army the Poles opposed less than fifty 
 thousand men and a hundred pieces of cannon, 
 under the command of General Skrzynecki. 
 
 At break of day the whole force of the Russian 
 right wmg, with a terrible fire of fifty pieces of 
 artillery and columns of infantry, charged the 
 Polish left with the determination of carrying it 
 by a single and overpowering eS'ort. The Poles, 
 with six thousand five hundred men and twelve 
 pieces of artillery, not yielding a foot of ground, 
 and knowing they could hope for no succour, 
 resisted this attack for several hours, until the 
 Russians slackened their fire. About ten o'clock 
 the plain was suddenly covered with the Russian 
 forces issuing from the cover of the forest, seeming 
 one undivided mass of troops. Two hundred 
 pieces of cannon, posted on a single line, com- 
 menced a fire which made the earth tremble, and 
 was more terrible than the oldest officers, many 
 of whom had fought at Marengo and Austerlitz, 
 had ever beheld. The Russians now made an 
 attack upon the right wing ; but foiled in this as 
 upon the left, Diebitsch directed the strength of 
 his array against the Forest of Elders, hoping to 
 divide the Poles into two parts. One hundred and 
 twenty pieces of cannon were brought to bear on 
 this one point, and fifty battalions, incessantly 
 pushed to the attack, kept up a scene of massacre 
 unheard of in the annals of war. A Polish officer 
 who was in the battle told me that the small 
 streamswhich intersected the forest were so choked 
 with dead that the infantry marched directly over 
 •their bodies. The heroic Poles, with twelve bat- 
 talions, for four hours defended the forest against 
 the tremendous attack. Nine times they were 
 Iriven out, and nine tiipes, hv a series of admirably 
 
 executed manoBUvres, they repulsed the Russians 
 with immense loss. Batteries, now concentrated 
 in one point, were in a moment hurried to another, 
 and the artillery advanced to the charge like 
 cavalry, sometimes within a hundred feet of the 
 enemy's columns, and there opened a murderous 
 fire of grape. 
 
 At three o'clock the generals, many of whom 
 were wounded, and most of whom had their horses 
 shot under them, and fought on foot at the head 
 of their divisions, resolved upon a retrograde 
 movement, so as to draw the Russians on the open 
 plain. Diebitsch, supposing it to be a flight, looked 
 over to the city and exclaimed, " Well, then, it 
 appears that, after this bloody day, I shall take 
 tea in the Belvidere Palace." The Russian troops 
 debouched from the forest. A cloud of Russian 
 cavalry, with several regiments of heavy cuiras- 
 siers at their head, advanced to the attack. 
 Colonel Pientka, who had kept up an unremitting 
 fire from his battery for five hours, seated with 
 perfect sang-froid upon a disabled piece of cannon, 
 remained to give another efiective fire, then left 
 at full gallop a post which he had so long occupied 
 under the terrible fire of the enemy's artillery. 
 This rapid movement of his battery animated the 
 Russian forces. The cavalry advanced on a tro* 
 upon the Une of a battery of rockets. A terrible 
 discharge was poured into their ranks, and the 
 horses, galled to madness by the flakes of fire, 
 became wholly ungovernable, and broke away, 
 spreading disorder in every direction ; the whole 
 body swept helplessly along the fire of the Polish 
 infantry, and in a few minutes was so completely 
 annihilated that, of a regiment of cuirassiers who 
 bore inscribed on their helmets the " Invincibles," 
 not a man escaped. The wreck of the routed 
 cavalry, pursued by the lancers, carried along in 
 its flight the columns of infantry ; a general retreat 
 commenced, and the cry of " Poland for ever " 
 reached the walls of Warsaw to cheer the hearts 
 of its anxious inhabitants. So terrible was the 
 fire of that day, that in the Polish army there was 
 not a single general or staff officer who had not 
 his horse killed or wounded under him ; two-thirds 
 of the officers, and perhaps of the soldiers, had 
 their clothes pierced with balls, and more than a 
 tenth part of the army were wounded. Thirty 
 thousand Russians and ten thousand Poles were 
 left on the field of battle; rank upon rank lay 
 prostrate on the earth, and the Forest of Elders 
 was so strewed with bodies that it received from 
 that day the name of the " Forest of the Dead." 
 The czar heard with dismay, and all Europe with 
 astonishment, that the crosser of the Balkan had 
 been foiled under the walls of Warsaw. 
 
 All day, my companion said, the cannonading 
 was terrible. Crowds of citizens, of both sexes 
 and all ages, were assembled on the spot where 
 we stood, earnestly watching the progress of the 
 battle, sharing in all its vicissitudes, in the highest 
 state of excitement as the clearing up of the 
 columns of smoke showed when the Russians or 
 the Poles had fled ; and he described the entry of 
 the remnant of the Polish array into Warsaw as 
 sublime and terrible ; their hair and faces were 
 begrimed with powder and blood ; their armour 
 shattered and broken, and all, even dying men, 
 were singing patriotic songs ; and when the fourth 
 regiment, among whom was a brother of my com- 
 
■2yz 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 panion. and who had pai-ti'jularly distinguished 
 themselves in the battle, crossed the bridge and 
 filed slowly through the streets, their lances 
 shivered against the cuirasses of the guards, their 
 helmets broken, their faces black and spotted 
 with blood, some erect, some tottering, and some 
 barely able to sustain themselves in the saddle, 
 above the stern chorus of patriotic songs rose the 
 distracted cries of mothers, wives, daughters, and 
 lovers, seeking among this broken band for forms 
 dearer than life, many of whom were then sleep- 
 ing on the battle-field. My companion told me 
 that he was then a lad of seventeen, and had 
 begged with tears to be allowed to accompany his 
 brother ; but his widowed mother extorted from 
 him a promise that he would not attempt it. All 
 day he had stood with his mother on the very 
 spot where we did, his baud in hers, which she 
 grasped convulsively, as every peal of cannon 
 seemed the knell of her son ; and when the lancers 
 passed, she sprang from his side as she recognised 
 in the drooping figure of an officer, with his spear 
 broken in his hand, the figure of her gallant boy. 
 He was then reeling in his saddle, his eye was 
 glazed and vacant, and he died that night in their 
 arms. 
 
 The tyranny of the Grand-duke Constantine, 
 the imperial viceroy, added to the hatred of the 
 Russians, which is the birthright of every Pole, 
 induced the unhappy revolution of eighteen hun- 
 dred and thirty. Although, on the death of Alex- 
 ander, Constantine waived in favour of his brother 
 Nicolas his claim to the throne of Russia, his rule 
 in Poland shov/s that it was not from any avereiou 
 to the exercise of power. 
 
 When Constantine was appointed its com- 
 mander-in-chief, the Polish army ranked with the 
 bravest in Europe. The Polish legions under 
 Dombrowski and Poniatowski had kept alive the 
 recollections of the military glory of their fallen 
 nation. Almost annihilated by the bloody battles 
 in Italy, where they met their old enemies under 
 Suwarrow, the butcher of Praga, the proud rem- 
 nants reorganised and fonned the fifth corps of 
 the " grande armee," distinguished themselves at 
 Smolensk, Borodino, Kalouga, and the passage of 
 the Berezina, took the field with the wreck of the 
 army in Saxony, fought at Dresden and Leipsic, 
 and, when Napoleon told them, brave as they were, 
 that they were free to go home if they pleased, 
 they scorned to desert him in his waning fortunes, 
 and accompanied him to Paris. Alexander pro- 
 mised an amnesty, and they marched with him to 
 Warsaw. Within the first six months many 
 officers of this army had been grossly insulted ; 
 an eye-witness told me that he had seen, on the 
 great square of Warsaw, the high-sheriff tear off 
 the epaulettes from the shoulders of an officer, 
 and, in the presence of the whole troops, strike 
 him on the cheek with his hand. 
 
 It would, perhaps, be unjust to enumerate, as 
 1 heard them, the many causes of oppression that 
 roused to revolt the slumbering spirit of the Poles ; 
 in the midst of which the French Revolution 
 threw all Poland into commotion. The three 
 days of July were hailed with rapture by every 
 patriotic heart ; the new revolutionary movements 
 in Belgium cheered them on ; and eighty young 
 men, torn from the altars while praying for the 
 snule of tl.eir murdered countrymen on the anni- 
 
 versary of the butchery at Praga, thrilled every 
 heart and hurried the hour of retribution. The 
 enthusiasm of youth struck the first blow. A 
 band of ardent young men of the first families 
 attended the meetings of secret patriotic associa- 
 tions ; and six of them, belonging to the military 
 school, suspecting they were betrayed, early in 
 the evening went to their barracks, and proposed 
 to their comrades a plan for Uberating their coun- 
 try. The whole corps, not excepting one sick in 
 bed, amounting in all to about a hundred and 
 fifty, took up arms, and under a lieutenant of 
 nineteen, attacked the palace of Constantine, and 
 almost secured his person.'" The grand-duke was 
 then asleep on a couch in a room opening upon a 
 corridor of the Belvidere Palace, and, roused by 
 a faithful valet, had barely time to throw a robe 
 over him and fly. The insurgents, with cries of 
 vengeance, rushed into the interior of the palace, 
 driving before them the chief of the city-police 
 and the aide-de-camp of the grand-duke. The 
 latter had the presence of mind to close the door 
 of the grand-duke's apartment, before he was 
 pierced through with a dozen bayonets. The 
 wife of the grand-duke, the beautiful and interest- 
 ing princess for whom he had sacrificed a crown, 
 hearing the struggle, was found on her knees offer- 
 ing up prayers to Heaven for the safety of her 
 husband. Consta,ntine escaped by a window ; 
 and the young soldiers, foiled in their attempt, 
 marched into the city, and, passing the barracks 
 of the Russian guards, daringly fired a volley to 
 give notice of their coming. Entering the city, 
 they broke open the prisons and hberated the 
 state prisoners, burst into the theatres, crying out, 
 " Women, home ! men, to arms !" forced the arse- 
 nal, and in two hours forty thousand men were 
 under arms. Very soon the fourth Polish regi- 
 ment joined them ; and before midnight, the re- 
 mainder of the Polish troops in Warsaw, declai-ing 
 that their children were too deeply implicated to 
 be abandoned, espoused the popular cause. Some 
 excesses were committed ; and General Stanislaus 
 Potocki, distinguished in the revolution of Kosci- 
 usko, for hesitating was killed, exclaimmg with 
 his last breath that it was dreadful to die by the 
 hands of his countrj'men. 
 
 Chlopicki, the comrade of Kosciusko, was pro- 
 claimed dictator by an immense multitude in the^ 
 Champ de Mars. For some time the inhabitants 
 of Warsaw were in a dehrium ; the members of 
 the patriotic association, and citizens of all classes, 
 assembled every day, carrying arms, and with 
 glasses in then- hands, in the saloon of the thea- 
 tre and at a celebrated coffee-house, discussing 
 politics and singing patriotic songs. In the thea- 
 tres the least allusion brought down thunders of 
 applause, and at the end of the piece heralds 
 appeared on the stage waving the banners of the 
 dismembered provinces. In the pit they sang m 
 chorus national hymns; the boxes answered them; 
 and sometimes the spectators finished by scahng 
 the stage and dancing the Mazurka and the Cra- 
 coviak. 
 
 The fatal issue of this revolution is well kno™. 
 The PoUsh nation exerted and exhausted its utmost 
 strength, and the whole force of the colossal empire j 
 was brought against it, and, in spite of prodigies ot 
 valour, crushed it. The moment, the only moment 
 when gallant, chivalric, and lieruic Poland eouloi 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 ...3 
 
 have been saved and restored to its rank among 
 nations, was suffered to pass by, and no one came 
 to her aid. The minister of France threw out 
 the bold boast that a hundred thousand men stood 
 ready to march to her assistance ; but France and 
 all Europe looked on and saw her fall. Her ex- 
 piring diet ordered a levy in mass, and made tx 
 last appeal, " In the name of God ; in the name 
 of liberty; of a nation placed between life and 
 death ; in the name of kings and heroes who have 
 fuu"ht for religion and humanity ; in the name of 
 future generations ; in the name of justice and 
 the deliverance of Europe ;" but her dying appeal 
 was unheard. Her last battle was under the walls 
 of Warsaw ; and then she would not have fallen, 
 but even in Poland there were traitors. The 
 governor of Warsaw blasted the laurels won in 
 ithe early battles of the revolution by the blackest 
 treason. He ordered General Romarino to with- 
 draw eight thousand soldiers and chase the Rus- 
 sians beyond the frontier at Brezc. While he was 
 gone, the Russians pressed Warsaw ; he could 
 have returned in time to save it, but was stopped 
 with directions not to advance until farther orders. 
 In the mean time Warsaw fell, with the curee of 
 every Pole upon the head of its governor. The 
 trator now lives ingloriously in Russia, disgraced 
 and despised, while the young lieutenant is an 
 unhappy but not unhonoured exile in Siberia. 
 
 So ended the last heroic struggle of Poland. 
 It is dreadful to think so, but it is greatly to be 
 ifeared that Poland is blotted for ever from the 
 lUt of nations. Indeed, by a late imperial ukase, 
 Poland is expunged from the map of Europe ; her 
 ■old and noble families are murdered, imprisoned, 
 ■or in exile ; her own language is excluded from 
 the offices of government, and even from the pub- 
 lic schools ; her national character destroyed ; her 
 mational dress proscribed ; her national colours 
 trampled under foot ; her national banner, the 
 white eagle of Poland, is in the dust. Warsaw is 
 abandoned, and become a Russian city ; her best 
 -citizens are wandering in exile in foreign lands, 
 while Cossack and Circassian soldiers are filing 
 through her streets, and the banner of Russia is 
 waving over her walls. 
 
 Perhaps it is not relevant, but I cannot help 
 saymg, that there is no exaggeration in the stories 
 which reach us at our own doors of the misfortunes 
 ■and sufferings of Polish exiles. I have met them 
 'Wandering in many different countries, and par- 
 'ticularly I remember one at Cairo. He had 
 fought during the whole PoUsh revolution, and 
 made his escape when Warsaw fell. He was a 
 man of about thirty-five years of age, dressed in a 
 Horn military frock-coat, and carrying himself with 
 a manly and' martial air. He had left a wife and 
 two children at Warsaw. At Constantinople he 
 had written to the emperor requesting permission 
 to return, and even promising never again to take 
 up arms against Russia, but had received for 
 ■answer that the amnesty was over and the day of 
 ^race was past ; and the unfortunate Pole was 
 then wandering about the world like a cavalier of 
 Inrtune or a knight of romance, with nothing to 
 <Iepend upon but his sword. He had offered his 
 >services to the sultan and to the pacha of Egypt ; 
 Jie was then poor, and, with the bearing of a 
 ■gentleman and the pride of a soldier, was literally 
 iiegging his bread. I could sympathise in the 
 
 misfortunes of an exiled Pole, and felt that his 
 distress must indeed be great, that he who hac 
 perilled life and ties dearer than life in the cause 
 of an oppressed country, should offer his untar- 
 nished sword to the greatest despot that ever 
 lived. 
 
 The general appearance of Warsaw is imposing. 
 It stands on a hill of considerable elevation on the 
 left bank of the Vistula ; the Zamech, or chateau 
 of the kings of Poland, spreads its wings midway 
 between the river and the summit of the hill, and 
 churches and towering spires checker at different 
 heights the distant horizon. Most of the houses 
 are built of stone, or brick stuccoed ; they are 
 numbered in one continued series throughout the 
 city, beginning from the royal palace (occupied 
 by Paakiewitch), which is numbered one, and 
 rising above number ^oe thousand. The churches 
 are numerous and magnificent ; the palaces, public 
 buildings, and many of the mansions of noblemen, 
 are on a large scale, very showy, and, in general, 
 striking for their architectural designs. One great 
 street runs irregularly through the whole city, of 
 which Miodowa, or Honey-street, and the Novoy 
 Swiat, or New World, are the principal and mosl 
 modern portions. As in all aristocratic cities, the 
 streets are badly paved, and have no trottoirs for 
 the foot-passengers. The Russian drosky is in 
 common use ; the public carriages are like those 
 in Western Europe, though of a low form ; the 
 linings generally painted red ; the horses large 
 and handsome, with large collars of red or green, 
 covered with small brass rings, which sound like 
 tinkling bells ; and the carts are like those in our 
 own city, only longer and lower, and more like 
 our brewers' di-ay. The hotels are numerous, 
 generally kept in some of the old palaces, and at 
 the entrance of each stands a large porter, wi ch 
 a cocked hat and silver-headed cane, to show 
 travellers to theii- apartments and receive the 
 names of visiters. There are two principal kukier- 
 nia, something like the French cafes, where many 
 of the Varsovians breakfast and lounge in the 
 mornings. 
 
 The I?oles, in their features, looks, customs, 
 and manners, resemble Asiatics rather than Euro- 
 peans ; and they are, no doubt, descended from 
 Tartar ancestors. Though belonging to the Scla- 
 vonic race, which occupies nearly the whole extent 
 of the vast plains of Eastern Europe, they have 
 advanced more than the others from the rude and 
 barbarous state which characterises :nis race ; 
 and this is particularly manifest at W arsaw. An 
 eye-witness, describing the appearance of the 
 Polish deputies at Paris sent to announce the 
 election of Henry of Anjou as successor of Sigis- 
 mund, says, " It is impossible to describe the 
 general astonishment when we saw these ambas- 
 sadors in long robes, fur caps, sabres, arrows, and 
 quivers ; but our admiration was excessive when 
 we saw the sumptuousness of their equipages ; the 
 scabbards of their swords adorned with jewels ; 
 their bridles, saddles, and horse-cloths, decked in 
 the same way," &c. 
 
 But none of this barbaric display is now seen in 
 the streets of Warsaw. Indeed, immediately on 
 entering it, I was struck with the European aspect 
 of things. It seemed almost, though not quite, 
 like a city of Western Europe, which may, perhaps, 
 be ascribed, in a great measure, to the entire 
 
25i 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TB.AYEL 
 
 absence of the semi-Asiatic costumes so prevalent 
 in all the cities of Russia, and even at St. Peters- 
 burgh ; and the only thing I remarked peeuUar in 
 the dress of the inhabitants was the remnant of a 
 barbarous taste for show, exhibiting itself in large 
 breast-pins, shirt-buttons, and gold chains over 
 the vest; the mustache is universally worn. During 
 the war of the revolution immediately succeeding 
 our own, Warsaw stood the heaviest brunt ; and 
 when Kosciusko fell fighting before it, its popula- 
 tion was reduced to seventy five thousand. Since 
 that time it has increased, and is supposed now to 
 be one hundred and forty thousand, thirty thousand 
 of whom are Jewai Calamity after calamity has 
 befallen Warsaw ; still its appearance is that of a 
 gay city. Society consists altogether of two dis- 
 tinct and distant orders, the nobles and the pea- 
 santry, without any intermediate degrees. I ex- 
 cept, of course, the Jews, who form a large item 
 in her population, and whose long beards, thin and 
 anxious faces, and piercing eyes, met me at every 
 corner of Warsaw. The peasants are in the lowest 
 stage of mental degradation. The nobles, who 
 are more numerous than in any other country in 
 Europe, have always, in the eyes of the public, 
 formed the people of Poland. They are brave, 
 prompt, frank, hospitable, and gay, and have long 
 been called the French of the North, being French 
 in their habits, fond of amusements, and living in 
 the open air, like the lounger in the Palais-Royal, 
 the Tuileries, the Boulevards, and Luxembourg, 
 and particularly French in their political feelings, 
 the surges of a revolution in Paris being always 
 felt at Warsaw. They regard the Germans with 
 mingled contempt and aversion, calling them 
 ** dumb " in contrast with their own fluency and 
 loquacity ; and before their fall were called by 
 their neighbours the " proud Poles." They con- 
 sider it the deepest disgrace to practise any pro- 
 fession, even law or medicine, and, in case of 
 utmost necessity, prefer the plough. A Sicilian, 
 a fellow-passenger from Palermo to Naples, who 
 one moment was groaning in the agony of sea- 
 sickness and the next playing on his violin, said 
 to me " Canta il, signore f ' " Do you sing ?" I 
 answered " No ;" and he continued, " Suonate 2" 
 "Do you play ?" I again answered " No ;" and 
 he asked me, with great simplicity, " Cosa fatte ? 
 Niente?" "What do you do? Nothing?" and 
 I might have addressed the same question to every 
 Pole in Warsaw. 
 
 The whole business of the country is in the 
 hands of the Jews, and all the useful and mechani- 
 cal arts are practised by strangers. I did not find 
 a Pole in a smgle shop in Warsaw; the proprietors 
 of the hotels and coffee-houses are strangers, prin- 
 cipally Germans ; my tailor was a German, my 
 shoemaker a Frenchman, and the man who put a 
 new crystal in my watch an Italian from Milan. 
 But though this entire absence of all useful em- 
 plojTnent, is, on grounds of public policy, a blot 
 on their national character, as a matter of feeling 
 it rather added to the interest with which I re- 
 garded the " proud Poles ;" and perhaps it was 
 imaginary, but I felt all the time I was in Warsa\>' 
 that, though the shops and cofFee-houses were open, 
 and crowds thronged the streets, a sombre air hung 
 over the whole city; and if for a moment this im- 
 pression left me, a company of Cossacks, with their 
 wild music, moving to another station, or a single 
 
 Russian officer riding by in a drosky, wrapped it» 
 his military cloak, reminded me that the foot of a 
 conqueror was upon the necks of the inhabitants- 
 of Warsaw. This was my feeling after a long 
 summer day's stroll through the streets ; and ii, 
 the evening I went to the theatre, which was & 
 neat building, well filled, and brilliantly lighted - 
 but the idea of a pervading and gloomy spirit so 
 haunted me that in a few moments I left what 
 seemed a heartless mockery of pleasure. I ought 
 to add, that I did not understand a word of the- 
 piece ; the trisie air which touched me may have- 
 been induced by the misfortunes of the stage herop 
 and, in all probability, I should have astonished a. 
 melancholy-looking neighbour if, acting under my 
 interpretation of has visage, I had expressed tohiio- 
 my sympathy in the sufferings of his country. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Religion of Poland. — Sunday in Warsaw. — Baptised 
 
 Jews.— Palaces of the Polish Kings.— Sobieski Field of 
 
 Vola. — ^Wreck of a "Warrior — The Poles in Aiuei-ica— A 
 Polish Lady. — Troubles of a Passport.- Departure from 
 Warsaw. — An official Rachel — A mysterious Visitor. 
 
 Sunday at Warsaw. — Poland is distiuguished 
 above the other nations of Europe as a land of 
 religious toleration. So late as the latter part of 
 the tenth century, the religion of Poland was a 
 gross idolati'y ; and, mingled with the rites of their 
 own country, they worshipped, under other names, 
 Jupiter, Plato, Mars, Venus, Diana, and other of 
 the pagan deities. During the reign of Mieczy- 
 laus I., of the Piast dynasty, the monks introduced' 
 Christianity. Tiie prince himself was proof against 
 the monks, but received from woman's lips the- 
 principles of the Christian religion. Enamoured 
 of Dombrowska, the daughter of the Duke of Bo- 
 hemia, a country which had then lately embraceJi 
 Christianity, who refused to accept his suit unless- 
 he was baptised, Mieczylaus sacrificed the super- 
 stitions and prejudices of his fathers on the altar 
 of love. But the religion which he embraced for 
 the sake of Dombrowska he afterwards propagated 
 for its own ; became an ardent champion of the 
 cross ; broke down with his own hands the idols 
 of his country ; built Christian churches on the 
 ruins of pagan temples ; and, in the ardour of his- 
 new faith, issued an edict that, when any portion 
 of the Gospel was read, the hearers should halt 
 draw their swordis to testify their readiness to 
 defend its truth. 
 
 In the reign of the "famous" John Sobieski, the 
 annals of Poland, till that time free from this dis- 
 grace, were stained by one of the most atrocious 
 acts of barbarity i-ecorded in the history of religious 
 persecution. . A Lithuanian nobleman, a religious 
 and benevolent man, but sufficiently intelligent to- 
 ridicule some of the ciu-rent superstitions, and 
 very rich, on account of a note in a margin of a 
 book written by a stupid German, was tried for 
 atheism by a council of bigoted Catholic bishops, 
 and found guilty, not only of " having denied the 
 existence of a God, but the doctrine of the Trinity 
 and the Divine Maternity of the Virgin Mary."" 
 Zaluski, one of the villains concerned in the tor- 
 ment, writes, " The convict was led to the scaffold, 
 where the executioner, with a red-hot iron, tore 
 
IN GREECE, TUEKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 255 
 
 ilia tongue and his mouth, inilh which he had been 
 sniel toward God; then they burned his hands, 
 instruments of the abominable production, at a 
 slow fire. The sacrilegious paper was thrown into 
 the flame ; himself last ; that monster of the age, 
 that deicide, was cast into the flamps of expiation, 
 if such a crime could be atoned." 
 
 In seventeen hundred and twenty-six the Jesuits, 
 making a public procession with the Host in the 
 streets of Thorn, the young scholars of the order 
 insisted that some Lutheran children should kneel; 
 and on their refusal a scuffle ensued between the 
 Jesuits and townspeople, most of whom were Lu- 
 therans, in which the enraged towns-people broke 
 open the Jesuits' college, profaned all the objects 
 of worship, and, among others, an image of the 
 Virgin. The Catholics of Poland, assembled in 
 the diet, almost infuriated with fanatic zeal, con- 
 demned to death the magistrates of Thorn for not 
 exercising their authority. Seven of the principal 
 citizens were also condemned to death ; mai ly were 
 imprisoned or banished ; three persons, accused of 
 throwbg the Virgin's image into the fire, lost their 
 right arms, and the whole city was deprived of the 
 treedom of public worship. 
 
 This was the last act of religious persecution in 
 Poland ; but even yet the spirit of the Reformation 
 has made but little progress, and the great bulk of 
 the people are still groping in the darkness of 
 Catholicism. On every public road and in all the 
 streets of Warsaw stand crosses, sometimes thirty 
 feet high, with a figure of the Saviour large aa 
 life, sometimes adorned with flowers and sometimes 
 covered with rags. 
 
 As in all Catholic cities, a Sunday in Warsaw 
 is a ffite day. I passed the morning in strolling 
 ilirough the churches, which are very numerous, 
 und some of them, particularly the Cathedral 
 Church of St John and that of the Holy Cross, 
 of colossal dimensions. The scene was the same 
 as in the Catholic churches in Italy ; at every door 
 crowds were entering and passing out, nobles, 
 peasants, shopmen, drosky boys, and beggars; the 
 highborn lady descended from her carriage, dipped 
 her fingers in the same consecrated water, and 
 kneeled on the same pavement side by side with 
 the beggar ; alike equal in God's house, and out- 
 side the door again an immeasurable distance 
 between them. 
 
 At twelve o'clock, by appointment, I met my 
 travelling companion and another of his friends in 
 the Jardm de Saxe, the principal public garden in 
 Warsaw. It stands in the very heart of the city, 
 in the rear of the Palais de Saxe, built by the 
 Elector of Saxony when called to the throne of 
 Poland. It is inclosed all around by high brick 
 vails, screened by shrubs, and vines, and trees 
 , ding above, so as to exclude the view of the houses 
 wing it. It is handsomely laid out with lawns 
 !id gravel-walks, and adorned with trees ; and as 
 he grounds are exceedingly rural and picturesque, 
 -nd the high walls and trees completely shut 
 'Ut the view of all surrounding objects, I could 
 lardly realise that I was in the centre of a popu- 
 uus city. It was then the fashionable hour for 
 iromenade, and all the ^lite of Warsaw society 
 as there. I had heard of this Sunday promenade, 
 ^id, after making one or two turns on the princi- 
 al walk, I remarked to my companions that I was 
 ■isappointed in not seeing, as I had expected, a 
 
 collection of the highborn and aristocratic Polos ; 
 but they told me that, changed as Warsaw was in 
 every particular, in nothing was this change more 
 manifest than in the character of this favourite 
 resort. From boyhood, one of them had been in 
 the habit of walking there regularly on the same 
 day and at the same hour ; and he told me that, 
 before the revolution, it had always been thronged 
 by a gay and brilliant collection of the nobility of 
 Warsaw ; and he enumerated several families 
 whose names were identified with the history of 
 Poland who were in the habit of being there at a 
 certain time, as regularly as the trees which then 
 shaded our walk ; but since the revolution these 
 families were broken up and dispersed, and their 
 principal members dead or in exile, or else lived 
 retired too proud in their fallen state to exhibit 
 themselves in public places where they were liablt 
 to be insulted by the presence of their Russian 
 conquerors ; and I could well appreciate the feel- 
 ing which kept them away, for Russian officers, 
 with their rattling swords and nodding plumes, and 
 carrying themselves with a proud and lordly air, 
 were the most conspicuous persons present. I had 
 noticed one party, a dark, pale, and interesting' 
 looking man, with an elegant lady and several 
 children and servants, as possessing, altogether, a 
 singularly melancholy and aristocratic appearance; 
 but the interest I was disposed to take in them was 
 speedily dispelled by hearing that he was a bap- 
 tised Jew, a money broker, who had accumulated 
 a fortune by taking advantage of the necessities of 
 the distressed nobles. Indeed, next to the Russian 
 officers, the baptised Jews were the most prominent 
 persons on the promenade. These persons form 
 a peculiar clas.s in Warsaw,' occupying a position 
 between the Israelites and Christians, and amalga- 
 mating with neither. Many of them are rich, well 
 educated, and accomplished, and possess great 
 elegance of appearance and manner. They hate 
 most cordially their unregenerated brethren, and 
 it is unnecessary to say that this hate is abundantly 
 reciprocated. It was with a feeling of painful in- 
 terest that I strolled through this once favourite 
 resort of the nobility of Warsaw ; and my com- 
 panions added to this melancholy feeling by talking 
 in a low tone, almost in whispers, and telling me 
 that now the promenade was always trisle and 
 dull ; and in going out they led me through a 
 private walk, where an old noble, unable to tear 
 himself from a place consecrated by the recollec- 
 tions of his whole life, still continued to take his 
 daily walk apart from the crowd, wearing out the 
 evening of his days in bitter reflections on the 
 fallen condition of his kindred and country. 
 
 . We dined, as usual, at a restaurant, where at 
 one table was a party of Swiss, here, as at Moscow, 
 exercising that talent, skill, and industry which 
 they exhibit all over the world, and consoling 
 themselves for the privations of exile with the hope 
 of one day being able to return to their native 
 mountains, never to leave them again. 
 
 After dinner we took an open carriage, and at 
 the barrier entered one of the numerous avenues 
 of the Ujazdow, leading to Belvidere, the country 
 residence of the late grand-duke Constantino. 
 The avenue is divided by rows of old and stately 
 trees, terminating in a large circular octagon, from 
 which branch off eight other avenues, each at a 
 short distance crossed by others, and forming a 
 
266 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 sort of labyrinth, said to be one of the finest drives 
 and promenades in Europe, and on Sundays the 
 rendezvous of nearly the entire population of 
 Warsaw. It was a beautiful afternoon, and the 
 thronij of carnages, and horsemen, and thousands 
 of pedestrians, and the sun, occasionally obscured 
 and then breaking through the thick foliage, dark- 
 ening and again lighting up the vista through the 
 trees, gave a beauty to the landscape, and a variety 
 and animation to the scene, that I had not yet found 
 in WarStt^v. Passing the Belvidere Palace, my 
 companions described the manner in which the 
 students had made their attack upor^it, and 
 pointed out the window by which Cuustantine 
 escaped. Turning from one of the splendid ave- 
 nues of the Ujazdow, we crossed a stone bridge, 
 on which stands the equestrian statue of John 
 Sobieski, his horse rearing over the body of a 
 prostrate Turk ; it was erected to him as the 
 saviour of Christendom after he had driven the 
 Turks from the walls of Vienna. Beyond this 
 we entered the grounds and park of Lazienki, 
 formerly the country residence of Stanislaus 
 Augustus, situated on a most delightful spot on 
 the banks of the Vistula. 
 
 The royal villa stands in the midst of an exten- 
 sive park of stately old trees, and the walks lead 
 to a succession of delightful and romantic spots, 
 adorned with appropriate and tasteful buildings. 
 Among them, on an island reached by crossing a 
 rustic bridge, are a winter and a summer theatre, 
 the latter constructed so as to resemble, in a great 
 measure, an ancient amphitheatre in ruins ; in it 
 performances used formerly to take place in the 
 •open air- I am not given to dreaming, and there 
 was enough in the scenes passing under my eyes 
 to employ my thoughts; but, as I wandered through 
 the beautiful walks, and crossed romantic bridges, 
 composed of the trunks and bended branches of 
 trees, I could not help recurring to the hand that 
 had planned these beauties, the good king Stanis- 
 laus. 
 
 " Dread Pultowa's day, 
 AVhen fortune left tlie royal Swede," 
 hurled Stanislaus from his throne ; and as I stood 
 under the portico of his palace, I could but re- 
 member that its royal builder had fled from it in 
 -disguise, become a prisoner to the Turks, and died 
 an exile in a foreign land. 
 
 From here we rode to the chateau of Villanow, 
 another and one of the most interesting of the 
 ■residences of the kings of Poland, constructed by 
 John Sobieski, and perhaps the only royal struc- 
 ture in Europe which, like some of the great 
 edifices of Egypt and Rome, was erected by pri- 
 soners taken in war, being constructed entirely by 
 ■the hands of Turkish captives. It was the favourite 
 residence of Sobieski, where he passed most of his 
 time when not in arms, and where he closed his 
 days. Until lately, the chamber and bed on 
 which he died might still be seen. ^The grounds 
 extend for a great distance along the banks of the 
 Vistula, and many of the noble trees which now 
 shade the walks v/ere planted by Sobieski's own 
 hands. The reign of Sobieski is the most splendid 
 era in the liistory of Poland. The great statue I 
 had just passed presented him as the conqueror of 
 the Turks, the deliverer of Christendom, the 
 redoubtable wan-ior, ridmg over the body of a 
 prostrate Mussulman ; and every stone in the 
 
 palace is a memorial of his irarlike triumphs ; but 
 if its inner chambers could tell tlie scenes of which 
 they had been the witness, loud and far as the 
 trumpet of glory has sounded his name, no man 
 would envy John Sobieski. The last time he un- 
 sheathed his sword, in bitterness of heart he said 
 " It will be easier to get the better of the enemies 
 I am in quest of than my own sons." He re- 
 turned broken with vexation and shattered with 
 wounds, more than sixty years old, and two-thirds 
 of his life spent in the tented field ; his queen 
 drove his friends from his side, destroyed that 
 domestic peace which he valued above all things, 
 and filled the palace with her plots and intrigues. 
 He had promised to Zalusld an office which the 
 queen wished to give to another. " My friend," 
 said the dying monarch, "you know the rights of 
 marriage, and you know if I can resist the prayers 
 of the queen ; it depends, then, on you that I Hv» 
 tranquil or that I be constantly miserable. She 
 has already promised to another this vacant office, 
 and if I do not consent to it I am obliged to fly 
 my house. I know not where I shall go to die 
 in peace. You pity me ; you will not expose me 
 to public ridicule." Old and infirm, with grey hairs 
 and withered laurels, a prey to lingering disease, 
 the death-bed of the dying warrior was disturbed 
 by a noise worse than the din of battle ; and 
 before the breath had left him, an intriguing wife 
 and unnatural children were wrangling over his 
 body for the possession of his crown. A disgrace- 
 ful struggle. was continued a short time after his 
 death. One by one his children died, and there 
 is not now any living of the name of Sobieski. 
 
 The next day I visited the field of Vola, cele- 
 brated as the place of election of the kings of 
 Poland. It is about five miles from Warsaw, and 
 was formerly surrounded by a ditch with three 
 gates, one for great Poland, one for little Poland, 
 and one for Lithuania. In the middle were two 
 inclosures, one of an oblong shape, surrounded 
 by a kind of rampart or ditch, in the centre of 
 which was erected, at the time of election, a vast 
 temporary building of wood, covered at the top 
 and open at the sides, which was called the zopa, 
 and occupied by the senate ; and the other of a 
 circular shape, called the kola, in which the 
 nuncios assembled in the open air. The nobles, 
 from a hundred and fifty thousand to two hun- 
 ilred thousand in number, encamped on the plain 
 i;i separate bodies under the banners of their 
 respective palatinates, with their principal officers 
 in front on horseback. The primate having de- 
 clared the names of the candidates, kneeled down 
 and chanted a hymn ; and then, mounting on 
 horseback, went round the plain and collected the 
 votes, the nobles not voting individually, but each 
 palatmate in a body. It was necessary that the 
 election should be unanimous, and a single noble- 
 man peremptorily stopped the election of Ladis- 
 laus VII. Being asked what objection he had to 
 him, he answered, " None at all ; but I will not 
 suffer him to be king." After being by some 
 means brought over, he gave the king as the 
 reason for his opposition, " I had a mind to sec 
 whether our liberty was still in being or not. 1 
 am satisfied that it is, and your majesty shall not 
 have a better subject than myself." If the pala- 
 tinates agreed, the primate asked again, and yet 
 a third time, if all were satisfied ; and, after » 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 igeneral approbation, three times proclaimed the 
 king ; and the grand marshal of the crown re- 
 peated the proclamation three times at the gates 
 of the camp. It was the exercise of this high 
 privilege of electing their own king which created 
 and sustsined the lofty bearing of the > Polish 
 nobles, inducing the proud boast which, in a mo- 
 ment of extremity, an intrepid band made to their 
 king, " What hast tliou to fear with twenty 
 thousand lances ? If the sky should fall we would 
 keep it up with theh* points." But, unhappily, 
 although the exercise of this privilege was con- 
 fined only to the nobles, the election of a king 
 often exhibited a worse picture than all the evils 
 of universal suffrage with us. The throne was 
 open to the whole world ; the nobles were spUt 
 into contending factions ; foreign gold found its 
 way among them, and sometimes they deliberated 
 under the bayonets of foreign troops. Wareaw 
 and its environs were a scene of violence and con- 
 fusion, and sometimes the field of Vola was stained 
 with blood. Still no man can ride over that 
 plain without recurring to the glorious hour when 
 Sobieski, covered with laurels won in fighting the 
 battles of his country, amid the roar of cannon 
 and the loud acclamations of the senate, the 
 nobles, and the army, was hailed the chosen king 
 of a free people. 
 
 I had enough of travelling post, and was looking 
 out for some quiet conveyance to Cracow. A Jew 
 applied to me, and I went with him to look at hi& 
 carriage, which I found at a sort of " Bull's-head" 
 stopping place, an enormous vehicle without either 
 bottom or top, being a species of framework like 
 our hay-waggons, filled with straw to prevent 
 goods and passengers from spilling out. He 
 showed me a couple of rough-looking fellows, who 
 would be my compagnons de voyage, and who said 
 that we could all three lie very comfortably in the 
 bottom of the vehicle. Their appearance did not 
 add to the recommendation of the waggon ; never- 
 theless, if I had understood the language and 
 been strong enough for the rough work, I should 
 perhaps have taken that conveyance, as, besides 
 the probable incidents of the_ journey, it would 
 give me more insight into the character of the 
 people than a year's residence in the capital. 
 Ketuming to my hotel, I found that a Polish 
 officer had left his address, with a request for me 
 to call upon him. I went, and found a man of 
 about forty, middle-sized, pale and emaciated, 
 wounded and an invalid, wearing the Polish revo- 
 lutionary uniform. It was the only instance in 
 which I had seen this dress. After the revolution 
 it had been absolutely proscribed ; but the country 
 being completely subdued, and the government in 
 this particular case not caring to exercise any 
 unnecessary harshness, he was permitted to wear 
 it unmolested It was, however, almost in mockery 
 that he still wore the garb of a soldier ; for if 
 Poland had again burst her chains, and the un- 
 sheathed sword were put in his hands, he could 
 not have struck a blow to help her. Unfortu- 
 nately, he coula not speak French, or rather, I 
 may say fortunately, for in consequence of this I 
 saw his lady, a pensive, melancholy, and deeply- 
 interesting woman, dressed in black, in mourning 
 for two gallant brothers who died in battle under 
 the walls of Warsaw. 
 
 Their business with me was of a most common- 
 
 place nature. They had lately returned from a 
 visit to some friends at Cracow, in a caliche hired 
 at the frontier ; and hearing from the peasant 
 who drove them that a stranger was looking for 
 a conveyance to that place, out of good-will to 
 him desired to recommend him to me. The lady 
 had hardly finished a sort of apologising com- 
 mencement, before I had resolved to assent to 
 almost anything she proposed ; and when she 
 stated the whole case, it was so exactly what I 
 wanted, that I expressed myself under great obli- 
 gations for the favour done me. I suggested, how- 
 ever, my doubts as to the propriety of undertaking 
 the journey alone, without any interpreter ; but, 
 after a few words with the major, she replied that 
 she would give full directions to the peasant as to 
 the route. As the carriage could not go beyond 
 the frontier, her husband would give me a letter 
 to the commissaire at Michoof, who spoke French, 
 and also to the postmaster ; and, finally, she 
 would herself make out for me a vocabulary of the 
 words likely to be most necessary, so as to enable 
 me to ask for bread, milk, eggs, &c. ; and with 
 this, and the Polish for "how much," I would 
 get along without any difficulty. While she was 
 writing, another officer came in, old and infirm, 
 and also dressed in the Polish uniform. She 
 rose from the table, met him almost at the door, 
 kissed him affectionately, led him to a seat, and 
 barely mentioning him to me as " mon beau-pere," 
 retj.tmed her work. While she was writing I 
 watched attentively the whole three, and the 
 expression of face with which the two officeif 
 regarded her was unspeakably interesting. They 
 were probably unconscious of it, and ))erhaps it 
 was only my fancy, but if the transient lighting of 
 their sunken eyes meant anything, it meant that 
 they who s.it there in the garb and equipment o' 
 soldiers, who had stood in all the pride and vigour 
 of manhood on bloody battle-fields, now looked to 
 a feeble and lovely woman as their only staff and 
 support ill life. I would have told them how 
 deeply I sympathised in the misfortunes of their 
 suffering country, but their sadness seemed too 
 deep and sacred. I knew that I could strike a 
 responsive chord oy telling them that I was an 
 American, but I would not open their still bleeding 
 wounds ; at parting, however, I told them that I 
 should remember in my own country and to theu- 
 countrymen the kindness shown me here ; and as 
 soon as 1 mentioned that I was an American, the 
 lady asked me the fate of her unhappy countrymen 
 who had been landed as exiles on our shores, and 
 I felt proud in telling them that they had found 
 among our citizens that sympathy which brave 
 men in misfortune deserve, and that our govern- 
 ment had made a provision in land for the exiled 
 compatriots of Kosciusko. She inquired particu- 
 larly about the details of their occupation, and 
 expressed the fear that their habits of life, most 
 of them having been brought up as soldiers, 
 unfitted them for usefulness among us. I did not 
 then know how prophetic were her forebodings,' 
 and was saved the necessity of telling her, what I 
 afterward read in a newspaper, that an unhappy 
 portion of that band of exiles, discontented with 
 tlieir mode of life, in attempting to cross the 
 Rocky Mountains were cut to pieces by a party of 
 Indians. Under the pressure of their immediate 
 misfortunes they had not heard the fate "if the 
 
258 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 exiles, and a ray of satisfaction played for a 
 moment over their melancholy features on hearing 
 that they had met with friends in America : and 
 they told me to say to the Poles wherever I found 
 them, that they need never again turn their eyes 
 toward home. She added that the time had been 
 when she and her friends would have extended 
 the hand of welcome to a stranger in Poland ; 
 that, when a child, she had heard her father and 
 brothers talk of liberty and the pressure of a 
 foreign yoke, but, living in affluence, surrounded 
 by friends and connexions, she could not sympa- 
 thise with them, and thought it a feeling existing 
 only m men, which women could not know ; but 
 actual occurrences had opened her eyes ; her 
 family had been crushed to the earth, her friends 
 imprisoned, killed, or driven into exile, and yet, 
 she added, turning to her husband and father, she 
 ought not to mourn, for those dearest to her on 
 earth were spared. But I could read in her face, 
 ;is she bent her eyes upon then* pallid features, 
 that she felt they were spared only for a season. 
 
 Reluctantly 1 bade them farewell. A servant 
 waited to go with me and show me the caleehe, 
 but I told him it was not worth while. I was in 
 :to humour for examining the spokes of carriage- 
 wheels ; and, if I had been obliged to ride on the 
 tongue, I believe I should have taken it. I went 
 to my hotel, and told ray friend of my interv'ew 
 with the major and his lady. He knew them by 
 reputation and confirmed and strengthened all 
 the interest I took in them, adding, that both 
 father and son had been among the first to take 
 up arms during the revolution, and at its unhappy 
 termination were so beloved by the people of War- 
 Raw that, in their wounded and crippled state, the 
 Russian government had not proceeded to ex- 
 tremities with them. 
 
 I spent my last evening hi Warsaw with my 
 Pole and several of his friends at a herbata, that 
 is, a sort of confectioner's shop like a cafe in the 
 south of Europe, where, as in Russia, tea is the 
 popular drink. The next morning, as usual, my 
 piissport was not ready. My valet had been for 
 it several times and could not get it. I had been 
 myself to the police-ofiice, and waited until dark, 
 when I was directed to call the next morning. I 
 went at a httle after eight, but I will not obtrude 
 upon the reader the details of my vexation, nor 
 the amiable feelings that passed my mind in waiting 
 till twelve o'clock in a large ante-room. In my 
 after wanderings I sometimes sat down upon a 
 stump, or on the sands of the desert, and meditated 
 upon my folly in undergoing all manner of hard- 
 ^liips when I might be sitting quietly at home ; 
 but when I thought of passports in Russia and 
 Poland, I shook myself with the freedom of a son 
 of the desert, and with the thought that I could 
 turn my dromedary's head which way I pleased, 
 other difficulties seemed light. Ancient philoso- 
 phers extolled uniformity as a great virtue in a 
 young man's character ; and, if so, I was entitled 
 to the highest praise, for in the matter of arranging 
 my passport I was always in a passion. I do not 
 know a single exception to the contrary. And if 
 there was one thing more vexatious than another, 
 it was in the case at Warsaw, where, after having 
 been bandied about from office to office, f received 
 my passport, still requiring the signature of the 
 governor, and wallied up to the palace, nursing 
 
 my indignation, and expecting an accumulation I 
 was ushered in by guards and soldiers, and at once 
 disarmed of all animosity by the politeness and 
 civility of the principal officers of government. I 
 was almost sorry to be obliged to withhold my in- 
 tended maledictioil. I hurried back to my hotel. 
 My friend, with three or four of his Warsaw 
 acquaintances, was waiting to see the last of me ■ 
 my caltehe was at the door, and I was already 
 late for a start. I took my seat and bade them 
 farewell. I promised to write to him on my amval 
 in Paris, and to continue a correspondence on my 
 return home. Most unfortunately, I lost his 
 address He lived in some town m Poland, near 
 the frontiers of Prussia, and probably at this 
 moment thinks of me unkindly for my apparent 
 neglect. Possibly we may meet again, though 
 probably never ; but if we do, though it do not 
 happen till our heads are grey, we will have a rich 
 fund of satisfaction in the recollections of our long 
 journey to Warsaw. 
 
 I was again setting out alone. My guide or 
 conducteur was a Polish peasant. Without having 
 seen him I had calculated upon making ordinary 
 human intelligence, to some extent, a medium of 
 communication ; but I found that I had been too 
 soaring in my ideas cf the divinity of human nature. 
 When I returned to the hotel I found him lying 
 on the sidewalk asleep ; a servant kicked him up, 
 and pointed me out as his master for the journey. 
 He ran up and kissed my hands and, before I was 
 aware of his intention, stooped down and repeated 
 the same salutation on my boot. An American, 
 perhaps more than any other, scorns the idea of 
 man's debasing himself to his fellow-man ; and so 
 powerful was fliis feeling in me, that before I went 
 abroad I almost despised a white man whom I saw 
 engaged in a menial office. I had outlived this 
 feeling ; but when I saw a tall, strong athletic 
 white man kneel down and kiss my foot, I could 
 have almost spurned him from me. His whole 
 dress was a long shirt coming down to his feet, 
 supported by a broad leathern belt eight inches 
 wide which he used as a pocket, and a low, broad- 
 brimmed hat, turned up all round, particularly at 
 the sides, and not unlike the head-gear of the 
 New Lebanon Shakers. 
 
 Before putting myself out of the reach of aid, 
 I held a conversation with him through an inter- 
 preter. The lady of the major had made out a 
 chart for me, specifying each day's journey, which 
 he promised to observe, and added that he would 
 be my slave if I would give him plenty to drink. 
 With such a companion, then, I may say most 
 emphatically that I was again setting out alone ; 
 but my caltehe was even better than the Polish 
 officer repTesented it, abundantly provided witli 
 pockets for provisions, books, &c., and altogether 
 so much more comfortable t.W anything I was used 
 to, that I threw myself back in it with a feeUng ol 
 great satisfaction. I rolled for the last time 
 through the streets of Warsaw ; looked out upon 
 the busy throng ; and though, in the perfectly 
 indifferent air with which they turned to me, I 
 felt how small a space I occupied in the world, I 
 lighted my pipe and smoked in their faces, and, 
 with a perfect feeling of independence toward all 
 the world, at one o'clock I arrived at the barrier. 
 
 Here I found, to my great vexation, that I wa» 
 an object of special consideration to the Emperor 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 259 
 
 of Russia. A soldier came out for my passport, 
 witli wliich lie went inside the guardhouse, and 
 in a few minutes returned witli the paper in liis 
 hands to ask me some question I could not answer 
 him. He talked at me a little while, and again 
 went within doors. After sitting for a few mo- 
 ments, vexed at the detention, but congratulating 
 myself that if there was any h-regularity it had 
 been discovered before I had advanced far on my 
 journey, I dismounted and went inside, where, 
 after detaming me long enough to make me feel 
 very uncomfortable, they endorsed the vis^ and 
 let me go. I again lighted my pipe, and in the 
 mildness and beauty of the day, the comfort of my 
 caliche, and the docility and accommodating spirit 
 of my peasant, forgot my past, and even the chance 
 of future, difficulties. There was nothing parti- 
 cularly attractive in the road ; the country was 
 generally fertile, tliough tame and uninteresting. 
 Late in the afternoon we stopped at a little town, 
 of which I cannot make out the name. Like all 
 the other towns on this side of Wai-saw, in the 
 centre was a square, with a range of wooden 
 houses built all around fronting on die square, and 
 the mhabitants were principaUy Jews. My pea- 
 sant took off his horses and fed them in the square, 
 and I went into a little kukernia, much cleaner 
 and better than the town promised, where I had a 
 cup of coffee and a roll of bread, and then strolled 
 around the town, which at this moment presented 
 a singular spectacle. The women and children 
 were driving into the square herds of cows from 
 the pasture-grounds in the unenclosed plains 
 around ; and, when all were brought in, each pro- 
 prietor picked out his own cow and drove her 
 home, and in a few moments, opposite almost 
 every house stood the family cow, with a woman 
 or child milking her. After this the cows strolled 
 back into the square to sleep till morning. 
 
 A little before dark we started, and, after a fine 
 moonlight ride, at about ten o'clock drove into a 
 sort of caravanserai, being simply a large shed or 
 covered place for waggons and horses, with a room 
 partitioned off in one corner for eating and sleep- 
 ing. There were, perhaps, fifteen or twenty wag- 
 gons under the shed, and their waggoners were 
 all assembled in this room, some standing up and 
 eating off a board stretched along the wall, some 
 irinking, some smoking, and some already asleep 
 on the floor. In one corner was a party of Jews, 
 with the contents of a purse emptied before them, 
 thich they were dividing into separate parcels. 
 The place was kept by a Jew, who, with his wife, 
 or some woman belonging to the establishment, 
 old and weatherbeaten, was running about serving 
 and apparently quarrelling with all the waggoners. 
 She seemed particularly disposed to quarrel with 
 me, I believe because 1 could not talk to her, this 
 being, in her eyes, an unpardonable sin. I could 
 understand, however, that she wanted to prepare 
 me a supper ; but my appetite was not tempted 
 by what I saw around me, and I lighted my pipe 
 and smoked. I believe she afterward saw some- 
 thing in me which made her like me better ; for 
 while the waggoners were strewing themselves 
 about the floor for sleep, she went out, and return- 
 ing with u tolerably clean sheaf of straw under 
 each arm, called me to her, and shaking them out 
 in the middle of the floor, pointed me to my bed. 
 Wy pipe was ended, and putting my carpet-hag 
 
 under my head, I lay down upon the straw ; and 
 the old woman climbed up to a sort of platform in 
 one corner, where, a moment after, I saw her 
 sitting up with her arms above her head, with 
 the utmost nonchalance changing her innermost 
 garment. 
 
 I was almost asleep, when I noticed a strapping 
 big man, muffled up to the eyes, standing at my 
 feet and looking in my face. I raised my head, 
 and he walked round, keeping his eyes fixed upon 
 me, and went away. Shortly after he returned, 
 and again walking round, stopped and addressed 
 me, " Sprechen sie Deutsch ! " I answered by 
 asking him if he could speak French ; and not 
 being able, he went away. He returned again, 
 and again walked round as before, looking steadily 
 in my face ; I rose on my elbow, and followed 
 him with my eyes till I had turned completely 
 round with him, when he stopped as if satisfied 
 with his observations, and in his broadest verna- 
 cular opened bluntly, "Hadn't we better speak 
 English ? " I need not say that I entirely agreed 
 with him. I sprang up, and catching his hand, 
 asked him what possessed him to begin upon me 
 in Dutch ; he replied by asking why I had answered 
 in Frencli, adding that his stout English figure 
 ought to have made me know better ; and after 
 mutual good-natured recriminations, we kicked 
 my straw bed about the floor, and agreed to make 
 a night of it. He was the proprietor of a large j 
 iron manufactory, distant about three days' jour- 
 ney, and was then on his way to Warsaw. He 
 went out to his carriage, and one of his servants 
 produced a stock of provisions like the larder of a 
 well-furnished hotel ; and as I had gone to bed 
 supperless, he seemed a good, stout, broad- 
 shouldered guardian angel sent to comfort me 
 We sat on the back seat of the carriage, making a 
 table of the front ; and when we had finished, and 
 the fragments were cleared away, we stretched 
 our legs on the table, hghted our pipes, and talked 
 till we fell asleep on each other's shoulder. Not- 
 withstanding our intimacy so far, we should not 
 h.ave known each other by daylight, and at break 
 of day we went outside to examine each other. 
 It was, however, perhaps hardly worth while to 
 retain a recollection of features ; for, unless by 
 some such accident as that which brought us toge- 
 ther, we never shall meet again. We wrote our 
 names in each other's pocket-book as a memorial 
 of our meeting, and at the same moment started 
 on our opposite roads. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Friendly Solicitude.— Raddom. — Symptoms of a Difficulty. 
 —A Court of Inquisition.— Showing a proper Spirit- 
 Troubles thickening Approaching the Climax. — Wo- 
 man's Influence.— The Finale.- Utility of the Classics 
 
 Another Latinist A Lucky Accident. — Arrival at 
 
 Cracow. 
 
 At about eight o'clock we stopped to feed, and 
 at the feeding-place met a German waggoner, who 
 had lived in Hamburgh, and spoke English. He 
 seemed much distressed at my not understanding 
 the language of the country. He was a stout, 
 burly fellow, eating and drinking all the time, and 
 his great anxiety was lest I should starve on the 
 road. He insisted upon my providing agahiGt 
 
-liO 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 such a fatality, and had a couple of fowls roasted 
 for me, and wrapped in a piece of coai'se brown 
 paper ; and at parting, backed by a group of 
 friends, to whom he had told my story, he drank 
 schnaps (at my expense) to my safe arrival at 
 Cracow. 
 
 At eleven o'clock, we reached Raddom. There 
 was a large swinging gate at the barrier of the 
 town, and the soldier opening it demanded my 
 passport to be vistd by the police ; he got into the 
 caleche with me, and we drove into the town, 
 stopped in the public square, and went to the 
 bureau together. He left me in an antechamber, 
 and went within, promising, by his manner, to 
 expedite the business, and intimating an expect- 
 ation of schnaps on his return. In a few minutes 
 he returned, and barely opening the door for me 
 to enter, hurried ofT, apparently with some mis- 
 givings about his schnaps. I entered, and found 
 three or four men, who took no notice of me. I 
 waited a few moments, and seeing my passport on 
 a table before one of them, went up, and, certainly 
 without intending anything offensive, took up the 
 passport with a view of calling his attention to it ; 
 he jerked it out of my band, and looking at me 
 with an imperious and impertinent air, at the same 
 time saying something I have no doubt in character 
 with the expression of his face, he slapped it down 
 on the table. Two or three officers coming in, 
 looked at it, and laid it down again, until at 
 length one man, the head of that department, I 
 suppose, took it up, wrote a note, and giving the 
 note and passport to a soldier, directed me to 
 follow him. The soldier conducted me to the 
 bureau of the government, the largest building, 
 and occupying a central position in the town, and 
 left me in an antechamber with the usual retinue 
 of soldiers and officers. In about a quarter of an 
 hour he came out without the passport, and pulled 
 me by the sleeve to follow him. I shook my 
 head, asked for the passport, and, in fact, moved 
 toward the door he had left. He seemed a good- 
 hearted fellow, and anxious to save me from any 
 imprudence, pulled me back, held up his fingers, 
 and pointing to the clock, told me to return at 
 one ; and touching his hat respectfully, with pro- 
 bably the only French words he knew, " Adieu, 
 seigneur," and a look of real interest, hurried 
 away. 
 
 I strolled about the town, dropped in at a ku- 
 kiernia, went to the square, and saw my peasant 
 friend feeding his horses, apparently in some 
 trouble and perplexity. I went back at one, 
 and was ordered to come again at four. I would 
 have remonstrated, but, besides that I could not 
 make myself understood, when I attempted to 
 speak they turned rudely away from me. I was 
 vexed by the loss of the day, as I had agreed to 
 pay a high price for the sake of going through a 
 day sooner, and this might spoil my plan ; and I 
 was particularly vexed by the rough manner in 
 which I was treated. I returned at four, and 
 was conducted into a large chamber, in which 
 were perhaps twenty or thirty clerks and inferior 
 officers in the uniform of the government, As 
 soon as I entered there was a general commotion. 
 They had sent for a young man who spoke a little 
 French to act as interpreter. The passport wks 
 put into his hands, aEd the I'.ist question he asked 
 me was bow I, an American, happenea to be tra- 
 
 velling under a Russian passport. I answered 
 that it was not from any wish of mine, but in obe- 
 dience to their own laws, and added the fact that 
 this passport had been made out by the Russian 
 ambassador at Constantinople ; that under it I 
 had been admitted into Russia, and travelled 
 from the Black Sea to St. Petersburg!!, and from 
 there down to Warsaw, as he might see from the 
 paper itself, the vises of the proper authorities, 
 down to that of the Governor of Warsaw, being 
 regulai-ly endorsed. 
 
 He then asked what my business was in Poland, 
 and what had induced me to come there. I an- 
 swered, the same that had carried me into Russia, 
 merely the curiosity of a traveller ; and he then 
 inquired what in particular I wanted to see in 
 Poland. If I had consulted merely my feelings, 
 I should have told him that, besides being at- 
 tracted by the interest of her heroic history, I 
 wished to see with my own eyes the pressure of a 
 colossal foot upon the necks of a conquered people : 
 that this very system of inquisition and espionnam 
 was one of the things I expected to see ; but I, pi 
 course, forbore this, and answered only in general 
 terms, and my answer was not satisfactory. He 
 then began a more particular examination ; asked 
 my age, my height, the colour of my eyes, &c. 
 At first I did not see the absurdity of this exami- 
 nation, and answered honestly according to the 
 fact, as I believed it ; but all at once, it struck 
 me that, as I did not remember the particulars of 
 the description of my person in the passport, my 
 own impromptu might very easily differ from it, 
 and, catching an insulting expression- on his face, 
 I told him that he had the passport in his hands, 
 and might himself compare my person with the 
 description there given of me. He then read 
 aloud the entire description ; height, so many feet ; 
 eyes, such a colour, &c. &c. ; scanned me from 
 head to foot ; peered into my eyes, stopping after 
 each article to look at me and compare me with 
 the description. By this time every man in the 
 room had left his business and gathered round 
 looking at me, and, after the reading of each 
 article and the subsequent examination, there was 
 a general shaking of heads and a contemptuous 
 smile. 
 
 At the time I remembered, what had before 
 suggested itself to me rather as a good thing, 
 that, before embarking for Europe, I had written 
 on to the department of state for a passport, with 
 a description of my person made out at the 
 moment by a friend, not very flattering, and, 
 perhaps, not very true, but good enough for the 
 Continent, which I expected to be the extent of 
 my tour ; and I felt conscious that, on » severe 
 examination, my nose might be longer, or my eyes 
 greyer, or in some other point different from the 
 description. This, added to their close and critical 
 examination, at first embarrassed me consider- 
 ably, but the supercilious and insulting manner 
 in which the examination was conducted roused 
 my indignation, and restored my self-possession. 
 I saw, from the informal way in which the thing 
 was done, that this was a mere preliminary inqui- 
 sition, and not the court to sit in judgment ; and 
 I had noticed from the beginning that most oi 
 these men were Poles, who had sold themselves 
 to Russia lor petty place and pay in her offices, 
 traitors in their hearts and lives, apostates fron" 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 2GI ■ 
 
 every honourable feeling, and breathing a more 
 infernal spirit against tlieir enslaved country than 
 the Russians themselves ; and I told the inter- 
 preter, as coolly as the nature of the case would 
 admit, to accept for himself, and to convey to his 
 associates, the assurance that I should remember 
 their littlo town as long as I lived ; that I had then 
 travelled from England through Vrance, Italy, 
 Greece, Turkey, and Russia, and had nowhere 
 met such wanton rudeness and insult as from 
 tliem ; that I did not think it possible that in any 
 European government twenty of its ofBcere would 
 laugh and sneer at the embarrassment of a 
 stranger without a single one stepping forward to 
 assist him ; that I deeply regretted the occurrence 
 of such a circumstance in Poland ; that I felt 
 convinced that there was not a true-hearted Pole 
 among them, or my character as an American 
 would have saved me from insult. 
 
 The interpreter seemed a little abashed, but I 
 could see in the vindictive faces of the rest that 
 they were greatly irritated. The examination was 
 cut short, and I was directed to come again at 
 jalf-past five, when the commandant, who had 
 been sent for, would be there. By this time there 
 was some excitement in the streets, and, as I after- 
 ward learned, it was noised through the little 
 town that an American was detained Ou suspicion 
 of travelling under a false ; assport. My caleche 
 had been standing in the public square all day. I 
 had been noticed going to and from the offices 
 with a soldier at my heels, and my poor Pole had 
 been wandering up and down the streets, telling 
 everybody his fears and Interest in me, and 
 particularly his anxiety about ten rubles I had 
 promised him. As I passed along, people turned 
 round and looked at me. I went to a kukiernia, 
 where the dame had been very smiling and atten- 
 tive, and could not get even a look from her. I 
 went to another ; several men were earnestly 
 talldng, who became silent the moment I entered. 
 A small matter created an excitement in that little 
 place. It was a rare thing for a traveller to pass 
 through it ; the Russian government threw every 
 impediment in the way, and had made the road 
 .so vexatious that it was almost broken up. The 
 French, or the citizens of a free country liki 
 America, were always suspected of being political 
 emissaries to stir up the Poles to revolution, and it 
 seemed as if, under that despotic government, to 
 be suspected was to be guilty. The Poles were in 
 the habit of seeing slight ofl'ences visited with 
 terrible punishments, and probably half the little 
 town looked on me as a doomed man. I went 
 back to the square and took a seat on my caliche ; 
 my poor Pole sat on the box looking at me ; he 
 had followed me all over, and, like the rest, 
 seemed to regard me as lost. I had probably 
 treated him with more kindness than he was ac- 
 customed to receive, though, for every new kind- 
 ness, he vexed me anew by stooping down and 
 kissing my foot. 
 
 At half-past five o'clock, 1 was again at the 
 door of the palace. On the staircase I met the 
 young man who had acted as interpreter ; he would 
 have avoided me, but I stopped him and asked 
 him to return with me. I held on to him, asking 
 him if the commandant spoke French ; begged 
 him, as he would hope himself to find kindness 
 in a strange country, to go back and act as a 
 
 medium of explanation ; but he tore rudely away, 
 and hurried down stairs. A soldier opened the 
 door and led me into the same apartment as 
 before. The clerks were all at their desks writing ; 
 all looked up as I entered, but not one offered me 
 a seat, nor any the slightest act of civility. 1 
 waited a moment, and they seemed studiously to 
 take no notice of me. I felt outrageous at their 
 rudeness. I had no apprehensions of any serious 
 consequences beyond, perhaps, that of a detention 
 until I could write to Mr. Wilkins, our ambas- 
 sador at St. Petersburgh, and resolved uot to be 
 trampled upon by the understrappers. I walked 
 up to the door of the commandant's chamber, 
 when one man, who had been particularly in- 
 sulting during the reading of the passport, rudely 
 intercepted me, and leaning his back against the 
 door, flourished his hands before him to keep me 
 from entering. Fortunately, I fell back in tim& 
 to prevent even the tip end of his fingers touching 
 me. My blood flashed through me like lightning 
 and even now I consider myself a mu'acle of 
 forbearance that 1 did not strike him. 
 
 In a few moments the door opened, and a sol- 
 dier beckoned me to enter. Directly in front, at 
 the other end of the room, behind a table, sat the 
 commandant, a grim, gaunt-looking figure, about 
 fifty, his military coat buttoned tight up in his 
 throat, his cap and sword on the table by his side, 
 and in his hands my unlucky passport. As I 
 walked toward him he looked from the passport 
 to me, and from me to the passport ; and when J 
 stopped at the table he read over again the whole 
 description, at every clause looking at me ; shook 
 his head with a grun smile of uioredulity, and 
 laid it down, as if perfectly satisfied. I felt that 
 my face was flushed with indignation, and, perhaps, 
 to a certain extent, so distorted with passion that 
 it would have been difficult to recognise me as 
 I the person described. I suggested to him that 
 ; the rude treatment I had met with in the other 
 room had no doubt altered the whole character 
 of my face, but he waved his hand for me to be 
 silent ; and, taking up a sheet of paper, wrote a 
 letter or order, or something which I did not 
 understand, and gave it to a soldier, who took it 
 off to one corner and stamped it. The com- 
 ' mandant then folded up the passport, enclosed it 
 m the letter, and handed it agam to the soldier, 
 who carried it off and affixed to it an enormous 
 wax seal, which looked very ominous and Siberian- 
 like. I was determined not to suffer from the 
 want of any effort on my part, and puUed out my 
 old American passport, under which I had tra- 
 velled in France and Italy, and also a new one 
 which Commodore Porter had given me in Con- 
 stantinople. He looked at them without any 
 comment and without understanding them ; and, 
 when the soldier returned with the paper and the 
 big seal, he rose, and, without moving a muscle, 
 waved with his hand for me to follow the soldier. 
 I would have resisted if I had dared. I was in- 
 dignant enough to do some rash thing, but, at 
 every step was a soldier ; I saw the folly of it, 
 and,"grinding my teeth with vexation and rage, I 
 did as I was ordered. 
 
 At the door of the palace we found a large 
 crowd, who, knowing my appointment for this- 
 hour, were waiting to hear the rcsull. A line Oi 
 people was formed along the walk, who, seeinc 
 
S62 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 me under the charge of a soldier, turned round 
 ■ind looked at me with ominous silence. We 
 passed under the walls of the prison, and the 
 prisoners thrust their arms through the bars and 
 hailed me, and seemed to claim me as a com- 
 panion, and to promise me a welcome among them. 
 For a moment I was infected with some apprehen- 
 sions. In my utter ignorance as to what it all 
 meant, I ran over in my mind the stories I had 
 heard of the exercise of despotic authority, and 
 for one moment thought of my German host at 
 Moscow and a journey to Siberia by mistake. I 
 <lid not know where the soldier was taking me, 
 but felt relieved when we had got out of the 
 reach of the voices of the prisoners, and more so 
 when we stopped before a large house, which I 
 remarked at once as a private dwelling, though a 
 guard of honour before the door indicated it as the 
 residence of an officer of high rank. We entered, 
 and were ushered into the presence of the governor 
 and commander-in-chief. ■ He was, of com'se, a 
 Russian, a man about sixty, in the unifonn of a 
 general officer, and attended by an aide-de-camp 
 about thirty. I waited till the soldier had delivered 
 his message ; and, before the governor had broken 
 the seal, I carried the war into the enemy's coun- 
 try by complaining of the rude treatment I had re- 
 ceived, interrupted in my journey under a passport 
 which had carried me all over Russia, and laughed 
 at and insulted by the officers of the government, 
 at the same time congratulating myself that I had at 
 last met those who could at least tell me why I was 
 detained, and would give me an opportunity of 
 explaining anything apparently wrong. I found 
 the governor, as everywhere else in Russia where 
 I could get access to the principal man, a gentle- 
 man in his bearing and feeUngs. He requested 
 me to be seated, while he retired into another 
 apartment to examine the passport. The aide-de- 
 camp remained, and I entertained him with my 
 chapter of grievances ; he put the whole burden 
 of the incivility upon the Poles ; who, as he said, 
 filled all the inferior offices of government, but 
 told me, too, that the country was in such an 
 unsettled state that it was necessary to be very 
 particular in examining all strangers ; and par- 
 ticularly as at that time several French emissaries 
 were suspected to be secretly wandering in Poland, 
 trying to stir up revolution. The governor staid 
 90 long that I began to fear there was some 
 technical irregularity which might subject me to 
 detention, and I was in no small degree relieved 
 when he sent for me, and telling me that he 
 regretted the necessity for giving such annoyance 
 and vexation to travellers, handed me back the 
 passport, with a direction to the proper officer to 
 make the necessary vise and let me go. I was so 
 pleased with the result that I did not stop to ask 
 any questions, and to this day I do not know par- 
 ticularly why [ was detained. 
 
 By this time it was nine o'clock, and when we 
 returned the bureau was closed. The soldier stated 
 the case to the loungers about the door, and now 
 all, including some of the scoundrels who had 
 been so rude to me in the morning, were anxious 
 to serve me. One of them conducted me to an 
 apartment near, where I was ushered into the pre- 
 sence of an elderly lady and her two daughters, 
 both of whom spoke French. I apologized for 
 my intrusion ; told them my extreme anxiety to 
 
 go on that night, and begged them to procurt 
 some one to take the governor's order to the com- 
 mandant ; in fact I had become nervous, and did 
 not consider myself safe till out of the place. 
 They called in a younger brother, who started with 
 alacrity on the errand, and I sat down to wait his 
 return. There must be a, witchery about Polish 
 ladies. I was almost savage against all mankind • 
 I had been kept up to the extremest point of in- 
 dignation, without any opportunity of exploding all 
 day, and it would have been a great favour for 
 some one to knock me down ; but in a few minutes 
 all my bitterness and malevolence melted away, 
 and before tea was over I forgot that I had 
 been bandied all day from pillar to post, and even 
 forgave the boors who had mocked me, in consi- 
 deration of their being the countrymen of the ladies 
 who wer'e showing me such kindness. Even with 
 them I began with the chafed spirit that had 
 been goading me on all day ; but when I listened 
 to the calm and sad manner in which they re- 
 plied ; that it was annoying, but it was light, very 
 light, compared with the scenes through which 
 they and all their friends had passed, I was 
 ? shamed of my petulance. A few words conviaced 
 me that they were the Poles of my imagination 
 and heart. A widowed mother and orphan chil- 
 dren, their staff and protector had died in battle 
 and a gallant brother was then wandering an exile 
 in France. I believe it is my recollection of Polish 
 ladies that gives me a leaning towards rebels. 1 
 never met a Polish lady who was not a rebel, and 
 I could but think, as long as the startling notes of 
 revolution continue to fall like music from their 
 pretty lips, so long the Russian will s'eep on an 
 unquiet pillow in Poland. 
 
 It was more than an hour before the brother 
 returned, and I was sorry when he came; for, 
 after my professions of haste, I had no excuse for 
 remaining longer. I was the first American thej' 
 had ever seen ; and if they do not remember me 
 for anything else, I am happy to have disabused 
 them of one prejudice against my country, for they 
 believed the Americans were all black. At part- 
 ing, and at my request, the elder daughter wrote 
 her name in my memorandum-book, and I bade 
 them farewell. 
 
 It was eleven o'clock when I left the house, and 
 at the first transition from their presence the night 
 seemed of pitchy darkness. I groped ray way into 
 the square and found my caleche gone. I stood 
 for a moment on the spot where I had left it, 
 ruminating what I should do. Perhaps my poor 
 Pole had given me up as lost, and taken out 
 letters of administration upon my cai'pet-bag. 
 Directly before me, mtersecting the range of houses 
 on the opposite side of the square, was a street 
 leading out of the town. I knew that he was a 
 man to go straight a-head, turning neither to the 
 right hand nor the left. I walked on to the opening, 
 followed it a little way, and saw on the right a gate 
 opening to a shed for stabling. I went in, and 
 found him with his horses unharnessed, feeding 
 them, whipping them, and talking at them in 
 furious Polish. As soon as he saw me he left them 
 and came at me in the same tone, throwing up 
 both his hands, and almost flourishing them in my 
 face ; then went back to his horses, began pitching 
 on the harness, and, snatching up the meal-bag, 
 came back again toward me. all the time talking 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 f 
 
 263 L 
 
 and gesticulating like a bedlamite. I was almost 
 in despair. What have I done now ? Even my 
 poor peasant turns against me ; this morning he 
 kissed my foot ; now he is ready to brain me with 
 a meal-bag- Roused by the uproar, the old woman, 
 proprietor oi the shed, came out, accompanied by 
 her daughter, a pretty little gh'l about twelve years 
 old, carrying a lantern. I looked at them with- 
 out expecting any help. My peasant moved be- 
 tween them and me and the horses, flourishing his 
 meal-bag, and seeming every moment to become 
 more and more enraged with me. I looked on in 
 dismay, when the little girl came up, and drop- 
 ping a courtesy before me, in the prettiest French 
 I ever heard, asked me, " Que voulez-vous, mon- 
 sieur 1 " I could have taken her up in my arms 
 and kissed her. I have had a fair share of the 
 perplexity which befalls every man from the sex, 
 but I hold many old accounts cancelled by the re- 
 lief twice afforded me this day. Before coming to 
 a parley with my Pole, I took her by the hand, 
 and, sitting down on the tongue of a waggon, 
 learned from her that she had been taken into the 
 house of a rich seigneur to be educated as a com- 
 panion for bis daughter, and was then at home on 
 a visit to her mother ; after which she explained 
 the meaning of my postilion's outcry. Besides 
 his apprehensions for me personally, he had been 
 tormented with the no less powerful one of losing 
 the promised ten rubles upon his arrival at a fixed 
 time at Michoof, and all his earnestness was to 
 hurry me off at once, in order to give me a chance 
 of stUl arriving within the time. This was exactly 
 the humour in which I wanted to find him, for I 
 had expected great difiiculty in making him go on 
 that night ; so I told him to hitch on his horses, 
 and at parting did give the little girl a kiss, and 
 the only other thing I could give her without im- 
 poverishing myself was a silk purse as a memento. 
 £ lighted my pipe, and worn out with the per- 
 plexities of the day, in a short time forgot police 
 and passports, rude Russians and dastardly Poles, 
 and even the Polish ladies and the little girl. 
 
 I woke the next morning under a shed, horses 
 harnessed, postihon on the box whipping, and a 
 Jew at their head holding them, and the two 
 bipeds quarrelling furiously about the stabling. 
 [ threw the Jew a florin, and he let go his hold, 
 though my peasant shook his whip, and roared 
 back at him long after we were out of sight and 
 bearing. At a few miles' distance we came to a 
 stopping-place where we found a large caliche 
 with four handsome horses, and the postilion in 
 the costume of a peasant of Cracow, a little square 
 red cap with a red feather, a long white frock 
 somewhat like a shooting-jacket, bordered with 
 red, a belt covered with pieces of brass like scales 
 lapping over each other, and a horn slung over 
 his right shoulder. It belonged to a Polish sei- 
 gneur, who, though disaffected toward government, 
 had succeeded in retaining his property, and was 
 the proprietor of many villages. He was accom- 
 panied by a young man about thirty, who spoke a 
 very little French ; less than any man whom I 
 «ver heard attempt to speak it at all. They had 
 with them their own servants and cooking ap- 
 paratus and abundance of provisions. The sei- 
 gneur superintended the cooking, and I did them 
 the honour to breakfast with them. While we 
 ■were breakfasting, a troop of waggoners or vaga- 
 
 bonds were under the shed dancing the mazurka | 
 The better class of Poles are noble, high-spirited I 
 men, warm and social in their feelings, and to 
 them, living on their estates in the hiterior of their 
 almost untrodden country, a stranger is a curiosity 
 and a treasure. The old seigneur was exceedingly 
 kind and hospitable, and the young man and I 
 soon became on excellent terms. I was anxious to 
 have a friend in case of a new passport difficulty, 
 and at starting gladly embraced his offer to ride 
 with me. As soon as we took our seats in the 
 caliche we lighted our pipes, and shook liands as 
 a bargain of good-fellowship. Our perfect flow of 
 confidence, however, was mu6h broken by the 
 up-hill work of making ourselves understood. 
 I was no great scholar myself, but his French was 
 execrable ; he had studied it when a boy, but for 
 more than ten years had not spoken a word. At 
 one time, findmg it impossible to express himself, 
 he said, " Parlatis Latinum I " " Can you speak 
 Latin?" I at first thought itwas some dialect of the 
 country, and could not believe that he meant the 
 veritable stuff that had been whipped into me at 
 school, and which, to me, was most emphatically a 
 dead language ; but necessity develops all that a 
 man has, and for three hours we kept up an un- 
 interrupted stream of talk in bad Latin and worse 
 French. 
 
 Like every Pole whom I met, except the em- 
 ployes in the public offices, from the bottom of hia 
 heart he detested a Russian. He had been a 
 soldier during the revolution, and lay on his back 
 crippled with wounds when it was crushed by the 
 capture of Warsaw. I showed him the coin 
 which had accidentally come into my hands, and 
 when we came to the point where our roads 
 separated, he said that he was ashamed to do so, 
 but could not help begging from me that coin , 
 to me it was merely a curiosity, to him it was a 
 trophy of the brilliant but short-lived independence 
 of his country. I was loath to part with it, and 
 would rather have given him every button on my 
 coat ; but I appreciated his patriotic feeling, and 
 could not refuse. I got out, and he threw his 
 arms around me, kissed me on both cheeks, called 
 me his friend and brother, and mounted the 
 kibitka with the old seigneur. The latter invited 
 me to go with him to his chateau, about a day's 
 journey distant, and if I had expected to write a 
 book I should certainly have done so. 
 
 I went on again alone. At about twelve o'clock 
 we arrived at the town of Kielse. I felt nervous 
 as we approached the barrier. I threw myself 
 back in the caliche, and drew my cap over my 
 eyes in grand seigneur style, the soldier touched 
 his hat as he opened ,the gate, and we drove into 
 the public square unmolested. I breathed more 
 freely, but almost hesitated to leave the caleche 
 while the horses fed. I smiled, however, at think- 
 ing that any effort to avoid observation was the 
 very way to attract it, and went to a kukernia, 
 where I drank coffee, ate bread encrusted with 
 sugar, and smoked a pipe until my Pole came in 
 and kissed my foot as an intimation that the 
 horses were ready. 
 
 No questions were asked at the oarrier ; and we 
 rode on quietly till nine o'clock, when we drove 
 under the shed of a caravanserai. Fifteen or twenty 
 waggoners were eating off a bonch, and, as they 
 finished, stretched themselves on the floor for 
 
264 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 sleep. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and I 
 jtroUed out for a walk. The whole country was 
 an immense plain. I could see for a great dis- 
 tance, and the old shed was the only roof in sight. 
 It was the last night of a long journey through 
 wild and unsettled countries. I went back to the 
 time when, on a night like that, I had embarked 
 on the Adriatic for Greece ; thought of the many 
 scenes I had passed through since, and bidding 
 farewell to the plains of Poland, returned to my 
 caleche, drew mj' cloak around me, and was soon 
 
 At nine o'clock we stopped at a feeding-place, 
 where a horde of du-ty Jews were at a long table 
 eating. I brushed off one corner, and sat down 
 to some bread and milk. Opposite me was a 
 beggar woman dividing with a child, about ten 
 years old, a small piece of dry black bread. I 
 gave them some bread and a jar of milk, and 
 I thought, from the lighting up of the boy's 
 face, that it was long since he had had such a 
 meal. 
 
 At twelve o'clock we reached M ichoof, the end 
 of my journey with the cal6che. I considered my 
 difficulties all ended, and showed at the posthouse 
 my letter from the Polish captain to the commis- 
 sario. To my great annoyance, he was not in the 
 place. I had to procure a conveyance to Cracow ; 
 and having parted with my poor Pole overwhelmed 
 with gratitude for my treatment on the road and 
 my trifhug gratuity at parting, I stood at the door 
 of the posthouse with my carpet-bag in my hand, 
 utterly at a loss what to do. A crowd of people 
 { gathered round, all willing to assist me, but I 
 could not tell them what I wanted. One young 
 man in particular seemed bent upon serving me ; 
 he accosted me in Kussian, Polish, and Gennan. 
 I answered him in English, French, and Italian, 
 and then both stopped. As u desperate resource, 
 and almost trembling at my own temerity, I asked 
 him the question I had learned from my yester- 
 day's companion, " Parlatis Latinum !" and he 
 answered me with a fluency and volubility that 
 again threw me into another perplexity, caught 
 my hand, congratulated me upon having found a 
 language both understood, jjraised the good old 
 classic tongues, offered liis services to procure 
 anything I wanted, &c., and all with such rapidity 
 of utterance that I was obUged to cry out with 
 something like the sailor's " 'vast heaving," and 
 tell him that, if he went on at that rate, it was all 
 Russian to me. He stopped, and went on more 
 moderately, and with great help from him I gave 
 him to understand that I wanted to hire a waggon 
 to take me to Cracow. " Venite cum me," said 
 my friend, and conducted me round the town 
 until we found one. I then told him I wanted my 
 passport vis^d for passing the frontier. " Venite 
 cum me," again said my friend, and took me with 
 him and procured the vise; then that I wanted a 
 dinner ; still he answered " Venite cum me," and 
 took me to a trattoria, and dined with me. At 
 dinner my classical friend did a rather unclassical 
 thing. An enormous cucumber was swimming in 
 a tureen of vinegar. He asked me whether I did 
 not want it ; and, taking it up in his fingers, ate it 
 as a dessert, and drinking the vinegar out of the 
 tureen, smacked his lips, wiped his mustaci.es 
 with the table-cloth, and pronounced it "optimum." 
 for ihree hours we talked constantly, and talked 
 
 nothing but Latin. It was easy enough for hiin» 
 for, as he told me, at school it had been the 
 language of conversation. To me it was like 
 breaking myself into the treadmill ; but, once 
 fairly started, my early preceptors would have 
 been proud of my talk. At parting he kissed me 
 on both cheeks, rubbed me affectionately with hLs 
 nmstaches, and, after I had taken my seat, his 
 last words were, " Semper me servate in vestra 
 memoria." 
 
 We had four and a half German, or about 
 eighteen English, miles to Cracow. We had a 
 pair of miserable, ragged little horses, but I pro- 
 raised my postilion two florins extra if he took me 
 there in three hours, and he started off so furiously 
 that in less than an hour the horses broke down, 
 and we had to get out and walk. After breathing 
 them a Uttle they began to recover, and we arrived 
 on a gentle trot at the frontier town, about half 
 way to Cracow. My passport was all right, but 
 here I had a new difficulty in that I had no pass- 
 port for my postilion. I had not thought of this,, 
 and my classical friend had not suggested it. It 
 was exceedingly provoking, as to return would 
 prevent my reaching Cracow that night. After a 
 parley with the commanding officer, a gentlemanly 
 man, who spoke French very well, he finally said 
 that my postilion might go on under charge of a 
 soldier to the next posthouse, about a mile beyond, 
 where I could get another conveyance and send 
 him back. Just as I had thanked him for his 
 courtesy, a young gentleman from Cracow, in a 
 barouche with four horses, drove up, and, hearing 
 my difficulty, politely offered to take me in with 
 him. I gladly accepted his offer, and arrived at 
 Cracow at about dark, where, upon his recom- 
 mendation, I went to the Hotel de la Rose Blanche 
 and cannot well describe the satisfaction with 
 which I once more found myself on the borders 
 of civilized Europe, within reach of the ordinary 
 public conveyances, and among people whose 
 language I could understand. " Shall I not take 
 mine ease in mine own inn ?" Often, after a hard 
 day's journey, I have asked myself this question,, 
 but seldom with the same self-complacency and 
 the same determination to have mine ease as at • 
 Cracow. I inquired about the means of getting 
 to Vienna, which, at that moment, I thought no 
 more of than a journey to Boston. Though there 
 was no particular need of it, I had a fire built in 
 my room, for the associations connected with a 
 cheerful blaze. I put on my moming-gown and 
 slippers, and hauling up before the fire an old 
 chintz-covered sofa, sent for my landlord to come 
 up and talk with me. My host was an Italian, 
 and an excellent fellow. Attached to his hotel 
 was a large restaurant, frequented by the first 
 people at Cracow. During the evening an old 
 countess came there to sup ; he mentioned to her 
 the arrival of an American, and I supped with 
 her and her niece ; neither of them, however,. 
 so interesting as to have any effect upon my 
 slumber. 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND TOLAND. 
 
 205 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Crftcow.— Casimir the Great — Kosciusko. — Tombs of the 
 Polish Kings.— A Polish Heroine.— Laat Words of u King. 
 —A Hero in Decay. — The Salt-mines of Cracow. — The 
 Descent— The Mines. — Underground Meditations — The 
 Farewell. 
 
 Cbacow is an old, curious, and interesting city, 
 situated in a valley on tlie banks of the Vistula ; 
 and approaching it as I did, toward the sunset of 
 a summer's day, the old churches and towers, the 
 lofty castles and the large houses spread out on 
 the immense plains, gave it an appearance of 
 actual splendour. This faded away as I entered, 
 but still the city inspired a feeling of respect, for 
 it bore the impress of better days. It contains 
 numerous ehurches, some of them very large, and 
 remarkable for their style and architecture, and 
 more than a hundred monasteries and convents. 
 In the centre is a large square, on which stands 
 the church of Notre Dame, an immense Gothic 
 structure, and also the old palace of Sobieski, now 
 cut down into shops, and many large private resi- 
 dences, uninhabited and falling to ruins. The 
 principal streets terminate in this square. Almost 
 every building bears striking marks of ruined 
 grandeur. On the last partition Of Poland, in 
 eighteen hundred and fifteen, by the Holy Alliance, 
 Cracow, with a territory of five hundred square 
 miles and a population of a hundred and eight 
 thousand, including about thirty thousand Jews, 
 was erected into a republic ; and at this day it 
 exists nominally as a, free citt/, under the protec- 
 tion of the three great powers ; emphatically, 
 such protection as vultures give to lambs ; three 
 masters instead of one, Russia, Prussia, and 
 Austria, all claiming the right to interfere in its 
 government. 
 
 But even in its fallen state Cracow is dear to 
 the Pole's heart, for it was the capital of his 
 country when Poland ranked high among nations, 
 and, down to him who last sat upon her throne, 
 was the place of coronation and of burial for her 
 kings. It is the residence of many of the old 
 Polish nobility, who, with reduced fortunes, prefer 
 this little foothold in their country, where liberty 
 nominally lingers, to exile in foreign lands. It 
 now contains a population of about thu'ty thou- 
 sand, including Jews. Occasionally the seigneur 
 ; is still seen, in his short cassock of blue cloth, 
 with a red sash and a white square-topped cap ; a 
 costume admirably adapted to the tall and noble 
 figure of the proud Pole, and the costume of the 
 peasant of Cracow is still a striking feature in her 
 streets. 
 
 After a stroll through the churches, I walked 
 on the old ramparts of Cracow. The city was 
 formerly surrounded with regular fortifications, 
 but, as in almost all the cities of Europe, her 
 ancient walls have been transformed into boule- 
 vards ; and now handsome avenues of trees encir- 
 cle it, destroying altogether its gothic military 
 aspect, and on Sundays and ffite days the whole 
 population gathers in gay dresses, seeking plea- 
 sure where their fathers stood clad in armour and 
 arrayed for battle. 
 
 The boulevards command an extensive view of 
 all the surrounding country. " All the sites of 
 my country," says a national poet, " are dear to 
 
 me; but, above all, I love the environs of Cracow ; 
 there at every step I meet the recollections of our 
 ancient glory and our once imposing grandeur." 
 
 On the opposite bank of the river is a large 
 tumulus of earth, marking the grave of Cracus, 
 the founder of the city. A little higher up is 
 another mound, reverenced as the sepulchre of his 
 daughter Wenda, who was so enamoured of war 
 that she promised to give her hand only to the 
 lover who should conquer her in battle. Beyond 
 this is the field of Zechino, where the brave 
 Kosciusko, after his return from America, with 
 a band of peasants, again struck the first blow of 
 revolution, and, by a victory over the Russians, 
 roused all Poland to arms. 
 
 About a mile from Cracow are the ruins of the 
 palace of Lobzow, built by Casimir the Great, for 
 a long time the favourite royal residence, and 
 identified with a crowd of national recollections ; 
 and, until lately, a large mound of earth in the 
 garden was reverenced as the grave of Esther, the 
 beautiful Jewess, the idol of Casimir the Great. 
 Poetry has embellished the tradition, and the 
 national muse has hallowed the palace of Lobzow 
 and the grave of Esther. 
 
 " Passer-by, if you are a stranger, tremble in 
 thinking of human destruction ; but if you are a 
 Pole, shed bitter tears ; heroes have inhabited 
 
 this palace Who can equal them ? . . . . 
 
 ***** 
 " Casimir erected this palace : centuries have 
 hailed him with the name of the great . . . 
 ***** 
 " Near his Esther, in the delightful groves of 
 Lobzow, he thought himself happy in ceasing tn 
 be a lung to become a lover. 
 
 ***** 
 " But fate is unpitiable for kings as for us, and 
 even beauty is subject to the common law. Esther 
 died, and Casimir erected a tomb in the place she 
 had loved. 
 
 " Oh ! if you are sensible to the grief caused by 
 love, drop a tear at this tomb and adorn it with a 
 crown. If Casimir was tied to humanity by some 
 weaknesses, they are the appendage of heroes t 
 In presence of this chateau, in find ng again noble 
 remains, sing the glory of Casimir the Great." 
 
 I was not a sentimental traveller, nor sensible 
 to the grief that is caused by love, and I could 
 neither drop a tear at the tomb of Esther, nor 
 sing the glory of Casimir the Great; but my heart 
 beat high^s I turned to another monument in the 
 environs of Cracow ; an immense mound of earth, 
 standing on an eminence visible from every quarter, 
 towering almost into a mountain, and sacred to 
 the memory of Kosciusko ! I saw it from the 
 palace of the kings and from the ramparts of the 
 fallen city, and with my eyes constantly fixed 
 upon it, descended to the Vistula, followed its bank 
 to a large convent, and then turned to the right, 
 direct for the mound. I walked to the foot of the 
 hill, and ascended to a broad table of land. From 
 this table the mound rises to a conical form, from 
 a base three hundred feet in diameter, to the height 
 of one hundred and seventy-five feet At the four 
 corners formerly stood small houses , which were 
 occupied by revolutionary soldiers who had served 
 under Kosciusko. On the farther side, enclosed 
 by a railing, was a small chapel, and within it a 
 S 
 
266 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 
 
 marble tomb covering Kosciusko's heart ! A cir- 
 cular path winds round the mound ; I ascended 
 by this path to the top. It is built of earth sodded, 
 and was then covered with a thick carpet of grass, 
 and reminded me of the tumuli of the Grecian 
 heroes on the plains of Troy ; and perhaps, when 
 thousands of years shall have rolled by, and all 
 connected with our age be forgotten, and time and 
 exposure to the elements shall have changed its 
 form, another stranger will stand where I did, 
 and wonder why and for what it was raised. It 
 was erected in 1819 by the voluntary labour of the 
 Polish people ; and so great was the enthusiasm, 
 that, as an eye-witness told me, wounded soldiers 
 brought earth in their helmets, and women in 
 their shppers ; and I remembered with a swelling 
 heart, that on this consecrated spot a, nation of 
 brave men had turned to my country as the star 
 «f liberty, and that here a banner had been 
 unfurled and hailed with acclamations by assembled 
 thousands, bearing aloft the sacred inscription, 
 * Kosciusko, the friend of Washington ! " 
 
 The morning was cold and dreary, the sky was 
 «vercast with clouds, and the sun, occasionally 
 breaking through, lighted up for a, moment with 
 dazzling brilliancy the domes and steeples of 
 Cracow, and the palace and burial-place of her 
 kings, emblematic of the fitful gleams of her 
 liberty flashing and dazzUng, and then dying 
 away. I drew my cloak around me, and remained 
 there till I was ^most drenched with rain. The 
 wind blew violently, and I descended and sheltered 
 myself at the foot of the mound, by the grave of 
 Kosciusko's heart ! 
 
 I returned to the city and entered the Cathedral 
 Church. It stands by the Side of the old palace, 
 on the summit of the rock of Wauvel, in the centre 
 of and commanding the city, enclosed with walls 
 and towers, and alUed in its history with the most 
 memorable annals of Poland ; the witness of the 
 ancient glory of her kings, and their sepulchre. 
 The rain was pattering against the windows of the 
 old church as I strolled through the silent cloisters 
 and among the tombs of the kings. A verger in 
 a large cocked hat, and a, group of peasants, 
 moved like mvself, with noiseless steps, as if afraid 
 to disturb the repose of the royal dead. Many 
 of the kings of Poland fill but a corner of the 
 page of history. Some of their names I had for- 
 gotten, or, perhaps, never knew until I saw them 
 inscribed on their tombs ; but every monument 
 covered a head that had worn a crown, and some 
 whose bones were mouldering under my feet will 
 live till the last records of heroism perish. 
 
 The oldest monument is that of Wladislaus le 
 Bref, built of stone, without any inscription, but 
 adorned with figures in bas-relief, which are very 
 much injured. He died in thirteen hundred and 
 thirty-three, and chose himself the place of his 
 eternal rest. Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, on 
 his invasion of Poland, visited the Cathedral 
 Church, and stopped before this tomb. A distin- 
 ;guished canon who attended him, in allusion to 
 the position of John Casimir, who was then at 
 war with the king of Sweden, remarked, "And 
 that king was also driven from his throne, but he 
 returned and reigned until his death." The Swede 
 answered with bitterness, " But your John Casimir 
 will never return." The canon replied respect- 
 ftiUv. "God is groat and fortune is fickle :" and 
 
 the canon was right, for John Casimir regained 
 his throne. 
 
 I approached with a feeling of veneration the 
 tomb of Casimir the Great. It is of red marble • 
 four columns support a canopy, and the figure of 
 the king, with a crown on his head, rests ou a 
 cofRn of stone. An iron railing encloses the 
 monument. It is nearly five hundred years since 
 the palatines and nobles of Poland, with all die 
 insignia of barbaric magnificence, laid him in the 
 place where his ashes now repose. The historian 
 writes, " Poland is indebted to Casimir for the 
 greatest part of her churches, palaces, fortresses, 
 and towns," adding that " he found Poland of 
 wood and left her of marble." He patronised 
 letters, and founded the University of Cracow ; 
 promoted industry and encouraged trade ; digested 
 the unwritten laws and usages into a regular code ; 
 established courts of justice ; repressed the tyranny 
 of the nobles, and ^ied with the honourable title of 
 King of the Peasants ; and I did not forget, while 
 standing over his grave, that beneath me slept the 
 spirit that loved the groves of Lobzow and the 
 heart that beat for Esther the Jewess. 
 
 The tomb of Sigismund I. is of red marble, with 
 a figure as large as life reclining upon it. It is 
 adorned with bas-reliefs and the arms of the 
 republic, the white eagle and the armed cavalier 
 of Lithuania. He died in fifteen hundred and 
 forty-one, and his monument bears the following 
 inscription in Latin : " Sigismund Jagellon, King 
 of Poland, Grand-duke of Lithuania, Conqueror 
 of the Tartars, of the Wallachians, of the Russians 
 and Prussians, reposes under this stone, which he 
 prepared for himself." Foity years ago Thad- 
 deus Czacki, the Polish historian, opened the 
 tombs of the kings and found the head of Sigis- 
 mund resting upon a plate of silver bearing a long 
 Latin inscription ; the body measured six feet and 
 two inches in height, and was covered with three 
 rich ermines ; on the feet were golden spurs, a 
 chain of gold around the neck, and a gold ring 
 on one finger of the left hand. At his feet was a 
 small pewter cofiin enclosing the body of his son 
 by Bone Sforza. 
 
 By his side lies the body of his son Sigismund 
 II., the last of the Jagellons, at whose death 
 began the cabals and convulsions of an elective 
 monarchy, by which Poland lost her influence 
 among foreign powers. His memory is rendered 
 interestmg by his romantic love for Barhe Radze- 
 will. She appeared at his father's court, the 
 I daughter of a private citizen, celebrated in Polish 
 history and romance as uniting to all a woman's 
 beauty a mingled force and tenderness, energy 
 and goodness. The prince had outlived all the 
 ardour of youth ; disappointed and listless amid 
 pleasures, his energy of mind destroyed by his 
 excesses, inconstant in his love, and at the sum 
 mit of human prosperity, living without a wish or 
 a hope ; but he saw Barbe, and his heart beat 
 anew with the pulsations of life. In the language 
 of his biographer, he proved, in all its fulnPSS; 
 that sentunent which draws to earth by its sor 
 rows and raises to heaven by its delights. He 
 married her privately, an4 on his father's death 
 proclaimed her queen. The whole body of nobles 
 refused to acknowledge the marriage ; and one of 
 the nuncios, in the name of the representatives 
 of the nation, supplicated him for hunself, his 
 
IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 2(57 
 
 coantiy, his blood, and his children, to extinguish 
 (lis passion ; but the king swore on his sword that 
 neitlier the diet, nor the nation, nor the whole 
 Bniverse, should make him break his vows to 
 Barbe ; that he would a thousand times rather 
 lire with her out of the kingdom, than keep a 
 throne which she could not share ; and was on 
 the point of abdicating, when his opponents 
 offered to do homage to the queen. When Czacki 
 opened the coffin of this prince, he found the 
 body perfectly preserved, and the head, as before, 
 resting on a silver plate containing a long Latin 
 inscription. 
 
 At the foot of his coffin is that of his sister and 
 successor, Anne ; and in a separate chapel is the 
 tomb of Stephen Battery, one of the greatest of 
 the kings of Poland, raised to the throne by his 
 marriage with Anne. 
 
 I became more and more interested in this 
 asylum of royal dead. I read there almost the 
 entire history of the Polish republic, and again I 
 felt that it was but a step from the throne to the 
 grave, for near me was the great chair in which 
 the kings of Poland were crowned. I paused 
 before the tomb of John Casimir : and there was 
 something strangely interesting in the juxtaposi- 
 tion of these royal dead. John Casimir lies by 
 the side of the brother whom he endeavoured to 
 upplant in his election to the throne. His reign 
 was a continued succession of troubles and mis- 
 'ortunes. Once he was obliged to fly from Poland. 
 Be predicted what has since been so fearfully 
 vferified, that his country, enfeebled by the anarchy 
 if its government and the licentiousness of the 
 lobles, would be dismembered among the neigh- 
 bouring powers ; and, worn out with the cares of 
 royalty, abdicated the throne, and died in a con- 
 rent in France. I read at his tomb his pathetic 
 farewell to his people. 
 " People of Poland, 
 
 " It is now two hundred and eighty years that 
 .ou have been governed by my family. The 
 reign of my ancestors is past, and mine is going to 
 ixpire. Fatigued by the labours of war, the cares 
 of the cabinet, and the weight of age ; oppressed 
 with the burdens and vicissitudes of a reign of 
 more than twenty-one years, I, your king and 
 Father, return into your hands what the world 
 esteems above all things, a crown, and choose for 
 my throne six feet of earth, where I shall sleep 
 with my fathers. When you show my tomb to 
 your children, tell them that I was the foremost 
 in battle and the last in retreat ; that I renounced 
 regal grandeiu: for the good of my country, and 
 restored my sceptre to those who gave it me." 
 
 By his side, and under a monument of black 
 marble, lies the body of his successor, Michel 
 Wisniowecki, an obscure and unambitious citizen, 
 who was literally dragged to the throne, and wept 
 when the crown was placed upon his head, and of 
 whom Casimir remarked, when informed of his 
 late subjects' choice, " What, have they put the 
 crown on the head of that poor fellow?" And 
 again I was almost startled by the strange and 
 •mnatural mingling of human ashes. By the side 
 of that " poor fellow" lies the " lamous" John 
 Sobieski, the greatest of the long line of kings of a 
 noble and valorous nation ; . 
 
 ** One of the few, the immortal names. 
 That were not horn to die" 
 
 On the lower floor of the church, by the side of 
 Poniatowski, the Polish Bayard, is the tomb of 
 one nobler in my eyes than all the kings of Poland 
 or of the world. '' It is of red marble ornamented 
 with the cap and plume of the peasant of Cracow, 
 and bears the simple inscription " T. Kosciusko." 
 All over the church I had read elaborate pane- 
 gyrics upon the tenants of the royal sepulchres, 
 and I was struck with this simple inscription, and 
 remembered that the white marble column reared 
 amid the magnificent scenery of the Hudson, which 
 I had often gazed at from the deck of a steam-boat, 
 and at whose base I had often stood, bore also in 
 majestic simplicity the name of " Kosciusko." It 
 was late in the afternoon, and the group of peasants, 
 two Poles from the interior, and a party of the 
 citizens of Cracow, among whom were several 
 ladies, joined. me at the tomb. We could not 
 speak each other's language ; we were born and 
 lived thousands of miles apart, and we were 
 strangers in our thoughts and feelings, in all our 
 hopes and prospects, but we had a bond of sympathy 
 at the grave of Kosciusko. One of the ladies spoke 
 French, and I told them that, in my far distant 
 country, the name of their nation's idol was hal- 
 lowed ; that schoolboys had erected a monument 
 to his memory. They knew that he had fought by 
 the side of Washington, but they did not know 
 that the recollection of his services was still so 
 dearly cherished in America ; and we all agreed 
 that it was the proudest tribute that could be paid 
 to his memory, to write merely his name on the 
 monument. It meant that it was needless to add an 
 epitaph, for no man would ask, Whowas Kosciusko ? 
 
 It was nearly dark when 1 returned to my hotel. 
 In the restaurant, at a small table directly oppo- 
 site me, sat the celebrated Chlopicki, to whom, on 
 the breaking out of the last revolution, Poland 
 turned as to another Kosciusko, and who, until 
 he faltered during the trying scenes of that revo- 
 lution, would have been deemed worthy to lie by 
 Kosciusko's side. Born of a noble family, a soldier 
 from his birth, he served in the memorable cam- 
 paigns of the great patriot, distinguished himself 
 in the Polish legions in Italy under Dombrowski, 
 and, as colonel of a regiment of the army of the 
 Vistula, behaved gloriously in Prussia. In Spain 
 he fought at Saragossa and SiCgunta, and was 
 called by Suchet le brave des braves ; as general of 
 brigade in the army of Russia, he was wounded at 
 Valentina, near Smolensk, and was general of a 
 division, in eighteen hundred and fourteen, when 
 Poland fell under the dominion of the autocrat. 
 The grand-duke Constantino censured him on 
 parade, saying that his division was not in order ; 
 and Chlopicki, with the proud boast, " I did not 
 gain my rank on the parade-ground, nor did I 
 win my decorations there," asked his discharge 
 the next day, and could never after be induced to 
 return to the service. The day after the revo- 
 lutionary blow was struck, all Poland turned to 
 Chlopicki as the only man capable of standing at 
 the head of the nation. The command of the 
 army, with absolute powers, was conferred upon 
 him by acclamation, and one of the patriot leaders 
 concluded his address to him with these words : 
 " Brother, take the sword of your ancestors and 
 predecessors, Czamecki, Dombrowski, and Kos- 
 ciusko. Guide the nation that has placed its trust 
 in you in the path of honour. Save this unhappy 
 
2(i» 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVKl. 
 
 counhy." Chlopieki, with his silver head grown 
 white ia the service of Poland, was hailed by a hun- 
 dred thousand people on the Champ de Mars with 
 shouts of " Our country and its brave defender, Chlo- 
 pieki, for ever !" He promised never to abuse their 
 confidence, and swore that he would defend the 
 liberty of Poland to the last moment. The whole 
 nation was enthusiastic in his favour ; but in less 
 than three months, at a stormy session of the diet, 
 lie threw up his high office of dictator, and refused 
 peremptorily to accept command of the army. 
 This brave army, enthusiastically attached to him, 
 was struclc with profound grief at his estrange- 
 ment ; but, with all the faults imputed to him, it 
 never was charged that he attempted to take ad- 
 vantage of his great popularity for any ambitious 
 purposes of his own. 
 
 At the battle of Grokow he fought nominally 
 as a private soldier, though Skryznecki and Rad- 
 ziwill being both deficient in military experience, 
 the whole army looked to him for guidance. Once, 
 when the battle was setting strong against the 
 Poles, in a moment of desperation he put himself 
 at the head of some disposable battalions, and turn- 
 ing away from an aide-de-camp who came to him 
 for orders, said " Go and ask Radziwill ; for me I 
 seek only death." Grievously wounded, his wounds 
 Were dressed in presence of the enemy ; but at 
 two o'clock he was borne oif the field, the hopes 
 of the soldiers died, and the army remained with- 
 out any actual head. Throughout the revolution 
 nis conduct, was cold, indifferent, and inexplicable ; 
 private letters from the Emperor of Russia were 
 talked of, and even treason was whispered in con- 
 nexion with his name. The Poles speak of him 
 more in sorrow than in anger ; they say that it 
 was not enough that lie exposed his person on the 
 field of battle ; that he should have given them 
 the whole weight of his great military talents, and 
 the influence of his powerful name ; that, standing 
 alone, without children or relations to be compro- 
 mised by his acts, he should have consummated 
 the glory of his life by giving its few remaining 
 years for the liberty of his country. He appeared 
 about sixty-five, with hair perfectly white, a high 
 florid complexion, a firm and detennined expres- 
 sion, and in still unbroken health, carrying himself 
 with the proud tearing of a distinguished veteran 
 soldier. I could not believe that he had bartered 
 the precious satisfaction of a long and glorious 
 career for a few years of ignoble existence ; and, 
 though a stranger, could but regret that, in the 
 wane of life, circumstances, whether justly or not, 
 had sullied an honoured name. It spoke loudly 
 agamst him that 1 saw him sitting in a public 
 restaurant at Cracow, unmolested by the Russian 
 government. 
 
 The next day I visited the celebrated salt-mines 
 at Wielitsita. ,. They lie about twelve miles from 
 Cracow, in the province of Galicia, a part of the 
 kingdom of Poland, which, on the unrighteous par- 
 tition of that country, fell to the share of Austria. 
 Although at so short a distance, it was necessary 
 to go through all the passport formalities requisite 
 onadeparture for a foreign country. I took a fiacre 
 and rode to the difl^erent bureaux of the city police, 
 and, having procured the permission of the muni- 
 cipal authorities to leave the little territory of 
 Cracow, rode next to the Austrian consul, who 
 thereupon, and in consideration of one dollar to 
 
 him in hand paid, was graciously pleased to 
 permit me to enter the dominions of his master^ 
 the Emperor of Austria. It was also necessary 
 to have an order from the director of the mines to 
 the supeiintendant ; and furnished with tliis, I 
 again mounted ray fiacre, rattled through the 
 principal street, and in a few minutes crossed tlie- 
 Vistula. At the end of the bridge an Austrian 
 soldier stopped me for my passport, a douanier 
 examined my caniage for articles subject to duty^ 
 and, these functionaries being satisfied, in about 
 two hours from the time at which I began my 
 preparations I was fairly on my way. 
 
 Leaving tlie Vistula, I entered a pretty, undu' 
 lating, and well-cultivated country, and saw at a 
 distance a high dark line, marking the range of 
 the Caipatliian mountains. It was a long time 
 since I had seen anything that looked like a 
 mountain. From the Black Sea the whole of my 
 journey had been over an immense plain, and I 
 hailed the wild range of the Carpathian as I would! 
 the spire of u church, as an evidence of the 
 approach to regions of civilization. 
 
 In an hour and a half I arrived at the town of 
 Wielitska, containing about three thousand inha- 
 bitants, and standing, as it were on the roof of 
 the immense subterraneous excavations. The 
 houses are built of wood, and the first thing that 
 struck me was the almost entire absence of meui 
 in the streets, the whole male population being, 
 employed in the mines, and then at work below. 
 I rede to the office of the superintendant, and 
 presented my letter, and was received with great 
 civility of manner, but his Polish was perfectly 
 unintelligible. A smutty-faced operative, just out 
 of the mines, accosted me in Latm,and I exchanged 
 a few shots with him, but hauled off on the appear- 
 ance of a man whom the superintendant had sent 
 for to act as my guide ; an old soldier who had 
 served in the campaigns of Napoleon, and, as he 
 said, become an amateur and proficient in fighting 
 and French. He was dressed in miner's costume, 
 fanciful and embroidered with gold, holding in his 
 hand a steel axe ; and, having ari'ayed nie in a 
 long white frock, conducted me to a wooden build- 
 ing covering the shaft which fonns the principal 
 entrance to the mine. Tins shaft is ten feet square,, 
 and descends perpendicularly more than two 
 hundred feet into the bowels of the earth. We 
 arranged ourselves in canvas seats, and several 
 of the miners who were waiting to descend, attached 
 themselves to seats at the end of the ropes, with 
 lampsin then- hands, abouteight or ten feetbelowus. 
 
 When my feet left the brink of the shaft X felt, 
 for a moment, as if suspended over the portal of a 
 bottomless pit ; and as my head descended below 
 the surface, the rope, winding and tapering to a 
 thread, seemed letting me down to the realms of 
 Pluto. But in a few moments we touched the bot- 
 tom. P rom within a short distance of the surface, the 
 shaft is cut through a solid rock of salt, and from 
 the bottom passages almost innumerable are cut 
 in every direction through the same bed. We 
 were furnished with guides, wlio went before us 
 bearing torches, and I followed tlirough the whole 
 labyrinth of passages, forming the largest exca- 
 vations in Europe, peopled with upward of two 
 thousand souls, and giving a complete idea of a 
 subterraneous world. These mines are knonli to 
 have been woriea upward of six hundred yeare, 
 
 J 
 
IN GREECE, TUUKEY, KUSSIA, AND POLAND. 
 
 ■Mi) 
 
 jieing mentioned in the Polish annals as early as 
 ■twelve hundred and thirty-seven, under Boleslaus 
 the Chaste, and then not as a new discovery, but 
 Jiow much earlier they had existed cannot now 
 be ascertained. The tradition is, tliat a sister of 
 St. Casimir, having lost a gold ring, prayed to St. 
 Anthony, the patron saint of Cracow, and was 
 jidvised in a dream that, by digging in such a place, 
 sbo would find a treasure far greater than that 
 she had lost, and within the place indicated these 
 mines were discovered. 
 
 There .are four different stories or ranges of 
 jipartnients ; the whole length of the excavations 
 is more than six thousand feet, or three quarters of 
 an houi''s walk, and the greatest breadth more 
 than two thousand feet ; and there are so many 
 ^turnings and windings that my guide told me, 
 though I hardly think it possible, that the whole 
 .length of all the passages cut through this bed of 
 salt amounts to more than three hundred miles. 
 Many of the chambers are of immense size. Some 
 are supported by timber, others by vast pillars of 
 «alt ; several are without any support in the 
 middle, and of vast dimensions, perhaps eighty 
 feet high, and so long and broad as almost to ap- 
 pear a boundless subterraneous cavern. In one of 
 the largest is a lake covering nearly the whole 
 -area. When the King of Saxony visited this place 
 in eighteen hundred and ten, after taking posses- 
 sion of his moiety of the mines as Duke of Warsaw, 
 this portion of them was brilliantly illuminated, 
 and a band of music, floating on the lake, made 
 the roof echo with patriotic airs. We crossed the 
 lake in a flatboat by a rope, the dim light of torches, 
 «nd the hollow sound of our voices, giving a lively 
 idea of a passage across the Styx ; and we had a 
 scene which might have entitled us to a welcome 
 from the prince of the infemals, for our torch- 
 bearers quarrelled, and in a scuffle that came near 
 •tarrying us all with them, one was tumbled into 
 the lake. Our Charon caught him, and, without 
 stopping to take him in, hurried across, and as 
 soon as we landed beat them both unmercifully. 
 
 From this we entered an immense cavern, in 
 which several hundred men were working with 
 pickaxes and hatchets, cutting out large blocks of 
 salt, and trimming them to suit the size of barrels. 
 With their black faces begrimed with dust and 
 smoke, they looked by the light of the scattered 
 torches like the journeymen of Beelzebub, the 
 prince of darkness, preparing for some great blow- 
 up, or like the spirits of the damned condemned 
 to toil without end. My guide called up a party, 
 yiho disengaged with their pick-axes a large block 
 Df salt from its native bed, and in a few minutes 
 «ut and trimmed it to fit the barrels in which they 
 are packed. All doubts as to their being creatures 
 of our upper world were removed by the eagerness 
 with which they accepted the money I gave them ; 
 -and it will be satisfactory to the advocates of that 
 -cun'ency to know that paper money passes readily 
 ui these lower regions. 
 
 There are mere than a thousand chambers or 
 Iialls, most of which have been abandoned and 
 shut up. In one is a collection of fanciful things, 
 such as rings, books, crosses, &c., cut in the rock- 
 salt. Most of the principal chambers had some 
 uame printed over them, as the " Archduke," 
 * Caroline," &c. Whenever it was necessary, my 
 -ttuidfs went a-head, .ind stationed themselves in 
 
 some conspicuous place, lighting up the dark 
 caverns with the blaze of their torches, and, after 
 allowing me a sufficient time, struck their flam- 
 beaux against the wall, and millions of sparks 
 flashed and floated around and filled the chamber. 
 In one place, at the end of a long, dark passage, a 
 door was thrown open, and I was ushered suddenly 
 into a spacious ball-room lighted with torches ; 
 and directly in front, at the head of the room, was 
 a ti-ansparency with coloured liglits, in the centre 
 of which were the words " Exeelso hospiti," " To 
 the Illustrious guest," which I took to myself, 
 though I believe the greeting was intended for the 
 same royal person for whom the lake chamber 
 was illuminated. Lights were ingeniously arranged 
 around the room, and at the foot, about twenty 
 feet above my head, was a large orchestra. On 
 the occasion referred to a splendid ball was given 
 in this room ; the roof echoed with the sound of 
 music ; and nobles and princely ladies flirted and 
 coquetted the same as above ground ; and it is 
 said that the splendid dresses of a numerous com- 
 pany, and the blaze of light from the chandeliers 
 reflected upon the surface of the rock-salt, pro- 
 duced an effect of inconceivable brilliancy. My 
 chandeliers were worse than Allan M'Aulay's 
 strapping Highlanders, with their pine torches, 
 being dirty, ragged, smutty-faced rascals, whi» 
 threw the light in streaks across the hall. I am 
 always willing to believe fanciful stories ; and if 
 my guide had thrown in a handsome young prin- 
 cess as part of the welcome to the " Exeelso 
 hospiti," I would have subscribed to anything he 
 said ; but, in the absence of a consideration, I 
 refused to tax my imagination up to the point he 
 wished. Perhaps the most interesting chamber 
 of all is the chapel dedicated to that Saint Anthony 
 who brought about the disco\ory of these mines. 
 It is supposed to be more than four hundred years 
 old. The columns, with their ornamented capitals, 
 the arches, the images of the Saviour, the Virgin 
 and saints, the altar and the pulpit, with all their 
 decorations, and the figures of two priests repre- 
 sented at prayers before the shrine of the patron 
 saint, are all carved out of the rock-salt, and to 
 this day grand mass is regularly celebrated in the 
 chapel once every year. 
 
 Following my guide through all the different 
 passages and chambers, and constantly meeting 
 minei's and seeing squads of men at work, I 
 descended by regular stairs cut in the salt, but in 
 some places worn away and replaced by wood or 
 stone, to the lowest gallery, which is nearly a 
 thousand feet below the surface of the earth. I 
 was then a rather veteran traveller, but up to this 
 time it had been my business to move quietly on 
 the surface of the earth, or, when infected with 
 the soaring spirit <rf other travellers, to climb to 
 the top of some lofty tower or loftier cathedral ; 
 and I had fulfilled one of the duties of a visiter to 
 the Eternal City by perching myself within the 
 great ball of St. Peter's ; but here 1 was far 
 deeper nnder the earth than I had ever been 
 above it ; and at the greatest depth from which 
 the human voice ever rose, I sat down on a lump 
 of salt and soliloquised, 
 
 ■• Thrniigh what varieties of untried being. 
 Thru ugh wliat new Ecenes and changes must we pass ! " 
 
 I have since stood upon the top of the PjTamids 
 
27C 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN GREECE, &c. 
 
 and admired the daring genius and the industry 
 of man, and at the same time smiled at his feeble- 
 ness when, from the mighty pile, I saw in the 
 dark ranges of mountains, the sandy desert, the 
 rich valley of the Nile and the river of Egypt, the 
 hand of the world's great Architect ; but I never 
 felt man's feebleness more than here ; for all these 
 immense excavations, the work of more than six 
 hundred years, were but as the work of ants by 
 the roadside. The whole of the immense mass 
 above me, and around and below, to an unknown 
 extent, was of salt ; a wonderful phenomenon in 
 the natural history of the globe. All the different 
 strata liave been carefully examined by scientific 
 men. The uppermost bed at the surface is sand ; 
 the second clay, occasionally mixed with sand 
 and gravel, and containing petrifactions of marine 
 bodies ; the third is calcareous stone ; and from 
 these circumstances it has been conjectured that 
 this spot was formerly covered by the sea, and 
 that the salt is a gi-adual deposit formed by the 
 evaporation of its waters. I was disappointed in 
 some of the particulars which had fastened them- 
 selves upon my imagination. I had heard and 
 read glowing accounts of the brilliancy and lumi- 
 nous splendour of the passages and chambers, 
 compared by some to the lustre of precious stones ; 
 but the salt is of a dark grey colour, almost black, 
 and although sometimes glittering when the light 
 was thrown upon it, I do not believe it could ever 
 be lighted up to shine with any extraordinary or 
 dazzling brightness. Early tr-avellers, too, had 
 reported that these mines contained several vil- 
 lages, inhabited by colonies of miners, who lived 
 constantly below ; and that many were born and 
 
 died there, who never saw the light of day ; but' 
 all this is entirely untrue. The miners descend 
 every morning and return every night, and live- 
 in the village above. None of them ever sleep' 
 below. There are, however, two horses which 
 were foaled in the mines, and have never been on 
 the surface of the earth. I looked at these horses 
 with great interest. They were growing old before 
 their time ; other horses had perhaps gone down 
 and told them stories of a world above which they 
 would never know. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when I was hoisted 
 up the shaft. These mines do not need the- 
 embellishment of fiction. They are, indeed, a 
 wonderful spectacle, and I am satisfied that no- 
 traveller ever visited them without recurring to 
 it as a day of extraordinary Interest. I wrote- 
 my name in the book of visiters, where I saw those 
 of two American friends who had preceded me 
 about a mouth, mounted my barouche, and about, 
 an hour after dark reached the bank of the Vistula. 
 My passport was again examined by a soldier and 
 my carriage searched by a custom-house officer j 
 I crossed the bridge, dined with my worthy host 
 of the Hotel de la Rose Blanche, and, while listen- 
 ing to a touching story of the Polish revolution,, 
 fell asleep in my chair. 
 
 And here, on the banks of the Vistula, I take 
 my leave of the reader. I have carried him over 
 seas and rivers, mountains and plains, through 
 royal palaces and peasants' huts, and in return 
 for his kindness in accompanying me to the end, 
 I promise that I will not again burden him witii 
 my Incidents of Travel. 
 
PART III. 
 
 KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
^:ia 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The earliest known accounts brought to Europe of the islands formins the empire oi 
 Japan, are contained in the narrative of the travels of Marco Polo. This celebrated 
 Venetian, bom in 1250, undertook, when only twenty-one years old, a journey to the 
 furthest parts of Asia. The passage to India, by way of the Cape of Good Hope, was 
 then unknown, so that the journey was entii-ely overland. He was absent twenty-four 
 years, and during that time, he travelled through the greater part of Eastern Asia, and 
 had peculiar sources of information. After his return, he was captured bj' a Genoese 
 vessel, and thrown into prison at Genoa, where, with the assistance of a fellow captive, a 
 Prenchman, he drew up a narrative of his travels. For some time his accounts were 
 regarded as extravagant, if not fabulous ; but as information has accumulated, his general 
 accuracy has become more and moie established. He resided for some time in Pekin, 
 which he calls Kambalu ; and it was there most probably that he obtained the following 
 information about Japan. 
 
 " Zipangu (t. e., Japan) is an island on the east, one thousand five hundred miles 
 distant from the shores of Mangi, very great ; the people, of white complexion, of gentle 
 behaviour, in religion idolaters, and have a king of their own. They have gold in great 
 plenty, for few merchants come thither, and the king permits no exportation of it ; and 
 they which have carried on commerce there speak of the king's house covered with gold, 
 as churches here with lead, — gilded windows, — floors of gold. There are also many pearls. 
 Once the fame of these riches made Cublai-Khan to send, to conquer it, two of his barons, 
 with a great fleet of ships, one named Abbaca, and the other Venfanjin, who, going from 
 Zaitung and Quinsay, arrived there ; but, falling out between themselves, could take but 
 one city, and there beheaded all they took except eight persons, which, by an enchanted 
 precious stone, enclosed in the right arm between the skin and flesh, could not be wounded 
 with iron ; whereupon, with wooden clubs, at the command of the two barons, they were 
 slain. It happened one day, that a northern wind blew hard, which was dangerous to the 
 ships riding there ; so that some were lost, some put out farther to sea, and others, with 
 the two leaders and a few principal persons, returned home. Out of many broken ships, 
 some escaped, by boards and swimming, to an island, not inhabited, four miles off Zipangu, 
 and were about thirty thousand, without provisions or arms, against whon the Zipan- 
 guaners, after the tempest was calmed, sent out a fleet of ships and an army. These 
 coming on land, to seek the wrecked Tartars, without order, gave occasion to the Tartars 
 to wheel about the island, being high in the midst, and to get unseen to their ships, which 
 were left unmanned, with the streamers displayed ; and in them they sailed to the chief 
 city of Zipangu, where they were admitted without suspicion, and found few others but 
 women. 
 
 "The king ot Zipangu besieged them six months, and they, having no relief, yielded 
 themselves, and their lives were saved. This happened, a.d. 1264. 
 
^74 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 " The Klian, for the ill conduct of his two commandei's, cut off the head of one, and 
 sent the other to a desert island called Zerga, where he caused offenders to die, hy sewing 
 them, their hands bound, in a new-slayed hide of a buffalo, which, drying, shrinketh so aa 
 it puts them to vast tortures, which lead to a miserable death. The idols in this and the 
 adjoining islands are made with heads of kine, swine, dogs ; and in other fashions more 
 monstrous, as, with faces on their shoulders, with four, ten, or even a hundred hands ; 
 and to these they ascribe most power, and do most reverence, and say that so they learned 
 of their progenitors. They sometimes eat their enemies, which they take with great joy 
 and for great dainties ; at least, so it is reported of them. The sea in which this island 
 lies, is called the Sea of Cin or Chin, that is, the sea against Mangi ; and in the language 
 of that island, Mangi is called Chin, or Chint ; which sea is so large, that the mariners and 
 expert pilots, who frequent it, say that there are seven thousand four hundred and forty 
 islands therein, the most part of them inhabited ; that there grows no tree which yields not 
 a good smell ; and tliat there grow many spices of divers kinds, especially lignum aloes, and 
 pepper, black and white. The ships of Zaitum are a year in their voyage ; for they go in 
 winter and return in summer, having winds of two sorts, which keep their seasons, and this 
 country is far from India : but I will leave them, for I never was there — nor are they 
 subjects to the Khan : and return to Zaitum, from hence sailing south-westward one 
 thousand iive hundred miles, passing a gulf called Cheinan, which continues two months' 
 sailing to the northward, still confining on the south-east of Mangi, and elsewhere, with 
 Ania and Toloman, and other provinces before-named. Within it are infinite islands, all 
 in a manner inhabited ; in them is found abundance of gold ; and they trade one with 
 another.'' 
 
 The first visit of Europeans to Japan was purely accidental. A Portuguese vessel 
 in the year 1548, on its voyage from Siam to China, was forced out of its course, and 
 driven upon the coast of Japan. The chief men on board were named Antonio da Matta, 
 Francisco Zamioto and Antonio Paixola. They were well received by the Japanese, 
 among whom they resided for some time, and no feeling of jealousy or mistrust was 
 manifested by the inhabitants, who, on the contrary, desired to establish a friendly 
 intercourse with the strangers. On their return, the report of the Portuguese was so 
 favourable, that a trade with Japan was immediately opened. 
 
 At that time the Dutch and the Portuguese were the most important European powers 
 in the East. England was scarcely known either as a commercial nation or a maritime 
 power. The Eastern trade was the most lucrative of the time, and it may be naturally 
 supposed that rivalry and jealousy often resulting in actual warfare were created. 
 Another element of opposition existed ; the Reformation had divided Christians into the 
 two great sections of Protestants and Catholics, and perhaps there could not be found in 
 all Christendom a nation more Protestant than the Dutch, or more Catholic than the 
 Portuguese. The knowledge of Japan, and of the lucrative trade with it, soon spread 
 among the Dutch, who were eager to establish a traffic with the country. Their first 
 intercourse arose from a very singular circumstance. A Kentish man, William Adams 
 by name, one of the genuine old English seamen of the school of Cavendish and Drake, after 
 serving in the navy of his own country, and roaming over the seas under the flags of other 
 nations, engaged himself as pilot on board one of a fleet of five ships fitted out by the 
 Dutch India Company. The object of the expedition does not appear at all distinct on 
 the face of tlie records, but like similar expeditions in those days, it is highly probable 
 that it was partly piratical, partly commercial. Tli ey sailed from Holland in 1598, and 
 cruised for about a year off the coast of South America. Much of their cargo consisted of 
 woollen cloth, and finding it either unprofitable or dangerous to remain much longer at 
 their cruising ground, they set sail for Japan, hoping that the Japanese would readily 
 purchase their Dutch manufactured broad cloth. But before they arrived at that country. 
 
INTRODUCTION. !i76 
 
 they vere so buffeted about by winds and waves, and so roughly used by their eiiemies, 
 that four ships were lost ; and in the fifth, of which Adams was pilot, there were only 
 seven men who were not rendered incapable of duty by sickness. Fortunately our . 
 countryman, Adams, was fit for his work, and to him the rest looked up for assistance and ' 
 direction. It was with great difficulty they cast anchor, and ha[,ving done so, they were 
 immediately surrounded by a fleet of Japanese boats, whose crews came on board, and ' 
 though they did not attempt to injure any of the men, yet they made as free with the ' 
 goods on board as though they had been their own property. This continued, however 
 only for one, day, as the Japanese authorities took the vessel and cargo into their own . 
 custody. The sailors were well treated, but the dastardly Dutchmen leagued with the 
 Portuguese to libel the character of the English, and to bring Adams and another , 
 Englishman on board into disgrace. Both the Portuguese and these veracious Hollanders, , 
 represented the English as a race of pirates and sea-rovers, and not merchants at all, and 
 that to give them any encouragement would produce not benefits through commerce, but 
 serious evils through war. However, the Emperor ordered Adams to appear at court, 
 and through interpreters, underwent a loBg examination by the Emperor, which he ' 
 appears to have sustained with great calmness, and to have given answers with much , 
 prudence and discretion. Of this interview, Adams himself gives the following clear and 
 straightforward account : — 
 
 " The king demanded of \\ hat land I was, and what moved us to come to his land, 
 being so far off. I showed unto him the name of our country, and that our land had long 
 sought out the East Indies, and desired friendship with all the kings and potentates in 
 way of merchandise, having in our land divers commodities which these lands had not ; 
 and also, to buy such merchandises in this land as our country had not. Then the great 
 king asked whether our country had wars 1 I answered him, yea, with the Spaniards and 
 Portugals, being in peace with all other nations. Further, he asked me in what I did 
 believe t I said, in God that made heaven and earth. He asked me divers other 
 questions of things of religion, and many other things, as what way we came to his 
 country. Having a chart of the whole world with me, I showed him through the Straits 
 of Magelhaens ; at which he wondered, and thought me to lie. Thus, from one thing to 
 another, I abode with him till midnight. And having asked me what merchandise we 
 had in our ship, I showed him samples of all. In the end, he being ready to depart, I 
 desired that we might have trade of merchandise, as the Portugals had. To which he 
 made me an answer, but what it was I did not understand. So he commanded me to be 
 carried to prison. But two days after he sent for me again, and inquired of the qualities 
 and conditions of our countries, of wars and peace, of beasts -and cattle of all sorts, of 
 heaven and the stars. It seemed that he was well content with all mine answers. 
 Nevertheless, I was commanded to prison again ; but my lodging was bettered in another 
 place." , 
 
 In the meantime the Jesuits and Portuguese left no means untried to prejudice 
 Adams and his companions in the eyes of the Emperor, but without success. Adams 
 became a favourite at court, and pleased the Emperor much by his practical English skill. 
 By the Emperor's orders he built a trading vessel, which made several voyages, some of 
 them as far even as Acapulco ; and through his influence both the Dutch and English 
 obtained a commercial footing in Japan. Adams often sought permission to return to 
 England, where he had left a wife and children ; but the Emperor refused, and he died at 
 Firando, in the year 1620. 
 
 The first attempt of the English to have commercial intercourse with Japan, was 
 made during the reign of James I. by Captain Saris. He was invited to court, where he 
 was accompanied by Adams, and after delivering his presents, credentials, &c., the Emperor 
 granted the following privileges : — 
 
27C INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " Privileges granted by Ogoshosama, Emperor of Japan, unto the Eight Worshipful 
 Sir Thomas Smith, Knight, Governor, and others the Honourable and Worshipful 
 Adventurers to the East -Indies. 
 
 I. Imprimis, We give free licence to the subjects of the King of Great Britain, viz., 
 Sir Thomas Smith, Governor, and Company of the East India merchants and adventurers, 
 for ever safely to come into any of our ports of our empire of Japan, with their shippes and 
 merchandizes, without any hindrance to them or their goods. And to abide, buy, sell, 
 and barter, according to their owne manner, with all nations ; to tarry here as long as 
 they think good, and to depart at their pleasures. 
 
 II. Item, We grant unto them freedom of custom, for all such merchandizes as either 
 now they have brought, or hereafter shall bring into our kingdom, or shall from hence 
 transport to any foreign part. And doe authorize those shippes that hereafter shall arrive, 
 and come from England, to proceed to present sale of their commodities, without furtlier 
 coming or sending up to our court. 
 
 III. Item, If any of their shippes shall happen to lie in danger of shipwrecke, we will 
 our subjects not only to assist them, but that such part of shippes and goods as shall be 
 saved, be returned to their captains or Cape merchants or their assignes. And that 
 they shall, or may build one house or more for themselves in any part of our empire, 
 where they shall Ihinke fittest, and at their departure to make sale thereof at their 
 pleasure. 
 
 IV. Item, If any of the English merchants, or other, shall depart this life, within 
 our domiuions, the goods of the deceased, shall remaine at the disposal of the Cape 
 merchant. And that all oifences committed by them shall be punished by the said Cape 
 merchant, according to his disci-etion ; and our laws to take no hold of their persons 
 or goods. 
 
 V. Item, We will that ye, our subjects, trading with them for any of their com- 
 modities, pay them for the same, according to agreement, without delay, or retume of 
 their wares again unto them. 
 
 VI. Item, For such commodities as they have now brought, or shall hereafter bring, 
 fitting for our service and proper use ; We will, that no arrest be made thereof, but that 
 the price be made with the Cape merchant, according as they may sell to others, and 
 present payment upon the delivery of the goods. 
 
 VII. Item, If in discovery of other countries for trade, and return of their shippes, 
 they shall neede men or victuals. We will, that ye our subjects, furnish them for their 
 money, as their needs shall require. 
 
 VIII. Item, And that without other passeport, they shall, and may set out upon the 
 discovery of Yeadzo, or any other part in or about our empire. 
 
 From our castle in Survmga, the first day of ninth month, and in the eighteenth year 
 of our Dary, according to our computation. Sealed with our broad Scale. 
 
 {Underwritten) Minna Mottono, Yei. Te. Yeas^' 
 
 A factory was established by the East India Company on the strength of these 
 privileges, but the Dutch made numerous attempts to undermine the English. The civil 
 wars that broke out in England about this time also operated very prejudicially, and 
 the marriage of Charles II. to Catherine of Portugal was used by the Dutch to show that 
 the English were in alliance with the Portuguese, who were then hated in Japan. The 
 factory was ultimately broken up, and subsequent attempts to re-establish it have been 
 unsuccessful. 
 
 We have already in the preface spoken of the injudicious conduct of the Jesuit 
 missionaries, and the consequent persecution that resulted in the expulsion of the Portuguese 
 
INTRODUCTION. 277 
 
 and the virtual closing of Japan to foreign nations. The Russians have made several 
 attempts to open up commercial relations with the country, but in vain. The positive 
 laws of Japan have defeated every attempt. There is now, however, some probability 
 that the barriers separating Japan from the rest of tlie world will, to some extent, be- 
 thrown down. Many vessels belonging to the United States of America frequent for fishing 
 pui-poses the seas in the neighbourhood of Japan, and several have been wrecked on the 
 Japanese coasts, which are proverbially stormy and dangerous. By the cruel laws of 
 Japan, the crews have been either killed or otherwise maltreated, and all demands for 
 redress have been treated with contempt. To such treatment a powerful energetic nation 
 like the Americans will not submit, and an armed expedition is now preparing against 
 Japan. What the result of that expedition will be it is extremely difficult even to conjecture. 
 The Japanese are preparing to repel force by force, but their knowledge of the art of 
 war is too old by many centuries. It is greatly to be hoped that no blood will be shed, but 
 that the result may be the establishment of friendly intercourse between the youngest 
 nation of the new world, and one of the oldest of the old. AH who have visited the 
 country represent the natives as very anxious for the removal of the present oppressive 
 restrictions, and if the present Emperor be as enlightened as some of his predecessors, he 
 will doubtless relax these laws, the cause of which has long ceased to exist. But let him 
 act as he may, the spirit of the present age is entirely opposed to allowing any people to 
 place themselves out of the pale of society and to break with impunity the imiversally 
 respected law of nations 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The empire of Japan has for the last two centuries been an unknown land 
 to the nations of Europe. The little ini'ormation that was collected regarding 
 both the country and the people excited a curiosity which hitherto it has been 
 impossible to gratify, and a desire for familiar and beneficial intercourse, wMch 
 has been firmly and invariably repulsed. The floating idea in the public mind 
 about Japan has been that of a rich country, an active industrious people, with 
 a peculiar but advanced civilisation, a despotic government, an immense 
 population, and a deep-rooted jealousy and distrust of every other people. 
 With only two nations, the Chinese and the Dutch, will the people of Japan 
 allow any intercourse, and that is fenced round with so many restrictions that 
 it can scarcely be regarded as intercourse at aU. It is confined to two ports, to 
 a limited number of ships every year ; and the Dutch, so far from being allowed 
 to mingle fireely with the inhabitants, are virtually prisoners during the period 
 of their stay, and if found straying beyond the precincts of their own fort, they 
 are Kable to be illtreated, if not actually murdered. Again, if any inhabitants 
 of Japan leave their own country, prompted either by desire to see the world or 
 of commercial gain, they are not permitted to return to their native land, and 
 any unfortunate seamen who may be cast away on the Japanese shores are either 
 put to death or carefully precluded from the slightest intercourse with the 
 natives. Isolated thus by arbitrary laws from the rest of mankind, morally and 
 intellectually, they are no less separated geographically, for the insular position 
 of Japan, its wUd, rock-bound shores, and stormy seas, make its coasts the terror 
 of the mariners of the Northern Pacific Ocean. 
 
 But the laws and the feehngs of the people of Japan were not always of this 
 jealous and exclusive kind. When they first became acquainted with Europeans 
 they had a strong desire to cultivate friendly intercourse, and to aU foreign 
 
281) PREFACE. 
 
 traders they for many years gave a hearty welcome and great encouragement. 
 Nay, 80 strong was this feeling, that in 1619 the Japanese emperor sent an 
 embassy to the Pope at Eome, in order to cultivate the friendship of the great 
 head of the Eoman Catholic Church. Had the Europeans acted with prudence 
 or justice, such feelings would still have existed, and most probably Japan would 
 have become by this time one of the greatest eastern marts for European 
 commerce. So long as the visitors confined themselves to trade, so long did 
 they prosper, and so long did the Japanese regard them as friends ; but when 
 they aimed at power and influence in the country, the Japanese became animated 
 with the opposite feelings, and adopted the most effectual measures to close 
 their country against strangers. It is to the Jesuits that society owes all these 
 jealousies and restrictions. That powerful, ambitious, and doubly dangerous set 
 of ecclesiastics soon acquired a footing in Japan, and were held in high 
 estimation at first, more perhaps on account of their scientific knowledge than 
 on account of their superior moral and religious character. They soon made 
 many converts to Christianity, and their labours were in no degree interfered 
 with by the emperor, in whose dominions all sects of religion were at that time 
 on an almost equal footing. But that spiritual pride, that lust of power, and 
 that insatiable desire to be supreme in temporal as well as spiritual affairs, 
 which the Jesuits have ever displayed, were very soon manifested, and theu? 
 conduct at last became so haughty as to excite the jealousy of the Japanese 
 court. Humours also were spread, which would appear to have been not 
 without foundation, that the aim of the Jesuits was not only to convert, but to 
 conquer, the empire, and that they were to be assisted in this by an insurrection 
 in Japan, and a fleet and army from Europe. The emperor took the alarm ; the 
 Jesuits were expelled, the Christian converts were massacred, the Dutch with 
 great difficulty retained even a sUght footing in the country, and the arbitrary 
 restrictive laws were passed which are now in force. The history of Siam and 
 other eastern states presents about the same time exactly the same picture : of 
 proud Jesuits trying to subdue the nation, of their failure, of their expulsion, 
 and of the terrible and lasting Asiatic revenge. 
 
 Having thus been cut off from almost all intercourse with foreign nations for 
 such a long period, it is not to be expected that, considering that circumstance 
 and the stationary character of eastern civilisation, the manners, habits, customs, 
 &c., of the Japanese should have materially altered during that time. Prom the 
 stray leaves of information that have come to us recently, it would appear that 
 the accounts given by the early writers are just as descriptive of Japan in the 
 nineteenth, as of Japan in the seventeenth century. It is, therefore, chiefly from 
 these old authors that information regarding Japan is to be obtained. 
 
PKEPACE. '■i«' 
 
 Tlie first European traveller by whom the country is mentioned, is Marco 
 Polo, whose account we shall give, but he was never in Japan, and his 
 information was obtained in China. The first important work publislied in 
 Europe was a collection of letters written by the Jesuits in Japan "to those of 
 the same company ; in which a notice is given of the various customs and 
 idolatries of those Pagans, and a notice of the begianing, success, and goodness 
 of the Christians in thoso parts." This work was written in Spanish, and 
 published in 1575, at Alcala, the seat of the famous university founded by 
 Cardinal Xiraenes. Many other similar W'Orks of the Jesuits were published 
 soon after : one at Naples in 1580, another at Cologne ia 1586, and a great 
 many compilations from these works also appeared. Accounts of Japan also 
 appear in many voyages and travels of the period, and several works were 
 published, chiefly in Dutch, giving an account of events in Japan during certain 
 periods. The Dutch accounts of the country, which are numerous, but many of 
 them very heavy reading, are, however, regarded as the best and most authentic. 
 Among these, the work of Engelburtus Koempfer is regarded as holding the 
 higliest place. Koempfer was in Japan as medical officer of the Dutch factory 
 for several years during the end of the seventeenth century. He had many 
 opportunities of observation and collecting knowledge, which he turned to good 
 account. His work was translated into English in 1728, and has been selected 
 for the Uniteesal Libeabx as the most trustworthy account of a strange 
 country to which the attention of the world is now directed by the American 
 Expedition. The work has in many places been considerably abridged, where- 
 ever the author was prolix, or repeated himself, or entered into uninteresting 
 details, or into statements applicable only to the tide at which he wrote. 
 Prefixed to the work is an introduction, which gives a brief sketch of European 
 intercourse v^ith Japan, which, it is hoped, will add to the completeness of the- 
 work. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 [NTKODnCTIOS . . ; .... 273 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 UF THE EMPIRE OF JAPAN IN GENERAL, AS TO IIS SITUATION, AND THE LARGENESS 
 
 OF ITS SEVERAL ISLANDS . . ... JK? 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 TtfE OJVISION AND SUB-DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE OF JAPAN INTO ITS SEVERAL 
 
 PROVINCES; AS ALSO OP ITS REVENUE AND GOVER.VJIEXT . . . . 292 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE AUTHOR'S OPINION OF THE TRUE ORIGIN AND DESCENT OF THE JAPANESB . 297 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 OE 'iiiE ORIGIN OF THE JAPANESE, ACCORDING TO THEIR OWN FABULOUS OPINION :J04 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 OF THE CLIMATE OF JAPAN, AND ITS PRODUCE AS TO MINERALS 307 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 OF THE FERTILITY OF THE COUNTRY, A3 TO PLANTS 312 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 (»P THE PLENTY OF THE COUNTRY AS TO BEASTS, BIRDS, REPTII-ES, AN? INSECTS . 310 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 OB F^Srj \ND 311 DLLS i'; . . , , ^20 
 
•^84 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 NAMES OP THE GODS, DEMI-GODS, AND EMPERORS, WHO ARE MENTIONED IN THE 
 JAPANESE HISTORIES, AS THE FIRST MONARCHS AND GOVERNORS OF THAT 
 EMPIRE ... • • ■ 324 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OP THE ECCLESIASTICAL HEREDITARY EMPERORS OF JAPAN IN GENERAL ; OP ' 
 THEIR SUCCESSION, RESIDENCE, AND COURT ; AS ALSO OF THE CHRONOLOGY 
 OF THE JAPANESE ... '528 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OF THE RELIGIONS OF THIS EMPIRE IN GENERAL, AND OF THE SINTOS RELIGION 
 
 IN PARTICULAR . 331 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 OF THE SINTOS TEMPLES, BELIEF, AND WORSHIP •■ .333 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 OP THE SINTOS REBI, THAT IS, THEIR FORTUNATE DAYS AND HOLIDAYS ; AND THE 
 
 CELEBRATION THEREOF 336 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 OF THE SANGA, OR PILGIUMAGE TO ISJE ... 340 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 OF THE JAMMABOS, OR MOUNTAIN-PBIESIS, AND OTHER RELIGIOUS OHDEliS . . 343 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 OP THE BUDSDO, OK, FOREIGN PAGAN WORSHIP. AND ITS FOUNDER . . . US 
 
 CHAl'TER XVII. 
 OP THE SIUTO, THAT IS, THE DOCTRINE AND WAY OP LIFE OP THEIR MORALISTS 
 
 AND PHILOSOPHERS .... . . . . SJl 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 IREPARATIONS FOR OUR JOURNEY TO THE EMPEROR'S COURT AT JEDO OR YEDO, 
 
 WITH A DESCRIPTION OP THE MANNER OF TRAVELLING IN THIS COUNTRY . S52 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 A GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE WAY BY WATER AND LAND, PROM NAGASAKI 
 
 TO JEDO, THE EMPEROR'S RESIDENCE .... . . ■ "''' 
 
CONTENTS. 2d6 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 PABB 
 A GENKRAIj description of the several edifices and buildings, PUBr.IC AND 
 
 PRIVATE, WE MET WITH ALONG THE ROAD ... 359 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 OF THE POST-HOUSES, INNS, EATING-HOUSES, AND TEA-BOOTHS . . . .364 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 OF 1 HE GREAT NUMBERS OF PEOPLE WHO DAILY TRAVEL ON THE ROADS . . . SOS 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 OF ( UR JOURNEY TO THE EMPEROR'S COURT IN GENERAL ; AND HOW WE WERE 
 
 ACCOMMODATED ON THE ROAD . 373 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 DESCEIPTION OT THE CITY OF JEDO. OR YEDO; ITS CASTLE AND PALACE, WITH AN 
 ACCOUNT OF WHAT HAPPENED DURING OUR STAY THERE ; OUR AUDIENCE 
 • AND DEPARTURE ... 577 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 THE AUDIENCE 4T COURT, ON THE SECOND lOUKNEY 3S6 
 
 1 
 
KORMPFERS 
 
 ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF THE EMPIKl Or JAPAS IN OEXEBAL, AB TO ITS 
 aiTUATlON, AKD THB LARGENESS Or ITS SEVEKAL 
 ISLANDS. 
 
 This empire is by the Europeans called Japan. 
 The natives give it several names and characters. 
 The most common, and most frequently used in 
 their writings and conversation, is Nipon, which 
 is sometimes in a more elegant manner, and 
 particular to this nation, pronounced Nifon, and 
 by the inhabitants of Nankin, and the southern 
 parts of China, Sijppon. It signifies "the founda- 
 tion of the sun : ' being derived from ni, " fire," 
 and in a more sublime sense, "the sua," and^oji, 
 the " ground, or foundation of a thing." 
 
 There are still some other names and epithets, 
 which are seldom mentioned in conversation, but 
 occur mcire frequently in their writings. Such 
 ire for instance; 1. Tenka, that is, "the sub- 
 eelestial .empire;" as if it were the only one 
 existing unier heaven. Hence the Emperor is 
 called Tenkasama, "the subcelest'al Monarch." 
 tu former times, this name was peculiar to the 
 empire of Japan alone ; but since commerce hath 
 made known to them several other countries, 
 they now condescend to honour them also with 
 the same epithet, particularly such whose in- 
 habitants are admitted and tolerated among 
 tbem. Thus they call the empire of China, To 
 Sin Tenka ; the United Provinces of the 
 ^Netherlands, known to tbem by the name of 
 Holland, Hollanda Tenka. 2. B^o Motto, is 
 much the same with Nipon, and signifies, 
 properly speaking, "the root of the sun," J?, being 
 the sun, and motio, a root ; no, is only a particle, 
 by which these two words are combined together. 
 i. Awadsissima, is the original name of this 
 country, and is as much as to say, a " terrestrial 
 ■^cum Island ;" awa^ signifying scum, dsi, the 
 earth, and Ssima, an island. This name is 
 pounded upon the following fabulous tradition, 
 "ecorded in their histories, of the origin and first 
 ireation of the several islands, which compose 
 ;his mighty empire ; which in former times, for 
 Tant of communication with other countries, 
 ivas looked upon by the natives as the only 
 iniiabited part of the globe \n the beginning of 
 he creation, the supremt of the seven first 
 celestial spirits (of which more in the seventh 
 jhapter of this book), stirred the then chaos, or 
 'Onfused mass of the earth with a etas', which, as 
 "« took out, there dropped from it a muddy 
 
 Bcum, which running together, formed the 
 Japanese islands ; one of which, of the fourth 
 magnitude, still retains this name, being particu- 
 larly called Awadsissima. i. D Sin Kokf, or 
 Camino Kuni, " the Country or Habitation of the 
 Gods." For by Sin and Cami are denoted the 
 gods which were particularly and originally 
 worshipped in Japan ; and both kokf and huni 
 signify a country. S. Akitsima, or according to 
 the common pronunciation, Akitsussiina, is 
 another name given to this country of old, and 
 frequently to be met with in their chronicles and 
 legends. 6. Tontsio, " the true morning." 
 7. Sio, all, viz. all the several islands subject to 
 the Emperor of Japan. 8. Jamatto, which name 
 is also given to one of its provinces. Several 
 others, as Asijwara, Asijwaia Kokf, Qua, or Wa, 
 and some more I forbear mentioning, to avoi4 
 being too tedious on so trifling a subject 
 
 The empire of Japan lies between 31° and 
 42° of northern latitude. The Jesuits, in a 
 late map of China, made and corrected by their 
 astronomical observations, place it between 157° 
 and 175° 30' of longitude.* It extends to north- 
 oast and east-north-east, being irregularly broad, 
 though in the main pretty narrow in comparison 
 to its length, which from one end of the province 
 Fisen, to the extremity of the province Osiu, is 
 supposed to be two hundred German miles [a 
 German mile is equal to nearly six English], in a 
 straight line, all the further distant coasts and 
 islands, though subject to the Japanese Emperor, 
 not reckoned. 
 
 It may, in different respects, be compared to 
 the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland; 
 being much after the same manner, though in a 
 more eminent degree, divided and broke through 
 by comers and forelands, arms of the sea, great 
 bays and inlets, running deep into the country, 
 and forming several islands, peninsulas, gulfs, 
 and harbours. Besides, as the King of Great 
 Britain is sovereign of three kingdoms, England, 
 Scotland, and Ireland, so likewise the Japanese 
 Emperor hath the supreme jurisdiction of three 
 separate large islands. The first and largest is 
 called Nipon, from the name of the whole 
 empire. It runs lengthways, from east to west 
 in the form of a jaw-bone, whose crooked part is 
 turned to the north. A narrow channel, or 
 I 
 
 *■ The correct longitude, calcul.itiug from the meridian 
 of Greenwich, is between 130' and 150' East. On the old 
 maps the longitude was usually calcul tod fium Fe^ro in 
 the Oawarv Jnifn —Ed, 
 
288 
 
 KCEMPFEE'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 strait, full of rocks and islands, some inhabited, 
 gome iminhabited, parts it from the second, 
 which is next to it in largeness, and which, from 
 its situation, lying to the south-west of Mpon, is 
 called Saikokf, that is, " the Western Country." 
 Itiis also called Kiusiu, or, "the Country of 
 Nine;" being divided into nine large provinces. 
 It hath one hundred and forty-eight German miles 
 in. circumference; and, according to the Japanese, 
 a, hath one hundred and forty of their own miles 
 in length, and between forty and fifty in breadth. 
 The third island lies between the first and second. 
 It is almost square ; and being divided into four 
 provinces, the Japanese call it Sikokf, that is, 
 "the Country of Four," viz. provinces. These 
 three large islands are encompassed with an 
 almost inconceivable number of others, some of 
 which are small, rocky, and barren, others large, 
 rich, and fruitful enough to be governed by petty 
 princes, as will appear more fully in the course 
 of this work. 
 
 All these several islands and dominions, com- 
 posing the mighty empire of Japan, were, by the 
 ecclesiastical hereditary monarch Siusiun, divided 
 into Gokisitzido, as they are called by the 
 Japanese, or seven large tracts of land, in the 
 year of Christ 690. Many years after, in the 
 year of Christ 681, Ten Mu divided the seven 
 chief tracts into sixty-six provinces, appointing 
 so many lords of his court to command and 
 govern them, as princes, or his lieutenants. 
 Two more islands, Iki and Tsussima, formerly 
 belonging to the kiugdom of Corea, having been 
 conquered in the last (that is the sixteenth) 
 century, and added to the empire of Japan, there 
 are now in all sixty-eight provinces. Both these 
 divisions of the Japanese empire, though they 
 subsist till now, yet through the misery of time 
 its sixty-eight provinces have been since their 
 first consititution torn into six hundred and four 
 lesser districts. In the first and happiest ages of 
 the Japanese monarchy, every prince enjoyed 
 the government of the province, which he was 
 entrusted with by the Emperor, in peace and 
 tranquillity. The miseries of ensuing times, the 
 frequent quarrels and contentions, which arose 
 among the chief branches of the imperial family 
 about the succession to the throne, by degrees 
 involved the whole empire in blood and confusion. 
 Its princes espoused different parties, and no 
 sooner were arms introduced among them, as the 
 surest and most powerful means to make up their 
 ■dissensions, but every one endeavoured thereby 
 to maintain himself in the possession of those 
 lands, whose government he was owing entirely 
 to the imperial bounty : such as had not been 
 provided for by the Emperor took care to provide 
 for themselves. The princes divided their 
 hereditary dominions among their song, who, 
 though possessed of but one portion of their 
 father's estate, would not be behind them in 
 grandeur and magnificence. What wonder then, 
 if the number of princedoms and dominions 
 went on perpetually increasingl The emperors 
 of the now reigning family, usurpers themselves 
 of the throne of which they are possessed, think 
 this great division of the provinces of the empire 
 no ways detrimental to their government, but 
 rather conducive to make them the better 
 acquainted with the true state of their riches and 
 
 revenues ; therefore, far from reducing them to 
 their former standard, they still tear and divide 
 them more and more, as they please, or as their 
 interest requires, of which there are some late 
 instances. The province of Tsikusen was not 
 long ago divided into two governments, Janagawa 
 and Kurume, and the Prince of Tsikungo had 
 orders from court to surrender part of his 
 dominions to the prince of the two islands above- 
 mentioned, Iki and Tsussima, who till then had 
 nothing in possession upon the continent of 
 Japan. 
 
 The borders of this empire are its rocky, 
 mountainous coasts, washed by a tempestuous 
 sea, which by reason of its shallowness admits 
 none but small vessels to approach the shore, and 
 even those not without imminent danger : the 
 depth of most of its gulphs and harbours is not 
 yet known, and others, which the pilots of the 
 country are better acquainted with, are unfit for 
 harbouring ships of any considerable bulk. 
 Indeed, it seems Nature purposely designed these 
 islands to be a sort of a little world, separate and 
 independent of the rest, by making them of so 
 difficult an aoce?s, and by endowing them 
 plentifully, witi« whatever is requisite to make 
 the lives of their inhabitants both delightful and 
 pleasant, and to enable them to subsist without a 
 commerce with foreign nations. 
 
 Besides the several islands and provinces 
 already mentioned, there are some further distant 
 countries, which do not, properly speaking, 
 belong to the empire of Japan ; but eithei' 
 acknowledge the supremacy of the Emperor, or 
 live under his protection. Of these I think it 
 necessary to give some preliminary account 
 before I proceed to a more particular description 
 of the Japanese empire itself. They are, 1. The 
 islands of Riuku, or Liquejo, the inhabitants of 
 which style themselves subjects, not of the 
 Emperor of Japan, but of the Prince of Satsuma, 
 by whom they were subdued and conquered, 
 2. Tsiosin, is the third and lowest part of the 
 peninsula of Corea, which is governed, in the 
 name of his Imperial Majesty, by the Prince of 
 Iki and Tsussima. 3. The island Jeso, which is 
 governed for the Emperor by the Prince of 
 Matsumai, whose own dominions m.»ke part of 
 the great province Osju. 
 
 I. The Liquejo Islands,* as they are set down 
 in our maps, or the islands of Riuku, as they are 
 called by the inhabitants, must not be confounded 
 with the InsuliB Leuconice, or the Philippine 
 Islands. They lie to the south-west of the 
 province Satzuma, which is situate upon the 
 continent of Saikokf, and the neighbouring island 
 Tana, or Tanagasima, and according to our maps, 
 reach down almost to the 26° of northern 
 latitude. If we believe the Japanese, they are 
 so fruitful as to yield the rice-harvest twice a 
 year. The inhabitants, which are for tlje most 
 part either husbandmen or fishermen, are a good- 
 natured, merry sort of people, leading an 
 agreeable contented life, cfiverting themselves 
 after their work is done with a glass of rice-beer, 
 and playing upon their musical instruments, 
 
 "* These are tHe islands now known by the name ot 
 Loo Choo, and so well described in Captain Basil Hall a 
 well-known voyages. They are now subject to the 
 Chinese. — Ed. 
 
£(EMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 289 
 
 whicli they for this purpose carry out with them 
 into the fields. They appear, by their language, 
 to be of Chinese extraction. In the late great 
 revolution in China, when the Tartars invaded 
 and possessed themselves of that mighty empire, 
 the natives retired in great numbers, and were 
 dispersed all over the East Indies. Not a few 
 fled to these islands, where they applied them- 
 selves chiefly to trade, being well skilled in 
 navigation, and well acquainted with those seas. 
 Accordingly, they still carry on a commerce with 
 Satzuma, and go there once u, yeai\ Some 
 centuries ago, these islands were invaded and 
 conquered by the Prince of Satzuma, whose 
 Buccessors still keep them in awe by their bugios, 
 or lieutenants, add strong garrisons, though 
 otherwise, by reason of their remoteness from 
 Satzuma, the inhabitants are treated with much 
 regard and kindness ; for they are obliged to give 
 their sov.ereign only one-fifth part of the produce 
 of their country, whilst his own natural subjects, 
 the Satzumese, are taxed at two-thirds, But 
 besides what they pay to the Prince of Satzuma, 
 they raise a coniribution among themselves, to 
 be sent by way of a present, once a year, to the 
 Tartarian Monarch of China, in token of loyalty 
 and submission. They have, like the Tonquinese 
 and Japanese, a Dairi of their own, or an 
 ecclesiastical hereditary monarch, to whom they 
 pay great respect, supposing him to be lineally 
 descended from the gods of their country. He 
 i resides at Jajama, one of the chief of these 
 j islands, situate not far from the island Osima, 
 which is of the second magnitude. 
 
 II. Corea, or Coraja, is a peninsula, which 
 stands out from Tartary, running towards Japan, 
 opposite to the coasts of China. It hath been, 
 as the Japanese relate, divided of old into three 
 provinces. That which is lowest, and nearest to 
 Japan, is by the Japanese called Tsiosijn; the 
 second, which makes up the middle part of the 
 whole peninsula, Corea ; and the third and upper- 
 most, which confines upon Tartary, Fakkusuai. 
 Sometimes the name of either of these provinces 
 is given to the whole peninsula. The natives, 
 according to the account of the Japanese, are of 
 CSiinese extraction. They served often and under 
 different masters. Their neighbours, the Tai-tars, 
 sometimes entered into alliances with them ; at 
 other times, they invaded and subdued them. 
 Mikaddo Tsiuu Ai, Emperor of Japan, persecuted 
 them with war; but he dying before he could 
 put an end to this enterprise, Dsin Gu, his relict, 
 a princess of great parts and personal bravery, 
 pursued it vrith the utmost vigour, wearing the 
 arms of the deceased emperor, her husband, till 
 at last she made them tributaiy to Japan, about 
 the year of Christ 201. Some time after, they 
 entered into fresh alliances with their neigh- 
 bours, the Tartars, and so continued unmolested 
 by the Japanese, till Taiko possessed himself of 
 the secular throne of Japan. This valiant prince, 
 reading the histories of his empire, found it 
 recorded that the Coreans had been subdued by 
 one of his predecessors, and made tributary to 
 Japan : as in the mean time he was but lataly 
 come to the throne, he doubted not but that he 
 should get time fully to settle and to secure him- 
 self in the possession thereof, if he could send 
 some of the most powerful princes of the empire 
 
 abroad upon some such military expedition, and 
 by this means remove them from court and 
 country. He therefore gladly seized this oppor- 
 tunity, and resolved to renew and support his 
 pretensions to the kingdom of Corea, and through 
 this kingdom, as he gave out his main design 
 was, to open to himself a way to the conquest of 
 the great empire of China itsel? Accordingly he 
 sent over some ambassadors to Corea, to desire 
 the natives to acknowledge the supremacy of the 
 Japanese emperor, and to give tokens of their 
 loyalty and submission. But the Coreans, instead 
 of an answer, killing the emperor's ambas.=ador, 
 by this hostile act, gave him just reason to prose- 
 cute them with war. Accordingly, a numerous 
 army was sent over without further delay, under 
 the command of such of the princes of the empire 
 whose presence he had the most reason to be 
 apprehensive of This war lasted seven years, 
 during which time his generals, with much ado, 
 broke at last through the strong opposition made 
 by- the natives and their allies, the Tartars, and, 
 after a brave defence, made the country again 
 tributary to Japan. Taiko dying about that time, 
 and the army returning, Ijejas, his successor, 
 ordered that they should, once in three years, 
 send an embassy to court, to acknowledge his 
 sovereignty. Since that time, they relapsed by 
 degrees, under the domination of the Tartars, 
 and drove the garrisons left by the Japanese 
 down to the very coasts of the province Tsiosijn, 
 the only thing they have now remaining of all 
 their conquests in Corea. As things now stand, 
 the Emperor of Japan seems to be satisfied, for 
 the security of his own dominions, to be master 
 of the coasts, the care and government whereof 
 he committed to the prince of the islands Iki and 
 Tsussima, who keeps there a garrison only of 
 fifty men, under the command of a captain, or 
 bugio, as they are here called. And the inhabit- 
 ant are ordered to send an embassy to court, 
 and to take the oath of allegiance and supremacy 
 only once at the beginning of every new emperor's 
 reign.* The coasts of Corea are about forty-eight 
 Japanese water leagues, or about ninety English 
 miles, distant fi*om the island of Tsussima, and 
 this as much from the continent of Japan. Num- 
 bers of rocks and small islands lie between them, 
 which though they be for the most part unin- 
 habited, yet the Japanese keep strong garrisons 
 in some of the chief, to watch what ships sail by, 
 and to oblige them to show what commodities 
 they have on board, as claiming the sovereignty 
 of those seas. The commodities brought from 
 Tsiosijn are the best cod, and other fish, pickled ; 
 walnuts, scai-ce medicinal plants, flowers and 
 roots, particulary the ninseng, so famous for its 
 excellent virtues, which grows in great plenty in 
 the provinces of Corea and Fakusai, as eJso in 
 Siamsai, a province of the neighbouring Tartary ; 
 this plant, though it be found elsewhere, yet the 
 kind growing in the provinces abovesaid, is be- 
 lieved far to excel others in goodness and virtues. C 
 The natives have also a few manufactures. Among | 
 the rest, a certain soi-t of earthen pots, made in 
 Japij and Niuke, two Tartarian provinces, were 
 brought over from thence by the Coreans, which 
 were much esteemed by the Japanese, and bought 
 
 Corea is now entirely subject to tlio Clunese.— Ed. 
 
290 
 
 KrEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 very dear. But of late, it waa ordered by the 
 emperor, that there should be no more imported 
 for the future. The boats made use of by the 
 Tsioneese are very bad indiifereut structures, in 
 which one scarce would venture further than 
 Tsussima. 
 
 HI. Jeso, or Jesogasima, that is, " the Island 
 of Jeso," is the most northern island the Japanese 
 have in possession out of their own empire. It 
 was invaded and conquered, as I was informed in 
 Japan, by Joritomo, the fii-st Cubo, or secular 
 monarch, who left it to the Prince of JIatsumai, 
 (a neighbouring island belonging to the great 
 province of Osiu,) to be by him governed and 
 taken care of. Some time after, the inhabitants, 
 weaiy of a foreign government, fell upon the 
 garrison the Prince of Matsumai left there, and 
 Icilled them all to a man. This act of hostility 
 no sooner reached the prince's ears, than he sent 
 over a good army, with three hundred horse, to 
 demand, and in case of refusal to take, ample 
 satisfaction, and to chastise the rebels. But the 
 Prince of Jeso, to prevent further mischievous 
 consequences, sent over an embassy to Matsumai ; 
 and, to take off all suspicion of his having had 
 any intelligence or hand in the affair, he delivered 
 up twenty of the, ringleaders, who were executed, 
 and their heads impaled upon the coasts of Jeso. 
 This act of submission entirely reconciled him to 
 his superiors; but the natives being ever since 
 looked upon as a stubborn and tumultuous 
 people, strong garrisons are constantly kept 
 upon the southern coasts of this island, to put it 
 out of their power ever to attempt the like ; and 
 the prince is obliged to send, once a year, an 
 embassy to Matsumai, with presents to the value 
 of one mangokf.* This island lies in 42° of north- 
 em latitude, to the north-north-east, right oppo- 
 site to the great province Oosiu, where its two pro- 
 montories Sugaar and Taajasaki, running out very 
 far into the sea, form a large gulf, which directly 
 faces it. The passage over to this island is said 
 to be of one day, and it is not to be made at all 
 times, by reason of the currents, which run 
 strongly, sometimes to the east and sometimes to 
 the, west ; though otherwise it be but forty 
 Japanese water leagues, and in some places not 
 above twenty-five or thirty English miles distant 
 from the coast of Japan. It is said to be as large 
 as the island of Kiusiu, but so thoroughly full of 
 woods and forests, that it produces nothing 
 which might be of use to the Japanese, besides 
 some pelts and furs, which even the inhabitants 
 of the southern pai'is of Japan have no occasion 
 for. Nor do the Jesoans bring over anytliiiig 
 else but that and the famous fish karasaki, which 
 is caught in great plenty about the island, and 
 which the Japanese reckon a great dainty, boiling 
 and eating it like cod. As to its figure, 1 could 
 liot gather anything positive, neither from the 
 accounts I had from the Japanese, noi from the 
 maps I met with in the country they differing 
 much from each other. Some represent it veiy 
 near round, others make it of a vei-y irregular 
 
 ■ Tliis appears to be .1 componna me-Tsiire ; the gnhf 
 tor kolf, as some authors write it) containing three 
 ihousand sacks or bales of i-ice, each s-ick containing^ 
 -ufficient to support one man for a hundred days. The 
 ■iiav. prefi.^ed .stands f<^r ten thon3.ind, so that mangokf 
 IS actaaUy thiit; miUiccs of saeks of rice — Kn. 
 
 figure, with large promontories, gulfs, and bays ; 
 the sea running in several places so far up into the 
 country, that one might be easily induced to believe 
 it composed of several different islands. I am apt 
 to believe that the country discovered by De Vrica, 
 to the north of Japan, was part of this island. I 
 took notice, that in some of the Japanese maps, 
 the south-west and larger part is called Matsuki : 
 but it was, generally speaking, bo indifferently 
 drawn, that I should be at a loss to determine 
 whether it be an island by itself or joined to the 
 rest. According to the account the Japanese 
 give of the inhabitants, they are a strong but 
 savage people, wearing long hair and beards, well 
 skilled in the management of bows and arrows, 
 as also in fishing ; the greatest part living almost 
 wholly on fish. They describe them further, as 
 very dirty and nasty ; but the truth of this 
 accusation is not so strictly to be relied on, since 
 they, the Japanese themselves, are so extremely 
 nice and superstitious in frequently washing and 
 cleaning their bodies, as to have found the very 
 same fault with the Dutch. The language of 
 Jeso is said to have something of that which is 
 spoke in Corsea. 
 
 Behind this island, to the north, lies the con 
 tinent of Okujeso, as it is called by the Japanese 
 that is. Upper or High Jeso. That there is such, 
 a country is not in the least questioned among 
 geographers ; but they have not as yet been able 
 to determine whether it confines on Tartary or 
 America, consequently where they are to place 
 the Strait of Anain, or the so long wished-for 
 passage out of the North Sea into the great 
 Indian Ocean, supposing that there be such a 
 one, or whether it is closely joined either to 
 Tartary or America, without any intermediate strait 
 or passage at all. I made it my business, both 
 in my travels through Muscovy and Persia, and 
 during my stay in Japan, to inqui. e, with all the 
 diligence I was capable of, into the true state of 
 those northern countries, though, in the main, to 
 veiy little purpose, having hardly met with any- 
 thing worth the notice of the public. At Moscow,* 
 and at Astrakan, I spoke to several people, who 
 either in their travels through Siberia and Kataya 
 into China, or during their stay in Siberia, 
 whither they had been banished by the Czar, and 
 lived many yeai-s, picked up what little and 
 uncertain information they could, but could learn 
 nothing farther than that Great Tartary is an 
 isthmus, or neck of land, joined to a neighbouring 
 continent, which they supposed to be America; 
 and from thence concluded that, in all probability, 
 there is no such thing as a communication be- 
 tween the Icy Sea and the Indian Ocean. In a 
 map of Siberia, which was made and cut upon 
 wood, by one who was banished thither, and the 
 names of the places marked in Sclavonian cliarao- 
 ters, there were several considerable promontories, 
 which from the eastern coasts stood out into the 
 sed, one of which, too great to be brought upon 
 tlie table, was cut off at the edge. He that 
 showed m- this map, told me at the same time 
 that according to the accounts which could be 
 procured from the Tartars living in those parts, 
 
 * It must be bume In mind that this was written iu 
 lOf'2, and it wiw not till 1090 that PeKsr the Glia* 
 ascended the throne of Russia. — Ed. 
 
KffiMPFER'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAX. 
 
 291 
 
 this very promontory is nothing but an isthmus, 
 which runs towards a neighbouring large conti- 
 nent, on which it confines, but that it is composed 
 of high, rough, and almost inaccessible mountains, 
 and that in his opinion, if ever there hath been a 
 passage there, fur the first inhabitants of the 
 world to get over into America, and to people 
 that continent, such another undertaking would 
 be at present utterly impossible. This map of 
 Siberia, such as it was, is extremely ill done, and 
 without any scale of distances, or degrees of 
 longitude or latitude, was yet the first which 
 could give the Czar of Muscovy some, though 
 very imperfect, notions of the great extent of his 
 Tai'tarian dominions to the north. And it is from 
 the same my particular friend, the ingenious 
 Sir. Winius, who was by the Czar appointed 
 inspectorgenei'al over the apothecaries and 
 druggists' shops in Muscovy, made the first rude 
 sketch of his map of Russia and Tartary, which 
 he afterwards considerably corrected and aug- 
 mented by several accounts procured from 
 different parts, and withal reduced to the neces- 
 sary degrees of longitude and latitude. He was 
 not a little assisted in this undertaking by Mr. 
 Spitshary, Greek and Latin interpreter at the 
 court at Muscovy. This learned and industrious 
 man was, by the then reigning monarcl jf 
 Russia, sent as his ambassador to the Emperor of 
 China, with secret orders and instructions to 
 spare neither trouble nor expenses to get himself 
 acquainted with the true state, situation, and 
 extent of the Cz.ir's dominions. Accordingly he 
 went to Pekin through the northern parts of 
 Russia and Tartary, and having dispatched his 
 business at the court of China, returned through 
 the southern provinces, and came back to Moscow 
 about the year 1680. During my stay at the 
 court of Moscow it so happened that be was to 
 bo our interpreter, which brought me much 
 acquainted with him, and fed me with no small 
 hopes of learning somewhat now and more pai'ti- 
 Cular, than was hitherto known, about the state 
 of those couutries ; but I found him too dis- 
 trustful and secret, and very unwilling to com- 
 municate what observations he had made upon 
 his journey. The late illustrious N. jolaus 
 Witsen, LL.D., and Burghermaster at Amsterdam, 
 a person to whom the public is greatly indebted, 
 met with much better success in his own in- 
 quiries, for in his last embassy to the court of 
 Muscovy he did, by his extraordinary good con- 
 duct, great learning and affability, insinuate 
 himself so far into the favour of the Czar, and 
 the grandees of his court, that whatever accounts 
 they had procured from all parts of Russia, were 
 without reserve communicated to him, which 
 enabled him to compose that excellent and 
 accurate map of all the Russian empire, and the 
 Great Tartary, with its mountains, rivers, lakes, 
 cities and provinces, for the most part till then 
 unknown — a woi-k which by reason of its great 
 usefulness could not but highly oblige the 
 curious. But however accurate this map of Dr. 
 Witsen's wa.s, which dfterwards proved vei'y 
 useful to Mr. Isbrand Ides, in liis journey 
 hy land to China, where he went ambassador, 
 yet thfi full extent of the eastern coasts of 
 Siberia, and the Great Tartary, remains as y«t 
 undetermined, and we are still in tlie dai-k as to 
 
 what relation they bear to the neighbouring conti- 
 nent, which is probably, that of Oku Jeso. 
 
 The Japanese on their side are so little 
 acquainted with the state and extent of that 
 country, which lies behind the island of Jeso 
 Gasima, and which is by them called Oku Jeso, 
 that they say it is only 300 Japanese miles long • 
 but what authority they have to support this 
 assertion I cannot tell. A ship having some years 
 ago been accidentally cast upon the coasts of that 
 continent, they met among the rude and savage 
 inhabitants, some persons clad in fine Chinese 
 silk, by wliich may be very probably conjectured 
 some communication the natives have with the 
 neighbouring Daats, or Tartary ; at least that these 
 countries are not very remote from each other. 
 A jonk, which was sent thither for purposes of 
 discovery, about the year 1684, returned after 
 having been three months upon her voyage, and 
 brought the very same account. An experienced 
 Japanese pilot, who was well acquainted with the 
 seas about Japan, as having been everywhere 
 round this empire, upon my inquiry could give 
 me no other satisfactory answer, but that between 
 Japan and Jesogasima the currents run alter- 
 nately, sometimes east, sometimes west, and tliat 
 behind Jesogasima there is only one, which runs 
 constantly, and directly north, whence he con- 
 cluded that near Daats, so they call Tartary, 
 there must be some communication with another 
 sea to the north. A few years ago another 
 imperial jonk was sent out in quest of those 
 countries. They sailed from the eastern coasts 
 of Japan, and after many troubles and incommo- 
 dities endured between forty and fifty degrees of 
 northern latitude, they discovered a very large 
 continent, supposed to be America, wliere, having 
 met with a good harbour, they stayed tliere 
 during the winter, and so returned the next year, 
 without any tlie least account of that country or 
 its inhabitants, excepting only that it run further 
 to the north-west. Since that time it was re- 
 solved at the court of Japan to be at no further 
 pain or expense about the discovery of those 
 countries. I was but little the better for con 
 suiting the Japanpse maps of those seas, though 
 I saw several of them in difiereut places, as at 
 Jedo, in the palace of Tsusslmano Cami, governor 
 of Nagaski, in the temple of Symmios, near 
 Osacca, and in several other temples. They all 
 represent a large continent, which stands out 
 from the Great Tartary, and extends itself behind 
 the island Jesogasima, reaching about fifteen 
 degrees of longitude further east than the eastei'n 
 coasts of Japan. A large space is left empty 
 between it and the neighbouring America. The 
 countiy itself is divided into the following pro- 
 vinces, marked with their common writing 
 characters. Kabersari, Orankai, Sitsij, Fcrosan ; 
 and Amarisi. Between the two last provinces is 
 marked a considerable river, which loses itself 
 into the sea behind the inland Jeso, to the south- 
 east. But as all their maps are very indifferently 
 done, without any scale of distances or degrees, 
 and as besides the names of tho provinces above- 
 mentioned are only in their canna, or common 
 writing, and not, as other more authentic records, 
 in their sisi, or significant characters, I shall leave 
 to the reader's own judgment to detemiiuo how 
 much there is to be ,'epended upon them. And 
 
292 
 
 KCEMPFER'S ACCOU]NT OP JAPAK. 
 
 this is all I could learn in Japan about the state 
 of those countries which lie to the north of this 
 empire.* 
 
 Before I leave off this general geographical 
 description of the Japanese empire, I must not 
 forget to mention two other islands, which lie 
 further off to the east or east-north-east, of the 
 coasts of Osiu, at least at one hundred and fifty 
 miles' distance, but as the Japanese pretend, 
 belong to their empire. They have given them 
 very high-sounding names, the smaller, more 
 northern, and more remote from Japan, being 
 called Ginsima, the Silver Island; the larger and 
 nearer, Kinsima, the Gold Island. They keep 
 their state and situation very secret from all 
 foreigners, chiefly the Europeans, forasmuch as 
 their rich names have already tempted them to 
 go in quest thereof. The King of Spain having 
 been informed that they lie westward of America, 
 in that par*; of the world, which by the Pope's 
 division was assigned to him, as all those lands, 
 which should be discovered from the east, were 
 to the King of Portugal, sent out a very expert 
 pilot to look for them about the year 1620. But 
 this voyage proved unsuccessful. The Dutch 
 attempted the same at different times with no 
 better success. They fitted out one ship for that 
 purpose at Batavia in 1639, and two others in 
 1643, which had orders to go further, and to 
 attempt the discovery of the coasts of Tartary 
 and America. The voyage of these two ships, 
 one of which was called Bresken, the other the 
 Castrecoom, proved very unfortunate. For 
 besides that they suffered much by storms, the 
 captain of the Bresken having hazarded himself 
 on shore, with some of his ship's company, 
 in a port of Japan lying under the 40 of 
 northern latitude, they were all seized upon, put 
 in irons, carried prisoners to Jedo, and as 
 barbarously treated as if thoir intention had been 
 to betray or to invade the empire. 
 
 About the year 1675, the Japanese accidentally 
 discovered a very large island, one of their barks 
 having been forced there in a storm from the 
 island Fatsisio, from which they computed it to 
 be three hundred miles distant towards the east. 
 They met with no inhabitants, but found it to be 
 a very pleasant and fruitful country, well supplied 
 with fresh water, and furnished with plenty of 
 plants and trees, particularly the arrack-tree, 
 which however might give room to conjecture, 
 that the island lay rather to the south of Japan, 
 than to the east, these trees growing only in hot 
 ■countries. They called it Bunesima, or the 
 island Bune, and because they found no inhabitants 
 upon it, they marked it with the character of an 
 uninhabited island. On the shores they fomid 
 an incredible quantity of fish and crabs, some of 
 which were from four to six feet long. 
 
 Fatsisio, I just now had occasion to mention, 
 or Fatsisio Gra.sima, which is as much as to say, 
 the Eighty Fathom Island, is the most remote 
 island the Japanese have in possession southward. 
 It lies under the same meridian with Jedo, and 
 is reckoned to be about eighty Japanese water 
 leagues distant from the continent of Japan, being 
 
 * All this laboured description and conjectuj e evidently 
 trefcr, not to the const of North America, but to the 
 .itcninsula of Kamkachatka. — Ed. 
 
 the furthei'most of a long row of small islands, 
 almost contiguous to each other. It is the chief 
 island where the great men of the Emperor's 
 court, when out of favour, are usually confined, 
 pursuant to a very ancient custom, and kept 
 prisoners on a rooky coast, from the extraordinaiy 
 height of which the whole island hath borrowed 
 its name As long as they continue on this 
 island, they must work for their livelihood. 
 Their chief occupation is weaving, and some of 
 the silk stuffs wrought by them, as they are 
 generally men of ingenuity and good under- 
 standing, are so inimitably fine, that the Emperjr 
 hath forbid, under severe penalties, to export or 
 to sell them to foreigners. This island, besides 
 being washed by a rough tempestuous sea, is so 
 well guarded by nature itself, that when there is 
 some provision of the common necessaries of life, 
 or some new prisoners to be brought in, or the 
 guard to be relieved, the whole boat, with all the 
 lading, must be drawn up, and again let down by 
 a crane, the coasts being so steep and rocky as to 
 admit of no other access. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DIVISION AND SUB-DIVISION OP THE EMPIRE OF JAPAN 
 INTO ITS SEVERAL PROVINCES ; AS ALSO OF ITS REVENUE 
 AND GOVERNMENT. 
 
 In the general geographical description of Japan, 
 which I have laid down in the preceding chapter, 
 I took notice that this empire hath been divided 
 into seven great tracts of land, which were again 
 sub-divided into sixty-eight considerable pro- 
 vinces, and these into 604 smaller districts, or 
 counties, as one might call them. I proceed now 
 more particularly to consider the largeness, 
 extent, fertility, produce and revenues of each 
 province, as I found them in a Japanese descrip- 
 tion of this empire, published in Japan, by the 
 title of Sitzi Jossu. 
 
 But before I proceed to a particular con- 
 sideration of the seven large tracts of land, which 
 the empire of Japan hath been divided into, and 
 of their several provinces, I shall take notice of 
 the Gokinai, or Gokinai goka Kokf, that is the 
 five provinces of the imperial revenues, so called, 
 because all the revenue of these five provinces is 
 particularly appropriated for the support and 
 maintenance of the imperial court. They 
 amount to 148 mans, and 1200 kokfs of rice. 
 The reader is desired to observe in general, that 
 all the revenues in this country are reduced to 
 these two measures in rice. A man contains 
 10,000 kokf, and a kokf 3000 bales or bags of 
 rice. These five imperial provinces are, 
 1. Jamasijro, otherwise Sansju : it is a large and 
 fruitful country. Its length from south to north 
 is a hundred Japanese miles ; and there are 
 several good towns and other places of note 
 within its compass. It is divided into eight 
 districts — Otokuni, Kadono, Okongi, Kij, Udsi, 
 Kusse, Sakanaka, 'and Tsukugi. 2. Jamatto, or 
 Wosju, is likewise a very good country, and much 
 of the same length with the former, going from 
 south to north. It had formerly several placen 
 of note within its compass, which are at present 
 
KCEMPFEK'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 293 
 
 reduced to a very small number. It is divided 
 into fifteen districts, Soono Cami, Soouosimo, 
 Feguri, Fu'ole, Katzu-Dsiau, Katsuuge, Okuno 
 Umi, Utz, Josino, Uda, Sikino Simo, Sikino Cami, 
 Takaiidz, Tooidz, and Jammanobe. 3. Kawatzij, 
 or Kasiu, a tolerably good couutry, about two 
 days' journey in length, and divided into fifteen 
 districts, — Nistori, Isikawa, Fukaitz, Jaskabe, 
 Ookake, Tukajatz, Kawatz, Sarara, Umbarada, 
 Katanno, Wakaje, Sibukaja, Sick, Tanbokf, and 
 Tannan. 4. Idsumi, or Seusju, is a very large 
 country, but indifferently fruitful. Its length is 
 a hundred Japanese miles from south to west. 
 It is bordered on one side by the sea, on the 
 other by a ridge of high mountains. It is 
 plentifully supplied with fish by the neighbouriug 
 sea : it produces also some buck-wheat, rice, 
 peas and beans, though but few, and not of the 
 best sort. It hath but three smaller districts, 
 Ootori, Idsume, and Fine. 6. Sitzu, otherwise 
 Tsinokuni, and Sisju. It hath two days' journey 
 and a half in circumference. It is the fm'thermost 
 country westwards on a large gulph. The 
 southern parts of it are very warm, but the 
 northern colder, and abound more in what they 
 call gokokf, which are the five chief sorts of peas 
 eaten in this country. It aflbrds also some fish, 
 and salt, and is in the main a very good country. 
 It is divided into thirteen districts, Sij Jos, or 
 Symmious, Katatz, Fingassinai, Nisijuari, Jatsan, 
 Simasimo, Simakami, Tesijma, Kawauobe, Muko, 
 Awara, Arima, and Nosje. 
 
 I proceed now to the seven large tracts of land, 
 which the Japanese empire bath been divided 
 mto by the Emperor Siusiuu. 
 
 I. The first is Tookaido, that is, the south- 
 eastern tract. I have observed above, that the 
 said seven large tracts have been by the Emperor 
 Tenmu further divided into sixty-eight provinces, 
 the five provinces above mentioned included, to 
 which some hundred years after two more were 
 added. The Tookaido consists of fifteen of these 
 sixty-eight provinces, which are — 1. Iga, otherwise 
 Isju, which is limited on the south and east by 
 the sea. To the north it is separated from the 
 neighbouring provinces by a. ridge of high 
 mountains. It is a hot country, but indifferently 
 fruitful, producing some plants, trees, and 
 bamboos. It is divided into four districts, Aije, 
 Namanda, Iga, and Nabari. 2. Isie, otherwise 
 Sesju, is three days' journey long, going from 
 south to north. It is almost wholly encompassed 
 by the sea, but extremely fruitful, with an 
 agreeable variety of hills and plains. It is 
 divided into fifteen districts, Quana, Asaki, 
 Susuka, Itsisi, Aanki, Taato, Nisikissima, 
 Gosasuma, Inabe, Mije, Ano, Itaka, Watakei, Ino, 
 and Taki. 3. Ssima, or Sisio, is but a small 
 province, which one may travel across in half a 
 day's time. It is a very barren couutry, but the 
 neighbouring sea supplies it plentifully with fish, 
 oysters, shells, and the like. It hath but three 
 districts, Toosij, Ako, and Kamesima. 4. Owari, 
 otherwise Bisiu, is an inland country, entirely 
 separate from the sea, but one of the most 
 fruitful provinces of the whole empire, and 
 richly stocked with inhabitants. It is three days' 
 journey long, going from south to north, and 
 divided into nine districts, Amabe, Jfakassima, 
 Kaquuri Nirva, Kassungale, Jamada, Aitsi, Tsitta, 
 
 and Toosijnossima. o. Mikawa, otherwise Mis'iu, 
 is a very barren and poor country, with too many 
 shallow rivers, and ponds, which are very 
 prejudicial to the grovrth of the gokokf. It is 
 one day's journey and a half long, going from 
 east to west, and divided into eight districts, 
 Awoumi, Kamo, Nukada, Batz, Fori, Jana, 
 Tsitarra, and Akumi. 6. Tootomi, otherwise 
 Jensju, a very good and fruitful country, and one 
 of the pleasantest provinces for a curious variety 
 of hills, rivers, fertile plains, towns and villages. 
 Its length is supposed to be two days' journey 
 and a half, going from east to west, and it is 
 divided into fourteen districts, Fammana, Futz, 
 Fuusa, Aratama, Nangnkami, Nagassimo, Sutz, 
 Jammana, Kikoo, Faifara, Tojota, Jamaka, Sanno, 
 and Jwati\ 7. Surunga, or Siusju, deserves 
 likewise tc be commended for the variety of its 
 towns, villages, hills, and fi-uitful plains. It is 
 of the same length with Tootomi, going from 
 east to west, and divided into seven districts, 
 Tsta, Masiasu, Udo, Itabe, Rofarra, Fusij, and 
 Suringa. 8. Kai, otherwise Kaisiu, and Ksjoohu, 
 is a flat country, and abounds in rice, fields and 
 pasturage, plants and trees. It breeds also some 
 cattle, chiefly horses. It is two days' journey long 
 from south to north, and divided into four 
 districts, Jamanassiro, jaatzsiro, Coma, and Tsur. 
 
 9. Idau, or Toosju, a long peninsula, being 
 almost surrounded by the sea. It affords a large 
 quantity of salt, and all sorts of fish, and is 
 reckoned in the main a tolerable good country. 
 It is pretty mountainous, with some flat ground, 
 and some few rice-fields. It liath but three 
 districts upon the continent of Nipon, Takato, 
 Naka, and Camo, whereto are added two 
 neighbouring islands, Oosima, and Firkasima. 
 
 10. Sangami or Soosiu, is three days' journey 
 long ; a flat and barren couutry, which affords 
 hardly any thing for the sustenance of human 
 life, but tortoises, fish and crabs from the sea, 
 besides a good quantity of timber out of its large 
 woods. It is divided into eight districts, 
 Asikaranno Cami, Asikaranno Simu, Oosimi, 
 Juringi, Ajikoo Takangi, Camakura, Mijura, and 
 Jesima. H. Musasi, or Busiu, a very large 
 province, having five days' journey and a half in 
 circumference. It is a flat country, without 
 woods and mountains, but very fruitful, abounding 
 in rice, gokokf, garden-fruits, and plants. It is 
 divided into twenty-one districts, which are 
 Kuraggi, Tsukuki, Tama, Tatsinbana, Kaikura, 
 Iruma, Tosma, Fijki, Jokomi, Saitama, Kodama, 
 Tsibu Sima, Fabara, Fasisawa, Naka, Kami, Adats, 
 Tsitsubu, Jebara, Totesima, and Oosato. 12. Awa, 
 otherwise Foosiu, a middling good country, with 
 mountains, hills, river's, and plains, affording both 
 rice and corn ; it is tolerably well inhabited and 
 plentifully supplied by the neighbouring sea with 
 fish and oysters, whose shells the inhabitants 
 make use of to manure their ground. It is one 
 day's journey and a half long from south to 
 north, and divided into four districts, Fekuri, 
 Awa, Asaima, and Nakaba. 13. Kadsusa, other- 
 wise Koosju, is three days' journey long, going 
 from south to north, a tolerable good couutry, 
 though not without high rough mountains : great ■ 
 numbers of the inhabitants get their livelihood 
 by weaving of cannib, or hemp-stuffs, which they 
 understand very well. It is divided into elevew 
 
i94 
 
 KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAJS. 
 
 districts, Ssussu, Amafa, Itsuwaia, Umingami, 
 Foiko, Mooki, Issimi, Fai'inib, Nagawa, Jammauobe, 
 and Hussa. 14. Simoosa, otherwise Soosju, is 
 said to be three days' journey long, going from 
 south to north, a mountainous country, indiffer- 
 ently fruitful, but abounding in fowls and cattle. 
 It is divided into twelve districts, Kuddosika, 
 Taibba, Imba, Sooma, Sasjuma, luuki, Tooda, 
 Koosa, Unagami, Katori, Fannibu, and Okauda. 
 15. Fitats, or Sjoo, a very large province ; my 
 author makes it almost square, and says that it 
 IB three days' journey long on each side. It is 
 but a middling country, as to its fruitfulness, but 
 produces a great quantity of sdk-worms and silk, 
 of which there are several manufactures established 
 there, as there are also some other things, the 
 inhabitants being a very industrious people. 
 They likewise carry on a trade in cattle. It 
 hath eleven districts, Nijbari,Makaije,Tsukkumba, 
 Kawaats, Ssida, Umbaraki, Namingata, Naka, 
 Kussi, Taka, and lengoko. leugoko signifies a 
 distant counti-y, by which is probably meant 
 some neighbouring island. The revenues of these 
 fifteen provinces of the first large tract called 
 Tookaido, amount in all to 494 mankokf. 
 
 II. Toosando, that is, the eastern mountainous 
 tract, hath eight large provinces within its com- 
 pass, which are — 1. Oomi, an extraordinai-y good 
 and fruitful country, with variety of mountains, 
 hills, rivers, and fruitful fields, producing both 
 rice and corn, and affording to tho labourer a 
 thousandfold reward (according to my Japanese 
 author's way of expressing the fruitfulness of 
 this country). It hath three days' journey and a 
 half in circumference, and is divided into thirteen 
 districts : Singa, Karimotto, lus, Canimoo, Kan- 
 saki, Inuugami, Sakatta, Jetz, the upper and 
 lower Assai, Imito, Takassima, Kooka, and Joo- 
 sitzoomi. 2. Mino, or Diosiu, is not inferior to 
 the former, neither in an agreeable variety of 
 hills and plains, nor in fertility, producing plenty 
 of rice, corn, and gokokf, and other necessaries 
 of life. It is three days' journey long from south 
 to north, and divided into eighteen districts : 
 Isijntsu, Fufa, Awadsi, Ikenda, Oouo, llottos, 
 Mussijroda, Katakata, Atsumi, Kakumi, laman- 
 gata, Mnggi, Guundsjo, Camo, Cako, Tokki, Jenna, 
 and Taki. 3. Fida, otherwise Fisju, falls fur 
 «hort of tho two former, both in largeness and 
 fertility. Its utmost extent from south to north 
 doth not exceed two days' travelling. It abounds 
 in woods and forests, and yields a great quantity 
 of fire-wood, and timber for buildings. It hath 
 but four districts, Ofarra, Masijnda, Ammano, 
 and Araki. 4. Sinano, otherwise Sinsju, a very 
 cold country. Salt and fish are very scarce here, 
 because of its gi'eat remoteness from the sea; 
 and it is not well provided with cattle, by reason 
 of its few pastures. It is otherwise tolei-ably 
 fruitful, and produces a good quantity of mul- 
 beiTy trees, silk, and oannib, of which there are 
 several good manufactures established there. It 
 33 said to be five days' journey long from south to 
 ■north, and is divided into eleven districts : Mid- 
 Butz, Takaij, Fannissina, Tsisagatta, Sacku, Ina, 
 Ssuwa, Tsikumma, Atsumi, Sara, and Sijna. 5. 
 Koodsuke, otherwise Dsiosjn, is four days' jour- 
 ney long, going from east to west, a warm and 
 tolerable good country, producing plenty of mul- 
 iberry trees, though the silk they yield ia not of 
 
 the best sort, and the stuffs brought from thenco 
 but coarse. Its is divided into fourteen districts : 
 Ussui, Aassa, Ssikanne, Ssetta, Sai, Nitta, Katta- 
 oka, Sooi-a, Gumma, Kanva, Tago, Midorino, Niiba, 
 and Jammada. 6. Simoodsuke, or Jasju, ia three 
 days' journey and a half long, going from east to 
 west, a tolerable good country, not very moun- 
 tainous, but rather flat, with abundance of pan- 
 ture-ground and rice-fields, whicli plentifully 
 supply it with gra^s, rice, corn, and the gokokf. 
 It hath nine districts, Askara, Janada, Aso, 
 Tsuga, Taka, Sawingawa, Suwooja, Naau, and 
 Mukabo f. Mntsu, or Oo5Ju, is by much tho 
 largest province in Japan, being full sixteen 
 days' journey long, from south to north It is 
 an extraordinary good and fruitful country, and 
 wants nothing for the support of human life. 
 This whole province was formerly subject to one 
 prince, together with the neighbouring province 
 Dewa, of which more hereafter. It is divided 
 into fifty-four (and according to others fifty-five) 
 districts, S'jrakawa, Kurokawa, Juwasi, Mijaki, 
 Aitz, Nama, Oda, Asaka, Adatz, Sibatta, Karida, 
 Tooda, Natori, Sinuobu, Kikkunda, Sibanne, 
 Assonusa, Namingata, Iwadewaga, Kawatz, Fit- 
 zungi, Takano, Wattari, Tamadsukuri, Oonato, 
 Kami, Ssida, Kursiwara, Jesan, Jeki, Misawa, 
 Nagaooka, 'Tojone, Monowara, Oosika, Gunki, 
 Kaddouo, Fasikani, Tsungaru, Uda, Iku, Motojes, 
 Isbara, Taidsi, Sikamma, Inaga, Siwa, Iwasaki, 
 Kimbara, Kadsinda, Datte, Sooka, Fei, and Kisen, 
 8. Dewa, otherwise, Usju, is five days' journey 
 long, a very good countiy, abounding in good 
 pasture-ground, plants, and trees. It is said to 
 have the spring fifteen days earlier than othei 
 provinces. It belonged formerly to Osju, but is 
 now a separate province, divided into twelve dis- 
 tricts, Akumi, Kawanobe, Murnjama, Oitama, 
 Ookatz, Firaka, Tangaira, Diwa, Akindaturi, Sen- 
 boku, Mogunii, and Jamamottu. All the revenues 
 of these eight provinces amount to 563 mangokf, 
 according to the old rentals, but at present they 
 ai-e considerably improved. 
 
 III. Foku Rokkudo, that is, the northern tract, 
 hath seven provinces within its compass : — 1. 
 Wackasa, otherwise Siakusju, is one day's journey 
 and a half long, going from south to north. It is 
 limited to the north by the sea, which plenti- 
 fully supplies it with fish, crabs, tortoises, and 
 the like. It hath some iron-mines, and is divided 
 into three districts, Oonibu, Ooi, and Micatta. 
 2. Jetsissen, otherwise Jeetsju. Its length, from 
 south to north, is of three days' travelling. It is 
 very mountainous towards the south, but more 
 fiat and fmitful to the north, with abundance of 
 good pasture-ground, where the inhabitants breed 
 plenty of cattle. It produces also cannib, mul- 
 berry-trees, and- silk, and the gokokf very plenti- 
 fully. It is divided into twelve districts : Tsu- 
 ruga, Nibu, Imadats, Asijba, Oono, Sakai, Kuroda, 
 Ikingami, Takakida, Joosdsida, Sakagita, and 
 Naandsjo. 3. Kaga, otherwise Kasju, is two 
 days' jouiney and a half long, going from east to 
 west, a tolerable good country, yielding as much 
 of tlie gokokf as is necessary for the sustenance 
 of the inhabitants. Some silk manufactures are 
 carried on here ; and it affords the best vinegar, 
 sacki, and soja, which are exported into othei 
 provinces. It hath four districts, Jenne, Nomi, 
 Ifiikawa, and Kanga, to which some add Kaboku. 
 
iiCEMPFEK'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 295 
 
 i. Noto, otherwise Seosju, is a sortof a peninsula, 
 almost wholly encompassed by the sea, and on 
 this account plentifully supplied with fish and 
 crabs. It hath several iron-mines, but not much 
 good ground, and the gokokf ripen considerably 
 later than in other provinces. It is two dnys' 
 journey and a half long, going from east to west, 
 and is divided into four districts : Bagui, Noto, 
 Fukeesund, and Ssus. 5. Jeetsju, otherwise 
 Jaessju, hath three days' journey in circum- 
 ference, a tolerable good country, pretty well sup- 
 plied with gokokf. A particular sort of earthen 
 pots is made here. It affords also some wood, 
 which is made use of particularly for bridges. 
 It is divided into four districts, Tonami, Imidsu, 
 Mebu, and Nijkawa. 6. Jetsingo, otherwise 
 Jeesju, a large province, having six days' journey 
 in circumference. It is very mountainous to the 
 south, otherwise tolerably fruitful, producing silk, 
 cannib, and the gokokf, though not of the best sort. 
 It is divided mto seven districts : Kabiki, Kof, 
 Missima, Iwoodsi, Cambara, Nutari, and Ivvafune. 
 7. Sado, or Sa^ju, a pretty large island, of three 
 days' journey and a half in circumference, situate 
 to the north of Japan, just over against the two pro- 
 vinces Jeetsju and Jetsingo. It ia a very fruitful 
 island, plentifully supplied with corn, rice, and 
 gokokf. It hath also some woods and good pas- 
 ture-ground. The sea affords fish and crabs. It 
 is divided into three districts, Umo, Soota, and 
 Camo. The yearly revenue of these seven pro- 
 vinces amounts to 243 mangokf. 
 
 IV. Sanindo, that is, the " Northern Ixoun- 
 tainous, or Cold Tract," consists of eight pro- 
 vinces ; 1. Tanba, otherwise Tansju, is two days' 
 journey long, a middling good country, producing 
 plenty of rice, besides several sorts of pease and 
 pulse. It affords also some fire-wood, and is 
 divided into six districts : Kuwada, Funaji, Taki, 
 Amada, Fingami, and Ikarunga. 2. Tango, other- 
 wise Tansju, is one day's journey and a half 
 broad, going from south to north, likewise a 
 middling good country, where silk and cannib 
 may be had at a very easy rate. It is plentifully 
 supplied by the sea with fish, crabs, and the like. 
 It is divided into five districts : Kaki, Joki, 
 Tango, Katano, and Kumauo. 3. Tasima, other- 
 wise Tansju, is two days' journey long, going 
 from east to west, a middling good country, 
 much hke the two former, and divided into eight 
 districts : Asami, Jabu, Idsu, Ketta, Eannosiiki, 
 Flangaka, Sitzumi, and Mikummi. 4. Imaba, 
 otherwise Insju, is much of the same length and 
 degree of fruitfulness with Tasima. It is limited 
 to the north by the sea, and on the south by a 
 ridge of mountains. It hath several manufactures 
 of coarse silk atufi's, and is divided into seven 
 provinces : Togomi, Ji^ami, Teidsu, Oomi, Taka- 
 guso, Ketta, and Konno. 5. Fooki, otherwise 
 Fakueju, is two days' journey and a half long, 
 going from south to north, a middling good 
 country, producing plenty of gokokf, cannib, and 
 silk, of which last there are several good manu- 
 factures carried on here. It is divided into six 
 districts: Kawamura, Kuine, Jawata, Aneeri, 
 Oomi, and Fino. 6. Idsumo, otherwise Unsju, 
 is two days' journey and a half broad, going from 
 east to west, almost wholly encompassed by the 
 Corean sea, after the manner of a peninsula. It 
 is a very fruitful country, producing variety of 
 
 trees, grass, aud plants. It hath also some manu- 
 factures of coarse silk stuffs. It is divided into 
 ten districts : Iju, Nomi, Semane, Akisika, Tat- 
 teuui, Jadsumo, Kanto, Ijis, Ninda, and Oofara. 
 7. Iwami, otherwise Sekisju, is two days' journey 
 long, going from south to north, a middling good 
 country, producing plenty of cannib, and afford- 
 ing some salt. The inhabitants give twice as 
 much a year to their prince as they do in other 
 provinces. It is divided into five districts : Tsi- 
 kama, Naka, Dots, Mino, and Canoab, 8. Oki, 
 otherwise Insju, au island erected into a province, 
 and situate in the Corean sea, opposite to the 
 coasts of that peninsula. It is a very bairen 
 country, producing a few gokokf. It hath two 
 days' journey in circumference, and is divided 
 into five districts. All the yearly revenues of 
 these eight provinces amount to 123 mangokf. 
 
 V. Sanjodo, that is, the " Southern Mountainous, 
 or Warm Tract," is composed of eight provinces, 
 which are, 1. Farima, otherwise Bansju, hath 
 throe days' journey and a half in circumference, 
 a very fruitful country, producing in plenty all 
 manner of necessaries. It hath several manu- 
 factures of silk-stuffs, paper, and cloth. It is 
 divided into fourteen districts, Akas, Kata, Kamo, 
 Inami, Sikama, Iwo, Akato, Saijo, Sitz, Kansaki, 
 Taka, Mitzubo, Issai, and Itto. 2. Mimasaka, 
 otherwise Sakusju, is three days' journey long, 
 going from east to west, a middling good country, 
 affording as much fruits, plants, victuals, and 
 cloth, as is necessary for the support of its 
 inhabitants. It is observe 1 as somewhat remark- 
 able, that this province is leas subject to winds 
 than any other in the empire. It is divided into 
 seven districts, Aida, Katzunda, Tomanisi, Toma- 
 figasi, Khume, Ooba, aud Masuma. 3. Bidsen, or 
 Bisju, hath three days' journey in circumference, 
 a middling good country, producing plenty of 
 silk. Its soil is pretty warm, and the produce of 
 the fields and gardens are observed to ripen earlier 
 than in other provinces. It is divided into 
 eleven districts, Kosuma, Waki, Iwanasi, Ooku, 
 Akosaka, Kandatz, Minne, Ooas, Tsitaka, Tain- 
 gosima, and Kamosima. 4. Bitsju, otherwise 
 Fisin, is one day's journey and a half long, going 
 from east to west, a very good country, plenti- 
 fully supplied with all the necessaries of life. 
 The gokokf and cannib in particular are ex- 
 tremely cheap here. It is divided into nine 
 districts, Utz, Kaboja, Kaija, Simomitz, As=anguts, 
 Oda, Sitzuki, Teta, aud Fanga, to which are 
 added two inlands, Saburosima, and Jorisima. 
 5. Bingo, otherwise Fisju, is somewhat more than 
 two days' journey long, going from south to north, 
 a middling good country, plentifully supplied 
 with rice and gokokf, which are likewise ob>erved 
 to ripen here much earlier than they do else- 
 where. It is divided into fourteen districts, Abe 
 Futsitz. Kamijsi, Asuka, Numasimi, Bonitz, 
 Asijda, Kooni, Mikami, Camidami, Mitsuki, Jesso, 
 Sirra, and Mijwara. 6. Aki, otherwise Qesju, is two 
 days' journey and a half long, going from south 
 to north, a mountainous and barren country. 
 Upon the coasts they make salt. Corn, rice, and 
 gokokf will hardly grow here, but it abounds 
 with woods and forests, which afford plenty of 
 mushrooms, it is divided into eight districts, 
 Numada, Takatta, Tojoda, Sada, Cammo, Sabaku, 
 Aki, Takamija, and Iku Kussima ; which last is 
 
•296 
 
 KCEIIPFEK'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 tbe name of a place particularly famous in this 
 proviuce. 7. Suwo, or Seosju, is three days' 
 journey long, going.from east to west, a middling 
 good country, abounding chiefly in plants and 
 good pasture-ground. The coasts afford as much 
 fish, crabs, shells, and other submarine substances 
 as any other province whatever. It is divided 
 into six districts, Oosima, Kuka, Kumade, Tsino, 
 Sawa, and Jooski. 8. Nagata, otherwise Tsiosju, 
 is two days' journey and a half long, from east to 
 west, a middling good country, limited to the 
 south and west by the sea, to the north by a 
 ridge of mountains. It produces gokokf, iish, 
 crabs, and other necessaries, twice as much as 
 there is requisite for the maintenance of the 
 inhabitants. It is divided into six districts, Atsa, 
 Trojora, Mine, Ootz, Amu, and Misijma. The 
 whole yearly revenue of these eight provinces 
 amounts to 270 mangokf. 
 
 All the several tracts of land, provinces and 
 districts, hitherto mentioned, belong to the great 
 island Nipon. I proceed now to the second 
 island, which is next to Nipon in largeness, and 
 which is by the Japanese called Kiusju, the 
 Western Country, au''. Saikokf, the Country of 
 Nine. This offers to our view the 
 
 VI. Great tract of laud, called Saikaido, that 
 is, the " Western Coast Tract." It is composed 
 of nine large provinces : 1. Tsikudsen. otherwise 
 Tsikusiu, is from south to north four days' 
 journey long, a middling good country, pro- 
 ducing both coi'n and lice. It hath several 
 ' Chinaware manufactures, and is divided into 
 ; twenty-four districts, Sima, Kama, Jassijka, 
 Nosima, Mikasa, Monagatta, Onka, Musiroda, 
 v'oDami, Sara, Naka, Cassija, Siaka, Musima, Ito, 
 JIusijro, Vutz, Kurande, Nokosima, Sinoti;, 
 Uasakura, Kamitzkasakura, Kokuf, and Tassai. 
 2. Tsikuugo, otherwise Tsikusju, is, from south 
 to aoutL, five days' journey long, a tolerable good 
 country, producing corn, rice, and peas in great 
 plenty : the coasts afford fish, ci'abs, and shells. 
 A great deal of sweetmeat is made here, and 
 exported into other provinces. It is divided into 
 ten districts, Mijwara, Mij, Ikwa, Mi, Mike, 
 Kandsima, Simodsima, Jammacando, Jamma- 
 seta, and Takeno. 3. Budseu, or Foosju, is four 
 days' journey long from south to north, a toler- 
 able good country, particularly famous for pro- 
 lucing extraordinary good medicinal plants. 
 Great numbers of silk manufactures are earned 
 on in this province, some of which the Prince 
 takes in part of payment for his revenue. It is 
 divided into eight districts, Tangawa, Sakku, 
 Mijako, Nakatz, Tsuiki, Kamitzki, Simotzki, and 
 Usa'. 4. Bungo, otherwise Foosju, is three days' 
 journey long, middling fruitful. It affords silk 
 from its mulberry-trees, cloth, hemp, gokokf, 
 iud some scarce medicinal plants. It is divided 
 into eight districts, Fita, Kees, Nawori, Oono, 
 Amabe, Ookata, Faijami, and Kunisaki 5. Fidsen, 
 otherwise Fisju, is, from south to north, full five 
 days' journey long, a good and middUng fruitful 
 country, besides the produce of corn and rice, 
 plentifully stored mth fish and fowls. It hath 
 also some cloth manufactures, and is divided into 
 eleven districts, Kickij, Jabu, Mine, Ooki, Kausoki, 
 Saaga, Maatsura, Kissima, Fusitz, Kadsuraki, and 
 Takaku. 6. Figo, otherwise Fisju, hath about 
 five days' journey in circumference, » middling 
 
 fruitful country, affording plenty of firewood, and 
 wood for building, also corn, peas, fish, crabs, 
 and other necessaries, as much as will supply the 
 want of the inhabitants. It is divided into four- 
 teen' districts, Tamana, Jamaga, Jamamatto, 
 Kikutz, Aso, Takuma, Kuma, Aida, Masika, Udo, 
 Jaadsiro, Koos, Amakusa, and Askita. 7. Piugo, 
 otherwise Nisju,. is about three days' journey 
 long, a poor country, mountainous, and producing 
 hardly what corn, rice, and fruits are necessary 
 for the sustenance of its inhabitants ; some few 
 mulberry-trees grow there. It is divided into 
 five districts, Uski, Koiju, Naka, Mijasaka, and 
 Morokata. 8. Oosumi, otherwise Gusju, is, from 
 east to west, two days' journey long, a small but 
 fiTiitful province, plentifully supplied with all 
 the necessaries of life, particularly such as the 
 sea affords. There is a great quantity of paper 
 made here, and some few silk stuffs. It is 
 divided into eight districts, Oosumi, Fisiugari, 
 Kuwabara, Soo, Siji'a, Kimodsuki, Komadsij, and 
 Kumagge, to which is added the neighbouring 
 island "Tanegasima. 9. Satzuma, or Satzju, is- 
 much of the same length with the former, 
 middling fruitful, producing chiefly mulberry- 
 trees and hemp. It hath a few cloth manu- 
 factures, but the cloth is very good. It cani 
 furnish other provinces with hemp. It is divided 
 into fourteen districts, Idsumi, Takaki, Satzuma, 
 Feki, Isa, Ala, Kawanobe, Jene, Juumaki, Fire,. 
 Fani, Jamma, Okinokosima, .and Kosskisima, 
 The yearly revenue of these nine provinces 
 amounts to 344 mangokf. 
 
 An island of the third magnitude, which lies- 
 between the two formar, and is by the Japanese 
 called Sikokf, th.at is, the Country of Four, viz., 
 provinces, together with the neighbouring island 
 Awadsi, situate to the north-east of Sikokf, and 
 the great province Kijnokuni, which stands out 
 from the continent of Nipon, make up the seventh 
 large tract of land, which is by the Japanese- 
 called 
 
 VII. Nankaido, that is, the " Tract of the Southern 
 Coasts.'' It is composed of the six following pro- 
 vinces : 1. Kijnokuni, otherwise Kisju, is four 
 days' journey and a half long, going from south 
 to north, a flat and barren country, washed by the 
 sea on three sides, and producing neither corn 
 and rice, nor peas and pulse. It is divided into 
 seven districts, Ito, Naka, Nagnsa, Amabe, Arida, 
 Fitaka, and Muro. 2. Awadsi, an island of about 
 a day's journey in length, in the main very 
 barren, affording, however, cloth, fish, and salt, 
 as much as there is necessnry for the mainten- 
 ance of the inhabitants. It hath but two districts, 
 Tsina and Mijwara, to which are added two of 
 the chief neighbouring islands, Mussima and 
 Jesima. 3. Awa, otherwise Asju, is two days' 
 journey long, a middling good country, some- 
 what mountainous, and plentifully stored with 
 cattle, fowl, fish, crabs, and shells. It is divided 
 into nine districts, Miosi, Ojen, Nasingasi, 
 Naiiisi, Katsura, Naka, Itano, Awa, and Mima. 
 4. Sanuki, otherwise Sansju, is three days' 
 journey long, going from east to west, a middUng 
 good and fruitful country, with variety of rivers, 
 mountains, and fields, producing rice, com, peas, 
 and pulse. The sea affords plenty of fish and 
 crabs. This province is famous for having given 
 birth to several great and eminent men. It is 
 
 
KCEMPFEllS ACCOUNT OF JAPAK. 
 
 2!)7 
 
 divided into eleven districts, Ovrutsi, Samingawa, 
 Miki, Mino, Jamada, Kartda, Auo, Utari, Naka, 
 Tado, and Kako. 5. Ijo, otherwise Josju, is two 
 days' journey long, a middling good country, 
 mountainous in soma parts, flat in others, some 
 of the fields being handy, others producing 
 rice, hemp, mulberry-trees, gi'ass, and plants. 
 Some salt is made upon the coasts. It is 
 divided into fourteen districts, Nij, Sucki, 
 Kuwamira, Ootz, Kasafaja, Nooma, Tsike, 
 Otsumi, Kume, Fuke, Jio, Kita, Uwa, and Uma. 
 6. Tosa, otherwise Tosju, is two days' journey 
 long, gomg from east to west, a middling good 
 country, supplied with plenty of peas and pulse, 
 wood, fruits, and several other necessaries of life. 
 It is divided into seven provinces, Tosa, Agawa, 
 Taka, Oka, Fata, Nanaoka, Katasima, and Kami. 
 The yearly revenue of these six provinces 
 amounts to 140 mangokf. 
 
 There remain still two other islands not 
 hitherto mentioned, which were conquered, and 
 annexed to the empire of Japan, in the late war 
 with the inhabitants of Corea. They are called 
 Iki Tsussima, both their names being put to- 
 gether, and have now a prince of their own, 
 having been formerly subject to the Prince, or 
 petty King of Satzuma. The fii'st of these two 
 islands is Iki, othervrfse Isju ; it is a day's journey 
 long, and hath two districts, Iki and Isijda. The 
 second island is Tsussima, otherwise Taisju ; this 
 is somewhat larger than the former, and likewise 
 divided into two districts, Akata, and Simoakata, 
 that is. Upper and Lower Akata. The fruitful- 
 ness of these islands is said not to be vei-y con- 
 siderable, but they say that some foreign curio- 
 sities are to be seen there, and the number of 
 idols worshipped by the inhabitants is much 
 talked of. The yearly revenue of these two 
 islands amounts to three man, and 5000 kokf. 
 
 The whole revenue of all the islands and pro- 
 vinces belonging to the great empire of Japan 
 makes up in all a yearly sum of 2328 man, and 
 6200 kokf, according to the account above given. 
 My Japanese author, however, puts it only at 
 2257 mangokf. 
 
 Though it be not a proper place here to enter 
 into particulars concerning the government of 
 the Japanese empire, its provinces and districts, 
 yet, for the better understanding of my history, 
 it seems necessary that, before I proceed any 
 further, somewhat should be said on this head. 
 The whole empire, in general, is governed by the 
 emperor, with an absolute and monarchical 
 power ; and so is every province in particular, 
 by the prince who, under the emperor, enjoys 
 the government thereof. The present kubo, or 
 secular monarch, is Tsinajos, fourth successor, 
 and great grandson of Jejassama, first emperor of 
 the now reigning family, who usurped the throne 
 upon the lawful heir, and reigned about the 
 begmning of the sixteenth century. Tsinajos 
 hath the character of a severe, but just and 
 prudent monarch. He inherited from his 
 ancestors, along with the crown, an absolute and 
 unlimited power over all his subjects, from the 
 meanest extraction up to the highest rank. 
 Even the greatest princes and lords of the empire 
 are so far his vassals that he can disgrace, oxile, 
 and deprive them of their lives and dominions as 
 he pleases, or as he thinks the peace and 
 
 welfare of the empiie requires, or their crimes 
 deserve. 
 
 Particularprovinces are governed by hereditary 
 princes, called daimio, which siguifiea " high- 
 named ; " that is, princes and lords of the highest 
 rank. Some of these have found means, by force 
 of arms, to eulai'ge their dominions. Tlius, the 
 Prince of Satzuma made himself master of the 
 two neighbouring provinces, Oosumi and Fiugo, 
 and the Prince of Canga of the neighbouring pro- 
 vince, Noto ; on which account these two princes 
 are said to be the most powerful in the empire. 
 
 The lords of smaller cUstricts are called Siomio, 
 " well-naraed," lords of an inferior rank. Their 
 dominions, whether they be islands, as Goto, 
 Firando, Amakusa, Matsaki, and several others, 
 or situate upon the continent of the three chief 
 islands composing the empire of Japan, are men- 
 tioned in the list of the sixty-six great provinces, 
 each xmder that province whereto they belong, 
 or in which they lie. All the siomio are so far 
 subject to the emperor that they are allowed but 
 six months' stay in their hereditaiy dominions ; 
 the other half year they must spend in the 
 imperial capital, Jedo, where their wives and 
 families are kept all the year round as hostages 
 of their fidelity. 
 
 Some of these smaller districts are imperial 
 demesne, or crown lands, either because they 
 have been appropriated of old for the support of 
 the crown, or because in course of time, as 
 occasion offered, they were taken from their 
 hereditary possessore by way of punishment, 
 and annexed thereunto, it having been always 
 one of the chief political maxims followed by the 
 Emperors of Japan to maintain themselves in 
 peiceable possession of the throne by splitting 
 large dominions into several small ones, and by 
 endeavouring, by all possible means, to weaken 
 the power and authority of the Princes of the 
 empire. The largest of these crown lands are 
 governed by what they call bugios, acting in 
 the natin:e of lieutenants ; the smaller ones 
 by daiquans, as they are called, or stewards. 
 All the revenues must bei brought into the 
 Emperor's exchequer. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE AUTUOR's opinion OF THE TRUE ORIGIN AND DESCENT 
 OF THE JAPANESE. 
 
 It hath been the constant opinion of most 
 European geographers, that the Japanese are 
 originally of Chinese extraction, descended from 
 the inhabitants of that mighty empire. This 
 opinion is grounded upon the following two 
 stories, which were brought out of the East by 
 European travellers. The first is : It once 
 happened in China that several families conspired 
 against the Emperor. Upon discovery of the 
 plot, it was ordered, that all those who had any 
 hand in it, should be put to death without mercy. 
 But the number of accomplices was so great, that 
 at last the executioners themselves grew weary 
 of shedding so much blood ; the affair was again 
 laid before the Emperor, who thereupon resolved, 
 that their sentence of death should be converted 
 U 
 
29b 
 
 K(EMPFER'8 ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 into transportation and banishment into the 
 neighbouring, then rude and uninhabited, islards 
 of Japan, which they peopled, and thereby 
 became the progenitors of that numerous and 
 powerful nation they are now inhabited by. 
 The second story hath been reported as follows : 
 One of the Emperors of China, unwilling to part 
 with his empire, and all that grandeur and power 
 he was possessed of, within the short term human 
 life is limited to, endeavoured to find out, if 
 possible, some universal medicine, which could 
 make him immortal ; on this account, he sent 
 expert and able men into all parts of the world. 
 Among the rest, one of his chief physicians 
 persuaded him, that the proper ingredients for 
 such a medicine were, to his knowledge, to be 
 met with in the neighbouring islands of Japan ; 
 but that they were of so tender and singular a 
 structure, that they would wither, and lose their 
 virtues, if touched by any other but chaste and 
 pure hands. And, the better to execute this 
 design, he proposed that three hundred young 
 men, and so many young women, all of a strong 
 and healthful constitution, should be carried 
 over thither, which accordingly he did himself, 
 though far from having any real intention to 
 satisfy his Sovereign, but rather out of a desire 
 to escape his tyranny, to settle in happier climes, 
 and to people these then uninhabited islands. 
 As to the first of these two stories, Linschoot is 
 the author of it ; but he not acquainting his 
 reader what authority he had for it, or how he 
 came by it, and there being not the least mention 
 made, neither in Chinese nor Japanese histories, 
 of any such conspiracy, it deserves no credit, but 
 ought to be entirely rejected as forged and 
 fabulous. But as to the second, the coming over 
 of a Chinese physician, with so many young men 
 and young women, the same is not at all denied 
 by the Japanese ; nav, far from it, they still show 
 a place upon Khumano (so they call the southern 
 coasts of the provinces), Kijnokuni, and some 
 neighbouring provinces, where he landed and 
 afterwards settled with his gallant colony ; and 
 the remains of a temple, which was there erected 
 to his memoiy, for having brought over to them 
 from China good manners, and useful arts and 
 sciences. As to the occasion of his coming over, 
 it is recorded in Japanese histories, that there 
 was great search made after an universal medicine, 
 during the reign, of the Emperor Si, or Sikwo, or, 
 as the vulpar pronounce it, Sino Sikwo. This 
 Emperor was one of the three Chinese Neros, 
 Sinosko, Ketzuwo, and Thuwo, whose memory 
 will be for ever abhorred. He not only governed 
 his empire with unparalleled tyranny, ^ut lived 
 with the greatest pride, and mos; profuse 
 magnificence imaginable, of which there are 
 several remarkable instances mentioned in the 
 history of his life. He caused once a large spot 
 of ground to be dug up for a lake, and having 
 ordered it to be filled with Chinese beer, he 
 sailed over it in stately barges. He caused a 
 stately palace, named Kojaku, to be built for his 
 residence, the floors whereof were paved with 
 gold and silver, and the whole building of such 
 an extent, that the Emperor Kooll, who afterwards 
 usurped the throne, having set it on fire, it burnt 
 in the ashes for the space of three months; which 
 memorable event gave birth to a proverb, whereby 
 
 the Japanese express the sudden changes, and 
 short duration, human grandeur and happiness' 
 are liable to. It was this Emperor who, out of a 
 strong desire for ever to enjoy the empire, 
 ordered that great search should be made after a 
 medicine, which could render him immortal. If 
 it be therefore under his reign, the above said 
 physician went over into Japan with his colony, 
 it must be granted to the Japanese, that th6y 
 came by much too late to be the progenitors of 
 their nation, which was then already governed by 
 Koken, their eighth monarch ; for the arrival 'of 
 the Chinese was in the seventh year of the reign 
 of Koken, 453 years after Synmu, first Emperbr 
 of Japan, and 209 before the birth of our Saviour, 
 the very same year in which Sinosikwo died in 
 the fiftieth year of his age. Since therefore these 
 two stories are by no means a sufficient proof 
 that the Japanese nation is descended from the 
 Chinese, it will not he amiss to inquirfe whether 
 it be not possible to assign it another more 
 probable origin. 
 
 It is unquestionably true that languages, and 
 their laws, are as sure and certain marks, iis 
 perhaps it is possible to produce, whereby to 
 discern, and trace out, not only the true origin, 
 of a nation, but likewise to find out how in 
 process of time it increased, by being, as it were, 
 incorporated with other nations. Of this most 
 European nations afford us evident proofs. Thus, 
 for instance, we may easily find by the language; 
 alone, that the Polanders, Bohemians, add 
 Muscovites, are of Solavonian extractiqn; that 
 the Italians, French, and Spaniards descend from, 
 the Romans ; that the Germans,~-Low Dutch,^ 
 Danes, and Swedes, are the offspring of thei 
 ancient Goths. Nay, we may go still further.: 
 and assert, that the languages alone of several 
 nations, and proper considerations thereupon, 
 will qualify and enable us to form probable; 
 conjectures what revolutions happened among 
 them, whether and what neighbouring nation-- 
 they were conquered by, as also, whether and 
 how from time to time they increased by fresh 
 supplies and colonies from foreign parts: for if 
 may be laid down as a i;onstant rule, that in 
 proportion to the number of strangers who come 
 to settle and live in a country, words of the' 
 tongue spoke by them will be brought into the 
 language of that country, and by degrees, as it 
 were, naturalized, and become so familiar to the 
 natives, as if they had been of their own growth. 
 The number of" Saxon, Danish, and Norman- 
 French words, in the English ' language, doth 
 it not prove, that England was successively 
 conquered by the Saxons, Danes, and Normans? 
 Not even the Latin tongue was able to pre- 
 serve its purity, but Greek words were fretlj/ 
 and in great number, adopted into it,- after the 
 Romans became master of that country, then the 
 seat of learning ahd politeness. The language 
 now spoken in Transylvania has a considerable 
 m'ixture both of the Latin and neighbourinp 
 Hungarian. The language of the inhabita,nt» ol 
 Semigallia (a small country near Russia), is 
 composed of the Lettish, Sclavonian, and Latiii. 
 The same observation holds true in other part» 
 of the world, as well as in Europe. Johil de 
 Barros in his Decades, and FlacCdurt in his 
 history of Madagascar,-a33ure tm that-the language 
 
XffiSlPFEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 299 
 
 spoken by the inliabitants of that large African 
 island is full of Javan and Malayan words, as 
 remaining proofs of the trade and commerce 
 which these two nations, about two thousand 
 years ago, the richest and most powerful of Asia, 
 had carried on with Madagascar, where they 
 settled in great numbers. The language spoken 
 in the peninsula Crimea, fr Taurica Chersonesus, 
 in Asia, (Europe ?), still retains many German 
 words, brought thither, as is supposed, by a 
 colony of Goths, who went to settle there about 
 eight hundred and fifty yeara after the deluge. 
 The late Mr. Busbeq, who had been Imperial 
 Ambassador at the Ottoman Porte, collected and 
 published a great number of these words in his 
 fourth letter ; and in my own travels through 
 that country I took notice of many more. If we 
 were better acquainted with the languages of the 
 Javans, Ceylonese, Malabarians, Siamites, and 
 other Indian nations, they would doubtless enable 
 us to trace out their origin, mixture with their 
 neighbours, and the revolutions that happened 
 among them. But to apply what hath been said 
 nearer to our purpose, I may venture to affirm, 
 that if the Japanese language was to be thoroughly 
 .and most rigorously examined into, we would 
 find it entirely pure, and free from all mixture 
 with the languages of their neighbours, at least 
 to such a degree, as would give room to con- 
 jecture an original descent from them. By their 
 neighbours I mean chiefly the Chinese, who 
 inhabit the eastern maritime provinces of that 
 empire, and carry on a commerce with Japan. 
 They speak three different languages, according 
 to the three chief provinces they belong to, which 
 are Nanking, Tsiaktsju, and Foktsju. Now a 
 native of Japan doth not understand one word of 
 either of these languages, excepting the names of 
 a few things which were brought by the Chinese 
 , into Japan along with the xhings themselves, 
 and which conclude no more for an original 
 descent of the Japanese from China, than some 
 few Portuguese words, as pan, palma, bolan, 
 cappa, frasco, bidou, tante, and a few more, still 
 left there, would be allowed a sufficient proof of 
 the Japanese being originally descended from the 
 Portuguese. Nor was the number of Chinese, 
 who came from time to time to settle in Japan 
 ever considerable enough to occasion any 
 temarkable alteration in the mother-tongue of 
 the Japanese, though they could and actually did 
 communicate and introduce among them the arts 
 and sciences, which had long before flourished in 
 China, nay even the knowledge of the learned 
 and significant character-language of that country, 
 yrbich is likewise received in Corea, Tsnquin, and 
 other neighbouring kingdoms, much after the 
 same manner aa the Latin is in most European 
 countries. But besides, there are two other 
 essential proprieties of a language, I mean the 
 construction and pronunciation, in the Japanese 
 language so entirely different from that of 
 the Chinese, that there ia no room left to think 
 that these two nations gave birth to each other. 
 And first as to the construction and way of 
 writing, the Chinese set their characters one 
 below another in a row, without any intermediate 
 particles to connect them : the Japanese indeed 
 do the same ; but the genius of their language 
 requires besides, that the words and characters 
 
 should be sometimes transposed, sometimes 
 joined together by other words and particles, 
 particularly invented for this purpose, and which 
 are so absolutely necessary, that even in reprint- 
 ing the books of the Chinese, they must bo added, 
 to enable their people to read and to understand 
 them. And as to the pronunciation, that also is 
 vastly different in both languages, whether we 
 consider it in general, or with regard to particular 
 letters, and this difference is so remarkable, that 
 it seems the very instruments of Voice are 
 difierently formed in the Japanese than they are 
 in the Chinese. The pronunciation of the 
 Japanese language, in general, is pure, articulate, 
 and distinct, there being seldom more than two 
 or three letters (according to our alphabet) 
 combined together in one syllable ; that of the 
 Chinese, on the contrary, ia nothing but a 
 confused noise of many consonants pronounced 
 with a sort of a singing accent, very dis- 
 agreeable to the ear. The same diflerence 
 appears with regard to particular letters. Thus, 
 the Chinese pronounce our letter H very 
 distinctly, but the Japanese can give it no other 
 sound but that of an F. Again, the Japanese 
 pronounce the letters R and D very distinctly, of 
 which the Chinese, particularly those of Nanking, 
 always make an L, even such as are otherwise 
 well skilled in the European langunges. I could 
 give several other instances of this kind, and 
 further show, that what hath been observed of 
 the difference between the Chinese and Japanese 
 languages, holds equally true with regard to the 
 languages spoken in Corea and Jeso, compared 
 with that of the natives of Japan ; but it is need- 
 less to give the reader, and mjself, so much 
 trouble, the rather, since nobody ever pretended 
 to draw the original descent of the Japanese from 
 either of these two nations. 
 
 Another argument against the descent of the 
 Japanese from the CliineFe, I could draw from 
 the difference of the religion of both nations. If 
 the Japanese were a colony of the Chinese, they 
 would have doubtless brought over from thence, 
 into the uninhabited islands of Japan, the religion 
 and worship of their ancestors, and propagated 
 the same upon their posterity. But this appears 
 quite otherwise. The old, and probably original, 
 religion of the Japanese, which is by them called 
 Sintos, and the gods and idols, worshipped by its 
 adherents. Sin and Came, is peculiar only to this 
 empire, nor hath it evr been admitted, nor their 
 gods acknowledged and worshipped, nor the 
 religious way of life of the Japanese followed by 
 the Chinese, or indeed any other, heathen nation. 
 It was besides the only one established in Japan 
 ^ during a succession of many ages. For the 
 foreign- pagan doctrine of Siaka, which the 
 Japanese now call Bupo, or Budsdo, and the gods 
 which it commands to worship, Buds and Fotoge, 
 though ever since its cajly beginnings it met with 
 uncommon success, and ppeedily spread overthe 
 best part of Asia, yet it was not introduced into 
 Japan till sixty-six years after our Saviour's 
 nativity, under the reign of the Emperor Synuin, 
 when it was brought over from Corea. And 
 although afterwards, through the connivance of 
 the Jiipanese monaichs, it was successfully 
 propagated by several missionaries, who came 
 over from China, and the neighbouring kingdoms 
 
imci 
 
 KCEMPfEirS ACCOUNT OJ? JAPAN. 
 
 and speedily spread all over tlie empire, yet it 
 never could prevail so far as to banish the 
 respect and veneration for the old religion of their 
 ancestors out of the minds of a constant and 
 stedfast nation. On the contrary, the more the 
 Bupo doctrine got gi-ound, the more pains were 
 taken for the preservation of the Sintos worship, 
 by embellishing the san:e with new gods, temples, 
 Cestivals and fables. 
 
 What hath been inferred from the difference of 
 religion against the orjgiual descent of the 
 Japanese from China, could be farther supported 
 by the wide difference there is between the 
 characters anciently used by both nations ; I 
 mean the gross and rude common characters, as 
 they call them, of the Japanese, and the simple 
 and plain images of the Chinese. But this being 
 an argument of less moment, I will not msist 
 upon it, and only mention in a few words two 
 other remarkable differences. 
 
 And first I could plainly showthat the Japanese 
 greatly differ from the Chinese in their civil 
 customs and way of life, as to eating, drinking, 
 sleeping, dressing, shaving of the head, saluting, 
 sitting, and many more. Secondly, the very 
 inclinations of the mind are remarkably different 
 in both nations. The Chinese are peaceable, 
 modest, great lovers of a sedate, speculative, and 
 philosophical way of life, but withal very much 
 given to fraud and usury. The Japanese, on the 
 contrary, are warlike, inclined to rebellions and a 
 dissolute life, mistrustful, ambitious, and always 
 bent on high designs. 
 
 By what hath been .hitherto observed, it 
 appears plainly, that the Japanese are an original 
 nation, at least that they are not descended from 
 the Chinese. The difficulty now remaining to be 
 cleared up, is, how, and from what parts of the 
 world, to trace out their true original descent. In 
 order to this we must go up higher, and perhaps 
 it is not inconsistent with reason and the nature 
 of things to assert, that they are descended of 
 the first inhabitants of Babylon, and that 
 the Japanese language is one of those, which 
 sacred writs mention, that the all-wise Provi- 
 dence thought fit, by way of punishment and 
 confusion, to infuse into the minds of the vain 
 builders of the Babylonian tower. This at least 
 seems to be the most probable conjecture, whatever 
 way they went into Japan, or whatever time they 
 spent upon this their first peregrination. Nay, 
 considering the purity of the Japanese language, 
 I may pursue my conjectures, and further affirm, 
 that they cannot have spent much time on their 
 first joiu'ney to Japan, forasmuch as we cannot 
 suppose that they made any considerable stay 
 in any one country, or with any one people then 
 existing, without granting at the same tiiue, that 
 in all probabihty they would have adopted some 
 words of the language of that nation into their 
 own, of which yet it would be found upon 
 examination to be entirely free, contrary to what 
 we find in all European and most Eastern 
 languages known to us, which seem to have been 
 from their very beginning so thoroughly mixed 
 and confounded, that there is scarce any Taut what 
 hath some words of another though never so 
 remote. If then our Japanese colony did reach 
 that part of the world, which divine Providence 
 assigned for their future abode, as soon as the 
 
 Chinese, Touquinese, and other neighbouring 
 nations did theirs, it must be supposed that tbev 
 fortunately fell in with such a road as could 
 with safety and speed bring them to the eastern 
 extremities of Asia, from whence there is but 
 a short passage over to Japan. In order therefore 
 to trace out what road it is probable they took, 
 we must consider the first Babylonians in the 
 condition they were in, after that dreadful 
 confusion of languages, wholly disappointed from 
 going on with their vain design, and brought to 
 the fatal necessity to part with each other, and to 
 be dispersed all over the world. And in order to 
 tills let us suppose, first : That among the 
 different parties there arose in all likelihood a 
 strong emulation to choose for their future abode 
 such countries as were not only fruitful and 
 dehghtful, but thought to be less exposed to the 
 invasion of other parties, either because of their 
 commodious situation towards the sea, or- 
 between large rivers, and high mountains, or by 
 reason of their great distance. And in this regard 
 it is highly probable that such countries, as 
 were very remote, but situate under a temperate- 
 climate, became not the last inhabited. Tliis 
 seems to be the case of the empire of Japau, 
 whose remoteness, as well as its frnitfulness, and 
 pleasant situation, between 34' and40° of northern 
 latitude, could fully answer all the expectations 
 of a first colony. But, secondly, let us suppose, 
 that the chief care of these first colonies, in their 
 search for a country fit for their habitation, must 
 needs have been to follow such roads and tracts 
 of land, where, in the mean time, they could be 
 provided with the necessaries of life. This 
 intention could scarce be answered more 
 effectually than by travelling, either along the 
 sea-coasts, or, and with more probability, along 
 great rivers and lakes, where they could be 
 supplied with fish for their own nourishment, 
 with sweet water to quench their thirst, and where 
 they were like to meet with good pasture-ground 
 for their cattle, till at last they alighted at a 
 country, where they thought they could settle 
 with safety and convenience. 
 
 If, therefore, the dreadful confusion of tongues 
 at Babylon brought its inhabitants, as indeed it 
 must have done, to an indispensable necessity to 
 part with one another, and to be dispersed all 
 over the world, such parties as spoke the same 
 language keeping together, and settling in what 
 country they best liked, we may take it for 
 granted that not a few went towards the neigh- 
 bouring Black and Caspian seas, and that by this 
 means the country of Hircaiiia, which is situate 
 between the Caucasus and Caspian shores, as the 
 best and J most delightful spot of Persia, became 
 first inhabited, as did soon after the neighbouring 
 fruitful ooiintries, situate between the Black and 
 Caspian Seas. Such as intended, or thought it 
 expedient, to pursue their journey further, met 
 here with two different ways, one up the rivers- 
 Tanais and Wolga to the north, the other along, 
 the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea into Asia, 
 It is foreign to my present purpose to show what 
 became of the former. And as to those that 
 went along the eastern Ca-^pian coasts, they must 
 have at least reached to the mouth of the great 
 river Oxus, or Dsiehuun, whore it discharges 
 itself into the Caspian Sea, and if we suppose- 
 
KCEJIPFEU'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAiN. 
 
 301 
 
 that they followed that river up to its source, it 
 was then no Tery difficult matter for them to 
 penetrate into the very midst of India, where 
 they must have soon met with the source of the 
 .rivers Indus and Ganges, and, going down the 
 different branches of it, got into Indostan, 
 Bengala, Pegu, Siam, and other neighbouring 
 kingdoms, much easier and safer than if they 
 hnd been obliged to travel over the barren and 
 still uninhabited MahMounian mountains, or to 
 cross the large deserts of Siftuun aud Saable- 
 -stuun. Hven to this day, travellers going from 
 Ispahan to Candahar choose rather to go through 
 Mesihed, a journey of 375 miles, than to take 
 the shortest road, vfhich is but 250 miles, across 
 these wild and dangerous deserts. But to return 
 to the Caspian Sea, before I caiTy off our 
 Japanese colony from thence on their journey to 
 Japan, I must beg leave to make a short digres- 
 sion in favour of a famous aud valiant nation of 
 the Turks, or Turcomans and Usbecks, as they 
 are now called, which settled upon its eastern 
 and north-eastern coasts. Turk signifies a shep- 
 herd, and Turkestaan, a shepherd's country. 
 -Jusbeek is as much as to say, hundred lords, 
 which seems to imply that the counti'y of Usbeok 
 was once governed by so many princes. Both 
 nations have the same language, the same 
 rehgion, the same manners and customs, and 
 must therefore be looked upon as originally one, 
 on which we may deservedly bestow the glorious 
 epithets of being a mother of many nations, a 
 nurse of illustrious heroes, and a stem of mighty 
 monarch?. They spread from the north-eastern 
 coasts of the Caspian Sea, between forty and fifty 
 degrees of northern latitude, as far as the borders 
 of Kitaija. Their way of life answered to their 
 name ; for during many centuries they lived 
 together in hordes and small commonwealths, 
 wandering from place to place with their cattle, 
 wherein their chief riches consisted. Of these 
 Turks, or Turcomans, are descended the Dagestaan 
 ■and Nagajan Tartars, the Tartarian inhabitants 
 of the kingdom of Caaau, the Boscarian Tartars, 
 the inhabitants of the province of Mogestan in 
 Persia, and some other Tartars, which dwell in 
 that kingdom under tents. The Kisilbaos, or 
 noblemen and great families in Persia, value 
 themselves mightily upon their being of Turco- 
 man extraction. There are likewise descended 
 of them the Crim Tartars, which live between 
 the Dnieper and Danube, upon the coasts of the 
 Black Sea, as also those Tartars whom the great 
 conqueror Sinchischam (a prince who well 
 deserved a Plutarch or Quintus Curtius to write 
 the history of his life, conquests, and heroic 
 actions) sent out upon an expedition into 
 Poland, and who, not meeting with all the 
 expected success, chose rather to stay and to 
 people the then as yet uninhabited Poutus, than 
 to return without honour and victory. I must 
 silently pass over many other branches of the 
 same race, which fell by degrees under the 
 dominion of some neighbouring, chiefly northern, 
 nations, with whom they were in course of time 
 so thoroughly mixed and incorporated, that even 
 the very footsteps of their original descent would 
 have been lest, were it not for some few remains 
 of then- former language. I will only add, that 
 "•ihe famous Tamerlane was an Usbeckian Scythe, 
 
 and that the Ottoman Emperor, the great Mogul 
 and the King of Sopra, are all of Turcoman 
 extraction. Thus much of the Turks and 
 Usbecks. In order now to come nearer to our 
 purpose I will avoid speaking of those companies 
 which went along the river luike, or from the 
 sour.'c of the river Obij down the same towards 
 the Tartarian Ocean, and became the first pro- 
 genitors of the Tartarian nations living in those 
 parts. Nor will I pretend -at present to deter- 
 mine what way the Chmese colony took in their 
 journey to China. It is only six months travelling 
 from the coasts of the Caspian Sea to the borders 
 of China. Jagen Audasen, in his voyage to 
 China in 1647, did not stay longer. Two 
 Tartarian merchants, whom I conversed with at 
 Astracan, and who had been several times in 
 China, gave me the following account of theii 
 journey thither. They went from Astracan over 
 the Caspian Sea (which they took to be 200 
 miles long and 160 broad), to Seratsijk in 
 fifteen days; from thence by land to Ugentz, 
 the residence of an Usbeckian prince, in five days i 
 from thence to Bochau in fifteen days, travelling 
 through a wild large desert : from Bochau there 
 are two different ways, whereof travellers may 
 choose which they please. The one going ovei' 
 Chasger was then infested with rovers : so thev 
 took to the other, which, across a well-inhabited j 
 country, brought them to Taaskend in fourteen 
 days ; thence to Oxiend in seven days ; thence to 
 Kaasker, the capital of Turkistaan, and the chief 
 town between Buchara andKattai, in [this uumbe) 
 was omitted in the original] days; thence tc 
 Tsutsijk, the first frontier town of Kattai, in 
 thirty days ; thence to Hamtsijk in five days ; 
 thence to the great wall of Kattai, Chatai, or 
 China, in sixty days, travelling through a well- 
 inhabited country; and lastly, from the great 
 wall to Cambalu, or Peking, the capital of China, 
 and residence of the Chinese emperor, in ten days, 
 completing the whole journey within six months' 
 time. A Calmuckian merchant of the retinue of 
 a Calmuckian prince's ambassador to the King ol 
 Persia, whom I knew at Ispahan, where he offered 
 me for sale the root taichuun, that is " great yellow- 
 root," or rhubarb, which he had brought himselt 
 out of Chma,-gave me the journal of his voyage 
 from Mienkisilaag to the great wall of China, 
 thus. He went from Mienkisilaag to Dsiem in 
 twenty days ; from thence to GUgaas, where they 
 cross a large rivei', in fifteen days ; from thence 
 to Torkai in a few days, thence to Milantsij in 
 teu days, thence to Toktan in ten days, thence to 
 Tsienrehfu in five days ; thence to Isijel in teu 
 days, thence to Kalah in four days, thence to 
 Balane in six days, thence to Karbokatai in ten 
 days, thence to the great wall of China in nine 
 days, travelling through a desert and uninhabited 
 country, where he met only a few Tartarian 
 shepherds dwelling under black tents. Mienki- 
 silaag signifies, in the country language, hundred 
 Vfinter-quarters, or resting places. It is an island 
 situated on the eastern coasts of the Caspian 
 Sea, near forty-five degrees of northern latitude, 
 and the residence of Ajukeh, the Prince of the 
 Calmuckian Tartars living in those parts, who 
 expelled the Turks, or Turcomans, out of their 
 country, and forced them to depart even from 
 the Caspian shores. After all I think it noways 
 
302 
 
 KCEMPFEK'S ACCOUNT 01' JAPAN. 
 
 probable that the first Chinese went into China 
 through such desert and baiTen countries, where 
 travellers are oftentimes necessitated to carry 
 the necessary provisions of water alid victuals 
 along with them. I am more inclined to believe 
 that their journey was more to the south, and 
 perhaps along the north side of the Imaasiau 
 mountains, where the country is very fruitful 
 with rich pastures and plenty of sweet water, 
 and fish, and other necessaries of life, and where 
 they were like to meet either the source, or else 
 some of the branches, of the large river Croceus, 
 which could conveniently and safely bring them 
 into the very heart of China. 
 
 But now, at last, it is high time to ; mate a step 
 backwards, and to fetch the first Japanese colony 
 from the Caspian shores, where we left them 
 above, on their journey to Japan. If we suppose, 
 that for some time they travelled along the east, 
 and north-eastern coasts of the Caspian Sea, till 
 they came to the island Mienkisilaag, and that 
 theuce they followed up some of the rivers, 
 which there discharge themselves into the said 
 sea, we will find, that by this me:ms they got into 
 a large and fz'uitful eountry> extending itself far 
 eastwards, and very proper, by reason of its 
 ha[ppy situation and great fertility, for the lei- 
 surely and easily pursuing of their journey. Con- 
 sidering this, it will not appear improbable further 
 to suppose, that having once met with so good 
 iind pleasant a country, where there was no want 
 of provision for them and their cattle, they re- 
 solved to keep to it, avoiding to enter the hot, 
 desert, and barren provinces, now inhabited by 
 the Turkestaans, on one, or on the other side to 
 go down the rivers Istisi, Jenesi, Silinga, and 
 others, which arise.thereabouts, and would have 
 brought them to the less agreeable and cold 
 northern countries. Thus, moving on iuwinsibly 
 eastward, they perhaps discovered in time the 
 lake '■ of Arguun, whence arises a large river of 
 that name, and continuing their journey along 
 the said river, for veiy near an hundred .German 
 miles, they must have necessarily met there 
 another much more considerable river, called 
 Amuur, which runs E. S. E., and could, in a 
 journey of about 200 German miles, bring them 
 to the eastern coasts of Asia into the then unin- 
 habited peninsula Corea, where the said river 
 loses itself to the eastern ocean. Perhaps, also, 
 , if our travellers went down the river Jenisi for 
 about 780 English miles, to fifty-five degrees of 
 northern latitude, they might have there disco- 
 verad a much more commodious and pleasant 
 way to the river Amuur, which hath of late been 
 very advantageously followed by the Muscovites 
 in their jom'neys to China. But as to the whole 
 plan of this jom'ney, I must refer the reader to 
 the accurate and excellent map of Russia, and 
 the great Tai-tary, which the late illustrious 
 Nicholaus Witzen, LL.D., Burghermaster at Am- 
 sterdam, and sometime the States Ambassador 
 to 'the Russian court, published in 1687, and 
 thereby so highly obliged the curious, that he 
 justly deserves the honours due to discoverers of 
 unknown world?. This map was afterwards cor- 
 rected in some places, and abridged by Mr. 
 Isbrand Ydes, who prefixed it to the account he 
 imparted to the world of his journey through 
 Tartar; into China. 
 
 Having once brought our Japanese colony a» 
 far as the peninsula Corea, it will be no difficult 
 matter, considering the nearness, of Kagatto, the 
 furthermost province, lying westwards ojj the 
 continent of the great island Nipon, to bring 
 them over thither, and this the rather, because 
 of the several islands which lie between Corea 
 and Nagatto, in au almost contioued row, parti- 
 cularly the two larger ones, Iki and Tsussima : ' 
 for it is but reasonable to suppose that a colony 
 which had courage enough to venture so far upon 
 their first peregrination, and which had been 
 often necessitated, not only to have recourse to 
 lakes and rivers, but frequently to cross tlje 
 same, had natural curiosity enough left, hi still 
 and fair weather, to go out in canoes or boats, 
 such as then probably they made use of, upon, 
 discovery of the state and extent of the Corean 
 Sea, and the neighbouring islands ; and that 
 having by this means discovered the continent oi 
 Nipon, they resolved to go over thither, which 
 they might easily do, even in ordinary fishing- 
 boats, and to choose that country for their future 
 abode. Now, if anybody knows how to bring 
 them hither through the Eastern Tartary ami. 
 the country of Jeso (which way perhaps the 
 American colonies went), safer and speedier, laii; 
 very willing to submit. Meanwhile I do not 
 think it probable that our Japanese colony mad<^ 
 any considerable stay upon these western coasts 
 of Nipon. Their innate curiosity and travelling 
 humour, and perhaps also the fear of being tul-, 
 lowed and disturbed by other parties, must 
 needs have prompted them to travel up the 
 country till they came to its southern extremities, 
 and particularly into the province Isje, which by 
 reason of its fruittulness, good air, and remote- 
 ness from the western coasts, fully answered all 
 the expectations of a secure and pleasant abode, 
 I am the more inclined to believe that they first 
 settled in this province since their posterity still 
 look upon it as the place where their ancestors 
 dwelled, and as such honour it with frequent 
 pilgrimages and other acts of devotion. Thu^ 
 far my conjectures, for as such only I deliver 
 them, concerning the tnie original descent of the 
 Japanese nation. 
 
 Before I put an end to this chapter, it will not 
 be amiss to say something of the increase of this 
 first Japanese colony, after they had once taken 
 the resolution to stay, and to people the country, 
 where doubtless for several ages before any con- 
 siderable improvements were made in agri- 
 culture ajid other arts and sciences, they led a 
 simple and indigent life, living on their cattle, 
 on what the earth produced of plants, roots, and 
 fruits, and the sea afforded of fish and crabs. It 
 was unquestionably and chiefly owing to them- 
 selves, that in process of time they became so 
 numerous and powerful a nation, and the present 
 inhabitants of Japan must be looked upon in 
 general as descendants of those, who, after the 
 confusion of languages at Babel, came over and 
 settled in these islands. But, on the other hand, 
 it cannot be denied, but that from time to time 
 new colonies were sent over thither, chiefly from 
 China and Corea, and perhaps also from some 
 other neighbouring countries. The Japanese 
 themselves make frequent mention in their 
 histories of learned Chinese, who brought over 
 
K(EJIPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 303 
 
 iuto Japan their books, and the knowledge of 
 useful arts and sciences, though not till the latter 
 ages, when the Japanese monarchy was already 
 become a powerful empire. And indeed since 
 30 few foreign words have been brought into the 
 Japanese language that it is hardly visible that 
 there bath been any alteration at all made in it, 
 and since the religion and old customs subsist 
 till now, it appears plainly that whatever foreign 
 colonies did from time to time voluntarily, or by 
 uhauce, come over mto Japan, their number must 
 have been very inconsiderable with regard to the 
 bulk of the Japanese nation. 
 
 Considering further, that the islands of Japan 
 are encompassed with a dangerous and stormy 
 sea, it is highly probable that from time to time 
 ^ips coming from foreign countries stranded 
 upon the Japanese coasts, and that if any of the 
 ship's company were fortunate enough to save 
 their lives, they chose I'ather to stay in Japan, 
 and to settle among the natives, than to trust 
 themselves again to the mercy of the sea, and to 
 run the hazard of a perilous return iuto their 
 own country. Though navigation by this time 
 be highly improved, yet the like accidents still 
 happen very frequently, and there is hardly a 
 year but some 6hips ai'e forced upon the coasts 
 of Japan, coming sometimes from countries either 
 30 remote, or so entirely unknown, that scarce 
 any conjectures can be made about them, neither 
 by the shape nor the language and customs of the 
 ship's company. Seveitd remarkable instances of 
 such accidents are recorded in Japanese histories. 
 The Japanese having some centuries ago acci- 
 lentally discovered the island Genkaisima, situate 
 to the north of Japan, found it inhabited, as 
 their histories relate, by Oni, that is, black 
 devils, which they prosecuted with war, and 
 having purged the island from this vermin, as 
 they call it, they peopled it with a colony of 
 their own. It is highly probable that the&e 
 blacks had been forced upon the coasts of this 
 (then uninhabited) island in a storm. It is fur- 
 ther obser\^ed in the history of this war, that 
 they wore long hairs spread over their shoulders, 
 and that they had a strange soit of household 
 goods, as among the rest high European hats. 
 As to the Japanese calling them devils, we need 
 not in the least wonder at it, considering either 
 their black colour, or the natural pride of the 
 Japanese nation, which so far despises all other 
 eouutries as to call them Umakokf, that is, the 
 oountiies of devils. Otlierwise, what country- 
 inen these blacks had been, is not very difficult 
 to conjecture by their wearing long hair, by their 
 t'umiture, and some other circumstances ; and I 
 don't believe to impose upon anybody, if I 
 Hssert that they have been Malayans. It is well 
 tnowu that the Malayans to this day are ex- 
 tremely fond of their own hair, and delighted 
 with wearing it of a considerable length beyond 
 any other of the black nations of Asia. Besides, 
 they had in former times by much the greatest 
 trade in the Indies, and frequented with their 
 merchant ships, not only all the coasts of Asia, 
 but ventured over even to the coasts of Africa, 
 particularly to the great island of Madagascar. 
 The title which the King of the Malayans as- 
 sumed to himself of Lord of the winds and seas 
 to the east and to the west, is an evident proof of 
 
 this, but' much more the Malayan language,- 
 which spread most all over the giiat, much after 
 the same manner as formerly, the Latin, aqd of . 
 late the French, did all over Europe. The high 
 hats, which were found among the household 
 goods of these blacks, must have been brought 
 out of Europe, they having uever been fabricated 
 any where else. It was an ancient custom of 
 most eastern princes (which subsists till now, in . 
 the kingdoms of Cambodia, Siam, Pegu, and.' 
 some others) to present their prime ministers of 
 state and chief favourites with such hats, as 
 tokens of their particular favour, and they alone '. 
 had the privilege of wearing them, as singular . 
 badges of honour. They were formerly brouglit 
 out of Europe by land to Ormus,* and from thence 
 exported all over the east by the Malayans, 
 Armenians, and other trading nations ; but after , 
 the Portuguese had discovered a new way to. the 
 Indies, round the Cape of Good Hope, they ex- 
 ported them from Europe (where, they are now 
 out of fashion) directly by sea,. Now whether 
 there was not among these black inhabitants of 
 Genkaisima some great man who received these 
 hats from his prince, or whether they fell by 
 some otht-r accident into then* hands, is not m<^- , 
 terial to inquire. There is also mention made in . 
 Japanese histories of black inhabitauts, who were , 
 found in some of the islands lying to the south 
 of Japan, and who in all probability must have. 
 been either Malayan merchants, or else inhabi- 
 tants of some of the Molucca islands, who having 
 been forced thither in a storm, and finding them 
 uninhabited, resolved to stay and to people 
 them. Not long before my arrival, and during 
 my stay in Japan, several ships stranded upon tlia ] 
 coasts coming from remote and unkiiovvu 
 countries. In this case all the ship's company, , 
 as well those that remain alive as the bodies of, 
 such as are drowned, when thrown on shore, and 
 all the ship's tackle, and the boat, if any, must 
 be brought up to Nagasaki,t as the place np- 
 poiuted for a general inquiry into maritime 
 affau's. The governors of this place examine 
 into all the most minute circumstances of the 
 imhappy accident with that care and jealous cir- 
 cumspection wliich is peculiar only to this nation, 
 aud in order to discover if possible what country 
 the ship came from, and what language tho^e 
 that saved their lives speak, this examination is 
 sometimes made in presence of the Dutch resi- 
 dent, who did me the favour upon these occa- 
 sions to carry me along with him. It is a duty ' 
 incumbent on every Prince of the empire to take 
 care, in case any ships strand upon the coasts of 
 his province, that they be sent up, as aforesaid, 
 to Nagasaki, which is commonly, out of respect 
 for the Emperor, done with great expense. Not 
 long ago a jouk coming from Manilla, on board 
 which were some Topassians, a sort of black 
 Christians, was wrecked upon the coasts of 
 Satzuma. Most of the ship's company were 
 
 * Orrauz, an island in the Persian Gulf, was for 
 centuries a gi-eat emporium of tr.ade. Goods were brought 
 to it overland from Europe and Asia Minor, aud then 
 distributed to India and the East. It is now almost a 
 mass of niius. — En. , ' 
 
 t The modern spelling of this name is Nangasaki ; we 
 have, however, allowed it to stand all through as the 
 worthy Dutchman wrote it. — En. 
 
304 
 
 KOIMPFEE'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 drowned, some died on shore, and only three 
 were brought up alive to Nagasaki, the last of 
 whom died there in prison, after having taken 
 some physic ordered him by a Japanese physi- 
 cian. Of another ship which stranded upon the 
 same coasts, only three black sailors were saved, 
 which could not pronounce one distinct word 
 besides that of tobacco ; after having lain for 
 Bome time in prison, they were delivered to us, 
 to be transported on board our ships. Another 
 ship was brought to Nagasaki, which had been 
 forced upon the northern coasts of Japan without 
 anybody on board. The odd, uncommon structure 
 of this vessel, and the remains of three Chinese 
 characters upon the stern, made the Japanese 
 conjecture that it came from the extremities of 
 Jeso. Not long ago another ship perished upon 
 the coasts of the island Riuku, and only two of 
 the company were saved, which were brought 
 first to Satzuma, and from thence to Nagasaki, 
 with a convoy of eight barges, which must have 
 put the prince of Satzuma at the expense of 
 some thousand rixdoUars. They were well 
 shaped comely persons, and had their heads 
 shaved much after the manner of the Polanders, 
 no beards, and three holes in each ear. They, 
 shewed by their decent and civil behaviour, and 
 free but modest appeai-ance, a tolerable educa- 
 tion, and a good clear understanding, by endea- 
 vouring to give the Japanese some notions of the 
 number, situation, and largeness of the islands 
 from whence they came, which they did by 
 putting stones of different sizes upon a table, 
 calling each by its name ; among the rest, that 
 island where they lived themselves was by them 
 called Patan. We had reason to apprehend that 
 the good understanding and quick apprehension 
 they showed when under examination, would be 
 the occasion of their imprisonment for life at 
 Nagasaki. If we believe the Japanese, there is 
 another unknown nation, and very different from 
 theirs as to their customs, shape, and language, 
 which inhabits the island Kubitesima, one of the 
 raosb northern islands belonging to Japan. They 
 describe them as Pygmies, and from thence call 
 the whole island the Pygmy Island. What 
 exti-aotion they be of, and how they came to 
 inhabit this island, I will leave to themselves to 
 determine. I will only add on this head, that 
 the first European ship which came into Japan 
 was a Portuguese merchant-ship, forced thither 
 accidentally in a storm. 
 
 Upon the whole, the wide difference which is 
 still observed between the Japanese inhabitants 
 of several provinces, as to their shape, seems to 
 argue strongly that, from time to time, different 
 and new branches wei'e grafted into the original 
 tree of this nation. For although the Japanese 
 in the main, particularly the common people of 
 Nipon, be of very ugly appearance, short-sized, 
 strong, thick-legged, tawny, with fiattish noses, 
 and thick eye-lids, (though the eyes stand not so 
 deep in the forehead as in the Chinese,) yet the 
 descendants of the eldest and noblest families, of 
 the princes and lords of the empire, have some- 
 what more majestic ^n their shape and counten- 
 ance, being more like the Europeans. The 
 inhabitants of the provinces Satzuma, Oosijmi, 
 and Fiuga, are of middle size, strong, courageous, 
 and manly, otherwise civil and polite. The same 
 
 is observed of the inhabitants of some of the 
 northern provinces in the great island Nipon, 
 excepting those of the great province Osju, who 
 are said to be beyond others cruel and unmer- 
 ciful. The inhabitants of some provinces of 
 Saikokf, pai-ticularly Fisen, are short, slender, but 
 well shaped, of a good handsome appearauoe, ar;'l 
 extremely polite. The inhabitants of the great 
 island Nipon, particularly of its eastern provinces, 
 are known from others by their big heads, flat 
 noses, and musculous fleshy complexion. 
 
 Now, to close this chapter, and to sum up in a 
 few words what hath been therein largely dwelt 
 on ; it appe.irs that in the first ages of the world, 
 not long after the deluge, when the confusion of 
 languages at Babel obliged the Babylonians to 
 drop their design of building a tower of uncom- 
 mon height, and occasioned their being disperaed 
 all over the world, when the Greeks, Goths, and 
 Sclavonians depai'ted for Europe, others for Asia 
 and Africa, others for America, that then the 
 Japanese also set out on their journey : that in 
 all probability, after many years travelling, and 
 many incommodities endured, they alighted at 
 this remote pai-t of the world ; that, being well 
 pleased with its situation and fruitfulness, they 
 resolved to choose it for the place of their abode ; 
 that in all likelihood they spent many centuries 
 in a polyarchical way of life, such as is led to 
 this day by the Tartars, living in hordes, and 
 wandering with their cattle and families up and 
 down the country ; that being insensibly, and by 
 degrees, grown to be a numerous and powerful 
 nation, they thought it expedient, for the good 
 of the country, and for their own safety, to 
 deliver up the government into the hands of one 
 prince, and choose for their first monaixh the 
 valiant Dsiu Mu Ten Oo ; that consequently 
 they are an original nation, no ways indebted to 
 the Chinese for their descent and existence, and 
 that, though they received from them several 
 useful arts and sciences, as the Latins did from 
 the Greeks, yet they were never made subject, 
 and conquered, neither by them nor by any other 
 neighbouring nation. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OF IKE ORIGIN OF THE JAPANESE, ACCORDING TO THEIB 
 OWN i'AEULOUS OPINION. 
 
 The Japanese fancy themselves highly affronted 
 by the endeavours of some who busy themselves 
 to draw the original descent of their nation from 
 the Chinese or others of their neighboui's. They 
 pretend that they arose within the compass of 
 their own empire, though not out of the earth, 
 like mice and worms, as the proud Athenians, 
 for that same reason, were upbraided with, by 
 that cynic Diogenes. They claim a birth much 
 higher and nobler, and esteem themselves no less 
 than offsprings of their very deities, whom other- 
 wise they do not look upon as eternal, but sup- 
 pose that in the first motion of the chaos, out of 
 which all things were formed, their gods also 
 were brought forth by its invisible power. They 
 have two differing genealogies of their deities. 
 The first is a succession of celestial spirits, of 
 
KOJMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 so: 
 
 beings absolutely free from all manner of mixture 
 with corporeal substances, who ruled the Japanese 
 world during an undetermined and incompre- 
 hensible series of centuries. The second is a race 
 of teri'estrial spirits, or god-men, who were not 
 possessed of that pure being peculiar only to 
 their predecessors. They governed the Japanese 
 empire by a lineal succession, eacli a long but 
 limited number of yeai'S, till at last they begot 
 that third race of men which Japan is now 
 inhabited by, and who liave nothing left of the 
 purity and perfections of their divine proge- 
 nitors. It will not be amiss, as a further proof 
 of what I advance, here to insert the names of 
 these two successions of deities, taken out of 
 their own writings. The names of the first 
 succession are purely metaphorical, and the only 
 thing mentioned of it in their historical books, 
 for there is no account given neither of their 
 Uvea and actions, nor of tlieir government. They 
 succeeded each other in the following order. 
 
 Ten d Sin Sitzi Dai, that is, the succession of 
 the seven great spiritual gods. 
 
 1. Kuni toko dat sij ni> Mikotto. 
 
 2. Kuni Satfu Tsi no Mikotto. 
 
 3. Tojo Kun Nan no Mikotto. 
 
 These three gods had no vrives ; but the four 
 following of the same succession were married, 
 and begot each his successor by his wife, though 
 in a manner fai" beyond the reach of human 
 understanding. These were — 
 
 4. Utsij Nmo Mikotto, and his wife Sufitsi 
 Nino Mikotto. 
 
 5. Go Tono Tsino Mikotto, and his wife Oo 
 Toma fe no Mikotto. 
 
 6. Oo mo Tarno Jlikotto, and his wife Oo si 
 Wotrua Mikotto. /• ~- 
 
 7. Usanagi So Mikotto, and his wife'Isanamiino 
 Mikotto.,^'' 
 
 These seven gods are by them represented as 
 beings purely spiritual, and the histories of their 
 lives and governments as dreams. The real 
 existence of such a time, when such spiritual 
 beings governed the Japanese world, is what 
 they religiously believe, though, at the same time 
 they own that it is far above their understanding 
 to conceive how it happened, and entirely out of 
 their power to determine how long their govern- 
 ment lasted. 
 
 The -last of the first succession, Isanagi 
 Mikotto, and his wife Isanami Mikotto, are held 
 in peculiar veneration by the Japanese, as being 
 the progenitors of the second succession of god- 
 men, of whom issued the third race of the now 
 ■existing inhabitants of Nipon. (Mikotto is an 
 •epithet peculiar only to the first succession of 
 spiritual gods, and signifies the incomprehensible 
 bliss and happiness of these first monarchs of 
 Japan : sometimes, however, they will bestow it 
 on such of the inferior gods, for whom they 
 have a. peculiar veneration.) Those of the 
 Japanese who turned Christians called them 
 their Adam and Eve. They are said to have 
 lived in the province Isje, though it is not known 
 in what particular part of that province they 
 were bom, lived, or died. They observe only, 
 that this preadamitical Adam (if I may have 
 the leave thus to call him) was the first who 
 taught, by the example of the bird sekire, or 
 according to the vulgar, Isitataki, lay with his 
 
 wife in a carnal manner and begot by her son? 
 and daughters of a nature excellent indeed, and 
 fur superior to om-s, but greatly below that ol 
 the divine beings, of whicli they sprung. Isanami's 
 first-born son, and the first of the second suc- 
 cession of god-men, is supposed by the very law 
 of primogeniture to have been entitled to a 
 superiority over his brothers and sisters, upon 
 which, and a lineal descent fromhlmi is grounded 
 the right the Dairis, or ecclesiastical hereditary 
 Emperor's eldestson's claim to the crown of Japan, 
 upon their father's demise. The second suc- 
 cession is called Dsi Sin Go Dai; that is, the 
 " succession of five terrestrial gods or god-men ; " 
 who are — 
 
 1. Tensio Dai Dsin, in the language of the 
 learned, and Ama Teru Oon Garni, in tiiat of the 
 vulgar. The characters whereby this name is 
 expressed signify, " a great spirit streaming out 
 celestial rays." He is the first-born son of 
 Isanagi, and the only one that left children 
 behind him. For it was his posterity, creatures 
 not of a mean extraction, but of an excellent and 
 almost divine nature, who inhabited the country 
 for many millions of years, till they begot the 
 third race of its present short-living inhabitants. 
 All the Japanese, without exception, look upon 
 themselves as immediate descendants of Tensio 
 Dai Dsin ; because they say that all his younger 
 brothers left the world without issue. But par- 
 ticularly the ecclesiastical hereditaiy Emperor 
 gi'ounds his right to the empii-e (which is of late 
 gone over into secxdar hands, he himself having 
 preserved nothing but his title, and a shadow of 
 his former power and grandeur) upon a lineal 
 descent from Tensio Dai Dsin's fiist-born son, 
 ^nd so down. Tensio Dai Dsin committed not 
 only during his reign many noble and heroic 
 actions, but even after he left this world, as is 
 recorded in Japanese histories, he sufficiently 
 proved by many miracles, and manifested him- 
 self to be the most powerful of all the gods of 
 the country, the very life, soul, light, and 
 supreme monarch of nature. For tliis reason he 
 is devoutly worahipped by all the faithful ad- 
 herents of the old Japanese religion, as it was of 
 old established in Japan. And the adherents of 
 all other sects, even their gi-eatest philosophers 
 and atheists, show a particular regard and venera- 
 tion for his name and memory, as that of their 
 first parent. Devout pilgrimages are made 
 yearly by the Japanese of all ranks and qualities 
 to the province where he lived, and where there 
 is a temple erected to his memory. Nor is 
 there any province or town throughout the empire 
 but what has at least one temple where Tensio 
 Dai Dsin is worshipped; and, in hopes of ob- 
 taining by his power and assistance great temporal 
 blessings, worshipped with much more assiduity 
 and devotion than any other of their gods. There 
 is otherwise no mention made in Japanese 
 histories of his wife, nor of the wives of his suc- 
 cessors, and their names are entirely lost to 
 posterity. After some hundred thousands of 
 years Tensio Dai Dsin was succeeded by his eldest 
 son. 
 
 2. Oosiwo ni no Mikotto, or with his fall title, 
 Massai Ja su Katz Katz fai ja fi Amani Oosi 
 woni no Mikotto. His successor was 
 
 3. Ninikiuo Mikotto, or with his full title, 
 
mifi 
 
 KCEMPPEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 Amatsu fiko fiko Fono ni Niuiki no Mikotto. He 
 was succeeded by 
 
 i. De mi no Mikotto, or with his fall title, 
 Fikofoo foo De mi no Mikotto. He was suc- 
 ceeded by 
 
 5. Awase Dsu no "ikotto, or with his full title, 
 Tuki Magisa Take Ugei Jakussa fuki awadsi 
 Dsuno Mikotto With him ends this second, or 
 silver age, as one might call it, of the Japanese 
 world. Something more shall be said on this 
 head in the' first chapter of the second book. 
 The names of the five terrestrial gods of this 
 second succession are expressed in Tab. xvi. 
 
 These are the two successions of divine and 
 half divine beings, from whence the Japanese 
 draw the original descent of their nation. The 
 account they give how these gods were created, 
 and how they begot each other, is no less chime- 
 rical and fabulous. The first of the seven great 
 celestial spirits, they say, was the very first thing 
 that arose out of the chaos, being its purest and 
 invisible part and power. His son and heir went 
 out of him in a manner beyond the reach of 
 human understanding, or as some pretend to 
 explain it and to make it intelligible, by the 
 motion and active power of the heavens and sub- 
 celestial elements. Thus were begot the seven , 
 great celestial spirits of the first succession. It 
 wiis the last of them who, knowing his wife in a 
 cai'nal manner, begot the second succession of 
 god-men, of beings half divine and half human. 
 These, though they fell far short of the perfecticn 
 of their progenitors, yet by virtue of those 
 divine qualities they had still left them they 
 preserved their lives and continued the succession 
 ; of their government unto their posterity, which 
 I they begot in a more comprehensible manner, for 
 I an immemorial time, far exceeding the term 
 '■ human'life is now limited to. At last all expired 
 I in the person of Awase Dsuno, the last of this 
 ; second race, who himself became the first parent 
 j of the third, the now living inhabitants of Japan. 
 ' To tjiose of this third race, who descend lineally 
 1 from the first-born son of Awase Dauno Mikotto. 
 from his firetborn, and so down, or their issue 
 ! wanting to then- next heirs, is by the Japanese 
 I attributed to a supernatural, almost divine power, 
 ( and an unlimited authority over their fellow- 
 ! creatures. This is in some measure expressed by 
 the great titles and high-sounded epithets they 
 give to this whole family, but particularly to its 
 ' head and prince. Such are Oodai, the great 
 i generation ; Mikaddo, Emperor, (Mikotto being 
 i peculiar only to the first and second succession 
 1 of gods and god-men.) Tenoo, Heavenly Prince ; 
 Tensi, Son of Heaven ; Tee, Prince ; and Daiii ; 
 , by which last name is frequently denottd the 
 whole court of the ecclesiasdcal hereditary 
 Emperor. 
 
 Thus far the common tradition of the Japanese 
 about the original descent of their nation, which 
 Is esteemed as sacredamong them as the authority 
 of holy scriptui'es is among Christiana. It were 
 needless to refute it, it being of itself of so weak 
 a nature that it will not bear the inquiry of even 
 the most common understanding. Some people, 
 perhaps will think it not unlikely that, under 
 these two successions of gods and god-men, is 
 allegoiioally couched an obscure account of the 
 Gold and Silver age of Greek writers, or of the 
 
 first ages of the world before aad after the. 
 deluge. But then how will they reconcile that 
 infinite time during which the Japanese pretend 
 that these two , successions of spuitual beings 
 governed the world, to that short number of years 
 which passed since the creation, according to the 
 divine account delivered to us in holy writs. 
 The Japanese, it seems, would not be behind , 
 hand with the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Bramines, 
 and others of their neighbours in the East ; who 
 all, pui-suant to that pride and vanity which is : 
 natural to eastern nations, dated their origin aa 
 high as they could, and esteemed it glorious to , 
 show a long series of monai'chs that ruled oyer , 
 them. But what they seem to have more parti- 
 cularly aimed at is to outdo their neigliboursthe i 
 Chinese ; for they make Tensio Dai Dsin, the first , 
 progenitor of the Japanese nation, in their, 
 historical writings, many thousand years anterior \ 
 to the first and fictitious, as they call him, found,er ; 
 of the Chinese nation, Sinkwosi, or, according to 
 the Chinese pronunciation, Tien Hoamtsij. ,Apd 
 lest even this should not be sufficient to clear, 
 them of all suspicion of being any ways descended 
 from the Chinese, they prelix the succession ;pf 
 the first great celestial spirits, which they derive 
 from the very beginning of the creatioii. They 
 are, however, at a loss what to ansvyer when 
 asked how it came about that Awase Dsuno,;the 
 last of their, terrestrial gods, a being endpiyed 
 with so many excellent and supernatural qualities, , 
 as they ascribe to him, begot so poor and miser- 
 able a race as that of the pr;isent inhabitants of; 
 Japan. They have as little to say concerning t^e 
 state of their country, and the history, of their- 
 ancestors before the, time of Smmu, theiir first 
 monarch. For this reason several of their ,own,' 
 writers have ventured to call Japan, Atarasi^o^f, 
 and Sinkokf, that is. New Countiy; as if.it had; 
 been newly found out and peopled under tjie 
 reign of their fii-st enaperor. Thus much is true, ' 
 that the genuine Japanese history begins bi^t; 
 with the reign of this , first monarch, who lived , 
 about 660, years before Christ. And herein the; 
 Chinese are gone far beyond them, for they bpguu j 
 to write the history of their country at least 3000 ,- 
 years before ; and they can show what I beUeivei 
 no other nation can boast of, a succaisiou of, 
 monarchs, with an account of their lives, govern-; 
 ment, and remarkable actixms, down to this .time, 
 for now upwards of 4000 years. It must be', 
 owned, however, that the Japanese nation must, 
 needs have existed, and lived in the countiy, a. 
 considerable time before thoir first Odai, Mikaddo, 
 or Emperor ; since, when he was raised to the, 
 throne, they were then already grown very, 
 numerous, and since, not long after, as is re- 
 corded in their histories, gi'eat wars arose among 
 them, and many thousands perished by plague, 
 and famine ; unless one would bring them over 
 at once from another country, or out of the earth- 
 like mushrooms, which is either impertinent or 
 improbable. I am more inchned to believe that, 
 from the time of their ancestors coming into the 
 country, they led for many ages a wandering life, 
 erring from place to place, with their families 
 and cattle, which the very disposition of the 
 country, divided by mountains, seas, and rivei's, 
 seems to have required; till the happy Ninua 
 Dsin Mu Ten Oo civilised and brought them into 
 
KCEllPFEK'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 307 
 
 better order, and became himself, whether by 
 fiirce or choice, their first mouai'ch. Since that 
 time they have been accurate and faithful in 
 writing the history of their country, and the lives 
 and reigns of their mouarchs. To conclude, as 
 Diulsijno Mikotto is by them believed to have 
 beeu the greatest of the first succession of celes- 
 tial spirits, and Tensio Dai Dsin, that of the 
 second of god-men, so they look upon Sin Mu 
 Ten Go as Qie greatest of the third race of the 
 now living inhabitants ; in whose family the 
 hereditary right to the crown, with a more than 
 human authority, was continued down to Kiusan 
 Kiwotei, the present one hundred and fourteenth 
 lUkaddo, that is 2360 yeara, computing to the 
 year of Christ 1700. I say, the hereditary right 
 to the crown ; for the government of the empire 
 itself is of late gone over into secular hands, 
 iui will be shown Tnore particularly in another 
 place. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 or THE CLIMATE OF JAPAN, AND ITS PRODUCE AS TO 
 MINERALS. 
 
 Japah boasts of a happy and healthful climate. 
 The air is very inconstant and subject to frequent 
 changes, in the winter loaded with snow, and 
 liable to sharp frosts, in the summer on the con- 
 trary, particulai-ly during the dog-days, intolerably 
 hot. It rains frequently throughout the whole 
 year; but vrith the greatest profusion in the 
 mouths of June and July, which are for this 
 reason called Satsuki, that is Water-months. 
 However, the rainy season in Japan is far from 
 coming up to that regularity which is observed in 
 other and hotter parts of the East Indies. 
 Thuuder and lii,-htning happen very frequently. 
 
 The sea, which encompasses the islands of 
 Japan, is very rougli and stoi-my ; which, with 
 the many rooks, cliffs, and shoals, above and 
 under water, make its navigation very dangerous. 
 It hath two remarkable and dangerous whirlpools. 
 The one is called Faisaki, and lies near Simabara, 
 below Amakusa. It is dangerous, chiefly when 
 the tide turns ; for in high water it becomes even 
 with the surface of the sea, but as soon as the 
 tide begins to go out, it also, after some violent 
 turnings, falls in of a sudden, as I was informed, 
 to the depth of fifteen fathom, swallowing up 
 with great force what ships, boats, and other 
 things h.ippen at that fatal juncture to come 
 within its reach, which are dashed to pieces 
 against the rocks at the bottom. The shattered 
 pieces sometimes remain under water, sometimes 
 they are thrown out again at some German miles' 
 distance. The other %vhirlpool lies near the 
 coasts of the iirovince Kijuokuni. It is called 
 Nan'otto ; and fi'oin the neighbourhood of the 
 province of Awa, Awano Narrotto, which signifies, 
 " the rushing of Awa," because it rushes with a 
 great boisteriug noise about a small rocky island, 
 which is by the violence of the motion kept in 
 perpetual tremblmg. This, though of a formidable 
 aspect, is yet esteemed less dangerous than the 
 other, because its noise being heard at a consider- 
 able distance, it may be easily avoided. Japanese 
 authors, especially poets, frequently allude in 
 
 their writings to the wonderful nature and 
 motion of this Narrotto, as do also the priests iii 
 the pulpit. 
 
 Water-spouts also are frequently observed to 
 rise in the Japanese seas, and to turn towards the 
 coasts. The Japanese fancy, that they are a kind 
 of water dragons, with a long watery tail, flying 
 up into the air with a swift and violent motion, 
 for whicn reason they are by them called Tats- 
 maki, that is, " spouting di-agons." 
 
 The soil of Japan in itself is, for the major 
 part, mountainous, rocky, and barren, but through 
 the indefatigable care and industry of the natives, 
 it hath been made fruitful enough to supply them 
 with all manner of necessaries, besides what the 
 neighbouring sea afibrds of fish, crabs, and shells. 
 Even the most rocky and uncultivated places 
 yield their plants, fruits, and roots for the 
 sustenance of the inhabitants, which their indigent 
 ancestors by experience learned to dross and to 
 prepare, so as not only to make them fit for food, 
 but likewise pleasmg and agreeable to the taste. 
 Considering this, and the frugal way of living of 
 the Japanese in general, we need not wonder^ 
 that this vast and populous empire is so abundantly 
 provided with all the necessaries of human life, 
 that as a particular world, which Nature seems 
 purposely to have separated from the rest of the 
 globe, by encompassing it with a rocky and 
 tempestuous sea, it easily can subsist of itself 
 without any assistance from foreign countries, as' 
 long as arts and agricultm-e ai'e followed and 
 improved by the natives. 
 
 The country besides is plentifully supplied 
 with fresh water, there being very many fountains, 
 lakes, and rivers up and down the empire. Some- 
 of the rivers in particular, are so large and rapid, 
 by reason either of the steep high mountains and 
 rocks, where they arise, or because of the profuse' 
 showers of rain, which fall frequently,- that they 
 are not to be passed over without danger, the 
 rather, since some are so impetuous as to bear no 
 bridges. Some of the most famous rivers are, 
 1. Ujingava, that is, the Kiver Ujin. It is about 
 a quarter of a German mile (or an English mile' 
 and a half) broad, and there being no bridge laid: 
 over it, it must be forded through. The force 
 and rapidity with which this river falls down- 
 from the mountains is such, that even when the 
 water is low, and scarce knee-deep, five strong, 
 men, well acquainted with the bed of it, must be 
 employed to ford a hoi-se through ; which withi 
 the many large stones lying at the bottom, makes 
 the passage equally difficult and dangerous. The, 
 people, whoso business it is to ford passengera 
 through this and other such-like rivers, lest 
 they should not take due care, are, by the laws 
 of the country, made answerable for their 
 lives. This is the rciison why so few accidents 
 happen. 2. The river Oomi is famous for its 
 surprising begmning ; for it is recorded in Japan- 
 ese histories, that it sprung up of a sudden 
 in one night in the year before Christ 285. It 
 borrowed its name from the province where it 
 arises. 3. The river Askagava is remarkable, for 
 that the depth of its bed alters perpetually, on 
 winch account it is frequently alluded to by 
 Japanese authors, ohiclly pnets. 
 
 Japan is very much subject to earthquakes, 
 which happen so frequently, that the nativea 
 
SOS 
 
 KCEllPFEU'S ACCOUNT OF JAPxi.N. 
 
 dread them no more than we Europeans do an 
 ordinary storm of thimder and lightning. They 
 are of opinion, that the cause of earthquakes is a 
 huge large whale's creeping under ground, and 
 that they signify nothing. Sometimes, however, 
 the shakes are so violent, and last so long, that 
 whole cities are thereby destroyed, and many 
 thousands of the inhabitants buried under the 
 ruins. Such a dreadful accident happened, as 
 Father Lewis de Froes relateth {in Opere de Rebics 
 Japonicis collecto a Joh. Hayo), in the year 1586, 
 he himself being then in Japan.* The like 
 accidents happened frequently since that time. 
 In 1704, I had a letter from Batavia, from a 
 friend of mine, then lately arrived from Japan, 
 wherein among other things, he gave me an 
 account of such a violent shock, which happened 
 there in 1703, whereby, and by a great fire which 
 broke out at the same time, almost the whole 
 ■city of Jedo, and the imperial palace itself, were 
 destroyed and laid in ashes, and upwards of 
 200,000 inhabitants buried under the ruins. It 
 is remarkable, that some particular places in 
 Japan are observed to be free from all manner of 
 succussions. The Japanese reason various]}' 
 upon this phenomenon. Some attribute it to 
 the holiness and sanctity of the place, and to 
 the powerful protection of its genius, or tutelar 
 god. Others are of opinion, that these places 
 are not shook, because they immediately repose 
 lupou the unmoved centre of the earth. The 
 fact itself is not called in question ; and there 
 ■ai'e noted for having this singular privilege, the 
 islands of Gotho ; the small island Sikubusima, 
 on which stands a most stately temple of Bonzes, 
 being one of the first that was built in the 
 countiy ; the large mountain Kojasan near Miaeo, 
 famous for thenumher of its convents, monasteries, 
 and monks, besides some few others. 
 
 * Tho effects of this earthquake were so stupendous 
 and dreadfii], that I could not forbear, ■i\'ith the reader's 
 letlve, to iuscrt at length, the account which F. Lewis 
 do Frocs gives of it, in a letter dated at Simonofeki, in 
 the province Xagatta, October 15, 1586. His words are ; 
 " In the ye.ar of Christ 15S6, Japan was shook by such 
 dreadful earthquakes, that the like was never known 
 before. From the province S.ac.aja, as far as Itiiaeo, the 
 c-irth trembled for forty days successively. In the town 
 of Sacaja sixty houses were thrown down. At Nagafama, 
 a sm.ill town of about a thousand houses, in the kingdom 
 Oomi, the earth gaped and swallowed up one half of that 
 place; the other iLilf was destroyed by a fire. Another 
 pl.ace in the province F.icata, much frequented by 
 merchants, and likewise called Nagafama by the natives, 
 after it h.ad been violently shook for some days, was at 
 last swallowed up by the sea ; the waters rising so high 
 
 [ that they ovei*fi owed the coa.sts, washed away the houses, 
 and whatever they met with ; drowned the inhabitants, 
 and left no footstep of th.at once rich and populous town, 
 but the iiiace ou which the castle stood^ and even that 
 under water. A strong castle in the kingdom of Mino, 
 built at the top of a high hill, after several violent shocks, 
 Buiik down and disappeared on a sudden, the eart'n 
 gaping, that not the least footstep remained, a lake 
 quickly f.lling the place where tlie foundations of the 
 castle had been. Another accident of this kind happened 
 in the proviuce Ikoja. Many more gaps and openings 
 were observed up and down the empire, some of which 
 were so wide and deep, that guns being fired into them, 
 ' the b.alls could not be heard to reach the other end. and 
 such a stench and smoke issued out of them, that people 
 would not venture to travel that way. Quabacundono 
 '^who w.as .afterwards called Taicosama) resided at Sacom ot, 
 in the castle Achec, when these eart.hquakes begun, but 
 they growing too thick and violent, he retired hastily to 
 Osaeca. His palaces wei'C ■\iolently shaken, but not 
 
 j tln-Qwn down." 
 
 The greatest riches of tlie Japanese soil, and 
 those wherein this empire exceeds most knowu 
 countries, consist in all sorts of minerals and 
 metals, particularly in gold, silver, and copper. 
 The many hot wells in several parts of the em- 
 pire, and the several smoking and burning moun- 
 tains, show what a stock of sulphur, which is the 
 mother and main ingredient of mineral and 
 metallic bodies, is hid in the bowels of the earth, 
 besides the vast quantities of this substance dug 
 up in several places. Not far from , Firando, 
 where we had our factories and warehouses before 
 we' removed to Nagasaki, lies a small rocky 
 island (one of those which, by reason of their 
 great number, are called by the Japanese Kiukiu 
 Sima, that is, the ninety-nine islands), which 
 though never so small, and encompassed by the 
 sea, hath been burning and trembling for many 
 centuries. Another small island opposite to 
 Satzuma, which is by the Japanese called Fuogo, 
 which name they borrowed from the Portuguese, 
 and retained ever since; and which is marked in 
 our maps by the name of Vulcanus, hath an 
 ignivomous mountain, which hath been likewise 
 burning, at different intervals, for many ages. 
 At the top of a mountain in the province Figo is 
 to be seen a large cavern, formerly the mouth of 
 a vol'.-ar.o, but the flame ceased of late, probably 
 for want of combustible matter. In the same 
 province there is another place called Aso; 
 famous for a temple called Asa no Gongen, or 
 the "Temple of the jealous God of Aso," not far 
 from which there is an almost perpetual flame 
 issuing out of the top of a mountain, and more 
 visible in the night than it is in the day time. 
 .Another burning mountain lies in the province 
 Tisiknsen, not far from a place called Kivjanosse. 
 It was formerly a coal-mine, which through the 
 carelessness of the minei-s accidentally took fire, 
 and continued burning ever since. Sometimes a 
 black stench and smoke is observed to issue out 
 of the top of the famous mountain Fesi, in the 
 province Suruga, which in height is surpassed 
 only by the Pic of Teneriffe, but in shape and 
 beauty hath, I think, not its equal ; the top of it is 
 covered with everlasting snow, which being, as it 
 frequently is, blown up into flocks by the violence 
 of the wind, and dispersed about, represents, as it 
 were, a smoking hat. The Japanese histories 
 mention that formerly the top of it burnt, but 
 that upon a new opening which was made by the 
 violence of the fire at the side of the mountain, 
 the flame ceased soon after. Unsen is a deformed, 
 large, but not very high mountain, near Simahara. 
 At all times the top of it is bare, whitish from the 
 colour of the sulphur, and withal resembling a 
 caput inoHuiim^ or burnt out massa. It smokes 
 little ; however, I could discern the smoke arising 
 from it at three miles distance. Its soil is burn- 
 ing hot in several places, and besides so loose and 
 spongious, that a few spots of ground excepted, 
 on which stand some trees, one cannot walk over 
 it without continual fear, for the crackling, hollow 
 noise perceived under foot. Its sulphurous 
 smell i.9 so strong that for many miles roimd 
 there is not a bird to be seen ; when it rains, the 
 water bubbles up, and the whole mountain seems 
 then as it were boiling. Many cold springs and 
 hot baths arise ou and about it. Among others, 
 there is a famous hot bath which they believe to 
 
KCBMPFEll'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 3f 
 
 bo an infallible cure for tbe venereal disease, if 
 the patient for several days together Roes in bat 
 for a few moments a day and washes himself in 
 it. He must begin the cure witli another hot 
 bath, not quite so strong, called Obamma, situate 
 a few leagues off; and all the while he uses the 
 waters, he must keep to a hot, warming diet, 
 and, as soon as he comes out of the bath, go to 
 bed, and, covering himself very well, endeavour 
 to sweat. Not far from this hot bath is a 
 monastery of the sect of Teudai. The monks of 
 this place have given peculiar names to each of 
 the hot spiings arising in the neighbourhood, 
 borrowed from their quality, from the nature of 
 the froth a-top, or the sediment at bottom, and 
 from the noise they make as they come out of 
 the ground ; and they have assigned them as 
 purgatories for several sorts of tradesmen and 
 handicraftsmen, whose professions seem to bear 
 some relation to any of the qualities above men- 
 tioned. Thus, for instance, they lodge the 
 deceitful beer and sackibrewers at the bottom of 
 a deep muddy spring ; the cooks and pastrycooks 
 in another, which is remarkable for its white 
 froth; wranglers and quarrelsome people in 
 another, which rushes out of the ground with a 
 frightful murmuring noise, and so on. After 
 this manner imposing upon the blind and super- 
 stitious vulgar, they squeeze large sums of money 
 out of them, making them believe that by their 
 prayers and intercession they may be delivered 
 from these places of torment after death. In 
 that dreadful persecution which was raised in 
 ■fapan against the Christian religion, and which 
 hath not its equal in history, amongst innumer- 
 iible other torments inflicted on the new converts 
 to make them abandon their newly embraced 
 faith and return to the Pagauism of their 
 fathers, they were brought hither and tortured 
 with the hot waters of this place. Of other hot 
 baths in Japan, that called Obamma is one of the 
 most eminent, and most efficacious. It lies to 
 the west of the mountain Useu, about three 
 miles off, and is said to have extraordinai-y virtues 
 in curing several external and internal dis- 
 tempers. The province Figo hath several hot 
 springs, about which grow, as I was informed, 
 camphire trees of an uncommon size, hollow and 
 full of water. The chief and most eminent for 
 its virtues is a hot bath not far from the above- 
 mentioned temple Asano Gongen. There are 
 also several hot springs in the province Fisen, 
 one for instance in the village Takijo, another in 
 the village Urisino. Both would prove very 
 beneflcial in curing several distempers, if the 
 natives did but know how to use them. I ob- 
 served it in all Asiatic countries which I passed 
 through in my travels, that the natives use the 
 hot baths seldom more than three or at furthest 
 eight days, by which, probably enough, they will 
 find some benefit and relief, which they are too 
 apt to mistake for an actual cure, and in case of a 
 relapse to lay all the fault on the waters. 
 
 The greatest quantity of sulphur is brought 
 from the province Satzuma. It is dtig up in a 
 small neighbouring island, which from the great 
 plenty it affords of this substance, is called Iwo- 
 gasima, or the Sulphur Island. It is not above 
 a hundred years siuce they first ventured thither. 
 It was thought before that time to be wholly 
 
 inaccessible, and by reason of the thick smoke- 
 which was observed continually to arise from it, 
 and of the several spectres and other frightful 
 uncommon apparitions people fancied to sec- 
 there chiefly in the night, it was believed to be 
 a dwelling-place of devils, till at last a resolute' 
 and courageous man offered himself, and obtained 
 leave accordingly, to go and to examine the state- 
 and situation of it. He chose fifty resolute 
 fellows for this expedition, who upon going oni 
 shore found neither hell nor devils, but a large 
 flat spot of ground at the top, which was so 
 thoroughly covered with sulphur that wherever 
 they walked a thick smoke issued from under 
 their feet. Ever since that time this island brings 
 in to the Prince of Satzuma about twenty chests 
 of silver per annum, arising only from the sul- 
 phur dug up there, besides what he gets by the- 
 trees and timber growing along the shore. The 
 country of Simabara, pai-ticulaily about the hot 
 baths above mentioned, affords also a fine pui-e 
 native sulphur, which, however, the inhabitants* 
 dare not venture to digup, for fear of offendingthe 
 tutelar genius of the place, they having found 
 upon trial that he was not willing to spare it. I 
 pass over in silence several other places, for 
 want of a thorough information. 
 
 Gold, the richest of all metals, is dug up in 
 several provinces of the Japanese empire. The 
 gi-eatest quantity of it is melted out of its own 
 ore. Some they wash out of gold sand. Some 
 small quantity also is contained in the copper. 
 The emperor claims the supreme jurisdiction of 
 all the gold mines, and indeed all other mines in 
 the empire, none of which may be opened and 
 worked without his express leave and consent. 
 Of the produce of all the mines which are 
 worked, he claims two-thirds, and one-third is 
 left to the Lord of the Province in which the 
 mine lies ; the latter, however, as they reside 
 upon the spot, know how to improve their third 
 parts so as to share pretty equally with the 
 emperor. The richest gold ore, and which yields 
 the finest gold, is dug up in Sado, one of tlie- 
 northei-n provinces in the great island Nipon. 
 Some of the veins there were formerly so rich, 
 that one catti of the ore yielded one, and some- 
 times two thails of gold. But of late, as I was 
 informed, the veins there and in most other 
 mines, not only run scarcer, but yield not nearly 
 the quantity of gold they did formerly, which,, 
 we were told, was the occasion, amongst other 
 reasons, of the late strict orders relating to the- 
 trade and commerce with us, and the Chinese. 
 There is also a very rich gold sand in the same 
 province, which the Prince causes to be washed 
 for his own benefit, without so much as giving 
 notice of it, much less part of the profit, to the 
 court at Jedo. After the gold mines of Sado, 
 those of Surunga were always esteemed tho- 
 rinhest, for besides that this province yielded at 
 all times a great quantity of gold ore, there is 
 some gold contained even in the copper dug up 
 there. Among the gold mines of the province 
 Satzuma there was one so rich that a catti of the- 
 ore was found upon trial to yield from four to- 
 six thails of gold, for which reason the emperor 
 hath given strict orders not to work it, for fe.ai 
 so great a treasure should be exhausted too soon 
 A mountain on the Gulf Ookus, in the district ol; 
 
SIO 
 
 KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT np JAPAN. 
 
 ■Omura, whicli had leaned on one side for a consi- 
 derable time, happened some years ago to fall 
 over into the sea, and there was found at the 
 bottom of the place where it stood so rich a gold 
 sand that, as I was cr'idibly informed, it yielded 
 one half of pure gold. It lny somewhat deep, 
 and was to be fetched up by divers. But this 
 rich harvest lasted not long, for a few years after, 
 in a great gtorm and extraordinary high tide, the 
 sea overflowed all that spot of ground, and 
 covered at once these inestimable riches with 
 mud and clay to the depth of some fathoms. 
 The poor people in the neighbourhood still busy 
 themselves washing the sand about this moun- 
 tain, which contains some gold, but in so incon- 
 siderable a quantity, that they can hardly get a 
 livelihood by it. There is another gold mine in 
 the province Tsikungo, not far from a village 
 called Tossino, but so full of water that they can- 
 not go on with working it. However, the situa- 
 tion of the mine is such that by cutting the rock, 
 and making an opening beneath the mouth of 
 the mine, the water might be easily drawn off. 
 This was attempted accordingly ; but as they 
 went to work there arose of a sudden such , a 
 violent storm of thunder and lightning, that the 
 workmen' were obliged to desist and to fly for 
 sb elter, , which made the superstitious vulgar be- 
 lieve that the tutelar god and protector of the 
 place, unwilling to have the bowels of the earth 
 committed to his trust thus rifled, raised this 
 storm purposely to make them sensible how 
 much he was displeased at this undertaking. 
 N"or was there any further attempt made since, 
 for fear of provoking his anger and wrath still 
 more. Such another accident, and which had 
 the same effect, happened at the opening of a 
 gold mine in the island Amakusa, for it was so 
 suddenly filled with water, which broke out of 
 the mountain and destroyed all the works, that 
 the miners had scarce time to escape and to save 
 their lives. 
 
 There are some silver mines in the province 
 Bingo. Others, and these much richer, at a 
 place called Kattami, in one of the northern pro- 
 vinces; others in other places, which I forbear 
 mentioning for want of sufficient infonnation. 
 The two islands Ginsima and Kinsiipa, that is, 
 gold and silver islands, which he to the east of 
 Japan, and which I had occasion to speak of in 
 the fourth chapter of this book, aeserve a place 
 here, if it be true what the Japaaase boast, and 
 what their very names and charMters seem to 
 imply, of their wealth and riches. 
 
 Copper is the most common of all metals dug 
 up in Japan, and the produce of copper mines en- 
 riches several provinces of this empire. It is at 
 present dug up chiefly in the provinces of Suruga, 
 Atsingo, and Kijnokuni. That of Kijnokuni is 
 the finest, most malleable, and fittest for w;ork of 
 any in the world. That of Atsingo is coarse, and 
 seventy cattis of it must be mixed with thirty 
 cattis of the Kijnese to make it malleable and 
 fit for use. That of Suruga is only exceedingly 
 fine and without faults, but charged vidth a con- 
 siderable quantity of gold, whiqh the Japanese at 
 present separate and refine much better than 
 they did formerly, whicji occasions great com- 
 plaints among the refiners and Brahmines upon 
 the coasts of Corman(ieL There are also some 
 
 copper mines in the province of Satzuma, yrhicli 
 the emperor very lately gave leave to worlti ^All 
 the copper is brought to Sacoai, one of the five 
 imperial towns, where it is refined and cast into 
 small cylinders, about a span and a half long and 
 a finger thick. As many of these cylinders as 
 amount to one pickel, or 1251b. weight, are 
 packed up into square wooden boxes, and sold to 
 the Dutch from twelve to thirteen maas the 
 pickel. It is one of the cheapest commodities 
 the Dutch buy in Japan, and they carry on a 
 great trade with it. There is besides a sort of 
 coarser copper, which is cast into large, flat, 
 roundish lumps, or cakes, and is bought a great 
 deal cheaper than the other, as it is also much 
 inferior in goodness and beauty. Brass is very 
 scarce in Japan, and much dearer than copper, 
 the calamine-stone being imported from Tunquin 
 in flat cakes, and sold at a very good price. 
 
 The province of Bungo affords a small quantity 
 of tin, which is so exceedingly fine and white, 
 that it almost comes up to silver. There is but 
 little use made of this metal in the country. 
 
 Iron is dug up only upon the confines of three 
 provinces, Mimasaca, Bitsju, and Bisen ; but it is 
 found there in ven' large quantities. It is 
 refined upon the spot, and cast into staSs, or 
 cylinders, two spans long. Japanese merchants 
 buy it at the place, and export it all over the 
 empire. It is mucli of a price with copper, iron 
 tools being full as dear or rather dearer than 
 those of copper and brass. Such household goods, 
 hooks, cramp-irons in buildings and ships, and 
 other instruments, as are in other coimtries made 
 of iron, are made in Japan, of copper or brass. 
 They do not dress their yictuals ia brass pans, 
 but have a particular sort of kettles or pans 
 which are made of a composition of iron, and are 
 pretty thin. The old ones of this sort are very 
 much esteemed, and bought at a great rate, they 
 having somewhat particular in their shape and 
 make, which at present they have lost the art to 
 imitate. 
 
 They have no want of coals in Japan, they 
 being dug up in great quantity in the province 
 Tsikusen about Kujanisse, and in most northern 
 provinces. 
 
 Salt is made of sea-water in several maiitime 
 provinces. They make it thus. They close in a 
 spot of ground, and fill it with fine loose sand; 
 then they pour the pea-water upon it, and let it 
 dry. This they repeat several timea, till they 
 think the sand is sufficiently saturated with salt. 
 Then they take it out and put it into a large 
 trough, with holes at the bottom, and putting 
 fresh sea-water upon it, let it filtrate through the 
 sand. The lye is boiled to a good consistence, 
 and the salt thus obtained is calcined in earthen 
 pots, till it becomes white, and fit for use and 
 sale. 
 
 Agates, of several sorts, some extraordinary 
 fine, of a bluish colour not unlike sapphires, as 
 also some cornelians and jaspers, are brought 
 from the mountain Tsugaar, upon the northern 
 extremities of the great province Osju, opposite 
 to the country of Jedo. 
 
 Pearls, by the Japanese called kainotamma, 
 which is as much as to say, shell-jewels, or jewels 
 taken out of shells, are found almost evei^ywhere 
 about Saikokf in oysters, and several other sea- 
 
KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 311 
 
 shells. Everybody is at liberty to fish them. 
 Formerly the natives had little or no value for 
 thera, till they were apprised of it by the Cliiuese, 
 who would pay good prices for them, the Chinese 
 women being very proud of wi-\ring necklaces, 
 and other ornaments of pearls. The largest and 
 finest pearls are found in a smiJl sort of oyster, 
 called akoja, which is not unlike the Per.sian 
 pearl-shell, much of the same shnp'- both valves 
 shutting close, about a hand broacV e.Kceeding 
 thin and brittle, black, smooth, and shining on 
 the outside, within pretty rough and unequal, • of 
 a whitish colour, and glittering like mother of 
 pearh These pearl-shells ai'e found only in the 
 seas about Satzuma, and in the gulf of Omura. 
 Some of the pearls weigh from four to five 
 condonins, and these are sold for a hundred 
 colans a-piece. The inhabitants of the Riuku 
 islands buy most of those which are found about 
 Satzuma, they trading to that province. Those 
 on the contrary which are found in the gulf of 
 Omura, are sold chiefly to the Chinese and 
 Tunquinese, and it is coriiputed that they buy for 
 about 3000 thails a year. This great profit 
 occasioned the strict orders which were made not 
 'long ago by the Princes both of Satzuma and 
 Omura, importing, that for the future there 
 (hould be no more of these oysters sold in the 
 market with other oysters, as had been done 
 •formerly. I procured some in private from 
 Omura, not without great difficulty. I was told 
 a very extraordinary thing of this sort of pearls, 
 and strongly assured of the truth of the fact, 
 which is, that they have somewhat of a prolific 
 quality, by virtue of which, when some of the 
 .largest are put into a bos full of a peculiar 
 Japanese choek varnish, made of another shell 
 caUed Takaragai (which I shall describe in 
 -another place) ; one or two young pearls will grow 
 on the sides, and when come to maturity, which 
 they do in about three years time, drop off. 
 .These pearls, by reason of their scarcity, are kept 
 in private families, and the possessors seldom 
 part with them, unless upon urgent necessity. 
 All this, however, I deliver only upon hearsay, 
 having myself seen none of this sort of pearl. 
 There is another eheir which sometimes yields 
 •pearls, found plentifully upon all the Japanese 
 coasts, and called by the natives awabi. It is an 
 uiiivalve, in shape almost oval, pretty deep, open 
 on one side, where it sticks to the rocks and to 
 the bottom of the sea, with a row of holes, which 
 grow bigger the nearer they come to the circum- 
 ference of the shell; rough-; and limy on its 
 outward surface, frequently wjth corals, sea- 
 plants, and other shells sticking to it ; on the 
 inside oftin exquisite mother of pe^rVs glimmering, 
 sometimes raised into whitish pearly excrescences, 
 which are likewise observed in 'the common 
 PersL-in pearl-shell.; A great .lump of flesh fills 
 the cavity of thiEi shell, for which sole reason 
 they are looked for by, fishermen, being a, very 
 good commodity for the market. They have an 
 instrument made on purpose to pull them off 
 from the sides of the rocks, to which they stick 
 close. Another shell, the name of which I could 
 not learn, yields a very large pearl, which some- 
 times wfflgliB from five to six condonins, but they 
 are of a diwty yellow colour, ill-shaped, and worth 
 biit little. A pretty good sort of pearl is some- 
 
 times observed to grow in tho very flesh of a 
 shell, which is called by tho natives taimggi, and 
 is found in the gulf of Arima, between Janagava 
 and Isafajo. It is a flat sort of a shell, oblong, 
 almost triangular, a little crooked on each side, 
 about a span and a half long, and a span broad ; 
 where broadest, thin, transparent, smooth, and 
 polished like horn, but very brittle. 
 
 Naphtha, of a reddish colour, by the Japanese 
 called tsutsono abra, which signifies red earth, is 
 found in a river of the province Jetsingo. It is 
 taken up in such places where the water hath 
 little or no run, and the natives burn it in lamps, 
 instead of oil. 
 
 Some ambergris is found upon the coasts of 
 Satzuma, and of the Riuku islands. A much 
 greater quantity comes from the coasts ot 
 -Khumano, ,as they call thera, whereby must be 
 understood the southern coasts of Kijnokuni, 
 Isje, and some neighbouring provinces. It is 
 found chiefly in the intestines of a whale, which 
 is caught frequently upon the Japanese coasts, 
 and is by the natives called fiakfiro, that is, the 
 hundred-fathom fish, because of the length of its 
 intestines, which is supposed to equal that 
 number of fathoms. It is found, as I observed, 
 in the intestines of this whale, mixed with chalky 
 limy excrements, almost as hard as stone, and it 
 
 -is from the hardness of these excrements, they 
 conjecture, upon dissecting, whether or no they 
 are like to meet with ambergris. The natives 
 have given a very despicable name to this precious 
 commodity. The ambergris, as it is torn off by 
 the waves from the bottom of the sen, nnd thrown 
 upon tho coasts, before it is swallowed by the 
 whales, is a deformed, flat, slimy substance, and 
 withal of a very disagreeable ungrateful smell. 
 People that find it thus floating on the surface of 
 the water, or lying upon the coasts, take several 
 small pieces, squeeze and press them close 
 bogether, into the foi-m of a round ball, which as 
 
 i it grows dry, becomes also more solid and 
 weighty. Others mix and knead it with meal, or 
 
 j flower of rice-husks, by which means they not 
 only increase the quantity, but heighten and 
 
 ! better the colour. However, the ambergris thus 
 
 ! adulterated is easily known ; for if you take any 
 quantity and burn it, there will remain a coal, 
 proportionable to the quantity of the stuff mixed 
 with it. It is observed, besides, that the worms 
 get quickly into this spurious sort of ambergris. 
 Others adulterate it by mixing it with a certain 
 powdered rosin of a very agree.able scent, but 
 this cheat also is easily discovered, for upon 
 burning a piece of it, the mixture of , rosin will 
 evidently appear by the very colour, smell, and 
 quality of the smoke. The Chinese have another 
 way of trying whether it be genuine ; they scrape 
 some of it very fine upon hot, boiling tea-water; 
 if genuine, it -will dissolve and diffuse equally, 
 which the adulterated sort doth not. The natives 
 use it no otherwise but as an ingi-edient of other 
 well-scented spepies, in, order, as they say, to fix 
 their volatile smelL In the main they value, it 
 but little, and it is owing entirely to the Dutch 
 and Chinese, who would buy it up at any rate, 
 that they have now lea,mt to prize it,, And yet 
 everybody is at liberty to take it up, where he 
 finds it, and to sell it as his own property. 
 During my stay in Japan, there was a piece tp be 
 
;I2 
 
 KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 sold of 140 cattis weight, and of a greyisli colour. 
 It was too large for any single person to purchase, 
 for which reason they sold it by retail, from sixty 
 CO seventy thails a catti. I Ijought myself for 
 about thirty thails of that which was blackest. 
 
 All sorts of submarine plants, shrubs, corals, 
 stones, mushrooms, sea-fans, corallines, fuci, alga:, 
 and the like, as also shells of all kinds, are found 
 plentifully in the Japanese seas, no ways inferior 
 in beauty to those found about Amboina, and 
 the spice islands. But the natives value them so 
 little, that they won't be at the trouble of look- 
 ing for them, and if by chance they happen to 
 fish them up amongst other things, their way is 
 to carry them to the next temple, or chapel of 
 Jebus, who is the Neptune of the country, thinking 
 that it is not an unpleasing offering to this god, 
 whom they look upon, and worship, as the pro- 
 tector of sea-faring people. 
 
 It remains to say something of the minerals 
 and mineral substances, Avhich have not as yet 
 been found in Japan, and are imported from 
 beyond sea. Antimony and sal-ammoniac are 
 absolutely wanted, nor are their qualities and 
 uses in the least known to the natives. Quick- 
 silver and borax are imj^orted by the Chinese. I 
 met, however, with two sorts of borax, growing 
 naturally in Japan, but they are so thoroughly 
 mixed with heterogeneous substances, that the 
 inhabitants don't think it worth their while to 
 p'ck them up. Sublimate mercury is very much 
 asked for by some private people, who will give 
 an extravagant price for it. They use it as the 
 chief ingredient of a mercurial water, which is in 
 great vogue among them for the cure of ulcers, 
 cancers, and other cutaneous diseases. Native 
 cinnabar is by them given inwardly, in several 
 distempers. The ai'tificial cinnabar they make 
 use of for a colour. Both are imported from 
 China. The buying and selling of this commodity 
 is in the hands of private merchants, who mono- 
 polise it by virtue of letters patent from the 
 Emperor. The native cinnabar in general is of 
 a beautiful red colour, but some of it is so exqui- 
 sitely fine, that it is sold for more than its weight 
 in silver. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OF THE FERTILITY OF TEIE COUNTItY, AS TO PLANTS. 
 
 tr is not in the least surprising, considering 
 either the peculiar happiness of the Japanese 
 oUmate, or the industry of its laborious inhabit- 
 ants, that the country affords so large a stock, 
 and such an infinite variety of plants and fruits, 
 both wild and cultivated, as it may deservedly 
 boast o£ Most of these their forefathers, indi- 
 gent and frugal as they were, used for their food 
 and sustenance. In succeeding ages, as wealth 
 and riches increased, the taste also became more 
 refined, and their tables more sumptuo'is and 
 magnificent. In this present chapter I will take 
 notice only of such plants as are of a more exten- 
 sive use, and as to the rest refer the more curious 
 reader to my Amsenitates Exoticae, wherein I 
 have given a catalogue, and begun a more accu- 
 rate and botanical description of them. 
 Among the trees the mulberry-tree deservedly 
 
 claims the first place ; for although its fruits, 
 both black and white, be altogether insipid, and 
 not fit for eating, yet this defect is sufficiently 
 made good by the extensive usefulness of ife 
 leaves, which are the common food of silk- 
 worms. It grows in most parts of Japan, hut in 
 great plenty in the northern provinces, where 
 many cities and villages subsist almost wholly 
 upon the silk manufactures, though the silk wove 
 there be not of the finest. The best and most 
 curious stufis are made by the banished gi-andees 
 in the island Fatsinaio, weaving being their chief 
 amusement ; but they make them of fine foreign 
 silk. The kadsi, or paper-tree, is of toe mulberry 
 kind : though it grows wild in. the country, yet 
 they transplant and cultivate it in several places, 
 by reason of its great usefulness. It is observed 
 to grow with surprising quickness, and to spread 
 its branches very far. It affords a great quantity 
 of bark, out of which they make paper, as also 
 ropes, matches, stuffs, cloth, and sevei'al other 
 things. 
 
 The urusi or varnish-tree, is another of the 
 noblest and most useful trees of this country. 
 It affords a milky juice, which the Japanese 
 make use of to varnish, and as we call it, to 
 japan all their household-goods, dishes, and plates 
 of wood, and this from the Emperor do\vn to 
 the meanest peasant. For even at court, and at 
 the imperial table, services of lackered ware are 
 preferred to those of gold and silver. Another 
 kind of varnish-tree, with narrow leaves, is called 
 faasi : it grows wild on hills and mountains. 
 It affords a small quantity of milk, and that too 
 of a very bad sort, and therefore the natives 
 think it hardly worth their while to gather it. 
 The true urusi is of a kind peculiar to this 
 country. It grows in the provinces Figo and 
 Tsikoku ; but that which grows in Jamatto is 
 reckoned the fittest for use, and to yield a better 
 sort of varnish than it doth anywhere else out of 
 this province. The Indian varnish-tree, which I 
 take to be the true anacardinus, is a tree quite 
 different from the urusi of the Japanese. At 
 Siam it is called rack-tree. It grows and bears 
 fruits in most eastern countries, but is observed 
 to afford none of its milky juice to the west of 
 the river Ganges, whether because of the barren- 
 ness of the soil, or through the carelessness and 
 ignorance of the natives, who do not know hSw 
 to manage its culture. The greatest quantity of 
 the milk of this Indian varnish-tree is brought 
 from the kingdoms of Siam and Cambodia, and 
 sold very cheap all over the East Indies. It is 
 imported even into Japan, where the natives use 
 it to lacker things of little value, and also as an 
 ingredient of their scarcer and better sort of 
 varnish. 
 
 Lauri, or bay-trees, of several kinds grow in 
 Japan. That which bears red berries is _ a 
 cannelifera spuria, or rather, by reason of its 
 viscosity, a cassia lignea. It resembles exactly the 
 cinnamon-tree, both in its shape, and in the 
 figure and substance of its leaves. But the hjirk 
 falls far short of that agreeable sweetness which 
 is peculiar only to the bark of the true cinnamon, 
 and it hath more of the aromatic sharpness of a 
 costus. The imperfection I take to be owing 
 entirely to the quality of the soU wherein it 
 grows ; for I observed also, that the bark of the 
 
KCEMPFEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 313 
 
 M&Ubai'ian, Sumatran, and Javan cinnamon-trees 
 (which latterly is wholly neglected), hath not near 
 that eminent degree of sharpness and agreeable- 
 ness to the taste, which the true Ceylonese 
 cinnamon is so much and so deservedly esteemed 
 for; that besides it is apt either to lose its 
 aromatic quality in a short, time, or that its sharp 
 pungent particles are so wrapt up in a viscous 
 substance, as to make it altogether unworthy 
 of bearing the very name of cinnamon, a 
 substance which is supposed to yield a fine, 
 pleasant, fragi'ant oil, which no cassia ligaea 
 ever will. 
 
 The ku3, or camphii-etree, is also of the laurel- 
 kind. It bears black and purple berries. The 
 camphire is prepared by the country -people in the 
 province Satzuma, and the islands Gotho, by a 
 simple decoction of the roots and wood cut into 
 smaJl pieces. It is extremely cheap, and 80 to 
 100 cattis of the Japanese boiled camphire may 
 be had for one single catti of the true Bomean 
 camphire, which is said to be a natural substance 
 gathered on the stumps of old camphire-trees in 
 the island of Borneo, upon incisions made between 
 the bark and wood. 
 
 Tsiauoki, that is the tea shrub, is one of the 
 most useful plants growing in Japan, and yet it is 
 allowed no other room but round the borders of 
 rice and corn fields, and in other barren places, unfit 
 for culture of other things. The common drink 
 of the Japanese is brewed of the larger leaves of 
 this shrub ; but the young and tender leaves 
 dried, powdered, and mixed in a cup of hot water 
 into a sort of soup, are drank in houses of people 
 of quality before and after their meals ; and it is 
 the custom of the country to present friends that 
 oome to visit them, with one or more dishes of tea, 
 both when they come and go. 
 
 Sansio is a middle-sized tree, with prickles. 
 They make use of its bark and husks instead of 
 pepper or ginger, and they eat the leaves by reason 
 of their pleasant aromatic taste, as they do also 
 the riches, which grow in the country. 
 
 There are three different sorts of fig-trees 
 growing in Japan. One is called kaki, if otherwise 
 it may be called a fig-tree, it differing from it in 
 several particulars. It grows very plentifully in 
 all parts of the empire. It is a very ugly 
 deformed sort of a tree to look at, much like a 
 short old apple-tree. It hath long oval leaves, 
 without notches. The fruit resembles a reddish 
 apple, both in shape and colour, and its fleshy 
 part hath the taste of a delicate fig. The seed is 
 of a hard and almost stony substance, and 
 not unlike gourd-seeds. It is no less commend- 
 able for its great fruitfulness, than it is for its 
 extensive use, for the fruits of it dried afford a 
 pleasant and agreeable food for rich and poor. 
 The Chinese preserve them with sugar. The 
 second sort of figs is not unlike that which grows 
 with us in Europe, only it grows on a tree, with 
 broad, oblong, rough leaves, without notches. Our 
 European fig-tree makes up the third sort. It 
 was brought into the countiy, and planted there 
 by the Portuguese. It bears a very large fruit, 
 bigger than ours, and I think better tasted. But 
 it is very scarce. I need not mention here 
 anything of the syoomorus, or wild fig-tree, 
 because its fruits are not eat in the country, though 
 it grows there very plentifully. 
 
 Chesnut-trees grow in great plenty in Japan, 
 particularly in the province Tsikusen, and thej 
 bear chesnuts much larger and better than ours. 
 Apple-trees, such as we have them in Europe, 
 they know nothing of. Nor have they more than 
 one sort of pears, of that kind, which we call 
 winter pears. They grow in great plenty, and 
 come to an extraordinary bigness, the least weigh- 
 ing seldom less than a pound : but they are not 
 fit to be eaten raw. 
 
 Walnut-trees grow chiefly in the northern 
 provinces. In the same provinces grows a certain 
 tall kind of taxus, called by the Japanese kaja, 
 with oblong nuts, inclosed in a fleshy pulp, 
 and not unlike, in bigness and shape, to the 
 arrack-nut. These nuts are not very agreeable 
 to the taste when fresh, though taken out of the 
 pulp, for they have something astringent in them: 
 they taste better when dried. They have a gentle 
 purging quality, which is owinp; to their sweet oil, 
 and are, for their many medicinal virtues, served 
 at table along with the dessert. The oils expressed 
 out of these nuts is very sweet and agreeable, and 
 tastes not unlike the oil of sweet almonds. It is 
 much commended for its medicinal virtues, and 
 also made use of to dress victuals. The smoke of 
 the kernels of these nuts is the chief ingredient of 
 the best and dearest Japanese ink. 
 
 Another sort of nuts, called Ginau, as big as 
 large pistaches, grow very plentifully almost 
 everywhere in Japan, on a fine tall tree, the 
 leaves of which are not unlike the large leaves of 
 an adianthum. The Japanese call it Itsionoki. 
 The nuts afford plenty of oil, which is also much 
 commended for several uses. As to a more 
 accurate description of this tree, I refer the reader 
 to the Amaeuitates Exoticse, p. 812. There are 
 two sorts of oaks grow in the countiy, both 
 different from ours. The acorns of the larger 
 sort are boiled and eat by the common people. 
 The fruit of the naatsme, or paliurus of Prosp. 
 alpinus, as it grows in the country, is extra- 
 ordinary good, and I think much larger than I 
 saw it anywhere else. Pome-citron trees are to 
 be seen only in the gardens of the curious. 
 Oranges and lemons grow veiy plentifully, and of 
 different sorts. That sort of lemons which is 
 reckoned the best is called mican. It resembles 
 a peach, both in shape and bigness, and hath an 
 excellent aromatic flavour, but tastes somewhat 
 sour. Another sort they call kinkan. It is much 
 scarcer, in shape and bigness not unlike a nutmeg, 
 and exceedingly sour. It grows on a shrub, rather 
 than a tree, and is much used in dressing their 
 victuals, and in what they call atsiaer. 
 
 They plant but few vines, because they observe 
 that the grapes would not easily ripen. Bramble- 
 berries and raspberries, are not very agreeable to 
 the taste. Strawberries are entirely insipid and 
 not eat. With peaches, apricots, and pluma, they 
 are plentifully supplied. Of plums, particularly, 
 they have two sorts, both different from oui-s, one 
 white, the other purple, both granulated like 
 mulberries, and ingredients of what they call 
 atsiaer. Cherry-trees, and the like, are kept only 
 for the sake of the flowers, as are also by some 
 the apricot and plum-trees, which they improve 
 much by culture, so that the flowers become as 
 big as roses, and in the spring, when they are 
 in full blossom, afford a most delightful sight 
 
314 
 
 KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 about their temples, in their gardens and walks, 
 the trees being thick covered with the flowers, as 
 with snow. 
 
 Firs and cypress-trees are the most common 
 trees in their woods and forests. There are several 
 different sorts of both. Houses and ships are 
 built of the wood, of which are made also all sorts 
 of household-goods, as cabinets, trunks, boxes, 
 tubs and the like. The branches, and what falls 
 down, serve for fuel and fire-wood. The common 
 people burn also the nuts and leaves, which fall 
 down from the trees, and gathering the same 
 daily they keep the ground and roads neat and 
 cleau. For ornament-sake, they are planted in 
 rows along the roads, and over the ridges of hUls 
 and mountains, which makes travelling very 
 pleasant. The natives, as they improve every 
 inch of ground, take care to plant them in 
 sandy and barren places, which are good for 
 nothing else. No firs nor cypress-trees may be 
 cut down, without leave from the magistrate of 
 the place ; and lest the felling of them should 
 in time too much prejudice their growth they 
 must always plant young ones instead of those 
 they cut down. 
 
 Bamboos are very common, and of great use 
 here, as everywhere in the Indies. Several sorts 
 of household goods, baskets, matches, and other 
 things are made of them, as are also gutters and 
 spouts, and the walls of houses. A particular 
 sort of bamboo grows in the province Oomi, 
 which the Dutch export by the name of rottang, 
 and sell for walking canes. Both firs and bam- 
 boos are in great esteem among the Japanese, for 
 their constant verdure; and the superstitious 
 believe that they have no small influence over 
 the happy occurrences of human life. The 
 temple-walks, and other holy places, are adorned 
 with them, chiefly upon their festivals and other 
 solemn days ; and they make frequent allusions 
 to them in their emblematical and poetical writ- 
 ings, particularly in congratulatory poems : for 
 they are of opinion, that they will subsist a long 
 while, that common bamboos will stand several 
 hundred years, and that the common fir, which 
 they call matznoki, will come to the age of a 
 thousand, that then it wUl bend down its 
 branches towards the ground, as not being able 
 to support itself any longer. And lest the truth 
 of this assertion should be called in question, 
 they show up and down the countiy some firs 
 and bamboos of an uncommon size indeed, and 
 pretended long standing. I have seen some ex- 
 traordinary large ones myself 
 
 Finoki and suggi are two sorts of cypress trees, 
 yielding a beautiful light whitish wood, but never- 
 theless of a good substance, and remarkable for 
 this singular quality, that it sucks in no water, 
 and might well pass for cedar-wood. The 
 emperor has sometimes forbidden the felling of 
 these trees for any use whatsoever. But little 
 regard is had to orders of this kind, particularly 
 in those provinces which are remote from court, 
 unless there be a very severe punishment put 
 upon transgression thereof. Ksamaki, that is, a 
 stinking maki-tree; ssinoki, a sort of oak; and 
 jusnoki, that is, iron-tree, so called from the 
 uncommon hardness of its wood, are all very 
 common trees. Most houses are built of the 
 wood of them. Fatznnki, a tree growing about 
 
 the city of Jeseri, and the root of the camphire- 
 tree, afford the best and scarcest wood for cabi- 
 nets, chests of drawers, and such sort of woi-k, 
 by reason of the curious running of its grain. 
 
 Japan, I think, may vie with most, if not all, 
 known countries, for a great variety of beautiful 
 plants and flowers, wherewith kind Nature has 
 most liberally and curiously adorned its fields, 
 hills, woods and forests. Some of these they 
 transplanted into gardens, and improved by assi- 
 duity and cvilture to the utmost, and indeed to 
 a surprising degree of perfection. It is foreign 
 to my present purpose to enumerate and to 
 describe all those I met withal during my stay 
 in the country. I reserve this for another work, 
 and will here confine myself barely to mention 
 some of the chief Tsubacki is a pretty lai'ge 
 shrub, beitring flowers not unlike roses. It grows 
 in woods and hedges, it hath many beautiful 
 varieties, of which, in the Japanese language, 
 copious as it is, there are 900 names, if it be true 
 what the natives report. Satsuki is another 
 shrub, with lily-flowers. Of this, the natives 
 say, there are upwards of an himdred varietieb 
 to be met with in gardens. The two kinds, 
 which gi-ow vrild, one with purple, the other 
 with incarnate flowers, are a great ornament to 
 hills and fields in the proper season, affording a 
 sight pleasing beyond expression. Sakanandsio 
 is another shrub with lUy-fiowers, but much 
 larger than the former. It is also much scarcer, 
 and there are three varieties of it. 
 
 Momidsi is a kind of maple. It is so called 
 from the purple colour of its leaves. There are 
 two varieties of it, which differ one from another 
 only in this particular, that the leaves of one 
 turn purple in the spring, and of the other in 
 autumn. Both afford to the eye a very curious 
 sight. The fasi-tree is also said to change the 
 colour of its leaves into a fine purple in auiurfin. 
 
 There are two varieties of feverfews (matri- 
 cariffi) and lilies growing in this country. The 
 first — the flowers of which art and culture hath 
 improved to the bigness of roses — are the chief 
 ornament ot houses and gardens, the others of 
 desert and uncultivated places. Nor hath Nature 
 been less kind with regard to the narcissus, 
 flower-de-lys, clove gilliflowers, and the like. 
 But one thing I cannot help observing, which is, 
 that these several flowers fall as short of others 
 of their kind growing in other countries, in 
 strength and agreeableness of smell, as they 
 exceed them in the exquisite beauty of their 
 colours. The same holds true with regard to 
 most fruits growing in Japaa, which are far 
 from coming up to the pleasant aromatic taste 
 of those which grow in China, and other eastern 
 countries. 
 
 They cultivate as much hemp and cotton as 
 they can spare ground in their fields. Sijro, or 
 the wild hemp-nettle, grows plentifully in most 
 uncultivated places. This plant makes good in 
 some measure what want there is of hemp and 
 cotton; for several sorts of stuffs, fine and coarse, 
 are fabricated of it. 
 
 The seeds of the following plants afford their 
 oil for several uses, both physical and domestic. 
 Kin is a very large but scarce tree. It hath 
 leaves like burdock, flowers hke the digitalis, set 
 to a long stalk, and seeds resembling marsh- 
 
 ___- i 
 
KOEMPPER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 315 
 
 ■mallow seeds. The mikaddo, or ecclesiaBtical 
 hereditary emperor, bears the leaf of this tree, 
 with three flowering stalks, in his coat of arms. 
 Abrafiin is a middle-sized tree, with the leaves of 
 a platanus. Its flowers resemble roses in shape 
 and bigness, and the seeds are like the seeds of 
 the rioinus, which made me call it ricinus arboreus 
 folio alceiB. The asadiracht avicennse, the tsu- 
 bacld, above-mentioned, as also the urusi, faasi, 
 and kamoki trees. The cotton shrub and plant. 
 Sesami of two kinds, with white and black 
 seeds. Of all the oils expressed out of the seeds 
 of these several plants, only that of the sesamum 
 and kai are made use of in the kitchen, and even 
 these but sparingly, victuals being commonly 
 dressed in this country without either butter or 
 oil 
 
 The Japanese are as good husbandmen as per- 
 haps any people in the world. Nor indeed is it 
 very surprising that they have made great im- 
 provements in agriculture, considering not only 
 the extreme populousness of the country, but 
 chiefly that the natives are denied all commerce 
 and communication with foreigners, and must 
 necessarily support themselves by their own 
 labour and industiy. Hence the laws on this 
 head are very particular and severe. Not only 
 tbe fields and flat country, which are seldom or 
 never turned into meadows and pasture-ground, 
 but likewise the hills and mountains, afibrd corn, 
 rice, peas, pulse, and numberless edible plauts. 
 Every inch of grotmd is improved to the best 
 -advantage ; and it was not without great admira- 
 tion we beheld, in our journeys to and from court, 
 hills and mountains, many inaccessible to cattle, 
 which would lie wholly neglected in other 
 countries, cultivated up to their tops. They are 
 very dexterous and skilful in manuring their 
 ground, which they do in various ways, and 
 ivith many different substances, as I shall have 
 occasion to show in several places of this history. 
 Flat, low grounds are ploughed with oxen, steep 
 and high ones by men : and both manured with 
 human dung. As to rice in particular, which is 
 the main food of the natives, what ground they 
 can conveniently spare, and will admit of its cul- 
 ture, is turned into rice-fields, particularly low, 
 flat land, which they can cut through by canals, 
 and where they have a command of water, which 
 •surprisingly quickens the growth of this plant, it 
 loving a wet, muddy soil. The Japanese rice 
 accordingly is esteemed the best of all Asia, par- 
 ticularly what grows in the northern provinces, 
 which will keep many years, and which for this 
 reason they choose to fill their store-houses 
 withal, having first washed it in muddy water 
 and then dried it. All lands must be surveyed 
 every year, before they are sown, by Kemme, as 
 they call them, being sworn surveyors, who are 
 very big of their skill in geometry, and have the 
 privilege of wearing two swords, which is other- 
 wise allowed to none but to the nobility and 
 soldiers. When the harvest draws near they are 
 sui'veyed once more, at which time it is com- 
 puted what the whole crop is likely to amount 
 to, which they do generally indeed by guess, but 
 yet with a surprising accuracy, and thereby pre- 
 vent the tenants cheating their landlords. If 
 the harvest is like to prove extraordinary good, 
 Ihey cause a square piece of ground to be cut 
 
 and threshed, and thence infer as to the whole. 
 The landlords claim rokubu, six parts in ten, of 
 all the produce of their land, whether rice, corn, 
 wheat, peas, pulse, or other, and the tenant for 
 his trouble and maintenance keeps sijbu, or four 
 parts in ten. Such as hold liinds of the crown 
 give but four parts in ten to the emperor's 
 stewards ; the remainder is for themselves. For 
 encouragement's sake, such as cultivate untilled 
 ground, have the whole crop left them for the 
 first two or three years. The ground in general 
 is divided into three sorts: — 1. Sso, the best; 
 2. Tsju, middling ; and 3. Qe. poor ground. But 
 they admit likewise of Dso no sio, next to the 
 best; Dso no Isju, next to the middling; and 
 Dso no Ge, next to the bad. Some regard is had 
 as to the scot, the good or the bad quality of the 
 soil ; and it varies also considerably in different 
 provinces, but in the main it amounts to six 
 parts in ten. Among many excellent laws which 
 relate to agriculture, they have one, by virtue o. 
 which, whoever doth not cultivate his ground 
 for the term of one year, forfeits his title and 
 possession. 
 
 The chief produce of the fields which con- 
 tributes most to the sustenance of life, is by the 
 Japanese comprehended under the name of 
 gokokf, that is, " the five fruits of the fields." It 
 is by their good or bad growth they estimate the 
 value of the ground ; the fruitfulness of the year, 
 and the wealth of the possessor. They make up 
 the chief dishes at their meals, and make good 
 the want there is of fiesh-meat, which custom and 
 religion forbid them to eat. The gokokf are, 
 1. Kome, or rice. There are several varieties of 
 rice grow in the country. The best sort hath not 
 its equal in the Indies. It is perfectly white, Uke 
 snow, and so nom'ishiug and substantial, that 
 foreigners who are not used to it, can eat but 
 little of it at a time. Boiled to a good consistence, 
 they eat it at their meals instead of bread. Out 
 of what remains from their yearly provision they 
 brew a sort of strong fat beer, called sacki, but 
 no more than, they think their famiUes shall have 
 occasion for. Foreigners can export no more 
 rice, or beer than what the magistrate will allow 
 them. 2. Oomuggi, which is as much as to say, 
 " great com," is what we call barley. They feed 
 their cattle and horses with it ; some dress their 
 victuals with the flour, and make cakes of it. 
 There is a sort of barley grows in Japan, with 
 purple-coloured eare, which, when ripe, are a 
 curious oi'nament to the fields 3. Koomuggi, 
 that is, " small com," is what we call wheat. It 
 is extremely cheap, and I know of nothing they 
 make of it, but a particular sort of cakes made of 
 the flour. 4. Daidsu, that is, daidbeans, is a 
 certain sort of beans about the bigness of Turkish 
 peas, gi'owing after the manner of lupins. They 
 are next to the rice in use and esteem. Of the 
 meal of these beans is made what they call midsu ; 
 a mealy pap, which they dress their victuals 
 withal, as we do with butter. What they call 
 soeju, is also made of it, which is a sort of 
 an embamma, as they call it, which they eat at 
 meals to get a good stomach. This soeju is 
 exported by the Dutch, and brought even into 
 Holland. I have described their way of making 
 ■'t in my Am^nitates Exoticse, p. 839, where the 
 ^lant itself, bearing these beans, is figured and 
 
 . 
 
316 
 
 KOEMPFJill'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 described. 5. Adsuki, or sodsu, that is, sobeana. 
 They grow likewise after the manner of lupins, 
 and are black, not unlike lentils, or the Indian 
 cajan. The flour is baked with sugar into mansje 
 and other cakes. Besides the several sorts of 
 gokokf just mentioned, the following plants are 
 comprehended under the same name : awa, 
 Indian corn {panicum Indicum Tabern.) : kibi, or 
 milmm, vulgare nostras, millet : iije, or panionm 
 vulgare juia rtiiiwre seniine nigncante : and in 
 general, all sorts of corn, and mami, that is peas 
 and pulse. 
 
 Turnips grow very plentifully in the country, 
 and exceeding large ones. Of all the produce of 
 the fields they perhaps contribute most to 
 the sustenance of the natives. But the fields 
 being manured with human dung, they smell so 
 strong that foreigners, chiefly Europeans, cannot 
 bear them. The natives eat them raw, boiled, or 
 pickled. Horse-radishes, carrots, gourds, melons, 
 cucumbers, mala insana, fennel, and some sorts 
 of lettuce, which with us are cultivated in gardens, 
 grow wild in Japan. The pastinaca hortensis, or 
 garden parsnip, is not to be met with. But wild 
 parsnip grows plentifully everywhere. Parsley, 
 cummin, succory, and our common European 
 lettuce, are cultivated by the Dutch, as they were 
 formerly by the Portuguese, and thrive extra- 
 ordinary well. 
 
 Besides the plants I have hitherto mentioned, 
 there are numberless othei-s that grow in the 
 fields, upon hills and mountains, in woods and 
 forests, in morassy grounds, in barren and uncul- 
 tivated place-s, along the sea-coasts, and, in short, 
 everywhere. Of all these, there are very few but 
 what afford their roots, leaves, flowers, and fruits, 
 not only for the sustenance of the common 
 people, but even for the deUcious tables of 
 people of quality. There is a great variety of 
 mushrooms, most of which are eat. Some, 
 indeed, are poisonous, and unlucky accidents 
 happen frequently. The use of some other 
 plants is often attended with the like dangerous 
 consequences, the venomous being sometimes 
 mistook for the wholesome by ignorant people. 
 Some, indeed, they know how to deprive of their 
 hurtful and venomous qualities. Thus, out of 
 the konjakf. which is a poisonous sort of a dracun- 
 culus, they prepare a sweet mealy pap. In the 
 like manner, by expressing the juice, by macera- 
 ting and boiling the roots of the wa/rahi or fern, 
 of the ren, or faba jErjypiica, called by some 
 tarrate flour, as also of what they call kasne, they 
 make a fine sort of flour ; which is of great use 
 in dressing their victuals, and which they eat 
 besides by itself, dissolved in water. Of all the 
 soft submarine plants there is hardly one but 
 what the natives eat. Fishermen's wives wash, 
 sort, and sell them ; and they are likewise very 
 dexterous in diving them up from the bottom of 
 the sea in twenty to forty fathoms deep. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OF THE PLENTY OF THE COUNTBY AS TO BEiST^, BIRDS, 
 REPTILES, AND INSECTS. 
 
 Of the animals of this country some are merely 
 chimerical, not existing in nature, nor invented 
 
 by the Japanese themselves, but borrowed from 
 their neighbours the Chinese. Of these it 
 will not be improper to give some account, 
 before I proceed to describe those which really 
 exist. 
 
 Kirin, according to the description and figure 
 which the Japanese give of it, is a winged quad- 
 ruped, of incredible swiftness, with two soft 
 horns standing before the breast, and bent back- 
 wards with the body of a horse, and claws of a 
 deer, and a head which comes nearest to that of 
 a dragon. The good-nature and holiness of this 
 animal are so great that they say it takes special 
 care, even in walking, not to trample over any 
 the least plant, nor to injure any the most incon- 
 siderable worm or insect that might by chance 
 come under its feet. Its conception and birth 
 require a particular constellation in heaven, and 
 the birth of a sesin upon earth. Sesin is a man 
 endowed by nature with an incomparable under- 
 standing, and a more than human penetration, a 
 man capable to dive into the mysteries of divine 
 and supernatural things, and withal so full of 
 love towards mankind as to reveal his discoveries 
 for their common benefit. There are famous, as 
 such, the two Chinese emperors, Gio and Slum ; 
 the memoiy of whose excellent government, and 
 the great discoveries they made in the knowledge 
 and virtues of plants, will be always dear in that 
 empire ; Koosi and Moosi, two Chinese philo- 
 sophers : Siaka, an Indian philosopher, and 
 great discoverer of supernatural truths : Darma 
 in China, and Sotoktais in Japan, both founders 
 of particular sects, and persons of an unspotted 
 holy life. 
 
 Besides the kirin, there are two other chimeras 
 of the quadruped kind : one is called fuugu. It 
 is not uulike a leopard as to its shape, but hath 
 two soft horns before the breast, bent backwards. 
 The other is called kaitsu, or kaisai. This hath 
 something of the fox in its shape, two horns 
 before the breast, another horn in the forehead, 
 and a row of prickles, like the crocodile, along 
 the back. 
 
 After the four-footed chimeras, the tats, dria, 
 or dsja, as it is called by the Japanese, that is 
 the dragon, must be mentioned. The chronicles 
 and histories of their gods and heroes are full of 
 fabulous stories of this animal. They believe 
 that it dwells at the bottom of the sea, as in its 
 proper element. They represent it in their books 
 as a huge, long, four-footed snake, scaly all over 
 the body, like the crocodile, with sbarp prickles 
 along the back, but the head is beyond the rest 
 monstrous and terrible. The tail of tlie Japanese 
 dragon ends as it were into a two-edged sword. 
 Some of the Japanese Emperor's cloth, his arms, 
 scimeters, knives, and the like, w also the fur- 
 niture and hangings of the imperial palace, are 
 adorned with figures of this dragon, holding a 
 round jewel, or pearl, in the right fore-claw. 
 The Japanese diagon hath but three claws on 
 each foot, whereby it is distinguished from the 
 Chinese imperial dragon, which is represented 
 with five. Tatsmaki is another dragon with a 
 long watery tail It is believed that this also 
 lives at the bottom of the sea, and, by flying 
 up thence into the air, occasions by its violent 
 turnings what we call a water-spout ; which phe- 
 nomenon is very common on the Japaueao seas. 
 
K(EMPPER'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 317 
 
 and observed frequently to break towards the 
 coastB. 
 
 Fee is a chimerical but bfiautiful large bii-d of 
 paVadiae, of a near kin to the phoenix of the 
 ancients. It dwells in the high regions of the 
 air, and it hath this, common with the kirin, 
 that it never comes down from thence, as the 
 Japanese religiously believe, to honour the 
 earth with its blessed presence but upon the 
 birth of a eesin, or that of a great emperor, 
 or upon some such other extraordinary occa- 
 sion. Thus far the chimerical animals. I pro- 
 ceed now to give an account of such as do 
 really exist. 
 
 Considering the largeness and extent of the 
 Japanese empire, it is but sparingly supplied 
 with four-footed beasts, wild or tame. The former 
 find but few desert places, where they could 
 increase and multiply, and follow their usual 
 shy way of life. The latter are bred up only for 
 carriage and agriculture. Pythagoras's doctrine 
 of the transmigration of the soul being received 
 almost universally, the natives eat no flesh meat, 
 and living, as they do, chiefly upon vegetables, 
 they know how to improve the ground to much 
 better advantage than by turning it into meadows 
 and pastures for breeding of cattle. To begin 
 with the tame beasts. There are horses in the 
 countiy : they are indeed little in the main, but 
 some of them not inferior in shape, swiftness, 
 and dexterity to the Persian breed. They serve 
 for state, for riding, for carriage and ploughing. 
 The best horses come from the provinces Sat- 
 zuma and Osju; and a certain breed of little 
 horses from Kai, is very much esteemed. Oxen 
 and cows serve only for ploughing and carriage. 
 Of milk and butter they know nothing. They 
 have a sort of large buffles, of a monstrous size, 
 with bunches i n the back, like camels, which 
 serve for carriage and transport of goods only, 
 in large cities. They know nothing of asses, 
 mules, camels, and elephants. Sheep and goats 
 were kept formerly by the Dutch and Portuguese 
 at Firando, where the kind still subsists. They 
 might be bred in the country to great advantage, 
 if the natives were permitted to eat the flesh, or 
 knew how to manage and manufacture the wool. 
 ITiey have but few swine, which were brought 
 over from China, and are bred by the country 
 people in Fisen, not indeed for their own use, 
 which would be contrary to their superstitious 
 notions, but to sell them to the Chinese, who come 
 over for trade every year, and are great admirers 
 of pork, though otherwise the doctrine of Pytha- 
 goras, about the transmigration of souls, hath 
 found place likewise in China. Since the now 
 reigning emperor came to the throne, there are 
 more dogs bred in Japan than perhaps in any 
 one country whatever, and than there were before 
 even in this empire. They have their masters, 
 indeed, but lie about tiie streets, and are very 
 troublesome to passengers and travellers. Every 
 street must, by special command of the emperor, 
 keep a certain number of these animals, and 
 provide them with victuals. There are huts 
 built in every street where they are taken care of 
 when they fall sick. Those that die must be 
 caiTied up to the tops of m untains and hills, as 
 the usual burying places, and very decently 
 ■interred. Nobody may, under severe penalties. 
 
 insult or abuse them, and to kill them is a capital 
 crime, whatever mischief they do. In this case, 
 notice of their misdemeanours must be given 
 to their keepers, who are alone empowered to 
 chastise and to punish thom. This extraordinary 
 care for the preservation of the do^ kind is the 
 effect of a superstitious fancy of the now [IfiQO] 
 reigning Emperor, who was born in the sign of 
 the Dog, [Tlie reader is desired to take notice 
 that the Dog is one of the twelve celestial signs 
 of the Japanese,] and hath for this reason so 
 great an est«em for this animal, as the great 
 Roman emperor, Augustus Caesai-, is reported in 
 histories to have had for rams. The natives tell 
 a pleasant tale on this head : — A Japanese, as he 
 wa.9 carrying up the dead carcase of a dog to the 
 top of a mountain, in order to its burial, grew 
 impatient, grumbled, and cursed the Emperor's 
 birth-day and whimsical commands. His com- 
 panion, though sensible of the justice of his 
 complaints, bid him hold his tongue and be quiet, 
 and, instead of swearing and cursing, return 
 thanks to the gods that the emperor was not 
 born in the sign of the horse, because, in that 
 case, the load would have been much heavier. 
 Greyhounds and spaniels are wanting. They 
 hunt but little, and only with common dogs; 
 this kind of diversion being not veiy proper for 
 so populous a country, and where there is so 
 little game. They have a particular kind of cats, 
 which is a domestic animal with them as with u«. 
 They are of a whitish colour, with large yellow 
 and black spots, and a very short tail, as if it had 
 been purposely cut off. They do not care for 
 mousing, but love mightily to be carried about, 
 and caressed, chiefly by women. 
 
 Of four-footed wild beasts the country pro- 
 duces deer, hares, and boars ; all which the 
 adherents of some sects are permitted to eat at 
 certain times of the year. The island Mijosima, 
 or Akino Mijosima, so called from the neighbour- 
 hood of the province Aki, is famous for a parti- 
 cular breed of deer which, they say, are very 
 tame and familiar with the inhabitants. It is 
 conti-ary to the laws of the country to chase and 
 to kill them. The country-people take care to 
 remove their dead carcases from their houses and 
 fields, forasmuch as the governor of the island is 
 empowered, by virtue of another law, to sentence 
 those before whose doors, or upon whose ground 
 such cai'Cases are found, to some days' work, 
 either at the temples or for the public. They 
 have some few monkeys, of a docile kind, with 
 short tails, of a brownish dark colour, with 
 naked red faces and backs. A mountebank 
 showed one about the country which he pre- 
 tended was one hundred Jind six years old, and 
 which, played several artful tricks with great 
 dexterity. They have some few bears in the 
 northern provinces, but of a small kind. Tanuki 
 is a very singular kind of an animal, of a 
 brownish dark colour, with a snout not unlike a 
 fox's snout, and pretty small : it seems otherwise 
 to be of the wolf's kind. They have likewise a 
 sort of wild dogs with large gaping snouts. 
 Itutz is a small animal of a reddish colour. 
 Another large sort of it is called tin: they 
 both live in houses and lodge themselves under 
 the roofs ; they are so tame that they might be 
 ranked among the domestic animals. They are 
 
318 
 
 KCEMPPBR'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 very dexterous at catching of fowl, chiefly 
 chickens, and fish. The whole country swarms 
 with rats and mice. The rats are tamed by the 
 natives and taught to perform several tricks. 
 Rats thus taught are the common diversion of 
 some poor people. The best of the kind, and 
 which play with most dexterity, are to be seen 
 at Osacca, as the place which mountebanks, 
 jugglers, and raree-show people resort to from 
 all parts of the empire. Foxes also are very 
 common. The natives believe that they are 
 animated by the devil ; and their historical and 
 sacied writings are full of strange accounts of 
 several odd accidents which happened with, and 
 with regard to foxes. The fox-hunters, however, 
 are very expert in conjuring and stripping this 
 animated devil; the hair and wool being very 
 much coveted for their writing and painting- 
 pencils. They make the same distinction be- 
 tween the kis, or fox, and oni, or devil, as they 
 do in Sweden between faan and dieblen. Of 
 tigers, panthers, lions, and such other voracious 
 animals Japan is entirely free. 
 
 Thus much of the four-footed vrild and tame 
 beasts which are to be met with in Japan. The 
 insects of the reptile kind are next to be taken 
 into consideration. Among these a mischievous 
 small creature, known all over the East Indies by 
 the name of white ant, claims the first place. It 
 is a small slender worm, perfectly white, like 
 snow. They live together in commonalty, as our 
 European ants do, from whom they do not much 
 differ in shape and bigness. Their head and 
 breast are of a brownish dark colour, and hard 
 to the touch. The Japanese call them Doo-toos, 
 which is as much as to say " piercers," an epithet ' 
 which they well deserve, for they pierce and per- 
 forate whatever they meet with, stones only and 
 ores excepted ; and when once they get mto a 
 merchant's warehouse, they are able within a 
 vei-y short compass of time to ruin and destroy 
 his best goods. Nothing hath been as yet found 
 out that will keep them off but salt laid under 
 the goods and spread about them. Our common 
 European ants are their mortal enemies, and 
 whatever place the one sort takes possession of, 
 the others must necessarily quit it. They are 
 no more able than moles to support the open 
 air, and whenever they go out upon an expedition 
 they defend themselves by building arches or 
 trenches all along their march, which they know 
 how to tie fast to the ground. These arches are 
 much of the same substance with that of wasps' 
 nests. I was told surprising and melancholy 
 stories of their quick and mischievous marches 
 and expeditions ; but I will only relate what I 
 was an eye-witness of myself During my stay at 
 Coylang, a Dutch fort upon the coasts of Malabar, 
 I had an apartment assigned me in the governor's 
 own house. One night I did not go to bed till 
 about midnight, having been very busy. The 
 next morning when I rose, I took notice of the 
 marks of such arches upon my table, which were 
 about the bigness of my Uttle finger, and upon a 
 more accurate inspection, I found that these ani- 
 mals had pierced a passage of that thickness up 
 one foot of the table, then across the table (though 
 as good luck would have it, without any damage 
 done to the papers and things I had left there), 
 and BO down again through the middle of the 
 
 foot into the floor. All this was performed 
 viithin a few hours' time. 
 
 Mukadde, according to the common Japanese- 
 dialect, and goko, in their significant or character- 
 language, are not what we call aselli, or wood- 
 Uce, but the Indian millepedes, palmer-worms, oi 
 forty-legs'; a worm of about two or three inches 
 in length, slender, of a brown colour, having a 
 great number of legs on both sides, from whence 
 it hath borrowed its name. The Indian forty-legs 
 are very venomous, and their bites are reckoned 
 more dangerous and painful than those of the 
 scorpion. There are but few in Japan, and those 
 not very mischievous. The part which is stung 
 or bit is dressed with spittle, and the bite seldom 
 observed to be attended with ill consequences. 
 
 The lizards of this country do not differ from 
 our comm.on European lizards. 
 
 There are but few snakes in the country. One 
 of the most famous is called fitakutz, and fibakari. 
 It is of a green colour, with a flat head and sharp 
 teeth. It hath borrowed its name from the 
 length of the day, or the time the sun stays upon 
 the horizon ; because people bit by it are said to 
 die before sunset. Soldiers are very fond of its 
 flesh, which they eat, fii-mly believing that' it hath 
 the virtue of making them hold and courageous. 
 This snake calcined in an earthen pot, hermeti- 
 cally sealed, gives that powder which they call 
 gawatsio, and which is very famous for its virtues- 
 in curing several internal distempers. Thi? 
 same powder put under the gutters of a house is 
 said in a short time to produce young snake? 
 of the same kind. I met with this sort of snake 
 nowhere else but upon the coasts of Malabar, 
 where I was shown some by the Bramines. Ano- 
 ther sort of snakes of a monstrous size, called 
 jamakagats, or, according to the common dialect, 
 uwabami, and sometimes dsja, that is, " dragon," 
 is found in waters and upon mountains. It is 
 very scarce, and when taken shown about for 
 money. From the reptiles I proceed to the 
 birds. 
 
 Of tame fowl they keep chickens, and some- 
 times ducks ; but being, as I took notice above, 
 imbued with the superstitious notions of Pytha- 
 goras, the generality will not eat them, and they 
 are killed and sold to such as do venture to eat 
 them, only by persons of a mean extraction. 
 When a man lies at the point of death, as also- 
 upon those days which are sacred to the memory 
 of deceased persons, none of their relations and' 
 friends may kill any bird or beast whatever. In 
 the mourning years for the death of an emperor, 
 and at any other time when the emperor thinks 
 fit to order it, no living creature whatever may be 
 kided or brought to market in any part of his 
 dominions. The cocks oftener find pardon than 
 hens, and are kept alive with great care, because 
 they are held in great esteem, chiefly among the- 
 religious orders, by reason of their measuring the 
 time, and foretelling future changes of the 
 weather. Wild fowl, though naturally shy, are 
 in this populous country grown so familiar that 
 many kinds of them might be ranked among the 
 tame. The tsuri, or crane, is the chief of the 
 wild birds of the country, and hath this particular 
 imperial privilege, that nobody may shoot him 
 without an express order from the emperor, and. 
 only for the emperor's own pleasure or use. In 
 
KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 31S> 
 
 Saikolf, however, and in other provinces remote 
 from court, a less strict regard is had to the like 
 imperial commands. The cranes and tortoises 
 are reckoned very happy animals in themselves, 
 and thought to portend good luck to others, and 
 this by reason of their pretended long and fabu- 
 lous life, of which there are several remarkable 
 instances recorded in their historical writings. 
 For this reason the imperial apai-tments, walls of 
 temples, and other happy places, are commonly 
 adorned with figures of them, as also vrith 
 figures of firs and bamboos, for the like reason. 
 I never heard country people and carriers call 
 this bird otherwise than Tsurisama, that is, 
 " My great Lord Crane." There are two different 
 kinds of them ; one white as snow, the other grey 
 or ash-coloured. There aro several kinds of 
 saggi, or herons, which differ in colour and size. 
 The chief are sijro saggi, the white heron ; goi 
 saggi, the grey heron, both very common ; and 
 awoi saggi, a heron of a bluish colour, and alnlost 
 as big as a crane. There are two different sorts 
 of wild geese, which couple each with their 
 kind. One sort is as white as snow, only the' ex- 
 tremities of the wings are black ; the other is 
 grey or ash-coloured. Both ai'e very common in 
 this country, particularly the grey ones, and so 
 familiar that they might be taken for tame ; for 
 they wUl not fly up, nor get out of the way at 
 anybody's approach. They do a great deal of 
 mischief in the fields, and yet nobody may disturb 
 or kill them under pain of death, except tliose 
 who have bought the privilege to shoot them in 
 some tracts of ground. The country people, to 
 keep them off, surround their fields with nets, 
 though to very little purpose, for they will fly 
 over the nets, as I have seen myself, to get at 
 'heii food. 
 
 Of ducks also there are several different kinds, 
 and as tame as the geese. One kind particularly 
 I cannot forbear mentioning, because of the 
 surprising beauty of its male, called kinmodsui, 
 which is so great, that, being shown its picture 
 in colours, I could hardly believe my own eyes, 
 tUl I saw the bird itself, it being a very common 
 one. Its feathers are wonderfully diversified with 
 the finest colours imaginable; about the neck and 
 breast chiefiy they are red. The head is crowned 
 with a most magnificent topping. The tail rising 
 obhquely, and the wings standing up over the 
 back in a very singular manner, afford to the eye 
 a sight as curious as it is uncommon. There are 
 also pheasants of uncommon beauty. One kind 
 particularly is remarkable for the various coloura 
 and lustre of its feathers, and for the beauty of its 
 tail, which equals half a man's length, and in a 
 curious variety and mixture of the finest colours, 
 chiefiy blue and gold, is no ways inferior to that 
 of a peacock. Woodcocks are a very common 
 bird ; they are eat by the adherents of some sects, 
 as are also the pheasants, geese, and ducks. There 
 is a sort of wild pigeons with black and blue 
 feathers, though otherwise they are no great 
 beauties. The natives will not suffer them to 
 nest in their houses; because they found by 
 experience, that their dung upon removal is very 
 apt to take fire, and they say that many an 
 unlucky accident happened thereby. 
 
 Storks stay in the country all the year round. 
 
 The best feiloons are caught in the northern 
 
 provinces, and are kept more for state than, 
 sport. 
 
 Hawks are common here as they are every- 
 where in the East Indies, and a very proud bird j 
 as is also a kind of ravens, of a middling size, 
 which was first brought over from China, as a 
 present to the Emperor. 
 
 Another scarce bird was sent over from Corea, 
 by way of present to the Emperor ; and is thence 
 called Coreigaras, that is, a " Corean raven." 
 
 Our common European crows, as also parrot^ 
 and some other Indian birds, are not to be met 
 with in Japan. 
 
 Poken, or, according to the common dialect, 
 fototenis, is a scarce night-bird, of an excellent^ 
 and delicious taste, and a dish only for the tables, 
 of people of quality upon extraordinary occa- 
 sions. The ashes of this bird calcined, and put 
 into old sour sacki, are said to restore it to ita. 
 foimer taste and goodness. 
 
 Misago, or bisago, is a voracious sea-bird, of the 
 hawk kind. It preys chiefiy upon fish. It makes; 
 a hole in some rook upon the coasts, where it layss 
 up its prey and provision, which is observed tO) 
 keep as well as pickled fish, or atsiaar, and is 
 thence called, bisagonosusi, or the "bisago's 
 atsiaar." It tastes very salt, and is sold dear. 
 Whoever knows such a cave can make a good deal, 
 of money of it, provided he do not take out too>- 
 much at a time. 
 
 Mews, sea-ravens, snipes, sea-pies, spari'owe, 
 swallows, and some other 'small birds, are as 
 common here as in Europe. 
 
 Larks sing much better here than they do in. 
 Europe. , 
 
 The nightingales, if they have a good voic&„ 
 are sold sometimes to curious people for twenty 
 oopangs a-piece. Thus far, what I had to obsei-vft 
 concerning the birds of this country. 
 
 Of flying insects, the country hath bees, 
 consequently some honey and wax, though but, 
 in a small quantity. Humble-bees, wasps, 
 common flies, gnats, fire-flies, several sorts of 
 beetles and bugs, as also locusts, and a great 
 variety of other insects of this tribe, it hath 
 common with Europe, besides some other 
 particular and remarkable sorts; the chief of 
 which I will here give a short account of. 
 
 Among the butterflies there is one very larga^ 
 sort, called jamma tsio, or the mountain-butterfly.. 
 It is either entirely black, or party-coloured, ani 
 curiously diversified with white, black, and other 
 spots, chiefiy upon its forked wings. Komuri is- 
 a large, spotted, party-coloured, hairy, beautifeil 
 night-fiy. The same name is given also to bats.- 
 Of beetles, they have several scarce and beauti^ 
 kinds. One, in particular, is very large, in shape 
 not unlike the dung-fly, shining black, with two. 
 crooked and branched horns, one larger, standing: 
 over the nose, after the manner of a rhinoceros's- 
 horn, the other smaller, standing out on one- 
 side from the shoulder. This animal cannot 
 walk easily. It lives chiefly under ground. 
 It is scarce, and the natives have as yet given 
 it no name. 
 
 A certain kind of brown beetle, called sebi, 
 and sometimes semi, affords several curious and 
 remarkable things to the attentive eye of an 
 inquisitive naturalist. They are of threa 
 different kinds. The largest is called kuma sebL 
 
<12U 
 
 KCEMPFEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 It resembles in shape and bigness that sort of 
 flies which with us in Europe are generally- 
 observed to fly about in the evening, but it 
 hath no wings. In the spring they creep out 
 of the ground (where they have lain in winter- 
 quarters) in the night-time, and fasten them- 
 selves with their hoary legs to trees, their 
 branches, or leaves, or whatever in their marrjh 
 they can lay hold of. A little while after they 
 burst, and spUt their back lengthways, to give 
 room to another fly, not unlike a beetle, which 
 was enclosed within it, though much bigger 
 than the prison to which it was confined. 
 Some hours after, this second fly flies away 
 with a hurrying noise. This curious little animal 
 hath been described by Gcssner by the name of 
 Cicada. Bursting open the shell in which it lay, 
 and, at the same time, spreading out its four 
 wings, it makes a sharp and loud noise, which, 
 they say, may be heard (a thing almost incredible) 
 very indistinctly at full an English mile's 
 distance. "Woods and mountains are full of the 
 noi.'<e these little creatures make. They disappear 
 gradually in the dog-days ; and it is said, that 
 they creep into the ground again, in order to 
 undergo a new metamorphosis or change, and to 
 re-appear in' the same state the next year. How 
 far this agrees with truth, I am not able to 
 determine, for want of proper observations. 
 The name semi, or sebi, which they bear, is 
 borrowed from their music, which begins slowly 
 and upon a low tune, then increases gradually 
 in swiftness and loudness, and again ends pretty 
 low. This music, I thought, was not unlike the 
 noise a button-maker's spindle makes in turning. 
 They begin to sing with the rising si&, and end 
 about noon. The exuviae, called semi or mu- 
 kigara, are preserved for physical uses, and 
 sold publicly in shops both in Japan and China. 
 Another smaller kind is from its smallness 
 called kosebi, or the small sebi. They appear 
 later in the year, much about the time when the 
 others disappear. They sing from noon to sun- 
 set, and live till late in autumn. Their music 
 is not so loud as that of the first kind, and is by 
 the common people called tsuku tsukuboo. The 
 third kind differs from the second neither in 
 shape nor bigness, only they sing from momiug to 
 night. The females of all the three kinds are 
 mute, and have their breast shut : in all other 
 respects they are like the males. 
 
 The canthaiides, or Spanish flies, are of the 
 same colour with our Spanish flies, but somewhat 
 bigger and rounder, and very near as big as our 
 common European beetles. Their use is entirely 
 unknown in Jap.in. Another particular sort of 
 Spanish flies is called fanmio. They are extremely 
 caustic, and ranked among the poisons. They 
 are found upon rice-ears, and are long, slender, 
 and smajler than the Spanish flies, blue or gold- 
 coloured, with scarlet or crimson spots alid lines, 
 which makes them look very beautiful. But the 
 finest of all the flying tribe of insects, and which, 
 by reason of its incompamble beauty, is kept by 
 the ladies amons their cuiiosities, is a peculiar 
 and scarce night-fly, about a finger long, slender, 
 round-bodied, with four wings, two of which are 
 transparent and hid under a nair of others, which 
 are shining, OS it were polished, and most curiously 
 adorned with blue and goldan lines and spots. 
 
 The following fable owes its origin to the un- 
 paralleled beauty of this little creature : They say 
 that all other night-flies fall in 'love with it, and 
 to get rid of their importunities it maliciously 
 bids them (for a trial of their constancy) to go ^d 
 to fetch fire. The blind lovers scruple not to 
 obey commands, and, flying to the next fire or 
 candle, they never fail to burn themselves to 
 death. The female is not near so beautiiul as the 
 male, but grey, or ash-coloured and spotted. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OF FISH AND SHELLa 
 
 The sea, and its productions, contribute full as 
 much towards the sustenance of the natives as 
 the growth of the country, rice only excepted. The 
 sea all about Japan is plentifully stored with all 
 sorts of submarine plants, fish, crabs, and shells ; 
 of all which there are very few, but what were eaten 
 by their indigent ancestors, and are so to this day. 
 There are even many which, in these wealthy and 
 refined ages, appear upon the sumptuous tables of 
 people of the highest quality. Both fish, crabs, 
 and shells, are comprehended under one general 
 name, kiokai, or iwokai. In this present chapter, 
 which may be looked upon as an introduction to 
 one of the following, wherein I intend to treat of 
 their tables and kitchen, I will set down aa 
 many of them as came to my knowledge, along 
 with their true Japanese names ; though it must 
 be observed in general, that several of them are 
 found likewise in our European and other seas. 
 
 Of all the animal productions of the Japanese 
 seas, I know of none of so extensive an use, for 
 rich and poor, as the kudsuri, or whale. It is 
 caught frequently about Japan, but particularly 
 in the sea Khumano, which washes the southern 
 coasts of the great island Nipon, as also about the 
 islands Tsussima and Goto, and upon the coasts 
 of Omura and Nomo. I'he common way of 
 catching them is with darts, or harping-irons, as 
 they do in the Greenland fishery, but the Japa- 
 nese boats seem to be fitter for this purpose than 
 ours, being small, niii-row, tapering into a sharp 
 point at one end, with five oars, or ten men each, 
 who row them with incredible swiftness. About 
 1680, a rich fisherman in the province Omura, 
 whose name was Gitaijo, found out a new way of 
 catching whales with nets made of strong ropes 
 about two inches thick. This method was after- 
 wards followed with good success by a country- 
 man in the islands of Gotho, whose name was 
 Iwonomo. They say, that as soon as the whale 
 finds his head entangled in a net, he cannot, with- 
 out great difficulty, swim further, and may he 
 very easily killed with harpoon-irons after the 
 common manner. The reason why this new 
 method, which seemed to bid very fair for success, 
 hath not been universally received is, because it 
 requires a greater and much more expensive set 
 of proper tackle, than common fishermen can 
 afford. For whereas the expense of whale-fishing 
 after the common manner, seldom exceeds twenty 
 chests of silver, this cannot be so much as 
 attempted with a less sum. 
 
 There are several sorts of whales, which differ 
 
KCEMPPER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 321 
 
 was informed by fishermen, that this fish is a 
 cunning and mortal, enemy of whales, and that 
 he kills them by creeping into the mouth, and 
 devouring their tongues. He hath a way, as he 
 creeps in, to put his head and teeth into such a 
 posture, that they aie no hindrance to him. 
 
 Irulcu is a known fish, called tenije in the 
 Indies : furube is another fish, not very large : 
 the Dutch call him blazer, which signifies blower, 
 because he can blow and swell himself up into the 
 form of a round ball. He is ranked among the 
 poisonous fish, and if eat whole, is said unavoid- 
 ably to occasion death. There are three different 
 sorts of it found in the Japanese seas, all in great 
 plenty. The first sort called susume-buka is 
 small, and seldom eat. The second is called 
 mabuku, that is the true buku. This the Japanese 
 reckon a very delicate fish, and they are very fond 
 of it. But the head, guts, bones, and all the 
 garbage must be thrown away, and the flesh 
 carefully washed and cleaned before it is fit to 
 eat. And yet many people die of it, for want, as 
 they say, of thoroughly washing and cleaning it. 
 People that by some long and tedious sickness 
 are gi'own weary of their lives, or are othenvise 
 under miserable circumstances, frequently choose 
 this poisonous fish, instead of a knife or halter, 
 to make away with themselves. A few years ago 
 five persons of Nagasaki having eaten of this 
 fish, fainted soon after dinner, grew convulsive 
 and delirious, and fell into such a violent spitting 
 of blood, as made an end of their lives in a few 
 days. And yet the Japimese would not deprive 
 themselves of a dish so delicate in their opinion, 
 for all they have so many instances of how fatal 
 and dangerous are the consequences of eating it. 
 Soldiers only and military men, are by special 
 command of the Emperor forbidden to buy and 
 to eat this fish. If any one dies of it, his son 
 forfeits the succession to his father's post, which 
 otherwise he would have been entitled to. It is 
 sold much dearer than common fish, and not 
 eaten, but when fresh. The third sort is called 
 kitamakura, which signifies north cushion. I 
 could not learn the reason of this appellation. 
 The same name is given to a person that sleeps 
 with his head turned to the north. The poison 
 of this sort is absolutely mortal ; no washing nor 
 cleaning will take it oft^ It is therefore never 
 asked for, but by those who intend to make away 
 with themselves. 
 
 The sea-horse, or sea-dog, and as the Germans 
 call him, wasserbauch, is a very singular fish, 
 much about the length of a boy of ten years of 
 age, without either scales or fins, with a large 
 head, mouth and breast, a large thin belly like a 
 bag, which will hold a lai-ge quantity of water. 
 He hath thin sharp teeth in the chops much like 
 a snake. The inner parts are so minute that they 
 are scarce visible. He hath two flat cartilaginous 
 feet with fingers, not unlike the hands of a 
 child, under the belly, by means of which, he 
 creeps, in all likelihood, or walks at the bottom 
 of the sea. All his parts are eaten, none excepted. 
 He is caught frequently in the guK of Jedo, 
 between Kamakura and that capital, where 1 
 saw him brought to market. 
 
 Tai is what the Dutch in the Indies call steen- 
 brassem. This is very much esteemed by the 
 Japanese as the king of fish, and a peculiar 
 
 in their names, shape, and bigness. 1. Sobio is 
 the chief, and indeed the largest fish of the whale- 
 kind. It affords most train oil, and its flesh is 
 very good and wholesome, so far that fishermen 
 and the common people attribute their good state 
 of health, amidst all the injuries of cold and 
 weather, which they are continuaBy exposed to, 
 chiefly to their eating this flesh. . 2. Awo fangi, 
 commonly kokadsura, that is a small whale, is 
 grey or ash-coloured, smaller than the sebio, from 
 which it also diffei'S something in shape. 3. Nar 
 gass, is commonly twenty to thirty fathoms long, 
 and hath this particular, that he can stay under 
 water for two or three hours, during which time 
 he can travel a vast way, whereas other whales 
 must continually come up to the surface of the 
 water for fresh supplies of air. 4. Sotookadsura, 
 that is, the whale of bhnd people, so called from 
 the figure of a bijwu, or a sort of a lute, which 
 blind people in this country use to play upon, 
 which is said to be naturally represented on its 
 hack. It is not a very large sort, and seldom 
 exceeds ten fathoms in length. It is caught fre- 
 quently about Japan, but the flesh is' reckoned 
 unwholesome food, being as they say, too hot, 
 and occasioning coughs, fevers, eruptions on the 
 skin, and sometimes the small-pox. It is brought 
 to market with other fish, and sold for the flesh 
 of the sebio, but those who know it will never 
 buv it. 6. Mako never exceeds three or four 
 fathoms in length. This same name is given to 
 j the young ones of the other kinds. That which 
 I here speak of is caught frequently upon the 
 eastern coasts of Japan, as also upon the coasts of 
 Kijuokuni and Satzuma. Ambergris is found in 
 the intestines of this whale. The heaii yields a 
 small quantity of train-oil 6. Iwasikura, that is, 
 sardin's-eater, hath a, tail and fins like common 
 fish. We saw this sort when we went up to 
 court, between Caminoseki and Simonoseki ; and 
 T took it to be that fish which the Dutch call 
 Qoord caper. Of all these several kinds of whales 
 nothing is thrown away as useless, excepting 
 only the large shoulder-bone. The skin, which is 
 black in most kinds ; the flesh which is red and 
 looks like beef; the intestines, which, from their 
 remarkable length, are called fiakfiro, that is, 
 "an hundred fathoms long," and all the inward 
 parts, ai'e eaten, pickled, bailed, roasted, or fried 
 The fat, or blubber, is boiled into train-oil, and 
 even the sediments of the second boiling are eaten. 
 The bones, such as are of a cartilaginous substance, 
 are boiled when fresh, and eaten, or scraped, 
 fleaned and dried for the use of the kitchen. Out 
 of the nervous and tendinous parts, both white 
 and yellow, they make cords and ropes, chiefly for 
 their cotton manufiictures, as oJso . for their 
 musical instruments. Not ev^ the garbage is 
 thrown away, but kept for some use in the 
 kitchten. Several little things are made of the 
 jaw-bones, fins, and other bones, which are of a 
 more solid substance; particularly their fine 
 steelyards for weighing gold and silver are made 
 of them, and have borrowed thair name from 
 thence. 
 
 Satsifoko is a fish two, three, and sometimes 
 five or six fathoms long, with two long teeth or 
 tusks, standing out of the mouth upwards, which 
 are sometimes, by way of ornament, put at the 
 top of caatles, temples, and public buildings. I 
 
322 
 
 KCEMPPEE'S ACCOITNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 emblem of happinees, partly because he is sacred 
 to their Jebis, or Neptune, partly by reason of a 
 beautiful variety of shining colours, which appear 
 on him when under water. It is a very scarce 
 fish, cot unlike a carp, and finely variegated with 
 red and white. The female hath some red spots. 
 It is so scarce, that upon some great entertain- 
 ment at court, or other extraordinary occasions, 
 it is not to be had under a thousand copangs. 
 Another sort of this fish is called kharo tai, or 
 black steenbrassem, from the colour. This is 
 uot near so much esteemed, and is caught fre- 
 quently about Saikokf 
 
 Susuki is what the Germans call kahlkopf, 
 that is, baldhead. Funa is a fish not unlike a 
 carp, and much commended for its medicinal 
 virtues, chiefly against worms. A larger kind of 
 the same is called najos. Mebaar is a red- 
 coloured fish, in bigness and shape not unlike a 
 carp, or steenbrassem, with the eyes standing out 
 of the head Uke two balls. It is caught every- 
 where in great plenty, and is the common food of 
 poor people. Koi is another sort of it, which 
 also resembles a carp, and is sometimes one sakf 
 and a half long. This sort is caught in rivers, 
 chiefly about water-falls, against which they 
 endeavour to SNvim. They are so strong that two 
 men can hardly hold them. They are exported 
 all over the empire, fresh and pickled. They 
 take some in the lake of Saifa, or Tensiu, which 
 are four sakf long. Maar, the salmon, is taken in 
 rivers and fresh water lakes. Itoj ori is a salmonat, 
 or small salmon. Makuts, is what the Dutch call 
 harder. Sawara, a king's fish. Fiuwo is what 
 the Dutch call draatvish. Ara is what the Dutch 
 in the Indies call Jacob's ewertz. Kusuna, a, 
 short nose. Kamas, a pike. Susuki is the 
 schaarvish of the Dutch, only a longer and 
 narrower sort. Adsi is the maasbancker of the 
 Dutch. Of this there are several different kinds, 
 the chief and largest whereof is called ooadsi. 
 Taka is what the Dutch call a kaye. Kame, and 
 takasame, are rays, of the hard skins of which 
 they make cases and other curious things in 
 Japan. The skin of this fish is imported also 
 from Siam, where it is found much finer. Jeje is 
 a broad flat fish, with a long tail. There is one 
 sort of it, which hath a small homy or bony 
 sting at the end of the tail, which the Dutch in 
 Ihe Indies call pijlstaart. The Japanese believe, 
 that this sting taken from a live fish is an infal- 
 hble remedy against the bite of snakes, rubbing 
 the bitten part with it. For this reason they 
 carry it along vfith them among other house 
 medicines. Come, or jei, are soles, and karei, 
 bots or bruts. Bora is a fish much like a pike, 
 with a white and delicious flesh. Some call him 
 iongaats fish, because he is taken in the Songaats, 
 or first month of the Japanese year. They pickle 
 md smoke them, as they do pikes at Bremen. 
 These and all pickled fish in general, are called 
 i^arasumi They export them from Nagasaki and 
 N"omo, where they are frequently caught, and 
 carry them to Jedo, and into several other parts 
 of the empire, tied to straw-ropes, ten to a rope. 
 They are exported by the Dutch and Chinese. 
 Other fish made into karaaumi are valued but 
 little by the natives. The best sort of the kat- 
 sumo fish is caught about Gotho. They cut this 
 5sh into four pieces, which they dry by degrees 
 
 over the damp of hot boiling water, and bring it 
 upon the table along with the liquors. The. 
 Dutch export it by the name of comblomaas, 
 which, however, is not the true name. Managat- 
 suwo is a flat fish, not unlike a but, with one eye 
 on each side. Sake, perhaps a sort of cablian, is 
 a pickled fish not unlike cod. It is imported 
 from the country of Jeso, and hath borrowed its 
 name from its smell, which is not unlike the 
 smell of their sake beer. Tara is a sort of cod, 
 imported from the northern provinces ; the beat 
 of the kind comes from Tsiosijn, whence it is 
 called tsiosijn tara. Sajori, is what the inhabitants 
 of Nagasaki call susumoiwo, and the Dutch 
 naadelvish, which signifies needle-fish. It is a 
 small fish, not above a span long, thin, with a row 
 of sharp long prickles along the back. Tobiwo 
 is what the Dutch call a springer, (flying-fish) 
 because it leaps out of the water. The Japanese 
 one seldom exceeds a foot in length, and is very 
 deUcious, but rarely taken. Iwas is the sardin ; 
 kissugo, the smelt, or sand-smelt, Jeso, by the 
 Dutch called sandkruper, is a middhng fish, 
 between a smelt and an eel. Saba are mackerels. 
 Ai, or ai-no-iwo, by the Dutch called modevish, is 
 a fresh-water fish, not above a span long, swimming 
 with surprising swiftness. Sijroiwo, is what the 
 Dutch call kleiner stind : they also call him 
 weissvish, that is white fish. He is caught in the 
 spring about the mouths of rivers. Konosijro, 
 called by the Dutch sassap, is a sort of herring, 
 not unlike the Swedish strohmlings. Kingjo, the 
 gold-fish, is a small fish, seldom exceeding a 
 finger in length, red, with a beautiful shining, 
 yellow or gold-coloured tail, which in the young 
 ones is rather black. In China and Japan, and 
 almost all over the Indies, this fish is kept in 
 ponds, and fed with flies before their wings come 
 out. Another kind hath a silver-coloured tail. 
 Unagi is the common eel. Oounagi is another 
 sort of eel much larger than ijie common. 
 Jaatzme unagi, that is, an eel with eight eyes, is 
 what is called in Germany neunaug, that is, nine- 
 eye, or an eel with nine eyes. Doodsio is by the 
 Dutch called puyt aal. It is a fish about a finger 
 long, with a very large head in proportion to the 
 body, found frequently in watery rice-fields and 
 muddy ponds. They are of two different kinds, the 
 one with, the other without a beard. They have a 
 notion, that they may be brought forth artificially 
 out of straw, cut, and mixed with mud and dirt, 
 and exposed to the heat of the sun early in the 
 morning. Fammo, by the Dutch called conger 
 aal, is larger than a common eel, which it resem- 
 bles, when under water, but slenderer. 
 
 Ika is a common sea-qualm. Both the Chinese 
 and Japanese esteem it a scares and delicate bit 
 Fish also are easier caught witli the flesh of this 
 qualm than with any other bait. Jako, or sepia, 
 is another sea-qualm, with long tails or feet, at the 
 end whereof are, as it were, small hooks, where- 
 with the creature fastens itself to rocks, or the 
 bottom of the sea; it is a common soccano or 
 side-dish, and eat either fresh, boiled, or pickled. 
 There are two sorts of kurragge, which is alio of 
 the sea-qualm kind. One is called midsukurage, 
 that is, the white qualm. This is common in all 
 seas, whitish, transparent, watery, and not fit to 
 eat. The other is scarcer, fleshy, and eatable 
 after it has been prepared and deprived of its 
 
KCEMPFEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 32a 
 
 sharpness. It is prepared after the following 
 manner. They first macerate them in a dissolu- 
 tion of alum for three days together ; then they 
 rub, wash, and clean it, till it grows transparent ; 
 which done, it is pickled and preserved for use. 
 Before the infusion, the skin is taken off, washed, 
 pickled, and kept by itself. Some of these sea- 
 quulms are so large, that two men can scarce lift 
 them up. Pickled, as they are brought upon the 
 table, they are of the same substance, colour, and 
 taste with the edible birds'-nests, (Nidi alcyonum) 
 brought from China ; and I have been credibly 
 informed by Chinese fishermen, that these birds'- 
 nests ai'e made of the very flesh of this animal. 
 
 Namako, by theDutch at Batavia called kaffer- 
 kull, is edible. Imori is a small venomous water- 
 lizard, black, with a red belly. Takanomakura, 
 which is as much as to say, the pillow of the sea- 
 qualm tako, is the common searstar, and is not 
 eaten. 
 
 Of all the footed animal-produce of the water, 
 the ki, or came, tortoises, are most esteemed by 
 the Japanese, being looked upon as peculiar 
 emblems of happiness, by reason of the long life 
 which is ascribed to them. That kind particu- 
 larly which hath a broad tail, much like a large, 
 round beard, and which in their learned language 
 is called mooke, and by the common people 
 minogame, for all it doth not exist in nature, is 
 yet frequently to be seen among other emblem- 
 atical figures, wherewith they adorn the walls of 
 their temples, the sides of their altars, and the 
 apartments of the emperor and princes. The 
 most common tortoises are, isicame, or sanki, 
 that is, the stone, or mountain-tortoise, which is 
 60 called because found in these places, and is 
 nothing else but the common land-tortoise. lo 
 game, or doo game, that is, fishy, or water-tortoise, 
 because of its living in the water. They say, 
 that upon the southern and eastern coasts of 
 Japan there are found tortoises large enough to 
 cover a man from head to toe. 
 
 All sorts of crabs and shrimps botb of fresh 
 and salt water, are called in genera.! jebL The 
 following particular kinds have come to my know- 
 ledge. Jebisako is the common small crab, which 
 is found in great plenty upon the coasts of the 
 Baltic. Sako signifies all sorts of small fish in 
 general. Si jebi differ but little from the com- 
 mon crabs, no more than what they call dakma 
 jebi, excepting only that the lattet are caught in 
 fresh water, and will within a year turn black. 
 Kurumajebiis as much as to say wheel-crabs; 
 they are so called from the figure of their tail. 
 Umi jebi, that is, great crabs, or lobsters, are 
 commonly a foot long. They are boiled, then 
 cut into small pieces, and brought upon the 
 table, as a soccana or side-dish. Care must be 
 taken not to eat their black tail, because it hath 
 been observed, that it gives people the belly-ache, 
 or throws them into a cholera morbus. Siakwa is 
 a crab with a broad tail, which is caught fre- 
 quently with other small fish. It hath but little 
 flesh, and almost none at the time of the full 
 moon,^ All the testaceous and crustaceous ani- 
 mals, which are found in these seas, and indeed 
 everywhere in the Indian ocean beyond the 
 eastern shores of the Ganges, are observed to be 
 fleshier and fuller at the time of the new moon, 
 contrary to what happens in our European seas. 
 
 Oamina, otherwise koona, is a crab, which lives in 
 a beautiful shell, diversified with various colours ; 
 (this is what the Enj^liah call soldiers' crab, fresh ■ 
 water soldier, hermit crab, because they live in 
 other people's quarters) ; kani, which signifies 
 pocket crab, is our common European fresh-water 
 crab. It bears the name of the whole tribe of 
 the fresh-water crabs. Kabutogani, or unkiu, is 
 a crab of a singular structure, with a sharp, long, 
 serrated prickle or sword, standing out from the 
 head, and a roundish, smooth back. Gadsame is 
 no bigger than the common crab, with the upper 
 shell tapering into a point on both sides. It hath 
 four claws, two large ones before, and two behind, 
 which are smaller. Simagani, that is, a striated 
 pocket-crab. It might be called wart-orab, from 
 the great number of warts and prickles which 
 cover the shell all over, the hind claws only 
 excepted, which are smooth and almost cylin- 
 drical. They are caught frequently upon the^ 
 eastern coasts, as also in the gulf of Suruga. 
 Some of this sort are incredibly large. I bought 
 one of the hind claws at Suruga in a cook-shop, 
 which was as long, and full as big, as a man's- 
 shin-bone. 
 
 All sorts of oysters, muscles, and shells, of 
 which there is a great plenty and surprising 
 variety in the Japanese seas, are eaten, none ex- 
 cepted, raw, pickled, salted, boiled, or fried. 
 They are daily gathered on the coasts in low 
 water. Divers dive for them to a considerable 
 depth ; others fish them with nets. The follow- 
 ing sorts are the most common and best known ; 
 awabi, which I have already mentioned, when I 
 spoke of the pearls of this country, is an open 
 univalve, as big as a middle-sized Persian pearl- 
 shell, but deeper. They lie deep under water, 
 sticking fast to rocks, or to the bottom of the sea, 
 from whence they are taken up by fishermen's 
 vrives, they being the best divers of the country. 
 They go down armed with darts or long knives, to 
 defend themselves against kayes and porpoises, 
 and when they see an awabi, they pull it off 
 suddenly before the animal is aware, becausa 
 otherwise it would festen itself to the rocks, or 
 to the bottom of the sea, so strongly, that no 
 force would be strong enough to tear it off. This 
 shell. is filled with a large piece of flesh of a 
 yellowish or whitish colour, and a very tough 
 substance, though without fibres. They say it 
 was the common food of their necessitous 
 ancestors, in memory whereof, when they enter- 
 tain company at dinner, they always provide a 
 dish of it. It is also become a custom with them, 
 as well among the vulgar as among people of 
 quality, that when they send one another presents 
 of money, cloth, stuffs, fruits, or anything else, a 
 string, or at least a small bit, of the dried flesh of 
 this shell is sent along with them, as a good 
 omen, and in order to put them in mind of the 
 indigency of their forefathers. ''The flesh is cut 
 into thin slices or strings, which are extended on 
 a board, and dried. A large pearl is found 
 sometimes in this shell, but of an ugly yellowish 
 colour, a deformed shape, and of no value. 
 Tairagi is a flat, long, thin, and very large bivalve, 
 almost transparent, near of a triangular figure, 
 running from a large base tapering into a point. 
 The animal is tied fast to both sides of the shell 
 with a strong tendon. The best of the kind ai-e 
 
324 
 
 K(EMPFEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 found in the gulf of Arima, where it sometimes 
 yields pearls. Akoja is a flat bivalve, about a 
 hand broad, scaly on its outward surface, and of 
 a very ugly appearance ; within of an exquisite 
 mother of pearl glimmering. The best of the 
 kind, and which yield the finest pearls, are found 
 in the gulf of Omura. Mirakai is the common 
 black fresh water mussel, which is found also in 
 our rivers and lakes in Germany. Famaguri are 
 bivalves much of the same shape and bigness, but 
 thicker, smooth and white within ; without of a 
 brown or chesnut colour. Divers curious figures 
 are painted on the inside, and they serve as an 
 amusement to the court of the Dairi, or Ecclesi- 
 astical Hereditary Emperor, where they are 
 played with after the following manner. Large 
 heaps are thrown on the ground, and every one 
 of the company having taken his poi-tion, he wins 
 that can show the most paire.- Every pair hath 
 proper hooks, by the means of which they are 
 easily known, and brought together, though never 
 BO much mixed. The best are gathered and in 
 greatest plenty upon the coasts of Quano. 
 Sidsimi is a small bivalve not unHke the famaguri, 
 but thinner, and is found sticking in mud. Katsi 
 or utsikaki, are oysters. The oysters found about 
 Japan are deformed, rough, stony, growing 
 together, and to rocks. There are chiefly two 
 sorts, one remarkably large, the other smaller. 
 The best and largest are found in great plenty in 
 the gulf of Kamakura. Kisa, or akagai, is also 
 a bivalve, white without, with deep furrows, 
 •Tinning as it were parallel to eiich other, within 
 of a reddish colour. They fix a handle to this 
 thell, and use it in the kitchen instead of a spoon, 
 or pail. Nakatagai is a large, ugly, roundish, 
 striated and black shell. Asari is a small thin 
 shell, grey or ash-coloured. Te or matee, is an 
 oblong thin bivalve, gaping at both ends. The 
 animal that lives within it is reckoned very 
 delicious. Umi fake is another bivalve, much of 
 the same kind, about a span long, and so big, that 
 one can scarce grasp it between the thumb and 
 fore-finger. Its flesh is pickled and kept for use. 
 This shell is found only upon the coasts of 
 Tsikungo, where, by express order of the prince 
 of that country, it is forbid to fish them, till a 
 sufficient quantity hath been provided for the 
 Emperor's own table. Takaragai, called in the 
 Indies cowries, are brought from the Maldive and 
 other islands, and imported into Bengal, Pegu, 
 and Siam, where they go for current money. 
 Those found about Japan are of different sorts. 
 The best are brought from the Riuku Islands, 
 and are the chief ingredient of their white cheek 
 varnish. Sasai is a large, thick, odoriferous, 
 turbinated univalve, white and prickled. Its 
 mouth is shut close, with a fiat, thick covering, 
 of operculum, a, stony substance, rough, on the 
 outside not unlike the lapis judaicus, only 
 sharper and smooth. Nisi is an univalve much 
 ■of the same shape, but larger, and hath not near 
 BO good a flesh. Both can fasten themselves very 
 close to rooks, and the bottom of the sea, like 
 the awabi. Common people make use of the 
 shell instead of pots to spit in. Tannisi are the 
 common black land snails, gathered for food in 
 muddy rice fields. They have their mouth shut; 
 with an oblong, almost stony operculum. Bai is 
 a snail in -a common oblong, turbinated, white 
 
 shell. Has or min» is another of the same kind, 
 but black and smaller. Both are gathered on the 
 shore in low water. Kabuto is a smal^ oval, not 
 turbinated univalve. Another small turbmated 
 univalve is called sugai. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 NAMES OF THE G0D3, DEMI-GODS AND EMPERORS, WHO AttR 
 MENTIONED IN THE JAPANESE HISTORIES, AS THE FIRST 
 MONARCHS AND GOVERNORS OF THAT EMPIRE. 
 
 The better to vmderstand the opinion of the 
 Japanese about the original state of their country 
 (which formerly they looked upon as the only 
 inhabited part of the earth), and the succession 
 of their emperors and monarchs down to this 
 present time. I have thought fit to divide the 
 history and chronology of thi-f empire into three 
 eras, a fabulous, a doubtful, and a certain. i 
 
 The first and fabulous epocha of the Japanese 
 government reaches far beyond the time of the 
 creation, as fixed in sacred writs. Japan, they 
 say, was during that period of time, governed by 
 a succession (or rather evolution) of seven 
 celestial spirits or gods, which are by them called 
 Ten Dsin Sitzi Dai, that is, " the seven great 
 celestial spirits," each of which reigned an im- 
 mense, but undetermined number of years. The 
 history of the Japanese gods is full of strange 
 wonderful adventures, and great bloody wars, 
 which are said to have happened in this first age 
 of the Japanese world. The two chronological 
 authors, whom I have followed in writing this 
 history, barely mention their names, as also that 
 the three first were not married, but that their 
 four successors had each his wife, as a companion 
 of his government, whose names are likewise set 
 down. Of this first succession of gods, ' I have 
 had already occasion to speak more amply in 
 a previous part of this work, where I treated 
 of the origin of the Japanese nation accord- 
 ing to the opinion of the natives. I must there- 
 fore refer the reader to that chapter, and beg 
 leave here to repeat, that the last of this first 
 succession, Isanagi Mikotto, having carnally 
 known his wife and goddess Isanami Mikotto, 
 begot a second race of demi-gods or god-men, 
 who succeeded the first in the government of 
 Japan, and being five in number are thence called, 
 Dsi Sin Go Dai, that is, " the five gi-eat terrestrial 
 gods," or monarchs. They reigned in the follow- 
 ing order : — 
 
 1. Ten Se Dai Sin, eldest sod i>ni heir of 
 Isanagi Mikotto, for whose memory, auu that of 
 his brethren and posterity, the Japanese still 
 possess a most profound respect and veneration. 
 He is said to have reigned 250,000 years. China, 
 they say, was during his reign governed by Ten 
 Kwo Si, to whom they also attribute a long and 
 fabulous government, and further mention, that 
 three descendants of his family successively 
 ruled the empire of China. 
 
 2. Osiwo Ni no Mikotto lived and reigned in 
 all 300,000 years. During his reign, and during 
 the reign of his successoi, to the beginning of 
 that of the fourth Japanese Dsi Sm, Sat Teiki 
 governed the empire of China. 
 
KCEMPPEK S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 325 
 
 S. Ni ni ki no Mikotto reigned 318,533 years. 
 During his whole reign Saitel Ki was £mperor of 
 China. 
 
 i. Fiko Oo Demi no Mikotto reigned 637,892 
 years. China was then governed by the Emperor 
 Katsura Kaki, who was succeeded by five princes 
 of his family. 
 
 S. The fifth and last of these demi-gods was 
 Fuki Awa se dsu no Mikotto. He reigned 
 836,042 years, so that the whole space of time, 
 during which this race of god-men governed 
 Japan, takes in 2,342,467 years. This is all the 
 Japanese know of the ancient state and govern- 
 ment of their empire — a tradition which some of 
 the wiser people, even among them, are very 
 sensible is liable to great doubts and uncertainties, 
 if not entirely fabulous and chimerical. However 
 all, without exception, profess a peculiar veneration 
 for Isanagi and his consort Isanami, as being the 
 progenitors of their nation, and, if I may be 
 allowed thus to express myself, their Adam and 
 Eve. The right which the family of the 
 Ecclesiastical Hereditary Emperors claims to the 
 crown and government of Japan, and which they 
 ' have enjoyed free and undisturbed during a 
 succession of many ages, is grounded upon a 
 lineal descent from Ten Seo Dai Sin, Isanagi's 
 first-born son and heir, from his eldest son, and 
 so down. There is hardly a town, or village, 
 throughout the empire but what hath one or 
 more temples erected to his memory, and the 
 place of his residence, which is said to have been 
 in the province Isje, is held so sacred, that, at 
 certain times of the year, people of all ranks and 
 qualities resort thither in pilgrimage. Thus much 
 of this first and fabulous epocha of the Japanese 
 government, of which I have treated more at 
 large in the above-mentioned seventh chapter of 
 the first book. 
 
 I proceed now to the second and doubtful 
 eta. It is little known what was the state of 
 these countries, and the way of life of the inhabi- 
 tants, from the beginning of the creation (when, 
 according to the description of that great law- 
 giver, Moses, the Supreme Being called this globe 
 of our earth out of notliing, and formed it by his 
 infinite power into a state altogether becoming 
 his divine goodness and wisdom), to the time of 
 their first monarch, Sin Mu Ten Oo, whose reign 
 comes down pretty low, and within 660 years of 
 our Saviour's nativity. It is highly probable that 
 in those early times they lived up and down the 
 country dispersed in hordes (as to this day the 
 Scythian inhabitants of the Great Tartary), separ 
 rate from the rest of the world by a rocky tem- 
 pestuous sea, which encompasses their islands, 
 being as yet in a state of nature and freedom, 
 without a settled form of government, and des- 
 titute of arts and sciences. The neighbouring 
 empire of China was already f,rown very power- 
 ful ; arts and sciences flourished there, and were 
 by the Chinese brought over likewise into Japan. 
 It was owing to this that the Japanese became in 
 time polite and civilised ; and it is not unlikely 
 that, in imitation of their neigltbours, by whom 
 they were imbued with notions of a monarchical 
 government, they submitted with more cheerful- 
 ness when Sin Mu Ten Oo began to reign over 
 them ; the rather as this prince was descended of 
 a family so much beloved, and esteemed so 
 
 sacred among them. In the meantime, that so 
 considerable a period of time should not rema-u 
 empty in their chronological books, they have 
 filled up the vacancy with the names of the most 
 eminent monarchs who, after the demise of Kat- 
 surakuki, and the five descendants of his family, 
 sat on the throne of China. 
 
 The first Chinese emperor mentioned in this 
 second era is Puki, and with his full title Tai Ko 
 Fuki (the Chinese pronounce it Fohi). This 
 prince had, according to some, the body, and 
 according to others, the head, of a serpent with a 
 most sublime understanding. He discovered the 
 motions of the heavens, and the twelve celestial 
 signs, and divided the time into years and 
 months. He invented, besides, many other use- 
 ful arts and sciences, and communicated them to 
 the world for the common benefit of mankind. The 
 Chinese made him their first emperor, and the 
 founder of their monarchy ; and many among 
 them pretend that from his reign down to tliia 
 present age, they can show an accurate history of 
 their empire, and a true chronological succession 
 of their emperors, which before his time had 
 been very doubtful and fabulous. But if, accord- 
 ing to one of my Japanese historians, he began 
 to reign 20,446 years before Synmu, or 21,106 
 before Christ, that is, many thousand years before 
 the creation, he cannot be allowed a place in this 
 second era, but ought to be rejected into the first 
 and fabulous one. My other chronological author, 
 with more probability, puts the beginning of his 
 reign in the year before Synmu, 2928, which is 
 the year before Christ 3588, or according to 
 Petavius, 396 years after the creation. He 
 reigned, according to one author, 110, and 
 according to the other 115 years. I think it 
 necessary here to acquaint the reader that having 
 found the latter author in many instances more 
 accurate, I chose to follow him preferably to the 
 first. The Rev. Father Couplet, in the Preface 
 to his Chronological Tables, puts the begiunmg 
 of the reign of Fohi in the year before Christ 
 2953, which comes 520 nearer our Saviour's 
 nativity ; being just that space of time during 
 which Xinum, and the seven dt scendants of hi» 
 fivmily, whom he omits, sat on the throne of 
 China. 
 
 The second Chinese emperor was Sin Noo 
 (the Chinese pronounce it Xin Num, or Sijnnum), 
 and with his full title, Jen Tei Sin Noo SL Some 
 authors begin the chronology of the Chinese 
 empire with the reign of this emperor. He camfr 
 to the throne in the year before Synmu, 2549, 
 which is the year before Christ 3209, or, accord- 
 ing to Petavius's chronology, 775 years after the 
 creation. This illustrious prince, like another 
 Egyptian Scrapie, taught mankind agriculture,, 
 and those arts which relate to the support of our 
 life. For this reason he is by some represented 
 with the head of an ox ; by others, only, with 
 two horns on his forehead. He also discovered 
 the virtues of several plants, and commvmicated 
 them to the world in a treatise he wrote on this 
 subject, which was doubtless the first herbal- 
 that ever was vpritten. His picture is held in 
 high esteem among the Chinese. The physicians- 
 particularly have it hung up in one of the best 
 apartments of their houses, with a plant or leaiF 
 in his mouth, which he is smelling. He reigne* 
 
326 
 
 K(EMPEEK'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 140 years, and was succeeded by seven descend- 
 ants of his family, who reigned 380 years ; so 
 that the empire continued in this family 520 
 years. 
 
 After the demise of the last emperor of the 
 family of Xin Num, Kwo Tei (or according to 
 the Chinese, Hoam Ti), and with his full title 
 Hon Tei Juu Hin Si, came to the crown. The 
 Chinese historians unanimously agree that this 
 prince reigned in China. Those who call the 
 existence of the preceding reigns in question, be- 
 gin the history and chronology of the Chinese 
 empire with the reign of Hoam Ti. He began to 
 reign in the year before Synmu 2029, before 
 Christ 2689, or according to Father Couplet, 
 whom Dr. Mentzelius accurately follows, 269T. 
 He was but eleven years old when he came to 
 the crown. During his minority the empire was 
 governed by wise and prudent councillors, who 
 took great care to give the young monarch an 
 education becoming so great a prince, and to in- 
 struct him in all the useful arts and sciences 
 then known. The Chinese stand indebted to 
 this emperor for the art of feeling the pulse, 
 which he learnt himself from his tutors, and 
 afterwards commanded that it should be pub- 
 lished to the world. He reigned 100 years and lived 
 111 years. He was succeeded by five descend- 
 ants of his family, in which the empire continued 
 313 years. 
 
 Of the five princes, Hoam Ti's successors, Tei 
 •Gio, or according to the Chinese pronunciation, 
 Ti jao, was the most illustrious. He was a great 
 sesin — that is, a man incomparably well versed 
 in occult arts and sciences. He was also a very 
 virtuous prince, and a true father of his country. 
 His death was universally lamented by all Ms 
 subjects, who went into mourning for three 
 years. He came to the crown in the year before 
 Synmu 1697, before Christ 2357. He reigned 
 seventy-two years, and died under the reign of 
 his successor, in the 118th year of his age. 
 Though he had twelve children, ten sons and two 
 -daughters, yet he delivered the crown and go- 
 vernment of the empire to an honest and wise 
 husbandman, to whom he married his two 
 
 ■ daughters. 
 
 Tei Sijun, otherwise Gu, and according to the 
 Chinese, Ju Ti Sijun, or Ju Ti Xun, was Ti Jao's 
 =son-in-law and successor. He reigned eight-and- 
 twenty years with Ti Jao, and thirty-three alone, 
 in all sixty-one. My author puts the beginning 
 -of his reign in the year before Synmu, 1634, 
 which is the year before Christ 2294. During his 
 reign a great deluge happened in China, which 
 
 ■ overflowed many provinces, and drowned great 
 numbers of the inhabitants. The country con- 
 tinued under water in some parts for several 
 years after. 
 
 Uu, and with his ftill title, Katewu, that is 
 Emperor Uu, of the family Ka, or as the Chinese 
 pronounce i*, Ju of the family Hia, reigned 
 seventeen years with the Emperor Tei Sjun, and 
 -ten years after his death, in all twenty-seven 
 jears. He was crowned in the year before Synmu 
 1573, before Christ 2233. This emperor cau-sed 
 ■<^analB and sluices to be cut, to convey the waters, 
 which overflowed great pin-t of China under the 
 <reign of hia predecessor, down to the sea. By 
 sthis means deep rivers arose, and the country waa 
 
 fi-eed from the floods. He lived an hundred 
 years, and was succeeded by eleven descendants 
 of his fiunily, who reigned isi years, so that the 
 crown remained in this family 458 years. The 
 last of this family was famous for his uncommon 
 strength ; but he very much tyrannised his sub- 
 jects, and lived with such a profuseness, that he 
 caused a lake to be dug by two thousand men, 
 and to be filled with Chinese beer. He is said 
 also to have built a tower of gold and precious 
 stones for one of his mistresses. He was deposed 
 and banished in the fifty-second year of his age. 
 
 Sioo Sei Too, that is, King Too of the family of ■ 
 Sjoo, (or, aa the Chinese pronounce it. King Tarn 
 of the family of Ksjam), came to the crown ia the 
 year before Synmu 1106, before Christ 1766, being 
 then eighty-seven years old. He reigned thirteen 
 years, and died in the hundredth year of his age. 
 During his reign there was a great famine in 
 China, which lasted seven years, like that famous 
 Egyptian famine mentioned in holy writ He 
 was succeeded by twenty-seven princes of his 
 family, who reigned in all 631 years, so that the 
 empire remained in this family for 644 years. 
 The last emperor of this family was a great 
 tyrant, for which reason the princes his subjects 
 raised war and rebellion against him ; and having 
 reduced him to great straits, he set fire to his 
 palace, and burnt himself with his family and 
 domestics, leaving the empire to the conqueror. 
 
 Siu no Bu 0, that is. Emperor Bu of the family 
 of Siu, (or according to the Chinese, Uu Vam of 
 the family Sjeu,) who came to the crown 462 
 years before Synmu, and 1122 before Christ, He 
 reigned seven years, and was succeeded by thirty- 
 seven descendants of his family, in which the 
 empire continued, according to the Japanese 
 histories, 868 years, that is, to the year before 
 Christ 255, and 206 years after Synmu. Under 
 Soowoo, and according to the Chinese pronun- 
 ciation Sjoovam, the fourth emperor of this 
 family, in the twenty-second year of his -reign, 
 which was the year before Synmu 307, before 
 Christ 1027, upon the eighth day of the fourth 
 month, was born in India the great heathen 
 prophet Siaka ; who for his incomparable quaU- 
 ties was afterwards called Fo, or Fotoge, that is, 
 " the God," and by the Chinese, Sitsjun, that is, 
 " the great and perfect." Hia doctrine was soon 
 spread by his disciples into several parts of the 
 East Indies. He died seventy-nine years old, ir 
 the year before Synmu 289, before Christ 949. 
 Thus far what I had to observe concerning th» 
 second, and doubtful era, of the Japanese. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 of the ecclesiastical hebeditaby emperors of japas 
 in general ; of their succession, residence, and 
 court; as also of the chronology of the japanesbl 
 
 The third and last epocha of the Japanese 
 monarchy, which is that of their Oo Dai Sin Go, 
 or Ecclesiastical Hereditary Emperors, begins 
 with the year before Christ 660 ; being the seven- 
 teenth year of the reign of the Chinese Emperor 
 Kaiwo, or, as the Chinese pronounce it, Hmvam, 
 (who was the seventeenth emperor of the &mily 
 
KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAK 
 
 327 
 
 of Sjeu). From that time to the year of Christ 
 1693, one hundred and fourteen Emperors, all of 
 the same family, eat successively on the throne of 
 Japan. They value themselves extremely upon 
 being the eldest branch of the family of Tenaio 
 Dai Sin, that most sacred founder of the Japanese 
 nation, and the lineal issue of his first-born son, 
 and so down. Uncommon respect, and more than 
 human veneration, is, on that account, paid them 
 by their subjects and countrymen. But before I 
 proceed to the history of their succession, lives, 
 and actions, it will not be amiss to give some 
 preliminary account of their sacred persons, and 
 court ; as also of the chronology of the empire, 
 whereby the sueeessiou of the emperors must be 
 calculated. 
 
 And here it must be observed, in the first 
 place, that the ecclesiastical hereditary monarchs, 
 though they are heirs of the throne and govern- 
 ment of their divine predecessors, yet they have 
 not inherited the title of Mikotto ; a title which 
 is sacred only to the divine and half divine beings 
 of the first and second succession. They are 
 called Mikaddo (which is a diminutive of Mikotto), 
 as also Dai, and Oo, and Kwo and Tai, all 
 which signify an emperor, a prince, and great 
 lord. They are likewise called Tensin, that is, 
 " Sons of Heaven ;" and many more titles of the 
 like nature have been given them. In common 
 conversation they are frequently called Dairi, 
 which name properly denotes their whole court ; 
 on which account also he is sometimes called 
 Kintsiusama, that is, the head, or Lord of the 
 Ecclesiastical Court. When he speaks of himself 
 he assumes the title of Tsin, and when he signs, 
 that of Maro. 
 
 But to come nearer to our purpose. It was 
 about the time mentioned above, that the Japa- 
 neae, who had been till then without any settled 
 form of government, either monarchical or other, 
 following a course of life not unlike that of the 
 patriarchs, where the several families lived under 
 the command and authority of their fathers, or 
 else obeyed to the most prudent among them- 
 selves ; it was, I say, about that time, they agreed 
 to submit to the government of one prince. It 
 is not improbable, but that the (Chinese, who 
 came over from time to time into Japan, as they 
 were bred up themselves under a monarchical 
 government, had no small share in persuading 
 the Japanese to prefer the same. In this posture 
 of affairs, surely nobody had a better claim to the 
 supreme power and authority, than a prince 
 lineally descended of the first-bom issue of the 
 family of Tensio Dai Sin, who, by the very law of 
 primogeniture, seemed to be naturally entitled to 
 the sovereignty ascribed to that founder of their 
 nation, whose holiness and virtues he inherited 
 besides. 
 
 Even to this day the princes descended of this 
 fiimily, more particularly those who sit on the 
 throne, are looked upon as persons moat holy in 
 themselves, and as Popes by birth. And, in order 
 to preserve these advantageous notions in the 
 minds of their subjects, they are obliged to take 
 an uncommcm care of their sacred persona, 
 and to do such things, which, examined accord- 
 ing to the customs of other nations, would be 
 thought ridiculous and impertinent. It will not 
 ixt improper to give a few instances of it. He 
 
 thinks that it would be very prejudicial to his 
 dignity and holiness to touch the ground with his 
 feet ; for thia reason, when he intends to go any- 
 wh,ere, he must be carried thither on men's 
 shoulders. Much less will they suffer, that he 
 should expose his sacred person to the open air, 
 and the sun ia not thought worthy to shine on 
 his head. There is such a holiness ascribed to 
 all the parts of his body, that he does not dare 
 to out off his hair, or his beard, or his nails. 
 However, lest he should grow too dirty, they 
 may clean him in the night when he is asleep ; 
 because, they say, that what is taken from his 
 body at that time, hath been stolen from him, 
 and that such a theft doth not prejudice his 
 holiness or dignity. In ancient times, he was 
 obliged to sit on the throne for acme hours every 
 morning, with the imperial crown on his head, 
 but to sit altogether like a statue, without stirring 
 either hands or feet, head or eyes, nor indeed 
 any part of his body, because, by this means, it 
 was thought that he could preserve peace and 
 tranquillity in his empii-e : for if, unfortunately, 
 he turned himself on one side or the other, or if 
 he looked a good while towards any part of his 
 dominions, it was apprehended that war, famine, 
 fire, or some other great misfortune was near at 
 hand to desolate the country. But it having been 
 afterwards discovered, that the imperial crown 
 was the palladium, which ty its mobility could 
 preserve peace in the empire, it was thought 
 expedient to deliver his imperial person, conse- 
 crated only to idleness and pleasures, from this 
 burthensome duty, and therefore the crown is at 
 present placed on the throne for some hours 
 every morning. His victuals must be dressed 
 every time in new pots, and served at table in 
 n^w dishes : both are very clean and neat, but 
 made only of common clay; that without any 
 considerable expense they may be laid aside, or 
 broken, after they have served once. They are 
 generally broken, for fear they should come into 
 the hands of laymen, for they believe religiously, 
 that if any layman should presume to eat his 
 food out of these sacred dishes, it would swell 
 and infiame his mouth and throat. The like ill 
 effect is dreaded from the Dairi's sacred clothes ; 
 for they believe that if a layman should wear 
 them, without the emperor's express leave or 
 command, they would occasion swellings and 
 pains in all parts of his body. 
 
 As soon as by the demise of a Mikaddo the 
 throne becomes vacant, he is by the ministry of 
 this ecclesiastical court put into the deceased's 
 place, whom they think the nearest heir, without 
 regard had to age or sex. Hence it is, that often 
 Princes under age, or young unmarried 
 Princesses ascend the throne, and there are also 
 instances, that the deceased Emperor's relict 
 succeeded her husband. If there be several 
 pretenders to the crown, and it doth not appear 
 plainly who it is that hath the nearest title, the 
 difference is adjusted in an amicable way, 
 according to equity, and the supreme power 
 delivered successively to each of them for some 
 years, in proportion to the degree of kindred 
 they bore to the deceased Mikaddo. Sometimes 
 the father resigns the crown successively to one 
 or more of his children, that he, and their 
 mothers, whilst yet alive, may have the pleasure 
 
328 
 
 KCEMPPER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAIT. 
 
 to see them upon the throne, of which perhaps 
 after their demise, they would stand excluded. 
 All this is done at court with as little trouble 
 as possible ; and a Mikaddo may die, or resign, 
 and another be put in his place, and no persona 
 but those around the court know i>f it, till the 
 afifau' is over. However it happened sometimes, 
 that those of the imperial family who thought 
 themselves entitled to the succession, but 
 were excluded, maintained their right by force 
 of arms, endeavouring to turn out the Dairi, 
 whom they thought unlawfully possessed of 
 the throne. Hence arose wars and dissensions 
 very prejudicial to the empire. The Princes 
 of the empire espoused different interests, and 
 these quarrels seldom ended but with the 
 entire destruction of one of the contending 
 parties, followed by a cruel extirpation of whole 
 families. 
 
 The Dairi's whole court is of the family of Tensio 
 Dai Dsin, and it is on account of a birth so eminent 
 and noble, that they esteem themselves entitled to 
 a far greater degree of respect and deference, 
 than laymen could pretend to. Though they are 
 all descended of one family, yet by degrees 
 they spread out into different branches, and are 
 at present many thousands in number. A few 
 are provided with abbeys, and priories of rich 
 mona-steries, founded up and down the empire. 
 But the greatest part of them remain at court, 
 religiously attached to the Dairi's most holy 
 person, on whom they must entirely depend as 
 to their support and maintenance, each according 
 to the office or dignity he is invested with. 
 
 At present the Secular Emperor grants the 
 necessary subsidies for the maintenance of the 
 Dairi, and his ecclesiastical court. He hath for 
 this purpose assigned him the whole revenue of 
 the city of Miaco, and all its appurtenances; 
 but because they fell I'ar short of balancing his 
 expenses, it hath been agreed, tliat the 
 deficiencies should be made up out of the 
 Secular Emperor's exchequer : but those allow- 
 ances are so small, and besides so indifferently 
 paid, that the court can hardly subsist by it ; at 
 least, that they cannot make that figure which 
 they did formerly, when the Dairi was himself 
 master of the empire, and had all the revenues 
 at his own disposal. However, they still keep up 
 their former grandeur and magnificence ; and it 
 can most truly be said of this court, that it is 
 remarkable for a splendid poverty. The great 
 ones run themselves in debt, and the inferior 
 officers and servants, whose allowances are far 
 from being sufficient to maintain them, must 
 work for their livelihood. Accordingly they make 
 and sell straw baskets, tables, shoes for men and 
 horses, and other mean things of this nature. 
 The Mikaddo, indeed, though his revenues are 
 bxit small, in comparison of what they were in 
 former times, yet as he still hath them iu his 
 own management, he is sure, in the firat place, to 
 take care of himself, and to provide what is 
 requisite to keep up his former splendour, and 
 to satisfy his luxury and profuseness. He is 
 the better able to do this, as one very con- 
 siderable prerogative of the crown and supreme 
 authority he once enjoyed, hath been still left 
 him by the Secular Monarch, which is the 
 granting of titles of honour to the great men 
 
 of the empire, their children and relations, 
 which brings in vast treasures into his exchequer, 
 He follows the custom of his predeoesBors, 
 keeping twelve wives, one of whom being the 
 mother of the hereditary Prince or Princess, 
 hath the title of Empress. It would be too 
 tedious to relate all the splendid and pompous 
 ceremonies which are observed upon his 
 marriage ; upon the lying-in of the Emptess ; upon 
 the choosing of a nurse for the heir of the 
 crown, and his education. It is enough to say, 
 that they are great and magnificent beyond 
 expression, and that if all the happiness and 
 welfare of- the empire entirely depended upon 
 the birth of this hereditary Prince, they could 
 not be greater. 
 
 There are several eminent dignities that 
 belong to this ecclesiastical court, and its nobiHty 
 is composed of persons of different ranks and 
 quality. The Mikaddo himself is the fountain of 
 honour. There are, indeed, certain employments' 
 annexed to certain titles ; but other honours are 
 merely titular, and these are frequently conferred 
 by the Mikaddo on secular persons, on the 
 Princes of the empire, and men of note. This 
 is done either at the recommendation of the 
 Secular Monarch, or at their oven desire, upon 
 condition of paying a large sum of money. All 
 the honours and titles are divided into six 
 I's, as they call them, that is ranks or classes. 
 The title of the first class is Dai Seo Dai Sin. The 
 person who is honoured with this title is esteemed 
 so great and sacred, that they believe that his 
 soul becomes a Cami, or god, the moment of her 
 departure from the body. For this reason the 
 Mikaddo keeps it for himself, and seldom bestows 
 it on anybody. The dignity of Quanbuku belongs 
 likewise to this first class. Quanbuku is the 
 second person of the ecclesiastical court, and the 
 Dairi's vicegerent and prime minister in all 
 affairs relating to the empire. (This title is 
 assumed by the Secular Monarch, or given to 
 the presumptive heir of the crown, and is the 
 same with that of Quabacondono, of which there 
 is so frequent mention made in the letters of 
 the Jesuits.) The following three titles belong 
 to the second I, or rank, Sa Dai Sin, IJ Dai Sin, 
 and Nai Dai Sin. They are never conferred on 
 more than three persons at court. The Dai Nagon 
 and Tsu Nngon make up the third rank. These 
 two titles are always annexed to certain employ- 
 ments. The titles which belong to the fourth 
 and fifth I, rank or class, are Seonagon, 
 Tsiunagon, Tsiuseo, Seosjo, and Sidsiu. Both 
 these classes are veiy numerous, and again sub- 
 divided into several differing ranks. The persons 
 of this class are likewise called Tensio bito, that 
 is, " a heavenly people ;" and the whole ecclesi- 
 astical court ;n general assumes the title of Kuge, 
 which signifies as much as Ecclesiastical Lords ; 
 and this they do by way of distinction from the 
 Gege, under which name they comprehend all the 
 laity and inferior sort of people, who are not of 
 so holy and so honourable a descent. The titles 
 of the sixth and last clasp are Tai U, Goi, and 
 many more of less note. All titles and degrees 
 of honoui: whatsoever are conferred, as I have 
 already observed, by the Mikaddo, and by him 
 alone. When the Secular Monarchs took the 
 government of the empire into their bands, the 
 
KCEMPPER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 329 
 
 Dairi reserved to himself, along with the supreme 
 authority, this considerable branch of the imperial 
 prerogatiTes. Hence, whatever titles the Secular 
 Emperors intend to bestow on their favourites 
 and prime ministers, must be obtained of the 
 Mikaddo. There are chiefly tno titles which the 
 Secular Emperor, with the consent of the Dairi, 
 can confer on his prime ministers, and the 
 Princes of the empire, which are Maquaudairo 
 and Cami. The first was formerly hereditary, 
 and signifies as much as a Duke or Earl ; the 
 second denotes a Kuight. It must be observed 
 in this place, that the character which denotes 
 a deified soul, is likewise pronounced Cami, 
 hut then it is of a nature quite different from 
 that which expresses the title and honour of 
 knighthood. AH the gods and idols of this 
 country in general have the name and character 
 of Kami. 
 
 The persons of this ecclesiastical court, among 
 other marks of distinction, are clad after a parti- 
 cular fashion, peculiar to themselves, and widely 
 differing from the habits of secular persons, whom 
 they scorn and despise, aa being of a mean, 
 unholy extraction. There is So much difference 
 even among themselves, as to their habits, that 
 thereby alone it is easily known what rank they 
 are of, or what employment they have at court. 
 They wear long wide breeches and a large gown 
 over them, which is very wide and mad6 after a 
 singular fashion, chiefly about the shoulders, and 
 hath a long train, which they trail after them on 
 the ground. They cover their heads with a 
 black lackered cap, by the different shape and 
 figure of which it is known, among other marks 
 of distinction, what quality they are of, or what 
 places they have at coui-t. Some have a broad 
 band of black crape or silk stitched to their caps, 
 which is either tied up, or hangs down behind 
 their shoulders. Others have a sort of a lap, 
 made after the fashion of a fan, standing out 
 before their eyes. Some wear a sort of scarf, or 
 a broad band, which hangs down forwards fi-om 
 their shoulders. The length of this scarf is again 
 different, according to every one's quality or 
 dignity ; for it is the custom of this court, that 
 nobody bows down lower, but to reach the floor 
 with the end of his scarf. The women's dress at 
 the court of the Dairi is also very particular and 
 different from that of secular _ women. But 
 ; chiefly the Dairi's twelve wives are dressed in as 
 many sumptuous gowns, not lined, interwoven 
 with flowers of gold and silver, and withal so 
 large and wide that it is a matter of great 
 difficulty for them to walk when thus completely 
 dressed. 
 
 Studies and learning are the chief amusement 
 of this ecclesiastical court. Not only the Kuge, 
 or courtiers, but even many of the fair sex, have 
 acquired great reputation by their poetical, histo- 
 rical, and other writings. All the almanacks 
 were formerly made at court : but now it is a 
 learned citizen at Miaco that makes them. How- 
 ever, they must be examined and approved of at 
 court by persons commissioned for it, who take 
 care that they be sent to Isje, as to a holy place, 
 to be there printed. They are great lovers of 
 music, the women particiUarly play with great 
 dexterity upon all sorts of musical instruments. 
 Voung noblemen divert themselves with riding, 
 
 miming races, fighting, playing at tennis, ai.d 
 such other exercises becoming their quality. I 
 did not inquire whether they act comedies and 
 tragedies at court. But as the Japanese in general 
 are very fond of plays, and will spend a great 
 deal of money upon them, I am inclined to be- 
 lieve that these ecclesiastical persons, notwith- 
 standing their gravity and holiness, would not 
 willingly want so agreeable and entertaining, and 
 withal' so innocent a diversion. 
 
 In former times, when the Dairi vas sole master 
 of the country, he resided, with his court, where- 
 ever he pleased, honouring with his sacred pre- 
 sence now this, then another town, or proviuce 
 of his empire, and it seldom happened that two 
 succeeding emperors chose the same place to live 
 at. Of late their residence hath been in a manner 
 fixed to Miaco. They are possessed of the north- 
 east part of this large capital, which well deserves 
 the name of a separate town, not only by reason 
 of its great extent, and the number of streets, 
 palaces, and houses built within its compass, but 
 also because it is actually separated from Miaco, 
 and defended against the sudden approach of an 
 unexpected enemy, by ditches, walls, ramparts, 
 and gates. The Mikaddo himself lives about the 
 middle of it, in a large and spacious palace, known 
 from others by the height and magnificence of its 
 tower. His imperial consort lives with him in 
 the same palace, and the palaces of his other wives 
 stand next to his. A little way further are the 
 houses of the lords of the Dairi's bed-chamber, and 
 of such other persons whose offices require a con- 
 stant and more immediate attendance on his sacred 
 person. If a Mikaddo resigns, a separate palace 
 is assigned to him, to his family and court, as is 
 also another to the hereditary Prince, and to his 
 court. The rest of the streets and houses are 
 divided among the officers of this court, according 
 to their rank aud dignity. The Secular Monarch 
 constantly keeps a strong guard of bugjos and 
 soldiers at the Dairi's court, as it were, out of 
 tenderness and care for the preservation and 
 safety of his sacred person and family, but in fact 
 to put it out of his power ever to attempt the 
 recovery of the throne and the supreme authority 
 which he took from him. 
 
 Thus much of the Dairi, his court and govern- 
 ment in general. It now remains, before I 
 proceed to the history and succession of the 
 Ecclesiastical Emperors, to lay down some general' 
 observations tending to explain the chronology 
 made use of in the same. 
 
 The Japanese have two principal eras, or 
 epochs. The first, and also the more common, 
 begins with the reign of their first Emperor 
 Synmu in the year before Christ 660. Con- 
 sequently the year of Christ, 1693, which 
 was the sixth year of Nengo Genrokf, was the 
 2353 from Synmu. This epoch is by them called 
 Nin 0, which, properly speaking, signifies "a 
 very great and powerful lord or monarch," and 
 in a more sublime sense, " the very first." 
 
 The second epoch made use of in Japan is 
 called Nengo. It was invented by the Chinese 
 for a greater certainty in chronology than they 
 thought their common epochs would admit of; 
 and it was not introduced into Japan till the 
 reign of the thirty-sixth emperor. It takes in 
 a period only of a few years, commonly less 
 
330 
 
 KOEMPFEE'S ACCOTTNT OF JAPAK. 
 
 than twenty, seldom beyond this number. The 
 beginning, as aJso the proper figure to express 
 it, are determined by the emperor, which is 
 done commonly in memory of some remarkable 
 accident, or of some considerable alteration in 
 church or state. As the emperor hath the sole 
 power of instituting them, so he can continue 
 them as long as he pleases. The Japanese 
 character expressing the Nengo, then current, 
 when I was in Japan, the sixth year of which 
 falls in with the year of Christ 1693, was pro- 
 nounced Genrokf, which signifies the " Happiness 
 of Nature and Art," whereby the then reigning 
 Mikaddo alluded to the desirable happiness and 
 tranquillity of a prirate life, which the late 
 -emperor, his father, resolved to lead after his 
 resignation of the crown. This epoch is made 
 «se of in their almanacks, orders, proclamations, 
 journals, letters, and writings. In their printed 
 books, chiefly such as relate to history and 
 chronology, the current year of the epoch Nin 
 is added to it. It must be observed that a new 
 liTengo begins always vrith a new year, though it 
 'was ordered and instituted several months 
 ibefore. Sometimes also it happens that although 
 a new Nengo hath been already begun, yet the 
 years of the preceding Nengo are continued in 
 the title-pages of their books, their letters, 
 journals, and so on. This I take to be owing 
 cither to the people's not liking the character ex- 
 pressing the new Nengo, or to its not being as yet 
 known, which is not impossible in an empire of 
 BO great an extent. Thus, for instance, the alma- 
 nacks of the first and second year of the Nengo 
 Cenrokf were printed with the fifth and tiie 
 sixth year of the preceding Nengo, Dsiokio, 
 though it was then already expired. In this 
 case, however, care is taken that no error or 
 confusion should be occasioned in their chrono- 
 logy by such an inadvertency. And for this 
 reason it was that the next almanack, which was 
 that of the year of Christ 1690, the third year of 
 the Nengo Genrokf then current, was set down 
 accordingly without any mention made of the 
 two first. The character of a Nengo is com- 
 posed of two, seldom of more figures, which are, 
 and must be taken out of a particular table com- 
 posed for this purpose. 
 
 There remains still a third epoch, which is like- 
 wise made use of in the chronology of the Japanese. 
 This consists of cycH or periods of sixty years, 
 and the Japanese stand indebted for it to the 
 Chinese, as they are also for their Nengos. These 
 sixty years arise firom a combination of the Jetta, 
 which are the names of the twelve celestial signs, 
 with the ten names of their elements. The 
 characters of the celestial signs being combined 
 with those of the ten elements five different times, 
 or these six times with the former, there arise 
 sixty compound figures or characters, each of 
 which is taken for a year. When the sixty years 
 are expired a new cyolus is begun, which runs 
 again through all these several combinations. 
 THie Japanese use this period of sixty years, the 
 tetter to ascertain the most remarkable occurrences 
 in church and state, which are recorded in their 
 Siistories, and are referred under the current year 
 of the cyolus, as well as that of the two other 
 "epochs Nin and Nengo, by which means also 
 they obtain a perpetual harmony between their 
 
 own history and chronology and that of the 
 Chinese; with this difference however, that 
 whereas the Chinese in their historical writings 
 mention not only the year, but likewise the 
 number of the cyolus wherein such or such 
 things happened, the Japanese on the contrary set 
 down only the year. The cycli of the Japanese 
 are not numbered at all, the reason of which will 
 appear plainly, if we consider the natural pride 
 of this nation, and how far short they would fall, 
 in this particular, of their neighbours the Chinese, 
 who can show a succession of cyoli for many 
 centuries before the very foimdatiou of the 
 Japanese monarchy. In the following history 
 which I propose to give of the succession of the 
 Japanese monarchs, I shall avoid troubling the 
 reader with all these different epochs, though I 
 thought it requisite to give some preliminary 
 account of them. 
 
 The Jetta, or twelve Celestial Signs of the 
 Japanese, are 
 
 1. Ne, the Mouse. 
 
 2. Ua, the Ox or Cow. 
 
 3. Torra, the Tiger. 
 
 4. Ow, the Hare. 
 
 5. Tats, the Dragon. 
 
 6. Mi, the Serpent. 
 
 7. Uma, the Horse. 
 
 8. Tdtsime, the Sheep. 
 
 9. Sar, the Monkey. 
 
 10. Torri, the Cock, or 
 
 Hen. 
 
 11. In, the Dog. 
 
 12. /, the Boar. 
 
 The same names are given, and in the same 
 order, to the twelve hours of the natural day, 
 and to the twelve parts, which every hour is by 
 them divided into, by which means they are able 
 to mention in their histories, with great accmacy, 
 not only what day the most remarkable occur- 
 rences happened, but also what hour, and what 
 part of the hour. It must be observed, however, 
 that what they call day, is that interval of time 
 between sunrise and sunset, and that the same is 
 divided into six equal parts or hours, as is also 
 the night, from sunset to sunrise into six others. 
 Hence it is, that their hours differ in length every 
 day, that in the summer the hours of the day are 
 much longer than those of the night, and shorter 
 on the contrary in the winter. 
 
 As to their elements, there are properly speaking 
 but five, and it is only by giving two different 
 names and characters to each of them, that they 
 have raised the number to ten, which was abso- 
 lutely necessary, because by their combination 
 with the twelve celestial signs, repeated five times; 
 they were to obtain the cyolus of sixty years. 
 The names of their ten elements are, 
 
 1. Kino Je, Wood. 2. KItw To, Wood. 
 
 3. Pino Je, Kre. 4. Fino To, Fire. 
 
 5. Tmtsno Je, Earth. 6. Taidsno To, Earth. 
 
 7. Kcmno Je, Air. 8. Kammo To. Air. 
 
 9. MidmoJe, Water. 10. MidmoTo, Water. 
 
 The beginning of the Japanese year falls in 
 between the winter solstice and spring equinox, 
 about the fifth of February. But as the Japanese 
 are extremely superstitious in celebrating the day 
 of the new moon, they commonly begin it with 
 the new moon, which immediately precedes or 
 follows the fifth of February. Thus the first year 
 of the Nengo Genrokf, which in the cyolus is 
 called Tsutsno Je Tats, being the year of Christ 
 1688, began on the second of February, the 
 second of Genrokt in the cyclus Tsutsnoto Mi, 
 
KCBMPPBR'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 331 
 
 {nt Christ 1689) on the twenty-first of January ; 
 the third of Genrokf in the cyclua Kano Je Uma, 
 (of Christ 1690) on the ninth of Fehruary; the 
 fourth of Genrokf, in the cyolus Kanoto Fitsuae 
 (of Christ 1691) on the twenty-first of January ; 
 the fifth of Genrokf, in the cyclus Midsno Je Sar, 
 (of Christ 1692) on the seventeenth of February; 
 and the sixth of Genrokf, (of Christ 1693) on the 
 fifth of February. The Japanese have a leap-year 
 every other or third year, or seven leap-years in 
 nineteen common years. 
 
 CHAPTEB XI. 
 
 OP THK HELIOIONS OF THIS EMPIRE IN GENERAL, AND OP 
 THE SINTOS RELIGION IN PARTICULAR. 
 
 Liberty of conscience, so far as it doth not 
 interfere with the interest of the secular govern- 
 ment, or aSect the peace and tranquillity of the 
 empire, hath been at all times allowed in Japan, 
 as it is in most other countries of Asia. Hence 
 it is that foreign, religions were introduced with 
 ease, and propEigated with success, to the great 
 prejudice of that which was established in the 
 country from remotest antiquity. * In this last 
 hundred years, there were chiefly four religions, 
 considerable for the number of their adherents, 
 to wit: — 
 
 1. Sinto, the old religion,, or idol-worship of 
 the Japanese. 
 
 2. Budsdo, the worship of foreign idols, which 
 were brought ever into Japan from the kingdom 
 of Siam, and the empire of China. 
 
 3. Siuto, the doctrine of their moralists and 
 philosophers. 
 
 i. Deivus, or Kiristando, is as much as to say, 
 the way of God and Christ, whereby must be 
 understood the Christian religion. 
 
 It was owing to the commendable zeal, and the 
 indefetigable care of the Spanish and Portuguese 
 missionaries, particularly the Jesuits, that the 
 Christian religion was first introduced into Japan, 
 and propagated with a success infinitely beyond 
 their expectation ; insomuch, that from the first 
 arrival of the fathers of the society in the pro- 
 vince Bongo, which was about the year of Christ 
 1549, (or six years after the first discovery of 
 Japan,) to the year 1625, or very near 1630, it 
 spread through most provinces of the empire, 
 many of the princes and lords openly embracing 
 the same. Considering what a vast progress it 
 had made till then, even amidst the many storms 
 and difficulties it had been exposed to, there was 
 very good reason to hope, that within a short 
 compass of time the whole empire would have 
 been converted to the faith of our Saviour, had 
 not the ambitious views, and impatient endear 
 vours of these fathers to reap the temporal as 
 well as the spiritual fruits of their care and 
 labour so provoked the supreme majesty of the 
 empire, as to raise against themselves and their 
 
 * It is related as an instance of the toleration enjoyed 
 by all religious sects in Japan, tliat shortly after the 
 introduction of Christianity, one of the native priests 
 wished the emperor to expel the Christians. The em- 
 peror inquired how many rel^ous sects already existed 
 in his empire, and on t'-^ number, which was consider- 
 able, being named, he said if he could tolerate aU those, 
 he eould surely tolerate <me otiier additional sect. — Ed. 
 
 converts a persecution which hath not its parallel 
 in history, whereby the religion they preached, 
 and all those that professed it, were in a few 
 years' time entirely exterminated. 
 
 Of the three chief religions which now flourish 
 and are tolerated in Japan, the SiMos must be 
 considered in the first place, more for its anti- 
 quity and long standing, than for the number of 
 its adherents. 
 
 Sinto, which is also called Sinsju, and Eami- 
 mitsi, is the idol-worship, as of old established in 
 the country. Sin and Kami denote the idols, 
 which are the object of this worship. Jo and 
 Mitsi is as much as to say, the way or method of 
 worshipping these idols. Sin signifies faith, or 
 religion. Sinsja, and in the plural number Sinsju, 
 are the persons who adhere to this religion. 
 
 The more immediate end which the followers 
 of this religion propose to themselves is a state 
 of happiness in this world. They have indeed 
 some, though but obscure and imperfect, notions 
 of the immortality of our souls and a future state 
 of bliss or misery. And yet, as little mindful as 
 they are of what will become of them in that 
 future state, so great is their care and attention 
 to worship those gods whom they believe to have 
 a peculiar share in the government and manage 
 ment of this world, with a more immediate 
 influence, each according to his functions, over 
 the occurrences and necessities of human life. 
 And although indeed they acknowledge a Supreme 
 Being, which, as they believe, dwells in the highest 
 of heaven, and though they likewise admit of 
 some inferior gods, whom they place among the 
 stai'S, yet they do not worship and adore them, 
 nor have they any festival days sacred to them, 
 thinking, guce mpra nos nihil ad nos ; that beings, 
 which are so much above us, will little concern 
 themselves about our affairs. However, they 
 swear by these superior gods, whose names are 
 constantly inserted in the form of their oath : but 
 they worship and invoke those gods, whom they 
 believe to have the sovereign command of their 
 country, and the supreme direction of its pro- 
 duce, of its elements, water, animals, and other 
 tilings, and who, by vii-tue of this power, can 
 more immediately affect their present condition, 
 and make them either happy or miserable in this 
 life. They are the more attentive in paying a 
 due worslup to these divinities, as they seem to 
 be persuaded that this alone is sufficient to 
 cleanse and to purify their hearts, and that doubt- 
 less by their assistance and intercession they will 
 obtain in the future life rewards proportionable 
 to their behaviour in this. This religion seems 
 to be nearly as ancient as the nation itself. If it 
 is any ways probable that the first Japanese are 
 descended of the Babylonians, and that, whilst at 
 Babel, they acquired some notions of the true 
 religion, of the creation of the world, and its 
 state before that time, as they are delivered to 
 us in sacred writ, we may upon as good grounds 
 suppose, that by the alteration of their language, 
 and by the troubles and fatigues of so long and 
 tedious a journey, the same were almoe^ our-trely 
 worn out of their minds ; that upon their arrival 
 in this extremity of the east, they deservedly 
 bore a most profound respect to their leader, 
 who had happily conducted them through so 
 many dangers and difficulties; that t&tt his 
 
332 
 
 K(EMPFER'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 death they deified him ; that in succeeding ages 
 other great men, who had wall deserved of their 
 country, either by their prudence and wisdom, or 
 by their courage and heroic actions, were likewise 
 related among their Kami, that is among the 
 immortal spirits worthy to have divine honours 
 paid them, and that to perpetuate their memory, 
 mias, or temples, were in time erected to them. 
 (Mia, ptoperly speaking, signifies the house or 
 dwelling-place of a living soul.', The respect due 
 to, these great men became in process of time 
 so univei'sal, that ever since it as thought to be 
 a duty incumbent on every sincere lover of his 
 country, whatever sect otherwise he adheres to, 
 to give public proofs of his veneration and grateful 
 remembrance of their virtues and signal services, 
 by visiting their temples, and bowing to their 
 images, either on such days as are more particu- 
 larly consecrated to their memory, or on any 
 other proper occasion ; provided they be not in 
 a state of impurity, and unfit to approach these 
 holy places. Thus, what was at first intended as 
 a simple act of respect and gratitude, turned by 
 degrees into adoration and worship : superstition 
 at last was carried so far, that the Mikaddos, or 
 ecclesiastical hereditary emperors, being lineal 
 descendants of these great heroes, and supposed 
 heirs of their excellent qualities, are looked upon, 
 as soon as they have taken possession of the 
 throne, as true and living images of their Kamis 
 or gods ; as Kamis themselves, possessed of such 
 an eminent degree of purity and holiness, that no 
 Gege (Gege is a vile name, which the Kuge, that 
 is, the membere of the emperor's ecclesiastical 
 court, give to their countrymen who are not of 
 the same noble and divine extraction) dare pre- 
 sume to appear in their presence; nay, what is 
 still more, that all the other Kamis or gods of the 
 country are under an obligation to visit him once 
 a year, and to wait upon his sacred person, 
 though in an invisible manner, during the tenth 
 mouth. They are so far persuaded of the truth 
 of this, that during the said month, which is by 
 them called Kaminatsuki, that is, the mouth 
 without gods, no festival days are celebrated, 
 because the gods are supposed not to be at 
 home in their temples, but at court waiting 
 upon their Dairi. This Japanese pope assumes 
 also to himself the sole power and authority 
 of deifying and canonising others, if it appears 
 to him that they desei-ve it, either by the 
 apparitions of their souls after their death, or 
 by some miracles wrought by them. In this case 
 the emperor confers an eminent title upon the 
 new god, or saint, and orders a mia, or temple, 
 to bs built to his memory, which is done either 
 at his own expense or by the charitable contribu- 
 tions of pious, well-disposed persons. If after- 
 wards it so happens that those who wor.ship in 
 this temple, and more particularly devote them- 
 selves to the new god, prosper in their under- 
 takings, but much more if some extraordinary 
 miracle hath been wrought seemingly by his power 
 and assistance, it will encourage other people to 
 implore his protection, and by this means the 
 number of his temples and worshippers will 
 quickly increase. Thus the number of divinities 
 is augmented every age. But besides all the 
 Ulustrious men who from time to time, for their 
 heroic actions or singular piety, have been by the 
 
 spiritual emperors related among the divinities 
 of the country, they have another series of gods 
 of a more ancient date. Of these two successions 
 are mentioned. The first is the succession of the 
 Tensin Sitzi Dai, or seven great celestial spkits, 
 who are said to have existed in the most ancient 
 times of the sun, long before the existence of 
 men and heaven, and to have inhabited the 
 Japanese world (the only country, in Iheur 
 opinion, then existing) many millions of years. 
 The seventh and last of these gi-eat celestial 
 spirits, whose name was Isanagi, having carnally 
 known his divine consort Isanami, in imitation of 
 what 'he had observed of the bird Isiatadakki, 
 begot a second succession of divinities, inferior, 
 indeed, to the first, but still superior to all those- 
 who existed since their time. This second suc- 
 cession is from the number of its chief heads, 
 called Dsi Sin Go Dai, or the succession of the 
 five terrestrial divinities, who lived and governed 
 the country of Japan a long but limited time. It 
 is needless here to enlarge any further on this- 
 head ; a full account of the ridiculous and fabu- 
 lous notions of the Japanese with regard to these: 
 two successions of divinities, having been already 
 given. I will only add that the history of the 
 second succession is full of strange and uncom- 
 mon adventures, knight-errantries, defeats ot 
 giants, dragons, and other monsters, which then 
 desolated the country, to the great terror of its. 
 semi-divine inhabitants. Many cities and villages, 
 in the empire have borrowed their names from 
 some such memorable action which happened io 
 the neighbourhood. They still preserve in some- 
 of their temples swords, arms, and other warlike- 
 instruments, which they look upon as remains ot 
 that ancient time, and believe to be the very 
 same which in the hands of these semi-divine- 
 heroes proved so destructive and fatal to the 
 disturbers of the peace and tranquillity of the 
 country. Uncommon respect is paid by the 
 adherents of the Sintos religion to these sacred 
 relics, which are by some still believed to be 
 animated by the souls of their former possessors. 
 In short, the whole system of the Sintos divmity 
 is such a lame, ridiculous contexture of monstrous 
 inconceivable fables, that even those who have 
 made it their business to study it are ashamed 
 to ovm and to reveal all those impertinences to 
 their own adherents, much less to the Budsdoists 
 and the adherents of other religions. And 
 perhaps it would not have stood its ground so 
 long, had it not been for its close connection ' 
 with the civil customs, in the observation ot 
 which this nation is exceedingly nice and scrupu- 
 lous. The temples of the "Sintoists ai-e not 
 attended by priests and ecclesiastical persons, 
 but by laymen, who are generally speaking en- 
 tirely ignorant of the grounds and reasons of the 
 religion they profess, and wholly unacquainted 
 ■with the history of the gods whom they worship. 
 Some few, however, there are amongthe Sintosju, 
 or adherents of the Sintos religion, chiefiy of the 
 order of the Cauusis, who will now and then 
 make a sermon to the people, and be at some 
 pains in instructing young children. During my 
 stay in Japan one of these Cauusis came from 
 Miaco to preach at the temple of tenffl, and 
 afterwards at that of Suwa. He made a sermon 
 every day, in order to explain the law or com- 
 
KCEJIPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 333 
 
 mandmeat Nacottomiuotarrai, or Nacottami- 
 bai-rai ; but his sermoDS at best were ill-disposed, 
 lOonfused compositions of romantic and ridiculous 
 fltories of their gods and spirits. They will teach 
 their system of divinity to . others for a proper 
 -consideration, and under an obligation of secrecy ; 
 particularly when they come to the last article, 
 which relates to the beginning of all things, they 
 take special care not to revefd the same to their 
 •disciples till he hath obliged himself with an 
 oath signed with his hand and seal not to profane 
 such sacred and sublime mysteries by discover- 
 ing them to the ignorant and incredulous laity. 
 The original text of this mysterious doctrine is 
 •contained in the following words taken out of a 
 book which they call Odaiki : •' Kai fakuno 
 &8ime Dsjusio Fuso Tatojaba Jujono sui son! 
 ukunga Ootosi Teutsijuo utsijni Itsi butsu wo 
 «eosu Katats Igeno gotosi fenquas ste sin to nar 
 kuui toko datsuo Mikotto to goos ; " that is : 
 ■" In the beginning of the opening of all things, 
 a chaos floated, as iishes swim in the water for 
 {)leasui-e. Out of this chaos arose a thing like a 
 prickle, moveable and transformable ; this thing 
 Ibecame a soul or spirit, and this spirit is called 
 Cunitokodatsno Mikotto." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OF THE 6IHT0S TEMPLES, BELIEF AND WORSHIP. 
 
 The Sinsju, that is, the adherents of the Sintos 
 religion, call their temples or churches mia, 
 which word, as I have observed, signifies dwelling- 
 iplaces of immortal souls. They come nearest 
 to the fana of the ancient Romans, as they are, 
 generally speaking, bo many lasting monuments 
 •erected to the memory of great men. They call 
 them also jasijro, and sia, or sinsja, which last 
 takes in the whole court of the mia, with all 
 ■other buildings and dependencies belonging to 
 the same. The gods who are the subject of their 
 worship they ceJI Sin and Kami, which signifies 
 «ouls or spirits. Sometimes also they honour 
 them with the epithet of Miosin, sublime, illus- 
 trious, holy; and Gongen, just, severe, jealous. 
 The adherents of other rehgions call the convents 
 of their religious men, and the places of their 
 worship, Bisia tira, that is, temples, and the gods , 
 
 I themselves which they adore, Fotoge. All other 
 foreign idols, the worsliip of whom was brought 
 into Japan from beyond sea, are comprehended 
 tmder one general name of Bosatz, or Budz. The 
 mias, as indeed all convents and religious houses 
 in general, aa well of this as of their other 
 sects, are seated in the pleasantest parts of the 
 country, on the best spots of ground, and com- 
 monly within or neai- great dties, towns, villages, 
 ■and other inhabited places. I will confine my- 
 self in this chapter only to the mias of the Sin- 
 
 ' toists. A broad and spacious walk, planted with 
 rows of fine cypress trees, which grow in the 
 •country, and are a tall, fine tree, leads straight 
 to the mia, or else to the temple-coiirt, on which 
 there are sometimes several mias standing 
 together, and in this case the walk aforesaid leads 
 directly to that which is reckoned the chief. 
 3'he misH are, generally speaking, seated in a 
 
 pleasant wood, or in the ascent of a fine green 
 hill, and have neat stone staircases leading up to 
 them. Next to the highway, at the entiy of the 
 walk which leads to the temple, stands, for di» 
 tinction's sake from common roads, a particulai 
 fashioned gate, called torij, and buUt either of 
 stone ,or wood. The structure of these gates is 
 but very mean and simple, they consisting of 
 two perpendicular posts or pillars, with two 
 beams laid across, the uppermost of which is, 
 for ornament's sake, depressed in the middle, 
 the two extremities standing upwards. Between 
 the two cross-beams is placed a square table, 
 commonly of stone, whereon is engraved the 
 name of the god to whom the mia is con- 
 secrated, in golden characters. Sometimes 
 such another gate stands before the mia 
 itself, or before the temple-court, if there be 
 several mias built together in one court. Not 
 far from the mia is a bason, commonly of 
 stone, and full of water for those who go to 
 worship to wash themselves. Close to the mia 
 stands a great wooden alms-chest. The mia 
 itself is neither a, splendid nor a magnificent 
 building, but veiy mean and simple, commonly 
 quadi'angular, and built of wood, the beams being 
 strong and neat. It seldom exceeds twice or 
 thrice a man's height, and two or three fathoms 
 in breadth. It is raised about a yard or upwards, 
 from the ground, being supported by short 
 wooden posts. There is a small walk, or gallery, 
 to go round it, and a few steps lead up to this 
 walk. The frontispiece of the mia is as simple as 
 the rest, consisting only of one or two grated 
 windows, for those that come to worship to look 
 through, and to bow towards the chief place 
 within. It is shut at all times, and often without 
 anybody to take care of it. Other mias are 
 somewhat larger, sometimes with an antechamber, 
 and two side-rooms, wherein the keepers of the 
 mia sit, in honour of the Kami, richly clad in 
 their fine ecclesiastical gowns. .All these several 
 rooms have grated windows and doors, and the 
 fioor is covered with curious mats. Generally 
 speaking, three sides of the temple are shut with 
 deal-boards, there being no opening left but in 
 the front. The roof is covered with tiles of stone, 
 or shavings of wood, and jets out on all sides to 
 a considerable distance, to cover the walk, which 
 goes round the temple. It difi'ers from other 
 buildings by its being curiously bent, and com- 
 posed of several layers of fine wooden beams, 
 which jetting out underneath make it look very 
 singular. At the top of the roof there is some- 
 times a strong wooden beam, bigger than the rest, 
 laid lengthways, at the extremities of which two 
 other beams stand up, crossing each other; 
 sometimes a third one is laid athwart behind 
 them. This structure is in imitation as well as 
 in memory of the first Isje temple, which though 
 simple, was yet very ingeniously and almost 
 inimitably contrived, so that the weight and 
 connection of these several beams was to keep 
 the whole building standing. T dver the temple- 
 door hangs sometimes a wide flat bell, and a 
 strong, long, knotted rope, wherewith those that 
 come to worship, strike the bell, as it were, to 
 give notice to the gods of their presence. This 
 custom, however, is not very ancient, nor did it 
 originally belong to the Sintos religion, for it was 
 
331 
 
 jrCBMPPER'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 borrowed from the Budsdo or foreign idol- 
 worship. Within the temple is hung up white 
 piiper, cut into small bits, the intent of which is 
 to make people sensible of the purity of the 
 place. Sometimes a large looking-glass is placed 
 in the middle, for the worshippers to behold 
 themselves, and withal to consider, that as 
 distinctly as the spots of their face appear in the 
 looking-glass, so conspicuous are the secret spots 
 and frauds of their hearts in the eyes of the 
 immortal gods. These temples are very often 
 without any idols, or images of the Kami to 
 whom they are consecrated. Nor indeed do they 
 keep any images at all in their temples, unless 
 they deserve~it on a particular account, either for 
 the reputation and holiness of the carver, or 
 because of some extraordinary miracles wrought 
 by them. In this case a particular box is- 
 contrived at the chief and upper end of the 
 temple, opposite to its grated front, and it is 
 called fongu, which is as much as to say, the 
 real, true temple. In this box, which the 
 worshippers bow to, the idol is locked up, and 
 never taken out, but upon the great festival day 
 of the Kami whom it represents, which is 
 celebrated but once in a hundred years. In the 
 same shrine are likewise locked up what relics 
 they have of the bones, habits, swords, or handy- 
 works of the same god. The chief mia of every 
 place hath one or more mikosi, as they call them, 
 belonging to it, being square, or six, or eight 
 cornered sacella, or smaller temples, curiously 
 lacquered, adorned without with gilt cornices, 
 within with looking-glasses, out white paper, and 
 other ornaments, and hanging on two poles in 
 order to be carried about upon proper occasions, 
 which is done mth great pomp and solemnity, 
 when upon the Jennitz, that is, the chief festival 
 day of the god, to whom the mia itself is 
 consecrated, the Canusi, or officers of the temple, 
 celebrate the Matsuri, of which more in another 
 place. Sometimes the idol of the Kami, to whom 
 the mia is dedicated, or such of his relics as are 
 there kept, are carried about in these mikosis 
 upon the same solemn occasion. The chief of 
 the Canusis takes them out of the shriue of the 
 temple, where they are kept in curious white 
 boxes, carries them upon his back to the mikosi, 
 and places them backwards into the same, the 
 people in the meantime retiring out of the way, 
 as being too impure and unworthy a race to 
 behold these sacred things. The outside of the 
 mia, or the ante-chamber, and other rooms built 
 close to it, are commonly hung with divers 
 ornaments, scimiters curiously carved, models of 
 ships, images of different sorts, or other uncommon 
 curiosities, affording an agreeable amusement for 
 the idle spectators, who come to view and to 
 worship in these temples upon their holidays. 
 These several ornaments are called jemma, and 
 are generally speaking free gifts to the temple, 
 given by the adherents oi this religion, pursuant 
 to vows, which they made, either for themselves, 
 or for their relations and friends, when taken ill 
 of some violent sickness, or labouring under 
 some other misfortunes, and which they afterwards 
 very scrupulously put in execution, both to show 
 the power of the gods, whose assistance they 
 implored, and their own deep sense of gratitude 
 for the blessings received irom them. The same 
 
 custom is likewise observed by the adhorents of 
 the Bosatz, or Budsdo religion. These raias, or 
 Sintos temples are not attended by spiritual! 
 persons, but by secular married men, who are 
 called Negi, and Canusi, and Siannin, and are 
 maintained, either by the legacies left by the 
 founder of the mia, or by the subsidies granted 
 them by the Mikaddo, or by the charitable 
 contributions of pious wfell-disposed persons, who 
 come to worship there. Mikaddo, according to 
 the literal sense of the word, signifies the Sublime 
 Porte, Mi being the same with on, goo, oo, gio, 
 high, mighty, illustrious, supreme, sublime, and 
 kado, signifying a port, gate, or door. These- 
 Canusis, or secular priests, when they go abroad,, 
 are for distinction's sake, clad in large gowns, 
 commonly white, sometimes yellow, sometimes of 
 other colours, made much after the fashion of the 
 Mikaddo's court. However, they wear their 
 common secular dress under these gowns. They 
 shave their beards, but let their hair grow. 
 They wear a stiff, oblong, lackered cap, in shape 
 not unUke a ship, standing out over their fore- 
 head, and tied under their chins with twisted 
 silk strings, from which hang down fringed knots,, 
 which are longer or shorter, according to the 
 office or quality of the person that wears them,, 
 who is not obliged to bow down lower to persons- 
 of a superior rank, but to make the ends of these- 
 kuots touch the floor. Their superiors have their 
 hair twisted up, under a black gauze, or crape, in 
 a, very particular manner, and they have their 
 ears covered by a pai'ticular sort of a lap, about 
 a span and a half long, and two or three inches 
 broad, standing out by their cheeks, or hanging 
 down, more or less according to the dignities or 
 honourable titles conferred upon them by the 
 Mikaddo. In spiritual affairs, they are under 
 the absolute jurisdiction of the Mikaddo ; but in. 
 temporalities, they, and all other ecclesiastical 
 persons in the empire, stand under the command. 
 of two Dsi Sin Bugios, as they call them, or 
 imperial temple-judges, appointed by the Secular 
 Monarch. They are haughty and proud beyond 
 expression, fancying themselves to be of a far 
 better make and nobler extraction than other 
 people. When they appear in a secular dress, 
 they wear two scimiters, after the fashion of the- 
 noblemen. Though secular persbns themselves, 
 yet they think it their duty, and becoming their 
 station, to abstain religiously from all communi- 
 cation and intimacy with the common people. 
 Nay, some carry their scrupulous conceits about 
 their own purity and holiness so far, that they 
 avoid conversing, for fear of injuring the same, 
 even with other religious persons, who are not of 
 the same sect. As to this conduct, however,. 
 I must own, that something may be said on their- 
 behalf, for as much as this their uncommon 
 carriage, and religious abstinence from all sort of 
 communication with other people, seems to be 
 the best means to conceal their gross ignorance, 
 andthe enornaity and inconsistency of their system 
 of divinity, which could not but be very much 
 ridiculed, if in conversation the discourse should 
 happen to fall upon religious affairs. For the 
 whole Sintos religion is so mean and simple, that 
 besides a heap of fabulous and romantic stories of 
 their gods, demi-gods and heroes, inconsistent 
 with reason and common-sense, their divines har«>' 
 
 I 
 
KCBMPPER'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 335 
 
 nothing, neither in their sacred books, nor by 
 tradition, wherewithal to satisfy the inquiries of 
 curious peraons, about the nature and essence of 
 their gods, about their power and government, 
 about the future state of our soul, and such other 
 essential points, whereof other heathen systems 
 of divinity are not altogether sUent. For this 
 reason it was, that when the foreign pagan 
 Budsdo religion came to be introduced in Japan, 
 it spread not only quickly, and with surprising suc- 
 cess, but soon occasioned a difference and schism 
 even between those, who remained constant and 
 faithful to the religion of their ancestors, by 
 giving birth to two sects, into which the Sintoists 
 are now divided. The first of these sects is 
 called Juitz. The orthodox adherents of this, 
 continued so firm and constant in the religion and 
 customs of their ancestors, that they would not 
 yield in any the least point, how insignificant 
 soever ; but they are so very inconsiderable in 
 number, that the Canusis, or priests, themselves 
 make up the best part. The other sect is that of 
 the Biobus ; these are a sort of syncretists, who 
 for their own satisfaction, and for the sake of a 
 more extensive knowledge in religious matters, 
 particularly vrith regard to the future state of 
 our souls, endeavoured to reconcile, if possible, 
 the foreign pagan religion, with that of their 
 ancestors. In order to this they suppose, that 
 the soul of Amida, whom the Budsdoists adore 
 as their Saviour, dwelt by transmigration in the 
 greatest of their gods Ten Sio Dai Sin, the 
 essence, as they call him of light and sun. Most 
 Sintoists confess themselves to this sect. Even 
 the Dairi, or the Ecclesiastical Hereditary 
 Emperor's whole court, perhaps sensible enough 
 of the falsity and inconsistency of the religion 
 which they profess, and convinced how poor 
 and weak their arguments are, whereby tbey 
 endeavour to support the almost divine majesty 
 and holiness which their master arrogates to 
 himself, seem to incline to this syncretism. Nay 
 tbey have shown not long ago, that they are no 
 great enemies even to the foreign pagan 
 worship, for they conferred the arch-bishopric 
 and the two bishoprics, of the Ikosiu, the 
 richest and most numerous sect of the 
 Budsdoists, upon Princes of the imperial blood. 
 The Secular Monarch professes the religion of his 
 forefathers, and pays his respect and duty once 
 a-year to the Mikaddo, though at present not in 
 person, as was done formerly, but by a solemn 
 embassy and rich presents. He visits in person 
 the tombs of his imperial predecessors, and 
 frequents also the chief temples, and religious 
 houses, where they are worshipped. When I was 
 in Japan, two stately temples were built by 
 order of the Secular Monarch in honour of the 
 Chinese philosopher Koosjuu, or as we call him 
 Confiitius, whose philosophy they believe, was 
 communicated to him immediately from Heaven, 
 which same opinion the Greeks formerly had of the 
 philosophy of Socrates. One thing remains worthy 
 of observation, which is, that many and perhaps 
 the greatest part of those, who in their life-time 
 constantly professed the Sintos religion, and even 
 some of the Siutosju, or moralists, recommend 
 their souls on their death-bed to the care of the 
 Budsdo clergy , desiring that the namanda might be 
 ■ung for them, and their bodies burned and buried 
 
 after the manner of the Budsdoists. The 
 adherents of the Sintos religion do not believe th« 
 Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration oi 
 souls, although almost universally received by the- 
 eastern nations. However, they abstain from 
 killing and eating of those beasts which are 
 serviceable to mankind, thinking it an act of 
 cnielty and ungratefulness. They believe that the 
 souls, after their depai'ture from the bodies,, 
 transmigrate to a place of happiness, seated jusi 
 beneath the thirty-three heavens, and dwelling- 
 places of their gods, which, on this account; they 
 call Takamanofarra, which signifies, "high and 
 subceleetial fields ;" that the souls of those yiha 
 have led a good life in this world are admittecB 
 without delay, but that the souls of the bad and 
 impious are denied entrance and condemned tu. 
 err, without a time sufficient to expiate their 
 crimes. This is all they know of a future statec 
 of bliss. But besides these Elysian fields, these 
 stations of happiness, they admit no hell, no 
 places of torment, no Cimmerian darkness, no 
 unfortunate state attending our souls in a world 
 to come. Nor do they know of any other devil, 
 but that which they suppose to animate the fox ; 
 a very mischievous animal in this country, and 
 so much dreaded, that some are of opinion 
 that the impious after their death are transformed 
 into foxes ; which their priests call Ma, that is, 
 evil spirits. 
 
 The chief points of the Sintos religion (and 
 those, the observation whereof its adherents 
 believe, makes them agreeable to the gods, and 
 worthy to obtain from their divine mercy an 
 immediate admission into the stations of 
 happiness after their death, or, what is more 
 commonly aimed at, a train of temporal blessingis 
 in this life,) are, — 1. The inward purity of th» 
 heart. 2. A religious abstinence from whatever 
 makes a man impure. 3. A diligent observation 
 of the solemn festival and holy days. i. Pilgrim- 
 ages to the holy places at Isje. Of these, to 
 which by some very religious people is added 
 5. Chastising and mortifying their bodies ; I pro- 
 ceed now to treat severally. 
 
 To begin, therefore, with the mward purity of 
 the heart, the same consists in doing, or omitting 
 those things which they are ordered to do, or to 
 avoid ; either by the law of nature, and tha 
 dictates of reason, or the more immediate and 
 special command of civil magistrates. The law of 
 external purity, of which more hereafter, is the 
 only one, the observation of which is more 
 strictly recommended to the followers of this 
 religion. They have no other laws given them, 
 either by divine or ecclesiastical authority, to 
 direct and to regulate them in their outward 
 behaviour. Hence, it would be but natural to 
 think, that they should abandon themselves to all 
 manner of voluptuousness and sinful pleasures, 
 and allow themselves vrithout restraint, whatever 
 can gratify their wishes and desires, as being free 
 from fear of acting contrary to the will of the 
 gods, and little apprehensive of the' effects of 
 then- anger and displeasure. And this, perhaps, 
 would be the miserable case of a nation in 
 this condition, were it not for a more powerful 
 ruler within their hearts, natural reason, wbicb 
 here exerts itself with full force, land is _ ot 
 itself capable enough to restrain from indulginjf 
 
336 
 
 KCBMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 their vices, and to win over to the dominion 
 of virtue, all those that will but hearken to 
 its dictates. But besides, the civil magistrates 
 have taken sufficient care to supply what is 
 wanting on this head; for, by their authority, 
 there are very severe laws now in force against all 
 sorts of crimes and misdemeanors. And certainly 
 the Japanese nation, considered in the main, 
 makes it evident, that the dictates of natural 
 reason, and the laws of civil magistrates, are 
 sure guides enough to all those that will lead 
 a good and virtuous life, and preserve their hearts 
 in a state of puiity. 
 
 But as to the external purity, the observance 
 whereof, though less material in itself, hath yet 
 been more strictly commanded, it consists in 
 abstaining from blood ; from eating of flesh, and 
 from dead bodies. Those who have rendered 
 themselves impure by any of these things, are 
 thereby disabled from going to the temples ; 
 from visiting holy places, and in general from ap- 
 pearing in presence of the gods. Whoever is stained 
 with his own, or other blood, is fusio for seven 
 days, that is, impure and unfit to approach holy 
 places. If, in building m mia or temple, one of 
 the workmen should happen to be hurt, so as to 
 bleed in any part of his body, it is reckoned a 
 very great misfortune, and such a one as makes 
 him altogether incapable to work for the future 
 on that sacred building. If the same accident 
 should happen in building or repairing any of 
 the temples of Tensio Dai Sin at Isje, the misfor- 
 tune doth not afiect the workman alone, but the 
 temple itself must be pulled down and rebuilt 
 anew. No woman may come to the temple 
 whilst she hath her monthly terms. It is commonly 
 believed that, in their holy pilgrimages to Isje, 
 the monthly terms do for that time entirely cease, 
 which, if true, must he owing either to the fatigues 
 of a long and tedious journey, or to their taking 
 great pains to conceal it, for fear their labour and 
 expenses should thereby become useless. Who- 
 ever eats the flesh of any fourfooted beast, deer 
 only excepted, is fusio for thirty days. On the 
 contrary, whoever eats a fowl, wild or tame, 
 water-fowls, pheasants, and cranes excepted, is 
 fusio but a Japanese hour, which is equal to two 
 of ours. Whoever kills a beast, or is present at 
 an execution, or attends a dying person, or comes 
 into a house where a dead body lies, is fusio 
 that day. But of all the things which make them 
 impure, none is reckoned so very contagious as 
 the death of parents and near relations. The 
 nearer they are related to the dead person, so 
 much the greater the impurity is. All ceremonies 
 which are to be observed on this occasion, the 
 time of mourning, and the like, are determined 
 by this rule. By not observing these precepts, 
 people make themselves guilty of external im- 
 purity, which is detested by the gods, and 
 become unfit to approach their temples. Over- 
 scrupulous people, who would be looked upon as 
 great saints, strain things still fiirther, and fancy 
 that even the impurities of others will affect 
 them in three different ways, viz , by the eyes, 
 which see impure things ; by the mouth, which 
 speaks of them; and by the ears, which hear 
 them These three ways to sin and impurity 
 are represented by the emblem of three monkeys 
 sitting at the feet of Dsijso, and shutting, with 
 
 their fore feet, one both his eyes, the other his 
 mouth, the third his ears. This emblem is to be 
 seen in most temples of the Budsdoists, of 
 whom it hath been borrowed. We found it 
 also in several places upon the highway. An 
 acquaintance of mine at Nagasaki was so exceed- 
 ingly nice and scrupiilous on this head that, 
 when he received but a visit of one whom he 
 had reason to suspect of being a fuaio, he 
 caused his house to be washed and cleaned with 
 water and salt from top to bottom, and yet, all 
 this superstitious care notwithstanding, the wiser 
 of his countrymen looked upon him as a down- 
 right hypocrite. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 OF THE 8INT0S HEBI, THAT IS, TEEIR FOBTTJNATE DATS 
 AND HOLIDAY'S ; AXD THE CELEBRATION THEREOF. 
 
 The celebration of solemn festivals and holidays, 
 which is the third essential point of the Smtos 
 religion, consists in what they call Majiru; that 
 is, in going to the mias and temples of the gods 
 and deceased gi-eat men. This may be done at 
 any time, but ought not to be neglected on those 
 days which are particularly consecrated to their 
 warship, unless the faithful be in a state of 
 impurity, and not duly qualified to appear in the 
 presence of the immortal gods, who detest all 
 uncleanness. Scrupulous adorers carry things 
 still fuither, and think it unbecoming to appear 
 in the presence of the gods even when the 
 thoughts or memory of their misfortunes possess 
 their mind. For, as these immortal beings dwell 
 in an uninterrupted state of bliss and happiness, 
 such objects, it is thought, would be offensive 
 and unpleasing to them, as the addresses and 
 supplications of people whose hearts, the very 
 inmost of which is laid open to their penetrating 
 sight, labour under deep sorrow and affliction. 
 They perform their devotions at the temples in 
 the following manner : the worshippers having 
 first washed and cleaned themselves, put on the 
 very best clothes they have, with a kamisijno, as 
 they call it, or a garment of ceremony, every one 
 according to his ability. Thus clad, they walk 
 with a composed and grave countenance to the 
 temple court, and, in the first place, to the basin 
 of water, there to wash their hands, if needful, 
 for which purpose a pail is hung by the side of 
 it ; then, easting down their eyes, they move on, 
 with great reverence and submission, towards the 
 mia itself; and having got up the few steps 
 which lead to the walk round the temple, and 
 are placed opposite to the grated windows of the 
 mia, and the looking-glass within, they fall down 
 upon their knees, bow their head quite to the 
 ground, slowly and with great humility; then 
 lift it up again, still kneeling and turning their 
 eyes towards the looking-glass, make a short 
 prayer, wherein they expose to the gods their 
 desires and necessities, or say a takamano faro- 
 kami jodomari, and then throw some putjes, or 
 small pieces of money, by way of an offering to 
 the gods and charity to the priests, either thiuugn 
 the grates upon the floor of the mia, or into tb« 
 
n 
 
 o 
 
K(EMPFER'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN, 
 
 337 
 
 alms-boz which Btands close by : all thia being 
 done, they strike the bell thrice, which is hung 
 up oyer the door of the mia, for the diverBion 
 of the gods, whom they believe to be highly 
 delighted with the sound of musical instru- 
 ments ; and so retire to divert themselves the 
 remaining part of the day with walking, exercises, 
 eating or drinking, and treating one another in 
 the very beat manner they can , '''his plain and 
 simple act of devotion, which may be repeated at 
 any time, even when they are not clad in their 
 best clothes, is on the solemn festivals perfoimed 
 by aU the Sintos worshippers, at the temples of 
 one or more gods, whom they more peculiarly 
 confide in, either for being the patrons of the 
 profession they follow, or because otherwise they 
 have it in their power to assist and to forward 
 them in their private undertakings. They have 
 no settled rites and church ceremonies; no 
 beads, nor any stated forms of prayers. Every 
 one is at liberty to set forth liis necessities 
 to the gods in what words, and after what 
 manner he pleases. Nay, there are among them 
 who think it needless to do it in any at all, 
 upon a supposition that the very inmost of 
 tfaeu' hearts, all their thoughts, wishes, and 
 desires, are as fully known to the immortal 
 gods, as their faces are distinctly seen in the 
 looking-glass. Nor is it in the least requisite 
 that, by any pai'ticular mortification of their 
 bodies, or other act of devotion, they should 
 prepai'e themselves worthily to celebrate their 
 festival days, ordinary or extraordinary, or the 
 days of commemoration of their deoea^^ed parents, 
 or nearest relations. Even on those days which 
 ai'e more particularly consecrated to comme- 
 morate the death of their parents, and which 
 they observe very religiously, they may eat or 
 drink anything they please, provided it be not 
 otherwise contrary to the customs of the counti'y. 
 It is observable in general that their festivals and 
 holidays are days sacred rather to mutual com- 
 pliments and civilities, than to acts of holiness 
 and devotion; for which reason also they call 
 them rebis, which implies as much as visiting 
 days. It is true, indeed, that they think.it a duty 
 incumbent on them, on those days, to go to the 
 temple of Tensio Dai Sin, the first and principal 
 object of their worship, and the temples of 
 their other gods and deceased great men. And, 
 although they are scrupulous enough in the 
 observance of this duty, y<>t the best part of 
 their time is spent with visiting and compli- 
 menting their superiors, friends, and relations. 
 Their feasts, weddings, audiences, great enter- 
 tainments, and in general all manner of public 
 and private rejoicings, are made on these days 
 preferably to others ; not only because they are 
 ■then more at leisure, but chiefly because they 
 fancy that their gods themselves are very much 
 'delighted when men allow themselves reasonable 
 pleasures and diversions. All their rebis, or 
 holidays in general, are unmoveable and fixed to 
 certain days. Some are monthly, others yearly ; 
 both which I proceed now more particularly to 
 enumerate. 
 
 The monthly holidays are three in number. 
 The first is called Tsitatz, and is the first day of 
 each month. It ought rather to be called a 
 day of compliments and mutual civilities, than a 
 
 religious day or Sunday. The Japanese on it 
 rise early in the morning, and pass their time 
 going from house to house to see their superiors, 
 friends, and relations ; to pay their respects and 
 compliments to them ; and to wish them medito, 
 or joy on the happy return of the new moon. 
 The remainder of the day is spent about the 
 temples, and in other pleasant places where there 
 is agreeable walking. Some divert themselves 
 with drinking of socoana, a sort of liquor peculiar 
 to this country. Others pass the afternoon in 
 company with women. In short, every one 
 follows that day what pleasures and diversion he 
 likes best. And this custom is grown so universal, 
 that not only the Sintoists. but the Japanese 
 in general, of all ranks and religions, observe 
 it as a custom derived down to them from 
 their ancestors, and worthy, were it but on 
 this sole account, that some regard should be 
 paid to it. 
 
 The second monthly holiday is the fifteenth of 
 each month, being the day of the full moon. The 
 gods of the country have a greater share in the 
 visits the Japanese make on this day, than their 
 friends and relations. 
 
 Their third monthly holiday is the twenty- 
 eighth of each month, being the day before the 
 new moon, or the last day of the decreasing 
 moon. Not near so much regard is paid to 
 this, than to either of the former two ; and the 
 Sintos temples are very little crowded on it. 
 There is a greater concourse of people on this day 
 at the Budsdo's temples, it being one of the 
 monthly holidays sacred to Amida. 
 
 They have five great yearly rebi, or sekf, that 
 is, festivaJsor holidays; which, from their nuraber, 
 are called gosekf, that is, the five solemn festivals. 
 They are purposely laid upon those days which, 
 by reason of their imparity, are judged to be the 
 most unfortunate ; and they have also borrowed 
 their names from thence. They are : — 1. Son- 
 guatz, or the new-year's day. 2. Sanguatz sannitz, 
 the third day of the thurd month. 3. Goguatz 
 gonitz, the fifth day of the fifth month. 4. Sit- 
 siguatz fanuka, the seventh day of the seventh 
 month ; and 6. Kuguatz kunitz, the ninth day 
 of the ninth month. 
 
 These five great yearly festivals are again little 
 else but festa poUtica, days of universal rejoicings. 
 It hath been already observed, that they were 
 by their ancestors pui-posely and prudently 
 appointed to be celebrated on those days, which- 
 were judged by their imparity to be the most un- 
 fortunate ; and this, in order to divert their Kamis, 
 or gods, by their universal mirth, and by their 
 wishing of joy and happiness to each other to 
 decline and to avoid all unhappy accidents that 
 might otherwise befal them : on this account 
 also, and because of their being days sacred not 
 BO much to the worship of their gods as to joy 
 and pleasure, they are celebrated indifierently, 
 not only by the Sintoists, but by the generality 
 of the Japanese, whatever sect or religion they 
 otherwise adhere to. 
 
 But to take them into a more particular consi- 
 deration, I will begin with the Songuatz, or new- 
 year's-day, which is celebrated in Japan with the 
 utmost solemnity, preferably to all other holidays. 
 The main business of the day consists in visiting 
 and complimenting each other on the happy 
 
338 
 
 KCEMPPEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 beginning of the new year ; in eating and driaking ; 
 and going to the temples, which some do to 
 worship, but far the greater part for pleasure and 
 diversion. Whoever is able to stir, gets up 
 betimes in the morning, put on his best clothes, 
 aud repairs to the houses of his patrons, friends, 
 and relations, to whom he makes, with a low bow, 
 his medito, as they call it, or compliment suitable 
 to the occasion, and at the same time presents 
 them with a box, wherein are contained two or 
 three fans, vrith a piece of the dried flesh of the 
 awabi, or auris marina, tied to them, and his 
 name written upon the box, for the information 
 of the person to whom the present is made, in case 
 he should not be at home, or not at leisure to 
 receive company. The piece of the awabi flesh 
 in particular, is intended to remind them of the 
 frugality, as well as the poverty of their ancestors, 
 who lived chiefly upon this shell-fish, and to 
 make them sensible of their present happiness 
 and plenty. In houses of people of quality, 
 where a number of visitors on such days must 
 needs be very considerable, they keep a man on pur- 
 pose, waiting at the entry of the house, or in one 
 of the lowermost apartments, to receive both the 
 compliments and presents that are made that 
 day ; and to set down in writing the names of the 
 persons who came to wait upon his master, and 
 what presents they brought along with them. 
 The fox-enoon being thus spent, and by repeated 
 draughts of strong liquors, which tjiey are pre- 
 sented with in several places, a good foundation 
 laid for the ensuing frolic, they crown the solem- 
 nity of the day with a plentiful dinner, which is 
 commonly provided by the head or chief of the 
 family. This visiting and rambling about from 
 place to place, lasts three days, but the eating 
 and drinking, and treating one another, is not 
 discontinued for the whole month. The first 
 
 i three or four days everything is provided for in 
 plenty, and every one clad as elegantly and 
 handsomely as his abilities wUl allow. Even 
 poor labouring people, on this occasion, wear a 
 camisijno, as they call it, or a garment of cere- 
 mony with a scimiter stuck in their girdle. If they 
 have none of their own, they borrow them of 
 other people, for fear oif being excluded from 
 honest companies, and deprived of their share in 
 the universal mirth aud pleasure. A few go 
 
 ' to perform their devotions at the temples, parti- 
 cularly that of Tensio Dai Sin. 
 
 The second sekf, or great yearly festival, is 
 called Sanguatz Sannitz, because of its being 
 celebratedonthe third day of the third month. On 
 this also, after the usual compliments and visits, 
 which friends and relations pay one to another, 
 and inferiors to their superiors, every one diverts 
 himself in the best manner he can. The season 
 of the year; the beginning of the spring; the 
 trees, chiefly plum, cherry, and apricot trees, 
 which are then in full blossom, and loaded with 
 numberless white and incarnate flowers, single 
 and double, and no less remarkable for their 
 largeness and plenty than for their singular 
 beauty, invite everybody to take the diversion of 
 the country, and to behold Nature in her new 
 and inimitable dress. But this same festival is 
 besides a day of pleasure and diversion for young 
 
 ' girls, for whose sake a great entertainment is 
 
 I commonly prepared by their parents, whereto 
 
 they invite their nearest relations and friends. 
 A large and_ spacious apartment is curiously 
 adorned with puppets of a considerable value, 
 which are to represent the court of the Dairi, or 
 Ecclesiastical Hereditary Emperor, with the per- 
 son of Finakuge. A table with Japanese victuals 
 is placed before each puppet, and among other 
 things, cakes made of rice and the leaves of young 
 mugwort. These victuals, and a dish of saki, the 
 guests are presented with by the girls, for whose 
 diversion the entertainment is intended, or, if 
 they be too young, by their parents. The 
 following story gave birth to this custom : A rich 
 man, who lived near Kiusagava, which is as much 
 as to say the Bird-Kiver, had a daughter called 
 Buusjo, who was married to one Symmios Dai 
 Miosin. Not having any children by her husband 
 for many years, she very earnestly addressed 
 herself in her prayers to the Kamis or gods of the- 
 country, and this with so much success, that 
 soon after she found herself big, and was 
 brought to bed of five hundred eggs. The poor 
 woman extremely surprised at this extraordi- 
 nary accident and full of fear, that the eggs, 
 if hatched, would produce monstrous animsds, 
 packed them all up into a box, and threw them 
 into the river Riusagava, with this precaution 
 however, that she wrote the word, fosjoroo, upon 
 the box. Sometime after an old fisherman, who 
 lived a good way down the river, found this box 
 floating, took it up, and having found it fuU of 
 eggs, he carried them home to present them 
 to his wife, who was of opinion that there could 
 not be anything extraordinary in them, and that 
 certainly they had been thrown into the water 
 for some good reason, and therefore she- advised 
 him to carry them back, where he found them. 
 But the old man replied thus : " We are both 
 old, my dear, and just on the brink of the 
 grave, it will be a matter of very little consequence 
 to us whatever comes out of the eggs, and there- . 
 fore I have a mind to hatch them, and to see what 
 they will produce." Accordingly he hatched 
 them in an oven, in hot sand, and between 
 cushions, as the way is in the Indies ; and having 
 afterwards opened them, they found in every one 
 a child. To keep such a number of children 
 proved a very heavy burthen for this old couple. 
 However they made a shift, and bred them up * 
 with mugwort-leaves minced, and boiled rice. 
 But in time they grew so big, that the old man 
 and his wife could not maintain them any longer, 
 so that they were necessitated to shift for them- 
 selves, as well as they could, and took to robbing 
 on the highway. Among other projects, it was 
 proposed to them to go up the river to the house 
 of a rich man, who was very famous for his 
 great wealth in that part of the country. As 
 good luck would have it, this house proved to be 
 that of their mother. Upon appUcation made 
 at the door, one of the servants asked what their 
 names were ; to which they answered, that they 
 had no names ; that they were, a, brood of five 
 himdred eggs ; that mere want and necessity had 
 obliged them to call ; and that they would go 
 about their business, if they would be so charit- 
 able as to give them some victuals. The servant 
 having brought the message in to his lady, she 
 sent him back to enquire, whether there had not 
 been something writ upon the boz in which tha 
 
KCEMPPBE'S ACCODNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 339 
 
 eggs had been found ; and being answered, that 
 the word fosjoroo was foxind writ upon it, she 
 could then no longer doubt, but that they all 
 were her children ; and accordingly acknowledged 
 and received them as such, and made a great 
 entertainment, whereat everyone of the guests 
 was presented with a dish of sokana, cakes of 
 mugwort and rice, and a branch of the apricot- 
 tree. This is the reason they give, why, on this 
 festival, branches of apricot-trees are laid over the 
 kettle, and cakes made of mugwort and rice, 
 which they call fatsumotzi, that is, mugwort- 
 cakes, and prepared after the following manner : 
 the mugwort-leaves are soaked in water over 
 niglit, then pressed, dried and reduced to powder, 
 afterwards mixed with rice, which hath been 
 boiled in water, then again reduced to powder 
 and mixed with boiled rice and adsuki, or red 
 beans grossly powdered, and so baked into cakes. 
 The mother of these children was afterwards 
 placed amo g the goddesses of the country, by 
 the name of Bensaiten. They believe that she is 
 waited upon in the happy regions of the gods by 
 her five hundred sons ; and they worship her as 
 the goddess of riches. 
 
 The third seku, or yearly festival, is Goguatz- 
 Cronitz, or the fifth day of the fifth month. It is 
 also called Tangono Seku, and is much of the 
 same nat; re with the l^st ; with this difference 
 only, that it is intended chiefly for the diversion 
 of young boys, who in this, as well as in other 
 countries, neglect no opportunity to make a 
 hohday, and to play about. The inhabitants of 
 Nagasaki divert tiiemselves on the water on this 
 and some following days, rowing up and down in 
 their boats, which are for this purpose curiously 
 adorned ; and crying, according to the custom of 
 the Chinese, Peiruun, Peiruun. Mugwort-leaves 
 are put upon the roofs and over the doors of their 
 houses. It is commonly believed, that the mug- 
 wort gathered about this time of the year, and 
 particularly on these holidays, makes the best 
 and strongest moxa, when three or four years 
 old. ThijB festival owes its origin to the history of 
 Peiruun, a King of the island Manrigasima. It 
 began to be celebrated at Nagasaki, by the Fokt- 
 sui peop'e, who introduced it at first among the 
 young boys, and kept it for some time, before 
 elderly f nd grave people would conform them- 
 selves to the custom. It is said, that at the place 
 where the island stood, some remains of it do 
 still appear in low-water. The very best earth 
 for porcelain-ware is found at the same place, 
 and sometimes entire vessels of a fine, thin, 
 greenish, old China are taken up by the divera, 
 which the Japanese have a very great value for, 
 both for their antiquity and for the good quality, 
 which it is said they have, not only to preserve 
 tea a long while, but even to restore old tea 
 which Ijegins to decay, to its former strength and 
 goodness. 
 
 The fourth great yearly festival is called 
 Siasiguatz Nanuka, because of its being cele- 
 brated on the seventh day of the seventh month. 
 They give it also the name of Sisseki Tanabatta, 
 which implies as much, and Tanomunoseku, 
 which is as much as to say an auxiliary festival. ' 
 The usual pleasures and diversions consisting in 
 visiting one another, in eating and drinking, are 
 followed on this day with the same freedom as 
 
 on other solemn days. The school-boys in par- 
 ticular, among various sorts of plays, erect polei 
 or posts of bamboos, and tie verses of their owi 
 ihaking to them, to show their application and 
 progress at school. 
 
 The fifth and last of the great yearly festivals 
 is Kunitz, or Kuguatz Kokonok, so called because 
 of its being celebrated on the ninth day of the 
 ninth month. Drinking is the favourite diversion 
 on this festival, though without prejudice to 
 their other usual rejoicings. No expenses are 
 spared to provide victuals and good liquors in 
 plenty, every one according to his ability. The 
 joy and mirth is universal. Neighbours treat, 
 one another by turns for that and some following; 
 days. Not even strangers and unknown person* 
 are suffered to pass by without being invited to- 
 make merry vrith the company. In short, one- 
 would imagine that the Bacchanals of the Romans- 
 had been brought over into Japan, and established 
 there. At Nagasaki the solemnity is so much 
 the greater, as the festival of Suwa, formerly a 
 renowned hunter, and now god and protector of 
 hunting, luckily happens to fall upon this- 
 same dsey. All sorts of diversions and public- 
 shows, dancing, plays, processions, and tho 
 like, (which they call matsuri, or an offering 
 and matsum, that is, making an offering,) s-^ 
 greatly divert and amuse the people, that manj 
 choose rather to lose their dinner than to giv« 
 over sauntering and staring about the streets 
 till late at night. 
 
 But besides these five great yearly festivals, 
 their are many more holidays observed in Japan, 
 of less note indeed, and sacred to particular gods- 
 and idols, in whose honour they are celebrated, 
 either universally and throughout the empire, or 
 only in such particular places, which in a more 
 peculiar manner acknowledge their favour and 
 protection. It would be needless, and almost 
 endless to mention them all : however, to give 
 some satisfaction to my reader, I will confine 
 myself to some of the most eminent. But 
 before I proceed, I must beg leave to observe, 
 that, for the major part, they are not of so great 
 antiquity and long standing as the great yearly 
 festivals mentioned above, but of a later date, 
 and instituted at different times in honour and 
 memory of some of their emperors, and other 
 great men, who had either in their lifetime done 
 signal services to their countiy, or by their 
 apparitions after their death, by extraordinary 
 miracles wrought by them, and by their powerful 
 assistance in private undertakings convinced their 
 countrymen, that having been transported into 
 the regions of immortal spirits, they had no small 
 share in the government of this world, and were 
 worthy on this account, to have divine worship 
 paid them. 
 
 Tenaio Dai Sin is the supreme of all the gods 
 of the Japanese, and acknowledged as patron and 
 protector of the whole empire. His annual fes- 
 tival falls upon the sixteenth day of the ninth 
 month, and is celebrated in all cities and villages 
 throughout the empire, among other things, with 
 solemn matsuris, as they call them, or processions' 
 and public shows, in honour, and often in pre- 
 sence, of his idol and priests. It is a custom 
 which obtains in all cities and villages, to have two- 
 such matsuris celebrated every year with great 
 
340 
 
 KGiMPFER'S ACCOUHT OF JAPAN. 
 
 pomp and solemnity in honour of that god, to whose 
 more particular care and protection they have de- 
 voted themselves. As to Tensio Dai Sin, besides 
 ids great yearly festival, which is on the sixteenth 
 day of the ninth month, the sixteenth, twenty- 
 first, and twenty-sixth duss of every month are 
 likewise sacred to him, but not celebrated with 
 any great solemnity. 
 
 The ninth — common people c dd the nineteenth 
 and twenty-ninth — of every month are sacred to 
 ■Suwa. All level's of hunting, and such pei-sons 
 as recommend themselves to Suwa's more imme- 
 diate protection, never fail on these days to pay 
 their duty and worship to him at his temples. 
 His annual festival is celebrated with more than 
 ordinary pomp and solemnity on the ninth day 
 of the sixth month. The Canusis on this day 
 make all those who come to worship at Suwa's 
 temples creep through a oii'cle or hoop, made of 
 bamboos, and wound about with linen, in memory 
 of a certain accident, which is said to have hap- 
 pened to the saint in his life-time. But the 
 greatest of his yearly festivals is celebrated at 
 Nagasaki, on the ninth day of the ninth month. 
 This city hath a particular veneration for Suwa ; 
 and the matsuris, and other public and private 
 rejoicings made on this occasion, last three days 
 successively. 
 
 Tensin hath two yearly festivals, one on the 
 tweuty-tifth day of the second month, the other 
 on the tweuty-fifth day of the eighth month, which 
 last is celebrated with' much greater solemnity 
 than the first. His chief temple is at Saif, the 
 place of his banishment. He hath another at 
 Miaco, where he manifested himself by many 
 miracles. His adorers resort in pilgrimage to 
 these two places from all parts of the empii-e, 
 chiefly on the twenty-fiftli day of the eighth 
 month. He hath also a private monthly holiday, 
 every twenty-fifth day of the month. 
 
 The festival of Fatzman, a brother of Tensio 
 Dai Sin, is likewise celebrated on the twenty-fifth 
 Jay of the eighth month. He was in his life-time 
 called Oosin, and was the sixteenth emperor of 
 Japan. 
 
 The festival of Mori Saki Dai Gongen is on the 
 eleventh day of the third month. Simios Dai 
 Miosin. Sitenno. 
 
 Gotsutenno, or Giwon, hath his festival at 
 Nagasaki, on the fifteenth day of the sixth 
 month. His monthly holiday is the same with 
 Fatzman's, but little regarded. 
 
 Inari Dai Miosin, is the great god of the foxes. 
 His yearly festival is on the eighth day of the 
 eleventh month, and his monthly holiday every 
 eighth day of the month. 
 
 Idsumo no Jasijro, that is, Jasijro of the 
 
 province Idsumo, is another god, for whom they 
 
 have a great respect. Amongst several glorious 
 
 ,' exploits, he killed a mischievous, tenible dragon. 
 
 ■ He is called also Osjuwo ni no Mikotto. 
 
 Kassino Dai Miosin. She was Empress of 
 Japan, and in her life-time called Singukoga. 
 
 Ben Saiten. Her festival is on the seventh 
 day of the eighth month. The history of this 
 goddess is amply described at the beginning of 
 this chapter. 
 
 Eumano Gongen. Nauiwa Takakuno Mai Kok- 
 firano Dai Miosin was the seventeenth emperor 
 I of Japui, and in his life-time called Nintoku. 
 
 Askano Dai Miosin was the twenty-seventh 
 emperor of Japan, and when alive called Kei Tei, 
 
 Kimbo Senno Gogin was in his life-time called 
 Ankan, and was the twenty-eighth "mperor of 
 Japan. 
 
 The merchants worship and devote themselves 
 in a more peculiar manner to the four following 
 gods, as gods of fortune and prosperity. 1. Jebisu 
 was Tensio Dai Sin's brother, but by him disgraced 
 and banished into an uninhabited island. It is 
 said of him, that he could live two or three days 
 under water. He is, as it were, the Neptune of 
 the country, and the protector of fishermen and 
 searfaring people. They represent him sitting on 
 a rock, with an angling-rod in one hand, or the 
 celebrated fish tai, or steenbrassem in the other, 
 
 2. Daikoku is said to have the power, that 
 wherever he knocks with his hammer, he can 
 fetch out from thence anything he wants, as for 
 instance, rice, victuals, cloth, money, &c. He is 
 commonly represented sitting on a bale of rice, 
 with his fortunate hammer in his right hand, and 
 a bag laid by him, to put up what he knocks out. 
 
 3. Tossitoku, and by some called Kurokusi. The 
 Japanese worship him at the beginning of the 
 new year, in order to obtain from his assistance 
 success and prosperity in their undertakings. He 
 is represented standing, clad in a large gown with 
 long sleeves, with a long beard, a huge, monstrous 
 forehead, and large ears,- and a fan in his right 
 hand. 4. Fottei, by some called Miroku, ii 
 represented with a great, huge belly. His wor- 
 shippers expect from his benevolent assistance, 
 among other good things, health, riches, and 
 children. 
 
 These are the greatest of their gods, and the 
 festival-days sacred to them. There are many 
 more saints and great men, whose memory is 
 celebrated on particular days, because of their, 
 noble actions and great services done to their 
 oountiy. But as they are confined to particular 
 places, being called the saints of such or such a 
 place, and besides, as they were never canonised 
 by the mikaddo, who alone can make saints, nor 
 honoured with an okurina as they call it, or illus- 
 trious title, which is usually given to new gods 
 and saints, I did not think it worth while to make 
 any inquiries about them. 
 
 Thus far, what an attentive traveller can learn 
 in the country, concerning the Sintos religion, 
 and the gods, who are the objects of its worship. 
 A more extensive and accurate account of both 
 is contained in two Japanese books, one of which 
 is called Nippon Odaiki, being an historical and 
 chronological account of their kintsju, or great 
 men, and their memorable actions; the other, 
 Sin Dai Ki, that is, the history and actions of 
 their great gods. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OF THE SANGA, OR PILGRIMAGE TO ISja 
 
 The Japanese are very much addicted to pil- 
 grimages. They make several, and to different 
 places. Thu first and chief goes to Isje, the 
 second to the thirty-three chief Quanwon temples 
 of the empire, the third to some of the most 
 eminent Sin, or Kami, and Fotqje or Buds 
 
KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 341 
 
 temples, famous for the great miracles wrought 
 there, and the help and benefit pilgrims found 
 by going to worship there : such are, for instance, 
 Nikotira, that is, the Temple of the Splendour of 
 the Sun, in the province Osju ; some temples of 
 FatzmaD-, _ome temples of the great teacher 
 Jakusi ; and some more, whereof every one is at 
 liberty to choose which he likes best, or which it 
 best suits his convenience to resort to. i true 
 orthodox Sintoist visits no other temples in pil- 
 grimage but those of his own gods, and the 
 temple Saif, in Tsikusen, where Tensiu died. It 
 may not be amiss to observe in general, that of 
 the three several sorts of pilgrimages mentioued 
 above, the last are made indifferently, by the 
 Sintoists, as well as the Budsdoists, with this 
 difference, however, that everyone goes only to 
 those temples, and worships only those gods, 
 whom his religion commands him to worship. 
 The second, which is the pilgrimage to the thirty- 
 three Quanwon temples, is peculiar to neither of 
 these two religions, but made indifferently by 
 the adherents of both, and looked upon by the 
 generality of the Japanese aa a sure means to 
 obtain happiness in this world, and bliss in that 
 to come. But the first of all, which is made to 
 laje, I propose to take into a more particular con- 
 sideration in this chapter. 
 
 Sanga, in the literal sense of the word, is as 
 much as to say, the Ascent, or going up the 
 temple, and must be understood only of this 
 most eminent temple of Tcnsio Dai Sin. or Tensio 
 ko Dai Sin, that is, according to the literal signi- 
 fication of these words, the great Hereditary 
 Impeiial God of the Celestial Generation. This 
 Tensio Dai Sin is the greatest of all the gods of 
 the Japanese, and the first and chief object of 
 the Sintos worship, on which account also his 
 temple is called Dai Singu, that is, the Temple of 
 the Great God, for Dai signifies great Sin, and 
 Kami a god, a spirit, or immortal soul, and Gu, 
 in conjunction with these words, a mia, that is, 
 a temple, or holy building erected in honour and 
 memory of a god, or iminortal spirit. The com- 
 mon people call it Isje Mia, or the temple of 
 Isje, from a province of that name, wherein it 
 stands. A particular and extraordinary holiness 
 is ascribed to this province, because Tensio Dai 
 Sin was bom, lived, and died there, whence also 
 they derive the name Isje. 
 
 This temple, according to the account of those 
 that have been to see it, is situated in a large 
 plain, and is a sorry, low building of wood, 
 covered with a low, flattiah, thatched roof. Par- 
 ticular care is taken to preserve it as it was built 
 Originally, that it should be a standing monument 
 of the extreme poverty and indigence of their 
 ancestors and founders of the temple, or the 
 first men, as they call them. In the middle of 
 the temple is nothing else but a looking-glass, 
 cast of metal, and polished, according to the 
 fashion of the country, and some cut paper is 
 hung round the walls ; the looking-glass is placed 
 there as an emblem of the all-seeing eye of this 
 great god, and the knowledge he hath of what 
 passes in the inmost heart of his worshippers ; 
 the white cut paper is to represent the purity of 
 the place, and to put his adorers in mind that 
 they ought not to appear before him but with a 
 pure unspotted heart and clean body. This 1 
 
 principal temple is surrounded with nearly a> 
 hundred small chapels, built in honour of other 
 inferior gods, which have little else of a temple 
 but the mere shape, being for the greatest part sa 
 low and small that a man can scarce stand up- 
 right in them. Each of these chapals is attended 
 by a Canusi, or secular priest of the Sintos reli- 
 gion. Next to the temples and chapels live mul- 
 titudes of Nege, Lords or officers of the Temple, 
 and Taije, as they also style themselves, that is. 
 Evangelists or Messengers of the Gods, who keep- 
 houses and lodgings to accommodate travellers 
 and pilgrims. Not far off lies a town, or rather 
 a large borough, which bears the same name with 
 the temple, and is inhabited by inn-keepers,, 
 printers, paper-makers, book-binders, cabinet- 
 makers, joiners, and such other workmen whos& 
 business and profession are any ways related to 
 the holy trade carried on at this place. 
 
 Orthodox Sintoists go in pilgrimage to lsj& 
 once a year, or at least once in their life. Nay, 
 it is thought a duty incumbent on every tru& 
 patriot, whatever sect or religion he otherwise- 
 adheres to, and a public mark of respect and 
 gratitude which every one ought to pay to Tensio- 
 Dai Sin, if not as to the god and protector of tha 
 nation, at least as to its founder and first parent. 
 But besides that ,they look upon it as a duty, 
 there are many considerable advantages which,, 
 as they believe, accrue to those that visit in pil- 
 gi-image these holy places ; such as, for instance, 
 absolution and delivery from sin, assurances of a. 
 happy state in the world to come, health, riches, 
 dignities, children, and other temporal blessings 
 in this life. To keep up the superstitious vulgar 
 in these advantageous notions, every pilgrim is pre- 
 sented by the Canusis, for a small consideration, 
 with an ofarrai, as they call it, that is, a great puri- 
 fication, being, as it were, a public and undoubted 
 instrument of the absolution and remission of their 
 sins insured to themselves by this holy act. But 
 as many people are not able to fetch them at Isje- 
 in person, by reason either of sickness and old 
 age, or because of their employments, attendance 
 upon their prince, or for some such other weighty 
 cause, care is taken not to let them want so great 
 and singular a benefit, but to provide them at 
 home. Many of the Budsdoists resort in pil- 
 grimage to this place at least once, if not oftener- 
 in their life, were it but in order to get ihe repu- 
 tation of a true patriot amongst their country- 
 men. But still there are very many who stay 
 at home, and think it sufficient for the ease 
 and quietness of their conscience, besides the 
 yearly indulgences of their own priests, to pur- 
 chase the ofarrais from Isje, great quantities 
 whereof are sent yearly to all parts of the 
 empire. 
 
 TJfis pilgrimage is maae at all times of the 
 year ; but the greatest concourse of people is in 
 the three first months (March, April, and May), 
 when the season of the year, and the good wea- 
 ther, make the journey vei-y agreeable and , 
 pleasant. Persons of all ranks and qualities, rich 
 and poor, old and young, men and women, resort 
 thither, the lords only of the highest quality, 
 and the most potent princes of the empire, ex- 
 cepted, who seldom appear there in person. An 
 embassy from the emperor is sent there once 
 every year, in the firet month, at which time also 
 
■34a 
 
 SOEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 .another with rich presents goes to Miaco, to tho 
 Ecclesiastical Hereditary Monai'ch. Most of the 
 princes of the empire follow the emperor's ex- 
 ample. As to the pilgrims, who go there in 
 person, every one is at liberty to make the 
 journey in what manner he pleases. Able people 
 do it at their own expense in litters, or on horse- 
 back, with a retinue suitable to their quality. 
 Poor people go on foot, living upon charity which 
 they beg along the road They carry their bed 
 ^long vpith them upon S,iieir back, being a straw 
 mat rolled up, and have a pilgrim's staff in their 
 hands, and a pail hung by their girdle, out of 
 which they drink, and wherein they receive 
 people's charity, pulling off their hats much after 
 the European manner. Their hats are very 
 large, twisted of split reeds. Generally speaking 
 their names, birth, and the place from whence 
 they come, are written upon their hats and pails, 
 that in case of sudden death, or if any other acci- 
 dent should befal them upon the road, it might be 
 known who they are, and to whom they belong ; 
 those that can afford it wear a short white coat, 
 without sleeves, over their usual di-ess, with their 
 names stitched upon it before the breast and on 
 the back. Multitudes of these pilgrims are seen 
 daily on the road. It is scarcely credible what 
 numbers set out only from the capital city of 
 Jedo, and from the large province Osju. It is 
 Bo uncommon thing at Jedo for children to run 
 iiway from their parents in order to go in pil- 
 grimage to Isje. The like attempt would be 
 more difficult in other places, where a traveller 
 that is not provided with the necessary passports 
 would expose himself to no small trouble. As 
 to those that return from Isje, they have the 
 privilege that the ofarrai which they bring from 
 thence is allowed everywhere as a good pass- 
 port. 
 
 After the pilgrim is set out on his journey to 
 Isje, a rope with a, bit of white paper twisted 
 round it is hung up over the door of his house, as a 
 mark for all such as labour under an ima, as 
 they call it, that is, under a considerable degree 
 of impurity, occasioned chiefly by the death of 
 their parents or near relations, to avoid entering 
 the same, it having been observed that when by 
 chance, or through inadvertency, such an impure 
 person came into a pilgrim's house, the pilgrim 
 at the same time found himself very much 
 troubled with strange uneasy dreams, or exposed 
 to some misfortunes. The like marks of purity 
 are also hung up over the walks which lead to 
 the mias, or temples. 
 
 But it is required besides that the pilgrim 
 himself when he is about, or hath already under- 
 taken, this holy journey should abstain religiously 
 from all things that make a man impure, or are 
 likely to divert his mind at the solemn season. 
 Should a fusio, a person that labours under any 
 degree of impurity, presume to undertake this 
 holy journey, before he hath sufficiently pmified 
 himself, he would undoubtedly draw upon him 
 and his family the sinbatz, that is, the displeasure 
 and vengeance of the just and pure gods. The 
 Siukkie, or priests of the Budsdo religion, stand 
 excluded for ever from these holy places, because 
 they follow an impure profession, and are obliged 
 to attend sick people, and to bury the dead. 
 
 When the pilgrim is come to Isje, the desired 
 
 end of his journey, which is done daily by great 
 numbers, and upon some particular days by 
 several thousands, he repairs forthvrith to one of 
 the Canusis, with whom he is acquainted, or 
 hath been addressed to, or by whom he hath 
 been before furnished with ofarrais, and accosts 
 him in a civil and humble manner, bowing his 
 forehead quite down to the ground, according to 
 the country fashion. The Canusi upon this, 
 either conducts himself, vsrith other pilgrims that 
 applied to him for the same purpose, or com- 
 mands his servant to go along vrith them, to show 
 them the several temples, and to tell them the 
 names of the gods to whom they were built, 
 which being done, he himself carries them before 
 the chief temple of Tensio Dai Sin, where, with 
 great humility, they prostrate themselves flat on 
 the ground, and in this abject posture address 
 their supplications to this powerful god, setting 
 forth their wants and necessities, and praying for 
 happiness, riches, health, long life, and the like. 
 After this manner it is that they discharge their 
 duty towards Tensio Dai Sin, and complete the 
 end of their pilgrimage. They ai-e entertained 
 afterwards, as long as they stay at Isje, by the 
 Canusi, who lodges them at his ovra house, if 
 they are not able to bear the expense of a 
 lodging at a public inn. The pilgrims, however, 
 are generally so grateful as to make the Canusi 
 a handsome return for his civility, should it be 
 even out of what they get by begging, and he 
 hath eomplaisano^e enough not to refuse it. 
 
 Having performed all the acts of devotion this 
 pilgrimage requires, the pilgrim is by the Canusi 
 presented with an ofarrai, or indulgence. This 
 ofarrai is a small oblong square box, about a 
 span and a half long, two inches broad, an inch 
 and a half thick, made of small thin boards, and 
 full of thin small sticks, some of which are wrapt 
 up in bits of white paper, in order to remind the 
 pilgi'im to be pure and humble, these two vhtues 
 being the most pleasing to the gods. The name 
 of the temple, Dai Singu, that is, the temple of 
 the great god, printed in large characters, is 
 pasted to the front of the box, and the name of 
 the Canusi who gave the box (for there are great 
 numbers that carry on this trade) on the opposite 
 side, in a smaller character, with the noble tille 
 of 'Taiju, which is as much as to say. Messengers 
 of the gods, a title which all the officers of the 
 Mias assume to themselves. 
 
 This ofarrai the pilgrims receive vrith great 
 tokens of respect and humility, and immediately 
 tie it under their hats, in order to keep it from 
 the rain. They wear it just under their forehead, 
 and balance it with another box, or a bundle of 
 straw, much of the same weight, which they 
 fasten to the opposite side of the hat. Those 
 that travel on horseback have better conveniences 
 to keep and hide it. When the pilgrims are got 
 safe home, they take especial care for the preser- 
 vation of this oarrai, as being a relic of very great 
 moment and consequence to them. And although 
 the effects and virtues of it be limited only to a 
 year, yet, after this term is expired, they allow it 
 a very honourable place in one of the chief apart- 
 ments of their houses, on a shelf made for this 
 purpose, and raised above a man's height. In 
 some places the custom is to keep the old ofarrais 
 over the doors of their houses, underneath a 
 
KCEMPFER'S ACCOtJNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 343 
 
 small roof. Poor people, for want of a better 
 place, keep them in hollow trees behind their 
 houses. In like manner the'ofarrais of deceased 
 people, and those that are dropped upon the road, 
 when found, are put up oai-efuUy in the next 
 hollow tree. 
 
 Large quantities of these ofarraia are sent by 
 the Cauusis every year into all parts of the 
 empire, to supply those who cannot conveniently; 
 or are not willing to come and fetch them at Isje. 
 These o&rral merchants make it their business to 
 resort to the principal and most populous towns 
 towards the Sanguatz, as they call it, or U ew- 
 year's day, this being one of their most solemn 
 festivals, and a day of great purification, and 
 certainly the time when they are most likely to 
 dispose of their merchandise quickly, and to 
 advantage. They sell at the same time new 
 almanacks, which are made by the command of the 
 Mikaddo, or Ecclesiastical Hereditary Emperor, 
 and cannot be printed anywhere else but at Isje. 
 One may buy an ofarrai and an almanack to- 
 gether for a maas, or an itzebo. Able people 
 will give more by way of charity. Those that 
 buy them once are sure to be called upon the 
 next year, and to be presented with three things, 
 to wit, a receipt from the Canusi, or rather a 
 compliment of thanks to the buyer, a new ofarrai, 
 and a new almanack. Such as pay handsomely, 
 and more than is due, which common people 
 seldom do, receive moreover a sakkant, or a 
 varnished wooden cup, as a small return for their 
 generosity. 
 
 The foUowing account of ihe present state and 
 situation of the temples at Isje is taken out 
 of Itznobe, a Japanese author. There are two 
 temples at Isje, about the length of twelve streets 
 distant from each other, both indifferent low 
 structures. The ground whereon they stand 
 hath not above six mats in compass, including 
 the place where the Canusis sit in honour of 
 Tensio Dai Sin. They are both covered with a 
 thatched roof, and both bmlt, which is very 
 remarkable, without any one of the workmen 
 receiving the least hurt in any part of his body. 
 Behind these two temples, on a small eminence, 
 stands the small, but true temple of Tensio Dai 
 Sin, which is called Fongu, that is, the true 
 Temple, and which hath been purposely built 
 higher than the others, in like manner as the 
 temple of Suwa is at Nagasaki: vrithin this 
 temple there is nothing to be seen but a looking^ 
 glass and bits of white paper. 
 
 The first of the temples mentioned above is 
 called Geku ; it hath several Canusis to attend it, 
 and about fourscore massia, or smaller temples, 
 around it, built in honour of inferior gods, each 
 about four mats large, and guarded by a Canusi 
 sitting within to receive people's charity, that 
 beiqg his perquisite for his attendance. 
 
 The second mia is called Naiku, and stands 
 about the length of twelve streets further ofi: It 
 hath likewise great numbers of Canusis, and forty 
 massia, or smaller temples round it, each with a 
 I Canusi as above. The Canusis of these smaller 
 temples have a very singular title, being called 
 Mia Dsusume, which signifies temple-sparrows. 
 
 Those who have a mind to see these temples, 
 
 .. and what is remarkable in and about them, 
 
 without being conducted by a Canusi, or his 
 
 servants, must observe the following rules. They 
 go, in the first place, to the river Mijangawa, 
 which runs by the village Isje, opposite to the 
 temples, there to wash and to clean themselves. 
 Thence walking towards the houses of the Canusis, 
 and other merchants, which are about the length 
 of three or four streets distant from the banks of 
 the river, and passing the said houses, they come 
 to a broad gravelly walk, which leads them 
 straight to the Geku Mia. Here they worship in 
 the first place, and then go round to view the 
 inferior temples, beginning on the right hand, 
 and so going on till they come again to the said 
 temple, from whence they proceed straight 
 forward to the second, called Naiku, where they 
 worship as before, and see the massias round it. 
 From this second temple they proceed further up 
 a neighbouring hUl, situate not far from the 
 coasts, and having walked the length of about 
 fifteen streets, they come to a small cavern, called 
 Awano Matta, that is, the coast of heaven, which 
 is not above twenty ikins distant from the sea. 
 It was in this cavern the great Tensio Dai Sin 
 hid himself, and thereby depriving the world, 
 sun and stars, of their light, showed that he 
 alone is the lord and fountain of light, and the 
 supreme of all the gods. This cavern is about a 
 mat and a half large, with a small temple or 
 chapel, wherein they keep a cami or idol sitting 
 on a cow, and called Dainitz no rai, that is the 
 great representation of the sun. Hajd by live 
 some Canusis in two houses built upon the 
 coasts, which are hereabouts very steep and rooky. 
 The pilgrim performs his devotions also at this 
 cavern and temple, and then presents the Cauusis 
 with a few putjes, desiring them withal to plant 
 a sugi-plant in memory of his having been there. 
 From the top of this hill, a large island is seen at 
 a distance, lying about a mile and a half off the 
 coasts, which they say arose out of the ocean in 
 the times of Tensio Dai Sin. These are the most 
 remarkable things to be seen at Isje. Curious 
 pilgrims before they return to Isje, go a couple 
 of miles further to see a stately Budsdo temple, 
 called Asamadaki, where they worship a Quan- 
 won, called Kokusobosatz. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 or THE JAMMAB03, OK M0DNTAIN-PRIEST3, AHD OTHEB 
 BELIGlOtrS ORDEBS, 
 
 The superstitious Japanese are no less inclined 
 to make religious vows, than they are to visit 
 in pilgrimage holy places. Many among them, 
 and those in particular who aim at a quick 
 unhindered passage into their Elysian Fields, or 
 a more eminent place in these stations of happi- 
 ness, devote themselves to enter into a certain 
 religious orr jr of hermits, called jammabos in 
 the country-language. Others, who labour under 
 some temporal misfortune, or are upon the point 
 to go about some affair of consequence, frequently 
 make a vow, that in case of delivery from present 
 danger, or good success in their undertakings, 
 they will, out of respect and gratitude to the 
 gods, go to worship at certain temples, or keep 
 to a rigorous abstinence on certain days, or build 
 
344 
 
 K(EMPFER'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 temples, or make valuable presents to the priests 
 and extensive charities to the poor, and the like. 
 
 Jammabos signifies, properly speaking, a moun- 
 tain soldier. The character indeed, whereby this 
 word Is expressed, doth not altogether answer 
 to this signification, whicli depends more upon 
 the rules of their order, and their original esta- 
 blishment, whereby all the individual members 
 of this society are obliged, in case of need, to 
 figlit for the gods and the religion of the country. 
 They are a sort of hermits, who pretend to 
 abandon the temporal for the sake of the spu'itual 
 ind eternal ; to exchange an easy and com- 
 modious way of life for an austere and rigorous 
 one ; pleasures for mortifications ; spending most 
 of their time in going up and down holy moun- 
 tains, and frequently washing themselves in cold 
 water, even in the midst of the winter. The 
 richer among them, who are more at their ease, 
 live in their own houses. The poorer go strolling 
 and begging about the country, particularly in 
 the province Syriga, in the neighbourhood of the 
 high mountain Fuai Jamma ; to the top whereof 
 they are by the rules of their order obliged to 
 climb every year, in the sixth month. A few 
 have mias, or temples, but, generally speaking, 
 so ill provided for, that they can scarce get a 
 livelihood by them. 
 
 The founder of this order was one Gienno 
 Giossa, who lived Ubout 1100 years ago. They 
 can give, no manner of account of his birth, 
 parents, and relations. Nor had he any issue. 
 He was the first that chose this solitary way of 
 life for the mortification of his body. He spent 
 all this time erring and wandering through de- 
 Bert, wild, and uninhabited places, which in the 
 end proved no inconsiderable sei'vice to his 
 country, insomuch as thereby he discovered the 
 situation and nature of such places, which nobody 
 before him ventured to view, or to pass through, 
 because of their roughness and wild aspect, and 
 by this means found out new, easier, and shorter 
 roads from places to places, to the great advan- 
 tage of travellers. His followers, in succession of 
 time, split in two difiering oi'ders. One is called 
 Tosansa. Those who embrace this, must once a 
 year climb up to the top of Fikoosan, a very 
 high mountain in the province Busen, upon the 
 confines of Tsikusen, » journey of no small difla- 
 culty and danger, by reason of the height and 
 steepness of this mountain, and the many pre- 
 cipices all round it, but much more, because, aS 
 they pretend, it hath this singular quality, that 
 all those who presume to ascend it, when fusios, 
 that is, labouring under any degree of impurity, 
 are by way of punishment for their impious rash- 
 ness possessed with the fox (others would say, 
 the devil) and turn stark mad. The second order 
 is called Fonsanfa. Those who enter into this, 
 must visit in pilgrimage, once a year, the grave 
 of their founder at the top of a high mountain in 
 the province Jostsijno, which by reason of its 
 height is called Omine, that is, the top of the 
 high mountain. It is said to be excessively cold on 
 the top of this mountain, the steepness and pre- 
 cipices whereof make its ascent no less dangerous 
 than that of the other mentioned above. Should 
 any one presume to undertake this journey, 
 without having first duly purified and prepared 
 >iimself for it, he would run the hazard of being 
 
 thrown down the horrid precipices, and dashed 
 to pieces, or at least by a lingering sickness, or 
 some other considerable misfortune, pay for his 
 folly, and his contempt of the just anger of the 
 gods. And yet, all these dangers and difficulties 
 notwithstanding, all persons, who enter into any 
 of these two orders, must undertake this journey 
 once a year. In order to this they qualify them- 
 selves by a previous moi'tification, by virtue 
 whereof they must for some time abstain from 
 lying with their wives from impure food, and 
 other things, by the use of which they might 
 contract any- degree of impurity, though never so 
 small, not forgetting frequently to bathe and to 
 wash themselves in cold water. As long as they 
 are upon the journey, they must live only 
 upon what roots and plants they find on the 
 mountain. 
 
 If they return safe home from this hazardous 
 pilgrimage, they repair forthwith, each to the 
 general of his order, who resides at Miaco, make 
 him a small present in money, which if poor, 
 they must get by begging, and receive from him 
 a more honom-able title and higher dignity, which 
 occasions, some alteration in their dress, and 
 increases the respect that must be shown them 
 by their brethren of the same border. So far is 
 ambition from being banished out of these reli- 
 gious societies. For thus they rise by degrees, 
 much after the same manner and in the same 
 order as they do in the society of the blind, of 
 which I shall have occasion to speak in the latter 
 part of this chapter. 
 
 The religious of this order wear the common 
 habit of secular persons, with some additional 
 ornaments, directed by the statutes of the order, 
 each of which hath a peculiar name and meaning: 
 they are — ■ , 
 
 Wakisasi, a soimeter ofFudo, which they wear 
 stuck in their girdle on the left side. It is some- 
 what shorter than a katanna, and kept in a flat 
 sheath. 
 
 Sakkudaio, a small staff of the god Dsiso, with 
 a copper head, to which are fastened four rings, 
 likewise of copper. They rattle this staff in their 
 prayers upon uttering certain words. 
 
 Foranokai, a large shell, which will hold about 
 a pint of water, and is wound like a buccinum, or 
 trumpet, smooth, white, with beautiful red spots 
 and lines. It is found chiefly about Array, in 
 low water-. It hangs down from their gii'dle, and 
 serves them in the nature of a trumpet ; having 
 for this purpose a tube fastened to the end, 
 through which they blow upon approach of 
 travellers, to beg their charity. It sounds not 
 unlike a cowherd's horn. 
 
 DsuBukake, a twisted band or scarf, with 
 fringes al^ the end. They wear it about their 
 neck. By tlie length of this scarf, as also by the 
 shape and size of the fringes, it is known what 
 titles and dignities they have been raised to by 
 their superiors. 
 
 Foki, a cap or head-dress, which they wear on 
 their forehead. It is peculiar only to some few 
 among them, 
 
 Oji, a bag wherein they keep a book, some 
 money, and cloth. They carry it upon their 
 
 Jatzuwono warandzie are their shoes or sandals, 
 which are twisted of straw, and the stalks of the 
 
KCEM.PPii!R'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 34S 
 
 tarate flower ; which plant ia in a peculiai- repute 
 of holiness among them. They wear them 
 chiefly in their penitential pilgrimages to the tops 
 of the two holy mountains above-mentioned. 
 
 Iza Taka no Dsiusu is their rosary, or string of 
 beads, by which they say their prayers. It is 
 made of rough balls. The invention and use of 
 it are of a later date than the institution of the 
 order ; accordingly there is no mention made of 
 it in the statutes of the same. Kongo Dsuje. a 
 thick strong staff, a very useful instrument for 
 their journey to the top of the mountains 
 afor&<iaid. 
 
 The most eminent among them have the hair 
 cut off shoi-t behind their heads. Others let it 
 grow, and tie it together. Many suave themselves 
 close, as do in particular the novices upon their 
 entering the order, in imitation of the Budsdo 
 priests, of whom they have borrowed this 
 custom. 
 
 These Sintos hermits are now very much 
 degenerated from the austerity of their pre- 
 decessors ; who, in imitation of their founder's 
 example, and pursuant to the rules laid down by 
 him, lived, from their first entering the order, 
 upon nothing else but plants and roots, and 
 exposed themselves to perpetual and very rude 
 trials and mortifications, fasting, washing them- 
 selves in cold water, wandering through woods 
 and forests, desert and uninhabited places, and 
 the like. In like manner they deviated very much 
 from the simplicity of the religion they formerly 
 professed, admitting the worship of such foreign 
 idols as are thought by them to have the greatest 
 power and influence over the occurrences of 
 human life. They enlarged their system of 
 divinity, and increased the number of super- 
 stitious ceremonies. Among other things, they 
 betook themselves to a sort of trade, which 
 proves very beneficial to them; and to impose 
 upon the vulgar, they give out that they are 
 peculiarly versed in magical arts and sciences, 
 pretending by virtue of certain ceremonies, and 
 mystical obscure words and charms, to command 
 all the gods worshipped in the country, as well 
 of the Sintoists as those of the Budsdoists, the 
 worship of whom was brought over from beyond 
 sea; to conjure and drive out evil spu'its; to do 
 many things beyond the power of nature; to 
 dive into secrets and mysteries ; to recover stolen 
 goods, and to discover the thieves; to foretel 
 future events ; to explain dreams ; to cure 
 desperate distempers; to find out the guilt or 
 innocence of persons accused of crimes and mis- 
 demeanors, and the like. 
 
 I flatter myself the reader will not be displeased 
 to receive some farther information about their 
 way of proceeding in several of these particulars. 
 To begin with the cure of distempers. The 
 patient is to give the jammabos as good an 
 account as possibly he can of his distemper, and 
 the condition he is in. The jammabos, after a 
 full hearing, writes some characters on a bit of 
 paper, which characters, as he pretends, have a 
 particular relation to the constitution of the 
 patient, and the nature of his distemper. This 
 done, he places the paper on an altar before his 
 idols, performing many superstitious ceremonies, 
 in order, as he gives out, to communicate a 
 healing faculty to it, after which he makes it up 
 
 into pills, whereof the patient is to take one 
 every morning, drinking a large draught of water 
 upon it, which again must be drawn up from the 
 spring or river, not without some mystery, and 
 towards such a corner of the world as the 
 jammabos directs. These character-pills are 
 called goof. It must be observed, however, that 
 the jammabos seldom administer and the patients 
 still seldomer resolve to undergo this mysterious 
 cure, till they are almost past all hopes of 
 recovery. In less desperate cases recourse is had 
 to more natural remedies. 
 
 The trials of the guilt or innoceuce of persons 
 accused of crimes and misdemeanors are made 
 in the presence of an idol called Pudo, sitting 
 amidst fire and flames, not indeed in a judicial 
 and public way, after the manner of the Brahmins, 
 Siamites, and other heathens, nor by giving the 
 questioB, as is often done in Europe, chiefly in 
 cases of witchcraft, but privately in the house 
 where the act was committed, and in presence of 
 the domestics, either by a simple conjuiing and 
 uttering certain words, or by fire, or by a draught 
 of kbumano goo. If the first, a simple con- 
 juration, proves inefiectual, recourse is had to the 
 second, a trial by fire ; to be performed by 
 making the suspected persons walk thrice over a 
 coal-fire, about a fathom long, which if they can 
 do without being burnt on the soles of their feet, 
 they are acquitted. Some are brought to con- 
 fession by a draught of khumano goo. Goo ia a 
 paper filled with characters and pictures of black 
 birds, as ravens and others, and sealed with the 
 seals of the jammabos. It is pasted to the doors 
 of houses to keep off evil spirits, and serves for 
 several other superstitious purposes. It is made 
 indifferently by all jammaboa, but the best come 
 from Khumano, whence the name. A little bit 
 torn off this paper must be swallowed by the 
 accused person in a draught of water ; and it is 
 said, that if he be guilty, it will work and trouble 
 him most cruelly till he confesses. They talk 
 very big of the surprising and wonderful virtues 
 of their charms and conjurations, whereby they 
 pretend to be able to manage and handle burning 
 coals and red-hot iron, without receiving any the 
 least hurt ; suddenly to extinguish fires ; to make 
 cold water boiling hot and hot water ice-cold, in 
 an instant; to keep people's swords and scimiters 
 so fast in the sheath that no force is able to draw 
 them out ; to keep themselves from being hurt 
 by these or other weapons ; and to perform many 
 more such uncommon and surprising things, 
 which, if more nicely examined, would be found 
 perhaps to be little else than jugglera' tricks, and 
 effects of natui al causes. They call it jamassu, 
 which signifies conjuring strokes. These migljty 
 strokes- are nothing else but certain motions of 
 their hands and fingers, whereby they pretend to 
 represent crocodiles, tigers, and other monstrous 
 animals, at the same time uttering certain obscure 
 sounds. By this, and by frequently altering 
 these positions and representations, as also by 
 lifting up and letting fall their voice, they 
 endeavour, they say, as with so many cross-strokes, 
 to come within reach of the object to be charmed, 
 till at last, having removed and out through all 
 obstacles and hindrances, they obtain their 
 desired end. 
 
 One of their chief and most mysterious sin, aa 
 
a46 
 
 KCEMPJTEKS ACCOUilT OF JAPAN. 
 
 they call them, or charms, ia, when holding up 
 both hands, and twisting the fingers, as it were, 
 one within another, they represent the Si 
 Tensi 0, that is, the four most powerful gods 
 of the thirty-third and last heaven. The position 
 which they put their fingers in is thus : they 
 hold up the two middle fingers, one against 
 another almost perpendicular, and make the two 
 next fingers, on each side, cross one another in 
 such a manner, that they point towards four 
 different comers of the world, in representation 
 of these four gods, whom they call Tammonden, 
 Tsigokten, Sosioten, and Kamokteu. The two 
 middle fingera held up, as I observed, almost 
 perpendicularly, serve them, as they pretend, in 
 the nature of a spy-glass, whereby to spy out the 
 spirits and distempers, to see the kitz or fox, and 
 the ma, or evil spirit, lodged in people's bodies, 
 and to find out precisely what sort they be of, in 
 order afterwards to squai'e their charms and 
 ceremonious superstitions to the more effectual 
 driving of them out. But this same position of 
 the middle fingers with regard to the rest is to 
 represent besides Fudo mio wo, that is, the holy 
 great Fudo, formerly a giosia, a mighty devotee 
 of their order, who, among other extraordinary 
 .mortifications, sat down dally in the midst of a 
 large fire, though without Teceiving any hurt; 
 and by whose powerful assistance they believe, 
 on this account, to be able, not only to destroy 
 the burning quality of fire when they please, but 
 also to make it serve at command to what pur- 
 poses they think fit. A lamp filled with an oil 
 made of a certain black venomous water lizard, 
 called inari, is kept continually burning before 
 the idol of Fudo. 
 
 The jammabos make a mighty secret of these 
 charms and mysterious arts. However, for a 
 handsome reward, they will communicate and 
 teach them to other people, though under con- 
 dition of secresy. The account I have given in 
 this chapter of this singular order, I had chiefly 
 from a young Japanese, well versed in the affairs 
 of his country, whom during my stay in Japan I 
 taught physio and surgery, and who had been 
 one of their scholars himself. He further told 
 me, that before they would let him into the 
 secret, they made him undergo a very rude 
 noviciate. And, in the first place, he was to 
 abstain from everything that had life in it, and 
 to subsist only upon rice and herbs for six days 
 together. In the next place, they commanded 
 !him to wash himself seven times a day in cold 
 water, and kneeling down on the ground, with 
 his buttocks to his heels, and clapping his hands 
 •over his head, to lift himself up seven himdred 
 and fourscore times every day. This last part of 
 his trial he found also the rudest ; for by getting 
 ■up and down two .or three hundred times, he 
 brought himself all into a sweat, and grew so 
 tired and weary, that he was often upon the 
 .point to run away from his masters ; but being a 
 ■young lusty fellow, shame rather than curiosity 
 •prevailed upon him to hold out to the last. 
 
 Thus much of the jammabos. There are still 
 .many more religious orders and societies esta- 
 blished in this country, a particular account of 
 ■which would swell this chapter to an unbecoming 
 length. From the superstitious veneration of 
 the ■vulgar for their ecclenidjstics and the ease 
 
 and pleasures of a religious life, it is no wonder 
 that the number of costly temples, rich monas- 
 teries and convents, where, under the cloak of 
 retirement and divine worship, the monks give 
 themselves up to an uninterrupted pursuit of 
 wantonness and Juxury, is grown to an excess 
 scarce credible. But there are also some parti- 
 cular societies not purely ecclesiastical, nor con- 
 fined to the clergy alone, but rather of a mixed 
 nature, with an alloy of secularity. Out of many, 
 that of the blind is not unworthy of considera- 
 tion ; a singular, but very ancient and numerous 
 body, composed of persons of all ranks and 
 professions. Originally they made up but one 
 society, but in process of time they split into two 
 separate bodies ; one of which is called Feekisado, 
 or the Blind Feekis, the other Bussetz Sato, or 
 the Blind Bussetz. It will not be amiss to inquire 
 into the origin and constitutions of both. The 
 Bussetz Sato must be considered first, as being of 
 a more ancient standing. At present this society 
 is composed only of ecclesiastical persons, whose 
 rules and customs are not very different from 
 those of the jammabos. Tlieir founder was 
 Senmimar, the Emperor Jengino Mikaddo, his 
 third (and according to some authors, his fourth) 
 son, and the occasion of their institution is re- 
 corded in Japanese histories to have been as 
 follows : Senmimar was a youth of incomparable 
 beauty, and exceedingly beloved by all that came 
 near him. It happened that a princess of the 
 imperial blood fell desperately in love with him : 
 her beauty and virtues proved charms as irre- 
 sistible to the young prince as his graceful )]er8on 
 and princely qualities had been to her. For some 
 time the happy lovers enjoyed allthe satisfaction 
 and mutual retui-ns of passion and friendship, 
 when the death of the princess intervening, 
 Senmimar took it so much to heart, that not long 
 after, through grief and sorrow, he lost his sight. 
 Upon this, to perpetuate the memory of liis 
 dearly beloved, and to make known to posterity 
 what an unfortunate effect his unfeigned concern 
 and sorrow for her loss had had upon himself, he 
 resolved, with his father's leave, and under his 
 imperial charter, to erect a society, whereinto 
 none should be admitted but such as had the 
 misfortune to be blind by birth or accident. His 
 design was put in execution accordingly. The 
 new erected society prospered exceedingly, and 
 flourished, and got into great repute at court, and 
 in the empire. For some centuries they continued 
 united in one body, till a new society of the Feki 
 Blind, as they are now called, sprung up, which in 
 a short time got so far the better of the former, 
 many great men in the empire, who were blind, 
 voluntarily entering into it, that by degrees they, 
 lost much of their reputation, and were reduced 
 very low in number, none being left at last but 
 ecclesiastical persons, to whom it remains now 
 confined. Ever since their first institution, the 
 Feki Blind c<mtinued in uninterrupted possession 
 of all the esteem and authority tlie Bussetz had 
 once enjoyed. Kay, being still more numerous, 
 they are also much more considered in pro- 
 portion. They owe their origin to the civil wars I 
 between -the Fekis and Gendzis, both contending 
 
 for the empire. Whole volumes have been written 
 of the long and bloody dissensions between these 
 two once considerable and powerful parties, and 
 
KOEMPFER'S ACCOUKT OF JAPAN. 
 
 347' 
 
 the mimifold calamities irhich thence befel the 
 ■«mpire. The cause of Foki and his adherents 
 appearing more just to the then reigning Dairi 
 than that of Gsndzi, he thought himself bound in 
 conscience to support ; which he did so eSectually, 
 that Gendzi and his party were defeated and 
 almost totally destroyed. The victorious Feki, 
 as success is often followed by pride and ambi- 
 tion, soon forgot the obligations he lay under to 
 the Dairi, and behaved himself with so much 
 insolence and ungratefulness towards him, that 
 lie resolved to espouse the interest, though almost 
 totally sunk, of Oendzi and his adherents ; pro- 
 mising all manner of encouragement and assist- 
 ^mce, if they would once more gather all their 
 strength together, and take up aims against Feki 
 ^nd his party. Affairs upon this soon took another 
 turn; victory in a decisive battle favoured the 
 <lendzi8 ; Feki himself was slain near Simonoseki, 
 -and his whole army defeated) but few escaping. 
 Amongst those who escaped with their lives, was 
 Kakekigo, a general very much renowned for his 
 valour and supiarnatural strength, which, it was 
 believed, he obtained from Quanwon, as a reward 
 for his constant devotion to that god. This 
 general fled in a small boat, Joritomo, general 
 -of the Gendzis, and himself a very resolute 
 soldier, knew of what consequence it was to 
 -secure the person of Kakekigo; and till then 
 -thinking his victory incomplete, he caused him 
 to be pursued and taken. However, when he 
 was brought before him, he treated him kindly, 
 and vrith all the respect due to a person of his 
 rank and character, withal confining him so little, 
 that Kakekigo found means several times to make 
 his escape, but was as often retaken. The gene- 
 rous Joritomo had no thoughts of putting him to 
 death, though his enemy and his prisoner. Kay, 
 far from it, he put such a value upon the friend- 
 ship and affection of a person of his note, as to 
 think it worth his while to purchase it at any 
 price. One day, when he was pressing him very 
 closely to enter into his service, upon whatever 
 terms he pleased, the captive general returned 
 him the following resolute answer : " I was once, 
 (said he,) a faithful servant to a kind master. 
 Now he is dead, no other shall boast of my faith 
 and friendship. I own that you have laid me 
 under great obligations. I owe even my life to 
 your clemency. And yet such is my misfortune, 
 that I cannot set my eyes on you, but with a 
 •design, in revenge of him and me, to cut off your 
 head. These, therefore, these designing instru- 
 ments of mischief I will offer to you, as the only 
 acknowledgment for your generous behaviour 
 towards me, my unhappy condition will allow me 
 to give you." This said, he plucks out both his 
 -eyes, and on a plate, presents them to Joritomo, 
 undaunted like that bold Roman, who, in sight of 
 Porsenna, burnt his right hand on the altar. 
 ■Joritomo, astonished at so much magnanimity 
 and resolution, forthwith set the captive general 
 at liberty, who thereupon retired into the pro- 
 vince Fiuga, where he learnt to play upon the 
 bywa, a particular musical instrument used in 
 Japan, and gave birth to this society of the Feki 
 Blind, of wiiioh he himself was the first Kengio 
 •or he.i<?.. This i^ the aoflount Japanese histories 
 
 pve of the original institution of this society, 
 which is since grown veiy numerous, being com- 
 posed of persons of all ranks and professions. 
 They shave their heads, as do also the Bussetz 
 sato, or ecclesiastical blind, Otherwise, beiug 
 secular persons, they wear also a secular habit, 
 different however from the common dress of the 
 Japanese, and different among themselves accord- 
 ing to their rank and dignities. They do not 
 live upon charity, but make a shift, in their 
 several capacities, to get a livelihood for them- 
 selves, and to provide for the maintenance of 
 their commonwealth, following divers professions, 
 not altogether inconsistent with their unhappy 
 condition." Many of them apply themselves to 
 music, in which capacity they are employed at 
 the courts of princes and great men, as also upon 
 public solemnities, festivals, processions, wed- 
 dings, and the like. Whoever is once admitted a 
 member of this society must remain such for 
 life. They are dispersed up and down the 
 empire, but their general resides at Miaco, where 
 the cash of the company is kept. He is called 
 Osiokf, and has 4300 thails a year allowed him 
 for his mamtenance by the Dairi. He governs 
 the commonwealth, being assisted by ten coun- 
 sellors called Siu Ho, which signifies elder-men, 
 alder-men, of which he, the general, himself is 
 the eldest. They reside at Miaco, and have, 
 jointly with the general, power of life and death, 
 with this restriction however, that no person can 
 be executed, unless the sentence be approved of, 
 and the death-warrant signed by the Lord Chief 
 Justice of Miaco. The council of ten appoint 
 their inferior officers, who reside in the several 
 provinces : some of these ai'e called kengio, as it' 
 were father provincials ; being each in his pro- 
 vince what the general is with regard to the 
 whole society. The founder himself took only 
 the title of Ken Gio. But the society having iu 
 process of time grown very numerous, it was 
 thought neoessaiy to alter the government, and 
 to appoint a court superior to the kengios. Every 
 kengio has his kotos, as they are called, to 
 assist and advise him. The kotos sometimes 
 govern particular districts by themselves. At 
 Nagasaki there is a kengio and two kotos, under 
 whose command stand all the blind of that town 
 and adjacent country. The kengios and kotos 
 have many other inferior officers subordinate to 
 them, who are called sijbun, and arb again sul> 
 ordinate to one another. They differ from the 
 common body of the blind by wearing long 
 breeches. As they have different ranks and 
 titles among themselves, so they are obliged 
 every five years to purchase a new quan, that is, 
 a new and higher title from their kengio, for 20 to 
 60 thails. If they neglect, or are not able to do 
 it, they are removed to a lower rank. The main' 
 body of the blind are comprehended under one- 
 general name of Mukwan. These wear no 
 breeches, and are divided into four quans, ranks, 
 or cla."-Bes. Those of the fourth and last class are 
 capable of being made sijbuns, from which office ■ 
 they gradually rise to the dignity of kota, kengio, 
 and so on. Sometimes, through money or favour, 
 they rise very suddenly. 
 
818 
 
 KCEMPFEK'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 or lai! BUDSDO, OK, rOBEiaK pagan worship, AMD ITS 
 FOUNDER. 
 
 Foreign idols, for distinction's sake from the 
 Kami, or Sin, which were worshipped in the 
 country in the most ancient times, are called 
 Budsd and Fotoke. The characters also, whereby 
 these two words are expressed, differ from those 
 of Sin and Kami. Budsdo, in the literal sense, 
 signifies the way of foreign idols, that is, the way 
 of worahipping foreign idols. The origin of this 
 religion, which quickly spread through most 
 Asiatic countries to the very extremities of the 
 East (not unlike the Indian fig-tree, which pro- 
 pagates itself, and spreads far round, by sending 
 down new roots from the extremities of its 
 branches), must be looked for among the 
 Brahmins. I have strong reasons to believe, 
 both from the affinity of the name, and the very 
 nature of this religion, that its author and 
 founder is the very same person, whom the 
 Brahmins called Budha, and believe to be an 
 essential part of Wisthnu, or their Deity, who 
 made its ninth appearance in the world under 
 this name, and in the shape of this man. The 
 Chinese and Japanese call him Buds and Siaka. 
 These two names indeed became in course of 
 time a common epithet of all gods and idols in 
 general, the worship of whom was brought over 
 from other countries : sometimes also they were 
 given to the saints and great men who preached 
 these new doctrines. The common people in 
 Siam call him Prah Pudi Dsau, that is, the Holy 
 Lord, and the learned among them, in their pali, 
 or holy language, Sammona Khodum. The 
 Feguans call him Samman a Khutama. 
 
 His native country, according to the Japanese 
 (with regard to whom he is chiefly considered in 
 this place), is Magattakokf, or the province 
 Magatta in the country Tensik. Teusik, in the 
 literal sense, signifies a heavenly counti-y, a coun- 
 try of heavens. The Japanese comprehend under 
 this name the island of Ceylon, the coasts of 
 Malabar and Coromandel, and in general all the 
 countries of South Asia, the continent as well as 
 the neighbouring islands, which are inhabited by 
 Blacks, such as the peninsula of Malacca, the 
 islands of Sumatra, Java, the kingdoms of Siam, 
 Pegu, &c. 
 
 He was born in the twenty-sixth year of the 
 reign of the Chinese Emperor Soowo, who was 
 fourth successor of the famous Simo Buo, on the 
 eighth day of the fourth month. This was 
 according to some the year before our Saviour's 
 nativity, 1029, and according to others, 1027, 
 when I was in Siam, in 1690, the Siamites then 
 told 2232 years from their Budha, who, if he be 
 the same with the Siaka of the Japanese, his birth 
 comes up no higher than 542 years before Christ. 
 His father was king of Magattakokf, a powerful 
 kingdom in the country Tensikf. I conjecture 
 this to be the island of Ceylon. The kingdom of 
 Siam indeed is so called to this day by the 
 common people in Japan. 
 
 Siaka, when he came to be nineteen years of 
 »ge, quitted his palace, leaving his wife and an 
 only son behind him, and voluntarily, of his own 
 
 choice, became a disciple of Arara Sennln, then a. 
 hermit of great repute, who lived at the top of a. 
 mountain called Dandokf. Under the inspectioa 
 of this holy man, he betook himself to a very 
 austere life, wholly taken up with an almost 
 uninterrupted contemplation of heavenly andi 
 divine things, in a posture very singular in itself, 
 but reckoned very proper for this sublime way 
 of thinking, to wit, sitting cross-legged, with his 
 hands in the bosom placed so that the extremities- 
 of both thumbs touched one another ; a posture 
 which is thought to engage one's mind into sO' 
 profound a meditation, and to wrap it up so 
 entirely within itself, that the body lies for a. 
 while as it were senseless, unattentive, and 
 unmoved by any external objects whatsoever.. 
 This profound enthusiasm is by them called, 
 safen, and the divine truths revealed to such 
 persons, satori. As to Siaka himself, the force 
 of his enthusiasm was so great, that by its means. 
 he penetrated into the most secret and important 
 points of religion, discovering the existence and. 
 state of heaven and hell, as places of reward and 
 punishment, the state of our souls in a life to 
 come, the transmigration thereof, the way to- 
 eternal happiness, the divine power of the god» 
 in the government of this world, and many more- 
 things beyond the reach of human underatanding, 
 which he afterwards freely communicated to th&^ 
 numerous crowds of his disciples, who, for the 
 sake of his doctrine and instructions, followed 
 him in flocks, embracing the same austere way of 
 life which he led himself. 
 
 He lived seventy-nine years, and died on the- 
 fifteonth day of the second month, in the year- 
 before Christ 950. 
 
 The most essential points of his doctrine are as- 
 follows : — 
 
 The souls of men and animals are immortal :: 
 both are of the same substance, and differ only 
 according to the different objects they are placed 
 in, whether human or animal. 
 
 The souls of men, after their departure from 
 their bodies, are rewarded in a place of happiness, 
 or misery, according to their behaviour in this- 
 Ufe. 
 
 The place of happiness is called Gokurakf,. 
 that is, a place of eternal pleasures. As the gods- 
 differ in their nature, and the souls of men in the- 
 merit of their past actions, so do likewise the- 
 degrees of pleasure and happiness in their 
 Elysian fields, that every one may be rewarded 
 as he deserves. However the whole place is so- 
 thoroughly filled with bliss and pleasure, that- 
 each happy inhabitant thinks his portion the 
 best, and far from envying the happier state or 
 others, wishes only for ever to enjoy hia own. 
 
 Amida is the sovereign commander of these- 
 heavenly stations (for all his doctrine hath not 
 been introduced by the Brahmins, till after our 
 Saviour's glorious resurrection). He is looked 
 upon as the general patron and protector of 
 human souls, but more particularly as the god 
 and father of those who happily transmigrate 
 into these places of bliss. Through his and his 
 sole mediation, men are to obtain absolution 
 from their sins, and a portion of happiness in the 
 future life. 
 
 Leading a virtuous life, and doing nothing that 
 is contrary to the commandments of the law ot 
 
KOEMPPER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 349 
 
 -Siaka, is the only way to become agreeable unto 
 Amida, and worthy of eternal happiness. 
 
 The five commandments of the doctrine Siaka, 
 which are the standing rule of the life and 
 behaviour of all his faithful adherents, are called 
 'Ookai, which implies as much as the five cautions, 
 ■or warnings : they are — 
 
 Se Seo, the law not to kill any thing that hath 
 .life in it. 
 
 Tsu To, the law not to steal. 
 
 Sijain, the law not to commit impurity. 
 
 Mago, the law not to lie. 
 
 Onsiu, the law not to drink strong liquors ; a 
 law which Siaka most earnestly recommended to 
 his disciples, to be by them strictly observed. 
 
 Next to these five chief and general command- 
 ments, which contain in substance the whole law 
 -of Siaka, follow ten Sikkai, as they call them, 
 that is, counsels or admonitions, being nothing 
 else but the five first laws branched out, and 
 ^applied to more particular actions, and tending 
 to a stricter observance of vii-tue. For the sake 
 -of the learned, and such as aim at a more than 
 .ordinary state of virtue and perfection, even in 
 this world, a still further subdivision has been 
 -contrived into Gosiakkai, that is, five hundred 
 counsels and admonitions, wherein are specified, 
 .and determined with the utmost exactness and 
 particularity, whatever .actions have, according to 
 ■their notions, the least tendency to virtue and 
 vice, and ought on this account to be done or 
 -omitted. 
 
 The number of these Gosiakkai being so very 
 -extensive, it is no wonder that those, who will 
 -oblige themselves to a strict observance thereof, 
 are so few in proportion ; the rather, since they 
 .tend to such a thorough mortification of their 
 todies, as to measure and prescribe the very 
 .minutest parts of their diet, allowing scai-ce so 
 much as is necessary to keep them from starving. 
 Nothing but the ambition of acquiring a great 
 repute of perfection and sanctity in this world, 
 .and the desire of being raised to a more eminent 
 station of happiness in the next, can prompt any 
 body to undergo such a rude and severe discipline 
 •as is prescribed by the Gosiakkai, and few there 
 are, even among the best part of their clergy, 
 who, for the sake of a gi'eater portion of happiness 
 in a future world, would willingly renounce the 
 ■very least pleasures of this. 
 
 All persons, secular or ecclesiastical, who by 
 their sinful life and vicious actions, have rendered 
 themselves unworthy of the pleasures prepared 
 for the virtuous, are sent after their death to a 
 place of misery, called Dsigokf, there to be 
 confined and tormented, not indeed for ever, but 
 -only during a certain undetermined time. As 
 the pleasures of the Elysian fields differ in 
 degrees, so do likewise the torments in these 
 infernal places. Justice requires that every one 
 should be punished, according to the nature and 
 number of his crimes, the number of years he 
 lived in the world, the station he lived in, and 
 the opportunities he had to be virtuous and good. 
 Jemma, or with a more majestic character, 
 •Jemma (by which same name he is known also 
 to the Brahmins, Siamites, and Chinese), is the 
 severe judge and sovereign commander of this 
 place of darkness and misery. All the vicious 
 •actions of mankind appear to him in all their 
 
 horror and heinousness, by the means of a large 
 looking-glass, placed before him, and called 
 Bsofariuo kagami, or the looking-glass of know- 
 ledge. The miseries of the poor unhappy souls 
 confined to these prisons of darkness are not so 
 considerable and lasting but that great relief 
 may be expected from the virtuous life and good 
 actions of their family, friends, and relations, 
 whom they left behind. But' nothing is so 
 conducive to this desirable end, as ,the prayers 
 and offerings of the piiests to the great and good 
 Amida, who by his powerful intercession can 
 prevail so far upon the almost inexorable judge 
 of this infernal place, as to oblige him to remit 
 from the severity of his sentence, to treat the 
 unhappy imprisoned souls with kindnes?, at least 
 so far as is not inconsistent with his justice, 
 and the punishment their crimes deserve, and 
 last of all, to send them abroad into the world 
 again as soon as possible. 
 
 When the miserable souls have been confined 
 in these prisons of darkness a time sufficient to 
 expiate their crimes, they are, by virtue of the 
 sentence of Jemma 0, sent back into the world, 
 to animate, not indeed the bodies of men, but of 
 such vile creatures whose natures and properties 
 are nearly related to their former sinful inclina- 
 tions, such as, for instance, serpents, toads, 
 insects, birds, fishes, quadrupeds, and the like. 
 From the vilest of these, transmigrating by 
 degrees into others, and nobler, they at last are 
 suffered again to enter human bodies, by which 
 means it is put in their power, either by a good 
 and virtuous life to render themselves worthy of 
 a future unintemipted slate of happiness, or by 
 a new course of vices to expose themselves once 
 more to undergo all the miseries of confinement 
 in a place of torment, succeeded by a new 
 unhappy transmigration. 
 
 Thus far the most essential points of the 
 doctrine of Siaka. 
 
 Among the disciples of Siaka arose several 
 eminent men, who contributed greatly to the 
 propagation of his doctrine, and were succeeded 
 by others equally learned and zealous, insomuch 
 that we need not wonder that his religion, within 
 a very short compass of time, spread to the veiy 
 extremities of the East, even all the difficulties 
 they had to struggle with notwithstanding. 
 
 The most eminent of his disciples were Annan 
 and Kasia, or with their full titles, Annan Sonsja, 
 and Kasia Sonsja. They collected his wise 
 sentences, and what was found after his death, 
 written with his own hands on the leaves of trees, 
 into a book, which, for its peculiar excellency, is ^ 
 called Fokekio, that is, the book of fine flowers ' 
 (in comparison with the holy tarate-flower), 
 and sometimes also, by way of pre-eminence, Kio, 
 the book, as being the most perfect performance 
 in its kind, and the bible of all eastern nations 
 beyond the Ganges, who embraced Siaka's doctrine. 
 The two compilers of it, for their care and pains, 
 were related among the saints, and are now 
 worshipped jointly with Siaka, in whose temples, 
 and upon whose altars, they are placed, one to 
 his right, the other to his left hand. 
 
 Before the doctrine of Siaka was brought over 
 into China, and from thence through Coraea into 
 Japan, the old Sintos or Cami worship, mean and 
 simple as it was, was yet the only one flourishing 
 
350 
 
 KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OT JAPAX. 
 
 in this empire. Tliey had but few temples, and 
 few holidaya, and the yearly pilgrimage to the 
 temple of Tensio Dai Sin at Isje, was thought 
 the best and surest way to happiness. 'Tis true, 
 in course of time, the number of gods and saints 
 increased, their system of divinity was embellished 
 with new fables, arts also and sciences were 
 improved, chiefly since the time of Synmu Ten 0, 
 their first monarch. But still a certain simplicity 
 prevailed, and people following the dictates of 
 reason, aimed at nothing so much as to live 
 morally well. The Chiuese also, before that 
 time, followed the illustrious examples and moral 
 precepts of their two great emperors Tee Gio, 
 that is the EiJiperor Gio, who, according to their 
 chronological computation, lived 2359 years before 
 Christ, and his successor Tee Siun, or the 
 Emperor Siun, who though a peasant, was yet 
 for his prudence and honesty, made by Gio, first 
 his co-partner in the government, and afterwards 
 his successor, though in prejudice to his, Gio's 
 twelve children, viz., ten sons and two daughters. 
 These two illustrious princes were the two first 
 Sesins. Sesin is a philosopher, able to find out 
 truth and wisdom, merely by the force of his 
 own understanding and without being taught by 
 others. By mistake, this same name hath been 
 sometimes given to some of their most eminent 
 divines. Some hundred years after the reign of 
 these princes, the Pagan doctrine of Roos arose 
 in China. This man was born in Sokokf, that is, 
 the province So, on the fourth day of the ninth 
 month, 346 years after the death of Siaka, or 604 
 before our Saviour's nativity. They say, that his 
 mother had been big with child eiglity-one years, 
 for which reason, when she was brought to bed, 
 they called him Roos, which implies as much as 
 old son, or old child. They further add, that 
 the soul of Kassobosatz, or the holy Kasso, the 
 eldest disciple of Siaka, by transmigration dwelt 
 in him, which made it easy to him to attain to 
 such a high pitch of knowledge about the nature 
 of gods and spirits, the immortality of our souls, 
 a future state, and such other important points 
 as are highly conducive to the instruction of such 
 as are desirous of learning, and fill the credulous 
 vulgar with admiration. He lived eighty-four years. 
 Meanwhile the doctrine and philosophy of 
 Roos got ground in China, another incomparable 
 sesin appeared on the philosophical stage of that 
 empire. This was Koosi, or as we Europeans 
 call him, Confutius, born in the province Kok, on 
 the fourth day of the eleventh month, 399 years 
 after the death of Siaka, and fifty-three after the 
 birth of Roosi, who was then still alive. His 
 birth was in a manner miraculous, attended with 
 no obscure signs of a future sesin. He had some 
 natural marks on his head, like those of the 
 Emperor Gio, and his forehead was of the same 
 shape with that of the Emperor Siun. At the 
 time of his birth music was heard in heaven, 
 and two dragons were observed to attend when 
 the child was washed. His stature, when grown 
 ' np, was very noble and majestic, of nine saku and 
 nine suns, proportionable to the greatness of his 
 genius. Passing over in silence what is fabulous 
 and roma'itic, in the history of his life, it cannot 
 be denied but that he had an incomparable 
 understanding, and excellent sense, and was 
 perhaps the greatest philosopher the East ever 
 
 produced. His writings and philosophy hav« 
 maintained a constant uninterrupted roputatiott 
 for upwards of two thousand years, and are- 
 thought in China to have been brought down from 
 heaven, as was formerly supposed of the philo- 
 sophy of Socrates. A profound respect is shown, 
 to his memory both in China and Japan, by 
 public as well as private persons. Very lately 
 the Emperor of Japan caused two temples to be 
 built to him, in his capital Jedo, ' whither he- 
 repaired in person as soon as they were finished, 
 and on this occasion set forth, in a handsome 
 speech to his courtiers, the merits of this great 
 man, and the peculiar excellency of the maxims 
 of government laid down by him. His picture is 
 allowed the most honourable place in the houses 
 of philosophers, and all persons who apply them- 
 selves to studies and learning, never mention his 
 name without particular tokens of respect. It is 
 no wonder then, that the chimerical, and in 
 several particulars, incomprehensible doctrine of 
 Roosi was not able to stand its ground against, 
 the reasonable and pleasing moral of Confutius, 
 but was, as it were, smothered in its infancy,, 
 and sensibly decreased, in proportion as the 
 adherents of Confutius increased, of whom there- 
 was a concourse from all parts of the empire, 
 almost beyond imagination. He died in the 
 seventy-third year of his age, leaving behind him 
 many able men, who propagated his doctrine and 
 philosophy, not only by teaching it to others, 
 but by gathering all his wise sentences and moral 
 maxims, which he communicated to them in his- 
 lifetime, into a book, which is called Siudo, that 
 is, the philosophical way of life, or the way of" I 
 life agreeable to philosophy, which over since, 
 for now upwards of two thousand years, hath 
 been looked upon as a performance incomparable- 
 in its kind, and an excellent pattern of a good 
 and virtuous life ; a book extolled not only by the 
 admirers of Confutius, but admired for its morals, 
 and political maxims, even by the adherents of 
 the Budsdo and other religions, in the very same 
 manner as the vn-itings of the ancient Greek and 
 Roman philosophers, which have escaped the 
 common shipwreck of time, deservedly stand the 
 admiration of all Europe, and a lasting monu- 
 ment of the excellent genius of their great 
 authors. 
 
 While thus the doctrine and pleasing philosbphy 
 of Confutius began to flourish' in China, and to 
 spread to the neighbouring empire of Japan, the 
 doctrine and religion of Siaka, which had then 
 already penetrated to the kingdoms of Siam and 
 Laos, was not likely to meet with a favourable 
 reception in this furthermost part of the East. 
 If we believe the Japanese historians, the first 
 that taught this religion in China, came over 
 thither about the year of Christ 63, and 
 obtained leave to build a temple, which is still 
 called Fakubasi, that is, the temple of the white 
 horse, because the kio, or holy book Of Siaka, 
 was brought over on a white horse. The greatest 
 difficulty the preachers of this new doctrine had 
 to struggle with, was the philosophy of Confutius, 
 then shining in its full lustre, and uni verssUy 
 approved. And indeed it appears 1 hat for several 
 hundred years the religion of Siaka made a very 
 slow and in,Mgnificant progress, till about the 
 year of Christ 518, one Darma, ii great saint, and 
 
K.(BMPFBE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 851 
 
 thirty-third Buocessor on the holy see of Siaka, 
 came over into China from Seitensiku, as the 
 Japanese writers explain it (that is from that 
 part uf the world which lies westward with regard 
 to Japan), and laid, properly speaking, the first 
 sure foundations of Budsdoism in that mighty 
 empire. The fame of his dignity and holiness, 
 the austerity of his life, his ardent uninterrupted 
 devotion, which was so strong, that he did not 
 scruple, in the height of his zeal, to cut off his 
 own eyelids, because they had once drawn him 
 out ef his enthusiastic meditations into a sleep, 
 soon brought a crowd of admirers about him. 
 But the most effectual and most persuasive 
 arguments he made use of to induce people to 
 the worship of the gods, were, the doctrine of 
 the immortality of our souls, and the promises 
 of a reward in a future life, which they should 
 not faU to obtain, if' they would but worship 
 them, as his doctrine, religion, and example 
 should direct. This new worship having once 
 got ground in China, soon spread into Fakkusai 
 (which was then the name given to the peninsula 
 of Corea, and is now that of one of its three 
 provinces), where the first Budz, or idol of Siaka, 
 was erected and worshipped in the year of Christ 
 543. Japan, whose inhabitants were then divided 
 between the old religion of the "country, and the 
 philosophical doctrines communicated to them 
 from China, could now hold out no loager, but 
 soon admitted the religion of Siaka, following in 
 that, as they had done in many other things, the 
 example of the neighbouring countries. The first 
 Bukkio was brought over into Japan, about the 
 year of Christ 550. About eighteen years after, 
 according to Japanese writers, a curious carved 
 idol of Amida, which had been some yeai-s before 
 brought over from Tensiku into Fakusai, appeared 
 in a miraculous manner in the province Tsino 
 Cami, all surrounded with sparkling rays, upon 
 which a temple was built in Sinano, in memory 
 of this remarkable event, which was called 
 Sanquosi, and is still the chief and largest temple 
 of that province. About that time Kimmei ruled 
 over Japan, who was no enemy to this religion, 
 and connived at its introduction and spreading. 
 This was the same emperor who divided the 
 time into Nengos, in imitation of the Chinese. 
 The nengo then subsisting, when this temple was 
 Auilt, waa called Congo. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 OT THE STDTO, THAT IS, THE DOCTKIHE AHD WAT Or 
 LIFB OF THEIB MORAUfiTS AHD PHILOSOPHEKS. 
 
 SiUTO, in the literal sense, signifies the way or 
 method of the Philosophers. Siudosja, or, in the 
 plural number, Siudosju, are the philosophers, 
 who follow this method. These people have, 
 properly speaking, no religion at all, that is, they 
 conform themselves to none of those forms of 
 worshipping the gods, which are established in 
 the country. They say that the greatest perfec- 
 tion and the supreme good, men are able to 
 acquire, consist in that pleasure and deUght 
 wMfih our minds find in a good and vii'tuoua life. 
 They admit of none but temporal rewards or 
 
 punishments, and only such as ore the ueces^arf 
 consequence^ of the practice of virtue or vice;. 
 They say, that we are obliged to be virtue a»» 
 because nature hath endowed us with reason, oi& 
 purpose, that living according to the dictates of 
 reason, we should show our difference and supe- 
 riority over irrational brutes. Koosi, or Confii- 
 tius, bom in China 2243 years ago, computing 
 from the fifth year of Genrokf (of Christ 1692), 
 was the first who taught that the supreme goo^ 
 consists in the practice of virtue, and must conse- 
 quently be looked upon as the founder of thi» 
 philosophical sect. It hath been observed abovOj,. 
 how prejudicial the Sioogakf, or the book whereim, 
 are contained his precepts and morals, proved to» 
 the then flourishing doctrine of Roosi. Moosi/ 
 one of Confutius's disciples, was very instru^ 
 mental in establishing and propagating this- 
 philosophy, wliich he published in Sisio, or four- 
 Books, which are still held in great esteem, andi 
 read in all countries, where the learned language^ 
 wherein they were written, is undeiBtood. 
 
 This philosophy, so far as it relates to the? 
 practice of virtue and' good morals, mfay h&- 
 reduced to the following five points, which thej- 
 call Dsin, 6i, Re, Tsi, and Sin. Dsin, teachest 
 them to live virtuously : hence Dsinsja, a virtuous 
 man; Gi, to do right and justice to everybody j. 
 Re, to be civil and polite ; Tsi sets forth the 
 maxims of a good and prudent government ; and 
 Sin treats of a free conscience and uprightness ofc 
 iheart. They admit no transmigration of Bouls^ 
 but believe an anirtia mumdi, an universal soult 
 spirit or power, diffused throughout the whole- 
 world, which animates all things, which reassumes 
 the departing souls (as the sea doth all rivers and, 
 waters that flow into it from all parts of the globe)„ 
 as into a common receptacle, and lets them, as it 
 were, flow out again indifferently to animate other 
 creatures. This universal spirit they confound, 
 with the Supreme Being, attributing to one the= 
 same divine qualities which only belong to ther 
 other. They often make use of the word Ten, 
 heaven or nature, in things which more imme- 
 diately concern our life and actions. Thus, they 
 thank heaven and nature for their victuals and 
 the necessaries of life. Some among them, with 
 whom I conversed, admitted an intellectual or- 
 incorporeal being, but only as governor ancB, 
 director, not as the author of nature ; nay, they 
 pretended, that it is an effect of nature produce*, 
 by In and Jo, heaven and earth, one active, jthe- 
 other passive ; one the principle of generation,, 
 the other of cori-uption : after the same manner 
 also they explained some other active powers of" 
 nature to be spiritual beings. They make tha- 
 world eternal, and suppose men and animals toi 
 have been produced by In Jo, the heaven andj 
 five terrestrial elements. Admitting no gods,., 
 they have no temples, no forms of woi-ship. ThuK- 
 far, however, they conform themselves to thes 
 general custom of the country, in that they cele- 
 brate the memory of their deceased parents and 
 relations, which is done by putting all sorts of 
 victuals, raw and dressed, on a Biosiu, as they call 
 it, or table purposely made with this view, by 
 bummg candles before them, by bowing down t* 
 the ground aa if they wore yet alive, by monthly, 
 or anniversary dinners, whereto are invited thfc 
 family and frienda of the deceased, who appear aB' 
 
352 
 
 KCEMPPER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 in the best cloth, and wash and clean themselves by 
 way of preparation for three days before, during 
 which time they abstain from lying with their 
 wives, and from all impure things, and by many 
 other tokens of respect and gratitude. As to 
 the burial of their dead, they do not bum them, 
 but keep the corpse three days, and then lay it 
 on the back into a coffin, after the European 
 manner, with the head raised. Sometimes the 
 coffin is filled with spices and sweet-scented herbs, 
 to preserve the body from corruption, and when 
 everything is ready, they accompany it to the 
 grave, and bury it without any further ceremony. 
 
 These philosophers do not only admit of self- 
 murder, but look upon it as a heroic and highly 
 commendable action, sind the only honourable 
 means to avoid a shameful death, or to prevent 
 falling into the hands of a victorious enemy. 
 
 They celebrate no festivals, nor will they pay 
 any respect to the gods of the country, any more 
 than common civility and good manners require. 
 The practice of virtue, free conscience, and a 
 good and honest life, is all that they aim at. 
 They were even suspected of secretly favouring 
 the Christian religion ; for which reason, after 
 the said religion had been entirely abolished 
 by cross and fire, and proper means taken to 
 prevent its ever reviving again, they also 
 were commanded to have each the idol, or, at 
 least, the name of one of the gods worshipped in 
 the country, put up in their houses, in a con- 
 spicuous and honourable place, with a flower-pot, 
 and incensory before them. They commonly 
 choose Quanwon or Amida, whose idols they place 
 behind the hearth, according to the country 
 fashion. Some have besides, of their own free 
 choice, the Biosiu in their houses, or else the 
 name of some learned man. In their public 
 schools is hung up the pictm'e of Koosi or Con- 
 futius. Formerly this sect was very numerous. 
 Arts and sciences were cultivated and improved 
 among them, and the best part of the nation pro- 
 fessed it. But that unparalleled persecution of 
 the Christian religion weakened it veiy much, 
 and it lost ground ever since ; the extreme rigour 
 of the imperial edicts made people cautious even 
 as to reading their books, which formerly have 
 been the delight and admiration of the nation, 
 held in as great an esteem as the writings of 
 Plato, Socrates, and other heathen philosophers 
 are in Europe. 
 
 About thirty years ago, the Prince of Sisen 
 and Inaba, a great Siudosja and patron of learned 
 men, endeavoured to revive this philosophy, then 
 almost extinct, in his dominions. In order to 
 this, he founded an university, endowed it with 
 great privileges, and settled handsome pensions 
 upon able learned men, whom he sent for from 
 all parts of the empire. The design of this 
 undertaking was to open the eyes of Ins subjects, 
 and to teach them, if possible, to make use of 
 their reason, which they no sooner did, but they 
 began to see through the impertinent and ridi- 
 culous fables of their priests, and discovering 
 their cheats refused to grant them any further 
 subsistence, whereby this numerous crew, which 
 till then lived only upon the charity of crediUous 
 people, was reduced to a starving condition. Of 
 so dangerous an innovation heavy complaints 
 were made to both emperors, and the unhappy 
 
 Prince was like to fall a sacrifice to his good 
 intentions, had he not, by a voluntary resignation 
 of his dominions to his son, prevented the fatal 
 blow of the imperial disgrace ready to fall upon 
 him and his family. His sou was of a more 
 prudent and reserved behaviour, yet his life 
 and conduct leave no room to doubt, but that 
 his principles were nearly the same with those of 
 his father — an instance whereof, though foreign to 
 my present purpose, will not be improper to 
 close this chapter. 
 
 On the Songuats, or New-year's-day, one of 
 their greatest festivals, there was a numerous 
 appearance at court of gejitlemen and ladies, who 
 came thither in their richest apparel, to com- 
 pliment the Prince on the occasion of the day, 
 and were by him entertained at dinner. Amongst 
 other presents made to him that day, there hap- 
 pened to be a peacock and hen.- Eveiy one was 
 delighted, and struck with admiration, by the 
 uncommon beauty of these scarce foreign birds, 
 whence the Prince took occasion to ask their 
 opinion, which of the two they thought was the 
 cock, and which the hen. The gentlemen, out of 
 ciyiUty to the ladies, unanimously pitched upon 
 the most beautiful to be the hen ; the ladies, on 
 the contrary, very modestly apprehended that 
 the finest of the two was the cock. " You are 
 in the right," answered thereupon the Prince, 
 " nature itself will have the man best clad ; and, 
 it seems to me incomprehensible, that the wife 
 should have more pride, and go richer dressed 
 than her husband, who must be at the expense 
 of maintaining her." An excellent New-year's 
 sermon from a heathen Prince. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PREPARATIONfJ FOR OUR JOURNEY TO THE EMPEROR'S COURT 
 AT JEDO OR YEDO, WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE MANKER 
 OF TRAVELLING IN THIS COUNTRY. 
 
 Ever since the time of Joritomo, the first secular 
 monarch of Japan, who laid the foundation of 
 the present form of government, it hath been a 
 custom observed, not only by the governors of 
 the imperial cities, and lords lieutenants of the 
 provinces, lands, and demesnes, belonging to the 
 crown, but likewise by all other Daimio, and 
 Siomjo, as they are here called, (that is, the lords 
 of all ranks and qualities throughout this vast 
 empire,) to go to court once a year, and to pay 
 their duties, the lords of a higher rank, who, for 
 the extent of their power and dominions, could 
 well be styled Kings, or Princes, to the Emjieror 
 himself, the rest only to his prime ministers 
 assembled in council. Both accompany their 
 reverences with presents proportionable to their 
 quality and riches, in token of their acknow- 
 ledging the supremacy of the Emperor. The 
 Dutch, when they came to settle in Japan, con- 
 formed themselves to this ancient custom, as did 
 also in their time the Portuguese. The resident 
 of our East India Company, and chief director of 
 our trade for the time being, makes this journey, 
 with a physician, or surgeon, and one or two 
 secretaries, and attended with numerous flocks of 
 Japanese of difi'erent "nks and qualities, whom 
 
KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAK. 
 
 353 
 
 -the governors of Nagasaki, as our magistrates in 
 this country, whose instructions and orders we 
 jiro to follow, appoint, as it were to honour and 
 convoy us, as persons that are going to see the 
 supreme Majesty of the empire, but in fact and 
 chiefly, to guard and watch us, to keep a good eye 
 ■over our conduct, to prevent us from having any 
 suspicious and unlawful conversation and com- 
 munication with the natives, from conveying 
 secretly to them crosses, images, relics, or any 
 ■other things, which burtr any relation to the 
 Christian religion, from presenting them with 
 -other European rarities, or from selling the same 
 to them in private, and more particularly to take 
 care, that none of us should escape into the 
 ■country, there either to attempt the reviving and 
 propagating of the Christian ^th, or otherwise to 
 ■occasion tumults and distui'bances, in prejudice 
 ■of the tranquillity now established in tlie empire. 
 So important a trust being laid upon the Japanese 
 companions of our journey, the reader may easily 
 imagine, that none are chosen but persons of 
 known candour and fidelity, and who are other- 
 wise employed in affairs relating to the inspection 
 and regulation of our trade, besides some of the 
 governor's own domestics. Nay, far from relying 
 merely on their faithfulness and sincerity, though 
 perhaps never so often approved of, all those that 
 are to go with us, from the leader down to the 
 meanest servant, (those only excepted, who must 
 look after the horses, and are frequently changed,) 
 must, before they set out on this journey, oblige 
 ' themselves by a solemn and dreadful oath, 
 signed as usutj with their blood, to give notice to 
 the government at Nagasaki, of whatever they 
 observe to be done, either by the Dutch, or by 
 their own countrymen, contraiy to the standing 
 laws of the country, and the many particular 
 instructions which are given them. 
 
 I went to the Emperor's court twice myself, to 
 my very great satisfaction : the first time, in the 
 year 1691, with Henry von Butenheim, a gentle- 
 man of great candour, aflability, and generosity, 
 and well versed in the customs and language of 
 the Japanese, who, by hie good conduct, knew 
 how to keep up the reputation of his masters 
 without prejudice to their interest ; the second 
 time, in 1692, with Cornelius van Oouthoom, 
 brother to the Govemor-generai at Batavia, a 
 gentleman of great learning, excellent sense, and 
 well skilled in several languages', who, by his 
 innate affability, found means particularly to 
 ingratiate himself into the affection of this proud 
 and jealous nation, and promoting the interests of 
 his masters so much as lay iu his power, dis- 
 charged all the duties of his office to the entire 
 satisfaction both of those who sent him, and of 
 those to whom he was sent. I will here give a 
 particular account, by way of a journal, of what 
 occurred to me remarkable in the journey to court, 
 having first premised some general observations, 
 which seemed to me to be necessary to facilitate 
 the understan^g of what I shall laydovm in 
 the journals themselves, with all the sincerity I 
 am capable of. 
 
 The preparations for our journey consist in the 
 following particulars : The very first thing to be 
 done, is to look out proper presents for his 
 Imperial Majesty, for his privy councillors, and 
 some other great officers at Jedo, Miako, and 
 
 Osacca, the whole amounting as near as possible, 
 to a certain sum, to sort them, and particularly 
 to assign to whom they are to be delivered. 
 Afterwards they must be put up into leather bags, 
 which are carefully wrapt up in mats, in order to 
 preserve them from all accidents in so long a 
 journey, and for a farther security several seals 
 are affixed unto them. It is the business of the 
 governors of Nagasaki to judge and determine 
 what might prove acceptable to the court. They 
 take out of the goods laid up in our warehouses 
 what they think proper, and give instructions to 
 the departing director, about such things as 
 should be sent over from Batavia the next year. 
 Sometimes some of their own goods they have 
 been presented with by the Chmese, are put in 
 among these presents ; because, by this means, 
 they can dispose of them to the best advantage, 
 either by obliging us to buy them at an excessive 
 and their own price, or by exchanging them for 
 other goods. Now and then some uncommon 
 curiosities, either of nature or art, are brought 
 over from Em-ope, and other parts of the world, 
 on purpose to be presented to the Emperor. 
 But it often happens that they are not approved 
 of by these rigid censors. 'Thus, for instance, 
 there were brought over in my time, two brass 
 fire-engines of the newest invention, but the 
 governors did not think it proper that they 
 should be presented to the Emperor, and so 
 returned them to us, after they had first seen 
 them tried and taken a pattern of them : another 
 time the bird Casuar was sent over from Batavia, 
 but likewise disliked and denied the honour of 
 appearing before the Emperor ; because they 
 heard he was good for nothing but to devour a 
 lai-ge quantity of victuals. After some time spent 
 in choosmg and getting ready these presents, they 
 are brought on board a barge with necessary 
 provisions, three or four weeks before our 
 departure, and sent by water to Simonoseki, a 
 small town, situate upon the extremity of the 
 great island Nipon, where they wait our arrival 
 by land. Formerly our ambassador, with his 
 whole retinue, embarked at the same time, to go 
 thither by water, whereby we saved a great deal 
 of trouble and expense we must now be at in 
 travelling by land, but a violent storm having 
 once put the whole company into imminent 
 danger, and the voyage having been often, by 
 reason of the contrary winds, too long and too 
 tedious, the Emperor had ordered, that for the 
 future we should go thither by land. The barge, 
 on board which the imperial presents are carried 
 to Simonoseki, is kept in the harbour of Nagasaki, 
 at the expense of the company, for this sole 
 purpose, and cannot be made use of for any other 
 whatsoever. The presents for the imperial court, 
 and other heavy baggage, being sent before us, 
 the rest of the time till our departure is spent 
 upon such vast preparations for our journey, as 
 if we designed some great expedition into a 
 remote part of the world. 
 
 The first, and indeed the most essential part 
 of these preparations, consists in nominating, and 
 giving proper instructions, to the several officers, 
 and the whole retinue that is to go with us to 
 court. The governors appoint one of their 
 Jorikis, or military officers of the first rank, to 
 bo Bugio, that is, head and commander in chief. 
 
354 
 
 KCEMPPEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 He is to represent the authority of hia masters, 
 as a badge whereof he hath a. pike carried after 
 him. A Dosin or inferior military officer, is 
 ordered to assist him in quality of his deputy. 
 Both the joriki and dosin are taken from among 
 the domestics of one of the governors, who stays 
 that year at Nagaijaki. To these are added two 
 beadles, by the name and in quality of Tsioosin, 
 or town-messengers. Both the tsioosin and the 
 dosin carry by virtue of their office a halter about 
 them, to arrest and secure, at command or wink 
 from the joriki, any person guilty, or only 
 suspected to be guilty of any misdemeanor. 
 AH these persons besides the officers attending 
 the bugio, are looked upon as military men, and 
 as such have the privilege of wearing two swords. 
 It is from thence they are called Samm'ai, which 
 signifies persona who wear two swords, or soldiers, 
 all pei-sons that are not either noblemen by birth, 
 or in some military employment, being by a late 
 imperial edict denied thia privilege. 
 
 I have observed in the preceding book, that 
 our interpreters are divided into two companies, 
 the upper or superior, consisting of the eight 
 chief interpreters, and the inferior including all 
 the rest. The Ninban, or president for the time 
 being, of each of these companies, is appointed of 
 course to attend us in this journey. To these is 
 now added a third, as an apprentice, whom they 
 take along with them to qualify him for the 
 succession, and to show him betimes, and by 
 proper experience, how for the future he must 
 behave himself on the like occasion. All the 
 chief officers, and all other persons that are able 
 to do it, take some servants along with them, 
 partly to wait upon them, partly for state. The 
 bugio, or commander in chief, and the principal 
 interpreter take as many as they please ; the 
 other officers, each two or three, as they are able, 
 or as their office requires. The Dutch captain, 
 or ambassador may take thi'ee, and every 
 Dutchman of his retinue is allowed one. The 
 interpreters commonly recommend theirfavourites 
 to us; tbe more ignorant they are of the Dutch 
 language, the better it answers their intention; 
 not to mention some other persons, who by 
 order, or special leave of the governors and 
 interpreters, make the journey in company with 
 us, and indeed at our expense too, though other- 
 wise they have no manner of business upon our 
 account. All these future companions of our 
 voyage, whom I have hitherto mentioned, have 
 leave to make us some fi'iendly visits at Desima, 
 some time before our departure, in order to get 
 beforehand a little acquainted with us. There 
 ai-e many among them who would wijlingly be 
 more free and open with us, were it not for the 
 solemn oath they must all take before their 
 departure, but much more for the fear of being 
 betrayed by others, since by virtue of the same 
 oath, they ai'e obliged, all and every one of them, 
 to have a strict and watchful eye, not only over 
 the Dutch, but also over the conduct of eaoH 
 other, particularly with regard to the Dutch. 
 
 Another essential branch of the necessary 
 preparations for our journey is the hiring of 
 horses and porters, for us and our baggage. 
 This is the chief interpreter's business, aa keeper 
 of our purse, who is also appointed to take care, 
 that whatever i& wauted during the whole journey, 
 
 be provided for. It is he likevdse that gives 
 orders to keep everything in readiness to march, 
 the minute the bugio, as commander in chief, is 
 pleased to set out. 
 
 Two days before our departure from Nagasaki, 
 every one must deliver his cloak-bag and port- 
 manteau to proper people, to be bounii up, so that 
 in an instant they may be tied to the horses, and 
 again untied. This is not done after our Euro- 
 pean manner, but after a particular one of their 
 own, which deserves to be here described. 
 
 A plain wooden saddlo, not unlike the pack- 
 saddles of the Swedish post-horses, is girded on 
 the horse with a poitral, or breast-leather, and 
 crupper. Two latchets are laid upon the saddle, 
 which hang down on both sides of the horse, in 
 order to their being conveniently tied about two 
 portmanteaus, which are put on each side, in that 
 situation which ia thought the most proper to 
 keep them in a due balance. For when once 
 tied together, they are barely laid on the horse's 
 back, without any other thong or latohet to tie 
 them faster, either to the saddle or to the horse. 
 However, to fasten them in some measure, a 
 small long box, or trunk, called by the Japanese 
 adofski, is laid over both portmanteaus upon the 
 horse's back, and tied fast to the, saddle with 
 thongs ; over the wliole is spread the traveller's 
 covering and bedding, which are tied fast to the 
 adofski and side-trunks, with broad lined sashes, 
 the middle cavity between the two trunks filled 
 up with some soft stuff, is the traveller's seat, 
 where he sits, as it were, upon a flat table, otlier- 
 wise commodiously enough, and either cross- 
 legged or with his legs extended hanging down 
 by the horse's neck, as he pleases, or finds it most 
 convenient. Particular care must be taken to sit 
 right in the middle, and not to lean too much on 
 either side, which would either make the horse 
 fall or else the side-tnmks and rider. In going 
 up and down hills the footmen and stable grooms 
 hold the two side trunks fast, for fear of such an 
 accident. The traveller mounts the horse, and 
 alights again, not one side as we Europeans do, 
 but by the horae's breast, which is very trouble- 
 some for stiff legs. The horses are unsaddled 
 and unladen in an instant ; for having taken the 
 bed-clothes away, which they do first of all, they 
 need but untie a latchet or two, which they are 
 very dexterous at, and the whole baggage tails 
 down at once. The latchets, thongs, and girths, 
 made use of for these several purposes, are 
 broad and strong, made of cotton, and withal veiy 
 neatly worked, with small oblong, cylmdrical 
 pieces of wood at both ends, which are of great 
 use to strain the latchets, and to tie things hard. 
 • The saddle ia made of wood, very plain, with a 
 cushion underneath, and a caparison behind, 
 lying upon the horse's back, with the traveller's 
 mark, or arms, stitched upon it. Another piece 
 of cloth hangs down on each side, as a safeguard 
 to the horse, to keep it from being daubed with 
 dirt. These two pieces are tied together loosely 
 under the horse's belly. The head is covered 
 with a net-work of small but strong strings, to 
 defend it, and particulai-ly the eyes from flies, 
 which are very troublesome to them. The neck, 
 breast, and other parts, are hung with small 
 bells. 
 
 The sidetnmks or portmanteaus, which are 
 
K(EMPFER-S" ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 355 
 
 filled only witli light stuff, and sometimes only 
 with straw, are a sort of a square trunk, made of 
 stiff horse-leather, about five spans long, three 
 brood, and throe deep. The cover is made like- 
 wise of leather, somewhat larger, and so deep as 
 to cover the lower part down to the bottom. 
 Though they hold out rain very well, yet for a 
 greater security they are wrapt up in mats, with 
 strong ropes tied about them, for which reason, 
 and because it requires some time to pack them 
 up, they are seldom unpacked till you are come 
 to the journey's end, and the things which are 
 most wanted upon the road are kept in the 
 adofski. 
 
 The adofski is a small thin trunk or case, about 
 six spans in length, one broad, and one deep. It 
 contains one single drawer, much of the same 
 length, breadth, and depth. It hath a little door, 
 or opening on one side, which can be looked up, 
 and by which you can come conveniently at the 
 drawer, without untying the adofski. What 
 things are daily wanted upon the road must be 
 kept in this trunk. It serves likewise to fasten 
 the two portmanteaus, or side-trunks, which would 
 otherwise require a stick. It is made of thick, 
 ■strong grey paper, and further, to secure it 
 against all accidents of a long voyage, blue sti'ings 
 are tied about it in form of a net very neatly. 
 
 To complete our traveller's equipage, some 
 other things are requisite, which are commonly 
 tied to the portmanteaus. Such are : 
 
 A string with senni, or puties, a brass money 
 with a hole in the middle; they being more 
 proper to buy what necessaries are wanted on the 
 road than silver money, which must be weighed. 
 People that travel on horseback tie this string 
 behind them to one of the sashes of their seats. 
 Foot-traTcllers carry it in a basket upon their 
 back. 
 
 A lanthom of varnished and folded paper, with 
 the possessor's arms painted upon its middle. 
 This is carried befnre travellers by their footmen 
 upon their shoulder in travelling by night. It 
 is tied behind one of the portmanteaus, put up in 
 a net or bag, which again hath the possessor's arms 
 or marks printed upon it, as have in general the 
 clothes and all other moveables travellers of all 
 ranks and qualities carry along with them upon 
 their journeys. 
 
 A brush made of horse's hairs, or black cock 
 feathers, to dust your seat and clothes. It is put 
 behind your seat on one side, more for show than 
 use. 
 
 A water-pail, which is put on the other side 
 of the seat opposite to the brush, or anywhere else. 
 
 Shoes or slippers for horses and footmen. 
 These are twisted of straw, with ropes likewise of 
 straw banging down from them, whereby they 
 are tied about the horse's feet, instead of our 
 European iron horse-shoes, which are not used 
 in this countiy. They are soon worn out in 
 stony slippery roads, and must be often changed 
 for new ones. For this purpose, the men that 
 look after the horses always cairy a competent 
 stock along with them, tied to the portmanteaus, 
 though they arc to bo met with in every village, 
 ■and are even offered for sale by poor children 
 begging along the road. Hence it may be said 
 thit this country hath more farriers than perhaps 
 'any other, though in fact it hath none at alL 
 
 I must beg leave to observe, that besides the 
 several things hitherto mentioned which travel- 
 lers usually carry along with them in their 
 jbumeys, I had for my own private use a very 
 large Jilpan box, which I had brought with me 
 from Balavia. In this box I privately kept a large 
 mariner's compass, in order to measure the direc- 
 tions of the roads, mountains, and coasts ; but 
 openly, and exposed to everybody's view, was an 
 inkhorn, and I usually filled it with plants, 
 flowers, and branches of trees, which I figured 
 and described (nay, under this pretext, whatever 
 occurred to me remarkable) : doing this, ks I did 
 ic free and unliindered, to everybody's know- 
 ledge, I should be wrongly accused to have done 
 anything which might have proved disadvan 
 tageous to the Company's trade in this country, 
 or to have thereby thrown any ill suspicion upon 
 our conduct from so jealous and circumspect a 
 nation. Nay, far from it, I must own that from 
 the very first day of our setting out till our 
 return to Nagasaki, all the Japanese companions 
 of our voyage, and particularly the bugio, or 
 commander-in-chief, were extremely forward to 
 communicate to me what uncommon plants they 
 met with, together with their true names, cha- 
 racters, and uses, which they diligently inquired 
 into among the natives. 'The Japanese, a very 
 reasonable and sensible people, and themselves 
 great lovers of plants, look upon botany as a 
 study both useful and innocent, which pursuant 
 to the very dictates of reason nnd the law of 
 nature, ought to be encouraged by everybody. 
 Thus much I know by my own experience, that 
 of all the nations I saw and conversed vrith in my 
 long and tedious travels, those the least favoured 
 botanical learning who ought to have encouraged 
 it most. Upon my return to Nagasaki, Tonne- 
 mon, secretary and chief counsellor to the 
 governors, being once at Desima, sent for me, and 
 made me, by the chief interpreter, Siukob^, the 
 following compliment : that he had heaivi with 
 great pleasure from Asagina Sindaanosin, our late 
 bugio, how agreeably I had spent my time, and 
 what diversion I had taken upon our journey in 
 that excellent and most commendable study of 
 botany, whereof he, Tonnemon himself, was a 
 great lover and enoourager. But I must confess 
 likewise that at the beginning of our journey I 
 took what pains, and tried what means I could 
 to procure the friendship and assistance of my 
 fellow travellers, obliging some with a submissive 
 humble conduct, and ready assistance as to 
 physic and physical advice, others with secret 
 rewards for the very meanest services and favours 
 I received from them. 
 
 A traveller must not forget to provide himself 
 with a large cloak against rainy weather. This is 
 made of double varnished oil paper, and withal 
 so very large and wide, that it covers and shelters 
 at once man, horse, and baggage. It seems the 
 Japanese have learnt the use of it, together with 
 the name kappa, from the Portuguese. Foot 
 travellers wear it in rainy weather, instead of 
 cloaks or coats of the same stuff. 
 
 To keep off the heat of the sun, travellers must 
 be provided with a large hat, which is made of 
 split bamboos, or straw, very neatly and artfully 
 twisted, in form of an extended sombreiro, or 
 umbrella. It is tied under the chin with broad 
 
KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 silk bands, lined with cotton. It is transparent 
 and exceedingly light, and yet, if onoe wet, will 
 lot no rain come through. Not only the men 
 wear such hats upon their journeys, but also the 
 women in cities and villages, at all times, and 
 in all weather, and it gives them no disagree- 
 able look. 
 
 The Japanese upon their journeys wear very 
 wide breeches, tapering towards the end, to cover 
 the legs, and sUt on both sides to put in the ends 
 of their large long gowns, which would otherwise 
 be troublesome to them in walking or riding. 
 Some wear a short coat or cloak overthe breeches. 
 Some, instead of stockings, tie a broad ribbon 
 about their legs. Ordinary servants, chiefly 
 Norimon men and pikebearers, wear no breeches 
 at all, and for expedition sake tack their gowns 
 quite up to their belt, exposing their backs, naked 
 to everybody's view, which they say they have no 
 reason at all to be ashamed of. 
 
 The Japanese of both sexes never go abroad 
 without fans, as we Europeans seldom do without 
 gloves. Upon their journeys they make use of a 
 fan, which hath the roads printed upon it, and 
 tells them how many miles they are to travel, 
 what inns they are to go to, and what price 
 victuals are at. Some, instead of such a fan, 
 make use of a road-book, which is offered them 
 for sale by numbers of poor children begging 
 along the road. The Dutch are not permitted, 
 at least publicly, to buy any of these fans or road- 
 books. 
 
 After this manner travellers equip themselves 
 for their journeys in this country. A Japanese 
 on horse-back, tucked up after this fashion, makes 
 a veiy odd comical figure at a distance. For 
 besides that they are generally short-sized and 
 thick, their large hat, wide breeches, and cloaks, 
 together with their sitting cross-legged, make 
 them appear broader than long. Upon the road 
 they ride one by one. Merchants have their 
 horses, .with the heavy baggage, packed up in 
 two or three trunks or bales, led before them. 
 They follow sitting on horseback, after the 
 manner above described. As to the bridle, the 
 traveller has nothing to do with that, the horse 
 being led by it by one of his footmen, who walks 
 at the horse's right side next by the head, and 
 together with his companions, sings some merry 
 song or other, to divert themselves, and to animate 
 their horses. 
 
 The Japanese look upon our European way of 
 sitting on horseback, and holding the bridle one's 
 self, as warlike, and properly becoming a soldier. 
 For this very reason they seldom or never use it 
 in their journeys. It is more frequent among 
 people of quaUty in cities, when they go a visiting 
 one another. But even then the rider (who 
 makes but a sorry appearance, when sitting aftei 
 our manner,) holds the bridle merely for form, 
 the horse being nevertheless led by one, and 
 sometimes two footmen, who walk on each side 
 of the head, holding it by the bit. The saddling 
 of the horses differs but little from ours. Their 
 saddles come nearer om- German saddles, than 
 those of any Asiatic nation. The stirrup-leathers 
 or gambados are very short.' A broad round 
 leather hangs down on both sides, after the 
 fashion of the Tartars, to defend the legs. The 
 stirrup is made of iron, or sowaas, and withal 
 
 very thick and heavy, not unlike the sole of a 
 foot, and open on one side, for the rider to get his 
 foot loose with ease in case of a fall. The 
 stirrups are commonly of an exceeding neat work- 
 manship, and inlaid with silver. The reins are not 
 of leather, as ours, but of silk, and fastened to' 
 the bit. 
 
 Besides going on horseback, there is another 
 more stately and expensive way of travelUng in 
 this country, and that is, to be carried in nori- 
 mons and cangos, or particular sorts of chairs, or 
 litters. The same is usual likewise in cities. 
 People of quality are carried about after this 
 manner for state, others for ease and convenience. 
 There is a wide difference between the litters 
 men of quality go in and those of ordinary 
 people : the former are sumptuous and magni- 
 ficent, according to eveiy one's rank and riches ; 
 the latter are plain and simple. The former are 
 commonly called norimons, the latter cangos. 
 The vulgar (in all nations master of the language) 
 have called them by two different names, though 
 in fact they are but one thing. Norimon signifies, 
 properly speaking, a thing to sit in; cango, a 
 basket or dosser. Both sorts rise through such a 
 variety of degrees, from the lowest to the highest, 
 from the plainest to the most curious, that a fine 
 cangos is scarce to be distinguished from a plain 
 and simple norimon, but by its pole. The polo 
 of a cango is plain, massy, all of one piece, and 
 smaller than that of a norimon, which is large, 
 curiously adorned, and hollow. The pole of a 
 norimon is made up of four thin boards, neatly 
 joined together in foi-m of a wide arch, and much 
 lighter than it appears to be. The bigness and 
 length of these poles hath been determined by the 
 political laws of the empire, proportionable to 
 every one's quality. Princes and great lords 
 show their rank and nobility, amongst other tbinga 
 particularly, by the length and largeness of the 
 poles of their norimons. People, who fancy 
 themselves to be of greater quality than they 
 really are, are apt now and then to get the poles 
 of their norimons or cangos made larger than they 
 ought to have them. But then also they are 
 liable to be obliged by the magistrates, if they 
 come to know of it, to reduce them to the former 
 size, with a severe reprimand, if not a consider- 
 able fine into the bargain. This regulation, how- 
 ever, doth not concern the women ; for they may, 
 if they please, make use of larger poles than 
 otherwise their own and their husband's quality 
 would entitle them to. The norimon itself is a 
 small room, of an oblong square figure, big 
 enough for one person conveniently to sit or lie 
 in, curiously twisted of fine thin split bamboos, 
 sometimes japanned and finely painted, with a 
 small folding door on each gide, sonietimes a 
 small window before and behind. Sometimes it 
 is fitted up for the conveniency of sleeping. It 
 ends in a small roof, which in rainy weather is 
 covered with a covering of varnished paper. It 
 is carried by two, four, eight, or more men, 
 according to the quality of the person in it, who, 
 if he be a prince, or lord of a province, they carry 
 the pole on the palms of their hands, otherwise 
 they lay it upon their shoulders. All these 
 norimon-men are clad in the same livery, with 
 the coat of arms, or mark of their masters. They 
 are every now and then relieved by others, who 
 
K(EMPPEE'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAK. 
 
 357 
 
 in the mean time walk by the norimon'a aide. 
 But of this more in another place. The oangos 
 are not near so fine, nor so well attended. They 
 are much of the same figure, but smaller, wixh a 
 square, solid, sometimes with a round pole, 
 which is either fastened to the upper part of the 
 roof, or put through it underneath. The oangos 
 commonly made use of for tra%'eUing, chiefly for 
 cariTlng people over mountains, are very poor 
 and plain, and withal so small, that one cannot 
 sit in them without very great inconvenience, 
 bowing his head downward, and laying the legs 
 across ; for they are not unlike a basket with a 
 roimd bottom and flat roof, which one reaches 
 ?fith his head. In such cangos we are carried 
 over the rocks and mountains, which are not 
 easily to be passed on horseback. Three men 
 are appointed for every cango, who indeed, for 
 the heaviness of their burden, have enough to do. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A OENERAt^ nESCRlPTION OF THE WAT BY WATER 
 AMD LAUD, FROU NAGASAKI TO JEDO, TUB EJIPEJtOR's 
 RESIDENCE. 
 
 Makt centuries ago the empire of Japan was 
 divided into seven great tracts of land, as I have 
 already shovm. To make travelling easy and 
 convenient, every one of these tracts is bounded 
 by a highway, and because in course of time they 
 have been again subdivided into several provinces, 
 so there are particular ways leading to and from 
 every one of these provinces, and all ending in 
 the great highway, as small rivers lose themselves 
 into gi-eat ones. They borrowed their name from 
 that tract, or province, to which they lead. But 
 of this more in another place. 
 
 These highways are so broad and large, that 
 two companies, though never so great, can con- 
 veniently and without hindrance pass by one 
 another. In this case that company, which 
 according to their way of speaking, goes up, that 
 is, to Miaco, takes the left side of the way, and 
 that which comes from Miaco, the right. All 
 the highways are divided, for the instruction and 
 satisfaction of travellers, into measured miles, 
 which are all marked, and begin &om the great 
 bridge at Jedo, as the common centre of all high- 
 ways. This bridge is by way of pre-eminence 
 called Niponbas, that is, the bridge of Japan, By 
 this means a traveller, in whatever part of the 
 empire he may be, knows at any time, how many 
 Japanese miles it is from thence to Jedo, the 
 imperial residence. The miles are marked by 
 two small hills, throvm up one on eich side of 
 the way, opposite one to another, and planted at 
 the top with one or more trees. 
 
 At the end of every tract, province, or smaller 
 district, a wooden, or stone post, or pillar, is set 
 up in the highway, with characters upon it, 
 showing what provinces, or lands they are, which 
 there boimd one upon another, and to whom 
 they belong. 
 
 The like posts, or pillars, are erected at the 
 entry of sideways, which turn off from the great 
 highway, likewise with charactera upon them, 
 showing what province, or dominion they lead 
 
 to, and how many leagues the next remarkable- 
 place is from thence. 
 
 In our journey to court we pass through two of 
 these chief highways, and go by water from one 
 to the other, so that our whole journey is divided 
 into three parts. In the first place we set out 
 from Nagasaki, to go by land across the island 
 Kiusju, to the town of Kokura, where we arrive 
 in five days' time. From Kokura we pass the- 
 straits in small boats going over to Simonoseki, 
 which is about two leagues off, where we find our- 
 above-mentioned barge, riding at anchor and! 
 waiting our arrival, this harbour being very con- 
 venient and secure. The way from Nagasaki to- ; 
 Kokura, is called by the Japanese Saikaido, 
 which is as much as to say, the western grounds- 
 way. At Simonoseki, we go on board our barge- 
 to proceed from thence to Osacca, where we arrive- 
 in eight days, more or less, according as the wind 
 proves favourable or contrary ; sometimes wo go- 
 no farther with our barge, than Fiogo, because of 
 the shallowness and unsafe riding at anchor in 
 the harbour of Osacca. Osacca is a city very 
 famous for the extent of its commerce, and the- 
 wealth of its mhabitants. It lies about thirteen 
 Japanese water leagues from Fiogo, which we 
 make in small boats, leaving our large barge at 
 that place to wait our return. From Osacca we 
 go again by land, over the continent of the great 
 island Nipon, as far as Jedo, the Emperor's- 
 residence, where we an-ive in about fourteen days 
 or more. The way from Osacca to Jedo is by the- 
 Japanese called Tookaido, that is, the sea or 
 coastway. We stay at Jedo about twenty days,, 
 or upwards, and having had our audience of his- 
 Imperial Majesty, and paid our respects to some- 
 of his chief ministers and great favourites, we- 
 retura to Nagasaki the same way, completing our- 
 whole journey in about three months' time. 
 
 Our journey from Nagasaki to Jedo is at least 
 of three hundred and twenty-three Japanese- 
 leagues of different length. From Nagasaki to 
 Kokura they compute fifty-three leagues and <* 
 half; from Kokura to Osacca, a hundred thirty- 
 six at least, and a hundred forty-six at farthest ; 
 and from Osacca to Jedo a himdred thirty-three 
 leagues and thirteen tsjo; so tliat the whole 
 comes to three hundred and twenty-three at 
 least, and at farthest three hundred and thirty- 
 three Japanese leagues, which may be computed, 
 equal to about 1150 English miles. 
 
 The Japanese leagues, or miles, are not equally- 
 long. The land leagues upon the island Kiusiu^ 
 and in the province Isje, are of fifty tsjo each,^ 
 the other common leagues only of thirty-six. 
 Tsjo is the measure of the length of a street. 
 Upon good roads I found the former long leagues 
 to be of a good hour's riding, the latter and- 
 shorter only of three quarters of an hour. The 
 tsjo contains sixty kin, or mats, according to their 
 way of measuring, or about as many European 
 fathoms, so that the great leagues contain three 
 thousand, and the small ones two thousand one- 
 hundred and sixty kins or fathoms each. As t» 
 their water leagues, each is a little more than two- 
 English miles, without their country, but within 
 it, as they express themselves, that is, between> 
 and about their islands, they measure them 
 according to the course of the coasts, without 
 any certainty at all, so that I am not well able te> 
 
358 
 
 KCEMPFEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 -determine what proportion they bear to the land 
 leagues ; only I found in general, that they are 
 shorter than the land leagues. 
 
 In most parts of Saikaido, and everywhere 
 upon Tookaido, between the towns and villages, 
 there is a straight row of firs planted on each 
 side of the road, which by their agreeable shade 
 make the journey both pleasant and convenient. 
 The ground is kept clean and neat ; convenient 
 ditches and outlets are contrived to carry the 
 rain water off towards low fields, and strong 
 ■dikes are cast up to keep off that which comes 
 down from higher places. This makes the road 
 &i all times good and pleasant, unless it be just 
 rainy weather and the ground shmy. The neigh- 
 bouring villages must jointly keep them in 
 repair, and take care that they be swept and 
 cleaned every day. People of great quality, in 
 their journeys, cause the road to be swept with 
 brooms, just before they pass it ; and there lie 
 heaps of sand in readiness at due distances 
 (which are brought thither some days before) to 
 be spread over the road in order to dry it in case 
 it should rain upon their arrival. The lords of 
 the several provinces, and the Princes of the 
 imperial blood in theirjoumeys, findateveiytwo 
 ■or three leagues' distance, huts of green-leaved 
 branches erected for them, with a private apai't- 
 ment, where they may step in for their pleasures 
 or necessities. The inspectors for repamng the 
 higliway, are at no great trouble to get people to 
 ■clean them ; for whatever makes the roads dirty 
 and nasty, is of some use to the neighbouring 
 country people, so that they rather strive who 
 should first carry it away. The pine-nuts, branches , 
 .and leaves, which fall down daily from the firs, 
 are gathered for fuel, and to supply the want of 
 wood, which is very scarce in some places. Nor 
 doth horses' dung lie long upon the ground, but 
 it is soon taken up )3y poor country children and 
 serves to manure the fields. For the same reason 
 <;are is taken, that the refuse of travellers be not 
 lost, and there are in sevei'al places, near country 
 people's houses, or in their fields, necessaiy cou- 
 veniencies. Old shoes of horses and men, which 
 are thrown away as useless, are gathered in the 
 £ame houses, and burnt to ashes along with the 
 filth, for common dung, which they manure all 
 their fields withal. Provisions of this nasty com- 
 position are kept in large tubs, or tuns, which 
 are buried even with the ground, in their villages 
 and fields, and being not covered, afford full as 
 ungrateful and putrid a smeU of radishes (which 
 is the common food of country people) to tender 
 noses, as the neatness and beauty of the road is 
 agreeable to the eyes. 
 
 In several parts of the country the roads go 
 over hills and mountains, which are sometimes 
 so steep and high, that travellers are necessitated 
 to get themselves carried over them in cangos, 
 such as I have described in the preceding chapter, 
 because they cannot without great diflSculty and 
 danger pass them on horseback. But even this 
 part of the road, which may be called bad in 
 comparison to others, is green and pleasant, for 
 the abundance of springs of clear water and 
 verdant bushes, and this all the year round, but 
 particulai'ly in the spring, when the flower- 
 bearing trees and shrubs, as the fusi, tsubacki, 
 Satsuki, utsugi, temariqua, being then in their 
 
 full blossom, prove such an additional beauty, 
 affording to the eye so curious a view, and filling i 
 the nose with so agreeable a scent, as one should 
 scarce meet with anywhere else. 
 
 Several of the rivera we are to cross over, 
 chiefly upon Tookaido, run with so impetuous 
 a rapidity towards the sea, that they will bear no 
 bridge nor boat, and this by reason, partly of the 
 neighbouring snow-mountains, where they rise, 
 partly of the frequent great rains, which swell 
 them to such a degree, as to make them overflow , 
 their banks. These must be forded through in 
 shallow places. Men, horses, and baggage, are 
 delivered up to the care of certain people, bred . 
 up to this business, who are well acquainted with 
 the bed of the river, and the places which are the 
 most proper for fording. These people, as they 
 are made answerable for their passengers' Uvea, 
 and all accidents that might befal them in the 
 passage, exert all their strength, care and dexterity 
 to support them with their arms, against the 
 impetuosity of the river, and the stones rolling 
 down from the mountains, where the rivers arise. 
 Norimous are carried over by the same people 
 upon their arms. 
 
 The chief of these rivers is the formidable 
 Ojingawa, which separates the two ■ provinces 
 Tootomi and Surunga. The passage of this river 
 is what all travellers are apprehensive of, not 
 only for its uncommon rapidity and swiftness but 
 because sometimes, chiefly after rains, it swells so 
 high, that they are necessitated to stay several, 
 days on either bank, till the fall of the water 
 makes it passable, or till they will venture the 
 passage, and desire to be set over at their own 
 peril. The rivers Fusi, Jedagawa, and Abikawa, 
 in the last mentioned province, are of the like 
 nature, but not so much dreaded. 
 
 There are many other shallow and rapid rivers;, 
 but because they are not so broad as those above- 
 mentioned, nor altogether so impetuous, passen- 
 gers are ferried over them in boats, which are 
 built after a particular fashion proper for such a 
 passage, with flat thin bottoms, which will give 
 way, so that if they run aground, or upon some 
 great stone, they may easily and without any 
 danger slide over it and get off again. The chief 
 of these are, the river Tenriu in the province 
 Tootomi; Fudsikawa, in the province Suruga; 
 Benrju, in the province Musasi, and the river 
 Askagawa, which is particularly remarkable, 
 for that its bed continually alters, for which 
 reason inconstant people are compared to it in 
 proverb. 
 
 Strong broad bridges are laid over all other 
 rivers, which do not run with so much rapidity, 
 nor alter their beds. These bridges are built of 
 cedar-wood, and very curiously kept in constant 
 repair, so that they look at all times as if they 
 had been but lately finished. They are railed on 
 both sides. The perpendicular rails stand at 
 about a fathom's distance from each other, and 
 there are two upon every arch, if they be not of 
 a larger size, for the commodious passage of boats 
 and ships under the bridge. As one may travel 
 all over Japan without paying any taxes or 
 customs, so likewise they know nothing of any 
 money to be paid by way of a toll for the repair 
 of highways and bridges. Only in some places 
 the custom is, in wintp'--time, to give tlie bridge 
 
KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 359 
 
 Keeper, who is to look after the bridge, a sennii 
 or fiirthmg, for his trouble. 
 
 The most famous bridges in Japan, and the 
 most remarkable for their structure and magni- 
 tude are, 1. Setanofas, the bridge over the river 
 Jodogawa, where it comes out of a large fresh- 
 water lake, in the province Oomi. This bridge 
 is supported, in the middle, by a small island, 
 and consequently consists of two parts, the first 
 whereof hath thirty-six kins, or fathoms, * in length, 
 and the second ninety-six. This river, which nius 
 through Osacca, and then loses itself in the 
 sea, hath several other bridges laid over it, some 
 of which are still larger. There is one for instance, 
 near the small town of Ddsi, two near Fusimi, 
 two near Jodo and seven in the city of Osacca, 
 not to mention some smaller ones, which are 
 laid over its arms. This river is also navigable 
 for small boats, but they do not come up higher 
 than Udsi. 2. Jafagibas, near the city Okasacki, 
 in the province Mikawa, is 208 fathoms long. 
 This river is also navigable for small boats, which 
 from the sea-side come up as far as this bridge. 
 3. Josidanobas, near the city Josida, in the same 
 province, is 120 kins, or fathoms, long. In high 
 water even large barges can come up this river as 
 fer as this city. 4. Eokugonofas, in the province 
 Musasi, was 109 kins long. This bridge was, 
 by the impetuosity of the river, swelled by 
 great rains, washed away in 1687, and in all likeli- 
 hood will never be rebuilt, because the river 
 being very near the residence of the Emperor, 
 ita security seems to require that there be no 
 bridge over it. 5. Niponbas, that is, the bridge 
 of Japan, so called by way of pre-eminence. It 
 lies just opposite to the imperial palace, in the 
 middle of the capital city of Jedo, and is particu- 
 larly famous, because the leagues, which all the 
 highways in Japan are divided into, begin to be 
 computed from thence, and are continued to the 
 very extremities of this mighty and powerful 
 empire. All the bridges are laid over the banks 
 of the river at least two fathoms on each side, 
 and open with their rails like two vrings. For 
 this reason four kins, or fathoms, must be added 
 to the length above-mentioned. 
 
 That part of our journey to court which we 
 are to make by water, is made along the coasts of 
 the great island Nipon, which we have on our 
 left, steering our course so as to continue always 
 in sight of land, not above one or two leagues off 
 at farthest, that in case of a storm arising, it 
 should not be out of our power forthwith to put 
 iuto some harbour or other. Coming out of the 
 straits of Simonoseki, we continue for some time 
 in sight of the south-eastern coasts of the island 
 Kiusju, which we went over by land, going from 
 Naga-saM to Kokura. Having left the coasts of 
 Kiusju, we come in sight of those of the island 
 Tsiokoku, we then made the island Awadsi, and 
 steering between this island on our right, and the 
 main continent of the province Idsumi, on our 
 left, we at last put into the harbour of Osacca, 
 and so end that part of our journey to court 
 which must be made by sea. All these coasts 
 are very much frequented, not only by the 
 princes and lords of the empire, with their 
 retinues, travelling to and from court, but like- 
 
 * A. fathom contains six feet. 
 
 wise by the merchants of the country going from 
 one province to another to traffic, to dispose of 
 their' goods and to bxiy others, so that one may 
 chance, on some days, to see upwards of an 
 hundred ships under sail. The coasts hereabouts 
 are rocky and mountainous, and many of the 
 mountains cultivated up to their very tops ; 
 otherwise they are well inhabited, and stocked 
 with villages, castles, and small towns. There 
 are very good harbours in several places, where 
 ships put in at night to lie at anchor, commonly 
 upon good clean ground in four to eight fathoms. 
 In this voyage we pass by innumerable small 
 islands, the strains, particularly between Tsikoko 
 and Nipon, are full of them. They are all moim- 
 tainous, and are for the most part barren and 
 uncultivated rooks. A few have a tolerably good 
 soil and sweet water. These are inhabited, and 
 the mountains, though very steep, are cultivated 
 up to their tops. The mountains of such islands 
 as are inhabited (as also of the main continent of 
 Nipon), have several rows of firs planted for 
 ornament's sake along their ridge at top, which 
 makes them look at a distance as if they were 
 fringed, and withal affords a very curious pros- 
 pect. There is hardly an island of the inhabited 
 ones but what hath a convenient hai-bour, with 
 good anchoring-ground where ships may lie safe. 
 All Japanese pilots know this very well, and will 
 sometimes come to an anchor upon very slight 
 pretences. Nor indeed are they much to be 
 blamed for an over carefulness, or too gi-eat a 
 circumspection, which some would be apt to call 
 fear and cowardice. For it must be considered, 
 that by the laws of the empire, their ships must 
 not be built strong enough to bear the shocks and 
 tossing of huge raging waves ; the cabin itself, 
 and the goods on board, are scarce secure from 
 rain and sea-water before they drop anchor and 
 take down the mast. The deck is built so loose 
 that it will let the water run through, before the 
 mast hath been taken down, and the ship covered, 
 partly with mats, partly with the sails. The stern 
 is laid quite open, and if the sea runs high, the 
 waves will beat in on all sides. In short, the 
 whole structure is so weak and thin, that a storm 
 approaching, unless anchor be forthwith cast, the 
 sails taken in, and the mast let down, it is in 
 danger every moment to be shattered to pieces 
 and sunk. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL EDIFICES AND 
 BUILDTNOa PUBLIC AND PRIVATE, WE MET WITH ALONO 
 THE ROAD, 
 
 In our journey to court we met with the fol- 
 lowing structures and buildings : all sorts of 
 ships and barges in our voyage by sea ; and in 
 our journey by land, many sacred and civil, 
 public and private buildings; as for instance, 
 castles, cities, boroughs, villages, hamlets, post- 
 houses, inns, eating-houses, public places for 
 proclamations and orders from the government, 
 places of execution, temples, convents, idols, and 
 relics ; of all which I propose to give a genera] 
 description in this and the following chapter. 
 All the ships and boats we met with in our 
 
360 
 
 KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 voyage by sea, were built of fir or cedar-wood, 
 both which grow in great plenty in the country. 
 They are of a different structure, according 
 to the purposes and the waters they are built 
 for. The pleasure-boats, which make up one 
 sort, and are made use of only for going up and 
 falling down rivers or to cross small bays, are 
 again widely different in their structure, according 
 to the possessor's fancy. Commonly they are 
 built for rowing. The first and lowermost deck 
 is flat and low. Another more lofty, with open 
 wiadows, stands upon it ; and this may be by 
 folding screens divided as they please into several 
 partitions. The roof, aud several parts of the 
 ship, are curiously adorned with a variety of flags 
 and other ornaments. 
 
 The merchant ships which venture out at sea, 
 though not very far from the coasts, and serve 
 for the transport of men and goods from one 
 island or province to another, are the largest 
 naval structures of this country. They deserve a 
 more accurate description, as by their means 
 trade and commerce is carried on with all parts 
 of the empire. They are commonly fourteen 
 fathoms long, and four fathoms broad, built for 
 sailing as well as rowing ; they run tapering from 
 the middle towards the stem ; both ends of the 
 keel stand out of the water considerably. The 
 body of the ship is not built roundish as our 
 European ones, but that part which stands below 
 the surface of the water runs almost in a straight 
 line towards the keel. The stern is broad aud 
 flat, with a wide opening in the middle, which 
 reaches down almost to ^he bottom of the ship, 
 and lays open all the inside to the eye. This 
 opening was originally contrived for the easier 
 management of the rudder, but since the emperor 
 hath taken the resolution to shut up his domi- 
 nions to all foreigners, orders were issued at the 
 same time, that no ship should be built without 
 such an opening ; and this in order to prevent 
 his subjects from attempting to venture out to 
 the main sea, on any voyage whatever. The deck 
 is somewhat raised towards the stem. It is 
 broader on the sides where it is flat and straight. 
 It consists only of deal boards laid loose, without 
 anything to fasten them together. It rises but 
 little above the surface of the water, when 
 the ship hath its full lading. It is almost covered 
 with a sort of a cabin, full a man's height, only a 
 small part of it towards the stem being left empty, 
 to lay up the anchor and other tackle. This 
 cabin juts out of the ship about two feet on each 
 side, and there are folding vrindows round it, 
 which may be opened or shut, as pleasure or 
 occasion require. In the furthermost part are the 
 cabins, or rooms for passengers, separate from 
 each other by folding screens and doors, with the 
 floors covered with fine neat mats. The further- 
 most cabin is always reckoned the best, and for 
 this reason assigned to the chief passenger. The 
 roof, or upper deck, is flattish, and made of neat 
 boards curiously joined together. In rainy 
 weather the mast is let down upon the upper 
 deck, and the sail extended over it for sailors, 
 and the people employed in the ship's service to 
 take shelter under it, and to sleep at night. Some- 
 times, and the better to defend the upper deck, 
 it is covered with common straw mats, which for 
 this purpose lie there at hand. The ship hath 
 
 but one sail, made of hemp, and withal very 
 large. She hath also but one mast, standing up 
 about a fathom behind her middle towards the 
 stern. This mast, which is of the same length 
 with the ship, is wound up by pulleys, and again 
 let down upon the deck, when the ship comes to 
 an anchor. The anchors are of iron, and the 
 cables of twisted straw, and stronger than one 
 would imagine. Ships of this burden have com- 
 monly thirty or forty hands a-piece to row them, 
 if t^le wind fails. The watermen's benches are 
 towards the stern. They row according to the air 
 of a song, or the tune of some words, or other 
 noise, which serves at the same time to direct and 
 regulate their work, and to encourage one another. 
 They do not row after our European manner, 
 extending their oars straight forwards, and out- 
 ting just the surface of the water, but let them 
 fall down in the water almost perpendicularly, 
 and then lift them up again. This way of rowing 
 not only answers all the ends of the other, but is 
 done with less trouble, and seems to be much 
 more advantageous, considering either the narrow- 
 ness of the passage ships chance sometimes to 
 have when they pass either through straits, or by 
 one another, or that the benches of the rowers 
 are raised considerably above the surface of the 
 water. Their 'oara are besides made in a parti- 
 cular manner, calculated for this way of rovring, 
 being not all straight, like our European oars, but 
 somewhat bent, with a moveable joint in the 
 middle, which, yielding to the violent pressure of 
 the water, facilitates the taking of tliem up. Tlie 
 timber-pieces and boards are fastened together in 
 their joints aud extremities with hooks and bands 
 of copper. The stem is adorned with a knot of 
 fringes, made of thin long black strings. Men of 
 quality, in their voyages, have their cabin huug 
 all about with cloth, whereupon are stitched their 
 coats of aj'ms. Their pike of state, as the badge 
 of their authority, is put up upon the stern on one 
 side of the rudder. On the other side there is a 
 weather-flag for the use of the pilot. In small 
 ships, as soon as they come to an anchor, the 
 mdder is wound up and put ashore ; so that one 
 may pass through the opening of the stern, as 
 through a back door, and walking over the rudder 
 as over a bridge, get ashore. Thus much of the 
 ships. I proceed now to the structures aud 
 buildings travellers meet with in their journeys 
 by land. 
 
 It may be observed in general, that all th» 
 buildings of this country, whether ecclesiastical or 
 civil, public or private, ar» by no means to be 
 compared to ours in Europe, neither in largeness 
 nor magnificence, they being commonly low and 
 built with wood. By virtue of the laws of the 
 empire, the houses of private persons are not to 
 exceed six kins, or fathoms, in height. Nay, it is 
 but seldom they build their houses so high, 
 unless they design them for warehouses. Even 
 the palaces of the Dairi, or Ecclesiastical Heredi- 
 tary Emperor, those of the Secular Monarch, and 
 of all the princes and lords of the empire, are 
 not above one story high. And although there 
 are many common houses, chiefly in towns, of two 
 stories, yet the upper story, if otherwise ■ it 
 deserves that name, is generally very low, unfit to 
 be inhabited, and good for little else, but to lay 
 up some of the least necessary household goods. 
 
KCEMPFEK'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN-. 
 
 .^61 
 
 it being often without a ceiling, or ainy other cover 
 but the bare roof. The reason of their building 
 their houses so very low, is the frequency of 
 the earthquskkes to which this country is subject, 
 and which prove much more fatal to lofty and 
 massy buildings of stone than to low and small 
 huuses of wood. If the houses of the Japanese be 
 not so large, lofty, or so substantially built as 
 oura, they are, on the other hand, greatly to be 
 admired for their uncommon neatness and clean- 
 liness, and curious furniture. I could not help 
 taking notice, that their furniture and the several 
 ornaments of their apartments, make a far more 
 graceful and handsome appearance in rooms of a 
 sm^U compass, than they would do in large lofty 
 halls. They have none, or but few partition walls, 
 to divide their rooms from each other; but, 
 instead of them make use of folding screens 
 made of coloured or gilt paper, and laid into 
 wooden frames, which they can put on or remove, 
 whenever they please, and by this means enlarge 
 their rooms, or make them narrower, as it best 
 suits their fancy or convenience. The floors are 
 somewhat raised above the level of the street, 
 and are all made of boards, neatly covered with 
 well stuffed, fine mats, the borders of which 
 are curiouslj fringed, embroidered, or otherwise 
 neatly adorned. Another law of the country 
 directs, that all mats should be of the same size 
 in all parts of the empire, to wit, a kin or fathom 
 long, and half a kin broad. All the lower part of 
 the house, the staircase leading up to the second 
 story, if there be any, the doora, windows, posts 
 and passages are curiously painted and varnished. 
 The ceilings are neatly covered with gilt or silver- 
 coloured paper, embellished with flowers, and the 
 screens in several rooms curiously painted. In 
 short, there is not one corner in the whole house 
 but what looks handsome and pretty, and this 
 the rather, since all their furniture being the 
 produce of the country, may be bought at an easy 
 rate. I must not forget to mention, that it is 
 very healthful to live in these houses, and that in 
 this particular they are far beyond ours in 
 Europe, because of their being buflt all of cedar- 
 wood, or firs, whereof there is a great plenty 
 in the country; and because of the windows 
 being generally contrived so, that upon opening 
 them, and upon removing the screens which 
 separate the rooms, a free passage is left for the 
 air to strike through the whole house. I took 
 notice, that the roof, which is covered with 
 planks, or shingles of wood, rests upon thick, 
 strong, heavy beams, as large as they can g«t 
 them, and that the second story is generally built 
 stronger and more substantial than the first. 
 This they do by reason of the frequent earth- 
 quakes, which happen in this country, because they 
 observe, that in case of a violent shock, the pres- 
 sure of the upper part of the house upon the 
 lower, which is built much lighter, keeps the whole 
 from being overthrown. 
 
 The castles of the Japanese nobility are built, 
 either on great rivers, or upon hills and rising 
 grounds. They take in a vast deal of room, and 
 consist commonly of three different fortresses, or 
 enclosures, which either cover and defend, of if 
 possible, encompass one another. Every enclo- 
 sure is surrounded and defended by a; clean deep 
 ditch, and a thick strong wall built of stone or 
 
 earth, with strong gates. Guns they have none. 
 The principal and innermost castle, or indoaure, 
 is called fon mas, that is, the true, or chief castle. 
 It is the residence of the prince or lord who is in 
 possession of it, and as such it is distinguished 
 from others by a square, large, white tower, three 
 or four stories high, with a small roof encompass- 
 ing each story, like a crown or garland. In the 
 second, called ninmas, that is, the second castle, 
 are lodged the gentlemen of the prince's bed- 
 chamber, his stewards, secretaries, and other chief 
 officers, who are to give a more constant attend- 
 ance about his person. The empty spaces are 
 cultivated, and turned either into gardens or 
 sown with rice. The third and outwardmost is 
 called aotogamei, that is, the outwardmost defence, 
 as also ninuomas, that is, the third castle. It is 
 the abode of a numerous train of soldiers, courtiers, 
 domestics, and other people, everybody being 
 permitted to come into it. The white walls, 
 bastions, gates, each of which has two or more 
 stories built over it, and above all the beautiful 
 tower of the innermost castle, are extremely 
 pleasant to behold at a distance. There is com- 
 monly a place without the castle called oo-te-guts, 
 that is, the great frontier mouth, designed for a 
 rendezvous and review of troops. Hence it appears, 
 that considering war and sieges are carried on in 
 this country without the use of great guns, these 
 castles are well enough defended, and of sufficient 
 strength to hold out against a long siege. The pro- 
 prietors are bound besides to take particular care, 
 that they be kept in constant repair. However, if 
 there be any part thereof going to ruin, the same 
 cannot be rebuilt, without the knowledge and 
 express leave of the emperor. Much less doth 
 the emperor suffer new ones to be built in any 
 part of his dominions. The castles where the 
 princes or lords reside are commonly seated at the 
 extremity of some large town, which encompasses 
 them in the form of a half moon. 
 
 Most of the towns are very populous and well 
 built. The streets are, generally speakmg, regu- 
 lar, running straight forward, and crossing each 
 other at right angles, as if they had been laid out 
 at one time, and according to one general gi'ound 
 plan. The towns are not surrounded with walls 
 and ditches. The two chief gates, where people 
 go in and out, are no better than the ordinary 
 gates which stand at the end of every street, and 
 are shut at night. Sometimes there is part of a 
 wall built contiguous to them on each side, 
 merely for ornament's sake. In larger towns, 
 where some prince or other resides, these two 
 gates are a little handsomer, and kept in better 
 repair, and there is commonly a strong guard 
 mounted there, all out of respect for the residing 
 prince. The rest of the town generally lies open 
 to the fields, and is but seldom inclosed even with 
 a common hedge or ditch. The frontier towns 
 of the imperial demesnes, or crown lands, 
 although they be not fortified with any great art, 
 yet in those narrow passages which lead to them, 
 and which cannot be well avoided, they are de- 
 fended with strong gates, where a good imperial 
 inquisition guard is constantly mounted. In our 
 journey to court I counted thirty-three towns 
 and residences of princes of the empire, some 
 whereof we passed through, but saw others only 
 at a distance. Common towns and large villages 
 2 A 
 
362 
 
 K(EMPFEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAH. 
 
 «r boroughs, I computed from seventy-five to 
 «ighty or upwards : not to mention some large 
 psUaees, inhabited only by sheriffs of counties, or 
 «urveyors of some tracts of land ; as also some 
 -others built to lodge men of great quality in their 
 ijoumeys to and from court. I could not help ad- 
 imiring the great number of shops we met with 
 in all the cities, towns and villages, whole large 
 streets being scarce anything else but continued 
 rows of shops on both sides ; and I own, for my 
 f>art, that I could not well conceive how the 
 'whole country is able to furnish customers 
 enough only to make the proprietors get a Uveli- 
 hood, much less to enrich them. 
 
 The villages along the highways in the great 
 island Nipon are but thinly inhabited by country 
 people and labourers, the far greater part of the 
 inhabitants being made up by other people, who 
 ■resort there to get their livelihood, either by 
 selling some odd things to travellers, or by servile 
 daily labour. Hence it is that most villages 
 •consist only of one long street, bordering on each 
 «ide of the highway, which is sometimes extended 
 to such a length as to reach the next village 
 ■within a quarter of a mile more or less. Hence, 
 likewise, it is, that some villages have two names ; 
 'for having been originally two villages, which by 
 'the gradual increase of the inhabitants and houses 
 came to be joined together, each part retained 
 its former name, though by people not apprised 
 ■of this distinction the name of ^either part is 
 -sometimes by mistake given to the whole village. 
 'I must here desire the reader to observe that 
 •the names and words are not always written and 
 pronounced after the same manner, it being not 
 inconsistent with the beauty of the Japanese 
 language to abbreviate some words, to alter some 
 letters in others, just as it pleases every one's 
 fancy, or to add to some syllables the letter n, 
 ■which they do frequently for the sake of an 
 oasier and more agreeable pronunciation. Thus 
 sometimes they write Fonda for Fon Tomida; 
 Mattira for Matzidira; Tagawa for Takawa; 
 Firangawa for Firakawa; Nangaaaki for Naga- 
 saki, and so on. I thought it necessary once for 
 «11 to make this observation, and to entreat the 
 reader not to take it amiss if he meets with the 
 same names difierently written in different 
 places. 
 
 The houses of country-people and husbandmen 
 are so small and poor that a few lines will serve 
 to give the reader a full idea of them. They 
 ■consist of four low walls, covered with a thatched 
 or shingled roof In the back pai't of the house 
 the floor is somewhat raised above the level of 
 the street, and there it is they place the hearth ; 
 the rest is covered with neat mats. Behind the 
 street door hangs a row of coarse ropes made of 
 straw, not to hinder people from coming in or 
 ■going out, but to serve instead of a lattice-window, 
 i;o prevent such ns are without from looking in 
 and observing what passes within doors. As to 
 household goods they have but few. Many 
 ■children and great poverty generally make up 
 all their possessions, and yet with some small 
 provision of rice, plants, and S-oots, they live con- 
 tent and happy. 
 
 Passing through cities and villages, and other 
 inhabited places, we always found upon one of 
 the chief public streets a fiidauotsiusi, as they 
 
 call it, being a small place encompassed with 
 gratings, for the enpreme wiU, as the usual way 
 of speaking is in this country, that is, for the im^ 
 perial orders and proclamations. It is the lord, 
 or governor, of every province that published 
 them in his own name for the instruction of pas- 
 sengers. They are written, article by article, in 
 large fair characters, upon a square table of a 
 foot or two in length, standing upon a post at 
 least two fathoms high. We saw several of these 
 tables as we travelled along, of different dates 
 and upon different subjects. The chief, largest, 
 and oldest contains the edict against the Roman 
 Catholic religion, setting forth also proper orders 
 relating to the inquisition, specifying what reward 
 is to be given to any person or persons that 
 discover a Christian or a priest. The lords or 
 governors of provinces put up their own orders 
 and edicts in the same place. This is the reason 
 why there are sometimes so many standing be- 
 hind or near one another, that it is scarce pos- 
 sible to see and to read them all. Sometimes 
 also there are pieces of money, in gold and 
 silver, struck or nailed to some, which are to be 
 given as a reward to any person or persons that 
 will discover any fact, person, or criminal therein 
 mentioned. These grated proclamation-cases are 
 commonly placed in great cities just at the entry, 
 in villages and hamlets in the middle of the chief 
 streets, where there is the greatest passage 
 through, or in any other place where they are 
 the most likely to be taken notice of. Going 
 along the road in such places as are not inha- 
 bited, there are some other orders and instruc- 
 tions for passengers put up in the like manner, 
 but upon lower posts. These come from the 
 sheriffs, surveyors of the roads, and other inferior 
 officers, and although the things therein ordered 
 or intimated be generally very trifling, yet they 
 may involve a transgressor or negligent observer 
 in great troubles and expense. 
 
 Another remarkable thing we met ■with as we 
 travelled along were the places of public execu- 
 tion. These are easily known by crosses, posts, 
 and other remains of former executions. They 
 usually lie -without the cities or villages, on 
 the west side. It is the common opinion, sup- 
 posed to hold true in all countries, — the more 
 laws the more offenders. As to the magistrates 
 of this, it is no inconsiderable proof of their 
 wisdom and circumspection, as well as the ten- 
 derness and love for their people, that they made 
 it their endeavour to put a stop even to all 
 imaginable opportunities which might tempt 
 and induce people to commit crimes, by express 
 and severe laws, which are so far from being not 
 or but slightly observed, that none but corporal 
 ^punishments, or an unavoidable death, are known 
 to attend the least transgression thereof Hence 
 it is, that in this heathen country fewer capital 
 crimes are tried before the courts of justice, and 
 less criminal blood shed by the hands of public 
 executioners, than perhaps in any part of 
 Christianity. So pov.-erfully works the fear of 
 an inevitable shameful death upon the minds of 
 a nation otherwise so stubborn as the Japanese, 
 and so regardless of their lives, that nothing else 
 but such an unbounded strictness would be able 
 to keep th em within d ue bounds of continence and 
 virtue. It is true indeed, Nagasaki cannot boast 
 
KGEMPFEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 363 
 
 of that scarcity of executions. For besides that 
 this place hatli been in a manner consecrated to 
 cruelty and blood, by being made the place of 
 ■common butchery of many thousand Japanese 
 -Christians, who in the last persecution sealed up 
 their faith with their blood, there have not been 
 since wanting criminals and frequent executions, 
 particularly of those people who, contrary to the 
 severe imperial edicts, cannot leave off carrying 
 -on a smuggling trade with foreigners, and who 
 jilone perhaps of the whole nation seem to be 
 more pleased with this unlawful gain than 
 frightened by the shameful punishment which 
 they must inevitably suffer if caught in the fact 
 -or betrayed to the governors. But it is time to 
 turn our eyes from these unpleasing objects, and 
 to proceed to consider others more agreeable 
 
 Of all the religious buildings to be seen iu this 
 •country, the tira, that is, the Bud's temples, or 
 temples built to foreign idols, with the adjoining 
 convents, are doubtless the most remarkable, as 
 being far superior to all others, by their stately 
 iieight, curious roofs, and numberless other 
 beautiful ornaments, which agreeably surprise 
 and amaze the beholder. Such as arc built within 
 cities or villages, stand commonly on rising 
 grounds, and in the most conspicuous places. 
 Others, which are without, are buUt in the ascent 
 of hills and mountains. All are most sweetly 
 seated ; a curious view of the adjacent country, 
 a spring or rivulet of clear water, and the neigh- 
 bourhood of a wood, with pleasant walks, being 
 necessary qualifications of those spots of ground 
 these holy structures are to be built upon. For 
 they say, that the gods are extremely delighted 
 with such high and pleasant places, and I make 
 no doubt but that their priests readily conde- 
 scend to be of the same opinion, they being the 
 most proper for their own pleasures and diversion. 
 All these temples are built of the best cedars and 
 firs, and adorned within with many carved images. 
 In the middle of the temple stands a fine altar, 
 with one or more gilt idols upon it, and a beauti- 
 tiful candlestick, with sweet scented candles 
 burning before it. The whole temple is so neatly 
 and curiously adorned, that one would fancy 
 himself transpoi-ted into a Roman Catholic 
 church, did not the monstrous shape of the idols 
 which are therein worshipped evince the con- 
 trary. They are not unlike the pagodas of the 
 Siamites and Chinese, both in structure and 
 ornaments, which it is not here the proper place 
 to give a more accurate description of. The 
 whole empire is full of these temples, and their 
 priests are without number. In and about Miaco 
 alone, they count 3893 temples, and 37,093 
 aiukku, or priests, to attend them. 
 
 The sanctity of the mija, or temples sacred to 
 the idols, as of old worshipped in the country, 
 requires also that they should be built in some 
 eniinent place, or at least at some distance from 
 unclean common grounds. I have elsewhere ob- 
 served, that they are attended only by secular 
 persons. A neat broad walk turns in from the 
 highway towards these temples. At the be- 
 ginning of the walk is a stately and magnificent 
 gate, built either of stone or of wood, with » 
 square table about a foot and a half high, on 
 which the name of the god, to whom the temple 
 is coiiseora,ted, is written or engraved, in golden 
 
 characters. Of this magnificent entry may justly 
 say partwiunt montet : for if you cume to the end 
 of the WE^lk, which is sometimes several hundred 
 paces long, instead of a pompous magnificent 
 building, you find nothing but a low mean struc- 
 ture of wood, often all hid amidst trees and 
 bushes, with one single grated window to look 
 into it, and within either all empty, or adorned 
 only with a looking-glass of metal, placed in the 
 middle, and hung about with som e bundles of 
 ;Btraw, or cut white paper, tied to a long string in 
 form of fringes, as a mark of the purity and 
 sanctity of the place. The same white paper is 
 also hung round the tooris, and galleries ad- 
 joining to most of them. The most magni- 
 ficent gates stand before the temples of Tensio ' 
 Dai Sin, Fatzman, and that Cami, or god, 'whom 
 particular places choose to worship as their tutelar 
 god, and him who takes a. more particular care 
 to protect and defend them. I need not enlarge 
 upon this subject, having already and amply 
 considered it. 
 
 Other religious objects travellers meet with 
 along the roads, are the fotoge, or foreign idols 
 of stone, chiefly those of Amida and Dsisoo, as 
 also other monstrous images and idols, which 
 we found upon the highways in several places, 
 at the turning-in of side-ways, near bridges, 
 convents, temples, and other buildings. Thoy 
 are set up partly as an ornament to the place, 
 partly to remind travellers of the devotion and 
 worship due to the gods, and the paths of 
 virtue and jiiety which they ought to tread in. 
 For this same purpose draughts of these idols, 
 printed upon entire or half sheets of paper, are 
 pasted upon the gates of cities and villages, upon 
 wooden posts, near bridges, upon the proclama- 
 tion-cases above described, and in several other 
 places upon the highway, which stand the most 
 exposed to the traveller's view. Travellers, how- 
 ever, are not obliged to fall down before them, or 
 to pay them any other mark of worship and respect 
 than they are other-jfise willing to do. 
 
 On the doors and houses of ordinary people 
 (for men of quality seldom suffer theirs to be 
 thus disfigured) there is commonly pasted a 
 sorry picture of one of their lares, or house- 
 gods, printed upon one half-sheet of paper. The 
 most common is the black-horned Giwon, other- 
 wise called Godsu Ten Oo, that is, according 
 to the literal signification of the characters this 
 word is expressed by, the ox-headed prince of 
 heaven, whom they believe to have the power 
 of keeping the family from distempers, and 
 other unlucky accidents, particularly from the 
 sekbio, or small-pox, which proves fatal to great 
 numbers of their children. Others fancy they 
 thrive extremely well, and live happy, under the 
 protection of a countryman of Jeso, whose 
 monstrous frightful picture they paste upon 
 their doors, being hairy all over hk body, and 
 carrying a large sword with both hands, which 
 they believe he makes use of to keep off and, 
 as it were, to pany all sorts of distempers and 
 .misfortunes, endeavouring to get into the house. 
 On the fronts of new and pretty houses, I have 
 somt times seen dragons' or devils' heads painted 
 with a wide open mouth, large teeth and fiery 
 eyes. The Chinese and other Indian nations, 
 nay, even the Maliometans in Arabia and Persia, 
 
364 
 
 KCEMPJb'Eii'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 have the same placed over the doors of their 
 houses, by the frightful aspect of this monstrous 
 figure, to keep off, as the latter say, the envious 
 from disturbing the peace in families^ Often 
 also they put a branch of the fanna skimmi 
 tree over their doors, which is in like manner 
 believed to bring good luck into their houses; 
 or else liverwort, which they fancy hath the 
 particular virtue to keep off evil spirits ; or some 
 other plants or branches of trees. In villages 
 they often place their indulgence-boxes, which 
 they bring back fi-om their pilgrimage to Isje, 
 over their doors, thinking also, by this means, 
 to bring happiness and prosperity upon their 
 houses. Others paste long pieces of paper to 
 their doors, which the adherents of the several 
 religious sects and converts are presented with 
 by their clergy for some small gratuity. There 
 are odd unknown characters, and divers forms 
 of prayers, writ upon these papers, which the 
 superstitious firmly believe to have the infallible 
 virtue of eonjhring and keeping off all manner 
 of misfortunes. Nay, they hang up these very 
 papers within doors, in several apartments of 
 their houses. Many more amulets of thes like 
 nature are pasted to their doors, such as are 
 particularly directed against the plague, dis- 
 tempers, and particular misfortunes. There is 
 also one directed against poverty. Houses with 
 this last mark must needs be very safe from 
 thieves and house-breakers. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 OF TUE POST-HOUSES, INNS, EATING-HOUSES, AND 
 TEA-BOOTHS. 
 
 To accommodate travellers, there is in all the 
 chief villages and hamlets a post-house belonging 
 to the lord of the place, where at all times they 
 may find a competent number of horses, porters, 
 footmen, and what else they might be wanting to 
 continue the journey in readiness, at certain 
 settled prices. Horses, or men, which are either 
 much fatigued by their journey, or were hired no 
 further, may be exchanged at these places. 
 Travellers of all ranks and qualities, with their 
 retinues, resort to these post-houses, which are 
 by the Japanese called siuku, because of that 
 conveniency of finding everything ready they 
 may have occasion for. They lie at from eight to 
 twenty-one English miles distance from each other, 
 but are generally speaking not so good, nor so well 
 furnished upon Kiusju, in the way from Nagasaki 
 to Kokura, as we found them upon the great 
 island Nipon, where we came to fifty-six, going 
 from Osacca to Jedo. The post-houses, properly 
 speaking, are not built for innkeeping, but only 
 for convenient stabhng of horses, for which reason 
 and in order to prevent the exchanging horses 
 and men from being troublesome to the pubHc 
 streets, a spacious court belongs to each. Clerks 
 and book-keepers there are enough, who keep 
 accoimts, in their master's name, of all the daUy 
 occurrences. The price of all such things, as are 
 to be hired at these post-houses, is settled in all 
 parts of the empire, not only according to the 
 distance of places from each other, but with due 
 
 regard had to the goodness or badness of the 
 roads, to the price of victuals or forage, and 
 the like. One way with another, a norikakl, that 
 is, a horse to ride on, with two portmanteaus and 
 an adofski, or trunk, may be had for thirty-three- 
 senui a mile. A karassiri, that is, a horse which 
 is only saddled, and hath neither men nor baggage; 
 to carry, will cost twenty-five senni; porters, 
 and cangos men, nineteen senni, and so on. 
 Messengers are waiting day and night at all these- 
 post-houses, in order to carry the letters, edicts,, 
 proclamations, &c., of the emperor, and princes 
 of the empire, which they take up the moment, 
 they are delivered at the post-house, and carry 
 them to the next with all speed. They are kept, 
 in a small black varnished box, bearing the coat 
 of arms of the emperor, or prince who sent them,, 
 and the messenger carries them upon his shoulder 
 tied to a small staff. There are always two of 
 these messengers sent together, that in cage any 
 accident should befal either of them upon the- 
 road, the other may take his place and deliver 
 the box at the next siuku. All travellers what- 
 soever, even the princes of the empire, and their 
 retinues, must retire out of the way, and give a. 
 free passage to those messengers, who carry 
 letters or orders from the emperor, which they 
 take care to signify at a due distance, by ringing: 
 a small bell, which fn" this particular purpos& 
 they always carry abou. .^em. 
 
 There are inns enough, and tolerably good 
 ones, all along the road. The best ai-e in tho8& 
 villages where there are post-houses. At these 
 even princes and princely retinues may be con- 
 veniently lodged, treated suitably to their rank,, 
 and provided with all necessaries. They are, 
 like other well-built houses, only one story high,, 
 or if there be two stories, the second ia low, and 
 good for little else but stowage. The inns are 
 not broader in front than other houses, but con- 
 siderably deep, sometimes forty fathoms, with a 
 tsuboo, that is, a small pleasure-garden behind,, 
 enclosed with a neat, white wall. The front 
 hath only lattice windows, which are kept open, 
 all day long, as are also the folding-screens, and 
 moveable partitions, which divide the several 
 apartments, unless there be some man of quality 
 -ivith his retinue at that time lodged there. This 
 lays open to travellers, as they go along, a very 
 agreeable perspective view across the whole house.' 
 into the garden behind. The floor is raised about 
 half' a fathom above the level <5f the street, and 
 jutting out to some distance both towards the 
 street and garden, forms a sort of a small bench, 
 or gallery, which is covered with a roof, where 
 travellers pass their time, diverting themselves i 
 with sitting or walking. From thence also they 
 mount their horses, for fear of dirting their feet 
 by mounting in the street. In some great inns 
 there is a passage contrived for the ease and con- 
 veniency of people of quality, that coming out of . 
 their norimons, they may walk directly to their l 
 apartments, without being obliged to pass through I. 
 the fore-part of the house, which is commonly 
 not over clean, and besides very obscure, making 
 but an indifferent figure. It is covered with poor 
 sorry mats, and the rooms divided only by 
 common lattice windows. The kitchen also is in 
 this fore-part of the house, and often fills it with 
 smoke, they having no chimneys, but only a hole 
 
KCEMPPEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 m;, 
 
 in the roof to let the smoke pass through. Here 
 foot travellers and ordinary people live among 
 the servants. People of fashion ai-e accom- 
 modated in the back part of the house, which is 
 kept clean and neat to admiration. Not the least 
 spot is to be seen up6n the walls, floors, carpets, 
 posts, windows, screens, in short nowhere in the 
 room, which looks at all times as if it were quite 
 new, and but newly furnished. There are other- 
 wise no tables, chairs, benches, or other household 
 goods to be found in these rooms. They are only 
 adorned with some miseratsies, as they call them, 
 ■which are commonly things of value, artfully 
 made and held in great esteem by this nation. 
 They are put into or hung up in the rooms, for 
 travellers to spend some of their leisure moments 
 to consider and to examine them, which indeed 
 «ome of them very well deserve. The tsuboo, or 
 garden behind the house, is also very curiously 
 liept for travellers to divert themselves with 
 walking therein, and beholding the fine beautiful 
 flowers it is commonly adorned with. A more 
 accurate description, both of the miseratsse and 
 tsuboo, will I hope not be thought improper, but 
 I shall first take a short and general survey of the 
 rooms themselves. 
 
 The rooms in Japanese houses have seldom 
 j more than one solid wall, which is pargetted and 
 •cast over with clay of Osaeca, it being a good 
 fine sort, and so left bare without any other 
 ornament. It is besides made so thin, that the 
 least kick would break it to pieces. On all other 
 -sides the room is enclosed, either with windows 
 «r folding screens and doors, which move in 
 ■double joints both above and below, on purpose 
 that they might be easily put on, or removed, as 
 occasion requires. The lower joints are cut in a 
 sill, which runs even with the carpets covering 
 the floor, and the upper joints run in a beam, 
 which comes down about two or three feet lower 
 than the ceiling. The paper windows, which let 
 the light come into the room, have wooden 
 slmtters on both sides, which are hid in the day- 
 time, but put on at night, lest anybody should 
 :get into the house out of the court, or from the 
 gallery, which runs along the outside of the 
 house. The beams, in which the joints are, are 
 in like manner cast over with clay of Osaeca, as 
 is aJso the place from thence up to the ceiling. 
 The ceiling is sometimes neither planeil nor 
 smoothed, by reason of the scarcity and curious 
 *Tinning of the veins and grain of the wood, in 
 which case it is only covered with a thin slight 
 •coat of a transparent varnish, to preserve it from 
 ■decaying. Sometimes they paste it over with the 
 -same sort of variously coloured and flowered 
 •paper, which their screens are made of. 
 
 In the solid wall of the room there is always a 
 «okko, as they call it, or a sort of a cupboard, 
 ■raised about a foot or more above the floor, and 
 very near two feet deep. It commonly stands in 
 that part of the wall which is just opposite to the 
 •door, it being reckoned the most honourable, as 
 in Russian houses that comer where they hang 
 up their bog, or saint. Just below this tokko, or 
 •cupboard, two extraordinary fine cai-pets are laid 
 one upon the other, and both upon the ordinary 
 -mats or carpets, which cover the floor. These 
 are for people of the first quality to sit upon, for 
 •upon the arrival of travellers of less note, they 
 
 are removed out of ihe way. At the side of the 
 tokko is a tokkiwari, as they call it, or eide- 
 oupboard, with some few boards in the middle, 
 standing over one another in a very partioulai- 
 manner, the view whereof affords some amuse- 
 ment to a curious traveller. 3 The boards them- 
 selves are called Tsigaidanna, and serve for the 
 landlord or travellers, if they please, to lay their 
 most esteemed book upon, i.hey holding it, as 
 tlie Mahometans do their Alcoran, too sacred to 
 be laid on the ground. Upon the arrival of the 
 Dutch, this sacred book of the landlord is put 
 out of the way. Above the tsigai is a particular 
 drawer, where they put up the inkhorn, paper, 
 writings, books, and other things of this kind. 
 Here also travellers find sometimes the wooden 
 trunk, which the natives use at 'night instead of 
 pillows. It is almost cubical, hollow, and made 
 of six thin boards joined together, curiously 
 varnished, smoothed, and very neat without, 
 about a span long, but not quite so broad, that 
 ti-ayellers, by turning it as they please, taay lay 
 their head in that posture which they find the 
 most easy. Travellers have no other night 
 clothes or bedding to expect from the landlerd, 
 and must carry their own along with them, or 
 else lie on the carpet, which covers the floor, 
 covering themselves with their own clothes, and 
 laying their heads on this piece of wood, as on a 
 pillow. In that side of the room which is next' 
 to the tokko, is usually a very flne balcony, of 
 an uncommon but very beautiful structure, 
 serving for the person who is lodged in this, as 
 in the chief room of the house, to look out into 
 the neighbouring garden, or flelds, or upon the 
 next water, without stirring from the carpets 
 placed below the tokko. 
 
 Beneath the floor, which is covered with fine 
 well-stuffed mats and carpets, is a square walled 
 hole, which in tTie winter season, after having 
 first removed the carpets, they fill with ashes, 
 and lay coals upon them to keep the room warm. 
 The landladies in their room, put a low table upon 
 this fire hole, and spread a large carpet or table- 
 cloth over it, for people to sit underneath, and to 
 defend themselves against the cold, much in the 
 some manner as they do in Persia under a kurtsij. 
 In rooms where there are no fireholes, they make 
 use in the winter of brass or earthen pots, vei-y 
 artfully made, and filled with ashes, with two 
 iron sticks, which serve them instead of firetongs, 
 much after the same manner as they use two 
 other small sticks at table, instead of forks. 
 
 I come now to the above-mentioned miseratsies, 
 as they call them, being curious and amusing 
 ornaments of their rooms. In our journey to 
 court, I too^ notice of the following, though not 
 altogether in one room, but in the several inns 
 we came to, as we went along : 1. a paper neatly 
 bordered with a rich piece of embroidery, instead 
 of a frame, either with the picture of a saint, 
 done with a coarse pencil to all appearance, and 
 in a few, perhaps three or four strokes, wherein 
 however the proportions and resemblance have 
 been so far observed, that scarce anybody can miss 
 finding out whom it was designed to represent, 
 nor help admiring the ingenuity and skill of the 
 master; or else a judicious moral sentence of some 
 noted philosopher, or poet, written with his own 
 hand ; or the hand of some noted writing-master 
 
366 
 
 KCEMPFEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 in that city or province, who had a mind to show 
 his skill hj a few hasty strokes or characters, in- 
 different enough at first view, but nevertheless 
 very ingeniously drawn, and such as will afford 
 sufficient matter of amusement and speculation 
 to a curious and attentive spectator. And lest 
 anybody should sail their being genuine into 
 question, they are commonly Signed, not only by 
 the writing-masters themselves, but have the 
 hands and seals of some other witnesses put to 
 them. They are hung up nowhere else but in the 
 tokko, as the most honourable place of the room, 
 and this because the Japanese set a very great 
 value upon them. 2. The pictures of old Chinese, 
 as also of birds, trees, landscapes and other things, 
 upon wliite screens, done by some eminent 
 master, or rather scratched with a few hasty, 
 affected strokes, after such a manner, that unless 
 seen at a proper distance, they scarcely appear 
 natural. 3. A flower-pot standing under the 
 tsigaidanna, which they take particular care to 
 keep constantly in good order, filled with all 
 sorts of curious flowers, and green branches of 
 trees, such as the season affords, and curiously 
 ranged according to the rules of art, it being as 
 much an art in this counti'y to range a flower-pot 
 in proper order, as it is in Europe to carve, or to 
 lay the table-cloth and napkins. Sometimes, 
 there is instead of a flower-pot, a perfuming-pan 
 of excellent good workmanship, cast in brass or 
 copper, resembling a crane, lion, dragon, or other 
 strange animal, I took notice once, that there 
 was an earthen pot of Cologne, such as they use 
 to keep Spa-water in, with all the cracks and 
 fissures carefully mended, put in lieu of a flower- 
 pot, it being esteemed a very great rarity, because 
 of the distant place it came from, of the clay it 
 was made of, and of its uncommon shape. 4. 
 Some strange, uncommon pieces of wood, wherein 
 the colours and grain either nilturally run after a 
 cuiious and unusual manner, or have been 
 brought by art to represent something extra- 
 ordinary. Sometimes, the tsigaidanna itself is 
 made of such a scarce sort of wood, and some- 
 times the frame and case of the balcony, or the 
 tokko, or the tokowara, or the door which leads 
 aito the room, or that which opens into the 
 gallery towards the garden, sometimes also, the 
 pillars and posts which are in the room, chiefly 
 that which supports the tokko. Whatever things 
 they be that are made of such uncommon pieces 
 of wood, they very often, for fear of lessening the 
 natural beauties, keep them rough and unpolished, 
 with the bark on in several places, and only to 
 preserve them, as well as for neatness sake, they 
 cover them with a thin, slight, transparent 
 varnish. 5. Some neat and beautiful net-work, 
 or branched work, adorning either the balcony 
 and windows towards the garden, or the tops of 
 the doors, screens and partitions of the chief 
 apartments. 6. Some other scarce and uncommon 
 piece of wood, or a branch of a tree, or a piece of 
 a rotten root of an old stump, remarkable for 
 their monstrous deformed shape, which are either 
 hung up in some corner of the room, or lie in the 
 tok"wara. 
 
 After this manner the chief and back apart- 
 ments are furnished in great inns, and houses of 
 substantial people. The other rooms gradually 
 decrease from that cleanliness, neatness, and 
 
 delicacy "of furniture, because the screens, win- 
 dows; mats, carpets, and other oi'nameuts and} 
 household goods, after they have for some time 
 adorned the chief apartments, and begin to be 
 spotted, and to grow old, are removed by degrees 
 into the other rooms, there to be quite worn. The 
 chief and largest of the other rooms is that where- 
 they keep their plate, China ware, and other 
 household goods, ranged upon the floor in a 
 curious and very particular order, according to 
 their size, shape, and use. Most of these goods- 
 are made of wood, thin, but strongly varnished, 
 the greatest part upon a dark red ground. They 
 are washed with warm water every time they are- 
 used, and wiped clean with a cloth, and so laid 
 by against the next time. By this means, if they 
 be lackered, and the varnish good, they will,- 
 though constantly used, keep clean and neat, and 
 in their full lustre for several years. 
 
 The bagnio, or bathing-place, is commonly' 
 built at the back of the garden. They build it. 
 of cypress wood. It contains either a froo, a»- 
 they call it, a hothouse to sweat in, or a cisfroo, 
 that is a warm bath, and sometimes both together.. 
 It is made warm and got ready every evening,^ 
 because the Japanese usually bathe or sweat 
 after their day's journey- is over, thinking by 
 this means to refresh themselves and to sweat 
 off their weariness. Besides, as they can un- 
 dress themselves in an instant, so they are ready 
 at a minute's warning to go -into the bagnio; 
 for they need but untie their sash, and all their 
 clothes fall down at once, leaving them quite 
 naked, excepting a, small baud which they wear 
 close to the body about the waist. For the^ 
 satisfaction of the curious I will here insert a. 
 more particular description of their froo, or hot- 
 house, which they go into only to sweat. It isi 
 an almost cubical trunk or stove, raised about 
 three or four feet above the ground, and built 
 close to the wall of the bathing-place, on the out- 
 side. It is not quite a fathom high, but one- 
 fathom and a half long, and of the same breadth.. 
 The floor is laid with small planed laths or 
 planks, which are a few inches distant from each 
 other, both for the easy passage of the rising" 
 vapours, and the convenient outlet of the water- 
 people wafih themselves with. You are to go- 
 or rather to creep in through a small door or 
 shutter. There are two other shutters, one oni 
 each side, to let out the superfluous damp. The- 
 empty space beneath this stove, down to the- 
 ground, is inclosed with a wall to prevent the- 
 damps from getting out on the sides. Towai'ds- 
 the yard is a furnace just beneath the hot-house. , 
 The flre-hole is shut up towards the bathing stove, 
 to prevent the smoke getting in there. JPai-t of 
 the furnace stands out towards the yard, where 
 they put in the necessary water and plants. This 
 part is shut with a clap-board when the fire is 
 burning, to make all the damp and vapom's 
 ascend through the inner and open part into the 
 hot-house. There are always two tubs, one of 
 warm, the other of cold water, put into these hot 
 houses, for such as have a mind to wash them- 
 selves, either for their diversion, or out of 
 necessity. 
 
 The garden is the only place we Dutchmen^ 
 being treated in all respects little better thatt 
 prisoners, have liberty to walk into. It takes iu 
 
 _l 
 
KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 36T 
 
 all tho room behind the house. It ia commonly 
 square with a back door, and walled in very 
 jieatly, like a cistern or pond, for which reason it 
 is called tsubo, which, in the Japanese language, 
 Bignifiea a large water-trough or cistern. There 
 are few good houses and inns but what have their 
 tsubo. If there be not room enough for a garden, 
 they have at least an old ingrafted plum, cherry, 
 or apricot tree. The older, the more crooked 
 and monstrous this tree is, the greater value they 
 put upon it. Sometimes they let the branches 
 grow into the rooms. In order to make it bear 
 larger flowers, and in greater quantity, they com- 
 monly cut it to a few, perhaps two or three 
 branches. It cannot be denied but that the great 
 number of beautiful, incarnate, and double flowers 
 which they bear in the proper season, are a 
 surprisingly curious ornament to this back part 
 of the house, but they have this dissidvantage, 
 that they bear no fruit. In some small houses 
 "and inns of less note, where there is not room 
 enough either for a garden or trees, they have 
 at least an opening or window to let the light fall 
 into the back rooms, before which, for the amuse- 
 ment and diversion of travellers, is put a small 
 tub, full of water, wherein they commonly keep 
 some gold or silver fish, as they call them, being 
 fish, with gold or silvei^coloured tails, alive. For 
 afarther ornament of the same place, there is gene- 
 rally a flower-pot or two standing there. Some- 
 times they plant some dwarf trees, which will 
 grow easily upon pumice or other porous stone, 
 without any ground at all, provided the root be 
 put into the water, from whence it will suck up 
 sufScient nourishment. Ordinary people often 
 plant the same kind of trees before the street- 
 doors, for their diversion, as well as for an orna- 
 ment to their houses. But to return to the tsubo, 
 or garden ; if it be a good one, it must have at 
 least thiity feet square, and consist of the fol- 
 lowing essential parts : — 1. The ground is covered 
 partly with roundish stones of different colours, 
 gathered in rivers or upon the sea-shore, well 
 washed and cleaned, and those of the same kind 
 laid together in form of beds, partly with gravel, 
 which is swept every day, and kept clean and 
 neat to admiration, the lai-ge stones being laid 
 in the middle, as a path to walk upon without 
 injuring the gravel, the whole in a seeming but 
 ingenious confusion. 2. A few flower-bearing 
 plants planted confusedly, though not without 
 some certain rules. Amidst the plants stands 
 sometimes a saguer, as they call it, or scarce 
 outlandish tree, sometimes a dwarf-tree or two. 
 3. A small rook or hill in the comer of the garden, 
 made in imitation of nature, curiously adorned 
 with birds and insects, cast in brass, and placed 
 hetween the stones ; sometimes the model of a 
 temple stands upon it, built, as for the sake of 
 the prospect they generally are, on a remarkable 
 eminence, or the borders of a precipice. Often a 
 small rivulet rushes down the stones with an 
 agreeable noise, the whole in due proportions, 
 and as near as possible resembling nature. 4. A 
 small bush, or wood, on the side of the hill, for 
 which the gardeners choose such trees as will 
 grow close to one another, and plant and cut them 
 according to their largeness, nature, and the 
 colour of their flowers and leaves, so as to make 
 the whole very accurately imitate a natural wood 
 
 or forest. 5. A cistern, or pond, as mentioned 
 above, with live fish kept in it, and surrounded 
 with proper plants, that is such aa love a watery 
 soil, and would lose their beauty and greenness if 
 planted in a dry ground. It is a particular pro- 
 fession to lay out these gardens, and to keep them, 
 so curiously and nicely as they ought to be, as 1 
 shall have an opportunity to show more at 
 large in the sequel of this history. Nor doth, 
 it require less skill and ingenuity to contrive 
 and fit out the rocks and hills above-mentioned,, 
 according to the rules of art. What I hava 
 hitherto observed will be sufficient to giv» 
 the reader a general idea of the inns in Japan. 
 The accommodation travellers meet with itt 
 the same, I intend to treat of in a chapter by 
 itself. 
 
 There are innumerable smaller inns, cook- 
 shops, saoki or ale-houses, pastry-cooks, and con- 
 fectioners' shops, all along the road, even in tha 
 midst of woods and forests, and at the tops of 
 mountains, where a weary foot tra,yeller and the 
 meaner sort of people, find at all times, for a few 
 farthings, something warm to eat, or hot tea-water 
 or sacki, or somewhat else of this kind, where- 
 with to refresh themselves. It is true, these 
 cookshops are but poor sorry houses, if compared 
 to larger inns, being inhabited only by poor 
 people, who have enough to do to get a liveli 
 hood by tliis trade ; and yet even in these ther» 
 is always something or otljer to amuse passengers, 
 and to draw them in ; sometimes a garden and 
 orchard behind the house, which is seen from thf 
 street looking through the passage, and which by 
 its beautiful flowers, or the agreeable sight of i. 
 stream of clear water falling down from a neigh- 
 bouring natural, or artificial hill, or by some 
 other curious ornament of this kind, tempts 
 people to come in and to repose themselves 
 in the shadow; at other times a large flower-pot 
 stands in the window, filled with flowering 
 branches of trees (for the flowers of the plants, 
 though ever so beautiful, are too common to 
 deserve a place in such a pot), disposed in a very 
 curious and singular manner ; sometimes a hand- 
 some well-looking house-maid, or a couple of 
 young girls well dressed, stand under the door, 
 and with great civility invite people to come in 
 and to buy something. The eatables, such as 
 cakes, or whatever they be, are kept before theflre, 
 in an open room, sticking to skewers of bamboos, 
 to the end that passengers, as they go along, may 
 take them, and pursue their journey without 
 stopping. The landladies, cooli, and maids, aa 
 soon as they see anybody coming at a distance,, 
 blow up the fire, to make it look as if the 
 victuals had been just got ready. Some busy 
 thefnselves with making the tea, others prepare 
 the soup in a cup; others fill cups with sacki 
 or other liquors, to present them to passengers^ 
 all the while talking and chattering, and com- 
 mending their merchandise with voices loud' 
 enough to be heard by their next neighbours o£^ 
 the same profession. 
 
 The eatables sold at these cook-shops besides 
 tea, and sometimes sacki, are mausje, a sort of. 
 round cakes, which they learnt to make from the; 
 Portuguese ; they are as big as common hen's 
 eggs, and sometimes filled within with black 
 beau flour and sugar ; cakes of the jelly of the- 
 
 J 
 
368 
 
 K(EMPPER'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 
 kaad'B root, which root is found upon mountaans, 
 Mid cut into round Blices, like carrots, and roasted 
 snails, oysters, shell-fish, and other small fish, 
 roasted, boiled, or pickled; Chinese laxa is a 
 thin sort of a pap or paste, made of fine wheat 
 flour, cut into small, thin, long slices, and baked ; 
 all sorts of plants, roots, and sprigs, which the 
 season affords, washed and cleaned, then boiled 
 in water with salt; innumerable other dishes 
 peculiar to this country, made of seeds of plants, 
 powdered roots, and vegetable substances, boiled 
 or baked, dressed in many different ways, of 
 various shapes and colours ; a still subsisting 
 proof of the indigent and necessitous way of life 
 of their ancestors, and the original barrenness of 
 the country, before it was cultivated and improved 
 to what it now is. The common sauce for these 
 and other dishes is a little soje, as they call it, 
 mixed with sakki or the beer of the country. 
 Sansjo leaves are laid upon the dish for orna- 
 ment's sake, and sometimes thin slices of fine 
 ginger and lemon peel. Sometimes they put 
 powdered ginger, sansjo, or the powder of some 
 root growing in the country, into the soup. They 
 are also provided with sweetmeats of several 
 different colours and sorts, which generally 
 speaking are far more agreeable to the eye than 
 pleasing to the taste, being but indifferently 
 sweetened with sugar, and withal so tough that 
 one must have good teeth to chew them. Foot- 
 travellers find it set down in their printed road- 
 books, which they always carry about them, 
 where and f.t what price the best victuals of the 
 kind are to be got. 
 
 It now remains to add a few words concerning 
 the tea, the rather since most travellers drink 
 scarcely anything else upon the road. It is sold at 
 all the inns and cook-shops along the road, 
 besides many tea-booths set up only for this 
 trade, in the midst of fields and woods, and at 
 the tops of mountains. The tea sold at all these 
 places is but a coarse sort, being only the largest 
 leaves which remain upon the shrub after the 
 youngest and teuderest have been plucked off at 
 two different times for the use of people of 
 fashion, who constantly drink it before or after 
 their meals. These larger leaves are not rolled 
 up and curled as the better sort of tea is, but 
 simply roasted in a pan, and continually stirred 
 whilst they are roasting, lest they should get a 
 burned taste. When they are done enough, they 
 put them by in straw baskets under the roof of the 
 house, near the place where the smoke comes 
 out. They are not a bit nicer in preparing it for 
 drinking, for they commonly take a good handful 
 of the tea-leaves and boil them in a large iron 
 kettle full of water. The leaves are sometimes 
 wrapt up in a small bag, but if not, they have u, 
 little basket swimming in the kettle, wMch they 
 make use of to keep the leaves down, when they 
 have a mind to take out some of the clear 
 decoction Half a cup of this decoction is mixed 
 with cold water, when travellers ask for it. Tea 
 thus prepared smells and tastes like lye, the 
 leaves it is made of, besides that they are of a 
 vary bad sort, being seldom less than a year old ; 
 and yet the Japanese esteem it much more 
 healthful for daily use, than the yoimg tender 
 leaves prepared after the Chinese manner, which 
 they say affect the head too strongly, though even 
 
 these lose a great part of their narcotic quality 
 when boiled. 
 
 I omit taking notice in this place of the shops 
 and warehouses, which are without number 
 within and without cities, in villages and hamlets, 
 by reason of theii- being not very different from 
 ours in Germany, and because I have elsewhere 
 mentioned the goods and manufactures of the 
 country, which are therein exposed to sale. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 OF THE GREAT NC.MBERS OF PEOPLE WHO DAILY TRAVEL 
 ON THE ROADS. 
 
 It is scarce credible what numbers of people 
 daily travel on the roads in this country, and I 
 can assure the reader, from my own experience, 
 having passed it four times, that Tokaido, which 
 is one of the chief and indeed the most fre- 
 quented of the seven great roads in Japan, is 
 upon some days more crowded than the public 
 streets in any of the most populous towns in 
 Europe. This is owing partly to the country 
 being extremely populous, partly to the frequent 
 journeys which the natives undertake, oBener 
 than perhaps any other nation, either willingly 
 and out of their own free choice, or because they 
 are necessitated to it. For the reader's satis- 
 faction, I will here insert a short preliminary 
 account of the most remarkable persons, com- 
 panies, and trains, travellers daily meet upon 
 the road. 
 
 The princes and lords of the empire, with thei( 
 numerous retinues, as also the governors of tha 
 imperial cities and crown-lands, deserve to be 
 mentioned in the first place. It is their duty to 
 go to court once a year, and to pay their homage 
 and respect to the secular monarch, at certain 
 times determined by the supreme power. Hence, 
 they must frequent these roads twice every year, 
 going up to court and returning from thence. 
 They are attended in this journey by theu- whole 
 court, and commonly make it with that pomp 
 and magnificence which is thought becoming 
 their own quality and riches, as well as the 
 majesty of the powerful monarch whom they are 
 going to see. The train of some of the most 
 eminent among the princes of the empire fills up 
 the road for some days. Accordingly, though we 
 travelled pretty fast ourselves, yet we often met 
 the baggage and fore-troops, consisting oi the 
 servants and inferior officers, for two days 
 together, dispersed in several troops, and the 
 prince himself followed but the third day, 
 attended with his numerous court, all marching 
 in admirable order. The retinue of one of the 
 chief Daimios, as they are called, is computed to 
 amoimt to about 20,000 men, more or less ; that 
 of a Sjomio, to about 10,000 ; that of a governor 
 of the imperial cities and crown-lands, t.> one, or 
 several hundreds, according to his revenues. 
 
 If two or more of these princes and lords, with 
 their numerous retinues, should chance to travel 
 the same road at the same time, they would 
 prove a great hindrance to one another, parti- 
 cularly if they should happen at once to come to 
 the same siuku or village, forasmuch as often 
 
KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 369 
 
 whole great villages are scarce large enough to 
 lodge the retinue of one single Daimio. To 
 prevent these inconveniences, it is usual for great 
 princes and lords to bespeak the several siukus 
 they are to pass through, with all the inns, some- 
 time before; as for instance, some of the first 
 quality, a month, others a week or two before 
 their arrival. Moreover the time of their future 
 arrival is notified in all the cities, villages, and 
 hamlets they are to pass through, by putting up 
 small boards on high poles of bamboos, at the 
 entry and end of every village, signifying in a few 
 characters what day of the month such or such a 
 lord is to pass through that village, to dine or to 
 lie there. 
 
 To satisfy the readei:'s curiosity, it will not be 
 amiss to describe one of these princely trains, 
 omitting the fore-runners, baggage, led-horses, 
 «angos, and palanquins, which are sent a day or 
 two before. But the account, which I . propose 
 to give, must not be understood of the retinue of 
 the most powerful princes and petty kings, such 
 as the lords of Satzuma, Cango, Owari, Kijnokuni, 
 jind Mito, but only of those of some other 
 Daimios. several of which we met in our journey 
 to court, the rather as they differ but little, 
 excepting only the coats of arms, and particular 
 pikes, some arbitraiy order in the march, and 
 the number of led-horses, fassanbacks, norimons, 
 mangos, and their attendants. 
 
 1. Numerous troops of fore-runners, harbingers, 
 clerks, cooks, and other inferior ofiicers, begin 
 the mai-cb, they being to provide lodgings, 
 victuals, and other necessary things for the enter- 
 'tainment of their prince and master and his 
 com't. They are followed by 
 
 2. The prince's heavy baggage, packed up either 
 in small trunks, such as I have above described, 
 and carried upon horses, each with a banner, 
 healing the coat of arms and the name of the 
 possessor, or else in large chests covered with red 
 lackered leather, again with the possessor's coat 
 of arms, and carried upon men's shoulders, with 
 multitudes of inspectors to look after them. 
 
 3. Great numbers of smaller retinues, belong- 
 ing to the chief officers and noblemen attending 
 the prince, with pikes, scimeters, bows and 
 .arrows, umbrellas, palanquins, led-horses, and 
 other marks of their grandeur, suitable to their 
 birth, quality, and office. Some of these are 
 carried in norimons, others in cangos, others go 
 •on horseback. 
 
 i. The prince's own numerous train, marchii|g 
 in an admirable and curious order, and divided 
 into several troops, each headed by a proper 
 -commanding officer: as — 1. Five, more or less, 
 fine led-horses, led each by two grooms, one on 
 «ach side, two footmen walking behind. 2. Five 
 or six, and sometimes more porters, richly clad, 
 walking one by one, and carrying fassanbacks, or 
 lackered chests, and japanned neat trunks and 
 baskets upon their shoulders, wherein are kept 
 the gowns, clothes, wearing-apparel, and other 
 necessaries for the daily use of the prince ; each 
 porter is attended by two footmen, who take up 
 -iis charge by turns. 3. Ten, or more fellows, 
 walking again one by one, and carrying rich 
 ■scimeters, pikes of state, firearms, and other 
 weapons in lackered wooden cases, as also quivers 
 with bows and arrows. Sometimes for magni- 
 
 ficence-sake, there are moie fassanback bearers, 
 and other led-horses follow this troop. 4. Two, 
 three, or more men, who carry the pikes of state, 
 as the badges of the prince's power and authority, 
 adorned at the upper end with bunches of cock- 
 feathers, or certain rough hides, or other parti- 
 cular ornaments, peculiar to such or such a 
 prince. They walk one by one, and are attended 
 each by two footmen. 5. A gentleman carrying 
 the prince's hat, which he wears to shelter him- 
 self from the heat of the sun, and which is 
 covered with black velvet. He is attended like- 
 wise by two footmen. 6. A gentleman carrying 
 the prince's somberiro or umbrella, which is 
 covered in like manner with black velvet, at- 
 tended by two footmen. 7. Some more fassan- 
 backs and varnished trunks, covered with var- 
 nished leather, with the prince's coat of arms 
 upon them, each with two men to take care of it. 
 8. Sixteen, more or less, of the prince's pages, 
 and gentlemen of his bed-chamber, richly clad, 
 walking two and two before his norimon. They 
 are taken out from among the first quality of his 
 court. 9. The prince himself sitting in a stately 
 norimon or palanquin, carried by six or eight men, 
 clad in rich liveries, with several others walking 
 at the norimon's sides, to take it up by turns. Tv/o 
 or three gentlemen of the prince's bed-chamber 
 walk at the norimon's side, to give him what 
 he wants and asks for, and to assist and support 
 him in going in or out of the norimon. 10. Two 
 or three horses of state, the saddles covered with 
 black. One of these horses carries a large elbow- 
 chair, which is sometimes covered with black 
 velvet, and placed on a noiikako of the same 
 stuff. These horses are attended each by several 
 grooms and footmen in liveries, ."md some are led 
 by the prince's own pages. 11. Two pike-bearers. 
 12. Ten or more people carrying each two baskets 
 of a monstrous large size, fixed to the ends of a 
 pole, which they lay on their shoulders in such a 
 manner, that one basket hangs down before, 
 another behind them. These baskets are more 
 for state than for any use. Sometimes some 
 fassanback bearers walk among them, to increase 
 the troop. In this order marches the prince's 
 own train, which is followed by 
 
 5. Six or twelve led-horses, with their leaders, 
 grooms, and footmen, all in liveries. 
 
 6. A multitude of the prince's diimetics, and 
 other officers of his court, with their own very 
 numerous trains and attendants, pike-bearers, 
 fassanback-bearers, and footmen in liveries. Some 
 of these are carried in cangos, and the whole 
 troop is headed by the prince's high-steward, 
 carried in a norimon. 
 
 If one of the prince's sons accompanies his 
 father in this journey to court, he follows with 
 his own train immediately after his father's 
 norimon. 
 
 It is a sight exceedingly curious and worthy 
 of admiration, to see all the .persons who compose 
 the numerous train of a great prince, the pike- 
 bearers only, the norimon-men and liverymen 
 excepted, clad in black silk, marching in an 
 elegant order, with a decent becoming gravity, 
 and keeping so profound a silence, that not the 
 least noise is to be heard, save what must necesr 
 sarily arise from the motion and rustling of their 
 habits, arnd the trampling of the horses and men. 
 
 L 
 
KCEMPPEE'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAK. 
 
 On the other hand it appears ridiculous to a 
 European, to see all the pike-bearers and nori- 
 mou-men, with their habits tucked up above the 
 waist, exposing their naked backs to the spec- 
 tators' view. What appears still more odd and 
 whimsical, is to see the pages, pike-bearers, 
 umbrella and hat-bearers, fassanback or chest- 
 bearera, and all the footmen in liveries, affect a 
 strange mimic march or dance, when they pass 
 through some remarkable town or borough, or by 
 the train of another prince or lord. Every step 
 they make, they draw up one foot quite to their 
 back, in the meantime stretching out the arm on 
 the opposite side as far as they can, and putting 
 themselves in such a posture, as if they had a 
 mind to swim through the air. Meanwhile the 
 pikes, bats, umbrellas, fassanbacks, boxes, baskets, 
 and whatever else they carry, are danced and 
 tossed about in a very singular manner, answering 
 the motion of their bodies. The norimon-men 
 have their sleeves tied with a string as near the 
 shoulders as possible, and leave their arms naked. 
 They carry the pole of the norimon either upon 
 their shoulders, or else upon the palm of the 
 hand, holding it up above their heads. Whilst they 
 hold it up with one arm, they stretch out the 
 other, putting the hand into a horizontal posture, 
 whereby, and by their short deliberate steps and 
 stiff knees, they affect a ridiculous fear and cir- 
 cumspection. If the prince steps out of his 
 norimon into one of the green huts which are 
 purposely built for him, at convenient distances 
 on the road, or if he goes into a private house, 
 either to drink a dish of tea, or fur any other 
 purpose, he always leaves a cobang with the laud- 
 lord as a reward for his trouble. At dinner and 
 supper the expense is much greater. 
 
 All the pilgrims who go to Isje, whatever pro- 
 vince of the empire they come from, must travel 
 over part of this great road. This pilgrimage is 
 made at all times of the year, but particularly in 
 the spring ; and it is about that time vast multi- 
 tudes of these people are seen upon the roads. 
 The Japanese of both sexes, young and old, rich 
 and poor, generally speaking, undertake this me- 
 ritorious journey, on foot, in order to obtain at 
 this holy place indulgences and remission of their 
 sins. Some of these pilgrims are so poor, that they 
 must live wholly upon what they get by begging 
 along the road. It is particularly on this account, 
 and by reason of their great number, that they 
 are exceedingly troublesome to the princes and 
 lords, who, at that time of the year, go to court, 
 or come from thence, though otherwise they 
 address themselves in a very civil manner, bare- 
 headed, and with a low submissive voice, saying, 
 " Great lord, be pleased to give th« pilgiim a 
 farthing towards the expense of his journey to 
 Isje," or words to this effect. Of all the Japanese, 
 the inhabitants of Jedo and the province Osju 
 are the most inclined to this holy pilgrimage, and 
 frequently resort to Isje, often without the know- 
 ledge of their parents and relations, or leave from 
 their magistrates, which they are otherwise 
 obliged to take in that and other provinces. Nay 
 children, if apprehensive of a severe punishment 
 for their misdemeanors, will run away from their 
 parents and go to Isje, there to fetch an ofarrai, 
 or indulgence, which, upon theu- return, is 
 deemed a sufficient expiation of their crimes, and 
 
 a sure means to reconcile them to their parents. 
 Multitudes of these pilgrims are obliged to pass 
 whole nights, lying in the open fields, exposed to all 
 the injuries of wind and weather, some for want of 
 room in inns, all the inns and houses of great 
 villages being at some times of the year not suf- 
 ficient to harbour them ; others out of poverty : 
 and of these last many are found dead upon the 
 road, in which case their ofarrai, if they have any 
 about them, is carefully taken up, and hid in the 
 next tree or bush Sometimes idle and lazy 
 fellows, under pretence of this pilgrimage, go 
 begging all the year round, or so long as they can 
 get enough wherewithal to subsist and to carry 
 on this idle way of life. Others make this pil- 
 grimage in a comical and merry way, drawing 
 people's eyes upon them, as well as getting their 
 money. Sofne of these form themselves into a 
 society, which is generally composed of four 
 persona, clad in white linen, after the fashion of 
 the kuge, or persons of the holy ecclesiastical 
 court of the Dairi, or ecclesiastical hereditary 
 emperor. Two of them walking a grave, slow, 
 deliberate pace, and standing often still, carry a 
 large barrow adorned and hung about with fir 
 branches, and cut white paper, on which they 
 place a large bell made of light substance, or a 
 kettle, or something else taken out and alluding 
 to some old romantic history of their gods and 
 ancestors ; whilst a third, vrith a commander's 
 staff in his hand, adorned out of respect to his 
 ofSce, with a bunch of white paper, walks or 
 rather dances before the barrow, singing with a 
 dull heavy vbice a song relating to the Subject 
 they are about to represent. Meanwhile the 
 fourth goes before the houses, or addresses him- 
 self to charitable travellers, and receives and 
 keeps the money which is given them out of 
 charity. Their day's journeys are so short, that 
 they can easily spend a whole summer upon such 
 an expedition. 
 
 The Siunre are another remarkable sight tra- 
 vellers meet with upon the roads. Siunre are 
 people who go to visit in pilgrimage the thirty- 
 three chief Quanwon temples, which lie dis- 
 persed in several provinces of the empire. They 
 commonly travel two or three together, sing- 
 ing a miserable Quanwon song from house to 
 house, and sometimes playing upon a fiddle, 
 or upon a guitar, as vagabond beggars do in 
 Germany : however they do not importune tra- 
 vellers for their charity. They have the names 
 of such Quanwon templea as they have not yet 
 visited, written upon'a small board hanging about 
 their neck in proper order. They are clad in 
 white, after a very singular fashion, peculiar only 
 to this sect. Some people like so well to ramble 
 about the country after this mannex-, that they 
 will apply themselves to no other trade and 
 profession to get a livelihood by, but choose to 
 end their days in this perpetual pilgrimage. 
 
 Sometimes one meets with very odd strange 
 sights; as for instance, people running stark 
 naked about the streets in the hardest frosts, 
 wearing only a little straw about their waist to 
 cover their privities. These people , generally 
 undertake so extraordinary and troublesome a 
 journey, to visit certain temples, pursuant to 
 religious vows, which they promised to fulfil in 
 case they should obtain from the bounty of their 
 
 1 
 
KCEMPFEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 371 
 
 goda deliverance from some fatal distemper they 
 themselvea, their parents or relations laboured 
 under, or from acme other great misfortunes they 
 were threatened with. They live very poorly and 
 miserably upon the road, receive no charity, and 
 proceed on their journey by themselves, almost 
 perpetually ninning. 
 
 Multitudes of beggaj-s crowd the roads in all 
 parts of the empii'e, but particularly on the so 
 much frequented Tokaido. Among them there 
 are many lusty young fellows, who shave their 
 beads. This custom of shaving the bead was 
 originally introduced by Sotoktais, a zealous 
 propagator of the Fotoge, or doctrine of the 
 foreign pagan worship, and lias been kept up ever 
 since. For being vigorously opposed in the pro- 
 (pagation of his doctrine by one Moria, he com- 
 manded all that had embraced his worship, to 
 .shave part of their heads, and to be thereby dis- 
 1 tinguished from the adherents of Moria, cmd like- 
 wise ordered, that their male children should 
 have their whole head shaved, after the manner 
 of their priests, and by virtue of this solely enjoy 
 the privilege of begging. 
 
 To this shaved begging tribe belongs a certain 
 remarkable religious order of young girls called 
 Bibuni, which is as much as to say nuns. They 
 live under the protection of the nunneries at 
 Kamakura and Miaco, to whom they pay a certain 
 sum a year, of what they get by begging, as an 
 acknowledgment of their authority. Some pay 
 besides a sort of tribute or contribution to the 
 Khumano temples at Isje. Their chief abode is 
 in the neighbourhood of Khumano, from whence 
 they are called Khumano No Bikuni, or the nuns 
 of Khumano, for distinction sake from other 
 religious nuns. They are, in my opinion, by much 
 the handsomest gu'ls we saw in Japan. The 
 daughters of poor parents, if they be handsome 
 and agreeable, apply for and easily obtain this 
 privilege of begging in the habit of nuns, knowing 
 that beauty is one of the most pereuasive induce- 
 ments for travellers to let ttem feel the effects of 
 their generosity. The jammaboa, or begging 
 mountain' priests (of whom more hereafter) fre- 
 quently incorporate their ewn daughters into this 
 religious order, and take their wives from among 
 these bikunis. Some of them have been bred up 
 in houses of ill fame, aud having served their time 
 there, buy the privilege of entering into this 
 religious order, therein to spend the remainder of 
 their youth and beauty. They live two or three 
 together, and make an excursion every day a few 
 miles from their dwelling houses. They par- 
 ticularly watch people of fashion who travel in 
 noiimons, or in cangos, or on horseback. As 
 soon as they perceive somebody coming, they 
 draw near and address themselves, though not 
 altogether, but singly, every one accosting a 
 gentleman by herseK, singing a rural song : if he 
 proves veiy liberal and charitable, she will keep 
 him company and divert him for some hours. 
 As on the one baud very little religious blood 
 seems to circulate in theii- veins, so on the other 
 it doth not appear that they labour under any 
 considerable degree of poverty. It is true, indeed, 
 they conform themselves to the rules of theii 
 order by .shaving their heads, but they take care 
 to cover and to wrap them up in caps or hoods 
 made of black silk. They go decently and neatly 
 
 dressed after the fashion of ordinary people, and 
 wear gloves without fingers on their arms. They 
 wear also a large hat to cover their faces, which 
 are often painted, and to shelter themselves from 
 the heat of the sun. They commonly have a 
 shepherd's rod or hook in their hands. Their 
 voice, gestures, and apparent behaviour, are 
 neither too bold and daring, nor too much dejected 
 and affected, but free, comely, and seemingly 
 modest. However, not to extol their modesty 
 beyond what it deservefr, it must be observed, 
 that they make nothin°: of laying their bosoms 
 quite bare to the view of charitable travellers, all 
 the while they keep them company under pre- 
 tence of its being customary, in the country, and 
 that for aught I know, they may be, though 
 never so religiously shaved, full as impudent and 
 lascivious as any prostitute. 
 
 Having thus given an account of these Bikunis, 
 it will not be improper to add a few words of 
 another religious begging order of the Jammaboa, 
 as they are commonly called, that is motm tain- 
 priests, or rather Jammabus, that is mountain- 
 soldiers, because at all times they go armed with 
 swords and scimitere. They do not shave- 
 their heads, and follow the rules of the first 
 founder of this order, who mortified his body by 
 climbing up steep high mountains, at least they 
 conform themselves thereunto in their dress,- 
 apparent behaviour, and some outward cere- 
 monies, for they are fallen far short of his 
 rigorous way of life. They have their head, or- 
 general of their order, residing at Miaco, to whom 
 they are obliged to bring up a certain sum of 
 money every year, and in return obtain from hint 
 a higher dignity, with some additional ornament 
 whereby they are known among themselves. 
 They commonly live in the neighbourhood of 
 some famous Cami temple, and accost travellers 
 in the name of that Cami which is worshipped 
 there, making a short disoouree of his holiness 
 and miracles, with a loud coarse voice, mean- 
 while, to make the noise still louder, they rattle 
 their long staffs loaded at the upper end with iron 
 rings to take up the charity-money which is- 
 given them ; and last of all they blow a trampet 
 made of a large shell. They can-y their children 
 along with them upon the same begging errand, 
 clad like their lathers, but with their heads 
 shaved. These little bastards are exceedingly 
 troublesome and importunate with travellers, 
 and commonly take care to meet them, as they 
 are going up some hill or mountain, where,, 
 because of the difficult ascent, they cannot well 
 escape, nor indeed otherwise get rid of them 
 without giving them something. In some places- 
 they and their fathers accost travellers in 
 company with a troop of Bikunis, and with their 
 rattling, singing, trumpeting, chattering, and 
 crying, make such a horrid frightful noise, as 
 would make one mad or deaf These mountain- 
 priests are frequently addressed by super- 
 stitious people, for conjuring, fortune-telling, 
 foretelling future events, recovering lost goods,, 
 aud the like purposes. They profess them- 
 selves to be of the Cami religion, as esta- 
 blished of old, and yet they are never- 
 suffered to atteid or to take care of any of th& 
 Cami temples. 
 
 There are many more beggars travellers meet 
 
•372 
 
 KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 with along the roads. Some of these are old, 
 and to all appearance honest men, who, the better 
 to prevail upon people to part with their charity, 
 are shaved and clad after the fashion of the Siuko 
 or Budsdo priests. Sometimes there are two of 
 them standing together, each with a small oblong 
 book before him, folded much after the same 
 manner as public instruments are in the chanoei'y 
 ■of Siam. This book contains part of their 
 Fokekio, or Bible, printed in the significant or 
 learned language. However, I would not have 
 the reader think, as if they themselves had any 
 understanding in that language, or knew how to 
 
 ' read the book placed before them. They only 
 learn some part of it by heart, and speak it aloud, 
 looking towards the book, as if they did actually 
 read -in it, and expecting something from theu' 
 hearers as a reward for tlieir trouble. Others are 
 found sitting near some river, or running wa( er, 
 making a siegaki, a certain ceremony for the 
 relief of departed souls. This siegaki is made 
 after the following manner : They take a green 
 branch of the fanna skimmi tree, and murmuring 
 certain words with a low voice, wash and scour 
 with it some shavings of wood,_ whereon they had 
 written the names of some deceased persons. 
 Tliis they believe to contribute greatly to reUeve 
 -aud refresh their departed souls confined in 
 purgatory, and, for ought I know, it may answer 
 •the purpose full as well as any number of 
 tnasses, as they are celebrated to the same end 
 m Roman Catholic countries. Any person that 
 liiath a mind to purchase the benefit of this wash- 
 ing for himself or his relations and friends, 
 tlirows a senni upon the mat, which is spread out 
 near the beggar, who doth not so much as offer 
 to return him any manner of thanks for it, 
 thinking his art and devotion deserve still better, 
 besides, that it is not customary amongst beggars 
 •of note to thank people for their charity. Any 
 •one who hath learned the proper ceremonies 
 necessary to make the siegaki, is at liberty to do 
 it. Others of this tribe, who make up far the 
 •gi'eater part, sit upon the road all day long upon 
 -.a small coarse mat. They have a flat bell, like a 
 broad mortar, lying before them, and do nothing 
 •else but repeat with a lamentable singing tune 
 the word Namanda, which is contracted from 
 Namu Amida Budsu, a short fonn of prayers 
 •wherewith they address the god Amida, as the 
 patron aud advocate of departed souls. Mean- 
 -while they beat almost continually with a small 
 wooden hammer upon the aforesaid bell, and 
 this they say, in order to be the sooner heard 
 iiy Amida, and I am apt to thirt, not without 
 an intent to be the better taken notice of by 
 ^assengei's too. 
 
 Since I have hitherto entertained the reader 
 •with an account of the beggai's. and numerous 
 ■begging couipanies of this country, I must beg 
 leave, before I quit this subject, to mention two 
 or three more. Another sort we met with as we 
 •went along were differently clad, some in an 
 ecclesiastical, others iu a. secular habit. These 
 stood in the fields next to the road, and 
 ■commonly had a sort of an altar standing before 
 them, upon which they placed the idol of their 
 ■Criareus, or Quanwon, as they call him, carved in 
 wood and gilt ; or the pictures of some other 
 4dols scurvUy done ; as for instance, the pictm-e 
 
 i 
 
 of Amida, the supreme judge of departed 
 souls ; of Jemau 0, or the head keeper of the 
 prison whereunto the condemned souls are 
 confined; of Dsisoo, or the supreme com- 
 mander in the purgatory of children, and 
 some others ; wherewith, and by some repre- 
 sentations of the flames and torments prepared 
 for the wicked in a future world, they endear 
 vour to stir up in passengers compassion and 
 charity. 
 
 Other beggars, and these to all appearance 
 honest enough, are met sitting along the road, 
 clad much after the same manner with the 
 Quanwon beggars, with a Dsisoo staff in their 
 hand. These have made a vow not to speak 
 during a certain time, and express .their want 
 and desire only by a sad dejected, woeful 
 countenance. 
 
 Not to mention numberless other common beg- 
 gars, some sick, some stout and lusty enough, who 
 get people's charity by praying, singing, playing 
 upon fiddles, guitars, and otiier musical instru- 
 ments, or performing some juggler's tricks, I 
 will close the account of this vermin with an odd 
 remarkable .sort of a beggar's music, or rather 
 chime of bells, we sometimes, but rarely, meet 
 with in our journey to court, and which is from 
 the number of bells called fatsio canne, the 
 chime or music of eight. A young boy with a 
 sort of a, wooden roof or machine pendant 
 from his neck, and. a rope with eight strings 
 about it, from which hang down eight bells of 
 different sounds, turns round in a circle, with a 
 swiftness scarce credible, in such a manner, that 
 both the machine which rests upon his shoulders, 
 and the bells turn round with him horizontally, 
 the boy in the meanwhile, with great dexterity 
 and q\uckness, beating them with two hammers, 
 makes a strange odd sort of a melody. To increase 
 the noise, two people sitting near him beat, 
 one upon a large, the other upon a smaller 
 drum. Those who are pleased with their per- 
 formance throw theA. some sennis, or farthings, 
 upon the ground. 
 
 The crowd and throng upon the roads in this 
 country is not a little increased by numberless 
 small retail merchants and children of country 
 people, who run about from morning to night, 
 following travellers, and offering for sale 
 their poor, for the most part eatable, merchan- 
 dise; such as for instance several cakes and 
 sweetmeats, wherein the quantity of sugar is so 
 inconsiderable, that it is scarce perceptible ; 
 other cakes of different sorts, made of flour, 
 soccani, or else all sorts of roots boiled in water 
 and salt, road books, straw-shoes for horses and 
 men, ropes, strings, tooth-pickers, »nd a multi- 
 tude of other trifles made of wood, straw, reed 
 and bamboos, such as the situation of every place 
 affords. 
 
 In some places, both within and without cities 
 aud villages, one meets sometimes empty cangos 
 and palanquins, or empty and saddled, though 
 otherwise but mean-looking Hoi'ses, with the 
 men to attend them, who offer themselves and 
 their horses to carry weary foot-travellers to the 
 next post-house, or where they please, for a 
 small sum. Commonly they have been already 
 employed, and would be obliged to return empty 
 to the place from whence they set out if they 
 
KCEMPFEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAIT. 
 
 37S 
 
 did not pick up somebody by the way that will, 
 or hath occasion to mako use of them. 
 
 To complete the account I proposed to give, 
 of what multitudes of people travellers daily 
 meet with along the road, I must not forget to 
 take particular notice of numberless wenches, 
 the gi'eat and small inns, tea-booths and cook- 
 shops, chiefly in villages and hamlets, in the 
 great island Nipon, are abundantly and at all 
 times furnished with. About noon, when they 
 have done dressing and painting themselves, they 
 inake their appearance, standing under the door 
 of the house, or sitting upon the small gallery or 
 bench which is before the house, from whence, 
 with a smiling countenance and good words, they 
 invite the several travelling troops that pass by, 
 to call in at their inn preferably to others. In 
 some places, where there are several inns standing 
 near one another, chiefly in the siuku, or such 
 villages as have post-houses, they make with their 
 chattering and rattling no inconsiderable noise, 
 and prove not a little troublesome. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Cr OTrai JODRNET TO THE EMPEROB's COURT IN GENERAL; 
 MSD HOW WE WERE ACCOAEMODATED ON THE ROAD. 
 
 All the princes, lords and vassals of the Japanese 
 empire, being obliged to make their appearance 
 at court once a year, it hath been determined by 
 the emperor, what time and what day they are 
 to set out on their journey. The same was 
 observed with regard to the Dutch, and the 
 15th or 16th day of the first Japanese month, 
 which commonly falls in with the middle of 
 our February, hath been fixed for our constant 
 departure for times to come. It is towards that 
 time we get everything ready to set out, having 
 first sent the presents we are to make at Osacca, 
 Miaco, and at the emperor's court, (sorted and 
 cai'efully packed,) together with the victuals and 
 kitchen-furniture for our future voyage by sea, 
 and othfer heavy baggage, to the city of Simono- 
 seki, on board a barge built for this sole purpose. 
 Every other year this barge must be provided 
 with new tackle, and the cabin himg with new 
 furniture, according to the custom of the countiy, 
 and it is with no little expense that it is kept 
 in constant good repair. If she grows out of use, 
 a new one must be bought or built for a con- 
 siderable sum. All the presents and other goods 
 being put on board, she seta sail for Simonoseki, 
 some timO' before our own departure, because as 
 we make that part of our journey by land, and 
 in less time, she must wait our arrival there, in 
 order to take us and our retinue on board, and to 
 carry us to Osacca. Formerly we went on board 
 ourselves in the harbour of Nagasaki, and made 
 the whole voyage from thence to Osacca by sea, 
 but a very sudden and violent storm having once 
 occurred and put us into imminent danger, the 
 emperor, out of a tender regard for the security 
 of our persons, hath since ordered, that we 
 should make this first part of our journey by 
 land. Three or four weeks after this barge hath 
 set sail to Simonoseki, and a few days before our 
 departure, our resident attended with his usual 
 
 train, goes to visit the two governors of Nagasaki, 
 at their palaces, in order to take his leave of 
 them, and to recommend the Dutch, who remain 
 in our factory, to their favour and protection. 
 The next day, all the goods and other things 
 which must be carried- along with us, either by- 
 horses or men are marked, every bale or tnmfc 
 with a small board, whereon is written the pos- 
 sessor's name, and the things it contains. 
 
 The yei-y day of our departure all the officers 
 of our island, and all persons who are any ways 
 concerned with our afiidrs, particularly the future- 
 companions of our voyage, come over to Desima 
 early in the morning. They are followed sooit. 
 after by both governors, attended with their 
 whole numerous court, or else by their deputies,, 
 who come to visit us, and to wish us a good' 
 journey, as persons that are now going to have 
 the singular honour of being admitted into the- 
 presence of the supreme majesty of the empire- 
 The governors, or their deputies, having been 
 entertained as usual upon this occasion, and 
 taken their leave, are by us accompanied out of 
 our island, which is done commonly about nint 
 in the morning, at which time also we set out on 
 our journey. The bugio, or commander-in-chief 
 of our train, and the Dutch resident enter their 
 norimons. The chief interpreter, if he be old, is- 
 carried in an ordinary cango : others mount on 
 horseback, and the servants go a-foot. All the- 
 Japanese officers of our island, and several friends 
 and acquaintances of the Japanese companions of 
 our voj age, keep us company out of the town so- 
 far as the next inn. 
 
 Our train is not the same in the three sever-al 
 parts of our journey to court. In that part 
 which we make by land from Nagasaki to Kokura, 
 travelling over the island Kiusju, it may amount 
 with all the servants and footmen, as also th& 
 gentlemen, whom the lords of the several pro- 
 vinces we pass through send to compliment us, 
 and to keep us company dvu-ing our stay in then- 
 dominions, to about an hundred persons. Id 
 our voyage by sea it is not much less, all the- 
 sailors and watermen taken in. But in the last 
 part of our journey, when passing over the great j 
 island Nipon, we go from Osacca to Jedo, it is 
 considerably greater, and consists of no less than 
 one hundred and fifty people, and this by reason 
 of the presents and other goods which came from 
 Nagasaki as far as Osacca by sea, but must now 
 be taken .out and carried by land to Jedo by 
 horses and men. All our heavy baggage is- 
 commonly sent away some hours before we set 
 out ourselves, lest it should be a hindrance to us, 
 as also to give timely notice to our landlords of 
 our arrival. 
 
 Our days' journeys are very longandconsiderablo; 
 for we set out ;arly in the morning, and save^ 
 only one hour we rest at dinner, travel till 
 evening, and sometimes till late at night, making 
 from ten to thirteen Japanese miles a day. In 
 our voyage by sea, we put into some harbour and' 
 come to an anchor every night, advancing forty 
 Japanese water-leagues a day at farthest. 
 
 We are better treated, and more honourably 
 received, everywhere in our journey over Kiusju, 
 than we are upon the great island Nipon, and, in 
 general, we have much more civility shown us by 
 strangerEU I mean by the natives of Japan, than 
 
374 
 
 K(EMPFEK'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 by the Nagasakiao companions of our voyage, 
 and our own servants, who eat our bread and 
 travel at our expense. In our journey across the 
 island Kiusju, we have nearly the same honours 
 and civility done us by the lords of the several 
 provinces we pass through, which they show only 
 to travelling princes and their retinues. The 
 roads are swept and cleaned before us, and in 
 cities and villages they are watered to lay the 
 dust. The common people, labourers, and idle 
 spectators,^ who are so very troublesome to 
 travellers upon the great island Nipon, are kept 
 out of the way, and the inhabitants of the houses, 
 on either side of the roads and streets, see us go 
 by, either sitting in the back part of their houses, 
 or kneeling in the fore part behind the skreens, 
 with great respect and in a profound silence. 
 
 All the princes and lords of the island Kiusju, 
 whose dominions we are to pass through, send 
 one of their noblemen to compliment us, as soon 
 as we enter upon their territories ; but as he is 
 not suffered to address us in pereon, he makes his 
 compliment in his master's name to the bugio, or 
 commander-in-chief of our train, and to the 
 chief interpreter, offering at the same time, what 
 horses and men we want for us and our baggage! 
 He likewise orders four footmen to walk by every 
 Dutchman's side, and two gentlemen of some 
 note at his court, who are clad in black silk, with 
 staves in their hands to precede the whole train. 
 After this manner they lead us through their 
 master's territories, and when we come to the 
 limits thereof, the Japanese companions of our 
 voyage are by them treated with sacki and sokaua, 
 and so they take their leave. For our passage 
 over the harbours of Omura and Simabara, the 
 lords of these two places lend us their own 
 pleasure barges, and their own watermen, besides 
 that they furnish us with abundance of provisions, 
 without expecting even so much as a. email 
 pi-esent in return for their civil and courteous 
 behaviour ; and yet our thievish interpreters 
 never miss to lay hold of this advantage, putting 
 this article upon our account, as if we had 
 actually been at the expense, and they commonly 
 put the money in their pocket. In our whole 
 journey over Saikokf, from Nagasaki to Kokura, 
 everybody we meet with shows us and our train 
 that deference and respect which is due only to 
 the princes and lords of the country. Private 
 travellers, whether they travel on foot or on 
 horseback, must retire out of the way, and bare- 
 headed humbly bowing wait in the next field, till 
 our whole retinue is gone by. Those who will 
 not pay us this respect willingly, and of their . 
 own free choice, are compelled to do it by the 
 officers aforesaid, who precede our train. Feasants 
 and common foot-travellers, generally speaking, 
 are so civil as to retire out of the way into the 
 next field, before they are compelled to it, and 
 there they wait bare-headed and prostrate almost 
 flat to the ground, till we are gone by. I took 
 notice of some country people, who do not only 
 retire out of the way, but turn us their back, as 
 not worthy to behold us ; which same respect is 
 paid in Siam to the women of the king's seraglio, 
 and indeed almost all over the East Indies to 
 persons of a superior-rank. In Japan it is the 
 greatest mark of civility a native can possibly 
 show us, whether it be out of respect for the 
 
 supreme majesty of the empire, into whose 
 presence we are going to be admitted, or, as our 
 interpreters would fain persuade us, out of 
 deference to the bugio, as representing the 
 authority of the imperial governors of Nagasaki. 
 Howbeit, thus much is certain, that none, or but 
 few of these public marks of honour and respect, 
 are shown us in oui- journey over the great island 
 Nipon. 
 
 Farther, as to what concerns our accommodation- 
 on the road, the same is for our money as good' 
 as we could possibly desire, with regard to the 
 carriage of us and of our baggage, the number of 
 hoi'ses and men provided for the same, the inns, 
 lodgings, eating, and attendance. But on the 
 other hand, if we consider the narrow compass 
 of liberty allowed us, we have too much reason 
 to complain. For we are treated in a maimer 
 like prisoners, deprived of all liberty excepting 
 that of looking about the country from our 
 horses, or out of our cangos, which indeed it is 
 impossible for them to deny us. As soon as a 
 Dutchman alights from his horse (which is taken 
 very ill, unless urgent necessity obliges bim to do 
 it), he that rides before our train, and the whole 
 train after him, must stop suddenly; and the 
 dozen and two bailys must come down from their 
 horses to take immediate care of him : nay, they 
 watch us to that degree, that they will not leave 
 us alone, not even when nature obliges us to 
 retire. The bugio, or commander-in-chief of our 
 train, studies day and night not only the contents 
 of his instructions, but the journals of two or 
 three preceding voyages, that none of his care 
 and application should be wanting, exactly and 
 step by step to follow the actions and behaviour 
 of his predecessors. It is looked upon as the 
 most convincing proof of his faithfulness and 
 good conduct still to exceed them. Nay, some 
 of these blockheads are so capricious, that no 
 accident whatsoever can oblige them to go to any 
 other inns but those we had been at the year 
 before, should we upon this account be forced in 
 the worst weather, with the greatest incouveniency, 
 and at the very peril of our lives to travel till 
 late at night. 
 
 We go to the same inns which the princes and 
 lords of the counti-y resort to, in their own 
 journeys to the imperial court, that is, to the very 
 best of every place. The apartments are at that 
 time hung with the colour and arms of the Dutch 
 East India Company, and this in order to notify 
 to the neighbourhood by the livery who they 
 are that lodge - there, as is customary in the 
 country. We always go to the same inns, with 
 this difference only, that upon our return from 
 Jedo, we lie at the place we dined at in going up; 
 by this means equally to divide the ti-ouble the 
 inn-keepers must be at uponi our account, which 
 is much greater at night than at dinner. We 
 always take up our lodging in the back apartment 
 of the house, which is by much the pleasantest, 
 because of the view into a curious garden. It is 
 also otherwise reckoned the chief, by reason of its 
 being the remotest from the noise and tumult of 
 the street and forepart of the house. 
 
 The landlord observes the same customs upon 
 our arrival, which he doth upon the arrival of 
 the princes and lords of the empire. He comes 
 out of the town or village into the fields to meet 
 
KCEMPFER'S ACCOXTNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 376 
 
 us and our train, being clad in a camiaimo or 
 garment of ceremony, and wearing a short 
 floimiter stuck in the girdle. In this attire he 
 addresses eveiy one of us, making his compli- 
 ments with a low how, which before the norimons 
 of the bugjo, and our resident, is so low, that he 
 touches the ground with his hands, and almost 
 with his forehead. This done, he hastens back 
 to his house, and receives us at the entry of the 
 same a second time, in the same manner, and 
 with the same compliments. 
 
 As soon as we are come to the inn, our guardians 
 and keepers carry us forthwith across the house 
 to our apartments. Nor indeed are we so much 
 displeased at this, since the number of spectators, 
 and the petulant scoffing of the children, but 
 above all the troubles of a fatiguing journey, 
 make ua desirous to take our rest, the sooner the 
 better. We are otherwise, as it were, confined to 
 our apartment, having no other liberty allowed 
 us, but to walk out into the small but curious 
 garden, which is behind the house. All other 
 avenues, all the doors, windows, and holes, which 
 open any prospect towards the streets or country, 
 are carefully shut and nailed up, in order, as they 
 would fain persuade us, to defend us and our 
 goods from robbers, but in fact to watch and 
 guard us as thieves and deserters. It must be 
 owned, however, that this superabundant care 
 and watchfulness is considerably lessened upon 
 our return, when we have found means to 
 insinuate ourselves into their favour, and by 
 presents and otherwise to procure their con- 
 nivance. The bugjo takes possession of the best 
 apartment after ours, in whatever part of the 
 house it be. The several other rooms, which are 
 next to our own, are taken up by the dozen inter- 
 preters and other chief officers of our retinue, in 
 order to be always near at hand to watch our 
 conduct, and to take care that none of our land- 
 lord's domestics, nor any other person, presume , 
 to come into our apartment, unless it be by their 
 leave, and in their presence. In their absence 
 they commit this care to some of their own or 
 our servants, though all the companions of our 
 voyage in general are strictly charged to have a 
 watchful eye over us. Those who exceed their 
 fellow servants in vigilance and good conduct, are 
 by way of encouragement permitted to make 
 the voyage again the next year : otherwise they 
 jtand excluded for two years. 
 
 As soon as we have taken possession of our 
 apartment, the landlord comes in with some of 
 his chief male domestics, each with a dish of tea 
 in his hand, which they present to every one of us 
 with a low bow, according to his rank and dignity, 
 and repeating with a submissive deep-fetched 
 voice the word, ah, ah, ah ! They are all clad 
 in their compliment gowns, or garments of cere- 
 mony, which they wear only upon great OccasioiM, 
 and have each a short scimiter stuck in their 
 girdle, which they never quit so long as the com- 
 pany stays in the house. This done, the necessary 
 appauatus for smoking is brought in, consisting of 
 a board of wood or brass, though not always of 
 the same structure, upon which . are placed a 
 small fire-pan with coals, a pot to spit in, a small 
 box filled with tobacco cut small, and some long 
 pipes with email brass heads; as also another 
 japanned board or dish, with eocano, that is, 
 
 something to eat, as, for instance, several sorts of 
 fi-uits, figs, nuts, several sorts of cakes, chiefly 
 mansie, and rice cakes hot, several sorts of roots 
 boiled in water, sweet-meats, and other trumperies 
 of this kind . All these several things are brought 
 in, first into the bugjo's room, then into ours. As 
 to other necessaries travellers may have occasion 
 for, they are generally served by the house-maids, 
 if they be natives of Japan. These wenches also lay 
 the cloth and wait at table, taking this opportunity 
 to engage their guests to further favours. But it 
 is quite otherwise with us. For the landlords 
 themselves, and their male domestics, after they 
 have presented us with a dish of tea as aforesaid, 
 are not sufiered, upon any account whatever, to 
 approach or enter our apartments ; but whatever 
 we want, it is the sole business of our own servants 
 to provide us with the same. 
 
 There are no other spitting pots brought into 
 the room but those which come along with the 
 tobacco. If there be occasion for more, they 
 make use of small pieces of bamboos, a hand 
 broad and high being sawed from between the 
 joints, and hollowed. The candles brought in at 
 night are hollow in tlie middle ; the wick, which 
 is of paper, being wound about a wooden stick 
 before the tallow is laid on. For this reason also 
 the candlesticL-t have a punch or bodkin at top, 
 which the candles are fixed upon. They burn 
 very quick, and make a great deal of smoke and 
 stink, because the oil or tallow is made out cf the 
 berries of bay-trees, camphire trees, and some 
 others of this kind. It is somewhat odd and 
 ridiculous to see the whirling motion of the 
 ascending smoke followed by the flame, when 
 the candle is taken off from the punch at the top 
 of the candlestick. Instead of lamps, they make 
 use of small flat earthen vessels, filled with train 
 oil made of the fat of whales, or with oil made of 
 cotton seed. The match is made of rush, and the 
 above-said earthen vessel stands in another filled 
 with water, or in a square lanthom, that in case 
 the oil should by chance take fire, no damage 
 might therefrom come to the house. What 
 obliges them to be very careful, is the great havoc 
 fires make in this country, where the houses are 
 all built of wood. 
 
 The Japanese in their journeys sit down to 
 table thrice a day, besides what they eat between 
 meals. They begin early in the morning and 
 before break of day, at least before they set out, 
 with a good substantial breakfast ; then follows 
 the dinner at noon, and th« day is concluded 
 with a plentiful supper at night. Their table is 
 spread, and their victuals dressed after the fashion 
 of the country, which I have described elsewhere. 
 It being forbid to play at cards, they sit after 
 meals drinking and singing some songs to make 
 one another meny, or else they propose some 
 riddles round, or play at some other game, and he 
 that cannot explain the riddle, or loses the game, 
 is obliged to drink a glass. It is again quite 
 otherwise with us in this respect, for we sit at 
 table and eat our victuals very quietly. Our 
 cloth is laid, and the dishes dressed after the 
 European manner, but by Japanese cooks. We 
 are presented besides by the landlord each with 
 a Japanese dish. We drink European wines, and 
 the rice-beer of the countryhot.. All our diver- 
 sion is confined in, the day-time to the small 
 
376 
 
 KOEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 garden, which is behind the house, at night to 
 the hagnio, in case we please to make use of it. 
 No other pleasure is allowed us, no manner of 
 conversation with the domestios, male or female, 
 excepting what, through the connivance of our 
 inspectors, some of us find means to procure at 
 night in private and in their own rooms. 
 
 When everything is ready for us to set out 
 again, the landlord is called, and oui- resident, in 
 presence of the two interpreters, pays him the 
 reckoning in gold, laid upon a small board. He 
 diuwB near in a creeping posture, kneeling, holding 
 his hands down to the floor, and when he takes 
 the table which the money is laid upon, lie bows 
 down his forehead almost quite to the ground, in 
 token of submission and gratitude, uttering with 
 a deep voice the word, ah, ah, ah ! whereby in 
 this country inferiors show their deference and 
 respect to their superiors. He then prepares to 
 make the same compliment to the other Dutch- 
 men, but our interpreters generally excuse him 
 this trouble, and make him return in the same 
 crawling posture. Every landlord hath two 
 oobangs paid him for dinner, and three for supper 
 and lodgings at nigtit. For this money he is to 
 provide victuals enough for our whole train, the 
 horses, the men that look after tliem and the 
 porters only excepted. The same sum is paid to 
 the landlords in the cities, where we stay some 
 days, as at Osacca, Miaoo, and Jedo, viz., iive 
 cobangs a day, without any further recompense — 
 a small matter indeed, considering that we must 
 pay double for everything else we want. The 
 reason of our being kept so cheap as to victuals 
 and lodging is, because this sum was agreed on 
 with our landlords a long while ago, when our 
 train was not so bulky as it now is. The 
 landlords upon Saikaido, in our journey from 
 Nagasaki to Kokura, receive only a small matter 
 by way of reward for the trouble we give them, 
 for our own cooks take care to provide themselves 
 what is requisite for our table. It is a custom in 
 this country, which we likewise observe, that 
 quests before they quit the inn order their 
 servants to sweep the room they lodged in, not to 
 leave any dirt or ungrateful dust behind thera. 
 
 From this reasonable behaviour of the land- 
 lords, on our behalf, the reader may judge of the 
 civility of the whole nation in general, always 
 excepting our own ofBcers and servants, and the 
 companions of our voyage. I must own, that in 
 the visits we made or received in our journey, we 
 found the same to be greater than could be pos- 
 sibly expected from the most civilised nation. 
 The behaviour of the Japanese, irom the meanest 
 countryman up to the greatest prince or lord, is 
 such, that the whole empire might be called a 
 school of civility and good manners. They have 
 so much sense and innate curiosity, that if they 
 ' were not absolutely denied a free and open con- 
 versation and correspondence with foreigners, 
 they would receive them with the utmost kind- 
 ness and pleasure. In some towns and villages 
 only we took notice that the young boys, who 
 are childish all over the world, would run after 
 us, call us names, and crack some malicious jests 
 or other, levelled at the Chinese, whom they take 
 us to be. One of the most common, and not 
 much different from a like sort of a compliment 
 which is commonly made to Jews in Germany, 
 
 3000 
 
 is, Toosin, hay hay, which in broken Chinese 
 
 signifies, Chinese, have ye nothing to truck ? 
 To give the reader an idea of the expenses of 
 
 our journey to court, I will here set down the 
 
 chief articles expressed in round sums and rix 
 
 dollara (about 5 rix dollars being equal to 11.) 
 
 Eix dol. 
 I For victuals and lodging at 50 rix dollars 
 a day, in our journey by land, makes in 
 two months' time 
 
 For 40 horses, and so many men, to carry 
 our baggage from Osacca to Jedo, which 
 number is greater in going up to court 
 and less upon our return, at 15 thails a 
 horse, and 6 thails a man, as hath been 
 agreed on of old (half of which money 
 the interpreters put in their pockets), 
 amounts to 
 
 A sum of money divided among our 
 retinue, to bear some extraordinary ex- 
 penses of the journey, of which every 
 Dutchman receives 54 thails, and the 
 others more or less, according to their 
 office and quality, amounts to about 
 
 For hiring a barge (or if she be ours, for 
 building her) 420 thails, to the sailors 
 50 thails : for the cabiu-farniture and 
 tackle 90 thails; for maintaining and 
 repairing the said barge 40 thails; 
 amounts in all to 600 thails, or 
 
 For victuals, drink, tea, tobacco, and other 
 necessary provisions for our voyage by 
 sea 
 
 For the usual presents in money ; as for 
 instance, to the bugjo or oommander-m- 
 chief of our train, 300 thails (or 500 rix 
 dollars), and much the same to the inn- 
 keepers, their sons and domestics, at 
 Osacca, Miaco, and Jedo, in all 
 
 Hire for the norimon-men, as also for the 
 cangos we make use of instead of 
 horses, in order to be carried over 
 mountains and bad roads, as also to visit 
 certain temples and pleasure-houses ; for 
 passage-money to be ferried over rivers 
 and harbours; for some extraordinary 
 expenses and presents, whether neces- 
 sary, or for our diversion, may amount 
 . in all to 
 
 Presents to be made to his Imperial 
 Majesty, of little value indeed for so 
 powerful a monarch, but what, if sold, 
 would bring in a sum of at least . 
 
 Presents to be made to fourteen of the 
 prime ministers, and chief officers of the 
 imperial court at Jedo ; to the two 
 governors of that city, to the chief 
 judge at Miaco, as also to the two 
 governors of that city, and of the city 
 of Osacca. These presents consist in 
 some foreign commodities, and are but a 
 trifle to every one of them, but bring 
 us to an expense of at least . 
 
 Presents to the two governors of Nagasaki, 
 which they receive before our depart- 
 ure in raw Silk and stuffs, which they 
 sell again to very good advantage, make 
 to us a sum of 
 
 Sum total of all the expenses of our 
 
 journey (or about 4000Z. sterling) . . 20,C0(X 
 
 3000 
 
 1000 
 
 1000 
 
 1000 
 
 1000 
 
 2000 
 
 2500 
 
 3000 
 
 2600 
 
KCEMPFER'8 ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 37r 
 
 Before I proceed to the journal of our journey 
 to the imperial court, it may not be amiss to 
 observe, that it is not an indifferent matter 'to 
 travellers in this country, what day they set out 
 on their journey. For they must choose for 
 their departure a fortunate day, for which pur- 
 pose they make use of a particular table, which 
 they say hath been observed to hold true by a 
 continued experience of many ages, and wherein 
 are set down all the unfortunate days of every 
 month, upon which, if travellers were to set out 
 on any journey, they would not only expose 
 themselves to some considerable misfortune, 
 but likewise be liable to lose all their expenses 
 and labour, and to be disappointed in the chief 
 intent of their journey. However, the most 
 sensible of the Japanese have but little regard 
 for this superstitious table, which is more credited 
 by the common people, the mountain-priests, and 
 monks. A copy of tUs table is printed in all 
 their road and house-books, and is as follows : 
 
 A Taele, showing what days of the month are 
 vmfortunate and improper to begin a journey, 
 invented by the wise and experienced astrologer 
 Abino Seimei. 
 
 Month. Unfortunate days. 
 
 1 r 3 11 19 27 
 
 2 8 2 10 18 26 
 
 3 9 1 9 17 25 
 
 4 10 4 12 20 28 
 
 5 11 5 13 21 29 
 
 6 12 6 14 22 30 
 
 To give the more weight and authority to this 
 table, they say, that it was invented by the afore- 
 said astrologer Seimei, a man of great quality and 
 very eminent in his art. He waa born a pisince. 
 King Abino Jassima was his father, and a fox his 
 mother. Abino Jassima was married to this fox 
 upon the following occasion : he once happened 
 with a servant of his to be in the temple of Inari, 
 who is the god and protector of the foxes ; mean- 
 while some courtiers were hunting the fox with- 
 out doors, in order to make use of the lungs for 
 the preparation of a certain medicine. It hap- 
 pened upon this that a young fox, pursued by the 
 hunters, fled into the temple, which stood open, 
 and took shelter in the very bosom of Jassima. 
 The king unwilling to deliver up the poor 
 creature to the unmerciful himters, was forced to 
 defend himself and his fox, and to repel force, 
 wherein he behaved himself with so much bravery 
 and success, that having defeated the hunters, 
 he could set the fox at liberty. The hunters 
 ashamed, and highly offended at the courageous 
 behaviour of the king, seized in the height of 
 their resentment an opportunity which offered, 
 to kill his royal father. Jassima mustered up all 
 his courage and prudence to revenge his father's 
 death, and with so much success, that he killed 
 the traitors with his own hands. The fox, to 
 return his gratitude to his deliverer, appeared to 
 him after the victory, which he obtained over 
 the murderers of his father, in the shape of a 
 lady of incomparable beauty, and so fired his 
 bre^t with love, that he took her to his wife. 
 It was by her he had this son, who was endowed 
 with divine wisdom, and the precious gift of 
 prognosticating, and foretelling things to come. 
 Nor did he know, that his wife had been -that 
 
 very fox, whose life he saved with so muol» 
 courage in the temple of Inari, till soon after her 
 tail and other parts beginning to gi'OW, sh» 
 resumed by degrees her former shape. 
 
 This is not one of the least considerable of the- 
 histories of their gods. And I must take this 
 opportunity, once for all, to beg the reader's- 
 pardon, if in the account of our journey to court 
 I shall trouble him, as occasion shall require, with 
 other stories of the same kind, there being scarce 
 anything else worth observing, that relates to the- 
 antiquities of this country. Seimei not only 
 calculated the above-mentioned table, by th» 
 knowledge he acquired of the motions au4 
 influence of the stars, but as he was at the same 
 time a perfect master of the cabalistic sciences^ 
 he foimd out certain words, which he brought- 
 together into an uta or verse, the sound and pror 
 nunciation whereof is believed to have ther 
 infalHble virtue of keeping off all those misfor- 
 tunes, which upon the days determined in th& 
 said table to be unfortunate, would otherwise- 
 befal travellers. This was 'done for the use and 
 satisfaction of poor ordinary servants, who have- 
 not leisure to accommodate, themselves to this- 
 table, but must go when and wherever they 
 are sent by their masters. The verse itself is a» 
 follows : — 
 
 Sada Mejesi Tabiaatz Fldori Josi Asij-wa, 
 Omojitatz Figo Kitz Nito Sen.* 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 DESCRIPTIOlf OF THE CITY OF JEDO, OR YEDO ; ITS CASTLK 
 AND PALACE, WITH AW ACCOUNT OF -ffHAT HAPPENEI>- 
 DtmiNG OUR STAY THERE ; OUR AVDIENCE AND DEPAR- 
 TURE. 
 
 Of the five great trading towns, which belong 
 to the imperial demesnes, or crown lands, Jedo 
 is the first and chief, the residence of tha- 
 emperor, the capital, and by much the largest 
 city of the empire, by reason of the many princes- 
 and lords, who with their families and numerous- 
 trains swell up the imperial court, and th& 
 inhabitants of the city, to an incredible number- 
 It is seated in the province Musasi in 35°, 32" 
 of northern latitude, according to my owtt 
 observations, on a large plain at the end of » 
 gulf, which is plentifully stored with fish, crabs,, 
 and shells, and hath Kamakura and the province- 
 Idsu on the right, sailing down from Jedo, and 
 the two provinces Awa and Kudsu on the left, 
 but is so shallow, with a muddy clay at the- 
 bottom, that no ships of any considerable bulk 
 can come up to the city, but must be unladen a. 
 league or two below it. Towards the sea the city 
 hath the figure of a half moon, and the Japanese- 
 will have it to be seven miles long, five broad,, 
 and twenty in circumference. It is not enclosed 
 with a wall, no more than other towns in Japan,. 
 but cut through by many broad ditches and 
 canals, With high ramparts raised on both sides, 
 at the top whereof are planted rows of trees, but 
 
 * The details of the author's journey along the coast 
 being of little moment, are omitted. It is to be re- 
 gretted that no traveller has penetrated through tlwr 
 centre of this interesting oountiy. 
 2B 
 
378 
 
 KCEMPPEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 this has been done, not so much for the defence 
 of the city, as to prevent the fires, which happen 
 here frequently, from making too great a 
 havoc. I took notice, however, that towards the 
 
 tie, these ramparts are shut up by strong 
 gatvs, probably because they serve there for 
 defence too. A largs river rising westwards of 
 the city runs through it, and loses itself in the 
 harbour. It sends off a considerable arm, which 
 encompasses the castle, and thence falls down 
 into the said harbour in five different streams, 
 every one of which has its particular name, and 
 a stately bridge laid over it. The chief and most 
 famous of these bridges, by reason of its bigness 
 and stateliness, is called Nipombas, or the biidge 
 of Japan, described in a preceding chapter. 
 Another is called Jedo Basohi, that is, the bridge 
 of Jedo. This city is extremely populous,* and 
 •-e number of natives, foreigners and ccclesi- 
 astics, almost incredible, and indeed it cannot be 
 otherwise, considering the multitude of officers of 
 all ranks, posts, and quality, who compose the 
 imperial court, but more particularly the 
 families of all the princes of the empire, which 
 stay all the year round, with numerous 
 retinues suitable to their quality, whilst the 
 princes themselves are allowed but six months' 
 absence from court, during which they take 
 care of the government of the hereditary 
 dominions, and then return to Jedo. 
 
 Jedo is not built with that regularity which is 
 observable in most other cities in Japan, (particu- 
 larly Miaco,) and this because it swelled by 
 degrees to its present bulk. However, in some 
 parts of the town the streets run regularly 
 enough, cutting each other at right angles. This 
 regularity is entirely owing to accidents of fire, 
 whereby some hundred houses being laid in ashes 
 at once, as indeed very frequently happens, the 
 new streets may be laid out, upon what plan the 
 builders please. Many of these places, which 
 have been thus destroyed by fire, still lie waste, 
 the houses being not built here with that despatch 
 as they are at Moscow, where they sell them 
 ready made, so that there needs nothing but to 
 remove and set them up where they are wanted, 
 without lime, clay, or nails, any time after the 
 tire. The houses in Jedo are small and low, as 
 indeed they are in all other parts of the empire, 
 built of fir-wood, with thin clayed walls, adorned 
 within, and divided into rooms by paper screens, 
 and lattice windows. The floors are covered with 
 fine mats, the roofs with shavings of woods. In 
 short, the whole edifice is a composition of 
 so much combustible matter, that we need not 
 wonder at the great havoc fires make in this 
 country. Almost every house has a place under 
 the roof or upon it, where they constantly keep 
 a tub full of water, with a couple of mops which 
 may be easily come at, even without the house, 
 by the help of ladders. By this precaution, 
 indeed, they often quench a fire in particular 
 houses, but it is far from being sufficient to stop 
 the fury of a raging flame, which has got ground 
 already, and laid several houses in ashes, against 
 which they know no better remedy at present 
 but to pull down some of the neighbouring 
 
 '• Authoritiea differ greatly about the population of 
 Jodo, but it seems to rajige about a million. — Ed 
 
 houses, which have not yet been reached, for 
 which purpose whole companies of firemen patrol 
 about the streets day and night. The city ii 
 well stocked with monks, temples, monasteries, 
 and other religious buildings, which are seated in 
 the best and plcasantest places, as they are also 
 in Europe, and I believe, all other countries. The 
 dwelling houses of private monks ai-e no ways 
 difierent from those of the laity, excepting only 
 that they are seated in some eminent conspicuous 
 place, with some steps leading up to them, and a 
 small temple, or chapel hard by, or if there be 
 none, at least a hall or large room, adorned with 
 a few altars, on which stand several of their 
 idols. There are, besides, many stately temples 
 built to Amida, Siaka, Quanwon, and several 
 other of their gods, of all sects and religions 
 established in Japan: but they do not differ 
 much either in form or structure from other 
 temples erected to the same gods at Miaco. 
 
 There are many stately palaces in this city, as 
 may be easily conjectured by its being the 
 residence of a powerful emperor, and the abode 
 of all the noble and princely families of this 
 mighty empire. They are separated and di^tin 
 guished from other housfs by large courtyards 
 and stately gates ; fine varnished stair-cases, of a 
 few steps, lead up to the door of the house, 
 which is divided into several magnificent apart- 
 ments, all of a floor, they being not above one 
 story, nor adorned with towers, as the castles 
 and palaces are, where the princes and lords of 
 the empire reside in their hereditary dominions. 
 The city of Jedo is a, nui-sery of artists, handi- 
 craftsmen, merchants, and tradesmen, and yet 
 everything is sold dearer than anywhere else in 
 the empire, by reason of the great concourse of 
 people, and the number of idle monks and 
 courtiers, as also the difficult importing of pro- 
 visions and other commodities. The political 
 government of this city is much the same as at 
 Nagasaki and Osacca, whereto I refer the reader 
 as to a more ample description. Two governors 
 have the command of the town by turns, each 
 for the space of one year. The chief subaltern 
 officers are the burghei>masters, as the Dutch 
 call them, or mayors, who have the command of 
 particular quarters, and the ottonas, who hiive 
 the inspection and subordinate command of single 
 streets. 
 
 The castle and residence of the emperor is 
 seated about the middle of the city. It is of an 
 irregular figure, inclining to the round, and is 
 five Japanese miles in circumference. It consists 
 of two enclosures, or fore-castles, as one may call 
 them, the innermost and third castle, which is 
 properly the residence of the emperor, two other 
 strong, well fortified, but smaller castles at the 
 sides, and some large gardens behind the imperial 
 palace. I call all these several divisions castles, 
 because they are separately and every one by 
 itself, enclosed with walls and ditches. The first 
 and outermost castle takes in a large spot of 
 ground, which encompasses the second, and half 
 the imperial residfence, and is enclosed itself 
 with walls and ditches, and strong, well-guarded 
 gates. In this outermost castle reside the princes 
 of the empire, with their families, living in com- 
 modious and stately palaces, built in streets, with 
 spacious couits shut up by strong, heavy gates. 
 
K(EMPFER-S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 3-» 
 
 Tho second castle takes in a much smaller spot 
 «f ground ; it fronts tho third, and residence of 
 the emperor, and is enclosed by the first, but 
 ■separated from both by walls, ditches, di-aw- 
 bridges, and strong gates: the guard of this 
 ■second castle is much more numerous than that 
 of the first. In it are the stately palaces of some 
 ■of the most powerful princes of the empire, the 
 counsellors of state, the prime ministers, chief 
 officers of the crowo, and such other persons, 
 -who must givo a more immediate attendance 
 ■upon the emperor's person. The castle itself, 
 -where the emperor resides, is seated somewhat 
 higher than the others, on the top of a hill, 
 which has been purposely flattened for the impc- 
 tLiI palace to be buUt upon it. It is enclosed 
 with a thick, strong wall of freestone, with bas- 
 tions standing out much after the manner of 
 the European fortifications. A rampart of earth 
 is raised against the inside of this wall, and at 
 the top of it stand, for ornament and defence, 
 several long buildings and square guardhouses 
 ^uilt in form of towers several stories high. 
 The structures particularly on that side where 
 -the imp>irial residence is, are of an uncommon 
 ■strength, all of freestone of an extraordinary size, 
 which are biirely laid upon each other, without 
 being fastened, either with mortar or braces of 
 ■iron, which was done, they say, that in case of 
 earthquakes, which frequently happen in this 
 country, the stones yielding to the shock, the 
 ■wall itself should receive no damage. Within the 
 palace a square white tower rises aloft above all 
 other buildings. It is many stories high, adorned 
 ■with roofs, and other curious ornaments, which 
 ■make the whole castle look at a distance magnifi- 
 cent beyond expression, amazing the beholders, 
 tts do also the many other beautiful bended roofs, 
 -with gilt dragons at the top and corners, which 
 cover the rest of the buildings within the castle. 
 The second castle is very small, and more like a 
 citadel, vidthout any outward ornament at all. It 
 has but one door, and there is but one passage 
 to it, out of the emperor's own residence, over a 
 high, long bridge. The third castle lies on the 
 side of this second, and is much of the same 
 structure. Both are enclosed with strong, high 
 walls, which for a still better defence are encom- 
 passed with broad, deep ditches filled by the 
 •great river. In these two castles are bred up the 
 imperial princes and princesses, if there be any. 
 Behind the imperial residence there is still a 
 rising ground, beautified according to the country 
 fashion, with curious and magnificent gardens 
 and orchards, which are terminated by a pleasant 
 wood at the top of a hill, planted with two par- 
 ticular differing and curious kinds of plane-trees, 
 whose starry leaves variegated with green, yellow, 
 and red, are very pleasing to the eye. It is remark- 
 able, what they aflBrm of these trees, that one 
 kind is in full beauty in the spring, the other 
 towards the autumn. The palace itself has but 
 one stoiy, which however is of a fine height. It 
 -takes in a large spot of ground, and has several 
 long galleries and spacious rooms, which upon 
 putting on or removing of screens, may be en- 
 larged or brought into a narrower compass, as 
 occasion requires, and ai-e contrived so as to 
 receive at all times a convenient and sufBcient 
 light The chief apartments have each its par- 
 
 ticular name. Such are, for instance, the waiting- 
 room, where all persons, that are to be admitted 
 to an audience, either of the emperor or of his 
 prime ministers of state, wait till 'they are intro- 
 duced ; the council-chamber, where the ministers 
 of state and privy counsellors meet upon business ; 
 the hall of thousand mats, where the emperor 
 receives the homage and usual presents of the 
 princes of the empire, and ambassadors of foreign 
 powers ; several halls of audience ; the apart- 
 ments for the emperor's household, and others. 
 The structure of all these several apartments is 
 exquisitely fine, according to the architecture of 
 the country. The ceilings, beams, and pillars 
 are of cedar, or camphire, or jeseriwood, the 
 grain whereof naturally runs into flowers and 
 other curious figures, and is therefore in some 
 apartments covered only with a thin transparent 
 layer of varnish, in others japanned, or curiously 
 carved with birds and branched work neatly gilt. 
 The floor is covered with the finest white mats, 
 bordered with gold fringes or bands ; and this is 
 all the furniture to be seen in the palaces of the 
 emperor and princes of the empire. I was told 
 that there is a particular private apartment under 
 ground, which instead of the ceiling has a large 
 reservoir of water, and that the emperor repairs 
 thither, when it lightens, because they believe 
 that the force of lightning is broken in the water 
 But this I deliver only upon hearsay. There are 
 also two strong rooms wherein are kept the im- 
 perial treasures, and these are secured from fire 
 and thieves by strong iron doors and roofs of 
 copper. In this castle resided the successors of 
 the emperor Jejas, the first of this family who 
 governed the empire of Japan in the following 
 order : — 1. Jejas, after his death called Gongin ; 
 2. Teitokwin, his son; 3. Daijojin, a son of Tei- 
 tokwin; 4. Genjojin, a son of Daijojin; and, 
 5. Teinajos, the now reigning monarch, Genjojin's 
 brother's son. Thus much of the castle and 
 residence of the secular emperor of Japan. I 
 proceed now to resume the thread of my journal. 
 As soon as we came to our inn, we sent our 
 second interpreter, the first and chief not being 
 able to go out by reason of his indisposition, to 
 notify our arrival to the imperial commissioners 
 appointed for inspecting and regulating foreign 
 affairs, and to that of the governor of Nagasaki, 
 who was then at Jedo, being Genseimon, who for 
 his great care in regulating the affuirs of foreign 
 trade, in the year 1685, to the advantage of his 
 country, and the entire satisfaction of the 
 emperor, was by him honoured with the title and 
 character of Sino Cami. He forthwith gave orders 
 to our bugjo tO'keep us close to our apartments, 
 and to suffer nobody to come up to us, besides 
 our own servants, which orders they never fail 
 strictly to comply with, though otherwise one 
 would have thought our apai-tments sufficiently 
 remote from the street, being the upper story of 
 a back house, to which there was no entry, but 
 through a narrow passage, which could be locked 
 up, if needfuL For a further security there -were 
 two doors, one at the upper, and another at the 
 lower end of tho staircase, and the rooms wore 
 shut up on throe sides. My room had one single 
 narrow window, through which I could, with 
 much ado, observe the meridian height of the sun. 
 We were told, that four days before oiu: arrival 
 
380 
 
 KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAK. 
 
 forty streets and upwards of 4000 houses had 
 been bui-nt down. This very evening a fire broke 
 out about two leagues from our inn to the east, 
 but was soon extinguished, having laid only a few 
 houses in ashes. 
 
 On the 14th of March, the imperial commis- 
 fiioners, and Sino Cami, sent to congratulate us 
 upon our happy arrival, and to acquaint us in the 
 mean time, that they had notified the same to the 
 counsellors of state. The same day we opened, 
 in the presence of our bugjo, and another ofScer 
 Bent by Sino Cami, the presents which were to be 
 made to the emperor and the great men at court, 
 and bespoke the necessary boxes for calamback 
 and camphire of Borneo. 
 
 On the 15th of March, two tailors came to cut 
 the European stuffs for the emperor, as usual. 
 The same day we bespoke bottles and other 
 vessels for the tent and Spanish wines, and 
 wooden tables to lay the presents upon. Our 
 bugjo went to pay a visit to Sino Cami, by whom 
 he was strictly forbidden to give anybody leave 
 to see us, before we had been admitted to an 
 audience of the emperor, unless he received 
 express orders from him, Sino Cami, for so 
 doing. This evening another fire broke out 
 about two leagues from our inn, but did no great 
 
 On the 17th of March, we were acquamted by 
 our bugjo with news from Nagasaki, importing, 
 that within a fortnight after our departure from 
 thence, twenty Chinese jonks were got safe into 
 that harbour. He desired us at the same time 
 not to throw any papers, with European characters 
 upon them, out of our windows among the dust. 
 This morning we again perceive fire not far 
 from us. 
 
 On the 18th of March, we were busy about 
 drawing the tent and Spanish wines into long 
 bottles and flasks, and putting the calamback and 
 camphire into boxes, and regulating all things as 
 they were to be presented to the emperor at the 
 next audience. This evening a violent fire broke 
 out near a mile and a half from our inn west- 
 wards, and a northerly wind blowing pretty 
 strong at the same time, it burnt with such 
 violence, that it laid twenty-five streets, though 
 they were broad there, and about 600 houses in 
 ashes, within four hours time, before it could be 
 put out. It was said to have been caused by 
 incendiaries, two of whom were seized. 
 
 On the 20th of March, we were told that Mat- 
 zandairo Inaba Cami, who was to go to Miaco in 
 quality of chief justice of that place, set out from 
 Jedo accordingly on his way thither, attended by 
 another lord, who was to present him to the 
 people, and at the same time to bring presents 
 from the emperor to Dairi. Sino Cami sent this 
 day one of his of&cers to acquaint us, that he 
 hoped we should have our audience from the 
 emperor on the 28th of this month, and withal to 
 command us to preserve our health, and to keep 
 everything in readiness towards that time. 
 
 On the 21st of March, otic chief interpreter 
 went to pay a visit to the imperial commissioners, 
 and to desire leave to be carried to court on the 
 day of our audience in a cango, which was 
 granted to him, after he had first made affidavit 
 upon oath, signed with his blood, that by reason 
 of his sickness he was not able to go otherwise. 
 
 Groto TsiosimoD, burgher-master of Nagasaki, set 
 out to day for that place, haying had his audience 
 of the counsellors of state on the 15th of the 
 second Japanese month, and his audience of leava- 
 on the 21st. 
 
 On the 23rd of March, we sent by our second 
 interpreter Trojemon, a present of a bottle of 
 aqua vitse to the young lord of Firando, who 
 was then at Jedo, as a small token of our gratefiil 
 remembrance of the kind protection hi^ father 
 had given us, when we had our factory upon the 
 island Firando. This day, about an hour before 
 noon, the weather being calm, there was felt of a 
 sudden a violent earthquake, which shook our 
 house with great noise. It lasted so long, that 
 one could have told fifty. This sudden accident 
 convinced me of the reasonableness and necessity 
 of that law, whereby it is forbidden throughout the- 
 empire to build high houses, and that it is no less, 
 requisite to build them as they do in this country, 
 all of slight stuff and wood, and to lay a strong 
 heavy beam under the roof, by its weight and 
 pressure upon the walls of the house, to keejx 
 them together in case of such a shock. 
 
 On the 24th of March, being Saturday, the> 
 weather was very cold, with snow and rain, 
 though it had been excessively hot just the night 
 before. This day Makino Bengo, counsellor of 
 state and the emperor's chief favourite, sent a 
 compliment to our director, and desired some- 
 Dutch cheese ; we presented him with a whole 
 cheese of Eidam, and half a safirou cheese taken. 
 from our own provision. 
 
 On the 25th of March, we were busy with 
 putting the presents, which were to be made to- 
 his Imperial Majesty, and to some of the great 
 men at court, in proper order, in hopes that we- 
 should be admitted to an audience on the 28th 
 of this month, being a holiday : we also sent to- 
 desire Sino Cami and the imperial commissioners- 
 to use their good endeavours to forward the same. 
 The ministers of state, and other great men at 
 court, some of whom we were only to visit, and 
 to make presents to others, were the five ohier 
 imperial counsellors of state, called Goradzi, or 
 the five elderly men, who were: — 1. Makino- 
 Bingono Cami. 2. Okubo Canga No Cami. 3.- 
 Abi Bungono Cami. 4. Toda Jamajiro Cami. 
 5. Tsutsia Sagami Cami : four imperial under or 
 deputy counsellors of state, called Waka Goridzi, 
 who were : — 1. Akimotto Tadsijma Cami. 2. Katta 
 Saddono Cami. 3. Naito Tamba.no Cami. .iud 
 4. Inagi Sawa Dewano Cami. The Dsisja, a;s they 
 are called, that is, lords of the temple, being 
 three: 1. Toda No Tono Cami. 2. Fondakino 
 Cami. -And, 3. Ongasawara Saddono Cami. Mat- 
 zaro Ikno Cami, lord of Firando, of the family of 
 Fisen. The imperial commissioners, as we com- 
 monly call them, who ai-e, as it were the emperor's 
 attorney-generals for the city of Jedo, Todo Ijono 
 Camj," and Obutto Sabboro Saijemon Sama : the- 
 two governors of Jedo, Fodso, Awana Cami and 
 Nosij Ismono Cami: last of all the governor 
 of Nagasaki, who is at Jedo, being then 
 Kawagatz Censaimon, or according to his new 
 title, Kawagatz Tsino Cami, the two others. Jama 
 Okkasiubioje and Mijaki Tono Mo, being upon 
 their government. 
 
 On the 26th of March, Sino Cami sent to 
 acquaint us, that our audience was deferred a day 
 
KCBMPIER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 381 
 
 longer, to wit, to the 29tli of March, because of 
 the death of Makino Bingo his brother, which 
 would not permit that favourite of the emperor, 
 aad first couusellor of state, to appear in public 
 before that day. 
 
 On the 27th of March, after dinner, Firanno 
 Sofats, one of the emperor's physicians, an 
 ■elderly fat man, came to pay me a visit, and to 
 ■ask my advice about the cure of some distempers. 
 
 On the 28th of March, the two imperial com- 
 missioners and Sino Cami, sent their secretaries 
 to acquaint us, that we should have our audience 
 from the emperor the next morning, that there- 
 fore we should repair to court betimes, and stay 
 there in the great imperial guard-room, till we 
 ■could be introduced. 
 
 The 29th of March, being the last of the second 
 ■Japanese month, is one of the usual court days, 
 ■on which the emperor gives audience. And ^et 
 we could hardly have flattered om-selves of so 
 •quick a dispatch, had not Makino Bengo pur- 
 posely appointed it for the day of our audience, 
 in order to get rid of us, because on the fifth of 
 the ensuing third Japanese month, he was to have 
 the honour to treat the emperor at dinner, a 
 favour which requires a good deal of time and 
 vast preparations. This Bengo, or Bingo, was 
 formerly tutor to the now reigning monarch, 
 before he came to the crown, but is now his 
 chief favourite, and the only person whom he 
 absolutely confides in. At our audience, it is he 
 that hath the honour to receive the emperor's 
 words and commands from his own mouth, and 
 to address the same to us. He is near seventy 
 jears of age, a tall but lean man, with a long 
 face, a manly and German-like countenance, slow 
 .in his actions, othei-wise very civil in his whole 
 behaviour. He has the character of a just and 
 prudent man, no ways given to ambition, nor 
 -inclined to revenge, nor bent upon heaping up 
 immoderate riches, in short, of being altogether 
 worthy of the great confidence and trust the 
 «mperor puts in him. About three years ago, 
 he had the honour to treat the emperor at 
 dinner, and was then by him presented with a 
 scimeter, esteemed worth 15,000 thails, which 
 the emperor took from his own side, with 3000 
 -cobangs in gold, 300 shuits of silver, several 
 damask and fine Chinese silk stuffs, and an 
 ■addition of 300,000 bags of rice to his yearly 
 revenues, which were then already of 400,000, so 
 that now he has in all 700,000. It is reckoned 
 an inestimable honour to treat the emperor, but 
 such a one as may undo and ruin the person 
 upon whom this particular favour is bestowed, 
 because, whatever is scarce and uncommon must 
 be provided, and everything paid at an exces- 
 sive rate. As an instance of this, it will sufiioe to 
 mention what Bengo did a few days ago. There 
 being then a ball at court, he sent a socanno, as 
 the Japanese call it (being a small treat of a few 
 things laid on a wooden machine, made in form 
 of a table, which the Japanese send to each other 
 in token of friendship), to the emperor, consisting 
 of two tah, or steenbrassems, as we call them, 
 which he bought for 150 cobangs, and a couple 
 ■ of shell-fish, which cost him 90 cobangs. A 
 xobang is worth about five ducats, so that the 
 ■whole treat amounted to 1200 ducats, or to 
 *bout 5501. sterling. These two sorts of fish 
 
 are the scarcest and dearest in Japan, particularly 
 the steenbrassems, which, when in season, are 
 never sold under two cobangs a piece, but in 
 winter-time and for great feasts any price is 
 given for them. In this case it is not only very 
 profitable to the fishmonger, but the buyer 
 esteems it a peculiar happiness to have met with 
 a scarce and dear dish for such a guest as he 
 hath an uncommon value for. But there is 
 something peculiar and superstitious hid in the 
 very name of this fish, it being the last syllable 
 of the word meditah, which the Japanese make 
 use of when they wish one another joy. 
 
 On the 29th of March therefore, being Thursday, 
 and the day appointed for our audience, the 
 presents designed for his Imperial Majesty were 
 sent to court, attended by the deputies of Sino 
 Cami, and of the commissioners for inspecting 
 foreign afiairs, to be there laid in due order on 
 wooden tables, in the hall of a hundred mats, as 
 they call it, where the emperor was to view 
 them. We' followed soon after with a very 
 inconsiderable equipage, clad in black silk cloaks, 
 as garments of ceremony according to the fashion 
 of Europe. We were attended by three stewards 
 of the governors of Naga-saki, our dosen or deputy 
 bugjo, two town-messengers of Nagasaki, and an 
 interpreter's son, all walking on foot. ,We three 
 Dutchmen and our second interpreter rode on 
 horseback, behind each other. Our horses were 
 led by grooms, who took them by the bridle, one 
 groom for each horse, walking at his right side, 
 on which side also it is the fashion of this country 
 to mount and to alight. Formerly we used to 
 have two grooms to each horse, but of late this 
 custom was .left off, as putting us only to an 
 unnecessary expense. Our resident or captain, 
 as the Japanese call him, came after us, carried 
 in a norimon, and was followed by our old chief 
 interpreter, carried in a cango. The procession 
 was closed by the rest of our servants and retinue, 
 walking on foot at proper distances, so far as 
 they were permitted to follow us. In this order 
 we moved on towards the castle, and after about 
 half an hour's riding, we came to th^ first enclo- 
 sure, which we found well fortified with walls 
 and ramparts. This we entered over a large 
 bridge, with balusters adorned at the upper end 
 with brass balls, laid over a broad river which 
 seemed to run northwards about the castle, and 
 on which we then saw great numbers of boats 
 and vessels. The entry is through two strong 
 gates, with a small guard between them. As 
 soon as we passed through the second gate, w6 
 came to a large place where we found another 
 and more numerous guard to our right, which 
 however seemed to be intended more for state 
 than defence. The guard-room was hung about 
 with cloth ; pikes were planted in the ground 
 near the entry, and within it was curiously 
 adorned with gilt arms, lackered guns, pikes, 
 shields, bows, arrows, and quivers. The soldiers 
 sat down on the ground cross-legged, in good 
 order, clad in black-silk, each with two soimeters 
 stuck in his girdle. Having passed across this 
 first enclosure, riding between the houses and 
 palaces of the princes and lords of the empire, 
 built within its compass, we came to the second, 
 which we found fortified much after the same 
 manner as the first. The bridge only and 
 
882 
 
 KGEMPPEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 gates, and inner guard and palaces were much 
 more stately and magnificent. We left our 
 norimon and cango here, as also our horaes and 
 servants, and were conducted across this second 
 enclosure to the Foumatz, or imperial residence, 
 which we entered over a long stone bridge, and 
 liaving passed through a double bastion, and as 
 many strong gates, and thence about twenty 
 paces further, through an irregular street, built 
 as the situation of the ground would allow it, 
 witli walls of an tmcommon height on both sides, 
 we came to the fiakniuban, that is guard of 
 hundred men, or the great guard of the castle, 
 which was on our left, at the upper end of the 
 above-said street, hai-d by the last door leading 
 to the emperor's palace. We were commanded 
 to wait in this guard-room till we could be intro- 
 duced to an audience, which we were told should 
 be done as soon as the great council of state was 
 met in the palace. We were civilly received 
 by the two captains of the guard, who treated us 
 vrith tea and tobacco. Soon after Sino Cami and 
 the two commissioners came to compliment us, 
 along with some gentlemen of the emperor's 
 court who were strangers to us. Having waited 
 about au hour, during which time most of the 
 imperial counsellors of state, old and young, 
 went into the palace, some walking on foot, 
 others being carried ia norimons ; we were con- 
 ducted through two stately gates over a large 
 square place to the palace, to which there is an 
 nscent of a few steps leading from the second 
 gate. The place between the second gate and 
 the front of the palace is but a few paces broad, 
 and was then excessively crowded with throngs 
 of courtiers and troops of guards. From thence 
 we were conducted up two other staircases to 
 the palace itself, and first into a spacious room, 
 next to the entry on the right, being the place 
 where all persons that are to be admitted to an 
 audience, either of the emperor himself or of the 
 counsellors of state, wait till they are called in. 
 It is a large and lofty room, but when all the 
 screens are put on, pretty dark, receiving but a 
 sparing light from the upper windows of an 
 adjoining room, wherein is kept some furniture 
 for the imperial apartments. It is otherwise 
 richly furnished, according to the country fashion, 
 and its gilt posts, walls, and screens are very 
 pleasing to behold. Having waited here upwards 
 of an hour, and the emperor having in the 
 meanwhile seated himself in the hall of audience, 
 Sino Cami and the two commissioners came in 
 and conducted our resident into the emperor's 
 presence, leaving us behind. As soon as he came 
 thither they cried out aloud ' HoUanda Captain,' 
 which was the signal for him to draw near and 
 make his obeisances. Accordingly he crawled 
 on his hands and knees to a place shown him, 
 between the presents ranged in due order On one 
 side, and the place where the emperor sat on 
 the other, and then kneeling he bowed his fore- 
 head quite down to the ground, and so crawled 
 backwards like a crab, without uttering one single 
 word. So mean and short a thing is the audience 
 we have of this mighty monarch. Nor are there 
 any more ceremonies observed in the audience 
 he gives even to the greatest and most powerful 
 princes of the empire. For having been called 
 into the hall, their names are cried out aloud. 
 
 then they move on their hands and feet humbly 
 and silently towards the emperor's seat, and 
 having shown their submission by bowing their 
 foreheads down to the ground, they creep back 
 again in the same submissive posture. 
 
 The hall of audience, othei'wise the hall of 
 hundred mats, is not in the least like that which 
 has been described and figured by Montanus, in 
 his memorable embassies of the Dutch to the 
 Emperors of Japan. The elevated throne, the- 
 steps leading up to it, the carpets pending from 
 it, the stately columns supporting the building 
 which contains the throne, the columns between- 
 which the princes of the empire are said to- 
 prostrate themselves before the emperor, and the 
 like, have all no manner of foundation but in that 
 author's fancy. For in our second voyage to- 
 court, the audience being over, the governor of 
 Nagasaki was pleased to show us the hall, which 
 gave me an opportunity of taking a sketch of it,- 
 which in the end was no very difiicult matter,, 
 considering that it required nothing but to tellf 
 over the number of mats, posts, screens, and 
 windows. The floor is covered with a hundred 
 mats, all of the same size. Hence it is called 
 Sen sio siki, that is, the hall of a hundred mats. 
 It opens on one side towards a small coart which 
 lets in the light ; on the opposite side it joins tO' 
 two other apai-tments, which are on this occasion 
 laid open towards the same court, one of which i? 
 considerably larger than the other, and serves for. 
 the counsellors of state when they give audience- 
 by themselves. The other is narrower, deeper,, 
 and one step higher than the hall itself. In this, 
 the emperor sits when he gives audience, cross- 
 legged, raised only on a few carpets. Nor is it 
 an easy matter to see him, the light reaching not 
 quite so far as the place where he sits, besides- 
 that the audience is too short, and the person 
 admitted to it in so humble and submissive a 
 posture, that he cannot well have an opportunity 
 to hold up, his head, and to view him. This, 
 audience is otherwise very awful and majestic, by 
 reason chiefly of the silent presence of all the- 
 counsellors of state, as also of many princes and 
 lords of the empire, the gentlemen of his majesty's- 
 bed-chamber, and other chief officers of his coui't, 
 who line the hall of audience and all its avenues,, 
 sitting in good order, and clad in their garments- 
 of ceremony. 
 
 Formerly all we had to do at the emperor's 
 court was completed by the captain's paying him 
 the usual homage, after the manner above- 
 related. A few days after some laws concerning 
 our trade and behaviour were read to him, which,, 
 in the name of the Dutch, he promised to keep, 
 and so was dispatched back to Nagasaki. But 
 for about these twenty years last past, he and the- 
 rest of the Dutchmen that came up with the- 
 embassy to Jedo, were conducted deeper into th&- 
 palace to give the empress and the ladies of her 
 coui't, and the princesses of the blood, the- 
 diversion of seeing us. In this second audience- 
 the emperor and the ladies invited to it, attend 
 behind screens and lattices, but the counsellor* 
 of state, and other officers of the court, sit in the- 
 open rooms in their usual and elegant order. 
 As soon as the captain had paid bis homage, the- 
 emperor retired into his apartment, and not long. 
 after we three Dutchmen were likewise caUa* 
 
KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 383 
 
 up, and conducted, together with the captain, 
 through several apartments into a gallery curiously 
 carved and gilt, where we waited about a quarter 
 of on tour, nnd were then, through several 
 ether walks and galleries, carried further into a 
 large room, where they desired us to sit down, 
 and where several shaved courtiers, being the 
 emperor's physicians, the ofBcers of his kitchen, 
 and some of the clergy, came to ask after our 
 names, age, and the like ; but gilt screens were 
 quickly drawn before us, to deliver us from their 
 throng and troublesome importunity. We staid 
 here about half an hour ; meanwhile the court 
 met in the imperial apartments, where we were 
 to have our second audience, and whither we 
 were conducted through several dark galleries. 
 Along all these several galleries there was one 
 continued row of lifeguard-men, and nearer to 
 the imperial apartments followed in the same 
 row some great ofScers of the crown, who lined 
 the front of the hall of audience, clad in their 
 garments of ceremony, bowing their heads and 
 sitting on their heels. The hall of audience 
 consisted of several rooms, looking towards a 
 middle place, some of which were laid open 
 towards the same, others covered by screens and 
 lattices. Some were of fifteen mats, others of 
 eighteen, and they were a mat higher or lower, 
 according to the quality of the persons seated in 
 the same. The middle place had no mats at all, 
 they havingbeen taken away,and was consequently 
 the lowest, on which floor, covered with neat 
 varnished boards, we were commanded to sit 
 dotvn. The emperor and bis imperial consort 
 sat behind the lattices on our right. As I was 
 dancing at the emperor's command, I had an 
 opportunity twice of seeing the empress through 
 the slits of the lattices, and took notice that she 
 was of a brown and beautiful complexion, with 
 black European eyes, full of fire, and from the 
 proportion of her head, which was pretty large, 
 I judged her to be a tall' woman, and about 36 
 years of age. By lattices I mean hangings made 
 of reed, split exceeding thin and fine, and covered 
 on the back with a fine transparent silk, with 
 openings about a span broad for the persons 
 behind to look through. For ornament's sake, 
 and the better to hide the persons standini; 
 behind, they are painted with divers figures, 
 though othei-wise it would be impossible to see 
 them at a distance, chiefly when the light is taken 
 off behind. The emperor himself was in such 
 an obscure place, that we should scarce have 
 known him to be present had not his voice 
 discovered him, which yet was so low as 
 if he purposely intended to be there incognito. 
 Just before us, behind other lattices, were the 
 princes of the blood, and the ladies of the 
 empress's court. I took notice that pieces of 
 paper were put between the reeds in some parts 
 of the lattices, to make the openings wide, in 
 order to obtain a better sighi.. 1 counted 
 about thirty such papers, which made me con- 
 clude that there was about that number of 
 persons sitting behind. Bengo sat on a raised 
 mat in an open room by himself just before us, 
 towards our right on that side, on which I took 
 notice above, "that the emperor sat behind the 
 lattices. On our left, in another room, were the 
 oounsellors of state of the firat and second rank, 
 
 sitting in a double row in good and becoming 
 order. The gallery behind us was filled with 
 the chief officers of the emperor's court, and the 
 gentlemen of his bedchambei-. The gallery which 
 led into the room where the emperor was, was 
 filled with the sons of some princes of the empire 
 then at court, the emperor's pages and some 
 priests lurking. After this manner it was, that 
 they ordered the stage on whith we were now to 
 act. The commissibners for foreign afiaii's having 
 conducted us into the gallery before the hall of 
 audience, one of the couosellors of state of 
 the second rank came to receive us there, and 
 to conduct us to the above described middle 
 place, on which we were commanded to sit 
 down, having first made our obeisances after the 
 Japanese manner, creeping and bowing our heads 
 to the ground, towards that part of the lattices 
 behind which the emperor was. The chief 
 interpreter sat himself a little forward, to hear 
 more distinctly, and we took oiu' places on his 
 left hand all in a row. After the usual obeisances 
 made, Bengo bid us welcome in the Emperor's 
 name. The chief interpreter received the com- 
 pliment from Bongo's mouth and repeated it t" 
 us. Upon this the ambassador made his com- 
 pliment in the name of his masters, withal 
 returning their most humble thanks to the 
 emperor, for having graciously granted the 
 Dutch liberty of commerce. This the chief inter^ 
 preter repeated in Japanese, having prostrated 
 himself quite to the ground, and speaking loud 
 enough to be beard by the emperor. The 
 emperor's answer was again received by Bengo, 
 who delivered it to the chief interpreter, and he 
 to us. He might have indeed received them himself 
 from the emperor's own mouth, and saved Bengo 
 this unnecessaiy trouble ; but I fancy that the 
 words, as they flow out of the emperor's mouth, 
 are esteemed too precious and sacred for an 
 immediate transit into the mouth of persons of a 
 low rank. The mutual compliments being over, 
 the succeeding part of this solemnity turned to 
 a perfect farce. We were asked a thousand 
 ridiculous and Impertinent questions. Thus for 
 instance, they desired to know, in the first place, 
 how old each of us was, and what was his name, \ 
 which we were commanded to write upon a bit of 
 paper, having for these purposes taken an 
 European ink-horn along with us. This paper, 
 together with the ink-horn itself, we were com- 
 manded to give to Bengo, who delivered them 
 both into the emperor's hands, reaching them 
 over below the lattice. The captain, or ambassador, 
 was asked concerning the distance of Holland 
 fromBatavia, and ofBatavia from Nagasaki) Which 
 of the two was the most powerful, the Director- 
 general of the Dutch East India Company at 
 Batavia, or the Prince of Holland 1 As for my 
 own particular, the following questions were put 
 to me : What external and internal distempers 
 I thought the most dangerous, and most difficult 
 to cure) How I proceeded in the cure of 
 cancerous humours and imposthumations of the 
 inner parts 1 Whether our European physician* 
 did not search after some medicine to rendet 
 people immortal, as the Chinese physicians had 
 done for many hundred yeai's ? Whether we had 
 made any considerable progress in this search, 
 and which was the last remedy conducive to long 
 
384 
 
 KCEMPFEK'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 life, that had been found out in Europe! To 
 which I returned in answer, that very many 
 European physicians had long laboured to find 
 ■out Bome medicine, which should have the virtue 
 of prolonging human life, and prederving people 
 in health to a great age; and having thereupon 
 been asked, which I thought the best % I 
 answered, that I always took that to be the best 
 which was found out last, till experience 
 taught us a better: and being further asked, 
 which was the last? I answered, a certain 
 spirituous liquor, which could keep the humours 
 ■of our body fluid, and comfort the spirits. This 
 general answer proved not altogether satisfactory, 
 but I was quickly desired to let them know the 
 name of this excellent medicine, upon which, 
 knowing that whatever was esteemed by the 
 ■Japanese, had long and high-sounding names, 
 I returned in answer, it was the Sal volatile 
 •Oleosum Sylvij. This name was minuted down 
 behind the lattices, for which purpose I was 
 commanded to repeat it several times. The next 
 ■question was, who it was that found it out, and 
 ■where it was found out 1 1 answered, Professor Syl- 
 vius in Holland. Then they asked, whether I could 
 make it up ? upon this our resident whispered me 
 to say, No ; but I answered. Yes, I could make it 
 up, but not here. , Then it was asked, whether it 
 could be had at Batavia 1 and having retm-ned in 
 answer, that it was to be had there, the emperor 
 desired that it should be sent over by the next 
 ships. The emperor, who hitherto sat among 
 the ladies, almost opposite to us, at a consider- 
 able distance, did now draw nearer, and sate him- 
 ■self down on our right behind the lattices, as near 
 us as possibly he could. Then he ordered us to 
 take off our cappa, or cloak, being our garment 
 of ceremony, then to stand upright, that he might 
 have a full view of us ; again to walk, to stand 
 still, to compliment each ocher, to dance, to 
 Jump, to play the drunkard, to speak broken , 
 ■Japanese, to read Dutch, to paint, to sing, to put 
 our cloaks on and off. Meanwhile we obeyed the 
 emperor's commands in the best manner we 
 could ; I joined to my dance a love-song in High 
 German. In this manner, and with innumerable 
 such other apish tricks, we must suffer ourselves 
 to contribute to the Emperor's and the court's 
 diversion. The ambassador, however, is free from 
 these and the like commands, for as he repre- 
 sents the authority of his masters, some cai'e is 
 taken that nothing should be done to injure or 
 prejudice the same. Besides that he showed so 
 much gravity in his countenance and whole 
 behaviour, as ' was suficient to convince the 
 Japanese that he was not at all a fit person to 
 have such ridiculous and comical commands laid 
 upon him. Having been thus exercised for a 
 matter of two hours, though -with great apparent 
 civility, some servants shaved came in, and put 
 before each of us a small table with Japanese 
 -victuals, and a couple of ivory sticks, instead of 
 knives and forks. We took and ate some little 
 things, and our old chief interpreter, though 
 scarce able to walk, was commanded to carry 
 ■away the remainder for himself. We were then 
 ordered to put on our cloaks again and to take 
 our leave, which we gladly, and without delay, 
 complied with, putting thereby an end to this 
 second audience. We were then conducted back 
 
 by the two commissionei-a to the waiting-room, 
 where we took our leave of them also. 
 
 It was now already three o'clock in the after- 
 noon, and ■we had still several visits to make to 
 the counsellors of state, of the first and second 
 rank, as I have set them down above under the 
 25th of March Accordingly we left the Fonmar 
 forthwith, saluted as we went by the ofScers of 
 the great imperial guaird, and made our round a- 
 foot. The presents had been carried before-hand 
 to every one's house by our clerks, and because 
 we did not see them in our audiences, I con- 
 jectured that they had been actually presented 
 to the persons to whom they belonged. They 
 consisted in some Chinese, Bengalese, and other 
 silk stuffs, some linen, black serge, some yards of 
 black cloth, gingangs, pelangs,''and a fiask of tent 
 wine. We were everywhere received by the 
 stewards and secretaries with extraordinary 
 civility, and treated with tea, tobacco and sweet- 
 meats, as handsomely as the little time we had 
 to spare would allow. The rooms, where we were 
 admitted to audience, were filled behind the 
 screens and lattices with crowds of spectators, 
 who would fain have obliged us to show them 
 some of om' European customs and ceremonies, 
 but could obtain nothing excepting only a short 
 dance at Beugo's house (who came home himself 
 a back way), and a song from each of us, at the 
 youngest counsellors of state, who lived in the 
 northern part of the castle. We then returned 
 again to our eangos and horses, and having got 
 out of the castle through the northern gate, 
 we went back to our inn another way, on the 
 left of which we took notice that there were 
 strong walls and ditches in several places. It 
 was just six in the evening when we got home, 
 heartily tired. 
 
 On Friday the 30th of March, we rode out 
 again betimes in the morning, to make some of 
 our remaining visits. The presents, such as above 
 deaciibed, were sent before us by our Japanese 
 clerks, who took care to lay them on boards, and 
 to range them in good order, according to the 
 country fashion. We were received at the entry 
 of the house by one or two of the principal 
 domestics, and conducted to the apartment 
 where we were to have our audience. The 
 rooms round the hall of audience were every- 
 where crowded with spectators. As soon as we 
 had seated ourselves, we were treated with tea 
 and tobacco. Then the steward of the house- 
 hold came in, or else the secretary, either alone 
 or with another gentleman, to compliment us, 
 and to receive our compliments in his master's 
 name. The rooms were everywhere so disposed 
 as to make us turn our faces towards the ladies, 
 by whom we were very generously and civilly 
 treated with cakes and several sorts of sweet- 
 meats. We visited and made our presents, this 
 day, to the two governors of Jedo, to the three 
 ecclesiastical judges, and to the two commis- 
 sioners for foreign affairs, who lived near a mile 
 from each other, one in the south-west, the other 
 in the north-east part of the castle. They both 
 profess themselves to be particular patrons of the 
 DutcJi, and received us accordingly vrith great 
 pomp and magnificence. The street was lined 
 with twenty men armed, who, with their long 
 staffs, which they held on one side, made a very 
 
KCEMPFEE'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 good figure, besides that they helped to keep off 
 the throng of the people from being too trouble- 
 some. We were received upon our entering the 
 house, and introduced to audience, much after 
 the same manner as we had been in other places, 
 only we were carried deeper into their palaces, 
 and into the innermost apartment, on purpose 
 that we should not be troubled with numbers of 
 foreign spectators, and be at more liberty, oar- 
 selves as well as the ladies, who were invited to 
 the ceremony. Opposite to us in the hall of 
 audience, there were grated lattices, instead of 
 screens, for the length of two mats and upwards, 
 behind which sat such numbers of women of the 
 commissioner's own £unily, and their relations 
 and friends, that there was no room left. We 
 had scarce seated ourselves, when seven servants, 
 well clad, came in, all in a row, and brought us 
 pipes and tobacco, with the usual apparatus for 
 smoking. Soon after, they brought in something 
 baked, Md on japanned boards ; then some fish 
 fried, all after the same manner, by the same 
 number of servants, and always but one piece in 
 a small dish ; then a couple of eggs— one baked, 
 the other boUed and shelled, — and a glass of old 
 strong saoki standing between them. After this 
 manner we were entertained for about an hour 
 and a half, when they desired us to sing a song, 
 and to dance: the first we refused to comply 
 with, but satisfied them as to the last. In the 
 hotise of the first commissioner, a soup made of 
 sweet plums was offered us instead of brandy. 
 In the second commissioner's house we were pre- 
 sented first of all with Mange bread, in a brown 
 liquor, cold, with some mustard-seed and radishes 
 laid about the dish, and at last with some orange- 
 " peels with sugar, which is a dish given only upon 
 extraordinary occasions, in token of fortune and 
 goodwill. We then drank some tea, and having 
 taken our leave, went back to our -nn, where we 
 arrived at five in the evening. 
 
 On the 31st of March, we rode out again at ten 
 in the morning, and went to the houses of the 
 three governors of Nagasaki, two of whom were 
 then absent and upon their government. We 
 presented them on this occasion only with a flask 
 of tent each, they having already received their 
 other presents at Nagasaki. We were met by 
 Sino Oami just by the door of his house. He 
 was attended with a numerous retinue, and hav- 
 ing called both our interpreters to him, he com- 
 manded them to tell us, that his desire was that 
 we should make ourselves merry in his house : 
 accordingly we were received extraordinary well, 
 and desired to waJk about and to divert ourselves 
 in his garden, as being now in the house of a 
 friend at Jedo, and not in the palace of our 
 governor and 'magistrate at Nagasaki. We were 
 treated with warm victuals and tea, much after 
 the same manner as we had been by the com- 
 ■missioners, and all the while civilly entertained 
 by his own brother and several persons of quality 
 of his friends and relations. Having staid about 
 two hours, we went to Tonosama's house, where 
 we were conducted into the innermost and chief 
 apartment, and desired twice to come nearer the 
 lattices on both sides of the room. There were 
 more ladies behind the screens here than I think 
 we had as yet met with in any other place. They 
 desired us very civilly to show them our clothes, 
 
 the captain's arms, rings, tobacco-pipes, and the 
 like, some of which were reached them between 
 or under the lattices. The person that treated 
 us in the absent governor's name, and the other 
 gentlemen who were then present in the I'oom, 
 entertained us likewise very civilly, and we could 
 not but take notice that everything was so cordial, 
 that we made no manner of scruple of making 
 ourselves merry, and diverting the company each 
 with a song. "The magnificence of this family 
 appeared fully by the richness and exquisiteness 
 of this entertainment, which was equal to that of 
 the first commissioner's, but far beyond it in 
 courteous civility, and a free open carriage. After 
 an hour and a half we took our leave. Tono- 
 sama's house is the furthermost to the north or 
 north-west we were to go to, a mile and a half 
 from om- inn, but seated in certainly the plea- 
 santest part of the town, where there is an agre'e- 
 able variety of hills and bushes. Zubosama's 
 family lives in a small sony house near the ditch 
 which encompasses the castle. We met here but 
 a few women behind a screen, who took up with 
 peeping at us through a few holes, which' they 
 made as they sat down. The strong liquoi-s, 
 which we had been this day obliged to drink in 
 larger quantities than usual, being by this time 
 got pretty much into our heads, we made haste 
 to return home, and took our leave as soon as we 
 had been treated, after the usual manner, with 
 tea and tobacco. We were the more impatient 
 to be gone, becatise we were apprehensive lest 
 our interpreters, who had been pretty much 
 exercised all day, should grow too weary, and 
 unwilling hereafter to attend us so long on the 
 like occasions. The gentleman also, who was to 
 entertain us in the governor's name, although he 
 affected a great civility, had something so froward 
 and disagreeable in his countenance, as hastened 
 very much our departure ; for we looked upon 
 ourselves, on this occasion, not as merchants sent 
 there to trade, but as ambassadors to a potent 
 monarch, who ought to be treated with some 
 regard and honour. 
 
 On the first of April, in the afternoon, we were 
 promised by Josamma, that the next day we 
 should have our audience of leave. 
 
 On the 2nd of April, in the morning, we went 
 to court on horseback in the same order, and the 
 same way, as on the day of our audience. We 
 staid about an hour and a half in the guard-room 
 before the castle, where we received a visit from 
 the two commissioners and Sino Cami. We staid 
 much about the same time in the great waiting- 
 room of the castle, which is taken in with gilt 
 screens, and the floor covered with six and thirty 
 mats. We were again saluted here by the two 
 commissioners and Sino Cami, who called our 
 old chief interpreter out, in order to show him 
 the room, where the ambassador should be ad- 
 mitted to audience, as also to acquaint him what 
 ceremonies should be observed on that occasion. 
 Soon after, the ambassador was called out him- 
 self, and was conducted from the waiting-room 
 to a great hall to the left, where with the usual 
 obeisances he took his audience of leave, and had 
 the commands, of the emperor read to him, con- 
 sisting in five articles, relating among other things 
 chiefly to the Portuguese traide. This being over, 
 he was by Sino Cami conducted ba<sk to th< 
 
38C 
 
 KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 waiting-room, where we staid for him, and where 
 this governor took his leave of him with great 
 apparent civility, withal telling him, he hoped he 
 should see him at Nagasaki. And so wo went 
 away from court, without paying our respects to 
 the two commissioners, and came home about 
 one o'clock in the afternoon. Meanwhile we 
 staid in the waiting-room; several officers at 
 court and the sons of some princes of the empire 
 came to see us. Among the rest was the Prince 
 of Faoatta's grandson, who, although he was blind 
 of one eye, had nevertheless orders fi-om the 
 emperor to stay at court, Among other young 
 gentlemen of his quality, for no other reason but 
 to serve as a hostage of his grandfathers fidehty. 
 Some of these people asked after the captain's 
 name, and there was one among the rest, who 
 had already taken it down in writing, but this 
 was so quickly betrayed, that minute orders were 
 sent by Sino Cami, that our names should be told 
 to nobody. Our departure from court was pre- 
 ceded by thirty gowns, laid on three tables, as a 
 present from the emperor. In the afternoon, 
 some of the gentlemen, whom we had visited and 
 made presents to, sent us also their gowns, to 
 wit : 1. Noji Jsemono, governor of Jedo, two 
 black gowns; 2. Todotamasijro, one of the coun- 
 sellors of state, ten gowns ; 3. Tsutsia Sagami- 
 sama, likewise ten ; 4. Fodioawanasama, the othei 
 governor of Jedo, two ; 5. Kaganni K. S. ; and 
 6. Bongosama, each ten. 
 
 On the 3rd of April, we were presented with 
 some more gowns, to wit, with three by each of 
 1 the two commissioners, and with six by each of 
 the extraordinaiy counsellora of state. All our 
 business at Jedo was completed this day by one 
 o'clock. 
 
 On the 4th of April, the emperor dined at 
 Bengo's, for which reason the gates of the castle 
 were shut, which is a custom the now reigning 
 monarch observes upon these occasions, many 
 people wondering why. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE AUDIEMCZ AT COURT, OS THE SECOND JOtJKNET. 
 
 On the 20th of April, the following year, though 
 it continued to rain pretty hard, as it had done 
 (r^v two days before, yet we were obliged at 
 eight o'clock that morning to repair to the 
 castle, which we did on horseback, attended 
 by the bugjos of the three governors of Nagasaki. 
 Passing through the second castle we came to 
 the third, and found Siubosama waiting for us in 
 the great guard-room. We staid there ourselves 
 till half an hour after ten ; meanwhile the 
 members of the council of state met in the castle, 
 and we changed our wet stockings and shoes for 
 clean ones. From thence we were conducted 
 into the palace, where we staid till noon. Our 
 captain, as they call him, went first alone to make 
 his submission to the emperor, according to the 
 fashion of the country, and in the company's 
 name to offer the presents. He returned soon 
 after to us in the waiting-room, and that moment 
 
 we were by Siubosama conducted to audience, 
 and first going round the hall, where the emperor 
 had given orders to our ambassador, and received 
 the presents, which still stood there ; thencfr 
 passing through several long galleries, all gilt and 
 curiously adorned ; we came into a long room, 
 where they desired us to stay till we could be 
 admitted into the emperor's presence, which they 
 said should be done immediately. We found 
 the imperial commissioners and other great men 
 walking there, and ten or twelve young noble- 
 men of great quality, sitting. But lest the sitting 
 down so long and so often should tire us at last, 
 we were conducted back into an adjoining gallery, 
 where we could have the liberty to walk about,, 
 for which purpose also the shutters of some 
 windows were laid open for us, to have a view 
 into the garden. While we staid in this gallery, 
 several young gentlemen of great quality came 
 to see and salute us, and the commissioners 
 showed us a gold ring, wherein was set a loadstone, 
 with the names of the Jetta, or twelve celestial 
 signs, engraved round it. They showed us like- 
 wise an European coat of arms, and some other 
 things. But just as we were examining them, 
 and were going to explain them according to their 
 desire, the emperor sent for us in. So we were 
 conducted through a gallery to our left where 
 we found eighteen gentlemen of the emperor's 
 bedchamber sitting, clad in their garments of 
 ceremony, under which they wore their ordinary 
 gowns ; then passing by twenty other gentlemen, 
 sitting in one continued row, we entered the hall 
 of audience, where we found the six counsellors 
 of state sitting on our left as we came in, and on 
 our right some more gentlemen of the emperor's 
 bedchamber of a higher rank, sitting in a gallery. 
 The emperor and two ladies.sat behind the grated 
 screens on our right, and Bingosama, president of 
 the council of state, opposite to us, in a room by 
 himself. Soon after we came in, and bad after 
 the usual obeisances seated ourselves on the place 
 assigned us, Bingosama welcomed us in the- 
 emperor's name, and then desired us to sit 
 upright, to take off our cloaks, to tell him our 
 names and age, to stand up, to walk, to turn 
 about, to dance, to sing songs, to compliment one- 
 another, to be angry, to invite one another to 
 f dinner, to converee one with another, to discourse 
 in a familiar way like father and son, to show how 
 two frier ds, or man and wife, compliment or take 
 leave of one another, to play with children, to- 
 carry them about upon our arms, and to do many 
 more things of the like nature. Moreover, we- 
 were asked many more questions, serious and 
 comical ; as for instance, what profession I was 
 of, whether I ever cured any considerable dis- 
 tempers ? to which I answered. Yes, I had, but 
 not at Nagasaki, where we were kept no better- 
 than prisoners. What houses we had ; whether 
 our customs were different from theirs ; how we- 
 buried our people, and when? to which was 
 answered that we buried our dead in the day- 
 time. How our prince did ; what sort of a mm 
 he was ; whether the governor-general at Batavia 
 was superior to him, or whether he was under 
 his command; whether we had prayers and images 
 lite the Portuguese ? which was answered in the- 
 negative. Whether Holland, and other countries 
 abroad, were subject to earthquakes and storm» 
 
KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 38T 
 
 of thunder and lightning as well aa Japan? 
 Whether there be houses set on fire, and people 
 killed by lightning in European countries ? Then 
 again we were commanded to read, and to dance 
 separately and jointly, and I to tell them the 
 names of some European plaisters, upon which I 
 mentioned some bf tlie hardest I could remember. 
 The ambassador was asked concerning his chil- 
 dren, how many he had, what their names were, 
 aa also how far distant Holland was from Naga- 
 saki? In the meanwhile some shutters were 
 opened on the left hand, by order of the emperor, 
 probably to cool the room. We were then 
 further commanded to put on our hats, to walk 
 about the room discoursing with one another, to 
 take off our perukes. I had serei'al opportuni- 
 ties of seeing the empress, and heard the emperor 
 say in Japanese, how sharp we looked at the room 
 where he was, and that we surely could not but 
 know, or at least suspect him to be there, upon 
 which he removed and went to the ladies which 
 sat just before us. Then I was desired once 
 more to come nearer the screen, and to take 
 off my peruke. Then they made us jump, dance, 
 play gambols, and walk togetlier, and upon that 
 they asked the ambassador and me how old we 
 guessed Bengo to be, he answered SO, and I 45, 
 which made them laugh. Then they made, rj; 
 kiss one another, like man and wife, which the 
 ladies particularly showed by their laughter to be 
 well pleased with. They desired us further to 
 show them what sort of compliments it was 
 customary in Europe to make to inferiors, to 
 ladles, to superiors, to princes, to kings. After 
 this they begged another song of me, and were 
 satisfied with two, which the company seemed to 
 like very well. After this farce was over, we 
 were ordered to take off our cloaks, to come near 
 the screen one by one, and to take our leave in 
 the very same manner we would take it of a 
 prince, or king in Europe, which being done 
 seemingly to their satisfaction, we went away. It 
 was alreaidy four in the afternoon, when we left 
 the hall of audience, after having been exercised 
 in this manner for two hours and a half We 
 had been introduced, and Avere conducted back 
 by the two imperial commissioners and Siube, 
 and immediately repaired to Bengo's house, who 
 received us with uncommon civility. At last in 
 the evening we got home. 
 
 On the 22nd of April, we went to make a visit 
 to the new lord of the temple, as they call him, 
 who was a son of the Prince of Firando. His 
 house was full of spectators. But his steward 
 who received us, was one of the greatest coxcombs 
 we had as yet met with in the country, a man 
 entirely unacquainted with compliments, and an 
 utter stranger even to commoa civility. His ill 
 manners and unpolitenesa were made good in 
 some measure by the complaisant carnage of the 
 ladies, who treated us with sweetmeats. He 
 e^mined with some attention our hats and 
 swords, and then eaid, let them sing once, which 
 he did to please his master. However, we did 
 not all think fit to comply with commands made 
 with such an ill grace. From thence we repaired 
 to the castle to salute the two governors. Upon 
 the great place before the castle, we took notice 
 that there was a secretary's of&ce, wherein besides 
 the several boxes and cabinets filled with papers, 
 
 were -hung up all sorts of arms. At the firat 
 governoi's we were only presented with tea, nor 
 were there any ladies present at the audience we 
 had of him. We then made two more visits, and 
 last of all we went to the two imperial commis- 
 missioners, who received us both with great 
 civility, and treated us very splendidly, so that we 
 did not at all scruple at their desire to entertain 
 the company with a song. At the first commis- 
 sioner's the treat consisted of the following 
 things 4 — 1. Tea. 2, Tobacco, with the whole set 
 of instruments for smoking. 3. Philosophical, 
 or white syrup. 4. A piece of St«enbi:a8SBn, 
 a very scarce fish, boiled in a brown sauce. 
 5. Another dish of fish, dressed with bean-flower 
 and spices. 6. Cakes of eggs rolled together. 
 7. Fried fish, which were presented us on green 
 skewers of bamboos. 8. Lemon peels with sugar. 
 After every one of these dishes, they made us 
 drink a dish of sacki, as good as ever I tasted. 
 We were likewise presented twice, in dram cups, 
 with wine made of plums, a very pleasant and 
 agreeable liquor. In short, the whole treat was 
 equally various and good. Only we had nothing 
 made of rice. Last of all we were presented with 
 a dish of tea, and so we took our leave, having 
 staid an hour and a half. 
 
 At the second commissioner's we were treated, 
 after tea and tobacco, with the following things :— 
 1. Two long slices of mange, dipt into a brown 
 sup or sauce, with some ginger. 2. Hard eggs. 
 3. Four common fiah, fried and brought OD 
 skewers of bamboos. 4. The stomachs of carps 
 salt, in & brown sauce. 5. Two small slices of a 
 goose roasted, and warm, presented in unglazed 
 earthen dishes. Good liquor waa drank about 
 plentifully all the while, and the commissioner's 
 surgeon, who was to treat us, did not miss to 
 take his full dose. Just Jiefore us behind a 
 screen, at about two mats distance and a half, sat 
 a gentleman unknown to us, sometimes also ladies 
 appeared on that side. But the greatest throng 
 of women was on the left, in a gallery. 
 The audience being over, we went straight 
 home about an hour and a half before it was 
 dark. 
 
 On the 23rd of Apvil, we received the compli- 
 ments of thanks from the gentlemen we had been 
 to visit the day before, and in the afternoon we 
 had orders given us to prepare ourselves for 
 audience of leave against the next day. We did 
 not go this day to salute the governors according 
 to custom, by reason of its being one of the 
 mourning days for the death of Jejas, the now 
 reigning emperor's father, on which days it 
 would be thought a want of respect for the 
 emperor to treat anybody. He lies buried in 
 Gosio, a temple behind Atago, about two miles 
 from our inn. The burial-place of the emperors, 
 his predecessors, is at Nikko, three days' journey 
 from Jedo. My servant, a very intelligent young 
 man in the afiairs of his country, told me, that 
 the temple where Jejas is buried, is covered with 
 golden obanis instead of tiles, and that his tomb 
 is enclosed with black posts. He was to see me 
 this day, because he was sent to us by a man of 
 quality, our servants being forbidden to see us all 
 the while we stay at Jedo. 
 
 On the 24 th of April, we went to court on 
 horseback, at seven o'clock In the morning. 
 
888 
 
 KCBMFFEE'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAK. 
 
 4ittended as before by three Jorikis of the 
 governors of Nagasaki. 
 
 We staid in the Fiakninban, or guard of 
 hundred men, till we were conducted into the 
 palace upon orders given by the governors and 
 commissioners. Having staid about half an hour 
 in the waiting-room, the captain was called in 
 before the counsellors of state, who ordered 
 one of the commissioners to read the usual orders 
 to him, which they do by turns ; the orders were 
 among the rest, and chiefly to the following effect, 
 that we should not molest auy ships, or boats of 
 the Chinese or Liqueans, nor bring any Portu- 
 guese or priests into the country ou board our 
 ships, and that upon these conditions we should 
 be allowed a free commeroB. The orders being 
 road, the ambassador was presented with thirty 
 gowns laid on three present boards, each of 
 which was somewhat longer than two mats, and 
 a letter of fortune, as they call it, as a mark of 
 the emperor's favour, upon which he crept ou 
 all-fours to receive the same, and in token of 
 respect, hold a piece of the gowns over his head, 
 and so returned to us ; but the gowns along with 
 the boards were carried out of the castle to the 
 Fiakninban, where they were packed up in 
 bundles. After the captain came back, we were 
 desired by the governor to stay at dinner, which 
 should be provided for us by order from tbo 
 emperor. Having therefore waited about half 
 an hour, we were conducted into another room, 
 where two fellows with their heads shaved close, 
 and clad in the garments of ceremony, received 
 us. We guessed them to be some of the chief 
 ■officers of the emperoi's kitchen. 
 
 He that hath the direction of the kitchen is 
 called Osobaboos ; he sits next to the emperor 
 when he dines, and tastes all the dishes that 
 come upon the table. The interpreters, and 
 -Japanese that attend us, were carried into another 
 room to dine by themselves. We had scarce 
 seated om'selves when several young noblemen 
 came into the room to see us, and to discourse 
 with us. A small table made of shavings of 
 matzwood, put together with wooden nails, was 
 set before each of us, on which lay five fresh hot 
 white cakes called amakas, as tough as glue, and 
 two hollow breads of two spans in circumference, 
 made of flour and sugar, with the seeds of the 
 sesamum album spread about them. A small 
 porcelain cup stood by the bread, with some 
 small bits of pickled salmon in a brown sauce, 
 which was not quite so strong, but somewhat 
 sweeter than what they call soje. By the cup 
 were laid two wooden chopsticks, according to the 
 fashion of the Chinese and Japanese. We tasted 
 a little of these dishes only for civility's sake, for 
 we had taken care to provide ourselves with a 
 good substantial breakfast before we went out in 
 the moi-ning, and besides had been treated in the 
 guard-room with fresh manges, and sweet brown 
 cakes of sugar and bean-flour. They desired us 
 very civilly to eat more, and asked us whether 
 we would drink any tea, and being told that we 
 would, the above-mentioned kitchen officer sent 
 for it up. But upon trial we found it to be little 
 better than mere warm water, besides that, the 
 brown varnished dishes, wherein it was presented 
 to us, and which they call miseraaties, looked 
 ^ery poor and sorry. While we were eating our 
 
 dinner the spectators, busied themselves viewing 
 and examining our hats, swords, dress, and what 
 we had about us. After dinner, which was so far 
 from answering the majesty and magnificence of 
 so powerful a monarch as the emperor of Japan 
 is, that we could not have had a worse at any 
 private man's house, we were conducted back to 
 the waiting-room, and having waited there for 
 about an hour, or upwards, we were by the 
 governor conducted through several passages and 
 galleries, which we could not remember to have 
 seen before, towards the hall of audience, and 
 desired to sit down in the same room where we 
 had been before our last audience, or to walk 
 about in the gallery next to it. Some shutters 
 being now opened, which had been shut in our 
 last audience, and some other apartments being 
 laid open, the disposition of the court and hall of 
 audience was thereby so altered, that it looked 
 quite different to what it was before. We took 
 notice that there was scarce a room without 
 some gentleman or other sitting in it. In a large 
 room, and two galleries leading to it, were hung 
 up several imperial orders, ou large boards, 
 consisting each of five rows of characters, only 
 with seven characters in each row. These we 
 hxul not seen in our first audieiice, perhaps 
 because they were not yet hung up, or because 
 th?y had now carried us another way. While 
 we were waiting in this room till we should 
 be called in, which might be about half an hour, 
 a priest of about thirty years of age, clad in 
 white and blue silk, with a bag of the same 
 colour, came into the room, and with great 
 affectation of shame and modesty enquired after 
 our names and age, which had been done before 
 by most of the spectators then present. We saw 
 likewise another priest clad in orange-coloured 
 silk, but he staid in the gallery and did not 
 come into the room. As we were waiting, three 
 washing basons, in appearance of silver, were 
 carried into the inner imperial apartments. Soon 
 after the same basons, and a black japanned 
 covered table, ou which stood several dishes 
 and plates, were brought out again, whence we 
 concluded that they had been at dinner there. 
 Upon this we were forthwith conducted into a 
 side gallery next to the imperial apartments, and 
 having staid there but a little while, one of the 
 extraordinary counsellors of state, and the two 
 commissioners, came to introduce us, and made 
 us sit down near the grated screen, on the 
 very same place we had been at in our former 
 audiences. The two commissioners did not enter 
 the hall of audience. The emperor sat behind 
 the middle screen on a place which was somewhat 
 raised above the level of the room. Bengo sat in 
 the niiddle against a paper screen, and the three 
 ordinary and four extraordinary counsellors of 
 state took their usual places. Behind the grated 
 screen, on our right, we .could discern only a 
 priest lurking. The place where in our first 
 audience the gobobasi sat, was now left empty, 
 but there were a few in the gallery. Five-and- 
 twenty sat behind us in one row, and eighteen 
 more in the same row, who were out of sight of 
 the emperor, though waiting for his commands. 
 The other side of the hall was lined vrith the 
 same number of people, and in the same order. 
 After the audience began, more came in, so that 
 
 I 
 
KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAK. 
 
 889 
 
 all the avenues were pretty much crowded. We 
 made our obeisance first according to the fashion 
 of the Japanese, but were soon commanded to 
 come neai-er the screens, and to do it after the 
 European manner. The obeisances made, I was 
 ordered to sing a song ; I chose one, which I had 
 formerly compo-sed for a lady, for whom I had a 
 peculiar esteem, and as at the latter end I extolled 
 her beauty and other excellent qualities, in a 
 poetical style, above the value of hundreds, 
 thousands, and millions of pieces of money, I was 
 asked, by order of the emperor, what the meaning 
 of it was : upon which I returned in answer, it 
 was nothing but a sincere wish of mine, that 
 teaven might bestow millions of portions of 
 health, fortune, and prosperity upon the emperor, 
 his family, and court. We were then commanded, 
 as we had been in former audiences, to take off 
 our cloaks, to walk about the room, which the 
 ambassador likewise did, then to show how upon 
 occasion we complimented, or took leave of our 
 friends, parents, or a mistress ; how we scolded 
 at one another, how we made up our differences 
 and got friends again. Upon this a priest was 
 commanded to come in, who had a fresh ulcer 
 upon one of his shins of no consequence, only 
 with a little trifling inflammation about it; he 
 had laid on a plaister spread thick upon European 
 ploth. I was ordered to feel his pulse, and to 
 give my opinion about his case, both which I did 
 accordingly, and judged him to be a healthy 
 strong fellow, and his case such as was not like to 
 have any dangerous consequences, and would 
 easily heal by keeping only the plaister on. 
 I advised him, however, not to be too familiar 
 with sacki beer, pretending to guess by his wound, 
 what I did upon much better ground by his red 
 face and nose, that he was pretty much given to 
 drinking, which made the emperor and whole 
 court laugh. Then two of the emperor's surgeons 
 were sent for in, whom Bengo called himself, they 
 being in one of the inner imperial apartments. 
 They appeared forthwith coming down the screen ; 
 they were both shaved and clad like priests ; one 
 of them was quite blind of one eye, the other 
 looked but little better ; otherwise they seemed 
 to be in pretty good health. Hearing that they 
 were the emperor's surgeons, I gave them the 
 precedency, and let them feel my pulse firat, then 
 I felt theirs, and judged them both to be in good 
 health, the first rather of a cold constitution and 
 wanting sometimes a dram of brandy to raise his 
 spirits and to quicken the motion of his blood ; 
 the second of a hotter temper, and much troubled 
 with headache, which I could very easUy perceive 
 by his countenance. Upon this they entered into 
 a discourse with me upon physical matters, and 
 the first asked me whether or no imposthumes 
 were darjgerous, at what time and in what dis- 
 tempers we ordered people to be let blood. He 
 also affected to have some knowledge of our 
 European plaisters, and mentioning the names of 
 some, which however he could not well pronounce, 
 I set him right in broken Japanese. This 
 our jargon being half Latin and half Japanese, 
 sounded so oddly, that the emperor asked what 
 language it' was the Dutchman spoke in, upon 
 which he was answered, it was a broken Japanese, 
 This farce being also over, a table was brought in 
 with chopsticks of wood for each of us, and 
 
 placed just before the third mat. On each table 
 were brought in the following victuals, dressed 
 after the Japanese manner. 
 
 1. Two small hollow loaves with sesamum seed 
 thrown upon them. 
 
 2. A piece of white refined sugar, as it were 
 striped, 
 
 8. Five candied kainckis, or kernels of the kai- 
 tree, which are not unlike our almonds. 
 
 4. A square fiat slice of a cake. 
 
 5. Two cakes made of flour and honey, shaped 
 like a tunnel, brown and thick, but somewhat 
 tough. They have on one side the impression of 
 a sun, or rose, and on the other that of the Dairi 
 Tsiap, that is, the Dairi's coat of arms, being the 
 leaf and flower of a large tree called kiri. The 
 leaf is not unlike that of the bardana, and the 
 flower comes nearest to that of the digitalis, 
 several being set to a stalk. 
 
 6. Two square slices of a cake made of bean- 
 flour and sugar. They were of a dark reddish 
 colour and brittle. 
 
 7. Two other slices of a rice-flour cake, yellow 
 and tough, 
 
 8. Two slices of another cake, which was quite 
 of another substance within than the crust 
 seemed to be. 
 
 9. A large mange, boiled and filled with brown 
 bean-sugar, like treacle. 
 
 1 0. Two small manges of the common bigness, 
 dressed after the same manner. 
 
 We tasted a little of these things, and the chief 
 interpreter was commanded to take up the rest, 
 for which purpose boards and white paper were 
 brought in. The interpreter having taken up his 
 load, we were ordered to put on our cloaks again, 
 to come nearer the screen, and to take our leave 
 one after another. This being done, two gentle- 
 men, one of whom was the youngest extraordinary 
 counsellor of state, conducted us out of the hall 
 of audience, to the end of the gallery, where the 
 gentlemen of the fourth and fifth rank sat, 
 eighteen of each class. They left us here with 
 the two commissioners and the governor, who 
 went with us as far as the waiting-room, where 
 we took our leave of them, amidst the compli- 
 ments and loud acclamations of the courtiers, so 
 favourable a reception as we had met with from 
 his imperial majesty being much beyond what- 
 ever they rei&embered anybody could boast of. 
 Our interpreter was so loaded with the quantity 
 of victuals, that he was scarce able to follow us. 
 We made no further stay in the waiting-room, 
 but went away immediately, saluting the imperial 
 guard as we went by, and being come into the 
 third castle, we there moonted our horses again. 
 The governor Siube, or as he is now called 
 Tsusimano Cami, happened just then to be 
 carried by in his norimon, which he opened to 
 speak a few words with the joriki. His retinue 
 consisted of eight footmen, walking before his 
 norimon, four pages walking by the norimon's 
 side, a pike-bearer, a white led horse, and three 
 porters carrying bundles on their backs. We 
 repaired instantly to his house, where he caused 
 the shutters of his room to be laid open, and sat 
 himself down before us, with a young gentleman, 
 and the secretary of the youngor commissioner. 
 He received us himself, complimented us on the 
 good reception we had met with from the 
 
«90 
 
 KCEMPFER'S ACCOUNT OP JAPAN. 
 
 emperor, and desired us to be merry at dinner, 
 which was brought in after a dish of tea, and 
 consisted of the foilowing dishes : — boiled fish in 
 a very good sauce, oysters boiled and brought in 
 the shSls, with vinegar, which it was intimated, 
 that he hr.d ordered on purpose to be provided 
 for us, knowing it was a &vourite dish with the 
 Dutch ; sereral small slices of a roasted goose ; 
 fried fish, and boiled eggs. The liquor drunk 
 between the dishes was also extraordinarily good. 
 After dinner they desired to see our hats, swords, 
 tobacco-pipes, and watches, which were carried 
 out of the room, for there were no ladies present 
 at this audience, and consequently no uta, or 
 dance. Then two maps were brought in, one of 
 which was without the names of the countries 
 and places, otherwise well enough made, and in 
 all likelihood copied from an European map. 
 The other was a map of the whole world, of their 
 own making, in an oval form, and marked with 
 the Japanese Kattakanna characters. I took this 
 opportunity to observe, after what manner they 
 had represented the countries to the north of 
 Japan, which I found to be as follows : beyond 
 Japan, opposite to the two great northern 
 promontories of the province Osju, was the island 
 Jesogasima, and beyond that island a country 
 twice as big in proportion as China, divided into 
 several provinces, reaching about one-third of its 
 bigness beyond the arctic circle towards the pole, 
 and running a good deal fai'ther east than the 
 eastern coasts of Japan : it had a large gulf on the 
 eastern shore opposite to America, and was very 
 nearly of a square figure. There was but one 
 passsage between this country and the continent 
 of America, in which lay a small island, and 
 beyond that, further north, another long island, 
 nearly reaching with its two extremities the two 
 continents ; to wit, that of Jeso to the west, and 
 that of America to the east, and after this manner, 
 shutting as it were the passage to the north. 
 Much after the same manner all the unknown 
 countries about the antarctic pole were represented 
 as islands. From Tsuaimano Cami's we went to 
 Gensejmon Sino Cami, where we were likewise 
 civiily treated in presence of several strangers 
 who, though unknown to us, yet affected a great 
 familiarity. Among the rest were Siube's and 
 Gensejmon's brothers, one of whom had a. soa 
 with sore legs, and the other a brother with 
 pimples in his face, for both which distempera 
 they asked my advice. The ladies were crowded 
 up behind screens in a light room, for whose 
 diversion we s\mg and danced. At Tonnemon's, 
 wliom we visited last, everything was done as the 
 preceding year, with the utmost splendour and 
 magniQcence ; so that we did not in the least 
 scruple, in return for so much civility, to entertain 
 the company with singing and dancing to the 
 best of oui- abUitiee. Thus at last we got home a 
 little after sun-set, as glad of having got over that 
 day's work, as we were pleased with the favour- 
 able reception we had met with everywhere. 
 
 This afternoon, before we got home, several of 
 the ordinary counsellors of state and one of the 
 govennors sent their gowns, some of which were 
 left with our joriki, but others would stay till our 
 return, to deliver them to our ambassador in 
 person. Several also brought a, present for our 
 chief interpreter and the landlord's son, by whom 
 
 they were introduced to us. The reception of 
 these gowns, when made by our ambassador in 
 person, is done with the following ceremonies: 
 Some kulis march before, carrying the gowns in 
 boxes, one carries the "board or table on which 
 the gowns are to be laid, with a letter of fortune, 
 as they call it, being some flat strings twisted 
 together at one end, and wound up in a paper, 
 which is tied about with an unequal number of 
 pairs of silk or paper strings, as for mstance, 
 three, five, seven, eleven, &o., of difi'erent colours, 
 sometimes gilt or silver coloured. Then the 
 person who is to present the gowns, being 
 commonly the gentleman's steward that sends 
 them, is by our joriki introduced into the 
 ambassador's apartment, in presence of his own 
 retinue, our landlords and interpreters, and 
 seatinghimselfover against the ambassador, at a 
 proper distance; makes the following compliment: 
 " N. N., my master, sends me to congratulate you 
 on your having had your audience, and your 
 audience of leave, and good weather, which is 
 medithe (good luck) : your presents were very 
 acceptable to him, and he desires you would ' 
 accept in retuin of these few gowns." At the 
 same time he delivers to the interpreter, who 
 gives it to the ambassador, a large sheet of paper, 
 on which is written, in large charactei's, the number 
 of gowns sent, and sometimes also what colours 
 they are of. The captain, in token of respect, 
 holds the sheet of paper over his head, the 
 persons then present in the room all in a profound 
 silence, some sitting, some kneeling, and so returns 
 him with a bow the following compliment: 
 " I give N. N., your master, my most humble 
 thanks for his assistance in procuring us a quick 
 and favourable audience, and intreat him farther 
 to continue his favours to the Dutch : I thank 
 him also for his valuable present, and will not 
 fail to acquaint my masters of Batavia therewith." 
 The mutual compliments being over, tobacco, 
 and the whole set of instruments for smoking, 
 and a dish of tea, are brought in; after that 
 distilled liquors, with a table, on which are laid 
 five silver plates, with sweetmeats. This table 
 is placed before the person that brought the 
 present, and he is civilly desired to taste of the 
 Dutch liquors distilled at Batavia, and to regard 
 not the meanness of the things offered him, but 
 the sincerity and goodwill with which they were 
 offered. Then a small dram-glass is filled with 
 tent wine, which the Japanese call sinti, which, 
 according to the fashion of the Japanese, he takes 
 with both hands, holds it up to his mouth, and, 
 with seeming eagerness, drinks it out to the last 
 drop at two or three gulps, then holding the 
 glass over the tobacco, or the empty space 
 between the mats, to let it drop out clean, and 
 wiping the bottom on the outside with his thumb 
 or a bit of paper, he returns it to the ambassador, 
 who pledges him in the same liquor, and after 
 the same manner. He pledges the ambassador 
 again, and with the same ceremonies returns it to 
 the joriki, who drinks to another, and so it goes 
 round. After this manner several sorts of liquors 
 are drunk about, till every one has tasted of 
 them, and commended them as miseraaties. 
 Last of all the glass is returned again to the 
 ambassador, who drinks only a little, and then 
 orders the liquors to be carried away. The 
 
KCEMPPEK'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. 
 
 891 
 
 luidlord in the meantime puts up the sweetmeats 
 in a paper parcel, ties it about with silk strings, and 
 gives it to one of his servants. Then the genUeman 
 takes his leavo, thanking for the civility showed 
 him, and particularly for the excellent miseraatie 
 liquors. The ambassador once more desires him 
 to assure his master of his sincere respects, and 
 unfeigned thanks for his favour and assistance. 
 The joriki also makes a compliment for himself 
 much to the same efTect. Then the gentleman is 
 conducted out of the room, where, with mutual 
 compliments and bowing, ho takes his leave a 
 second time. 
 
 On the 25th of April, we had ten fine gowns 
 sent us by Bengo, five as good as any wove with 
 flowers, by the young Prince of Firando, who 
 was lately made one of the lords of the Temple, 
 in the room of him who is now lord chief justice 
 of Miaoo, and a couple of sorry ones by the 
 second governor of Jedo, who has the inspection 
 of all criminal affairs and executions in this 
 
 capital. The other governor had sent us the 
 saihe number, and full aa bfd the day before. 
 The number of gowns we received was thirty 
 from the emperor, ten from Bengo, and as many 
 from each of the four ordinaiy counsellors of 
 state, six from each of the four extraordinary 
 counsellors of state, five from each of the three 
 lords of the temples, two from each of the twe 
 governors of Jedo, — in all 123 ; thirty of which 
 being those given by the emperor, belong to the 
 company, and all the rest to the ambassador. 
 All this business was over by two in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 On the 26th of April, we were busy with 
 packing up our baggage, hiring a sufficient 
 number of kulis or porters, and fifteen horses 
 for our journey. This morning we felt an 
 earthquake ; the shocks were violent but slow, 
 that one might tell forty between each ; aftei 
 midnight it returned with more violence. 
 
 C. I. \Vi.ll>lil, l'Kl>iJlK, OLASOO'.V.