our infantry, posted so as not to be surrounded, though
they were not to be one to twenty in number; nay,
I do not boast if I say that thirty thousand German
or English foot, and ten thousand horse, well managed,
could defeat all the forces of China. Nor is
there a fortified town in China that could hold out
one month against the batteries and attacks of an European
army. They have firearms, it is true, but they
are awkward and uncertain in their going off; and
their powder has but little strength. Their
armies are badly disciplined, and want skill to attack,
or temper to retreat; and therefore, I must confess,
it seemed strange to me, when I came home, and heard
our people say such fine things of the power, glory,
magnificence, and trade of the Chinese; because, as
far as I saw, they appeared to be a contemptible herd
or crowd of ignorant, sordid slaves, subjected to
a government qualified only to rule such a people;
and were not its distance inconceivably, great from
Muscovy, and that empire in a manner as rude, impotent,
and ill governed as they, the Czar of Muscovy might
with ease drive them all out of their country, and
conquer them in one campaign; and had the Czar (who
is now a growing prince) fallen this way, instead
of attacking the warlike Swedes, and equally improved
himself in the art of war, as they say he has done;
and if none of the powers of Europe had envied or
interrupted him, he might by this time have been Emperor
of China, instead of being beaten by the King of Sweden
at Narva, when the latter was not one to six in number.
As their strength and their grandeur, so their navigation,
commerce, and husbandry are very imperfect, compared
to the same things in Europe; also, in their knowledge,
their learning, and in their skill in the sciences,
they are either very awkward or defective, though
they have globes or spheres, and a smattering of the
mathematics, and think they know more than all the
world besides. But they know little of the motions
of the heavenly bodies; and so grossly and absurdly
ignorant are their common people, that when the sun
is eclipsed, they think a great dragon has assaulted
it, and is going to run away with it; and they fall
a clattering with all the drums and kettles in the
country, to fright the monster away, just as we do
to hive a swarm of bees!
As this is the only excursion of the kind which I
have made in all the accounts I have given of my travels,
so I shall make no more such. It is none of
my business, nor any part of my design; but to give
an account of my own adventures through a life of inimitable
wanderings, and a long variety of changes, which, perhaps,
few that come after me will have heard the like of:
I shall, therefore, say very little of all the mighty
places, desert countries, and numerous people I have
yet to pass through, more than relates to my own story,
and which my concern among them will make necessary.