d the Mehrage
ordered his head to be struck off. To the minister, the Mehrage made many
compliments, for the good advice he had given his master, and ordered him
to place the person who best deserved to succeed upon the vacant throne;
and then departed to his own dominions, without doing the smallest violence
or injury to the kingdom of Komar. The news of this action being reported
to the kings of China and the Indies, added greatly to their respect for
the Mehrage; and from that time, it has been the custom for the kings of
Komar to prostrate themselves every morning towards the country of Zapage,
in honour of the Mehrage[7].

All the kings of China and the Indies believe in the metempsychosis, or
transmigration of souls, as an article of their religion, of which the
following story, related by a person of credibility, is a singular
instance. One of these princes having viewed himself in a mirror, after
recovering from the small-pox, and noticing how dreadfully his face was
disfigured, observed, that no person had ever remained in his body after
such a change, and as the soul passes instantly into another body, he was
determined to separate Ha soul from its present frightful body, that he
might pass into another. Wherefore he commanded his nephew to mount the
throne, and calling for a sharp and keen scymitar, ordered his own head to
be cut off, that his soul might be set free, to inhabit a new body. His
orders were complied with, and his body was burnt, according to the custom
of the country.

Until the late revolution had reduced them to their present state of
anarchy, the Chinese were wonderfully regular and exact in every thing
relative to government; of which the following incident affords a striking
example. A merchant of Chorassan, who had dealt largely in Irak, and who
embarked from thence for China, with a quantity of goods, had a dispute
at Canfu with an eunuch, who was sent to purchase some ivory, and other
goods for the emperor, and at length the dispute ran so high, that the
merchant refused to sell him his goods. This eunuch was keeper of the
imperial treasury, and presumed so much on the favour and confidence which
he enjoyed with his master, that he took his choice of all the goods he
wanted from the merchant by force, regardless of every thing that the
merchant could say. The merchant went privately from Canfu to Cumdan, the
residence of the emperor, which is two months journey; and immediately we