hould come at, and standing in for the shore,
a boat came off two leagues to us, with an old Portuguese pilot on
board, who, knowing us to be an European ship, came to offer his
service, which indeed we were very glad of, and took him on board; upon
which, without asking us whither we would go, he dismissed the boat he
came in, and sent it back.

I thought it was now so much in our choice to make the old man carry us
whither we would, that I began to talk with him about carrying us to the
gulf of Nanquin, which is the most northern part of the coast of China.
The old man said he knew the gulf of Nanquin very well; but smiling,
asked us what we would do there?

I told him we would sell our cargo, and purchase China wares, calicoes,
raw silks, tea, wrought silks, &c. and so would return by the same
course we came. He told us our best port had been to have put in at
Macao, where we could not fail of a market for our opium to our
satisfaction, and might, for our money, have purchased all sorts of
China goods as cheap as we could at Nanquin.

Not being able to put the old man out of his talk, of which he was very
opinionated, or conceited, I told him we were gentlemen as well as
merchants, and that we had a mind to go and see the great city of Pekin,
and the famous court of the monarch of China. "Why then," says the old
man, "you should go to Ningpo, where, by the river that runs into the
sea there, you may go up within five leagues of the great canal. This
canal is a navigable made stream, which goes through the heart of all
that vast empire of China, crosses all the rivers, passes some
considerable hills by the help of sluices and gates, and goes up to the
city of Pekin, being in length near two hundred and seventy leagues."

"Well," said I, "Seignior Portuguese, but that is not our business now;
the great question is, if you can carry us up to the city of Nanquin,
from whence we can travel to Pekin afterwards?" Yes, he said, he could
do so very well, and there was a great Dutch ship gone up that way just
before. This gave me a little shock; a Dutch ship was now our terror,
and we had much rather have met the devil, at least if he had not come
in too frightful a figure; we depended upon it that a Dutch ship would
be our destruction, for we were in no condition to fight them; all the
ships they trade with in those parts being of great burden, and of much
greater force than we were.

The old man found me a little confus