rant, sordid slaves, subjected to a government qualified
only to rule such a people; and, in a word, for I am now launched quite
beside my design, I say, in a word, were not its distance inconceivably
great from Muscovy, and were not the Muscovite empire almost as rude,
impotent, and ill-governed a crowd of slaves as they, the czar of
Muscovy might, with much ease, drive them all out of their country, and
conquer them in one campaign; and had the czar, who I since hear is a
growing prince, and begins to appear formidable in the world, fallen
this way, instead of attacking the warlike Swedes, in which attempt none
of the powers of Europe would have envied or interrupted him; he might,
by this time, have been emperor of China, instead of being beaten by the
king of Sweden at Narva, when the latter was not one to six in number.
As their strength and their grandeur, so their navigation, commerce, and
husbandry, are imperfect and impotent, compared to the same things in
Europe. Also, in their knowledge, their learning, their skill in the
sciences; they have globes and spheres, and a smatch of the knowledge of
the mathematics; but when you come to inquire into their knowledge, how
short-sighted are the wisest of their students! They know nothing of the
motion of the heavenly bodies; and so grossly, absurdly ignorant, that
when the sun is eclipsed, they think it is a great dragon has assaulted
and run away with it; and they fall a-cluttering with all the drums and
kettles in the country, to fright the monster away, just as we do to
hive a swarm of bees.

As this is the only excursion of this kind which I have made in all the
account I have given of my travels, so I shall make no more descriptions
of countries and people: it is none of my business, or any part of my
design; but giving an account of my own adventures, through a life of
infinite wanderings, and a long variety of changes, which, perhaps, few
have heard the like of, I shall say nothing of the mighty places, desert
countries, and numerous people, I have yet to pass through, more than
relates to my own story, and which my concern among them will make
necessary. I was now, as near as I can compute, in the heart of China,
about the latitude of thirty degrees north of the line, for we were
returned from Nanquin; I had indeed a mind to see the city of Pekin,
which I had heard so much of, and Father Simon importuned me daily to do
it. At length his time of going away being