The company consisted of people of several nations, such as Muscovites
chiefly; for there were about sixty of them who were merchants or
inhabitants of Moscow, though of them some were Livonians; and to our
particular satisfaction, five of them were Scots, who appeared also to
be men of great experience in business, and very good substance.

When we had travelled one day's journey, the guides, who were five in
number, called all the gentlemen and merchants, that is to say, all the
passengers, except the servants, to a great council, as they termed it.
At this great council every one deposited a certain quantity of money to
a common stock, for the necessary expense of buying forage on the way
where it was not otherwise to be had, and for satisfying the guides,
getting horses, and the like. And here they constituted the journey, as
they called it, viz. they named captains and officers to draw us all up
and give the command in case of an attack; and give every one their turn
of command. Nor was this forming us into order any more than what we
found needful upon the way, as shall be observed in its place.

The road all on this side of the country is very populous, and is full
of potters and earth makers; that is to say, people that tempered the
earth for the China ware; and, as I was going along, our Portuguese
pilot, who had always something or other to say to make us merry, came
sneering to me, and told me, he would shew the greatest rarity in all
the country; and that I should have this to say of China, after all the
ill humoured things I had said of it, that I had seen one thing which
was not to be seen in all the world beside. I was very importunate to
know what it was; at last he told me, it was a gentleman's house, built
all with China ware. "Well," said I, "are not the materials of their
building the product of their own country; and so it is all China ware,
is it not?"--"No, no," says he, "I mean, it is a house all made of China
ware, such as you call so in England; or, as it is called in our
country, porcelain."--"Well," said I, "such a thing may be: how big is
it? can we carry it in a box upon a camel? If we can, we will buy
it."--"Upon a camel!" said the old pilot, holding up both his hands;
"why, there is a family of thirty people lives in it."

I was then curious, indeed, to see it; and when I came to see it, it was
nothing but this: it was a timber house, or a house built, as we call it
in England, with la