Upon these hopes we resolved to continue here; but, to divert ourselves, we took two or three journies into the country; first, we went ten days journey to see the city of Nanquin, a city well worth seeing indeed:  they say it has a million of people in it; which, however, I do not believe:  it is regularly built, the streets all exactly straight, and cross one another in direct lines, which gives the figure of it great advantage.

But when I came to compare the miserable people of these countries with ours; their fabrics, their manner of living, their government, their religion, their wealth, and their glory, (as some call it) I must confess, I do not so much as think it worth naming, or worth my while to write of, or any that shall come after me to read.

It is very observable, that we wonder at the grandeur, the riches, the pomp, the ceremonies, the government, the manufactures, the commerce, and the conduct of these people; not that they are to be wondered at, or, indeed, in the least to be regarded; but because, having first a notion of the barbarity of those countries, the rudeness and the ignorance that prevail there, we do not expect to find any such things so far off.

Otherwise, what are their buildings to the palaces and royal buildings of Europe?  What their trade to the universal commerce of England, Holland, France, and Spain?  What their cities to ours, for wealth, strength, gaiety of apparel, rich furniture, and an infinite variety?  What are their ports, supplied with a few junks and barks, to our navigation, our merchants’ fleets, our large and powerful navies?  Our city of London has more trade than all their mighty empire.  One English, or Dutch, or French man of war of eighty guns, would fight with and destroy all the shipping of China.  But the greatness of their wealth, their trade, the power of their government, and strength of their armies are surprising to us, because, as I have said, considering them as a barbarous nation of pagans, little better than savages, we did not expect such things among them; and this, indeed, is the advantage with which all their greatness and power is represented to us:  otherwise, it is in itself nothing at all; for, as I have said of their ships, so it may be said of their armies and troops; all the forces of their empire, though they were to bring two millions of men into the field together, would be able to do nothing but ruin the country and starve themselves.  If they were to besiege a strong town in Flanders, or to fight a disciplined army, one line of German cuirassiers, or of French cavalry, would overthrow all the horse of China; a million of their foot could not stand before one embattled body of 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 30,000 German or English foot, and 10,000 French horse, would fairly beat all the forces of China.  And so of our fortified