where; for we had not been above a week at Pekin, when he came laughing:  “Ah, Seignior Inglese,” said he, “I have something to tell you, will make your heart glad.”—­“My heart glad,” said I; “what can that be?  I don’t know any thing in this country can either give me joy or grief, to any great degree.”—­“Yes, yes,” said the old man, in broken English, “make you glad, me sorrow;” sorry, he would have said.  This made me more inquisitive.  “Why,” said I, “will it make you sorry?”—­“Because,” said he, “you have brought me here twenty-five days journey, and will leave me to go back alone; and which way shall I get to my port afterwards, without a ship, without a horse, without pecune?” so he called money; being his broken Latin, of which he had abundance to make us merry with.

In short, he told us there was a great caravan of Muscovy and Polish merchants in the city, and that they were preparing to set out on their journey, by land, to Muscovy, within four or five weeks, and he was sure we would take the opportunity to go with them, and leave him behind to go back alone.  I confess I was surprised with this news:  a secret joy spread itself over my whole soul, which I cannot describe, and never felt before or since; and I had no power, for a good while, to speak a word to the old man; but at last I turned to him:  “How do you know this?” said I:  “are you sure it is true?”—­“Yes,” he said, “I met this morning in the street an old acquaintance of mine, an Armenian, or one you call a Grecian, who is among them; he came last from Astracan, and was designing to go to Tonquin; where I formerly knew him, but has altered his mind, and is now resolved to go back with the caravan to Moscow, and so down the river of Wolga to Astracan.”—­“Well, Seignior,” said I, “do not be uneasy about being left to go back alone; if this be a method for my return to England, it shall be your fault if you go back to Macao at all.”  We then went to consult together what was to be done, and I asked my partner what he thought of the pilot’s news, and whether it would suit with his affairs:  he told me he would do just as I would; for he had settled all his affairs so well at Bengal, and left his effects in such good hands, that as we made a good voyage here, if he could vest it in China silks, wrought and raw, such as might be worth the carriage, he would be content to go to England, and then make his voyage back to Bengal by the Company’s ships.

Having resolved upon this, we agreed, that, if our Portuguese pilot would go with us, we would bear his charges to Moscow, or to England, if he pleased; nor, indeed, were we to be esteemed over-generous in that part neither, if we had not rewarded him farther; for the service he had done us was really worth all that, and more; for he had not only been a pilot to us at sea, but he had been also like a broker for us on shore; and his procuring for us the Japan merchant was some hundreds of pounds in our pockets.  So we consulted