eat of the same after their master.  As for our mandarin with whom we travelled, he was respected as a king, surrounded always with his gentlemen, and attended in all his appearances with such pomp, that I saw little of him but at a distance.  I observed that there was not a horse in his retinue but that our carrier’s packhorses in England seemed to me to look much better; though it was hard to judge rightly, for they were so covered with equipage, mantles, trappings, &c., that we could scarce see anything but their feet and their heads as they went along.

I was now light-hearted, and all my late trouble and perplexity being over, I had no anxious thoughts about me, which made this journey the pleasanter to me; in which no ill accident attended me, only in passing or fording a small river, my horse fell and made me free of the country, as they call it—­that is to say, threw me in.  The place was not deep, but it wetted me all over.  I mention it because it spoiled my pocket-book, wherein I had set down the names of several people and places which I had occasion to remember, and which not taking due care of, the leaves rotted, and the words were never after to be read.

At length we arrived at Pekin.  I had nobody with me but the youth whom my nephew had given me to attend me as a servant and who proved very trusty and diligent; and my partner had nobody with him but one servant, who was a kinsman.  As for the Portuguese pilot, he being desirous to see the court, we bore his charges for his company, and for our use of him as an interpreter, for he understood the language of the country, and spoke good French and a little English.  Indeed, this old man was most useful to us everywhere; for we had not been above a week at Pekin, when he came laughing.  “Ah, Seignior Inglese,” says he, “I have something to tell will make your heart glad.”—­“My heart glad,” says I; “what can that be?  I don’t know anything 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 sorry.”—­“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 Muscovite and Polish merchants in the city, 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.