"The houses are covered with glazed tiles of many colours, and the woodwork is much wrought. The streets are very well made and paved with stone, and the highways are all raised. I say this because they took us from that town (where we had been prisoners for three years), and we went one hundred and twenty days' journey, without going out of the kingdom, and found all the roads raised and even; and several times when we passed rivers and inquired if most of the roads that ran forward were similar, we were told that they were, and that it was a four months' journey to reach the court of the king, and the roads were all alike. They treated us very well on the journey, giving us sumpter beasts and every thing necessary.
"In all the towns there is a street of very noble houses built by order of the king, in which the officers who perform the service of visitation lodge. These officers are commissioned with the royal authority over the governing presidents (who are called in their language Taquoan). The governors of provinces and those who hold any command, are chosen for their learning and great prudence, without regard to anything else, and if the sons are as able as their fathers they succeed them in their offices, otherwise they are not admitted by the king into his service. The special governors of the towns are obliged to sit to hear and do justice to all, every morning until midday, and after having dined till sunset.
"Officers of the court come twice every year, by command of the king, to make a stay in all the towns, principally to see if the governors do their duty well, and to remove them at once and put others in their place, if they are tyrannical, or oppress the people, or perform their functions ill. These officers examine all the walls, and if they are in bad condition, order them to be repaired. They afterwards inquire concerning the royal revenues and the expenses of the towns, moderating them if they are excessive. He who gives out money at usury loses it (if proved), and, moreover, incurs further punishment. In the towns where these officers come, they cause public notice to be given, in order that those who are aggrieved by any injustice may come before them.
"In the town I was speaking of there are six governors, one of whom takes precedence; and there are also six others whose business it is to collect the revenues, and one of them is obliged to watch the town every night with his men, that thieves may not disturb the people. Others take care to close the gates, which are very strong and fortified with iron. The governors and magistrates of every town are charged to write every moon, to the court of the king, an account of what takes place; and each has to write separately, that it may be seen if they concert what they write, and whether they speak truth; for those who lie to the king incur the punishment of death; wherefore they dread much to state anything false in their accounts. No man governs in his native place, where he has relations, that he may do justice to all without respect of persons.
"In the principal towns are many strong gaols; we being prisoners were distributed in six of them. There are prisoners for various crimes; the most serious with them is murder. The prisoners are numerous, because the towns are populous; in every gaol there are three, four, or five hundred of them. A native of the town, where we were, told us, that in it alone there might be at that time more than eight thousand prisoners; and that was because it was a principal town, where those of the neighbouring places were assembled together. In every gaol there is a book of the prisoners therein, whom the gaoler counts every night. In that where I was, sometimes there were three hundred prisoners, at others four hundred; and although I did not see the other gaols, it appears to me from this, that there might be as many prisoners as they told me.
"The serious crimes go to the court; and for those who come from thence sentenced to death, the king gives power to the governors of the towns—if, upon a re-examination of the case, from being nearer where the offence was committed, they should find them less guilty—to spare their lives, and condemn them to banishment, or to the king's service, for so many years, or for their whole life. They take all possible pains to avoid condemning any to death. It can scarcely be expressed how much the king is feared by his subjects: they call him god and king for the strict government and justice that he maintains in his kingdom, which is necessary from the people being bad and malicious.
"In their ancient books they find that at a certain time, white men with long beards are to take their kingdom of China; on this account they are so careful of the walls and of fortifying the towns; and the officers make a muster of the soldiers, they receive and examine them to see if they are good soldiers; they do the same with the cavalry; and to those who excel they give rewards according to their personal qualities, putting also in their heads a branch with gold and silver leaves, as a sign of honour; but those who do not satisfy them they dismiss, paying them their hire and giving them the money with reproachful words.
"The people of China are, in general, neither brave nor skilful, nor have they any natural inclination for warlike affairs; if they maintain themselves it is by the multitude of the people, the strength of the walls and towns, and the provision of ammunition. At the boundary of the kingdom of China, where it borders on the Tartars, there is a wall of wondrous strength, of a month's journey in extent, where the king keeps a great military force in the bulwarks. Where this walls comes upon mountains, they cut them in such a manner that they remain and serve as a wall; for the Tartars are very brave and skilful in war. At the time we were prisoners, they broke through a part of the wall and entered into the territory within for a month and a half's journey; but as the king prepared great armies of men provided with artful contrivances (in which the Chinese are very crafty), he kept back the Tartars, who fight on horse-back. As their horses had become weak and were dying of hunger, one of the Chinese officers commanded a large quantity of peas to be placed in the fields, and thus it was that the horses (being so hungry as they were) set themselves to eat against the will of their masters; and in this manner the army of the king of China put them in disorder and turned to drive them out. And now a strict watch is kept on the wall.
"They make great feasts in the provinces of the kingdom of China, every year on the king's birthday; and in the government palaces of every town, in a hall covered with an awning, and having the walls and the floor ornamented with very rich coloured cloths, they place a seat painted of the same colour. This hall has three doors, and it is the custom of the officers of the towns to enter by any one of them, on foot like any other man, without taking anything with him, and without a sunshade before him; in passing they make obeisance by seven or eight genuflexions, as if the king were sitting on the seat. Having finished, they go to their houses, and at this time enter on foot and by any door; for except on this day they only enter by the middle door and in very rich litters, in which their servants carry them. They hold it for greater dignity to go in these litters than on horseback, taking one or two persons on the right for state, and a sunshade on foot before them, like those which they use in India.
"They make another very great feast on the first day of the year, which is the day upon which we celebrate the feast of the Circumcision. These feasts last three days; on every one of which they represent scenes by day and night, for they are much addicted to the performance of farces. On these three days the gates of the town are closed, because from much eating and drinking the people are at times beside themselves. They make other very great feasts when the king nominates his son for his heir; upon which day, they declared to me, they release all the prisoners, even those sentenced to death. At the time that we were prisoners, there came news that the king intended to make his son a king, upon which the prisoners in all the gaols rejoiced much.