An Account of CHINA.
THE Empire of China is a great and spacious country, on the East of Asia, famed for its fruitfulness, wealth, beautifulness of towns, and incredible number of inhabitants.
It is divided into seventeen kingdoms, which contain 160 large cities, 240 lesser, and 1200 towns; the chief of all is Pekin. The air is pure and serene, and the inhabitants live to a great age. Their riches consist in gold and silver mines, pearls, porcelain or China ware; japanned or varnished works; spices, musk, true ambergris, camphire
[sic]
, sugar, ginger, tea, linen, and silk; of the latter there is such abundance, that they are able to furnish all the world with it. Here are also mines of quicksilver, vermillion, azure-stone
, vitriol, &c. So much for the wealth: Now as to the inhabitants, they are so numerous, that the great roads may be compared to a perpetual fair, such numbers are continually passing, which made a Portuguese, who went thither, ask, "If the women had not nine or ten children at a birth?" Every inhabitant is obliged to hang a writing over his door, signifying the number and quality of the dwellers. The inside of their houses is very magnificent. The men are civil, well-bred, very ingenious, polite, and industrious, but extremely covetous, insomuch that they will not scruple to sell their very children, or drown them, when they think they have too many. This desire of wealth lets them never be idle, and makes them have a great aversion to strangers that come to settle among them. The men go neatly dressed, and carry a fan in their hand, and when they salute each other (for they are very courteous) they never put off their hat, but with their hands joined before their breast bow their bodies. Here is no Nobility but what depends on learning, without any regard to birth, except the Royal Families; and the more learned any one is, the more he is advanced in honour and government. The King, who is called the Tartar, keeps a guard of forty thousand men. When he dies his body is buried on a pile of paper, and with him all his jewels, and every thing else, except living creatures, that he made use of in his life-time. His Counsellor, Priest, and Concubines, that devoted themselves wholly to his soul, sacrifice their lives as soon as he dies; but have the liberty to chuse what kind of death they please, which is generally beheading. In this country there is a stupendous wall, built to prevent the incursions of the Tartars, which is at least 1700 miles long, near 30 feet high, and broad enough for several horsemen to travel on it abreast. Their established religion is what they call the Religion of Nature, as explained by their celebrated Philosopher Confucius; but the greatest part of them are Idolaters, and worship the Idol Fo
. The Mahometans have been long since tolerated, and the Jews longer. Christianity had gained a considerable footing here by the labour of the Jesuits, till the year 1726, when the missionaries being suspected of a design against the Government, were quite expelled.
An Indian Man and Woman in their proper Habits.
An Account of INDIA.