The History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China and the Situation Thereof, Volume 1 (of 2)

Matters were in this prosperous condition, when circumstances rendered it necessary for the commander to leave Canton. Many of his people had become sick from malaria, and nine, including the factor, were dead. These and other disasters compelled Andrade to take leave of the Chinese commanders, and he went back to the island of Tamang, where he was plentifully supplied with all that he required for the repair of his ships. Before his departure Andrade caused proclamation to be made in Canton, Nanto, and the harbour of Tamang, that those who had demands on the Portuguese, should apply to him in order that they might be fully satisfied. This proceeding gave the Chinese a high opinion of the integrity of the Portuguese. At the end of September 1518, Fernando Peres d'Andrade again set saile with his whole fleet, and entered the harbour of Malacca loaded with renown and riches.4

At his departure from Canton, he left the affairs of the Portuguese so arranged that their trade with the Chinese might be carried on securely and peacefully, and with profit to both parties. His brother, Simon d'Andrade, received from the king a commission to make another voyage to China, and departed in April 1518 from Malacca. Upon his arrival in August in the harbour of Tamu, he found that the Portuguese ambassador, Thomas Pires, had not yet left Canton, as, in spite of three applications, no order had yet been received from the court to escort him thither. At length the order came, and Pires went in the beginning of January 1520 by water as far as the mountain range Malenschwang, thence to Nankin, where the emperor was, who ordered him to Pekin, where he himself usually resided on account of the nearness of the Tartars, with whom he was continually at war. In January 1521, the emperor came there, and immediately dismissed the embassy. He had received unfavourable accounts of the Portuguese from the authorities at Canton and Nankin, whom the King of Bintang had influenced by an emissary; they told the emperor that, under the pretext of trading, the Portuguese explored the country with the view of taking it by force of arms, and that in this way they had made themselves masters of India and Malacca. Pires therefore was admitted no more into the palace. Meanwhile the emperor fell ill and died, and the counsellors of his successor were of opinion that Pires and all his companions should be put to death as spies. The emperor however ordered the ambassador, real or pretended, to be sent back to Canton with the presents, and to be kept in custody there until answer should be received from the Portuguese authorities at Malacca. Until then no Portuguese or Portuguese merchandise was to be admitted into the empire. The emperor further commanded that the king of Malacca, who was an ally of the emperor, and who had been driven out by the Portuguese, should be restored.

The severe conditions imposed upon the Portuguese by the emperor are not to be wondered at, for all the accounts which he had received from his authorities respecting them were prejudicial, and Simon d'Andrade himself gave frequent occasion for complaint by inconsiderate or unjust regulations, contrary both to the laws and to the received opinions of the country, and provoked the Chinese against the Portuguese; and even his personal behaviour seems to have been calculated to provoke animosity.5 At last a hot encounter took place between the Portuguese and Chinese ships, during which, fortunately for the Portuguese, a storm arose, which scattered the Chinese fleet and favoured the flight of the Portuguese, so that they happily reached Malacca at the end of October.

Thomas Pires meanwhile was, upon his arrival in Canton, thrown into prison with all his companions, and died in chains; the presents which he had brought with him were stolen. The letters, which two or three years afterwards arrived from the prisoners, contained lamentable descriptions of the oppressions they had to endure, and of the robberies which were committed in foreign ships, upon the pretence that they had Portuguese on board. The great stores of valuable merchandize, gold and silver from India, were entirely lost. Mendoza does not complete the tale of Pires's adventures, but some interesting details are given by Remusat in his Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques, page 205, tom. ii.

The next Portuguese adventurer who comes within the range of our special notice, is Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, who from the apparent extravagance of his accounts became proverbial as an accomplished romancer. Congreve, in his Love for Love, makes Foresight thus address Sir Sampson Legend: "Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude." Like most of his predecessors, however, in early travel, he has by this time recovered much of his forfeited reputation, and, as in their case, some of his most remarkable statements have been confirmed by more recent explorations. Being compelled to leave his country from some accident, which he describes as casting "him into manifest peril of his life", he took to the sea. The chances of his life led him to Abyssinia, and subsequently along the coast of Arabia to India. With his adventures in these countries we have here nothing to do, but pass at once to the circumstances under which he was thrown upon the coast of China. At Goa, Pinto hired himself as a soldier to Pedro de Faria, who was proceeding as governor to Malacca. In this employ he was selected as Portuguese agent in the company of the ambassador of the Battas, on the return of the latter to Sumatra from his complimentary visit to Faria, at Malacca, the seat of government. Here he fell in with one Antonio de Faria, with whom he joined in a great commercial expedition to be sent up the Gulf of Siam.

We pass over various romantic adventures with pirates, described in his narrative, especially those with one Coja Acem, a native of Guzerat, and an implacable enemy of the Portuguese, whom Faria at length overcame in a desperate encounter. The adventurers then sailed to Liampoo (Ning-po), where Faria gained intelligence of an island called Calempluy, in which were the tombs of seventeen kings of China, all of gold, and containing great treasure of various descriptions. This place they sought and reached, and having plundered, loaded their ships with the treasure. About a month after they had put to sea, they were wrecked in a furious gale in the Gulf of Nanking, and fourteen of the Portuguese alone escaped with their lives. The Chinese gave the shipwrecked pirates but a harsh reception; they were first thrust into a pond where they were almost devoured by leeches, and were afterwards sent with other criminals to Nanking, where they were punished with a severe whipping. They were subsequently sent to Peking, also chained together in parties of three, and on their arrival received thirty lashes apiece by way of welcome. Pinto gives an animated account of the magnificence of these two great capitals, but splendid as the objects he observed in them were, they would scarcely bear comparison with those which presented themselves along the great rivers and canals. The multitude of cities, together with the abundance which here prevailed, was almost incredible. The immense concourse of boats at the time of the great fairs, the mode of rearing water-fowl, their plan of hatching eggs by artificial heat, the industry and regularity of populace, and their fashion of eating with chop-sticks, are detailed with great exactness. Upon the whole, his remarks leave no doubt, we think, of the truth of his having been an eye-witness of what he records. Upon the subsequent occurrences of his eventful life, and his final return to Lisbon in 1558, we shall not here dwell, but proceed to the consideration of the next in order on our list of European travellers to China.

Among a series of letters in Spanish, received in 1555 from various Jesuits in the East, and appended to the 1561 edition of Francisco Alvarez's Historia de Ethiopia, occurs an account of some matters regarding the customs and laws of the kingdom of China, which a man (who was a captive there for six years) related at Malacca, in the college of the Jesuits. This valuable account, we believe, has never before appeared in English, and is here translated.

"The Chinese build their towns in the strongest situations, near rapid rivers, and chiefly at the curves, in order that they may serve in part for enclosures; and if the towns are half a league in circuit, they build walls of a league in extent, so that in case of war they may hold a considerable number of defenders. The towns are walled with stone built in mortar, for the most part; some, especially the large towns, have very strong brick walls. They contain very large buildings, and bridges of half a league, all of stone excellently wrought, and there are blocks in them so large that it appears impossible for men to have raised and set them by any contrivance. One of the things that surprised us much, was to see eight columns, upon which the government palace is built, in a town where we were for three years. We measured these columns, and two men stretching their arms round them did not touch each other; they appeared to us to be sixty feet high, little more or less; and it is very strange that men should have been able to raise them and place them where they are. The houses which are upon them are very high, all of wood, painted and gilded. An officer resides there who collects the revenue of the province, and there are similar ones in the other provinces. Each of these houses is separately enclosed by walls, within which they are accustomed to plant trees and make very pleasant gardens, with all kinds of fruit, which the Chinese are exceedingly fond of, and also of having ponds at their houses in which they breed fish for their amusement.

"What is generally considered by the nobility and principal men as the greatest distinction, is to erect edifices in front of their gates, in way of an arch going from one side of the street to the other, so that the people pass underneath; some build them of stone, others of wood, with all kinds of painting, colours of gold and blue, with pictures of various birds and other things that may gratify the sight of the passers by. And they are so curious and vain in this particular, that he who goes to the greatest expense therein, is thought most of amongst them. On the border of the arches are the name and arms of him who caused them to be erected, in letters of gold and blue.

"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.

"These great kingdoms of China are divided by the same king into fifteen provinces, and in every one of them there is a chief town, where there is a governor, who is changed every three years; in these chief towns the treasure of the king, from the revenue of all the province, is collected. The privilege for those who shall betake themselves to the chief town is, that for crimes which they have committed elsewhere they cannot be taken; and the reason of this privilege is, that as they are continually carrying on war with the Tartars and with other kings, if they did not afford this security these persons would pass over to the enemy.

"It has been, and still is, the custom to write everything remarkable and worthy of remembrance on large stones on the highways, and in the same places where they occurred, principally in the towns at the government palaces, where the officers reside. These antiquities are written in the open courts, many of them in letters of gold; and the noblemen and men of quality are very curious to read them, and fond of talking of remarkable actions, and of the dignity and achievements of the former kings.

"I have heard much of the grandeur of these kingdoms, and seen somewhat (although little), which to those who have no knowledge of China would scarcely appear true; wherefore I only speak of those things that are most common among the people, leaving the rest to time, which will discover them. The noblest and most populous town is one where the king resides, which is called Paquin; the natives (for I did not see it) say that it takes seven days to traverse it by a direct road, and thirteen to go round it. It is surrounded by three enclosures and a very copious river, which entirely encompasses it, forming, as it were, the interior enclosure. Marvellous things are reported of the riches and structure of the royal residence; the designs are taken from many provinces of the same kingdom, none being allowed to go out of it. Before entering the palaces seven or eight very strong gates have to be passed, where there are very tall and stout men for guards. The king (according to what they say) never goes out of that town, and everything he eats is produced within the walls; he does not go to the outer enclosures; and they say he is never seen except by those who attend upon him, who are all eunuchs, sons of noblemen, and who when once they enter there into the residence, never more depart from it until death. The king has noblemen about him, very learned and of great prudence, with whom he transacts all the business of the kingdom. And these also never go without the enclosure on any account; they are called Vlaos. The manner of choosing them for that dignity is this: when there is a vacancy, the king inquires for some one distinguished in learning and for discretion, and inclined to justice; if there be one who is commonly held of this reputation, he orders him to be summoned from any province of the kingdom where he may be, and invests him with the office of Vlaos.

"The Chinese observe much exactness in their courtesies and great neatness in their apparel, both men and women; they generally go very well dressed, from the quantity of silk there is in the kingdom.

"The soil is very productive of necessaries, fruits, and very singular waters; there are very pleasant gardens, and all kinds of game and hunting. The Chinese touch no food with their hands, but all, both small and great, eat with two little sticks for cleanliness.

"Their temples are very large edifices, richly wrought, which they call Valeras, and which cost a great deal, for the statues, which are of large size, are all covered with beaten gold. The roof of the temples is gilded, and the walls ornamented with boards well wrought and painted in pictures. They are skilful workmen in carpentry. In these temples there are priests (who are obliged to remain in them always), with an appointed income. They eat neither flesh nor fish, only herbs, principally beledas, and some fruits; on certain days they fast. If they do anything that they ought not, they are driven out and allowed to be priests no longer, and others are put in their place.

"No man can go from one province to another without taking a licence of the governor, and he who is found without one is punished; and no traveller can be (by law of the kingdom) more than three or four days in a town where he has not business; there is a man whose office it is to go about looking to this, and if any such is found, he is taken up, for they presume him to be a thief and a man of bad life. And so every one is accustomed to have some occupation, and to hold some office, even the sons of the officers and nobles. All employ their sons, of whatever condition they may be, setting them to read and write, which they vnderstand generally. Others put them to trade, and they are also in the habit of placing their sons with officers and noblemen, that they may learn how to serve. The officers are waited on with much veneration; all who speak to them do so with genuflexions, and whatever they have to ask for must be done in writing.

"The sentences which the officers pronounce are conformable to the laws of the kingdom; they judge according to the truth of the matter, which they inquire into themselves, without taking account of what the parties say; and so they are very correct in affairs of justice, for fear of the visitation, which, they say, is made every six months. Their years have twelve moons, and every three years they add to the year one moon, and thus it has thirteen.

"The people of any consequence wear black silk for their dress, because coloured is held dishonourable for clothing; so much so, that no one dares to go before any officer or person of quality without a black dress; and if he has gone away from home with a coloured cloak, and he happens to have to speak to any officer, he takes a black cloak from some acquaintance whom he meets, and leaves him his own while he transacts his business. The common people always speak to the nobles cap in hand, and they may not wear black cloaks, but only very short coloured ones. The officers wear a kind of cap, different from other people, for a certain dignity is kept up amongst them as with us. In these caps they have tufts made of horsehair, stuck on every part. The king wears the same, except that they say he has two points cross-wise at the top.