together with tea and some fine calicoes, and three camels’ loads
of nutmegs and cloves, loaded in all eighteen camels for our share,
besides those we rode upon; these, with two or three spare horses,
and two horses loaded with provisions, made together twenty-six
camels and horses in our retinue.
The company was very great, and, as near as I can remember, made
between three and four hundred horses, and upwards of one hundred
and twenty men, very well armed and provided for all events; for as
the Eastern caravans are subject to be attacked by the Arabs, so
are these by the Tartars. The company consisted of people of
several nations, but there were above sixty of them merchants or
inhabitants of Moscow, though of them some were Livonians; and to
our particular satisfaction, five of them were Scots, who appeared
also to be men of great experience in business, and of very good
substance.
When we had travelled one day’s journey, the guides, who were five
in number, called all the passengers, except the servants, to a
great council, as they called it. At this council every one
deposited a certain quantity of money to a common stock, for the
necessary expense of buying forage on the way, where it was not
otherwise to be had, and for satisfying the guides, getting horses,
and the like. Here, too, they constituted the journey, as they
call it, viz. they named captains and officers to draw us all up,
and give the word of command, in case of an attack, and give every
one their turn of command; nor was this forming us into order any
more than what we afterwards found needful on the way.
The road all on this side of the country is very populous, and is
full of potters and earth-makers – that is to say, people, that
temper the earth for the China ware. As I was coming along, our
Portuguese pilot, who had always something or other to say to make
us merry, told me he would show me the greatest rarity in all the
country, and that I should have this to say of China, after all the
ill-humoured things that I had said of it, that I had seen one
thing which was not to be seen in all the world beside. I was very
importunate to know what it was; at last he told me it was a
gentleman’s house built with China ware. “Well,” says I, “are not
the materials of their buildings the products of their own country,
and so it is all China ware, is it not?” – “No, no,” says he, “I
mean it is a house all made of China ware, such as you call it in
England, or as it is called in our country, porcelain.” – “Well,”
says I, “such a thing may be; how big is it? Can we carry it in a
box upon a camel? If we can we will buy it.” – “Upon a camel!”
says the old pilot, holding up both his hands; “why, there is a
family of thirty people lives in it.”
I was then curious, indeed, to see it; and when I came to it, it
was nothing but this: it was a timber house, or a house built, as
we call it in England, with lath and plaster, but all this
plastering was really China ware – that is to say, it was plastered
with the earth that makes China ware. The outside, which the sun
shone hot upon, was glazed, and looked very well, perfectly white,
and painted with blue figures, as the large China ware in England
is painted, and hard as if it had been burnt. As to the inside,
all the walls, instead of wainscot, were lined with hardened and
painted tiles, like the little square tiles we call galley-tiles in
England, all made of the finest china, and the figures exceeding
fine indeed, with extraordinary variety of colours, mixed with
gold, many tiles making but one figure, but joined so artificially,
the mortar being made of the same earth, that it was very hard to
see where the tiles met. The floors of the rooms were of the same