578 TRAVELLING IN CHINA.

boast so much of the industry of the people. I say miserable, and
so it is, if we who understand how to live were to endure it, or to
compare it with our own; but not so to these poor wretches who
know no other. The pride of these people is infinitely great, and
exceeded by nothing but their poverty, which adds to that which
I call their misery. And I must needs think the naked savages
of America live much more happily, because, as they have nothing,
so they desire nothing; whereas these are proud and insolent, and
in the main are mere beggars and drudges. ‘Their ostentation is
inexpressible, and is chiefly shown in their clothes and buildings,
and in keeping multitudes of servants or slaves; and, which is to
the last degree ridiculous, their contempt of all the world but
. themselves. :

I must confess I travelled more pleasantly afterwards in the
deserts and vast wildernesses of Grand Tartary than here; and yet
the roads here are well paved, and well kept, and very convenient
for travellers; but nothing was more awkward to me than to see
such a haughty, imperious, insolent people, in the midst of the
grossest simplicity and ignorance; for all their famed ingenuity is
no more. And my friend Father Simon and I used to be very
merry upon these occasions, to see the beggarly pride of those
people. For example, coming by the house of a country gentle-
man, as Father Simon called him, about ten leagues off of the city of
Nankin, we had first of all the honour to ride with the master of
the house about two miles. The state he rode in was a perfect
Don Quixotism, being a mixture of pomp and poverty.

The habit of this greasy don was very proper for a scaramouch
or merry Andrew, being a dirty calico, with all the tawdry and
trapping of a fool’s coat, such as hanging sleeves, tassels, and cuts
and slashes almost on every side. It covered a taffeta vest, as
greasy as a butcher, and which testified that his honour must needs
be a most exquisite sloven.

His horse was a poor, lean, starved, hobbling creature, such as
in England might sell for about thirty or forty shillings; and he
had two slaves followed him on foot to drive the poor creature
along. He had a whip in his hand, and he belaboured the beast
as fast about the head as his slaves did about the tail; and thus