A CHINA WAREHOUSE. 685

the world beside. I was very importunate to know what it was.
At last he told me it was a gentleman’s house built all with China
ware. “ Well,” says I, “are not the materials of their building
the product of their own country; and so is all China ware, is it
not?” ‘No, no,” says he; “ I mean it is an 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 in it.”

Twas 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 the 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 burned. As to the inside, all the walls, instead of wainscot,
were lined up with hardened and painted tiles, like the little square
tiles we call galley-tiles in Hngland, 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 room were of the same composition, and as hard as the
earthern floors we have in use in several parts of England,
especially Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, &c., as
hard as a stone, and smooth, but not burned and painted, except
some smaller rooms, like closets, which were all, as it were, paved
with the same tile. The ceiling and, in a word, all the plastering
work in the whole house were of the same earth; and after all, the
roof was covered with tiles of the same, but of a deep shining
black.

This was a China warehouse indeed, truly and literally to be
culled so; and had I not been upon the journey, I could have