PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. Jgg 



is apparently no other use for which it could have 

 been designed. I presented the mandarin with a pair 

 of pistols, which he thankfully accepted, and they were 

 taken charge of by his domestics without exciting 

 any unusual degree of curiosity. Upon questioning 

 An-yah where his government procured its powder, he 

 immediately replied from Fochien. 



It is further extremely improbable that these people 

 should have no weapons, considering the expeditions 

 which have been successively fitted out by both China 

 and Japan against Loo Choo. and the civil wars which 

 unfortunately prevailed in the island, more or less, 

 during the greater part of the time that the nation 

 was divided into three kingdoms.* Besides, the 

 haughty tone of the king to the commander of an ex- 

 pedition which was sent, in A. D. 605, to demand sub- 

 mission to his master the Emperor of China, viz. 

 " That he would acknowledge no master," is not the 

 language of a people destitute of weapons. Loo Choo 

 has been subdued by almost every expedition against 

 it, yet it is not likely the country could have made 

 even a show of resistance against the invaders had the 

 inhabitants been unarmed ; they nevertheless resisted 

 the famous Tay Cosama, and though conquered, threw 

 off the yoke of Japan soon afterwards, and returned 

 under the dominion of China. It was afterwards re- 

 taken by Kingtchang with 3,000 Japanese, who im- 

 prisoned the king, and killed Tching-hoey, his father, 

 because he refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of 

 Japan. -f- They are, besides, said to have sent swords 



* From its division under Yut-ching in 1300, until it was 

 united under Chang-pat-chi, about a century afterwards, 



* Report of Supao-Koang, a learned Chinese physician, sent 

 by the Emperor of China to Loo Choo in 1719, to report upon 

 the country. — Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, vol. xxviii. 



