466 ANNUAL REGISTER, 
Few carriages were feen on the 
road, and none with more than two 
wheels, for conveying either travel- 
lers or goods. Geuslemen travel 
generally on horfeback, orin fedan- 
chairs, or chair-palanquins; and la- 
dies are moftly carried in clofe litters, 
fufpended between mules or horfes. 
The cuftom mentioned by Milton, 
*€ Where Chinefes drive 
‘With fails and wind their cany waggons 
light. *,” 
is ftill retained. Thofe cany wag- 
gons are {mall carts formed of bam- 
boo; and when the wind favours 
the progrefs of fuch a cart, a fail’ is 
hoifted, made of mat, and faftened 
to two poles in the oppofite fides of 
the cart. 
The travellers did not fee even a 
hillock between them and the hori- 
zon, until the fourth day of their de- 
parture from Tien-fing, when fome 
blue mountains were obferved rif- 
ing from the north-weft; and they 
indicated the approach to Pekin, 
beyond which they are fituated. 
Two days afterwards, on the 16th’ 
of Auguft, the yachts anchored off 
the city of Tong-choo-foo, at the 
diftance of about twelve miles from 
that great capital. 
Pekin ftands at the weftern ex- 
tremity of an irmmenfe plain, pro- 
bably formed by alluvial land 
brought down by torrents from 
the neighbouring mountains. The 
route lay through it to the autum- 
nal palace of the Emperor, called 
Yuen-min-yuen, or garden of per- 
petual verdure, where fuch of the 
prefents as could not be tranfported 
with fafety to Zhe-hel were to be 
depofited. 
* Amongft all the crowds affem- 
ed near fong-choo-foo, or thofe 
1797s 
which the approach of the embaffy 
had attraéted in other places, fince 
its entrance into China, not one 
perfon in the habit of a beggar had 
been feen, or any one obferved to 
folicit charity. No {mall portion of 
the people feemed, it is true, to be 
ina ftate approaching indigence; 
but none driven to the neceflity, or 
enured to the habit, of craving af} 
fiftance from a ftranger. The pre» 
fent was not, indeed, one of thofe 
feafons of calamity which deftroys 
or diminithes the ufual refources of 
the peafant, and drives him: fome- 
times even into criminal exceffes, 
to procure fubfiftence. In fuch 
times, however, the Emperor of 
China always coimes forward; he 
orders the granaries to be opened ; 
he remits the taxes to thofe wha 
are vifited by misfortunes; he af- 
fords affiftance to enable them to 
retrieve their affairs; he appears to 
his fubjects as ftanding almoft in 
the place of Providence, in their 
favour: he is perfectly aware by 
how much a ftronger chain he thus 
maintains his abfolute dominion,’ 
than the dread of punifhments’ 
would afford. He has fhewn him- 
felf fo jealous of retaining the ex-' 
chufive privilege of benevolence to 
his fubjeéts, that he not only re- 
jected, but was offended at, the pro- 
pofal once made to him by fome 
confidcrable merchants, to contri- 
bute towards the relief of a fuffer- 
@ province, t 
fame time, the donation ofa rich 
‘widow of Tien-fing, towards the’ 
But 
expences of the Thibet war. 
independently of any general evil,’ 
which every wife government is’ 
attentive to remedy or alleviate, ac-+ 
cidental caufes of diftrefs, or indi- 
* Paradife Loft, B, iii}. 43% 
vidual 
He accepted, at the’ 
¢ 
