RETURN TO TIEN-SING. 
131 
another has brought me water, and a third has held an umbrella over 
my head to defend me from the sun, whilst their companions have at 
some distance formed a circle around me. We were to these people as 
the inhabitants of another world. Our features, dress, and habits were 
so opposed to theirs, as to induce them to infer that our country, in 
all its natural characters, must equally differ from their own. “ Have 
you a moon, and rain, and rivers in your country ?” were their occa- 
sional questions. Comprehending no other rational object for the 
collecting of plants than their useful qualities, and seeing me gather 
all indiscriminately, they at once supposed that I sought them merely 
as objects of curiosity, and laughed heartily at my eagerness to obtain 
them. They pitied my ignorance, and endeavoured to teach me 
their relative worth, and were anxious for me to learn the important 
truth, that from one seed many might be obtained. A young man 
having shaken some ripe seeds from the capsules of the Sesamum 
and the Sida, described to me, with much minuteness, that if I took 
them to my own country, and put them into the ground, they would 
produce many plants, and I might thus in time obtain the blessing 
of good rope and oil. 
We arrived at Tien-sing on the 6th. During the delay of the 
Embassy for two days at this city, Mr. Griffith and myself obtained 
permission from our conductor Chang to enter a part of it, from 
which, during our former visit to this place, we had been excluded. 
An officer who superintended our boats was appointed to attend us, 
to guard against the imposition of tradesmen ; but he gave us great 
reason to suspect that he either wished to partake of the profits re- 
sulting from our bargains, or to prevent our purchasing altogether, 
by inducing the people to put an exorbitant price on their goods.* 
* The conduct of the Chinese soldiers, in enhancing the price of goods to a stranger, 
resembles that of the Janissaries in Turkey. Dr. Clarke tells us, that strangers visiting 
the shops of Constantinople, attended by a Janissary, pays for every article a price 
augmented in the proportion of the sum “ privately exacted by the Janissary as his share 
of the profit.” — Travels in various Countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Part the 
Second, p. 34. 
