PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
485 
but unless it were built for the reception of those weapons, there 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 w^eapons, considering the expeditions which have been successively 
fitted out by both China and Japan against Loo Choo, and the civil 
wars v/hich 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 expedition which was sent, in A. D. 6‘05, to demand submission 
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 
ao-ainst the invaders had the inhabitants been unarmed ; they never- 
o 
theless resisted the famous Tay-Cosama, and though conquered, threw’ 
off the yoke of Japan soon afterw’ards, and returned under the domi- 
nion of China. It was afterwards retaken by Kingtchang with 8000 
Japanese, w'ho imprisoned the king, and killed Tching-hoey, his father, 
because he refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of Japan j. They 
are, besides, said to have sent swords as tribute to Japan. In 1454 the 
kinff Chans-tai-keiou had to sustain a civil war against his brother, 
who was at first successful, and beat Chang-tai-keiou in a battle, in 
which he fought at the head of his troops. It is not probable that all 
this warfare and bloodshed should have transpired without the Loo 
Chooans being possessed of arms ; besides, it is expressly stated by 
* From its division under Yut-ching in 1300, until it was united under Cliang-pat-chi, 
about a century afterwards. 
t Report of Supoa-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. 
