C H 
carry them as far as the river upon which his excellency 
was to embark. Lord Macartney, with his Englifh and 
Chinefe retinue, fet out immediately for Tong-choo-foo, 
in order to embark upon the Pei-lio ; and palling through 
one of the ealtern gates of Pekin, he was honoured with 
the ufual lalutes. The embafly was received in a refpetft- 
ful manner at Tong-choo-foo. The temple, its former 
relidence, was again prepared for its accommodation, and 
in the evening the city was illuminated. The next day, 
the yachts being ready, and the prefents all Ihipped, the 
embafly embarked upon the Pei-lio, whofe waters were 
decreasing fo fait, that the fecow'd day the boats were 
forced to be dragged along. Very little progrels had been 
made when the colao, Sim-ta-zhin, came to inform the 
ambaflador, (whom he received with every mark of re- 
fpect, and to whom his excellency reiterated his acknow¬ 
ledgments for the civility fliewn him at Poo-ta-la, and in 
the gardens of Zhe-hoi,) that he had juft received a letter 
from the emperor : an extraft of it, which he read, pur¬ 
ported, tiiat “ he (Sun-ta-zbin) fliould take the embafly 
under his particular care ; that every proper diftinftion 
lhould be fliewn, and attention paid to the ambaflador and 
liis luite in their route to Chu-fan ; and that he fliould 
fee them fafely embarked on-board their Ihips: hut that, 
if thofe fliips lhould be failed from thence, he was to pro¬ 
ceed in the fame manner, and for the like purpoie, to 
Canton.” 
Sun-ta-zhin, befides being a colao, was honoured with 
the yellow mantle, worn over his other garments, the 
highelt diftimftion known in China. He was elegant in 
manners, blit tenacious of his rank and dignity. With¬ 
out difcloling his private inftrudtions, conveyed probably 
in the fame difpatch, lie gave the ambaflador to under- 
ltand, that his letter to fir Erafmus Gower had not been 
forwarded, having been kept back through the lufpicions 
of Ho-choong-taung. Sun-ta-zhin, however, was loon 
convinced, by the candid explanation which the ambaf- 
fador gave him of that letter, of the necefiity of fending 
it, and he wrote concerning it to his imperial majelty. 
He held frequent communications with the ambaflador, 
and liis enquiries were lefs llimulated by perfonal curio- 
flty, than by the defire of conveying to the emperor the 
belt information he could colleft, refpeiSting the Englilli 
and other Europeans trading to China ; fo that his ex¬ 
cellency difeovered, that though he was receding from 
the court, he was advancing more the object of bis mif- 
flon, through the medium of the prefent liberal conductor 
of the embafly, than when he was really prelent, by re¬ 
moving the prejudices which the Chinele, under falie re- 
prefentations, had imbibed agaiiill the Englilli charadter. 
The gentlemen of the'embaffy were not, as before, re- 
ltrained from little excurlions upon the Ihore. In this 
part, they obferved the fields were parched up by long 
drought; and the following was the method taken for 
watering them. Two men flood upon projedting banks 
oppolite to each other; each held in his hand a rope faf- 
tened to a bucket, which when filled with water from 
the river, after fwinging it to and fro fever?.! times, was 
thrown with rapidity into a relervoir made near the ri¬ 
ver’s bank; and from this, by means of fmall channels, 
the water was conveyed over the adjoining fields. At 
other times a long pole, whole length was unequally di¬ 
vided, is made to turn upon a pivot acrols an upright 
poll. A bucket fixed to the Ihortelt end is lowered into 
the river, which when filled is hoifted by the longelt le¬ 
ver, and its contents poured into the relervoir. A few 
flieep were feen grazing upon fmall Ipotsj but the greatefl: 
number come from Tartary, as well as the larger cattle. 
Milk, cheefe, and .butter, are little known among the 
Chinefe; and the common people rarely tafte of animal 
food, unlefs of fuch as die by difeale or accident, in 
which cafes they are equally relilhed; and even the ver¬ 
min picked off their filthy perfons fall a prey to their 
depraved appetites. 
After their crops of corn are got in, which was the 
a 
t N A. ^ 487 
cafe at this time, and the ftubble taken off the ground, 
•. it is ploughed with a Angle buffalo. Their plough was 
of limple conftru&ion, and in parts where the foil is very 
light it was drawn by men and women. There is no 
coulter to the plough ; the fhare which penetrates being 
made to terminate in a curve, performs the office of a 
mould-board lor turning back the earth. It is lometimes 
made of iron, but more frequently with the iron-wood 
already defcribed. Their rice and corn fields are dll on 
an even furface, not as in Europe, divided into ridges 
and furrows; and their corn is fown neatly in drills, or 
dibbled. , At a few miles diftance from each other were 
military polls, with loldiers ftationed to prote£t the in¬ 
ternal traffic of the provinces. Chinefe foldiers wear their 
Iwords on the left fide, having the point before them; 
and they are drawn by turning their right hand behind 
them. Though leveral of their villages are as large as 
lbme European cities, they are held in little eftimation, 
unlefs encompafied by a wall; and thefe walls, which al¬ 
ways furround towns, are generally higher than the tops 
of their liigheft lioules. No legal tax has been impoled 
for the maintenance of priells in any religion in China 5 
yet there is fomething contributed to defray the expehces 
of facrifices made at every new and full moon, in fpring 
and autumn, and at the commencement of the new year. 
No fuch thing as Sunday, or a day of reft, is known there; 
nor is the week divided in that manner. The temples are 
every day open for the free ingrefs of devotees, fome of 
whom bequeath benefactions for the fupport of priefts. 
During the reign of the laft emperor a land-tax was 
fubftituted for a poll-tax; and though molt of the im¬ 
ports, and all kinds of 'luxuries, are taxed, yet as the duty 
is added to the original price of the commodity, the con- 
fumer can feldom diltinguilh the one from the other. 
There is likewife atranfit duty on goods pafling from one 
province to another, which is.a great fource of revenue. 
And the public treafury is not a little enriched by pre¬ 
fents from tributaries, and fubjeCts of the empire, as 
well as by confil’cations of affluent criminals. But the 
feveral fpecies of grain, upon whicii the poor principally 
lubfift, are exempt from taxation. 
The embafly entered the province of Chan-tong on the 
18th of October, which being the day of full moon, the 
whole night was occupied in the performance of religious 
rites. There was an inceflant noife of guns firing, mu ftc 
playing, loos beating, fireworks launching, and matches 
burning, from the hour of midnight till the fun-riling. 
On the 2zd of the fame month, the yachts arrived at 
Lin-fin-choo, a city of the lecond order, where the yachts 
quitted the Eu-ho, and entered the imperial or grand 
canal, on which the embafly was deflined to proceed to 
the city of Han-choo-foo, in an irregular line of about 
five hundred miles, the length which the canal extends, 
not only over heights and through vallies, but acrofs the 
great Yellow River, the Yang-tie-kiang, and feveral other 
confiderable rivers, until it terminates in the large ele¬ 
gant baton of Han-choo-foo. Near the commencement 
of the canal, at Lin-fin-choo, Hands a magnificent Ta, or 
pagoda, nine ltories high ; the fiiuation of which, in the 
opinion of fir George Staunton, being improper either for 
a watch-tower, or an obelilk, the fuppofed ufual purpofes 
of fuch ltruCtures, he imagines it to have been ereCled as * 
a monument to commemorate either the beginning, or 
the accomplilhment, of this canal, as a work ot no lefs 
genius than national utility. Thefe pagodas, called by 
the natives ta, are generally from a hundred and twenty 
to a hundred and fixty feet high ; the diameter ot their 
bafes being about a fourth or fifth of their altitude. O11 
the 15th the yachts reached the liigheft part of the canal, 
where the river Luen, the largeft which feeds the canal, 
delcends into it, with a molt rapid current, in a line per¬ 
pendicular to the courle of the canal. The oppolite weft- 
ern bank is therefore ftrengthened by a ftrong bulwark 
of ltone, againft which the waters of the Luen ltrike with 
fuch violence as fo divide, and follow, one part to the 
northern 
