Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/118

106 106 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. ten Jewish tribes, who, although they choose their own kings, are nevertheless the slaves and tributaries of our Excellency. " In another province of our States, near the torrid zone, there are worms, called in our language Salamanders, which can only live in the fire. They envelop themselves in a kind of tissue, like the insects that produce silk, and the substance is wrought with care by the ladies of our palace, and thus we have stuffs and garments of it for the use of our Excellency. These garments can only be purified by being placed in a fierce fire, " We believe that we have no equal, either for the quantity of our riches, or the number of our subjects. When we issue forth to make war upon our enemies, we have borne before us, upon thirteen cars, thirteen large and precious crosses, ornamented with gold and jewels. Each cross is followed by ten thousand horsemen and a hundred thousand foot soldiers, without counting the men of war, charged to conduct the baggage and provisions of the army. " When we go out merely on horseback, our Majesty is preceded by a cross without either gold, jewels, or any ornament, in order that we may always remember the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ ; then there is a golden vase filled with earth, in order to remind us that our body must return whence it came — that is to say, to the earth ; and lastly, there is a silver vase filled with gold, that every one may understand that we are the Lord of Lords. Our magnificence surpasses all the riches in the world. " Every year we visit the body of the prophet St. Daniel, in the desert of Babylon. We go there armed because of the serpents. In our country is caught the fish whose blood is used for the purple dye. We rule over the Amazons, and likewise over the Brahmins. The palace in which our Sublimity resides, is like that built by St. Thomas, for Gondophorus, King of India.* Its woodwork is of the most costly kind, and its roof is of ebony, to avoid the danger of fire. At the summit of this palace are seen two golden globes, surmounted each by a carbuncle, in order that the gold may shine during the day, and the carbuncle at night. The tables on which the repasts are spread in this palace are, some of gold and some of amethyst; the columns that support them are of ivory. " The chamber where our Sublimity reposes, is ornamented with
 * The tradition, it will be seen, is still the same.