Page:The lives of celebrated travellers (Volume 2).djvu/159

 *temptible obstacle to valour, and challenged them to defend their empire by arms, they discovered that soldiers are the only wall which a wise people should oppose to its enemies, all other defences being found upon trial to be utterly vain. No country, no, not even Hindostan itself, has been more frequently conquered than China; nor has any region of the earth been more frequently desolated and drenched with blood by civil wars and rebellions; and if ever circumstances should render it necessary for us to extend our conquests in Asia beyond the Burrampooter on the north-east, it would be seen with what ease the Hindoo Sipahees, who subdued Tippoo Sultan, the Rohillas, Rajpoots, Patans, and Burmese, would rout and subdue the feeble and inefficient troops of China.

But to proceed with our traveller. All the way to Pekin they observed terrible marks of the destructive power of earthquakes in these countries; many of the towns having been half-destroyed by one which had happened the preceding year, when great numbers of people were buried beneath the ruins. The country appeared to be well cultivated, and the towns and villages numerous, but not in any remarkable degree. They reached Pekin on the 18th of November.

Bell had now reached the goal of his wishes, and upon the whole was not disappointed. Long accustomed to the sight of savages immersed in ignorance and barbarism, he found the Chinese, by comparison, highly civilized. They drank tea, cultivated fine fruits, manufactured excellent silks, paper, and porcelain, and accumulated considerable wealth; but, before they were taught by the Jesuits, scarcely understood sufficient astronomy to enable them to cal-*