Page:To the Court of the Emperor of China - vol I.djvu/11

Rh administration of the Company's affairs, to pay intelligent artists; and never tired of waiting in order that he might see things better, and hazard nothing upon mere conjecture, he every day added to what I shall call his Chinese riches.

But one of those uncommon events, such as it were to be wished might fall in the way of all true friends to useful science, occurred most opportunely to savour M. Van-Braam's inclinations and plan.

Appointed Second in the Embassy sent by the Dutch, East-India Company to the Emperor of China in 1794, a vast extent of country was laid open to his view. Thus converting into personal experience what had been little more than oral tradition, he had the most favourable opportunity of verifying all that had been related; to him, and, what was still more fortunate, of forming a judgment of things which he had not even had an idea of enquiring into, because nothing had given him reason to suspect their existence.

Astonished by what he saw, M. Van-Braam did not lose a single moment in making the inhabitants of the other parts of the world, as far as it depended upon him, partakers in the sensations he experienced, and in the well-founded admiration he felt on more than one occasion. Doubly a painter, his pen and his pencil were constantly employed in depicting whatever he saw; and sparing neither pains nor expence, he may be said not to