as thofe in the fore, the plates were returned to be altered (which
. was done) quite to the tafte of the Chinefe. The mountain
fcenerÿ is magnificent; the adlions or furprifes cruel and fan-
guinary ; the fortified places, and little wooden forts, exaéily re-
prefented, with various fpecimens o f the art military o f thefe
diftant Afiatics. I obferved the BaSlrian or two bunched camel
much in' ufé, carrying fwivel guns on their backs, which were
difcharged at the fugitives climbing up the fteeps o f the mountains.
This work conflits of fixteen very large prints, finely engraven.
The copiés in Europe'are rare ; ten thoufand pounds
were allowed for the execution.
A r t i l l e r y . T he ufe of artillery was not known among the Chinefe till the
arrival o f the Europeans. The firft cannon they ever faw, were
three, fent as a prefent to the emperor, by the Portuguefe of
Macao, in 1621. Thefe were afterwards ufed again ft the Tartars,
who came in fwarms to the great wall, but terrified by the
ilaughter made among them by thefe novel machines o f war,
they never approached it more.
G u n p o w d e r . G u n pow d e r was invented in Europe'by a monk ; the firft
cannon ever caft in China, were the work o f a Jefuit, Father
Adam Schaal,by order of the emperor; the next o f the father
Verhieß, the great ornament of the order; he firft .caft ahundred
and thirty, and after that three hundred and twenty.. They
were tried in the prefence o f the emperor, who fo greatly approved
the fervices of Verhieß, that he loaded him with honors.
-The Jefuits, in return, fixed on a day for hlelfing his labors j
dreffed in his religious habit, he mine times proftrated himfelf,
and beat his forehead againft the ground. He had pre.viouily
fixed
fixed a crucifix on an altar before.the train o f artillery, which
he baptized piece by piece, and gave to each the name o f a
male or female faint, taken from the calendar of his own
church.
G u n pow d e r was of very early invention in China and in
India, but till the time that I have juft mentioned, it was never
applied to any other ufes than fire-works on feftive occafions, in
which the Chinefe ftill excel all the reft o f the world. I refer the
reader to p. 362 o f the preceding volume, for what I have faid on
the fubjedt of the powder and artillery o f the Orientalifts.
Voltaire aflerts that the Chinefe had a manufactory o f glafs G l a s s .
above two thoufand years ago. Du Halde fays that looking
glalles are not among their articles of furniture. They have indeed
at Ten-ching, in the province of Shang-tung, a manufaitory,
but fo brittle is their Lew-li, or glafs, as to break when expofed to
too cold an air. I am farther confirmed by my worthy friend
Thomas Fitzhugh, Efquire, (long refident in China) that the art
of making glafs in China was in,a very imperfedt ftate, as he informs
me that about fixty or feventy years they were fupplied
with that article from England, which would not have been the
cafe had they excelled at home. The glafs was carried over in
pieces in the ihape of .bricks, from which trade it may be
fuppofed the Chinefe either did not then make it, or that they
found it more expenfive in the procefs than purchafing the articles
from foreigners*.
* The manufacture of glafs, if a mere repetition of the fufion of broken pieces, or of cakes
brought from Europe, deferves the name, is confined to Canton, and unknown in the reft of the
empire. E. Embaffy to China, Vol. ii. p. 288.
V ol. III. P T he