turn of command; nor was this forming us
into order any more than what we afterwards found needful on the way.

The road all on this side of the country is very populous, and is full of
potters and earth-makers--that is to say, people, that temper the earth
for the China ware. As I was coming along, our Portuguese pilot, who had
always something or other to say to make us merry, told me he would show
me the greatest rarity in all the country, and that I should have this to
say of China, after all the ill-humoured things that I had said of it,
that I had seen one thing which was not to be seen in all the world
beside. I was very importunate to know what it was; at last he told me
it was a gentleman's house built with China ware. "Well," says I, "are
not the materials of their buildings the products of their own country,
and so it is all China ware, is it not?"--"No, no," says he, "I mean it
is a house all made of China ware, such as you call it in England, or as
it is called in our country, porcelain."--"Well," says I, "such a thing
may be; how big is it? Can we carry it in a box upon a camel? If we can
we will buy it."--"Upon a camel!" says the old pilot, holding up both his
hands; "why, there is a family of thirty people lives in it."

I was then curious, indeed, to see it; and when I came to it, it was
nothing but this: it was a timber house, or a house built, as we call it
in England, with lath and plaster, but all this plastering was really
China ware--that is to say, it was plastered with the earth that makes
China ware. The outside, which the sun shone hot upon, was glazed, and
looked very well, perfectly white, and painted with blue figures, as the
large China ware in England is painted, and hard as if it had been burnt.
As to the inside, all the walls, instead of wainscot, were lined with
hardened and painted tiles, like the little square tiles we call galley-
tiles in England, all made of the finest china, and the figures exceeding
fine indeed, with extraordinary variety of colours, mixed with gold, many
tiles making but one figure, but joined so artificially, the mortar being
made of the same earth, that it was very hard to see where the tiles met.
The floors of the rooms were of the same composition, and as hard as the
earthen floors we have in use in several parts of England; as hard as
stone, and smooth, but not burnt and painted, except some smaller rooms,
like closets, which were all, as it were, pa