IT was the beginning of February, new style, when we set out fromPekin. My partner and the old pilot had gone express back to theport where we had first put in, to dispose of some goods which wehad left there; and I, with a Chinese merchant whom I had someknowledge of at Nankin, and who came to Pekin on his own affairs,went to Nankin, where I bought ninety pieces of fine damasks, withabout two hundred pieces of other very fine silk of several sorts,some mixed with gold, and had all these brought to Pekin against mypartner's return. Besides this, we bought a large quantity of rawsilk, and some other goods, our cargo amounting, in these goodsonly, to about three thousand five hundred pounds sterling; which,together with tea and some fine calicoes, and three camels' loadsof nutmegs and cloves, loaded in all eighteen camels for our share,besides those we rode upon; these, with two or three spare horses,and two horses loaded with provisions, made together twenty-sixcamels and horses in our retinue.…