'No Chinese may punish me on the Tartar side of the wall'
Editorial contextAlthough Chinese and Tartars had one master, Staunton found the Great Wall still treated as the boundary between two peoples. Just past it, a Tartar attendant facing punishment by Chinese mandarins loudly refused, claiming they had no authority over him on the Tartar side. On the next page a Chinese mandarin dares not sit before a Tartar officer of equal rank.
The line it has traced, continues still to be considered as a demarkation between the respective nations of Chinese and Tartars. … one of the Tartar attendants was about to be punished for some misdemeanour, by order of the Chinese mandarines; but he resisted with much vehemence, loudly exclaiming, that no Chinese had a right of exercising authority over him on the Tartar side of the great wall.
About Manchus (Tartar attendants) and Chinese
Continue in this sourceStaunton's official account of the Macartney embassy to China and Tartary1792 to 1794 · 13 passagesWhy the Chinese say 'Tata'
Editorial contextMartini defines his subject: the Tartars are simply the people living north of the Great Wall, which for 300 German leagues has served as a rampart against them. He adds that the Chinese, lacking the letter R, have always called them 'Tata', and that the name covers both the Eastern Tartars, unknown in Europe, and the Western ones stretching from Kashgar to the sea above Japan.
I call that Nation Tartars, which inhabiting the Northern parts, behind that famous Wall which stretching out above 300. German Leagues from East to West, hath ever served for a Rampart to hinder their irruptions into the said Empire. This Country the Chineses having a defect of the letter R. antiently called Tata:
About Tartars in general: Eastern (Manchu/Jurchen) and Western (Mongol)
Keep in mind
Chinese 'Dada' (韃靼) is a real name for the Tatars; the 'missing R' explanation is Martini's.
A hundred leagues of wall, with mountains in the gaps
Editorial contextCruz reports that the Chinese have a wall of a hundred leagues (some say more) between themselves and the Tartars, always garrisoned against Tartar raids. He reasons that it cannot be continuous but must use mountains to fill the gaps, because a Persian lord told him Persia had similar walls broken by hills. The Wall is credited plainly to the Chinese, built against the Tartars.
as I have said, the Chinese have a hundred leagues of wall (others say it is more) between themselves and them, where there are always garrisons to defend against the incursions of the Tartars. It may be believed that this wall is not continuous, but that some mountains or ranges come in between, because a lord of Persia assured me that there were similar works in some parts of Persia, with hills or ranges coming in between.
Working translation
Original wording
como tenho dito tem os Chinas cẽ legoas (dizendo outros que seram mais) de muro ãtre si e elles, õde ha sempre guarnições de gente pera defesa das ẽtradas dos Tartaros. Pode se crer que este muro nam he cõtinuado se nam q̃ se antremetem algũs mõtes ou serras, porq̃ me afirmou hũ señor da Persia que auia semelhantes obras nalgũas partes da persia, cõ se antremeterẽ outeiros ou serras.
About Chinese garrisons facing the Tartars
A note on this quote
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of this blackletter print is garbled); long s normalized, the Tironian sign for 'and' given as 'e', a few contractions (de, per, pro, terra) expanded, other abbreviation marks kept as printed.
A Mongol nun's prophecy of a war in heaven
Editorial contextNear the Great Wall Brand met Mongols or Tartars of the Dalai Lama's faith, who kept images in their houses with little pots of food and drink before them and set a white cock on the coffin at burials. Asked whom she worshipped, a Mongol nun telling her beads answered that it was the god whom 'our' God had thrust out of heaven, who would return and throw the Christians' God down.
A Mongol nun, who with a rosary in her hand kept moving her lips continually, was asked whom she worshipped; she answered: the god who was thrust out of heaven by our God, and her god would come back into heaven and throw our God down from heaven again
Working translation
Original wording
Eine Mongalische Nonne, welche, mit einem Pater Noster in der Hand, continuirlich das Maul rührete, fragte man, wen sie anbetete, sie gab zur Antwort, den Gott, welcher von unsern Gott aus dem Himmel gestossen worden, und würde ihr Gott wieder im Himmel kommen, und wieder unsern Gott vom Himmel herunter werffen
About Mongols or 'Tartars' near the Great Wall
Keep in mind
A single conversation, probably through interpreters; the words may be garbled in translation.
A 500-league wall against the Tartars, mostly mountains
Editorial contextMendoza reports a wall 500 leagues long running west to east, built by a king 'Tzintzom' (Qin Shi Huang) to protect himself from the Tartars, 'and so the wall takes in the whole frontier of Tartary'. But, he adds, 400 of those leagues are made by nature, very high closed mountains; only the remaining hundred were built by the king, of very strong stone, seven fathoms wide at the base.
There is in this kingdom an enclosure or wall five hundred leagues long ... A king called Tzintzom made it to protect himself from the Tartars, with whom he was at war, and so the wall takes in the whole frontier of Tartary. But it must be understood that 400 of the leagues of the said wall are made by nature, for they are very high, very close-set mountains.
Working translation
Original wording
Hallase en este Reyno vna cerca, o muralla, que tiene quinientas leguas de largo … Hizo la vn Rey llamado Tzintzom, por ampararse de los Tartaros, con quien tenia guerra, y assi toma la muralla toda la frontera de Tartaria. Pero ha se de entender, que las 400. leguas que tiene la dicha muralla, son hechas por la naturaleza, por que son vnas sierras altissimas muy cerradas.
About Chinese builders; Tartars (Mongols) as the enemy
Keep in mind
Mendoza never saw it; he relies on Gaspar da Cruz, Rada and Chinese books. The natural-barrier claim comes from those sources.
Transcribed from the page image; long s normalized.
A Mongol tent 'like the roof of a round tower'
Editorial contextOn his first journey beyond the Great Wall with the Qing embassy to the Russians, the Jesuit Gerbillon went into a Mongol tent 'the better to know how they were built'. He describes a round cage of small sticks about 13 or 14 feet across and 8 or 9 feet high, with a pointed roof, covered with felt ('woollen stuff, not woven, but mill'd'). Inside: a plank bed, a bench, a cupboard and wooden bowls.
It is a sort of Cage, made of pretty small Sticks, round, and about 13 or 14 Foot Diameter. … the Roofing begins at about four Foot from the Ground, and ends in a Point like the Roof of a Round Tower, or Pigeon-house: They are covered with Pieces of Woollen Stuff, not woven, but mill'd.
About Mongols (Khalkha and southern Mongol herders)
Continue in this sourceDu Halde's Description of China and Chinese Tartary1600 to 1733 · 4 passagesThe Great Wall, built by a Chinese emperor against the Tartars
Editorial contextVerbiest crossed the Great Wall several times and says all seven wonders of the world together could not match it. He credits it to an ancient Chinese emperor who built it as a bulwark against the Western Tartars, and was amazed that water, brick and mortar had been hauled up dry mountains. He measured one stretch with an instrument at 1,037 geometrical feet above the horizon.
'twas to make a Bulwork against their Incursions, that a Chinese Emperor in Antient times caused this great Wall to be Built, which seperates China from their Countrey. I have passed it several times, and have considered it very attentively, And I can say without Hyperbolizing, that all the seven Wonders of the World put together, are not comparable to this worke.
About Mongols ('Western Tartars'); Chinese builders
Keep in mind
The OCR reads 'fewer times', which seems to be a misreading of 'several times'.
Cathay is China: Goes reaches the Wall
Editorial contextSemedo retells how the Jesuit brother Bento de Goes, travelling from India to find Cathay, learned from a caravan that Cathay and China were the same land under different names. He then passed Turfan and Hami to 'Quiaicion' (Jiayuguan), where one sees the wall dividing the Chinese from the Tartars, and on to Suzhou. This settled that 'Cathay' was simply northern China.
and the other, that China was the same as Cathay, there being no difference in the lands, but only in the names. … he passed through these towns: Puchan, Turfan, Aramuth, Camul, Quiaicion (from where one sees that much-repeated wall that divides the Chinese from the Tartars), Suzhou
Working translation
Original wording
i otra que la China era lo mismo que el Catayo: no aviendo diferencia en las tierras, si no en los nombres. … passò por estas poblaciones, Puchan, Turfan, Aramuth, Camul, Quiaicion (de donde se vè aquella repetida muralla, que divide a los Chinos de los Tartaros) Sucheu
About Tartars beyond the Wall; Muslim merchants of the caravan road
Keep in mind
Semedo retells Goes's journey from Jesuit papers; he did not travel it.
OCR normalized against the page image; long s normalized, abbreviation marks (q̃, õ, ẽ) kept as printed.
The Great Wall is brick, built against the Tartars
Editorial contextCareri rode out from Beijing and walked four miles up the mountains to see the Wall himself. It stood 15 to 20 feet high, higher and wider in the valleys, room for six horses abreast, built 'of large fire-baked bricks with few stones', with strong square towers two bowshots apart running to the sea. He credits the emperor 'Xi-hoamti' with building it more than 1800 years earlier 'as a defence against the raids of the Tartars'.
That wall is 15 feet high in some parts and 20 in others; but in the valleys it is much higher and wider, so that six horses can comfortably go abreast on it. The construction is of large bricks baked in the fire, with few stones, and from time to time it has its towers, very strong and square, one as far from the next as two bowshots
Working translation
Original wording
Egli è alto quel muro in alcune parti 15. e in altre 20. piedi; ma nelle valli è più alto assai, e più largo, potendovi agiatamente andar sei cavalli di fronte. La fabbrica è di grandi mattoni cotti al fuoco, con poche pietre: & ha di quando in quando le sue Torri bẽ forti, e quadrate, l'una lontana all'altra quanto due tratti di freccia
About Chinese builders; Tartars as the enemy it was built against
Keep in mind
The 1800-year date and builder are from Chinese tradition via Jesuit books; the brick section he saw is a Ming rebuild.
Transcribed from the page image; long s normalized.
Three khans, one people
Editorial contextBell names the three great 'Tartar princes' between the Volga and China: Ayuka Khan of the Volga Kalmyks, the Kontaysha of the Dzungars and the Tushetu Khan of the Khalkha Mongols. He treats all their subjects as one Kalmyk nation with the same looks, religion and language, and marvels at how far a traveller could go with that one language.
From the river Volga, to the wall of China, there are three great Tartar princes; the Ayuka-Chan, the Kontaysha, and the Tush-du-Chan. These three mighty nations have almost the same features, religion, and language; and live in the same manner. … whose subjects go by the general name of Kalmuks.
About Kalmyks and Mongols
Continue in this sourceJohn Bell's travels from St Petersburg across Asia1715 to 1738 · 18 passagesA wall up a cliff no Tartar horse could climb
Editorial contextCareri found the Wall one of the greatest and 'most senseless' works ever made. What made him laugh was seeing it carried to the top of a precipitous mountain where 'the Tartar cavalry' could never have climbed; and if the Chinese thought raiders could scramble up the cliffs, it was foolish to think so low a wall would stop them. A rare eyewitness who was unimpressed.
But what struck me as altogether laughable was to see the wall carried even to the peaks of a very high and precipitous mountain, where hardly even woodpeckers could cling, let alone the Tartar cavalry climb up to enter the country.
Working translation
Original wording
Ma quel, che affatto mi sembrò da ridere, fu a vedere il muro tratto ancor fino alle cime d'un'altissimo, e straripevol monte, ove appena vi sarebbero appiccati i picchi: non che montar vi potesse la cavalleria Tartara per entrar nel paese.
About Tartar cavalry (steppe nomads)
Keep in mind
His own opinion of the defensive logic.
Transcribed from the page image; long s normalized.
Where China ends and 'Tartary' begins: the Wall at Gubeikou
Editorial contextOn the road north the embassy slept every night in the emperor's own travel palaces, so Hüttner skips the small places, but not the little town on the famous Great Wall 'which forms the border between China and Tartary', called Chu-pa-ku, 'between or at the wall' (Gubeikou). For him the Wall is the line where Tartary starts. He adds that the old Wall had fallen in many places and its towers had no garrisons, and the embassy took away pieces of its stone and mortar as curiosities.
since we slept every night in the imperial palaces in which the emperor himself is accustomed to stay … One small town, however, is too remarkable for me not to mention it. It lies on the famous Chinese Wall, which forms the border between China and Tartary, and is called Chu-pa-ku, that is, between or at the wall.
Working translation
Original wording
da wir alle Nächte in den Kaiserlichen Pallästen schliefen, in welchen der Kaiser selbst zu übernachten pflegt … Eine kleine Stadt ist indess zu merkwürdig, als dass ich sie nicht erwähnen sollte. Sie liegt an der berühmten Chinesischen Mauer, welche die Gränze zwischen China und der Tartarei macht, und heisst: Chu-pa-ku, d. i. zwischen oder an der Mauer.
About Embassy travellers; Qing officials
Keep in mind
The details on the Wall's decay come from the next, badly scanned pages (p. 48 to 49).
The wall that divides China from Tartary
Editorial contextBarrow calls the Great Wall, built against the Tartars, China's most stupendous work: a mound of earth faced with brick or stone like Beijing's walls. On the next page he calculates that its masonry would equal all the houses of England and Scotland and credits it to the First Emperor.
But the most stupendous work of this country is the great wall that divides it from northern Tartary. It is built exactly upon the same plan as the wall of Pekin
About Chinese builders; 'roving Tartars' beyond
Keep in mind
Barrow did not cross the wall himself (he stayed near Beijing while Macartney went to Jehol); he relies on Captain Parish's survey for the embassy.
Soldiers pocketing bricks from the Great Wall
Editorial contextHolmes reports what the soldiers were told on the spot: the Wall was built about 1,500 years earlier against Tartar raids on the northern provinces and ran about 1,400 miles. They measured it at 25 feet high and 36 paces thick at the gate, saw it was built of brick, and everyone from the ambassador to the privates collected pieces as souvenirs.
That part of it which we measured and examined, with uncommon pains, was in height 25 feet, and in breadth, through the gate, 36 regular paces, which breadth it carried to the summit. … It was built of brick; many pieces of which were as anxiously collected as if they were wedges of the most precious metal, by all ranks, from his Excellency to the private soldier
About Chinese builders; 'the Tartars' as the threat
Keep in mind
The age and length of the Wall are what he was told, not measured.
The wall between China and Tartary, 'which I saw and measured'
Editorial contextPinto says a Chinese king, after wars with the Tartar, closed the whole border of the two empires with a wall, built in 27 years by 750,000 men over 315 leagues. He claims to have seen and measured it: six fathoms high and forty palms thick, with an earth rampart faced with mortar at its foot, and watchtowers of two storeys on black ironwood posts instead of towers.
This wall I saw several times, and measured it, and it is generally throughout six fathoms high and forty palms wide in the thickness of the wall, but from four fathoms down there runs a fill like an earthen rampart, sloped on the outer face with a cement like mortar
Working translation
Original wording
Este muro vy eu algũas vezes, & o medy, que he por todo geralmente de seis braças dalto, & quarenta palmos de largo no mociço da parede, mas das quatro braças para baixo corre hum entulho a modo de terrapleno, alamborado da face de fora de hũ betume como argamassa
About Chinese builders; Tartars as the enemy
Keep in mind
Pinto's Tartar episodes are widely regarded as fictional or built from hearsay; treat as claimed travel. His 'Chinese chronicle' history of the wall is unreliable.
Transcribed from the page image; long s and abbreviations normalized.
The Great Wall measured: earth, brick and blue bricks that were really burned
Editorial contextUsing Captain Parish's survey for Macartney's embassy, Davis gives the wall's make-up: an earthen core faced on both sides with masonry and brick, a platform of square bricks, 20 feet high including the parapet, 25 feet thick at the base. The bricks are bluish, which made people doubt they were fired, until old kilns were found and Dr Abel showed in 1816 that Chinese clay burns blue. The wall, he says, was a useful barrier until Chinggis Khan overran it.
The body of the wall consists of an earthen mound, retained on each side by walls of masonry and brick, and terraced by a platform of square bricks. The total height, including a parapet of five feet, is twenty feet, on a basis of stone projecting two feet under the brick-work,
About Chinese builders (the wall as a barrier against the Tartars)
Continue in this sourceJohn Francis Davis's The Chinese1800 to 1833 · 10 passagesMarco Polo's lost city of Campion
Editorial contextStrahlenberg says he asked every nation in Tartary about Marco Polo's city of Campion, shown on old maps, and found no one who had heard of it. He concludes the name was mispronounced and that it must be the city at the western entrance of the Chinese Wall, which the Tatars call Camtzi, where all caravans must stop and wait for permission to enter China.
although I made considerable inquiry among all the nations of Tartary about the name of the city of Campion, as Marco Polo and other old maps set it before us, I nevertheless found not a single one who could inform me about it from old or recent times … [the city] which lies in the mountains at the entrance of the Chinese Wall on the western side, which the Tatars call Camtzi instead of Campion
Working translation
Original wording
ob gleich bey allen Nationen in der Tatarey von dem Nahmen der Stadt Campion, wie eben uns Marcus Paulus und andere alte Mappen darlegen, ziemliche Nachfrage gethan, ich dennoch keine einzige gefunden, die mir weder aus alter noch neuer Zeit, davon Unterricht geben können … welche im Gebürge und beym Eingange der Chinaeischen Mauer Westlicher Seiten lieget, die von den Tatern in Stelle vor Campion, Camtzi … genant wird
About Peoples of 'Tartary'
Keep in mind
The OCR of this copy is badly garbled Fraktur; the quote has been restored letter by letter from the damaged text, so check the scan.
The scan is too rough to double-check this quote by machine. Compare it with the page.
Kangxi kills a bear with a half-pike
Editorial contextDavis says the emperors Kangxi and Qianlong kept up 'the hardy and warlike habits of the Manchows' with great ring hunts north of the Wall, led by a small army with falconers. He quotes Gerbillon: Kangxi shot a bear with an arrow from across a valley, then dismounted and finished it with a half-pike 'used by the Manchows against tigers'. Davis contrasts this with the later emperors who kept cancelling the hunt.
The Emperor, upon this, alighting from his horse took a half-pike, used by the Manchows against tigers, and, accompanied by four of the ablest hunters armed in the same way, he approached the bear and killed him outright with a stab of his half-pike.
About Manchu emperors and their hunting army
Keep in mind
A quotation from Gerbillon's journal, not Davis's own observation.
Tartary: herds on the hills, few houses
Editorial contextFrom the Wall it was four days' hard travel through hills and valleys to Jehol. Holmes found the country fertile and good pasture for immense herds of sheep and cattle, but thinly peopled, with only scattered houses in the valleys and no place of note until Jehol.
The country appeared fertile, though so rugged, and afforded good pasturage for immense herds of sheep and bullocks. It was but thinly peopled; here and there a few scattered houses in
About People of 'Tartary' beyond the Wall
Keep in mind
The sentence continues on the next page ('the vallies, but no place of note till we entered Gehor').
