Gemelli Careri's round-the-world journey: China under the 'Eastern Tartars'
A Neapolitan traveller's eyewitness account of Kangxi's China in 1695 to 1696, including the Great Wall and Beijing's 'Tartar City'.
Full title Voyage round the World, part IV: the most notable things seen in China (with chapters on the origin of the Eastern Tartars and the Manchu conquest, the Lama and Tartary)
Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri (1651 to 1725), a Neapolitan lawyer, travelled round the world between 1693 and 1698, paying his own way. Part IV of his Giro del Mondo (Naples 1699 to 1700) covers China: he went from Canton to Beijing in 1695 to 1696, met the Kangxi emperor, visited the Great Wall and talked with Jesuits such as Filippo Grimaldi. He adds compiled chapters on religion and on the origin of the 'Eastern Tartars', the Manchu dynasty. The corpus holds the 1699 and 1700 printings of part IV and a 1727 edition; quotes come from the 1699 copy and one from the 1700 copy.
How they knew
Part eyewitness
Who “Tartar” means here
Mainly the Manchus ('Eastern Tartars') ruling China as the Qing, and the Mongols of 'Imperial Tartary' under them; also the 'Western Tartars' (Oirat Dzungars, 'Eluth') and Chinese Muslims said to come from 'Great Tartary'.
Why read it
A lay eyewitness who walked on the Great Wall, saw the Tartar and Chinese cities of Beijing, and records how the Manchu conquest changed Chinese dress and hair.
Watch out
Critics once doubted he went at all; his journey is now generally accepted, but he borrows freely from Jesuit books, especially on Tartar history, religion and the Dalai Lama.
Beijing's two cities: the Tartar City and the Chinese City
Editorial contextCareri describes Qing Beijing as two joined cities: the old walled 'City of the Tartars' around the palace, where the Manchu bannermen, officials and ministers lived, and the 'City of the Chinese', built later beside it for the overflow of inhabitants, about the same four leagues round and joined to the Tartar City by a single shared wall.
The City of the Chinese (which was built next to it to make room for the multitude of inhabitants) is of the same size as the City of the Tartars, being four leagues round; but its shape is not like that one ... on which side it joins the Tartar City by a single wall that divides them.
Working translation
Original wording
La Città de' Cinesi (che si fabbricò appresso per dar luogo alla moltitudine degli Abitanti) è dell'istessa grandezza, che la Città de'Tartari, tenendo quattro leghe di giro; ma la figura non è somigliante a quella … nel cui lato si unisce con la Città Tartara, con un sol muro, che le divide.
Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri (Giro del Mondo, part IV, Naples 1700)
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
Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri (Giro del Mondo, part IV, Naples 1700)
Editorial contextDescribing the lands between Beijing and the Russian frontier, Careri says the vast 'Imperial Tartary' owned by the emperor of China was uncultivated and wooded, and its 'poor Tartars' lived in huts without walled houses, like the ancient nomads with portable dwellings. But the present emperor was now 'civilising' them, beginning to have villages built and gathering them in, with forty tributary princes including the Khalkha.
those poor Tartars living there under huts, without walled houses, in the manner of the ancient Numidians or Hamaxobians, who, all given to the pastoral life, did not even have houses but went to live wherever it was most convenient with their portable huts. But the present Emperor of Tartary, now civilising them well, is beginning to have villages built for them and to gather them into these in communities
Working translation
Original wording
vivendovi que' poveri Tartari sotto capanne, senza case murate, a modo degli antichi Numidi, o Hamaxobiti, che tutti intesi alla vita pastorale, nè men case avevano, ma con loro portatili mapali, ove più concio era, andavano ad abitare. Ma l'Imperador odierno della Tartaria, bene al presente dirozzandogli comincia a far loro fabbricare Ville, e raccorgli entro a quelle in comunanza
Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri (Giro del Mondo, part IV, Naples 1700)
Editorial contextBefore the Tartars began to rule, Careri says, the Chinese wore their hair long, wound behind the head in a knot pinned with silver. After 'the empire of the Tartar' everyone was ordered, on pain of death, to cut it and adopt the Tartar style: shaved head with one tuft, which the Chinese wore braided, sometimes down to the legs. Loose wide-sleeved robes were also banned for Tartar dress, 'which the Chinese felt, and still feel, in their hearts'.
Before the Tartars began to rule, the Chinese wore their hair long, winding it behind the head ... but after the empire of the Tartar, everyone was ordered on pain of death to cut it, and to go in the Tartar manner, with the head shaved and a tuft
Working translation
Original wording
Prima che cominciassero a dominare i Tartari, portavano i Cinesi lunghi i capelli, avvolgendogli dietro la testa … ma dopo l'Imperio del Tartaro, fu ordinato a tutti, in pena della vita, di tagliarsegli; e di andare alla maniera Tartara, colla testa rasa, e un ciuffo
Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri (Giro del Mondo, part IV, Naples 1700)
Editorial contextIn Nanjing Careri notes that not all inhabitants are Chinese: there are many 'Moors come from Great Tartary', two million across China according to Father Grimaldi, who marry their daughters only within their own sect and so multiply 'like locusts'. The royal palace sits in a citadel held by a Tartar (Manchu) garrison that let no one in.
The inhabitants of Nanking are not all Chinese: there are also many Moors who came from Great Tartary (Father Filippo Grimaldi assuring me that in all China there are two million of them), whose policy is not to marry their daughters except within their own sect
Working translation
Original wording
Gli abitanti, che sono in Nankin, non son tutti Cinesi, ma vi sono ancor molti Mori venuti dalla G. Tartaria (accertandomi il Padre Filippo Grimaldi, ch'in tutta la Cina ve ne siano due milioni), i quali han per politica di non casar le loro figlie, sol che nella propria Setta
Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri (Giro del Mondo, part IV, Naples 1700)
'Eastern Tartars': a Manchu dynasty from a small horde chief
Editorial contextCareri opens his chapter on the 'Eastern Tartars' by saying their princes' origin is so obscure that everyone who writes of it tells fables. They began only in this century from 'a small Horde chief, or captain of outlaws or wandering Tartars' called Tien-mim (Nurhaci). He goes on to divide Tartary into Eastern (Manchu lands, poor, with only two or three small towns) and a far more powerful Western Tartary, both mostly living in tents.
The origin of these princes is so obscure that whoever has tried to speak of it has fallen into fables. They had their beginning in this century from a small chief of a Horde, or captain of outlaws or wandering Tartars, who was called Tien-mim
Working translation
Original wording
E' così oscura di questi Principi l'origine, che chiunque ha voluto parlarne ha dato nelle favole. Eglino hanno avuto principio in questo secolo da un picciol Capo d'Horda, o Capitano di fuorusciti, o Tartari erranti, che si chiamava Tien-mim
Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri (Giro del Mondo, part IV, Naples 1700), compiling Martini and other Jesuit histories
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.
Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri (Giro del Mondo, part IV, Naples 1700)
Transcribed from the page image; long s normalized.
The fine print
How we know
firsthand The author saw the places or people described.
firsthand observation (Careri travelled Canton-Beijing in 1695-1696 and was received at the Kangxi court) mixed with compilation from Jesuit informants (Grimaldi) and printed sources; the authenticity of parts of his journey has been questioned but is now generally accepted
Research notes
Suspected of borrowing from Jesuit and other printed accounts; portions of the itinerary considered fabricated by some 18th-c. critics.
Why it matters
Late-seventeenth-century Italian lay eyewitness of Qing China and of European beliefs about Tartary and the Lama, independent of the Jesuit relations; frequently cited on the Manchu-Chinese dual administration.