PURCHAS HIS PILGRIMES
which withstood them Walsh or Welch in a kind of disgrace. Nay still the Northerne Chinois call the Southerne Mangines, that is, rude or barbarous, as the Jesuites have taught us. But neither Cathay, nor Mangi, was then the name which they assumed, but was given them by the Tartars, as China is a name unknowne to them now. If any will find no other Cambalu, nor Cathay but Pequin and China, I will not contend, though my Reasons elsewhere P. Pil. L. 4. c. 12. §. 2.given out of Polo, and Chaggi Memet, and others, with the former Relations of Pinto and Alhacen, make me scrupulous, and still to beleeve some greater Prince or Can with his Cambalu or Court in the more Northerly parts of Asia, then the Jesuits could learne of; which the China jealousie, admitting no entercourse of Strangers, and the many quarrelling Tartar Princes in the way have concealed from us hitherto.
The great blacke space on the North-west hath in the Originall certayne Characters in it which expresse it: whether it intendeth Mountayns which their Art could no better expresse, and the Rivers thence running may import; or that sandy Desert on the North-west, I cannot so well determine. The Jesuits say, that ab occasu qui Aquiloni vicinior est, counterminus visitur arrenæ sitientis ager, qui multorum dierum penuria advenarum exercitus ab Sinarum Regno aut deterret, aut sepelit. I rather thinke that it is Cara Catay or Blacke Catay, before often mentioned, both Mountaynous, and Desert, and perhaps coloured blackish, as the name intimates, by black sands, or as health grounds with us: it was the first Tartarian Conquest, and beginning of the greatest greatnesse which this World hath yeelded; the Countrey before of Presbyter Joannes Asiaticus.
The wall is in this forme in the original, not in the Picture made up of Mountaynes, wherein I thinke they had not art to imitate Nature; the Art in the whole Map much resembling our old Maps, of wooden prints, save that I see not one Mountaine presented in swelling fashion to the Eye. The Ilands are very many with their Char-478
