On  the  19th  of  September,  as  no  answer  had  yet
come  from  the  great  man  who  was  spoken  of  some
days  before,  we  began  to  apprehend  that  these  cau-
tious people  intended  to  exclude  us  from  their
countiy  altogether.  We  tried  in  vain  to  discover
whether  the  king,  as  we  sti-ongiy  suspected,  was
at  this  place,  or,  as  they  said,  at  a  hundred  or  a
thousand  miles  off;  but  they  eluded  all  our  inqui-
ries, and  when  they  saw  us  upon  a  wrong  scent,
very  dexterously  kept  us  in  the  line  we  had  talven
up.  On  such  occasions,  a  traveller's  busy  fancy  of-
ten misleads  him  ;  the  least  hint  of  a  new  fact  sends
his  speculations  abroad,  and  his  ready  journal  soon
becomes  the  receptacle  of  many  an  unsubstantial
theory,  which  he  has  seldom  the  means  of  verify-
ing or  disproving  afterwards.  So  that,  with  the
most  honest  intentions,  he  is  pei-petually  liable  to
become  the  unconscious  recorder  of  error.
140  LOO-CHOO.   ,

By  means  of  a  telescope,  a  large  building  was
distinctly  made  out  on  a  rising  gi'ound,  three  or
four  miles  fi*om  the  harbour  of  Napakiang,  in  a
North-eastern  direction,  which  was  rendered  still
more  conspicuous  by  two  flag-statis  erected  near  it.
We  concluded  immediately  that  this  could  be  no
other  tlian  the  palace  mentioned  in  an  old  Chinese
account  of  Loo-Choo,  quoted  by  Pere  Gaubil,  a
very  amusing  Jesuit,  who  writes  in  the  Lettres
Edifiantes  et  Curieuses,  vol.  XXIII.  But  as  the
natives  always  refused  to  give  any  information
about  this  building,  we  remain  ignorant  of  its  na-
ture.
