These Are Chinese Merchants,
Very Sharp And Sensible Men In Every Thing Relating To Trade, Extremely
Ingenious In All Kinds Of Mechanical Contrivances, And The Most Expert
Embroiderers On Silk And Satin Of Any In The World.
They will execute
any form of beast, fowl, or fish, in gold, silver, or silk, having all
the just
Proportions and colours in every part, and giving all the life
and beauty to their work, as if done by the best painter, or even as
nature has bestowed on the originals. The trade of these men with
Manilla must be very profitable, as they bring great quantities of gold
there, and exchange it against silver, weight for weight.[56]
[Footnote 55: The latitude of Cape Espiritu Santo, as given in the test,
is grossly erroneous, being only 12 deg. 35' N. and its long. 125 deg. 30' E.
from Greenwich. The difference of longitude from Guam, Guaham, or
Guaci, the most southerly of the Ladrones, is 17 deg. 45' nearly east, and
consequently 355 marine leagues. This island is divided from Luzon, or
Luconia, the principal island of the Philippines, by the narrow straits
of San Bernardino; and Cape Espiritu Santo is about 100 leagues, in a
straight line, from the city of Manilla, which lies to the N.W. Cape
Espiritu Santo is at the N.W. extremity of the island of Samar. - E.]
[Footnote 56: This surely is an egregious error, as such acute merchants
as the Chinese are here represented, and actually are, could never be so
foolish as to give gold for silver, weight for weight.
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