So soon as our simpleton shall have shown the philosopher a few of our ceremonies, which every wise man disapproves, but which are tolerated in order to amuse the populace, through pure contempt for that populace, the traveller, seeing these mummeries, followed by a tambourine dance, will not fail to pity and take us for madmen, who are, nevertheless, very amusing and not absolutely cruel. He will write home to the president of the Grand College of Benares that we have not common sense; but that if _His Paternity_ will send enlightened and discreet persons among us, something may, _with the blessing of God_, be made of us. It was precisely in this way that our first missionaries, especially St. Francis Xavier, spoke of the people inhabiting the peninsula of India. They even fell into still grosser mistakes respecting the customs of the Indians, their sciences, their opinions, their manners, and their worship. The accounts which they sent to Europe were extremely curious. Every statue was a devil; every assembly a sabbath; every symbolical figure a talisman; every Brahmin a sorcerer; and these are made the subject of never-ending lamentations. They hope that _the harvest will be abundant_; and add, by a rather incongruous metaphor, that _they will labor effectually in the vineyard of the Lord_, in a country where wine has always been unknown. Thus, or nearly thus, have every people judged, not only of distant nations, but of their neighbors. The Chinese are said to be the most ancient almanac-makers. The finest of their emperor's privileges is that of sending his calendar to his vassals and neighbors; their refusal of which would be considered as a bravado, and war would forthwith be made upon them, as it used to be in Europe on feudal lords who refused their homage. If we have only _twelve_ constellations, the Chinese have _twenty-eight_, the names of which have not the least affinity with ours--a sufficient proof that they have taken nothing from the Chaldæan Zodiac, that we have adopted. But though they have had a complete system of astrology for more than four thousand years, they resemble _Matthew Lansberg_ and _Anthony Souci_ in the fine predictions and secrets of health with which they stuff their _Imperial Almanac_. They divide the day into ten thousand minutes, and know, with the greatest precision, what minute is favorable or otherwise. When the Emperor Kamhi wished to employ the Jesuit missionaries in making the almanac, they are said to have excused themselves, at first, on account of the extravagant superstitions with which it must be filled. "I have much less faith than you in the superstitions," replied the emperor; "only make me a good calendar, and leave it for my learned men to fill up the book with their foolery."