Japan: his fleet was twice shipwrecked; and the lives of a hundred thousand Moguls and Chinese were sacrificed in the fruitless expedition. But the circumjacent kingdoms, Corea, Tonkin, Cochinchina, Pegu, Bengal, and Thibet, were reduced in different degrees of tribute and obedience by the effort or terror of his arms. He explored the Indian Ocean with a fleet of a thousand ships: they sailed in sixty-eight days, most probably to the Isle of Borneo, under the equinoctial line; and though they returned not without spoil or glory, the emperor was dissatisfied that the savage king had escaped from their hands. 22 (return) [ In Marco Polo, and the Oriental geographers, the names of Cathay and Mangi distinguish the northern and southern empires, which, from A.D. 1234 to 1279, were those of the great khan, and of the Chinese. The search of Cathay, after China had been found, excited and misled our navigators of the sixteenth century, in their attempts to discover the north-east passage.] 23 (return) [ I depend on the knowledge and fidelity of the Père Gaubil, who translates the Chinese text of the annals of the Moguls or Yuen, (p. 71, 93, 153;) but I am ignorant at what time these annals were composed and published. The two uncles of Marco Polo, who served as engineers at the siege of Siengyangfou, * (l. ii. 61, in Ramusio, tom. ii. See Gaubil, p. 155, 157) must have felt and related the effects of this destructive powder, and their silence is a weighty, and almost decisive objection. I entertain a suspicion, that their recent discovery was carried from Europe to China by the caravans of the xvth century and falsely adopted as an old national discovery before the arrival of the Portuguese and Jesuits in the xvith. Yet the Père Gaubil affirms, that the use of gunpowder has been known to the Chinese above 1600 years. ** Note: * Sou-houng-kian-lou. Abel Remusat.—M. Note: ** La poudre à canon et d’autres compositions inflammantes, dont ils se servent pour construire des pièces d’artifice d’un effet suprenant, leur étaient connues depuis très long-temps, et l’on croit que des bombardes et des pierriers, dont ils avaient enseigné l’usage aux Tartares, ont pu donner en Europe l’idée d’artillerie, quoique la forme des fusils et des canons dont ils se servent actuellement, leur ait été apportée par les Francs, ainsi que l’attestent les noms mêmes qu’ils donnent à ces sortes d’armes. Abel Remusat, Mélanges Asiat. 2d ser. tom. i. p. 23.—M.]