NOTE 6.—“_E non veggono mai l’ora che di nuovo possano ritornarvi;_” a curious Italian idiom. (See _Vocab. It. Univ._ sub. v. “_vedere_”.) NOTE 7.—It would seem that the habits of the Chinese in reference to the use of pepper and such spices have changed. Besides this passage, implying that their consumption of pepper was large, Marco tells us below (ch. lxxxii.) that for one shipload of pepper carried to Alexandria for the consumption of Christendom, a hundred went to Zayton in Manzi. At the present day, according to Williams, the Chinese use little spice; pepper chiefly as a febrifuge in the shape of _pepper-tea_, and that even less than they did some years ago. (See p. 239, _infra_, and _Mid. Kingd._, II. 46, 408.) On this, however, Mr. Moule observes: “Pepper is not so completely relegated to the doctors. A month or two ago, passing a portable cookshop in the city, I heard a girl-purchaser cry to the cook, ‘Be sure you put in _pepper and leeks!_’” NOTE 8.—Marsden, after referring to the ingenious frauds commonly related of Chinese traders, observes: “In the long continued intercourse that has subsisted between the agents of the European companies and the more eminent of the Chinese merchants ... complaints on the ground of commercial unfairness have been extremely rare, and on the contrary, their transactions have been marked with the most perfect good faith and mutual confidence.” Mr. Consul Medhurst bears similar strong testimony to the upright dealings of Chinese merchants. His remark that, as a rule, he has found that the Chinese deteriorate by intimacy with foreigners is worthy of notice;[3] it is a remark capable of application wherever the East and West come into habitual contact. Favourable opinions among the nations on their frontiers of Chinese dealing, as expressed to Wood and Burnes in Turkestan, and to Macleod and Richardson in Laos, have been quoted by me elsewhere in reference to the old classical reputation of the Seres for integrity. Indeed, Marco’s whole account of the people here might pass for an expanded paraphrase of the Latin commonplaces regarding the Seres. Mr. Milne, a missionary for many years in China, stands up manfully against the wholesale disparagement or Chinese character (p. 401).