I have since been informed, from the best authority, that whenever, in the course of the concerns of the British East India Company with the merchants of China, it may be necessary to administer an oath to a Chinese, the same ceremony is gone through of wringing off the head of a cock, which is by them considered in a very serious light, a sort of incantation, whose effects upon their minds are not unlike those produced by supposed magic spells, once common in our own country, by which the vulgar were persuaded that the Devil was to be made to appear before them. In a Chinese court of justice an oath is never administered. In a late affair, where a Chinese was killed by a seaman of a British man of war, and the Captain was about to administer an oath to two of his people whom he produced as evidences in a Chinese court of justice, the chief judge was so shocked, that he ordered the court to be instantly cleared. The _Cingalese_ are unquestionably of Chinese origin. Those who are acquainted with the Chinese manners and character, will immediately perceive the very close resemblance, on reading Mr. Boyd's relation of his embassy to the King of Candy. _Sin-quo_, kingdom of _Sin_, (from whence Sina, or China,) are Chinese words; the termination is European. So also is the name of the island Chinese, _See-lan_, _See-long_, or _See-lung_, the Western Dragon, in conformity to an invariable custom of assigning the name of some animal to every mountain. Having no intention, however, to investigate minutely the extent of Chinese navigation and commerce in ancient times, but rather to confine my observations to their present state, I return from this digression, in order to proceed on our voyage.