[Footnote 23: I depend on the knowledge and fidelity of the
Pere 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 Pere Gaubil
affirms, that the use of gunpowder has been known to the
Chinese above 1600 years.]