chap, xv THE EMBASSY NOT RECEIVED 213
and returned with their presents without having seen the King.1 It would have answered better if the Grand Duke had chosen for this embassy some persons of lower rank than
these three nobles, who would have shown themselves less scrupulous
about formalities, which are often the cause of envoys being unable to
accomplish great designs. If these Moscovite ambassadors had consented
to conform to the customs of China—-which they might have done without
compromising the honour of their master—we should have, without doubt,
at this time, a road opened by land from Moscovie to China, through the
north of Great Tartary, and a greater knowledge of the Kingdom of
Bhutan, which is in its vicinity, and of some others of which we scarce
know the names ; this would have been a great advantage for all Europe.2
As
I have just spoken of the Moscovites, I remember that in my journeys,
and particularly on the road from Tabriz to Ispahan, where you
generally meet Moscovite merchants, several of them have assured me
that in the year 1654, in one of the towns of Moscovie, a woman aged
eighty-two gave birth to a male child, which was taken to the Grand
Duke, who wished to see it, and had it brought up at his own court.3
1
Envoys to the Emperor of China about the year 713, who refused to
kotow, were tried and pronounced worthy of death, but were
subsequently pardoned. See Yule, Marco Polo, i. 349; Cathay and the Way Thither, i. lxxxi. The Russian embassy to China arrived in 1656 (Ency. Brit., vi. 198).
1
This passage is of considerable interest when regarded in connexion
with the subsequent extension of Russia's influence in this direction,
and our own hitherto futile attempts to establish a regular trade route
through Tibet, which however, have been advanced by the war in 1903-4.
*
Mr. A. Keith, F.R.C.S. LL.D. Conservator of the Museum of the Royal
College of Surgeons, in a letter dated 12th January 1921, writes : '
Two years ago a correspondence was carried on in the British Medical Journal to
ascertain the latest age at which a woman was known to have borne a
child. It was found that there was no authenticated case of any one
over 50 bearing a child, and that such cases were very rare.'
