Heaven is Round, Earth is Square - Map of China: Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer - page 130

mayed but, rather, delighted, for it gives us 'nothing lesse than China in their Ch-
ina' and not China as Europeans have conceived it. The image that European geo-
graphers have conveyed of China is all wrong, he insists. 'They present it in forme
somewhat like a Harpe, whereas it is almost foure square' - which he gets from
Pantoja, as we have seen. He commends the industry of European cartographers
in trying to generate a map of China, 'but industry guided by fancie, and without
light, is but the blind leading the blind'. Now at last, unencumbered by the devices
of 'European Art', the reader has before his eyes 'a true China, the Chinois them-
selves being our Guides'.
In the empty spaces at either side of the map he inserts vignettes of 'a Chinese
man' and 'a China woman' with 'their little Eyes and Noses, long Hayre bound
upinknots,womensfeetewrappedup,longwide-sleevedGarments,Fannes,&c.'.
He assures us these are true likenesses rather than wild guesses, for he has drawn
them from an album of pictures 'made also in China in very good Colours' - and
provided, again, by Captain John Saris (who brought home more, it seems, than
erotica). The cameo of Matteo Ricci, the founder of the Jesuit mission and the first
publisher of European maps in China, he got from the Jesuits.
The printed map that Saris acquired was large. Purchas notes that it measured
almost 4 foot high and 5 feet wide. The original was bordered with panels furnish-
ing practical information about each province rather than the vignettes with which
European printers decorated their maps. European viewers expected instructive
pictures; Chinese expected useful data. Purchas has removed the place-names 'be-
cause we exactly knew not their meaning'. As he explains, 'silence seemed better,
thanlabourtoexpresseanunknowneCharacter,orboldnessetoexpresseourowne
folly or to occasion others, deceiving and being deceived.' However, he leaves the
little boxes on the map that were the labels for the cities, so these could in the-
orybereconstructed.Heincludesonlyprovincialnames,although,beinguncertain
about correct spellings, he opts for one set of renderings without claiming these to
be accurate, adding in his defence, 'I durst not interpret all, chusing rather to give
an uncertayne truth, than to hazard a certayne errour.'
Purchas has given the map an English title: The Map of China . Wanting as well
to give his readers 'a taste of the China Characters', he has distributed the Eng-
lish words within the original. Neither of the English nouns he chooses actually
appears inthe original Chinese title, Huang Ming yitong fangyu beilan ,which may
be translated as The Unified Terrestrial Realm of the Ming Empire Complete at
a Glance. Beilan , 'complete at a glance', was standard advertising copy among