The political authority is vested in a governor, who is chief of the magistracy, civil and military. In each street resides a magistrate who takes cognizance, in the first instance, of all cases, civil and criminal, submitting the more difficult to the governor. The streets are closed at each end by a gate, which is shut at nightfall. At each gate is placed a guard of soldiers, with sentinels at intervals; so that, if a crime is committed, notice is conveyed instantly to each end of the street, and, the gates being closed, it rarely happens that the offender escapes. This description is applicable to all the other cities in the kingdom.” After an interval of two days, the prince sent his secretary, whose name was Honda Kōzuke-no-Suke, to invite Don Rodrigo to visit him. The palace he describes as enclosed by a wall of immense blocks of freestone, put together without cement, with embrasures, at equal distances, well furnished with artillery. At the foot of this wall was a deep wet ditch, crossed by a drawbridge of a peculiar and very ingenious construction. Don Rodrigo passed through two ranks of musketeers, about one thousand in number, to the second wall, distant from the first three hundred paces. At the gate four hundred lancers and pikemen were stationed. A third wall, about twelve feet high, was guarded by three hundred halberdiers. Within was the palace, with the royal stables on one side, containing three hundred horses, and on the other an arsenal with arms for one hundred thousand men. Rodrigo affirms that from the entrance to the palace were more than twenty thousand men, not assembled for the occasion, but constantly employed and paid for the daily service of the court. The first apartment of the palace was entirely covered with rich ornaments, carpets, stuffs, velvet, and gold. The walls were hung with pictures representing hunting subjects. Each apartment exceeded the preceding in splendor, till the further one was reached, in which the prince was seated on a superb carpet of crimson velvet, embroidered with gold, placed upon a kind of platform, raised two steps, in the centre of the apartment. He wore three dresses, one over the other, the exterior one green and yellow; in his girdle were his longer and shorter swords. His hair was tied up with ribbons of different colors, and his head had no other ornament. He was about thirty-five years of age; of a brown complexion, a pleasing figure, and good height. Don Rodrigo was conducted to a seat on the left hand of the prince, who conversed with him on a variety of indifferent subjects.