The galley being handsomely fitted up with waist-cloths and ensigns, they coasted along the western and northern shores of the great island of Shimo (or Kiūshiū), off the northwest coast of which the small island of Hirado lay. As they coasted along, they passed a number of handsome towns. Hakata, distant two days’ rowing from Hirado, had a very strong castle of freestone, with a wide and deep ditch and drawbridge, kept in good repair, but without cannon or garrison. Here, finding the current too strong, they stopped to dine. The town seemed as large as London within the walls, very well built, with straight streets. As they landed, they had experience, repeated almost wherever they went, of that antipathy to foreigners, so characteristic a trait of the country; for the boys, children, and worser sort of idle people, would gather about them, crying out _Coré, Coré, Cocoré, Waré_[87], taunting them by these words as Coreans with false hearts, whooping, hallowing, and making such a noise, that the English could hardly hear each other speak, and even in some places throwing stones at them—all which went on without any interference on the part of the public officers. In general, however, the police was very strict, and punishments very prompt and bloody. Saris saw several executions in the streets, after which, every passer-by was allowed to try his sword on the dead bodies, which thus are chopped into small pieces, and left for the birds of prey to devour. All along the coast they noticed many families living in boats upon the water, as in Holland, the women being very expert fishers, not only with lines and nets, but by diving, which gave them, however, blood-shot eyes. Coasting through the Strait of Shimonoseki, and the channel which separates Nippon from the two more southern islands, on the twentieth day after leaving Hirado they reached the entrance of a river, a short distance up which lay the town of Ōsaka, which, however, they could only reach in a small boat. This town, which seemed as large as Hakata, had many handsome timber bridges across a river as wide as the Thames at London. It had, also, a great and very strong castle of freestone, in which, as they were told, the son of the late emperor, left an infant at his father’s decease, was kept a close prisoner. Some nine miles from Ōsaka, on the other side of the river, lay the town of Sakai, not so large, but accessible to ships, and a place of great trade.