“The first thing to be done, is to look out proper presents for his imperial majesty, for his privy councillors, and some other great officers at Yedo, Miyako, and Ōsaka, the whole amounting, as near as possible, to a certain sum, to assort them, and particularly to assign to whom they are to be delivered. Afterwards they must be put up into leather bags, which are carefully wrapped up in mats, in order to preserve them from all accidents in so long a journey; and, for a further security, several seals are affixed to them. “It is the business of the governors of Nagasaki to judge and determine what might prove acceptable to the court. They take out of the goods laid up in our warehouse what they think proper, and give instructions to the departing director about such things as should be sent over from Batavia the next year. Sometimes some of their own goods they have been presented with by the Chinese are put in among these presents, because by this means they can dispose of them to the best advantage, either by obliging us to buy them at an excessive and their own price, or by exchanging them for other goods. Now and then some uncommon curiosities, either of nature or art, are brought over from Europe, and other parts of the world, on purpose to be presented to the emperor; but it often happens that they are not approved of by these rigid censors. Thus, for instance, there were brought over, in my time, two brass fire-engines of the newest invention, but the governors did not think them proper to be presented to the emperor, and so returned them to us, after they had first seen them tried, and taken a pattern of them.[160] Another time the bird Casuar[161] was sent over from Batavia, but likewise disliked and denied the honor of appearing before the emperor, because they heard he was good for nothing but to devour a large quantity of victuals. “These presents are placed on board a barge, three or four weeks before our departure, and sent by water to _Shimonoseki_, a small town at the southwestern extremity of the great island of Nippon, where they wait our arrival by land. Formerly our ambassador, with his whole retinue, embarked at the same time, whereby we saved a great deal of trouble and expense we must now be at in travelling by land; but a violent storm having once put the whole company into eminent danger, and the voyage having been often, by reason of the contrary winds, too long and tedious, the emperor has ordered that for the future we should go by land. The presents for the imperial court, and other heavy baggage, being sent before us, the rest of the time till our departure is spent in preparations for our journey, as if we designed some great expedition into a remote part of the world.