They departed in a sort of galley; and stopping in various places, arrived in four or five days at Usuki, a fortress of the king of Bungo,[19] seven leagues distant from his capital of Fuchū (present Ōita), to which they proceeded by land. Arriving there in the middle of the day (not a proper time to wait upon the king), the ambassador took him to his own house, where they were joyfully met, and Pinto was well entertained by the ambassador’s wife and two sons. Proceeding to the palace on horseback, they were very graciously received by a son of the king, some nine or ten years old, who came forth richly dressed and with many attendants. After many ceremonies between the young prince and the ambassador, they were taken to the king, who, though sick abed, received the ambassador with many formalities. Presently Pinto was introduced, and by some well-turned compliments made a favorable impression, leading the courtiers to conclude—and so they told the king—that he could not be a merchant, who had passed his life in the low business of buying and selling, but rather some learned bonze, or at least some brave corsair of the seas. In this opinion the king coincided; and, being already somewhat relieved from his pains, proceeded to question the stranger as to the cure of the gout, which he suffered from, or at least some remedy for the total want of appetite by which he was afflicted. Pinto professed himself no doctor, but nevertheless undertook to cure the king by means of a sovereign herb which he had brought with him from China (ginseng, probably); and this drug he tried on the patient with such good effect that in thirty days he was up and walking, which he had not done for two years before. The next twenty days Pinto passed in answering an infinite number of questions, many of them very frivolous, put to him by the king and his courtiers, and in entertaining himself in observing their feasts, worship, martial exercises, ships of war, fisheries, and hunting, to which they were much given, and especially their hunting with hawks and falcons, quite after the European fashion.