“At last the instant arrived when the ambassador was to have audience, at which the ceremony was totally different from that which was used in Kämpfer’s time, we remaining in the apartment into which we had been ushered. “After the return of the ambassador we were again obliged to stay a long while in the antechamber, in order to receive the visits and answer the questions of several of the courtiers, several times during whose entrance a deep silence prevailed. Among these, it was said, his imperial majesty had likewise come _incognito_, in order to have a nearer view of the Dutch and their dress.[59] The interpreters and officers had spared no pains to find out, through the medium of their friends, everything that could tend to our information in this respect. The emperor was of a middle size, hale constitution, and about forty and odd years of age. “At length, after all the visits were ended, we obtained leave to see several rooms in the palace, and also that in which the ambassador had had audience, and which has already been described. “The ambassador was conducted by the outside of the anteroom and along a boarded passage to the audience-room, which opened by a sliding-door. The inner room consisted, in a manner, of three rooms, one a step higher than the other, and, according to the measure I took of them by my eye, when afterwards permitted to view them, of about ten paces each in length, so that the distance between the emperor and the ambassador might be about thirty paces. The emperor, as I was informed, stood during the audience, in the most interior part of the room, as did the hereditary prince likewise, at his right hand. To the right of this room was a large saloon, the floor of which was covered by a hundred mats, and hence called the hundred-mat saloon. It is six hundred feet long and three hundred broad,[60] and is occupied by the most dignified men of the empire, privy councillors, and princes, who all, on similar occasions, take their seats according to their different ranks and dignity. To the left, in the audience-room, lay the presents, sent beforehand, and piled up in heaps. The whole of the audience consists merely in this, that, as soon as the ambassador enters the room, he falls on his hands, lays his hand on the mat, and bows his head down to it, in the same manner as the Japanese themselves are used to testify their subjection and respect. After this the ambassador rises, and is conducted back to the anteroom the same way that he came. “The rest of the rooms which we viewed had no furniture in them. The floors were covered with large and very white straw mats; the cornices and doors were handsomely lackered, and the locks, hinges, etc., well gilt.