“On the east side of the city, in a large plain, lies the famous castle built by Taikō-Sama [Toyotomi Hideyoshi]. Going up to Miyako we pass by it. It is square, about an hour’s walking in circumference, and strongly fortified with round bastions, according to the military architecture of the country. After the castle of Higo, it hath not its superior in extent, magnificence, and strength, throughout the whole empire. On the north side it is defended by the river Yodogawa, which washes its walls. On the east side its walls are washed by a tributary river, on the opposite bank of which lies a great garden belonging to the castle. The south and west sides border upon the city. The moles, or buttresses, which support the outward wall, are of an uncommon bigness, I believe at least forty-two feet thick. They are built to support a high, strong brick wall, lined with freestone, which at its upper end is planted with a row of firs or cedars. “The day after our arrival (Sunday, February 25) we were admitted to an audience of the governor of the city, to which we were carried in kago, attended by our whole train of interpreters and other officers. It is half an hour’s walking from our inn to the governor’s palace, which lies at the end of the city in a square opposite the castle. Just before the house we stepped out of our kago, and put on each a silk cloak, which is reckoned equal to the garment of ceremony which the Japanese wear on these occasions. Through a passage thirty paces long we came into the hall, or guard-house, where we were received by two of the governor’s gentlemen, who very civilly desired us to sit down. Four soldiers stood upon duty on our left as we came in, and next to them we found eight other officers of the governor’s court, all sitting upon their knees and ankles. The wall on our right was hung with arms, ranged in a proper order, fifteen halberds on one side, twenty lances in the middle, and nineteen pikes on the other; the latter were adorned at the upper end with fringes. Hence we were conducted by two of the governor’s secretaries through four rooms (which, however, upon removing the screens, might have been enlarged into one) into the hall of audience. I took notice, as we came by, that the walls were hung and adorned with bows, with sabres and scymitars, as also with some fire-arms, kept in rich black varnished cases. “In the hall of audience, where there were seven of the governor’s gentlemen sitting, the two secretaries sat down at three paces’ distance from us, and treated us with tea, carrying on a very civil conversation with us till the governor appeared, as he soon did, with two of his sons, one seventeen, the other eighteen years of age, and sat down at ten paces’ distance in another room, which was laid open towards the hall of audience by removing three lattices, through which he spoke to us.