“The palace itself hath but one story, which, however, is of a fine height. It takes in a large spot of ground, and hath several long galleries and spacious rooms, which, upon putting on or removing of screens, may be enlarged or brought into a narrower compass, as occasion requires, and are contrived so as to receive at all times a convenient and sufficient light. The chief apartments have each its particular name. Such are, for instance, the waiting-room, where all persons that are to be admitted to an audience, either of the emperor or his prime ministers of state, wait till they are introduced; the council-chamber, where the ministers of state and privy councillors meet upon business; the hall of thousand mats, where the emperor receives the homage and usual presents of the princes of the empire and ambassadors of foreign powers; several halls of audience; the apartments for the emperor’s household, and others. The structure of all these several apartments is exquisitely fine, according to the architecture of the country. The ceilings, beams, and pillars are of cedar, or camphor, or jeseriwood, the grain of which naturally runs into flowers and other curious figures, and is, therefore, in some apartments, covered only with a thin, transparent, layer of varnish, in others japanned, or curiously carved with birds and branched work, neatly gilt. The floor is covered with the finest white mats, bordered with gold fringes or bands; and this is all the furniture to be seen in the palaces of the emperor and princes of the empire.” The 29th of March, the last of the second Japanese month, was appointed for the reception of the Dutch,—Makino Bingo-no-Kami, the emperor’s principal counsellor and favorite, being in a hurry to get rid of them, because on the fifth of the ensuing month he was to have the honor to treat the emperor at dinner, a favor which requires a good deal of time and vast preparations. “This Bingo,” says Kämpfer, “tutor to the reigning monarch before he came to the crown, is now his chief favorite, and the only person whom he absolutely confides in. At our audience it is he that receives the emperor’s words and commands from his own mouth, and addresses the same to us. He is near seventy years of age, a tall but lean man, with a long face, a manly and German-like countenance, slow in his actions, and very civil in his whole behavior. He hath the character of a just and prudent man, no ways given to ambition, nor inclined to revenge, nor bent upon heaping up immoderate riches—in short, of being altogether worthy of the great confidence and trust the emperor puts in him.” CHAPTER XXXVII _Personages to be visited—Visit to the Emperor—First Audience—Second Audience—Visit to the Houses of the Councillors—Visits to the Governors of Yedo and the Temple Lords—Visit to the Houses of the Governors of Nagasaki—Audience of Leave—Return—Visits to Temples in the Vicinity of Miyako—A. D. 1691-1692._