“Formerly all we had to do, at the emperor’s court, was completed by the captain’s paying the usual homage, after the manner above related. But, for about these twenty years last past, he and the rest of the Dutchmen that came up with the embassy to Yedo, were conducted deeper into the palace, to give the empress, and the ladies of her court, and the princesses of the blood, the diversion of seeing us. In this second audience the emperor and the ladies invited to it attend behind screens and lattices, but the councillors of state and other officers of the court sit in the open rooms in their usual and elegant order. As soon as the captain had paid his homage, the emperor retired into his apartment, and not long after we three Dutchmen were likewise called up and conducted, together with the captain, through several apartments, into a gallery curiously carved and gilt, where we waited about a quarter of an hour, and were then, through several other walks and galleries, carried further into a large room, where they desired us to sit down, and where several courtiers with shaved heads, being the emperor’s physicians, the officers of his kitchen, and some of the clergy, came to ask after our names, age, and the like; but gilt screens were quickly drawn before us, to deliver us from their throng and troublesome importunity. “We stayed here about half an hour; meanwhile the court met in the imperial apartments, where we were to have our second audience, and whither we were conducted through several dark galleries. Along all these several galleries there was one continued row of lifeguardsmen, and nearer to the imperial apartments followed in the same row some great officers, who lined the front of the hall of audience, clad in their garments of ceremony, bowing their heads and sitting on their heels.