“The hall of audience consisted of several rooms looking towards a middle place, some of which were laid open towards the same, others covered by screens and lattices. Some were of fifteen mats, others of eighteen, and they were a mat higher or lower, according to the quality of the persons seated in the same. The middle place had no mats at all, they having been taken away, and was consequently the lowest, on whose floor, covered with neat varnished boards, we were commanded to sit down. The emperor and his imperial consort sat behind the lattices on our right. As I was dancing, at the emperor’s command, I had an opportunity twice of seeing the empress through the slits of the lattices, and took notice that she was of a brown and beautiful complexion, with black European eyes, full of fire, and from the proportion of her head, which was pretty large, I judged her to be a tall woman, and about thirty-six years of age. By lattices, I mean hangings made of reed, split exceedingly thin and fine, and covered on the back with a fine, transparent silk, with openings about a span broad, for the persons behind to look through. For ornament’s sake, and the better to hide the persons standing behind, they are painted with divers figures, though it would be impossible to see them at a distance when the light is taken off behind. “The emperor himself was in such an obscure place that we should scarce have known him to be present had not his voice discovered him, which yet was so low, as if he purposely intended to be there incognito. Just before us, behind other lattices were the princes of the blood and the ladies of the empress and her court. I took notice that pieces of paper were put between the reeds, in some parts of the lattices, to make the openings wider, in order to a better and easier sight. I counted about thirty such papers, which made me conclude, that there was about that number of persons sitting behind. “Bingo sat on a raised mat, in an open room by himself, just before us, towards our right, on which side the emperor sat behind the lattices. On our left, in another room, were the councillors of state of the first and second rank, sitting in a double row in good and becoming order. The gallery behind us was filled with the chief officers of the emperor’s court and the gentlemen of his bed-chamber. The gallery, which led into the room where the emperor was, was filled with the sons of some princes of the empire, then at court, the emperor’s pages and some priests. After this manner it was that they ordered the stage on which we were now to act.