“The commissioners for foreign affairs having conducted us into the gallery before the hall of audience, one of the councillors of state of the second rank came to receive us there and to conduct us to the above-described middle place, on which we were commanded to sit down, having first made our obeisances after the Japanese manner, creeping and bowing our heads to the ground, towards that part of the lattices behind which the emperor was. The chief interpreter sat himself a little forward, to hear more distinctly, and we took our places on his left hand, all in a row. After the usual obeisances, Bingo bid us welcome in the emperor’s name. The chief interpreter received the compliment from Bingo’s mouth, and repeated it to us. Upon this the ambassador made his compliment in the name of his masters, returning their most humble thanks to the emperor for having graciously granted the Dutch liberty of commerce. This the chief interpreter repeated in Japanese, having prostrated himself quite to the ground, and speaking loud enough to be heard by the emperor. The emperor’s answer was again received by Bingo, who delivered it to the chief interpreter, and he to us. He might have, indeed, received it himself from the emperor’s own mouth, and saved Bingo this unnecessary trouble; but I fancy that the words, as they flow out of the emperor’s mouth, are esteemed too precious and sacred for an immediate transit into the mouth of persons of a low rank. “The mutual compliments being over, the succeeding part of this solemnity turned to a perfect farce. We were asked a thousand ridiculous and impertinent questions. They desired to know how old each of us was, and what was his name, which we were commanded to write upon a bit of paper, in anticipation of which we had provided ourselves with an European inkhorn. This paper, together with the inkhorn itself, we were commanded to give to Bingo, who delivered them both into the emperor’s hands, reaching them over below the lattice. The captain, or ambassador, was asked the distance of Holland from Batavia, and of Batavia from Nagasaki; also which of the two was the most powerful, the Director-general of the Dutch East India Company at Batavia, or the Prince of Holland? As for my own particular, the following questions were put to me. What external and internal distempers I thought the most dangerous and most difficult to cure? How I proceeded in the cure of cancerous humors and imposthumations of the inner parts? Whether our European physicians did not search after some medicine to render people immortal, as the Chinese physicians had done for many hundred years? Whether we had made any considerable progress in this search, and which was the last remedy conducive to long life that had been found out in Europe? To which I returned in answer, that very many European physicians had long labored to find out some medicine, which should have the virtue of prolonging human life and preserving people in