“Friday, the 30th of March, we rode out again betimes, in the morning, to make some of our remaining visits. The presents, such as above described, were sent before us by our Japanese clerks, who took care to lay them on trays or tables, and to arrange them in good order, according to the country fashion. We were received at the entry of the house, by one or two of the principal domestics, and conducted to the apartment where we were to have our audience. The rooms round the hall of audience were everywhere crowded with spectators. As soon as we had seated ourselves we were treated with tea and tobacco. Then the steward of the household came in, or else the secretary, either alone or with another gentleman, to compliment us, and to receive our compliments, in his master’s name. The rooms were everywhere so disposed as to make us turn our faces towards the ladies, by whom we were very generously and civilly treated with cakes and several sorts of sweetmeats. We visited and made our presents, this day, to the two governors of Yedo, to the three ecclesiastical judges (or temple lords), and to the two commissioners for foreign affairs, who lived near a mile from each other, one in the southwest, the other in the northeast, part of the castle. They both profess themselves to be particular patrons of the Dutch, and received us accordingly with great pomp and magnificence. The street was lined with twenty men armed, who, with their long staffs, which they held on one side, made a very good figure, besides that they helped to keep off the throng of people from being too troublesome. We were received upon our entering the house and introduced to audience, much after the same manner as we had been in other places, only we were carried deeper into their palaces and into the innermost apartment, on purpose that we should not be troubled with numbers of spectators, and be at more liberty ourselves as well as the ladies who were invited to the ceremony. Opposite us, in the hall of audience, there were grated lattices, instead of screens, for the length of two mats (twelve feet) and upwards, behind which sat such numbers of women of the commissioner’s own family and their relations and friends, that there was no room left. We had scarce seated ourselves, when seven servants, well clad, came in, and brought us pipes and tobacco, with the usual apparatus for smoking. Soon after, they brought in something baked, laid on japanned trays, then some fish fried, all after the same manner, by the same number of servants, and always but one piece in a small dish; then a couple of eggs, one baked, the other boiled and shelled, and a glass of old, strong sake, standing between them. After this manner we were entertained for about an hour and a half, when they desired us to sing a song and to dance; the first we refused, but satisfied them as to the last. In the house of the first commissioner a drink made of sweet plums was offered us instead of sake.