The searches and examinations previous to landing were the same described by Kämpfer. Hitherto it had been usual to allow the captains of the vessels to pass at pleasure to and from their ships without being searched; they, with the directors of the Dutch factory, being the only persons exempt from that ceremony. The captains had taken advantage of this exemption to dress themselves out, for the convenience of smuggling, in a showy, blue silk, silver-laced coat, made very wide and large, in which dress they generally made three trips a day to and from Deshima, being often so loaded down with goods that they had to be supported by a sailor under each arm. Thunberg’s captain rigged himself out in the same style; but, much to his disappointment and that of the other Dutchmen, whose private goods the captains had been accustomed to smuggle for a commission, the Japanese officers who boarded the ship brought orders that the captain should dress like the rest; that he and the director also should be searched when they landed, and that the captain should either stop on board, or, if he landed, should remain on shore, being allowed to visit the ship only twice during her stay. “It was droll enough,” says Thunberg, “to see the astonishment which the sudden reduction in the size of our bulky captain excited in the major part of the ignorant Japanese, who before had always imagined that all our captains were actually as fat and lusty as they appeared to be.” In the year 1772, one of the Dutch ships from Batavia, disabled in a violent storm, had been abandoned by her crew, who, in their haste, or believing that she would speedily sink, had neglected the standing order of the Company, in such cases, to set her on fire. Some days after she drifted to the Japanese shore, and was towed into the harbor of Nagasaki, when the Japanese found on board a number of chests marked with the names of the principal Dutch officers, and full of prohibited goods,—and it was to this discovery that the new order was ascribed. The examination of the clothes and persons of all who passed to and from the ship was very strict. The large chests were emptied, and the sides, top, and bottom sounded to see if they were not hollow. Beds were ripped open and the feathers turned over. Iron spikes were thrust into the butter-tubs and jars of sweetmeats. A square hole was cut in the cheeses, and a thick, pointed wire thrust through them in every direction. Even some of the eggs brought from Batavia were broken, lest they might be shams in which valuables were concealed.