It was the 26th of March, the third day of the third moon; an auspicious day in the omens of which the most punctilious of soothsayers could find no fault or foreboding of evil. The tragically postponed audience of the Mikado was now to take place. The Government were naturally very anxious after the events of two days before, and extraordinary precautions were taken to prevent the recurrence of any such misadventure. From early dawn the many-acred courts of the temple were crowded with men-at-arms arrayed in all the panoply of ancient armour, with helmets and mustachioed vizors. The picturesque figures of these warriors, framed in the setting of the heavy-eaved architecture of the sacred buildings, were striking even to us who by this time were tolerably well used to such startling sights. How would it have struck an Englishman transported on the carpet of some Afrit or Jinn of the “Arabian Nights” out of the everyday moil and toil of Fleet Street into the midst of all this medieval glamour? Were we back in the middle of the eleventh century, in the days of the wars when the white flag of the Minamoto was borne out to battle against the red standard of the Taira?—days when gods and fairies took sides in the struggle, as in the old fights before Troy? Two great Daimios, Prince Daté, the Inkiyō of Uwajima, and the Prince of Hizen, had been told off to conduct us in person to the Palace; their retainers, more numerous than the tail of a Highland chieftain, armed with tasselled spears and other weapons of the olden time, made a brave show. Our own retinue was sadly reduced. Our mounted escort could only muster two men, who with drawn swords rode on either side of Sir Harry. Satow and I rode immediately behind him. The drawn swords, I should mention, were very significant, and would have a startling effect in the streets of Kiōto, for in Japan the blade was never bared save for bloodshed, and the sight of them would have a meaning which my readers can hardly realize. However, there was no need for their use this time. The streets were admirably kept, and although huge crowds had gathered together to see our procession, they were quite orderly, and there was no sign of any disturbance—which would have been almost impossible—nor was there an ugly word uttered. We had a longish way to go, and reached the Gosho, the Imperial Palace, at about one o’clock.