Japan and the Japanese

168 JAPAN. A. D. 16111613.
raised good red wheat. Besides saki, made from rice, they diank
with their food warm water.*
The entrance of the travellers into Suruga, where the emperor
held his court, and which they reached on the seventh day, was not
very savory, as they were obliged to pass several crosses, with the
dead and decaying bodies of the malefactors still nailed to them
This city they judged to be as large as London with all the suburbs.!
The handicraftsmen dwelt in the outskirts of the town, so as not to
disturb with their pounding and hammering the richer and more
leisurely sort.
After a day or two spent in preparations, Saris, accompanied by
the merchants and others, went in his palanquin to the palace, bear-
ing his presents, according to the custom of the country, on little
tables, or rather salvers, of a
sweet-smelling wood. Having entered
the castle, he passed three drawbridges, each with its guard, and,
ascending a handsome stone staircase, he was met by two grave,
comely men, Kaskadono, the emperor's secretary,:}: and Fungodono,
the admiral, who led him into a matted antechamber. Here they
all sat down on the mats, but the two officers soon rose again, and
took him into the presence-chamber, to bestow due reverence
on the emperor's empty chair of state. It was about five feet high,
the sides and back richly ornamented with cloth of gold, but with-
out any canopy. The presents given in the name of the king, and
others by Captain Saris in his own name (as the custom of tho
country required), were arranged about this room.
After waiting a little while longer in the antechamber, it was
announced that the emperor had come, when the officers motioned
Saris into the room, but without entering themselves. Approaching
the emperor, he presented, with English compliments (on his
* Saris makes no mention of tea, not yet known to the Europeans, and
which, perhaps, he confounded with this hot water. All subsequent travel-
lers have noted this practice of the Japanese of drinking everything warm,
even to water. Cold drinks might tend too much to check the digestion of
their vegetable food ; at any rate, they are thought to be frequently the
occasion of a violent colic, one of the endemic diseases of Japan.
t London had at that time a population of two hundred and fifty thousand.
J This appears, from various circumstances, to be the same person called
Konsekondono in the narratives of Don Rodrigo and Jacob Spex.