Japan and the Japanese

CHAPTER XXXVII.
PERSONAGES TO BE VISITED. VISIT TO THE EMPEROR. FIE8T AUDIENCK
SECOND AUDIENCE. VISITS TO THE HOUSES OF THE COUNCILLORS.
VISITS TO THE GOVERNORS OF JEDO AND THE TEMPLE LORDS. VISITS TC
THE HOUSES OF THE GOVERNORS OF NAGASAKI. AUDIENCE OF LEAVE.
KETURN. VISITS TO TEMPLES IN THE VICINITY OF MIAKO. A. D. 1691-1692.
THE ministers of state and other great men at court, some of
whom the Dutch were to visit, and to make presents to others, were
the five chief councillors of state, called Goratzi, or the five elderly
men ; four imperial deputy councillors of state ; the three Dsisia,
as they are called, that is, lords of the temple ; the imperial
commissioners, as the Dutch call them, described by Kiimpfer as the
the two governors
emperor's attorney-generals for the city of Jedo ;
of Jedo ; and, last of all, that one of the governors of Nagasaki
resident at Jedo.
" On the 29th of March," * says Kiimpfer, " the day appointed
for our audience, the presents designed for his imperial majestyt were
sent to court, to be there laid in due order on wooden tables, in the
hall of hundred mats, as they call it, where the emperor was to
view them. We followed soon after with a very inconsiderable
equipage, clad in black silk cloaks, as garments of ceremony,
attended by three stewards of the governors of Nagasaki, our
Dosiu or deputy Bugio, two town messengers of Nagasaki, and an
interpreter's son, all walking on foot. We three Dutchmen and
our second interpreter rode on horseback, behind each other, our
horses led } y grooms, who took them by the bridle. Our president,
* The 23d a considerable shock of an earthquake was fult. The weather
that day was excessively hot. The next day it was very cold, with snow.
t The reigning emperor was Tsuma Jusi, who had succeeded to the em-
pire in 1G81, the fourth in succession from Gongin-Sama the founder of the
dynasty. The Japanese accounts, according to Titsingh, give him but a bad
character
31*