Japan and the Japanese

868 JAPAN. A. D. 1CO\ 1C92.
ties of the Dutch to the Emperors of Jajxin.
The elevated throne,
the steps leading up to it, the carpets pendent from it, the stately
columns supporting the building which contains the throne, the
columns between which the princes of the empire are said to prostrate
themselves before the emperor, and the like, have all no man-
ner of foundation but in that author's fancy. The floor is covered
with an hundred mats, all of the same size. Hence it is called
Sen Sio Siki, that is, The Hall of an Hundred Mats.* It opens
on one side towards a small court, which lets in the light ; on the
which are on this occa-
opposite side it joins two other apartments,
sion laid open towards the same court, one of which is considerably
larger than the other, and serves for the councillors of state when
they give audience by themselves. The other is narrower, deeper,
and one step higher than the hall itself. In this the emperor sits
when he gives audience, raised only on a few carpets. Nor is it an
easy matter to see him, the light reaching not quite so far as the
place where he sits, besides that the audience is too short, and the
person admitted to it, in so humble and submissive a posture that
he cannot well have an opportunity to hold up his head and to view
him. This audience is otherwise very awful and majestic, by reason
chiefly of the silent presence of all the councillors of state, as also
of many princes and lords of the empire, the gentlemen of his
majesty's bed-chamber, and other chief officers of his court, who
line the hall of audience and all its avenues, sitting in good order,
and clad in their garments of ceremony.
" Formerly all we had to do, at the emperor's court, was com-
pleted by the captain's paying the usual homage, after the manner
above related. But, for about these twenty years last
past, he and
the rest of the Dutchmen that came up with the embassy to Jcdo,
were conducted deeper into the palace, to give the empress, and the
ladies of her court, and the princesses of the blood, the diversion
of seeing us. In this second audience the emperor and the ladies
invited to it attend behind screens and lattices, but the councillor?
* Sen is not a hundred, but a thousand. According to Klaproth (JlnnaU
des Dairi, p. 181), ken or kin does not signify a mat, as Kampfer translates
it (though mats were made of that length), but a space between columns. It
was a measure of length divided into six Japanese feet, but equal to seven
feet four inches and a half, Rhine lQ.nd measure. But see Glossary