Japan and the Japanese

JUNTO'S FIRST VISIT. 31
to whom all the rest paid great respect. He made prostrations
before the prince, presenting him a letter, and a rich sword, garnished
with gold, and a box of fans, which the prince received
with great ceremony. The reading of this letter seemed to disturb
the prince, and, having sent the messengers away to refresh them-
selves, he informed the Portuguese, through the interpreter, that it
came from the king of Bungo and Facata, his uncle, father-in-
law, and liege-lord, as he was also the superior of several other
principalities. This letter, which, as is usual with him in such
cases, Pinto, by a marvellous stretch of memory, undertakes to give
in precise words, declared that the writer had heard by persons
from Saxuma that the prince had in his
"
city three Chenchiogins,
from the end of the world, very like the Japanese, clothed in
silk and girded with swords ; not like merchants, whose business it
is to trade, but like lovers of honor, seeking to gild
their names
therewith, and who had given great information, affirming, on their
veracity, that there is another world, much larger than this of ours,
and peopled with men of various complexions;" and tha letter
ended with begging that, by Fingeandono, his ambassador, the
prince would send back one of these men, the king promising to
return him safe and soon. It appeared from this letter, and from
the explanations which the prince added to it, that the king of
Bungo was a severe sufferer from a gouty
affection and from fits of
melancholy, from which he hoped, by the aid of these foreigners, to
obtain some diversion, if not relief. The prince, anxio is and
bound as he was to oblige
his relative and superior, was yet unwil-
ling to send Zeimoto, his adopted kinsman ;
but one of the others he
begged to consent to go ; and when both volunteered, ho chose
Pinto, as he seemed the more gay and cheerful of the two, and so
best fitted to divert the sick man's melancholy ;
whereas the .solemn
gravity of the other, though of great account in more weighty mat-
ters, might, in the case of a sick man, rather tend to incre ise his
ennui. And so, with many compliments, to which, says Pi ito, the
Japanese are much inclined, he was given in charge to the ambas-
sador, with many injunctions for his good treatment, havin * first,
however, received two hundred taels, with which to equip hi n self.
They departed in a sort of galley ; and, stopping
in various
places, arrived in four or five days at Osqui, a fortress of the king of