About four hours after we began our journey, I awaked
by a very ridiculous accident; for the carriage being stopped
a while to adjust something that was out of order, two or 30
three of the young natives had the curiosity to see how I
looked when I was asleep; they climbed up into the engine,
and advancing very softly to my face, one of them, an
officer in the guards, put the sharp end of his half-pike
a good way into my left nostril, which tickled my nose like
a straw, and made me sneeze violently; whereupon they
stole off unperceived, and it was three weeks before I knew 5
the cause of my awaking so suddenly. We made a long
march the remaining part of that day, and rested that
night with five hundred guards on each side of me, half
with torches, and half with bows and arrows, ready to
shoot me if I should offer to stir. The next morning at 10
sunrise we continued our march, and arrived within two
hundred yards of the city gates about noon. The emperor
and all his court came out to meet us, but his great
officers would by no means suffer His Majesty to endanger
his person by mounting on my body. 15

At the place where the carriage stopped, there stood an
ancient temple, esteemed to be the largest in the whole
kingdom, which having been polluted some years before by
an unnatural murder, was, according to the zeal of those
people, looked on as profane, and therefore had been applied 20
to common use, and all the ornaments and furniture carried
away. In this edifice it was determined I should lodge.
The great gate fronting to the north was about four feet
high, and almost two feet wide, through which I could easily
creep. On each side of the gate was a small window, not 25
above six inches from the ground; into that on the left side
the king's smiths conveyed fourscore and eleven chains,
like those that hang to a lady's watch in Europe, and almost
as large, which were locked to my left leg with six and
thirty padlocks. Over against this temple, on the other side 30
of the great highway, at twenty foot distance, there was a
turret at least five foot high. Here the emperor ascended
with at least twenty lords of his court, to have an opportunity
of viewing me, as I was told, for I could not see
them. It was reckoned that above an hundred thousand
inh