h were, High and Low Dutch, Latin,
French, Spanish, Italian, and Lingua Franca;[15] but all to no purpose.

After about two hours the court retired, and I was left with a strong
guard, to prevent the impertinence, and probably the malice of the
rabble, who were very impatient to crowd about me as near as they durst;
and some of them had the impudence to shoot their arrows at me, as I sat
on the ground by the door of my house, whereof one very narrowly missed
my left eye. But the colonel ordered six of the ring-leaders to be
seized, and thought no punishment so proper as to deliver them bound
into my hands; which some of his soldiers accordingly did, pushing them
forwards with the butt-ends of their pikes into my reach. I took them
all on my right hand, put five of them into my coat-pocket; and as to
the sixth, I made a countenance as if I would eat him alive. The poor
man squalled terribly, and the colonel and his officers were in much
pain, especially when they saw me take out my penknife; but I soon put
them out of fear, for, looking mildly, and immediately cutting the
strings he was bound with, I set him gently on the ground, and away he
ran. I treated the rest in the same manner, taking them one by one out
of my pocket; and I observed both the soldiers and people were highly
delighted at this mark of my clemency, which was represented very much
to my advantage at court.

[Illustration]

Towards night, I got with some difficulty into my house, where I lay on
the ground, and continued to do so about a fortnight, during which time
the emperor gave orders to have a bed prepared for me. Six hundred beds,
of the common measure, were brought in carriages and worked up in my
house; an hundred and fifty of their beds, sewn together, made up the
breadth and length; and these were four double, which, however, kept me
but very indifferently from the hardness of the floor, which was of
smooth stone. By the same computation, they provided me with sheets,
blankets, and coverlets, which were tolerable enough for one who had
been so long inured to hardships as I.

As the news of my arrival spread through the kingdom, it brought
prodigious numbers of rich, idle, and curious people to see me; so that
the villages were almost emptied; and great neglect of tillage and
household affairs must have ensued, if his imperial majesty had not
provided, by several proclamations and orders of state, against this
inconvenience. He directed tha