After about two hours the Court retired, and I was left with a strong
guard to keep away the crowd, some of whom had had the impudence to
shoot their arrows at me as I sat by the door of my house. But the
colonel ordered six of them to be seized and delivered bound into my
hands. I put five of them into my coat pocket; and as to the sixth, I
made a face as if I would eat him alive. The poor man screamed terribly,
and the colonel and his officers were much distressed, especially when
they saw me take out my penknife. But I soon set them at ease, for,
cutting the strings he was bound with, I put 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 saw that both the soldiers and people
were delighted at this mark of my kindness.
Toward night I got with some difficulty into my house, where I lay on
the ground, as I had to do for a fortnight, till a bed was prepared for
me out of six hundred beds of the ordinary measure.
Six hundred servants were appointed me, and three hundred tailors made
me a suit of clothes. Moreover, six of his Majesty’s greatest scholars
were employed to teach me their language, so that soon I was able to
converse after a fashion with the Emperor, who often honored me with his
visits. The first words I learned were to desire that he would please
to give me my liberty, which I every day repeated on my knees; but he
answered that this must be a work of time, and that first I must swear a
peace with him and his kingdom. He told me also that by the laws of the
nation I must be searched by two of his officers, and that as this could
not be done without my help, he trusted them in my hands, and whatever
they took from me should be returned when I left the country. I took up
the two officers, and put them into my coat pockets. These gentlemen,
having pen, ink, and paper about them, made an exact list of everything
they saw, which I afterward translated into English, and which ran as
follows:
“In the right coat pocket of the great Man-Mountain we found only one
great piece of coarse cloth, large enough to cover the carpet of your
Majesty’s chief room of state. In the left pocket we saw a huge silver
chest, with a silver cover, which we could not lift. We desired that it
should be opened, and one of us stepping into it found himself up to the
mid-leg in a sort of dust, some of which flying into our faces sent us
both into a fit of sneezing. In his right waistcoat pocket we found a
number of white thin substances, folded one over another, about the size
of three men, tied with a strong cable, and marked with black figures,
which we humbly conceive to be writings. In the left there was a sort of
engine, from the back of which extended twenty long poles, with which,
we conjecture, the Man-Mountain combs his head. In the smaller pocket on
the right side were several round flat pieces of white and red metal, of
different sizes. Some of the white, which appeared to be silver, were
so large and heavy that my comrade and I could hardly lift them. From
another pocket hung a huge silver chain, with a wonderful kind of engine
fastened to it, a globe half silver and half of some transparent metal;
for on the transparent side we saw certain strange figures, and thought
we could touch them till we found our fingers stopped by the shining
substance. This engine made an incessant noise, like a water-mill, and
we conjecture it is either some unknown animal, or the god he worships,
but probably the latter, for he told us that he seldom did anything
without consulting it.
“This is a list of what we found about the body of the Man-Mountain, who
treated us with great civility.”
I had one private pocket which escaped their search, containing a pair
of spectacles and a small spy-glass, which, being of no consequence to
the Emperor, I did not think myself bound in honor to discover.