[Footnote 13:  The old king sent 200 tayes, worth five shillings each, to Captain Saris, for his expences in the journey.—­Purch.]

In two days we rowed from Firando to Facata.  When eight or ten leagues short of the straits of Xemina-seque,[14] we came to a great town, where there lay in a dock a junk of 800 or 1000 tons burden, all sheathed with iron,[15] and having a guard appointed to keep her from being set on fire or otherwise destroyed.  She was built in a very homely fashion, much like the descriptions we have of Noah’s ark; and the natives told us she served to transport troops to any of the islands in case of rebellion or war.

[Footnote 14:  The editor of Astley’s Collection has altered the orthography of this name to Shemina seki.  In modern maps, we find a town named Sunono sequi, on one side of these straits, which divide the island of Kiusiu from the south-west end of the great island of Niphon.—­E.]

[Footnote 15:  It is not a little singular, that metallic sheathing should have been observed by English mariners in Japan so long ago as 1613, and yet never attempted in the British or any other European navy till more than 150 years afterwards, and then brought forwards as a new invention.—­E.]

We met with nothing extraordinary after passing through the straits of Xemina-seque till we came to Osaka, where we arrived on the 27th of August.  Our galley could not get nearer the town than six miles; wherefore we were met by a smaller vessel, in which came the goodman or host of the house where we were to lodge in Osaka, and who brought with him a banquet of wine and salt fruits to entertain me.  A rope being made fast to the mast-head of our boat, she was drawn forwards by men, as our west country barges are at London.  We found Osaka a very large town, as large as London within the walls, having many very high and handsome timber bridges which serve to cross the river Jodo, which is as wide as the Thames at London.  Some of the houses here were handsome, but not many.  It is one of the chiefest sea-ports in all Japan, and has a castle of great size and strength, with very deep ditches all round, crossed by drawbridges, and its gates plated with iron.  This castle is all of freestone, strengthened by bulwarks and battlements, having loop-holes for small arms and arrows, and various passages for throwing down stones upon the assailants.  The walls are at least six or seven yards thick, all built of freestone throughout, having no packing with trumpery within, as I was told, but all solid.  The stones are large and of excellent quality, and are so exactly cut to fit the places where they are laid, that no mortar is used, only a little earth being occasionally thrown in to fill up any void spaces.