The 23d I was informed of a great pagan festival to be celebrated this day, both kings and all the nobles being to meet at a summer-house erected before the great pagoda, to see a horse-race.  I think there must have been above 3000 people assembled together on this occasion.  All the nobles went on horseback, each being accompanied by a retinue of slaves, some armed with pikes, some with fire-arms, and others with bows and arrows.  The pikemen drew up on one side of the street, and the shot and archers on the other, the middle being left open for the race.  Right before the summer-house, where the king and nobles were seated, was a large round target of straw, hung against the wall, at which the archers running at full career on horseback discharged their arrows.  The street was so crowded, that neither the present we sent, nor we ourselves, could get admission, so we passed along the street and returned by another way to our house.  Late at night, the brother of Zanzibar’s wife came to our house, bringing me a present of a haunch of venison and a basket of oranges, being accompanied by Zanzibar himself.  About ten at night, the Chinese captain, our landlord, came to inform us that the king had ordered a tub of water to be kept ready on the top of every house, as the devil had given out that the town was to be burnt down that night:  Yet the devil proved a liar:  We got however a large tub on the top of our house, which held twenty buckets of water; and all night long people ran about the streets calling out for every one to look well to their fires, so that it was strange and fearful to hear them.

This report of burning the town was still current on the 24th, and every one was making preparations to prevent it.  I made ready fifteen buckets, which cost six condrines each, which I filled with water and hung up in our yard, setting a large tub beside them full of water, besides that on the house top.  I gave orders likewise to get two ladders ready for carrying water to the roof, and provided nine wine casks filled with tempered clay, ready for daubing up the doors of the gadonge, [godown or fire-proof warehouse,] if need should require in consequence of a conflagration, from which dire necessity may God defend us.  All night long, three or four men ran continually backwards and forwards in the streets, calling out for every one to have a care of fire, and making so horrible a noise, that it was both strange and fearful to hear them.

On the 25th, the Chinese captain, our landlord, was taken sick, and sent for a piece of pork, which I sent him, and immediately afterwards I went to visit him, carrying a small bottle of Spanish wine.  While I was there, Semidono and our guardian’s father-in-law came likewise to visit him.  The king sent me word, by Miguel, our jurebasso, that he had a bad opinion of Hernando Ximenes our Spaniard, and that he meant to have run away when lately at Nangasaki.  But I knew this to be false, as he