70 DISCOVERIES OF THE PORTUGUESE. 
spot where the king was preparing to give them 
an audience. It was in a large park, so covered 
with people, that they could with the utmost dif- 
ficulty effect a passage. The king was stationed 
on a wooden scaffold of timber, so elevated, that 
he could be seen by the whole assembly. He 
sat in a chair of ivory, ornamented with some 
pieces of well carved wood. His dress consisted 
of skins of beasts, which are praised as glossy, and 
blacker than his own skin ; the lower part of his 
body was covered with a damask robe, presented 
to him by Diego Cam ; on his left arm he wore 
a bracelet of brass, and on his shoulder a horse's 
tail, accounted here a peculiar ensign of royalty. 
His head was covered with a bonnet of very fine 
cloth, made from the palm tree, with works in 
alto and hasso relievo, resembling the texture of 
our velvet sattin. Ruy de Sousa then did cour- 
tesy after the European manner, which the king 
returned in his own, by placing his hand on the 
ground, and making a semblance of taking up 
dust, then pressing it to the breast of the ambas- 
sador, and afterwards to his own. He then ex- 
pressed a desire to see the holy things which they 
had brought along with them, which being taken 
out and exhibited one by one, were viewed with 
the utmost attention and reverence by the whole 
assembly. In this occupation they spent the day 
and part of the night, when the Europeans were 
