about noon
About four hours after we began our journey , I awaked , by a very ridiculous accident ; for , the carriage being stopt a while , to adjust something that was out of order , two or three of the young natives had the curiosity to see how I looked , when I was asleep . They climbed up into the engine , and advancing very softly to my face , one of them , an officer in the guards , put the sharp end of his half-pike -LSB- 11 -RSB- a good way up into my left nostril , which tickled my nose like a straw , and made me sneeze violently ; whereupon they stole off , unperceived , and it was three weeks before I knew the cause of my awaking so suddenly . We made a long march the remaining part of the day , and rested at night with five hundred guards on each side of me , half with torches , and half with bows and arrows , ready to shoot me , if I should offer to stir . The next morning , at sunrise , we continued our march , and arrived within two hundred yards of the city gates about noon . The emperor , and all his court , came out to meet us ; but his great officers would by no means suffer his majesty to endanger his person , by mounting on my body . At the place where the carriage stopt , there stood an ancient temple , esteemed to be the largest in the whole kingdom , which , having been polluted some years before by an unnatural murder , was , according to the zeal of those people , looked upon as profane , and therefore had been applied to common use , and all the ornaments and furniture carried away . In this edifice it was determined I should lodge .