From The Cloister Again You
Passed Into A Covered Corridor, Six Paces In Width, Of Great Length, And
Extending To The Margin Of The Lake.
On either side of this corridor were
ten courts, in the form of oblong cloisters surrounded by colonnades; and
in each cloister or court were fifty chambers with gardens to each.
In
these chambers were quartered one thousand young ladies in the service of
the King. The King would sometimes go with the Queen and some of these
maidens to take his diversion on the Lake, or to visit the Idol-temples,
in boats all canopied with silk.
The other two parts of the enclosure were distributed in groves, and
lakes, and charming gardens planted with fruit-trees, and preserves for
all sorts of animals, such as roe, red-deer, fallow-deer, hares, and
rabbits. Here the King used to take his pleasure in company with those
damsels of his; some in carriages, some on horseback, whilst no man was
permitted to enter. Sometimes the King would set the girls a-coursing
after the game with dogs, and when they were tired they would hie to the
groves that overhung the lakes, and leaving their clothes there they would
come forth naked and enter the water and swim about hither and thither,
whilst it was the King's delight to watch them; and then all would return
home. Sometimes the King would have his dinner carried to those groves,
which were dense with lofty trees, and there would be waited on by those
young ladies.
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