Japan and the Japanese

124 JAPAN. A. D. 15951597.
to enter their church in that city, nor themselves to traverse the
country, as they had done, preaching and baptizing. He exhibited,
however, every disposition to be as indulgent as possible in the
execution of his orders; for though the prisoners were denied the
privilege of hearing mass, they were permitted, on their way to the
place of execution, to stop at the hermitage of St. Lazarus, where
the Jesuits confessed to Father Rodriguez and another of their
order, who met them there, and the Franciscans to each other.
The place of execution was not that made use of for ordinary
malefactors, but a hill bordering on the sea, one of those by which
the city of Nagasaki is surrounded, and thenceforth known among
the converts as the Holy Mountain, or Mount of Martyrs, to which
name it gained still further claim by becoming the scene of many
subsequent executions, continuing also, as long as the new religion
lasted in Japan, a place of pilgrimage for its adherents. The
prisoners were followed to this hill by an excited crowd, who, with
tears and benedictions, besought their prayers. They were put to
death by crucifixion, which, however, according to the Japanese
method, is not a lingering punishment. The sufferer is bound, not
nailed, to the cross and his body is immediately pierced by a lance,
or sometimes by two lances, thrust in at the sides, and coming out
at the shoulders.
The earth, wet with the martyrs' precious blood, was sedulously
gathered up by the bystanders, and, in spite of the care with which
the bodies were guarded, those of the three Jesuits were conveyed
away to Macao ; or, at least, bodies alleged to be the same were
preserved in the churches there with great veneration as relics.
Many miracles were alleged to have attended and followed the
death of these martyrs, as to which duly authenticated affidavits
may be found recorded in the great collection of Bolandus, afford-
ing grounds for the canonization of these twenty-six Japanese prole-martyrs,
decreed, thirty years after, by Pope Urban VIII.