Japan and the Japanese

172 JAPAN. A. D. 16111613.
supported by the produce of an altar, on which the worshippers
offered rice and small pieces of money, and near which was a colossal
copper image, like that 1
already described, but much larger, reaching
to the very arch of the temple, which itself stood on the top of a hill,
having an avenue of approach on either side of fifty stone pillars,
ten paces apart, on each of which was suspended a lantern, lighted
every night.*
Here, also, the Jesuits had a very stately college, in which many
of them resided, both Portuguese and natives, and in which many
children were trained up in the Christian religion according to the
Romish church. In this city alone there were not less than five or
fix thousand professing Christians.t
But already that persecution was commenced which ended in the
banishment of the Jesuits from Japan, and, indeed, in the exclusion
of all Europeans, with a slight exception in favor of the Dutch.
Following up an edict of the previous year, against the Franciscans,
the emperor had issued a proclamation, about a month before Captain
Paris' arrival at Suruga, that no church should stand, nor mass be
sung, within ten leagues of his court, upon pain of death.
Having at length received the emperor's presents for the king of
England, being ten beobs, or " large pictures to hang
a chamber
with," they proceeded the same day to Fusiini, and the next to Osaka,
where they reembarked in the galley which had been waiting for them,
and returned to Firando, having spent just
tour.
three months on the
Captain Saris found that, during his absence, seven of his crew
had run away to Nagasaki, where they had complained to the Por-
tuguese of having been used more like dogs than men. Others,
seduced by drink and women, and sailor boarding-house keepers,
just the same in Japan as elsewhere, had committed great irregu-
larities, quarreling Avith the natives and among themselves, even to
wounding, and maiming, and death. What with these troubles, added
* This is the same temple and idol seen and described by Don Rodrigo.
t Captain Saris states that the New Testament had been translated into
Japanese for their use but this is doubtless a mistake. A number of books
;
of devotion were translated into Japanese, but we hear nowhere else of any
New Testament, nor were such translations a part of the Jesuit missionary
machinery.