Japan and the Japanese

22 JAPAN. A. D. 1542-1545.
of discoveries by sea and laud, from the flood to the year of
grace, 1555, particularly the recent ones of the Spanish and Por-
tuguese, in which Galvano had been an active participator, having
greatly distinguished himself as the Portuguese governor of tho
Moluccas. With a disinterestedness as uncommon then as now,
more intent upon the public service than his own enrichment, after
repeatedly refusing the regency of the Moluccas tendered to him by
the natives, and putting into the public treasury the rich presents
of spices which were made to him, he had returned to Portugal, in
1440, a poor man ; and so vain was his reliance on the gratitude
of the court, that he was obliged to pass the last seventeen years of
his life as the inmate of a charitable foundation, solacing
his leis-
ure by composing the history of exploits in which he no longer participated.
His account of the discovery of Japan, which he must
have obtained at second hand, as it happened after he had left the
Indies, is thus given in Hackluyt's translation :*
" In the year of our Lord 1542, one Diego de Freitas being in
the realm of Siam, and in the city of Dodra, as captain of a ship,
there fled from him three Portuguese in a junco (which is a kind of
ship) towards China. Their names were Antony de Moto, Francis
Zimoro and Antonio Perota. Directing their course to the city of
Liampo, standing in 30 odd of latitude, there fell upon their
stern such a storm, that it set them off the land ; and in a few days
they saw an island towards the east, standing in 32, which they do
name Japan, which seemethto be the isle of Zipangry whereof
Paulus Venetus [Marco Polo] maketh mention, and of the riches
thereof. And this island of Japan hath gold, silver, and other
riches."
Upon the strength of this statement of Galvano's, Maffei, in his
elegant Latin Indian History, first printed in 1589, and whom sub-
sequent writers have generally followed, ascribes to the three Por-
tuguese above mentioned the honor of the discovery of Japan,
though it was claimed, he says, by several others. Of these others
*Galvnno's book in the translation, published by Ilackluyt, in 1601, may
be found in tha supplement to Hackluyt's collection of voyages, London,
1811. The original work was printed by the pious care of Francis de Sous*
Tauares, to whom Galvano left it, on his death-bed.