Japan and the Japanese

50 JAPAN. A. D. 15421550.
Taking with him the three Japanese, Cosme de Torres, a priest,
and Jean Fernandes, a brother of the society, of which, besides
several who had joined it in India, some ten or twelve members had
followed Xavier from Portugal, and had been distributed in vari-
ous services, he sailed in the ship of a Chinese merchant, who had
agreed with the Portuguese commander at Malacca to carry him
to Japan. As Pinto tells the story, this merchant was a corsair,
and so notorious a one as to go by the name of the Robber.
Xavier says nothing of that, but complains of the levity and vacil-
lation natural to barbarians, which made the captain linger at the
islands where he touched, at the risk of losing the monsoon and
being obliged to winter in China. Xavier was also greatly shocked
at the assiduous worship paid by the mariners to an idol which they
had on board, and before which they burnt candles and odoriferous
wood, seeking oracles from it as to the result of the voyage.
" What were our feelings, and what we suffered, you can well
imagine," he exclaims, " at the thought that this demon should be
"
consulted as to the whole course of our ! journey
After touching at Canton, the Chinese captain, instead of sailing
thence to Japan, as he had promised, followed the coast north
toward Chincheo ;
but hearing, when he approached that port, that
it was blockaded by a corsair, he put off in self-defence for Japan,
and arrived safe in the port of Cangoxima.
Angiro, or Paul as he was now called, was well received by his
relations, and forty days were spent by Xavier in laborious appli-
cation to the rudiments of the language, and by Paul in translating
into Japanese the ten commandments, and other parts of the Chris-
tian faith, which Xavier determined, so he writes, to have printed
as soon as possible, especially as most of the Japanese could read.
Angiro also devoted himself to exhortations and arguments among
his relations and friends, and soon made converts of his wife and
daughter, and many besides, of both sexes. An interview was had
with the king of Satsuma, in which province Cangoxima was
situated,
and he presently issued an edict allowing his subjects to
embrace the new faith. This, beginning seemed promising ; but
Xavier already anticipated a violent opposition so soon as his
object came to be fully understood. He drew consolation, how
ever, from the spiritual benefits enjoyed by himself, " since in these