Japan and the Japanese

&2 JAPAN. A. D. 15421550.
trees. Ten days after, they saw a beautiful island, covered with
palms, but the wind prevented their landing. In another ten ot
twelve days, the ships reached the great island of Mindanao, two
hundred leagues in circumference, but with few inhabitants. Sail-
ing thence to the south they discovered a .small island abounding in
meat and rice but ; having, during half a year's residence, lost fou>
hundred men in contests with the natives, who used poisoned arrows,
they sailed to the Moluccas, where they remained about two years,
till it was finally resolved, not having the means to get back to
New Spain, to apply to the Portuguese governor to forward them
to Goa. At Amboina, Cosmo met with Xavier, whose conversa-
tion revived his religious inclinations; and, proceeding to Goa, he
was ordained a priest by the bishop there, who placed him in charge
of a cure. But he found no peace of mind till he betook himself
to the college of St. Paul (which seems by this time to have passed
into the hands of the Jesuits), being the more confirmed in his res-
olution to join the order, by the return of Xavier to Goa, whose
invitation to accompany him to Japan he joyfully accepted, and
where he continued for twenty years to labor as a missionary.
Cosmo, in his letter above quoted, says nothing of any hostile
collision of the Spanish ships, in which he reached the East, with
the Portuguese; but it appears, from Galvano's account of this
expedition, that such collision did take place. He also gives, as
the reason why the Spaniards did not land on Mindanao, the oppo-
sition they experienced from some of the princes of it, who, by his own
recent efforts, had been converted to Catholicism ; and who, having
given their obedience to him, would by no means incur his dis-
pleasure by entertaining these interloping Spaniards.
One of the Spanish ships was sent back to New Spain with news
of their success thus far. This ship passed among the northern
islands of the group, which seem now first to have received the name
of the Philippines. Another fleet sailed from Seville, in the year
but none of the ships succeeded
1544, to cooperate with Ilui Lopes ;
in paasing the Straits of Magellan, except one small bark, which ran
up the coast to Peru. The Spaniards made no further attempts in
the East till the expiration often years or more, when the Philip-
pines were finally colonized an event not without its influence
upon the affairs of Japan.