Japan and the Japanese

62 JAPAN. A. D. 15571377.
verts. In the island of Ximo the new religion continued to
spread. Indeed, the baptized prince of Onmra, not content with
hacking idols to pieces, and refusing to join in the old national fes-
tivals, wished also to prohibit all the old ceremonies, and to compel
his subjects to adopt the new ones, an excess of zeal which, by
displaying the intolerant spirit of the new sect, fostered an union of
all the old ones against it, such as at last occasioned its destruction.
This prince had allowed certain Portuguese merchants to estab-
lish themselves at Nagasaki,* then a mere fishing village, but hav-
ing a capacious harbor, the port of Japan nearest to China and the
Indies, at the head of a deep bay, opening to the west. Presently
he built a church there, and, A. D. 1568, invited the missionaries
to make it their head-quarters, with a promise that no religion
but theirs should be allowed. This invitation was accepted;
many converts flocked thither, and Nagasaki soon became a considerable
city. Fathers de Torres and Vilela both died in 1570,t
worn out with years and labors, the latter being succeeded as head
of the mission by Father Cabral, sent out from Goa as vice-provincial
of the order, and accompanied by Father Gnecchi, who soon
became an efficient laborer.
Meanwhile, an insurrection in the imperial provinces, on the part
of the old rebels, which it cost the life of Vatondono to suppress, so
provoked Nobunanga that he wreaked his vengeance anew upon
the bonzes (who had again aided the insurgents), by destroying a
great number of their monasteries on the famous mountain of
Jesan, and putting
the inmates to death. This occurrence took
place A. D. 1571, as the missionaries remarked, on the day of St.
Michael, whom Xavier had named the patron saint of Japan.
Cabral, the vice-provincial, having made a visit to Miako, was very
graciously received by Nobunanga. Shortly after the titular Kubo-
* This name is frequently written Nangaski,
and "such, according to
Kampfer, is the pronunciation.
t Of Father de Torres we have four letters rendered into Latin, and of
Vilela, in the same collections, seven, giving, among other things, a pretty
full account of his visit to and residence at Miako. For the description,
however, of that capital, and the road to it, I prefer to rely on lay travellers,
of whose observations, during a series of visits extending through more than
two centuries, a full abstract will be fouud in subsequent chapters.