s to look for. I
have no intention of leading my readers into, as I should find a
difficulty in extricating them from, the mazes of Japanese history at
any date. I simply propose to give them a glimpse of Japan as it has
appeared to Europeans since it was first "discovered" by three
storm-tossed Portuguese sailors about the year 1542. I say
"discovered" with full knowledge of the fact that Marco Paolo, as
early as 1275, dictated to a friend when imprisoned at Genoa that
stirring narrative, "Maravigliose Cose," which, by the way, was not
printed for nearly two centuries later. That narrative was read by
and, it is stated, so fired the imagination of Christopher Columbus as
to lead him to set out on that voyage of exploration which ended in
the discovery of America. Marco Paolo's narrative must, however, be
received with caution. I regard it as largely legendary. He never
himself visited Japan, and his glowing description of the "Isles
washed by stormy seas and abounding in gold and pearls" was founded on
what he had been told by the Chinese he had met during his Eastern
travels.

The commencement of European intercourse with Japan may, as I have
said, be taken to be 1542, when three Portuguese adventurers in a
Chinese junk were driven by stress of weather on a part of the
Japanese coast under the authority of the Prince of Bungo. The
Portuguese were kindly received by the natives, and a treaty or
arrangement seems to have been entered into whereby a Portuguese
vessel was to be annually despatched to Japan laden with "woollen
cloths, furs, silks, taffetas," and other articles. Some years later a
Japanese noble, Hansiro by name, murdered another Japanese and fled
the country. He found his way to Goa, where he came under the
influence of some Portuguese priests, and was eventually converted to
Christianity and baptized. He was, if the records of his career are
correct, desirous to bring to his fellow-countrymen not only the
knowledge of the Christian religion but many articles of European
commerce. The great Apostle of the East and disciple of Ignatius
Loyola, St. Francis Xavier, had then recently arrived in Goa, where he
appears to have taken up with ardour the project of converting Japan.
Both enterprises, the material and the spiritual, seem to have been
organised about the same time. A ship was loaded with articles likely
to be in demand in Japan, and Francis Xavier embarked in another
vessel, with the Japanese refuge