that
people doubted him as much as they had doubted Marco Polo. His very
name, Mendez, was extended into "mendacious." Yet time has done justice
to both these old travellers, who either told, or tried to tell, the
truth.

The Portuguese travellers were well received by the islanders,--who knew
not yet what firebrands they were welcoming. It took a century for
Europeans to disgust the Japanese so thoroughly as to force the
islanders to drive them from the land and put up the bars against their
return. What interested the Japanese even more than their visitors were
the new and strange weapons they bore. Pinto and his two comrades were
armed with arquebuses, warlike implements such as they had never before
seen, and whose powers filled them with astonishment and delight. It was
the era of civil war in Japan, and the possession of a new and deadly
weapon was eagerly welcomed by that martial people, who saw in it
visions of speedy success over their enemies.

Pinto was invited to the castle of the daimio of Bungo, whom he taught
the arts of making guns and gunpowder. The Japanese, alert at taking
advantage of the discoveries of other people, were quick to manufacture
powder and guns for themselves, and in the wars told of in our last few
tales native cannon were brought into use, though the razor-edged sword
continued the most death-dealing of their weapons.

As for the piratical trader which conveyed Pinto to Japan, it sold its
cargo at an immense profit, while the three Portuguese reached China
again rich in presents. This was not Pinto's only visit to Japan. He
made three other voyages thither, the last in 1556, as ambassador from
the Portuguese viceroy in the East. On this occasion he learned that
the islanders had made rapid progress in their new art of gun-making,
they claiming to have thirty thousand guns in Fucheo, the capital of
Bungo, and ten times that number in the whole land of Japan.

The new market for European wares, opened by the visit of Pinto, was
quickly taken advantage of by his countrymen, and Portuguese traders
made their way by hundreds to Japan, where they met with the best of
treatment. Guns and powder were especially welcome, as at that time the
power of the Ashikaga clan was at an end, anarchy everywhere prevailed,
and every local chief was in arms to win all he could from the ruins of
the state. Such was the first visit of Europeans to Japan, and such the
gift they brought, the fatal one of g