th' from Goa to the Cape of Comori.... From Bassains [Bacani
of our text; the modern Bassein] comes all the timber for building
houses and vessels; indeed, most of the ships are built there. It
also supplies a very fine and hard free stone, like granite; ... All
the magnificent churches and palaces at Goa and the other towns are
built of this stone." The editors of the _Voyage_ add: "Bassein,
twenty-six miles north of Bombay, was ceded to the Portuguese in
1536. It became the favorite resort of the wealthier Portuguese,
the place being noted for handsome villas and pretty gardens. It
was taken by the Mahrattas in 1739, after a siege of three months,
in which the Portuguese, for the last time in India, fought with
stubborn courage." Bassein was captured by the British in 1780. The
term "Mogors" in the text refers to some of the kings who were vassals
of the Great Mogul (_Vol_. XVII, p. 252).

[61] Diego de Pantoja, born in 1571, became a novice in the Jesuit
order at the age of eighteen. Seven years later he embarked to
join the mission in Japan; but on reaching Macao he was assigned as
companion to the noted Jesuit missionary, Mateo Ricci, and the two
founded the mission of Pekin. Being later expelled from the kingdom,
Pantoja died at Macao in January, 1618 (Sommervogel). Ricci died at
Pekin in May, 1610. In the archives not only of Spain, but of Italy,
France, and England, are many and voluminous documents referring to
the Catholic missions in China. The Jesuit missions there are very
fully recounted in _Lettres edifiantes_.

[62] See Henry Yule's account of "Nestorian Christianity in China,"
in his _Cathay and the Way Thither_ (Hakluyt Society's publications,
London, 1866), pp. lxxxviii-ci; cf. pp. clxxxi-iii, and 497. Regarding
the Jews in China, see _ut supra_, pp. lxxx, 225, 341, 497, 533.

[63] In 1618 the Manchu leader Noorhachu invaded the province of
Liaotung--now a division of the province of Sheng-King, and lying on
the northern coast of the Korean Gulf; its southern extremity forms a
long, narrow peninsula which terminates at the entrance of the Gulf
of Pe-chili, and on it are the fortified posts of Dalny and Port
Arthur, important strategic points commanding the entrance to that
gulf, and prominent in the present war (May, 1904) between Russia and
Japan. In Liaotung are also the important towns of Mukden and Niuchuang
(Newchwang). In 1621 Noorhachu captured Mukden, and soon conquered
the rest of the prov