e kingdoms of Macassar, came in person to see him, and asked divers
questions relating to the Christian faith: that this honest merchant,
better acquainted with his traffic than his religion, yet answered very
pertinently, and discoursed of the mysteries of faith after so reasonable
a manner, that the king, then threescore years of age, was converted,
with all his family and court: that another king of the same island,
called the king of Sion, followed his example; and that these two
princes, who were solemnly baptized by the hand of Payva, not being able
to retain him with them, desired him to send them some priests, who might
administer the sacraments, and baptize their subjects.

These pious inclinations appeared to Father Xavier as an excellent
groundwork for the planting of the gospel. He wept for joy at the happy
news; and adored the profound judgments of the Divine Providence, which,
after having refused the grace of baptism to the king of Travancore, when
all his subjects had received it, began the conversion of Sion and of
Supa by that of their sovereigns. He even believed, that his evangelical
ministry exacted from him, to put the last hand to the conversion of
those kingdoms.

In the mean time, he thought it his duty, that, before he resolved on the
voyage of Macassar, he should ask advice from heaven concerning it; and
to perform it as he ought, it came into his mind to implore the
enlightnings of God's spirit at the sepulchre of St Thomas, the ancient
founder, and first father of Christianity in the Indies, whom he had
taken for his patron and his guide, in the course of all his travels. He
therefore resolved to go in pilgrimage to Meliapor, which is distant but
fifty leagues from Negatapan, where the wind had driven him back. And
embarking in the ship of Michael Pereyra, on Palm-Sunday, which fell that
year, 1545, on the 29th of March, they shaped their course along-the
coasts of Coromandel, having at first a favourable wind; but they had not
made above twelve or thirteen leagues, when the weather changed on a
sudden, and the sea became so rough, that they were forced to make to
land, and cast anchor under covert of a mountain, to put their ship into
some reasonable security. They lay there for seven days together, in
expectation of a better wind; and all that time the holy man passed in
contemplation, without taking any nourishment, either of meat or drink,
as they observed who were in the vessel with him