Mendez Pinto, on a Chinese pirate junk which had been
driven by a storm away from her companions, set foot upon an island
called Tanegashima. This name among the country folks is still
synonymous with guns and pistols, for Pinto introduced fire-arms, and
powder.[3]
During six months spent by the "mendacious" Pinto on the island, the
imitative people made no fewer than six hundred match-locks or
arquebuses. Clearing twelve hundred per cent. on their cargo, the three
Portuguese loaded with presents, returned to China. Their countrymen
quickly flocked to this new market, and soon the beginnings of regular
trade with Portugal were inaugurated. On the other hand, Japanese began
to be found as far west as India. To Malacca, while Francis Xavier was
laboring there, came a refugee Japanese, named Anjiro. The disciple of
Loyola, and this child of the Land of the Rising Sun met. Xavier, ever
restless and ready for a new field, was fired with the idea of
converting Japan. Anjiro, after learning Portuguese and becoming a
Christian, was baptized with the name of Paul. The heroic missionary of
the cross and keys then sailed with his Japanese companion, and in 1549
landed at Kagoshima,[4] the capital of Satsuma. As there was no central
government then existing in Japan, the entrance of the foreigners, both
lay and clerical, was unnoticed.
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