CHAPTER III
Pinto’s Second Visit to Japan—Anjirō, or Paul of the Holy Faith—A. D. 1547-1548.
After a great variety of haps and mishaps in Pegu, Siam, Java, and elsewhere, Fernam Mendez Pinto represents himself as having embarked a second time for Japan, in a ship commanded by George Alvarez, which sailed from Malacca in the year 1547. In twenty-six days they made the island of Tanegashima, nine leagues south of the mainland of Japan; and on the fifth day afterwards reached Fuchū, in the kingdom of Bungo, a hundred leagues to the north. The king and the inhabitants gave them a very friendly reception; but very shortly after their arrival a civil commotion broke out, in which the king was murdered with most of his family and a number of Portuguese who were in his service; the city being set on fire during the outbreak, and great numbers killed on both sides.
One of the king’s sons, who, when this event occurred, happened to be at the fortress of Usuki, seven leagues distant, would have proceeded at once to Fuchū but for the advice of his tutor, Hizen dono, the same name borne by the ambassador of the king of Bungo, under whose guidance Pinto, according to his former narrative, had first visited Fuchū. This person advised the young prince first to collect a sufficient army; and of the Japanese method of calling to arms Pinto gives the following account: Every housekeeper, high and low, was required to keep by him a conch-shell, which, under severe penalties, could be sounded on four occasions only,—tumults, fire, thieves, and treason. To distinguish what the alarm was for, the shell was sounded once for tumult, twice for fire, three times for thieves, and four times for treason. So soon as the alarm of treason was sounded, every householder who heard it was obliged to repeat it. And upon the signal thus given, and which spread from house to house and village to village, all were obliged to march armed to the spot whence it came, the whole population of the district being thus very soon collected.
By this means, in the course of seven days, during three of which the young prince lamented his murdered relatives at a convent of bonzes in a grove near the city, after which he proceeded to confiscate the estates of the rebels, Pinto collects for him an army,—he is generally pretty liberal in such matters,—estimated at one hundred and thirty thousand men, of whom seventeen thousand were cavalry. The multitude thus collected breeding a famine, the prince marched upon Fuchū, where he was received with great demonstrations of loyalty. But, before repairing to the palace, he stopped at the temple where the body of his father was lying, whose obsequies he celebrated with much pomp, the observance lasting through two nights, with a great display of torches and illuminations. The closing ceremony was the presentation to the son of the bloody garments of the father, on which he swore that he would show no mercy to the traitors, even though to save their lives they might turn bonzes; but that, rather than allow them to escape, he would destroy every convent or temple in which they might take refuge.
On the fourth day, having been inaugurated as king, but with little pomp, he marched with a still-increasing army against the rebels, who, to the number of ten thousand, had entrenched themselves on a neighboring hill, where, being surrounded by the royal forces, rather than surrender, they were cut off to a man.
The city of Fuchū was left almost in ruins by this civil war; and the Portuguese, despairing of being able to find purchasers for their goods, proceeded to the city of Hamanoichi [or Miyakonojō], ninety leagues to the southward, on the bay of Kagoshima, where they remained for two months and a half, unable to sell their cargo, as the market was completely overstocked by Chinese merchandise, which had been poured in such quantities into the Japanese ports as to be worth much less than it was in China. Pinto and his company were entirely at a loss what to do; but from this dilemma they were delivered, as Pinto will have it, by the special providence of the Most High; for at the new moon of December a terrible storm occurred, in which almost the whole of these foreign traders were destroyed, to the incredible number, as Pinto relates, of near two thousand vessels, including twenty-six belonging to the Portuguese. Of the whole number, only ten or a dozen escaped, among them that in which Pinto was, which afterwards disposed of her lading to very good profit. So they got ready to depart, well pleased to see themselves so rich, but sad at having made their gains at the cost of so many lives, both of countrymen and strangers. Three times, however, they were detained by accidents, the last time barely escaping—by the help of the Virgin Mary, as Pinto insists—being carried by the strong current upon a dangerous reef; just at which moment they saw approaching the shore, in great haste, two men on horseback, making signs to them with a cloth. The preceding night four slaves, one of whom belonged to Pinto, had escaped from the vessel; and, thinking to receive some news of them, Pinto went in the boat with two companions. “Coming to the shore,” he says, “where the two men on horseback awaited us, one of them, who seemed the principal person, said to me, ‘Sir, as the haste I am in admits of no delay, being in great fear of some people who are in pursuit of me, I beg of you, for the love of God, that, without suggesting doubts or weighing inconveniences, you will receive me at once on board your ship.’At which words of his I was so much embarrassed,” says Pinto, “as hardly to know what to do, and the more so as I recollected having twice seen him in Hamanoichi, in the company of some merchants of that city. Scarcely had I received him and his companion into the boat, when fourteen men on horseback made their appearance, approaching at full speed and crying out to me, ‘Give up that traitor, or we will kill you!’Others soon after came up, both horsemen and on foot; whereupon I put off to the distance of a good bow-shot, and inquired what they wanted. To which they made answer, ‘If thou dost carry off that Japanese, know that a thousand heads of fellows like thee shall pay the forfeit of it.’To all which,” says Pinto, “I replied not a word, but, pulling to the ship, got on board with the two Japanese, who were well received, and provided by the captain and the other Portuguese with everything necessary for so long a voyage.” The name of this fugitive was Anjirō, “an instrument selected by the Lord,” so Pinto piously observes, “for his praise and the exaltation of the holy faith.”
In fourteen days the ship reached Chincheo, but found the mouth of the river leading to it blockaded by a famous Chinese corsair with a great fleet, to avoid whom they turned aside and sailed for Malacca.
In this city Pinto met, apparently for the first time, with Master Francis Xavier, general superior or provincial of the order of the Jesuits in India, in all parts of which occupied by the Portuguese he had already attained a high reputation for self-devotion, sanctity, and miraculous power; and who was then at Malacca, on his return to Goa, from a mission on which he had lately been to the Moluccas. “The father,” says Pinto, “had received intelligence of our arrival, and that we had brought with us the Japanese Anjirō. He came to visit George Alvarez and myself in the house of one Cosmo Rodriguez, where we lodged, and passed almost a whole day with us in curious inquiries (all founded on his lively zeal for the honor of God) about the countries we had visited; in the course of which I told him, not knowing that he knew it already, that we had brought with us two Japanese, one of whom appeared to be a man of consideration, well skilled in the laws and religion of Japan. Whereupon he expressed great desire to see him; in consequence of which we brought him to the hospital, where the father lodged, who received him gladly and took him to India, whither he was then on his way. Having arrived at Goa, Anjirō there became a Christian, taking the name of Paulo de Santa Fe [Paul of the Holy Faith], and in a short time learned to read and write Portuguese, and mastered the whole Christian doctrine; so that the father only waited for the monsoon to go to announce to the heathen of the isle of Japan, Christ, the Son of the living God, nailed to the cross for our sins (as he was accustomed to do), and to take this man with him as an interpreter, as he afterwards did, and his companion also, who, as well as himself, professed the Christian faith, and received from the father the name of John.”