Linschoten, mentioned above, who had arrived at Goa in 1583, from Lisbon, as one of the archbishop’s suite, returned to Holland in 1589, where he published his travels in 1595,—the first Dutch account of the East. From him we learn that Story, the painter, after the departure of his companions, grew sick of the cloister of St. Paul, and, as he had not yet taken the vows, left and set up as a painter in Goa, where he had abundant employment, and, “in the end, married a mestizo’s daughter of the town, so that he made his account to stay there while he lived,”—the first permanent English resident in Hindoostan.
A Modern Street Scene in Tōkyō
There is in the “Asiatic Journal,” for December, 1838, a very striking description of the present ruinous state of the once splendid and magnificent city of Goa. It has been abandoned for Pongi, now known as New Goa, six miles nearer the sea, and the present seat of the shrunken Portuguese viceroyalty. The only inhabitants of Old Goa are a few hundred monks, nuns, and their attendants, attached to the splendid churches and monasteries still standing, among which towers conspicuous the church of the Jesuits, in a beautiful chapel attached to which is the monument of St. Francis Xavier. His body, removed thither from the college of St. Paul, in which it was first placed, reposes upon a sarcophagus or bier of Italian marble, faced with bronzes, representing his missionary labors, and enclosed in a shrine of brass and silver. It is alleged still to be in as good preservation as ever, and is occasionally exhibited in public. The last of these exhibitions was in 1783.
Note F
JAPANESE DARING AND ADVENTURE EXTERIOR TO THE LIMITS OF JAPAN
The same Davis who had been Houtman’s pilot in the first voyage to the East Indies sailed from England in 1604, as master of the “Tiger,” a ship of two hundred and forty tons. While on her course from Bantam to Batavia, the “Tiger” encountered a little junk of seventy tons, with ninety Japanese on board, “most of them in too gallant a habit for sailors.” They had left home, as it turned out, in a larger vessel, which had been “pirating along the coast of China and Cambodia,”—much the same business, by the way, in which the “Tiger” was herself engaged,—but, having lost their vessel by shipwreck, they had seized upon this little junk, laden with rice, and were trying to reach Japan in it. In hopes to get some information out of them, they were entertained for two days with “gifts and feasting”; but, at the same time, their junk was searched for treasure which might be concealed under the rice. While part of the “Tiger’s” men were employed in this search, the Japanese made a desperate attempt to get possession of that ship. Davis himself was killed in the first surprise, but the Japanese were finally forced into the cabin, where, by breaking down a bulkhead, some of the ship’s guns, loaded with bullets and case shot, were brought to bear upon them. They disdained to ask quarter, and all perished from effects of the shot except one, who jumped into the sea. The narrative of this affair, given by Purchas (Pilg., Part 1, p. 137), and apparently written by an officer of the “Tiger,” winds up as follows: “The Japanese are not suffered to land in any port of India with weapons, being accounted a people so desperate and daring that they are feared in all places where they come.”
In conformity to this character of the Japanese is the account given by Floris, cape merchant of the “Globe,” an English ship, which touched at Siam in 1612, while performing the voyage mentioned Vol. I, p. 207 of the text. A short time previously, two hundred and eighty Japanese, the slave-soldiers of a principal Siamese noble, who had been put to death by the royal authority, had revenged their master by seizing on the king of Siam, whom they compelled to subscribe to such terms as they dictated, “after which, they had departed with great treasure, the Siamese not being able to right themselves.”[132]
The good service rendered to the Portuguese by Japanese mercenaries at the siege of Malacca, in 1606, is mentioned in the text, Vol. I, p. 182. It appears, from a curious tract concerning the Philippines, preserved by Thevenot, that when De Silva, governor of those islands, undertook, in 1608, to drive the Dutch from the Moluccas, he was obliged to send to Japan for saltpetre, metal, and even for founders to cast cannon. A body of Japanese formed, in 1619, a part of the Dutch garrison in their fort at Jacatara (named about that time Batavia), while besieged by the natives on the island, and blockaded at the same time by an English squadron, as mentioned Vol. I, p. 237 of the text. Of the Japanese settled on the island of Amboyna, and involved with the English in the massacre there, mention is made Vol. I, p. 240. Haganaar, who was at Cambodia in 1637, found among the inhabitants of that city seventy or eighty families of Japanese, whom he describes as not daring to return to their own country, with which, however, they carried on trade, by means of Chinese ships. They were in great favor with the king of Cambodia, to whom they had rendered valiant assistance in suppressing a dangerous rebellion, and were greatly feared by the other inhabitants of the city, whether Chinese or Malays. To this day one of the channels of the great river of Cambodia is known as “Japanese river”—a name given, indeed, on some maps, to the main river itself, and probably taking its origin from this Japanese colony.
The conquest of the Lew Chew [Riūkiū] Islands, by the king of Satsuma, took place about 1610; and, much about the same time, some Japanese made an establishment on the island of Formosa, for the purpose of trading with the Chinese; but in this they were soon superseded by the Dutch. The narrative of Nuyts’ affair, as given in the text (Vol. I, p. 252), is derived from a detailed account appended in “Voyages au Nord,” Tom. IV., to Caron’s Memoir, addressed to Colbert, on opening an intercourse with Japan; but, from a paper embodied in the Voyage of Rechteren (“Voyages des Indes,” Tom. V.), and written, apparently, in 1632, by a person on the spot, it would appear that the conduct of Nuyts, instead of being prompted by personal antipathy, was merely an attempt to exclude the Japanese from the trade with the Chinese, and to engross it for the Dutch East India Company; “a desire good in itself,” so this writer observes, “but which should have been pursued with greater precaution and prudence.”
In the Chinese writings, the Japanese figure as daring pirates; but, as the appellation bestowed on them is equally applied to other eastern and southeastern islanders, it is not so easy to say to whose credit or discredit the exploits referred to by these Chinese writers actually belong.