resident at that place received him with distinguished honour, escorting him in a kind of triumphal procession; and to the natives, who were anxious to learn what was the rank and dignity of a man thus distinguished by his own countrymen, Antonio replied that he was the man who shod the King of Portugal's horses, with which intelligence the Chinamen were very much impressed. A religious celebration, in which mass was performed, and a sermon preached by an enthusiastic priest, who greatly lauded Antonio and his exploits, gave additional lustre to this triumphal entry. One part of the holy father's exhortation gives a whimsical picture of the theology of those times, and even the grave

Fernand Mendez can scarcely refrain from a laugh when he describes it. Antonio de Faria himself was heartily ashamed of the extravagant terms in which his praises were sung by the priest, whose robe one of his followers plucked once or twice that he might desist. But he being nettled cried, "I will not stop, but will rather say more, for I speak nothing but what is as true as gospel. In regard whereof let me alone, I pray you; for I have made a vow to God never to desist from praising this noble captain, as he deserves it at my hands, for saving me 7,000 ducats' venture, that Merim Taborda had of mine in his junk, and was taken from him by that dog Acem; for which let the soul of so cursed a rogue and wicked devil be tormented in hell for ever and ever, whereunto say all with me, Amen."

At Ningpo the Portuguese had a strong fort, and it was told to

Faria, whom all treated with great honour and distinction, that there was a great war going on in China, where no less than thirteen princes were contending for the imperial crown. There was nothing to prevent him from taking and plundering the great city of Canton, if he should be so minded, and from what we have seen of Faria it may be supposed that an enterprise of the kind would suit his temper exactly. First, however, he resolved to sail away in search of a certain island, concerning which the Portuguese at Ningpo had given him intelligence, and which was reported to contain the tombs of many Chinese kings, built of gold, and containing many golden idols. Antonio de Faria's navigation was certainly of the boldest, for he ventured into unknown seas and straits and among dangerous rocks and shallows with an intrepidity which did all honour to his courage. It was, indeed, by the additions they made to the stock of maritime knowledge during their semi-piratical, and sometimes wholly piratical, expeditions, that the Portuguese and Spanish rovers of the sixteenth century are entitled to a place among the explorers of the world. On this occasion Captain Antonio was compelled to explore far more than he had intended, for the island of royal tombs seemed to elude his search, and his men were worn out with toil and almost in open mutiny when he at length came in sight of it. But here, as in many other places, the hundred tongues of Rumour had told an exaggerated story, for the gold of popular report on the tombs and images turned out to be burnished copper and brass; but the disappointed mariners broke open the graves, and were consoled by finding a great quantity of silver. They pursued their lawless career among the defenceless islands, plundering without remorse, and sometimes firing the villages near the coasts; and no horde of heathen Danes in the Dark Ages, roaming the seas in search of plunder, the terror of every coast on which they landed, and the avowed enemies of civilisation and industry, could have pursued a course of more unscrupulous rapine than was run by these devout Portuguese, who had a chaplain on board each of their junks to read mass to them, and, sailing with the Cross on their banner, vaunted their Christianity, and looked down with supreme contempt upon the benighted nations they despoiled. Certainly no Northern Viking could have perpetrated a greater act of sacrilege than the breaking open of the graves in the island of Callamplay.

"Mischief shall hunt the violent man," saith the proverb, and the worthy Antonio de Faria's career was destined to be concluded by

a sudden and overwhelming calamity. Pinto relates how his commander was in a thoroughly savage humour, and "tore his own beard and scratched his face" with vexation at having by his own indiscretion failed in the finest (piratical) exploit he had ever undertaken. The crews were likewise in very low spirits, "so sad and chagrined," says our chronicler, "that we said nothing at all to any purpose, as if we had been quite beside ourselves." In this humour they were sailing along the Bay of Nanking, when they were caught in one of the violent typhoons which occasionally rage in those seas. Pinto thus relates the catastrophe which then occurred:-"As our boats were for rowing, with low bulwarks, and weak and without mariners, we beheld ourselves reduced to such great extremity, that despairing of saving our lives we let ourselves drift along the coast wherever the current of the water should carry us; for we thought there seemed a much greater prospect of perishing among the rocks than of being swallowed up in the sea, and though we should have chosen this design as the best and the least difficult (that of drifting before the storm), we could not succeed therein; for towards the afternoon the wind came round to the north-east, which caused the waves to rise in such a manner that it was a terrible sight to behold them. The extreme terror in which we were then caused us to throw into the sea everything that we had, even to our chests full of silver. Having done this we cut away both our masts, because our vessels were then quite open. Thus destitute of masts and sails we drifted all the remainder of that day, and towards midnight, at last, we heard from Antonio de Faria's vessel a great noise of people, crying 'Lord God, have mercy on us!' which caused us to think that he was perishing. Then, having replied to them in the same way, we heard them no more, as if they had already been drowned; whereat we were so frightened, and so transported beyond ourselves, that for a full hour no one spoke a word. Having passed all this mournful night in such great affliction, an hour before daybreak our ship's keel opened, so that in an instant we were full of water, eight spans high, and thus we felt ourselves sinking without any hope of remedy. Then we judged that it was the good pleasure of the Lord that our lives and our labours should end here, and in the morning, when day broke and we cast our eyes far abroad over the ocean, we could no longer see Antonio de Faria; and this made us lose all the courage we had left, in such fashion that after that time not one of us had the heart for anything. We continued in this anguish

till ten o'clock or thereabouts, with so much apprehension and fear that words would not suffice to express it. At last we struck against the coast, and, almost drowned as we were, the waves of the sea rolled us against a rocky point which jutted out towards us. There we had scarcely arrived when the rolling broke everything to pieces. Then we clung to one another, crying with a loud voice, 'Lord, have mercy upon us!' and of twenty-five Portuguese that were among us there were only fourteen saved, inasmuch as the other eleven were drowned, with eighteen Christian servants and seven Chinese mariners. Such was the great disaster which befell us on Monday, the fifth of August, in the year one thousand five hundred and forty-two, for the which," piously concludes Pinto, "may the Lord be praised for ever!"

IV.

Pinto in Trouble-Kindness of the Bonzes-Retribution-Harsh Captivity— Travels in China-Improved Circumstances-Singular Affray among the Portuguese-Their Punishment-Attack on Pekin by the Tartars-Taking of Quangsay by the Tartars-The Portuguese Enter the Service of the Tartar King.

THUS

HUS was Fernand Mendez Pinto, the very Jonah of travellers, once more a shipwrecked, naked man, wandering along a desolate shore with a few companions as miserable as himself. The place swarmed with tigers, and was backed by a dreary swamp. The unhappy mariners dug holes with their nails in the sand, wherein they buried the bodies of their dead companions as the corpses were washed ashore; and passed two dreary nights in that dreadful spot, terrified by the roaring of the tigers and other wild beasts, and miserably contrasting their present forlorn position with their late prosperity. They then set off in the hope of discovering some inhabitants who might succour them in their distress. Their number was quickly reduced to eleven by the death of three, who were drowned in attempting to swim across an estuary; and the survivors were reduced to the extremity of wretchedness when they came upon a company of five Chinamen sitting round a fire. These good people relieved the immediate wants of the shipwrecked mariners, and directed them to a pagoda, inhabited by bonzes, or priests, where poor travellers were hospitably entertained. The bonzes proved themselves worthy of the good character that had been given them. They treated Pinto and his companions in the kindest manner, and passed them on to a second pagoda, whose priests were richer than themselves, and therefore more able to relieve them.

The shipwrecked Portuguese were quite shrewd enough to suspect that the narrative of their late proceedings among the Chinese islands and on the coasts would not constitute a very impressive letter of recommendation. Accordingly they represented themselves as "poor natives of Siam." But it would not do; the Celestials, as Pinto relates with an air of pious injury, insisted on considering them as robbers, and in the course of two months' wandering through the country they received many beatings and little relief. The thoroughly lawless proceedings of the Portuguese in those parts of the world had caused them to be looked upon as the Ishmaelites of the sea; and as their hand had