previous next

Of the Iles beyond Japan in the way from China to the Moluccas .

AMONGST other Iles in the Asian sea betwixt Cantan a Chinish haven in Cathaio & the Moluccas , much spoken of in the Indian histories and painted out in Maps, Ainan and Santianum are very famous. Ainan standeth 19 degrees on this side of the Equinoctiall line nere China , from whence the Chinish nation hath their provision for shipping and other necessaries requisite for their Navie. There staied Balthasar Gagus a great traveller 5 moneths, who describeth that place after this maner. Ainan. is a goodly countrey ful of Indian fruits & all kind of victuals, besides great store of jewels and pearle, well inhabited, the townes built of stone, the people rude in conditions, apparelled in divers coloured rugs, with two oxe hornes, as it were, made of fine cypres hanging downe about their eares, and a paire of sharpe cyzers at their foreheads.

The cause wherefore they go in such attire I could not understand, except it bee for that they do counterfeit the devil in the forme of a brute beast, offring themselves up to him.

Santianum is an Ile neere unto the haven Cantan in the confines likewise of China , famous for the death of that woorthy traveller and godly professour and painfull doctor of the Indian nation in matters concerning religion, Francis Xavier, who after great labours, many injuries, and calamities infinite suffred with much patience, singular joy and gladnesse of mind, departed in a cabben made of bowes and rushes upon a desert mountaine, no lesse voyd of all worldly commodities, then endued with all spirituall blessings, out of this life, the 2 day of December, the yeere of our Lord 1552. after that many thousand of these Easterlings were brought by him to the knowledge of Christ. Of this holy man, his particular vertues, and specially travell, and wonderfull works in that region, of other many litle lies (yet not so litle, but they may right wel be written of at laisure) all the latter histories of the Indian regions are full.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
China (China) (6)
Moluccas (Indonesia) (4)
Japan (Japan) (2)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
1552 AD (2)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: