found that he was not able to stand longer under it; but that the
Portuguese pilot came and took it off his back, and the hill disappeared,
the ground before him appearing all smooth and plain: and truly it was
so; they were all like men who had a load taken off their backs. For my
part I had a weight taken off from my heart that it was not able any
longer to bear; and as I said above we resolved to go no more to sea in
that ship. When we came on shore, the old pilot, who was now our friend,
got us a lodging, together with a warehouse for our goods; it was a
little hut, with a larger house adjoining to it, built and also
palisadoed round with canes, to keep out pilferers, of which there were
not a few in that country: however, the magistrates allowed us a little
guard, and we had a soldier with a kind of half-pike, who stood sentinel
at our door, to whom we allowed a pint of rice and a piece of money about
the value of three-pence per day, so that our goods were kept very safe.

The fair or mart usually kept at this place had been over some time;
however, we found that there were three or four junks in the river, and
two ships from Japan, with goods which they had bought in China, and were
not gone away, having some Japanese merchants on shore.

The first thing our old Portuguese pilot did for us was to get us
acquainted with three missionary Romish priests who were in the town, and
who had been there some time converting the people to Christianity; but
we thought they made but poor work of it, and made them but sorry
Christians when they had done. One of these was a Frenchman, whom they
called Father Simon; another was a Portuguese; and a third a Genoese.
Father Simon was courteous, and very agreeable company; but the other two
were more reserved, seemed rigid and austere, and applied seriously to
the work they came about, viz. to talk with and insinuate themselves
among the inhabitants wherever they had opportunity. We often ate and
drank with those men; and though I must confess the conversion, as they
call it, of the Chinese to Christianity is so far from the true
conversion required to bring heathen people to the faith of Christ, that
it seems to amount to little more than letting them know the name of
Christ, and say some prayers to the Virgin Mary and her Son, in a tongue
which they understood not, and to cross themselves, and the like; yet it
must be confessed that the religionists, whom we call missionarie