The zeal of the children against idols and idolaters. The
punishment of a pagan, who had despised the admonitions of Father Xavier.
The original and character of the Brachmans. He treats with the
Brachmans. The conference of Xavier with a famous Brachman. He works
divers miracles. He declares himself against the Brachmans. The means
whereby he destroyed idolatry. He returns to Goa, and for what reason.
The beginning and establishment of the seminary of holy faith. The
seminary of holy faith new named the College of St Paul. He returns to
the coast of Fishery; his actions there. He goes to the relief of the
Christians, on the coast of Fishery. He goes to the kingdom of
Travancore, and there labours with great success. God communicates to him
the gift of tongues. He is persecuted by the Brachmans. He goes to meet
the army of the Badages, and puts them to flight. He prevails upon the
king of Travancore to favour the gospel. He raises two from death._

While the Christian religion flourished in Asia, under the emperors of
Constantinople, there were two ordinary passages, and both of them short
enough towards the Indies: the one by Syria, over the Euphrates and the
Persian Gulph; the other by Egypt, over the Arabian Gulph, commonly
called the Red Sea. But after the Saracens had possessed themselves of
those places, the European Christians finding those passages unsecure for
travelling, sought out ways of a larger circuit, to avoid falling into
the hands of their most mortal enemies.

The Portuguese were the first who bethought themselves of coasting all
Africa, and one part of Arabia and Persia; by taking this compass, the
Indies are distant from Portugal about four thousand leagues, and the
passengers are constrained to suffer twice the scorching heats of the
torrid zone, in going under the equinoctial line, which divides Africa
almost in two equal parts.

Don Henry, son of King John I., the most skilful prince of that age in
the mathematics, was he who attempted the discovery of those seas, and
undertook to double the Cape of Good Hope, upon the account of traffic,
which he desired to establish betwixt the crown of Portugal and the
emperor of Ethiopia, commonly called Prester John. This enterprise having
succeeded, the kings of Portugal, Alphonso V., John II., and Emanuel I.,
followed it so happily, that, by little and little, they completed the
passage to the Indies.

This was the course that Father Xavier held with