st, and throw all the merchandizes
overboard; when nothing less than shipwreck was expected, they all
implored the aid of the apostle of the Indies, Francis Xavier. At the
same instant, a wave, which was rolling on, and ready to break over the
ship, like some vast mountain, went backward on the sudden, and
dissipated into foam. The seamen and passengers, at the sight of so
manifest a miracle, invoked the saint with loud voices, still as the
tempest grew upon them; and the billows failed not of retiring always at
the name of Xavier; but whenever they ceased from calling on him, the
waves outrageously swelled, and beat the ship on every side.

It may almost be said, that the saint in person wrought these miracles;
but it is inconceivable, how many were performed by the subscriptions of
his letters, by the beads of his chaplet, by the pieces of his garments,
and, finally, by every thing which had once been any way appertaining to
him.

The crosses which he had erected with his own hand on sundry coasts, to
be seen from far by mariners and travellers, were loaded with the vows
and gifts, which Christians, Saracens, and Idolaters, had fastened to
them daily, in acknowledgment of favours which they had received, through
the intercession of the holy man. But the most celebrated of those
crosses, was that at Cotata, whereon an image of Xavier was placed. A
blind man received sight, by embracing of that cross; two sick men were
cured on the instant, one of which, who was aged, had a settled palsy,
and the other was dying of a bloody flux. Copies were made of that
miraculous image at Cotata; and Gasper Goncalez brought one of them to
Cochin. It was eleven of the clock at night when he entered into the
port: an hour afterwards, the house of Christopher Miranda, adjoining to
that of Goncalez, happened to be on fire. The north-wind then blowing,
and the building being almost all of wood, the burning began with mighty
rage, and immediately a maid belonging to the house was burned. The
neighbours, awakened with the cries of fire, cast their goods out at the
windows in confusion; there being no probability of preserving the
houses, because that of Miranda was the highest, and the burning coals
which flew out on every side, together with the flames, which were driven
by the wind, fell on the tops of the houses, that were only covered with
bows of palm-trees, dry, and easy to take fire. In this extremity of
danger, Goncalez bethought hi