He arrived at Goa in May, 1542, and, taking lodgings at a hospital, entered at once with great zeal on the duties of his office as Pope’s nuncio, provincial in India of the order of Jesuits, and apostolical missionary, professing, however, entire submission to the bishop of Goa. Passing through the streets, bell in hand, he called the children, women, and servants to be catechised, and to help the memory and catch the ear he put the catechism into rhyme. But it was not merely to the Christian population that he confined his labors. He had to encounter the scornful fanaticism of the Mahometans, who, setting out from Arabia, had preceded the Portuguese by centuries in commercial and military visits to the coasts of India and the eastern islands, and who had in many places largely diffused their religion. He had to meet the insolent bigotry of the twice-born Brahmins, who, through the system of castes, held society fast bound, helpless and stationary, in the fetters of an all-pervading superstition. Jewish scoffers were also to be met. In fact, all sects seemed to be brought together in southern India, including even an ancient form of Christianity, a remnant of the followers of Zoroaster, from Persia, and in Ceylon, Buddhists. After a year’s stay at Goa, Xavier proceeded to the southern point of Hindustan, about Cape Comorin, the pearl-fishers of which region had, for the sake of Portuguese protection, professed the Christian religion, of which, however, they knew nothing but the name. Having preached for a year or more in this district, he passed to the neighboring territories of the Coromandel coast, where there already existed the remains, before referred to, of an ancient Christianity, originally propagated, it seems probable, by Nestorian missionaries of the fifth or sixth century, but which the Portuguese insisted upon ascribing to St. Thomas, the apostle, about whose life and labors in the East a whole volume of fables was, between them and the native Christians, speedily manufactured. Incapable of staying long in one place, from India Xavier soon proceeded to Malacca, where he arrived towards the close of 1545, and whence the next Spring he set out on a missionary journey through the Moluccas. It was on his return from this last expedition that he first met with the Japanese Anjirō, at Malacca,—as related, after Pinto, in the preceding chapter,—with whom he arrived at Goa in March, 1548. The Japanese were placed, as has been mentioned, in the seminary of St. Paul; and so delighted was Xavier with their progress and fervor, as to resolve to undertake, after visiting his churches at Cape Comorin, a new mission to Japan.