missionary. Cosme, in his letter above quoted, says nothing of any hostile collision of the Spanish ships, in which he reached the East, with the Portuguese; but it appears, from Galvano’s account of this expedition, that such collision did take place. He also gives, as the reason why the Spaniards did not land on Mindanao, the opposition they experienced from some of the princes of it, who, by his own recent efforts, had been converted to Catholicism; and who, owing their obedience to him, would by no means incur his displeasure by entertaining these interloping Spaniards. One of the Spanish ships was sent back to New Spain with news of their success thus far. This ship passed among the northern islands of the group, which seem now first to have received the name of the _Philippines_. Another fleet sailed from Seville, in the year 1544, to coöperate with Rui Lopes; but none of the ships succeeded in passing the Straits of Magellan, except one small bark, which ran up the coast to Peru. The Spaniards made no further attempts in the East till the expiration of ten years or more, when the Philippines were finally colonized—an event not without its influence upon the affairs of Japan. CHAPTER V _Political and Religious Condition of Japan, as found by the Portuguese—The Yakatas, or Kings, and their Vassals—Revenues—Money—Distinction of Ranks—The Kubō-Sama—The Dairi—Shintō—Buddhism—Judō—A.D. 1550._ Japan, as found by the Portuguese, embraced three large islands, besides many smaller ones. Shimo (or Kiūshiū), the most southern and western of the group, and the one with which the Portuguese first became acquainted, is separated at the north, by a narrow strait, from the much larger island of Nippon,[25] forming with its western portion a right angle, within which the third and much smaller island of Sikoku is included. These islands were found to be divided into sixty-six separate governments or kingdoms, of which Nippon contained fifty-three, Shimo (or Kiūshiū) nine, and Sikoku four—the numerous smaller islands being reckoned as appurtenant to one or another of the three larger ones. These kingdoms, grouped into eight, or rather nine, larger divisions, and subdivided into principalities, of which, in all, there were not less than six hundred, had originally (at least such was the Japanese tradition) been provinces of a consolidated empire; but by degrees and by dint of civil wars, by which the islands had been, and still were, very much distracted, they had reached at the period of the Portuguese discovery a state of almost complete independence. Indeed, several of the kingdoms, like that of Hizen, in the west part of Shimo, had still further disintegrated into independent principalities.