a decided obstacle to the Reformation in Germany. When Rodriguez, however, fell ill with an intermittent fever Xavier naturally occurred to Loyola as the proper substitute. He therefore commissioned him for the service, and the worn and wasted ascetic patched up his old coat, said farewell to his friends, and having craved the Pope’s blessing, set off from Rome with the Portuguese Ambassador, Mascarenhas, on March 16th, 1540. He started in such poverty that Loyola took his own waistcoat and put it upon him, and he left behind him a written paper of consecration to the society, expressing in it his desire that Loyola should be its head, with Faber as alternate, and in which he took the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to the order under whose auspices he was going forth. At the Portuguese Court in Lisbon, both Xavier and his companion were diligent in their religious work. The morals of the capital were quite reformed, and when it came time for the ships to sail to the East the king would only spare Xavier and detained Rodriguez, by the advice of Loyola, further to improve the affairs at home. Xavier now sailed as Nuncio with papal commendation and with a poverty of outfit which had its due effect upon his companions on board the ship. The vessel itself was one of those great galleons of Spanish or Portuguese origin, carrying often a thousand persons, and having from four to seven decks. They were huge, unwieldy constructions and were generally freighted with large amounts of rich merchandise. The course was that pursued by Vasco da Gama—around the Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian Ocean—and the voyage often lasted beyond eight months. It is quaintly related of travellers by these precarious sea-paths that they used to take their shrouds and winding-sheets with them in case they died by the way. The company on shipboard was as bad as the provisions, which were often execrable. The peninsular sailors never had the art either of discipline or of storing a ship and supplying what was needful for a voyage, as the English sea-kings had it. Hence their vessels were great floating caravansaries of human beings, full of the scum and offscouring of society—with lords and ladies on the quarter-deck, and robbers and murderers, harlots and gamblers down below. The crew was as prompt as that of Jonah’s ship to cry upon their gods whenever the wind blew. Such inventions as the ship’s pump, the chain-cable, and the bowsprit were not known to them. And when we see Sir Richard Grenville in the little Revenge fighting fifteen great Dons for as many hours, or Sir John Hawkins beating his way out of the harbor of Vera Cruz when the _Jesus_ of Lubec was lost by Spanish treachery, we see how utterly cumbrous and awkward these galleons were when compared with English vessels.