Europe had long before heard of Japan through the writings of the Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, who had visited the Court of Kublai Khan and there learned the failure of the Mongol invasions. It was not, however, till the middle of the sixteenth century, during the ascendancy of the first of the two military leaders above mentioned, that intercourse with European countries was established. The Portuguese were the first to come, and for this reason. Portugal was then at the height of her greatness as a maritime power; and by the Bulls of Pope Alexander VI, which divided the new lands discovered in Asia and America between her and Spain, those in Asia had fallen to her share. Some uncertainty exists as to the exact date at which the new Western intercourse began, and as to the identity of the first arrivals. Most authorities, however, agree in thinking that the first European discoverers of Japan were three Portuguese adventurers who, in the course of a voyage from Siam to China in the summer or autumn of 1542, were driven by a storm on the coast of Tanégashima, a small island lying midway between the southern point of the province of Satsuma and Loochoo. The adventurers who landed were successful in disposing of the cargo of their vessel, destined originally for Chinese ports. Their knowledge of firearms made a favourable impression, and the beginnings were thus laid of a trade with the Portuguese possessions and settlements in the East and with the mother country in Europe. Of greater interest and importance, however, than this early trade is the fact that to Portuguese enterprise Christianity owed its first introduction into Japan. Seven years after the arrival of these involuntary traders, who had spread the news of the strange country they had discovered, one of the numerous Portuguese trading vessels which were thus attracted to Japan landed at Kagoshima, the capital of the Satsuma province, three missionaries—Xavier, Torres and Fernandez. Thenceforth, until the closing of the country to all but the Chinese and Dutch, it was the propagation of the Christian faith, not the progress of trade, which was the important factor in Japan’s foreign relations. The coming of the first missionaries took place at a time when the widespread disorder which marked the closing years of the Ashikaga administration was at its height. Though Nobunaga was rapidly acquiring for himself a commanding position, the nation had not yet felt the full weight of the hand which twenty years later was to take the first steps towards the pacification of the country. The confusion of affairs assisted the spread of the new religion, the opposition offered by some of the leading daimiōs, such as the princes of Satsuma and Chōshiū, being counterbalanced by the eagerness of others to profit by the foreign trade which came with the missionaries; while Buddhist hostility lost much of its sting after the power of the militant priesthood had been crippled by Nobunaga.