But modern inquiry has shown that though he doubtless exaggerated, and drew strange inferences, his curious “Peregrinação” or Travels, which was first published in 1614, and was translated during the seventeenth century into English, French, and Spanish, contains essentially a true account of his adventures. His career is typical of that of many another Portuguese adventurer in the East. He first went to Asia in 1537, and during his wanderings was five times shipwrecked, thirteen times taken captive, and seventeen times sold as a slave. On his way out he was taken prisoner between Socotra and the Persian Gulf, and sold as a slave at Mocha, where he remained until ransomed by the Portuguese governor of Ormuz. After many daring adventures, which savour of piracy, he was engaged in 1542 in a strange expedition to Calempin, near Pekin, which he had organized to plunder the tombs of seventeen Chinese emperors there. On his way back from this sacrilegious attempt he was wrecked off the Chinese coast, and set to work in repairing the Great Wall of China. While there he was made a prisoner by the Tartars during one of their invasions, and after being present at a Tartar siege of Pekin was carried away into Tartary. After various adventures he managed to get back to China, and he then paid his first visit to Japan. His account of the wealth of the Japanese islands excited the minds of the Portuguese officials on the Chinese coast, and a fleet of nine ships was placed under his command at Ning-po, with orders to open up a trade with Japan. Ill luck again pursued him; eight of his ships foundered, and the one upon which he himself sailed, was wrecked on the Loo-Choo Islands. Undiscouraged by all his reverses, he continued to represent the wealth of Japan to his superiors in China and at Malacca, and in 1548 he established a factory in the neighbourhood of Yokohama. Here he did good service, and besides opening up a trade in Japanese goods, he made a large fortune for himself. With this fortune he was on his way back to Portugal in 1553, when the ecclesiastics at Goa worked upon his religious sentiments, which, as in other Portuguese adventurers, must have been very deep, though they do not seem to have influenced him in his dealings with Asiatics, and persuaded him to devote nearly all his wealth to the establishment of a seminary at Goa for the education of missionaries to Japan.