As if struck by lightning we stood pale and motionless, staring at each other, without being able to utter a single word. Our rowers, who had been thrown into the sea, clung to their oars, or endeavoured by swimming to overcome the waves, while we almost gave ourselves up as lost. The third wave at length disappeared; our _shilinga_ again recovered its proper position; our rowers got back to their places; and being all gradually freed from our terror, we returned thanks to God for having rescued us from the jaws of death. This dreadful accident, however, had made such an impression upon me, that I was seized with a violent fever, which lasted ten days; and for some time after I could never hear people relate any danger of the like kind without being ready to faint. This weakness continued almost three years; and I was not able to get rid of it but by using bark and the cold bath. The worthy Father Medardus died some months after this event at Surat. So dear did my missionary expedition cost me! I had wandered all over Italy, Portugal, England and France, and travelled more than a thousand leagues by water before I arrived on the coast of Malabar. On the 23d of October, early in the morning, we left the road of Puduceri; and after passing the island of Ceylon, and doubling Cape Comari, came to anchor on the 14th of November at Cochin, on the Malabar coast, which Providence had assigned me as the theatre of my missionary labours. CHAPTER VI. _Topographical Description of Malabar._ In describing Malabar I can speak from experience and without trusting to the information of others, as in the course of my travels I had an opportunity of being better acquainted with that country than with my own. The business of my mission; temporal as well as spiritual concerns; visits of state, which, on account of the affairs of Christianity, I was obliged to pay to kings and their ministers; the visitation of churches; continual intercourse with Pagans and Christians; journeys into the interior districts; the settling of disputes which it was my duty to terminate; epistolatory correspondence with the inhabitants, and many unlucky accidents which occurred to me, have all contributed to enable me to give an accurate, clear, and full account of this part of India.