Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of whom he engaged for thirty dollars and their food to pilot the Clove into Hirado, where they finally arrived on June 12. VII.—Hirado; Its Previous History As A Commercial Port. It was no mere accident that led the first Europeans who visited Japan to fix upon Hirado as their headquarters. From a very early period, which perhaps may be placed at the end of the sixth century, when intercourse between Japan and China began to assume something of a regular complexion, the ordinary route of envoys and traders from the Japanese capital was by way of Hakata in Chikuzen, Hirado, and the Goto group to Ningpo and Wenchow. And after diplomatic relations between the two countries ceased, at the end of the ninth century, commerce still followed that line, Hakata continuing to be the main entrepdt for Chinese goods. In the thirteenth century, when the Mongols twice endeavoured to invade Japan, Hirado was the first point of attack. After the victorious expulsion of the invaders, the Japanese in their turn sallied forth and harried the coasts of Corea and China, and, as was the fashion of the time, combined plunder with peaceful commerce. In the early part of the sixteenth century, Chinese smugglers and traders to Luc.on, Annam and the Malay Peninsula resorted to Hirado, where their leader, one Wang Chih, established a factory, and joining to himself a band of enterprising Japanese, pursued his operations on a large scale. Besides the northern route to China, there was a second from Bo no Tsu, a port at the extreme south-west corner of the province of Satsuma, by way of the Loochoos to the provinces of Fuh-kien and Kwang-tung. This latter,however, was suited for the local supply of southern Kiushiu alone. Without going into the question whether Japan was first discovered by Fernan...