We got however a large tub
on the top of our house, which held twenty buckets of water; and all
night long people ran about the streets calling out for every one to
look well to their fires, so that it was strange and fearful to hear
them.
This report of burning the town was still current on the 24th, and every
one was making preparations to prevent it. I made ready fifteen buckets,
which cost six condrines each, which I filled with water and hung up
in our yard, setting a large tub beside them full of water, besides that
on the house top. I gave orders likewise to get two ladders ready for
carrying water to the roof, and provided nine wine casks filled with
tempered clay, ready for daubing up the doors of the gadonge, [godown
or fire-proof warehouse,] if need should require in consequence of a
conflagration, from which dire necessity may God defend us. All night
long, three or four men ran continually backwards and forwards in the
streets, calling out for every one to have a care of fire, and making so
horrible a noise, that it was both strange and fearful to hear them.
On the 25th, the Chinese captain, our landlord, was taken sick, and sent
for a piece of pork, which I sent him, and immediately afterwards I went
to visit him, carrying a small bottle of Spanish wine. While I was
there, Semidono and our guardian's father-in-law came likewise to visit
him. The king sent me word, by Miguel, our jurebasso, that he had a bad
opinion of Hernando Ximenes our Spaniard, and that he meant to have run
away when lately at Nangasaki. But I knew this to be false, as he had
then free liberty to go where he pleased, and did not run away. I had
another complaint made against him, that he was a notorious gambler, and
had enticed several to play, from whom he won their money, which I
believe rather than the other accusation. I find by experience, that the
Japanese are not friendly to the Spaniards and Portuguese, and love them
at Nangasaki the worse, because they love them so well.[36] In the night
between the 24th and 25th, some evil-disposed persons endeavoured to
have set the town of Firando on fire in three several places, but it was
soon extinguished, and no harm done; but the incendiaries were not
discovered, though doubtless owing to the conjurers and other base
people, who expected an opportunity of making spoil when the town was on
fire.
[Footnote 36: This is quite obscure, and may perhaps allude to the
efforts of the Jesuits at Nangasaki, to convert the Japanese to a new
idol worship, under the name of Christianity. - E.]
The 26th of October, Mr Melsham being very sick, Zanzibar came to
visit him, and urged him to use the physic of the country, bringing with
him a bonze, or doctor, to administer the cure.
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