[46] This noted relic was dug up in the Chinese city of Singanfu, in 1625.  It is a stone slab, containing various inscriptions in Chinese and Syriac; it was erected in the year 781, and is a monument of the early existence of the Nestorian church in China.  See Yule’s account of it in his Cathay, i, pp. xci-xcvi, clxxxi-clxxxiii.

[47] Evidently referring to the Manchu chief Noorhachu, who from 1591 had harassed the northern frontiers of China; he died at Mukden in September, 1626.

[48] Nicholas Longobardi was born in 1566 at Caltagarone, Sicily, and admitted into the Society in 1580 (Sotwell says that he entered his novitiate in 1582, at the age of seventeen).  He became a teacher in humanities and rhetoric.  In 1596 he went to China, and settled in the province of Kiang-si, where he was appointed general superior of the mission from 1610 to 1622.  He died at Peking, December 11, 1655, according to Sotwell.  Father de Machault says that he died September 1, 1654, according to a letter written May 7, 1655, by Father Francois Clement; but the inscription on his tomb gives the first date.  He had written a number of treatises, some of them apparently in the Chinese language.  See Sommervogel’s Bibliotheque.

[49] The Dominican provincial at this time was Bartolome Martinez, who made his profession in 1602, and arrived in the Philippines in 1611.  In the following year he made an unsuccessful attempt to found a mission at Macao; but on his return to Manila was assigned to the Chinese village of Binondo, where he became proficient in their language, and afterward was vicar of the Parian at Manila.  In 1618 he was shipwrecked on the coast of Formosa, which he considered to be a gateway to the Chinese empire.  In 1626 he founded a mission there, and when his provincialate was ended he returned to Formosa, where he died by accidental drowning, August 1, 1629.  See sketch of his life in Resena biog.  Sant.  Rosario, i, pp. 335-337.

[50] Cf. the account by Paul Clain (Manila, June 10, 1697) of a similar occurrence, natives of the Caroline Islands being blown by storms to the coast of Samar.  See Lettres edifiantes, i (Paris, 1717), pp. 112-136.

[51] “In 1610, the Dutch had built [in Java] a fort, which they named Batavia.  This was besieged by the Sunda princes of Bantam and Jacatra in 1619, and it was on their defeat in that year that it was resolved to build a town on the ruins of the native one of Jacatra, and this took the name of the fort.  Batavia has been the capital of all the Dutch possessions in India since its foundation in 1619.” (Crawfurd’s Dict.  Indian Islands, p. 44.)

[52] A native town in the northern part of Gilolo (or Almahera) Island; it was captured by Juan de Silva.