more than half its value. He got for it twelve hundred pieces of gold, a large part of which went to repay money
which he had borrowed, whilst with the rest he maintained
his party for a whole year. Meanwhile the caravan of merchants with their chief arrived. Benedict was obliged to
exercise hospitality, and in course of time was reduced to such straits that he had to borrow money to maintain his party ; this all the more because owing to his nomination as one of the seventy-two ambassador ae was obliged (again) to purchase some fragments of jade. He hid a hundred pounds of this in the earth to preserve it from any tricks of the Mahomedans, for without a supply of this article he would have been absolutely incapacitated from taking part in the journey to Peking.
John Ferdinand left Peking on the eleventh of December in that year ; and his journey also was attended with a new misfortune, for at SINGHAN, the capital of the province of SCIENSI, his servant ran away, robbing him of half his supplies for the journey. Two months more of a fatiguing journey however brought him to Socieu, in the end of March 1607.
He found our Benedict laid low with a disease unto death. The very night before it had been intimated to him, whether by dream or vision, that on the following day one of the Society would arrive from Peking ; and upon this he had desired his comrade the Armenian to go to the bazar and buy certain articles for distribution among the poor, whilst at the same time he earnestly prayed God not to suffer the hopes raised by his dream to be disappointed. Whilst Isaac was still in the bazar some one told him of the arrival of John Ferdinand from Peking, and pointed him out. The latter followed the Armenian home, and as he entered saluted our brother Benedict in the Portuguese tongue. From this he at once understood what the arrival was, and taking the letters he raised theiii aloft with tears of joy in his eyes, and burst into the hymn
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