Dr. Nandkumar M. Kamat
Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta was born on April 7, 1506, in the Castle of Xavier in the Kingdom of Navarre, in the Pyrenean borderlands of what is now northern Spain. He died on December 3, 1552, on Shangchuan Island off the coast of China at approximately 21°51’N 112°49’E. Between those two locations, across three continents and three oceans, Francis Xavier traced a geographical itinerary of such scale and physical audacity that it remains without close parallel in the history of individual human travel.
His first journey was overland across Europe. In September 1525, aged 19, he left Navarre northward for Paris — approximately 1,400 kilometres across the Pyrenees and through southwestern France to the University of Paris, where he studied and later taught for 11 years. In November 1536, he departed Paris south-eastward with companions for Venice, approximately 1,100 kilometres across the Alps to the Adriatic lagoon city — his first experience of a maritime city and tidal waters. From Venice, he moved south approximately 520 kilometres to Rome, the institutional centre of the Church he now served.
In March 1540, he left Rome westward for Lisbon, approximately 2,000 kilometres across the Apennines, southern France, the Pyrenees, and the Iberian Peninsula to the Atlantic coast — the westernmost capital of Europe. His European travels alone, from Navarre to Lisbon via Paris, Venice, and Rome, covered approximately 5,000 kilometres overland.
On April 7, 1541, his 35th birthday, Xavier boarded the Santiago at Lisbon and entered the Atlantic Ocean. The fleet of five ships took the standard Portuguese India route: south along the West African coast, through the doldrums of the Guinea coast where he suffered two months of seasickness and 40 days of dead winds in equatorial heat, and then on toward southern Africa. After five months at sea, the fleet reached the island port of Portuguese Moçambique on the East African coast, having crossed approximately 10,000 kilometres of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Xavier remained there from August 1541 to March 1542, seven months in all, where he was struck down by serious fever. When the voyage resumed in March 1542, the ship touched at Malindi on the Kenyan coast, where Xavier went ashore and spent three days meeting with local Muslim community leaders. From Malindi, the fleet crossed to Socotra, an island lying 240 kilometres east of the Horn of Africa, then still nominally under Portuguese influence. From Socotra, the ship made the final crossing of the Arabian Sea to Goa, arriving on May 6, 1542. The total sea distance from Lisbon to Goa via Mozambique, Malindi, and Socotra was approximately 15,000 kilometres. The voyage had taken 13 months.
From Goa in October 1542, he sailed southward along the Malabar and Coromandel coasts of India, approximately 1,200 kilometres to Cape Comorin at the southernmost point of the Indian subcontinent. He crossed the Palk Strait — 50 to 80 kilometres at its narrowest — to Ceylon, present-day Sri Lanka. He then moved north through Travancore along the western Indian coast through Quilon and Cochin. He crossed the subcontinent eastward to the Coromandel Coast, reaching Nagapattinam and continuing north to Mylapore in present-day Chennai — a total southern Indian and Ceylonese circuit of more than 3,000 kilometres across coastlines, straits, and interior terrain.
In the spring of 1545, Francis departed Mylapore by sea for Malacca, approximately 2,700 kilometres southeast across the Bay of Bengal to the Malay Peninsula. This was his entry into Southeast Asia. In January 1546 he departed Malacca eastward for the Molucca Islands — the Maluku archipelago of present-day eastern Indonesia, the Spice Islands. He reached Amboyna, Ternate, and the surrounding islands of Baranura and Morotai, approximately island-hopping for 18 months through volcanic archipelago waters across approximately 5,000 kilometres of open and partially charted sea. This was his deepest penetration of the Indonesian archipelago, the fourth major island system of his odyssey.
He returned to Malacca in July 1547. In June 1549, he departed Malacca north-eastward for Japan, approximately 4,500 kilometres across the South China Sea and East China Sea waters for which no reliable Portuguese charts existed, and for which Francis had to hire a Chinese pirate’s vessel, no regular ship’s captain being willing to attempt the crossing. He went ashore at Kagoshima on August 15, 1549, the southernmost port of Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost main island. Japan was the most geographically complex terrain he had yet entered. He moved north along Kyushu’s western coast approximately 200 kilometres to Hirado, then overland and by coastal vessel to Yamaguchi on the main island of Honshu. From Yamaguchi, he travelled through the Inland Sea north to Kyoto, Japan’s imperial capital — approximately 650 kilometres from Kagoshima — arriving in February 1551 through winter mountain terrain in thin clothing on unmade roads. After finding the capital in civil disorder he returned to Yamaguchi, then east to Bungo on the northeastern coast of Kyushu. His total travel within Japan covered approximately 1,500 kilometres of island terrain.
He departed Japan in September 1551, reached Malacca on December 27, 1551, and was back in Goa by January 1552 — a return voyage of approximately 6,500 kilometres. He remained in Goa only weeks. In April 1552 he departed eastward for China, approximately 5,000 kilometres through the Indian Ocean, past Ceylon, across the Bay of Bengal, through the Strait of Malacca and north through the South China Sea to Shangchuan Island — Sancian, a granite island of approximately 200 square kilometres lying roughly 200 kilometres southwest of present-day Hong Kong on the outer edge of the Pearl River estuary. The Chinese mainland was visible from the shore. No smuggler or merchant would carry him across. He died there on December 3, 1552, having covered in his final year alone more than 10,000 kilometres of open ocean sailing.
The cumulative geography is as follows. Navarre to Lisbon via Paris, Venice, and Rome: 5,000 kilometres overland across Europe. Lisbon to Mozambique by sea: 10,000 kilometres. Mozambique to Malindi, Kenya: 1,500 kilometres along the East African coast. Malindi to Socotra Island in the Arabian Sea: 2,300 kilometres. Socotra to Goa: 2,400 kilometres. Goa to Cape Comorin, along the Fishery Coast, across to Ceylon, north through Travancore to Mylapore: 3,000 kilometres. Mylapore to Malacca: 2,700 kilometres. Malacca to the Moluccas and return: 5,000 kilometres. Malacca to Kagoshima, Japan: 4,500 kilometres. Travel within Japan from Kagoshima to Kyoto and back via Yamaguchi and Bungo: 1,500 kilometres. Japan to Goa via Malacca: 6,500 kilometres. Goa to Sancian Island, China: 5,000 kilometres. Conservative total: more than 54,900 kilometres — exceeding the circumference of the earth — accomplished between 1525 and 1552 across three continents, three oceans, and six major island systems, in wooden sailing ships dependent on seasonal monsoon winds, on coasts inadequately charted, repeatedly ill with fever, and chronically short of companions
and resources.
After his death on Sancian Island, his body was exhumed in February 1553 and carried approximately 2,600 kilometres southwest to Malacca. From Malacca it was transported a further 2,700 kilometres northwest across the Indian Ocean to Goa, arriving in March 1554. The posthumous sea journey added approximately 5,300 kilometres to the total. The remains of Francis Xavier thus travelled in death along the same ocean routes the man had crossed in life, returning to the city on the western coast of India that had been the geographical centre and the repeated point of return of the most extraordinary individual journey of the 16th century.
