Samurai William : The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan - Softcover

They had reached the end of the world. A tremendous storm had pushed them deep into the unknown, where the maps and globes showed only monsters of the deep. The night sky sparkled, but the unfamiliar stars had proved a mischievous guide to these lost and lonely adventurers. 

For almost two years, William Adams and his crew had braved wild and tempestuous oceans. They had clashed with spear-toting island chieftains, and suffered from sickness and empty bellies. Now, on April 12, 1600, these few survivors had once again sighted land, where they expected death at the hands of barbarous savages. 

The bell of the great Manju-ji monastery clanged at dawn. As the weak spring sunlight spilled over the southern mountains, a dozen temples seemed to echo in reply. It was already light on the watery delta of the Oita River, but night still lingered in the palaces and pagodas of Funai. Their cuneiform roofs trapped the shadows. It would be several hours before daylight pierced the gridlike maze of walkways. 

The strange vessel that was drifting helplessly into the harbor was in a terrible state of repair. Her sails were in shreds and her timbers had been bleached by the sun. With her stately poop and mullioned prow, she was quite unlike the junks that occasionally dropped anchor on the southern shores of Japan. No sooner had she been sighted than the alarm was raised and a small party of townsmen rowed out to view the vessel. Those who clambered aboard were greeted by a pitiful sight. A dozen adventurers lay helpless and groaning in their own filth. Many were covered in blotches -- a sign of advanced scurvy -- while others had been stricken with terrible tropical diseases. Their victuals had run out long ago and they had subsisted on the rats and other vermin that scavenged for scraps in the filthy swill in the hold of the vessel. Only William Adams was sufficiently coherent to greet the boarding party. He blinked in astonishment as he caught his first glimpse of a civilization that was older -- and perhaps more sophisticated -- than his own. 

Adams immediately realized that these men had come not to their rescue, but to pillage the ship. He could only hope that he and his men would receive a welcome on shore. They had achieved the remarkable feat of crossing both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, negotiating the treacherous Magellan Straits en route. They had survived Antarctic blizzards and tropical storms, and had watched in horror as their friends and fellow crewmates had weakened and expired. Of a fleet of five ships, only one had made it to Japan. Of an estimated one hundred crew members, just twenty-four men were still alive. Of these, six were on the verge of death. 

After more than nineteen months at sea, Adams had reached the fabled island of Japan, where no Englishman had ever before set foot. As he stepped ashore, he prayed that his voyage of discovery had at long last come to an end. In fact, it was just about to begin. 

The adventurers of Elizabethan London knew almost nothing about Japan. When they unrolled their maps and gazed at the remote East, they saw only squiggles, dots, and grotesque sea monsters. Gerardus Mercator's 1569 map of the world depicted this kingdom as a lozenge-shaped blob with two tentacles of islands. Edward Wright's projection was little better. When he came to draw Japan, he delved deep into his imagination and came up with an island that looked like a misshapen prawn with a long fluffy beard. Although he took great pride in labeling his map "a true hydrographical description," he admitted that he had only accurately drawn "so much of the world as hath been hitherto discovered." That -- alas -- did not include Japan. 

The Bookish gentlemen elsewhere in northern Europe were equally ignorant as to the whereabouts, and people, of Japan. In the Low Countries, France, and the Holy Roman Empire the only information about this mysterious "kingdom" was to be found in the account of the great Venetian traveler Marco Polo. That was already three centuries old and was based on nothing more than hearsay. Polo himself had never been to Japan -- a land he called Chipangu -- but he had learned from the Chinese that the "people are white, civilised and well-favoured" and he noted that they were ferociously proud and "dependent on nobody." He added that no one -- not even their neighbors the Chinese -- dared to sail to Japan, for the distances were enormous and the dangers were great. 

Forbidden kingdoms made for rich kingdoms in the minds of gentlemen adventurers, and distant Japan -- the Land of the Rising Sun -- was believed to glisten with gilded splendor. "The quantity of gold they have here is endless," wrote an excited Polo, "for they find it in their own islands." The emperor's palace was "entirely roofed with fine gold:' while the windows glittered and twinkled, "so that altogether the richness of the palace is past all bounds and all belief." 

Dozens of English adventurers were lured into uncharted seas by such tantalizing riches, placing their trust in the good Lord and a fair breeze. They studied their maps, consulted their charts, and concluded -- quite logically -- that the frosty Arctic Ocean offered the shortest route to the East. They little imagined that their fragile galleons would be battered by monstrous icebergs and translucent cliffs of ice. Sir Hugh Willoughby's 1553 expedition to the East had been the most spectacular failure. His vessel had been. trapped in the icy jaws of the White Sea, to the north of Muscovy, and his men had frozen to death in an Arctic blizzard. 

Copyright © 2002 Giles Milton