The Kemper herald. (Scooba, Miss.) 1875-1908, 1908-06-25
FROM PILOT TO 4sAMURAI."

" lLOL ~
Money is being raised in Japan &
restore the monument of Will Adams
the first English resident of tina
country and the founder Of the Jap
anese feet. No fiction of adventur,
is more romantic and seemingly i'm
probable than is the story of thii
Kentish pilot of the seventeenth cen
fury. Mr.. Lafcadio Hearn. in one o
his books on Japan, tells the tale o.
the young Englishman's rise to for
tune.
In 1900 Will Adams arrived II
Japan in command of a Dutch ship
Adams had partaken of many a sea
adventure, and had probably beer
brought in contact with Hawkins
Drake, Sir Richard Granville and the
other celebrated voyagers Of that day
He say himself, in his account of his
life. that he SERVED for Master and
Pilot in her Majestie's ships"
On landing in Japan. Adams was
taken prisoner and sent to Osaka tc
the great Emperor Iyesyasu.
GAS soon as / came before him he
demanded of what countrey we WERE
says Adams. $50 I answered him on
all points. He asked whether our
country had wares. I answered him
yea. He asked as to the way we came
to the countrey. Having a chart OF
the whole world I showed him
through the Straight of Magellan. He
viewed me we'll and seemed to be
wonderful favorable"
The Emperor attached Adams to
his personal service, and later we
read of the late pilot teaching his
royal master Geometry and under
standing of the art of mathematics. "
Adams was we'll provided for, and
commanded to build ships for deep
sea sailing. Before long he was Gre
ated Samurai, and an estate was given
him.
Surely no romance of that romantic
age was stranger than the rise of this
plain English pilot, with only his
simple honesty and common sense
| to help him. He was in such extra
ordinary favor with the greatest and
shrewdest of Japanese rulers that we
read in a contemporary account:
THE Emperor esteemeth hymn much,
and he may goe in and speake to hym
at all times when Kynges and Princes
are kept out"
Adams only cause for regret in his
elevation to fortune was the fact that
he was eve allowed to visit his ma
tive land. His services were regard
ed as too precious to be spared. The
Emperor never refused him anything
but this one privilege, and Adams
did not dare to urge the matter too
hard, for, as he writes, when I asked
one too many times the Ould EN-
perour was silent"
ALIVE IN CAPSIZED VESSELS.
A striking example Of one among
the many strange accidents that be-
fall sailors was reported the other
day from Newcastle, New South
Wales.
The ~barkentine Kate latham
turned turtle in a gale, and one of her
crew was shut UP in her hold. The
survivors, who had climbed on her
keel as she heeled over, naturally
took it for granted that he was
drowned. What was their surprise
therefore presently to hear faint
knockings from beneath their feet,
evidently made by their imprisoned
comrade.
Help was at hand, and a hole was
cut through the ships bottom, when
the man was hauled out, little the
worse for his terrible experience. He
had, it appeared, been kept alive by
the air which had been imprisoned
in the hull when the vessel capsized
and which, becoming compressed as
the water rose, had eventually
stopped it's further encroachment. He
had used a balk of floating timber to
support himself.
His Imprisonment lasted for two
hours, and in the cabled reports sent
to this country the incident is char
acterized as unparalleled. This, how
ever, is by no means correct. There
are several cases on record of men
having lived in similar circumstances
in the huks of capsized ships not
hours only but days, the most re-
markable authenticated instance be-
ing that of Captain Engallandt, of the
Erndte, who was rescued alive after
an entombment lasting altogether
eleven days eighteen hours.
During this period the derelict,
drifting bottom uppermost, was sight
eo by the masters of several vessels,
all of whom, however, passed non
chalantly by, none imagining for a
moment that the semi-submerged and
capsized hulk contained, shutup in it's
yitals, a living man.
Eventually the Erndte drifted
ashore near Danzig, and Captain En-.
gallandt was taken out alive, al
though greatly emaciated.-Pearson'
Weekly.
--
AN AVERTED@TRAGEDY.
The family had six black cats, all
~ ubiob lfnod ~, AotIv n ~ 4ha hal,