[68] An account of Adams’ voyage, in two letters of his from Japan, may be found in Purchas, “His Pilgrimes,” part i, book iii, sect. 5. Purchas also gives, book ii, chap. v, Captain Wert’s adventures and return; and in book iii, chap. i, sect. 4, a narrative by Davis, who acted as chief pilot of the first Dutch voyage to the East Indies, under Houtman. Hackluyt gives, in his second volume, a narrative of Lancaster’s voyage, taken down from the mouth of Edmund Baker, Lancaster’s lieutenant. Henry May’s narrative of the same voyage is given in Hackluyt’s second volume. What is known of the English expedition, fitted out in 1594, will be found in Hackluyt, vol. iv, and “Pilgrimes,” book iii, chap. i, sect. 2. The English East India Company was formed in 1600, and Lancaster was immediately despatched on a second voyage “with four tall ships and a victualler,” and by him the English trade was commenced.—_Pilgrimes_, book iii, chap. iii, sect. 1. [Ten extant letters of Will Adams may be found in “Letters written by the English Residents in Japan,” edited by K. Murakawn, and published in Tōkyō. See also paper by Dr. L. Riess on the “History of the English Factory at Kirado,” in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.—EDR.] [69] See Klaproth’s translation (“Nov. Journal Asiatique,” tom. ii), of a curious Japanese tract on the Wealth of Japan, written in 1708. See note on page 152.—EDR. [70] This letter is given by Purchas, vol. i, p. 406. It has neither date nor signature, nor does it appear who is responsible for the correctness of the translation. [71] It must have been in the next year (1609).—K. M. [72] Most likely this “box” was formed by movable screens. See Chapter XXXVIII. [73] Iyeyasu was sixty-six years old in 1609.—K. M. [74] It is customary among the Japanese, on receiving a present from a superior, to touch the top of the head with it. This custom is alluded to in the king of Bungo’s letter to the Pope, pages 107 and 108. [75] Descriptions of it will be found in Chapter XXXV, and also a census taken in 1690. [76] This image was first set up in the year 1576 by the Emperor Taikō. The temple in which it was placed was destroyed by the great earthquake of 1596. The rebuilding was commenced in 1602. The colossus, however, was seriously injured by another earthquake in 1662, after which it was melted down, and a substitute prepared of wood covered with gilt paper. For a description of it, see Chapter XXXVII. [77] The total number of baptisms in Japan, in 1606, according to the annual letter of that year, was almost three thousand. According to the letter of 1603, the number of confessions heard that year was eighty thousand. It appears from these letters that many female converts were made, among the higher classes, by the reputed efficacy of relics and the prayers of the church in cases of difficult labor.