This bad beginning did not deter them, and having disposed of the supercargo, the niece and the dog, a new start was made, but the wind was high, the boat began to fill, and they regretted their temerity and resigned their fate to providence. Their situation at one time became so dangerous that Kawakami invoked the aid of Buddha. He rowed, and Sada Yakko tried to stop the inrush of water that came into the boat quicker than she could bail it out. Shipwrecked near a fishing village, they were rescued, well treated, and stayed in this place for some time. The gossips of Tokyo said that Kawakami wished to gain notoriety, the better to increase his popularity as an actor, and that this was the reason the modern O-Kuni and Sansaburo had undertaken such a hazardous trip. Nothing daunted, Kawakami and Sada Yakko again started off for America with a company of players. This time they took passage on an ocean liner, and upon reaching San Francisco were so poor they had no money with which to buy food, and were obliged to ask one of their countrymen to give them some rice which they boiled themselves. However, they appeared in a theatre and obtained the wherewithal to go on to New York, where they had little to eat for days. But Kawakami was a man of resource, and dressing his company in the variegated armour of Old Japan, part of his theatrical equipment, and Sada Yakko attired in a gay kimono, they walked through the streets of New York. All were so hungry that little walking was done, but this unusual Oriental procession attracted attention, people flocked to see them, and within a few days they had made a considerable sum. Two other trips abroad were taken by the intrepid Kawakami and the attractive Sada Yakko. They played before King Edward and Queen Alexandra, and the President of France. The Tsar of Russia presented Kawakami with a gold watch. Thus Kawakami did much to delay a true recognition of Kabuki and the fine actors of Japan. He was nothing more than an adventurer in the realm of the theatre; his performances were in no sense characteristic; in fact, he was an outsider and an amateur who ignored all that had gone before, building a structure on the sands that collapsed after his death. His countrymen who saw his hybrid plays in England and France and America hung their heads, ashamed at the bold effrontery of the man thus strutting upon the Western stage as a representative actor of Japan. The poor impression he gave of Japan’s theatre art has not been erased, since no leading Kabuki actor has yet been seen in the West to show what is sincere and true on the Japanese stage.