Kankai ibun, vol. 5, 1807

Kankai ibun, [1807], volume 5 = Description and travel of circumnavigation of seas, [1807], volume 5 = 環海 異聞 五 文化 4. Volume five of a manuscript by Gentaku Ōtsuki and Kōkyō Shimura who drew from four Japanese fishermen the story of their voyage around the world during repeated interviews. The Kankai Ibun is an account of their journey when they were sent off-course en route to the capital, Edo. The fishermen were rescued by a Russian ship and taken to late 18th / early 19th century Europe and, most especially, Russia.; The cargo ship, Wakamiyamaru, left from the port of Ishimaki in Sendai-han, today’s Miyagi Prefecture, in Japan carrying rice and lumber with 16 crew members for Edo, today’s Tokyo, on November 27th, 1793. Shipwrecked and drifted in the Pacific Ocean for half a year, they finally landed in one of the islands of the Andreanof Islands, a part of the Aleutian Islands on May 10th, 1794. They were transferred to Irkutsk by Russians where they stayed until the spring of 1803. They were then called in by Alexander I of Russia to St. Petersburg where they stayed from April to June in 1803, and from where they started their journey back home. They were included in the Rezanov mission on the first Russian global circumnavigation by a ship Nadezhda. It took them 16 months to reach the port of Nagasaki, Japan in September, 1804 since they left in June, 1803. Of the sixteen, five crewmen got on board. Four returned home in Sendai; one, who had become an interpreter, returned to Russia with Rezanov.