and agreed to what he was recommending. Secretly, we decided that, the day we were supposed to leave, he would go in a canoe with the gold, and hide it ashore. That morning, I gave him all my money, and he promised that he would return within two hours. I waited for five hours, and I thought I would have to wait for all my life. It finally turned out that he had already returned to the boat instead. Things finally turned out well, I obtained my money back, but our friendship was over from that day. It is unclear from this passage whether Christopher actually tried to steal the gold from Knivet, or if the event resulted from a misunderstanding. From this point, Christopher and Cosmas are not mentioned again in any sources. Cavendish and his ship Lester nearly met with disaster in the Strait of Magellan. Upon returning to Brazil they had a battle with the Portuguese, in which most of the men under Cavendish were killed. Cavendish took Lester across the ocean to Saint Helena, but his ship then disappeared. Christopher and Cosmas probably died as well during these events. By going as far as the Strait of Magellan, Christopher and Cosmas came close to completing the first Japanese circumnavigation of the world. This would not happen until 1837 with the travels of Otokichi. (In 1804, the crew members of the Wakamiya-maru, who were castaways on Unalaska, Alaska, unintentionally accomplished this feat via Russian Empire with Nikolai Rezanov.) Other Japanese travels Christopher and Cosmas represent one of the first mentions of the travels of Japanese men across the Pacific. They illustrate the participation of Japanese sailors to the trans-Pacific trade of the Manila galleons, and also the willingness of contemporary ships to take on board sailors of various nationalities. Numerous voyages would follow during the following century. Between 1598 and 1640, red seal ships would ply the Pacific for Asian trade, and embassies on Japanese-built Western-style ships would be sent to the Americas, in the persons of Tanaka Shōsuke (1610) and Hasekura Tsunenaga (1614). In the end, following the first contacts with the West in 1543, the Japanese acquired the skills of transoceanic voyages and Western shipbuilding, before losing them with the closing of the country (sakoku) in 1640. The next Japanese to reach England were likely the trio of Iwakichi, Kyukichi, and Otokichi in 1835, who