The Grave Of Will Adams.

THE GRAVE OF WILL ADAMS .

^ PWICE within the last half-dozen years it has been my lot to spend a week or two at - - Tokoska , a village about sixteen miles from Tokohama , the picturesque beauty of whose surrounding scenery , once seen , can never be forgotten . The place is of importance , too , boasting a spacious dockyard , with several clocks , finished and unfinished ; large workshops , fitted up with all the latest improvements in modern machinery , even to a 100-ton steam-hammer , which an intelligent Japanese hammerman , waiting for his heat

" " at an adjoining forge , assured me had never been used ; building-sheds ancl slips which have lent then- aid in bringing into existence Japan's iron-clad navy ; ancl , lastly , there is a two-storied brick building running away in a straight line for more than a mile , and containing all that is required in the art of rope-making . The supervision is , I believe , French ; but the workmen are in all cases native , and the Mikado ' s Government have always evinced the deepest interest in the progress ancl success of the vast

establishments at Tokoska . But it is not its artificial wonders which charm a visitor to this gem of watering-places in the far East . Standing on the shore of the dockyard ancl looking seaward , you gaze at a small land-locked bay , whose rocky and precipitous sides are crowned with the luxuriant growth of tropical vegetation , terminating in a series of bill-tops , each of which has a beauty of its own . On the summit of one , just opposite , stands an old temple . It looks not half a mile distant ; but well do we remember

three weary hours of climbing , one afternoon , before we stood within its sacred portals , ancl also that about twenty minutes sufficed for an almost headlong tumble down again , after which we discovered there was a good road on the inland side . Turning round and leaving the dockyard , we are at once in the native village , built between two hills , with its houses of bamboo and paper , the fronts open to the street , ancl the floors grass matted— -such tempting pictures of coolness and repose that we cannot resist sitting

down for a few minutes to breathe the well-known hospitality of Japan . At the end of the street there is a surprise in store for us ; for , having turned our backs upon the dockyard ancl the sea , we were far from feeling clear as to our whereabouts , when we suddenly came out upon a sandy beach , extending away on our right as far as eye could reach , whilst the gentle undulations of the vast expanse of water before us told plainly that it was no landlocked bay , but the swell of the great Pacific . But the sands lie not in our way now . Turning over the leaves of my Journal , I find , some weeks later , this : —

" 0 ! pleasant hours spent on that shelly strand , or idly lying on some grassy knoll amongst its leafy bushes , watching the deep blue sea that fringed the glittering sands . " Retracing our way through the village , we pass out by a road skirting the dockyard bay into a lovely valley , the track winding gently upward to the hills beyond . We soon come to the smaU village of Hemi-mura , where Adams settled clown in the autumn

of hisdays , with his Japanese wife , son , and daughter , supreme rider of an estate comprising nearly a hundred households , over whose members he had absolute power of life and death . Close by , in the temple of Tookoozan To Odoshi , are several relics , brought by Adams to the country nearly three hundred years ago . They are highly prized and well looked after , but we managed to get a peep at them after the priest bad unlocked some half-dozen gates and doors . They consisted of Siamese images ancl scrollsthe former

, apparently solid gold , though , as our unholy hands were not allowed to touch , that fact remains to be verified , spite of the assurances of the attendant priest . Resuming our way , which soon began to grow more rugged and steep , we soon caught two or three very lovely views of the valley far below on our left , whose sloping sides were covered with fields of ripening com , whilst a tiny stream meandered midway between , feeding the green paddy ( rice ) enclosures , which followed its course in a series of terraces . Remembering the toilsome nature of our way last year , we determined to try , if possible , a lower road , and were rewarded by finding a delightfully shady lane