tled in England, and, though born in a
countryside cottage, the sea still ran so salt in my blood that I early
found my way to ships to become a sea-cuny. That is what I was--neither
officer nor gentleman, but sea-cuny, hard-worked, hard-bitten,
hard-enduring.

I was of value to Raa Kook, hence his royal protection. I could work in
iron, and our wrecked ship had brought the first iron to Raa Kook's land.
On occasion, ten leagues to the north-west, we went in canoes to get iron
from the wreck. The hull had slipped off the reef and lay in fifteen
fathoms. And in fifteen fathoms we brought up the iron. Wonderful
divers and workers under water were these natives. I learned to do my
fifteen fathoms, but never could I equal them in their fishy exploits. On
the land, by virtue of my English training and my strength, I could throw
any of them. Also, I taught them quarter-staff, until the game became a
very contagion and broken heads anything but novelties.

Brought up from the wreck was a journal, so torn and mushed and pulped by
the sea-water, with ink so run about, that scarcely any of it was
decipherable. However, in the hope that some antiquarian scholar may be
able to place more definitely the date of the events I shall describe, I
here give an extract. The peculiar spelling may give the clue. Note
that while the letter _s_ is used, it more commonly is replaced by the
letter _f_.

The wind being favourable, gave us an opportunity of examining and
drying some of our provifion, particularly, fome Chinefe hams and dry
filh, which conftituted part of our victualling. Divine service alfo
was performed on deck. In the afternoon the wind was foutherly, with
frefh gales, but dry, fo that we were able the following morning to
clean between decks, and alfo to fumigate the fhip with gunpowder.

But I must hasten, for my narrative is not of Adam Strang the shipwrecked
sea-cuny on a coral isle, but of Adam Strang, later named Yi Yong-ik, the
Mighty One, who was one time favourite of the powerful Yunsan, who was
lover and husband of the Lady Om of the princely house of Min, and who
was long time beggar and pariah in all the villages of all the coasts and
roads of Cho-Sen. (Ah, ha, I have you there--Cho-Sen. It means the land
of the morning calm. In modern speech it is called Korea.)

Remember, it was between three and four centuries back that I lived, the
first white man, on the coral isles of Raa K