* * *
The third colony site for the passengers of the First Fleet was at the mouth of the Pajaro River, not far from the twentieth-century town of Watsonville. Perhaps a mile from the coast, and a third of a mile from the near bank of the Pajaro, the Japanese found a large hill, perhaps a quarter mile square, with good defensive potential. It had steep sides, and it was connected to the next hill by a narrow ridge that could easily be blocked. A castle might one day be built here, overlooking the village at the riverside. For the moment, though, the settlement was just as crude as the others.
The colonists of the Pajaro River settlement were primarily farmers, but they found themselves doing a lot of fishing. The steelhead trout were running that month, and the colonists were quick to improvise nets and string them across the river.
The colonists had been astonished and pleased to see the steelheads, because they looked almost identical to a fish found in some rivers back home: the Niji Masu. The colonists decided to name their settlement after the fish. It sounded better, at least, than the first name that Date Masamune’s explorers had come up with: sawa-be, the edge of a swamp.
* * *
“We weren’t sure that we should disturb you, milord—” The speaker was the headman for the final Japanese settlement, by the San Lorenzo River, near modern Santa Cruz.
Date Masamune took a deep breath. “Be at ease. You did the right thing.”
“Should we—”
“Please. I thank you, but I would prefer to contemplate this sight in silence.”
The headman bowed, and backed away.
Date Masamune walked forward slowly, like a man in a trance. He turned to the scholar that accompanied him.
“Do you remember your first moon-viewing, Shigetsuna? Your first tea-ceremony? That is how I feel today. Call back the headman.”
The headman returned. “How may I help you, my lord?”
“Summon the colonists.” With a fearful glance over his shoulder at the Taishu, the grand governor of New Nippon, the headman hurried off.
Date Masamune gazed solemnly at his subjects. “In our ancient homeland, we have many beautiful or useful trees. The mulberry and the fig; the paper and lacquer trees; the cherry and the plum; the pine and the cedar. But the trees that stand across the river, ah, they put all the trees of Nippon to shame.”
Masamune, whose city of Sendai became known in Japan as the City of Trees because of the plantings he encouraged, had seen his first grove of redwood.
“Henceforth, this village is to be known as Kodachi Machi.” This mouthful meant, “Tree Grove City.” Masamune slowly turned his head, staring at each of the colonists. “I will appoint a forest officer, as I did for Rikuzen. No tree is to be cut except with his permission, and without planting a new tree in its stead.”
He motioned to the headman, who yelled, “Dismissed!”
Masamune turned to Shigetsuna. “I think we will also do as we did in Sendai; set up tree nurseries, for both the trees from home and the new ones we find here.”
“We have already done so in Andoryu, with the seeds, cuttings and tub trees we took across the sea.”
“I want it done in all of the settlements of New Nippon. Who knows where, in this strange land, a Japanese tree will grow well? Consider which useful trees we still need seeds or cuttings for, and send for them. They may be brought over by the Second Fleet.”
* * *
The ships returned to the anchorage of Monterey/Andoryu, where they were best protected from the vagaries of the weather. They would wait there until the sailors were fully recovered from their voyaging, and then return to Japan. Some, no doubt, would be part of the Second Fleet, carrying the next batch of kirishitan to the New World, in 1635.
* * *
The Ieyasu Maru had worked its way south down the Pacific Northwest Coast, making note of the lay of the coast; in particular, possible harbors for future settlements. It had not made any further native contacts, but that didn’t mean that the Indians hadn’t been watching.
Under what western sailors called a “mackerel sky,” but the Japanese termed iwaishigimu—sardine clouds—the Ieyasu Maru rounded Point Año Nuevo. The rocks at the northern end of Monterey Bay had been so named by Sebastian Vizcaino in 1603, as it had been spotted on New Year’s Day.
As Monterey Bay opened up before it, a guard ship ventured out from Kodachi Machi to greet it. Despite the Ieyasu Maru’s European lines, its “rising sun” emblem left no doubt as to its origin.
What did surprise the guardsmen was that the Ieyasu Maru was not a straggler from the First Fleet, but rather had voyaged across the Pacific independently.
“Where do you come from?” their commander asked.