Manuscript book on foreigners, including a Portuguese-Japanese dictionary.

According to scholar Takahiro Sasaki, “This book is part of a famous work called “Amerika Shinwa 亜墨新話”.
Thirteen Japanese sailors drifted in 1841, landed in California with the help of a Spanish ship, and returned to Japan via Mexico, after which scholars heard and summarized their experiences. In addition to English, you can also check Spanish in the dictionary part.”

According to scholar Tomoe Moriya, “The title may be “亜墨新話” America shin wa, a story of Japanese sailors who was rescued by a Spanish ship when they suffered shipwrecked. They landed on Mexico. Hatsutaro and Zensuke later returned to Japan in 天保 Tenpo period (1840s). By this time Western ships other than Dutch were sailing near the archipelago. So they were not executed after entering Japan.”

According to scholar Ryan Cook, “Looks like an almanac on the Americas including geography, culinary practices, housing. The dictionary piece runs from page 15 to page 32 and is broken into categories: astronomical terms (sun, moon, etc), time (the months), geography, words describing people, body parts, actions, miscellaneous words and expressions (?), food and drink, clothing, tools, seafaring, housing, animals, plants, numbers and counting.”