‘Then Mr Johannes Bouchelioen said to me: “Willman, You have wished to travel this far, but here we must now turn back, for no Dutchman, Spaniard, Portuguese or Englishman has ever come any further”. I was fully satisfied with this, and wrote my Name at the top of the Wall in the Cottage, where some Names of Christians were already written. Jedo in Japan lies about 4,800 Miles from Stockholm.’ These words concluded Willman's report of his stay in Edo, but already in the opening sentence of the account of his travels the author had stated that his journey to the Far East was undertaken because of ‘an exceptional Longing and Desire to view foreign Parts by Means of Travel, for which I also had Permission from my Parents.’