Rear Admiral Ijichi and Cruiser Aso Soon to Pay Visit to Seattle

Returning the visit of the Atlantic battleship fleet to the shores of Japan last year, the Japanese training squadron, composed of the cruisers Aso and Soya, in command of Rear Admiral H. Ijichi, will leave Vancouver, B.C., this evening at 7 o'clock for Tacoma and Seattle. The cruisers spent two weeks in San Francisco before coming up the Coast. A week was spent at Victoria, Esquimalt and Vancouver, in British Columbia. Last night the round of festivities in honor of the officers and midshipmen on the Aso and Soya was brought to a brilliant close.

In the Tacoma harbor the Japanese warships will be greeted by the armored cruisers Washington, Tennessee and California, of the Pacific fleet, in command of Rear Admiral Uriel Sebree, who recently succeeded Rear Admiral W.T. Swinburne. In a few days the trio of big fighting machines will be joined by the cruisers Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, which sailed from San Francisco for the Sound yesterday afternoon. Sailing from the Golden Gate city May 31 the cruiser Colorado will come to Seattle.

Weighing anchors in Tacoma harbor Sunday, May 30, at noon, the fleet of American cruisers will convoy the Aso and Soya to Seattle, Where they will arrive at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The warships of the two countries will form the naval display attending the opening ceremonies of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition June 1.

The visit to the Pacific shores of the United States by the Nippon warships has been most cordial, and in San Francisco the little brown men were extended every courtesy by the commercial organizations of the city and by their countrymen in the Golden Gate city. The reception to the officers and men in the Victoria was a repetition of the welcome accorded them in California. Vancouver, their present host, arranged a number of exceedingly successful receptions.

Tacoma had arranged an elaborate program for the visitors from across the Pacific.

The commercial bodies and Japanese associations of Seattle are arranging a program that bids fair to eclipse any reception tendered the Japanese officers and midshipmen since they left the shores of the Land of the Rising Sun.

Japanese residents of Seattle have raised in the neighborhood of $20,000 with which to entertain their countrymen. The program is made up of dinners, receptions and entertainments. One feature of the welcome to Seattle will be a big display of fireworks in the harbor each night. The commercial bodies of Seattle are making ready to receive Admiral Ijichi and his staff and every courtesy will be extended them. The management of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition has set aside a special day for the Japanese.

Leaving Seattle the training squadron will proceed direct to Japanese waters.

Admiral Ijichi and some of those officers who are accompanying him on the training cruisers Aso and Soya are noted in the annals of Japanese naval warfare. The admiral was "Father" Togo's right hand man on board the flagship Mikasa during those eventful days of the blockade of Port Arthur and the final debacle of the Sea of Japan when, after the Nippon Yusen Kaisha liner Shinano Maru, which is on her way from Seattle to Yokohama, earning her "kanjo" by reporting the coming of Rojestventsky's squadron, which sank the Admiral Nakimoff during the battle of the Sea of Japan, and other officers have also had notable experiences.

One of the cadets is a Japanese count. He is a midshipman on the cruiser Soya. He is the second son of Marquis Nabeshima, of Yokohama, who was in the Japanese cabinet at the time when Japan had crept out of its shell and was feeling its way into the wide world. He has two sisters in London and an elder brother, who manages the family estates in Japan and Korea. He speaks English fluently, having received special courses by a tutor, besides his regular studies of the language at the naval academy.