Bickmore.] 330 [December 4, 



into any part of the crater, but I climbed down a short way and 

 watched the steam and gas rise from the bowels of the mountain. 



On all sides the mountain is scored by gullies, where the melting 

 snows and heavy rains have washed down the loose materials. In 

 this way, fully one-half of the basin formerly occupied by the lake has 

 been filled up, and in one place there is a continuous stream of sand from 

 the crater wall to its shore. Like most of the lakes on Nippon this 

 occurs at the foot of a volcano, and its basin was doubtless formed by 

 volcanic agencies. 



Acres of tall dead trees rise on the flanks of the volcano and stretch 

 out their gnarled and naked arms as silent witnesses of the devastation 

 caused by the last eruption. Descending the mountain we came to 

 Mori, on Volcano Bay. Here for the first time I had the opportunity 

 of seeing two men and a woman of that strange people, the Ainos. 



From Mori we followed the shore for fifteen miles to Ya-ma-Koosh- 

 nai, sometimes over loose sand, shingle or boulders; and sometimes 

 along the little paths that lead from one fishing village to another, in 

 a neighboring ^bay.. Terraces extend the whole way, occasionally 

 coming down to the shore and forming bluffs one hundred or one 

 hundred and fifty feet in height, but back of these was another series 

 as much higher. The fishermen near the head of the bay were 

 taking a fish much like our herring, in great quantities, for their oil. 

 The residue in the boiling pots is pressed into square masses and 

 exported as manure for rice fields. There we saw many Ainos at 

 work with Japanese, but usually they prefer to work in companies by 

 themselves. 



From Ya-ma-Koosh-nai we travelled five miles to Urope, a village 

 of three or four Japanese, and about twenty Aino houses. The latter 

 were scattered irregularly near the shore over a bi'oad belt of sand, 

 that has been drifted back by the easterly winds. They all have the 

 same rectangular form, and are similarly situated in respect to the 

 shore. 



The best are composed of a house part about thirty feet long 

 and twenty broad. To this is attached a porch about twelve feet 

 long and eight broad, and around the whole is a straw fence. The 

 house and porch are built of a frame work of small poles fastened 

 together with strips of bark and covered with millet straw. The 

 walls are about four feet high and slightly sloping. The roof projects 

 a few inches at the eaves and rises from each side to a point in the 

 centre. In the walls, under the eaves, there are two or three holes 

 of afoot in diameter, which serve as windows. In entering, you pass 

 through the straw fence and into the porch, and thence through a door 

 into the house. The house part is generally all one room, and also 

 the porch; but in a few a kind of partition is made in the larger 



