INHABITANTS OF THE KURILS. 25 



should imagine that such dwellings should only be used by a 

 people of very short stature. 



The Koro-pok-guru were undoubtedly a northern race, which 

 penetrated to Yezo via the Kuril Islands. They probably were 

 never very numerous, and the Ainu, when they were driven by 

 the Japanese into Yezo, would have had no difficulty in extermi- 

 nating or driving these people back whence they originally came. 

 Their yurts, or pit-dwellings, are found all along the Kurils, in 

 Saghalin, in Kamchatka, and on the Aleutian Islands. The Koro- 

 pok-guru kept to the same style of dwelling they used in the far 

 north, even when they pushed their way into a much milder 

 climate. 



The Ainu, following their old custom, still built their style of 

 house when they got into the more rigorous climate of Yezo and 

 the Kurils, notwithstanding it is suitable only for a warm or mild 

 climate. So strongly, apparently, is the habit or custom of keeping 

 to the old style of house imbued in a people, that the Japanese 

 even do not alter their dwellings to suit the climate, but build 

 the same kind of house, with sliding doors and paper shoji, in the 

 cold Kurils and Yezo that they do in the warm south. 



