THE SAGALIEN TRIBE. 579 



consent to adopt this regime to drink the warm blood and eat the 

 raw flesh and fat of seals soon accept of it without the slightest 

 repugnance, and become capable of enduring, like true Hyperboreans, 

 the terrible cold of the long Polar winters. 



The inhabitants of Sagalien, one of the northerly Asiatic islands, 

 are a race called the Anios, the same people who form the aboriginal 

 population of Jesso, and some tribes of whom also dwell on the oppo- 

 site shores of Manchooria. They are uncultured and pagan savages, 

 who dwell in huts built of rough logs, and live upon the proceeds of 

 their fishery and the chase. Their women are ugly and little ; the 

 men are tall, lithe, straight, and strong, with flowing hair and un- 

 kempt beard and moustaches. Like the Samoiedes they worship the 

 bear ; feasting the living animals on the choicest dried fish, and plant- 

 ing young pines round the cages in which they are kept. Their 

 graves they regard with similar feelings of veneration. 



The other Hyperborean races do not widely differ in character 

 and physical appearance from those already described. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE MOUNTAINS. 



' Blue, and baseless, and beautiful, 

 Did the boundless mountains bear 

 Their folded shadows into the golden air. 

 The comfortlessness of their chasms was full 

 Of orient cloud and undulating mist, 

 Which, when their silver cataracts hissed . 

 Quivered with panting colour." 



RUSKIN. 



FROM the Polar deserts to the icy crests of the mountains the transition 

 is natural. There are here, so to speak, two varieties of a single class 



