372 A, §. Bickmore on the Ainos of Saghalien. 
foreigners they call them Rusko, hea, or Niponno, Japa- 
nese, as they know only these two natio The only differ- 
ence ‘between the Ainos of Yesso and fhe Kivi is, that the 
former are ‘‘ handsomer, stronger, and more active” ‘than the 
latter, and this differents Golovnin thinks is due to the former 
ading a more active life, and having a greater abundance of 
good food. ‘The northern Kuriles live in indigence, feed on 
roots, sea animals, and wild fowls, of which indeed they never 
bent, but idleness often hinders them from collecting a proper 
sto 
To show how uniform are the customs of this people over 
Yesso, we may pay the following description of the Ainos at 
Romanazoff Bay, at the northern end of the island, near La 
Pérouse Strait, Bat Krusenstern’s voyages: ‘“‘ We saw there 
only two fur dresses, and the rest of the people were dressed in 
a coarse yellow stuff made of the bark of a tree, which a few 
bordered with blue cloth. (In the cloth I saw theta weaving 
at Volcano Bay they occasionally placed a few threads of blue 
cotton so as to give the whole a striped or checked appear- 
ance.) ‘‘ Under this dress they had another of a fine cotton 
stuff that they had probably purchased from the Japanese. 
The Ainos of Yesso (which was at that time under the Japa- 
nese) were much poorer than those of Saghalien (which, a 
short time before, had become a part of the Japanese Empire). 
The women wore no ornaments on their heads, but as I have 
ae. mentioned, they invariably paint their lips blue. The 
men wore earrings, which were commonly merely a brass ring. 
At this ae we visited two abodes which consisted of a single 
room, whi a small division at one end, occupied 
the whole interior of the house. Their construction did not 
seem to me very solid, and I cannot conceive how they ol 
! a to bear the cold, which must be very intense here in wl 
ter. In the middle of the room was a large hearth, etre 
which the whole family, consisting of eight or ten persons, was 
seated. The furniture consisted of a large bed, over which a 
Japanese mat was spread, and several boxes and barrels. All 
their utensils were of Japanese manufacture, and mostly lac- 
quered : it appeared from the pie oe the house that the 
Po poe possessed a degree of affluence, such as is not 
nd among the ‘eGihatals, still je among the Aleuti 
the unfortunate Gihahitante of Kodiack. Fish is proba- 
y their only nourishment, their houses on this account being 
chiefly se ong t : pe dee 
toms of caferasien. not even any plantations of vegetables, nor 
did we see any tame fowls or domestic abe except dogs, 
which they had in great abundance. 
