THE ANCIENT PIT-DWELLERS OE YEZO. 



421 



feet. They are not well preserved, but it was thought worth while to 

 dig a trench across one of them in the hope of finding some pottery or 

 arrow-heads. The trench was dug two feet wide down to a stratum of 

 clay, but nothing was found. 



On the island of Yeterof there are many hundred of such pits on ele- 

 vated knolls some distauce from the coast, but overlooking a broad 

 valley, through which a stream meanders for a long distance nearly 

 parallel to the coast. It seemed to me quite possible that at the time 

 the dwellings represented by these pits were inhabited, the present river 

 valley was an immense arm of the sea, and a rich fishing-ground. It 

 was about these pits that Mr. Blakiston says fragments of pottery were 

 picked up. I was therefore quite anxious to explore one of them with 

 a spade, and leaving my companions, Mr. Leroux and Mr. Odium, I set 

 off in search for a habitation. After a long walk I found an Aino hut 

 occupied by an old woman, and there obtained a dilapidated old Jap- 

 anese instrument which was used for digging. It was the best the 

 country afforded, so I carried it back and we dug over the whole bottom 

 of the pit, and also in several places outside, without finding a single 

 article to reward us. We made some measurements of the pits in the 

 vicinity, which were large and well preserved. Two pits gave the fol- 

 lowing results : 



Southeast and 

 northwest. 



Northeast and 

 southwest. 



Depth. 



Metres. 

 4 

 4 



Metres. 

 3.8 

 4.5 



Centimetres. 

 53 

 73 



Although I have not yetfouud a single piece of pottery, nor a chipped 

 flint in any pit where I have dug, it does not follow that nothing of the 

 kind is to be found about them. Other explorers have been more for- 

 tunate. The most promising locality for such explorations is at Kushiro, 

 on the southeast coast of Yezo. Only want of the necessary time pre- 

 vented me from digging about the pits there. In walking over the 

 ground I picked up several small bits of old pottery which the rains had 

 washed out, and the Japanese local officers showed me a small collec- 

 tion of vessels, tolerably well preserved, which had been found there. 

 Some of the Kushiro pits are very large. I measured one, which was 

 32 feet across and 8 feet deep. 



The Ainos have a tradition concerning a race of dwellers under 

 ground called Jcoropokguru, who formerly occupied the country. The 

 Ainos claim to have subdued and exterminated them. We have no 

 means of knowing whether this is a genuine tradition, or a late inven- 

 tion to explain the existence of the pits. Presuming it to be the for- 

 mer, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the Aino account of dwarfs, 

 who lived under ground, and the Japanese tales of earth spiders or 



