8232 



Among the Ainos. 



endeavours to conceal herself in the tall grass. She is, however, 

 detected, and good-humouredly hunted down, when she makes for the 

 door of a little smoke-dried hovel. Pushing gently aside the sliding 

 board which serves the purpose of a door, we enter smiling, and lo ! 

 the entire family is before us. The countenance of the frightened 

 damsel is shrouded by a veil of loose black hair, and all are silent, 

 solemn, squatting on their hams around the fire ; Gipsy-fashion an iron 

 cauldron, with its seething mess of fish, hangs suspended in the midst. 

 No sign of welcome is made, no peace-offering accepted. We there- 

 fore quietly withdraw, and enter another and a larger hut. 



Four men are seated around the smouldering wood fire solemnly 

 smoking, while two young women are clearing away the fish-bones and 

 fragments that remain from the recent meal. The interior of the dingy 

 abode is lined with matting, and on a raised platform on one side are 

 an old woman and some children. The captaiu and myself seat our- 

 selves among these strange people, and endeavour to win the hearts of 

 the women by pictures from the 4 Illustrated London News,' which 

 they accept timidly and contemplate upside-down ; the absurd little 

 brown monkey-like imps are regaled with sweet biscuits, which they 

 shyly munch with silent gusto, and the stolid hairy men are propitiated 

 with tobacco, which they slice up and smoke instanter. It is a pleasing 

 thing to note the skilful way in which one little savage lights his 

 grandmother's pipe, and wonderful to observe that ancient dame with 

 a black mane, crouching on all fours, like some hideous Sphinx, 

 smoking the soothing weed. 



The dress of the men is composed of coarse canvass or the skins of 

 dogs and seals ; their legs are protected by laced buskins, and their 

 feet by clumsy straw sandals. Every man carries a knife in a wooden 

 sheath, and a carved tobacco pouch. The lips of the women are 

 tattooed of a pale black colour, and their coarse straight hair is neither 

 gathered up in a becoming knot, nor confined by coquettish net or 

 other feminine device, but is simply parted down the middle, and very 

 much resembles a huge black mop. These " unlovely " women have 

 enormous metal ear-rings depending from the lobes of their ears, and 

 necklaces of coloured beads adorn their necks. They are clothed in 

 silver-gray or spotted seal skins, with long boots of the same material 

 reaching above the knee ; a black leathern girdle, or " cestum Veneris," 

 encircles their waist, the which is covered with brass ornaments, and 

 to which is invariably suspended the all-useful knife. Oysters, mussels 

 and scallops, mingled with the bones of salmon, seal and porpoise, 

 arc thrown in heaps around their houses, showing their piscivorous 



