TIIEIll MODES OF SALUTATION. 
315 
truthful pages of Captain Golowuin, I see nothing 
that clashes with my own experience. From our own 
observation since arriving in Japanese waters, wc have 
all been forcibly struck with the remarkable truthfulness 
of the contents of that writer’s pages : it is undoubtedly 
the best work extant on Japan, (Commodore Perry’s not 
excepted,) and as such may be read with confidence by 
all who feel an interest in that mysterious people. 
The Ainu mode of salutation at joining and parting 
company is ivorthy of remark. They bring the tit>s 
of the fingers up to the eyes, cast the latter upon the 
ground, and, in a low voice, indulge in quite a lengthy 
harangue, while stroking the beard from the eyes down- 
ward. This latter operation is repeated as long as the 
harangue lasts, at the end of which they glance toward 
the person saluted, and, if he is looking another way, 
the process is repeated until they catch his eye. This 
also seems to be their manner of returning thanks for 
any present received. Their sign of farewell, however, 
consists in a repeated elevation and depression of the 
extended hands, something after the manner of an 
Irish nurse dancing her charge at arm’s length without 
regard to consequences. (I have had a latent feeling of 
revenge against all Irish nurses ever since one of them 
‘‘danced” me out of her arms upon a brick pavement 
some thirty years since.) In addition to this, when one 
is leaving in a boat, they throw after her receding form 
curiously-carved sticks of spi'uce, whose fine shavings 
drawn curlingly to either end give them very much 
the appearance of a calker’s paying-mop previous to 
saturation in the boiling pitch. What this ceremony 
