34 
IN FORBIDDEN SEAS 
castle. Those in the boat came on board, and, after 
a short stay, left without finding or inquiring for 
our Kurilsky friend. After their departure we landed 
our visitor, making him happy with a present of 
tobacco and a few trifles. 
The Kurilsky Ainu on Shikotan in October, 1891, 
numbered but fifty-nine men, women, and children. 
They were visited at that time by a Russian mission¬ 
ary priest from Japan. Amongst the Kurilsky, 
judging from appearances, there were few, if any, of 
pure Ainu blood ; they were a mixture of Ainu, 
Kamchatkales, and Aleuts, these last having been 
taken to the Kurils in the days of the old Russian- 
American Company. 
The pure Ainu do not extend beyond Yetorup. 
Some ethnologists have considered the Ainu race to 
have had a northern origin, and that this people 
penetrated to Yezo and Japan, advancing south¬ 
wards and westwards until they were met and turned 
back by the Japanese advancing from the opposite 
direction. The researches of Basil Hall Chamberlain, 
Professor of Japanese and Philology in the Imperial 
University, amongst old Japanese writings, and his 
study and explanation of many of the place-names 
of the country, prove beyond a doubt that the 
Ainu once inhabited Central and Western Japan, 
and may have had a more extended southern 
range. 
There is little or nothing to lead one to assume 
a northern origin for the Ainu ; indeed, there is a 
certain amount of negative evidence which, I think, 
tends to show that they were not a northern race. 
The Ainu had no marked characteristics, customs, 
utensils, weapons, boats, etc., peculiar to most, if 
