36 
IN FORBIDDEN SEAS 
that such dwellings would only be used by a people 
of very short stature. The Koro-pok-guru, probably, 
were never very numerous, and the Ainu, when they 
were driven by the Japanese into Yezo, would have 
had no difficulty in exterminating or driving these 
people away. Similar yurts , or pit-dwellings, are 
found all along the Kurils, in Saghalin, in Kam¬ 
chatka, and on the Aleutian Islands, and at one 
time it was thought that they were a northern race 
who penetrated to Yezo and Japan via the Kuril 
Islands. After visiting Kamchatka a number of 
times, however, and also the various islands of the 
western part of the Bering Sea right up into the 
Arctic Ocean, I have come to the conclusion that 
there were no such special race of people, but that, 
the pit-dwelling, or yurt, was the natural result of 
the conditions existing in certain places, no matter 
who or what the tribe or people were who found them¬ 
selves in such places. In the northern and central 
Kurils and the Aleutian Islands, for instance, where 
warmth and protection from the elements were of 
vital necessity, the uncivilized people resorting to 
them in those early days would be obliged to con¬ 
struct these yurts , as the available materials to be 
found on these islands would not allow of any other 
kind of suitable shelter being made, for there is no 
growth of timber on any of them. Some few of the 
larger northern Kurils have a growth of short scrub 
pine and alder, but on the others there is nothing but 
mosses, and, in the more sheltered parts, a growth of 
coarse vegetation. 
The idea of the pit-dwelling is easily conceived 
after one has seen these places and the quantities 
of driftwood piled up on many of the beaches and 
