Savage Life—A Forest Track—Cleanly Villages—A Hospitable Reception— The Chiefs Mother—The Evening Meal—A Savage Séance—Libations to the Gods—Nocturnal Silence—Aino Courtesy—The Chiefs Wife.

AINO HUT, BIRATORI, August 23.

I AM in the lonely Aino land, and I think that the most interesting of my travelling experiences has been the living for three days and two nights in an Aino hut, and seeing and sharing the daily life of complete savages, who go on with their ordinary occupations just as if I were not among them.

I found yesterday a most fatiguing and over-exciting day, as everything was new and interesting, even the extracting from men who have few if any ideas in common with me all I could extract concerning their religion and customs, and that through an interpreter. I got up at six this morning to write out my notes, and have been writing for five hours, and there is shortly the prospect of another savage séance. The distractions, as you can imagine, are many. At this moment a savage is taking a cup of saké by the fire in the centre of the floor. He salutes me by extending his hands and waving them towards his face, and then dips a rod in the saké, and makes six libations to the god—an upright piece of wood with a fringe of shavings planted in the floor of the room. Then he waves the cup several times towards himself, makes other libations to the fire, and drinks. Ten other men and women are sitting along each side of the fire-hole, the chiefs wife is cooking, the men are apathetically contemplating the preparation of their food; and the other women, who are never idle, are splitting the bark of which they make their clothes. I occupy the guest seat—a raised platform at one end of the fire, with the skin of a black bear thrown over it.

I have reserved all I have to say about, the Ainos till I had been actually among them, and I hope you will have patience to read to the end.