Their Skins Are As Swarthy
As Those Of Bedaween, Their Foreheads Comparatively Low, Their Eyes
Far More Deeply Set Their
Stature lower, their hair yet more
abundant, the look of wistful melancholy more marked, and two, who
were unclothed for
Hard work in fashioning a canoe, were almost
entirely covered with short, black hair, specially thick on the
shoulders and back, and so completely concealing the skin as to
reconcile one to the lack of clothing. I noticed an enormous
breadth of chest, and a great development of the muscles of the
arms and legs. All these Ainos shave their hair off for two inches
above their brows, only allowing it there to attain the length of
an inch. Among the well-clothed Ainos in the yard there was one
smooth-faced, smooth-skinned, concave-chested, spindle-limbed,
yellow Japanese, with no other clothing than the decorated bark-
cloth apron which the Ainos wear in addition to their coats and
leggings. Escorted by these gentle, friendly savages, I visited
their lodges, which are very small and poor, and in every way
inferior to those of the mountain Ainos. The women are short and
thick-set, and most uncomely.
From their village I started for the longest, and by reputation the
worst, stage of my journey, seventeen miles, the first ten of which
are over mountains. So solitary and disused is this track that on
a four days' journey we have not met a human being. In the Lebunge
valley, which is densely forested, and abounds with fordable
streams and treacherous ground, I came upon a grand specimen of the
Salisburia adiantifolia, which, at a height of three feet from the
ground, divides into eight lofty stems, none of them less than 2
feet 5 inches in diameter.
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