hat other race they are
akin are problems that have given occasion for much learned
dissertation, but are still as far off solution as ever. Mr. Basil
Chamberlain, all of whose writings upon Japan are replete with
erudition and information, has observed that the Aino race deserves to
be studied because "its domain once extended over the entire Japanese
Archipelago," and also "because it is, so to speak, almost at its last
gasp." Unfortunately the evidence for the latter fact is more
conclusive than for the former. The Ainos are, it seems, to be no
exception to that mysterious law of the survival of the fittest, which
decrees that an inferior race shall go down before the superior, and
in due course become merely a name. I have called this a mysterious
law because such disappearance is not necessarily the result of
conquest or of ruthless destruction. When the inferior race is brought
into contact with the superior it seems, by some mysterious process,
to be infected with the elements of decay, to be impregnated with the
germs of annihilation. And, accordingly, it comes about, in accordance
with the dictates of the law I have referred to, that although a
society has been founded in Japan very much on the lines of our
Aborigines Protection Society, an Aino Preservation Society, the Ainos
seem doomed to extinction at no far-distant date.

Whether or not the Ainos once inhabited the whole of the Japanese
islands and trekked north to get away from their conquerors, there can
be no doubt of the fact that they are in almost every respect the very
antithesis of the Japanese. The latter are a smooth-skinned race, the
Ainos an extremely hairy one. The Japanese are essentially a clean, a
scrupulously clean people, the Ainos just as essentially dirty. The
long beards and general facial appearance of the latter are altogether
in startling contrast to the physiognomy of the average Japanese.

When ethnology fails to place a race, philology often steps in with
more or less of success. The Aino language has been profoundly studied
by many eminent philologists, but I do not think the results have
tended to throw much, if any, light on the mystery as to the origin
and racial affinities of the Ainos. In general structure the language
is not unlike that of the Japanese, but this might be expected as the
result of centuries of intercourse between the two people.

The Ainos live almost solely by fishing and hunting. The Japanese
laws, whi