LETTER XLII

Summary

I expected to have written out my notes on the Ainos in the comparative quiet and comfort of Sarufuto, but the delay in Benri's return, and the non-arrival of the horses, have compelled me to accept Aino hospitality for another night, which involves living on tea and potatoes, for my stock of food is exhausted. In some respects I am glad to remain longer, as it enables me to go over my stock of words, as well as my notes, with the chief, who is intelligent, and it is a pleasure to find that his statements confirm those which have been made by the young men. The glamour which at first disguises the inherent barrenness of savage life has had time to pass away, and I see it in all its nakedness as a life not much raised above the necessities of animal existence, timid, monotonous, barren of good, dark, dull, “without hope, and without God in the world;” though at its lowest and worst considerably higher and better than that of many other aboriginal races, and, must I say it? considerably higher and better than that of thousands of the lapsed masses of our own great cities, who are baptized into Christ's name, and are laid at last in holy ground, inasmuch as the Ainos are truthful, and, on the whole, chaste, hospitable honest, reverent, and kind to the aged.