VERY FAR EAST

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 19, 22 July 1933, Page 18

VERY FAR EAST

IN THE KURILE ISLANDS

One of the least familiar corners of the world is where the Kurile Islands lie, that long chain of islands stretching northwards from Japan to Kamchatka. Dr. Sten Bergman, a Swedish naturalist, brings this inhospitable spot to our doorstep, so to speak, in "Sport and Exploration in the Far East." The Kuriles may not be an ideal spot for a health resort, but Dr. Bergman writes a most interesting account of them. Tn tho Kuriles live the last remains of the dying Ainu race. Formerly they were distributed over a great part of Japan, but they were pushed further and further north, and now there are only about 20,000 left in the islands. In spite of having lived among a Mongolian race, the Ainus have no Mongolian characteristics and are regarded as being Caucasian in origin. The men have gigantic beards, and Dr. Bergman saw several . elderly women, all with tho tattooed moustaches which have made Ainu women so famous. This extraordinary method of embellishment produces a very queer effect, and it is as much as you can do to remain serious the first time you see it. He reproduces a photograph of one young Ainu girl whose moustache reminds one of what the ex-Kaiser's used to be like.

The mon are so hirsute that they have a special rite when drinking sake, the beverage that is to the Japanese what beer is to us. The women ladle the sake from a large bowl into the tall sake "Cups. "Each of ,the men then took his sake-cup in both hands, raised it and lowered it slowly, bowing t.bcir heads at the same time and saying something in Ainu. On the top of each cup lay a 'moustache-lifter,' which looked rather like a small paper knife. . . At last came the longl yearned-for moment when they opened the way into their mouths with the moustache-lifters, raised the cups to their lips,, and drank."

Among the many interesting episodes delightfully told is one about sleeping in a bear's den (when the usual occupier was away), and there are some informative descriptions of the whaling that goes on in that locality. So little of the sperm whale that the Kurilcs catch is lost that even the milk of the cow-whale is used in the skipper's coffee, although it "looks like thick cream and has a flavour of seaweed."

This is a travel book rather out of the ordinary and can bo recommended to those who have "done" (from an armchair, of course) Africa, Central America, and all the other places to which explorers and naturalists go and about which they write when they come back< armed with specimens and photographs.