« PreviousContinue »
and coldness of faith. The truth was that they had turned to other ambitions, and that Palestine was no longer to them a land of promise.
But on Europe the results of the Crusades had a most marked influence. When Godfrey left for the East he sold their freedom to the burghers of Metz, and many another seigneur after his time pawned or sold his lands, and gave immunities in return for money to the towns. St. Louis after his experience in the East not only encouraged learning, protecting the University of Paris and collecting manuscripts in monasteries, but he remembered the Italian communes of Syria, and fostered the growth of the middle class in his cities, as a check on both barons and clergy. The Italian republics were the first to be benefited by the conquest of Jerusalem, the German cities became free during the struggle with the Pope. In Italy and Spain first, and afterwards in France, the philosophy and science of the Moslems and of Aristotle were studied. Bologna and Salamanca became famous, and the obscure University of Oxford followed in their wake.
The art and culture of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa were almost entirely of Oriental origin. The Syrian glass, the metalwork of Damascus, the pottery of Persia, gave the models for Italian manufactures. Cimabue owed his inspiration to the school of Byzantine artists who came to Italy after the Norman conquest of Constantinople in 1204 A.D. The roots of the Renaissance are found in the civilisation of the Crusades.
The wise laws of the Latin kingdom set an example not vainly placed before great kings like St. Louis, Richard Lion Heart, or Edward I. The wider thought which resulted from a wider knowledge of ancient philosophies, of varying Christian beliefs, of Moslem simplicity and Buddhist tolerance, led to the birth of that free spirit of enquiry which rejected the discredited authority of Rome. Peter the Hermit preached unconsciously a far-distant reformation. Frederic II. laid the foundations of European science. Surely when we recall the actual results of this great period of schooling in the East, we can no longer regard the Crusades as having been merely futile efforts, which weakened and retarded the progress of the West. Nor when we read in detail the account of that great building up of a kingdom which was founded by valour, and preserved so long by justice and wisdom, can we regard its rulers as ignorant fanatics or religious enthusiasts. The history of the kingdom of Jerusalem is the history of the birth of freedom for all Europe
ART. VIII.—1. Alone with the Hairy Ainu. By A. H. SAVAGE
2. Life with Trans-Siberian Savages. By B. DOUGLAS
3. The Ainu of Japan. By the Rev. JOHN BATCHELOR. London: 1892.
4. The Ainos of Yezo, Japan. By ROMYN HITCHCOCK. Smithsonian Report of the United States National Museum for 1890. Washington: 1891.
AJOURNEY of 'pleasure and rest' brought Mr. A. H. Savage Landor, about the beginning of May 1890-as nearly as can be made out, for he is singularly chary of dates--to Hakodate, the northern Treaty-port of Japan. There, a casual remark determined him to throw the restful part of his programme to the winds, and seek his pleasure, after true British fashion, in beating the record.' No solitary traveller, it was asserted in his hearing, could possibly make the tour of the island of Yezo, of which Hakodate is the foreign capital. The effect was as if a gauntlet had been flung into the lists. He lost no time in picking it up, and announced on the spot his intention of starting next morning in quest of the perils unwittingly proposed to him. And start next morning he did.
Now Yezo, as our readers are aware, is by no means a terra incognita. It has been under Japanese supremacy since the ninth century A.D., and represents the tail of the silkworm,' to which that people compare the undulating line of islands constituting their empire. It has been mapped, surveyed, and planted with a circumferential chain of Japanese horse-stations, fishing-stations, and inns. Only of late, however, have any serious efforts been made to develope its natural resources. These are very considerable. The coal-supplies of Yezo are practically inexhaustible; its sulphur-mines are numerous and rich; its fisheries of salmon, herrings, and pilchard might be made extraordinarily productive; vast quantities of valuable timber await the lumberers of the future. But as yet the initiative of the Government has scarcely at all been followed up, and progress languishes. Machinery rusts in disuse; capital refuses to flow; agriculture is neglected; and population, tempting inducements to immigration notwithstanding, remains at a low ebb. The area of Ireland is less than that of Yezo by about three thousand square miles; yet its
inhabitants are, in round numbers, thirty times more numerous-in part, no doubt, because it is far better suited for habitation. The Japanese island lies, point for point, ten degrees nearer to the tropic than the 'gem' of our own seas; but its climate takes small account of latitude. Snow covers the ground during six months of the year; and even the summers include a good deal of bad weather. Thus, along the parallei of Naples wheat barely ripens its 'honeyed' ears; while the fruits and vegetables of temperate Europe thrive only exceptionally-under select circumstances, so to speak. The arable land of Yezo, moreover, occurs merely in strips fringing the rivers and sea-coast, the interior being claimed by forests and volcanoes. Of the latter there are two active and fifteen extinct, and a great part of the soil was at one time or another belched forth by them. The forests amid which they tower shelter bears resembling the 'grizzlies' of the Rocky Mountains, besides deer, wolves, and foxes. They are composed of oak and pine, elm, maple, and birch trees, interlaced with wild vines, and immersed in a sort of ocean of bamboo-scrub. No roads penetrate this tangle of defiant vegetation, only some barely perceptible tracks betraying the habitual passage of hunters in pursuit of big game'-of hunters armed with poisoned arrows, and furnished by nature, to some extent like the beasts they track and slay, with a protective covering against the inclemencies of the weather. For they belong to the strange, perishing race of the 'hairy Ainu."
The study at close quarters of this people formed the chief aim of Mr. Landor's journey, and he showed remarkable pluck and persistence in seeking out their least accessible settlements. But his observations, though extensive, were necessarily superficial, and he was far too ready to generalise from them. Anthropological inquiries, too, are evidently new to him, so that his conclusions need not be taken as irreversible. Some of them, indeed, are certainly misleading, not through any want of good faith, but simply from the indeliberate manner in which they were arrived at. He records, however, many curious facts; his narrative is buoyant, unaffected, and entertaining; and his sketches show much graphic facility, no less than a genuine feeling for the beauty of landscape. It should be added that the cranial and other measurements of Ainu men and women which he was fortunate enough to secure, as well as the glossary of their enigmatical language compiled by him, must prove of permanent value,
"The preparations for my journey,' our author relates, 'were simple. In two large Japanese baskets I packed three hundred small wooden panels for oil-painting, a large supply of oil-colours and brushes, a dozen small sketch-books, my diary, three pairs of boots, three shirts, an equal number of pairs of woollen stockings, a revolver, and a hundred cartridges. I did not burden myself with either provisions or
The road was rough, and ran in zig-zags up and down innumerable hills; the vehicle was a covered cart without springs, the horses went at full gallop, the rain fell in torrents. A pause for luncheon at a neat Japanese teahouse was then no slight relief. The meal was served 'on a tiny table. There was water-soup; there was sea'weed; there was a bowl of rice, and raw fish.' To all this the traveller was accustomed, and he ate heartily. But what he was not prepared for was the sudden leap announcing the ghastly fact that the fish which had furnished the repast was still alive. The surprise had been prepared as a delicate stroke of gastronomic art!
'More dead than alive' from jolting and discomfort, Mr. Landor alighted that evening at a Japanese village on the picturesque shore of Volcano Bay, crossing which next morning by steam-ferry, he found himself within reach of the so-called aborigines.
Coming from Japan,' he says, 'the first thing that strikes a traveller in the Ainu country is the odour of dried fish, which one can smell everywhere; the next is the great number of crows-the scavengers of the country; lastly, the volcanic nature of the island. On visiting an Ainu village what impressed me most were the miserable and filthy huts, compared with the neat and clean Japanese houses; the poverty and almost appalling dirt of the people, and their gentle, submissive nature. The Ainu of the coast build their huts generally on a single line near the shore, and each family has its "dug-out" canoe drawn up on the beach, ready to hand when wanted. The huts are small and miserable-looking, and they have no furniture or bedding to speak of. The roof and walls are thatched with arundinaria, but so imperfectly that wind and rain find easy access through their reedy covering.' By the inmates of the one he chose to enter he was received with courtesy and without surprise; and, after beards had been stroked and palms rubbed in his honour, he responded to an invitation to be seated by squatting on the floor, and opened a conversation in Japanese. The mother-of-pearl buttons on his coat, however, excited more interest than his remarks, and he soon withdrew. Both men and women, he remarked, wore large earrings, or, in default of them, pieces of red or black cloth; and the younger
women might have been thought comely but for a long moustache tattooed across the face from ear to ear. Their hands and arms were also tattooed.
The stranger then walked along the beach, and endeavoured to make friends with some of the Ainu who were less shy than the others. One little girl was especially picturesque. She was only about ten, and her large eyes, tanned complexion, white teeth, the tiny blackishblue tattoo on her upper lip, her uncombed long black hair flying around her, and her red cloth earrings, made her indeed one of the quaintest studies of colour that I have seen in my life. I got her to sit for me; and while I was painting her, an old man, the chief of the village, dressed up in a gaudy costume, with a crown of willow shavings on his head, came to me and made his "salaams." He bore the name of Angotsuro, and before all his salaams were over he found himself "caught in the action " in my sketch-book. Many of the villagers had collected round, and one of them, a half-caste, expressed the wish that I should paint the chief in colours, like the picture of the girl. I asked for nothing better, and started an oil-sketch of him. The excitement of the natives who were witnessing the operation grew greater and greater as each new ornament in the chief's dress was put in the picture. Some seemed to approve of it, others were grumpy, and apparently objected to the picture being taken at all. The séance was indeed a stormy one, and though the chief had his regal crown knocked off his head two or three times by the anti-artistic party, he sat well for his likeness, especially as I promised him in Japanese that when the picture was completed he should be given a few coins and two buttons off my coat.'
Further on, at Horobets, the artist's zeal nearly led him into a serious scrape. His portrayal of a wonderfully effective group of fishermen engaged in skinning a cow-fish by the seashore was at once and sharply resented. picture was ruthlessly destroyed, the materials used in painting it were scattered far and wide. Whereupon Mr. Landor, having fetched his revolver, drove the delinquents before him to a Japanese police-station, and there treated them to an ample dish of humble-pie. Their savage spokesman could only plead in excuse for the assault the dire effects of likeness-taking. It brought sickness upon individuals, famine upon the land, while the representation of a single fish would suffice to drive all the finny tribes from the coast, and cut off the main resource against starvation of the poor Ainu.
A similar, but graver, incident is recounted by Mr. Douglas Howard in a little volume of which the title is cited at the head of this article. Its contents are absolutely unique. No traveller had previously visited the Sakhalin Ainu in the