nificance of the
chastisement which was inflicted by the women upon the bridegroom with
the willow switches. Dodd suggested that it might be emblematical of
married life--a sort of foreshadowing of future domestic experience;
but in view of the masculine Korak character, this hardly seemed to
me probable. No woman in her senses would try the experiment a second
time upon one of the stern, resolute men who witnessed that ceremony,
and who seemed to regard it _then_ as perfectly proper. Circumstances
would undoubtedly alter cases.

Mr. A.S. Bickmore, in the _American Journal of Science_ for May,
1868, notices this curious custom of the Koraks, and says that the
chastisement is intended to test the young man's "ability to bear up
against the ills of life"; but I would respectfully submit that the
ills of life do not generally come in that shape, and that switching
a man over the back with willow sprouts is a very singular way of
preparing him for future misfortunes of any kind.

Whatever may be the motive, it is certainly an infringement upon the
generally recognised prerogatives of the sterner sex, and should be
discountenanced by all Koraks who favour masculine supremacy. Before
they know it, they will have a woman's suffrage association on their
hands, and female lecturers will be going about from band to band
advocating the substitution of hickory clubs and slung-shots for the
harmless willow switches, and protesting against the tyranny which
will not permit them to indulge in this interesting diversion at least
three times a week. [Footnote: It is now well known that this ceremony
is a form of "marriage by capture" which is widely prevalent among
barbarous peoples.--G.K. (1909).]

After the conclusion of the ceremony we removed to an adjacent tent,
and were surprised, as we came out into the open air, to see three
or four Koraks shouting and reeling about in an advanced stage of
intoxication--celebrating, I suppose, the happy event which had just
transpired. I knew that there was not a drop of alcoholic liquor in
all northern Kamchatka, nor, so far as I knew, anything from which it
could be made, and it was a mystery to me how they had succeeded in
becoming so suddenly, thoroughly, hopelessly, undeniably drunk. Even
Ross Browne's beloved Washoe, with its "howling wilderness" saloons,
could not have turned out more creditable specimens of intoxicated
humanity than those before us. The exciting agent, whatever it mig