"Pegasus."

Here we are then! in the country of Miss Bird's Ainos, a people whom she
describes as the most gentle and docile in the world. We had ample
opportunity of making their acquaintance, for during our stay the decks
were daily thronged with them. In these men the advocates of Darwinism
might well behold the missing link. From head to heel they are covered
with thick shaggy unkempt masses of hair; that on their heads and faces
hanging down in wild elfish locks. They wear but scant raiment, a sort
of over-all, which does not pretend to the use of even the most
primitive covering. It is of the men I speak. Strangely enough, though,
they all have their ears pierced, metal ornaments are not worn by any,
but, instead, they have a thin strip of scarlet cloth, just simply
placed through the hole. The women are strange looking creatures. Their
garments are modest enough, far more so even than those of their
southern sisters with whom, by the way, they have nothing in common,
save their sex. Can it be that this is the primitive Japanese
race--that the more enlightened people of Niphon trace their origin to
such a degraded source? I should be inclined to say no, if I did not
remember that history furnishes us with so many parallel cases of
similar degraded origin--our own for example.

Well built, but oh! so ugly these women; and, as if nature had not done
enough for them in this particular, they render their faces still more
repulsive looking by tattooing the lips on the outside to the depth of
an inch all around, elongating the mark at the corners. This, of course,
does not tend to lessen the apparent size of an aperture, already
suggestive of a main hatchway. This unhandsome, open, flat countenance,
is also further decorated with bands of blue on the forehead. The
females wear large rings of iron--some few of silver--in their ears.

Now, though of course I don't pretend to the faithfulness of
portraiture, nor to the accuracy of observation of the travelled lady I
have before quoted, yet I must add that my estimate of this people, in
my own small way, is antagonistic to hers. To me they are only a very
little removed from savages. Their women seem to be in abject slavery to
the men, and are treated by them in the most shameful manner. An
instance, which came under my own observation, will perhaps shew this.
Whilst on shore fishing, I had wandered away from the main party to
where I saw a native engaged at work on an u