w zero
here," he said.

"But why do they do it?" old Shylock demanded.

"It is part of their religion. They believe that the god comes in that
window. They want it open, so that he can come in whenever he wishes. It
offends them greatly when you stick your head through that window."

Pat tried it just to see what would happen, just like a man who looks
into the barrel of a gun, or a man who takes a watch apart, or wants to
hit a "dud" with a hammer just to see whether it is a dud. The result
was bad. There was a sudden series of outlandish yells from the
household. I think that every man, woman and child, including the dogs,
of which there were many, started at once. I wonder now how Pat escaped
alive, and only under the assumption that "the good die young" can I
explain his escape.

I wanted some arrows to take to America as souvenirs; and, when an old
Indian pulled out a lot of metal arrows on long bows with which he had
killed more than a hundred bears, I was not satisfied. They were not the
kind of arrows I wanted.

"What kind are you looking for?" I was asked.

"Flint arrow-heads," I responded.

"Why, man, these Indians have known the use of metals for five hundred
years. The stone age with them is half a thousand years in the past."

"Have they a history?" I wanted to know.

My interpreter, who has much knowledge of these things, having worked
among them for years, said, "All of the Japanese mythology is centered
about the battles that took place when these Indians were driven out of
Japan proper step by step."

I was surprised to find that they were white people compared with the
Japanese who were their conquerors. There are other marked differences.
The Ainus are broad between the eyes instead of narrow as are the
Japanese. They are rather square-headed like Americans as compared with
the oval of the Japanese face. They do not have markedly slant eyes, and
they are white-skinned. They might feel at home in any place in America.
I have seen many old men at home who look like them, old men with
beards. This came as a distinct surprise to me.

At each house, just in front of the ever-open window of which I have
spoken, there is a little crude shrine. It is more like a small fence
than anything that I know, a most crude affair made of broken bamboo
poles. Flowers and vines are planted here to beautify this shrine, and
every pole has a bear-skull on it. The more bear-skulls you have, the
safer you are a