Chamberlain

(Profe or of Philology Imp. Univ., Japan) thinks that they were preceded by, or contemporary with, a race of Malay-Polynesian origin. He supposes Aino speech to be “an earlier form than the Altaie (Turanian), of which traces appear in linguistic areas as widely separated as those of the Eskimo and Me lanes i an languages.” [They seem to present some Korean affinities, and the above would not prevent their being of Turanian origin—Ep.] The Japanese use the word Aino as meaning “a mongrel between a man and a dog”; but Ainu simply means “ man,” and is the proper name of the race, They clain to have been once civilised, but that the Japanese stole, and destroyed, their sacred books in our 12th Century, driving them into the wild northern islands of Yeso (or Matsmai) Saghalien, and others of the Kurile group. They once peopled all the Japanese islands; but in 1890 only some 19,000 remained under Japanese rule, and a few you sands further north. ‘Their language seems to have deeply affected that of their conquerors, and to have its root in that of the Tunguses (see Tunguse)— which is Turanian (see Prof.