The evening came, and with the dying sun ended that memorable day of festivities. I retired. Distant sounds of the menokos, still enjoying themselves, came to me with the wind, but fainter and fainter they grew as it was getting darker.
"Pirrero! Pirrero! Pirrero!" I heard again, till at last the sounds faded away into a mere murmur, and I fell asleep.
The morning that I left Piratori, old Benry put on his regal clothes and crown to bid me good-bye.
"Nishpa, Popka-no-okkayan" ("Sir, may you be preserved warm"), said the old chief, in the Ainu fashion of bidding farewell; "I have a pain in my chest, owing to your leaving Piratori, but I shall accompany you part of the way."
I dissuaded the old chief from doing that, but he went on, with his plaintive voice: "Nishpa, you must tell in your country that Piratori is a nice place, and all the Ainu are good people. Not like the Shamo" (Japanese; also half-breeds), "for they are bad. You must return soon," he added, and, taking my hand, he pressed it to his hairy chest. He then took me to his hut again, and there renewed his farewells, and I renewed mine to him, to his great wife, and to his house, for it is part of the Ainu etiquette to bid good-bye to the house of a friend as well as to the owner of it.
The return journey to Saru Mombets was accomplished without much difficulty.
UTAROP ROCKS.