Alone with the Hairy Ainu / or, 3,800 miles on a pack saddle in Yezo and a cruise to the Kurile Islands.

by Arnold Henry Savage Landor

Two or three times the maniac crawled up to me, and seemed anxious to touch the colours on my palette, and also to put his fingers on the sketch. He saw that he gained nothing by being a foe, so he became a friend. He even became a great friend when I presented him with a shiny silver coin.

Though Omangus was undoubtedly insane, he was a very practical person. As will be seen by the illustration, his attire was simple, and no allowance was made for pockets. He looked at the coin, turned it over in his hands several times, and grinned; then he placed it in his mouth for safe keeping. His mouth was apparently his purse. As I saw that he was fond of silver coins, I gave him one or two more, and all of them were religiously kept in the same natural pocket, except at night, when he hid them under a large stone. At sunrise they were collected again and placed back under his tongue or in one of his cheeks.

I cannot say that my host was by any means brilliant, but, like most lunatics, he was a good soul apart from his little peculiarities. It was unfortunate that he had lost the power of speech, or I might have learnt some strange things from him.

Omangus was generally restless at night, and while asleep he seemed to suffer from awful nightmares. Most Ainu as a rule do not. One morning at dawn, as the first rays of light penetrated the hut, I watched him. He had been groaning frightfully all night, and I had not been able to sleep. He was lying flat on his back breathing heavily, and now and then he had a kind of spasm, during which he ground his teeth together with violence. It was during these spasms, or nervous contractions, that he groaned most fiercely. As he was so stretched I noticed how extraordinarily long his femur was compared to his tibia. I gently placed my hand over his heart, and found it was beating rapidly and irregularly. His forehead also was feverish and abnormally warm. He did not wake up, but as soon as the nervous strain was over he fell into a lethargic state. He appeared to have lost all strength, and it took me some time to awake him; but he finally opened his eyes, and, drowsily getting up, yawned to his heart's content, and went to fetch the hidden coins.

The more I saw of Omangus, the more he puzzled me. His faculties were defective; still, he seemed to possess a fairly good memory. If not, how could he remember the concealed treasure? Although he was not able to form ideas of his own, he could retain those which he had grasped. His hearing was extremely acute, and his inability to speak must have undoubtedly been caused by paralysis of the tongue and vocal organs. Several times he made violent attempts to utter words, which he would not have done had he been born dumb.

After the second day of my pleasant stay in Omangus' ten feet square sea-side residence my host became more genial and even affectionate. Instead of constantly running away from me he sat opposite me, attentively watching all my movements; and if I happened to be whistling, he slowly crept nearer, grinning with delight. Occasionally he crouched himself by my side, even resting against me. I did not approve of the latter proof of affection, not so much for his own sake as on account of the "large company" which he carried with him; but I had to put up with it until I found a counter-action in loud singing, which frightened him away.

Omangus had a quantity of last year's salmon, which he had dried in the sun, and which was now hanging from the roof of the little hut. The first day or two of my stay there I had but little to eat, owing to his belligerent behaviour. He rebelled every time that I attempted to touch his provisions, and what I had to eat was generally appropriated while my host was out. Afterwards, however, he became generous, and gave me more than I wanted. He took good care to draw the three coins out of his mouth while he was eating, but once, during a nervous fit, to which he was often subject, he swallowed one of them.

One morning, weary of my lunatic friend's company, I packed all my traps and went to fetch my pony. Omangus seemed aghast, suspecting that I was about to leave. He was restless, and followed me, moaning, from the hut to the pony and back, and, with a forlorn look in his eyes, watched me bring the baggage outside and lash it to the pack-saddle. I gave him a couple more silver coins, which I thought would make him happy; but he dropped them in the sand. I bade good-bye to him and left; and there poor Omangus stood motionless, gazing at me until the winding shore took me round the cliff. He was out of sight for some minutes, but he soon reappeared on the summit of the cliff itself, on to which he rapidly climbed, and from this point of vantage he could see the coast for several miles. There standing, a black figure against the rising sun, the hairy Ainu became smaller and smaller as I moved away from him, until nothing but a black spot could be seen against the sky; then even that spot disappeared. It was the last I saw of my host the madman.

The rivers were troublesome all along this part of my journey, and as most of them had quicksands, the safest plan was to cross them in a boat, when this was obtainable. However, as I went further north the boats became scarce and more scarce, and the small villages, few and very far between. I seldom came across a human being with whom I could exchange a word, and the constant solitude induced in me the bad habit of talking to myself, to animals, or to inanimate objects. My unfortunate pony was often lectured on different subjects, and the millions of seagulls and penguins all along the coast were asked questions of all sorts, which, however, they invariably left unanswered. It was strange to see the myriads of birds stretched in two or three lines along the shore. Like the "beasts which roamed over the plains" in Alexander Selkirk's lament, they had seen so few human beings as to be indifferent to me and my pony, and I could walk among them without disturbing them or causing them to fly away. The penguins were my greatest source of amusement, with their fat bodies and their funny way of lifting up one leg as I was approaching, in order to get enough spring to raise themselves from the ground had I attempted to capture them. I was soliloquising, according to my then custom, while watching these droll birds, when not more than two hundred yards ahead I saw two large eagles. One of them was perched on a low cliff, the other was flying about, now and then returning near to its mate. I dismounted, with my revolver in my hand; I had a pocketful of cartridges. I crept stealthily from rock to rock, keeping well out of their sight until I came close to the pinnacled rock on which they stood. I was then about fifty yards from them, and it was useless my firing at such a distance with a revolver. I peeped over the rocks, and one of them saw me and flew away, while the other remained where it was, stretching its neck in my direction. Its piercing eyes were fixed full on me as I was approaching; it understood that danger was imminent, and it seemed ready to resist the attack. I drew nearer and nearer, and when about four yards away I fired two shots, both of which went through its breast, and the eagle, with its widespread wings, fell from its lofty pinnacle and came down heavily on its back.

In its last convulsions it made desperate efforts to clutch me with its long sharp claws; but a couple more shots finished it. The male bird, which meanwhile had been describing circles high up in the sky over my head, plunged down on me with incredible velocity. I emptied the last chamber of my revolver into him, just as the wind of his large wings made my eyes twinkle; and to evade the grip of his outstretched claws I had to cover my face with my left arm. The report stunned him, and flapping his wings, he rose again, to resume his circling over my head, leaving a few of his feathers floating in the air. I reloaded quickly, and each time he attacked me he was received with a volley. Another bullet went through his wing, and his flying became unsteady; he flew on to a distant cliff, and there he remained. I seized this opportunity of carrying the dead bird away and lash it on to my saddle; but while I was so engaged the male eagle flew back to the pinnacle where I had first seen the two together, and stretching his enormous wings to their full width, screamed as if in despair. On the pinnacle was their nest and young, and that was why the female had kept watch and ward over her eyrie, and also why she had not abandoned it even when I approached.