Our progress was so desperately slow that, by the time we reached Sarabuto, we had almost given up hope of reaching Azuma for the night. We were taking tea and cakes at the little tea-house, when a _basha_ came along making its homeward journey empty. We gladly hired it, taking some luggage into it with us and dividing the rest between the two carts. We then rode away in comparative comfort and at a much improved speed. From Mukawa, we walked a little to stretch our legs, but then rode steadily on to Azuma, arriving at about four o’clock. The luggage came in later. We were impressed by the preparations the little town was making against Russian attack. The four Russian gunboats are being watched for. Seven men patrol the coast day and night. At a signal of two bells from the tower, the women, the aged, and the helpless are to flee for shelter inland; at four strokes every able-bodied man and boy is to seize the nearest thing that can serve as a weapon and rush to meet the enemy. And no doubt similar arrangements of desperate bravery are being made at every miserable fishing village along this coast! In the morning we took the _basha_ of yesterday and a second one for luggage and started early. It was bitterly cold and from time to time we ran to warm our feet. At Yubutsu we turned directly from the sea and struck for the little station of Numanohata. Here at 9.40 a. m. we took train for Sapporo, where we had to spend a few days, packing, completing preparations, and waiting for our people. Here I had the opportunity of examining the Japanese books and manuscripts relative to the Ainu, in the governmental library of the Hokkaido. The Japanese have been much interested in the Ainu and have written many works about them. Most famous and best known is the _San Goku Tsuran Zusetsu_, by a Rin Shihei. It was published in 1785 and consists of a volume of text and five volumes of maps. It is more commonly found in manuscript than printed. It is abundantly illustrated with pictures of men and women, dress, ornaments, tools, and scenes of daily life. In one picture three Ainu boys are playing the game of “javelin and ring,” but instead of using javelins are piercing the rolling ring with arrows shot from bows. In a family scene, the father smokes a pipe, but looks around for a moment at the baby, who seems to point reproachfully at his mother, who is giving her breast to the bear cub and not to him; in a cage near by is a captive bird, perhaps an eagle, waiting sacrifice. In still another picture, the hunter, from his canoe on the sea, hurls a harpoon at a seal. The drawings of articles are carefully made and serve well for comparison with modern specimens. On the whole the book gives interesting information regarding the Ainu of one hundred and twenty years ago. The most diligent of the Japanese writers about the Ainu, however, is Matsuura Takeshiro, a geographer, who made a loving study of the island of