Yezo, or EZO, less correctly YESSO, the most northerly of the four great islands of Japan, is in size about equal to Ireland, and is still only partially settled. Its official name is Hokkaido, or 'Circuit of the Northern Sea,' received in 1870, when it was brought under a special colonisation department. An agricultural mission from the United States assisted in founding model-farms, laying out roads, and building bridges. The capital was changed from Matsumae to Sapporo, which was provided with a railroad to Otam, its port, and to Poronai, the great coal district inland. An agricultural college, breweries, canning factories, beet-root sugar factories, &c. were established, but with inconsiderable results. The coal-mines are worked by convict labour. A system of military settlements has of late years been put into force, partly with the view of furnishing a militia against possible invasion from Russia, which is supposed to covet the fine harbours of Yezo. The exposed port of Otam will probably be soon abandoned for the more sheltered harbour of Mororan, on Volcano Bay, now a naval harbour, to which a railway from Poronai mines has been built. The principal products of Yezo are coal, seaweed, sulphur, fish, the catches of salmon on the river Ishikari being sometimes enormous. The fauna and flora of Yezo differ materially from those of the main island, the bear being a different species resembling the grizzly. There are no monkeys; a species of grouse is found. The deer, once very plentiful, are now comparatively scarce. The Yezo pony, originally from Nambu on the main island, is hardy, and foreign blood has been introduced, promising good results. The original inhabitants of Yezo were probably pit-dwellers, of whom distinct traces have been found at Sapporo, Nemuro, and elsewhere. After these came Ainos (q.v.) or Ainus, whose principal settlement is at Piratori, 50 miles east of Mororan. The bear-festival, in September, is the great event of their year. The Ainos number 15,000, a population either stationary or decreasing; they are harmless, lazy, and drunken. The southern corner of the island was wrested from them in the 16th century, and the castle of Matsunae, in the extreme southwest, became in the next century the headquarters of Japanese rule. At the restoration in 1868 the supporters of the Tokugawa government made a last stand here, and were finally defeated at Hakodate. Yezo has a rigorous climate, being for six months of the year under snow and ice (2 feet in the south to 8 feet in the north). The centre of the island is but little known, although it has been crossed twice or thrice by Japanese and European explorers; the Ainos live mostly near the mouths of the rivers. The interior is mountainous and inhospitable; there are several active volcanoes.
See books quoted at AINOS; also Blackiston's Japan in Yesso (1882); Chamberlain's Memoirs on the Ainos (1888); Batchelor's The Ainu (1892).