seperate column

[svar]

I have line as

svar systems 145823 india

I have to seperate this line and store each colunm in a variable in shell script.

For example, I have to store as below.
first=svar
last=systems
num=145823
country=india

Please, dont say that this can be done using awk cut etc, say with an example.

[redhead]

http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Awk.html#uh-45