CHAPTER XXII.

SPORTS AND GAMES.

Hunting—Horse-racing—Fishing—Outdoor games—Billiards—_Sugoroku_—Iroha-cards—Ode-cards—_Ken_—Japanese chess—The moves—Use of prisoners—The game of _go_—Its principle—Camps—Counting—“Flowers-cards”—Players—How to play—Claims for hands—Claims for combinations made—Reckoning.

Field sports cannot be said to thrive in Japan. Fox-hunting, as practised in England, is unknown; indeed, hunting on a grand scale seldom takes place. Every year a large number of shooting licenses are issued; but reckless shooting has made game so scarce in the neighbourhood of Tokyo that any one in search of good sport must go a considerable distance from town. Game preserves are also very few in number, for there is scarcely one man of means in Tokyo who keeps such grounds. Nearly all the small birds are protected.

Horse-racing came into vogue soon after the Russian war. Many horse-race companies were formed; they throve as they sold pari-mutuel tickets on which they took a commission. The races became enormously popular; and people who knew nothing of horses or racing rushed in crowds to the races to buy these tickets. The thing became barefaced gambling, and so great was the scandal caused by these races that the sale of pari-mutuel tickets was prohibited, with the result that the races were entirely deserted and the shares of these companies fell from ten times their face-value to almost _nil_. Remedial measures were tried, but without success. These races had at first been encouraged by the authorities as it was believed that they would help to improve the breed of horses in Japan; but there was little prospect of that object being achieved, for the frequenters of the race-courses did not appear to take much interest in horse-racing beyond the opportunities it gave for gambling.

Fishing has many votaries. Boats put off from Shinagawa for fishing in the Bay of Tokyo, especially in summer and autumn; the fish are caught either with nets or with rod and line. Anglers may be seen at all seasons on the banks of the little rivers and canals which traverse the city; but their catch is quite insignificant. The most interesting method of catching fish is, perhaps, cormorant-fishing in the Tamagawa, a river which runs a few miles west of Tokyo, where cormorants are, as in the River Nagara in Gifu Prefecture, which is celebrated for this form of fishing, employed to catch the _plecoglossus altivelis_, which abounds in the river. The bird has a tight ring around its crop, and when it has dived into the water and swallowed enough fish, the ring is pulled up and the bird is made to disgorge them. Another curious sight is the angling for the sillago. This fish is keen-sighted and very active, and takes fright and darts away as soon as it sees a boat rocking on the water. As, however, it is to be found in comparatively shallow water, a gigantic stool is set on a shoal, and the angler sits on it and patiently waits for the fish to take the bait. A boat remains not far off for emergencies, as when the angler, in his eagerness, loses his balance and goes bodily after the sillago. On a calm day, several of these stools are to be seen off the beach at Shinagawa.

Of the outdoor games which have been introduced in recent years from abroad, the oldest is, perhaps, lawn-tennis, which is still extensively played, although it must now yield in popularity to baseball. A Japanese baseball team crossed the ocean some time ago to play on the Pacific Coast of the United States, though not with very brilliant results, while similar teams have come from Hawaii and the Pacific States to challenge the Japanese college teams. Boat-racing is also very popular; and races are held annually on the River Sumida by the Imperial University of Tokyo and other educational institutions in April when the cherry trees are in bloom on the river-bank. Football is played to some extent, and hockey has been tried with little success, while cricket is seldom played.

Of the European indoor games, the one which has found most favour in Japan is undoubtedly billiards, at which many Japanese have attained considerable skill. Ping-pong enjoyed a temporary vogue, but has now become as obsolete as diabolo, the craze for which reached Japan not long after it arose in Europe.

We may now pass on to the principal games which are played in Japan. _Sugoroku_ is a game played on a board by two persons. It is similar to backgammon, with the difference that the grand object of _sugoroku_ is to get all one’s men into the enemy’s territory. There are twelve men on each side and twenty-four points to move to, and two dice are thrown alternately as in backgammon. It is a very ancient game which is hardly ever played nowadays; and what is now known as _sugoroku_ was originally called the _dochu sugoroku_ or travelling _sugoroku_. The earliest of its kind is a large sheet on which the views of the fifty-three postal stations on the highway from Yedo to Kyoto are given in order in as many squares. The starting-point is Yedo in one corner of the sheet, from which the squares are ranged along the edges until one of them touches the Yedo square, and then they are continued along the inner edges of the first squares, and still another set is formed along the edges of these second squares, until Kyoto is reached in the centre of the sheet. Each player has a slip of paper with his name or mark inscribed on it; it is put with the others in the Yedo square. He throws a die in turn and moves forward according to the number turned up; and the one who reaches Kyoto first is the winner. As there are fifty-three squares, the minimum number of throws of the die is nine; but the game may become complicated if, as is usually the case, the die must in the last throw turn up the exact number required for reaching the goal. Thus, if five is turned up when only two is needed to reach Kyoto, the player is made to go back three squares from the goal and await his turn for the next throw. Again, when a player comes to a certain square, he may be made to forfeit a turn or go back a number of squares. When these rules are introduced, the game is very much prolonged. Hence, later forms of _sugoroku_ have a smaller number of squares; indeed, if, further, the place to move to is named in every square for every number turned up, a very few squares will suffice; and some _sugoroku_ have no more than a dozen squares and yet an exciting game may be played on them.

_Sugoroku_ is played in the long winter evenings, and especially during the first days of the New Year. Among other New Year’s games may be mentioned the cards known as the _Iroha_ and _uta_ cards. _Iroha_, being the first three characters of the Japanese syllabary or alphabet, is the name given to the whole syllabary; and the _iroha_ cards are so called because they have inscribed on them each a proverbial saying beginning with a different character of the syllabary. There are forty-seven characters in the Japanese syllabary, and another card is added to make the number even and divisible. Besides the pack of forty-eight cards with the proverbs, there is another of the same number of cards with pictures corresponding to these proverbs; these latter have also marked in the corner the first character of the proverbs they illustrate to facilitate identification. Thus, if the card in the first pack has the proverb, _inu mo arukeba bō ni ataru_ (A dog, by walking, may come upon a stick, a saying which is now taken to mean that by wandering about, one may meet with good fortune), the corresponding card in the other pack has a picture of a dog knocking against a stick and the character _i_ in the corner. The card of the second character of the syllabary has the proverb, _ron yori shōko_ (Proof is better than argument), and the third has _hana yori dango_ (Better a dumpling than a flower, that is, use is better than ornament), and so on. The illustrations in the second pack are often fanciful, as they cannot but be when the proverbs do not refer to concrete objects. Thus, the illustration to the second proverb above given has an angry man with one hand on his sword and holding in the other the straw figure which the jealous wife used in the old days to nail to a tree at dead of night when she invoked curses upon her rival. The man is apparently showing his wife in spite of her protestations the straw image she has been using against his mistress. The game is played sometimes by spreading all the pictures in the middle and the players sitting around them. One person reads out the proverbs in any order he pleases, and the corresponding pictures are seized and put away. The player who has taken the largest number of cards in this way is the winner. The game, however, is more frequently played in the following manner:—The cards are dealt evenly among the players who spread them out exposed before them. When a proverb is read out, a player takes out the corresponding picture if he has it, and if not, he looks over the other players’ hands and seizes the card as soon as he sees it. He takes it and gives one of his own exposed cards to the player from whose hand he has taken it. A slow-witted person’s hand is always full, while a sharp player clears his quickly; and the one who has first got rid of his hand is the winner. As the cards are often pounced upon at the same time by several players, the game is an exciting one, and not a few come out of it with their hands scratched and bleeding. Friends and relatives of both sexes join in these games in winter evenings, and some of them, it is said, consider it the best part of the game that they can touch or squeeze the hands of the players of the opposite sex by pretending to seize the same cards. For this reason, a strict paterfamilias not unfrequently forbids his household to play the game with those who are not its members.

The _uta_ or ode-cards are in two sets of a hundred each. There is a famous collection of a hundred odes composed by as many poets, which used in former days to be learnt by heart. These odes are used for the ode-cards. An ode, as has been explained in a former chapter, is made up of two couplets of five and seven syllables each, closing with a line of seven syllables. For the purposes of the cards, the odes are divided into two parts, the first comprising the first three lines, that is, the lines of five, seven, and five syllables, and the second the last two lines of seven syllables. The cards in one set give each the whole ode with the name and picture of the poet, while in those of the other set appears generally the second part, and rarely the first part, of the ode. Thus, in the first set the first ode of the hundred runs:—

_Tenji Tenno_

_Aki no ta no_ _Kariho no iwo no_ _Toma wo arami_ _Waga koromode wa_ _Tsuyu ni nuretsutsu._

Emperor Tenji

Decayed is the rush-thatch of the watch-shed in the autumn rice-field, And the sleeves of the robe are becoming wet with dew.

And the card of the second set has the lines _Waga koromode wa Tsuyu ni nuretsu_. The game is played in the same manner as the _iroha_ cards; and the scramble for the cards is more exciting as the players do not always wait till the whole ode is read out.

There is a curious diversion called the game of _ken_, or fists, which, its name notwithstanding, has nothing to do with pugilism. The principle of the game is that there are three positions of the hands or fingers, each one of which beats one and is beaten by the other, of the remaining two. The game is played with one or two hands. That played with both hands is called the fox-_ken_; its three positions are the putting of the open hands with the palms outward close to the temples in imitation of the fox, the stretching out of the right arm with the hand closed while the left hand is brought to the breast, which represents the huntsman with a gun, and the placing of both hands on the knees to show the staid manners of the village headman. The fox may bewitch the headman as that animal is popularly believed to possess magical powers, but may be killed by the huntsman, who, however, must not shoot the headman; thus, the fox beats the headman, who beats the huntsman, who, in his turn, beats the fox. The game is played by two persons, who must move their hands with uniform rapidity, for the game is spoilt if either side moves more quickly or slowly than the other. It is a favourite game at convivial parties, especially if one of the parties is a geisha, though it is not so popular now as it used to be. The person who beats the other three times running is declared the winner, and the defeated party has, as forfeit, to drink a cup of _sake_. The stone-_ken_ is played with one hand; in this the closed hand represents a stone, the open hand a piece of paper, and two fingers or a finger and the thumb spread out a pair of scissors; the stone may be wrapped in the paper, but is proof against the scissors, which may, however, cut the paper. This ken is played less often as a game than for deciding in a case where one would toss a coin in England, for tossing up is unknown in Japan.

The Japanese indoor games we have above described are played mostly by children and young men and women, with the exception of the fox-_ken_, which is almost confined to convivial parties. The great serious games for grown-up people in the evenings, or in the daytime for that matter, are chess, _go_, and “flower-cards.”

_Shōgi_, or Japanese chess, is played on a board with nine squares a side, or altogether eighty-one squares. There are twenty men on each side. The nine men on the end-row are the king in the middle, with _kinsho_ (gold general), _ginsho_ (silver general), _keima_ (knight), and _kyosha_ (kind of rook) on either side; on the second row the men are _hisha_ (rook proper) and _kakko_ (bishop) on the second square from the right and left ends respectively; and the third row is filled with pawns. The pieces are all of the same form; they have each a base with two converging sides surmounted by two others which make an obtuse angle at the apex, and are thicker at the base than at the top so that they can readily stand, though they are always laid flat. The name of each piece is written on the upper surface. The largest of these men is the king, next to which are the pieces on the second row, followed by the men on the end-row, while the smallest are the pawns.

The king can move one square in any direction; the _kinsho_ has the same moves except to the diagonals behind; and the _ginsho_ moves one square forward and diagonally in the four directions; and the _keima_ and the _kyosha_ have, one the forward moves only of the knight and the other the forward move only of the rook. The _hisha_ and the _kakko_ have the same moves as the rook and the bishop respectively. The pawns move one square forward and take the hostile pieces in front and not diagonally. When the pieces enter the enemy’s territory, that is, within the furthest three rows, they are not queened as there are no queens in _shōgi_, they acquire the moves of _kinsho_. In that case they forfeit their own moves, with the exception of the _hisha_ and _kakko_, which retain them. When the pieces are thus changed in character, they are turned the reverse side up.

The capture of the men and checking of the king are the same as in European chess; but stalemate is unknown, for the reason that we can make use of any pieces of our adversary that we may have taken, and if our king is in danger, we can readily defend him by putting in the field some of our prisoners. This causes no inconvenience as there is no distinction of colour between the hostile pieces; their side is shown by the direction of the pointed ends of the pieces. The enemy’s pieces may be brought into requisition in his own territory; but they must move at least one square forward before they can be converted into _kinsho_.

_Shōgi_ is universally played; but it is more especially the favourite game of the lower classes Among the better classes, _go_ is in greater vogue; it is much affected by retired old gentlemen, officials, school-teachers, and others of the professions. It is certainly more difficult and probably more scientific than the other.

_Go_ is played on a thick square board with heavy legs. The surface is marked with nineteen parallel lines crossed by as many similar lines, making the total number of points of intersection three hundred and sixty-one. The game is played on these points, and not in the squares formed by the parallel lines; and like _shōgi_, two persons take part in it. Either side has a box of round, flatfish pebbles small enough to be placed without overlapping on consecutive points. They are distinguished by colour; and the black is always given to the poorer player who opens the game, while the other takes the white.

The object of the game is to take as many as possible of the enemy’s stones by surrounding them with one’s own. A stone once put on a point is immovable unless it is surrounded and taken off the board; it cannot move from one point to another. This siege of the enemy’s stone lies in cutting it off along the lines passing through the point it occupies. The siege is successful in its simplest form when a single stone is surrounded on the four adjacent points on the two lines intersecting at its point. There is no way of breaking the square formed by these four stones, for the only way in which relief can be brought to a threatened stone is to make it a part of a chain which cannot be completely surrounded by the enemy. When a stone is thus surrounded on all sides, it becomes a prisoner and is taken off the board. A stone at a corner of the board is imprisoned by two stones as there are no other adjacent points, and one on the edge by three stones. In a word, a stone cannot act diagonally, but must always work along a line. In practice, of course, it is usually a group of stones, rather than single stones, that find themselves prisoners, as the siege operations are more difficult to detect when carried out on a large scale.

If it was only to surround the enemy and capture his stones, the game would be comparatively simple. It is complicated by the formation of vacant enclosures, within which if the enemy ventures, he must infallibly be captured. The object is to make these enclosures as large as possible, and since such camps, as they are called, would narrow the enemy’s field of operations, he does his best to break the cordon by intruding a chain of stones before it is completed. Hence, there are four operations going on at the same time: we must break up the enemy’s attempted cordon and surround his stones, and prevent his surrounding our stones and form our own cordons. This formation of camps, though really nothing more than a defensive measure, is in fact more important and difficult than the capture of the enemy’s stones; and the issue of the game depends generally more upon the size of these cordons than upon the number of prisoners actually taken.

Though the game should theoretically be continued till the board is completely filled with stones, it is seldom pursued to that extent; for where there is a great inequality of skill, the issue can be seen long before the finish and the game given up, or where camps have been formed, the vacant space need not be filled in. In most cases, therefore, plenty of stones remain in hand. When the game is finished, the number if points enclosed by the camps, if any, is counted and reckoned as so many stones gained; and the difference between it and the number of prisoners in the enemy’s hands is one’s net gain or loss according as the former is greater or less than the latter. And the one with the larger net gain is naturally the winner.

Neither _shōgi_ nor _go_ is a lively game. The latter, especially, calls for patience and hard thinking; it may take hours or even days to conclude a single game. Besides, it does not lend itself to betting. The great gambling game is that of the cards known as “flower-cards,” which is rapidly played and depends more upon chance than upon skill.

The pack is made up of forty-eight cards, about an inch by an inch and a half, which are in twelve sets, each set representing a month of the year. The first set has a picture of the pine-tree, which, being the principal part of the New Year’s outdoor decorations, symbolises the first month. It is followed in order by the plum-tree, cherry-tree, wistaria, sweet-flag, tree-peony, and lespedeza, which flower in the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh months respectively. The eighth month is represented by the eularia, the ninth by the chrysanthemum, the tenth by the maple-tree, the eleventh by the willow-tree, and the last by the paulownia. It may be stated in passing that these months follow the old lunar calendar and are therefore some weeks later than the corresponding months of the solar calendar. All the cards are not of the same value. The highest, which is twenty points, is assigned to the pine-tree with a crane in the middle and a red sun above, the cherry-tree in bloom with a curtain underneath for a picnic party, the eularia under the full harvest moon, the willow under which a great scholar is learning perseverance from a frog which succeeds after many hours’ vain attempts in reaching a branch, and the paulownia with the phœnix flying over it. Ten points each are given to nine cards, namely, the plum-tree with the bush-warbler, the wistaria with the cuckoo, the sweet-flag beside a plank path, the tree-peony with butterflies, the lespedeza with the wild boar, the eularia with wild ducks, the chrysanthemum with a wooden cup for the chrysanthemum-_sake_, the maple-tree with the stag, and the willow-tree with the swallow. Five points are the value of the cards with a _tanzaku_, a long strip of paper for an ode; there are ten of them, that is, all the sets except the eularia and paulownia. The remaining twenty-four cards are worth only a point each. Thus, five cards at twenty points, nine at ten points, ten at five, and twenty-four at a point each, make the total value of the pack two hundred and sixty-four points.

The game is played by three persons. As many as six may join in it and the cards be dealt to them; but three of them must throw up their hands. First, the dealer declares whether he will play or not and is followed in order by the rest. If any players remain after three have declared their intention to play, such persons may quietly give up play or, if their hands are good, they may insist upon being bought out. The player who has a free choice and elects not to play, has to pay a forfeit, from which those forced to retire are exempted. The players may be reduced to two, and sometimes only to one, in which case he is declared the winner.

The cards are first dealt out seven to each player and six others are turned up on the table. The players who retire return their cards, which are shuffled into the pile of undealt cards. When it has been settled who are to play, the dealer, or if he does not play, the one nearest to him looks at his hand to see if he has one of the same suit as any of the open cards; if he has, he takes the latter with his card and put the two aside; but if he has none to match or thinks it disadvantageous to take a card, he throws down a card which has no match on the table. Next, he takes the top card of the pile and opens it; if it matches with any of the open cards on the table, he takes the pair and puts them aside; but if it does not match, he throws it down exposed among the open cards. The others follow in the same manner. As the number of cards in the three hands is twenty-one and six are open on the table, the undealt cards also number twenty-one; and as every player matches or throws down a card in his hand and opens one of the pile, the last card of the last player is played when the last of the pile is turned up. The players then reckon the total value of the cards in their possession; and according as that value is more or less than eighty-eight, which is one-third of the value of the whole pack, the difference between the two represents their gain or loss. The winner of the largest number also gets the forfeits paid by the retired players.

This is the simplest form of the game. It is usually complicated by claims allowed for certain combinations found in the hands dealt. Thus, if three of the seven cards are of the same suit, the holder can claim a forfeit of one and a half dozen points from each of the other two; the forfeit becomes two dozen points for two or more _tanzaku_ cards among plain ones, three dozens for a plain hand with only one card of a higher value, four dozens for three pairs of suits or a complete hand of plain cards, six dozens for two sets of three cards of the same suit, and so on to the highest which is twenty dozens for four cards of one suit and three of another.

Then again, if certain sets of cards are won in the course of a game, that game is closed and the value for such sets is claimed from each of the other two. Thus, six dozen points are allowed for the three purple-_tanzaku_ cards of the chrysanthemum, tree-peony, and maple, or the three red-_tanzaku_ cards of the pine, plum, and cherry trees, and ten dozens for the four twenty-point cards of the pine, cherry, eularia, and paulownia, and twelve dozens if that of the willow is added to them.

These payments for combinations make the game very exciting. Twelve games, to match with the months of the year, make a rubber, at the end of which the reckoning is made. For counting purposes two sets of counters are distributed, one of the value of one point each and the other of a dozen points. First, counters to the amount of ten dozen points are allotted to each player; but of this amount three or four dozens are pooled to be given to the highest winner of the rubber, and so that lucky person really gets far more than his actual winnings. When a player has gone through his first lot of counters, he borrows more from the bank. At the end of a rubber when the settlement is made, the payment, if the game is played for money, is made at so much per point; and even though the unit may be of a small value, the total account often comes to a respectable sum.

不許複製

明治四十三年十月一日印刷 明治四十三年十月五日發行

著作者 井上十吉 東京府败多摩那大久保百人町三百九十番地

發行兼印刷人 古作勝之助 東京市日本橋區兜町三番地

印刷所 東京印刷株式會社 東京市日本橋區兜町二番地

Transcriber’s Notes.

1. Obvious typos have been silently corrected.

2. Text contained within underscores is italicised.

3. Table of contents page numbers have been corrected.

4. Captions for images in the original text located within a paragraph have been moved to either before or after the paragraph.