Page:A La California.djvu/342

288 key as high as the ordinary whistle of a steam-engine. This, Ah Ting tells us, is "the Song of the Jasmine Flower," and we agree with one of the party, who suggests that the aforesaid jasmine flower must have grown on a hill-side, in hard stony soil, exposed to high winds, and had a hard time of it generally. The game which is being dealt is "Than," or "Tan," a kind of "odd and even" affair; we came to the conclusion that it would be odd indeed if anybody ever got even by playing at it. It looks all fair enough to an outsider. The dealer has on the table before him a pile of "copper cash," or Chinese bronze coin, each about the diameter of our old-fashioned copper cents, now out of use, but only about one fourth as heavy, and with a square hole in the centre. These coins are of the value of the thousandth part of a Mexican dollar, or a tenth part of one cent; and in trade in China are used mostly strung on strings of a hundred or a thousand each, for convenience in handling and to save counting. Picking up a handful of these coins, apparently at random, before the eyes of the players, he puts them down on the table and covers them instantly with a common Chinaware bowl inverted. The players then make their bets on the number coming out odd or even, and also on guessing the exact number, the bank always taking the chances against the betters on either side. He then raises the bowl, and with a wire, about fourteen inches in length, crooked at the end, pulls the coins rapidly into little parties of four each, so that anybody can count them almost at a glance. If you bet on odd, and an odd number is