Page:A pilgrimage to my motherland.djvu/76

Rh victory being of course accorded to him who has most. There is perhaps not a house in which one or more of these apparatus is not kept, for the entertainment of the inmates. They are found too, at all the "beer-shops," if the reader will permit the application of that term to the places at which the native oti, or corn-beer, is sold. I never made a more acceptable pre-sent to any one, than of four dozen pretty glass balls, or glass marbles, if you please, to the Alake of Abbeokuta, to use in his game of wari. Another game, in which they are frequently seen engaging with much interest, is the dili, a kind of tee-ta-too, more complicated, however, and certainly more interesting than that memorable game of our school days. A large square, divided into thirty-six smaller squares, is traced on the ground, on the opposite sides of which the contestants sit. Each is prepared with twelve "men" differently colored. The parties put down one piece alternately, until all are disposed of, when the game is continued by each moving his men from place to place, until he can arrange three of his own on successive squares on a line, which feat entitles him to one of his adversary's men. The effort of each then is, first to procure this arrangement of his own, and next to prevent his adversary from doing likewise. Of course the party capturing most men wins the game.