Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/221

THE HEIAN EPOCH or drawing pictures on fans supplied by the host; composing poetic conundrums; fitting together the valves of shells on the inside of which poems were inscribed and decorative designs painted; burning incense, an amusement so elaborate as to amount to a science, its paraphernalia of the most costly and beautiful description; playing chess or go; reconstructing celebrated stanzas from one or two clue words; writing lists of ideographs with a common part; fan lotteries; foot-ball and hawking,—these were the chief amusements of the aristocrats in the Heian epoch. Betting was added to give zest to the games. But the stakes did not take the form of money: a work of art, a roll of brocade, a house, a feast, a horse, and so on were objects that a gentleman might play for, though gold or silver as media of exchange must not enter his thoughts. Japanese foot-ball—derived originally from China—bore no resemblance to the rough-and-tumble contests of the Occident. It was simply the art of kicking a ball high and keeping it continuously off the ground. A certain Narimichi, whose official position corresponded to that of a Minister of State, gained undying fame by his skill in this amusement. After devoting a considerable part of seven thousand consecutive days to the practice of the art, rising even from his sick-bed for the purpose, he attained such lightness and deftness of foot that, while kicking the ball, he traversed the shoulders of a row of 193