Page:Lacrosse- The National Game of Canada (New Edition).djvu/45

 28 Catlin would ride 30 miles on horseback to witness a game, and he says he has almost dropped from his horse's back with irresistible laughter at the succession of droll tricks and kicks and scuffles which ensue in the almost superhuman struggles for the ball. Carver saw it played by Indians, whom he says played with such vehemence that broken bones were no rarity, "but not withstanding, there never appears to be any spite, or wanton exertions of strength to affect them; nor do disputes ever happen between the parties."

A few concluding extracts will prove the same remarkable interest in the old as in the present game. Catlin, writing of a match he saw, says: "I pronounce such a scene, with its hundreds of nature's most beautiful models denuded, and painted various colors, running and leaping in the air in all of the most enlivening and varied forms, in desperate struggles for the ball, a school for painter or sculptor equal to any of those which ever inspired the hand of an artist in the Olympian games or Roman forum."

Lanman, among the Sioux, says: "The Olympic beauty of this game is beyond all praise. It calls