Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/360

 results only in bruised arms, broken heads and unlimited invective. The heaviest traffic on the electric tramway is when the crowds go out of the city gates to watch these stone-fights. One day last year thirty-four thousand people were carried, a number twice as large as the average. It would be safe to say that in the environs of Seoul twenty-five thousand persons witnessed the fights that day.

Kite-flying is a national institution here as in China and Japan. The kites are not so elaborate as in the neighbouring countries, but the interest in the sport is fully as great, for there are what may be called kite-fights that are very exciting. By dextrous manipulation the rival kite-fliers get their strings crossed. Then comes the contest of pure skill, to see which can saw the string of the other in two first. You see the tiny kites high in the air darting this way and that, seemingly without rhyme or reason, but all the time their owners are manoeuvring for position, just as rival yachtsmen do in our own land. When one of them thinks that the right moment has arrived, he makes his kite dash across the path of the other and clinch in the final struggle. Sooner or later one of the strings is cut, and the liberated kite floats away on the breeze, followed by a crowd of eager boys. The kites, though scientifically constructed, cost but very little, but the cord must be of the finest, and it must be smeared with a kind of paste mixed with pulverised glass. This makes it better able to saw the other cord in two.

The next most popular amusement is pitch-penny, at which all the boys play " for keeps." A shallow hole is scraped in the hard earth beside the road, and the first player stands off ten feet or more and pitches half a dozen coins at the hole. Any that lodge in it are his ; but there is more to do. The other boy indicates which of the thrown coins he is to hit with a leaden disc, which is used for this purpose. The player throws, and if he hits that particular coin, all are his, but if he misses, the other boy takes his turn. This too is a spring sport, and at that season