STILTS AND STILT-WALKING. 



471 



kirk. In various places we may see Gargantuas, Goliaths, or 

 Saint Georges and Saint Michaels. From the acrobatic point of 

 view, walking on stilts gives occasion for feats of agility easy to 

 execute and amusing to the spectator. Acrobats on stilts have 

 been mentioned in Japan, China, India, and Oceania ; and clowns 

 are sometimes seen in circuses executing curious exercises on 

 stilts. 



The use of stilts is a sport, an amusement for children. Real 

 stilt-races may be seen every day in public gardens. The peasant 

 youth in the country are adepts in making excellent stilts of 

 forked sticks which they cut in the thickets. 



I have been told by a friend that the college students at Brive- 

 la-Gaillarde formerly had a peculiar sport of going on holidays on 

 stilts to what they called viper-hunts. They armed themselves 



mrf\ 



Fig. 2.— Collegians of Krive-la-CtAIllarde returning from a Viper-hitnt on Stilts. 



with a long rod split at the end, and went on stilts, of course, as a 

 precaution against being bitten. When, in the evening, they 

 passed through the city, still on stilts, each carrying at the end 

 of his rod an adder or two which they called asps or black vipers, 

 they excited a sensation. Women and children ran away from 

 them or fled into the houses to get away from their tricks. 



It seems to be a great pleasure to men on stilts to try to throw 

 one another down. Every young stiltsman is ready to attack, 

 to push, or to trip his colleagues. In the public gardens of Paris, 

 in the Luxembourg, for example, where many youth amuse them- 

 selves with stilts, wrestling and contests became so frequent that 

 once after an accident the authorities were constrained to jiro- 

 hibit them. These games on stilts seem to be attractive also to 

 the children of the Marquesas Islands. Pere Mathias, in his ac- 



