CHINESE SPORTSMAN AND WEAPONS 229 



without having witnessed it, you would 

 never believe what quantities of game are 

 taken, and what marvellous sport and diver- 

 sion they all have whilst they are in camp 

 there. 



" There is another thing I should men- 

 tion : to wit, that for twenty days' journey 

 round the spot nobody is allowed, be he 

 who he may, to keep hawks or hounds, 

 though anywhere else whosoever list may 

 keep them. And furthermore throughout 

 all the Emperor's territories, nobody how- 

 ever audacious dares to hunt any of these 

 four animals, to wit, hare, stag, buck, and 

 roe, from the month of March to the month 

 of October. Anybody who should do so 

 would rue it bitterly. But those people 

 are so obedient to their lord's command, 

 that even if a man were to find one of those 

 animals asleep by the roadside he would 

 not touch it for the world ! And thus the 

 game multiplies at such a rate that the 

 whole countr)' swarms with it, and the 

 emperor gets as much as he could desire. 

 Beyond the term I have mentioned, how- 

 ever, to wit, that from March to October, 

 everybody may take these animals as he 

 list. 



