284 CURLING 



and secured to handles. The prime cost is little, some- 

 thing within the means of the humblest peasant, if he is 

 careful in saving, as he is sure to be. A couple of 

 fragments from the neighbouring quarry, a pair of 

 pebbles from the nearest brook, two bits of iron, is 

 all you want the outlay is a slight expenditure of 

 labour. Of course superior wealth may vindicate itself 

 in a pair of fierres de luxe, but the brass and the orna- 

 ments go for little, and not unfrequently it is the most 

 slovenly workman who has the most showy tools. 

 When the stones are flawless, roughly as they are 

 used, they bid long defiance to blows and wear and 

 tear. We should say there may be stones in existence 

 now that have lasted, in their degree, like the Sphynx. 

 They may become heirlooms, and be transmitted from 

 generation to generation. 



We have no intention of dwelling upon curling in its 

 technical details. Nothing is duller reading than games 

 upon paper, and we should as soon think of illustrating 

 the grace and poetry of the gazelle by exhibiting the 

 skeleton of the animal. It is enough to say each player 

 has a couple of stones ; of the two sides each counts 

 there, four, or five players ; and the object of each side 

 is to leave one or more of its stones nearest to the mark 

 or " tee," which is forty-two yards distant on the ice. 

 The play is of course directed to u guarding " the good 

 stones of your own party, to removing those of your 

 opponents. But we notice the game as a very charac- 

 teristic feature in Scottish life. In the first place it 

 diffuses over the breadth of the country a great deal of 



