A -tun-tsi 63 
English children love to do, romped, made swings and 
swung each other, and finally sat down to eat cakes, which 
they had been busily making for a week past. 
Just as the young of different animals more nearly 
resemble each other than do the adults, so too are children 
very much alike in their games the world over ; picnicing 
is not confined to Hampstead Heath, nor picking flowers 
to botanists. 
In the evening they all trooped back to the village to 
dance in the mule square, and skip. Three or four little 
girls would link arms and facing another similar line of 
girls advance and retreat by turns, two steps and a kick, 
singing, in spite of their harsh voices, a not unmusical 
chorus; the other side would then reply, and so it went on, 
turn and turn about. 
It was a most delightful parody of that pretty little 
Christmas game “ Here we go gathering nuts and may,” 
and I enjoyed watching it though I did not understand the 
words, which were probably less ingenuous than in the 
ditty quoted. But the girls themselves, in their long frocks 
of dark blue cloth buttoned up one side and trimmed 
with a narrow border of white, long-sleeved jacket to 
match, scarlet cloth boots, and tasselled queues, looked 
charming. All wore several silver bangles, besides ear-rings 
and large brooches, practically all the jewellery they could 
find room for. The boys played together, but were less 
resourceful than the girls and, as in other parts of the 
world, never seemed to know quite what to do with them- 
selves. They wore smart white coats for the great occasion, 
but favoured Chinese dress, and probably they are made to 
do so in the schools in A-tun-tsi, for one never sees a small 
boy belonging to the village in Tibetan dress. One boys’ 
game is however worth mentioning. They called it ‘eggs’ 
and it is played as follows. One boy is in the middle—a 
fundamental necessity in nearly all children’s romps—and 
sprawled on all fours over several pebbles, representing a 
bird sitting on a nest of eggs, which the others, who danced 
round, were trying to despoil. When a favourable oppor- 
tunity offered itself, one of the pillagers would dart at the 
eggs, and if he secured one without being kicked or hit, he 
was deemed to have been successful ; otherwise the mother 
