150 A NATURALIST'S WANDEBINGS 



The game consists in the young men, who dispose themselves 

 in circles of as many as twenty, keeping in the air a large 

 hollow sphere, made of rattan cords neatly twisted together, 

 by kicking it only with the side of the foot as it descends — 

 touching with any other part of the body being out of rule. 

 In dealing the kick, the limb is swung out with great vigour 

 almost perpendicularly, while the body is thrown back nearly 

 to the horizontal position, and the beauty of the play consists, 

 besides keeping the ball continually in the air from player to 

 player, in the elegant leap with which the body is brought 

 back to the erect posture without the player changing his 

 foot-ground ; and the more elegant these movements — and 

 really very elegant they are — the greater favour and applause 

 the player wins among his female spectators. 



On tiring of this, various couples engage in a species of 

 dance — the relic of a war dance — fall of spirited action, and of 

 a character quite different from that to which the nights are 

 devoted. 



When in the small hours of the morning the finale of Such 

 a festival takes place, the maidens are escorted home by the 

 young men, who flank their wards, each bearing a great flaming 

 torch, which now reflected in the water of some wide stream 

 which must be crossed, now blinking through the trees of some 

 forest-skirted path produces a most pleasing effect as the 

 various parties wend their different ways from the village. 



Their homegoings end — in what land do they not ? — in the 

 old tale. He who has long spent his evenings by the rice 

 block — a large heavy log of wood, with a conical hole in it, in 

 which the rice corns are husked by being stamped by a long 

 pole — admiring, as well as assisting, the maiden of his choice 

 in her work, (which displays more than any other employment 

 the grace and beauty of the female figure,) is at length 

 rewarded. The sign of engagement is often a ring, but njoro 

 generally the youth and the maiden exchange some portion 

 of their garments. 



As a rule the engagement is kept secret from the parents 

 ill near the time when the youth desires to marry. When 

 he goes to' the parents of the girl his real difficulties begin. 

 A daughter is so much property, and cannot be lightly 

 allowed to leave her father's roof without fetching an eqniva- 



