THE GEOGRAPHY OF GAMES 



91 



Cyrus, their armies were victorious. 

 While Spartan youths followed the rig- 

 orous discipline of Lycurgus, their city 

 was inviolate. Led by Alexander the 

 Great in ways of abnegation and exer- 

 cise, the Macedonians were invincible. 

 The Romans extended their civilization 

 so long as their gymnasia prepared 

 youths to endure long marches and bear 

 crushing burdens. 



CLIMATE DETERMINES THE KIND OE 

 GAMES WE PLAY 



It is fairly obvious that coasting is a 

 sport of the zone where snow falls, and 

 reasonable that those peoples most gen- 

 erally proficient in swimming should be 

 found in the equatorial islands, where 

 limpid waters invite surcease from the 

 scorching sun, but less well known, per- 

 haps, that card and board games devel- 

 oped in southern Asia, where zest for 

 play is just as keen, but temperature 

 dampens the ardor for exertion. 



The reactions of geography and sport 

 are mutual. To the Netherlands are 

 traced the stilt and the skate, which even 

 vet have their work-a-day use in flooded 

 and frozen areas, but are playthings for 

 the rest of the world. 



The Governor of Xamur once made 

 an oracular promise to Archduke Albert 

 of Austria that he should see two troops 

 of warriors who fought neither on foot 

 nor horseback. The Archduke was so 

 impressed with the giantlike soldiers on 

 stilts that he exempted the city perpetu- 

 ally from duties on beer. Norway had 

 a "regiment of skaters'' and Holland's 

 soldiers were taught to drill on ice. 



the children's crusade 



Sometimes sports spread beyond na- 

 tional boundary lines and express the 

 common ideals of an age. Thus the 

 tournaments of the middle ages were 

 the normal symptoms of the adventur- 

 ous spirit reflected in the quests for the 

 Holy Grail. In that period, too, was a 

 striking, if 'pathetic, illustration of the 

 imitative spirit which translates the se- 

 rious business of adults into sport for 

 children. 



In Franconia and Teutonia thousands 

 of bovs, some onlv six years old. ho ; sted 



banners bearing the Cross and started 

 for Jerusalem. Some turned back at 

 Alayence. some went as far as Rome, 

 but of the multitude that went out on 

 this play expedition few returned. 



Games invariably adapt themselves to 

 the individual need for a balanced life, 

 mental and physical. This fact was illus- 

 trated by comments of civilian writers in 

 the war zones, who told how English- 

 men and Americans sought diversion in 

 active play, while Frenchmen relaxed in 

 more quiet fashion — smoking, reading, 

 or day-dreaming by the side of a wel- 

 come fireplace. Many noted 1 this as a 

 contradiction, in view of the supposed 

 sprightly temperament of our Gallic 

 cousins. 



But a sporting writer, in an article 

 printed years before the World War, 

 relates how, "unlike his English coun- 

 terpart, who seeks his relaxation by at- 

 tending a football match and mauling the 

 umpire when he does not approve of a 

 decision, the workingman of France re- 

 pairs to the comparative solitude of the 

 'jardin de Tare' and there practices the 

 peaceful sport of archery'' ; to which 

 the writer appends this illuminating 

 comment: "Probably this is typical of 

 their different natures. The English- 

 man, phlegmatic during his work, seeks 

 excitement as a relaxation, while the 

 more animated Gaul needs quiet during 

 his leisure." 



IX THE AGE OE PERSOX\AL COMBAT 



Just as the individual adopts games 

 which meet his bodily need, so it seems 

 •that national pastimes are modified to 

 foster and fortify the peoples who play 

 them. 



In the age of personal combat there 

 were men like ZNIilo of Crotona, a veri- 

 table Samson, reputed to have been able 

 to break a cord wound about his head by 

 swelling the muscles ; or Polydamas of 

 Thessalia, said to have slain an infuri- 

 ated lion, and to have been able to hold 

 a chariot in its place while horses tugged 

 at it. 



Those were the times when boxing 

 and wrestling, most ancient of sports 

 were in their heydey, though they were 

 not always gentlemen's diversions, reek- 



