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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by Paul Thompson 



Alvly SET 



Despite our prowess in athletics, swimming is one field in which the palm must be con- 

 ceded the ancients, if credence be given the marvelous tales of their aquatic feats. Plutarch 

 tells how Antony engaged divers to attach fish to his hooks so he might impress his picnic 

 companion, Cleopatra ; but that shrewd lady engaged other divers the following day, and 

 Antony found himself pulling in stale, salted fish amid peals of laughter from the Alexandria 

 belle. Three of the world's speediest swimmers are shown set for a race, the one on the 

 right being a Hawaiian champion. 



playgrounds. They are products of a 

 rich heritage of play tradition. Neither 

 written history nor the faint traces of 

 prehistoric times carry us back to a 

 period when children did not play. 



THE} TESTIMONY OP TOMBS 



Excavators in Central America found 

 tiny rattles of bone .and clay, as old as 

 the pyramids of Egypt, in graves along- 

 side baby skeletons. In Attica's tombs 

 were uncovered dolls of prc-classic days, 

 made of ivory and terra cotta. Little 

 Hippodamia had a miniature bed, with 

 slats, for his dolls. Roman children's 

 toys were held in such high esteem by 

 their elders that when the children grew 

 too old for them they were offered to 

 patron gods. Even today a similar as- 

 sociation of religious ceremony and 



games is preserved, only it is with the 

 acquisition of the toys, and not with their 

 disposition, that Christmas and Easter 

 are connected. 



For one who would study the deriva- 

 tion of games, the average playground, 

 no matter how crude, is a veritable mu- 

 seum of archaeology. Tools and weapons 

 of one age frequently become the play- 

 things of the next; and centuries later, 

 when adults have deserted the sport, 

 children adopt it. 



Many sports today are the survivals of 

 obsolete industries. The canoe was the 

 Indian's common carrier, and the Tierra 

 del Fuego women who paddled their 

 craft astern while their masters fished 

 from the prows, and plunged into icy 

 waters to anchor their barks, were pio- 

 neers of women in business and far from 



