your comprehensive hand."
*

There is a written jest among another barbarian nation that these
among whom I am tarrying, being by nature a people who take their
pleasures tragically, when they rise in the morning say, one to
another, "Come, behold; it is raining again as usual; let us go out
and kill somebody." Undoubtedly the pointed end of this adroit-witted
saying may be found in the circumstance that it is, indeed, as the
proverb aptly claims, raining on practically every occasion in life;
while, to complete the comparison, for many dynasties past this nation
has been successfully engaged in killing people (in order to promote
their ultimate benefit through a momentary inconvenience,) in every
part of the world. Thus the lines of parallel thought maintain a
harmonious balance beyond the general analogy of their sayings; but
beneath this may be found an even subtler edge, for in order to inure
themselves to the requirement of a high destiny their various games
and manners of disportment are, with a set purpose, so rigorously
contested that in their progress most of the weak and inefficient are
opportunely exterminated.

There is a favourite and well-attended display wherein two opposing
bands, each clad in robes of a distinctive colour, stand in extended
lines of mutual defiance, and at a signal impetuously engage. The
design of each is by force or guile to draw their opponents into an
unfavourable position before an arch of upright posts, and then
surging irresistibly forward, to carry them beyond the limit and hurl
them to the ground. Those who successfully inflict this humiliation
upon their adversaries until they are incapable of further resistance
are hailed victorious, and sinking into a graceful attitude receive