is very similar to our tennis. Their custom in playing it is to match
tribe against tribe, and if the numbers are not equal they render them
so by withdrawing some of the men from the stronger side. You see them
all armed with a cross, that is to say a stick which has a large portion
at the bottom, laced like a racket. The ball with which they play is of
wood and of nearly the shape of a turkey's egg. The goals of the game
are fixed in an open field. These goals face to the east and to the
west, to the north and to the south." Then follows a somewhat confused
description of the method and the rules of the contest from which we can
infer that after a side had won two goals they changed sides of the
field with their opponents, and that two out of three, or three out of
five goals decided the game.

Reading Perrot's description in connection with that given by de la
Potherie of the game played before Perrot by the Miamis, helps us to
remove the confusion of the account. Abbe Ferlande [Footnote: Cours
d'Histoire du Canada, par J.B. Ferland, Quebec, 1861, Vol. I, p. 134.]
describes the game. He was a diligent student of all sources of
authority upon these subjects and was probably familiar with the modern
game. His account of the Indian game follows that of Perrot so closely
as to show that it was his model. It is, however, clear and distinct in
its details, free from the confusion which attends Perrot's account and
might almost serve for a description of the game as played by the
Indians to-day. Perrot was a frontier-man and failed when he undertook
to describe anything that required careful and exact use of language.
We can only interpret him intelligently by combining his descriptions
with those of other writers and applying our own knowledge of the game
as we see it to-day. He is, however, more intelligible when he gets on
more general ground, and after having disposed of the technicalities of
the game, he proceeds: "Men, women, boys and girls are received on the