guest-incense at the proper time merely by the unfamiliar quality
of its fragrance.

The original thirteen packages having thus by "experimenting"
been reduced to ten, each player is given one set of ten small
tablets--usually of gold-lacquer,--every set being differently
ornamented. The backs only of these tablets are decorated; and
the decoration is nearly always a floral design of some sort:--
thus one set might be decorated with chrysanthemums in gold,
another with tufts of iris-plants, another with a spray of plum-
blossoms, etc. But the faces of the tablets bear numbers or
marks; and each set comprises three tablets numbered "1," three
numbered "2," three numbered "3," and one marked with the
character signifying "guest." After these tablet-sets have been
distributed, a box called the "tablet-box" is placed before the
first player; and all is ready for the real game.

The incense-burner retires behind a little screen, shuffles the
flat packages like so many cards, takes the uppermost, prepares
its contents in the censer, and then, returning to the party,
sends the censer upon its round. This time, of course, he does
not announce what kind of incense he has used. As the censer
passes from hand to hand, each player, after inhaling the fume,
puts into the tablet-box one tablet bearing that mark or number
which he supposes to be the mark or number of the incense he has
smelled. If, for example, he thinks the incense to be "guest-
incense," he drops into the box that one of his tablets marked
with the ideograph meaning "guest;" or if he believes that he has
inhaled the perfume of No. 2, he puts into the box a tablet
numbered "2." When the round is over, tablet-box and censer are