OBSERVANCES AND PASTIMES
catchers, who mount into high trees, stand at points of vantage, or roam about, armed with long poles, lassoes, and other catching contrivances. It is understood that whenever several catchers lay hands simultaneously on a kite cut adrift, the person nearest to the severed end of the string shall be regarded as the possessor, and that, where distinction is difficult, the kite must be torn into fragments then and there. But despite these precautions against dispute, fierce fights sometimes occur, and Nagasaki was once divided into two factions that threatened for a moment to destroy the town and each other in the sequel of a kite-flying picnic. Generally, however, the merriest good-humour prevails, and the vanquished return as serene as the victors, all equally undisturbed by the thought that the cost of the shi-en-kai makes a large inroad into the yearly economies of the richest as well as the poorest. Tosa, the southern province of the island of Shikoku, is scarcely less celebrated than Nagasaki for the kite-flying propensities of its inhabitants. But there is no set season in Tosa. The birth of a boy, whether it occur in spring, summer, or winter, is counted the appropriate time for a sport that typifies the soaring of ambition and the flight of genius. Humble households send up little kites to signalise these domestic events, but great families have recourse to the furoshiki-dako, a monster from twenty-four to thirty feet square with a tail from a thousand
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