OBSERVANCES AND PASTIMES
jokes. But the policemen's baton is now more potent than the samurai's sword, and beyond the discord of a vinous refrain, or, perhaps, entanglement in a group of erratic roisterers, the peaceful citizen has nothing to apprehend. Boat-races on the Sumida River in Tōkyō and athletic sports in the parks are features of this month, but such things are modern innovations and do not yet rank higher than second-rate imitations of their Occidental models. Reference may be made en passant to a pretty but now almost obsolete pastime associated with this season, the game of "water windings" (kyoku-sui). It had its origin in China, and obtained great vogue at one time among the aristocrats of Japanese society, but the age has passed it by. A cup of wine launched upon a stream was suffered to float at the caprice of the current, and verselets were composed before it came within reach of the convives posted along the banks. A trivial pastime, in truth, but it is in the genius of the Japanese to make much of slender resources.
There is another kind of picnic which survives all changes of fashion, and attracts pleasure-seekers in as great numbers now as it did a hundred years ago. It may be seen at its best in Tōkyō. On certain days in May and early June, when the spring tides recede from the shallow reaches along the southern suburb of the city, large spaces of weed-covered sand emerge from the water, and adjacent to them the sea spreads a
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