Hitherto, being unable to earn as much money as she spent, she had been disposing of the inherited valuables, but had now exhausted nearly all of them. In the meantime, the predicted date had arrived, and a traveller had lodged at her house, just as her father had foretold. Hence she concluded he was the man from whom she should recover the thousand pounds.
On hearing this the traveller said that all that the woman had related was perfectly true. Taking her to one side of the room, he told her to tap gently with her knuckles all over a wooden pillar. At one part the pillar gave forth a hollow sound. The traveller said that the money spoken about by the poor woman lay hidden in this part of the pillar. Then advising her to spend it only gradually, he went on his way.
The father of this woman had been extremely skilful in the art of second sight or clairvoyance. By its means he had discovered that his daughter would pass through ten years of extreme poverty and that on a certain future day a diviner would come and lodge in the house. The father was also aware that if he bequeathed his daughter his money at once, she would spend it extravagantly. Upon consideration, therefore, he hid the money in the pillar, and instructed his daughter as related. In accordance with the father's prophecy, the man came and lodged in the house on the predicted day, and by the art of divination discovered the thousand pounds.
GAMES.
The games we are daily playing at in our nurseries, or some of them, have been also played at for centuries by Japanese boys and girls. Such are blindman's buff (eye-hiding), puss-in-the-corner, catching, racing, scrambling, a variety of "here we go round the mulberry bush." The game of knuckle-bones is played with five little stuffed bags instead of sheep bones, which the children cannot get, as sheep are not used by the Japanese. Also performances such as honey-pots, heads in chancery, turning round back to back, or hand to hand, are popular among that long-sleeved, shaven-pated small fry. Still better than snow-balling, the lads like to make a snow-man, with a round charcoal ball for each eye, and a streak of charcoal for his mouth. This they call Buddha's squat follower "Daruma," whose legs rotted off through his stillness over his lengthy prayers.
