scylla and charybdis: a game for four players.
Our readers will all recollect the classical story of Scylla and Charybdis, the former a maiden changed by Circe into a hideous sea-monster, who threw herself into the sea and became a rock, the latter changed by Jupiter into a foaming whirlpool. Vessels which avoided the rock of Scylla were oft-times prone to fall into the dangerous whirlpool of Charybdis.
On this legend our Puzzle this month is based, though the two classical dangers will be now only two little children who will try to seize on the argosies which their brothers and sisters send through the straits.
To begin which, settle a subject on which you will have your Competition—Botany, History, Geography, Astronomy, Natural History, or any other you may select—then cut out a number of pieces of cardboard about this size—
For ordinary subjects you may be able to cut out from the largest type used in the daily or weekly papers, syllables that will meet your requirements, but for special subjects, such as Botany, Astronomy, &c., you will find it better to write your own pieces of cardboard in a good bold, clear style.
You will want a considerable quantity of syllables, and the words in all cases should range from simple ones, easy to be discovered, to more difficult and puzzling words.
Having got a quantity of syllables, arrange them in three groups: (1) the simple words, (2) the more difficult, (3) the most difficult. Keep these groups in separate boxes, and these separate boxes again in one large box marked with the subject of the play.
Four players now arrange themselves thus: two as mariners, one at either end of the table, and two as Scylla and Charybdis, one on each side of it.
The ship will consist of a little Japanese tray, or lid of a cardboard box, with a piece of string fixed at either end to draw it by. In this are placed the syllables forming two words, and one of the mariners draws it slowly across the table. As it passes along, Scylla and Charybdis try to discover the words it contains, and if they can do so ere it passes they appropriate the cargo, and the ship reaches the opposite end of the table from which it started empty! It is again freighted and sent back, this time perhaps its contents are not discovered. And thus the game goes on till all the words are exhausted, when a count is made. Suppose 50 words were sent across the straits, the record might read: