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The Kafir witch-doctors use the knuckle-bones of animals in their magic rites, throwing them something as we throw dice. "Leave the bones alone!" screamed Noma. "We will ask nothing more of our snakes for the good of this son of a dog." "He shall throw the bones," answered the headman. "If you try to stop him, I will let sunshine through you with my assegai." And he lifted his spear.

And then they all struck on their shields, and thundered with their knives or their knuckle-bones on the table, so that they made a tremendous noise. The Viking's wife sat on the cross bench in the open banquet hall. She wore a silk dress, gold bracelets, and large amber beads.

Conceive yourself at the door of the world's treasure-house guarded by a child an idle irresponsible child playing knuckle-bones on whose favor depends the gift of the key, and you will imagine one half my torment. Till that evening Charlie had spoken nothing that might not lie within the experiences of a Greek galley-slave.

The men hardly condescend to groom their horses; they hunt, drink tea or brandy, doze about upon felts, and smoke or sleep. Add to their daily occupations, if such they can be called, their joining in occasional games, such as chess and knuckle-bones, and you have a complete picture of the existence we will not say life of a Kalmuk paterfamilias.

Every day the same scenes were repeated, the sailors relating their perilous adventures, then playing at dice or knuckle-bones, and blaspheming the gods, amid their shouting for the best beer of Cilicia. Every night the child was awakened by the quarrels of the drunkards. Oyster-shells would fly across the tables, cutting the heads of those they hit, and the uproar was terrible.

Also, after another inspection of his enchanted knuckle-bones, he had declared that something remarkable would happen to this man or his family, while I was visiting him.

He was very fond of flying kites, chasing pigeons, playing knuckle-bones, running races, and always took part in children's games and disputes. No sooner had his master turned his back or gone to sleep than Deniska would begin doing something such as hopping on one leg or throwing stones.

The sun was now quite high in the sky and the day was warm. The children paddled in the water and built a dam, and sent fleets of leaves down the stream, and played knuckle-bones on a flat rock beside it, until at last they were hungry, and then they ate their bread and cheese. When they had finished the last crumb, Daphne curled herself up on the flat rock with her head on her arm.

And for us who live, no worse can happen than has happened to the earliest drifts of man, marked to-day by ruined cities of forgotten civilisation ruined cities, which, on excavation, are found to rest on ruins of earlier cities, city upon city, and fourteen cities, down to a stratum where, still earlier, wandering herdsmen drove their flocks, and where, even preceding them, wild hunters chased their prey long after the cave-man and the man of the squatting-place cracked the knuckle-bones of wild animals and vanished from the earth.

I do not yet know what name to call it without closer research, since in spite of its rarity and most remarkable characteristics I do not find it described by any of the ancient philosophers. This fish is, as far as my knowledge extends, unique in one respect, for it contains twelve bones resembling the knuckle-bones of a sucking-pig, linked together like a chain in its belly.