Note 4 — Front matter

The collector, Rev. A. C. Good, gives the following account of the game: “Two players seat themselves on opposite sides of the board, and four counters are placed in each of the twelve pockets. Then one player takes the counters out of a pocket on his own side and drops one in each pocket around as far as they will go, going to right and back on his opponents side in the opposite direction from that in which the hands of the clock move. They move thus alternately until one manages to make his last counter fall in a pocket on his opponent’s side, where there were only one or two counters. When he has done so he has won the counters in that pocket, including his own last counter. These he transfers to the receptacle in the end of the board to his right. A single counter taken from last pocket on player’s right can not win from opponent’s first pocket opposite, even though it contains only one or two counters. When a pocket has accumulated twelve or more counters, so that a player drops clear around and back to where he began, he must skip the pocket from which he started. When so few counters remain in the pocket on the board that no more can be won, the game is ended and each counts his winnings. The counters that remain in the board at the end of the game are not counted by either player. The game is sometimes varied thus: When a counter wins as above, not only the contents of that pocket is won, but of the pocket or pockets before it on the opponent’s side that has contained only one or two counters back until one is reached that has been empty or had three or more counters before the play. This last is rather the better game of the two. The Fans do not play these games skillfully. They seem unable to count ahead to see where the last count will fall. A white man, as soon as he understands the game, will beat them every time.”