. THE SPORTING LIFE of Japan seems to differ from
ours in certain respects. I have come to this important conclusion after reading a long letter from a friend of mine in Tokyo in which he described his experiences at an Imperial Duck Hunt to which he was bidden a week or two ago. At ten in the morning he turned up, in tweeds and stout shoes, at the Shin-hama preserve and was there warmly greeted by every member of the Imperial Household Agency. But when he looked round for duck or the sort of terrain in which one might expect to find duck, he could see only an attractive artificial pond and a number of enclosures walled off from each other by great hedges of bamboo and with a narrow canal down the middle. These canals, he learned, led from the invisible pond in which the wild ducks awaited their fate. The hunters were lined up in fours and presented with huge nets, rather like outsize lacrosse sticks. They then tiptoed to the entrance of one of the big bamboo rectangles where they waited until the decoys in the canal had lured a few wild duck through from the pond. Then, at a signal from watchmen, everybody rushed in and did his best to scoop up a duck from the canal. 'After five minutes,' writes my friend, 'I was startled to hear the reassuring voice of one of the Imperial Household Agency saying: 'Congratulations on a fine widgeon.' He gave me a brand-new net, removed a tame widgeon from the old one, plucked out a little grey feather for me, locked the widgeon's wings behind his back and tucked his (the bird's) head under them, and left him to think it over until the next duck-netting party. Towards noon the ducks began to lose enthusiasm for the sport and the hunters to weaken. So the party reassembled by the artificial pond and dwarf pines, where the foreign guests, warmed by sherry and a spirit of friendship, tried to become acquainted with the Japanese. (I chummily approached a woman to ask about her new-looking camera. It turned out, of course, to be a member of the Royal Family, who returned my chumminess by taking a picture of my backside and sending it to me.) By two o'clock lunch was over, and the mellowed, victorious hunters lined up once more to collect for each couple five ducklings which had previously been caught, killed and parcelled by the omniscient, infallible, and ever-present Imperial Household Agency.'
PHAROS
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