How invariably true is the child’s instinct for imitation, for making his play largely a “rehearsal of life as it is to be.” The little Bedouin boys, each with a pet locust harnessed to a bit of string, enjoy the exciting races of their “fiery steeds,” and prepare eagerly for the great game in which the bigger boys show their budding manhood. A dweller in the region of the Dead Sea thus describes some of the games of the desert: “The boys of the desert are glad when the first of the month comes. For that day their fathers allow them to have a horse each and ride away from their black tent homes into the open desert, their athletic field. A few of the men, heroes of the tribe, meet there with the boys and act as judges in the horse-racing. They divide the boys in two rows, and then select a boy from each side, and start off this first pair in their race (on horseback) to the distant goal, a pole with a prize on it such as eggs, money, or clothes. The one who arrives first takes the prize off the pole or knocks it down with his staff. The judge keeps the conqueror on one side, the conquered on the other. A new prize is put up, another pair races, and so on till all the victors are on one side, and the poor defeated ones on the other. “A sham battle takes place, the conquerors shooting the conquered with paper or some harmless shot. Then the beaten soldiers are taken captive and led to their homes, while the proud victors are allowed to go to the meeting place of the men and drink coffee with the heroes of their tribe.” [Sidenote: Why play stops so early in non-Christian lands.] All too soon the games of childhood merge into the stern realities of life, and, as we watch and listen and smile, we suddenly wonder why the laughter is hushed, why the smiling, girlish lips are covered by a woman’s thick veil, why the little backs stoop beneath loads far too heavy for them. Then from far and near comes the testimony of those who have lived and worked among the children in non-Christian lands. The physical director of a Y. M. C. A. says:--“One of the strongest impressions made on me in China was by the lack of opportunity which the average child has for normal physical development and for the adequate expression of its play instinct.” Deaconess Phelps of St. Hilda’s School for girls in Hankow says: “When Chinese girls come to our mission schools we find it difficult to teach them how to play, and in the case of elder children we often fail completely, because from time immemorial the idea of learning and scholarship has been entirely inconsistent with fun and good times.”[35] So great an authority as Dr. Arthur H. Smith says: “The outdoor games of Chinese children are mostly of a tame and uninteresting type. Even in the country Chinese lads do not appear to take kindly to anything which involves much exercise. Their jumping and climbing are of the most elementary sort.”[36]