Several of the most popular games of Japan are represented on _surimono_ and only those games will be mentioned herein. To those who would study the subject exhaustively, S. Culin’s “Corean Games” is recommended. With the possible exception of chess (shogi), no game is more widely played than _go_, which has been erroneously identified with the game _gobang_, somewhat similar to our game of checkers. _Go_, a far more difficult contest than that European game, was introduced into Japan from China in the eighth century. For generations it has occupied the attention of the Japanese, there being clubs and schools devoted to the playing of _go_. It is played on a square, raised wooden board on which nineteen straight lines drawn from one side to the other of the board cross nineteen other lines drawn at right angles, making three hundred and sixty-one crosses on which the men are placed. One hundred and eighty white, and one hundred and eighty-one black stones, are used in the playing. These represent respectively day and night; the crosses represent three hundred and sixty degrees of latitude and the central intersection stands for the primordial principle of the universe. The object of the game is to capture the opponent’s pawns by enclosing at least three crosses around his stone, and to cover as much of the table as possible. Military men have always been devotees to the game of _go_, seeing in it the rudimentary tactics necessary for successful warfare. [Illustration: FIG. 5. THREE GIRLS WRITING NEW YEAR’S POEMS. BY KATSUCHIKA HOKUSAI.] [Illustration: FIG. 6. GAME OF JUROKU MUSASHI. BY HOKUSAI SORI.] _Juroku musashi_ (“sixteen knights”) is a favorite New Year’s game which is illustrated in Fig. 6. It is played on a board divided into diagonally-cut squares. One player holds sixteen round paper pawns representing sixteen knights; the opponent has but one large piece known as the general (_taisho_) which has the power to capture enemy pieces when they are immediately on each side of it with a blank space beyond. The holder of the smaller pieces seeks to completely hedge in and thereby capture the big piece.