_Sugoroku_ (“double sixes”) is similar to the European “race-game.” It is played with dice and the succeeding spaces on the board generally represent the stations of a journey. Brinkley, in his Japan and China (Vol. VI, p. 56), tells us that this game was imported from India in the eighth century and was at first prohibited on account of its gambling character. Eventually the Buddhist priests took it up and converted it into an instrument for inculcating virtue by making the spaces on the board represent a ladder of moral precepts which marked the path to victory. _Sugoroku_, with the travel board, is commonly played by children at New Year’s time. The name is also given to the more difficult game of backgammon which may be studied in one of the _surimono_ in this museum. The board on which the game is being played is now obsolete. It is divided longitudinally into two fields with an intervening space between. Each field has twelve narrow subdivisions in which the men are placed. Games of cards (_karuta_ from the Spanish _carta_) are altogether different from the European card games, though it is commonly supposed, on account of the derivation of this name, that card playing was introduced in the sixteenth century by Portuguese travelers. It is interesting to note here that card playing was known in China in the twelfth century. It would seem that Japan must have made her first contact with the game through a source other than Spain, for the majority of the forms and methods of her playing cards in no way reflect European influence. The fact that cards are quite often called _fuda_ (“ticket”) would also add in casting doubt on the European origin. The _hana-garuta_ or “flower cards” which are widely played are small in size, black on the backs and adorned on the face with flowers and emblems belonging to the twelve months. A set comprises forty-eight cards and the values vary from one to twenty points. The game consists in drawing, playing and matching in suits or in groups. In the game of _uta garuta_ (“poem cards”), there are two hundred cards. One hundred of these are decorated with portraits of poets and the first two lines of famous classic verses. These are to be matched with the corresponding hundred on which the remaining lines of the poems are inscribed. Of the many ways of playing _uta garuta_, _chirashi_, “spread out,” is the most exciting. The cards bearing the last part of the poems are laid face up on the floor. Those inscribed with the first lines are held by the “reader,” who reads them aloud one by one. The other players strive to pick up the corresponding card and he who at the last holds the most is declared winner.