There suddenly arose a great commotion in the square between the Temple and the palace, and as I looked, I was surprised to see that there was a large crowd gathered. In the middle of the square there were two groups of ten Zards facing each other, with a single Zard in between them, and around the outside of the plaza area stood a hundred or so spectators, apparently watching those in the middle. A moment after I started watching, the solitary Zard, the referee as I found out, walked to the edge, and each of the groups walked to one of the opposing sides and then turned about to face the other. The referee let out a loud yell and in a flash, the two teams ran at each other headlong, until converging somewhere in the center of the field. As they met they dived upon one another and pushed and shoved until the left team had isolated one of the right's players, who was the only one on his team wearing an orange jersey. They dived on him and jumped until the whole field was piled high with them, and then they slowly began to disembark. Once all of the opposing team's players were off of the orange shirted Zard, all was silent and still as the referee held his hand aloft and began counting with his fingers. Everyone held their breathe and stood tensely by as they watched. Just before the referee's tenth and final finger was counted, the orange shirted player rose from the ground, amidst the screams of joy from his team and about half of the crowd, apparently their fans. The two teams then returned to their respective sides, and again the referee yelled loudly, signaling them to rush at each other once more, and more of the same ensued, this time it being the other team's orange shirted player to get pounced on. Once again there was a high pile on top of him, and once again, as they crawled off and he was exposed, the referee began to count. Except that this time the orange shirted one never got up. The other team cheered again and so did the other half of the crowd. The referee went to a pole on the sidelines and put up the number '1' on it while a few bystanders picked the Zard up and carried him off the field. They continued to play in this fashion for awhile, going until one team or the other had no longer any players to be jumped upon, but I was too disgusted at their violent nature to watch, and instead walked over to the end table and picked up the telescope, taking back as I did my thoughts about the innocence and gentleness of the common folk.