e breaks his lance and keeps his place in
the boat, he gains his point and triumphs; but if it happens the lance
is not shivered by the force of the blow, he is, of course, tumbled into
the water, and away goes his vessel without him.

However, a couple of boats full of young men are placed one on each side
of the target, so as to be ready to take up the unsuccessful adventurer
the moment he emerges from the stream and comes fairly to the surface.
The bridge and the balconies on the banks are filled with spectators,
whose business is to laugh. On holidays, in summer, the pastime of the
youth is to exercise themselves in archery, in running, leaping,
wrestling, casting of stones, and flinging to certain distances, and,
lastly, with bucklers.

In the winter holidays when that vast lake which waters the walls of the
City towards the north is hard frozen, the youth, in great numbers, go
to divert themselves on the ice. Some, taking a small run, place their
feet at the proper distance, and are carried, sliding sideways, a great
way; others will make a large cake of ice, and seating one of their
companions upon it, they take hold of one another's hands, and draw him
along: when it sometimes happens that, moving so swiftly on so slippery
a plain, they all fall down headlong.

Others there are who are still more expert in these amusements on the
ice; they place certain bones, the leg bones of some animal, under the
soles of their feet by tying them round their ankles, and, then, taking
a pole shod with iron into their hands, they push themselves forward by
striking it against the ice, and are carried along with a velocity equal
to the flight of a bird, or a bolt discharged from a cross-bow.
Sometimes two of them thus furnished agree to start opposite one to
another, at a great distance; they meet, elevate their poles, attack and
strike each other, when one or both of them fall, and not without some
bodily hurt; and even after their fall they shall be carried a good
distance from each other by the rapidity of the motion. Very often the
leg or the arm of the party that falls, if he chances to light upon
them, is broken; but youth is an age ambitious of glory, fond and
covetous of victory, and that in future time it may acquit itself boldly
and valiantly in real engagements, it will run these hazards in sham
ones.

Hawking and hunting were sports only for persons of quality, and woe be
to the unhappy man of the lower orders wh