An expert pa-tol player will throw the number he desires with almost unfailing certainty by his arrangement of the sticks in his hand and the manner and force with which he strikes them down.

It is a dexterity which any one may acquire by sufficient practice, and only thus.

The five throw is deemed very much the hardest of all, and I have certainly found it so.

[See diagram.] "According to the number of his throw the player moves his marker an equal number of stones ahead on the circle, using one of the rivers as a starting point.

If the throw is five, for instance, he lays his horse between the fourth and fifth stones and hands the pa-tol sticks to the next man.