642 OUR, CORRESPONDENTS ON CHESS. 



similar to that o/ our rooks. The number of pawns is only five- like ours 

 they take diagonally, and cannot retrograde ; but on reaching the last line of 

 the adversaries' table, there they remain. It is, however, the move of the 

 rocket boys which is the most complex being parabolic, like the flight of a 

 rocket. By this I mean to say that they cannot capture an enemy's piece that 

 has not another piece between, as at the game of draughts. All the difficulty 

 of the game consists in the move of these two pieces ; but, notwithstanding 

 its complicated nature, the very children play at Chess, the Chinese excel- 

 ling in all kinds of games whether of chance or skill. The origin of this 

 game in all probability was in China. They trace its invention back two 

 centuries before the Christian era, three hundred and seventy- nine years 

 after the age of Confucius. Hong Cocha, King of Keangnan, sent an expe- 

 dition into the territory of the Shensi, under the command of a mandarin 

 named Hansing : it is on record that this mandarin invented the game to 

 divert his soldiers in their winter- quarters, and to animate the ardour of his 

 army the game being a faithful image of the art of war." 



The reverend Padre's account will we fear be found obscure and unsatisfac- 

 tory. Still it may throw some faint glimmerings of light on the origin of this 

 celebrated game. It is also important to remark, that from the action of the 

 rocket boys we may infer that the Chinese were perhaps acquainted with 

 the use of gunpowder, at a period long anterior to the Europeans. Rocket 

 boys are to this day found in the Indian armies. The agency of the princes 

 in lieu of the queen forcibly illustrates the Chinese custom of excluding 

 females from all power ; while the configuration of the Chess-board, divided 

 by a river, typifies the topography of China, intersected as it is by canals, 

 the passage and defence of which must naturally constitute the chief feature 

 in their mode of warfare. 



In its passage westward, it is probable that this game underwent changes 

 and modifications that harmonized with the existing order of things, the state 

 of warfare, &c. among the nations into which it passed, until, in the chivalric 

 spirit of western Europe, a queen was introduced. Whether this game was 

 first brought hither by the Crusaders or by the Moors, is still an undecided 

 question. But that it was very common in the Spanish peninsula, we have 

 proofs from the profound observation which Cervantes puts into the mouth 

 of Sancho Panza, " Brava comparacion, dixo Sancho, aunque no tan nueva, 

 que yo no la aya oydo muchas y diversas vezes, como aquella del Juego 

 del Axedrez que mientras dura el Juego cada pieca tiene su particular 

 oficio, y en acabandose el Juego, todas se mezclan, juntan y barajan y dan 

 con ellas en una bolsa, que es como dar con la vida en la sepultura." 

 The fondness of the Spaniards for this game may be further exemplified by 

 the curious circumstance, that some estates are held in that country by a 

 tenure, the duration of which expires with the termination of a game of 

 Chess, at which a move is to be made only once in a century. 



One of the earliest writers on Chess, was Dameso, a Portuguese, whose 

 countrymen now but seldom play this beautiful game ; it was contra-dis- 

 tinguished from our modern treatises by its simplicity. Like the regulation 

 books in every military service in Europe, the written treatises on the game 

 abound with manoeuvres that never occur in the course, perhaps, of 1,000 

 games. The greatest problem is, the game itself; the fundamental prin- 

 ciples of which are, strategetically speaking, the same as those of war. In 

 both cases, it is important to establish a secure base of operations, to act upon 

 a single line, and to direct by a rapid concentration the mass of your forces 

 upon the tactical key of your adversary's position. So far there is the most 

 perfect strategic identity of principle ; but tactically speaking, Chess bears no 

 analogy to the art of war. In actual operations in the field, locality plays a 

 distinguished part; a field of battle generally presenting every variety of 

 ground, while a chess board is marked by the greatest uniformity of con- 

 figuration. 



