BACKGAMMON AMONG THE AZTECS. 491 



f 

 that of the speech-center, tliere is no reason, as Dr. Ferrier remarks, 

 apart from heredity and education, why this should necessarily be so. 

 " It is quite conceivable," says this author, " that a person who has be- 

 come aphasic by reason of total and permanent destruction of the left 

 speech-center may reacquire the faculty of speech by education of the 

 right articulatory centers." We speak with the left side of our brains, 

 in short, not because we are unable to do so with the right side, but 

 simply because habit and the law of likeness together strengthen and 

 perpetuate the custom of speaking with the left. But it may be also 

 supposed that, as a left-handed person must regulate the movements of 

 his arms chiefly by the right side of his brain, so there may exist sub- 

 jects who naturally use the right instead of the left speech-center. 



Whatever results may in future accrue to human knowledge from 

 researches into the functions of the brain, no one may doubt the all- 

 important nature of the knowledge which literally enables man to know 

 himself, and to understand in some degree the mainsprings of the ac- 

 tions which constitute his daily existence. The subject is also no less 

 instructive in the sense in which it shows the displacement of erroneous 

 ideas by new and higher thoughts founded on accurate observation of 

 the facts of life ; while in a very direct fashion such higher knowledge 

 may afi'ect suffering humanity, since an educated medical science, fur- 

 nished with secure data regarding the causes of mental affections, may 

 successfully " minister to minds diseased," and even in due time raze 

 out the troubles which perplex many a weary soul. — Gentleman's Mag- 

 azine. 



-♦♦♦- 



BACKGAMMOK AMONG THE AZTECS. 



By EDWAKD B. TYLOE. 



BY backgammon we usually mean one particular game played with 

 dice and thirty draughts, on a board with twelve points on each 

 side. But this is only one of a family of games, whose general defini- 

 tion is that they consist in moving pieces on a diagram, not at the 

 player's free choice, as in draught-playing, but conformably to the throws 

 of lots or dice. It can hardly be doubted that the set of games thus 

 combining chance and skill are all, whether ancient or modern, the 

 descendants of one original game. By a stretch of imagination, it 

 may be possible to fancy draughts or dice to have been fresh invented 

 more than once. But, when it comes to a game which combines the 

 two ideas, it seems to pass the bounds of ordinary probability to sup- 

 pose, for instance, that a Greek and an Arab and a Birmese were sepa- 

 rately seized by the same happy thought, and said, " Go to, let us cast 

 lots, and count them to play at draughts by." If indeed any reader 

 should think such a combination might have happened twice over, he 



