494 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



varieties of backgammon in this way show traces of the game near its 

 original state, they seem in another respect to have passed out of their 

 early simplicity. They are all played with dice, and indeed the French 

 author lately mentioned seems right in guessing that the division of our 

 board into groups of six points each was made on purpose to suit the 

 throws of cubical dice like ours, numbered on all the sides, from 1 to 6. 

 As to the early history of dice, I have elsewhere endeavored to show 

 (" Primitive Culture," chapter iii.) that the origin of games of chance 

 may be fairly looked for in instruments of the nature of lots, at first 

 cast seriously by diviners for omens, and afterward brought down from 

 serious magic into mere sport. Now, the simplest of such instruments 

 is the lot which only falls two ways, like the shell, white on one side 

 and blackened on the other, which Greek children spun up into the air 

 to fall, "night or day," as they said ; or, like our half-pence, tossed for 

 " head or tail." Both in divination and in gambling, such two-faced 

 lots probably came earlier than the highly artificial numbered dice. 

 The kinds of backgammon now to be described seem in general to be- 

 long to the earlier stage of development, for it is with lots, not dice, 

 that they are played. 



The traveler in Egypt or Palestine now and then comes on a lively 

 group sitting round a game, and in their eager shouts, if he knows 

 some Arabic, he may distinguish not only such words as " two " or 

 " four," but also " child," " dog," " Christian," " Moslem. On closer ex- 

 amination he finds that the game is called tab, and that it is a sort of 

 backgammon played on an oblong checker-board, or four rows of little 

 holes in the ground, where bits of stone on one side and bits of red 

 brick on tlie other do duty as draughts, being shifted from place to place 

 in the rows of squares or holes. Not dice, but lots, are cast to regulate 

 the moves ; these lots are generally four slips of palm-stick, with a 

 green outer side and a white cut side (called black and white), and 

 when they are thrown against a stick set up in the ground, the throw 

 counts according to how many white sides come up, thus : 



Notice particularly this way of counting throws, for its principles 

 will be found again in lot backgammon elsewhere. There is evidently 

 a crude attempt to reckon probabilities, giving a higher value to the 

 less frequent throws of all four white and all four black, than to two or 

 three white, which come up oftener. Besides the high count, they have 

 the privilege of a second throw. This, if lot backgammon came first, 

 and was succeeded by dice backgammon, would naturally pass into our 

 rule of giving doubles another throw. The throw of one white, which 

 is called " child," or tab, i. 6., " game," has a special power, for only by 

 it may a " dog," that is, a stone or draught, be moved out of its original 

 place in the outer row, and set at liberty to circulate along the lines of 



