BACKGAMMON AMONG THE AZTECS. 495 



squares or " houses," taking an enemy's dog if found alone in its bouse. 

 While a draught is still in its first inactive, useless condition, they call 

 it a " Nazarene," or Christian ; but, when the throw of tab gives it the 

 right to go forth conquering and to conquer, it becomes a " Moslem." 

 It is not needful to go further into the rather complicated rules of mov- 

 ing and taking. Those who are curious may find much about it in 

 Lane's " Modern Egyptians," and in the quaintly learned little book 

 " De Ludis Orientalibus," by Thomas Hyde, who was Bodleian librarian 

 in the reign of William and Mary. But one question suggests itself. 

 Seeing how the modern fellahs delight in tab, one naturally asks, Did 

 they inherit it from the ancient Egyptians ? From remote antiquity 

 the Egyptians played draughts on earth, and after death their righteous 

 souls still had the oblong checker-board, and the men like chess-pawns, 

 to amuse their glorified but perhaps rather tiresome life in the world 

 below^ But, as Dr. Birch points out, no Egyptian dice have been found 

 earlier than Roman times, nor any plain mention of backgammon. 

 Even if they played like their descendants in the Nile Valley with such 

 things as slips of palm, something about it should be found in the 

 hieroglyphic texts. But at present nothing appears, and there is no 

 reason to add backgammon to the long list of inventions whose earliest 

 traces are found in Egypt. Perhaps the nearest relative of tab is Chi- 

 nese backgammon, but this is played with dice. 



Next, as to India. Here, since ancient times, cowry-shells have 

 been thrown as lots, their " head " and " tail " being according as the 

 shell falls with mouth or back upward. In Sanskrit literature there is 

 an old mention of a game called panchikd, which was played with five 

 cowries, and where it seems that the winning throws were when all the 

 mouths came up or down, as against the commoner throws when some 

 fell each way. That a game of the nature of backgammon was known 

 in India from high antiquity has been plainly made out by Professor 

 Weber. It was called aydnaya, or "luck and unluck" ; or at any rate 

 that was a term used as to the moving of the pieces, which traveled 

 right and left through the squares, and took an undefended man from 

 his place to begin his course anew. So, as a Sanskrit riddle has it : 

 " In a house where there were many, there is left but one, and where 

 there was none and many come, at last there is none. Thus Kala and 

 Kali, casting day and night for their pair of dice, play with human 

 beings for pieces on the board of the world." Putting these particu- 

 lars together, it is clearl}^ possible to trace from ancient times the game 

 of pachisi, played in modern India, into which game it will now be 

 necessary for our argument to go more exactly ; in fact, to qualify our- 

 selves to sit down and play a game. English backgammon-players will 

 hardly take five minutes to learn it. 



Suppose four players to be seated, each at the end of one arm of 

 the diagram or board, of which a figure is here given. Each player 

 will have four little wooden cones as his pieces or draughts, all of one 



