CHESS AND PLAYING-CARDS. 



901 



ill which marked arrows were shaken from a quiver. Ten or eleven 

 arrows were used, of which seven were marked. They were made of 

 the wood of a particuhir tree, and were of a yellow color. The seven 

 marked arrows which had distinguishing notches on the shaftment 

 were each designated by a name. 



A very conijjlete account of the game is given by Dr. Anton Hiiber/ 

 of which an extract is to be found in Korean Games, XXXIII. 



Fig. 212 



DIVININOBLOCKS {Mupui). 



Length, (Ji inches. 

 China. 



Cat. Nn. 9047, Museum of Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania. 



It should be observed that the term al maisar {meisir) is now under- 

 stood to include all games of chance or hazard.^ The heathen Arabs 

 were accustomed to divine by means of arrows in a manner similar to 

 the Meisir, of which an account is found in the Preliminary Discourse 

 to Sale's Koran.' 



'tJber das Meisir genaunte Spiel der heidnischen Araber, Leii)zig, 1883. 



^Hughes' Dictionary of Islam. 



■'Another practice of the idolatrous Arabs, forbidden also in one of tbe above- 

 mentioned passages (Koran, Chap. V), was that of divining by arrows. The arrows 

 used by them for this purpose were lilse those with which they cast lots, being with- 

 out heads or feathei-s, and were kept in the temple of some idol, in whose presence 

 they were consulted. Seven such arrows were kept at the temple of Mecca, but 

 generally in divination they made use of three only, on one of which was written, 

 "My Lord hath commanded me ; " on another, '' My Lord hatli forbidden me," and the 

 third was lilank. If the former was drawn, they looked upon it as an approbation 

 of the enterprise; if the second, they made a contrary conclusion; but if the third 

 happened to be drawn, they mixed them and drew them over again. These divining 

 arrows were generally consulted before anything of moment was undertaken, as 

 when a man was about to marry, or about to go on a journey. (The Preliminary 

 Discourse, Sec. V.) 



