136 Mr. E. B. Tijlor [March 14, 



derived from backgammon. It is argued that the original game was 

 the Indian fourfold-chess, played with four half-sets of men, black, red, 

 green, and yellow, ranged on the four sides of the board, the moves of 

 the ]3ieces being regulated by the throws of dice ; that in course of 

 time the dice were given uj), and each two allied half-sets of men 

 coalesced into one whole set, one of the two kings sinking to the 

 position of minister, or queen. Now this fourfold Indian dice-chess 

 is undoubtedly a real game, but the mentions of it are modern, whereas 

 history records the spread of chess proper over the East as early as 

 the tenth century. In the most advanced Indian form of pacMsi, 

 called cliupm-, there are not only the four sets of different-coloured 

 men, but the very same stick-dice that are used in the dice-chess, 

 which looks as though this latter game, far from being the original 

 form of chess, were an absurd modern hybrid resulting from the 

 attempt to play backgammon with chess-men. This is Dr. van der 

 Linde's opinion, readers of whose book will find it supported by more 

 technical points, while they will be amused with the author's zeal in 

 belabouring his adversary Forbes, which reminds one of the legends 

 of mediasval chess-players, where the match naturally concludes by 

 one banging the other about the head with the board. It is needless 

 to describe here the well-known points of difference between the Indo- 

 Persian and the modern European chess. On the whole, the Indian 

 game has substantially held its own, while numberless attempts to 

 develop it into philosophers' chess, military tactics, &c., have been 

 tried and failed, bringing, as they always do, too much instructive 

 detail into the plan which in ancient India was shaped so judiciously 

 between sport and science. 



In this survey of games I have confined myself to such as offered 

 subjects for definite remark, the many not touched on including cards, 

 of which the precise history is still obscure. Of the conclusions 

 brought forward, most are no doubt imperfect, and some may be 

 wrong, but it seemed best to bring them forward for the purpose of 

 giving the subject publicity, with a view to inducing travellers and 

 others to draw up minutely accurate accounts of all undescribed 

 games they notice. In Cook's ' Third Voyage' it is mentioned that the 

 Sandwich Islanders played a game like draughts with black and white 

 pebbles on a board of 14 by 17 squares. Had the explorers spent an 

 hour in learning it, we should perhaps have known whether it was the 

 Chinese or the Malay game, or what it was ; and this might have been 

 the very clue, lost to native memory, to the connection of the Poly- 

 nesians with a higher Asiatic culture in ages before a European ship 

 had come within their coral reefs. 



It remains to call attention to a point which this research into the 

 development of games brings strongly into view. In the study of 

 civilization, as of so many other branches of natural history, a theory 

 of gradual evolution proves itself a trustworthy guide. But it will 

 not do to assume that culture must always come on by regular un- 



