252 POLO 



No doubt there was some truth in this alleged act of bar- 

 barism, which would be quite in keeping with the age for the 

 poet Hafi z, in a passage of his works, concludes with the devout 

 wish, 



May the heads of your enemies be your chaugdn-balls. 



Most of us are familiar with the story in the * Arabian Nights ' 

 (the Twelfth Night), of the Grecian King and his physician 

 Douban, who cured his ungrateful master of the leprosy by 

 inserting sundry drugs into his chaugan- stick, so that when he 

 got warm through exercise the medicine should be absorbed 

 through the pores of his skin. In Jonathan Scott's edition of 

 the 'Arabian Nights,' which was published in 1811, he trans- 

 lated the game as * mall,' and in a note adds : ' In the East 

 chaugan is played on horseback, as it was formerly in England, 

 and what is now Pall Mall was the place used for this 

 exercise.' 



I can find no corroboration of this assertion, though, as 

 Scott was in the Honourable East India Company's service be- 

 fore he became Oriental Professor at the ast EIndia and Royal 

 Military Colleges, he ought to have known what he was writing 

 about. 



Strutt mentions a game which was played in the time of 

 Charles II., with a stick and ball and iron hoop, at what is now 

 Pall Mall, but it was played on foot. Pietro della Valle certainly 

 calls the game of chaugan ' palla maglia,' and this may have 

 been the origin of Scott's assertion. 



There was a game called knappan played in Wales during 

 the time of Queen Elizabeth with sticks and a wooden ball by 

 men both on foot and mounted. It seems to have been a very 

 rough-and-tumble sport, however, and to have afforded plenty 

 of opportunities for free fights, being participated in by over a 

 thousand people at once. In fact, it became so scandalous that 

 it fell into disuse. 



In all Persian literature the game is mentioned as chaugan, 

 which is the Hindi for 'four-sided,' and if this is derived 



