THE ANTIQUITY OF POLO 253 



through the Hindi from the Sanscrit, it would point to the exist- 

 ence of the game at the time of the Hindu kings of Cabul who 

 were deposed by Subuktigin in the tenth century. It may be 

 that the game thus derived its name from the fact of its being 

 played in a four-sided plain or court. If Tabari may be con- 

 sidered an authority, and he uses the word chaugan for the 

 stick as well as for the game itself, it must have had a distinctly 

 Persian origin. 



Johnson in his ' Dictionary ' gives the word as Persian : 

 ' Chaugan a stick, with one end bent, used in a game at ball.' 

 The game thus may have derived its name from the stick used 

 in playing it. 



Our own name for the game ' polo ' is derived from the 

 Thibetan word pulu, meaning a ball made from the knot of 

 willow wood. In Ladakh and Thibet this wood is always used 

 for the balls, as indeed it is for our balls at home. It is curi- 

 ous that no mention is made anywhere of the horses used in 

 playing chaugan. If Arabs, they naturally would range from 

 fourteen hands to fourteen hands three inches, but if Persian 

 and Turcoman horses were employed, they must have been 

 considerably larger. 



Thus having traced the antiquity of the game, it will be as 

 well to glance at it in its more modern aspect, and note its 

 gradual development in India, England, and Ireland, where 

 it has now taken a firm hold, and where year by year it is ex- 

 tending the area of its popularity. 



