256 POLO 



under thirteen hands, and the game was played with ash 

 hockey sticks and a cricket ball painted white. Play of course 

 was very different in those early days from what it is at 

 present. Hard hitting was unknown, and the game, which 

 was played almost at a walk, consisted mainly of dribbling and 

 scrimmaging. Neither were ponies trained to the pitch of 

 perfection that they now are, and anything was thought good 

 enough to play on. Though to the loth Hussars belongs the 

 honour of originating polo in England, the gth Lancers were 

 mainly instrumental in bringing it into prominent notice, for 

 they took up the game con amore when the loth went to India, 

 and did much to further its popularity. In 1872 Captain F. 

 Herbert, who had then just left the gih Lancers, started the 

 Monmouthshire Polo Club, and the game began to find its way 

 into the provinces. Then the Polo Club was formed, and 

 Lillie Bridge was the principal arena of contest. Many regi- 

 ments took up the game ; the Universities did the same ; 

 Hurlingham awoke to the fact that polo was becoming a 

 popular amusement ; the International Gun and Polo Club 

 started operations at Brighton, and soon all chance of the game 

 falling into obscurity was provided against. For a few years 

 Lillie Bridge was the home of poloists, but about 1874 Hur- 

 lingham began to assert its sway on their affections, and so 

 gradually Lillie Bridge was deserted, owing partly to the ground 

 there being very small, only some two hundred yards long, and 

 polo flourished at Hurlingham, where it has ever since in- 

 creasingly prospered. Improvements soon began to be made, 

 rules were drawn up, and instead of the somewhat indis- 

 criminate mere knocking about of a ball, the game was put on 

 a more scientific footing. So with 1876 a new era for polo may 

 be said to have dawned. 



Captain F. Herbert and Mr. Kenyon Stow were shining 

 lights in those days, as they are still, and in time other good 

 men and true came to the front, such as Mr. E. H. Baldock, 

 Mr. Algernon Peyton, nth Hussars ; Mr. (now Captain) 

 Wyndham Quin, i6th Lancers ; Mr. W. Ince-Anderton, 



