2 ;o POLO 



There was a good deal of discussion and delay (probably 

 choosing sides) before the game commenced ; but at last all the 

 players were mounted seventeen or eighteen of them and they 

 hit off. It began in rather a desultory sort of way, and there was 

 no galloping for the ball or crossing sticks, as with us. Though 

 there were so many people on the ground, the chief part of the 

 play was confined to ten or twelve, several men appearing to be 

 second horsemen or servants of some kind. The costume and 

 appearance of the riders were decidedly various, some being all in 

 white, with large white puggrees, and one or two with English 

 boots and a sort of half-English get-up, riding very long, like a 

 pair of half-opened scissors, whilst others were the wildest figures 

 imaginable, with long, flowing hair and dark-coloured, loose 

 cloths flying all about the place, and who rode with their knees 

 up to their chins. On the whole, the riding was rather of a loose 

 character, with a good deal of * by-action,' and arms flying about 

 d la windmill ; but some of the players sat down as close and 

 motionless as you please, and drove their little * tats ' along like 

 workmen. Once the ball was started they certainly kept it going 

 up and down the ground as fast as they could gallop, and several 

 men played as good and pretty a game as you could wish to see. 



Their sticks are not the least like ours, being much shorter and 

 having a curved club-head, in shape very much like the bowl of a 

 German pipe. The handle is fitted in where the pipe stem would 

 be, is very thin, and is not thickened or covered at the other end, 

 except with a strip of calico for the hand to grasp. Those I 

 handled were very clumsy and top-heavy, besides being a good 

 deal heavier than those most of us play with. However, these 

 people use them well, and hit straight, back hand, over the offside, 

 and all their strokes going at full speed, and on a rough ground, 

 which would certainly puzzle some of our good men if they tried 'to 

 play on it. 



The balls are made of a hard, dark -coloured wood, and are 

 durable and heavy. The goals at each end are marked by low 

 white stones, much further apart than our goal posts in fact, I do 

 not think they were much more than seven or eight yards from the 

 boundary on either side. Hitting the ball between the posts was 

 not enough to constitute a goal, though I could not exactly make 

 out what they had to do in addition. The ball had to be hit on 

 one side and then ' touched down ' somehow, as a man on the 

 striker's side always jumped off and picked up the ball, sometimes 



