28o POLO 



Peshawur the following year started clubs at Cawnpore and 

 Mian Mir (Lahore), having brought up sticks and balls for the 

 purpose. In Peshawur he also started it, and during 1863-4 

 it was regularly played there under its Munnipoorean name of 

 kan-jdi bdzle bdzti meaning game, and kan-jdi hockey-stick. 

 The game was also introduced at Hazaribagh about 1861-2. 

 About that time Khaifa Singh and Konai Singh, two princes of 

 the blood, were deported to Hazaribagh in consequence of 

 constantly intriguing against the Munnipore Rajah. Of course 

 their followers accompanied them, and as a Munnipoorie looks 

 on his polo ponies, his sticks, and ball as his most precious 

 possessions, they took these with them, and the pastime soon 

 attracted the attention of Europeans. About the same period 

 the Rajah of Kashmir became an enthusiast at the game, pel- 

 khet, or ball play, as it was then called, having learnt it from 

 some Khokhani prisoners. He established a capital chaugan 

 maidan at S'rinagar some three hundred and fifty yards long by 

 sixty yards in width, became a great proficient, and even used 

 to emulate the feats of the Emperor Akbar by playing at night 

 Avith burning balls. The game, however, must have been known 

 long before this in Kashmir, and can only have been revived 

 about the time I have mentioned. The game was also played 

 in 1863 at Tonghoo in Burmah by the officers quartered there. 



During the summer of 1 864, Captain (now Brigadier) Kinloch, 

 the well-known shikari and author, who was then serving in the 

 Rifle Brigade, saw and played the game at S'rinagar, the capital 

 of Kashmir, in company with several of his brother- officers. 

 On their return from leave they introduced it at Meerut, where 

 both the Rifle Brigade and the iQth Hussars took it up warmly. 



But it was not till some years later that polo was taken up 

 seriously by Europeans ; the planters of Tirhoot and Behar 

 that most sporting set of men gave it the initiatory start, and 

 matches were of frequent occurrence. By 1865 the game was 

 fairly established in the City of Palaces and Lower Bengal ; in 

 Madras a game was played on the Island in 1867, and in 

 1874 it had really spread. The famine in Behar during that 



