2

never before appeared in any modern European language.1 The author, in enumerating the various eminent men who flourished in the reign of Timur, says, "Among the Chess-players were Muhammad Bin 'Akil al Khimi, and Zain of Yazd; but besides these two, the most distinguished in this science was 'Alāu-l-Din, of Tabriz (commonly called 'Ali al Shatranji. He gave the odds of the Pawn to Zain of Yazd, and beat him; and to Ibn 'Akil he gave the Knight and conquered him. The great Timur who subdued all the regions of the East and of the West, and gave checkmate to every Sultan and King, both seriously on the battle-field, and sportively on the chess-board, used to say to 'Ali, "Verily, 'Ali, thou art unrivalled in the realms of Chess, as I am in the battle-field and in the art of government. There is none to be found who can perform such wonders as we can; each of us is a master in his own department, myself and you my Lord 'Ali." He ('Ali) has composed a treatise on the science of Chess,3 and on its rare stratagems and positions. No one could cope with him without receiving odds. He told me that he once upon a time saw in a dream the Commander of the Faithful 'Ali (may God render his face glorious), and received as a present from that prophet a set of Chessmen in a bag; and no mortal

1 The original Arabic was published at Franequer, by S. H. Manger, in 2 vols. 4to., accompanied by an exceedingly incorrect Latin translation. The whole of this passage which I have here given is, in Manger's translation, utterly absurd.

The original expression is, "He gave him the horse, and outstripped him in the race."

3 of this Treatise I never heard except in this single passage. I am afraid it is irretrievably lost.

4 This sentence in the original Arabic savours a little of the Oriental. It runs thus :-" Wa mā kāna ahadun, yaķūlu, inna-hu, yuntiju wallādu fikri-hi fi libi-hi ma'a'hu mīn ghairi tarḥin." There is nothing in the sentence offensive to sound and healthy morality. It is simply a very bold and uncommon metaphor, the literal rendering of which might shock the delicacy of those whose morals are of the thin-skinned and valetudinary description.

3

ever conquered him after that. It was one remarkable feature in his play that he never spent a moment in consideration over his moves. The instant his adversary played, after long and tedious cogitation, 'Ali made his move off hand, without pause or reflection. He often played blindfold1 against two adversaries; and from the odds he could afford them, one might easily conceive his strength when looking over the board. He and Timur 2 always played the Great Chess. I saw at his house a round chess-board, also a long quadrangular board. The Great Chess has in it the additional pieces which we have already mentioned. The use of it is better learned by practice; and a description of it in words would extend to too great a length. 'Ali was profoundly* learned in the law and traditions of our prophet; courteous and affable in conversation; modest and sincere in speech."

The Arabic term for "blindfold" is gha'ib, which the Dutch savant Manger changed into ghalib, "victorious," as he very complacently tells us in what is intended to be a critical note. To say that 'Ali played "victoriously " is a simple truism.

2 It is well known that Tīmūr was passionately fond of Chess. Bakhtāwar Khān, a historian of the time of Aurang Zeb, says, "Timur the Victorious in War was exceedingly fond of Chess, which formed the recreation of his leisure times. It was his wont, whenever he subdued a city or region, to inquire of the vanquished whether they had among them any good chess players; and if so, these were sent for to the royal presence, and they were invited to play with the "Asylum of the Universe;" and whether they won or lost, they were uniformly treated with condescension and courtesy, and sent back with substantial marks of his Majesty's bounty.

3

Hyde misapprehends the author's meaning here, and draws inferences from the passages which are altogether unwarrantable. In the first place he misapplies the possessive pronoun "his" referring the same to Tīmūr, not to ’Alī as the author clearly does. In the second place, Hyde, having made up his mind that the various Chess-boards here alluded to were seen by the author at Timur's palace, jumps to the conclusion that Timur was their inventor, than which nothing can be more groundless.

4 This last sentence comes in about the middle of the paragraph in the original. I have thrown it to the end in order not to interrupt the main narrative.

I may here add, at the same time, a correct account of the reason why Timur's fourth son was called Shāhrukh, an event which happened as follows:-"It came to pass, once upon a time—that is, on Thursday, the 20th August, in the Christian year 1377 (I am enabled to be thus particular through the minute industry of 'Ali of Yazd), that Timur was deeply engaged, as was his wont, in a game at Chess with one of his courtiersthe place, the imperial palace in Samarkand. In the course of the game his Tartaric Majesty was just about to make his move, when, behold! the chamberlain suddenly entered and said, “Sire, may your shadow be extended; your favourite wife" (I am afraid I ought to have said concubine), "has this moment been safely delivered of a son." On hearing these good tidings, Timur, who appears to have taken matters in general very coolly, made his move, and, as usual in such cases, exclaimed, "Shah-rukh," which move, the contemporary historian Arab Shāh assures us, completely demolished the adversary's game. Now, the coincidence of the felicitous Chess coup aforesaid, and the announcement of his son's birth, at one and the same instant, appeared to Timur, and to all the courtiers and men of wisdom then and there present, as an omen highly favourable to the future fortunes of the newly-born prince. It was therefore decreed that the latter should be named Shah-rukh, a name that might serve as a memorial of the auspicious event that took place at his birth.

Our story is not yet quite finished. When Timur and the astrologers, had just settled upon the prince's nomenclature, as above stated, it so happened that a messenger arrived in haste from the north, and said, Sire, the new city which you some time back ordered to be built

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on the plain beyond the Sihun,' is now completed in all its parts, and it only remains for your Majesty to pronounce its name." Timur said in reply, "Let its name be Shahrukhiya," which may be translated "the city of Shah-rukh." This new city, like all sublunary things, flourished for a time and then decayed. Its very name is now unknown and expunged from the map. A ruined village, called Finaket, occupies its site; and, as if it were to crown its misfortune, I believe it is in the hands of the grasping Muscovites. Could a more lamentable fate possibly befall what was once a flourising Tartar city?

I may add that Hyde gives another version of the above story, on the authority of Ducas, a Byzantine historian, who (as he states) wrote about A.D. 1400.2 According to this Byzantine, "Timur and his son (who must have been then twenty-five years old), were playing Chess at the moment when Bajazet was brought captive into their tent. The son gave the check Shāh-rukh to his father at that instant, and Timur ever after gave the former that name." Now, I believe the story of this mendacious Greek is not worth one moment's consideration compared with the positive testimony of Timur's own contemporary historians. I have mentioned it,

1 The Sihun, called by the Western people Jaxartes, and now called Sirr, flows from the south-east into the northern extremity of Lake Aral. The city Shahrukhiya was situated on a spacious plain at some distance from the northern bank of the river, about 170 miles to the north of Samarkand. It is strange that Hyde, and after him the Dutch savant Manger, should, in defiance of the Arabic text of Arab Shah, to say nothing of geographical truth, have placed the city on this side" of the Sihun, instead of "beyond the Sihun." The Oriental author wrote with reference to Samarkand, and very properly used the expression "beyond the Sīhūn,” i. e., to the north of that river.

2 Ducas must have written subsequently to A.D. 1402, as it was in that year that Bajazet's forces were defeated, and himself made prisoner by Tīmūr, on the plains of Angora.

however, for a very different purpose.

Ducas says

that the Italians at that time called the Shah-rukh "Scacco-rocco." Now this leads to a few queries, viz., Does the term Scacco-rocco occur in any of the early Chess manuscripts of the south-I mean those written before 1500? If so, what was its precise import? When did the terms "Castle, Tower, Tour, or Thurm," come into use on this side of the Alps? In accounting for such an anomaly as a tower on the Chess-board, people content themselves by saying that it originated from the castle on the elephant's back. I believe this conclusion to be erroneous.

It was not the piece which we call the

Rook that had the castle or howdah on his back, but the Bishop, which in the East is called the Fil or Elephant to this day, and as such may be seen in one of Hyde's plates.' Is it not much more likely, then, that the Italians were the first that brought the figure of the tower on the board-not from the "Elephant and Castle," but simply because the word rocca or rocco does mean a castle or fortress in their language? It is astonishing what absurdity people will be guilty of in order to attach any known signification, no matter how ridiculous, to a foreign term. An Italian could no more pronounce the Oriental Rukh than he could fly; so he naturally converted it into Rocco, thus giving it a signification, and at the same time eschewing the guttural sound of the kh, so shocking to an Italian ear. On the same principle, we ourselves have changed it into "Rook," which, if it means the "cornix frugivora," as Hyde learnedly hath it, is to the full as ridiculous a notion as the Italian castle.

1 Hyde (in p. 137,) gives us neat engravings of the Chessmen belonging to the elaborate Indian board alluded to in our 90th page.

M