of the Elephants, they are reciprocally obliged to remain within the limits of their respective sections.

"In other respects the game is like the English one, and ends with destroying the forces on either side, or blocking up the Choohong. The board is not chequered black and white, but merely subdivided, as in the diagram: the pieces are round counters of wood or ivory, with the distinguishing names wrote on them, half dyed red, and half black."

REMARKS.

From the preceding description we arrive at the conclusion that the Chinese Chess is merely a variation or modification of the Burmese game already described; that is, of the Shatranj or mediæval game of Asia and Europe. The board is the same in all; and so is the number of men, though differently disposed. The "General" is our King, with a more limited range of action. The two Counsellors, or "Bearded old Men," have the moves and powers of the Farz or mediæval Queen, and like the King, are restricted in their movements. The Horses and chariots are precisely the same as in the Shatranj; and the same may be said of the Ping or Pawns, with some limitations.

The principal variations in the Chinese game are, 1st., The Pieces are stationed on the outer lines or angles of the top and bottom squares of the board; and thence they are increased to nine in number, instead of our eight; there being two Counsellors instead of one. In the second place the "Pawns" are reduced to the number of five on each side, and stationed close to the frontier line (marked 8 in the diagram). 3. The two pieces of Artillery (No. 6) are the chief novelty in the Chinese game; and I must confess that I am not satisfied with

the accounts given us of these pieces, either by Mr. Irwin, or by Captain Cox.1 Lastly, we have a division line running across the middle of the Chinese board, which some call a river, some a ditch, and others a rampart.

I think the blank space in the middle of the Chinese board was never intended to represent a River, whatever else it may be; for, in that case, we should very naturally expect to find Boats or Ships in use, as in the more ancient Chaturanga. I have heard it urged as a plausible argument that from the so-called River of the Chinese, originated the Boat or Ship of the Hindus. This is utterly invalid, for the Chinese themselves, so far as we know, never had the Boat or Ship on their board.

I attach no great importance to the legend extracted from the Concum or Chinese annals; except that it furnishes us with a date of the period about which the Celestial Mandarin, Hansing, is supposed to have invented the game. It is curious, by the way, to observe the identity of this legend with that handed down to us, respecting Palamedes at the Siege of Troy. The Shensi province of China is situated in the north-west of the empire, and borders on Tibet to the west, and Tartary to the north, from which it is separated by the great wall. It is quite possible, nay, very probable, then, that the game of Chess penetrated into China from Tibet, at the period alluded to; and that the honourable Hansing appropriated to himself the credit of its invention.

1 It is clear that the Rocket had the move of the Rook, with this condition, that some piece or pieces must intervene between him and the piece aimed at. Now the question is-must the intervening pieces be all hostile, or may they be partly hostile and partly friendly ?—F.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CONCLUSION.

Essay on the Chaturanga, by Sir William Jones.-On the Burmha Game of Chess, &c., by Captain Hiram Cox.

I CANNOT more appropriately conclude my researches on Oriental Chess than by reproducing here two valuable communications on the subject which appeared in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, towards the close of the last century. The first is by Sir William Jones, being an Essay on the Chaturanga; and the second by Captain Hiram Cox, on the Burmha Game of Chess, &c.

Of Sir William Jones's eminence,-as a virtuous man, -an upright judge, and an accomplished scholar,-it were needless, yea, even presumptuous in me to say a word. In March, 1783, he was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William, in Bengal. On the 27th of April of that same year, he sailed from England, and precisely eleven years after that date, he breathed his last at Calcutta, 27th April, 1794. Soon after his arrival in India he betook himself more especially to the study of the Sanskrit language, with a

view to be able to decide for himself cases of Hindu law," independent of the interpretations of the native Pandits, which, it was shrewdly suspected, were not always to be relied on. As a relaxation from his severer studies, he indulged, in the evenings, in a quiet game of Chess, either with Lady Jones, or such of his friends as might be visiting him.

In Lord Teignmouth's Life of Sir William Jones, page 304, we have the following interesting note :-" As a proof of the strict regularity observed by him in the application of his time, the reader is presented with the transcript of a card in his own writing. It contains, indeed, the occupations which he had prescribed to himself in a period of the following year; but may serve as a sample of the manner in which he devoted his leisure hours at all times.

DAILY STUDIES FOR THE LONG VACATION OF 1785. Morning-One letter-ten chapters of the BibleSanskrit Grammar-Hindu law, &c.

Afternoon-Indian Geography.

Evening-Roman History-Chess-Ariosto."

I have now only to add that I have appended to Sir William's Essay a few explanatory notes of my own, in small type at the bottom of the pages; together with some critical remarks that follow the text, as indicated by the letters (a), (b), (c), &c., in which I have pointed out a few mistakes into which the accomplished author has fallen-mistakes which I am confident he himself would have remedied had his life been longer spared to us. This Essay will be found in the second volume of the Society's Transactions, viz.

ON THE INDIAN GAME OF CHESS.

By Sir William Jones, President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

"If evidence be required to prove that Chess was invented by the Hindus, we may be satisfied with the testimony of the Persians; who, though as much inclined as other nations to appropriate the ingenious inventions of a foreign people, unanimously agree that the game was imported from the west (a) of India, together with the charming fables1 of Vishnusarma, in the sixth century of our æra. It seems to have been immemorially known in Hindustan by the name of Chaturanga, that is, the four

angas," or members of an army, which are said in the Amarakosha to be Hasty-aswa-ratha-padātam, or Elephants, Horses, Chariots, and Foot-soldiers; and in this sense the word is frequently used by epic poets in their descriptions of real armies. By a natural corruption of the pure Sanscrit word, it was changed by the old Persians into Chatrang; but the Arabs, who soon after took possession of their country, had neither the initial nor final letter of that word in their alphabet, and consequently altered it further into Shatranj, which found its way presently into the modern Persian, and at length into the dialects of India, where the true derivation of the name is known only to the learned. Thus has a very significant word in the sacred language of the Brahmans been transformed by successive changes into

2

1 The fables alluded to are now well known throughout the civilized world as the "Fables of Pilpay."

2 I have satisfactorily shown (p. 45 and p. 208) that all these terms are derived from the word Shah, introduced into Europe by the Arabs. The "significant" term Chaturanga, in the sacred language of the Brahmans, could not by any imaginable transformation, have become Chess, Check, or Cheque, or Exchequer.