There are also pieces called paoo-bombardiers or rocketmen-with curious powers. They can move the whole length of the board, in the fashion of the castle. If an adversary's piece intervenes, they can take the pawn or piece immediately behind it, but cannot kill direct. Students of the Persian game will be reminded of the power of their elephant. It will be seen from this cursory description that the Burmans can hardly owe their game to the Chinese. Shin Gautama sent us Buddhism from "the Middle Country"; it is possible that the game of chess came from India also. But if so, while Burmese Buddhism has hardly changed at all, and remains much more like the original teachings of the Master than the faiths of Ceylon, Nepaul, and Thibet, the game of chess has been greatly altered, and I think I may venture to say vastly improved.

CHAPTER IX.

GAMES.

A VERY favourite game with Burmans of all ages is the gohn-nyin toh pwè. The name is very suggestive. Gohn or hkohn means to jump, and nyin is to deny or bluster, and there is no doubt of the fitness of the implication. A more noisy and contentious game, not even omitting the uproariousness of the English enormity known as "grab," it would be difficult to find. Most writers on Burma have passed over gohn-nyin weing lightly, as a simple, harmless, children's game. It would be well if it were only that, though the monks at the pohn-gyee kyoung often sally forth in great wrath (most dangerous for their future state), and armed with a stout bamboo, to put a stop to the clamorous disputes of the schoolboys over their seeds. But the police officers would tell a very different tale. Grownup men play also, and the quarrels sometimes end in assault and murder, and always in reckless gambling. Behn-sah-thee-loo, opium eaters, who with all respectable Burmans stand for types of iniquity, a kind of epitome of vice, often have as much as two or three hundred rupees on a single game, and the results of unrestrained gambling are best known to civilized people, for whom I am writing. Consequently the police keep a sharp eye on grown-up

gohn-nyin toh players, and if a party is caught, they are all punished heavily for gambling, the deing, or keeper of the ground, being fined heaviest of all. For there are regular "alleys" kept for the purpose, the deing, or proprietor, carefully smoothing the ground, moistening it delicately in the hot weather, and keeping it from getting sodden during the monsoon. He charges his customers a small fee for the right to play, usually an anna in the rupee, keeps a supply of seeds ready, and acts as umpire in cases of doubt, or when a tie has to be played off.

The game is played with the seeds of a huge creeper, the Entada Pursatha, whose pods are five feet long and six inches broad, and the beans are large flat things, about an inch in diameter, and shaped like a lily or lotos leaf, or the flattened-out gizzard of a fowl. They are made to stand on the stalk side, flat face foremost, a little more than a diameter apart in a long row, and the object of the player is, as in bowls and ninepins, to knock down as many as possible. The players use seeds called doh, exactly similar to those they aim at, or occasionally iron rings, and the distance from which they do so is agreed upon beforehand, but is never less than five or six yards. The doh is spun away in crossbow fashion from the forefinger of the left hand, drawn back by the thumb and finger of the right. As the seeds aimed at are all in a line, there is plenty of room for skill in the way of putting a heavy bias on, as well as in the by no means easy matter of preventing the bean from jumping up and missing altogether. Some old players have a wonderful knack of getting a strong parabolic curve on, which succeeds in levelling a great part of the line. The difficulty of the thing cannot be realized till one has made an attempt one's self, and the result of a few experiments is usually greatly to raise the estimation of gohn-nyin toh as a game of skill.

There are a great many ways of playing it. First, it may be premised that the ordinary value of a seed is two annas, about threepence-that at any rate is the price usually charged by the deing, who always has a great supply of them. Having got his seeds, the player puts down as many as he pleases in the row, five perhaps or ten. There is usually a preliminary dispute about some one who has not put down so many as the others, yet claims an equal chance of winning in the game. These quarrels, after having been noisily fought for a quarter of an hour or so, are referred to the decision of the ground keeper, who settles the matter off-hand, seldom knocking a man out as long as he is sure that he has no more seeds to stake. Then it has to be settled who is to have first shot, naturally among good players a very considerable advantage. This is settled by a preliminary tournament for the best of one or three shots the players following one another in the order of their success in the trial. Then it is settled how the game is to be played. Sometimes it is the obvious, barndoor way of each man taking the seeds he knocks down, sometimes it resolves itself into a contest for everything staked, the man who knocks down most taking all the seeds. There are of course numerous bets, but they are more frequently disposed in backing one player against another than in selecting a single individual as the probable eventual winner.

This method, however, of endeavouring to knock down the greatest number of seeds, which is of course the commonest with children, is not so much affected by grown-up gamblers as other elaborations of the game. A favourite form is that called nga-let nga-lohn, where the object is, in five shots to knock down five seeds, neither more nor less. This is not so easy as it might seem, for the seeds are not like marbles, and it is hardly less difficult

to make them go perfectly straight than it is to put on the proper "side." Most men try to knock down all five at their first attempt, and then let their remaining seeds go anyhow. Veterans, however, declare that the safest way is to knock down the fifth from the end of the line with your first shot. It then lies as a kind of barrier to prevent the other four, when knocked down, from rolling about and upsetting more than the proper number. The seeds when hit hard certainly have very eccentric methods of spinning and wobbling about. If there are ties, the men of course play off, and the winner takes the whole pool, if the collection of seeds may be so called. The best play is almost always seen in these nga-let nga-lohn contests. The children's form, that of knocking down the greatest number in one or three shots, is called pwet-tha, and is certainly the commonest, except with the avowed gamblers. There are besides these two main forms many other variations occasionally introduced, the commonest being doung-pyit and pay-dan. In the former the seeds are placed in the usual line, but all except the centre are lying on their sides. The players stand much farther away, and the object is to hit the seed standing up. Any one who does so carries off all. If one of those lying down is hit the seeds from it to the extremity of the line are taken. In pay-dan the seeds are placed in a big circle. Some one seed, either at one of the sides or at the back, is fixed upon to be hit. Any one who does so takes all, but if any other seed is knocked over you have to pay forfeit, and add one to the circle. This is, perhaps, the most outrageously noisy form of all, and, like the doung-pyit, is very seldom played by any but children.

The deing or ground keeper's services are constantly being called for. A long-armed man is accused of deliver