OCT 23 1883

MISCELLANEOUS

NOTES AND QUERIES,

WITH ANSWERS.

"The laws of nature are the mathematical thoughts of God."

VOL. V.

OCTOBER, 1888.

THE ROYAL GAME.

This game the Persian magi did invent,

The force of Eastern wisdom to express;

From thence to busy Europeans sent,

And styled, by modern Lombards, pensive chess.

-SIR JOHN DENHAM.

The origin and history of "The Game and Playe of the Chesse," as Caxton quaintly denominates it, is involved in obscurity. Some authorities say it was first played before Troy, being invented by Palamedes to amuse the Grecian chiefs who were disgusted with the tediousness of the siege, while others claim it to be synonymous with the Roman Ludus Latrunculorum. There is also an Egyptian caricature in which a lion and a unicorn are indulging in a game which resembles this one, and even in distant China the natives say it was invented for the diversion of some troops disposed for mutiny. But the most probable conjecture is that it descended from the Brahmins through. Persia to Arabia* about the sixth century, and passed into Europe two or three hundred years later.

Ravan, king of Ceylon, was besieged, it is said, in a strong fortress, and a Hindoo mathematician named Seffa devised the game for the amusement of his royal master, who mimicked the movements of his

It is a curious fact that many of the terms employed in the game are palpably corruptions from Indian, Persian or Arabic words. Thus, check from the Persian schach, or king, and mat, in the same language, signify dead, hence "check-mate," or the king is dead.

enemies on the tiny battle-field before him. The monarch was so well pleased with the invention that he desired the philosopher to name any reward adequate to his ingenuity, and was astonished that he did not ask for wealth, but requested only a modest (?) quantity of wheat, equal to the number of grains arising from the successive doubling of a single grain for the first square of the chess-board, two for the second, and so on, doubling each product until the sixty-fourth square was reached, and finally adding all the products together. When the quantity of wheat which thus arose was computed, it was found to be greater than the whole world could produce in ten years."

*

The Indian game differs somewhat from the European. The king, for example, is not permitted to move beyond a certain fortress, and the elephants, answering to our bishops, (and called in France the fools,) are not allowed to cross a fixed line of squares called a river. If a pawn has the good fortune to reach the square of the adverse king, or general, he too becomes a general; if he steps into the square of a knight, castle or bishop, he becomes that officer whose station he occupies, but not until his master has lost such a one beforehand; otherwise he must endeavor to protect his pawn until the vacancy occurs. The Indian name of the piece we call queen is termed pherz, which signifies a vizier, or minister. When the game was brought into Spain from Arabia, this piece was denominated fiercir, and among old French authors we still see the gradually acquired name of fierge. The transition from fierge to vierge was very natural, due somewhat, perhaps, from its position by the side of the king. The absurdity of the metamorphosis of the vizier into a queen has remained to the present time, and the incongruity is still further increased by allowing a pawn or common soldier to change his rank and sex when he has reached the eighth square on his own "queen's" file. The word rokh in the Indian language signifies a dromedary, and the movements of this piece correspond with those of the rook or castle of the present day. The following description of a checkmate is taken from an ancient poem on chess:

"As when an Ass that from the common strays,
And breaks through fences, in fat meads to graze,
Is by the farmer banged from off the ground,
And children chase him to the parish pound;
The heavy stubborn beast, with motion slow,
And step by step, just budges, loth to go;

*This question may be solved by multiplication and addition, but more expeditiously by geometrical progression. By this method it appears that the number of grains of wheat amounts to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615. Allowing 9,216 grains to an English pint, the quantity in bushels is easily calculated. For 9,216 multiplied by 8 gives 73,728 grains in a gallon, and that by 8 gives 589,824 grains in a bushel. Dividing the original number by this last, we have 31,. 274,997,412,295 for the number of bushels. Now, if 30 bushels be the average product of an acre in a year, it requires 1,042,499,913,743 acres to produce so many bushels, or about eight times the circumference of the globe."-Encyclopædia Edinensis.