Chess History And Reminiscences
So that many believed him to be the inventor of this game, but
erroneously.
The Arabians say that a certain great man showed one of his
friends his garden, full of fine flowers, and said to him,
"Did you ever see a finer sight than this? Yes," he replied,
"Al Suli's game at chess is more beautiful than this garden
and everything that is in it."
Al Suli died A. D. 946.
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The writer is not enamoured of blindfold play, preferring not
to attempt to do that without his eyes, which he can do better
with. "Blindfold Play" the term used nowadays, or "playing
behind your back," as one of the old Arabian manuscripts has it,
seems not the most happy expression for the art, playing "Sans
Voir" or without sight of chess board or pieces clearly expresses
it. Good players, actually blind, may be mentioned, the writer
has played with such, in a simultaneous exhibition of chess play
at Sheffield, a game against two blind boys from the Asylum,
proved one of the best contested and most interesting in the series,
and these bright but afflicted lads evidently, with their kind
attendant, derived the greatest pleasure from the meeting.
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THE GAME OF CHESS
Elaborate and learned works have appeared treating on the
supposed origin of chess. Oriental manuscripts, Eastern fables,
and the early poets have been quoted to prove its antiquity, and
it would not be easy to name any subject upon which so much
valuable labour and antiquarian research has been bestowed, with
so little harmonious or agreed result as to opinions concerning
the first source of this wonderful game.
That chess reached Persia from India in the first half of the
Sixth century, during the reign of Chosroes, is well attested, and
concurred in by all historians from the Arabian and Persian
writers, the beautiful and accomplished Greek Princess Anna
Comnena, and the Asiatic Society's famous manuscript to Dr. Hyde
and Sir William Jones, and Sir Frederick Madden and Professor
Duncan Forbes, China, also, admits the receipt of chess from
India in the year 537, and got it about the same time as Persia.
Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the exact spot
from whence chess first sprung, its Asiatic origin is undoubted.
The elephant, ship, or boat in the game was illustrative of its
mode of warfare. The identity of the pieces in the ancient game
with ours of the present day affords striking confirmation of it,
whilst the most competent and esteemed authorities who have
devoted the greatest attention and research to the subject deem
the evidence of language conclusive proof that the Persian
Chatrang, which we first hear of under date of about 540 A.D.,
was derived from the ancient Hindu Chaturanga, found described
in original Sanskrit records.
It is generally assumed on very fair inferences that the
Arabians were expert chess players, and also excelled in
blindfold play. The game was known among them in the days of the
prophet, 590 to 632, who finding some engaged at chess asked
them, "What images are these which you are so intent upon?"
For they seemed to have been new to him, the game having been
very lately introduced into Arabia from Persia. Nice gradations
of skill were observed among them, and thirteen degrees of odds
are enumerated among them down to the rook. To give any odds
beyond the rook, says one of the manuscripts, can apply only to
women, children, and tyros. For instance, a man to whom even
a first-class player can afford to give the odds of a rook and a
knight has no claim to be ranked among chess players. In fact
the two rooks in chess are like the two hands in the human body,
and the two knights are, as it were, the feet. Now that man has
very little to boast of on the score of manhood and valour who
tells you that he has given a sound thrashing to another man who
had only one hand and one foot. It may be observed, however,
that proportionately to the value of all the pieces in the old game,
as compared with the present, the rook and knight would be
equivalent to queen and rook with us.
The earliest Greek reference brought to notice is in a laconic
correspondence between the Emperor Nicephorus of Constantinople,
successor to the Princess Irene, and the famous Harun Ar
Rashid of Bagdad, the fifth of the Abbasside dynasty, in 802, which
mentions Pawn and Rook, implying that his predecessor in
paying tribute resembled rather the former for weakness than the
latter for strength; but it had probably been known among the
Greeks before the death of Justinian, in 565, as he was
contemporary with Chosroes, and these rulers were at peace and in
friendly terms of communication, allowing interpretations of their
respective records, which seem to have been of mutual interest.
All the writers who assert that the ancient Greeks and Romans
were unacquainted with chess have overlooked the Roman edict
of 115 B.C., in which both chess and Draughts were specially
exempted from prohibition.
Such consideration as can be found devoted to the game or
games of the Egyptians mainly relates to hypothesis and conjectures
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