backgammon, with great art and little reflection. The game is called
Kurkabod when, as in our draughts, the piece passing over one of the
adversary's takes it.

Shahh is another favourite game. The board is made thus, [Illustration]
and the pieces as at Shantarah are twelve in number. The object is to
place three men in line,--as the German Muhle and the Afghan "Kitar,"--
when any one of the adversary's pieces may be removed.

Children usually prefer the game called indifferently Togantog and
Saddikiya. A double line of five or six holes is made in the ground, four
counters are placed in each, and when in the course of play four men meet
in the same hole, one of the adversary's is removed. It resembles the
Bornou game, played with beans and holes in the sand. Citizens and the
more civilised are fond of "Bakkis," which, as its name denotes, is a
corruption of the well-known Indian Pachisi. None but the travelled know
chess, and the Damal (draughts) and Tavola (backgammon) of the Turks.

[15] The same objection against "villanous saltpetre" was made by
ourselves in times of old: the French knights called gunpowder the Grave
of Honor. This is natural enough, the bravest weapon being generally the
shortest--that which places a man hand to hand with his opponent. Some of
the Kafir tribes have discontinued throwing the Assegai, and enter battle
wielding it as a pike. Usually, also, the shorter the weapon is, the more
fatal are the conflicts in which it is employed. The old French "Briquet,"
the Afghan "Charay," and the Goorka "Kukkri," exemplify this fact in the
history of arms.

[16] In the latter point it differs from the Assegai, which is worked by
the Kafirs to the finest temper.