ON

THE COURSE OF THE NILE.

THE Nile, which the Abyffinians know by the names of Abéy and

Alawy, or the Giant, gushes from several springs at a place, called Sucút, lying on the highest part of Dengalá near Gojjám, to the west of Bajemdir, and the lake of Dara or Wed; into which it runs with so strong and rapid a current, that it mixes not with the other waters, but rides or fwims, as it were, above them.

All the rains, that fall in Abyffinia and descend in torrents from the hills, all streams and rivers, small and great, except the Hanázó, which washes the plains of Hengót, and the Hawásh which flows by Dewar and Fetgár, are collected by this king of waters, and, like vaffals, attend his march: thus enforced he rushes, like a hero exulting in his strength, and haftens to fertilife the land of Egypt, on which no rain falls. We must except also thofe Ethiopean rivers, which rife in countries bordering on the ocean, as the kingdoms of Cambát, Gurájy, Wafy, Náriyah, Gáfy, Wej, and Zinjiro, whose waters are disembogued into the sea.

When the Alawy has paffed the Lake, it proceeds between Gojjám and Bajemdir, and, leaving them to the west and east, pursues a direct course towards Ambárá, the skirts of which it bathes, and then turns again to the weft, touching the borders of Walaka; whence it rolls along Múgár and Shawai, and, paffing Bazáwá and Gongá, defcends into the lowlands of Shankila, the country of the Blacks: thus it forms a sort of spiral round the province of Gojjám, which it keeps for the most part on its right.

Here

1

Here it bends a little to the eaft, from which quarter, before it reaches the districts of Sennár, it receives two large rivers, one called Tacazzy, which runs from Tegri, and the other, Gwangue, which comes from Dembeíá.

After it has vifited Sennár, it washes the land of Dongolá, and proceeds thence to Nubia, where it again turns eaftward, and reaches a country named Abrim, where no veffels can be navigated, by reason of the rocks and crags, which obftruct the channel. The inhabitants of Sennár and Nubia may conftantly drink of its water, which lies to the caft of them like a ftrong bulwark; but the merchants of Abyffinia, who travel to Egypt, leave the Nile on their right, as foon as they have passed Nubia, and are obliged to traverse a desert of fand and gravel, in which for fifteen days they find neither wood nor water; they meet it again in the country of Reif or Upper Egypt, where they find boats on the river, or ride on its banks, refreshing themselves with its falutary ftreams.

It is afferted by fome travellers, that, when the Alawy has passed Sennár and Dongolá, but before it enters Nubia, it divides itself; that the great body of water flows entire into Egypt, where the fmaller branch (the Niger) runs weftward, not so as to reach Barbary, but towards the country of Alwáh, whence it rushes into the great fea. The truth of this fact I have verified, partly by my own obfervation, and partly by my inquiries among intelligent men; whofe answers feemed the more credible, because, if fo prodigious a mafs of water were to roll over Egypt with all its wintry increase, not the land only, but the houses, and towns, of the Egyptians must be overflowed.

ON

ON

THE INDIAN GAME OF CHESS.

BY THE PRESIDENT.

IF

F evidence be required to prove that chefs was invented by the Hindus we may be fatisfied with the teftimony of the Perfians; 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 weft of India, together with the charming fables of VISHNUSARMAN, in the fixth century of our era: it seems to have been immemorially known in Hindustan by the name of Chaturanga, that is, the four anga's, or members, of an army, which are said in the Amaracófha to be haftyaswarat' bapádátam, or elephants, horses, chariots, and foot-foldiers; and, in this fenfe, the word is frequently used by Epick poets in their defcriptions of real armies. By a natural corruption of the pure Sanferit word, it was changed by the old Perfians into Chatrang, but the Arabs, who foon after took poffeffion of their country, had neither the initial nor final letter of that word in their alphabet, and confequently altered it further into Shatranj, which found its way presently into the modern Perfian, 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 fignificant word in the facred language of the Bráhmans been transformed by fucceffive changes into axedrez, fcacchi, échecs, chefs, and, by a whimfical concurrence of circumstances, given birth to the English word check, and even a name to the Exchequer of Great Britain. The beautiful fimplicity and extreme perfection of the game, as it is commonly played in Europe and. Afia,

VOL. I.

3 Z

Asia, convince me, that it was invented by one effort of fome great genius; not completed by gradual improvements, but formed, to use the phrase of Italian criticks, by the first intention; yet of this fimple game, fo exquifitely contrived, and fo certainly invented in India, I cannot find any account in the claffical writings of the Bráhmans. It is, indeed, confidently afferted, that Sanferit books on Chefs exist in this country, and, if they can be procured at Banáres, they will affuredly be fent to us: at prefent I can only exhibit a defcription of a very ancient Indian game of the fame kind; but more complex, and, in my opinion, more modern, than the fimple Chefs of the Perfians. This game is alfo called Chaturanga, but, more frequently Chatúrájì, or the four Kings, since it is played by four persons representing as many princes, two allied armies combating on each fide: the description is taken from the Bhawishya Purán, in which YUDHISHT'HIR is reprefented converfing with VYA'SA, who explains at the king's request the form of the fictitious warfare and the principal rules of it: "having marked eight fquares on all fides, says the Sage, place the red army to the eaft, the green to the fouth, the yellow to the west, and the black to the north: let the elephant stand on the " left of the king; next to him, the horse; then, the boat; and, before "them all, four foot-foldiers; but the boat must be placed in the angle of "the board." From this paffage it clearly appears, that an army, with its four anga's, must be placed on each fide of the board, fince an elephant could not stand, in any other position, on the left hand of each king ; and RADHACA'NT informed me, that the board confifted, like ours, of fixtyfour fquares, half of them occupied by the forces, and half, vacant: he added, that this game is mentioned in the oldeft law-books, and that it was invented by the wife of RA'VAN, king of Lancà, in order to amufe him with an image of war, while his metropolis was clofely befieged by RA'MA in the fecond age of the world. He had not heard the ftory told by FIRDAUSI near the clofe of the Shábnámah, and it was probably carried into Perfia from Cányacurja by BORZU, the favourite phyfician,

९

thence

thence called Vaidyapriya, of the great ANU'SHIRAVA'N; but he said, that the Brahmans of Gaur, or Bengal, were once celebrated for fuperior fkill in the game, and that his father, together with his fpiritual preceptor JAGANNA'T'H, now living at Tribéni, had inftructed two young Brábmans in all the rules of it, and had fent them to Jayanagar at the request of the late Rája, who had liberally rewarded them. A fhip, or boat, is substituted, we fee, in this complex game for the rat'h, or armed chariot, which the Bengalese pronounce roth, and which the Perfians changed into rokh, whence came the rook of fome European nations; as the vierge and fol of the French are supposed to be corruptions of ferz and fil, the prime minifter and elephant of the Perfians and Arabs: it were vain to feek an etymology of the word rook in the modern Perfian language; for, in all the paffages extracted from FIRDAUSI and JA'MI, where rokh is conceived to mean a hero, or a fabulous bird, it signifies, I believe, no more than a cheek or a face; as in the following defcription of a proceffion in Egypt: "when a thousand youths, like cypreffes, box-trees, " and firs, with locks as fragrant, cheeks as fair, and bofoms as delicate, as lilies of the valley, were marching gracefully along, thou wouldft "have faid, that the new fpring was turning his face (not, as HYDE "tranflates the words, carried on rokhs) from station to ftation;" and, as to the battle of the duwázdeb rokh, which D'HERBELOT fuppofes to mean douze preux chevaliers, I am ftrongly inclined to think, that the phrase only fignifies a combat of twelve perfons face to face, or fix on a fide. I cannot agree with my friend RA'DHA'CA'NT, that a ship is properly introduced in this imaginary warfare instead of a chariot, in which the old Indian warriours conftantly fought; for, though the king might be supposed to fit in a car, so that the four anga's would be complete, and though it may often be neceffary in a real campaign to pass rivers or lakes, yet no river is marked on the Indian, as it is on the Chinese, chefs-board, and the intermixture of fhips with horfes, elephants, and infantry einbattled on a plain, is an abfurdity not to be defended. The use of dice

may,