| Share page |
|
332 |
CHESS. |
||
|
square distant from each other; neither can the black jtawns be moved, their progress being stopped by the white.
Many chess players give notice when the queen is in danger of being taken, by saying check to the queen.
Several variations have at different periods been introduced into chess. In some of the eastern games the power of the pherz or minister (the piece we call queen) was very limited, being allowed only to move from square to square, and never to be further than two from the king. Tamerlane the Great did not think it beneath him to invent new pieces, which rendered the game more complicated, but after his death they were disused. Chatiirdje, or the four kings, is a Persian game by four players, on sixty-four squares, with each eight chess-men, distinguished by white, black, red, and green.* The Chinese introduced other pieces to imitate cannon. Carrera added two, the campione, and the centaur, with two other pawns, and increased the squares to eighty. Arch-chess was played on a board with one hundred squares, besides two new pieces, styled the centurion and decurion, and two pawns additional on each side. The Duke of Rutland's game consisted of one hundred and forty squares, with fourteen pieces and fourteen pawns on each side, one of which was named the concubine, and another the crowned rook. The round game was played on a round board, divided into sixty-four parts, of four circles. The German military game, on one hundred and twenty-one squares, had on each side a king, two guards, two cuirassiers, two dragoons, two |
|||
|
* Vide Pere Loubere's Voyage du Siam, and the Portuguese Jesuits Vasconcello's " Memorial da China." |
|||