LITMIR.BIZ

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alone remain unmixed; the other three, as distinct castes, exist only in name, for they have become so intermixed, that the subdivisions can neither be ascertained nor reckoned by the learned pundits themselves. [64]

      In the oldest stencilled, or printed, European cards, which are probably of as early a date as the year 1440, the marks of the suits are bells, hearts, leaves, and acorns; and in the Hindostanee cards we find a leaf or a flower, as the mark of one of the suits; and I am inclined to think that, in the latter, the figures of the oval, and of that which appears something like a pineapple in a shallow cup, were the types of the bells and the acorns. When those marks are compared, without reference to their being representations of specific objects of which the mind has already a preconceived idea, the general agreement of their forms is, to the eye, more apparent. For the heart, I have not been able to discover any corresponding mark in the Hindostanee cards. Should I be told that the form of the heart might be suggested by that of the leaf, I have to observe that the form of the leaf in Hindostanee cards, is not the same as that which occurs in European, and that in the latter, the colour of the so-called heart appears always to have been red.

      Between the marks of the suits on old French cards—Cœur, Carreau, Trèfle, and Pique—and those to be found on Hindostanee cards, I shall not venture to make any direct comparison. It, however, may be observed that the form of the Pique—the spade in English cards—is almost precisely the same as that of the leaf in other European packs; and that the Trèfle—the club, in English cards—in its outline bears a considerable likeness to the acorn. Those who please may derive the Carreau, or diamond, from the Castrala, or mystic diamond, worn on the breast, or held in the palm of the hand of Vichnou; it does not, however, occur as the mark of a suit in any of the Hindostanee cards that have come under my observation; and the mark to which it bears the greatest resemblance is that of the suit Burat, as shown in Plate II, No. 7. An examination of a greater variety of Hindostanee cards, and more extensive knowledge of the names and significations of the marks of the suits, and of the different games played, would probably lead to the discovery of more points of resemblance than I have been able to perceive.

      The different things signified by marks, apparently agreeing in their general forms, on Hindostanee and European cards, may be partly accounted for on the following grounds, which will also in some degree serve to explain the difference, both in form and name, of the marks of the suits in different packs of old European cards.

Graphic forms of all kinds, whether symbolic, or positive representations of specific objects, which are readily understood, both in their figurative meaning and direct signification, by the people with whom they originated, are, when brought into a different country without their explanations, often interpreted by that people according to their knowledge and opinions; and forms for which they have no corresponding originals, or which they fail to identify, are referred to objects of similar shape with which they are familiar, and are called by their names. Similar changes in the meaning of symbolic figures also take place with the same people, in consequence of the original meaning becoming obsolete, through change of customs and opinions, in the course of time. In this manner a figure of the horned Isis, with the young Horus in her lap, appears to have been taken for a representation of the Virgin Mary, with the crescent moon on her head, nursing the infant Jesus; and thus the figures of Jupiter and Minerva have passed for those of Adam and Eve. In the sixteenth century it appears that in Italy the suit of Bastoni—clubs, or maces, proper—was also called Colonne, pillars; and the suit of Danari—money—Specchi, mirrors; [65] merely because the club or mace as depicted on the suits, bore some resemblance to a slender pillar, and that the form of Danari, like that of an ancient mirror, was circular. Among the pitmen in the neighbourhood of Newcastle-on-Tyne, the diamonds on the cards are frequently called Picks, from their similarity to the head of a pick, the tool with which they dig the coals; a writer like Court de Gebelin, might discover in this connexion between picks and "black diamonds" "a type with a pair of handles." It may be here observed, that the suit which the French term piques, is that which we, improperly, call spades.

But, even admitting the agreement, both in figure and signification, of several of the marks of the suits in early European cards, and those which occur in the cards now used in Hindostan, it may be said that this fact by no means proves either that cards were invented in the East, or that the marks of suits on the Hindostanee cards were actually the models of those resembling them which are to be found on early European cards; for cards might find their way into the East from Europe as well as into Europe from the East. When St. Francis Xavier was in the East Indies—from 1541 to 1552—card-playing was a common amusement with the European residents and traders; [66] and it is very likely that the first Portuguese ship that arrived there, about half a century before, had a pack of cards on board. That European cards were sent to the East, among other articles of merchandise, towards the end of the sixteenth century, appears evident from a passage in a narrative of the first voyage of the English, on a private account, begun by Captain George Raymond, and finished by Captain James Lancaster; [67] and we learn from Sir Alexander Burnes, that commerce has imported cards into the Holy City of Bokhara, that the pack consists of thirty-six cards, and that the games are strictly Russian. [68]

Looking, however, at all the circumstances—the probability of Cards having been suggested by Chess, the names Chartæ and Naipes, the marks to be found on them, and the tradition of their having been known in Hindostan from a very early period—the balance of evidence appears decidedly in favour of the conclusion that cards were invented in the East. The writer of an article on Cards, in No. xlviii of the 'Foreign Quarterly Review,' previously referred to, speaks confidently of the great antiquity of cards in Hindostan, but does not give any authorities for the fact. "We know," he says, "that the Tamuli have had cards from time immemorial; and they are said to be of equal antiquity with the Brahmins, who unquestionably possess them still, and claim to have invented them." The statement of the Bramin who gave the cards to Captain D. Cromline Smith, though certainly not true with respect to that individual pack, may yet be received as confirmatory of the traditional evidence in favour of cards generally having been known in Hindostan from a very early period. [69]

Playing Cards appear to have been known from an early period in China. In the Chinese dictionary, entitled Ching-tsze-tung, compiled by Eul-koung, and first published A.D. 1678, it is said that the cards now known in China as Teen-tsze-pae, or dotted cards, were invented in the reign of Seun-ho, 1120; and that they began to be common in the reign of Kaou-tsung, who ascended the throne in 1131. [70]—According to tradition, they were devised for the amusement of Seun-ho's numerous concubines. M. Abel Remusat, probably on the authority of the Ching-tsze-tung, has also observed that cards were invented by the Chinese in 1120. [71] Mons. Leber, however, considers it to be more likely that they got their first cards from Hindostan; and that, like the Europeans, they merely changed or modified the types, and invented new games.

      The general name for cards in China is Che-pae, which literally signifies "paper tickets." At first they are said to have been called Ya-pae, bone or ivory tickets, from the material of which they were made. A pack of dotted cards consists of thirty-two pieces, and the marks—small circular dots of red and black—are placed, alternately, at two of the corners; for instance, in a card containing eight dots, four are placed in one corner and four in the other diagonally opposite to it. Ten of those cards are classed in pairs; the first pair are called Che-tsun—"the most honorable,"—and are superior to all the others; these may be considered as coat cards, as the one contains the figure of a woman, and the other that of a man; both these cards are also marked with black and red dots—that of the woman with six, and that of the man with twelve. The second pair are called Tien-pae—"celestial

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