CIRCULAR CHESS.
Of chess in the middle ages there were no less than fifty-four varieties—not gambits, but different ways of playing the game. To one of these, known as [Double Chess], we have already devoted some pages; and we now give the variety known as Circular Chess, which was played on a board of the same pattern as the [illustration], on which the pieces were arranged as shown, the line with the arrow-heads representing the edge of the board in the ordinary game, and the movements taking place right and left from it.
A pawn attaining this line is exchangeable for a piece, as in the common game, but it offers no barrier to the passage of the men. The moves are in all respects the same as in ordinary chess. The peculiarity of the shape, however, considerably reduces the importance of the bishops and increases that of the rooks and queens.
CHAPTER XIII.—DRAUGHTS.
By the late Captain Crawley.
I. All About the Game.
It has been said by one who has a right to express an opinion on the subject (Mr. Wylie, of Fife, the greatest player and analyst in Scotland) that Draughts is a more intricate and ingenious game than its proud rival, Chess, of higher antiquity and of more intellectual scope. So much so, that in a hundred years a man could not exhaust its varieties. Edgar Allan Poe, the author of The Raven, expresses a like opinion: ‘The higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly tasked by the unostentatious game of Draughts, or chequers, than by all the elaborate frivolities of Chess.’
Without venturing to discriminate between the merits and claims of the two games—both of which I love—I purpose attempting to show my readers some of the prominent features of the ancient and honourable game of Draughts.