[65] Innocentio Ringhieri, Cento Ginochi liberali et d'Ingegno, p. 132. 4to. Bologna, 1551.
[66] The Life of St. Francis Xavier, by Father Bouhours: translated by John Dryden, pp. 71, 203, 697.
[67] "The 6th October, [1592] they met with a Malacca ship of 700 tons, which, after her main-yard was shot through, yielded.... They found on board fifteen pieces of brass cannon, 300 butts of Canary and Nipar or Palm-wine, with very strong raisin wine; all sorts of haberdashery-wares, as hats, red knit caps, and stockings of Spanish wool; velvets, taffeties, camblets, and silks; abundance of suckets, rice, Venice glasses, counterfeit stones (brought by an Indian from Venice, to cheat the Indians), Playing Cards, and two or three packs of French paper." The prize was taken in the Straits of Malacca; and the articles of European manufacture appear to have been brought to Malacca by the Portuguese.—The Naval Chronicle; or Voyages of the most celebrated English Navigators, vol. i, p. 392. 8vo. 1760.
[68] Burnes's Travels into Bokhara, vol. ii, p. 169. Second edit. 1835.
[69] Card-playing appears to be a very common amusement in Hindostan.—"I could remind or perhaps inform the fashionable gamesters of St. James's Street, that before England ever saw a dice-box, many a main has been won and lost under a palm-tree, in Malacca, by the half-naked Malays, with wooden and painted dice; and that he could not pass through a bazaar in this country [Hindostan] without seeing many parties playing with cards, most cheaply supplied to them by leaves of the cocoa-nut or palm-tree, dried, and their distinctive characters traced with an iron style.... At the corner of every street you may see the Gentoo-bearers gambling over chalked-out squares, with small stones for men, and with wooden dice; or Coolies playing with cards of the palm-leaf. Nay, in a pagoda under the very shadow of the idol, I have seen Brahmins playing with regular packs of Chinese cards."—Sketches of India: written by an Officer for Fireside Travellers at Home, pp. 68 and 100. Fourth edition, 1826.
[70] For the reference to the Ching-tsze-tung, and the explanation of the passage relating to cards, I am indebted to Mr. S. Birch, of the British Museum.
[71] "Second Mémoire sur les Relations politiques des Rois de France avec les Empereurs Mongols," dans le Journal Asiatique, de Septembre, 1822, p. 62.