THE CHESS MONTHLY.

JANUARY, 1859.

A Ple

WHAT ROME MISSED.

N August sun shone down upon the city of Pompeii; upon temple and mart, upon marble portico and bronze statue, upon the crowded dwellings of the Via Domitiana full of life, and upon the glaring monuments of the Street of Tombs, full of death. It shone down, with oppressive heat, upon the motionless waters of the Cumaan Gulf, and upon the sleeping plains of the Campania. Outside of the houses there was scarcely a sign of life. The Forum was nearly deserted. The marketmen had long since returned to their suburban gardens; the public offices in the Basilica were closed; the shops of the money-changers were empty, and only an occasional priest passed in or out of the portals of the Pantheon, or under the arches of the fanes of Jupiter and Venus. But, shaded by the Doric colonnade that ran around three sides of the public square, a few groups of idlers were still engaged in discussing the events of the day, in criticising the last judicial decision of the Edile, or in calculating the probable issue of the next gladiatorial combat. But just as the sun's rays seem hottest, the attention of these knots of gossipers is drawn to the figure of a man, who, coming from the direction of the Herculaneum gate, descends the flight of steps at the north-west corner, and enters upon the Forum. While he suddenly pauses and gazes, with the keen and curious glance of a stranger, upon the stately architectural splendor about him, various comments, some of wonder and some of raillery, are

made upon his appearance and garb. His dress and manner prove

him to be no Roman, while his bronzed features, and his indifferende

to the summer heat, attest the influence of even a warmer climate than that of Southern Italy.

"By the Gods!" said one of the members of the nearest group, "Yon Spaniard would be a rare assistant for Vulcan. Not the hottest forge in the divine workshop would draw the sweat from his brow."

Nay, Cæcilianus," replied one of his companions, "call him not Spaniard he is one of the obstinate swine-hating people of Judæa. They say that some of his race have made old Sol stand still; perhaps this Jew exercises a like power to repel the scorching beams of the god of day."

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"How can both of you, who spend more than half the year in Rome, fall into such an error?" asked the third of the group. you not see that his swarthy features and long ungraceful pœnula could belong to no other than to a son of Egypt?"

But the approach of the stranger put an end to their discourse, for upon a nearer view, there was that in his dignified bearing, bis commanding form, and his dark, speaking eye, which silenced ridicule and rebuked curiosity. After a courteous salutation he began, with a marked but not unpleasant foreign accent, to question the three Pompeians concerning the use and character of the buildings which surrounded the Forum. When they had pointed out the various objects of interest in sight, and answered his queries at some length, Cæcilianus ventured to ask in return, whether he had been at Rome.

"No," said the stranger, "but I go. I come very lately from Alexandria and more remotely from my native India."

The Italians started, for an inhabitant of that distant and to them almost mythical region was indeed a wonder. Roman geographical knowledge at that time, like Roman conquest, had barely reached the confines of Persia. Of all the Asiatic world beyond, Europe possessed only the inconsistent and unsatisfactory accounts brought by a few illiterate and credulous traders. As soon as the first momentary surprise had, in a degree, subsided, they overwhelmed the foreigner with a thousand eager inquiries about his country and its inhabitants, at many of which the Indian smiled, but to all of which he replied with unvarying good humor and with that calm indifference to the prejudice and ignorance of his auditors which characterizes the true traveller. Did his countryman burrow in caves like the Scythians, or dwell

in huts of reeds like the sable tribes of Africa? Did they worship Isis of Egypt or the fire god of Persia? Did they congregate in towns or were they a nation of wanderers like the rude Germans? Was it true that they destroyed their children and burned their wives, for such rumors had reached Roman ears? Was it true that in their quarter of the earth the moon was visible only eight days in the month, as some of the geographers related, and that the Great Bear was never seen at all? Was it true that in farthest Taprobane the worms were taught, by cunning art, to manafacture the richest silks? At length Cæcilianus, glancing at a dial which stood near them, changed the theme.

"Nay, Scaurus and Calventius, remember you are both to dine with me to-day, and we have scarcely two hours left for the bath. If this engaging stranger will do my poor house the honor to meet us at the cœna, we can listen further to his marvellous tales."

The Indian accepted the invitation with the same frankness with which it was given, and after Cæcilianus had indicated with distinctness the locality of his dwelling, and the hour of the repast, the four speakers separated.

No writer of these days can do justice to the luxury and splendor of an Italian banquet in the time of imperial Titus. No pen can aocurately describe its gastronomic delights. The wealthy Romans, not alone in the capital, but in the chief provincial towns, were acoustomed to cover their tables with fish, fruit, and fowls, collected from the most distant parts of the empire. The dominion of Neptune and the Naiads yielded oysters that had been produced on the wild coasts of Britain, and had afterwards been artificially fattened in the Lucrine Lake; salmon from the limpid waters of the picturesque and beautiful Aquitaine; turbot that originally swam about those islands where now arise the famous tower of St. Mark's and the elaborate front of the Doge's palace, and lampreys, upon whose native element cloudcapped Etna looked down. The tangled Leucanian forests, and the broad woods of Tuscany, rewarded the skill of the dexterous huntsman with the favorite wild boars; while kids, reared by the Corinthian settlers of Ambracia, found their way in abundance to the Italian markets. From the air-Nature's great aviary-came the tender ortolans that, in their brief lives, had hopped from tree to tree on the banks of the

smooth-floing Arno, the delicate woodcocks of the Phrygian hills, and the sweet-flavored Melian cranes. The fruitful earth was made to give up its treasures. Dates were sent from the sunny mountain sides of Syria; pomegranates were brought from the wide plains around Carthage, where they were cultivated by the old Punic foes, now the subservient subjects of the Eternal City; olives grew nowhere better than on the loamy soil of Sicily; and apples, of a color as enticing as those of Paris, were imported from the land of the frugal Epirots. When the palates of Cæcilianus and his guests had grown weary of enjoying such dishes as these, they adjourned (after two or three hours given to digestion and the bath), to a second triclinium for the purpose of passing the hours of the night in a social commissatio. The obedient slaves had meantime placed upon the polished board, wines from the rocky bluffs of Homeric Chois, from those green Setian hills which overlook the Pontine marshes, from the famed Lesbian vineyards that surround pleasant Mitylene, and beside them amphoræ filled with the generous, heady, full-bodied Falernian, clear and translucent as amber. While profiting by this Bacchanalian wealth, the wellinformed Indian portrayed to his new friends the characteristics of his Eastern home. Many were the stories he told of the Indian gods, of all-powerful Brahma, of destroying Siva, and of the mild and blessed Camadeva. Many where the scenes he pictured, in poetic words of the domestic life of the Hindoos, and many the chapters he repeated from the sacred Vedas. To the enquiry of Scaurus, as to his object in coming to the West, he at first made no reply, but drew from a pouch cor cealed by the ample folds of his robe, a small box, and a roll of thick and heavy papyrus. Unfolding the latter, the Pompeians beheld a mimic pavement, composed of small squares, such as adorned many an atrium in their city. The squares were all of the same color, but were divided from each other by delicately-traced lines of black Then opening the casket, the stranger took from it a number of images carved with exquisite workmanship, out of the whitest ivory, and the darkest ebony. The Italians, with wondering eyes, watched him arrange these little statues, partly on one side of the board, and partly on the other. At last he turned, and thus addressed them:

"This, O courteous Romans, is not the least remarkable production of the land of the Ganges and Indus, and is called the Chaturanga. It is a representative contest, a bloodless combat, an image, not only of

actual military operations, but of that greater warfare which every son of the earth, from the cradle to the grave, is continually waging-the battle of life. Its virtues are as innumerable as the sands of African Sahara. It heals the mind in sickness, and exercises it in health. It is rest to the overworked intellect, and relaxation to the fatigued body. It lessens the grief of the mourner, and heightens the enjoyment of the happy. It teaches the angry man to restrain his passions, the lightminded to become grave, the cautious to be bold, and the venturesome to be prudent. It affords a keen delight to youth, a sober pleasure to manhood, and a perpetual solace to old age. It induces the poor to forget their poverty, and the rich to be careless of their wealth. It admonishes kings to love and respect their people, and instructs subjects to obey and reverence their rulers. It shows how the humblest citizens, by the practice of virtue and the efforts of labor, may rise to the loftiest stations; and how the haughtiest lords, by the love of vice and the commission of errors, may fall from their elevated estate. It is an amusement and an art, a sport and a science. The erudite and the untaught, the high and the low, the powerful and the weak, acknowledge its charms and confess its enticements. I learned to like it in the years of my youth; but as increased familiarity has developed its beauties, and unfolded its lessons, my enthusiasm has grown stronger and my fondness more confirmed. At length I casually heard from some merchants who traded with your Eastern provinces, that the mighty nation whose arms are fast conquering a world larger than that of the Macedonian monarch, knew nothing of the existence of the Chaturanga, and I resolved to inform your countrymen of an art so pleasing and instructive. It was for this that I left my tropical birthplace, and travelled over seas and deserts far towards the setting sun. It was for this that I passed several months in the schools of Alexandria that I might acquaint myself with the accents and accidence of your tongue. It is for this that I am here to-day, and it is for this that I hope in a week to be among the palaces and temples of earth's mistress."

The Indian then proceeded to explain the powers of the pieces and pawns, and loud were the expressions of praise and pleasure that escaped from the lips of his listeners. They declared that the fascinating dice, the complex duodecim scripta and the agreeable ludus latrunculorum were unworthy to be mentioned beside this new amuse