The Arabs are the first we read of among the people of the East who excelled in playing chess without seeing the board. The introduction to one of Dr. Lee's manuscripts in his Oriental collection, relates examples of the early Mohammedan doctors, and even of companions and followers of the Prophet, who either themselves played chess or were spectators of the game. Some of them also are said to have played behind their back, i.e. without looking at the board, and it may not be generally known that the manuscript in the British Museum 16,856 copied in 1612, which is a translation and abridgment of an older work in Arabic, contains a full chapter with a lengthy description, combined with maxims and advice for playing chess without seeing the board. Al Suli, who died A.D. 946, and Ali Shatranji, at Timur's Court, 1377 A.D. (the chess giants of their respective ages), were each highly proficient in Blindfold Chess. A man named Buzecca, in 1266, on the invitation of Guido du Novelli, the friend and munificent patron of Dante, and who was Master of Ravenna, gave an exhibition of his powers at Florence, which occasioned much surprise and admiration. The unknown author of the famous and unique manuscript, bequeathed by Major Price, the eminent Orientalist, to the Asiatic Society, which has formed the subject of so much discussion among the learned, parades his own chess prowess, in a manner not unworthy of some great chess exponents of the present age. "And many a one," he says in his preface, "has experienced a relief from sorrow and affliction in consequence of this magic recreation"; and this same fact has been asserted by the celebrated physician Muhammad Zakaria Razi, in his book entitled: "The Essence of Things": "And such is likewise the opinion of the physician Ali Bin Firdaus, as I shall notice more fully towards the end of the present works, for the composing of which I am in the hope of receiving my reward from God, who is Most High and Most Glorious." The philosopher continues: "I have passed my life since the age of fifteen years among all the masters of chess living in my time, and since that period till now, when I have arrived at middle age, I have travelled through Irak Arab, and Irak Ajam, and Khurasan, and the regions of Mawara al Nahr (Transoxania), and I have there met with many a master in this art, and I have played with all of them, and through the favour of Him who is Adorable and Most High I come off victorious."