In older times the narrative is silent as to the temper of Charlemagne when he lost his wager game to Guerin de Montglave, but Eastern annals, the historians of Timur, Gibbon and others tell us that the great potentates of the East, Al Walid, Harun Ar Rashid, Al Mamun and Tamerlane shewed no displeasure at being beaten, but rather appreciated and rewarded the skill of their opponents. They manifested, however, great indignation against those who played deceitfully or attempted to flatter by allowing themselves to be overplayed by their Monarchs. Concerning the origin of chess considerable misconception has always prevailed, and the traditions which had grown up as to its invention before knowledge of the Sanskrit became first imported to the learned, are various and conflicting, comprising several of a very remarkable and even mythical character, which is the more extraordinary because old Eastern manuscripts, the Shahnama of Persia, the Kalila Wa Dimna, the fables of Pilpay in its translations and the Princess Anna Comnena's history of the twelfth century (all combined) with the admissions of the Chinese and the Persians in their best testimonies to point out and indicate what has been since more fully established by Dr. Hyde, Sir William Jones, Professor Duncan Forbes and native works, that for the first source of chess or any game with pieces of distinct and various moves, powers and values we must look to India and nowhere else, notwithstanding some negative opposition from those who do not attempt to say where it came from or to contravert the testimony adduced by Dr. Hyde, Sir William Jones and Professor Duncan Forbes, and despite the opinion of the author of the Asiatic Society's M.S. and Mill in British India that the Hindoos were far too stupid to have invented chess or anything half so clever. Not a particle of evidence has ever yet been adduced by any other nation of so early a knowledge of a game resembling chess, much less of its invention, and it is in the highest degree improbable that any such evidence ever will be forthcoming. NOTE. There are some who do not concur in this wholesale reflection on Indian intelligence, among others, may be mentioned Sir William Jones, Professor Wilson, a writer in Fraser's, and Professor Duncan Forbes. AS TO THE SUPPOSED ORIGIN OF CHESS One of Sir William Jones' Brahman correspondents, Radha Kant, informed him that it is stated in an old Hindoo law book, that the wife of Ravan King of Lanka, the capital of Ceylon invented chess to amuse him with an image of war, when his metropolis was besieged by Rama in the second age of the world, and this is the only tradition which takes precedence in date of the Hindu Chaturanga.