the diamonds on the cards are frequently called _Picks_, from their similarity to the head of a pick, the tool with which they dig the coals; a writer like Court de Gebelin, might discover in this connexion between picks and "black diamonds" "a type with a pair of handles." It may be here observed, that the suit which the French term piques, is that which we, improperly, call spades. But, even admitting the agreement, both in figure and signification, of several of the marks of the suits in early European cards, and those which occur in the cards now used in Hindostan, it may be said that this fact by no means proves either that cards were invented in the East, or that the marks of suits on the Hindostanee cards were actually the models of those resembling them which are to be found on early European cards; for cards might find their way into the East from Europe as well as into Europe from the East. When St. Francis Xavier was in the East Indies,--from 1541 to 1552,--card-playing was a common amusement with the European residents and traders;[66] and it is very likely that the first Portuguese ship that arrived there, about half a century before, had a pack of cards on board. That European cards were sent to the East, among other articles of merchandise, towards the end of the sixteenth century, appears evident from a passage in a narrative of the first voyage of the English, on a private account, begun by Captain George Raymond, and finished by Captain James Lancaster;[67] and we learn from Sir Alexander Burnes, that commerce has imported cards into the Holy City of Bokhara, that the pack consists of thirty-six cards, and that the games are strictly Russian.[68] Looking, however, at all the circumstances,--the probability of Cards having been suggested by Chess, the names _Chartæ_ and _Naipes_, the marks to be found on them, and the tradition of their having been known in Hindostan from a very early period,--the balance of evidence appears decidedly in favour of the conclusion that cards were invented in the East. The writer of an article on Cards, in No. xlviii of the 'Foreign Quarterly Review,' previously referred to, speaks confidently of the great antiquity of cards in Hindostan, but does not give any authorities for the fact. "We know," he says, "that the Tamuli have had cards from time immemorial; and they are said to be of equal antiquity with the Brahmins, who unquestionably possess them still, and claim to have invented them." The statement of the Bramin who gave the cards to Captain D. Cromline Smith, though certainly not true with respect to that individual pack, may yet be received as confirmatory of the traditional evidence in favour of cards generally having been known in Hindostan from a very early period.[69]