[58] A particular account of the mode of playing the game of "L'Hombre à trois," will be found in the first volume of the 'Académie des Jeux.' The author observes, "Il est inutile de s'arrêter à l'etymologie du jeu de l'hombre; il suffit de dire que les Espagnols en sont les auteurs, et qu'il se sent du flegme de la nation dont il tire son origine." According to the same authority, "_La Quadrille_ n'est, à proprement parler, que l'hombre à quatre, qui n'a pas, à la verité, la beauté, ni ne demande pas une si grande attention que l'hombre à trois; mais aussi faut-il convenir qu'il est plus amusant et plus recréatif." [59] Barrington's Observations on the Antiquity of Card-playing in England.--Archæologia, vol. viii, 1787. [60] Chung is also the Chinese name for a kind of harp.--In three other packs of Hindostanee cards, of the same kind, which I have had an opportunity of examining, the harp occurs both in the honours and the numeral cards. I suspect that the bird has been substituted through a mistake of the native artist who engraved the cards. In one of the packs just alluded to, the cards are not circular, but rectangular, like European cards, but of much smaller size. In another pack of Hindostanee cards which I have seen, the marks in all the eight suits are birds; in four of the suits, they are all of the same form--something like that of a starling--but differing in their colour; in three others they are all geese, and of the same colour, so that the suit is only to be distinguished by the ground on which they are painted. The mark of the eighth suit is a peacock. [61] These are still the marks of the suits in Spain: "Copas, Espadas, Oros, y Bastos." The "Oros," literally golden money, are also called _Dineros_, that is, money in general. The same marks are also to be found on old Italian cards, and the names for them were, Coppe, Spade, Danari, and Bastoni. The discrepancy between the names, Spades and Clubs, and the marks of these suits, in English cards, will be noticed in its proper place. [62] Religions de l'Antiquité; traduction Française de Guigniant. [63] Von Hammer's Mines of the East. [64] This is Mr. Colebrooke's conclusion. Sir John Malcolm gives a different account, the correctness of which may be very justly doubted, both as regards the present time and the past: "The four divisions of Hindoos, viz. the priests, soldiers, merchants, and labourers, appear to have existed in every human society, at a certain stage of civilization; but in India alone have they been maintained for _several thousand years_ with prescriptive vigour."--Essay on the Bhills (Beels) by Sir John Malcolm, in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i, p. 65, 1824. [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.