These well preserved Tarots are eighteen centimetres by nine, and are painted in water colours on a thin card. The composition of the figures is ingenious and artistic. The drawing is correct and full of character, and the colours are still brilliant. A narrow border of black and white checks surrounds each one. This border is a piece of checkered paper pasted on the back of the card and neatly folded over its edge as if to protect it, showing on the face of the card and forming a frame for the pictures. This fashion of having a checkered or diapered back was closely followed in many of the countries where cards have been used; and these backs are still seen, although this old pattern (which, as will hereafter be seen, had probably a very interesting origin) has been generally discarded, and each card-maker adopts a different device with which to decorate the backs of his cards according to his own fancy. In France the backs are generally plain, and coloured red, pink, or blue. In Spain the pattern is dotted on the surface in lines and circles, while in other countries interlaced and meaningless designs are employed. [Illustration: Plate 3.] Packs of cards closely resembling the original Tarots are still to be found in some parts of Switzerland, Germany, and Alsace, where they are used by the peasantry in the districts which are not much frequented by travellers; but they are unknown to the rest of the world except as curiosities. They are, however, the sole representatives of the cards which the Crusaders or the gypsies brought into Europe, and which the latter use whenever possible to divine the future or recall the past. Some writers point to the eastern origin of these Tarots, because in them “Death” is numbered thirteen, and the idea of fatality or bad luck attached to that number is essentially Oriental; and they declare that the fact that the emblematical Atouts are numbered from low to high, just as certain Asiatic alphabets are written from left to right, may cover a similar interpretation. CHESS. Almost all writers on Cards have admitted the strong resemblance they bear to Chess; and M. Paul la Croix declares that in comparatively modern times the game of chess and games of cards showed strikingly similar features, which demonstrated their common origin,—the art of painting being resorted to to depict the one, and that of sculpture to represent the other.