nth square,
and so on progressively. In the twentieth square it will become a waiba
(peck), the waibas will then become an irdabb (bushel), and in the
fortieth square we shall have one hundred and seventy-four thousand
seven hundred and sixty-two irdabbs. Let us suppose this to be the
contents of a corn store, and no corn store contains more than that;
then in the fiftieth square we shall have the contents of one thousand
and twenty-four stores; suppose these to be situated in one city--and no
city can have more than that number of stores or even so many--we shall
then find that the sixty-fourth and last square gives sixteen thousand
three hundred and eighty-four cities. Now, you know that there is not in
the world a greater number of cities than that, for geometry informs us
that the circumference of the globe is eight thousand parasangs; so
that, if the end of a cord were laid on any part of the earth, and the
cord passed round it till both ends met, we should find the length of
the cord to be twenty-four thousand miles, which is equal to eight
thousand parasangs.' This demonstration is decisive and indubitable."

Of Sissah I know no more, except that he was from India and that his
game became popular. Up to the time of Ibn Khallikan, in the thirteenth
century, its best player was one As-Suli, famous as an author and a
convivialist, who died one hundred and twenty years before the Norman
Conquest. "To play like As-Suli" was indeed a proverb. Among this
proficient's friends was his pupil, the khalif Ar-Radi, who had the
greatest admiration for As-Suli's genius. One day, for instance, walking
with some boon companions through a garden filled with beautiful
flowers, Ar-Radi asked them if they ever saw a finer sight. To this they
replied, speaking as wise men speak to autocratic rulers, that nothing
on earth could surpass it.

The retort of the khalif must have given them the surprise of their
lives. "You are wrong," said he: "As-Suli's manner of playing chess is
yet a finer sight, and surpasses all you could describe!" So might we
now refer to Hobbs on his day at the Oval, on a hard wicket, against
fast bowling, with Surrey partisans standing four deep behind the seats,
or to Stevenson nursing the balls from the middle pocket to the top
left-hand pocket and then across to the right.

One more anecdote of the Persian Steinitz, and I have done. I tell it
because it rounds off this interlude with some symmetry by bringing