The rooks in this set are not of the usual flat description. As a rule the carving of the pieces is very rough, and it is seldom that one sees an elaborate set like that here illustrated. A set often suffices for a village. It is difficult to procure a genuine set of Malay chessmen.
In some parts of the Peninsula very few Malays play chess, in others a large proportion of the inhabitants. On the whole the proportion of men who can play chess more or less is probably greater than with most races. The same game is played in Sumatra as in the Peninsula, and I believe also in Borneo.
How the Malays acquired the game is a mystery. They may have done so from the Arabs, or they may have learnt it directly from natives of India. Neither the peculiar rules of the game, nor the names of pieces and terms used in play throw any light on this point. I give at the end of these notes a list of the words most commonly used in the game, and the lan- guages from which they are derived, as given in Wilkinson's dictionary. The Sanscrit words seem as likely to have come through the Arabs, who learnt the game from India, as direct. Nor do Malay records shed any light on the way in which the game was introduced, so far as I have been able to discover. The most interesting points about the game are the similarities to, and the differences from, the game as now played in Europe, and as formerly played.
The board is 8 by 8 as in European chess, and the men except for the modifications to be pointed out, have the same moves and powers. They are the King (raja) the Queen (mentěri, minister), two Bishops (gajah, elephant), two knights (kuda, horse), two Rooks (tir, a name which appears to have no other meaning), and 8 pawns (bidak, also only the name of this piece).
The first great difference between the Malay game and ours, and one which entirely upsets all book knowledge of the openings which may have been acquired by a student of our game, when he attempts to play the Malay game, is in the arrangements of the pieces. With us king stands opposite king and queen opposite queen. In Malay chess the mentĕri stands
