THE ROMANCE OF POLO.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 13546, 6 October 1909, Page 10

THE ROMANCE OF POLO.

Bγ T. F. Dauc, in "The Illustrated Sporting . ' »nd Drunatio News." The'game of polo is so ancient that its origin is uncertain, but., from ite appearance in history it has been, sur- . rounded by a glamour of romance. . Indeed, one of the* earliest polo matches on record is described in the Sha"hnama Tthe Iliad of Persia) in connac- . tion with the romantic story of c»iawuech. Persia, which hue the credit of - being the cradle of polOj was in ancient days one of the most chivalrous and poetic of nations. The Persiins thought, and indeed to «wn© extent etill think, in verse. ..... In the East polo was to the warriors, and nobles what the tourney was Iα the Middle Ages. How completely the game was woven- into the web of the national' life is shown by the numberless allusions -to polo in the chivalrio and mystic poetry of the land. The game supplies metaphors, and illustrations,to the poets of war, love, and.religion alike. Every school- _, boy knows that the young Persian, wos taught to ride, to shoot with, bow and arrow, and to tell the truth; and polo 'no doubt was α-development -from 'iha exercises of the young horsemen who ■were -fcbe pride and strength of Persian ■ armies, ..■'■■•' ■ . ." ■■'■■■.

armies, ;•■.-.■ From. Poreia the game spread all over the East. It became popular in India, touched Europe by way of the Byzantine Empire' at Constantinople, and is of great antiquity in China, where it is first mentioned m the eighth century, though the game itself was probably much older than that date among cVo Tartar tribes enbdued by the Chinese. Ancient as polo is in the East, it is probably more recent , than football. It is, /however, in the Shah-nama, or book of the kings, composed by Firdousi towards the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century of onr era, that we find the most elaborate account of the game. This poem, which is the national epio of the Per-

sians, as the Iliad is of the Hellenes, was based on a profound knowledge of the ancient ballad poetry of Persia. Firdousi, like our own Walter, Scott, collected with immense labour the nch store of ballad poetry in which the ancient history of Persia was embalmed, and fused ite traditions and legends into a great epic poem of sixty thousand verses. Two things are cle.tr from the Shah-nama—that Firdousi was familiar.with the game, and that it was then a very ancient sport. Skill and dash at polo added to the fam-< and popularity of .princes. There is, for instance, Siawusch, already referrsd to, whose fame aa a polo player lia«j travelled from. Teheran to Tashkend. Indeed, his exploits at the game, his gallant bearing, and his noble horsemanship attracted the favourable notice of a rcqral lady. Failing to obtain a response trom th© prince, she acousod him falsely. Siawusclr claimed to pro.-c his innocence by passing through the ordeal of fire. This was granted, and the prince was successful; nevertheless the lady's word prevailed, and with a *„„, ; n UV.fnl MimiMnihni fiiiYTrtiKrli fled

to the court of Afrasiab. Here his polo served him in good stead, for, although : King Afrasiab was his hereditary foe, yet there was, we are told, a great polo match, and they made friends over the game. King .Afrasiab did not play, but bowled in the ball, just as the umpire ! does to-day; Siawusch hit the ball ere it touched the ground, and the game began. His face, says tbo-poet, showed his enjoyment of and keenness at the game aX[ the spectators admired his horsemanship, his skill at polo, and Bis good looks. In the evening the princes , and their followers who had played polo

dined together and drank each others health. Thus did polo cost Siawusch a kingdom, and gain him a refuge. Nor is this the only romantic etory connected with polo in the great Persian epic. Chosroes 11., -who, by the way, appears in the pages of Gibbons great history, used to play polo with the ladies of his court. Shmn. the Queen, was a daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Maurice, a Christian by religion, a Roman by birth. She rode as the women in the East do, en cavalier, and was a skilled polo player. lnduckily she had a rival in the Kings affections in Gurdiya. Whether Gurdiya was a better polo player or not she did succeed, after a polo m? 1 *" . in which seventy ladies took part, in winning the King's affection and sharing the honours of the kingdom. Shirm described her as a "she-devil," so perhaps her rival played an unfair game in love, or polo, or both. It is tolerably certain that the Crusaders must have seen polo at Constantinople, but so far as I know no chronicler records the game, although the story of the exploits of tho Emperor Manuel* Comnenus (a.d. 1143-11S0) at the tournaments arranged for the knights as they passed through have come down to iis. Cinnamus, the Emperor's secretary, who has left us a dull if businesslike history, gives a matter-of-fact account of the game as played by the Emperor. It is rather noteworthy that nearly all Eastern statesmen and advisers consider polo too dangerous and too rough a game for royalty. They nearly always disapprove of it, and alike in Constantinople, in China, or Persia the .fondness of kings and" emperors for the game u> recorded among their faults. In China, at all events, polo and intemperance an; associated. "Ban Ling comes back very drunk from polo.' . The real reason was, I think, that in-the East the game was then, as now, a very rough one at times, and it was thought unseemly for subject and sovereign to contend for possession of the ball. As a matter of fact, it is many centuries since a reigning sovereign took part in the game until in our own day it has become a favourite recreation with King Altonso of Spain, and some of the Indian sovereign princes, like Patiala, Jodhpore, and Dholepore. There is a glamour and a charm about the game, the rattle of hoofs, and the crack of the stick on the ball, which has always made it a soldiers game. Polo is in some aspects more truly the image of war than hunting; and it is interesting to- note the charm it has had for the best of our cavalry soldiers. What a list of distinguished soldiers who loved polo one could write down! To take only those who died soldiers' deaths in South Africa: —Lord Airlie, Colonel Lβ Gallais, Major "Jack" Han-well, and Cortland Mackenzie of the Gunners, Captain Rose of "The Blues," gallant young Knowles of the Yeomanry, and many more whom I have seen in India and in England playing with dash and go on the polo field.

Probably the Emperor Akbar was not far wrong when he watched his young men playing polo, and picked out those who showed temper, courage, and dash for promotion in his service. Every now and then in history wo obtain glimpses of the game. Sir Anthony Shirley, who visited Ispahan in the seventeenth century, described the ground and the game, and very aptly compares it with the rough football co popular in England in the reign of James let. Later in the same century, Chardin, a French traveller in Persia, was struck with the enthusiasm of the Court for the game, and the. skill of the pjayors. It has always seemed to mc a strange thing that the game did not make its way into Europe much sooner than it did; but from its cradle in Persia polo was driven by the troubles of the eighteenth century, and from India by the fall of the Mogul Empire, till at last it only lingered in remote corners of the East. The warrior nobles of Japan still kept it up, but in Persia and China it died out, and only a few wild tribes on the frontier of India played polo. Their game was very different indeed in its wild hurly-burly from the scientific sport described by Firdmisi, by Shirley, or by Chardin. The ancient. Persian gnsae was probably in its rules end tactics far more like our modern game than the ecrimmagee of the frontier tribes of Manipur or Gilgit. Colonel Durand tells us, in "The Slaking of a Frontier," how one of the rules is that the man who hits a goal is not. allowed to score until he has (picked up the ball. "The man who has hit the goal through the posts throws himself off his pony and tries to pick up -the ball, while the other eide, with fine impartiality, hit him or the ball or , ride over him in their endeavour to save the goal." This rough game, which is a national sport'among these frontier tribes, is not so much a survival of the ancient Persian game as a degenerate and barbarous form of a highly organised e,piort fajlen on evil times.

In 1854 came the revival of polo. Some Bengal planters first saw the poissibilitics of the game. ; From them it spread to the cavalry regiments serving in India. In 1867 some officers of the 10th Hussars at Alderahot, after reading an account of the game in India, played a trial game on chargers with hockey-sticks and a billiard 'ball. It seems simple enough, a few idle officers trying a new game to while away a ieasure time; but it is a characteristic of polo that wherever it has been introduced' it makes • history. Among cavalry officers in England an.d India the game developed rapidly, to a much greater extent than has been generally known. For example, it is always said that the Jato John Watson was the first to employ that back-handed stroke which players like Mr Lawrence Waterbury, the famous American player, have brought to such perfection, bat in reality this stroke was "used in cavalry regiments long before our great English polo player joined the 13th Hussars. As a matter of fact, polo was introduced into ourerniy at a critical moment. The introduction of the game was coincident with the fatal policy which in the beginning of the South African war wrote that "infantry was preferred." Our cavalry regiments were underhorsed, undermanned, and broken up into detachments, so that it was almost impossible for an officer to learn his work. Indifference and discouragement spread throughout the oav- ! airy service. Polo appeared, and revived the chivalrous spirit of the horse-soldier, taught him horsemanship end horsemastership, and helped to fan into a flame tlie esprit de corps and friendly rivalry of historic regiments. Nor was.this all. For when the famous Hurlingham House, where so many grave judges had lived and one Chancellor had been born, hod its orchard grubbed up to make a polo ground, and the want of more space for the game renewed in the Banelagh Club the glories of the old Kitcat Club at Barn Elms, polo attracted many civilian players. The soldiers were in those days the leading players and the instructors. But polo waked up the latent chivalry in Englishmen, and one of the best-known figures of the 'eighties was that of old Mr Peat, the shellac merchant, who spent money and judgment on ponies for his sons, the famous polo players, and followed the rise of the game with the keenest enthusiasm. The game owes much to the generosity and enthusiasm of the elder Peat. Polo has a wonderful faculty, based, perhaps, on its historic and poetic past, for touching the imagination and arousing enthusiasm. Any day a tall, keen-faced • man may be seen at first-dass matches watching the three sons, one of whom was the best "back," and another the, best "IVo. 2" player of our day. This is Sir Patteson Nickalls, a keen man of

business, an eager politician, himself c good man over a country, and a capital coachman of four horses. We have seen how polo kept alive tho cavalry spirit of the Army in a time of <let)ression and neglect. It awoke it among business men; and I do not hesitate to attribute to polo, to the spirit of the game, and to the example of the splendid soldiers who taught us the game—Watson, Maclaren, Charles Bentinck, >falcolm Little, Lo Gallais, Peters, Renton, T. Hone, <!e Lisle, and others—the response of the City of London and other groat business centres to the call for vcomen. Xor "was that all, for polo had made men horsemen and horsesoldiers at heart, who, but for the game, would never have gone to South Africa, or been able to do service Polo has often been compared to the tournaments of the.Middle Ages, and it resembles them in the eagerness and interest shown by ladies in the game. Tt fell to my lot at one of the recent American v. England matches to sit between two parties of ladies representing England and America. It would be difficult to know which was the more enthusiastic, though the Americans were the more articulate, and, I think, the better judges of the game. And surely these American ladies !had cause for their enthusiasm. There is something chivalrous and romantic in the quest for the cup borne off, neariy a quarter of a century ago. by four English soldiers, who travelled to New York for the purpose. Ever since, at intervals, bands of young American players, bankers, lawrers, and men of business, thave como over' to endeavour to rescue the Cup from its guardian dragons at the Hurlingham Club. They have spent time, Eiought, and money on it. and havo now come to success, such brilliant, daring players are they, and so wisely have they bought ponies for the game. And sureiy in the romance of polo no small part is taken by the ponies. The English polo pony is the typical animajl of its class, and has been, in fact, tho creation of the game. What is wanted is a Avell-bred, compact animal, that shall be almost as fast as a racer, as powerful as a fourteen-etone hunter, and as handy and gentle as—well, as a polo pony. Let us go back to the origin of some of this famous team of American ponies, which many judges believe to be the best they have ever seen. I take tho bay mare, Summer Lightning, first, not because she is better than any of the others, but because the history of her life and descent arc familiar to mc. Somewhere in the early 'eighties there was on the Welsh hills a little pony mare. Active, clever, and handy, she picked up her own living, summer, and winter. But with a stout constitution, and plenty of intelligence, derived from ancestors who had won tho battle of life in the mountains of Wales, she grew sturdy, active, and strong. So at last she was picked out by a good judge, and a mate of high degree sought for her, and then at Wrexham she produced a filly foal, Cuddington, bigger, (handsomer, speedier than herself, which in due course was sold to go to England, where she won prizes at Islington and elsewhere, and was mated with Rosewater. This pony was of the pufWt blood. The names of famous horses, winners of the Derby, like Beadsman Crucifix, and Priam, were in his pedigree, Touchstone, Whalebone and Waxy are among Ihis ancestors.' Eclipse occurs many times; and 1 Herod often. Of this union came Sandi■way and Summer Lightning is his daughter. Thus 'the mare's pedigree goes back to Wales and the Arabian deserts, and ehe unites the speed, courage, intelligence, and hardihood of both lines of blood. Twice she won a fifty-guinea cup for the best pony mare of her year, and •then in due course she was trained for her breeder. Sir John Barker. M.P., in his private riding school, and was sent to Rugby, and there learned her business in the polo field. Then she was Selected by Mr H. P. Whitney, the captain of the American team, and is now being played by Mr Waterbury as No. lin the team; It is the combination of mountain and desert, blood which exists more or lees in all English ponies which makes them the best in the world. Some ponies of this type went out to South Africa and won the approval of Lord Kitchener. No one wfho'has not ridden a first-rate polo pony knows what the perfection of action and the height of equine cleverness can be. There is an old trial of speed which is often seen at' Indian gymkhanas. A dismounted man and a man on a pony race for a hundred yards, fifty yards out, and home round a post. As a jrule the pony reaches the post first, but loses so much time in turning that the man wins; but I had a pony that could twist round the post as quick as the man, and of course always won. That was an accomplished polo pony. She knew the game as well as her owner, and if you hit a backhander, whisked round at the sound of the stick on the ball so quickly that I have known the rider to be left eitting on the ground. There is no kind or horse we ride so closely united with us by ties of mutual confidence as the polo pony. The man and the pony are, for the purposes of polo,- one (or they ought to be), and I have calculated that of the value to his side of a good player, the pony counts as one-third and the man two-thirds. But sometimes the pony is of the most value. In aid cases first-rate players are made such by tho possession of perfect ponies. Even Mr Buckmaster, the greatest living player* would be willing to acknowledge his debt to Sunshine and Bendigo; Mr Walter Jones would never tire" of tolling of the exploits of Luna; Mr C. "D. Miller has perliaps (playing back), saved more goals from the back of Santa R&mona than any other player of the day. Polo is indeed the game which brings back into the lives of busy men the romance and chivalry which the hard struggles of life have forced under the surface, but which are latent in almost every Englishman, no matter what his rank or occupation.