I notice that there is some idea of resuscitating Polo in Shanghai, and perhaps few lines from one of the first British players of the game may be interesting to your readers. As a young man, I was a tea planter in Cachar, North-East India, a country south of Assam, and I was one of the pioneer planters. This was in 1860, now 36 years ago. The country of Cachar borders on Manipur, the birthplace of hockey on horseback, for that was the name given to the grime Polo by the members of the first Club. Manipur was unknown to the general world until a few years ago when-the Resident was murdered, and since then a book, published by his wife, has given to the world a very fair account of the place. The game of Polo is the national game of the Manipuri, who have considerable dash of the Mongol clement in their composition. Every villager of any wealth has his pony. The ponies are trained yen quite young, the children when about eight years of age are put, riding bareback, on the young animals, which are twisted and tured about by the youngsters in a small cleared space in front of their houses.
fact it is amusement for the young ones and eventually amusement for the ponies. The children accustom the animal to the ball andthe stick and after a time the pony, when it has learned not to be frightened, has as much interest in the game as the rider.
There had been a certain amount of emigration of Mnnipuri into Cachar previous to the opening of the tea plantations and those people had settled on the level rice lands on the borders of the hilly portion of the country, which was, at the time I speak of, being rapidly formed into large tracts of tea plantations, which to this day exist and which have, unfortunately for China, had the effect of almost crippling the China tea trade. 'The planters, and I amongst the number, noticed the' Manipuri villagers turning out occasionally for a game amongst themselves, and we conceived the idea that it would not be a bad idea if we joined them. This we did, but as our ponies were untrained to the game, the brutes instead of going where we wished and at " convenient istence from the ball to strike it, would not do so, but kept away or swerved off when the stick was raised to effect a blow.
'They were terrified at the long stick swinging round their heads. In_a little, however, the villagers were induced,' for figure, to sell some of their animals that knew' the game and had, had thorough training. After a little time each planter had steam of seven including himself, and weekly he would go off with his team to his neigh-Douring planter, say 5 miles off, and have a friendly game. In the course of a year a Club was formed amongst the Europeans and games were played in Silchar, the capital—or station_as it is called in Indin—of Cachar. The Club originally consisted of the commissioner, deputy commissioner, the police officer in command of the district, the civil surgeon, and a few planters, your humble servant being amongst the latter.
During the cold season of 1863, Lbelieve, Capt. Sherer, "now General Sherer, the deputy commissioner, took a few ponies, sticks, and balls to Calcutta and a Club was started by the cavalry officers of the regiment stationed at that place. They took the game with them up to the northwest when removed to that part of India and eventually transplanted it to England. That is the true commencement of Polo and its introduction to the civilised world.
A hockey pony to be tory must be caught young, patiently trained, certainly not used in a trap; it may be ridden for a constitutional, by no means raced. The pony must be ridden with the lightest of reins and to be a good hockey playa one must have an easy seat. If properly trained and properly ridden the animal will enter into the spirit of the game as much as the rider, but hockey ponies and hockey riders are not made in a day.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.