Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/420

Rh 404 P L P L the principal authority on the game, it is provided that the goals shall be &quot; not less than 250 yards apart and that each goal shall be 8 yards wide.&quot; The English name of the game is perhaps derived from &quot; pulu,&quot; which is the Tibetan for a ball, and the pastime itself reached India from Persia through Afghanistan. It speedily gained i avour with the officers of British cavalry regiments quartered in India, and was introduced into the United Kingdom in 1871 by the 10th Hussars. As far as can be ascertained the first match played on English soil took place at Aldershot in the spring of that year. This, how ever, is not absolutely certain, as no records seem to have been preserved of the early contests. Under the rules of the game as now played the opposing parties may consist of from three to six players a side, the number in all matches for cups or prizes being limited to four. Each of the players is mounted on a pony which must not exceed fourteen hands and which must be free from, any vice. As the description of the game as &quot;hockey on horseback&quot; would imply, the object of the pastime is to force a ball by means of a stick, with which each player is furnished, through the goal of the opposing side. The size of the ball is 3 inches in diameter, and the sticks are 4 feet long with a cross piece at one end for the purpose of striking the ball. At the commencement of a game each side takes up its position behind the goal posts. A player on each side is appointed as goal-keeper. On a flag being dropped to notify the commencement of the game, the other players gallop towards the centre of the ground at full speed, their object being to reach the ball first and drive it in the direction of the opposite goal. When a ball is hit out of bounds it is thrown into play again by one of the umpires, of whom there is one ap pointed for each side before the commencement of a match. When a ball is hit beyond the goal without passing through it the side defending goal is entitled to a &quot;hit off,&quot; which must be made from the goal line. It is allowable in the course of play to impede an adversary and hinder his stroke by hooking his stick, but this must not bfe done either under or over his pony. Whilst it is permissible for a player to interpose his pony before his antagonist so as to prevent the latter reaching the ball, it is expressly forbidden to cross another player in possession of the ball except at such a distance as to avoid all possibility of collision. Should a player break his stick or have it broken he must ride to the appointed place where the sticks are kept and take one, and on no account is one to be brought to him. If he drops his stick he must dis mount and pick it up, and is not allowed to hit the ball whilst dismounted. If a player is in front of a player of his own side who hits the ball, and has not two or in case of matches of four a side, one of the opposing side between him and the hostile goal, and has not come through the &quot;bully,&quot; he is &quot;off side.&quot; He does not then come &quot; on his side &quot; until the ball has been hit or hit at by the opposing side, or until the player on his own side who made the hit passes him. As long as he is &quot; off side &quot; he may not in any way impede a player of the opposite side. In all matches the duration of play is 1 hour 10 minutes, with an interval of 5 minutes after each 20 minutes play. Owing to the expense of maintaining a specially trained stud of ponies and a prepared ground for the pastime, the pursuit of the game of polo has always been confined to the wealthier classes in England. Its chief supporters are the younger members of the aristocracy and the officers of British cavalry regiments. POLO, MARCO (c. 1254-1324), the Venetian, the most famous perhaps of all travellers. His history needs to be introduced by some account of the preceding generation of his family, and of the state of the world which rendered their and his extensive travels possible. Under CHINA, in the introductory portion (vol. v. G27 sq.) we have briefly indicated the circumstances which in the last half of the 13th century and first half of the 14th threw Asia open to Western travellers to a degree unknown before and since. We first hear of the Polo family in the year 12GO. The vast wave of Tartar con quest, set in motion by Jenghiz Khan, and continuing to advance for some years after his death, had swept away all political barriers from the China Sea to the western frontier of Russia. This huge extent of empire continued for a time to own a supreme chief in the Great Khan, the head of the house of Jenghiz, whose headquarters were in the Mongolian steppe. Practically indeed the empire soon began to split up into several great monarchies under the descendants of his four sons, in order of age Juji, Jagatai, Oghotai, and Tuli. At the date we have named the supreme khanate had recently devolved upon Kublai, son of Tuli, and, after the founder, the ablest of his house. In the beginning of his reign Kublai carried out the transfer of the seat of rule from Karakorum on the northern verge of the Mongolian plains to the populous and civilized regions that had been conquered in the further East, a transfer which eventually converted the Tartar khan into a Chinese emperor. Barka, the son of Juji, and the first of the house of Jenghiz to turn Moslem, reigned on the steppes of the Volga, where a standing camp, which eventually became a great city under the name of Sarai, had been established by his brother and predecessor Batu. Hulagu, a younger brother of Kublai, after taking Baghdad, and putting the caliph Mosta sim to death, had become practically independent ruler of Persia, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, and Armenia, though he and his sons and his sons sons continued to the end of the century to stamp the name of the Great Khan upon their coins, and to use the Chinese seal of state which he conferred. The house of Jagatai had settled upon the pastures of the Hi and in the valley of the Jaxartes, and ruled also the populous cities of Samarkand and Bokhara. Kaidu, grandson of Oghotai, who had been the immedi ate successor of Jenghiz, refused to recognize the transfer of supreme authority to his cousins, and through the long life of Kublai was a thorn in the side of the latter. His immediate authority was exercised in what we should now call Chinese Turkestan and Southern Central Siberia. Northern China had been conquered by Jenghiz and his successors from the Tartar dynasty called Kin or &quot;Golden,&quot; who had held it about a century. But southern China still remained in the hands of the native dynasty, whose capital was the great city now known as Hang-chow-foo. Their dominion was still substantially intact, but its subjugation was a task to which Kublai soon turned his attention, and it became the most pro minent transaction of his reign. In India the most powerful sovereign was the Turk sultan of Delhi ; but, though both Sind and Bengal owned his supremacy, no part of peninsular India had yet been invaded. The Dravidian kingdoms of the south were still untouched by foreign conquest, and the accumulated gold of ages lay in their temples and treasuries an easy prey for the coming Moslem. In the Indo-Chinese peninsula and the Eastern Islands a variety of kingdoms and dynasties were expanding and contracting, of which we have but dim and shifting glimpses. Their advance in wealth and art, far beyond what the present state of those regions would suggest, is attested by the vast and magnificent mediaeval remains of architecture which are found at intervals over both the