Forbes in a reply to Alpha having pledged his truth and honour that the account of the moves and pieces in the copies of the Shahnama were precisely as he had given them, Linde after honour has (!!)

Forbes’ statement runs as follows: 

9th November, 1855, (1860, p. 56,) Zu Antworten.  “My answer to Alpha is that the M.S.S. from which I made (not derived) my translations describing the moves of the pieces are precisely those I mentioned, viz., No. 18188 and No. 7724 preserved in the British Museum.  At the same time I briefly consulted some nine or ten other M.S.S. of the Shahnama in the British Museum as well as Macan’s printed edition, yea more, I consulted the so called copy of great antiquity alluded to by Alpha before it came to the Museum.  Well, in all of these, with, I believe, only one exception, the account of the moves does occur exactly (!) as I have given them, always excepting or rather excluding a couplet about two camels (die namliche nicht in die Bude des Tachenspielers passten es weiter unten) Und nun geht es echt fesuitisch weiter, Alpha denies the existence (!) (A hat in Gegentheil Hyde I, p. 63 Citirt) of the account of the moves in every copy of the Shahnama.  I, on the other hand pledge my truth and honour (!!) Linde), that the account of the moves does occur in every one of the manuscripts as well as in Macan’s printed edition (Vgl.  App. p. x. lin. 6 unt.).  The misconception on the part of Alpha arose from a very simple (:) circumstance.  In Firdausi’s account of the game the story happens to be interrupted (:) in the middle of the insertion of two other long stories, as we often see in the Arabian nights.

“In matters of this sort it is only the truth that offends.

“(Man vergleiche hierzu noch seine Schnapserklurung der Weisheit des Buzurdschmir, p. 54.)”

Forbes also adds p. 56.  And I am quite ready to point out the passage in all of them to any gentleman and scholar who may have the least doubt on the matter.

Historians of the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries who lived before Masudi, deemed the game worthy of notice and recommendation, Razi and Firdausi thought so too, and Hippocrates and Galen before them refer very favourably to its advantages, describing it as beneficial in many ailments, and we may reasonably assume that they at least, as well as the poets and philosophers before them, back to the fifth century B.C. deemed the game passing in their minds, and the invention of which they were wont to speculate on, as one of some interest, beauty and significance and worthy of appreciation then as it has been in succeeding ages.

Once more, no example is given of his Kriegsspiel, Nerdspiel, Wulfervierschach, Trictrac, or any Spiel or game implied under the word Bretspiel, the last named being moreover a general term for games played on a chess board, rather than a distinctive appellation for a particular species of game or indication of the pieces or value of forces employed in it.