India, Jan. 26 -- The Arabian Nights stories and even the relation of them have given rise to a number of puzzles, with one of the best known being adding up grains of wheat placed in geometric progression on the 64 squares of a chessboard. We will not go into something so basic in Problematics.

I found an interesting one in a book of puzzles I bought as a student several decades ago. Edited by the late puzzler David Pritchard, the compilation contains an Arabian Nights-themed puzzle whose working is somewhat similar to another puzzle, not related to the Arabian Nights, that appeared during the first year of Problematics in HT. I have repackaged the puzzle from Pritchard's book in a setting outside of ancient Arabia.

#Puzzle 179.1

The ...