Salta (Italian for "Jump!"), a table-game for two introduced at the end of the 19th century, founded on the more ancient game of Halma. It is played on a board containing 100 squares, coloured alternately black and white. Each player has a set of 15 pieces, one set being green, the other pink. These are placed upon the black squares of the first three rows nearest the player, and are classified in these rows as stars, moons and suns. The pawns move forward one square at a time, except when a pawn is situated in front of a hostile piece with an unoccupied space on the further side, in which case the hostile pawn must be jumped, as at draughts, but without removing the jumped pawn from the board. The object of the game is to get one's pieces on the exact squares corresponding to their own on the enemy's side, the stars in the star-line, the moons in the moon-line, &c. Salta tournaments have taken place in which chess masters of repute participated.
See Salta, by Schubert (Leipzig, 1900).
