“The Malays are remarkably attached to singing reciprocal Pantuns, stanzas comprising four alternate rhyming lines, of which notice has been taken elsewhere. Poetical contests in the Bucolic style are often carried on to a great length by means of Pantuns. To music Malays are passionately devoted, particularly to that of the violin. They evince a good ear, and great readiness in committing to memory even European airs. A voyage or journey of any length is seldom undertaken by the better classes without a minstrel.

“Takki Takki[167] are riddles and enigmas, to the propounding and solving of which the females and educated classes of the people are much inclined.

“The games played by children are Tujoh Lobang,[168] Punting, Chimpli, Kechil Krat, Kuboh, etc.”[169]

Of all minor games, top-spinning and kite-flying are perhaps the most popular. The kites are called layang-layang, which means a “swallow,” but are sometimes of great size, one which was brought to me at Langat measuring some six feet in height by about seven feet between the tips of the wings. The peculiarity of the Malay kite is that it presents a convex, instead of a concave, surface to the wind, and that no “tail” is required, the kite being steadied by means of a beak which projects forward at the top of the framework. They are also usually provided with a thin, horizontal slip of bamboo (dĕngong) stretched tightly behind the beak, and which hums loudly in the wind. They are of a great number of different but well-recognised patterns, such as the “Fighting Dragons” (Naga bĕrjuang), the Crescent (Sahari bulan), the Eagle (Rajawali), the Bird of Paradise (Chĕndrawasih), and so forth. A small kind of roughly-made kite is, as is well known, used at Singapore for fishing purposes, but I have never yet met with any instance of their being used ceremonially, though it is quite certain that grown-ups will fly them with quite as much zest as children.

Top-spinning, again, is a favourite pastime among the Malays, and is played by old and young of all ranks with the same eagerness.[170] The most usual form of top is not unlike the English pegtop, but has a shorter peg. It is spun in the same way and with the same object as our own pegtop, the object being to split the top of one’s opponent.

Teetotums are also used, and I have seen in Selangor a species of bamboo humming-top, but was told that it was copied from a humming-top used by the Chinese.

“The game of chess, which has been introduced from Arabia,[171] is played in almost precisely the same manner as among Europeans, but the queen, instead of being placed upon her own colour, is stationed at the right hand of the king. In the Malay game the king, if he has not been checked, can be castled, but over one space only, not over two, as in the English game. The king may, also, before he is checked or moved from his own square, move once, like a knight, either to left or right, and he may also, if he has not moved or been checked, move once over two vacant squares instead of one.” The following are the names of the pieces:—

Main chongkak, again, is a game played with a board (papan chongkak) consisting of a boat-shaped block.

In the top of this block (where the boat’s deck would be) are sunk a double row of holes, the rows containing eight holes each, and two more holes are added, one at each end. Each of the eight holes (in both rows) is filled at starting with eight buah gorek (the buah gorek being the fruit of a common tree, also called kĕlichi in Malacca). There are usually two players who pick the buah gorek out of the holes in turn, and deposit them in the next hole according to certain fixed rules of numerical combination, a solitary buah gorek, wherever it is found, being put back and compelled to recommence its journey down the board.