Cocks of the same colour are never matched but a grey against a pile, a yellow against a red, or the like. This might have been originally designed to prevent disputes or knavish impositions. The Malay breed of cocks is much esteemed by connoisseurs who have had an opportunity of trying them. Great pains is taken in the rearing and feeding; they are frequently handled and accustomed to spar in public, in order to prevent any shyness. Contrary to our laws, the owner is allowed to take up and handle his cock during the battle to clear his eye of a feather or his mouth of blood. When a cock is killed, or runs, the other must have sufficient spirit and vigour left to peck at him three times, on his being held to him for that purpose, or it becomes a drawn battle; and sometimes an experienced cocker will place the head of his vanquished bird in such an uncouth posture as to terrify the other and render him unable to give this proof of victory. The cocks are never trimmed, but matched in full feather. The artificial spur used in Sumatra resembles in shape the blade of a scimitar, and proves a more destructive weapon than the European spur. It has no socket but is tied to the leg, and in the position of it the nicety of the match is regulated. As in horse-racing weight is proportioned to inches, so in cocking a bird of superior weight and size is brought to an equality with his adversary by fixing the steel spur so many scales of the leg above the natural spur, and thus obliging him to fight with a degree of disadvantage. It rarely happens that both cocks survive the combat.
In the northern parts of the island, where gold-dust is the common medium of gambling, as well as of trade, so much is accidentally dropped in weighing and delivering that at some cock-pits, where the resort of people is great, the sweepings are said, probably with exaggeration, to be worth upwards of a thousand dollars per annum to the owner of the ground; beside his profit of two fanams (five pence) for each battle.
QUAIL-FIGHTING.
In some places they match quails, in the manner of cocks. These fight with great inveteracy, and endeavour to seize each other by the tongue. The Achinese bring also into combat the dial-bird (murei) which resembles a small magpie, but has an agreeable though imperfect note. They sometimes engage one another on the wing, and drop to the ground in the struggle.
FENCING.
They have other diversions of a more innocent nature. Matches of fencing, or a species of tournament, are exhibited on particular days; as at the breaking up of their annual fast, or month of ramadan, called there the puasa. On these occasions they practise strange attitudes, with violent contortions of the body, and often work themselves up to a degree of frenzy, when the old men step in and carry them off. These exercises in some circumstances resemble the idea which the ancients have given us of the pyrrhic or war dance; the combatants moving at a distance from each other in cadence, and making many turns and springs unnecessary in the representation of a real combat. This entertainment is more common among the Malays than in the country. The chief weapons of offence used by these people are the kujur or lance and the kris. This last is properly Malayan, but in all parts of the island they have a weapon equivalent, though in general less curious in its structure, wanting that waving in the blade for which the kris is remarkable, and approaching nearer to daggers or knives.
Among their exercises we never observe jumping or running. They smile at the Europeans, who in their excursions take so many unnecessary leaps. The custom of going barefoot may be a principal impediment to this practice in a country overrun with thorny shrubs, and where no fences occur to render it a matter of expediency.
DIVERSION OF TOSSING A BALL.
They have a diversion similar to that described by Homer as practised among the Phaeacians, which consists in tossing an elastic wicker ball or round basket of split rattans into the air, and from one player to another, in a peculiar manner. This game is called by the Malays sipak raga, or, in the dialect of Bencoolen, chipak rago, and is played by a large party standing in an extended circle, who endeavour to keep up the ball by striking it either perpendicularly, in order to receive it again, or obliquely to some other person of the company, with the foot or the hand, the heel or the toe, the knee, the shoulder, the head, or with any other part of the body; the merit appearing to consist in producing the effect in the least obvious or most whimsical manner; and in this sport many of them attain an extraordinary degree of expertness. Among the plates of Lord Macartney's Embassy will be found the representation of a similar game, as practised by the natives of Cochinchina.
SMOKING OF OPIUM.