As I have said in a former chapter, the natives of Pahang are, in their own way,
very keen sportsmen indeed; and, when all is said and done, it is doubtful
whether hunting is not more cruel than anything which takes place in a Malay
cock-pit or bull-ring. The longer the run the better the sport, and more intense
and prolonged the agony of the fox, that strives to run for his life, even when he
is so stiff with exertion that he can do little more than roll along. All of us have,
at one time or another, experienced in nightmares the agony of attempting to fly
from some pursuing phantom, when our limbs refuse to serve us. This, I fancy, is
much what a fox suffers, only his pains are intensified by the grimness of stern
reality. If he stops he loses his life, therefore he rolls, and flounders, and creeps
along when every movement has become a fresh torture. The cock, quail, dove,
bull, ram, or fish,^156 on the other hand, fights because it is his nature to do so,
and when he has had his fill he stops. His pluck, his pride, and his hatred of
defeat alone urge him to continue the contest. He is never driven by the
relentless whip of stern, inexorable necessity. This it is which makes fights
between animals, that are properly conducted, less cruel than one is apt to
imagine.”^157
I will now pass to the subject of cock-fighting, of which the following vivid
description is also taken from Mr. Clifford’s In Court and Kampong.^158
“In the Archipelago, and on the West Coast of the Peninsula, cock-fights are
conducted in the manner known to the Malays as bĕr-tâji, the birds being armed
with long artificial spurs, sharp as razors, and curved like a Malay woman’s
eyebrow. These weapons make cruel wounds, and cause the death of one or
other of the combatants almost before the sport has well begun. To the Malay of
the East Coast this form of cock-fighting is regarded as stupid and
unsportsmanlike, an opinion which I fully share. It is the marvellous pluck and
endurance of the birds that lend an interest to a cock-fight—qualities which are
in no way required if the birds are armed with weapons other than those with
which they are furnished by nature.
“A cock-fight between two well-known birds is a serious affair in Pahang. The
rival qualities of the combatants have furnished food for endless discussion for
weeks, or even months, before, and every one of standing has visited and
examined the cocks, and has made a book upon the event. On the day fixed for
the fight a crowd collects before the palace, and some of the King’s youths set