sunshine, with sometimes a pretty little kangaroo, caught in the Aru forests, but
already tame and graceful as a petted fawn.
Of an evening there were more signs of life than at the time of my former
residence. Tom-toms, jews'-harps, and even fiddles were to be heard, and the
melancholy Malay songs sounded not unpleasantly far into the night. Almost
every day there was a cock-fight in the street. The spectators make a ring, and
after the long steel spurs are tied on, and the poor animals are set down to gash
and kill each other, the excitement is immense. Those who lave made bets
scream and yell and jump frantically, if they think they are going to win or lose,
but in a very few minutes it is all over; there is a hurrah from the winners, the
owners seize their cocks, the winning bird is caressed and admired, the loser is
generally dead or very badly wounded, and his master may often be seen
plucking out his feathers as he walks away, preparing him for the cooking pot
while the poor bird is still alive.
A game at foot-ball, which generally took place at sunset, was, however,
much more interesting to me. The ball used is a rather small one, and is made of
rattan, hollow, light, and elastic. The player keeps it dancing a little while on his
foot, then occasionally on his arm or thigh, till suddenly he gives it a good blow
with the hollow of the foot, and sends it flying high in the air. Another player
runs to meet it, and at its first bound catches it on his foot and plays in his turn.
The ball must never be touched with the hand; but the arm, shoulder, knee, or
thigh are used at pleasure to rest the foot. Two or three played very skilfully,
keeping the ball continually flying about, but the place was too confined to show
off the game to advantage. One evening a quarrel arose from some dispute in the
game, and there was a great row, and it was feared there would be a fight about
it—not two men only, but a party of a dozen or twenty on each side, a regular
battle with knives and krisses; but after a large amount of talk it passed off
quietly, and we heard nothing about it afterwards.
Most Europeans being gifted by nature with a luxuriant growth of hair upon
their faces, think it disfigures them, and keep up a continual struggle against her
by mowing down every morning the crop which has sprouted up flaring the
preceding twenty-four hours. Now the men of Mongolian race are, naturally, just
as many of us want to he. They mostly pass their lives with faces as smooth and
beardless as an infant's. But shaving seems an instinct of the human race; for
many of these people, having no hair to take off their faces, shave their heads.
Others, however, set resolutely to work to force nature to give them a beard. One
of the chief cock-fighters at Dobbo was a Javanese, a sort of master of the
ceremonies of the ring, who tied on the spars and acted as backer-up to one of