bird, draggled and woebegone, with great patches of red flesh showing through
its wet plumage, with the membrane of its face, and its short gills and comb
swollen and bloody, with one eye put out, and the other only kept open by the
thread attached to its eyelid, yet makes shift to strut, with staggering gait, across
the cock-pit, and to notify its victory, by giving vent to a lamentable ghost of a
crow. Then it is carried off followed by an admiring, gesticulating, vociferous
crowd, to be elaborately tended and nursed, as befits so gallant a bird. The
beauty of the sport is that either bird can stop fighting at any moment. They are
never forced to continue the conflict if once they have declared themselves
defeated, and the only real element of cruelty is thus removed. The birds in
fighting, follow the instinct which nature has implanted in them, and their
marvellous courage and endurance surpass anything to be found in any other
animals, human or otherwise, with which I am acquainted. Most birds fight more
or less; from the little fierce quail, to the sucking doves which ignorant
Europeans, before their illusions have been dispelled by a sojourn in the East,
are accustomed to regard as the emblems of peace and purity; but no bird, or
beast, or fish, or human being fights so well, or takes such pleasure in the fierce
joy of battle, as does a plucky, lanky, ugly, hard-bit old fighting-cock.
The Malays regard these birds with immense respect, and value their fighting-
cocks next to their children. A few years ago, a boy, who was in charge of a cock
which belonged to a Râja of my acquaintance, accidentally pulled some feathers
from the bird's tail. 'What did you do that for? Devil!' cried the Râja.
'It was not done on purpose Ungku!' said the boy.
'Thou art marvellous clever at repartee!' quoth the Prince, and, so saying, he
lifted a billet of wood, which chanced to be lying near at hand, and smote the
boy on the head so that he died.
'That will teach my people to have a care how they use my fighting-cocks!' said
the Râja; and that was his servant's epitaph.
'It is a mere boyish prank,' said the father of the young Râja, when the matter
was reported to him, 'and moreover it is well that he should slay one or two with
his own hand, else how should men learn to fear him?' And there the matter
ended; but it should be borne in mind that the fighting cock of a Malay Prince is
not to be lightly trifled with.
I have said that all birds fight more or less, but birds are not alone in this. The
little wide-mouthed, goggled-eyed fishes, which Malay ladies keep in bottles and