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 the combatants.
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