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. This man had
succeeded, by assiduous cultivation, in raising a pair of
moustaches which were a triumph of art, for they each contained
about a dozen hairs more than three inches long, and which, being
well greased and twisted, were distinctly visible (when not too
far off) as a black thread hanging down on each side of his
mouth. But the beard to match was the difficulty, for nature had
cruelly refused to give him a rudiment of hair on his chin, and
the most talented gardener could not do much if he had nothing to
cultivate. But true genius triumphs over difficulties. Although
there was no hair proper on the chin; there happened to be,
rather on one side of it, a small mole or freckle which contained
(as such things frequently do) a few stray hairs. These had been
made the most of. They had reached four or five inches in length,
and formed another black thread dangling from the left angle of
the chin. The owner carried this as if it were something
remarkable (as it certainly was); he often felt it
affectionately, passed it between his fingers, and was evidently
extremely proud of his moustaches and beard!
One of the most surprising things connected with Aru was the
excessive cheapness of all articles of European or native
manufacture. We were here two thousand miles beyond Singapore and
Batavia, which are themselves emporiums of the "far east," in a
place unvisited by, and almost unknown to, European traders;
everything reached us through at least two or three hands, often
many more; yet English calicoes and American cotton cloths could
be bought for 8s. the piece, muskets for 15s., common scissors
and German knives at three-halfpence each, and other cutlery,
cotton goods, and earthenware in the same proportion. The natives
of this out-of-the-way country can, in fact, buy all these things
at about the same money price as our workmen at home, but in
reality very much cheaper, for the produce of a few hours' labour
enables the savage to purchase in abundance what are to him
luxuries, while to the European they are necessaries of life. The
barbarian is no happier and no better off for this cheapness. On
the contrary, it has a most injurious effect on him. He wants the
stimulus of necessity to force him to labour; and if iron were as
dear as silver, and calico as costly as satin, the effect would
be beneficial to him. As it is, he has more idle hours, gets a
more constant supply of tobacco, and can intoxicate himself with
arrack more frequently and more thoroughly; for your Aru man
scorns to get half drunk-a tumbler full of arrack is but a slight
stimulus, and nothing less than half a gallon of spirit will make
him tipsy to his own satisfaction.
It is not agreeable to reflect on this state of things.
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