458 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



respected parents, women subject but not sup- 

 pressed, men ruling but not despotic, reverence 

 with kindness, obedience in affec-ion, these form 

 a lovable picture, nor by any means a rare one 

 in the villages of the Eastern idles. 



Our mid-day meal, the components of which 

 differ little from those of a West Indian or a 

 Bombay up-country mmu, with cookery to match, 

 is over. Follows, for those who desire it, a 

 dreamy half-siesta of cigars, and the green cool- 

 ness of rustling bamboo-sprays outside the win- 

 dow, with glimpses of a shining river and light 

 outrigger canoes gliding over it just seen betwixt 

 the leaves ; a purple vclcano-peak and a faint 

 blue mountain-range bey#nd. And now the white, 

 perpendicular glare of noon is slanting into mel- 

 lowness, and we stroll out-of-doors for a survey 

 of the village, keeping a whenever we can under 

 the shade of the thick - planted garden -trees, 

 mango, palm, orange, lanzon, santol, medlar, fifty 

 more, each with its own peculiar foliage and fruit, 

 pleasant to the eye and good to eat, a survival 

 of Eden. The villagers' houses, some large, some 

 small, wood or bamboo, two-storied or one, mere 

 huts or spacious dwellings, according to the for- 

 tunes of the inmates, are jotted here and there in 

 an unsymmetrical row among the trees with utter 

 disregard of proportionate dimensions ; but all 

 have a comfortable, a cozy look, suggestive of 

 sufficiency; many of them, white, painted with 

 stripes green or blue, rarely red, and occasionally 

 a flower pattern or fanciful scroll-work to enliven 

 them more, show an aUc-mpt at decoration ; oth- 

 ers are content with the pale yellow of the split 

 and interlaced bamboo that forms their walls ; 

 the roofing is gray palm-thatch. On this festival- 

 day lamps are placed ready for lighting at every 

 window, and over every doorway, flower-garlands 

 hang between, and frequent arches of cane, fes- 

 tooned with white or red cloth, and hung with 

 lanterns of more colors than Joseph's coat, span 

 the road. We- have left behind us the white 

 church and '' convents," the capitan's many-win- 

 dowed house, the guard-station, wheje a couple 

 of brown young policemen, natives, of course, 

 but attired in Spanish military uniform, languidly 

 keep what courtesy may name watch, and now 

 we have before us a large wattled building, sur- 

 rounded by a wide inclosure, and with extensive 

 galleries in front and on the sides ; tVe central 

 thatch-roof towers dome-like above the rest. 

 Several natives, clad, for the day is yet hot, in 

 the gauzicst and most transparent of hemp blouses, 

 or absolutely naked to the waist, are entering the 

 crowded gateway, others are issuing from it. like 



bees about the mouth of a hive ; all is animation, 

 almost — so far as the word is compatible with 

 Malay composure — excitement. It is the village 

 cockpit, the great afternoon resort of Sundays 

 and holidays as observed throughout this entire 

 region of the world, from Penang to the confines 

 of New Guinea ; in the Philippines most of all. 



Whether the Malays, as some writers assert, 

 learned cock-fighting from the Spaniards, or the 

 Spaniards, as others opine, from the Malays, I 

 will not attempt to decide ; the historical problem 

 is too complicated. But from whichever the ori- 

 gin of the sport, it is certain that the zeal for it 

 that nowadays glows in every native breast from 

 Luzon to Mindanao, let alone the rest of Malaysia, 

 is such as might rejoice the soul of a Windham 

 himself. Rich or poor, it would be hard to find 

 a Malay householder, Docan, Tagal, Visaian, or 

 whatever his tribe and island in the great Spain- 

 governed archipelago, who does not rear at least 

 as many fighting-cocks as his means permit, and 

 too often rather more ; noi is it wholly a calumny 

 which asserts that the owner is wont to tend his 

 bird better and love it dearer than any other liv- 

 ing object of his household belongings, wife and 

 children not excepted. Stories are current of a 

 respectable Malay paterfamilias escaping from 

 amid the ruins of his bulni-Jg home — no rare 

 occurrence in these villages of wood and thatch, 

 especially during the dry season — and beaming 

 carefully shielded in his arms his favorite, scarce- 

 rescued bird, while his wife and children are left 

 behind to shift for themselves unheeded as best 

 they may. Exaggerations, as I am bound to say, 

 but, I also fear, " founded on fact." 



We enter the precincts — the admission-fee is 

 a mere trifle, fnd a cheap cigar, if no coin be at 

 hand, is current payment for this and for many 

 other minor costs — to see the sport. It has been 

 often described ; the chief thing worthy of re- 

 mark is that a heel of either fighting-bird is arm?d 

 with a sharp razor-like steel blade, nearly two 

 inches in length ; a deadly weapon, that material- 

 ly abridges the duration of the combat between 

 the feathered rivals. Once at close quarters, the 

 rest is an affair of seconds rather than of minutes ; 

 at least I never saw it otherwise. It is a some- 

 what brutal amusement, after all, and so far low- 

 ers the Malays to the level of our own ancestors 

 some three or four generations ago. But the 

 really worst picture of a Philippine cock-figl t is 

 the betting universal among + he spectators of the 

 game; the sums staked are often very high, and 

 their payment, which is rarely shirked, not un- 

 commonly involves the ruin of the loser. Thus 



