B A T A V I A. 235 
powerful effect on the brain is necessary to prepare him for 
the commission of the desperate acts he may have pre- 
meditated. Intoxicated with this drug, he tears loose his 
long black hair, and rushing infuriated through the streets, 
with a dagger in his hand, as if bent on doing all the mis- 
chief in his power the little while he has to live, 
He runs a muck, and tilts at all he meets." 
An unconquerable propensity for gambling is one of the 
chief causes which drives the Malay to this state of despera- 
tion. So passionately attached is he to every species of 
gaming, and more particularly so to cock-fighting, that his 
last morsel, the covering of his body, his wife and children, 
are frequently staked on the issue of a battle to be fought by 
his favourite cock. This bird, on the island of Java, grows 
to a prodigious size, especially about Bantam, where, instead 
of those little feathery-legged fowls, usually supposed to be 
natives of this place from whence they take the name, they 
are nearly as large as the Norfolk bustard. " I have seen 
" one of these cocks," says Mr. Marsden, " peck off a com- 
" mon dining table ; when fatigued they sit down on the 
" first joint of the leg, and are then taller than the common 
" fowls." This animal is the inseparable companion of the 
Malay ; but his affection, though apparently approaching to 
infatuation, does not prevent him from exposing it to the risk 
of a battle which, from the nature of the weapons, must 
prove fatal to one of the combatants. Instead of spurs or 
heels, he fixes on the bottom of his foot a piece of sharpened 
iron, about the size of the blade of a large penknife, and of 
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