GAMING.

Through every rank of the people there prevails a strong spirit of gaming, which is a vice that readily insinuates itself into minds naturally indisposed to the avocations of industry; and, being in general a sedentary occupation, is more adapted to a warm climate, where bodily exertion is in few instances considered as an amusement.

DICE.  OTHER MODES.

Beside the common species of gambling with dice, which, from the term dadu applied to it, was evidently introduced by the Portuguese, they have several others; as the judi, a mode of playing with small shells, which are taken up by handfuls, and, being counted out by a given number at a time (generally that of the party engaged), the success is determined by the fractional number remaining, the amount of which is previously guessed at by each of the party.

CHESS.

They have also various games on chequered boards or other delineations, and persons of superior rank are in general versed in the game of chess, which they term main gajah, or the game of the elephant, naming the pieces as follows:  king, raja; queen or vizir, mantri; bishop or elephant, gajah; knight or horse, kuda; castle, rook, or chariot, ter; and pawn or foot-soldier, bidak.  For check they use the word sah; and for checkmate, mat or mati.  Among these names the only one that appears to require observation as being peculiar is that for the castle or rook, which they have borrowed from the Tamul language of the peninsula of India, wherein the word ter (answering to the Sanskrit rat’ha) signifies a chariot (particularly such as are drawn in the processions of certain divinities), and not unaptly transferred to this military game to complete the constituent parts of an army.  Gambling, especially with dice, is rigorously forbidden throughout the pepper districts, because it is not only the child, but the parent of idleness, and by the events of play often throws whole villages into confusion.  Debts contracted on this account are declared to be void.

COCK-FIGHTING.

To cock-fighting they are still more passionately addicted, and it is indulged to them under certain regulations.  Where they are perfectly independent their propensity to it is so great that it resembles rather a serious occupation than a sport.  You seldom meet a man travelling in the country without a cock under his arm, and sometimes fifty persons in a company when there is a bimbang in one of the neighbouring villages.  A country-man coming down, on any occasion, to the bazaar or settlement at the mouth of the river, if he boasts the least degree of spirit must not be unprovided with this token of it.  They often game high at their meetings; particularly when a superstitious faith in the invincibility of their bird has been strengthened by past success.  A hundred Spanish dollars is no very uncommon risk, and instances have occurred of a father’s staking his children or wife, and a son his mother or sisters, on the issue of a battle, when a run of ill luck has stripped them of property and rendered them desperate.  Quarrels, attended with dreadful consequences, have often arisen on these occasions.