RULES OF COCKING.

By their customs there are four umpires appointed to determine on all disputed points in the course of the battles; and from their decision there lies no appeal except the Gothic appeal to the sword.  A person who loses and has not the ability to pay is immediately proscribed, departs with disgrace, and is never again suffered to appear at the galan-gang.  This cannot with propriety be translated a cockpit, as it is generally a spot on the level ground, or a stage erected, and covered in.  It is inclosed with a railing which keeps off the spectators; none but the handlers and heelers being admitted withinside.  A man who has a high opinion of and regard for his cock will not fight him under a certain number of dollars, which he places in order on the floor:  his poorer adversary is perhaps unable to deposit above one half:  the standers-by make up the sum, and receive their dividends in proportion if successful.  A father at his deathbed has been known to desire his son to take the first opportunity of matching a certain cock for a sum equal to his whole property, under a blind conviction of its being betuah, or invulnerable.

MATCHES.

Cocks of the same colour are never matched but a grey against a pile, a yellow against a red, or the like.  This might have been originally designed to prevent disputes or knavish impositions.  The Malay breed of cocks is much esteemed by connoisseurs who have had an opportunity of trying them.  Great pains is taken in the rearing and feeding; they are frequently handled and accustomed to spar in public, in order to prevent any shyness.  Contrary to our laws, the owner is allowed to take up and handle his cock during the battle to clear his eye of a feather or his mouth of blood.  When a cock is killed, or runs, the other must have sufficient spirit and vigour left to peck at him three times, on his being held to him for that purpose, or it becomes a drawn battle; and sometimes an experienced cocker will place the head of his vanquished bird in such an uncouth posture as to terrify the other and render him unable to give this proof of victory.  The cocks are never trimmed, but matched in full feather.  The artificial spur used in Sumatra resembles in shape the blade of a scimitar, and proves a more destructive weapon than the European spur.  It has no socket but is tied to the leg, and in the position of it the nicety of the match is regulated.  As in horse-racing weight is proportioned to inches, so in cocking a bird of superior weight and size is brought to an equality with his adversary by fixing the steel spur so many scales of the leg above the natural spur, and thus obliging him to fight with a degree of disadvantage.  It rarely happens that both cocks survive the combat.

In the northern parts of the island, where gold-dust is the common medium of gambling, as well as of trade, so much is accidentally dropped in weighing and delivering that at some cock-pits, where the resort of people is great, the sweepings are said, probably with exaggeration, to be worth upwards of a thousand dollars per annum to the owner of the ground; beside his profit of two fanams (five pence) for each battle.