Chapter XXXII: Appendix: C

BHUJANG AND THE COCK-FIGHT.

_Specimen of his early writings in Scinde._

"Some years ago, when surveying the country about this Hoosree, I had an opportunity of reading a lecture to a gentleman about your age, Sir: hear how politely he received it, without ever using the word 'dogmatical,' or making the slightest allusion to 'forwardness.'

"I was superintending the shampooing[1] of a fighting cock--about as dunghill and 'low-caste' a bird as ever used a spur, but a strong spiteful thing, a sharp riser, and a clean hitter withal. Bhujang,[2] the 'dragon,' had sent many a brother biped to the soup-pot. Ere the operation of rubbing him down ended, in walked an old Moslem gentleman, who had called in a friendly unceremonious way to look at and chat with the stranger.

"Cocking, you must know, Mr. Bull, is not amongst these people the 'low' diversion your good lady has been pleased to make it. Here a man may still fight his own bird and beat his own donkey _à discrétion_, without incurring the persecutions of a Philo-beast Society.

"There was a humorous twinkle in the Senior's sly eye as it fell upon the form of Bhujang, and the look gained intensity when, turning towards me, the scrutinizer salaamed and politely ejaculated--

"'Máshálláh! that _is_ a bird!--the Hyderabad breed,[3] or the Afghan?'

"I shuffled off the necessity of romancing about my dunghill's origin, and merely replied that, struck by his many beauties, I had bought him of some unknown person--I did not add for eightpence.

"'What Allah pleases!--it is a miraculous animal! You must have paid his weight in silver! Two hundred rupees, or three hundred?'[4]

"Many people are apt to show impatience or irritability when being 'made fools of'--whereby, methinks, they lose much fun and show more folly than they imagine. My answer to the old gentleman's remark was calculated to persuade that most impertinently polite personage that the Frank, with all his Persian and Arabic, was a 'jolly green.'

"Thereupon, with the utmost suavity he proceeded to inform me that he also was a fighter of cocks, and that he had some--of course immeasurably inferior to the splendid animal being shampooed there--which perhaps might satisfy even _my_ fastidious taste. He concluded with offering to fight one under the certainty of losing it,[5] but anything for a little sport; again gauged me with his cunning glance, salaamed, and took his leave.

"In the evening, after prayers, appeared Mr. Ahmed Khan, slowly sauntering in, accompanied by his friends and domestics; a privileged servant carrying in his arms a magnificent bird, tall, thin, gaunt, and active, with the fierce, full, clear eye, the Chashmi Murwarid,[6] as the Persians call it; small, short, thin, taper head, long neck, stout crooked back, round compact body, bony, strong, and well-hung wings, stout thighs, shanks yellow as purest gold, and huge splay claws--in fact, a love of a cock.

"I thought of Bhujang for a moment despairingly.

"After a short and ceremonious dialogue, in which the old gentleman 'trotted' me out very much to his own satisfaction and the amusement of his companions, the terms of the wager were settled, and Bhujang was brought in, struggling upon his bearer's bosom, kicking his stomach, stretching his neck, and crowing with an air, as if he were the _Sans-peur_ of all the cocks. 'There's an animal for you!' I exclaimed, as he entered. It was a rich treat to see the _goguenard_ looks of my native friends.

"Countenances, however, presently changed, when sending for a few dozen Indian cock-spurs,[7] like little sabres, I lashed a pair to my bird's toes, and then politely proceeded to perform the same operation to my friend's. Ahmed Khan looked on curiously. He was too much of a sportsman, that is to say, a gentleman, to hang back, although he began to suspect that all was not right as he could have wished it to be. His bird's natural weapon was sound, thin, and sharp as a needle, low down upon the shank, at least an inch and a quarter long, and bent at the correctest angle; mine had short, ragged, and blunt bits of horn--the most inoffensive weapons imaginable. But the steel levelled all distinctions.

"We took up the champions, stood a few yards apart--the usual distance--placed them on the ground, and when the '_laissez aller_' was given, let go.

"For some reason, by me unexplainable, the game-cock, especially in this country, when fighting with a dunghill, seldom begins the battle with the spirit and activity of his plebeian antagonist. Possibly the noble animal's blood boiling in his veins at the degrading necessity of entering the lists against an unworthy adversary confuses him for a moment. However that may be, one thing is palpable, namely, that he generally receives the first blows.

"On this occasion the vulgarian Bhujang, who appeared to be utterly destitute of respect for lineage and gentle blood--nay, more like an English snob, ineffably delighted at the prospect of 'thrashing' a gentleman--began to dance, spring, and kick with such happy violence and aplomb, that before the minute elapsed one of his long steels was dyed with the heart's blood of his enemy.

"Politeness forbad, otherwise I could have laughed aloud at the expression assumed by the faces present as they witnessed this especial 'do.' Ahmed Khan, at the imminent peril of a wound from the triumphant dunghill, whom excited cowardice now made vicious as a fiend, raised his cock from the ground, looked piteously for an instant at his glazing eye and drooping head, bowed, and handed it over to me with a sigh.

"Then like the parasite of Penaflor after dinner, I thus addressed him--

"'Ahmed Khan, great is the power of Allah! Did not a gnat annihilate Namrud,[8] the giant king? Could Rustam, the son of Zal, stand against a pistol-bullet? or Antar against an ounce of aquafortis? Have you not heard of the _hikmat_[9] of the Frank, that he is a perfect Plato in wisdom and contrivance? Another time, old gentleman, do not conclude that because our chins are smooth, we are children of asses: and if you will take my advice, abstain from pitting valuable cocks against the obscure produce of a peasant's poultry-yard.'

"'Wallah!' replied my visitor, all the cunning twinkle out of his eye, 'I will take your advice! Your words are sharp: but they are the words of wisdom. But'--here obstinacy and conventionalism obscured Ahmed Khan's brighter qualities--'your bird is a wonderful bird. Máshálláh! may he win many a fight, even as he has done this one!'"

[1] "As Orientals generally fight their birds without spurs they pay extraordinary attention to feeding, training, and exercising them. They are sweated and scoured with anxious care, dosed (in my poor opinion a great deal too much) with spices and drugs most precisely, and made to pass hours in running, flying, and leaping. The shampooing is intended to harden their frames; it is done regularly every day, morning and evening. A fair course of training lasts from three weeks to a month, and the birds are generally brought out in excellent condition."

[2] "Game-cocks, like chargers, are always called by some big and terrible name."

[3] "The game-cocks of Hyderabad, in the Deccan, are celebrated throughout India, for their excellence and rarity. So difficult is it to purchase birds of purest blood, that I have heard of a rich Moslem visiting the Nizam's capital for the purpose of buying eggs."

[4] "The usual price of a first-rate cock is £3 or £4. My friend was indulging his facetiousness when he named £20 or £30."

[5] "The usual wager is the body of the bird killed or wounded."

[6] "The 'pearl eye.'"

[7] "The Indian cock-spur differs essentially from ours. It is a straight bit of steel varying from two to three and a half inches in length, with a blunt flat shaft, ending in a sharp sword-like blade, the handle as it were of which is bound to the bird's fore toe, shank, and hind toe. Every cock-fighter has dozens of these tools, made in every possible variety of size and angle to suit the cocks."

[8] "Nimrod, represented to be a cruel tyrant, who, attempting to martyr Abraham, was slain by a mosquito--sent to eat into his brain for the general purpose of pointing many a somnific Oriental moral."

[9] "_Hikmat_, philosophy, science, political cunning, king-craft, etc., a favourite word for head work in Central Asia."