s throw is still spoken of
in Pahang as the most marvellous example of skill and strength, which
has ever been called forth, within living memory, by any of these
contests.

As the stabs follow one another, to the sound of the clicking of the
horns, and the mighty blowing and snorting of the breathless bulls, lift
succeeds lift with amazing rapidity. The green turf is stamped into mud,
by the great hoofs of the labouring brutes, and at length one bull owns
himself to be beaten. Down goes his head,--that sure sign of
exhaustion,--and in a moment, he has turned round, and is off in a
bee-line, hotly pursued by the victor. The chase is never a long one, as
the conqueror always abandons it at the end of a few hundred yards, but
while it lasts, it is fast and furious, and woe betide the man who finds
himself in the way of either of the excited animals.

Mr. Kipling has told us all about the Law of the Jungle,--which after
all is only the code of man, adapted to the use of the beasts, by Mr.
Rudyard Kipling,--but those who know the ways of buffaloes, are aware
that they possess one very well recognised law. This is 'Thou shalt not
commit trespass.' Every buffalo-bull has his own ground; and into this
no other bull willingly comes. If he is brought there to do battle, he
fights with very little heart, and is easily vanquished by an opponent
of half his strength and bulk, who happens to be fighting on his own
land. When bulls are equally matched, they are taken to fight on neutral
ground. When they are badly matched, the land owned by the weaker is
selected for the scene of the contest. This is an interesting fact, in
its way, as it tends to prove that it is not only the unhappy Malay of
Malacca who feels that he is born possessing some rights in the soil
from which he springs, and on which he lives, moves, and has his being.

All these fights are brutal, and in time they will, we trust, be made
illegal. To pass a prohibitionary regulation, however, without the full
consent of the Chiefs and people of Pahang, would be a distinct breach
of the understanding on which British Protection was accepted by them.
The Government is pledged not to interfere with native customs, and the
sports in which animals are engaged are among the most cherished
institutions of the people of Pahang. To fully appreciate the light in
which any interference with these things would be viewed by the native
population, it is necessary to put oneself in t