Adventures in Peru, Chapter 18

Cock-Fighting

Part 1

One of Peru’s oldest and most popular sports is cock-fighting. All classes participate in this diversion. An ancient writer speaks of having been present at a main when he noted no less than eighteen ecclesiastics with fighting cocks under their arms!

On a certain occasion my friend Robert Leguia asked his brother A. B. to give me £50 to buy him a cock and two hens of the best fighting breed. I refused to take more than £30, thinking that sum quite sufficient. Subsequently I came across a book written by “The Mate” (Sir John Astley) in which the writer said he had once sent his son, who was stationed in India at the time, £50 to buy some birds for him. The youngster replied he could only obtain one bird and a few eggs for that sum. This made me feel a bit dubious as to how I should succeed. I managed, however, to buy a magnificent cock and two hens in London for £20. I had three special cases made for them, and shipped them by the Pacific Co. as far as Peru, giving the ship’s butcher £1 to look after them and keep them clean, and promising him another £1 if the birds arrived in good condition.

On the way out, the hens were good enough to lay eggs nearly every day. I used to have them for breakfast, until a lady who was frequently seasick, asked me to pass them on to her, a request I readily complied with. It is no use “setting” eggs that have been laid aboard ship, for they are not fertile.

At Valparaiso we were held up two weeks while I waited for a coast boat to take a consignment of racehorses to Peru. H. Crangle, who came aboard to meet me, was a great cock-fighter, while I, myself, had an occasional flutter, and one of my birds, trained by myself, was champion at Belgrano. Crangle thought best not to take the birds ashore, but to leave them on the Iberia until the Santiago arrived.

During the wait I experienced a stroke of bad luck. The butcher of the Iberia took some friends aboard one day, and wishing to show them a bit of sport, set my two hens at each other. They had a real good go in, and one got killed. The matter was reported to Sharp, the general manager, and also to the captain. Both were very much upset, for the Leguia family is one of the most popular in the whole of S. America. The captain put the butcher in chokey for two weeks, fined him £5, and permitted him to have only one drink a day. The punishment was none too severe, as the bird could not be replaced; but I refused to take the fiver, and asked the captain to place it in the Widows and Orphans box.

From the surviving cock and hen, Robert Leguia bred some magnificent birds, which won all the principal prizes at Lima and elsewhere. He was bid £4 apiece for the male chicks. Capital results were also obtained by crossing the cock with a good fighting hen from Panama.

Once when going home on the Pacific Royal Mail, I went ashore with a Colombian doctor at Panama and accompanied him to the French burial ground just outside the village. The caretaker was a noted breeder of fighting cocks. He sold the doctor a very good bird but not so big by half as the one I took out from England. My bird was never allowed to fight, as he weighed 9 lb. and the native cocks didn’t go much more than 5 lb.

When fighting, the birds are equipped with steel spurs about one and a half inches long and shaped like a sickle. Leguia’s birds were trained to circle round and stab once; that sufficed. As a general rule the prizes ranged from £25 to £200. At the Champion Meeting of the year—The Game-cock Carnival—held at Ica on Independence Day, the premier prize was never less than 2,000 sols. Sometimes it amounted to 4,000. There were, besides, minor awards of £35, £40, and £50.

Mains take place in Lima every alternate Thursday, from 2 to 5 o’clock. I have frequently seen several good Fathers present at these gatherings, Most of the clergy take lively interest in the sports of the people—racing, cock-fighting, bull-fighting or what not.

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