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perfection. In a pond were a group of the Victoria lilies, the flower not yet out, but a bud, of the size of knobs on a family four-post bedstead, was ready to burst. The leaves floating flat on the water with edges turned up at right angles were large enough to have floated the infant Moses. I had one measured. It was four feet across.

The day after we arrived was Sunday, and in the evening we went to the cathedral, a fine building situated on a bluff overlooking the harbour. The punkahs were in full swing, pulled by natives stationed all round the building. The bishop preached an excellent sermon, pleading for funds to endow mission churches where, in distant parts of his diocese, the natives, resting from their six days' labours, might spend quiet sabbaths. I wondered whether, through the open windows and doors, the perspiring punkah-men heard anything of these kind accents, or took a close interest in the amount of the collection made.

The hotel at Singapore, like all the European buildings, is a roomy place, with cool verandahs and open doors and windows, courting whatever chance breeze may blow. In the office there is a placard, prominently pasted up, curious enough to be worth copying.

Passengers and boarders," it runs, "are respectfully requested not to ask the manager for any money, as he has strict injunctions not to give same."

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This is not an isolated hint of a certain aspect of social life in these parts. In one or two other hotels I have seen a similar intimation, though not so bluntly and quaintly put. Even more common is the edict that the servants of the hotel have instructions to hold on to all baggage till bills are paid.

The harbour at Penang is full of bustling life and colour, to which the sampan men contribute a full share. They cast gay clothes about their dusky forms, and lavish pictorial art upon the stern sheets of their boats. Underneath a stretchy landscape (apparently turned upside down), or a brilliant painting of a steamer with its paddles close to the rudder, the proprietor proudly paints his own name. "Joe" is a favourite cognomen. "London Charley" shows originality, and one boatman advertises himself in a breath as "Bobgoodsampanman."

In most respects Penang is like Singapore, except that its streets are narrower. There is the same vertically shining sun, the same gay colours in the street, and the same long roads in the suburbs lined with cocoa-nut

trees and palms and bananas. On one of these we met a man in white turban and blue gown, walking along the sun-baked road flanked by cocoa-nut trees, carrying under his arm a bundle of the Graphic arrived by the last mail.

Penang has a commodious market, in which are sold vegetables, fruit, fish, and meat. Very little business was being transacted when we passed through. On a butcher's stall, lying on their backs fast asleep, surrounded by warmlooking joints of meat, were two butchers, the flies impartially feeding upon the living and the dead. The fruit displayed on the stalls consisted of cocoa-nuts, bananas, limes, oranges, pines (to be bought at twopence each), and pumelos. For those who have fed on the Amoy pumelo the growth of other districts are grievously disappointing. On due reflection I hold the Amoy pumelo to be the most gracious fruit in the world. It is said to be the "forbidden fruit," and since I tasted it I take a less stern view of the weakness of Adam, albeit it hereditarily entails upon me, with the thermometer at 90° in the shade, the necessity of sitting here writing when everybody else within view is diligently doing nothing.

I do not know whether the pumelo in its fresh state reaches London; I have not seen

it there. It is like a Brobdignagian orange in shape, and of a light lemon colour. The peel is very thick, but is easily removed, and the fruit is pulled to pieces in figs, whence the white under the skin peels off, leaving only the luscious fruit with its generous juice and its delicate flavour. I am writing from tender recollection of the Amoy pumelo. Others, though they might have been acceptable if tasted first-as Brussels enthrals those who do not know Paris-are not worth peeling, and indeed, are to be resented as desecrating the name of pumelo.

One tropical fruit of which I had heard a good deal, but reached Penang too late in the season to taste, is the durian. This remarkable fruit is the size of a cocoa-nut with the husk off. I asked a Scotchmen what it tasted like.

"Like a haggis with an onion too much in it," he said.

That is, however, the most favourable description I have heard, and long residence out of Scotland had probably confused his recollection of the flavour of haggis. The fruit certainly appears to be composed, haggislike, of an olla podrida. No two men agree in their description of its taste, except in the one respect of an over-dash of onion. The

smell is truly terrific, and the fruit is opened only after extraordinary precautions. I heard at Hongkong of the case of some English officers desirous of tasting this curious fruit, who hired an empty house, closed the windows and doors, opened the fruit, and with one accord fled, leaving it untasted. The Malay holds it as a great delicacy, and to the Chinaman it is a luxury comparable only with an egg that has been in the family five years.

The High Court of Justice was sitting during our stay in Penang, and we strolled in to see how justice was administered in these parts. The court was roomy and fresh, and the punkahs diligently at work. A civil case was going forward, involving the property of two Chinese. The judge, an amiable, undecided-looking old gentleman, sat on the bench, unaided by the majesty of wig or gown. The clerk who sat under him wore a black gown and white bands of stupendous size. Two barristers engaged in the case wore black gowns and white duck trousers.

The court was pretty full in the portion allotted to the public. Here sat a Chinaman in cool white bajoo, with roomy sleeves capable of holding the fourteenth trump, or anything else that might be useful in the game of life; Cingalese in bright-coloured calico robes, their

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