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

heads covered with straw, rimless, flowerpotshaped hats adorned with verses from the Koran; and Malays who had put on unaccustomed trousers in deference to the prejudices of the court. Standing at one of the barriers was a Bengalee with a yellow ochre mark on the bridge of his nose, denoting his caste. A white calico robe was his sole garment, but he had draped it around his tall lithe figure with a grace which the British workman would vainly endeavour to imitate— if, indeed, he would feel promptings of desire in that direction.

The crowd in court were not able to follow the glib pleadings of the gentlemen in white ducks and black gowns; a circumstance evidently taken note of by the astute practitioner. If they could not follow the speech they would understand that the gentleman in ducks who was constantly popping up to interrupt his learned brother was a kind of man whose services it would be desirable to engage in time of trouble. Accordingly, whilst one learned counsel was supposed to have the ear of the court, the other was incessantly jumping

up with an indignant, "My lord, I protest," or a "Now, really this is too bad." Whenever this happened the Chinamen in the body of the court exchanged approving glances, as

who should say, "That's the man for my money. He's always alive, not easy to come over him."

I was not surprised to hear that this irrepressible person, in whose hands the old gentleman on the bench was as a reed blown by the winds, had the lion's share of the practice in the High Court of Justice in Penang.