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 imitateif, 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.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ISLE OF SPICY BREEZES.

"THE children's hour" has found a historiographer in charming verse; but I do not remember reading, even in prose, any account of "the gentleman's hour" on board a P. and O. steamer. It begins at any moment after daybreak, and extends up to eight o'clock. During this time the quarter-deck is sacred to the tread of man. There is no written rule to the effect that no lady is permitted, or at least expected, to appear on deck before eight o'clock has struck. But so it is; and this period of the day, the pleasantest in Indian seas, has, with characteristic selfishness, been marked by the lords of creation as their own, and they assume the right to pace the deck arrayed in whatever odd garments they may be accustomed to go to the bath in.

The pyjama is a garment composed of varied material, but invariable in its ungainli

ness. It is generally of flannel, but may be of silk, and consists of a loose jacket belted round the waist and a pair of shapeless drawers. Thus arrayed, without shoes or stockings, and generally hatless, the gentlemen, fresh from their bath or in preparation for it, march up and down the deck with curious and not always attractive revelations of contour. It is an old custom, old almost as the birth of the P. and O. Company, and is one of the cherished privileges of the East Indian. If any one were to attempt to interfere with it the angry indignation which bristles round the Ilbert Bill would be but as a zephyr breeze. The ladies sometimes whisper a protest, but none have dared, or have found the opportunity, of raising a serious cabal against it. It is one of the institutions of the P. and O., whose laws, like that of an earlier empire, alter not.

Contemporaneously with the pacing to and fro of disguised judges, colonels on leave, civil servants, and mighty merchants, goes forward the cleaning of the ship. Every morning a P. and O. steamer is subject to a ruthless "tidying up." The decks, spotless to begin with, are scoured, the paint washed, the brasses rubbed, the silver cleaned, the saloon carpet taken up and shaken, and the floor washed. Persons interested in the educa