The Straits of Malacca, Indo-China, and China; or ten years' travels, adventures, and residence abroad ... Illustrated ... by J. D. Cooper, etc

Front matter

TEN YEARS' TRAVELS, ADVENTURES AND RESIDENCE ABROAD LONDON: PRINTED BV SPOTT1SWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET VIEW OF SHOLON, COCHIN CHINA THE STRAITS OF MALACCA INDO-CHINA AND CHINA OR TEN YEARS' TRAVELS, ADVENTURES AND RESIDENCE ABROAD BY J. THOMSON, F.R.G.S. AUTHOR OF ' ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHINA AND ITS PEOPLE LLUSTRATED WITH UPWARDS OF SIXTY WOOO ENGRAVINGS BY J. D. COOPER FROM THE AUTHOR'S OWN SKETCHES AND PHOTOGRAPH LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW, & SEARLE CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET l87

Preface

. The accompanying recollections of my travels are addressed to those readers — I believe there must be many — who feel an interest in the remote regions over which my journeys extended, and in that great section of the human family which peoples the vast area of China — a section which, through the agency of steam and telegraphy, is being brought clay by day into closer relationship with ourselves. I have endeavoured to impart to the reader some share in the pleasure which I myself experienced in my wanderings ; but, at the same time, it has been my care so to hold the mirror up to his gaze, that it may present to him, if not always an agreeable, yet at least a faithful, impression of China and its inhabitants; and of the latter, not only as I found them at home on their native soil, but also as we see them in our own colonial possessions, and in other lands to which emigration has carried them. Since the days of the great Venetian traveller, perhaps no epoch in the history of that quarter of the

PREFACE.

. VI ■ globe has been more full of interest than the present. At last the light of civilisation seems indeed to have dawned in the distant East ; with its early rays gilding the little island-kingdom of Japan, and already penetrating to the edges of the great Chinese continent, where the gloom of ages still broods over the cities, a dark cloud that lifts but slowly, and yields unwillingly to the daylight that now floods the shore, but which soon, perhaps, may be rent and dissipated in the thun ders of now impending war. Certain it seems that China cannot much longer lie undisturbed in statu quo. Her deeply reverenced policy of inactivity and stagnation has brought floods, famine, pestilence, and civil wars in its train ; it cannot sink the toiling masses to yet lower depths of misery, or sta) the clamours of multitudes wailing for sustenance while the rivers run riot over their fertile plains, and the roads have been converted into watercourses.

The rulers meantime, with a blind pride, are arming a beggarly soldiery to fight for nothing that is worth defending, and Japan — in the vindication of her own rights, and in the interests of humanity — has planted a small but disciplined army on what is really an integral portion of the Chinese soil. To these few words let me add that, with a view to supply not merely a pleasant readable book, but infor mation as complete as it is trustworthy, I have in

PREFACE.

. VII the latter part of the present work reproduced and amplified some passages which I had already given to the world in my ' Illustrations of China and its People,' passages which I have thought to be of some importance, but yet which could not reach the great body of general readers in my larger and more costly work. J. T. Brixton : Nov. 1874. TAGE -3 78 CONTENTS.

Chapter I

The Straits of Malacca — The Dutch Operations at Acheen, in Sumatra — Penang; its Hills, Foliage, Flowers, and Fruit — The Klings, Malays, and Chinese of Penang — Occupations of the Chinese — The Chinaman ahroad — A Descendant of the early Portuguese — Hospitality — A Snake at a Ball I

Chapter II

A Visit to Quedah — Miden missing — The Rajah's Garden — Province Wellesley — Sugar and Tapioca Planting — Field Labour — A baffled Tiger — Wild Men — An Adventure in Province Wellesley.

Chapter III

Chinese Guilds ; their Constitution and Influence — Emigration from China— A Plea for unrestricted Female Emigration — -The Perak Disturbances — Chinese Tin-mining — Malacca — Singapore — Its Commerce and People — Stuffing an Alligator — The Horse-breaker — Chinese Burglars — Inland Scenery — A Foreign Residence- Amusements — A Night in the Jungle — Casting Brazen Vessels — Jacoons. 44

Chapter IV

Siam — The Menam River — Bangkok— Buddhist Temples — The King, Defender of his Faith— Missions — Buddhist Priests — The Priest in his Cell — The first King's Visit to the Wats — The Court of the Dead — Chinese Speculator investing in a Corpse — The Krum-mun-alongkot— An Inventor wanted — Taking the King's Portrait — The King describes the Tonsure Ceremony — The King's Request — Mode of administering Justice— Gambling — Floating Houses — A Trip to Ayuthia— Creek Life — Visit to Petchiburee . CONTENTS. X

Chapter V

TAliE An Expedition to Cambodia— Bang Phra-kong Creek— Prairie on fire— A Foreign Sailor— Wild River Scenery— Aquatic Birds— Kabin— Kut's Story to the Chief— A Storm in the Forest— The Cambodian Ruins— Their Magnitude— Siamrap— Nakhon Wat— Its Symbolism— The Bas-reliefs and Inscriptions— The Hydra-headed Snake— The Ancient Capital, Penompinh— Tie King of Cambodia— Dinner at the Palace— The whole Hog— Overland to Kamput — Pirates — Mahomet's Story — The Fossil Ship -The Voyage up the Gulf of Siam. ....... IlS

Chapter VI

Saigon ; its Harbour— The Town— The Resident Foreign Community— Cholon, the Chinese Town— River Dwellings— Customs of the Cochin Chinese— Chinese Traders— The Cochin Chinese Village of Choquan— The Sorcerer — Plaine des Tombeaux — Petruski. . ■ .' .- .- . - . n 164

Chapter VII

Hongkong — Description of the Island— The City of Victoria — Its present Condition — Its Foreign and Native Population — The Market-place — Hongkong Artists — Grog-shops — Tai-ping-shan — Expense of Living — A strange Adventurer — A Mormon Missionary. . . . . ....... 179

Chapter VIII

Snakes in Hongkong — A Typhoon — An Excursion up the North Branch of the Pearl River — Fatshan — The Fi lai-sz Monastery — The Mang-tsz-hap, or Blind Man's Pass — Rapids — Akum's Ambition — The Kwanyin Cave — Harvest — From San-Shui to Fatshan in a Canoe — Canton — Governor Yeh's Temple — A Tea Factory — Spurious Tea — Making Tea — Shameen— Tea-tasting. 212

Chapter IX

Canton — Its general Appearance — Its Population — Streets — Shops — Mode of transacting Business — Signboards — Work and Wages — The Willow-pattern Bridge — Juilin, Governor-General of the two Kwang — Clan Fights— Hak-kas — The Mystic Pills — Dwellings of the Poor— The Lo-hang-tang— Buddhist Monastic Life — On board a Junk. . CONTENTS. XI PAGE 271 300

Chapter X

The Charitable Institutions of China — Macao -Description of the Town — Its Inhabitants — Swatow — Foreign Settlement — Chao-chow-fu — Swatow Fan-painters —Modellers — Chinese Art — Village Warfare — Amoy — The Native Quarter — Abodes of the Poor — Infanticide — Manure-pits — Human Remains in Jars — Lekin — Romantic Scenery — Ku-lang-su — The Foreign Settlement. .

Chapter XI

Takow Harbour, Formosa — La-mah-kai — Difficulties of Navigation — Tai-wan-fu — The Taotai — His Yamen — How to cancel a State Debt — The Dutch in 1661 — Sylvan Lanes — Medical Missions — A Journey to the Interior— Old Watercourses — Broken Land — Hak-ka Settlers — Poah-be — Pepohoan Village — Baksa Valley — The name ' Isla Formosa' — A Long March — The Central Mountains — Bamboo Bridges — 'Pau-ah-liau' Village — The Physician at Work — Ka-san-po Village — A Wine-feast — Interior of a Hut — Pepohoan Dwellings — A Savage Dance — Savage Hunting-grounds — La-lung Village — Lakoli Village — Return Journey.

Chapter XII

The Japanese in Formosa— Cause of the Invasion — The River Min — Foochow Arsenal — Chinese Gun-boats— Foochow City and great Bridge — A City of the Dead — Its Inhabitants — Beggars — - Thieves — Lepers — Ku-shan Monastery — The Praying Bull — The Hermit — Tea Plantation on Paeling Hills — Voyage up the Min — Shui-kow — An Up-country Farm — Captain Cheng and his Spouse — Yen-ping City — Sacrificing to the Dead — Shooting the Yen-ping Rapids— A Native- Passenger-boat. .... 345 CHAPTER .XIII. Steam Traffic in the China Sea — In the Wake of a Typhoon — Shanghai — Notes of its Early History — Japanese Raids — Shanghai Foreign Settlement — Paul Su, or ' Su-kwang-ke ' — Shanghai City — Ningpoo Native Soldiers — Snowy Valley — The Mountains — Azaleas — The Monastery of the Snowy Crevice — The Thousand Fathom Precipice — Buddhist Monks — The Yangtsze Kiang — Hankow — The Upper Yangtsze — Ichang — The Gorges— The Great Ts'ing-tan Rapid — Mystic Mountain Lights — A Dangerous Disaster Kwei-fu — Our Return — Kiukiang — Nanking ; its Arsenal — The Death of Tsing-kwo-fan — Chinese Superstition .... CONTENTS. TAKE

Chapter XIV

Chefoo — The Foreign Settlement — the Yellow River — Silk — Its Production — Taku Forts — The Peiho River — Chinese Progress — Floods in Pei-chih-li— Their Effects— Tientsin— The Sisters Chapel Condition of the People— A Midnight Storm — Tung-chow — Peking — The Tartar and Chinese Divisions ofthe Metropolis— Its Roads, Shops, and People — The Foreign Hotel — Temple and Domestic Architecture — The Tsungli Yamen — Prince Kung, and the High Officers of the Empire — Literary Championship The Confucian Temple — The Observatory — Ancient Chinese Instruments — Yang's House — Habits of the Ladies — Peking Enamelling — Yuen-Ming- Yuen — Remarkable Cenotaph — A Chinese Army — Li-hung-chang The Inn of ' Patriotic Perfection' — The Great Wall — The Ming Tombs. 469

Appendix

. The Aboriginal Dialects of Formosa 539 Diurnal Lepidoptera of Siam, Collected by the Author and Named by H. W. Bates, Esq. F.L.S. &c. . . LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS. i. Chinese Merchants To face p. 56 2. The King of Siam's State Barge . . . „ 86 3. A Siamese Prince and Attendant ... „ 90 4. Ancient Cambodian Bas-relief, Nakhon Wat . „ 144 5. View of Cholon, Cochin China ... „ 170 6. A Village Road, Cochin China . . . . „ 172 7. A Typhoon in Hongkong Harbour ... „ 214 8. Yeh's Temple, Canton 232 9. A Street in Canton )( 248 10. A Pavilion in Pun-ting-qua's Garden . . . „ 254 11. The Willow-pattern Bridge .... „ 256 12. Temple of the Five Hundred Gods „ 264 13. Deck of a Chinese Junk „ 270 14. Children at Play. {From a Chinese Drawing) . „ 282 15. Shui-Kow n 3S6 16. The Dream.

(Chinese Drawing) . . . . „ 422 17. Sung-Ing-Day Fall, Snowy Valley ... „ 424 18. The Mi-Tan Gorge, Upper Yangtsze . . . „ 454 19. A Mining Village, Hunan Province . . „ 456 20. One of the Inner Gates of Peking . . . „ 496 21. Great Gateway, Temple of Confucius . . „ 516 22. Chinese Gentleman's Garden . . . . „ 520 23. Cantonese Boatwoman, Ningpo Woman, Pepohoan, Tartar „ 522 24. Making Enamel, Peking . . . . . „ 524 25. Wan-Show-Shan „ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XIV ENGRA VINGS IN TEXT. PAGE i. Malays Selling Durians 9 2. Malay Boy 1 1 3. Chinese Coolie 14 4. A Chinese Contractor 18 5. A New Type of Man 19 6. Malay Hut 32 7. Pursued by a Tiger 36 8. Chinese Labourers from tHE Kwangtung Province . 49 9. Chinese Tailors ' 63 10. Jacoons. 76 11. Siamese Buddhist Priest 82 12. Siamese Lady 92 13.

Dancing GirlS . ' no 14. Interior of Western Gallery, Nakhon Wat . . 142 15. Cambodian Female1 Head-dress. Ancient Sculpture . 143 16. Ancient ArCh aT Ke'w-\tng-kwan; Nankow Pass . 147 17. Unfinished PIllars, Nakhon Wat 149 18. Sculptured ' Tower in Nakhon Thom, the Ancient Capital of Cambodia 151 19. HONKONG, FROM KELLETS TSI.A'ND l8l 20. A Family Party, Kowloon . . . . . .184 21. Looking North from the Po-lo-Hang Temple, Kwang-tung 225 22. Chess-playing in a Buddhist Monastery . . . 266 23. Lalung Village, Interior of Formosa . . . .335 24. Upper Bridge, Foochow .- 3^6 25. The King of the Beggars 359 26. An Unfortunate Thief.— Punishment of the Cangue 364 27. Foochow Lepers 365 28. Two of the Guardians of Buddha, Kushan Monastery 375 29. The Kushan Hermit 377 30. The Island Temple, River Min 379 31.

A Travelling Blacksmith at a Farmhouse . . . LLST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XV PAGE 32. Chinese Plough, Fukien Province 387 33. The Shanghai Wheelbarrow 408 34. Our Native Boat 434 35. Szechuan Boat, Upper Yangtsze 448 36. The Great Rapid, Metan Gorge 452 37. Natives of Szechuan 457 38. Taku Forts 476 39. Corean 504 40. Chinese Horse-shoeing, Peking 505 41. Peking Observatory. Jesuit Instruments . . . 516 42. Ancient Chinese Astronomical Instrument . . 518 43. Tartar Ladies 523 MAPS. 1. Sketch-Map, showing Author's Route . To face p. 1 2. Section of a Map taken from ' Lin's Geography,' OR ' HAE-KWO TOO-CHE' . . „ 131 3. Fig. 1. Plan of Inner Temple of Nakhow, from a survey hy the author. flg. 2. Plan of area enclosed by outer wall, Nakhow Wat „ 137 4. South-Western Formosa .... „ SKETCH-MAP SHOWING THE AUTHOR'S ROUTE. THE STRAITS OF MALACCA, INDO-CHINA AND CHINA.

Chapter I

The Straits of Malacca — The Dutch Operations at Acheen, in Sumatra — Penang; its Hills, Foliage, Flowers, and Fruit — The Klings, Malays, and Chinese of Penang — Occupations of the Chinese — The Chinaman abroad — A Descendant of the early Portuguese — Hospitality — A Snake at a Ball. In 1862 the Suez Canal was yet unfinished, and esti mated by many a more than doubtful undertaking. The joining of the two seas by a navigable channel, cut through a vast desert of shifting sand, people set down as the fond scheme of a visionary enthusiast ; and so when I first quitted England I had to leave M. de Lesseps still carving out his fame in the sands of Egypt, and to follow the old route overland. But I need not pause to detail my experiences over one of the beaten tracks of modern tourists ; nor can I even venture to describe Galle, with its hills and palms, and its cinnamon groves, as this part of Ceylon is on the highway to India, and therefore already well known.

Had health per mitted me, on first returning to England in 1865, it was my intention to have penetrated to the centre of the island, in order to explore its ancient Hindoo or Buddhist stone buildings, and to compare them with the magnisi- B cent remains ofthe cities, temples, and palaces I had just visited in the heart of Cambodia. This project I was unable to carry out, so that my experiences in Ceylon are confined to the narrow limits of Galle harbour and to the adjacent hills — such indeed as fall to the lot of all who travel by the steamers of the Peninsular and Orien tal line. I must therefore invite my reader to accompany me still further eastward, to the Malayan Islands and the mainland of Indo-China, where I spent some years of my life, before I can hope to introduce him to people or places with which he may be still unfamiliar.

A voyage to a distant land, even under the most favourable circumstances, has always seemed to me long and tedious. Weary of watching the expanse of placid sea, and the fun and flirtation carried on beneath the white awning of one of the finest steamers afloat, the words 'Land on the starboard bow!' fell gratefully on the ears of the outward-bound passengers. Novels were thrown down, and games of cards, chess, and quoits abandoned ; while a dozen telescopes and field glasses scanned a faint and disappointing line on the southern horizon ; that is Acheen Head, and (it may be only in fancy) the breeze off the land comes laden with a tropic perfume from the rich Sumatran coast. Acheen is the point where the Dutch, with their pon derous and sluggish movements, have struck a new blow at the power of the Malays.

They have left the wound open and lacerated, but will no doubt return to lop off a fresh slice of territory at a more convenient season. That Dutch rule in Java has been productive of mutual benefit to the island and to Holland — more es pecially to the latter — no one will be inclined to dispute ; THE STRAITS OF MALACCA. 3 nor need we doubt that the same desirable result will follow the occupation of the recently subdued provinces which are being added, slowly but surely, to the Dutch dominions in the Malayan islands. At the same time, unless our treaty rights in these regions are carefully guarded, our peaceful and profitable trading relations with those islands may suffer, as they have done, more than once, during the earlier period of our intercourse with the native states in this quarter of the globe.

One would imagine too, that Acheen was a most important point to fall into the hands of a foreign power, standing as it does at the north-western extremity of Sumatra, and forming, so to speak, one of the pillars of the western gate of the Straits of Malacca. I therefore doubt whether any power, more formidable and less friendly than the Dutch, would have been permitted or en couraged to annex this territory. Steaming eastward through the Straits, we are soon within view of Penang : a very small, but at the same time, important and productive island, and the first British possession we reach in the Straits. A strikingly picturesque place is Penang, with its belt of bright yellow sand and its crown of luxuriant tropical vegetation ; forming, too, a sort of sanitorium for our settlements in this quarter, and having a rich alluvial plain which, not many years ago, was an im penetrable jungle, but now is a perfect garden of cultivation.

The shaded paths on the wooded hills, which rise over 2,000 feet above the sea, lead to the most charming retreats in the world ; to bungalows nestlings among*- rocks and foliage, and to cascades where clear cool water falls into natural basins of granite beneath. There residents may bathe beneath b canopies of palms and tree-ferns ; while, so balmy is the climate amid these hill-dwellings, that the lightest costumes may be at all times worn. Many of the lower spurs of the Penang hills, and the valleys which divide them, have been cleared, and planted with cocoa, areca palms, nutmegs, and a great variety of fruit-trees ; small patches of the siri vine and sugar-cane are also to be found. In such places there is a deeper and richer soil than on the plains below, while on the summit of the highest hill the temperature is low enough to allow the cultivation of European vegetables and flowers.

On ascending the hill to the government bungalow, nothing amid the profusion and variety of palms, flowering shrubs, or tangled jungle, so much impressed me as the stately beauty of the tree-ferns, growing to perfection about 1,600 feet above the plain. This tree-fern rears its bare, finely-marked stem from 15 to 20 feet high above the underwood, and then curling its delicate fronds upward, outward, and in graceful arches, spreads a leafy canopy of the most tender green foliage, which it drops in a multitude of quivering points at a distance of eight or ten feet round the parent stalk. It will hardly be credited, by those who have never visited a hill country in the tropics, that soon after sunrise the noise of awakening beetles and tree-lovino insects is so great as to drown the bellowing of a bull, or the roar of a tiger a few paces off.

The sound re sembles most nearly the metallic whirr of a hundred Bradford looms. One beetle in particular, known to the natives as the ' trumpeter,' busies himself all day long in producing a booming noise with his wings. I have cautiously approached a tree on which I knew a PENANG. 5 number of these trumpeter-beetles to have settled, when suddenly the sound stopped, the alarm was spread from tree to tree, and there was a lull in the forest music, which only recommenced when I had returned to the beaten track. One of the most curious insects to be found on the hills so closely resembles the small branch of a shrub, that once, when following a narrow path, I picked up what I thought was a dried twig, but which wriggled and twisted in my hands, and when dropped at last, disappeared in the underwood with wonderful celerity, and a curious jerking motion.

Its legs shot out from the stem just like smaller branches, but I searched in vain for this animated plant, which possibly was within eyeshot all the while. I have also seen the leaf insect on the Penang hills, which in its mimicry so imitates the leaf of a plant as to most effectually protect it from harm. The twig and the leaf insect belong to the order Orthoptera. The former resembled, most of its kind, the Bacteria Sarmentosa, although it seemed to me to be longer, more slender, and of a darker colour. Dried twig insects are species of Phasma, and the leaf insect is, I believe, the Phyllium siccifolium. Butterflies and moths in every variety and hue are also to be found in abundance, fluttering among the trees and flowering shrubs in the sunshine, where the forest opens. They vary in dimensions from a fraction of an inch to 10 inches or 1 2 inches across the wings, which is the size attained by the Atlas moth, ' Saturnia Atlas.' Flowers and flowering shrubs or trees are by no means abun dant, nor are their hues so attractive, in any part of the island, as to come up to one's preconceived ideas respecting the wild luxuriance of tropical colouring in which scene-painters revel when depicting an Eastern forest or jungle.

It is in the gardens of the foreign residents, on the hot plain, that we meet with the greatest variety of indigenous flowers, glowing, most of them, with the brilliant primary colours which seem to me to characterise the flora of tropic regions. I should single out red and yellow as predominating, while all those secondary or mixed colours (excepting green) which exhibit so many tender touches of nature in our home gardens, are conspicuous by their absence from these sunny climes. Perhaps our men of science might be able to as sign a cause for this, and to tell us whether the heat of the oriental sun develops in flowering plants a craving for the absorption of certain colours of the solar spec trum, and for the reflection of others ; whether, indeed, the elective affinities of plants in this way are affected by temperature.

Can we, in the same way, account for the brilliant plumage of tropical birds, in which homogeneous red, yellow, and blue, are very con spicuous, and also for the liking which uncultured eastern races show for the reds, blues, and yellows. Even in China we find red a token of rejoicing (the bridal costume), while over India and China, and all Buddhist countries, the sacred priestly robes are yellow ; and with a number of the races of India and Indo- China the yellow golden skin is esteemed the highest attribute of female beauty. In China, again, blue betokens slight mourning, and white or the absence of colour the deepest sorrow. Be that as it may, I believe that the flowers of our European gardens and woods, can boast a greater variety and delicacy of colouring than those to be found in any tropical lands THE FOLIAGE OF PENANG. 7 I ever visited.

The hues are not only much more varied, but in temperate latitudes Dame Nature seems to exhaust her resources in producing an infinite diversity of tints, blended together with such marvellous delicacy and beauty, as to appeal to the ten derest feelings of the most cultured races of mankind. The foliage of the island of Penang, like that of the majority of the islands of the Malayan Archipelago, is dense and luxuriant, and remarkable more for its variety of form than for its different shades of green. The growth of grasses and jungle in this region is so rapid as to entail the constant labour of the husbandman to prevent their overrunning his oldest clearings. I have seen a sugar-field on Province Wellesley, which had been abandoned for little over twelve months, com pletely overspread with jungle ; and were Penang for saken by the British to-morrow, or rather by its Chinese cultivators, it would relapse in an incredibly short space of time, into the impenetrable jungle island which Captain Light found when he landed there in 1 7S6.

An amusing story is still told of the plan hit upon by Captain Light, to get this jungle growth in part cleared away. He loaded his guns, so the tale goes, with silver coins, and fired them into the thick bush, that the Malays might be tempted to make clearings in their searefr after the dollars.1 The rapidity with which plants will grow in Penang is truly surprising. I have myself watched young stems of the bamboo shoot up over a quarter of an inch in a single night, so that their growth is all but visible to the naked eye. The trailing vines and jungle 1 Our Tropical Possessions in Malayan India. Cameron. foliage hang over the rocks in long festoons, and creep along the yellow beach to crown old Neptune with a thousand evergreen wreaths. Many of these plants will thrive without a grain of soil.

Orchids, of course, feed on air, but I have seen sorest trees rooted on a bare rock, and flourishing there as vigorously as if planted in some rich alluvial earth. Many of the woods found on the Penang hills are exceedingly hard and durable ; their specific gravity is great, as they will readily sink in water. Woods of this sort are used by the Malays and Chinese in making anchors for their praus and junks, while the bamboo and ratan furnish material for ropes, or not unfrequently ready-made cordage. There are about a hundred different sorts of fruit grown in Penang, but the Durian and Mangosteen are by far the most famous among, them and may indeed be considered the two most delicious fruits of Malayan India. The pine-apple, custard-apple, mango and pome granate, and some of the other varieties, are also too well known to require description here.

Of the Pisang or plantain — probably the most useful and widely distributed of all tropical fruits — there are over thirty kinds, of which, the Pisang-mas, or golden plantain, so named from its colour, though one of the smallest, is nevertheless most deservedly prized. During the ten months I spent in Penang and Province Wellesley, I was chiefly engaged in photography — a congenial, profitable, and instructive occupation, enabling me to gratify my taste for travel and to fill my portfolio, as I wandered over Penang settlement and the mainland hard by, with an attractive series PHOTOGRAPHY. 9 of characteristic scenes and types, which were in con stant demand among the resident European population. I trained two Madras men, or boys as they were called here, to act as my printers and assistants, the Chinese having, at that time, refused to lend themselves to such MALAYS SELLING DURIANS, devilry as taking likenesses of objects without the touch of human hands.

Moreover they, as ' Orang puti ' or ' White men,' shrunk from having their fingers and much-prized long nails stained black, like those of the blackest of ' Orang etam ' or black men. My Klings, on the other hand, were of the colour of a well sunned nitrate of silver stain all over ; and had they, who even pride themselves on their fairness of skin, objected to the discoloration of their fingers, I should have had no difficulty in obtaining negroes of an ivory black in this small island, as a wonderful mixture of races is to be found, and ' phases of faith ' as multiform as the nationalities are diverse. Besides the English residents, who comprise the government officials, professional men, and merchants, there are descendants of the early Portuguese voyagers, Chinese, Malays, Parsees, Arabs, Armenians, Klings, Bengalees, and negroes from Africa.

Besides these, the European merchants comprise men of different nation alities. On landing from the steamer it is difficult to discover that one is actually on a Malayan island. We meet one or two Malays squatted beneath the trees selling sugar-cane or ' Penang lawyers ' (a polished cane with a large heavy, egg-shaped root), but there are also a host of Klines in charge of boats and gharries (cabs). Dark, sharp and active are these Klings, without a trace of calf on their straight limbs, and yet able to run for a whole day alongside their diminutive ponies without showing a token of fatigue. These men oil themselves all over till they look like varnished bronze, and this oiling may account for their suppleness. All of them speak Malay, and some know a little English. I remember one, who, in his eagerness for a hire offered to drive me to the devil for a dollar.