Chapter V: Part 5

The firing of firecrackers caused me to speak to our boatman one day, as I was annoyed by the noise, having always had a dislike for sudden explosions. "Why don't you worship something good and beautiful," I said; "some god that would detest such things as firecrackers?" "So we do," said he, "in our hearts, but this is not worship; it is sacrifice to the bad gods, so they will be pleased and do one no harm." "But won't the good god be displeased and do you harm?" "No, the good god would never harm any one." His words were, as near as I can recollect them, "He no do badee; no can; always likee he; much goodee; by-by kill bad Jossee may be;" and so they go, good lord, good devil; no saying into whose hands one may fall, as the sailor had it. I gave it up, as the business woman came on board and took command, the husband going off to his work elsewhere. This woman Susan--Black-eyed Susan, as we have dubbed her--and her bright young sister-in-law continue to interest us more and more, they are such active, intelligent women. The girl is ornamented with bangles and heavy anklets, and her earrings are of blue-bird feathers; her hair is banged, and everything about her evinces the care of really good, respectable people. I told Susan if I were a boatman I should try hard to save money enough to buy her sister-in-law, and asked her price. "No sellee you; sellee goodee Chinaman two hundred dollars." This was said as a great boast, as the ordinary price for one in her station is only ninety dollars. Our guide turned up his lip in scorn and whispered to me, "She talkee with mouthee too muchee; ninety dollar plenty." Perhaps he had his eye upon the maid for his son. If so, I put in a good word for her, telling him I was reputed one of the best judges of young ladies in America, that I could tell their qualities at a glance, and that it was certain she would make an excellent wife; and, what I thought would weigh as much with him, I added that for a business woman who could please travellers and get lots of money I did not believe she had her equal in Canton. One always likes to help on a match when he can, and something may come of this; who knows?

I wish to bear my testimony to the grand work which is going forward at various places in China by means of the medical departments of missions. There are fourteen hospitals of this kind in the country, and patients from all parts flock to them. In diseases of the eye unusual success seems to have been achieved, and stories are told of mandarins almost blind who have been restored to sight; and in dealing with cutaneous disorders, which are very common, the doctors have also done wonders. A small mission hospital established in the Island of Formosa only a few years ago has already treated ten thousand patients, and I am informed that the Canton establishment numbers its beneficiaries by the hundred thousand. Whatever objection the people make to missionaries, doctors are ever welcome, and regarded as benefactors. Nor must we forget that the entire credit of this indisputably grand work is wholly due to those who consider it a sacred duty to endeavor to force their religious views upon the consideration of the Chinese. One can hardly find terms strong enough to speak fitly of the good missions are performing in this department of their labors; and while upon this subject we should remember that it is also to missionaries alone we owe almost all we know of China and its literature. Even Confucius was given to the world in English by a missionary. I take special pleasure in saying all I justly can for those who are so universally decried throughout the East. With scarcely an exception--indeed I do not remember one--every European or American engaged in the East speaks disparagingly of missionaries and their labors. I believe, myself, that trying to force religious views upon those who only tolerate them because the cannon stands behind ready to support the preaching is not the better way, and that many more converts would be made by "the word spoken in season" by ministers of the European congregations now scattered throughout the East, and by doctors and others with whom the natives are daily brought in contact, if the paid propaganda were withdrawn; but this should not prevent us from crediting the missionaries with the collateral advantages which are now flowing from another branch of their efforts. They are on the right track now; the M.D. is the best pioneer of the D.D. There is another powerful lever at work in the _Herald_, a weekly paper published in Shanghai and distributed throughout the Empire. It is obtaining an immense circulation. It gives each week an epitome of the most important events occurring in every country, and America, I saw, headed the list. A Mr. Allen, formerly connected with missions, is the publisher, and he is probably doing more to revolutionize China than all others combined.

China, as everybody knows, grows a great deal of tea, but few are aware how great a proportion of this indispensable article she produces, and how much of it she uses herself. Here are the figures I see printed: Total production of the world, 1,300,000 net tons; China's portion, 1,150,000 tons, being about nine times more than all the world beside. But what is more wonderful is that China uses 1,000,000 tons per annum, and exports only 150,000 tons. But every one in China, upon all occasions, partakes of the cup which cheers and does not inebriate. Neither sugar nor cream is used in it; a little tea is placed in the cup and boiling water poured over it and it is drunk immediately. The strength of the tea is drawn in a few moments after the water is poured upon it. The coloring matter leaves it later. It is therefore a great mistake to use a teapot and allow tea to remain in it, and equally to use either sugar or cream--at least such is the verdict of those here who should know best. We quite agreed with them, and recommend our readers to try the Chinese plan, always provided they are so fortunate as to have a good sound article of pleasant flavor. With most of the tea found in England, and especially so with that generally used in America, the sugar and cream are no doubt necessary to drown the "twang." A Chinaman would put this practice on a par with putting sugar in Chateau Lafitte. Tea is the wine of the Celestial. A mandarin will "talk" it to you as a gourmet talks wine with us; dilate upon its quality and flavor, for the grades are innumerable, and taste and sip and sip and taste as your winebibber does--and smack his lips too. We are told of teas so delicate in flavor that fifty miles of transportation spoils them.

It is popularly supposed that a small-footed woman must be one of rank, but this is an error. It is a matter of family ambition, even among the poor, to have in the family at least one such deformity. Gentlemen marry only small-footed women, and their child might make a good match. If large-footed, this would be impossible; but such hopes are sometimes doomed to disappointment, or after marriage reverses may ensue; and so it happens that many small feet stamp about in poverty and try to eke out a living under disadvantages from which their less genteel neighbors are free. The most remarkable feature in the streets is the total absence of women of any class except such as drudge alongside of men, and even these are not numerous, for man appears to monopolize most of the work, at least in the cities. Occasionally we pass a sedan chair, or one passes us, closely covered up, which no doubt contains a lady of position compelled to visit some temple or relative; but I do not recall seeing in China any woman in a costume above that of the working classes, so jealously do Chinamen sentence their ladies to seclusion. A curious illustration of this occurred on our passage out. On our ship was one of the leading Chinese merchants of San Francisco with his wife. Rather than have her seen, even among the few cabin passengers, he engaged a portion of the steerage, had it closely boarded up and confined her in it, and she was never seen by any of us during the entire voyage. He and she took their meals together in the box. It was said that now and then at night she was carried secretly on deck for a breath of air; of course with her small feet she could not walk.

The steerage had to be fumigated at intervals and every soul was ordered on deck before the process began. This necessity had evidently not been taken into account by the exclusives, and much difficulty did our good doctor encounter with them. The husband declared that rather than be exposed to the gaze of the crowd, his wife would run the risk of being fumigated to death. The operation was postponed until a small cabin could be provided and the veiled beauty taken secretly to it.

A Chinese woman in China would hold it disgraceful to expose her face to a strange man. Queen Victoria, sober, sage matron and pink of propriety as she is reputed, would not consider a lady properly dressed for her levee--where the more strange men to gaze the better--who did not expose her face and neck and shoulders to full view. Education, my boy, education! all things right and all things wrong within a very wide range of affairs. Chinese women pinch the feet, ours pinch the waist, and each pities the other for their woeful lack of knowledge and their wickedness in marring God's image--and for their bad taste, which is, I fear, equally heinous to the female mind.

Our visit to the Celestial Empire is now at an end. We sail at noon by the French mail steamer Pie Ho for Singapore, fourteen hundred miles south. The more we see of China the greater it grows. A country much larger than the United States, with eight times the population, and not one mile of telegraph or railroad in it, in many districts not even one mile of public road broad enough for anything wider than a wheelbarrow--and yet a reading and writing people, a race of acknowledged mental power, with a form of settled government the oldest in the world--how inconsistent all this seems to us! But the reason for this paradoxical condition of affairs is, I think, that the unequalled resources of the country, which give to the people every necessary of life and almost every luxury, encouraged them in early days to eschew intercourse with the poorer lands around them, and then their superiority as a race to all their neighbors led them quite justifiably to conclude that all beyond were outside barbarians. They rested content with the advanced position attained, and as each successive generation copied the past, change became foreign to their whole nature, and in this path they have stubbornly persisted until the once inferior races of the West have far outstripped them. Among these outside barbarians must be ranked our noble selves, for it isn't one thousand years, let alone two, since our ancestors were running about dressed in skins and eating raw flesh--perhaps eating each other, as some allege--as ignorant of their A B C's as of the theory of evolution or the nebular hypothesis, when these Chinese were printing books and sailing ships by the compass. If my English readers will not be too greatly startled at the illustration, I will suggest that the conduct of China and its results suggest a danger for them which their statesmen should not be slow to perceive and remedy. England once stood as much in advance of other Western nations as China did in comparison with other lands, and she has apparently rested till now with equal complacency in the belief of her superiority. It is fast passing away. The English-speaking race throughout the world no longer looks to the parent land for political guidance, for instance, where Britain once reigned supreme. What English- speaking community would now study her antiquated political devices, her throne, her church and state, her primogeniture and entail, her hereditary chamber, unequal representation, or lack of representation rather, except that they might surely learn how to avoid them! Over the day when all English-speaking people turned instinctively to my native land for political example "Ichabod" must be written. They now look elsewhere, follow other ideals, and have adopted other ideas of government and the rights of man.

It is not too late yet, however, for England to regain her proper place in the race if she will only wake up, rub her dear old eyes, and see what the youngsters are about. "There is life in the old dog yet." The world is not done with the glorious little island, nor the island done with the world either. But no nation can indulge in a very long sleep in these days of progress the world over. England must remember,

"_To have done_, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery."

Recent events have undoubtedly awakened the foremost minds of China to the fact that they have been asleep, not twenty years only like our Rip, but twenty generations. They have recently begun to build steamships, a line of telegraph is authorized, postage stamps are being printed, and, best of all, for our comfort, at the principal cities there is generally at least one dealer who adheres to fixed prices for his goods. A daily paper is now published in Chinese at Shanghai, and the English school there is well patronized. All these things convince me that at last Western civilization is making an impression. The inert mass begins to move, and China will march forward ere long. The most convincing proof of this is found, perhaps, in the fact that the government appropriated in 1872 nearly two millions of dollars to maintain a hundred and fifty students in the United States. These are to be educated in our colleges and afterward employed officially at home. No action could prove more conclusively that China is at last awakening from her long centuries of repose.

But without railroads the material resources of the country can never be thoroughly developed. I fear this will be among the last features of our civilization which China will adopt, although the most important for her progress, because, as before mentioned, a railway cannot be built without desecrating graves by the thousand, and this every true Chinaman would view with horror. Our guide, although a remarkably intelligent man, and favorable to improvements of all kinds, took his stand here, inflexibly opposing the introduction of railways. No matter what material advantages might accrue, nor how much money he might be offered, no earthly consideration would induce him to disturb his ancestors, who have lain in one place in uninterrupted succession for nearly seven hundred years. If my friends Messrs. Garrison, Field and Pullman, who have so skilfully managed to give us elevated railroads without disturbing proprietary rights below, wish to enhance their fame, let them ask a concession in the Celestial Empire for railroads "topside," guaranteed to dodge every grave, and I do not doubt their success. Such inborn superstition as is here depicted dies hard, but it must pass away with the spread of knowledge; it will, however, take time. Nevertheless, China has a great future before it, as it has had a great past, and instead of having passed her climacteric, I predict that she is destined to reach a position of paramount importance in the Eastern world.

* * * * *

TUESDAY, December 26.

The Pie Ho is a magnificent ship, and we are delighted at getting under the auspices of a French cook once more, after the experiences we have had in Chinese cookery. No doubt about the preëminence of the French in regard to human food. Whoever sends the raw material, the French send the cooks. The _table d'hôte_, now common in England at the hotels, and the French service found in private houses, all so very different from the practice even since I began to revisit England, show how rapidly the world is bowing to the French cuisine.

We are scudding along before the monsoon, the temperature that of June, an agreeable change from Hong Kong, where the nights have been chilly. We are out of the region of cold weather now for the remainder of our travels. We reached Saigon, the capital of the French settlement in Cochin China, at six this morning, after sailing forty miles up a branch of the Cambodia. Lower Cochin China belongs to France, and is under the rule of a colonial governor, French troops being scattered through the provinces. It is a low-lying district, celebrated only for growing more rice than any other part of the world. Our ship took on large quantities of it for France, but this is exceptional, the scarcity of freights being everywhere so great that steamers are glad to get anything to carry. The Saigonites are the lowest specimens of humanity we have yet seen--miserable, sickly-looking creatures, and without the faintest regard for cleanliness. Their long, coarse black hair hangs over their shoulders in thick, tangled masses which apparently have never known a comb. Every one chews the betel-nut without intermission, young and old alike, and this so discolors the teeth and mouth as to render them extremely disgusting. We drove about the town for a few hours, but it was so hot we were compelled to return to the ship. This is the God-forsaken-looking region about which France is now disputing with China. I cannot but wish that every deputy had been with me during the few days of my visit, that he might see what kind of a land and what sort of human beings his country expected to derive credit from by superintending.

What I have said previous to the foregoing paragraph was written on the spot, and therefore I cannot be accused of being prejudiced by the recent action of France, which has caused me, as its well-wisher, much sincere regret. Any power acquired by France over this portion of the world can be but illusory--wholly so. The importance even of Saigon is so small that it offers no inducement to any of the regular steamers to call as they pass. The French line alone visits it under a subvention from the home government. A few poor French people manage to exist after a fashion by trading with the ignorant natives, and a few soldiers and a ship- of-war give some semblance of French authority. But just as certain as the sun shines, should any considerable commerce arise in Cochin China, the English will absorb nine-tenths of it, and this by a law from which there is no escape.

When the French people forced the government to withdraw from Egypt they gave us reason to hope that Herbert Spencer's law, which creates pacific principles in proportion that power is held by the masses, had received a significant vindication. Let us hope the republican element will ere long put its veto upon foolish interference in Tonquin.

The night we spent at Saigon the French governor gave a grand ball, five hundred invitations; but out of all this number how many ladies, think you? Society here musters but thirty-five, mammas and grandmammas included, and only three young ladies. Think of it, ye belles of Cresson, Newport and Saratoga (Cresson first, Mr. Printer, is quite correct)! fifteen officers in dazzling uniforms for every lady!

We have on board several English merchants and one American, who are taking a run home for a visit. The latter regrets that his countrymen should be induced to drink green tea abominations, and I console him by stating that a reform is surely near at hand. These gentlemen agree that the American cotton goods are taking the market and driving the adulterated English goods out. The trade is increasing so fast that it was welcome intelligence for them to be advised by the last mail that another large mill in Massachusetts was being altered to make exclusively Chinese goods. I congratulate my friend Edward Atkinson upon this result. But is this new business to be permanent? I think not. The day is far distant, I hope, when either labor or capital in America will have to be content with the return obtained in a populous country like Britain; and unless we have superior natural advantages we cannot hope to compete with her. In cotton manufacture for the East we have not any advantage, as I find that the cheapest way of reaching China from New York is to ship via London. England can bring the raw cotton from New Orleans or New York, and send the manufactured goods to market for certainly not more than the cost of transportation from the American mills to market, and therefore England can retain that trade whenever she adopts the latest improvements in mode of manufacture; and this she is as certain to do as the sun shines, and probably to improve upon them.

* * * * *

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1, 1879.

The clock strikes twelve. Good-bye, 1878; and you, 1879, all hail! Be as kind to us as the departed, and we shall in turn bless your memory. This midnight hour of all the hours of the year is reputed the best for framing good resolutions, but somehow those I have tried at this season hitherto have not been exceptionally fortunate in bearing good fruit. However, I have never "resolved" on a New-Year's night before while suffering from heat and mosquitoes. I conclude to hazard one, so here goes antipodal resolution No. I. See what you are good for. I record it that it may be the more deeply impressed upon my mind, and, if a failure, that it may in print sternly stare me in the face, and not "down at my bidding."

To-day we make our first acquaintance with punkas. They extend throughout the cabin, ominous of hot weather, which I detest; Vandy, on the other hand, revels in it, and it is his turn now. Vandy handed me today a string of Cambodia money, sixty pieces, which cost only two cents, showing to what fractions they reduce exchanges in Cochin China. I have been careful to collect coins in every place visited. Sock No. 1 is now full, and I have had to start bag No. 2. I have some rare specimens; of Japan the set is complete, from the gold cobang, worth $115, oblong, five inches long by about three wide, down to the smallest copper piece. I have some Chinese coins shaped like a St. Andrew's cross, dating before Christ. The mania for coin collecting is another inherent tendency the presence of which has probably never been suspected in my disposition. But collecting the coin of the realm, when one thinks of it, isn't at all foreign to my tastes. The form of manifestation is different, that's all--old coin for new--the "ruling love," to use a Swedenborgianism, being the same; and the ruling love must be acted out, so Aunt tells me, even in heaven. "Oh!" said L., when she heard this, "I wonder what they'll get for Mr.----to do in the other world; there are no dollars and cents there; but there will be the _golden harps_ for him to trim and weigh." So he would still handle the siller, and be in his element. Some time afterward, when this was recalled to L., she declared that it was impossible that she could have said it. "Mr.----trim and weigh! He would never be satisfied unless he were _boiling it down solid_."

* * * * *

SINGAPORE, Saturday, January 4.

We reached Singapore at dusk. The drive through the town was a curious one. Nowhere else can such a mixture of races be seen, and each nationality was enjoying itself in its own peculiar fashion--all except the Chinese, who were, as usual, hard at work in their little dens. No recreation for this people. Work, work, work! They never play, never smile, but plod away, from early morning until late at night. The Chinaman's objection to giving his creditor in New York a note was because it "walkee, walkee alle timee; walkee, walkee, no sleepee." They seem to me to emulate these objectionable obligations.

We saw in Singapore our first lot of Hindoos, moving about the streets like ghosts, wrapped in webs of thin white cotton cloth, which scissors, needle, or thread have never defiled. The cloth must remain just as it came from the loom; no hat, no shoes, their foreheads chalked, or painted in red with the stamp of the god they worship and the caste to which they belong. They are a small, slight race, with fine, delicate features.

I went out for a stroll before retiring, and hearing a great noise up the street, followed and came up with a Hindoo procession. The god was being paraded through the Hindoo portion of the town amid the beating of drums and blowing of squeaking trumpets. The idol was seated in a finely decorated temple upon wheels, drawn by devotees, many of whom danced wildly around, while others bore torches aloft, making altogether a very gorgeous display. Priests stood at each side performing mysterious rites as the cortege proceeded. It was my first sight of an idolatrous procession, and it made a deep impression upon me, carrying me back to Sunday- school days, and the terrible car of Juggernaut and all its horrors.

I have had many experiences in beds, from the generous feather cover of the Germans to the canopy of state couch of England, but to-night my couch was minus covering of any kind. Calling to Vandy, I found he was in the same predicament. Each had instead a long, stiff bolster lying lengthwise in the middle of the mattress, the use of which neither of us could make out. We soon discovered that there was no need of covering at the Equator; but this bolster must have some use, if we could only find it. Upon inquiring next day we ascertained that it is composed of a kind of pith which has the property of keeping cool in the hottest weather, and that it is the greatest relief at night to cultivate the closest possible acquaintance with this strange bed-fellow; in fact, in Singapore, "no family should be without it."

The island of Singapore, which is included in the British Straits Settlements, is nearly seventy miles in circumference, with a population of about one hundred thousand, one-half of which is Chinese, the remainder Malays, Klings, Javanese, Hindoos, and every other Eastern race under the sun, I believe, and a few Europeans. Here the "survival of the fittest" is being fought out under the protection of the British flag, which insures peace and order wherever it floats. In this struggle we have no hesitation in backing the Heathen Chinee against the field. Permanent occupation by any Western race is of course out of the question. An Englishman would inevitably cease to be an Englishman in a few, a very few, generations, and it is therefore only a question of time when the Chinese will drive every other race to the wall. No race can possibly stand against them anywhere in the East.

On Sunday, Major Studer, United States Consul, and his accomplished daughter, drove us to the house and gardens of the leading Chinese merchant of this region, Mr. Wampoo, who received and entertained us with great cordiality. His residence is extensive and filled in every part with curios; but his gardens are most celebrated, and far surpass anything of the kind we have yet seen. His collection of Victoria Regia plants is said to be the best in the world. Unfortunately none were in bloom, but a flower was due, I understood, in about ten years! The kind old gentleman invited us back to see it, and we accepted; but since writing this we have heard, alas! that he has ceased to play his part upon earth.

The newspapers here sometimes give strange local items. Here is one from yesterday's _Times_:

"Tigers must be increasing on the island; a fine big male one was caught in a pit on Christmas eve at the water-works." The fellow was probably on the track of a Christmas dinner, and ventured to the very suburbs of the town.

We were driven one day, by the major and Miss Studer, some ten or twelve miles in the interior, passing through groves of cocoa and betel-nut trees, both in full bearing, to a tapioca plantation, where we saw many trees and plants new to us--the fan and sago palms and many other varieties, bananas, nutmeg trees, bread fruit, durion, gutta-percha trees and others. We also saw the indigo plant under cultivation, and passed through fields of the sensitive plant as we walked about, while pine-apples were everywhere. We are in a new world of vegetation here, within a degree of the Equator; but, rich as it is, there is still a feeling of disappointment because it is all green--no bright hues, no coloring, such as gives Florida its charm, or lends to an American forest in autumn its unrivalled glory! It is always summer, and the moisture of the tropics keeps everything green. There is another cause of disappointment to one accustomed to the primeval forest and its majestic trees. These monarchs cannot develop themselves in the tropics, and in their stead we have only underbrush, the "jungle" of the tiger, which does not at all come up to one's expectations.

About one thousand men and women are employed upon this tapioca plantation. Married Hindoos get twenty cents per day, but the greater number are Javanese unmarried men, who get only sixteen cents; both find themselves. The Javanese are Mohammedans from Java _en route_ to Mecca as a religious duty. They come here and work and save for two years to get sufficient to pay their passage and return to this point, when they work a year more for funds to carry them home. How vital is the creed which brings its adherents to such sacrifice! This drive gave us an excellent opportunity of seeing just how the people live in the country. Dress is confined to the rag worn about the loins, except that the women wear in addition a small cloth over their shoulders. The children wear nothing whatever, but we saw none that were not ornamented by cheap jewelry in the most extraordinary manner.

The subject of clothes, as we all know from the days of "Sartor Resartus," lies very closely at the roots of civilization. I think every thoughtful person must admit that here the Heathen Chinee shows that he has reached the best solution of that annoying question. The every-day dress of the Chinaman is to-day just what it was thousands of years ago. As there is no going out or coming in of fashion, he wears his clothes till they can be worn no longer. The heavy-overcoats which distress Americans and are a weight even to the Englishman, our celestial friend escapes by having three or four light coats all of one pattern and weight. It is a one, two, or a three-coat day, according to temperature. Again and above all he escapes the horrid starch entirely, neither shirts nor collars nor cuffs, sometimes like thin sheets of iron, irritating his skin.

Vandy and I seriously resolved to-day that we would never again tolerate a starched thing about us; no matter what others did, we would discard the vile custom and be free. In revising this I am bound to admit our weakness: neither Vandy nor I have been strong enough to contend against our mothers. I don't know exactly what Vandy's experience was, but I know he fell soon after our return. For my part I fought it out awhile and tried many ways to win; but my flannel and frieze underwear which I brought from China soon became unwearable, I was informed, from shrinkage, then they had broken into holes, and so on. They were finally missed from my wardrobe, and I compromised by stipulating that I should return to the shirt and collars and cuffs, and agreed they might be all pure white--provided that little or no starch should be used--this is an improvement, but linen is the most uncomfortable material known, used as we use it.

Vandy and I when in the East reduced the time for bathing and dressing in the morning to seven minutes. Of course, we have long since given up the folly of shaving. How one envies the man of the East who has but four articles to slip on, and no pins required: socks and low shoes (no lacing), one; breeches, two; undershirt, three; coat, four; and there he is, ready for breakfast. The coat buttons close to the chin, and has a small upright collar, and a watch-pocket outside; no cuffs, collars or neckties. Why does not some born reformer of our sex devote his life to giving his fellow man such additional happiness in life? Hundreds waste their energies upon objects which, if accomplished, would not be half as fruitful.

Here is a description of a woman's jewelry, as taken from life by Vandy: lobes of ears pierced with holes large enough to allow one's thumb to be inserted; above these holes two small gold-color rivets in each ear; in each nostril two gold pendants, inserted by screwing in; through the centre of the nose a large silver ring; on each wrist four bracelets; higher up the arm more rings; around her neck a necklace; around each ankle a large silver ring; and around her big toe and the next, on both feet, were rings. The smallest children wore many similar jewels. Upon these every penny they can save is squandered, and to secure them they are content to live on a little boiled rice and fish--a bamboo hut of one apartment their only home, and a piece of cotton cloth their wardrobe.

We had the pleasure of meeting, at Major Studer's, Mr. Hornaday, a young gentleman who travels for Professor Ward, of Rochester, New York, whose museum is well known the world over. Mr. Hornaday's department is to keep the Professor's collections complete, and if there be a rare bird, beast, or reptile on the globe, he is bound to capture specimens. He had just returned from spending four months among the savages of Borneo, where alone a supply of orang-outangs could be obtained. He returned with forty-two of these links, shot mostly by himself. He came one day upon two very young ones, and these he has brought here alive. They are suggestively human in their ways, and two better-behaved, more affectionate babies are rarely to be met with. Let no anti-Darwinian study young orang-outangs if he wishes to retain his present notions. The museum, Mr. Hornaday is advised, is now short of dugongs, and he is off for Australia next steamer to lay in a supply. The recital of his adventures is extremely interesting, and I predict that some day a book from him will have a great run.

What an interest is awakened by one who is able to tell stories of his own experience! No wonder that Othello won Desdemona with the recital of his adventures. He was the hero who had been the actor in all the scenes he depicted. Listening to Mr. Hornaday was a source of rare pleasure to-night. His chief regret is that he missed, during his visit to Borneo, the largest mias ever seen on the island. The natives discovered a troop, all of which made off except the leader. He showed fight, but soon ran up a high tree, from which the native weapons were unable to dislodge him. He was beyond their reach and there he sat. It was resolved to cut down the tree and capture him as he fell; but as soon as they came to close quarters with the monster, he proved so powerful, fierce, and courageous that the natives ran away and he got off.

Mr. Hornaday reached the spot just too late. "Why didn't you send for me? Didn't you know my rifle would have reached him?" he asked. They gave him no reason for their conduct, but he suspected that they feared he would not have paid them had he made the capture. Mr. Hornaday is confident this mias exceeded the height stated by Wallace as the maximum.

Mr. Hornaday was more successful with the largest tiger shot in India for years. He was out after cheetahs, and having no more expectation of meeting with the nobler game than of encountering a lion, had not his tiger rifle with him. On coming to the banks of a small stream he was greatly surprised to see a tiger's fresh footmarks--a big foot, too. Making a sign to his attendants to stand motionless, he glanced up the stream, then down, and saw, not far from him, leisurely strolling along the edge of the creek, seeking a convenient ford, the largest tiger he had ever laid eyes upon, although he had shot many. "Shall I shoot with this gun?" he thought. "If I miss he will certainly be upon us. He will attack one of my colored attendants first, anyhow, and I'll get a chance to reload. I'll do it!" A moment after, the monster, having found a ford to his liking, turned his head and looked cautiously down stream before entering the water. Finding all quiet in that direction, he turned to glance up stream. For this moment Mr. Hornaday had waited. There is one spot only to hit a tiger--right between the eyes. He fired and the beast fell. No other shot was fired, for holes spoil a skin. The animal writhed for several hours, no one daring to approach him, until he finally sank exhausted upon the sand. I think it was fifteen pounds Mr. Hornaday received from Government for this exploit. I have secured the skin of this very beast, properly preserved, full head, open mouth, glaring eyeballs, and all, and I am ready to match tiger skins with any one.

In the absence of other commercial intelligence, I may quote the market in Mr. Hornaday's line: Tigers are still reported "lively;" orang-outangs "looking up;" pythons show but little animation at this season of the year; proboscis monkeys, on the other hand, continue scarce; there is quite a run on lions, and kangaroos are jumped at with avidity; elephants heavy; birds of paradise drooping; crocodiles are snapped up as offered, while dugongs bring large prices. What is pig metal to this?

The climate of Singapore, as of all places so near the Equator, would be intolerable but for the dense clouds which obscure the sun and save us from its fierce rays; but occasionally it breaks through for a few minutes, and we are in a bath of perspiration before we know it. No one can estimate the difference in the power of the sun here as compared with it in New York. Straw hats afford no protection whatever; we are compelled to wear thick white helmets of pith, and use a white umbrella lined with green cloth, and yet can walk only a few steps when the sun is not hid without feeling that we must seek the shade. The horses are unable to go more than ten miles in twenty-four hours, and our carriage and pair are hired with the understanding that this is not to be exceeded. Nothing could exist near the line if the intense heat did not cause evaporation upon a gigantic scale. The clouds so formed are driven upward by the streams of colder air from both sides, condensation then takes place, and showers fall every few hours in the region of Singapore.

One is not only in a new earth here, but he has a new sky as well. As the tropics have nothing to compare with our more brilliant colors in the vegetable world, so the southern sky has no stars to equal ours. Indeed, with the exception of the four in the Southern Cross, two in the Centaur, and two or three others, there is no star of the first magnitude to be seen, and the constellations are poor compared with those of our splendid northern skies. Shakespeare's

". . . inlaid with patines of bright gold,"

must seem hyperbole to the Australian. I saw the Southern Cross many nights while at sea, and it is certainly very fine, as far as four stars can make a cross; for, as usual, much is left to the imagination. It is really not a cross at all. These long ocean trips furnish the best opportunity for observing the stars, and I have rubbed up my early knowledge on the subject so far as to be able to point out all the constellations and many of the principal stars; but away down here the North Star even is not to be seen, and we have to steer by Orion's belt if the compass varies.

* * * * *

TUESDAY, January 14.

We left Singapore to-day at three P.M. by the English mail steamer Teheran, parting with very sincere regret from Major and Miss Studer, to whom we had been so much indebted for our week's happiness. These partings from kind friends on our way round the world are the sad incidents of the trip. People are so kind, and they do so much to render our stay agreeable, that we become warmly attached, and have many excursions planned, when some morning up goes the flag, boom goes the signal gun, "Mail steamer arrived!" all aboard at sunset! and farewell, friends! We see them linger on the pier as we sail away, good-byes are waved, and we fade from each other's sight; but it will be long ere many faces vanish from our memory.

While still gazing Singaporeward I am recalled to the stern duties of life. These two baby orang-outangs I told you of are going to a naturalist in Madras. What a present! and Vandy and I have promised to do what we can in the way of attendance upon them. The butcher comes to ask me when they are to be fed, and how, and what. This is a poser. I am not up in the management of orang- outangs, but Vandy has skill in almost everything of this kind; at least he is safer than I, there being a good deal of the incipient doctor about Vandy, and I search for him in this emergency. The fact is, while I have had varied experiences in the matter of delicate charges of many kinds, these have generally been of our own species--a youngster to be taken home to his parents, a dowager lady afraid of the cars--even a blushing damsel to be transported across the Atlantic to the arms of her _fiancé_ has been entrusted to me before this, but this charge is decidedly out of my line. These fearfully human-looking, human-acting brutes furnish much amusement to the passengers; but at first every lady whom we took forward to watch them was compelled to run away laughing and exclaiming, "Oh, they are so much like babies! It's just horrid to see these nasty, hairy things carry on so!" Confirmation strong, I suppose, of our kinship, so do riot let us neglect our poor relations even if the connection be somewhat remote. Bananas are their favorite delicacy, but this morning not even that fruit could tempt them. I gave one to the smaller of the two, but it would not take it. Then I tried the larger one. He took it in his paw, peeled it at one end and put it to his lips, then looking up at me with a sad, puzzled expression, dropped his prize, and resting his head on his paw laid slowly down on the straw, telling us all as plainly as could be that he was sea-sick. Such was indeed the case; but in a few hours the sea fell and he was as sprightly as ever. Monkeys move spasmodically, by jerks as it were; not so these dignified, stately creatures: they are as deliberate in all their actions as staid, sober people. One day a passenger had offered a banana to the little one, but as it put forth its paw, withdrew it. The wee thing stood this several times, and at last laid down on its face and cried like a child--a wicked cry; nor would it be comforted, the banana when offered being petulantly rejected. They are much too human.

We called at Penang, an island on the western shore of the Peninsula, also belonging to Great Britain, and had time to drive around the settlement. The place is not to be compared to Singapore in size, but vegetation is even more luxuriant. It was very hot, and we envied the governor his residence on a mountain peak eighteen hundred feet above the sea, where, it was reported, fires are actually required at some seasons night and morning. Penang exports large quantities of tin, and we took on a lot for New York. This valuable production seems about the only metal America has now to import, but some lucky explorer is no doubt destined to find it in immense quantities by and by. Having got everything else, it doesn't stand to reason that America should not be favored with this also. Nothing unusual occurred upon our run across the Bay of Bengal. Even Vandy enjoyed the sea voyage this time; something he had never before done in his life, nor ever done since. It was smooth and quiet steaming all the way to Ceylon. I had been humming "Greenland's Icy Mountains" for several days previously, about all that I knew of Ceylon's isle being contained in one of the verses of that hymn, which I used to sing at missionary meetings, when a minister who had seen the heathen was stared at as a prodigy.

And indeed the "spicy breezes blew soft o'er Ceylon's isle" as we approached it in the moonlight. We found Galle quite a pretty, quaint little port, and remained there one night, taking the coach next morning for Colombo, the capital. The drive of sixty miles to the railway which extends to Colombo, seventeen miles beyond, is one of the best treats we have yet had. The road is equal to one of our best park avenues, as indeed are all the roads we saw in Ceylon; from end to end it skirts the rocky shores, passing through groves of cocoa and betel-nut trees, and dotted on each side by the huts of natives at work at some branch of the cocoanut business. Every part of the nut is utilized; ropes and mats are made from the covering of the shell, oil from the kernel, and the milk is drank fresh at every meal. These trees do not thrive except near the coast, the salt air laden with moisture being essential for their growth, but they grow quite down to the edge of the sea. The natives have been attracted to this main road, and from Galle to Colombo it is almost one continuous village; there is no prettier sea-shore in the world, nor a more beautiful surf. Every few miles we come upon large numbers of fishermen drawing in their nets, which are excessively long and take in several acres of sea in their sweep. An artist who would come to Ceylon and devote himself to depicting "the fishers of Ceylon's isle" (how well that sounds! and a good title is half the battle) would make a reputation and a fortune. I am quite sure there is no more picturesque sight than the drawing of their nets, several hundred men being engaged in the labor, while the beach is alive with women and children in bright colors anxiously watching the result.

The dress of the Ceylonese women is really pretty: a skirt closely fitting the figure, and a tight jacket over the shoulders--all of fine, pure white cotton cloth or muslin and quite plain, with neither frill, tuck, flounce, nor anything of the kind. Necklaces and ear-rings are worn, but I am glad to say the nose in Ceylon seems to be preserved from the indignity of rings. The men's dress is rather scanty, their weakness being a large tortoise-shell comb, which every one wears; it reaches from ear to ear, and the hair is combed straight back and confined by it. Women are denied this crowning ornament, and must content themselves with a pin in the hair, the head of which, however, is highly ornamented. The Buddhist priests form a strange contrast in their dress, which consists of a yellow plaid, generally of silk, wrapped around the body and over the shoulders.

I asked our Ceylonese guide to-day whether he had ever heard of our most popular missionary hymn. "Here is the verse," I said, "about your beautiful isle ":

"What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle,
Though every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile!
In vain with lavish kindness,
The gifts of God are strewn;
The heathen, in his blindness,
Bows down to wood and stone."

"What do you think of that description?" I asked. He said he thought "the writer was a fool," and asked if any one in my country believed that there was a man, woman, or child in Ceylon who did not know better than to bow down to any power but God. "Yes," I said, "I once believed it myself, and millions believe it to-day, and good boys and girls with us save their pennies to send missionaries to tell these heathen who worship idols how very wrong and foolish it is to do so, and how very angry the true God is to have anything worshipped but himself." He said ours must be a very curious country, and he should like to visit it and see such queer people. I gave him my address and promised, if he would come to see me, to take him to a great missionary meeting where he would see the best and most religious people, all greatly concerned about the idolaters of Ceylon.

The truth is there is scarcely in all the world a human being so low in the scale as not to know that the object he sees is only the symbol of the invisible power. What the cross is to the Christian the idol is to the other, and it is nothing more. The worship of both is to the Unknown beyond. I did my best to soothe the wounded spirit of our guide by explaining the necessities of poetic license. Still he would have it that Bishop Heber had wronged his beloved Ceylon and did not know what he was writing about.

The religion of Ceylon is Buddhism; indeed it is now the most strictly Buddhist country in the world. One condition of the cession of the sovereignty to Great Britain was that this religion should be held inviolable with its rights and privileges, its monasteries and temples and all pertaining thereto. In the language of the greatest European authority, "although government support is no longer given to it, its pure and simple doctrines live in the hearts of the people and are the noblest monument to its founder Gautama Buddha. The taking of the meanest life is strictly forbidden, and falsehood, intemperance, dishonesty, anger, pride, and covetousness are denounced as incompatible with Buddhism, which enjoins the practice of chastity, gratitude, contentment, moderation, forgiveness of injuries, patience, and cheerfulness." The priests of Buddha are regularly ordained and sworn to celibacy, and they are required to meet each other every fourteen days for purposes of mutual confession. The lowest caste is eligible to the priesthood, as with the Christian religion.