then pushing carefully ahead, trying to get into
the deep water beyond, before low tide.

Suddenly there was a soft, grating sound and the captain came to me
and touched his hat.

"We are on the bar, sir. Will you send a despatch by the steam-cutter
to Prince Suliman, asking for the launch? We cannot get off until
the night tide."

The Pante had so swung around that we could plainly see the big
red istana, or palace, of Prince Suliman close to the sandy shore,
surrounded by a grove of graceful palms. With the aid of our glasses
the white and red blur farther up the river resolved itself into the
streets and quays of the little city of Bander Maharani, the capital
of the province of Maur in dominions of his Highness Abubaker, Sultan
of Johore. Above and overshadowing all both in beauty and historical
interest was the famous old mountain where King Solomon sent his
diminutive ships for "gold, silver, peacocks, and apes."

By the time the ladies were astir, the mists had vanished and Gunong
Ladang, or as it is styled in Holy Writ Mount Ophir, presented to
our admiring gaze its massive outlines, set in a frame of green and
blue. The dense jungle crept halfway up its sides and at the point
where the cloud stratum had rested but an hour before, it merged into
a tangled network of vines and shrubs which in their turn gave place
to the black, red rock that shone like burnished brass.

If our minds wandered away from visions of future crocodile-shooting
to dreams of the past wealth that had been taken from the ancient
mines that honeycombed the base of the mountain, it is hardly to
be wondered at. If Dato or "Lord" Garlands told us queer stories of
woods and masonry that antedated the written history of the country,
stories of mines and workings that were overgrown with a jungle that
looked as primeval as the mountain itself, he was to be excused on
the plea that we, waiting on a sandy bar with the metallic glare of
the sea in our eyes, were glad of any subject to distract our thoughts.

The Resident's launch brought out Prince Mat and the Chief Justice,
both of whom spoke English with an easy familiarity. Both had been in
Europe and Prince Mat had dined with Queen Victoria. One night at table
he related the incidents of that dinner with a delightful exactness
that might have pleased her Britannic Majesty could she have listened.

I waited only long enough to see the ladies installed in a suite of
rooms in the Residency,