, after their powers were exhausted they would
suddenly pull out their heads, reeking with the molasses, and make
for the ocean, unmindful of the crowds of natives in holiday attire
who blocked their way.

Then came a jinrikisha race, with Chinese coolies pulling Malay
passengers around a half-mile course. Letting go the handles of their
wagons as they crossed the line, the coolies threw their unfortunate
passengers over backward.

Tugs of war, wrestling matches, and boxing bouts on the turf finished
the land sports, and we all adjourned to the yachts to witness those
of the sea. There were races between men-of-war cutters, European
yachts, rowing shells, Chinese sampans, and Malay colehs with great,
dart-like sails, so wide-spreading that ropes were attached to the
top of the masts, and a dozen naked natives hung far out over the
side of the slender boat to keep it from blowing over. In making the
circle of the harbor they would spring from side to side of the boat,
sometimes lost to our view in the spray, often missing their footholds,
and dragging through the tepid water.

Between times, while watching the races, we amused ourselves
throwing coppers to a fleet of native boys in small dugouts beneath
our bows. Every time a penny dropped into the water, a dozen little
bronze forms would flash in the sunlight, and nine times out of ten
the coin never reached the bottom.

Last of all came the trooping of the English colors on the magnificent
esplanade, within the shadow of the cathedral; the march past of the
sturdy British artillery and engineers, with their native allies, the
Sikhs and Sepoys; then the feu-de-joie, and New Year's was officially
recognized by the guns of the fort.

That night we danced at Government House,--we exiles of the Temperate
Zone,--keeping up to the last the fiction that New Year's Day under
a tropic sky and within sound of the tiger's wail was really January
first. But every remembrance and association was, in our homesick
thoughts, grouped about an open arch fire, with the sharp, crisp
creak of sleigh-runners outside, in a frozen land fourteen thousand
miles away.

IN THE BURST OF THE SOUTHWEST MONSOON

A Tale of Changhi Bungalow

We had been out all day from Singapore on a wild-pig hunt. There were
eight of us, including three young officers of the Royal Artillery,
besides somewhere between seventy and a hundred native beaters. The
day had been unusually hot, even for a