an galloways. Twice a year he offered a cup at
the Singapore jockey races, and entered a half dozen of his best
runners. At his tent on the grounds he dispensed champagne, ices,
and cakes, and his native band of thirty pieces played alternately
with the regimental band from the English barracks.

His three hundred ton steam-launch was built on the Clyde. Besides
the Sultan's saloon on the lower deck, which was furnished befitting a
king, there were cabins for ten people. The promenade deck was under
an awning, and was furnished with a heavy rosewood dining-table and
long chairs. She carried four guns of long range.

The revenue of Johore amounts to six million dollars a year, to
which the Sultan's private property in Singapore adds nearly a half
million more. The bulk of the national revenue is raised from opium,
spirits, and gambling. The scheme of taxation is simple, but most
effective. Any Chinaman who has a longing for the pipe pays into his
Highness's treasury one dollar a month, and is granted a permit to buy
and smoke opium; another monthly dollar and he is licensed to drink.

The gambling privilege is given to the highest bidder, and he has the
monopoly for the kingdom. There is also a small export tax on gambier
and tin. On the other hand, any immigrant that wishes to settle and
open a farm of any kind is given all the ground he can work, rent free,
to have and to hold as long as he keeps it under cultivation. Should
he leave, it reverts with all its improvements to the crown.

The government is autocratic, but tempered and kept in sympathy
with the English ideas of justice as seen in the great colonies that
surround it.

The dinner throughout was European, save for the one national
dish, curry. Every Malay, from the poorest fisherman along the
mangrove-fretted lagoon to the chef of his Highness's kitchen, justly
boasts of the excellence of his curry and the number of sambuls he
can make.

First came a golden bowl filled with rice, as white and as light
as snow; then another, in which was a gravy of yellow curry powder,
choice bits of fowl, and plump, fresh slices of egg-plant. Then came
the sambuls, or condiments, more than forty varieties, in little
circular dishes of Japanese ware on big silver trays. There were
fish-roes, ginger, and dried fish, or "Bombay duck," duck's eggs
hashed with spices, chutney, peppers, grated cocoanut, anchovies,
browned crumbs, chicken livers, fried bananas, barley sprouts