nd forth with a ceaseless regularity. Standing outside of each
window, a tall, graceful punkah-wallah tugs at a rattan withe, his
naked limbs shining like polished ebony in the fierce glare of the
Malayan sun.

For a moment, perhaps, the boy thinks himself in India, possibly at
Simla, for he has read some of Rudyard Kipling's stories.

Back under the portico-like verandas, whose narrow breadths take the
place of sidewalks, are little booths that look like bay windows turned
inside out. On the floor of each sits a Turk, cross-legged, or an Arab,
surrounded by a heterogeneous assortment of wares, fez caps, brass
finger-bowls, a praying rug, a few boxes of Japanese tooth-picks, some
rare little bottles of Arab essence, a betel-nut box, and a half dozen
piles of big copper cents, for all shopkeepers are money-changers.

The merchant gathers his flowing party-colored robes about him,
tightens the turban head, and draws calmly at his water-pipe while a
bevy of Hindu and Tamil women bargain for a new stud for their noses,
a showy amulet, or a silver ring for their toes.

Squatting right in the way of all passers is a Chinese travelling
restaurant that looks like two flour barrels, one filled with drawers,
the other containing a small charcoal fire. The old cookee, with
his queue tied neatly up about his shaven head, takes a variety of
mixtures from the drawers,--bits of dried fish, seaweed, a handful of
spaghetti, possibly a piece of shark's fin, or better still a lump of
bird's nest, places them in the kettle, as he yells from time to time,
"Machen, machen" (eating, eating).

Next to the Arab booth is a Chinese lamp shop, then a European
dry-goods store, an Armenian law office, a Japanese bazaar, a foreign
consulate.

A babble of strange sounds and a jargon of languages salute the
astonished boy's ears.

In the broad well-paved streets about him a Malay syce, or driver,
is trying to urge his spotted Deli pony, which is not larger than a
Newfoundland dog, in between a big, lumbering two-wheeled bullock-cart,
laden with oozing bags of vile-smelling gambier, and a great patient
water buffalo that stands sleepily whipping the gnats from its black,
almost hairless hide, while its naked driver is seated under the
trees in the square quarrelling and gambling by turns.

The gharry, which resembles a dry-goods box on wheels, set in with
latticed windows, smashes up against the ponderous hubs of the
bullock-cart. The meek-eye