it streaks around the ship, which throwing a huge shadow on the
water lies silently swinging to her anchor before the peering little red
stars of that solitary old-world city. Scenes such as these are some
compensation to many a home-sick exile.

Ah, well,--we must not get sentimental and out of tune, though the
snores of the whisky-claret Chinaman are particularly discordant.
However he passed--as happily passengers do--and so did the night and
the early dawn as the s.s. _Malacca_ approached the beautiful island of
Singapore (does everyone know it is an island?) Ask you another! Well,
can my readers say straight off what constitutes the Straits
Settlements, and which are islands? but never mind--skip this and hurry
on over the bracket, if an answer were really wanted the bracket would
not be there.

CHAPTER III.

SINGAPORE.

I see that X. has it in his notes that the first view of this city is
the most beautiful in the East--does he mean the approach, the view, or
the city. It perhaps does not greatly matter, but it is certain that he
recorded the fact that to a poor jungle-wallah like himself it seemed
very vast and full of life, as he dressed himself and prepared to
re-enter the world from which he had so long been absent. A gharry--a
close carriage on four wheels with a dirty-looking driver and a tiny
pony--now conveyed, or rather set forth to convey, the traveller to the
hospitable house of a certain distinguished general who resides in
Singapore.

Singapore is a city in which it is notoriously difficult to find one's
way about, as all the roads seem alike--they are all excellent--and so
do the houses. Had I not undertaken to tell you how X. went to Java, I
should like to stop and relate how once on this account the writer
dined at the wrong house--and dined well--while his host, whose name he
never knew, preserved an exquisite _sang-froid_ and never showed
surprise; but such egotistic digressions might possibly annoy X. who has
a right to claim the first place in this little history.

The driver apparently knew where no one as an individual lived, and
entirely relied on strange local descriptions known only to the native
inhabitants, therefore it was vain for X. to try and explain where he
wanted to go. It transpired from interrogations of passers by that no
gharry driver or Malay policeman had heard of the General or even that
such a personage existed--X. never told the General that--and thus the