d small boat with two men to pull, and two cooks, with rice,
fowls, and everything wanted for breakfast and dinner. I believe they
already at Pulo Nanas, cooking breakfast; the palanquins are also at
the door; and so, if it be the sahibs' pleasure, it is better to start
before the sun gets very high."

All this certainly promised well for us pleasure-seekers, and was no
doubt quite as satisfactory an arrangement for our scheming comprador,
who always took care to add to every charge a very liberal commission
for his own valuable services. We well knew that he was cheating us
on a grand scale, but of what avail was such knowledge? We should
gain nothing by discharging one who had at least the merit of being
good-looking, well-mannered and pleasant-speaking, only to engage
another less civil and probably no more honest. And in India all
disbursements for personal and household expenses are made through
these compradors or stewards--not of necessity, but because it is
the custom of the country, and in the East one never rebels against
established usage.

Our preparations were soon made: sketchbooks, drawing materials and
covered baskets for specimens were transferred to the keeping of
our faithful Mussulman, and we set out, anticipating a day of rare
enjoyment. We were fortunate in securing the company of Mr. M----,
the accomplished president of the Anglo-Chinese College, who had
spent some thirty years in Singapore, and was well acquainted with its
localities and objects of interest. He was like a complete volume with
illustrations on everything pertaining to the East, could answer all
manner of unheard-of questions about things that everybody else had
forgotten, and had always ready an appropriate anecdote or story just
to the point. His very dress was characteristic. It consisted of loose
trousers of gray linen, and an old-fashioned white hunting-coat with
Quaker collar, and huge pockets that would have answered very well
for the saddle-bags of an itinerant surgeon. These were designed
as receptacles for such stray "specimens" in botany, geology or
conchology as he might chance to discover _en route_; while thrust
into a smaller breast-pocket he carried a brace of huntsman's pistols,
with antique powder-horn and shot-pouch slung over the shoulder. His
hat was a Panama with low, round crown and a rim nearly as large as
an ordinary umbrella. A Chinese youth, an orphan adopted by Mr. M----
years before, accompanied his p