it seems only reasonable, when the two are striving for
predominance, to expect the uncertain and at times terrific weather
which as a matter of experience does occur about the period of the
autumnal equinox in the India and China seas. But after we had made
our southing from Bombay our course lay nearly due east, with a fresh,
fair, west wind, within five degrees of the equator, a zone wherein
cyclonic disturbance seldom intrudes. One of the complaints made by
residents against the climate of Singapore, so pleasant to a stranger,
is the wearisome monotony. Close to the equator, it has too much
sameness of characteristic; _toujours perdrix_. Winter doubtless adds
to our appreciation of summer. For all that, I personally am ready to
dispense with snow.

From Singapore, another commercial centre with variety of inhabitants,
we carried the same smooth water up to Manila, where we stopped a few
days for coal. This was the first of two visits paid while on the
station to this port, which not our wildest imagination expected ever
to see under our flag. Long as American eyes had been fixed upon Cuba,
in the old days of negro slavery, it had occurred to none, I fancy, to
connect possession of that island with these distant Spanish
dependencies. Here our quiet environment was lost. The northeast
monsoon had set in in full force when we started for Hong Kong, and
the run across was made under steam and fore-and-aft canvas, which we
were able to carry close on the wind; a wet passage, throwing a good
deal of water about, but with a brilliant sky and delightful
temperature. It would be hard to exaggerate the beauty of the weather
which this wind brings. In the northern American states we have
autumnal spells like it; but along the Chinese coast it continues in
uninterrupted succession of magnificent days, with hardly a break for
three or four months; an invigorating breeze always blowing, the
thermometer ranging between 50 deg. and 60 deg., a cloudless sky, the air
perfectly dry, so that furniture and wood fittings shrink, and crack
audibly. As rain does not fall during this favored season, the dust
becomes objectionable; but that drawback does not extend to shipboard.
The man must be unreasonable who doubts life being worth living during
the northeast monsoon. Hong Kong is just within the tropics, and
experiences probably the coolest weather of any tropical port. Key
West, in the same latitude, is well enough in a Gulf of Mexico