charnel into which human bodies are flung, or a
place where the adepts of the Palladium could celebrate a black Sabbath
and form a magic chain with putrid corpses, it is a great lake covering
an area of thirty square miles, and is known by Anglo-Indians as the
Saltwater Lake. In the year 1886 it was in course of reclamation, but
all that Dr Bataille tells us is specifically untrue, and he could never
have witnessed there the things which he describes as taking place in
the year 1880. The _recit d'un temoin_ is in this matter an invented
history.

As a consequence of this bogus experience in Calcutta, Dr Bataille
pretends to have been admitted within the charmed circle of the New and
Reformed Palladium, and was therefore qualified to be present at the
initiation of a Templar-Mistress which took place not long after at
Singapore. His account of this initiation turns upon two or three points
which do not appear in the synopsis of the sixth chapter. One of these
is the existence of a Kadosch Areopagite of the Ancient and Accepted
Scotch Rite. But at least, at the period in question, there was no such
Areopagite, and the Scotch Rite did not exist at Singapore. The sole
Masonic institution was a District Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and
Accepted Masons of England in the Eastern Archipelago, working under the
warrant of the English Grand Lodge, holding half-yearly communications,
and special meetings when the District Grand Master deemed necessary.
Its patent dates from March 3, 1878, and the District Grand Master at
the time was the Hon. William H. Macleod Read. Three lodges worked
under its jurisdiction, two of which were at Singapore and one at
Penang, and to one of the former a Royal Arch Chapter was attached. It
is needless to say that our author's Misraim diploma would have obtained
his admission to none, and there is no person here in England who would
have the effrontery to affirm that he might have fared better by reason
of his Palladian degree. It is sufficient, however, to state that there
was no Lodge of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite in Singapore at the
time of his visit. But the imposition does not end here; Dr Bataille
does not merely describe what took place at a lodge which was not in
existence--he gives particulars of an address delivered by a certain Dr
Murray at a meeting attended by himself. Now, at the date in question,
there was no such person either in the town, in its vicinity, or in
Penang. There