of nebulae, like the inlaid gold spots amidst a dust of gold on old
Japanese lacquer, and through a moist, warm atmosphere laden with the
heavy fragrance of innumerable night-blossoming flowers.

Singapore, as the capital of the Straits Settlements and the residence
of the Governor, has a garrison, defensive works, ships of war hanging
about, and a great deal of military as well as commercial importance,
and "the roll of the British drum" is a reassuring sound in the midst
of the unquiet Chinese population. The Governor is assisted by
lieutenant-governors at Malacca and Pinang, and his actual rule extends
to the three "protected" States of the Malay Peninsula--Sungei Ujong,
Selangor, and Perak--the affairs of which are administered by British
Residents, who are more or less responsible to him.

If I fail in making you realize Singapore it is partly because I do not
care to go into much detail about so well known a city, and partly
because my own notions of it are mainly of overpowering greenery, a
kaleidoscopic arrangement of colors, Chinese predominance, and
abounding hospitality. I almost fail to realize that it is an island;
one of many; all, like itself, covered with vegetation down to the
water's edge; about twenty-seven miles long by fourteen broad, with the
city at its southern end. It is only seventy miles from the equator,
but it is neither unhealthy nor overpoweringly hot! It is low and
undulating, its highest point, Bukit Timor, or the Hill of Tin, being
only five hundred and twenty feet high. The greatest curse here used to
be tigers, which carried off about three hundred people yearly. They
were supposed to have been extirpated, but they have reappeared,
swimming across from the mainland State of Johore it is conjectured;
and as various lonely Chinese laborers have been victimized, there is
something of a "scare," in the papers at least. Turtles are so abundant