that turtle-soup is anything but a luxury, and turtle flesh is
ordinarily sold in the meat shops.

Rain is officially said to fall on two hundred days of the year, but
popularly every day! The rainfall is only eighty-seven inches,
however, and the glorious vegetation owes its redundancy to the
dampness of the climate. Of course Singapore has no seasons. The
variety is only in the intensity of the heat, the mercury being
tolerably steady between 80 degrees and 84 degrees, the extreme range
of temperature being from 71 degrees to 92 degrees. People sleep on
Malay mats spread over their mattresses for coolness, some dispense
with upper sheets, and others are fanned all night by punkahs. The soft
and tepid land and sea breezes mitigate the heat to a slight extent,
but I should soon long for a blustering north-easter to break in upon
the oppressive and vapor-bath stillness.

As Singapore is a military station, and ships of war hang about
constantly, there is a great deal of fluctuating society, and the
officials of the Straits Settlements Government are numerous enough to
form a large society of their own. Then there is the merchant class,
English, German, French, and American; and there is the usual round of
gayety, and of the amusements which make life intolerable. I think that
in most of these tropical colonies the ladies exist only on the hope of
going "home!" It is a dreary, aimless life for them--scarcely life,
only existence. The greatest sign of vitality in Singapore Europeans
that I can see is the furious hurry in writing for the mail. To all
sorts of claims and invitations, the reply is, "But it's mail day, you
know," or, "I'm writing for the mail," or, "I'm awfully behind hand
with my letters," or, "I can't stir till the mail's gone!" The hurry is
desperate, and even the feeble Englishwomen exert themselves for