Gems--A Weight of Splendor--New-Year Rejoicings--Syed Abdulrahman--A
Mohammedan Princess--A Haunted City--Francis Xavier--The Reward of
"Pluck"--Projects of Travel


STADTHAUS, MALACCA, January 23.

Malacca fascinates me more and more daily. There is, among other
things, a mediaevalism about it. The noise of the modern world reaches
it only in the faintest echoes; its sleep is almost dreamless, its
sensations seem to come out of books read in childhood. Thus, the
splendid corpse of a royal tiger has been brought in in a bullock-cart,
the driver claiming the reward of fifteen dollars, and its claws were
given to me. It was trapped only six miles off, and its beautiful
feline body had not had time to stiffen. Even when dead, with its
fierce head and cruel paws hanging over the end of the cart, it was not
an object to be disrespected. The same reward is offered for a
rhinoceros, five dollars for a crocodile (alligator?) and five dollars
for a boa-constrictor or python. Lately, at five in the morning, a
black tiger (panther?) came down the principal street of Malacca, tore
a Chinamen in pieces, and then, scared by a posse of police in pursuit,
jumped through a window into a house. Every door in the city was
barred, as the rumor spread like wildfire. The policemen very boldly
entered the house, but the animal pinned the Malay corporal to the
wall. The second policeman, a white man, alas! ran away. The third, a
Malay, at the risk of his life, went close up to the tiger, shot him,
and beat him over the head with the butt of his rifle, which made the
beast let go the corporal and turn on him, but fortunately he had
scarcely got hold of him when he fell dead. The corporal is just coming
out of hospital, almost completely paralyzed, to be taken care of for