close the view to the north, and on the other side of a very narrow
channel are the palm groves and sugar plantations of Province
Wellesley. The Leper Island looked beautiful in the dewy morning with
its stilted houses under the cocoa-palms; and the island of Pinang,
with its lofty peak, dense woods, and shores fringed with palms
sheltering Malay kampongs, each with its prahus drawn up on the beach,
looked impressive enough.

The fierce glory of a tropic sunrise is ever a new delight. It is
always the sun of the Nineteenth Psalm, with the prevailing yellow
color of the eastern sky intensifying in one spot, a cool, lingering
freshness, a deepening of the yellow east into a brilliant rose color,
till suddenly, "like a glory, the broad sun" wheels above the horizon,
the dew-bathed earth rejoices, the air is flooded with vitality, all
things which rejoice in light and heat come forth, night birds and
night prowlers retire, and we pale people hastily put up our umbrellas
to avoid being shriveled in less than ten minutes from the first
appearance of the sun.

"Pinang," from the Pinang or areca-palm, is the proper name of the
island, but out of compliment to George IV, it was called Prince of
Wales Island. Georgetown is the name of the capital, but by an odd
freak we call the town Penang, and spell it with an e instead of an i.

There were a great many ships and junks at anchor, and the huge "P. and
O." steamer Peking, and there was a state of universal hurry and
excitement, for a large number of the officials of the Colonial
Government and of the "protected" States are here to meet Sir W.
Robinson, the Governor, who is on his way home on leave. There are
little studies of human nature going on all round. Most people have