soft, white muslins in which both men and women drape themselves, each
one might be an artist's model. The Kling women here are beautiful and
exquisitely draped, but the form of the cartilage of the nose and ears
is destroyed by heavy rings. There are many Arabs, too, who are wealthy
merchants and bankers. One of them, Noureddin, is the millionaire of
Pinang, and is said to own landed property here to the extent of
400,000 pounds. There are more than twenty-one thousand Malays on the
island, and though their kampongs are mostly scattered among the palm-
groves, their red sarongs and white bajus are seen in numbers in the
streets; but I have not seen one Malay woman. There are about six
hundred and twelve Europeans in the town and on Pinang, but they make
little show, though their large massive bungalows, under the shade of
great bread-fruit and tamarind-trees, give one the idea of wealth and
solidity.

The sight of the Asiatics who have crowded into Georgetown is a
wonderful one, Chinese, Burmese, Javanese, Arabs, Malays, Sikhs,
Madrassees, Klings, Chuliahs, and Parsees, and still they come in junks
and steamers and strange Arabian craft, and all get a living, depend
slavishly on no one, never lapse into pauperism, retain their own
dress, customs, and religion, and are orderly. One asks what is
bringing this swarthy, motley crowd from all Asian lands, from the Red
to the Yellow Sea, from Mecca to Canton, and one of my Kling boatmen
answers the question, "Empress good--coolie get money; keep it." This
being interpreted is, that all these people enjoy absolute security of
life and property under our flag, that they are certain of even-handed
justice in our colonial courts, and that "the roll of the British drum"
and the presence of a British iron-clad mean to them simply that
security which is represented to us by an efficient police force. It is
so strange to see that other European countries are almost nowhere in