On my trips between Bangkok and Singapore, I stopped off many times at Trengganu to renew my acquaintance with the Sultan and to talk with the native hunters, who were sending a steady stream of animals to me at Singapore. I was known to the natives throughout the Peninsula as Túan Gâjah—Sir Elephant—and I was amused to find that the story of the big elephant hunt had grown to incredible proportions. The herd of sixty elephants became larger each time the story was told.
After one exciting incident in the work of shipping animals for the King of Siam, I was allowed full authority. We were sending a pair of beautifully matched leopards to the Emperor of Austria, and they had reached Singapore in two large, poorly constructed cages. Mr. Anderson was there, and we disagreed on the advisability of recaging them. I thought that the cages looked weak and I wished to have my Chinese carpenter build two that would be smaller and stronger. Mr. Anderson, however, was impatient to start the leopards on their voyage, and, since he was boss, we loaded the cages on bullock-carts and headed for the docks. In unloading one of the bullock-carts, the natives allowed the case to slide to the ground too heavily; the cage broke, and out went Mr. Leopard like a flash of lightning, heading straight for the Chinese quarter. The Chinese saw him coming, and a panic started. They tumbled over one another in getting out of the way, and two of them were scratched. The leopard was quite as frightened as any of the Chinese. The natives in charge of the bullock-cart came running for me, and I went to the Chinese quarter to find the leopard. He had taken refuge in a house, and I finally discovered him hiding under the stairs, his eyes shining in the darkness. Since it was impossible to get rid of the mob of Chinese and recaging under the circumstances would have been too dangerous, we had to shoot the animal. We took the other leopard back to Orchard Road and built a new cage.
In 1902, just before the rainy season, I was resting in Singapore after six months of hard work. Just as I had almost decided to go to Europe, I happened to see in an old copy of the New York Clipper an advertisement of a steam merry-go-round. That gave me an idea; there had never been a merry-go-round in the Malay Peninsula, and I was confident enough of my judgment of Malay nature to gamble that it would be a success. Mr. Lambert didn't agree with me. "Forget about it," he advised. "Take the steamer and have a good vacation." But I went to the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank and cabled $2,000 in gold to the factory at North Tonawanda, New York, with instructions to ship me the merry-go-round on the first boat, via London. It arrived nine weeks later, and it cost me £110 in freight. The rain was beating down steadily in Singapore, and so I transshipped it to Penang.
A few days later, I was in Penang, driving around in a rickshaw, looking for a good location, while the merry-go-round, still in crates, was coming ashore in sampans. Opposite the Hotel de la Paix I found a good open space, and I routed out of bed the Chinese merchant who owned it. I told him that I should like to rent the lot for a show and that, if he would come to terms with me, I would let him and his family ride free of charge. Now a Chinese likes a show better than anything else on earth, and so we were not long in closing a bargain. I was to pay him a rental of $1 Mexican a day and to have an option of two months on the lot. I had no paper on which to write out the agreement, and so, since I didn't want him to change his mind, I paid him $30 for one month, writing the receipt in my pith helmet. He signed in my hat; then we pasted a stamp in it and canceled the stamp by writing the date across it.
While Ali and my coolie boy were getting the merry-go-round unloaded, I collected a gang of laborers and an engineer. All that day we worked at uncrating the merry-go-round and putting it together. The natives stood around, watching us and speculating as to what this strange new thing could possibly be. The merry-go-round ran on wheels on a track and the horses were connected with eccentrics, which worked them up and down; a good loud organ was connected by a belt with one of the wheels. The merry-go-round carried fifty-six people.
I began business on the Chinese New Year's Day. The merry-go-round was the sensation of Penang. The crowds flocked to see it, and the natives lined up for several hundred yards, each with his dime in his hand, waiting for his turn. We were so busy that I could not even go to the hotel for a meal; the brassy organ of the merry-go-round shrieked from early in the morning until late at night. In two days, I took in $1,500 Mexican.
On the third day the merchant from whom I had rented the lot announced that he was going to build a fence around it and charge two cents for the privilege of standing and watching the merry-go-round. I told him that I wouldn't allow it; that all of Penang could come and see my show free. I was too busy taking in dimes to think about fences. He went away angry and disappointed. Four days later a lawyer representing him came to see me. He said that the rent had been raised to $10 a day, and that a dispossess order would be executed unless I paid it. I told the lawyer to wait and I went back to the hotel, to get my pith helmet.
The merchant had forgotten about the receipt. When the lawyer saw it, he told me that the merchant was unpopular with all the Malays and Chinese in Penang because he cheated them, and that they would be delighted if I sued for breach of contract. The result was that, for $1 a day, I got the use of the lot as long as I wanted it.
Within six weeks I had made up the entire cost of the merry-go-round and I was on velvet. The dimes were still rolling in as fast as I could collect them. Finally, when the novelty of my show had worn off and business began to slacken, I shipped to Rangoon, Burma, to collect dimes there. After the merry-go-round had been running two weeks, I was approached by a man who wished to buy me out. I had had all the fun I wanted, and so I sold it to him for 10,000 rupees—$4,500 in gold. He was a government official and consequently did not wish to appear in the transaction. The bill of sale was made out in his wife's name, and a man was hired to run the merry-go-round for him. I stayed for a week to get the enterprise started; then I went up to the lumber mills to see if the lumbermen needed elephants. When I returned to Singapore, I had a commission for six large elephants.
It was a better vacation than I could have had in Europe. I had made many friends and attended to some animal business and I had £700 clear profit in my pockets.