January 1st, 1885.—The New Year came in for us at five in the morning, with three prolonged whistles from the funnel of the Japan as we came to the lovely entrance to the Penang roadstead. I hurried up on deck in déshabille, and found the chill of night yet on the beautifully wooded island where the lighthouse sends forth a brilliant light. The full yellow moon in the dark blue sky was just standing over it, and as we looked a shooting star fell down to earth. On the other hand faint tinges of red and yellow in the east told of the coming morn. With that strangely rapid change of the tropics, dawn turned to sunrise over the sugar plantations of Province Wellesley. We saw the native pilot, with his red petticoat fluttering in the breeze, on the bridge. We passed the large island, which is sacred to the leper hospital, of which there are some 300, chiefly among the Chinese immigrants. Some little fishing-vessels, that had been out all night, with their light still burning in the bows, were hovering about the patches of bamboo stakes. The sun rose, and we saw the red and white roofs of Penang clustering thickly on the flat peninsula, backed by the hill of 2000 feet, a mass of jungle.
We had a cup of early tea on deck, and then I went down to dress, and none too soon as it turned out. As we anchored within half a mile of the shore Mr. Harwood, the Registrar of the Supreme Court, came on board, with an invitation from Colonel Dunlop, the Resident Councillor of Penang, to spend the day at the Government bungalow on the hill. All arrangements had been made for us, and by six o'clock the harbour-master's gig had landed us on the wharf. A gharry drove us through the town, past the Roman Catholic church, whose tapers were lighted and bell tolling, along by the green lawn that forms a cricket-ground, bordered by the sea.
The Chinese are as supreme here in numbers as at Singapore. They were driving the patient white bullocks toiling along with the ox-cart, or more strange still, the huge grey buffalo guided by a ring passed through the nose; they were tailoring or tinkering in their open shops, and carrying on the trade of Penang in their bamboo baskets, slung across the shoulders. We saw many a picturesque bit of native life outside the mat hut: Klings or Madrassee women lounging about, with their nostrils pierced with bright gold coins, and wrapped in the thin strip of gauze.
We were driving along a beautiful road, where the palm-trees and cocoa-nuts arched overhead, and it was most delicious and enjoyable in the cool morning air. Arrived at the bottom of the hill, the promised chairs and coolies were nowhere to be seen, and we felt rather blank for a few minutes, until we determined to walk to the Waterfall.
We wandered along a shady path passing between the decayed pillars of a former gateway. In a neighbouring cocoa grove some natives were laying out the bare ground for a garden. The Waterfall is the celebrated beauty of Penang, and when we only saw some streams of water trickling down the side of a mountain between the jungle, we were greatly disappointed.
Our chairs and coolies were waiting for us on our return, the leaders being distinguished by their white vests. The coolie proper wears nothing but the sarong folded like a short petticoat, and caught up in front in the belt when walking. It is to be noted that these natives, who consider so little ordinary clothing necessary, invariably have the head covered by a heavy turban or cap. We got into the chairs, and six coolies prepared to carry us up the hill: two in front "tandem" between the shafts, which they support by a bamboo pole slung between their shoulders, and two in the same manner behind; one walked on either side to steady the chair. The motion is so easy and pleasant, and the coolies swing along at a great pace, though not attempting to keep step. We enjoyed a very charming two hours, being carried round the zigzags of the hill, in the midst of jungle that might be called virgin jungle, so tropical and dense was the vegetation. It was an ideal of the Indian life we read about—the early morning, the jungle, and the coolies! Sometimes the coolies would accomplish one of the steep gradients by a sudden run, but at all times they worked patiently along, perspiring from every pore, and some of them blowing lustily.
It was becoming very hot as we reached the top of the hill, and we found that Colonel Dunlop was not staying at the Government, but at the Convalescent Bungalow, a little further on. Here on the verandah he welcomed us, with Mr. Justice Wood, an old Westminster; Major Coffee, in command of the detachment of the Inniskillen Fusiliers, stationed at Penang; and Mr. Maxwell, another of Sir Benson's sons. Mr. Maxwell is Commissioner of Lands, and was recently sent over to Acheen to arrange for the release of the Nisero crew.
Jaded officials and business men from Singapore and Penang come up 2000 feet to one of these bungalows on the Hill, and recruit amid the perfect stillness and beautiful monotony of life up here. Beneath lies ever a most superb and glorious view of Penang on its peninsula, separated by an arm of the sea from the cocoa-nut groves and sugar-canes of Province Wellesley. Below and around them are hills of varying size, showing in places the poverty of the soil, but for the most part covered with jungle. The two islands in the sea look almost artificial, so unnaturally glassy is the water around them. In the garden at the back, where our coolies were sleeping in the blaze of the sun, after their struggle up the hill, we see a repetition of the view—the hills and the sea, but without Penang. In the centre of this garden a huge block of granite, on which trees and ferns are growing, raises its Druidical head. Some "Goth" the other day proposed to blast it away, for it destroys all prospect of lawn-tennis.
After "tiffin" we went for a stroll in the woods below the bungalow. In the jungle there we saw many new tropical specimens; the wild cocoa-nut palm, which bears no fruit; the monkey's cup, which is something like the slipper orchid, and contains in its dark red cup shut with a lid, a small quantity of water. A black rock, with a tree growing out of it, without any apparent hold for the roots, was marked with roller indentations, that seemed to indicate the glacier action of past ages. We also saw the atap, a creeper which is the dread of the jungle explorer: it throws out a shoot with thin, green leaves, resembling a straggling branch of palm, but when seen near there are three sharp little claws, which tear and cut pitilessly when brushed against. This jungle is full of monkeys, who sit chattering on the branches of the trees in the early morning and evening, but we saw none now, as they were resting during the midday heat.
On returning to the bungalow we had a feast of English newspapers, reading and resting in the verandah. Dr. Hampshire, the colonial surgeon, telephoned up from Penang an invitation to dinner that evening, which we accepted through the same medium. Remembering the shortness of the tropical twilight, we collected our troop of coolies around us about five o'clock, and walked a little way down, accompanied by the gentlemen, to see a magnificent view.