Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water / The Journal of a Tour Through the British Empire and America

by Ethel Gwendoline Vincent

The descent in the cool of the evening was very pleasant, the coolies swinging down hill at a great pace, whilst the two supporters acted as drags round the steep corners. The road is splendidly made, with ridges to prevent the rain washing down the sand. The light did not last, and ere we reached the bottom of the hill we were wrapped in the gloom and great stillness of the forest.

Here a similar disaster to the non-appearance of the chairs in the morning awaited us. There was no gharry. The coolies, however, made signs to us to get into the chairs again, and that they would take us on, but only, as it turned out, to the first hotel. Here they rebelled, and refused to go further, and we were powerless to remonstrate, not speaking the language. The hotel was small and ill-looking, kept by a Chinaman, but we entered in the hope of finding some one who would understand us enough to send off for a gharry. It was quite dark, and Dr. Hampshire's house a long way off. Two German gentlemen were inside; they said there were no gharries to be had, but they volunteered to give us each a seat in the two traps that we had seen waiting outside, and to deposit us at our destination. It was a happy way for us out of our dilemma, and we were much indebted to our "friends in need, friends indeed."

We dined and spent a very pleasant evening, suffering from the heat of Penang after the cool air of the mountain. A gharry took us to the landing-pier, and so late as it was, we had no choice but to take a "sampan" to row across in the moonlight to the ship. The tide was running very strong, and the sampan is but a frail bark, propelled by the native standing up. We first narrowly escaped striking the rudder of the ship in coming round to the further side, and then the current swept us away from the gangway. However, we were landed safely on board by eleven o'clock, very tired after a day beginning at 5 a.m. Nevertheless we felt we had thoroughly enjoyed a very novel and pleasant New Year's Day.

Friday, January 2nd.—We went off with the captain in the ship's boat directly after breakfast, and were fortunate enough in finding an interpreter on the wharf. Malay is the current language of the Straits Settlements, among the variety of nationalities which gather in their towns. It is an easily learnt language, and from its soft, sweet accent is called the "Italian of the East."

Beach Street is very narrow and picturesque, gay with the wares displayed on counters in the street, and the motley crowd of variously coloured skins. I went with C. to the bank. The large, whitewashed room with the green cloth table in the centre, has not exactly the business-like look of our banks. All the cashiers are Chinese, who count out the heavy silver dollar pieces with great rapidity. The dollar here is worth three shillings and sixpence, but they suffer much in the Straits Settlements from having only twenty, fifteen, and ten cent. pieces, and no half-dollar.

It is strange to notice that wherever the dollar or a high monetary unit exists, there the necessaries of life become proportionately dear. It is so throughout America, and here in the Straits Settlements, especially at Singapore and Penang, which are very expensive places to live in. The officials are apt to complain that when apportioning their salaries Government did not make sufficient allowance for this. The favourite mode of payment, however, in the Straits is by "chits," or an I.O.U. You give the driver of your gharry a chit as much as you do your tradesman; and at the end of the month they employ a "chitty," who charges some small percentage to collect these chits.

We saw some more of the curious life in Chinatown, that is compressed into the usual nutshell, at Penang, and also went into a Joss-house. The roof of a Joss-house is curiously pointed at the ends, with a sweeping depression in the centre, and is adorned with blue and green dragons, and other carvings. Inside there was a lofty temple, with a dark oak ceiling supported by gilded pillars; also a bronze table, with a great deal of gaudy, tawdry decoration upon it, just such as you would imagine the Chinese would introduce into their religion. The Joss, or idol, was guarded by a screen, between which you passed to see the case, hung with green curtains, containing the hideous, wizened figure, arrayed in blue and orange. Numbers of sandal-wood tapers, or joss-sticks, were being burnt in handfuls before him, supplied free by the man at the door, and their sweet, sickly smell pervaded the air.

We were led into a courtyard at the back, where the walls were entirely covered with green and gold and black wooden squares, engraved with Chinese writing. They are tablets erected to the memory of their dead. Here there is another shrine, with three idols. Perhaps the centre one, or patriarch, was Jain, the brother of Buddha, whom they worship, for most of the Chinese are really Buddhists. The priest, who can be known by his shaven head, without pigtail, showed this one to us, and gave me a bundle of the joss-sticks. The joss-house was spoilt by its untidy and neglected state, boards and planks filling up the courtyard, and showing in strange contrast against the costly mountings of the temple. We passed through a round hole in the wall of the courtyard to the garden of the joss, a little plot filled with marigolds and chrysanthemums. Some trees cut into figures, a wooden head and hands being added, looked curiously life-like.

After peeping in at the court-house, where we saw that the jury and the judge are allowed their special punkah, and buying some photographs, we returned to the pier, not in the gharry, but in a jinricksha. We had some difficulty in finding one, for the cool of the evening, when the Chinese ladies take the air, is the time of their harvest.

The jinricksha is a high bath-chair, and, translated from the Chinese, signifies "pull-man's" car, from "jin," a man, and "rick," to pull. They go along silently and at a great pace. The motion is made pleasant by the high action and regular swing of the shoulders that accompanies the trot of the drawer. Neither Japanese nor Chinese think the work derogatory, unlike the Scotch, who, when a gentleman took home a jinricksha and "puller" to Edinburgh, rose in rebellion at a man being degraded into a horse.