In the joy of the moment you do not wonder at the sea-fights, the brave sailors, and the corsairs of old; the men who love the sea and can struggle with it through all its moods and phases, will be brave anywhere. If the sea does not nerve a man to brave actions, nothing else ever will. Life on the sea is most refreshing to the average landsman, and on board ship time flies more pleasantly perhaps than anywhere else, if it be true that “sweet do nothing” is the acme of enjoyment. What an appetite the sea-breezes give one for breakfast, which is perhaps of all meals that least enjoyed by inland residents on shore. Our floating cities are the triumphs of modern civilised ingenuity; and during propitious weather in a warm climate, life afloat possesses for the time a freshness and novelty unobtainable elsewhere.
CHAPTER II.
SINGAPORE.
Hotels—Singapore—An Eastern Port—A Tropical Island—Chinese Settlers—Chinese Play—Tropical Night—Climate.
This port, which is also the seat of the government of the Straits Settlements, has not inaptly been called the “Liverpool of the East,” and the applicability of that title soon becomes evident to the stranger from “home,” who finds himself on the landing-stage at Tanjong Paggar for the first time. Here is a range of warehouses or “godowns” for the storage of goods, and coaling sheds for the supply of the mail and other steamers moored alongside. One is soon glad to get away from the heat, the noise of the steam winch, and the coal-dust; and a gharry or cab having been procured, the dusky Jehu springs to his seat on the shaft, from which “coign of vantage” he uses both whip and voice in urging on at a gallop a plucky little pony, scarcely larger than a donkey, and most probably bred either in Sumatra or Pegu. You meet other little ponies in other little gharries coming full tilt down the road to the wharf, a string of buffalo-carts, or occasionally a neat little private carriage, and you soon become aware of the fact that Singapura, as it is still called, of the Malays is both hot and dusty. On you go, and the stuffy little gharry, even if it has no windows, soon becomes as hot as an oven, and the perspiration streams from every pore. By the time you reach the hotels the chances are that your shirt and collar are in the state best described as “pulpy;” and if you are of a sanguine temperament, your face may be said to resemble “the rising sun.” Of course you have kept your eyes open as you came along past the rough hedges on the right clothed with red lantanas, the neat police-station on the bank to the left, with those beautiful crimson and buff-flowered hibiscus bushes before the door. Then the rows of Chinese houses and shops, an elaborate Hindoo temple or two of white stone, and then street after street of whitewashed red tile roofed shops, until you reach the square, where you meet your agent, or to the hotels, nearly all of which are clustered around the tall spire of the cathedral, which you will have seen as the ship steamed slowly into harbour. The chances are you will have been recommended to one or other of the hotels by some knowing friend.
The Hotel de l’Europe is the principal one; but at the time I arrived in Singapore the chef-de-cuisine had such a bad name that I was recommended elsewhere. One is sure to be comfortable at any of the first-class houses at prices varying from two to five dollars daily, or less by monthly arrangement. For this sum one may secure a more or less comfortable bedroom or suite simply whitewashed, the floor covered with yellow rattan matting, which is both cool and clean. The walls, as a rule, do not boast of anything great in the way of pictorial embellishment; at night, however, lively little insect-eating lizards disport themselves thereon; and then, too, the hum of the hungry mosquito is heard. In the morning you rise soon after gun-fire (5 A.M.). It is daylight about 6 A.M.; and after partaking of a cup of tea or coffee, and the inevitable two bits of toast, you have a walk. Everybody nearly seems astir. While dressing, the chances are you will hear a gentle tap at the door, or hearing it opened very cautiously, you turn suddenly, and are startled by a dusky apparition in an enormous white turban. It is an itinerant Kling, or Hindoo Figaro, who seeing you are one of the new arrivals by yesterday’s mail, would like to shave you, or cut your hair, at a charge of half a dollar.
Strolling outside into the main thoroughfares you see a strange motley crowd. The markets are full to overflowing with edibles of all kinds; meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit lie about in glorious profusion. Here a heap of fresh fish of the most vivid colours, there a pile of yellow pine-apples or bright scarlet chilies, oranges, pomoloes, mangosteen and rambutan, Chinese long beans, fresh green lettuces and young onions, tomatoes, and the hundred and one elements of native cookery, which are perfectly unintelligible to any but native eyes. Chinese coolies coming in from the interior of the island laden with fruit and vegetables, or other commodities. Sleek fat-faced celestials in black jackets, loose white trousers, and white European felt hats, taking their morning’s stroll, and in every doorway gaunt-featured Chinese artizans of the tailor and shoemaker type sit or stand enjoying the cool fresh air and their morning’s whiff of tobacco at the same time. The Chinese predominate, but you will find dusky spider-limbed Klings and the more compact little brown Malays fairly represented. You will notice gharries coming into town laden with Chinese traders, and other vehicles bring in the European storekeepers, agents, clerks, &c. You return about eight o’clock, and have a bath, and then dress for breakfast.
As you sit in the verandah or open basement awaiting the gong for breakfast being struck, various itinerant traders, generally Klings or Chinese, try to tempt you with their wares, for which they ask about five times as much as they are worth, or could be bought for in London. Japanese and Chinese fans, slippers, cabinets, lacquer ware, and carved ivory goods, all of second or third rate value, form their stock in trade in general, while some offer gold brocade worked for slippers or smoking-caps, crape handkerchiefs and shawls, or Indian embroidery, and even socks and white handkerchiefs of cheap European make.
Of course, to a new arrival, everything is strange, and not the least perplexing is the Babel of language on all hands. English, Dutch, German, Chinese, Javanese, Hindustani, Spanish, Portuguese, and Malay, the latter by far the most general—the lingua franca which all use in common. At last, bang! bang!! bang!!! goes the gong, and breakfast is ready exactly at 9 A.M. There is no ceremony. A little regiment,—an awkward squad rather,—of Chinese “boys” hand the dishes in turn. As a rule, everything is well cooked, and there is variety enough for everybody. Beef-steaks and mutton-chops, one or two well-made curries and rice, eggs and bacon, cold ham, boiled eggs, salads, vegetables, and plenty of fresh fruit. Coffee or tea is not so much in favour here in the East as at home, bottled Bass, claret, or Norwegian beer, being preferred instead. After a long morning’s walk, however, scarcely any beverage is so grateful as an accompaniment to the post-prandial cigar as is a cup of freshly-roasted coffee. Breakfast over, the real business of the day commences. All the large stores and godowns are opened at 8.30 or 9.0 A.M., and from 10 until 12.30 everyone is alert and busy. Gharries are whisking about in all directions. The fattest and sleekest and richest of Chinese merchants arrive in their more or less imposing carriages, boats and sampans are going to or returning from the shipping in the roads, buffalo carts ply between the godowns in town and those at the wharf, the sun pours down its heat and light from the zenith, and everybody seems intent on making their hay while it shines.