“Trading among the islands. They are rare fellows for pushing their way in a slow fashion, but are not such business people as the Chinese.”
“One might have thought that this was China,” said Mark, as he gazed ashore at the celestial quarter, and noted the great junks manned by Chinamen lying anchored here and there.
The stay at Singapore was not long. The three German students bade the passengers good-bye politely, and took their departure, beaming upon everyone through their spectacles, making quite a gap at the saloon table, though they were not much missed, for they had all been remarkably quiet, only talking to each other in a subdued manner, and always being busy with a book a piece, whose contents were tremendous dissertations on agricultural chemistry, all of which they were going to apply out in Queensland as soon as they got there.
Then one bright morning, well supplied with fresh provisions, and, to Mark’s great delight, with an ample store of fruit—from bananas, of three or four kinds, to pine-apples, the delicious mangosteen, and the ill-odoured durian, with its wooden husk, delicate custard, and large seeds—the ship continued her course.
The sea was like crystal, and with the sun hot, but not to discomfort, and a soft breeze blowing, the great vessel glided gently eastward. It was a trifle monotonous, but this troubled Mark in only small degree, for there was always something fresh to take his attention. Sea-birds were seen; then some fish or another reared itself out of the limpid sea, and fell back with a splash. Then a shoal of some smaller kind rippled the surface as they played about, silvering the blue water with their armoured sides.
Small the boatswain and Billy Widgeon rigged up tackle for the lad to fish; and he fished, but caught nothing.
“But then, you know, you might have ketched real big fish,” said the little sailor encouragingly, “because, you see, you know they are there.”
It was a consolation, but not much, to one who has tried for days to capture something or another worthy of being placed by the cook upon the captain’s table.
And so three days of slow progress passed on, after which the progress grew more slow, and ended in a complete calm, just as they were a few miles north of a verdant-looking island, whose waving palms, seen above and beyond a broad belt of dingy mangroves, looked particularly tempting to those who had been cooped up so long on shipboard, where, now that the breeze had sunk, it seemed insufferably hot.
“I suppose it can’t be hotter than this, Mr Gregory, can it?” asked Mark, soon after noontide on the second day of the calm.