He had no boat, nor the ingenuity to contrive one. To have attempted to wade down a stream meant courting death by the reptiles; so the chaplain’s many wanderings in the wilderness took him over the same ground day after day, and always back to his prison.
Then the scant supply of provision was exhausted; there was no fruit to be found; he had no gun, and could contrive no means of capturing fish; and the result was that, growing weaker day by day, and more helpless, he realised how safe was the prison in the jungle in which he had been shut up; and at last sat down, to gradually sink into a stupor, from which, but for the coming of his friends, he would never have recovered.
Even when he was taken in safety to the landing-stage, he was too feeble to walk, and fainted as he was carried to his brother-in-law’s house.
Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Nine.
Amok!
Singapore on a sunny day, looking bright, attractive, even wonderful to stranger eyes. Ships of all nations in the harbour, with sailors from Europe, from America, from the ports about the Red Sea, from India, China, and Japan.
A wonderful polyglot assembly rubbing shoulders in the street: Jack in his white duck frock, straw, and loose trousers, staring at John Chinaman, with his blue cotton garments, pith-soled shoes, and pigtail reaching almost to the ground. Swarthy Dyaks, Papuans, Bugis, and Malays pure and Malays mongrel from the many islands of the Eastern seas, every opalescent-eyed, swarthy savage wearing his kris. British soldiers mingled with the native police in their puggrees; and busy English merchants, and many Scotch, hurried with the varied races on their way to and from their places of business.
Above all, the Chinese seemed to muster strongly—those busy, patient, plodding people, who are ready to squeeze themselves into any vacant hole, round or square, and to make themselves fit therein. Barbers, carriers, purveyors of fruit, washers of clothes, shampooers, tailors, cooks, waiters, domestic servants, always ready, patient and willing, childlike and bland—John Chinaman swarms in Singapore, and can be found there as the meanest workman or artisan, up to the wealthiest merchant or banker, like the late Mr Whampoa, whose gardens were one of the lions of the place.