"I saw a woman's band of five pieces, and the music they made was not bad," added Louis.
"I heard a band like that; but I could not tell whether they played a tune or improvised their music. The missionaries took us into the garden of a nobleman, where we saw what was called a theatrical exhibition; but it was no more like a theatre than it was like a cattle-show. We saw the king too, and he was a nice-looking man forty years old. He had what looked like a tunnel on his head. He was sitting in a kind of big arm-chair on poles, and eight men were bearing him to a temple. All the natives in the street dropped on their knees as he passed, and some lay flat on their stomachs. That is the way they always do before him. But he chews betel; and his mouth was as black as though he had just eaten a piece of huckleberry-pie, and it looked horrid. That is all the fault I have to find with him."
"It is a bad habit the people here have; but it is not so bad as drinking whiskey, and we must be charitable while our country has its faults; and theirs only spoils their looks, though I have been told there is a 'kick,' or exhilaration, in the use of betel. I don't think I should ever fall in love with a girl who chewed betel-nut. Some Dyak maidens would have been passably good-looking if their teeth and lips had not been blackened with this drug."
"The missionaries took some of us into the private chapel of a nobleman. There were about a hundred priests, all clothed in yellow robes, with their heads shaven; the service consisted of the constant repetition of a sentence, which a missionary told me meant 'So be it.' It reminded me of the howling dervishes we visited at their monastery, whose service was a monotonous repetition of 'Allah il Allah,' You went to some of the temples, Mr. Belgrave, and they seem to me to be all alike. Now can you tell me how far it is to the place where we are going next?"
"It is about six hundred miles to Saigon, the chief town of French Cochin China, and we shall get there to-morrow," replied Louis. "You must brush up your French, Miss Blanche, for we have not used it lately."
"We are off Cape Liant now, and I must give out a new course," said the commander, rising from his chair by the side of Mrs. Belgrave.
"South-east half-south!" called the captain at the side window of the pilot-house.
"South-east half-south," repeated the quartermaster at the wheel.
"We are going to Saigon, you said, Mr. Belgrave; but I cannot pronounce the name," added the young lady.
"As to that, you pays your money, and takes your choice," laughed Louis. "The French call it Sah-gong, shutting out the full sound of the last g," added the speaker, pronouncing it several times with the proper accent. "The English call it Sy-goń, I believe; but I have heard it called variously at Sarawak."