TURTLE-HUNTING.
[CHAPTER XXI.]
INCIDENTS OF A SEA-VOYAGE.—SINGAPORE.
The voyage from Bangkok to Singapore was without any features of special interest. The Gulf of Siam presented its accustomed calmness, and at times the air was so still that there was not wind enough for proper ventilation of the ship. Our friends slept on deck, as the cabin was altogether too hot for comfort; they only went below to dress and take their meals and baths, and to escape from the showers that were of daily occurrence. In the daytime, when the heavy sprinklings came on, the boys indulged in baths of the kind they enjoyed on the Danube, and they were generally pleased at the announcement of an approaching shower. But at night, when they were comfortably sleeping, they did not relish a rude awakening, accompanied with the suggestion that they had better go below till the rain was over. The change from the cool deck to the stifling cabin was the reverse of enjoyable; Fred remarked that the only good thing about it was that it made them appreciate the deck all the more when the rain was over, and they could come again to the open air.
About thirty miles from Singapore they saw an overturned boat, and as they neared it two natives were perceived clinging to the wreck. A boat was lowered and sent to rescue them, and in a short time the poor fellows were safe on the steamer's deck. They said their craft was upset by a squall on the previous evening, and for twenty hours they had been holding on, with nothing to eat or drink, under the broiling heat of a tropical sun. They were nearly exhausted with hunger and thirst, and would have fallen off and died in a few hours if they had not been rescued. Frank was the first to discover the overturned boat, and was naturally proud of having been in some way the means of saving these unhappy Malays from death. He wanted to talk with the men, and hear their story; but as their knowledge of English was no better than his of Malay, he was compelled to abandon the idea.
The occurrence called to the Doctor's recollection an incident of his first experience of the sea, when he was spending the summer at a small seaport town. He was fond of fishing, and hardly a day passed that he did not go out on the Atlantic in pursuit of his favorite sport.