"The pineapple needs no description, as you have it at home; the custard-apple is about the size of an ordinary apple, and has a soft pulp surrounding the seeds. The best way to eat it is to scoop out the contents with a spoon, and it is this way of eating more than the taste that has given it its name. But the durian is the largest and funniest of all these tropical fruits.
"The durian is like a small pumpkin, with a rough skin so hard and thick that the birds cannot make much impression on it. The seeds are nearly as large as chestnuts, and each seed is surrounded by a soft pulp, just as the stone of a peach is embedded in the body of the fruit. People who live here grow very fond of it, but travellers do not learn to like it until they have made a good many attempts. It is not the taste that repels them, but the smell, and this is something atrocious.
"We have tried to eat it, but could not do so even by holding our noses, for the disagreeable odor would rise in spite of all precautions we could take. We are told that the best way is to have the servants cut it up and put the pieces in milk, and by taking them out of the milk and swallowing quickly the smell is avoided. Perhaps this might work; but a better plan would be to have the servants eat the stuff up when it was properly prepared, and let you hear nothing more about it.
A BUNGALOW.
"All the merchants who can afford the expense of a bungalow, or private residence outside the city limits, are sure to indulge in it. The consequence is that there are many of these residences; and as they always have plenty of ground around them, and an abundance of shade trees, the bungalows make a very pretty picture, or a succession of pictures. The bungalow has wide verandas and overhanging eaves, and as nobody wants to climb stairways where the heat is as great as in Singapore, you rarely find a dwelling of more than one story. Then these merchants have carriages of their own, and do not depend on the garries; and in the evening their carriages driving along the esplanade road make a fine appearance. The rich Chinese endeavor to live after the manner of the Europeans; they have their bungalows and their carriages, and some of the finest of the latter that we have seen were the property of Chinese merchants. Their passion for fine gardens is greater than that of the Europeans, and several of the bungalows have a very costly surrounding of grounds. The fine garden we have described is not by any means the only one belonging to a Chinese resident of Singapore.
CHINESE GENTLEMAN'S GARDEN.