"We went through the town, but there was nothing very curious, after what we have seen and described to you in Singapore, and so we didn't take a long time about it. Each of us bought a Penang lawyer to take along. What do you suppose a Penang lawyer is?
"It is a cane, or walking-stick, with a straight stem; it has a root shaped like an egg, and forming a capital thing for the hand to grasp when the cane is finished and polished. These canes are called lawyers, because they are employed in settling disputes, and they certainly appear very useful for that purpose. One of them has been known to finish a discussion in a few seconds where an ordinary attorney would have taken an hour or two, and then would have been as far from the end of it as ever. The shillalah of the Irishman is something like it, but though it may be quite as effective, it is not half as handsome.
PALM-TREES IN PULO PENANG.
"Back of Georgetown the hills rise up nearly if not quite two thousand feet, and we were told that from the summit we could have a magnificent view. So we climbed up there, or rather we took a carriage to the foot of the hills, and then hired coolies with chairs to carry us the rest of the way. You cannot imagine a prettier excursion. The tropical trees, with their splendid foliage, shade the roads and paths, and sometimes you can go a mile or more without a ray of the sun striking you; at every turn there is a charming view of some kind or other, and you are constantly in sight of delightful summer-houses, where the merchants and professional residents of Penang have their homes. Higher and higher you go, and find the air becoming cooler as you ascend; when you are at the summit, you find the temperature ten or twenty degrees less than in Georgetown, and are glad that you brought along your light overcoat.
"As we stand at the top we look away to the main-land, and our guide says that in clear weather we can see ninety miles. The harbor with its shipping is in full view, and we have the whole panorama of the island and a long stretch of the Malay peninsula. We seem to be at the top of a great mound of trees, as the whole of the hills are thickly wooded. Farther down there are cleared spaces, especially in the valleys and plains, and we can see fields of rice, sugar-cane, and other products of the warm regions of the earth. On the upper parts of the hills the air is cool enough for the cultivation of European vegetables and flowers that will not grow in the vicinity of Georgetown.
"Where the forest is neglected, even for a few months, it soon becomes so overgrown with jungle that it is not easy to get through it; Doctor Bronson says it is a constant fight with nature to keep down the verdure, and if Penang were left to itself for a single year it would be all overgrown, as when Captain Light came here nearly a hundred years ago. They tell a funny story of how Captain Light cleared away the jungle. He used to load cannon with silver dollars, and then fire them into the grass and bushes; then the Malays went to work to find the dollars, and, of course, they had to clear the ground before they could do so.
