"Ah," said Parkinson, "of course Ceylon's all right, and I've a lot of pals going out there; but what about rubber-planting in the Malay Peninsula? They've got tigers there. That's rather a pull."
I admitted the attraction of tigers to certain tastes, but not to mine. In my case the pull, I thought, might be on the tiger's side.
Since these interviews I have been going the rounds of my military acquaintances and I find a general feeling in favour of Ceylon or the Malay Peninsula.
Of course it's an excellent thing that they should take up the white man's burden and make the coolies work, only I'm in dread lest the overcrowding we suffer from in England may be extended to the Orient. Will there be enough plantations, coolies and big game to go round amongst our subalterns?
I can see the Government introducing several Bills—
(1) For the extension of the Isle of Ceylon;
(2) For the lengthening of the Malay Peninsula;
(3) For the importation of five million coolies, estimated at the rate of five hundred coolies each, to give employment to ten thousand second-loots;
(4) For the importation of elephants, tigers, lions, buffalo, hippopotami, giraffes and capercailzie*.