six o’clock, and have a first breakfast, quite a la fra n çaise
; then go for a walk or bathe along the beach,
and get back at eight to half-past eight o’clock.. The
thermometer, which is about 78° to 79° at six o’clock,
rises to 83°, and as a rule touches 85° to 87°, or
sometimes 90°, from eight o’clock to twelve o’clock.
Nothing much is done between eight to ten (the
most trying part of the day), except sitting down in
the verandah and enjoying the cooling breeze, if in
the monsoon season, or watching the sun-birds hovering
over the large pink and yellow flowers that cluster
round the verandah. These sun-birds are the humming
birds of the Bast. They are tiny creatures,
richly coloured with lines of gold and yellow, brown,
blue, and red. They rifle the large spreading flowers
with their long beaks, and are as tame and as impudent
as London sparrows.
Here, in the East, lunch or tiffin is taken at one
o’clock, and dinner at six or seven. The most agreeable
time of the day is from four until six o’clock.
I t is quite dark at half-past six, and the sun rises
about five to half-past five in the morning.4
There are, as might be expected in the tropics,
quantities of insects, especially in old bungalows and
in the vicinity of felled wood. The carpenter bees
had made their homes in my verandah and all the
wooden framework was hollowed out by these remark4
Colonel Harington tells me that Singapore merchants have breakfast
at 8.30 to 9, a most substantial meal with, generally, claret, hock,
&c. They lunch at 1—another substantial meal, at which the
“ sparkling wine of France ” very often appears ; and after office-hours
they drive hack to their houses in the environs of the town, and a
regular dinner is served at about 7.30.
able insects. Some of them measured at least three
inches from wing to wing. The wings are beautifully
coloured with iridescent tints, and the noise one of
the creatures makes during its flight is like that of
twenty humming-bees rolled into one. The mason
wasp, an extraordinary creature (which looked as
if it was carrying a valise by its tail), had been equally
industrious in building its house upon the verandah
roof. Occasionally this ponderous insect will make
THE MASON WASP.
its nest in one’s bedroom; and bats have a habit
of hanging by their legs all day from the ceilings, and
disporting themselves at night. Little green, insect-
eating lizards run like flies on the ceiling in pursuit
of that worst and most troublesome of pests, the
mosquito. These insects are sometimes so numerous
in the bungalow, and cluster in such quantities, that
the white wood is black with them. Hunting mosquitoes
at night under one’s mosquito curtains, with
a candle and a damp cloth, is one of the exciting
preludes to sleep in Bornean waters. Many an