CHAPTER II.
SINGAPORE.
Hotels—Singapore—An Eastern Port—A Tropical Island—Chinese Settlers—
Chinese Play—Tropical Night—Climate.
T h i s port, which is also the seat of the government of
the Straits Settlements, has not inaptly been called the
x< Liverpool of the East,” and the applicability of that
title soon becomes evident to the stranger from “ home,”
who finds himself on the landing-stage at Tanjong Paggar
for the first time. Here is a range of warehouses or
"“ godowns” for the storage of goods, and coaling sheds
for the supply of the mail and other steamers moored
alongside. One is soon glad to get away from the heat,
the noise of the steam winch, and the coal-dust; and a
gharry 01* cab having been procured, the dusky Jehu
springs to his seat on the shaft, from which “ coign of
vantage ” he uses both whip and voice in urging on at a
gallop a plucky little pony, scarcely larger than a donkey,
and most probably bred either in Sumatra or Pegu.
You meet other little ponies in other little gharries
coming full tilt down the road to the wharf, a string of
buffalo-carts, or occasionally a neat little private carriage,
and you soon become aware of the fact that Singapura, as
it is still called, of the Malays is both hot and dusty. On
you go, and the stuffy little gharry, even if it has no
windows, soon becomes as hot as an oven, and the perspiration
streams from every pore. By the time you
c h . 1 1 .1 Hotels. 15
reach the hotels the chances are that your shirt and
collar are in the state best described as “ pulpy and if
you are of a sanguine | temperament, your face may be
said to resemble 1 the rising sun.” Of course you have
kept your eyes open as you came along past the rough
hedges on the right clothed with red lantanas, the neat
police-station on the bank to the left, with those beautiful
crimson and buff-flowered hibiscus bushes before the
door. Then the rows of Chinese houses and shops, an
elaborate Hindoo temple or two of white stone, and then
street after street of whitewashed [red tile roofed shops,
until you reach the square, where you meet your agent,
or to the hotels, nearly all of which are clustered around
the tall spire of the cathedral, which you will have seen
as the ship steamed slowly into harbour. The chances
are you will have been recommended to one or other of
the hotels by some knowing friend.
The Hotel de l ’Europe is the principal one ; but at the
time I arrived in Singapore the chef-de-cuisine had such a
bad name that I was recommended elsewhere. One is
sure to be comfortable at any of the first-class houses at
prices varying from two to five dollars daily, or less by
monthly arrangement. For this sum one may secure a
more or less comfortable bedroom or suite simply whitewashed,
the floor covered with yellow rattan matting,
which is both cool and clean. The walls, as a rule, do
not boast of anything great in the way of pictorial embellishment
; at night, however, lively little insect-eating
lizards disport themselves thereon; and then, too, the
hum of the hungry mosquito is heard. In the morning
you rise soon after gun-fire (5 a.m.). It is daylight about
6 a.m. ; and after partaking of a cup of tea or coffee, and
the inevitable two bits of toast, you have a walk. Everybody
nearly seems astir. While dressing, the chances