barrels of guns by band, out of solid bars of iron. At
this tedious operation they may be seen every day, and
they manage to finish off a gun with a flint lock very
handsomely. All about the streets are sellers of water,
vegetables, fruit, soup, and agar-agar (a jelly made of seaweed),
who have many cries as unintelligible as those of
London. Others carry a portable cooking-apparatus on a
pole balanced by a table at the other end, and serve up
a meal of shell-fish, rice, and vegetables for two or three
halfpence ; while coolies and boatmen waiting to be hired
are everywhere to be met with.
In the interior of the island the Chinese cut down forest
trees in the juugle, and saw them up into planks ; they
cultivate vegetables, which they bring to market; and
they grow pepper and gambir, which form important
articles of export. The French Jesuits have established
missions among these inland Chinese, which seem very
successful. I lived for several weeks at a time with the
m is sionary at Bukit-tima, about the centre of the island,
where a pretty church has been built and there are about
300 converts. While there, I met a missionary who had just
arrived from Tonquin, where he had been living for many
years. The Jesuits still do their work thoroughly as of old.
In Cochin China, Tonquin, and China, where all Christian
teachers are obliged to live in secret, and are liable to
persecution, expulsion, and sometimes death, every province,
even those farthest in the interior, has a permanent
Jesuit mission establishment, constantly kept up by fresh
aspirants, who are taught the languages of the' countries
they are going to at Penang or Singapore. In China
there are said to be near a million converts ; in Tonquin
and Cochin China, more than half a million. One secret
of the success of these missions is the rigid economy
practised in the expenditure of the funds. A missionary
is allowed about 30/. a year, on which he lives in whatever
country he may be. This renders it possible to support a
large number of missionaries with very limited means ;
and the natives, seeing their teachers living in poverty
and with none of the luxuries of life, are convinced that
they are sincere in what they teach, and have really given
up home and friends and ease and safety, for the good of
others. No wonder they make converts, for it must be
a great blessing to the poor people among whom they
labour to have a man among them to whom they can go
in any trouble or distress, who will comfort and advise
them, who visits them in sickness, who relieves them in
want, and who they see living from day to day in dauger «*
of persecution and death entirely for their sakes.
My friend at Bukit-tima was truly a father to his flock.
He preached to them in Chinese every Sunday, and had
evenings for discussion and conversation on religion during
the week. He had a school to teach their children. His
D 2