SHIPPING WILD ANIMALS 109 



ing in Singapore after six months of hard work. 

 Just as I had almost decided to go to Europe, I hap- 

 pened to see in an old copy of the New York Clipper 

 an advertisement of a steam merry-go-round. That 

 gave me an idea ; there had never been a merry-go- 

 round in the Malay Peninsula, and I was confident 

 enough of my judgment of Malay nature to gamble 

 that it would be a success. Mr. Lambert didn't 

 agree with me. "Forget about it," he advised. 

 "Take the steamer and have a good vacation." But 

 I went to the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank and 

 cabled $2,000 in gold to the factory at North Tona- 

 wanda, New York, with instructions to ship me the 

 merry-go-round on the first boat, via London. It 

 arrived nine weeks later, and it cost me 110 in 

 freight. The rain was beating down steadily in 

 Singapore, and so I transshipped it to Penang. 



A few days later, I was in Penang, driving 

 around in a rickshaw, looking for a good location, 

 while the merry-go-round, still in crates, was com- 

 ing ashore in sampans. Opposite the Hotel de la 

 Paix I found a good open space, and I routed out of 

 bed the Chinese merchant who owned it. I told him 

 that I should like to rent the lot for a show and that, 

 if he would come to terms with me, I would let him 

 and his family ride free of charge. Now a Chinese 

 likes a show better than anything else on earth, and 

 so we were not long in closing a bargain. I was 

 to pay him a rental of $i Mexican a day and to 

 have an option of two months on the lot. I had no 



