At Singapore. 287 



are content and happy because well governed and pros- 

 perous. And there is no town in the far East which affords 

 the traveller a better insight into certain phases of oriental 

 life. 



At Point-de-Galle you are delighted with the Eastern 

 scenery and Eastern humanity, but it is Eastern humanity 

 with a prevailing flavour of India. At Singapore you have 

 the Malayan races at home, with all their national character- 

 istics, and not as at Malacca, so mingled with the Dutch 

 and Portuguese that it is difficult to tell where Europe 

 begins and Asia ends ; the Chinese quarters are as much 

 Chinese as streets in Hongkong or Canton ; and in smaller 

 proportions, the singular diversity of races is increased by 

 the Kling from Madras, the slender Bengali, the Parsee, the 

 Chittie, the Armenian Jew, and the Arab. 



An Englishman fresh from home will be surprised at the 

 busy appearance of the docks. Chinese carpenters and 

 blacksmiths are hammering and sawing in the sheds, using 

 tools as primitive as those which, as Holman Hunt's famous 

 picture shows, stood upon Joseph the Carpenter's bench 

 eighteen hundred years ago. Nothing can induce these 

 remarkable people to adopt modern inventions. They do 

 their work well, but it must be in their own way, and at their 

 own slow speed. The better class of Chinese artisans you 

 may distinguish by the light clothing which they permit 

 themselves to wear. The majority of the Chinese and 

 Malays about the docks, like their compatriots up in the 

 town, are content with a wisp of cloth fastened round the 

 loins, to hang more or less (generally considerably less) to 

 the knees. To be sure, you have on your outward voyage, 

 beginning at Port Said, become accustomed to these trifles, 

 and by the time you have travelled far enough to be able to 

 look about you in the Singapore docks, you regard any 



