288 By Stream and Sea. 



clothing exceeding in dimensions an ordinary handkerchief, 

 as a reckless and surprising extravagance in "the lower 

 orders." 



It seems, after all, tolerably possible to get along without 

 beef and beer. Strong and lissom are some of these rice 

 and fish-fed fellows ; tall, straight, and displaying good 

 muscles. That this semblance of strength and condition is 

 not delusive you may perceive by the amount of work the 

 Chinese or Malay coolies get through, and the weights they 

 carry. As a rule, it takes several orientals to accomplish one 

 Englishman's labour, but this is a rule not without a wide 

 margin of exception. Speaking of men as they find them, 

 the European employers give the native mechanics and the 

 copper-skinned hewers of wood and drawers of water an 

 excellent character ; indeed, you will often be not a little 

 pained to hear English employers speak better of them than 

 of the British workman, who is taught to pity his dusky 

 heathen brother bowing down to blocks of wood and stone. 

 However, I wish to draw a picture, not to moralize. So we 

 will leave the docks and the workmen there, many-tinted, 

 from the sickly yellow of the fair Chinaman with his shaven 

 pate and everlasting pigtail, down through every shade of 

 brown until you come to the sable Bengali with his glossy 

 black ringlets. 



Before starting for the town, a mile and a half off, you 

 may turn into the bungalow, liberally provided for English 

 and American seamen and passengers. It is a reading-room, 

 and travellers in a thirsty land scarcely welcome water with 

 greater eagerness than that with which we, who had not seen 

 an English newspaper for six weeks, charge at the files of 

 The Daily News, Punch, Fun, the illustrated journals, and 

 one or two of the cheaper magazines. The gharries, driven 

 generally by Bengali boys under strict Scotland-yardlike 



