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\_Augmt 16, 1883 



above and brown below, is a fascinating plant, and at first 

 one feels guilty of cruelty if one wounds its sensibilities. 

 Touch any part of a leaf ever so lightly, and as quick as 

 thought it rolls up. Touch the centre leaf of the three 

 ever so lightly, and leaf and stalk fall smitten. Touch 

 a branch and every leaf closes, and every stalk falls as if 

 weighted with lead. Walk over it and you seem to have 

 blasted the earth with a fiery tread, leaving desolation 

 behind. Every trailing plant falls — the leaves closing 

 show only their red-brown backs, and all the beauty has 

 vanished ; but the burned and withered-looking earth is 

 as fair as ever the next morning." 



It is satisfactory to read that the elephant, so near exter- 

 mination in Africa through the pursuit of the ivory trade, 

 is still plentiful in these forest-covered interiors, though 

 novelty seemed its only recommendation to Miss Bird as 

 a beast of burden. Half a ton is considered a sufficient 

 load for one if it be of metal, but if more bulky, from four 

 to six hundredweight. In passing through the forest an 

 elephant always puts his foot into the hole that another 

 elephant's foot has made. They have the greatest horror 

 of anything that looks like a fence ; and a slight one 

 made of reeds usually keeps them out of padi, cane, and 

 maize plantations. The insect which can draw blood 

 from the wrinkled hide of an elephant is curiously small. 

 The boiled or stewed trunk of the latter, we are told, 

 tastes much like beef. 



A most tender account is given of the living and dying 

 of a tame monkey, which Miss Bird believes to be an 

 " agile gibbon — a creature so delicate that it has never 

 yet survived a voyage to England " ; and curiously human 

 are the differences in disposition between different species 

 of monkeys which she observes. When tamed by living 

 with Europeans these apes acquire a great aversion to 

 Malays. 



Some small bright-eyed lizards which ran about her 

 room went up the walls in search of flies. They dart 

 upon the fly with very great speed, but just as you think 

 they are about to swallow him, they pause for a second 

 or two and then make the spring. " I have never seen a 

 fly escape during this pause, which looks as if the lizard 

 charmed or petrified his victim." The Malays have a 

 proverb based upon this fact : " Even the lizard gives the 

 fly time to pray." One evening Miss Bird found seventeen 

 lizards in her room and two in her slippers ! 



A snake about 8 feet long has gained its name of a 

 "two-headed snake" because after the proper head is 

 dead the tail will stand up and move forwards. 



An interesting account is given of a column of ants, 

 officered by larger ones, making their way to the stump 

 of a tree from which the outer layer of bark had been 

 removed, leaving an under layer apparently permeated 

 with a rich sweet secretion, which a quantity of reddish 

 ants of much larger size and with large mandibles were 

 engaged in stripping off. The large pieces which they 

 dropped were broken up and carried away by the smaller 

 ants round the base. Other proceedings which she 

 describes seemed inscrutable to Miss Bird. 



Among the gorgeous butterflies, Miss Bird describes 

 one with the upper part of its wings of jet black velvet, 

 and the lower half of its body and the under side of its 

 wings of peacock-blue velvet, spotted ; another of the 

 same " make " but with gold instead of blue ; and a third 

 with the upper part of the body and wings white with 



erise spots. All these measured full five inches across 



their expanded wings. In one opening of the forest only 

 she counted thirty-seven varieties of these brilliant crea- 

 tures, not in hundreds, but in thousands, mixed up with 

 the blue and crimson dragon flies, and iridescent flies all 

 joyous in the sunshine. Many birds rival them in beauty 

 of plumage, though some resemble less brilliant European 

 species. 



The Malays are fond of animal pets ; their low voices 

 and gentle supple movements never shock the timid sen- 

 sitiveness of brutes. A bird called a mina articulated so 

 plainly that Miss Bird did not know whether a bird or a 

 Malay spoke. Monkeys gather cocoanuts to order for 

 their masters. 



The Malays have an elaborate civilisation, laws, and 

 even a literature of their own. They are a decently 

 clothed, comfortably housed, settled, agricultural people, 

 skilful in some arts, especially the working of gold, and 

 they are rigid monotheists. Their houses show good work 

 in lattice and bamboo, carved doorways, and portieres of 

 red silk, pillows and cushions of gold embroidery laid 

 over exquisitely fine matting on the floors. Yet Miss Bird 

 says that with no visible reason they have been dwindling 

 away for several generations, and if they were swept away 

 to-morrow not a trace of them except their metal work 

 would be found. But nothing impresses itself so often 

 or so strongly upon Miss Bird as the energy, enter- 

 prise, and large emigration of the Chinese. Most of her 

 remarks about them might be thought to apply to the 

 English ; and indeed, so far from wishing to correct such 

 an impression, she asserts that "to say that the Chinese 

 make as good emigrants as the British is barely to give 

 them their due. They have equal stamina and are more 

 industrious and thrifty." Though the old hatred of 

 foreigners in their native country does not pass away 

 from them, and Miss Eird heard them mutter the phrase 

 of "foreign devils" as she passed along the streets of 

 Canton, yet the Chinese who are born in the Straits glory 

 in being British-born subjects, and despise the immigrant 

 Chinese. The principal result of British rule seems likely 

 to be, from Miss Bird's account, that the Chinaman, 

 striving, thriving, and oblivious of everything but his own 

 interests, will soon overspread the whole of the Far East. 

 Singapore is to all appearance a Chinese town, with 

 86,766 Chinese against 1283 European residents. 



We think no one can help enjoying this lnppy traveller's 

 book ; though few would be led to think they would enjoy 

 the same journey as thoroughly as she describes doing. 

 One adjective fairly describes all her descriptions of wha t 

 she meets with— they are superlative ! 



Mr. Colquhoun's object in undertaking the journey 

 which he records in these two portly volumes, was to find 

 a trade route from Rangoon through Burmah and the 

 Shan States into South-western China. His attention 

 was attracted to this subject by a previous journey to 

 Zimme" or Kiang-mai on the Me Ping, and he accordingly 

 decided to devote his first leave of absence from his official 

 duties in India to attacking his task from the Chinese side. 

 Briefly, then, he went up the Si Kiang, or Canton River, 

 from its mouth to Pese, near the borders of Yunnan, and 

 travelled through the southern districts of this province, 

 passing the great towns Kaihua, Linan, and Puerh to 

 Ssumao, immediately on the border of the independent 



