300 By Stream and Sea. 



I dare say you wont believe it now, but we got a tun of pure 

 oil out of the liver — a tun, every drop of it. I'd never have 

 believed it if I had not seen it myself." 



In such a strain my eloquent countryman narrated his 

 adventures, mingling with the romantic so much that 

 appeared likely as to the Singapore fish market that I deter- 

 mined to explore it before the sun was up, and the fish 

 either spoilt by the heat, or sold for breakfast consumption. 



A morning drive in the tropics is delightful. The night 

 has been close, and the mosquitoes (confound them 1) 

 numerous and warlike. In spite of the carefully-adjusted 

 curtains some of these dreadful pests somehow contrive to 

 reach you, and after worrying you by their shrill brazen 

 trumpeting they seize the precise moment of your dropping 

 asleep to make an attack in force. You have tossed rest- 

 lessly, and perspired with amazing freedom; you have in 

 the dark hours groaned and wished it were morning. Bath 

 and coffee before daybreak, however, pull you together 

 finely, and the early cheroot is a luxury indeed. Therefore 

 you forgive, if you do not forget, the detested insects that 

 have left their traces upon your wrists and forehead. 



Early as you may rise there will be natives astir before you, 

 and Europeans also taking their morning saunter before the 

 sun has climbed high in the heavens. Vegetation is fresh 

 with dew, and you can look abroad upon the world without 

 the painful glare of a later hour. In lines, remembered not 

 without mingled feelings of pleasure, Issac Watts, D.D., sets 

 forth the profits and delights of early rising. These Malays 

 and Chinese are of one mind with him. The little shops 

 and bazaars are all open, and toiling back from the market, 

 their copper-hued and oleaginous hides glistening in the 

 young sunlight, come the itinerant vendors of fruit and fish. 

 The man of means is followed by his "boy," bearing an 



