348 MY LIFE 



to leave to Japan the tremendous task of putting a check to 

 her progress. 



A later letter from Singapore touches on two matters of 

 some interest. " I quite enjoy being a short time in Singapore 

 again. The scene is at once so familiar and yet so strange. 

 The half-naked Chinese coolies, the very neat shopkeepers, 

 the clean, fat, old, long-tailed merchants, all as pushing and 

 full of business as any Londoners. Then the handsome, dark- 

 skinned klings from southern India, who always ask double 

 what they will take, and with whom it is most amusing to 

 bargain. The crowd of boatmen at the ferry, a dozen beg- 

 ging and disputing for a farthing fare ; the tall, well-dressed 

 Armenians ; the short, brown Malays in their native dress ; 

 and the numerous Portuguese clerks in black, make up a scene 

 doubly interesting to me now that I know something about 

 them, and can talk to them all in the common language of the 

 place — Malay. The streets of Singapore on a fine day are 

 as crowded and busy as Tottenham Court Road, and from 

 the variety of nationalities and occupations far more interest- 

 ing. I am more convinced than ever that no one can appre- 

 ciate a new country by a short visit. After two years in the 

 East I only now begin to understand Singapore, and to 

 thoroughly appreciate the life and bustle, and the varied occu- 

 pations of so many distinct nationalities on a spot which a 

 short time ago was an uninhabited jungle. A volume might 

 be written upon it without exhausting its humours and its 

 singularities. . . . 



" I have been spending three weeks with my old friend the 

 French Jesuit missionary at Bukit Tima, going daily into 

 the jungle, and every Friday fasting on omelet and vegetables, 

 a most wholesome custom, which the Prostestants erred in 

 leaving off. I have been reading Hue's ' Travels ' in French, 

 and talking a good deal with one of the missionaries just 

 arrived from Tonquin, who can speak no English. I have 

 thus obtained a good deal of information about these countries, 

 and about the extent of the Catholic missions in them, which 



