348 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



France. All have the same insatiable craving for extending 

 their territories and ruling subject peoples for the benefit of 

 their own upper classes. Russia is only the most dangerous 

 because she is already so vast, and each fresh extension of 

 her territory adds to her already too large population, from 

 which to create enormous armies, which she can and will use 

 for further aggrandizement. It is a disgrace to Europe that 

 they have allowed Russia to begin the dismemberment of 

 China, and 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 convined than ever that no one can appreciate 

 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 occupations 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 



