AND THE MALAY STATES 
15 
After proving to a score of Mohammedan merchants who haunt 
the hotel that I desired to buy no jewelry, silks, curios, or unset stones, 
and threatening the native tailor and shoemaker with my umbrella, I 
had a chance to look about. The hotel is beautifully situated on the 
seashore, its courtyard crowded with cocoanut palms, its broad verandahs, 
latticed blinds, and high ceilings making it as cool as one could expect 
in so torrid a clime. It was impossible for me to communicate with 
any of the planters that day, so I gave myself up to the pleasant task of 
watching the strange people that surrounded me. For example, a Hindu 
juggler, with the inevitable native flute, and a basket of cobras, invited 
BANYAN TREE, CEYLON. 
me out upon the lawn to view his magic. I thought it worth a rupee 
to see the “mango trick/" and I was not able to detect any fraud in the 
sleight-of-hand by which he apparently planted the seed, made it sprout, 
and within two or three minutes grew a pretty shrub more than two 
feet high. By encouraging a rival of his, I also saw a lively little mon- 
goose attack and kill a huge ratsnake, but no inducement was effective 
in getting him to trust his cobra within reach of its traditional enemy. 
Just as the exhibition ended, along came a steamer friend, with 
the information that he had engaged a gharry to take us out to Mount 
Lavinia, a favorite shore house some three miles away. As it promised 
to give me a view of the country, I gladly consented, and we were soon 
bowling along over the fine roads, drawn bv a very diminutive but 
