80 
WE VISIT SINGAPORE, 
as follows : — “ Me Mohammed ! — consul-man. Plenty, 
oh ! ■plenty letter at consul-house for American man-war.” 
But I will say nothing more of letters ; for there was but 
one for me, and that a half-year old. 
We went to the consul’s, and thence to the London 
Hotel, where we tasted a bottle of sour Bordeaux, drank 
another of pale ale, and 'engaged a room at two dollars a 
day. 
I will be brief in regard to our treatment while in that 
city. I will only say that, from the governor dovrn to 
the ship-chandlers, there seemed to be a determination 
that W’e should never dine at the hotel. Such hospi- 
tality I never saw before. In company wuth the consul, 
we w^ent to call upon the governor’s family shortly after 
our arrival. 
“We got into our undress uniform, then into a car- 
riage, which we hired for a dollar a day, and after a five 
minutes’ drive commenced winding around the hill 
which towers over the city, and upon the crest of 
which stands the palace. This spiral road was a mile 
or more in length, and wormed through the tastefully 
laid-out grounds in the centre of ivhich stood the 
edifice. We drove through groves of the fragrant nut- 
meg and of the luscious mangosteen, crushing the pre- 
cious fruit under our wheels and breathing the perfumed 
air that cooled our brows. It fully realized my idea of an 
Eastern scene : it was one of those drives that flush the 
cheek of the invalid and diffuse a dreamy languor 
through the frame of health; it was grand. As we 
thus wound around the hill, we gazed upon a con- 
stantly-changing scene. We saw the w'hole of Singa- 
