e board this
time is the _Khyber_ of the P. & O. Company. She belongs to the
Intermediate Line, which comes right out to Japan from England, taking
about six weeks on the way. For anyone who wants change and rest and no
worry that's a fine voyage, as the boats stop at many places. We shall
go on with her to Japan. As we are starting on the steamer we hear
various cracks and snaps from the boats near, where crackers are being
exploded. The captain happens to pass on the way to the bridge and
smiles as he hears them. "They're not firing salvos in our honour," he
says; "they think the ship is full of devils, and in case a few have
escaped and might land in their blameless boats, they're frightening
them back again before it is too late." It makes a great difference to
have a captain who takes an interest in his passengers and bothers to
tell them incidents as they happen, though to him they may be dull as
ditch water, as he has been through them all dozens of times already.
The next time we meet the captain it is growing dusk, and he points
ahead to what looks like a black rock looming up sheer from the sea.
"Curious thing that," he says meditatively; "it's an island, Pulo
Jarrak,--islands are all Pulo here,--and owing to the quantity of rain
which falls here the vegetation grows so thickly it makes the island
stand right out; even on a dark night you can see it ten to twenty miles
off. It looks quite black."

We have only one stop on the way to Singapore, exactly midway between it
and Penang, at Port Swettenham.

As we pass southward the Straits narrow and we can see the hills of
Sumatra on one side, and sometimes funny little villages built on piles
out over the water on the other. Pretty good sport to be able to drop a
fishing-line out of one's front door, isn't it?

When the land gets very close on both sides we swing round suddenly, and
behold! we are at Singapore, which, like Penang, is an island, and
stands at the extreme south point of the long peninsula. It guards this
useful passage where all the traffic between China and Japan on the one
side comes to India on the other, just as Aden guards the Red Sea and
Gibraltar the Mediterranean. Great Britain manages somehow to pick up
all the lucky bits, and it is not by design either, it just happens that
way. I can tell how this one happened; it was because there chanced to
be a Man out here--a Man with a capital letter!

We go ashore and get into rickshaws and star