at Singapore and Penang, it is hardly to
be supposed that any very reliable judgment could be formed as to the
characteristics of the common people; but with observation, fortified by
intelligent inquiry, certain deductions were natural. The Malay seems to
be a careless, happy-go-lucky race, the merest children of nature, with
no thought of the morrow. The English first, and then the Chinese,
dominate the masses. When they have no money, and lack for food, they
will work; but only empty pockets and gnawing stomachs will induce them
to labor. All life seems more or less torpid and listless in the
tropics. As has been intimated, the morals of these people of the
Straits will not bear writing about; the marriage rite has little force
among them, and domesticity is not understood. They are more nearly
Mohammedan than aught else, and its forms are somewhat preserved, but
the faith of Mecca has only a slight hold upon them. There are
intelligent and cultivated Malays, those of Sumatra, Borneo, and Java
are notably so; but we have been speaking of the masses. Penang
originally belonged to the Malay kingdom, but, about the year 1786, was
given to an English sea-captain as a marriage portion with the King of
Keddah's daughter, and by him transferred to the East India Company.
When Captain Francis Light received it with his dusky bride, it was the
wild home of a few Malay fishermen and their families; to-day it has
about a hundred thousand population.

The constant changes of climate, in so prolonged a journey as that to
which these notes relate, must naturally somewhat try one's physical
endurance, and also demands more than ordinary care in the preservation
of health. Regularity of habits, abstemiousness, and no careless
exposure will, as a rule, insure the same immunity from sickness that
may be reasonably expected at home, though this result cannot always be
counted upon. The sturdiest and most healthy-appearing individual of our
little party was Mr. D----, who was in the prime of life and manly
vigor when he joined us at San Francisco; but while the rest of us
enjoyed good health from the beginning to the end of the journey, he
lost health and strength gradually from the time we left China. Though
receiving the most unremitting attention, both professional and
friendly, he was conscious by the time we reached Singapore that he
could not long survive. He passed away on the night of December 21st,
and was buried next day at s