y be going on inside the household. Shrines are nearly always
seen in some nook or corner, before which incense is burning, this
shrine-room evidently being also the sleeping, eating, and living room.
The islands of Penang and Singapore are free from malarial fevers, and
probably no places on earth are better adapted to the wants of primitive
man, for they produce spontaneously sufficient nutritious food to
support life independent of personal exertion. The home of the Malay is
not so clean as that of the ant or the birds; even the burrowing animals
are neater. The native women are graceful and almost pretty, slight in
figure, and passionately fond of ornaments, covering their arms and
ankles with metallic rings, and thrusting silver and brass rings through
their ears, noses, and lips.

The cocoanut-tree is always in bearing on the islands of the Straits,
and requires no cultivation. Of the many liberal gifts bestowed upon the
tropics, this tree is perhaps the most valuable. The Asiatic poet
celebrates in verse the hundred uses to which the trunk, the branches,
the leaves, the fruit, and the sap are applied. In Penang a certain
number of these trees are not permitted to bear fruit. The embryo bud
from which the blossoms and nuts would spring is tied up to prevent its
expansion; a small incision then being made at the end, there oozes in
gentle drops a pleasant liquor called toddy, which is the palm wine of
the poet. This, when it is first drawn, is cooling and wholesome, but
when it is fermented it produces a strong, intoxicating spirit. The
banana is equally prolific and abundant, and forms a very large portion
of the food of the common people. In the immediate neighborhood of the
town are some plantations conducted by Europeans who live in neat
cottages, with enclosures of cultivated flowers, and orchards of
fruit-trees. Still further inland are large gardens of bread-fruit,
nutmegs, cinnamon, pepper, and other spices. There are also large fields
of sugar-cane, tobacco, and coffee. The delicate little sensitive plant
here grows wild, and is equally tremulous and subsiding at the touch of
human hands, as it is with us. Lilies are seen in wonderful variety, the
stems covered with butterflies nearly as large as humming-birds.

Penang originally belonged to the Malay kingdom, but about the year 1786
it was given to an English sea-captain as a marriage-portion with the
King of Keddah's daughter, and by him, in course of ti