down the names of one or two companies that are going to
declare enormous dividends soon, but that's as far as I've got in my
rubber investments.

Penang, like Hongkong, is an island. The city on the island is
Georgetown, while the city on Hongkong is Victoria; but you will never
hear any one speak of Georgetown or Victoria. It is just Penang and
Hongkong, and the other names are useless incumbrances.

Singapore was crowded with Americans fighting for accommodations on the
China and Japan steamers; other Americans fighting to get reservations
on the Java steamers; still other Americans who, in despair, were going
to Hongkong by way of Borneo and the Philippines. They were willing to
go first, second or third class--any way at all to get on a ship.

[Drawing: _At Raffles' Hotel_]

The Singapore hotels were crowded and we got the last room in the
Raffles Hotel. The great and stately veranda, which serves the double
purpose of a bar and an out-of-door reception-room, was usually crowded.
That veranda is the redeeming feature of Raffles Hotel. In other
respects this great hotel, situated at the cross-roads where East and
West and North and South meet, is not up to what a good hotel should be.

We got the last state-room on a steamer to Java, and to our great
surprise we found the ship to be the nicest we had traveled on, and the
cooking to rival that of the great restaurants of Paris.

Cholera was rampant in certain parts of Java, but that didn't stop the
sightseers. Nothing less than an earthquake or a lost letter of credit
could have stopped them.

Our adventures in Java were a repetition of "crowds." The Hotel des
Indes in Batavia was crowded and we got the last room. The railways were
crowded, but not so much as the ones in India, and the carriages are
most comfortable.

For a week we did volcanoes and gorgeous scenery, and realized what a
delightful place Java is. It is even nicer than Japan, and the hotels
are the best in the East.

My chief purpose in going to Java was to get a Javanese waterwheel. They
had one at the world's fair in Chicago, and I have remembered it ever
since as one of the most musical things I have ever heard. A friend of
mine wanted me to get him one and I volunteered to do so. I supposed
that we would hear waterwheels just as soon as we got off the ship. But
I was evidently mistaken.

Nobody in Java, so far as I could discover, had ever seen or heard of a
Javanese waterwheel. I inqui