Note 1 — Chapter II · SINGAPORE.

It was late that night as we drove back to our hotel, and such a night as one can see only in the tropics, where the moonlight is bright enough to read by, and streams down like a gloriously brilliant bridal veil over sweet-scented blossoms wet with dew, and the most elegant of palm-trees, over the gorgeous floral treasures of eastern gardens, and over the homes of thousands of dusky brides. The sounds heard during the otherwise still hours of evening or night are peculiar, the clucking sound of a lizard in the tree overhead is quite bird-like, you hear some frog-like croaking in the wet ditch beside the road, the subdued humming of distant tomtoms reaches you from the hut of a Hindoo Syce, and the almost mournful cadences of a Javanese prayer chanted by a party of labourers in a garden-house or field-hut reach you on the cool breeze. Then comes the boom of the “Kayu Kutoh,”1 or wooden gong on which the Malay “mata mata,” literally “man with eyes,” or watchman, beats the hour at one of the outlying police-stations. Fires are not at all uncommon, and then you are roused out of a sound sleep by a couple of shots from the signal battery, which shake the whole place. As you lean from your window enjoying just the last sweet whiff ere turning in for the night you may, perchance, hear the silence broken by snatches of song familiar to your ears—the songsters being a party of rowdy sailors returning to the ship after a “wet night” on shore. I am sadly afraid that the low grog-shops monopolise much of “Jack’s” time and money when ashore, notwithstanding that there is here an excellent “Sailor’s Home,” furnished with many conveniences, and supplying the comforts of an hotel at a cheap rate. Towards morning the chattering of sparrows and the shouting of rival roosters are among the most familiar of sounds which remind one of home.