It is a great change from Malacca in every respect. I left it with intense regret. Hospitality, kindness, most genial intercourse, and its own semi-mediæval and tropical fascinations, made one of the brightest among the many bright spots of my wanderings.

way off, and must be nearly obliterated, I | brought me here. From this house there think. is a large but not a beautiful view of river windings, rolling jungle, and blue hills. The lower part of the house, which is supported on pillars, is mainly open, and is used for billiard-room, church, afternoon tea-room, and audience room; but I see nothing of the friendly, easy-going to and fro of Chinese and Malays, which was a pleasant feature of the residency in Sungei Ujong. In fact there is here much of the appearance of an armed post amidst a hostile population. In front of the residency there is a six-pounder flanked by two piles of shot. Behind it there is a guard-room, with racks of rifles and bayonets for the resident's body-guard of twelve men, and quarters for the married soldiers, for soldiers they are, though they are called policemen. A gong hangs in front of the porch on which to sound the alarm, and a hundred men fully armed can turn out at five minutes' notice.

It was a delightful night. The moon was only a hemisphere, yet I think she gave more light than ours at the full. The night was so exquisite that I was content to rest without sleeping; the Babel noises of fowls and men had ceased, and there were only quiet sounds of rippling water, and the occasional cry of a sea bird as we slipped through the wave less sea. When the moon set the sky was wonderful with its tropic purple and its pavement and dust of stars. I have become quite fond of the Southern Cross, and don't wonder that the early navigators prostrated themselves on deck when they first saw it. It is not an imposing constellation, but it is on a part of the sky which is not crowded with stars, and it always lies aslant and obvious. It has become to me as much a friend as is the Plough of the northern regions.

The family consists of the resident, his wife, a dignified and gracious woman with a sweet but plaintive expression of countenance, and an afflicted daughter, on whom her mother attends with a loving, vigilant, and ceaseless devotion of a most pathetic kind. The circle is completed by a handsome black monkey tied to a post, and an ape which they call an ouf, from the solitary monosyllable which it utters, but which I believe to be the "agile gibbon," a creature so delicate that it has never yet survived a voyage to England.

It is a beautiful creature. I could "put off" hours of time with it. It walks on its hind legs with a curious human walk, hanging its long arms down by its sides, like B

It will walk quietly

At daybreak the next morning we were steaming up the Klang River, whose low shores are entirely mangrove swamps, and when the sun was high and hot we anchored in front of the village of Klang, where a large fort on an eminence, with grass embankments in which guns are mounted, is the first prominent object. Above this is a large wooden bungalow with an attap roof, which is the British Residency. There was no air, and the British ensign in front of the house hung by your side like another person. It has limp on the flagstaff. Below there is a nice dark eyes, with well-formed lids village, with clusters of Chinese houses like ours, a good nose, a human mouth, on the ground, and Malay houses on stilts, with very nice white teeth, and a very standing singly, with one or two govern- pleasant, cheery look when it smiles, but ment offices bulking largely among them. when its face is at rest the expression is A substantial flight of stone steps leads sad and wistful. It spends a good deal to a skeleton jetty with an attap roof, and of its time in swinging itself most ennear it a number of attap-roofed boats ergetically. It has very pretty fingers were lying, loaded with slabs of tin from and finger-nails. It looks fearfully near the diggings in the interior, to be tran- of kin to us, and yet the gulf is measureshipped to Pinang. A dainty steam-less. It can climb anywhere, and take launch, the "Abdulsamat," nominally the long leaps. This morning it went into a sultan's yacht, flying a large red and yellow flag, was also lying in the river.

Mr. Bloomfield Douglas, the resident, a tall, vigorous, elderly man, with white hair, a florid complexion, and a strong voice heard everywhere in authoritative tones, met me with a four-oared boat, and a buggy with a good Australian horse

house in which a cluster of bananas is hanging, leaped up to the roof, and in no time had peeled two, which it ate very neatly. It has not even a rudimentary tail. When it sits with its arms folded it looks like a gentlemanly person in a closefitting fur suit.

Klang does not improve on further ac

quaintance. It looks to me as if half the | houses were empty, and certainly half the population is composed of government employés, chiefly police constables. There is no air of business energy, and the queerly mixed population saunters with limp movements; even the few Chinese look depressed, as if life were too much for them. It looks, too, as if there were a need for holding down the population which I am sure there is not for in addition to the fort and its barracks, military police-stations are dotted about. A gaol, with a very high wall, is in the middle of the village.

The jungle comes so near to Klang that tigers, and herds of elephants sometimes forty strong, have been seen within a half a mile of it. In Sungei Ujong there was some excitement about a rogue ele phant" (ie., an elephant which, for reasons which appear good to other elephants, has been expelled from the herd, and has been made mad and savage by solitude), which, after killing two men, has crossed the river into Selangor, and is man-killing here. A few days ago a man, catching sight of him in the jungle, took refuge in a tree, and the brute tore the tree down with its trunk and trampled the poor fellow to death, his companion escaping during the process.

back with the butt of his rifle, and soon it was borne away dead by its tail. It was over four feet long. They get about three a day at the fort. There is a reward of twenty cents per foot for every venomous snake brought in, fifty cents per foot for an alligator, and twenty-five dollars for every tiger. Lately the police have got two specimens of the Ophiophagus, a snake-eating snake over eighteen feet long, whose bite they say is certain death. They have a horrible collection of snakes alive, half dead, dead, and preserved. There was a fright of a different kind late at night, and the two made me so nervous that when the moonlight glinted two or three times on the bayonet of the sentry, which I could see from my bed, I thought it was a Malay going to murder the resident, against whom I fear there may be many a vendetta.

SS. "Abdulsamat," Langat River, Sĕlângor.

I was glad to get up at sunrise, when the whole heaven was flooded with color and glory, and the lingering mists which lay here and there over the jungle gleamed like silver. Before we left Mrs. Douglas gave me tea, scones, and fresh butter, the first fresh butter that I have tasted for ten months. We left Klang in this beautiful steam-launch, the (so-called) yacht of the There is an almost daily shower here, sultan, at eight, with forty souls on board. and it is lovely now, with a balmy fresh- I am somewhat hazy as to where I am. ness in the air. No one could imagine "The Langat River" is at present to me that we are in the torrid zone, and only only a "geographical expression." It is 3° from the equator. The mercury has now past three o'clock, and we have been not been above 83° since I came, and the going about since eight, sometimes up rivsea and land breezes are exquisitely deli-ers, but mostly on lovely tropic seas cious. I wish you could see a late after- among islands. This is one of the usual noon here in its full beauty, with palms business tours of the resident, with the against a golden sky, pink clouds, a pink river, and a balm-breathing air, just strong enough to lift the heavy-scented flowers, which make the evening air delicious. There has been a respite from mosquitos, and I am having a "real good time."

But I had a great fright yesterday · part of the "good time," though. I was going into the garden when six armed policemen leapt past me as if they had been shot, followed by Mr. Daly, the land surveyor, who has the Victoria Cross for some brave deed, shouting, "A cobra! a cobra!" and I saw a hooded head above the plants, and then the form I most fear and loathe twisting itself towards the house with frightful rapidity, every one flying. I was up a ladder in no time, and the next moment one of the policemen, plucking up courage, broke the reptile's

additional object of presenting a uniform to the sultan. Besides Mr. Douglas there are his son-in-law Mr. Daly; Mr. Hawley, who has lately been appointed to a collectorship, and who goes up to be presented to the sultan; Mr. Syers, formerly a private in the 10th Regiment, now superintendent of the Sělângor police force; and thirty policemen, who go up to form the sultan's escort to-morrow. Precautions, for some occult reason, seem to be considered indispensable here, and have been increased since the murder of Mr. Lloyd at the Dindings. The yacht has a complete permanent roof of painted canvas, and under this an armament of boarding-pikes. Round the little foremast four cutlasses and a quantity of ball cartridges are displayed. Six rifles are in a rack below, and the policemen and body-guard are armed with rifles and bayonets.

is perfect on board, even to the cuisine, and I appreciate the low rattan chairs at the bow, in which one can sit in the shade and enjoy the zephyrs.

nue-officer and police magistrate of Langat. We saw Mr. Ferney, the magistrate, landed the police guard, and then steamed up here for a council.

The yacht is perfection. The cabin, in which ten can dine, is high and airy, and, being forward, there is no vibration. Space is exquisitely utilized by all manner of contrivances. She is only fifty tons Mr. Syers went ashore, and returned and very low in the water, but we are go- with the sultan's heir, the Rajah Moussa, ing all the way to Prince of Wales Island a very peculiar-looking Malay, a rigid Mo. in her two hundred miles. Everything|hammedan, who is known, the resident says, to have said that when he becomes sultan he "will drive the white men into the sea." He works hard as an example to his people, and when working dresses This day has been a tropic dream. I like a coolie. He sets his face against have enjoyed it and am enjoying it in- cock fighting and other Malay sports, is a tensely. We steamed down the Klang reformer, and a dour, strong-willed man, River, and then down a narrow, river-like and his accession seems to be rather channel among small palm-fringed islands dreaded by the resident, as it is supposed which suddenly opened upon the sea, that he will be something more than a which was slightly green towards the mere figure-head prince. He is a hadji, coral-sanded, densely wooded, unpeopled and was dressed in a turban made of many shores, but westwards the green tint yards of priceless silk muslin, embroidmerged into a blue tint, which ever deep-ered in silk, a white baju, a long white ened till a line of pure, deep, indescriba- sarong, and full white trousers - a beauble blue cut the blue sky on the far-off, tiful dress for an Oriental. He shook clear horizon. But, ah! that "many hands with me. I wish that these people twinkling smile of ocean"! Words can would not adopt our salutations, their own not convey an idea of what it is under are so much more appropriate to their this tropic sun and sky, with the "silver-character. flashing" wavelets rippling the surface of the sapphire sea, beneath whose clear warm waters brilliant fishes are darting through the coral groves. These are en

chanted seas

Where falls not rain, or hail, or any snow,

Nor ever wind blows loudly.

It is unseemly that the "Abdulsamat " should smoke and puff and leave a foamy wake behind her. "Sails of silks and ropes of sendal," and poetic noiseless movements only would suit those lovely Malacca Straits. This is one of the very few days in my life in which I have felt mere living to be a luxury, and what it is to be akin to seas and breezes, and birds and insects, and to know why nature sings and smiles.

We had been towing a revenue cutter with stores for a new lighthouse, and cast her adrift at the point where we anchored, and the resident and Mr. Daly went ashore with thirteen policemen, and I had a most interesting and instructive conversation with Mr. Syers. Afterwards we steamed along the low wooded coast, and then up the Langat River till we came to Bukit Jugra, an isolated hill covered with jungle. The landing is up a great face of smooth rock, near the top of which is a pretty police-station, and higher still, nearly concealed by bananas and cocopalms, is the large bungalow of the reve

The yacht is now lying at anchor in a deep, coffee-colored stream, near a picturesque Malay villa on stilts, surrounded by very extensive groves of palms. Several rivers intersect each other in this neighborhood, flowing through dense jungles and mangrove swamps. The sun is still high. The four white men and the Rajah Moussa have gone ashore snipe-shooting, the Malays on board are sleeping, and I am enjoying a delicious solitude.

February 4th, 4 P.M.

We are steaming over the incandescent sapphire sea among the mangrove-bordered islands which fringe the Selângor coast, under a blazing sun, with the mercury 88° in the shade, but the heat, though fierce, is not oppressive, and I have had a delightful day. The men returned when they could no longer see to shoot snipes, with a good filled bag, and after sunset we dropped down to Bukit Jugra (?). Most of the river was as black as night with the heavy shadows of the forest, but along the middle there was a lane of lemon-colored water, the exquisite reflection of a lemoncolored sky. The resident and Mr. Daly went down to the coast in the yacht to avoid the mosquitos of the interior, but I with Omar, one of the "body-guard," half Malay half Kling, as my attendant, and Mr. Syers, landed, to remain at the magistrate's bungalow. It was a lovely

him as a thing of great value. The Malay donor said that any one carrying it would become invulnerable and invisible, and that if you were to beat any one with it, the beaten man would manifest all the symptoms of snake-poisoning! Mr. Ferney has also given me a kris. When I showed it to Omar this morning, he passed it across his face and smelt it, and then said, "This kris good - has ate man."

walk up the hill through the palms and | a snake-mark on it, which was given to bananas, and the bayonets of our escort gleamed in the intense moonlight, not with anything alarming about them either, for an escort is only necessary because the place is so infested by tigers. The bungalow is large but rambling, and my room was one built out at the end, with six windows with solid shutters, of which Mr. Ferney closed all but two, and halfclosed those, because of a tiger which is infesting the immediate neighborhood of the house, and whose growling they say is most annoying. He killed a heifer belonging to the sultan two nights ago, and last night the sentry got a shot at him from the verandah outside my room as he was engaged in most undignified depredations upon the hen-house.

I could not sleep much, there were such strange noises, and the sentry made the verandah creak all night outside my room, but this is a splendid climate, and one is refreshed and ready to rise with the sun after very little sleep. The tropic mornings are glorious. There is such an abrupt and vociferous awakening of nature, all dew-bathed and vigorous. The roseflushed sky looks cool, the air feels cool, one longs to protract the delicious time. Then with a suddenness akin to that of his setting, the sun wheels above the horizon, and is high in the heavens in no time, truly "coming forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoicing as a giant to run his course," and as truly "there is nothing hid from the heat thereof," for hardly is he visible than the heat becomes tremendous. But tropical trees and flowers, instead of drooping and withering under the solar fury, rejoice in it.

There was a grand excitement yesterday morning. A tigress was snared in a pitfall and was shot. Her corpse was brought to the bungalow warm and limp. She measured eight feet two inches from her nose to her tail, and her tail was two feet six inches long. She had whelps, and they must be starving in the jungle to-night, and bemoaning their tigress mother. Her beautiful skin is hanging up. All the neighborhood, Chinese and Malay, turned out. Some danced, and the sultan beat gongs. Everybody seized upon a bit of the beast. The sultan claimed the liver, which, when dried and powdered, is worth twice its weight in gold as a medicine. The blood was taken, and I saw the Chinamen drying it in the sun on small slabs: it is an invaluable tonic! The eyes, which were of immense size, were eagerly scrambled for, that the hard parts in the centre, which are valuable charms, might be set in gold as rings. It was sad to see the terrible "glaring eyeballs" of the jungle so dim and stiff. The bones were taken to be boiled down to a jelly, which, when some mysterious drug has been added, is a grand tonic. The gall is most precious, and the flesh was all taken, but for what purpose I don't know. A steak of it was stewed, and we tasted it, and I found it injoyment of this day. flavor much like the meat of an ancient Quite early the Rajah Moussa arrived and over-worked draught ox, but Mr. Ferney thought it like good veal. At dinner the whole talk was of the wild beasts of the jungle, and, as we were all but among them, it was very fascinating. I wanted to go out by moonlight, but Mr. Ferney said that it was not safe, because of tigers, and even the Malays there don't go out after nightfall.

Mr. Ferney has given me a stick with

This morning was splendid. The great banana fronds under the still blue sky looked truly tropical. The mercury was 82° at seven A.M. The "tiger mosquitos," day torments, large mosquitos with striped legs, a loud metallic hum, and a plethora of venom, were in full fury from daylight. Ammonia does not relieve their bites as it does those of the night mosquitos, and I am covered with inflamed and confluent lumps as large as the half of a bantam's egg. But these and other drawbacks, I know from experience, will soon be forgotten, and I shall remember only the beauty, the glory, and the intense en

in a baju of rich gold-colored silk, which suited his swarthy complexion. He sat in the room pretending to look over the Graphic, but in reality watching me, as I wrote to you, just as I should watch an ouf. At last he asked me how many Japanese I had killed!!!!

The succession is here hereditary in the male line, and this Rajah Moussa is the sultan's eldest son. The sultan re

ceives £2,000 a year out of the revenue, | man with iron-grey hair, a high and promand this rajah £960. inent brow, large, prominent, dark eyes, a well-formed nose, and a good mouth. The face is bright, kindly, and fairly intelligent. He is about the middle height; his dress becomes him well, and he looked comfortable in it though he had not worn it before. It was a rich black velvet baju, or jacket-something like a loose hussar jacket, braided, frogged, and slashed with gold trousers with a broad gold stripe on the outside, a rich silk sarong in checks and shades of red, and a Malay-printed silk handkerchief knotted round his head, forming a sort of peak. No Mohammedan can wear a hat with a rim or stiff crown, or of any kind which would prevent him from bowing his forehead to the earth in worship.

The resident arrived at nine, wearing a very fine dress sword and gold epaulets on his linen coat; and under a broiling sun we all walked through a cleared part of the jungle, through palms and bananas, to the reception at the sultan's, which was the "motive" of our visit. The Sultan Abdulsamat has three houses in a beautiful situation at the end of a beautiful valley. They are in the purest style of Malay architecture, and not a Western idea appears anywhere. The wood of which they are built is a rich brown-red. The roofs are very high and steep, but somewhat curved. The architecture is simple, appropriate, and beautiful. The dwelling consists of the sultan's house, a broad open passage, and then the women's house, or harem. At the end of the above passage is the audience-hall, and the front entrance to the sultan's house is through a large porch, which forms a convenient reception-room on occasions like that of yesterday.

from Rajah Brean was read, the rajah, a slovenly-looking man, being present. The petition was refused, and the sultan in refusing it spoke some very strong words about idleness, which seems a great failing of Rajah Brean's, but it has my strong sympathy, for

The resident read the proceedings of the council of the day before, and the sultan confirmed them. The nominal approval of measures initiated by the resi dent and agreed to in council, and the signing of death-warrants, are among the few prerogatives which "his Highness From this back passage, or court, a lad-retains. Then a petition for a pension der, with rungs about two feet apart, leads into the sultan's house, and a step-ladder into the women's house. Two small boys, entirely naked, were incongruous objects sitting at the foot of the ladder. Here we waited for him, two files of policemen being drawn up as a guard of honor. He came out of the women's house very actively, shook hands with each of us obnoxious custom! - and passed through the lines of police round to the other side Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of his house into the porch, the floor of which was covered with fine matting nearly concealed by handsome Persian rugs.

The sultan sat in a high-backed, carved chair, or throne; all the other chairs were plain. The resident sat on his right, I on his left, and on my left the Rajah Moussa, with other sons of the sultan, and some native princes. Mr. Syers acted as interpreter. Outside there were double lines of military police, and the bright adjacent slopes were covered with the sultan's followers and other Malays. The balcony of the audience-hall, which has a handsome balustrade, was full of Malay followers in bright reds and cool white. It was all beautiful, and the palms rustled in the soft air, and bright birds and butterflies flew overhead, rejoicing in mere existence.

If Abdulsamat were not sultan, I should pick him out as the most prepossessing Malay that I have seen. He is an elderly

why

Should life all labor be?
There is no joy but calm;

of things?

During the reception a richly-dressed attendant sat on the floor, with an iron tube like an Italian iron in his hand, in which he slowly worked an arrangement which might be supposed to be a heater up and down. I thought that he might be preparing betel-nut, but Mr. Douglas said that he was working a charm for the sultan's safety, and it was believed that if he paused some harm would happen. Another attendant, yet more richly dressed, carried a white scarf, fringed and embroidered with gold, over one shoulder, and two vases of solid gold, with their surfaces wrought by exquisite workmanship into flowers nearly as delicate as filigree work. One of these contained betel-nut, and the other sirih leaves. Meanwhile the police, with their bayonets flashing in the sun, and the swarthy, richly costumed throng on the palmshaded slopes, were a beautiful sight.