第42章 LETTER VIII(1)

St. Andrew's Cathedral--Singapore Harbor Scenes--Chinese Preponderance--First Impressions of Malacca--A Town "Out of the Running"

S.S. "RAINBOW," MALACCA ROADS, January 20.

Yesterday I attended morning service in St. Andrew's, a fine colonial cathedral, prettily situated on a broad grass lawn among clumps of trees near the sea. There is some stained glass in the apse, but in the other windows, including those in the clerestory, Venetian shutters take the place of glass, as in all the European houses. There are thirty-two punkahs, and the Indians who worked them, anyone of whom might have been the model of the Mercury of the Naples Museum, sat or squatted outside the church. The service was simple and the music very good, but in the Te Deum, just as the verse "Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ," I caught sight of the bronze faces of these "punkah- wallahs," mostly bigoted Mussulmen, and was overwhelmed by the realization of the small progress which Christianity has made upon the earth in nineteen centuries. A Singhalese D.D. preached an able sermon.

Just before the communion we were called out, as the Rainbow was about to sail, and a harbor boat, manned by six splendid Klings, put us on board.

The Rainbow is a very small vessel, her captain half Portuguese and half Malay, her crew Chinese, and her cabin passengers were all Chinese merchants. Her engineer is a Welshman, a kindly soul, who assured Mr.

----, when he commended me to his care, that "he was a family man, and that nothing gave him greater pleasure than seeing that ladies were comfortable," and I owe to his good offices the very small modicum of comfort that I had. Waiting on the little bridge was far from being wearisome, there was such a fascination in watching the costumed and manifold life of the harbor, the black-hulled, sullen-looking steamers from Europe discharging cargo into lighters, Malay prahus of all sizes but one form, sharp at both ends, and with eyes on their bows, like the Cantonese and Cochin China boats, reeling as though they would upset under large mat sails, and rowing-boats rowed by handsome, statuesque Klings. A steamer from Jeddah was discharging six hundred pilgrims in most picturesque costumes; and there were boats with men in crimson turbans and graceful robes of pure white muslin, and others a mass of blue umbrellas, while some contained Brahmins with the mark of caste set conspicuously on their foreheads, all moving in a veil of gold in the setting of a heavy fringe of cocoa-palms.

We sailed at four, with a strong favorable breeze, and the sea was really delightful as we passed among green islets clothed down to the water's edge with dense tropical vegetation, right out into the open water of the Straits of Malacca, a burning, waveless sea, into which the sun was descending in mingled flame and blood. Then, dinner for three, consisting of an excellent curry, was spread on the top of the cabin, and eaten by the captain, engineer, and myself, after which the engineer took me below to arrange for my comfort, and as it was obviously impossible for me to sleep in a very dirty and very small hole, tenanted by cockroaches disproportionately large, and with a temperature of eighty-eight degrees, he took a mattress and pillows upon the bridge, told me his history, and that of his colored wife and sixteen children under seventeen, of his pay of 35 pounds a month, lent me a box of matches, and vanished into the lower regions with the consoling words, "If you want anything in the night, just call 'Engineer' down the engine skylight." It does one's heart good to meet with such a countryman.