SINGAPORE
January 24th.—It was night when the _Salasie_ came in sight of Singapore.
We are going to stop here about a fortnight, waiting for the _Laos_, a
French boat, bound to Colombo and Marseilles. We put up again at the
Hôtel d’Europe.
January 25th.—An English officer and his family occupy the apartment
next door to ours. The children are shamefully spoilt by their mother,
who never reproves them. They can’t keep quiet one minute and get into
everybody’s way, getting hideous sounds out of two combs, and beating
the drum into our ears. When they were attacked by a fit of bad humour,
nobody could approach them in safety. They lay down on the floor and
kicked and howled. Their manners at table d’hôte were of the worst, for
they made as much noise as they could with their spoons and knives. I
found this morning the youngest of the family, the best-loved child, an
extremely troublesome little Saxon, beating his _ayah_ (nurse) with the
leg of his rocking-horse, which had come off. That insupportable brat has
been instantly dispatched to bed by his father. The room opposite to us
is occupied by a Dutch opera-singer, who is going on a tour to Siam. I
heard her practising her exercises the whole morning.
January 26th.—Our Consul, Mr. Kleimenoff, is awfully nice to me. To-day
he sent to me a bottle of milk, a rarity in these parts.
January 28th.—It is dreadfully hot. The tropical rain, which falls
from time to time, does not refresh the air. Sergy intended to make an
excursion to Bankok, but the signals of tempest are hoisted in the port,
and I am wickedly pleased, for Sergy will remain at home.
January 29th.—The young Sultan of Johore paid an unexpected call to us
in the afternoon, a fabulous creature, all covered with diamonds. This
Hindoo prince is enormously rich, the greatest part of Malacca belonging
to him.
Opposite our windows spreads a spacious lawn and pleasure grounds, where
Englishmen, who carry their habits with them in all parts of the world,
give themselves up to every kind of outdoor sport: golf, cricket,
tennis, etc. The players look very nice in their white flannels and blue
caps.
In Singapore it is the Chinese who possess the largest fortunes; the
whole commerce of the place is in their hands. Every evening the Chinese
merchants, after having ended their business in the city, drive round
the Esplanade in smart carriages, drawn by big Australian horses, with a
white groom on the back seat.
February 5th.—It is my birthday to-day. Our Consul gave me for my
birthday gift a large basket with enormous cocoa-nuts filled with milk.
This native beverage is very cool and refreshing.
The Hindoo colony of Singapore invited us to be present at a great annual
festivity in honour of Siva, the god of good and evil. The whole town
rushed to the famous heathen temple from which the procession was to
proceed. We saw an enormous chariot of carved silver advancing, drawn
by two sacred white bulls covered with rich clothes, shining with gold
embroideries and spangles, their legs and horns decorated with bracelets.
We were told that the chariot cost eighty thousand dollars. It held
the statue of the Hindoo Trinity—Brahma, Vishnu and Siva—crowned with
flowers. A great throng of natives, their faces and hands daubed with
ashes, in the simplest of costumes—a mere white linen band, five fingers
wide, passing round the hips, escorted the chariot, holding lighted
torches. We left our shoes in charge of a turbaned man, and proceeded
to the temple to which many thousands of people came from all parts to
pay their vows. Thousands of pilgrims crowded through the gates, all
straining towards the enclosure of the temple. About sixty men, dressed
in white, beat tom-toms and howled in a piercing voice. We were deafened
by the hideous music. We entered a magnificent hall, full of enormous
columns, lit by Arabian lamps with glass panes framed in carved copper.
On the floor stood a big copper incense-burner, loading the atmosphere
with perfume. The interior of the temple is a veritable bazaar. A
fantastic crowd surrounded us; they beat the drums, they sang, they
danced. A group of bonzes (priests), naked to the waist, girded with a
thick cord, came up to pour strong perfume on our hands, and offered us
armfuls of fragrant jasmine, which spread a violent odour all over the
temple. I was somewhat scared by all this noise, and giddy with the scent
of crushed flowers heaped on the floor.
February 6th.—To-day my husband went with his suite to visit the Rajah of
Johore in his dominions on the coast of Malacca. It took them two hours
to reach his States. They crossed the strait that divides Singapore from
Johore in a steamboat, and made the rest of the journey in rikshas.
The Rajah wasn’t at home; my husband, nevertheless, was shown over the
Palace, which had nothing remarkable about it. Numbers of articles,
without any artistic value, were heaped up in the apartments. Sergy
lunched at the Johore Club, from which he sent me a letter with a Johore
post stamp for my collection.
February 7th.—I was awakened this morning by a voice, proceeding from
the corridor, wildly vociferating, “My money! I want my money!” It was
an American traveller who had been robbed at the hotel of the sum of
eleven thousand dollars. He had gone down for breakfast, and when he
returned some minutes later, he found the drawer forced and his money
gone. The police was summoned, and his apartment turned upside down. The
portfolio was found out under the mattress, and one of the boys, serving
at the hotel, confessed to the robbery, and was marched off to gaol. I
saw a constable dragging the culprit by his long tail, whilst the whole
household regaled him with blows and kicks.