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We knew that the curry was coming, so we passed courses that were as expensive and rare in this equatorial land as the fruit of the durians would be in New York,–mutton from Shanghai, turkey from Siam, beef from Australia, and oysters from far up the river Maur. We felt that besides being a pleasure to ourselves it was a compliment to our royal host to partake generously of his national dish.

“This service,” said the old Tuan Hakim, or chief justice, pointing to the gold plate off which we were dining, “is the famous Ellinborough plate that once belonged to that strange woman, Lady Ellinborough. His Highness attended the auction of her things in Scotland. Do you see the little Arabic character on the rim of each? It is the late Sultana’s name. His Highness telegraphed to her for the money to pay for it, and she telegraphed back two hundred thousand dollars, with the request that her name be engraved on each. Then she presented them to her husband. The Sultana was very rich in her own right, and left the Sultan over two million dollars when she died.”

Throughout the long dinner the native band played the airs of Europe and America, intermixed with bits of weird Malayan song. After we had lighted our cigars from the golden censer, the British Governor arose and proposed the health of the Sultan and the young heir apparent. His Highness raised his glass of pineapple juice to his lips in acknowledgment, and said smilingly to me as the Prime Minister said the magic word that stirs every Englishman’s heart,–

“The Queen!”

“Your people think all Orientals very bad.”

I protested.

“Oh, yes, you do; that is why you send so many missionaries among us. But,” he went on pleasantly, “look around my table. Not one of my court has touched the wine. A Mohammedan never drinks. Can you say as much for your people?”

Then he raised his glass once more to his lips and said quietly, while his eyes twinkled at my confusion:–

“Tell your great President that Abubaker, Sultan of Johore, drank his health in simple pineapple juice.”

As the sun sank behind the misty dome of Mount Pulei we embarked once more at the broad palace steps in the royal barges, amid the booming of guns and the strains of the international “God Save the Queen,” “My Country, ’tis of Thee,” and bared our heads to the royal standard of Johore that floated so proudly above the palace, thankful for this short peep into the heart of an Oriental court.

So the young Prince received the crown from the hands of his father. To-day, the bones of that grand old statesman, the Sultan of Johore, rest beside those of his royal fathers within the shadow of the mosque.

In 1819 when Sir Stamford Raffles purchased the island on which Singapore now stands from the father of the late Sultan of Johore, the royal palace was a palm-thatched bungalow, the country an unbroken jungle, and the inhabitants pirates and fishermen by turns; the notorious Strait of Malacca was infested with long, keen, swift pirate praus, and the snake-like kris menaced the merchant marine of the world.

The advancement of the United States has not been more rapid since that date than the advancement of Johore. The attap istana, or palace, has given place to a series of palaces that rival those of many a much better-known country; the jungle has given place to plantations of gambier, tea, coffee, and pepper; the few elephant tracks and forest paths, to a network of macadamized roads and projected railways; and the native praus, to English-built barks and deeply laden cargo steamers.

Two hundred thousand hard-working, money-making Chinese have been added to the thirty-five thousand Malay aborigines, and the revenue of this remnant of an empire is far greater than was the revenue of the original state.

It remains to be seen whether the young Sultan will follow in the footsteps of his father and preserve to Johore the distinction of being, with the one exception of Siam, the only independent native kingdom in southern Asia. One misstep and he will become but a dependency of the great British Empire, a king only in name.